#I love both of these artists so this feels like a crossover episode | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

positivelybeastly · 8 months ago

Text

X-Men #4

On time for once!

Let's do this.

Hmm. Not quite sure how I feel about this? Admittedly, Illyana is a character about whom I know relatively little in the grand scheme of things, but given that she's been fighting for control of Limbo for a while, been a protege of Scott Summers, and was a War Captain on Krakoa, I would think her tactical skills would be up to snuff enough that she could be half decent at chess?

That being said, the trope that tactical ability can be measured by chess ability isn't one that I think has to be followed. It's as much a test of logic as it is of tactical planning and forethought, and between Illyana's more chaotic nature and her lack of formal schooling, maybe it's just the case that she would rather show you how good she is in the field than go on about chess ability. And I can think of a good reason why she would choose to play chess with the person she has blocked, rather than any other game.

Anyway!

Trevor Fitzroy isn't allowed his weird little gremlin bro-pal possible love interest guy Bantam anymore, because of woke. (I know fuckin' nothing about Fitzroy, incidentally, this is based off of their weird relationship in that one X-Men: TAS episode I watched.)

And yeah, what WAS Krakoa all about, huh? Where DID all those babies that got abandoned go?

. . . Well, anyway!

Hank, chairs are for sitting on, not perching on . . .

It's interesting that we're doing split team issues - clearly, this run is taking cues from New X-Men not just in terms of some of its plot points, but also some of its structure; there were multiple arcs that focused exclusively on Charles and Jean, or Logan, Scott and Fantomex, with the rest of the team in the ether. It's not a bad way to tackle a team of this size, and given the news that both Magik and Psylocke are getting ongoing solo series, I'm less worried about them getting focus in a team book now.

Where is the Marauder, incidentally? I can't imagine you need that for a psychic rescue? Unless Max is using it, I suppose. Something that'll come up in #5, I imagine.

It's a sign of just how poisoned the discourse about Hank McCoy is that I saw multiple comments on Reddit saying that this scene heralded a return to evil Beast, because he also didn't like to go out on field missions and would regard his work as more important.

That being said, this reaction was weird to me, given that this Hank comes from an era where he was at his most pro-active, heroic, and willing to fight for people he didn't know - until I read the Infinity Comics, which made it all make a good degree more sense.

Hank isn't being cowardly or showing a case of poor priorities; no, instead, he appears not to trust himself, and he'd rather not place what he perceives to be a volatile, potentially morally untrustworthy element (himself) into a live situation. Working on Magneto's illness is a cut and dry net good with no downsides, so it makes sense he'd want to keep working on that, especially if Hank has reason to believe a similar condition could affect any one of them at any time.

Not sure I love Illyana's antagonism towards Rogue here? Feels kinda like it came out of nowhere and is just being done to foreshadow the upcoming 4 part crossover where these two teams come to a head. Scott's frustration with Rogue's attack on Graymalkin in #3 felt a bit more naturalistic than this.

Idie icesliding like that really does make me wonder if MacKay also wanted Iceman for this team but he was earmarked for Eve Ewing's Exceptional book. I doubt it, just because MacKay's done some really good, pointed work with Idie, which continues in this issue, but the visual parallel is just hard to get out of my brain.

I missed this Hank, a lot.

Also, good time to note that we do have a different artist here! Netho Diaz's style isn't a million miles away from Ryan Stegman's, so it's not a very jarring shift, and I do like how Diaz renders a lot of these characters - less heavily stylised, but heavily styilised isn't always to everyone's taste, so I feel like this was a good pick of fill-in artist.

Man. Have I mentioned I missed this Hank, a LOT? That happy little smile on his face in the bottom right panel really does delight me.

Still not quite the bouncing effervescence of Defenders Hank, but this is still very solidly 90s Hank, who I do rather enjoy, especially when he's in the hands of a writer who knows when to really let his loquacious qualities out to play, and when to let brevity be the soul of wit.

Idie's really come a long way since Wolverine & the X-Men, and I'm really, honestly, very happy to see it. She's coming from a place of real experience and wisdom and the struggle of loving yourself in what can feel like a loveless world, and I hope MacKay continues to showcase her maturation and development. Considering how worried I was that she'd be wallpaper in this series, this is encouraging stuff.

If you had asked me which member of this team of X-Men I expected to give what amounts to a really popping Batman speech, I would not have picked Cain Marko, but this feels real and earned in light of his genuine Krakoan redemption. The elevation from avatar of destruction to protector, to bodyguard, to living target, is fucking awesome.

Yeah, work that pole, Hank.

That being said, this dialogue does still sound kinda weird for Hank. This feels a little more like X-Force Beast than anything else, so I'm wondering if this is a seed of something, or if Hank is just kinda frustrated that what feels like a side quest popped up just as he was about to progress the main quest and enter act 2. God knows that if I woke up in the morning and found out I had to tangle with Trevor Fitzroy and the Upstarts, I would also be a little annoyed - this feels a little bottom of the barrel for the X-Men.

The X-Men fandom at large just heaved a great sigh and said, in unison, "Oh, this fucker."

Not the AoA geneticist I would have wanted to see in this book, but I'll take it, I suppose. Hopefully we get an explanation about where this guy came from, because I was fairly certain he was dead? Not that that's ever stopped anyone before, but just, you know, so we can put it on the Wiki and all.

Laksa! Apparently a spicy noodle dish, usually made with thick rice noodles, with toppings such as chicken, straw, or fish - that being said, given we were told that Glob is a vegetarian and that he therefore only cooks vegetarian, I have to imagine this might be a coconut soup laksa that might include eggs, deep-fried tofu, beansprouts, and herbs, or some variation thereof.

Hank definitely seems to approve. :)

God, please tell me that Colossus is going to join the team, I would absolutely love for Jed MacKay to get to work on our beefy Russian lad, he deserves some TLC after the trauma conga line that was Krakoa and the years before that.

Interesting that he's a blocked number and yet they're still interacting, but then again, I have a browser extension that blocks Reddit on my computer, and I still go on Reddit, so maybe that rings truer than I'd like to admit.

This leads me to my guess as to the reason of why chess - it's playable long distance, and doesn't require any elaboration on moves. You just say the piece and where you're moving them to. Something easy to play with someone who doesn't feel communicative. A way of talking without really talking.

All in all, a decent issue, but it definitely feels more in line with #2 than #1 or #3 - I almost have to wonder if the edict to double ship issues came down, and MacKay felt more able to decompress things and spread them out across multiple issues as a result, especially since I think that, if this were paced more tightly, we'd be progressing through the plot fairly quickly.

If we're taking New X-Men as the blueprint, Morrison would absolutely have squished the last four issues into two - but they weren't double shipping, so.

If we're looking at odd numbers being the plot heavy, characterisation heavy issues, and the evens being action and a bit more 'filler' issues, then I don't think that's an awful structure - I just think that, in a world where single issues cost $3-4 a pop, people might start skipping the even numbered issues in an effort to save money. This might read better in trades, which feels A) bad to say, and also B) increasingly common about modern comics. Not sure how I feel about it.

#outofmuffins

7 notes · View notes

twompweek · 11 months ago

Text

PROMPT LIST ~ Guide

Want to know what the prompt lists for twomp week will look like and how to use them? Look no further!

Each day of twomp week will have 8 prompts. These are for you to use as loosely or as seriously as you may choose. Throw them away entirely if nothing sparks your imagination! Or put multiple together for the ULTIMATE PROMPT. The choice here is up to you!

For each day there will be one prompt for each of the following categories:

Crossovers - Enjoy this excuse to mash up your favourite parts of twomp with other media you love. Put the characters into each other's situations, argue why they parallel your favourite characters, or just have twomp characters decide which of these is their favourite!

Swap - Here we're trying to switch things around. Think about how fun it would be to see something in twomp acting in a way it normally wouldn't. Play around with their designs or characterisation to make them fit into this alternate universe version of themself!

Fluff - Where would fandom be without the soft and cuddly feelies? Let's make things cute and wholesome so we can all give these horrific guys some time to relax.

Angst - Conversely, where would fandom be without the pain and suffering? Take people out of harms way? Goodness no! Let's make them suffer more. Put your favourites into new and worse situations and see how they struggle!

Trope - Fandom tropes... We all know them and we all love them. Lets throw some fandom classics into the mix here and see what new angles we can come at them from.

Ship - We all love our twomp ships. From the main pairing, to making background characters kiss like Barbie dolls, take this as your chance to play around with some pairings in this fandom. Platonic or romantic, all that matters is how we think they'd get on with each other.

Twomp Episode - When was the last time you watched some of these twomp episodes? Have a little rewatch of this random sample plucked for the event and see if you can make anything fun based off of them. Who knows what inspiring material might be hiding in a forgotten episode.

Colour palette - Ah, the artist classic. Crack out your pens, pencils, and drawing tablets guys and challenge yourself with a strict palette. Or simply see what ideas come to mind just by looking at them. All those greens make you think of grassy plains? Why not write about a void filled with endless fields?

But what do you do if there's a prompt you like for one day that you want to do on another day? Do it for that day anyway! The prompts are only a loose starting point. This event is for you to make whatever it is you may please.

Maybe a prompt gives you a loose idea, but as you finish your work you discover it's changed from the original prompt entirely. That's fine too! I cannot stress enough how much this is up to your own preference to use.

The official prompt list will be revealed prior to the start of the event. The dates for these are both still TBD. Keep an eye for further updates and feel free to reach out with any questions

#the world of mr plant #twomp #twomp week #event info

16 notes · View notes

a-moth-to-the-light · 2 years ago

Text

The Ultimate Crossover Episode (17)

Giving K-pop Groups (and Soloists!) Bruce Springsteen Songs

StayC: Better Days (1992)

This was a tough one, because though both artists are on my list of favorite musicians, the things I like in a StayC song are very different from the things I like in a Springsteen song. I fell in love with StayC’s muted, highly polished tracks like “Slow Down” and “247”, while my favorite Springsteen songs are bold and gritty—screams into the void that just aren’t chic in the way StayC songs are (and I wouldn’t want that from Springsteen songs, either!). So I’ve ended up giving my favorite k-pop group a Springsteen song that’s, well, just okay for me. I like “Better Days”, and I’ve listened to it a lot, but it kind of falls by the wayside in such an iconic discography. Even so, I think it fits StayC perfectly!

StayC songs, as early as their debut with “So Bad”, have thrived on contrast, taking advantage of all their members to bounce fluidly between low and high notes. “Better Days” is underscored by this super low, gritty guitar that complements the low, gloomy verses, but then the backup vocals come in during the chorus and it soars, with that guitar still in the background to balance it out.

And there is at least one thing I like about both StayC and Springsteen—their vocal performances. Springsteen writes masterpiece lines and performs the hell out of them, placing emphasis in just the right places. He’s not a top-tier vocalist, but his voice is perfectly molded to his songs, and he gives life to his words in a way that leaves me quoting Springsteen lines all the time. In the same way, the members of StayC have enunciation down pat—somehow, they make songs that just shouldn’t be that catchy ring in my head for months at a time. That’s why I appreciate them so much as a group, why I call them my favorite k-pop group with no questions about it—it’s not just that I like the songs they put out, but I also like those songs a hell of a lot more because they’re the ones performing them. All this to say, StayC don’t just sing impressively; they know how to work with words, molding lines into the best versions of themselves. As a result, it felt right to give them one of the most densely lyrical Springsteen songs. “Better Days” sits right on the border of anthem and ballad, toned down in a way that mirrors StayC’s soft lofi-pop sound—even the chorus feels less intense than usual for Springsteen, passing like a soft summer breeze. The focus, then, shifts to the lyrics, which come quick and fast in the verses, line after line of Springsteen at his most philosophical. I think this song, then, is a perfect place for StayC to do what they do best, keeping their unique vocal abilities at the center of the listener’s attention.

#my dad will be disappointed in this better days slander #IM SORRY DAD #six stans springsteen #bruce springsteen #kpop opinions #stayc

2 notes · View notes

judgeanon · 2 years ago

Note

So I'm the guy who always asks this question year. Just joined Tumblr this year, what was the best and worst for the prog and the Meg this year?

Nice to see you around! How's the family? Ready for Christmas? Anywho, let's get to it...

As far as tops of the progs go, Kenneth Niemand continues to be my favorite part of Dredd. Which is a weird thing to say in a year that also had a John Wagner story, but I think Wagner has settled into this odd rhythm where he writes rock-solid stories pitched around a single weird twist that gets diffused like a bomb at the end, which is fine but eventually turns into a series of anti-climaxes and... what was I saying? Oh yeah, Niemand, great guy, love his one-shots and shorts and just about everything he does with Dredd.

Apart from Dredd, I dug KINGMAKER, BRINK was utterly delightful, LOWBORN HIGH has a lot of promise (and gorgeous art), and I'm still enjoying SINISTER DEXTER far more than anyone should be enjoying it in the year 2022. I liked the premise of THE CRAWLY MAN 3riller too, hope that gets a series some day. But the biggest surprise for me is how much I enjoyed the newest HERSHEY book. That was a real "against all odds" for me, especially after the last one, but this was a huge improvement.

As for the bad, I'm sure everyone and their mom is having a go at HOPE, and as much as it breaks my heart, it's completely warranted. That series is a mess. I do like the coven of witches idea, but everything else is just ehhh. And speaking of messes, ENEMY EARTH is another one. I like the art's energy but it makes me feel like I'm reading inside a malfunctioning amusement park ride.

As for the Meg, let's get it out of the way: LAWLESS is still awesome. Metta becoming a vigilante rules. Still the star of the show. I also really enjoyed DEATH CAP, although that was mostly because of Boo Cook going absolutely hog-wild on the last couple of episodes. The new bits of Psi-Division lore in ANDERSON were very fun. Dunno if it counts but HAWK THE SLAYER was another surprise delight. So weird to see both Ennis and Flint doing genres they don't usually go for and making it their own.

Meanwhile, I don't really care for Ales Kot's DEVLIN WAUGH or DIAMOND DOGS, but at least the latter had the good manners to, y'know, end. But beyond that, the Meg was solid this year. Same could be said for the prog really: very solid year, nothing particularly show-stopping but no deal-breakers either.

Also, I'd like to give a special mention to that zombie crossover event thing because I rolled my eyes at it a little when it got announced but it ended up being a really cool little ride. Plus it gave some artists I love a chance to draw the shit out of a bunch of characters they otherwise wouldn't and that's always welcome.

#2000AD #Judge Dredd #Comics #Judge Dredd Megazine #This Year In Review

17 notes · View notes

south-park-fanart-archive · 3 years ago

Text

Welcome! + Faq, Tags

The main mission behind this blog is to gather as much old, tumblr-based south park fanart as possible and give it a conventional, easily searchable home. While tumblr’s general search system may falter, or google may hide old blogs targeted by the faulty nsfw filters, this blog will be navigable by various tags.

This blog was started on December 31st, 2021, starting out using the resources found on op’s old sideblog that has been collecting fanart since 2014. Many of these blogs are either no longer active, disabled, or were deleted by the mass banning in 2018 (sp fandom used to be full of porn artists!), so the timestamps may not be accurate as some are no longer viable to pull from. Most posts are tagged directly by year (example, “2014″), while others may have a tag like "2014 or older”. This means that the post is at the maximum from 2014, but I don’t have an exact date, only the date I reblogged it. There are also some posts that were sourced and credited but were reposts (not posted by the original artist to tumblr) and those are tagged with “repost” and my best guess on the username of the original artist and the date.

(As a sidenote, even for archival purposes, I will not be posting any explicit nsfw to this blog to avoid any issues with tumblr’s flagging system. Any naughty-adjacent jokes will be tagged with “nsfw-ish”. There is also a tag “flashing gif” because there’s a couple of those for people who may have photosensitivity. There may also be art that has problematic elements, but anything too bad will be tagged as necessary.)

I tried to tag posts with both the artists current (or the last username they used before being disabled) username and a more recognizable username. Some may have been missed, so if you’re looking for someone specific, search the more recognizable name and then after finding it, plug the newer username into your search.

This blog is not just compiling old art, but art created recently in the sp tag. That way, we are creating the most comprehensive place to search for art, and once I’m done going through my old blog, it will have a good record all the way through the present. This way, in the future, if someone wants to look back at 2021 art, the resource is there!

Some tags to try and search:

https://south-park-fanart-archive.tumblr.com/tagged/[insert from below]

[year, ex. 2014]

[character, ex. Kenny] **NOTE: Tolkien is tagged as “Token” on this blog, as the archive was started before his name spelling was changed in canon. For consistency with what was already set up, this is how to find his fanart :)

[group, ex. Craig’s Gang; main 4 ;girls; group shot]

[au, ex. sot; fbw; coon and friends; general “au” tag]

[artist, ex. preoprix]

[ship, ex. creek]

[Season, ex “s18″] (this means the content was published in direct response to an episode from a specific season, or in preparation/hype for the new season)

Specific links:

https://south-park-fanart-archive.tumblr.com/tagged/askblog because remember those? There were a lot!

https://south-park-fanart-archive.tumblr.com/tagged/fandom%20history for posts that I feel are very relevant in some way to sp tumblr history. Either being very well known or infamous, or I feel are a fun retrospect.

https://south-park-fanart-archive.tumblr.com/tagged/the%20creekening speaking of fandom history, this is all the art that came directly before (much of the joke art submissions) and immediately following the airing of TxC.

https://south-park-fanart-archive.tumblr.com/tagged/memes vintage humor! [Also try the long leg craig meme specifically!]

https://south-park-fanart-archive.tumblr.com/tagged/fandom%20critique for art that critiqued or made fun of popular fanon or headcanons.

https://south-park-fanart-archive.tumblr.com/tagged/crossover see what people liked to mix sp with! (Homestuck. The answer is homestuck.)

https://south-park-fanart-archive.tumblr.com/tagged/op's%20favorite for art that I love in particular and I likely reblogged multiple times during my fandom experience <3

If all else fails, try the /search function, which will likely bring up something similar to what you’re looking for!

125 notes · View notes

decodad · 2 years ago

Text

putting aside my own personal annoyance with this phenomena and wondering from a purely anthropological/sociological perspective, i have to wonder why certain crossovers (that being between two totally disparate sources of media, not things like spider-man meeting the x-men) are seen as not only acceptable but cool and exciting and others are, effectively, seen as cringe or weird.

for example, i don't think the meme featuring mordecai and twilight sparkle would have blown up the way that it did without 1) the style of the art and 2) the fact that it was mordecai and twilight sparkle. when if you really think about it, there's nothing that bizarre about it? both shows aired and were popular at the same time across generations, and someone like twilight sparkle would not be out of place in the universe of regular show (there was an entire episode about unicorns, even). the art aside, why is it that enjoyment of these two was ironic and not sincere? is it because they're both from kids shows? is it that they're both anthropomorphic animals? a combination therein?

another more tepid example-- the whole reason my art of dave seville and jon arbuckle got so popular was because folks by and large were bewildered by it, positively or not. while it's not something i had considered without outside suggestion, i didn't think there was anything all that strange about it, least not to the degree others seem to believe there is. i have no strong investment in either of them beyond general amusement either, so my confusion is not derived from any sort of personal offense or annoyance. they're two adult men around the same age, presumably of similar temperament and with similar artistic interests... they just happen to come from two franchises with ironic popularity in the current age, but that's quite a recent phenomena fueled by the internet. beyond that context... what about the prospect between the two of them is particularly outlandish?

again, i posit these questions from a place of genuine curiosity. would love to hear from anyone who has an aversion to crossovers/crossover ships, as well as those who like me don't really think twice about them, how you feel about these or any other examples

#wordy post but im still in a chatty mood....#this is something i think about all the time both impartially and from a place of annoyance #moon's thoughts

9 notes · View notes

canary3d-obsessed · 5 years ago

Text

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 14 first part

(RR The Untamed Masterpost) (Canary’s Pinboard - more Masterposts)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Murder Turtle, Continued

Lan Wangji wakes up after a good night's sleep leaning against a rock wall, to find that his leg is no longer splinted, and his perfectly clean and unbloody headband has been put back on his head while he was sleeping.

Leaving aside the "not waking up" part of things, how, exactly, did Wei Wuxian get his headband on without mussing his hair? Did he bring a crochet hook?

Wei Wuxian gives him a sitrep and then they cozy up and have an extended conversation about the nature and history of the Tortoise of Slaughter. Wei Wuxian is interested in everything Lan Wangji has to say, and Lan Wangji talks a lot more than usual; they are completely on the same wavelength here and are enjoying swapping obscure knowledge.

Lan Wangji: My lacerated leg and I are actually super aware that it has big teeth, but thanks for the reminder.

In the course of the conversation, Wei Wuxian mentions his plan to 1. sneak into the tortoise's shell and 2. drive it out of its shell so they can attack it.

OP did a little tortoise research and learned that the only species of turtle that can leave its shell is the Koopa Troopa.

Good news for Wei Wuxian: If you jump on its shell in the right spot, you can rack up a pile of extra lives.

Does that make the Tortoise of Slaughter a giant Koopa Troopa? Perhaps...the king of the Koopa Troopas?

I'm gonna say yes.

(More after the cut)

Let’s Go Killing

Wei Wuxian is exhilarated by the idea of fighting a giant dangerous monster with Lan Wangji. Some day Wei Wuxian will found the Nike clan, because his motto is definitely "Just do it."

It's sweet how, in his romantic notions about chivalry and Lan Wangji, he's completely elided the original reason they were (sort of) told to venture together.

Wei Wuxian: I'm still on the "find the Yin Iron" quest; I'm just skipping the "suppress it" part.

Wei Wuxian weighs up their chances against Bowser and tells Lan Wangji that even if they die, it will be badass to be killed by a famous monster, so they won't have to feel embarrassed.

This is the exact moment that Lan Wangji's feelings for Wei Wuxian go from "smitten" to "gagging for it."

Lan Wangji: as soon as we get out of here I'm going to borrow a whole lot of books from Nie Huaisang

The boys come up with a plan that involves a rather long montage of collecting archery equipment and deconstructing it. This potentially-dull montage is fun to watch because they are both very, very good looking.

Artists who want to draw Wang Yibo as an elven archer, this is your episode.

Now we suddenly have, with zero explanation, telepathy. Ok, sure. It seems to work kind of like a phone conversation, in which they say specific things to each other, rather than like Cherry Magic telepathy where you can hear everything the other person is thinking. Or at least, neither of them is embarrassed, so I assume they are maintaining some mental privacy.

Club Ruohan

Same, Wen Chao, same

At some point there is a boring sequence at Club Ruohan. Wen Ruohan doesn't know where Xue Yang is, but really wants his hunk of Yin Iron. Wen Chao thinks that WRH's 3 pieces of Yin Iron should be able to beat Xue Yang's 1 piece, but apparently he is dumb and that is not how math works. O...kay? OP does not understand this either but whatever, Wen Ruohan is boring, moving on. This scene is really just here to make us think about Yin Iron before Wei Wuxian jumps into Bowser's shell.

Bigger On The Inside

So then Wei Wuxian climbs into Bowser's shell, which is, to quote The 12th Doctor, bigger on the inside.

Bowser’s shell is the approximate size of my entire house. It is also bathed in a hellish pure red photo filter, which OP has done her best to remove for these gifs, because it gives me eye strain and it obscures Xiao Zhan's hotness.

Camera Operator: What did I do?

Wei Wuxian wanders around inside, finding random corpses encased in slime cocoons. Tortoise, spider, xenomorph, whatever. There are also random curtain things hanging all over, and then at one point Wei Wuxian stares into the face of a corpse, and then does a jump scare response at the camera operator even though nothing particular happened.

I imagine the corpse was supposed to open its eyes and say "killl meeee" but it got censored. He also makes about 8 other faces at the camera operator, so we get that the inside of this TARDIS-like tortoise shell (must...resist...temptation...to...say...TORDIS) is yucky.

Lan Wangji waits outside listening to Wei Wuxian telepathically complain about the smell. He is anxiously clenching a bundle of string and an arrow, and wishing he could clench Wei Wuxian Bichen instead.

Serendipitous Yin Iron

Wei Wuxian backs his way through the TORDIS until his butt bumps into a sword that is steaming with resentful energy. That's right: Wei Wuxian is about to pull a piece of Yin Iron almost literally out of his ass.

He grabs it and is overwhelmed by its screaming resentful energy and has to let it go again.

So this is what a vibrator with 4 batteries feels like

When Bowser comes looking for him, however, he quickly decides to go for it, grabbing the sword and singing "I've Got the Power (Gonna Make You Sweat)"

Wei Wuxian plunges the sword into Bowser's lower jaw, and Bowser pulls his entire head out of his shell with Wei Wuxian attached, while leaving the rest of his body and all rational laws of physics inside the shell.

Gamera Versus the Cultivators

What follows is one of the more ridiculous action sequences in the history of the world, and I say that as someone who likes Mothra movies.

Wei Wuxian hovers in a perfect horizontal plank while “hanging from” the sword, which is held well below the level of his torso. While Bowser spins him around. For much of the time, Bowser keeps his head still and just waves his neck around.

Lan Wangji and the camera operator do everything they possibly can to make "guy pulls on string" look interesting.

Everybody tries really, really hard and the actors are great at pretending something is there when it isn't, but this whole sequence is just horribly conceived.

What works well, though, is the Yin energy and Wei Wuxian's wrangling of it. He starts off being frightened and overwhelmed, and looking like it's too much for him; I dont' know if they made his face puffy on purpose or if that's just what happens when you spend days hanging from the ceiling fighting an imaginary monster. But he looks slack and unwell as he grapples with the iron sword.

Which makes this moment, when he gets control of it, deliciously creepy. He uses the power of the Yin Iron to stick a bunch of pokey things into Bowser's neck.

Lan Wangji has seen him struggling and now sees him...not struggling. Which scares the piss out of him, and he moves to finish the fight as quickly as possible, slicing up his hand and breaking the string. Combined with the pokey things, this does the trick and Bowser dies while Wei Wuxian faints and falls into the water.

Do the Whumpty Whump

Lan Wangji rescues him and wakes him up, and Wei Wuxian clutches the Yin Iron sword and tells Lan Wangji that he was knocked out by the screaming of disembodied voices.

This certainly sounds like a strange and dangerous phenomenon, so Lan Wangji carefully asks him to explain everything.

Ha ha ha j/k. Lan Wangji asks him exactly nothing about the strange sword or the black smoke or his weird evil smile or his new power over pointy objects. Lan Wangji appears to have a Star Trek: TNG level of unconcern about strange phenomena happening directly under his nose. But in fact he has noticed what's up, which is why he will be instantly distressed when he sees Wei Wuxian's flute moves at the Wen Corporate Headquarters.

Wei Wuxian has a fever (stay positive test negative) and comments on Lan Wangji's being so nice to him.

Wei Wuxian: I could never have imagined Lan Er Gongzi acting this concerned about me. Lan Wangji: what else have you never imagined me doing, while we're on the subject?

Lan Wangji transfers a stream of spiritual energy to him. Lan Wangji has so much spiritual power he can be a battery for Wei Wuxian without breaking a sweat or, like, noticing whether Wei Wuxian has a golden core or not, for that matter.

Wei Wuxian basks in the nice feeling of gigajoules for a while but then decides he's bored. So then he pouts, whines, and cajoles Lan Wangji in exactly, EXACTLY the way he whines at Jiang Yanli. I think this, while annoying of him, is a leap forward in his relationship with Lan Wangji.

He's letting his guard down and not just allowing Lan Wangji to take care of him; he's demanding to be cared for on multiple vectors, when he asks the guy who's already busy healing him to sing to him as well.

Lan Wangji obliges, singing him the song he composed about their love cultivation journey, while Wei Wuxian (or possibly Lan Wangji) (or possibly both) has a flashback to assorted sexy interactions that they've had so far.

Wei Wuxian memorizes the song perfectly on one hearing, before passing out.

Writing Prompt: Baldur’s Gate III / Untamed Crossover AU featuring elf archer Lan Wangji

I DARE YOU

Soundtrack: 1. Everybody Dance Now by C+C Music Factory 2. Paradise by the Dashboard Light by Meatloaf

Wei Wuxian fainting tally (cumulative): 3

#fytheuntamed #the untamed #wangxian #the untamed gifs #the untamed meta #the untamed spoilers #restless rewatch the untamed #my gifs #canary3d-original #asian whump

326 notes · View notes

lokiondisneyplus · 4 years ago

Text

Holy crap. Look at Kate Herron's shirt. When the Loki director pops up on Zoom, she's donning the most glorious image anyone will see since we laid eyes on Alligator Loki: A Teletubby wearing the Loki horns. Are the Teletubbies Loki variants? Sure, why not!

"I got it on Instagram," Herron says. "There's an amazing comic book artist and he designed it. He made it into a T-shirt for me because I saw it and was like, 'That's incredible. Can I get it for the press junket?'"

Herron, no big deal, just pulled off an MCU miracle. Entering a mammoth franchise with, notably, some of Sex Education's best episodes under her belt, the director deftly brought a plot involving multiverses and Richard E. Grant in a cape and superhero mumbo-jumbo to brilliant, beautiful life. Following Loki's tear-jerking, mind-bending finale, the series has been dubbed by critics and fan's alike as one of Marvel's best efforts—which is no small feat. Of course, we needed to ask Herron how she stuck the landing. Following the most epic finale you, me, or any Teletubby can remember, Herron talked to Esquire about the Miss Minutes jump scare, filming the finale's introduction of He Who Remains, and why she won't return for Season Two of Loki.

ESQ: How are you doing?

KH: I'm good. I think I feel very relieved that I don't have to sit on the secret of He Who Remains anymore, It was a very big secret to hold, but for an important reason, right? Because it's such a good character to be launching. So yeah, I feel good.

ESQ: Loking back at your old interviews, you have such a good poker face when you're avoiding spoilers, but you're also incredible at giving aggregator crumbs.

KH: I play a lot of board games, so you need to be quite good at strategy and poker faces so people can't always read your hand. So I think weirdly board games have prepared me more for working with Marvel than anything else.

ESQ: I have to start with the Miss Minutes jump scare. What went into the decision to make her a memeable, creepy apparition in that moment?

KH: I love horror, and my executive, Kevin Wright, knew that. Me and him were talking about Episode Six and I remember that he was like, "Oh, maybe you could do something creepy of Miss Minutes." And I immediately was like, "We have to do a jump scare!" Because I haven't got to do a good jump scare in anything yet and I really wanted to, because a lot of my friends are horror directors. I was like, "I can't let them down." So I was really excited to have a shot at doing a jump scare. And Miss Minutes, it was really fun testing it because we'd kind of bring different people into the edit, me and Emma McCleave, the editor, and we'd just play it for them, watch them, and check that they were jumping when we cut it.

ESQ: One thing that I think is getting missed in all the craziness is that we see a peak moment of the love story between Loki and Sylvie. Where does the finale leave the companionship that they found in each other?

KH: When I started the show, that was always in the DNA of it—that Loki was going to meet a version of himself and they were going to fall in love. And that's honestly what drew me into the story, because I directed Sex Education. I love stories about self-love and finding your identity and your people. Loki is such a broken character when we join him, and seeing him go on this amazing journey with all this growth and finding the good points of himself in seeing her—I think that was very beautiful. It's also paying respect to the fact that Sylvie's in a very different place to him. She hasn't had the Mobius therapy session. She even says, in Episode Five, "I don't know how to do this. I don't have friends." You really feel for her because she has been on the run and her whole life has been this mission.

It's almost funny because these characters are thousands of years old, but it's almost teenage the way they both talk about their feelings for each other. I think everyone can relate to that, right? In any new relationship, there's always that kind of awkwardness and like, "Oh God, am I too keen? The important thing was the hope—like when Sylvie and him kiss, I think it is genuine and it is coming from a place of these feelings they have for each other. Obviously she does push them through that door, but for me it was a goodbye and it was with heart. But it's kind of a goodbye in the sense of like, I care about you, but I'm going to do my mission because that's where I'm at.

ESQ: I would pay for you to direct the Sex Education episode where Otis falls through a portal into the multiverse, into the main MCU.

KH: He really looks like a Loki as well, which is so funny. I always thought that. I was like Asa does look like a Loki. It didn't come to pass or anything, but it would be interesting to do a Sex Ed-Marvel crossover. I wonder who all the different characters would be within the MCU, but it would be quite funny.

ESQ: You're right, he could pull off a teenage Loki.

KH: Yeah, like a teen or a very young ’20s, maybe. But it was just funny because I was like, "Oh yeah, he looks a bit like Tom." I wonder how they could do it. I'm sure they'll find a way to do a crossover anyway.

ESQ: Can you just take me back to filming with Jonathan Majors? And you capturing him in such a compelling, quirky, scary way—I'm sure your direction was such a big part of that.

KH: I was just so excited because Jonathan is an actor that everyone was so excited about. He's like a chameleon in everything he does and he's so talented. I just feel as a director so lucky to have worked on this because I feel like I've got to work with some of the best actors out there. And when you're with Jonathan, you know you're in the presence of just someone really magnificent. For me as a director, it's giving him the space to play and feel safe. Because we filmed it all in a week, but it was a lot to film in a week. So I think it was really about creating a space where he could have fun and find this character because he's going to be playing him for a long time.

ESQ: What went into the decision to introduce us to the good guy first?

KH: I remember in the script, he comes up the elevator and it was so casual. I was like, "Oh man, that's so fun." And then Jonathan, when he plays it, he's relaxed. And I the thing he used to talk about a lot was that this is a character who's been on his own for a long time. Because at the beginning, we introduced him in a space in the universe that feels like this very busy, loud place, but actually, when we see the Citadel, he's surrounded by the Timeline and he's very isolated. Even in his costume with [designer] Christine Wada, for the idea of his outfit, he's a character who's existed for multiple millennia. So it's like, OK, let's pull from lots of different places so you can't necessarily pin down which time or which place he might be from. Also the fact that his clothes look comfy. They were like pajamas because he's living at home. He loved the idea of the office [being] the only finished part of the citadel and that the rest of the citadel was like this Sunset Boulevard kind of dusty, dilapidated space. And just again showed that he probably just keeps himself to his office. All those elements definitely fed into Jonathan's performance in terms of balancing the extrovert, but also the introvert of someone that would be living by themselves and only talking to a cartoon clock.

ESQ: It really is incredible how you pull a nail-biting finale with this battle of wits and dialogue.

KH: It was really exciting because I feel like Episode Five was a lot of fun because we got to play into all the joy of the different versions of Loki, but also just the fact that it was our big usual Marvel third act, right? Like it was where our big spectacle was as they were fighting this big monster. But I love that our finale bookends, right? We began with a conversation and we ended with one.

ESQ: I also loved that there was no end-credits scene—I think it makes the ending that much more impactful. Was there ever an end credit scene on the table, or any kind of a stinger?

KH: I think no, because weirdly, we never went after the kind of mid-credit sequences. I think we always just were thinking just of the story and where we knew we wanted it to end. For example, Episode Four, originally Loki was deleted and then we went straight to him waking up. And it was only in the edit I was like, “I think it'd be really cool actually. We should move that scene to mid-credits because then we'll really feel like Loki has died." Because if I watched that moment and then it went to the credits, I'd be like, "What?!" And then when we were talking about the best way to talk about Season Two, we were like, "Okay, well, let's do that like a little mid-credits at the end because that is exciting to confirm it in that way." I'd say we found both of those in the edit just because we wanted to kind of do it right and have a fun nod to something that Marvel does so well.

ESQ: Is there anything you can tell about the future of the story you've told here—or even where you personally would like to go with the studio or otherwise going forward?

KH: Yeah, so I'm just on for Season One. So I'm so proud of the story we told. I mean, it was amazing getting to set up the TVA and take Loki on this whole new journey. And I mean, I think we've left so much groundwork for his character, and as people see in the comics, there's so much more to be delved into. And I just am excited honestly to just see where all the characters go. Like, who is B-15? What did she see in those memories and where did Ravonna go and where is Loki? I think for me, we've set up these questions and I look forward to seeing them being answered as a fan in the next season.

ESQ: Absolutely. Well, can we please work on the Asa Butterfield Loki?

KH: I will call him and I'll be like, "You want to do some crazy Marvel crossover?"

#Kate Herron #loki #season 1 #director #interview

44 notes · View notes

entertainment · 5 years ago

Photo

Entertainment Spotlight: Osric Chau

If you’re a fan of Supernatural or the Arrowverse, you probably recognize actor, producer, writer, director, and martial artist Osric Chau. He landed his first leading role in Kung Fu Killer in 2008, after spending years training in martial arts with aspirations to work in stunts. The following year Osric played Nima, the Tibetan monk, in the blockbuster film 2012, and he recently produced and starred in the film Empty By Design. On the television front, he played genius high school student pulled into the role of prophet, Kevin Tran, in Supernatural, and is currently starring as Ryan Choi in the Arrowverse’s epic crossover event, Crisis on Infinite Earths. Over the years, Osric has more than found a passion for acting and filmmaking. He still enjoys stunts, and has enormous appreciation of the skill and sacrifices involved but he'll settle with doing as many of his own stunts as a production will allow. Osric took time out of his busy schedule to answer some of our questions. Check it out:

With Supernatural ending this year, what is your favorite memory from the show (either on or off camera)?

First day, first episode. The beginning of it all. Met everyone. Got to do some running around as Kevin. And Jared became a father that night. Such a crazy time.

If you could have a conversation with Kevin Tran, what would you want to ask him and/or talk about?

I'd probably talk him into doing some physical training so he could be a hunter too.

You just produced and starred in Empty By Design. What did you learn from the experience?

I learned that I'd been holding back my whole life. That I'd been limiting myself in what I thought I could or could not do and that there really isn't anything that I can't do with passion, hard work and a couple of good friends.

How would you describe the plot of Empty By Design to a five year old?

So Barbie lives in her house, right? (Child says yes) And GI Joe's always fighting some bad dudes so he's kinda homeless, but he lives in his truck, right? (Child says yes as well) Well let's say Barbie leaves her house and her family and goes to school for years. And one of the bad guys kidnaps GI Joe and keeps him away from his truck for years. And one day Barbie comes back to her house, but things have moved around and it's just a little bit weird, GI Joe escapes the bad dudes, and now he's back in his truck but his brother changed it to a stick shift while he was away and he doesn't know how to drive it anymore, and they bump into each other and talk about how weird it feels to be back home again even though they belong there. That's what Empty by Design is about. Can you tell I'm bad with kids?

What inspired you to make Empty By Design?

I needed to do something for myself. And I found some friends that did too. I asked my roommate Drea if she could do anything, what would she want to do? She said go back home to the Philippines. I told her to write a script about that. This was all happening while we were moving into our new apartment and after daily Ikea trips for a week, the words Empty by Design popped out of her mouth.

Do you have any fun facts about the making of Empty By Design that fans would be surprised to find out?

We flew to the Philippines with one way flights without a budget and we somehow managed to raise the money within the first two weeks there.

Can you walk us through an average day on the set of Crisis on Infinite Earths?

"What're we doing right now?" "Why are they in that costume?" "Wait what happened before this?" "My beard is so itchy..." "Okay this feels like Comic Con! Am I too excited right now?"

You wake up tomorrow morning as Ryan Choi in the middle of Crisis on Infinite Earths. What do you do?

I recognize I am not as smart as him but thankfully better trained and stupid enough to run in with full confidence. I limber up and try not to get in the way.

How does the making of a crossover event differ from the making of a regular episode?

Well for starters the crossover event was filming 5 episodes at the same time, so that in itself is a feat. Now on top of that, you're trying to use the same actors on all of those episodes so to coordinate which character which set and which show at all times and then you have other actors from other shows that you need to coordinate with as well. It was a logistical miracle that they pulled off. Hats off to everyone that made it happen.

What’s next for you?

I'm writing a script right now that I'm gonna co-direct with a friend. It's about my parents and I started writing it after the realization that they're actually real people and getting older. Weird thing to consider but that really scared me and I had to force myself to take the time to appreciate them while I still can. Doing a movie for them is my way of saying I love you, and thank you for putting up with me my entire life. And I'm also in talk with a good friend of mine to starting a vegetarian restaurant in Vancouver. I won't go into the ambition that i have for both of these but they're high haha, and they both bring me back to Vancouver more often which goes back to me wanting to spend more time with my family.

Thanks for taking the time, Osric! Give Osric’s Tumblr a follow right here.

#entertainment spotlight #osric chau #empty by design #supernatural #crisis on infinite earths #kevin tran #ryan choi

3K notes · View notes

rachelbethhines · 4 years ago

Text

Vintage Shows to Watch While You Wait for the Next Episode of WandaVision - The 60s

So the 60s is the era that Wandavision pulls most heavily from for it’s inspiration. So much so that one could make the argument that each of the first three episodes are all set in the 1960s. Episode one pulls from the early 60s with multiple Dick Van Dyke refences, episode two is very Bewitched inspired, and episode three is aesthetically very similar to The Brady Bunch which started in ‘69. As such it was hard to narrow down the list for this decade and I had to get creative in some ways.

1. The Andy Griffith Show (1960 - 1968)

The Andy Griffith Show gets kind of a bad rap now a days for being, supposedly, a conservative’s wet dream. People claiming it as such have apparently never actually seen the series. Oh yes, it’s very much set in white rural 60s America and will occasionally present the obliviously outdated joke, but the story of a widowed sheriff being the only sane man in a small town full of lovable lunatics, who prefers to solve his and others problems with negotiation and hair brained schemes as opposed to violence has far more in common with modern day Steven Universe than whatever genocidal fantasy fake rednecks have in their heads.

As the gif above shows Andy Griffith was very subtlety progressive for its time. Andy was a stanch pacifist, pro-gun control, treated drug addicts and prisoners with respect, and all the women he would date had careers, ect. and so on. It’s not a satire making any sort of grand political statements but the series had a moral center that was far more left than many realize.

But if it’s not a satire, then what type of comedy is it?

The Andy Griffith Show excels in what I like to call, ‘awkward comedy’. See everyone in Mayberry is far too nice to just come out and tell a character they’re making an ass of themselves, so therefore whoever is the idiot punching bag of the episode’s focus must slowly unravel as everyone looks on in helpless pity until said character realizes the folly of their ways and the townsfolk come together to make them feel happy and accepted once more. Wandavision takes this polite idyllic awkwardness and plays it up for horror instead of laughs.

2. The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961 - 1966)

The creators of Wandavision actually met with Dick Van Dyke himself to pick his brain and learn how sitcoms were made back then. Paul Bentley also took inspiration from Van Dyke in his performance of the sitcom version of Vision, while Olsen stated Mary Tylor Moore had a heavy influence on her character of Wanda. But more than just being a point of homage, The Dick Van Dyke Show was hugely influential in modernizing the family sitcom and breaking a lot of the unspoken traditions and ‘rules’ of the 50s television era. It’s also just really, really funny.

3.The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962 - 1965)

Bit of a cheat here. Alfred Hitchcock Presents actually started in 1955 as a half hour anthology show, but in ‘62 the show got a revamp and was extended into a full hour tv series. I knew I wanted The Twilight Zone to be covered in my episode one recap, but ‘The Master of Suspense’ couldn’t be forgotten. While The Twilight Zone reveled in the surreal and supernatural, Alfred Hitchcock pioneered the thriller genre and made real life seem dangerous, horrifying, and other worldly.

4. Doctor Who (1963 - present day) vs Star Trek (1966 - present day)

Just like how westerns dominated the air waves during the 50s, science fiction was the center of the cultural zeitgeist of the 60s. From Lost in Space to My Favorite Martian, space aliens and robots were everywhere. So naturally I had to name drop the two sci-fi juggernauts that still air to this today. If you thought that the rivalry between Star Wars and Star Trek was bad then you’ve never seen a chat full of Whovians and Trekkies duking it out over who is the better monster, the Borg or the Cyberman. But which one has the more influence over Wandavision?

Well Star Trek owes it’s existence to sitcoms. As with The Twilight Zone before it, Star Trek was produced by Desilu Productions and it’s co-founder and CEO, Lucille Ball, was the series biggest supporter behind the scenes, lobbying for it when it faced early cancelation. As with all things sitcomy, everything ties back to I Love Lucy in the end. However despite that little backstory, it would seem that the series has very little to do with Wandavision itself beyond being quintessentially American.

I would argue that Wandavision owes much to Doctor Who though. Arguably more so than any show mentioned in this retrospective. Time travel, alternate realities, trouble in quite suburbia, brainwashing, people coming back from the dead, ect... just about every trope you can find in Wandavision has also appeared in Doctor Who at some point. As a series that can go anywhere and do anything, Doctor Who was a pioneer of marrying genres in new and interesting ways.

5. Bewitched (1964 - 1972) and I Dream of Jeannie (1965 - 1970)

It’s hard to pick one series over another because they’re essentially the same show. A mortal man falls in love with a magical girl who upends their lives with magic filled hijinks as they try their best not to have their secret discovered by the rest of the world. And both have their fingerprints all over the DNA of Wandavision.

There’s only two core differences; Samantha and Jeannie have completely different personalities, with Sam being confident and knowledgeable and Jeannie being naïve and oblivious, along with their relationships with their respective men, Sam and Darrin being married and in love at the start of the series and Jeannie chasing after Tony in the beginning in a will they/won’t they affair, finally only getting together in the last season.

6. The Munsters (1964 - 1966) vs The Adams Family (1964 - 1966)

Fans of these two shows are forever sadden that there never was a crossover between them. Because they’d fit perfectly together. Both shows are about a surreal and macabre family living in American suburbia and disrupting the lives of their neighbors with their otherworldly hijinks. Sound familiar?

The main difference between the two shows is the way the characters viewed their placement in the world they inhabit.

The Munsters were always oblivious to the fact that didn’t fit in. They just automatically assumed everyone had the same personal tastes as them. Whenever they encountered anyone who behaved strangely around them they would write that person off as being the odd one rather than questioning themselves. As such the main cast was structured like a stereotypical sitcom family who just happened to be classic movie monsters.

The Addams were well aware that they were abnormal and they loved it! They lived life with in their own little world and didn’t care what anyone thought of them. As such the characters were far more colorful and quirky as individuals but there was little in the way of refences to other horror franchises beyond just a general love of the twisted and strange.

7. Green Acres (1965 - 1971) and the Rual-verse (1962 - 1971)

So the MCU is not the first franchise to bring viewers an interconnected universe to the small screen. Far from it, as sitcoms had been doing this for decades, starting with the ‘rualverse’. Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres were all produced by the same company and were treated as spinoffs of each other, complete with crossovers and shared characters and sets.

Of the three, the last show, Green Acres, has the most in common with Wandavision. A well to do businessman and his lovely socialite wife settle down in small town America on a farm in order to get away from the stresses of city life, only to find new stresses in the country. Eva Gabor, herself a natural Hungarian, plays the character of Lisa as Hungarian making her one of the few non-native born Americans on tv screens during the cold war. Despite her posh nature and original protests to the move, Lisa assimilates to the rural life far easier than her husband, Oliver. Who, as the main comedic thread, can’t comprehend his new quirky neighbors’ odd and often illogical behavior.

8. Hogan’s Heroes (1965 - 1971) and Get Smart (1965 - 1969)

So as comic fans have been quick to point out, it’s looking like both A.I.M. (Hydra) and Sword (Shield) will be players in the story of Wandavision. To commemorate that here’s two shows to represent those opposing sides. Although in truth, neither series has anything else in common with each other but I need to condense things down someway.

In Hydra’s corner we got Hogan’s Heroes. A show all about taking down Nazis from within.

I love, love, love, ‘robin hood’ comedies where a group of con artists try week after to week to pull one over the establishment. The Phil Silvers Show, Mchale's Navy, and Top Cat, just to name a few examples are all childhood favorites of mine. However while those shows had a lot of morally ambiguous characters, Hogan’s Heroes has very clear cut good guys and bad guys, cause the bad guys are Nazis and the show relentless makes fun of the third reich as should we all. In fact I was watching Hogan’s Heroes while waiting for the GA run off election results. Fortunately my home state decided to kick out our own brand of Nazis this year.

For Shield, we got the ultimate spy spoof, Get Smart. Starring, Inspector Gadget himself, Don Adams, as the bumbling Maxwell Smart. Get Smart, is a hilarious send up of Cold War espionage but the real selling point of the show, imho, is Max and his co-worker 99′s relationship. You can cut the sexual tension in the air with a knife all while laughing your ass off.

9. Batman (1966 - 1968)

First was Superman and then came Batman. Yet while Superman was a serious action show, Batman was a straight up comedy. Showcasing that superheroes could indeed be funny.

Also shout out for Batman being the only show on this list to have an actual crossover with it’s competitor, The Green Hornet.

10. Julia (1968 - 1971)

Since episode two features the first appearances of Herb and Monica, let’s highlight the first black led sitcom since the cancelation of Amos ‘n Andy over a decade earlier. The show focuses on single mother and military nurse, Julia, as she tries to live her life without her recently decease husband, who was killed in Vietnam, as she tries to raise their six year old son on her own.

The series is cute. It’s more of a throw back to earlier family sitcoms where there’s no fantasy and life lessons are the name of the game. It’s the fact that the main character is a single black woman is what made the show so subversive and important at the time.

Runner Ups

There’s much good stuff in the 60s, so here’s some others that didn’t make the cut but I would recommend anyways.

Car 54, Where Are You? (1961 - 1963)

I call this the Brooklynn 99 of the 1960s. Bumbling but well meaning Officer Toody longs to do good in the world and help anyone in need, but often screws things up with his ill thought out schemes. He often drags his best friend and partner, the competent but anxiety riddled, Muldoon into his escapades.

Mr. Ed (1961 - 1966)

The grandfather of the sarcastic talking pet trope.

The Jetsons (1962 - 1963 and 1985 - 1987)

Hanna-Barbera often took popular sitcoms and just repackaged them as cartoons with a fantasy theme to them. The Jetsons has no singular show that it rips-off but is rather more a grab bag of sitcom tropes that feature, robots, computers, and flying cars.

The Outer Limits (1963 - 1965)

The Outer Limits was The Twilight Zone’s biggest competitor in terms of being a sic-fi/horror anthology series.

Gillian’s Island (1964 - 1967)

The only comparison to WandaVision I could think of was that this is a sitcom about people being trapped in one place. But by that point I was running out of room on the list. Still it’s one of the funniest shows on here.

So yeah, this took longer than expected cause there’s a lot, here. Hopefully the 70s will be easier. Which I’ll post on Friday.

#wandavision #sitcoms #1960s #dick van dyke #bewitched

117 notes · View notes

veeranger · 5 years ago

Text

So you want to watch Precure!

Version 1.3

(Google Docs Vers & Changelog)

Maybe you follow people who like it, maybe you just love magical girls and never got into Precure, but there are over a dozen seasons and you don’t know how to jump in. Never fear, this masterpost is here to give you a rundown of Precure, and hopefully by the end you’ll have an idea of where you want to start.

What Is Precure?

Precure (short for Pretty Cure) is a Toei Animation franchise started in 2004 and has been on the air nonstop since then. It’s a magical girl franchise, y’know like sailor moon or ojamajo doremi or other such shows. The main demographic is children so you don’t have to worry about any weird “fanservice” or panty shots or anything nasty like that, it’s very G rated.

What Are The Shows About?

In a general sense, Precure is about a team of 2-6 middle school age magical girls fighting bad guys and giant monsters and saving the world on a weekly basis with pretty outfits and big flashy finishers and the power of love and friendship. Each season follows a pretty standard formula (toku fans should be pretty familiar with it for the most part), and each season is around 48-50 episodes long.

In keeping with this toku-esque formula, most seasons will feature mid season additions to the cast, in the form of new precure heroes. For the sake of not spoiling these shows, these mid season cures will not be mentioned in our plot overviews unless they appear extremely early or something like that. Just know that almost every season will feature an additional cure joining the team later in the show.

Additionally, every season has at least one movie, these days there’s usually two per season. Usually you’ll find the movies are a standalone self-contained romp, and a crossover movie with the preceding seasons, with a focus on the most recent 2-3 teams. These movies might as well exist in a continuity of their own, and have absolutely no bearing on the plot whatsoever, save for one except which I’ll mention when we get to that season.

Why Should I Watch Precure?

Because it’s good. It’s a really stellar franchise with a ton of content and genuinely engaging characters and stories. Also this isn’t your mom’s magical girl show, these girls throw punches, and kicks, and big lasers. Precure is pretty well known for being extremely hands on with its combat compared to other magical girl shows, though don’t expect the same kind of fights you’d find in kamen rider or anything. Also a main draw for a lot of people is the amount of gay subtext in, frankly, every season. While there’s only one season with an explicitly confirmed gay relationship between two cures, every season has varying levels of subtext between cures, it’s pretty cool. We won’t discuss the subtext in every season overview but trust us, it’s in there.

What Show Should I Start With?

It doesn’t actually matter which season you watch, every season is a new setting and with new characters and set in a new world (except for two sequel seasons i’ll explain later), so you’re free to watch whatever you want in any order! We’re going to spend the rest of this post talking about each season to give you, the beloved reader, a glimpse at what each season has to uniquely offer. Don’t worry, there’s no spoilers down there.

Futari Wa Precure (We Are Pretty Cure) & Futari Wa Precure Max Heart

The original precure show that aired in 2004, and even received an english dub. Misumi Nagisa is a star lacrosse player living a normal life until one day a shooting star she wishes on turns out to be a fairy that careens right into her room, or rather, smacks her right in the face. The fairy, named Mepple, explains he comes from the Garden of Light, another world that’s been taken over by the evil Dark King and his Dark Zone in order to capture the Prism Stones, a number of heart shaped crystals that, if collected, could give Dark King the power to destroy not only the Garden of Light but also the Garden of Rainbows, Earth itself. Meanwhile, Yukishiro Honoka finds a box in her grandmother’s shed containing an item just like the one that smacked Nagisa in the face, and inside is the fairy Mipple, who explains the situation to Honoka. The two fairies, seeking to be reunited, drag Nagisa and Honoka along and the four of them end up meeting up, but are attacked by an emissary of the Dark Zone. Mepple and Mipple grant the confused duo the power to transform into the warriors of legend, Precure. As Cure Black and Cure White, Nagisa and Honoka manage to fight off their attacker and protect their new fairy partners. The girls are then more or less dragged into the battle against the Dark Zone, as the only hope for both Gardens, they fulfill their duty as legendary warriors despite their hesitations and desires to go back to being normal teenagers.

Futari Wa doesn’t exactly have any major themes to speak of, it’s just your standard magical girl vs evil bad guys kind of thing, forgive it for being the first season. What it does have to offer is the relationship between Nagisa and Honoka, as well as the action in fight scenes. The girls don’t start the season as best friends, in fact they barely even know each other’s names when they’re first flung together. It takes a few episodes and a major fight between the girls for them to really start opening up to each other, but soon enough they become inseparable and support each other in everything they do. It’s clear, especially near the end, that the girls cling to each other for support and strength in the face of the increasingly overwhelming odds they face as the Dark Zone gains strength. It’s very compelling to see their relationship deepen in the early season and see how deep their bonds truly go near the end.

Futari Wa received a sequel show, Futari Wa Precure Max Heart, picking up the story where it left off in the first season’s finale. Honoka and Nagisa are still the main characters, and they’re still fighting the Dark Zone, but this time they’re joined by a mysterious girl named Hikari, who can transform into Shiny Luminous, not a precure but precure-ish. This time the girls are trying to recover the heart and soul of the Queen of the Garden of Light, before the Dark Zone can recover and destroy the queen in her weakened state. Also their precure costumes have changed slightly.

The first season (that is to say, not max heart) is currently one of the few seasons available with official english subtitles on the streaming platform Crunchyroll

Futari Wa Precure Splash Star

Hyuuga Saki (Cure Bloom), a tomboy who loves playing softball, and Mishou Mai (Cure Egret), a quiet transfer student and aspiring artist, meet each other by chance one day under the Sky Tree, where they discover two creatures from the Land of Fountains named Flappy and Choppy. The two girls transform into the legendary Precure and are tasked with restoring Princess Filia and the Seven Holy Fountains, which were sapped of their power by the evil forces of Dark Fall.

Splash Star's main theme is the appreciation of nature. The main focus is on the girls rediscovering their relationships with their town and the nature and people in it. You get to meet a whole cast of characters in their community, who have a lot of heart and charm behind their writing and the show does a good job of getting you genuinely invested in their stories.

Unfortunately the romance in Splash Star isn’t much better than Futari Wa's (sorry to any Fujimura/Kazuya fans), but the main girls themselves are so engaging that it's easy to ignore. The villains are pretty goofy, but entertaining if you can accept that the show doesn’t take itself very seriously. There are two villains in the latter half of the season that really stand out, though. Without spoiling too much, I can promise you their character arcs will tear at your heartstrings in the best way.

If you've watched Futari wa Precure, Splash Star will probably feel familiar. Although it's the first "reboot" series in the franchise with completely new characters, Toei overall played it safe and Saki and Mai in many ways still feel like "Nagisa and Honoka 2.0". Splash Star is different in enough other ways to make the show stand on its own merits, but if you watch it immediately after Futari wa you might find yourself feeling some deja vu. Personally, I think it's interesting to see what Splash Star builds on and explores when compared to Futari wa, since it has many of the same themes and character archetypes but they play out quite differently.

Yes! Precure 5 & Yes! Precure 5 GoGo!

Nozomi is a cheerful, carefree girl, but she doesn’t have a dream. One day she meets a hot guy and finds a mysterious item called the Dream Collet, capable of granting any wish once all the fairies known as Pinkies are gathered inside it, in the school library. She discovers that the hot guy is actually a tanuki from Palmier Kingdom named Coco, and that the Kingdom has been destroyed by the Nightmare. Coco’s dream is to restore his kingdom using the Dream Collet, and Nozomi decides to make it hers as well.

She’s joined by her jock friend Rin, Urara, an aspiring actress, Komachi, a writer, and the rich student council president Karen. Together they form Yes Sentai Fiveranger Yes Precure 5 and work together to prevent Nightmare from obtaining the Dream Collet before they can gather all the Pinkies. They also save Coco’s “”””””friend””””””” and fellow hot guy squirrel, Nuts, and he joins them as the second mascot/handsome love interest.

The theme of Yes is dreams and heterosexual furry romance. It pulls off the dreams part very nicely. The het furry romance is bad, mostly because Coco is Nozomi’s teacher at school and also her love interest. However, Coco and Nuts are fairly gay and if you look past the romance part they have very good dadly relationships with the rest of the team.

Yespre, like Futari Wa, received a sequel show, Yes! Precure 5 GoGo!. After the defeat of Nightmare some time ago, a new faction called Eternal rises up and starts stealing treasures from various dimensions. When Eternal targets the Rose Pact belonging to the Cure Rose Garden, the precure are called back into action to fight against Eternal, with new cure outfits, a new fairy named Syrup, and a new cure-like teammate named Milky Rose.

Fresh Precure!

Fresh is sort of the defining series for modern Precure, introducing a lot of plot and thematic elements to the franchise that would be used repeatedly later on.

A concert Momozono Love attends is attacked by a monster called a Nakewameke. When Love stands up to it, she is nearly killed, but is saved when she is chosen by a mysterious power to become Cure Peach. She is joined by Inori and Miki as Cure Pine and Cure Berry, and, together with the talking ferret from the Kingdom of Sweets, Tarte, they have to prevent Labyrinth, a grey world led by Mobius, from taking over the Parallel Worlds and transforming them into identical, machine-like dictatorships, and also figure out the secret behind the Magic Baby, Chiffon, that Tarte is entrusted with.

Fresh’s themes are happiness and nature/technology and donuts. The donuts are important. Labyrinth operates by gathering misery; the Nakewameke are created from it and their function is to create more of it and fill the Sorrow Gauge. All the girls (and the mascot) have love interests and their familial relationships are explored a lot to bring out the general stakes and emphasise what they’re fighting for.

While Fresh is very strong in characters, plot, and thematics, its lack of budget is very apparent. It looks terrible. Fortunately, it isn’t that difficult to get used to the bad animation once you get into the show, although the lack of means tends to show up at inopportune moments, like new powerups.

Heartcatch Precure!

Featuring character designs and art direction from Ojamajo Doremi’s character designer Umakoshi Yoshihiko, and written by Ojamajo Doremi and Onegai My Melody writer Yamada Takashi, Heartcatch should look and feel familiar to fans of either franchise, especially Doremi.

After having a reoccurring dream about someone called Cure Moonlight being defeated trying to defend the “Great Heart Tree”, the shy and reserved Hanasaki Tsubomi moves in with her grandmother and ends up inheriting the will of Cure Moonlight and becomes the newest precure, Cure Blossom. Finding out her grandmother used to be the legendary Cure Flower, Tsubomi vows to protect the world as a precure and learn to change herself for the better. She’s joined by her new friend and the first person she saved as a precure, Kurumi Erika, a loud girl with a big heart who means well, but doesn’t hesitate to speak her mind. Erika becomes Cure Marine and the two become Heartcatch Precure, the newest precure in the long legacy of those who have stood up to the evil Dune, a mysterious invader who destroys planets and turns them into lifeless deserts. Heartcatch Precure fights against Dune’s minions: the mask wearing Professor Sabaku, his Desert Apostles, and the mysterious Dark Precure. Along the way they meet the former Cure Moonlight, now stripped of her power, and try to help her cope with her defeat.

Heartcatch Precure’s main theme is flowers and flower language. Everyone has a “heart flower” that the Desert Apostles take and use to create their monsters every week. As an interesting result of this, the monster of the week will be the main character in the plot of the week and often their big monster form will vent about their issues which will usually lead to a resolution when the precure return them to their regular bodies. Heartcatch also has a very nice backstory and lore to it. Unlike most iterations of precure, the Heartcatch girls are not the first precure to exist in their world, there are dozens maybe hundreds of precure that came before them, fighting against Dune and his forces for hundreds of years. It adds a lot to the narrative in small ways, especially later on in the season. Also the fight scenes are extremely excellent, especially when Moonlight is involved.

Suite Precure♪

The musical paradise of Major Land falls under siege by the forces of Minor Land, led by King Mephisto. His goal is to steal the living notes of the “Melody of Happiness” and remake them into the “Melody of Sorrow”, throwing the world into a permanent depressive state. As a last resort, Queen Aphrodite scatters the notes into the human world and tasks Hummy, the cat-like fairy, and the Fairy Tones, to find the notes before the forces of Minor Lands can capture them. In the human world, Hummy meets Hojo Hibiki and Minamino Kanade, two girls who were best friends as children, but drifted apart as teenagers because of their tendency to bicker with each other. The two find themselves thrown together again by fate and transform into Cure Melody and Cure Rhythm to protect the things they hold dear. Not long after, the two rekindle their relationship and become closer than before, despite their bickering. Soon the girls run into the mysterious Cure Muse, a girl who appears to be a precure like them, but hides her face with a mask and refuses to join in their fight, claiming to be neither friend nor enemy. Melody and Rhythm battle against Minor Land and the giant Negatones they create from the notes they gather, as well as Siren, another cat-like fairy who used to be Hummy’s best friend before turning to evil and joining Minor Land.

Suite Precure’s main theme is music, and it is a very encompassing theme. Hibiki and Kanade bond over their piano practice, the town they live in celebrates music frequently and is aesthetically music themed, and their powers take the form of musical instruments. Harmony is also a large theme for the two girls. Their precure power increases as they harmonize with each other, and the early season is very much about them learning to harmonize with each other. Suite also features several extremely well done mystery arcs, about the identity of Cure Muse, and various other things that I can’t very well talk about without risking spoiling things myself. If you manage to go into Suite not knowing anything consider yourself extremely lucky and be super sure not to get spoiled. The show staff went to great lengths to hide certain things, including leaking fake cure designs, and creating a second version of the second dance ending to further mask the identity of Cure Muse until her true reveal.

Also something to note, usually precure movies have nothing to do with the plot of the show itself and can be watched whenever but the Suite movie is best enjoyed right after the arc revealing Cure Muse’s identity is concluded, it has a nice resolution to plot elements in that arc and sets the stage for the last few arcs of the show, so be sure to watch it then.

Smile Precure!

Written by Kamen Rider Kabuto head writer Yonemura Shoji, Smile Precure is the second season to feature a 5 girl team after Yes! Precure 5 Gogo!. Running late to her first day of school, resident happy-go-lucky klutz Hoshizora Miyuki runs face first into a small creature called Candy, a fairy from a place called Märchenland. The two are attacked by an anthropomorphic wolf named Wolfrun, and Miyuki transforms into Cure Happy to fight against Wolfrun and the big clown faced monster he summons called an Akanbe. After Candy explains that the legends say there are five precure, Miyuki recruits four new friends: the hot blooded Akane (Cure Sunny), shy artist Yayoi (Cure Peace), responsible older sister Nao (Cure March), and refined student council vice-president Reika (Cure Beauty). The five of them become Smile Precure and fight against Wolfrun and his allies in the Bad End Kingdom, who attempt to revive the slumbering Pierrot by trying to put the world in a “Bad End”.

Smile Precure’s main theme is fairy tales, in a general sense. The Bad End trio are based off of the big bad wolf (Wolfrun), the oni from Momotaro (Akaoni), and the witch from Snow White (Majorina), and Miyuki herself is utterly captivated by fairy tales. The secondary theme is happiness, and the happy go lucky tone of the series often turns on its head during serious arcs to deliver extremely powerful emotional moments. Smile Precure is light on plot, and most episodes are an ultra happy experience, but the show knows how to get serious when it needs to and Smile is exceedingly competent at pulling off drama when the time comes. Smile knows how to get you invested in its characters and use that to pull on your heartstrings during the big moments. The last 10 episodes of the show are the absolute pinnacle of the show’s emotional drama, and each cure gets her own episode for closure before the finale sets in and emotionally destroys you. Also you get to play rock paper scissors with Cure Peace during her roll call so that’s always fun.

Doki Doki! Precure

Doki opens with Trump Kingdom’s destruction by the Selfishness as Cure Sword looks on, helpless. Switching to our world and brighter topics, we meet Aida Mana, Student Council President of Oogai Middle School, whose dream is to become the Prime Minister of Japan. Whenever Mana sees someone in trouble, she’ll help them out, so when a monster attacks the city, Mana does the obvious and tries to stop it. And when, chosen by the fairy Charuru (Charles? Cheryle? Cherry?) to become a Precure and defend the world, she meets Cure Sword, she has to befriend her and help her restore Trump Kingdom and find her happiness.

Mana (Cure Heart) is joined by Rikka (Cure Diamond), her studious companion and supporter, and also the immeasurably powerful and rich (in that order) Alice (Cure Rosetta). Together they have to unravel the mystery of the man who gave them their transformation items, the missing princess of Trump Kingdom, the strange, evil girl called Regina, and Ai, the chaotic neutral baby who hatches out of an egg.

Dokipre’s theme is love and selflessness. It also has Deep Lore, a lot of which is established in extra-series material. The show does try to explore concepts like past cures and manages a very nice repeating pattern effect with the plot, in terms of past and future happenings. There’s a lot of foreshadowing. Compared to most Precure seasons it’s very plot-heavy and even the filler usually ends up being plot-relevant.

Happiness Charge Precure!

The 10th anniversary of Precure! The Phantom Empire is spreading across the world, and Precure are rising up all over the globe to fight them off. In Japan there are two active cures, Cure Fortune, strong and capable, and Cure Princess, scared and unsure of herself. As Cure Princess, Shirayuki Hime, struggles desperately to do her duty as precure, Cure Fortune refuses to work with her for reasons Hime doesn’t fully understand. Realizing her only hope is to find a partner to work with, Hime bumps into Aino Megumi, a super friendly girl who has a tendency to drop everything and help others any time she sees someone in need. Megumi becomes Cure Lovely, and bolstering Hime’s confidence, the two of them become Happiness Charge Precure, tasked with protecting Japan from Queen Mirage and her Phantom Empire. The two are joined by Cure Honey, and eventually Cure Fortune, and the four of them receive support from Blue, the God of Planet Earth. As the girls continue to fight and defend Japan, they are assaulted by Phantom, the ruthless Precure Hunter who has defeated and trapped countless Precure in his Precure Graveyard, and the Oresky Trio, the Phantom Empire generals who oversee the invasion of Japan.

Happiness Charge Precure’s themes are romance and happiness. There are several arcs dedicated to the budding romances of the cures, and the backstory of the show is heavily tied to romance. Happiness might as well be Megumi’s middle name, she makes it her business to spread happiness to as many people as she can, and takes every chance she can to help others. Happiness Charge is also the first season to have form changes for the precure, each cure has a small selection of forms they can change to for different big attacks, and this concept would later be expanded and used as a core concept in Maho Girls Precure. Like Heartcatch before it, Happiness Charge exists in a world where multiple precure exist, but unlike Heartcatch all those precure exist at the same time in the present day. Other precure teams make cameos every so often and the concept creates a great world in which the whole planet is being protected by teenage girls with superpowers, creating a wonderful sense of scale that really makes the big victories of Happiness Charge Precure feel even bigger.

Go! Princess Precure

The first precure series to take place at a boarding school! Years ago, a young girl named Haruno Haruka meets a very royal looking person named Kanata who gives her a Dress-Up Key, a big key shaped like a dress. A teenager now, Haruka starts attending Noble Academy, a prestigious boarding school, all the while holding tight to her dream of becoming a true princess, in a quasi-literal sense. Not long after starting the school year, Haruka meets Pafu and Aroma, two fairies from the Hope Kingdom desperate to revive the legendary precure to fight back against Dyspear and her minions who steal dreams to create their giant Zetsuborgs. Realizing what her Dress-Up Key is meant for, Haruka uses it and the Princess Perfume to become Cure Flora. Together with student council president Kaido Minami (Cure Mermaid), and Amanogawa Kirara (Cure Twinkle) a fashion model with huge aspirations, they become the new Princess Precure, tasked with learning to become true princesses along with protecting the Dress-Up Keys from Dyspear’s forces.

Go! Princess Precure’s main themes are princesses (duh) and dreams. Dreams are a driving force behind all of the cures, and most of the plot of the week characters. Dyspear steals dreams to make monsters, and the precure fight to return those dreams. Characters follow their dreams with conviction, pride, and full commitment. This is also where the princess theme intersects, since it’s Haruka’s dream to become a true princess. One should note that princess is used sort of liberally in this series, it’s not that Haruka wants to somehow become someone of noble birth or have political power, she just wants to be strong, kind, and beautiful, the traits of a true princess in Princess Precure’s own terms. Also she wants to wear pretty dresses and such but who can blame her really.

Mahou Tsukai Precure! (Maho Girls Precure!)

Quite literally putting the magic in magical girls for the first time in the franchise, Mahou Tsukai Precure was the first season to have its cures be actual magicians. Izumi Riko lives in the magical world, a world where magic is real and she attends a magical academy to hone her craft. She leaves the magical world to travel to the “non-magic” world, to search for a legendary item called the Linkle Stone Emerald. In the non-magic world she ends up catching the attention of another girl, Asahina Mirai, who sees her using magic. After trying to show off some magic and messing it up, Riko is attacked by Batty, a servant of the dark wizard Dokurokushe, who is seeking the Linkle Stone Emerald as well. As fate would have it, both Mirai and Riko carry stones that turn out to be the Linkle Stones Diamond, and the two of them use them to become Cure Miracle and Cure Magical, the legendary Mahou Tsukai Precure. Additionally, the power of the Linkle Stones grants life to Mirai’s lifelong companion, a teddy bear named Mofurun. Having discovered the world of magic and become a precure, Mirai is invited to spend time in the magical world learning magic alongside Riko, before the two, joined by Mofurun and a baby fairy named Ha, return to the non-magical world to search for the Emerald and protect it from Dokurokushe and his minions.

Mahou Tsukai Precure’s main themes are bonds and separation. It’s strengths lie in how it shows the relationship between Mirai and Riko. The show takes its time building their relationship in the first dozen or so episodes of their adventures in the magic world, highlighting their similarities and differences as they grow closer and learn to live with each other and fight as precure together. Well before the halfway mark it’s clear how strong their bond is and how deeply they care for each other, and the lengths they would go to for one another. Mahou Tsukai is an emotional ride in so many ways, every emotional moment hits its mark and the more you get attached to the characters the more the show will hit harder and harder with its moments, both sad and happy. Even side characters get satisfying and emotional conclusions to their storylines outside of the episodes they’re introduced in, it’s all wonderfully crafted.

KiraKira☆Precure A La Mode

Another return to the five cure format, Kirapre is also the second season to feature a sixth team member after Yes! Precure 5 Gogo!, as well as the second season to feature high school age precure after Heartcatch Precure. Usami Ichika is in her second year of middle school and loves sweets, especially making sweets. One day a hungry fairy named Pekorin finds her way into Ichika’s kitchen, and after being fed teaches Ichika about Kirakiraru, an energy source that exists in all sweets, and something that can be stolen and used for evil, leaving the sweets gray and tasteless. Utilizing the power of kirakraru in the shortcake she baked for her mother, Ichika becomes Cure Whip, one of the legendary patissiers, Precure. One by one other precure appear, the smart but shy Arisugawa Himari (Cure Custard), the rock band headliner Tategami Aoi (Cure Gelato), the fickle catlike Kotozume Yukari (Cure Macaron), and the responsible and helpful Kenjou Akira (Cure Chocolat). The five of them fight against the evils of Noir and those he has influenced: Julio, the mysterious masked boy who runs “experiments'' using kirakiraru, and Bibury, a mean spirited girl who uses her talking doll to steal kirakiraru and create monsters.

Kirapre’s main motifs are sweets and animals, and it has a pretty general togetherness and happiness theme going on, the standard precure stuff, mostly viewed through the lense of sweets and sweets-making. All the precure work as patissiers for one reason or another and it’s the main way the team bonds early on. The team, as well as the people of their small town, love sweets as a part of their culture and sweets maintain an important role as the emotional tie that binds most things together in the story. Overall Kirapre is a wonderful show with a great cast on both sides of the conflict, and a lot of care has been put into the show to make sure characters have their moments to interact with each other as well as have their own stories , even on a team of six every precure gets more than enough time to shine on her own. Kirapre is at it’s best when it takes two girls and puts them together for an episode, letting each unique dynamic play out in a fun and satisfying way. Kirapre is also noteworthy for the almost inarguably canonical relationship between two of the cures. It's not exactly explicit and it does leave something to be desired, since this is a Toei children's show, but there’s not really any other way to read the evolution of their relationship or their duet song, so I’m more than satisfied calling it canon.

This season is currently one of the few seasons available with official english subtitles on the streaming platform Crunchyroll

HUGtto! Precure

Precure’s 15th anniversary! This season is in many ways a celebration of all things Precure, bringing together a lot of familiar elements from past shows into one. Hugtto! is another five cure season whose main themes are destiny and future. Nono Hana (Cure Yell) is a thirteen-year-old girl whose dream is to be a "cool and stylish woman," although she worries that others see her as childish. One day, a hamster named Harryham Harry and a magical baby named Hugtan fall out of the sky into Hana's house. They're being chased from the future by an evil organization called Criasu Corporation, who are trying to use Hugtan's power to freeze time forever. Hana makes friends with two of her classmates: the responsible class representative Yakushiji Saaya (Cure Ange) and the reclusive ex-figure skater Kagayaki Homare (Cure Etoile), and together they fight Criasu while taking care of Hugtan and figuring out the many mysteries surrounding her. Expect some light sc-fi elements and an emphasis on modern technology/social media.

Hugtto! explores its themes primarily through the lenses of childcare and the workplace, giving us a look at how each girl comes to terms with the transition from childhood to adulthood. This season does a good job of letting each member of the team shine; you spend several episodes with each girl (or duo of girls) and there's a real sense of a complete character arc for all of them. The romance aspect is, unfortunately, pretty bad: there’s a return of hetero furry romance between Harry and Homare, and Hana’s love interest exhibits some really creepy behavior towards her. There’s uncomfortable age gaps in both of these relationships too so it’s a just a bit…. Yikes. Thankfully, it’s fairly easy to ignore like past seasons, but a warning for it nonetheless.

Something that makes this season stand out is its LGBT subtext; there's a TON of it even compared to the normal amount that Precure is known for. Without giving away too much, two of the cures this season are heavily coded as lesbians (though not with each other per se), and there's a subplot concerning a side character who is pretty explicitly (well, as explicit as Toei dares to be) a gender non-conforming man/nonbinary person in love with another man, and it's all very wholesome and presented in a positive light. Again, this is Toei, so don't expect anything too radical, but I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised with how Hugpre handles it.

Finally I'll just say that while Hugpre is a fantastic season on its own, I would personally recommend waiting to watch it after you've seen some other seasons (notably Futari wa). It's not required, but since Hugpre is an anniversary season, there are a few episodes (especially near the end) that will really hit different if you have an emotional connection to the franchise already. Ultimately though this is a fairly minor part of the show, so watching this season first won’t ruin it or anything like that, it’s just something to keep in mind.

Star☆Twinkle Precure

Precure… in space! Our protagonist, Hoshina Hikaru (Cure Star) loves space and cryptids, to the point of drawing her own constellations. One of her constellations is an adorable alien puffball, who warps into Hikaru’s room almost immediately after she draws it. The puffball quickly befriends Hikaru, who names her Fuwa. They are later joined by Prunce, the team dad friend/alien mascot, and Lala (Cure Milky), a humanoid alien who is an adult in her own culture. After our initial duo gets off to a bit of a rocky start, they are joined by the student council president, Kaguya Madoka (Cure Selene) and a biracial upperclassman who is considered to be the “sun” of the school, Amamiya Elena (Cure Soleil). Together, they explore the universe and befriend all sorts of aliens, while also defending them from the Notraiders, who want to rid the universe of all imagination. On top of that, the universe is dying and the cures need to find the 12 astrologically themed Star Pens to save it and the 12 Star Princesses. This series is notable for attempting to break the “monster of the week” format, instead making it a “fight of the week”.

The major themes of Star Twinkle are space, imagination, and maturity. The cures have to explore the universe to find the Star Pens, and in doing so, visit a bunch of different planets. About half the series is spent on Earth, but the world still feels developed! Honestly speaking, the theme of imagination is forgotten pretty quickly and I’d refer to it more as free will. The theme of maturity is where Star Twinkle really shines. All of the cures have had to grow up too fast in some way, and the series is partially about just allowing them to goof off. Lala is considered an adult on her planet, and this plot point is treated realistically. Well, as realistically as it can be. This is one series I’d recommend avoiding spoilers like the plague for, because part of the fun is in how the plot twists are pulled off. Also Star Twinkle is notable for featuring the first ever dark skinned precure, as Elena is half-hispanic.

Healin’ Good Precure

The currently airing Precure season, as of this writing. The Byogens seek to revive their king by inflicting viruses on Earth, the Healing Garden sends three medical interns to combat them. These interns, fairies named Rabirin, Pegitan, and Nyatoran, along with a baby fairy princess named Latte, journey to Earth to find partners to become Precure. They end up meeting Hanadera Nodoka, a kindhearted girl who was hospitalized for most of her young childhood. After Nodoka risks her life to protect Latte, Rabirin chooses her to become Cure Grace. Joined by older sister type Sawaizumi Chiyu (Cure Fontaine) and the outgoing Hiramitsu Hinata (Cure Sparkle), they form Healin’ Good Precure, and defend their friends and the Earth from the Byogen’s newest wave of attacks.

This season is currently one of the few seasons available with official english subtitles on the streaming platform Crunchyroll.

Where To Watch Precure Online

Unfortunately for us, Precure isn’t really a thing in the west. There was a dub of Futari Wa back in the early 2000’s and Smile and Doki both got “adapted” into Glitter Force over on netflix (I don’t really recommend checking those out), but really Precure just doesn’t exist over here.

However, as mentioned above, there are currently three seasons avalible for streaming on crunchyroll. The original Futari Wa Precure, Kira Kira Precure A La Mode, and the current season, Healin’ Good Precure.

Beyond these isolated examples of official releases, you can really only watch precure online on streaming sites or through torrents. You can find precure pretty much on any major anime streaming site, kissanime, gogoanime, the works. You can also try your luck torrenting the seasons, i’ve found that pretty much every season has a working torrent you can find on sites like nyaa.si or the like. For more recent seasons you should have little difficulty getting torrents, and last time i checked every season was on one of the aforementioned streaming sites. What I’m saying really is there’s no single place to find precure, but it’s not impossible to find for sure.

Thanks for reading this post, I hope you decide to check out precure and I really hope you end up loving it.Thanks to my wonderful friend @meltorights for writing the sections on Yespre, Fresh, and Dokipre, to @wonderlilane for writing the sections on Splash Star and Huggto, and @cure-cosmo for writing the segment on Starpre.

If you have questions feel free to drop me an ask I’d be happy to help. I will literally go out of my way to help you if it means getting someone new into precure so please do not hesitate by any means.

#Apple Post #precure #pretty cure #magical girl #anime #toei animation

1K notes · View notes

ladydarklord · 4 years ago

Text

The Mighty Boosh on the business of being silly

The Times, November 15 2008

What began as a cult cocktail of daft poems, surreal characters and fantastical storylines has turned into the comedy juggernaut that is the Mighty Boosh. Janice Turner hangs out with creators Noel Fielding, Julian Barratt and the extended Boosh family to discuss the serious business of being silly

In the thin drizzle of a Monday night in Sheffield, a crowd of young women are waiting for the Mighty Boosh or, more precisely, one half of it. Big-boned Yorkshire lasses, jacketless and unshivering despite the autumn nip, they look ready to devour the object of their desire, the fey, androgynous Noel Fielding, if he puts a lamé boot outside the stage door. “Ooh, I do love a man in eyeliner,” sighs Natalie from Rotherham. She’ll be throwing sickies at work to see the Boosh show 13 times on their tour, plus attend the Boosh after-show parties and Boosh book signings. “My life is dead dull without them,” she says.

Nearby, mobiles primed, a pair of sixth-formers trade favourite Boosh lines. “What is your name?” asks Jessica. “I go by many names, sir,” Victoria replies portentously. A prison warden called Davena survives long days with high-security villains intoning, “It’s an outrage!” in the gravelly voice of Boosh character Tony Harrison, a being whose head is a testicle.

Apart from Fielding, what they all love most about the Boosh is that half their mates don’t get it. They see a bloke in a gorilla suit, a shaman called Naboo, silly rhymes about soup, stories involving shipwrecked men seducing coconuts “and they’re like, ‘This is bloody rubbish,’” says Jessica. “So you feel special because you do get it. You’re part of a club.”

Except the Mighty Boosh club is now more like a movement. What began as an Edinburgh fringe show starring Fielding and his partner Julian Barratt and later became an obscure BBC3 series has grown into a box-set flogging, mega-merchandising, 80-date touring Boosh inc. There was a Boosh festival last summer, now talk of a Boosh movie and Boosh in America. An impasse seems to have been reached: either the Boosh will expand globally or, like other mass comedy cults before it – Vic and Bob, Newman and Baddiel – slowly begin to deflate.

But for the moment, the fans still wait in the rain for heroes who’ve already left the building. I find the Boosh gang gathered in their hotel bar, high on post-gig adrenalin. Barratt, blokishly handsome with his ring-master moustache, if a tad paunchy these days, blends in with the crew. But Fielding is never truly “off”. All day he has been channelling A Clockwork Orange in thick black eyeliner (now smudged into panda rings) and a bowler hat, which he wears with polka-dot leggings, gold boots and a long, neon-green fur-collared PVC trenchcoat. He has, as those women outside put it, “something about him”: a carefully-wrought rock-god danger mixed with an amiable sweetness. Sexy yet approachable. Which is why, perched on a barstool, is a great slab of security called Danny.

“He stops people getting in our faces,” says Fielding. “He does massive stars like P. Diddy and Madonna and he says that considering how we’re viewed in the media as a cult phenomenon, we get much more attention in the street than, say, Girls Aloud. Danny says we’re on the same level as Russell Brand, who can’t walk from the door to the car without ten people speaking to him.”

This barometer of fame appears to fascinate and thrill Fielding. Although he complains he can’t eat dinner with his girlfriend (Dee Plume from the band Robots in Disguise) unmolested, he parties hard and publicly with paparazzi-magnets like Courtney Love and Amy Winehouse. He claims he’s tried wearing a baseball cap but fans still recognise him. Hearing this, Julian Barratt smiles wryly: “Noel is never going to dress down.”

It is clear on meeting them that their Boosh characters Vince Noir (Fielding), the narcissistic extrovert, and Howard Moon (Barratt), the serious, socially awkward jazz obsessive, are comic exaggerations of their own personalities. At the afternoon photo shoot, Fielding breaks free of the hair and make-up lady, sprays most of a can of Elnett on to his Bolan feather-cut and teases it to his satisfaction. Very Vince. “It is an art-life crossover,” says Barratt.

At 40, five years older than Fielding, Barratt exhibits the profound weariness of a man trying to balance a five-month national tour with new-fatherhood. After every Saturday night show he returns home to his 18-month-old twins, Arthur and Walter, and his partner Julia Davis (the creator-star of Nighty Night) and today he was up at 5am pushing a pram on Hampstead Heath before taking the train north to rejoin the Boosh. “I go back so the boys remember who I am. But it’s harder to leave them every time,” he says. “It is totally schizophrenic, totally opposite mental states: all this self-obsession and then them.”

About two nights a week on tour, Fielding doesn’t go to bed, parties through the night and performs the next evening having not slept at all. Barratt often retreats to his room to plough through box sets of The Wire. “It’s a bit gritty, but that is in itself an escape, because what we do is so fantastical.”

But mostly it is hard to resist the instant party provided by a large cast, crew and band. Indeed, drinking with them, it appears Fielding and Barratt are but the most famous members of a close collective of artists, musicians and old mates. Fielding’s brother Michael, who previously worked in a bowling alley, plays Naboo the shaman. “He is late every single day,” complains Noel. “He’s mad and useless, but I’m quite protective of him, quite parental.” Michael is always arguing with Bollo the gorilla, aka Fielding’s best mate, Dave Brown, a graphic artist relieved to remove his costume – “It’s so hot in there I fear I may never father children” – to design the Boosh book. One of the lighting crew worked as male nanny to Barratt’s twins and was in Michael’s class at school: “The first time I met you,” he says to Noel, “you gave me a dead arm.” “You were 9,” Fielding replies. “And you were messing with my stuff.”

This gang aren’t hangers-on but the wellspring of the Boosh’s originality and its strange, homespun, degree-show aesthetic: a character called Mr Susan is made out of chamois leathers, the Hitcher has a giant Polo Mint for an eye. When they need a tour poster they ignore the promoter’s suggestions and call in their old mate, Nige.

Fielding and Barratt met ten years ago at a comedy night in a North London pub. The former had just left Croydon Art College, the latter had dropped out of an American Studies degree at Reading to try stand-up, although he was so terrified at his first gig that he ran off stage and had to be dragged back by the compere.

While superficially different, their childhoods have a common theme: both had artistic, bohemian parents who exercised benign neglect. Fielding’s folks were only 17 when he was born: “They were just kids really. Hippies. Though more into Black Sabbath and Led Zep. There were lots of parties and crazy times. They loved dressing up. And there was a big gap between me and my brother – about nine years – so I was an only child for a long time, hanging out with them, lots of weird stuff going on.

“The great thing about my mum and dad is they let me do anything I wanted as a kid as long as I wasn’t misbehaving. I could eat and go to bed when I liked. I used to spend a lot of time drawing and painting and reading. In my own world, I guess.”

Growing up in Mitcham, South London, his father was a postmaster, while his mother now works for the Home Office. Work was merely the means to fund a good time. “When your dad is into David Bowie, how do you rebel against that? You can’t really. They come to all the gigs. They’ve been in America for the past three weeks. I’m ringing my mum really excited because we’re hanging out with Jim Sheridan, who directed In the Name of the Father, and the Edge from U2, and she said, ‘We’re hanging with Jack White,’ whom they met through a friend of mine. Trumped again!”

Barratt’s father was a Leeds art teacher, his mother an artist later turned businesswoman. “Dad was a bit more strict and academic. Mum would let me do anything I wanted, didn’t mind whether I went to school.” Through his father he became obsessed with Monty Python, went to jazz and Spike Milligan gigs, learnt about sex from his dad’s leatherbound volumes of Penthouse.

Barratt joined bands and assumed he would become a musician (he does all the Boosh’s musical arrangements); Fielding hoped to become an artist (he designed the Boosh book cover and throughout our interview sketches obsessively). Instead they threw their talents into comedy. Barratt: “It is a great means of getting your ideas over instantly.” Fielding: “Yes, it is quite punk in that way.”

Their 1998 Edinburgh Fringe show called The Mighty Boosh was named, obscurely, after a friend’s description of Michael Fielding’s huge childhood Afro: “A mighty bush.” While their double-act banter has an old-fashioned dynamic, redolent of Morecambe and Wise, the show threw in weird characters and a fantasy storyline in which they played a pair of zookeepers. They are very serious about their influences. “Magritte, Rousseau...” says Fielding. “I like Rousseau’s made-up worlds: his jungle has all the things you’d want in a jungle, even though he’d never been in one so it was an imaginary place.”

Eclectic, weird and, crucially, unprepared to compromise their aesthetic sensibilities, it was 2004 before, championed by Steve Coogan’s Baby Cow production company, their first series aired on BBC3. Through repeats and DVD sales the second series, in which the pair have left the zoo and are living above Naboo’s shop, found a bigger audience. Last year the first episode of series three had one million viewers. But perhaps the Boosh’s true breakthrough into mainstream came in June when George Bush visited Belfast and a child presented him with a plant labelled “The Mighty Bush”. Assuming it was a tribute to his greatness, the president proudly displayed it for the cameras, while the rest of Britain tittered.

A Boosh audience these days is quite a mix. In Sheffield the front row is rammed with teenage indie girls, heavy on the eyeliner, who fancy Fielding. But there are children, too: my own sons can recite whole “crimps” (the Boosh’s silly, very English version of rap) word for word. And there are older, respectable types who, when I interview them, all apologise for having such boring jobs. They’re accountants, IT workers, human resources officers and civil servants. But probe deeper and you find ten years ago they excelled at art A level or played in a band, and now puzzle how their lives turned out so square. For them, the Boosh embody their former dreams. And their DIY comedy, shambolic air, the slightly crap costumes, the melding of fantasy with the everyday, feels like something they could still knock up at home.

Indeed, many fans come to gigs in costume. At the Mighty Boosh Festival 15,000 people came dressed up to watch bands and absurdity in a Kent field. And in Sheffield I meet a father-and-son combo dressed as Howard Moon and Bob Fossil – general manager of the zoo – plus a gang of thirty-something parents elaborately attired as Crack Fox, Spirit of Jazz, a granny called Nanageddon, and Amy Housemouse. “I love the Boosh because it’s total escapism,” says Laura Hargreaves, an employment manager dressed as an Electro Fairy. “It’s not all perfect and people these days worry too much that things aren’t perfect. It’s just pure fun.”

But how to retain that appealingly amateur art-school quality now that the Boosh is a mega comedy brand? Noel Fielding is adamant that they haven’t grown cynical, that The Mighty Book of Boosh was a long-term project, not a money-spinner chucked out for Christmas: “There is a lot of heart in what we do,” he says. Barratt adds: “It’s been hard this year to do everything we’ve wanted, to a standard we’re proud of... Which is why we’re worn to shreds.”

Comedy is most powerful in intimate spaces, but the Boosh show, with its huge set, requires major venues. “We’ve lost money every day on the tour,” says Fielding. “The crew and the props and what it costs to take them on the road – it’s ridiculous. Small gigs would lose millions of pounds.”

The live show is a kind of Mighty Boosh panto, with old favourites – Bob Fossil, Bollo, Tony Harrison, etc – coming on to cheers of recognition. But it lacks the escapism to the perfectly conceived world of the TV show. They have told the BBC they don’t want a fourth series: they want a movie. They would also, as with Little Britain USA, like a crack at the States, where they run on BBC America. Clearly the Boosh needs to keep evolving or it will die.

Already other artists are telling Fielding and Barratt to make their money now: “They say this is our time, which is quite frightening.” I recall Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, who dominated the Nineties with Big Night Out and Shooting Stars. “Yes, they were massive,” says Fielding. “A number one record...” And now Reeves presents Brainiac. “If you have longer-term goals, it’s not scary,” says Barratt. “To me, I’m heading somewhere else – to direct, make films, write stuff – and at the moment it’s all gone mental. I’m sort of enjoying this as an outsider. It was Noel who had this desire to reach more people.”

Indeed, the old cliché that comedy is the new rock’n’roll is closest to being realised in Noel Fielding. Watching him perform the thrash metal numbers in the Boosh live show, he is half ironic comic performer, half frustrated rock god. His heroes weren’t comics but androgynous musicians: Jagger, Bowie, Syd Barrett. (Although he liked Peter Cook’s style and looks.)

“I like clothes and make-up, I like the transformation,” he says. Does it puzzle him that women find this so sexually attractive? “I was reading a book the other day about the New York Dolls and David Johansen was saying that none of them were gay or even bisexual, and that when they started dressing in stilettos and leather pants, women got it straight away with no explanation. But a lot of men had problems. It’s one of those strange things. A man will go, ‘You f***ing queer.’ And you just think, ‘Well, your girlfriend fancies me.’”

The Boosh stopped signing autographs outside stage doors when it started taking two hours a night. At recent book signings up to 1,500 people have shown up, some sleeping overnight in the queue. And on this tour, the Boosh took control of the after-show parties, once run as money-spinners by the promoters, and now show up in person to do DJ slots. I ask if they like to meet their fans, and they laugh nervously.

Fielding: “We have to be behind a fence.”

Barratt: “They try to rip your clothes off your body.”

Fielding: “The other day my girlfriend gave me this ring. And, doing the rock numbers at the end, I held out my hands and the crowd just ripped it off.”

Barratt: “I see it as a thing which is going to go away. A moment when people are really excited about you. And it can’t last.”

He recalls a man in York grabbing him for a photo, saying, “I’d love to be you, it must be so amazing.” And Barratt says he thought, “Yes, it is. But all the while I was trying to duck into this doorway to avoid the next person.” He’s trying to enjoy the Boosh’s moment, knows it will pass, but all the same?

In the hotel bar, a young woman fan has dodged past Danny and comes brazenly over to Fielding. Head cocked attentively like a glossy bird, he chats, signs various items, submits to photos, speaks to her mate on her phone. The rest of the Boosh crew eye her steelily. They know how it will end. “You have five minutes then you go,” hisses one. “I feel really stupid now,” says the girl. It is hard not to squirm at the awful obeisance of fandom. But still she milks the encounter, demands Fielding come outside to meet her friend. When he demurs she is outraged, and Danny intercedes. Fielding returns to his seat slightly unsettled. “What more does she want?” he mutters, reaching for his wine glass. “A skin sample?”

#I hadn't seen this one before so I thought I'd share #noel will never dress down #ah yes the patient boyfriend Julian Barratt

38 notes · View notes