#source: the lion king (1994)

[witchpuppies]

R.I.P. James Earl Jones (1931-2024)

[shychick-52]

*Sometime right after Gandra becomes an official member of Team Science, post-series*

Gandra: *to Gyro, Manny (wearing his lab coat, wings folded), and Lil Bulb on Gyro's shoulder* Could you guys excuse us for a few minutes?

Gyro: Excuse me, but whatever she has to say, she can say in front of us! Right, Dr. Intern?

Fenton: Uh... maybe you better go.

Gyro: *throws up his hands in exasperation* ...It starts. You think you know a guy!

*They exit the GizmoCloud, where they'd all been doing experiments*

Fenton: Gyro Gearloose. You'll learn to love him.

Gandra: Forget about him. Now that we're finally alone... *pulls him closer by his tie, and they start to kiss*

*Later, Gyro, Manny, and Lil Bulb stare at the lab's washroom door where the lovebirds are still inside hooked up to the GizmoCloud*

Gyro: Ugh! This is horseshit!

Manny: Excuse me?!

Gyro: I'm talking about them! *gestures toward washroom* Him. Her. *sarcastically sentimental tone* Alone.

Manny: What's wrong with that?

Lil Bulb: It's not as if you don't know they're together.

Gyro: Yes, but she's part of the team now! Things are... different. *starts to sing* I can see what's happening.

Manny: What?

Gyro: And they don't even see.

Lil Bulb: Who?

Gyro: They're so in love, and here's the bottom line- our quartet's down to three. *gestures to the three of them*

Manny: *understanding* Oh.

Gyro: *tearing up* It can be assumed-

Manny: *patting Gyro's back, before singing along* -His science-filled days with us are history.

All: In short, our friend is doomed.

*They all look at each other and burst into loud sobs*

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Have you heard? Disney is making another Lion king, but this time, it's a prequel, and it's going to be about Mufasa's backstory. Which i think it's very interesting. i'm open to seeing how they're going to show/represent the movie. Even though it's coming out of nowhere? A prequel after all these years?

I've also seen a lot of criticism about the movie, even though it's not even out yet. A lot of fans are disappointed that Mufasa and Scar/Taka (interesting how they're using "Taka" instead of "Scar") are no longer blood related brothers, but instead, both are orphans which doesn't make much sense since in the original Lion king Mufasa comes from a lineage of royalty and gives Simba a speech talking about “great kings” and “let me tell you what my father told me” I'm open to new ideas and stuff but i don't know how to feel about it. Maybe it’s the nostalgia? This honestly feels like a cheap cash grab, and seeing how Disney has had quality control issues lately, it's either going to be a flop or not.

I'm just HOPING that they're NOT going down the "misunderstood villain arc" because I've had enough of it. if they’re going for the "Mufasa was adopted and usurper who took Scar's rightful place at the throne! Showing that Scar was right all along."

What do you think?

Oh, I’ve heard of it! I’m not that interested in watching though. I’ll probably just wait for it to come out while praying that TWST gives us free stuff in a promotional campaign and listen to some commentary or review channels give their takes.

According to Wikipedia, Mufasa: The Lion King is supposed to be a sequel to the 2019 live action adaptation, not the original 1994 animated film. The prequel film was confirmed in September of 2020, which isn’t that long after The Lion King live action movie came out. They’ve been steadily releasing new information about Mufasa, such as voice cast reveals in 2021, 2022, and April 2024. It was officially announced and title dropped in 2022 during the D23 Expo. It’s possible that the film took longer to make due to the pandemic and worker’s strikes that occurred between 2020 and now.

On the Scar/Taka thing, I believe “Taka” (I’ve also seen “Askari” in some sources) is Scar’s given name and “Scar” is a nickname Mufasa gave him following an incident in which Taka was as tricked and attacked by other animals, which was the origin of his scar. This information comes from The Lion Guard (a series I haven’t watched myself; this is what I was told by a friend who has). If Scar is being called “Taka” in Mufasa (and assuming The Lion Guard is canon), then that means Mufasa must take place prior to the brothers’ relationship souring and him getting his signature scar.

I watched the trailer and… the phrasing is quite odd??? Now Mufasa is “a lion born without a drop of nobility in his blood”. That implies he and Scar aren’t blood-related. In real life, that makes sense since it’s usually the strongest lion that leads the pack rather than the eldest. Scar has a line where he says Mufasa got the brawn whereas he got the brains, so it sort of supports this idea. However, making it so that Mufasa and Scar are unrelated orphans within the Lion King universe doesn’t make sense if you hold that up next to the already established lore. They imply multiple times that Scar lost his claim to the throne when Simba, Mufasa’s blood-related son, was born to succeed him. So royal blood of the king is important??? The only way Scar could take over was to eliminate those in Mufasa’s lineage. It’s possible that Mufasa’s speech to Simba about the “great kings” and his own father could be in reverence or to show love for his adopted dad or pack…? But that makes those scenes a lot less impactful. Additionally, part of the reason why Scar’s actions are so evil is because he committed fratricide. He turned against his own blood brother, then manipulated his nephew, whom he also shares blood with, into taking the blame. There’s something very visceral and cold-blooded about that—plus it adds to the Hamlet parallels.

Seeing as Mufasa is the titular character, I don’t think they’ll go down the route of intentionally making him the bad guy to Scar. Disney’s so shy about making its main characters morally grey or just bad people… though like you said, they might do it unintentionally because by writing Mufasa as an orphan, that means he’s an illegitimate ruler… meaning Simba is an illegitimate heir… meaning Scar killed/deceived those with no claim to the throne, so actually Scar was not in the wrong at all 💀 But technically it wouldn’t be Scar’s right to rule anyway because he’s not of royal blood either (since you said he's apparently also an orphan? I did not see this mentioned in the trailer though)??? Unless Scar is the one from a royal lineage and everyone else is just dead???

I think it’s still possible that we get something tragic between the two; blood does not determine everything. Mufasa and Taka could form a genuine brotherly bond that later falls apart. It doesn’t really make up for the retconning of current lore, but who knows 😂 maybe they’ll pull some of their old magic out and actually write a story that makes sense to lead into The Lion King. I’m not going to hold my breath though, the live action movies have never been that good to me 💦 I’m going to let the movie come out and speak for itself before I make any real judgments on its quality, as I don’t believe in jumping the gun (even given previous track records).

I wonder what this new movie’s lore would mean for TWST… Since Tamashina Mina was very inspired by The Lion Guard, that means (depending on how the film goes) Mufasa’s events could be retroactively integrated into TWST history?? It’s not a guarantee, but just something to consider.

[disneysactualfirstgaycharacter]

José Carioca & Panchito Pistoles from The Three Caballeros (1944)

Do Not Separate: These two are rarely seen without one another, due to the fact that they are two-parts of a trio, leading fans to interpret them as a couple.

It's Fanon: Due to the line "We're three caballeros, three gay caballeros", many fans, despite the evolution of the term "gay", have elected to ship all three caballeros together.

VS

Timon & Pumbaa from The Lion King (1994)

Do Not Separate: These two are always depicted together as a pair, due to the fact that they fulfill the same narrative role in tandem in their source material. This has lead fans to interpret them as a couple.

Outcasts: The two are introduced as social outcasts, with multiple reasons being given in canon, including their lifestyle choices.

Wait, You Were Joking?: Via improvised joke, Timon dons drag during the third act of The Lion King.

[themousefromfantasyland]

The unproduced Into the Woods Adaptation with Jim Henson Company Animatronics

By Erin McCarthy | Dec 24, 2014

[...]

The show won three Tonys, but Hollywood didn’t come knocking until a few years later. In the early ‘90s, the Jim Henson Company and Storyline approached Sondheim and Lapine with a movie adaptation of the musical that would mix live actors with Henson creatures as the show's animals. The duo signed on, and Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel—who wrote City Slickers and A League of Their Own—penned the script.

Sondheim also wrote two new songs for the project, which he included in Look, I Made a Hat, the second volume in his books of collected lyrics. The first was a new opening number, “I Wish.” While the Broadway show’s first song featured the main characters singing about their wishes, the film version expanded the song to include villagers who sang of their wishes (“I wish my well was filled with beer,” “I wish my son-in-law would disappear,” “I wish my cow could go with me to school”) as they went about their business, and featured a narrator doing a voiceover.

The second new song, "Rainbows," was for the Baker and his Wife and “occurs a bit later,” Sondheim writes in Hat, “when the Baker is despairing about his inability to have children and the wife is trying to conceal her impatience with his pessimism.”

[...]

Sondheim.com, a fansite dedicated to the lyricist/composer, got a peek at a version of the script in 1994, and wrote that “The story basically follows that of the show's first act, although the story unfolds in a different manner, without a narrator or a Mysterious Man”:

Several confusions of the play have been fixed. For example, Rapunzel is no longer related to the Baker, nor does she give birth to twins, so the question of why the family curse didn't affect her has been erased. At the end of the first “act,” the Giant rises from his fall and goes on a rampage, allowing the rest of the story to unfold more-or-less as it did in Act II of the play. The intricate back stories of the Baker's father and the witch's mother have been deleted, eliminating "No More" and changing a bit of "Last Midnight." There is no "second bean," so the Baker's wife's scenes with Cinderella are fairly different. Finally, at the very end of the movie the wife reappears, having tricked the Giant into thinking she was dead. Strangely, there has been no effort to integrate “Children Will Listen” into the action. Rather, the camera just switches to a shot of the witch singing the song against a backdrop of Rapunzel's tower, followed by a montage of the survivors going about their lives after the giant.

“Although there will certainly be more work done on the script before it becomes a film,” the site concluded, “what we've seen is certainly promising, and will definitely be entertaining, even if it's not the Into the Woods we all know and love.”

Two readings of the script were held in Los Angeles: The first included Martin Short as the Baker, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the Baker's Wife, Neil Patrick Harris as Jack, Mary Steenburgen as his mother, Kathy Najimy and Janeane Garofalo as Cinderella’s stepsisters, Cynthia Gibb as Cinderella, Rob Lowe as her prince, Christine Lahti as the Witch, Daryl Hannah as Rapunzel, and Michael Jeter as the Giant. At the second, Robin Williams played the Baker and Goldie Hawn was the Wife; Cher played the Witch, and Steve Martin played the Wolf. Carrie Fisher and Bebe Neuwirth were the stepsisters, Moira Kelly played Cinderella, and Kyle MacLachlan was her prince. Brendan Fraser played Rapunzel’s prince. Elijah Wood was Jack and Roseanne Barr was his mother. The cast was rounded out by Danny DeVito playing the Giant. In 1995, Rob Minkoff, co-director of The Lion King, signed on to direct.

Source:

@ariel-seagull-wings @thealmightyemprex @the-blue-fairie @piterelizabethdevries @theancientvaleofsoulmaking @mask131 @princesssarisa

[theic-manic]

Parallels can also be drawn between Disney’s 1994 film The Lion King and the myth. This film is widely touted as an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet but the bard’s play may very well have taken inspiration from the myth of Horus and Seth.

Source

You know, I'm unsure if I am quite unhinged enough for a Disney's 1994 The Lion King adaptation of the same myth that fucking inspired the ennead manwha.

...

Actually, yes, I think I am.

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

One of the earliest looks at THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, back when it was going to be released as a mainline Walt Disney Pictures films, appears on the 1993 VHS release of PINOCCHIO...

The PINOCCHIO VHS in question streeted in late March of that year, and copies were printed as early as January. Maybe even earlier, so this was early on in the film's road to release.

Close to release, it was decided to have NIGHTMARE be a Touchstone Pictures title instead, as Disney higher-ups had concerns over the film's "macabre" content. 13 years later, in 2006, it was rebranded as a "Walt Disney Pictures" film and all current copies and versions open with that CGI castle logo.

Today, Animation Compendia uploaded an international trailer from the year after its North American release...

Built around the PINOCCHIO VHS trailer, and adding THE LION KING now that that film had already been out in most of Europe before this movie debuted across the Atlantic, it's fascinating to see it open with a Touchstone logo but still hype up how it's part of the Disney legacy of innovation, along with WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT... Even though Disney tried to distance it and that movie from the Disney name...

ROGER RABBIT is its own breed, though. Disney had BIG theme park plans for the movie, with only a few of them materializing (like ToonTown in Anaheim), and Disney Feature Animation did three shorts w/ Roger, Jessica, and Baby Herman, two of which that ran before mainline Disney movies. (The first of them, TUMMY TROUBLE, was attached to HONEY I SHRUNK THE KIDS. The third, TRAIL MIX-UP, was with A FAR OFF PLACE.)

It's also kinda weird seeing LION KING before this movie, but yeah, in Europe... LION KING was out first, then NIGHTMARE.

Here in North America, NIGHTMARE came out in October 1993, and THE LION KING was a June 1994 release.

THE LION KING was originally meant to be a Thanksgiving 1993 release, following the Thanksgiving debuts of OLIVER & COMPANY, LITTLE MERMAID, RESCUERS DOWN UNDER, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, and ALADDIN... All in a row...

But when LION KING's story issues proved to be a larger problem than anticipated, it broke the new "Disney animated event every Thanksgiving/holiday season" tradition and moved to the summer. So that meant NIGHTMARE had that space to itself, albeit, opening wide two days before Halloween and playing throughout the season. As long as it could, anyways. NIGHTMARE was only a moderate success, grossing a still impressive $50m domestically. Many clicks above Disney's competition (it was even a little bit higher than what Don Bluth's '80s hits AN AMERICAN TAIL and THE LAND BEFORE TIME took in), but quite a few clicks below BEAUTY and ALADDIN.

In Europe, however, THE LION KING was released first. The UK, for example, got it in October 1994. NIGHTMARE was closer to Thanksgiving that year. This was during a weird time where not only did Disney's newest animated movies open waaaay after, theatrically, in Europe... But also, Warner Bros. (!) distributed some of the movies!

Weird, huh?

A practice not uncommon way before these corporations all began to firmly say "All of this stuff is under ONE roof", believe it or not! Disney was no stranger.

For example, in Italy throughout the 1970s, Cinema International Corporation handled distribution of Disney's films. Here's an opening to a 1979 re-release of PETER PAN - sourced from a Super 8 reel - that has their logo following a blanked-out Buena Vista title card...

Disney joined w/ Warner Bros. to distribute their movies in the UK and a few other European territories in 1988, but then ended things in 1992 after BEAUTY AND THE BEAST came out in Europe, later creating a new version of Buena Vista International. That logo, you can see at the beginning of the NIGHTMARE trailer Animation Compendia just uploaded, showed up towards the end of 1993.

They became so big by that point in time, they could now handle more theatrical distribution overseas. Video was still an exception, though. In a country like, say, Brazil, Disney's video releases were put out by a regional company called Abril Video. That's one example of many. You get the idea, right?

Disney minutiae.

[karlamon]

Decided to give Topsters a try and listed my 25 favourite films, shows, games, and albums.

Starting off with Topsters list for my 25 favourite movies:

Airplane! (1980)

Apollo 13 (1995)

Balto (1995)

Bolt (2008)

Children of Men (2006)

Finding Nemo (2003)

Gravity (2013)

The Iron Giant (1999)

Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)

The Lion King (1994)

Migration (2023)

Nimona (2023)

The Prince of Egypt (1998)

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)

Ratatouille (2007)

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)

Sing 2 (2021)

Surf's Up (2007)

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

United 93 (2006)

The Wild Robot (2024)

You Were Never Really Here (2017)

Zootopia (2016)

Next is my Topsters list for my 25 favourite shows:

Aggretsuko (2018 - 2023)

The Angry Beavers (1997 - 2003)

The Angry Video Game Nerd (2004 - Present)

Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005 - 2008)

Band of Brothers (2001)

Bluey (2018 - Present)

BNA (2020)

Chernobyl (2019)

Digimon: Digital Monsters [Adventure (1999), Adventure 02 (2000), Tamers (2001)]

Ed, Edd n Eddy (1999 - 2009)

Green Eggs and Ham (2019 - 2022)

Mayday [aka, Air Crash Investigation] (2003 - Present)

Mythbusters (2003 - 2016)

Primal (2019 - Present)

Regular Show (2010 - 2017)

Robot Chicken (2005 - Present)

Rocko's Modern Life (1993 - 1996)

Seconds from Disaster (2004 - 2018)

The Simpsons (1989 - Present)

South Park (1997 - Present)

SpongeBob SquarePants (1999 - Present)

Thomas & Friends (1984 - 2021)

Untalkative Bunny (2001 - 2003)

We Bare Bears (2015 - 2019)

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (2000 - 2004)

Then it's my Topsters list for my 25 favourite games:

Alan Wake (2010)

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007)

Civilzation VI (2016)

Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy (2017)

Croc: Legend of the Gobbos (1997)

Day of Defeat: Source (2005)

Destruction Derby Raw (2000)

Digimon: Rumble Arena (2001)

Dust: An Elysian Tail (2012)

Euro Truck Simulator 2 (2012)

Fallout 3 (2008)

Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020)

Grand Theft Auto V (2013)

Half-Life 2 (2004)

LEGO Island (1997)

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (2002)

Papers, Please (2013)

Portal (2007)

Ratchet & Clank (2002)

The Simpsons Game (2007)

Spyro Reignited Trilogy (2018)

Super Animal Royale (2018)

Team Fortress 2 (2007)

Tekken 3 (1997)

VRChat (2014)

And finally, here's my Topsters list for my 25 favourite albums:

Brian Eno - Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1978)

Poets of the Fall - Carnival of Rust (2006)

Have a Nice Life - Deathconsciousness (2008)

God Is an Astronaut - The End of the Beginning (2002)

Failure - Fantastic Planet (1996)

Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile (1999)

Shihad - The General Electric (1999)

Björk - Homogenic (1997)

Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory (2000)

Radiohead - Kid A (2000)

Sigur Rós - Kveikur (2013)

Talk Talk - Laughing Stock (1991)

My Bloody Valentine - Loveless (1991)

Swervedriver - Mezcal Head (1993)

Massive Attack - Mezzanine (1998)

Solar Fields - Movements (2009)

Mogwai - Mr. Beast (2006)

Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children (1998)

David Gray - A New Day at Midnight (2002)

Jon Hopkins - Opalescent (2001)

Meniscus - Refractions (2016)

Jakob - Solace (2006)

"Weird Al" Yankovic - Straight Outta Lynwood (2006)

Ulrich Schnauss - A Strangely Isolated Place (2003)

Deftones - White Pony (2000)

Feel free to create your own Topsters list here:

[queenlucythevaliant]

Animated concept for The Horse and His Boy

Image sources: Aladin (1992), Artbreeder images that I ran through the ToonMe filter, The Aristocats (1970), Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), The Lion King (1994)

[saleintothe90s]

498. Flintstones 1994 Garbage (part 2)

(part 1)

Kids were further unimpressed with the merchandise. I'm guessing because the movie had a kid look, but adult storylines, maybe? That was Roger Ebert's cricisim of the film I remember.

Inspired by over merchandised films such as Jurassic Park, Hook, and Dick Tracy, there was about 1,000 Flintstones products licensed 3.

(eBay seller mansfieldmerchandise)

(eBay seller Pamela's Place)

Turns out there was also a non-movie Flintstones lunchbox sold like this too at Blockbuster. That thermos definitely leaked.

(eBay seller Stacked Actors Media)

(eBay seller VChoiceVintage)

So a few years back, I brought up the lunchbox in one of my first newspaper of the month series posts. Turns out there were several other ones that probably no kid carried around because like I said a few years ago, the kids had probably forgotten about Flintstones by Back to School season. They probably all wanted Lion King lunchboxes.

(eBay seller niksstuff)

Did we all have these little toothbrush n soap kits? I had Barbie and Miss Piggy. I wonder why we wanted them so bad. Was it because the tiny soap reminded us of family vacations at the ol Motel 8?

(eBay seller Tony's Clubhouse)

(eBay seller thriftskibizz)

We could've had a Flintstones party that Summer.

(Google Books, her article begins around page 36)

For some inexplicable reason, Halle Berry didn't get an action figure (maybe she was too sexy? 4), but she did wind up on the cover of Jet promoting the movie. She was one of the best parts of the movie. I like that she got away with smoking in a movie aimed for kids.

(source)

I mean, even Kyle McLaughlin got a figure.

(eBay seller stairway2sales)

Originally sold at a store called itzadeal for $3. This doesn't look fun?

(eBay seller galis-40)

Halle didn't get a figure, but Big Bite Fred did? Did he eat in the movie? I mean yeah he got the big rib put on the car at the end of the film, but that don't count!

I read somewhere that due to the giant push to get items out on time, toy designers were really working bare-bones (no pun). There were a couple of action figures that didn't have anything to do the movie. 3

(eBay seller we_sell_cheap) -- yes, note that clearance tag.

This scene did make it into the movie though. Boy that figure does NOT look like Rick, does it?

(eBay seller vilhousemanhouten)

All the Barney stuff is kinda scary! I feel like if a doll customizer tried really hard enough, they could make a OOAK Steve Carell doll out of Barney.

(eBay seller Thrift More!)

These bendable figures of any franchise were never fun, never stood up without supervision. I just noticed that Betty wore a house arrest anklet in the movie.

(eBay seller Jessica’s Little Shop of Hoarders)

This might be my favorite bit of merchandise. The doll really looks like Pebbles from the movie, and her toys look like actual props from the movie.

(eBay seller Dashboard Collectibles)

Unlike this figure. The toy designers apparently had a hard time trying to portray Elizabeth Perkins who played Wilma into a figure:

Some of the actors' likenesses proved hard to transform into playthings. Elizabeth Perkins, as Wilma, was especially difficult. "She's quite pretty, isn't she?" said C. J. Michael Hebden, Mattel's chief sculptor, holding up a photograph of the actress. "A little dodgy in a toy, though." 3

(eBay seller Retro Mediaverse)

Dino, No! That reminds me, who was stuck in the Dino costume in the episode of Full House where Michelle had a Flinststones party...it was Danny! My favorite Tanner.

(eBay seller GARBAGE ARCHIVE)

This is the one piece of Flintstones merchandise outside of RocDonalds I remember as if it was yesterday. In the Spring of 1995, I was briefly part of a cheerleading squad, and we had a car wash in front of the old Coliseum Mall. During lunch everybody took turns going into the mall, and a group of girls came back with Flintstones movie candy from Everything's a $1.00. That's where all the Flintstones merch probably ended up at, Everything's a $1.00.

Oh, I almost forgot, there was an episode of MTV's The Grind that was filmed with what appears to be set pieces from the movie.

Related Links:

Joe Ramoni's video on the movie -- that's sad that John Goodman really didn't want to be there on the set.

Dinosaur Dracula reviewed a Toys R Us Treat Box based on the film.

Hey, so I got sick of my Cricut and now I'm trying a TeePublic store for designs related to my blog entries. Garbage merch if you will.

Facebook | Etsy | Retail History Blog | Twitter | YouTube Playlist | Random Post | Ko-fi donation | instagram / threads @thelastvcr​ | tik tok @ saleintothe90s | TeePublic Store

Fitzgerald, Kate. “`FLINTSTONES’ TIE-INS DON’T ROCK KIDS.” AdAge, June 20, 1994. https://archive.is/2024.07.07-203607/https://adage.com/article/news/flintstones-tie-ins-rock-kids/86575.

Hofmeister, Sallie. “In the Realm of Marketing, ‘The Lion King’ Rules.” The New York Times, July 12, 1994, sec. Business. https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/12/business/in-the-realm-of-marketing-the-lion-king-rules.html.

Ramirez, Anthony. “Gold In Bedrock?” The New York Times, May 22, 1994, sec. Style. https://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/22/style/gold-in-bedrock.html.

EW.com. “Halle Berry Skipped in ‘“Flintstones”’ Marketing.” Accessed July 13, 2024. https://ew.com/article/1994/06/10/halle-berry-skipped-flintstones-marketing/.

[yamiheart]

In CELEBRATION of Fanfiction

AI-generated content seems to be aiming at every possible creative pursuit as of late. Theft of art and art styles has become so insidious that digital artists are being forced to “mask” their posted pieces in ways that human eyes can’t detect yet completely scramble AI art programs. AI “animation,” while currently in a state of fairly poor quality, has proven to be feasible, and thus threatens the status of already precarious and underpaid animators throughout the world. Even photographers and their models are not immune to the pressure of the seemingly “miraculous” output of hundreds of thousands of lifelike, frontpage-ready images by AI programs. 

Of course, the above mentioned are all visual mediums. The art of conversation and the written word has also been in the eye of AI for a long time. “Chatbots” have been around for almost as long as the concept of the computer itself, and The Turing Test is still a popular measure of a successful AI chatting program to this day. Back in my childhood days, “Cleverbot” was a novelty chatbot that was fun to chat with for a few minutes, but quickly became stale. As most of you reading likely already know, ChatGPT, on the other hand, has taken the world by storm. Schools are contending with students submitting AI-written reports (a very futuristic-sounding cheating method indeed), and many writing-based industries, already squeezed by the looming threats of a post-pandemic recession, are in turmoil over the potential of the complete replacement of humans by the machines. 

I myself am in no way an AI expert. I do not know if the current state of AI is just a fad or a true industry disruptor. What I do know about, however, is fanfiction, and it seems that people want AI to write it, too. 

I have been writing fanfiction since 2010, back when I was in middle school. I would write for hours and hours, exploring characters and ideas in ways the original source material (in this case, the original Yu-Gi-Oh! series) never intended. I would then post these works onto fanfiction(dot)net for mostly my irl friends and a few dozen strangers to read and enjoy. Over the years, I’ve cycled through a few different fandoms and made the switch to the currently-preferred fanfic-posting website, Archive of Our Own -otherwise known as “Ao3.”  LiveJournal, FFnet, Wattpad, Ao3 -all of these websites and more have had hundreds of thousands if not millions of fanfictions posted and consumed. Fanfiction isn’t just a small circle of Star Trek fans sharing secret magazines through the mail -and in some ways, it never was just that. 

Many “classics” today are, in some way or another, fanfiction by another name. Consider, for instance, the well-known fact that Disney’s 1994 hit movie, The Lion King, is just a retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. When anonymous authors online turn all of their favorite characters into lions or wolves, it’s considered “furry cringe,” but when multi-billion dollar corporations do the same, it’s considered “art.” 

House is a modern-day hospital-au version of Sherlock Holmes. 

All fairytale “reimaginings,” such as the TV drama Once Upon a Time, are fanfictions in every sense of the word.

The current Batman cannon has so many reimaginings that it’s a gag in The Lego Batman Movie!

And these are just some American/European examples. The first “modern” novel, The Tale of Genji, has such a long history of fanart and fanfiction in Japan that there are literal traveling museum exhibitions to display small fractions of what has been (and continues to be) produced. However, in these exhibitions, the words “art” and “fiction” are never preceded by “fan.” These works, though just as “derivative” in content as anything you would find in internet fanspaces today, get to once again simply be “art.” 

What is the difference? Where is the line between literature worthy of “respect” and literature considered worthy of constant derision?

I do not have all the answers, but please allow me to present some for your consideration.

As you may have noticed in my above examples, most of the original works being reimagined are, indeed, in the public domain. This means that no one owns the rights to these original works anymore, and thus they can be reproduced faithfully or completely changed without threat of legal trouble. This also means that all reproductions can make money for the reproducers without hassle. Batman is a somewhat curious case in this instance, since many of his reimaginings are in and of themselves canon while still carrying many of the hallmarks of fanfiction. 

We will return to the curious case of Batman later, but needless to say legality and potential monetary gain make up an important component of the supposed high-literature/lowly-fanfiction divide. If you ever click on “older” fanfictions, particularly those from the 2000s and early-2010s, you will see constant repetition of phrases such as “I do not own X” or “please don’t sue me”. Later authors, including my own childhood self, repeated these out of an abundance of caution without really knowing why. Afterall, no one on websites like FFnet honestly thought the authors owned the “original” works in question to begin with. The problem, as I understand it now, arose from the infamous response of author Anne Rice to fanfiction of her book series, The Vampire Chronicles. In 2001, she made it very clear that her works and characters were protected by copyright, and that she was willing and ready to sue any supposed-copycats. Fanfics were purged by both individual authors and entire websites who were either afraid of the mere threat of legal action or had been notified of impending legal action if there was no change respectively. 

The state of fanfiction legality has come a long way in 20+ years, but even Ao3, which has lawyers on hand to defend both its own existence and the rights of its authors, does not allow authors to talk about taking commissions (ie, getting paid) or post links to websites such as kofi or patreon. The idea of “making money” off of fanfiction still exists in a dangerous gray zone that not even the lawyers of Ao3 can protect you from. 

Still, one of the stereotypes of the true artiste is that they do not create with money in mind to begin with, so this cannot be the only factor in fanfiction’s discrediting as an art form. Another consideration, then, is the content of fanfiction itself. So far, I have not endeavored to try and define the word “fanfiction.” Everyone reading this surely has their own conception of the word in mind either from first-hand experience or cultural osmosis. To me, defining fanfiction is as fruitless a pursuit as trying to define any other medium of artistic expression. What is sculpture? What is painting? What is documentary filmmaking? Definitions require limits, and limits breed exceptions. 

Perhaps the broadest stereotypical definition of fanfiction is that it is derivative work containing sexually-explicit love stories of a primarily homosexual-male variety. Many of the most famous pairings -KirkxSpock, SasukexNaruto, DanxPhil- would seem, to the distant observer, to fit this stereotype. A related stereotype replaces the homosexual-male romance with a heterosexual romance between a male celebrity/fictional character and a female oc or “original character” who is thus presumed to be the author’s self-insert (meaning that the female oc is a one-to-one reflection of the author herself). Think of all the most infamous One Direction fanfiction for a taste of this stereotypical form. 

However, as you may have guessed, these stereotypes lead to a superficial understanding of what fanfiction can be. If you go to Ao3 right now, you will find that there are five content ratings that can be attached to a fic: General Audiences, Teen and Up Audiences, Mature, Explicit, and Not Rated. By definition, there is no way to know what sort of content is in a “Not Rated” fic, but putting that aside, let us for a moment be ultra-conservative and assume ALL “Explicit” and “Mature” fanfictions have sex (as an author who has used this system, I know for a fact that they do not). Even with this ultra-conservative assumption, going to any popular series with over 200,000 archived stories will reveal to you that sexually-explicit fanfictions make up less than half of what is published. What types of stories are contained in the majority of fanfictions, then?

Well, let’s take a moment to look at the chat fic as just one example. Chat fics are not the most popular type of fanfiction, but they often attract a fair amount of readers. Chat fics are meant to be, well, group chats between fictional characters. Some may have suggestions of romance, but many of these fics would be better described as chaotic, humor-driven affairs (the humor in this case, as in all cases, being somewhat subjective). Authors often have the freedom to play around with each character’s screen name, as well as what other characters might have someone saved as in smaller or private chats. Details like these reveal that, while chat fics may appear on the surface to be some of the most simple and easy-to-write fanfictions, they often require in-depth knowledge of not just canon facts but also fanon (“fan canon”) tropes to be accepted and enjoyed authentically by readers. The implementation of this knowledge is doubly impressive when the original source material exists in a world without cellphones and the internet, and thus the author must find a way to strike a balance between referencing the original character/trait/meme/etc while making it seem congruent in the new setting. Indeed, the achievement of a particularly impressive “reference” in any fic is often met with high praise by readers in the comment section of the story.   

I should say now that none of this is meant to stigmatize or label sexually-explicit fanfiction as somehow “inauthentic.” It is authentic and it is important, but it is not all that fanfiction is. One of the greatest beauties of fanfiction, as has been observed in pieces like Dan Olson’s breakdown of the Fifty Shades movies on the Folding Ideas YouTube channel, is that it lets both authors and readers get to the “good stuff” without having to be bogged down by character introductions and worldbuilding. In the contract of fanfiction, both the author and the reader have already done some amount of prior “research” so that everyone is more or less on the same page about certain aspects of the work. This is why the many iterations of Batman work no matter the change in scenery or storyline: both authors and readers are bringing assumptions to the table that they are ready and willing to see both reaffirmed and challenged. 

Again, a common reason for praise in the comment sections of fanfictions comes from the perceived accuracy of a character’s depiction within the story. In this case, it doesn’t matter if the creator of the original work would actually agree with the characterization in the fanfiction, just that the fanfic author and the reader agree that it is authentic. It is understandable, then, that creators like Anne Rice would feel threatened by fanfiction. In some cases, this fear is legitimate: no well-intentioned creator would want their work altered in order to spread hateful messages, afterall. Additionally, when characters in a story are not merely fictional but are real, living celebrities/singers/idols/youtubers/etc., there are some reasonable questions about ethics and consent to consider. However, what I have mostly found throughout my years as a writer and reader is that the fanfiction contract allows for a deeper exploration of themes that mainstream media simply does not or will not explore.

This brings us to the final consideration today for why fanfiction is so often belittled and mocked, and to put it quite simply it is the creators and audience themselves. Returning to stereotypes once more, people often imagine that fanfiction is written by and for heterosexual, teenage, cis-gendered girls. The social trend of shitting on the interest of teenage girls is another topic for another time. For now, I certainly will not deny that these people exist within the space, but I also would not say they are necessarily the majority. I can only speak from my own experiences, but I have found is that fanfiction holds a strong attraction for individuals of queer genders and sexualities. These individuals, searching both to express their own feelings and to find a community, can use fanfiction as a means of attaining both. This is partially why sexually explicit fanfiction, while not the majority of what is written, can be some of the most powerful and subversive content that is produced. Fanfiction written about men is almost never fanfiction written for cis-gender men, and the truth is that pornography written by gender/sexual minorities for gender/sexual minorities just hits different. 

And when it comes to minority or disadvantaged groups, queer individuals are by no means the only ones who find freedom in fanfiction. Taking characters “everyone” knows and writing them with depression, anxiety, ADHD, Autism, etc., allows authors and readers to feel fully realized in fiction for the first time. Fanfiction can be just as, and sometimes even more, resonant than traditional fiction because of just how strong people’s feelings are for their favorite characters. If those favorite characters were dismissed or betrayed in the source material, they can be given a second chance at “life” in the fanfiction. Even when this is not the case, there may be elements to characters that simply resonate with minority voices and inspire further creation even after the canon story ends.

Fanfiction is not perfect by any means. There is quite a lot to be said about problems such as the misogyny and racism that can “slip by” or be fully adopted by a fandom uncriticized. Once again, however, this is true of any artistic medium, and that’s what fanfiction is: a medium of expression, not a genre. Fanfiction can be romance, but it can also be sci-fi, mystery, comedy, thriller, historical drama, adventure, and more. It is creation constrained only by the written word itself. 

Now let me tie this all back to the beginning. As I alluded to, there has recently been an increased interest in allowing ChatGPT to “write” fanfiction. I am here to say that AI fanfiction is not real fanfiction. While it is true that AI is by its very nature derivative in its outputs, AI is hollow. It has nothing to say. Fanfiction is a rich and flourishing medium which takes characters the dominant powers in society have “allowed” us to have, and it breathes into these characters fresh, minority voices. Fanfiction is art, and it is worthy of celebration, not derision and cheap imitation.

[witchpuppies]

(via GIPHY)

[ofvaliancys]

[ LEE DOHYUN, 30, CIS MAN, HE/HIM ] welcome to Antioch, MOON HYUN-JIN ! local sources report that you’ve been in town for 23 YEARS and are known to be AMIABLE yet CAPRICIOUS. others have dredged up rumors that you’re involved in THE STELLAR SOCIETY as A CULT DEFECTOR, but most know you for your work as a DOCTOR at SAINT PETER'S HOSPITAL. we’ll see you around town soon ! 

THE BASICS.

character name. moon hyun-jin nicknames. jin, jinnie ( close friends ) faceclaim. lee do-hyun birthday. june 10, 1994 place of birth. seoul, south korea sexuality. bisexual zodiac. gemini mbti. tba moral alignment. tba occupation. doctor place of work. saint peter's hospital subplot affiliation. the stellar society 3 positive traits. amiable, meticulous, steadfast 3 negative traits. acerbic, capricious, vindictive languages. korean, english love language. acts of service

BACKGROUND.

read here !

WANTED CONNECTIONS.

stellar society members: current or former ! for current, are they mad that he defected and resent him for the fact ? do they keep tabs on him, worried that he'll spill their secrets ? will they try and convince him to return ? or do they understand why he left, and want him to help them ? anything is possible !

extended family: hyunjin surely has relatives out there that he hasn't spoken to in ages ... a cousin perhaps ? maybe they helped him get out of the society, or housed him afterwards !

ride or die / best friend: someone that has been there for him through everything. think platonic soulmates ... they know everything about each other, even the side of hyunjin that he keeps under lock and key. potentially roommates ?

childhood friends: self-explanatory ! bonus points if they knew his mother <3

friends from university: they would've had to be very patient with him ... or not ! he was very reclusive and stern, probably pushing away ( or trying to ) the people he cared about. he owes them an apology, either way.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION.

hyunjin is very much a golden retriever ; the most lighthearted person, easy to get along with. if you've ever met him, even just briefly, you’d know he has a heart of gold. it's worn on his sleeve ! would he give you the shirt off of his back if you needed it ? definitely. however, there's a lot more to him than what meets the eye. don't let those puppy eyes fool you into thinking he's naive !

he’s an attending at saint peter’s ! hardworking king.

he has an orange cat named saja ( lion ), and a little corgi named eun-bi. they're his children & they're so spoiled.

despite being the gentlest, nicest sweetheart, he has a more ... complex, stern side to his personality. he's unpredictable ! at this point in his life, he's mastered façades, and the skill of cunning. he's extremely perceptive ; gets reads on people and situations quickly, and if you've done something to hurt him or someone he cares about, he will go out of his way to get closer to you, earn your trust, just to take you down in the end.

now that he's no longer seeking revenge on his father / is out of the society, he's attending therapy. his healing journey is finally started ! he's prone to episodes of catatonia and is a very paranoid individual below the surface ; he is on antipsychotics to treat hallucinations.

like jae, hyunjin is blunt. straight to the point. where they differ in this is jae hates conversing to begin with and usually walks away from things, lacking the energy for petty things, while hyunjin likes to dig his heel in — he's smart-mouthed, and will clap back, usually with a smile. his father hated how stubborn and snarky he can be, but at least it's entertaining !

*more to be added !

[coulsonlives]

Today I learned that Disney's Lion King did not, in fact, rip off Kimba the White Lion.

If you go on youtube, you'll see a lot of videos comparing Kimba to Lion King, and generally claiming that Kimba ripped off Lion King. And they show a bunch of footage from Kimba. But the footage of Kimba that they use? It's from the 1997 Kimba movie.

See where I'm going with this?

Yeah..

The Lion King was released in 1994! That's three whole years before Kimba was released. Three whole years before all that 'similar footage' came out.

The Lion King couldn't rip off a movie that came out 3 years after it. On top of it, there's been a lot of attention-grabbing misinformation on twitter and stuff, with zero corroborating sources. I guess just to ride the 'Disney Sucks' train because they know it gets views?

And any other comparison footage from Kimba is just coincidental, super, super misrepresented.. Or its relevance in the overall show is blown out of proportion. Kimba has thousands of minutes of video footage from its properties, they have tons of scenes where different characters use their surroundings, do certain things, etc which kinda makes it nearly impossible for The Lion King to even show animals doing things without sometime, somewhere, being compared to something that happened in Kimba.

That scene where 'Kimba shoves a villain off a cliff' is taken from multiple different Kimba releases, and cut together to look like a remake of TLK's ending. That's why the villain lion changes colour in some of the shots lol.

Even the comparisons between the characters are dumb. The birds are nothing alike, and the hyenas in Kimba are just stereotypical villains with no personality. The villain lion dude pops up in like <10 episodes out of dozens and dozens of episodes and is just designed that way because villain tropes.

Tezuka productions, as a reply to peoples' claims that Disney ripped em off, has even come out to say 'they understand if you set a movie in Africa, there's a limited number of animal types (like birds hyenas etc) you can use'.

Literally, every single claim about The Lion King copying Kimba is manipulated to make a fake point.

So.. Y'all, we have been hardcore tricked!

This is the most damning first six minutes of a youtube video I've ever seen, the rest of the video is great too.

[disneysactualfirstgaycharacter]

Ursula from The Little Mermaid (1989)

There’s History There: Ursula was notably inspired by the drag legend, Divine, in design, narrative role, and some of her mannerisms.

Outcast: It’s a common reading that Ursula’s role as an outcast who aids Ariel, who also feels ostracized, to her own benefit and Ariel’s detriment, parallels the phenomenon of predation on newly-out queer people.

VS

Scar from The Lion King (1994)

It’s Fanon: He exhibits overtly dramatic and effeminate behavior throughout his appearance in his source material, in a way that fans have interpreted as queer in nature.

Controversial: Scar is considered the most iconic queer-coded Disney villain, having received both praise (in terms of community reclamation) and criticism (due to the homophobic nature of queer-coding villains) for the way he is depicted in the film.

[dabideku-tododeku-bakudeku-2023]

Hi....If you don't mind, can I ask, what are your top 10 (or top 7) favorite media (can be books/ manga/ anime/movies/tv series)? Why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before......Thanks....

Thanks for asking! I have a lot of favorites but narrowing them down to ten will be a challenge. I will try though!

Top 10

Ten: Howl's Moving Castle (Book)

Nine: The Lion King (2019) (Movie)

Eight: Mobile Suit Gundam Wing (Anime)

Seven: Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz (Anime Movie)

Five: Heaven Official's Blessing/TGCF (Donghua/Anime)

Four: Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation/MDZS (Donghua/Danmei)

Three: Naruto/Shippuden (Manga/Anime)

Two: The Hobbit (Book)

One: The Lion King (1994) (Movie)

Number one may be of shock but it was the first movie I remember loving as a kid, and even now, I can watch it in different languages and STILL understand what is going on purely from memory! Now I also didn't include My Hero Academia in this, although I have been obsessed with it lately, and that is purely because I actually have not read or watched it yet! I have gotten my knowledge and love for it through osmosis and fervent research!

Gundam Wing was the first anime that I fell in love with, and Endless Waltz was the first anime movie I watched and bought. Naruto/Shippuden was my first obsession, and the source material for my first fanon Yaoi ship.

The Hobbit was my first full-length novel. I read it in the 4th grade, and after taking a test on it, I got 17/20 questions right, which was a surprise for my teachers!

MDZS and TGCF are the first Danmei/Donghua I got into, and that was literally about 6 months ago!

There are plenty of other media I like. The Magic School Bus was my favorite cartoon growing up. Then there is Emergency (circa 1970's). I like the Alien franchise a lot. Mobile Suit Gundam SEED is another anime I love. I am also a big fan of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives from the Food Network. Card Captor Sakura is good to watch. There are countless others, the ones I listed are simply the most influential ones to the person I am now.

Tell me, what are your faves?