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gra-sonas · 3 years ago

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CW viewers first met Nathan Dean as Jackson on the hit "Vampire Diaries" spinoff "The Originals." However, his werewolf stint on the series wasn't his first foray on TV. The actor starred in over 300 episodes of "General Hospital," later scoring roles on shows like "Bunheads," "True Blood," and "Once Upon a Time." Between his notable TV appearances, Dean appeared in movies such as "Teeth," "The Roommate," and "Pet."

Luckily for CW followers, the network frequently features actors from past projects in new endeavors, providing fans with plentiful reunions. After a successful run on the vampire show, Dean scored a leading role as Max in "Roswell, New Mexico." Sticking true to his supernatural roots, Dean plays an alien deputy (the outer space kind, of course). Early in Season 3, the CW greenlit a Season 4, with filming on the horizon.

Looper spoke to Nathan Dean in an exclusive interview, during which he dished on Season 3 of "Roswell, New Mexico," what he really thinks about UFOs, and what it was like working on "The Originals," "Once Upon a Time," and "True Blood."

Do you have a favorite moment with the cast on or off set?

I mean, I think this past year was probably just our first day back, being everyone was so locked down in the pandemic and just the fact that we were able to come back in October. I remember the first [day] we were trying out all these new COVID protocols. We had to wear masks. We had to do the thing, but just to see our crew again here.

I mean, the crew we have here in New Mexico is such a family to us. And being able to be on set, we had a day zero, and a day double zero, and test days. And the first day back was just the crew and me. And it was just so wonderful to see everyone again and realize it wasn't necessarily the apocalypse, the end of the world like we all thought, and we're back. We're back, and everyone was good, and everyone was very conscious of being healthy and staying in the bubble that we had, and just to see their faces again was fantastic.

The series recently changed showrunners. How do you feel about the new direction? And can you tease anything that fans might expect from Max's character arc this season?

Yeah. We did. I mean, Chris Hollier is our showrunner now, and he was a producer for us the last couple of years. And when he took over, we tried to move not only Max, but I think every character, into a more adult, mature way of operating. We spent a lot of time in Season 1 in particular, but Season 2 as well, flashing back to high school. And we all had a high school outlook on each other. And moving forward, we've been able to mature the characters, I think. And this year is a great year, I think, for Max in particular, because he has to literally look himself in the eye and become the person that he was meant to be instead of someone he used to be.

Were you a fan of the original "Roswell" before snagging your role on the series?

I had never actually seen it. I mean, I don't watch a whole lot of TV, and I was familiar with the show, and I knew the book series. So yeah, when we decided to reboot this thing, it was really, really cool to see the support that we got from the original show. And we've had some of the people back. Shiri [Appleby] directed episodes for us. Last year we had ... Jason [Behr] was back for a little bit. And it's just great to know that we're in this family. It's not like no one saw us as trying to take it over or rewrite history. We're just embracing the history that's already there and just building on it and spinning it into a modern world. So yeah, their support was wonderful, and we're excited to have more of that going forward.

What direction do you hope Max goes in the future?

Well, Max spends a whole lot of time this season having to look himself in the face — literally questions a lot of things. We've done a lot in the past, the high school flashbacks and this and that, but I think this year, not only for Max but for all the characters, we see this maturation happen where you're no longer looking backward into who they used to be. Now this season, we're finally looking forward to who we want to be. And I think Max and Joan embody that dynamic, but yeah, you see it with Michael, Isabel, Maria, Liz. You see every character really take a step forward this year, and that's a credit to our showrunner and to our writers for trusting us to take that leap and move the show, looking forward instead of looking back.

Are there any particular adult storylines that you're excited to maybe see him tackle or that you'd like to see him tackle?

Well, I think it's his relationship with Liz, really. We ended Season 2 in a pretty bad place. I mean, Liz runs off, Max goes all arsonist on her, it's a little bit of an immature response to something. You just have a temper tantrum and light everything on fire. But I think this year, yeah, we really see Max and Liz move forward in a way that is much more mature and adult and respectful. And they, I mean, obviously the elephant in the room is, "Well hey, you blew up all my stuff." "Yeah, sorry." But how do you come back from that? And I think we see them take a step forward in a big way this year, and I'm excited for people to see that this year because we haven't historically had a very adult relationship, and now we're moving towards that.

Is there anyone you'd love to see appear on the show?

I mean, I would love to have Jason [Behr] back, I would say. I mean, he wasn't with us for long last year, and it was just great to see him and learn from him and watch him work. So I would love to see some more of the 1940s flashback-y kind of stuff, learn some more of that. We have a little bit of that in season three. We have some of that, which is a lot of fun, and yeah, I mean, I'm always in for that.

I love flashbacks, other time periods, different things that shows do. Is there a time period that you'd love to see the show tackle in flashbacks?

Yeah. I mean, we get into it this year, more of the ... Because the crash was what? 1947, I believe. We get into that a little bit more, and that's always fun. I love that time period. I love being able to play in that arena, and hopefully, we get some more of that in Season 3, and hopefully, going forward in Season 4, we'll have some more of that as well.

Have you been able to direct yet?

I have not. I haven't tried. I haven't asked to. Actually Maria, Heather [Hemmens], who plays Maria on our show, she directed this past year. And I know Michael Trevino, who plays Kyle, he wants to get into directing. So hopefully, we'll have him this coming year. And I haven't looked to direct on this show. I would love to direct a short film or something like that, but on this show, I'll leave our show to the professionals. I'll find directing somewhere else.

"Roswell, New Mexico" actually films in New Mexico. How do you think that choice has positively affected the feel of the show?

Oh, it changes everything. I mean, New Mexico, I don't know if you've had a chance to come out here, but New Mexico is such an amazing place. I mean, they call it the Land of Enchantment for a reason. Growing up in Texas, I've driven through New Mexico a million times, but I never stopped. And when I finally got here and just took it in, I mean, the sky is huge out here. The air is different out here. It's everywhere you look: the sunsets are incredible. It informs so much of the show.

And also, having crew from New Mexico, having a local crew out here, you see it on our show, the turquoise, just the style, the whole thing. But we see that every day. That's just the people that we work with, and to be able to film here, I think, informs so much of what it is to crash land in this crazy place. And yeah, I don't think we could pull this off anywhere else. This is such a wonderful place, and yeah, we're very lucky to be here.

Speaking of crash landing, New Mexico has been a hotbed for reported UFO sightings for years. Have you ever seen anything weird yourself, or have you heard stories from other cast members or locals?

I haven't heard any abduction stories, but it's definitely ... we get on set every time there's an airplane or an airline will report that they've seen something weird. We're the first ones to know about it. I mean, the skies here are crazy — there are times when you look up in the clouds, you're like, "Is that something? I don't know." But yeah, I mean, we have all that here. We're very much in it, but yeah, I have not personally been abducted yet, but I'm hoping for it.

Fingers crossed? [Laughs] So in June, the government released a report confirming that they can't explain 143 UFO sightings, which is a wild revelation. Do you think that there's any credence to the idea that these might be actual extraterrestrial events, or do you think there's a simpler explanation to all of that?

I mean, I think it definitely it could be. I'm not writing it off. When you hear, you see videos, you can see video of Air Force pilots, and there's something on their radar that you just can't explain. I don't know if it's aliens. I don't know if it's probes or some sort of drone that someone sent out, I don't know. But it wouldn't surprise me if it was true. I mean, I think the universe is too big of a place for us to be all alone here. And if aliens are going to come somewhere, you should come to New Mexico because it's awesome and we're waiting for you.

So would you be team "Leave the aliens alone and let them do their thing," or "Let's initiate contact and see what happens"?

Oh, I would love to initiate contact. I would love to. I would love to go on a spaceship. I would love to go explore that. I think if ... There are all these movies, "War of the Worlds." There's all this stuff that imagines aliens are going to come here and destroy us. If you're going to travel all that distance, you're not looking to destroy anybody. So I think it would be a really interesting conversation. I think we would have a lot to learn from an advanced civilization that traveled all this way. I think we would have a lot to learn.

The series tackles a ton of critical social issues like immigration, ICE, and domestic violence. Have there been any of those subjects that particularly resonate with you and that you're proud of the show for homing in on? And is there something that you'd like to see them do in the future?

Well, for me personally, I mean, I'm a cop on the show. That's been a huge debate over the last couple of years, and this season, we get into the good and the bad of that. We see the good sides of it and what it can be, and then we also can see the bad side.

And for me personally, that's been something that I think we've talked about a little bit that I'm very happy with. And also, I mean, everyone just went through this huge pandemic. We can't ignore that. So that's something, when our character of Kyle, who's a doctor — what he's had to go through — I think that's one of the things that makes our show relatable and makes our show ... we're not shying away from the cop controversy. We're not shying away from the things people had to go through with the pandemic.

We're willing to talk about it. And thankfully, we have such a great platform to do that with this backdrop of aliens and all this stuff. We can really home in on the human aspects of that world, given the fact that we're an alien show. It makes talking about the human stuff much more, I think, palpable. And yeah, that's something that we've always done. And going forward, we'll see what the world has in store for us the next year or two, and we'll talk about that, whatever comes up, we're here for it.

Several other actors from the "Vampire Diaries" universe have also come to "Roswell." What was it like working with Riley Voelkel and Steven Krueger again — and getting a chance to work with other "TVD" alums, like Michael Trevino and Kayla Ewell?

It's great. I mean, CW does a great job of keeping the family together. Working with Trevino is fantastic. He's a great guy, and I've known him for a long time. Same with Jason Krueger and Riley. I've known them for a long time, and just to have those familiar faces around is always nice, but it's fun too then to see these people who, we come from this vampire-werewolf world, and now we're in this alien world. It's fun to see that transition and get to see what else they can bring to the table.

Definitely. So you've been a werewolf, you've been a vampire, you've been an alien, and you've even been a fairytale character. Do you have a favorite? And do you gravitate more toward shows with supernatural undertones, or did it just sort of happen that way?

It just sort of happened. I mean, I would say for me, my favorite is always just being a human. That seems to be the hardest job to get, but no, I mean, it just sort of happened. And it's fun because, like I was saying, having a backdrop of something supernatural highlights the humanity.

I mean, if you have this ... There are aliens, and there's this, and there's that, but then you have these human moments, and those are the ones that you hold precious because sure, you can throw people around and you can jump out of trees, and you can do all this crazy supernatural stuff. But at the end of the day, it's about the human moments. And I think that's what supernatural shows tend to bring out the most.

"Roswell" isn't your first time being on a CW show. You also starred in "The Originals." What was it like working on set with Phoebe Tonkin and Joseph Morgan and the rest of that cast?

Oh, they were great. I mean, we were out in Atlanta, and I mean, geez, that was like five, six, seven years ago now.

Really? That long?

Right? Crazy. But it was great. I mean, every set is going to be different, and we were in Atlanta for "The Originals." And so we had the Atlanta crew there, and we got to know that city a lot. And then moving out here to New Mexico, it's a completely different landscape. It's a completely different setup.

Thankfully it's nice to always have the familiar faces, but yeah, we have a New Mexico crew, and this platform is totally different because we're not talking about supernatural witchcraft and this and that. We're talking about sci-fi. We're talking about aliens. We're talking about all this other stuff. So I mean, they're both different. I mean, I loved Atlanta. I will always love Atlanta, but yeah, I'm just grateful to be out here in New Mexico now.

Is there anything you wish that Jackson did on the show before your storyline ended, and how do you feel about your character's first ending and then getting to meet Hope and Hayley again at the end?

I think that was a really sweet way to go out. Jackson was always a passenger on that ship. The story was about the vampires and about Phoebe's character, and Jackson was always just sort of a bystander. So, to have that kind of closure with Hope at the end and have that moment, it was nice. I think Jackson serves his purpose. The story wasn't about him, but yeah, it was nice that they brought me back, and I was able to have that moment.

To that end, "The Originals" birthed the backdoor pilot for the "Legacies" spinoff. Would you come back for something like a flashback episode if given the opportunity? Or are you happy with where it ended up?

I'm happy where it ended up. I think "Legacies" is on its own journey now. And I know the actress who plays Hope, and I know that they're on their own path. Jackson doesn't really have a place there.

The great thing about the entire "Vampire Diaries" franchise is its deep roots in history, culture, and folklore. Do you have any favorite storylines, time periods, or pieces of folklore that the show tackled throughout its run?

Yeah, I mean, I think when I was doing the vampire/werewolf stuff, it was fascinating to learn so much about where those legends came from. The origin stories of, you have, what was it? Vlad the Impaler was one of the first people thought to be vampires and these horribly dark stories that gave rise to these myths and legends.

And it was really, really fun to just learn about all of that and to learn the history of where these myths come from and why they're so compelling today. I mean, why do we still talk about this stuff? What is it that draws our attention to it? So it was just fun to learn, I mean, from an intellectual standpoint, just get into the mindsets of people that may have thought these bloodthirsty sorts of things. It was kind of wild, and yeah, it was a lot of fun to learn about.

You had a stint as James in the last season of "True Blood." Was it difficult coming on so late into such a beloved show? Were you nervous, or did you feel welcomed right away? And what was your biggest takeaway from that series?

I definitely felt welcomed. I actually knew Deborah Ann Woll, who played my love interest off the top. I knew her from way long ago. We actually go way back. So I was familiar enough with the cast and crew. They welcomed me in. It was weird coming in at the end of a show because they had been together for seven years at that point, that cast.

And stepping in, I got to see a lot of the heartbreak and the sadness of it coming to an end, but I was grateful to be a part of it. And I learned a lot from Stephen [Moyer] and from Anna [Paquin], and it was a great environment. I wish it had gone on longer, but I was grateful for the year that I got there.

You played another classic fairytale character in "Once Upon a Time" as Hansel. What was that experience like? And how do you feel that the show handled its own spin on the Hansel and Gretel fairytale? And do you have any fond memories of that set and that cast?

Well, I love that set. I mean, actually, our current showrunner, Chris Hollier, was one of the writers on that show. And I was in a situation this year similar to the one I was in when I was on "Once Upon a Time" — getting to have this dual life, this secret life. And I like the direction that they went on "Once Upon a Time," it was a lot of fun, but it was a great crew. It was a great cast. And it was fun to play a little darkly twisted version of a fairytale character. You think fairytales, you think happily ever after, but yeah, I didn't have one of those kinds of characters on that show, and it was really fun. It was very fun to play the dark side of all that.

Is there any other franchise that you'd like to break into? "Star Wars"? Marvel? Anything like that?

Oh, any of it, all of it. Yeah, sure. I mean, I would love to, Disney+, they're doing a lot of great stuff with Marvel and with the "Star Wars" franchise. And I mean, I would love to be any part of that because Marvel's just awesome. So, that would just be fun, but "Star Wars" is cool because it's a time period in and of itself. They really have created this out-of-time universe that there are spaceships, but they also have lightsabers, and they're sword fighting, but they're flying through the galaxy. So it's this weird mashup. That would definitely be fun. I mean, I would love to get into any of that.

Would you want to play an alien? A Jedi? Or a Sith?

Ooh.

That's the real question.

Maybe a Sith. I don't know. Yeah. I think that would be fun. Yeah, yeah. You just don't have rules at that point.

I feel like the Jedi don't follow any of their rules either. [Laughs]

That is true. They have a lot of rules, they just don't listen. Yeah.

Is there anything else that's upcoming for you that you want to talk about?

I don't know. I mean, right now, I'm just focused on Season 4. We get started in a couple weeks. I'm curious to see how we springboard off of Season 3, because Season 3 is wild, and I hope people enjoy it as much as we did filming it. So I'm excited to tackle Season 4, and then beyond that, we'll see if we get to Season 5.

We'll be lucky to do that, but yeah, I mean, there are always projects. There's so much happening in the world of TV right now and in film, and there are so many different avenues that you can take. We had actors on our show that were directing their own short films this past year that were doing all this. So there are tons of avenues for it. And I'm just focused on Season 4 right now. I'll be doing that for the next six months, and then beyond that, we'll see. We'll see what comes down the pipe.

Is there anything else about the show or anything else you want to add?

No. I mean, not really. I mean, I think I'm excited to hear feedback and to hear what people think about the different, the Jones, Max difference, this sort of dichotomy that we have in Season 3. I'm excited to see what people think about that and what that reveals going forward. And then, yeah, again, I'm excited to see these characters take a step forward in terms of their maturity with each other and respecting each other and Liz and Max finally figuring it out and finally getting on the same page for the first time. So that'll all be fun. That'll be fun looking forward.

Definitely. Well, congratulations on getting a new season before the current one has even popped off. I love seeing that.

#nathan dean parsons #max evans #rnm cast interviews #rnm spoilers #roswell new mexico s3

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dereksmcgrath · 3 years ago

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In order to talk about this episode, we have to talk about how manga publishing and anime production does (and does not) work.

And before we can get into this episode, and its originating storyline that comes not only from the My Hero Academia manga but also its spinoff Vigilantes, I have to talk about three things:

The challenges of adapting more than one manga series.

An imaginary Vigilantes co-production (an “Imagine If,” to steal a phrase from a writer better than I) between Studio BONES and Studio Trigger.

But first, another franchise Studio BONES adapted the same year as MHA: Bungo Stray Dogs.

(Bear with me–this is all going somewhere.)

“More of a Hero Than Anyone,” My Hero Academia Episode 107 (Season 5, Episode 19)

An adaptation of Chapters 253, 254, and 255 of the manga, by Kohei Horikoshi, inspired by My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, Chapters 59 to 65 by Hideyuki Furuhashi and Betten Court. All translated by Caleb Cook with lettering by John Hunt and available from Viz.

My Hero Academia is available to stream on Crunchyroll and Funimation.

Spoilers up to the My Hero Academia Chapter 324, Vigilantes Chapter 108, and the film World Heroes’ Mission.

There are also spoilers for Bungo Stray Dogs and Gurren Lagann.

Created by writer Kakfa Asagiri and illustrator Sango Harukawa, with additional spinoffs illustrated by Kanai Neko, Ganjii, Oyoyo, and Shiwasu Hoshikawa, Bungo Stray Dogs is about a world where characters, who happen to have the names of real-life authors of Japanese and other literature, also happen to have superpowers based on the titles of works by those same famous authors. For example, Herman Melville can summon the giant battle fortress Moby-Dick, Nikolai Gogol can transport items through his overcoat, and Motojiro Kajii has the ability “Lemonade,” which prevents him from being harmed by bombs shaped like lemons.

(…Bungo Stray Dogs is weird. The first anime doesn’t even have dogs in it.)

Studio BONES premiered an animated adaptation of Bungo Stray Dogs in 2016, the same year the studio premiered the MHA anime. What makes Bungo unique compared to some other anime is that each season adapted from not only the manga but one of the franchise’s light novels as well. While some of the light novels take place concurrent to the manga, most take place in the past–which made Season 1 awkward, re-setting some events from the Azure Messenger Arc in the present and hampering some characterization for what was supposed to be the very first meeting of the characters Osamu Dazai and Doppo Kunikida.

The next light novels adapted for the Bungo anime all take place in the past, with Season 2 giving what I think is the best of the adaptations, The Dark Age, as we learn more about Dazai’s time with the Port Mafia and his relationship with fellow mafioso Sakunosuke Oda. This arc set a high standard that I don’t think the next light novel adaptations have reached, as it not only fleshes out the characters and builds the world, but it also has two important accomplishments. First, on its own, you could watch the entire four-episode arc as its own movie. While some details will gain more significance if you watched the first season, and will become more important as you watch the rest of the series or read the manga and light novels, by itself, The Dark Age is a thrilling narrative of intrigue, deception, betrayal, and heartache. Second, thematically, The Dark Age ties in very well to the rest of Season 2. Some of it is cheap shorthand: the Lupin Bar matchstick container becomes a visual indicator for Dazai helping Atsushi Nakajima save an ally when Dazai couldn’t. But even as cheap as that may seem, it enhances the overall season, giving Dazai more to do in a story where he is otherwise on the sidelines and playing everyone like chess pieces. Plus, you kind of needed to see The Dark Age to understand who Ango Sakaguchi is in Season 2 and why Dazai hates him.

Season 3 gave me high hopes for where the next light novel adaptation could go. This season focuses on a third party attempting to destroy Dazai and Atsushi’s organization, the Armed Detective Agency, along with the Port Mafia. When Agency founder Yukichi Fukuzawa is poisoned, we see the usually lighthearted and arrogant Ranpo Edogawa become momentarily silent and devastated by Fukuzawa’s hospital bed. I blame myself for reading theories online that this moment would lead the season to do a flashback arc to one of the light novels, one that shows the origins of the Agency, how Fukuzawa first met young Ranpo, and explains what that cat was doing all throughout The Dark Age and Season 3.

Instead, as soon as I started Season 3 and saw the premiere was beginning with a lengthy adaptation of a light novel centered around Dazai and his former Mafia teammate Chuuya Nakahara, my heart sank. Nothing about that story thematically tied into the overall season as well as would Ranpo and Fukuzawa’s light novel, a story that reveals how much Ranpo has lost in his life and why he clings onto Fukuzawa for approval and why the dissolution of the Agency would not only deprive him of family and friends but also the very meaning to his existence. That is a heavy story to tell, one that would make the audience better appreciate the lengths the Agency goes to for Fukuzawa. By comparison, there is next to nothing about Chuuya’s back story that accomplishes the same. If anything, all that light novel adaptation tells us is that Dazai and Chuuya’s partnership mirrors that of Atsushi and the Mafioso Ryunosuke Akutagawa–and that detail was already established well enough in Season 2, so we’re just retreading the same old material.

Adapting Chuuya’s story is like explaining Aizawa’s back story: as I’ll explain in the moment, all you really learn in either case is why Chuuya hates Dazai and why Aizawa is a lone wolf–and it’s the reasons you already see in the present day, Chuuya hates Dazai because he’s annoying, and Aizawa has always been a loner, end of discussion. The choice to give these two characters the spotlight doesn’t really do anything new for the audience. I’ll say more about Aizawa later, but for now, I’ll say, nothing against Chuuya as a character, but the decision to adapt his light novel seemed very much like a marketing strategy by manga/light novel publisher Kadokawa and Studio BONES: Dazai and Chuuya’s relationship is popular with fans, there’s a lot of back story to mine, and the light novel that gave us this anime adaptation already set up a sequel that itself could serve as a Season 4 adaptation or even a feature film.

(Honestly, that Chuuya sequel novel in Bungo is more entertaining: there’s a cyborg named Adam Frankenstein. Re-read that sentence: a cyborg named Adam Frankenstein, who treats Chuuya like a little kid, offering him candy because he read that young people like candy and the serotonin from sugar can help with dealing with times of stress. Chuuya’s babysitter is Frankenstein: it’s so absurd that it just works.)

So, why am I talking about Bungo Stray Dogs instead of the other anime Studio BONES makes, My Hero Academia? Because I’m seeing a set of mistakes and Band-Aids repeat themselves all over again.

I profess ignorance about how the anime industry works: there are better people than I who can speak to it. As far as I can gather, just by looking at the evidence in that industry, and the evidence of just about any industry, the goal is to make money. I don’t think the goal to make an anime is necessarily to get people to watch it, especially now that streaming makes the cost of entry very low or even free if you wait long enough for Crunchyroll and Funimation to put it up with commercials. I don’t think it’s to get you to buy the manga: even if you get hooked like I am to read ahead to see what happens next, why read something you just watched? Instead, I think the goal is to buy merchandise, like how musical groups have switched from record deals to selling individual songs online and getting merch sold at concerts (pre-COVID). The conundrum for the anime and manga industries are not dissimilar from those in comic book publishing in the United States: DC and Marvel can have all the crossover events in the comics that they want, but those don’t always get someone who to read a new series just because Spider-Man or Wolverine pop up in it. I have not looked at sales for Vigilantes, so I don’t know whether Aizawa, Midnight, and All Might popping up in there boosts its sales. Rather, the comics are testing grounds for what works. Marvel uses its comics to test what can work in films and streaming, where money now is, while maybe Vigilantes was testing the Oboro story to see if there was something there to put into the anime. Sure enough, the fan art out there for Oboro has increased since the episode, merchandise can’t be far behind.

But let’s move on to actually looking at the episode itself. “More of a Hero Than Anyone” centers on Aizawa and Present Mic being brought to the prison Tartarus to interrogate captured League of Villains member Kurogiri. As I have complained for most of this season, BONES has made confusing choices regarding which chapters of the MHA manga it is adapting first: this story comes from manga chapters that were the last before the big Pro Heroes vs Paranormal Liberation Front Arc, and we haven’t even gotten to the Meta Liberation Army Arc yet. True, this episode ends in a way to set all of that up, showing us Shigaraki getting his power boost, but it has been a befuddling choice of what to adapt first. Making matters more confusing is that, while this episode introduces Aizawa and Present Mic’s classmate Shirakumo, someone alluded to during Shinso’s arc this season, that story doesn’t really originate in the main manga: it started in an MHA spinoff.

The manga My Hero Academia: Vigilantes is to My Hero Academia like the Bungo Stray Dogs light novels are to its main manga: it is largely a prequel that fills in back story for major characters and some worldbuilding details while telling its own story with its own protagonist and plot. Chapters 59 to 65 are the first major departure for the series, as it shifts from the usual protagonist to a plot about Aizawa, showing his time as a UA student and setting up why he ended up returning to UA as a teacher.

The first time I read Aizawa’s arc in Vigilantes, I hated it: it is a cynical attempt at giving us an origin story to explain how Aizawa got to be the way he is–without actually showing us anything we could not have figured out ourselves. It tries to set up this idea that, if Shirakumo had not died, Aizawa would not have been the lone wolf.

That idea butts up against two details. First, we already see Aizawa keeps up the lone wolf appearance anyway in the present, so imagining an alternative timeline doesn’t make sense, especially when, in its own flashback arc, Aizawa was already a lone wolf–that was his entire dynamic with Mic, Skirakumo, even Midnight, so it’s less that Shirakumo’s death made him this way when he was always this way. Hell, this was a gag in the supplementary material of the manga that got adapted into the anime, when Mic had to come up with a Pro Hero name for Aizawa because he was that checked out–and, again, that was before Shirakumo died.

Second, we know Aizawa’s lone wolf persona is just that, a front he puts up that belies his pragmatic willingness to work with others. Just because he is annoyed by the antics of friends like mic and Skirakumo, just because he bristles at Midnight trying to rope him into teaching at UA throughout most of Vigilantes, and just because he is overly serious when dealing with his students or with newbie heroes like Vigilantes’s protagonist the Crawler, none of that ignores that, despite everything, Aizawa, maybe more than anyone else, fulfills the collaborative spirit of Pro Hero work that other characters do not.

Aizawa’s strengths as a teacher center around his understanding that people have to work together. That detail fails when remembering he is still the one who is not properly reprimanding Bakugo to stop being a bullying, violent dick to Izuku. (Seriously, this episode is yet another moment of him being awful: how many times in the anime alone has he kicked the shit out of Izuku for no reason, as if any reason would justify it?) But otherwise, Aizawa understands how to work with others, and that has set him apart for so long from other prominent Pro Heroes. All Might doesn’t really collaborate–he’s been trying to hold up the peace of the world on his own. Endeavor may run an agency with sidekicks that enhance his abilities, but as seen in the Endeavor Agency Arc he would rather rush ahead to save the day on his own, in this pathetic desire to catch up to All Might. Aizawa, though, knows his limitations and is willing to work with anyone else to help him achieve his goals, something we have seen him learn to embrace more and more, whether hanging back to be the face in front of the camera to distract the League while the other Heroes rescue Bakugo, or when he accepted Izuku joining on the Shie Hassaikai mission. And you can pick up on all of this from just reading the main manga–so why bother reading Vigilantes if all it’s going to tell you is,”Aizawa’s friend died and that’s why he’s sad”? Even little details get lost in the shuffle: while I should appreciate Aizawa bringing up the cat Oboro rescued, that’s such a big part of the Vigilantes plot that it feels like a nod to the story rather than getting fully into it. (Trivia: That cat, Sushi, is adopted by Midnight. Enjoy feeling awful that Sushi may have passed away by now or is going to be without an owner when Midnight dies.)

I had thought I could put that frustration with that Vigilantes arc behind me. Then the main manga revealed Shirakumo’s corpse was used to create Kurogiri–and I rage quitted. Okay, that’s exaggerating: I didn’t stop reading the manga, but I did take a long pause in keeping up on it, seeing as the next arc got to be so bloody and depressing that, on top of enough real-world concerns, that wasn’t the kind of escapist reading I was looking for. I needed some time to sit back and process how annoying this revelation was. That means, for all of Vigilantes, this detail, that Kurogiri was Shirakumo all along, was just waiting to be revealed. To again repeat the SpongeBob meme I used last week, this series used me for plot contrivances.

(Vigilantes also seems like one long troll. After the main manga shows the Hood Nomu used to be an underground fighter, he gets a backstory in Vigilantes. And Vigilantes give you the last bit of Midnight you’re going to get before she’s killed off–which, now that I think about it, makes her exclusion from this episode even worse: she was friends with Shirakumo, too, so bring her into this episode before we fridge her!)

It doesn’t help how ignorant I feel for not realizing this sooner: Skirakumo’s name and abilities are the white-and-black opposite of Kurogiri’s. The cover to a collected volume of Vigilantes made that all the clearer. But if that’s the case, why wasn’t this hinted at when Aizawa and Kurogiri first encountered each other way back in the USJ Arc? I know it’s a lot to expect the audience to track throughout the series, and I appreciate the story trying to explain that away by Aizawa asking the same question I have, before someone tells him that maybe Kurogiri’s reprogramming made Oboro’s personality disappear. But Horikoshi’s creation of Shirakumo seems more like a late addition rather than something always there since the earliest chapters. And that’s fine–it’s just disappointing compared to other comics creators like Oda who sets stuff up years in advance before payoff in One Piece. And it’s more disappointing it didn’t come up in the anime adaptation: I would have hoped, if Horikoshi had that idea so early, he would have told BONES so they could throw in a hint early in that fight. I don’t know, maybe Aizawa has a flashback to the last words Shirakumo told him and that motivates him to use his Quirk one last time to save Tsuyu and Izuku, or maybe Kurogiri pauses before Aizawa just long enough that you think that’s a weird choice, then upon rewatch now you realize, “Oh, shit, Kurogiri was remembering his classmate and trying to process that information!”

It doesn’t help that the Shirakumo story doesn’t feel like something Studio BONES should handle. Granted, that story is from Vigilantes, not the main manga, so I anticipated BONES would not adapt it here–even as I held out hope for an OVA or, as I hinted earlier, something akin to Bungo Stray Dogs: start the season with this three- to four-episode adaptation of Aizawa’s back story to introduce this season. I’ll say more about why placing that story at the beginning of the season in a moment, but there was another reason why I didn’t think this was a Studio BONES story: it always felt like a story suited for Trigger, the studio behind Kill La Kill, Little Witch Academia, and more, built by people from Gainax of Evangelion and Gurren Lagann fame.

The Shirakumo arc in the Vigilantes manga felt like a visual love letter by Shueisha to Trigger saying, “Please adapt this!” Betten Court’s illustrations for Vigilantes emphasize diagonals, even when adapting MHA characters originally designed by Horikoshi, as well as facial expressions with sharp lines rather than curves, all visually reminiscent of some Trigger and even Gainax anime. Characters’ facial expressions look more like Panty and Stocking than Studio BONES. Aizawa’s final fight in the arc is against a stories-tall behemoth with laser powers that, if not visually, then narratively invokes similar fights in Gurren Lagann, Gridman, and Evangelion. Speaking of Gurren Lagann, in this arc Midnight is sporting Kamina’s shades, and Skirakumo’s last words to Aizawa come through an intercom, after he supposedly died, similar to Kamina’s death. Also, Midnight is running around in a nudist beach outfit from Kill La Kill–so, yeah, the Trigger allusions are that in your face, in all senses of that phrase. Again, I’m not saying I personally would like Trigger to adapt MHA: it’d be different, they are not the first studio I would go with or one whose output I would like, given a lot I don’t like about their output, but when you look at the manga-based evidence, going in that direction makes sense.

I don’t know what plans Shueisha, Toho, and BONES had for this episode, but the style of it already feels so different and off-kilter anyway, due to Aizawa’s nostalgia, that I can’t help but think that someone at some point did have an idea to go with a different studio to animate it, or at least a different approach. I appreciate how much they changed Chapter 254’s opening, re-staging Oboro’s agency talk to be outdoors instead of a walk-and-talk scene as in the manga. Even if I can’t quite say the street walking and outdoor sitting under a bright sky is indicative of Trigger exactly–if anything, the fixation on centering the scenes Wes Anderson-style (the hallway walking in Tartarus, Aizawa and Mic and Oboro hanging out under the blue sky) looks more like something out of Shaft or BONES’s Bungo Stray Dogs–that difference tells me there was something more ambitious in mind than what we ultimately got. It’s the same when we get Kurogiri’s point of view as Aizawa and Present Mic get through to Oboro.

Imagine how gutsy it would be to start Season 5 with an entire Oboro flashback arc. Imagine moving forward in time to this moment of Aizawa and Present Mic interviewing Kurogiri, disorienting the audience asking why we’re skipping the Classes 1A and 1B fights, the League of Villains vs the Meta Liberation Army Arc, and the Endeavor Agency Arc, to show this moment that was supposed to come later. Imagine how gutsy it would be to start with Aizawa and Present Mic learning all of this at Tartarus, setting up the finale for this season, the Pro Heroes versus the Paranormal Liberation Front–then not actually showing that fight start until next season. Why do all of that? Because, if you’re going to delay the LOV vs MLA Arc for that long, you might as well start your season assuring the audience that, no, we have not forgotten the Villains, they will be relevant this season–because, since Aizawa and Present Mic’s high school years, they have been the Big Bads all along and were toying with these two for so long. Imagine how gutsy all of that would be.

Instead, all of that is reduced to just one episode. It’s all so cliche. Aizawa points out, towards the beginning, that this power of friendship trope won’t work–then it does work, negating the entire point of calling it cliche. (Well, it does work, for now: given often we’re told rather than shown how All For One is a chessmaster, it wouldn’t surprise me if he let Kurogiri spill the beans like this knowing it would help him break out of prison later when the Pro Heroes foolishly take on the PLF all at once with little back up plan.) If we had had the full story of Oboro, like did readers of Vigilantes, the slow revelation that Nomus are hardly puppets but, more than that, are reanimated Frankenstein’s monsters capable of agency and personalities, would make this hurt more. We would have seen Oboro, we would have been as horrified as Aizawa and Mic are to learn he was resurrected–but, instead, it is already upon our first meeting with Oboro that suddenly we learn he is also Kurogiri, and it’s just too fast.

How disappointing, but sadly realistic.

It feels like BONES has made a lot of safe choices this season, and while that helps sustain the studio during the unpredictable times of COVID and does what works already for MHA, it doesn’t feel very adventurous. It makes me wonder whether BONES should have put in that time improving Season 5 than trying to make another MHA film. I have not seen World Heroes’ Mission, and while I’ll reserve my review of it until I see it, and will limit as many spoilers as I can, based on just the plot summary I have read, I fail to see how putting in the budget on that film makes sense in terms of narratives, even as I understand how it makes sense in terms of increasing an audience and getting box office sales (in a pre-COVID model, of course).

But speaking of COVID, yeah, I do see why World Heroes’ Mission is necessary right now: it is a globe-trekking film, from what I read it includes beautiful scenery as characters travel vast distances–it is a film needed right now when many of us are still social distancing and still staying at home in the hope that our contributions limit the spread of this deadly virus. (Get vaccinated, mask up, stay at home when possible, and stop being a jerk, people.) Still, I can’t say I’m not disappointed that, with a season whose animation has depended a lot on flashbacks, even if that makes sense given how much ground to cover and how far along the story has come over more than 100 episodes, it is disappointing to not get something more stylistically out-there.

I’m also not saying it’s realistic that Trigger would ever animate this arc. I don’t even necessarily want them to: I find most of their productions to be so light on story while heavy on themes, message, and the animation that, while I appreciate people getting into how visually stunning the artwork is, I find the story so empty that I just can’t get into it. And I’m not expecting Shueisha, Toho, or Studio BONES to cut some kind of deal with Trigger to give them the rights to adapt part or all of Vigilantes: Trigger is animating Star Wars stuff next, that’s a wider market than My Hero Academia (regardless how many Star Wars references Horikoshi puts into his series).

I know I’m being very critical of the production choices behind the episode. Granted, the recap to the last episode was needless–and seems like it’s just there to remind us that we’re somehow supposed to see Aizawa, Mic, and Oboro as analogous to Izuku, Bakugo, and Todoroki–which does not work at all. And somehow BONES made the unfunny All Might part from the manga even longer and even less funny: we already got comedic relief off Iida to accent how much a contrast there is to the Aizawa stuff, and that has a more personal connection as he is Aizawa’s student, while All Might’s Dad Joke is as painful a pun as it looked to be for the students.

Otherwise, I thought the episode was good, just not meeting expectations I set that are not fair. Present Mic’s extended pause, then the long pause before Aizawa has to hold back from crying, when realizing Kurogiri’s concern for Shigaraki means he is indeed Oboro, is more powerful than it was in the manga. Aizawa letting loose the tears at the end while claiming he has dry eyes is very much Roy Mustang complaining about the rain. I do think the ambition for the storyboarding hints at something bigger they had planned, and largely the animation and tension, especially trying to reach Oboro, did work. Wrapping up this episode showing that Kurogiri was just the start of an experiment that would lead to Shigaraki’s transformation only creates a more foreboding tone.

Furthermore, the voice direction and acting in the English dub was very good. Ever since David Trosko replaced Sonny Strait as Present Mic, he has upheld all that works in the character, and while I feared that kind of loud acting would disrupt any pathos for this episode, it worked incredibly well, putting up so much bluster that shows how powerless he feels facing this madness and how this is as heartwrenching for him as it is for Aizawa. I especially appreciate, in the English dub, how much Oboro sounds like Izuku: while the series has never made Aizawa see a bit of Oboro in Izuku, that casting lends a new way of interpreting why Aizawa sticks with that masochist after everything he lost when Oboro died.

(You know that if things had worked out differently, Vic Mignogna would’ve ended up cast as Oboro, given his roles already as the dead friend of the hard-ass teacher in Naruto, and the presumed dead Sabo in One Piece, and his dynamic acting against Kurogiri’s Chuck Huber in other productions).

So that takes care of all the stuff about Aizawa: what about his students? I don’t just mean the class he failed–which, no, that detail doesn’t really work for me, that Aizawa failed a class as we were told upon his initial introduction, and now we reveal it was an empty threat since, while that is on their record, it was to reset matters with his class, not so they would take him seriously but so that they would value their lives. That’s not how that works. I don’t pretend that students, myself included, took our education so seriously that a failing grade or a career setup felt awful–but not the same kind of life-threatening that is literally dying. A poor mark on your report card does not typically result in that kind of same mortal fear, and I hate this story for trying to compare the two, especially when it positions teachers like us to have a fatal power we don’t have: we’re not the Grim Reaper, this isn’t Soul Eater, this is real freaking life. I can’t imagine any good teacher wanting that kind of power to think they are the difference between life and death. We don’t want our students to think these are mortal matters–especially right now, in this context, where I don’t think it’s at all appropriate to re-start in-person teaching and learning (without masks and without social distancing or remote learning opportunities) at a time when not enough of us are vaccinated and the threat of COVID remains too dangerous even when vaccinated. This takes me out of the story. Granted, it’s not the rest of this story is somehow like real life: this is a school where Nezu somehow has a ton of money, so applying real-world matters to a work of fiction is foolish. The only bar this story needs to clear is believability, and it’s not unbelievable that Nezu made that money and overlooked Aizawa’s behavior.

(It’s also why I wish Midnight was in this episode: she recruited Aizawa to UA as a teacher–it would be fascinating to hear her say she chose him for these reasons, that she knew the school needed a hard-ass like him.)

But like I said, I don’t just mean the class he failed: I mean his current students. Re-reading Chapter 253, I now understand why Iida doesn’t pop up in the third film: if he had his new desire to loosen up, then it would make a lot less sense seeing as he just came off a mission to save the world like Ochaco and his classmates did.

And that again leads to a paragraph of me repeating that I don’t give Ochaco enough attention. I promise, I will say more about where her character stands in this series at some point, if not when talking about Chapter 324 tomorrow. But even as this story keeps insisting she is important, it feels like it’s hanging her up like that All Might toy from Izuku. I appreciate putting in the budget to animate her dive-and-hide on Izuku’s gift, something not as obvious or visually impressive in the manga–but we couldn’t have put that budget into doing something more creative with the Aizawa story? Building her characterization around Izuku, at this point in the anime, remains frustrating–until the manga gives that a good payoff and seems to be sticking the landing on it. That’s one of the challenges of reviewing the manga as it goes on, and why reviewing the anime is in some ways easier: I can see where the pieces fit in and what is being set up. It doesn’t change that it’s annoying right now in this moment, but it fits in the overall scheme of her and Izuku’s story. But When it comes to how Toga is going to tie into this, I’m less convinced, but we’ll get to that in the next few episodes and in tomorrow’s manga review.

Oh, and Bakugo remains the worst. I’m so grateful he is tolerable in the manga right now, because the fact that he was getting away with this nonsense up to Chapter 253 is an indictment against teachers like Aizawa and All Might.

I apologize for how much this post seemed like a long college lecture (a college instructor leturing–shocking), or a Rachel Maddow monologue–only far less repetitive than Maddow’s condescending “I’m going to repeat the same point five times and treat you like you haven’t been paying attention”–and far less financially profitable. This is basically a joke I told a friend after posting last week’s review:

“Show me you’re an academic without telling me you’re an academic.”

“I wrote nine pages reviewing an episode without actually reviewing the episode."

#my hero academia #shoto aizawa #oboro shirakumo #long post

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Loud House Reviews: Racing Hearts

Welcome back errbody. Continuing the Salauna trilogy with Racing Hearts. We’ve already seen the cute asking them out story , now comes the actual first date.. which ITSELF is massively important. Keep in mind even though Nick fully supported L is for Love and the crew put a lot of work into it given how good it turned out, Sam easily still could’ve vanished into Limbo. For it’s first 2 seasons loud house, the show HAD continuity: Once Ronnie Anne and Bobby moved away to set up their spinoff, there was an episode with Lincoln’s friends trying to help him deal with missing her in the first ep giving any of them besides Clyde focus, a trend that would continue, they still showed up via video chat or in person where waranted and there was a full episode about Lincoln’s group of friends trying to help him deal with it... which also reminds me of a smiliar episode of ned’s declassified that was really damn good but unrelated to this... seriously that show is underated and I hope with the Netflix deal it shows up there. Anywho back on the show we’re actually talking about, the show didn’t really have arcs, thigns that carried from episode to episode.. until Season 3. Season 3 is where the show REALLY hit it’s stride, with it now fully being an ensemble show and more continuity injected int, not interfering iwtht he show’s episodic nature but making it feel like events had meaning. Stella was introduced in “White Hare” and later got a full introduction that i’ll no doubt cover with “Be Stella My Heart” and afterwords rather than being forgotten entirely like the show used to do became part of his friend group in their episodes. Lynn SR. was revealed to have quit his office job to work at a restraunt and was working on opening his own, which while only a two episode arc, lead to the opening of Lynn’s table in the finale and it’s stuck around since. And Leni got a job at a clothing store she’s kept since and friends at said job who’ve shown up since. See i’m fine with a show not having heavy duty continuity or serilzation, some shows thrive there but I love it when shows do this: even if it’s not all about plots, things progresing or being followed up on makes the show feel more vibrant and keeps it from stagnation in my book. And as as show with a bunch of girls at dating age, it was invetivible theird’ be recurring romantic arcs, hence Chaz is mentoined as dating Leni, if not given any real focus so far hopefully that’ll change, while Luaan, in this episodes pairing brother, and most importantly Luna got followups on theres. And thus that brings us here to racing hearts,where nick earns the praise they got from l is for love by following up on it and showing in no uncertain terms the two as a blossoming couple. I get to the actual episode under the cut:

We start with Lori being upset the bathroom is being taken up.... and that brings up a small issue I have: .. WHY IS THERE ONLY ONE BATHROOM FOR 10 KIDS. I do assume Lynn Sr and Rita have their own, and that it might be hard to put another one up there for plumbing reasons, but it still seems WEIRD to not have more than one up there or close to the stairs so that it dosen’t take 50 years for 10 children to get ready. And yes I said 10, Lily has a diaper and isn’t potty trained yet and any cleaning up or getting dressed, when needed, falls on Rita or Lynn Sr. But still it’s a LOT to ask for 10 children to share share one bathroom peacefully and it’s only through the power of not wanting to spend an animation budget on it that the bathroom isn’t a constant disaster area. Anyways it’s actually Luna who, to her sister’s shock, is in a facemask getting ready to go to the Royal Woods Astonishing Quest with Sam for their first date. Naturally the other two are excited, and Luna, despite her usual nerves, is actually incredibly stoked and feels it’ll go perfectly.

At any rate, she’s happy and Lynn comes in to kick everyone out to scrape off her callosuses instead of you know... having Lucy leave their room or doing it while she’s not there, butttt that little detail is actually a tell for later so fair play to you. Plus Lucy may just understandably find int gross and Lynn dosen’t trike me as good at picking up after herself. As it turns out to no one’s shock, Lynn was banned last year for being a sore winner and rightfully so as we see in flashback, but she’scome to terms with it... wink. But they agree to leave as the louds need to get over there anyway. Cut to the ASTONISHING QUEST.. which turns out to be a scavenger hunt with admitely a great name. Seriously someone use that. But we see tons of returning charcters including Scootst, Pop Pop and his girlfriend, and...

...........

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I”d apologize for thatbut I feel that way any time I see the little weirners face. Be glad this dosen’t happen every time he shows up. On the bright side he looks as dead inside as I do whenever I find out he’s in an episode, and Zack looks the same amount of dead inside.. probably because he realized a filing cabnet would’ve been a better partner. A review of your choice for the first person to get that reference and send it to me. Thankfully my extesntial dread at seeing a Rusty cameo is lifted when Luna meets up with Sam and the two are awkard dorks together for a second as they figure out what greeting to do, settling on a handshake. It’s fucking precious. We then meet Royal Wood’s Mayor, voiced by Shirley! Now if she’d just show up on Ducktales already. Though hearing her reminds me I should do some Harvey Beaks reviews at some point... anyways, she announces the quest and Clyde and LIncoln make a fist bump while Lori and Leni stare down their parents like their about to start brawling in the streets then and there. What.. what have you guys done to each other over the years at these things? I want to know the history there. Have astonishing quest show up again in another season. I”d also love an Brooklyn Nine Nine style heist episode with this show . Anyways, the rules are laid out: Each team is given an evelope with a clue, standard scavenger hunt contest stuff, and have challenges at each location to complete. The first team to finish wins the key to the city.. er a tiny trophy with you did it on it. Honestly that last one’s better anyway. Anyways after from trashtalk from Scoots and her partner Helen, who seems oddly familliar, we’re off! The first clue is easily figured out by Luna and the two old ladies quickly take advantage of Luna saying it loud where everyone can hear it by heading off: It’s off to Lazer Maze , the local Lazer Tag. The guy there gives them their challenge: They need to get 500 points to get the next clue. Luna takes to it like a fish to water and easily tags Lisa and her friend Darcy... another nice little cameo. And it also shows something I like: not only are all the louds except Lynn, whose banned, and Lily, whose a baby, are competting on their own. And only Lori, who pops back up in a bit and Leni,whose partnered with her are plot relevant, but the episode easily could’ve left them out or used extras for the other teams but wisely decied to instead use characters we’re familiar with. It adds a nice touch that makes this feel like an actual event and make sme wish the show did more townwide events like this. Stars hollow it up. You have a fun character in the mayor, who was hilarious in her one minute here, you have your taylor. Just give her a quirky sidekick and have fun with it. Granted I want every series to have a little gilmore girls in it, but still. Anyways Sam botches it and instead of shooting the golden girls shoots Luna by accient, though by the next cut they have their points, and the lazer tag guy encourages them anyway. Sam apologizes not being good at Laser tag but Luna happily shrugs it off: While she enjoys it it’s not for everyone. Anyways it’s Luna’s turn to be confused while Sam easily figures out the clue: IT’s off to the farm. And if you wanted the exact oppsite of my reaction to a Rusty cameo...

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Yeah while my reactions to Rusty is “Why haven’t you died on the way to your home planet yet?” My reaction to Liam is pure joy. He’s like this generation’s stinky peterson and I love it and has a nice enjoyable personality instead of being my own personal Kahn. Anyways LIam’s challenge is to get Eggs from the chickens. Which Sam does easily.. Luna however is nervous to start despite Sam’s reasssurances.. before totally freaking out. To be fair though, chickens can be downright terrifying. Just look at Poyo

And why yes that is a chicken hell lordd whose also a cyborg bisecting santac lause. And why no, you are’nt getting any more context than that, go read Chew. Anyways theys till have enough eggs to complete the challenge, if now splattered in egg and with Liam disapointed with their shenanigans, but being a professinal about it. Total pro. Anyways, Sam is just as ready to brush it off as Luna, noting farms just aren’t for everyone. I also like this plot in general because while it has the series habit of “thing happens again and again and again then climax” it’s used to flesh sam out a bit. While she is there to be Luna’s love intrest, being a love intrest dosen’t mean a character can’t be good or fleshed out. Just look at tom from star vs the forces of evil for a good example of that. Anyways it’s once again Luna’s turn to figure out the clue and we’re off to Werk It Dance studio.. I gurantee it was going to say twerk it but nick was like “oh honey no. “. The name is just awkward otherwise. Or maybe i’m just old. Also the twins are there. Just a nice thing to note and two characters I THINK are from an episode I haven’t watched yet but read about. Anyways, Luna’s pumped while sam has “oh crapbaskets” written all over her face and quickly does terribly. This one however is .. not as easy to brush of. Not liking going to farms or laser tag is easy, there just things not to do on dates. Not dancing.. is hard when your both musically inclined people whose taste in music is why you met in the first place. While they try to gloss over it, it’s clear this is an issue and worries them both. Moving on you know the drill at this point: Sam gets the clue, Luna dosen’t, we’re off to rock climbing. Sam utterly loves it while Luna is terrified. Moving on We cut to Luna, whose sitting down feeling depressed, aka my natural state these days, when Lori and Leni show up. Lori even gave her a cute backpack for the quest.. that has a leash attached. I’d say it’s a bit extreme but i’m half convinced this happened at some point and is the reason Leni dosen’t wear laces.

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Luna is of course spiraling because it turns out she and Sam don’t have a lot in common. Lori however gives some really good advice: Turns out she and Bobby hit some of the same problems and she just suggest they both try embracing things the other person likes. Even if it dosen’t work, shocker given the episode is far from over yet, it’s not bad advice and I like that in relationsihp based episodes it’s Lori who tends to be the one helping out, having the most experince to deal with that and a, at least by this point early Lori could be a bit TOO asholish sometimes, really solid couple. And if you read this before I apologize because for some reason Tumblr decided to EAT A THIRD OF MY REVIEW FORCING ME TO REWRITE IT. And yes i’m ranting a bit but in my defense I worked hard on this and to have most of it chewed up through no fault of my own pisses me off and thus I needed to rant a bit. Back to the review! So Luna tries Lori’s approach while Lori runs off to find Leni who got off the leash.. again. SHe’s probably just going to sniff some ground, eat the plants,she’ll be finnne Lori. Anyways Luna and Sam go to the local health smoothie shop, the kind of place that is my nightmare for people like me with Orangutan bods but makes sense Sam would be into, and the next challenge is identify what this smoothie is made of. I”ve played this game before: my guesses were fish bones,chicken bones, and dry bones.... seriously the glass was just purred bones. I never bought a smoothie from that guy again.. mostly because someone called the cops. There’s a lesson in that. Luna however spits hers out. IN a break from formula the next activity is for Luna to come sail away, come sail away come sail away with Sam.. whose actually a pretty apt sailor. You can guess the rest. Luna botches it, they still get the clue, yadda yadda time for the sad part. The two have an honest discussion abotu the fact that despite chemstry being there, they seemingly have nothing but their music in common and are diffrent people, with Luna glumly resolving to finish the race as friends and neither being happy. WHelp my heart just broke, next episode. So Mayor SHirley from Community greets the girls at the final challenge: A bake off... because apparently just being the first one there wasn’t good enough... then again i’ve seen far worse rule changes by a far smugger canadian man so i’ll let it slide. Thankfully the universe throws the two a bone: Neither can bake. What follows is a damn adorable scene: The two touch hands and blush over butter, before working in synch.. and Sam then procedes to cause their pie to explode in her face.. I could’ve phrased that better, but Luna giggles at it, Sam playfully tackles her giggling insues and the two end up on the ground, smiling at each other. Also Helen and Scoots win. Who cares. Luna realizes from this that she was an idiot to suggest giving up so soon, and proposes they simply try to find things they like together rather than focusing on their diffrences. Because as a coked out cat who sang a duet with a coked out Paula Abdul once said: If things go wrong we make corrections, to keep things goin in the right directions, try to fight it but i’m telling you jack, it’s uselss opposites attract! By the way the show really dropped the ball not having Luna mention this song titles in one of her song refrence things she does this episode. Anyways the two decide to start dating and then hug. My heart.. it’s too full. We end the episode on the reveal Helen is Lynn, a nice payoff for earlier as Lynn rides off on her elderly partner in crimes scooter into the sunset while Luna and Sam giggle and look on. Like any great love story. And we’re out. Final Thoughts: Okay second time around with this, and it’s a great ep. The repetition hurts it SLIGHTLY, but Sam and Luna’s chemistry helps the episode as does it’s terrific aseop: You don’t have to be exactly alike to love a person, or like the same things.. as long as you connect, and TRY to find things you both enjoy, you’ll be fine. The episodes also helped by plenty of nice little cameos, showing off the series new grasp on continuity, and Lori being Luna’s advisor and Lynn naturally being the douchey rival to them and everyone else. Overall a solid ep that was a natural step forward and set up a good status quo for Sam and Luna. The next ep dosen’t feel as natural a story step, but is still a nice one and the one that insipired me to take the leap and review these eps so join me next time as our faviorite couple bond with some cats and get into some scooby doo door shenanigans with “The Purrrfect Gig” Until then later days.

#the loud house #saluna #sam sharp #luna loud #lincoln loud #lynn sr loud #rita loud #lori loud #lynn loud #leni loud #bobby santiago #scoots #reviews #pride month

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reallysaltyobject · 5 years ago

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Timeless children thoughts

Ok, so I’ve spent about all day trying to form my thoughts on the changes that last nights episode had and now i’m going to try and write them down just to process and, like, see other people’s thoughts (???)

First of all, I love Doctor who. I hate feeling like this. This conflicted feeling. I love Jodie as the Doctor, she is probably my 2nd all time favourite Doctor (David T, Jodie, Tom, in case you were wondering). This season has had some, in my opinion, great episodes. I loved Fugitive of the Judoon, the Tesla episode (featuring my SJA fave Rani), the Mary Shelly episode. Guess what? i EVEN LIKED SOME OF ORPHAN 55 (it fell apart in the end, but Ed Hime can write some great lines (that spam line and the sequence with Ryan getting rid of the virus are personal faves), also that episode was co-written by Chibnall, and the episode seemed to be going in one direction but it felt like there was changes from a certain show runner). Anyway, I have been watching Doctor who since I was 4, I’ve been watching consistently since Ecclestone, through the good and the bad, never missing an episode. And until the finale of season 12, I have never felt so... sad. Not even angry, just sad and let down. I hate this sensation. I need to vent

So, now that the disclaimer is out that I do like Doctor who, even up till now, let’s get into my current trauma

WARNING THIS IS NOT A SHINING REVIEW OF THE LATEST EPISODE. IT IS JUST MY PROCESSING OF WHAT HAPPENED AND HOW UNSURE I FEEL ABOUT ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR THE SHOW

OK, the Doctor is not a TIME LORD. what? ...What?!...WOT!!? Time Lords and Gallifreyans are mutated from her DNA!?

Right let’s back up a but and start from the beginning of my puzzled thoughts. Why did we need last weeks episode? I mean seriously, It was about an hour of going ‘you’re going to learn something, we known something you don’t’ and then it leads to that. I’m just very confused. Also more side characters which I do not remember the names of by the end of the episode, and thus them dying does not affect me in any way. Was it ever explained why the head Cyber man was ‘torturing’ the other Cybermen? I honestly cannot think of why that was there (maybe to make them 100% robotic with no organic material cause of the particle (WHICH I WILL GET TO!) but idk not very clear).

Also the whole Irish flashback thing? I get that was supposed to be a filter but going back and watching the episode when we saw it in episode 9 the doctor was ALSO SEEING IT?! There was no mention of it at all during the episode but she mentions it in the episode ten. What?! (Let’s not mention the odd editing choice at the end of nine where the Master’s entrance is funny and wild and then it’s like dramatic, threatening music? WTF. I’m guessing some lines of dialogue were cut but still it would have been better to end on his first entrance)

Chibnall’s first new and interesting villain is just gone. A Cyberman that still has its human emotion, erhm, would that not make a compelling villain that we could see at least another story out of? No? we just going to shrink this guy in the space of ten minutes? Cool. Cool, cool, cool

Also the death particle? WTF. That was 110% convenient plot device which I can forgive (a little lazy but so not worth getting worked up over), but it somehow went from being able to wipe out organic life from the ‘entire universe’ to just ‘a planet’. What. I’m serious what was the process here? Was it like not done cooking? 10 more minutes left in the Cyberman before it was done? I mean, it can’t be because it shrunk, cause, well, it’s A PARTICLE. It’s can’t get any smaller than that. Oh, are we just going with that? Lazy. Never-mind, much more to cover.

So this was Chib’s let’s make Morbius canon time? You know the thing that was created cause they didn’t know how long the show would last, and was pretty much swept under the rug cause it was a weird idea? Right, ok , sure.

I mean I was actually interested in the Doctor having a cycle of regenerations that she didn’t know about. A cycle. Not seemingly endless lives. Cause that would keep with the canon established, you known, with the whole 11th Doctor getting gifted an entire new cycle which we are two bodies into already on the whole Tenzelore death bed thing. It would explain Ruth!Doctor (not her TARDIS being a police box but I’m sure give any Doctor who fan 20 minutes and a box of crayons and they could come up for a better explanation than what was shown last night).

But let’s get into the worst effect of last night’s show. There are no more stakes. The Doctor can regenerate whenever, not matter how many times, and there are no consequences. Sure, you want the show to live on but as an excellent TV show put it recently: it is death that makes life worth living (seriously go watch The Good Place)

The canon of the show is that Time Lords get the regeneration from looking into the time vortex, hence River getting these powers (being conceived on the TARDIS). Normal Gallifreyans do not have this, they have to earn it through the Academy. This episode said it was genetics (SEE midichlorians and star wars). W H A T.

ALSO DOES THIS MEAN THE DOCTOR AND RIVER SONG ARE LIKE RELATED. i mean if regeneration has come from the Doctor and she can regenerate, is it incest?

The Master did not make any sense in this episode - and for a character who is meant to be psychotic it must be pretty bad for him to seem off. So, the Master is mad cause he is made partly from the Doctor? I mean i know that you don’t go to the Master for coherent plans but still, I don’t really get it. He also spent the entire episode being exposition and that was just, a waste. That is one of my biggest gripes about that era. You hire these great actors and you don’t give them anything to work with. I mean you can see them shine when you do but, you don’t. why?

Also why is the Master acting like he has no compassion? Gomez!master literally betrayed herself after spending like an entire serious feeling guilt with the 12th Doctor. So, how can he say he has no compassion? I mean, if you weren’t a lazy writer, you could write some material about how they feel abandoned by the Doctor when he left her to die on the Cybership and went mad by the time they made it to Gallifrey. Or even that idea they were in an alternative universe and so this Master had not had the development that the Capaldi era worked on, which would explain why there was another Doctor (Ruth) (I know that gets a bit muddled up with Jack being in episode 5 but you could probably think of something, i’m still reeling from the finale to form a plan right now). No, we’re just not doing that.

This endless lives also cheapens the Doctor’s sacrifice before. I mean a lot Matt Smith’s time as the Doctor was spent with this. River giving up her remaining regenerations because of his unwillingness to leave his friends. The Doctor spending all of his last regeneration watching over this town in season 7. Was this just nothing? Is the Doctor just going to sacrifice themselves for everything now?

Also, the idea that the doctor is the Other is so much better! That would be cool, it would give her a past that she does not know of (check one), but it wouldn’t have the potential of ruining the stakes and mystery of the doctor (check two), AND it would make the doctor something above what TL are, make her demi-god, which could make the Master made, in a more logical way, (check three).

right to finish this, I have to say i’m worried. The moves that are being made feel like they are cancelling moves. Like we’re going on another long hiatus. That there is going to be a reboot. It also is giving the BBC potential to make spinoffs of the previous Doctors to likes of Netflix and Amazon, which scares me for the safety of the show. With the ratings going down, and a majority of the fanbase being against the developments in the lore, the sustainability of the show is looking risky. This is an option that i do not want to happen. Unfortunately I think the only option would be to replace Chibs. He is writing the show in a way that is continuing from when he grew up (hence the Morbius thing, and the Master acting in this way) and not from how the show has PROGRESSED since then.

I’m still going to watch the show but I fear that more and more will turn it off. The whole point that they pushed in this era of the show was that new people can watch it, there is no need to have all this previous knowledge yet the only times there has been interesting episodes has been to call backs (Jack, Cybermen, Daleks). This change to something so instrumental to the plot is driving old fans away and confusing the new ones. What you need is someone who is above the show-runners keeping the canon and coherency of the lore, as it know most show-runners change the premise when they start (see Gallifrey gone, alive, gone again)

leave the canon. Look forwards. This Doctor is about being hopeful, they should be looking forward.

I want this show to be good. I want this show to live forever, because it can. Because it should.

#doctor who #thirteenth doctor

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 5 years ago

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Psycho Analysis: Halloween Special Villains

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Ah, Halloween, that magical, spooky time of year where ghosts and goblins come out to play and children dress up in the hopes of getting some delicious Halloween candy. But what about all of us who are trapped at home on the night of this pagan costume and candy festival? What do we have to keep us entertained?

Why, Halloween specials of course!

If there’s one thing Halloween delivers on almost as well as Christmas does, it’s spooky Halloween-themed episodes of cartoons, where the show is allowed to get darker and more disturbing than it usually does in some cases. And what is any special without a special one-shot villain? Gotta have someone stirring up some Halloween trouble on this spooky night. And since these characters are usually one and done with little in the way to go super in-depth about, I’d figure we’d look at five of them at once! They are:

Jack O’Lantern from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy

Pumpkinator from The Fairly OddParents

Bun-Bun from Underfist

Fright Night from Danny Phantom

Ron Tompkins from Toy Story of Terror!

I’m sure some of you feel there are some glaring omissions. Where’s the Flying Dutchman? Where’s Stickybeard? Well, I decided that this time around I’d go with characters whose major appearances and debuts are Halloween episodes; both those guys had major roles in non-Halloween episodes as well, so I’ll be saving them for full reviews at a later date. Also of note: I am aware the story of Toy Story of Terror! does not take place on Halloween, but it is aired as a Halloween special, so I’m counting it.

Actor: So if there’s one thing these guys aren’t lacking in, it’s the actor department, and this isn’t a huge shock since when you’ve got a holiday special you want to splurge a bit, you know?

Jack has one of my favorite actors ever, the always-awesome Wayne Knight. Knight just has that sort of voice that’s perfect for smug jerk characters like Mr. Blik or Dennis Nedry, so really it’s pretty fitting for a pranking trickster like Jack, though I will say that it’s hard to match Knight’s voice to the human version of Jack when you see him in a flashback.

Ron Tompkins isn’t too far behind in the impressive VA department, being voiced by none other than Stephen Tobolowsky, who you may remember as the overbearing Ned Ryerson from GroundHog Day (and how can you forget him? You see him repeating the same scene about thirty times). He does a great job at making Tompkins cartoonishly evil and mostly enjoyable, a tall order for a character who steals toys from children to sell online.

And if you thought the list of awesome actors was done, boy were you wrong! Star Trek’s very own Michael Dorn voices the Fright Knight, and Dorn’s voice is absolutely perfect for a cool, evil, undead knight.

Bun-Bun is voiced by Dave Wittenberg who is an insanely prolific VA, playing characters such as Henry Wong from Digimon Tamers (AKA the beast season of Digimon) to none other than Kakashi from Naruto. I think it goes without saying a VA this versatile manages to make the role work.

And finally, we have the Pumpkinator, who is played by Dee Bradley Baker, and if I sat here listing all the notable roles this man has played we’d be here all night. But here’s a small sample: Appa, Momo, Squilliam Fancyson and Bubble Bass, Klaus the goldfish, Cow and Chicken’s dad, Cinderblock and Plasmus, the Alien and Predator in Mortal Kombat, Lion and Frybo, Numbah 4 and the Toilenator, Remy Buxaplenty, most of the animals in The Legend of Korra… you get the picture. This guy’s a legend. He’ll do any sort of role, big or small, so even if he’s not playing the most complex character here, he’s at least giving it a unique spin with his voice because man, this guy has RANGE.

Motivation/Goals: Jack has a rather simple motivation: revenge. You see, ages ago he managed to steal Grim’s scythe when he was about to be reaped, and bartered for the scythe’s return, asking to be made immortal. Grim reluctantly gave him this, but, as Grim is not someone who likes being tricked, also cut his head off. As anything cut off with Grim’s scythe is permanently cut off, Jack had to replace his head with a pumpkin (of course). This lead to him being shunned as a freak, which just made jis desire for vengeance even stronger; I mean, wouldn’t you want revenge if you could only go to the ding-dong grocery store to get pudding once a year?

If you want to get even simpler, the Pumpkinator is your guy! He exists simply to blow up planets. Tat’s it. He’s very much just an obstacle Timmy needs to overcome so that he can undo his wish for every Halloween costume to be “real and scary” before the consequences end up destroying the world.

Bun-Bun is rather simple as well: he just seems to be a jerk. But they don’t just make him a simple jerk, no, this is a Billly & Mandy spinoff so things have to be taken to their ridiculous extreme. Bun-Bun turns out to be behind numerous extremely petty actions that affected the lives of the main heroes, having haunted Hoss as a child and made him afraid of monsters, made Billy afraid of spiders which estranged him from his son Jeff, and, uh, sawed off Fred Fredburger’s tusks. The fiend! As you might guess, there’s no real rhyme or reason to this, it’s just goofy absurdist over-the-top sort of thing you’d expect from Maxwell Atoms.

Ron has a relatively simple motivation, but frankly it might be the most evil out of all of these: the man steals toys from the children who stay at his motel to sell them for monetary gain. Yes, this is more evil than attempting to blow up the planet, you heard me. I have no idea how sick and twisted you have to be to think that stealing toys from children is acceptable. Funnily enough, this is the same sort of motivation Al (who was played by Wayne Knight, funnily enough) from Toy Story 2 had, though Ron takes it above and beyond.

And finally that brings us to Fright Knight, Much like most of the ghosts on the show, Fright Knight seems to just want to cause a ruckus after he’s released, attempting to take over Amity Park when Danny foolishly releases him. Later in the show he is freed to serve Pariah Dark, and after Dark is beaten he joins up with Vlad. In his final appearance of any consequence he is seen serving the Ultimate Enemy in the bad future. Basically the guy is just a really cool overhyped henchman.

Personality: So let’s get the easy one out of the way first: The Pumpkinator doesn’t exactly have a personality, because it is a big generic doomsday villain meant to act as an obstacle for Timmy to overcome. However, when it returned later in the episode where Timmy goes to Unwish Island, it did have one notable personality trait: an undying hatred for Timmy Turner, It’s a pretty relatable trait the more into the series you watch.

Bun-Bun is also rather evil and simple. He’s just a petty jerk, as can be seen by his crimes listed up under motivation. There’s not much else to him, same with Fright Knight who, again, is mostly just an overhyped henchman who acts as the hardcore badass serving whatever big bad of the week is out to get Danny (or he would have, but more on that later).

Out of all of these, Ron and Jack have the most personality. Jack is an unrepentant prankster who, at least when alive, was heavily implied to just not get he was taking it too far with his pranks (“too far” in this case being tricking people off of cliffs, at the least), and simply morphed into a bitter, jaded, vengeance-seeking supernatural entity after hundreds of years of rejection by society and isolation. Jack’s honestly pretty tragic in that regard, though it obviously doesn’t excuse his actions.

Ron is just a straight-up jerk, putting up a facade of being a charming, friendly motel owner while stealing toys from under his guest’s noses. As the truth comes out about him, he becomes more cartoonish and hammy, which really doesn’t help his case at all, and in his final scene he actually does something so cartoonish he almost feels like he doesn’t belong in the Toy Story universe.

Final Fate: Funnily enough, Pumpkinator actually gets the happiest ending out of anyone here: after being unwished by Timmy, he goes to Unwish Island and, after Timmy eventually journeys there, gets to have fun tormenting Timmy clones for the rest of time.

Ron probably has the second happiest ending, for a given definition of “happy.” Bonnie’s mother calls the cops on him for his theft, and when they show up, he somehow manages to trick them, run away, steal their car, crash it into a telephone pole when backing up, and then run off before they even move a muscle. It’s ridiculously cartoonish, and there’s no way this guy is gonna be getting off easy after that little display.

Onto Bun-Bun. Bun-Bun made one simple mistake: he put any trust at all int Skarr. For those not in the know, Skarr was the “Starscream” to Hector Con Carne, always hoping to overthrow him and take over his world domination schemes for himself before he ended up retiring from that life and becoming a reoccurring character on Billy & Mandy. So, when he joins up with the villain by betraying Underfist, what do you think he does? He betrays the villain, pushing Bun-Bun into hot cocoa and melting him, using his power of treachery and backstabbing to help his team save the world. It’s pretty amusing in that classic Billy & Mandy way.

Good ol’ Jack ends up getting sent to the underworld this time since Grim wasn’t putting up with his crap anymore, and it seems Jack still hasn’t learned his lesson about pranking. When last we see him, he’s now tormenting demons, who all start moving in on him while he laughs at his dumb pranks. The screen cuts to black and we hear a squishing noise. It’s safe to say he won’t have to worry about that pumpkin head causing him problems anymore.

Fright Night is easily the most tricky one to talk about because his entire intended purpose in the show got aborted. After he was brought back to serve Pariah, he ended up under Vlad’s control by episode’s end, but for some reason, nothing ever came of this and it was never mentioned again – well, except in the “Ultimate Enemy” special, in which the Fright Knight cameos at the beginning, acting as something of the hype man for Dan Phantom, softening up Amity Park for Dan’s attack. After that, though, he’s basically out of the series, save for a couple of brief cameos here and there.

Best Scene: Jack has the flashback to his origins, because not only is it perfectly dark for a show’s Halloween episode, you have to give props to anyone who managed to outwit Grim, even if he did end up paying a steep price for it.

Ron has his aforementioned escape from the police. I do think it’s a bit too cartoonish and silly for Toy Story, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t pretty hilarious either way.

The Fright Knight has the aforementioned scene where he mentions he’s serving The evil future Danny. Considering that’s his last real role in the series, at least he got to go out on a high note, though it still sucks nothing ever came of the plotlines set up for him.

Bun-Bun’s best scene is when he revealed that he was the architect of most of the protagonist’s woes. Again, it’s just classic over-the-top Billy & Mandy silliness, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

The Pumpkinator… just doesn’t have one. Sorry.

Best Quote: While most of these guys aren’t exactly a goldmine of quotes, Jack has one of my favorite quotes from anything, ever, and I even already referenced it above: “Three hundred and sixty-four days a year, I can't even go the the ding-dong grocery store to buy pudding! And do you know why?" The why, obviously, is the fact he has a pumpkin for a head.

Final Thoughts & Score: Frankly, this batch of Halloween hooligans is a very mixed bag. We didn’t fare quite as bad as Charlie Brown did on Halloween, but we only got one King Size candy bar out of this lot.

I guess let’s just start with the black licorice of the bunch: Fright Knight. God, I wish I could love Fright Knight, I really do, but considering the overwhelming quality of most of Danny’s rogues gallery and just the fact this guy was totally shafted and everything set up for him was ignored there’s just no excusing how lame this guy looks, Michael Dorn or no. He has a great design and a cool concept, and the ideas for interesting stories with him were there, but he ends up being a 3/10, saved only by his cool first outing, great voice work, and awesome design.

Worse still is the pile of weirdly flavored candy corn that is the Pumpkinator. He has a cool design, but he’s not much of an antagonist to be honest. He’s just a cool-looking robot who wants to blow up the planet. That’s about it. There’s really not much to say about this guy, and his only other appearance doesn’t really add much. I suppose he serves his purpose, but I have to wonder, why even bring him back if he wasn’t going to do anything remotely interesting? I don’t like generic doomsday villains at the best of times, but if you’re gonna bring one back, at least try and do something interesting with them to justify their existence, otherwise they’re just gonna end up getting a 2/10.

Finally, we get into the good candy! Let’s start off with the tasty marshmallow bunny we got, Bun-Bun (isn’t that more of an Easter candy? Weird). Bun—Bun is a funy, goofy, cartoonish villain, perfect for the first (and sadly, only) outing for Underfist. The fact they went above and beyond to cement him as this ludicrous mastermind who just screwed with everyone’s lives for no apparent reason other than the fact he’s a jerk is pretty funny. I don’t think he’s gonna win any Villain of the Year awards, but I think a 6/10 is good enough for this above average nuisance.

Oho, what’s this? A… candycane? Well, it’s a bit out of season, but it’s still tasty! And that’s kind of where Ron is. I do like just how unabashedly scummy he is, and there is precedent for people like him in the Toy Story universe, but I feel he takes things to a cartoonish extreme. For crying out loud, the guy has a trained iguana that acts like a dog! He feels like he belongs in a different series than this one, but again, I don’t really think that’s a bad thing, because at the very least he is funny. He gets a 7/10, a bit higher than usual just because I love how ridiculously nasty his whole scheme is. Stealing from kids, what the actual hell.

YES! A King Size candy bar! Just what I was looking for! It’s just a generic Hershey bar, but hey, that’s a lot of chocolate, so who’s complaining? And that’s Jack, he is simply put a perfect Halloween special antagonist. Most of this comes from his voice work, since Wayne Knight is a national treasure, but his backstory and concept are worth praising too. His origin story is something of a twist on the old legend of “Stingy Jack,” the origin story of the Jack-O’-Lantern appropriately enough. While obviously there are liberties, such as substituting Grim for the devil, it’s a mostly accurate retelling, something that would go over most people’s heads unless they’re really into classical folklore. Jack’s a lot of fun as a character, earning himself a nice big 8/10, only being held back from a higher score because despite being rightfully beloved by audiences, he never really had a major role again, getting a minor shout out in Big Boogey Adventure and… that’s it. I think Jack could have been a really entertaining reoccurring antagonist in the same vein as fwllow ensemble darkhorse Eris, but alas, it was not to be. Maybe if Underfist had been picked up he could have been brought back for that, but the fact is it just didn’t happen. Oh well, might as well appreciate what we got.

And that’s it for this batch of Halloween goodies. Halloween specials seem a lot less prevalent than Christmas specials, but they’re no less important or fun, and as you can see, they do produce at least mildly interesting villains, sometimes. If only they could produce a villain so devilishly Halloweenie that he could perfectly embody the spirit of the holiday…

Hey, what’s that at the bottom of the bag…

Wait… is that…

OH NO.

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fear-the-spectacular-avatar · 5 years ago

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Thoughts on the Batwoman Pilot

Like many CW & Arrowverse fans I tuned into the Batwoman Pilot. I’m big fan of Batman as a character along with the mythos of the character. So when it was announced last year we’d be seeing Kate Kane in the Elseworlds crossover along with Gotham & everything within, I was ecstatic. When Ruby Rose was introduced as the character in the Elseworlds crossover, she surprised me. I hadn’t really seen any of her previous work so I was hesitant upon watching it. However I thought she did good as the character & she definitely deserved her own spinoff. Now we flashforward to October 6th, 2019 when the CW aired the series premiere of the Batwoman spinoff.

Overall I thought it was a pretty solid pilot & a nice way of establishing the journey Kate will be going on. It’s obviously answering the question of how & when Kate become Batwoman up to when she’s introduced in the Elseworlds crossover which I’m fine with. I like origin stories even if some of them have been redone numerous time. You have to remember though this is HER story, a character we’ve never seen in live action. In someways it reminded of when Supergirl first premiered back on CBS in 2015, (weird knowing it’s been that long), with the theme of “finding your place in the world”. It’s clear that’ll be a big theme throughout the show which I don’t mind so long as it’s done right. Again Ruby Rose did a pretty great job as the character & I think she might’ve been born for this role. That’s just my opinion, but if you disagree that’s fine. I like most of the cast introduced throughout; of course there’s some I don’t care for. It’s like that with all tv shows. It’s not a CW/Arrowverse show without a big twist which I’ll admit I was surprised by considering the circumstances. I say this because usually the big twist occurs halfway or near the end of the season. Instead they decided to drop it right at the end of the pilot which I respect. They want to add a serious mystery to the show & keep invested in these character which again I respect. Something else that surprised me were the flashbacks at times & showing the relationship Kate has with certain characters. I hope this continues on even if it’s not in every episode. While there were a lot of things I enjoyed about the pilot, I have only 2 issues upon watching it.

Throughout my viewing of the pilot I felt bothered by the overall pacing. It seemed a bit too rushed for my liking & it resulted in some dialogue issues with most of the cast. I think I understand why the pacing was too fast: Crisis on Infinite Earth’s. They wanna try & catch up in time for the crossover in December which is understandable, but they shouldn’t sacrifice good storytelling for that. I’m hoping this isn’t a recurring issue throughout the season & they slow the pacing down a little before the crossover. The other issue was how quick the action sequences were. This kind of goes intangent with the fast pacing of the show. Despite that issue the action sequences were executed well & straightforward separating itself from sequences for shows like Flash or Arrow.

Regardless of the issues involving the action & pacing, Batwoman was rather enjoyable. Instead of picking up where Elseworlds left off, it made the risky decision to backtrack & tell the characters origins. As a fan that’s something I wanna see because it’ll answer questions while giving us new ones at the sometime. If you’re still unsure about watching the pilot, I recommend you do. However please go in with an open mind. Forget all the reviews postive or negative; that way you’ll be able to form your own opinion on the show.

Overall grade: 7.9/10

#the cw #arrowverse #batwoman #kate kane #ruby rose #sophie moore #meagan tandy #alice #rachel skarsten #jacob kane #dougray scott #luke fox #camrus johnson #mary hamilton #nicole kang

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magic-and-moonlit-wings · 6 years ago

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Hi, my favourite Disney sequels are Bambi 2, for it's sweet, passionate and touching story about Bambi bonding with his dad, and 101 Dalmations 2: Patch's London Advendure, it's charming, funny and heartfelt. For HBB, I'm very torn on making Claire and Toby a couple, could you help me? Also, what would Trollhunter!Claire's relationship with Vendal be like? What do you like the most about the Spider-Gang in Spiderverse? And why was season 3 disappointing?

I haven’t seen the second 101 Dalmatians movie but I’ve been meaning to get around to it so that’s nice to hear.

I … don’t really understand this question? You want help writing their dynamic (which I don’t know if I’m qualified to help with because I’m not a writing coach), or you want help deciding whether to ship them (which I don’t feel it’s my place to help with because I consider story ships a personal choice by the writer)?

Either way, no, I don’t think I can help. But I can link you to a Springhole article, “How Can/Should I Do This Thing With My Story/Setting/Character?” How Figure It Out For Yourself! This website has really helped me a lot in my characterizing and worldbuilding and thinking critically about what and how I write.

Vendel in canon specifically describes Claire as “an intelligent and delightful fleshbag” after she speaks trollish to him in their first introduction, and expresses a wish that the Amulet had chosen her instead, so his role as Team Grandpa would probably come about earlier in a Trollhunter!Claire story.

The Spider-Gang was a ragtag team of accustomed-to-working-solo heroes having to learn teamwork while stuck in a dimension where, at least in some cases, the very laws of physics were different. That was fun.

Here is a list of things I was hoping to see in Season Three of Trollhunters which did not happen:

The Trollmarket refugees hiding out in the old Janus Order base, a massive underground structure where the Gumm-Gumms would never think to look for them.

Strickler and/or Nomura expressing a desire to avenge the Changelings Gunmar murdered.

Changeling survivors other than Strickler, Nomura, and Not Enrique, who either join the Trollhunters to seek revenge against Gunmar for betraying them, or set up their own faction to establish that the Janus Order is still going to be a factor in the Tales of Arcadia spinoff series 3Below or Wizards.

Brainwashed!Draal attacks Jim outside his house and Nomura fights him off, in poetic reversal of the fight in Season One that led to Draal moving in to Jim’s basement; possibly Barbara sees the fight and this is how she remembers about trolls.

Draal is rescued/frees himself, and does not die.

The main cast learns Angor’s backstory (we never see them learn it, Jim just somehow mysteriously knows it) and we see their emotional responses to that.

Angor joins the Trollhunter team and now he and Strickler have to play nice with each other, and also Angor does not die.

An epic final confrontation showing us just how a human Trollhunter is able to take down Gunmar, presumably involving Jim not fighting Gunmar alone.

Jim makes contact with the Void somehow and we finally meet Deya the Deliverer.

Healing the Heartstone and reclaiming Trollmarket.

Blinky’s paranoia, mentioned in Season One and never really addressed again, makes him a good leader for the Trollmarket refugees during wartime, but not so much in the several post-slaying-of-Gunmar episodes that focus on reconstruction; he and Bagdwella in particular clash a lot and she ends up becoming the peacetime leader of Trollmarket but keeping Blinky on hand as an adviser.

Direct canon confirmation of BlinkAAARRRGGHH rather than just heavy hinting.

Nomura and Draal get back together.

Strickler actually says the words “I’m sorry” to Barbara. He gets a gradual and carefully structured redemption arc.

Rescuing the Changelings who don’t have Familiars yet out of the Darklands as well as rescuing the Familiars, setting up a future-series plot line of reintegrating the Changelings into troll society.

Claire interacting with Original Enrique, and the Nuñez parents interacting with Not Enrique. (Sitting beside him on a couch with no indication they know who or what he is does not count.) Claire introducing her parents to her adopted troll brother would have been a great scene.

Claire (and maybe Toby since he and Darci are dating) explaining to Mary and Darci in detail about trolls, either before the final battle (so they can help) or afterwards during the several-episode wrap-up that shows how healing in the aftermath of an epic battle is just as important to the heroes’ stories as the epic battle itself.

A flashback explaining what the heck happened in the Deep.

#Anonymous asks about Trollhunter!Claire #WarStaff #Tobias Domzalski #Claire Nuñez #Vendel #Disney #movie reaction #spider-man #Trollhunters #Tales of Arcadia #trollhunters s3 spoilers #what might have been #ask me anything

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sieben9 · 6 years ago

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“the jolly roger” impressions

{Quick request to anyone reading: Im watching OUaT for the first time, and I want to avoid spoilers. So, if you want to discuss something spoilery, I’d be grateful if you could start a new post for that. Thank you!}

Ariel's back!

Whee!

And wearing a snazzy outfit, too.

I enjoyed quite a few things about this episode, but I'll be honest, it's not the most memorable one. Still, some thoughts under the cut.

This was a weird one, and I don't (just) mean all the shameless flirting in the "Regina teaches Emma magic" plot. (Listen, I know what I saw, OK?) No, I mean the way Hook's story--both flashback and present day--went. Because "you screwed everything up, but it still worked out fine in the end", is a weird ending, to put it mildly.

And then it clicked.

It really is a weird ending... unless you're the antagonist. What I'm basically saying is that Hook wasn't the hero of this flashback, he was the antagonist for Ariel. The obstacle she had to overcome in order to reach her goal (being reunited with her love), and in the end, she succeeded--notable in spite of rather than because of his help. I think the episode was meant to show him in the role of the antagonist, but also that he's no longer comfortable or happy there.

Also, to show us definitely-not-Captain-Hook here. Yes, I laughed. A lot. Especially during the duel.

Most of all, this part of the episode convinced me of one thing, which is just please let this guy star in the heist-adventure on the high seas spinoff that he so clearly wants to be in. Let him run around with his endearingly incompetent and weirdly nonviolent pirate crew, stealing from the rich and giving to themselves while he pines away for the woman he left behind for his ship. He'd fit in there. Over here, he's mostly the weird guy who stuck around after the Neverland arc because "reasons".

The present-day story was just a fairly standard fall-arc where the protagonist is overcome by his weakness (here, a lack of a moral backbone) rather than overcoming it. (And in this context, it doesn't really matter that he never dealt with the real Ariel; the moral failing was still the same). The epilogue--his attempt at honesty--gives some hope for future development, even if his courage deserted him again later. Things are certainly a lot more complicated, now, aren't they?

I don't want to say "like mother like daughter", but damn it's tempting...

Oh, and on that note... that makes two times (that we know of) that Zelena went to the shop to gloat to Belle about Rumple being gone.

Just... why.

Woman, please, for the love of pine cones. Get a new hobby. One not involving Rumple, if you don't mind. (Honestly, even if you mind, I don't really care at this point.)

As for the rest of the episode... You know, I've been thinking, and I'm pretty sure I've pinned down what this was for me: It was a lot like watching Mission Impossible 5.

No, please, bear with me, it'll make sense.

I've watched all the MI movies at some point or another and it was always good, though forgettable, fun. And then Rogue Nation happened, and I actually liked it. It was weird. Because I'm not invested in the main character or his journey in any way, shape, or form. But in Rogue Nation, I genuinely liked the ensemble, and enjoyed watching them. Ethan Hunt was... there for most of the movie, and he didn't bother me.

See where I'm coming from, yet?

So, magic lessons with a side of UST and near-death experiences! It's like all my fanfic dreams coming true. Honourable mention to Regina's extreme annoyance when Emma built that wood-tower of awesome rather than just reparing the bridge, because Regina, dear, you are in absolutely no position to accuse anyone of being "too extra". Except maybe sparkly Rumple, but he's not around. Damnit.

You know, after last episode, I was half thinking that the show was preparing a twist where Regina actually has to step up and deal with her sister on her own. Her family, her fight, and all that. But now, with Emma's magic obviously being a significant factor in Zelena's plans, I'm starting to believe that it might end up being another joint effort, season 2 style. Which I wouldn't mind at all, let me tell you.

Poor still-amnesiac Henry, though. (Though David panicking that he’s not “cool enough” to hang out with his grandson was pretty hilarious) At least he had some fun destroying public property, I guess.

Oh, and one little addendum (in the post proper, this time):

Regina: "Don't touch anything."

Emma, .18 seconds later:

#ouat #once upon a time #the jolly roger #sieben watches ouat #sieben talks #i relate to mr smee #because i too have only very recently eaten my first frozen yoghurt #and it was a goddamn life changer

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51kas81 · 6 years ago

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Why Spike ruined “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”

(I know it's a pretty old article but I didn't know it yet and I have to say I agree in many points. If you are a Spike fan and can not stand criticism then please do not read.)

Like Fonzie before him, this too-cool thug in a leather jacket has diverted a good show from its original mission: To celebrate the uncool outcasts of the world.

Jaime J. Weinman

May 13, 2003 7:00pm (UTC)

A once-good show becomes a bad one through the unexpected popularity of a posturing, vaguely thuggish minor character in a black leather jacket. In television, as in life, events tend to repeat themselves. First there was "Happy Days," where a charming show about growing up in the '50s was revamped to focus on the Fonz. And now there's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," which has been all but destroyed by the Fonzie of our time: Spike.

As "Buffy" comes to an end, its fans are debating where to place the blame for the mediocrity of this season. Was it the introduction of a team of Slayers in Training, all of them so annoying that fans were happy to see some of them get killed? Was it the overemphasis on irrelevant new characters like Kennedy and Principal Wood? Was it the decision to build the season around a villain (the First Evil) who can't touch anything or do anything at all except talk and talk and talk? Well, that's part of it.

But the problems with this season can be traced to a moment at the very end of the last good episode, "Conversations With Dead People." That's the moment when Buffy found out that Spike, blond vampire, attempted rapist, and current possessor of a soul, had somehow been killing people despite his souled status. From that point on, the show has no longer been about Buffy and her friends, or Buffy and her mission, or anything that used to be interesting on this show. It's been about Buffy and Spike. And that's about all.

Look at the record. The next two episodes after "Conversations With Dead People" involved Buffy trying to find out why Spike was killing again, following which she spent two more episodes focusing her attention on freeing Spike from a dungeon. Since then, we've discovered that a new character (Principal Wood) has a vendetta against Spike, seen an entire episode devoted to filling out Spike's back story, and sat through various other plot threads about Spike. Even when Spike isn't on-screen, characters are talking about him.

Meanwhile, the characters who used to matter on this show -- Willow, Xander and Giles, who with Buffy formed what is called the "core four" -- are getting nothing storywise; Willow gets a token lesbian relationship, Xander gets his eye poked out, and Giles gets to look like a bad guy for wanting to kill Spike (which, on the contrary, made some of us love Giles even more). In the words of "Sep," who recaps "Buffy" episodes for the famously snarky Web site Television Without Pity, "Watching episode after episode about Spike's journey when Giles has become a prick and I don't know a goddamn thing about what Willow or Xander are thinking, or even who they are anymore, and will likely never find out, breaks my heart."

It would be less of a problem if Spike were getting brilliantly fascinating stories, but he isn't, despite the potential inherent in the story of an evil creature trying to reform. At every turn, the "Buffy" staff has copped out on Spike's story, whitewashing his past (a flashback in a recent episode shows that even when he was turned into a vampire, he wasn't initially a vicious killer -- something that contradicts all the previous vampire mythology on the show) and making no attempt to show that having a soul has changed him one way or the other. By the evidence of this season's episodes, Spike is still a wisecracking punk who likes to hit women (he's hit Buffy, Anya and Faith so far this year) and isolate Buffy from her friends, yet we're still somehow supposed to sympathize with him, because ... why? Because he got a soul in the hope that Buffy would forgive his attempt to rape her and sleep with him again. Except for a couple of throwaway lines, Spike has never been made to seek redemption for his crimes; he doesn't even apologize to Principal Wood for having murdered his mother. The assumption appears to be that Spike doesn't need to atone because having a soul makes him a different and better person. But the writers haven't shown us that; all they've shown us is the same Fonzie figure from Seasons 5 and 6, only without the viciousness that made him moderately interesting.

And when they write a decent Spike scene, it gets cut. The second episode of this season, "Beneath You," was originally supposed to end with a scene where Spike expresses guilt for his past crimes, admits that he got a soul for selfish reasons (he thought Buffy would love him if he had a soul), and arrives at the realization that having a soul hasn't made him good enough for Buffy ("God hates me. You hate me. I hate myself more than ever"). But creator Joss Whedon rewrote this scene so that Spike talked mostly about the fact that Buffy "used" him for sex -- just another attempt to create unearned sympathy for Spike and deemphasize his past role as a killer and sexual predator. And James Marsters, a good actor who has shown himself capable of the kind of underplaying this show used to thrive on, made matters worse by playing this scene as an over-the-top fit of lurching and moaning, like one of William Shatner's lesser method moments on "Star Trek." (The gratuitous shirtlessness just adds to the comparison.) Any interesting stories about a vampire with a soul have already been told on "Buffy" and "Angel"; with Spike, all we've been getting is a lot of half-naked posturing.

But it's not just the overemphasis on Spike that's the problem; it's the way this emphasis has betrayed one of the most appealing themes of the show: that it's OK to be uncool. "Buffy" began with a high school girl, formerly cool and popular, who discovers that she has a destiny that will prevent her from ever having a "normal" life. But she finds some comfort when she befriends people at the school who are social outcasts for other reasons: Willow, a shy computer geek; the loyal but socially awkward Xander; and Giles, head of a school library that none of the other students ever seem to visit. The bond between these four characters was the heart of the show for the first four seasons, more than anything else, even romance (there were many episodes where Buffy's love interest, Angel, didn't appear or was relegated to one or two token scenes). Every week, these characters proved what we'd all like to believe when we're outcasts in high school: that the uncool kids, the ones no one takes seriously, are really the coolest and most heroic of all.

To make this clear, the monsters on the show were often portrayed as the twisted embodiment of high school coolness. In the pilot, Xander's friend Jesse goes from "an excruciating loser" to an effortlessly cool bad boy after he is turned into a vampire. Another episode, "Reptile Boy," made frat boys the villains. And Spike, when introduced in Season 2, was exactly the kind of smartass punk who makes high school a miserable place for geeks: Arrogant, cocky and contemptuous of anyone who wasn't equally cool, he was a superficial, self-confident Fonzie type who deserved to get smacked down by our awkward heroes.

With the transformation of Spike into a lovable antihero, "Buffy" has stopped celebrating the uncool outcasts; instead, it celebrates the cool punk, the guy who would push the first-season Willow or Xander out of the way in the school halls. And it's not just Spike. Willow's new love interest, Kennedy, is a confident loudmouth with a privileged upbringing, who obnoxiously admires Willow not for her intelligence but for her power. Spike's nemesis, Principal Wood, is described in one of the scripts as "The Coolest Principal Ever." And Andrew, the show's answer to "The Simpsons'" Comic Book Guy, is constantly mocked for his geekiness, because a show that was once on the side of geeks now portrays them as buffoons or villains. And whereas the early seasons usually showed the characters learning how to defeat monsters by researching them in Giles' books, they now find everything they need on the Internet -- a far cry from Giles' wonderful first-season speech about the superiority of books over computers. It seems that on a show where an unrepentant mass murdering monster can be a hero, there's no more room for a celebration of the power of book learning, or the nobility of uncool people.

Which brings us back to "Happy Days," and the Fonz. Just as "Happy Days" went on for years with Fonzie even after Ron Howard left the show, there are rumors that the character of Spike may go on after the end of "Buffy" -- perhaps moving to "Angel," or perhaps to a spinoff. The character is popular; cool characters often are. But "Happy Days" was a better show in the first two years, when it was just about the uncool Richie Cunningham. And "Buffy" was a better show in the first four years, before Spike fell in love with Buffy, before Spike started taking his shirt off in every episode, and when the focus was on four uncool people and their quest to rid the world of ... well, of characters like Spike.

Jaime J. Weinman

#btvs #btvs meta #anti-spike #anti spike

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twdmusicboxmystery · 3 years ago

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Eugene/Beth Entanglement, Part 3 - “West” Symbolism

Okay, one thing we’ve noticed is that there are a lot of west, western, and going west references around Eugene.

Western/Native American Symbols

I’ve already talked about Eugene showing up with a deer draped over his neck in 9x06, right? This is also one of the first true signs of Eugene and a western connection. We've known that he has been growing his hair since season 4 but now it is quite long, and he always wears it braided with beads and jewelry that gives a Native American flavor.

Remember, there were quite a few Native American items, including rugs, dreamcatcher, and pictures in the cabin that the Governor went to in 4b (when he was a major Beth proxy).

There’s at least one major Native American symbol around Beth. It’s one of two magazines along with the blue backpack and a pack of playing cards from Coda. One magazine emphasizes the number 44 (comic number Andrea was shot in; Coda is the episode Beth was shot in; let’s not forget that Andrea survived and returned to TF later).

The other magazine shows a female musical artist with eyes dark, feathers in her hair and a wolf tattoo on her arm. Father Gabriel noticed these items early in the episode, and Morgan passes them in the after-the-credits sequence.

So, let’s consider this entire sequence. The magazine suggests Native American + wolf symbolism. We see it near Father Gabriel (current Sirius character) and Morgan. Eight episodes later, in 5x16, Morgan has a conversation with Creepy Wolf Dude, where CWD tells Morgan a story about how the Native Americans who used to live in that area believed humans came from wolves.

Of course a few episodes later, in 6x02, we have the wolf attack on Alexandria, where they come face to face again. And by 6x08/09, we’re neck deep in a sequence that is clearly a foreshadow of Beth, the CRM war, and the spinoff.

And in 9x06, we see similar symbolism around Eugene. So clearly, he’s mixed up in this well and good.

I could go into colors as well. At various times we’ve seen him with black and white beads or feathers, and a myriad of other color combinations we’ve connected to Beth. Go back and rewatch episodes with him yourself if you want details.

More western symbolism around Beth include her turquoise looking bracelets.

"Western” dialogue from Eugene

I was re-watching s9e6 Who Are You Now, he and Rosita and go to install a radio antenna for FG hoping to find other (good) people. Rosita and Eugene come across what looks like footprints of a good size walker herd. Rosita says, “tracts are fresh, maybe hundreds headed east.”

Eugene pointing says, “Luckily for us, west is where the deed gets done.” Eugene indicates that the direction they're traveling is west, and he's pointing at 2 (Beth) white (Beth) water towers (Beth), framed between 2 trees (Trunk Theories).

That connection alone tells me West = Beth.

In the same episode, we see Judith reading a math problem to Negan. “Airplane A and airplane B are 1000 miles apart. If airplane A is going EAST at 500 miles pre hour and airplane B is flying WEST at 650 miles per hour, how—” Negan interrupts her. So we have a combination of both the A/B and the East/West theme.

These aren’t by far the only A/B or East/West references. There are TONS of them. There were even a few I thought of but didn’t know which episodes they were in and didn’t want to spend time looking. But trust me, there are lots.

States, including Texas and New Mexico

In s9e1, A New Beginning, Tara rides on a horse, talking to Eugene on a walkie talkie. The sign that has the Route A. Highway 23 runs to Ohio. Just to note Toledo is in Ohio.

The other sign, U.S. Route 60 is an East-West U.S. highway that leads from Virginia all the way across the country, heading west through New Mexico.

Okay, couple of things to unpack here. I’m going to talk more about Texas, specifically Dallas, where Eugene is concerned in a just minute. But we already know the New Mexico symbolism is tied up with Daryl and Carol leaving, which will be at the end of S11/beginning of the spinoff. And obviously, New Mexico is a western state, and very far west of where they are right now in D.C.

So, in my mind, New Mexico = West = Beth.

Having it alluded to in the background while Tara talks to Eugene just entangles him in the western/New Mexico symbolism even more.

Let’s talk Texas. Specifically, Dallas.

In s10e6 Bond, Eugene has his first radio contact with Stephanie.

Stephanie: “Where are you from?”

Eugene: “Long star child at heart. I was born in the shadow of Big D. That's a well-worn nickname for Dallas, Texas.” A star reference along with a Texas one.

And if you remember, back in 5x05, we see a flashback of Abraham and Eugene’s first meeting. It doesn’t show that it happened specifically in Dallas, but it definitely happened in Texas.

However, we do know that a different meeting happened in Dallas. In 5x09, Crossed (yes the episode RIGHT before Beth was shot) Rosita tells Glenn and Tara that she met Abraham in Dallas.

She says, “We crossed paths in Dallas. Me and my group were fighting off some dead ones and he [Abraham] jumped in and out of nowhere with that big truck, rest in peace. He had Eugene in the cab and afterwards he told me he was trying to save the world and that he saw what I could do, and he wanted my help.”

There are SO many ways I could go with this. But the point is, the Dallas symbolism is everywhere around Eugene and I think this purports some kind of major meetup in Dallas.

In 5x11, The Distance, we saw a Dallas license plate. It wasn’t specifically around Eugene (he was there, but so was the rest of TF) but there was a white water tower involved, along with a “route 23″ which we also see on the highway sign above Tara. (To read more of my thoughts on the route 23 symbols, read THIS.)

There was also a Dallas reference in s6e4, Here's Not Here.

Morgan and Eastman sit at a table full of Beth symbolism having a conversation.

Eastman: “I was evaluating a man named Crighton Dallas Wilton. With a name like that sounds like he should own an oil company. A big hat, Crighton Dallas Wilton.” Anyone who ever watched the old program Dallas would immediately think of JR Ewing who was an oil tycoon that wore a big hat. Famously, they did a cliffhanger (Who shot J.R!?!) and no one knew whether he would live or die. (He lived; just saying.)

But think about this. Once again we have the symbolism (Dallas = west, west = Beth) entangled with both Eugene (bc Dallas) and also Morgan.

In the current timeline of Fear, Morgan and his group are actually IN TEXAS, and the group they’re currently entangled with (the current baddies on the show) are based out of Dallas.

So what does all of this mean? I’m going to give you a foreshadowing post tomorrow (or Thursday; *knock on wood*) about where we think this is going and what all these symbols are pointing to. For now, just notice how often they show up together. And how prevalent they’ve been in past seasons, even if we weren’t consciously noticing them.

Dog Symbolism

I’m REALLY not going to go in all these references, either, but Eugene has a fair number of both Serious/Sirius references and just general dog references. I found two, but i know there are at least a dozen over the years.

5x11: The Distance.

Tara: Are you serious?

Eugene: Serious as two copulating dogs.

(Yes, Eugene is talking about dog sex.)

More recently, 10x03:

Michonne: How long until the next wave [of walkers] gets here?

He tells her, then says, “Northern wave’s thicker than fleas on a farm dog.”

You get the idea.

So, once again, this is all just to show how deeply Eugene is entangled with Beth’s symbolism. And of course we have to throw Morgan in there as well.

So, is this the end of the Beth/Eguene entanglement?

Mmmm...nope. I got more. Stay tuned. 😉

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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latinalesbi · 6 years ago

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when you look at the pictures from Turks and now watch the episode Teri and Stef seem sad?!!

Oh yeah, that was what I was saying to people. Like, Stef just seems off in this entire thing. I know that part of it is that she’s “changed” which so far seems to mean that she’s a meek former butch who shuts her mouth, instead of speaking. The other part is this sadness that Teri has probably about the personal betrayal and the end of her work with Sherri as her wife. It’s palpable.

Anonymous said: Whatever the outcome of the finale just sad they felt the need to put Brallie front and center. They could’ve used that as a hook for their new show to garner viewers. Still holding out a glimmer of hope tomorrow’s episode will do ALL the cast notably Stef and Lena justice and a satisfying ending though I’m really not sure that’s going to happen. 😢

I am going to tell you what is going to happen. Lots of flashbacks. Lots of Brallie flashbacks, surely. But in terms of Stef and Lena, all the scenes at the resort, we have seen in one way or another. Run to the beach, take off clothes, cut. Return to scene later, get caught by in-laws, run back hiding. So sad. Conversation about kids and future later. The wedding or whatever and reception. Back at home, they agree to sell the house, they go to the backyard, reminisce about Frankie, and then all the events that they’ve had in their backyard, including their 2 weddings and even Callie’s birthday. Then a scene outside the house. End of show.

Anonymous said: Why does the fosters insist on bringing brallie back I honestly couldn’t care less. Eliza seems good just her parents are… ugh. And the lack of Stef and Lena screentime in these last few eps? I wish the finale was based more on family but hey just my opinion

I think that’s why this sucks. If he loves her, then marry her, stop looking for excuses not to. It’s either cold feet or he doesn’t love her. Oh I can’t even talk about the lack of air time for them. It’s really the final insult. I am done. The ones with the least time should be calliana.

Anonymous said: My frustration with Brallie is people’s explanations as to why it’s okay. ‘Oh but they didn’t grow up together’ that is such a slap in the face for people who have been adopted later in life, essentially they don’t really count in families. I get people love the idea of the two of them being together but honestly just think about real situations and if it did happen what this show would be projecting. The show was based around 2 lesbian moms bringing up a blended family, thats its true legacy.

Oh yeah, trust me, if I am lucky I will have adopted my girls by year’s end. I don’t want anyone in my family messing with them. If my wife’s nephew hit on one of my girls, I would disown them. This new article, they really miss the point, the show’s legacy is the two moms. They hate admitting it though. Do you know how many people will remember the shit they talk about? No one. Jude and Connor are about it.

Anonymous said: Teri and Sherri in the spinoff? Really? I guess now would be the time for contracts etc. Surely the producers would let us know. It may take some of the heat off them. Personally I hope the two of them would tell them to stick it as I don’t want either of them to aid those that essentially dumped them but that’s just me being a tad bitter 😜

Joanna is pulling shit out of her ass. I don’t think they’ve agreed to anything. They just want to be able to tell you, oh we tried. It just wasn’t possible. We really waned them though. There’s no reason for them to come back. I hope they don’t but I don’t blame them if they do, especially if they want to work together.

Anonymous said: The Fosters was unique for me in that it transcended demographics, the audience was so wide it was a beautiful thing. Steadily it has been dumbed down to being another teen drama. The social impact side had merits but disjointed the family so much it became a detriment for me. The last 3 eps should’ve been a beautiful send off instead they are baiting fans, rehashing old stories for shock value. The beauty of The Fosters early seasons was its simplicity; family came first, not anymore sadly.

Yeah the last episodes should have been a gift. Instead, it’s a slap. The family is the last thing they care about.

Anonymous said: I don’t think Stef and Lena will get to adopt Corey. Which is dumb like why bring him in at the last second just have him ripped away from them? I hate the writers of this show more than I’ve hated any writers ever.

Yeah, I don’t think so either. A lot of things in that story are hitting close to home to me. I wish they had covered more of that in terms of the foster care system and the frustrations on both sides. I don’t know what the point is, but everything with stef and lena has been half assed for a long time.

Anonymous said: It’s really sad that we might have to ignore the canon of these last 3 episodes. They could have done a really good job wrapping this show up but they stopped caring about Stef and Lena a long time ago, had to bring back the grossest ship ever, and make sure everyone knows that Callie and Mariana have a new show coming. It’s all disgusting and horrible and I will never forgive the writers for they’ve done to this show.

Yeah, I am prepared to ignore most of it. I like corey so I could see myself writing some of that particularly because I know how emotionally hard it is to go through a contested foster/adoption situation. Luckily in my situation, mom never worked her plan. Using Brallie to pimp the side show, not shocking. They will use anything. All they care about is how many people post in the hash tags. They have no concern about the content.

Anonymous said: the episode last night was a joke right?

It was a nightmare. I wish not to repeat it.

Anonymous said: Having withdrawal symptoms at the lack of Sherri tweeting, lol. Hope she’s on it tomo.

You’ll get your wish, she’s tweeting tonight. I know she’s doing it for the fans, not to promote.

Anonymous said: �� I hope Teri won‘t attend the viewing party tomorrow either. I actually hoped that Sherri & Teri would at least watch together but since Sherri is on vacation it won‘t happen :( but I hope Sherri will post some photos/videos on IG or twitter of her and Teri

I hope Sherri is still in Mexico.

#the fosters #Anonymous

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Q’s Return on Star Trek: Picard Season 2 will Follow “Significant Trauma”

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Star Trek: Picard is poised to bring back the disingenuously deferential greeting of “Bonjour, mon capitaine!” soon enough, with John de Lancie’s mischievous omnipotent entity, Q, now confirmed for a return on the show’s upcoming second season. It’s an intriguingly exciting development for the Star Trek: The Next Generation spinoff series, which has notably taken the titular former captain down a most curious existential path. Yet, according to star Patrick Stewart, Picard will be in the midst of devastating circumstances by the time Q materializes back into his life.

Paramount+’s teaser trailer for Star Trek: Picard Season 2 is chockfull of evocative Easter eggs, but it closes strong with the tightening shot of a playing card, a Queen of Hearts, that disintegrates until it is left with only a single red “Q,” followed by a familiar voice that ominously states, “The trial never ends.” The line comes from The Next Generation‘s final episode, “All Good Things,” in which Q—as he’d done seven years earlier in the pilot—put humanity (represented by Picard,) on trial for its barbaric ways. Yet, Q’s “trials” tend not to be centered on jurisprudence, and are instead metaphysical tests for Picard to gauge if he (and, by proxy, humanity,) is capable of thinking about the universe in ways that exceeds said barbaric history. Pertinently, in an official Paramount interview (seen far below) with Wesley Crusher actor Wil Wheaton, Stewart (joined virtually by de Lancie,) risks the studio’s wrath by teasing the context of Q’s return on Picard.

“Q’s arrival is, as it often was, utterly unexpected,” explains Stewart. “But [it] also comes at a shattering moment in the episode. And I do mean a shattering moment. Whether it’s directly connected to Q or not, I am still actually not quite sure. But there is significant trauma. And, in fact, at the moment, I am working on how the trauma of this moment hangs around Picard for quite a substantial part of the episode and then [claps his hands] there he is.”

Stewart’s emphasis on the “shattering” nature of what occurs in Picard’s life before Q’s arrival invites speculation about whether he’s being literal, figurative or even both. Picard’s first season certainly wrought impactful changes to the retired captain’s life, involving him in an uprising of synthetic life forms, the exploits of collective-disconnected Borg, the politics of post-planetary-destruction Romulans and even saw the apparent death of Data’s residual essence. Most notably, it actually saw Picard himself die from his neurological condition, only to have his consciousness transferred into a “Golem” android body (designed to emulate all his elderly human frailties). Indeed, WandaVision viewers still playing with the Ship of Theseus thought exercise can also have a philosophical field day with this one. Therefore, with such a consequential array of events having played out in the first season, it leaves fans to wonder what could possibly happen in Picard’s life to warrant potent concepts like “shattering moment” and “significant trauma.”

Star Trek Picard Season 2 Teaser Trailer: All the Easter Eggs & References

By Ryan Britt

Star Trek: Discovery Season 4 Teaser Trailer: All the Easter Eggs & References

By Ryan Britt

Interestingly, Picard’s status as an android expediently plays into a theme frequently explored on The Next Generation regarding his artificial heart, which was the result of an Academy-era incident during which he was impaled through the heart by a trouble-making Nausicaan ne’er-do-well. The stabbing and subsequent installation of the robotic heart was seen as Picard’s transition from freewheeling playboy cadet to the austere officer we know; a dilution of his humanity exacerbated by his brief assimilation by the Borg as “Locutus.” It’s an aspect that wasn’t lost on Q, who famously put Picard through a flashback ordeal centered on that very moment in the iconic Season 6 episode, “Tapestry.” When Q allowed the stodgy Picard to undo the array of risks he dismissed as youthful mistakes, it took Picard to a version of the present in which he was an aged, unexceptional junior science officer with no command prospects. Once Q allowed him to undo that bleak result, Picard realized that the ordeal was designed to teach a lesson that the man he became is the culmination of his so-called mistakes more than his accomplishments—that our true selves are a gestalt creation (the metaphorical tapestry) of events that we often chose not to face.

“I have changed my visage,” de Lancie mirthfully muses of Q’s current state. “I’ve aged a little bit so as to be more in keeping of where we are right now.” Of course, de Lancie debuted his series-hopping character in Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s 1987 two-part pilot, “Encounter at Farpoint,” and was last seen onscreen in 2001 Star Trek: Voyager episode “Q2.” However, he notably voiced the role of Q in a 2020 episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, titled “Veritas.”

While we’re obviously not privy to the profound events in Picard’s life that precede the long-awaited return of Q on Picard Season 2, Stewart’s teased story elements seem to evoke a version of the judgmental jester as depicted in “Tapestry,” in which he forgoes his antagonistic role to become a dealer of tough love to Picard’s occasional moments of haughty hubris. Additionally, in returning to the theme of Picard’s incrementally diminished humanity, Q’s apparently-timely return could also facilitate a reckoning of sorts with his current artificial state, especially since the former captain’s growing backlog of regrets—his self-perceived complicity in the supernova destruction of Romulus, the android ban and corruption in some of Starfleet’s big brass—might mean that a “Tapestry” type lesson (one possibly rife with Mandalorian/Luke-like digitally-de-aged flashbacks,) is long overdue. Moreover, Trekkies who didn’t quite like the android Picard angle, might have their best hope for his human restoration via some Deus-ex-Q hand-waving.

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Star Trek: Picard Season 2 doesn’t have a specific release date set, but it is expected to premiere on Paramount+ sometime in 2022.

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