#also i did not fucking know christopher lloyd was still acting

[russenoire]

@ygodmyy20 and @sodasexual, thank you again for sharing this masterpiece with me.

Wirt’s Inferno-- A Comprehensive Guide to Over the Garden Wall as Dante’s Inferno

It is commonly known that Patrick McHale’s Over The Garden Wall is a modern retelling of Dante’s Inferno. Two young brother’s, stuck in purgatory, wander through an Unknown in between as they nearly drown in a lake. The journey they go on mirrors that of Dante’s classic journey deeper and deeper into hell, with each episode representing a different layer. 

So, what is Dante’s Inferno, and how did we get here?

Well, as a VERY Italian individual who also happened to grow up in New England, having Italian stories passed down to me from my Nonna and Nonno, as well as an English major who loves analysis and good old fashioned literary parallels, I can’t help but feel like I was somewhat meant to share this. So here we go. 

Buckle in for a ride, because we are going to hell and back. Literally. 

The Inferno is the first part of Dante’s The Divine Comedy, a 14th century epic poem written by Dante Alighieri. That’s right, Dante is not just the name of the main character. Dante, the author, wrote himself traveling through hell with famous, and even to Dante ancient, Roman poet and philosopher Virgil.

The version of hell we see in the poem is distinct to Dante, just as the Unknown is distinct to Wirt. Is is their vision of what the afterlife, or purgatory, would be. 

So we have our parallel protagonist. Wirt is our Dante figure. Both are nerdy, insecure, artistic, write poetry, wear red hats, and are in love with a girl. 

(Dante is in love with a girl named Beatrice, where our bluebird Beatrice gets her name, and Wirt is technically supposed to be in love with Sarah as the equivalent but as a self proclaimed Wirtrice blog FIGHT ME they both love a Beatrice).

Both, also, have a companion. 

The comparisons between Greg and Virgil are less exact than Dante to Wirt. Retellings, are, after all, just that, it’s not exactly the same or there would be no new story. Greg as a younger brother occupies a different relationship role than Virgil, who is a friend and if anything for knowledgeable then Dante in the Inferno. Like Virgil, however, he is musically/ artistically talented. Greg, we can see, gladly breaks out into improvised songs and gives us chart topping #1 hits like Potatoes and Molasses. Now I’m not sure if Virgil was spinning any beats on their way through hell, but both certainly occupy a similar artistic space.

Next, of course, we have Beatrice– who guides our pair further and further into purgatory. Both are redheads, both are adorable and both make me proud to be a pale Italian ginger. (And as previously stated our main protagonist is in love with them). 

And last but certainly not least, we have the Beast, Over the Garden Wall’s version of Lucifer.

This is more difficult to trace back to the Inferno specifically, Depictions of the devil and Lucifer across various cultures are as old and numerous as my college debt. However, the description of Lucifer in Dante’s epic poem are shockingly spot on to what we see in the Beast’s design

- multi faced

-horned

Some pretty clear imagery was pulled here, with tree branches standing in for horn imagery. Both are tricksters, deceivers, and travel through all layers of hell. The Beast does this through, as Greg calls them, turts). 

The Beast can most definitely be seen as a general symbol for Lucifer, as many villains are, but there is undeniable inspiration from the Inferno’s specific depiction of the Devil. 

Alright, we have our cast of characters. Each character has their counterpart in this retelling, with enough enough clear paralleled characterization and imagery to be a clear reference, while being different enough to be new.

Now, what about the journey? The plot?

The most fundamental commonality between Dante’s Inferno and Over the Garden Wall is that both of our characters take a spiritual, emotional, and life changing journey through some kind of hell, or purgatory. Both of these are tailored to their own unique visions, fears, insecurities, and seen through their lens. 

There are ten layers of hell in the Inferno, and it is no coincidence there are ten episodes of Over the Garden Wall. So let’s go through one by one.

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi che continuano leggere questo inviare.

I. The Entrance/ The Old Grist Mill

Dante’s Inferno begins with Dante finding himself in a strange, mysterious forest, unsure of how we got there– precisely how Wirt and Greg’s journey begins. There is a slight difference, though,  in that Wirt and Greg begin their journey already inside the Unknown, whereas Dante is in the forest right outside the gate to hell. A gate which reads “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate”– “abandon all hope, ye who enter here”– marks the entrance. The woodsman gives Wirt and Greg the same warning, giving us a sense at the end of the episode that we are finally entering into the true danger of the Unknown. 

This is not an official layer of hell, but the entrance, and at this place both characters are attacked by wolf like animals. Dante is attacked by three different creatures, one of them being a she wolf. At the end of the episode, Greg saves the day. Dante, too, is saved by companion– Virgil. The plot of this first leg of the journey is, affectively, the same. 

(why the image from the literal family show so much more terrifying than the one from the gothic Italian epic through hell I can’t) 

II. Limbo/ Hard Times At the Huskin’ Bee

Limbo is the first actual level of hell, where people who where neither good nor evil are sent to wait. Often this includes pagans who did not believe in God during their lives. They wait for heaven, for salvation and something more. The subtle torture? Is waiting for something that will never come.

In Over the Garden Wall, we go to the town of Pottsfield, a dreary, boring town where we see a distinctly pagan group of pumpkinhead skeletons waiting for the harvest. It should be noted that EVERYONE in the Unknown is supposed to be dead, as seen with Quincy Endicott’s grave being seen in the real world. Yet these are the only skeletons we come across in the entire series. 

What are skeletons a symbol of? Death, but also passed time. It’s a mark of time and erosion. The citizens of Pottsfield have spent so long waiting for the harvest– the newfound salvation that will never come– that they have eroded away into skeletons. They have waited, and waited, and waited.

This video here– made by TREY the Explaner on YouTube, also notes that salvation by Christ is also compared to a harvest often, and that Enoch represents the figure of Minos. 

This is a video I watched in my research which mostly reaffirmed my findings and observations, but also noted some things I missed. I’m not going to pretend like I made this observation myself, and credit goes to TREY for this next bit. 

In the Inferno, travelers encounter King Minos, the Judge of the Damned, when exiting Limbo. He is described a giant, immortal creature who judges those who enter into hell and determines the extremity of their sins. Often depicted with a serpent tail, he wraps his tail around each soul, the number of times dictating which layer they will be sent to. 

Enoch, like Minos, is the leader and judge in this layer. He is larger than all the other townsfolk, who overtly states to With, Greg and Beatrice that he has to “punish them for their transgressions” . He sentences them as they exit, just like Minos. Enoch’s design is also large, and serpenty. Enoch has streamers and hisses, as TREY points out in their video. 

The similarities are actually uncanny when you really look at it. 

Once again, the Enoch observation is brilliant but NOT mine. This is from TREY the Explorer’s video, which was posted over five years ago, and you should go and support it through this link right now. 

III. Lust/ Schooltown Follies

The first level where people are punished, the level of lust punishes those who commit just that, lust. And the concept is all over the place in this episode, with Ms. Langtree– who LITERALLY sings a song called “Ms. Langtree’s Lament” and spends the entire episode yearning. 

Oh, Ms. Langtree, you lustful sinner you.

Truth be told, lust is my least favorite sin/ level in the Inferno. I’m ace as, well, hell, and I often can’t relate. I thought this would be my least favorite episode and parallel due to this, and yet it’s not. 

In the Inferno, souls are blown back and forth by a giant storm. This is meant to symbolize how lust blows people back and froth aimlessly in life. We see this with Ms. Langtree throughout the entire episode. She’s spiraled into a depression, thrown around emotionally to the point she can hardly stand. 

She is, emotionally, blown back and forth. In fact, whenever we enter the school in the episode we hear wind sound effects. The school is the level of lust, and Ms. Langtree it’s main soul.

IV. Gluttony/ Songs of the Dark Lantern

This is probably one of my favorite episodes in regards to following the Inferno, truth be told. Here, gluttons are punished for being gluttonous– overindulgent, wasteful, and over consume.  One of the most common depictions of gluttons is wasting away in a tavern eating and drinking, so it makes sense that this episode’s prime location would be an inn. 

And what do we see? Overindulgent inn customers, who from the moment Wirt and Greg arrive boast about their lives.  We also see Greg indulge in large piles of food, leaving behind stacks of plates. He is constantly eating throughout this episode.

There is more food in this episode than any other one, though it should be noted the people at the tavern are never seen eating it. This is a reference to the punishment of gluttony in the Inferno– though they ate excessively in life, they cannot eat in hell.

Yet that is hardly where the gluttony parallels stop.

For one, the most notable characteristic of Gluttony is that it is constantly raining, and outside of our quaint little inn it is pouring. We see this emphasized when the action is taken outside. 

This circle is also guarded by Ceberus, a three- headed dog from Greek Mythology, and we see a dog guarding the inn by blocking the door. 

It is also important to note that this is the episode where Wirt is labeled as “the pilgrim”. This is a direct reference to him being Dante, as Dante’s journey through hell was said to be a “great pilgrimage”. 

V. Greed/ Mad Love

The circle of Greed corresponds to the episode about rich people whose mansion’s are so big they can’t even tell that they’re connected– what a surprise!

The greed and harboring of wealth is fairly overt in this one, needless to say. In the Inferno, those guilty of greed are forced to push bags of riches for eternity, unalloyed to keep any of it. Endicott is a perfect example of greed. He continues to harbor wealth, believing it will make him happy. 

Yet his giant mansion does not make him happy, and directly leads to the very thing torturing him (the “ghost”). The punishment here is not as direct as in the the other episodes, bur rather more metaphorical. He is emotionally empty and tortured by his cold, money driven exploits. 

Another important plot point in this episode is the need to acquire two cents in order to ride the ferry to Adelaide’s. This is one of the more blatant references to the Inferno, where, like in Greek Mythology, Dante and Virgil must pay two coins to the ferryman Charon to ride across the river Styx and reach the next level of hell. 

VI. Anger/ Lullaby in Frogland

At first glance, this seems like one of the more abstract episodes to compare to the Inferno. It’s where those who were aggressive, violent, and full of rage are punished. We are on a ferry with bassoon playing frogs. 

However, the episode manages to draw some fantastic parallels. The circle of Anger in Dante’s tale is represented by a muddy, swampy wetland. Dante and Virgil do not have to pay to cross the river like most, and take a boat across. Wirt, Greg and Beatrice also do not pay the two coins, since Greg threw them out, and catch a ride on a ferry through the muddy swampland. 

I guess Endicott was right, Greg does have some sense. And we end all rolling in the mud, just like the souls in Anger. 

Speaking of which, you know what else there is a lot of in this episode? Anger.

Anger when there is no bassoon player. Anger and a chase with the frog police. Wirt’s anger when he finds out Beatrice lied to them.

The episode is the central turning point of the series, and it works beautifully with this layer of hell. The exit of Anger in the Inferno is the City of Dis, whose walls separate  the passive sins, from the  active ones. This is the point we have reached in our narrative with the reveal of Beatrice’s betrayal as well. 

I would also like to include another addition from TREY’s video at the end of this section, which I did not observe or come up with myself, which is that in the City of Dis, Dante is confronted by three furies. Like the fates, they are old hags. 

And who do we get in this episode? Adelaide. An old hag, whose scissors channel imagery of the fates in Greek Mythology, who use scissor to cut the string of people’s lives.

VII. Heresy/ The Ringing of the Bell

Heresy, one of the worst sins one could commit in Dante’s time, is the punishment of practicing any faith outside of, in this case, Catholicism (though broadly speaking it is the practice of any religion outside of the accepted one in society, which depends on the context). They are punished by being constantly burned or set on fire.

 In this episode, there is not only an array of candles around the house, but an emphasis on the fire by Auntie Whispers. The entire episode has a pagan, witchy feel– these same candles are arranged in what looks like ritualistic way, perhaps to try and get the demon out of Lorna. 

Which brings me to the most obvious point and reference, in my eyes.

The plot of the entire episode is literally that of an exorcism, casting a demon out of a young girl. 

If that is not a theme of heresy, I don’t know what is. The aesthetic of this episode is entirely what Dante’s hell considers heresy, and the plot of driving out a demon an all too familiar Catholic narrative. 

Magic, sorcery, and witch imagery are more prevalent in this episode than ever, and though more abstract than other episodes I believe the parallel could not be clearer. 

VIII. Violence/ Babes in the Wood

Violence, though fairly self explanatory, is is a bit complicated in the Inferno. It’s broken up into parts, or rings– violence against others, violence against oneself, and worst of all, violence against God. 

The punishments in the circle of Violence are gruesome ones– those in the first ring are left to drown in the boiling blood of the River Phlegethon, since they reveled in blood in life. In the Inferno, Dante and Virgil cross the river to enter the Wood of Suicides, where those who took their own lives are left to transform into trees. 

Oh gee, where have we seen this before? 

The tree imagery is arguably the most blatant reference to the Inferno in the entire series. After floating down a river, the boys wander through the woods. Wirt, having given up in despair, lies down and begins to turn into a tree. They have floated down the River Phlegethon, and entered the Wood of Suicides. 

There is a lot more detail and nuance to the rings of circle of Violence in the Inferno, but the episode follows the basis of Dante’s journey through it quite well. Wirt’s attitude and sadness, his laying down and almost turning into a tree, can even be read as an allegory for suicide.

IX. Fraud/ Into the Unknown

Like episode 5, our flashback episode is one of the more difficult ones to parallel to it’s counterpart in Dante’s Inferno. In the Inferno, the circle of Fraud is complex and made up of various ditches, or bolgias. What’s interesting, however, is that the episode of Fraud is the one what takes place in the real world. 

Fraud is deception, lying, and manipulation, and not only does the episode take place on Halloween– a night full of fraud where everyone pretends to be someone or something they are not– Wirt himself is a fraud. He never shows his true self, due to his insecurity, and in an attempt to win over Sarah.

The episode follows a bunch of teenagers. And what bigger frauds, or pretenders putting on an act, are there than teenagers trying to survive in a public high school?

Thieves are amongst those punished in this circle, and this is the episode where Greg reveals he stole his rock fact rock. 

Both Wirt and Greg have committed sins applicable to this circle. The punishment for this circle is falling down a pit or trench into darkness. And that is precisely how this episode ends– Wirt and Greg falling down into a pit of darkness. 

TREYs video also points out that Sarah’s costume could be symbolic to the winged creature Geryon, whom Dante and Virgil encounter at the end of this circle. Like a bee, Geryon is winged with a stringer, though he was a humanoid upper body. Geryon leads Dante and Virgil deeper in hell, while Sarah arguably leads Wirt and Greg to the Unknown. She is the reason they end up there in the first place. 

Lastly, there is the “eat your dirt” comment from Beatrice, which when researching and rereading the Înferno to look for similarities I immediately thought was a nod to one of the worst punishments in Fraud– deceivers who told lies being forced to eat human waste, as it represents what came out of their mouths during life. This, to my surprise, was also noticed by TREY in their video, and discussed. It is a subtle nod, yet this imagery being in the episode which corresponds with this circle, and never being brought up again, cannot be a coincidence. 

X. Treachery/ The Unknown

The worst layer of hell, where Lucifer himself is found due to betraying the highest power of all, God himself, Treachery is depicted in the Inferno as a cold an barren wasteland. This is a stark contrast to the pit of fire hell is commonly described as. This is because Lucifer’s giant wings beating freeze everything to ice and cause frigid wind gusts. Like in episode three, the weather in the final episode of Over the Garden Wall parallels it’s equivalent in the Inferno. 

It is snowy, cold, barren, and we open with Beatrice being blown around in a giant windstorm. And in this episode, like in this circle, we find the Beast. 

People in the circle of Treachery are punished being frozen, looking upward at the world but unable to move or ge tout of the eternal cold. This is precisely what the Beast does to Greg to fuel his lantern. 

In the end, both Dante and Wirt contort the Beast, or the Devil, in this frozen tundra, and eventually escape and return home. Their journey’s have changed them however– spiritually, emotionally, and in maturity. They have literally been to hell and back.

And so, our retelling of Dante’s Inferno comes to an end. 

Patrick McHale’s masterpiece is more than a retelling of Dante’s epic poem– it is stooped in American colonial folktales, German fairytales, and more. However, the Inferno is most definitely it’s bones, it’s outline, and a core part of what makes this stunning piece of art work. 

[thegeminisage]

SEARCH FOR SPOCK breakdown

i watched THIS movie three days ago and im still not over it. incoherent phone liveblogs translated to normal human language below:

firstly, this movie is extraordinarily quiet. even with my computer and browser volume and 100% i still couldn't hear it. we had such trouble finding a copy that was both loud and subtitled i had to download my own - even actually starting a free paranmount plus trial didn't work because their website is GARBAGE and refused to load the movie for me on any browser. which meant losing one day. and then the second day i was out of town. i had to wait SO LONG to start searching for spock. i basically forgot the first 12 minutes of the film bc of those two lost days

uhura was very hot in this movie. i love how she had stuff to do. idk how she keeps getting hotter every movie but she's the most beautiful woman in the world i think. her telling that little ensign to get into the closet while calling him a good boy was maybe the sexiest thing she's ever done. i wish she had gotten to go with them the whole time!

the absolute screaming that ensued when kirk found bones sitting in a pitch black room with spock's voice coming out of his mouth. like i said i knew vaguely about this but i did not expect him to be FUCKING POSSESSED??? i need to find time to read 4000 spones fics about this specifically if anyone has recs i am soliciting them

everything was so good. the comment about poison in a bar not being logical. the failed nerve pinch. him being able to suddenly act as first officer. mwah

i like the snowy cacti on genesis even though most of those sections lagged for me personally. not like computer lag but like. psychologically. and baby spock was so cute!! teenage spock did not need to be fucking his former student who is now way older than him tho. that was wack. sorry saavik

the entire section of busting bones out of prison and stealing the enterprise is one of my favorite trek scenes from everything i've seen so far, actually. it's exciting, it's funny, it's heartwarming, the chemistry is off the charts, and they all truly feel like a family.......cathy said it best but this is what aos was missing tbh

ALSO I TOTALLY RECOGNIZED LEONARD NIMOY'S VOICE IN THE ELEVATOR SHAFT. am i faceblind maybe a little bit but my ear never fails me

very shocked to see christopher lloyd in this movie. his makeup was um questionable. but he did a great job

we went back and forth for awhile on whether or not bones realized he was possessed. i guess "you're suffering from a mind meld" wasn't specific enough. like did he know spock was IN THERE. but we didnt know for sure until jim was like "how are we doing" and bones was like "WE are doing just fine thank you but i'd rather he have just taken a kidney" which was fucking hilarious. third best best line after "i've got all his marbles" and "THAT GREEN BLOODED SON OF A BITCH THIS IS REVENGE FOR ALL THE ARGUMENTS HE LOST" he's so iconic. like it wasn't actually just revenge for the stunt he pulled in the empath.

deeply mourning the enterprise. i knew there were different enterprises and that they had to blow her up eventually bc spoilers but this is the one and only first ever enterprise TO ME. watching her go down in flames was almost as painful as watching spock die. rest in peace queen :(

absolutely FLOORED they fridged david. i didn't expect them to do that ever but i'm SO glad they did bc 1. cry bitch and 2. i didn't actually care about him. despite them finding spock on genesis those parts of the movie felt slowest to me because spock wasn't able to like, Be Spock and i just did not care about david. i like saavik but i liked her better when she wasn't fucking spock. so. perfect choice

final fight was good. i was like I DONT CARE ABOUT THIS SHOW ME SPOCK but then i gasped every time one of them almost bit it. rip christopher lloyd's character he did a great job

did i burst into tears when kirk held spock and pointed a gun at people? yeah

however what we missed was the bit where bones goes to hold him instead when kirk has to put him down. truly the mcspirk movie of all time.

bones going "i choose the danger" HE IS SO IMPORTANT i love him so much

having absolute kittens in the section where i had to wait to find out if they put spock's katra back. like obviously they were gonna. did i start crying again when spock started talking? YEAH. i knew he was gonna have amnesia but i forgot so i got to be surprised anyway. and then also cried through the credits too bc ofc i did. spock is so important. bones tapping his temple at the end was everything though

idk why everyone says the odd ones are all bad! 1 was bad and i know everybody hated 5 but 3 was REALLY GOOD. i liked it even better than wrath of khan - aside from, again, the pon farr thing. there was more interpersonal stuff than in 2 but it didn't lack action and momentum the way that 1 did. it was perfect. there's no way 4 can be better than this. no way. sincerely hoping i eat my words <3

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales: The Treasure of the Lost Lamp Movie Reviewcap! (Patreon Stretch Goal)

Hello all you happy people! And we have a special review today for two reasons. The first is that this is my second patreon stretch goal review, having hit the 15 dollar goal back in march thanks to my wonderful friend Emma, the same patreon whose responsible for the Green Eggs and Ham Reviews,  who helped me hit the 15 dollar goal.  As a result you fine people are getting three movie reviews each based on a Disney Afternoon Movie with Treasure of the Lost Lamp today, a goofy movie at the end of the motnh for  a weeklong tribute to my favorite dogmandadguy.  Extremley was going to be part of it but the length of this review convinced me otherwise, but I will be doing it this summer so keep an ear out. If you want to help me hit my next stretch goals do yourselve a favor and zip on over to my patreon YOU CAN FIND MY PATREON HERE. My next stretch goal at “OH Look 20 Dollars” would give everyone patreon and not, a monthly review of Darkwing Duck as decided by my patrons, reviews of BOTH season 2 mini series from Ducktales 87, introducing Fenton to the world and blighting it with Bubba before the 2017 series fixed him, and as a brucey bonus added last month a review of Danny Phantom the Ultimate Enemy. And if that wasn’t enough if you help me get to the goal after that at 25 unlocks another trilogy of disney film reviews, this time for the proud family and recess movie and the best kim possible movie, and dcom period, so the drama as well as Bryan Lee O’ Malley’s two stand alone graphic novels, lost at sea and seconds for you Scottaholics in the audience.

The other reason now the shilling’s done. is that the plan WAS to review this back to back with Treasure of The Found Lamp, to the point the orginal review had a whole thing about that, why it was delayed etc... but now that review’s been scrapped all together as something sudden and wonderful happened. After just kinda giving up someone came through with a translation of Della’s first apperance so presumibly i’ll be doing that as part of the build up to mother’s day, and since I still want ot do maternal instincts too, and already had to let the Floyd Gottfredson birthday special slide away as well... it had to go as I want to leave the only open space on the schedule for the lovely person who found the story for me. But this review is still done, i’m very proud of it so join me under the cut won’t you?

Behind The Scenes: Before I get into it i’d just like to note this article from SyFy Wire. It , along with articles I found via wikipedia citations, was an invaluable resource. 

The film was an experiment: It was an experiment to see if one of their tv properties could bring in theatrical money, to see if a movie made on a cheaper budget and still rake in decent money, to see if a film could be made being outsourced to several diffrent places, and to see what one of those places, their recently aquiried french stuido, could handle this kind of work. 

The film, if succesful would be the first of Disney’s MovieToons line, a series of films based on their shows. As you can tell by the fact only this movie and Goof Troop happened and the Movie Toons label wasn’t applied to that one it very much failed. While the film was warmly recevied by people who liked the show general audiences didn’t turn out for it. As a result the MovieToons label was scrapped, future projects with it were canceled.. but the stellar work put in by the french stuidio lead to it perserviering for several more decades and lead to them working on the Goofy Movie, which we’ll get to later this month but needless to say was a MUCH bigger hit with a much bigger budget. 

As for why the film failed... I have two theories. THe first is that parents were stupid back then and didn’t want to pay to see something on the big screen they could see on tv’s. This is a stupid mentality to me as generally a movie of a tv show puts in a ton of extra effort and usually goes bigger and dosen’t go home. It’s a likely theory given most liscened films of the era didn’t do quite well, with all three hasbro films tanking. And look I get Transformers the Movie is cheesy and killed a lot of people’s childhood toys, but damn if it ain’t aweosme.. and also something I need to cover at some point. Thankfully this died out by later in the 90′s with Rugrats getting a hugely succesful if flawed film, a better sequel and a third one that was also a crossover with the wild thornberries. 

And even now in 2020 we’re getting the Loud House and Rise of the TMNT movies sometimes this summer, we were SUPPOSED to have gotten the bobs burgers movie this summer but arne’t because Disney is being a dick about it.

And we got a phineas and ferb movie last year. With this trend hopefully thsi means we’ll get a Ducktales 2017 movie at some point since season 4 left a huge sequel hook laying right there to grab for a feature film.  One final note: The film was conceptually thought up as a 5 part serial like “Treasure of the Golden Suns”, “Catch as Cash Can”, “SuperDucktales” and “Time is Money, something that DOES show as the movie weirdly has act breaks. In a feature film. Yup. 

The Guest Cast:

I won’t go into the full cast since I’ve sung Alan Young and Russi Taylor’s praises PLENTY on this blog before, and I plan to go into Beakly and Launchpad’s actors when they show up in the pilot movie. But i’d be remiss if i didn’t talk about our three guest actors for our three new parts. 

First up is Merlock voiced by legend and if I had a hall of fame, hall of famer Christopher Lloyd.. I need to get me one of those. Lloyd is of course known for playing Doc Brown in back to the future but has done countless other films, voicework, and other good stuff. Among his MASSIVE filmography includes The Back to the Future Trilogy (Already mentioned it but it bears repeating), Star Trek III, Who Framed Roger Rabbit as the pants destroyingly terrifying Judge Doom, The Addams Family duology as fester, a role rip torn would ironcially play for the animated series made to captalize on said movie, Hey Arnold! The Movie, The Oogieloves in The Big Ballon Adventure (Look everybody needs money sometimes okay?), and Art of the Deal: The Movie, which was not, thankfully an ego filating nightmare made by trump himself but a film made by funny or die parodying his terrible book and having Llloyd return as Doc Brown. TV Wise he’s known for Taxi, Back to the Future the Animated Series, Cyberchase and he most recently popped up on Big City Greens. How I missed that ep I.. do know as I haven’t watched season 2. Gonna fix that later this month. Lloyd is utterly awesome, a great guy and thankfully still alive at the time of this writing, so I was happy to have him here. 

Less familiar to me but still known is Rip Taylor, a comedian known for his flamboyant unique way of speech and his marvelous mustache. He showed up in things occasionally and always seemed like the nicest guy and his passing in late 2019 truly is sad. He does a terrific job here but more on that in a moment. 

Finally we have Richard Libertini, a comedian I never really saw in anything besides this who according to IMDB was most famous for his ablility to do a foreign accent. I REALLY hope all of them aren’t as horribly racist as this one. We’ll.. get to that in a sec as it’s time for the plot!

A Treasure Uncovered:

We open our film gorgeously. The animation is great in the film, having some rough edges I chalk up to the film’s hectic production, the studio being new at working at disney properties, and the film not being meant for HD. That being said a few rough spots here and there aside.. the film looks ungodly gorgeous. Like most theatrical films based on a cartoon it takes an already great style and makes it look great. It feels like a more fluid evolution of the cartoons look and it’s a shame we didn’t get more movies in this style for both this show and others, ESPECIALLY Darkwing Duck. Can you imagine a Darkwing Duck movie with this lush animation? Hopefully we’ll get one eventually. 

So our heroes are going to somewhere in the Middle East. That’s.. that’s all wikipedia gives me and all the film gives me. As usual Scrooge is after treasure in this case the Treasure of Collie Baba, the greatest thief there ever was based obviously off Ali Baba from 1001 nights and that one Beastie Boys song. 

It’s here we find the WORST thing about the film, the thing that makes this a hard one to watch depsite otherwise being pretty good, and that makes my skin crawl knowing i’m a white man and a BUNCH of white guys, Ducktales series creator who did the voice casting for this character, the writers who wrote him, the direector disney them fucking selves who thought this was okay. 

The film has some horrible steroytping. It starts with a bunch of backgorund guys surronding Scrooge, with crooked teeth and steotypical voices. This on it’s own is odious. 

It somehow gets worse. Then we meet one of our antagonists. We meet Dijon. 

This Fucking Guy 

Djon is horribly offensive reminding me of other such luminaries in being ungodly offensive yet somehow getting put to film as Jar Jar Binks (With all respeect to his poor actor Ahmed Best, this is not his fault), Rob Schinder as a Sterotypically asian preist, Skids and Mudflap, Rob Schinder as a sterotypically mexican bandit, The Whitewashed cast of The Last Airbender, and Rob Schinder as a stereotypically asian preist. What i’m saying is Djon is an AWFUL, horribly offensive character.. and that Rob Schinder should be shot up into space, not to watch cheesy movies, he’s not funny enough for that, but instead to be sent to a satlitie that’s liveable, but also filled to the brim with spring loaded boxing gloves. Just tons of boxing gloves that feel like getting punched by a heavewight boxer all hidden... they could hit his legs, his face, his nuts, his face and his nuts, the point is he’s in constnat pain unless he moves carefully. 

And lest you think i’m exaggerating for starters this is his design. 

It just screams “vaugely but sterotpyically middle eastern” along with cowardly. The fact he’s also a literal rat is just the icing on the cake made of broken glass, shrapnel and broken DVD’s of Transformers; Revenge of the Fallen. They say if you eat a reveng eof the fallen dvd John Tutoro appears at the foot of your bed and watches you while you sleep.. and by they I mean me. It was a bad bet. I got rid of him with some insese and a bribe of five dollars. 

Oh but that’s just design.. when he talks it’s MUCH worse. His voice is like if they took Apu from the simpsons and said “This but MORE offensive”, and his perosnality is WORSE. He’s a thief.. and not in the endearing loveable rogue way but he’s a pick pocket and a running “Gag’ is that he’ll often grab eveyrthing within reahc. As the deisgn shows he’s a coward running at every opportunity. Oh and to top it all off he’s the willing servant of the white coded, given all ducks in this series are white coded and voiced bby white actors, big bad. And the actor is naturally VERY white to make this cocktail of offensivness so complete that if Disney ever got rid of this film I GUARANTEE the republcian party would be running in with accusations of cancel culture gone amok and never shutting up about this like they did the muppets. Which for the record THEY DIDN’T CANCEL THEM, YOUR POINT IS ILLEGITMATE, THEY JUST WANTED TO BE SENSTIVE YOU GHOULS. 

I do have a reason for bringing up Disney’s content warnings... most damming of all given just how DEEPLY uncomfortbale this character is.. there isn’t one for this movie. I double checked: There isn’t even wanring notes on the website. It’s just.. on there. And given just how ghastly a sterotype Djon is.. that’s not right. Seriously they DID put them on certain episodes of the show, theyk now this sort of thing is wrong and they done wrong.. but for NO reason they haven’t done so for a film released 31 years ago. Around the same time as the series and just offensive as that show at it’s worst if not more so. This is flatly inexcusable.. par for the course for Disney’s incompetence but still horribly furstrating, disgusting and shameful.. which has been the theme of the last three days really. I expect better because when it comes to putting that warning label on this stuff, they usually are better. First the scheduling mixup and now this. You already do a handful of things wrong Disney why add this to the list?!

It’s just draining not only to run into another Disney Fuckup after a weekend of dealing with one of their worst in recent memory, but just to watch Djon. To see this horrible caractrure saunter onto the screen and go on with his harmful schtick, to see that THIS is what Ducktales 87 reduced non white people to more often than not.  It’s remarkable just how throughly and awesomely Frank and Matt completely and totally reversed this. Instead of horrible sterotypes in the reboot, we got TONS of loveable people of color, an endearing latino hero, a smart african american buisness woman who takes no shit but is still a consumate professional, and an egyptian HERO with an intresting story and a strong moral code instead of this horrible reminder that racisim in media was such an afterthought not ONE person brought this up during the scyfy wire stuff or in any inteview i’ve seen. No one cared. Djon was POPULAR enough that he got three episode sin the series. THREE FUCKING EPISODES. This film could be GOOD.. but it’s just so bogged down EVERY FUCKING TIME this artists interpreitation of what Tucker Carlson sees when he looks at a middle eastern person I had to pause to compose myself and had to take a break writing this review to avoid tyiping this in all caps and using the phrase YOU RACIST MOTHERFUCKERS every other sentence. And again i’m white, I get this is second hand offensiveness.. I do... but it dosen’t mean I can’t be offended other white people were so callous about other cultures behaviors this happened.

And what makes me feel worse.. is that I just sorta... never thought about white people voicing non white characters. Things like this I noticed sure, I realize now part of the reason I didn’t like this movie the first time I saw it was this alex jones version of a looney tune, but I do feel shame for not noticing or caring long before this. Sure I loved it when a character of color got played by a person of color.. but I didn’t realize just how deep that problem was and how LONG it went on for before the outcry post george floyd and the call to action lead to most shows still going course correcting. It’s why stuff like this extra botehrs me: because THIS was just as okay at the time. No one blinked twice about this and odds are the creators involved still haven’t. And that.. that’s just terrible and it hurts to think about and  I still have most of the movie to go.  

The Pyramid of Peril:

So we do get a gorgeous unvewling scene of a box Scrooge found out about from Collie Baba’s horde that should lead them to the treasure. This scene reminds me of Indina Jones.. and I bring this up because the poster was specifically made to mimick an indinia jones poster, to the point of getting drew struzan to do it. THe creator of Ducktales objected..l but I do not get WHY. While I”m not sure if he had yet, Speilberg flat out admits the Carl Barks comics were an inspiration for Indina Jones, with the iconic bolder chase coming from a similar scene in one of Barks Stories. Gotta cover that too. So yeah I don’t get not wanting an indina jones style poster when both were inspiried by the same work and it’s just simple logic and it looks so neat. Thank you. 

Scrooge finds seemingly just clothes.. and a map. Jeff Dunham’s Most Racist Puppet reports to his master, Merlock. Merlock is a.. meh villian. Christopher Lloyd does try.. but Lock is your standard evil overlord wants to take over the world type. He dosen’t have much depth, or personality and only his style saves him from dragging the film down along with Dana Carvey’s most racist disguise in master of disguise. He does have a deent shape shifting gimick and being played by Christopher Lloyd means he’s acted TREMENDOUSLY. Alan Young was apparently in awe watching him work and that’s wonderful to hear. The guy did his best. Weirdly Merlock would show up in tons of other works, mostly video games.. but even weirder he NEVER showed up in ducktales 2017. Both Djon and Gene would, Djon thankfully renamed we’ll get to all of that tommorow thank god. I need it after this. But Frank has outright said they didn’t use Merlock because there simply wasn’t anything they could do with him they couldn’t dow ith magica. My likely guess is the might of found a way to revamp him EVENTUALLY, it’s not like radical revamps weren’t there thing come on, they just had way more stories with Magica and didnd’t get around to it before the show was canceled. Just make him some sort of evil god or something. it’s what I might do. There’s a lot of angles with him. Though I would’ve still gotten christopher lloyd back. I mean most of the recasting is good but he’s still alive and deserved a better shot at things. 

So Merlock sends Djonn to go with scrooge as his guide to find the treasure, as there’s something of imense power within it. And I gotta ask WHY does Merlock need a minon. No really. This isn’t a situation like reboot magica where he’s trapped in another realm. He can shapeshift into any animal. We only see him use falcon, rat, cockroach and bear but theoritically he can become anything and bear alone is still a LOT. Why does he need this sterotype even other sterytopes ar eashamed of? The film dosen’t NEED Djonn. Just let Christopher Lloyd monologue and leave this post 911 propogranda cartoon at home. 

So our heroes nad rejected jar jar prototype head into the desert, and seemingly find nothing before finding a small pyramid all while Merlock follows desecretley as a mighty hawk. 

Scrooge makes the boys and Djon dig... because they clearly forgot the “work hard” part of his ethos. 

Our heroes unveil the pyramid... and while Merlock SAYS he searched the desert and I get it’s hard to see thourgh all of that.. the dude is immortal, had decades to search and had Mickey Rooney there on standby to force him to go comb the desert. I have an artist rendering of that hang on

So our heroes enter the pyramid and it goes.. really how you’d expect: there’s a bunch of traps our brave explorers have to pass, the boys minintpret a juinor woodchuck saying about loosing your marbles to mean using the ones they actually have which geninely comes in handy as they trip the traps and Rob SChinder as a carrot stumbles into one. Also launchpad is wearing a hawaiin shirt and shades. This has no baring on the plot, but it does bring the movie up a notch in my book and I question why the reboot never used this outfit. Then again they also never properly used Donald’s Quack Pack Outfit (Which bad show or not, is objectively awesome), or his Quack Shot Indiana Jones Riff Outfit, so  it’s not like there isn’t a presdecnt for not giving a character a cool costume change from a previous medium. I really should do a top 12 missed opportunities list for the 2017 cartoon.. the ideas for stuff are really piling up. 

OUr heroes eventually find the treasure which has insidiously clever security the more I think about it: at first I thought it had none, just a pit with some... scorpions? I mean their supposed to be but they look like they crawled out of the same stygian hole in the sky Doofus crawled out of. And if your asking me “wait which Doofus” the answer is both. Both these abominations crawled out of a stygian hole in the sky.

But the treasure is on a platform surrounded by scoprions with the only way out being the trap filled way they came in. Unless someone comes in with a full team and a bunch of lootin sacks, they aren’t getting out with EVERYTHING. They can steal SOME of the treasure but there’s no way to get any signifigant portion... and the team thing itself is an issue, something Collie defintely predicted being a thief himself: while some thieves can work well as a team, hence why we have four oceans movies 3/4 damn good, and for the record 12 is the bad one, 8 is how you do a soft reboot and a female led reboot right, a good chunk of professional crooks will turn on each other or try and swinldle... and tha’ts dangerous in a trap filled temple but hey some criminals ain’t so smart.  If they all were Rudy Gulliani wouldn’t have two razzies for preparing to pull his pants down, and have waved his phone around on tv like a dare for future adminstrations to arrest the shit out of him would he? 

But Scrooge has his family so they get loading. But not before Webby finds the lamp. Not knowing about it Scrooge has no intrest in it, but Webby does. We also get a really simple but hilarious gag where SCrooge dickers over the idea for a second.. before Webby picks up a Jeweled tiara to possibly take instead. The best gags to me are often the ones that just let the character’s perosnalities take the lead and bounce off each other. It’s why when I reviewed the four lilo and stitch crossovers recently I harped on character interaction as their biggest weakness: it’s what MAKES a good work for me. It’s why my faviorite comics and shows often follow a loveable group of disfunctional misfits. I like a group of big personalities who despite in theory should NOT be able to work making it work anyway. And it’s honeslty what’s made Scrooge last so long: Scrooge on his OWN is awesome.. but iwth the boys, donald, and in the case of this series and the reivival Webby and Launchpad, with people to bounce off of who he contrasts heavily with, from Launchapd’s buffonery to Webby’s inehrent sweetness in both versions, to the boys genuine honesty and sense of adventure.... it makes him truly stand out. He’s a great character on his own, don’t get me wrong.. but it’s the people around him that give him chances to show WHY. A good character on it’s own is fine and dandy.. a good character with other good characters around them is where it gets truly special. 

Merlock naturally bursts in and in a VERY Black Heron move needlesly outs what micheal bay sees when he closes his eyes as a bad guy... no really he grabs the guy with his talons as he captures the treasure and reveals he’s a bad guy. I don’t even get why keep Djonn alive. He’s done all Merlock possibly could’ve needed and Merlock is ruthless... this makes no sense and only happens because they need Djonn for later in the plot.

Our heroes barely escape, rafting out on the platform itself in a thrilling sequence.. but it’s the one right after that catches my attention. Scrooge utterly defeated, having searched for this treasure for forty years and unresponsive to everyone else. The anmation, coupled with the incomprable Alan young’s acting makes this the highlight of the film for me. Beneath the armor of wealth and skill.. is only a poor old man who just lost something he’s been chasing after most of his life. Scrooge tries his hardest not to be vunerable and both shows and the original comics all use that so when he truly is devistated like this, and i’ts belivible since this treasure is a personal goal of his and as someone who has had things that they seek out specifically, loosing them always hurts. It hurts to ALMOST reach a goal only to have it crumble out under you

But while this alone is good.. what’s next makes it great. Webby sweetly offers up the lamp. Scrooge turns it down, and her genuine gesture reinvgorates him and reminds us of who he is “I’ll find it if it takes another 40 years”> Scrooge may be bitter, mean and selfish a lot of the time.. but deep down, he’s a good man and one who will not give up, and a momentary setback can only stop him so long as long as he has his family to remind him of who he truly is.. and what’s truly important. It’s genuinely sweet and to me is also a reminder of why 87 Webby is a good character: Shes’ not perfect, her main personality trait is often Girl Sterotype”.. but she’s a genuinely sweet small child with a huge heart. It’s telling that while 17′ Webby is almost completely diffren,t and far better, that heart remains her biggest strength. Sure her reboot self could kill a man nad no one would ever find the body, but it’s her heart and empathy that makes that possible and makes her Webby.  That inherent loving nature is what makes Webby webby wether she’s a toddler having a tea party or a tween getting ready to intergoate a guy with a meat tenderizer while saying ‘Cute girl stuff”. 

Gene Genie Let’s Himself Go:

It’s a few days later and this is the point where it REALLY becomes obvious this was written as a bunch of episodes. Though to the film’s credit while it does ake this feel like a compliation movie as a result... it dosen’t hamper the film’s quality, condiment from Rush Limbaghs’ hot dog stand does that just fine, but once you notice it it’s impossible to unotice it. Weirdly though it seems chunked up into four episodes rather than the usual five, likely cutting down an episode, though I can’t see where they cut out material frankly if they did and i’ts just as likely they woudl’ve had to make one to fill in the space.

So Scrooge is in a mood, being grumpy with his secretary Mrs. Featherly, quackfaster in all but name, and having to be sent home. So while Duckworth goes to fetch him Webby polishes her treasure at long last readying for a tea party, something the boys roundly reject because their sexist little twits and swo were the writers or executies who assumed all little boys act the same. It’s easily my biggest pet peeve with the series as a whole: anytime this crops up with the boys it turns them into the worst dicks imaginable. It’s telling this, being mean about her wantin ga tea party with her surrogate brothersi s TAME. Normally they’ll say she can’t do things because she’s a girl or mock her hobies outright instead of just be mildly dickish. And while she dosen’t look much younger Webby is VERY CLEARLY, in this series anyway, supposed to be say 5 or 6 to the boys 8-10. 7 at most. SHe’s a small child and while it is realistic for older kids to bully younger ones, it’s not fun to watch. It’s why I get annoyed at all the big sibling bully characters.. some work, but most aren’t fun to watch because there’s nothing funny or intresting about it. It’s the same deal here. 

Thankfully that quickly goes away as the lamp moves when Webby rubs it and does so again to prove it did move. Huey finishes it and we’re introduced to Gene, the best part of the film.  Gene is a Genie and he takes a second to dart around before messing with the appliances in the kitchen, as he was last around during the time 1001 Nights Came About. Cleverly though, and so we thankfully don’t have 80 dozen fishout of water jokes that have already been done before. As you can probably guess i’m not a huge fan of time travel fish out of water stuff. Now from another dimensoin or planet, i’m on board with with Star Vs, Steven Universe and Sym-Bionic Titan being great examples of this, as is the comic resident alien. (Despite having the wonderous Alan Tuduk the show sounds way more mean spirited and misses the entire point of the comic as given by the author in the credits, i.e. that the alien is supposed to NOT be a threat and just be gently waiting for a ride) The inverse is also good with Amphbia and owl house, taking a human and plopping them into our world. But time travel stuff just usually runs the same beats of “look at the shiny thing” and what not. The only time i’ve sene something SIMILAR work is with thor where their society is SIMILAR to vikings time but still it’s own thing.. it also gave us a classic gag in..

So yeah i’m glad they dropped this and instead had a clever way around it: Gene reads the encylopedia at the mansion. Granted it’s Scrooge so I don’t know how current it is and given this came out in 1990 thus HOW racist it is. It’s not a questoin of IF it was, but how much.

But having caught up the kids confront him with the fact he has to grant wishes. This lamp runs on what I now realize are Aladdin rules: Whoever currently holds the Lamp is the Genie’s master, they only get three wishes, and that dosen’t reset if it changes hands. The only big diffrence from the usual is Gene dosen’t have to TELL them about the wishes like Genie did, and Gene very begrudginly agrees to it. He also seem’s phsyically pained when doing so. 

So since all 12 know about him, each of the kids gets a wish though it seems unfair with HDL. Their one person, they shoudln’t get 9 wishes just because their brain is spread out over three bodies. 

This film continues the weird simliarties to Aladdin by attaching rules though they instead come up as a result of our heroes talking rather than the Genie just flat out tleling them: both share the “you can’t wish for more wishes” thing, a common rule in these stories and usually only broken nowadays as a clever twist as the rule is SO common place, not having it is a twist. But it is there for a reason: to limit the sheer power of a reality warping wish. The wishes can also only go so far. In a nice line, when Huey, Dewey or Louie suggests wishing for peace one earth, Gene says “No pipe dreams’ He can’t bend people or reality on THAT scale. He can bend reality as we find out, but it’s smaller scales like turning someone’s possesions over ot someone else, warping the bin into a castle, or bringing inanitamte objects to limited life. Still HUGE feats worth of a genie, so Gene’s power isn’t so nerfed it’s unusuable, but it does explain why his evil pervious ownder Merlock, more ont hat in a bit too, didn’t just wish to have eternal dominon over the earth or something. Gene can do just about anything but he can’t change the world on a fundemental level. 

And I do LIKE having rules in wished based stories like this, I chalk it up to growing up with Fairly Odd Parents... though they eventually went too far in the oppsoitie direction, pulling rules out of their ass to suit the episode, instead of simply having some very standard, very understandable rules that still pose challenges but don’t outright cheat so the episode can happen. 

So Webby does her first wish.. and wishes for a Baby Elephant, something Gene is against as he prefers they keep the wishes small: otherwise he gets found out, and the fight over him begins. So one of the boys wishes him away. Or Webby does. Point is it’s gone though not before Beakly sees it and Scrooge smells something is up. Our heroes try to hide gene, but gene thankfully simply dresses up like a modern kid and thus is able to pass as a friend of there staying for the night. 

So with the rules established and what not the kids find a clever solution: they simply go a ways away from the mansion into the woods, far enough from town to avoid any suspcion, and same iwth the mansion and just wish for all kinds of stuff: a giant bunch of ice cream toys, standard kid wish fufillment but it’s nice... in part because the kids treat Gene like one of them. Wihle they STARTED asking him about the wishes, this starts the bonding process. Soon he will be part of the hive mind.. SOON. 

Until then though after using another wish to make scrooge not mad at them for coming home late and missing dinner, that night we find out Gene’s backstory.... and it’s an utter tearjerker. As it turns out Merlock wants him back because he’s Gene’s former master and as you’d guess.. it was NOT a happy existnace, used contstnatly to do horrible things with no power to stop himself. Pompeii and Atlantis were both directly Merlock’s fault and it was only Collie Baba stealing the lamp that put an end to his hell. He also answers the two obvious questions botht he audeiince and the boys have: How the hell is Merlock still alive and shoudln’t he be out of wishes then? The first is simple. Unlike pretty much every DBZ Villian whose WANTED to do so, Merlock wished for immortality first chance he got, taking the Zamasu route instead and thus leaving him free. 

As for the wishes thing it turns out his amulet, in adition to shapeshifting, also gives him extra wishes becuase fuck it. 

But the boys sweetly offer to protect him. 

The next day, Apu’s Cousin let’s Merlock know the maps in the mansion and Merlock has him help sneak in with Merlock taking rat form. This backfires as Mrs. Beakley notices the form and chases after him with a broom

Meanwhile Webby has her tea party with Gene after he and the boys played cops and robbers earlier, and he’s bored.. though nicely not because it’s a girly thing, but because the stuffed animals aren’t alive and she naively has him fix that. This leads to 

Which sadly is jsut scrooge vs a duck toy but admit it, you want that movie for Disney Plus yesterday. Call Charles Band Disney. CALL CHARLES BAND! 

Whelp Scrooge Still Sucks:

Scrooge takes for a turn for the obnoxious in the next part, but i’ts fine by me as it’s part of the plot. Naturally this reinactment of Cult of Chucky has lead to Scrooge finding out about the Genie. To his credit, Scrooge is tactical about his wishes. As said by the Duck himself “I could wish for a diamond, no the world’s biggest dimaond, no ten world’s biggest diamond, no a diamond mind, no the MINING INDUSTRY!”

The sheer power this gives him is TERRIFYING, both because of his status.. and because unlike the kids who all wished for simple kid stuff and used up their wishes quickly, he both gets how much he can do with this and could conquer the world economy if he truly wanted to. 

The obnoxious part comes in as he treats Gene as not a person, figuring he’s just there and forces him into the lamp despite the kids protests after Gene grants his first wish: Collie Baba’s treasure. It also dosen’t feel like the wishing nor him using the lamp to get the tresure back goes against his hard work ethos: for the former while he is getting all this magically, he’s still having ot use his wits to get the most out of it, and he did earn the lamp itself square. For the latter, he already earned the treasure square too and had it stolen. He’s onlyg etting back what’s by all rights HIS. Granted he plans on giving most of it up for a tax break but still it’s his by right. 

However the reason his assholery works is twofold: first it’s Scrooge. While he’s not a TERRIBLE person, in the comcis and this cartoon he isn’t a GOOD person either. He DOES have a good heart and will usually do the right thing, but his first instnct is always to get more money and to be a cantakerous old bastard to eveyrone and everything. While he’s subtly grew out of “I hate eveyrone and everyone hates me” as his guiding principal, it’s still his defualt reaction to most situations. But he first relents by letting Gene attend the party, part of why the Collie Baba thing stung so bad was that he’s told the historical society he’d get the treasure for years only to come back empty handed, if shrunken. But he still manages to have a good time while Asok and Merlock infiltrate.. well I’mRunningOutofINsultingNIcknamesCanYouTell steals the silverware. Yes... that.. that really happens. 

Look we’re almost done, i’m almost free of this racist mummies curse. Let’s continue. Gene sees melock and freaks and drags SCrooge with him and while at First Scrooge is cranky...

No but now I want a Donkey Kong Country crossover too dammmit. And to talk about those games. Another thing for the list. But Scrooge is righ tot be a bit surly...

Okay now your just pushing it. As Gene whisked him away without telling him anything other than vauge worries... but then he gets a full idea of why Gene’s so terrified when Merlock shapeshifts into a bear and starts breaking the door down. Eh, could be worse. 

Gene shrinks them to escape and Merlock leaves thinking they fled but leaves Skids Minus Mudflap to go look for them. Scrooge sneaks out but bumps into a cart running from the photo you see when you look up stereotype on google. I mean I assume.. let’s try it. 

Huh you know I HOPED but I never expected... 

So Google Proving My Point plans to give his lamp to the master because of his weird Torgo-Esque obession with helping a man who clearly wants to murder him but takes his sweet time doing so because plot, and Gene figuring this COULDN’T POSSIBLY go as bad as Melock getting him urges the dummy to keep him and make his own wishes.

This goes about as well as you’d expect....

Wiped Out With A Wish:

Scrooge returns home to find Watto has wished to take his poessions, fortune, everything and Scrooge gets thrown in jail for breaking into his own house. We get two great moments back to back. The first is Scrooge lamenting loosing his fortune in jail, and realizing the sheer power and risk of the lamp, especially since he worked hard to earn it, every bit of it.. and Sam Wilson’s 70′s Backstory came in and took it all in an instant. 

The second is Scrooge’s family coming for him, including Launchpad , Beakly and Webby obviously and bailing him out. Though Beakly is UNGOLDLY annoying in this scene, sobbing hysterically and adding nothing and it’s not nearly as funny as the  film thinks. Turns out Goliath getting buried wrapped in chains threw them out. 

Scrooge takes a bit to rebound from all this.. but eventually realizes something: he knows the security of the bin inside and out. He had it put in after all. So it’d be easy enough to break in. So they gotta break in to break out the lamp, undo this nightmare, and END THIS MOVIE. Seriously this review has taken two days  as is I do NOT want to miss my invincible review. 

So they break into the bin, and it’s a tightly paced Scene, scrooge going in one way while the kids go the other and we even get a nice callback as the marbels come in handy to get past one of the traps. It’s just a good scene. it’s only real flaw is that Launchapd just sorta disappears as does Duckworth despite the fact their in a plane, and the bin later gets turned into a floating castle. Kinda a plot hole to not have Launchpad crash in to save htem just saying. 

Scrooge eventually does get to Djonn, whose been ignoring the imminent threat of Merlock while Gene sweats it out... and this backfires horribly as Merlock hitched a ride as a roach (Though there was a hilarious scene of him getting fried constnatly by lasers when Louie went through a laser hallway, as while Louie had the directions, it dind’t take into account passengers on your head. 

So Merlock remanifests in full gets the Lamp and unleashes his wrath on Tin Tin in the Congo and turns him into a wild pig. 

Not you sweetie. He then forces Gene to turn the castle into a fortress and float it back to his home in parts unknown. It’s a DAMN cool scene with impressive and horrifiing animation as the bin melts and crumbles into thte castle and the kids barely make it up the stares as they shift and disolve. Really top notch stuff.

Scrooge stands up to Merlock... and this naturally goes poorlyw ith Gene begging Merlock not to respond.. and Merlock having him blow scrooge off the top of the forgtess storm eagle style, though scrooge understands. And this is the true reason why scrooge being a dick didn’t bother me so much. Because it helps create a great contrast between him and Merlock. Both thought of Gene as a tool rather than a person.. but Scrooge grew to realize he was wrong and what he was dealing with wasn’t some magical goodies creator.. but a child forced to constantly grant wishes, in sheer agony to do so no less, likely so sick of it because again and again and again people used him as a slave to get what they wanted and to hell with what Gene wanted. He realized he was terrible for making this poor boy into his slave simply because that’s his job. In contrast Merlock could give no shits and is a malevolent monster who glefully uses Gene despite the pain the wishes put him through and his protests. It’s why Gene is the best part.. he’s  athroughly likeable, throughly inncoent character with tons of personality and a truly tragic and horrifying backstory and Rip Taylor acts the hell out of every scene with the guy. 

Thankfully the marbles come in handy one last time and Huey, Dewey or Louie snipes the lamp away and a struggle for it insues between Scrooge and Merloc mid air. it’s fucking awesome.. and it get sbetter in how scroogewins. He simply gets rid of Merlock’s amulet, taking it then throwing it. Grante dhe COULD’EVE used it for unimited wishes.. but it was too risky to do that and as we’ll see in the ending , Scrooge realized the Lamp was too powerful to keep around for much longer and too much of a tempting target for his rogues.. not that we see them this movie as the crew wanted it to bea ccesaible and thus kept hte cast to the main cast from season 1 and just made new vilians and a new supporting character, but still. 

He does use his second wish though to undue the damage Merlock had done and the bin and clan mcduck are returned to duckburg in good condition.

Time for our ending, which is genuinely and wholly touching. With the lamp too dangerous to use Scrooge considers just sending it to the earth’s core, which horrifies the kids as it’d mean Gene would be trapped there forever... if the molten lava iddn’t just outright destory the lamp and probably kill him. But Scrooge.. isn’t the bastard he likes to potray himself as. Instead he makes Gene into a real boy. He gives the poor kid HIS wish, which designrates the lamp and undoes all the spells... so Merlock is PROBABLY dead but he does return for some games so maybe not? 

And so we end on two things: Gene happily playing cops and robbers with the boys finally free.. and Birth of A Nation grabbing all the loot he can in his patns and running off. Ha ha ha thank god i’m done with this prick. And no I will not be looking at his ducktales episodes unless I have to. 

Final Thoughts:

This movie is OKAY. It has a solid plot, gene is a wonderful chacter, the animatoin is pretty prettay pretty good, and the voice acting as usual is excellent, with Rip Taylor being the standout. 

But as my paragraphs of rage shoud’ve made Clear Djonn is just BAD. Easily the worst character i’ve encountered in my year of reviewing and some of the worst writing i’ve ran into. And that writing includes a goblin man voyerstically forcing two teenagers to make out, making jokes about santa renaming himself Clem the sceneafter he tearfully confessed to letting the elves and ms. claus die, accidental transphobia via the u-men, and Bryan Lee O malley thinking we needed more than one volume of Julie Powers being around.  This was disgusting, even by 1990 standards and especially by 2021 standards and it drags the film down considerably. Without it the film is okay.. with it the film is just VERY hard to watch any time he pops up.  He made getting through the movie a nightmare and while I pause a lot becaue it’s a bad habbit I did so more simply because as I said earlier in the review I could not stand him. 

It makes it a hard film to recommend. If you can stomach the racisim, then it might be worth it, but be aware of what your putting up with going in. But if you can’t.. there’s no shame in that, it’s carbombya levels of bad. Which yes was a real fictoinal country. It was so bad Casey Casem quit transformers over it. True story. So yeah, it’s an okay film, on par with the series at it’s best for the most part.. but Djonn just spoils it for me. 

If you liked this review, like it, share it around that sort of thing and if you want MORE disney movie reviews, in addiiton to the goofy movie one later this month, if you help me hit my 25 dollar stretch goal on patroen.com/popculturebuffet, i’ll do reviews of the Recess, Proud Family and Kim Possible MOvies (Well so the drama anyway), so help me out would you and i’ll see you at the next rainbow.

[wellhalesbells]

✨✨ TOP FIVES FOR 2020 ✨✨

2020 was, i think we can all agree, a massively chaotic year but i have never consumed as much media before in my life, so i thought others might benefit from my slothery uh, connoisseur.... ship?  yes, that.  below are the books, comics, shows, and movies that got me through!

B O O K S .

the starless sea, by erin morgenstern - i loooove this book because it loves me back.  it says: ‘oh, you’re a reader, well i have just the thing for you.’  it luxuriates in language and story and riddles and fairy tales and it feels like an entire library in a single tome.

they never learn, by layne fargo - oh fuuuuuck, this was satisfying.  i thought it might feel a little exploitative as it is very aware of the zeitgeist and likely would not exist without the #metoo movement but it never ever did.  this was a fucking ROMP, period.  reading about a woman getting away with murdering skeezy guy after rapey guy after shitty human just made me happier and happier.

moonflower murders, by anthony horowitz - this is the second in the susan ryeland series (and the first was hardcore good fun too) and really feels very classic mystery with the artful twist of catering to the literary community.  mainly because: susan isn’t a detective, she’s an editor and she gets drafted in this time because the clue to what happened to a missing woman is in a book she edited, if she can find it.  both of the books in this series have such an excellent coming together moment that is rare af to find.

the invisible life of addie larue, by v.e. schwab - the writing in this is just so good.  it has that feel to me where i just want to drop the book and open up my own page and let my fingers fly.  it’s that inspiring kind of writing that reminds you of all the things language can do.

crown of feathers/heart of flames, by nicki pau preto - aaahhh, this series is SO FREAKING GOOD!  why is there not more of a fandom for it, why???? it is so many of my favorite tropes all resting perfectly together to the point where you almost forget they’re tropes because they just so naturally evolved there.  ugh, it’s just.... it’s so heart-bursty good.

.... number 5, part 2?  raybearer, by jordan ifueko - this was just so original and i was invested af.  like, what a brilliant idea though and an even better execution??  i loved every character and am so looking forward to the next in the series so i can get to know them even better!!

honorable mentions (sh*t i still liked a whole heckuva lot): you/hidden bodies, by caroline kepnes // writers & lovers, by lily king // i’ll be gone in the dark, by michelle mcnamara // the faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home, by joseph fink & jeffrey cranor // girl, serpent, thorn, by melissa bashardoust // a little life, by hanya yanagihara // the guinevere deception, by kiersten white // obsidio (and the entire illuminae series), by amie kaufman & jay kristoff // the bone houses, by emily lloyd-jones // house of salt and sorrows, by erin a. craig // we hunt the flame, by hafsah faizal // savage legion, by matt wallace // blacktop wasteland, by s.a. cosby // crier’s war, by nina varela // the empress of salt and fortune/when the tiger came down the mountain, by nghi vo // upright women wanted, by sarah gailey // the monster of elendhaven, by jennifer giesbrecht // a deadly education, by naomi novik // you let me in, by camilla bruce // when you ask me where i’m going, by jasmin kaur // the lights go out in lychford/last stand in lychford (and the entire lychford series), by paul cornell // the devil and the dark water, by stuart turton // serpent & dove, by shelby mahurin // one by one, by ruth ware // ruthless gods (this was SUCH an upshot from the first book - it’s worth sticking with if you’re on the fence), by emily a. duncan // cemetery boys, by aiden thomas // the inheritance games, by jennifer lynn barnes // the fortunate ones (2021 release), by ed tarkington

C O M I C S .

cosmoknights, by hannah templer - the art was gorgeous, the gayness was glorious, and just.... hot HOOOOOOOOT lady knights in space?!  a princess winning her own hand?  find something not to love in there, i dare you.

don’t go without me, by rosemary valero-o’connell - wow. wow wow wow wow wow.  the writing was stunning, so lyrical and atmospheric and deep, and rosemary has to be one of my favorite artists but even that managed to come as a beautiful surprise because it was just so freaking bold.

through the woods, by emily carroll - i loooove emily carroll, the convergence of spine-tingling horror and art that feeds into it, that is both visually and aesthetically pleasing, is hard to beat!  p.s. i also read beneath the dead oak tree from her this year and it was also a BANGER.

the impending blindness of billie scott, by zoe thorogood - zoe is someone that i just want to follow.  she’s just starting and i want to be there for every single step.  i love her art style and her ability to tell a story with it.

above the clouds, by melissa pagluica - this was so unique, and such a baller concept, as nearly half the entire book is conveyed only through the art and yet you’re never once lost, never once confused as to what any character is thinking or feeling.  it’s a story within a story and only one of those gets words though they both are chock full of emotion!

um.... number 5, part 2? crowded, by christopher sebela - everything about this series is fun af.  crowd-funded assassination and a hirable bodyguard who’s rated like an uber driver???  and the chemistry between the two mains is so great and gay!!

honorable mentions: monster and the beast, by renji // long exposure, by kam ‘mars’ heyward // fence, by c.s. pacat // invisible kingdom, by g. willow wilson // ms. marvel, by g. willow wilson // heathen, by natasha alterici // not drunk enough, by tess stone // giant days, by john allison // die, by kieron gillen // be prepared, by vera brosgol // ascender (sequel to descender, which is also great), by jeff lemire // the unbeatable squirrel girl, by ryan north // bang! bang! boom!, by melanie schoen // gideon falls, by jeff lemire // life of melody, by mari costa // cry wolf girl, by ariel slamet ries // the tea dragon society, by katie o’neill // ptsd, by guillaume singelin // heartstopper, by alice oseman // solutions and other problems, by allie brosh // finding home, by hari conner // the magic fish, by trung le nguyen // something is killing the children, by james tynion iv // the weight of them, by noelle stevenson // spill zone, by scott westerfeld // skyward, by joe henderson // miles morales, by saladin ahmed

F I L M S.

parasite, dir. bong joon ho - oh it was satisfying, oh it was suspenseful, oh i had to watch some of it through my fingers but i loooooooved it.  such a good story and so well made.

knives out, dir. rian johnson - okay, everything about this movie was amazing.  every single character was fun as hell and i could’ve watched an entire movie about each of them.  what a great fucking mystery!

blindspotting, dir. carlos lopez estrada -  this made my heart hurt so damn much.  what glorious writing, acting, and story!

portrait of a lady on fire, dir. celine sciamma - gooooorgeous cinematography, amazing chemistry, and such a soft, atmospheric film.

the farewell, dir. lulu wang - i cried and my heart felt so full and i love it so so much.

um.... number 5, part 2? someone great, dir. jennifer kaytin robinson - no part of me expected to love a netflix movie this much but it’s a love story that doesn’t get told that often??  the end of a relationship and the true love of friendship and i love these girls and i love jenny and nate’s broken relationship.

honorable mentions: eighth grade, dir. bo burnham // booksmart, dir. olivia wilde // midsommar, dir. ari aster // the curse of la llorona, dir. michael chaves // the secret life of pets 2, dirs. chris renaud & jonathan del val // jojo rabbit, dir. taika waititi // the invisible man, dir. leigh whannell // the favourite, dir. yorgos lanthimos // can you ever forgive me?, dir. marielle heller // troop zero, dirs. bert & bertie // ready or not, dirs. matt bettinelli-olpin & tyler gillett // brave, dirs. mark andrews & brenda chapman & steve purcell // the half of it, dir. alice wu // palm springs, dir. max barbakow // doctor sleep, dir. mike flanaghan // uncut gems, dirs. benny sadfie & josh sadfie // birds of prey, dir. cathy van // bloodshot, dir. dave wilson // the old guard, dir. gina prince-bythewood // enola holmes, dir. harry bradbeer // hocus pocus, dir. kenny ortega // always be my maybe, dir. nahnatchka khan // finding dory, dirs. andrew stanton & angus maclane // die hard, dir. john mctiernan

S H O W S .

black sails (2014) - this show, this shooooooooow.  i cannot, it just makes me want to cry with how good it is.  the characters, the EMOTIONS, the story, the plaaaaaan.  like, the creators clearly had a plan for every single step of this show and it was a gOOD, GOOD PLAN.

the untamed (2019) - truly, cheesy good fun with one of the best gay romances ever.  i love these characters and their relationships to each other and the way it glories in its own ridiculousness.

the righteous gemstones (2019) - one of the things that bothered me about my next choice (the ratio of female to male nudity) was so much more realistic in this one (i mean, we’ve all gotten five thousand dick pics and i know like three people?  so the fact that there is so rarely male nudity in shows when there are tits everywhere..... no, how does that even make a tiny bit of sense?).  this show was such great, wonderful, awful fun.  they’re not great people and the show is under no delusion about that and it’s GLORIOUS!

the witcher (2019) - this was just hella fun, i loved the characters and the fantasy elements.  i’m excited for the next season, it’s just entertaining swashbuckling through and through!

fargo (2014) - all of this was really very enjoyable with the through line being somebody fucks shit up and gets involved in something they really shouldn’t be involved in that’s going to swallow them whole.  season one and season three were my stand-out favorites but they were all so violent, clever, and vicious!

um.... number 5, part 2? central park (2020) - um..... so many of the hamilton actors in a muscial cartoon drawn and written by the bob’s burgers team? WHAT ABOUT THAT DOESN’T SOUND AMAZING?!  it was such a joy to hear daveed diggs and leslie odom jr.’s voices again!!

honorable mentions: schitt’s creek // the mandalorian // mr. robot // broadchurch // mindhunter // jack ryan // the good place // the end of the f***ing world // big little lies // elite // kidding // servant // letterkenny // curb your enthusiasm // i am not okay with this // ozark // buzzfeed unsolved: true crime/supernatural // you // runaways // dear white people // dickinson // brooklyn nine-nine // will & grace // 9-1-1 // dead to me // solar opposites // never have i ever // killing eve // what we do in the shadows // grace and frankie // avenue 5 // roswell, new mexico // the bold type // evil // tuca & bertie // impulse // the umbrella academy // watchmen // infinity train // corporate // search party // on becoming a god in central florida // a.p. bio // criminal: uk // the morning show // mythic quest // last week tonight // prodigal son // the great

[kt-65-wrecks-blog-blog]

Still lamenting on episode 13 of Yashahime.

You know what really gets my goat and is making this show less and less attractive (besides the complete absence of plot): the lack of communication.

Like, there are plenty of things in Inuyasha that could have been resolved with a little more asking of the right questions, but none of them were essential plot points. How did Inuyasha’s mother die? Who knows but also not essential. And the question is asked, just never really answered.

And even the questions that are essential but go unanswered are asked: kikyo, why are you helping Naraku? She doesn’t lay out her plot but at least it’s fucking asked.

This shit tho. If they are looking for the butterfly and Setsuna’s memories why isn’t Towa asking people shit? Miroku acted like they were old homies, like him and setsuna go way back. But after they save him they just bounce. Why didn’t Towa ask, hey how do you know each other? Why isn’t she asking Kohaku and Hisui how she wound up demon hunting?

The whole purpose is to string viewers along with the mystery of what happened to inukag and who the mom is and imma clown, I’m not going to lie, but the writing is atrocious. When all questions are answered I’ll rewatch and enjoy. I love setsuna, she’s such an asshole. I love Towa and her idealistic manner that she got from having a perfect life. I’d take a bullet for Moroha. I even like riku so far. The characterization is good.

Everything else is terrible.

Please excuse me while I watch Jujutsu Kaisen because this 70’s Christopher Lloyd looking Dalmatian print motherfucker and Great Value Kakashi would never abandon their son. (Just repeatedly expose him to horrible trauma)

[bluerosesburnblue]

Alright, finished up the Re:Mind scenario and started Limit Cut (but been spoiled on the secret boss stuff, so there’s, like, no plot things I don’t know about now), so just... some assorted thoughts

Okay, seriously, I’m glad we’re getting a Xehanort side game because what the absolute FUCK is his timeline? Like, actually what the fuck is happening there? When Xehanort meets the Master of Masters, he has silver eyes. Which implies that this is pre-YMX time-travel Nort because Baby Nort in Scala also had silver eyes and YMX has gold. So you’d assume that this scene is between those points. But then Xehanort goes on about his memories and doing things that feel “familiar” and like he has to do them, which would make this post-YMX time-travel shenanigans. So what’s the deal? Were the gold eyes because YMX held a piece of Old Nort’s heart? But if that’s the case, when did Old Nort get gold eyes and why was Xehanort retconned into having naturally silver eyes? Why does he keep flipping eye colors???

I can see why the Luxord and Xigbar scene got cut because oh boy would that have been way too obvious to any KHUx player/Back Cover watcher what they were getting at

I’m so glad that they let Christopher Lloyd ham it up as Xehanort. No idea if Rutger Hauer’s performance was based on his own understanding of the character or a director’s decision, but it just wasn’t Xehanort. I’m sure he gave it his best, I really do, but he embodied a very different tone than every other Xehanort incarnation. Whatever the reason, I think Christopher Lloyd could be very good if Xehanort ever came back, though he was a bit soft for me. Add a little more force to his delivery and I think he’s set

Also on the voice acting, I’m SO GLAD that Haley fixed Vanitas. Holy shit. Not to knock anyone who liked KH3 vanilla’s Vanitas voice, but he sounded like... well, exactly that. A voice. I couldn’t take him seriously because he sounded like someone doing a very distracting, obviously fake voice. The new lines in Re:Mind are a perfect blend of the BBS Vanitas with just a tiny, tiny bit of gruffness and it’s the best he’s sounded yet. So much so that it was jarring when the original scene came in after the fight, but hey. Glad old Vani is back

The two points above lead me to believe that there was a voice direction issue in KH3 and either Re:Mind had a new director or they took feedback, which I appreciate

Did Lingering Will always have those dirt smears on him and I never noticed? I like them. Also liked the effect on the armor shattering. It was just cool to see

I picked the new playable characters every time they were offered just to try them out and... uh... wow it’s a trip to flip between a Level 99 Sora wielding the Ultima Weapon and literally everyone else. And also having different shortcuts. I only died as Kairi and I have no idea if that’s because Xehanort was just a tough fight or I’m very bad as her. She has a great playstyle though! I like how she closes distance, though her dodges are pretty stilted

I’ve seen people saying that Darkness being in Ven confirms the “Ven is Strelitzia’s killer” thing. It doesn’t. It could be a hint, but it’s not confirmation. Especially since Darkness is wandering free outside of Ven as of KHUx’s current updates. Nothing disproving that they’ve been swapping hosts and went from Strelitzia’s killer to wandering around helping Maleficent and then into Ven in what would be a future KHUx update

(I still think the fact that Brain wanted to bring up the Union Leader thing with Ephemer, specifically, seems to point to Skuld since she and Ephemer have a history that Brain knows about and if you found out that a friend’s friend was possibly a traitor, you’d warn them first. Not to mention that Player should not have been with the Dandelions and yet Skuld was the first person on site to save them, which possibly was a point of divergence in the “planned” timeline)

From Vanitas’s new lines, he may be Darkness. And yet, his old lines still indicate that he’s Ven’s darkness. Which got me thinking something wild. No real evidence for this yet, but for some reason I find myself wondering if these “monsters” of Darkness that the Master of Masters mentioned could be a hive mind of sorts. And perhaps they reproduce by planting seeds of Darkness in the hearts of others that “feed off” of the darkness that’s already in there. That would reconcile how Vanitas could be Ven’s “brother” crafted of his darkness, and yet also a separate consciousness

The Sea Salt Trio “reclaiming the Recuscant’s Sigil” was... really dumb. Really, Roxas? Being brought back to life wasn’t good enough? You need to take a magic X, too? You may have been bound to the Organization, but the symbol of your friendship was always the ice cream

Roxas having Reversal was a cute touch. Loved that

The fucking Daybreak Town history mural in Scala ad Caelum reached out and slapped me across the face as someone who’s played KHUx since release day. The way the “BREAK” lingers in the slides was like... ouch. Now make the final Keyblade War missions PLAYABLE so we can see the break!

I think it says something about me that my first thought when looking at the empty fountain was “cast Waterga” instead of “hit giant conspicuous objects surrounding fountain that you can lock onto”

There was so much good Riku+Mickey and Riku+Terra content and I’m just so glad that they remembered the other people Riku loves. The way he gets protective over the Replica body because it has “important memories” in it, which I can only imagine were Repliku’s memories of Namine... boy...

Repliku should’ve just taken the goddamn replica. I’m sorry, but the fact that he doesn’t is silly. They have Even! Even, who made them in the first place. You’re telling me that he couldn’t just make another? Or that no other Organization member dropped a replica body when they were defeated??? No less than six members had replica bodies. Obviously Xion kept hers, but that still leaves five that should’ve been there. None of them could be used for Namine? And if Repliku had taken the body that was already pre-programmed to house his heart, they could’ve had an extra fighter for the side of light. Like there’s just no good reason for Repliku to ditch the replica body for Namine unless they really needed to kill him off for RikuNami content

Riku deserved to have a new little brother as much as Sora and Kairi deserved their new siblings. At the very least, Repliku deserved to survive if they were going to bring him back into the plot for KH3

Bless the Guardians all fighting together, even if I would’ve liked Mickey, Aqua, and Xion to contribute a bit more than Reflect. Still, Lea and Aqua team attack with banter? Xion/Ven/Roxas team attack??? Terra/Riku team attack! Very good, this is exactly what the whole ending sequence should’ve been. All of the heroes engaging in weird team-ups with banter

I swear I felt like I was doing something wrong the entire Mickey sequence. He felt like he was making no progress! Why that mouse gotta be so slow!?

The detail of Sora and Kairi’s memories making up the feathers of their team attack! An attack called One Heart! That hug where they cradle each others’ heads! The fact that Sora was so on the ball healing me as Kairi because I sucked! Their hearts intertwining and them coming into being in each others’ arms in the Final World! That’s deep love, baby. Ain’t no drifting apart there

When Chirithy cries I cry. I’d die for that little guy. Even if that’s Ven’s Chirithy and my character from KHUx’s that I’m actually attached to is probably dead

We really got nothing extra about those KHUx ties, which is wild but also I guess understandable since the game’s still updating and we need to keep people playing it. More people would play it if the gameplay system was overhauled and I have a list of ways they could do it, but we all know that’s not gonna happen

Limit Cut definitely feels like it’s just an explanation for the Data Fights + Sequel Bait. So far I’ve beaten Repliku and tested out Luxord, which feels beatable once I get the pattern down enough to do it quickly and also don’t use Ultima Weapon because it just hits cards it isn’t supposed to. I... don’t think my strategy of “spam Rage Form and Ultimate Form to abuse i-frames until the magic bar recharges to heal” was the intended way to do that, but it worked

Also Invi’s robes are normal-colored in the Journal entry so I dunno WHAT’S up with the magenta color in the Secret Video! I also found it funny that the Journal describes all four of the Foretellers it lists as “wearing white robes” even though literally only Ira’s robe is white, Invi’s and Aced’s only have whitish-sections but are predominantly another color, and Gula’s has zero white at all. Goooooood job

[perspectiveartist]

Tagged by @essenceofspace !

1. Coke or Pepsi:

Coke, definitely. I don’t mind Pepsi and learned to tolerate it okay because that’s what my Mom likes best, but if you give me the choice I will always pick Coke.

2. Disney or Dreamworks:

They’ve both got some of my fave movies. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmaron and Prince of Egypt are beautiful movies. However, if I go by consistency of excellence, I’d probably go with Disney? But I don’t really have a preference in the way of “I’d rather watch one company over the other”. Dreamworks just seems to reeeeally fluctuate with quality.

3. Coffee or Tea:

I like both alright. I prefer iced coffee and bottled teas lol. I drink tea more than coffee, though. Coffee tends to make me have to shit PRONTO and sometimes when it doesn’t make me have to shit, I still end up like...kinda having an upset stomach? Which does not help my anxieties. So I drink it sometimes but I have to be in the mood and in my own home near a toilet to feel comfortable with it lol. Don’t take me out for coffee, I will get nothing except maybe a water :)

4. Books or Movies: I’m not really sure...I guess books just because it lets me imagine things the way I want them? But they both require a level of attention that I have a hard time maintaining these days. I wonder though if part of my loss of interest in books comes from my eyes getting worse. I haven’t read much since getting them, so it could help.

5. Windows or Mac: I don’t have a strong preference, really. I don’t do a lot of fiddling with my computers, so as long as they can run what I want them to run, I’m fine with them. My desktop is Windows, my laptop is Mac. I’d say my only complaint is how fucking expensive everything Apple is. :/ Wilhelm’s needed repaired for years now but I just can’t justify the expense.

6. DC or Marvel:

Marvel, definitely. There’s some DC stuff I like, but I tend to gravitate towards Marvel more. I’d say Batman and Teen Titans are an exception. But mostly Marvel for me.

7. X-box or Playstation:

Uhhh I don’t really know to be honest? I grew up in a Nintendo household so I’ve never really owned a Playstation or X-box until living with James. Kind of how I feel about computers, I guess. As long as it’s got games I want to play lol. I suppose Playstation probably caters to me a little better.

8. Dragon Age or Mass Effect:

Dragon Age. I haven’t really gotten to play Mass Effect yet, but space as a whole just doesn’t quite appeal to me as much? I do certainly love the alien races and seeing new environments is cool, but overall it just doesn’t hold the appeal to me that Dragon Age’s brand of fantasy does. I feel more creative with DA’s world.

9. Night Owl or Early Riser:

An unfortunate mix of both? I tend to stay up late and wake up early. I don’t really enjoy waking up early, my body just doesn’t leave me much of a choice.

10. Cards or Chess:

Cards. I always forget the rules to chess, card games are usually more straightforward for me.

11. Chocolate or Vanilla:

I assume we’re talking ice cream. Vanilla. For one, chocolate ice cream just rarely tastes like actual chocolate to me. Plus, you can customize vanilla however the hell you want without clashing flavors.

12. Vans or Converse:

Neither really. I pretty much just wear tennis shoes/running shoes/whatever the fuck you call them lol. New Balance is comfy. The shoes I’ve been wearing are New Balance and some kind of Dr. Scholl’s brand.

13. Lavellan, Trevelyan, Cadash, or Adaar:

Honestly, I’m not sure? My very first Inquisitor was Adaar, so I definitely have a soft spot for them and it was cool to play a new race. But I don’t have a total preference. I model my characters in DA to resemble/act like my characters I write. So I don’t view them as their race, just the character I stuck with that race.

14. Fluff or Angst:

I like both, man. Give me some seriously angsty shit followed by sad fluff. Give me happy fluff. Give me heartbreaking shit. GIVE.

15. Beach or Forest:

Forest. Beaches are great, don’t get me wrong. I enjoy them and I’ve been to a few on vacations when I was younger. But beaches are pretty much always hot unless you go north. And the heat and I are not on good terms. I’d say the downside of forests is they can be fucking humid, and humidity = mosquitoes.

16. Dogs or Cats:

I have a stronger preference towards cats. I’ve always loved them, grew up with them, etc. But I still love dogs and I’d like to have one someday. I’ve basically mentally adopted James’s family’s dog Jake. We’ve always snuggled together when we get the chance and he loves the attention. He just needs to be reminded that I am dainty and cannot be a chew toy sometimes xD

17. Clear Skies or Rain:

Hmm...I really don’t know here...Sometimes I really crave rain, but too much rain can be dreary because I start to feel cooped up. But too much sun can get tiring too because sometimes you just want it to be cooler. I guess it just kind of depends on the season.

18. Cooking or Eating Out:

Here’s the conundrum that ruins my life, aight. Aside from not having money, I can’t really eat out much. I fucking love restaurant food, even just fast food, but here’s the problem: I can’t stand eating in public 90% of the time because anxiety + phobia. I feel trapped and it’s rare that I can relax and properly eat a meal in a restaurant. But I also hate cooking. Which means I actually just eat a lot of junk food when left to my own devices lol. I did cook today though! I steamed some sugar peas and broccoli in teriyaki sauce. Low maintenance and yummy~

19. Spicy Food or Mild:

I can’t stand spicy food. It tends to upset my stomach more often than not. I eat food so blandly half the time you could mistake me for an old woman.

20. Halloween/Samhin or Solistice/Yule/Christmas:

Christmas holds the most sentimental value for me, but I don’t get excited for it like I used to. But I don’t really get excited for Halloween either. I like decorating for both, though, and seeing different decorations.

21. Little too cold or little too hot:

A little too cold. Being a little too hot sends me into anxiety sometimes (what doesn’t tbh) because being hot in general can upset my stomach. Winter’s my favorite for a reason.

22. Superpower

I wanna communicate with animals, Eliza Thornberry style. But I’d also like it to extend to insects and stuff? I’d never be alone.

23. Animation or Live Action:

Animation. It’s more expressive generally and you can do whatever you want with it with no worries about practical effects and the like.

24. Paragon or Renegade:

I would probably end up in the middle, maybe leaning more towards paragon? I prefer to be nice but sometimes it’s just not an option, man. You can’t please everyone.

25. Bath or Showers:

Showers, but it would be nice to have the option to take a bath sometimes. Unfortunately, our tub has a section cut out of it because the last tenant was disabled, so we can’t fill it :C

26. Team Cap or Team Ironman:

If this is about Civil War, I ain’t picking sides. I’m in Switzerland territory with the X-men.

27. Fantasy or Sci-Fi:

Fantasy, but both are good :3

28. Fav Quotes:

I don’t really keep faves, honestly. My preferences change too much. But one I cling to actually came from a dream of mine where I spoke to Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown lol. But it was meaningful and comforting.

"In all my years of travel, I've never met anyone in the past, present, or future whose path wasn't vastly important."

29. Youtube or Netflix:

Just depends if I’m on my computer or on the couch lol. I don’t use Netflix on my computer.

30. Harry Potter or Percy Jackson:

I haven’t read Percy Jackson and don’t really have an interest in it, so definitely Harry Potter.

31. When I Feel Accomplished:

Uhhh...I guess when I make something I’m proud of?

32. Star Wars or Star Trek:

I’m honestly not huge on either, but I guess I have more good associations with Star Wars because of the people around me.

33. Paperback Books or Hardback:

Hardback, I suppose.

34. A world without literature or music:

Uh...no. I’m not choosing that lol.

35. Who was the last person to make me laugh:

James, probably.

36. Sour or Sweet Candy:

Depends on what I’m in the mood for, honestly. I like sweet stuff but sometimes sour is just great.

37. Believe in aliens?:

Yeah I mean, the universe is too vast not to.

38. Dawn or Dusk:

Dusk, I think.

39. Piercings or Tattoos:

I don’t have either and I probably will never have either. I prefer tattoos on others, but piercings are fine.

40. Girls? Hot?:

Uh yeah man.

41. Snow or Fog:

Snooooow~

42. Sleep facing the wall or room:

I don’t have a real preference where I’m facing as much as whatever side of the bed I’m on.

43. TRC of AFTG:

Uhhh???

44. Horror or Drama:

Drama I guess? Just because horror often upsets me. But I’m not huge on either genre.

45. Orcarina of Time or Majora’s Mask:

Majora’s Mask. I feel it’s got more complexity and emotion to it. 

46. Living in nature or city:

I prefer kind of a medium? I don’t want to live in bumfuck nowhere but I don’t want to be in a city either.

47. Any addictions:

Art supplies ;A;

48. Languages:

English is my first language, I’m working on Spanish and German.

49. What music do I listen too:

Pretty much anything I end up liking? Limiting yourself to a genre is silly.

50. Fav mythical creature:

I’m not sure I have a favorite but I do have a soft spot for mermaids and centaurs.

51. Safe zone:

There really isn’t one, ever. There’s a downside to any locations or person.

52. First fandom:

Probably Pokemon? Either Pokemon or DBZ.

53. Cartoons or Adult Shows:

Animated anything :D As long as it’s good, I don’t give a fuck who the target audience is.

54. Current music:

Not listening to music right now.

55. Favorite starter?:

Like Pokemon? I have a nostalgic soft spot for Totodile. It was back before I could look up to see what the Pokemon would look like, so I had no idea my little Totodile would grow up to be a big badass Feraligatr and I freaking LOVED it. I feel the same way about Mudkip. Weirdly enough, I prefer to start with FIre types rather than Water.

56.  What would your witch’s familiar be?

Probably just a cat lol.