Posts tagged obfuscobble

any-color-u-like replied to your post: So you ship Rarijack?

yeeess I’m not the only one! :3

obfuscobble replied to your post: So you ship Rarijack?

good ship. yes. yeeeeeeeeees.

The most honest and dazzling of all ships!

obfuscobble replied to your post: Any thoughts on the whole Equestria Girls thing? I…

I have just now learned about Equestria girls. WOW. But I think my favourite part, other than your laid back “wait and see” attitude, is that soeone else out there knows about The Birds of Britain. Strange alien creatures, birds arrived in 1968…

You know it, man.

To any rate, like I said, there are some things about Equestria Girls that leave me apprehensive. Spike being reworked into a dog is the major one. But even then, this just removes one more obstacle to glorious Human!RariJack, so there’s that too.

On the subject of other upcoming things, I’m not too sure about this whole Agents of SHIELD business, but the Avengers Assemble cartoon actually looks pretty nifty. At the very least, I’ll be looking forward to watching the first couple episodes of both.

obfuscobble replied to your post: obfuscobble replied to your photo: This summer,…

I look forward to this! pLus, I can always watch them on my own and add to the commentary that way ^_~

Yay!

obfuscobble replied to your photo: This summer, I’m finally gonna do it… I am going…

Honestly if you could stream or synchtube them, I would watch with you.

I wish I could watch them with you too… Unfortunately, my internet connection and personal schedual fluctuate day by day, so I just wouldn’t be able to set such a thing up responsibly. Sorry.

But, I will be blogging about my experiences watching each movie. Because tumblr needs this sort of information.

Contributing to the media consumption pool, that’s me.

obfuscobble replied to your post: Now that the Transformers 30 Day Challenge is…

You’re really asking an impossible question… but I’d probably say It’s a Bot Time/Bot to the Future combo just for how much PAYOFF there is in that season finale!

First off, let me just say I’m sorry I didn’t respond to this until now.

Secondly, I agree that the S1 finale is really cool with lots of great character moments and pay-off. Your response in fact prompted me to re-watch the two episodes, and I picked up a nice little “arc conclusion” I hadn’t really noticed before.

In “Bot to the Future”, Optimus and BB team up with the Rescue Bots to take down Dr. Morocco. When I first watched the episode, I wrote off their appearance as a simple cameo placed their to give the finale a little bit more dazzle, but ultimately being superfluous to the plot. The thing is… I was wrong.

What made me reconsider my initial reading was Optimus’ utterance of “RESCUE BOTS: ROLL OUT!” to which Heatwave responds “I like the sound of that!”.

Throughout the entirety of S1, Heatwave’s been chomping at the bit to work with Optimus Prime. Heatwave always assumed that Griffon Rock was a waste of his time and talents. That he was being disrespected in being asked to play the part of a simple machine, and that he would be better utilized and valued amongst the Nevada team. He took every conversation he had with Optimus as a chance to beg to be transferred.

But finally, in the finale, Heatwave gets the opportunity to fight alongside Optimus Prime. Heatwave at first wishes to stay with Optimus at all times, but is told “Stay with your team!”, which Heatwave does. Eventually, said Last of the Primes is hollering out the Autobot’s signature battle cry for the Rescue Bots team. But if you pay careful attention, Heatwave is in fact leading Optimus and BB in the charge against the Morbots. Heatwave both achieves his goal of being recognized as a capable Autobot fighter while also realizing his own importance as a leader and valued guardian of Griffon Rock. It’s Atonement with the Father/Father Figure!

Optimus even notes during the denouement that it has been “an honor to serve with [the Rescue Bots]”. So yeah, nice little conclusion to Heatwave’s character arc that gets tied in subtly. Very cool.

obfuscobble replied to your post: Wait! I won’t make a Big O AMV right now… I’ll…

Someone who remembes Jubei!

Jubei-chan: The Ninja Girl is perhaps the one of the greatest 2 season “alternative magical girl” anime to exist and those who haven’t seen it are sorely missing out.

obfuscobble:

bluedogdown: i refer to the show as my robot boyfriend a majority of the time l3 it sounds soap opera-y enough. Read More

Pictured: all the incentive half of tumblr needs to watch J-decker.
Aso pictured: an episode with good character development and storytelling.

I may now refer to it as My Robot Boyfriend too…  That’s… beautiful.
You just said magical words : release collector edition yuusha figures.  My bank account cried out in horror and my toy shelf rejoiced.  Thank you for responding again.  I’d like to expound a bit on the last bit you brought up : more people being aware of giant robot shows outside of Transformers.

So now allow me to compare and contrast Transformers and the Brave Series as they treat the theme of human empathy.

Read More

I just find it interesting that a Japanese “big fighting robots” series has run multiple installments with sentient, “alive” robot characters and been able to present itself as at least somewhat seriously, in some shows more than others.

obfuscobble replied to your post: Transformers 30 Day Challenge: Day 27 

GASPS A fibrir??? Watch out the fandom wars are cooomiiing… (hears the stampede of offended manchildren from afar)

…

Let them come…

obfuscobble replied to your post: In less happy news, it seems Princess Sofia has…

My “favourite” part of this is how he assumes that no good can come from reaching out to people from “non-traditional families” and showing them that they too can have loving families and act with grace and civility in preparation for a bright future

Indeed. I mean, it’s 2013. Surely a happy, supportive, blended family within the Princess Brand ought not to be anything in the way of controversial. One of the things I really liked about Sofia the First was the fact that she had both a mother and a (step)father who were together, healthy, and wholly invested in their children’s upbringing.

I mean, think about it… Aside from The Aristocats, there really hasn’t been a positive portrayal of blended families in Disney canon. I could be wrong though, correct me if I am.

There have been lots of single fathers in the Princess Brand, though I’d argue how positive their portrayal has been. Nearly all the single mothers have been wicked. Tiana’s mom, Eudora, is thankfully an exception. Sofia’s family structure is still fairly traditional: a mom/dad (both of whom work), three kids, living in a big house with plenty of luxuries and disposable income. So, really, it just boggles my mind that people would go after this aspect. Well, I suppose just as much as people can surprise you, they can also disappoint you. Ah well…

obfuscobble:

draqua:

pontifdotus:

scarletmonochrome:

pontifdotus:

…

This has a huge amount to do with why I love K-On so god damned much. There was such a ridiculous attention to detail, in the environments, in the way that characters interacted with those environments, and even in the way that things and people moved. 

And, of course, MLP has a huge amount of this too. It’s not as subtle most of the time, because it’s taking us to a whole other world, but when it is subtle, it’s that much more mind-blowing because it comes out of that world so naturally.

I like MLP as an example—for one thing, simply because of the level of effort involved there. Not every creative team would’ve bothered fleshing out a setting with a name like “Ponyville.” But that they were able to do so reinforces my suspicion that you can fully realize pretty much any setting as long as you make it seem as though your characters actually live there.

So the ponies read books and comb their hair, and that helps one kind of viewer invest, and it also adds up over dozens of episodes. There’s a certain amount of “macro” world-building that goes on with regard to Equestria, the place has a history and a roll call of heroes and villains, but much of the world-building happens at the micro level, which is to say the level of people going about their business—the characters do x, y, and z, and now the world equals x times y times z. That sort of thing.

It still astounds some people that a demographic that might otherwise read fantasy literature or watch Game of Thrones invests so much time into a kids’ cartoon, but the thing is, for a subset of spec-fic fans, Equestria is what a good fantasy setting looks like. Yes it’s simple, yes its target audience is six or whatever, but at least it’s alive, and I’d be willing to bet that most of the fandom has in their memory, as a point of comparison, at least one fantasy novel that reads like out-of-context Tolkien and Leiber quotes with the proper nouns changed glued into a D&D Monster Manual. It takes more than elven architecture and monsters whose names contain seven apostrophes to make a world. To some extent, the characters are the setting.

The point is that Ponyville has a whole lot of personality. And once that personality is established, the show starts introducing characters savvy enough to figure it out, and who exploit it for personal gain.

One episode that sticks with me sticks with me for this reason. It’s the one with these assholes:

Of course! Right? Once you realize that the citizens of Ponyville are open and trusting to the point of gullibility, you have to wonder what might happen if mass-production-powered, charismatic capitalism a couple of snake oil salesmen rolled into town. The plot basically writes itself. There’s also that episode with the life coach—same sort of thing.

The effect is, in a very literal sense, unsettling—you accustom yourself to the fabric of this place, and then it’s unsettled by characters who see it differently than any character you’ve met so far. Note, however, that this requires all those characters you’ve met up to this point to have an actual stake in the world. They need to participate and have opinions, and their participation and opinions need to matter. Otherwise there’s no real foundation, no reason for the plot to happen as it does.

Digi[suffix] is right in that there’s a difference in the subtlety level of MLP vs. slice of life anime, and I think he’s right about why. It’s a question of what kind of world you’re trying to build. A colorful, whimsical fantasy setting doesn’t necessarily call for contact lenses in the way that a high school story does. How one would speak to an irate rabbit is more relevant. Generally, though, it’s the same principle. Show me that the characters aren’t actors or puppets dancing per the whims of Lord Plot. Show me that they live here. The sense of living-here is my point of entry.

Highjacking this post to talk about (what else?) Rescue Bots.

Pontifdotus brings up the key fact that when you make a setting rich, it becomes a sort of character in of itself. A great way to achieve this is by having the characters feel like real people who really do live in that setting, and have ties/stakes to said world. You, the audience, have come to care about the characters, and as such care about the things they care about.

Within Rescue Bots, in lieu of Decepticons, the greatest foe introduced thus far has been the dandy, Tim Curry-voiced, Doctor Morocco. Again, given the show’s “safe space for the kiddies” nature, the Bad Doctor can’t pose a direct threat to the safety of the heroes. He cannot, for example, threaten Cody or Frankie at drill point as the Decepticons do in Transformers Prime, Rescue Bots’ sister show. Rather, the menace Morocco poses is to the fabric and stability of Griffon Rock.

A lot of time is spent in the early episodes of Rescue Bots setting up Griffon Rock: its people, its history, how it operates, their exports, etc. And all for good reason. Furthermore, Cody Burns (the central character and audience surrogate to interact with the show’s world through) positively loves his hometown and delights community activities, maintaining the peace, and keeping his neighbors smiling.

So the scariest and most dangerous thing a villain in Rescue Bots can do is upset the friendly, island town. And that’s precisely what Morocco does. In small ways at first, as seen in his initial appearances within “The Other Doctor” and “Reign of Doctor Morocco” via replacing the Rescue Bots with Morbots thus causing immense property damage, ejecting Dr. Greene as town scientist, and walling off said scientist’s lab. And then, in much larger ways within the finale “Bot to the Future” and “It’s a Bot Time” wherein a disturbing Bad Future is depicted with Morocco having turned the once cheery Griffon Rock into a dreary, almost Police State-esque Orwellian nightmare.

None of these episodes would work as effect plot peaks in S1 of Rescue Bots if we didn’t care about Griffon Rock. But we do, so in turn do the episodes. Because, for all its oddness and eccentricities of robo-dinosaurs in the museum, flying lobsters, and business men flying on helicopter backpacks, Griffon Rock still feels like a real, lived-town in the context of its narrative.

Great analysis, Draqua!  I’d like to bring up the secondary detail point that not only does Griffin Rock feel lived, in, but many of its citizens are recurring.  Someone less inclined to be charitable could say “of course, they get to reuse that character object” but I think that it serves a more important purpose.  We get to see the townsfolk repeatedly, and since they are each designed, and each live through multiple episodes, we get used to them as not just background characters, but citizens.  That’s part of what makes seeing the orwell-future versions of all the same townsfolk (the same people got redesigned: nice touch)  more sad.

Excellent!

obfuscobble replied to your post: Transformers 30 Day Challenge: Day 19 

YESSSSS. Good choice. dani in #2 spot for me

Ah yes… Dani is always a good choice. For me though, Prof Baranova might very well be my personal favorite, even though she only shows up twice… It’s cause of the lab coat, it’s always cause of the lab coat. But anyways, it’s tough to pick a favorite from that show though, since they’re all so great.

obfuscobble replied to your post: I think, though, the real issue here is: when is…

Now write a fanfic of it.

I wish… I haven’t written fanfiction in years.

obfuscobble answered your question: obfuscobble replied to your post: Transformers 30…

I honestly thought you were going to go Dinobot or Ultra Magnus. Shows what I know!

Ah, very interesting!

Well, it’s true that Dinobot is my overall favorite character, but he’s a Maximal so I just wouldn’t feel right using him for this question. Plus, I think we all know how much I love that character.

I like Ultra Magnus a lot too…

Read more …

obfuscobble replied to your post: Transformers 30 Day Challenge: Day 1 

For some reason I was not expecting you to pick Jazz. And yet I cannot fault your choice : he’s pretty FLAWLESS.

It’s a tough choice, I’ll admit. There’s a great deal of Autobot characters I do really like (Ultra Magnus, Tracks, Moonracer, Cosmos), but to have a character I like across most if not all continuities becomes challenging. For example, I really like TFP!Arcee, but her TFA incarnation doesn’t have much to go on (not that she’s a bad character, just that we don’t see much of her), G1!Arcee is pretty cool but not my favorite, and I came to like IDW Arcee as presented in the Robots in Disguise run oddly enough, but not really in the earlier ongoing IDW issues which introduced her character.

With Jazz, he’s always excellent. Every single incarnation of him I’ve loved, he’s always fun to watch and interesting. Even if the work he was in didn’t necessarily treat him respectfully (Bay-verse), or even if he wasn’t a “nice” person per say (Aligned Continuity novels).

Though, I am curious… Who did you think I was gonna pick?