#CARTOONS ARE MEANT TO BE CARTOONY

[sizzleissues]

When people pause an animated tv show during movement and say ‘eew why does it look like shit’

I’M COMING INTO YOUR HOUSE WITH A POWER POINT PRESENTATION ABOUT SMEAR FRAMES TO SHOW YOU AFTER I WHACK YOU WITH A STICK

When people zoom in on a character in the background ‘eww why do they look like that. L this animated TV show is so low quality and bad’

I’M IN YOUR FLOOR BOARDS AND CLIMBING IN ABOUT TO TELL YOU ABOUT A THING CALLED ‘WHY FUCKING BOTHER TO DRAW A CHARACTER WHOSE 3 PIXELS WIDE CORRECTLY ON SCREEN YOU AREN’T SUPPOSED TO ZOOM IN AND IF YOU ZOOM OUT YOU’LL SEE EVERYTHING ELSE IS FINE’

[alicenpai]

art summary through the years! i saw this going around and i wanted to play too, i always love doing these summaries.. template 🌹

my art became "i discovered the joy of drawing drapery and fabric in 2021 and never looked back" HAHA

looking at the early stuff, sometimes i really miss stylizing and drawing cartoons!! 2015 was the first year i started drawing cartoony stuff, pre-2015 was purely anime style. an updated art summary from 2010+ for me would be fun.

going back to the 1st sentence, stylizing just doesn't give me what i want from art anymore, it doesn't satisfy my art hunger haha (dungeon meshi joke.. iykyk). although it's still fun to experiment once in a while (e.g. merch). even if my current personal art is not very animation industry friendly or "hireable", i think i have a stronger notion of my "artistic" voice now more than before. (again, at least for personal art)

2020-2022 were rough years during the pandemic... i wanted to stop drawing so many times. i always say this, but during that time i went back and touched base with things i used to love as a teen, such as old anime (fma, pandora hearts, etc) that inspired me to pick up a pencil in the first place, and it helped to revitalize my love for art. and then i discovered drawing and studying fabric and i could never go back! i think my art is now more inspired by fine art history than cartoons hence the more realistic drapery...

one reason why i always change up my art style or technique every 2 ish years is that i kinda get bored of the same brushes easily... ive worried that using the same brushes gets boring and stale to people, but i think my art values are more or less consistent with how it was 3 years ago. i cycle through a set of like, 3 different brush sets (watercolour, pastel/lineless, and regular shading) depending on the mood of the drawing. different drawings call for different techniques you know?? and i think it's okay to use different tools for each drawing, art isn't meant to all be the same.

[pestorik]

I love your AU so much, it's so cute!

I need to know what kinds of adventures Adeuce gets up to with their caterpillar. The name Absolem comes to mind (or perhaps Alistair?) just because that's what the caterpillar from Tim Burton's Alice is named, if you're wanting to keep with that theme.

I'd love to see what Octavinelle looks like in your AU (they're my favorites!!!) but take your time, and make it how you want it to be. You're doing wonderful work!

im shocked i actually forgot about there being a caterpillar in alice in wonderland. absolem sounds a bit too serious imo, i was imaging a cutesy name to match his appearance lol. im considering "fozzy" like fozzy the bear.

putting this under the cut for those who want to read my very sane ramblings

I imagine A+D adventures would be very much in the vein of the original AT episodes with every one having a new storyline and introducing new characters, and then later episodes having those characters come back and revealing more backstory/becoming more involved in the overall plot (ie magic man, slime princess, etc). and then ofc a more "core" cast with more frequently occurring characters like heartslabyul and maybe some other first years. It would definitely be ace and deuce-centric with them driving most of the interactions and then gradually having more and more episodes that arent just about them.

in my head riddle introduction goes like this: A+D are native to the garden kingdom and are doing their regular stupid shit. that day it just happens to be doing parkour in the royal gardens. riddle comes along and is ofc furious and being the overreactive little freak that he is, banishes them from the kingdom. that's how they meet cater, who introduces them to trey, and they eventually kick riddles ass and its revealed he has a very controlling mother who influences his behavior. riddle realizes the error of his ways and they all team up and usurp her. riddle takes over the kingdom and is now mostly an ally.

trust me i love riddle and a lot of other characters but almost everyone would start out as being a cartoon villain bc that's just the nature of AT. leona is a prince but has no real political power so spends his days bullying civilians. epel has been enslaved by an evil witch (vil) and needs the help of A+D to beat him up, but after vil's defeat epel understands him better and becomes his apprentice by choice. jack the wolf seems hostile at first but they learn he is actually a human who has been cursed and he spends like the entire series trying to break the curse and you only get to see him human in the very last episode lol. everyone will be a silly character with silly problems but overall still sympathetic and relatable. it will have some sad and heartfelt moments but mostly remain lighthearted (just like AT). these are cartoony, oversimplified representations of canon twst, not meant to be realistic takes or a deep dive into mental illness.

i'll be working on octavinelle once i finish savanclaw (they will all be in order) but azul is going to be the octopus wizard and he has 2 evil henchmen. they run a successful seafood restaurant as a front for their magical crime ring. or maybe A+D defeat them and convince them to go into the food business instead of organized crime and they find out they are really good at it lol

[the-amazing-animated-circus]

Thought I'd share my first drafts of all the characters!

Don't know what I was thinking with the braces on Caine, lol. I guess i just wanted a way to connect his upper and lower jaw.

Zooble was BY FAR the most difficult to design, since they're already so insanely cartoony. I actually tried making them a robot at one point!

I settled with a devil because a lot of old cartoons would have stuff like devils as their antagonist, and I didn't think that a robot would fit the era of animation I was going for.

An alternate colour scheme for Zooble. It was way too generic in my opinion.

Looks like they were also meant to have whiskers at some point.

The first ever sketches I did for this au!

The pose in the middle was inspired by a Christma comic I was going to make as an introduction to the au. Create some intrigue, y'know?

I've definitely had the most fun drawing caine's expressions!

More caine!

I focused a lot less on keeping entirely to proportions and more on the line of action, akin to the rubberhose style of animation.

First sketches of Jax and Ragatha. I love drawing anthropomorphic charcters, so Jax was naturally my second choice to draw!

I then played around with all the possible hairstyles Ragatha could have. I didn't want the design to be too similar to other aus, while also conveying her kind demeanor. A lot of aus end up tying her hair back!

More Caine! again, the one in the middle is a pose I would have used for the Christmas comic! I was still figuring out how many restrictions the toons would have, so I'm glad I scrapped it. Wouldn't want to set anything in stone that early in development.

Some other poses for the early designs of the characters! Jax was definitely my favourite of these!

I never went for Kinger's upside down cross because I'm pretty certain that an animation studio in the 50s wouldn't allow a symbol of Satan on a character that wasn't pure evil.

That's it! I hope the next time we meet, I have some new work to show you!

[pancake404]

Dance with the Moon

I don't normally draw this sort of thing but like I said before, I think it would be interesting with these two as a duo regardless of being friends or more.

In this case, you can consider this a more romantic view of it.

I see people point out about Hoppy's cardboard cutout voice lines and how it's moon related which has relation to Catnap. Some argue that this relation might prove that Catnap had involvement in her death(and so does Bobby as she too mentions the moon) which might very well be the case but the way Hoppy's voicelines seems to function is that she's not running away but trying to reach for the moon, trying to get to it.

It strikes me as interesting though about subtle connections the two characters might have for example the moon and Hoppy's desire to jump to it but ultimately dies failing to reach it. The moon could potentially represent Catnap as his charm is literary a crescent moon, it's what he specifically is associated with as well as sleep. Another thing about this is not only Hoppy is trying to reach for the moon but in the show itself(teacher/cartoon for Catnap and the Smiling Critters show), Catnap appears through a storm and what's Hoppy's charm? A lightning bolt. Then in Sleep Well, we see a Hoppy toy looking up at Catnap and Catnap reaches an arm out to help which is odd based on the chosen smiling critter that it could've been displayed(though they could've just randomly selected one). Lastly, although Catnap and Dogday are meant to be polar opposites with the sun and moon, Catnap and Hoppy are opposites in their own ways as well. Catnap represents sleep and rest while Hoppy represents energy and play.

Now back to the actual image instead of possibly(if not probably) overanalyzing certain details. I tried a different approach in drawing this with a more sketched line art for Catnap and Hoppy mixed with slight color alterations and low shading. For the background I did a mix of a cartoony yet vibrant night sky with a more "galaxy" look. For the dashes throughout the background, that sort of background was based off another artist with a cool background artstyle.

Overall, it was just fun to make though being different.

[dazeddoodles]

I saw someone refer to luz as a "terrorist". I am. so. goddam tired.

Lemme guess, cause she brought fireworks to school in the first episode?

Mfw a cartoony scenario happens in a Disney Channel cartoon meant for kids

[shitposting4squares]

Pizza Tower/Evil dead crossover Peppino

He had to cut off his own hand to stop from turning into a pizza monster, and he’s mad as hell about it. Also I decided to give him a sleeve harness for his BIG HONKIN PIZZA CUTTER BUZZSAW cus it looked strange on the end of his more noodle looking arm. And this gives him more heft and motion. I’ll put what I’ve got so far about the au under a readmore.

So a chain restaurant opens in a historic landmark, the tower, where during renovation they accidentally unearth an ancient spooky power. Which gets harnessed by the human who would soon become PizzaHead.

Setting off a very monkey's paw be careful what you wish for situation, cus the guy basically wanted a “pizza empire”. He meant that in terms of creating a huge and wealthy corporation, but the tower magic took it literally. So now not only is it spawning armies of pizza monsters, but Pizzahead has the power to turn humans into more pizza monsters.

So he starts by inviting all the owners of the local businesses to the restaurant part of the tower for a little get together before the grand opening.Targeting them first to cut down the competition and ensure the maximum amount of customers would instead be visiting his restaurant. This being the moment that first gets everyone scared, as a 6+ foot tall man made out of cheese with a pizza for a face bursts into the restaurant. Acting like some kind of unhinged cartoon clown, and trying to get the people who haven't eaten the free pizza yet to try some. Though it seems like his presence speeds up the pizza monster transformations. As the ones who were infected start to turn, while Gustavo, Mr. stick, and Peppino escape into the tower.

So in this instance, the bosses are other humans who showed up to the party and got turned into pizza monsters as part of Pizzaheads army. Like pepperman used to be the owner of an arts and crafts store. Vigilante was a farmer who restaurants would sometimes buy meat and veggies from locally. Noise and Noisette were a young couple involved in journalism who were covering the opening of the new restaurant. And some of the other one-off monsters could be other local business owners.

Peppino never ate any of the pizza, but he did get a slice of it shoved into his hand by pizzahead when he showed up and terrified everyone by being an unhinged pizza monster, and it took him a moment before dropping it. So after a bit of adventuring, it turns out his hand is infected, and he's gotta cut it off to keep the pizza transformation from spreading. As his screaming and comically slamming his cheese and pepperoni hand on various walls does little more than stun the cheese hand in a cartoony sorta way (Like with stars spinning over it’s head).

After a building of panic as the cheese starts to spread over his wrist, he cuts it off in a grocery store-like location within the tower with a industrial strength pizza cutter, that is really more like a big buzzsaw, splattering himself with his own blood. Though the pizza monsters are threatening to break in, so he attaches the big buzzsaw to his stump arm, and goes on a blind rage chainsaw massacre style rampage. Eventually collapsing from blood loss and overexertion in the abandoned looking Bruno's pizza when it looks like he’s killed all the monsters nearby.

He wakes up with something trying to force his mouth open, and it's his severed cheese hand. He tries to kill it, but it tricks him into screaming and it's able to get into his mouth. He tries to puke it out, but instead he pukes out a whole grey shirt Peppino clone, which he screams at, it screams back, and it melts into inert goo. He vomits a few more times, with a similar outcome of spawning a short lived lumpy looking clone of himself, and he's able too look inside his mouth in a reflective surface, and his mouth and throat is full of goopy hands. No longer made of cheese, but more looking made out of melty rubber skin. So he quickly boils a pot of water and drinks the boiling water while screaming and swearing much like how it goes down in army of darkness, with the clones screaming as the boiling water hits them. A very brief moment for Peppino to catch his breath, hoping it's over, but then stuff starts growing under his skin, and he undergoes a rapid, but disturbing mitosis.

The two Peppinos pulling apart and falling to the ground. With Peppino having a moment of excitement as his hand has grown back

But he spots his doppelganger and scrambles to his feet, fake Peppino currently being a perfect mirror of him. Matching Peppino’s looks and movements exactly. Peppino takes a moment to process how weird this is, doing stuff like moving his arm and hand, with Fake Peppino mirroring the motion, before trying to back away slowly. But when he takes a step back, fake pep steps forward. And again. Before Peppino tries to book it, and fake pep lunges after him, causing him to scream, and fake pep screams back, revealing himself as a warped goo monster, and the chase is on. And that’s as far as I’ve got with the au so far. Can let me know if you have any ideas to expand on the au with.

[stiffyck]

Hello Stiff,

I have been a long time fan of your art. I followed you a while back when I first saw your art pop up on my dashboard. Your art was always wonderful to me, and you had such interesting and new ideas for your Scar designs. I mean, four ears? That was so cool! And who doesn't love a good trans Scar?

Recently, there's been a change in your art that I (along with several others) have noticed. It's something you often point out as a "good" thing, but frankly, it's quite hurtful. You've been drawing Scar with a very large nose, and good on you! You're very right in saying that the hermit and traffic communities have a tendency to not draw more marginalized or "uncommon" body types. We love seeing more diverse bodies and features in art! I myself have a bigger nose and have longed for people with my features to be shown in media.

I say this with the utmost kindness and respect for your art, as a longtime fan: The way you draw Scar's nose is like a caricature. I don't understand, whenever I see your art pop up onto my dashboard, how you cannot see it. As an artist, I assume you know more about correct proportions and such than I, but this just feels (and I hate to use such strong language here) absurd. Drawing large noses is a great thing, but this feels like something I would see in an old, racist cartoon.

And it's just Scar, as well! You draw everyone else wonderfully, but you give Scar such a disproportionately large nose! At this point, it feels like you're patting yourself on the back for drawing racist caricatures. I have never seen people be drawn like this otherwise. Please, look at images of people with larger noses. Look at their proportions. Compare this to your art. You will see the difference!

I say this not as someone who wants to bring you down, but as a fan who is concerned about the way your art has been going. I'm a little surprised you haven't had people point this out to you before, frankly. I hope you take this not as something meant to insult you, but as something meant to educate and bring to light something that you may have overlooked in the name of doing something good.

Please take time to think on this and reflect. While I'd appreciate a response, one isn't necessary, as long as you do something to change. Apologies for sending this on anonymous, but I don't wish to possibly put myself under attack for saying something I truly believe in.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

I feel like some of the art I drew could come off as a caricature but the most recent one with pizza genuinely just looks like a cartoony drawing to me? Like this just looks like a character I'd see in a cartoon? I can see why some of my other pieces may have come off as a caricature even tho that was not my intention.

Obviously I don't want to make something hurtful or racist in nature so I'm genuinely sorry if anything I drew came off that way.

I'm not gonna be drawing his nose this way anymore and I'll probably lay off from posting art for now

[thowawayuntilfurthernotice]

The fact that a minor likes Vivziepop's stuff proves how absolutely juvenile her content is.I mean it doesn't look like an adult show,it doesn't "feel" like an adult show in comparison to King Of The Hill or Aqua Teen Hunger Force does.it looks like a regular cartoon come to think of it.there's really nothing 'adult' in her shows other than those rancid unfunny jokes.

Viv seems to be the under the impression that the only way to make an "adult" animated series is by adding in a bunch of dick and fart jokes.

What makes shows like Bojack Horseman stand out from the rest is that, it tackles adult themes in an adult manner. You're meant to feel uncomfortable when you see Bojack's parents arguing in flashbacks, when Princess Carolyn breaks down in her car, it hits hard because we don't get to see her be vulnerable all that much before that moment.

Bojack's self destructive nature is shockingly realistic, it isn't cartoony or melodramatic.

Helluva Boss on the other hand fails miserably at balancing its comedy and drama. Because the writing is just so surface level.

One minute Loona is having a heart to heart conversation with Octavia about how she shouldn't be too hard on her dad, and in the very next scene she's kicking Blitzo (her adoptive father) in the crouch because Viv and her team don't want to treat their audience like adults, they have to thrown in a dick and fart joke every couple of seconds because the audience apparently needs to be constantly reminded that this is an "adult" animated show.

It's no surprise that kids are watching Viv's shows, as the art style is appealing enough when compared to other shows that are aimed at adults, and the writing is very basic.

[ducktracy]

I love Popeye so much— the franchise is my current special interest, but I love the 1980 movie in particular. I get really pleased whenever you post about Popeye (partially because you're the only one really active in the tag) so if you could continue to post Popeye loud and proud that would be cool as hell

THIS IS SO SWEET OH MY GOSHHHHH!!! i saw this yesterday when you sent it in and meant to answer earlier, but i have to say i’ve spent both yesterday and today thinking about it because THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY TO HEAR!! THANK YOUUUUUUUU!! i also had no idea i was really the only one active HAHA, amazing!! i assure you, the Popeye posting will always continue! i LOVE Popeye, and i’ve actually only seen a fraction of the shorts compared to those i haven’t. i’m so protective of the 1935-1938 sweet spot with Jack Mercer, Mae Questel and Gus Wicke that it’s really hard for me to move onto the shorts post-Miami move… but i gotta! because more great cartoons await! and so i’m sure i’ll be gushing about those when i discover them more and more :)

SPEAKING OF 1980 POPEYE!! i know i’ve had some followers curious about my opinion on it! I FINALLY WATCHED IT FOR THE FIRST TIME BACK IN JULY! i admittedly forget if i said my piece on it or not, but i will here anyway!

is it good? in an objective sense? probably not. did i absolutely love it and have an absolute blast watching it regardless? ABBBBBSOOOOLLLUUUUUUTELYYYYY!! i had so much fun watching it!! as a fan of physical slapstick, anything “cartoony” translated into live action, Popeye (of course), and many other specifics i’m forgetting but know the film included, i really enjoyed it. the almost obligatory physical slapstick and sheer amount of stupid pratfalls was giving me so much joy. i’m genuinely impressed at Robin Williams’ muttering and him keeping his one eye squinted the entirety of the film. Shelley Duvall is PERRERRRFECT as Olive Oyl! she was the best part of the film for me, she was so darling 🥺 and the songs were cute, VERY AMUSING, very campy, some i liked better than others but they were very catchy. the sound design was very baffling as well but i kinda loved it

i said this when streaming the film in a groupwatch and i still stand by it:

also, evidently copious amounts of cocaine were involved in the production of the film and i can absolutely believe it. SUCH A FUN WATCH THOUGH, very cheesy in the absolute best way! thank you to all who encouraged me to watch it, i’m really glad i did and will probably rewatch it again at some point :) but yes, that’s all to say that the Popeye posting will absolutely continue and i am SO GLAD to hear you enjoy it so much!! that seriously makes my day!! Popeye is really the cure for happiness in cartoon form

[kamehamehamlet]

A teaser for Mayor Lear of Townsville, showcasing a handful of projections which would be used in the show and edited in homage to a then recent trailer for Twin Peaks: The Return.

Play-Dot Archives: Mayor Lear Projections

Early on in development, I knew I wanted to use projections for Mayor Lear and that one of the MN Fringe venues was Intermedia Arts. Intermedia Arts, like many incredible theatre and arts building in the Twin Cities has since shuttered, but in 2017 the theatre's projector could be used to cover the back from floor to ceiling.

In a later scene in the Mayors office, the Townsville Skyline was animated to be on fire. (Emily Rose Duea, Bre'Elle Erickson, Natalie Rae Wass, and Meghan Wolff). Photo by Alex Wohlhueter.

And for the MN Fringe, where all of your props and set needed to be in and out of the theater in a matter of minutes before and after each show, using projections meant we could have near effortless set changes. Well, effortless during the show at least. See on top of writing the script, I also tasked myself with making the projections. Since I was responsible for both, I had no one to blame but myself for needing over 50 projections with a mix of flat images, animations, and one very special video.

A folder containing many of the still images of Mayor Lear of Townsville.

It's also worth noting that many people assumed our images had come from the TV show when in reality they were all created digitally by me. Although many of the popular location were recreated with heavy reference usage. It was really fun to learn the shows art style, and in some cases animation style, and it really can't be overstated how cool it was to be in that theatre with the projections covering the whole wall. Seven years on, it's easy to be nostalgic, having packed the memories of stress at trying to get all of these ready on time somewhere deep deep away.

A longer image which would pan across the backwall, imitating a shot in the TV shows opening. Since this took place years after the show, a few of the villains were aged up and other baddies were added as well. To cap off this longer archival post, I want to share one last stupid choice I made that summer: I became the world's most amateur storm chaser. Throughout June and July, I kept a close eye on the weather and when a Thunderstorm was approaching, I race to a bluff about a 10-minute drive away, trying to catch a recording of lightning alongside the Saint Paul Skyline. All to sell a bit during big Lear storm scene, where the cartoon world would snap away and we see the inner turmoil of The Mayor.

The hills outside of Townsville during the storm, and the opening of Scene Nine. While I did catch the perfect bolt lightning which illuminated the city... my equipment was not made to capture it well. Eventually, I would have to cobble together some of my footage, use some after effects basic vfx, and call it a day. But as meh as I felt my video was, there's a real magic in theatre. After 40 minutes of campy cartoony melodramatic fun, it was absolutely electric watching Natalie shed the hokey outward persona of The Mayor and deliver one of Shakespeare's best monologues. It made every soaking wet, bone chilling minute of my foolish storm chasing task worth it. I had known for years Natalie was an incredible force of nature on stage and we were so lucky to have her as our lead. I choose not to take the easy pun and say as "our Lear" because... did I mention she was double cast?

Come back tomorrow to learn about my other favorite scene in Mayor Lear! Want to see more photos of the projections? Check out yesterday's archival post!

Have questions about Mayor Lear or Kamehamehamlet? Join us during our weekly Rally Stream on YouTube this Saturday.

[theresattrpgforthat]

any ttrpgs similar to tf2? basically a cartoonish but very violent 60s aesthetic

THEME: Cartoon-ish Violence

Hello friend! So when I hear violence, one of the first things I think of is LUMEN. This game system is primarily focused on combat, and really prioritizes character customization, which I hear is pretty big in TF2! I’ve got 2 very different LUMEN games for your consideration, and one lighter game.

Maim!, by Goat Star.

In the days of old, adventurers would go out on epic journeys, fight hordes of foes, and arise victorious with treasure and glory. Now they play maim - a sport where two teams of heroes volley each other with an anti-gravity maim-ball to score points.

A point is scored when a maim player is killed.

MAIM! is a roleplaying game where players are teammates in the midst of a dangerous death sport. It features a sci-fi fantasy setting, a futuristic world full of strange magic and machines - not to mention a cast of weird characters who are all trying to bash you down for points. MAIM! uses the LUMEN system by Spencer Campbell to make players feel badass and powerful even as they're risking their lives in the court.

Nothing feels more cartoony than turning hyper-violence into a sport. The setting is a sci-fantasy blend, with a broad span of genres to pull inspiration from. One note that I found very interesting is that this game advertises a system for generating new equipment for brand loyalty. That sounds like the perfect amount of corniness that I’d be looking for in a cartoony combat game.

CyberRats, by Alex Rinehart.

Welcome, trainee!

You are genetically engineered Operatives addicted to Biotech, a glowing gel that gives you superhuman powers.  The world is being invaded by extraterrestrials known as Interlopers. You have been employed by a megacorp to ensure that the aliens don't win, and that if they are stopped, it's you who does it, and not some rival corporation. Winning won't be easy. But it also won't be enough. The right corp must get credit.

Can you stop the aliens? Will you sabotage the military to steal equipment and defense contracts from your competitors? How many Operatives will you lose before you taste victory? If you want to really lean into the cartoon fun, Cyberrats might be up your alley. I think the art for this game is amazing, and really communicates the tone and feel of the game. It’s colourful and electric, and captures the devil-may-care attitude the rats appear to have about causal violence. There’s ongoing work to produce more content for this game, currently in the form of the Briny Bastards playtest, so if you like this game, rest assured there’s more to come!

Gun Gun Go!, by Spook-Generator.

Are you ready to take up the mantle -and chamber- of a Shooter, a defender of and gun-for-hire on X-EARTH?

Get right to the action, take on deadly threats, and use explosive abilities in this fast-paced Lasers and Feelings hack.

Lasers and Feelings is a system that is great for games that are light-hearted, and this game hands you guns and over-the-top foes to duke it out with. The setting is meant to be pretty over-the-top, with the possibility for everything from Kaiju, to Cyber-Assassins, to dragons! If you’re interested in a game you can try for very little investment, this game might be what you’re looking for.

[eziojensenthe3rd]

Midnight Gaming: Serious Squidding

So last night I played some Serious Sam past midnight, checked socials later to find... Nintendo takes down Splatoon 3 video for mentioning sex.

So during a time when Half-life and Halo have led fps games away from one-liner spouting, 90s fps games to ones that focused on a narrative, Serious Sam was a series that stood in defiance of the changing tides with hordes of screaming headless mobs running towards you the player.

The hordes arent really an exaggeration as for the time, croteams first game featuring the tshirt wearing warrior, The First Encounter, was notable in pc gaming for having tons of enemies swarming you on screen, across various arenas and an array of explosions.

My first entry though was infact The Next Encounter on the gamecube before I eventually grabbed the HD remasters as well as 2 and bfe on steam. Beaten First Encounter on normal difficulty and sometimes play the other games from time to time. 2 was the one that repelled me the most due to how cartoony it looked. It was presented like a saturday morning cartoon with corny jokes and all whiched clashed with the bloody carnage. It just didnt mesh well and neither did Before First Encounter and that was for opposite reasons.

BFE from what I heard from rumours was originally meant to be just another military shooter that croteam was working on before it got canned and they repurposed a lot of the enviroment assets for a Serious Sam game instead. Its just a rumor but it does explain why it was all in modern Egypt. But yeah that game felt a bit too grounded at times with the story and graphics being a bit drab. Also it has glory kills? You could melee some enemies with a prompt and just kill them outright, without the need to use your guns, just press the melee when your close enough and you'll blink towards an enemy, kill them outright and move on. Also BFE seems badly optimised for Switch since i've seen a lot of graphics pop in whenever I turn around a corner.

So early parts of First and Second encounter? Fine enough, you go through arenas, face several enemies, you run backwards at times, its serious sam... maybe I dont like Serious sam that much? I like it enough and there are times when it becomes tense and yet.. I often just lose interest nowadays. Could be that I often play on Normal since to me it feels.... fair. You want to play Serious Sam in a way that makes you dread every healing item and ammo pickyp you come across? Play them on Serious difficulty, the highest difficulty thats unlocked from the start, and you will definatly develop some new phobias. I tried playing on Serious for TFE and, there is, never a time where you can reliably let your guard down. Every corner, every hallway, EVERY ITEM, there will be a chance of enemies being spawned. Sometimes right in your face. Go watch a playthrough on Serious difficulty or play it yourself and you'll understand why.

Actually, the games story at first was going back in time in order to find and stop Mental right? Thats what the early games before BFE were about, travelling through the timelock to try and stop an alien overlord who is trying to destroy humanity right? Right? Because I dont think time travel is really utilised much as a narrative device in this series. All the time periods you could potentially visit and fight enemies in. The first encounter only had Egypt. The second encounter had some time periods to go through. The next encounter also had that but that wasnt really made by croteam. 2 didnt had time travel instead going by multiple worlds and BFE onwards was just in modern times on earth. Seems like only croteam only did 2 games that barely scratched the surface on time travel and then just dropped it. Isnt that strange.

Just to wrap this segment up, I will say one more thing. I also went and played the two serious sam ports on steam, Classics Revolution and Serious Sam Fusion... beta.

CR seemed to be focused on the classic versions of TFE and TSE while Fusion is based on the HD remasters and BFE, both of course have workshop support. And you know what, its nice to play Serious Sam with mods, playing through a remastered version of TFE's maps with Overwatch weapons was neat.

So moving on to news, Nintendo. That company has garnered a mixed opinion nowadays. On one hand making great games and on the other hand striking down any form of appreciation shown by their fans. This however does come off as a bit silly though in my opinion, A video by Splatoon youtuber Liora Channel was struck down for "Sexual Content"? So Liora did a video called Splatoon Girls which focused on women who played Splatoon and talked about themselves and their personal lives. Some of these women have admitted they dated some high-profile splatoon players and engaged in casual initimacy. Nintendo didnt like that so they struck the video down.

Now, I'm aware the series is rated around 3+, its very much marketed towards kids but, to be honest I dont think the playerbase is mostly just kids. I guess it was more around late teens to early 20's maybe and with the lobbies allowing for miiverse style picture posts allowing anyone to post any drawn image, I wouldnt think the fanbase is that prudish. Then again I dont play Splatoon so I could be very wrong and Nintendo could be right but if this video that Liora made was to interact with women splatoon players and they admit to having initimate relations, is it really right to strike it down because it clashes with intended marketing. I dont know but i'll leave you the article from gonintendo.com and you can decide for yourself.

Thank you all reading, feel free to leave some feedback and game suggestions. Anons are currently on.

[waheelawhisperer]

Okay I guess it's time for me to post my impressions of the second episode of RWBY Volume 9. Those impressions were, overall, not positive. I do not like this Volume so far.

More detail below the cut.

The first thing I notice is another cartoony gag revolving around the mouse. Not really a great start when it comes to tone.

“Are we seriously entertaining this?” Yeah Weiss I’ve been asking myself the same question since I first learned the premise of this Volume.

Not a fan of Weiss’s cartoon gag but I get her on a fundamental level. I really do. I don’t want any more part of this than you do, girlie. I’m frustrated too. If Weiss remains as annoyed by this Volume's setting as I am, there's a good chance she'll be my favorite character by the end of all this.

So we’re in The Girl Who Fell Through The World. Really wish we’d introduced that properly so the audience would have any idea what the fuck that meant beyond a couple vague sentences from the prior Volume.

Yay, more cartoony motion, because this show is incapable of taking itself seriously this Volume for some reason.

Okay, we’ve laid out the story, I guess. Too little too late in terms of setup, but at least it’s serviceable. Barely. Really like the way Blake takes the lead on the explanation and Yang follows up, Blake is the bookworm and Yang likes books herself and read to Ruby when she was young. It’s a nice little Bee connection.

Weiss has her head screwed on straight. Good for her for pushing the gang to come up with a plan and pick their priorities.

Excuse me, what was that raccoon’s name??? Feels like I heard something I’m really hoping I didn’t.

Little is asleep immediately after promising to do something useful for once. I hope this isn't going to become a running gag this Volume. At least they managed to be useful for the first time so far. This is not enough to redeem them, but I’m less inclined to treat them as Blake’s emergency rations... or at least I was, for about five seconds, until we got this gag. You're back on emergency rations status, mouse. I hate this Volume's insistence on trying (and failing) to be funny so much.

I like the debate about Alyx’s morals, that’s kind of interesting. I’m not overly intrigued by Alyx or her story but the differing perspectives feel like something this Volume would want to explore, especially since it’s supposed to be a character-driven Volume.

More mouse comedy. Hooray. Perish.

This Jinxy Peddler character is throwing up some real red flags, but I’ll get into that in a bit. Instead, we're going to discuss the worst moment of the episode, which is also the worst moment of the Volume so far and one of the bottom 5 moments in RWBY's entire run.

Anyway, what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck why are we mocking Yang’s disability what the fuck I hate these writers so much

Like this should be a serious moment but instead the loss of Yang's arm is portrayed in the form of an exaggerated cartoon gag lmao. At least the tone has been consistently awful this Volume.

Actually, I'm gonna take this opportunity to discuss a broader topic for a moment - RWBY's overall issues with tone. RWBY has always struggled to treat serious subjects with the respect they deserve, and this goes all the way back to the end of Volume 1 at the absolute latest (and arguably shows up as early as the Yellow Trailer, where Yang sexually assaulting Junior is played for laughs).

RWBY has been trying to convince us that Catgirl Discrimination is a serious issue for a very long time, but it undermined itself almost as soon as it started by pigeonholing Faunus characters into stereotypes associated with the animals they share their traits with and playing that for comedy. I already wrote in great detail about how exactly the writers bungled their racism storyline, so I won't rehash it here, but suffice it to say that if even the narrative can't take its themes and topics seriously, how the hell is the audience supposed to?

The "serious topics get turned into jokes" phenomenon also shows up with Yang's arm throughout the series, just like it does right here, btw, but I'll get into that later. For now I need to go vomit a little and try to figure out why whatever dumbass is responsible for this particular scene is still employed as a writer.

Leaving aside the way this scene is drenched in ableism, why the fuck are we making jokes about Yang's arm now?

(The real question is "why are we mocking Yang's status as an amputee at all?", but we already know the answer to that: it's because the writers are insensitive shitbags and incompetent on top of that.)

Team RWBY is lost in a strange environment. They don't know where they are, how to get home, what threats exist or how to combat or avoid them, or how long it will take to escape the Ever After. Their only guide is a fairy tale. They are trained Huntresses, which means they should know how to proceed in potentially hostile territory.

Yang is the team's most combat-capable member. On top of that, Yang is the one whose combat efficiency drops the least when denied access to resources such as Dust, ammunition, or the time and supplies needed to maintain her weapons. Team RWBY has been attacked by at least one denizen of the Ever After, and they know Neo is present and hostile and has a Semblance that allows her to strike without warning. Team RWBY should be on alert at all times, and their number-one priority should be getting Yang's arm back (number two should be recovering Crescent Rose). Can we please just go for five seconds without making Yang's disability the butt of a shitty joke?

I almost turned the episode off and dropped the show right here, not gonna lie. This is just... so fucking gross. Not gonna lie, I'm not sure I ship Bumbleby anymore.

Not that I could even if I wanted to, because Blake Belladonna doesn't exist anymore. The writers took her characterization out behind the woodshed and put it down like a sick dog. She went from being a courageous young woman who fought for the sake of the marginalized and oppressed to someone who tells her fellow minorities to protest more palatably, does nothing in the Kingdom most closely associated with anti-Faunus discrimination, and makes fun of her love interest for missing an arm. Honestly, Blake, you are well on your way to becoming unbearable this Volume, like I straight up don’t like you as a character right now.

God… I can feel my hopes for any remotely tolerable content coming out of this Volume dying as I watch. My expectations cratered harder than the asteroid that hit Chicxulub.

Glad the Bees are flirting in this situation, surely the loss of a Kingdom and being trapped who knows where is a great time to work on your love life.

Yang you thought you were dead ten in-universe minutes ago why the fuck are you acting like you’re on vacation

Still no fucking urgency regarding anything or concern for the people back on Remnant. Not sure if it’s the writers or the characters who forgot they exist.

Weiss loses points for looking at this Bumbleby interaction as a good thing.

Ruby’s still out of it but at least she has her priorities straight. She sounds like she’s about to cry though. Hopefully someone will pick up on that.

Weiss gets her points back for being the only one to give a shit about anything going on back on Remnant while the Bees laugh and flirt. I like the way the writing is consistently showing that she’s the one this hit the hardest.

Ruby might (MIGHT) be right about saying they did the best they could but honestly their best fucking sucked, though I blame that on the writers more so than the characters

Weiss is now fighting Yang for the coveted title of “Heela’s Favorite Character (This Volume)” because she’s acknowledging that Volume 8 happened and was bad. Low bar, but hey.

The one good thing about this scene is that it further establishes that Blake is actually a goofy little shit when she's not terrified or traumatized and is around people who make her feel safe and secure enough to open up. I've been saying this for ages. This is really not the time to be exploring this element of her character ("character"), but hey, it's nice to have textual support for my interpretations.

It's genuinely amazing that we're 7.5 minutes into this episode and a potential coded slur isn't even the thing that makes me the most uncomfortable about it. I don't know who the writers hate more, Blake, Yang, or their audience.

Oh boy more mouse humor why does this feel like a Saturday morning cartoon

I want to feed Little to the thing of indeterminate nature wearing Blake’s skin like a costume

Not bad, Little, you made the first decent joke of the Volume. Finally, an application of humor that doesn’t make me want to lobotomize myself.

Interesting that Yang is the one who wants to open up with violence when despite the stereotypes the fandom likes to insist she fits into, she’s actually one of the more diplomatic members of the team, but the peddler took her arm, so I don’t blame her for wanting to kick their ass. Blake seems a little uncomfortable with this but honestly I’m with Yang. Burn this "acre" or whatever the fuck to the ground and haul ass back to Remnant.

Weiss what the fuck with your vulnerability to anything cute I’m amazed you haven’t tried to pet your Faunus friends

Like seriously this girl goes gaga over anything remotely resembling a pet or a baby

Weiss’s facial expressions during all this convey my feelings about this stupid plotline incredibly well. Don't worry, sis, I hate this as much as you do.

Yang’s heart didn’t tell her shit she just pointed to the arm-shaped thing that was literally color-coded. Love it.

Anyway seeing Yang’s reaction to the price was cool. She wasn’t happy about that one bit. For someone like Yang, that is an awful price to pay. Like damn, the pain on her face when she heard those words...

I’m with Yang here honestly, just beat his ass and put an end to this storyline.

Poor Ruby. I actually really like this as an insight into her mental state. Kiddo's really just falling into despair. I'm hoping this'll be a red flag for her teammates to start trying to help her a bit more aggressively.

Little is certainly more useful this episode than the last, although that isn’t saying much. Love the way this mouse just saw a Thing Friend Ruby Wanted and decided to steal it without a second thought. Congratulations, Little, you're no longer emergency rations. I'm warning you, though, you're on thin ice.

At least Yang got her arm back. I love the way she’s found a new and exciting way to shoot people. Love that cocky smirk on her face when she blasts the toy soldier guy.

The different exits were funny honestly and full of personality. Weiss’s is my favorite tbh. Work it, queen. The thing pretending to be Blake, meanwhile, just looks ridiculous.

Ruby seeing Penny’s sword and having an emotional response is nice, hope this carries on throughout the Volume.

Okay we're done with this plotline now, so let's talk about the way the writers named a peddler who steals from people and cheats his customers and travels around in a wagon something that sounds remarkably similar to a... certain slur. Ever since Kdin and a number of other Rooster Teeth employees revealed the depth of the bigotry permeating that company's corporate culture, I have been approaching every piece of Rooster Teeth-produced media I encounter with my hackles up like my dog when she smells a coyote, alert for any sign of this company's characteristic malice. Between that and Rooster Teeth's well-established pattern of using coded slurs to disguise their bigotry, as well as the fact that Rooster Teeth is a dudebro company that built its brand by punching down at groups that couldn't defend themselves, I'm not inclined to assume that any similarities between Jinxy's portrayal and negative Romani stereotypes is coincidental.

Well, at least Yang had fun. Still hate the arm jokes here but at least it feels more appropriate if she’s the one making them. Never been fond of the way the show likes using Yang's status as an amputee for humor, honestly, especially since, as I just said a moment ago, Rooster Teeth established itself via making jokes at the expense of minorities/marginalized groups for the amusement of mostly-white mostly-straight mostly-gamer-dudes. If the show and the people and company behind it had more credibility with me, I'd be more readily able to accept that Yang is just the kind of person that can laugh at her own disability and that these jokes were a way of showing her strength and irrepressible bright sunny cheerfulness, but with all that context, it feels more like the writers are doing more of what Rooster Teeth has always done and mocking a vulnerable target group like the bullies the people in charge of this company are and always have been.

“We’re ruining everything” It deserves to be ruined, Thing That Was Once Blake. This setting sucks. Ruin it all you want. You cannot possibly make it worse.

Once again Yang keys in on Ruby’s distress before anyone else does. Bad sister lmao

I agree with you Weiss, I too would like out of this nightmare

Weiss is fighting Yang for Best Girl slot. She hates this bullshit as much as I do. Now if only the show would stop using her as the butt of stupid jokes. Like can we please not try to make her the comic relief and the person most affected by the fall of Atlas? Once again RWBY tries to have its cake and eat it too by trying to force a situation that should be serious to also be amusing.

I will admit the Family Weiss Death Pose is funny though.

Okay so the storms key in on emotions, and possibly Ruby’s specifically. That’s cool.

Fuck the toy soldiers but that was actually a really touching speech in Penny’s honor. I’m assuming that Ruby’s doing her guile hero bit to get to the Red King and isn’t really planning on immediately giving up her last keepsake of Penny’s.

Honestly just let Yang go apeshit on their asses, nothing about this stupid godawful setting deserves any better treatment

Ooh, that last line… That made an impact on the gang. The cracks in Ruby’s mental state are starting to show. Hopefully WBY will reach out to her soon.

Ruby sounds like she’s about to cry every time she talks this Volume. Really sells the way she’s not in a good spot right now. Here’s hoping her teammates will pick up on that, but I guess they’re too busy flirting, joking about Yang’s status as an amputee, and being the butt of visual gags.

Overall rating: FETID DOGSHIT/10

This episode is in serious contention for worst RWBY episode ever produced, or at least my least favorite. Amazing how the writers can turn out a product this bad a decade in. I want to run MKEK over with a Peterbilt.

Anyway RIP to Blake Belladonna (2013-2023), the first casualty of this Volume.

[opinated-user]

Another thing LO fails to think about with her "FRIENDS IS MORE POPULAR THAN WEEB TOONS" argument is that Anime in Japan is meant to appeal to a much broader range of ages than cartoons in the US.

There is a MASSIVE difference in a show like Friends that was marketed and timeslotted to primary an adult audience, vs a show like One Piece that has a very broad appeal to children, teenagers, and adults alike.

This is why, when One Piece came to the states, American TV stations had no CLUE how to market it. The cartoony character designs were way too juvenile for an older audience, and several plot-lines were WAY too dark for a child audience. Ultimately, that's why 4KIds went the "Censor the crap out of it and make it a kids show" route, and it failed horribly. Then, Viz took over, localized the show with little changes, and let the audience just find it on their own.

I'd also like to point out:

Number of Anime Characters as of this writing that have showed up in the Macy's Day Parade as giant balloons: 2 (Goku and Pikachu)

Number of Friends characters: 0

this is the kind of stuff someone who cared about researching other cultures instead of going with their own baseless assumption and one Google search result would probably know about.

but since we're talking about LO...

[inkdemonapologist]

Do you think we get another bendy game? I heard meatly said "we barely even started."

If another bendy game releases what do you want to see?

Yeah, I think… the idea that they’re angling towards another game in this franchise makes sense. As others have pointed out, there’s SO many notes and memos setting up Gent as important and sinister, but Gent has no real part in this story other than “an explanation for what all this non-studio stuff is,” and you’d only really need one memo for that. Establishing Mr. Gray as a sinister figure who’s looking for the Ink Machine doesn’t serve any purpose in THIS game… so you have to wonder if it’s meant for another.

I’m just… well, I dunno, I don’t have as much curiosity about the world of Bendy as I did before BatDR. Lemme ponder this...

Like, I was curious about the space between 1946 and close of studio – you know, were they still doing cartoons, or did they pivot into Bendyland? Who was composing music for them? What actually happened to Bertrum? – and I guess some of those questions still stand, but apparently that time period is mostly setting up Gent taking over, making it less and less of an animation studio, bringing in an outside force I’m a lot less interested in. And like, I was curious about how various characters became the way they are in BatIM – but... BatIM is fictional in BatDR’s canon, so… they didn’t. Joey made it up. End of mystery. I don’t necessarily think that’s a poor choice for a story, but it does kind of close the door on exploring the original BatIM and makes it sort of impossible to return there again. And I was curious how bringing back the Bendy franchise in-world would affect the Ink Realm – I thought the concept of a “dark revival” that’s actually a literal revival of the franchise was a really neat idea – but… it isn’t, really. The Ink Realm is only different because Wilson is able and willing to muck about in it for unexplained reasons; it's unaffected by the new studio and new cartoons starting up haven’t affected the ink realm in any way.

So, gosh, what would I even be curious about? What is there to explore or discover? BatIM's fun as you try to peace together What Went Wrong, but it's harder to find something relevant to piece together here. The Gent-brand Unethical Science Zone might use the ink machine to make weird monsters, I guess… But that doesn’t really have anything to do with anything that I care about. “We’re morally questionable and have a machine that can make sludge monsters, what crimes will we commit” isn’t a super compelling premise on its own.

But okay. I’ve thought about this for a bit and here’s a thing I can come up with on short notice:

I would enjoy a game where you play a major character (Joey’s a good one; Sammy, Alice/Susie, Allison, and Tom would also work) in Audrey’s reset Ink Realm, maybe with minimal memories after the reset, but trying to figure stuff out by searching through the various memories in the form of audiologs and memos throughout the Studio; bonus points if something in the narrative confirms that regardless of how fake the world is, these memories ARE real, so that we can trust audiologs again lmao. You learn you are probably artificially created, but want to know more about the person you were supposed to be and their relationships to the others, and probably end up questioning whether or not this person is someone you actually want to be by the end.

This world is Audrey’s design, so it can be more focused on an Animation Studio and lean more into the cartoony potential of BatIM’s premise.

Probably something is Not Right in the ink world due to Gent’s meddling – in this kinder cycle, something terrifying is starting to seep in that its inky residents don’t understand, which would give space for Inky Horrors and the usual industrial elements that, in this new world, would be Out Of Place and upsetting.

One neat option would be if you’re trying to learn enough to escape to the real world and find Audrey, the only person who could fix it. As established in BatIM, characters (like you) need a soul to exist in the real world, so if you find enough Real memories of the Real Person behind your creation, maybe that can give you one.

That’s 5 characters listed in the first point, and there’s usually 5 chapters, so each character getting one chapter could theoretically work – you’d need a pretty tight story arc for each if you went this route, but it would enable doing multiple perspectives, which I think would be cool. Bonus points if each person you can play as can find a different Piece of what’s really going on, and once you have all five, you get a new game plus of sorts where you learn the Horrible Truth

Obviously there’s probably some deeply foreshadowed thing where you do escape at the end, but find yourself in the Gent labs. I just think it would be fun to see these half-cartoon people wander around in the real world. You can have an optimistic “Audrey’s been captured by Gent and we save her” ending or a horrifying “you’re not even the first [insert character here] we’ve just been replacing you with new ones every time one of you gets out” vibe

Or you could treat each character as its own "route" and do fun things with multiple endings – don’t collect enough memories and you come out of the machine as horrible sludge and get destroyed immediately; collect all of your memories and come out okay but get immediately captured and get a bad ending; collect all 5 characters’ memories and get the new game plus where you ALL leave the machine together and are able to avoid getting captured and explore the real life Gent building, taking advantage of your cartoon nature to get into somewhere you're not supposed to be

This is less of a “ooo what are you hoping for” and more of a IN AN IDEAL WORLD WHAT COULD ENTICE ME. idk if its a GOOD idea, but it’s a concept that fits the genre and the lore set up so far, that would actually be interesting to me!