#<-- and also the original disney animators were mostly men

[emcads]

i didn’t mean to get so heated about dresses today but a general rule of thumb is always: if male commentators are mad about something women are wearing,  it’s probably fine

[sacchxrine05]

Yuumori Characters as Disney Princesses (cus I’m bored :))

I’m gonna preface this by saying that some of these you’re just gonna have to trust me on cus I chose them just from pure vibes alone and went from there. I also haven’t re-read/watched Yuumori in a while nor have I watched any Disney movies as of late so again, just trust me bro lmao. I came up with most of these at 2am so sorry in advance.

Also, if someone has already done this, I’m sorry and I hope my choices aren’t just the same lmao.

Liam - Aurora/Sleeping Beauty

So this one is mostly just cus they both ended up sleeping for a long ass time lmao. Liam was in a coma after the fall for x months and Aurora was cursed to an eternal sleep unless her true love kissed her awake (we won’t talk about the horrors of the original fairytale, I’ve tried to blank that out of my memory tyvm). They’re also both blondes…uh huh. Aurora doesn’t have much personality that I can remember other than being an animal lover and a good singer so…that’s just all I have lmao. I also just think Liam would make a very cute Sleeping Beauty lmao.

Albert - Jasmine

I did consider giving Albert Rapunzel cus of the whole locked away in a tower thing, but outside of that and having shitty mothers (Mother Gothel wasn’t even Rapunzel’s real mother but still) there isn’t much similarity personality wise? Idk. I picked Jasmine just cus they both come from rich families yet have no patience for other rich people. Jasmine also disguised herself and went into the town/city to pretend she was a normal person and that feels kinda Albert-ish? They’re also both smart and sarcastic so Y’know.

Louis - Cinderella

This one feels kinda obvious lmao. Both were raised by awful rich people who treated them like a servant, both were orphans and both tended to the upkeep of their homes. I do think Louis has more of a backbone than Cinderella, especially towards the end of Part 1 of the manga. Also again: both are blondes lmao.

Moran - Merida

So…this one is mostly vibes but also not. I think Moran has a similar wild streak to Merida and accidentally turning a loved one into a bear because he didn’t watch his wording when asking a witch for a spell sounds like something Moran might do? Bear (hah) in mind I haven’t re-read Yuumori in a while so I may be wrong on that. Also I guess bows and arrows were the guns before guns were invented so…so there’s that lmao.

Bonde - Mulan

Feels like another obvious one? They both disguised their genders to achieve a goal (although I did interpret James to be a trans man whereas Mulan wasn’t rly? Cus she went back to presenting as female after the war so idk). They’re also both pretty outspoken and don’t care for the roles society has put them in as women and actively break that stigma (Mulan by going to war and James by often dressing as men even before he transitioned). Idk I just like this one lmao.

Fred - Snow White

Again, this is mostly vibes. I’m pretty sure Snow White is the youngest of the Disney Princesses at 14 (Don’t quote me on that cus I could be wrong), so I feel like that parallels Fred being the youngest of the Crime Gang. Snow White also has a connection to animals which can also connect to Fred’s love of cats and nature in general as he does most (all?) of the gardening. I think they’re both pretty quiet and shy and that’s all I really have lmao.

Mycroft - Megara

Okay, okay, relax, I know Megara isn’t an official Disney Princess (she SHOULD be, but whatever), but she’s the only one I could really see as being similar to Mycroft? Ya’ll are really just gonna have to trust me on this one lmao. I just think they’re both pretty independent and cynical and sarcastic and just…I really don’t know the vibes just fit, I can’t explain it.

Sherlock - Ariel

OKAY👏HEAR👏ME👏OUT. This is the only one I’m 100% confident on BSJDNKFS. They both have a niche obsession that they collect items from, Ariel with humans and Sherlock with Mysteries/Crime. They both make massive life changes for the man they love (a man which, by the way, they barely knew lmao), Ariel in becoming human and Sherlock by leaving his life, family & friends behind to live with Liam in New York. They also almost died to achieve this, Sherl from leaping off a goddamn bridge to save Liam and Ariel by her deal with Ursula. IT WORKS, I’M TELLING YOU.

That’s all I have, I was gonna do other characters but I just hit a brick wall with it lmao. (I considered John to be either Tiana or Belle, but I’ll leave that up to you 👀)

If you made it this far thank you for listening to my bullshit lmao.

[roykleinberg]

Oh now you have me curious about your spicy takes! 👀

hooooo boy okay, some of this is about the franchise and some of this is about the fandom (which I love with all my heart okay please no one throw rocks at me lol)

90% of program/user ships give me the ick

continuing on the shipping train of thought, I don't actually find the Encom trio (Alan/Lora/Flynn) all that compelling as an ot3. and a lot of it is a personal pet peeve I've come across in a number of fandoms, but honestly most m/m/f ot3s feel like they're just a way for people to focus on the m/m dynamic while patting themselves on the back for "including" the female character instead of sidelining her completely........ even though said female character is rarely if ever a major contributor to the dynamic or a focus of whatever fanwork. but on a less meta side eye note I just find the perceived sexual component of Alan and Flynn's relationship to be the least compelling thing they could've had going on

and I know she's barely brought up in canon outside of Betrayal but uhm Jordan exists??? and perhaps it is an unpopular opinion but I would like to see more of her in things instead of relying on Lora to be the only human woman in the Tron universe

once again I might not be so harsh on Uprising if there was more to it, but taking it for what it is and how much of it exists -- a lot of the episodes were boring filler to me. also I don't like how they drew Tron

actually I don't like how Tron has been drawn in any rendered/animated media with the exception of maybe Kingdom Hearts

I don't think of Rinzler as a standalone character, and he's not at all interesting to me when removed from the fact that he is Tron with the serial numbers filed off. I feel like I've increasingly seen people portraying Rinzler as his own thing and it simply does not work for me. I think the whole point of his character / existence is that he doesn't have thoughts or feelings or any real personality of his own. he's a backflipping blank slate whose only real character moments are when Tron's overwritten personality peeks through

to that end I can't conceive of an ending where Tron or anyone around him would allow him to remain as Rinzler, and I can't imagine that Rinzler's capable of forming an autonomous opinion to not want to be Tron again

the fandom collective spends too much time talking about how hot the live action and animated men are and not enough time talking about how hot the Sirens are. or how hot Yori is especially in the deleted love scene. or how hot Paige is. or

Daft Punk (rightfully) gets a lot of hype for the Legacy soundtrack, but Wendy Carlos's soundtrack for 82 is unfairly slept on. love that those funky robots got to cameo, but we should be giving Carlos just as much credit for her work

for as much as it pains me to say it, I don't think Tron ever would've been a tentpole franchise for Disney even if they had treated it better. and it's mostly because of the sad fact that the general public has never been that into Tron. I see it tossed around a lot that Disney ditched Tron in favor of focusing on Star Wars and Marvel. A New Hope -- an original sci fi movie that had absolutely no brand recognition, so to speak -- made over $400 million in 1977. the original Tron made $50 million in 82. the first Iron Man movie -- which sure had comic fan recognition but was still a very early comic blockbuster -- in 2008 made over $500 million. Legacy made just over $400 million in 2010. and Disney advertised the shit out of Legacy, they didn't set it up to fail. yes it sucks that things like Uprising were dealt a bad hand (a garbage release schedule that lead to poor viewership that definitely killed the show), yes it sucks that capitalism impacts what art gets made, but the fact of the matter is that Tron has always had niche appeal, and niche appeal does not a successful franchise make. and while it'd be nice to live in the universe where Tron blew up, I look at what's become of Star Wars and Marvel and maybe I don't lament it all that much

[carolingarts]

I was looking for a very specific photo to attach to a post as I was going back and tagging which required me going through pictures of Walt Disney.

somebody posted a "hear me out" about this dude and it felt like they were talking about my own father for reasons (job related reasons.) but honestly thinking about it...

I really really really want an explanation for this image

and while I'm at it this image:

I think one of the hardest things about history is trying to wrap your mind around how these were actual human beings who had thoughts and hopes and dreams and ideas.

Mostly because history has recorded these guys as 3 martini lunch dudes who spent those same lunches sexually harassing women who just kind of had to stand there and take it. Like these are men who were like "haahah duck fell over in water that's hilarious now he's all wet and yelling hey dolores c'mere cutie so I can harass you."

But like. Did they stand there and make jokes, did they look at pictures from their own pasts and be like "wtf this is uncomfortable to look at like ugh thinking about napoleon boneparte or Colonel Sanders is just weird."

The running joke that gays don't sit properly is just up in my brain every time I look at pictures from this period and seeing *walt fucking disney* doing this got me like:

"My brother in Christ you are either flirting with queer thoughts, neurodivergent, or just a giant weirdo or some combination of all three and obviously compensating for that and on top of it an asshole but *why are you sitting like that*.

I'm not saying the dude was (no fucking way in fact) but neurodivergent walt disney is one of those real world headcanons that people sometimes get about celebrities or circumstances of being a human being. When you think about:

the man was famous for only eating certain kinds of foods. Like traveling to foreign countries and only bringing his comfort foods (chili. This is in fact such a huge deal that on his birthday it is still eaten at the parks and behind the scenes. This was a texture comfort food I will die on that hill.)

Dick Van Dyke told a story about how the dude was apparently super quiet until you started talking about animation and then he'd pop the fuck off like a kid with a fnaf hyperfixation.

the obsession with order, with trains, with organization and natural space, the over attention to detail, the difficulty relating to other human beings.

weird about relationships. I think this might be the only one I know because I've read Walt Disney: An American Original and the way the book describes how he handled the strike and how he handled the studio before Snow White makes me think he really just wanted a place to have lots of captive friends (make of that what you will) and when people were like "nah bro we're people with families - he kind of lost it.

walt's also famously recorded as being an abrasive jackass to almost everybody and very self deprecating and overly critical of himself behind the scenes.

Anyway if I die tomorrow and I somehow meet the dude somewhere I want to ask him three things:

why were you such a dick to your employees.

Why'd you dress like that was it really the style at the time wtaf.

Why Chili. is it a comfort thing.

Also for the record: I respect a good "hear me out" but completely omitting my own feelings about work - the man ain't it. He looks like a ferret to me.

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

I tend to take scoops with grains of salt... Or scoops of salt.

The DisInsider sometimes successfully clues us in on what's happening, and sometimes they're way off. Remember how they reported that the 2022 D23 would reveal to us a 2D Disney animated movie called BLUEBEARD (based on the fairy tale of the same name) and a Pixar picture called SUMER? That same report also said INSIDE OUT 2 would be revealed... It was.

But yeah...

Anyways, the latest scoop says DUCKS is a thing (even though the Fine Tooning podcast, co-hosted by entertainment writer Drew Taylor and Disney reporter Jim Hill, said that there is no so much movie being made within the walls of Emeryville), in addition to a third FINDING NEMO movie and an INCREDIBLES 3. Well, what I'll say is this... I think both of those are inevitable. Sequels to favorites tend to do well, and they fund the riskier, original stuff. So yeah, don't be surprised if one of those happens. FINDING DORY and INCREDIBLES 2 were both billion dollar behemoths upon release. Regular moviegoers love those characters and worlds, so they'll be back, even if the online animation fandom deems their sequels to be "mid" or whatever.

Honestly, I wonder if Pixar will ever consider another CARS movie. We did have that CARS ON THE ROAD series two years back, and 2026 will mark the 20th anniversary of the franchise. CARS 3 arrived 11 years after the original, but I think it was kinda bogged down at the box office by how poorly-received CARS 2 was (even audiences weren't too keen on that one) and the existence of two PLANES movies. I think it kinda made for CARS overkill. Ever since CARS 3, we've only had the aforementioned Disney+ series and maybe some short buried in there somewhere. Maybe a nice long gap and not much stuff could do a potential fourth movie good? Honestly, I like the CARS world, the movies are light and fun and silly, I'd be fine with Pixar making a few more so they can fund originals just in case they struggle at the box office. Instead of yet another TOY STORY.

I think they're running out of the perennial favorites to do sequels to. A BUG'S LIFE 2 likely won't happen, and MONSTERS, INC. has its continuation in the form of MONSTERS AT WORK, though a sequel set after that isn't entirely off the table. I don't think you can feasibly do a sequel to RATATOUILLE or UP (the latter's DUG DAYS was a fine enough continuation, and Ed Asner passed away not too long ago), WALL-E's future world could possibly be open to a sequel? I dunno.

The 2010s was mostly sequels. Four originals, only. BRAVE, INSIDE OUT, THE GOOD DINOSAUR, and COCO. INSIDE OUT, of course, has a sequel that's right around the corner. I would be down for a BRAVE sequel honestly, given the fantastical world the original created. Hell, just to make things cooler, bring back Brenda Chapman and actually let her make that movie - as a sort-of last laugh for her after how she was treated by John Lasseter. GOOD DINOSAUR lost money at the box office, so that probably will never get any form of continuation. COCO, I feel, you can't make a sequel to. Its director Lee Unkrich retired, anyways.

Pixar can only sequelize the old favorites so many times. They're certainly trying with a fifth TOY STORY, for sure. I'm sure it'll also make a lot of money. But it's like, when is enough enough? When does the studio create a film that actually is meant to have continuations while still being a complete story? Almost like their equivalent to STAR WARS? Or heck, could they one day break their "original idea" tradition and make... An adaptation of a multi-book series?

I wouldn't rule it out! Remember the Blue Sky movie EPIC, based on the William Joyce book THE LEAF MEN AND THE BRAVE, GOOD BUGS? That was almost a Pixar film in the 2000s! Maybe in order to keep sequels a thing but without having to retread their classic favorites, Pixar could just adapt a book series, hope for the best for the first movie, and then make some sequels to pay for the originals.

But either way, there will be more sequels I feel. Maybe not to the most recent movies, but they've got the mine for it, and Disney certainly wants that easy dough.

I'll also point out that the scoop said more Disney Animation sequels are likely, and yes... So long as the movies do great. STRANGE WORLD and WISH certainly aren't getting sequels, while I feel ENCANTO will get one, or at least a series. RAYA, maybe? They could've given us more WRECK-IT RALPH movies, given how much they can play (hah) with the video game settings, but they decided to do a separate-ways ending with RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET. So that seems to be off the table. Seems like it'll be FROZEN, ZOOTOPIA, and MOANA for a bit. Not sure if a BIG HERO 6 sequel will happen anytime soon, as we had a Disney TV Animation series for that *and* a WDAS-made Disney+ series. Disney can't really sequelize anything further back, like pre-Lasseter, for various reasons. TANGLED got a whole series that really expanded the film's world and did its own thing, a sequel would either have to build off of that or ignore it all completely... And I'm sure that would sit well with fans, haha. The weird thing is, I can see a TANGLED sequel happening because it would play off of nostalgia for the original, which turns 14 this year. But again, would it integrate the TV series and possibly alienate people who have only watched the movie? Or would it ignore the show continuity and upset fans? That's a tricky one, they'd have to really market the show before theoretical release.

There are even rumors that the TIANA series being made for Disney+ will be re-formatted as a movie much like the MOANA series was, but... Who would do the 2D animation if WDAS doesn't truly have a functioning 2D unit? Would it still be Mercury Filmworks, who are said to be doing the animation for it? Or would they have a sort-of Duncan Studio-type house do it? Would it be switched to CGI? A PAPERMAN/WISH-like movie? It raises plenty of questions.

Only time will tell. I find the prospects fascinating to say the least, but I really do hope we hear about more originals from both houses... Especially WDAS... In the coming months.

[byneddiedingo]

Neel Sethi in The Jungle Book (Jon Favreau, 2016)

Cast: Neel Sethi, voices of Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba, Lupita Nyong’o, Scarlett Johansson, Giancarlo Esposito, Christopher Walken, Garry Shandling. Screenplay: Justin Marks, based on books by Rudyard Kipling. Cinematography: Bill Pope. Production design: Christopher Glass. Film editing: Adam Gerstel, Mark Livolsi. Music: John Debney, songs by Terry Gilkyson, Richard M. Sherman, Robert B. Sherman.

Fuddy-duddy that I am, I can't quite bring myself to approve of Disney's live action remakes of the films it made with traditional cel animation, but some of my reservations were canceled by this version of The Jungle Book, a worthy remake of the 1967 cel-animated film directed by Wolfgang Reitherman -- one of the celebrated Nine Old Men at Disney -- which was also the last film Walt Disney supervised before his death. That version isn't generally regarded as in the first rank of Disney films anyway; it's mostly remembered for the peppy vocal performances of the songs "The Bare Necessities" and "I Wanna Be Like You" by Phil Harris and Louis Prima respectively. The new version dazzles with its creation of a credible CGI jungle filled with realistic CGI animals, and with some fine voiceover work by Bill Murray as the bear Baloo, Ben Kingsley as the panther Bagheera, Scarlett Johansson as the python Kaa, and especially Idris Elba as the villain, the tiger Shere Khan. It's remarkable to me that Elba, one of the handsomest and most charismatic of actors, has lately done work in which he's heard but not seen: He's also unseen in Zootopia (Byron Howard and Rich Moore, 2016). But then the same thing is true of the beautiful Lupita Nyong'o, whose voice is heard in The Jungle Book as the mother wolf Raksha, just as it was heard as the gnomelike Maz Kanata in Star Wars: Episode VII -- The Force Awakens (J.J. Abrams, 2015). Neel Sethi, this version's Mowgli, is the only live-action actor we see for most of the movie, and he displays a remarkable talent in a performance that took place before a green screen -- puppets stood in for the animals before CGI replaced them. The screenplay by Justin Marks is darker than the 1967 film, and it successfully generates plausible actions for its realistic animal characters. But I think it was a mistake to carry over the songs from the original film, partly because Bill Murray and Christopher Walken (as King Louie, the Gigantopithecus ruler of the apes) are not the equal of Harris and Prima as singers, but also because the animals for which they provide voices are made to move rhythmically -- as a substitute for dancing -- in ways that don't quite suit realistic animals. Director Jon Favreau has also slipped in an allusion to Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979) in his introduction of King Louie, lurking in the shadows of a ruined jungle temple like Marlon Brando's Kurtz.

[a-roguish-gambit]

There actually is.

Remy has been a thorn in the side of the higher ups in marvel since his begining.

The dude was supposed to be a twist turn coat villain when he initially joined the x men and die switching sides again to undo his bs because he was written to fall for rogue and he cares more about her than his own life.

But that storyline got scrapped because the fans liked him too much and would riot if he died. So he became a permanent member of the cast and a love interest to rogue as his main defining trait.

But then after a bit he was perceived as a PR nightmare by some higher ups cause of his playboy-womanizerness and yeah early 90s comic book gambit was bad.

So they tried to kill him off again but the fans liked him too much and threw a fit.

So he stuck around and because one of his his main traits was his love for rogue, some people felt like it was hard to work with him. (Gee much like how it's hard to write female characters that are just meant to be love interests) And it meant it was hard to ship rogue with other people without pissing the fans off and turning them against their bombshell of the x men at the time, rogue. And because his whole thing was that he would literally die if it meant getting to kiss Rogue, it was really hard to come up with a way for him to break up with her or stop caring about her without either killing off Rogue or ruining Rogues character. Rogue would have to be the one to leave him

Then there was the whole Antarctica arc where they thought "oh if we tarnish his character enough the fans will hate him and we can finally be rid of him"

But no! People did not hate him and petitioned for him back, again.

So they did a solo run of him without rogue, and guess what? Our boy got fleshed out!!! Which made the fans like him more. But guess what we were denied: bi confirmed Gambit. The higher ups at the time literally refused to have Gambit written as bi they forced entire scenes to be rewritten.

In the 2000s-2010s Gambit also started getting phased out of other media. His animated appearances went down sharply and he was portrayed as a villain mostly in them, with his redemption arc getting canceled both times. He was written out of the x men movies multiple times, x men origins totally botched him and ruined his chances for reappearing in the wolverine franchise, and Channing Tatum went through hell trying to get a Gambit film series off the ground before it got scrapped when Disney took over.

Only recently has Gambit really gotten good treatment his way with Gambit and rogue and Mrs. And Mr. X series of comics, and now 97 and the DP movie. Yes, you heard me, 97 and dp3 are the good rep for Gambit. The best he's had in film/animation since x men evolution in particular.

It's sad man. Gambit has been the red-headed stepchild of the mutants since the start

Is there something about Remy that Marvel dislike with him bc it seems like every other content I see or the Marvel world he gets killed somehow and it's like why couldn't they just leave him alone

Though if I remember correctly before 97 the animated universe did him fair

[rltodcnder]

기생충 시계방향 소파신 다시보기 (PARASITE 2019)

기생충 시계방향 소파신 다시보기 (PARASITE 2019) 링크<<

기생충 시계방향 소파신 다시보기 (PARASITE 2019)

기생충 시계방향 소파신 다시보기 (PARASITE 2019)

기생충 시계방향 소파신 다시보기 (PARASITE 2019)

기생충 시계방향 소파신 다시보기 (PARASITE 2019)

기생충 시계방향 소파신 다시보기 (PARASITE 2019)

Like the Star Wars: The Clone Wars series, Dave Filoni participated in the production as a general manager, and the screenplay was written by X-Men's Simon Kinberg, Rogue One's Gary Whigg, Clone Wars' Henry Gilroy, as well as Greg Wiseman, Charles Murray, and Kevin Hobbs. has participated

On October 3rd, the TV movie was first aired on Disney Channel, and season 1 was aired on Disney XD in earnest on October 13th. In Japan, it has been airing since October 2015 on TV Tokyo. The season 2 TV movie premiered on in April 2015 and premiered on Disney XD on June 20. Ralph Macquarie participated in the design, and he passed away in 2012. In honor of Haja, many of the concept images drawn in the past were changed or discarded. For example, the design of the early A-wing that appears in the work appears as a concept image version he drew, and the spider-type monster 'Krikna' that appears at the end of season 2 is a design of a creature native to Dagoba that was not originally used in The Empire Strikes Back. was one of them.[1] C1-10P uses the earlier R2-D2 design.

And season 4 was confirmed as the final season, and it was aired on October 16, 2017, and ended on March 5, 2018. It's not bad. Still, the evaluation is good compared to the Clone Wars theatrical version, which marked the beginning of the Clone Wars series.[4]

There are many opinions that the expressions using the Force, like the Clone Wars animation, look a little weak. This direction may be intentional, as Kanan has only been trained to the Padawan level, and Ezra is just a newbie. Lightsaber Duel is said to be as satisfying as Clone Wars 3D. The problem is that the lightsaber design is very thin compared to the Clone Wars series, and there are many fans who are dissatisfied with this. If you don't like it, put it like a toothpick. In addition, there are no descriptions of sparks or flames that occur when lightsabers face each other, so there are many complaints that it seems like fighting with a glowing LED bar. The reason for this change was that the Rebel crew referenced the design of the early concept art of Ralph McQuarrie, who drew the concept art for the first Star Wars series in the 70's.[5] Maybe that's why the thin lightsaber design that came out here doesn't come out in other media, and the lightsaber of the characters from the rebels appearing in Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes also follows the thick sword design of the original.

In the same vein, Karazeb Orelius' design was also taken from the original Chewbacca's design in the same concept art. Also, Darth Vader's helmet has more ferocious eyes and a more protruding chin than in the movie, and this is also the result of partially reflecting the design of the concept art.

Unlike The Clone Wars, there are many parts that pay homage to the original trilogy. The aerial battle between the Ghost and TIE Fighter in the short animation pays homage to the showdown between the Millennium Falcon and TIE Fighter in A New Hope, and the speeder bike chase scene is also similar to the chase scene in Return of the Jedi. Unlike the Clone Wars TV series, which mostly used its own OST, the soundtrack of the original trilogy was used for the background sound, and the artwork also used the clunky and clunky sound of the original trilogy, not the smooth look shown in the clone wars and prequels. It appeared with a rough design. The phase 1 helmet of the clone trooper that appeared in the work[6] was changed to a design similar to the movie version rather than the design seen in the previous clone wars, and the character design was rounded and the costume or alien design was simplified.

Until season 2, the 15-year-old main character, Ezra, never killed anyone. It's not that people don't die, but it's not like the clone wars 3D, and in many scenes, stormtroopers hit by blasters bounced off with lightsabers are shown a lot of falling and wriggling, expressing "they're not dead." However, all of the tie fighter pilots who dogfighted with Ghost were killed. However, in season 3, Ezra, who has grown up, uses mind tricks to make stormtroopers shoot at each other and just slices them up with a lightsaber, so we can no longer see the non-killing principle.

[raceforthecrown]

Racial Representation, Concluded

One of Disney’s newer princess movies, Moana, also came under fire for some racial stereotyping. Even though Moana wanted to sail far away to explore and there was no male love interest in the movie, Disney did not make a movie that was faultless. One critique states, “The film’s male mythological figure, Maui, a demigod of South Pacific legend, has also been criticised for being too big and bulky, and giving a distorted view of Polynesians (Brook).” This misrepresentation could influence the way children think of male Polynesians. Even though it is an animated movie with fictional characters, it still could make an impression on young children who will now associate that image with Polynesians.

Regarding Moana herself, one conservative critic had the following opinion: “Debbie Schlussel sees a thicker framed Moana as one more example of political correctness gone too far. ‘I think it tells girls that they don’t have to be fit,’ she says. ‘I think it’s setting up girls for unhealthy lives in the future and also for disappointing romantic lives.’ (Brook).” Moana is a perfectly healthy-looking female, but this contrasts with the classic era of princesses who were rail-thin with disproportionately long limbs and seemingly “perfect” appearances. Shifting to a more realistic-looking character has now made critics feel that this would be detrimental to children’s thoughts of body image. However, did they make those same arguments when the characters were unattainably skinny and perfect in every way? And if a white princess was created with a fuller figure than its predecessors, would that cause as much of a stir? That remains to be seen.

Another princess movie that could negatively impact children’s views on bodies and culture is Mulan. The first Chinese princess, Mulan, was strong-willed and more masculine than other princesses. Most of the previous princesses “were all beautiful, graceful, had special connections with animals/nature, were talented singers and were white (Russell 9).” This was the previous stereotype of princesses. However, in Mulan, there were stereotypes in other ways. “Mulan, for example, is widely criticized for its elevation of individualism (Dong, 2006), racist and cultural slurs against Chinese culture, and its negative impact on children through encouraging such racial stereotyping (Artz, 2004). A film clip that helps raise the consciousness of viewers is a playing of a song with the words, ‘Men want girls... with good breeding and a tiny waist.’ (van Wormer, and Juby 584).” This is degrading not only to women but to Asians who wanted to watch the movie and be presented respectfully, not to be seen as predatory and judgmental. Though the original Disney movie was culturally significant, it came out in a film era when people of color were routinely tokenized (Chen). Again, Disney had good intentions but did not execute it well.

Even though Disney tried to become more inclusive, it did not excel in all ways. “Despite the emergence of more empowered Disney heroines, they often don’t get the same coverage as their traditional counterparts – particularly in Disney’s merchandise (Brook).” There is much more merchandise with the white princesses on them than with the newer princesses. It may be because they are the “original” princesses, but there is an inequity of race in the merchandise. Jasmine is commonly featured with the original group of white princesses, but she is not really a princess as we know some like Cinderella and Ariel to be, since they had their own movies made about them and Jasmine was mostly a supporting character. For princesses like Mulan, Pocahontas, and Tiana not to have an equivalent amount of merchandise with them on it seems like a discrepancy based on race since new princesses like Rapunzel from Tangled and Merida from Brave appear on merchandise more frequently as well. “‘If you look at the Disney’s line of products, like lunch boxes and t-shirts, you see Belle, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty often standing together. Even though princesses like Pocahontas and Mulan are technically still part of the line they’re very rarely included in those type of products,’ explains Condis. (Brook).” Overall, Disney is doing much better in including princesses of all races, but they can do better in accurately representing people of all cultures and races.

Citations:

Brook, Tom. “The Controversy behind Disney's Groundbreaking New Princess.” BBC Culture, BBC, 28 Nov. 2016, https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161128-the-controversy-behind-disneys-groundbreaking-new-princess.

Chen, Brian X. “'Mulan' 1998: A Moment of Joy and Anxiety for Asian-American Viewers.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 4 Sept. 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/04/movies/mulan-animated-1998.html.

Gehlawat, Ajay. “The Strange Case of The Princess and the Frog: Passing and the Elision of Race.” Journal of African American Studies, vol. 14, no. 4, Dec. 2010, pp. 417–31. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-010-9126-1.

Russell, Brooklyn, "Disney Minority Heroines: A Rhetorical Analysis of Race, Gender, and American Politics" (2018). Open Access Theses. 1588. https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/open_access_theses/1588

van Wormer, Katherine, and Cindy Juby. “Cultural Representations in Walt Disney Films: Implications for Social Work Education.” Journal of Social Work, vol. 16, no. 5, Sept. 2016, pp. 578–94. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1177/1468017315583173.

[qqueenofhades]

I always saw Obi-Wan as an asexual kind of guy. Maybe that's because I'm old enough to remember when we only had the OT and he was already old. And dead for most of it. Anyway, part of why I love Star Wars is the emphasis on friendships and how strong and rewarding they can be without romantic feelings (although Han/Leia was my first ship). May we all have such people in our lives. All interpretations are valid of course and people love what they love, just wanted to share another point of view!

I mean, that's basically how I also envision him: my "Obi-Wan Kenobi as queer text" meta described my personal headcanon of him as biromantic asexual, and that's what the other post seemed to be hinting at in: re whatever they put in the book. After all, remember kids, ignore the exclusionists: asexuality is a full and complete queer identity on its own, and doesn't need other modifiers or qualifiers to be considered legitimate. So yeah. But as I said, he has radiated such intense bisexual sass disaster energy for the longest time, and I am frankly shocked that the Disney overlords allowed even a single sentence in a YA book that might hint at confirming this. To be honest, I don't care one way or another what the Mouse says about anything, particularly SW canon, since I reject what they have done with most of it. But hey. It's nice to have anyway.

As I also mentioned in the tags, Obi-Wan is a particularly formative character for me as a queer adult, since some of my first-ever forays into fandom, fic, and slash came as a result of reading TPM-era fics with him back in the dark days, with badly designed Web pages and SLASH!! content warnings. I imprinted on him as queer long before I knew what that was either for him or for me, and so I have a certain nostalgic perspective on it. (Also, nobody could read the Revenge of the Sith novelization in 2005, come out totally emotionally destroyed, and go, "yeah, Obi-Wan is totally straight." Even if I didn't, again, actually consciously realize this at the time.)

Likewise, Obi-Wan's appearance in the original trilogy has always fit the "celibate or asexual wise-old-mentor" stereotype, who exists mostly to guide the hero but doesn't have particular passions or motivations of his own. Then they cast Ewan McGregor as the younger version of him, and Ewan McGregor is likewise very attractive. But then in prequel-verse, all of Obi-Wan's most formative and important emotional relationships were with men (Qui-Gon, Bail Organa, etc) and then, of course, Anakin and the "it's a love story" Obi-Wan Kenobi series. So the more canon we got past just Alec Guinness, the more intensely Obi-Wan read as queer to me. The man cannot even sit straight (see his pose in the Council seat in ROTS), drops his cloaks with utter drama, sasses people, and is the utter opposite of toxic masculinity. He just has Big Queer Energy, in other words, and I felt it for a long time before I was able to properly name it in either him or myself.

Indeed, Obi-Wan would read pretty clearly as gay to me, except for the fact that they apparently added in some pseudo-girlfriend in the Clone Wars animated series and other assorted female interests in the expanded-universe books. Which, quite frankly, can't help but sound like "welp, this famous and beloved character is TOO queer-coded, better add in some comphet to tone that down." However, aside from my personal attachment to queer Obi-Wan, there's another aspect to it which I think is touching and important, and that is the fact that Luke is also often headcanoned as queer/gay/bi of some description (which Mark Hamill has enthusiastically supported). Considering that the original trilogy came out in the late '70s and early '80s, just as we were losing what should have been our entire generation of gay/queer ancestors to AIDS, I would find it very lovely if Luke, a queer man, was being mentored by Obi-Wan, his queer elder, in a way that we were so often denied the chance to have in reality. So yes. There are a lot of layers to it, in my view, and as I said, I don't care whether they bother to put one sentence in an EU book or not. The heart knows what it knows. Ahem. ;)

[otnesse]

Agreed with everything save for MAYBE the selfish bit. And that's mostly because I have a pretty strict definition on what selfishness is. I guess if you want a good idea of what selfishness would actually entail, at least as I take it, I'd direct you to this video involving Kuzco, especially how he treated Pacha in their first scene together (the send-off scene, where he almost relished in Pacha being angry at his trying to destroy his home and village for Kuzcotopia):

And of all the examples I could show of selfishness (Dr. Weil, Kefka Palazzo's taunts towards Kuja after Lightning beat the latter, Wesker's treatment of Excella), I settled with Kuzco because that guy was specifically meant to be the HERO of the movie (the other characters were explicit villains, and in the case of Kefka and Kuja was the case of a villain mocking another villain for a loss).

I won't deny her deal with Ursula was most certainly a very low point for her character, and most certainly made her flawed ultimately, but I would NEVER call her selfish in even that event.

EDIT: Okay, another thing I disagree with ultimately (probably the only other thing I disagree with) is the bit about comparing Ariel's arc to LGBT stuff. Here's my problem with that idea: Ariel was still very much into the opposite sex in that movie, still wanted to go for Eric. It simply CANNOT work as an LGBT allegory at all (since the point of allegory is to communicate the point in a more indirect fashion, like how Animal Farm was meant to convey Stalinist Russia's horrid nature without upsetting the British censors due to the events of World War II. When the character is explicitly shown to only be interested in the opposite sex, they simply CANNOT be an allegory at all since the whole POINT behind LGBT is basically they're interested in the same sex, at least in part. Probably the closest we ever got to actual gay allegories with otherwise straight females is with Sex and the City, and that's only because the girls there were very thinly-veiled standins for gay men as acknowledged by the writers and even those who actually hailed from NYC.). Besides, I if anything identified with Ariel as someone who, while straight, is also on the Autism spectrum (that's probably the closest I'll ever get to identifying as "queer", insofar as I'm eccentric due to my autism, and eccentric acts as a synonym of strange just as queer originally did.), and the genuine challenges that I had to undergo there (and it's not even clear if Andersen's sexuality was even a factor in the original tale since there's at least two different versions of it that indicated Andersen either had unrequited feelings with the fiancee of his best friend, or even insecurities over his being ugly by the standards of Danes at the time.). Plus, let's not forget Glen Keane also was a primary influence in Ariel's characterization as well, and he specifically modeled Ariel after his wife, at least in part. In fact, focusing on the LGBT stuff for Ariel ironically enough ends up othering a significant part of the fans who really did like her character without even THINKING of those elements (even Disney made it clear it was meant for boys and girls of all ages, and presumably also straight people), ends up wrecking a large part of WHY she's beloved as well. I definitely appreciate the sentiment of defending Ariel from her haters, don't get me wrong, but that particular defense if anything is more likely to HARM Ariel in the long run than actually help her.

Ariel for the character ask

I assume this means Ariel in Disney's The Little Mermaid, not Ariel in The Tempest. I hope I'm right.

Favorite thing about them: She's just an all-around likable heroine. Lively, warm, fun-loving, strong-willed, passionate, flawed in relatable ways, and sympathetic in her longing to explore a new world (which can be viewed through several different layers of applicability – from a teenager longing to enter the adult world, to a young woman seeking freedom from patriarchal oppression, to a young LGBT+ person seeking a life where they can be their authentic self, to an open-minded person defying their family's prejudice against another culture, and probably more), as well as her complex relationship with her loving yet controlling father. And of course her singing voice, courtesy of Jodi Benson, is outstanding.

Least favorite thing about them: Her deal with Ursula, not only because it's foolish and nearly results in Ursula taking over the sea kingdom (although I don't blame Ariel for not predicting that Ursula would use her to bait Triton into sacrificing himself), but because it's selfish – choosing to leave her father and her sisters forever without even saying goodbye. Now I don't hold it against her. She's an impulsive teen, she's in love, she's deeply hurt by her father destroying all her human treasures, and this is the only way she sees to be her true self and live a life of her own choosing. Nor do I find fault with her choice to become human, just the circumstances. But it's still a mistake, and while she does apologize to her father when he comes to save her from Ursula, it's brief and quickly overshadowed by Triton's self-sacrifice for her.

Three things I have in common with them:

*I tend not to fit in with the crowd.

*I enjoy collecting things.

*I like the ocean, but I don't want to live in it.

Three things I don't have in common with them:

*I don't have red hair.

*I don't have any sisters.

*I can't imagine myself ever trading my voice to a witch.

Favorite line: All the lyrics to "Part of Your World," both the original song and its reprise.

brOTP: Flounder, Scuttle, Sebastian, and her father when they resolve their differences.

OTP: Prince Eric.

nOTP: Her father or Ursula.

Random headcanon: She was the only single birth of Triton and Athena's daughters. Her sisters are all sets of twins or triplets. This explains why none of them are married yet or seem much older than she is, even though she's the youngest of seven.

Unpopular opinion: While I understand all the popular feminist criticism aimed at her, I can't bring myself to agree with it. I wish people would learn about Howard Ashman, and how much of himself he put into Ariel, before they label her a "whiny brat" who "sells her soul for a man" and who "should have died like Andersen's mermaid to show what happens when you sacrifice everything for lust." Knowing that the movie's lyricist was a gay man living in the middle of the AIDS crisis, which would claim his life two years later, and that he infused Ariel's character with his own feelings of alienation and longing for freedom to live and love as he chose (even her voice actress Jodi Benson has confirmed that Ariel is Ashman in many ways), really makes you view her in a new light. So does knowing that Andersen's original story has much the same subtext: Andersen was bisexual, and the tale was evidently inspired by his own "fish out of water" feelings and his unrequited love for another man. And just because Andersen, writing in the 19th century, viewed a self-sacrificial death and heavenly reward as the only possible "happy" ending for someone like him his mermaid, why shouldn't a modern adaptation offer more hope and give Ariel an earthly happy ending? Now of course Ariel isn't a gay man, she's a straight girl, and it is fair to question the message her story sends to girls, since any other message is only subtext. But it's still worthwhile to know the story's entire context, and question whether your critiques of her character seem to say "Misfits should suck it up and stay in their place" or not.

Song I associate with them: What else?

Favorite pictures of them:

[adarkrainbow]

A look at Disney’s Three Little Pigs

Let’s delve in the world of Disney’s Silly Symphonies for real this time, by looking at the most famous one of them all: Disney’s Three Little Pigs.

Released in 1933, this Silly Symphony was very different from the others due to a number of factors. Up until now all the Silly Symphonies were mostly exercises in animation, illustrations of music pieces made of funny movements and surreal/cartoonesque visuals with no precise or important plot - or if there was one in the first place, the characters themselves were very basic, plain, flat, merely tools and designs. The Three Little Pigs not only placed the story (or rather the adaptation of a story) first, focusing more on the plot than on the “symphony” part ; and it was the first of those animated shorts to actually give personalities to the characters, unique designs, a more in-depth essence. This is what made this short animation so successful - and we can say that it was one of the prototypes that would lead to the classic animated Disney movies we know today.

But since this blog is all about fairytales, let’s look at how Disney’s famous version of the tale compares with the original text of Joseph Jacobs.

# The animated short begins with the three pigs building out their respective houses. From the start, it is made clear that a morality is at play here. The first two pigs build hastily their houses of hay and twigs to have more free time to dance, sing and play ; meanwhile, the third pig, building his house out of bricks, clearly says he has no time to sing or dance because “work and play don’t mix”. This is clearly presented as the main flaw of the first two pigs, and the reason they become victims of the wolf: they were too lazy, too carefree, too obsessed with the pleasures of the world. Meanwhile, the hard-working pig can finally at the end, when his house is fully built, enjoy playing the piano. 

The other flaw of the two little pigs is their lack of fear, as they mock their brother’s fear of the wolf with the iconic rhyme “Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” - and as it turns out, despite all their bravado, they are the most scared of the Wolf while their brother is the brave one. As it turns out, his worry is just cautioness, prudence, reason, something the two firsts are visibly lacking. 

If we compare to the original tale, the beginning is very different. In the original tale, the three little pigs are actually “sent into the world” by their mother, an old sow, so that they can “make their fortune” (a typical fairytale beginning, the three sons sent into the world). And the building of their houses is in no way related to any kind of laziness or carefreeness - rather, the “sin” of the first two pigs would be foolishness. During their journey the three pigs meet three men carrying different materials: straw,  furze and bricks. One by one the pigs ask one of the carrier for his loads, so that they can build a house out of it: their fault here relies in them choosing the wrong materials, and trying to take advantage of the wrong encounters in their life. The third pig waits until he meets the most useful material to build a house, while the first two pigs choose poorly-working ones. 

It should be noted that the brotherly care and the “youth” of the three little pigs in the tale is kept in the Disney short, but in a slightly different way. They are clearly all of the same family, as in the third pig’s house there is a framed picture of a sow titled “MOTHER” (and in a grim joke, there are two portraits of “FATHER”, one representing sausages, the other a ham - which seems to be an answer as why in the original tales the three little pigs only have one mother with no father in sight). And the first two pigs are clearly meant to symbolize kids: on top of their childish behavior (carefree, braggarts, easily scared), they also are voiced by women where their brother (the “big” brother) is voiced by a man, and they wear outfits typically associated with children while the third pig is dressed in an adult worker’s outfit. Everything was made to show that only the third of the pigs reached maturity. 

# It should be noted that in the original tale, there is no “Big Bad Wolf”. The wolf is just “a wolf” that happens to come by the pigs’ houses. In fact, I actually wonder about the origin of the very term “Big Bad Wolf” - as most fairytales, from Grimm to Perrault, only speak of a “wolf”. I do wonder if Disney did not actually “invent” the term Big Bad Wolf. It would make an interesting research subject - especially since the only origin for the name I could found for now is “originates from the early 20th century”. 1933 for this short: the dates kind of coincide. 

Speaking of the Wolf, his aspect here deserves a mention. It is something people really rare talk about. He is dressed in torn pants held by suspenders, but with no shirt. He has white gloves, like most early Disney animal characters, but no shoes, and the rest of his outfit is just a worn-out top-hat and a big handbag. This outfit is clearly meant to evoke a vagrant, a hobo - especially as we are still in the “Great Depression” era. Not only does this brings the inherent danger of the vagrants, that for a very long time were denounced as criminals, thief, murderers - but it also adds an additional layer of meaning to the building of houses. The pigs, creatures of civilization, build houses to live in and protect themselves - protect themselves from the wild and savage roaming wolf, who is a purely homeless creature that wanders the roads. The clash and opposition between the two creatures, the pig and the wolf, is also very obvious in the design. The pigs are short, plump, hairless, where the wolf is tall, lanky and hairy ; and while the wolf sports all the “evil” colors (red, black, dark green) the pigs are rather in the “light” and “pastel” colors of pink, yellow, blue... 

[I could even go as far as claim that the bag-holding, top-hat wearing, trickster and malevolent wolf could be a reference to the archetype of the “carpetbagger”, the big villain of the tales of the old’ South after the Civil War... But it is a whole another topic I won’t delve into too much]

[I have to point out the pictures of a female pig dancing with a banana-skirt in the house of the straw-pig. They are a reference to the iconic banana-skirt dancer, Joséphine Baker, who became famous for this specific dance and outfit in the 20s. The stick-pig also has portraits in his house, but I cannot see what they are]

# In the original fairytale, the pig is very straightforward when it comes to dealing with the houses. He arrives at each house, asks “Little pig, little pig, let me come in” ; the pig answers “No, no, by the hair of my chiny chin chin” [Interestingly in the version I read this is how the sentence was written, not the “No, not by the hair of my chiny chin chin” used in the short and known in popular culture], the wolf answers “Then I’ll puff, and I’ll huff, and I’ll blow your house in”. [Again, in the Disney short they change the line for “I’ll huff and I’ll puff”, and today it is how this line is remembered]. Then the houses are destroyed and the pigs eaten, until comes the brick house, at which point the wolf, understanding he can’t bring down the walls, decide to trick the pig, only for the pig to trick him back. 

Here, things are changed. Of course, the pigs are not eaten - it stays a cute and “silly” short for children, so Disney can’t have the cute little pigs being killed on screen. They just run to their brothers’ houses one by one, so that in the end all three brothers are alive. (I actually do not know if the change was caused by Disney or if versions with this “softened” ending already existed prior). But the other main change is that the wolf does not wait for the brick house to start trying to trick the pigs - and unlike in the original tale, where the wolf tricks the pig with meetings at the market and other agreed “dates”, here the wolf uses disguises to try to enter the houses. This shows how Disney was actually influenced by other famous fairytales using wolves, such as Little Red Riding Hood or The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats, in which the wolf tricks people into letting him in. In fact, in the original tale the wolf actually tries to lure the pig OUTSIDE, as he understands his attempts at entering will all fail (and indeed, when he tries, he dies). 

While he doesn’t trick the straw-pig, as he just destroys his house, he first tries to destroy the stick-pig, before blowing his house when the trick fails. He uses a sheep skin (a literal “wolf in sheep clothing”) and pretends to be a poor little baby sheep. The reference to The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats is obvious, but the trickery fails - which shows that the default of the two first pigs is not that they are stupid. It is rather that they are too careless. 

# When the wolf hunts down the two little pigs, he knocks himself down on an apple tree. I am pretty sure it is a reference to one of the original trickeries of the wolf in the tale: in Joseph Jacob’s story, the wolf invites the pig to come pick apples with him at a good apple-tree in “Merry-garden”. The pig, knowing it is a trick, arrives at the apple tree earlier than they had agreed to, and takes all the apples - but as he finishes his job the wolf arrives. The wolf asks if the apples are good, and the scared little pig answers that yes and offers him one - by throwing it away. The wolf goes to pick it up, but the pig threw the apple so far that it leaves him enough time to return home, safe.

[Another detail I can mention about the Disney short is how this Silly Symphony immortalized the concept of the “inflatable Big Bad Wolf”. As in, to show him “huff and puff” in the most literal and cartoonesque way, the Big Bad Wolf actually expands his chest like a balloon before blowing the houses - with the comical effects of his overalls buttons popping off. In a similar way, when he fails to blow the brick house, the Big Bad Wolf deflates and has to catch his breath with pumping sounds. All of this gives the wolf a disturbing illogical, abnormal anatomy which, despite fitting in a cartoon world, does contrast the pigs’ bodies who actually follow a more “traditional” anatomy and body logic]

# In the original tale, after the wolf fails to destroy the brick house, he tries to lure the third little pig into his clutches with three different agreed meetings: one in a field to pick up turnips, one by an apple tree to pick up apples (see above), and one at a fair in Shanklin (remember, the tale is British of origin). In the short, precisely due to its “short” nature, and the survival of the two dead brothers, the scenario had to be changed: as with the previous attack on the stick house, before blowing the house the wolf tries to trick the pigs into opening up by disguising himself into... Ah yes, we reach the censored and controversial point of the tale. By disguising himself into a Jewish Peddler (later turned into a “Fuller Brush Man who made his way through Harvard” after WW2). I could bring up Disney’s early antisemitism  and the poor treatment of Jews in the Grimm fairytales, but I’ll let you search all of this by yourself. The only thing I’ll mention is that the constant tricking through disguises in front of a locked house prefigures here what would be Disney’s first movie and one of its most famous fairytale adaptations: Snow-White.

# When the Big Bad Wolf tries to blow the brick house in, he fails - but very interestingly, in the process he actually destroys or leaves his human clothes. By the end of his “huffing and puffing and blowing”, the Wolf literaly abandoned his first “disguise”, the one of a human being, and he returned fully to what he is: a wolf. A pure, animalistic, bestial wolf, with no semblance of humanity. This is when he tries to enter the house through the chimney. In the original tale, the ending of the wolf is quite grim: as he slides down the chimney, the pig puts a pot of boiling water undearth in which the wolf falls. The pig puts a lid on it, boils the wolf alive, and once he is done “cooking” he eats him, the same way the wolf ate his brothers. 

Of course, Disney couldn’t keep that ending, so while they keep the cauldron of boiling oil, the wolf merely falls in it, burns himself and jumps back out of the chimney in pain. The thematic of eating and the reversal of the devouring roles is still present, but in a more subtle way: the salivating, hungry wolf ready to jump on his prey doesn’t realize that he is naked in a boiling cauldron, as if he was the one being cooked. However, while Disney removed the most gruesome part, they added an extra violence, by having the third pig put Turpentine in the boiling water, adding to the pain inflicted on the wolf. And the beast leaves in the very opposite of his arrival: he first manifested in clothes, standing up on two legs, silently hiding behind the trees ; and he leaves the short on all fours, howling in pain, naked and dragging his behind on the floor. Again, from an imitation of a human he returns to being a full beast. 

[beanswrites]

Ranking all Disney men based on how good of a guy they actually are Pt.3

Welcome back all residents of Earth, Jupiter and Australia, to another part of the series where I simp for animated, mostly 2D men (in the continuation of this I will also be simping for women), formally known as me ranking Disney male characters on this list.

In the last one we have seen some pretty decent, but still not amazing characters, but that's about to change in about 10 seconds (depends on how fast you read). The next part will be the last part, so stay tuned to see who's on top!

Part 2 | Part 4

20. Prince Eric, from "The Little Mermaid"

You're gonna hate me for this one..

Okay, yeah, this guy over here is probably one of the most loved Disney men to exist. I even read somebody else's similar chart to mine where they put Eric ON TOP, and I feel that

Look, he's beautiful, really. Those deep blue eyes mixed with the black hair are very reasonable reasons to love him, but I've just never been obsessed with him. I do understand the hype, but I'm not feeling it.

Looks: 7/10 If I met a guy like this in real life, I'd be swooning HARD. He does have really pretty eyes.

Personality: 7/10 He's good. A little dumb, but still good. I mean, who doesn't like a cute doofus?

Overall score: 7/10

19. Prince Philip, from "The Sleeping Beauty"

THIS GUY !! THIS FREAKING GUY !!

Prince Philip is one of the hottest Disney character and that's that.

The only thing that has ever bothered me about this man is the fact that he doesn't understand the concept of consent. you can't just kiss her YOU FOOL-

But she didn't seem to mind (neither would I)

Looks: 7.25/10 Blondish hair, perfectly brown eyes.. To be honest, Philip is the ultimate original Disney prince and he could eat Florian and Henry for breakfast.

Personality: 7/10 I feel like nobody in this movie had much text except Maleficent and the fairies, but from what he did have, he's a good guy. Great singing voice too.

Overall score: 7,12/10

18. Hercules, from "Hercules"

Honey, you mean HUNK-ules?

She sure did, fellas.

But no like I love Herc, I really do, but this version of him has literately NOTHING to do with the actual Greek mythology. As a Greek mythology enthusiast some things in this movie were painfully inaccurate (like Hera being a loving mom), but I still think this movie deserved MULTIPLE Oscars.

Looks: 6.5/10 Listen, I do like beefy, but not THAT beefy. I love the fact that he had super strength even when he was skinny, he just decided to get jacked for the aesthetic. Plus his knees are drawn a bit weird.

Personality: 8/10 He's cute, clumsy, and somehow a complete dumbass, and we LOVE him for that. Probably one of the most down-to-earth heroes ever.

Overall score: 7.25/10

17. Kovu, from "The Lion King 2: Simba's pride"

Remember how I said that I'm not into lions?

Yeah, well, I lied.

I feel like Kovu was everyone's childhood crush, regardless of your sexuality

the only two people who do The Smolder™ that well is this fine lion over here and a certain thief (but more about that later)

Looks: 8/10 Yes, I did it. I gave a lion an 8/10. Am I proud? No. Am I ashamed? Certaintly. Would I do it again? Absolutely.

Personality: 7/10 Listen folks, it's been a LONG time since I've seen this movie. Like, a really long time. The only thing I do remember is that this movie was like 10928289192831 times better than the first one, all because of this dude. This lion over here is the original emo bad boy and some people are still mad about that.

Overall score: 7.5/10

16. Nick Wilde, from "Zootopia"

Remember that time when I said that this list is gonna have another fox on it?

Yeah, now's that time. It's called a hustle, sweetheart.

Honestly (again, in the most respectful way possible) if Nick Wilde isn't the hottest animated fox to ever exist then I do not know of such thing. Somehow they created a character so charismatic and generally awesome that people were able to look past the fact that he's a literal fox.

Looks: 7/10 I'm.. I'm confused?? I'm SURE he's not supposed to be this good looking. I'm sure they didn't MEAN for him to be this good looking.

Personality: 8/10 THIS MAN is one of the greatest examples of character development today. He really went from being a sarcastic jerk who resells ice cream on the streets to being A FREAKING POLICE OFFICER

Overall score: 7.5/10

15. Pietro Maximoff, from "Avangers: Age Of Ultron"

Yay, finally a Marvel character!

Even tho the Maximoff siblings are the greatest, and I REALLY love his accent

I just

I'm sorry

But you can't look me in the eye and tell me that he's the best looking man in Marvel

You can't!

Looks: 7.5/10 He's really cute with his blonde hair and blue eyes, but unfortunately there are some better characters on this list.

Personality: 7.5/10 Again, I really love him, but like.. Where's the ✨spice✨? Where's the ✨flavour✨?

Overall score: 7.5/10

14. Li Shang, from "Mulan"

Not to be rude or anything, but if you don't think that Shang is bisexual, you ARE wrong

I don't make the rules

He literately was in love with Mulan when he thought she was a dude

And we STAN him for that

Looks: 7.75/10 Mulan wasn't the only soldier that gasped when this man took his shirt off. Let that sink in.

Personality: 7.5/10 Listen, he is great, and really cool, but I just thought he was a bit... cold. Emotionally. There was no real love confession in this movie (a bit refreshing, but still weird), and he thaught me that the best way to say that you love someone is to just say:

"You fight good."

Overall score: 7.62/10

13. Camilo Madrigal, from "Encanto"

When I was first making this list, Encanto wasn't out and then I had to REARRANGE the entire thing just because of this wholesome man right here

shame on you, you cute bastard, SHAME

okay I really watched Encanto expecting to not fall for anyone🤡

Looks: 7.75/10 I CANNOT get over the smile. Plus his hair looks really fluffy and curly so that's really cute

Personality: 7.75/10 This man is the sassiest, best character in Encanto. Yeah, SURE, he does only get a couple of minutes of screen time in the movie, but those are THE BEST minutes of the movie

Overall score: 7.75/10

12. Tony Stark, from "Iron Man"

Ah yes, the Marvel billionare playboy.

I remember when I first watched Iron Man 1 and I thought that I wasn't gonna fall for him because I thought that liking him was "basic"

Well, by that logic, now I have to introduce myself as "the most basic bitch ever"

CAUSE I LOVE THIS GUY

Looks: 7.75/10 He's a good looking fella, I completely understand why women basically fall at his feet, but at least, for me, his personality is really what makes him hot.

Personality: 8/10 This man is not only the CEO of Stark Industries, but he's also the CEO of being super extra mega sarcastic and cocky. We, as a whole, love him for that. Usually I cringe at the "playboy billionare" type but this man does it SO WELL it's impossible to hate him

Overall score: 7.87/10

11. Prince Adam, from "Beauty and The Beast"

Yeah, I definately had to rate Beast and Adam seperately.

My four-year-old ass was SHOOKETH when I saw how different he was when a human. Have to admit, I still do.

Looks: 8.5/10 This is a HUGE improvement. I like how they kept his big blue eyes, and kind of kept his mane by giving him long hair, but also lost the horns.

Personality: 7/10 If you read the last part, you know what I think of him. I LIVE for his character development, and I genuinenly think that he was just a lonely guy (with undiagnosed anger issues) who needed a bit of love.

Overall score: 7.87/10

--

Welp, there you have it. The last part will be the guys I ACTUALLY simp for, so ya know.. Check it out if you wanna see who gets number one!

Also, long time no post. I'm sorry to everyone who expected new fics and headcanons, shool just started for me, so it's hard focusing on schoolwork and posting. I will be more consistent tho, I promise!

[psychotakublabs]

We can all agree we did not see “Creepy Luz” coming. It was originally a theory created by It’s Rebecca Rose from figuring out who sent the letters. Turns out it was an actual double of Luz who is now impersonating her in the Human Realm. There is little to be known about this unknown person so for now they will be dubbed “Creepy Luz”. All we know is they have been sending letters to Camila since summer camp (which explains why Camila was so calm and happy during the texts), identical to Luz, and are impersonating her to take over her life. There are a few possibilities as to what Creepy Luz might be.

1) Doppelganger

Doppelgangers are unbiological and unrelated doubles of a living person. It’s translation from its original German meaning is “double-walker”. In folklore, myths, and fictions doppelgangers are seen as harbingers of bad luck, evil twin/self, or an alter ego. A doppelganger is an exact copy of the original person and even has the same feelings, experiences, and emotions. Basically nothing good comes from a doppelganger. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppelg%C3%A4nger explains more about doppelgangers. If you read the link you will notice a common theme in fiction, media, and folklore: a doppelganger is the double of a person with ill intent. Creepy Luz could be a doppelganger either from a rift in another world or from the Boiling Isles. If this is true, from how ominous Creepy Luz is, their reason for impersonating Luz will come with bad intentions. In the Camila clip in the trailer, we see red lines connecting to a newspaper clipping of a hooded figure with a staff and a key. We initially thought it was Camila looking for her daughter, but what if it’s Creepy Luz either trying to find their way back to the Boiling Isles? Would be counterintuitive as they want to impersonate Luz but we don’t really know why. Dana did mention she loved the “evil doppelganger theory” but kept it quiet probably for this reason (respect for keeping the secret so well). Now there are holes in this such as how did this doppelganger come into existence (probably magic but by whom?), their reasoning for going back to the Boiling Isles, how does Creepy Luz sound mechanical if they are an exact copy, and why Luz since she went to the Boiling Isles by accident.

2) Changeling

Changelings are human-like creatures (usually fairies but not exclusively) that have been left in place of a human stolen by fairies. In folklore, changelings are usually switched from sickly or underdeveloped newborns and either stay with the human family or return to the realm of magic. There are rare instances where changelings do switch with grown humans (usually for marital reasons or for nurturing the young).  Sometimes a changeling does not know they are one and usually exhibit unusual behavior when left alone. However, there are some instances where they do know about their identity and want to return to their fairy family. Sometimes the human child switched will also stay with the fairy family. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changeling explains more about changelings. Creepy Luz being a changeling could be likely. It is not impossible for a changeling to switch with someone after childhood and their reasoning could be outside of marital and nurturing reasons such as wanting a family of their own or just messing with Luz. Like their name, they can change into a human and be a copy of the one they wish to impersonate. It does not mean they can copy their experiences, feelings, or emotions which would explain why the letters looked mechanical and the misspelling of Luz.  However, they are trapped in the Human Realm and from the Camila clip in the trailer may be trying to find their way back; they know their identity as a changeling and want to go back to the Boiling Isles. Interestingly, changeling folklore is theorized to be derived from children who were born underdeveloped or abnormally (deformed, disabled, or neurodivergent). In autistic culture, some adults have identified with changelings for this reason and for feelings of being in a world where they do not belong and not being the same species as others around them. The creator confirmed Luz is neurodivergent and I would not be surprised if the team made Creepy Luz a changeling because of the history and folklore behind them. Only holes in this theory are why they chose Luz, how they were able to impersonate her so well, and how much of a copy is Creepy Luz to Luz.

3) Shapeshifter

Shapeshifters are beings that can physically transform their bodies at will through inherent ability, divine intervention, magic or sorcery, demonic manipulation, or spells. Shapeshifters mostly shift into animal forms in folklore, myths, media, and literature. But that does not mean there are stories of shifting into human forms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapeshifting explains more about shape shifting. Usually done with animals turning into people but the myths/powers of shapeshifters is very flexible in fiction. It wouldn’t be far off for Creep Luz to be a shapeshifter. Probably a creature from the Boiling Isles who saw Luz and decided to shift into her, has some ill intentions or other reasons for stealing/impersonating her life, and used the summer camp to learn human culture. However, this only implies there are shapeshifters that can turn into humans, why impersonate humans to begin with, and how long they can hold out.

4) Clone

An interesting theory out there is Creepy Luz is a clone of Luz. Both in fiction and reality, clones are exact copies of an object, organic and/or man made. In fiction, a clone is usually copying a person for either experiments, research, labor/army force, or to extend one’s life span through another. In this case, it seems cloning Luz is for another plan outside those reasons. Since Creepy Luz went to summer camp, there is a theory that the camp cloned Luz. In the beginning of the series, Eda explained that folklore and myths are caused by leaks from the Boiling Isles. Although rare, like humans coming to the Boiling Isles, it could be possible for residents from the Boiling Isles to slip into the Human Realm. Maybe a creature from the Boiling Isles was able to clone Luz from their magic and has some reason for doing so.  However, there are holes in that theory such as reasons for a camp doing that, how they would clone Luz when she never went, and no information on said camp. If Creepy Luz is a clone, it was most likely done by some type of magic in the Boiling Isles. It could be from someone who has watched Luz for a while or it just happened out of nowhere. This theory does not have much merit as clones are usually scientific (Belos does use technology but doesn’t know about Luz until coming to the Boiling Isles) and there is no one who would want to clone Luz besides the camp or Belos/other magic organization. Still worth mentioning at least since Creepy Luz was already a surprise to us.

5) Another Creature Entirely/ Non-Existent 

Creepy Luz could be an entirely different creature all together. “The Owl House '' does take some of the residents from folklore in fantasy genres and ancient mythology but there have been creatures who are unique in the show (Tiny Nose, Warden Wrath, Grometheus, Hooty, etc). Creepy Luz could be a new creature from the Boiling Isles. Which means we have absolutely no idea what Creepy Luz actually is. All we know is Creepy Luz sent letters to Camila meaning they went to summer camp, seem to have a vague concept of what Luz and Camila’s relationship/interactions are, probably got Luz’s personality from the letters and interaction with Camila, knows about the Boiling Isles and wants to go back somehow, and has the ability to appear as Luz. There have been other theories going around in the fandom as well. Creepy Luz could be an illusion conjured by another witch. However, this means there was a witch watching Luz this entire time even before entering the Boiling Isles. Not impossible as there is a mysterious hooded figure from the trailer. But it would entail that they have a connection to the Human Realm or have access to see the Human Realm and have magic powerful enough to sustain Creepy Luz in the Human Realm. It’s not impossible but I think Belos would notice and try to get rid of them. Either this witch is crafty or Belos’s men are not doing a good job. Another theory is that Creepy Luz doesn’t exist and is just a hallucination from Camila’s stress and sadness of Luz missing. There are instances where if the trauma is too much, the brain can cause hallucinations that are very real to cope with. However, Camila seemed okay in ‘Enchanting Grom Fright” and “Keeping Up A-fear-ances” and interacted with Creepy Luz normally. The home also looked well kept and organized and nothing seems to be out of the ordinary. She also received physical letters and it’s not possible she wrote them herself because she knows Luz’s name and what they do for activities together. Camila also looks content that she received texts from Luz so she does not know she is missing from camp. This theory is probably the most far-fetched, but it’s worth mentioning at least. Honestly Creepy Luz can be anything from the Boiling Isles which means we have no idea what they are yet.

Now let’s get to how this affects Camila. We will see her again as there is a clip of her in the trailer we have not seen. However, it will not be towards the end of Season 2A (either 9 or 10). Now there are episode titles and descriptions of episode 9 and 10 but because they have not been officially released by Disney, I will not comment on them too much. From the short time we see Camila it seems she is doing okay and is under the assumption Creepy Luz is Luz. Now one would think Camila would notice changes in Luz. Creepy Luz is cunning and smart by going to the camp to not only study Luz and human culture but to fool Camila. Camila sent Luz to camp to help with her impulsive creativity and to fit in a little (does not make Camila a bad mom, I will rant about that later). Seeing her daughter change wouldn’t be a red flag for her. However, their ruse will not last for long. In the clip, we see Camila smiling until she puts the phone down and starts frowning. This is either a response to the messages from Luz or a response to Creepy Luz and their odd answers or behavior. She may start to think Creepy Luz suspicious and notice something is off. Even notice the newspaper clippings and conspiracy theory boards are off instead of Luz just being her usual weird self. Once she distances herself from Creepy Luz, she will look at the messages Luz sent (if they are sent) and wonder who this imposter is. If the messages haven’t been sent, then she will find out herself about Creepy Luz being an imposter (behavior, appearance, secret journals, interactions, etc). From seeing many scenarios from the fandom either two things will happen. 1) Camila will confront Creepy Luz and find out they are an imposter. Whether physical combat happens or they just go into a verbal confrontation, Creepy Luz’s disguise will falter and this may send Camila in an angry panicl. 2) Camila will keep interacting with Creepy Luz to find out more about Luz’s whereabouts. She will keep her knowledge of Creepy Luz a secret to find her daughter. However, this will create tension and both will slip up their true intentions. Now depending on what Creepy Luz is either their intentions are as simple as just messing with people or sinister like taking over Luz’s life for a purpose. We have to remember “The Owl House” is a horror comedy so there is bound to be some silliness either in the confrontation or Creepy Luz. However, from the conspiracy board, it seems Creepy Luz may want to go back to the Boiling Isles. Depending on their motives for that (if not related to Belos) the two may actually work together. Camila will help Creepy Luz get back to the Boiling Isles and Creepy Luz will help Camila find her daughter. Now this is only if that is the intention of Creepy Luz. There could be other intentions such looking for something for the “Day of Unity” (if related to Belos) or simply wanting Luz’s life. I do hope we get a confrontation with Creepy Luz, stating Camila accepted them easily because she wanted a normal daughter instead of Luz. Camila will be saddened because Creepy Luz is not all wrong but also becomes angry and realizes she does love Luz no matter her weirdness (again will go on a separate rant about Camila in another post). This will spur Camila further into finding Luz. However, this is just an imagined scenario in my head. The main point is Camila will find out about Creepy Luz’s true identity. Honestly, Creepy Luz was just a theory until now confirmed. I am excited to find out what Creepy Luz is, their intentions, and how Camila will find out/react to it. If you have any thoughts about Creepy Luz please comment I’d love to hear em!

[popculturebuffet]

Static Shock: Shock to the System and Aftershock Review

“You know what? 13 years ago, me and some friends sat in a restaurant all night and daydreamed about the kinds of stories we would tell if we had the chance. We wanted to expand the concept of superhero to include characters that kind of looked like us, who had some of the same background, experiences and dreams as we did. We wanted to create something fun that a new generation would respond to the same way we responded to our childhood heroes -and damn if we didn't succeed beyond my wildest dreams. Today, Static Shock is a household name with millions of fans of all ages (Is there stuff I'd do differently? Yeah, almost all of season four but why nitpick?) Static is the most successful thing I've ever helped create and I'm both proud and gratified that people have taken it into their hearts. “ 

Dwayne McDuffie, Co-Creator of Static and Writer for Static Shock

This review is dedicated to Dwayne McDuffie and Robert L. Washington III.                                                        Rest In Power Static Shock is awesome. I grew up with the show watching it both first run on the WB and second run on Cartoon Network and loved it as much as I did other large parts of my childhood courtsey of DC like Batman the Animated Series, Teen Titans and both Justice League Shows. What makes this unique among the DC Properties is that Static wasn’t really a big name when he got a show. He wasn’t even part of the DC Universe. 

See as I had no idea for probably a good decade, Static actually came from Milestone Comics, a company ran by and focused on african americans. The goal was understandable: While black heroes existed at the time, and there were some fantastic ones like Storm, Jim Rhodes and Steel... these guys weren’t the center of their universes. The big faces of the big  companies, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Iron Man, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash.. were white. So milestone was a shakeup of that with the main teams and heroes all being black, from Icon, an alien who’d lived among man but rather than end up in kansas like say superman ended up imprinting on a slave woman centuries ago and has been with us since, who was encouraged by an energetic teenager named Rocket to put on a costume and do something with his powers and his community, Hardware, a tech genius who had his work stolen by a white asshole and wanted to fight back and BLood Syndicate, a group of gang members all caught in the “The Big Bang”, a huge fight between all of Dakota, the midwest city where the comics take place, that ended when the police released a bunch of experimental gas that gave them all super powers. 

As most of you who have watched the show already know, this is where Static comes from. Static was the company making their own Spider-Man, i.e. a nerdy teenager who suddenly gets super powers, in this case Virgil Hawkins who at the prodding of a friend took a gun to The Big Bang to get revenge on a bully. .but ultimately couldn’t go through with it, decided it wasn’t him and got rid of the gun and ran.. and still ended up in it, becoming Static, a young hero dedicated to using his powers to fight other “Bang Babies”.. a term that dosen’t really sound that great and they really should’ve thought through. But Phrasing aside the character was great and I look forward to reading more and only haven’t because I have to buy the issues gradually, but DC is currently re-releasing the individual issues of Static, Icon, and Hardware weekly in anticipation of a reboot of Milestone Coming in May digitally on Comixology at only 2 bucks a pop, and rereleased the original print collections that were long out of print for 10 bucks each, though i’m getting static on it’s own since i’ts really not that much less expensive as it only collects four issues while Icon and Hardware both collect 8, so I can wait a bit there on Hardware and already own Icon: A Hero’s Welcome.. and really need to review it at some point. 

While Milestone’s output was good, at least from the two books i’ve read, with Robert Washinton III, who sadly not only ahs also passed but was fucking homeless for a while  in the 2000′s.. what the actual hell, writing Static alongside Dwayne McDuffie, whose later moved onto animation writing tons of Static episodes all of them classics including the school shooting episode, the first three rubberbandman episodes and both Anasazi episodes. Point is it had good writers and artists and even had a distrbution deal with DC, so they had a leg up on the glut of other comic book companies.. but happened to start at the start of the comic book crash, a huge downturn in sales in the 90′s as the speculator boom, i.e. a bunch of people assuming every number one would be worth golden and silver age money, forgetting a character has to BUILD INTREST and this stuff takes time, and whose attempts to sell fast flooded the market with comics no one wanted,, caused the roof to cave in and with a bunch of assholes pegging milestone as a “Company for black people” rather than you know, a company trying to add fucking diversity and represntation to the comics industry, and that simply wanted a unvierse that was centered around people of color instead of white guys. The company eventually had to shut down, and was left to lisencing.  This is where the show comes in. Producers HAD been trying to make shows based on Milestone for a while, as far back as the mid-90s and the company was was all for it but the closest it got was an x-men style team series using various characters whose first draft was terrible and whose second draft by Alan Burnett, a producer on various DC Animated shows who’d go on to produce Static Shock, that McDuffie and others really liked but sadly did not get picked up. eventually though with presistance Static ended up getting a series and as I said McDuffie went on to write for it though he did not develop it. Some changes went into place naturally to make it work for an early 2000′s kids show and while i’ll probably miss so since again, only read one issue as we go. But due to Milestone coming back my intrest was peaking, hence finally reading the copy of Icon I had to buy from the library years ago due to keeping it overdue but am now EXTREMLEY glad I own as i’ts incredibly rare and really damn good, and wanting to read static, doing so lately since it’s finally on digtiial and again not too expensive. So join me as I give you a shock to the system and revisit this hell of a series to see if it holds up.. which just to cut that short it does and i’m only holding off binging MORE because I want the first two eps to be fresh enough in my head to review properly.. and also go over the various voice actors because that’s a thing with me now and charcter co-creator dwayne mcduffie because he’s awesome. 

As I like to do when covering a series first episodes, let’s run down the voice cast. 

First up is an UTTER LEGEND, and I use the term voice acting legend a lot, and mean it every time and have good reason to use it when I say it, and Phil LaMarr is a GOD in the buisness, having done a metric ton of voice acting roles, and being easily the most proflific black voice actor in animation. He’s also done some acting work, mostly in pulp fiction which I have not seen, but his true staying power and talent is in animation so here’s just the roles I feel are most notable or may not be very notable but i’m bringing up anyway because it’s my list. 

His roles besides Virgil include Lester Payton the Texas Ranger who showed up for one very good episode of king of the hill to be badass and show up the hickish, stupid and very punchable local Sheriff, Gearld’s obnoxious older brother Jamie O on Hey Arnold, Hermes Conrad from futurama, Carver from the Weekenders (PUT IT ON PLUS DISNEY), Axel Foley for exactly one bit in Clerks the Animated Series, but anyone whose seen it will know exactly which one, Micheal on the Proud Family, Black Vulcan on Harvey Birdman (In His Pants), Hector Con Carne and Dracula on Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Evil Con Carne, Jack on Samurai Jack something I didn’t know for decades (and I didn’t know about the carver thing till today though i’ts obvious in hindsight), John Motherfucking Stewart on Justice League and later Steel and Adult Static in the Unlimited seasons, Osmosis Jones on Ozzy and Drix, Bolbi Strogofski on Jimmy Neutron (And yes i’m just as shocked as you are.), Wilt on Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Marcus on Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Bull Sharkowski on My Gym Partner is A Monkey and Also a Sociopath Please Help God My Life is a waking nightmare..... okay the rest of that title is implied but we all watched the same show, we all know in our hearts that was the title

Moving on, he was also, and yes there’s MORE: Maxie Zeus on The Batman, Philly Phil on Class of 3000, Both Robertsons AND Fancy Dan on the Spectacular Spider-Man, Jazz on Transformers Animated, Kit Fisto and Bail Organa on Star Wars the Clone Wars, Gambit and Bolivar Trask on Wolverine and the X-Men, Aquaman I, L-Ron and Green Beetle on Young Justice, J.A.R.V.I.S. and Wonder Man (Simon Williams) In Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Gabe and Carny on Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters (Really miss that game and have been snapping up what cards I can get lately), Baxter Stockman in the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (And there’s also an awesome photo of him with 2003 Baxter... the two best together in one place. I got chills), Dormammu (I’ve come to bargin) in various Marvel Shows, Noville in Mighty Magiswords, Zach’s dad Marcus in Milo Muprhy’s Law, Craig’s Douchey Brother Benard on Craig of the Creek, showing he’s clearly come full circle, And Mr. Scully on the Casagrndes. And given It took about two paragraphs to cover all of this, yeah, I MEANT legend. 

Next we have Kevin Micheal Richardson as Virgil’s Dad Robert, and it’s the first time since I started introducing Voice Actors on a show that i’ve overlapped. I already covered him during the second episode of legend of the three caballeros, but for the short version he’s also very acomplished, very damn good and I somehow missed he played the old blind guy in hey arnold> Needless to say the dude is awesome. 

Virgil’s Sister Sharon is played by Michele Morgan who was in the rap group BWP and did some smaller roles outside of this the one exception being Juicy on the PJ’s, which I have not watched much of but REALLY do not like, though i’ll at least give it credit for being a decently long lasted black claymation sitcom at at time when there were, and hoenstly still aren’t, many black animated shows. 

Back to long casting sheets, next up is Jason Marsden, who is one of my faviorites as i’ve realized recently as Ritchie. As I also found out only recently he started on the Sitcom Step By Step and while that show is .. ehhhhhhhhh, he is great in it because he’s great in everything. He also apparently has his own internet variety show which I have to watch now. His roles include Max Goof, ironically given I was just talking about that role a few days ago, Haku in the english dub of Spirted Away, Micheal, the kid being yelled at by a bunch of 80′s cartoons characters not to take drugs in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue!, Nermal in the DTV Garfield movies and The Garfield Show, Tino on the Weekenders (SERIOUSLY DISNEY), Snapper Carr on Justice League, Rikochet on Mucha Lucha! for the last season (Why I do not knkow and while I love the guy he was not the right choice), Felix on Kim Possible, Chase Young on Xiaolin Showdown (WHich I did not realize was him and now I do easily his best role and I REALLY should’ve), Red Star and Billy Numerous on Teen Titans, Speedy on Batman Brave and the Bold, Impulse/Kid Flash II on Young Justice, and Fingers on Kaijudo. He hasn’t done as much lately which is a shame but hopefully i’tll pick up again. 

Next up is Hotstreak, Virgil’s brutal bully turned unhinted pyromancer played by DANIEL COOKSY, another actor i’m happy to talk about and another faviorite I haven’t seen much of lately. Daniel was an actor from childhood, playing Budnick on Salute Your Shorts, but he quickly gained a long and storied catalogue of VA Work: His first big roll was as Montana Max on Tiny Toon Adventures and if there is a god he’ll be back for the reboot, Stoop Kid on Hey Arnold, the incomprable Jack Spicer on Xiaolin Showdown, far and away his best role and part of why Chronicles sucked so bad was he was he didn’t get to reprise the role, The titular Dave the Barbarian, Django of the Dead on El Tigre (Had no idea), Kicks utterly insufferable big Brother Brad on Kick Buttowski and apparently he’s back at it again after laying low for a bit as he’s voicing Snag in Long Gone Gultch.. which I already really needed to watch but hot damn, I missed him. Sign me up. 

Frieda, Virgil’s crush and close friend who in the comics was his main confidante and love intrest but here is eventually pushed aside, is voiced by Danica Mckeller whose work didn’t seem all that familiar.. until I found out she was Ms. Martian on Young Justice. Hello, Megan. Very talented and she did get a major role in a dc show eventually so good for her. Can’t wait for season 4. 

So with our major players out of the way,  let’s talk about Dwayne. McDuffie is an AWESOME man and my respect has grown for him more and more with time. A writer and editor at Marvel, McDuffie has a decent resume doing smaller but awesome books, which I got most of for free last year when Marvel was giving out free digital collections due to the lock down, like Damage Control, a sitcom set in the marvel universe about the company that picks up after superhero battles and the logistics and antics that insue and Dethlok, about a pacfist trapped inside a cyborg zombie. He was as mentioned one of Milestone’s founders, and wrote Icon, Hardware and co-wrote the first few issues of Static. He’d go on to a pretty stacked career in animation, writing on this show and Justice League before becoming  story editor and show runner for Unlimited , even making a return to comics as a result writing the Marvel miniseries beyond and an arc of Fantastic Four in which Black Panther and Storm filled in for Reed and Sue while the two of them worked on their marriage after Reed did.. pretty much everything he did in Civil War. He also became head writer and show runner for Ben 10: Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, revamping the franchise a bit, and Alien Force, at least the first two seasons are awesome and I feel people overreacted on the changes. Ultimate Alien is okay, but has it’s problems but the finale was awesome and left the man’s legacy on a high note.. as he sadly passed in 2011 due to heart complications. He is truly missed and produced some utterly amazing stuff whlie he was alive. So on that melacholy note let’s see what happens when his creation hits the tv screen shall we?

Shock to the System:

This episode is written by Christopher Simmons, who is apparently a huge art designer guy.. but i’m not sure that’s the same chirsptoher simmons. Much more notable is the writer of the episode after this Stan Berkowitz, who was showrunner for season 1 and has done a LOT of DCAU work and is suprising talent, having written a lot of awesome Justice League episodes including Secret Society and The Royal Flush One. Point is we’re in first class hands.  Before the episode itself I want to talk about the intro and how it’s unique among DCAU shows. Like most Western Animation the intros for DCAU shows didn’t change much over the seasons with the most I can see is JLU changing up the footage to preview the current episode and later adding Hawkgirl to the intro after her return to the team. I THINK superman the animated series changed some of it’s footage too, but I can’t confrim it and may of just been imagining it. As i’ve talked about on my blog it’s normally a pet peeve of mine, mostly because shows you know, change after season 1, characters get added some one shot characters used for the intro never return, and after a while it can feel dated especially in more recent shows where the status quo is not at all set in stone and things change quite a bit. But sometimes it can be good enough that either the dated elements don’t matter or general enough that you don’t need to change it and i’ts just that good.. and given Batman the Animated Series has both in spades, you can see why i’ts probably my golden standard for intros and after superman the animated series DC mostly followed suit. But being part of the teen superhero boom of the 2000′s Static is unique in that it splits the diffrence: It’s intro gets the character across perfectly like a good intro should starting with Virgil getting out of bed and running a comb across his head before showing off to his sister to bug her and literally running into his dad who hand shim his bag and smiles, silently showing off his family. He then runs to school and runs into some trouble.. and said trouble changes for each intro, with Rubberband Man for season 1, Kanga (Whose name I only know because I happened to run across it) for season 2 and your guess is as good as mine for seasons 3 and 4, though Hotstreak is a constant. They still save some money for seasons 1 and 2 by recycling some animation.. but that’s alright with mea s it was good animation, and the improtant thing is cycling out old villians for new ones, while Season 3 is the only out and out redo to show off Richie taking on the Gear identity, adding about 10 seconds of intro to let him show off.  Seriously it’s an utterly great intro and like the other DCAU intros outside of superman, stuck in my brain. 

The other change that’s ENTIRELY diffrent from the rest of htem is that the music changes each time. The first two have the same formula just with a difrent vocalist and backing track: a superhero theme but with some hip hop beat boxing over it. The first intro is fine enough, not specattcular but stilll god. The second song.. is eh. Not really great and feels like a marked downgrade from season 1 and just dosen’t blend an ocrehstiral superhero theme with the beatbox elements NEARLY as well. The third song though is my faviorite.. even if I HATED Little Romeo as a  kid because I really did not like his nick show, it’s more a straight up rap song, but it has a faster beat that fits the intro better, and Romeo’s bragging fits Virgil’s character and penchant for Spidey quips perfectly. I also find it ironic that the theme that blends in with the dcau the most, the first season’s, is the one from BEFORE they decided to put it in the same universe. Still this season’s intro slaps, I just like the LIttle Romeo one a bit more.  The opening scene is picture perfect. Some masked crooks looting a warehouse are loading some stolen TV’s into a van when suddenly the lights come on one by one above one of the crooks before his tv switches to various channels before going haywire. Cue our heroes’ entrance. Let’s tak ea good look at him

Static’s Costume is awesome. While I prefer the season 3 redesign, and clearly DC agrees as the redeisgn was used for both pre and post new-52 when they used him, and while he’s getting a fresh design for the reboot, said design takes a lot of cures from said outfit. As for how the outfit differs from the comics itself  this is the design he had in the comics

It didn’t change much from the first issue, with the exception of his now iconic big puffy jacket which was added pretty early into the character’s history but I was unaware of that and just assumed he had the bodysuit the whole time. The more you know. But as you can see outside of the cool puffy jacket over a costume the two couldn’t be more diffrent. While the Dakotaverse outfit is more a standard superhero outfit, with some regular clothes touches on top the first cartoon outfit comes off more realistic, looking fantastic, but still coming off as something two teenagers could realistically have thrown together with what clothes they could buy, while still looking awesomely superheroy. IN short it’s perfect and only topped by the season 3 onward look...

But the slicker look, with an even cooler jakcet and the new colors all fitting the lighting ascetic better, but fits: not only has Virgil come along farther since he started, but with Richie now having a genius brain as Gear, he can provide a far slicker, far more professional superhero outfit on the budget the two have.  This show is just great  at costume design. 

So getting back to the episode at hand, Static puts up a huge sign in elecrticy saying “Bad guys here”, PFFFT, and then hides away and narrates that a few days ago he’d be the last person anyone would’ve expected to be a hero. Cue Flashback. 

We meet Virgil Hawkins on an average day: rapping into his razor, getting into a petty argument with his older sister Sharon, as a younger brother myself I relate to this, and talking to his dad who tries to get them to cut that out. We find out his mom has passed via his sister making really terrible eggs and saying that’s how mom made them. Exposition! Though we do get a great bit through this as when his sister gets distracted by her boyfriend calling, he uses the opportunity of her leaving the room to dump the eggs.. after having earlier jokingly prayed to his mom for a way out of breakfast. “Thanks for looking out for me mom” That’s both very sweet and very hilarious. 

This is a change from the comics it turns out as I was utterly flored to find Virgil’s mom alive and well when reading the first issue of Static. Turns out this was a change made during development and one Dwane McDuffie admitted in the interview I got the tribute quote from to not liking as he had a good reason for having Virgil have a nuclear family, as most black families in media at the time were just one single parent and a kid or two with the other having either left or died. He wasn’t too bothered by it as while he preferred what he came up with in the first place, the show DID get some really good stories out of her being gone and didn’t just have her be absent because shut up. Virgil is still working over her death and the way HOW she died ends up playing an important role in this episode and gives Virgil a dislike of guns, as she died to gang violence. So the change wasn’t for stupid or racist reasons, but likely both to keep the character count down while giving them something to work with for storylines. Or it could’ve been for stupid reasons and the writers simpily made lemonade out of that very dumb lemon, either way it ended up working.  Virgil also plans to ask his friend Frieda out. Frieda was a bigger deal in the comics, being Virgil’s friend and confidante as well as his ocasional love intrest, but here while she was inteded to at least be his love intrest here, that sorta fizzled out. As for the best friend role we meet her replacement in Richie, which McDuffie conceded was the kind of change a studio would make swapping out a female character for a male one. That being said the crew made the best of it and Richie is awesome, a bit of an overcompensating dipstick at times, but a good sounding board and pal for virgil and funny as hell too. He was also gay, something only revealed post series by McDuffie.. but unlike say Dumbledore, it’s a bit easier to swallow here: The early 2000′s were an even worse time for gay characters in tv let alone cartoons, and if they couldn’t kiss or have sex scenes on regular tv, there was no way we were getting any representation in a children’s show. So it was largely just hinted at by Richie overcompensating in how “into girls” he was and i’m once again fine with this being word of god as it was literally the best they could do and his counterpart in the comics was also gay, if not as relevant.  Ritch encourages Virgil to work on his opening to ask her out as it’s awkward as heck, hits a bit close to home.. but I do appricate the show just .. having him try and ask her out from the first episode. They likely would’ve drug thigns out a bit granted had they used Frieda more, i’m not blind to the convetions of the time. .but as someone who got the very wrong idea from tv that just waiting around meant a girl would like you eventually, when no you need to actually try even if rejection happens, I honestly wish we had more of this in media than the other garbage morals at the time. 

So he prepares to , not helped by her mentioning guy after guy is asking her out.... but before he can F-Stop, the future hotstreak, shows up.  F-STOP

That being said...... it’s not as bad as the original gangster name for the comic’s version, Biz Money B. Yes BIZ MONEY B

So yeah while F-Stop is no more intimidating, it at least means I can stop laughing. Francis, because I can’t type F-Stop without laughing and this review is already behind, shoves Virgil out of the way and agressively hits on Frieda, even saying “you smell good”, the international sign your a douchebag and also to call the police. Virgil steps up to the guy and gets PAINFULLY slammed into the lockers, something I give the animation team a lot of credit for, as you can FEEL how fucking painful that was. Virgil is saved by Wade, another local gangbanger who in the comics was a close friend of Virgils but here saves him seemingly just because.. seemingly. 

On the way home though Virg’s problems don’t end as naturally, the giant sized asshole with nothing better to do has his goons corner virgil before VIOLENTLY beating him.. off screen but the noises, and the clear brusies including a black eye, on virgil afterwords.. just holy damn i’m suprsied they got away with this but it shows just how horrifing it was and that this is a step above regular bullying, which make no mistake is absoluttley terrible and the series would later do an episode on it and school shootings, into straight up gang violence. Wade shows up again and gets the bastards to flee.. but also makes it clear he can’t keep doing this.. and forces Virgil to meet him at his base under the bridge. And it’s a tense sequence, with Virgil KNOWING this is a bad idea but having no real choice and Wade making it abundantly clear that he wants Virgil to join his crew, and makes a chilling point: while Virgils dad RIGHTFULLY dosen’t want his son to join a gang as Virgil points out.. he can’t be there for him all the time and eventually one of those times, Francis will be around. And he may not surivive that. Virgil nods noncomittaly.  At home it gets even more grim as he dosen’t open up to his family, understandably as his dad would jsut say to call the police and well.. we’ve seen how the police treat black people. At best they’d just try and use Virgil as an informant and that likely wouldn’t end fucking well for Virgil. Ritchie points out he can’t join a gang, virgil’s mom died that way.. see told you it’d be important to the plot.. but I like how the story dosen’t offer an easy answer.. well okay he gets electric powers soon enough but without the fantastic element this is just an innocent kid caught between either joining the very thing his mom hated or hoping a system not built to protect him will keep him alive. It’s utterly saddening and chilling and holy shit is it amazing a cartoon in the early 2000′s was able to get away with.. ANY OF THIS, and they handle it great, paired down a bit from the comics but even then it’s still incredibly balsy they got THIS much in. 

Naturally Wade calls in his favor and our hero is forced to come running.. and soon finds out Wade’s brought him in for a massive gang war. Welcome to the big bang, baby. He hands Virgil a gun as things get started and Virgil.. drops the thing and tries to escape, in a harrowing sequence.. and runs into Francis because god apparently REALLY hates this kid today. As if to prove that the police show up and while that prevents a beating, they demand they disassemble. then release untested gas on them because of course they do. 

As a result the big bang truly begins, with the various gang members getting mutated.. and naturally so does virgil. Though he wakes up the next day seemingly fine. How’d he get home? Does his dad know where he was?

I don’t know and we’re not getting any answers, but Virgil soon finds weird stuff happening like his clock shorting out, change being attracted to him and his razor going wild. It’s only once he get sback to his room he gets an inkling of what’s going on and calls Ritchie to meet him at the Junk yard.. though it is a bit of a dick move as he dosen’t you know, tell him anything about Wade or Francis right away. He does at the yard though.. and that he has powers, having finally figured out how to use them to a point. And the series does provide a decent justification later as to why he’d get this so quickly: Virgil is a smart kid, gets great grades at school and apparnetly there’s even an episode later where he gets a scholarship to a fancy genius school. So him getting how elctromagntisim works or being a quick study on it makes perfect sense. 

Richie suggest the obvious.. to become a superhero. And the thought.. hadn’t occured to Virgil. It’s honestly a nice twist on the old trope. That he hadn’t thought of it, not because he’s selfish or any of that or needs to learn a hard lesson, those have been done.. simply because the rush of getting his powers, and implicitly of having a way out of his current predciament, a way to keep Francis off his back and keep Wade from pulling him in further. His own path. But once i’ts brought up.. he jumps on it. Part of it is being a nerd like you or I, of course he wants to.. and being a good intetioned one, he knows this is the right thing to do. It’s waht makes a superhero a hero: Anyone can get powers in a universe like this, esepcailly the dcau, but it takes true courage and heart to use them selflessly and knowing you’ll be in danger. It’s why I love surperheroes: they often didn’t ask for this but they do it anyway because somebody’s gotta. We also get an intresting wrinkle is superman is, at least I think in this episode I could’ve missed it or misremembered things, mentioned as a fictional character. That’s because originally like the comics this wasn’t part of the DCAU.. but eventually the crew decided it shared staff from it, shared a network, both first run and on reruns, why not just make it part of the DCAU proper. I fully support this decisionf: While i’m midly annoyed unlimited never really used anything from static shock outside of Static himself in the time travel episode, despite you know Static and Gear having BEEN to the tower and not being much younger than Kara and defintely older than Courtney, I chalk it up to weird rights issues or something like that. But having Batman, Batman Beyond, Superman, Green Lantern and the Justice League itself all guest star was a good idea, and expanded both static’s universe and gave the DCAU something differnt as most heroes in it were older and more experinced in contrast to the up and coming virgil. Again really would’ve been nice if he and gear could’ve been a part of the expanded league but production might of just been too far ahead or, given he had his own series, they might just have wanted to stick to toher characters. Also begs the question why Icon or Hardware wasn’t adapted for the expanded League but hey, questions for later and the tricky logisitics of the milestone rights might’ve been the issue. I don’t know I wasn’t in the room. 

So we get a costume montage, including Black Vulcan from Superfriends, who again ironically would be voiced by Lamarr not too long after this, though weirdly they DON’T use his outfit from the comics for this montage. I mean why not? It fits the gag and would’ve been a good second to last choice.But what could’ve been aside we get our winner and cut back to present day...

Thanks boys. Static finds out one of the things in the warehouse is a shipment of computers for the school and can’t help but show off, showing up to the school, where Frieda and Richie are setting up for the dance, and dropping off the computers, and even saying his catchphrase for the first time “I’ll put a shock to your system” (Which Richie chimes in with awesome line and I agree, great catcphrase), before helping set up and flirting with frieda. 

Though as Richtie says he’s a natural. He’s not wrong as he can work a crowd. .but back it up too as his first run out had him easily taking out the crooks, and as many teen superheros and fans of heroes of hte type, myself included will tell you, getting it right in one is not easy. Not even Miles MOrales was immune. All Static needs now is a villian. 

And the end of the episode provides one as we see, in horrifc and once again damn suprising detail most of hte new metas aren’t doing so good and are melting and other stuff and we catch up with Francis whose burning up.. and naturally given that hair, though given he named himself F-Stop it’s the least of his problems, he’s got fire powers and escapes to “Have me some fun”

So with that we end episode 1. And it’s excellent, a great way to introduce the hero and while the warehouse opening is a bit superflous, it is a decent addition, showing our heroes first outing in costume and giving us a bit of an action scene to get us through the very heavy rest of the episode. But the rest of the episode is no less grippping, telling the tale of a teen caught in an unwinnable scenario who suddenly finds a way out. And speaking of which waht of Wade? Will we see him again? Is he perhaps Ebon, the series big bad as I thought when I was a kid? What comes of the man who directly caused static’s origin?

Yeahhh that’s the one mistep I think the pilot makes. Frieda is understandable as that was likely a simple change in creative direction. This though? Why build this guy up if your not going to bring him back. I mean where he went was probably the grave, as he probably did due to his mutation, but it’s still VERY weird to spend a whole episode focusing on this guy, building him up as a big personal threat to our hero.. and NOT have him become the series big bad. And maybe he WAS supposed to be ebon and they just changed their mind. I don’t know but it bothers me it bothers me a lot. Otherwise though flawless. ONe more to go. 

Aftershock: We open outside an electronics store, as our heroes watch the news reacap what happened in the first episode, with the media dubbing it the Big Bang and revealing their could be hundreds of “Metahumans”, as Virgil dubs after deciding the media’s term “Mutant” dosen’t fit, a nice wink to the fact that that’s the term used in dc comics and I believe milestone but could be wrong there. Me I like the term, has a nice ring to it. 

At the store while Richie mulls over waht this means Static finds out he’s a human CD player.... this was before mp3 players and streaming on your phone made them horribly obsolete mind you and if you don’t know what one is congradualtions you live in some sort of bubble and you made me feel really old junior. 

Frieda happens to be there and Virgil quips “What’s the matter they run out of britney cds”. Dude she’s not bad. Also be careful what you wish for man. Nickeback returned the year after this. You have not truly suffered through bad music yet my young friend. They spot a kid looking feverish, and he soon turns into a purple werewolf, as you do. It’s a bang baby.. those are richie’s exact word and you may not want to start a panic there bud. Just saying your best friend is one. THeir not all like this. Our heroes book it only to run into Francis who naturally refuses to let them leave and only doesn’t try to beat up Virgil because Virgil points otu the werewolf and nonplussed, he goes to fight it, scarring it off by revealing his own powers. He’s now dubbed himself Hotstreak which points for getting an actually good name kid. No points for what happens next as unsuprisingly getting powers did NOT mak ehim a better person and he attacks Virgil who blocks with a garbage can lid and thankfully is blasted into an ally. Richie tries to guard frieda for damn obvious reasons but gets hsi shirt burnt up because shut up Thankfully Static shows up, and we get our firsdt full on superhuman fight as both fight each other with aplomb, and it’s a damn good fight.. and one that goes pear shaped for Virg as he’s caught off guard when he finds out Hotstreak can use his powers to fly, and tackles him and his previous trauma causes him to freeze up. Thankfully , as Frieda put in a call earlier, the fire department arrive and HOt streak has to retreat, though Virgil is bummed that he “Choked”. And I love this as it not only shows Virgil’s inepxerince, as this is his first time fighting a bad guy but that just because he HAS power now dosen’t mean trauma and his previous fear of Hotstreak goes away or you won’t freeze up from time to time. It dosen’t make him weak or anything like some assholes would call it .. it makes him human. Humans make mistakes, and it makes him all the more relatable that he’s not pefect and that he did freeze up as I know I certainly would at last once in the circumstances. 

Things don’t get better at dinner as Sharon and Pops argue over the bang babies with Pops calling them a meance and Sharon pointing out Static exists so they can’t all be bad. See assuming a group of superhumans are bad because a handful of them ar edick sis why the x-men had to get their own island nation. You can only save an ungreatful populous so many times before you say “fuck it i’m getting my own island, pay me for life saving drugs, save your damn selves and stop doing genocides on us. Kay thanks”. But he does bring up a valid point that rattles his son: We don’t know anything about the Bang Babies or their biological structures and it’s likely they might further mutate into monsters, Static included. 

Virgil, understandably, wants to check this and thus he and richie compare blood samples in science, to no real conclusion. She he checks out with his doctor who assumes he’s sexually active in a great getting crap past the radar bit and a bit of realisim, but he agrees to the test though if something came up he would have to tell Virgil’s dsad and is up front about this. Nice dose of realisim.

That night City Council has a meeting and the Mayor TRIES to deflect Papa Hawkins questions about the bang babies which again, while being a judgmental ass as not every person hit was a gang member (Virgil, and as we discover later some others), and not every gang member is there by choice, some by circumstnace some, like virgil almost was, because they HAD no other option. Again years of reading x-men may of just made me a bit touchy on assholes admitely assuming superpower people bad. But it’s clear the public is upset and while she says an investigation is underway... Virgil and Richie are not only not convinced, but figure she’s actively covering it up. And unlike everyone else there who probably suspects the same, they can do something about it and tail her.  It’s during this, and cleverly as I didn’t realie till writing this using similar skills to his human cd player act, Virgil listens in and discovers whose behind it: Edwin Alva, whose apparently richer than bill gates and a beloved phinarophist Alva, as it turns out, was actually the arch enemy of Hardware in the comics, taking advantage of the guy in his civiliian idtentiy and thus casuing him to launch a war on the asshole. He does transition into this series well though, being the one behind the gas that caused it and with the mayor agreeing to back off, planning to simply dump the info about the big bang on a disc then destroy everything for now till the heat dies down. Yup sounds like a corprate douchebag. 

Static tails him, finds the lab and infiltrates it, stealing the disc.. but getting caught by Alva’s goon, and trapped in a glass prison, forced to use ALL his power to escape and barely getting out alive, but not before bouncing off alva’s car. Still he now has the proof.. and meanwhile Hotstreak, who I was wrong did get captured, is forced to take pill sbut spits them out once the orderly is gone. Dude.. WHY DIDN’T YOU WATCH HIM. Make sure he swallows that shit especially since, as he has no powers right now and can’t harm you. 

Hotstreak escapes off screen and our heroes discuss the disc before he shows up, and we get a REALLY fucking amazing scene: Virgil ducks into an Alleway and ritchie is worried.. and Virgil disarms him with just one word responses Ritchie: Virg you can’t take him.  Virgil: Gotta. Ritchie: Well at least wait for the fire department Virgil: Can’t.  It’s simpile but it gets the point across: This is his fight, he can’t wait for help, and people need him. And this is what makes a true hero: It’s easy to be a hero when everythings going well.. but it’s the true ones who stick it out against the odds and fight anyway. And he’s going to.  So we get one hell of a fight, though naturally Hotstreak burns up the disc. And I do like this as it dosen’t feel contrived.. yes Static could’ve left it with ritchie.. but he wasn’t thinking in the moment and dind’t really have time to think abotu the disc, only that people were being hurt and he was all they had between them and Hotstreak. It was no choice at all. Still that pisses Virgil off that the last night’s work is now worthless, and he fully charges up and curbstomps francis who retreats into a clearing. Hostreak brags when static follows, as even he’s figured out Static needs to be around metal, as he’s usually on his disc or the street, and in the park there suppodsidly isn’t any. But he’s not THAT smart as Virgil points out two things: one, he hoped to do this on PURPOSE so they wouldn’t be around people and no on e would get hurt and 2).. this is a city, there’s metal everywhere.. and he awesomely and cleverly proves it by unlodging a sewage pipe with his powers and dousing his foe, winning and proving his stuff. I love this solution, it’s a clever spider-man type way to disarm him, using smarts and the einvroment instead of just brute forcing it. Though the sewage part wasn’t intetional our hero still won and gets praise from the people dumb enough to follow the fight. 

However at home Virgil points out it was  Pyrrhic Victory and shows off his smarts by telling the tale behind it, which I didn’t know,because tv tropes didn’t exist yet: king pyrhus fought the romans and WON.. but had so little armies left that he still lost overall. That’s what this feels like to Virgil: he beat hotstreak but any chance at a cure for Bang Babies and Alva going to jail for causing them is gone. His mood does get a boost though as the doctor calls and reveals he’s fine, he just has a bit too much elctrolytes and just needs to lay off teh salt. He celebrates, we get a quick gag and the episode ends

Aftershock is another stellar episoe, giving us Virgil’s first super foe and a personal one at that, while showing some growth. As richie tells him he’s not virgil anymore he’s static and he can’t let his past get to him.. and he does’nt going from cowering in fear to easily beating his foe with simple logic. It’s a good followup that answers questions you may have from the first ep, like what does this do to virgil’s body, who supplied the gas, and why has no one done anything about this, and sets up another villian for Static in Alva. Great stuff. I highly recommend these episodes and the show as a whole: it’s fast paced, grounded and enjoyable, having just enough levity to not be too dour but just enough tension and stakes to be intresting. A throughly fantastic superhero show and one that i’d certainly love to revisit on this blog If you have an episode of static or the dcau in general you’d want me to cover, my comissions are open and details are on a tab on my blog or can be gotten simply by asking me via ask or dm. Tommorow we’re going deeper underground, there’s too much damage in this town as the Lena Retrospective continues. So expect gay ducks, straight ducks and some terrfirmains. See you next rainbow. 

[alsharira]

MULAN (2020) review by yours truly.

"The girl became a soldier. The soldier became a leader. And the leader became a legend."

There will be some spoilers here, but I'll try not to reveal anything too big.

Overall :

I liked the movie, I thought the director & the actors did a good job. It had exciting fight scenes, GORGEOUS cinematography, comedic moments & a good story. Unsurprisingly to anyone who followed the making of this, it was very different to the animated original, which I didn't mind. It's aimed mostly at kids in the end (thu it had adult moments) and I can't wait to watch it with my younger siblings. I know that they'll be obsessed with it (they already love the animated version).

The fight scenes :

Possibly my favorite part after the cinematography/cgi (?). I don't know if Niki Caro directed those scenes or disney brought someone else to shoot them (like with the MCU) but i loved the Asian cinema influences. It's like a Chinese or Bollywood ridiculous (i say with love) fights with Hollywood flare to ground them a bit. It was great. I believed it whenever Mulan beat men twice her size, the movie makes sure to give an explanation & the choreography uses her size to her advantage which was nice.

Liu Yifei/a different mulan :

While I personally don't agree with chinese actress Liu Yifei's views on the Hong Kong situation (watch the movie on pirated websites like me if you don't want to support her) i enjoyed her portrayl of Hua Mulan. I actually was underwhelmed by LY performance at the beginning but she grew on me pretty quickly.

This Mulan is a pretty inspirational character, she's honorable, focused and smart. She faces many challenges but never gives up or reconsiders her values. Everyone tries to mold her into something she is not, but she sticks true to what she is.

"Being true to one's self" is actually the center theme of the movie, there's another character in the story who relates to what Mulan has gone through and I really enjoyed that new storyline.

The gang :

Mulan makes some pretty cute friendships in the army. They're responsible for 90% of the comedy in this movie lol. One of the guys is a character from the animated film reimagined differently but effectively.

I actually liked the new love interest, his description made him look like a fuckboi but he's actually a swell guy. also (kinda spoiler-y) it seemed like he liked Mulan way before realizing she’s a girl.

The villains :

when i heard they were adding a witch i was confused. Which was my mistake for not anticipating our lord and savior Gong Li to turn up the best performance & maybe best character in the movie. Won’t reveal much but I loved her scenes with Mulan.

Oh and the (not) Huns were good too.

Family :

Like the original, this whole story starts because of Mula'a love & devotion for her family (& home. chinese gov gonna love that). Her few scenes with her younger sister were cute but ofc her relationship with her father is what brought me to tears :(

Rushed :

My only grievance is that many (many) scenes felt really rushed. I wish it took more time to develop the story and characters. The scene were Mulan decides to leave for the war was especially too fast, it was done better in the animated film.

EDIT : since disney filmed this near muslim concentration camps in China, i say definitely watch illegally. Fuk u Mickey.