truly, madly, deeply

#how do yall whitewash a white woman 

And talking about how the new frizz her is her niece, allow me to do a direct side by side instead

These are STILL not the same woman. Where is the icon fashion, the earrings (the chameleon, which might be in the new show idk I haven't watched it), the prominent hooked nose, the broader shoulders, the volume to her hair, the LIFE IN HER EYES

This frizzle looks like she's been called into the school board for inappropriate behavior and dress one too many times and has been broken.

The old bus had a personality and life and fun and now it’s just… a bus.

What's important to remember is that the whitewashy approach to character design in kidvid is a backslide.

Representation in cartoons had generally been on an upswing since the 1980s, even though efforts were often minimal, clumsy, or badly executed. Diversity helped sell action figures in the lucrative US/Canadian market and it was recognized as a prosocial value on the production side.

"Prosocial messages" are a major part of kidvid TV pitches and development, nearly every show has specific prosocial lessons the narrative themes are intended to work around, even if its an action-figure ad. These range from sincere expressions of the creator's intent (Gargoyles, OG Magic Schoolbus, OG He-Man (no, for real)) to the entertainment equivalent of carbon credits.

Slight aside. Actual ink-and-paint animation tended to lock characters down into more distinct tones because there were only so many standard paint colors. Which is why Kwame from Captain Planet, Roadblock from GI-Joe, and Tim from OG magic schoolbus all use essentially the same pantone.

Ralphie gets skinny because not only fatphobia, but I suspect because he would need slightly different rigging and would add just a teensy bit to the budget adjusting his animations when they could just copy-paste from one of the other identically built kids. If they need to put them all in spacesuits or diving suits or whatever, they just make the one body and slap the heads on, eazy-pezy.

Decals on the schoolbus mean they have to be tracked, they have to use different versions of the bus in flipped shots, same with Mrs. Frizzle's clothing patterns. Wouldn't want to spend time flipping Ralphie's "R' around.

And with the marketing for everything now being global, there's an impulse to average everything down to appeal to all markets to a general degree. Making stories oversimple makes them easy to translate. Humor varies culture to culture, keep it slapstick or quick quips that can be localized easily. Everything that makes the Chinese censor boards happy also makes US reactionaries less likely to kick up a protest, the incentive is to keep everything:

ALSO: These characters have the same face. They probably use the same eye and mouth parts for character animations.

It's all to do it as cheap and broadly appealing as possible, as determined by business weirdos who know nothing about art and care nothing about kids, and they're more than willing to leverage racism (or just ignore that its happening) for the promise of a tenth of a percent more profit.

And what's galling is that this kind of animation software doesn't have to make crap. It can be used to make amazing stuff and still be vastly cheaper than traditional hand-drawn, but the same quality at 60% of the cost is never going to beat 1/2 the quality at 5% of the cost for the money-men.

I used to be a varsity swimmer, and I was damn good, but I was forced into it by my parents and completely lost my love for it and therein my drive. But in high school I was swimming against such talented swimmers like Olympic Swimmer Missy Franklin. I’ve met her, and the main difference between her and me was that I was strong but had no passion, but she was strong BECAUSE she had passion. 

And I could have been good, really good, maybe even Olympic good. I even have the predisposition for it, been swimming since I was 2 years old, have a mom who was almost an olympic swimmer. Missy didn’t have either of those things, she just wanted it, loved it, had been doing it for a long time, and decided she was going to kick ass at it.

Right, that’s great and all, but I completely missed my opportunity to be an olympic swimmer, yeah? and can never achieve those dreams I had as a kid? No, not even though. There was this whole thought that female athletes peak when they’re 17 years old and lose their skills quickly after that, and male athletes peak around 19. But then Olympic Swimmer Dara Torres shows up. She was an olympic swimmer when she was 17, 21 and 25. Pretty normal age for retirement. She had a few kids. She kicked butt at being a mom. 

And then at 33 years old she decides she’s bored or something gets back in shape and kicks so much ass at the trials that she lands herself on the Olympic Team ONCE AGAIN. And then 8 years later, she decides, heck I’m 41 now, no one has ever made the olympic swim team as old as I am, I want to get in shape yet again and teach these children how sports work.

And she still has the record for oldest US Olympic Swimmer, not even any men have beat out that record.

So basically what I’m saying is you could be an olympic swimmer, you really could be. And there are obviously a lot of things stopping you and trying to get in your way: your brain, society, too much chocolate cake for example. But if you really dedicate yourself to it and love it with all of your heart you could, you really could.

And lets say olympic swimming isn’t your jam? That’s cool too. There isn’t a single skill in this world that you can’t learn if you absolutely love it and want to. Any skill you want is going to take time. There are countless famous people who started learning a skill after 20, 30, 40, or even 50. Not a single person has even been president under age 35 (most likely because you’re not allowed to be, but there’s a reason for that). Whatever you want to do you’re probably going to be bad at first, and I’m talking really shitty.

Van Gogh got started in his 20′s and was thought to have no artistic talent at first and was forced to sit in the back of classrooms where the worst artists in the class sat. So yeah you’ll probably be bad, like really bad and everyone including you will think you’re bad. If you stick with it though, if you’re willing to work for years and years, if you keep loving it after all the pain it’s given you, 

then you might just paint Starry Night.

Human’s are pursuit predators.

If it sounds like the composer might be a vampire, it's Bach.

If it sounds like the composer is mansplaining to you, it's Wagner.

If it sounds like the composer is playing Star Wars 60 years early, it's Holst

during the past several days, i have received a mass influx of asks and messages from vetted palestinians seeking my support for their campaigns. up until now, i have been answering these people on an individual basis, but i no longer find that very practical given how many there are, so i'm going to try to create masterlists like this one instead. it's something i had been considering doing for a while now, since i find that lists tend to get more engagement, not to mention that it's recently become clear that a good handful of people on here baselessly equate asks with scams, so maybe this will help.

if you see this post, please consider not just reblogging. the point of lists like these is to spotlight various fundraisers and get people to support them monetarily. please, try picking out one of two of these and consider contributing! every little bit helps!

Ehab Ayyad (@ehabayyad23) - €319/€50,000 (0.63% progress) // new fundraiser not yet vetted but appears legitimate

Basel Ayyad (@basel-1995) - CHF5,403/CHF60,000 (9.01% progress) // vetted twice by @/el-shab-hussein and @/nabulsi (#214 on this spreadsheet) // LOW FUNDS -> Note: Basel's daughter is chronically ill and requires medical care.

Safaa and Abed (@safaabed8) - €24,669/€50,000 (49.34% progress) // vetted by @/90-ghost (here) and @/northgazaupdates (here)

Adham Ayyad (@stupendouswolfearthquake) - kr6,941/kr750,000 (13.88% progress) // vetted by @/90-ghost (here)

Hadeel Mikki (@hadeelmekki) - €10,948/€35,000 (31.28% progress) // vetted by @/90-ghost (here)

Walaa Ahmed (@ahmed79ss) - $9,502 CAD/$50,000 (19.00% progress) // vetted by @/90-ghost (here) -> Note: Walaa has Type 1 diabetes and is in desperate need of insulin.

Mahmoud Alkhaldi (@mahmoud1995) - $6,567/$50,000 (13.13% progress) // vetted by @/90-ghost (here)

Abdel Muti Al-Habil (@abdelmutei) - €5,393/€50,000 (10.79% progress) // vetted by @/90-ghost (here)

Nour Alanqar (@noor-alanqar) - €17,114/€40,000 (42.79% progress) // vetted by @/90-ghost (here)