#media leaks

[ducklooney]

More media leaks and believe it or not the original plans for Ducktales 2017. Yes, the original plan was for Ducktales to be based more on the Carl Barks and Don Rosa comics, with Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck as the main characters. Especially the last poster by Joe Pitt, who was also one of the animators for Gravity Falls, Wander Over Yonder and Mickey Mouse Cartoons. These are designs from other animators, but there are more links to the OG Ducktales and the comics than to Ducktales 2017. Yes, Disney later rejected the ideas from Joe Pitt and then gave them to other people.

What do you think about all this? These are the original designs for Donald, Scrooge, Huey, Dewey and Louie, Webby, Miss Quackfaster, Gyro and Gizmoduck.

Still as a fan of the Donald Duck comics, I regret that they didn't adopt the original ideas for the Ducktales reboot to be more close to the comic book material, but again this is just my opinion.

[hinamie]

I don't want to regret the way I lived

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

in this house we love the artists and engineers and actors who worked on arcane so much that we will not share the leaks

remember that the people who really suffer from leaks are regular people like you and me who worked hard for weeks, months, and years to make this show a reality

[snailkites]

imagine wandering (allegedly unassisted) from Central America to Los Angeles, spending several months getting fed all-you-can-eat raw chicken behind the halal meat shop and Popeyes, having your location leaked to the media, having thousands of birders come gawk at you, going on another jaunt to the LAX airfield, and IMMEDIATELY getting apprehended by the feds and sentenced to live in the zoo. such is the life of the Lomita Popeyes Yellow-headed Caracara

[buggachat]

honestly just in general it's very exhausting to try to analyze media that is literally meant to be analyzed, only for the replies to be filled with people arguing not against your analysis, but against the premise that the media can be analyzed at all.

i don't even know what to say about it without starting to really betray my frustration, so i'll just settle with— just don't engage with analysis posts? I'm serious. if you're typing a response to a media analysis post, reread what you've written and ask yourself "is this comment/response against the very concept of analyzing the media at all?" and if the answer is yes then delete it all and go sit in the shame corner. throw your curtains away if you want to so bad and stop telling me that I'm not allowed to hum and haw at the fact mine are blue

[nabbing-nibs]

This is a random post it’s just an archive of all available pixie chicks clips we have from random demo reels

[lovebots]

jjk bf texts! (3)

suggestive, female reader

includes: gojo, geto, yuta, toji, nanami, choso, yuji, megumi, inumaki, sukuna

rising from the dead to bring u guys part 3 ♡ college is intense rn

[funhouse-mirror-barbie]

Okay. I gotta talk about it.

Warning for major spoilers for season 2 of Hazbin Hotel and discussion of leaks—I will NOT be posting any links to the leaks or posting pics/screenshots from them here. Just going to be talking about a particular character.

Okay, last chance if you don’t want to know anything about the spoilers/leaks!!!

Im serious!!! Last warning!!!!!

Lute is now unironically the most compelling character in the entire fucking show and I am not kidding.

Whoever wrote the little bit of her character that’s been leaked did a really good job. She is incredibly interesting to me now because we get to see her when her entire way of life and ideology is challenged.

Lute is a very flawed and cruel person, but she has always been extremely sure of herself and that she is unambiguously CORRECT in her way of life. And now she’s being faced with the fact that she and everything she lived for is WRONG and they just CANT accept it. So much so that it appears that she’s now hallucinating Adam to cope.

Lute cannot accept redemption is possible and her viewpoint is SO black and white that it’s likely going to end up killing her or at the very least will drive her to madness. She would rather burn the whole world than accept change. There’s a tragic element as well that comes with every character that lives in the extremes—she fully believes she’s in the right. So much so that she can’t understand why EVERYONE else in Heaven seems to be horrified by the exterminations. She thinks she is doing the best thing for everyone, and is now resisting the reality that is front of her.

What would be really amazing, and what I’m hoping for is that Adam really did fall and became a “Demon” in Hell. Because then she would have to deal with the person she looks up to and admires the MOST becoming what she’s sworn to annihilate. I don’t know if she could handle that.

The question of whether or not she could reconcile Adam, someone she saw as being heavenly and perfect, could fall and become what she hates the most, a demon, is really interesting. She’d be forced again to question her ideals and beliefs about what is right and wrong. That is the sort of deep character exploration I had been hoping to see from season 1 of Hazbin and didn’t really get.

This small glimpse into her character reminds me of other characters that are so lawful or black and white that they can’t accept change or realities that conflict with their worldviews. Rorschach from Watchmen and Javert from Les Miserables come to mind.

It would be really cool to show her in direct contrast to V (not calling her that sexist ass name at least I can pretend “Lute” is named after the fucking instrument) and have Lute be the foil to V’s continuing character arc from season 1.

Please please please don’t let this characters complexity be reduced to “evil bad villain is bad and evil” for the rest of the story please please please. (Gotta say tho, given Hazbin and Helluva’a track record with writing women villains….and tbh just. Women in general. I am going to be VERY VERY cautiously optimistic)

(Also I don’t care if her song is cringe I think it fucking SLAPS)

[rvttendoll66]

[jesncin]

Coddling Colonizer Guilt

"Performative diversity is when MAWS features a Native American variant of Lois Lane in the multiverse episode only to end the season on a Thanksgiving episode."

...is something I like to joke with my friends as a shorthand for referencing MAWS' squeamish approach to politics while still trying to reap the clout of "diverse representation". I want to get my thoughts out there and perhaps start a discussion over why this feels off.

Some disclaimers: Firstly, I'm not Native American. Understand this is an observation I'm making from an outsider perspective with no personal authority. I'm just a disappointed Asian Lois Lane fan. Secondly, I know the MAWS crew/creators had no malicious intent in any of these (what I consider) poor writing decisions. I'm simply here to challenge and analyze these narrative and visual choices.

MAWS takes a fairly controversial take on Superman mythos so far. Unlike Superman's historic roots as an allegory for Jewish immigrants with Clark coming from a Kryptonian socialist utopia (leading the imperfect people of Earth to a better tomorrow), MAWS chooses instead to reimagine Superman as a descendant from a planet of "alien invaders". If the leaked(?) concept art (warning potential spoilers for s2) is to be believed, Clark is the direct descendent of the leaders of the "Kryptonian Empire". Supposedly gone are the parents of Superman being scientists that warn of the destruction of their home planet- instead we have the "proud, loving, brilliant" "leaders of the Kryptonian Empire".

While we don't know if this is the direction the show is going in, there are already cryptic hints of it being planted and thematic elements set up that point to it being a possibility. Clark had spent a majority of the season wondering what/who he is (being incapable of talking to Jor-El's hologram because of a language barrier) only to find out his supposed origins in episode 9. He's devastated learning that he's an alien invader and, once he regroups with his friends, angsts about believing he's a weapon sent from Krypton to invade Earth. Asian-Lois Lane and Black-Jimmy Olsen assure White-passing-alien-man Clark Kent that he's different and not like other colonizers. Clark ultimately saves the day, proving he's an exception. It's curious then that the season ends on Thanksgiving.

As I've mentioned before, MAWS is exhaustively squeamish with getting political. Whatever happens in the show that resembles "themes" is quickly contradicted with very little consistent internal logic. One minute Superman is supposedly a threat that "wipes out good American jobs", should "go back to where he came from" and Lois makes a hope speech about how we shouldn't treat people who "are different" and "don't look like us" (??) with cruelty (so Clark's an immigrant going through xenophobia?) and the next he's a redeemed colonizer (a more prominent thematic arc). One minute Clark is "different" and scared of being othered- likened to a gay couple and allegorically closeted, and the next his friends call him out for being a lying liar for not disclosing his marginalized identity within a week (the narrative frames Lois and Jimmy as being in the right). This show's writing is non-committal with what it wants to say, and largely goes on vibes. That is to say I don't think the writers intended for the themes of colonizer guilt to accidentally tie into Thanksgiving as a set piece for their final episode.

I'm sure the reason the writers chose Thanksgiving as their final episode is because it's "relateable". Half the episode is dedicated to slice of life family reunion shenanigans and the dang turkey still not being cooked through. But in choosing Thanksgiving, the writers told on themselves here with their biases. The existence of Thanksgiving implies the existence of genocide (of Native American people) by colonists in the MAWS universe. And yet Black Jimmy Olsen doesn't know what racism is (Mallah and the Brain give him a judgmental stare as Jimmy admits he can't relate to being violently marginalized) and Asian American Lois Lane doesn't understand immigration and xenophobia (constantly being entitled to Clark's immigrant identity, being incapable of comprehending why he would keep it a secret, because secrets are lies). The MAWS crew wanted a "relateable" set piece but in doing so ended up reinforcing the historical revisionism the holiday entails. A foreign colonizer sharing a meal with his friends of color on Earth, whose culture, history, and identity are all white washed.

I would like to challenge this idea that Thanksgiving is somehow the "relateable" choice. Why pick this holiday? Why not celebrate Thanksgiving as a National Day of Mourning (as some Native Americans do)? Why not pick any Jewish holiday as a nod to Superman's creators (ignoring this version's colonizer interpretation for a second)? Why not pick Lunar New Year, a holiday celebrated by many people including Koreans (Seollal in South Korea)? It could've been another fun opportunity to showcase Lois' heritage, and create a fusion of cultures from Jimmy and Clark's families. At its most non-political and secular, why couldn't they pick any weekend? This is what happens when a show doesn't consider its world building and setting in a holistic way. MAWS will nod to xenophobic rhetoric, portray allegorical queer marginalization, and make the vaguest nods to systemic bigotry (Prof Ivo displaced a whole neighborhood! Yet we never hear from those figurative displaced people). But it does nothing to discuss any of that on a deeper level. Its characters of color don't know what racism is and Thanksgiving is just a fun family reunion, guys.

All this and they had the audacity to sneak in a Native American Lois Lane in the multiverse episode?? Why is she, out of all the Lois Lanes in this screencap, the only one in full traditional wear? Why isn't she in a smart casual business fit like Black Lois and STAS white Lois? Would she not have been recognizably Native American to the non-Native audience otherwise? Isn't this tokenizing? Do you think she has a xenophobic dad in the military like Korean American Lois does?

But that fits MAWS' approach to diversity, doesn't it? Surface level cultural nods, maybe make Lois wear a hanbok one time, and let the audience eat it up. Never mind that both Korean American Lois and Native American Lois have been stripped of their culture and history in every other aspect.

I use the word "relateable" a lot here, but I think the important question to ask is "relateable for who?". 'Immigrant' is too charged a word, so MAWS universalizes Clark's marginalization to "being different". Superman isn't even an immigrant in this version, that was all a smokescreen for the twist that he's actually a descendent of colonizers! Being wracked with colonizer guilt is way more relateable to the white audience than being an immigrant, surely. Thanksgiving is more relateable than celebrating any culturally specific holiday our "diverse reimagining" could have represented. Characters of color being functionally white (in a way that doesn't threaten middle America) is way more relateable. MAWS is a show that doesn't want to delve into Native American history. It would rather put a Native American Lois hologram on a pedestal and call it a day.

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

the mice are offering you a slice of cake….

do you accept their tribute

[boylikeanangel]

2023 good omens fandom would never survive may 2019 when the entirety of season 1 got leaked on the emmy fyc site and me and several other blogs spent the entire month slowly feeding people spoilers and screenshots and we all shared the fucking google drive folder with the leaked episodes still with a watermark over them and spoke to each other about it publicly in riddles and it was the best month of our fucking lives. like we did that shit because it was funny it was like we were all staying up past our bedtime and getting away with it. you are all so boring now

[sleepanonymous]

And now for something completely different

Information below "Keep Reading."

I had to leave the artist name intact for the ramble in baby Ves's description to make any sense. This is the only song we have released under this moniker, and none of the archive sites have any evidence of other pieces created with the same name. There was actually a small debate whether or not this even was baby Ves when the song first surfaced, but the proof is below in the description.

Crying at the "playthrough video" comment because all we have remaining of this epic piece is the audio. I can just imagine baby Ves sitting on his bed jamming on a 7-string 🥹🖤

Remember Eepy Babes: Caribou > Cows

[ian-anthonyupdates]

Boys on Court's Instagram post 19/11/24

[funhouse-mirror-barbie]

Hazbin Spoilers/Briefly mentioned leak talk below:

I really wish we got to see literally ANYTHING more of Lute and Adam’s relationship other than them hanging out in heaven as buds, like, literally ANYTHING to hint that Lute has deeper feelings or that Adam treated her differently or did have a level of respect for her. But he really talks to her like he does all women (misogynistic-ly, yes I know he’s a “bad guy” but GOD do they love to harp on that a LOT) and other than them having out getting sodas, lute really does seem to just be like. His gofer? Like yes she’s his “second in command” but all we really see her do is stand next to him and agree with everything he says.

I’m not asking for full detailed backstories, but it would be nice to know even just a LITTLE more about what they’re like when it’s just the two of them.

Because the impact of Lute’s breakdown after Adam’s death is pretty severely lessened by not knowing much else about them other than that “they’re the bad guys”.

Like literally, this is the PROBLEM with writing one-dimensional villains and then trying to give them depth after the fact. If you’re going to have a one-dimensional villain who is just straight up evil, you kind of have to stick to the bit. Otherwise you get this tonal whiplash where Lute and Adam were mostly INSANELY unlikeable (by design, it seems!!) then suddenly it’s revealed at Adam’s death that they REALLY CARE FOR EACH OTHER and now the audience is expected to empathize with Lute.

And hey, props to the animators and voice actress b/c I DO, but tbh that’s because I can see the potential for what she could’ve been with the right establishing characterization and development. That, and I really like characters that are black/white in their thinking and struggle and/or fail to accept the world in greys, so I’m kinda pre-dispositioned to like Lute now I guess.

A lot of what I spoke about in regards to liking Emily more than Charlie when episode 6 came out now applies to Lute in some ways. Her culture and the worldview of the people around her and in her community is changing, but instead of really reconciling or accepting this she’s fighting against it full-force.

And that’s a really interesting concept to explore. Sadly, I just don’t know if the writers will have the time or the skill to explore it effectively.

[applebuttercringe]

Arcane Season 2

So after S2 was leaked there was a lot of talk about Arcane S2 being bad, or a disapointment, a lot of people who watched the leaks didn't like it. Also a lot of nervousness about certain story decisions seen in trailers like Jinx becoming a surrogate mom/older sister, less Jayce/Viktor Content, most likely killing off Mel, Vi/Caitlyn breakup. It seems that no matter what S2 is it will split the fandom.

I'm gonna be honest, I will enjoy it either way.

What with how the election went, as well as just a lot of stress from college for me. I don't care if it's bad. I just wanna enjoy something and I've been looking forward to S2 for literal years.

Of course I want it to be good. But I'm not gonna complain. Even if I have to turn my brain off and enjoy it like its The Room. The thrill of hearing the music again, seeing the characters again, the beautiful animation will be enough. I'm usually very into show/movie review channels but not today. If it's trash I will be a raccoon basking in it. If review channels come out with 2 hour long videos titled things like "How did Arcane fall off" and "Arcane Season 2 is a huge disapointment" I will mute the topic and rewatch S1.

I no longer desire to have good taste, or be attuned to the flaws of the media I consume in order to become a better writer/artist myself. I will have garbage taste and I will be free. I just wanna vibe y'all.