media round-up

[sideways]

• I did a swan dive (ha ha) into the collective Duckverse, mostly by accident. It started out with alternating between rewatching favourite Darkwing Duck episodes and watching bits of the old Mighty Ducks cartoon - the former for easy brainfood, the latter mostly for the sake of slapping my knee and cackling over the basic premise. I then realised the new DuckTales reboot had Darkwing Duck episodes, watched those and was extremely charmed, and from there spent a long weekend watching the better part of said DuckTales reboot. Wasn't as fond of the series as a whole, but it was still an enjoyable ride. And it had the CUTEST end credits.

• On recommendation from killyhawk I've finally made it through The Owl House. I found the tone a bit wobbly, but it was still sweet and fun, and it's always a pleasure to see how far media has come in presenting a realistic range of lifestyles and experiences.

• The new Elvis movie was one of my plane picks. I feel like it was maybe weighted a little too heavily in Presley's favour, though I don't know enough about the man to say for sure, and it was definitely a little too long. Flashy and full of slammin' jams though, and I appreciated they went to a distinct effort to acknowledge the Black community's influence on his music style.

• Dog Day Afternoon was another plane movie. Cripes. Great acting. So many terrible choices.

• Holiday media with friends: made it through the effective first book of The Expanse TV series with weirderwest (aka played it in the background while we discussed the series in general); a season and a bit of Gargoyles (Greg Weisman your Shakespeare obsession is showing); and co-played some of Control with syntheid (TOGETHER, WE WERE... COMPETENT!!)

• Absolutely cannot seem to stick with a video game lately otherwise, and it's driving me a little crazy. I need to get my butt back to Spiritfarer at minimum.

• Kate Ashwin, author of the Widdershins comic, has confirmed the next chapter will be the last. I am very sad! Webcomic time means there is probably at least one last good year or two to be had with the gang, and I'll be keen to see whatever Ashwin does next, but still. Hard to face the final goodbye.

• Some recent earworm recs: Still Though We Should Dance for the peppy string chorus, Hold the Girl for the 80s ballad vocals, and Woman in Red for being an unexpectedly catchy answer to 'what is this character's singing voice like?'

• I've been binging House lately. Mixed feelings, shall we say.

Comments

[pauraque]

I knoooow, I want that show too. I really liked how they drew out the themes of duality in Darkwing's character, not just in being a masked hero, but also the thing the 90s series touched on a few times of his ego creating the potential for him to become something... well, dark. Between Time and Punishment and of course the Negaduck episodes they kept playing with this idea of Darkwing's shadow self, and I loved DT17's choice of making them two different characters and watching them diverge into a hero/villain dichotomy before our eyes. I was kind of bowled over by that and I wish we'd had a chance to see what else the writers might have had in mind because they were clearly thinking hard about these characters!

[sideways]

Yesss, it's so clever! And it would have been so interesting to see it played out just a little more seriously, especially if they likewise kept the hints of Launchpad being a key stabilising force for both Ducks. I liked the revamped relationship there too, it was sweet.

[pauraque]

Yes! I was not always that thrilled with how Launchpad's character was used in DT17 because I felt like they made him too dumb, whereas (and maybe this is just my headcanon) in DWD I felt like there was something sly in the voice acting that made it play like he wasn't as dimwitted as he seemed and was actually just winding Darkwing up a lot of the time. So I was also pleased to see another side of him being brought out in those DT17 episodes and I think there was a lot of potential there.

[sideways]

Mmmm no fair, Launchpad constantly being the head empty comic relief rubbed me wrong too. Sure he's not the brightest bulb in the original, but... none of them are, that's the joke, and he had plenty of wry asides and moments of "gee DW, I never would have thought to do it that unreasonably convoluted way, I would have just done [something much more obvious and sensible]!"

In contrast, I loved that he was the one who reached Starling, and was the one who helped encourage understanding between DW and Gosalyn. Yes! That's Launchpad :)