#maybe i do more of these animated icons with some other characters later on | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sid-the-sandwich · 4 months

Text

'Obey Me!' character hobby mechanic

This is my second time writing this because I lost the first draft even though I saved multiple times.

Anyways, this is (Maybe) part 2 of stealing features from other games and incorporating it into the mechanics of 'Obey Me!' While writing the shops for each character, my mind wandered and I had a thought, what if there were hobbies like in 'Blush Blush'. Leveling up these hobbies would give rewards such as intimacy multiplier, icons, bonuses, and cards.

I'm a yapper, so this is going to be long. Not proof-read

--------------

firstly, i'll talk about the hobbies mechanics and what it would do:

There should be 4 types of hobbies:

Common- hobbies that almost every character has.

Uncommon- Hobbies that 5 or more characters have

Rare- Hobbies that 2, 3 or 4 characters have

Character specific- A hobby distinct to each character

the rewards for these would be:

Common/Uncommon- Grimm, AP

Rare- Grimm, AP, DP, DV, Character lines

Character specific- Grimm, AP, DP, DV, Character lines, Card pieces

NOTE: all four will add an intimacy multiplier that will apply to only characters who have that hobby

the rewards for the level max for these would be:

Common/Uncommon- an icon of Sheep MC doing the hobby

Rare- icon, Memory card of the characters with that hobby

Character specific- Icon, UR card of that character

The Hobbies:

Common:

Reading

Running

Bowling

Music

Watching TV

Board games

Uncommon:

Art

Cooking

Swimming

Sports

Dancing

Nature

Sleeping

Animal lover

Card games

Rare:

Horse riding

Gaming

Modelling

Partying

Piano

Calligraphy

Knitting

Marine Biology

Demonus tasting

Shopping

Working out

Technology

Character Specific:

Cursed Record collector

Gambling

Cosplay

Cat Enthusiast

Self-care

Competitive Eating

Stargazing

Chess

Tea tasting

Baking

Writing

Magic tricks

Trap making

Sewing

Journalism

There are a lot of hobbies listed above, however considering how long the game is running, and the amount of characters, a wide variety of hobbies make sense.

----------------

Now onto the characters:

Lucifer:

Common:

Bowling

Music

Board Games

Uncommon:

Cooking

Reading

Card games

Rare:

Demonus Tasting:

"I'd love to share a glass with you. Meet me in my study in 20 minutes" "Careful, i wouldn't want to drink too much, who knows what I might do"

Horse Riding:

"Hold on tight to my waist, I'll keep you safe" "Let's take a trip together, far from my brothers"

Piano:

"There's a piano in the music room, you're the only one i trust to use it" "Lets play a duet, naturally I'll take the lead"

Character Specific:

Cursed Record Collector:

"Come to my room, i want to show you a new record I acquired" "I used to have more records but Mammon is holding some hostage for money"

UR Card: Lucifer looking at a record player with Sheep MC on top of the record spinning.

Mammon:

Common:

Running

Watching TV

Music

Uncommon:

Card Games

Sports

Dancing

Rare:

Partying:

"YOOO! THE GREAT Mammon wants to hang out with you! lets go paint the town" "WHA! I CANT HEAR YA OVER THE MUSIC FROM YESTERDAY"

Modelling:

"You can look but ya cant touch... well, i g-guess i wouldnt complain if ya did" "Did ya see the new edition of Devucci? Top cover baby"

Shopping:

"Hey my favourite human, my first, my number one... ya really wanna pay for me today, don't ya?" "YES! I just stole Goldie back from Lucifer! let's go before he finds us!"

Character Specific:

Gambling

"Hey MC... whats your favourite number? thats gonna be my lucky number today" "MC you have to come to the casino with me! you're my good luck charm"

UR Card: Mammon holding Sheep MC running out the Casino

Leviathan:

Common:

Art

Watching TV

Music

Uncommon:

Card Games

Sleeping

Swimming

Rare:

Gaming:

"Luke befriended me in Mononoke Land... who knew he was so good" "Can you come to my room later? i brought a new game"

Marine Biology:

"Henry 2.0 is my friend... sometimes i think i should get him some siblings" "Once Belphie drifted out to sea... we didn't see him for a week"

Knitting:

"Wanna make a Ruri-chan doll with me? It's n-not like i wanna hang out with you or anything" "I'm just a Yucky otaku who likes knitting"

Character Specific:

Cosplay

"H-Henry? y-your dressed as Henry? E-eh d-dont taunt me like that" "Can you be the Azuki-tan to my Ruri-chan? BEST FRIENDS FOREVER!!!"

UR Card: A picture of Levi in a Ruri-chan costume and Sheep MC dressed as Azuki-tan

Satan:

Common:

Art

Board games

Bowling

Uncommon:

Reading

Pottery

Animal Lover

Rare:

Calligraphy:

"Don't talk, im concentrating... okay, now continue." "I wrote your name on your book for you... i know you'll enjoy it"

Piano:

"whats your favourite song? ill play it for you" "My heart is fluttering... your notes are really doing something to me"

Knitting:

"I learnt how to knit from Raphael... he's a good teacher... maybe i can teach you some tricks" "Want to knit some scarfs for each other?"

Character Specific:

Cat Enthusiasm:

"MEOW" "Sorry about that- i accidentally cursed myself again"

UR Card: Satan and Sheep MC with a cat filter

Asmodeous:

Common:

Running

Art

Music

Uncommon:

Nature

Pottery

Dancing

Rare:

Partying:

"hi <3 lets go out tonight!" "I can dance all night long! join me?"

Modelling:

"Why does Mammon have to be attractive? he's an idiot" "I'm ready for my close-up <3"

Shopping:

"You should wear an outfit i choose for you" "Lets go to the new lovers' Cafe, my treat"

Character Specific:

Self-care:

"Hehe! i have the cutest face-mask for us to try" "You have soft hands, lets join them..."

UR Card:

Beelzebub:

Common:

Running

Watching TV

Bowling

Uncommon:

Nature

Sports

Cooking

Rare:

Working Out:

"Lets play Fangol together... you remember the rules, right?" "Here... hold the stick like this... good, thats good."

Horse Riding:

"We could both ride on one horse... I'll hold you tight, I promise." "I'm not letting you ride a horse until you wear a helmet"

Gaming:

"You, me, Levi and Belphie should all play a game together sometime; its more fun with more people" "Lets play an easy game this time..."

Character Specific:

Competitive Eating:

"Woah! There's a human world sport that involves eating?" "MC, lets eat a whole pile of hot dogs together! I'll let you have the first bite"

UR Card: Beel eating from a plateful of hotdogs and Sheep MC cheering him on

Belphegor:

Common:

Board Games

Watching TV

Music

Uncommon:

Reading

Sleeping

Animal Lover

Rare:

Gaming:

"The last time i played with Simeon, i slept through 'DevilKart' and still won when i woke up" "Sleep is like life's pause button"

Knitting:

"I only started knitting because i wanted a new blanket, but its actually fun" "I can knitt in my sleep y'know... maybe i can trap you in one of my knitted blankets... heh."

Piano:

"Can you play me a lullaby?" "You really have a lot of time- huh?"

Character Specific:

Stargazing:

"You remember THOSE stars? Those are the one's Beel and I gave you" "I wonder if you think about me when you look at the stars... just like how i think of you"

UR Card: Belphie stargazing with Sheep MC on his chest looking up at the stars

Diavolo:

Common:

Running

Art

Music

Uncommon:

Pottery

Nature

Animal lover

Rare:

Horse riding:

"Lucifer, Mephistopheles, and I like to take leisurely strolls on the Horse ranches... those two are like best friends" "I wonder if Barbatos will allow me to take the day off to entertain you with a ride on my horse?"

Piano:

"Lets have a contest! Who can play better?" "I'll play a tune for you at the next Devildom festival... as our guest of honour"

Demonus tasting:

"Lucifer says the funniest things when he's drunk" "'I love you, now clean your room' such fun! Do i sound like Lucifer?"

Character Specific:

Chess:

"I've never been beat before... you really want to play against me" "If you win, I'll be your 'pawn' for the night"

UR Card: Diavolo playing Chess against Sheep MC

Barbatos:

Common:

Art

Board Games

Music

Uncommon:

Reading

Pottery

Animal Lover

Rare:

Caligraphy:

"The Young Master is lazy when it comes to learning calligraphy" "Its refreshing to see someone so young taking an interest in calligraphy"

Knitting:

"Knitting was something i didn't pick up for thousands of years, who knew it was so... amusing." "I created a quilt, a patchwork of human history as a side project"

Marine Biology:

"It's only logical to learn about the human world sea-life," "In another timeline, we are all fish."

Character Specific:

Tea Enthusiast

"It's piping hot... be careful." "Does it taste familiar? it contains ingredients from your home country"

UR Card: Barbatos and Sheep MC having a tea party

Luke:

Common:

Bowling

Watching TV

Board games

Uncommon:

Swimming

Nature

Animal Lover

Rare:

Marine Biology:

"I LOVE ALL THE CUTE FISHIES" "Barbatos likes teaching me about fish when we cook together"

Knitting:

"Simeon made me a sweater! its so cute! i wear it when i go to the human world!" "MC, can you help me start the row for my knitting?"

Gaming:

"I just sent Levi a friend request on Mononoke Land! he accepted immediately" "Simeon said I'm no longer allowed any more time on my DDD today!"

Character Specific:

Baking:

"Someone get Solomon out the kitchen. PLEASE!" "Can you reach the mixer for me? Simeon put it on the top shelf to hide it from Solomon."

UR Card: Luke and Sheep MC with chef hats and aprons mixing a batch of dough.

Simeon:

Common:

Bowling

Board games

Art

Uncommon:

Pottery

Nature

Reading

Rare:

Working out:

"Being an angel means i have to be in top shape!" "Lets do some exercises together... i'll help you do some stretches."

Modelling:

"A company called 'Majolish' asked me to be their model." "Mammon and Asmodeous gave me tips on how to pose; i could show you later if you want."

Knitting:

"I made Luke a little sweater... Raphael helped me with the design" "Solomon took a picture of me knitting... I'm hunched over."

Character Specific:

Writing:

"Leviathan keeps begging me for a new TSL novel... he really is an avid fan, huh?" "Luke said i should use a computer... i kept pressing the wrong keys..."

UR Card: Simeon typing on a computer, squinting with glasses with a Sheep MC (Also with glasses) doing the same on his shoulder

Solomon:

Common:

Art

Board games

Music

Uncommon:

Card Games

Animal lover

Sleeping

Rare:

Calligraphy:

"This is how we used to write in 'ye olden days'" "Hmm... who else can i taunt with my writing?"

Piano:

"Let me dream a little dream of you ♩" "I wonder what the others would say if i played your faverouite song?"

Marine Biology:

"I still cant believe I'm exiled from the sea" "do you think if i put Leviathan and Barbatos in a tank, they'd fight?"

Character Specific:

Magic Tricks:

"Get ready for the elusive Solomon-dini" "And for this trick, I will take your heart."

UR Card: Solomon in a magician hat with a magician wand, he points the wand at Sheep MC

Thirteen:

Common:

Art

Running

Music

Uncommon:

Sports

Nature

Swimming

Rare:

Modelling:

"I only model so that Solomon has to see my face everywhere!" "Do you... want to do a photoshoot with me?"

Partying:

"Yoooo! Lets go party, i'll sneak you outta RAD" "Lets set fireworks! hahaha!"

Demonus Tasting:

"When i first came to the Devildom, i didnt understand Demonus, now i totally get it!" "I wonder how a drunk Barbatos acts like..."

Character Specific:

Trap Making:

"If you ever need help, just text me... I'll send one of my traps over" "This is 'Spider-squid v4', i made it for you..."

UR Card: Thirteen shooting a net-trap from her contraption with Sheep MC ontop of the trap

Raphael:

Common:

Art

Board games

Music

Uncommon:

Pottery

Animal lover

Sleeping

Rare:

Calligraphy:

"You want to see my writing, why?" "I could write you a poem, I guess..."

Piano:

"I remember playing this tune in the Celestial Realm" "Could you do me a favour? Could you gather Lucifer and his brothers... i wanted to play a song for them"

Knitting:

"I made you a sweater... i heard this design was 'hip' with the humans" "Knitting is easy and repetitive, its addictive that way"

Character Specific:

Sewing:

"I remember sewing the brother's clothes in the Celestial Realm" "You know some new sowing techniques? You humans are incredible"

UR Card: Raphael sowing some clothes with Sheep MC's help

Mephistopheles:

Common:

Art

Board games

Running

Uncommon:

Sports

Pottery

Nature

Rare:

Calligraphy:

"Calligraphy is a forgotten art" "I wish to write your name in as many fonts as i can"

Piano:

"I can play a multitude of human songs I heard from the past" "Lord Diavolo once told me a story of a young boy, but he expressed it through the medium of piano... that was a long hour."

Horse Riding:

"Lord Diavolo takes Lucifer and I to ride horses sometimes, its always so... awkward" "I like racing horses, I've known how to ride horses since i was a mere boy"

Character Specific:

Journalism

"i think you should be on the front page of the school newspaper" "You enjoy spending time with me?"

UR Card: Mephisto and Sheep MC with magnifying glasses

65 notes · View notes

tymime · 6 months

Text

Public Domain cartoon characters from the Golden Age of Animation (and beyond)

Revised and expanded version of this post: https://tymime.tumblr.com/post/648495121557585920/instead-of-whining-about-mickey-mouse-not-falling

While Mickey entering the public domain is exciting and all, I do think a lot of people are overlooking the many other animated characters that are available to use in their creative works. This list isn't entirely exhaustive, but it does highlight some of the most interesting and/or appealing characters, as well as ones that have the potential to be so.

Koko the Clown

One of the oldest cartoon stars from the Fleischer studio, almost all of Koko's silent-era cartoons are PD, and have been for quite some time. A handful of his appearances alongside Betty Boop are also PD.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

Oswald's PD status has been greatly overshadowed by his fellow Disney star Mickey, but I believe that he deserves more recognition. All of the shorts produced by the Disney studio are PD as of this year, and let's face it, those are the only ones most people care about. Pegleg Pete's bear design is also PD.

Keep in mind that the blue shorts that Oswald wears in Epic Mickey and elsewhere are likely copyrighted, so I recommend steering clear of that.

I'm also not entirely sure you can use the name "Ortensia" for his cat girlfriend, since that name first appeared in Epic Mickey also. She was called "Kitty" back in the day, among other things.

All of Van Beuren Studio's cartoons

The Van Beuren Studio was active during the rubberhose era, and their cartoons, especially the earlier ones, are like a cruder, possibly even more bizarre cousin to Fleischer and Disney. They went bust in the late 1930s, and no one renewed the copyright later on, so the entirety of their output is PD.

Their most notable characters include Tom and Jerry, a pair of average Joes who always get into strange adventures. They shouldn't be confused with MGM's Tom and Jerry, and in fact they were called Dick and Larry when their shorts were rereleased for the home-movie market in the 1940s.

Also notable is Waffles and Don, who are basically just animal versions of Tom and Jerry. You might consider these two as a better alternative, just to avoid confusion.

There's also Cubby Bear, a pretty blatant Mickey Mouse clone, but unique enough that I don't think anybody’s going to confuse the two nowadays.

In the previous post, I mentioned a rumor that Disney threatened legal action over the character, but I can't find the source for that now. I may have been thinking of Milton Mouse, who was so extremely similar to Mickey that they actually did sue the studo for copyright infringement. So maybe don't try selling any Milton merchandise...

Finally, there's Molly Moo-Cow, who appeared in several Rainbow Parade cartoons in the mid-to-late 1930s. Molly is arguably not the most interesting character, but I have a fondness for her since we grew up with one of her shorts on a VHS tape.

Toby the Pup

Another very obscure character, about half of his cartoons are lost media. The little that does survive is hard to find online, but I think his design has appeal.

Dr. XXX

Disney's The Mad Doctor was never renewed for reasons unknown, though some speculate that the studio thought that the cartoon was too scary and decided to let it go. Fortunately for us, that means that this iconic character is now in the people's hands.

Goopy Geer

Goopy appeared in the three Merrie Melodies cartoons alongside his unnamed girlfriend. Despite his name and appearance being similar to Disney's Goofy, he actually made his debut about a month before (Goofy was named Dippy Dawg at the time anyway, so it was undoubtedly a coincidence).

Claude Hopper

Claude appeared in a single Looney Tunes cartoon in 1943 called Hop and Go, alongside a pair of Scottish rabbits who antagonize him. The cartoon ends with a very unfortunate depiction of Tokyo being blown up (World War II was still going on at the time), so it's no surprise that Warner Bros. decided not to renew this one. Despite that, he has a very appealing design (imo), so I think he has potential. (Also, he's voiced by Pinto Colvig, the original voice of Goofy!)

Private Snafu and Mr. Hook

Snafu and Hook were created for the US government, so according to the law are automatically public domain. The shorts were made to be shown to members of the US army and navy respectively, in order to teach them valuable lessons for fighting in WWII, but are nevertheless hilarious cartoons- animated by the Looney Tunes team with scripts by Ted Geisel- aka Dr. Seuss!

The Dover Boys

Also of note are the ComiColor cartoons from the Iwerks studio, Rainbow Parade from Van Beuren, and most of the Color Classics by Fleischer. These don't have any especially memorable characters in them, but I thought I ought to mention them.

Yes, Tom, Dick and Larry, Dora Standpipe and the villainous Dan Backslide are all public domain. A bunch of YouTube Poops were created after this fact was discovered by the internet a few years ago.

How Warner Bros. could ever let this one get away I'll never know. Their loss is our gain, I suppose.

Caveats and other concerns

Krazy Kat

Felix the Cat

All of the strips up to 1928 are definitely fair game. According to the Public Domain Superheroes wiki however, the entirety of the strip's run is PD. I'm not sure if it that's true, but the Fantagraphics collections don't credit any newspaper syndicate, so it seems likely. (Apparently the copyright status of newspaper comics are a whole can of worms on its own...)

At any rate, the strip's cast was pretty well set in stone by 1928, so it shouldn't be much of a problem. A large number of animated shorts starring Krazy are also PD, but those were pretty much in name only.

Flip the Frog

Felix was pretty much the first cartoon superstar, and almost all of his Golden Age appearances are PD now. Keep in mind that this does not include elements from the 1950s cartoon like his magic bag, or from The Twisted Tales of Felix, as amazing as that series is.

The character's name and appeance are still trademarked by NBC Universal however, so you might be able to use him in a minor role, but not much else.

I'm uncertain about this one. According to most sources Flip is PD, but according to the Thunderbean Blu-ray collection he's copyrighted by the Film Preservation Archives, whatever that means. Additionally, Flip himself is supposedly trademarked by Leslie Iwerks, Ub Iwerks’ granddaughter, though no one seems to be able to confirm that. I don't know how the trademark hasn't lapsed yet, considering that Flip hasn't appeared on any official merchandise or anything in decades.

Bosko and Honey

I believe there's nothing stopping anyone from using Bosko's classic design (later appearances at MGM and in Tiny Toons are still copyrighted), but the character himself is a bit problematic, considering that it's all but stated outright that he's a blackface caricature. Use with caution.

Foxy and Roxy

Noveltoons

Like Goopy Geer, Foxy appeared in three Merrie Melodies cartoons. Roxy's name originates from an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures however, so keep that in mind. Though I'm not sure what else you would call her (or if Warner Bros. would even care). Supposedly her original name was "Fluffy", but I can't find a source for this.

Like Bosko and Honey, later appearances in Tiny Toons are still copyrighted.

Noveltoons was a series produced by Famous Studios, the successor to the Fleischer studio. The characters include Baby Huey, Herman the mouse, Blackie the sheep, Little Audrey, and of course, Casper the Friendly Ghost. Only a small handful of the shorts are PD though, and Casper is trademarked, so one's options are limited.

Ginger Nutt (and rest of the Animaland cast)

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)

This one I'm not entirely sure about either, but Ginger Nutt's Christmas Circus has long been a staple of grey-market tapes and DVDs, so I'm just going to assume all of the Animaland cartoons are also PD. Considering that the series wasn't very sucessful, and is very obscure nowadays, it seems pretty likely.

If anyone has any insight on this, let me know.

Calvin and the Colonel

Now here's an interesting case. An all-time classic Christmas special, and yet large parts of it are PD because they accidentally put the wrong date on the copyright notice. Instead of the Roman numerals MCMLXIV (1964), it reads MCLXIV (1164), and according to the law at the time, that meant that the film immediately went into public domain.

Of course, Rudolph himself is still copyrighted, and will be until 2035 when the original book falls into the public domain. Even then he's likely to still be trademarked. Not to mention the songs featured in the '64 film will be copyrighted for a long time afterward.

Still, this means that anyone is free to use all the other characters, including Hermey, Yukon Cornelius, King Moonracer, Clarice, and all the Misfit Toys. It's a wonder no one seems to have taken advantage of this. And of course Santa and his reindeer have been PD for ages, especially Santa since he comes from folklore- and you can't copyright folklore.

This cartoon is based on and stars a lot of the same voice cast as the old-time radio show Amos and Andy, which, while not overtly racist, featured white actors pretending to be black. The cartoon obviously has animals instead, but still, tread carefully. Someone is bound to point out the characters' history.

Hoppity Hooper

Another one I'm not sure about. The Public Domain Superheroes wiki has characters from this show among its articles, but I wasn't able to confirm if it really was PD. It was created by Jay Ward, the same studio who made Rocky & Bullwinkle and George of the Jungle, but was also a huge flop for some reason, so that may be the reason why they let the copyright expire. Again, I'm not sure, but no one seems to care that the entire series is on YouTube, so who knows?

...Well, there you have it. Lots of obscure and forgotten toons waiting to be rediscovered and reused! If anyone has any more info or corrections, leave me a comment. I'd love some clarification on some of these.

53 notes · View notes

yyh4ever · 9 months

Note

What did you think of the live-action yu yu hakusho I confess that when I finished watching the first episode I had good expectations for the next ones but from episode 3 onwards they lost their hand.

To be honest, I loved it! They skipped all the introductory parts and got right down to the point. It's a rough adaptation of the original, but the action scenes are amazing! I felt the love of everyone involved towards Togashi's work. There were more highs than lows.

*CONTAINS SPOILERS*

Togashi wanted to draw a battle shounen, but since it was his first battle series, his editor advised him to take it easy at first. The first chapters were stand-alone adventures of Yusuke's spirit helping others. They weren't even adapted into the anime. Although I love those early stories, I don't think they are crucial to the story. I missed the comedy aspects though, that's what makes Yu Yu Hakusho so appealing. Yusuke's resurrection was a bit rushed, but I loved that "Hohoemi no Bakudan" (anime opening song) was playing on the truck's radio. I also didn't mind a 17-year old Yusuke or Kurama.

Even though they gave a more actual look to the characters, like Botan wearing peep-toes heels and Kuwabara with a dyed blonde hair instead of his iconic pompadour, we can still feel an atmosphere from the 90s in the scenery.

The stealing of the Artifacts of Darkness was so well adapted. Yusuke VS Gouki was an impressive fight. Masaru finally got to thank Yusuke, something that I missed in the original. Kurama telling his story to Yusuke at the hospital was genial as well. I think the motive that driven Hiei to steal the kouma sword in the live action suited him better. Togashi only made Hiei a main character because his editor told him so. That evil Hiei who kidnapped Keiko is so different from the Hiei who showed up later. Making Elder Toguro do the dirty job was more interesting! I'm just curious what they are going to do about Shigure in case of a second or third season. They probably have something in mind already!

Genkai's Tournament/Training was there in a different way. I don't care that much about Rando, but I missed all the pain the original Yusuke went thought to master the reiko hadouken technique. It was a little disappointing to see him absorbing the spirit wave with just an "okay". But, I'm glad they included some iconic moments of his training, like when he's upside-down balancing himself up with only his index finger on a needle.

Probably, what I missed the most was The Saint Beasts Arc. It was during this arc that the four guys got to know each other better and form a bond. Keiko and Botan also worked together and became friends. Considering the budget, I'm aware the live action didn't have time and money to produce it, they had to focus on the first big villain of Yu Hakusho, Younger Toguro.

Filming a whole Dark Tournament would be too hard, expensive, and maybe a little tiring to watch. Although the Rescue Yukina Arc and the Dark Tournament Saga were re-written, all elements from the original series were there:

They showed both Tarukane's mansion and The Hanging Neck Island;

Sakyo needed money to open a big hole to the Demon World. Goro Inagaki also slayed as Sakyo;

Younger Toguro wanted the same thing, he became too strong for the Human World;

Elder Toguro was insanely crazy. Probably, the best villain of Kenichi Takito's career;

A bunch of rich old dudes from BBC gambling;

Tarukane making Yukina cry to sell her hiruseki stones;

The random guy trying to help Yukina. Instead of killing her bird friends, Elder Toguro killed him.

There wasn't Botan and Keiko helping each other, but instead Keiko and Yukina teaming up, and I really enjoyed it;

Kuwabara falling in love at first sight, and asking Yukina to not hate all humans;

Best scenes and lines from Hiei VS Zeru and Kurama VS Roto were incorporated in the fights against Bui and Karasu;

Youko Kurama appeared! Jun Shison nailed it!

In the original, only Kuwabara didn't know about Genkai's death, I liked that in the live action Koenma kept it a secret from Yusuke as well. Elder Toguro making a puppet of Genkai out of his body was amazing!

Younger Toguro "killing" Kuwabara;

The memorable 100% Toguro VS Yusuke's spirit gun;

Sakyo telling the original plan was to make Toguro lose on purpose, so he could collect money from the rich. Also, betting his own life in front of Koenma;

It was interesting that Sakyo told his story and how he had bet his own life a few times to Tarukane instead of Toguro. I felt the Tarukane from the live action was a little bit more human. The actor did a pretty good job. Genkai's dead by the hands of Younger Toguro happened too quick and was disappointing, but they made up for that by showing their amazing goodbye scene in the Spirit World. Young Meiko Kaji was dazzling.

In the first episode, Koenma had sadness in his voice when he mentioned the former spirit detective. There was also that post-credits scene with Elder Toguro. I really hope there will be a second season. I think the Black Chapter Saga is much easier and more interesting to adapt.

I think those who have already read the manga or watched the anime, felt the love all the cast and staff have for Togashi's work. The new generation will probably buy the manga and watch the anime. The live action will surely bring new fans to the Yu Yu Hakusho franchise!

Netflix announced a new One Piece anime by Wit, made in partnership with Toei Animation. I'm also hoping that with the huge success of the live action, some anime studio or even Studio Pierrot will produce a remake of the Yu Yu Hakusho anime too.

By the way, I recommend watching the "Making of Yu Yu Hakusho". The main cast talks about all the trial-and-error process during the shoot. Action Director Takahito Ouchi also shares behind-the-scenes stories. They gave their blood to shoot this series! RESPECT!

youtube

#Yu Yu Hakusho live action

52 notes · View notes

kaolinite91 · 7 months

Text

My ATLA Live Action Review

Update 270224: why they add new icons and did another bait of katara and zuko placement? No you can't say it is not intentional...😂🔥🌊💕

Okaay..as you know.. I am a long fans of ATLA and pretty hardcore for the 3 animation books (not really a fans of the comics and TLOK tho).. as you know too..after the live action movie disaster, we really lower our expectations..but after the Netflix OPLA and some of the ATLALA trailer..I kinda increase my expectations..

I watched all 8 episodes yesterday (it premiered 22 Feb 2024 at 15.00-23.30 WIB)..

Let's see my general favorites part, not so favorite and then some takes for each main characters (for me it's a good and acceptable live action and worth to watch!)

Spoilery Area

Favorite parts:

- they explore the air nomads culture more, a bit of how airbender doing their bending.. and also the heart wrenching genocide on screen 🫠 I was crying... Also monk Gyatso!!! Huhuhu

- The costume and trinket are super details and vibrants which really beautiful. Although I wish they make it a bit dirty because that outfits supposedly a daily used outfits but for me it was just too clean and spotless 😂

- The lighting during bending and even during night combats is bright!!!! Finally I can see anything! It kinda feels like the LOTR battle of helms deep because we know it's night but it still bright enough to see what is happening! A rare occurrence in many series or movies nowaday (yeah Loki S2 I am looking at you)

- the CG!! For me is very decent and believable.. okay I knew for Appa it's look a bit dirty and not real enough..but they shot it in a day clear!! You know how cg nowadays always hidden in a dark screen..so it's still pretty good and need to be appreciated. And even Momo behaves like my cat..and I feeling emotional for him too..(especially on the last episode huhu)

- They add more details that I believe only a fans speculation before..and I thought its show how they probably researching on the fandom thought too (example, Ozai marking Zuko by putting his hand directly onto his face)

- It's not a 1on1 copy so it's still surprising what's gonna happened in each episodes and also which episodes actually it's referencing to. Ep.3 is the good example on combining Haru + Jet arc and also Theo arc, with the Katara and Sokka sibling clash due to difference believe (in the animation it happened during the canyon episode)

- Jet..so handsome..I am sorry..I understand now why Katara like him in the animation hahahaha

- Dallas Liu as Zuko!! *Chef kiss his combat and his intonation~~ aaaaaaa

- they build the mental burden of fire nation characters early on. I think it was to smoothen the Zuko to Gaang if there's a S2

What I don't really like:

- They changed characters traits and weaknesses which later impacting other characters trait too. For example, Sokka not sexist made him a tamer brother for Katara, which later impacted her character too..(gonna explained more in my characters takes review).

- No Haru in this live action...I FEEL DEVASTATED

- Suki why are you becoming so awkward 🥹🫠 (the only part I feel cringe during the entire 8 episodes was unfortunately during Suki and Sokka interaction huhuhu..while in the animation that's my favorite part..)

- apparently Oma Shu legend changes now....🤔

- they really burned anyone to crisps huhuhu. I never imagined that Katara's mom died from burning alive and in agony..huhuhuuu the same also happened to Monk Gyatso if I remembered correctly huhuhu)

- the bending stances for some people kinda off. Some of the time it looks perfect (Zuko..wow!!and the earthbender in the ep 1 *applause), but sometimes it not firm enough, especially for the earthbenders in Omashu....;A; it could be better...

My review on the characters

Aang:

Gordon as his actor really looks like Aang, especially when he smiles. His voice is similar too. Although this Aang is a bit too serious, mature and rarely joking. I know..it maybe because the tone of this LA also a lot more darker..(but I wish he enjoy himself more...🥹🥹). He really feels like an adult in a child body for this live action...(but this was the development which I wish the animated Aang in Book 3 did).

I feel bad for him tho.. every adult really blamed him for disappeared that night (Bumi, Suki's mom, even the other Avatars). The adult avatars seems to be a broken and imperfect adult too....I wonder if Yangchen gonna be different?

I was so happy when he finally met Monk Gyatso again in the spirit world and when he said that all of this that happened in the past was not Aang's faults. Because it really is NOT his fault..Oh poor boy.

Tho now I wonder why Gyatso only stayed in the spirit world for that particular moment...? He said that time working differently there.. but Katara and Sokka whom also was in the spirit world are still alive.. so it's should not be too long, right?

I wonder when Aang gonna try learning waterbending tho? And how can he visited Roku's temple quickly?

Sokka:

Ian looks like Sokka.. and I always laughing whenever he's doing his dry jokes..haha (but unfortunately it's not many..maybe because we only have 8 episodes).

Anyway, Sokka here is a very responsible leader, kinda awkward, felt more introverted than his animation counterpart. He actually has Stark vibes from Frieren in this LA.

One of weakness from the original Sokka is how extremely sexist he is..which rooted from how sexist the water tribe in general. However this LA toning it down until it almost none for Sokka. And this impacted his relation with Katara, because in LA, he actually still felt like older brother!! Even since early episode..

Katara:

The actress actually nailed as her..I love how she looks like when she is in Katara's outfit. I think her Katara is more gentle, (maybe because of her natural face), thus her Katara tends to looks like smiling a lot.. which is a good thing. But unfortunately in some scenes --which I wish gonna have a lot more intense emotion (anger or headstrong) --it was not really shown perfectly.

As I written above, some of her traits kinda disappear here. In the animation, she IS the mother of the Gaang. Very bossy sometimes and very scary when angry. She is independent and know what she wanted to do and mostly the one who reminds Aang and Sokka to finding the waterbending teacher for Aang in the NP. However, due to the change of traits she felt like a normal younger sister for Sokka and even Aang. She often ask "so what we gonna do now?" And Aang is the one who was like.."we need to go to the North Pole ASAP!!"

Anw, I love her bending tho.. I think the water animations looks very good! Especially when fighting with Zuko or other firebender. She seems to be very adaptive and perceptive, because she used other bending movement for her own waterbending skillsets. What I think can be improved is maybe her stance.. in LA, she used a pretty advance waterbending with loads of water.. but her legs stance not wide and make it looks like not firm and balance enough...

Zuko:

Dallas Liu!! Standing applause for you because for me you ARE Prince Zuko! His intonation very similar to Dante Basco's Zuko. I also learned that he actually really love Zuko and did research for both of his predecessor (yes, Dante n Dev Patel's Zuko too). I was impressed with his martial art skills. His firebending look very believable, he also did his own stunt I think? especially when doing bending n using weapons..

His acting as a confused but honorable young man also very good. I cried 3 times in this LA, which were during airbender genocide, Katara's mom death and when Zuko cries after his father announce banishment (when he was just laying on his bed helpless, tired, sad and defeated). We can see how he's just a boy..and I cried.

I love his interaction with Aang too. He seems more open to conversation early on. Even when Aang asking about the type of brush that he used for his journal... he answer it.. hahaha.

He loves Iroh and really respected Luten. We can already see him as a honorable young man early on.

Intermezzo Shipping potential

Zutara: Zuko and Katara interactions mostly during battle,, but there're one scene which I count as zutara crumbs in Ep. 3. When he touched Katara's scarf in slow motion. I wonder if it was the setup for the slowburn unrequited love of Zutara (aaah why my OTPs road so painful) but it's huge for me!! I was screaming when I saw this scene. Also when Aang, Katara and Zuko interacted in Kuruk's shrine, when Aang said " Don't be too hard" " I am not talking to you" was very funny haha. During the battle also, he seems to noticed Katara's bending progress, which is funny because it shows how Zuko really is a bending nerd, both in the series and during the interview (Dallas once said that waterbender really difficult because you need to stay still with a low stances)..both loves bending!!

Jetara: Well... now I understand why Katara like Jet in the original, because he looks hella FINE, in the LA he looks so handsome! xD but anyway, I think Jet in the LA was combination of Haru and Jet. In the beginning when he said " my wife and my brother and law", I was like... hmm maybe Jetara is very plausible too. I hope the LA gonna use different take and gives him a redemption arc too. It'll be so saad if he ends up like in the original ;_;

Harutara: Not possible. Haru not even in this LA....so saaaaaad. Really wish his character indeed combines with Jet tho. Hopefully it gonna change Jet's fate a bit

Kataang: They changed the secret tunnel story, Katara was trapped with Sokka and not Aang. But when they playing with water together they're seems very cute! besides in the final episode Katara said " I need you" to the spirit-combined Aang. So it still possible for a proper writing of their relationship! Which is great! ( because my only complain of the original Kataang is how OOC the characters sometimes)

Sukka: Suki looks very pretty in the LA. However the writing made her an awkward girl who seems to be very shy and cannot convey her words clearly. she seems to greatly simping for Sokka without clear reason. I mean, during her interaction with Sokka, she rarely talking... Just staring to him....awkwardly.........she is kinda like Fern in Frieren hahaha. So their interaction here is like Fern x Stark, thus it still very possible. BUT I miss the original Suki characteristics though.. I miss her lines" I am a warrior but I am a girl too". Too bad it's not in this LA..

Yue x Sokka: LA Yue has more confident and autonomy than the original. Her vibes here is like the animation Suki. She can chose partner for herself and since she's not betrothed to Hahn anymore, her relationship with Sokka isn't gonna be awkward. If she was not need to sacrifice herself to be a moon...they could be canon. (Also, Yue could waterbend?!)

Yue x Hahn: I never ever ship them in the original series. Because original Hahn was an arrogant and annoying young man, but here in LA, he's very kind, listen to other's feedback , was handsome too. He respect Yue and basically a very good man (he has Haru's vibes). So when he's dead I was so saaaaaad.... but, because now Yue becoming Moon spirit, I believe Hahn's spirit return to the Ocean. Thus they could be together again.. dancing eternally as part of Tui and La.

Fire Nation

Iroh: I love how he already portrayed as a pacifist FN who loves his nephew so much. In the original, early Iroh still a bit morally grey.. but in this LA, they just makes him friendly to the avatar and the spirit world since the beginning. So glad when he explained what sacrifice that Zuko's did to the 41th army (his current crewmates). Zuko deserves love!!

Ozai: He was more enigmatic and manipulative than in the original. He likes to gaslighting his children. I found it confusing in the beginning...because he appears to be more emotional (sometimes I noticed his teary eyes when talking to his children), which makes me (as the watcher) thought that he was actually care. But apparently not.. he did that just so his children can fighting to get his approval. For example, when Azula mentioned Zhao as the one who found the avatar, Ozai was like "no it's your brother Zuko", which made Azula even more angry and envied the 'unlucky Zuko'. While in reality, Ozai did that so Azula fueled with hatred to his brother and can be motivated to be the very best. The original Ozai more stoic and seems to be more on brawn than brain. But this Ozai is more psycho..

Azula: ooh poor princess Azula, hated by her mother unloved by her father. She's only a tool for Ozai. In the LA, Azula sometimes looks calm and deadly, but most of the times in front of her father or friends, she always lose her temper, and can't really control herself. I actually miss her original calm, precise and deadly self.. but maybe it's the mental build up for her last Agni Kai?? Anyway WHERE IS HER BLUE FLAME?? is it for the next season? I saw her flame color changed to blue for a second right before she doing the lightning bending... but still... Where is her blue flame? it just different without her signature flames..

Tylee and Mai: they not show their skillsets yet, but Mai already shown that she's the calmest one and has clear mind in compare to Azula.

Zhao: I hate him. I think the actor did a good job because I really want to punch him on the face. His appearance was different with the original (lieutenant Gee more looks like the animation Zhao). He's a lot more like snake in this LA.

41th crewmember: Yeah they should be very loyal to Zuko.. glad in the end they respected him again. Although maybe they're all dead after the battle in NP. Still sad that Iroh didn't sing Four Seasons song with them in this LA..huhuhu

But TLDR. This Live Action is very enjoyable for me and has reached my expectations

Not too many scenes that made me feel cringe (only the Suki part I guess)

so.. 9.5/10 for me.

Ps. I was writing till finished but somehow tumblr cannot save it and half of my review gone... And I am not in the mood yet to rewrite all of it again...*cries

pps. finally finished! some review probably changed since I forgot what I was writing before...

#atla #atla live action #my thoughts #my review #zutara

20 notes · View notes

slugdragoon · 3 months

Text

Devlog #7 - Shephard and Lumberman enemies + new Necromancer animation, summons flee, and new status effects!

youtube

Alright, I'm really excited about this one, it's a big one!

The biggest part of my week was finishing three animations for enemy types in the game. These are the third, fourth, and fifth animations I've even done (first two being the Snake and Sheep summons), and I feel myself getting better each time.

the Necromancer - I've had an idle blocked out for this guy in solid colours for a while, he's been in my other devlogs, but finally buckled down and did the shading and colouring. I'm thinking to give him a Skeleton or Zombie summon, which may be my next animation, as I have a matching status effect for them nearly worked out.

the Shepherd - Next, and this is my most recent work - the Shepherd. This idea came from the Sheep summon, who I introduced as a summon which could put you to sleep. I needed status-inflicting summons, thus the Sheep. I thought a Shepherd with the ability to summon Sheep and a passive ability to keep your summons around longer (shepherding them around) that you can inherit onto any summoning class would be perfect. And I'm happy to say, both of those abilities are implemented, making the Shepherd my most complete enemy type to date!

the Lumberman - I did this animation before the Shepherd, and I may rework it later on, because musculature is f-ing hard man, but I had an idea for physical attacks to, in contrast to magic skills, be more used for a variety of tactical targeting scenarios, each with advantages and drawbacks that make sense for the implied weapon type. I thought up a Cleave (not implemented yet) ability that's meant to evoke a Guts-like (Berserk) warrior who cuts down many enemies at once, but applies a big penalty on the user when an armoured foe is caught up in it. It works for an axe, so I made an enemy whose "thing" is that they're an axe man, so started with a lumberjack. I started with a normal human skin tone, but my animation blocking was temporarily green, and I liked copper-y armour and weapons for him, so I tried making him look like oxidized copper as well. I though the idea for a metal man who chops down trees was pretty cool, and here we are!

New status effects - I also designed three new status effect icons for inflictions I have planed. I showed the Sleep and Poison ones last time, and a version of those effect is in the game (I added green to the Poison icon).

The new effects are Blindness, Charm, and Fear. Only Fear is partly implemented so far. The plan for Charm is probably typical. Have allies attack each other or heal the charmer. For Blindness, I like the idea of forcing a random target more than lowering accuracy (maybe a mix of a little lower accuracy, but also randomizing your target making it a risk to hit an enemy that could retaliate against you, I feel that could make some interesting encounters).

As for Fear, that is partly implemented. Fear causes your summoned minions to flee, and I'm toying with the idea of having it block or cancel some kinds of buffs (can't raise your Attack Power if your party member doesn't feel brave enough to attack, that sort of thing). I want to give the summoned minions a protective effect so that you need way do sift through them to land meaningful attacks.

Minions have to be able to flee, so I made it so that they can (complete with an animation). They also now flee at the end of battle, which the Shepherd's passive ability stops (it will eventually be a percentage chance to flee).

In addition, while character's with swords and arrows might go directly for the summoner, I added another new Smash ability (imagine warhammers, clubs, etc.) that hits both the enemy itself and causes some if it's minions to scatter, thinning the herd.

I have some other changes to assets and the code, but that was already a lot! This really felt like one where, at least a small number of more complete ideas fit together really well!

#slugdragoondevlog #slugdragoongame #gamedev #solodev #indiedev #rpg #drpg #game development #indiegamedev #indie games #youtube #pixel aesthetic #pixel animation #pixel art #Youtube

11 notes · View notes

kurorenji · 1 month

Text

Beginner Tips : Wuthering Waves

I want to compile informations that I thought useful or I have missed the first time I play WuWa and only realized after my friend mentioned it to me.

1. Shilang is a shop owner in Tiger's Maw mine that sell a lot of useful things including a 4* weapon selector (the currency : Lampylument ore)

2. When you mine in other player's world, both you and the other player received the ore. No matter how far apart you guys were. That's why I used to mine together with my friend, I went to pick lampylument and he would pick the red ore. So it get done quicker. (This doesn't work for any other resources tho, as far as I know)

3. Idk since when, but you actually can create weapon exp and echo exp in synthesizer. Just for a small amount, but better than nothing I guess.

4. Uncle Wei, in front of craft station, sell some material for weapon/forte upgrade. Sadly, it didn't reset.

5. For faster mining, I used Calcharo to mine. He need only 1 hit to break the ore. Jiyan need 2. Basically use broadblade user to mine faster. BUT, Changli also just need 1 hit (her BA1 slash multiple times).

5.1. After version 1.2 , we have a new utility Hoverdroid, you can use it to mining faster as well. Just need one shoot per ore, much more like using broadblade user but better since now you can even mining from afar.

6. Don't build too many character. Resources are pretty limited here. If you ended up with all half assed teams, it's going to be hard going forward. I stick with 2 teams until UL 55 I guess? Before building my 3rd team (after getting Changli) and now this 3rd team sucked me dry fr, I'm UL 61 now, with 40k shell credit and no other resources lol.

7. Do illusive realms. No matter how suck you're at it. You can get a lot of materials upgrade there. Just do it slowly, since you can save your progress anyway (you need to quit properly tho, tap door icon > save progress. If you just quit or disconnected the progress won't be saved and you won't get any score).

8. You can skip Scar's story telling if you insist on attacking him. Attack him, attack him, attack him. Be aggressive. Beat his ass immediately. Lol.

9. Animals have a much lower def than Tacet discord. And Goat have lower def than Cow. You want to showcase your burst damage to your friends? Go find a goat...and use your ult. You will see big number. BUT I'M NOT PROMOTING ANIMAL ABUSE OKAY, don't be cruel towards animals irl guys, don't. That's horrible. We do this in game because we need the meats to cook. Yes, definitely that.

10. Talking about Cook, every recipes have a certain level of proficiency. Each time you make the recipe it will increase the number until it doesn't lol.

After reaching the maxed proficiency, the recipe you cook won't increase your chef level anymore. Go cook another recipe.

11. The same with Research point in Synthesizer as well.

12. Let's talk about echo. If you're a new player, save all the echo you got until you reach data base lv 15. Then you can combine it for a chance to get 5* echo. Or if you patient enough, wait until you reach data bank 21. The chance getting 5* become 100%. But fighting mobs without equipping any echo is quite tiring, so... just do it if you think you can.

12.1. If you finish hunting all 5* echoes but somehow haven't enough experience to reach 21, go check your guide book and see Milestone, one of the rewards is actually data bank experience.

Hmm, I don't know what to add anymore, maybe i'll add it later when I remember something. See ya.

#its 4 am #i can't sleep and decided to write this pretty quick #hope its useful at least #kuro games #wuthering waves #wuwa #wuthering waves journey #wuwa guide #wuwa walkthrough

12 notes · View notes

artistdove · 28 days

Text

Ok so I finished the Epic Mickey Demo a while ago and here are my thoughts. I played it on the Switch. This is gonna be a bit long, sorry in advance. Gonna put a read more in case none want to be spoiled or read this, idk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Graphics: Amazing. Everything has a new model even the characters, nothing looks like it was ported from the Wii and HD-ed. Though that does mean for the Switch it may glitch at times. Sometimes I would catch the models load and unload. Though some of the new models seem a bit odd when they do certain animations. Really it's Ozzy's model that had me double take. It's great, but when he puffs out his chest it looks a bit geometric instead of smooth. Idk maybe the light sources make it look bad. Mick's ears have a slight bug when the camera sticks for a bit as they are made to follow the camera. The cutscenes do seem to cut off abruptly. I was a spamming A quite a bit, but that shouldn't have caused such jumps. I only had one second of footage of the teacup ride before it cuts to the ruined Dumbo ride. Others seems too fast for the animation to fully play out too. The thinner rivers also look odd as they are brighter in color.

Animation: Flowy and sleek. Apparently, they erased the controller Mick holds in the old cutscenes. I didn't notice it. I did noticed that some of the animations looked new. They may not be, idk. I played this game on the Wii, so. But I swear, Ozzy makes a slightly different facial expression in the intro scene. The animation does feel a tad lifeless and buffered at times. It doesn't squash and stretch like it used too, heck Ozzy's shocked expression felt quite stiff. Mickey's jump animation seems floaty in how he transitions to it. I definitely notice some of the enemies get stuck in the stage animation and took a bit to gain control. The paint/thinner streaks are crazy. It either looks normal or breaks physics with how it hits objects. Breakable objects go brr cuz they put physics on those.

Sound: Sound doesn't seem to have changed drastically. I can tell there is some new sounds or ones I just never noticed. Like piano notes when Mick tip-toes. Ozzy's new little noise when he taunts Mick. New ink sounds for his movesets. Upgraded sounds for the grunts. Though, the volume is strange. In the beginning, there is like no sound. Music was definitely present, but I could barely hear the footsteps, Gus, robot, etc. I swear the machine's cranks were like blasting in the old game. It's so muffled, and I had the volume at like 25. Later, the volume was fine. Neither sound or music was out doing each other.

Gameplay: Not bad. The new movesets and dash feature is great. Buttons layout is odd, though again. I played it on the Wii so I am too used to motion controls for it. The Switch offers it, but only when you press the buttons to paint or thin. Other than that, your stuck having to aim it with the camera stick. Took me a while to get used to it. The other layouts are fine. There seems to be a new move with the Guardians on guiding them, but idk how that works. The game plays the same as usual. I will warn that when too many enemies are on screen, causes crazy lag. Most likely due to the high graphics and it being on the Switch. I got ganged up by Splatters.

Other: I can definitely tell that the game may need patch updates or something. Some parts felt behind or laggy. Wish there was more graphic options to help it run better on Switch. The motion control could have been better. I mean Skyward Sword got ported and that still functioned like it's Wii version. The new moves are neat but until the full game, I don't understand how useful they will be. The UI is neat. I understand the charm of the old ones. Least if they remake the sequal, they have those new assets. The characters icons or eh to me. Neat poster-look, but I like the 3D or sketchy style. Nice to have Gus be optional in his tips. He'll still force tips, but it's not near as often. Some stuff does seem to be missing. The only thing that comes to mind is the first pin found has no camera swirl, poor Mick just snaps his kneck. Didn't get to look at the concept art before I finished it, but nice to know you can zoom in and know who drew it. Even nicer that there is much more concept art. Menu is amazing. Sleek and easily readable. The new loading screens are great, I will be missing the old ones though. Main menu is also cool as heck.

Overall, I have hopes for this game. I am so excited to get the full release. I do feel that a tad more improvements need to be made. Probably doesn't help I have a console that has questional performance and quality, which is sad cuz Nintendo was known for that. Happy to see Ozzy be brought to a spotlight and Mickey be used again.

#dove rambles #epic mickey #epic mickey rebrushed #spoiler warning #hopefully not many typos lol bit tired

12 notes · View notes

deedee-sims · 1 year

Text

Disco Elysium - rigged blender models

In today’s episode of ‘Dee does things out of curiosity’, after about one week of extreme head scratching and tutorial googling I finally figured out how to export these rigged bad boys into blender!

More info, download, and all that jazz under the cut!

First of all, I chucked them into this folder:

Folder

I haven’t managed to export all of the models well, but I’ll keep trying and I’ll add more to the folder later. Some of them just got distorted no matter what and some of them just clip through their clothes a lot (looking at you, Klaasje), so that’ll take a while to fix, because I’m still a blender noob. (no matter how hard I tried, they couldn’t get fixed by just staring angrily at them 😔)

Also, I couldn’t figure out how to export Harry’s clothes, but he has 3 versions anyway (I had to edit the clothed ones so they don’t clip, though).

How to use them:

So, every file has the model (blender) file and the textures. You can just open the file with blender.

You should be in Pose mode, but if you’re not, you can change it in this corner.

You see that the model has these ‘spikes’. These are the joints that move the body parts. Some of these spikes are quite hard to see and click on, sometimes you have to turn the view or go closer (inside) the character model. Some models have some extra spikes (Harry’s tie has separate spikes for whatever reason).

Click on a spike so it turns blue. If it doesn’t turn blue, you’re not in pose mode.

Hit the R (rotate) button, and move your mouse.

Whee, it moves! Click again to release the rotation. You have to turn the view to be able to rotate the joints in certain ways. Just keep poking at it until you get familiar with it.

If you want to move your whole model, select the whole thing, then hit G (grab?) and you can just move it around. Or rotate it with R. Or do whatever.

Some models come with multiple clothes (Kim) or accessories (also Kim), which you can swap / hide from view if you open the ‘hierarchy’ on the top right block, and hide / make visible with the eye and camera icons. You can also hide the spikes here.

I also included some extra textures to Harry (leopard bodysuit, a jacket and a shoe) and Kim (hardcore jacket) that work with these models, so you can swap them out in the Material Properties (please read the previous tutorial).

How to get more than one model into one blender file:

You have to open one of the blender files, then export the model in .fbx (File.../ Export.../ FBX). Then open the other file and import the thing you just exported (File.../ Import.../ FBX). Maybe there’s a better way, but it worked for me. 🤷‍♀️

If the textures show up wonky, you have to go back to Object mode, to Material properties, and change the Blend mode under Settings to Alpha clip (idk, that’s what worked for me).

And that’s basically it? You can just import more objects or clothes you extract, or more characters, or whatever, and have fun! I have no clue how to make good renders, but you can find tutorials about it *waves around* on the internet.

(you can do whatever you want with these models, no need to credit me, I didn’t do anything that other people can’t do lol)

(pictured: Coolno 😎)

Advanced: How to edit facial expressions:

You can have your models do *some* facial expressions by editing the models. You can go to Edit mode and move their face around.

Just make sure you have this Toggle X-Ray mode on, unless if you move the vertexes you’ll get holes in the model.

(pictured: cheeky Kim 🤗)

Super advanced: How to export the rigged models from the game:

Here are some pointers if you want to experiment with this.

First of all, make sure you read my previous tutorial about the basics of extracting.

You have to export the Animator with an Animation Clip that belongs to it, unless it’ll get distorted. Sometimes they get distorted anyway. It’s a guessing game, really.

Import the exported .fbx to blender.

If all you see is a lot of black lines, you have to follow this step to remove the empties. It’ll remove most of the black lines. (they’re not visible if you do a render anyway)

Select the whole thing, go to Pose mode. Hit Pose.../ Clear Transform... / All. That’ll remove whatever pose it might’ve exported with, and you’ll get the default... T-pose? It’s not really a T-pose. Figures!

Go to Object mode, select the whole thing, and scale it to x100 to every direction. You need to do this because all the other exported stuff is 100x larger than the rigged models. Also, it’s a better size to work with in general.

If you change to the Viewport Shading / Material preview mode, you’ll see that the textures are wonky. You have to go to Material properties, and change the Blend mode under Settings to Alpha clip (idk, that’s what worked for me).

If the exported model has an out of body experience, you have to select the rig and the model one by one and move them to origin. You might have to rotate them too to make them line up / face forward.

And that’s basically it? You might have to edit some of the models if they clip through their clothes.

Have fun! 😊

#disco elysium #nonsims #that's really nonsims lol #i promise i'll stop disco posting lol #why am i like this

105 notes · View notes

popculturebuffet · 5 months

Text

Supermay!: President Luthor Review (Comission by WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to SUPERMAY, a month long celebration of all things superman.

Today we spotlight one of the greatest villians of all time. Not even going to undersell it I LOVE Lex Luthor, in large thanks to Clancy Brown's performance as the man the myth the legend in Superman the Animated Series and Justice League. Wether he's a super scientest, a super buisness man or some combo of the three, Lex is a fascinating character.

Lex is a perfect mirror to clark: Clark had two loving wonderful parents, Luthor's were abusive. Clark has incredible power, but uses it to help people, while Luthor has incredible intellgence but uses it to crush others under his heel metaphorically or quite literally depending on the day. Clark is empathetic and belivies in everyone, while Lex belivies in no one but himself. They don't just come into conflict because Luthor is a terrible person.. they come into conflict because it's hard for these two to coexist: Superman wants Luthor held acountable and as a rich white man in america, that's a tall order, and Luthor simply can't STAND that all these people love Superman and not him.

So that lead's us to today's comic, an intresting chapter in Lex's history borne ENTIRELY out of that egocentric spite: In 2000 Lex Luthor ran for president.. and he WON. Most of you are likely aware this happened as it's been adapted a few times, the movie superman/batman: public enemies adapting the end of his presdiency, Justice League Unlimited featuring him doing said campaign (if JUST to piss superman off/further his evil plans), and Smallville has that happen somewhere.

It's an iconic storyline.. that's sadly undercollected. Yeah today's review covers trade released after an even less subtle evil billionare won the presdiency.. and the probelm is Luthor's campaign was less a storyline and more a big status quo change. As such this collection covers a handful of stories, dosen't really feel like an actual storyline, and only covers up till just after Lex is elected.

There IS a decent reason as this trade was likely reconfigured from the original trade released around the time the storyline happened, and the year after this they began reprinting the era these stories come from in "Superman: The City of Tommorow"... which stopped after two volumes. DC.. isn't great at collecting it's own history, though marvel's only a smidge ahead thanks to their Epic Collection line. They have a bad tendency to stop halfway through and this was a casuality.

Still this trade does at least provide a peak into the election of lex luthor, why he ran, who his running mate was, and how Clark took his greatest enemy WINNING. So join me under the cut for all that and more!

Our first of many stories, and pieces of stories, is The Why. And it's easily my faviorite collected here as it's simple yet brilliant. It's a story with no dialouge till the final panel, with muted colors around, that follows a day in the life of Lex Luthor.. and how no matter what he does or where he goes he can't escape superman: He sees him on a news, at newstands, an employee having a superman action figure (who he naturally gestures his assitant to fire), even a tatoo on a woman he was going to flirt with and maybe unsatisfygly do sex with. I mean lex CAN be hot but let's face it: there is no way in hells someone that egocentric is not selfish in bed.

So we get to the final page.. where he sees a headline with superman and gets an idea. A wonderful awful idea

It's a true masterpiece and while some would say "would luthor REALLY be so petty as to run for president just to spite superman", I say "Early into this post crisis version of the character the man spent billions of dollars and had a woman kidnapped to find out his secret identity and later created a temporary cure to Lois Lane's mother's terminal illness just so she'd date him". Pre-Crisis he was sore superman made him bald and dedicated his life to destroying him. Lex Luthor is a petty bitch and always has been.

This brilliant story was by Greg Rucka, who if you haven't heard of him, you rmissing out. Rucka has done a ton of work at DC with the two standouts to me being his sadly short lived run on Wonder Woman, redefening the character, givnig her her own lex luthor and really just killing it. THen eh did it AGAIN for rebirth. The other is his run on Catwoman, which took Frank Miller's edgelord riffic Year One retcon of Catwoman having been a sex worker.. and recontexualizes it, making Selina's rough background part of her and making her a champion for sex workers and others who simply dont' have one, taking what was meant as stupid fanservice and giving it depth and weight. What i'ms aying is he's really awesome so it's not a shock some of the best stories here are him.

So we then go to part of a story called Adversaries, by JM Demattis, one half of the masterful team behind Justice League International. As Superman is having his morning meditation and thinking "golly gee nothing could ruin this gorgeous day"... Lex Luthor announces he's running for president.

Now you may be asking "Jake how in the flying fuck is lex luthor running for president. " And while 2000's superman is one of the gaps in my comics knowledge I know enough about the time period to know what's going on here and thus why Lex has a shot, with the various storeis themselves filling in a gap or two.

Okay so a while back, Lex Luthor was dying. This was the famous "Kryptonite gave him cancer" story, which I know thanks to the Justice League cartoon. Like the cartoon he eventually escaped it, but rather than Braniac curing it he found another way out: Cloning.

Yes folks Lex Luthor cloned himself, and then pretended to be his own illgitamte child for a while. I mostly know about THIS because I did read the death of superman, reign of the supermen and return of superman all of which happen while Lex is pretending to be his own son and also romancing supergirl who was a shapeshifted alien blob who trusted him for something at the time rather than a teenage girl, which still dosen't make it less creepy as it's still lex luthor grinding up against a member of superman's family. He's also the reason she didn't intervene in said death, telling her to back off clearly hoping superman would die. Granted he ALWAYS hopes superman will die this time he just happened to be correct.

The clone eventually degraded, Luthor blew up metropolis, and he made a deal with the demon neron for a new body. He later pinned all his crimes on a "failed clone" and thus was scott free for any overt supervillany. So as far as anyone knows Luthor's record is clean.

Helping this are two factors: one is that while Luthor was shady as fuck, like most buisnessmen in the 80's and 90's he didn't go around announcing it or hoping he can get courts to ignore his crimes and put them down to "politics". He kept his hands clean like any shady billionare so superman could stop his nonsense, but couldn't really stop HIM, with superman the animated series keeping with this line of thought.

The other is that any shady stuff left tha tcould be dug up.. was erased. See something very weird I haven't read the storyline for happened right before this: at the dawn of the millnieum, braniac attacked and converted metropolis into a literal city of tommorow, a futurestic city packed with fancy tech, robots and other stuff. Braniac was beat but Luthor barganed with him: His baby daughter for the knowledge of how to work all this. Thus Lex was able to make everything run well and had the popular vote.

Finally we have the climax of the year long Batman epic No Man's Land, a story that like president luthor has been adapted a few times because it's that good an idea. Now what it was was a bit nuts.. after a massive earthquake and a plauge, the goverment, backed by some shady folks hoping to profit off the situation, decided Gotham just.. wasn't part of america anymore.

Yeah they just.. set up guards so no one got in or out, and it was declared a no man's land, hence the title. Many evacuated but some coudln't and some like Batman, the GCPD and most of Batman's partners stayed behind to try and save the city. It introduced Cassandra Cain Batgirl, and was where Nightwing and Oracle finally hooked up.

The important part to this is towards the end, as the goverment was finally shamed into doing the right thing Luthor stepped up to help rebuild the city. Naturally this being Lex Luthor he can't do a nice thing unless it either benefits him or pisses off superman somehow, and so he tried to steal the city out from under it's citizens, foiled naturally by batman. So while Batman stopped his shit, the public at large just sees this as a huge humanitarian boost and a bane against the incumbent who you know, signed off on no mans land in the first place. Granted any presidency would struggle after electing to abandon a city and let the joker sort it out, but Luthor being the guy who went in and cleaned up the mess only makes it worse.

It's also here I want to stop and point out the obvious parallel: Lex Luthor is a buisnessman, with a reputation for putting his names on things, having heavy ties to one of america's big cities, flaunting his wealth and being pettily vengful at everyone who so much as sneezed at him wrong. As much as I don't want to talk about him, we really can't talk about this arc anymore without talking about Donald Trump.

Luthor getting elected got comparisons to Trump, to the point they threw in the story Luthor the Unauthroized Biography in here despite having happened long before this arc , simply so they could use this cover

The thing is though while the two have SOME similarities, Luthor's campaign was done long before Trumps.. and thus Luthor presents himself as an actual human being instead of some shouty sack of skin and hair plugs who dosen't understand how anything works. Luthor may be evil.. but part of what makes him an intresting villian is the presentation: Luthor wants to be seen as a good man, to be praised. His reputation and power is everything. Thus luthor packages two evil schemes as him trying to help people, packages everything he does carefully.

Trump DOES have a carefully cultivated brand.. but also has zero filter. He never has. He flat out admitted a few months ago he'll be a dictator on day one.. and day 1001 but he didn't say that part, but he sure is thinking it. Trump is a bafoon who got into office preying on people's need for some sort of economic upturn, pandering to racists and other anti-change bigots, and getting a loyal army of fellow dumbasses to back him and whatever he does, to the point his loyalists held the senate hostage and that he's been able to use them to get away with formenting an insurrection. Would lex luthor storm the captial? yes. Would he do it in a way that couldn't possibly be linked to him? Yes.

Again i'm not saying Lex is a good person: he gave his daughter to an alien robot man. Lex Luthor is a monster. I'm saying that he dosen't really resemble trump.. because he's a FUNCTIONAL monster. Part of why this arc works is that you can see WHY lex can sell america on this as he uses a mostly pristine image. Trump had a combination of luck and racisim. Luthor actually worked at it.

Anyways one of Superman's foes The Adversary, a guy I know nothing about and whose unrelated to the trickster god from marvel far as I know, kidnaps luthor, superman rescues him.. and superman is all too happy to give him a haughty "your welcome" after luthor is a dick about it saying his people could've handled the giant flying man as strong as superman.

Our next story is another Greg Rucka banger, The Most Suitable person and is another tie to Batman. Lex knows he can't keep his company and since he gave away his only children to use as a puppet king, he instead courts the best woman for the job: Talia, daughter of Batman superfoe Ra's Al Ghul. It's an intresting pull and makes sense: He could have his right hand woman mercy run it.... but he needs her at his side for his evil schemes and it'd still look like he was running it. He needs someone he can trust to run it and not take it from him, but also not make it less evil.

Talia at the time was on the outs from her dad and not really in a mood to accept given the centruies old head of a large terrioist group kinda wants her dead. Lex naturally takes her no.. by having a bunch of mercnaries pretending to be her dad's men. It IS left ambigious if it was really them.. but like Talia I fully think Lex set this up and despite his refusals he WOULD blow up a building and get 17 mercs killed just to get what he wants. She agrees to here him out if only because it's clear he won't take no for an answer... and there's no telling what he'd do for an encore.

Next is the great debate, a fun short story and another likely backup. This time it's from my boy Peter David, writer of X-Factor over at marvel, and Young Justice and Supergirl here at dc among a LOT more. It's a fun three pager where Luthor has a nightmare of a debate.. with two face.

Next is some forward movement with the concept, the american way by Jeph Loeb, who'd not only write superman for the luthor presidency as a whole, but would also write it's end with Public Enemies.

Lois and Clark get an ugly suprise that morning: Luthor's picked his running mate..and it's Clark's childhod friend Pete Ross, a former senator and clear pick to get the vote of midwesteners. And living in the mid west I can tell you this ploy probably woudl've worked.

Clark heads down there to find out what the hell and after LUthor exploits his sudden apperance for press, Clark asks pete what the fuck. Pete explains he's given up on dreaming: he wants to be a winner dammit and Luthor is going to win.

Clark confides in his parents, with Pa not knowing what the hell got into Pete.. I mean he was apparently always a moron but my god. Clark considers talking to his wife Lana, Clark's childhood sweetheart, and Ma tells him he should but that she's suffered enough and he shoudlnt' write a piece against pete.. even though pete did this dumbass thing himself and it's clark's job as a reporter, not to mention pete FLAT OUT ADMITTED he's only doing this because he wants to win.

Lois goes to work where Perry, SHOCKINGLY isn't happy. Also she ignores Jimmy, expect that to be a theme here. At any rate, Perry is pissed, but Lois is more concerned about a ticking time bomb: she agreed to kill any one story luthor asked and is afraid the bill will come due. This.. dosen't come up strangely. I THINK it plays into the arc, but I can't be sure as it's missing here.

Superman decides to deal with his own issues with this whole situation the way he does.. by battling a giant monster in the atlantic. He wins.. but finds a bigger problem, Aquaman, whose still in his angry phase but is ANGRIER than even usual: turns out it's Lexcorp that's been causing creatures like the giant monster thing to go nuts, and he's going to do something about it even as Clark TRIES To get him to calm the hell down. Thankfully this isn't bad character writing as there's a reason for Arthur being mopeier than usaul.

For now Clark swoops into an event for Lex, but before he can talk to Lana, Aquaman shows up with a giant net to kidnap lex luthor

Superman naturally goes after him only to find THE ARMIES OF ATLANTIS led by former aqualad and current tempest garth, who orders superman to stand down or he'll flood the city

Garth is the key indicator somethin'gs up: arthur does have a tendency to be a grumpus in this era, him doing this isn't SUPER out of character.. but declaring war and Garth participating in it and activating a giant wave machine? Something's fucked.

Superman may be faster than a speeding bullet.. but he isn't fast enough to stop garth.

Thankfully he gets some help from the boys YOUNG JUSTICE IS HERE! Specifically the comics version, which I love dearly and which is nothing like what got on screen. Nothing against the cartoon, Weisman did a great job, it's just based more on the teen titans with bits of greg's own ideas. Young Justice is more like the teen titans cartoon , which was intended to be a YJ adaptation but they coudln't get the rights to some of the cast.

The lineup for this crossover is the core of the team: Robin (Tim Drake), Superboy (conner king) Impulse, and Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandmark), along with their mentor and advisor and babysitter my boy red Tornado. Clark is.. less than enthused, but takes the help as they hit the streets. Naturally things don't go on too long before robin and cassie get eaten by that big thing from earlier.

This is on purpose though: Tim revs up the super cycle, had cord attached to it and superboy and later superman PULLL PULLL while he revs up, allowing them to pull the thing back into the ocean. Superman sincerly compliments them, which is nice: clark may be mildly frustrated with them.. but he's still superman. He's not a dick and as weird as the plan was, it worked. He quickly saves lois , as he do then goes to rescue Luthor.

This being Luthor though.. he spins it in his favor. He claims he had no idea the braniac tech he was using was turning sea life mad.. including the atlantians, explaning why Arthur done did a war crime, and vows to actually fix it, spinning this pr disaster into a win.

Then he gets another PR win.. the hard way. He gets shot. The culprit is Jenny Hubbard, a minor character I had to look up, a waitress he once offered a million dollars to spend a month with him... then left long before she could accept the offer, it being a cruel prank he does to fuck with people. Naturally the media spins it as her being delusional... it also uses the same shot for an entire page but i'll only show you 4 panels

Also for some reason they didn't think to not have a shot wher eluthor looks like a preist getting down instead of having just taken a bullet... he smiles in his hotel room. It's as if he planned it.

The next story is another Loeb story, and another backup, tales from the Bizzaro World. Batman shows up and he's understandably nettled: As I mentioned, and learned from this story, the braniac 13 thing wiped Luthor's records. That means there's no dirt to dig up, the planets records also wiped and Batman wants to know if Clark personally has anything.

Clark dosen't.. but is pissed Bruce would even ask, pointing out this isn't the usual try to take down luthor thing: their talking about a political canditate running for office and this isn't something they should be doing.

I see both points: Luthor should be stopped and Batman is right ot question the american people's judgement when they let no man's land happen. But Clark is right: he can't just suddenly DECIDE who can be president or can't. He's not king superman. He put away the pope hat ages ago. He can vote, he can use his power at the planet to TRY and stop this.. but they can't just start deciding who runs america. Even if the people choose wrong they should be allowed to choose. Granted i've now seen how bad the people choosing wrong can go.. but the whole point of elections is to prevent a dictator ship, just like this one and likely others after it given the way the republican party is going. If someone else is sinking canditates ;using their billions and connections and bat skills, that's not freedom and clark is aware of it.

We move on to election night as everyone prepares.. and we get a really nice moment with Clark and Jonn

A reminder the leauge isn't thrilled about this either. More on that in a minute

In the office Pete White considers two headlines: Luthor Loooses.. or Luthor wins.

We then get Triumph Over Tragedy, a heavily doctored detaling of luthor's past, leaving out that he killed his dad, that the evil clone was him, etc. It's a neat piece that goes over his history and shows just how mnuch he's buried..a nd he buries it again as he asks cat to cut out the piece. This ending is chilling.. especially now as we have full channels like fox news dedicated to telling blatant lies and propping up people like luthor.

We then get the results as Jimmy is assigned to do a story on where they were when they heard about his announcment.. only for him to be interuppted. Perry announces, comparing it to other disasters.. that luthor has won. They have to press on because shit is going to get bad.. but they ahve to. While the Luthor trump comparssions don't really work for the most part.. this part hits as it's the reality most of us faced that day: that someone truly bad won.

Next up is another greg rucka story. Batman shows up , wanting the kryptonite ring. Luthor can have it or the presdency. Luthor says nah he can have both.. and shows just how bad things are now. While he said in the cartoon "you know how much power i'd have to give up to be president" this shows how much he GAINS: every wet works orginzation in the us now responds to him and he threatens batman: come after him again and he can track him and his allies 24/7 and he will. Bruce says he'll be back.. but it's an empty threat. Luthor.. has once again won. It's a great shor tlittle story, showing WHY Batman was so afraid of this and how even Superman's equal... can't lay a finger on him. Luthor.. has won.

We get a jeph loeb short story next: have you heard the news. it's a fun short three pager as Superman goes into an absolute RAGE on saturn's moon. He's.. not happy and luthor can see that. I also would like to take a minute to praise Ed McGuinnes, who did the art on Jeph Loeb's story. He has this nice bombastic cartoony style i REALLY love and it's always a pleasure to see him when he pops up and we'll be seeing him again when we cover public enemies at some point.

Next is the confrontation with Lana. Turns out part of Superman's understandable bafflement is that he kidnapped her like I mentioned.. and she never told pete as she couldn't without compromising clark's identity and admits they have NOTHING on luthor and that maybe pete will make it better and her marriage has to be mor eimportant. In other words.. it's all justifications: while Lana COULD have told Pete what happened and it's on her to not trust her husband enough. Clark would've let her. The truth is she just didn't want to and cries as she hopes he won't be president. Unsuprisingly this marriage did not last.

We get one final piece of election night: Superman storming in.. and admitting defeat

I love this image as it just convey's both how little clark wants to do this.. and how much he has to. To show america he won't undercut the president even if that president has cameras on saturn just to see if superman has a venting session.

Next up is a snippet of an issue, where Luthor has his big innaugration parade. He even hired an old friend to help celebrate

Trust. It's interuppted by some protesters from the Suicide Slum, a poorer area of Metropolis that got left behind by the Braniac updgrades to the rest of the city. Luthor dances a little sidestep saying he's not in charge of Lexcorp, he'll look into this, bullshit bullshit.

Clark and Lois go to talk to John Henry Irons, aka Steel aka Lana's next better husband. Then we cut off but we'll be seeing my boy here soon

For now we have my other faviorite story in this collection, a very close second to our first: Help.

Help is set at christmas and follows Clark as he talks with the other members of the Justice League about the shit that just went down, clearly stressed to hell given the people he protets and tries to inspire.. just willingly choose an egomaniac with a shady history to be their new leader. We also get a murder's row of artists for each vingette, written again by Jeph Loeb.

The first is the Martian Manhunter.. and Plastic Man as he was the only member of the expanded league from Morrison's run to stick around because he's awesome. Fun fact; Ben Schwartz has apparently campaigned to play him. James Gunn.. get.. get on that buddy.

Jonn is TRYING to help Clark relax but he can't because he's a boinger. And again a sociopath is in the white house. Clark wonders if he shoudl've done more to stop this.. but Jonn helps put it into perspective: Clark is integrated into this world a bit better than Jonn is, something he envies... especiallys ince what happened made no sense. But he assures clark the second Lex does something illegal, he's there... which also feels like his way of assuring his friend he did the right thing. We also get a sweet moment as plastic man makes him smile. Clark gives the two a gift: rubber bands fo rplastic man, choco's, jonn's faviorite oreo stand in, for .. well guess. It's a fun runner as I love the idea Clark gives his friends each a cheesy gag gift.

Next up is aquaman, by rob liefeld, which is shockingly passable. Clark and Arthur both look pissed off and dead at the same time but at least their spines are in tact. Arthur is actaully on lex's side since he's the first world leader to both promise trade with atlantis and offer commuincation and while Clark admits those are probably lies, Arthur warns they better not be, implying Luthor would be kinda stupid to do anything. Arthur then gets his gift a snowglobe and cracks the closest thing he can to a smile.

Next is a talk with green lantern drawn by Mike Wirnego, who i'm less familiar with but whose art looks sensational and expressive here. Granted anything is expressive after Rob Liefield but still, it's good stuff.

The League's green lantern is Kyle Rayner, imaginative boy and 90's guy. So naturally his stance is Luthor is crooked.. but so was the last guy and so will likely be the next guy. Things really don't change. Kyle still votes though as he has to hope things will be better. It shows Kyles' character off well: he's flip and easy to crack a joke.. but he's an optimsit at heart. His stance here is honestly mine: the system is broken, our vote only pivots thing slightly in elections where a known criminal and tyranical narcsist isn't running.. but it's worth voting just to TRY and make things better. There's no reason not to vote even if sometimes it's the lesser of two evils. Kyle's gift is ring polish, which he cracks up about.

Next up is Wally West, the flash by art motherfucking adams, an artistic legend and a genius at the pen. Truly fantastic stuff as always. Wally is picking up some chcoclates linda wanted, last minute of course since when your the fastest man alive you can do that cliche without coming off like a douche. Also when you have undiagnosed ADHD. Wally's stance is voting early and often, as that's the american way and admits he'd drag luthor out if Clark asked.. but he won't ask that because that's not the american way. The American way is putting your faith in something and hoping it works out. Wally gets tube socks for some reason.

Next is Diana, Wonder Woman and it's by Ian Churchill who i'm less familiar with.. but i'ts not drawn great. Diana also has large fake nails for some reason. It's this weird tendency i've noticed: artists tend to give long painted nails to women even if it didn't fit the character back in the 80's through the 2000's. I don't mind it if It fits and I could see diana doing it for a fancy occasion or fun, but not for a sparring session.

Diana dosen't care about the electoin and while she probably did vote she's more worried Clark is slipping and has already let Luthor win mentally. He hasn't but it's good of her to worry. She does have a valid suggestion that comes off as more in character though: take some time off. Granted i'ts written as "as a woman and as your only friend whose a woman " which just tells you a 2000's man wrote this. He gives her a tiny mjonr, which I again don't get but gets him a hug. Awww.

We end on Batman whose still pissed at Clark, rubbing the whole "letting humans have free will thing' in his face and saying when the time is right we will take down luthor. In other words prime bat dick behavior, not suprising for the era wher Batman was extra dickish at times.

So Clark takes the advice of a friend who didn't want him to interfere with free choice and takes a few days off in kandor with lois, content for now to accep tthe situation

We then get World without Superman by Mark Schultz... and this story is just..

The IDEA for the story is good: Around christmas time we see Clark depressed that Luthor won. Granted it dosen't jibe well with the previous story: Luthor won, but clark at least tried to take some time away from. I can still allow it though thanks to personal experince. Like with Perry's line before CLark depressedly watching the tv as Luthor makes good, butters up to the league and geninely seems to have america's approval hits harder after the 2016 election. Anyone on the left.. was left dismayed and shocked this actually happened, that this openly racist, sexist, homphobic pile of hair and spray tan won. I can sympathize with Clark having GENUINELY belivied in the people.. and them having let him down. I can buy that Superman, one of the most hopeful and hope inspiring characters in all of fiction.. could be laid low by this.

So the followup, Lori Lee of the time traveling Linear Men who i'd only vaugely heard of before this, shows up because things are going VERY bad thanks to decisions clark makes soon, that he quits being superman and gives up.. and the world goes to hell as a result. This idea.. is brilliant. While the it's a wonderful life riff is common, I like merging it with the future segment of a christmas carol here.

The problem is that they go WAY too far in this distoypian future to the point that it defies logic and sense. A good bad future has to have some sort of logic to it. To use an X-Men example because I got x-men on the brain now and always, Days of Future Past was effective because it was so simple how things went wrong: a mutant killed an anti-mutant senator, that ramped up anti mutant tensions, and things slowly escalated to the regestration act and the sentinel program going public. It took TIME for the world to go to hell in a realistic fashion.

This story does try to do that, it's 15 years later, Lexcorp runs the world. A large part of this is due to Our Worlds at War, a massive crossover and interstellar war that happened next year. During that war a powerful being named impereix decided to unmake reality due to a percieved imperfection in the cosmos and given his drones were incredibly powerful and if defeated detonated like nuclear bombs it took ALL of earth's superheroes as a united front, along with a few villians of course, to fight it back. Luthor proved his presidential chops by directing the conflict. The idea that this war goes badly without supes is a good one.

The problem is it dosen't really make sense with the storyline next year or even objectviely: Luthor apparently spent through a bunch of heroes with costly battle strategies.. but while Clark being gone DOES impact the superhero community severely and his clear replacement, Wonder Woman, was also gone, replaced by her mom, they still have the rest of the league, and if they coudln't inspire hope, there's the justice society of america, who the whole superhero community looks up to and who have vetran clout. Sure Lex could TRY and send them on a suicide run and did send them on a risky mission in the actual war, but the fact of the matter is it'd be a bit hard to both overtalk and cover up the deaths of world war II vetrans. Heroes who as far as I can tell have a unviersally good reputation. It's also overlooking the younger generation like DIck Grayson or Wally West, both of whom have enough collections across the various dc heroes to rally them.. and rally tem against luthor if he went to far.

Even putting that aside.. the second step, putting in laws to fuck with all them, is more plausable.. but the fact their ALL gone but batman and co by this point dosen't make any sense to me. Only one league member wasn't against luthor's election on some level, Arthur, and even his terms were VERY conditional. Luthor would have to do a lot of state sec killing to get the heroes down to a point where they couldn't just overthrow him and while he has the b13 tech, the heroes have geniuses like Oracle, Steel, and Batman on their side to help reverse engineer things. I also don't think bruce would remotely wait to go commando on Luthor and is smart enough. I'm not saying batman's a god : many a weak story has made batman a gary stu by forgetting he's a flawed man.. but he CAN beat lex luthor even with the world against him and wouldn't let Luthor get this far.

With days of future past the X-Men are a bunch of average people, with only charles having any political pull at the time. Batman.. is a billionaire. Wonder Woman and Aquaman both rep whole nations. Kyle and Wally while average joes are both gods. The only reason the justice league didn't say, remove Luthor the second he got elected.. is he was rightfully elected and they respect that. Even Batman, as pissy as he's been, knows better than to do that. But if things got bad enough they would and would let america hopefully pick someone better. Even if they ended up jailed.. they'd expose luthor if it killed them. Maybe i'm just an optimist, maybe the world would beat them all down.. but i've read enough dc comics of all kinds to know these characters.. don't give up and would fight their hardest for a better world even if it killed them. So it feels reductive to say superman being gone instantly means their all fucked. It'd mean they'd be more depressed, might go to darker places without clark, and some MIGHT give up.. but I can't imagine everyone giving up because superman decided.

And yes folks.. THAT'S what they went with. Superman just GAVE UP ON earth. I could buy Clark giving up on being superman if pushed enough: the world is full of heroes and as seen with the later storyline up up and away, which I hope to cover one day and might save for the next supermay, the dcu.. didn't burn down because he was gone a year after being depowered. He can still do good as Clark Kent. I can't buy Clark being SO fed up he'd leave. Retire maybe, and even then that's hard to buy.. but it's PLAUSABLE. Superman abandning his parents, wife and friends to fend for themselves and NEVER coming back is ludcirious, especially since the imperix war ended up spreading wide enough hat there's no way he wouldn't speed back to help. Darkseid pitched in for fucks sake: you think he'd let Superman sit out a war he had to humble himself to get help for? No. Darkseid is. Darkseid would be PISSED superman gave up and demand he come help or he'll kill his ass. I get the writer probably didn't have all the pieces, but said pieces really hurt htis series longetivity

What also hurts it is the present day part: Lois, Jimy and Perry try one last hail mary to save journalism.. and fail, as Luthor saw it coming a mile away and has his personal hit squad kill them. and some tigers. I don't buy Lois being this dump or thinking cozying up to luthor would remotely work. He took satstifaction in Lois, Jimmy and Perry joining his propoganda.. but he never forgot.

We also get another insult with that.. see some heroes.. sold out to luthor.. and who they choose...

Yeah normally on this blog I try to be positive. I will point out when a work is bad or not great.. but I try to be constructive. Explain why it is or at least thrown in a joke. I try to avoid nerd raging.. but my GOD does the choice of having Plastic Man, Booster Gold and Huntress honk me off. Part of it is i'm a big fan of the latter two thanks to JLI and Birds of Prey, respectively. So I admit to a little bias. That being said, said bias is from having actually read the characters apperances and not just picked who would make a good edgy shocking luthor justice league out of a hat.

I get WHY each one was picked: Plastic Man comes off a tad shady and entirely unserious, Booster is both not all that serious and was introduced as a willing corprate shill: he had standards but DID it for the fame and to escape his criminal past and once bought an island with justice league money, while Helena often clashed with the bat fam at the time due to her more violent methods and bruce being a tad dickish.

The problem is NONE OF THIS MEANS THEY'D SIGN UP WITH LUTHOR. Plastic Man is loosey goosey.. but he's not so loosey goosey he'd agree to work for luthor to opress people. Booster sold out.. but he both grew past that and already fueded with Luthor in his solo: he knows he can't trust him and if he's going to make money, he'll do it on his own and if things are going THIS bad he'd either go back to fix them.. or just go back entirely to avoid this crap if the's that cynical. He also wouldn't blow up a building full of people under any circumstances that aren't accidental, and even the latter is a bit much for Booster. he may be a fuckup.. but he's not a "murder a bunch of people fuckup" and is a good guy, i'ts just buried under layers of self intrest.

Finally Helena.. has a super strong sense of justice: she DID start her career killing and went after the mob because they murdered her family. She'll do things Batman won't , or at least would at this point in her career.. but I can't remotely buy her selling out to luthor and not trying to put a bolt in his head, even if he is the law. She went outside of the law in the first place, why would she trust it enough to work under lex? This feels like the writer picked three characters he thought might do it and didn't bother to think thorugh how their fans would feel, which happens a LOT and always feels cheap and has only gotten worse since booster and helena got furhter fleshing out in the later 2000's that makes this somehow dumber.

Our last few stories cover his actual swearing in and right after and i'm going to rapid fire them as they aren't BAD stories, but mostly either small one offs clearly designed to set something up later.

The first is the actual innugaration which is a full story.. but I simply don't have much to say about it. It's by the same guy who did the previous dumbassery, but he does a good job here. I'ts innaguration day and Steel and his niece and future steel herself Natsha plan a protest. They even run into some othe rheroes: Pat Duggan, formerly Stripsey sidekick to the star spangled kid.

His daughter courtney, bitter about having to move when her mom married pat and being a bit of a brat at the time found the equipment and became a costumed hero just to piss him off. Pat used some powered armor he was making to become S.T.R.I.P.E. to keep an eye on her. That's where we are here, with Courtney and Pat having bonded but still not being on the same page a lot of the time. This would soon change as Courntey realized her bio dad was a piece of shit, and accepted pat as her dad, becoming Stargirl and taking up that legacy.

For now though their just at the inagguration because history and all that, but naturally superhero stuff breaks out as Steel's protest was leaked to team luthor. HIs bodyguards mercy and hope attack, but with an assitn from Courtney Steel wins the day.. and asks how they knew. He figures out itw as a setup.. just in time for someone else.

A supervillian attacks, having been created by the same circumstances that John Henry and co were protesting: luthor's devistation of the suicide slum. Naturally superman sweeps in as he planned not to attend, a silent protest but WAS nearbye just in case. He, Steel, Stargirl and Stripsey win of course, and Luthor also wins of course, getting a photo op with superman as "you wouldn't deny your president would you". A masterful dick move sir.

The next one is cleaning up a loose end, courtsey of Karl Kessel, long time superman writer and superboy co-creator and writer.. the connor kent one. Luthor was actually married once to the Contessa, an immortal buisness woman he secretley married who is the mother of his child and once took over his company. Luthor blows her up with missles as you'd expect.

The last two are setups for later... that i'm baffled are in here. The first one I get a little. Cerce, wondy's arch enemy I mentioned (one of them anyway, she has a few contenders) waltzes up planning a partnership but Luthor shoots her down and is naturally a dick abou tit. Some shady man offers her his help and.. that's about it. It's a decent story showing that Luthor's old criminal buddies aren't getting any free rides by this administration, it just baffles me it's in here. You could've used the pages to finish one of the other stories from earlier or put in a story from his adminstration. We also get one setting up his bumbling assitant Mercy is bitter about. That's.. really it. That's how it ends.

So overall this trade.. was a bit better on the second go round. The first act, while pieced together, does tell a cohesive story.. they just felt for osme reason the need to include the innguration and some other stories to pad it out at the end. It would've been better to end at luthor becoming president, maybe at the justice league story dealing with it. We really didn't NEED the terrible future story or the innaguration and tales. The rest tells a good story of how luthor GOT here, how he won, and how Clark feels about it. Throw in the unathorized biography and it would've been enough. Still if you have a few bucks the trade IS worth picking up, and did the best it could with the space it had. IT's an intresting look at an intresting storyline and has some real gems: like I said "The Why" and "Help" are really great stories and worth the price of the trade alone. Thanks for reading

Next time: We get super serial as we look into "The Clan of the Firey Cross"

#superman #clark kent #lex luthor #us elections #lois lane #steel #john henry irons #lana lang #perry white #dc comics #aquaman #martian manhunter #wally west #kyle rayner #batman #wonder woman #plastic man

10 notes · View notes

ernestelm · 5 months

Text

Black Cat Detective movie rant

Ever since I made that video about black cat detective I've realised how much I despised the movie. It missed the mark so badly that after I vented I felt like I had more things that I hated about t.

Im not going to urge people to watch the video because I am cringing at it but I also want people to find it and maybe have more people be interested in black cat detective.

I'm going to be honest, that video made me never want to make a video again. Im just going to be mostly text based, I might start posting animations or something some day but don't expect too much from me.

Useless rants away, Im going to get to the point.

Im starting from the beginning since Im kinda hoping no one reading this watched the video. Bcd is widely considered a classic by Chinese people created in the 80's. I didnt grow up with it, I was more interested in western shows , but I did see people from 2000's which is my age range say that they did. To me this was kind of a red flag, you see, liking western shows means my norm is watching the newest rendition for a series. For example, I watched tmnt 2012, I didnt grow up with the 80's one. So colour me surprise when I started trying Chinese media and they had so little good kids shows that after the 2000's they were still referencing shows from the 80's.

By that point I've already started watching more kids shows, I just didn't want to sit through anime and tvs shows and feel drained in the end anymore. So it was definitely a surprise when the main character started absolutely obliterating the villains. It also showed the more dark side of nature, like praying mantis eating their mate so their offsprings can have more nutrition. The whole show as a concept was kinda cool, my only gripe was that they didn't kill off the main villains despite killing smaller villains you know, typical hero movie tropes.

In 2015 they created a movie, which was where it all went downhill. (It might also be the series's season 2 but I couldnt bring myself to watch it so Im not counting it) They movie was loved by a lot of adults because they toned down the violence. Whatever, its fine, a show didnt have violence as long as they have good plot.

The movie didnt have good plot.

Characters

The characters, weren't good. First off, I didnt like how they added thick eyebrows for bcd and like he still barely had any expressions.

the whole thing about animation is that you can distort facial expressions, surpass what humans cannot do in real life, even the original series had bcd puff up from anger.

Im going to do another section just based on animation later

Other than that they added gag characters like a goddamn duck that keeps coming in with underwears on. It was so goddamn annoying, they even repeated it several times as if taunting me. I find it to be a problem with chinese cartoons in how they dumb down humour for children despite China supposedly being smart. I might bring this up for another rant on a show that I might do in the future but you'll understand what Im saying if you watched any chinese children show in recent years.

They also brought back the iconic villain, one ear, who is both unlikable and barely entertaining, his voice was annoying, I never liked it when he was on screen, he was mostly useless either way.

They also brought in a new "one off villain" a gorilla who's story sorta had potential. He basically got pissed at a friend over a misunderstanding, thinking that his friend was selfish trying take the credit of both of their work despite his friend mostly using "us" and "we", while the people back at base used "you found it". It could've been a pretty good lesson on miscommunication. Other than that, he also started thinking he should take all of the credit, a good lesson on how jealousy can blind a person. Everything was in place and yet they still messed up. I liked how even after seeing his friend apologise to him through a hologram he still couldnt forgive him. He wasn't like the best villain but he was certainly a step in the right direction.

Alright now for the main character, yup that's right, bcd wasnt the main character. It was a pig kid. With a hedgehog for a mother, which is a goddamn pun that can only be translated in Chinese. 豪猪 hedgehog and 猪 pig. Weird design choice aside. The goddamn kid is the most annoying little shit I've ever seen.

Alright Im going to start with the positives, the kid could be a good example on stress on children, which is also a theme for another pig related kids show that I hate, might talk about it someday but I didnt like the show so I'm probably going to take a while. He goes to tuition every single day, his mom honestly kinds of neglects his interest to be a policeman. Only allowing one poster of bcd in his bedroom, giving him tons of homework in one scene, it would've been a good chance to show the stress he is in, already having so much pressure to succeed in life despite only being in primary school. Instead, the show decides to play it off as a gag, haha relatable, dont you think this is funny? As someone who grew up in a competitive Chinese school, I would say no. Story for another day tldr, it ruins your mental health and your relationships if you're not careful.

Now for the negatives, the kid is annoying. Well immature traits are annoying to me, so I might be biased. First off, the kid keeps trying to save the day despite it being wildy out of his capabilities. Exhibit A, trying going against 2 adults, one being a prisoner who escaped from a high security prison. He was lucky that his idol, bcd arrived in time to save him. Bcd even told him that he shouldve contacted him instead of facing 2 dangerous adults alone. And yet the kid kept going in and save bcd, being a kids movie they of course want everything to go well but his presence did cause the two villains to escape containment at one point. His presence did cause bcd to have to hand over a dangerous item as he was held hostage, why? He decided that instead of calling bcd to warn him about his battery being stolen and probably being used to escape, he goes on his scooter to warn him. Mind you, this show has phones, they had a gag were a girl liked bcd and asked for his number, which he replied with China's emergency number so contacting him via phone was an option. In the end everything works out, he was even rewarded for being reckless, now assuming this show was targeted at kids ( based on the juvenile jokes ), what message would this send to the children watching? It certainly isnt a good one now is it.

He also doesnt freaking tell bcd about the plan of the villains instead kept telling him how much he likes him and shit and waiting until he gets asked before splurging out the information. He also made the high stakes feel so much weaker as people's lives were at stake when he was freaking stanning and crap.

There's also his friend who was only introduced to give the kid a vip ticket so he can be at the scene when the 2 villains arrived there despite it not being opening day yet. His friend is absolutely underutilized, his father is the curator of the green star which was the place, and the weapon that the villains used, yeah the event was held on a spaceship, which the villains were planning launch to space as some sort of sick revenge. High stakes that were absolutely underplayed by the protagonists but I digress.

He never went to check on his friend who, as stated was in the location of a crime. He was supposed to be the "best friend" and yet he never contacted his friend after the incident. I cant even entirely blame it on him as after the main character met his idol and "helped" him, he never contacted this friend to tell him about everything or something. Which made their friendship even less natural and making the fact that he was merely a plot device even more obvious.

Plot

After seeing how his friend was treated you already know the writing of this is going to be a treat right? I expected so much from China, who force their kids to memorize Chinese classics and read so much literature, you would think that the place that supposedly invented paper would have better writing but no, its absolutely garbage if you cant tell from my sarcasm in my first sentence.

Now now, Im going to start with the obvious, any writer or like writing enthusiast would know about the quote "show dont tell". Yeah, tell that to the writer of Mr Black: Green Star. Sorry I didnt being up the name of the movie sooner but, I dont like the name at all and was procrastinating on even typing out the words. They continuously repeated this elite group of policemen (yes, from what I can tell they were all male) yet never showed them, I had to go on 知乎 to even find any information about it. Even so, I wasnt even sure if it was official.

Other than that there was this plotline where bcd won his first award at 14 for defeating professor strange (generic ass villain, dr strange wannabe, can you tell how much I hate this movie?) look as much as it messes up the timeline, I might excuse him as maybe being younger in the original series causing him to be more violent. Like maybe he got more responsible causing a more child friendly new gen bcd but that's expecting too much from the writers.

I really, really wished that they started with a movie of him joining the elite team and defeating professor strange or something instead of whatever this is. It would've established his character. Maybe starting with a more feral and hostile bcd, maybe even mourning for his friend who died in the original series and wanting to kill the villains but being told killing is not the solution. It would've been a new chapter, it would've saved a few seconds of my life from listening to characters repeating the same thing, that could've just been in a movie.

Moving on, we have logic. There is barely any. Oh Ern! Stop being such a soggy cereal, can't you just enjoy a movie without debating the logic? No, not when they both cause stupid behaviour and ignore a goddamn chance to be educational which links it to the edu part of the original series. First off stupid behaviour, the kid drives a jet because his dad is a pilot, thats not how it works, I bet the writers thought they were smart like, chekovs gun moment! Remember how the friend made an offhand remark on how the main character's dad is a pilot? Well yes I do. But also I don't drive a boat because my dad is a fisherman because it doesnt work like that.

Other than that g force. Gravity altering device, whatever, I could care less but bcd withstanding 8 g force without equipment? Real shit. They couldve said something about how cats can handle higher g forces or something. Whatever , theres thankfully not much information about that but one thing I am sure of is, the goddamn jet the kid was driving also had g force. Why wasnt that brought up. Why cant the kid handle the device but could handle a jet? They could've thought the kid about g force and make him experience it himself. Maybe do a flashback on it when he was on the jet. It would've been an upgrade to bcd teaching him how to shoot and making the final scene about him never being able to aim well but dealing the final blow perfectly. The shooting part could've been more talent or something honestly, I dont care much of it.

Enough of the g force. Talk more about plot. What else is there to say? This whole thing is just a shallow movie, what am I gonna talk about, the one lff minion who was basically just there to fill in the chase scene? There is barely any substance in this movie, it felt more like a cash grab but like itt can't even sell merch because the character designs were mid and most of them are unlikable other than bcd but that's just my opinion.

Animation

Shit was weak, as I said they never utilised the fact that they used 2D animation. The animation techniques used felt more 3D than 2D.their smear frames are just a white blur. Their expressions are boring. and the side characters looks like this

Ive seen passion projects on youtube with better quality screenshots than these. I would rather it have self inserts of animators. Heck I've seen better quality animation in Bilibili productions. LOOK AT TGCF, HECK, LOOK AT WHITE CAT LEGEND. Those aren't even national culture icons, they weren't even released in theatres and yet look at the quality.

The worst part? They used 2D animation to honour the original series. It didn't feel like honour at all, in fact, it felt like an insult. I feels like the people who watched it only watched the series a few times as a kid and didn't even rewatch it to write the new show.

Anyways, I hope I never think about this movie ever again.

#black cat detective #movie rant #chinese animation #mr black: green star

5 notes · View notes

marinerainbow · 11 months

Note

//Crying at "between the man who writes his checks and the woman who lets him touch her boobs his hands are tied" 😆

Does she...have...? Idk how anthro toon relationship dynamics work in this world, the more I think about it the stranger it becomes 😂

Shiny has the absaloute leverage over him.

Greasy: No! Olvidalo! I won't do it!

Shiny: Ohhhh baby, pleeease?

Greasy: gulps But Mi Amor, the only thing I have left to lose is my dignity!

Shiny: Then what are you worried about Green Bean? backs him against a wall Come ooon Tiger, I'll let you play later. scratches nails under his chin.

Greasy: cracks ALRIGHT I GIVE IN!

He does whatever embarrassing or stupid thing is asked of him for the mere prospect that she might pepper his face wigt lipstick kisses.

SHINY WOULD ABSOLUTELY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT! She knows Greasy's weakness too well 😅😆😅😆

Hm... Well, the only canon female weasel from the comics does have boobs (I'm sorry I just love that word XD it's just funny to me to say). But Winnie Weasel is also more humanoid than any other weasel in the WFRR universe... Which is a nice way of saying that she looks like a furry joined the animation team and this was his way of coping with his inner turmoil in a society where suxuality was still hush-hush and everything was wrong unless it was hetero-vanilla.

Who would have thought that giving a weasel long limbs and batfish lips would have instantly turned her into a disgrace.

But Shiny, on the other hand, she doesn't have that body type. She's the same height as the Toon Patrol, and posses the iconic short legs long body look they have too. I'm not quite sure how boobs would look/work on that body type. Maybe Shiny just uses hair conditioner to make her chest fur extra fluffy?? (The book Who Censored Roger Rabbit had Hare Conditioner for rabbit characters. I'm pretty certain Toontown would have a specific bran of conditioner that makes your hair fluffier than normal. But Shiny also has fluffy head fur that she styles like hair too, so that could be a part of it too)

One of the gags I can see Shiny doing is something akin to the 'trenchcoat' gag. Like, maybe the guys have to distract Greasy for some reason, and Shiny knows it (because this is one of her 'arrested by the TP' times and she's under house arrest)

Shiny: *rolls her eyes. Tosses her toast on the plate* You guys are trying way too hard.

Smartass: Oh, and you're one 'ta talk? You haven't done jack!

Shiny: Because I've been waiting for you dummies to stop and realize. But you clearly aren't gonna, so-

Greasy: *storms into the room* ¡Eso es todo! ¡Hijos de puta será mejor que me cuenten qué está pasando ahora!

Shiny: 🙄 *calmly walks right up to her boyfriend* Ey, Devil.

Greasy: Que???

Shiny: *unbuttons and rips open her shirt- conveniently out of sight from the rest of the Toon Patrol and audience*

Greasy: 😳😳😳😳😳

Weasels: !?!?!?

Shiny, cooly rebuttoning her shirt before turning towards the TP: I bought you an hour. Spend it wisely. *walks away*

Greasy, looking like he just saw the gates of Heaven: *chases after Shiny* Mí Vida! Come back! You can't leave me like this!!!

Weasels:

As you can see, for Shiny, this leaves a mystery of what she has under her shirt. Does she have the femine feature that Greasy is so mad about? Or is it just fur and Greasy is just happy to see any woman naked? The world may never know XD

#Asks #OC tid-bits #ships #OC x Canon #Griny #Toon Patrol #Greasy Weasel #Shiny Weasel #my own oc's #Winnie Weasel #WFRR comics #WFRR #who framed roger rabbit #disney #disney villains

13 notes · View notes

tarisilmarwen · 1 year

Text

Rebels Rewatch: “Droids In Distress”

Wacky droid hijinks and nostalgia abound, let’s get into it.

Now, this is an episode that for a different show would have been used as the pilot. It’s got all the earmarks of a weekly serial testing out its tone and character dynamics, while acting with confidence like those are already established.

Note that this isn’t a bad thing. It reminds me most of Teen Titans’s early Season One, there’s a certain kind of charm and innocence and an earnest attempt at convincing you, “Don’t worry, this will be a FUN show! :D”

Frankly starting off lighter eases you better into the world and characters so when things do get more serious and dramatic later you’re more invested because you’ve had more time to get endeared to the characters.

See also, Star Trek: Lower Decks, which had the audacity to end its Season Two on a cliffhanger, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE MY SILLY COMFORT SHOW, YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE STAKES!

Anyway we open rather appropriately In Media Res with the notes of the TIE Fighter Attack track from A New Hope, which auditorily puts us right into that OT headspace. :)

Once again the tight writing very quickly establishes the situation: The Ghost is on the run from the Empire, in need of cash flow and supplies, they have to occasionally run weapons for someone shady, Ezra is Force Sensitive, and--perhaps most importantly for the later story arc--Kanan has been avoiding training him.

Boy I miss concise exposition like this. So much story is already set up in some densely-worded dialogue. (Not just Kanan’s reluctance to teach Ezra but also Zeb’s misgivings with working for Vizago given the uncertain nature of the weapons he deals in.)

Also don’t think I missed Ezra being most concerned with the fact that they are running out of food.

RIGHT SO I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW GIDDY I WAS THE FIRST TIME I WATCHED THIS BECAUSE ICKLE MINI TARI LOVED THE STAR TOURS RIDE AT DISNEYWORLD. Seriously it was one of my top favorites. Never rode the updated version (haven’t been back to DW in years) but the classic version was iconic for me.

And this is a cameo/Easter Egg that actually works in context because you don’t need to know anything about this droid pilot, he works organically in the story as he is without any background knowledge required.

Unlike many of the other cameos we could name in certain other Star Wars shows *COUGH*.

Threepio and Artoo on the flipside... Okay, I’m not quite sure how to articulate that it still works better than in aforementioned other shows but it does. Again Imma chalk it up to, they just fit more organically into the plot and around these characters and also advance the bigger plot by introducing a thread that suggests the crew is going to be connected to the larger Rebellion, which pays off this Season Finale... instead of being a sideshow diversion disconnected from the main characters that may or may not make another appearance down the line sometime. Maybe.

Side note of appreciation for Chopper gleefully taking right to his role of Public Nuisance Annoying Everyone (But Especially Ezra). I don’t think there was much acting involved for either of them lol.

Still love how bouncy and dynamic the character animation was these early episodes.

Has that fun kid-friendly feel that lures you into a false sense of security lol.

Our first hint at Sabine’s backstory, cleverly hidden as part of her cover story.

I kinda like that Garel is close enough to Lothal that a very small shuttle is able to just ferry people back and forth in like twenty minutes.

Lol Zeb whapping Sabine because she’s laying it on too much.

One of the nice things about having low-stakes plots in the beginning is it allows room for lovely little breathing scenes like this one with Ezra leaping across the rooftops. It’s not plot necessary, we could have easily just cut to him arriving at the other hanger, but it’s just... pleasant.

There’s some nice mood music (a very slowed down mellow Main Titles theme), some very mild action, and we feel a satisfied little thrill along with Ezra seeing just what he’s capable of already just knowing that he’s Force Sensitive. This is the first time he’s consciously tapped into the Force and it’s just a little bit exciting.

Just look at his face gkjhgkjh I’m so proud of him and all he did was some parkour.

Subtle animation detail appreciation: Zeb visibly shudders backing away from the crates.

I love Threepio throwing some indignant shade Sabine’s way with his “[...] if she is an amateur.” line.

We know Zeb is the muscle of the group, that’s already established, but it’s still obvious in the voice acting and Zeb’s intense tossing of the Stormtroopers that he’s more agitated than normal.

Threepio being oblivious and fussy as per usual.

Please enjoy the Fridge Horror of knowing that the Empire was planning to mass-produce T7 ion disruptors and probably not for their starship-crippling properties. :)

Ezra immediately backing off the hostility once he knows why Zeb’s upset. <333 He’s such an empath I love him.

See this is why I don’t understand people who hate Ezra. Was he a little bratty this episode? Sure, but also see how he lets that drop out of compassion once he understands the situation.

Also Ahsoka came onto the stage waaaaaaaaay brattier and a smug know-it-all to boot, just admit y’all hate the kid-appeal characters and refuse to let them be stupid and dumb in order to have some character growth.

Hera’s frustration when she hears that Kanan hasn’t been training Ezra. <333

Lol and love how there’s an immediate follow-up in the next scene. I want to see the beginning of that conversation.

Pryce gets name-dropped here for the first time. Predictably Threepio is making a muck of things. See, this is why no one tells you anything or trusts you with the mission Threepio.

Ezra has clearly dealt with underworld figures like Vizago before lol.

I do wonder if all of this is just a massive Batman Gambit by Artoo, because he seems to be completely unfazed by anything that’s happening.

The AT-DPs get quite a bit of focus in this series and I think their ubiquitous presence in the first season preps us mentally for the heavy upgrade that is the AT-ATs.

Love this shot tracking Hera as she shoots at the AT-DP, very frenetic with the blocking and the camera movements.

The duel between Kallus and Zeb is honestly better than some of the lightsaber fights don’t @ me you know it’s true.

This music cue when they launch the disruptors is a unique one, particular to only this moment I think, but I like it.

Aaaaaaand the first of many times Kallus gets yeeted with the Force. Lol.

See Sequel Trilogy, this is the general powerset of someone who only just learned they were Force Sensitive and hasn’t had any training. /salt

Kanan seems very surprised and amazed by what Ezra can already do without any formal guidance. This’ll play into his insecurities later, his whole thing about how Ezra’s powers are growing faster than he can teach.

I think it’s safe to assume Ezra had a lot of latent natural talent that he’d been unconsciously using this whole time that just needed a tiny push to begin manifesting in earnest.

Again, though, Sequel Trilogy, all we unlock is basic shit like Force Sense, Force Jump, and Force Push.

Not surprising Kanan went to fetch Zeb, he’s about the only one even close to Zeb’s height lol.

Kanan looks so proud of Ezra, aww.

More lovely work with the subtle expressions; Kanan’s smile fades and his eyes drop a bit. Like he realizes, “Oh boy, now I gotta face all my inadequacies and problems.” Love it. Love that it’s episode two and we’ve already established so many of the upcoming character arcs.

Hi Bail!

Luke’s theme closing us out once again, apropos given where we are and who we’re with.

For our first “official” non-pilot episode, this is a solid entry. As I said, establishes a whole bunch about the characters and their relationship dynamics and upcoming arcs and plot points. It’s also very fun, sets the general early tone of “Adventure and excitement but not too much... yet.” and the animation continues to impress in small ways, mostly the dynamic shot choices, camera angles and movements and the subtlety of emotion displayed on faces.

Coming back to this one always just leaves me with a warm feeling like, “Aahhh yes, back when everything was innocent.” It definitely plays up the nostalgic feeling of the OT, which was always one of Rebels’ strengths as a show.

Next time, one of the many “filler” episodes that come back in an important and unexpected way in the finale. You’d think, given the number of Avatar: The Last Airbender alums on the project, fandom would know better than to discount the seemingly light-hearted low-stakes disconnected episodes. XD

#star wars #star wars rebels #rebels rewatch #liveblog #ezra bridger #space dad and his precious pumpkin child #agent kallus #soundtracks #music

23 notes · View notes