#more screentime than willy

[wabbitears]

feddy movie

[earthyleo]

so... hotd is oficially a comedy series now?

[artobotsrollout]

Hey!!! i've been seeing your Knockout posts, so i wanted to shift your focus to this face that KO makes after Starscream snaps at him in the final movie

Its small but it really speaks volume about all the shit he's had to put up with and this was his last straw

OOO YES thank you for submitting this cause you're absolutely right that his face shifted in a way that made it clear that this was the final straw.

Major Transformers: Prime and Predacons Rising spoilers. Read at your own peril.

In my opinion I honestly think that Knockout wasn't planning to knock out (heh) Starscream the way he did until Starscream told him to shut up. Based on his facial expressions I think it was a slap to the face realization moment.

His face shifts from shock/dismay at Starscream telling him to shut up, to this expression of realization.

I think it's largely bc Starscream was basically the last thing in the Decepticons that could have made him stay. Whether or not someone interprets that as friendship or Knockout being hopeful that things would be different if Starscream led is up to the viewer. I think it's a mix of both tbh. I don't know if they'd be considered full on friends but as far as we could see on screen Starscream was the last friendly face that Knockout had connection to in the Decepticons.

It also hurts a bit. Considering TfP sometimes had good theming but often had messages and themes that, in my opinion, weren't explored as well as they could have been or just weren't explored further I'm unsure if this next parallel was intentional or not. But Starscream's "Shut up you!" was said after Knockout said something kinda cheesy/punny in the evil way he does. The thing is? He used to say the cheesiest shit with Breakdown. And every time one of them started a punny line or something? The other would add to it.

In a way this moment was kind of a contrast between the two relationships. Breakdown matched his energy. I don't think Breakdown got enough screentime nor did the dynamic between Knockout and Breakdown get explored as much as it could have been but you can still get a good read on their bond. And comparing Breakdown's relationship with KO vs Starscream's it's easy to see how one lifts each other up and the other is well... rocky.

So Starscream telling him to shut up made him realize the distinct difference from his relationship with Breakdown. It basically told Knockout Imo that Starscream didn't like or care about him the way a companion should. And with that realization came the realization that he really had nothing left with the Decepticons. Not even the last person he had a semi-positive relationship with actually cared about him.

Some people think Knockout's defection was just shoved in willy nilly but, in my opinion, as far as side switching goes, Knockout is honestly the only Decepticon that I think made sense even if it was rushed. I know some people say it was badly done which, totally fair. Though I would have loved to see more buildup and a sort of, episode to remind viewers how shitty he was treated so his defection felt more natural plus more bonding with Breakdown to give us a better sense that they were close, Knockout's defection honestly? Made sense if you thought about it.

Enough shitty stuff happened to him bc of being in the Decepticons, add to the fact that with Breakdown gone he was now entirely alone to warrant a side change. And from the get go he never seemed particularly loyal to the Decepticons as a whole. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Knockout joined the Decepticons for the ✨ aesthetic ✨/hj. He's already shown a tendency to enjoy roaming and doing his own thing. So him ditching when there's nothing left worth staying for? Very in character I think.

I wish it got more attention than just a brief plot point in Predacons Rising but like, TfP had been cancelled so I kinda get it.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Action

So, this is a interesting one to talk about. Not only is this the first episode in all five seasons to not be written or directed by Thomas Astruc in any capacity (though the other three writers on his team, Melanie Duval, Fred Lenoir, and Sebastien Thibaudeau still wrote this one), not only is it not connected to the ongoing plotlines of Season 5 in any way, but this episode was made with the help of the Breteau Foundation.

For those who don't know, the Breteau Foundation is an organization that works together with schools by giving children access to technology for their lessons, helping them with their psychological needs, and teaching them about ways to protect our environment. This episode was even made available on the Breteau Foundation's website for free in addition to educational materials meant to teach kids about recycling.

Yeah, when we were kids, we got excited whenever the teacher played an old episode of The Magic School Bus or Bill Nye the Science Guy in class, but nowadays, TV shows are producing episodes of their shows specifically so they can be shown in class. And I'm not talking about those half-assed science lab worksheets with pictures of SpongeBob on them either.

The point I'm trying to make is that there was clearly a lot put into this episode, and it's all for a good cause to help teach children about how to protect the environment in order to ensure a better future... and of course, I'm still going to make jokes about it, because I'm just some schmuck on the internet who isn't backed by a major educational foundation.

Let's get into the 27th episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Action

We start off with Marinette and Adrien heading over to the Liberty so they could be told about the pollution in the Seine River by their class' resident environmental activist, Myl—Nino, I mean, Nino. No joke, Nino gets more lines in this episode than Mylene does, even though ever since Season 2, Mylene has been established as the one to protest polluting the environment. I get that she already had a lot of screentime in an earlier environmental episode (Mega Leech), but why would you have Nino be the one to help spearhead this protest instead of Mylene? Hell, the plot of another episode started from him trying to get him and his friends out of helping Mylene plant trees for the environment (Party Crasher), so this makes even less sense.

I should also get this out of the way by pointing out a few continuity errors in the episode. For one thing, Marinette is stuttering around Adrien when she had mostly gotten over that issue after “Derision”, Kagami is now one of the avatars for the Alliance rings, something that had been established in “Revelation”, and the episode mentions that the Alliance rings are made of plastic when the season finale shows that they're actually made of metal. I don't want to harp on this too much, as this episode obviously wasn't meant to really tie into the main plotline so it would be easier for kids who aren't familiar with the show watching this episode, seeing how this was meant to be viewed as a standalone story. Besides, compared to other plotholes in the show like the ones I'll cover next time, these are fairly minor.

Nino tells Marinette and Adrien, and by extension, the audience, that the Seine River is full of pollution, and the Liberty has recently been converted into a makeshift water treatment plant. The problem is that with a recent increase of plastic in the Seine, it's becoming harder for the Liberty to filter out all of it. Hey, here's an idea: Maybe don't set up your homemade water treatment plant in the longest river in Paris.

The reason for all the new plastic comes from a recent ad campaign promoting some vending machines that sell these paper fans that were designed by Gabriel and are sold by a man named Bertrand King, who looks like a cross between Willy Wonka and Colonel Sanders, down to having a southern accent in the English dub.

Nino suggests that Adrien talk to Gabriel himself, but as usual, Adrien doesn't think he'll listen, so the kids decide to go to Bertrand King's company while picking up an order for plastic containers for the Dupain-Chang bakery... even though I'm pretty sure most bakeries store pastries in paper instead of just plastic.

Nino has the others dress up in disguises, but like most of his plans this season, it fails miserably, so Marinette comes up with a little story about Adrien meeting up with Bertrand. The kids make an impassioned presentation to Bertrand, asking him to help change the way he operated his business like making his fans out of more biodegradable materials. Surprisingly, the man whose entire livelihood revolves around selling plastic doesn't want to listen to the people saying everything his company is doing is wrong.

Bertrand: This is all intentional. It's the wonderful cycle of throwing away and buying again that makes my fortune. If people didn't throw away and buy new items again then I, Bertrand King, would no longer be the King of Plastic! So, there is no way any of this is changing.

Wow, a rich person in Miraculous Ladybug turning out to be a total jerk? What an unexpected turn of events.

Bertrand points out how much plastic is used in everyday society, using pens and the Alliance rings as an example, and seeing how we cut to the next scene afterwards, we can assume he had them thrown out. Oh, come on, you couldn't even parody The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air like you did during “Migration”? The kids then try to go to Andre and Gabriel for help protesting the fans, but because one's a corrupt politician and another helped make them, they won't do a thing. Marinette tries to ask Nadja, the local news anchor, but because the ad revenue from Bertrand's company funds the channel she works for, she can't do a thing or else she'll be out of a job.

This leads to the kids deciding to do the sane thing and HACK THE NEWS BROADCAST SO THEY CAN MAKE A SPEECH ABOUT POLLUTION.

Because it's not like Marinette and the others could have just gone to another news network with this story or uploaded it to the internet instead, right? And sure, scowl at the camera while you're giving this presentation too. That won't make you look like a bunch of eco-terrorists at all. The kids give a presentation about how dangerous plastic is, and how people can use fans made of more biodegradable materials like bamboo instead. Also, we get cameos from Jess, Aeon, and Fei, but they're pretty much there just to remind viewers that the New York and Shanghai specials happened.

Of course, the episode's following RWBY Volume 8 logic, so rather than view them as a bunch of lunatics who hijacked a news broadcast, the public immediately turns on Bertrand's company, arguably faster than what happened with Andre in “Mega Leech”. Speaking of, Andre and Gabriel change their opinions to make themselves look like they were always against Bertrand, and seeing how this episode aired after Season 5 ended, didn't really sit too well with viewers.

Bertrand calls out Gabriel for lying, but Gabriel doesn't care, secretly using this as an opportunity to akumatize Bertrand into King of Plastic through his pen.

King of Plastic has a pretty underwhelming design. It's clear that the intent was to make him look like plastic, and there is a noticeable reflection on his body, but other than that, it doesn't really fit the anti-plastic moral. I think maybe if they did more to make his movements seem more stiff like a living doll, or at least make him look less like he's made of candy, it could work more. The Miraculous power this time is the Bee Miraculous' Venom, which he can use through one side of his lance to stun any victims so he can use the other side to turn them into plastic statues. It's sort of like the dollmaker episode of Arrow, only we don't get to hear the sound of anyone's esophagus hardening.

King of Plastic makes short work of Andre and the local police squad, and Adrien is forced to put teaching Marinette Mandarin on hold so he can transform into Cat Noir, while Marinette transforms into Ladybug as soon as she's alone. After he transforms Adrien's bodyguard into a plastic statue, King of Plastic fights Ladybug and Cat Noir, eventually transforming Cat Noir's staff into plastic too. Even though he was originally akumatized to get revenge on Gabriel, King of Plastic leaves the Agreste Manor and heads to the Liberty to get revenge on Marinette and Adrien's friends instead... for some reason. Even the episode points out how weird this is.

Cat Noir: Didn't you want to take revenge on Gabriel Agreste?

Ladybug: He probably has more than one enemy.

After following King of Plastic there with Cat Noir, Ladybug summons her Lucky Charm, getting a plastic bag. Because it's already made of plastic, it can't be transformed, which gives Ladybug an idea. She tells Alya to activate the Liberty's water treatment function, intentionally overloading it before Cat Noir Cataclysms the engine. This jettisons the collected plastic and overfills the deck of the Liberty, trapping King of Plastic so Ladybug can break his lance. So in an episode meant to teach kids about how dangerous plastic is, the day was ultimately saved by plastic. I'm sure that won't confuse any kids watching this in class.

Ladybug de-evilizes the Akuma, tells Bertrand about how dangerous plastic is, and he immediately vows to change his company's ways before Ladybug gives him a Magical Charm as useless as a plastic toy before she uses Miraculous Ladybug to fix the damage.

The episode ends with Bertrand funding the repair of the Liberty before vowing to change the way his company operates, as do Tom and Sabine, who now sell their products in eco-friendly containers. Unfortunately, with all the renovations being made to his company that come with moving away from plastic, Bertrand had to stop funding this groundbreaking cancer research institution in America in order to prevent his company from going bankrupt.

Anyway, this episode was pretty good. I honestly didn't have a lot of problems here. The plot was pretty straightforward, the themes of how easy it is to perpetuate companies that damage the environment were handled pretty well, and the main characters were pretty active.

Even the greedy corporate asshole meant to be a stand-in for real life executives was handled pretty well, having some quirks that make him stand out while showing how ignorant he is to the situation without making him completely insufferable. This episode could have easily gone the Captain Planet route with Bertrand, but they showed he wasn't intentionally endangering the environment because he felt like it, but rather, because he cared more about his company making money, even showing him ultimately realizing the error of his ways.

If there's one problem I had, it's with the way the Akuma fight was resolved. I get that any other Lucky Charm wouldn't have been immune to King of Plastic's plastic powers, but I feel like weaponizing the plastic the heroes spent most of the episode fighting against in order to stop the Akuma sort of muddles the message the episode is going for. It's not the worst way to resolve an Akuma fight, but it just bugs me personally.

While I still think “Mega Leech” did a better job with the environmental message, overall, this episode did a pretty good job teaching the moral it set out to teach.

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS... ANDRE (THE OTHER ONE)

Shockingly, nobody really acted that stupid this episode. Yeah, the kids were pretty naive thinking they could make Bertrand change his company's way of production, but still took action when that didn't work. Andre, on the other hand...

While Gabriel and Nadja had their own reasons to support Bertrand (Gabriel for Monarch reasons and Nadja for financial reasons), the only reason Andre went along with the fans polluting the environment was because they happened to have his image as one of the designs, and when the public started to turn on Bertrand, Andre acted like he always opposed him, and when confronted with an akumatized Bertrand, begged for his life like a coward and said he would reinstall the fan vending machines. While I guess it's better than having Chloe be the primary supporter of Bertrand's company, I need to reiterate that this aired after the last few episodes of Season 5 tried to place Andre in a more sympathetic light.

[boyfridged]

Can you tell us a bit about your ocs?

you mean the burning money ocs?

oh, but i've only just met them too!

no, but really, i was writing them in without much plan for it -- i knew there was a narrative space for them to fill in, and i came up with most of details about them on spot... i was quite surprised they ended up taking up that much screentime, because that was not my intention.

here is some stuff that revealed itself to me as i was working on the text, though!:

mai is a generation older than willis (perhaps obvious when you consider the honorifics!). she has three kids: kieu and two sons, one of them older than willis. both of the sons left gotham, so she likes having willis around -- she has known him since he was a kid too.

arlo and kieu are in early/mid 20s; they are roughly 7 years older than jason and 13 years younger than willis. both of them knew jason, though to a different extent; kieu was a family friend, so she was closer to him. arlo was aware of his existence and would recognise him, but there was not much reason for them to interact.

because arlo and kieu are the same age and both grew up in the crime alley, they have known each other for a long time (though weren't necessarily friends). they went to the same high school, but started dating only after graduating.

arlo comes from a patchwork family that because of the circumstances has adapted a bit of a "every man for himself" rule. he's doing his best to integrate himself with kieu's community, albeit he does commit an occasional faux pas (for example, calling willis "uncle," which willis has resigned himself to rather gracefully)

kieu is nicknamed "big kieu" because she has a younger cousin of the same name -- who also no longer lives in gotham, but the nickname somewhat stuck.

kieu works a manual job at the harbour, or rather used to, because it's not safe for her to continue now that she is pregnant. she will probably go back to helping her mom at the shop. she's also hoping to take some community college classes to seek alternate employment once the baby is born.

the only other oc that i thought more than 3 seconds was advika, the one who works with willis and arlo at the auto shop -- she's in her early 20s and very passionate about the job. she never met jay nor willis before, but did hear about jason's death, and is truly doing very well at overwhelming willis with her enthusiastic welcome without revealing her pity.

this is all i have -- so as i said, not much, but because i did grow fond of them, they might appear in the background of my other works, somewhere in the alley! they will probably gain more shape and personality with that opportunity, too.

[yellowhollyhock]

giggles 🤭

'87 shredder: 4, 12, 20

'87 krang: 5, 23, 12

4 If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

oooh this is a really fun one for Shredder.. hmm... too many ideas to make sense of...

(I'm realizing suddenly that so much of what I watch/read is either like,, Charles Dickens or Hanna Barbera, without much in between.. what is wrong with me shdhahaj)

wow this question held me up more than I thought. Do I want to put him somewhere where he ups the comedic value? Among people who would fix him or make him worse?

Okay one thought I had was Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory for this reason: I think he would notice that Wonka is weeding them out, and be able to keep his head throughout the tour. But at the end if he's offered the factory he'll be, 'No! I wanted to take it by force, you can't just give it to me. I have a much more nefarious plan, I'm going to sell all your secrets that I learned today!' and either he does sell the secrets and kinda wins but he could've had the chocolate factory, or Wonka gives him a caramel that steals his memory which he had prepared for this reason

12 What's a headcanon you have for this character?

He eventually pursues his dream of being a writer. Continues villainy at the same time I think, just like sets aside a day or maybe a time of day to focus on his story

20 Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn't matter?

Krang 🥺💜🩷

Actually though, Splinter. Because that's someone who is just as obsessed with ninjutsu as he is, would give him positive attention for doing well that Shredder needs in his friendships and associations because of how his childhood was, and also call him out when he's being controlling/selfish/unnecessarily violent which he also needs. And Shredder is more action-oriented while Splinter can get lost in his head. It's so deeply sad because Splinter really could have been such a great mentor (and I realize 'mentor' is a little different than 'bestie' but personally I think any type of friend can be a best friend), but it seems like their falling out came from him correcting Shredder, because Yoshi wasn't yet mature enough to say what needed to be said in a manner that would be heard and Saki wasn't (probably still isn't in the bulk of the show) mature enough to not become a villain about it. Whenever he talks about his rival or says something like 'what do you think of me now that I'm about to destroy you' it just breaks me a little bit because. hnnrrrg. That's the most he knows about how to socialize, he's trying to connect he's trying 😭 We don't make friends by destroying people Shredder 😭😭

(and Krang being someone who like. Gets him. Who he can socialize with exactly where he's at. shshajaj)

Also Kazuo! I mean he's not the ideal best friend but I wanted to mention him because he might be the real best friend. They have been the source of a lot of hurt for each other, their personalities don't really click, they don't bring out the good or even the fun in each other, and yet they're there for each other in the ways they know how (which are sometimes maybe a little bit messed up), over and over and in spite of the whole world including their own mother. I care them a normal amount

[tngmpersonal]

Bottom-Tier major villains of various video game franchises

Super Mario: In terms of platformers, Wart. In terms of RPGs, King Olly. In the series as a whole, one of the villains from the sports spin-offs for the Switch. Donkey Kong: Ghastly King. Tiki Tong and Lord Fredrik might just be recycled ideas, but at least they have story presence. Ghastly King comes from a game with no plot or build-up. Legend of Zelda: Onox from Oracle of Seasons. Doesn't get much screentime as his contemporary Veran. And at the end of the day, he's just a hired gun for Twinrova. Metroid: MB from Other M. Either that or Master Brain from Federation Force. Kirby: Dark Nebula from Squeak Squad. Which is even more embarrassing when it possessing Daroach was a harder fight than its true form. Star Fox: Anglar Emperor from Command. General Scales at least had story and presentation down, but no actual boss fight because Rare was rushed to finish the game. Pokémon: Rocket Executive Archer from the Johto games in terms of mainline RPGs. He's only met at the very end of the Team Rocket subplot. As for the multiple spin-off titles, who knows? Fire Emblem: Garon from Fates because I keep hearing those two games were rushed. Njörðr from Heroes could contest him since he remains unfought in his Book. Kid Icarus: Orcos from Of Myths and Monsters. By virtue of not appearing in Uprising to get fleshed out. Wario: Golden Diva from Land 4, since she's never encountered outside of her boss fight. Demon Head from Virtual Boy at least is forced to guide Wario in an amusing hard mode ending. Street Fighter: Holy heck, did Street Fighter V's awful story did Necalli dirty. M. Bison and F.A.N.G insisted on controlling the plot. Crash Bandicoot: The Viscount from Boom Bang. Willie Wumpacheeks from Tag Team Racing at least had an argument if the narrative meant anything. Spyro the Dragon: If it's just the Classic series, Gnasty Gnorc in the original game. If the Skylanders games are included, probably Hektore from the first 3DS game. Jak & Daxter: Gol and Maia Acheron from The Precursor Legacy. Sonic the Hedgehog: Witchcart or Great Battle Kukku XV, both are Classic-era villains of the Tails spin-offs. As for Dreamcast or Modern-eras, who knows?

[scrubf1re]

I think I’ve figured out the reason why I prefer Meiko’s Meicoomon over Wallace/Willis’ Lopmon.

If you’ve been in the digimon fandom long enough you’ve probably seen/hear comparisons between Wallace/Willis’ Lopmon from Hurricane Touchdown and Meiko’s Meicoomon from tri.

The similarities between both of them that plenty of digimon fans have pointed out are that they are both partner digimon with uncontrollable evolved/digivolved (or in Meicoomon’s case mutated) forms with their respective human partners going through character arcs about realising that for as much as they love their partner digimon and how much it pains them to do so, they’re too dangerous to let live so they end up letting them die to save everyone and put them out of their misery (I have seen some people compare Meicoomon to Yujin's Offmon but I feel Offmon is more comparable to Ryo’s Monodramon and I’ve already made a rant comparing those two). Keep in mind that for this comparison I’m only looking at the partner digimon themselves and not their human companions since I actually like both Wallace/Willis and Meiko which unfortunately I cannot say the same for the partner digimon and I’m going to go over where I felt Meiko’s Meicoomon succeeded where Wallace/Willis’ Lopmon failed. And the reasons are actually a lot more simple than you’d think. My biggest problem with Lopmon and by extension Hurricane Touchdown as a whole is how little character and personality Lopmon has outside of the fact that he’s a partner digimon under the effects of a virus and having undergone a dark evolution/digivolution which can be attributed to how little screentime Lopmon’s personality outside of his dark evolution/digivolution. That aspect of Lopmon’s character only gets two scenes dedicated which is strange given that Lopmon’s dark evolutions/digivolutions get plenty of screen time which can be attributed to bad pacing on Hurricane Touchdown's part. I do think it’s a little weird how I seem to be the only person who has this complaint with Lopmon that I know of.

First is the flashback involving Wallace/Willis, Terriermon and Lopmon’s backstory and how he turned into Wendimon/Wendigomon.

And the second being before he dies and... that’s all we get to see of what Lopmon’s character is like outside of his dark evolutions/digivolutions. The only two personality traits I could get from both of these scenes are that he’s childlike and playful which doesn’t even enough to stand out amongst the other partner digimon in the adventure continuity since plenty of other partner digimon have shown traits of being childlike and playful (as well as those two traits not even being their only character traits including Meicoomon). I’m a firm believer in the idea that there is a huge difference between a character being simple (for example Jo/Joe’s Gomamon comes to mind as while being undeniably simple, as he’s rather brash, confident and loud to contrast his partner) and a character being underwritten (I’ve already criticised Ryo’s Monodramon for more or less the same thing before) and unfortunately in a story where we are supposed to feel sad when Lopmon dies I don’t think it’s an unreasonable thing to criticise said story if the character dying doesn’t have much character to begin with.

In comparison Meicoomon has plenty of scenes where we get to see what her character is like outside of the fact that she’s the source of the infection and how her mutations have much more violent personalities. The first 20 minutes of part 2 of tri being a great example of this since even when we limit ourselves to just the first quarter of determination since we see multiple different traits of Meicoomon such as her having a tendency to wonder off on her own, being easily scared, playful, being rather dependent on Meiko and naive despite being an adult/champion level. These aren’t even the only times we get to see the traits as they are more consistent than you’d think since we actually do see them again in later points in tri including flashbacks.

I don’t think it takes a genius to see where I’m coming from since a lot of the points I made in Meicoomon’s favour can basically be attributed to the fact that Hurricane Touchdown is only a single movie whereas tri is 6 OVAs (or 26 episodes if you’re watching it on a streaming service like crunchyroll and other examples that I don’t feel like typing down). I feel like another contributor is the fact that when we first see Lopmon in Hurricane Touchdown he’s already dark evolved/digivolved into Wendimon/Wendigomon whereas when we first see Meicoomon in tri it’s kept a mystery as to what her importance to the plot is which is why she gets so much more screentime dedicated to establishing what her character is like compared to Lopmon who only gets a single flashback and 1 scene afterwards.

Because of this, it’s way easier to get sad over Meicoomon’s death since we actually get a decent amount of screen time to what her personality and character is like outside of the infection (which is still a simple character mind you, but being a simple character is not the same as being badly and/or underwritten).

A point I have seen some people made in Lopmon’s favour in comparison to Meicoomon that I don’t really seem to get is that when Lopmon dies he briefly becomes Cherubimon (Virtue) before disappearing whereas Meicoomon doesn’t briefly become Rasielmon when she dies. The reason I don’t get this criticism towards Meicoomon is that the people I’ve seen make this complaint claim that her not becoming Rasielmon means she wasn’t purified when she died even though Meicoomon appearing in her regular non mutated self could also be interpreted as her being purified since that’s what Meicoomon is like when she’s not a rampaging mutated digimon. Gonna be honest this complaint feels more like an excuse to complain about a lesser known digimon not getting their anime debut in a scene where if that did happen... you’d change absolutely nothing about the story other than Rasielmon waving goodbye to Meiko (a digimon Meiko’s never seen before mind you) instead of Meicoomon before disappearing. Honestly if Cherubimon (Vice) briefly turned back into Lopmon instead of Cherubimon (Virtue), you’d change absolutely nothing about Hurricane Touchdown’s plot since Cherubimon reverting back into Lopmon could still be interpreted as him being purified anyways. I dunno this complaint feels very surface level and difficult for me to agree with given the points I’ve made. Anyways TLDR: the reason why I feel Meiko’s Meicoomon is better written than Wallace/Willis’ Lopmon is that Lopmon is extremely underwritten outside of the fact that he’s a partner digimon under the effects of dark evolution/digivolution and that digimon’s personality and character outside of that has way too little screentime anyways whereas Meiko’s Meicoomon doesn’t have the same problems. I don’t really know what else to type here.

[lemongrablothbrok]

Was watching my favorite movie, Almost Famous, like a week or two ago. First of all, I'd just like to say, I could blog about this movie all fucking day, every fucking day, and intend to eventually (because I'm a masochist and like a challenge, damnit) do a post on every single Led Zeppelin reference that I could find in the movie (and there. Are. A lot. Probably literally more than there is of any other band or artist. For realsies), as well as an entire post of its own doing a character analysis of Vic, the Led Zeppelin fan (because I feel like he matters a lot more than his maybe two minutes of total screentime might suggest). But anyway...

So, I'm watching the director's cut, like I usually do (the theatrical cut just doesn't do it for me anymore), and there's one scene that (I'm pretty sure?) didn't make it into the regular cut of the film, but...like...

So, it's near the end of the movie, and Russell, the lead guitarist of the fictional band Stillwater, is having a conversation with the band's lead singer, Jeff, after butting heads with him for the entire movie and both of them coming to terms with the fact that...well...they don't like each other very much. And they're discussing whether it really matters if they like each other or not, and I think it's Jeff who says something like he thinks them liking each other might have been a detriment to the band, if anything, and how he's heard that all of the great duos hate each other or don't like each other or don't get along or whatever. Which, you know, cool, is true for maybe some of the most highly regarded rock groups (the Davies brothers in The Kinks, Joey Ramone and Johnny Ramone, and even Lennon and McCartney by the time The Beatles ended), clearly not all of them, though, but you know, hyperbole and all that. The real kicker, though? The fucking irony in that assertion, that none of the great duos in music get along? You know what song is playing in the background while they're talking about this?

"The [motherfucking] Rain Song", that's what. Like...uh...Jeff...you hear that song that's playing right now? Actually, probably not, since it might not be playing in-universe at that moment, though in Almost Famous it's sometimes hard to tell the diagetic (sp?) from non-diagetic music. But...like..."The Rain Song" is playing. Your argument is invalid, Jeff. Do you have any idea. Any fucking idea, Jeff, how much the duo responsible for that song (both in the writing and, quite possibly, the subject matter itself) don't hate each other? Like, pretty much the polar opposite of hate each other? Like, whether or not you believe that Page and Plant ever touched each other's no-no bits, what's not really up for debate is that those two men love each other like woah, whatever the nature of that love may be, doesn't matter, they are, for all intents and purposes, fucking married, they've both said so themselves. Yes, even James Patrick "No-Homo" Page.

I think Cameron Crowe definitely did that on purpose, and I appreciate the irony in the juxtaposition between the dialogue and the background music, is I guess what I'm saying. Listen, he was given special permission from the guys themselves to use a handful of Led Zeppelin's songs in his movie, he wasn't just going to slap them on any old scene all willy-nilly.

[playcraze]

I have lots of problems with the new episode, but I'm not gonna really get into them tonight since my mood was completely ruined by many things lol 🥲 so Imma just put up some pros and then maybe explain the cons in another post

This design is so silly. The lava lamp belly honestly worked better than whatever they were doing with Bumblebee

This image honestly has me cackling my ass off cus why did they approach each other like that 😭

Millie's design is so bonita I love her omg (she honestly deserves more screentime and I feel like she deserves better than the end of the episode which was HUMILIATING 🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦)

This guy. He's so scrungy willy and looks like he would enjoy some 2000s rock music (deserves better too)

Idgaf what Viv does, she can't ruin these two's dynamic by putting some pointless ass jealousy into the (still flawed due to writing but) one good relationship of the show 😒 they're one of my reasons I'm still holding on 😔

And THIS

"It's just my time of the month"

Mox is trans and no one can say otherwise

[dokoni-mo]

What do you think of the Mike is not an Afton change? I personally like it but if they get rid of my girl Elizabeth and make Garrett the new Charlie I will throw a fit

For me it was really unexpected,, but i kinda see what they're trynna do??

It seems to me like they're trying to base the movie (or perhaps movies if they make more) moreso on the books rather than the games because I heard that there's a lot of similarities between them as well as easter eggs

But tbh the lore is like,, all over the place LMAOO so perhaps they're trynna fix it?? I have no clue BUT it was a good movie I highly enjoyed, my only beef was that Willy should've gotten more screentime

[fancysasquatch]

I watch either Die Hard or Die Hard 2 ever year(-ish) on Christmas, but this year I decided to go all out and watch both of them, and then all the other Die Hard movies which I'd only seen once before. The final conclusion I reached is that Die Hard isn't really a franchise, it's just a bunch of Bruce Willis vehicles stacked in a trench coat.

Die Hard 2 is the only one of the Die Hard sequels that feels like it's a real sequel to Die Hard. It's the only one that reuses the same general plot as the first movie sure, but it's also the only movie that has any non-John-McClane characters in common with the first movie. His wife Holly, his partner Al, even the skeezy reporter all show up again, but no other characters from either of these show up in the later movies (not counting his kids that got about 90 seconds of screentime in the first movie). They bring back Hans' brother as a villain in 3, but that doesn't actually impact the movie outside of a couple lines. The third movie was all about hackers and it didn't even bring back the hacker guy from the first movie (one of the more memorable characters and the only villain to survive). 2 was significant because it was actually intended to be a Die Hard movie from the beginning, as opposed to 3 (which started out as a sequel to a Brandon Lee movie which then was rewritten into a Lethal Weapon sequel and then rewritten again to be a Die Hard sequel) and 4 (which had been an original spec script floating around for years). They weren't written to accommodate the specific cast of characters from the die hard universe and it wouldn't have taken much effort to rewrite them into totally original stories you wouldn't have even recognized as being connected to the rest of the franchise

2 is also the only one that really benefited from being a Die Hard movie. It was similar enough that it would be a particularly blatant knockoff if it wasn't a proper Die Hard movie. 3 is well liked regardless of it being in the franchise, and in fact it not being like the first two movies is the biggest complaint about it. 4 is a pretty decent movie that was panned for being a terrible addition to the series ("McClane used to be a regular everyman but now he's launching cars at helicopters), and would be more appreciated if it was a standalone release that was judged on its merits. 5 wouldn't be liked if it was an original movie, but it wouldn't be hated more than it currently is.

Also while doing some light reading about the history of the movies, I found out about a bunch of other movies that were meant to be Die Hard movies at one point. There was this spec script in the 90s about terrorists taking over a crusieliner, and it was rewritten into one of the earliest drafts of Die Hard 3, but after Under Siege came out that was cancelled and the script was reused for Speed 2: Cruise Control. The spec script Tears of the Sun was about a man guiding people to safety through a jungle, and it almost became a Tarzan reboot before winding up getting turned into Die Hard 4: Tears of the Sun. Now you might be expecting me to reveal that that movie then got reworked again into Tears of the Sun, the movie where Bruce Willis has to guide people to safety through a jungle, but that was actually an unrelated project. After that version of Die Hard 4 was rejected Bruce Willis decided he liked the name and would use it for his next similarly plotted movie.

[emeraldspiral]

I wouldn't say it's entirely devoid of sexism. It doesn't depict female characters in a sexist way or address sexism as a part of every day life, and that may be because the show takes place in a futuristic setting with the idea that sexism wouldn't be as much of a problem, or because Jhonen just didn't want to address contemporary politics that might date the show.

But there's definitely an unconscious bias reflected in the show, probably due to most of the creative staff being men with a huge blind spot for how underrepresented female characters were. Irken society supposedly treats female Irkens no different than males, and yet there are only 5 female Invaders (6 if you count Tak) out of over 30 Invaders. The Massive's bridge crew appears to be entirely male and crowd scenes feature almost entirely male Irkens. In fact, I'm not even sure if there are any female Irken background characters besides the 5 female Invaders.

If you look at the main cast you have three male characters, Zim, Dib, and GIR, and one female character, Gaz, and of the three Gaz gets the least amount of screentime or character focus. Among the secondary main cast you have the Tallest, Professor Membrane and Ms. Bitters, so three more male characters and only one more female character. Then you get into the characters who played a significant role in one or two episodes. For female characters it was pretty much just Tak, Moofy, and the Delouser. For male characters you had Keef, Bill, the Planet Jackers, Shnooky, Poop Dawg, Slab Rankle, Officer Squidman, Iggins, Agent Darkbootie, the Mysterious Mysteries host, Sgt Hobo, Service Drone Bob, Skoodge, the idiot aliens from Abducted, Nick, Chickenfoot, Lard Nar, Mortos, Willy, and Sizz-Lor. So that's 3 female characters (4 if you count Tak's ship as female and separate from Tak) and 22 male characters.

I don't think Gaz or Tak ever talked to each other in Tak the Hideous New Girl or with any other female characters in the entire show. I don't think Moofy or her troupe talked to each other in The Girl Who Cried Gnome and I'm not sure if Ms. Bitters and the Delouser spoke directly to each other in Lice either.

The only interactions between female characters I can recall are Ms. Bitters addressing her female students, the Delouser monologuing to Gretchen about the Lice queen, Gaz talking to Tak's ship in ETF, and maybe Jessica gossiping about Zim in Bestest Friend if you count the other girls at her table listening.

Literally, one of my favorite things about Invader Zim is like… the complete lack of sexism?

The girls/women actually act like people, which is quite revolutionary for a 2000s cartoon.

As a girl growing up in the 2000s, who preferred more adventurous cartoons (which were often directed towards boys) this was always a struggle for me, because that particular genre was often times rife with sexism/misogyny, with girls often being portrayed as either an accessory to the main protagonist or the butt of countless stupid jokes, and it honestly sucked.

Hooray for Invader Zim!

[the-irken-pony]

I’d be interested in seeing a RHM post

also am I the only one who finds it bizarre that RHM was able to reflect Henry’s fire attack in the ‘dirk’ option?

YES THAT'S EXACTLY THE KIND OF THING I'M TALKING ABOUT AND WANT TO WRITE ABOUT

More specifically, he’s shown off 3 special abilities that a) aren’t possible for normal people to achieve and b) aren’t granted by his cybernetics. These abilities are:

1) Reflect, a magic reflector seen during the Dirk sub-option in Infiltrating the Airship

2) An unnamed shockwave attack seen during the Yo-yo sub-option in Infiltrating the Airship

3) Bottled Time, a Spirit capable of slowing down or stopping time seen during the 😒 “Spirit Forme” option in Completing the Mission

Coincidentally, these all occur under the circumstance that the Right Hand Man is fighting Henry to try and protect Reginald. Also, with the exception of *maybe* Reginald in the latter case, Henry is the only one to bear witness to these abilities, and these are the only times Right Hand Man ever shows such abilities off. Which, when you compare it to how little issue he seems to have with getting every small bit of convenience out of his cybernetics that he can, kinda confuses me.

It’s possible that he just thinks that these are limited in use, but I find it incredibly unlikely that this is the case. Given how he shoots lasers willy-nilly it’s not like shockwave wouldn’t be useful to him, and given his well-established need for speed I doubt that he wouldn’t abuse the hell out of Bottled Time unless he had a REALLY good reason not to. The only one that would be limited in this way is Reflect, simply due to how rare magic casters actually are.

The only other reason I can think of for him to not use these abilities hardly ever is that he’s keeping it a secret from others. What reason he would have for doing so is beyond me, but whatever his reasoning for hiding his abilities, he wouldn’t be the only one to do so.

Kado Ito is the only person who’s explicitly stated to keep his special abilities a secret, but him not using his powers until Henry (or Ellry, in Kabbitz’s case) uses his own abilities is a trait he shares with both Right Hand Man and Kabbitz, the only other characters with special powers, except for Henry and Ellie themselves. (Any of Charles’ special powers come from his helicopter, so he doesn’t count.)

With all of this comes a bunch of questions. Why is it so rare, and exactly how rare is it? Out of ~400 characters, are these 5 characters really the only ones with these abilities, or are there more we don’t know about? Why do some keep it secret? Is it more common for those with special abilities to only use them in rare circumstances like Kado or Right Hand Man do, or to flaunt them like Henry does? Does RHM have more than these three abilities that he simply hasn’t shown off?

I admit this post was only half about Right Hand Man, but what I wanted to write about in the first place were these abilities and their extreme rarity relative to his overall screentime and use of cybernetic enhancements. And quite honestly, this wouldn’t be nearly as fascinating to me if characters with special abilities (aside from Henry) weren’t as rare as they are.

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

The Goonies: The Characters

No matter how good a story is, how great the cinematography, or how subversive the genre-usage, a movie cannot stand without use of characters.

Characters are perhaps the most vital element of any story ever told.  An interesting plot helps a movie greatly, but without a use of compelling characters, it falls flat on an audience who doesn’t care about the well-being of the people pushing the story forward.  Viewers need flawed, interesting people, moving the story and trying to overcome conflict, in order for a movie to feel satisfying.

Or, they can have a bunch of bickering children stumbling and screaming their way through caves, led by Head Goonie: Michael “Mikey” Walsh.

Only Sane Man Mikey is the glue of the group, bringing the Goonies together in an adventure, instead of just a bunch of kids hanging out in someone’s living room.  He’s got the initiative, he’s the Determinator, and the Leader, and also, surprisingly, the Heart, in a rare combination.  He’s the one jumping at the call, the Kid Hero armed with the Rousing Speeches in his desperate attempt to save the Goondocks.  It would have been easy to make Mikey the most boring of the bunch, but he’s not, if anything, he’s the most interesting.  He’s certainly the most inspiring.

Mikey is the driving force of the entire story.  Despite the fact that he was reluctant to let his friends in the attic in the first place, once he’s there, he’s instantly pushing for his end goal.  As much as Data is the inventor of the group, when you get right down to it, Mikey is probably the smartest of the bunch.  It’s Mikey who figures out where they need to go, Mikey who leads the Goonies through the tunnels, Mikey who convinces them to persevere, to not ride up Troy’s bucket, to leave Willy’s private stash alone.

He’s dedicated to the point of almost insanity at times, judging from how Brand has to pull him back from going back after the treasure when the cave collapses.  He’s also very interested in One-Eyed Willy himself, and acts like he knows him, or understands him, anyway.

“One-Eyed Willy. Hello. I’m Mike Walsh, you’ve been expecting me. Haven’t you? Well, I made it. I beat you. I got here in once piece. So far. So, that’s why they call you One-Eyed Willy. One-Eyed Willy. We had a lot in common, huh, Willy? You know something Willy? You were the first Goonie.”

Apparently, Mikey sees a little bit of himself in this pirate, perhaps as a fellow leader or adventurer, or even a fellow outsider.

Like I said, Mikey could have been the blandest character in the bunch: just filling in as ‘the leader’ of the group, but instead, he’s as quirky as they come.

Despite the fact that this is an ensemble film, with every character sharing about the same amount of screentime, Mikey is clearly the protagonist, no questions asked.  He is the character with the goal here, and as much as it benefits everyone else, it’s clearly his mission, his quest.  The others are just along for the ride.  Mikey is the character the audience is meant to identify with the most: he gets the most insightful dialogue and we as viewers identify more strongly with him as a character.  

Although he’s one of the last characters introduced to the audience, it’s very clear right away who the story is about based simply on the Protagonist Problem: basically, do they have one?  And while it’s clear that the other Goonies aren’t happy about moving away, none of them are taking it as hard as Mikey is.  He is, immediately, the character with a Problem, and he’s also the only one to jump at a solution.

He’s the idealist.  He’s cool under pressure (for the most part).  He easily takes charge, despite his tamer personality in comparison with the others, even over the older kids, and he’s nice to boot.  His goals are easily defined, he’s active, going after his goals and overcoming obstacles, he seems to be the perfect protagonist, if it wasn’t for one thing…

Mikey never really changes.

Sure, he throws away his inhaler by the end, which could be interpreted as symbolic of development, but honestly, Mikey is very much the same kid at the end of the film that he was at the beginning.  Same personality, same worldview…even the same goals, which is another big protagonist no-no.

Most great protagonists have goals that change from beginning to end of the film, as a sign of their own developing character, but Mikey never does.  Instead, he ends the film getting exactly what he initially set out to get: enough money to save the Goondocks.  Sure, he has the relatively minor goal along the way of ‘staying alive’, but in the grand scheme of narrative stakes, to Mikey, clearly the treasure is all that matters.

The question is…is this a bad thing?

Well…no.

The thing is, Mikey is only one in a group of seven main characters, and while some of them have more screen time than others, when you come down to it, that’s a lot of characters to balance, meaning a lot of dialogue split up, and a lot of audience focus divided.  In other words: Mikey doesn’t get development because he doesn’t have time.  There’s just too much going on for the audience to stack character growth on top of it.

While there’s not nearly enough time from a script perspective, there’s also just no time from a linear perspective, either.

The story of The Goonies takes place around, give or take, a day, and while there are a few stories where development is done over that time, (Such as 12 Angry Men, actually) the fact is, twenty four hours is a really short period of time to change who you are as a person, or even change your goals.  It’s very difficult to cram in the story, the characters, and everything else in such a short time span, and heap a deep, meaningful character arc on top of it.  There’s just no time.

So, does that damage the film?

Not really.  Like I said in the genre article, The Goonies is a roller-coaster adventure of a film, without much in breaks.  There’s a lot going on all at the same time, and honestly, in order to keep the pace up, it’s for the betterment of the film that they didn’t try to cram Mikey’s character development within.

To be fair, it’s not as though he doesn’t change at all.  But he changes about as much as the rest of the cast do, in very similar ways: kind of like his brother.

Brandon “Brand” Walsh fills out the other side of the sibling dynamic between himself and Mikey, the older brother who gets annoyed with him, but is also supposed to be taking care of him.  As much as he starts out the film looking like he’s at least trying to be an Aloof Big Brother, when the chips are down, his Big Brother Instinct comes out, protecting Mikey from actual danger.  Beginning the film as somewhat of a Butt-Monkey, ending up Hoisted by his Own Petard in the form of his exercise equipment, at first, Brand looks like he’s not really going to be terribly involved in Mikey’s Goonie adventure.

In the end, though, Brand turns out to be One of the Kids.  But for careful viewers, that’s not really a surprise.

Even Brand’s first scene, where he interacts with Mikey, it’s pretty clear that although there’s a bickering dynamic between them, there’s also sympathy and affection.  Brand knows that Mikey doesn’t want to leave, he understands and he tells him so.  He hugs him and brings him inside when Mr. Perkins comes by with the papers to sign over the house.  And sure, Brand bullies him a little and shoves him around and Mikey repays the favor by tying him to a chair with his own exercise equipment and running off, but that’s typical sibling stuff, as anyone with siblings can tell you.

Although Brand does initially try to ‘take charge’ and occasionally gives the marching orders, in the end, he leaves most of the leading to Mikey, which is a little strange.  Once or twice he takes over, and is the most protective of the group, but while he may do most of the ‘planning’ here, he lets Mikey’s goals and priorities take center stage for a while.

Brand’s other chief ‘item of note’ concerning characterization is, of course, his relationship with Andy.

It’s mentioned fairly early on into the film that Brand is supposed to go out with her, and we see her once or twice, but it isn’t until she and Stef show up to check on Brand that we get to see any of that relationship.  It’s sweet enough, aside from them constantly choosing the wrong time and place to attempt a first kiss, with Brand taking a side-role of protector for Andy specifically, again, showcasing that defensive side that comes in handy for the rest of the group from time to time.

But there’s more to the Goonies than the Walsh kids.

Probably the most recognizable of the characters from The Goonies is Lawrence “Chunk” Cohen.

Chunk has most of the most memorable lines and scenes in the film, elevating himself in pop culture beyond simply the ‘Fat Comic Relief’ and klutzy, cowardly character that the movie seems to be pigeonholing him into at first.  See, even though Mikey’s the one with the goal and character arc concerning the treasure, Chunk’s character arc revolves around the Fratellis.

Of all the Goonies, Chunk is the first one to get involved in the story.  He is the first character we see indirectly interact with the villains of the story, when he spots the car chase, and by the end of the film, he is the character that has interacted with them the most, being drug around, interrogated, and locked up by them as a result of being left behind by the rest.  Fittingly, his arc has very little to do with One Eyed Willy, and everything to do with the criminal family that he happens to fall into, to the point where they’re almost his arch-nemeses instead of the rest of the Goonies.

While an initial viewing could give viewers a very basic impression of Chunk as just the ‘token fat kid’ of the group, the fact is, he is one of the only characters who gets any real growth.

Chunk is established almost right away as the Boy Who Cried Wolf, a teller of tall-tales that have rendered him completely unbelievable to his friends and the local police force.  By the time he has an actual story to tell, nobody around him is ready to buy it, and honestly, it’s hard to blame them.  Some of his stories do sound ridiculous, and even the one that he’s telling now about the Fratellis would be hard to believe, if the audience didn’t know for certain that he was telling the truth.  Of course, although he is able to feel vindicated when the Goonies discover he’s telling the truth, his tendencies to exaggerate backfire on him spectacularly when the police don’t believe he’s in trouble, and he’s left on his own.

Well, not quite on his own, but more on that in a minute.

Chunk primarily holds up the B-plot of the film on the villain’s side, arriving at the end to play hero and bail the rest of the Goonies out, proving to them, and then the rest of the authorities at the end, that this time, he was right, and proving his bravery after an entire film of attempting to chicken out.  But as impressive as his last-minute heroism is, Chunk isn’t in this alone.

Despite being separated from the group fairly early on, sparing them from his complaints, hunger, and clumsiness, Chunk finds another ally in Sloth, the Fratellis’ brother, and befriends him, forming the ‘Brains’ to Sloth’s brawn, coming in to save the day and even adopting him at the end of the film.

Chunk is the most memorable Goonie, not just for the Hawaiian shirt and plaid-pants combo that he’s rocking, but because he has a lot of very memorable and iconic scenes, possessing a pretty unforgettable (and loud!) personality and an arc: from zero to hero, when nobody, not even his fellow Goonies, expected it, complaining through the entire early adventure, and overall displaying an overwhelming desire to Not Be Here, making it all the more impressive when he goes after them with Sloth to rescue them.

But there’s more to the Goonies than just the leader and the breakout role.

Clark “Mouth” Devereaux is not the easiest kid to get along with.  A Deadpan Snarker Jerk with a Heart of Gold, Mouth is the member of the cast with potentially the most Meaningful Name: he never shuts up.  A classic case of ‘With Friends Like These…’, Mouth comes across like the most antagonistic character in the film other than the actual villains at times, abrasive and loud, bullying the rest of the group and picking fights with Stef.

Unfortunately, Mouth’s…mouth, can get him into trouble.  Quite often, in fact, like when he can’t let well enough alone and ends up getting threatened with having his tongue cut out.

With that said, though, Mouth does have his uses, and they’re not all to do with smuggling treasure in his most distinctive trait.

Fittingly, language is where he comes in handy: he’s the only one who can read (and speak) Spanish, leaving him as the obvious choice to translate the map, and also to translate the Walsh’s housekeeper’s exclamations that the treasure is not entirely lost.  Without him, the treasure hunt is impossible.

Mouth may want the treasure as badly as the rest of them do, but he is far less idealistic than Mikey is about it.  He’s the last of the kids to believe Mikey in the beginning, and while it can be chalked up to his overall personality, there is a dash or two of Hidden Depths implied about him, notably in the wishing-well sequence:

“Yeah, but you know what? This one, this one right here. This was my dream, my wish. And it didn’t come true. So I’m taking it back. I’m taking them all back.”

Armed with a comb and occasionally appearing as though he’s deliberately striking a pose in order to look cool, Mouth is actually one of the first to start falling apart when their lives are in danger, crying and panicking with the best of them.  (Again, he’s only thirteen.)

Despite having the loudest personality, Mouth is content to let Mikey lead the group, hanging back and picking on all of them, but by no means not one of them.

There is, of course, one more thing of note about Mouth as a character, and that is his dynamic with Stef.  The pair carry a belligerent tension, bickering and snapping at each other throughout most of the film before demonstrating genuine affection towards each other (with a deleted scene referenced involving Stef promising to keep Mouth alive when they get pushed off the plank).  It’s a hint at something going on between them for sure, but it’s also a fairly good example of Mouth’s relationships with everybody: he’s a lot more bark than bite, irritating and loud for sure, but a loyal friend who’s more than ready to help you look for treasure, even if he doesn’t 100% believe in it at first.

Like the rest, he doesn’t change a whole lot from beginning to end, with the adventure perhaps simply knocking some of his cockiness away and even leaving him a little nicer, but again, just like Mikey, it’s hard to say: this is all over the course of one, very exciting day.  More on that later, though.

After all, Mouth’s hardly the last Goonie of the bunch.

Richard “Data” Wang is the inventor of all things Awesome but Impractical, falling somewhere between Bungled Inventor and Gadgeteer Genius.  The Smart Guy, Data is good with his Homemade Inventions for sure, but there’s a bit more to him than that.

While the other Goonies (especially Chunk and Mouth) can best be remembered for being annoying or clumsy, or dropping things, or talking too much or too loudly, or setting off booby traps, Data is actually pretty even-keel.  He’s excitable, and he really doesn’t want to move to Detroit, but overall, he’s fairly content to be the least talkative Goonie, letting his Dynamic Entries speak for themselves.

He’s a smart kid, and he actually is the only one who one-ups the Fratellis at any time, using his inventions to trip them up and hurt them, after the same inventions saved his life earlier.  Data certainly does have a flair for the dramatic (best seen when telling Mikey that he won’t be taken alive) and is an energetic kid, proving himself as reckless as the rest, but he has a good head on his shoulders.  He’s the one who discovers the counterfeit machine, and it’s fairly safe to say that without him and his Slick Shoes, the Goonies probably wouldn’t have made it out alive.

Like the others, Data doesn’t change much – in fact, he probably changes the least.  This could be due to the fact that again, this is all over the course of roughly 24 hours, but it’s also possibly just a side-effect of being the most even-keeled of the bunch: he’s quieter, and therefore, we hear less from him, meaning we see less of his flaws.  Still though, Data’s a solid character, hugely entertaining, likeable, and memorable.

Now for the other outliers:

Andrea “Andy” Carmichael begins the story as first The Cheerleader and Dude Magnet, and then The Load.  Clearly not used to this style of Goonie Adventure, Andy kind of becomes a Hysterical Woman throughout a good portion of the journey, needing to be comforted a few times in order to keep her head.  It’s hard to blame her: between the skeletons, the guns, and getting locked in a tunnel is pretty frightening, but Andy doesn’t do a whole lot (especially early on, during her Heroic BSoD) and manages to not retain much of a personality throughout most of the film, chiefly appearing at first to serve as a token female character and to be in love with Brand.

But there is more to her than that.  

Even early on, Andy demonstrates a little more backbone when she elbows Troy in the lip and ditches him to go find Brand, and although she initially just follows the Goonies to hang out with Brand (and then to escape the Fratellis), she ends up becoming one of them when she makes the choice to stay instead of riding up the wishing well, sending up his letterman jacket instead.  It’s a big step for her, a demonstration of her true alliances (a deleted scene was to include her being sworn in as an official Goonie at this point, actually), and sets her up for the rest of the film as being more ready and willing to actively participate in the adventure.

Near the end, Andy has to come through to save everyone, as she’s the only one who can play the piano even a little bit, and it falls on her to play the bone organ in order to get them away from the Fratellis and towards the treasure.

Andy actually has some more growth than a few of the others: she steadies out and truly does change, becoming a true Goonie by the end of the film, proving herself more capable than when she began.  Although she doesn’t seem to have a stake in the treasure, she’s just as determined by the end to get it, and celebrates with the rest of them by the end.

In a way, she shares that with the other Goonie outlier: Stef.

Stephanie “Stef” Steinbrenner doesn’t really seem to serve a whole lot of purpose within the story besides being another girl Goonie so there isn’t just one.  She’s a friend of Andy’s, the Tomboy to her Girly Girl, who splits off to join her to find Brand and then ends up swept along with the rest of the adventure, and there doesn’t seem to be much more to her than that.  She’s a Sarcastic Devotee, who feels Surrounded by Idiots: she trades snark with the best of them and tends to feel (rightfully so) that the people she’s around aren’t exactly geniuses.  She’s loyal though, and sticks by Andy and the other Goonies until the end, proving just as determined to get to the treasure and get out alive as the others.

Stef serves as a reality check, another cynic who’s just as frightened as the rest of them, like Andy, without a stake in the final treasure, and while she’s never officially branded a Goonie, the implication by the end is clear.  She sort of takes on a belligerent ‘big sister’ role throughout most of the film, and although she doesn’t have much of an arc, she is entertaining to watch, which honestly sums up the entire cast pretty well.

The characters of The Goonies do not exactly ‘grow’.  There are small things: Andy’s growing courage, Chunk being finally right, Mikey’s growth as a leader, Data’s inventions being useful, Mouth taking some of his snarky edge off, and Brand being a better big brother, but honestly, these are very minor things in the grand scheme of the story.

The characters in The Goonies are not deep, whether it’s the actual Goonies themselves or the villainous Fratellis, who are mostly characterized by striking a balance between being comedic and being a genuine threat.  There are no huge life-lessons being learned by these people, and they aren’t really doing a lot of growing so much as they are running for their lives.

In a film that is essentially a ‘roller coaster’, The Goonies is not designed to have seven major characters with fulfilling character arcs: like I said before, there’s simply no time.  It’d bog the story down for each character to have a moment of growth, to change significantly from beginning to end.  In this case, the best thing about the characters is actually their consistency from beginning to end: there’s little change, and as a result, the audience never has to recalibrate to something else going on within the story.

In other films, this would be a huge problem.

A feature-length film where there is no discernible character change is typically not a good call, but in this case, it works for multiple reasons.  The story is too fast paced and focused on too much to allow for consistent breaks in plot that allow for character moments, and with the extremely short timespan, a big change would actually come across as forced and unrealistic.  The characters are children forced into a tight spot, where their chief concern is their own lives.  There simply isn’t the option open for development.

However, where the film lacks on ‘growth’ of characters, it makes up for in everything else.

The chief purpose of a character is to be there for the audience to like, to be invested in.  There are actually plenty of films where characters don’t change a lot, classic movies that are well-liked because the characters, although unchanging, are hugely entertaining and interesting.  Films like Back to the Future or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off don’t suffer from characters who don’t do any changing due to the fact that the main characters are fun to watch and have the audience’s attention and interest.

Which is just what The Goonies does.

Everyone can find a Goonie to relate to: the leaders, the loudmouths, the geniuses, the attention-seekers, everyone has a place here, and even adults who have hopefully grown out of some of the more immature kid-like behavior, there’s still the glimmer of familiarity in these kids.  Like I mentioned before, we relate to these kids, and we want to see them win.

The Goonies as a story is designed to have simple, relatable characters for the audience to remember, and if that’s the goal, then it works perfectly.  There are no deep characters with complex motivations here, and that’s a good thing: it fits the tone of the film consistently and coherently.  Every character here is likeable in some way, memorable, for sure, and sticks with an audience enough that the audience wants to stick with them too, and wants them to succeed.

In the end, the characters of The Goonies make you care about them, make you root for them.  They carry the story and do it all in a way that’s plenty of fun to watch, and when it comes down to it: that’s exactly what characters should do.

Whether you like or hate them, a character is there to make you care, and The Goonies certainly do their job.  They leave a strong impact, and as a result, we remember these characters and their quirks long after the movie is over for a reason.

Join me next time where we’ll be looking at the 80s cultural impact on the creation of The Goonies.  Thank you so much for reading, and I hope to see you in the next article.

[hankwritten]

TFComics Rewrite

I am currently plotting an outline for a TFComics, and I want to get my thoughts about fixes to canon and possibly get feedback. Since this is a rewrite there’s really no *spoilers* or anything, so I’m willing to answer all questions about what I plan to do. Also some characters I’m not so sure about how I want to retool them, so if your have ideas for your fav let me know!

Disclaimer:

This rewrite is intended to critique the content/choices made in the construction and telling of the Team Fortress 2 comic series. It is not a personal attack on the artists/writers/directors or any of the creatives that made contributions to this series, nor is it meant to substitute or replace the official release. This work is transformative in nature, and relies on an understanding of the source material to be understood. TF2 and its characters belong to Valve.

TFCR is working on the assumption that the audience has read the original comic, and as such will skip over scenes and plot points that are unchanged from the original. I don’t think it needs to be said, but this fanfiction will not make sense if you are not familiar with the source.

I also recognize that there are strengths within the comic’s writing and weaknesses within my own. Namely, that Valve writers are gods in the realm of comedy, and I’d rather not try to match them in the regard. As such, I will state up front that these will not be as funny as the TFComics. That is not to say there won’t be jokes (either ones transplanted from the source or some of my own) or that the tone of this will be terribly grimdark, only that my focus will be on improving story structure and character development as those are what appeal to me.

 The Broad Strokes

The goal of TFCR is to give a more engaging story for all the mercenaries we know and love, as--let’s face it--the TF2 mercs are side characters in their own damn story. These are some of the planned improvements.

There will be reason for each of the mercs to actually be there. As it stands, the motivations for almost every character besides Pauling and Saxton Hale are vague and unsatisfying. We’d usually say something along the lines of “money” for hired killers, but clearly Scout doesn’t even know if they’re getting paid, and some of the other characters are even worse. The hunt for the Australium is, therefore, boring. MacGuffins usually are, but at the very least the characters should care about the item even if the audience doesn’t. This work aims to give each of the nine mercs a motive and a reason to be in the story instead of just replaceable joke dispensers.

Explain what “Team Fortress” means, and how it relates to RED and BLU. Long and short: the nine mercenaries we see on the team are not from either RED or BLU but rotate between the two, and were the individuals selected to fight the robots. That means all things do happen to all characters. As Valve pretty much goes with “whatever is funniest at the time”, it’s very hard to make a cohesive theory about “where the hell is BLU team?”, but I’ll do my damndest. We’ll also examine Team Fortress’s relationship with the other capital T Teams, and why they’re considered the “rejects” of the bunch.

Comics 1 & 2 will be removed from the timeline as they serve no purpose, only taking what needs to be known about the plot’s setup and jumping straight to A Cold Day in Hell.

We will introduce the Classic Mercs right away so they can generate threat and play against the TF mercs when they do actually meet head to head.

We will not be killing off Gray Mann. (Not preemptively anyway.) In fact, there will be more focus on him and Olivia as villains facing off against the Admin, providing her foil as the TF2 and TFC mercs provide foils for each other.

I considered waiting until the final comic was out to begin working on this, but that may never happen. Jay Pinkerton said he may reveal what plot they had in store eventually, but considering it took Half Life over a decade to get the “I was once a Valve writer but my NDA has expired and now I can go buck wild” treatment, I’m not holding my breath. The main reason I wanted to do this is that the Administrator’s motivations are not interestingly foreshadowed, to the point where there aren’t even any good fan theories out there. That said, WritingDispenser and Riddle of the Sphinx helped come up with a pretty fun one, which was actually the inspiration for me to get off my butt and start plotting this.

There will be no queerbaiting. This refers both to HeavyMedic (which has been simultaneously used as wink wink nudge nudge joke many times and as encouragement for fans to play their stupid hat game) as well as lesbian Pauling (since femme lesbians are the preferred method for front facing LGBT representation across almost all media, but video games especially). If you need to understand why lesbian Pauling is an issue, Sarah Z coined the term “queercatching” in order to describe word of god confirmations on characters sexualities that are not followed up on in the text. I recommend the full video on it.

Due to the importance of immortality in the theming of the comics, respawn will not be a thing. Deaths we think should have happened previously will be explained as close calls, or that Medic can heal a short time after death. Medic and Scout’s deaths will be cut in the story itself, as after Sniper died and came back, them doing the same thing kinda lost their punch.

Scout

There will be no ScoutPauling hints. It doesn’t make sense to give screentime to this relationship because Valve obviously doesn’t think it’s going to go anywhere so why make Scout turn down advances from other hot women? I mean I get Expiration Date was a Thing but it feels like Scout’s whole motivation shouldn’t be reduced down to chasing a girl who doesn’t like him back.

He’s here because he lost his life’s savings in bad investments and needs the money. That’s it. Which is still somehow more than his canon motive which is question mark question mark question mark

He, Soldier, Spy, Demo, and Pyro all start the adventure with Miss Pauling.

Engages with Heavy on a genuine level when they go to collect him, Heavy doesn’t blow him off when he tries to level about dead dads.

There will be no DadSpy reveal. The way Spy treats Scout has never been “deadbeat dad feels bad about abandoning his kid” but more “this is someone I would kill without a second thought if I felt like it” which makes his reveal in comic 5 feel very disingenuous. I don’t think Valve even had this plotline in mind until comic 3, as #2 still has Spy seeming only to care about Scout’s Ma and not Scout himself. It also makes “seduce me!” retroactively weird.

Uhhh hooks up with Zhanna. This one isn’t critical I just think it’s funny.

Soldier

Soldier is going to be the Ur example of the Admin not treating her people well, as we’re going to lean into the whole “Soldier was only mildly messed up until the whole lead poisoning” thing.

He’s here because he’s blindingly loyal to the cause. He’s actually going to very little from canon because of this actually.

Might be the reason Team Fortress has a reputation of being the lower tiers of the Teams, but that doesn’t mean he’s damn good at his job. Fatal flaw is that he’s unstable, and even though the courthouse plotline won’t be in this fic, it should be noted that he actually does cause problems for the other protagonists due to his short temper. He’s a risky asset, but still essential.

There will be a minor explanation for the WAR! Comic, but I think that’s better saved for Demo’s analysis.

Pyro

Pyro is the character you could cut entirely from the comics and have the least change. Now, they’re going to be Pauling’s right hand. Let me explain.

Engineer and Pyro are implied to live together, and Pyro doesn’t have anything better to do than go with Engie after Team Fortress is disbanded. Rather than having a reveal, we will see some of what is going on with the Admin and friends early on, and see what leads up to her sending Miss P the note that kicks off the whole plot. However, while Engie needs to stay and look after her, Pyro’s skills aren’t useful here, and they are sent as a direct messenger to help Pauling.

They’re loyal, and unlike Soldier rarely mess up orders. They’re also partially mute, making them ideal for handling sensitive info. Pauling trusts them to handle the burning of “Elizabeth’s” paper trail.

Will be using they/them in the narrative voice, but other characters will refer to them as he/him. I considered going with it/its because that’s bubbled up in popularity again, but ultimately I decided against it.

We’ll get glimpses to their train of thought, but like the comics they will remain virtually silent.

Demo

Demo’s role in the cast is going to be very similar to Spy’s. The events of WAR! involved him nearly dying and Soldier taking the win, and he’s very bitter that after all those events *apparently* mercs can just be switched around teams willy nilly and don’t have to kill each other anymore. (As the audience, we know this is because the Admin found out the “make them so angry they won’t ask questions” wasn’t a long-term viable solution, and instead brought TFI forward as a neutral third party that was pretending to mediate the gravel wars.) But Demo’s suspicious, and is only along because he really has been miserable since he lost his job.

This conflict will eventually come to a head, more on that in the Sniper section.

Is fairly forgiving with his teammates. Doesn’t like Sniper but I’m willing to drop a little angst during that submarine scene. Is glad to see Medic actually. Here to be some glue to hold this merry band together.

The Eyelander will not be forgotten after 2 comics because I love this character concept and I think it was underutilized.

Drunk jokes will be kept to a minimum. What I liked about WAR! and Bombinomicon was that it took Demo and showed that they knew how to make him funny without making him one note, which they sort of did in the early TFComics but stopped in the later ones in favor of him….being asleep for the whole plot. I promise 100% awake Demo in my rewrite.

Demo likes Pauling on a personal level, but has trouble reconciling her with his feelings on TFI.

Doesn’t get knocked out by moonshine because. Seriously? Poisoning the Demoman with alcohol? In what world does that work.

Heavy

Not too much to change. Scout doesn’t accompany him when he goes to look for the secret Australium cache, and he engages with Mags and Saxton (which will be when the audience finds out what they’ve been up to) and actually cares about what’s going on with them. He thinks Darling is up to something. Which he is, he’s attempting to unseat both Gray and Helen due to long family history.

Will at least mention Medic. Their reunion falls a little flat since it mostly relies on Meet the Medic for context, as they don’t really interact in the comic. There can be a bit of a flashback to what it was like as all these mercs broke up.

I know uhhh Valve seems to think found family is really dumb, and that these murderers could ever like each other is silly or something, but the mercs do? Like each other? For the most part anyways. 

Bronislava and Yana come alone for adventures, not just Zhanna. Again, no real reason, but sometimes I get to have tacky fanfic stuff in my own fanfic because I Wanna.

Engineer

Engie ruminates on his family history of allowing all this bullshit to happen and just kind of shrugging. Basically Moss’s analysis of the Conagher themes.

Has put a lot of time, sweat, and tears into BLU and now TFI, isn’t willing to let it fall now, even if Admin is basically living on borrowed time. He’s doing this because of the ‘ole sunk cost fallacy.

Also we get to see more of Pauling and Admin’s relationship through his eyes.

Medic

Congrats on being the one merc with an actual arc, Medic! As a reward, you will not be changed much.

I’m actually going to use Medic’s section to say that the Classic mercs will be referred to by their first names in order to differentiate them, and we’ll get little previews of what they’re like from Medic’s perspective before we actually see them fight Team fortress. The battle at the submarine will be more of a fight in this sense, working it out so it seems like surrender is the only option after Sniper is killed.

Final fight with Cheavy will be...not blocked so awkwardly. I mean this is now a textual medium so my work is already halfway done, but still the pacing is so weird. Shudder.

Sniper

These are the big guns. Most changes, even more than Demo. He’s been actually hunting for New Zealand/the Australium cache on his own, and doesn’t want Pauling interfering, saying for a he knows she could have been the ones to kill his adoptive parents.

(She hasn’t, but the Admin did actually order them killed in an attempt to stop Sniper because she thought she could prevent the exact thing that is going on right now which is that Sniper is considering trying to get at it.)

Sniper doesn’t know this, but Pauling, Demo, and Spy eventually convince him to share his findings and help them get to New Zealand.

Spy

Similar to Demo but is less conflicted about it. He knows just because he likes someone doesn’t mean he won’t have to kill them later. 

Spy knows about who killed Sniper’s parents, and tells Demo, sort of as a test to see where his loyalties lie. He also knows that Pyro is Pauling’s confidant for certain things.

Demo questions him about what he’s doing here, whose side he’s really on. But you know. Spy is Spy and he was never really on anyone’s side but his own. When it comes down to it, it might be exactly as Scout thinks: that he’s ditched them all and run off when he had the opportunity. But, big damn hero, comes back in the end.

He’s here mainly to “keep an eye on things.” Also maybe because his gf asked him to keep an eye on her son :)