#so disney is basically its own enemy

[rascalentertainments]

Wish Granted AU: Magnifico, Amaya and Sabor 🌟

PREPARE FOR TROUBLE, AND MAKE IT DOUBLE!!! 😈😼

I've been itching to get to these guys for a while! They're probably going to be the most fun to write! Of course, this version is based off the evil Disney villain couple we deserved. (ROBBED) The vibe I want to give here is Team Rocket meets Gomez and Mortica Addams: Elegant, evil yet SO entertaining to watch!

For Magnifico, I actually got inspiration from the Wish movie itself. One aspect that was underused was his tendency to put on a performance during the Wish granting ceremonies, and when he "turned evil" in the third act. Especially when he's a DISNEY villain performing a DISNEY like ceremony! I adore villains that put on a show when they're fighting the hero. Broadcasting the battle, the evil monologue, maniacal laughing while thinking they've won. LOVE that, but they didn't go all the way with him being a hammy villain. So whenever its time for a ceremony, its a big deal. With his wife and loyal lynx, they put on a show worth watching. Plus the way they work together basically splits up watching the kingdom and keeping their cover.

Maginifico is the frontman and keeps the people's wishes in his tower. He promises them a free and happy life in Rosas in exchange for their wishes and dreams. However, the price is that they no longer have a driving force in their life. They're complacent living there and serving the king, but they don't experience pure joy anymore. They're just merely existing and going through life always feeling something's missing in their lives. His apprentice Flazino is supposed to be learning from the king and assisting him by getting the ingredients needed for potions and spells. Magnifico actually has no intention of passing on his vast knowledge to a peasant or even considers giving him the ability to do magic, but he's at least a good errand boy. (Though Mag doesn't know he's a double agent)

Magnifico uses the wishes to gain power for himself, as its his greatest desire, but that desire is never truly satisfied. He takes more and more and its never enough, no matter how many wishes he eats. He once heard from a philosopher named Tomas that the stars themselves are the most powerful things on Earth, and this sparks the idea to pull a star from the sky itself to achieve that undying thirst. Magnifico fails many times, but once he senses that someone else has managed to do the impossible, he knows he must have that star. (Magnifico's voiced by Antonio Banderas in this, because HE WOULD'VE BEEN AWESOME, MAN)

Amaya here works her magic behind the scenes. Like her concept counterpart, she creates the potions and spells for Magnifico. However, she actually taught him about magic back when they first met. Mags became so enamored by it that he wanted to start performing it himself, and the two of them actually grew stronger in their abilities by using magic together. They even created a way to take wishes directly from people's hearts, as the couple discovered they could use the joy from people's wishes to fuel their own desires.

While her husband takes care of keeping the citizens attention on him mostly, Amaya personally goes down to the people of Rosas keep an eye on the people. Ever since the amount of traitors escaped from them. She puts on a warm smile for them, but like a wolf in sheep's clothing, she's looking for any hint of disloyalty in them. If she does, their wish is gone, permanently.

One of her strengths is that if she can't manipulate people with magic, she can do it psychologically. Speaking in half truths and turning the tables on her enemy, Amaya could change the mind if just about anyone if she dug deep enough. So when she does meet Star in a brief one on one fight, she knows exactly where to hit the Starboy where it hurts: his heart. (Amaya is voiced by Salma Hayek in this because yes I must have that same chemistry as The Last Wish, they're so good together)

Lasty, Sabor the Lynx! While he's a ridiculously pampered wild cat raised by Amaya, she still taught him to be cunning and eliminate any enemy at all costs. Sabor casually checks far into the woods surrounding the castle. Sometimes for fresh air and catch a few mice (Scar atyle), but he also works as sort of a watchdog for Amaya. Sabor watches for any suspicions people coming or going and unbeknownst to the citizens and sniff out anyone that doesn't belong. He's mostly the opposite of Valentino in every aspect, aside from their loyalty to their owners. (Expect for Magnifico, he's not so crazy about him) (As for voice, if I didn't use regular Lynx sound effects, I'd go with Dee Bradley Baker, or Alan Tudyk. That makes way more sense than voicing a three week old goat)

The last ones to feature are the 7 Teens, which will take some time, then I'll get to the first chapter to see how it goes. Please tell me to your thoughts, I'd love to hear them! (Plus I....just want to talk to you guys, it feels more fun when you're around. Its sappy I know 😅)

@signed-sapphire @oh-shtars @annymation @spectator-zee @kstarsarts @chillwildwave @flicklikesstuff @uva124 @tumblingdownthefoxden

[deliciousdefendorinternet]

comparing Brother Bear with TBT since their Both movies about Brotherhood and also Brother Bear just Randomly popped into my head again today.

I've loved Brother Bear for years I think its a very underrated Disney movie with nice songs cute characters and a cute story.

and I randomly started thinking about it earlier and then started comparing it to TBT since their both strongly focused on Brotherhood.

and I realised that for some reason Brother Bear doesn't bother me as much as TBT does even tho it technically has many of the same faults.

it Rushes over the interesting character Drama and it Rushes a conclusion to said Drama between the Brothers at the end.

like the scene in the main film of Kenai confessing to Koda is still fairly sad but its massively undercut by having the song play over it.

the deleted version of that scene where the song doesn't play and we get to hear the full version of Kenai's confession and Koda's reaction is available on youtube and its way more heart-breaking imo.

which I guess is why they didn't go with that version since it would have maybe been a bit too much for young kids.

but the movie also employs the gimmick of having the brothers come back together in the end to fight off a life threatening enemy and all is seemingly forgiven between them straight away afterwards.

I guess one reason why BB doesn't bother me as much as TBT is that Kenai actually grows throughout the film despite wronging Koda in a massive way.

and Koda forgiving him too quickly in the ending is not as bothersome because we didn't see Kenai mistreat him the entire film up until the point he found out.

and he didn't then proceed to hurt him again in arguably just as bad a way as he did before like Bro zone did.

instead Kenai did grow in the film and he and Koda already had a healthy relationship prior to the reveal and later confession.

plus what they had throughout the film was genuine sibling banter it wasn't one sided like Bro zone's interactions were with Branch where it was basically just them treating him like a kid and not taking his Valid feelings seriously.

and when Kenai confesses to Koda he's a lot more openly remorseful and tries to go after him to make things right Bro zone just get a brief 4 second shot of them feeling bad and then the movie moves on.

not to mention the climax of BB involves Kenai making a sacrifice for Koda first off he puts his own life in danger in order to save him from his Brother Denahi. and at the very end he makes a big sacrifice ( staying as a Bear so he can stay with him even tho it means leaving behind his human life and not being able to openly communicate with his family )

which somewhat works as an act of love and redemption whereas the climax of TBT involves Bro zone being forced to work together in order to save their own lives as well as the life of the Bro who none of them wronged all that much tbh.

it doesn't really work as a first step towards them redeeming themselves and fixing their family because its kinda selfish and it didn't involve them really making any sort of personal sacrifice or even that much effort.

ya know its funny I just thought I'd make this post as a Random little thought since that's all this was I didn't actually expect to talk in depth and compare the movies stories this much lol.

I just started typing and got carried away 😂😂😂😂😂😂

anyway in short I love Brother Bear its a very adorable film and while its far from perfect in how it handles its story its flaws don't stop me from enjoying it.

since it still handled the more important parts of the story well enough.

unlike with Trolls 3 best thing I can say about it is that the movie version of "" Better Place "" is a legit great little song and frankly its too good for this film.

the story didn't earn such an emotional music piece in my opinion.

[lazytitans-world]

My pitch/outline for a Wish series

I wanted there to be a way for the abandoned concepts of Wish, such as Starboy and evil Amaya, to be utilized without re writing Wish out of respect to the team behind it. And so I thought, why not make a series that starts after Wish ends and uses those concepts in ways that stays true to the movie while the show can be its own thing.

Keep it mind these are just basic outlines of what the major stories are plus ideas for some fun filler episodes

Season 1: The main storyline of season one is a force of dark magic has appeared in Rosas and Asha must venture into the magic mirror to speak and possibly free Magnifico as he has the most knowledge of dark magic. Asha's journey into the mirror world would entail as a kind of therapy session for Magnifico as Asha and the audience learn more about Magnifico's past. Ultimately Magnifico would end up free from his mirror but would utlimately choose evil over good and in doing so harms Star with more powerful dark magic. Star is in critical condition and as Asha is caring for the star another ball of light makes it way outside of the building where Asha is caring for star. When Asha steps out to see what could have caused this, she is shocked to see a human-like boy her age standing right in front of her that is made of the same magic as star is made out of.

Season 2: This season will focus on building the relationship between Starboy and Asha. I do not want to go into detail on Starboy's character just yet but his relationship with Asha be a smaller enemy to lovers type story as he is weary of Asha's skill as a magic wielder and as a protector of Star. We would see their relationship grow as they try to help star recover from Magnifico's attack,, Starboy helping Asha master the wand given to her, and as they also deal with Amaya being corrupted by the dark magic let loose by Magnifico.

Amaya's turn would be a slow burn, as like her husband, her kindness and warm personality is teared away by the dark magic. The climax of the season would see Asha and Starboy learning that the effects of dark magic can be reversed if the person being corrupted is "pure of heart" or something along those lines and them having to battle Amaya who has gone full evil queen mode but would ultimately be saved by Asha who brings the good back out of her.

We'd also get little hints to how the stars, in this world at least, operate i.e. why and how Starboy is different from Star, Starboy's connection with Star and how Star might be more powerful than one would think.

The ending of this season would have Asha and Starboy officially become a couple, Star regaining its strength and even having some more power than it had before, and Magnifico, who has fully given into evil, preparing a major attack on Rosas but in particular wants the powers of both Star and Starboy.

Season 3 (final season): This season would build up to a two- or three-part finale that has Magnifico unleash his full powers of evil on to Rosas. Asha would reach her final form and be just as good as wielding magic as Star and Starboy are, maybe a little better in some respects.

I have yet to really settle on an ending but one idea that I see potential in is when once the battle is over and Magnifico has been held off; Asha, Starboy and Star would become this celestial power team that fights for love and the wishes of those who are good of heart as they will lead the fight against Magnifico who is using the power of evil and selfishness to defeat the power of good. Each side would begin looking to others to help in this lifelong battle as no one can do this alone and we'd see outlines or models of characters that resemble classic Disney helpers and villains such as Malefecent and the fairy godmother.

I am torn on making that the ending as I really don't want Wish to become an DCU style mess where everything was "always connected". I want this story to have ties and tributes to the disney movies of the past but do not want this story to interfere or be the cause of previous disney stories. I also toyed with the idea of Asha and Starboy influencing the original writers of the stories like Hans Christian Anderson or the Brothers Grim but I found that idea to be way to meta for its own good but maybe it could work I don't know.

Random episode pitches:

I want there to be at least one episode that deals with Amaya processing her husbands betrayal and defeat. Amaya, in the movie, cared for Magnifico and I would like to explore how his choices affected her personally and psychologically.

There would be a few episodes that would be used to reaffirm the relationship between Asha and Starboy as they deal with having a good first date even though everything seems to be going wrong and one getting jealous as someone else tries to flirt with one of them. I kind of want to give most of these episodes to Starboy as it grows his personality as I feel like he'd be the one getting jealous and trying to make the evening perfect.

I have considered some adventures taking place outside of Rosas, in other cities and kingdoms that look a lot like ones from other Disney stories. This is where we'd see Asha showcase her growth in magic and maturity that sets the stage for classic Disney stories to be told. I'd want to do at least one episode like this earlier on to gage reactions to see if the audience enjoys it when we tie into other Disney movies.

Early episodes in season one would focus on Asha growing her skills as a magic user. Once Starboy arrives he will be Asha's guide into more advance magic skills and season 3 would see her discover skills not even the stars knew were possible.

Season 2 would see an episode that has Star trying to push Asha and Starboy together but their relationship is not at that point yet but in the end we'd see the beginning of the romantic interests.

When Asha and Starboy admit their true feelings, I have considered doing an original song and not the demo version of At All Costs as everyone has done this and I want this to be different plus the moment may call for a song that fits it. I would like to use the song as its a nice callback to Asha's first meeting with Magnifico and what started this journey.

I want some episodes that showcase Asha's friends as well as other citizens of Rosas. I want to give Asha's friends a bit more to their character than just representations of the seven dwarfs and flesh out the kingdom a little more.

I am unsure if Sabino should pass away during the series or not. If he does I want to take it serious and have Asha and Starboy be there with Sabino having interacted with Starboy before then. This most likely would happen in the final season as Sabino's passing would give Asha the motivation to venture outside of Rosas.

We'd have an episode to learn more about Asha's dad, his backstory, how he met Sakina and how his passing affected the family. Starboy could learn more about Asha's family from this and that strengthens the bond between him and Asha as well as make a good parallel between his relationship with Star and Asha's relationship with her family.

In the mirror world we'd see how Magnifico interacted with Asha's mother, father and Sabino before the events of the movie. It would be interesting to see how that relationship fit into Asha working under the royal family.

Conclusion: I think Wish has a lot of potential but I know something like this has little to no chance of happening. And before you ask, I do not see myself writing actual scripts or stories because I just don't have the time or patience at the moment to go fully into this. This is just to satisfy my creative needs and to get these ideas on paper. If you're inspired by some of these ideas you are more than happy to make your own scripts, stories, animations and whatever just please credit me for ideas. Thank you for reading and have a great day

[trickstarbrave]

big improvement i would put in the elder scrolls story wise if we rebuilt it would be an actual dragon cult faction. no you dont have to be able to join it (though i would like that and think it would be cool lol) but i feel it would make sense and add more to the setting. 

currently the dragon cult is made up of just undead. draugar and dragon priests etc. people entombed since the merethic era waiting for their gods to come back. i think it would be better if real people just up and decided “fuck it. i hate everything going on right now. i hate the war, i hate the thalmor, i hate this empire now, and i hate the stormcloaks. let alduin come back. if he wants to rule the world or end it so be it this place sucks” and just decided to start the cult back up. or maybe its villagers in small settlements who give tribute to dragons in exchange for not being turned into charred corpses--the empire and stormcloaks sure as shit cant supply enough soldiers to keep them safe, and all they have to do is hail the dragons and give them some cattle to keep from being the next helgen.

because as it stands right now the dragons arent imposing or scary they just seem like big monsters that show up to destroy shit for no reason. everyone stands around after you killed one going “wow the dragonborn” and then goes on with their day. they dont even run and hide inside during a dragon attack consistently without a mod. dragons are just annoyances. i think it would be better to see the real effects of them. have them be basically a third faction like in the civil war, they start claiming cities after alduin brings them back. have to keep hushed about being dragonborn there. be able to talk to dragons in those settlements who have their own opinions about you being dragonborn and about alduin in there. 

also i think the civil war should have been more important. have patrols along the roads. if you progress far enough they attack you on sight in enemy territory. taxes, screenings, etc. forts should be important strategic points and not just bandit dens. bridges could have been destroyed and rebuilt in the conflict and you can see evidence of it. have different ways you can go about doing it, like you can be a spy, an open fighter, an archer, etc etc. gives a lot of replay value if its not just picking which npcs you wanna install in cities and who you wanna take orders to but instead its own challenges and ways of accomplishing taking a city. each questline should also involve real issues each faction has, like how the empire cant spare more troops so they need to make due with what they have and stormcloaks having limited supplies so they have many soldiers to feed and not enough metal and food to arm and feed them. 

basically everyone suggests redoing skyrim in the way of gutting the dragons and making the thalmor the big bad and stopping the civil war altogether or whatever. i think the bare bones is fine the biggest problem with skyrim is that Nothing Ever Happens. random encounters mean nothing. dragon attacks except for the tower and helgen Mean Nothing. dragons are just big monsters and bandits are just random enemies and you can only talk to like 3 dragons in the entire game and you dont even really get to understand dragon culture and morality. the civil war doesn’t feel like a war and everything is more filmsy than a disney park. giving some remote realism, branching options of things to go to accomplish the same things, and more depth would go along way to help the game not feel dead and shallow. because an RPG should have. role play in it. choices you make. those choices at least SEEMING like they actually matter when you think about it longer than 5 minutes 

[dorothydalmati1]

Obscure Animation Subject #125: Two More Eggs

Created, produced and directed by Homestar Runner creators The Brothers Chaps for Disney Television Animation, a web series Disney XD’s YouTube lasting from June 23, 2015 to August 16, 2017.

This is a sketch comedy that features a verity of series. These series include a live action man who makes arts and crafts, a series of standard video game enemies breaking the rules of their game, a mom vlogger with terrible instructions, a parody of British children's shows, a supposed CGI show about the wonders of the technique, and a whole lot more! Two More Eggs relies on surreal humor and satire. How you like this style of comedy depends on what you think of the execution of the skits. Like for a good example, I think Trauncles is a neat series that goes against a regular British program and has the normally polite British narrator mess around and poke fun with the characters and even pick favorites. For a bad example, well… there's CGI Palz. It’s not very funny and should have been a one off short. The randomness doesn’t always land, and for every good short there’s bound to be a bad one.

In Season 2, it started out not too different from Season 1, but later down the line the shorts felt lazier and dry. There are a lot of episodes where nothing really happens and you feel like you wasted your time, even with its short length. The novelty was starting to wear off to where even the good shows I liked I started to not care for very much. Thankfully Season 3 was an improvement. It’s ten episodes long and just stories of Hector & Kovitch and the new series Panda Bractice which got their own 5 parters. I already liked the Hector & Kovitch skits beforehand and the Panda Bractice weren’t funny in particular but were cute and charming enough even if on the basic side. So as a whole this season was decent, but I do prefer the highs in Seasons 1 and 2 more.

So this show went from average, to kinda bad, and then became alright in the end. Kinda a mixed-bag I suppose. I wonder if Disney would ever experiment something like this again. The general quality was very hit or miss but I was delightfully entertained by it for the most part.

[blazehedgehog]

Has Earthworm Jim aged well?

No. Once upon a time I was going to do a video about this, I don't know if it's the right time for a video about Earthworm Jim.

Earthworm Jim is a victim of a lot of things. A lot of Shiny was born out of Virgin Games, right. Guys who worked on Disney games like Aladdin for the Genesis.

Some of those Virgin Games guys have been very forthcoming about the culture back then -- about the rental market being this big scary boogeyman. So developers would deliberately insert difficulty spikes in to their games. Things that were arbitrarily SUPER difficult, just to stump players who were on a rental, to make sure they couldn't finish the game in a weekend.

Because that's how you added length to a game back then. You just made it harder. The harder the game, the longer it took to finish. Once you realize this, it unlocks a lot about why older games were "Nintendo hard." (Sakurai very recently touched on this!)

Earthworm Jim has the unfortunate position of being one of those games. There's a very specific level -- the "Tube Race" segment -- that feels like it was added as one of those rental-blocking difficulty spikes. The idea is that you've been in this underwater facility for a while and there's a glass submarine you can pilot. Since its glass, bumping in to walls cracks it, and too much damage will cause it to implode and kill you. You also have an oxygen meter you have to refill too.

You play a pretty normal level that's a mixture of fighting enemies in the base with a couple of simple submarine segments. Where the level would normally just end, you get this Tube Race segment, which is one very, very, very long submarine maze where you have a minute and a half to make it to the end without running out of oxygen or damaging the submarine so badly that you die. It is ten times harder than everything to come before it, and one of the hardest parts overall.

But that's not enough to spoil the game, no. Earthworm Jim in general is also just... one of those games that is so in love with its own artwork that it kind of hurts the experience. It's one of those games where the animation and the jokes and the character comes before everything else, even at the cost of gameplay.

Video games have something called a "hitbox." Basically, what you see is not what the game actually understands as being your character. When you see this:

What the game is seeing is this:

These are the hitboxes around characters in video games. If blue touches green, that's a floor. If blue touches red, take damage. If blue touches purple, instantly kill the player. If blue touches yellow from below, grant item. That's how the game logic works.

And you may notice that a lot of early games have characters that very easily fit in to a square for this very reason.

From a technical standpoint and a player standpoint, it is extremely easy to read when and how things collide with each other.

Earthworm Jim (and to a lesser extent, Aladdin) is a game that says "Screw that! We've got REAL CARTOON ANIMATION!" And that's the priority: showing off the animation. Not playing well.

What are the hitboxes here?

In practice, it shakes out to something like this. There's no clear line to denote what you can stand on, because the background is drawn like a cartoon show, where characters are placed in a kind of slightly angled view, inside of the floor.

There are margins of empty air on everything -- Earthworm Jim can overlap objects and not actually touch them, and the same happens in reverse. That rigid, readable collision detection from games like Mega Man and Mario don't apply here. There's a little bit of guesswork in every action Jim takes.

Now, of course, with the advent of polygons, a lot of games have more vague hitboxes. It's harder to judge what is touching what, and we've developed a better sense for it, so maybe it's not that important, right?

Well, yes and no. Earthworm Jim was trying to show off, you see. It was one of the first games of its type. It's not doing this because it's a better way of handling collision detection (it isn't), it's doing it because it's trying to look flashy. It's trying to impress you. And that's all its using it for. It is deliberately and intentionally putting itself at a disadvantage in order to say "this is an interactive cartoon."

That thinking sabotages the entire game. I can guarantee almost every idea in Earthworm Jim started with pitching the characters and how they animate with the gameplay being left as the final afterthought. To Earthworm Jim's credit, it's not a total disaster, it's just very loose and unbalanced.

Do you remember The Order: 1886 for the Playstation 4? It was lauded for having beautiful graphics, but in practice there wasn't a whole lot else. It was more like a 5 hour QTE. A lot of great tech and incredible visuals, but not a lot of deep or engaging gameplay.

That is exactly what Earthworm Jim was in 1994. Except in Earthworm Jim was beloved, because nothing really looked or sounded like it did. Aladdin was a big deal for Sega, but Earthworm Jim was a clear and definitive next step, and it was on everything.

Nowadays, after a lot of its more technical ideas have been better solved, its problems stick out more, and more, and more. It's not unplayable (that right is reserved for Earthworm Jim 2), but it isn't great.

[gaykarstaagforever]

The Xenomorphs aren't scary the 47th time we defeat them with guns and explosions.

Alien was a horror movie about a cartoonishly evil space company and its buffoonish security detail, blundering into a civilization-ending threat that uses our own sociableness and bodies against us. And Weyland-Yutani's and the Marines' total inability to properly assess that threat, due to typical human failings, led to it killing nearly everyone. Ripley only barely survived and destroyed it because of the two fundamental human virtues, tenacity and ingenuity.

The whole reason the Xenomorphs are scary is because in that movie, they use EVERYTHING we are against us. We are their perfect prey. At least until everything but our basic survival skills are the only things in play, and then one person JUST BARELY makes it. We even have advanced androids and space ships. And it doesn't matter. The penis bug monsters with acid blood are very nearly too much. And they've destroyed bigger species than us. The fight is elemental and almost hopeless. Until hope is basically all Ripley has left, a terrified, desperate, enraged hope to kill this damn thing and survive. She is a lonely naked hominid up against a hungry cheetah, and all she has left is hiding and a rock.

You can't do a franchise with that. It robs it of any meaning. The Xenomorphs stop being horrifying if the buffoons are capable of shooting them to death. And what's the point of that? What are you getting out of it? Why bother?

All this later franchise focus on the Colonial Marines and the company. They are idiots! They fail! All the time! Their whole point is to show that our coporate and military might, with its rules and bravado and weapons, literally melts the second we run into an enemy that "fights" by consuming us, in its way. The Colonial Marines aren't badass heroes, fighting for a just cause. They're a pear-shaped joke used by selfish dipshits for bad reasons, that just makes everything worse. That's their entire point.

"The new Alien movies are bad."

Aliens was fine, but it was basically just an action remake of the first one, so it wasn't as good. And all of them have been unnecessary.

You like the Xenomorphs because they're genuinely horrifying, in the original context. Outside of that, they're just stupid space monsters with weird heads. Why ruin them? What thrill is there in seeing tons of them, all these different types, aside from just looking at someone's cool fanart and going, "yeah, neat"?

Why make movies out of that? It's devoid of everything that makes them WHAT THEY ARE.

I just don't get it. You like a thing so much you pay people to immediately ruin it...?

We do this with everything, including vampires and werewolves and elves, so it makes sense we'd do it with Xenomorphs, especially now that fucking Disney owns them. But there's no "mystery" why so much of the Aliens franchise is mid or shit. It directly contradicts the entire point of the thing.

It's like the Silent Hill 2 thing. You aren't going to "recapture" a vibe that was only a vibe because it was a one-time, unique new idea that knew what it was and was done well.

Make another scary space movie with a well-thought-out alien antagonist. THAT'S what you liked. Do that. Don't turn it into an army man playset.

Starship Troopers is the army man playset. And even that is just Paul Verhoeven making fun of how you still like army man playsets, idiot. Nice fascism you have there, stupid. Hope beating the bugs was worth the loss of basic human rights.

Also, in both the case of the Xenomorphs and the Bugs, WE STARTED IT. We ALWAYS start it. Because we're big selfish buffoons. Like the Ready Player Ones who keep paying for more bad Aliens movies.

Get the whole action playset today! By Kenner! Maybe you can use one as a sex toy! Will that fill the void?!

[princess-unipeg]

Tackling Social Structures Within The Narrative: Where Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil failed while Amphibia and The Owl House succeeded.

Before Amphibia and The Owl House premiered, there was Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil. The latter show in some way help the 2 former show get greenlit by Disney. Even though they all shared some similarities Star’s show didn’t really have much of a story structure going on for its earlier episodes. It was basically just Star and Marco beating up Ludo and his gang and basic cartoon shenanigans. It was apparent the creators were just winging it which lead to its very undercooked finale.

Let’s start with the protagonists and how it affects the overall plot dealing with prejudice and power dynamics.

Star Butterfly is a princess of her realm. As someone born to power and privilege, she rarely deals with the consequences of her own actions. She was told from birth, from day one that monsters were all evil and anyone who isn’t wealthy and/or allied with the Butterfly family are automatically enemies. She thought nothing of a holiday where Mewni celebrated a massacre of monsters so their land could be taken for the Mewmans. It took Marco pointing out just unfair the fight was did Star realize the monsters were at a great disadvantage. Star didn’t really think about her prejudices until an outsider made her see the light and since then resolves to make things right.

Anne Boonchuy and Luz Noceda are young WOC (women of color) who were born on earth to regular families. Anne being the only child of immigrant parents who run a humble restaurant while Luz is the only child of her widowed mother. They both probably dealt with prejudices in their own lives at some point. They could relate to the other worldly beings they ended up living with. Anne lived with the Plantars, a poor farm family of frogs who are at the bottom of the food chain in their world. Luz lives with Eda, a woman who’s a wanted criminal mostly for the fact she refused to join a crooked coven system. A woman who had to scavenge human junk so she could afford potions to keep her curse at bay. Anne and Luz can see the problems and learn for themselves the kind of social injustices their adopted families had to live with.

Dimensional travel and how they deal with the consequences of their actions.

Star is able to move about different dimensions easily because of magic scissors that her best friend Ponyhead stole and didn’t have to worry about being stuck any place. Anne stole a music box from a thrift shop and ended up trapped on the death world of Amphibia. She had to wait months until she could travel to get her much needed answers. Luz ditched the summer camp she was forced to go to and went to live in the Boiling Isles thinking it would be temporary. She ended up giving the portal up to save Eda and had to go research ways to make another one from scratch.

Dealing with consequences.

When it comes to dealing with consequences Star rarely deals with the fallout or actively chooses to ignore responsibility. Whereas both Anne and Luz actively learn from their mistakes and are able to grow as people whether it’s standing up for what is right even when it’s not easy or realize that good intentions doesn’t make up for making decisions without the consent of others. Star just pushed everything down and lock everything into her secrets closet.

Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil stopped short of its potential. Amphibia and The Owl House are able to live up to theirs.

[hanniejji]

Jeez there's a lot of heart wrenching scenarios that anons thought of for phoenix and Diluc 😭😭

I would like to also share something but it's that hurtful compared to the previous asks. Its like those Disney movies scenarios now that I thought about it.

I imagine a time where phoenix is so desperate in making his father love or pay attention to him that she would do everything they can to achieve that. Not everyone has good intentions, so people like the fatui/abyss can manipulate her and make her do something undesirable because of her desire.

Basically they control phoenix using some type of magic or spell to fight against Diluc and try to wreak havoc in mondstadt. Diluc will have a hard time trying to protect mondstadt and saving his child from the hands of the enemy.

I cant think of a great way for diluc to break the spell. It could be family love or they will seek the help of a healer and wait for phoenix, for a long time, to wake up.

Anyway that's just it for me I hope you had a great day or night.

Just sharing, I just graduated today so yeah 😘.

ikr ikr 😔 phoenix barely gets fluffy things in their life because a certain man is a shitty dad 🙄 ALSO CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR GRADUATION BUBS!! WE LOVE TO SEE A GRADUATEE BUBS >:D

ooooh i like this!!! it would most probably be the abyss. using phoenix to their advantage with the same method as they did with dvalin, but easier because phoenix is human and not a deity. and unlike dvalin, phoenix is completely defenseless against anything from the abyss and unlike dvalin, you don't just shoot at a child's back and expect them to be fine. diluc needs to be more careful if he wants to save phoenix but he's too anxious and restless to think of a safer solution :( man's on the verge of breaking apart at the sight of his own child, looking like a lost puppet at the cost of his negligence.

diluc is goddamn lucky to have kaeya and albedo trying to understand what will weaken phoenix without having to hurt them too much.

and when they do get them back? diluc's not taking his eyes off of phoenix, doesn't matter if they grow up as a fighter like him and can defend themselves. no matter how much time will pass, the fear of losing his little flame to the abyss will emerge from the back of his head and they will always be his precious little phoenix.

[tokkiheart]

Short Drama Recommendations

Got a short attention span? Have ADHD and just want to squeeze one more K-Drama in before going to bed after binge-watching 16+ hours of another K-Drama? Just want to watch something between class or during a work break? Well, here’s a list of some short K-Dramas that I’ve watched that can be finished in less than a day and some under 3 hours.

Semantic Error

This is a cute enemies-to-lovers school (college/university) BL drama with a good OST that's available on Viki. This drama is based off of a webtoon of the same name. It has 8 episodes, each ranging anywhere from 17 minutes to 28 minutes. The entire show is 185 minutes and 1 second long, so roughly 3 hours long!

Splash Splash Love

This is a great super short fluff K-Drama that I love to recommend. It only has 2 episodes, each one being about 1 hour long, so it’ll only kill about 2 hours of your day/night.

This K-Drama is about a high school student who escapes the pressures and stress around school and the important test she’s supposed to take. Where and how does she escape? Well, she escapes into the past via a puddle on a rainy day, winding up in the Joseon dynasty. In order to survive, she pretends to be a eunuch and a mathematician to help the king.

Queen of the Ring

This is a short webdrama that I literally just watched for Ahn Hyo Seop. I’d say this is about middle ground for me, it’s not a favorite, but it’s also definitely not the worst thing that I’ve ever seen by any means lol

To sum this show up very briefly, girl loves boy, boy is in love with some girl he had a chance encounter with (who turns out to be the FL’s best friend) who he doesn’t really know. Girl gets magic ring from mom that allows her to, in the eyes of the person she likes, look like their ideal type (in this case, her friend). Basically, the message of this show boils down to “don’t judge a book by its cover.”

7 First Kisses

This is quite literally the weirdest thing I have ever watched of my own free will and this recommendation is partly a joke and partly because I want to make sure it wasn’t all just a weird fever dream lol

Anyway, this is a web series k-drama (with an extremely misleading title) that is basically a giant ad vehicle for some duty free store/company (I don’t even know what a duty free is, but it seems to just be a big mall/department store). I kid you not when I say that this thing is literally just some y/n fanfic brought to life as a choose-your-own-adventure style show. You could watch the whole series if you want to, or just watch the first episode + whichever episode stars your bias + their corresponding ending episode and call it a day. You can find this show on YouTube where you can watch them all mashed together in one video or watch from a playlist. There’s 15 “episodes,” with the episodes in which the FL meets the male leads and figures out the AU she’s in having a run time of anywhere from 8 minutes and 21 seconds to 12 minutes 51 seconds and the ending episodes for the choices being only 1 to 2 minutes long. If you decide to watch all of the episodes and all the ending possibilities, you’ll kill 1 hour and some minutes of your time, if you just want to watch your bias, you’ll kill less than 25 minutes of your time (anywhere from 18 to 24 minutes depending on your bias).

I will readily admit that the only reason that I even watched this thing was for Lee Jong Suk. Do I have regrets? I genuinely don’t know. This thing was wild lol

Soundtrack #1

A short, four episode long romantic drama that you can find on Disney+ (or your favorite illegal streaming site).

This drama is a best friends turned lovers drama set around winter. The female lead has two weeks to write a song for singer Seo In Guk, I mean Jay Jun, about unrequited love. The only problem? She’s never experienced unrequited love, so she recruits her best friend who she knows is currently experiencing it with “Jennifer.”

The Sound of Magic

This is on the upper end of things in terms of length/run-time. This K-Drama is a musical on Netflix that has 6 episodes, each at about an hour long, which puts the total run time for this drama at 6 hours and 51 minutes, so about 7 hours.

This show has a good OST, it’s a bit darker/serious than most if not all of the other dramas on this list, but it’s got some great light moments.

This show is about a girl who was forced to grow up too fast in order to provide for herself and her little sister, who one day meets a magician who is very much still a child at heart. There’s some intense themes in this show, including an attempted r*pe of a minor, so just be aware of that going into the show.

This ended up being a short list since I haven’t watched a ton of short K-Dramas yet, but I will add to it some more when I watch more!

I will say that outside of shows that I’ve seen, I can say that just about every BL K-Drama tends to run on the short side and can be finished in a few hours. I think they typically tend to range from 6 to 10 episodes in length, with episodes of 30 minutes or less. Outside of those, web series tend to be your next best bet for something short to watch!

[natedogx15]

Out of curiosity, how has the project of the crossover Kamen Rider going?

It's been going well. It's caused me to come up with several other ideas, so I'm taking my time to test them all out and see what ones really speak to me when writing them.

So far, I have

Kamen Rider OOO + Miraculous Ladybug

The Greeed appear in Paris during Hawkmoth's attack on the city and cause more chaos for the people there.

The story would follow the new OOO, their little sibling, and Ankh as they try to collect Medals and stop Hawkmoth. All while Team Miraculous tries to capture the new OOO because of his ancestor's notoriety.

Kamen Rider W + Scooby-Doo

Instead of Philip, Scooby-Doo is the one who has access to the Gaia Library and he, Shaggy, and the rest of the gang have to fight an evil organization by solving mysteries/cases connected to this organization.

Kamen Rider Drive + Fillmore

Largely the same as the Kamen Rider Drive series, but with the Fillmore characters aged up as adult police officers and replacing the main cast.

It basically follows Fillmore as he tries to stop the Roidmude.

Kamen Rider Ex-Aid + Glitch Techs

This one is a mix of both series. The stories and other parts are mixed together. Such as Bugsters's first forms being Glitches instead of those clay structure forms.

It will follow a gamer who joins Glitch Tech after taking the Game Driver away from its original user (Mitch Williams) and using it better than him.

Kamen Rider Ryuki + Descendants (the Disney movie series, not my story)

Someone gives kids of the Isle and young royalty of Auradan Advent Decks and has them compete in a Kamen Rider Battle Royale, with the winner getting one wish.

This one has my own characters replacing the main cast as well. The current plan is to have it follow three kids specifically. The son of King Adam (Beast) and Queen Belle, the son/daughter of Hades and Maleficent, and the son of Gaston and an unnamed woman.

Kamen Rider Blade + Yu-Gi-Oh

Same plot as Kamen Rider Blade but with different characters.

Now this story I am split on. It's either having four original characters or the protagonists of the first four series as the riders.

If I go four different original characters then the king, queen, and jack would look like this.

King = Protagonist

Queen = Female love interest of one of the Yu-Gi-Oh characters

Jack = sidekick/rival Yu-Gi-Oh character

If I go with all the first four Yu-Gi-Oh series protagonists, then the main rivals would be the Kings instead. Either way, the Yu-Gi-Oh characters would be corrupted versions of what they are in the show.

Kamen Rider Zi-O + My Hero Academia

This one follows Izuku Midoriya becoming the greatest hero in the world instead of Sougo Tokiwa becoming the greatest king. He'd be traveling across the time-space continuum collecting Ridewatches with his friends/enemies, who are future versions of Eri and Kota. The two being sent back in time to destroy The Great Demon, Zi-O. As well as his fanatic believer Himiko Toga/Spinner/Re-Destro (it's still in the works).

Getting in his way are the Time Jackers, which are Tomura, All For One, and some of the Vanguard Action Squad members.

Kamen Rider Decade + Penn Zero Part-Time Hero

This one follows Pen, Boone, and Sashi as they travel through the rider-verse to try and stop an evil organization from defeating and stealing the riders' powers. All while Pen is mixed up with an evil version of himself.

Kamen Rider Wizard + The Owl House

This one follows Luz, a wizard-in-training, as she tries to fight the mostly evil race of witches led by Belos to try and overthrow the human world. Throughout the adventure, she makes friends with a few of them and wants humans/wizards/and witches to co-exist.

Kamen Rider Build + either Star Vs The Forces of Evil or Phineas and Ferb

This one is another one that I'm split on. So, I'm going to explain both plots.

The SVTFOE plot follows Star being sent to Earth after Pandora's Box splits the world into three sections/groups. There she teams up with the new Build and his family to save the Earth, learn about becoming a ruler, and maybe some family secrets along the way.

The PAF plot follows Phineas and Ferb becoming amnesiacs like Sento and their journey of trying to discover who they are, end the war, and defeat Evolto.

So the project is going relatively well. I'm taking my time, and we'll see where I take each of these ideas.

[graywyvern]

( via / via )

Reflection.

I belatedly realized the movie about Laura (Riding) Jackson had already been finished & in fact came out last year (to bad reviews). Years back, when i read the novelized version (Summer of '39), i found out it had been optioned, but the website of it remained a placeholder for so long i gave up on it. Both that book & the widely-reviewed bio In Extremis are grossly unflattering (there's an authorized biography which received far less attention); it's true that she largely self-sabotaged her own rep, both by withdrawing from poetry when she did & by making enemies every step of the way. But anyone who, basically, gave Auden his early style (i don't know that he ever acknowledged it in print), invented the New Criticism (in A Survey of Modernist Poetry), & made it possible for Robert Graves to write The White Goddess (who never did anything remotely as intelligent before or after his collaborations with LR), surely deserves better than to be caricatured as a sort of unhinged Disney villainess. Charles Bernstein did write a gracious introduction to the finally-published Rational Meaning in 1997, which i suppose can be taken as marking the start of rehabilitation.

Like Lafferty's, it irks me that there's so much of her work i still haven't been able to get at.

Well, that's a feature of our times, you might say. Whereas good music found its way to the airwaves instantly, say, in 1969, you have to look (& even, to know where to look) to find it today; & this is true across the board for all the arts. You could say it's all gone from fortuitous extraction (diamonds & chunks of coal found lying on the ground) to intensive cultivation ("creative writing" programs as factory farms), & i know of course this presented itself partly as a solution to finding jobs for starving writers, but the vocation of teacher is, at best, irrelevant & it's rather like being a geologist who spends his days giving donkey tours of the Grand Canyon. (I'm not even a tour guide, i just help customers get on & off the donkeys & somebody else gives the tour.)

Mindfulness poems. (thread)

"After Weeks of Watching the Roof Leak

After weeks of watching the roof leak I fixed it tonight by moving a single board."

--Gary Snyder

Pets and Their Owners.

"You don't see faith healers in hospitals for the same reason you don't see psychics winning the lottery." --@jimrosecircus1

"At White Cube, I pass from picture to picture, trying not to crack up laughing or actually swear out loud."

[magpiejay1234]

I missed this, but apparently according to leak KH4 will be in 2025.

This seems to be consistent with a leak year prior:

****

Couple of points here:

**Neither leak explicitly states the release window, since 2025 can mean Japanese fiscal Q4 2025, which would be early 2026 (January-March 2026).

***Since the Reddit leak claims early 2025, though, this is likely referring to Q1 2025, so April-June 2025. This would be the same as FF 7 Remake (ie. the first game), but a bit later than usual for KH games, which have always been in Q3, or Q4. However, tentatively you can expect a January release like KH3, and KH2.8.

**As suggested by the leak, the game will be incredibly rushed, due to delays with Missing Link. So I would heavily advise against of you buying it at the release date, unless you want the pre-order merch (in which case, you may want to wait for a month before opening the case, as there will be lots of patches).

***Much like KH3, there will be a DLC obviously after a year, so there will be DLC era patches that will buff the game to a Final Mix-esque level. So again, at day one, you will be playing the inferior version of the product.

**This release window likely has to do with next Xbox coming in 2026. They would want to get this game out in the wild before that happens, so they can release next KH for both it, and PS6.

***Since this game's, and Missing Link's releases will be too close to each other, most of the important lore from Missing Link won't matter until DLC, and even then, won't really matter until the next game (which will likely be title for the next Nintendo console, not a main numbered title).

**Both leaks suggest you shouldn't expect much Disney stuff here. This game will be a smaller experience than usual, basically serving as the launching pad for KH5, where they will probably try to use new machine-learning techniques of the upcoming consoles. This game will just have really pretty lighting due to ray tracing.

***Also, don't expect really eye-popping textures, this will be Nomura's KH team's first Unreal Engine 5 game, so textures will look comparatively bad like first FF7R game. I'm not too optimistic about the model quality either, so don't be surprised if some enemy redesigns look a bit off (kind of inevitable due to different styles each KH game use for each world).

****

Either way, I'm glad we starting this new arc as soon as possible. KH5 now won't come about until 2031 earliest (especially since Missing Link's story will need to be completed, and Nintendo console, and new upcoming handhelds by Microsoft, and Sony will likely have their own games), and fans will complain about the handheld games as usual, so this will somewhat pacify them.

[kosmic-arts]

KH2 Pete but What If He Was Cool

so y'know how pete and maleficent are doing stuff in kh2. what if maleficent doesn't come back after getting killed and instead its just pete running around in kh2. we all know pete's backstory where he was an asshole and got banished to the shadowrealm for his crimes. so what if pete trying to escape learns to use the darkness just by himself and creates a dark corridor and leaves. by himself. so he shows up in kh2, essentially cruising around with his new darkness powers as essentially a space pirate, controlling the heartless to do his bidding while he strikes deals with various disney villians to further his own gains. basically what im saying is, pete, while still being a silly guy, is competent enough to handle things on his own and just assumes the entire role maleficent did in kh2, but this time hes his own boss. thatd be cool right? i was never a fan of maleficent being resurrected for literally no reason and being absolutely forgettable and nonthreatening because yeah- we already murdered her to death in kh1. anyway, back to the pete solo act. hes his own boss and is greedy and powerhungry, as you already know- and with his new mastery over the darkness, he sees that as an epic opportunity to take over the galaxy or some shit and tries to deal with other villians to get them on his side. hes an enemy to sora and the gang, but what if pete gets manipulated by org 13? kind of like how xaldin gaslit the hell out of beast, they could easily manipulate pete into aiding them by promising him power and riches, just like he wants. so pete is going along with it for the whole game, until maybe a certain point where pete finally gets caught and beaten or sora and the gang squeeze information out of him about the org's hideout, or idk. something interesting. something that would cause the org to be like, "eh, you suck we're cutting you loose now get fucked", and suddenly pete finds himself hunted down by nobodies and shit and hes actually in trouble. hell, maybe pete in his weakness ends up losing control over the heartless too and they end up attacking him at the same time. so sora and the gang save him and pete has hit his lowest point and has to figure out how to proceed. he dealt with the devil and he lost- and now he has nothing. so he decides to help the gang take down the org because he has a bone to pick with them after they did him dirty. but after all thats done, pete up and leaves anyway- choosing no side and instead siding with himself. hes not necessarily an enemy again, but hes not going to go out of his way to help sora and friends out. pete sides with himself and goes off into the stars, having grown as a result of his experiences and becomes the ultimate antihero- REPLACING AXEL, who fell out of that spot when he finally chose sora's side towards the end of his life. epic maybe pete could show up occasionally in future games to trade information or perform favors to help the gang for a heavy price. or in terms of gameplay, he could function as a special shop for rare items at random exorbitant prices. would be cool... wow idk why i wrote this i just suddenly remembered maleficent exists in kh2 and how pointless it all was... but pete has potential and should've been a complete replacement for her rather than her henchmen. man...

[button-mash]

What I played last week #9

Taz-Mania [Sega Mega Drive]

I think this might be one of my all time most hated games. I remember when I was a kid, my dad had a bet come in and he said he'd buy me a game. We went to the Woolworths (RIP) on the way back to my mum's house and I remember excitedly picking up Aladdin, but when we got to the checkout they didn't actually have it in stock. I then audibled to Earthworm Jim instead before my Dad noticed this was 50% off and essentially picked it for me. What could have been From the very second I took it home I have hated this game. I think it actually developed into somewhat of an abusive relationship, because I was so determined to get some kind of value out of it that I would actually play it loads. What amazes me the most looking back is that I remember getting up to this mine-cart level in the game I could only occassionally pass which Id assumed was like 2-3 levels into the game. Playing it back however, I learned it was incredibly far into this dreadful piece of shit game, meaning that as a kid I actually battled a decent way through what is basically just a punishingly hard, obtusely difficult game.

I refuse to believe anybody could ever beat that minecart level by simply reacting to the hazards, its basically just a cheap level that demands you die over and over, further and further into the level enough so that you can hopefully memorise it, except the limited lives and continues mean you'd have to battle your way all the way back there to even try again.

The game just breaks pretty much every single cardinal sin of design. The controls are clumsy, enemies have awkward hitboxes, beginners traps are everywhere, hazard items are located in chokepoints that are hard to avoid, the game constantly asks you to make leaps of faith you can't actually see, the backgrounds are cluttered so it's difficult to know what you can and can't be hurt by/land on/etc, instant deaths on hard to learn jumping patterns, etc, etc etc. At one point the game even inexplicably adds fucking depth perception platforming into a fucking 2D game. Maybe worst of all, the game has SO many levels too. Usually you see tactics like this employed in games to drag them out, but this has something like 15 levels and some of them are so long and punishing that the length seems to be more cruel than it does value for money. A few do have checkpoints but a lot of them don't. I am not too proud to say I used save-states just for my own sanity to get through this. I don't normally like to use them beyond some QoL stuff like saving time putting in Passwords, or to practice a boss, but there are so many bullshit sections I felt like it was the only way I'd play more than 10 mins.

I did beat the mine-cart level pure though, I had to do it for young me.

I cannot fathom the patience I must have had as a kid. I think I initially decided to play it partly out of twisted nostalgia, but after a few levels I was essentially on some sort of revenge quest to vanquish the ghosts of that shit game

Dogshit

Pocahontas [Sega Mega Drive]

Am I gaming's top boy? Not really for me to say, but hard to deny it given the streak I'm on at the moment. I randomly decided to play this after seeing a 'Disney games on the Mega Drive/Genesis' video by the excellent SNES Drunk

Most people know that this era of Disney games actually yielded a pretty solid group of classic licensed games - even ones that had different versions on either console like Aladdin. One I hadn't actually ever tried on this list though was Pocohantas, and I actually thought it looked pretty interesting in the video. It has a rotoscoped animation style like Prince of Persia or Flashback, and it actually suits the game really well. There is zero combat in the game, and instead it's a puzzle platformer - for most of the levels you're able to switch between Pocohontas and her Raccoon mate Meeko, and most levels are about figuring out how to use their different abilities and limitations to help each other out to create pathways for each other. As the levels go on Pocohontas gets more and more abilities by rescuing various animals, so you start off pretty limited, but by the end she can swim underwater, sprint, etc. It's a smart way to gradually introduce new mechanics into the game whilst still staying on theme, and it suits the game really well

It's obviously aimed at kids, so it never gets too challenging - there are hardly any enemies in the game and the platforming puzzles tend to be more about figuring out what to do rather than pulling off some tricky skill gauntlet. It's actually a pretty good, well made game - it's not exactly some must-play hidden gem, but it wasn't some braindead baby game either.

If anything my criticisms are that it's a little short. It felt as though they rush through the film and pretty much skip most of the middle and the end really. You basically go out, meet John Smith and rescue him and the game is finished. Also for a game based on a Disney film they music is pretty bad - there is obviously lots of music to draw on, but other than a few sections, 95% of the game's entire sountrack is just some looping midi version of 'Colours of the Wind' which gets real fucking old real quickly, to the point I just had to turn the sound down on the game

Overall I'd say it was worth checking out as a curiosity, especially if you have an interest in those 90s Disney games. It's not exactly at the level of something like Castle of Illusion or Aladdin, but it's definitely leaning towards the upper end of those licensed movie games

I did actually play a little bit of both Castle of Illusion and World of Illusion but got bored and stopped halfway through both. It's funny because they're both better games than Taz-Mania and Pocohontas - significantly so in Taz-Mania's case, but they just didn't grab me in that moment. I've played them both to death in my childhood, so maybe familiarity outweighed nostalgia in this case. Still, they get a mention in the name of posterity

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

What’s your opinion on the Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers Peter Pan controversy?

Wow, Disney trying to whitewash their own history in order to make themselves look better? Who would have thought?

Yeah, here’s the context in case anyone reading this doesn’t know. Bobby Driscoll was a child actor during the early days of Walt Disney Studios, starring in films like Song of the South and Treasure Island. You might recognize him more as the original voice actor for the titular character of Peter Pan in 1953. However, just a few weeks after that movie hit theaters, his contract with Disney was terminated due to Driscoll hitting puberty around that time, and it was hard for makeup artists to cover up his acne. Afterwards, his life really went downhill, as he struggled to find ends meet, developed a drug addiction, and on March 30th, 1968, two boys found his dead body in an abandoned apartment. He was only 31 years old, and his family didn’t even know he was dead until almost two years later.

And then 54 years later, some people writing the semi-reboot/semi-sequel to Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers thought, “Hey, you know that child actor who was abandoned by Disney as soon as his voice cracked and died alone at a very young age? Let’s make him the villain of this movie!”

The main villain of the movie, Sweet Pete, was a toon who was cast in the lead role of Peter Pan before being dumped by the nameless studio after getting older. Obviously, this is meant to represent the same treatment Driscoll received from Disney, but obviously, they couldn’t put the Mouse’s name in a bad light, so they make him genetically modify other toons to make bootleg movies of Disney classics. In addition, his character design was basically Peter Pan (iconic green jumpsuit and all), except he’s noticeably out of shape, has a very hairy chest and arms, has a visible five o’clock shadow, is clearly balding underneath his cap, and has the gruff voice of Will Arnett.

And it’d be one thing if this was an attempt to shed light on the terrible treatment Driscoll got, but outside of his backstory, he isn’t portrayed in a sympathetic light at all. The fact that the movie went out of their way to make light of a story about a child actor being abandoned by the very same company funding them is unbelievably insensitive. They try to do something towards the end by comparing him to what caused Chip and Dale to break up, but that doesn’t work because A) Rescue Rangers was cancelled because Dale wanted to try starring in his own show, and B) Chip and Dale were at least adults when their big break was cancelled, while Driscoll/Sweet Pete was basically a teenager.

Hell, there wasn’t even any reason Sweet Pete had to be the villain, because after his backstory, outside of a handful of references to the 1953 movie, he could be replaced with literally any other character. You could have at least had fun with the idea of an evil Peter Pan, as a lot of people agree he was an asshole in the movie. You could have made the Lost Boys his henchmen instead of the original characters created for the movie. You could have given Pete a pet crocodile to feed the hands of his enemies to. You could have made Captain Hook and Smee police officers trying to catch Pete in a subversion of their dynamic in the original movie.

Instead, this movie went out of its way to make the villain’s backstory eerily similar to what a real person went through, and instead of making this about how poorly Disney can treat its talent, they instead use him to represent the cheap bootleg movies ripping off Disney films, as if Sweet Pete isn’t like any of the “real” animated movies Disney has made. I may believe that Astruc based the character of Chloe off someone he knew, but I am positive that even he wouldn’t stoop this low to start portraying her in as negative a light as what this movie did with Driscoll.

In fact, part of me likes to think that Thomas Astruc and Jeremy Zag were approached by the producers of this movie to ask them about including Ladybug, saw the plans for the movie and how classic cartoons like Peter Pan were treated, laughed like madmen, and had their unexpected guests thrown out by security.