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byfurries4furries · 1 year

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Brok the Investigator (Point-and-Click Adventure/Beat-Em-Up Video Game)

This game is hard to describe. It's a very weird coagulation of a bunch of different things that somehow just comes together. It's a point-and-click adventure/beat em up game in a light cyberpunk dystopian setting with an artstyle reminiscent of retro Disney Channel cartoons like Talespin and Ducktales that explores themes of propaganda, classism, drug addiction, the exploitation of private healthcare, the criminalization of poverty, and the role of AI in the reinforcement of the status quo through the lens of an internally consistent but unexamined and deeply flawed logic. All of this wrapped up in a story that can have drastically different paths depending on choices you make as far back as the first chapter. This game has 11 endings, which is quite a lot for an indie project that isn't a visual novel. But everything comes together well. It's like ramen. You can make pretty good ramen if you just use safe, basic ingredients, but sometimes, you just want to throw everything but the kitchen sink in and it'll usually taste like shit, but somehow you'll happen upon just the right combination that synchronizes so well that you completely forget the chaotic process it took to make it and it tastes just as delicious as the most fine-tuned chicken katsu ramen with green onions and eggs you've ever had. That's kind of how this game is in many ways. It shouldn't work together, but it just does.

For a basic summary, you play as Brok, a private investigator, and Graff, his gifted stepson, who both live in the Slums, a region in their country that's overtaken by toxic pollution, unlike the Drums, a region in the country where the middle and upper classes live in a dome that protects them from the pollution, at least somewhat. Even though the pollution affects everyone, the upper classes have mostly insulated themselves inside a literal protective bubble while still forcing the poor and working class to go outside and leave themselves vulnerable to toxic chemicals that could kill them, which the government is getting stingier and stingier about at least providing proper healthcare for while the rich and powerful who are responsible for how bad things have gotten have all the protection and care they need. Could you tell this game started development in 2020?

Let's narrow down a few things I like about this game:

1. Aesthetic

The game looks great. And feels a lot like an old school point and click adventure and despite the clash of its aesthetics with its dark themes, it never feels like it's trying to be edgy. Your first side quest is to help a drug addicted homeless person find some life-saving medicine and it's genuinely sad to see how much he's resigned himself to dying and just doesn't care about trying to live any longer than he has. It surprisingly works even though the guy looks like a character from Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers.

2. Freedom

This game has plenty of times you can solve the same problem a variety of different ways. Here's something simple. In your first mission, you have to go to the apartment of your first client. You could enter in the code he texted you or you could pummel the machine you would enter that code into until it breaks open. But you can also go further with this. A funny example is that you'll be hired to solve a murder case. You could either solve the case naturally, or you can break into the room where the body is found, jump on the body, find out the victim actually survived the murder, and he'll tell you who the culprit is. There are also choices that can affect either the ending or at least much later parts of the game. There are 11 total endings and picking one over the other sometimes means taking into account things that happened as far back as Chapter 1.

3. Furry

The developer has an official Fur Affinity page and you can unlock fatfur fanart in the gallery. So it's pretty furry. It's not much, but this game is really good and deserves a lot more love

Links

Steam

GOG

Official Site

Side note: On top of the links, the game is also available on most modern consoles, which is probably gonna be one of the only games on this blog I'll be able to say that for

#brok the investigator #furry media #furry game #video game #point and click #beat em up #cowcat games #bf4f

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almacambiondaughterofsaleos · 15 days

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Yzma shere khan this is the disney villain i remmeber watching where they are being explored more in the series beyond being evil. In emperor new groove series and talespin, i found yzma have overbearing mother being bullied by her peers in high school. She have soft spot for children her nephews, pacha children. Talespin shere khan have moral code not revealing much about his backstory, jungle cubs we being explore more with his childhood time. Shere khan taking care of his grandma and he was orphan. He actually befriended with baloo bagheera and the others until they grow up

For shere khan backstory i see mostly headcanon or fan provide backstory. Some taling from the original source where his disable and abandon by his mother. Some where he lived with his mentally abusive mother then add more with him being lower caste. I wish they could done the same thing with stella and striker. Since it's series there plenty of room to explore with backstory

Yep

#helluva boss #vivziepop critical #helluva boss critical #vivziepop criticism #helluva boss criticism #anti-vivziepop #helluva boss critique #vivziepop #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel critical

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frankhightower · 4 months

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If I became a billionaire (at each stage of my life)

Today's journal is a bit different, and arguably not art related. It's just something that's been bugging me and I need to get off my chest.

I've written before what I would do if I suddenly became a billionaire right now, and what I would’ve done if that had happened when I became of age (you don’t need to read those to understand this, just know they exist). Today I want to explore what I would’ve done if I’d become a billionaire at different stages in my life, because the answer is always the same:

There’s this problem I’m noticing… how is nobody working on it?!

age 6: The missing words problem

I noticed quite early on that I had a lot I wanted to say, I just didn’t have the words to say, and there was no way to help me find those words. Here I did learn the reason: adults tend to assume that kids’ thoughts are just simpler.

If I’d become a billionaire at this age (after, let’s be honest, buying a few toys) I would’ve put my resources towards this problem. There would’ve been an avalanche of books with things like “So you’re not happy but you’re not sad but you don’t like it? That’s called ‘unhappy’. Oh, you’re disappointed by how stupid that word is and now feel a little angry too? Welcome to ‘upset’!” and with things like “Does it feel like there’s a song that forces you to think about it again and again and you can’t stop? That’s called ‘getting it stuck in your head’.”

age 8: The licensing problem

Another thing I noticed early on is that companies are terrible with licensing. I first noticed it with Talespin where Don Karnáge’s popularity (recurring villain) was glaringly obvious if you ever saw a kid watch the show (he was the only one kids would imitate in the playground!) But Disney never capitalized on this. There was never a Don Karnáge movie or series or even toys while the series was running (okay, fine, there was 1 action figure, but the stores always stocked less of him than the others and he was stupid expensive, while Molly which honestly no one cared about got 3 action figures in 3 price ranges and a McDonald’s Happy meal toy!)

Then I noticed it with The Magic School Bus, which started pointing me to the cause of the problem: every decision had to be funneled through just the 2 authors!

But what finally made me realize this was a major problem was The Disney Store. Probably the most obvious idea for a global store chain ever, but no one could do anything with the idea except stare at Disney very intently and hope that would will them into doing it themselves (you have no idea how hard it was to get Disney merch in the early 90s! Virtually no stores carried it, and even with access to the internet and paper catalogues there was no way!) I would be in college before a Disney Store made it to me because simply contacting Disney was a hopeless mess! And I looked back and every IP holder ever was just that bad at being contacted. Surely someone could step in and fill the niche?

…And then there was Pokémon. I’ve mentioned you simply couldn’t get a Pokémon hat during the height of pokémania, it was not one of the “approved” products. This is when I realized: fans could do it (but it would take about a decade before they did). All they needed was a way for the company to give them the OK and, if they were successful, they would eventually be able to mass-produce it. Wouldn’t we live in a much better world if companies operated like this instead of decrying trademark and copyright violations left right and center?

And sure, some things would still get shut down. If you’re basically porting Pokemon Red to play in the browser (which was probably the most searched for thing at the time) the parent company is probably going to say no, the whole point is to play it on a Gameboy. But wouldn’t it be worth it for all the stuff they could now say yes to?

age 10: The housing problem

I noticed there was a global housing problem at this age and no one was talking about it (we’re talking late 90s/early 2000s here). I also realized the problem was not that there wasn’t enough square miles of city space dedicated to housing, it was just bad housing! I was already playing SimCity by this point, so I knew the solution was a) to densify and b) to put jobs and shops closer to the housing. But I didn’t want to turn every city on Earth into Lower Manhattan; I saw in the shrinking malls, a huge potential. Here was a single structure with well defined spaces where everything was in walking distance, was centrally located, and was car-accessible (sometimes with customer loading bays on the higher floors!) A lot of them also have dedicated office spaces. How hard would it be to turn at least some of those offices into apartments (which also had the advantage of requiring less parking and therefore freeing up even more space)? The small town/friendly neighborhood feel people kept saying they missed was all-but guaranteed!

Of course, the people who move in here would leave “bad housing” behind. Those you could turn into Lower Manhattan, since then you’ll have “missing middle mixed use” housing spread out at de-facto random!

age 12: The media bubble problem

I also noticed early that people were retreating into their own little bubbles with their own little opinions, worlds, and facts (harmless ones at this time like whether it was best to brush your teeth 2 vs 3 times a day but still worrying). This was still the age of cable, so what you were getting was “the Nickelodeon tribe”, “the Cartoon Network tribe” and *shudder* “the HBO tribe” and I could see this wouldn’t stop. Bubbles would get smaller and smaller until everybody was, essentially, alone, validated only by someone they could find on the other side of the world that happened to consume the same content. What would I have done with my riches to combat this? It’s quite simple: bring back the TV guide. The first step to stepping out of your bubble is knowing what exists outside of it.

I was “poor” (I couldn’t afford cable) so I wasn’t a member of any tribe. But because I overheard the names of the shows and channels, I could search the internet for them and still, well, have friends. But I could see this mechanism was unsustainable and that many people were already being isolated for not having caught on to this new way of doing things. Someone had to make it explicit! …No one ever did.

age 14: The digital divide

This was a problem that was talked about a lot in the early 2000s but no one did anything about (not in any serious way anyway). The problem was that, like Literacy vs. Functional Literacy, it’s not enough that you can sit at a computer and know that the mouse controls it, you need to know how to use the computer. What does Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V do? Which programs can I draw in? What do and don’t I need a Wacom-style tablet for? There was a lot of questions people had about technology that, honestly, made their lives difficult and no one was seriously tackling.

Unfortunately, there was no easy solution to this except hire a lot of people to tutor every one of them, personally, as some sort of pseudo-government program. Today, sure, you could probably define some software that detects when you don’t know how to use Ctrl+C and just tells you, but back then that was a little underdeveloped (*cough* Clippy *cough*). You would need to hire and train a lot of people to tutor everyone who needed to be brought in, and that would cost a lot of money. Maybe a billion dollars.

This problem was eventually considered to solve itself when smartphones became compulsory for things like …oh… taking the plane or paying for utilities… but we could’ve solved it so much earlier, so much better.

age 16: Literature's "missing middle"

Here’s a problem I don’t think is seriously being tackled yet: there’s Children’s books (picture books), there’s Young Adult books (Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, etc), and there’s Adult books (self-help, classical literature, etc). There’s “chapter books” for children to transition into young adult books …But there is no large genre to pick from for Young Adults to transition into Adult books. Surely there’s writers out there who are capable of such a feat, but are just lacking the resources?

And further, “Chapter books” are a uniquely English-speaking phenomenon and only exist because, wait for it, a lot of resources were poured into it in the past. Surely the genre can be, dare I say, kickstarted in other languages in a similar way?

age 18: Youth credit

So I start college and get a scholarship and a bank account it can be deposited into. Surely that means I now have access to credit? Psyche! Of course not! I was made to wait until the end of my Junior year before any bank would give me any form of credit. I have a lot of opportunities I missed because I was, like, $10 short which I’m sure I could’ve put on credit if I’d had one!

At this time, Muhammad Yunus was making headlines for pioneering “microcredit”. He realized NINJAs didn’t need houses, they needed small bits of aid for small investments that would slowly lift them out of poverty (as a personal example, I own a bicycle, but for years I couldn’t use it because I didn’t have a bike lock to tie it up with when I got anywhere. As soon as I was able to afford one, I was able to bike to the store of my choice, buy my own food, and therefore eat healthier, and therefore feel better, and therefore be more productive, and, yes, make more money!)

It didn’t take a genius to put the two together and realize young people needed such “microcredits” too. Such a thing had the potential to move the economy enough to get us out of the global financial crisis! (Could they just blow it all on video games? Sure, but remember the bubbles, that gives them access to a “tribe” which also has the potential of making them “feel better and therefore more productive”!)

…apparently, though, it did take a genius, because no one did it, no matter how much I “stared at them intently hoping that would will them into doing it.”

age 20: Adult friend-making

I noticed very quickly that, as an adult, it’s very hard to make friends. Still a student, I was able to find some clubs that I was interested, but I never became friends with the people there. (For one, they all seemed to assume I must have a car, which… look at the last one. For another, they wanted “drinking buddies”…I wanted someone to have a sober conversation with, and not just because my body can’t handle alcohol well!)

Even if I had, I could see there was no such clubs available once I graduated. What was I going to do, found “the anime club” for adults? Build a school playground for grownups? That would take like a billion dollars!

age 22: Student secretaries

Students need help. No not like that; again, it’s always the little things. Sometimes it’s someone you can ask to Google something for you while your hands are occupied. Sometimes it’s just… someone you can reliably tell “remind me to [blank]”. Friends, family… they never remember. They aren’t paid to.

The service does exist, it’s called a remote assistant, but it’s intended for, well, older people, which makes it expensive.

I realized this thing used to exist. “Upperclassmen” would be assigned a “Freshman” that would help them with little tasks like “return this library book for me”, while the “upperclassman” would explain, well, all the things people take for granted you “know” in that campus, such as where to get a friggin’ drink of water! I can’t tell you how much I suffered as a newbie just trying to get water!

Okay, tangent over. The point is the relationship is temporary because the upperclassman is supposed to graduate, so even if it does cease to be mutually-beneficial, it’s short-lived.

Reintroducing such a program (especially in multiple campuses) would need some kind of backing… some kind of sponsorship… some kind of… billion dollars.

age 24: Art tagging

As I began my first incursion (though not my first attempt) into the online art world, I realized just how terrible the art sites were. Surely by now there would be some kind of “just drop in” service for your art that automatically does part of the work for you? Sure, it can’t write your thoughts on your art, but surely image recognition was at the point where the art could be tagged automatically for things like setting, species, or colors?

No, of course not. Now that it’s been about a decade, we know no one was serious about this, they just wanted AI art.

age 26: Legal directory

Accepted for a masters scholarship, suddenly I had a lot of questions: How do I apply for one of those big credits? What international treaties affect me? What even is notarization and why does my grade report need it?

The problem is, simply, that I had no one to ask. I still don’t. (I mean, someone who actually knows, not just throw it out on the internet or hope my parents coincidentally had the same problems). Surely there’s a business opportunity just… answering people’s basic legal-adjacent questions and telling them “these are the people in your area that can help you”? Why isn’t this a normal thing yet?

age 28: The things you should "know"

New town, new university… and I realized there was a lot of things people expect you to just “know”. My biggest gripe was: my big-city DMV requires you to make an appointment, while college-town DMV was walk-in only. It took me six months—six months—to get a straight answer out of anyone on this regard and I’m still upset about that!

But I was, overall, doing fine. It was still a city, I know cities. Some even-smaller-town people were having a bit of trouble adapting to the “city” but, eventually they got it.

It really hit me how bad it was when winter came and the exchange students from the tropics started panicking. No one had told them about thermal underwear. Or hot drinks. Or wind chill. Or hats. They were spending all their money on Hollywood-movie-style coats and at a loss why they “weren’t working”. They were expected to just “know”.

So if one billion dollars were to fall in my lap at that point? I’d come up with a guidebook. There was a lot of guides that had been very helpful when coming to this new college, but none about these specific things. I’d also probably do an extra year, but the guidebook would’ve been first.

age 30: Infrastructure resilience

No one was talking about the “crumbling infrastructure” (at least not yet), but I could see it and saw it was a global problem and I was worried. At this point, I knew I needed to worry for myself first, so I focused on getting APCs to survive blackouts, storing water to survive water cuts, and learning to use WiFi Tethering to survive internet outages (and a good thing I did!) But I knew a lot of people didn’t know about these things. They didn’t even know APCs existed. But what could I do? I was barely able to afford the 2 APCs I did get (though, by my math, we needed at least 5). Some kind of massive battery backup program would require like a billion dollars!

Riches really are wasted on the rich.

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aardwolfpack · 4 years

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Cartoon Anniversaries

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is ten years old, Dora the Explorer is ten years older than that, TaleSpin is ten years older than that, Thundarr the Barbarian is ten years older than that, Josie and the Pussycats is ten years older than that, The Flintstones is ten years older than that, and the first animated T.V. series is ten years older than that. Ten years isn’t as long as it used to be.

#mlp #dora the explorer #talespin #thundarr the barbarian #josie and the pussycats #the flintstones #crusader rabbit #feeling old #time is an illusion

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swindle-comic · 3 years

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Hi, I've been reading your comic and I really like it.

My question is: how Ty was created? I don't mean biologically, no, I mean what came to your mind while creating a bear oc. I'm a huge fan of bears myself, so Ty being one got me curious.

If you feel comfortable, could you tell his origins? That's prolly some stuff that are gonna be shown ahead in the comic, but I wanted to ask nevertheless.

The simple answer is it was like 3am and that’s usually when stray ideas spiral out of control.

Okay if I remember right it began almost two years ago when I was very very lost in the ducktales sauce and we were talking about the characters constantly. So we had been on the topic of the triplets and how they’d develop as teens to adults and then the subject drifted into romantic orientation or lack thereof and potential relationships they might have in the future. When it came to Louie we were just like “ye he gay.”

While we were talking about that, I brought up a silly little scenario about Louie having a notable interaction with some boy at school. I guess what the notable interaction entailed would be a spoiler. The angle that hooked us on this relationship dynamic is a spoiler. (Even if plenty of people who went deep diving have found their answers on the matter. I’m still gonna try not to bring it up on the blog.) but you’ll find out soon. So the idea of Ty’s character started with “Somebody who could work off Louie.”

But then I was like “yeah ok sure fine I know I just brought this kid up to be funny but now I’m invested in him. Who is he? Lets flesh out this Boy At School. It’s 3am let’s go apeshit.”

And then I wondered if I could make this kid a canon character. Maybe a lesser used one. And I remembered that some of the talespin characters were intended to appear in season three. Now I hadn’t watched talespin much at the time so I didn’t pay much attention to the announced characters. For some reason I thought they were Baloo and Rebecca? I had just briefly looked at the image of them like once. So then my train of thought was like “okay so if Baloo and Rebecca exist in dt17, so does Kit Cloudkicker.” I knew a little bit about Kit Cloudkicker. And from what I knew, he matched the personality of this Boy At School that we were messing around with. I thought it was a perfect.

I figured out like a few minutes later that the adult bear I thought was Baloo was actually Kit so we had to regroup. But I was already attached to this angle we had so the regroup was basically just

(I just think Artsy with their Kit icon being like “idk him” is funny)

The name “Kit Jr” did not last long because it was stupid as all fuck but by this point it was 4am so be nice to me.

The fact that we made Ty into an OC made things WAY better cuz it opened up for way more creative freedom. He wasn’t confined to the restraints of canon characterization and I could do whatever I wanted with him. This early stage of his characterization was definitely inspired by young Kit from Talespin but he became so much more than that. Artsy had started designing him the day after and then drew up a bunch of him. Which just added fuel to the fire. The next few days I spurted out essays upon essays about Ty. Everything about him. He was a fully realized person within a week. There’s so much life to this kid, I stg. I’m really excited for the comic to explore every facet of him. He has a lot of facets.

But yeah that’s why he’s a bear. He was based off a bear character. If he had just been an OC with no links to any other character, a bear probably wouldn’t have crossed my mind.

I’m guessing by his “origins” you mean where he came from, in universe. Like before he landed with Kit and whatnot. I’m delighted you’re interested but that’s private information for the moment. But we will get to that.

Thank you for your question! This was fun to talk about!

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watch-talk-fixate · 3 years

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The Humility of Family and Being a Hero: A Darkwing Duck and Drake Mallard Analysis.

Special thanks to @stoopakoopa @mighty-ant @drakepad because they inspired me.

Ducktales 2017. A show that a lot of people saw a simple cash grab and the exploitation of nostalgia of 80s and 90s kids alike. But it was a true surprise. A show of adventure and family and exploring yourself in the family name. This show brought so many characters from the golden age of Disney Channel called “The Disney Afternoon Era” with faces from shows like: Gizmoduck, Talespin, Goof Troop and Darkwing Duck.

The whole concept of Darkwing Duck is quite silly really. A parody of Batman, superhero tropes and even James Bond but with a duck in the suburbs of the fictional city of Saint Canard living with his boyfriend sidekick Launchpad and his adopted daughter Gosalyn. As someone who watched the show in reruns back in the day and recently rewatched it on Disney Plus, I didn’t think I would have appreciated this show as much as I thought I would. Dry and witty humor that caught me off guard and it truly doesn’t seem as dated as other shows from those times.

But I’m here to talk about Drake Mallard and what it means to be a superhero and a parent.

(For the sake of the analysis, I will be referring to Drake Mallard from the Ducktales 2017 reboot as “Drake Mallard!17” and the Drake Mallard from the OG Darkwing Duck show as “Drake Mallard!91”.)

Ducktales 2017 for a long time was alluring to bringing Darkwing Duck into the universe of the show. Many fans didn't know how this was possible until a certain episode that was the rise of another superhero and Darkwing Duck’s long time rival: Gizmoduck (now voiced by the guy who wrote a Broadway musical that won many awards-- Bring It On the Musical. I’m kidding. Lin Manuel Miranda). In the episode ‘The BUDDY System’ we are shown what looks like a fight scene between Darkwing Duck and his villains, MegaVolt and QuackerJack. But then it’s abruptly cut when it’s revealed to be a video. An episode. Launchpad explains to Dewey (the blue duck nephew of Donald Duck) that Darkwing Duck is his favorite TV show’ meaning that Darkwing Duck is a TV show in the Ducktales 2017 universe. A show inside a show.

Weird, right?

But what does this have to do with being a superhero and a parent and how family humbles you? Well, in the OG Darkwing Duck show the character of Drake Mallard is shown to be a late-20s to early-40s nobody in his two-parter episode debut-- “Darkly Dawns the Duck”-- who spends his days locked inside an abandoned bridge tower and out fighting small-time crime at night as a purple masked weirdo. And I say this in the kindest way ever but Drake Mallard!91 is an asshole. It’s later revealed in the show that he wanted to be a superhero not because he wanted to protect the people in his city -- that is a parody of Batman’s Gotham -- but because he wanted the praise and attention of being a hero. He’s a hero for a selfish reason.

But how is it possible to have an asshole for a main character that lasted 91 episodes? Drake Mallard!91 has a child. It isn’t his biological daughter really but she is his daughter. In his two-parter episode his first real ‘save’ is the granddaughter of a scientist that was murdered by the mafia and now they are after the granddaughter because she has the code for a machine that they are going to use to rob banks and release mayhem across the world. Darkwing Duck!91 goes to save her and they start to have a bond that makes my daddy issues burst into tears.

Hiding her in his secret hide-out, she isn’t comfortable and Gosalyn needs to sleep so as a way to calm her down he sings her dead grandfather’s lullaby to her. I won’t reveal the rest of the episode or the “plot twist”(?) because I think it’s a cute episode. But here we see that Drake Mallard!91 does have the ability to care about others that isn’t himself or his reputation.

At the end of the episode, he goes out of his way to adopt Gosalyn and officially makes her his daughter. Throughout the series, you see that Drake Mallard!91 bonds with Gosalyn. Taking her to school, talking to her about emotional things, and doing everything in his power to protect her from the harm that comes with him being a superhero. But in one of my favorite episodes “Toys R Czar”, Drake Mallard!91 has come to the conclusion that he can’t both be a hero and great parent after one of Gosalyn’s teachers points out that she has been causing a lot of issues at school. He blames himself for not being a good parent, reading parenting books and following them to the letter. Cleaning, baking cookies and even being the director for a play where he made Gosalyn the star.

He gives up being Darkwing Duck. He gives up the one thing that he worked so hard and was so proud of. Drake Mallard!91 put his ego aside to be a good parent and was ready to throw away his cape and pick up an actual job to raise Gosalyn. He did the toughest thing about being a hero, a figure of salvation: having a family.

I think that the reason that I enjoyed the OG Darkwing Duck a lot despite me being a bitch to the pain character’s ego and pride was that yes, he would probably be a terrible parent but he has Gosalyn and Launchpad to guide him. He has them to ground him and not let his ego overrun him into believing he’s such a big-shot hero because he stops supervillains with only a gas gun, smoke bombs and a purple mask. His family makes him human-- despite him being a duck.

Now moving onto Ducktales 2017. In the episode ‘The BUDDY System’ when Launchpad is telling Dewey about Darkwing Duck being his favorite TV show and growing up on it he mentions an actor’s name: Jim Starling.

Jim Starling plays Darkwing Duck. Remember that.

(Fun Fact: the actor who voices the OG Darkwing Duck/Drake Mallard!91 does the voice of Jim Starling.)

In my favorite and comfort episode “The Duck Knight Rises” we are shown that Jim Starling has suffered the same fate of Bo Jack Horseman: a washed out actor from the 80s/90s that is living on the steam of his former success. Jim is no longer as popular as he was back in the day, making money off of signing autographs and openings of less-than-desirable stores. It isn’t until Dewey mentions the fact that there is a Darkwing Duck Movie ready to release that we see Jim Starling happy and ready to jump back into the role.

The Role of a Hero.

We discover that Scrooge McDuck is the one producing the movie and after watching the trailer both Launchpad and Jim Starling agree that this isn’t faithful to the character. Yet Jim doesn’t really care, he wants to be back into the light and have the attention and adoration of an actor. Of being a hero. How very of Drake Mallard!91 of him.

The director of the Duck Knight Rises movie tells Jim that he isn’t playing Darkwing Duck. A younger actor is. Outraged, he attacks the actor and is kicked out alongside Launchpad. Jim Starling believes that he is owed this role. That this role only belongs to him and no one else in the world. Roping Launchpad into his plan, here we see that Jim Starling never truly let go of his past when he slips on his old Darkwing Duck costume to play hero again.

It is Launchpad that begins to question him when Jim starts to ramble about revenge, Launchpad still looking at his old idol with nostalgia tinted glasses and goes along with the plan.

Here is where the analysis begins to pick up again. When LP sneaks into the actor’s trailer and immediately panics, locking himself, the Actor comes to his rescue. After some light fighting we see that the Actor is a big fan of the Darkwing Duck; possibly bigger than LP himself. LP does have a connection with the show but it seems that he Actor here takes it up more personally. That his whole ideologies and all of his morals came from a silly little show from his childhood and is the reason he is the way he is today. This whole movie is his big shot and a dream come true.

Immediately after this, we see Jim Starling running around and knocking people out. Actually hurting people just to get back into the role he’s clinging on to. Paralleling the Actor’s acceptance of the role and Jim ready to draw blood because he can’t let go.

Finally, we see the Actor and Jim Starling have a “sane” interaction. That it’s a huge honor to be here with him, says the Actor. That he wants to play the role of Darkwing Duck with Jim’s blessing. That they can do this together.

But Jim wants this for his own. All for himself.

After knocking the Actor out, we see a glimpse of how gone he is. How attention thirsty he is and that he will literally stop at nothing to get back on screen.

The whole climatic fight of the episode is the Actor putting on his new Darkwing Duck costume and heading off face first into danger to save people as Jim Starling just snaps. The new confronts the old. With the trademark, goofy Darkwing Duck openings of I am the terror that flaps in the night but more modern.

As they fight, it’s LP that finally gets to Jim with him telling him how much Darkwing Duck means to him and what it means to be a hero like him. As a power beam prop is ready to fall on top of LP, Jim does what a hero is supposed to do. Sacrifice. By pushing his biggest fan out of the way, he completes the role he has been yearning to play.

They don’t find the body. (Yes this is a kids show). But here is where we learn that the Actor’s name is Drake Mallard.

Drake Mallard!17.

Launchpad is the one that convinces Drake Mallard!17 to be the true Darkwing Duck. For Jim.

Jim Starling is what the OG Darkwing Duck was. Egotistical, wanting fame and attention, having all of the qualities that would make anyone doubt that he is truly a hero. The thing is that if Jim Starling only played Darkwing Duck, not Drake Mallard (because in this universe he is a real person), then it means that he didn’t have a Launchpad or a Gosalyn to ground him. Jim Starlings is what happens when a hero is isolated and is only a hero and not a person.

Drake Mallard!17 is a person who becomes a hero while Jim Starling is an actor who pretended to be a hero. Jim was stuck in his own vanity, not having anyone truly reminding him that he isn't’ the roles he plays; that he isn’t Darkwing Duck.

Drake Mallard is Darkwing Duck.

#darkwing duck #ducktales #ducktales 2017 #drake mallard #launchpad #launchpad mcquack #scrooge mcduck #jim starling #gosalyn mallard

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ask-artsy-oncie · 2 years

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Some Honesty Regarding Swindle

Hello everyone. As I'm sure the vast majority of you know, I do all the visual work for the DT17 fancomic, Swindle. For a while now, I've been having a lot of thoughts, a decent amount of angst and anxiety included, about the comic and I guess I'd just like to share. I honestly don't know if this is unprofessional, and I don't know if this is stuff that should have just remained private. I'm really not that good at sharing relatively "deep thoughts" privately outside of one-on-one conversations, and in this case it really doesn't feel fair of me to dish so much out on one person. I've done that enough, already, and I always feel guilty afterwards. It feels more right to just throw this stuff into the void.

I do know that all this stuff is personal feelings, though. That's why it's staying here and not being put on the actual Swindle blog. It's not necessary.

For anyone who doesn't want to read, please don't worry, Swindle isn't canceled, it's not delayed, I don't hate or resent it, like. Just don't worry. This is just my rumination, a reflection on a lot of feelings I've had for the past year (and more). It's not some signifier for the End Times, so I'd appreciate it if this didn't lead to some sort of panic.

I'm not entirely sure where to start. I could offer some kind of disclaimer on the kind of person I am and why I feel the way I do, but treating it as a disclaimer feels pretty inappropriate. I think moreso what happened is that my rumination on my feelings just allowed me to put words to the cause of them. The vast majority of the negative feelings just stem from some pretty bad anxiety, exhaustion, and self-loathing.

As the premier of Chapter 4 draws closer, my anxiety continues to climb. There are... a lot of reasons for a lot of things I feel - everything is kinda just swarming chaotically inside me, so forgive me for being so vague - but I think why this chapter in particular is going to be so hard for me is because it marks the beginning of unfamiliar territory and potential changes. Chapter 1 had been written for months before the comic even started, Chapter 2 was a segway into Chapter 3, and Chapter 3 is literally the first concept that brought Ty to life.

Chapter 4 isn't bad. Objectively, it's fantastically written, and Lolly's writing isn't just entertaining to read - it's legitimately well-structured and lends itself to exploring Ty as a character so well. She's fantastically skilled at set-up and pay-off. Even subjectively, the only problem I have with the actual contents of the chapter is the use of DT17-specific terminology for Talespin-specific terms. Otherwise, it's a genuine joy to read. I'm very excited to watch it unfold before you all and even more excited to see people relate this chapter to previous chapters and relate future chapters to this chapter.

And that's the thing - this is definitely a "me" problem, it's anxiety (with a side of self-loathing) rearing its ugly head.

Truthfully, I don't like talking about Lost Cargo!. Similarly to how I didn't actually like talking about Frozen in 2013/2014 or Coco in 2017/2018. I am aware. That I talk about it a lot. I don't like talking about it. The reason I do is because I have all these unsorted and often conflicting feelings and I NEED to sort through them, somehow. I'm an analytical kind of person, one who's still learning about myself, and why a piece of media may make me feel the way it does. I want to properly understand myself, because if one of my biggest longings in life is to find someone who understands me, I have to be able to do so for myself. Shortly after that episode aired, for example, I was able to realize that it's a lot easier for me to relax and enjoy a piece of media or aspects of a piece of media with, like, stability and normal emotions, when I'm not immediately jumped on for expressing criticism towards it.

Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed that leeway when I expressed my thoughts on Lost Cargo!. I was jumped on for either being too negative OR too positive about the episode, and as a result I'm STILL trying to effectively process my feelings about it. Usually I just end up very anxiously and hyperactively jumping between "the episode is visually perfect, I love the designs, I adore the backgrounds, the animation is fucking amazing I love love love love Kit's redesign" and "I fucking hate the writing, fuck this episode, it ruins so much on a fundamental level, I don't fucking like the casting, blargh blargh and all that, I am inclined to leave my room because I can't stand looking at anything Ducktales or Talespin related, hate hate hate hate", but no matter how I'm feeling it's always wrong, wrong, wrong. I know a lot of people are sick of hearing it. I'm sick of hearing it. I, like, actively don't respect myself for how stuck on this episode I've been. I'm frustrated with myself and it makes me think less of myself.

This has relevancy to Swindle, I swear. I'm not out her to dish out the contents of an episode you all already know my opinion on, that part isn't actually what matters to this post, to these ruminations.

What matters here is the internal struggle caused by the desire to keep everything as canon-compliant as possible VS the pretenses I was under when I offered to make Swindle into a comic. Ducktales 2017 essentially had my 100% stamp of approval - as in, even if there were aspects of the show I was willing to criticize, it was all comprised of something I'd be willing to work with and remain canon-compliant to. I wasn't about to just change or not acknowledge Goldie's incarnation in '17 just because I liked her '87 incarnation better, yknow? I'm not out here demanding we ignore or go back on Webby's biological relation to Scrooge just because it's not what I would have done - in fact, I'm making the best of it. This show has my heart, I was out here defending it regardless of how hard the fandom would rail against certain episodes, characters, or arcs.

So, with that thought in mind, I assumed that keeping canon compliancy was never going to be an issue for me, which works well, because Lolly and I are both the kinds of fan artists who like to keep things very close to canon compliancy. It's how we operate. I assumed that even if the Talespin episode was underwhelming, as long as it didn't disprove Ty's existence, we'd be good to go, right? Because we spent pretty much the entirety of 2020 not only developing Ty, but developing how these characters from Talespin would exist and work within the DT17 universe. Even if the episode was underwhelming, it would be okay, because we had a metric fuckton of supplementary thoughts and developments that would make up for that, and for characters that did have an underwhelming presence (or no presence) like Molly and pretty much every Talespin character they didn't (or legally couldn't) use, that remains mostly true. What I didn't expect was an episode so actively disappointing that so many of the things that had been thought up couldn't fit into it. It wasn't just that it had become a character assassination of a character that meant (and still does mean) a lot (SO much) to me, it was that it actively fought against the idea of H4H as a family that it left things a little difficult to pick up the pieces.

And not impossible. Like I said, so many characters didn't appear that utilizing them as tools to help mend or explain away aspects of the episode isn't terribly hard (I did only say it was a little difficult), but it conflicted enough with what was already written that things were going to have to change - a good, decent amount - from what was already written.

And this is where things circle back to being a "me" problem. Those older ideas we had before the episode aired? I liked them better. Even if they were rough drafts or otherwise not as refined, they had the building blocks of something I still just. Enjoy more than many of the changes that were made, simple as that. There's nothing objectively wrong with these changes, and the majority of you will never notice them because they're well written and were never that impactful to the story of Swindle to begin with. I think, ultimately, what my problem is is just that I happened to fall in love with ideas that weren't mine, ideas that were shared privately, and ideas that the original creator of has since abandoned. I can't talk about them because they aren't my ideas to share, meaning making and sharing art related to them is an absolute no-go (it's why I felt so much guilt about posting the "homoerotic standoff" piece until I had Lolly's express permission, and I still sometimes have a hard time looking at a piece I'm so fucking proud of because of the larger scope of what it represents) and I'll eventually have to let go of them, entirely. I'm already past the point where I should have let go. And again I find myself frustrated with myself for struggling so much to.

Like, yeah. Kit is not going to be the character I want him to be. And that sucks for me, personally. And ugly, petty thoughts rear their ugly, petty heads where I'm compelled to be spiteful and say shit like "he's not even going to be a pilot, huh?" even though that has absolutely no bearing on the actual story of Swindle, or even change terms in the dialogue back to their Talespin-specific counterparts. But being compelled to do something doesn't mean I actually want to do it. As in, I know that's wrong and I'd immediately feel guilty for putting Lolly through anything shitty for something that I care about for some reason but ultimately doesn't matter and therefore achieves nothing (nothing good, that is). Besides that, being a brat and saying "I don't like this, do that instead" is something I cannot condone at all, because it leads to bad final products. It breeds resentment, it revokes a creator of their vision, and it makes a creator work with something they aren't passionate about (or it would have been a part of the original vision). I wouldn't be happy even if I did "get my way" or whatever my petty, internal idea of "getting my way" is, because not only would I be deeply ashamed of myself, but the final product wouldn't be enjoyable to read.

I don't like myself. I already don't like myself. So I try my best to avoid being the kind of person I'd like even less. A while back, Lolly told me that there wouldn't be anything in the comic that would make me too mad (something along those lines). She trusted me to both be normal about inconsequential shit and to trust her. And regardless of whatever anxiety I'm feeling about literally meaningless aspects of a comic I have so much more to love about, I'm steeling myself to at least tolerate whatever might happen that I'll have weird feelings about. Because she trusted me and I made a promise to her and I've resolved to do my best to stop complaining and just listen. And accept. Even on an internal level. Because I love her work and I love her and I want to do her justice by following through with what I promised I would do, and by doing it well.

Unfortunately... this ends up leading into another problem. The willingness to play into canon compliancy has lead to a certain level of... expectations. If not from other people, at least something I've imposed upon myself. I think this is where "exhaustion" starts to come into play.

People do so much to compliment my work on Swindle, constant reminders of how well I'm able to capture the spirit of the show on a visual level. I cannot say that I don't appreciate these comments from the bottom of my heart, let me just say. It's just that, like everything in life, there are some pros to receiving messages like this, and some cons. One of these cons is that I simply have a hard time seeing what people are saying. Every page is riddled with errors and there are times when the art is bad on an objective level. At the very least, rushed. I swear, every time I upload a page I can see a new thread on the Bad Webcomics forum bashing and berating and picking everything I drew apart (in my head. As far as I know there is no Bad Webcomics thread about us and I'd prefer to keep it that way, or at least stay ignorant to it.) But it is rushed. Because, as I've said so many times, I cannot afford to spend so much time on a full-color comic I do for free (...mostly. I am technically making $15 a month thanks to it, but I shouldn't have to explain how far below minimum wage that is to justify calling this "free labor", right?) so they genuinely can't be that much better.

Another con is a very unfortunate, however unintentional, side affect - there is an expectation to look like the show. To make the comic as visually convincing as possible. And I've already explained why that's such a struggle to do. I've pulled so many all-nighters or close to all-nighters despite people telling me not to. I exhaust myself on Monday to make sure everything's ready on Tuesday and Thursday but usually end up fixing and cleaning things up (if not finishing the page set to upload that day in the event where it isn't actually finished) on Tuesday and Thrusday and now suddenly I'm dedicating 3 out of 7 days of the week to Swindle and spending a lot of time just being exhausted, otherwise.

We, a two-person team making a fan comic for free, have unexpectedly inherited the expectations of keeping aflame the spirit of an animated television show with a massive cast who were compensated for their work before episodes even aired. No matter how many people try to assure me to take things easy, this is the inescapable reality of it all. Regardless of what I may have promised Lolly, she isn't the only one I'm making a promise to anymore, she isn't the only thing I'm expected to (by my own standards, mind you) please anymore. We have a massive audience, a follower count that surpasses my social media presence everywhere else. We inherited a fanbase of people looking to us after Ducktales ended. This isn't to sound pompous - as much as I am proud, I'm scared. I'm used to being a small creator, I'm used to getting not much attention. Hell, I'm used to being frustrated with how little attention I get. The fact that you'll be hard-pressed to find an illustration of mine on the Swindle blog that doesn't surpass 100 notes is unreal to me.

It's terrifying to have that level of expectation to fill a void when you're not fully sure if you're capable of filling it.

I do not dislike or resent Swindle in any way. There is a part of me, though, that worries about how my insistence to make this a comic has impacted both myself and Lolly. If Swindle had remained a fic, then Lolly could have eventually walked away if she really wanted or needed to. She would have been in a sea among many who are also making Ducktales 2017 fics after the series had ended. Not to say her work wouldn't have been special, but I don't think there would have been as much of a pressure to get everything out both quickly and consistently. Every time I finish I page, there's a timer ticking for her to get the next chapter's script done. Every time I miss an upload date, we get endless messages asking why we didn't upload or when we are going to upload. I understand that entitlement is everywhere, fic writers deal with it all the time, and it isn't something one should bend to, but it's so exhausting to have neglected your health for something you don't get compensation for only to be told, when you've reached a breaking point and you need to rest, that you should be doing more. I'd love to be pumping out five pages a week. I'd love to have been animating this story. But I can't. I simply can't do more than I already do, and sometimes I can't even do what I already do. I wish I could, and I'm sorry.

It's hard. It's hard for me to accept praise for the work I do on Swindle. Not just because of self-loathing, but because I really just do not want to overshadow the work Lolly has done. This is her baby. She's the one spearheading it, and the reason it exists. At the same time, I once again find myself increasingly frustrated with myself for literally compromising my health and pouring so much into this comic only to downplay what I do. I'm still trying to find balance, in that regard, still trying to figure out a healthier and, honestly, better way to relate to feedback about the comic. Let me just say that I probably wouldn't have a social media presence if I was an actual showrunner who didn't rely on fans for my income - Frank has my eternal respect for how long he lasted as a showrunner who so frequently interacted with fans. I get overwhelmed very easily and I don't have a lot of patience, by default. And that's on top of having a hard time telling if something is "rude" by allistic standards (which is more of something I deal with IRL but have had issues with online). I didn't even know if running the Swindle Server was something I'd be able to handle because I have a history of panicking and leaving large group chats due to being overwhelmed, though thankfully the server is at least quiet enough that I can avoid feeling that way.

So, yeah, Chapter 4 is coming up, and I have a lot of feelings about it. Feelings that have caused a lot of mental health issues when I try to bottle them up. Already, in writing as much as I have, so far, I'm starting to feel better. Like I'm processing everything in an understandable way and finally organizing these jumbled, swarming feelings rather than holding back for the sake of being polite or spilling them out during a breakdown. Like not everything in my room is clean but I've at least cleared my sofa and coffee table and that area of the room is functional again, yknow?

And that isn't to say all my feelings about Swindle or even Chapter 4 are negative. I've already said how excited I am for the role this chapter plays (though I am still very anxious about being judged for how I interpret and devlop it, visually) and think you all would enjoy it, too. I'm still sappy as all hell for this bear and bird, Ty and Louie are still characters I love to the ends of the earth. Lolly and her work, I will also always (mostly) adore and admire deeply. Fuck, there's a reason why I make so many comics based on her writing, it moves me. She moves me. She's brilliant and a fucking amazing friend, I couldn't ask for anything more.

Last night, amidst all the frustration about how tumblr's app does not fucking work and I hate it, I was somehow reminded about how I finished the first three pages of Swindle (the cover, Chapter 1's cover, and the first page of Chapter 1) only hours before I was to go to San Francisco to get top surgery. How two things that would impact my life so much both intersected within a handful of hours. Even though I wasn't able to gain momentum for the comic for a while, so many of you hopped into the server while I was healing and started conversing and sharing your love for Ty and this comic when only a page of story had been released so far. October 2020 hit in such a way that I'll probably treasure and remember for the rest of my life. I love this. Despite everything, I love this. I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't.

That's all I have for now. I'm gonna be honest, I'll probably block anyone who decides to bitch at me over this because it just. Took a lot to be this level of vulnerable. And I think I respect myself just enough to not put myself through bullshit again. At least not right now.

I'm gonna post this and probably not be on social media for the rest of the day. Maybe in DMs, who knows. But for now, it's time for me to take a break. Play a video game, watch a movie, or possibly maybe even go outside and get a breath of fresh air (I can't be "pale little frijol" forever).

If you're reading this, thank you so much for your time, support, and understanding. I hope the rest of the day treats you well.

#Swindle comic #Vent

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ramblingguy54 · 3 years

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There are aspects I’ll defend with Season 3, even a fair amount with parts of the finale because there are some good dramatic pay offs that elevate Season’s 1 & 2, overall. Here’s what I’ll critique though. This Disney Afternooniverse idea they decided to tackle. On paper, it sounded like an awesome idea, as it could’ve been a great tie in to the found family trope of DuckTales 2017. Goofy & Darkwing’s purpose in this story served it quite well in the long run, but Talespin barely contributed much to this running theme, given how sidelined Baloo & Molly were, overall. Not to mention, giving closure to other characters as well. Beakly, Webby, & Huey’s arcs should’ve been at the forefront, plain and simple. The FOWL aspect was more important than anything else because it explored their characters in this finale very nicely, but if more screen time had been dedicated throughout these last twenty something episodes, then it would’ve been elevated from being to just good to as great as The Shadow War I’d argue.

#that's my biggest gripe with season 3 #they tried to do so much and the family dynamic aspect wasn't more fleshed out as it could've been #the last adventure #ducktales spoilers #bentina beakly #huey duck #ducktales season 3 #ducktales 2017

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animatedminds · 3 years

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The Lost Cargo of Kit Cloudkicker! - Thoughts

As the Ducktales episode I was perhaps looking forward to the most this season (maybe even more than Let’s Get Dangerous), I definitely had to do the full review thing for this one. I'm starting to realize that the characters brought in to Ducktales from the Disney Afternoon shows tend to be adapted foremost in ways that relate to the nostalgic adults who might have watched the series, rather than necessarily as themselves, hence why Drake's new character can be summed up as "a nerd who grew up on the origina Darkwing show," and why Kit here is "a burnt out adult who gave up on a childhood dream to do a safe job he isn't good at," even though both of those feel off (Kit especially) when compared to the character being adapted.

Still, because of that I don't necessarily have a gripe with Kit's characterization here, since I know what they were going for, even if I do feel like it's kind of a waste of stock.

However, I think I might have a gripe with this episode’s plot, in the way it introduces a lot of elements that it barely gets the chance to run with, even right down to the premise. Spoilers, but the episode features the gang chasing the pirates to a relic that can fuse two creatures together, an idea that brings a ''lot'' of possibilities (I mean, both Huey and Dewey were present in their bluntly contrasting personalities, and the opportunity was right there for some temporary hijinks) - but beyond a couple fused animal monsters popping in and out of the plot not much is done with it. And even then, the animal monsters are introduced on an "isle of the lost" style place supposedly overrun with that makes for an interesting setting for the adventure, but instead of seeing that idea explored much the characters are off the island very quickly without doing much with that premise either. This especially hurts Kit, who is used as this week’s foil for Dewey - but unlike most of the episodic characters in this show, he doesn’t get a lot to him to inform the way he acts. He tells us he became a pilot because it was expected of him... and that's it. We don’t see that anywhere else, and he’s not really under any pressure to be anything from anywhere so we don't get enough about Kit for that beat to land - if you've seen the original show you can kind of get it, but that's the best you've got to work with. Same with the stuff with Molly, who I imagine might get a "who is this?" reaction with her appearance at the end from the target audience given that the only indication of her existence was a single line from Della towards the beginning. These are things that I’m largely thinking of from the kids’ point of view: I'm a huge Talespin fan, but I doubt the primary viewers who wouldn’t be born for decades when the show first came out are. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not down on the episode like that. On the positive side, Della rocked in this episode. The story basically puts her in the role Scrooge tends to get in this series, as the older wit with common sense who takes charge of the adventure, but the fact that Della is a little less steady in that role is very well related in the way she goes about things. Like Donald she gets more overwhelmed by the situation than Scrooge will, and that makes her a very fun character to watch and follow. I wish she had starred in more episodes this season, definitely. And for a last a random thing I noticed - because i was specifically looking out for it - the music! For those who didn’t watch the original show, Talespin was a little different music wise in that it had its iconic theme song, but also a different piece of music that was the "main theme” of the score (composed by the great Christopher Stone) - a leitmotif that played about five times an episode in a variety of epic ways (Batman fans, think like how BTAS that the main Elfman-inspired theme, and then the “Batman” theme by Shirley Walker that eventually got rearranged for Mask of the Phantasm). This episode homages both by taking the theme song, but scoring it like that main theme, which was a nice touch. Overall, this was handled a lot less well than the series' other crossovers this season - though that was admittedly more of a "less is more" deal - and especially not as well as Darkwing who got a lot of good setup and character stuff even in the span of one episode. Ultimately I had the same issue with the Halloween episode, iirc. The episode does so many things at once that it doesn't get the chance to really go with any of them, so it just feels like a bunch of false starts. I liked it, because I never really dislike any episode of this series, but it just feels like something that could've been a lot better.

#ducktales #Frank Angones #matt youngberg #talespin #kit cloudkicker #dewey duck #disney xd #huey duck #talespin's score is god tier #christopher stone #disney afternoon #ducktales 2017 #baloo #animation review #Animated Minds for Animated Times

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mighty-ant · 3 years

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Boy you sure have a lot of fics and prompts to work on! Remember to take your time with them and to take breaks once in a while, you should be having fun when you write, not stressing over it! Out of curiosity, aside from Just a Normal, Boring Family, and your rewrite of The Life and Crimes of Scrooge McDuck, what other fics/prompts are you working on? Do you have any plans to go back to No Shortage of Spirit in the foreseeable future?

Thank you!! I tend to get overwhelmed when I have too many ideas on top of too much free time haha

Besides the fics you mentioned, I’m currently working on the second chapter of my Talespin-crossover fic “Gravity’s Rainbow,” and need to finish “The Man from F.O.W.L.,” a webby and Scrooge fic, and a fendra fic I have in the works

I do also want to go back to “No Shortage of Spirit!” 😅 It’s maybe my only fic that explores Jim Starling’s character, which is insanely interesting to me, and also serves as an AU of how Drake and Gos meet for the first time.

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cometcrystal · 3 years

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anyway i finished Family by ffn user The Middle Warner Sibling today. i’d link it, but tumblr hides posts with links; you’ll find the fic easily if you sort on fanfiction dot net by highest amount of favorites for animaniacs LOL

here are my thoughts which i am making a Post about because this fic is literally 760,000 words long and if it’s not a touchstone of the fandom, it should be. ALSO if you care about spoilers for this story, this post will have spoilers in it.

things i liked:

the warners themselves are written very well. i’m not a huge fan of the “they’re actors and animaniacs is the show they film” idea myself, but it’s done in the best way possible here that feels very believable

i watch riverdale and thus i enjoyed all the melodrama. this fic is very dramatic but that’s not always a bad thing

the adult fear was very powerful. as a 24 year old and also an oldest sibling, reading about how during their TIS days, dot was adopted off to a few different homes and yakko and wakko didn’t even know it??? and she was only returned because she wouldn’t stop crying out for yakko??? was INCREDIBLY unsettling to me. the fact that it’d even happen. also my favorite arc was probably the TIS arc alongside the car crash/coma arc

the sibs being descendants of bosko was an interesting detail that i liked. there are SO many animation history references throughout this ENTIRE fic and i’m positive i missed some but i recognized a lot. op obviously knows what they’re talking about

the implementation of toon theory and “schlesinger syndrome” is BRILLIANT. i’ve seen lots of fics explore toon theory stuff, but none as in-depth as this. i LOVED IT and i want to read just an entire manual on toon theory. i wanna take an entire course

the sibs’ mentors and chaperones are all wonderful. i’m very firmly a “scratchy is the warners’ parental figure” truther, but bugs bunny being that in this fic worked very well. yakko calling him “da-doo” in his perspective is VERY fitting and i liked that detail a lot. it’s extremely cute. also foghorn’s relationship w wakko and porky’s relationship with dot are both extremely cute as well. also: chaos vodka aunt slappy nation rise

hello nurse is given a real name and some agency thank god

the character of penelope goose should be a real thing. i love her SO much.

i have never watched a single episode of talespin in my life but i love mrs cunningham, kit, and molly now

i cried three times at this fic, which is an accomplishment because i have NEVER cried at a fanfic before: once when ophelia died, once when goose comforted yakko after they got caught by TIS, and once at goose’s funeral

normally i don’t care for overly-dad-like yakko. he’s protective of his siblings ofc and would die for them but he’s still their big brother, not their dad. BUT in this universe, dad-like yakko makes perfect sense, and i really enjoyed it, so points for that

every good thing that happens to the warners feels completely earned. we see them from the very beginning, when dot can’t even walk yet, all the way up to yakko’s 16th birthday. it all just feels very rewarding to see them succeed, and their backstory/buildup to working for warner bros is just. really good. the familial love and sibling relationships are IMMACULATE

things i didn’t like:

i know that teenage boys are just Like That but also i did not like how the author put yakko in so many situations where he was allowed to act on it, especially considering he’s like, 12 or 13 when his first makeout session happens, and then maybe a year older when the next thing happens. really did not like that.

also really did not like the author’s homophobia and transphobia showing in SEVERAL instances. it was just weird because the fic’s weirdly progressive in a lot of places but then its just like. yakko explaining that gay people exist to wakko is suddenly a “weird conversation”. like. ok

Plucky Duck Epic Racist Moments. THIS WAS SO JARRING FJDSKLFJSDLK DONT DO PLUCKY LIKE THIS AND DON’T DO MARY MELODY LIKE THIS EITHER. EVIL

pinky and the brain and straight and brain is straight with GADGET HACKWRENCH

this fic is so mean to scratchy. be nice to him :(

it’s also mean to skippy hes just a boy!!!!!!!!!

things i am neutral on but still found noteworthy:

the author has a very very strong vendetta against darkwing duck for some reason and its just so baffling. he is SO yucky nasty to the warners and FOR WHAT??? and gosalyn is a lil bitch in this fic too its SO weird to see. ive never watched darkwing duck so maybe theyre just like that but i doubt it

anyway i enjoyed reading this story despite the problems i have with it. it managed to cut off at the best moment it could: yakko getting reassurance from bugs and giving him a hug after wakko and dot have decided to try new interests out. it’s unfinished, and was last updated in 2014, but that’s a much better cutoff point than a lot of unfinished fics get, and i don’t feel a need for closure on anything.

just be warned, this fic has a LOT of heavy subjects in it. feel free to ask me if you need any specific warnings, but otherwise, i say go for it

#animaniacs #animaniacs 93 #animaniacs 1993

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