#talking about cartoons for too long

[torpedopickle]

I finally watched Transformers Earthspark Season 2 today. I have a lot of thoughts and I wrote some paragraphs for every episode. As you can see I wrote a LOT, enjoy my way too long cartoon analysis:

Episode 1: the cracks are showing but it hasn't crumbled yet

The animation feels less alive than in season 1 even if strong storyboarding still carries some scenes, as I know several of the season 1 storyboarders did work on this episode. It has a couple good sequences, a couple incredibly stilted ones. The overreliance on slowmo feels weird, and the animation struggles to properly convey things, like how we're supposed to take Hashtag's injury very seriously, but it just looked like she got bumped lightly.

the Decepticons are butchered and watered down into "evil because they're Decepticons". Chaos Terrans is an interesting concept and the way they're executing Aftermath would provide a foundation for exploring topics such as delinquent youth, but knowing how the series will go on to treat them in later episodes, I'm not hopeful.

the Maltos feel like they're sleepwalking. They have a lot of screentime but for some reason they don't feel present at all, it's like I'm watching their shadows move around on screen without the things that made them feel alive shining through.

If I didn't know beforehand what this season would eventually stagnate into, I could see myself being fooled into thinking the gripes I have with this episode are just growing pains, however i'm not so hopeful.

Episode 2: Improved in some ways but not in others. The episode premise is decent, and the narrower focus compared to episode 1 does help make the focus characters feel a bit more like themselves again. Unfortunately i just don't think the premise was utilized well at all. Introducing quintessons to the conflict is kind of a big development, but it doesn't flesh them out well IMO. They treat them like wild animals with no characterization for a majority of it, and then hint at some deeper conflicts at the very 3nd before promptly disposingof them. So ultimately it feels unsatisfying (although we do get some expositon in episode 9, but it doesn't add up to much).

And once again i must comment on the character acting on the humans especially being severely lacking.

Robbie and Mo having helmets for like half their screentime definitely feels like a cut corner not to animate their faces

Episode 3 review: some well animated sequences this time around, i'd seen the storyboards for them on twitter and they're really well done, but then there's some others that really werent as decent, so big ups and down in animation quality. Most of the episode did feel like a slight return to formula for Earthspark tho, with how it felt like it was actually making a point about something for once, which so far has been rare in season 2, although the conclusion wasn't the most satisfying with the whole "you can't have everything" message but then hashtag kinda gets most of what she wanted anyway.

Episode 4 is like.... baffling.

Like the fact that they swapped to a wholly different and much cheaper animation studio was so far just somewhat shining through, but now it's impossible to unsee. The animation here feels BEYOND stilted, in every way. Like not even the 2D FX animation looked convincing this time. That clip of Robbie dropping a cake is the weirdest animated thing i've ever seen. It's like it gets sucked out of his hands by a magnet.

The Faire Maestro is a type of character I feel like would have been handled really well in Transformers Animated but was just kinda nothing here, super ugly design too and very odd voice direction. Lots of just bizarre and mindboggling things in this episode, like them seeing faire maestro having an emberstone shard, and then deciding to steal it right in front of his face for absolutely no reason even though they think he's a normal guy and not a villain. And tiny inconsistencies like Mo knowing his name even though he never said it. Bizarre episode all around, Weird Al cameo is cute but then he's gone.

Episode 5 review: Finally Jawbreaker gets to be in it. Except now he feels like a baby. Just a big stomping juvenile baby.

And speaking of big stomping babies, Aftermath is one too. He feels like he's supposed to be a representation of troubled/delinquent youth who don't get along with their peers and who don't have positive role models or a support network, but he really comes off as being just... chaotic, no real sense of interiority to him other than "I'm mean and I enjoy being mean and I can't help it". He's entertaining on a surface level vibes basis, but it doesn't feel like any attempts are being made at making a point. He's barely been in the show so pretty much anything that could make his character interesting is completely missing. Like there's no development of how the decepticons are raising him other than the basic assumption of "bad role models", and the decepticons barely get to be characters this season either. Aftermath feels like an Afterthought, as Chaos Terrans have basically been less than a footnote, and the series has attempted to do no form of storytelling with them beyond surface level observations that honestly feel insulting to the other characters like how the decepticons are just evil now, and the autobots/terrans have lost all nuanced expressions of empathy and solidarity in favor of just "they're generally friendly"

oh and also the evil mushrooms are boring.

Episode 6 review: Man this episode just *feels* wrong, like viscerally.

The show's handling of the chaos terrans just keeps getting worse. There's absolutely NOTHING about spitfire that compels any form of empathy. Like there's not even a mote of her being a troubled and misguided youth, she's just straight up ontologically cruel, like nothing about the conflict in this episode regards a failure to understand, communicate, or empathise with each other, it's just a straight up rejection of those things on both sides. For this chaos terran delinquent analogy thing to work you NEED there to be a sense of humanity or waywardness to them. You NEED to be able to conceive of them as being capable of more than just anger. This just feels meanspirited, especially the way the Maltos have no desire for Spitfire to be better. They just wholeheartedly accept that she's ontologically evil, and honestly, the way she's presented in this episode you'd think they were right, but they're not SUPPOSED to be right.

It sucks too cuz chaos terrans are a great idea

season 1's terrans were all representations of good natured minority kids, particularly third culture kids, who despite their best intentions and kindness end up having to fight for acceptance.

The chaos terrans are a natural progression of that, with depicting kids who end up on the fringe of society because they're inherently different from others and have a harder time being understood, and who don't have a support network to set them straight.

So it starts out in a place where they'd easily be able to build on it, but it's squandered imo. And for several reasons:

1. the Decepticons are 1 dimensional bad guys this season so they fail to capitalize on any potential storytelling they could have done with how their generational resentment might be passed down to the younger generation. They also fail to build any sort of relationship between the Chaos Terrans and the decepticons, so any obligation to stay or debt of gratitude that they might feel is just not there. You get no sense of why they'd want to be decepticons other than wanting to be enabled and encouraged for cruel behavior. They could have given breakdown an actual father son dynamic with aftermath but instead undercut it and play it for laughs.

2. Because the malto's solidarity have been completely watered down into just being "good guys", and never really get to articulate any sort of deeper point in their attempt to appeal to the chaos terrans, so you don't get a sense of how they might help them if they were allowed.

and 3. because the chaos terrans themselves don't really feel like they have much of an inner struggle, interiority, or conflict, it doesn't really feel like there's much of a foothold for

Anyone to latch onto to get through to them. Which makes them feel unredeemable.

so to reiterate and summarize these 3 points; 1. there's no sense of how the chaos terrans are being given negative reinforcement, 2. there's no sense of how the Maltos might help undo this, and 3. there's no sense of how the chaos terrans might want to be helped or not helped.

I understand that like part of the point is that they don't understand the chaos terrans, which supposedly makes them feel more alienated and further pushed towards anger, but there's no nuance or attempt at solidarity to the way these misunderstandings occur. Like there's no hint of Twitch and the Maltos trying their best to reach out to spitfire in meaningful ways. There's no sense of there being some fundamental difference in perspective or circumstance that make them able to understand eachother's point of view, it's just straight up "i tried to be nice but you were mean so now i won't be nice anymore" and it never goes beyond that. It's insulting how easily the Maltos give up on them.

Episode 7: serving as a direct followup to the last, it continues a lot of the same flaws. It squanders any chance of giving Spitfire some depth, like they could have spun her obsessive competitiveness into a deep-seated need for approval or validation or something, but no, she's as one dimensional as her behavior would suggest. Her behavior just becomes more and more destructive to a cartoonish degree where it no longer becomes possible to feel empathy for her.

the whole freaky friday misunderstanding thing too also feels super forced, which isn't helped by the animation failing to convey a lot of ideas.

Comparing this season to season 1 so far, man it just really sucks at juggling the characters. We've had practically 0 focus or development for any of the autobots and decepticons, and the maltos for that matter, despite their overwhelming screentime.

This is likely a casting budget thing. Which is why bumblebee has been demoted from main cast member to a guy who maybe says 2 lines every 3 episodes.

The quality of season 1's writing would go up and down quite drastically between episodes, but so far season 2 has consistently been on par with some of season 1's worse entries. It's juvenile and it has next to nothing to say about anything. Barely even any basic surface level messages, just mostly meaningless antics with next to no focus on exploring characters.

Episode 8 review: it's fine. No notes. It's a competent comedy episode. Fun premise with the whole "thing getting continuously stolen by different people" trope. Basing an episode around optimus's trailer is funny. Animation isn't stellar. Overall it's just an ok episode. I have nothing to say about it other than it's well executed even if it's not very ambitious.

Episode 9/10: okay! End of the season. The finale's mixed for me. In a different universe, this would have been an OK finale for the most part, but the fact that the season has tarnished every single character and plotline from season 1 and made no successful attempt at building anything new of value makes it lack any impact it could have had.

Interesting angle to flip the quintesson creator race narrative that transformers fans are used to. Although they too were an afterthought for this season. Aftermath and Spitfire getting killed really was the rotten cherry on top of their miserable cake. First they're treated like dirt by the story and handled as poorly as they could possibly be, squandering the excellent potential they had, but then they just kill them. Just so starscream's heelturn is even more evil. It honestly feels sad to me that they even bothered to acknowledge the fact that starscream was redeemble in season 1. Just makes it feel even more annoying that they conciously gave up trying to make him nuanced. Some of the animation was good. The shots of terratronus rising were very well composited and communicated the scale extremely well. As for the actual climax, it felt pretty lacking.

Overall a dissapointing season. A shadow of what earthspark was. Most of the characters are completely sidelined (likely for lack of a casting budget), and the few who aren't don't get a single story that feels reminiscent of that immensely strong sense of confident identity that season 1 had.

Hasbro cannot help themselves can they

[artsandstoriesandstuff]

Boris!

The, um, other guy. (On the left.)

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

You mentioned how actually endearing and compelling Justine/Verity and John/Shaun's bond is, and BOY I so agree with you. I don't see people talk about them often sadly, but I genuinely think it's one of the strongest parts of the game and its narrative (in particular John's character development itself, despite that he appeared pretty late in the story, his involvement in the final sequence was really tasty. "If I kill someone for revenge I'll end hurting people dear to me, so it all will be pointless" hmmm if there isn't a certain samurai guy in another game who needed to learn this as well... but I digress)

Prosecutor's Gambit's parent/child theme is a pretty heavy handed topic, but it's not like there aren't some really amazing parts in this whole deal! I kinda don't even care about the mastermind as much as I care about John (and Kate Hall for this matter)

THEY ARE SO IMPORTANT TO ME!!!!!! I think much of their appeal comes from Justine's shift in personality after her connection to John is revealed (like her joking about smashing Edgeworth's evidence with her gavel), but also every interaction of theirs is so sweet and lovely.

I love how protective they both are of each other, and it makes all the more sense when you take into consideration that Justine wasn't much older than a child herself when she decided to adopt him. I love how they take care to show that, yes, to an extent, they both do look after each other, but Justine is still very much his mother, and she does her job well. The scenes where she's strict with him are so deeply important to me. You know she studied parenting books and did everything she could to prepare herself for this life. And yeah, John is such a great kid!! Genuinely one of the best parent-child relationships in the series to me.

I found it kind of funny how every other relationship in AAI2 involved a dad HAHA It was so much, but I get it. They really wanted to make sure you got what they were going for, and hey, most people seem to like it. I really liked Gregory's segments, which was a welcomed surprise. I didn't expect to love him as much as I did. And, yeah, the mastermind stuff did not work for me. It's probably because I didn't trust Simeon from the moment I met him (their heavy handedness worked against them in his case for me. They were pushing the idea of him being meek and unassuming too hard; I clocked it immediately as a red herring); but even the overall reveal and final confrontation were, like... eh. okay, then. HAHA The best parts of the game for me were those character interactions with the side character. Wasn't really paying attention to whatever was going on with Simeon and the president, but John, Justine, Sebastian, Katherine, Gregory, and Raymond? My actual world.

Also taking this opportunity to share all the screenshots I took of John and Justine <3 :

[july-19th-club]

favorite type of villanous characters are the ones whose motivations boil down to

like they dont even have to have any stakes in the broader situation. they just have take pleasure in destruction

[godsfavoritescientist]

Biting the bars of my enclosure about autistic ford tonight. There's something about him using vocabulary and turns of phrase that seem "outdated" or "pretentious" that feels so painfully genuine to me. When people say he talks like that just to "try to sound smart" I wish I could explain what it's like to be so ostracized from your peers growing up that you spend all your time reading instead, to the point where you pick up your way of speaking from books instead of from people. And then what it's like for people to call you out for "talking weird" over and over again, not able to wrap their heads around why the fuck you would choose more archaic or technical or formal words than the simpler ones that surely come to everyone's minds first. What it's like to have to dedicate a sizable chunk of attention to filtering through every single word you say out loud in real time before you say it, to make absolutely sure that it isn't a word people will judge you for using or make fun of you for using, just so you'll have a chance of being taken seriously. Learning through trial and error how to filter out the words that other people don't think are normal or casual enough for the conversation, even though for you, the word choice that's "natural-sounding" enough for them is the third or fourth word you came up with when searching for the right way to phrase something in your head. I wish I could explain just how long it takes to say fucking anything after spending a lifetime doing that during every single conversation, and how repetitive and long-winded you end up being when you spend so long coming up with alternative ways of saying every little thing you ever think. And I wish people realized that, at the very least for autistic people and autistic-coded characters, speech that's seen as pretentious is really just the way they talk when they're not putting in the extra effort to filter through every word they say just so others will take the time to listen.

[milflewis]

.

[passionpluto]

manifesting a magical girl series where an adult woman who's loved magical girls all her life and has given up on becoming one gets isekai'ed into a magical world to save it

dark themes allowed only if the writers are based enough to understand the specific retro rayearth vibes this concept gives off and use them to create mind-blowing twists like og rayearth did instead of just milking them for cheap drama

[todayisafridaynight]

so magical that yakuza 1 and shadow the hedgehog came out the same year........ 2005 the best year for sega honestly.....

[mar64ds]

sometimes i think about the passage of time and how some pieces of media will be forgotten, but then i realize in the future people will probably make 20 hour long video essays about old media, introducing people to it and creating a fanbase for it all over again and it makes me smile :)

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

HELLO IT HAS BEEN… squints at computer clock... AWHILE! I must ask, as it is pride month, what're your favorite gay ships/LGBTQ+ headcanons for the EAH characters?- Looking Adoringly Anon

Hello Looking Adoringly Anon! Lovely to hear from you again (for anyone wondering, I am still making the eah redesigns, I'm just on an unofficial break because time is an illusion and my brain hurts)

For ships, definitely Apple and Darling, there's a lot of fun stuff to be had with the destiny mechanics and metaphors for heteronormativity, and I really like the contrast between Darling hiding herself to give herself freedom versus Apple hiding herself in order to maintain social status

Other headcanons include:

•Raven and Dexter are both bisexual

•Ashlynn is transfemme

•Apple and Darling are both lesbians

•Farrah is nonbinary and uses any pronouns

•Cedar is questioning, and she and Cerise (who is gay) definitely stay up late talking about identity and queerness and society on the regular

That's about it, I don't have a lot of very specific headcanons, just broad ideas and inclinations for different characters

HAPPY PRIDE Y'ALL!!!!

[cathalbravecog]

since you have a lot of thoughts of whats out there in the toontown universe i wanna throw my 2 sents: so "toons" is short for carTOONS, the much is obvious. but as you & i both know cartoons can be so much more than your typical loonytunes slapstick humor. so i like to think there are other islands out there which represents a different genre, such as: a fantasy adventure land, a sci-fi land, a western land, a horror thriller land, a rom-com land, a detective mystery land, a preschool land. so on so forth. with all their own unique animation styles. with the only consistent thing is that all the land's inhabitants are anthropomorphic animals (GOLLY sorry if this is long)

OHOHOO. you caught me in a rambly day, so prepare for a long one, lol!! (i JUST talked about some world building for my deltarune AU in private) (and i just spent my whole day listening to video essays)

this MAY be ttcc specific but aside from some ttcc details, this could apply to just... toontown in general. but i am a ttcc blog and that's my hyperfixation so that's what i'll talk about.

-----

i love that idea! honestly, something like that is what i've had in mind, too! maybe not everything being placed on island - but a majority of them being. (perhaps similar themes being on bigger islands or just masses of land with some wilderness and such between?)

i already have my idea for a prehistoric toon land, but it's also still based on your looney tunes type cartoon - just populated completely by dinosaurs! it's where my OC, archie archaeopteryx comes from.

an idea like this in general would allow for a lot of interesting places to be made, stories to be told, characters to be made... all that could eventually get into toontown and interact with our typical toons and interact together in interesting ways and have jokes and themes based around their different animation styles and genres.

it would also let the toons to be expanded upon even more, since, in my opinion at least, ttcc can lack that a little bit in some ways. (but going out of my way to look at toons a bit more rather than just the cogs does bring some small interesting things into the light, even if just singular pieces of dialogue, lol. sadly, i don't have examples on my mind right now.) i'm a big cog fan and all, but i wanna see more from the toons! but then again, we play in the role of the toons - so i suppose that's our stories to tell! :]

I also like the idea of everything being anthro animals (ignore the fact i'm a furry for a second) it just allows for more fun, diversity, and just consistency. human-ness being reserved for cogs is what makes this work more in my opinion, but even with that not even all cogs are humanoid. (i am so glad ttcc brought us more robotic cog designs!!)

but the sheer contrast of a human-like robot interacting with ANY cartoon animal is what works in it's favor, y'know? makes the division more clear - even if there's a lot of stories and themes of these lines being blurried more. (like cog and toon friendship -> william and rain, misty in general, whatever dave has for the player toon, thomas warming up to the toons...) which i really like! gives more ideas for stories to be told and explored, and question the laws and logic of the world.

i guess this could also explain art style changes and design choices - like, for example, i don't exactly like the way flesh colored snouts look, it just doesn't fit my art style and so i leave them out. obviously, that's for all toons i draw - and honestly all art styles for just our regular toons are to be loved and celebrated. but y'know, this doesn't have to be! just a little idea i wanted to throw on the table as well.

one thing that could be interesting would just be different medias - i know toontown is a 3d game based on traditionally animated cartoons - but imagine the mixing you could do in art and in story telling! a classic cartoon coming across a pixar-esque cgi animated cartoon and them interacting, both baffled by one another - but still connected by their tooniness deep down!

it's a really interesting idea i like, thank you for sharing this with me and letting me ramble a bit! now, i'm going to list some genres or artstyles that i would like to see! based VERY OBVIOUSLY on my personal interests.

old kids edutainment game, i'm talking 90s - early 2000s. the jankier animation, bit-crushed voice acting, pretty off-model art... but all just very jolly and meaning to educate a young audience! could mix in cgi elements as well, since old games like this would have this. and y'know, some of these would be based on pre-existing thing.

honestly, just old games like that in general... the type of ones you don't see a lot, especially when spoken about online between more mainstream gaming places... but games you probably owned! games of mysterious origins, with very good charm tied to them despite their obvious lower production value... but maybe also something like pf magic petz! oh i'd die i'd love to see petz toons running around - except perhaps more anthro, but still four-legged since there are cartoons of non bipedal animals living more human-like lives.

just... digital in general? perhaps low poly cgi... listen i just like old games and their vibe. but we could do modern animated cartoon toons! both things from studios - but also indie things!

FLASH ANIMATED

eastern european slav cartoon toons - hey, that's where i am from! i grew up with a lot of cartoons from here (czechia), russia and poland! (these being the most notable obviously) and... the themes, animation styles and vibes are very different to anything anywhere else in the world! i would love to see that! obviously, this is hinted at older cartoons - but newer modern ones could apply, too! i'm just unfamiliar with those.

a bit more on the previous topic, since my country has a big history of this type of animation... stopmotion and/or claymation!!

i'm NOT a comic book person, but oh my god would comic book toons be interesting to see! i don't even mean super hero - just comic book style in general! comes from someone who's only comics they read and own were like... my little pony, astérix and obélix, tom and jerry, smurfs and some ducktales. very toony things!

now, most of these relate to art mediums and art styles... i think those are a bit more interesting than genres, since after all art is an art medium, and genres come second. soo many possibilities. thought there are some genres i think would be interesting to see!

detective/noir type toon world? a mysterious place filled with crimes and mysteries to be solved! could make call-backs to things like scooby-doo, too!

kid's cartoon, like you've said! something cute, fluffy, there to entertain the whole family and teach the kids a valuable lesson. not to be a bluey enjoyer on main here but... bluey toons. that would be very very cute, i think.

on that note, one could argue there could be an adult animated cartoon place, but considering a place like toontown we probably want to keep things pg 13... maybe not! but it's still a possibility - as long as you take inspiration from good animation made for adults. i will not be naming any names here...!

okay, this one is MORE an art genre/style thing but... illustrated children's book type thing? maybe not for VERY young kids, but still filled with fun stories and anthro cartoon animals regardless! could appear as 2d cutouts.

medieval toons, but in the art style of medieval styled drawings...! based on old tales and fables! could also mix with some fantasy elements, of course!

SPAAAAAAACEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE (space core portal 2 voice) (BUT LIKE... ALIEN TOONS. NOT JUST SPACESHIP TYPE STUFF THATS BORING TO ME I WAND INVADER ZIM TYPE SOMETHING RAAAA...!)

just anime. toon beastars. shoutout to that one louis fan-toon i saw some time ago

and honestly...im out of ideas for this here! i don't really look at genres too often to be honest! they kind of fly over my head, so i'd probably want these to reference specific types of stories that could be told in one of these, but not enough to base a whole place on. anyways, running a bit low on steam here, and i'd repeat myself on possible video game genre based toon worlds, so...! that's it from me! hope you had fun reading this... and my many callbacks to other medias for reference.

(also, your ask is not long! just long enough to be a delight to read! just look at my own responses here :,] )

also, question- should i get a tag for big rambles like this relating to like... world building and ideas in general? both for the cogs and the toons! would make it a bit easier to navigate, even if i am a little bit shy about people reading back through these, especially as my opinions may change. looking at you old thomas and robert ramble...

[galaxygermdraws]

K so like I Don’t tend to make posts about the daily goings in my life but today is special and I am not going to shut up about anything ever so. Mario Movie. Today. Clearly. And yours truly is going to see it not once but twice this week. And he is going to ascend

For context, I have been fixating heavily (to the point where, if it turns out I am autistic [i am not allowed to be diagnosed], it could easily be a special interest) on Super Mario since i was 7. I am 20. This has been well over half my life. And Ive seen both the OVA(The Great Mission to Reacue Princess Peach), as well as the 1993 live action film. Ive seen all the cartoons, and I have read the Nintendo Power comics. I have seen my guys adapted so many times but this one truly excites me? Like I was d r e a d i n g the first trailer. Then. I watched it and lowkey ascended. Rewatched it so much. I am…too excited for this film. Sure I. Have my one qualm with it but At this point I don’t care. It’s gonna be fun. And im gonna be trying not to scream in a theater.

i realize I am probably not? Seen as a Mario blog but deep down that’s what I am. This is my favorite franchise in any piece of media. Over my favorite cartoons, over my favorite youtube series, Mario is my #1. So in the upcoming days I’m gon be screaming. Not gon apologize for the person I become due to this movie.

and yes. I will tag spoilers

[kadextra]

back from my little break :3 hola

[lieutenantselnia]

Current mood <3

[cosmicdenro]

thsc fans made me a kinder person wowie

[fish-bowl-2]

People always seem to forget that Ed Edd n Eddy was airing way past 2003, or the “classic” era of Cartoon Network. The last episode came out in 2008. That is close to a whole decade.