#hes probably in his like 30s now? he was last active in 2010 so

[transylvanilla]

This guy's gaia acc goes so fucking hard

[yuzurujenn]

[2024.12.07] Sports Hochi - Yuzuru Hanyu's birthday countdown series: FINAL EPISODE

Professional figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu celebrated his 30th birthday on the 7th. On the same day, the third installment of his ice story, Yuzuru Hanyu ICE STORY 3rd "Echoes of Life" TOUR, opened at the Saitama Super Arena. In the final installment of the countdown series, reporter Megumi Takagi reflects on Hanyu’s "life beyond 30" through her interview notes.

An interview with Hanyu before the start of the 2010 World Junior Championships, where he later won, remains in the Tohoku edition of the Sports Hochi newspaper.

"I think the results of this Junior World Skating Championships are important in determining whether I can win a medal in Sochi four years from now. I absolutely want to win the gold medal. I want to compete in the Olympics from this (Sendai) rink and win, just like (Shizuka) Arakawa. Ultimately, I want to become a professional. In order to do that, I want to achieve the best results and then go professional. In the future, I want to become a professional and give back to everyone who has supported me up until now."

This was the vision Hanyu, just 15 years old, had for his future: full of effort, passion, and dedication. Hanyu has lived his life exactly like that. He visited disaster-stricken areas and made people smile. He has hosted ice shows for disaster recovery efforts, shining a light of hope through skating.

His commitment, unchanged from his competitive days, extends beyond "just skating." Whether it's in photography, interviews, or coaching, Hanyu gives his all.

At the charity performance for Noto Peninsula recovery in September, his lesson for local skaters lasted 50 minutes—much longer than the originally planned 30 minutes. A few days before, he had prioritized practice for the skating class over his own. He thought about what would benefit the children, what movements were best, and adapted exercises that could be done off-ice, since the rink was not permanent. He designed a training plan for improving skating, put it into practice, and conveyed it to them.

In an interview just before his second anniversary as a professional in July, Hanyu revealed again, "When I was around 18 or 16, honestly, I probably thought I wouldn't be skating at 30." After the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, he planned to turn professional and retire from skating after about five years of activity. Yet, he continues to skate, astonishingly evolving all the while.

"The way my physical strength and skills have developed is completely different from what I had imagined. I really feel like I can still do so much more, and I feel that there is a lot of potential for the future," he continued.

Since turning professional, the word "responsibility" has appeared more frequently in his vocabulary. He will likely continue to give his all and surpass his own limits. All the paths he has walked so far will beautifully and rightfully lead him beyond 30.

Source: https://hochi.news/articles/20241206-OHT1T51227.html?page=1

[greatwyrmgold]

The Age of Magneto

Here's a question for X-Men fans: How long until Magneto's expiration date? And what happens then?

You probably know what I mean, but this post is as much an excuse for me to spell out my thoughts on the matter as it is asking for other people's input. (I would still like to hear other opinions, mind you.)

Most metahumans' origin stories are free-floating in history. Batman's parents could have been shot in any decade, Krypton could explode in any decade, Dr. Doom's lab accident could happen in any decade. We just quietly accept a character barely aging between the 70's and the new 10's, if not longer, because that's how comics work. But if a historical event is central to your character's backstory, you could have problems.

The Holocaust was stopped roughly 77 years ago. Any mutant with strong enough memories of Nazi Germany for them to be a significant part of his motivation would need to be in his mid-80's, at minimum. That's longer than most people who don't regularly engage in superpower fights live; it's not old enough that still being an active villain breaks your suspension of disbelief, but my dad was talking about this when Magneto could plausibly be sixty-something.

Each passing decade makes it exponentially less plausible for Magneto to be an active supervillain, but he's a critical part of the X-Men. He's their most iconic villain, his dynamic with Professor Xavier is the centerpiece of everything X-Men says about civil rights, and while I don't follow the comics that closely, I know that Magneto is the father of several significant mutants. He can't just fade into the background when he stops being plausible, like Captain America: Commie-Smasher did.

So at some point, whether in the COVID 20's or the Cyber 30's or the Giant Alien Spider 40's, Magneto will have to change in some way. I only see three ways to do this, and none remotely preserve the X-Men's status quo.

The Natural Solution

The simplest way to make Magneto not unrealistically old to survive both Colossus and leukemia would be to have him just not survive. Possibly a big sacrifice or dramatic battle, possibly just old age or mundane disease, possibly dramatic disease or a mundane battle. Regardless, it seems likely that they'd want to kill Professor X around the same time, if only to put a clean coda on their iconic rivalry.

Now, they would still be important figures in the comics, but more the way that Uncle Ben or the Waynes are, or that MLK and the Black Panthers are to modern African-Americans. The older mutants fight to continue the legacy of their fallen leaders, the younger ones idolize them, but they are gone.

Despite being the only option that doesn't require a reboot or retcon, it's the most disruptive to the status quo, so I doubt they'd pick this one.

Same Genocide, Different Decade

Unfortunately, the Holocaust was not the last event of its kind. Sure, no genocide has been of the same industrial scale as the Holocaust (except the Holomodor, depending on what estimates you use and where you draw the line between "part of the Holocaust" and "just another Nazi war crime," let's leave it at that). But is the Rwandan genocide less tragic, criminal, or traumatic than the Holocaust just because "only" several hundred thousand people died?

Magneto's character wouldn't need to change an inch if he was a Cambodian in the 70's, a Hutu in the 90's, or even a Darfur (or is it Fur?) in the 2010's. But that doesn't mean there wouldn't be issues from this change, and I don't mean continuity ones.

First off, in all likelihood, executive mandate would cut away at this reboot of Magneto until it was, like, Magneto's parents died in a Latverian mutant genocide. Something comfortingly fictionalized. But let's pretend they'd keep a real genocide in there.

Losing a Jewish Magneto would suck. Even if we got different representation out of it, it would suck. And there's no way around it; antisemitism still exists, some organized antisemitism in the past 60 years probably qualifies as genocide, but none approaches the level of generational trauma caused by the Holocaust.

And then there's the race issue. You know how a certain type of reactionary flips out when a codename traditionally belonging to a straight white dude gets assumed by a "political" character? It would be so much worse if we couldn't point out "That's Kal's son" or "That's Tony's student" or "That's the Falcon with a shield". And any Magneto from a major post-WW2 genocide would either need to be a POC (and hence attract those chuds) or a Holomodor survivor (which would just change what chuds you pissed off).

This idea has a lot of good to it. It preserves the time-proven structure of X-Men storytelling, it's probably net positive for representation, and above all, it would remind the audience that the horrors which scarred Magneto did not end with the Nazis. But it also has a lot of bad to balance that out.

Iceman (not that one)

If Magneto is going to continue to be from the Silent Generation, and continue to be an active presence in the story, there will eventually need to be some reason for him not to be a centenarian. You could just make it a side effect of his magnetism somehow, but that feels like it's drawing attention to the problem more than it solves it. Luckily, the Marvel universe has an established mechanism for WW2-era characters to get from D-Day to the modern day.

(Come to think of it...Cap and Magneto were both around during the same pivotal historic period. Heck, Wolverine was, too. Are there any storylines that do something with that quirk of the timeline?)

Or you could use some functionally similar plot device, like being imprisoned in a stasis chamber for some reason. Also, Magneto doesn't need to be frozen for 60-70 years solid for this to work; if he gets put on ice during the 60's or so and defrosted a decade or two before the nebulous modern day, he could be kept at a comfortable middle age until the X-Men franchise stops making money.

But while this option makes it more plausible that his arthritis wouldn't cripple his powers and that one punch from Logan wouldn't break half the bones in his torso, it complicates his relationship to modern mutants.

The biggest problem is his rivalry with Xavier. It could be interesting if Xavier had several decades to get over the reasons he fought with Magneto and Magneto didn't, but that dynamic can only last so long before Xavier has the exact same problem as Magneto: If Xavier was Magneto's rival before he was frozen, X needs to have been an adult in the 60's, which makes him at youngest an early baby boomer.

And it would be supremely awkward to freeze Xavier alongside Magneto. Magneto doesn't not have bonds with his fellow mutants that would be distorted by the Captain America treatment, but Xavier is almost literally a goddamned institution of the mutant community. The school that bears his name would be radically different if Xavier wasn't there.

Which basically leaves us with Magneto being frozen in the 60's after minimal to no interaction with Xavier, then developing a rivalry with him in the relatively short period between Magneto's defrosting and the nebulous presence. It doesn't not work, but it's just not the same as a rivalry developed as the two of them grew up.

I've run out of stuff to say

So, yeah. Magneto needs to change some decade or another, but the least disruptive solution I see is to slap an anti-aging power on him (and probably Xavier) and hope nobody cares.

Maybe there's a solution someone else sees. Or maybe someone else has an interesting thought about or twist on one of the broad possibilities I've described. If you've read this far, I assume you have some kind of Magneto opinion. Would you like to share it?

[junkworldusa]

belated book asks, thank you for indulging me!

1- What book are you currently reading? bros karamazov, 2/3s through atm.

i hate that i’m thinking about pathologic (video game) the entire time but i can't help it. the way characters are constantly bursting into people's houses & going "you’re an angel, you're the best person i've ever met, you're a saint" to someone they just met 5 minutes ago is so. distinct. i joked on twitter that the first half of the book is just alyosha running around completing sidequests, which i still think is true, but once i got to the grand inquisitor part i was like "Okay mr dostoevsky, you’ve got me."

2- What book did you recently finish? "selections from science & sanity" by alfred korzybski, recently featured in the gumby quotes. a while back i listened to a 6 hour long interview with robert anton wilson where he talks about korzybski & general semantics so i gave it a shot. it's an abridged version of a 900 page book & i definitely plan on reading the full work at some point, it's wild. if you’re interested in language, consciousness, the gap between words & meaning, and/or hacking your brain i would recommend it. he repeats himself a lot but that's a side effect of his pedagogy, the goal of which is the eventual re-wiring of your entire nervous system in order to achieve a more rational worldview/healthier reactions to things. (so repetition via words/sounds/actions is necessary 2 engage the organism-as-a-whole.) the most important takeaway for me is that everything & everyone you interact with is a completely unique object, and this necessarily extends to temporality-- Bob in 1999 is NOT the same person as Bob in 2010, and treating them as though they were is a harmful mistake. interestingly enough, im taking a class with J.F. martel (weird studies podcast, author of "reclaiming art in the age of artifice") & last night he said what amounts to exactly the same thing, except he was arguing for like, a soft animism (i-thou vs. i- it) & korzybski was arguing for a more "rational" & secular world. so fascinating.

3- What’s a book that’s been on your to-read list for a long time? ulysses. i know. i know. i have a copy but keep bouncing off of it. idk why, i liked portrait of the artist as a young man. i think i’m worried i’ll turn into this person:

4- What’s the next book you’re hoping to read? i just got "speech play: research & resources for the study of linguistic creativity" in the mail so probably that. i'm on a childlore kick rn & this is like... horizontally related 5- Is there a book you own, but aren’t planning on reading?

around 2 years ago i was walking home after a show high on E & i ran into a guy i had met at work a couple times. went over to his apartment because MDMA is like, "everything is SO meaningful and SO much fun." i barely remember our conversation but he ended up being like "you would like this book, here take it, i have 3 copies." so i now own a copy of "the eater of darkness" by robert m coates. i still haven't read it. the moral of this story is [???]

6- What was your favorite series as a kid? Would you still read it now? so many of you asked this question :P

THE TRUTH: i was obsessed with lotr from age 8 to 13 with a level of dedication that i've never known since. yes, i would still read it now. i reread the silmarillion last year & it was naturally a way more rewarding experience than when i was a kid! 8- Fantasy or sci-fi? i like & have read a lot of older sf/f (le guin asimov pkd etc etc) but im not actively into either nowadays. i read whatever reaches me from the queer sf/f twitter pipeline (like whatever's on wizards vs lesbians) but otherwise dont pay much attention. so the answer is "idk!!!”

12- Have you ever read a celebrity memoir? If so, whose was it? the only memoir i've read in recent years has been "memories, dreams, reflections" so if jung counts as a celebrity, there you go 14- Fiction or non-fiction? non-fiction in both quantity of books owned & what i prefer reading. i almost view them as 2 separate activities bc the motivation for & experience of reading them are so wildly different 15- Favorite fiction genre? i know i said im not "actively into" sci fi but 16- Favorite non-fiction genre? "philosophy" i guess. i also really love any phenomenological/experience-based studies of paranormal stuff, like "the terror that comes in the night" by david hufford or anything by jacques vallée. basically books that both a) take strange experiences seriously & b) examine/catalogue them scientifically (to whatever degree). 

22- How do you organize your books? “poorly” 26- What’s your favorite book? fav non-fiction book: “time loops” by eric wargo. what if freud's career-making "irma dream" was a premonitory dream about the oral cancer that would severely impede his quality of life in his old age? (fantastic blog entry by the author, serves as a kind of intro to this topic: http://thenightshirt.com/?p=4326 )

when i read “time loops” it felt like everything i had ever read (& will ever read future tense) was for the sole purpose of understanding it. “time loops” picks up where J.W. dunne's 1927 "an experiment with time" left off. i won't say too much more about it but everyone should read it. it's so smart & engaging & will totally blow your miiiind, maaaan speaking of "an experiment with time," in 1964 a guy named vladimir nabokov began an experiment of his own following the directions dunne laid out in his book. dunne encouraged readers to write down their dreams in order to test the theory that a later event could generate an earlier dream.

nabokov’s experiment with dreams & time strongly influenced “ada or ardor: a family chronicle” which happens to be my favorite novel. i first read it when i was 18, and i've reread it 3 times since then (with the help of ada online, my beloved http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/ ) i would not recommend this book to anyone who doesn’t already like nabokov & know what he’s about. it’s fucked up & self indulgent & i love it so much

30- What character do you connect with the most? when jung said he was bad at math? i felt that

[popculturebuffet]

One Year Anniversary: Top 12 Ducktales Episodes!

Happy anniversary all you happy people! Yes it was one year ago today I started reviewing animation and it’s been a ride to be sure. I’d always WANTED to be a reviewer: I love going on and on about stuff I love, really digging into it and picking it apart... but I could never get started. I tried youtube but I didn’t have the money for the equipment nor a proper shooting space to record, so my efforts.. were not great. And while I TRIED text reviews, my own looming pile of self hatred meant every attempt I made was shot down when it got hard as me not being good enough. 

But one year ago I finally got past that. I’d already been reviewing a bit, doing invididual issues of comics... but got way in over my head trying to do the current line of X-Men comics as it came out, and wisely bowed out of that. But that left a gap: I had nothing to cover week to week and with a demanding new job, I drifted into just doing in charcter chats, little fan fictions script styles. Not bad work, I should do some more at some point and I even got a comissoin once in a while, but nothing I could really live on and not what I wanted to do with my life. 

Enter Ducktales. I’d always WANTED to review the show.. and when the double premire happened, I decided fuck it, and put up my thoughts. And then decided.. hey maybe I can do this every week.. and slowly.. my work evolved, getting better and better, getting more and more likes. I picked up Amphibia when that came by week to week.

And eventually.. this went from a hobby, if one I was passionate about to a career. Not a largely paying one, as only one person was really intrested in paying me for it, friend of the blog and our fincial backer @weirdkev27, but .. it’s money and i’m now making about 30 dollars a month due to a comination of comissions and patreon. Other contributers are always welcome mind you, my patreon is here if your curious and comissions are 5 dollars an episode, but i’ts just nice to have money coming in. To have gone from simply WANTING to review things and make a living off it.. to simply doing it. 

And it’s been one hell of a year.. and not just because 2020 felt like hell or 2021 began with a full on insurrection. I feel like i’ve acomplished a lot in the year i’ve been doing this: I finished what I started with Ducktales season 3, getting better and better as I went. And I didn’t stop there with ducks: I started covering what brought me to Ducks in the first place, the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, and while that retrospective has slid a bit on the schedule, I intend to get it back on track this month. I reviewed a bunch of Darkwing Duck episodes leading up to the Just Us Justice Ducks.. chronologically anyway. The actual airing order reads like someone took 50 issues of a comic, made it rain with them, then just started reading whatever ones they picked up randomly. I also covered some of Duck Master Carl Barks work with the classics Night on Bear Mountain, A Christmas for Shacktown and Back to the Klondike, with more to come. 

And the Duck didn’t stop at just reviews I did on my own: Kev comissioned two MASSIVE retrospectives from me: My first for him was Ride of the Three Caballleros where in just a few short months I covered the boys entire televisied careers together from the movie, to house of mouse, to mickey and the roadster racers, to ducktales (again) and finishing with the wonderful Legend of the Three Caballeros. It has probably the worst Daisy imaginable, but otherwise is really excellent and i’m glad I finally watched it. I also covered Don Rosa’s two stories with the boys as part of it. It was a fun ride and I enjoyed every minute of it... okay most of them again Three Cabs Daisy is the worst. And once that finished Kev started up another idea: Shadow Into Light: a look at Lena’s character arc from start to finish that has gone on to be my most popular series on this blog, and that finishes next week. And there’s more to come as after that there’s a short breather with a look at Lilo and Stitch’s crossover episodes.. folllowed by me looking at all three of season 2′s ducktales arcs. And I fully intend to have covered every episode of the series by this time next year, so stay tuned. 

Outside of ducks though I didn’t slow down. I restarted my Tom Lucitor retrospective, covering what i feel to be one of Star Vs’ two best characters, tied with eclipsa, and my personal faviorite as he redeemeed himself, found love and I bitched a lot about the horrible directions the series took and probabably will more as that’s still not done yet. I did what I always wanted to do and started looks at some of my faviorite comics ever, starting with Life and Times and adding in New X-Men and Scott PIlgrim. I also threw in the awesome comic Blacksad. I did pride month for the first time and not only came out publicly, but also did two whole arcs i’m proud of with The Saluna episodes of Loud house and the rednid episodes of OK KO, and generally just had myself a good old fashioned time as an out bi man reviewing childrens cartoons. 

I started Season 2 of amphibia with it’s lows of an endlesss road trip and highs of adding Marcy to the cast and giving us more of the silky voiced keith david. And finally Patreon wise Kev’s taken me on a hell o fa journey: In addition to the restrospectives i’ve covered some additional darkwing duck, and a simpsons homage to the duck comics... but also got a bit weird and obscure with detours like the lost animnaics sucessor Histeria, the apocalyptic comedy where Santa dosen’t know how doors work Whoops! and the adventures of Santa’s bratty teen daughter jingle belle. In short.. it’s been a long year but damn has it been fun and there’s more to come. I’d like to thank all of you for reading, thank my Patreons Kev and Emma for supporting me, and thank my family for doing the same.  So with that out of the way, I figured the best way to celebrate was to do something i’ve been wanting to do for a long time, something honoring the show that gave me this calling in the first place. And with Season 3 sadly being the last, and enough weeks having passed for me to digest it between the finale and today, I could think of nothing better than my top 12 episodes of Ducktales.

Ducktales is one of the best cartoons of the 2010′s. Brilliantly taking EVERYTHING that had come before, the comics, the original cartoon and every bit of duck media period to craft a masterful, unique and wonderful reboot. It was funny, it was insane, and it had damn good character arcs. By the end every member of the main cast along with major supporting cast members like Fenton, Drake and especially Lena, had changed and signifigantly at that. The show was everything I could’ve dreamed of and more and I miss it terribly, hoping DIsney will do a revivial movie at some point. For now though, Frank and Matt’s run on ducktales, as they called it and I do too since i’m a massive comic book nerd, it’s time to look back on my favorite tales of ducks. So grab your sharks, your number one dimes and your friendship cakes with clear gay undertones and join me under the cut as I celebrate one of my faviorite shows and my anniversary in the best way possible. 

12. House of the Lucky Gander! 

 So as i’ve gone on about before and no doubt will again, Donald kinda got the short end of the stick in season 1. While Frank and Matt had good story intentions, keeping Donald away from adventure since he had no interest in it, in practice it meant a beloved Disney Icon who they and disney HEAVILY promoted as part of the series and whose being here this go round was a big draw for fans of the comics.... was only in a quarter of the season and only got TWO plots centered around him in 23 episodes, with only one being the main plot of the episode. The PIlot and Finale both centered around the family more as a whole if your curious how I counted those so while he got plenty of focus in both, it’s still not a day in the limelight sort of thing. 

But unusually for Donald, he lucked out as his one big starring role for Season 1 was both one of my faviorites and one of Season 1′s most inventive outings.  A lot of the episodes enegy comes from a one two punch of a great guest star and one of the series best settings. The guest star is of course everyone’s faviorite overly lucky himbo Gladstone Gander. The show adapted the prick perfectly: The original Gladstone from the comics.. was the worst asshole imaginable, utterly insufferable. And for a villian, and Donald’s rival, that’s all well and good.. but his super luck meant he RARELY , if ever, suffered any consequences for being just...

The 87 series simply made him nicer, while Going Quackers simply removed his luck. No adaptation really got how to make this fucker work.. until this one. Here Frank split the diffrence: Gladstone is still smug.. but he’s no longer actively malicious. While he is an insensitive prick to Donald in this one, unlike the comics he’s not constantly bragging about his luck or how great he is or actively BAITING Donald to fight with him or trying to ruin his relationship or a million other reasons he sucks and I hate him.

This version by contrast... is generous. He’s not the most empathetic, because he doesn’t get how life works, but he does share the riches of the casnio with everyone and in a cameo appearance in “Treasure of the Found Lamp” gladly offers his nephews some diamonds. He’s got a nice surface level charm to him that makes you understand why people like him.. but it’s also clear ther���es nothing UNDER that of value, making you equally understand why Scrooge and Donald hate him. Gladstone in this reboot is a perfect example of why we need reboots or new adaptations in the first place: Because sometimes the original got something wrong or something can be done much better by the new writers. 

He’s perfectly paired with the setting: The House of Lucky Fortune, a mystical casino with an East Asian astatic based in the country of Macaw and provides two great plots. Donald’s really highlights his character: His understandable jealousy at gladstone earning the boys love through nothing while he struggles to make a living for them, and how he feels like a looser and like Gladstone is simply showing that off instead of just not knowing what empathy is. Having Louie be the one to bond with Gladstone was also just pitch pefefct, as is showing some depth for the boy by having himr ealize his hero is an asshole and be the one to help donald in the end. 

The other plot is just pure joy though and is where the setting REALLY shines: Scrooge and the rest of the kids try to leave.. but can’t find the exit. This is where the creative part comes in: The Casino simply morphs to keep people trapped, and caters to them, giving them whatever they want to keep them trapped. In the cases of the kids it’s all hilarious and adorably in character: Huey becomes entranced by a fancy water show, in one of his best bits of the season, Dewey gets a pet tiger who sadly did not come home with him and Webby gets to live the dream we’ve all had of stuffing her face directly in a choclate fountain. Scrooge’s escape is likewise clever: He simply prepares to get a room.. then books it as the check in desk is ALWAYS near the front. 

We then find out Gladston’es trapped get the whole mystical contest with absolutely gorgeous animation, i’ll talk about it in full some time but this episode is just a treat to watch, has a great arc for donald and had some memorable gags. I can’t help but smile when I watch it. 

11. The Dangerous Chemistry of Gandra Dee!  As I mentioned before i’m a superhero nerd so naturally Fenton was one of my faviorite parts of the show. Frank and Matt were just damn good at crafting superhero stories, and like gladstone improved fenton turning him from an awkward donald stand in to an awkward peter parker-esque science nerd who just wants to be a good person and the best hero he can be. He got into science not just because he thinks it’s neat, but because he honestly wants to help people and you can’t help but foot for him whenever he pops up. Lin Manuel Miranda is a large reason for that, bringing his incomparable a-game to the character. While we sadly didn’t get a ton of gizmoduck focused episodes, the fatct we got AS MANY as we did and that Lin didn’t drop out for a minute even with his busy schedule was a miracle and I’m acknowledging that. 

As for why this one, I feel it builds brilliantly on the previous Fentoncentric episode Who Is Gizmoduck?! which just BARELY didn’t make this list and uses the fact we haven’t seen fenton in a while as both a plot point and to move some things forward without having to spend screentime they clearly didn’t have. By having Fenton be just burnt out on superheroics it finds a way to both explain where he’s been, he’s been busy with his new job, and give us an interesting angle to the old “superhero is tired of the life” thing. He never once complains about saving people or stuff... it’s just like any job it gets tiring after a while. As someone who has his dream job but has struggled with it from time to time, I vastly relate. 

Though while I love my boy and Lin is game as always, the episodes real MVP is my other boy Huey. The episode has moved Huey up from being simply Fenton’s fanboy to being his best friend, and adorable as hell relationship. The two clearly respect and appricate each other and Huey is looking out for his buddy the whole episode. His love of love is also just really cute. Added in the mix is Webby, who in one of my faviorite gags of the series, finds out Fenton is  Gizmoduck because Huey is incredibly and insanely blatant with his unecessary coverup. But she of course is game to help while Fenton is trying to play it casual. We also just get a waterfall of great gags as everyone overdoes it wingmanning for fenton: Huey sets up an itallian bistro and tries to purposfully create a lady and the tramp situation, and sings opera (With Manny on acordian), the wonderfully 80′s suit from Fenton’s dad his mom gives him to wear, and Launchpad, who gives us a tremendous list of his exes, and plays my favorite song of the series: It’s a Date, a micheal mcdonnel riff. 

This episode also wisely ups Mark���s Beaks game as Fenton’s arch enemy, still keeping him hilaroius, with the guy acting like a bored teenager and guzzling so much nanite jucie he turns into a hulk, as well as said hulk mode leading to a ton of great gags from kidnapping the children (”I got your kids.. are they your kids? I don’t know how this family works), to “take that coach dad” to eating a pie with tins and all and wondering about said tins. But he’s an actual threat now, taking on fenton in one hell of a fight, and having an utterly transcendent scene where he hacks his way past gyro’s security while dancing.. and dabbing because of course he does. It’s a fun, well done character piece that’s mostly here for i’ts laugh but Fenton’s struggle with Gizmo overtaking his life, and finding out someone he truly hit it off iwth only wanted him for that.. it’s really good stuff and Lin’s delivery after Fenton finds out, the pure pain and betryal in his voice, is just excellent. Also that opera scene is poetry. 

10. Quack Pack!

One of the episodes that started my career naturally landed here. Not for that reason though: Quack Pack is a fun riff on sitcoms, specifically the tgif ones of the 90′s that Disney Afternoon Kids no doubt also watched, the kinds Disney Channel still makes today, and most importanly the kind the Disney Afternoon itself made like Goof Troop and well... Quack Pack. 

Riffs on sitcoms are nothing new and the last year has been FULL of them. 2020 gave us this episode, Beef House and the wonderful “The Perfect House” episode of Close Enough, and this year gave us WandaVision, my second favorite MCU project so far, right behind Black Panther, which used the sitcom deconstruction to create one hell of a character study. 

So you’d think with a year having passed and this concept happening as an entire mini series would dull this one.. but no. it’s still damn funny, having fun at the cliches while, again like WandaVision, having one of the main cast be responsible by accident but go along with it. The episode pivots from glorious affectionate parody of cheesy sitcoms, to that plus horrifying “Humans”, and a character piece for Donald. This brings Donald’s hatred and fed up ness with adventure to a head revealing his fondest wish is just to have a normal life and not loose anyone again. 

It takes one of his best friends to snap him out of it. Look Goofy is my second faviorite of the sensational seven, an episode with him was already an easy sell for me.. but the episode uses him really well. First for laughs as he’s gentically dispositioned to be a perfect sitcom neighbor.. but also for heart. With his family preoccupied and a bit hurt, i’ts Goofy who cuts to the heart of the issue, pointing out NO ONE is normal and even his normal domestic life raising Max, who we see go to prom with roxanne eeeeee, has all sorts of chaos. Normal is what you make of it and pining for some ideal that will never happen was just tearing donald apart piece by piece and by letting go of that.. he finally begins to grow as a person throughout the season. It’s also a great thematic tie in to the season’s overall plot with Bradford and what Makes donald, despite also disliking the chaos his family gets into, different. Donald accepted it and grew as a person.. Bradford clung to his hate and it ate him alive. Or turned him into a non-sapient kind of vulture. Before I close this part out Jaleel White is also excellent and I wish eh’d get back into voice acting. He’s so freaking good at it. Seriously man i’d love to see him and ben in a sonic property together as a mythology gag. Same with Jims cummings and carey. Just think about it whoever owns the sonic movies.. think about it. 

9. The Last Adventure!

Look I knew this was coming, you knew this was coming. But it had to be on here. The Last Adventure is not perfect: The lack of a build up episode like the previous two finales had really hurt this one: even at about 70 minutes, it still feels rushed in places and Huey, one of hte main characters of the season, dosen’t feel like he has a full payoff to his character like Dewey and Louie got. 

But despite those flaws.. this episode is just a damn good ending. Almost everyone gets a big moment paying off their character arc, everyone in the party that comes to rescue webby and huey, along with the two themselves, gets a moment to show off, and everything comes together to give us one last epic sendoff. There’s just moment stacked on moment stacked on moment from Launchpads heroic second wind and donning of the gizmoduck armor, to Webby’s tearful confrontation with Beakley, to Huey using the greatest adventure of all line to foil bradford in one of the most deligfhully nuts moments of the series, I could go on for days with just how triumphant this finale felt. While it left a lot of doors open.. that feels like part of the design. It’s the end of the fight with FOWL.. but our heroes will never stop adventuring, never stop going and never stop being in our hearts and the curtain call at the end is now my faviorite bit of end credits ever, perfectly giving the main cast and friends one last chance to take a bow in their own unique ways. I will always miss this show but I will never be disapointed by the note it went out on. 

8. The 87 Cent Solution!

Look some episodes are show stoppers, some are heartfelt tearjerkers, some are all this and more.. and some episodes are just clever and hilarious. The 87 Solution is the second funniest episode of Ducktales with me and my go to episode when watching the show. It’s just pure fun and with a clever premise: Scrooge notices 87 cents have gone missing, and already coming down with a cold, goes mad with paranoia as the kids slowly don face masks, something that has become even eeerier given everything, one by one realizing he needs to stop. 

While David Tennant is an EXCELLENT dramatic actor, his comedy timing is really something that shoudln’t be ignored and i’ts on full display here as his performance gets more and more deranged, to thep oint he thinks an 8th dimensional imp is repsonsible. He nicely balances the disturbing side of Scrooge’s paranoia, his distancing from his family, with plenty of great gags about it too, the standout being when he offers 2 million dollars to whoever took the money like he’s publicly appeasing kidnappers. It’s fucking brilliant. 

But while David is awesome as ever what really, truly makes the episode is my boy, one of my faviorite characters on the show if not my single faviriote FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD. Keith Ferguson is ALWAYS a dream as the character but this is his best performance by far. Part of this is the addition of Zan Owlson, Kev who I mentioned earlier’s faviorite Ducktales character. She’s not only throughly likeable in her own right, but provides the one thing Flinty was missing; a straight man.. or woman in this case. Scrooge wasn’t TERRIBLE in the roll, but can easily step away from his shit or foil it. Owlson has to put up with Glomgold’s nonsense while desperatly trying to stop him from undoing all her hard work with sheer force of jackass. The two jut play off each other brilliantly, Glomgold not getting sh’es not his employee but his equal and Owlson constnatly snarking at him. 

And of course both things hit their peak in the climax with the family staging a fake funeral (Though no one told donald it was fake), and we get the funniest scene in the entire fucking show as Glomgold burts in in a white suit, money shades and full dance number to “All I Do Is Win’, which when first watching this I was convinced the song was somehow accidnetly on in the background but nope. They got it after using it in the test phase and the scene is better for it. Glomgold twerking on Scrooge’s casket, trying to get on it to dance, and having to be placated like ac hild is the icing on this very rich cake

And the reveal scene is also gold as Glomgold gets into a YEARLONG staring contest with a baby, fails to steal more than the 87 cents and, in my faviorite touch, put on an imp costume just to make scrooge seem crazier... then keeps the damn thing on the rest of the time for no explicable reason. The episode is the show at it’s comedic peak while giving Glomgold a chance to be a genuine threat and that’s Glomgood. 

7. Let’s Get Dangerous!

Frank’s Rebooted Version of Darkwing Duck is probably his greatest achivment with the show. While this show is a team effort, something I slowly realized as I reviewed the show, it’s very clear from the way he talks, how well he knows the show and how much effort was put into porting Darkwing into the reboot that this was his baby. While redefining ducktales for the 2010′s was clearly a huge dream of his... doing the same for the master of suprise was an even bigger goal. And as a huge fan of superheroes i’ve seen my fair share of half assed takes on laired and complex characters. The XCU alone is one giant grab bag of missed opportunities for me. 

So i’ts no exageration when I tell you Frank.. nailed it. In one of the most brilliant moves i’ve seen for a superhero work Frank worked his love of the show into the reboot.. by having Darkwing have been a show, one Launchpad loved.. and so did Drake, who was inspried by the show to become an inspriation himself and while his attempt to do that through a zack snydery reboot failed, Launchpad encouraged him to do it for real. Drake was still himself, but the meta aspect and the toning down of some of darkwing’s more obnoxious traits that didn’t work in a universe that, while patently rediciulous still took it’s characters seriously, he made a BETTER version of the character.

This is where all that comes to it’s peak, and hoppefully convinced Disney to let Frank , and possibly matt, run the reboot. And no, even if Point Grey is producing that dosen’t stop that: Thanks to Invincible i’ve now realized that Seth and his friend Evan producing the show dosen’t mean it’ll be RAN by them, nor unrelated to this. It just means their helping make it and if anything given how lush and gorgeous invincible’s animation is, it’s a VERY good sign their helping out with it if it’s true. 

But wether this versoin continues or not, Frank gave it his best shot. Part of his diffrent angle is having Drake as a rookie here and as such here we see him truly struggle: he’s had his origin, he ahs the cape, he has the gadgets (in a brilliant turn thanks to fenton, who he actually likes... but is so far the ONLY person to not get he’s Gizmoduck), and the city.. but no crime to fight and no real idea how to go about his lifelong dream. The events of the episode slowly shape him: WHile he already had the spirit for darkwing, never giving up, looking good in a cape etc, this episode gives him the heart the same way it gave his original it: With Gosalyn. Dimantopolis and Beatriz just play off each other perfectly, as the two go from neimies to slowly bonding as Drake realizes this kid needs him and that he needs to fight for more than just filing the ohle inside, and goes to hell and back to help her get her grandpa back, with one of the best moments of the episode to me being when Launchpad helps her realize how hard he’s been working at it, an exausted drake refusing to acccept that he can’t get her grandpa back because he promised. He grows from simply trying to live the dream.. to surpassing the original. We also see more from Launchpad, who grows into his new family and helps push his boyfriend and newa dopted daughter in the right directions. The episode really evolves these characters from the simple disney afternoon versions, who while awesome were made into fully fleshed out characters. Gosalyn still has her edge but now has a hard lesson to learn about doing the right thing, forced to give up someone she loves for the greater good but finding a new family in the process. 

Part of what makes the episode work though as while it is funcitonally one big darkwing duck reboot pilot that’s awesome, heartrending and a joy to watch... it’s still a ducktales episode in parts without either part hurting each other. Huey plays a vital role, figuring the ramrod is too good to be true.. and discovering just how it is, then when captured, slowly unravling why Bradford’s there and being at least in part responsible for outing him as a FOWL agent. While this is largely Drakes story the rest of the cast is still vital to it: Scrooge trusting in huey, Louie serving as his logical counter and Dewey meanwhile bonding with team darkwing and helping Gosalyn, knowing exactly where she’s been and providing a nice foil. The episode is just one long and impressive love letter to the original show while creating it’s own thing and that’s really this reboot in a nutshell. It also has some of the best fights of the series, with the first fight between darkwing and bulba, where our hero, unlike his original counterpart, easily troucnes bulba using his speed and skill, is the standout. 

6. Woo-Ooo!

I covered this one recently so I won’t go on for too long.. but I will say I hold this one up as the gold standard for first episodes. In one hour, hell even in jus the first half we get a sense of the whole cast, the tone of the show, and the world we’ve been thrust into. It gets all the table setting out of the way by weaving it into a compelling story of Scrooge getting back in the game, finding a reason to get back to what he does best in those he loves most and setting up the season long arc effortlessly in the process. The worst I can say about the episode is it sets the bar a bit high for Season 1 and a lot of the first half really struggled to reach these heights. This episode is a masterwork and the perfect showcase for what the series would be at it’s height. 

5. Moonvasion!

Speaking of Golden Standards, Moonvasion is one of the best season finale’s i’ve seen. it’s not THE best.. but that’s a really high bar to clear and that spots currently taken in my heart by “The Crossroads of Destiny” from Avatar the Last Airbender. But while not the best of it’s kind, it’s sitll the best the series put out and is an utterly satisfying epic that ties up season 2. 

While I love the Last Adventure, it had a LOT to tie up and was really hampered by having to do all of that with no direct lead in. Moonvasion by contrast hits the ground running with the Moonlanders arriving on earth and all hell breaking loose, and the episode itself breaking into two stellar plots. Scrooge leading an army of every ally he has against the invaders, and Della seemingly going for reinforcements.. but really just trying to keep the kids safe from it, to their anger once they find out. 

Both sides end up going badly: Scrooge looses most of his army as Lunaris was one step ahead of him and is left iwth Beakly and Launchpad, while Della ends up marooned.. and finds Donald. The reunion between the two is the highlight of the special, as the two argue as you’d expect (And Dewey cutting in seemingly to stop it.. only to rant at Donald for costing him “ten years of turbo” is the best gag of the episode), before embracing. 

Our heroes naturally find ways to bounce back though. Louie, capping off his growth for the season, convinces his mom they can’t just hide.. and in the second best scene of the episode sings the lullabye she wrote.. one Donald sung them every night

And no sooner than Della gets her step back and realizes that dangerous or not she and her newly reunited family have to get back in there, do the cousins show up on Fethry’s giant shrimp/girlfriend Mitzi, and our heroes head back. 

Scrooge’s plot hits i’ts peak though as he’s forced to accept the help of an unlikely and unwelcome ally: Glomgold, who turns out to be exactly what they need: While his plan is as stupid, short sighted and insane as you’d expect, complete with forcing Scrooge to dress up as santa just to piss him off and dressing his sharks in parkas (”I call them sharkas”), the sheer lonacy throws Lunaris off as he dosen’t know how to deal with this and Glomgold not only gets the better of him but gets his company back as part of his scheme.  “You were prepared for our best but not our dumbest!” “And i’m the dumbest theirs ever been! Muahahahaha! Wait...”

And of course our other heroes arrive just in time to save things.. and the episode still manages to pull off what many works struggle to, something tha’ts very hard to: a SECOND climax. Lunaris decides to just say fuck it and blow up the earth and i’ts up to our core family to kick his ass in space. Epic space battles, Della’s girlfriend meeting the family and more insues and an emotoinal, action packed and fully satisfying finale is had by all... and it’s all topped with one of the best sequel hooks i’ve ever seen as FOWL makes themselves known to us.. and prepares to strike. 

4. How Santa Stole Christmas! This one will also be short as i’ve talked about this one.. a lottttt. The initial review, my best christmas specials list and my best of 2020 list. I stand by all of that: this is a unique and wonderful christmas special, i’ll be watching it every year, and i’ts full of charm, humor and gay subtext. In short it’s this series but on christmas footing. 

3. Last Crash of the Sunchaser! 

Another one I covered very recently, this episode is a master piece of suspense, slowly building tension as our heroes get closer and closer to the truth about Della.. and to death, the simple but deadly stakes making this an absolute nailbiter from start to finish. This is some of the series best pacing bar none... but what seals it is the ending: the masterful flashback finally explaning whatever happened to Della duck, our heroes lashing out at each other.. all cumilating in the best Scene of the show. I said it might be in the review but no I can confirm: Scrooge bitterly ruminating over things while we find out just how much he’s lost... ending with him tearfully and angrily sitting once again alone in one hell of a powerful shot echoing Scrooge’s first apperance. Damn fine stuff. 

2. Escape from The Impossbin Only one episode not only matches Last Crash in mounting tension and atmosphere but suprasses it. With FOWL and Bradford’s true nature now out in the wind, this episode uses that to create tension and rattles it’s two most unshakable characters: SCrooge’s normal boundless confidence is shot, not sure he can win this time against an opponent who knows him as well as he knows himself while Beakly slowly unravels, pitting Webby against the boys.. and pitting herself against Webby when Webby sees her terroizing them is only dividing them. Both plots start out funny enough but slowly escalate in tension and stakes until by the end your on the edge of your seat. The Beakly plot is the standout of the two, giving Bentina the starring role she badly needed, having gotten even better in light of the finale. Everyone is at the top of their game and everything builds up to one hell of a twist ending and one hell of a badass boast from our heroes: Their down.. but their far from out and this is far from over. 

1. Nightmare On Kimotor Hill!

I”ll be reviewing this episode in full later this week as part of my Lena retrospective, but I stand by putting it up top. This episode is ducktales in it’s purest form and focuses on it’s best original character as Lena grapples with her self hatred and her past. That core helps anchor an amazing concept: going into the Kid’s dreams and finding out their greatest desires. The results.. are all gloriously rediclous and are easily the best gags of hte series as a whole: Dewey’s high school musical santa claus is going ot high school nonsense from getting a’s in Dewology to running away from the abstract concept of a love intrest, to not getting the sybolism of himself crying a moon made of his own tears. Louie quite literally becoming garfield, and my faviorite scene of the show: Huey, wanting to be the tall older brother..g iving himself horrifcly long leg. While everyone else is just understandably baffled, what makes the scene is the banter between Dewey and Huey, with Schwartz and Pudi at their best as Dewey first freaks out and then asks what the hell man, while Huey defends his weird decision (”I”m not good at imagination stuff okay!”), and then tries to get a jar of pickles. Each dream is just so oddly and wonderfully specific to each kid and each one of the triplests dreams, as well as violets being color coded down tot he backgrounds is a very nice touch. The visuals here are just peak ducktales, using the setting for all it’s worth and the climax is utterly emotoinal and heartbreaking... and Lena’s break from her abuser, finally realizing she has the power now is not only a wonderful metaphor... but also just so damn cathartic. And that’s why this one’s the best to me personally: it just packs so much into 20 minutes: some of the series best and most creative jokes, a gripping emtoinal arc, and so much more. It’s just that damn good and tha’ts why it’s the best... that and starting Huelet for me. Seriously that LIbrary scene is so fucking cute. 

Thank you all for reading. If you liked this artcle, join my patreon and help me get to my stretch goal for monthly darkwing duck reviews, a review of super ducktales and more after! Until the next rainbow... it’s been a pleasure. 

[bunnywand]

can’t remember if i’ve posted abt the enormous pokemon fanforum drama i was part of when i was like, 10 or 11, but my blog won’t show any results so i’m guessing i probs haven’t 😳 probably gonna get some details wrong cos this was like, 15ish years ago, but oh well 😝

so ~back in the day~ serebiiforums was like, The main pokemon forums on the internet (and it's still around today but idk how popular it is anymore??) 😧 i joined in 2006, just before my 10th birthday, and that was like, the main place i hung out online for a while 😌

but then one day i got a pm from some guy asking if i’d check out his own pokemon forum, “pokemon valley” ..and even tho it was obvs just some other kid messaging random ppl 2 advertise their site, i went and joined for some reason 😅

and it was p cool!! the main site was ran by him and his brother who i think were abt the same age as me like, 10 or 11, and it was p much what you’d expect for a pokemon site ran by 10 year olds 😭 but the forums were good at least, i’d guess there were probably abt ~100-150 ppl on there, and i made quite a few good friends on there, who i then started speaking to on msn as well 😆

but then one day, The Schism happened 😳 i can’t remember exactly how everything went down, but i think the gist was the owners of the site (“pokemon valley” and “pikachu trainer” i think??) invited one of their irl friends (“camelborg” 😠) onto the site.. and even tho he was brand new and no one else knew him, they gave him admin powers, which basically meant he could do anything on the site, including deleting other ppl’s posts and replies, and even banning ppl.. and bcos he was jerk and also only abt 10 years old, that’s Exactly what he started doing 😑

he started just generally being a dickhead all over the site and deleting the replies of anyone who called him out for it, and even banning ppl who argued back too much 😧 but when a bunch of us who were online that day went to pokemon valley and pikachu trainer and asked if they’d remove his admin powers or ban him, they refused, like “oh noo he’s our friend irl, we can’t do that 🥺” and all the while camelborg was still vandalising the site and banning ppl complaining abt him.. so the 20 or so of us who’d been having trouble w/ him straight up Quit pokemon valley, and made our own forums 😅

it was called “pokemon valley 3” at first (i think the pokemon valley we quit had been “pokemon valley 2” for some reason?? 🤔) but after a while we chose to rename our site “pokehaven” cos it was like, a haven away from pokemon valley 😭

and it was a rly good site 🥺 bcos there were only like 20 of us, we all got rly close, and altho a few more ppl ended up joining us too, there were still probably only abt 30 of us on there all together?? so it was a rly nice and close knit community while it lasted.. i can’t remember the exact dates but i probably joined pokemon valley in 2007, and the schism was either late 2007/early 2008?? 🤔

but eventually, around late 2009, i guess some of the members started getting too old for pokemon forums and stopped being active, and slowly the site died, and by early 2010 it was completely dead 🙁 and unfortunately i eventually ended up losing contact w/ all my friends from there, which especially sucked bcos we only knew each other by either our usernames or our first names, so i’ve had no way of like, ever finding any of them ever again since.. 😖 the best i’ve managed is finding a few of them on serebiiforums and messaging them there, but most of them hadn’t been online in like ~10+ years, so i don’t have much hope 4 that.. 😔

and then to put the final nail in the coffin, the site was still up until a few years ago, so i could still go on and like, read old posts and stuff, like this lil time capsule of ~2-3 years of my life.. but then invisionfree (who hosted the forums) got taken over i think?? and all the old forums got deleted, so now that piece of internet history / my life is lost forever.. 😢

and that’s the tale of pokehaven, and my adventures on the internet as a preteen b4 social media 😌💕

[cogentranting]

Honestly, I'm kinda on Bucky's side about the not telling Sam about Isaiah issue. Like it's not Bucky's story to tell, and he clearly knew that dragging Isaiah back into this business would hurt him. And Bucky obviously knows what it means to have had your life ruined by becoming a super soldier. (And as for Bucky not telling Steve, we all know Steve has exactly zero room to talk about people not telling him things they probably should know.)

I agree. Or at least, I think Bucky’s decision to keep it to himself is thoroughly in a gray area to the extent that he can’t really be faulted with the decision. 

This link here is to a short video arguing why Bucky made the right decision (I don’t fully agree with her assessment of Steve, but also she’s being hyperbolic so): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jVCKPN9P8Y&ab_channel=NicqueMarina The basic summary is, telling anyone about Isaiah ran the risk of dragging Isaiah out into the spotlight, and at this point, Isaiah’s trauma is such that, as that Youtube creator says, “justice is no longer [his] priority, peace is”. 

It maybe would have been different if Bucky had been in a position to tell someone about Isaiah earlier. Back in the fifties, or the sixties or even up to like the early nineties. But obviously he couldn’t because he was still a brainwashed prisoner of Hydra until 2014, and then for the next two years he was in hiding (and honestly at that point it’s not totally clear whether or not Bucky fully had all of his Bucky and Winter Soldier memories or not). So the earliest he could have told anyone about Isaiah is in the late 2010s (or even all the way in 2023). Isaiah was active in the 50s and then imprisoned for 30 years. Meaning he was released probably in the 80s. So any thing Bucky could have said or done to help was forty years too late to really make a difference for Isaiah. 

What’s more, I think Bucky has a pretty good idea of where Isaiah’s coming from. He too was serving his country, being a hero, and ended up imprisoned and tortured for decades. Now obviously the context of why that happened is different, and after being freed/rescued there’s some pretty stark difference in their treatment. But Bucky initially had a pretty similar reaction to Isaiah’s-- that’s sort of the way he was living in Bucharest. Holed up alone, just wanting to not be bothered. I think he let Isaiah remain anonymous because he knows that, for at least that interim between Winter Soldier and Civil War, that’s what he wanted. 

And for what it’s worth, my read was that Sam accepted Bucky’s explanation and was okay with it. Again, that might be different if circumstances were different and he and Bucky had spent the last 6 months hanging out and discussing what it would mean for Sam to take on the shield and Bucky kept Isaiah to himself. But that wasn’t happening. But after the initial reaction, I don’t think Sam was mad at Bucky for not telling him because that was reason that was at least understandable. When Sam gets angry about “there was a black Captain America and nobody mentioned it” I think the majority of his anger is at the government and structures who were the ones who abused Isaiah and then covered it up. 

[im-just-a-random-fandom-girl]

trying to articulate my frustrations with Marvel’s treatment of female characters and characters of color

Hi, hello, hola, bonjour. I've been having a lot of thoughts about Marvel’s lack of diversity and of how they treat minority characters, so I'm taking a page out of Luisa’s (@its-tortle) book and just making a long, rambley post to get it all out.

Please bear with me while I try to encapsulate all of my frustration within the limitations of English language.

(ALSO, I'm white. I’m Spanish-American, but I do not have the ability to speak for fans of color and the other grievances they have. This post is just a combination of my own thoughts and what I've heard other people say on Tumblr, in YouTube videos, in articles etc.)

Now that we've had over week to collect ourselves after the WandaVision finale, because it was such a tearjerker and the end of a true masterpiece of a show, we really need to talk about how Marvel treats their their characters of color and female characters. I'll specifically be looking at Sam Wilson, Natasha Romanoff, and Monica Rambeau.

Let's start with Sam.

Until Monica Rambeau became Photon just a few weeks ago in WandaVision, Sam was THE ONLY Black superhero in the MCU.

He first appeared in Captain America: The Winter Soldier 7 years ago in 2014, and he's been in 4 movies since then (not counting the post-credits of Ant-Man).

Let's see what we know about Sam in the MCU:

He was a pararescue airman in the U.S. Airforce

His wing-man, Riley, died in combat, prompting him to leave active duty

He works at the VA to help other veterans adjust to civilian life

That's it. This is all we know about his backstory, separate from Captain America. However, the MCU decided to include these parts of his backstory, (and exclude others) because they make him a better supporting character to Steve.

Sam's a vet - so is Steve. They have the same, early-morning run routine that alludes to strict military training. Steve is still new to the future and hardly knows or approaches anyone, but Sam is wearing his VA sweatshirt, so there's some sense of connection, one that is furthered when they talk about their beds being too soft. Sam is someone who can understand him, aside from being a super soldier.

Riley, Sam's wingman, died in combat - Hmm, haven't heard that one befo - oh, wait. *Bucky waves from the abyss of the Alps*. Yeah.

I'm not saying that these connections are bad, in fact, I think the opposite. In terms of storyline, these connections are incredibly important for their friendship. Steve is lost and alone in the future. No one he knows cares about him for any reason other than the fact that he's a super soldier, nor can he relate to any of those people on any level. Sam just fits. He's funny and kind and although they are 60 years apart in age, he can, to some extent, understand what Steve is going through in a way they no one else can.

But for the last 7 years in the MCU, all he's been is Steve's supportive friend.

Almost immediately after meeting Steve, Sam is dragged into an end-of-the-world battle. He readily agrees to put his life on the line to fight by Captain America's side. After SHIELD falls, Sam gives up his life for 2 years to help Steve find Bucky. When they find him, Sam, without a second thought, becomes an international fugitive to protect Bucky and Steve.

I mean, he practically says that he lives in Steve's shadow himself: 

"Don't look at me. I do what he does, just slower."

Who does all this? Seriously? Sam is also a recovering vet. He, in theory, has a life, a family, a job, his own mental well-being to consider, but he immediately gives it all up to help Captain America, to follow in his shadow, to be his back-up and support in every battle. Marvel wrote him as a 2D character that lacks his own identity and agency.

Sam deserves his own storyline; he deserves to exist outside the orbit of Steve Rogers.

What Mackie has been able to do with the character is astounding. He took Sam off the page and truly brought him to life, turning him into a beloved character. I'm ecstatic that both Mackie and Sam finally (hopefully) get their time to shine in TFATWS, but it should have happened WAY sooner. Marvel has continuously overlooked Mackie, despite how much he brings to the movies and despite the significance of Sam as the only Black superhero. It's just so clear that they do not care about representation.

(And let's not start with the whole "Bucky should be Captain America" thing, thanks)

Next, let's talk about Natasha.

Nat has been in the MCU for 11 years, starting with Iron Man 2 in 2010. She was heavily featured in an additional 6 MCU movies (not including small cameos/post-credit sequences). She's one of the few female superheroes in the MCU, and the only one that's been there since the beginning. Nat was the only female superhero for 4 years until Gamora appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy.

Let's see what we know about Natasha's history:

She's a former KGB operative and assassin, trained in the Red Room project

When she was a part of the Red Room, she was sterilized

Clint Barton got her out of the Red Room and converted her to a SHIELD agent

THAT'S IT. The second point is actually nauseating because this is what she says to Banner when we learn about her infertility in Age of Ultron:

"They sterilize you. It’s efficient. One less thing to worry about, the one thing that might matter more than a mission. It makes everything easier — even killing. You still think you’re the only monster on the team?"

Like, actually, what the fuck? I remember watching this scene and having to rewind because I thought I mis-heard what she said. In truth, Natasha is probably referring to the terrible things she was forced to do as a KGB operative are what make her a "monster," but why in the world would they include this anecdote here?? It's just so distasteful and disgusting! It makes it seem like her infertility is what makes her a monster, perpetuating the misogynistic belief that the center of a woman's identity and purpose is to have children.

As Vox says in this article, the subject of Nat's infertility 

"rears its head sub-textually when Black Widow sacrifices herself for the Soul Stone. [...] It’s reasonable for Natasha to make the calculation that Clint’s kids deserve to have a dad when they come back to life after the Avengers complete their “time heist.” But because of that Ultron plot, there’s also an insidious implication that Natasha’s infertility renders Black Widow just a little bit more disposable than the rest of her teammates."

Furthermore, Nat's death in Endgame serves for nothing more than motivation for the other characters working in the time heist, WHICH ARE ALL MALE. Even then, the other characters talk about her death briefly (in a mostly unaffected manner), and by the end of the movie, she's been pretty much forgotten about,  completely overshadowed by Tony Stark.

I don't want to say that Nat shouldn't have died in Endgame. It caused me so much heartache and emotional pain, but I truly believe it was a great way to end her arc. CinemaWins on YouTube put it best:

"She needed to save her family, Clint included, finally wiping the red from her ledger. So much of her jouney in the MCU was trying to find her purpose, figure out which side she was on, and she finally feels like she's found it, just in time to die for it. 

"It's not wrong to feel cheated by her death, [but I think] she deserved this moment because of it's importance."

She says it in the movie: 

"I used to have nothing, and then I got this. This family. And I was better because of it."

Nat shouldn't have to die, but it's on her terms, and she is absolutely ready for it. Saving her chosen family... that is her purpose.

But altogether, over the course of the MCU, Natasha was cheated out of getting the storyline she deserved. Like Sam, she was relegated to the position of the supportive friend of Steve, but also of Bruce and Clint. For the audience, her identity is tied to this role that she plays. The identity and motivations she has independent from these other characters, her history, is skimmed over, and treated with immense disrespect.

It took 11 years, but it is thrilling that Scarlett Johansson finally gets to be the start of her own Marvel movie. There is no way that Black Widow will be able to completely make up for her and Natasha's mistreatment by the MCU, but I hope it will at least bring us some closure and allow us to have a better understanding of Nat's history and who she is away from the other Avengers.

Last, but certainly not least (despite what WandaVision may have you believe) is Monica Rambeau.

I spoke about this last week after posting about this review of the show, but it bears repeating.

Monica is a new character. You'd hope that, after 11 years of extremely limited diversity in the MCU, much to the dismay of fans worldwide, and after recognizing this and creating a movie with a cast like The Eternals, Marvel would try to get their shit together across the board.

Nope!

Monica was seriously the token diversity character of the show. It seemed like they would give her more depth after the episode during which they flashed back to the her during and after the snap, losing her mother, and seeing a little bit of what she's done as an adult since Captain Marvel, but that ended up being the most we got.

But why? Monica literally became a SUPERHERO. She became Photon! She deserved a much greater role in the show, especially in the finale, where she instead had maybe 5 lines and just stopped some bullets for about 30 seconds.

As the review I linked says, 

“There are so many black writers, fans, and critics noting how Monica got relegated to a complete lack relegated to meaningless best friend protector lacking in their own self agency and story except for making a shoehorned comparison of grief.”

Marvel made the same, bull-headed mistake that they made with Sam with Monica!

Let's do this again. Monica was snapped away for 5 years, and when she was snapped back, she learned that her mother had died. Losing someone you love and having the whole process of mourning and pain be complicated by the snap? What an interesti- oh wait. *Vision phases his head through the wall with a smile*

The only reason we got this backstory was because it made her a more sympathetic character towards Wanda. Her understanding of what Wanda is going through allows her to be the catalyst in the creation of the ideological fork in the road between herself, Darcy and Woo, who see Wanda as a victim of grief and loss, and Hayward and the rest of SHIELD, who see her as a dangerous threat.

How do you make the same, major mistake that you've been making for the past 7 years again? Guess what? You don't! Maybe it's not intentional, but Marvel, again, clearly doesn’t care enough about their characters of color to consider the roles they relegate them to in the MCU, realize what they've been doing is harmful, and then change it.

Hopefully, they will not continue to treat Monica this way and will remedy this in the next Captain Marvel.

In conclusion: MARVEL GAVE A FUCKING ROBOT AN ACTUAL ORIGIN STORY, A RELATIONSHIP AND MORE INDEPENDENCE THAN ALL OF THESE CHARACTERS.

But in all seriousness, Marvel needs to be help accountable for how they treat women and their characters of color in the MCU. I just looked at 3, but you could also make a similar argument about Rhodey, Hope van Dyne and Valkyrie, as well as Jane Foster, MJ, and Ned, although they are supporting characters and not superheroes. And I'm sure there are many others. Marvel (and Disney!!) has had an awful track-record, and change is long overdue.

[darkpoisonouslove]

Sparks of Life Opera Edition

I am still not over Singing a New Tune so I am going to recap for you the experience of writing that fic because there were many interesting moments over the course of those three days. Lemme start from the beginning.

- So I’m writing a fic that mostly focuses on sexual stuff but it is also mainly happening in an opera so my first order of business is to figure out what that opera is. Both the building itself and the show they’ll be watching. Because that is of utmost importance.

- I have already mentioned that SoL is located in New York so I looked up New York operas. I do not vibe with research most of the time but I vibe even less with having to come up with names for any kind of thing so research was definitely the choice here.

- I somehow get results about operas that are in the other end of the USA. That was not great. I get to the Metropolitan Opera House at last (which I might have known existed if I cared about opera in any way, shape or form) which is great! I am so close to starting the fic! Just need to figure out what opera they’re watching. Because I need that for reasons.

- I end up downloading a PDF with the seatings inside the Met Opera so that I can figure out where the hell they will be seating. But I leave that for later. I look through the actual plays that they’re having while absolutely failing with the navigation of their site. I find a show that catches my eye. It’s called The Magic Flute. I have zero idea what it’s about so I read the Wikipedia summary just to be aware. It mentions that a character has a moment when he’s singing about his search for a wife and I think “Perfect! Foreshadowing!” (since this is set pretty early on in Griffin and Valtor’s relationship).

- I decide to look up the opera and see if I can find a part of it on youtube to figure out how it will sound. I am pretty sold on it already because of the summary I read and also because it implies there is magic as a subject in it which would call back to canon. Still, I look it up. I find a full version of it on the internet with English subtitles... It is 2 hours and 35 minutes:

- “Wow, okay... that’s a bit much. But hey, it has got subtitles in English. Maybe I’d actually watch that... once I’m done with the fic. I’m just gonna listen to a little bit while I finish my research, though, so I can have an idea of what it sounds like.”

- Now it’s time to open the engagement fic - Enough to Be Yours - because I don’t remember what year they got engaged in and I need that to reverse engineer the year in which this fic is taking place so that I can make sure that The Magic Flute was being performed back then. I don’t have an year stated in the engagement fic, though. I have a date - 9th October which is Friday and that means the year is 2015. Great! So I need to figure out if they were performing The Magic Flute back in 2010. Great.

- That takes a shit ton of time and nerves as it turns out. I spent over 4 hours just researching the logistics for this fic and a lot of that was unnecessary but I’m getting ahead of myself.

- I cannot find out whether they were performing the Magic Flute in 2010. I get results of it being broadcast in English (for the first time, I believe) in 2012 but that is way too late for this fic to be happening. Also, they are speaking of a broadcast which just doesn’t work for me. So I am having a hard time over here.

- I find a list of the new titles in 2011 but nothing mentions The Magic Flute as far as I can see.

- I am now considering switching to another opera. I see an opera that is based on events from The Song of the Nibelungs (I cannot be assed to go back and check what the actual title was). That catches my eye because I have read a book that was titled The Ring of the Nibelungs, I believe, and I kinda remember stuff from it... which is what makes me hesitate because that was a big tragedy.

- Meanwhile, I have stumbled upon a trailer for The Magic Flute:

MY GOD IS THAT BEAUTIFUL! THOSE PROPS ARE FUCKING GORGEOUS! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN THAT YOU GET TO GO AND SEE THAT LIVE? THAT IS NUTS! (Also, when I mentioned paper birds (I think they are) in the fic, I meant the ones shown in 0:13, not the big one in the beginning but HOLY SHIT, DID YOU SEE THAT THING????? HOW IS THAT REAL?!?!?!?! IT IS SO FUCKING AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I CAN’T. I AM DYING. THIS IS JUST TOO BEAUTIFUL.)

- I somehow happen upon an old archive of the opera (idk how I did that but I bookmarked it in case I’ll need it again) that has information about plays going back as far as the year 1900. This is nuts! I am in too deep but I can’t pull myself away. I’ve gotten this far, I will see it through.

- I search for keyword “flute” and I get results. Some of them are pretty old but I finally find what I need. Performances of the Magic Flute in 2010! Bingo!

-  ...Oh, wait, they’re all around Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Hmm... when will it be okay for them to go? I mean, Valtor has been established to have zero free time around that time of the year and I can’t see them going on the 24th or the 31st... Oh, those are matinees. Definitely no! I need them to go in the evening. And some of these are broadcasts which doesn’t work for me either.

- I looked up earlier years as well. I considered another opera again. I decided to switch up the timeline a little. It makes sense if it’s in 2009. I think they had spring performances of The Magic Flute then. Or was it 2008? Anyway, I finally settle on an early April date in 2009 (I think). Now that that’s settled, let’s go back to the seats.

- First I need to figure out what floor (let’s say) of the opera they’re on. I was thinking of the last one first (family circle) but the boxes (I figure those seats will be safest for their activities) look like this:

which isn’t vibing with me because they would be in the front row and it seems more visible. So I relocate to the previous floor (balcony) that looks like this:

That works a little better although there’s the danger of having more people in their box. But they’re sitting in box 14, seats 5 (Griffin) and 6 (Valtor) (where the arrow is pointing) and there’s only one man in seat 4 in front of them. So that is the best I can do.

- Wow, all that’s finally figured out. I decide to do all the rest of the research up front in order to be able to just write after that and not stop for another 4 hours. More on those other things later BUT I get to the part where I need to pick a vibrator and... well, I done fucked up.

- First thing that comes up for a remote controlled vibrator is Lush, of course. And I am immediately sold because it has a sound activated setting which Valtor will definitely love to utilize while in the opera.

BUT

Lush 2 (which is the first one to have the sound activated setting, I believe) came out in 2018. Even if we accept that Lush also has it, that came out in 2015. My fic is set in 2009. Searching for 2009 vibrators literally went no where so in the end I decided that the SoL verse is actually set in a parallel universe where time is a little warped so the Lush 2 is out in 2009. Plus, that way there isn’t going to be a pandemic in future installments. Overall, that works. Except that I needn’t have been so thorough with my opera research beforehand. Oh, well. It’s finally time to start writing.

- How do you write? How do you start a fic? One word in front of the other? Oh, okay, never mind. Lipstick is a girl’s best friend. Let’s start from there. And a kiss that leads to the discussion of lipstick... Damn, I forgot to spend one more hour on researching what kind of lipstick Griffin would have worn. Shame! You don’t get that detail now. I believe I didn’t even mention a shade.

- Oh, wait. Need for his breath to taste like something. Hmm, let’s see. Tonic water? Yeah, that sounds about right. Never mind that he should have probably drunk it right before getting out of the car to kiss her if it was still lingering on his breath. I mean, that’s not impossible. Just improbable.

- He’s also wearing cologne, right? Gotta research that too. How else would I get this:

and zero idea what it actually smells like despite the description. Also, did not check if that was a thing in 2009 but the story now exists in a vacuum so who cares.

- Apparently, Griffin doesn’t own any golden bracelets even though she does have a golden necklace? Or she could have a golden bracelet, just not one she likes for the current situation? Anyway, I wanted to mention Ediltrude as well because the twins always go together and that was the best I came up with. (That said, I didn’t need to put the mentions of them one sentence apart.)

- My god, I used a semicolon! That feels illegal. I sure hope I used that bitch correctly.

- Okay, I absolutely love all the banter and just flow in the car. Idk how I did that since it’s such a constricted space but I am really proud of it. However, the logistics were sometimes hard to logic my way through. I mean, Valtor doesn’t get to look at her a lot and I had to employ a red traffic light to give him the chance to do so.

- I hit a wall about three paragraphs later. Things started going in a weird direction. I was considering even deleting the last two lines but then I managed to get back on track thanks to having figured out how they met and I decided to write a little bit about that without spoiling it (that will be a fic of its own some day). Suffice it to say it was a meet-very-ugly. But it bailed me out. Also, they got over it so it’s all good.

- And now... that paragraph. You know which one I’m talking about. It stands out with the locations I’ve given. That paragraph required 30 minutes of looking at Google Earth to figure it out and I still nearly got it wrong. At that point it occurred to me that they’ll need a place to park. I mean, idk how parking is in NYC but it’s probably not the way it is in Bulgaria especially on small neighborhood streets where it’s just... park wherever (even in front of a garage if you’re brazen enough and don’t fear having your tires slashed). So first, I was going to have them coming down Tenth Avenue and passing by the backside of the Opera which is not ideal for me because I needed Griffin to figure out they’re going to the opera so that they can have the following dialogue. But there is the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts right next door so I figure Griffin will recognize the area if it’s next to a library. And I have them almost at the garage but... that’s not looking right. This garage is on 65th Street and mine is on 62nd... I have been looking at the wrong garage for the past hour. Now that I have caught that mistake, things get easier. They just drive right past the facade of the opera, take a right turn and then enter the garage. Easy peasy. For whoever’s actually paying attention to the map.

- They’re in the garage now and I have to write another kiss. Shoot! I do not vibe with writing kisses. Writing sex scenes is much easier. But I’ll try my best because this is a little bit necessary if we’re dealing with an insertion of a vibrator in a public bathroom one minute from now. (Again, logistics!) I actually went back to add in a little discomfort during the kiss (but not too much because they’re consumed with each other anyway and probably missed something) just to make it more realistic. They can’t be comfortable in the car. Also, you have got to love how I never even thought of what make the car is. But I did stop to research the tinting of the car windows.

- Now this is extremely funny but I would have had zero idea that there are different laws about how tinted your car windows can be in the USA if I hadn’t read a very extensive critique of Fifty Shades (whichever part it was that had that info). So I look up the VLT for New York and it says 70%. Great! Then it won’t be that visible through the windows what they’re doing inside. Oh, wait! VLT means Visible Light Transmission aka 70% of the light should be passing through the window. Aka it is only tinted on 30%. This much:

That’s practically nothing. You can see everything through it. Welp, then someone’s gonna see, I guess.

- Can’t believe I didn’t stop to look up clutches either. (Lmao, I was calling it a purse instead of a clutch at first even though I definitely meant a clutch. And then I remembered that clutch existed as a word. Who would’ve thought?) It’s baffling trying to figure out why my brain was prioritizing some details over others and I just genuinely have no idea what was going on.

- Griffin is blushing a lot in this. Can you tell I have no idea how else to convey Valtor giving her feelings through body language?

- I first envisioned the box being opened by the hair pin by turning it like a key. Only later did I realize that that wouldn’t be possible because the pin has two parts (whatever they’re called) and that would make turning it impossible unless all of the base fits into one hole in the lid of the box. So I had to adapt my vision to using the extensions at the ends of the hair pin like a hook that pulls the lid up once it’s clicked free. I have zero idea how that would be done but I’m sure it can be done. So yeah, anyway, the pin looks like this but with attachments at the ends to open the box:

- I might have gone a little overboard with Griffin’s reaction to having the vibrator inside her. I might have made her a bit too embarrassed but I still think that she simply wouldn’t appreciate someone knowing about what she considers a private experience (despite the very public setting).

- And I am being overly specific again with the seats but I worked for that information so you’re getting it against your will!

- Speaking of, that man in their box was pretty ignored throughout the fic. But then again Griffin wasn’t overflowing with lucidity. She is sure to have missed... A Lot, actually.

- My apologies (once again) to @her-majesty-wears-jeans​ for not letting Griffin punch Valtor in the face for the terrible pun he was about to make but I thought that that would ruin the mood so I had to skip it.

- I might have imagined things a little differently but then consent factored in and I had to change things up so that Griffin is clearly on board with everything. I hope it came through that way at least. She is on board even if she is very, very frustrated. She would never throw the bet just because it’s difficult for her. Though, I’m taking note for future fics of maybe being a little bit more explicit about the enjoyment of all parties involved. I just couldn’t really think of a way to convey it better back then and I am coming up with several ideas now and I will try to keep them in mind for future fics.

- I keep going back and forth on just how far into their relationship this is. Sometimes it feels like it’s not enough time for them to get this familiar with each other and sometimes it feels like too much for them to still be skirting their feelings for each other like that. Will update when I make up my mind about how long exactly it has been.

- In retrospect, probably should have picked up an opera that people would be less likely to bring their children to (as brought to my attention by @her-majesty-wears-jeans​). I apologize for this. Did not consider it at all.

- A wild tangent about Griffin’s sexual experiences before Valtor popped up (for the second time now). This is giving me thoughts and I am not even sure if I’ll manage to get them all out in the bachelorette party fic. Oh, no, I am getting ideas again.

- God, I had to mention those paper birds because I adore them. Also, needed to do a time skip somehow (sure hope they don’t show up at the very end or the very beginning).

- So there are some things about the whole thing with the suit jacket that if you squint, you’ll miss the very far-fetched and convoluted ways in which I could make them make sense but again, it isn’t impossible to make them operate according to logic so good enough.

- And now for the dress:

I thought it would be reasonable for Griffin to own something like that. It doesn’t look overly expensive or dramatic.

- I swear that most of the 2% angst was an accident. Griffin was supposed to say the “You paid how much for tickets exactly just so you could fool around?” line but the following few paragraphs sprang on me out of nowhere. That was where I left it off the first day I was working on it and I wasn’t sure how to continue it. Then the angst happened.

- I do not believe the retaliation part was planned but would it really be a Griffin x Valtor story if something like that hadn’t happened? XD

- “reverberated”, “multitudinous” and “unobtainable” are probably not words that Griffin’s muddled mind would go to in that precise moment but everything else I came up with for them just did not sound right.

- I completely forgot the word for neckline and was so mad at myself for that but, luckily, I managed to remember it before posting the fic. I believe the original read “he slipped a finger under the fabric of her dress, running it over the top of her breast” which is not incorrect but just not precise enough for my liking.

- Sure hope the shortened version of the opera did not cut out the ending musical sequence. But that seems unlikely.

- The idea was running overly long in my head by having them going back to the penthouse so that I could have the scene where he picked her up so I decided to move things around and have him carry her bridal style on their way from the opera to the car. It’s not like she didn’t earn it.

- Pretty sure I had planned something a little different for the last several lines of dialogue but I couldn’t remember what so we get this. Which isn’t a disadvantage. I mean, Griffin is already thinking of marrying him. XD (That’s probably a bit of a stretch at the current status of their relationship but then again, she was thinking of a wedding, not necessarily of their wedding even though I’m clearly a little romance gargoyle that meant exactly that.)

- Originally, Valtor was supposed to floor the brakes while they were out in the NYC traffic but then I decided that doing it while still in the garage with only one car behind them and both vehicles driving at a very slow speed was a lot safer so I switched to that. It also saved me writing more words which was appreciated. I thought this fic would be a bit shorter.

- I was at a loss for how many orgasms Griffin should want from him but then the commitment line happened and that was all avoided.

[lanaisnotwool]

420 Living Your Life By Design as an Investor - Interview with Chase Maher

https://moneyripples.com/2020/09/08/420-living-your-life-by-design-as-an-investor-interview-with-chase-maher/

Today, Chris Miles talks with Chase Maher. He started real estate investing in 2008, which is the time that everyone was running away from it. Chase ran towards it instead and was born out of the fire.

Chase also does wholesale, house flipping, he is an entrepreneur, and he is an investor.

So today, what we want to know is how can someone like Chase Maher who is into all these businesses, still have a life outside of it as well? And that’s the important part.

Listen to our Podcast here:

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/moneyripples/2020/07/24/420--living-your-life-by-design-as-an-investor--interview-with-chase-maher

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Chris Miles (00:07): Hello, my fellow Ripplers! This is Chris Miles. Your Cash Flow Expert and Anti-Financial Advisor. Welcome you out for a wonderful show. Show that’s for you and about you. Those of you that work so stinking hard for your money, and you’re ready for your money to start working harder for you. Now! You want that freedom. That cash flow. That prosperity. Today! Not 30 or 40 bazillion years from now, but right now. So you can have that life that you love doing what you love being with those that you love. But guys, it’s not just be able to get out of the rat race yourself, right. And have that lifestyle that you dreamed of, which is definitely awesome. But it’s so much more than that because as a Rippler, you can create a Ripple effect in the lives of others. You can bless more lives when you are free. And so guys, I’m proud to be a part of this group. To be a Rippler with you because man, I love what you guys are up to. I love hearing about the good that you’re up to. The results you’re creating, but I love also the fact that you guys are bingeing and sharing the show too. So I appreciate that so much.

Chris Miles (01:03): As a quick reminder, check out our website, MoneyRipples.com. You’ve got the ebook on there, Beyond Rice and Beans. You can download for free today. And by the way, if you hate reading, don’t worry. It’s like 28 pages because I put page breaks and pictures in there. So you’re welcome. It’ll take you like 15 minutes, but check that out as well as the other blogs that are being uploaded as well.

Chris Miles (01:22): Alright! Today, I’ve got a special guest here. Chase Maher. Now, Chase, you know, interesting thing with him, is that not only he is a podcast host, which I definitely recommend you guys go check out his show, but the thing that’s so cool about Chase is that he’s a real estate investor doing the very things. And he was born at a fire. Like he started investing in 2008, when everybody was saying run, he was running towards the fire. Right? So, I mean, Chase started doing real estate investing. He does things with San Diego. In Tucson. And even out East as well. And so he does wholesaling, fixing, flipping. He’s an entrepreneur and investor all together wrapped in one. And that’s primarily why I wanted to bring him on here today because you know what, how is it that someone can actually have a business. Like what he does, but still have a lifestyle. Just like we talked about in the show, right? It’s not just about making a lot of money. It’s about having a life too. And that’s the main thing I want to talk about to Chase about today. So, Chase, welcome to our show!

Chase Maher (02:17): Chris man. Thanks for having me. I’m excited. Just had you on my show. So a little swap here, man, and you dropped a lot of value, so hopefully I can return the favor.

Chris Miles (02:26): I guarantee it, man. Like I can already tell just from our conversation, that’s going to be easy, you know.

Chase Maher (02:30): For sure.

Chris Miles (02:31): So give us some background, like what even led you down that path. I mean, of all the things you could have done, why would you want to go and be crazy Investing real estate when everybody else said run, right?

Chase Maher (02:40): Yeah. Well, you know, I wish I waited two years and started in 2010, but Hey, I started in 2008. I’ll tell you the story. It’s actually pretty good. So I’m 30 years old now. I live in San Diego. And I grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia and I grew up in the car dealership. My parents owned a couple car dealerships. I grew up, I learned the sales, used to pick-up cigarette butts, then wash the cars. Then I went to the auctions and eventually just kind of ran the show, working full time through college. And I always had discipline with money. I always had that entrepreneurial mindset where, you know, my dad taught me, put it away, put it away. I started buying gold when I was like 14 years old and, I had that mindset, but I never knew anything about real estate. My parents weren’t real estate investors. And when I was 18 moving out of my freshmen dorm and I saw like a lot of my buddies were going to go kinda split a house rental near our college, old dominion university, shout out to the monarchs. And I was like, man, I got like 25 grand in the bank. Why don’t I just like take 20K of that and go buy a house?

Chase Maher (03:45): And so I called up a real estate agent that I knew and I went and bought a house and I had no idea what I was doing. I did not know that we needed to check the market. I didn’t know the world was on fire with mortgages. I bought it June, 2008 and I basically house hacked it with buddies before house hacking was even like a buzzword. I rented out each bedrooms, four bedroom house. I rented out each bedroom for 500 bucks. Rented out the garage for 600 bucks. Covered my mortgage. Covered all my utilities and all throughout college, I lived rent-free, but you know, by July or by June, 2009, the house lost like 35% in value. But Hey, it recovered. I still have it to this day. And it’s a really good cash flow machine for me. And you know, after a couple of years I said, why don’t I do it again? And again, and again, and fast forward to now I live in San Diego. I fix and flip. I wholesale. I do some Realty stuff here and there. And I’m still invested in properties.

Chris Miles (04:37): Well, yeah, I think the cool thing that you did, whether you knew it or not, is that you still focused on the cash flow part, right? That’s the mistake I made during the last recession. I was buying property. So I thought, well, man, like if I can buy a hundred thousand property and appreciates 10%, that’s 10,000 bucks. But if you buy a 500,000 property, 10%, that’s 50,000. So let’s go big or go home. Right. And then I was like, no, I’m going home. You know, it was pretty bad, but I mean, you still, at least had roommates go into there. Or even after you probably moved out, you probably saw students in there paying rent. So even if it lost value, you were still getting paid.

Chase Maher (05:12): Yeah, absolutely. You know, the only appreciation that I bank on is forced appreciation. So, I don’t factor in any of my underwriting. Hey, hopefully the property value goes up 3% or 5% or here in San Diego sometimes 10% in the year, 2015, we went up like 20% in one year. So what I mean by that is forced appreciation. So actively figuring out ways that when I buy it, how can I increase the value of it by 10% 20% 30% within a 12 month period? Refinancing, getting my money back, redeploying it.

Chris Miles (05:42): I like that because you want to play it safe. Cause you’re not trying to bank on appreciation. You’re trying to bank on we’re going to do that actually, control the variables, right? Control the values versus just hoping that the values hold or whatever it might be.

Chase Maher (05:53): Yeah. I take the risk with my business and I play it safe with my investments. That’s kind of my philosophy.

Chris Miles (05:59): That’s great! I love it! So tell us more about that. Like, I mean you’re only 30, right?

Chase Maher (06:04): Yeah. I’m thirty.

Chris Miles (06:04): I mean, most people.

Chase Maher (06:06): Thanks for using the only!

Chris Miles (06:09): Yeah. I know. Coming from a guy who’s almost 13 years older than you. Yeah. So, you know, like for me it’s like, that’s incredible because when I was 30, I was trying to dig myself out of a hole. Right. Like I was going through the recession, you know, but I mean, you, I mean, you’ve actually been doing this, like you said, since you were 18 years old, you know, and again, it’s not something you just started doing a couple like three years ago. Like I always laugh with people that come by. They’re like, Oh yeah, I’m successful. I’ve been doing this for three years. And like, you haven’t seen anything yet. You know? So I mean, that being said, like, what do you feel is like been kind of a secret of success for you both, whether it be for your business and or even with your investing too?

Chase Maher (06:44): Yeah, man! I think discipline is like the most important thing. And just figuring out what’s your longterm goal, your longterm strategy and sort of reverse engineering it from there and it doesn’t have to be perfect. So if anybody’s out there and they’re listening, you’re trying to out like, what’s your life goals? What do you want to do? It doesn’t have to be perfect. Imperfect action is better than taking no action. So when I was 18, I bought that property. I thought to myself, man, you know, I’m going to school with some kids that are trust fund babies. They’re inheriting a bunch of money and they’re kind of blowing it and they’re blowing it because they don’t know what to do with it.

Chase Maher (07:18): And they don’t have any sort of education around it. So I started studying money and I didn’t inherit any crazy amount of money. I didn’t inherit anything. And I told myself, I want to be educated with money. I want to make sure that this mistake of a house that I just bought that, you know, fast forward, it’s not a mistake now, but at the time, imagine 12 months after you buy it. And the value is down 30%. You’re like, crap. What did I do? So that caused me to study markets that caused me to study, you know, market philosophy and what’s kinda going on. And like I said, I didn’t inherit any money. I wanted to be able to pass down money generations below me. I wanted to be that first one that when I have a great, great grandchild, they look at me and they think that’s the one that changed the path for our family forever.

Chase Maher (08:04): But I wanted to do it in a way that they were educated and they knew how to handle the funds that I passed down to them, the assets that I pass down to them so that they stay in families forever. You think about some of the wealthiest people in the world, the Rothschilds and a few others. It’s a family. And they run that family like a business. And I wanted to instill that. So I started studying the markets, studying books, listening to podcasts and just making the right decisions along the way. And like anything, those decisions compounded over time.

Chris Miles (08:31): That’s right. That’s like what? My, one of my old buddies, well, my old partners wrote the book. What would the Rockefellers do? Right. And it’s a big point, you know, it’s what can you actually pass on? And it goes beyond it really you’re creating your own ripple effect, right? Yeah. Not just for the people that you come in contact with, but really, I think one of the biggest ripple effects you could ever create is through your own family, creating that legacy.

Chase Maher (08:52): I couldn’t agree more.

Chris Miles (08:53): And the cool thing is too. I can already tell from what you said. You said it’s not just passing down the money, is it?

Chase Maher (08:59): No, it’s passing down the assets. So my philosophy is active income versus passive income. And so I like being an entrepreneur. I love being an entrepreneur. I haven���t had a job since high school. I really enjoy it. I’ve done a bunch of different things. So anybody that’s listening, if you think, Oh, here’s this 30 year old guy and he’s got it all figured out from 18 years old, that’s not true. From, you know, 18 to 22. I was selling cars and buying houses. And then from 22 to 26, I was kinda lost and just kind of living off my income from my assets. Blowing through my savings, traveling Southern California, you know, snowboarding, surfing all over the world. Kind of figuring out what I wanted to do. And then I ramped up the active income part again in my late twenties.

Chase Maher (09:43): And that instilled this like philosophy in me that if we can eliminate distractions and we can stay disciplined, we can have some strong, active income sources. We put it away, properly and passive income. And we live a lifestyle that is enjoyable to us. So I can do it for the long haul and not get burnt out. I saw my dad get burnt out when I was young and I saw him get overweight and get on healthy. And it, it made me think I don’t want that to happen to me. So I wrote down on paper, what’s important to me between health, wealth and relationships. And I just kind of live by that philosophy that if I’m not happy and I’m not able to do the things that I want to do, what the heck am I working this hard for anyways? So it’s really important to me. And I definitely, you know, I enjoy sharing that.

Chris Miles (10:29): There is a lot right there, man! Everybody, that’s a part you should probably go back and rewind a couple of times and re-listen to because there’s so many different tangents we could take with us. Right.

Chase Maher (10:39): Yeah. I know. Sometimes I’m valuable a little bit.

Chris Miles (10:39): Yeah. We can create like three shows that last comment you just made and we agreed create all these tangents from it. I think the thing that’s more valuable if I’m thinking from listener’s perspective here too is, youth aspects, right? I mean, one, I think will make a big point that you already said is, I love the clarity that you were having. Right? Like you’re writing this down. You’re saying, what is my life really about? And I think we even made this mentioned another time, you know, before we went on the air. Where that question of, you know, if money were no issue, what would you spend your time doing, right? Like kind of like, what do you want to be when you grow up? I know that there’s 60 and 70 year olds out there that have not asked this question with. What would I want to spend my time doing? Right? Like what would you do if you hit your financial goals? And what would that life look like? And it sounds like you really have to kind of create an architecture behind that life, didn’t you with that design?

Chase Maher (11:30): Absolutely. And it comes from repetition of constantly thinking over and over. And it, for anybody listening out there, if you like constantly have the same thought over and over, you should probably follow that instinct. And what I mean by if you’re constantly thinking I want to be in real estate, or if you’re constantly thinking, man, I want to be able to take a snowboard trip every year. Or if you’re constantly thinking, you know, I want live in this city, you should start crafting your lifestyle around, being able to do that. There’s a calling that you’re having that you should go after that. And I truly feel that the most depressed people in the world, they’re the ones that aren’t listening to that calling. They’re the ones that keep that thought in the back of their mind rather than in the front of their minds. So what that looks like to me is like purging out the things that, I’ll put it to you this way. There’s a lot of things that matter, but focus on the things that matter a lot.

Chase Maher (12:19): And what I mean by that is like, I would love to, you know, be a great golfer or a great tennis player or, you know, still play basketball twice a week. Like, you know, all these things. But what I love more is surfing. I love more is snowboarding. So I don’t waste any time, like trying to learn anything new. I just stay with what I know. I try to stay a fish when it comes to food. I’d love to learn how to cook this, this and this, but I just stay efficient because that mental space is better focused elsewhere. I’d rather go all in on the things that I know make me happy rather than trying to go discover a bunch of other thing. And the same applies with money. So that one core active income source and then pick a few streams of passive income for me, it’s hard assets and just stay focused and try not to lose sight of, you know, what you’ve written down and what you want to focus on because it will compound over time. You’ll get better and better and better.

Chris Miles (13:14): So true. Yeah. I want to go to both of those points. Man, you’re making this so hard on me, man. Cause you have, you’re testing my focus right now of how I can do this. But you know, when you mentioned about like the designing that life, right? Like really, you know, figuring out what is it you want? It took me back to four years ago when I asked my wife to marry me, you know, I said, Hey, I want to marry you. She says, all right, two conditions, one, no more kids. Cause eight is enough. Right. So we’re not having anymore. And then two, you need to make sure that every winter, she was like, I don’t care if you come or not. But every winter I got to leave, like I cannot do another Utah winter anymore. Like I’m done. I’m from the tropics. I can’t do it.

Chris Miles (13:57): And I said, all right, well, let’s do this. You know? And in my mind that was something that was impossible. Right. That seemed impossible. But when we really like mapped it out, like figured out how much would it really cost to do that? And you know, obviously, you know, of course with my business being virtual, I can do it anywhere anyways, but it was a whole mindset shift. And now I realize it’s freaking easy. It’s easy to do that. Like the hardest thing is now just, you know, trying to make it all work with children. You know, that’s the hardest part, but everything else is great, you know? And so I love that you did that. You can design that life. And once, you know, it’s easier to create.

Chase Maher (14:31): Chris, Gary Keller talks a lot about living a life by design. And if we don’t build a plan and then work towards that plan, we’re kind of just like living endlessly and just kind of wandering. And that’s a lifestyle that I didn’t really want for me. So I made that decision to live a life by design.

Chris Miles (14:49): I love it. So tell us, you mentioned about the income streams too, right? So you say you have one main income stream and you create other income streams. Tell us more about your philosophy on that.

Chase Maher (14:58): So active income figure out what’s that sweet spot that you can live off, you know, 50% or less of that active income and then invest the rest. And so for me, I figured out, you know, what’s that sweet spot and then I want to invest everything else. And so the active income that I like kind of sets up my passive income stream. So I realized that I wanted to have rental properties. I wanted to have buildings and assets. And so how can I build an active income that kind of sets that up? Well, it was lead generation for distressed properties, and then I can take those properties. I can fix and flip them. I can wholesale them. I can list them as an agent or I can refer them to a realtor. So those are four different streams of active income that are all built off of one marketing channel.

Chris Miles (15:44): Just one activity, yeah.

Chase Maher (15:45): One activity. We’re just, how do I simplify and dumb it down? Here’s another thing that I learned from Gary Keller when I was an agent is, what’s the one thing that you can do that makes everything simple or unnecessary? And so I focus on lead generation and then how can I maximize my use of that property? And then also what that does is I’m able to cherry pick the best ones for my portfolio. It kind of all builds off of that. And then from there, you know, some other income streams, passive that were sort of built off that and you know, just focusing on what that sweet spot is. So me personally, now I live off 30% of it and I invest the rest. And, you know, based off your investment philosophies, I learned from you and your show, we kind of have a lot of alignment there as well.

Chris Miles (16:33): Yeah. I love that! I love that! That basic philosophy of saying, all right, how do I get myself to have a lifestyle where I’m only at 50% of my income? That’s, for some people that’s a stretch, right. But it is kind of a core challenge.

Chase Maher (16:46): Yeah. You just got to make more than, you know, if your lifestyle is, is 10 grand, you need to figure out a way to make 20 grand. And actually you need to work, figure out a way to make like 30 grand cause of the taxes. So another reason why I love being an entrepreneur is, you know, tax saving strategies. So I’ve figured out how can I pay the least amount of taxes legally? And that’s by setting up, you know, an escorp paying myself a salary, profit distributions, owning assets that I can write off the interest. And so that sweet spot for me, I’m able to like focus in on it more and more and not have to go too high above that because I’m saving money on the taxes as well.

Chris Miles (17:25): That’s true. I get a lot of clients where, you know, like I get some of that. We can get them retire like this year, right. Others might take within five to seven years, 10 years. And I get some of those clients they’ll say, alright, like we got a couple deals, but they didn’t have a whole lot of cash. Like maybe they have 50 to a hundred grand. We’re like, alright, we’re making 500,000 passive a month, but we need 10,000 a month. Right. And it seems like there’s a big Hill to climb. We’re like, well, how do we do it faster, Chris? I’m like, well, other than just reinvesting the money you’re making, I’m like the best thing you can do is just find other ways to create more income or reduce your expenses and allow yourself to invest more faster. That is really the amplifier. Right? That’s the thing that multiplies it all is if you go from saying, Oh, I only got a thousand a month to build a, to put towards buying passive investments versus, Hey, I’ve now got 5,000 or 10,000 a month. I can put towards that. It’s a complete game changer. Like the numbers has become exponentially better. When you do that.

Chase Maher (18:24): Yeah. If you can think of a way to like productize yourself. And what that looks like is either sell it for more, make more money or reduce your costs, reduce your expenses. It’s pretty simple. I usually opt for, I like just trying to make more money because I still like, I like that 30% or 50% I focus on the 30%. I like to live a good lifestyle though. You know, like I’m not some Rice and Beans kind of guy. I do a lot of trips, a lot of traveling. I figure out what’s that sweet spot. So do you need that? You know, tier two or tier three above the current car you’re driving right now? Do you need that fifth surfboard? Do you need, you know, certain things like, do you really need them and you know, live your life a little bit above the needs so that you’re still happy and you’re still enjoying yourself, but ask yourself on your purchases. Like, are there certain things like, do I really need that? And then, you know, if you do buy it, try to match that towards an investment. So anything that’s a want, I buy it and it’s 500 bucks, all right. Then I need to commit to 500 bucks towards an investment. And so kind of simplified it like that.

Chris Miles (19:32): I think that’s the key is that, I mean, just like you said earlier, like when you can really know what you want, right? What’s really the priority. Yeah. You can still have a life that you love, but you can say, you know, all those rest of the stuff is distraction. It’s just extra clutter in my life. I don’t need it. Simplify on what I really want. Keep that simple life and create freedom from it. I love that.

Chase Maher (19:52): Yeah, man.

Chris Miles (19:53): Cool, man. Well, Hey, if people want to get to know your stuff or follow you or whatever, what’s the best way they can do that, Chase?

Chase Maher (19:59): So the best way is my podcast. The Life Worth Chasing Podcasts. We talk about real estate, money, wealth, business strategies, and pretty much every guest that I bring on like yourself, you were just on. I really want to make sure that they live, you know, a life by design that, you know, they’re not working until their eyes bleed. And so it’s the kind of show that you’re going to learn a lot, but you’re also going to be inspired. And then if you want to get ahold of me directly, the best place is probably on Twitter and it’s @iamchasemaher and yeah, I’m on Twitter a lot dropping knowledge. That’s how I communicate with a lot of people and can join me on there. And there’s a lot of good, useful information on that.

Chris Miles (20:35): Awesome! Chase, I really appreciate it. Like I said, there were so many nuggets on here. We could go like an hour long episode and have some fun with this, but man, the stuff you’ve given, I recommend people listen to show more than once just to pick up on these nuggets you’ve given us. So I really appreciate that.

Chase Maher (20:50): Hey, my pleasure, man. I appreciate you having me on.

Chris Miles (20:53): You bet! Everybody else, you know, we’ll put in the show notes, you know, Chase’s podcast as well as his Twitter handle. So check them out, check out his stuff. Great show. As you already know, like, well, our life is so much more than just money, right? It’s so much about the kind of life that we can create. So make sure you follow his show because that’s what it’s all about. And definitely reach out to Chase. If you feel like that little ping of, Oh, that resonated that I needed that. So check him out. Everybody, I hope you make it a wonderful and prosperous week. We’ll see you later.

[mjj-news]

MJJNews Provided By Anji~Justice240

MJJNEWS, PICKING -UP- WHERE WE LEFT OFF…  

In Loving Memory Of Michael Jackson 1958-2009

♥ You Know That L.O.V.E. Survives ♥ **  ♥ So We Can Rock Forever ♥  **

★January 2021★  

MJJNEWS, PICKING -UP- WHERE WE LEFT OFF…

MICHAEL JACKSON – 2020 YEAR IN REVIEW

January 1, 2021

If someone had told you at the beginning of 2020 that the year was going to be spent mostly at home and online, you’d probably have laughed it off. However, in arguably the most challenging year of our lifetime, that’s exactly what happened. Thankfully, we’re fans of the King of Pop and that means that no matter where you are in the world, you’re part of an active community that engages fans and always finds ways to celebrate no matter how challenging.

So, before we turn the page to 2021, Here is MJVibe’s top picks for Michael Jackson 2020 – Year in Review!

Thriller appears in the Top 10 vinyl sales of the decade in the United States at number 6, having sold 334,000 copies between 2010 and 2019. In 2019 alone, 88,000 copies of Thriller on vinyl were sold across the U.S.

A pair of Louboutins designed exclusively for Michael to wear during ‘This Is It’ go on display in Paris France at the Palais de la Porte Dorée as part of an exhibition focusing on the world-famous designer Christian Louboutins. The sparkly shoes offer a subtle nod to Michael’s Triumph/Off The Wall look and were displayed as if Moonwalking.

- Bad in Wembley and Dangerous Live in Bucharest are once again made available for streaming on YouTube through Michael’s official channel in an effort to encourage the ‘stay home’ order given to countries around the world.

- After 11 years at the Lyric Theater, Thriller Live closes its doors for the final time. The show had been scheduled to complete on April 26th 2020 and leave the Lyric to find a new home. However, the UK-wide lock down as a result of the pandemic saw the show close earlier than planned.

- The MJ Estate donated $300,000 to Corona Virus relief efforts in Michael’s name. Broadway Cares, Three Square Food Bank (Southern Nevada’s largest hunger-relief organization) and MusicCares each received a $100,000 donation.

The Estate release ‘Heal The World 2020’, a new short film to accompany Michael’s 1992 hit of the same name. The film focused on the Covid-19 pandemic and was produced to unite Michael’s fans virtually during an almost global lock down.

In response to the release, fans ensured ‘Healtheworld2020’ trended two weekends consecutively. As of December 2020, the short film has 4.3 million views on YouTube.

View the video here!

- As a result of the pandemic, MJ The Musical’s debut is once again delayed to September 2021. Originally planned to open in Chicago in the Summer of 2019, the launch was cancelled with a plan to head straight to Broadway in early 2020. After three rescheduled dates, the decision was made to push to September 2021.

- Michael dominates Smooth Radio’s All-Time Top 500 Songs with the most entries by a solo artist. With 20 entries, Billie Jean and Man In The Mirror placed inside the Top 10, with George Michael being the only other artist to do so. Averaging four million listeners a week, Smooth Radio removed Michael from rotation in 2019, however, this poll as voted by the public, ensured Michael returned to the station’s regular playlist. #MUTEWHO?!

- HIStory turns 25 and while fans around the world mark the album’s monumental status and timeless appeal, the Estate chose to release apparel and a badge set, which mostly amounted to, what some fans considered an overpriced, bad quality, poorly designed, late delivered collection.

Judge for yourself, Ilia Mizani and Pez Jax sat down to review some of the products here.

- Marking the 25th Anniversary of the album, the HIStory teaser is added to YouTube where it has since been viewed 1.5 million times via Michael’s official channel.

- It’s been over 50 years since the Jackson 5 performed on the Ed Sullivan show. As part of a full library upload, the performances are restored and uploaded to YouTube for future generations to enjoy. You can watch the iconic performances here!

- Sixteen11 Media Group announces the release of a new book titled, ‘The Story of HIStory’ by Pez Jax. The book charts the creation and release of HIStory and marks 25 years of the album’s release. Including interviews with many people who worked on the album and short films, Jax called upon HIStory Statue sculptor Diana Walczak to help create the cover of the book. By the end of 2020, the book was released in special gold hardback and has been shipped to over 30 countries around the world. Several of Michael’s items from the era were placed on auction through Julien’s Auctions. Taking place from the 15th – 19th of June, listings included the three Olodum outfits worn by Michael in ‘They Don’t Care About Us’, the black trench coat from Stranger In Moscow and the handwritten lyrics to D.S.

- Author Damien Shields releases ‘The Genesis of Thriller’, a special audio documentary that takes listeners into the studio to discover how the world’s biggest-selling album was made. HIGHLY Recommended!

You can listen to this insightful audio documentary here!

- SiriusXM launches ‘The Michael Jackson Channel’, a radio station playing nothing but Michael Jackson music for a strictly limited time. The station also featured a special playlist titled ‘The Now More Than Ever King of Pop Playlist’.

- UK Nationwide Radio Station ‘Smooth Radio’ host their annual ‘Top 100’ poll to find out who the number one Icon is, according to listeners. With an overwhelming number of votes, Michael comes in at Number one.

- Following global demonstrations in relation to the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police, Spike Lee teamed up with the Estate to release a new version of ‘They Don’t Care About Us’ for 2020. Mixing together both the Brazilian and Prison versions of the short film, Lee also incorporated footage from demonstrations around the world, which once again proved just how timeless Michael’s music is when used as the backdrop to current affairs.

Watch it here!

- Chinese fans celebrate Michael’s 62nd Birthday with the unveiling of 10 statues across the country. Created by MJJCN, the statues were installed in prominent locations including Nanning and Beijing and serve as a wonderful dedication to Michael.

‘Loving Neverland’ is released on YouTube as a five-hour compilation of footage and information that details Michael’s life, challenges and career in great detail. Compiled by fans Nandita Raghav and Deboleena Aich, Loving Neverland serves as a powerful reminder to what Michael experienced for anyone looking to understand who he was. You can watch it here!

- Finally, and after many years of asking, the Estate decided to do something with Michael Jackson’s Ghosts, announcing it would be free to stream on YouTube from 29th October until the 1st of November. To mark the Halloween period, which Michael ultimately rules, the mini-movie was uploaded in better quality than the previous uploads.

- Walmart release a limited edition 2x colored vinyl of the Jackson 5 greatest hits album ‘The Ultimate Collection’. Available only in the U.S, the album was issued through Universal Music.

- In what’s almost yearly fashion, more of Michael’s personal items were placed up for auction including the 2006 Japan VMAs jacket that marked Michael’s first official red-carpet appearance since his 2005 trial.

Also on auction were platinum record awards, signed items, photographs, drawings and a glove.

- Cirque-Du-Soleil announced that despite being closed for most of 2020 due to the pandemic, Michael Jackson ONE is one of five Las Vegas residency shows to receive a contract extension. Originally signed as a 10-year with five years guaranteed at the Mandalay Bay, the show has been so popular that both Cirque and Mandalay want to keep it going past its 2023 end date. The new end date on the contract extension has not been announced.

- On November 16th, the legendary Bruce Swedien passed away. Having worked with Michael as Engineer on all his Epic solo albums up to Invincible, Swedien continued working in the industry up until his passing and became an inspiration to many upcoming producers and engineers. Rest in Peace Bruce!

- Michael once again topped Forbes list of the Highest-Paid Dead Celebrity. Coming in at number one with $48 million earned, he beat Dr Seuss who came in second position with $33 million. FYI, Elvis came in 5th.

- To cap off another year of insightful interviews and important documentation, the MJCast episode 126 was a special featuring TJ Jackson. TJ speaks about growing up a Jackson, working with Michael and how the last few years of negativity have affected his family. You can listen to this deeply personal episode here!

- On Christmas Eve it was announced that Neverland ranch had officially been sold. Purchased for just $22 million by Billionaire Ron Burkle, the final price was a huge reduction from the overzealous $100 million asking price when the property was first put onto the market. However, there is hope as Burkle was a former business associate and friend to Michael, so while it may not be a ‘Michael Jackson Memorial’, it will hopefully be treated with the respect and history it deserves.

As we begin 2021 with hope and optimism, it may take a while before we can all be back with our favorite MJ friends; throwing down dance moves on his birthday and lighting candles on his anniversary. However, with the 30th Anniversary of Dangerous and the 20th Anniversary of Invincible at the tail end of the year, it’s likely we can look forward to some exciting coverage from a variety of different places and hopefully some more chart-topping achievements throughout the year.

⭐༺★༻ ༺🖤༻ ༺★༻⭐

[mamabearcat]

INUKAG Fanfic Rec List - M

NSFW ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Over the last few years, I’ve suffered from on again/ off again insomnia, where some nights I go to bed, don’t sleep at all, and then get up again – rinse and repeat. Rather than spending all night looking at the ceiling and pondering my place in the universe, I pass the time by reading fanfiction. A LOT of fanfiction. And now you, dear reader, get to reap the benefits.

All M Rated by the writer – some for smexiness, some for violence and language (I mean, they all contain Inuyasha, so…) some for all of the above. Also, I’ve only included COMPLETED fics, so there will be some missing from this list that I would absolutely recommend. I have a huge ass list of uncompleted favourites also, but I understand that not everyone likes losing their heart to a fic only to find out that it was last updated in 2005. Log onto fanfiction.net and go through the fics I’m ‘following’ if you want to see those.

I don’t claim this to be an exhaustive list, or the best of the best. This is just a list of fics that I have really enjoyed and would happily read again, and thought others might enjoy too. There’s probably some that I’ve forgotten, in fact I’m sure there are, so please don’t be upset if you’ve written an Inuyasha fic and I haven’t put it on here!

I’ve also made a SFW list, rated T and under. M rated list under the cut!

SHORT FICS (Less than 20,000 words)

To Tame a Wild Heart By Merith - What would really happen if Inuyasha transformed into his youkai self and no one stopped him? Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance - Words: 10,966 - Reviews: 184 - Favs: 628 - Follows: 85 - Published: Feb 17, 2003 - Status: Complete 

Health Homework By: Chione - A funny little tale of embarrassment and intrigue. Love and lust. Homework and something not appropriate in school. Kagome and Inuyasha. Tetsusaiga and possessiveness. Rated for language and mature themes. Light and fluffy. Rated: Fiction M - English - Humor/Romance - Kagome H., Inuyasha - Words: 2,712 - Reviews: 51 - Favs: 175 - Follows: 13 - Published: Aug 6, 2004 - Status: Complete

Strange Bedfellows By: FrameofMind - Oneshot. Inuyasha's never been much for village festivals, but this "night-crawling" celebration turns out to have a few strange surprises in store... Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance/Humor - Inuyasha, Kagome H. - Words: 8,716 - Reviews: 31 - Favs: 228 - Follows: 24 - Published: Jul 9, 2012 - Status: Complete 

Wallflower By: Fenikkusuken - Ater three years, Inuyasha has to admit his feelings for Kagome...or lose her to Hojo. Rated M for citrus. Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance - Inuyasha, Kagome H. - Words: 4,671 - Reviews: 69 - Favs: 390 - Follows: 38 - Published: Jun 11, 2006 - Status: Complete

Body Language By: Fenikkusuken - Kagome still needs some convincing that Inuyasha doesn't see her as a replacement for Kikyo...Rated M for citrus content Rated: Fiction M - English - Drama/Romance - Inuyasha, Kagome H. - Words: 8,862 - Reviews: 77 - Favs: 593 - Follows: 66 - Published: Jul 8, 2006 - Status: Complete

TwoTimer By: Fenikkusuken - A willing hanyou, a girl and a convenient cave. Why's Kagome hesitating? Rated for Mature content. Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance/Drama - Kagome H., Inuyasha - Words: 7,018 - Reviews: 102 - Favs: 604 - Follows: 61 - Published: Oct 6, 2007 - Status: Complete 

The Score By: Fenikkusuken - OneShot. When the InuCru fall victim to mischievous kitsune magic, hard truths are revealed. Contains spoilers for manga volumes 505 and 506. Rated M for citrus content. Rated: Fiction M - English - Drama/Romance - Inuyasha, Kagome H. - Words: 13,829 - Reviews: 47 - Favs: 290 - Follows: 17 - Published: Oct 29, 2007 - Status: Complete

Take It Slow By: Patchcat - Having recently taken her as his lover, Inuyasha is eager to get Kagome alone again; and he knows just where he should take her. Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance - Inuyasha, Kagome H. - Words: 6,176 - Reviews: 8 - Favs: 156 - Follows: 16 - Published: Mar 15, 2008 - Status: Complete

Revelation By: Fenikkusuken - OneShot. Inuyasha has some relationship repairs to make after he takes advantage of Kagome's generous heart. Rated for citrus and mature themes; contains spoilers for the manga. Rated: Fiction M - English - Drama/Romance - Inuyasha, Kagome H. - Words: 11,309 - Reviews: 50 - Favs: 284 - Follows: 23 - Published: Oct 9, 2008 - Status: Complete

Erectile Dysinformation By: King Baka - Inuyasha has a run-in with a little blue pill. Rated: Fiction M - English - Humor - Inuyasha, Kagome H., Sōta H. - Chapters: 2 - Words: 10,537 - Reviews: 24 - Favs: 85 - Follows: 11 - Published: Dec 13, 2010 - Status: Complete 

The Teahouse By: Jessibelle811 - Inuyasha and company spend the night at a strange teahouse. Inu Yasha and Kagome face startling realizations while under the influence of a demon's spell. Inu/Kag one-shot Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance/Fantasy - Inuyasha, Kagome H. - Words: 7,534 - Reviews: 22 - Favs: 196 - Follows: 21 - Published: Jul 9, 2011 - Status: Complete

Dancing Slowly in an Empty Room By: WitchyGirl99 - When Kagome's life shatters before her, she's sure that she'll always be alone. What she doesn't expect is the ghost of a silver-haired, golden-eyed man standing in her library with a smirk, InuKag. Oneshot. Rated: Fiction M - English - Tragedy/Romance - Inuyasha, Kagome H. - Words: 8,626 - Reviews: 73 - Favs: 118 - Follows: 24 - Published: Feb 5, 2012 - Status: Complete 

I Knew You Before I Met You By: KeiChanz - Kagome has been talking to her online best friend Inu for nearly two years and feels like she's known him for much longer. When her friends convince her to go out with them one night, Kagome ends up in an unfortunate situation and pleads for the help of the one person whom she trusts the most above all others. Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance - Inuyasha, Kagome H. - Words: 19,758 - Reviews: 79 - Favs: 515 - Follows: 75 - Published: Jun 6, 2013 - Status: Complete 

Lemon Tree By: Angelhart79 - The long awaited Inu/Kag sequel to Claim. Enjoy! (one shot) Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance/Humor - [Inuyasha, Kagome H.] - Words: 7,242 - Reviews: 10 - Favs: 177 - Follows: 30 - Published: Mar 23, 2015 - Status: Complete

Learning Curve By: StoatsandWeasels - Post-canon One-shot: Nighttime activities and internal musings of the newlywed couple. Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance - [Kagome H., Inuyasha] - Words: 2,679 - Reviews: 15 - Favs: 157 - Follows: 29 - Published: May 6, 2016 - Status: Complete

Claiming What is Mine By: StarlingChild4 - A request from Keichanz. Post-canon. When Kagome takes care of a strange man, who'd collapsed ill outside their village, Inuyasha is wrought with jealousy and desire to reclaim what is rightfully his... Thankfully, Kagome couldn't agree more. Rated MA for graphic, shameless smut. [COMPLETE] Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance/Humor - [Inuyasha, Kagome H.] - Words: 6,112 - Reviews: 17 - Favs: 187 - Follows: 42 - Published: Aug 28, 2018 - Status: Complete

Manipulation By: akitokihojo - Kagome is kidnapped by a malevolent and ruthless demon that gets off on terror and drawn out death. He wants to taunt her lifeless body over Inuyasha's head for pure enjoyment and revenge. Will Inuyasha make it in time or will Kagome be fighting for her life alone? Rated: Fiction M - English - Angst/Suspense - [Inuyasha, Kagome H.] - Chapters: 3 - Words: 17,968 - Reviews: 8 - Favs: 44 - Follows: 12 - Published: Dec 12, 2018 - Status: Complete

The One With The Fantasy Type Thing  By: shinidamachu - InuYasha reveals one of his sex fantasies to Kagome. What, oh what will happen next? Post-canon. Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance - Inuyasha, Kagome H. - Chapters: 2 - Words: 6,339 - Reviews: 17 - Favs: 70 - Follows: 14 - Updated: Jul 8 - Published: May 6 - Status: Complete

The Language He Speaks  By: akitokihojo - Inuyasha thought he knew pain after experiencing so much loss in his life, but it wasn't until he was separated from Kagome that he discovered how sharp pain could really be. Now that he had her back, he wasn't willing to take any risks, but Kagome was so fearless against demons. What was it gonna take to get his point across? When would she finally see how badly he needed her? Rated: Fiction M - English - Hurt/Comfort/Romance - [Inuyasha, Kagome H.] - Words: 7,489 - Reviews: 15 - Favs: 89 - Follows: 19 - Published: May 12 - Status: Complete

CHAPTER FICS

Dangerous Admirer By: FireTigerSoul - Kagome seems to have picked up an admirer, one of the dangerous sorts. After battling various youkai in Sengoku Jidai, taking care of a stalker should be a cinch, right? Complete Rated: Fiction M - English - Adventure/Romance - Inuyasha, Kagome H. - Chapters: 33 - Words: 92,963 - Reviews: 810 - Favs: 476 - Follows: 70 - Updated: Feb 13, 2005 - Published: Sep 6, 2004 - Status: Complete 

This Can't Be Good By: Ithilwen K-Bane - COMPLETE. Hojo becomes trapped in the Sengoku Jidai: Chivalry isn't dead, but it sure seems to be asking for it... Rated for Inuyasha's mouth and Miroku's mind. Rated: Fiction M - English - Humor/Adventure - Inuyasha, Kagome H., Miroku, Hōjō - Chapters: 51 - Words: 131,852 - Reviews: 2,492 - Favs: 1,585 - Follows: 206 - Updated: Jul 18, 2005 - Published: May 2, 2003 - Status: Complete

Dog Skin By: sublimetrickster - Kagome loves her father, King Naraku. Unfortunately, he starts loving her in the wrong way and disguised, she escapes. A kindhearted hanyou prince rescues her, but can he protect her from the darkness that pursues her? A Grimm Fairytale. Rated: Fiction M - English - Adventure/Romance - Kagome H., Inuyasha - Chapters: 22 - Words: 111,889 - Reviews: 1,278 - Favs: 1,656 - Follows: 384 - Updated: Jul 28, 2006 - Published: Jan 5, 2005 - Status: Complete

The World Through His Eyes By: The Purple Ghost - When a failed attempt with a minor spell causes Kagome to loose her sight, she gets the unique opportunity to see the world through our favorite hanyou's eyes...literally...Now Complete Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance/Angst - Kagome H., Inuyasha - Chapters: 20 - Words: 143,812 - Reviews: 1,129 - Favs: 1,468 - Follows: 403 - Updated: Jul 30, 2007 - Published: Jul 30, 2003 - Status: Complete

The Pain By: Captain applesauce - With Naraku's new incarnation comes an obsession to destroy Kagome, who is becoming more and more powerful as she unleashes new powers and her relationship with Inuyasha is strengthened. Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance/Drama - Inuyasha, Kagome H. - Chapters: 66 - Words: 350,826 - Reviews: 1,211 - Favs: 987 - Follows: 303 - Updated: Nov 19, 2007 - Published: Oct 1, 2004 - Status: Complete 

The Phoenix Blade: Time Lapse By: Fenikkusuken - COMPLETE. An AR riff on the anime. Rated for coarse language, violence and citrus. Kagome Higurashi, recent graduate of the Imperial Military Academy, finds all of her skills seriously tested when the Shikon Jewel summons her to the Sengoku Jidai. Rated: Fiction M - English - Adventure/Romance - Inuyasha, Kagome H. - Chapters: 86 - Words: 787,420 - Reviews: 2,175 - Favs: 1,652 - Follows: 532 - Updated: Jun 28, 2008 - Published: Jun 28, 2005 - Status: Complete

Something Real By: Angelica Pierce - While staying over night in a village, Kagome is confronted with the full truth about Inuyasha’s hardship regarding his social status and heritage. Will she be able to find a way to help him see through the pain? Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance/Drama - Kagome H., Inuyasha - Words: 30,044 - Reviews: 136 - Favs: 579 - Follows: 92 - Updated: Jul 28, 2008 - Published: May 10, 2005 - Status: Complete

Metamorphosis By: King Baka - *COMPLETE* "Sometimes in the winds of change we find our true direction." An unusual youkai attack transforms Kagome's very being. Can she come to terms with her new self, and can Inuyasha accept, perhaps even love, the new Kagome? Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance/Adventure - Inuyasha, Kagome H. - Chapters: 64 - Words: 401,136 - Reviews: 351 - Favs: 575 - Follows: 148 - Updated: Mar 7, 2011 - Published: Dec 9, 2010 - Status: Complete

Playing With Fire By: FrameofMind - AU. When Chicago's finest Teppanyaki chef meets his first female peer, there is some friction. When they're sent to New York to represent the restaurant in a high-profile competition, sparks are inevitable... Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance/Humor - Inuyasha, Kagome H. - Chapters: 19 - Words: 88,628 - Reviews: 432 - Favs: 457 - Follows: 255 - Updated: Jan 8, 2012 - Published: Jun 5, 2008 - Status: Complete

To Summon a Mate By: Penthesileia - On Halloween night, Kagome is tricked into releasing a possessive, dangerous, hotter then hell demon from his prison of 500 years. She's in danger, but it's not her life she's worried about…yet. Sequel out NOW! Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance/Supernatural - [Inuyasha, Kagome H.] - Chapters: 42 - Words: 216,965 - Reviews: 3,311 - Favs: 3,039 - Follows: 1,880 - Updated: Nov 1, 2013 - Published: Nov 1, 2008 - Status: Complete 

Blackout By: King Baka - *COMPLETE* A night of celebration yields life-altering consequences for Inuyasha and Kagome. Can they weather the storm, or will the consequences of their actions prove too much to handle? Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance/Adventure - Inuyasha, Kagome H. - Chapters: 48 - Words: 343,594 - Reviews: 537 - Favs: 370 - Follows: 309 - Updated: Sep 4, 2015 - Published: Dec 25, 2013 - Status: Complete

Out of Time By: KeiChanz - Inuyasha and Kagome are in a race against time as they rush to save their friends from an uncertain fate. While being pursued through a dark forest and fighting to stay alive, at times it seems hopeless, but together, they can overcome. Rated: Fiction M - English - Drama/Romance - Inuyasha, Kagome H. - Chapters: 2 - Words: 26,268 - Reviews: 35 - Favs: 76 - Follows: 33 - Published: Jun 8, 2018 - Status: Complete 

Real By: KeiChanz - Kagome is acting...not like herself, and Inuyasha doesn't quite know what to think. But then after a battle, Kagome unknowingly reveals a wicked secret and suddenly for Inuyasha, everything clicked. Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance/Hurt/Comfort - Words: 26,076 - Reviews: 24 - Favs: 146 - Follows: 29 - Published: Feb 16 - Status: Complete 

When I Almost Lost You By: Corpses playing poker - After a fight with Kagome Inuyasha storms off. But when he doesn't come back the group begins to worry, and finds evidence that something terrible has happened to him. How far will Kagome go to get him back? InuxKag. Rated for violence and language. Rated: Fiction M - English - Drama/Hurt/Comfort - Inuyasha, Kagome H., Sango, Miroku - Chapters: 24 - Words: 73,467 - Reviews: 91 - Favs: 43 - Follows: 50 - Updated: Apr 21 - Published: Jun 15, 2018 

In Between By: akitokihojo - Each step, each breath, each smile and tear was unknowingly documented. Cameras were watching, culprits were laughing, a wild game was ensuing, so who could Kagome trust? Certainly not the well-armed, ex-friend, pigheaded detective, Inuyasha. No thanks. But when questions go unanswered and chaos flares, how will she fend? She's not the only victim in this equation. Rated: Fiction M - English - Mystery/Crime - [Inuyasha, Kagome H.] Naraku - Chapters: 10 - Words: 93,223 - Reviews: 101 - Favs: 61 - Follows: 62 - Updated: Aug 18 - Published: Apr 8 - Status: Complete

[befitandchase]

Weather Debriefing 10:45pm 3/28/2020

I’m exhausted. Simply put. Nearly 12 hours of driving today between 2 states. And I still managed to maintain a 6ft distance between my chase partner and I. (Probably because we were in separate cars.)

Anyway, about that weather...

While I do agree with the SPC for putting out that PDS warning, because it did pan out (somewhat), their tornado watch for this afternoon was a little over the top.

That’s a gigantic watch, probably the biggest I’ve ever seen. Three states covered all at once because there was potential. Unfortunately, there just wasn’t that much potential.

Diurnal heating wasn’t reduced due to ongoing convection throughout the day. That put a hamper on lapse rates until well into the late afternoon when skies finally cleared around 5pm.

Then, things started to happen. As I mentioned in my last post, we left Galesburg for Burlington about 30 minutes before a cell became tornado warned. While I’m bummed we weren’t on that storm, apparently every other chaser was so it would have been a clusterfuck had we not gone into Iowa.

It took a little while for things to ramp up, but when they did, we were there!

It started with this little storm that began to develop about 37 miles south of us. We started to head that way, back over into Illinois.

And then things went sideways. By that I mean my chase partner decided to core punch the storm so we could be on the western side of it (where you’re most likely to see a tornado). Now, he knows I hate core punching. An incident back in 2010 has given me PTSD with respect to core punching.

So, what is core punching? Basically, it’s when you drive through the heart of the storm, which is where your heaviest rain and hail occurs. I am so thankful we did this early on in the storm’s life cycle where it was just a little bit of heavy rain, and that’s it.

We stopped about a mile or two from the storm to take a look and make a visual inspection.

It was meh at this point in time. But it was strengthening rapidly unbeknownst to us. I pull up radar a few minutes later and this is what I see:

We’re basically smack dab in the middle of 3 developing cells. We’re surrounded by storms. So what does John decide? Let’s go back north and see what it does!

We core punch again. I’m 👌 that close to killing him. And then, it happens. My phone goes off, the radio goes off. TORNADO WARNING. I shit you not. In the span of about 15 minutes, this little storm went from a literal blip on the radar to producing a tornado.

I screenshot that well after the initial warning came through, but, yeah. We pretty much hit the jackpot. NOBODY was on this storm except for us. And we chased it. Holy fuck did we chase it!

I lost track of where we went on our quest to actually see the tornado, but then John put the final nail in his coffin: turning onto a wet dirt road. Just like core punching, wet dirt roads also give me PTSD flashbacks from chases past.

He was lucky he was in his car because I probably would have killed him.

We finally make it to a paved road and let me tell ya, we ended up running right along side that storm. I wish we’d stopped to take a few photos, but the situation was turning more dangerous by the minute.

Yep, dusk was upon us and we needed to haul ass to get northeast so we wouldn’t get caught up in the continuing tornadic activity.

Yeah, that didn’t happen.

We plowed head first into it and by some miracle didn’t die? Somehow we managed to avoid the worst of it, but talk about white knuckle driving for at least 3 hours.

By the time we finally reached I88 (the highway home), my phone had gone off with 4 separate tornado warnings.

There was a point during this whole ordeal where I actually called my bestie for guidance because I was afraid we would get caught up in a secondary storm to our southwest that was also producing a tornado. Unfortunately, I have no more images after this because the drive home took us from highways to back roads back to highways.

I am just so happy to be home right now. And although I didn’t see a tornado today, I’m still glad I chased because a bad day chasing beats a good day doing anything else.

[kpopmusiclyricsalbums]

My Thoughts on JYP Entertainment

Founder/CEO: J.Y. Park - Good but problematic 

I have complicated feelings about JYP as a person.  I think that as a business man he is smart and knows his business.  I also think he knows how to train his trainees, but as a person and creator he has done some questionable things.  Mostly he is very misogynistic towards his female trainees, along with his own music lyrically.  

Two examples of this is during Sixteen he told Jihyo that she was too fat...to a 17-18 year old girl.  She also wasn’t what people would even considered fat.  His reasoning was not a good one, it was simply a stylistic look choice of a dancer’s body that he wanted and thus a 17-18 year old girl who was probably going through puberty wasn’t the ‘right size’ for him.  He also said this to another girl who was 17 on the nizi project in 2020.  Only five years later, his views unchanged.  

The second example is his questionable lyrics that he gives TWICE.  Not only in Cheer Up which is basically telling a guy, even when I say no, keep pestering me.  And Yes or Yes, basically disregarding that No isn’t an answer.  If either one of those songs was sung in context of a boy group, they would have been accused of disregarding the probablemic argument that as a society of a whole, women face daily.  There are other songs for example Girls Girls Girls by Got7, and I will probably go into a deeper separate post about cheer up and Yes or Yes, even other songs he has written as well, but I wanted to give examples here.  (Also not trying to put down TWICE or GOT7, counting that they didn’t write the lyrics or choose the song.  I’m talking about the Song writer, a man in his 40’s.) 

Company as a whole: Not the worst, but not the best.  (But really is any company) 

As a company, to me at least, they always wanted to be seen as a creative and forward thinking company rather then looking at it for money reasons, but how they treat their groups scheduling wise, future groups, and even trainee’s it seems to be more about money then what they want you to think.  It sometimes feels like a shady company that wants a sugar coat cover to hide what they do.  

JYP Entertainment is always praised for their look on mental health in their company and health in general.  Which is a good quality to have, but they also are just doing the bare minimum.  They are not doing it proactively, instead of only doing it after it’s a huge issue to the point were it affects business.  

Such as with Mina, it’s good that they didn’t force her to be on stage when she has a panic disorder, but also they let it get to the point where she couldn’t even go on stage.  With how much they promote and with no rest really given to the group until it’s absolutely necessary, meaning the girls’ are constantly working, I’m surprised only one member seems to have broken.  

Their trainee system: They don’t seem to care so much about talent

For their trainee’s they seem to pick nice, wholesome people who work hard.  Which isn’t bad qualities at all.  They also have strict rules that they have to follow, such as the dating ban, the no going to bars ban (which makes sense to me considering the burning sun scandal and so on).  They don’t seem to have a diet for trainee’s, but from the views of their Founder, I think it’s probably an unspoken rule.  

Compared to other companies, talent wise, they seem to focus more on dancing skills then actual singing.  When they do have singing, they seem to have a more westernized singing rather than a technical one.  This is kind of made apparent on the show Unnies, when Tiffany recorded with JYP.  Tiffany was trained at SM Entertainment which is known for having a more technical singing education.  During their recording he showed her a more breathy way.  She even stated, it was more about feeling rather then technique.  Which isn’t bad.  Most theatre performances want to emphasis feelings rather then technique, but if you can’t hit a note, there’s a too much of a problem.  Plus this doesn’t necessarily mean a good longevity career wise, because if you are using improper technique for long periods of time, it could result in vocal issues in the future.    

Moving on….

On how they treat Male Groups: They last longer then the girl groups.

Current Male Groups they have: 

2PM + Soloists 

Day6 - Band + Soloists 

JJ Project 

Got7 + Soloists 

Stray Kids 

Jus2 (sub Unit) 

3Racha (Sub Unit) 

J.Y. Park (Soloist) 

Former Notable Groups they had: 

2AM

G.O.D. 

Rain (Soloists) 

So with The boy groups, they seem to have a more usual staggered comeback release date, other then Day6 which for a year, they released a single every month.  From my past experience, they seem to promote Got7 over Day6 and now that Stray Kids have entered the chat, Got7 is now getting less promotions resources wise.  Which makes sense in terms of business, because they are already established while Stray Kids being the new kids on the block have less of a fan base.  That is normal for most companies, given that the Kpop system relies heavily on the already established fandom that they create in the first couple of years rather than a long term comeback and promotional system.  

2PM is from their 2nd generation of idols, along with their counterpart 2AM.  They had a similar single release date between the two like got7 does with stray kids.

I am mostly excluding G.O.D. and Rain from this conversation because they are from the very beginning, where JYP was just starting out.  G.O.D. is considered a legendary 1st generation group, and Rain is considered a legend in term so of male soloists himself. 

Just mainly speaking on Got7, Day6, and Stray Kids, their most active male groups currently, here is a timeline from their debut years and how many singles they each had.  

2014 - got7 Debut 

Got7: 4 singles, 2 Ep’s, 1 Studio

2015 - Day6 debut

Got7: 4 Singles, 2 EP’s 1 Repackaged, 

Day6: 1 Single, 1 Ep

2016

Got7: 3 Singles, 2 Ep’s,  2 Studio 

Day6: 1 Single, 1 EP

2017 - Stray Kids Debut 

GOt7: 3 Singles, 3 Ep’s

Day6: 12 Singles, 2 Studio 

Stray Kids: 1 Single 

2018 

Got7: 5 Singles, 1 Ep, 1 Studio,1 Repackaged 

Day6: 6 Singles, 2 Ep’s, 1 Compilation, 1 Studio 

Stray Kids: 3 Singles, 4 Ep’s 

2019 

Got7: 3 Singles, 4 Ep’s, 1 Repackaged

Day6: 2 Singles, 1 Ep, 1 Compilation, 1 Studio 

Stray Kids: 5 Singles, 2 Ep’s 1 Repackaged 

To note, in 2020, Stray kids have 6 singles already planned or have happened.  Out of the three, Day6 seems to have the least amount of promotions all together minus one year when they released a single a month.  

On how they treat Female Groups: Milk them for they got then leave them to dry Once they hit a certain age.  

Current Female Groups they have:

Itzy 

Twice 

Former Notable Groups they had: 

Miss A + Soloists 

Wonder Girls + Soloists 

15& + Soloists 

Jeon Somi/Trainee - complicated thing

Baek A Yeon (Soloists) 

They treat their female groups  differently then their male counterparts.  For them, they either care or they don’t.  Which is a weird thing to say, but you can tell by how they promote and how many singles they have.  For most JYP Groups, they seem to be more of an afterthought with recycled concepts over and over again. With Itzy is too early to tell they path that they will go with.  Will it be like MissA whose single count capped out at 8, with only one member the focus of the group?  Will it be like 15&, who was never actually given the chance to shine and disbanded before they were even known as a group?  Or will they overwork them like Twice?  Wonder Girls started off good, but once they went to US and didn't get the results that I think JYP wanted, they were fazed out, as they grew older.  JYP with their girl groups, seems to not know what to do with them once they hit a certain age.  Which isn’t just a JYP problem, but a KPOP problem.  The only differences is, he doesn’t wait till they are close to 30.  They tend to stop earlier.  

Let’s look at the numbers shall we….

15& - Deserved better!  

Debuted in 2012 at 15 (Both girls were 15) 

1 Studio Album 

5 Singles (4 of them on one album) 

Disbanded after having a four year hiatus 

Active only for 3 years (2012-2015) 

Disbanded by at the age of 18.

Miss A - Should have focused on the group as a whole, not just one member.

Debuted in 2010 at average age of 19.5

2 Studio Albums, 2 single Albums, 3 EP’s 

8 Singles...yeah just 8.

Active for 5 years (disbanded in 7 years) 

Disbanded by the average age of 24.5 (2015) 26.5 (official Disbandment) 

Wonder Girls - a Legend that had so much potential with their band concept!  

Debuted in 2007 at the average age of 16.2

3 Studio Albums, 4 EP’s 

15 Singles (with 2007 being their most releases in a year with 4)

Active for 8 years (Disbanded in 10) (In 2017 they had one goodbye song never promoted)  

Disbanded by the average age of 26.8 (2017) 

TWICE - Overworked for money

Debuted in 2015 at the average age of 16.8

3 Studio Albums, 2 Compilation Albums, 4 Repackaged, 9 EP’s (Still counting they haven’t disbanded yet) 

23 Singles in 5 years (not counting the 1 in 2020). 

They had 5 singles alone in 2017 only in korea 

In 2018 they had 9 comebacks total between South Korea and Japan 

Back to just 5 in 2019.  

Average is 2-3 comebacks a year for girl groups for the first two years then 1 or 2 after that...TWICE’s least active year was 2016 with 2.  (Not counting their debut in 2015.) 

As of 2020, their average age will be 21.8. 

Also on solo artists, he has no idea what to do with them really, regardless of male or female.    

Overall, I think I’m more critical of JYP as a company, because they try to hide the fact that they function like a business as opposed to YG or SM in terms of big three.  They want to be seen more of an artist themselves rather then a business, which I find hypocritical.  I based my opinions on facts and overall feel of the company that I get from them.

In terms of music, I tend to like vocal’s more, which also is not just a kpop thing.  It’s true for most music genres, which is a personal preference.  

So To end on happy notes, 

Groups I Like from the company: 

Miss A 

Wonder GIrls 

Day6 

Baek A Yeon 

I know it’s a lot of former….

Some Songs that I like that you should check out from this company: 

ITZY - Dalla Dalla 

TWICE - What is Love?, Like OOH-AHH, Dance the Night Away 

MISSA - Hush, Only You, I Don’t Need a Man, Bad Girl Good Girl 

Wonder Girls - Tell Me, Nobody, Be My Baby, Why So lonely, Draw Me 

Day6 - Congratulations, Out of My Mind, I need Somebody Lean On Me  

Got7 - Just Right, Miracle, Hard Carry 

Baek a Yeon - Sad Song, Shouldn’t Have, So-So Just Because 

Stray Kids - Hellevator 

Things to note in general: 

Some of these are not just JYP issues, but also a kpop industry as a whole.  I tried to point those out, when I can.  

It’s well known that Male groups are a gamble in terms of profit either they make a ton of money or the loose a ton of money, while Female groups always bring you money just with a shorter life span and don’t tend to out sell male groups (With some exceptions), which is why most small time companies debut female groups in order to gain money to debut a male group.  

Also this just my opinion, so these issues might not be a problem for you, maybe you even prefer dancing groups to vocal groups.  Both are valid.  I’m just giving another opinion.  

Masterlist

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales: Woo-oo! Review! or From the Top

Hello all you happy people! And to those of you just joining this blog, welcome I review ducks, other animated shows and comics... and today’s review is special for me. For a number of reasons. For starters it’s a reminder how far i’ve come. See I always wanted to be a reviewer, ever since high school when a friend showed me a certain online reviewer whose now dead to me, and opened me up to a world of much better reviewers who i’m still fans of to this day, and ones who came after them , and after that and so on and so on. I so badly wanted a community to belong to I struggled to be a youtube reviewer but frankly lacked the talent or self confidence back then to try, so my attempts over the decade were a series of stops and starts. Of me starting to find my niche writing only to stop because I hated myself so much, and still struggle with that, i’d tell myself I could never do it, I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t funny enough and no one cared. I kept shutting myself down AGAIN AND AGAIN, for far too long. 

But that all changed a year ago next month: I’d long been a fan of the Ducktales Reboot. I was caustiously optimistic when it was announced. The optimism came from a deep abiding love of scrooge as a character despite not having dove into his comics that deep, I didn’t have an easy way at the time, thanks to life and times and what comics I had read, and was excited to see a fresh reboot closer to the comics with my eternal boy Donald Duck back in the main character. The caution.. came from the fact that at the time we’d gotten a string of bad to medicore reboots: Teen Titans GO, Powerpuff Girl, and Ben 10 which started pretty meh but has turned into alirght from some of the later episodes I saw. I wanted to be hyped to all hell but I had no proof this wasn’t going to be another dumbed down reboot. Then comic con came, the first teaser poster dropped, and my skepticism died.

It was perfect: a barksian art style with it’s own twists! Donald full on display! And best of all the triplets FINALLY had not only unique outfits but personalities! I’ve long went on in my reviews about how much that annoyed me and while it worked for the barks comics ever since then it’s just felt like a waste to have three characters there.. and not even the SLIGHTEST difference. 

My anticipation only grew with the full trailer, the promo posters as more and more info showed how good this series would be, how unique it’d be, and how much tw as taking what made the comics great, giving us a better distalation of that while still being very much it’s own beast. And once this episode dropped.. that faith was unfounded. Woo-oo! is without hyperbole, one of the best pilots i’ve seen, one that introduced the entire main cast perfectly, gets the series tone and mission statment out just right and in general set the stage for one of the best shows of the 2010′s (and 2020′s, even if it only lasted a year and some change). Wheras Teen Titans GO actively tried to take a dump on it’s source material, they thankfully have stopped that but it dosent’ make those early years any less grating, Ducktales was a breath of fresh air that honored the past while making i’ts own future. I tried talking about it but it was all in other failed attempts at reviewing: solo podcasts, my breif second video review career.. stuff no one rightly cared about and I just couldn’t get the hang of. 

So this is where we loop back to last year: I decided to finally try and cover it one more time, not realizing this would be my last chance as it came out anyway, and since I was doing text reviews but my output had slid in the new year, I decided to review Season 3 as it came out. If it bottomed out I could always stop.... and I just never did. I kept going, eventually finding new fans, a patreon (The other one’s an old friend of mine), and not only got paid doing what I love.. but found some peace.  I reviewed other shows as they came out, covered things i’d wanted to cover for years like life and times, scott pilgrim and x-men,. I covered other shows as they came out, found people willing to talk over my opinions and found my niche at long last. 

So that’s why the long speech folks: After almost a year of reviewing i’m properly covering the start of something that made me happier than I had been in a long time and gave me hope during one of the worst periods of ALL our lives. Something i’ve wanted to cover since I finally got started last year, and something truly amazing. So i’d be honored if you’d join me under the cut as I talk about the genesis of one of the best series Disney has ever put out. 

Behind the Scenes Stuff:  Most details I could find were sparse. it took going back to the first month the show came out and looking at a LOT of unrelated questions to finally find out Frank and Matt outright pitched the show. This dosen’t suprise me as both are huge ducktales fans with Matt having drawn his own duck comics as a kid and Frank taking it an extra mile having sang the theme song in his first grade talent show, worked it into his vows and got his first daughter’s first word to be “Woo-oo”. It’s very clear this show as a labor of love for them something they dreamed of Disney made possible. 

Otherwise I don’t have much on the genisis of the show: It was in the earliest ideas going to be a revivial but Frank and Matt both decided against it , deciding it’d be unfair to expect kids from 30 years after the original to know the source material, and instead just starting it over outright, which was the right call especailly with Alan Young’s passing. 

Design wise I found quite a bit of concept art thanks to one website, and it’s incredibly intresting. This is why i’ve really gotten into art books: I like seeing this early stuff what characters used to be, figuring out or outright hearing from the creators mouths why they changed it that sort of thing. 

Starting off we have some early designs for Donald, with him wearing the sailor suit as a kid but his Quackshot outfit as an adult, something I honestly wish they’d kept but get why they changed it: The iconic sailor suit both helps contrast him with della and fits his reluctance to adventure in season 1 more. I still wish that they worked the Quackshot outfit in somewhere, but they worked in so damn much, it’s hard to complain> Though I probably will make a list of “things I wished they’d worked” in at some point and i’d be lying inf I siad my mind wasn’t currently turning the gears to figure out how to work this into a fanfic. Oohhh maybe as Dewey’s outfit as an adult but blue, obviously. 

Next we have Donald settled more into his final apperance as well as the boy’s first outfits.  As you can tell from both of these the show originally went more with the classic art style before getting the one we’re familiar with now, one I love by the way and was made to combine a classic cartoon style with the visual of the comics. Donald originally had his classic outfit before they transitioned to the more barks style one, a good call.  

The interesting bit though is obviously the boys original outfits which i’m honestly bummed didn’t make it for Huey and Louie, not so much Dewey minus the visor. I do get the changes though: The hoodie Dewey had fit WAY beter on Louie, and the lumberjack shirt didn’t quite fit the nerdier huey. Still look nice. Dewey’s is okay, but only the visor is something I really gregret them removing same with louie’s fedora. It would’ve been neat ot keep the hat thing, but have each hat be unique. Likely they simplified things to make animation easier and simply removed the hats for some reason, but it’s nice ot see these more detailed original drafts and it is VERY interesting to find that differentiating the triplets was something planned from the earliest concept art. Though given Matt and Frank said in interviews they wanted a more natural family feel, it’s not a huge surprise. 

Scrooge like everyone BUT the boys thus far, naturally also had his original outfit at first, but like he ended up doing in the series rotated a bit, if not as much in the final product. We also see a protoype for his final design, the old coat but with a jacket over it in the last image. I also notice Donald seemed a lot more like his old comics self in the concept art with quackshot!donald. 

Like everyone else, Webby and Launchapd were originally their 87 deisgns, though Launchpad’s slightly diffrent jacket and green scarf were changed from the start. Webby is the closest to her 87 design, and as shown in the previous Lena concept art from my “Spies Like Us and Dime after Dime” double feature, she still had her new personality. More on that in a bit. 

Finally we have Flintheart, whose design is a bit diffrent from 87: He was a chub from day one it appears, though they’d exagerate it, and his beard was a bit longer at first like his other incarnations. 

Beakly is largely unchanged form 87, only given a coat, which would gradually be mofidied, much liekt he boys into her current outfit. 

As you can tell Beakly, Webby and Launchpad were all there from day one as they wanted them from the original ducktales just updated. 

Production wise they wanted to go handrawn, chose the style they did to have something close to the comics that felt classicly aniamteda t the same time, I feel they succeeded and wanted a show that felt like the original. I do think this show has it’s own feel but it does feel ducktales. I badly hope for an artbook at some point though as this show probably hada  LOT more intresting concept art. Seriously Disney I will PAY YOU to look at your neat art. Please. 

So they created a fully formed world and put the characters in it, wanting it to feel like the world had existed before and had throughly been explored and letting our young heroes be the watson to Donald and Scrooge’s holmes. 

Finally Della was indeed part of the initial pitch and a core idea from day one as every family has secrets and Della felt like one that had been lurking around the fringes of the story for 80 years. The rest of the production stuff i’ll weave in as we go but first one last stop, the STELLAR voice cast, none of whom outsideo f Tony i’ve talked about before sooooo...

The All Star Cast

The casting was outstanding here, with Matt admitting the cast brought a LOT to the characters, especially Ben Schwartz whose taken on Dewey was so unique and intresting they actually rewrote some of his dialouge for the pilot to fit this version better. This is far and away one of the best casts in western animation, most coming from comedy backgrounds and one or two coming from a voice acting background, but all bringing their absolute best. And since our main 8 are all in the pilot let’s run them down along with Keith Ferguson shall we?

Playing everyone’s faviorite billionare scotsman  and one of the very few to ever do so, we have David Fucking Tennant. David was their “First and only choice” and for good reason: David is a talented actor with a MASSIVE amount of stage, tv and audio drama credits. His biggest and best known role is playing the 10th Doctor on Doctor Who, which while not my faviorite (That’d be matt smith, as he’s both the one I came in on and hte one who got me hooked) he’s still  VERY close second and damn talented and I need to watch more of his tenure. Outside of that just to condense it to his ongoing roles on stuff and bigger roles: Filmwise he’s had starring roles in the Fright Night remake, You, Me and Him, Fish Without Bicycles and Bad Samartains, and is set to do a voice for the upcoming Loud House Movie, which excites me to no end. 

TV wise where most of his roles have been he got his first big starring role on the Telly with the BBC Mini series Taking Over the Asylum in the late 90′s. He’d go on to make a career out of doing mini’s for a while, also taking part in He Knew He Was Right, The Quatermass Experiment Remake, Casanova, Secret Smile.. and Blackpool. I saved Blackpool for last before we move into the Who era as if you’ve never heard of it.. it’s REALY fucking weird. It’s a jukebox musical about a man who wants to make Blackpool, a real city, into the new vegas and Tennat plays a cop investigating a case around the guy and also trying to get with his wife because they used to date and because our lead is philandering jackass. That’s already kinda nuts.. but then you get to the fact the songs are sung OVER the original songs instead of making a new version of them. It’s surreal to be sure but if you can find it it’s worth it for the handful of good numbers and how weird it looks and you can find clips of the songs on youtube if your intrested. Here’s a starter. 

Your also welcome. He’d go on to play Detective Alec Hardy in Broadchurch to critical aclaim as well as be a part of it’s short lived american remake, would play the Fugitoid in tmnt 2007, Kilgrave in Jessica Jones, one of his few post who roles i’ve seen or heard besides Scrooge and easily some of his best work he NAILS that purple bastard perfectly, would make his own show Staged about a fictional version of himself putting on a Stage play that’s still ongoing, and is currently , along with Ducktales as it wraps up, the voice of Lord Commander on Final Space, with the character returning this season judging by the trailers to fan delight and terror. He’s a VERY talented actor and voice actor and I do hope he goes on to do more and more voice work in years to come as, with his background in radio, he was born for it. 

He was also born for this roll, playing Scrooge perfectly and easily matching Alan Young in quality, not a small feat and i’ts VERY obvious why he was their one and only choice. 

Next up is another legend, Tony Anselmo who we’ve talked about before when I covered legend of the Three Cablleros: He’s been Donald’s voice since shortly before Ducktales, hasn’t done much else but given he’s THE voice for the character and this show let him show off one hell of a range with teh voice, he dosen’t really need other credits. The man is a treasure and I fear loosing him one day and fear for whoever replaces him as they have a LOT to live up to. 

Getting into the triplets, we’re going by age so starting off we have Huey, voiced by Danny Pudi. Like most of this cast aside from Toks Ogladyve and Beck Bennet (Who I probably HAD seen on SNL but didn’t really know or look out for him on there till after Ducktales), I not only knew Danny but was a huge fan of his going in. This is due to his breakout role on the glorious sitcom Community, which sadly only had a handful of i’ts cast show up on this show. I mean you got Lin Manuel Miranda I’m sure Donald Glover would’ve said yes too. He grew up with Ducktales. Regardless his role as meta guy Abed was easily the best of the cast on that show, with Glover as troy a very close second and the two working at their best as a duo. Outside of that he’s had a few roles being a regular on Powerless, which I forgot existed and currently on Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet, and shockingly hasn’t done a ton of voice work. And given his performance as huey was one of the best parts of this show he REALLY, REALLY SHOULD. Please Danny. He’s also a loving husband, father and surprisingly a marathon runner. Never would’ve guessed.

Next up is SNL Alumn of 9 years, Bobby Monynihan. Bobby is naturally best known for that, my faviorite role of his being Ass Dan. That’s right bitch you know he’s going to live fore..

ASS DAN 1981-2021

He’ll be back. Outside of SNL he’s done a bunch of minor roles. He’s currently on the tragically mediocre sitcom Mr. Mayor, and voiced Panda on We Bare Bears. Hopefully he keeps up the good work as he deserves better than he’s gotten and Ducktales proves it. 

Finally for the triplets we have a rising star in voice acting, Ben Schrwartz. At the time Ducktales launched, I was a fan of his from his roll on parks and Rec as Jen Ralphio, aka older scummier Dewey. 

Outside of his historic recurring role here he played a main role on House of Lies, a show I need to go back to, and has done other live action rolls but has REALLY hit his stride in voice acting. He started with voicing Randy Cunningham in Randy Cunningham 9th grade ninja and since then has hit the ground running: He was Rutabega on Bojack, Josh on Bob’s Burgers, and went on to complete the trifecta of blue nostalgic characters after voicing dewey by voicing Leo in Rise of the TMNT (and having one of the most unique and intresting versions of the character to play) and reprised the roll for the upcoming film. And of course he hit it HUGE by playing Sonic in the suprsingly fantastic Sonic the Hedgehog movie, and will do so again for the sequel and might even take up the roll for the games now Roger Craig Smith has retired. We shall see. Point is this guy’s at the top of his game and Dewey is part of that. Like with his brothers I can’t picture anyone else playing him. 

Rounding out the kids is Webby, played by the wonderous Kate Micucci. Kate is a lovely talented woman who mostly showed up in smaller parts, was part of the musical duo garfunkel and oates which even got their own tv show, and is currently a fairly prolific voice actor with this being her best known roll. I also had a bit of a crush on her once can you tell? Regardless besides absolutely nailing it as Webby she’s voiced Julie Kane in the crimnally short and even more crimnally not on Disney+ Motorcity, “Irma” in the 2012 TMNT cartoon, and the fact that “Irma” is in quotes should tell you how big a waste I felt it was having her NOT actually be Irma, despite Kate’s massive talent, the fact that Irma hadn’t been in anything since the 87 cartoon, and the fact that for added “Fuck you audience points” her krang form was voiced by Gilbert Godfried, who I love but whose casting feels like they wanted to make the twist as grating as possible. Good job there. 

Anyways her second biggest voice gig was as Sadie on Steven Universe, which took WAY too long to show off her absolutely tremendous singing voice. She started voicing Velma Dinkley in the mid-2010′s and has since, voiced Milo’s sister Sarah on Milo Murphy’s Law, Dr. Fox on Unikitty, and most recently voiced a sentient present on close enough who did this. 

So yeah quite the career and like Ben she probably has a long and storied career in Voice Acting ahead. 

Next up is Beck Bennet as everyone’s friend Launchpad where he excels. He’s best known as a castmember on SNL outside of this, and shockingly hasn’t done a ton of voice work. The only other time i’ve caught him is in the same season of Close Enough as Luc, aka dude-bro satan. But like eveyrone else here who hasn’t done a lot of voice work so far or has been more selective I defintely hope he keeps going with it as he’s amazing. He and Ben will be co-starring on MODOK in May so i’m excited for that. 

Last up for the main cast is Beakly, voiced by  Toks Olagundoye, who I hadn’t heard of before this show and hasn’t done a lot outside of the two season sitcom the neighbors, the aliens one not the really terrible looking one, and a stint on Castle, but like everyone here deserves much more and if Beakly is any indication, really should stick with voice acting. 

Last up is Keith Ferguson as only he could as FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD, whose a staple in the voice acting community ever since 2000, and has had a TON of roles some of which I was unaware with him. Given Frank worked with him on Wonder Over Yonder, where he voiced Lord Hater to perfection, the two clearly have a close working relationship. He also has a close working relationship with Wonder creator Craig McCracken and has worked on all of his post-powerpuff girls show, voicing Bloo as his first major role, something I never would’ve guessed, and currently voicing Papa G on Kid Cosmic. 

Outside of Craig and Frank, he played both Karate Kid and Nemisis Kid on Legion of Super Heroes (Which really needs to come to HBO Max), Deputy Durland on Gravity Falls,  and Thunderbolt Ross on Avengers Earth’s Mighteist Heroes. He’s damn good and deserves the world for Glomgold alone and i’m glad Craig rung him up again as so far through my watch of Kid Cosmic he’s great. 

So with our cast in place, our past in place and you all likely ready to get on with it already let’s dive into the episode:

THE EPISODE: Part one Woo-Ooo!

We begin with a shot of a seagull flying overseagulls, a nice way to establish how this world works and how it bends expectations. They’d have to wait till season 3 to get a duck next to ducks but given that gag is one of the best of the series, it was worth it. 

Inside a house boat we meet Donald, Huey and Louie and get a sense of their personalities: Donald is panicked trying to get to a job interview and insists the boys wear life vests, showing his overprotectiveness and responsibility exclusive to this version. Louie stresses that Donald wear a suit instead of his normal clothes to properly impress the interviewer, showing his skill at people reading and manipulation, and Huey is making a nice, if messy, breakfast with a heartwarming message showing his heart and dedication. After finding out said Babysitter was sent to the wrong address, the boys TRY to hustle him out to stay alone.. only for Dewey to blow the scheme by starting the boat too early, letting Donald know he’s been had. Huey’s attempt to lie about it is of course the classic “Who’s Dewey?” Dewey’s caught wiring the boat and Donald throws them in the car, with Donald livid and the boys upset as their chafing at his constant overprotectiveness. 

Both sides aren’t wrong. tThe boys DID do something reckless, putting an old woman in the desert and risking their home just to go on a joyride. What they did was wrong.. but the boys AREN’T wrong for getting annoyed that he won’t let them DO anything and overly hovering over them when they CAN handle themselves as we’ll see. WE now know why: he lost their mother and his sister to her and scrooge’s recklesness. While he got therapy for his anger it’s clear he never properly got help about Della, and thus overcompensates by trying to keep what he has left of her alive. He means well.. but to them it comes off as him being manically overprotective with no good reason. They get into trouble because it’s the only way to DO anything away from him. He’s trying so hard not to loose them he almost has by the time hte series starts, and it’s telling that when they get context in Last Crash, they appricate him more from then on. They do love him, but their frustration is understandable even if what their doing is pretty damn stupid. But their also 10 and Donald’s the grown adult in therapy who should’ve dealt with this or tried to at least by now.

So with no other options Donald sets a course for McDuck manor which excites the boys who have heard of Scrooge McDuck and his exploits, each rattling off something they heard him do that fits their personality (Dewey picks him fighting a stone monster, Huey picks him uncovering a hoax and Louie picks his swimming in money. ) As Donald tries to get them to simmer down, they wonder what he’s up to

He’s up toooo.. depression. He’s in a room with his board, watching them with utter hate and sadness as they talk about cutting the invention and aviation departments. This scene plays ENTIRELY differently after the final two episodes of the season. Before it still plays well as Scrooge clearly resenting being stuck in a boring board meeting, having lost everything that made him him and just having lost his passion for life. Now? It plays as a man utterly disdainful of the men who made him give up on his daughter. While as far as he knows they did it to save his employees from his company collapsing, we know better now... and seriously where IS the rest of the board they just vanished after the Season 3 premiere.

I don’t mind only one being fleshed out, unlike the triplets we only NEED the one I mind that they just never explained it and still haven’t. Hopefully the finale will. 

But back on the plot, it now plays as Scooge just full of hatred for them, knowing they had to do what they did, even if they weren’t emebzlling but still hating them and himself. He’s likely not even paying attention anymore because he just dosen’t CARE: he has all the money int he world.. and it couldn’t bring him his daughter back. As he sadly puts the coins he was fiddling with back and says see you tommorow he can’t even close the vault without a struggle. As we’ll see later the strength never left, it’s not like he stopped execrising.. but he has nothing left to fight for. Nothing left to care about. He could adventure agian so far.. but without Della or Donald, as we’d learn two seasons later the reason he enjoyed it again... what’s the point? He has nothing left except his money. 

This is also a nice parallel to the final Chapter of LIfe and Times. I always felt the first half of woo-ooo was a spiritual adaptation of chapter 12 of that: Scrooge meets the boys for the first time and with their help, and Donalds in the story< Webby and Launchpad here, he regains his passion and more importantly his family after driving them away> The how is very different: he did in life and times due to sinking to his lowest point morally, then cruelly dismissing his family when they tried to welcome him home and bury the hatchet despite what he’d done. Here.. he made a HORRIBLE mistake, one that wasn’t entirely on him but still cost him everything and spent the decade instead of stewing or making more money trying desperately to undo it. The end result is the same, a dried out husk of a man with nothing left to loose and no will to gain anything.

This husk has launchpad though whose introduced as his driver and while good with subs and planes.. isn’t great on the road. After that though Donald pulls up hoping to drop the kids off before Scrooge arrives. Naturally this being a cartoon and Donald having tempted fate with that Scrooge shows up telling him to jettison that Jallopy at once. And finding out who it is, apart from asking how Donald is and Donald doing the same, dosen’t sway him. The boys however freak out after finding out Scrooge is Donald’s and there uncle, with my faivriote bit of that being Dewey exiting the car via a window and rolling across the roof back in. Amazing bit of animation. Wish I had a gif of that. 

Donald makes the situation plane and angry and asks “Can you do that without LOOSING THEM”. And scrooge is so painfully disarmed by his reminder of his past mistakes and the fact his surrogate son still resents him, that he agrees before realizing “Shit I have to watch children now don’t I” as Donald drives off. As you probably guessed, this is another scene that plays differently in hindsight, if not by much: It still plays as two men too stubborn and bitter to reconcile.. but now we know the why behind both their rages it feels even sadder. They both lost the person they cared about most but as it sadly happens in real life both have dug in their heels to reconcile, both feeling their right when neither completely is. While Donald was right to be upset at scrooge and della for what happened, and is mostly taking it out on scrooge because he’s the one left... he’s held onto his anger for 10 years instead of going to help when he’s unemployed, living in a dilapidated houseboat and trying ot raise three children alone and could’ve used what help scrooge would give. Scrooge is right to be upset that Donald is just selectively ignoring everything he’s done to save Della, but is too stubborn and prideful to apologize for what he DID do wrong and feels that’s enough to make up for it when , while it is enough that donald should forgive him, still dosen’t mean he dosen’t have a lot to apologize for. Both are just too angry and too much alike, as much as it woudln’t seem so, to settle with each other and see too much of what they lost. 

So the kids follow Scrooge.. who forgets to open the door, and Beakly lets them in. It’s a nice subtle bit. After some silence, Bentina TRIES to get her old friend and now employer to talk to them, but he naturally refuses and they do the talking, asking tons of questions.. and Dewey ends the conversation by accidently pressing the “imply he USED to be something rather than is something right now “ button

So Scrooge throws them in the twins old room, and Beakly gives them some marbles. You will give them b ack they will be counted. But another subtle touch I missed the first time is there... her sad look. She clearly doesn’t want to do this, but she has to play this carefully or else he might get mad and fire her on the spur of the moment. He’d obviously hire her back, where else is he going to get an ex spy who will both clean for him AND be his bodyguard and security. It’s a very small pool. Mostly because Beakly probably killed most of the other people who’d of fit that description during her spy days. 

Scrooge meanwhile is still rattled by Dewey’s statment, wondering if he really is a “used to be” instead of a “never left”. The fire is starting to spark again.. he just needs more kindling. And more kin. 

Meanwhile Louie and Huey marvel at Dewey’s “Brilliant’ breakout plan: hit the door knob with the sack of marbles til lit breaks. To be fair, they’ve known dewey as long as they’ve been alive and even by season 3 after he’s taken several levels in badass and cunning.. he still crashed a plane because his brother well-meaningly called him basic, and thought being nearly sacrificed the most times was an accomplishment. This is the best he could do and you all know it. It also works, so they can’t fault him for that... though he’s quickly kidnapped as are they. They wake up after the commerical break in a room with pure darkness, hung from the celing with a mystery person asking who they are and who they work for before Louie calls out for “uncle scrooge”... so she claps the lights back on and..

Well close. But it is Webby, who cuts them down, fangirls over meeting the nephews and asks who the evil triplet is. They all point to Louie who shrugs it off. I mean it was funny enough the first time but at this point I know he’s running several fradulent charites, almost all scamming his uncle. He’s earned that title. Webby puts them on the big board and then when asked they find out she’s Webby, her granny Beakly is housekeeper.  She then asks the big questons “Are we friends now?” “If we say yes will you let us live?” “Ha good one new best friend”

She then explains she dosen’t get to leave or anything even eat a hamburger. The boys are moved by this and Louie asks what she does for fun. She leads them to the vents and while Huey and Louie are a bit relcutant, Dewey naturally goes first pointing out it’s better than the marble room. They agree and are on their way. 

Okay unpinning that pin, the crew conciously updated Webby and Beakly as neither really had a lot of purpose in the original. It was also to conciously add more actiony females to the main family lineup, as both creators, both being fathers, preferred someone their daughters could look up to and would enjoy watching. Not someone perfect but someone intresting instead of someone who often got Kidnapped and whose main charactrisitcs were “Sweet and GIRL STEROTYPE” So cleverly they KEPT her being girly, having a skirt, liking ponies. .but also gave her all the training and skill of one Cassandra Cain, a sheltered background and an adorable personality that kept the sweetness but added her probably having killed a man at some point. It worked as Webby is one of the best parts of the show. 

Likewise Beakly was upgraded from fuddy duddy housekeeper, to badass former secret agent whose also a housekeeper, and bodyguard and confidant to scrooge. Demonstrated by her talk with him as he tries to put on his diving suit and go after the jewel of atlantis, having spotted the signs to go after it in the paper.. and wanting to prove a child wrong. Beakly points out the flaws in this, and tries to get him to connect to his family. Having lost hers, it’s easy to see why.. though the how’s a mystery.. for now i’m guess. We’ll see in the finale. But she’s Scrooge’s concisence and the one who can easiest reign him in, to the point two episodes directly have our heroes have to NOT call her or else the plot was end, but have that worked into the plot so it works. She’s the calm in his storm and hte one person he needs more than anyone else even if he dosen’t always realize it. He calls family “nothing but trouble” just as Dewey passes overhead. 

So naturally as Webby shows off Scrooge’s old treasures in a mysterious room, while the other Siblings are rightfully impressed, Dewey dismisses it as “fake” because he’s being a little shit, and they agree after seeing Donald, not knowing his reputation. The cutaway to him struggling with a stapler does not help> it’s only when Webby accidnetly uneleashes Captain Peghook, a vengeful ghost after scrooge, who gets his hand on a ghostly sword do they realize this time the monsters are real. Huey also accidently wakes up Manny, the headless manhorse! 

Things somehow get WORSE as Scrooge finds them.. but is in no state to argue and as our heroes duck and Huey tries to divise a plan.. Scrooge get’s his spark back once agian.. it’s starting to become an ember now... and he charges in despite Dewey’s cries of “No come back your old!”. It then gets VERY badass Scrooge: Oi! Beastie! What's it gonna take to shuffle you off to the afterlife? Captain Peg-Hook: The head of Scrooge McDuck! Scrooge: [cracks his neck, flips his cane around to wield like a sword] Would you settle for his hat?

Now that is how you show how badass Scrooge is in a few lines and gestures. HE proceeds to take both out, as they’ve now teamed up, easily, tricking peghook into cutting off the head of a statue of him in the area, throwinng it at him and finsihing the ghosts buisnesss (”I should’ve been more specifiiiicccccc”) and then giving Manny the head, earning him a loyal employee for life. So our days saved, the kids have faith.. and Scrooge is still pissed. He also reveals this isn’t a treasure room but the garage in what’s easily the best gag of the first half, possibly the whole special but one iconic moment is very close in that one. Webby concedes what about the stack of old magazines or the hose or.. okay he’s probably right. He berates them only for the kids to fire back, pointing out he threw them in a room, they just wanted to spend time with him... but it’s only Dewey throwing his words back in his face that pisses him off. Scrooge bellows at them to get out, clearly having internalized everything with donald into rage and trying to justify pushing eveyrone away instead of working at it... but this dosen’t have time to actually work, nor would Beakly actually throw three children out on the curb, as he hits a mystic gong.. the third time it’s been hit. And after realizing it’s already been hit twice Scrooge is faced with Pixu, the gold hutning dragon! And guess who has a giant bin of it wanting to snack on? Scrooge naturally climbs on the thing and the kids naturally want to follow, with Webby getting her first development by proudly announcing “I’m going to eat a hamburger” then explains the metaphor. They just need a pilto.. and as Launchpad has been saying but I forgot to add in “I’m a pilot”

So we get a GORGEOUS bit of Scrooge riding the dragon over the city, getting banged up as he does before finally being thrown off.. only for the kids to catch him with the planes help and try and come up with a plan. Scrooge overcomes his anger at them not staying put, especailly since Webby brings up the right weakness: as a wise man once said...

So they need some.. like say the Medusa Gauntlet Scrooge had in the garage.. that Louie naturally stole. Huey and Webby eyeroll him but they have what they need.. and Huey brought the hose and quickly comes up with a plan, tying scrooge in, and swinging him to Pixu. The kids hold on tight, Dewey calls his family awesome and our heroes win the day as Scrooge turns the dragon to stone, slips and falls.. and then GRACEFULLY dives into hte bin, showing off his diving skills and his badassery. The day is saved, the gauntlet and the dragon go in the bin for safe keeping and Scrooge calls the kids trouble.. and chuckles fondly. “Curse me kilts how i’ve missed trouble”

He’s impressed: Huey’s quick thinking, Louie’s pickpocketing, Dewey’s drive, and Webby’s magical knowledge all saved them. For once. .he’s happy again. And for the second time in life it took his family to remind him why he does this and show him the true fun of adventure: Getting to share it with those he love. And he finally has people to love again. He has family back, kids who look up to him and want to learn from him again, a REASON to adventure. Money and treasure and eveyrthig couldn’t bring della back.. but he at least sees now that whiel they certianly couldn’t.. they can bring him closely with what he has left. She’s gone, for now.. but she left behind three great kids who could use a mentor and Beakly brought him a fourth. And he just found out he has a pilot. The ember.. is now a raging flame. Scrooge is back. Because i’ts not the money or the glory.. it’s the thrill of it, the discovery.. and the family that makes adventuring worth while and he’s learned that lesson again. So he calls Beakly to clear his schedule.. forgetting she you know PUT A FUCKING PIN INTHE WALL the last time he asked her to play scretary and the onlyr eason she dind’t drive over the choke him to death, is that she’s probably happy he’s back on track.

Back at the interview Donald is stapled to the wall and gets the job.. not as an accountant mind but his employer needs a sailor.. and his employer is FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD. Oh boy. 

Part 2: Escape To/From Atlantis First the last bit of background I saved: Originally, Fenton and Gyro were supposed to show up here, starting a gag of Fenton showing up but not being named until “Beware the B.U.D.D.Y. System!”, setting up the sub. But the crew decided this took too much away from the focus on the duck family. The not naming him gag was also dropped, and I have two reasons why: Their given reason, which is it’d take up too much time and a logistical reason: While they gave a heartfelt pitch to Lin-Manuel Miranda, as frank wanted a strong Latino superhero to combat the lack of them on film, Frank and Matt probably thought they woudln’t get such a huge name or at least prepared for it.. and were delightfully suprised when Lin happily and tearfully agreed. So they likely scrapped it so they could properly promote the biggest name in their voice cast. Honestly it was for the best and they still go to do the idea with Drake in “The Duck Knight Returns!”, where it worked much better than it probably would have with Fenton. 

We open with the Glomgold Industries Employee Training Video! Encourging IP Theft, making things cheaper and general scumbaggery, and claming your the world’s most beloved scottish billionare. IN short the perfect introduction to everyone’s favorite insane, fake-scottish, scheming, egotistical , short sighted billionaire. As i’ve made transparent before, I fucking love the reboot version of Glomgold and he’s easily one of my favorite parts of the reboot. They clearly needded to find a new place for Glomgold in the grand scheme of things as the show was more about globetrotting adventure and family and less about getting contracts or bets about whose bigger money and more about family. While they DID do a classic bet storyline with season 2, it’s clear the old glomgold was just a bit too stiff to properly fit into this new zanier and deeper universe. 

So they instead remolded him as a half insane, knockoff scrooge, someone who PURPOSFULLY modeled himself after the guy to try and one up him, and instead of being a fairly low pitched schemer, was a bombastic idiot whose schemes were half baked, whose name was on everything he made, and whose only thing bigger than scrooge was his glorious ego. In short he was perfect for this series and perfect to show up way more often as a bumbling thorn in Scrooge’s side.. but one who COULD be effective in the right circumstances, as to not make him completely pointless. Keith was likewise the only person I could see in the roll now as with Hater he had a history of playing bombastic, egosticial morons, and made Glomgold into the enjoyable ball of ego, bombs, sharks and shouting we know and love. Some people didn’t take to this version after a while... I’m not one of those. I loved him here, I love him now, and he’s every bit as good in season 3 as he was at the start. He’s also wearing a kilt mcduck A KILT. A bit that’st STILL funny four years and 70 some episodes later. 

So we meet Gabby McStabberson and the Smashnikovs as they and Donald file in, though Donald is busy wrapping up a call with Scrooge, who assures them he has a low key day planned.. while in the sub getting ready to go to atlantis. And nearly drowning when Dewey tells Launchpad to dive while he and Scrooge are still up top. Cue credits. 

So on the sub we get our setup for the two main plots for the episode: While the main thrust of everything is Scrooge taking them to Atlantis, each leads to a diffrent plot. Louie talks to Donald and lies entirely about their day, worrying Webby.. who then reveals she just didn’t tell Beakly she took off or where she was going and encourages her to call and lie. To save time, i’m going to cover this subplot now minus the conclusion as it’s pretty simple and this review is already a day behind. Louie wants her to lie so she dosen’t worry, which is oddly sweet.. still a bit greasy, but it’s clear he means well and it shows in his own way the boy cares about Donald: Sure he’ll lie to the guy, and set up a fradulent charity to scam him.. but he also knows not to worry his dad-uncle and kows Donald is better off thinking their safe than knowing the truth. Granted it also prevents consequences for Louie.. but he’s not playing here here. He gets nothing out of Beakly not knowing the truth or helping some girl he just met, he’s just being NICE in his own twisty way. It’s a nice show of his depths: While louie will lie, cheat and steal Eddie Gurrero style, he does have a caring side underneath hit. He can read people well and while he primarily uses it to manipulate people, we’ll see time and time again that he can use it for good too and to help those he cares about. He’s nothing but supportive the whole plot, and even when he says “you can’t back that up” it’s more worrying about her and having a bit of crack than actually being a dick. 

So Webby tries lying, but is about as good as Huey is at it, saying “I’m at a friends house nothing, then makes up a clearly fake name, then says their only talking in swedish for a grandpa. Launchpad DOES help, but only by accident and snake venom. We’ll get to that. As I said this wasn’t the most complex plot. 

The main plot is our focus episode for dewey. In theory each of the kids was supposed to have one in the first five episodes: Dewey here, Webby in Daytrip of Doom, Louie in Great Dime Chase and Huey in Impossible Summit of Mt. Nevverest!. Given the last one was horribly delayed, he instead got Terror of the Terra Firmians, which in hindsight wasn’t the best spotlight episode for him. But it’s a good system; Introduce them all in the first half of the pilot then slowly focus on each one.  So now Idoloizing Scrooge, Dewey is desperate to be his sidekick and be seen as an equal and is in deep denial as scrooge instead has them all buckle up for a 17 hour ride and when Dewey questions the route, which skips the direct path.. but is clearly marked with monsters, Scrooge just snaps at him and shuts him down and disapoints the boy who only wants to prove himself to Scrooge. 

Naturally though, telling someone with that kind of need for attention and validation to wait goes poorly as he redirects the map while Launchapd is distracted.. and we find out WHY the trip is 17 hours as the direct route nearly gets them killed by mer-ducks, krakens and some sort of storm elemental. Dewey is bummed it didn’t work and annoyed to realize he’s just lumping them all together like Huey pointed out earlier. Huey is also delightful here, having brought travel bingo and sea shanties, clearly used to trips with his other uncle. And adorably taking after him. 

But Dewey’s deversion has done more than make him even MORE determined to prove himself to Scrooge whose just trying to NOT loose the son of the daughter he lost...

The Merducks have taken up residence in the bathroom, so they have to make a pitstop. Scrooge, CLEARLY forgetting how to take a trip with children, wasn’t prepared for this but they find a frieghter and make a stop. Naturally it’s GLOMGOLD’S freighter, where his sub took off from, and he and his minons including Donald find Scrooge using the bathroom.. and the boys to Donald’s rage. Unfortunately saying ‘I’ll kill him” to a raging sociopath who takes that as a sign to kill ALL of them, isn’t a smart move. 

So while Donald tries to plan to keep his family alive, said family arrives in Atlantis with a great bit of Scrooge trying to give a big speech only for them to see it first and ooh and ah. They touch down in the city.. which is flip turned upside down. Scrooge notes hti is odd but is able to read the hieroglypchs even upside downa nd notes there’s tones of deadly traps and that they shoudl stay back and..

Huey: Dewey ran in as soon as you said traps. 

So while Scrooge tries to prevent dewey loosing his head, Donald prevents launchpad loosing his and makes up an excuse about “if their dead now we can’t tourture them later” to cover his ass. Glomgold is impressed.  Dewey is Dewcipointed that the traps are upside down, though he does trigger some snakes that get launchpad. He’s fine just delirious. And possibly slowly dying but the fact he’s lived this long is a miracle. Maybe that’s why he’s missing for most of season 3 part 2, the snake venom caught up to him and drake and fenton need to find the cure. Anyways the rest of the party stays behind while Scrooge chases after Dewey, who naturally runs ahead AGAIN. 

Donald ducks out to use the bathroom, as Dewey tries the old dance through the laser grid routine.. but forgets the part where your supposed to actually avoid it, leaving it to an unseen Donald to stop the fire traps from barbqueing his boy. IT’s a really awesome sequence that shows off Donald’s still got it even if he dosen’t want it.  Scrooge naturally works smarter not harder and simply ziplines above like a badass and berates Dewey when he tells him he took “The easy way”

“Why would you want to take the hard way?” The argument that’s been brewing all episode bubbles up and once again both sides have a point: Scrooge rightfully points out Dewey’s being reckless, has no experince and needs to listen to Scrooge and learn something. Dewey claps back that Scrooge isn’t TEACHING them, just teling them to get behind him while he does things instead of trying to actively mentor them. He outright told them he was going to teach them so while Dewey’s been a wee bit overbearing, he’s right in being disappointed that Scrooge instead just wants them to be safe. I see it as his subconscious acting up: He wants and needs the kids along and is right ot keep them safe.. but is too scared to properly mentor them after what happened to Della and is just trying not to loose anybody. His methods have been right, to keep them safe.. he’s just been so determined to save them, he can’t properly TEACH them so he won’t have to forever or explain WHY. And given the First Adventure shows that while protective he did eventually let Della and Donald pull their weight.. but here he lost so much between adventures.. he just can’e bear loosing them. Dewey also rightfully points out he just lumps them together which in any other version wouldn’t be an issue, until the reboot I had no idea which one was which here? They have distinct outfits and personalities and you had 17 hours to actually get to know them. Probably less given the shortcut but still, several hours at a minimum. It’s things like this that make the series work: while there’s plenty of internal conflicts, at their best their nuanced ones, where if one character is clearly in the wrong they have a reason, and if both are right both are also a bit wrong, versus the original where it’d be scrooge or the boys grabbing the asshole ball at times (Not always mind you but when they did it was insufferable. 

However they don’t have time to argue as the bridge goes out and Glomgold finds donald.. and another way around as a result and gets to the treasure first. Scrooge notices they have donald but once again Dewey charges in 

“Unhand my uncle” “No” “Okay wasn’t prepared for that”

Naturally both sides are a bit livid, Donald for dragging his boys into danger after being part of the reason his sister is on the moon right now, and Scrooge for working with one of his greatest eneimies.. though Scrooge has less ground to stand on because as Donald points out “I can’t keep track of ALL of your sworn enemies” I mean he has lived like .. 200 years. That’s a long enemies list and Glomgold, while the most persistent, isn’t exactly the most dangerous they probably encountered. Given the guy’s an artist with Bombs and Sharks that does say a lot about how badass Scrooge is.. and how incompitent glomgold usually is. He’s just having an on day today I guess. 

Glomgold naturally holds Donald hostage, takes what is suppsidley the jewel and leaves them to drown to death, hitting a wall to let it start leaking. HIs minons run into the rest of the heroes and a fight breaks out while naturally Donald, after even more naturally getting his ass stuck in a hole, literally, rails out at Scrooge for doing this telling him “I knew I couldn’t trust you and” “This is the spear of selene all over again”

Scrooge’s only response is “I was not responsible for the Spear of Selene!”

Dude you still paid for the rocket. While Della shoulders most of the blame, SHE choose to take an untested rocket, SHE choose not to come back during the turbulence YOU still built it and hid it from donald and didn’t make sure she couldn’t just take off in it. Your both to blame. And as I mentioned earlier to the least extent but still an extent, so was Donald telling his grown, adult sister whose as stubborn as she is what she could and couldn’t do. He had the right idea and was the only person trying to be an adult here in this situation.. but he still took the wrong approach with stopping her. Still he got far more ground to stand on than Scrooge, who also took his nephews out. Dewey stops both by pointing out that while yes Scrooge took them on an adventure he’s been doing NTOHING but keeping him safe and most of it was his fault which disarms donald a bit. Though Dewey is quickly distracted.. but for once by an obersvation: the gem glowing above thaem that glowed when they entered... and since the city got flipped turned upside down.. THAT’S the real jewel. Dewey asks Donald ot let it flood so they can get it and begs his uncle to trust him despite his doubts which he does. They get it and everyone’s okay and even more when they reunite with the others they find they’ve handily beaten them. To me this is where donalds walls go down a bit: he realizes he’s been smothering the kids, and that while he may hate his uncle for good reason... he’s not going to make the same mistake with them and while he lied.. Don probably realized if Scrooge had been honest Donald would never have let them go. He can trust him.. and he can trust his kids will be alright without him. 

So Glomgold naturally leaves his minions to die, but our heroes manage to make it to the sub, and Gabby asks if they can bum a ride. Not wanting to do any murders they agree. On the surface Glomgold is showing off his jewel, only for Scrooge to upstage him second’s later with the real jewel, and point out his is “nice but defintly cursed”... and right on cue Glomgold gets dragged off with an octopus and let’s off his first “Curse you mcduck!”. Scrooge offers clean water and power thorugh it, for a price because of course he does, and has offically made his grand comeback. 

We get back to Webby’s subplot, as she’s confronted by Beakly.. who naturally being a former spy easily figured it out immieditely but is only upset her grandaughter lied to her. And even at that she dosen’t raise her voice or anything about the matter, knowing it’d only make her feel worse and getting that her grandaughter needs to see the world and that much like donald, she walled her up to prevent loosing what little she had left. And since being with Scrooge is safe as with her, she can go with him anytime just tell her first kay? They hug. Awwww. 

Donald likewise apologizes, admitting that whatever has passed, he misjudged his uncle here and while not forgiving him yet, is at least willing to let him back into his life and into the boys.. on holidays and stuff at least. But fate forces his hand.. or rather his 10 year old nephew-son having left the engine on and neither having turned it off, meaning his boat goes boom and is in no liveable condition. But Scrooge has the space in his heart and mansion for them.

So as we close the kids help move the artifacts all around the house instead of just the garage while Launchapd drops the boat. While clearing out Dewey notices the painting from earlier.. and finds part of it was flipped over...

“Mom?!” 

Now keep in mind, while nowadays Della’s inclusion in the show is one of the most famous and treasured parts of the show.. back then this was a fucking shock. Disney never really cared about the boys mother and outside of one comics story never really went into what happened. So the fact she was not only an actual important part of the plot but we’d find out was a HUGE wham moment and left my jaw dropped after seeing the episode. Like I would with the finales I had read no spoilers and had no idea this was coming but damn was it a huge and welcome suprise and how far they’d take it and how much they’d flesh her out was an even bigger one. Easily one of the best big reveals i’ve ever seen. The only better one I can think of from this series itself... is the end of season 2. But that’s for another time. 

Final Thoughts on Woo-Ooo!:

This two parter/hour long special.. is still one of the episodes best and easily one of the best pilots. It does slow down a bit in pacing in the second half, but otherwise is just an immaculate , beautiful pilot movie that introduces and fleshes out all 8 main characters, maybe Launchpad the least but enough to still work, gives us some big mysteries to work out, and even throws in Glomgold’s first apperance. It sets the tone, reverent and adventuerous but also with it’s own weird and wacky sense of humor and world building, and universe perfectly. I .. don’t have much else to say really it’s just THAT good and really worth checking out. If you somehow haven’t seen it go watch it and if you haven’t seen it in a while might be worth a rewatch before the finale. The absolutely perfect start to an amazing ride. 

Next on the Della Arc: Dewey and Webby try to figure out where Della is while Louie learns a valuable life lesson and  pisses off a killer robot along the way.

Next on the Blog: Amphibia Season 2 is back! 

Until then if you liked this review follow for more and if you could please support me on patreon. Even a buck a month helps and juicy stretch goals give you na incentive to contirbute. We’re 5 bucks away from 20 dollars a month which means a review of super ducktales and a Darkwing Duck review EVERY. MONTH. So contribute now! Until the next rainbow it’s been a pleasure.