#especially cause I feel like the younger versions were not great casting choices and it's worrying they could return haha

[awesomejustgotawesome]

Although it does suck that they have to bring the X-Men into the MCU using different realities and whatnot. I mean I understand they have to do something like this cause unfortunately there really isn't any actual way to put these characters in the MCU naturally.

Still I'm really hoping they recast the majority of them, it's still unclear whether they will or not and I find that annoying. Bringing back Kelsey kind of works considering the character is CGI now but for pretty much everyone else it'll simply be a downer if they keep the actors. Not that a lot of them didn't do a good job or anything, but not many were anywhere near perfect castings the way the MCU tend to do quite often. And I feel like regardless they all had their time with the Fox films already and the MCU should move on from that, move the characters who have such an extensive comic history forward instead of repeating the past.

But yeah Beast did look freaking awesome in this and I can't wait for more hahah.

[byfulcrums]

okay. i just watched transformers one yesterday (couldn't do this b4 because it was like 3am) and want to give it a review so here we go!!

the overall rating i would give this movie is a 9/10. there are some flaws, some that are noticeable and some that aren't, but the good overshadows the bad here, so. nine out of ten

and there are gonna be spoilers from now on so be careful and go watch the movie if you haven't!!!

The good parts of this movie

TF1 shows us the story of Cybertron before the war in great detail, something that isn't very often seen in the movies and series, as the most info we get about this (mostly of Optimus and Megatron's relationship) comes from things like flashbacks. It's just a very nice thing to see!

The graphics and animation of this movie are stunning. I couldn't watch it in a very good quality, since I was unable to go to the cinema like I'd previously planned, but it still looked incredible. The designs are super cool too. The amount of detail that went into this movie is amazing, and I also loved all of the cameos (I screamed when I saw Arcee)

The voice acting is also very good. I think that the casting for Megatron/D-16 was brillaint. The VA did an incredible job in playing his character. It was like I could feel what he was feeling. Chris Hemsworth's voice for Orion Pax also worked really well! It was a great choice to cast him for a younger version of Optimus Prime. I think that it works better as Orion than as Optimus, but that's just me being picky lol

Elita's and Bumblebee's VAs were amazing too! I talk more about OP and D-16 because they're the ones the movie is centered around, but the rest also were great :)) The other characters's voices help give them more character depth, as they change once the movie goes forward. I think that's beautiful. Unlike the Spanish version, the EN one has some VERY good casting (im salty)

The lore was done extremely well, especially with the limited time they had. The worldbuilding was great too!

I loved the designs of the places. Iacon was just,,,,, great. The flora of the surface looked beautiful

The fight scenes made me fall in love. The sequences were incredible. Fast, with lots of action, and very exciting and fun to watch. The race made me feel so many things too

The visuals are pretty much perfect basically

I love how they worked with OP and D-16's friendship too. In most universes, their characterizations are very different: OP is more serious, a little more introverted, and Megatron/D-16 is still angry over the unfair life he was given. In this version they give them more personality, as a way to show that they have changed a LOT by the time the war begins

They weren't always leaders. In here, Orion is a little bit of an idiot; he's reckless, he talks a lot, he gets into trouble. Surprisingly, D-16 appears to be quieter. He wants to follow the rules, to not cause too much trouble. These two things mean that D-16 often has to help Orion when he fucks up

Something I loved to see is how much of a rule breaker mech Orion is. A thing most people tend to foget is that (in every version I've seen, at least) Orion Pax also fought for freedom before he was a Prime. He's a "fuck the goverment" kind of guy, only less violent than, say, fucking Megatron

I was lowkey scared of what they would do with Orion. I didn't want them to give him only a Hot Rod type of personality and then give him too little depth. But i loved him!!! so much!!!!!!

I also believe that making Orion a miner too was a great choice and that more should do it from now on. It just speaks more to me to see a guy that wasn't a high or middle class person fighting against Megatron

Orion and D-16's relationship was amazingly done too. In this movie, they actually feel like friends. They do things for each other without the other having to ask, they banter, they hit each other playfully, they always have each other's back

From the little things like D-16 quietly helping Orion get out of trouble, Orion looking behind him to make sure D-16 is following him, to the bigger things, like Orion getting themselves in the race and them helping each other during it, Orion giving him the Decepticon insignia sticker, and D-16 being horrified when he realizes who he shot

The banter, the way they laugh, how they just seem so comfortable around the other, showcases how truly great their relationship was, how much they love each other. These two actually feel like friends

Their relationship also makes D-16's anger stand out more. From Orion's reactions, we can see that he was never a truly angry person. Every single time D-16 did something different, something that wasn't like him at all, the camera would show us Orion's face. D-16 wasn't always like this. Orion knows this more than anyone, and he is scared and worried for his friend

Orion and D-16's motivations and ideals are very clear throughout the entire movie. Orion wants to be something more, he knows that he's missing something, that something's wrong. D-16 follows the rules and makes sure to not get into trouble, and yet even though he just wants to live in peace, he still allows himself to get into so much trouble when it comes to Orion

Orion's ideals didn't change much. He knows everything is unfair. He wants to change it. He changes, too, but he's still the guy that craves freedom more than anything

D-16's dreams are shattered with one hit. Everything changes immediatly. Before, he wanted to stick to protocol, and now, he just wants to kill Sentinel Prime. He still wants freedom, though; that much hasn't changed

It hurts how understandable D-16's POV is. He's angry and he's hurt and he never wants to be afraid again. He begins to hate. And we know that he's not good, that he isn't doing the right things, but God. I understand him. I understand the people cheering when he kills Sentinel and I undertsand him. It's not right to kill an unarmed man begging for mercy, and from a tactical POV it is also not a good idea since he's the one making deals with the Quintessons and they could use him to put an end to the invasion, but D-16 is rightfully angry

It kills me how this shows the way rightful anger can be useful, but also deadly when it goes too far. D-16 stopped being right when his anger got the best of him, when he started killing civilains, when he let his best friend fall to his death

Optimus, after getting the Matrix, looks so... tired. His best friend is gone. He knows that peace will not last forever and that it might be because of Megatron's fault. The logical choice would be to kill Megatron where he stands, but he just. Can't do it. The day he becomes a god is the day he loses everything

I have more things to say but this is getting long, so we'll go with the rest now

The bad parts

I wasn't a fan of how Bee seemed to only be a comedic relief, and though I loved him a lot, I wish he was something more

I'm also not a big fan of how Elita was done in some parts. Sometimes she felt a lot like the stereotype of the badass girl character. She didn't do much and she seemed to be there just for there to be a Girl Character. Honestly, they should've made her more central to the plot, instead of just having her give a terrible pep talk (which was funny, I did like it, but it was not enough) and expect everyone to just roll with it

The plot could've been better. Not complaining, but it seemed odd that everything /just so happened/ to be where it was (Steve, Meg and OP being chucked 50 levels below ouut of nowhere)

The pacing felt too fast. D-16's downfall came too quickly. Not much to say about this

I think there should be less familiar faces in one place. It can make the world feel a little too small after a while

I also would've liked more scenes of Orion confronting Meg when he gets Violent TM, instead of just standing there. At least just.. trying too, even if he's not being listened to. I think it would've made it better

Plus I would've liked to see them struggling with fighting more. Make them a little less competent, make it look more like they're just improvising, and the movie would've been a lot better

I also wish we'd seen more anger from the other characters. More sadness. From both background characters, and the MCs (minus meg he's already angry)

I cant think anymore i am very tired. so this is it. but i have more opinions that i might be sharing later!!!

Overall

Very good movie. Not perfect, but still fantastic. Fell in love with literally everything

Voice acting: 9/10. The main cast was perfect!!

Visuals: 10/10

Plot: 7.5/10. We already knew what would happen, so it wasn't too much. However, the movie did some VERY cool things with the way it worked with the plot!

Characterization: This is kinda hard. Overall, I'd go with an 8/10. Meg, Sentinel, OP, Alpha Trion, etc are 9.5/10, but there are some other characterrs I didn't like so much, as I've stated before

Music: 7/10, the TFP soundtrack KILLED ME

[ghosthan]

what would you say are the differences between 616 Tony and MCU Tony? 🤔

Hi anon! Many people have talked about this and I'm certainly not the authority on the topic, but I’ll try my best to explain some of the major differences that I have noticed! Thank you for asking and I’m sorry it took me so long to answer you.

Important to note: neither version of Tony has had a totally consistent characterization. Depending on who you ask and which comics/movies they've consumed, they might give you a different answer here and not be wrong.

616 Tony is even harder to put into one box because his character has been around since Tales of Suspense in the 1950s. That’s a long time. Things have changed over time, under different writers, changing political atmospheres, and outside pop culture influence (including influence from the MCU, unfortunately, in recent years.) You get the picture. So I’ll be making some generalizations and try to be clear about which eras I’m speaking when I make these comparisons, but ultimately, if someone wanted to be contrarian, you could probably refute a lot of what I say here if you cherry pick canon. Which is fair enough! That’s sort of the fun of comics, there’s so much to choose from and something for everyone.

So here are some observations from me, under the ‘read more’.

1. Physical Appearance

This is sort of an easy one, but worth mentioning!

MCU Tony does not look like 616 Tony. RDJ is great, but he would not be most 616 fans’ casting choice on looks alone. MCU Tony is tan, a Malibu man, with brown hair and brown eyes, and RDJ has sort of round facial features (a funny sloped nose, big, round eyes, round forehead, not a particularly sharp or classically “superhero masculine” face.) As you may know, this lends well to certain fanworks and tropes, such as Tony having Bambi eyes.

Or Tiny Tony. He is not actually canonically small, but he's smaller in the MCU than in 616 and from what I can tell, a portion of fandom has latched onto that. He’s a grown man, but RDJ is pretty short, and of slighter build than 616 Tony. RDJ is 5′9, but they make him act in heels, and I believe his canon MCU height is 5′11. Another popular trope I’ve seen is shrinking Tony in fanfic/fanart for a dramatized height difference with Steve, making him weak or fragile; this is fine because everyone has their own taste, but for the official record, he’s a capable, strong guy! Especially in earlier stages of the MCU, in which he’s a bit younger. Tony isn’t just a brain; he carries out his plans with his own two hands! He builds his armor, he remodels his lab, he survives hand to hand combat when he doesn’t have the armor. Muscles!

616 Tony is 6′1 without armor and 6′6 in armor (making him taller than his 616 Steve counterpart in armor and very close to the same height out of armor!) 616 Tony is generally paler with black hair (sometimes the classic blue-black I love so much) and blue eyes, and it obviously depends on the artist, but he has a pretty typically ‘masculine’ face and build. Generally he is drawn with a squared jaw and a high bridged nose (such as in the Extremis storyline, or drawn by Marquez), but again, this varies from artist to artist! Here's some examples of 616 Tonys.

Wait, you might be saying, but I have seen comic panels where Tony has brown hair/brown eyes!

Yep. Due to a combination of forgetfulness, inconsistency, and the MCU bleeding into the general consciousness of the comics, sometimes Tony is randomly depicted in the image of RDJ, or if not in his image, at least visually inspired by the MCU-- hair color and style, eye color, dialogue, etc.

616 fans don’t typically love this; he’s very handsome when drawn this way, of course, (look at him!) But it isn’t really the same character.

Also, MCU Tony has (at least for some of his movies) a reactor built into his chest. While 616 Tony has, at times, been more or less physically connected/dependent to his tech, he doesn’t have the built in reactor (most generally speaking, there are times in comics when he temporarily has the tech built in, but this isn’t really the status quo.)

2. Relationship with parents/ family history

While it is definitely implied in the MCU that Howard was not a good father to Tony, (such as in Iron Man 2 when Tony says “You're talking about a man whose happiest day of his life was shipping me off to boarding school” and “He was cold, calculating, never told me he loved me, never even told me he liked me”), Tony has a different sort of attitude toward Howard in MCU than in 616. It’s kind of weird, and hard to discuss. To me, it seems implied that MCU Howard was emotionally abusive to Tony based on what Tony does say about his childhood, and yet, the films kind of randomly give Howard weird moments of “Well, he tried his best and deep down he loved me the whole time!” forgiveness. MCU has a Howard kink and I'm very cringe-face emoji about it.

For example, Iron Man 2 shows that old film reel of Howard talking about how Tony is the greatest thing he ever created, and in Endgame, when Tony goes back in time, he meets Howard and has a very weird interaction with him in which Howard declares he would do anything for his son, (to his deeply damaged son who is a new father himself.) Yet, for all his talk, it's his actions that speak, and his actions left Tony damaged, traumatized, and emotionally inept at forming healthy relationships. So.

Sorry. I’m a little bitter. I'm just uncomfortable with how they sort of set up an abuse history but then treated it kind of lightly and Howard gets off the hook as "well, he tried his best" without really acknowledging the hurt he caused.

Avengers: Endgame 2019

I won't go super in depth into the abuse stuff because it's a little touchy and could take up a lot of this post. But.

I’m not against any reconciliation and I do appreciate the fact that a lot of times, victims of abuse feel a desire to forgive and reconnect with their abuser-- my issue with the MCU depiction of Tony and Howard is that Tony never really gets the vindication of his abuse being recognized for what it was before he forgives Howard. To me, that’s not forgiveness as kind of... gaslighting himself that it wasn't as bad as he remembered his own experience being, because of a sense of nostalgia and grief. It’s not the same, and I have issues with it.

However, a lot of my opinion is based on subtext and it is just my opinion; with depictions of abuse, different people are going to react differently, and other people may have found these scenes touching and gotten something positive out of them, and that's totally fine too!

It’s also a bit difficult to talk about Tony’s relationship with Howard in 616, for a few reasons: shifting timelines, lots of canon that I have not read all of, and the fact that it really is difficult to sum up such a complicated relationship.

Right off the bat, I’ll address the basics. I used the same scene in another ask, and I think it's frequently cited in any meta regarding Howard, but in Iron Man Vol. 1, we see more into Tony’s childhood and see Howard verbally abusing his family, drunk, at the dinner table.

Iron Man Vol. 1 #285

We get this scene with adult Tony’s retrospective commentary on how his own issues that he blamed himself for were actually a cycle starting with his father, the insecurity and abuse and alcohol, and that he realizes how much this has influenced him. Both MCU Tony and 616 Tony have some form of “stop the cycle of shame” arcs, but I don’t really see how this works narratively in the MCU because Tony makes excuses for Howard and continues to blame himself for a lot of his own personal struggles, whereas I think there’s just a bit more nuance in 616.

But uh. This isn’t totally true, and in recent years, things got real weird. I choose to ignore this chapter of canon, but in the Dan Slott run, Tony Stark: Iron Man, Tony’s whole backstory gets imploded. For one thing, the little of Tony’s childhood it shows in a flashback is uh. Uh. Well, it’s certainly out of character compared with previous 616 material, depicting Tony as an overly confident poor sport.

Basically, Tony is adopted. Tony has an evil brother. Tony’s biological parents make an appearance, as do his ‘classic’ parents, Howard and Maria. It’s just weird. It’s kind of out there. I’m honestly not a huge fan of this and ignore a lot of it, but it is certainly a difference between MCU and 616.

3. Personality

I’m going to be very general. Both Tony’s have an outer self which they present to the public and an inner self, but they’re a bit different. Both Tony’s have struggled with self loathing, but I think MCU Tony’s actual self worth is a bit higher, even just at some points in time. Even if his ego is part of his facade, I think he does believe some amount of the “I’m awesome”, even if just when it applies to his own work/inventions/saving people. Not to say that these moments of fluctuating self esteem make him egotistical, but this combined with his egotistical act and snarky, non-stop sassy dialogue, he’s quite different in general personality from 616 Tony, who is much more reserved.

Some more recent iterations of 616 Tony have been adapted to reflect the snark of the MCU, but he’s not so snarky and he tends to approach things more seriously. This is not a dis on MCU Tony; I think MCU Tony uses false ego and excessive sassy jokes as a means to deflect and control, which I think is very interesting and it’s nice to see this explored more in depth in fic where you get to see the thought process behind the bravado. MCU Tony is a partier, a good times guy, especially during Iron Man 2, in which he really does disregard consequences to have fun (driving his race car, partying drunk in his suit, letting pretty  girls play with the armor, shooting off repulsor blasts for fun in a crowded room); I’m not bashing MCU Tony-- I think he had psychologically understandable reasons for behaving this way, the man was dying-- but 616 Tony really doesn’t act this way generally, and I think it’s a personality difference more than a difference of one being “better.”

616 Tony handles his stress differently, and they just have different psychological patterns, I think. I’m coming up kind of blank trying to think of a good comparable 616 arc, (sorry, I’m brain dead) but a less-than-perfect  example might be Tony’s brain delete arc; he’s “dying”, like in Iron Man 2 he  knows his expiration date, (circumstances are quite  a bit different), but he throws himself more into work, into a cause, and as he really fall apart, we  see him spiral into self doubt, remorse, fear, and insecurity, sort of falling into  himself with lots of manly tears and calling himself pathetic.

(Some things happen in this arc that a lot of people find Gross. I also find these events gross. But. I don’t count the sex in “World’s Most Wanted” as partying to cope with personal mortality, because I think both character involved are in “end of the world” mode, and it’s more seeking intimacy for comfort than partying to numb the hurt. Does this distinction make sense? No? Perfect, moving on.) 616 Tony is generally much more humble.

Whereas MCU Tony, I think, tries to outrun those feelings via parties or making dozens of new suits, or seeking comfort by comforting others! Gifting things to people, building things for people, highly personalized individual living quarters, teaching Nebula games and trying to show her a fun time when they were in peril together.

They have some traits in common, for sure! But canon being inconsistent both in the MCU and in 616, my observations aren’t the rule, because I’m kind of cherry picking and going based on limited memory. But off the top of my head, they’re both extravagant gift givers! Recall Tony gifting Pepper the giant bunny in Iron Man 3, and compare this with Tony carrying a mile high pile of Christmas gifts after shopping with Rumiko in Iron Man Vol. #3.

I would say that while both Tony Starks are considered humanitarians, this is much more fleshed out and supported by canon in 616. Some examples of his philanthropy in the MCU: Tony makes charitable donations of art and money, Tony has an organization which provides disaster relief/cleanup which is referenced in Spider-Man Homecoming, Tony has an MIT grant for students and staff members. But to be honest, a lot of his MCU philanthropy is only mentioned in passing, or is largely handled by other people on his behalf and on his dollar.

In 616, we see Tony using charity almost as a means of therapy: it’s something he does very privately, not in the public eye (at least, not always), and it’s something deeply personal to him. One example that immediately comes to mind is Tony’s home for disadvantaged girls in Iron Man Vol. 3, and we see scenes of Tony basically driving the streets at night, picking up underage prostitutes, feeding them and listening to their stories before bringing them to a home he’s established where he knows all the residents, and provides educational opportunities and protection.

Another more recent example in canon that the Tony fandom loves is that Tony canonically holds babies at an orphanage. Sorry I don’t have panels for all of this, this section got long and I have been working on answering this ask in a very scattered way for a very long time.

Both Tony’s are romantics, I literally could write a whole other post about their canon love life similarities and differences, but I will briefly say that while MCU Tony does the long on and off, and eventual ultimate commitment, to Pepper Potts, 616 Tony is a serial monogamist; he is always falling in love, and he’s definitely not a playboy, but the hero-ing, self loathing, and lifestyle make it very hard for him to keep anyone in his life, and most of his partners fuck his life up and betray him. Needless to say, 616 Tony is not married, and certainly not to Pepper Potts.

Oh, and I guess this is so obvious I almost forgot to include it, but a huge similarity between both iterations of Tony is that they both constantly use their own life as a bargaining chip, and will pretty much die for anything. Or be the bad guy for a good reason (at least, in his own mind... see Civil War, or Hickmanvengers; 616 Tony, especially, does not shy away from making the hard decisions, and this leads to a lot of guilt and tension in his  relationships-- often with Steve because 616 Steve/Tony angst fans are well fed, I guess)

Remember that time Tony had Steve’s mind wiped because Tony felt that Steve’s inflexible morality might hinder the Illuminati’s ability to save the world? And it eats Tony up inside and erupts into a homicidal fight when Steve finally gets his memory back? Me too.

Tony Stark as a character is defined by sacrifice, both of his own life but also of his own happiness and reputation and conscience, I think, in a lot of ways, and we see this in many universes. I could go on about Tony’s propensity for sacrifice in the less obvious ways, because I think in terms of heroic sacrifice, Tony has done a lot that other heroes wouldn’t be able to do because of moral inflexibility and conflicting philosophical schools of thought; Tony really is the “whatever it takes” type, and often believes the ends justify the means if he deems a threat worse than the potential wrong that could be done in preventing the threat. We see this a little bit in the MCU in the creation of Ultron, and in Civil War with the Accords. But there’s a whole lot more going on there I don’t want to get into.

4. Alcohol

MCU Tony’s alcoholism is never really explicitly explored. He is shown drinking in Iron Man 1, and in Iron Man 2 he drinks a lot and makes a fool of himself publicly, but MCU Tony doesn’t get any specific narrative arc focused on his drinking, and if I recall correctly, I don’t think he ever refers to his drinking as alcoholism in the movies? Also, while his binge drinking and embarrassing behaviors ostensibly stop after the events of Iron Man 2, he is shown drinking on screen at least one other time after that which I can remember, and it wasn’t a “falling off the wagon” moment, and an alcoholic in recovery such as 616 Tony would not take a drink casually. This article sheds a little light on some decisions made about Tony and alcohol in the MCU.

Alcoholism is a huge part of 616 Tony’s personality, which I went a bit more into depth about in this post, so I won’t repeat myself too much.

5. Their relationships with the Iron Man armor

A few points here: MCU Tony is famous for the “I am Iron Man” line being repeated throughout the franchise after he blows his own secret in the end of the first movie. MCU Tony sees himself as one with Iron Man, and the suit is the tech that enables him to be this version of himself. He sees Tony Stark and Iron Man as inextricable: you cannot separate them, and his identity is public. He, as Tony Stark, is an Avenger.

You may remember MCU Tony’s induction into the Avengers; in Iron Man 2, Nick Fury is forming the Avengers and tasks the Black Widow with going undercover to assess Tony to be a part of a hypothetical initiative. “Iron Man yes, Tony Stark no” and the comments about Tony as a narcissist may be funny, but the fact is, the snark and erratic personality of MCU Tony at the time of the formation of the Avengers in the movies is not at all like the Tony of the comics, at the time of the Avengers being formed. 

In 616, things are quite a bit different! Tony invents the Iron man armor to save himself (like in the MCU) and uses it for hero-ing, but in secret. He works very hard to protect his identity as Iron Man, and for a long time, as far as the world is concerned, Iron man is a mystery man piloting armor built by Tony, hired as Tony’s personal body guard, (hence the 616 Steve/Tony fandom’s proclivity for identity porn as a trope!) When the Avengers form, Iron Man is the Avenger, close friends with the Avengers, (particularly Steve!) and Tony Stark is just the benefactor of the Avengers, providing them with a place to live and finances with which to operate.

In the very early days, Tony did not have the “reactor” like in the MCU, but his chest plate did keep him alive, leading to some very dramatic shots of Tony charging up using a wall socket, lamenting the plight of a secret hero.

616 Tony, generally, and especially in some of these earlier comics, was quite reserved, rather serious, and very angsty, (in private of course.) He may be wealthy, but speaking generally, he’s much less ostentatious than MCU Tony, less of a show off, less into flashy things and grand gestures. Of course, this isn’t always true in the comics, and some iterations of Tony are more like this than others, but MCU Tony is showier, sillier, and more of a fun-times guy. Any MCU fan would find those panels quite contrary to the Tony Stark you know:

Iron Man 1

Iron Man 2

I think I would say that while MCU Tony sees himself and the Iron Man identity and the  armor as all being inextricably connected, we see a bit more compartmentalization with 616 Tony, who pretends that the armor is a whole separate person for years when his identity was private, and we see instances in older and newer comics, in which Tony  is uncomfortable with some aspect of himself as Iron Man (for instance, during the second drinking arc, Tony temporarily swears off being Iron Man entirely, or for another example, when Tony is in a comma and Tony AI exists during Secret Empire, Tony “lives” in the Iron Man suit, and I think this could be interpreted as a meta parallel to Steve during this arc; Steve has had some core aspect of his character inverted, Captain America becoming Captain Hydra, so Tony experiences a similar inversion-- Tony Stark and Iron Man are forcibly merged, in a way that Tony seems deeply uncomfortable with, if his digital drinking relapse is any indication. But I digress; sorry for the tangent.)

Okay this post is inexcusable long, and very, very tangential, and I don’t feel like I’ve really covered everything I wanted to. But it has been sitting in my inbox for too long and if I don’t post it now I never will, so I hope this long, rambling thing has been a little bit helpful to you! Thank you so much for asking, I had a lot of fun rambling about this.

If you want to read a similar post, but well written and organized, with other insights, this post by Sineala answers a similar question!

[ask-the-twst-girls]

Interactions with the twst!girls Part 1: Rosia Rosehearts

Quick note: I decided to start this series just to clarify how the muses in this blog in would interact with their fellow NRC students, or at least the core cast. This list will be rather long so I will be making this a series. This will be rather long, but anyway, Let's get Started!

Rosia Rosehearts

General Headcanons

Being a 2nd-year transfer from Golden Crown University (Girls version of RSA), Rosia was very off-spoken and polite when she first entered NRC.

Her concerning nature has basically caused everyone to see her as either as an older sister or a Mom-figure, so she's used to it.

In her opinion, everyone in her dorm is her family and she does her best to look out for everyone. Especially as a 3rd-year

Her Unique Magic is pretty handy and she can play therapist when she needs to. She doesn't do it all the time though and in Heartslaybul, it's basically an unspoken rule that if something is wrong, or you have a problem, you go to Rosia.

Heartslaybul Relations

We'll start with Riddle since he's practically king here (and it's his B-Day LOL).

Rosia and Riddle are blood-related as Cousins, so they are very close. Riddle doesn't like it when Rosia coddles her too much, so she knows the boundaries.

Only when they are behind closed doors is she allowed to hug him, give him treats or whatever she normally does when it's just the two of them.

Rosia is extremely protective of Riddle, since she knows first-hand how bad his side of the family is

Alright, next we'll go to Trey. Rosia knows him because he's friends with Riddle. She often plays messenger because of the "incident" that happened when Riddle and Trey were kids (i.e: getting caught by Riddle's mother)

As a result, if Trey has anything he wants to give Riddle, it's usually through Rosia.

Between the two of them, Rosia sees him as a brother, almost. She's glad that he's also worried about Riddle and that she doesn't have to bear that burden alone.

Loves it when he bakes Pear cakes, one of her favorite treats.

Alrighty, with Cater, I will warn you ahead of time that there is Canon x OC content ahead, so if you don't want to hear it, I suggest you move on.

Cater basically fell in love with Rosia at first sight. He claimed that he reminded her of Roselia, the painting mentioned in the game. Of course, it took a while for Rosia to feel the same way about Cater, as she wasn't one normally for Romance.

During her first (2nd-year) year in NRC, she treated Cater like a brother. However, when she entered her third year, it wasn't long before she started to have some feelings for him.

Despite his phone addiction, she still found a way to like him. She does encourage Cater to take a few minutes away from his phone, but it doesn't always work. It doesn't bother her though, as he's pretty open about what he does.

Doesn't mind whenever he wants to post selfies of their activities.

When they announced they were dating, it took Trey holding Riddle back to keep him from beheading Cater on the spot. I mean, this is his cousin we're talking about XD

He eventually got used to it, with some help from Rosia.

Now onto the Idiot duo. Rosia refers to Ace and Deuce as the "Dorm Brothers" as to her, they have a pretty brotherly rivalry. Ergo "Dorm Brothers".

No matter how many times Ace tried to remind her that he had an older brother, Rosia is still pretty set on it.

She seems particularly worried about the mischief they get into. Not because of the dorm's reputation, but mostly because she doesn't want Riddle to bust a vein yelling at them.

Ace is rather annoyed by Rosia and her worrying but Deuce respects her a lot. Mostly because she's an upper-classman.

Savannaclaw Relations

Alright, let's move on to Savannaclaw. In general, Rosia tends to stay away from there, due to the unsavory nature of many of the Beastmen (not saying they're perverts but what do you expect from a bunch of rowdy delinquents?)

With Leona, Rosia doesn't like how lazy he is. She has come across him napping a few times or just slacking off in general.

She will scold him whenever he is overworking Ruggie or not respecting him. She doesn't even flinch whenever he yells back at her.

Her Secret: Whenever he gets into an unreasonable mood, she always imagines him as her aunt (Riddle's mother) and is able to stay calm, as opposed to crying or running away like some of the other girls have.

Leona always calls her the "Nagging Red-Head" and claims that she's worse then Riddle, which she doesn't care about.

For her, it's on sight and she won't hesitate to remind Leona to get his ass to class or even do more to help Ruggie. She dislikes Slackers in general and no insults are enough to get through to her.

With Ruggie, Rosia will not hesitate to help him if she sees that he needs it. Especially if it has to do with Leona. After all, whenever she sees the poor guy struggling, she can't help it.

Will sometimes give Ruggie homemade donuts made by Trey to help his mood. Even when Trey doesn't bake, Rosia will buy him some from the store or just any treat to ease his mind.

Will often offer advice on how to deal with Leona (based on personal experience) or tips on a system to help keep his room neater.

Ruggie sees her as an older sister (like a lot of the other students) and appreciates her efforts to help. Even if it doesn't look very manly, at least there's donuts in it.

Rosia is the same way with Taai, as she sees them both as one and the same.

Since Taai struggled with being the only girl in Savannaclaw and Leona rejected her as a member of the Magift Club, Rosia was more then happy to play a part in the Female Team.

Since then, Rosia is happy to see Taai more confident and will help if the situation calls for it.

With Jack, Rosia heard through the grapevine that he had a past with Vil and their friendship started when she started asking him for advice (reasons will become relevant later)

Jack has heard about her from Taai and Ruggie and even saw her helping students on occasion. Seeing her also scold trouble-making students for causing disturbances, even when they retaliated also bought his respect.

He respects her as an Upper-classman, a girl and even a disciplinarian (since he saw her from the incident earlier)

Rosia in turn is secretly in love with Jack's Fluffy tail. (It's Fuzzy! What can I say!!!??) One of her secret desires is to pet it one time, but she knows Jack wouldn't like it, so she refrains. After all, you gotta respect boundaries

Octavinelle Relations

Rosia is very well aware of the rumors surrounding the Azul and the Tweels and after seeing first-hand the experience that her fellow dorm members (such as Ace and Deuce) go through when they sign a contract, then she knows better then to fall into the same trap.

Azul sees her an a potential client (like he does with a lot of the students) and does his dangdest to get Rosia to sign a contract. Thankfully, the red-head is too smart for that.

He's kinda jealous of her Unique Magic and the effect it has on People. As such, he aspires to have that ability in order to calm agitated people into signing contracts (convincing, amirite?)

Sadly, he has to bide his time. After all, some Roses have Thorns

Jade simply respects Rosia and her choice not to sign a contract. After all, it's her loss.

He admires her ability to stay calm in difficult situations that most people would be freaking out in. He wondered at first if that was the same with all girls, but later experiences proved to be a no to his answer

Rosia in turn admires how stoic Jade can be and sometimes remarks that it's almost as if he is a butler (*cough* Sebastian *cough*).

Even though Azul has asked him to use his Unique Magic to try and get his hands on Rosia's deepest, darkest secret, he refuses. After all, he only gets one shot at using his U.M. If he were to use it on her, then it has to be something good.

With Floyd, Rosia is able to navigate his mood swings. Since her Unique Magic involves emotions, then this is right up her ally.

She is often very gentle whenever Floyd is in a good mood. Afterall, she'd be doing Azul and Jade a disservice if she upset him in any way. And besides, if Floyd is happy, then Riddle is happy (LOL)

Floyd finds some of the songs that she hums at times very cheerful and asks her to teach her some of the words, which she happily obliges to.

Helps his mood a great deal when he hums them while at work in the lounge, even if it confuses the shit out of Azul and Jade.

With Scylla, Rosia treats her like a little sister. She also makes sure to heck that Azul and the Tweels don't torture her in any way. After all, she's one of the younger students.

Rosia will also scold them if Scylla complains to her about working overtime, as she's not a huge fan of child labor laws.

Scylla likes hanging out in Heartslaybul and is already good friends with Deuce, so Rosia isn't surprised whenever she comes over.

Scarabia Relations

Rosia is generally very respectful of Students form Scarabia. She can relate to their problem-solving abilities and their knack for staying calm in hard situations.

With Kalim, the biggest ray of sunshine in this school, Rosia gets the impression that he's too pure for this world. Heck, she's surprised that he even got into NRC to begin with.

As much as she likes Kalim, she feels he's better off in RSA, since he doesn't even seem like the type of student to attend NRC. But she doesn't say anything out loud. It's partially out of worry for him and concern for Jamil.

Other then that, she is able to tolerate his extrovert nature and is able to keep up with his eager banter.

Kalim himself likes Rosia a lot and sees her like an older sister. He enjoys being around her and always listens whenever she gives him advice. Even if he forgets it half the time.

With Jamil, Rosia is able to sympathize with his position with Kalim. In her own way, she does worry and is willing to listen to him rant about his dislike of Kalim.

You would think that this makes her interacting with Kalim, hard, but it doesn't. Rosia is able to tell that these are only emotions Jamil is feeling and that's what's leading him to think about this. She fully supports his ambition to travel the world upon graduation.

Jamil won't admit it, but he appreciates Rosia worrying and always accepts her offers to take a step back to address his emotions to her.

With Shi and Amee, they see Rosia as an Obstacle. With their own ambitions on getting closer to Jamil and Kalim, they think that Rosia is trying to one-up them.

As such, they regard her with hostility and often avoid her at all chances. Mostly because she's an upper-classman and she could get them into trouble. Plus, they aren't always in the mood to hear her scold them.

With Sahara, Rosia often checks up on her, seeing as Sahara is related to Briar, who is a member of Trad. Dance club.

Even though it's for Briar, Sahara can get easily annoyed by Rosia's probing and asking. Even so, she doesn't hesitate to admit anything she is asked about, mostly because she's afraid Briar will come after her later.

Pomefiore Relations

With Pomefiore, Rosia is well-acquainted with many female students from that dorm, as some of them are in Trad. Dancing Club, or she's worked them on some of the projects Vil has asked her assistance on.

This is where Jack's advice on dealing with Vil comes in handy, as Vil and Rosia have a very love/hate relationship. Rosia isn't too keen on dealing with famous people. Mostly because popularity isn't something she's too into.

She does admire Vil's ability to act and perform, but his strict working style kinda puts her off. With him criticizing people left and right, she doesn't know how people are still confident afterwards.

Vil in turn has heard about Rosia and her calm nature. From afar, he doesn't think she's much to look at, but he has to admit she knows how to calm a room down.

When Trad. Dancing was struggling to find a place to meet, he was the one who stepped forward to offer Pomefiore's ballroom, but on one condition: That Rosia's club would assist the Movie Appreciation club when they needed extra people. After all, you can't go wrong when you hire dancers, amirite?

With Rook, Rosia is very very very wary. With some of the tales she's heard from Pomefiore girls, she's wondering what Rook's true motives are.

Even with Rook being polite with her, Rosia does her best to be polite, though she can't help but feel secretly unsettled.

Rook in turn admires Rosia for her level-headed nature. He often vocally admires her when he sees her say or do something. Vil sometimes questions whether he has a crush on her or not.

With Epel, Rosia worries about him a lot. After all, with Vil's strict nature and Rook's stalker tendencies, how has he not gone insane?

Epel does appreciate it when Rosia stands up for Vil and scolds him for all the tough things he's put him through. After all, you can't expect a country boy like Epel to know Fancy Folk talk.

Rosia doesn't stop Epel when he runs from his duties, but she doesn't help him either. In her opinion, it's out of her hands and she's not going to get involved.

With Annabelle, Rosia has worked alongside her when Trad. Dancing volunteers for Vil's Projects in his club. She's admires Annabelle's sewing skills and is open to learn so that she can fix torn clothes in Heartslaybul.

Annabelle likes Rosia as well and respects her an an upper-classman. She also secretly asks Rosia for dance lessons, as she is very clumsy when it comes to dancing and doesn't want to embarrass herself in front of her dormmates.

Unlike her younger sister, Danielle is a different case. Haughty and dismissive, Danielle often looks down on people she deems unfit to be students of NRC and Rosia just so happens to be one of those people.

Even with someone as crude as Danielle looking down on her, Rosia is still able to hold her own against her and even put her in her place a few times.

As such, Danielle dislikes her and tends to either avoid her, or talk crap about Rosia, even when she can't come up with any truthful dirt to spread on her.

Ignihyde Relations

Rosia doesn't talk much to any of the Ignihyde students, as they are normally shut away in their dorm and dislike any social interaction. While she can understand their case of social anxiety, she does worry about their health and mental well-being.

Rosia hardly interacts with Idia, but when she does, she makes it a point to ask how he's doing. Since Idia hardly makes any public appearances, even at dorm meetings, Rosia often finds herself playing messenger, delivering important papers that Riddle would like to give Idia if he didn't have a case of Anthropophobia (which he might have. I dunno???)

Idia himself sees her as a "Normie" as he often calls many other students. He wants to get annoyed at the fact that Rosia is even trying to interact with him, but with her Unique magic on sometimes, he just can't.

All he can do is resign himself to the fact that if you're not there in person, then a messenger is gonna come. So for now, he just puts up with Rosia's efforts and carries on with life.

Ortho is the only Ignihyde student that Rosia is close with. She adores him and is very sisterly to him whenever they cross paths.

Rosia can sympathize with Ortho's frustration over Idia and his refusal to leave his room. All she can do is explain that some people just don't like social interaction and that it's hard for them to deal with it.

Unlike what she does with other students, Rosia doesn't confront Idia, because she knows that it won't do any good. To her, it works on some people, but not on others. All she can do is just be polite and carry on.

With Clotho, Rosia worries greatly for her. Since Clotho came from an abusive household, Rosia understands all too well the troubles of strict parenting.

She's glad Laechesis is around to correct Clotho on behavioral issues, but will jump in and help if the Fate of the Past isn't around to help out.

Laechesis isn't around at School much, so Rosia has barely seen her, much less interacted with her. But the one or two times they have, Rosia is pleasantly surprised to see that she's not as introverted as her dorm members.

Laechesis in turn appreciates Rosia's help on Clotho and her issues, even if she doesn't show it.

With Atropes, Rosia knows her as Briar's younger sister. Not only that, but she pities the Fate of the Future because of all that she went through in the span of 2 years in NRC.

From getting your hair turned into some weird fiery form to getting both your legs melted off, it's a wonder that Atropes is still sane. If you can even call it that.

Rosia finds herself puzzled at Atropes' trolling nature. From Rickrolling the Academy to sending weird memes to random students, she doesn't understand it.

Atropes herself likes to keep Rosia guessing. After all, what fun is it if it's not trolling?

Diasomnia Relations

Like Ignihyde, Rosia hasn't seen much of Diasomnia, even of it's leader. But she's still respectful towards them, as she knows they are a feared dorm.

When Rosia first met Malleus, she could easily tell that with his Fae Heritage and reputation, he's one of the more famous students. As such, she's polite to him at every chance meeting.

She's not scared or put off by him, but she still gives him his space, as she can tell that he's often off in his own world, something she's learned not to disturb.

But when he's up to talk, she's happy to lend an ear. Even if it's him talking about gargoyles and his Gao Gao Dragon-kun. She thinks it's sweet that he's learning what it's like to live a high-school student.

Malleus in turn is also polite and very appreciative that Rosia doesn't fear him. He enjoys her company and thinks of her as a good friend.

Rosia has heard from Trey about Lilia and his strange tendencies. She's also heard... questionable rumors about his cooking from Briar.

From the few times they've met, Rosia is taken aback by Lilia's insistence that he is way older then her, despite his young appearance. But Fae are Fae, what do you expect?

Lilia himself finds himself intrigued by Rosia and her willingness to help and understand others. He's met a lot of people in his life, some of them like her, but everyone is different, and Rosia is no exception.

He will often talk his old man Shakespearian speech, something that Rosia finds herself amused by.

Rosia is often worried about Silver and his Narcolepsy. On the off-chance she sees him dozing off, she's quick to wake him up.

The red-head sometimes is surprised by seeing the little critters that gather around Silver and as such, she finds it adorable.

Silver, though he doesn't know Rosia very well, still respects her as an upper-classman. After all, Lilia taught him to respect his seniors.

Rosia knows Briar very well, as she's a member of her club, Trad. Dancing. As a result, the two of them are good mutual friends, despite the class and age difference.

Rosia is also amazed by Briar's ability to Irish dance, especially at a high speed.

Briar respects Rosia and often learns a lot from her as an upperclassman. She often comes to Rosia with problems that she needs advice on (some of which Lilia gives terrible advice on, no offense old man).

Sebek, as loud as he is, can often startle Rosia by his boisterous attitude. Since Rosia doesn't like yelling in general, she does her best to avoid the crocodile-man.

Even asking him to be quiet is a lot for her to handle and she just steers clear of him.

Sebek himself sometimes feels insulted that Rosia doesn't like interacting with him, but doesn't complain about it directly to her. Mostly out of respect for his seniors.

On the off-hand he complains to Briar or Silver, he's either met with silence (Silver fell asleep) or Briar scolding him and telling him to maybe shut up once in his life.

Staff

Since they're all teachers, Rosia respects them all to a T. However, some of the attitudes from some teachers are off-putting and try as hard as she might to be polite, she can't help but mentally die on the inside from some cases.

As much as she respects Crowley, Rosia can't help but feel irritated at his seldom unwillingness to act like a headmaster. She won't talk crap about him, but she won't exactly say good things either.

Rosia dislikes Vargas in general, partially because he doesn't exactly treat the girls as equally as the boys and also because she's horrified that he eats raw eggs (I mean, you're gonna get Salmonella, dude!)

Rosia likes and respects Crewel and wonders at times how he manages to stay sane in the midst of all the general disorder and chaos. Even in Alchemy, she wonders how he hasn't died from insanity yet.

Rosia is friendly with Sam and the two of them can find a lot to chat about. From the weather to whatever weird goods he's selling, the two of them have a great time just chatting it out.

Rosia has seen Trien in action and she's not exactly on board with his stern nature. Just seeing him drone on in class and unintentionally put students to sleep, along with harsh punishments, Rosia can understand why Annabelle wants little to do with her father. She also regards him as a grumpy cat woman (LOL)

Well, that's all for now! Next up is Taai Onheil so be on the lookout for that! Hope you liked my general headcanons on interactions, so with that, I'll see you in the next post!

[atiny-piratequeen]

(Part 4) I think this is the last part, also know that I didn’t add every piece of Hi’iaka’s journey cause that would have taken almost ten asks and I’m just tryna get to the Pele vs her sister part which is right now.

Hiʻiaka whose feelings for Lohiʻau was loyally suppressed in the name of her lover Hopoe eventually returned to the big island with Lohiʻau. On their way to Pele’s abode, the two stopped at where Hiʻiaka’s forest should have been.

And Hiʻiaka wept fiercely as she gazed upon what was left of her home. Ash, stone, rock and darkness. And near the edge where the ashes met the sea was her lover, Hopoe. Hiʻiaka wept harder as all that was hers was now gone. Lohiʻau could only wonder out loud at who could do something like this.

Knowing exactly who, Hiʻiaka then decided to defy her sister and embraced the man who had fallen in love with her. Near the base of Pele’s home, where Pele could clearly gaze upon the world in all directions, Hiʻiaka made her sister witness exactly who Lohiʻau was in love with now.

Pele enraged at her sister’s disrespect cast waves upon waves of lava to cover the loving couple. Hiʻiaka survived the assault but Lohiʻau, just like Hopoe and the Tahitian demigod was turned to stone. Beyond enraged at her elder sister, Hiʻiaka raced up the slopes of Kīlauea and openly defied Pele.

Now with nothing left but their anger, the two goddesses fought. Pele called upon her attendants, her brothers and sisters who were the spirits of explosion, ash, smoke to aid her in her assault against their sister Hiʻiaka. But they had never seen their younger sister so angry, for even they would not aid Pele in her fight. So Pele fought alone.

Waves of lava, ash, smoke and darkness were cast down the slopes of her volcano towards her younger sister. But Hiʻiaka, so consumed by rage was able to deflect, reflect or dodge the elder’s attacks. Eventually Hiʻiaka successfully made it back to the slopes of Halemaʻumaʻu and used her magic, her energy and her staff to attack Pele and Pele’s own ancient staff. Pele’s staff was the same that birthed the volcanoes of Hawaiʻi, and was gifted to her by her uncle the Thunder god. And here Pele was slowly being beat back down in the the depths of her volcanic home by her younger sister.

The roaring of their yells and cries, the thundering of their clashing weapons, the explosions of the skies and lands and the worried wailing of the many siblings of Hiʻiaka and Pele prompted the the cosmos to explode open, and descended the ancient four gods. The great four gods of Hawai’i. Kāne, Kanaloa, Kū, and Lono. And with them, their parents, father sky, Wakea and Mother Earth, Haumea. The six flew down from the heavens and separated the warring sisters, preventing their destruction from consuming the islands.

With the presence of the great four and their parents, the two sisters were forced to talk it out and diminish their anger for if they knew one thing, it was that they would always respect their elders. Theirs parents especially.

Eventually Pele, regretting her actions apologized for her actions and with Hiʻiakaʻs help revived Lohiʻau for he was dead for not that long, hence allowing him to be brought back to life again. And to show her sister how sorry she was, Pele allowed Lohiʻau, to choose which goddess to spend his life with. And with that choice, the two sisters went their separate ways, Pele remained in her home in her volcano while Lohiʻau followed Hiʻiaka back home to Kauaʻi.

Thee end.

Granted there are many different versions of this tale, just know that this was the one I was taught and I’m pretty sure if you asked someone else they would tell you another version. But yes, that was the tale of Pele vs her sister Hiʻiaka, the Goddess of Hula, dance, music, medicine and rebirth. It was through this journey that Hiʻiaka learned her significance as a goddess. For Pele was not only a goddess of destruction, but the goddess of creation, for its her actions that creates new land and a clear new start after tragedy. And it’s Hiʻiaka, the akua of life and rebirth to bring life to the new lands, to the destroyed lands Pele had made. For together they represented the process of creation. New life cannot exist without death. And that’s what they represent together.

Thank you so much that was so interesting 🥺 i really appreciate you taking the time out to tell me the story

[popculturebuffet]

The Loud House Reviews: The Boss Maybe/ Family Bonding

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Loud House weekly coverage continues as Leni is pushed into the deep end of responsiblity and taking over Lori’s old role of babysitter while her parents are gone and promptly drowns in a sea of comedy clubs, human body parts both on screen and in the fridge, old men in holes and indoor beach volley ball. 

First things first: Last week I forgot to mention Rusty’s mustache freezing off as god, wether it be the judeo-christian god, Odin, that prick Zeus, the flying spagehtti monster or one of many other gods out there. Perhaps all of them did it at once out of hatred for the little weiner. Maybe one of them finally answered my prayers which in that case, that was nice and all but there are far worse things going on i’d prefer you took care of. Also the “stuff I couldn’t fathom” turned out to be just more loudcest, because of course it did. Loudcest is like David Spade, you think it’s finally gone or isn’t doing as much but then it comes around and makes the wrong missy and you waste 90 minutes of your life thinking i’td be so bad it’s good when it’s really just boring and a waste of it’s main actress talent. I lost track of that metaphor, but Loudcest is like david spade in that people like it for reasons I can’t fathom and it hasn’t quietly faded into the background for reasons I can’t fathom, though at least david spade was funny once. So maybe Loudcest isn’t like david spade. or maybe i’ve been taking too long with this bit. 

But whlie last week was a bit wonky it also had a lot to setup.. but now it’s time to see what the show does with all the setup over, and a lot of new possiblities ahead. PItter Patter!

The Boss Maybe Ah now this is exactly what I was hoping for this season. New situations brought about by the year-up and all the changes it brought, with the same old heart and humor and character progression that drew me back into the show. This is the kind of episode i love and have talked about in the past and dosen’t fall into any of the shows usual pitfalls in the process. Just great. I could end it there but I haven’t shut up before why do it now.  So this episode focuses on Leni who I talked about a bit last week and easily had the best plot and in general tends to have good episodes, both before and after the show became an ensemble piece, and even in episodes without her tends to slide in just fine. She’s always a nice breath of fresh air when she shows up. 

I think that’s due to a number of things. For one it’s how sweet a person she is: She’s genuinely nice, kind and well meaning. While she is dumb as a box of rocks that resemble Pauly Shore, what I like is her stupidity isn’t malicious, or overused for misery. She causes comical injuries from time to time with it but she’s quick to apologize iff she realises it and usualyly has no ill will to anybody unless provoked or fighting Lori over a dress despite them wearing the same clothes all the time. I know standard animation thing but it’s always weird to me when shows with a stock outfit for a character have a fashionista, and prefer when shows have stylish characters actually change outfits like Kim Possible did with it’s title character, Xiaolin Showdown did with Kimiko and of all things LIttlest Petshop did with Blythe. Granted Blythe is a nothing of a character but still, credit where it’s due. But I do get this is also a nick show and they givet hem the budget of 50 cents and a network memo that says “BEG US FOR MORE MONEY” written in blood, so fair enough. 

That aside she’s just plesant to watch. The other factor is Liliana Mumy. If you haven’t heard of her , she’s a vetran voice actress whose been doing this on and off since she was a kid, voicing Panini on chowder as a child and later going on to voice Beth in bravest warriors among other roles. Why she only does work so ocasionaly I have no idea but when she does she’s great. She’s also the son of fellow child actor BIll Mumy, aka the guy who as a kid played Anthony Fremont from the Twilight Zone classic “It’s A Good Life”, which if you haven’t seen it is about a small child who has the power of a god and thus can banish people who are “bad”, i.e. disobey him and thus rules over a small town as a creepy and cruel despot. Oh and he can read minds so if you dare to have a thought he dosen’t like your getting banished, with no telling what that means or where anyone disappeared goes. It’s good stuff. Highly recommend it, Mumy is absolutley terrifing and a brilliant actor even at that age and I wish he’d done more as an adult. I also bring it up because Lily played his daughter when they did a sequel episode during the UPN version of the show, set decades later and showing just what the little terror was like grown up... as well as what happens when his DAUGHTER gets the power. It was also really good and worth a watch after the first one. Good stuff. 

TLDR: Leni is one of my faviorites, so’s her voice actress, i’ve rambled enough about unrelated stuff at this point. 

We open at the mall, where for Leni life begins after schol, that’s when we bend all the rules time to hang with all her friends in the place where she belongs!

I mean technically she’s 17 now, but she was 16 when she started this job and none of them were 16 by the time the show ended so nyeh. This started in season 3 when the show started giving the girls not just their own stories but their own supporting casts., storylines, love intrests etc. Luna and Luaan got their romance plots with Sam and Benny, Lori got her college plot towards the end of the season, Lynn’s friends started showing up in her plots more, Luna’s mortuariy club went from assorted background friends of hers to a full fleged supporting crew, and of course Lincoln’s friend group started to become a recurring part of his plots away from his sisters. 

For Leni, being one of the only three kids that could legally work at the time, another possible plot to dig into, and with Luna having way less incentive to get a 9-5 job with her music to work on and the fact we’ve seen her use said music to make money once in a blue moon, Leni was a good choice. It gave her something she was good at besides fashion, even if it’s fashion adjacent and gave us a new supporting cast for those stories: Her boss Mrs. Redinger, your standard “i’m tough by fair” type, and her new friends Fiona and Miguel, two fellow fashion savy teens played by actors i’d never heard of but who do a damn good job and play off her well, with both being a bit sarcastic but Fiona being a bit more mopey and deadpan and Miguel being a possibly but defintely gay teen. Both play off her well by being more down to earth and more wiling to be negative, but still enjoyable enough to be around you can buy them being friends with Leni and their a stellar addition to the cast. I wish, much like we’ve gotten with Liam lately, we could see more of them outside leni stories. Their a treat. 

But I really like Leni’s work there. Besides the cast it puts Leni in a role of responsiblity she excels at. My only real problem is her boyfriend, maybe I dunno, Chaz, one of the ONLY love intrests from l is for love to get mentioned again and one of the more intresting ones, never shows up despite also working at hte mall and the story potetial of them working for rival stores or the same store. I mean I can’t blame them for not throwing another love intrest on the pile when they had two ongoing romance plots, but now both Luna and Luann are on steady ground with their steadies, it’s time to pull that trigger, get off hte ground and eat that horse. Also let LIncoln have one again will ya? It dosen’t have to be stella but Girl Jordan is right there, i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again.. where is she. And if not her just make one you’ve proven to actually be really good at it. 

Where was I? Ah yes the mall. Leni is doing great at her job, suggesting some gloves to scoots, who ceases being skeptical when a hunky younger man of 30 something compliments her on them them chases off after him. If you don’t remember who scoots was that’s the old lady on a scooter who makes troulbe and appareltly can still get it. Good for her. Granted this is coming from someone who ships eda and stan pines still even though it’s now revealed she’s 30 but... frankly I don’t think age is a concern with her and stan can make this joke, so it evens out. 

I mean he would right? I”m getting off topic even more than usual, point is Leni is doing great and her boss takes her to the break room for cake room... it’s just the one cake but can you imagine a cake room? that’s the life. Just a fridgerated room full of cake. 

Turns out she’s EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH. And she didn’t have to chain squidward to an ancient battle ship to get it or anything. After some confusion, Fiona has to clarify it’s NOT her birthday because of course she does, Leni is proud. Full of cake and pride she tells her mom whose decided to reward her good job at work.. by dumping a bunch of respnosiblity on her.  I kid. Rita is being somewhat resonable here. She asks Leni to take over Lori’s old role of babysitting/making sure the other 10, now 9 kids don’t burn the house down... no really she actually specifies that when leaving in the next scene. Which.. fair enough.. you have 11 kids, all likely to plug in a lot of stuff especially Luna and Lisa, said Lisa is a mad scientest who ends up nearly being the one to do it this time, Lynn has no common sense, and the younger ones who aren’t mad scientst are still reckless and vain and combattive respectivley so the odds of a house fire nearly breaking out on any given night are 1:1. But Leni in a show of self doubt that’s rare for her is scared (Though her revealing that by answering a question of how she’d feel about about babysitting the kids with “Scared” was fucking gold. I swear Lily’s deliveries are always so great. ), and while Rita assures her she’s not sure. But as I said, she is being resonable: While Leni’s not the brightest she’s kind, she’s been shown even before her recent major award she’s responsible, she’s babysat for other people’s kids, and she’s kind. I mean they COULD put Luna or Luaan in charge but while when I first read the preview blurb for this episode I was cuirous why they didn’t think of that or thought they would, this episode does a good job presenting WHY they’d do it, while other episodes fill in the gaps: Luna is a bit reckless and Luaan can get caught up in her bidness and as we know once a week goes through the green door and comes out a gamma monster fuled by the sound of her own laughter, a horrible mixture of the joker and madman.. the leader’s insane brother. I’m a huge nerd, you all know this. Leni is the right choice.

Despite her nerves Leni has little choice but to take it on and Mr. Loud proudly sees her out with ye olde english as he and Rita, with lily in a cute little knight’s helmet in tow, are going to a renisance fair to cater, with Lynn Sr needing the backup. And while you may say “what about his staff”.. their either going with and he just needs an extra pair of hands since it’ll be nuts, or some of them are staying behind to man Lynn’s Table while he’s out on his catering gig. I mean the man has plenty of time for his kids, he’s not at the restraunt 24 hours a day. Someone else has to run it when he’s gone. I asked internally why they didn’t just take them along.. then reminded myself that taking all 11 kids to the faire at once, without anyone to watch them and likely having to call in favors when jsuta s likely, Lynn Sr and Rita can take them all another day with presumibly free passes as part of the catering job as that sounds like the kinda thing he’d do. Also Senior’s into scarf’s now thanks to Leni, which I love. Looks good on him. Hank should give her a call. Ascots may be out but I think he could rock a scarf. I’ve had ventures on the brain.  What follows is naturally Leni having several panic attacks as chaos naturally insues btu without Lori’s lifetime of experince dealing with it. IT’s a nice dynamic: Leni, as we’ve established, has always been sort of Lori’s sidekick, her best friend, her amigo. Sure they fight, siblings do that, but they’ll always be there for each other when it counts. SHe’s never really had to THINK without her or be without her, so throwing her into the deep end of taking care of the kids really leaves her shook. It’s a HARD job, it’s probably why the louds don’t bring in babysitters often: there are 11 kids to look after, 10 now and only 9 tonight but still a LOT of them and most of htem pretty high maintince. It was just easier with Lori because she grew up knowing each of them, knowing each of their weaknesses and putting the fear of her righteous wrath into them. They’ve spent their whole lives looking up to her, literally and figuratvely, as their big sister and respecting her as the biggest authority in the house that’s nto her parents, sometimes bigger. Those aren’t just big shoes to fill , their Galactus size and that combined with her big sister worship leaves Leni understandably scared, lost and frequently paralized with anxiety this episode.  No really multiple times she just freezes and one times she screams. As someone with Anxiety disorder I related to this.. sometimes you either just break down or you just FREEZE from the stress and everything hitting you at once and have no idea how to progress while people are still barking at you to do something. It’s a lot but it was a nice touch that really added to her sympathy.   And her anxiety is also understandable when she’s being hit with 80 problems at once, which i’ll tackle all at once here rather than in order as this episode has a really frentic and good pace: while it follows the formula of “Leni runs into a problem, Leni freezes, then Leni gets help from Lori twice hten mr.grouse, more on that in am inute”, the quick pace and great jokes help keep things from feeling too repetivie. 

Anyways the chaos: Just from the start Lucy puts a possibly human liver in the fridge, Lana eats all the cookies then gets skunked by her pet skun, and Lola and Lynn get into a fight over 5 bucks Lynn found, and since Leni can’t just let one kill the other as nature intended she has to fix all this.. mostly by removing the smell with tomato juice and scaring off the skunk and cutting the dolar bill in half. Money dosen’t work that way as both sisters point out but frankly it’s Lola and Lynn, I don’t care who they feel. 

Meanwhile two of my other faviorties get into a tiff over their room: Luaan turns it into a comedy club and kicks luna out, with Scoots and her new man returning. Again, get it girl, get it, and Leni, under Lori’s advice, pretneding to be a fire marshall.. only for Luna towarsd the end to turn it into her own rock club. Lisa creates a corossive super substance that burns a hole in the floor, Lana continues to grapple with the skunk and finally Lincoln and Clyde.. watch a scary movie despite Lucy’s warnings.. and Lucy does something else.. I think? It was a chaotic episode with a lot of set pieces so forgive me if I forgot one of them. Honestly she’s the most well behaved there.But yeah as per the cliche Lincoln and Clyde, after Leni gets the wifi fixed with Mr. Grouse’s help, they get super scared and freaked. Everyomne is freaking, the house is falling apart and Senior wants permission to wear a pinky ring via thought cloud.. which.. no man no. Scarves yes but no one looks good with a pinky ring. No one. And I say that as amporphous blob covered in hair, sweat and regrets. 

As for how Leni deals with all this she leans on Lori, calling her twice, but at inportune times: during a golf game and at the library where said phone gets taken. Granted, I don’t get why she didn’t have it on silent, as I would in those situations, but then we wouldn’t have an excuse to include her and it feels necessary to show WHY Lori can’t just help all night or reassure her sister and with Lori gone the panic only intensifies. As I said she gets paralized with fear and later just outright screams.. which attracts an irate Mr Grouse, the next door neighbor who I need to watch more of’s episodes. Including 12 louds of leapin.. I know i’m way overdue on that. This december. Promise. 

The old man who yells at Louds helps for a bit, helping get rid of a beach Lynn set up because she’s lynn, she has the consderation of a puppy, but eventually falls in a hole like most great heroes and most elderly people. I mean the ones up the street at the retierment home must fall in once a week. They get out of course because the assitant living mole lets them ride out as it digs into the walls. Or maybe that was just a hallucination.  Eventually though the start at her job comes back as she calls the only people she has left for help: Fiona and Miguel, who are at the mall in chairs because of courser they are, and both are confused why she’s so helpless: She’s fantastic at work, she’s kind, confident and smart.. about certain things, she can do this. Besides helping her confidence with this really sweet moment they also give her a good tool for how to use said confdience from work: just treat her siblings as customers. It’s also a nice call back to how we’ve seen Leni learn way back in season 1 during “Driving Miss Hazy” we’ve seen that she can have troulble grasping things, but when you put it in terms she understands, like fashion, or shopping, or in this case helping customers with their issues, she snaps into it. She learns at her own pace in her own way, it’s why I think sh’es neurotypical, and possibly ont he spectrum like yours truly: while her stupidity isn’t part of that the unqiue way she processes things has me supscious. either way it works. 

So with a new strategy Leni.. literally adresses them like shoppers, which is comedy gold. However it’s a valid strategy:  besides the visualation part by getting them to form a line, instead of trying to handle 2 or 3 problems at once she simply handles them one at a time: She scares the skunk off again, shuts down both competing clubs in the older kids room, uses water to take out lisa’s universal solvant, gives Lola and Lynn 5 bucks instead of just cutting a ten in half this time, and in the sweetest moment of the episode, reads Clyde and Lincoln a childrens book to clam them down. Sure it’s  a bit funny but their genuine relief and all threes adorable expressions really melt the heart. 

Leni finally wins, just as her parents get home and congradulate her, Rita’s faith not misplaced. While Rita probably knew it’d be an adjustment, and frankly should’ve prepped her sooner, she knows her daughter and knows waht sh’es caapable of. Also Senior brought home meet and gives leni a turkey leg who gives it to the old man who now lives in a hole inside their house. That’s his home now. Mr Grouse is just there now. Or I wish he was. But I guess you can’t always get what you want epsecially if it’s an old man living in a hole in the loud’s living room. Someday.  Final thoughts for The Boss Maybe: As you could easily tell I loved this one. Funny with a hell of an emotional core, and with great pacing espeially for a loud house episode, this was a joy to watch and easily one of the best episodes the show has done. Just a funny, breezy watch with a lot of subtext, intetional or not, regarding what we’ve seen of Leni and honestly i’m going to go with intetional. It felt really rooted in who Leni is, her relationship with lori, and her work without hitting you over the head with it. It just all flowed really well and made for a hard one to top for the season this early. I’m impressed and it gives me hope for the rest of the season. 

Family Bonding

This one was.. okay. As i’ve learned the hard way from doing Amphibia when an episodes just okay it’s best to breeze through it.. but I can give it this. While it’s mostly a standard loud house episode the ending.. wasn’t predictable. That’s for sure. I mean.. it left me with only one thought really...

But i’m getting ahead of myself. The episode’s plot is standard for the most part: Lincoln’s obessed with a new spy comic book about a james bond expy.. okay so that’s what Sterling Archer did besides physical therapy for the three months between his waking up and Season 11.  Anyways they soon get more exciting news from Lynn. New Neighbors! Before Rita can stop them, the rest of her family tramples over her and goes to make their aqunatince and of course be a bit overbaring with it before Rita rushes in with a spray bottle to spray them like a bad dog because frankly when your dealing with 11 people most of whom are really impuslive, sometimes dog training just works. You try raising eleven kids and see how long before your brain breaks.  Anyways after introductions and the mom turning down cherry pie, you monsters, lincoln sees strange flashing lights and a device and is convinced something is up and unable to convince his family and on a spy kick, recurits clyde. Now why he dosen’t call on Stella and Zach I dunno. And yes I said Zach and not my boy Liam. I have my reasons: Stella, besides being a faviorite of mine, is a tech whiz as shown in one of the comics and in the cookie episode, and Liam is already a paranoid conspiracy nut and as we’ve seen with Dale Gribble, they can be suprisingly useful. I mean Dale is not the best on common sense but he knows goverment bilaws in and out, is skilled with a gun or a bag of pocket sand, and has danny trejo’s octavio, whose basically danny but as hired muscle instead of a master actor, on speed dial. I mean we don’t know if Zach dosen’t have a danny trejo on speed dial or not. We never asked.  As for the other two while I love LIam, spying just dosen’t seem to be in his sizeable skill set and Rusty.. well rusty’s about as subtle as a man covered in screeching cats he glued to himself blowing an airhorn, while screaming the script to a micheal bay movie while doing the explosion noises himself.. which Rusty has probbbly done.  The real thing i’m getting at is I don’t get why, outside of Clyde and LIam, the writers think when LIncoln has an epiosde it either just needs ot be ClyncolnMcCloud or the ENTIRE group, when one or two would do the trick. YOu CAN seperate them out. People do hang out with diffrent friends at diffrent times. I know the show’s grasp on reality is tenous at best, we got to that last week with the whole one teacher for core classes thing with schooled and this week.. again we’ll get to it in a second, but friends DO hang out seperate. We saw each member of the Lincrew, minus stella because she didn’t exist yet, doing their own thing in Racing Hearts. It’s not that complicated. It’s hard to flesht hem out when their used as one solid unit and not unresonable to just use one or two. it’s a lesson I hope the show learns eventually and hope it’s sister show learns too. 

But yeah our dynamic duo spend the episode as youd’ expect; unraveling conspriacies and stalking the new family, though there are some funny bits. Besides Rita squirting her family like a cat or a dog, we have flip getting half his face shaved by a survelince drone and okay maybe just those two things. not bad bits, but the general concept of them roleplaying into mischief.. has been done before. The show’s done the detective bit before and the spy trappings really don’t change that. And you CAN do a good spy takeoff episode, this one just sin’t it and feels like your standard LIncoln and Clyde messaround with tuxedos. Which to be fair are pretty awesome but still. It’s pretty flat.  The climax though? I’ll give it this.. it’s pretty entertainngi if also 100% what exactly the fuck. So our heroes are naturally caught sneaking into the neighbors house and its eems they were wrong, etc etc, exactly what we expected the new kid will hang around.. at least we have a new character. Instead.. LIncoln accidently hits a knob and unveils a panel

So yeah... turns out the new family ARE spies, just for Peach Growers and plan to wipe out all cherries in royal woods. Yup.. look I know this universe is patently insane but even for loud house, even with all of lisa’s super science... even with the slapstick but this is just.. nuts. Like i’m fine with suspending my disbelif, this show is a goofy comedy, but this is a bit much. I LOVE it for being nuts but only in a “what on spagehtti monster’s green earth were you thinking”. I get swinging for the fences but Lincoln getting into a fight with a bunch of spies after playing spy, well beating them with slapsticks and stopping their plot to elmitie cherries..t his isn’t Kids Next Door. This just.. dosen’t work. Jeff Goldblum tell em why, my brains too broken to articulate this anymore

Yeah that. It’s just a weird climax and ends iwth LIncoln vetting the new neighbors.. which does it include girl jordon? Did they just write her out? If so why? Fans liked her, you can have more than one female character in Lincoln’s friend group. Zach is replacable. You can give me whatever the fuck this was, but not an intresting friend for him who has personality already. I get 50% chad but not your decision making. Gah. 

Final Thoughts for .. this. one This one really didn’t work. Besides the ending just not fitting the series specific brand of ludicrous, I mentioned KND for a reason as it made this sort of plot work fine by having it’s whole unvierse be really fucking weird and specific, it’s mostly just okay. We’ve seen this before.. well okay I haven’t watched many of the Lincoln and Clyde messarounds, but the formula’s about the same.  And that dosen’t work. For one you have a HUGE swath of new possiblities: A new school, Chandler coming back, new teachers and faculity, a new principal, and Lynn and LIncoln being in the same school, and you instead just.. retread the same crap. you have 4 of lincoln’s friends other than clyde to use but don’t let them in on the fun. And most agrivating to me you move new neighbors into the neighborhood while neglecting some of your old supporting cast and have them be villians of the week instead of adding someone NEW to the neighborhood. Give one of the other kids a new friend, or give lincoln a new friend to add to his group and replace liam, shake up the dynamic with him and clyde bya dding a third or, most obviously move one of his friends INTO the neighborhood, most obviously stella since you spent so much time building her up then have her addition affect Lincoln and Clyde. Sure we’ve had an episdoe of one of his friends getting in the way of them before, but this would be diffrent. This episode is just.. not great and was a waste of my time, espespcailly after following such a stellar episode. It’s probablyt he first genuinely bad episode i’ve covered on this blog. Now that probably won’t stand, i’ve seen genuiley worse but.. as a wise penguin once said. 

One last note. That Young Dylan graphic is really obnoxiou and obtrusive.  It’s the second most obnoxious thing i’ve seen on this network. 

I”m out for this week. If you want more check out my Amphibia reviews, as I just finished a new one today, my other loud house reviews in the newly minted nickelodeon tab or other stuff on my other tabs, send me an ask for reviews you’d like to see or pay me to review whatver you want for 5 bucks via direct message. And check this blog Monday for the return of weekly Ducktales coverage, and next weekend for the next episode of loud house, and throughotu the week for more reviews.  Until we meet again, GO TEAM VENTURE!. Play us out Mary Kate Wiles. If nothing else this episode let me use this song. 

[periodicreviews]

Some key differences between Netflix’s and ADV’s release of Neon Genesis Evangelion

Last night I watched 5 episodes (1,2,8,23,24) of Evangelion on Netflix with the new English dub. As someone who has seen the entire series at least 10 times with the original ADV dub, the small incremental changes build up enough to discourage me from watching the rest of the episodes.

I realize that currently everyone is hating on the new dub but I felt like I needed to write something as a way to organize my thoughts and pin down exactly what bothers me about it. I don’t blame the voice actors, who do just fine with what they’re given in the script. I dealt with the cast changes before between TV to End of Evangleion to the new Rebuild movies. Some worked for me and some didn’t.

But at the same time, I’m very attached to that original cast and the emotional response I had to their performances. So I’ve tried to focus on things besides line delivery or how well I think a new voice matches my idea of a character.

I understand as well the difficulty in not just translating Japanese, but adapting a show as difficult as Evangelion. But in some cases, the changes to the script affect how a joke plays or break the viewer’s (or at least my) immersion.

“Big boy”

In episode 1 and 8, the word “big boy” is used and it seems like a strange word choice. In episode 1, after Shinji breathes in LCL for the first time, here are the lines:

Netflix English subtitles:

Shinji: This is so gross

Misato: Deal with it! You’re a big boy!

Netflix English audio:

Shinji: This is so gross

Misato: Just deal with it! Come on, be a big boy!

ADV Platinum DVD audio:

Shinji: “I’m gonna be sick”

Misato: “Stop complaining! You’re a boy you know?!”

 Just for reference, the Japanese word used here according to the Netflix Japanese subtitles is 男の子 (Otoko no ko). jisho.org defines this as boy; male child; baby boy​.

To be honest, until I looked it up, I remembered this line being “You’re a man, aren’t you?” in the original dub. They may say that at some other point in the show. But I think there’s still room for criticism even if the difference is just “boy” vs “big boy”.

When I hear “big boy”, it seems like something that would be directed at someone much younger than Shinji at 14 years old. It’s the kind of phrase you typically hear, contrasted with the word “baby”. Like if a 6 year old boy was crying and their mother is trying to get them to stop, saying “You’re not a baby anymore, you’re a big boy, so you need to stop.” The word “big” implies there is a “little” version of boy that you don’t want to be associated with and in my mind that “little boy” is a baby. “Big boy pants” can also be used to imply a male who has recently moved beyond diapers to regular underwear.

“Boy” just by itself lets you focus more on that Misato is implying he’s whining like a girl.

Personally, I find the dilemma between behavior that is associated with boy vs girls a lot more interesting than just Shinji being scolded because he’s acting too young. Of course, as I say that, I hear Gendo’s line from the Rebuild movies “Shinji, you need to grow up.” So the two aren’t mutually exclusive. But there’s still a lot in Evangelion that focuses on gender roles and characters that don’t necessarily fit into one spot easily.

Even if “big boy” is a more accurate translation, I think it would’ve made more sense to English speakers or at least Americans if they had just used “boy” in that particular situation.

 Kaji and Shinji

After watching episode 1 and 2, I skipped to episode 8 Asuka Strikes. A little into the episode, there’s a scene with Misato, Kaji, Shinji, and everyone else at a table. Kaji tries to play footsie under the table with Misato but is rebuffed. Kaji then turns to Shinji and asks how Shinji likes living with Misato.

Netflix English subtitles:

Kaji: She used to flop around in her sleep. She still do that?

Netflix English audio:

Kaji: Does she still make a fool of herself, when she’s sleeping?

ADV Platinum DVD audio:

Kaji: “Tell me something, is she still so, wild in bed?”

ADV Platinum Subtitle:

Kaji: So, does she still toss and turn in bed?

 Given that the subtitles from Netflix and ADV match up, it appears that this would be the more “accurate” way of saying this line. The way those are written, the joke is still implied that Shinji and Misato are sleeping together and having sex, but it’s somewhat subtle.

The Netflix English audio comes out not as clear and leads to everyone’s dramatic “WHATTTT??!!” after Kaji’s line becoming slightly confusing. This first time I heard it, I didn’t really get what Kaji was saying. There’s just something about the delivery or that pause where the comma is throws it off just enough. The phrase “make a fool of herself” also isn’t something I hear often or ever when referring to sleeping.

I can definitely understand Netflix not wanting to change this line as much as ADV did.

However, I think this deadpan line followed by the huge reaction from the others in the room works best when you take it to the extreme like the ADV audio. The shock from the others is driven not just from Kaji’s implication, but how overt he is with it.

 Other little things

On Screen Text

One of the first things I noticed is that the English subtitles do not translate all text that appears on screen. In 2019, it’s unfortunately rare that you get everything translated like you did with the ADV release of Evangelion. Misato’s letter to Shinji, the bottle of toothpicks hiding Shinji’s penis, and even the Japanese episode titles go untranslated. There are a few that appear like Shinji’s transfer application and Gendo’s “COME” on the letter to Shinji. So it’s hard to tell if this was a stylistic choice or just coming down to lines per dollar it would cost.

Fly Me To The Moon

I know everyone else has already complained about this, but I haven’t seen a lot of why it’s important. Obviously there’s the connection between Rei and the moon and because it’s part of the original work of art. But more than that, it’s that extra unique twist to differentiate it from other anime. You watch the cliffhanger in Episode 1 and it just ends with a song most people associate with Frank Sinatra.

I don’t remember how I felt when I first heard it, but I do remember how I felt when I heard “Roundabout” by Yes in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. The contrast really caught my attention and got my mind thinking, “Wow they are really using this song right now. I’m more curious about where this show is going to lead.” In part, that reaction was probably driven by my mind first connecting it to Evangelion’s ending.

This time around, maybe people would’ve associated it with Jojo and it might’ve kept a few more people watching. In the end, those few extra viewers clearly weren’t worth it to Netflix especially when the next episode is triggered right as the credits role.

Lines that cut off

I don’t remember exactly where in the episodes these lines are. But there were several times where a line someone was saying would abruptly end. I think one time was when Shinji said “K”, as in like “Okay”, but it sounded like the audio had been cut too closely and didn’t fade out like it naturally would as someone was saying it.

Pronunciations

The way characters pronounce things has changed dramatically in some cases. It’s hard to tell if this is directing or actors saying it this way. Given its consistency, it seems more like how they were directed. SEELE, usually say-lay in ADV is now Zee-la for Netflix. Fuyutsuki’s name is weirdly broken up as Fu-Yu-Tsuki, with more of a pause between fu, yu, and tsuki, which makes it feel less like one word that flows. I can live with all that, but I really can’t stand Lance of Longinus.

In ADV, it was typically, lon-juh-nus. In Netflix, it’s lon-jai-nus. If I’m reading the pronunciation correctly from Wikipedia, Netflix is saying the word correctly in English, while the ADV pronunciation is closer to the Japanese pronunciation. The problem is I couldn’t stop thinking about how much it sounded like vagina, which sounds like more of a personal problem.

Longinus /ˌlɒnˈdʒaɪnəs/

Vagina /vəˈdʒaɪnə/

  At the end of the day, I think it’s great that more people have access to Evangelion. I hope that people enjoy it as much as I have and can get something out of it. But at the same time, I feel like Netflix aiming for more of a middle ground approach, in terms of script and emotional intensity, might cause the show to stick out less than it could’ve.

Sure the content is all the same, but it doesn’t feel like it flows as well. People get mad when you don’t match the Japanese exactly. But if you try to match it exactly, it can become unintelligible to English speakers. So maybe this was always a no win scenario.

I hate to come off as one of those butt-hurt fans who hates anything new and only wants more of the same. Personally, I enjoy the new path that the Rebuild movies are taking. I don’t think the original show needs to be remade like Sailor Moon Crystal. It’s only because of that deep connection with the original dub that I’m worried people watching the new dub won’t connect as deeply with the show.

From now on there will always be that question when I ask someone if they’ve seen Evangelion. They will more than likely say “Yes I saw it on Netflix.” Then if they say “it was okay,” I’ll always be thinking, “Would they have liked it more with the ADV dub?”

[enixamyram]

Imagine a Jones-Mills family trip to Disneyland (because they’re ironic like that). Rumple has Blessing in a carrier strapped to his chest. Killian has Desiree on his shoulders. Zelena is pouting because she drew the short straw and has to carry the diaper bag. Robin insists on riding the Alice in Wonderland ride several times.

This one is so long, it might as well just be a oneshot rather than a CA short! Haha! Again, so much fun writing this out! It was honestly just… Yeah, it was just awesome! Thanks for the idea, Anon! 

   The sun was shining brightly overhead, there was barely a breeze to cool them down as they walked, the smell of cotton candy and other sugary snacks filled their noses and made their mouths water, and almost everywhere they turned, there was a swell of screams and cheerful cries from all the people crowding onto the various rides and entertainment around them. It was busy, like it was every day of the year, and the small group shuffled closely together in order to avoid being lost in the crowds.

   Sitting on her grandpa’s shoulders, Desirae sat open mouthed and wide eyed in awe of her colourful surroundings. She couldn’t look at all fast enough. Every time she looked in one direction, something new had appeared behind her and she rushed to look back again. She twisted and turned as much as she could, almost falling off several times, saved only by the light grip Killian kept on her ankles above her bright blue sandals. At one point she lay back against him, hanging upside down and letting her dark blue dress fall down, revealing a pair of pink frilly knickers underneath.

   “Desirae! Stop that! Sit up right now!” Zelena said, putting a hand on the younger girls back and pushing her into sitting position, brushing the material of her dress back around Killian’s neck.

   "She’s having fun, mum!” Robin laughed, glancing back at the three of them. “Don’t spoil it for her.”

   “She can have fun without flashing her underwear to the world.” Zelena said strictly.

   “You’re just bitter cause you pulled the short straw.” Killian smirked, raising an eyebrow at the children’s bags hanging off Zelena’s elbow. They held everything from a change of clothes, to spare diapers, to an incredible amount of sunscreen, to the endless bottles of juice and water to keep them hydrated. All of it would have her weighed down if not for the quick spell she had cast to make them as light as possible.

   Zelena scowled at him but turned ahead and pouted slightly, saying nothing. It really was unfair if you asked her. Especially since Rumple wasn’t even biologically related to either of the girls. Yet he had been a second father to Alice for many years before and during the cursed years, and had been as big a part of Desirae and Blessing’s life as she was.

   Not even the sight of Rumple could cheer her up about it. Although she had promised to take pictures for when she was in a better mood to tease him relentlessly once they got back home. After all, The Dark One in denim was nothing compared to The Dark One with a pink baby carrier strapped to his chest.

   Blessing sat in said carrier, cradled against Rumple’s chest, her short blonde hair curled slightly at the end and bouncing with every step. Though unlike her sister, she seemed far more entertained with the way her feet hovered so far off the ground than the cheerful screams and flashing lights on every other side around her. In fact she barely glanced up at all, and even that was only when one of her mothers paused to move back towards her tickling her underarms and causing her to look up and squeal at them.

   Striding in front of their daughters and parents, Alice and Robin were arm in arm, grinning from ear to ear as they looked at the amazing sights ahead. It was their first real holiday together, as a whole family, travelling somewhere completely new for once. It had taken them a while to agree on just where to go, but in the end, Disneyland won out. Because what better place to go, than where their stories were celebrated the most.

   “So what next?” Alice asked loudly, not bothering to look back any more.

   “Lunch!” Zelena suddenly cried, wincing at her next step. “I need to put my feet up already before they start bleeding out.”

   “I told you to wear proper shoes!” Robin complained, pausing to look back at her. “I said we’d be walking all day!”

   “Zelena’s stupid footwear aside,” Rumple said, leaning against a nearby sign. “She’s right. A break would be good. Not all of us are as young and fit as the two of you.”

   “But the day’s still young! And we have so much left to do!” Alice gasped excitedly.

   “We also have all weekend to do it,” Killian chuckled. “Come on, Starfish. We’ll take a lunch and then keep going until dinner.”

   Alice felt her face drop but glanced towards Desirae and Blessing guiltily. They were both very distracted at that moment (Desirae by a nearby water ride and Blessing by someone’ puppy as it walked passed) but she knew it was probably best to get them something to eat and drink anyway. And somewhere shaded would be good too. Even though they both wore sunhats and even though they were layered in protective cream (and a few protective spells) it would be nice to hide the somewhere with air-con for a decent meal. As much as she wanted to do more today, she also knew being a parent meant sacrificing for your child’s best interest over your own selfish wants.

   But then suddenly Robin was sliding an arm around her waist, pulling her close and grinning at the others. “Okay then, tell you what. You guys take the girls for lunch and rest your old aching feet. Meanwhile, Alice and I will go off for a few minutes of alone time.” She said cheerfully. “We’ll meet up after and continue the family fun together!”

   “That works for me.” Rumple nodded, pushing away from the sign and stretching his arms slightly as Blessing wriggled in her carrier.

   “What do you mean old?” Zelena demanded.

   “Great!” Robin said, ignoring her mother. “Call us when you’re ready to meet back up!”

   With that, she spun a squealing Alice around in a circle before pulling her off into the crowd. She already had the perfect place in mind where she wanted to take Alice. In fact she had wanted to take her there since they first entered the park early that morning. And now that they would be doing it alone, well, that just made it even better.

   Meanwhile, Killian paused, watch the two of them disappear before looking at the other two, smiling and waving towards the buildings to their right. “Shall we?”

Once*Upon*A*Time*At*Disneyland

   “So where are we going?” Alice asked, letting Robin lead the way since she clearly seemed to have a plan in mind, judging the way she was still pulling Alice along rather specifically.

   “Somewhere special.” Robin grinned, looking up at a sign before tugging Alice aside, not giving her a chance to read any of it.

   “You’re not going to tell me, are you.” Alice said, rolling her eyes.

   “Just be quiet and enjoy the private moments we have together,” Robin said, pausing long enough to kiss the side of her mouth.

   Alice smiled back at her. “I’m enjoying every moment. With you and with our family.” She sighed happily, leaning against Robin and shutting her eyes for a moment to enjoy the feeling in its entirety. “I never thought we’d reach this moment in our lives… It feels wonderful.”

   Robin came to a sudden stop. “Wonderful. Huh. Interesting choice of words.”

   Frowning, Alice opened her eyes and was immediately greeted with the sight of her smiling self beaming down at her. Or at least, the cartoon version of herself that this world had come up with for some bizarre reason. She stumbled back a step and looked up at the imagine, finally realising her cartoon picture was plastered on a poster that sat atop of a pink mushroom in front of Robin’s planned destination.

   “You’re kidding…” Alice said, looking at Robin in a mixture of genuine surprise and slight horror.

   However Robin was unaffected and just grinned back at her. “Well we’d better get in line!” She said, dragging Alice to where a crowd of people were already waiting to take their turn on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Once*Upon*A*Time*At*Disneyland

   “Oh it feels good to get off my feet!” Zelena gasped, sitting back and smiling as she pulled her shoes off, taking a quick bite from the sandwich she had brought for herself. “God, I wish Chad were here to give them a proper massage.”

   Rumple cringed at the thought and turned his attention back to Blessing, making sure she was drinking all her juice. He had her balanced on one of his leg, the carrier now hanging off of one shoulder to allow some of the minor breeze they had to catch and cool his sweaty chest. He reached over, grabbing his own water and downing half of it without pause, his own sandwich barely touched at this point. Once again, he missed his magic and the ability to keep himself feeling fresh no matter how long he marched for.

   “It’s a shame he couldn’t make it.” Killian nodded, once again doing his best to remain civil. He always had done, even before their daughters had fallen head over heels for one another.

   “I know,” Zelena sighed sadly. “Next time, for sure.”

   “Pan!” Rae suddenly gasped, grabbing onto Killian’s top to pull herself clumsily onto her feet, standing on his leg and leaning against him for support. “PAN!” She cried.

   “What?” Zelena frowned at the young girl.

   “PAN!” Rae shouted, pointing hard at something behind her.

   “Did someone say Pan?!” A new voice shouted out.

   Suddenly all the others sitting at the outside tables looked up. Several children cheered and squealed, jumping up and crying out like Desirae as they pointed over towards the figure who ran towards them, followed by several other excited audience members. It was a grown man dressed in green tights, with red hair and a green hat sitting on top. He danced towards them with a big smile and came to a stop right beside Rae’s table, leaning towards her.

   “Hey there, everyone!” He called happily.

   “Oh God,” Rumple mumbled, purposely turning himself and Blessing away, glad that Blessing had no interested in the actor dancing around them.

   “Pan!” Rae beamed happily, reaching for him.

   “That’s right! I’m Peter Pan!” The man beamed, standing back and putting his hands on his hips. “What’s your name? Are you a Lost Girl?”

   “No, she’s not.” Zelena said, also turning her body away, hoping he would get the hint and leave them.

   He did not.

   “Uh, oh. Someone’s grumpy.” The man playing Peter said, leaning towards where Rae was beaming up at him and where Killian was attempting to lean away - and would have, if not for the back of the chair preventing him from doing so. “But that’s okay, I know what’ll make her feel better. A story! Stories make everything better! Do you have any stories?” He asked with an eagerness that was eerily convincing.

   Rae hesitated, putting a finger between her teeth before she shook her head, smiling shyly at him.

   “You don’t? Oh man. I love stories!” Peter said, looking towards some of the other people sitting close by, including a pair of young teenagers taking pictures of him. “Do any of you knows any stories?”

   “Yeah…” One of the girls giggled nervously.

   “Well let’s hear it!” Peter said, leaping over the gate and stealing a seat, sitting beside Killian and Rae - far too close for Killian’s liking. “Tell us a story!”

   “What is happening?” Killian hissed, leaning towards Rumple with a look of confusion and awkward terror.

   “An actor. Playing the part of Peter Pan.” Rumple cringed. “Or at least, this worlds version of it.”

   “Are you ready for the story, Lost Girl?” Peter asked Rae.

   “Yeah!” Rae shouted, just as loud as the crowd around them.

Once*Upon*A*Time*At*Disneyland

   Sitting side by side in a cosy yellow cart with the cartoon caterpillar head at the front, the girls had chosen to settle at the back, and out of everyone else’s way. After they had started and disappeared into the first dark tunnel, it was easy for Alice and Robin to get a little lost with each other. Especially as they started out staring at one another, grinning it cheerful and reluctant excitement for what was to come. In fact, what started out as a friendly ‘are you ready for this’ kiss, quickly turned into a passionate make out session that lasted the whole of the ride, until they were broken apart by the flash of lights from the exit and the crowds watching closely while waiting for their turn.

   “Wow, that was fun!” Alice grinned suggestively, climbing from the ride and reaching to pull Robin out with her. “But we better go find papa and the others now.”

   “Oh no!” Robin said, grabbing Alice’s hand and dragging her to the back of the line. “We’re riding that again.” She looked at her. “Properly this time!”

   Remembering fondly how their last ride in the dark tunnels had gone, Alice allowed herself be dragged along with little resistance. “Fine by me.” She grinned, winking at her as they took their place and waited together.

Once*Upon*A*Time*At*Disneyland

   “That was a great story!” Peter shouted, jumping up and clapping excitedly in Killian’s ear, grinning when Rae joined in with him. Even Blessing finally looked up towards him, only to grow bored almost immediately and leaned back against Rumple, eyes growing heavy.

   “Ugh, can you go away now?” Zelena grumbled.

   Peter, finally seeming to get the hint, gave an extravagant bow to her and the other tables. “If you say so. I better go find Tink! We’ve got some more adventures to have.” He jumped back over the gate, pausing to wave at Rae. “Bye, bye, Lost Girl!”

   “Bye bye!” Rae shouted, waving her free hand at him while the other continued to cling to Killian.

   “Thank God,” Rumple breathed, turning back around again and twisting Blessing in his arms until she was comfortable.

   “You can say that again. Now let’s get out of here already. It’s about time we met the girls before that idiotic man child comes back.” Zelena said, collecting the bags back into her arms.

   Unfortunately it seemed they spoke too soon. Suddenly another voice shouted over the crowd and drew the attention of everyone (Rae included) back to them.

   “BOY!”

   “Uh oh!” Peter gasped, looking towards the boys and girls over the gate. “I think I hear a pirate!”

   Suddenly all the kids were shouting and booing. They jumped from their seats and began clambering against the gate, cheering and talking over one another with Zelena, Killian and Rumple stuck between them. Even if they wanted to stand and get away, they wouldn’t be able to easily and not while Rae continued to squeal and bounce, leaning as far as she could in Killian’s arms and pointing along with the rest of them at the shape that had called out to Peter.

   And then a man was stepping forward. Or at least, someone dressed as man. Unlike Peter, this actor wore a mask that included comically enlarged facial features, including a fat nose on top of a long thin moustached that was upturned on either side, over the top of a large toothy grin. He had long black curled hair and wore a purple fancy hat with a thick white feather to match the long red coat with a white frilled shirt underneath. He strode forward in a pair of pink and white leggings with a hand on his fake sword and the other arm held up above him, revealing a long silver hook on the end.

   “No…” Killian said quietly in disbelief.

   “On second thought…” Zelena said, sitting back and smiling. “I think we’ll stay a little longer after all.”

Once*Upon*A*Time*At*Disneyland

   “Alice,” Robin breathed. “Pay attention.”

   “I am.” Alice said, leaning over and kissing her again. “I’m giving you all my attention.”

   Robin pulled her close then twisted her around suddenly so she was facing away from her, breaking their kiss and wrapping her arms around her chest and arms to keep the other girl pinned and prevent her from twisting around to face Robin one more. As much as Robin loved their private moments in the dark like this, she also brought Alice on this ride for a reason and she was going to sit through it no matter what.

   “I hated the film,” Alice grumbled, scowling at the white rabbit chanting in front of her. “Why should I enjoy the ride?”

   “Cause you’re on it with me.” Robin grinned, kissing the back of her neck.

   Alice smiled. “Well… That is a perk.” She leaned back in Robin’s arms, barely paying attention to the animatronics that quoted the cartoon to them. In her mind, that was Robin’s fault. If she wanted Alice to focus on the ride, she shouldn’t be holding her as close as she was.

   They both slouched down together, riding along the tunnels and through the various story scenes of the film. When they momentarily slid back outside, they paused to share a grin between them just before entering the second part of the ride.

   “See?” Robin laughed as they neared the end.

   “Okay. I’ll admit. The stories a little more fun in the ride version.” Alice nodded, pecking her cheek. “But I think our first ride through was still the best.”

   As they came to a stop and climbed from the cart for a second time, Robin took Alice’s hand and began to head in direction of where most of the restaurants were located. They both knew they had to meet with the others eventually and there was no doubt they would all still be somewhere they could sit and rest. After all, they would need all the rest they could get for today.

   And then suddenly Robin felt herself being pulled to a stop. She looked back and saw Alice smiling at her, biting the corner of her lip. “You… Maybe want to go again?”

Once*Upon*A*Time*At*Disneyland

   “No…” Killian groaned, looking around but both Zelena and Rumple had gotten quite comfortable now.

   “Sit back and enjoy the show, Hook.” Rumple smirked, Blessing having now fallen asleep curled up slightly in his arms, oblivious to everything happening around her.

   “HOOK!” Rae gasped, looking from Killian and towards the actor and back again. “HOOK!” She gasped excitedly, pointing towards the actor while staring at her grandpa. “HOOK!”

   “Think she recognises you.” Zelena smirked.

   “Shut up.” Killian moaned, trying to sit Rae down in his lap, but she was more excited seeing Captain Hook than she had Peter Pan and refused to let herself be settled.

   The two actors had begun to walk around one another. Hook said very little as he waved his sword at Peter who mocked and giggled at him, jumping around and running in circles like it was a game of tag. Every now and then he jumped the gate and ran among the children with Hook pretending to try and chase after him while unable to actually follow and every time he did, the three actual fairy tale characters got a lovely view of his ridiculous head, including the enlarged cheeks and chin that went with the nose and smile.

   “Can we go now?” Killian asked, trying to sound more bored, like he didn’t care which way or the other.

   “And abandon the show?” Zelena cackled. “I think not!”

   “Let’s leave it to Desirae to decide,” Rumple said confidently, leaning forward, being careful not to jostle where Blessing had turned and curled against his chest now. Not that he needed to try so hard, it seemed the young girl was completely undisturbed by the cries of many people still shouting around her. “Rae? Rae? Do you want to go now? Or do you want to watch Peter Pan and Captain Hook?”

   “HOOK!” Rae cried, pointing and bouncing on her feet still. “HOOK!”

   “That decides it,” Rumple said, leaning back and smiling at his old enemy/new friend.

   “I hate you both.” Killian mumbled, slouching down in his seat while keeping his hands on Rae’s hips. He had to be careful to keep her from falling as she continued to bouncing up and down on his leg.

Once*Upon*A*Time*At*Disneyland

   “Okay, we should really head back now.” Alice giggled, walking for the excit, back alongside the crowd of people still waiting to have their turn.

   “We should.” Robin agreed firmly. Then added with a devious smile; “Or… We could have one more ride.”

   “Really?” Alice laughed. “Come on. Even I’m getting bored of it now.”

   “Yeah but think of it this way,” Robin said, pulling her forcefully to the back of the line once again. “We started this ride with a kiss… Shouldn’t we end it that way as well?”

   Alice pretended to pause and think it over. “Well, that sounds fair to me!”

Once*Upon*A*Time*At*Disneyland

   “How long are they going to do this?” Killian hissed.

   “For as long as it entertains.” Rumple shrugged, looking towards the kids and teens still laughing around them.

   “Yeah, well, I’m going to get us some more drinks,” Zelena said, standing and wedging her way through the crowd, pausing to pat Killian’s shoulder and wink down at him. “Don’t go anywhere.”

   Killian lashed out a hand, grabbing her wrist tightly. “You are not leaving me here!”

   “Well you can’t come. Rae’s enjoying herself so you have to stay for her sake.” Zelena said, pulling her arm free. “Have fun, Captain.”

   Rumple chuckled, watching Zelena disappear into the crowd. Then turned as he caught Killian glaring at him. “What?” He asked.

   “You’re not going anywhere.” Killian warned, then added quickly. “Don’t forget, if you move, you’ll disturb Blessing.”

   “Oh no worries there.” Rumple said, putting his feet on Zelena’s recently vacated chair, smiling as he looked back towards the show just as Hook bent over and had his backside kicked by Peter, sending him toppling to the ground. “I don’t plan on going anywhere.”

   Killian was suddenly regretting the idea of keeping Rumple around and groaned loudly, watching his cartoon self struggle to scramble back onto his feet and those ridiculous looking shoes. Rae couldn’t stop laughing and more than once pointed at Killian and pointed back again, as if reminding him again and again that, yes, that was supposed to be him.

Once*Upon*A*Time*At*Disneyland

   “Okay, now we should head back.” Alice sighed sadly.

   “Are you kidding? They made us sit up front this time. We couldn’t finish how we started we everyone able to watch us.” Robin argued grumpily.

   “Robin, enough, okay? If I have to see those stupid things again or hear any of their high squeaky voices, I’m going to lose my mind.” Alice said sharply, rubbing her temple at the very idea of passing through those damn tunnels once more.

   “You won’t hear them. Not if I’m doing it right.” Robin said quickly.

   Alice ignored her attempts to flirt and kept walking. Or rather, she tried to keep walking. She didn’t get very far when suddenly Robin reached down, picking her up off her feet and physically carrying her to the back of the line.

   “ROBIN!” Alice yelped, kicking her legs out.

   “One more time!” Robin promised.

Once*Upon*A*Time*At*Disneyland

   “Finally!”

   A few parents shot Killian a dirty look but he ignored them. He didn’t care if he sounded like a miserable old bugger. Seeing his cartoon self run off like a coward when Peter got all the audience to start making ticking sounds like a clock, was both a great insult and an even greater relief. Killian was an inch away from carrying Rae off mid performance, even if she hated him for it, while Rumple had never looked like he was enjoying himself more. Even now, he was still grinning at the (real) pirate with a smugness that wasn’t going to be wiped away easily.

   “Can we go now?” Killian growled as the crowd around them thinned out and everyone returned to their seats to finish their lunches.

   “Yeah, the fun’s over now.” Rumple said, standing and shuffling Blessing in his arms. She whimpered and her little blue eyes blinked open staring up at the shocked expression on the older man’s face. “That’s what wakes you?” He blinked.

   As if she even understood him, Blessing smiled slightly - a smile that matched her mothers cheeky side - before shutting her eyes and cuddling back up against him. Rumple shook his head at her before turning and heading back inside the restaurant, followed by Killian where he had settled his granddaughter back on his shoulders, ignoring her restless fidgeting. While he knew she was eager to be released on her own two wobbly feet, there was no way he was going to risk letting her get lost in this crowd.

   As they made their way through the main restaurant and for the exit, they kept an eye out for Zelena but she was nowhere around. At least not until they found their way out of the building and back into the main area of the park.

   “I thought you were just getting drinks?” Killian demanded when he caught sight of Zelena, hovering across from the exit, waiting patiently for them.

   “Guess I forgot.” Zelena shrugged innocently. “So did you enjoy the show?”

   Scowling at her, Killian stormed passed, letting Rumple come to a pause behind him, still smiling at his back. “Oh he loved it.” He said loudly, then glanced at Zelena and lowered his voice so Killian could no longer hear. “I think we’re gonna need to ask for a special request for Captain Hook to come see Desirae, don’t you think?”

   Zelena smirked back. “Even without your magic, you are still the Dark One.”

   “What are you two whispering about back there?” Killian snapped, looking over his shoulder at them.

   “Oh nothing!” Zelena sang, walking over and reaching up. “Now give Rae here. It’s your turn to carry the bags.”

   Killian side stepped away from her. “After what I just sat through? I don’t think so.” He walked around her, heading off with Rae falling back to hang upside down behind him again, giggling and waving to her grandma.

   “Hey! Over here!”

   Alice and Robin caught sight of Rae’s flashing knickers before they saw the faces of the others. They hurried over, both looking very pink in the face and grinning with deep matching breaths.

   “You two look like you had fun,” Zelena said, pushing aside her irritation at still being stuck with the bags. “How many rides did you get on in the end?”

   “Oh… Not many actually.” Robin shrugged.

   “Just the one really.” Alice admitted.

   “Just one? Was the line that long?” Zelena blinked. Well, all the lines were long but she had discovered that the park was actually quite good at getting everyone moving at a brisk pace so as to give everyone a chance.

   “… Yeah. Let’s go with that.” Robin nodded, ignoring the puzzled look her mother gave her.

   Quick to change the subject, Alice looked between her daughters. “Aw, is someone tuckered out?” Alice asked, walking over to Rumple and brushing some strands of blonde hair to the side of Blessing’s head, kissing her sleeping forehead softly.

   “Yeah, she fell asleep near the start of the show.” Rumple nodded.

   “Show? What show?” Alice asked.

   “Forget about it!” Killian said quickly before anyone else could answer. “Now are we going to go on some more rides today or not?”

   The girls looked questioningly towards Rumple and Zelena for answers, both of whom were smirking to themselves and each other. It was obvious something had happened while they were gone, but neither had any idea what could pull such mixed reactions from the three of them.

   “We’ll tell you later.” Rumple promised.

   “We’ll show you if we can.” Zelena grinned, then looked at the girls. “Seriously you are both still very red. Lemme guess, roller-coaster?”

   “Uh- yup! That��s right!” Robin nodded. “Very exciting! So much fun! Couldn’t get enough of it.” She looked at Alice and shared a secret knowing smile. “Definitely do it again some time.”

   Alice grinned back, reaching over and entwining their fingers together as they began following Killian across the park. “Sometime soon.”

   As oblivious as ever Zelena shrugged and walked beside them. “Well, we have all weekend for you two do it again. But for now, Rumple, give me my granddaughter! Now! Grandma Zee wants time with her precious Blessing as well, so hand her over!”

[movietvtechgeeks]

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/supernatural-various-sundry-villains-kill-darlings/

'Supernatural' Various & Sundry Villains: Kill Your Darlings

Okay, I’m going to be upfront, I was ready to be super underwhelmed by last week’s Supernatural episode “Various & Sundry Villains.” All of the promotion focused on the love spell, and frankly, we’ve been there, done that. In fact, I’m shocked that showrunner Andrew Dabb let this pitch go to script given that he wrote the controversial episode “Season 7 Time for a Wedding”, an episode that I can honestly say has only one truly redeeming quality: Leslie Odom, Jr. was in it. While this was arguably derivative of that episode, giving this the go ahead was risky on Dabb’s part. It paid off for writer, Steve Yockey, because this love spell outing was much better than the last. In the opening of this episode we meet the Plum sisters, and I hate to say this, but despite watching this episode three times I don’t actually remember their first names and I could barely tell them apart anyway, so we’ll just call the one Dean “falls in love with” Harley Quinn and the other one we’ll call… Harley Quinn’s little sister? Yeah, sure, why not? Between the cutesy valley girl verbiage and the bloody sledgehammer, I’m sure we were supposed to get an Arkham Asylum vibe off these two. At least, I really hope that was the intention. I’ll be honest, I was not impressed with these characters and I’m not sure if it was off writing, off casting, or off directing, but they felt really forced. From their overly stereotypical Millenial way of speaking to their overtly blatant mirroring of Sam and Dean (yes, we get it, one is younger and brainy, they other is older and protective, they’re obsessed with their dead mom and it could go badly, was that a hammer they were using or an anvil?) the Plum sisters, unlike their Winchester counterparts, came off as grating. Maybe they were supposed to? Again, I hope so. I will say that as a horror buff I enjoyed the return of Rowena’s mad dog spell and the demise of the Plum sisters at each other’s hands. I saw a lot of people say it was too much, too gratuitous, too gory. And perhaps it was, but given the movies I regularly watch and enjoy, well, I embraced it. While I will say I’m glad the love spell portion of the episode was short-lived, it’s always fun to see Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki show off their comedy elbow chops; Ackles with the perfectly timed glibness he brings to Dean Winchester and Padalecki’s Sam Winchester, ever the earnest Abbott to Ackles’ Costello, was subtle, stoic faced gold. Ackles and Padalecki got to play off each other magnificently in this episode; from Dean walking in practically floating on a love cloud, to Sam trying desperately to remind Dean they’ve been down this weird love spell road before, to Ackles’ delivery of “‘cause she’s got a sister”, to their tussle in front of the Impala (though, dang, these boys horseplay hard given the butt dent Sam left on the hood after Dean rushed him) the two actors smoothly show how well they work together no matter the material. But the star of this episode was Rowena. Her entrance was stellar, and she stole every scene. Ruth Connell is delightful in this role and for the most part (we’ll get to that later) I was glad to see her back because I was sorry to lose her last season, especially in such a cheap, off-screen way. I’m hard-pressed to fall for new characters, but Rowena is one that I really enjoy. Connell was able to give us comedy and tragedy in this episode, going from snark to desperation fluidly. I also have to give Steve Yockey heaps of credit for having Rowena not only ask about Crowley but allowing her to have an outburst about his death. Hearing her say that she’d rather have him alive than to have died a hero hit really close to home given that the lack of Mark Sheppard as Crowley has been quite the gaping hole this season. Take a note from Yockey, other writers, because I’m still waiting for Castiel to ask about Meg… Speaking of Castiel, he and Lucifer were locked up. Now they aren’t. And like, they had a whole big penis to penis measurement contest and Castiel for some reason tried to hurt Lucifer by telling him that Jack doesn’t even look like him, which… um, Lucifer is in the image of a seasons dead vessel so, of course, he doesn’t look like him. And also, when did you get to know so much about Jack, Castiel? I think maybe the writer accidentally gave Misha Collins some of Sam’s lines to say. If I sound like I was less than moved by any of these scenes, it’s because I wasn’t. The scenes weren’t objectively bad or anything, and not only has Mark Pellegrino has found his footing as Lucifer again, but he and Collins play extremely well off each other. Unfortunately, their scenes simply didn’t mesh well with the “A” plot and the dichotomy crashed the episode’s momentum. Although, I did enjoy both characters reminding each other what untrustworthy, hypocritical screw-ups both have been. Again, I appreciate it when Supernatural is self-aware like that because fallibility gives depth and interest. Now, you didn’t think I was going to review this episode and not talk about Sam and Rowena sharing their trauma, did you? Because that was a scene that many Supernatural fans have waited years for. In season 11, Sam was forced to not only work with Lucifer, but he had to allow Lucifer into his home, into his room, and wasn’t allowed to voice any grievances about it and while Padalecki did a phenomenal job adding little twitches and moments of tight body language and subtle distance, it was all too obvious that the writers were wary of taking Sam’s trauma seriously because at the time Lucifer was possessing Castiel’s body and the “Cassifer" version of Lucifer was played mostly as a joke throughout that entire arc, nothing but a bratty teenager throwing a tantrum, while Sam Winchester, the boy who had every reason to rip into both Lucifer and God, just stood on the sidelines silently like he was totally fine. But he wasn’t, he hasn’t been, and watching Sam and Rowena both delve into the trauma and abuse they experienced at Lucifer’s hand was fantastically written and acted. Yockey was able to give the characters just enough for them to convey, through their tone, inflections, and facial expressions how much they were, no are, broken by the Devil himself. Having them both admit to seeing Lucifer’s real face, while giving no descriptive details was brilliant. Both Padalecki and Connell were able to communicate to the audience how horrific it was for their characters without any unnecessary detail. Such a great “show, don’t tell” moment; it’s so much more frightening for the viewer to fill in the blanks. And Sam explaining that it isn’t that he’s okay, it’s that he never gets the chance to fully deal with his trauma because the world is always falling apart was both heartbreaking and much needed, not only for Sam to say it but for the audience to hear it. At the end of this episode we got to see the other side of the Ackles/Padalecki chemistry, their ability to rip your heart out, when Sam and Dean have a frank discussion back at the bunker about what to do going forward. Dean knowing that Sam gave Rowena the spell she wanted and instead of yelling and belittling him, he’s simply honest and direct with him and doesn’t question Sam when he says that if Rowena played him again, he’ll personally kill her. It was also good to hear Sam be open with Dean about how defeated he feels, about how he tried to mask that with conviction and hope, but that he can’t fake it til he makes it anymore. And while Dean’s words of encouragement and confidence may seemingly ring hollow to Sam, it’s not because Sam doesn’t have faith in Dean, it’s that right now he can’t see where Dean is coming from. Dean knows, because characters have told him for years, how important he and Sam are, how they keep this world spinning, but Sam has never heard it directly, not from God, not from Amara, not from Death, not from Billie. Those declarations have only been uttered to Dean and then conveyed by Dean to Sam, so Dean knows that they’ll figure out a way, that it’s basically destiny and Sam has no choice but to take Dean’s word for it. I could go on and on about the isolation of Sam Winchester, but that’s an article for a different day. [caption id="attachment_53290" align="aligncenter" width="696"] Photo: Home of the Nutty[/caption] Overall, this was a mytharc episode done well, slightly overstuffed as most mytharc episodes are, but coherent and well paced with a fantastic blend of horror, levity, and angst. That said, the last thing I want to touch on for this episode is something that was absolutely no fault of the writer, Steve Yockey, but I think is an increasing problem on Supernatural; the element of surprise is gone, as are the stakes. Supernatural was once known as a show where rocks fell, and everyone died. It was also a show where Jim Beaver once hid his reprisal of Bobby Singer by trying to convince fandom that he was in Vancouver shooting an abominable snowman movie so that his return to the show wasn’t spoiled Fast forward just a few years and the cast, crew, and network PR are spoiling character reveals weeks, even months in advance. Instead of being shocked by Rowena’s return we all went into this episode waiting for her appearance, and while we saw Castiel stab Lucifer with an angel blade; saw the red light go out of Lucifer’s eyes; it’s all for naught. Lucifer is the focus of the promo that aired right after the episode, and the synopsis for the next episode lays out exactly what he’ll be up to. Even last season finale, no one believed Castiel was actually permanently dead. Hell, it took Mark Sheppard declaring that he refuses to ever reprise his role for fans to believe Crowley was truly dead. No stakes means no emotional payoff. No secrecy means no shock and awe. Take a page from some of the greats, Supernatural, including yourself: what’s dead should stay dead, so kill your darlings and if you must bring them back, stop telegraphing their returns. Check out this week's Supernatural Devil's Bargain trailer above.

Movie TV Tech Geeks News

[robedisimo]

Spider-Man: Homecoming [SPOILER-FREE REVIEW]

[Disclaimer: this review is based on the Italian dub of the film. As such, all opinions on the quality of dialogues and acting are subjective and partial.]

I think it’s safe to say that if there’s an idea more instinctively wrong than a reboot, that has to be a reboot of a reboot. So when the Amazing Spider-Man franchise crashed and burned, many rightfully thought that the Spider-brand had become a minefield: the character is way too popular with audiences not to exploit, but a third origin story, retreading the same tired story beats at such a short interval, felt like a death sentence to all involved.

It’s the reason why resurrecting the property in the solid-footed house built by the Marvel Cinematic Universe made so much sense, and why people were instantly more excited than worried at the prospect. Could the MCU’s stability balance out the inherent toxicity of a franchise “threeboot”? The character’s debut in last year’s Captain America: Civil War seemed to suggest as much, but a solo film is a different matter entirely.

Fortunately, I’m happy to report that all is well in the House of Ideas. Under its roof, Spider-Man: Homecoming not only brings the wall-crawler back home to reconnect him to the comic roots of his past, but projects him with gusto into a promising future. Firmly planting itself on the top tier of Marvel film adaptations, Homecoming is made better by its MCU connections and in turn makes the shared universe itself better by taking place in it. It is, surprisingly, the best Spider-Man movie to date – while obviously not as archetypal as Sam Raimi’s seminal first adaptation way back in 2002 – and I  wouldn’t be surprised if it ended up becoming many viewers’ new favourite movie in the Marvel Studios canon.

What’s clear from this film is that Marvel had a lot of ideas as to how to do Spider-Man right, resulting in one of the more inventive takes on the character ever committed to screen. The key, however, was to take Peter Parker back to his native environment: a coming-of-age story in a high school environment, with a teen-drama flavour that makes the storytelling more intimate. This is a younger Spider-Man than we’re used to see on film, cobbled together as an inspired amalgam of different incarnations of the character in recent years, most notably both iterations of the Ultimate Spider-Man comic franchise and the short-lived Spectacular Spider-Man television show.

There are three main consequences to this: one, this is a more energetic film than even the already-lively standards of Marvel movies so far have made us used to. This new Spider-Man hits theatre screens with a definite spring in his step, delivering a peppy, fast-talking adventure whose comedic focus has more in common – ironically appropriate, given the obvious insect-themed parallels – with Ant-Man’s Edgar Wright-esque cues than any other MCU instalment so far. What’s more, the tone here is young and hip but not juvenile: pretty much all jokes in the film land successfully, and it’s hard to resist the temptation to consider the whole project Marvel’s attempt at a cleaner, more family-friendly (and high-budget) version of the same irreverent, franchise-referencing metahumour of last year’s Deadpool, especially in light of a couple idiosyncratic choices in the end credits graphics and post-credits scenes.

Two, a younger Peter Parker means that his classic high school setting needs to be updated to a more contemporary approach. Queens is no longer the same New York City borough it was fifty years ago, now being hailed as the most ethnically diverse area in the American metropolis: the film’s cast has therefore accordingly been given a spin in the mixer, marrying modern needs of representation to yet another chance at differentiating this new reboot from previous renditions of the franchise. Spider-Man: Homecoming is a tapestry of all-race classrooms and bodega cats, and while it may feel a tad strange to comic purists – especially in the face of a couple debatable character choices – it’s hard to argue with the precise balance achieved by the film between looking back at comic tradition and moving forward into modernity.

And three, a younger Spider-Man means that, almost ten years into Marvel’s mega-franchise, we finally get to see a side of its narrative universe thus far mostly kept from our eyes. A more immature, less experienced Peter means lower stakes – there’s no “saving the planet” business in store for him yet, which is compensated by upping the ante on the personal and emotional stakes front – and a smaller scope: this is, finally, a “friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man”, one whose street-level adventures take place among the common people of the MCU. Through his eyes we’re finally able to take a look at how the superheroic age has changed the environment and culture of Marvelverse residents, something that wasn’t accomplished by the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series – whose characters are conspicuously never seen going about their daily lives outside the workplace – nor by the Marvel/Netflix shows, whose nature to this date remains too insular to indulge in heavy cross-over material.

Homecoming’s plot makes a point of that, musing on the remoteness of the Avengers-tier heroes and their status as little more than talking heads on television screens to most of the general population. These are the celebrities and divas of the Marvel universe, but times change; and as sci-fi technology starts finding its way to petty criminals rather than world-conquering masterminds, so too heroes need to keep an eye on the common folk. It’s an age of vigilantes and secret identities, something that’s been conspicuously absent from the MCU so far. Which, to be honest, makes me lament the fact that, if it weren’t for the obviously different levels of violence allowed in the two franchises – and Marvel constantly shooting itself in the foot with broken promises of deeper ties between the Netflix line-up and the rest of the canon – it would be pretty great to see this Spider-Man go toe-to-toe with Daredevil’s Kingpin.

So it’s especially fitting that this new generation of heroes should be heralded by such a young Peter Parker, literally a second-generation character who grew up in the brave new world of superheroes and was inspired by their costumed exploits – to the point where putting together a colourful crime-fighting getup feels like the natural thing to do to a teenager who just got superpowers. Marvel evidently knows this, as they made the thematically perfect choice to turn Iron Man into Peter’s mentor: Tony Stark is arguably the least “adult” of Marvel heroes, characterised as he is by a dangerous obsession with high-tech toys and a general inability to get his emotional life together. His immaturity is a great counterpoint to Peter’s classic – and fantastically understated, in this origin story-skipping reboot – theme of responsibility, and his wish for the next generation to be better than the previous one leaves me with high hopes for Spider-Man’s future role in the Avengers franchise.

Of course, the other (read: primary) reason for adding Tony to the mix was the obvious added traction Robert Downey Jr.’s involvement would add to the movie, but then who could complain about that? Especially as his supporting role stands in the midst of one of Marvel’s most star-studded casts to date, from the film’s young protagonists – Holland’s take on the character is sufficiently fresh that it doesn’t invite comparisons to Maguire or Garfield, but he’d win in both cases – to Marisa Tomei’s excellent take on aunt May, to a number of big and small cameos interspersed throughout the story.

A particular nod must go to Michael Keaton, here finally coming full-circle and playing a literal Birdman: his portrayal of Adrian Toomes/the Vulture is a heavily reworked take on the comic character that works remarkably well, for the most part avoiding the disappointing treatment of many Marvel movie villains. His performance in the role is in many ways an extension of his excellent turn in last year’s The Founder, and in part an ironic counterpoint to Ant-Man’s Darren Cross, another technological villain harbouring a grudge towards our protagonist’s superhero mentor. It’s a bit of a shame that a couple of Toomes’s best scenes in the film seem designed to directly pay homage to Willem Dafoe’s Norman Osborn, which makes the character a shade less unique, but for the most part it all works.

What works slightly less well is the film’s action, which alternates inconsistently between excellent, creative set pieces and some inventive but rather chaotic stuff – at least on a theatre screen – near the climax, due both to overwhelming visual effects and some occasionally dodgy editing. I’d say about 75% of it clicks, but it’s a pity that the least-excellent action sequence is the decisive one. And, if you want to nitpick (why not), the plot honestly keeps itself together through a series of coincidences that would be pretty hard to believe in a realistic setting.

Other than that, Spider-Man: Homecoming is a superbly entertaining flick and a marvelous reintroduction to the character, paving the way for more great content in the near future. Who knows, maybe this could even cause something to change for the ill-fated Fantastic Four franchise. Only time will tell. 

[Verdict: VERY POSITIVE]

[inhumansforever]

Secret Warriors #1 Review

spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers

Spinning out of the Secret Empire cross over event, Mathew Rosenberg, Javier Garrón and Israel Silva bring us the debut issue of the all new Secret Warriors.  Full recap and review following the jump.

A sentient version of the reality-bending Cosmic Cube has altered the fabric of reality, changing history so that Captain America has been transformed and has secretly been an agent of Hydra, quietly biding his time and putting into place a grand scheme to seat Hydra as the rulers of the United States and soon the world.  The plot has been initiated and the world’s heroes were caught by surprise as the greatest among them has been revealed as a traitor and the most dire of threats.   Rogers and his Hydra forces have sprung their trap, encasing much of Manhattan in an impenetrable orb of Darkforce energy while using Alpha Flight’s earthly shield to strand many of the world’s more powerful heroes in outer space.  Shield has been compromised, the majority of its agents having been brainwashed into following Hydra’s command; and there are plenty of angry young men and women willing to join Hydra’s new world order.  Things are pretty bad.

The issues narrative jumps back and forth between periods of time before and after Hydra’s sinister take-over.  The central focus is on Daisy ‘Quake’ Johnson.  Along with being an Inhuman who can control seismic waves, Daisy is additionally a high ranking Shield agent who led ‘Moth Squadron,’ a task force that had monitored Inhuman affairs.  Daisy had become suspicious of Hydra’s plots and Steve Rogers set her team on a mission that was covertly an ambush where her team was attacked by the villainous Wrecking Crew.  

Daisy was ultimately able to defeat the Wrecking Crew, but her entire team was killed in action (including, it would appear, YoYo Rodriguez, the former Secret Warrior known as Slingshot - although I certainly hope she isn’t truly dead because it would be a terrible loss).  

Aware of Rogers’ treachery, Daisy arranges a secret rendezvous with her trusted alley, Phil Coulson.  Coulson cannot believe that Rogers has gone rogue but agrees to investigate the matter and the two arrange to meet once more at a coffee shop in The Bronx.  

Then the take over occurs and Hydra assumes control of the majority of the Eastern Seaborne.  The Inhumans are viewed as impure in accordance to Hydra’s racist world order and the city of New Attilan is sacked, its citizens arrested and placed in a heavily fortified internment camp. Daisy awaits Coulson in the coffee shop but he never arrives, instead she is accosted by a group of her former fellow Shield agents who attempt to take her in for ‘reprogramming.’  

Daisy is able to defeat these agents and she formulates a plan for mounting a resistance to Hydra’s rule.  A key facet to this plan is locating a freeing a specific Inhuman.  She calls upon the assistance of Ms. Marvel and Moon Girl to intercept a convoy she believes is transporting the individual Daisy is searching for.  It remains unclear how Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur managed to escape the DarkForce dome encasing Manhattan, but she agrees to join Ms. Marvel in taking out the convoy.  Ms. Marvel and Moon Girl are initially suspicious of Daisy; the other Shield agents have somehow turned evil, so what should make her different?  Fortunately, Daisy is able to pass Devil Dinosaur’s smell test… her scent seems clean to him and this is enough to assure Moon Girl and Ms. Marvel that Daisy is on the up and up.  There’s a good deal of tension and salty banter between the three.

It turns out that the convoy is not transporting the individual Daisy is looking for but is rather holding the young Inhuman, Inferno, as well as a pair of additional unnamed Inhumans.  Discouraged, Daisy dismisses her allies, opting to continue her mission on her own.  Yet Ms. Marvel, Moon Girl and now Inferno are not so easily deterred.  They have learned that The Inhumans are being kept at an internment camp and will not rest until their peoples are freed.  

Daisy and Ms. Marvel continue not to see eye to eye.  Daisy feels that stealth and digression is advised whereas Ms. Marvel simply cannot stand by leaving their fellow Inhumans locked up in what is essentially a concentration camp.  

Before the two can reach a consensus, Moon Girl takes matters into her own hands and approaches the front gate, distracting the guards long enough for Devil Dinosaur and the others to sneak up and begin to wreak havoc.  A massive battle erupts as many of the Inhumans are freed and fight against their Hydra captors.  

Among the fracas, Daisy seeks out the specific Inhuman she has been searching out: Karnak.  Daisy needs Karnak, his ability to perceive the flaw in all things may prove essential in devising a stratagem for deafening Hydra.  Surprisingly, Karnak is not especially interested in being rescued.  He has once more retreated into a utterly pessimistic and nihilistic mindset.  With he loss of the Terrigen Cloud his race has been effectively doomed to extinction and he doesn’t feel especially concerned that the human nation of America is currently tearing itself apart.  

Karnak’s mood and attitude shifts quite quickly when he sees that Moon Girl has accompanied Daisy in his rescue.  He is quite pleased to see Lunella and quite suddenly changes his mind and decides that he will join Daisy’s crusade after all.  This exchange entails what is sure to be my favorite panel of the day... 

Karnak suggests, however, that who they truly need is not incarcerated in this camp, that he has instead been taken by The X-Men.  Whom Karnak is referring to and what The X-Men are up to are both matters left unrevealed as the issue ends on this cliffhanger.    

A fun albeit slightly disjointed first issue.  The narrative is a bit hampered by being so tied into the goings-on in the pages of the main Secret Empire book.  I’m actually an issue behind on Secret Empire and, while I was still able to follow the plot, the enormity of the stakes did not quite sink in for me.  And this made it especially jarring to see characters like Ms. Marvel and Inferno fight with a level of ferocity that I’m not used to.  I realize that these villains are nazis and all nazis should die terrible deaths, but are some of the bad guys just mind controlled?  Whatever the case, Inferno straight up incinerates a number of goons and nazi or not it is quite disconcerting to see your heroes killing people.  

Mathew Rosenberg’s decision to utilize a time-skipping narrative, jumping to points before and after the Hydra takeover is a risky choice.  It works for the most part, but also adds to the general feeling of the book being a mere side-story to the main tale taking place in Secret Empire.  My guess is that the main Secret Empire book has these matters covered and it may have been a smarter choice to focus on character development rather than the sinister mechanisms of Hydra’s plot.  As it stands, Daisy is offered development and motivation whereas Ms. Marvel, Moon Girl and Inferno feel more like supporting players.  

Fortunately, Rosenberg excels at writing Daisy.  Nick Fury’s training has led her to suspect everyone and trust no one.  Just as she was coming to be able to rely on others, Steve Rogers turned on her and it cost her the lives of her team.  It has left her somewhat traumatized.  It is clear that she is fearful over the prospect of leading the younger Inhumans into battle... frightened over the idea of these young heroes also dying under her command.  Yet she attempts to suppress this fear through a rather transparent facade of jaded sass and quippy insults.  

It’s clear from the get-go that Daisy and Ms. Marvel are not going to get along.  Even in these dire times, Kamala is unwilling to give up on her ideals of what it means to be a hero.  And this is sure to be at odds with the moral gray areas Daisy will need to resort to in order to succeed in their mission.  Daisy knows that this is war; and there’s no way to win a war without getting your hands dirty.  It’s a grim truth that Kamala is sure to have a great deal of difficulty with.  

Karnak only shows up for the last few pages of the issue, but makes an interesting impression.  In the Karnak miniseries, Warren Ellis established the character as a supreme nihilist, a pessimistic curmudgeon who was wonderfully fun to read about despite his sour demeanor.  And yet this nihilism is cast in a very different light against the backdrop of a world taken over by fascists.  Everything that is sort of cool or appealing about ‘not caring’ is recast as complicit when such terrible things are occurring.  Yet Karnak has no interest in the world of humans and sees his own race as already doomed to extinction. 

It is only the appearance of Lunella that changes Karnak’s mind.  It is not yet made entirely clear what it is about Lunella that causes this change in attitude.   My current guess is that Karnak sees in her a sense of dueling intellect and innocence that offers him the one things he feels is beyond him: hope.  Whatever the case, I’ll be very interested to see how Karnak and Lunella’s relationship evolves in future issues.  

Javier Garrón’s art is on point.  He is asked to fill in a great deal of action is a relatively small number of pages and utilizes a panel economy that is highly busy while not disorganized (which I cannot imagine is easy to do).  The action is fluid and dynamic and he really excels at illustrating chaotic scenes.  The quieter scenes are a bit more static and I’m still warming up to Garrón’s particular approach to relaying facial expressions of emotion.  

Colorist, Israel Silva, also does excellent work, especially in terms of using different pallets to distinguish those scenes set in the past versus those set in the present.  My one gripe is the curious choices of how Daisy and Kamala’s hair are colored.  For some reason, Daisy’s hair is now brown instead of black and Kamala’s black instead of brown.  I’m not sure why this decision was made and, while it’s a minor nitpick, I nevertheless hope it gets rectified in subsequent issues.  

All in all this first issue feels more like a preview of Secret Warriors as opposed to its official debut.  It’s a good read, but being so tethered to the Secret Empire event is certainly a handicap.  A part of me feel like the real first issue of Secret Warriors will come when Secret Empire is over and Rosenberg and company can be free to tell their own story in a much more independent and unencumbered fashion.  Nonetheless, it’s still lots of fun and recommended.

Three out of Five Lockjaws

[spryfilm]

“Pacfic Rim: Uprising” (2018)

Action/Science Fiction

Running Time: 111 minutes

Written by: Emily Carmichael, Kira Snyder, Steven S. DeKnight & T.S. Nowlin

Directed by: Steven S. DeKnight

Featuring: John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Cailee Spaeny, Jing Tian, Adria Arjona, Zhang Jin, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Burn Gorman

Voice: “What is a Jaeger? A Jaeger is the pinnacle of human invention. When the monsters came we did now wait for heroes to fall from the sky and save us, we saved ourselves. Innovation is our superpower. What is a Jaeger? It’s you times a thousand. Tall as a mountain with a beating heart that burns as bright as the sun, enabling us all to become the most heroic versions of ourselves.”

Critical Commentary:

How times change, after the release of “Pacific Rim” (2013) a Guillermo del Toro directed piece of science fiction that wanted to straddle the worlds of Wells and Lovecraft, that featured some of the hottest up and coming stars of that year in Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba as well as some fine characters actors in Ron Pearlman, Max Martini, Clifton Collins Jr., Burn Gorman and Charlie Day, it seemed the stories of Kaiju’s and Jaeger would never have another outing. With an outsized budget of US$200 million dollars and a really rather middling box office of US$411 million (most coming from International markets) there was little appetite for a sequel. Come 2018 with the more expensive actors as well as production people replaced by what really are B and C actors we now have a sequel in “Pacific Rim: Uprising” (2018), with a budget far less at US$150 million (even less when factoring in inflation) this has not been the hit that the studio (Legendary /Universal) or the producers had hoped for. With all the best intentions in the world, no matter how much story or plot that is attempted this potential franchise is still built around monsters fighting giant machines, which is of course its greatest strength, but also remains its greatest weakness, as does the unbelievable amount of collateral damage that is caused in every single action set piece of which there are more than a few, maybe too many as it transpires.

This sequel co-written and directed by Steven S. DeKnight who is possibly best known as a genre television writer has never been at the helm of a movie either as writer or director – for most of “Pacific Rim: Uprising” he makes a decent enough fist of it, although I do question handing the reigns of such a large budget to someone with very little actual experience. Where the lack of ideas as well as originality does show is in the general story and action that appears onscreen as well as the plot reasons as to why there is even a need for this sequel, when the original itself was not only uninspiring but very middle of the road with no real genre flourishes or originality beyond the fact that there were giant machines fighting giant monsters. I have pointed out continuously that just because there is a great idea for a movie, and don’t get me wrong the general conceit behind both ‘Pacific Rim’ movies is very good, it is the small details that make that good idea into a great film. Unfortunately, there is just too much of a plot to fit comfortably into the modest running time and budget. What is amusing is that it is the exact opposite problem that the first movie had, not enough plot, too much confusing fighting and issues with the world building as well as clearly defining not only the antagonists but too little seen of them and their location.

“Pacific Rim: Uprising” is set ten years after the Battle of the Breach, former Jaeger pilot Jake Pentecost – son of deceased Kaiju War hero Stacker Pentecost – makes a living by stealing and selling Jaeger parts on the black market. After he tracks part of a disabled Jaeger’s power core to the secret workshop of fifteen year old Jaeger enthusiast Amara Namani, both are arrested and are given a choice between the prison or return to PPDC as an instructor with Amara as his recruit.

Upon arriving at a Shatterdome in China, Jake starts training Jaeger program cadets with his estranged former co-pilot Nate Lambert. Nate and Mako reveal to him that the Jaeger program is threatened by Shao Corporation’s drone program. Mako is due to deliver a final assessment to determine the authorization of the drones at a PPDC council meeting in Sydney, but is killed by rogue Jaeger Obsidian Fury before she can report. Her death prompts the PPDC council to authorize the drone program and order their immediate deployment. Upon destroying its reactor, they find that Obsidian Fury was controlled by a Kaiju’s secondary brain, which testing shows was grown on Earth.

What is the stand out element for me, in fact for pretty much the entire movie is the casting (as well as co-producer) of John Boyega who proves he is going to be a big star of the future outside his ‘Star Wars’ appearances, which is no mean feat, as type casting is not just a thing of the past. Here Boyega has to live up to the memory of not only his characters father but the fact that his father was portrayed by the fantastic Idris Elba who maintains a presence in all the movies he has appeared in. Boyega in this movie is equally charming as well as being caddish, a boy growing into a man, even while he is teaching others far younger than himself. Therein lies one of the problems with the movie, which is the fact that this movie relies far too much on younger actors as well as the miscast Scott Eastwood who while he has pedigree (his father is Clint Eastwood) is not a great actor at all – the only saving grace is that his father matured with age as an actor so there is hope for him yet. The two actors that seem to know what movie they are in as well as stealing the show are the holdouts from the previous instalment in Charlie Day and Burn Gorman who are at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of performance but complement each other exceptionally well. As for the rest of the cast they are mostly unknowns who serve a purpose but are really just filling to the massive CGI fights that take place for a majority of the running time.

Of course the real stars of this movie are the Jaeger’s and to a lesser extent the rival Kaiju’s who are all CGI creations. Carrying on from the previous movie the world has already been built and it is obvious to see that the bulk of the budget has gone on rendering these giants of destruction. My only real criticism is that the actual world that these giants operate in is pretty drab, faceless and lifeless. It seems like the flaws of movies like “Man of Steel” (2013) and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” (2016) have been ignored here, as we are witness to hundreds of buildings in multiple cities being destroyed with little time being spent on the human cost or even the social cost which is a major mistake on the filmmakers part – surely audiences are beyond this, perhaps this is a reason why the movie is bland as well as fairly unsuccessful at the box office.

One of the aspects of the movie that is unforgiveable, something Marvel movies learnt after “Iron Man 2” (2010) is the setting up of sequels before the first or second movies are good enough or successful enough to earn these on their own. So we see in the closing moments of the movie a blatant attempt to set up another ‘Pacific Rim’ instalment which is ludicrous as this one was never going to be able to spawn one with these filmmakers attached. This, coupled with a rather too expansive plot means that this movie at times is a hard watch as it really does bite off more than it can chew in terms of establishing brand new characters as well as new versions of antagonists from the previous movie, again while dangling even more story for a sequel.

The question in my mind is simply should this be viewed in cinemas and I would say that “Pacific Rim: Uprising” is worth a watch but maybe at home on Blu-ray or a streaming service. This is a movie that in the ‘old days’ would have been a direct to video release at best, which would have been a nice surprise especially with the edition of John Boyega. So wait and watch at home, you will enjoy much more.

Technical Commentary:

Vital Disc Stats:

Universal brings “Pacific Rim: Uprising” to 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray as a two-disc combo pack with a flyer code for a Digital Copy. The triple-layered UHD100 disc sits comfortably opposite a Region Free, BD50 disc inside a black, eco-vortex case with a glossy slipcover. At startup, the disc goes straight to a menu screen with an image of the cover art and music playing in the background.

The Video: 

There is no doubt that the picture is alive with the range of colors available when viewing this 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, it has a with a lavish HEVC H.265 encode that never seems to shortchange the movie.

As soon as the movie begins it is easy to identify within the picture the rich greens, electrifying blues, and splendid full-bodied reds, which complement the over the top visuals, giving it just the right feel for the story it is telling. The Jaegers all look amazing on a large screen TV, they shine and shimmer never losing their majestic awe that should be standard when watching Sci-Fi life this. What I love to witness though are the backgrounds that shine as clear as anything else, the skyscrapers, water, signs and of course the Kaiju themselves. Most impressive has to be the actual breach where viewers can be bewitched by the ecstatic mix of blistering yellow, fiery orange, vibrant crimson and flaming magenta.

The 4K presentation also comes with perfect contrast that’s consistent and well-balanced while also delivering intensely hot, radiant whites, from the super-hygienically clean suits of Liwen Shao and the bright sterile labs to the luminously brilliant glow of various light sources and the soft, fluffy clouds.

Brightness levels are rich and luxurious with blacks that reveal superb gradational variances between the numerous shades, nicely separating the gear and straps from the rest of the uniforms. Silky, midnight shadows penetrate deep into the screen without hampering the finer aspects of the background, providing the 2.39:1 image with a stunning, cinematic appeal and three-dimensional quality. Shot exclusively on the Arri Alexa camera system with a max 3.4K resolution, the freshly-minted transfer, upscaled from a 2K digital intermediate, arrives in the nick of time with razor-sharp definition in every scene.

  The Supplements:

Audio Commentary: Director Steven S. DeKnight rides solo for this fairly informative commentary on various aspects of the production, the performances, visual effects and overall story.

Becoming Cadets (4K, 6 min): A few minutes on Amara’s fellow recruits.

Unexpected Villain (4K, 6 min): Interviews on one character’s surprise twist.

Bridge to Uprising (4K, 5 min): Cast & crew interviews on connecting the sequel to the first.

Next Level Jaegers (4K, 5 min): Closer look and technical discussion on the new mecha characters.

The Underworld of Uprising (4K, 4 min): Discussion on the first act & surviving in the aftermath.

Hall of Heroes (4K, 3 min): John Boyega comments on specific details of each Jaeger.

I Am Scrapper (4K, 3 min): Brief look on the small Jaeger and its role in the movie.

Going Mega (4K, 3 min): Some time on the mother of all Kaijus.

Secrets of Shao (4K, 3 min): Focused on the ruthless businesswoman.

Mako Returns (4K, 2 min): Pretty much exactly as the title implies.

“Pacific Rim: Uprising” is out now on 4K Blu-ray, Blu-ray & DVD.

4K Blu-ray review: “Pacfic Rim: Uprising” (2018) “Pacfic Rim: Uprising” (2018) Action/Science Fiction Running Time: 111 minutes Written by: Emily Carmichael, Kira Snyder, Steven S.

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Mr. Demille, I’m Ready for My Glenn Close-Up: ‘Sunset Boulevard’ Opens on Broadway

Glenn Close at the press event for Andrew Lloyd Weber’s adaptation of Sunset Boulevard. Bruce Glikas

“So they were turning, after all—those cameras. Life, which can be strangely merciful, had taken pity on Norma Desmond. The dream she had clung to so desperately had enfolded her.”

–The late Joe Gillis narrating Norma Desmond’s mad staircase descent at the end of  Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard

Norma Desmond met the press the other day at her Palace (commonly known as The Palace at 47th and Seventh). Questions flying, cameras flashing—she loved it.

But then, what’s not to love? The cause for all this media commotion was her long-time-in-coming comeback—or rather, as she pointedly prefers, her “return—a return to the millions of people who’ve never forgiven me for deserting the screen.”

Actually, regardless of how offensive it may be to poor Norma’s super-sensitive sensibilities, comeback is the correct word—especially when referring to Glenn Close, the Tony-winning Desmond and, arguably, the greatest Desmond of all, who will commence a 16-week reprise of her 1994 triumph Feb. 9 in case you missed it.

Close’s objection is with the word “reprise,” and she speaks right up: “This time, my whole approach was that I didn’t want to go back to anything I did before. I came to it just thinking I’m not recreating. I’m exploring, starting from scratch. I’m 22 years older now. I’ve had 22 years more of craft and life. It’s bound to be a different take.

“Also, it’s a story that invites revisiting. It’s one of the greatest stories ever to come out of Hollywood—and certainly one of the greatest roles ever written for a woman, either on stage or in film. Playing this character takes everything. As cathartic as the story itself is—for any actor or actress in it, it’s also cathartic and, ultimately, very satisfying just to feel that all your creative muscles are being flexed while you do it.”

Close is 69 now and holding herself to seven performances a week. “We found out you can’t do eight performances a week of this role without getting sick. Anyone who has ever played this role will tell you it’s physically, and vocally, challenging.”

Those who saw her make her West End debut last spring as Norma at London’s English National Opera say that age makes La Desmond less monstrous and more vulnerable. “To the astonishment of us all, Glenn was even better than before,” declares Christopher Hampton, who co-wrote the show’s book and lyrics with Don Black. “She nailed it. I’ve seldom been in a theater where people got so excited.”

Michael Xavier, Siobhan Dillon and Fred Johanson, who co-starred with Close in that production, are making their Broadway debuts repeating their performances here.

Hampton was the first person to see a musical in Sunset Boulevard. When the English National Opera passed on it, he gave the idea to Andrew Lloyd Webber—mostly as a way of politely passing on doing the book for The Phantom of the Opera.

Last month Phantom started its 30th year at the Majestic as Broadway’s longest running show—so, when Sunset Boulevard opens tomorrow at the Palace, with Cats and School of Rock also in town, Lloyd Webber will be the second composer ever to have four shows running simultaneously on the Main Stem. The first was Richard Rodgers, who, in the summer of ’53, had four of his shows with Hammerstein going full blast on Broadway (South Pacific, The King and I, Me and Juliet and Oklahoma!).

The British composer is a bit embarrassed, and more than a little humbled, by that statistic. “I met Richard Rodgers very, very early on in my career,” he says. “To think that I got anywhere near what The Great Man did is really astonishing for me.”

Unlike Rodgers, who needed a show to focus on to access his melodic storehouse, Lloyd Webber claims he compulsively composes every day. “Melody is what I really believe in. Right now, I have in my drawer of melodies probably 20 that I’m really pleased with. It’s a hopeless waste and strain because I can’t find a subject I want to do as a show, which is dreadful for me, but I can’t help it. I just think in melodies.”

A 40-piece orchestra, uncommonly large for Broadway, should help to hold that melodic line. “This is really the esteemed English National Opera’s staged concert version of the show,” Lloyd Webber underlines. “Because of that, it’s very much more about the material than the actual performance, so, therefore, now it’s all about the music and the story—without the encumbrance of huge scenery.”

John Napier’s multi-ton, Tony-winning gilded staircase, which dominated Norma’s gothic-Victorian-baroque mansion in the original Sunset Boulevard, is a brain-burner for anyone who has seen it. It sometimes ascended so a party scene could be played on stage under it, and, during the shaky L.A. tryout, its revelers would break into collective cold sweats from the after-shocks that followed a big California quake.

“That went on for months,” Close recalls. “The suspended stage always moved a bit when the earth was still, but, after that, even little shakes got the adrenalin going.”

She may be glad to see that magnificent monstrosity go, but it has been replaced by many more stairs for her to scale. “It’s more abstract and more deconstructed than Napier’s gorgeous, hyper-realistic set,” points out the show’s director, Lonny Price.

Glenn Close and Andrew Lloyd Weber at a press event for his Broadway adaptation of Sunset Boulevard. Bruce Glikas

“The original set and production encouraged a kind of grandiosity and, I think Glenn would even say, a kind of grotesquerie. Now, it’s a middle-aged woman fighting for her life and her career. She’s eccentric, for sure, and she’s been hurt a lot, and she’s going to lose her mind, but she’s not there yet. We watch her incrementally lose it.”

Just prior to presenting his star to the press, Lloyd Webber gave Close’s arm an affectionate squeeze and whispered to her like an excited schoolboy, “We’re all here because of you.” Which was true, he admits, “What happened was that we had the opportunity to do it at the English National Opera, and they asked Glenn. She had never done it—or anything on stage—in London, so I think she was keen to do it.”

It may be remembered that Lloyd Webber hired his stateside Evita, Patti LuPone, to world-premiere Norma in London, with the promise of her repeating the role on Broadway, but, when he saw Close do Norma at the American premiere in Los Angeles, he decided to give her the Broadway shot instead, resulting in an extremely acrimonious lawsuit that wound up paying for LuPone’s swimming pool. In this year’s Tony race, LuPone has the edge (via her Helena Rubinstein in War Paint) over Close, who, for all her from-the-ground-up work on Norma, isn’t eligible for seconds.

“Glenn,” Lloyd Webber still insists, “is the best Norma Desmond that I’ve ever seen.”

“Glenn,” Lloyd Webber still insists, “is the best Norma Desmond that I’ve ever seen.” That may or may not include the original madwoman of Sunset Boulevard—Gloria Swanson in Billy Wilder’s 1950 film classic. A haughty beauty from Keystone Kops days, Swanson was not known to be much of an actress before—or after—Sunset Boulevard, but for this one film Wilder manipulated from her a great performance of a silent screen star whose career crashed and burned with the coming of sound.

It’s now hard to believe, but she was not the first, second or third choice for the role. Wilder’s first choice, Mae West, was insulted by the offer. His second—Pola Negri, a Polish actress who didn’t survive sound—still had an accent that would mangle Wilder witticisms. He even went to Pickfair to pitch the picture in person to No. 3, Mary Pickford, who reacted in such horror at the story he was telling he stopped. Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer were asked but wouldn’t budge out of retirement.

Swanson was the suggestion of George Cukor, who, ironically, would direct the one performance that would take the Academy Award away from not only Swanson’s Norma Desmond but also Bette Davis’ Margo Channing: Judy Holliday’s Billie Dawn.

A major plus about the Swanson casting was that she’d worked with director Erich von Stroheim, whom Wilder hired to play Norma’s first husband and lasting butler, Max von Mayerling. The film they did together for producer Joseph Kennedy, Queen Kelly, was never finished, but a clip of it flickers by in Norma’s home screening room.

The role of Joe Gillis, who draws very dubious double duty as Norma’s screenwriter and lover, also went through casting loop-de-loops. Montgomery Clift bolted two weeks before shooting was to begin because he thought the older woman-younger man relationship reflected on his real-life one with Libby Holman; Fred MacMurray disliked the gigolo aspects of the role; Marlon Brando was considered too much of an unknown to take a chance; MGM refused to loan out Gene Kelly, so Wilder had to settle for a Paramount contract player, William Holden, who came through big time.

Wilder and his longtime writing partner, Charles Brackett, almost came to blows over a montage showing what Norma goes through to look young for the cameras. They never made another movie together. It was their 13th collaboration, and it won them—and someone named D. M. Marshman Jr.—a Best Original Screenplay Oscar. Marshman was a poker crony of Wilder’s whose chief contribution was dreaming up the two-decade age gap between Norma and Joe and turning him into “a kept man.”

Fearing a negative reaction to the movie’s damning depiction of the film industry, the script was kept top secret and titled A Can of Beans while in production. That fear turned out to be real: At the movie’s splashy Hollywood premiere, a livid Louis B. Mayer caught up with Wilder and accused him of biting the hand that fed him.

Wilder, never one to be at a loss for a witty retort, shot back a terse “Fuck you!”

Source

http://observer.com/2017/02/glenn-close-sunset-boulevard-broadway-andrew-lloyd-weber-interview/