#being a edgy for the sake of edgy like most other adult cartoons

[autisticbee]

if there's a dan vs season 4 there should be an entire elise centric episode

I think there should have been but uhhh I don't want a s4

[gnconstruct]

Primary's 2nd, 7 years old, playing Habbo daily, watching Source engine Machinima and my older brother play CS:S. Occasionally seeing glances of Youtube Poops and proto-shitposting shared to my older sister through Windows Messenger. I accepted a random female Habbo players' girlfriend request, I don't remember in which context. She was on my friend list for a few weeks and we did not chat on a regular basis, I did not have the intuition or interest. Having a girlfriend just seemed like a surplus sort of formality in the little simulated heteronormative order of my 2nd grade Habbo experience. "I'm a Habbo-boy. Girlfriend? Why not!..." One day she invited me to her room in Habbo through the private message log and we walked to sit down in her tub and she initiated typing in asterisks the bureaucracy of "going to bed" (as my classmates and I referred to the act as at that time) such as *kisses you*. I wrote the moans down as "uh ah". What distinctly stayed in my mind was that she typed *imee pälliä* (*sucks dong*) and the whole situation was like experiencing and exploring the game itself instead of anything remotely "erotic" or "sensual" as we so pretentiously and sentimentally tend to frame these sort of situations as adults. Here you won't find a subversive edgy Von Trier-esque twist in the story, where I derived some extreme alternative pleasure from it. It was just entertaining and sort of unpredictable and I couldn't wait to recount the anecdote to a few Habbo-eager classmates, since specifically at the 2nd grade we had a boy in our class who sort of "introduced" talk about sex and the raunchier words for genitalia through references from raunchy jokes in viral Youtube videos or "TV programmes he saw his parents watching" and such.. In this verbal economy, anything relating to sex was automatically hilarious. Hilarious in the way that a cartoon character with its silly two asscheecks out is funny. It's something naked, silly and uncomplicated. It's something that comes from adults, those in our lives we expect to be the most orderly, authoritative and civilized, but who fall to silly animalistic levels of nibbling each other nude while moaning. I do not remember wether it was the same day or not, but in a flirtatious exchange of messages with the Habbo-gf she asked me what's up. I responded by sharing whichever Habbo-room and/or event I was in at that time and then sent her a link to this video. I was hooked on watching this on repeat, because of how gentle and catchy the tune was. She responded to me by writing "bad boy ;)" and I was confused and closed the message log, because there was nothing particularly funny or entertaining about the discussion and I was very aware that there was nothing 'tough' about this video, it's very light-spirited and silly. In retrospect, I do find there to be some innuendo present. Banana=phallic, Phone=grabbed by hand, talked into, but that's only if you really dig into the meanings just for the sake of digging into them. The tune or video itself is not structured in any way to indicate anything naughty or lewd that would warrant me being called a "bad boy". Obviously there's a possibility it was her attempt at initiating further dirty talk, but I took her message as a response to this video.

EPILOGUE: Put a banana in your ear, Caramelldansen, Shacaron macaron..

[hattafan2593]

Danny Phantom Rewrites - Episode 1: Mystery Meat

Like most kids, I watched Danny Phantom growing up. It was - and still is - one of my favorite cartoons.

That said, the show had many, many flaws, both character and plot-wise.

So I decided to come up with some hypothetical changes that may have made the show better. Call it an AU of sorts.

So without further ado, here are some changes to the first episode, Mystery Meat.

1. The parents. Writers really seem to love the "parents who are oblivious/ignorant to the point of being neglectful and abusive" trope, don't they? Well, we're scrapping that. In this version of the show, Jack and Maddie Fenton behave like actual parents, taking an interest in their kids lives outside of ghosts and acting like responsible adults, or at least more responsible than the canon Fentons. They're also less gung-ho and trigger happy, being more focused on paranormal research and data collecting than actual ghost-hunting.

Also, they know about Danny being half-ghost from the start. The B-plot focuses on them trying to find a cure from their son's "ailment", only to run into roadblocks, as any solution they come up with is likely to hurt Danny, or make things worse.

In the show, the ramifications of Danny being half-ghost are glossed over for the most part. Here, it's part of the plot - their son is a walking Schrödinger's cat, half-dead, half alive. (And yes, in the rewrite it is acknowledged that the ghosts in the show, at least the majority of them, were once humans that had died, and are not, in fact, alien creatures from an alternate dimension) And intentionally or not, it was their invention that made him this way.

This leaves them conflicted - on the one hand, the portal is now active. They now have access to the Ghost Zone, and the chance to study and learn more about the paranormal and how it affects the world around them. On the other hand, it came at the cost of their son getting hurt, and it's likely that they'd be putting their family in more danger if they leave the portal on. This actually makes them consider giving up paranormal research altogether, something that Jazz vocally encourages.

At the end of the episode, they decide that the portal is too dangerous, and have it shut down (for now). Of course, this doesn't stop all the ghosts that are suddenly showing up in Amity Park. After all, theirs is not the only ghost portal in existence, is it? But that's for another episode...

2. The main plot. Look, there's no nice way of saying this -canon!Sam is a bitch. A holier-than-thou, hypocritical, unlikeable bitch. Rewrite! Sam has most of canon!Sam's traits, only significantly toned down. Her stances and beliefs are more nuanced, and when she tries to make changes, she does so in ways that she genuinely thinks will be beneficial, and not just have her be edgy for the sake of being edgy.

As such, the rewrite has Sam prepare an actual vegetarian/vegan menu, and not just have the students eat grass. There are some objectors, like Tucker and Dash, but for the most part, no one really has a problem with it. Danny even tries a veggie burger and says it's delicious.

The rewrite then follows the canon episode's plot - Danny senses the Lunch Lady, Dash comes over and starts his shit, Danny starts a food fight as a distraction to get away, he confronts the Lunch Lady.

However, this is where things differ a bit.

When the Lunch Lady asks, "Did someone change the menu?", instead of saying Sam did it, Danny (backed up by Sam and Tucker) makes up a lie that they got a memo about the freezer being broken and that all the meat was spoiled, hence the change in menu. LL inspects the freezer, which is in working condition, and has plenty of meat inside. Suspicious, she goes to investigate. Realizing that they just threw the faculty and staff under the bus, Danny goes ghost and chases after her.

They end up in the teacher's lounge, where the staff are having their meat buffet. LL is furious. Not only did they change her menu, but these adults are apparently also stealing food from children and lying to them about it! Well, if it's meat they want, it's meat they'll get! She changes into a meat monster, and a fight ensues.

3. Dash and Lancer. Are you tired of teachers in media willingly turning a blind eye to bullies' BS?! So am I! So when Lancer gives Danny and his friends detention for starting the food fight, he gives Dash detention, too, as there were multiple eyewitnesses who saw Dash assaulting Danny beforehand. Dash objects, of course, but Lancer puts his foot down and says that Dash will serve detention, or he'll lose his spot on the football team. So, yeah! Dash actually suffers the consequences of his actions! Yay!

4. The Lunch Lady. I actually like her as a villain, and I wish she was utilized more, as a character if not as a main antagonist. That said, the rewrite has her personality changed slightly - instead of exploding in anger, she mostly maintains her sugary sweet tone, albeit with an undercut of malice. She only really gets angry when she thinks the adults stole the meat. With the kids however, she speaks sweetly and gently, almost grandmotherly, even when fighting Danny.

Like other ghosts in the series, however, the Lunch Lady has a one-track mind - her menu has been changed, and she needs to fix it. Then it's, "the school staff is starving the students, they need to pay!" She dismisses Danny's attempts to reason with her. When the Fentons show up to confront the ghost, she easily swats them away. Even when Sam confesses that it was her that changed the menu, she just pats her head and says "oh sweetie, you don't need to lie for them." Remember that Danny at this point in the series is still struggling with his powers, so she doesn't really take him seriously. It's only near the end of the episode does she go all out against him, and he barely manages to hold his own until he gets his hands on the Fenton thermos.

Aaaaaand that's it! That my rewrite of Danny Phantom Season 1 Episode 1 "Mystery Meat"! Let me know what you think!

hattafan out

[tikki-tok]

Ok so as someone who has never seen the original Winx club, the new reboot as a standalone series is actually not terrible. There were a lot of moments where the characters blended well and had very emotional moments that felt genuine (may have a swayed opinion on this cause hyper empathy but I digress). I think it actually has a LOT of potential story-wise. There are quite a few issues I have with the show though, ngl. I hope that my long ramblings don’t come off as me hating on the show or being unnecessarily critical (personally, the show was a lot of fun to watch for me) but rather comes off as genuine things that I hope get improved on as the show continues on, which ok yeah imma say it, I hope the show succeeds- even if is just another dark reboot of an old kids franchise. Anyways- long-winded analysis under the cut! (spoilers for the Winx reboot)

So uh,,, about that visual design. I know so many other people have said this before, but if you’re going to take a super bright, colorful, insane kids show and make it more for adults with a darker or more serious tone, then you kinda still have to accept that what you’re rebooting started off as a kid’s tv show. The thing about Fate is that if you were to change the characters names, you wouldn’t be able to tell that it was a Winx Club reboot. They took almost no inspiration aside from the vague concepts of a magic school, elemental fairies, and specialists. I don’t mean to say that every character should have gotten their own transformation scenes and everything or whatever or that they need to wear those skimpy costumes, but like at least a little bit of visual inspiration would have gone a long way. I mean, they showed at the end that they CAN make the wings and transformation a thing and not make it absolutely terrible. With a bit of fine tuning, things like that would have totally worked! But they scrapped it instead for the sake of just making them basically witches from any other fantasy setting. Like for having gone through the trouble of buying the rights to the Winx Club, they really did all they could to carry over none of the things that would tie this show to the original. I get it, maybe that well of creativity was a little dry, but seriously please give us interesting and distinct visual designs aside from glowy eyes I’m begging.

When it comes to the characters, some are surprisingly fleshed out. I found that Stella is actually a character that I surprisingly enjoyed seeing the development of and exploration of her character. Her past with being abused by her mother and having to preserve her image no matter the cost is something that really shone through in the way that she acted, and she was the character that made the most sense. Aisha is really underdeveloped, and she just ends up being either used to gather information for Bloom or to get Bloom out of a stupid situation. At the end, her friendship with Bloom felt really unearned writing-wise, as we never got to see them bond or ever trust each other like,,,, at all. At the start, I thought that Aisha would end up being Bloom’s closest friend (and maybe love interest but that was more wishful thinking) but they just ended up growing more and more distant and it didn’t feel like a good relationship or a desirable friendship. Terra and Musa got a lot of development as friends actually, and they’re in the same situation Ayesha and Bloom were in- both assigned as roommates who learned to live with each other and grew close as friends. At the end, when they work together to save the life of Terra’s brother, it feels like an awesome payoff to that friendship, and I really wish we got to see more of these character moments and interactions between the story beats. Why this couldn’t have been done with Aisha and Bloom as well? We may never know. (It got sidelined for pretty white boy character. shocker) One thing you’ll hear me say about a lot about this show is that everything felt better near the middle of the season. In the middle, Beatrix was actually interesting and compelling. We had no idea what side she was working for or how to feel about her aside from the lying/murder thing (which yeah maybe not something to hand waive but there are a surprising amount of murderers in this show). By the end, she somehow captivated Dane and Riven, despite the only thing we see her doing with them is drugs or just generally being an asshole to them. It’s an unearned outcome for the character because we never got to see why these guys actually love her so much. From what we see, there’s almost nothing that would make us assume that she feels any genuine love for either of them at all. Bloom herself felt kinda iffy for me. As a character, she’s quick to anger and doesn’t back down from confrontation. Because of this, she breaks a lot of rules. I will say that one thing that a lot of shows with a similar dynamic do is have the hot-headed main character drag their friends into everything they’re doing and selfishly put them in danger. I feel like Bloom wasn’t like that, but that’s mostly because her friendships with the other girls felt pretty,,,, weak. Like we get to see them interact with each other a lot, but Bloom kinda felt like she was off doing something else most of the time. The one character she confides in and gets to show some development with is Sky, but Sky is just bland white boy love interest #90594 and aside from being kinda nice and chivalrous sometimes, he mainly just exists because it wouldn’t be an angsty teen drama without a boring love interest shoehorned in. The ONLY time I liked Sky was his moments with Stella, because Stella had originally broken up with him, before late coming back to him and missing him. In other shows, this normally ends up in an annoying and stupid love triangle that takes up way too much screen time. For Fate though, they held off on the romance with Bloom because she told him that she wasn’t ready at the moment to deal with a relationship, and the story respected that decision and chose instead to focus on Sky and Stella’s relationship, which got a clean ending when they both mutually agreed that their relationship is co-depended and unhealthy. Even if Sky is a boring love interest, and his and Bloom’s relationship feels uninteresting, I appreciate that the writers gave both dynamics their time to breathe.

The ending of the show felt,,,, so rushed and unsatisfying. Having all of our characters work to stop the oncoming threat, only for all of it to be ripped away in a montage just to tease a second season isn’t a good way to make people want to continue watching. Plus, they just killed the headmaster out of the blue?? Just as we were liking her as a character and beginning to trust that she had good intentions and wasn’t evil??? Plus we don’t get to see any of the characters reactions or even see Bloom’s reaction, especially since we finally got to see her get a good moment of reconciliation with her. Like,,, god that ending was so dumb, and I know the only reason they did it was to make it seem like there’s this huge intense overarching story when really,,,, that could be explored in the second season. I really hate that this show made it all like “oh Bloom is the chosen one with the dragon fire” or whatever. Netflix shows do this a lot in my experience, where they have this main character with some vaguely defined chosen one abilities and they have to face off against some approaching evil we haven’t seen yet that is TOTALLY worse than this season’s villain just you wait. Just,,, stop, please let me enjoy the payoff of the season. If I enjoyed it, then you don’t need some stupid cliffhanger to keep me coming for the next season- I’ll come back because the show was captivating and left a good impression. 

So yeah those are my thoughts. I think that the show has potential that was squandered by poor design and lack of character interaction in favor of pushing the overarching plot forward. I really hope it succeeds and improves on what it fell short on, and despite all of the harsh things I had to say about it, it’s a fun time! If it looks like it might interest you, there’s definitely something there to enjoy. If it looks like it would be more fun to laugh at because it’s an edgy reboot of a children’s fairy magical girl cartoon, then that’s ok too! I’m with you there lol

[abbyfreemansmind]

Let’s talk about Hazbin Hotel

So, I finally sat down and watched Hazbin Hotel. I’d heard so much about it and felt the need to launch myself headfirst into having my own opinions about it instead of just listening to other people talking about it. This is gonna be a long post, so I’m gonna put it behind a neat little read more. Please note that this is coming from someone who genuinely enjoys adult humour and edgy humour and themes. I’ve got no problem with something that’s all swearing and raunchy jokes. It just needs to be done right.

Point 1 - The Plot The plot is describes as the Princess of Hell trying to open a new hotel to rehabilitate sinners so they don’t get exterminated during the yearly heavenly extermination to deal with Hell’s overpopulation problems. This plot is quickly undone through a few things that anyone can notice during the first viewing. 1 - Overpopulation? WHAT population? The scenery is most often noticeably devoid of any signs of life, outside of when background characters are called for. The scene where Charlie’s doing her news presentation is the most notable example of background characters. After this scene, we see almost nobody outside of the main cast and those weird little egg things. There are a few throwaway demons but outside of that, the streets are devoid of people. There aren’t even the corpses we had just seen during that opening scene. 2 - Charlie may as well be a total nobody what with all the power being the Princess of Hell holds. Just look at how the other characters treat her. You’d think the Princess of Hell would have some kind of benefit that would sway people towards agreeing with this whole idea. Instead, she gets mocked by just about everyone for reasons I can only guess involve winning her sympathy points from the audience. 3 - At no point does she give any proof that redemption would work. She basically says, “Hey guys! I hate seeing you all die, so I have this idea that has no backing evidence, that may or may not work, to try and get you guys into Heaven! Let me sing a song about it where I insult you all!”

Point 2 - Presentation I applaud the animators. Must’ve been hard, especially for Charlie’s overly fast song that really didn’t need to be nightcored, or literally any time Angel Dust was on-screen. Frame by frame. No rigs. All those stripes. All those colours that blend if you stare at them too hard or squint even slightly while watching. All that unnecessarily constant movement. It’s no wonder the thing took four bloody years to animate. Outside of animation, there are too many unneeded details and not enough needed details. Seriously. 1 - The turf war. We didn’t need this. We didn’t need this at all. If you take out the entire opening to it and the entire actual fight scene here, the episode still flows smoothly and we get the same amount of information and worldbuilding. In a pilot/first episode, you should only give the audience necessary details. Leave them wanting more, yes, but make sure they actually know what they’re getting into from the first episode. Make every scene count. Make it mean something. Don’t just shove every detail you can think of together and call it a day, especially if you don’t actually give the audience much information from it. 2 - Why is Hell overpopulated? Why isn’t Heaven? Why can angels go from Heaven to Hell, but demons can’t go from Hell to Heaven? Why does nobody care about being redeemed if Hell is so overpopulated that Angels annually come down and kill people because of it? Why does everyone treat the Princess of Hell like she’s worthless? Why doesn’t Angel Dust know about Alastor if they got into hell within 10 years of each other? Where is this supposed overpopulation problem? Would redemption even work in the first place? Why should I care about most of these characters (who are mostly complete jerks with no redeeming qualities other than “PROTAGONIST”, especially when two of the fan favourites repeatedly sexually assault other characters and, in one case, is both sexist and racist at one point)? Why are there turf wars? I should not be having to ask these questions. Don’t hold the audience’s hand, but don’t leave every single question you present in the show unanswered. Some of the questions presented make absolute sense to leave unanswered. Why does Alastor want to help with the hotel? Why are characters like Vaggie and Niffty, who do nothing all that bad, in Hell? These are questions that make total sense to leave unanswered for now. 3 - What crime is too terrible to be redeemed for? Charlie seems to think that literally everyone can be redeemed. That means murderers, rapists, abusers, tormentors... Certainly her song holds some kind of key to figuring it out! “Inside of every creepy hatchet-wielding maniac” Hmm... Okay... “All of you cretins, sluts and losers, sexual deviants and boozers��� Uh... “So, all your cartoon porn addictions, vegan rants, psychic predictions Ancient Roman crucifixions end right here All you monsters, thieves and crazies, cannibals and crying babies" Oh... Also, did she imply that mental illness, alcoholism, drug dependency, plant-based diets/lifestyles, rabies and enjoyment of sex were sins in that song?

Point 3 - Edgy for the sake of edgy Hazbin Hotel tries to be an adult cartoon, but comes off as something a mentally disturbed teenager wrote during their emo/scene phase. 1 - The swearing and sex jokes. Oh boy. I’ve worked with children under the age of 15 who swear and crack sex jokes better than the adults in this show. The swearing and sex jokes are the only reasons this show couldn’t be aired as a Cartoon Network show aimed at edgy teenagers. It’s so poorly done that it in and of itself takes away from the quality of the show itself. Also, we have a character who’s name is an actual sex joke itself. Vaggie, full name Vagatha - a lesbian sex worker, of course. Fun fact for those who don’t know, but all of her previous character drafts had her name as some form of joke on the word vagina. This isn’t an accident, this is blatant and intentional. Also, here’s a pro tip for you! You can make an adult-oriented show without having swearing, slurs and sex jokes taking up a solid third or more of your script. 2 - The... “Representation”. Yes, Hazbin Hotel has LGBT+ characters! Yes, it has biracial and Latina characters! Charlie is bi, Vaggie is a Latina lesbian, Angel Dust is a gay man, Alastor is ace and biracial, Husk is pan, Niffty is Japanese (YIKES). Except none of it actually matters. No, really. Vivziepop was all like, “btw you can ship w/e, idc! also, i rlly like the fanon version of human alastor (who is whiter than marshmallow fluff even though he’s supposed to be half black)! :)” and threw all that out the window because... Who knows at this point. Now, if you look at the connected series, Helluva Boss, you get Moxie and Millie - an extremely obvious and loving couple. In Hazbin Hotel, you get Charlie and Vaggie who you probably couldn’t tell were a couple without somebody telling you that in the first place, what with all the loveydovey-ness going on with them. In fact, the biggest hint we even get is literally one line. “Life ain’t a musical, hun.” But then again, I’d be more apt to believe Charlie and Vaggie are friends, or Vaggie is pining after Charlie. Also, Charlie is a really bad girlfriend! She lets Vaggie get abused by practically the entire cast without so much as a single word in her defense and ignores everything Vaggie says. It came as no surprise when I remembered hearing about how the only reason these two are a couple is because one of the people on the team thought they were during storyboarding and Vivziepop just went with it. Also, fun fact, Vaggie fits both the angry lesbian and fiery Latina stereotypes. Charlie fits the stereotype for the bisexual cheater, what with how she seems to actually like Alastor more than her own bloody girlfriend. Alastor is canonically ace because he’s too full of himself to be with anyone else. Speaking as somebody who’s ace... WHAT?! As much as I don’t like Charlastor, it’s partially more popular than Chaggie because Vivziepop actually made them act like a couple for an entire musical number. Also, he’s annoying. He not only kept telling Vaggie to smile (heck you dude), he also smacked her butt, which is a form of sexual assault, people. This was all played for laughs, along with Vaggie’s (actually very reasonable) anger. Niffty is Japanese. A yellow-skinned demon who’s boy crazy and obsessed with cleaning... Big yikes. Finally, Angel Dust. The kinky gay man porn star/drag queen/drug addict/prostitute who verbally sexually assaulted two guys. Where do I begin. When it came to this guy, Vivziepop must’ve been like, “Imma throw every stereotype for gay men on this guy and call it a character!” If you look a Helluva Boss again, you get Stolas, who verbally sexually assaults Blitzo over the phone and also cheated on his wife with him in the first place, so this isn’t a one-off. Also, he was originally AFAB, so that whole line about “Why are you all women?” is more than a little heinous and in extremely poor taste.

In conclusion, this show is terrible. Everything about it. It needs some serious reworking, because as it stands, it’s really truly not that great of a creation.

tl;dr: Needs a lot of work and “ThEy’Re In HeLl!!1!!one!!!eleven!!!11″ isn’t even remotely an excuse for the genuine problems in it. Remember, at least one actual human being on Earth, not in Hell, wrote this garbage fire. Also, the animators deserve a higher wage than whatever they’re getting to deal with these designs. I shudder just thinking about animating them, with or without a rig.

[takerfoxx]

...But a DICK! or What People Get Wrong About Deconstructions

So I was rewatching a bunch of Honest Trailers recently, and when I saw the ‘Watchmen’ trailer, this golden line came up:

 "Meet Rorschach! He’s like Batman… but a DICK!

 Meet the Comedian. He’s Captain America… but a DICK!

 Meet Dr. Manhattan. He’s Superman… but a DICK!“

 Now, I love this line, but it got me thinking. It’s a good observation, but maybe a bit… shallow? Because there’s a tendency I’ve noticed that when people want to write deconstructions on the cheap (see: every grimdark edgelord 'deconstruction’ ever), they will either

 a.) Make all the 'deconstructed’ characters douchebags, or

 b.) Make them severely mentally ill, and by mentally ill I mean read a comic book about a crazy person once and assumes every mental illness works like that.

But there’s an art to the deconstruction, I think, and after some thought I’ve narrowed it down to three main points:

1.)    Go off of characteristics that are already present in what is being deconstructed.

 Let’s look at a character from Alan Moore’s critically acclaimed comic book, ‘Watchmen’: Edward Blake, AKA the Comedian. The Comedian was basically an expy for the Peacemaker, a superhero whose whole gimmick was that he preserved world peace by overthrowing dictators and warlords in foreign countries, the big 'joke’ of his comic being that he would use incredibly violent means to do so. Alan Moore didn’t make the Comedian a violent sadist, because evidence of that already existed in the Peacemaker. He just brought it to the FOREFRONT. This is actually why it is surprisingly easy to deconstruct comedies. Comedies (especially adult ones) have characters behave in ways that, while funny in-universe, would be considered sociopathic in real life, ESPECIALLY if the ‘deconstructed’ world is one where cartoon physics no longer apply. It’s also why I feel a lot of grimdark deconstructions of the magical girl Genre don’t really work, because they tend to plant personality traits into characters that magical girls never really had in the shows they claim to be deconstructing.

 2.)    Understand the GREATER CULTURAL CONTEXT of a character/work

As noted in the above point, the Peacemaker’s shtick was he would go after dictators and warlords in foreign countries, overthrowing them for the sake of preserving the peace. But Alan Moore realized that when countries like, say, America, go after dictators and warlords to preserve democracy, it is almost never JUST to ensure world peace. There is also usually oil or money or something on the line. So that got incorporated into the Comedian’s character, as well. He saves the world… but he is always getting something in return. The Peacemaker was born out of a culture that idolized hyper masculinity, with big guns, ripped abs, and solving everything by violence. The Comedian, likewise, is used to expose the worst aspects of that culture, going as far as assassinating JFK, shooting kids in ‘nam, and showing no remorse. Most importantly, though, Alan Moore never actually frames these things as ‘manly’ or ‘cool’, but SOCIOPATHIC. This is important to me, because in most grimdark ‘deconstructions’, violence is not only shown as the ‘necessary’ way, but also the ‘cool’ way, the ‘awesome’ way. A well-made deconstruction makes you question the violence (albeit it can have some good fight scenes), while a poorly made one revels in gore and body counts.

 Another way of looking at the Cultural Context is taking a text written by a problematic author, and looking at the text with the assumption the events really happened, but the narrator is biased. A lot of really good deconstructions of H.P. Lovecraft’s work do this.

 3.)    For the love of all things holy, please stop with the NICE GUYS FINISH LAST MENTALITY!

 There seems to be this popular myth in grimdark deconstructions that

a.)    The ‘cynical, edgy’ character will almost ALWAYS turn out to be right or even have the moral high ground.

b.)    The ‘naive, nice’ character will always either be killed off early on, or shed their innocence and become and edgy cynic.

 To quote Darth Helmet in ‘Spaceballs’:

“Evil will always win, because GOOD is DUMB!”

 Except, not really. At all. To get what I’m saying, let’s look at two ‘nice’ characters from popular deconstructions: Dan Dreiberg AKA ‘Nite Owl’ and Madoka Kaname. The former is a kindhearted, humble guy (the superhero he was based on, Blue Beetle, had humility as a defining characteristic) who just wants to do good and help people. In most deconstructions, he would be the first to get killed off, and yet, in ‘Watchmen’:

It is only after he joins Rorschach the latter is able to make ANY leeway into solving the Comedian’s murder. Before, all Rorschach accomplished was land himself in jail. Nite Owl finds out the true culprit in a matter of HOURS. And gets them to ANTARCTICA in a day, no less!

When there is a fight between the two, it is RORSCHACH who apologizes for being difficult to work with, and for being the load. NOT Nite Owl!

Between the Comedian, Rorschach, and Nite Owl, it is NIGHT OWL who winds up with the happiest ending, finding true love and getting to continue being a superhero. The other two wind up having their conscious catch up to them or trapped in their own misery. Also, it is the unambiguously jerkish Comedian who ultimately finishes last!

 For Madoka:

Well, you probably already know. She never has to become more cynical to save the day. In fact, one of the reasons I believe Kyubey slipped up is because it confuses Madoka’s kindness with stupidity.

Also, it is the cynical Kyoko who winds up admitting Madoka might have a point about giving kindness a chance and not the other way around.

 On a more minor note, if you have a grimdark story and you want to end on a hopeful note, remember Chekov’s gun. Madoka Magica, for instance, had Madoka’s parents. Always there in the back, a constant reminder to their girl (and the audience) that there is good in the world. A lot of grimdark shows that end optimistic never do that kind of thing, so its’ always good to keep track of.

 So that is all I’ve got to say. If you ever wonder how I would do a deconstruction, feel free to ask.

All of this is quite true, and it goes back to something I talked about some time ago: a lot of people just don’t get deconstructions. It seems that many think that a deconstruction is when you take something that was originally cheery and idealistic and turn it grimdark and broody, when that is not the case. I mean, Shrek is a deconstruction, and adult humor and slight cynical edge aside, it winds up being very idealistic and not at all grimdark. 

Deconstructions do exactly what their name implies: they deconstruct. They examine the elements of a genre that are usually taken for granted and inject a healthy dose of reality into them, not to overly explain how all that weird shit might be possible (and please, don’t get hung up on stuff like that. That’s how we wind up with things like the Midichlorians), but what sort of effect all that weird shit would realistically have on people. With Watchmen, it took the wacky world of superheroes, which had been used to entertain children and as government propaganda, and closely examined the effect actual superheroes would have, both on the men and women wearing the capes and the society around them, going so far as to get into the details of how history would have been reshaped, all the way down to the effect it would have on comic books.

By the same token, Madoka Magica took a good, hard look at how the minds of young girls would really be affected by being given that power, by having to fight every night against horrible monsters, and the sort of things they might wish for in order to gain that power, from the crippling loneliness to the heavy trauma to the spiral downward into depression and self-loathing to the almost sociopathic cynicism. 

In short, they’re not about just being dark, violent, and broody, they’re about consequences, the real-life consequences of having people with actual superpowers and/or children being made to fight monsters. That’s what the hordes of cheap imitators that sprung up in their wake so often forget.

And...admittedly it’s something I’ve had to learn myself over the years.

[moomingitz]

what is your opinion of the Tom & Jerry movie?

Oh hey. Looks like it’s that time for an unpopular opinion of mine:

I seriously don’t think it’s that bad at all. It’s hardly what I would call god awful. It’s just okay.

A lot of people are getting tired of studios especially pulling the, “Y’all are just whiny entitled fans!”, card. But, the people I’ve seen shriek about how oh-so awful this damn movie is, and how it apparently “ruined” Tom & Jerry, do come off as just whiny fans overreacting because something deviated from a series of shorts they were most likely introduced through from endless re-runs on Cartoon Network or Boomerang. Not just any fans, but usually the average Western animation fan I can’t stand.

I watched re-runs of the Tom & Jerry shorts growing up, but I only really watched them because it was on before shows I was more interested in on Cartoon Network. So I don’t really have any real strong nostalgic connection or loyalty to them, or the characters, like other’s do, so my view of the film is far less biased compared to others. Whatever semi-nostalgic connection I have for the movie has to do with early Youtube memes. Like this classic line.

I even gave the benefit of the doubt and assumed I had some rose tinted nostalgia lenses from when I watched this movie a couple of times when I was little. But when I re-watched it as an adult, after learning that it’s apparently considered some god awful abomination to animation… I didn’t see it. I just saw a mediocre at worst animated film.

I would even go as far to say that I think it’s one of the more competent film adaptations of an old animated IP(whether animated or live-action). Unlike the direct-to-video Tom & Jerry movies, they actually tried to do an original story instead of just having the titular characters fuck around in the background of some other popular piece of fiction. It’s animated competently. The characters don’t go off-model and they don’t end up looking fucking creepy.

The songs in it are a mixed bag, though. They range from awkward, dumb but amusing, or actually kind of catchy.

I don’t even care at all about the decision to have Tom and Jerry actually talk in the movie. If anything I thought the voices they gave them were actually fit them. Like that’s exactly how I always imagined these characters sounding if they talked.(I don’t know why they gave Tom some mobster sounding accent, though.)

The only things that really made me cringe were the sexual innuendos they kept pushing between the fat evil aunt(that’s pretty much her character, along with her morbidly obese skateboard riding dachshund) and Tony Jay the Evil Lawyer, and the fact some grown ass adult just finds some unconscious kid and the thought to try and contact the authorities or any of their possible family members only becomes a crosses their mind once they see they could get a bazillion-million dollar reward for finding them. They really loved shoving in the former into the movie.

If I had what I think is a legitimate and valid criticism about the movie as a whole, it’s that I think it took way too long for it to get to the point and establish it’s actual main plot and conflict.

I didn’t think the film’s premise about two enemies having to form a begrudging truce for someone else’s sake was a bad one at all. If anything I think it would have provided potential to challenge Tom and Jerry in a meaningful way. It’s not the first time the two put aside trying to kill each other for the sake of another, so it’s not like it would even be out of character for them. But here’s the problem with how they decided to go about it:

They wasted the first 20 minutes on what was basically padding, and didn’t get to the real story and conflict until the film was already down to an hour left on it’s run time!

I don’t see why Tom and Jerry needed some random stray dog and a flee with a fake French accent, and an awkward musical number, to teach them that friendship is magic and shit. Then for some reason they have a cat gang, who we never see or hear of again for the rest of the movie, sing to Tom about how edgy and totally intimidating they are. I think helping a kid escape from her abusive legal guardian would give the two more than enough of a reason to form a temporary truce, okay.

What I just described above could have easily been cut out, and in return it would have freed up those 20 precious minutes of the run time to instead spend it on giving Tom and Jerry proper development with that Robin girl they meet. They could even have a healthy mix of humor and slapstick from the two trying really hard not to kill each other throughout the film. Tom and Jerry most likely wouldn’t feel as disconnected with the main conflict, then. Hell, maybe even make it more of a road trip type film with the three. Give the main characters more time to actually bond with each other and in return make Tom and Jerry warming up to each other more believable. Maybe even show that Robin is actually just as clever or resourceful as the two titular characters(her father is Indiana Jones after all), and give the two more reason to help her beyond it just being the right thing to do. This movie would not be that hard to improve or fix.

The movie and it’s premise definitely had potential. It could have been much better, but it is far from what I would call an “awful” movie. It’s just okay at the end of the day.

It really annoys me whenever I hear people hype something up as god awful, or even the worst thing ever, only for it to turn out to be maybe mediocre at worst. I’ve seen some terrible shit, especially when it comes to animation. If I go and watch or look into something because I keep hearing others swear up and down that it’s terrible or something, than it better deliver, okay! You know how people tend to be disappointed, or even mad, whenever they see something hyped as great only for it to not to meet that expectation? Well, that’s me whenever I see something that turns to not really be as bad as people make it out to be.

[schtroumpf-a-lunettes]

under cut because long!!! this is roughly a discussion of like, children’s media (or something propped up as children’s media/parodying a kid’s show) being depicted with grimdark and/or mature content or w/e. I both agree that these ideas are often completely unoriginal and boring and stuff and bad. but also it can be done right and have plenty of merits. and in saying that, that’s not what my fic is trying to do as well though

I think I’m edging (relatively) closer to looking like a little bit of a hypocrite if I agree with the notion that portraying characters from children’s media in dark situations tends to be boring/unoriginal/edgy and I don’t know how to, fully express how much that I... well for one thing that’s not.. what I ever really want to go for. many of those kinds of portrayals are generally irreverent, wildly OOC, edgy for the sake of being edgy, purely for shock value. Sometimes the person doing it doesn’t rly know anything about the source material beyond the most basic surface level, and it furthermore can be boring if it doesn’t offer any meaningful commentary. ofc those things don’t usually intend to offer meaningful commentary, they just want the shock value of something like “haha the SMURFS but VIOLENCE/ADULT CONTENT, wild right???”, and they achieve that very basic goal, and it can be boring. it doesn’t tell us anything, it’s just, shock value and that’s it.

Ok I mean... it DEPENDS, sometimes (plenty of times) I actually find the Subverted Kids Show trope incredibly enjoyable, but like, hm. some ways of going about it are more tasteful than others. I guess part of that is personal preference though I do think there is a small amount of objective guidelines involved too

and you can still make insightful commentary on a text aimed at children through a Subverted Kids Show Format while having the characters be ooc! Robot Chicken smurfs (which I will discuss more in other posts) for me oscillates between making a surprisingly good commentary sometimes and mindless (but fun(ny)) scenes to, very tasteless/bad scenes that don’t do much imo. well its goal is to be funny and that’s it I guess, and it hits that goal some of the time

I guess the exact opposite of the surface-level shock value joke can also be super boring though. a text/theory that takes itself super seriously and tries to explain to you how Actually This Kid’s Show Dark! can possibly be even worse. e.g. “characters in kids show are just trapped in purgatory/it’s all a coma fantasy!!” or whatever. But I think, part of what would make a thing like that Bad is a fundamental misunderstanding of core parts of the canon and/or a... lack of regard for canon in the sense that you’re really willing to sit here and write of everything that the characters have ever been through as being Meaningless because it was all just one character’s dying memories? that completely robs the text of its power. Like saying Homer’s been in a coma since like season 5 of the simpsons. As a certain podcaster that won’t be named said because I have, a lot of bones to pick with them lol - there’s something so redundant and pointless about saying “everything that’s happening in this fictional show isn’t real”. what does it realistically.. add, kinda thing.

But I don’t think there’s cause to be automatically dismissive of anything that tries to.. approach children’s media from an angle where you can construct it as being just a little bit more sombre than it looks like on the surface or something? idk. because there can be worthwhile things to explore that make interesting commentary on the text, where you NEED to introduce less-than-happy concepts to derive them. (Sometimes the kind of commentary that deconstructions try to make is, not so good and misses the mark, although it’s not always the case.) there’s one argument against this which is like, Why can’t you just let kids have things? It’s not that deep. You’re trying to put a sinister spin on something when... it’s just not necessary. Why add to the darkness of the world. let people, especially kids, just have this bright and pure thing.

And I completely agree with that sentiment, honestly. The smurfs are good, happy, innocent, that’s the way they are and should be, don’t try to take that away from kids or people. Like 80%-90% of my enjoyment of the smurfs is all about that, I’m in full agreement, I just want happy little innocent elf society adventures and I’ll be happy. Although. It’s not like smurfs was always happy. there are plenty of tearjerker moments in the show, plenty of disasters and bad things happen to them (that they readily overcome by the end of the episode). and here I guess you also have to avoid patronising kids in thinking that only happy and nice stuff can be for them. as in, the smurfs does have really sad and upsetting moments but that Obviously doesn’t make it Not For Kids.

I think that in addition to that, slightly darker themes can be explored and exposed under certain extreme circumstances if smurf society was subject to it. And I think this in no way invalidates their tranquil, happy status quo and good nature as a society as we know it. Also it just so happens that my inspiration for fic happened to revolve around negative ideas instead of positive despite me, in fandom, just enjoying the positive/light-hearted usually (I think?). whoops. but these kinds of outside-of-canon things don’t do anything to the canon, canon stands as it is. I try my best to stick as close to canon as possible kind of, as a kind of canon purist, haha, in terms of characters and realistic reactions.

another thing is, for a positive kid show like smurfs, to have something really bad happen might seem off, but, one of the things I want(ed) to explore is “if x thing happened, how would the characters deal with it?” (I think this point will be, more pertinent to the next smurfs fic I have lined up once I finish the current one I’m working on. heh, heh, heh.)

I mean really bad stuff happened in the cartoon but it was never too extreme and it was resolved by the end of the episode normally. so for something long-term... yeah.

I also think occasionally I’ve done like. stupid smurf stuff that is kinda ooc over the years. and part of why is I think something happened where I was so anti-doing that that it kind of looped back around to the point where I Did it because, of course, I acknowledge how far-removed from canon it is that it therefore doesn’t mean anything, or something like that. and It Amused Me. and sometimes shock value smurfs at least done Somewhat tastefully is amusing to me too for that same reason because (if) it’s harmless fun or something

now this whole thing I’ve written up is mostly general thoughts and not actually much related to my fic. just, writing the fic has got me thinking about this kind of stuff so some of it is vaguely related. But fundamentally I don’t want my fic to be super dark. in fact, there are many very dark storyline paths that I could have taken which I actively chose not to, because those paths were not what I wanted this story to do. I just want it to be a fic where the smurfs experience a lot of hardship that they struggle to overcome, and I want to keep it very closely aligned to canon where I can, while other stuff changes, with.. time. Like yea there are definitely some dark elements though haha. But I’ve read some dark smurfs fic and haha.. don’t think mine really shapes up.

Like this whole post might sound like me being defensive or something, but it’s not because the premise of my fic isn’t “Edgy Grimdark Smurfs” or anything like that, and therefore that’s not a concept that I need to defend for my fic. and I don’t need to be on any kind of defense because nothing anyone else has said has prompted this post, haha. I didn’t set out to write Dark smurfs fic, I set out with an idea of some challenges the village could face and followed through with how I thought the village and its inhabitants would/could react to them, or some of the possible ways the village could react to them. And IF the results turn less-than-smurfy, I still follow up on them if I think it is realistic to the canon for it to happen and an interesting path to explore. Like I’m not really taking the world and adding/forcing dark elements in, I’m bringing out underlying currents that I already saw present when observing the society in the cartoon. Maybe I added some stuff to flesh things out, but the core ideas I bring out have basis in the cartoon imo. Anyway yeah like 70% of this post isn’t related to my fic, just kinda general thoughts type thing as I said lol.

Oh yeah also it’s like - I want my fic to still remain mostly in-tune with the show, I want to do my best with that. I don’t want darkness-induced apathy or for it to feel like it’s too far out of line from what is plausible. in-tune with the universe and the characters, but exploring stuff you wouldn’t necessarily pitch to young children at the same time type thing. And I’m not going out of my way to do that, moreso I’m not imposing that restriction on myself in terms of what I write. I’m tryin’ my best, haha. like, setting out to write grimdark fic is fine, but it possibly requires a different audience and authorial approach compared to what I feel is the approach I want to encourage for my fic. both approaches and writing styles are valid, just different type thing. I’d hate to turn people away if they’re not into grimdark stuff when it’s not what I was going for or w/e

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #461

Top Ten Good Things That Actually Happened in 2020

Well, thank God that’s over, am I right?

It feels kinda weird to be sitting here looking back over the wreckage and general weirdness of 2020, a year that pretty much defines the word “anxiety”. I have a lot to be thankful for: none of us died, for a start; we all seemed to avoid The Plague in its entirety for the whole year. We still have a house, we still have food, we always had enough toilet paper, and above all we had each other. It was hard, it was long, it sucked a great deal at times, but there are substantially worse hands to be dealt all things considered.

Anyway, amongst all the crap, there were some good things, too. And I don’t mean the end-year highs of them finding a vaccine, Biden beating Trump, and us narrowly avoiding No Deal by eating a ton of rotten mud instead of actual shit. No, throughout the year, there were actually some things that happened that were genuinely good; great, even.

And so once again, with no further ado, here are my ten favourite things. Like usual, these are, y’know, things that I watched or played or whatever. I don’t go on about my great kids being great, or the fact that I finally finished writing and formatting enough children’s books to start showing them to agents. But my kids were both elected their respective class’s reps to the school council, which is pretty badass. Here you go. Ten good things. Watch them on catch-up, or whatever.

Mega Mando: without a doubt the best “thing” that I saw was the second season of The Mandalorian. Managing to be both an event-of-the-week show (a heist! An infiltration! A siege!) as well as a long-form narrative; feeling distinct and its own thing but tying into so many aspects of Star Wars; full of absolutely excellent scenes and direction and performances; and holy crap what an ending. When you watch a few of these kinds of shared-universe genre shows, this sort of thing is a rarity to the point of my never having seen it before. Seasons that are too long? Filler episodes? Disappointing lore? A “thirteen-hour movie”? Mando swerves all of these things and – notwithstanding my love for The Last Jedi – emerges as possibly the best thing Star Wars has done since at least the classic LucasArts games of the late nineties.

Series SeXy: finally the new consoles came out, and I got an Xbox Series X. It was quite a ride for yours truly: I managed to successfully pre-order one from Microsoft directly; it turned up on the day of release, except it was late in the evening and the kids were around so I couldn’t open it; then, after briefly testing it, I shoved it back in its box till Christmas. Honestly, you wanna talk about anticipation much? It was literally in my house and I still didn’t properly set it up till the evening on Christmas Day. Anyway: it’s great. It just works, y’know? It’s a beautiful boxy delight, with its chunky green holes and its shiny edges. It makes all my games look amazing, it’s so fast and buttery-smooth. It’s like upgrading a PC, but far more successful and expansive an upgrade than I was ever able to do when I was actually upgrading a PC. Anyway, it’s great. It even runs Cyberpunk 2077.

Lockdown Crossing: Animal Crossing: New Horizons arrived at exactly the right time. Lockdown was starting, everything was darkness and fear, people were dying, we needed distractions, and here was a game about being happy and friendly and doing up your house and digging up fossils. It was perfect. It was also a great social game, with my kids loving sending presents to each other, or meeting up with their uncle (who they literally saw only once this year). A great game at just the right time.

The Stream Where it Happens: Mando might have been my TV highlight of the year, but film-wise my favourite new movie was not only not really a movie but was also several years old. Hamilton popped up almost by surprise on Disney+, and it was the first time I’d been able to experience it – and it was just as good as I’d heard. At this point you don’t need me to rhapsodise about the lyricism, performance, staging, and West Wing references; I think you either get it or you don’t, and I got it big time. Weirdly, experiencing it at home made some kind of perfect sense, and it made up for missing out on the big cinematic musicals such as In the Heights and West Side Story.

Fantabulous Harley Quinn: Harley rocked on both the big and the small screen this year. Birds of Prey, or whatever it ended up being called, was actually the last film I saw at the cinema before the Big Shutdown of 2020. It’s not perfect, sure, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun; Margot Robbie is a blast, it’s really funny, and is edgy in just the right way, rather than feeling like it’s trying too hard. I was more sceptical going into the Harley Quinn animated show (starring Penny off The Big Bang Theory, for goodness’ sake!), as “sweary adult Harley Quinn cartoon” is pretty high on my checklist of “things that are trying to be edgy”, but I’m glad I gave it a chance, because it followed a very similar line to the movie. Hilarious, violent, filthy, but also offering a subtle unpeeling of Harley’s psyche and giving her more character development than she gets in most of her comic appearances. It was a great year for Harley. Just wish they’d show the second season of her show.

All This Plus Disney: yeah, I’ve already singled out Mando and Ham (great unmade detective show, there), but I’ve gotta say Disney+ in general has been a huge highlight. From getting all yer Marvels and yer Star Wars in one place, to a wealth of preschool and middle-grade shows for the kids (my youngest mainlined Vampirina this Spring), to being a home for loads of high-quality family films from years gone by (it was the prime destination for many a family movie night), to, well, the future. WandaVision launches in a couple of weeks, followed by dozens of great shows and movies; not just ones about sad superheroes, either – personally I can’t wait for the likes of Chip & Dale. I’ve gotta say, I’ve been really impressed, and once they roll out the sexier, swearier Fox stuff later this year, it’ll only get better.

A Schitt Year: we got into Schitt’s Creek rather late (like many a sitcom – I think we only discovered Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Good Place in the last eighteen months or so), but it’s truly sublime, and it only got better and better as it built towards it joyous climax (ewww, David!). It was a great show about a family of people who were kinda arseholes, but were really very nice underneath it all, and how this town of people who were sorta idiots but kinda nice underneath it all brought out the better natures of everybody. It was, basically, a show about the all-encompassing power of being Nice. I’m so, so happy that it achieved huge success in its final season, winning literally all the Emmys. Hot Schitt.

Top Trek: 2020 was bookended by the two newest incarnations of People Boldly Going, Picard and Discovery. I was super excited to check in with Jean-Luc and pals nearly twenty years since we’d last seen them; although the show wasn’t a Best of Both Worlds-style masterpiece, it presented a believably fractured vision of the Federation, and a sadder, wearier Picard. It got a bit bogged down in Borg stuff, and I wasn’t totally sold on the ending, but I’m very, very eager to spend more time with these characters in future seasons. Discovery, meanwhile, flashed forward, with a season set about 900 years after Picard, and gave us what amounts to the closest Star Trek gets to a dystopia. It took its time settling in, but by crikey it pulled its threads together for a great run of episodes as we gear up to the finale later this week. I’ve very much enjoyed Star Trek on TV this year, and I’m really looking forward to whatever comes next.

Netflickin’ Ass: on the one hand, it was quite nice to see streaming services picking up the slack during the cinema closures, with many films winding up on Prime Video or Netflix or wherever; there were also those “Premium VOD” options, such as Trolls World Tour or Mulan, but I never quite fancied parting with so much cash for a rental (“Only if it’s Black Widow or Wonder Woman,” I said… so, yeah, see you later this month for the latter!). One trend I did notice, however, was Netflix also picking up the slack of “big Hollywood star-driven action movie”. Y’know, the stuff that had Van Damme or Seagal in it in the ‘90s, before everything became franchised (Mission: Impossible could almost fall under this banner, but Cruise became too huge and the series itself eventually was the draw, I’d argue). Anyway, these sorts of films nowadays are low-rent DTV fodder starring slumming former megastars, so fair play to Netflix for resurrecting the genre and giving it a fresh coat of paint and lease of life. Stuff like Extraction and The Old Guard weren’t exactly masterpieces, but they were solidly entertaining with great central performances and some nicely turned-out action. Looking forward to more of the same – bigger, better, and with more people getting killed with rakes!

A Summer of Anticipation: it was a weird year – well, yeah, of course it was, you know, you were there. But one of the things that was weird was that so much was going to happen. I mean, there were loads of things I was looking forward to as the year began; from the MCU and Star Wars shows to big movies, smaller movies, and – of course – new games consoles. And as the year went on, amidst the angsty real-world wait-and-see, there was also a steady drip of news and non-news as we held on to find out which films were pushed back, which were skipping the cinema, and mostly what the games would look like on the new consoles. Barely a week seemed to go by without new rumours, new stories, and new leaked videos or imagery. It was maddening and infuriating but also, weirdly, glorious. This strange ongoing sense of anticipation and wonder, even if quite often the news ended up being disappointing as more and more big hitters slipped to 2021 (everything from Bond to Halo to pretty much the whole MCU). But like an entire year made up of Christmas Eves, it felt for the longest time that anything was possible… just round the corner.

See? It wasn’t all bad. And maybe this year we’ll get to enjoy all the stuff we thought we’d enjoy in 2020! I mean, at the very least, Trump’s gonna be gone… right?

[ouchmaster6000]

This is an older post, about a 40k project that never really took off, but I kinda feel the need to point out that while I agree that getting more kids into Warhammer is a fine idea, I really dislike the way GW went about it.

The way I see it, it's the format, not the content, that is really a barrier for younger kids. Pretty much all Warhammer related media thus far has been expensive miniatures with complex rules, long novels with an adult reading level, and video games most of which are real-time-strategy games not intended for new players or kids with short attention spans.

As for the content, on the contrary most young kids (well, at least most young boys) LOVE violent, edgy, grimdark stuff. The only thing you'd really have omit to keep their attention is some of the more complex background political stuff, but if you keep it focused on fighting and exploring most kids would love watching Space Marines, Orks, Chaos Marines, Daemon, Necrons and Tyranids duking it out.

If anything, they'd have to censor/tone down stuff for the sake of the parents, not the kids, as they wouldn't be to pleased about the more extreme blood and gore, not to mention the kinkier / more sexual aspects of the Dark Eldar and Slaanesh (more religious parents are likely to take offense at the daemons / chaos cultists too, but I don't think those types are taken as seriously nowadays, at least not as much as they were back in the 80s and 90s)

The point though is that I don't think the kids themselves should have any issue getting into Warhammer 40k lore as it is, so toning it down to the extent that they did, and releasing them as children's books focusing on "relatable" child characters feels unnecessary. Kids were able to get into Star Wars and Transformers without kid characters being needed, and ask most their opinion on dc comics and you'll usually find they tend to prefer the adult heroes like Batman over sidekicks like Robin.

Really, what they should have done is just tone down the gore slightly to please the parents, and release a cartoon show like Clone Wars or comic book series showing space Marines, Orks and other factions as they are, that could be equally enjoyed by by both young kids and adults.

I know this might not appeal to ALL kids as some are more sensitive than others (and I'm not sure if there's any good way to get Warhammer 40k to appeal to young girls, but granted, I've never been a young girl, so I can't say for sure.)

But no franchise / piece of media is gonna appeal to everyone, and I think focusing on the lore / characters they already have and see what other media forms they can apply it to, and determining what markets doing so would appeal to would be best, rather than trying to completely retool it to appeal to a specific audience, making it so different that their pre-existing fanbase finds no appeal in it (and in turn, there's no guarantee said new audience will enjoy regular Warhammer 40k, even after they get older)

Games Workshop is making new kid-friendly Warhammer content. This is artwork for a young adult Warhammer 40k book. That is the best idea they’ve probably ever had. This is a setting OVERFLOWING with stuff kids would love and I know I was awed by when I was a child looking at all the painted models in gaming stores, but it’s a hobby financially impenetrable to almost all but the wealthiest children and its fandom dominated by incredibly hostile adults. I can hazard a guess that said fandom is probably furious and disgusted that their beloved, elitist game world would ever dare Pander to Mere Babes or some shit….and I’ve directly encountered plenty of them who are undoubtedly blowing a gasket that there’s a little black girl in this artwork, too.

So, good, fuck those guys, and kids deserve cool shit.

[hawkofkrypton]

I really wish I could just say “I disagree with you and I don’t share your perspective” and leave it at that, but that’s not my nature.

The DCEU has never been “defining itself relative” to the MCU. Since the very beginning it established itself as very different from any Marvel movie, and that remained the case until WB, in an attempt to appease critics, turned SS and JL into GOTG and Avengers ripoffs.

Is the MCU “tonally inconsistent” for having both CA-Winter Soldier and a movie with a talking tree right after? Or maybe, just like the comics, different characters bring different tones to their stories? Imagine if DC comics was always all dark or always all lighthearted. Not much variety there is it? Frankly, consider me glad the DCEU doesn’t have one single tone throughout all movies, that would make it feel like many episodes of the same tv series instead of various words and locations of the same universe.

To say Snyder’s movies “rejected story and world building for violent spectacle” goes beyond opinion, that’s an objectively wrong and easily debunked statement by watching the movies. Man Of Steel’s opening scene alone has better world building than most sci-fis I could think of, and the story of BvS was superb, but I’m pretty sure any attempt to explain why is that would fly into your hear and exit from the other, because it’s too edgy/stupid/nonsensical/ *insert random negative adjective used improperly here*. Just rewatch those movies, with your brain on and both eyes n ears open this time.

Considering your and that other person’s infatuation with the world “edgelord”, and coupling that with your apparent “maybe it I say it enough times it’s gonna become true” belief, I think it’s time for me to provide an actual definition of the term and see if it fits Snyder’s style or not. I doubt this is gonna change your minds in any significant way but hey, who knows right.

Risque and offensive. Snyder’s way of doing things definitely takes more risks than most cbms, who mostly play it safe so that they can milk the story for future sequels and make more money, but can this really be seen as negative? This would indirectly mean that for a story to be considered good it must be played as safe as possible, do absolutely nothing new that might upset people, stay confined between the guidelines of the genre you’re set in and never ask the viewer to reflect about questions in a serious manner. Which would be an absolute nightmare and most good stories I could think of (ranging from movies to cartoons to books) all take somekind of risk.

Then, offensive. Snyder’s way of doing this is not offensive.

South Park is offensive.

Family Guy is offensive.

Most adult animated properties are offensive for the sake of being offensive. Joking on sensitive topics, all around mean spirited worlds n characters, black humor for the sake or attention, twisted aesops, gross scenes... yeah, you should go back watch Deadpool it you want a superhero propriety that fits those traits, because Snyder doesn’t.

1. Definitely not it.

2. Actually very positive.

3. “Good” is not an objective term so I cannot use it as such, already touched on risque.

4. Not what are we talking about.

5. Noope.

6. Nopity-nope.

7. That’s actually a compliment.

8. Here it is.

So according to you two, Snyder took risks and often went through controversial storytelling solely.. to impress and mock the likes of you? Really? You seriously think Snyder did what he did solely for approval or attention? How sad must you folks be honestly.

Hate to break it through you pal, but what counts as “poorly” done is subjective. You’re no gatekeeper on what’s good or bad in a subjective medium. Sorry 🤷‍♂️

I WILL say that these parts are my favorite because they’re just another example of the “I’m gonna express my opinion in a way that it looks like I’m spittin facts” method your type loves to use so much.

I used “scare quotes” because defining those who tore down MoS and BvS as “critics” would be an abhorrent insult to actual critics. Getting basic facts about the films wrong, vitriolic and disproportionate hatred for the films and Zack Snyder personally displayed seemingly any time he did anything, endless negative comparisons to Marvel and the MCU along with stupid insults from Their smug cast members, backhanded compliments and snide remarks from people who aren’t as clever as they think they are, throwing years-long tantrums on why one version of the character isn’t a carbon coby of the one THEY prefer.. Not saying every detractor is wrong by default, but my god, the vast majority has been nothing short of obscenely obnoxious.

Batman media indeed is known for being dark in various ways while being vastly different from one another, but all I’m getting so far is that when Snyder does it it’s wrong by default. What’s not “edgy” about Keaton’s Batman blowing up a factory full of goons, for example? Ugh, I regret asking that because I know you’re gonna use the term improperly again.

Funny that you mention Schumacher and the Burtonverse, because JL also signaled the end of a director’s vision by being lighthearted to point of no recognition, as an attempt by the studio to appease the “its too dark” folks. Apparently it’s only bad when it happens to someone who’s not Snyder.

The critics aren’t tearing down the previous films for being insufficiently lighthearted

I’m gonna stop you right there.

That is exactly what have they been doing for the past 6 years. Screaming in their megaphones to the world just how the films are “too dark”, “hopeless” “depressing”, “unheroic”, regardless of the authenticity of those statements. They basically begged on their knees for more jokes and lightheartedness, as if those are vital for a good story, as if being different from Marvel is a crime against humanity. Then they got it in Aquaman and Shazam and look at that, they started clapping like seals.

[you’ll probably do it again anyway, but hey, nothing wrong with hoping for the best].

Indeed critics praised the Dark Knight films, as they should. They also praised Logan and Joker, again as they should. Wanna know what these three have in common? They are characters that people accept to be written in a “darker” approach.

People still aren’t okay with Superman being written in a more serious manner on the big screen, they still clamor him to be EXACTLY like he was in 1978. No matter how much they’ll complain on how boring and overpowered he is, no matter how much people including Reeve himself long ago said they were tired clumsy n insecure Clark Kent, no matter how accurate to the comics it might be. They want to stay put in the past, regardless how Superman is all about the hope for tomorrow, for the future. Snyder’s Superman isn’t even dark, the world around him is. Crowds of protesters and religious worshippers, media manipulation, government trying to destroy villages to cover up, crazed millionaires committing acts like kidnapping his loved ones and nearly killing them or brutalizing criminals like animals.. only a uncaring asshole would smile in these circumstances. He’s empathetic and he feels all the pain and suffering the wolrd goes through both as a hero and a reporter.

Your last argument has to be the most powerful one you delivered so far.

“People say Snyder sux because he sux”.

How fucking enticingly compelling. What exactly stops me or others from saying “people think Snyder is great because he’s great”? Absolutely nothing, apart from the fact that we actually elaborate how we feel, and then get attacked by Snyder Hater #19382019 for daring to like something they hate. Your apparent reasoning is “people who dislike him have all reason and are right by default, regardless how they elaborate or motivate their hatred and if its legitimate reasons or not” which is incredibly absurd. There’s a difference between thinking that and saying you just agree with those that dislike him. Snyder is the one who created the DCCU in the first place you twat. And WB fired him as a director long ago by now, so sleep tight, he won’t hurt your feelings anymore. Improper use of that word again, yay.

I haven’t really “sunk” into anything, defending what I like is something I happen to do depending on the circumstances. I fail to see how the DCEU being a multi billion dollar franchise is relevant to the discussion, but I won’t be surprised if you somehow try to twist that into a negative too. What have I gotten you ask? I got plenty of people who share my opinions and like my work, both here and on other social medias, thanks for asking.

What has spending your energy into hating and mocking got you?

I can’t. I just have no words for this.