#are we really pulling the “ambition makes you a bad mom” card again? ESPECIALLY with the reveal of curlfeather??

[the-owl-tree]

"weight of his mother's ambitions" oh my god i can't take this seriously. i thought we were over this. they have one fucking conflict for this character and it involves dragging sparkpelt through the mud for some reason

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales Reviews! 3-5: Louie’s Eleven!

In my most anticipated ep of this batch, Louie’s Ocean’s Eleven esque heist gets derailed by his own ego and someone pulling a Die Hard while Donald finds love in an elevator living it up when he’s going down with the best Daisy in history. Romantic musical numbers, people being dicks, and suprise returns insure. Hey you kooky beatniks there’s gonna be a heist, tonnnniggghtttt under the cut. 

If the little intro blurb didn’t give it away, i’ve been waiting for this one all season, with the last two being okay but not amazing and a suprise treat respectivley. WIth Daisy debuting, a heist (a genre I love and need to watch more of) and the Cablleros, expectations were high... and met and exceded. Yeah while the show has disapointed me before (The Infernal Internship of Mark Beaks, which this episode is somehow a sequel to is the prime example. ) with an episode I was chomping at the bit for this one delivered.  The basic setup is as you’d expect: Donald, now having less parental obligations has gotten the Cablleros back together. It’s something Frank hinted at in the EW interview for this episode: That they wanted to explore just what Donald would do now he could ease up a bit. He’s not alone anymore: He trusts Scrooge again, He has Beakly to educate them and his sister to split parenting duties with and make up for lost time. He’s in a good place and has freedom for the first time in 10 years, almost 11... so what DOES he do with it? Up until now his life has been his kids: Sure his overproection of them and trying to get them away from Scrooge was more him projecting over his issues with Della and his childhood in general, but he still meant well on some level. Their his world, the thing he cares most about, and while the boys can be disprectful it’s been shown multiple times they truly love their adopted dad as much as their newly returned mom and Donald did an outstanding job raising them warts and all. What do you do when your life has been one thing for a good third of it?  It’s why I think him trying to get famous through his music makes a lot of sense: His college days and adventures were a happy time for him: hanging out with his best friends, doing something he truly loved, and doing something normal at the same time. So of course the idea of having them not only presumibly move to the area for this, so he has friends close again, and do something from a time he was truly happy... of course he’d jump on that.  But given our trio consists of a disaster area with horrible planning skills 90% of the time, a boisterous rooster, and a playboy Parrot, their plana mounts to “Go to rich people’s bathrooms and plkay and hope they don’t get thrown out”. Since that failed, Louie, being Louie steps in with a crooked contract (Which Donald relucntantly signs after Panchito has already forged his name) and an elaborate heist on tastemaker Emma Glamour’s annual party with the help of his 11: Louie himself, Dewey (More on him in a minute), one of the background characters, the cabs, webby, Huey (whose suprised to find out he just did a forgery), Gyro (who is TOTALLY not in just to test out his new headsets which TOTALLY don’t make your head go pop if you wear them too long) and Manny as his trump card.  But naturally this being a heist pastiche, things go wrong from the start: Turns out Glamour beefed up security with an old familiar face: Falcon Graves, who you may remember from infernal internship and was freaking awesome and kinda hot. He’s back, and Dewey’s understandably afraid of Graves spotting him given last time they met Dewey threw him off a roof.  Things naturally snowball from there: An attempt to have Donald grab a stage pass from Glamour’s assitant, Daisy, aka the reason everyone anticipated this episode so much including me, goes sideways because well Donald and he gets trapped in the elevator with her strapped together. Oh and she finds out he’s a party crasher here for his own plans. Great first meeting.  Meanwhile Jose and Panchito fail to get past the rest of security, Louie continues to undervalue Dewey and fails to schmooze Glamour, and oh yeah: Graves was pulling a Die Hard the entire time in a really nice twist I didn’t see coming. Graves brings in some familiar hired goons: The smashnikovs and Gabby McStabberson from the pilot, back again if in a minor role. The night is full of many happy returns, but we’ll get to the last suprise guest in a second. Meanwhile Donald bonds with Daisy as both feel ignored: Daisy is revealed to, in line with her charcter in general, be a budding fashion designer who wants her dress, the stunning green number that’s been circulating around, to get on the list and hoped by showing it to Glamour at the party and helping plan it, she’d throw her a bone. I REALLY like Daisy’s character here a LOT. She has Daisy’s empathy, love of fashion, with some added ambition and combat prowess, more on that in a second, while still being willing to call someone out if she has to, and even when she does so to Donald it is after she finds out he was gatecrashing her one shot at getting ahead in her dream career, calming down when she gets an understanding of his reasons and just how lonely he truly feels. Frank scraped together every good part of every version of daisy and left her old, horribly outdated and sexist “nagging girlfriend/wife from every sitcom that came decades after this character was created” characterization used at times dead and buried.  Speaking of Donald, the musical number was utterly beautiful, the clear highlight of the episode and wonderfully romantic, while also heartbreaking: and Donald not being listend to DOES really tie into his character for me: no one really has: Della and Scrooge flat out ignored his concerns about space travel, while the boys love him they will, with Huey being the outlier, ignore or dispresct him frequently. And even his two best friends bicker over their own directions for the bands while ignoring him up to the end, something I DO wish had gotten more focus, as do I wish the cabs had gotten just a touch more in general as their mostly off to the side. That being said I like this: besides being somewhat meta given donald’s spare use in season 1 and being only in about half of season 2, I like this: It shows that while he appears to take his family ignroing waht he wants constantly in stride inside he jsut wants SOMEONE to care about what he wants and needs, genuinely care. I mean “The Golden Spear” did show they TRY at times, with the cruise being an especially nice gesture, but most of the time they generally don’t think about donald when planning family outings or what not, it’s just one adventure after another with him left in the dust or fearing for his life. He’s a great adventuer, truly legendary.. but he dosen’t LIKE adventuering. He just wants someone who cares about what he wants.. and he’s found it in someone looking for the same and seeing not someone they love but don’t respect.. but a sweet kind man who just wants for someone to respect what he wants and genuinelyw ork at doing that. And he got it.  Before we get to the climax the other main plot, since both plots share equal time this ep really and are really just two halfs of the same main plot, the Dewey and Louie plot is a bit weaker. It’s not BAD but it is predictable, though it was nice to see Louie be the control freak and it makes sense: hustling what he’s good at so of course he wants to see his plan go through and get the glory... but he fails to be actually GOOD at heisting whicha lso makes sense: Louie’s good at manipulationa nd seeing angles.. but he’s so caught up in his own scheme, he can’t see them and is blind to the value of his own brother. While Deweey can be massively unehlpful and attention whorish, he does have a genuine knowledge of the partya nd Glamour that woudl’ve made things go faster, and it does fit his character enough not to be jaring and the ending of it, with Dewey providing a critical distraction AND getting on the list himself, whlie Louie saves his eleven and a huge fight with them, and daisy who proves every bit as badass and prone to bersekerr rages as her man, that’s a treat to see, is predictable, though the bit of Louie giving Dewey a new heist plan with his brother included and admitting he was wrong wa nice. It’s not bad, it just pales in comaprison to the donsy plot right next to it that’s so much fresher and more intersting.  However while the main brother conflict is mostly passable, the rest of the heist is wells et up and the ep as a whole shot up from good to great witht he climax, starting with a big, wonderful, and fucking hilarous reveal: Graves was after Glamour’s phone, which acesses her website and sold it off to the highest bidder.. and the second we find out that was his plan, it becomes obvious just whose coming back: Beaksy is back, to graves utter horror after the fiasco from last time, as he wants on the list. And while the minute graves mentioned he was selling off Emma’s phone I could tell Beaks was about to make his way in, the show did throw me a genuine , wonderful curveball: Emma is beaks mother. Given his mom is a cold and distant assholish tastemaker and “Coach Dad” apparently mocked his unatheltic son, it explains.. pretty much everything really. Graves is mortified and eventually just plans to say screw it and kill both for annoying him, another bit I like as it shows even a consumate professional can get fed up with the beaks family, understandably their Duckberg’s version of the Sapperstiens at this point, but Emma is saved by Daisy, who after Graves whaleson donald, returns the favor and beats the shit out of him. It twas glorious.  So things wrap up: everyone’s new faviorite couple takes turns telling Emma off who actually concedes to Daisy telling her someone needed to stand up to her, and puts her dress ont he list, graves is arressed by Detective Cabrera (to my utter delight, one last nice suprise) and the boys play their number.. they don’t get on the list because donald can’t sing, but Daisy is smitten and Donald likewise. Also beaks is squatted next to his mom whining like a petulant child because of course he is. All in all a great ending As you could tell I loved this ep. While again the main dewey and louie conflict was just kinda stock and predictable, the amount of energy and heart in the rest of the episode easily overrides it, and I was delighted both to see Graves come back and to see beaks suprise appearnce tying him to both of the episodes antagonists. Overall a well plotted fun romp despite it’s flaws and one of the highlights so far. An instant classic. As for where it ranks... 1. Quack Pack 2. Louie’s Eleven 3. Challenge of the Senior Junior Woodchucks! 4. The Lost Harp of MIrvana! 6. Double O Duck . HOpe you liked the review and if there’s any other episode from the first two seasons of the reboot or from the original, or from the disney afternoon or the animated marvel canon, just throw me a message or an ask. Later days.  Stray thoughts; 1. Huey’s bit was gold and I feel for the poor boy.  2. I was mildly disapointed the eleven mostly included exactly who you thought and Manny when we have a rather large supporitng cast to pull from. 

[josephkitchen0]

Quoting a Physicist...

January 2 Coming up with a title for this post was almost as hard as deciding to blog at all. Then I remembered a favorite quote, actually, it's a book title, from Richard Feynman, the physicist. He wrote "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" I recommend the book, and I would like to embrace the sentiment... because I really should care less what other people think. Far too much of my blog slow-down is a result of being concerned about criticism from certain people over what I write, don't write, overshare, and take interest in. There it is. I have grappled with remarks and accusations that directly admonish, accuse, ridicule, and criticize me and my social media presence. And it has just about shut me down completely... here, on FB, emotionally, physically. It's made a hard year (or three) even harder; quite crap, in fact. I have been introspective, and confounded, self-critical, embarrassed, and apologetic. And I have been miserable. And the thing is... as concerned and inward-looking as I have been, as much as I've worked to assess my values, efforts, narrative, presence, it occurs to me that the critics aren't here. The critics don't hang out with me, or know me... they aren't involved in our daily lives, and I am not calling on them to bail me out, or asking them to 'like' my posts, fight my battles, sing my praises. I've been waiting... waiting to see what shutting-up could yield, waiting to see if those critics would like me better, find me more worth their time and interest, if I just backed-off, sat back, made myself smaller. I can't deny it... I want to be liked and likable, I want to be successful, admirable, especially to the people I have liked and admired all of my life. But, it's no good trying to be someone else, hoping to be the kind of whatever that makes me appealing to them. It's no good not being me, however objectionable, loud, messy, weird, liberal, or sensitive people see me as being. Either I am the embodiment of my body, mind and soul, my interests, skills, and ambitions, or I am nothing. I have cared a great deal too much what other people think, and it's made me small and despondent, meager... my soul feels gaunt. And the critics? They're just people with their own bodies and souls, agendas, and ideals, and they're carrying on, living, believing what they do, and I am not stopping them. But I want to take back my will, and a sense of self-worth that is not so dependent on what other people think. In the time that I have been quieter, smaller, I have noticed that the people who do care, who are here, who can accept my good and bad parts, they see me. They aren't showing up out of obligation, or begrudgingly. They aren't asking me to be anyone else, act like someone else, be less than my own self. I used to still worry about what I could lose by showing my dance, singing my songs, being myself. I pay too much attention to the ones who don't like me... demonstrative, over-sharing, objectionable, loud, messy, weird, liberal, sensitive, clumsy, uncool me, and I want this to change. Time is running out, and I don't want to waste any more of it worrying what other people think... January 3 Our winter break has been sweet. And bittersweet. I miss so much of what, whom, we lost. I miss my Grandmother, terribly. "Terribly" is that adjective that we use, a figure of speech. But now, I think I know it better. The missing, the longing and sadness and deep grief I feel is dire and unspeakable, awful, and grave... it is terrible to feel so emotional, to have such a longing for what cannot be, can never be. I won't speak of it, cannot speak of it, but the truth is: I am inconsolable. And it's not much better with Mister Washburn Foo. And so, you see... our holidays, and liberties, company, the lights on the tree, the carols, and old movies, the spirit of Christmas has been sweet, but always with the unspeakable terribleness that I cannot seem to cope with. My Instagram page is all cats and sketchbooks, flowers in the garden, and an almost insatiable yearning to see beauty, to hold it, and feel it, and make any of it that I possibly can. January 4 January 5 January 6 He's a junior! Being more emotional than rational, I cannot understand how this is possible, already. I am sure if I would look at a calendar, add units, and count months, it would all make sense. But just going by my feelings, it seems so soon. He'll be starting a last semester of classes to pass the time, while he waits to hear from the school he hopes to transfer to, then he can be a math major, like he always wanted. January 7 The day after Christmas we set off a chain reaction that is, to do this day, sending shock waves through the Bird House... *Chango cannot retract his old man claws, and he made a tear in our bed sheet. *The tear grew, and made the sheet a total loss. *I decided to wash the mattress pad cover, while the sheets were off... and realized the foam pad was awful. Gross. etc *After 23 years, we decided that buying another foam pad was a waste, if we were only covering a horrible mattress. *We were reminded that our king bed is "eastern" and Costco only sells "western" and so we had to go to Ikea. *I fell deeply, spinally, horizontally in love with a mattress, and all of my economical and rational inhibitions were dashed! *Ikea promised next day delivery! *We had to race home and clean our room. *I got the harebrained notion to finally arrange our furniture the way I had been dreaming and imagining and plotting to do for seven years... and that entailed huge, huge, huge upheaval and lugging, which Geoff could only observe, because he's still in recovery from surgery. *Things and parts and stuff shifted from our room, out of the hall, down the stairs, and throughout the house, in preparation for removal of the old mattress, and the arrival of the really big, new one. *I chased dust bunnies from here to the curb, for what felt like days. *The new mattress (even without a real boxspring) is so ginormous, that we can hardly see the headboard or the footboard, and I was afraid of falling from the bed... but I love it. I love it. I love it. I think I am even getting stronger abs from launching myself up to get into it. *I love it. I love it. I love it. *There has been sleep. You guys, I am tearing up a little. Actual sleep. This was the little family meeting we were having about a very special visit, and Alex and Max having their wisdom teeth pulled. I got another harebrained idea, and each of them were about to have four wisdom teeth removed, because I thought it would be easier to get all done at once. Sorry, boys. The Very Special Visit! Max, Tamsyn, Maria, William, Alex, and Bambi. Tamsyn! From Virginia, no from Edinburgh, wait, no, from Paris, by way of India! It's been way too long since we last saw her. She's in graduate school, in Paris, and while on break, she came to California, and this moment... seeing these children together, it made my heart overflow, and feel so thankful and joyful. (Pinching myself, and gently reminding me, too, that I have been very fortunate.) January 8 This is my submission for whatever photo contest calls for "The Epitome of Ungulate Love and Adorableness." I will win that contest with this entry. No pictures of Alex and Max, home from the oral surgeon. No video, either. It was rough, and they were dear, sweet patients, that would have loved to spend a better quality of time with Tamsyn, while on their school break. January 10 Do you do this? Accommodate a pampered fluff nugget when he won't get off the bed, so you make the bed around his fluffy butt? Apparently, it's what I do. And then I take a picture and share it on Instagram. It's who I am, it's what I do. Maria was inspired by the birthday card Belinda gave me... from when I turned fifty. The original photograph was taken in Venice, 1952, by Georges Dambier, of Francoise Dambier. Maria's drawing... well, it just keeps getting better and better. And I guess it's not a surprise, considering how much she practices and studies. And the best part is... she enjoys it. Tamysn was such an easy going guest. And really, more like one of the family than a visitor. It was so nice to have the kind of visit where ordinary pastimes and relaxed time together was the order of each day. And she made us dinner! A fabulous Indian dinner. How good? So good that we had her make everything, again, the next night, so William could learn the recipes. (Still recovering, Alex opted to be out of the picture. But he did love the soft, vegetarian meal.) I miss her singing. So much. When we were neighbors, when she was like one of my own, we had the regular enjoyment of her singing. I think Chango remembered her, just at this moment. He is very hard of hearing, but if you could see how he watched her, and moved closer and closer, peering into her face... I know he was remembering her. And. I kept thinking, Mister Foo is going to walk over here, any minute. He loves music, and singing. And I kept waiting, thinking, Where is that Foo? It was only later, I recalled, he's gone. January 11 Tamsyn, and Mister Foo, and old blog posts... this is why I had to come back here, and post, again, so I would have more stories to look back on, more memories to revisit, plans to recall, moments to share. Years from now, I don't want to find that I was too shy to write something down, too conservative to discuss an idea, or self-conscious to post a photograph. I could do this in a paper journal, and leave it on a shelf, I know. But Tamsyn is in Paris, and so is Grant. And my Mom is in Oregon, and other family is in Wisconsin, and I have a friend in Massachusetts, others in Australia, one in England, another in Spain, and it's nice to stay in touch, to hear from them, and let them have some glimpses of how we are getting on. It was really dear finding old pictures, and details from ordinary days when we lived next door to Tamsyn, when we tried new things together, and shared adventures, even from other times when we had to say farewell. January 14 Maybe, Chickenblog will just become a Cat Blog, with loads of expressive cat photos. Maybe, I'll post artsy photographs of chamomile tea, the damp texture like a watercolor painting, and I'll add a few lines of obtuse poetry about dappled sunlight on winter mornings. Or I could write long essays about the nature of art, and ratastic expressionism in the modern era. Something. I think I will keep doing something, here. January 15 Cairo had it coming. Now I need to take care of laundry. It's okay if you didn't read all of this post, if you only skimmed through the pictures. It's okay if you think blogging is weird or obsessive, or pointless, but... please, no need to mention that to me. I am just trying to do good, where I can, to think about things, deeply, or just scratch the surface. The first sweet peas. I'm pinching myself. January 16 Quoting a Physicist... was originally posted by All About Chickens