#i honestly just meant to find a cartoon screenshot but those first two came up and i was like... wow

[superbatson]

@biweatherman i found these 😂

[regentcorpse]

Added after I wrote this, I know my grammar is a mess in this. This post is 2223 words, longer than most high school essays which averaged 1500 words. If you don’t want to read all of this it has been separated into paragraphs and most of the conversation points are in the last three paragraphs. This sentence was added in after word count, the original post was on Facebook which is why the link in this does point to my own blog: My sentence structures are not correct, and this is Facebook and I don’t give a crap about that here. I did try to do my best to make it somewhat understandable with several ideas and conversations all in this. Also I didn’t originally separate it into paragraphs. If a sentence seems out of place at the start or end of a paragraph, my bad. But please read, comment opinions, not angry but constructive to build a conversation. I also don’t know how but this became more like an info blog post, but valid points and openings for conversations are made.

These newish Apple features like the Memoji, like it’s aight but still lacking in so many hair styles and facial depth, forehead, chins, and noses. Hopefully the will add a lot more features to be able to make it more like you, in a cartoon version. I’m about to check out the full bitmoji app to see what all they have, but I feel like apple should of used bitmoji, and since Apple has a version, I know android does. How is their version in your experience? (Please reply even if you don’t know me, I want to have decent conversations with people, but I hardly have anyone to talk to about random stuff like this.) Also the fact that Apple has Memoji in their database of words and not Bitmoji, is extremely weird, and pointless not to have it.

I don’t know how I feel overall about Apples decisions on these updates. They seem to be trying to almost build a legit social media around their platforms, I wouldn’t be surprised if they make something like Google+, which will most likely fail all together as a product, not because it will be awful but because we already have the social media giants that control most people’s lives, work, and reputation.

Facebook is for memes mostly and socializing with like minded people with their pages and groups. Not to mention that so many people use their marketplace now as well, which did shock me that it took of with other apps offering the same thing before Facebook did. To those who didn’t know, yes, Facebook stole that idea from OfferUp and LetGo(I think there was another around before the marketplace.)

You have Snapchat, the goofy fun social media where you can have personalized stories, private or public, and I may be wrong but they are also the ones that introduced the idea(maybe didn’t originally have the idea, but did introduce it, I think. Let me know if I am wrong please, I would like to know.) Next, the thing that made Snapchat big originally was the disappearing pictures after 10 seconds, which you couldn’t edit when the app first came out, the initial release didn’t even have filters or all the extra stuff they have now, it was so basic and simple and blew up. Another thing that made Snapchat big in the same way, disappearing photos meant disappearing nudes for both male and female, only that at first they could be screenshots, that didn’t notify you. In a future version, they disabled screenshoting photos from the default system buttons, but of course people found ways and made apps to get around it. Snapchat then started to block accounts for using those apps, then came the solution of notifying users of screenshots and then recordings when Apple released that feature. I know Snapchat probably wasn’t the first to make the goofy photo filters, but they did make it so much easier and almost more advanced with their simple facial mapping(yes it is simple since it’s meant to work with phones without facial recognition and all the other fancy face features.). Now Snapchat is a place to socialize in groups, or privately with friends through photos, messages, and video. Another big use now is the porn industry, where I think it’s safe to say only females succeed at making a lot of money with. It also seems to avoid spam bots and stuff. I’ve never received anything from a fake user or bot, besides their built in Snapchat bot, so that is honestly impressive and I applaud them for trying to keep it safe and friendly, except for the usual douchebag guys that send dick picks and stalk girls no matter their age. Danger lurks at all corners of the internet, and making friends is easier now, and just an add and a message away sometimes. But be careful who you add and honestly block anyone who harasses you or sends you unwanted images. And report them, help improve internet society and safety. This goes for all social media platforms.

Instagram is built solely around the personal sharing of photos to a feed and nothing else really. I know everyone was shocked that it became as big as it did, considering you can do the same thing in Facebook, and easily share other peoples photos to your friends. Although it is just photos, the people on there that are successful, actually do influence people and promote sponsors and their products. Some use it to get money, for their more explicit content. It followed Snapchat in adding stories, then filters, and has been successful in its endeavors. You can find everything legal on their as well as some illegal content such as drug use. As mentioned above, yes bots and fake accounts exist, be weary in who you talk to and exchange messages and photos with on here as well.

Twitter has been around for a long time and honestly, I see it being the first to die, due to overall lack of community and now with all the user interface updates and whatnot, it can be difficult to understand how the social environment of it works. Basically you get I think 140 characters to insert into the status prompt or whatever you/they want to call it. I personally don’t use it much, I get on there to see any updates from game companies and some of my favorite authors and music artists. I do this maybe once a week or two. I honestly don’t understand the point in twitter nor how getting followers and conversations started on there, if you have any suggestions for me please let me know if you are still somehow reading this.

Tumblr, ye olde blogging platform, one of the best until the pornography bam that yahoo added once their app was removed from the Apple store after I think being reported for child pornography. A lot of people lost their blogs and thousands of followers and countless hours of work. Many others had a lot of their content censored by a community guidelines photo or by being completely removed. So yes we can all agree that it’s a good thing they are trying to do what they can to combat child pornography of Tumblr, but a lot of people saw this as a complete change of environment for tumblr, whether being used for art, music, porn, pizza, cats etc.. Another big complaint that caused this change is how easy it was to lie about your age and turn off the content filter that got rid of the majority of inappropriate content. It was literally just a search option, then they tried moving it to your phone settings to the app setting in there to turn it off, which was still too easy. I can say you will still see pornographic content on Tumblr, mostly by accident, but there are people still posting getting around their image search algorithms. Past that to summarize, it’s basically a bigger version of Twitter, allowing for blog posts of most media types now, they have a reblog button to repost on your own page(these also get their own sub domains where it follows such as mine regentcorpse.tumblr.com. This is not for promotion, just an easy example(it’s a new blog with only like one blog post, but yes is my personal blog.) You can use your own domain if you own the address and route it to tumblrs name-servers, which most domain hosts have guides available to help you understand the process and set it up. They follow Wordpress in allowing themes which are only visible in a web browser and not the Tumblr mobile app, but on mobile you can edit the color scheme and fonts to what they have stock. To be like twitter with the features of Wordpress except custom plugins, it is a phenomenal platform still where you can truly be yourself and no one actually has to know who you are, you just post the content you love, the content you create(except for the porn content that a lot of people now went to Snapchat and Twitter for, and probably some private instagrams). You can find almost everything you heart desires within lawful reasons, I mean honestly you could probably find someone to buy illegal stuff from like guns, drugs, etc but I’ve never looked for that type of stuff on there. I love cyberpunk culture and there are so much content around it on tumblr. It also has pretty decent privacy setting for a blog, which can be password locked I believe and you can set permissions for it to be only people you follow or follow you, or no one or everyone can message you, ask questions(which can be anonymous), and submit content to your blog(also can be anonymous). The tumblr community can be toxic but also so helpful and beautiful seeing some of the ways people come together on there. It can range from legit bugs to books and quotes to programming and even professional use.

There is also LinkedIn, which is a very professional platform where you can add your professional resume and skills and may get recruited to jobs. I remember something like this tried to launch on Facebook but I do believe it failed out, as I haven’t seen anything about it or a link since they probably removed it.

So this leads me to ask What would an Apple Social Media Platform consist of? How would they try to outdo the others, and how would they make it appealing enough for people to use/switch to. Yes Apple is a big name, but so was google which failed at social media. They had good ideas but went about it completely wrong.

I feel like Apple would attempt to make a platform around creativity and art of all types. I feel like it would be a platform that would combine GarageBand, IMessages, Memoji, and all their other great apps into one. If they added collaboration on projects a lot easier in that aspect, and didn’t force themselves into everyone(Yes, Google that’s a shot at you.), they could make a truly great platform where we could see great things made by groups, communities, artists, and I could see them adding some sort of collaboration for web developers and programmers, which I would like to see knowing that Facebook, the corporation not social network, owns Oculus, and they already have a lot of resources for developers. Do you think Apple might be working on a social media platform, or do you think they will just keep adding out of place features? Do you think they would succeed in it or absolutely fail? Do you think Apple would stand a chance against the other giants that have been around and built up their user base? Also another issue is how exclusive Apple is with everything, just the fact you can log into Apple TV and watch it on a Windows Pc is a miracle. Do you think Apple will make it exclusive or would they put in the effort of being their media platform to everyone no matter their device? Remember everyone had a MySpace, now you never even hear about it, Facebook was a surprising switch with it having limited functionality and basically no customization options for your profile like MySpace and some other media’s had.

I want to hear your thoughts, opinions, and speculations about this, let’s start an open and friendly conversation, no hate or trolls, I don’t want all of that and your comments will be deleted and I may even block you from seeing posts like this on your feed and my page. This is at an end because my thumbs are tired and my phones dying and Facebook is lagging from how much I just put on here, but seriously comment, let me know what’s running in your mind, even what you would like to see change in social media in general or even in specific ones. I hope you all do open a nice and positive and informative conversation, I want to see that on Facebook more and I want to make friends I can talk about this type of stuff with in depth or even as broad as mostly common knowledge.

[justmenoworries]

Ho boy, that sure was....something. Look, I’ll be honest: Chapter 5 of Bendy and the Ink Machine kinda disappointed me. There were just...so many loose ends and things that flat-out didn’t make any sense?

Also, I know it’s been literal months since the release, but I really needed to get this off my chest.

(Just a heads-up: since I don’t own chapter 5 myself yet, I’m using screenshots from Jacksepticeye’s playthrough of it. You can watch the original video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5KnheYXreE)

1. Allison and Tom, a.k.a. “Can I have Wally!Boris back, please?”

Chapter 4 left us on a major cliffhanger with it’s final shot of another Alice (who’s name, dataminers found out, was Allison) and another Boris with a metal arm rescuing Henry from Susie!Alice. Seeing that there were good versions of the cartoon characters, like many theorists suspected, definitely hyped us up for more.

And then the Chapter 5 - trailer came up and solidified that hype by showing Henry seemingly fighting side by side with Allison!Alice. It very much looked like we were getting not one, but two new companions. The short scene  of Allison fighting the Lost Ones also followed a brief interaction between Allison and Henry that got fans to bring out the tinfoil-hats:

Allison: “Henry....why are you here?” Henry: “The Ink Demon has something we need. I’m going after him.

It sounded like we were in for an adventure of epic proportions in Chapter 5 with two new allies having our back. Definitely a welcome mix-up of the previous rather lonely chapters. What we got, however was....not that..

Chapter 5 begins with Henry being held prisoner by Allison and Tom. Since before the original release there were a bunch of tape-videos on the Meatley’s youtube-channel that implied as much, with Henry referring to Allison and Tom as his captors. So this wasn’t really a surprise. What was, however, was Allison’s and Tom’s actual roles in the overall story. Which is to say: Almost none.  Allison and Tom leave Henry to be killed by an approaching Ink Demon, only to miraculously show up out of nowhere at the end of the Sammy Mini-boss fight and the start of the Searcher/Lost Ones battle. These battles are another can of worms in and of themselves, but I’ll talk about each of them later.

Apart from the battle against the Ink Creatures and one minor obstacle later on, Allison and Tom have no real purpose in this chapter. Allison merely serves as an exposition dump for things a lot of fans had figured out already (Sammy being in charge of the Lost Ones, Ink creatures who die going back to the puddles, the writing on the walls coming from the Searchers) and Tom....Tom was kind of the worst.

For reasons that are neither implied nor explained later Tom greatly distrusts Henry at the start of the chapter. He threatens him physically whenever they so much as see each other,

denies him food behind Allison’s back

and even goes so far as to convince Allison to leave Henry to die.

This is sort of addressed by Allison’s small speech at the start in which she explains that down in the studio, strangers aren’t really “good things” and that Tom thinks that Henry is “dangerous”.

Henry: “Are you gunna let me out of here?” Allison: “Down here, strangers aren’t good things. How can we trust you?”

Henry: “Alice... please let me out of here.” Allison: “Tom thinks you’re dangerous.”

However upon further scrutiny that argument really doesn’t hold any water. When Allison and Tom first meet Henry, he has just narrowly escaped being murdered by Susie!Alice. He also makes no move to attack them or even defend himself. So what reason would they (or rather: Tom) have to think that he was dangerous? Henry isn’t an Ink creature and is obviously lucid. And furthermore, if they really distrust him that much, why save him from Susie!Alice in the first place? Why not just let her kill him and go on their way? They clearly don’t even care for him enough to at least give him a chance to escape his prison before they save their own sorry butts.

Yet for whatever reason their opinion of him does a sudden 180° right after the Sammy-fight. Tom is now somehow convinced that Henry won’t hurt them, enough to save him from Sammy

and hand him a weapon,

and Allison seems to have completely forgotten that she and Tom literally left this man for dead mere hours ago. She approaches him so nonchalantly, it’s honestly kind of insulting.

Say what you want about Wally!Boris, but even though he may have been a bit of a coward, he at least still stayed behind to help an injured Henry when the elevator collapsed - at the cost of his own life, might I add. And his presence in the story was of great importance. Thanks to him we found out a lot about how the Ink Machine works and the puddles and Ink-creatures themselves.

So companion-wise, Allison and Tom really were a bit of a downgrade.

And story-wise?

Like I said, Allison and Tom don’t actually add much to the overall story of Bendy and the Ink Machine beyond exposition. Their personalities are rather stale compared to the other characters we have met along the way. Which really is a pity, since the trailer hyped them up so much.

2. Sammy’s return a.k.a “What, that’s it?”

Sammy Lawrence has become a real fan-favorite since his debut in Chapter 2. A fact theMeatley was clearly aware of. Sammy, much like Allison and Tom, was hyped up a lot prior to chapter 5. There was whole special event involving him at the Hot Topic’s Twitter, where he answered questions while simultaneously leaving cryptic hints and implications about what was really going on. Chapter 3 had an easter-egg where you could hear his voice by playing a couple of instruments in just the right order. Due to all the fuzz made around the character, a lot of people had speculated that he might come back in a later chapter.

They would be proven right, but...well...

When Sammy did show up again he was....different. For once he had clearly undergone a voice actor-change and moved up a few nudges on the crazy scale, screeching about how the Ink Demon betrayed and abandoned him, even though he “gave him everything”.

And after a brief scuffle with Henry he just...dies again.

After all the foreshadowing, all the wink-wink-nudge-nudge done by the creators this was a really disappointing way to make Sammy come back. Much like our new “companions” Sammy doesn’t really contribute anything to the story. Not even additional lore. He shows up quite literally out of nowhere and into nowhere he also seems to vanish again. Neither Henry nor Allison refer to him or at least mention him after the fight. With as big of a role as he played in Chapter 2, you’d think Henry would make a bit more of a fuzz about the guy coming back. But he just...stays silent during the whole fight, saying nothing about Sammy’s miraculous revival or even trying to deny the accusations Sammy throws at him throughout the battle. The battle itself is incredibly confusing from a story standpoint. Sammy attacking Henry while simultaneously declaring his hatred of the Ink Demon who abandoned him comes off as more than a bit nonsensical.

If Sammy’s rage is directed at Inky!Bendy, why would he want to hurt Henry?

Does he think Henry is Bendy?

Why?

He didn’t seem to have any trouble recognizing Henry as an outsider the first time they met.

It’s even implied he remembers him to a certain extent.

Sammy: “Wait! You look familiar to me. That face...”

Perhaps the most frustrating part about this encounter, is a line of Allison’s that comes right before the group is attacked by the citizens of the Lost One’s village:

Allison: “The searchers and the Lost Ones built this place. Sammy must have been keeping them at bay. Now that he’s gone-”

This is genuinely interesting.

Not only does this confirm that Sammy was, indeed, the leader of the Lost Ones, but that their passive behavior was due to him. For whatever reason the Lost Ones and the Searchers trusted and obeyed him enough to follow his orders and under his guidance apparently even managed to built a small, safe haven for themselves.

Now that Henry and Tom killed off the person who was most likely the only slight glimmer of hope they had, they’re understandingly pretty pissed.

But just like so many other interesting plot points throughout the game, this idea just gets pushed aside.

After the team leaves the village, they never encounter either the Lost Ones or the Searchers ever again.

How much more engaging would it have been if we had actually delved into this a bit?

If we’d actually learned more about who Sammy was, how he came to be what he is by the time we find him first in chapter 2 and how and why the Lost Ones and the Searchers trusted him so much?

If we’d gotten a bit of backstory on the village and maybe the Lost Ones opinion of Sammy and what he did for them?

But alas, it was not meant to be.

Speaking of which...

3. The Lost Ones and the Searchers a.k.a ” We’ve had an axe-fight in every chapter so far and by Golly, we will have one in this chapter too!”

Yeaaah, I did not care for the battle against those guys...

I mean, the fact that Henry would end up fighting them (together with Allison) was already set in stone since the trailer showed a brief glimpse of the battle.

But the way in which it was executed....

A lot of theorists speculated that the reason the Lost Ones would attack would be because of either:

 Allison being another Alice Angel. Chapter four had already established that the Lost Ones feared and probably even despised Susie!Alice and for good reason. Susie!Alice was a homicidal maniac obsessed with beauty who had canonically murdered other Ink creatures in order to repair herself. Why wouldn’t the Lost Ones try to stay as far away from her as possible? And why wouldn’t they assume that this new Alice wouldn’t be any better in terms of personality?

The Lost Ones being part of the Bendy-cult. Also a pretty reasonable explanation, since their lair Henry finds in chapter four has the words “He will set us free” scrawled on the walls. The very same mantra Sammy Lawrence, the self proclaimed prophet of Bendy used quite frequently. As such, they’d obviously try and gain the attention of the creature they believed would save them by taking care of its enemies.

But the real reason was....a lot more tragic and disappointing.

Remember this line?

Allison: “Sammy must have been keeping them at bay. Now that he’s gone-”

This line being said right before you murder a bunch of Lost Ones and Searchers carries two incredibly problematic implications.

The first one being that Allison and Tom knew (or suspected anyway) that Sammy was the reason the Lost Ones weren’t hostile at first, yet Tom proceeded to kill him anyway instead of just knocking him out or holding him hostage.

Why would he do that if he knew him, Allison and Henry would be attacked the second Sammy dies? Is Tom just so bloodthirsty and violent that he doesn’t care about even Allison’s safety? Though considering what we’ve seen of him so far, that wouldn’t really be a surprise.

And secondly, that the Lost Ones are (or were) violent beasts that need Sammy to keep them in check and whom it’s totally okay to mercilessly slaughter. That’s... quite a bit of a contradiction to previous plot points and implications.

Let’s start with the Searchers, or rather one Searcher: Jack Fain. Jack Fain is the only non-aggressive Searcher you ever come across in the entire game. The most he ever does is steal a piece of machinery that Henry needs. And even that’s not out of malicious intent, but rather a childish way to get Henry’s attention. The way you deal with Jack is rather brutal: Since he’s too fast for Henry to catch, you lure him underneath a large crate and then crush him with it. Even Henry doesn’t feel comfortable doing this.

Henry: “Sorry I had to do that. Nice hat though.”

The tragic implication here, is that Searchers don’t necessarily have to be violent monsters. They can be self-aware enough to keep parts of their old personality. Jack only steals the gear because he wants Henry to sing with him. Why? Because Jack used to be a lyricist and singing was a thing he really loved. The most important part to remember here is that Jack did all of this himself. By the time you go after him, Sammy is nowhere in sight. And even if he was nearby, it’s highly unlikely he would order Jack to involve Henry in a pointless game of tag, since Henry is supposed to be a sacrifice to the Ink Demon. Then there’s the matter of the Lost Ones. It’s never really explained in-universe what they are and why they’re so different from the Searchers in that they have somewhat stable bodies, can talk and hide together instead of drifting aimlessly through the ink. However the game heavily implies that the Lost Ones are former workers who had the misfortune of being swept up in Joey Drew’s machinations and ending up as abominations as a result. Or put simply: they were bystanders who got transformed into monsters through no fault of their own.

When Henry encounters them in Chapter 4 they don’t....really do anything. They just stand and sit around in their hide-out, whimper and let him pass.

But come Chapter 5 they seem to have undergone a personality-change and are now just as violent as the more monstrous Searchers, even though the existence of the town and the haven clearly implies some form of intelligence beyond instinct.

The most plausible explanation for that would be rage and a desire for revenge due to Sammy’s murder but if they really cared so much for him, why didn’t they help him in his fight with Henry? Did he tell them not to? If so, why? Were they simply too scared to intervene? But they don’t seem to have any problems with fighting Allison, Tom!Boris and Henry. Wouldn’t it have made more sense if they’d ganged up on Henry when he was alone, but gotten more hesitant when Allison and Tom arrived to help him?

The point I’m trying to make is, the fight against the Searchers and the Lost Ones is incredibly out of sync with what we’ve been shown about them so far and opens up a ton of plot-holes and unfortunate implications and I really wish theMeatley had integrated it better.

4. The Ending a. k. a. “Ummm, what???”

Look, I get it: Ending a horror-game on an ambiguous, slightly ominous note is basically tradition by this point.

But come on!

Absolutely nothing about the ending in BatIm makes any sense whatsoever and it reeks of putting in a Gainax ending just for the sake of it. Apparently the whole adventure was a dream/hallucination/metaphor about how things slowly but surely went downhill in Joey Drew Studios after Henry left, but also not really, because the final scene before the credits is Henry re-entering the studio through a side door in Joey’s kitchen, seemingly having no memory of what happened before that point.

This ending was unsatisfying as hell (pun not intended).

It left the majority of the games’ mysteries unsolved, lazily slapped a Dorothy angle on the whole thing and then ended by implying the cliché of clichés: time travel. The face reveal with Joey also comes right out of nowhere. Joey is just...there.He goes on a bit about how Henry was always the one who kept him from doing stupid shit (like sacrificing people) and running the company into the ground, laments how unkind time has been to him and ends his tangent with an enigmatic remark about how Henry “should have pushed a little harder” and that he should “visit the old workshop”. Cue the above described time-travel implication.

And then there’s an after-credit scene where we learn that

1. Henrys’ last name is ‘Stein’ (haha, get it?)

2. Additionally to being a dream/hallucination/metaphor BatIm’s plot is also apparently a bedtime story that Joey’s telling a little girl who calls him “Uncle Joey”

3. There is a second Ink Machine in Joey’s real-life home for....whatever reason.

This all kinda looks like pure sequel hook. Which is incredibly fishy and disappointing.

Overall, I loved Bendy and the Ink Machine as a game. The story was engaging (at least in chapters 1-4) and the characters apart from maybe a few were entertaining.

But chapter 5 just...doesn’t sit well with me.

[dcarevu]

DCAU #17: The Cat and the Claw (Part 2)

“Oh, I've been going to the Paris Grand Prix for years... You know, one of these days I think I'll enter it.”

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. So how much did Part 2 of our first Catwoman story satisfy? Does it get a bowl of cream, or a spritz of water?

Episode: 16 Robin: No Writers: Sean Catherine Derek (story), Laren Bright (story), Jules Dennis (teleplay), Richard Mueller (teleplay) Director: Dick Sebast Animator: Akom Airdate: September 12, 1992 Grade: C

The first part of The Cat and the Claw had me interested, but certainly not blown away. It was a hit-and-miss episode with enough good ideas in it to allow me to enjoy it and wonder where the story was going to lead. I liked that it did give out a sense of substance, but honestly, I don’t think that the substance held steady between the credits of part 1 and the first scene of part 2. Part 2 does continue the story, but sucks out a lot of what made part 1 worth watching, and if I had never even watched part 2, I would not have been missing a damn thing aside from the realization that Catwoman ends up okay and the day is saved. But I think it was safe to assume that anyway, you know what I mean? Part 2 left very little impact on me, positive or negative, and for that reason I’m labeling it a C. Ironically, this is probably the episode with the highest stakes so far, right? With a conclusion that has a pretty epic scale. But it’s just not handled in an epic way. The concept is there, but the execution is lacking. Even if a studio like TMS or Spectrum were the ones to take care of the visuals, it still would have given the same feelings. The team knew what they were doing, giving it to Akom. Yeah, Akom’s work here is pretty bad, and Part 1 is more visually appealing in addition to being simply more entertaining. Even though it didn’t look the best, I could appreciate Sunrise’s unique style. When Sunrise failed, it still made for something that you don’t see everyday. Akom’s work was just plain old underwhelming. This is especially noticeable during the climax with their work on the fire (yeah, fire count, by the way). 

That fire looks like something from a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, guys. I’d expect to see similar on Scooby Doo. You don’t get a sense of the danger or the heat coming off that thing, and so you don’t get a sense of worry as Batman tries to get the hell out of there. Another very Akom scene is the car chase that happens when Bruce and Selena are together, out of costume. It looked laughably lame. That scene could have been so exciting and dynamic! But, at the same time, like I said, I understand why Atom was chosen. Even if the animation got me a little bit more invested, it still would have felt empty because of a lack of why I should be invested. It’s like watching a Transformers movie. Just brainless action. And why waste money on sending this episode to a better studio when a much better episode could be? The only real Akom-caused highlight was the train stuff. That looked pretty cool, likely because even though the train was moving, it still provided a static, stable platform for our characters, so it required less technical stuff to animate. All of the other cool stuff to look at was definitely in the storyboards. I liked the bit where the Bat Plane flew across the moon, kinda emulating that iconic moment in the 1989 film. And my favorite visual moment was when Selena’s secretary put on her glasses, and we see it via a POV shot. But then once things are crystal clear, a second later she walks into the shot, seamlessly transitioning it from POV to third person. 

More things like that could have probably almost created a B-level of enjoyment, admittedly. This part is also campier than part 1, with a lot more cheesiness thrown in, and that is to the episode’s detriment. The idea of Red Claw’s group of terrorists stealing a vial of disease from a military-guarded train is a really cool one, and I’ll take that over another standard police chase any day (until those chases start getting more god damn interesting). But something about watching them ride their little vehicle, leap on top of the train like ninjas, walking around on the train effortlessly, and dismantling it was pretty hard to take seriously. 

(This thug was in the last episode too, and he’s got this constant, static grimace. Makes me chuckle.)

Seeing Batman glide in with the bat-glider for the first time was neat, but then again, we get flown into a corn field. This is some of the cheesiest dialogue/line delivery on the show so far, even dwarfing the stuff from I’ve Got Batman In My Basement. No easy task! It’s like the writers here were aware of the serious tone, and trying, but still could only make a guy dressed like a bat so rational. I especially cringed at Batman’s shock that Red Claw was a woman. Having Catwoman be an admirable, strong character is doing feminism in a cartoon right. But this episode was too on-the-nose about it. Another instance is when Catwoman and Batman are tied up. Catwoman says something about their savior being a “woman’s touch”, and then she claws them out. Outside of the show trying to push a feminist message, why, in universe, would she say that exactly? Batman was not being sexist toward her. Red Claw certainly wasn’t. Red Claw is a woman for crying out loud! And how are her claws particularly feminine, anyway? Are they supposed to represent those stereotypical secretary nails? C’moooooon. Lame, lame, lame. I’m a feminist, and I’m all about cartoons showing that women are every bit as capable as men are. But if this is how they do it, then just don’t even try. And to add insult to injury, after we get Catwoman saving both of them, we end with her getting the shit beaten out of by Red Claw in a fight, merely because she does absolutely nothing to defend herself. Catwoman is an athletic cat-burglar who, in the previous episode, managed to give Batman a challenge. And now she’s just letting Red Claw kick her over and over in a way she easily should’ve seen coming. What a…confusing approach. 

While the superhero stuff was seriously below par, it’s slightly made up for because of how it explores Bruce and Selena’s relationship a little bit more. I liked seeing them on another attempted date, and so did Char! They’re really charming together, and it was incredibly satisfying to see Selena begin to enjoy his company. But as things start to go right for him, things also start to somehow go more wrong, and he discovers that Selena is Catwoman. To me, it’s believable that he wouldn’t have made that assumption right away. First of all, what are the odds. Second of all, a much different environment, mindset, and appearance. Plus, it’s not as though he was seeing Catwoman every single night, right? Most of his interactions of her was as normal human beings dressed in normal human clothes. Bruce mentions that he hasn’t felt a fondness of a woman like this in a very long time (Mask of the Phantasm entered my head for a second), and it feels so genuine. Somehow over these 16 episode and pilot, with a pretty small amount of spoken words for a main character, we’ve gotten to know Bruce…or…Batman…quite well. We can tell when he’s being phony, we can tell when he’s being sincere. This was sincere. And because his Bruce persona is such an exaggeration of his decency, spotting cracks in that just makes you feel something, man, especially when it shows us that hint of affection. This can be compared to Bruce Wayne talking to Harvey Dent about how proud he was that Harvey was seeking psychological help (Two-Face Part 1). These moments show us that Batman still has this warmth to him. It may be like a candle in the wind, fighting to stay alive, but every now and then there is a spritz of gasoline. For a second, Bruce Wayne and Batman are one. But y’know what? This is all well and good, however it makes me wish that the Red Claw stuff was absent. In part 1, it was different. I wanted to know where it was going. But without decent payoff, there is no reason for the terrorist story element at all. This would have been so much stronger if it were a half hour dedicated to building up the relationship of two troubled adults, fighting for what they believe in, succumbing to a certain level of darkness, all while not being able to find common ground. Paul Dini could have done it. Alan Burnett could have done it. Y’know what, Tom Ruegger probably could have done it. But no. We got writers who felt the need to add in that unnecessary, goofy superhero stuff that was not meant to be the focus of Batman the Animated Series when it didn’t need to be. But if there is one major strength of the superhero stuff, it’s the very ending. Because despite what Batman and Catwoman just went through together, saving countless people, Batman still needed to put her in handcuffs (and not in the way he probably wishes he could). 

(Blurry screenshot, apologies...by the way, are bat-handcuffs really necessary, Batman?)

That was paaaaaainful, but the right kind of painful (again, not in the way Batman probably wishes it was). Having Batman state that he didn't want her taken away like a common criminal was a great addition, and I really want to know which writer came up with that line. Whoever did got what makes Batman and Catwoman so interesting. If only they could have gotten a crack at this episode on their own. As some final words, despite me giving this episode a C, I went back and forth between a C or a D many times. I’m still not entirely sure which is my true grade. It depended on what I was writing about. When I was complaining, I was sure that I should make it a D. But as I was talking about some of the more positive elements, I thought maybe a C was more appropriate. Bottom line, I’m not sure. I think a C is the most fair, though, because aside from just being a middle of the road grade, it could also represent me being completely confused on my opinion. Is that understandable?

(Here we clearly see that the section of the train that was bombed is still very much intact)

(Batman was very much on model throughout the episode, particularly in the face)

Fire count: 8 Char’s grade: B

Next time: See No Evil Full episode list here!

[kazziemuse]

Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie - Review!

My History with Hey Arnold!

Hey Arnold! It’s about time! Before I dive into the Jungle Movie itself, a note from history and the person writing this review. At the time of this writing, I am 29 years old. Yes, I am a late 80’s baby! And with that, I grew up in the 90’s…When we didn’t all have cell phones, the internet, online multiplayer gaming, and going outside to explore was daily life. What else was good about the 90’s? The cartoons…and, one specifically? Hey Arnold.

I remember at the time, Hey Arnold was a new thing in 1996. It would air during a two-hour time slot dedicated to after school cartoons called CITV. My Nan would pick me up from school at 3:00pm, and we would be home by 3:30pm, just missing the first cartoon. That was ok though, because beyond all else, my favorite by far was Hey Arnold. I used to sit with my Nan watching, and because Hey Arnold was SUCH a real-life show, it got my curiosity running wild. There was so much in this show that grabbed me, that taught me and that made me feel certain emotions for the first time. I would spend hours thinking about episodes and bugging my nan with questions about what we just saw. It must have driven her crazy.

In the many years that I watched CITV after school, not many cartoons from that time period stood out to me as well, apart from of course…Hey Arnold. And, I have fond memories of watching it with my Nan who, sadly passed away in the year 2000. I was 12 years old.

Hey Arnold “concluded” a few years later. And while I still loved the show, I was starting to move onto other things. Still waiting for TJM which, never came. In those early days of dial up internet, it was hard to find information if you didn’t know what you were doing. And thus, I entered my teenage years with the Hey Arnold book closed…But, for how long?

Fast forward to my early mid-twenties. OMG life, right? Real life? This sucks. Crisis after crisis…Let’s try and dive back into something that gave me some good feelings and thoughts. I know! I will dive back into some cartoons…Lets rewatch some childhood favorites, such as Recess and Hey Arnold.

Re-watching the Hey Arnold series as an adult was like watching a different show entirely. The emotion, the truth about how life can be so cruel, the real world problems these characters faced and most of all, Helga’s undying love for Arnold which of course, I shipped immediately. After finishing the Journal, I was devastated to find out the story of TJM being cancelled. I researched, signed the petitions and with little hope of Hey Arnold ever coming back…I counted my blessings and moved on into other fandoms, which would consume the next 5-6 years in terms of obsessions.

It wasn’t until about two years ago, I stumbled across the news that TJM would happen. And honestly? I was excited but not ecstatic. I had moved on and completely obsessed with other fandoms. More TJM information started to fly around, and I slowly started to become obsessed again. It’s only really in the last year or so, that I have re-watched the whole series, followed the news and subscribed to YouTubers. And with that, I’m hooked again.

Leading up to The Jungle Movie

So, with my history with Hey Arnold covered, was that really important? Yes! Because like many of fans, it’s a story of growing up with this show and how returning to the things you loved can bring back the same happiness. But now it’s time to dive into The Jungle Movie!

Where to begin? Craig gave us so much insight to this movie to get one internally screaming! But, at the same time, he didn’t reveal too much as to give us the whole plot. The balance was truly perfect. We would have the answers that we wanted. Where are his parents, and would Arnold and Helga ever be?

SDCC 2017. The first sneak peek is shown and boy! I remember that afternoon so well. My heart was skipping beats watching. Look at this! Look at the animation, how spot on the voices are, look at how true they are to the original characters. It felt like an absolute dream! No revival can be this good? Can it? The more and more footage and screenshots that got released…The more and more I got obsessed and excited. Honestly, at first I wasn’t too keen on Arnold and Helga’s animation. I felt at times it was too different from the main series, especially Helga. That point aside, we were still getting The Jungle Movie soon! And I’m sure it’s not going to ruin anything for me. Hell, it might even grow on me!

In the leading months and weeks to TJM being aired, it had become my main obsession again. Craig’s weekly to daily Instagram posts became something I kept checking my phone for; the previews got me running from my desk at work to a toilet, so I could watch and fangirl in private. This was amazing! I knew this ship would soon be canon! But also, we would find out the answer to the biggest Hey Arnold Mystery of all time: Arnold’s parents.

By now, I was part of Facebook groups, being as active as possible in YouTubers live streams, meeting other fans at ComicCon, and the best part…Making friends within the Hey Arnold community. I was so ready for The Jungle Movie.

The Jungle Movie

As a 10-year-old watching the show back in season 1, I would’ve had a glass of orange juice. Now, as a 29-year-old watching the premier of The Jungle Movie for the first time, I had a glass of wine in hand. The movie kicked off, and the palpitations in my heart were disturbing my comfort. But I didn’t care, Arnold was back on my screen for the first time in many years.

The first dream sequence was painful and emotional. He finds them, but they keep leaving him? This must be a huge fear for him. The wine is needed and straight away this film is grabbing me, it had my emotions from the first scene. Buckle up girl…It’s going to be a long night! Arnold subsequently wakes up, and the main plot of the film is evident. But, this is a cartoon! Cartoons are meant to be funny! Luckily, Hey Arnold has that balance of comedy and emotion, because here enters Grandpa and Grandma to smooth over that first hill of feels. The boarders haven’t changed apart from a slight change in voice, but nothing that’s upsetting. And a pig eating bacon? No I quite agree, that is not ok haha!

With Arnold meeting Gerald on his stoop with friendship thumb wiggle, accompanied by familiar backing of jazz music, it’s apparent that Hey Arnold has kept that original vibe. And I couldn't be more excited to see what was in store! Like bumping into Helga in the next scene. Classic! Helga’s introduction into the movie was our typical old Helga. Leaving her temporary home at the beeper emporium while arguing with her father Bob.

The Jungle Movie has aged with the current time in terms of technology. The characters are only a year older from the original series. Beepers (or, pagers as they are known here in the UK) are not a ‘thing’ anymore with the ever-growing cell phone industry. A small but clever gag was Phoebe explaining what a beeper actually was to our younger audience watching. On another note, Bob’s company is failing as beepers are now obsolete. You get what you deserve Bob!

We see our main characters bump into each other just like tradition. Helga’s behavior hasn’t changed (thankfully). She is still love struck, but quickly raising her defensive walls (shout out to Francesca Marie Smith for keeping her character so true). But one thing that really struck me about this encounter was Arnold. He was reacting to her differently as he would in the original series. Instead of his normal frustration at Helga scolding him, he just smiles, offers to help her up and laughs to her attempts to push him away. “Whatever you say, Helga” with an almost flirtatious look on his face. Wait WAIT, why is he acting like this? Is this a call back to him knowing her feelings after the confession at FTi? Very interesting!

We move onto what seemed like a classic episode of Hey Arnold. Arnold and Gerald working as a team to win a contest. Helga scheming to help then win in a hope to win his affection, and ultimately them winning leading onto the main plot of the movie. I thought this was an incredibly clever call back. It was like being back in that Hey Arnold magic. It felt so true and pure to the original series.

Arnold Shortman, A 10-year-old signing his passport and confirming a long term mystery of his surname. Which was right under our noses for the last 20 years. So, Mr. Shortman, you promised your Grandpa not to search for your long lost parents. Your grandma is hilariously dressed up as a Jungle explorer. Keeping her wacky antics is nothing but a pleasure to watch. Are you ready to go? What could possibly go wrong?

Olga is coming! What could possibly be worse for Helga? Again, the writing stays true to the original show. Helga living in Olga’s shadow and being neglected by her father in favor of Olga. Sad but true. I feel that the amount of neglect Helga experiences from her dysfunctional family reflects on the way she feels her emotions so strongly. She has a lot of love to give and just wants to be loved in return. She is so used to disappointment and neglect which is why she puts up her defensive walls and bullies people away. She doesn’t want to get hurt. The only thing she can express is anger. I feel that is why it is so difficult for her to show the real love filled Helga. She is expressing herself in the only way she knows possible that will keep her safe. But over time we see her brave enough to let her true self seep through…More on this later!

We see our favorite class of PS 118 saying goodbye to parents and loved ones. A huge call out to Mr. Simmons, who is saying goodbye to his gay partner. We don’t see LGBT awareness much in cartoons. As someone who is part of the LGBT community myself, I felt this was a very warming addition. Thank you Craig and team! On the subject of Mr. Simmons… How hilarious was he with his agenda? From the fictional city of Hillwood, to the fictional country of San Lorenzo, my friends, welcome to the jungle.

Here we are guys, after how many years, speculation and imagination…We are finally here with Arnold and his class in San Lorenzo! But remember to be at the docks at 3:00pm to catch the boat down river. Our captain is Eduardo; anything suspicious about him? Many of us from the get-go were suspicious about “Eduardo.” Now here he is, in front of us ready to pilot this boat, and straight away he is fixated on Arnold. And what the hell did he say about tuna anyway? (Yes, I know it was Fortune ;)) Sure, it COULD be his parent’s best friend. We don’t actually have any recent images of him and he may have aged…I mean…He seems friendly, welcoming and genuine. So far anyway, right? But we all know…this “Eduardo” fellow has a huge part to play and we all know it’s not going to be in Arnold’s favor.

It’s our PS118 students as funny as they were 15 year ago. And, I for one am so happy to see them keeping us entertained with their old antics. Arnold, however, is away from his friends and with “Eduardo,” speaking of his parents and hoping to find some answers. But remember, he promised not to go looking for them and Arnold is a boy of his word…right?

I felt Arnold was more out of character than anyone in this movie. But who can blame him? He has the opportunity that he has waited for his whole life: to find his missing parents. With such an opportunity, Arnold takes a risk under false assumptions, which inevitably leads himself and his friends to danger.

Speaking of Arnold being out of character and his development…something stuck out to me and few other fans about his behavior towards certain friends. We see Arnold obviously concerned for his friends’ safety and how he is struggling to keep composed after he is sworn to secrecy by “Eduardo.” Gerald, his best friend of whom Arnold never hides anything from, is the first to confront him. And to my shock, Arnold hides the truth even though Gerald is not oblivious to the fact something is going on…Arnold?

Instead, Arnold opens up to Helga…HELGA. And poor Helga…she has struck up the courage to finally (and again) confront Arnold about her feelings. Hoping that her efforts to get him there to San Lorenzo had nudged at his heart strings, Helga is frustrated when Arnold opens up about his fears of getting his friends in danger while he plans to look for his parents. Again, he opens up to Helga, and not Gerald. Is this maybe a sign of his feelings and trust in her?

We can understand Helga’s frustration and feels of rejection when Arnold dodges out again of her confession. Even though technically, they were having two completely separate conversations. Helga takes this as the last straw. To all of our gasps, she gives up all hope of Arnold retuning her feelings and destroys the most precious thing in her possession since day 1: her heart shaped locket of Arnold. Devastating right? Brainy?

The vibe of the movie is certainly starting to take a turn into unfamiliar territory. Craig Bartlett said, “Friendships will be tested,” and I guess, these are those tests. When you think things couldn't go anymore wrong for our gang, well…it does. They are attacked by river pirates. Eduardo, claiming Lasombra is behind the attack, tells Arnold to hide and forget about his friends…hmm…still trust him, Arnold? By this point, any trust I had in this guy was completely gone.

Epic sword battles, fights and rapids. Our PS 118 friends take the most dramatic journey of their lifetime. Clinging on for dear life, we are all on the edge of our seats hoping that no one falls overboard…Even Curly, who is having the time of his life up on the crows nest. After a rough ride, we end up ship wrecked. We can breathe a sigh of relief that no one is thrown overboard, apart from poor Eugene. But who didn’t see that one coming? But never fear, He’s ok! As he is his own lifeboat.

With some truths coming to light about Arnold being involved with why the attack happened, trust and friendships begin to suffer. It was heart breaking seeing Arnold being avoided by his friends…Only “Eduardo” there to help him up during their long-suffering hike to the safety of the camp. But for me, Rhonda absolutely stole the spotlight here… Come one, We are all Rhonda…taking selfies, refusal to part with one’s luggage and being absolutely traumatized at the thought of hiking through the jungle. Her reactions and deliverance had me laughing so hard. That is certainly something I would like to see more of in Hey Arnold future.

The montage of our PS 118 class traveling through the jungle was a chance to demonstrate some of our characters individually. It was fun to see Nadine having the time of her life collecting weird and wonderful bugs, Sid crying on the floor after the unfortunate demise of his beetle boots (good call back there), and Rhonda struggling to just do…well anything. These kids never fail to make me laugh, even today! They all have something special and individual about them.

We are about halfway through the movie now, and if you made it this far, thank you for sticking with me! Now, let’s move on to what we have suspected all along…“Eduardo,” right? Wrong…if you didn’t suspect something of this guy, then go back and watch again, because this guy had something about him from the get-go. Our “Eduardo” is actually none other than the film’s villain…Lasombra. DUN DUN DUNNNNNN.

We then learn the true intentions of the class trip to San Lorenzo. It was all a scheme conducted by Lasombra just to get Arnold there. Unfortunately for our football headed amigo…he’s already put a lot of his trust in this guy. And he was wrong to trust someone who won’t give out a Wi-Fi password.

As the story continues, I felt nothing but mixed emotions. I found myself laughing, and then soon wiping tears from my eyes. We have so many sad moments that tug at our heart strings. Helga’s monologues expressing her love for Arnold have always been some of the most rewarding scenes from the whole Hey Arnold series. The writing and deliverance from Francesca is nothing short of spectacular, and let’s face it. We’ve all been there! Arnold giving up whilst in-prisoned hit me so hard. His voice was full of regret and defeat. Arnold, the boy who is always so optimistic, has given up.

It takes Helga to talk him out of his depressive state, and to accept the challenges ahead of them. Helga is already sticking to her guns and coming out of her comfort zone to assist Arnold. Seeing her comforting him and really being there to offer her support, which Arnold accepts is just so heart-warming! A sign of things to come with these two? Maybe.

Secret pathways, using beepers to create a homing beacon, and a pig eating shrimp cocktail in first class? The only thing missing from this movie is violence…wait no, it’s got that as well. I was surprised to see such brutal deaths of Lasombra’s guards. Although it’s kept fairly ‘clean’ with no blood (thankfully), we do see a guy getting hit by multiple arrows, one guy plummet to his death, and another bunch of guys getting crushed by rocks. That’s quite a few on screen ‘implied’ deaths. Who said TJM had no action?

I doubt this movie could mess me up more than it already had, but boy was I wrong. The emotions were about to kick into overdrive, and I have only had 1/4 bottle of wine left by the time Arnold, Helga and Gerald had found the Green Eyes. The answers to all our questions of the past fifteen years were soon to be revealed. As a long time fan of the show, it was so special getting to see these mysterious beings for the first time. The way they acted, spoke, lived and looked was something one could only imagine for all this time. Not only were we about to get our answers, but so was Arnold.

The hidden city of the Green Eyes was absolutely spectacular. The animation and the amount of detail put into this habitat was an eye saw which dropped jaws. We soon learn of the heartbreak that happened to this society: the adults were all asleep…for the past nine years! While nine years of sleep sounds like a luxury to most of us, joking aside, for these kids they have been functioning on their own for all that time. We start to learn about the final moments recorded of Arnold’s parents: the murals. WOW, was this hard-hitting. It’s the first sign of his parents that this poor kid has had in years, and you can tell just how desperate he is for answers.

The final pieces of the puzzle were starting to fall in place. It was just down to Arnold to do that final act. The problem being, it’s still a puzzle. And Arnold has no idea what to do. Before he can even start to figure it out…yep, what we were all waiting for: Lasombra.

Now, how many of you expected a young chief to throw a blade at Lasombra…A BLADE. I mean how badass was that? Followed by our trio and gang of Green Eyes kicking the wind out of this guy, unfortunately he was armed with a sword, and no one wants to go up against that unarmed. So, we all know what’s going to happen now. Lasombra is going to take what he came for with Arnold in tow.

Dragging an unwilling Arnold by his side, Lasombra reaches the (classic) rickety old wooden footbridge with the certain death plunge below. As they cross, we see Helga and Gerald appear behind them. Despite Arnold’s warnings and pleads, Helga and Gerald continue without any considering for their own safety. I mean wow, this thing is hanging by a thread, and these two kids are attempting to cross just to save Arnold. Can we get a round of applause for completely bravery and loyalty here? But this is a cartoon, that bridge won’t snap right? RIGHT?

Arnold has a dilemma in front of him. He has to solve this puzzle fast before his friends plummet to their deaths. OK that’s cool…it’s not like I’m already on the edge of my seat or anything. Arnold faces the Corazón with his amulet in tow. Sweat pouring down his head and full of determination to save his friends, we see his green eye tracing the steps needed to unlock the treasure inside. Once unlocked, Arnold is pushed to aside and Lasombra looks directly at the heart of gold in all of its pure beauty. Unfortunately for him…he is not as pure and ends up with a poisonous dart in his forehead.

Screaming in pain and heading for the cliff edge which, he inevitably falls off, (yeah byeeeee). Arnold is finally free to help his friends who are still clinging on for dear life. Our hero slips, falls and only just manages to grab onto the same plank Gerald and Helga are clinging onto. Now, top up that glass of wine here guys, because this is where is I almost downed a whole glass. Arnold and Helga meet each others eyes and they just widen. You didn’t need any dialog to know what was going through their heads here. Arnold was finally seeing Helga for her true self, her bravery, her loyalty and that she really does love him. Here they are about to die, and all of this is too late to act upon. They just stare at one another waiting to die, talking only with their eyes. Would somebody please throw them a life line before I jump at my TV?

That life line is finally delivered from the REAL Eduardo, and I can finally breath. There is hope! One thing that grabbed me about what happens next, while Eduardo starts explaining what has happened and how he has been following them. Helga is taken in by the Corazón. Now, I remember back in The Journal, Miles stating to not to look directly into it because they say it’s too sacred. But yet here is our girl Helga…mesmerized and staring directly at it with her hands placed on her heart. No poisonous darts being fired at her. Yes…I was worried for a moment there.

Of course, Lasrombra isn’t dead and climbs his way back up the mountain to finish what he started. With the two fully grown adults getting into a fight over a mustache, pushed and thrown. Helga is the first to run in to assist dragging a bag to place over Lasrombra’s head and using her fist “Old Betsy” to smash him in the face a good few times. This girl is just outstanding and an overall badass. Unfortunately, we see the Corazón fall off the cliff edge to be lost(?). Lasombra finally meets his ends once the poison takes its final effect and he once again falls to his death. “He died like he lived, full of poison.” 10/10 for the sass there Eduardo.

From one heart wrenching scene to another. Now, with Eduardo in tow, he is able to translate the native Green Eye’s language. Once back at the hidden city, Arnold is finally told his parents are there, and that the Green eyes will take them to where they lie. Um, Excuse me? Where they LIE? Could that mean? No…you can’t do this to me…after all these years and the last hour of pure emotional feelings. You’re now going to tell me they are laying there peacefully? I honestly by this point was on invested into the story being told that I hadn’t put two and two together like most of you have already. Instead, I was off my sofa bitterly nose to my TV in suspense to finally find out what happened. As Arnold entered the room, seeing them there pale-faced, sleeping so peacefully hand in hand…I whispered no to myself while a stream of tears started running down my face. I was literally Arnold by this point. After all those years here they are…And here is Arnold seeing them for the first time.

“Are they-?” No, It’s the sleeping sickness. OF COURSE! Wait that means…they are alive? They are alive? I actually laughed as I let out a small laugh in relief. And no, I really didn’t catch on that they had caught the sleeping sickness, not in 15 years. As it was explained that the Corazón was the cure, my heart fell again. But no, it can’t end like this, There HAS to be a way right? Seeing Arnold crying over his parents’ lifeless bodies while Helga and Gerald look on in complete shock was heart breaking. But of course, our girl Helga has a solution.

I honestly didn’t know how Helga would fix this. They knew what they needed and what they had to do. But, they had lost the Corazón. When Helga approached Arnold with a possible solution, I fully expected her to hand him the Corazón. I thought maybe she had taken it while she was staring at it. That was the only thing my mind could muster in those few seconds. I never expected her to open out her hands and present Arnold her golden locket with his picture in. That object that has been a huge symbol of her life for so many years, she is sacrificing so much in that one moment. It’s not only her most precious possession, it’s her true identity. Everything she has kept hidden and inside for so long was out on offer to help Arnold.

This selfless act was causing more and more tears to flow from my eyes. I later thought about this more in depth and theorized the following: Helga mentions her locket is just gold plated and it’s not pure of heart. Now, how would Helga know the Corazón was a pure heart? And anything in its place would need to be pure? Because she stared into the Corazón and felt that pureness. This is why I think she didn’t get a poisonous dart shot at her. Because of that connection with pure hearts, and Helga’s heart is a pure as they get.

Helga doesn’t think highly enough of herself to feel that her locket will work. It takes Arnold to give her that push in confidence and guys, this couldn’t have been more cuter or tear jerking if they tried. “I think your heart is more pure than you know.” He finally understands her.

Pure hearts, loyalty, dedication, love, friendship, determination and Brainy being a saint in retrieving Helga’s locket got us to where we are now. We are about to witness what we have all wanted from Hey Arnold in so many years. Helga’s locket worked, and the cure rains down upon those in deep slumber. Butterflies start to flourish as the cure takes effect. Does that mean? Arnold runs to his parents’ chamber with the most dramatic heart sobbing music in the background. This was it, finally the moment we had all be waiting for, his parents…Arnold parents, of whom have been missing for nine years with no contact. In front of Arnold eyes, they wake from a deep slumber and the first thing they see is their baby. Hey, Arnold. His eyes replicate my own as he runs towards them. He did it, and I couldn’t be more happy even though I was a sobbing mess with no wine left.

The story was concluded. The mystery which lingered for over a decade was now solved. Arnold stood with his parents and celebrated along with the Green Eyes. Miles and Stella’s work was finally complete. It’s a sight we all wished we could see for so long. But our hero wasn’t there? And even after just being reunited with his parents, Arnold noticed Helga sneaking off. Helga was trying to retrieve her locket, which I thought was both a funny and sweet touch. Because after everything, that locket still symbolizes so much to her. After being interrupted by Arnold, Helga still tries to put on her tough girl front and hides her true self still, but Arnold is no longer blind to who Helga really is. With his words, we know that Arnold is seeing through her, seeing the real Helga and finally, after seeing her being so brave, loyal and willing to give up so much for him, he is ready to accept her love.

Even though Arnold didn’t outright say how he feels about Helga, I am a true believer of actions speak louder than words. We have seen how Arnold has acted towards Helga his entire movie. He silenced Helga, she literally had no come or no way out for the first time ever. His act of confirming how he feels about her is sweet beyond words. He takes her hands and offers her a mutual kiss like a true gentleman. The two of them share a moment with their lips locked, and it couldn’t be more beautiful. I was almost angry when Gerald walked interrupted the moment.

The adventure was over. Arnold wakes up in his bed and he is immediately concerned. Oh no you don’t, do not tell me that was all a dream. I am screaming profanity at my TV whilst a near identical scene is played from the beginning of the movie. Was that really all a dream? Please for the love of raspberries no. Please, please no. Arnold’s eyes widen and fill with tears when he thinks that it was indeed just a dream. But they wouldn’t do that to us…and in come Miles and Stella with breakfast for our forever moaning group of boarders. We have never seen Arnold so happy, Wide smiles and dancing on the spot at the sight of his parents back home. I must admit, I really did hold my breath for a second there!

Seeing Miles and Stella home and comforting Arnold is something I never thought I would see. And here it was. It was the sweetest conclusion and satisfying conclusion to the longest story. I would love to see them spend time together, but it’s the worst day of school. Repeating from one of the first scenes of the movie, we see Arnold and Gerald meeting Helga and Phoebe on the corner. But THIS time, things are a little different. There’s no classic bumping into one another. Gerald and Phoebe lead the way hand and hand leaving Arnold and Helga wondering if they should follow suite. While Arnold does attempt this making Helga (and all of us watching) swoon. Helga still ups her defenses and grabs her hand back. I can understand why people would questions her actions here, but I’m kind of happy they left that part of Helga in. This is still her character and she is not going to change overnight. She still keeps her guard up and she has a lot to learn in accepting Arnold’s effect in public. Still, the fact that she smiles as she walks off is a huge development. And don’t worry folks, Arnold isn’t put off by her…he runs after her with that same flirtatious smiley face.

A nice final touch is Arnold’s parents missing him and offering to walk him to school. That final look from Arnold as he enters his school with all his friends and Mr. Simmons declaring he still has a job after the jungle ordeal…that look in his eyes, looking back at his parents looking for him, waiting for him. And that smile knowing that they are never going to leave him again. THAT my friends is how you end a movie.

Conclusion

Nothing is perfect, but the Jungle Movie sure offers some closure. Every time I watch this film, I notice something new. The amount of detail in the background is admirable. They are like paintings. The texture, the colour, the ambience of them is just beautiful. The background animation of characters is incredibly detailed. Instead of just having a still image, I constantly found background characters to be animated and reacting, especially Helga.

The music in this film was gripping, and well suited for the story. A mixture of classic Hey Arnold style Jazz and hip-hop. South American Latin, full orchestral pieces. The emotion was most certainly intensified with the music backing. Hats off to Jim Lang. In cartoon revivals, one thing that is difficult to recreate are those voices. I can honestly say the returning cast and new cast did an absolute fantastic task of both recreating and advancing the characters. It was like watching an old and new show at the same time.

Overall, The Jungle Movie was everything an old school fan like myself could have hoped for. I am not only incredibly satisfied with what we have been given but, I am also thrilled for those who worked on this project for so many years. The creator, Craig Bartlett and his team and the fans who campaigned to make this happen. It’s a fine example of determination, love and appreciation for one another, which isn’t expressed much in today’s world. I am so happy with The Jungle Movie, and I finally have my closure from this epic story.

I can bet, if my Nan were still around today, she would be the one asking me all the questions. And, while I type up my final words, I feel a small part her sitting with me for the first time in many years.

[regrettablewritings]

Dios Meme-o! (Rafael Barba Mini-Series, Pt. 6)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 7 Part 8

Frankly, it had to have been when Lucia got involved that Rafael knew things were going too far. Even Carmen of all people was beginning to join in on the fun! (While Rafael really did appreciate the cup of coffee waiting for him when he came into work that morning, but did she really have to include the receipt bearing the name “Abo-guapo”?) And all at once, it appeared that the dam keeping his cohorts in SVU at bay had buckled under pressure – and the typhoon of fresh, new memes.

The initial, unspoken agreement had been to not bring up memes around Rafael or to laugh about them in his presence. But it didn’t take long for Sonny to throw caution straight into the garbage and use the technical loophole of sending him his latest finds (though, always making sure to precede them with at least one contribution to the case). It didn’t take long for the likes of Fin, Rollins, and even Liv every once in a while, to follow suit in some way shape or form.

By the end of the third week of this madness, Rafael swore he’d seen it all: Gifs of him from the press conference, pastel edits (causing him to wonder what the significance of flower crowns even was), more crude comments about his hand veins and midsection pudge, photo compilations of himself in his attire from previous acclaimed cases. Every once in a while, he’d even receive a screenshot wherein somebody had clearly photoshopped themselves into a picture with him. These were interestingly enough some of the images that caused Rafael the most concern, seeing as they weren’t even using decent photos for their apparent intentions: Were they really supposed to look like a power couple, with him so clearly focused on the press and not by their clumsily Photoshopped-in figure standing behind him? They looked more like prosecutor and client than anything.

What, more gifs of him before the press? Wait, these ones had captions edited into them. Oh, hell, what do they say?

           Rafael Barba: I am here to address the rumors that have been circling about. I’ll be  upfront: Yes, (Y/N) and I have been seeing each other. No, we are not dating – we’ve             recently become engaged. I’ve loved her for many years in secrecy, and it shouldn’t be         a crime to want something beautiful in this harsh life –

“Ugh.” Rafael all but retched as he x-ed out of the newest link from Rollins. He glared once more at the message she’d written in the email:

           When were you gonna tell us that you were betrothed, Barba? I’m sure we would’ve  understood the harshness of your life ;).

The lawyer sighed heavily through his nose as he pressed against his forehead. Rollins had given him some crucial information yesterday, so he couldn’t completely hound on her for slacking off. Yet. But god, was his already thin patience eroding at a rapid rate.

By noon, just as he’d calmed down from the eerie feeling of being shipped with other real-life people, another message came through. This time, to his surprise, from Liv.

He rose a brow. No words; just a link. This could’ve gone one of two ways: Bad, or very bad. He knew better than to do anything about the message, and honestly should have just deleted it on site. But alas, curiosity was such a destructive trait of man, enough so as to overwhelm his sense of self-preservation out of grotesque intrigue. With the click of his laptop mouse, Rafael at least had an answer as to which direction this would go down in: It was a Buzzfeed article, so that meant very bad.

“ ‘Check Out the Attorney Everyone Wants to Call’ ” it read. Before he could stop his eyes from searching the page for more info, he found himself reading the embarrassing excuse for an article:

           The NYPD’s specialized squad, the Special Victims Unit, has had more than its fair share of rough roads. But luckily, they have a secret weapon:

Below lay a gif of Rafael stepping up to the podium on that fateful day where his looks would break the Internet. Inside of his own mind, Rafael screamed for gif-Rafael to retreat and run away before it was too late. Obviously, gif-Rafael persisted, over and over in an endless loop that would reset itself the moment he settled himself at the pedestal.

           Meet ADA Rafael Barba. He’s been with the 16th precinct for four years, and he’s   managed to make quite a splash for all of them. But let’s be real, it’s not just his smarts and courtroom prowess that the Internet has been talking about these last couple of days . . .

The next image was a photograph of Rafael mid-speech and even he had to admit: The angling was just right. The lighting and shadows worked together to properly define his profile in such an appealing way. It was a photo capable of damning a man.

           It turns out that ADA Barba is actually one Harvard-educated hottie!

The accompanying picture came from one of Rafael’s previous cases. One wherein his stance atop the courthouse steps looked artistically posed. With one foot still planted on a step higher than the other, briefcase clutched in one hand, suit tailored to fit, eyes looking elsewhere. Amateur modeling photographers would’ve been proud. To anyone else, he would have looked like those grand oil paintings depicting a conquering hero, the gleaming sunlight only serving to further this victorious suggestion. Even the tweet that the image came attached with went as far as to say, “LOOK AT THIS MAJESTIC MF.”

While visually this might have been the case (especially assuming he’d just exited the courthouse after a victorious trial), the reality was more likely that he had been contemplating getting pho for dinner and was trying to remember the name of that one noodle house a couple of blocks away. The article went on:

           No, seriously, if sexiness was a crime, this man would be guilty as charged!

Rafael couldn’t help but lift a brow at this. A law pun? Really? Hadn’t there been enough of those? He scrolled down further, his eyes first catching the image of him being surrounded by the press.

           Because of the nature of his job (and hopefully single personal life), there aren’t too  many photos of him for us to draw on. But don’t worry: The press has given the Internet just enough fodder to work with.

The image of him at arraignment court prior to the prolific AJ Martin case was posted, courtesy of the blue hellhole that was Tumblr. It was taken predominately from behind, given the position of the press at the time but from the way his head was turned, Rafael’s profile was made just noticeable enough for the original poster to freak out: “He could peck my eye out with that nose and I would thank him for it so long as he left me the other eye to still see him with.” The hashtags visible, aside from his name and title, included #dat profile doe, #LAWD, #such a noble nose, and #seriously tho that profile is perf i need to use it as reference for my art project.

Rafael could feel his teeth digging into his lips as they tucked themselves into his mouth. For a split second, he wondered if he was subconsciously trying to swallow himself.

            Some people are drawn to him for his eyes, the article read, offering an example in an enhanced photo of Rafael that managed to capture his eyes just enough to show that they weren’t an expected brown, but an enchanting green. Having been a tweet, the post’s source expressed that Rafael’s eyes “made them weak.”

           Some just can’t get over this guy’s designer duds, it went on. Beneath the text was a small photoset of four pictures: Each one of Rafael, of course, but each one also had him sporting vastly different color themes. In this one, springtime pink accessories stuck out against the darkness of his pinstriped suit. In that one, yet another dark suit . . . But orange was, in the grand scheme, quite the unusual color to be seen on most lawyers. Even in tie form. The third photo had been taken as he was leaving the courthouse, the billowing wind allowing for the yellow streak of his tie to flutter about, as well as to showcase that even his suspenders were brightly colored. And in the fourth one, purple. Everywhere. Maybe not in the charcoal grey of his suit jacket, but definitely in the primary color of his polka dotted tie, the lines running up and down his dress shirt, and the lightly-checkered pattern of his pocket square.

To say that these were mighty unusual colors to be found in the courtroom (and on an attorney for such horrific situations, no less) would be an understatement.

           And others? They’re finding completely different assets to be won over by! (All perfectly wonderful in their own right, of course.)

These “assets”, apparently, were his stomach and hands (surprise, surprise). Or, perhaps more specifically, the pudginess of his stomach and the veins that lined his hands, as suggested not only by Rafael’s own experience, but by the corresponding images for that particular line: Some of the very same posts he’d seen at the very beginning. The post about wanting to slurp up his hand veins, enthusiasm over his tummy-embellishing suspenders . . . It all came rushing back to Rafael with an internal shudder.

But apparently, not all of the images were of him: The next textual segment (But whichever physical attribute people have found themselves drawn to, one thing is for certain: They help make one clean-cut counselor) was followed by the image of a tan, cartoon fist popping out of a yellow sweater sleeve. The tweet it had come from included the words, “When you catch feelings for the perfect man but he’s a goddamn lawyer.” Rafael almost wanted to feel upset by the comment, but there was just too much about it to figure out what all to be peeved with.

Many are willing to risk it all for this Manhattan heartbreaker, the article proclaimed, their evidence coming in the form of a Twitter post stating exactly that. It was a photograph taken at a gala (God, it had to have been long ago, then), and Rafael just happened to be in just enough of the photo for the dapperness of his appearance to pop. In the background, however, was a man (whom Rafael recognized as a judge) with an expression that could easily be mistaken for subtle lusting. Of course, Judge Khachaturian was actually probably looking in Rafael’s general direction and likely at a woman off camera. But the Internet didn’t know that. Or rather, the Internet didn’t care to consider that.

The caption lining the top of the picture stated that “old man finna risk it all for Barba 😂😂😂.” This, of all things, caused Rafael’s mouth to hang open with shock. The idea of his superior (and much older superior at that) lusting after him left a bad taste in his mouth. But with one last line to go . . .

           But don’t worry: We’re sure he can use his smarts to get you out of it.

Simple, yes, but considering all that Rafael had to go through just to get to it, the cocktail of feelings within him was still quite present.

“Oh . . .” Rafael whispered shakily as he watched the gif version of himself raise a hand and retreat from the podium at the press conference. Despite the ridiculousness of the suggestion, his mind screamed at the gif, Now you leave!? His ever hungry but scowling eyes couldn’t help themselves from scanning the comments section below. Lot of Spanish terms being thrown around there by people who probably only knew them from the Latin Lover craze from the early 2000s. Like June Madoff’s comment on how he was such a “precinct papi”, or Barbra Cassahan, with her suburban mom-ness, having the creepy, middle-aged audacity to call him a “papi choulo.” (Which, Rafael thought in his tempered bitterness and attention to the misspell, was probably the most out of her comfort zone she was willing to travel.)

There was also Celia Esposito calling him “Barbaro Barba”, but he really wasn’t sure how comfortable he was being called a badass under such circumstances by a high schooler, creativity behind the nickname be damned.

But then . . . there was Julia “JuJuBean” Parson: “My friend’s sister sat in the gallery during the Jocelyn Paley case where ADA Barba was defending Jocelyn against Adam Cain. Y’all, she said Barba won the case by letting Cain choke him with his motherfucking *belt*!”

And, for the first time since this entire escapade began, Rafael couldn’t help but feel true a hint of pride. After all, it was by letting Cain choke him at all that he was able to convince the jury to plead guilty and send that bastard to jail where he belonged. He was honestly quite pleased with that little daring stunt, considering how worth it it was to experience such a dangerous discomfort. But even more so, he was just glad that someone had looked past the more superficial traits that everyone else was adoring in order to focus on something more important: His job and the crazy things he did to perform it.

. . . But then he read the replies to it: “OMFG” and “choke me, daddy 😩😩😩!” And those were just the ones he could see without clicking “see more replies.”

At that, Rafael’s eyelids practically retreated back into his skull as his eyes popped more than he even knew themselves capable of doing. The loud clap of his laptop being shut closed resonated within the office, followed by huffy breaths of embarrassment. He could feel his face burning. Of all the implied fetishes and kinks he’d seen centering about him, the use of the belt to choke him was an entirely new one, and one that he could very easily proclaim he had no desire to try again.

ENOUGH!!!

A ragged sigh was released into the air as Rafael pinched the bridge of his nose. Probably harder than he even needed to, anyway. He regarded the time ticking by in the corner of his laptop screen. It was still too early to start sipping bourbon like tomorrow was a dream, but not too early to grab a bite and pop a tablet or two of ibuprofen. Not necessarily what he was in the mood for, but it was a start. Anything to get away from his laptop, which he now deep down felt had been completely sullied by now from all the meme trash he had to view upon it.

Grabbing his phone and wallet, he exited his office and made Carmen aware that he was going on his lunch break. As he headed for the elevator, he could’ve sworn that he’d caught a glimpse of the Buzzfeed article on her computer. He fought against the urge to shake his head in somberness: He’d officially lost her; she was too far gone into the rabbit hole to pull her out of it. Exiting the Hogan Place, Rafael felt alone amongst the crowded streets of Manhattan.