#then i got to the one about modern velma and was like

[foundfamilyhq]

Propaganda under readmore:

He has done nothing wrong, he’s just a little puppy! He wants to impress his cool uncle Scooby </3 Being annoying is not a crime, ignore all the later iterations that made him the villain they’re all misunderstand him as a character (especially the scooby doo apocalypse but that’s a whole separate thing) Scrappy was never intentionally malicious or cruel he just wanted to help

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I honestly don’t get the hate towards him. The only ‘crime’ he’s done is literally being an energetic and talkative young child and puppy.

It isn’t his fault that he was overused within the Scooby-Doo series and franchise by the writers.

It isn’t his fault that he was awfully written and became a cult leader plot-twist villain within the Scooby-Doo 2 live action sequel movie.

He’s a victim of bad writing and over-hatred by the fandom.

Also he’s a neat, cute and jolly character who’s been done dirty by the writing and the fandom.

Please give Scrappy-Doo a chance to join the tumblr found family.

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This pup does not deserve all the hate. Please find it in your heart to jump off the hate bandwagon.

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he canonically killed modern velma we owe him this much

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He is literally just a uppy your honor!!! PUPPY POWER!!!!!

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Hear me out! He doesn't deserve all the hate he gets. When Scrappy Doo was introduced, he was added because the show wasn't doing well, so some higher up thought adding a cute puppy would help. But everyone didn't like him and I don't think he deserves all of it. I think he was initially just really, really annoying, but because everyone hated him, including the people working on the shows, he became worse and worse! He's just a kid! They could have redeemed him and made him a good character, but instead they doubled down and made him straight up evil in some iterations! And his crime? Being annoying when he was introduced. He's just a baby, he deserves better. From us, and especially from the people running the show.

[beardedmrbean]

https://x.com/NewsM101/status/1735735475065769992?s=20

I think white people should make a cover of Mariah Carey song “Obsessed” towards modern non white creators.

First black Panther, then Velma, and now this?

Creators, why are you so obsessed with white people?

Do I want to know.

When I saw the title the first time I thought that they would be riffing on the "Magical Negro" trope.

Which if they'd have cast white people in those roles we'd be getting yelling and screaming about lack of roles for black people and in certain circumstances them being black is part of the plot development because of racist treatment and whatnot. Other cases where the person just happens to be black because they liked the persons audition the best, very well could have been a gnome.

Mary Poppins would fit the description if she had been black, not really a racist thing to put into entertainment, sometimes it just works with the plot.

Promo here just looks like a cringefest though.

you just know we're going to have people saying some incredibly racist crap about anyone that that voices any criticism of this one, valid or not.

People quoting crime statistics in the retweets can feel free to shut the fuck up to, mock the movie mercilessly you don't need to pull that shit out to point out how awful this looks.

20 years ago this could have been funny as hell, and as a matter of fact it was funny as hell 20 years ago.

No line in Shakespeare will ever touch "you mess with the fro, you got to go" If you haven't seen it, you need to.

This is how you do this kind of thing without pissing a bunch of people off.

[amysgiantbees]

Dead Boy Spoilers

Things I'd like to see in Dead Boy Detectives Season 2

Tragic Mick and Monty form an Animals with Complicated Feelings About Being Human at Some Point support group. Maybe the Cat King is there too.

Monty takes on Tragic Mick's "curse" and get's to be human again and Mick get's to be a walrus or at least get's to not be human anymore and is a crow. Monty could even take over his store!

Monty and the Cat King dealing with loneliness together. The Cat King has all the loneliness of being an immortal that Edwin's making him unpack (in particular he hangs out with cats all day like fuck they have even shorter life spans than people god he must have lost a lot of loved ones) and Monty deals with loosing his owner/master/mother/weird aunt figure who's probably been his whole world for better and worse up until he got turned human.

Whoever Monty is hanging out with I want to see him far too earnestly doing their star charts.

Boys and Crystal solving just fun random MOTW cases

The Night Nurse and Jenny tearing their hair out trying to keep the teens in check.

Night Nurse in particular having an aneurism every time the boys refuse to fill out a form, brake a rule, or run off without her.

Although alternatively Edwin getting VERY into the forms and learning how Hell and the afterlife works, and instead pestering her about it.

Jenny focusing more on Crystal - and Niko when she comes back.

Jenny learning she can care a bit more. The Night Nurse learning to relax and care a little less.

Jenny getting a good date. Loving her ship with Death but also I like the idea of them meeting a Cat Queen and her little comment about everyone in town being spinsters with cats comes round to instead be this ancient being who is a cat.

Crystal researching her ancestors and finding out more about them.

Crystal dealing with the demon in her brain hopefully before he does something irreparable to her tree.

Maybe they end up interrogating David about the "something worse" Edwin was sold to.

Crystal learning about her powers!

Crystal trying to repair some of her old friendships. Make amends to a couple of people.

Niko reforming the dandelion sprites and learning to lead/work with them. Helping them all find a way to feed without murdering people.

Nico dealing with needing attention to eat and live despite her coping mechanism when she's sad or scared specifically being avoiding people and hiding from others.

Niko figuring out her dandelion god powers. Doing god like things like blessing people who love, care for, and harvest dandelions. Granting wishes when dandelions are blown!

Niko marriage counseling Kingham & Litty (the dandelion sprites).

Either Crystal and Charles giving being together another shot now that David has been "dealt" with for the time being or Charles figuring out that maybe he's attracted to Edwin too. Or both!

I love that since Edwin is "living" through the modern day he can explore his sexuality finally. In a similar vein a lot of people also see him as autistic, and autism awareness has certainly come a long way from the Edwardian period and now could be a good time for his character to explore this too. Charles in turn could help him by talking about their shared neurodivergent experience as I firmly believe he has ADHD.

Charles opening up more about his parents.

Learning Edwin's family backstory

Cat King having Desire as a sort of absentee parental figure so literally the whole gang can have parental issues. Night Nurse I assume does not have parents so get's to be the mentally stable one in this regard and (try to) help everyone through it.

Niko checking in on her mum. Seeing how she's coping.

Edwin and Crystal bonding over doing magic and getting closer as friends. He maybe even initiates a hug!

Edwin getting to initiate a kiss with someone

Scooby Do episode! (I vote Charles is Daphney, Edwin is Velma, Niko is Shaggy and Cyrstal is Fred, maybe the Cat King or Monty is Scoob).

Despair shows up again.

Maybe now that the boys don't need to run from death they reverse it and actively try to seek her out and talk to her.

Crystal seeing her little ghost friend Emma from the first episode again.

Edwin reading Niko's yaoi. It could even be really funny and bittersweet where when they still think she's dead he's reading it and getting emotional and saying to himself "she really did love love" or "I wish I could read this with her" or something emotional like that and then he flicks to the next page and it's something explicit and he suddenly shuts the book and is like "Enough of that for now" XD

Either Edwin and the Cat King get together. Or become friends. Or Thomas makes friends or something with some other kind of immortal so he's not so lonely. I'm leaning towards them being friends because he would have no issues being the friend that explains what hand jobs and molly is to Edwin. Also since he presents himself in a very ambiguously gendered way I feel like he could get him to talk about why he likes disguising himself as a woman so much. Whether than be introducing him to concepts like gender queerness or drag. It's just honestly both Charles and Edwin are pretty repressed and I think now that the Cat King has started to grow he could continue to really push them in a less intense, healthier way.

Monty and Edwin staying friends. Monty and Charles actually getting to properly vibe.

Jenny figuring out now that the shop is dead if butchering is truly what she wants. Since she did it because she inherited the shop she can really explore her wants without any feeling of obligation to her dad. I love that she's a butcher but I just think it'd be interesting to explore her passion for it without so much baggage.

[pennycat83]

screw it

I'm tired le'mme roast this sucker.

Why'd they give Professor Utonium the Velma treatment? (as in that is NOT Utonium that is a Goddamn cosplay of him)

This also semi applies to the girls as well in the sense their hair barely looks like how it does in the series( If The Adams Family movie from the 90's can properly replicate the characters hair a modern tv show can).

I'm convinced they got that merch from Ebay

I don't even need to say anything on making Mojo Jojo a father son villain duo.

I hate the redesign of the phone so much

Ok so I'm not a full on PPG fan but I vividly recall hearing about an episode where Buttercup becomes her own hero that's based off Spawn. WHY WOULD MY GIRL BECOME A FIREFIGHTER THAT'S SO BASIC!

I'm not even a Bubbles fan and they did my girl dirty with how she ends up. Bubbles would be a toy reviewer!

I wanna say Blossom being stressed is accurate though (I think???)

Why wouldn't they make the mayor's son mayor? Like that'd be a funny lil gag.

"that cartoon that completely whitewashed us"...Am...am I allowed to sock the director in the teeth for this one?

I wanna say the colour coded outfits are ok but even then I'm debating on that.

Christ the villain plan is SO BORING!! THESE GIRLS FOUGHT ACTUAL KAIJUS, MONSTERS and S A T A N H I M S E L F! (except for Fuzzy Lumpkin and the Gang Green Gang I will defend them to the end of time)

I kinda the like the idea of Utonium getting framed but the execution is so boring

as a Levitating fan this trailer is getting it's right revoked.

I really don't like giving Blossom a love interest in the implied main villain

also the amount of standard references of just 'iz da girls' is so fuckin' basic.

[scoobysfriend]

This is my ideal scooby gang. Explanation and scooby doo character analysis under the cut

I think Scooby Doo is a character driven show actually. Every time there is a mystery, and everytime we aren't always interested in what the mystery is but how the characters investigate it. Most scooby doo episodes and movies aren't about the mysteries themselves but are about the character shenanigans the gang get up to while solving that mystery.

The best way to possibly ever write fred is make him laios but with an ascot and for traps instead of food. You don't even have to change the monster part! A heart of gold and a specialized skill set. Can fred make a phone call? no. Can fred turn all the wheels on the mystery machine into suction cups so it can go up a wall to chase a tentacled bird demon? yes. He must also be kind, all the scooby characters must be, but fred most especially. Plus trap making is such a niche hobby, and mystery incorporated explored this a little bit, but doing that even more is great. Funny enough I also really loved mystery incorporated's stance on fred's family life. Being raised by someone who doesn't understand who you are fundamentally and wants you to change, poetic cinema. I also want Red Herring to be Fred's childhood friend turned nemesis turned weird I know you better than I know myself thing, my password is your birthday and yet we don't talk there's this distance. Like when kids are young and they bring their friends over to their house, and that friend never really leaves cause they aren't getting parented at home? That's red herring bringing fred to his house, and make his mom a mechanic and suddenly so much stuff fits. It also explains his mechanic skill. Traps and cars are different things. Fred is a crazy inventor who emotionally bonded to the mystery machine and learned mechanics from someone who was the closest thing he ever got to a parent. Fred is a crazy smart inventor. He makes traps and contraptions and rube goldberg machines for the thrill of it. We call a man boring who probably has twelve bear traps in his bedroom and he's so confused on why people don't want to live this way so more for him he guesses, but that also means he always wants to share it with his friends!!!!!!! He's a huge gentle soul that loves his people and his mysteries and his traps. In that order.

i think daphne should get to have a character arc actually?? There's been enough iterations of all the scooby doo characters that if you just mix and match them you have character development. She should start as danger prone daphne always getting in trouble. Then she should decide she doesn't want to be the one getting saved all the time. She starts learning skills to get her out of danger first lockpicking cause whats new scooby doo was my scooby growing up, then learning martial skills to the point where instead of getting rescued she is the one running into danger to rescue others. Someone who protects and never shies away from trouble. I also think it would be cute to make it so she's really into fashion from the 1960s, so that you could modernize the world but keep the old designs cause the gang wants to go matchy matchy with daphne. She does love fashion and knows about it, but just saying "loves fashion" is very 2 dimensional. Saying Daphne loves vintage clothes and using those clothes in the modern era especially clothes from the 60s opens a lot of opportunities to explain why the whole gang is going to this super duper spooky estate sale, Daphne heard this woman had an extensive collection. It also lets the gang have cool outfits and character models. On top of that by having the gang match Daphne, shows that she loves them enough tom share this part of herself with them and that they love her enough to be a part of it with her. Daphne also is almost always the backbone of the gang. Fred, shaggy, and scooby would give a stranger the shirt off their backs, velma and fred don't always recognize what is socially expected so can take advantage of because they are trying to fit in an uncomfortable social situation, but Daphne? Daphne is a fiery redhead who loves her friends more than breathing, no you can't have fred fix that for you, no you can't say that to shaggy and no velma won't do your homework. We are also bringing scooby in with us, if you don't like it that sucks. This combination of traits is stuff she already had, in one iteration or another, and gives a solid character. Also making her the youngest daughter of like twelve in a wealthy family slaps.

Velma, oh velma, JelloApocalypse put it best "A bad Velma is the worst thing that happened to Scooby-doo". Velma often suffers from being the workhorse of the narrative. Donatello of the tmnt often suffer similarly. Velma I feel like, even in character, should reflect this. Velma is the smartest person in the room, and due to her knowing this, she often feels responsible for doing something with that knowledge. The gang takes a lot of that pressure off. Velma is not a master of every single science, but she is one of the most gifted researchers alive. Yet, she is also compassionate, she feels responsible, because when seeing something go wrong and be awful, she believes that she could change it. She, maybe the most, benefits from having the scooby gang all together, because they give her permission to have fun. Velma will see a bad guy and already be twelve steps down in her thought process on how this will affect the carnival's income, while shaggy yells that they need to "Run, Man!". Velma is one of those characters where you could imagine her being very successful in dusty stacks for the rest of her life, but she gets color added to it, and first hand knowledge, by going out with the gang. She's curious to a fault, and wants to know about everything, and often thinks she can just find out from books and the internet, and is often right! But is just as often wrong! Velma will be twelve review articles deep trying to find the best place to eat and shaggy will say I know a guy and they'll be eating out of an illegal taco boat moored in the middle of the harbor. Or velma will be trying to make what is objectively the best decision in a given situation when Dpahne will come in and ask "Why are you in this situation in the first place, let's leave" or velma will be curious about the reproductive cycle of the three toed sugar cane frog and fred will show up with a cooler, night vision goggles and two plane tickets. The gang give velma the freedom to make choices without worrying about which one is the "right" one. This also extends to mysteries, because velma wants to prove that ghosts and aliens and werewolves and everything exist, she wants to prove it so so so badly, but she's been told intellectually her whole life that it's a load of hogwash, but with the gang, they all go get to prove if it's hogwash or not together and have fun doing it! Even when it's all fake, it's a puzzle, it's so much fun! And this is what makes Marcie Fleach such a good foil. Marcie is also gifted, beyond gifted, in robotics, but she doesn't have anyone to get her out of her own head. So Marcie is stuck in her own dark thoughts trying to make it work while velma is trying a sandwich that scooby made that has circus peanuts in it. There can be no knowledge without experience and that is what velma really proves. Her research skills provide such a strong base for the gang, and her observational skills are second to none, she might not always know what to do with those observations but that's what she can talk to the gang for. This responsibility she feels to the world and the people living in it and even just the ideals of the truth, all form this core facet of her personality that she gets to explore and uphold in a fun way through the solving of mysteries. She has a book for everything and a try anything thrice while documenting the results for science kind of attitude. Plus this pull between what she has been told it right, what she thinks academically is right and what she feels is right, all fighting in her head for dominance makes for great character motivation. Like in where's my mummy she dresses up as the bad guy because she thinks it's the right thing to do, and she's shown by the narrative to be right! Also velma should get to, and be required to, get up to as many goofy shenanigans as the other members of the scooby gang. They all take turns being the straight man and on particullarly goofy days, it's scooby.

SHAGGY IS A GODDAMN ANTHROPOLOGY MAJOR. And a wizard, but we have known that one. Shaggy is a nice witty guy, who likes helping people, but even more than that he likes learning about people. Like, he's the kinda guy who ten minutes after meeting him you bring him home to your family and they adopt and feed him. He's charming and snarky and a good listener. He's often a coward, but he's brave for scooby. Scooby will be scared out of his mind and so will shaggy, but shaggy will crack a joke so scooby will laugh and scooby will dance so shaggy will laugh. They are best friends. Shaggy also loves old horror flicks, the cheesier the better and video games that people don't think are very good. Shaggy as a character is like a celebration of things everyone trashes put into a lovable package. Shaggy is a coward who runs away and eats too much and loves b grade horror flicks and trashiest video games ever produced. Shaggy is the one who wants to go to the puppet museum or accordion camp or the world's most giant ball of yarn. There's this love and wonder toward everything in the world that many of the iterations of scooby doo miss. Shaggy wants to go and solve the mystery as much as any of the gang, because he loves every part of it. If shaggy is not scared, he is smiling and laughing and engaging with the locals and going dumb skits and reading comic books. Shaggy will work as a stage hand or carnival ring master or manager of a famous doll customizer's youtube channel for a summer because he likes hanging out with folks and likes the food. And people notice this trait about him and respond in kind. There's this curiosity that all the gang needs to share, that always gets surgically removed from shaggy and I don't know why. It's just that shaggy's curiosity is more about fun happy things. Like even in ghoul school, there were monsters and he was scared, but he realized they were people and immediately tried to be friend to them. Maybe it's my own bias, but if shaggy went to college he'd be an anthropology major, because wanting to know everything about people and eat their food and hang out with folks eternally, that is applied cultural anthropology lmao.

(Also i could do a whole thing on how the members of the scooby gang each represent a different branch of applied anthropology. Scooby as primatology, Fred as biological anthropology/Forensics, Velma as archeology, Daphne as linguistics, Shaggy as cultural anthropology, another day, another day.)

Finally last and certainly not least. Scooby Dooby Doo. The dog, the myth, the legend. It's really interesting to talk about scooby and the way he evolved, originally scooby didn't have that many words. He was like a parrot, had a certain number of set phrases but had to pantomime the rest. I like scooby talking, I like knowing his thoughts, but that pantomime. I'm so irrationally obsessed with it. I really think we need to bring it back. So much of his slapstick comedy and personality is removed when you removed that. Scooby isn't making quips, scooby is dressing as a cancan dancer while shaggy's thar barman and making the evil chicken ghost blush so much it bends over backward to buy them a drink that he throws in it's face so they can run again. Scooby has so much emotional intelligence and cares so deeply for the gang, to reduce him to a shaggy clone is a crime. Scooby has that classic dog mentality, Shaggy is his boy. His best friend and his everything, if scooby could go everywhere with shaggy he would and wait he does! Scooby wants to go on adventures, and go with his people, and for scooby an adventure could be a trip to the dog park or bowling alley or solving a why ghost pirates are attacking their cruise ship. And of course scooby's scared! He's a scaredy cat! He'll jump and yipe and be afraid, but he'll stick by his people even if he is afraid. He provides such tension relief and emotional solace, he is an emotional support animal. Anytime the gang is stressed or worried or sad or anything there is scooby doo! Either feeling it right along side you or comforting you through it, like that one scene in little miss sunshine when the kid has a breakdown cause he's colorblind and won't be able to fly and then gets comforted by that little girl. Scooby is that little girl. I really cannot emphasize enough how loyal scooby is, and there is no better illustration of that than scrappy. Scrappy was just a puppy but he thought his uncle scooby was the bravest dog in the whole world, and that's the thing scrappy never saw any different!! Scrappy would picka fight with a monster or someone bigger than him and everytime, without fail, there scooby would be to pull him out of it. Scooby is a loyal beyond all other things, even beyond his fear, and has an emotional breadth that can only come from not only being the heart of the show but the heart of his little family too! And shaggy is his best friend!!!!!!!! They do everything together and he loves him so much!!!! And sure he's clumsy, but so is daphne, and sure he can get jealous, but so can velma, and sure he's a coward but so is shaggy! Scooby does this thing where whenever he is there, everything is a little better, the sun a little brighter, the avocado toast a little more scrumptious, and he's smiling and cheering and so then is everyone else. I also thought of a hilarious bit, where since scooby is a dog and they like eating all the time they keep running into stuff that is poison for dogs so shaggy can't share it with scooby and he begs with the biggest possible eyes, and rests his head on shaggy's lap and shaggy feels so bad that he gets three scooby snacks and the bacon from fred's plate.

Really though. These are all goofball young folks who like solving mysteries together and traveling together and bonding over random activities. They love each other, they are all best friends, and it would be relatively easy to give them all character arcs based upon things that previously happened to them.

Fred as this guy, getting recognized for his achievements and hobbies even if they aren't what is considered normal. All his friends hyping up his most complicated trap or cheering when he makes the mystery machine a boat or being willing to tell his automatic breakfast machine. That transition from hiding everything about yourself to showing a little bit and then a little more and the relief each time from being accepted fully!

Daphne as the spoiled youngest daughter of a wealthy family to damsel in distress to danger prone Daphne to being the emotional backbone of the time to as many skills as a bard to having enough skills to protect herself to throwing herself into danger with these skills she's acquired to help other people.

Velma as this cloistered researcher always trying to make the 'right' decision and having her open up about her desires and fears, and what she wants to research and investigate, where she starts investigating and having fun and experiencing all these things till she is this well of knowledge and uses that well of knowledge to have fun and help people

Shaggy who drifts from group of people to group of people, finally having a group to call his own. Getting to stay with people, and have them really learn him and really express himself. Building up confidence, and if you believe the wizard shaggy theory like I do, using magic as a metaphor for that and having him come into his own as a powerful wizard. Or even just having him come into his own as a masterful people person or as an excellent chef or as a world class detective or all of the above. Letting shaggy acknowledge his skills and his growth in them and letting him be proud.

Scooby would also reflect shaggy. Scooby with his trust issues, opening up to someone who wasn't just shaggy. Being supported by others and supporting them in turn. Being understood and listened to. Having someone tell the hotel front desk, no scooby is coming inside, no you do not get an opinion and if you do we can take our business elsewhere. This relationship with other people making him braver, and happier, and bouncier, and sillier. Having fun with everyone you love always!

You fools! The whole time Scooby doo was about love and hanging out with your friends!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And how no matter how evil or weird or scary everything is, you can figure it out together!!!!!!!!!

[emotionaldashtoons]

Here's my poster of my official version of my version for my DisneyElseWorld's Pixar's...

INSIDE OUT 2!

I saw the new Inside Out 2 trailer, and they made Anxiety, Ennui, Embarrassment, and Envy bad by betraying the old emotions. Lots of crazy stuff is about to happen! We don't know what's going on, lots of details are there too. But what would the ElseWorld version be like?

CLOTHING CHANGES!

Fear is now wearing the same vest but it's gray and black with the same stripes on it, Disgust now wears a pink/purple dress (just like the old concepts of her from the 1st movie), and Anger wears a black button on shirt with a red tie with gold marks. Joy and Sadness still stay the same.

NEW EMOTIONS!

For my idea. I have 6 new emotions, one of my OC emotions I've created like, Courage, Surprise, Pride, Trust, Frustration, and Shy.

MAIN VILLAIN

I am using on of my oc villains, Spite, to be the main villain of the AU second movie.

OTHER CHARACTERS

Characters like Nia, the assistant of Spite, she runs the business with him but she tries to avoid him to help others. Bud, Courage's blood cell buddy, he doesn't speak but he's sweet, nervous, cute and got some attitude. And Brain, the big boss of Riley's mind, and the emotions need his help to stop Spite.

What New Places Would the Emotions Go To?

In this AU, far from HQ and Long Term Memory, instead of the back of the mind being empty, there is a huge mind-filled city called Mindtopia, aka, The City of Riley, where everything in the mind has everybody for Riley's Inner Workings in her mind. That also includes Headquarters. And guess what, they're not the only company, there's also banks, council buildings, restaurants, malls, houses, apartments, and everything for Mind Workers after they work at Long Term Memory. And The Mind Councilman, Chairman, is the Mind Prime Minister.

Returning Cast like...

Amy Poehler as Joy, Lewis Black as Anger, Bill Hader as Fear (YES! I'm bringing Bill Hader back! He's so much funnier then I expected), Mindy Kaling (Yeah yeah, I get it, Velma is garbage but her acting as Disgust wasn't) as Disgust, Phyllis Smith as Sadness,

Kensington Tallman as Riley, Diane Lane as Mrs. Andersen, and Kyle MacLachlan as Mr. Andersen.

With All-Star Cast like...

Chris Pratt (The LEGO Movie films, and Onward) as the new outside leader emotion known as Courage, Sean Hayes (Monsters University, Will & Grace, and The Cat in The Hat) as Surprise, Kate McKinnon (Saturday Night Live, Ghostbusters, and DC League Of Super Pets) as Frustration,

Andrew Rannells (Trolls Band Together, and Big Mouth) as Trust, Randall Park (the Ant-Man, and Aquaman films, and The Interview) as Pride, Tituss Burgess (Central Park, Angry Birds Movie, and Spellbound) as Shy, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfeld, and A Bug's Life) as the sweet and huge, Mother Esteem, Eugene Levy (Finding Dory, and Schitt's Creek) as the mind algorithm boss of Riley Andersen's Mind/City of Riley known as Brain, Nathan Fillion (DCU's Superman, Monsters University, and Cars 3) as the very evil and hilariously charming, but whiny, Spite,

Isla Fisher (Rise of The Guardians, Wedding Crashers, and Scooby-Doo) as Spite's sarcastic female assistant, Nia, Dan Fogler (the Fantastic Beasts films, and The Walking Dead) as Mind Councilman Chairman, Ken Jeong (Transformers: Dark of The Moon, The Hangover, and Extinct) as Yes Man, Alan Tudyk (the Moana, Frozen, Zootopia, and Wreck-it Ralph films) as Mind Gate Guard Jimmy, Peter Sohn (Ratatouille, Monsters University, and The Good Dinosaur) as the emotions new best blood cell companion named Bud, Stephen Root (Barry, King of the Hill, and Finding Nemo) as Doc Stem,

Yvette Nicole Brown (Disenchanted, and Avengers: Endgame) as Riley's middle school P.E. coach, Mrs. Roberts, Nolan Gould (Modern Family) as Jordan, Haley Tju (Big Hero 6: The Series) as Kelli, Tony Revolori (the Spider-Man films) as Riley's bully, Francis, Josh Peck (Drake & Josh, and Drillbit Taylor) as Francis' curly bully best friend Lars, Bruce Campbell (the Evil Dead, and Spider-Man films, and Sky High) as Dale Daley, Rob Huebel (Knuckles, The Other Guys, and Goosebumps) as Geoff James,

Bobby Moynihan (Hoppers, and IF) and Paula Poundstone (Home Movies) as The Forgetters, Paula Pell (Sisters, and Netflix's Big Mouth) as Mom's Anger, Flea (The Wild Thornberries) as Mind Cop Jake, Carlos Alazraqui (Fairly OddParents) as Dad's Anger, Dave Goelz and Frank Oz (the Muppets films and Sesame Street) as Mind Cop Frank & Mind Cop Dave, John Ratzenberger (the Toy Story and Cars films) as Fritz, and Nick Jonas as Imaginary Singer Cupid.

FILMMAKING CREW

Written & Directed by Josh Cooley

Co-Directed by Bob Peterson

Produced by Mark Neilsen, p.g.a.

Executive Producers Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, and Jonas Rivera

Story by Josh Cooley and Pete Docter

Edited by Kevin Nolting

Cinematography by Patrick Lin and Kim White and Adam Habib

Production Designer Jason Deamer

Story Supervisor Peter Sohn

Additional Dialouge by Mindy Kaling, Bill Hader, and Amy Poehler

Visual Effects Supervisor Bob Pauley

Supervising Animators Lou Romano and Jerome Ranft

Music Scored by Michael Giacchino and Andrea Datzman

Casting by Kevin Reher & Natalie Lyon

[thefloatingstone]

After looking into the writers predicament and how it all led to the strike it made me realize that perhaps one of the reasons for the decline in quality media is becuase writers have been given less and less incentives to create good content, do you have any thoughts?

I don't think it would be exactly incentive. I would think in a certain amount of cases it would be down more to demotivation. Generally, writers for film and TV and such genuinely WANT to make a good story and, much like fanfic writers and fanartists, will do their best for very little thanks simply because it's what they DO. But not ever show or movie is going to be a passion project, in fact most of them won't. And if you're working for Disney especially, who owns 38% of all film (not counting TV and other media) so you most likely WILL end up wroking for Disney, you are going to have a TON of studio meddling on every level of writing.

As I mentioned in the other post, Mr Rick And Morty (sorry I don't know his name and I'm too lazy to check) wrote the story for the Dr Strange and the Multiverse of madness at LEAST twice when the movie's FIRST story and script was scrapped by a previous writer. The first script he wrote was heavily rewritten and changed and reworked by the studio. and then the studio just THREW OUT that script and he had write a brand NEW script 2 weeks before shooting started using all the props, sets, outfits and CG segments they had already made. And the thing is this is now STANDARD PRACTICE in working on a big budget Disney film.

Part of the reason the Barbie movie is written as well as it is, is because Mattel were almost completely hands off with the film's writing. (the only changes I heard about was them censoring one Barbie saying the word "Motherfucker" which they censored in the film by putting a Mattel sticker over her mouth) and various other things like the removal of a narration in one scene and one or two jokes were cut. You know! NORMAL screenwriting practices!

But Disney is so paranoid and controlling with literally everything they put out it is a death sentence for any kind of creativity. Even ignoring the fact that they hire brand new writers who they can control and push around easier, I imagine even if you were NOT a new writer just happy for a big break, it must be extremely demotivating to try and write a good story when you know Disney is just gonna shred it to ribbons.

This is absolutely not the ONLY reason of course. Velma's writing is so godawful because people who had only worked in live action cable comedy thought they could do the exact same thing for an animated show and it would work without knowing anything about the medium they were working in because they were arrogant, lacked restraint, and had gotten where they were thanks to being friends with the right people. HGS is so badly written because Raye Rodriquez had shopped around his story idea to EVERYONE and got rejected by all of them until Crunchyroll needed fodder to justify opening up its own studio to create "originals". Many times modern cartoons are badly written because the actual people writing the show are animators who haven't had any formal training or education in creative writing.

There are a thousand and one reasons for WHY something ends up badly written. But as for why we have gotten SO MUCH that is badly written recently I would chalk up to studio execs and the business side of Hollywood choking the creativity out of the writing process in an attempt to maximize profits in the short term.

That's an EXTREME simplification but that would be my opinion. Hell the only reason AI writing is even a conversation regarding film and TV is because it's the kind of thing these studio execs are SALIVATING over the thought of. A writer they have 100% control over that they don't have to pay and don't have to deal with all that "creative vision" or "artistic expression" bullshit which they don't like because it represents risk to sure fire income.

because most Studio Execs are businessmen who have no concept of creativity whatsoever, have no idea what being creative even means, and yet they think because they know how to make money in a corporate sense, they know how to monetise creativity to maximum efficiency.

It's like a fisherman getting rid of all the fish in the sea because they're getting in the way of him monetising the ocean.

Anyway this ask is a mess because this is a complex issue I am trying to express a simplified opinion on. But I hope you get what I mean.

[sporksaber]

So i posted a garvity falls scooby doo au awhile ago, but what about the opposite?

Note: i go in a few directions with this, look out for multiple versions in the future.

So theres several elements that can be used as the basis of who takes the place of the twins. Freddy's random uncles. Scooby being shaggy's dog and the automatic connection to mabel and waddles. Velma's parrellell to dipper as the smart mystery solver.

I think freddy and velma hit the closest to the twins (as in my other au) but my heart wants so badly to make it shaggy and daphne. They piss off their rich parents and are sent there as punishment. This is my au i can do what i want.

(If i were to use velma and freddy as dipper and mabel, shaggy would be wendy (which opens up a lot of cameo opportunities for replacing wendy's friendgroup), scooby would be soos, and daphne would be pacifica (or gideon...) (daphne might be gideon.). And that lines up well and i might draw that too but its too obvious... i actually really like it though.)

As they dont line up as well, who takes dipper's role and who takes mabel is harder to pin down. Modern daphne being the go getter outgoing mabel makes sense, but i think pulling from reporter daphne would be more fun. Daphne is dipper, and she is going to get to the bottom of this wierd town so she can write a story on it. (I should rewatch a pup named scooby doo, it was my fav as a kid (via boomerang)).

Onto freddy and velma. Story important characters: wendy, soos, the grunkles (which would be so unbelievably funny (maybe for scooby), gideon, and pacifica. Unlike my other au, im leaning away from gideon and pacifica for this. Freddy takes the place of soos as the handy man, while velma takes wendy's as the teen cashier. (Meaning hotdog water can be robbie, and maybe googie or crystal as cambry because i think itd be a little funny.)

I am actually gonna stick with scooby as grunkle stan. While mqking waddles talk is an option it feels creepy, so he has to be human.

Yeah, that feels right. Might make a few little one shot comics of the different versions, or post some designs and a script or beakdown, or never mention this again because i either got distracted or am drowning in course work.

[awkwardplant]

2023 Reads

This year I've read 24 books - I had only planned to read one book per month, given that I've barely read since leaving highschool. But my old bookworm self is re-emerging! As I write this, I'm on my 25th lol.

I decided at the start of the year that I wanted to try an read a wide variety of genres, which I did. Didn't love everything I read, but such is life. Below are all the titles and my terrible attempts to summarise the plots. The ones with a heart were my favourites and ones I highly reccommend.

My full list in order:

No Destination by Satish Kumar

Autobiography of the life of a pilgrim who left his family at 9 years old to become a Jain monk, then left that to become an activist and walk across continents.

Not the kind of life story you hear everyday, that's for sure.

How to Invent Everything by Ryan North

(Nonfiction) An in depth guide for the stranded time traveller that needs to recreate modern technology from scratch.

Funny, easy to understand, and bitesized sections that can be read when you've got a spare 5 mins.

Moral Compass by Danielle Steel

A girl who experiences sexual assault while at a private school that newly became co-ed, and the resulting court case/investigation into what happened.

Personally I felt this read like a case-study more than a story, and the message was very heavyhanded.

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero ❤

A horror comedy about a group of adults that used to be sleuths in their teens reunite to solve a case that everyone thinks has been wrapped up.

This was recommended to me by a librarian that said it was like "if the scooby doo gang all had trauma and fought eldritch beings" which perfectly summed it up. Also, if you shipped Velma and Daphne... you'll enjoy this book 👀 The writer randomly switches to a script-like format at times, some people hate that but I personally like when an author does whatever the fuck, just because he can. Delicious dark humour.

The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott ❤

About a woman who lives alone in the mountains in a country devastated by a coup, and is sought out by a soldier in order to find the mythical Rain Heron.

Nice prose and descriptions, and the other character's pov chapters have some great suspense.

The Mark and The Void by Paul Murray

An office worker meets a novellist who wants to write about his life.

I was really into the first half of the story, but the second half became boring as the plot stagnated

Resistance by Samit Basu

People have superpowers corresponding to their innermost desires, and we follow the life of a billionaire who is the leader of a mecha group and the lives of their enemies.

I accidentally picked this up at the library, not realizing it was a sequal to Turbulence, but it read okay on it's own. You'd like this if you're into My Hero Academia or other shounen anime.

Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North ❤

Set in the distant future after an apocalypse, an archivist is forced to translate documents from the "burning age" for the Brotherhood

I still think about this story daily. The writing has an interesting style and rhythm and the plot is packed with intriguing developments

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins ❤

There's a library with the secrets to the universe, and several people, called Pelapi, grew up learning a unique catalogue of skills using its books, taught by Father, who might be God? But he's gone missing lately.

If you like The Umbrella Academy you'd like this. Like Meddling Kids, it's also dark and funny.

The People we Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

A journalist and her old friend go on holiday in a last attempt to rekindle their friendship.

I found this book on a train, then left it on another. Hopefully it got a new home! The story was sweet, especially the ending where the journalist spent some time on herself.

It's Kind of a Funny story by Ned Vizzini

A teenage boy suffers a mental breakdown and spends a week in a psychiatric ward.

Given to me by a family member, I am now a bit concerned for her. It has a happy ending, at least. There was a transphobic depiction of a character that was mentioned in the blurb, but she doesn't even stay for the whole story.

The Darkness Knows by Arnaldur Indridason

A body is found on a mountain in Iceland, reopening a cold case from 30 years ago, bringing the detective in charge of it out of retirement.

The prose isn't great in this due to a poor translation. The plot/characters are a bit cliche but not too bad overall. The ending was unexpected yet also expected in the best way?

Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree ❤

Cosy fantasy about an orc who retires from adventuring to open a coffee shop/cafe.

Bought this after seeing it recommended for people that like Stardew Valley. I liked the amount of detail that went into just building the shop. The prose is simple, but I find that fits the main character, Viv, well, and there were some really good lines/messages in the story. I have adopted Thimble.

Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hession

Two unremarkable irish men consider their lives and place in the universe.

This would've been one of my favourites had it not focused so much on Paul's sister's wedding. The book should've been called Leonard, Hungry Paul, and Grace. I did enjoy the conversations in this book, and the attention to the mundane.

Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo

Southern Gothic queer supernatural story about a college student trying to solve the case of his best friend's death, while being haunted by Revenants.

This took me ages to read because it was so emotionally heavy and the plot moved slowly. Like it had some incredibly good prose and relationship dynamics, but I couldn't force myself to read it again.

Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers

Solar punk story about a (nonbinary!) person who suddenly switches jobs to become a tea monk, then leaves that to visit a hermitage and meets a robot along the way.

This is a short book because the sequel is the second half of the story. £13-17.99 seems too expensive for half a book. It was recommended as a cosy fantasy but the MC is existentially unhappy with their life for most of it, so the story doesn't quite fit in that category.

A Cosmology of Monsters by Shaun Hamill ❤

Noah, the youngest child of his family, narrates the life of his parents: a bookish mother and a Lovecraft-horror lover father, and the monsters they all encounter

Phenomenal prose, characters, themes, and plot. Lots of psychological trauma and inner demons.

Those People Next Door by Kia Abdullah ❤

A family moves into a suburb and a war begins between them and the neighbours after he knocks down their "black lives matter" banner.

Oh boy, it sure escalates to become way out of hand. It has a mystery element to it which I enjoyed trying to figure out. Lots of tension between plot points. The last line! Agh!!

The Fall by Louise Jensen

A girl falls off a bridge and the family/police try to uncover who pushed her, but instead uncover secrets about the family.

There were some parts that didn't make sense to me, and there was a lot of characters to keep track of. Not a bad book but it just didn't have that extra spark.

Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree

Prequel to Legends and Lattes (but can be read on its own) where Viv has recently started adventuring but has to recover from an injury before she can return to her group. She helps out at a bookshop and gets caught up with a necromancer.

Preferred the first book as it felt cosier, but the action in this book is fun too.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa

A woman leaves her office job after a breakup to live above her uncle's bookshop and helps out, but she hates books.

Too short for my liking, and the main character was difficult to connect to and the relationships/conversations seemed shallow. the second half of the story centres on the uncle's wife and while it had a valuable lesson it just wasn't as good to read.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Childhood friends meet again in college and design a game together, which changes their lives/careers.

This was not a terrible book, but it did have some strange descriptions, and the author doesn't understand how the game industry works.

The Hike by Lucy Clarke

4 women who have been friends since highschool go to Norway to climb Mount Blajfell, but they are not prepared for the trek

I felt this had some cliches, but a pretty decent suspense novel

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

10 people are invited to Soldier Island for various reasons, only to find they all have one thing in common... murder.

I was theorizing like crazy during this, trying to guess whodunnit. I felt like the reveal was a bit disappointing because how on earth was anyone meant to guess that??

Library books: 9

Given to me: 5

Favourites: 7

If you have any recs for me I'd love to know, just message me!

[creatorproductive]

How Bizarre Scooby doo!

0---]====> All Aboard <=====[---0

-=-=-=This AU contains Spoilers to Steel Ball run and Scooby Doo Mystery Inc. Future additions will contain: Violence, Character Death, Torment, and Fred being flung around like a dog toy. If anything else comes up i'll add it to the list!-=-=-=-=-=- The sound of a distant horn chugging along the tracks, an old train looking train based off the very locomotive that was raided during the Civil war. Though it looks old, it runs like any other modern train. 2013, although this year has a lot of things happening to America, it’s known for one thing, a story that no one ever heard off. The President, in this world, is a man, seeking a power only few can have.The horn gets louder, as that very President awaits at the station. President Funny Valentine, one of a kind, no one really knows his backstory, all they know is that he commissioned this said model train. Of course, he wasn’t the only one awaiting this train, with so many people at the station he had to bring his bodyguards. Of course I don't need to go into detail about Funny Valentine, and who he is, all you need to know is that, in this universe, he co-exists with the Others. In 1888, a rich family was met with tragedy, one that lasted generations, up until now. This Tragedy is one that everyone already knows, all you need to do is mention the name Joestar. Jonyle Cuhjo having defeated what they thought was the last of the curse of the joestars. Yet little did they know, fate would say otherwise. That is where our other Heroes play into this tale, a mystery beyond their comprehension, a mystery to unravel the truth behind the Joestars, a mystery that will surely end in tragedy.

“All Aboard!” Yelled the conductor, as the train finally made its stop, screeching to a halt. Of course the President was the first to board, being so famous afterall. It was when some groups of people caught his eyes. They were running from a green and blue van with red flowers. He recognized them, and that can only mean trouble, no matter, he can handle himself. He was quickly ushered into the train, entering his private train wagon.

“Hurry up, Gang, the train is here!” Ah yes, the group of young adults who had Funny Valentine on the edge of his seat. They were known for solving mysteries, traveling the world to solve said mysteries. Fred Jones, the one who is rushing everyone towards the train, “You all better behave! The President is said to be on this train!” He shouted back to the others.

“Like, we already have enough pressure!” The stumbling, clumsy boy named Shaggy. Like always he had food in his arms, as well as his friend at his side.

“Rahggy- Wook Out” The dog spoke almost intelligible as Shaggy trips over a loose stone in the middle of the platform. The food goes flying everywhere as Shaggy trips and falls over flat on his face. The food drops to the floor with a plop as his other friends, Velma and Daphne run past him laughing and giggling. “You shoold be more careful” He barked, looking at the tragedy sprawled around them.

“Doesn’t matter, like we need to get going!” Shaggy and Scooby catch up to the rest of the gang who are boarding. Tickets out and ready, although they said they had to leave the mystery machine behind, they were also excited, heading towards New york.

“Here we are, our quarters for the trip! It’s small but hey! It’s got a good window!” Fred opened the wooden door, entering into the small room.

“Fun fact, did you know, the front of the train, the locomotive, is actually based off the one from the civil war? You know the train chase?” Velma, the nerd of the group, though those many fun facts come in handy sometimes.

“So it’s a confederate train? Why would the President commision this to be rebuilt? Is’t that kinda-” Dephne, the logical one of the group, she’s usually the first to figure out who’s behind the fake monsters.

“From what I heard, he has a fascination with History, and thinks that all history should be preserved to learn from it. I can agree, even if the history is unfavorable.” He sits down on the bottom bed, the beds were like bunk beds in the wall. They were comfortable and surprisingly, as velma set, she took out her computer. “Here! President Funny Valentine, much of his family history is unknown, he is confirmed to come from around the california area. Huh, that makes a lot of sense, anyway, his Father was apparently an old Political figure head as a Mayor. And was originally a Captain in the army.  Valentine is not very open about his past, but has gone on to state, when the time is right, all will know my true origins, my true universe. Wow…. creepy.”

“Hm, it’s a hit or miss with me, he seems fine but… ah well I guess now isn’t the time to get into that topic. What’s got me curious is that last line, “My true universe”, is he a poet or something?” Daphne sat next to Velma, looking at her computer screen.

“Like, it’s also weird he wouldn’t like, you know, talk about his life, since like, he’s the president and all?” Shaggy sat on his own bed, nervously chuckling.

“If you want you can ask him yourself, he is on this very train afterall.” Although Velma knew it was impossible, a part of her still wanted to know more about him. It was at this time the gang settled in, of course Scooby and Shaggy left for the food bar, Fred and Daphne, sitting out by the windows, and Velma alone in one of the train wagons, researching the president. They were all blissfully unaware of the danger they were about to find themselves in, the mystery that will have them question everything, even whether or not they should or want to know the answer. A bizarre adventure awaits them, a new matter, a matter of life or death, danger and destruction.

“Dirty deeds done dirt cheap. No one can exist as the same person in another world… except for me, and my stand ability. Unawares and nonchalant, you five will be my first lead the HOLY CORPSE PARTS”

!! Feedback Welcome!! Please be nice, i'm not the best writer hehe.

[doingproblematicmedia]

Velma Wrapup: On Adult Comedy

Hey fam. I know this is mad late, but let’s be honest, trying to write a wrapup on Velma was about as painful as watching it. Enjoy!

---

So speaking of HBO, I just watched Marc Maron’s From Bleak to Dark, which is one of the funniest standup routines I’ve seen in a long time.

It was also deeply dark and pretty disturbing in places.

I mean, he didn’t hold back. COVID? Auschwitz? Terminal illness? Abortion? Disinformation? Antisemitism? Suicide?

All there.

And it was funny as fuck.

-

I’m gonna keep coming back to Kurt Vonnegut here, because I think he got to the root of comedy: that all humor is based on fear. “Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning do to do afterward.”

From Bleak to Dark worked because of this fear. We’re exhausted. The state of the world doesn’t seem to be getting any better, and it’s just hard to navigate being human right now. How on earth can you make this material funny?

And the answer is: by reaching deep into the dark places of the soul, plucking the strings of our agonies and worst fears, and dragging them into the light. Saying: Hey, I’m human, you’re human, and here we are trapped in the mess of our humanity. I see you. Hi.

And we laugh.

Because what else are we gonna do about it?

As both Maron and Vonnegut remarked, the jokes in Auschwitz must’ve been amazing.

-

I stumbled on this essay by Matthew Morgan on the state of modern irony, and it stuck a chord:

One feature of the free mind is an ability to entertain contradictory ideas simultaneously; at its most refined, this is an appreciation of the ironic, which Schlegel showed is borne of contradiction. Albert Camus talked about the Absurd as the search for value in a valueless universe. Humans are both the only known creatures who comprehend the meaninglessness of the cosmos and the animals most insistent on discovering meaning, demonstrating that irony is at the heart of the human condition. To embrace irony is, therefore, to embrace life.

Irony, the essay points out, strikes at the contradictions of our messy lives. Vonnegut was a master of irony, using it in such a subtle way that it sailed over many peoples’ heads. In an interview with Playboy in 1973, he famously stated: 

You understand, of course, that everything I say is horseshit...But it’s a useful, comforting sort of horseshit, you see? That’s what I object to about preachers. They don’t say anything to make anybody any happier, when there are all these neat lies you can tell. And everything is a lie, because our brains are two-bit computers, and we can’t get very high-grade truths out of them. But as far as improving the human condition goes, our minds are certainly up to that. That’s what they were designed to do.

Vonnegut’s comforting lies contradict the inherent meaninglessness of life; they give us something to hold onto. Something to reach out with, to show us that we understand each other. That we all want and fear. That we can form community with this shared understanding. An understanding based in irony. In the contradictions of life.

What does all this have to do with Velma? Bear with me. I’m getting there.

- 

Morgan’s essay also gets at what I think is an issue with a lot of current comedy:

...social commentary has been lost amid the exponential growth of shock-value comedy, the inanity of which is exposed by its label: rather than using shock to change values, the vacuous comedy of something like Family Guy values only the shock. This kind of humour merely consolidates one’s place within the in-group of cynical cool kids by sniggering at increasingly “offensive” jokes, a sort of lack-of-virtue signalling.

...The reason that shows like Family Guy are so empty is that they want to mock everything (because that’s detached and cool) while refusing to show us anything (because that would be old-fashioned and ridiculous).

And here’s where we get to Velma.

-

High school is a weird time. Lots of teenage media would have us believe that high school is when we come into our own: amongst the parties and rebellion and teenage love and heartbreak, we are tested, and emerge from this crucible as a fully-formed person. Nothing could be further from the truth. High school is messy, ugly, and painful. It doesn’t look like what it does on the screen. The idea that ‘high school is the best years of your life’ is oft repeated, which in hindsight is horseshit. But maybe we believed that deep down, back when we were in high school, and were terrified that we were doing it wrong. 

And so many of us emerge from this with scars. 

There is a lot of adult media about high school kids! Because on some level, we’re all still trying to process this time of our lives. Putting it into art, stylizing it or flaying it open, helps us to do so. And for teens watching this media, hopefully we’re saying: it’s ok. This is messy ugly and painful, but you’re not alone.

I think Velma is trying to do this. Velma goes to some serious lengths to dig into this messy high school experience. It also pokes at how the media treats the high school experience, which is awesome in theory.

The problem is, it falls into a very high school sort of trap. The kind of trap that we were supposed to mature past. The kind of trap that a lot of shock comedy hasn’t matured past.

As Morgan says, it’s that Velma wants to mock high school media - because it’s detached and cool. I remember this being a thing in high school. In order to be cool, you had to be detached. You could never show real emotion or real hurt. Everything had to roll off like water on a duck’s back.

Because showing real vulnerability wasn’t cool. Cool was not caring. Cool was being able to hurt others, without showing any hurt yourself. Velma wants to skewer the idealized version of high school we see in media - but instead, it just becomes another high school bully.

And all the criticism that has been levelled at Velma? It’s rolled off. Like water on a duck’s back. HBO has renewed it for a second season. 

It’s like watching your high school bully get elected class president.

-

I’m not gonna dissect the content of Velma, because enough people have done that already. The piles of shitty jokes, the weird meta commentary, the moments that don’t work, the moments that hurt - it’s all been compiled, and I don’t want to beat a dead horse (I’m the horse in this metaphor. Because dealing with Velma is painful). 

But I do want to say, it’s an exquisite study on how comedy fails. Fails to reach out, fails to plunge deep into its audience and pull on its worst fears. Fails to make us seen, fails to find a shared humanity.

Doug Walker, who of all people is qualified to comment on bad comedy, probably said it best: 

[Velma has] this wall of protective bullshit that's stopping it from being really funny or really clever.

And that’s that. There’s a wall. Velma is not reaching an audience, because it physically cannot. 

Is it the writers’ own fears that built this wall? Fears of being mocked? Wanting to be detached and cool? 

Because to make real connections, we run the risk of being hurt. Being hurt is a part of life. And the best comedy overcomes this. Says ‘Hi. I know you’re hurting. So am I. Can we make this less painful together?’ 

If Velma is to be believed, we cannot. All we can do is carry on hurting each other, with no connection or relief in sight. 

But as good comics have shown, we can ease the pain with shared laughter.

[beardedmrbean]

Oh sorry about my preaching my jokes, just been tired of the meta and wendon commentary that been force onto my generation

Also like in Velma

“You these types of stories are usually about popular white guys who get more power? Well not mine!”-bitch you are doing a adult comedy from a kids franchise that supposed to be a gateway into mystery genre

Also we know you came from a white collar family and went to Darthmouth college

Also like my Chinese wizards having a cannibalism issues. The reference is the numerous sources saying that Chinese ate other humans during times of crisis and warfare

Vs modern writers who trying to subvert tropes

There a fundamental difference between a Gen x and Millennial cinemaphile who picked up on Disney animation movies tropes VS a child who first Disney movie that can remember influencing them is Encanto or coco

Modern writers completely forgot that

It also like my Judas joke with Yasuke and Akechi. I just use the historical context as Judas is the golden standard for betrayal so, depending how they executed his jesuits connections, so him calling Akechi Judas made sense.

Also another thing, Japan been the most requested setting for ac. To the point the offical Twitter made a joke about it

https://x.com/assassinscreed/status/1569400536205594625?s=46

But I recall many people said they got into AC because of the Ancient Greece and Egypt games. So I expect a lot of new blood will come in. And it seem red will be the same especially as it going to take place between the major trilogies and sagas

So naeo is going to be the ultimate shinobi fantasy we wanted. While Yasuke will be used to newcomers to explain the whole secret war. Dialogue like this

Yasuke: So the assassins and Templars, weren’t they destroyed by the Mongols and Templars burn by the French king?

A European assassin(who I would make the grandson of ezio as a callback): We are much older than our crusaders incarnations. My grandfather found records saying that Brutus and Cassius was one of us. There are even whispers that both orders can trace themselves back to ancient Egypt

Y: What that got to do with Japan?

A: It is said that an order of Xuia (founder statue was in ac2 and the mobile game Jade will focus on them) killed the first emperor of China who was supported by the Templars forerunners. This conflict have been around since the dawn of humanity. And I sense the Templars know of something that Oda founded.

Rough but this what I meant like a issue why writing

Oh sorry about my preaching my jokes, just been tired of the meta and wendon commentary that been force onto my generation Also like in Velma “You these types of stories are usually about popular white guys who get more power? Well not mine!”-bitch you are doing a adult comedy from a kids franchise that supposed to be a gateway into mystery genre

You're good no worries, and ya how do you screw up Scooby Doo, start by removing Scooby and then move on to shoehorning politics and SocJus stuff in there.

Also like my Chinese wizards having a cannibalism issues. The reference is the numerous sources saying that Chinese ate other humans during times of crisis and warfare

Not terribly uncommon honestly, there's the old law of the sea that absolves sailors of wrongdoing in case of cannibalism if starvation is the only other option and the person being eaten is chosen fairly.

There a fundamental difference between a Gen x and Millennial cinemaphile who picked up on Disney animation movies tropes VS a child who first Disney movie that can remember influencing them is Encanto or coco Modern writers completely forgot that

Gen-X is the parents of them, older Millennials too, more Gen-X tho.

Nice they listened

But I recall many people said they got into AC because of the Ancient Greece and Egypt games. So I expect a lot of new blood will come in. And it seem red will be the same especially as it going to take place between the major trilogies and sagas

New fans mean more sales so that's likely part of the plan,

So naeo is going to be the ultimate shinobi fantasy we wanted. While Yasuke will be used to newcomers to explain the whole secret war. Dialogue like this Rough but this what I meant like a issue why writing

Ya needs polish, but it's not bad either, not as a plot outline at least.

[kabbal]

HERE I COME

I love to find secondary character that are objectively bad women with something wrong with them and making them worse by finding another horrible woman to ship them with

Starting with a very mainstream ship (for f/f at least) : Cait/Vi from the Arcane animated series :

The large class difference is what kind of drew me in, that and the brash and flirty/reserved and more prude dynamic. They've got a lot of fic about them as a main couple since their buddy cop duo is built off classic fandom tropes, with nicknames, saving each other asses and a "reluctant allies to lovers" progression. Season 2 is rumored to

Then we get to what I would call the mid mainstream level f/f with the Locked Tomb series, and I could talk about any combination of Ianthe, Harrow and Gideon but since I think they get talked about plenty already, I will talk about MY ship of two secondary characters : Coronabeth and Judith

(linking art here since I don't want to repost away from artists)

How do you get with your crush when you've always been a child soldier for a fascist empire and your crush is actively breaking every possible rule of said fascist empire including rebellion and a weird incesty-vibes relationship with her own sister? Can you do it without ending up dead, or a prisonner, or haunted by some ancient beast of destruction? That's a question Judith would like to ask. Will her repressed pining be cut short by tragic and gruesome death?

(I kind of want them to end tragically. For the horrible vibes. And the fix-it fics, of which there are a very appreciated number)

Then we go to a kind of niche f/f since it's built upon ONE character that me and some others who agree with me decided should be into women : Valeria from the 2022 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II game.

She's so very bad, guys. The ethics of the Call of Duty franchise are a fucking mess since the creators thought they could make a "apolitical" war game, but she's a nasty person. She's a mob boss who was okay risking the whole city of Chicago to be annoying. She fucks over the protagonists every time. So of course we wanted her to have a girlfriend. I'm seen a LOT of readerfic for this character since she seems to make people horny, and people (me included) have been creating OCs to ship her with and be the alpha female our hearts desire

Then I get into REALLY niche f/f since I have a femslash pairing in a tv show that has barely had an english sub and obviously no dub. The series Kaamelott is a staple of French culture for its witty wordplay, very quotable moments and tragic scenes, and i have inprinted on two of its secondary characters, Démétra and Aelis

They're two mistresses of the same king, which of course causes conflict. They're constantly trying to up one another in becoming the new queen, and also both failing. I am gnawing on their sexual tension like a bone. I have produced way too many art and fics for them and I pulled my friends into it for a ship between two characters that share maybe three episodes of a six season show, so IF THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WAY.

anyway I've got more blorbettes (most of them rarepairs) that I ship together like Velma/Roxie from Chicago, Sandy/Rizzo from Grease, Tashigi/Reiju and Nami/Khalifa from One Piece, Alicent/Rhaenyra from House of the Dragon, and many more. Hope this opens some possibilities for people

Since we're on the subject of f/f: shippers, give me recs! What f/f are you passionate about? For me personally I prefer live action and women who aren't full face of makeup level femme, but really, just tell me who your blorbos are and why you're nuts about them.

--

[theliterarywolf]

>Drawn Together

Fuck I remember watching that show as a teenager and hating it because I thought it just a bunch of pointlessly offensive nonsense, which it probably WAS considering the huge chunks of movie are literally about the writers arguing for the right to be a edgy shock comedy without needing to have a point behind the edge unlike South Park (the rest of the movie is just them whining about being canceled while SP wasn’t btw)… and yet, other than the SP thing and that episode about Entertainment Weekly giving them a shit score, I don’t recall getting the vibe the writers were actually trying to make anyone mad. Yeah they ALWAYS aimed for shock humor but that was it. They just wanted you go "Oh no they didn’t!" and didn’t actually care if you got mad at it or not. I don’t know that’s actually something admirable about DT but I’m damn certain it was a lot less irritating than Velma which feels like it’s trying to bait as many people to bitch about it on social media as it can.

Drawn together is definitely one of those shows that only worked because it went 100% of the way with the stereotypes and offensiveness. If you're gonna make a racist/phobic-joke you gotta go that entire mile of leaning into the offensive humour, because just going halfway, or trying to be self-aware just makes it fall flat. Lean into the stereotypes completely when they act or open their mouths, DT now having "obvious" designs also helped because you wouldn't expect it, until it happened.

I think a major reason why people have been looking back fondly at Drawn Together in recent years is because there aren't that many shows/media in our immediate time that go balls-to-the-wall without constantly looking over their shoulder to have a 'special little moment' with the audience.

Because, I mean, sometimes we need that. But there has to be some effort behind it. Drawn Together starts out as an animated parody of reality TV? Cool, how do we expand on that? Plot-points making fun of each character's animation-genre? Right, right, how do we go forward from there?

And then they just shove everything onto the page, make cuts for time and BOOM.

However, no one should take this as me saying 'Drawn Together was a flawless show'. I'm just saying that I can at least see myself laughing at it versus something like Velma, modern-day Family Guy, The Prince, or Chicago Party Aunt (fuck you Netflix, how did that shite get two seasons yet you canceled The Midnight Gospel, Fuck you, fuck you, FUCK YOU)

[disgruntleddemon]

i'm probably going to unleash a long explanation rant by asking this, but I don't know a whole lot about mystery inc (i've watched a few things here and there but i was never 100% invested). you are telling me scooby has more family than scrappy??

oh dude you're definitely getting a long rant from this one lmao. none of this family is from mystery inc tho. i actually haven't seen that one either lol. this is from the scooby doo show, a pup named scooby doo, and scooby/scrappy stuff. there's a lot of family members, so i'll put em under the cut hjkjhj

to start, we got Yankee Doodle Doo. he's a pilgrim ancestor. the leg next to him is Shaggy's ancestor

next up is great grandpa doo. apparently a civil war hero. he was pissed his ancestor's were cowards, but chilled out when he saw how brave Scrappy is

then grandpa doo from the same episode. kinda just like if Scooby was old

you have Scooby's parents, Mumsy and Dada Doo, they've had a lot of various looks lmao. i'm partial to their a pup named scooby doo one personally. they love their kids

there's horton doo, Scooby's uncle. his gimmick is loving scary stuff and being a mad scientist. he has a pet monster called Fluffy, and pronounced skeleton like "skreleton" i love him <33

before we get to Scooby's siblings, i'll do his cousins. probably his most well known is Scooby Dum. his thing is being dumb and wanting to be a cop.

Scooby Dee is a weird one since she's explicitly Scooby Doo and Scooby Dum's cousin, but is also a love interest??? it's super weird. she's a movie star. she also makes a little cameo in what's new scooby doo

Whoopsy Doo's thing is that he's a clown. i also love him lol. he belongs to Shaggy's uncle, who's called Gaggy Rogers of all things

Dooby Doo is a famous singer. he's also primarily bipedal. he calles Scooby "Scooby baby" the whole episode, and gives him a cheek kiss at the end. Scooby does not like that, ig that's one cousin he's not into lol

Dixie Doo is another singer, and is a southern bell type. she has unsettlingly human proportions. i hate it sm

finally to his siblings, we got Ruby Doo, Scrappy's mother. she only ever appears twice. once when Scrappy was born, and once in an a pup named scooby doo episode. she's like Daphne's Doo in that episode.

Skippy Doo is a computer nerd and represents Velma

Howdy Doo is obsessed w this one newspaper, and somehow that marked him as Freddie's Doo? like they bond over that ig

then there's Yabba Doo. he does not appear in a pup named Scooby Doo, so he's probably their baby brother. he's a cowboy and has his own lil spinoff with Scrappy. him and Scooby never interact. at first i thought maybe he isn't Scooby's brother, but is his cousin. with Scrappy only calling him uncle yabba as like a generic thing to call an older male relative, but Scrappy calls Dooby Doo, uncle Dooby, so Yabba is def a sibling.

finally of course is Scrappy, Scoob's nephew. i think he's unfairly hated, n i love him <33

but ye! that's Scooby's extended family! i'm always ready to talk about them lmao. my personal favs are Horton, Whoopsy, Ruby, and Scrappy. most of these guys only get one episode appearances and a few lines, which is a shame. i'd love to see em in more modern iterations ngl

[smokeybrandreviews]

Scooby Dooby Don’t

I feel like I'm piling on with this post but, f*ck, is Velma bad! It is every bit as terrible as you’ve heard, and has uniquely offended every one. I’m talking both sides of the aisle and it’s kind of insane. I’ve seen cats talking about how Mindy Kaling, voice of the titular Velma Dinkley and executive producer of this show, is some sort of deep cover, radical Conservative, who created this show specifically to be a parody of everything the Left looks for in content. I read a whole ass article that basically said Kaling is a self-hating Indian woman because all of her characters are basically self-hating Indian women and that’s a fair analysis. What has that got to do with Velma? Probably a lot but I'm not here to unpack Kaling’s personal issues. I’m just her to tell you this show is f*cking awful!

Now, don’t misunderstand me, I'm not here for this superficial outrage. All of this “woke” diversity sh*t is not a problem for me. I love a re-imagining and making these characters racially diverse is a thing that i am more than okay with, red-headed, ambiguously Asian, Daphne Blake aside. I like the subversion of Shaggy, for the most part. Norville is probably my favorite character in this show and that’s only because he’s redeemable. I mean, the dude is a total simp for Velma, much to his detriment, but Shaggy is, quite literally, the only likable character (if you can call him that) in this entire goddamn show. Everyone on this cast is abhorrent. It’s like someone drunkenly said in some Hollywood party, “Hey, what if Scooby-Doo but Always Sunny? And way worse?” That’s Velma in a nutshell. That’s the entire f*cking show, right there.

The writing is f*cking atrocious. It's not clever or funny and is just kind of what you'd expect a modern sixteen year old would make if they were penning a Scooby-Doo fan fic. Like, i didn’t laugh at anything in this show. Not once. Not even a chuckle. It was edgy cringe, the whole way through. This sh*t is written in the most derivative, performative progressive, corporate woke way possible. I’m watching this show and it feels like I'm looking at all the Rainbow Flags being flown over f*cking Disney during Pride Month. Watching this feels no different than Nike posting a bunch of MLK quotes over whatever new Zoom Air product poster their releasing, in February. This woke bullsh*t says the thing but doesn’t go any deeper. It’s recognizable as “progressive” but doesn’t earn any of the weight which goes with that. I mean, Daphne and Velma kiss at the end of episode f*cking two. That right there is your “safe” LBGTQ+ representation. At the end of the second f*cking episode. Unearned. Inorganic. Just shoved in there because, gay needed to be checked off the list.

It’s all just dick jokes and terrible pacing and f*cking nonsensical tomfoolery. Nothing is funny. Nothing is compelling. This show is just a mess but the most egregious transgression committed by Velma is the fact that Velma Dinkley is the absolute worst! She is, without a doubt, the worst f*cking character in this entire f*cking show, and it’s HER show! How can your title character be this goddamn unlikable? Velma in this show, resembles no other iteration of the character. Because she’s not. This Velma is every other character Mindy Kaling has ever played, which is just her. This Velma IS Mindy. She’s a self insert and acts just like every other character Mindy has written, because all she writes IS herself. There is no difference between Velma or Mindy Lahiri or Bela from that other show Kaling produced, The Sex Lives of College Girls. If you’re Indian in a Mindy Kaling production, you’re going to be a self-insert whether it’s prudent to the script or not. And she got away with this sh*t for years because, you know, it was HER sh*t. Now it’s not. Now it’s Scooby-Doo, a franchise that has been established for more than fifty f*cking years. When an franchise has been around that long, with so many different iterations of those principal characters, your lack of nuance and creativity molding one of the core cast is definitely going to stand out. Velma is so goddamn bad, cats are questioning Mindy’s entire career. That’s how bad she f*cked this up.

Who is this for? Its too woke for the Right and too poorly written for everyone else. Like, don’t misunderstand me, this is a bad show. It was bad on the page before the sh*t even got ethnically diverse onscreen. Everything in this show feels like it was focus-grouped for Zoomers and Alphas, and then no one listened to the feedback. They just went off some notes they got from the Old Twatter guard. Those Bluehairs and Checkmarks and the like. How is this thing so goddamn bad? Harley Quinn is everything this show wants to be and done correctly. SO much goddamn gay in that show but no one complains about any of it. SO much ethnic diversity and big ass female energy coursing throughout, not a peep from those more Conservative viewers. Because it’s good. Because the writing is witty, satirical, genuine, and earnest. This is what Adult animation is supposed to be, not just gratuitously violent, overtly sexual in very problematic ways, and chock full of mic drop F-bombs just for the f*ck of it. This is written like some wish fulfillment from the chubby goth girl that no one talked to in high school. Velma is the Twlight-ification of Scooby-Doo and it's f*cking terrible because of that.