tymime

[tymime]

I want to introduce racial diversity into the fantasy setting I'm developing, especially after the racist, knee-jerk reactions to the variety of skin colors in Tales of the Shire.

With humans it's easy enough- this fantasy world I'm making is an idealized world, where there's almost no racism- no slavery, no oppression of minorities. The European-inspired kingdoms can easily receive visitors from faraway lands, kings and queens and emperors hailing from places inspired by Asia and Africa, treated as equals. Immigration is also commonplace, and the average citizen can be any number of races or ethnicities.

Complications arise when folkloric little people are factored into it- elves, dwarfs, goblins, gnomes, what have you. I don't want to randomly have gnomes from Africa or something silly like that- I want their origins to reflect where the folklore originally comes from. At the same time, I don't want any viewers to feel like they're being excluded, or like an elf can never be anything but white.

I want their skin colors to be realistic (insofar as a pixy can be realistic), to reflect the skin colors of indigenous, ancient peoples of Europe. There's often a vague implication that little people were around before humans settled wherever they live.

This wouldn't be too difficult when it comes to fair folk that come from England and Scandinavia. DNA evidence strongly indicates that the Cheddar Man, a prehistoric skeleton found in England (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheddar_Man), had dark skin. The Sámi people (aka Laplanders) of Scandinavia were mostly brown-skinned several generations ago.

Fairies actually have their ultimate origins in stories from the Middle East, and occasionally appear in Arabian Nights. So there's that.

The average white person doesn't know about this stuff, though. When an elf or fairy maiden is described as "beautiful" in a 19th century text, chances are the white-skinned author or storyteller is thinking of a woman with Euro-centric features.

But that shouldn't stop a modern writer from making little people diverse.

Personally, it leaves some questions: How do you explain why they have multiple skin colors? Do they have different skin colors depending on their native region? Does that mean little people immigrate just like humans? I guess there's no real reason the answer can't be yes.

A monkey wrench is thrown in by the little people called "brownies". Basically, they're like the house-elves of Harry Potter, except they're not slaves and quit their jobs after receiving clothes because it offends them. The name "brownie" refers to their skin color. What this implies is that their brown skin is unusual and remarkable enough that their entire species is named after it. Problematic, perhaps, but I'm not so sure anybody in real life would actually see brownies as representing any actual minority- they seem to be a category all to themselves. Maybe the reason is that they're ALL brown, and have no other skin colors. I dunno.

I also intend to factor in little people from all across the world, such as the Menehune of Hawaii. There's potential for their immigration as well, even mixed marriages, though that would be something I'd want in a more modern time period, instead of the vaguely Medieval time period I'm focusing on.

[tymime]

Maybe I'm not the best judge, since I'm not actually a huge Donkey Kong fan, but the more I look at the new design for Bananza, the more I don't like it. It's not exactly a hill for me to die on or anything, but I definitely prefer the more tough, determined DK in the Country games. They made him look way dumber and goofier now, even moreso than the cartoon series.

I also sense that this was something Nintendo had been waiting forever to do. Like they've been secretly hating Rare's design this whole time, and this is their way of reclaiming him, and taking him back to before the Country series. I have absolutely no proof of this, of course, and it seems highly unlikely they would wait this long to do it, but it's the vibe I get.

And I'm sure I'm not the only one to question why Pauline is a little girl now- does this mean it's a prequel to everything, taking place even before the DK arcade game? Then why is Cranky Kong there? And why would DK kidnap Pauline as an adult if they're friends?

[tymime]

I've been a Five Nights at Freddy's fan practically since day one- if not literally day one, but certainly within the first week of the first game's release at the very latest- and I was drawn to it immediately.

One of my first thoughts was "Yeah, a horror game about animatronics seems kinda inevitable."

After over ten years of the franchise, it's honestly surprising that no one seems to talk about how much pop culture was slowly leading up to this whole animatronic horror thing, though in hindsight no one could have anticipated how huge the genre would become. I think people have forgotten that animatronics, especially those at pizza restaurants, had been seen as creepy for years before FNAF, though it was never as widespread as it is now.

Five Nights at Freddy's has many precedents, mostly in animation. The earliest I can think of is the Rugrats episode "Piggy's Pizza Place", though the scares seems to mostly involve the mascot costumes- which, oddly enough, anticipates Secret of the Mimic more than anything.

This next one, while it takes place in a theme park instead of a pizza restaurant, has so many similarities to FNAF I'm surprised I've never seen anybody mention it. It's The Simpsons episode "Itchy and Scratchy Land". The robot versions of the titular characters look a LOT like FNAF endoskeletons, glowing eyes and all.

They even have cameras inside them and facial recognition technology that's supposed to help distinguish between the guests and other animatronics, though this inevitably goes wrong. This reminds me quite a bit of the botched facial recognition the Toy animatronics had in FNAF 2.

There's even a moment where they seem to feel pain? In a repair room, no less. Most fans seem to agree that FNAF animatronics have feelings.

"I really wish they wouldn't scream." If Scott Cawthon wasn't at least half-remembering this episode I'd be very surprised.

And then of course there's the inevitable murderous rampage.

Outside of The Simpsons taking Disney parodies to the next level, most other Chuck E. Cheese parodies in cartoons deliberately make the animatronics at the very least unsettling. They're often run-down, wall-eyed, and broken.

Even Disney, the leader in animatronic technology, has done this. Lester's Possum Park from A Goofy Movie in particular is barely functional, and one of the characters explodes. The atmosphere is disorienting, there's trash on the floor, and the music is overly cheery to the point of being manic. This isn't a parody of Disney animatronics- this is making fun of the poor quality shows in seedy, cheap roadside attractions.

The Dexter's Laboratory episode "Chubby Cheese's", meanwhile, makes the animatronics hideous and grotesque, the song's lyrics make little sense, their dialogue seems glitched, and it seems like more and more of them appear onstage as it goes on (mostly lesser known Hanna-Barbera characters for some reason).

Jumping ahead to the 2010s, interest in pizza restaurant animatronics seemed to be slowly rising, probably because of nostalgia and the negative reaction to the Rockstar redesigns of Chuck E. Cheese. The first time animatronics truly "came to life" seems to be the Regular Show episode "Fuzzy Dice", which came out two years before the original FNAF.

2014 seemed to be the year when it all culminated into the animatronic horror genre we all know today. Not only did the first FNAF game come out, the Gravity Falls episode "Soos and the Real Girl" featured possessed animatronics a mere month later, by sheer coincidence- the episode was in the process of being written and animated for several months before, while Scott Cawthon probably made the first FNAF game in only a few weeks, and they certainly didn't know either one existed.

And like we usually expect from animatronic horror, they start rampaging.

And the character Will E. Badger sure does anticipate the Glamrock animatronics by about seven years- another total coincidence, no doubt.

So yeah, if all that isn't a good demonstration of how we were headed towards a scary animatronic game- if Scott Cawthon hadn't made one, someone else probably would have- and how we percieved animatronics well before FNAF, I don't know what is.

I'm also reminded how kid-friendly stuff being turned on its head into something horrifying is something that's been around for quite a while- creepy dolls, scary clowns, spooky music boxes (heck, Rugrats covered a lot of those tropes too), so in my opinion mascot horror was kind of inevitable.

[tymime]

I agree that it's all about intent- if it's supposed to be a "cartoon", then they're toons. Which is why I'm not keen on the Rescue Rangers movie including uncanny valley CG. As for Epic Mickey, I always figured duplication was one the default toon abilities.

What is or isn't a toon?

In the Who Framed Roger Rabbit universe, it's easy to assume that toons encompass all forms of animation: cel animation, stop-motion, CG, cut-outs, what have you.

But something I've been having difficulty with is how animation-adjacent characters fit into it.

Puppets (especially Muppets)

The Muppets are especially problematic. The nature of their reality is uncertain and all over the place- they frequently make live appearances, with or without visible puppeteers. The movies imply that they can move independently of a puppeteer. Kermit is famous for describing Jim Henson as "always having his hands in a lot of things", a joke common enough to have it's own wiki entry (https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/%22hand_inside%22_joke). Do they gain independence from the puppeteers over time? Do they switch back and forth freely?

They even appear in traditional animation.

The TV special The Muppets at Walt Disney World does seem to confirm that they coexist, though that special also has people dressed in mascot costumes (which I address later).

Sometimes traditionally animated toons become puppets.

We've seen toons make the jump from cel animation to CG thousands of times, however, so perhaps this is just something toons can do- switch from one medium to another.

But what about marionettes? The whole premise of Pinocchio is that marionettes aren't normally alive, and yet the Muppets ocassionally use them to expand their mobility.

And don't get me started on how Disney's Pinocchio is a cel animated representation of a marionette.

2. Mascot costumes

I think most can agree that in the Roger Rabbit universe, the actual toon characters appear in the theme parks. After all, Disneyland is a part of the Mickey's Toontown origin story. The video game Disneyland Adventures seems to confirm this. Why have someone dress up as a toon when you've got the real thing? Toons can even be in more than one place at the same time, so surely Mickey can appear in multiple theme parks.

And yet cartoons frequently reference mascot costumes. It's almost like toons are dressing up as toons.

My best explanation is that humans in the Roger Rabbit universe use these sort of costumes as an excuse to not pay a toon's wages, and humans are cheaper somehow- and their appearance in animation is some sort of satire of this practice.

3. Animatronics

Unlike the others on this list, there seems to be less ambiguity about the nature of animatronics- Epic Mickey goes out of its way to distinguish them from toons, especially since the Mad Doctor turns out to be a hybrid of the two.

The My Life as a Teenage Robot episode "The Wonderful World of Wizzly" (an obvious parody of Disneyland) treats animatronics as though they're sapient robots.

Things get weirder when animatronic characters have animated counterparts.

Or when animation has animatronic characters that don't exist in real life.

Even more inexplicable is this Bonkers comic that's all about a theme park replacing their characters with robots:

This might also be some sort of cost-saving scheme, but I'm not sure how maintaining a robot is cheaper than hiring a "real" toon.

4. Video game characters

I think it's safe to assume that video game characters like Mario and Sonic are toons, with their own cartoons on TV and in movies, though Wreck-It Ralph certainly adds its own layer of weirdness with the implication that every copy of a ROM or disc image has a distinct duplicate of a character.

And if we're going to get technical, the characters from Five Nights at Freddy's may very well just be video game characters, and not "real" animatronics, with their own in-universe animated counterparts:

You see how this can get really confusing when you factor everything in together?

[tymime]

What is or isn't a toon?

In the Who Framed Roger Rabbit universe, it's easy to assume that toons encompass all forms of animation: cel animation, stop-motion, CG, cut-outs, what have you.

But something I've been having difficulty with is how animation-adjacent characters fit into it.

Puppets (especially Muppets)

The Muppets are especially problematic. The nature of their reality is uncertain and all over the place- they frequently make live appearances, with or without visible puppeteers. The movies imply that they can move independently of a puppeteer. Kermit is famous for describing Jim Henson as "always having his hands in a lot of things", a joke common enough to have it's own wiki entry (https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/%22hand_inside%22_joke). Do they gain independence from the puppeteers over time? Do they switch back and forth freely? They even appear in traditional animation, which just adds to the confusion.

The TV special The Muppets at Walt Disney World does seem to confirm that they coexist, though that special also has people dressed in mascot costumes (which I address later).

Sometimes traditionally animated toons become puppets.

We've seen toons make the jump from cel animation to CG thousands of times, however, so perhaps this is just something toons can do- switch from one medium to another.

But what about marionettes? The whole premise of Pinocchio is that marionettes aren't normally alive, and yet the Muppets ocassionally use them to expand their mobility.

And don't get me started on how Disney's Pinocchio is a cel animated representation of a marionette.

2. Mascot costumes

I think most can agree that in the Roger Rabbit universe, the actual toon characters appear in the theme parks. After all, Disneyland is a part of the Mickey's Toontown origin story. The video game Disneyland Adventures seems to confirm this. Why have someone dress up as a toon when you've got the real thing? Toons can even be in more than one place at the same time, so surely Mickey can appear in multiple theme parks.

And yet cartoons frequently reference mascot costumes. It's almost like toons are dressing up as toons.

My best explanation is that humans in the Roger Rabbit universe use these sort of costumes as an excuse to not pay a toon's wages, and humans are cheaper somehow- and their appearance in animation is some sort of satire of this practice.

3. Animatronics

Unlike the others on this list, there seems to be less ambiguity about the nature of animatronics- Epic Mickey goes out of its way to distinguish them from toons, especially since the Mad Doctor turns out to be a hybrid of the two. (Note: For reasons that are kinda complicated, I consider Epic Mickey to be a work of fiction within the Roger Rabbit universe, mainly because it doesn't reflect real life animation history, and contradicts House of Mouse. Because of that, I think it depicts an alternate timeline, a "what if", if you will.)

The My Life as a Teenage Robot episode "The Wonderful World of Wizzly" (an obvious parody of Disneyland) treats animatronics as though they're sapient robots. They're programmed to repeat the same actions over and over, which explains why they would be content to stand in the same spot 24/7.

Even Disney has poked fun at it's a small world a couple times. So it's definitely not like animatronics don't exist in the toon world.

Things get weirder when animatronic characters have animated counterparts, however.

Or when animation has animatronic characters that don't exist in real life.

Actually, this kinda puts a whole new wrinkle in how this all works. These animated representations of animatronics can't move on their own. In Five Nights at Freddy's, animatronics being able to move on their own is the whole reason it's supposed to be scary. Therefore, outside of FNAF 2 and Security Breach, animatronics are assumed to not be capable of walking around. This is supported by other cartoons with animatronics that are supposed to be scary when they "come to life".

(Note: It's because of this expectation that the vast majority of mascot horror games, such as Bendy and the Ink Machine and Indigo Park, are unfortunately not canon to WFRR. Cartoon characters being alive and real is the cornerstone of that universe, but most mascot horror plays with the idea that they're being brought to life for the first time one way or another, and that it's unnatural.)

Even more inexplicable is this Bonkers comic that's all about a theme park replacing their characters with robots:

This might also be some sort of cost-saving scheme, but I'm not sure how maintaining a robot is cheaper than hiring a "real" toon.

But which is it? Mindless robots or self-aware robots?

4. Video game characters

I think it's safe to assume that video game characters like Mario and Sonic are toons, with their own cartoons on TV and in movies, though Wreck-It Ralph certainly adds its own layer of weirdness with the implication that every copy of a ROM or disc image has a distinct duplicate of a character.

And if we're going to get technical, the characters from Five Nights at Freddy's may very well just be video game characters, and not "real" animatronics, with their own in-universe animated counterparts:

You see how this can get really confusing when you factor everything in together?

[tymime]

I downloaded these from somewhere (I forget where) about fifteen years ago, apparently. Wasn't aware that people were trying to find it.

Hello. I have a question about the Pirates of the Caribbean comics. Have you come across this comic in magazines, I can’t find it anywhere on the Internet. Just this page. I would love to see it!

https://pirates.fandom.com/wiki/Enter…_the_Scarecrow! Enter… the Scarecrow! is a comic short story published in the Disney Adventures comics in Winter 2005, set in the Pirates of the Caribbean world and published under the Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl title. It can be considered as a crossover with the Disney-made series from 1964, The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh.

Someone else was asking about this a long time ago and I couldn't find it. But from this image, now I know why. It's in one off the Comic Zone issues, which were only sold in stores and not part of the regular DA subscription, which I had. It would be interesting to read if anybody out there can share.

[tymime]

It's a Moog, and it's surfing.

[tymime]

I have no idea why these three different blogs keep reblogging the same three drawings I made, over and over, on a weekly basis. What are they trying to accomplish?

[tymime]

Collection of chillwave, lofi, bedroom pop, etc, suitable for cozy, comfy games in a late 20th century setting.

[tymime]

Just a couple of fuzzy rock tracks.

[tymime]

Snow.

[tymime]

My earliest experience with Superman was a solitary episode of the Fleischer cartoon, and for a long time it was the only Superman media I ever saw. I never saw the Christopher Reeve movies as a kid, so I didn't know the John Williams theme.

So when my summer camp did a parody of the Williams theme, I used to think "That's not the Superman theme!" because the Fleischer theme song was the only one I ever heard. To this day I can't take the Williams theme 100% seriously, because I always hear the words "Thank you Lord, for giving us foooood..." in my head.

[tymime]

I'm kinda upset because the house next door, which has been essentially unchanged since I was a baby and was an annual stop every Halloween of my childhood, is being almost completely altered.

They took out all the trees and plants, including the really nice star pine that's been dropping needles into our backyard for as long as I can remember, and now there's this great big empty space where people can peek over the fence. The dirt where they once had a garden is now concrete.

The dark wooden paneling on the outside walls is now covered up by boring white plaster.

The only silver lining is that they fixed our fence for free.

...By trampling our backyard garden, killing nearly every plant.

...And nearly digging up the graves of our mom's dogs.

Not that they could've known.

The only thing left is the distinctive red driveway, which I suppose isn't worth jackhammering and replacing.

It's not as though I'll miss the people who live there, though. They were pretty awful people- years ago, they allowed their infant child to cry for hours on end, leaving it all alone, in some deranged effort to "teach them indepence". A baby! We called the cops on them, and that put a stop to it. Then one time our cat Koroma got trapped in their garage for several days. No, it's the house that I'll miss. I don't even know if it's the same people who lived there when I went trick-or-treating.

I have an odd perception of my next door neighbors' backyards. Ever since I was little, I hardly ever peeked over the fence, much less visited them, because I was never friends with them (also I respected their privacy). So for as long as I can remember, I've had odd dreams about those backyards, filling in the gaps in my brain, making elaborate gardens that stretched further beyond their actual size and depth. When I realized that this house behind ours was being altered forever, while nobody was living there, I realized I might never get the opportunity again- I had to look over the fence, and see what it actually looks like.

There's a board nailed to the fence in the back corner. I thought it was an unused/broken gate between the our yard and theirs. Because it was partially hidden behind and old fountain, some trees and overgrown vines, I associated it with the 1993 adaptation of The Secret Garden. I liked to pretend it was unlocked by a key, and that there was a pretty garden beyond it. It's not a gate. I'm not sure what that board is doing there. Maybe it's patching a hole or something. But I filled the void in my brain, at least...

[tymime]

The rockabilly group I'm writing and recording for, now known as The Southern Badgers, has a new single! I wrote the melody and arrangement and played guitar, with lyrics by Aiden Morrison and vocals by Sam Reilly.

[tymime]

My blend of death/doom metal and surf rock

[tymime]

It's a little infuriating that the person I've been hired to write songs for knows absolutely nothing about music theory and even appears to be tone deaf

[tymime]

One of the most dismaying things about the world today is how confused and mixed up American morality and political stances are. I've seen left-wing extremists talk like right-wing extremists and use the exact same talking points, moderate Republicans that sound like Democrats, so-called progressives spout dated views on sexuality and gender and make racist jokes, and MAGA heads dress and act in such a way that would shock and offend conservatives of the 1950s and '60s. I hate to sound old and say that my youth was "a simpler time", but I honestly believe it. It was easier to tell apart liberals and conservatives, the good guys from the bad guys. Things have gotten so much more complicated.