#sums up a lot of Dez's thought here

[hinerdsitscat]

So Let's Talk About Star Wars: Into the Dark

I yelled a bit about The Light of the Jedi so now I guess it’s time to unleash all of my thoughts about the next book in the High Republic series.

I liked Into the Dark more than I liked LotJ, partially because I just really like Claudia Gray’s writing (writer of the most iconic scene in the new canon novels, in which Leia shows up to a party in her most Obviously Sinister outfit after the big public scandal about Vader being her father in Bloodline), but also because Charles Soule had to put a lot of energy into introducing the entire High Republic universe over the course of the first book, whereas CG could just get down to business. I also think the slightly pared-down number of characters and plotlines in ItD helped a lot: I spent a lot of LotJ not knowing which characters I should get invested in, because the first third of the book kept introducing characters and then immediately killing them off.

So let’s talk characters because DAMN they are delightful:

Reath Silas, You Fucking Nerd

No, really, the number of times I yelled “oh my god Reath you FUCKING NERD” out loud while reading this book was well into the double digits.

This precious city boy who just wants to read a book and be left alone, to the extent that they unofficially gave him his own desk in the Archives. Bless.

Also, just the sheer innocence of this child thinking that all the adults around him have everything figured out

But also: “I understand prosthetic arms are more advanced than prosthetic legs. More comfortable too.” and then CUTS OFF SOMEONE’S ARM (I had to edit this post like a week after the fact because I can’t believe I forgot about this scene)

The absolute lack of danger sense on this child, I stg... Meeting the scary genocidal plants? "OH MY GOD YOU'RE SENTIENT PLANTS CAN I ASK A FEW QUESTIONS?" Face to face with a Nihil soldier holding a blaster? "I REALLY WANT TO TALK PHILOSOPHY WITH YOU!" Having Cohmac dump a Massively Worrying Bit Of Heresy in his lap? "OH HELL YES, WE'RE GONNA TALK PHILOSOPHY, BEST DAY EVER!"

Speaking of Cohmac...

Cohmac Vitus, A Parade's Worth of Red Flags

Hoo boy...

This guy is the walking embodiment of Every Problem That Is Going To Bite The Jedi Order In The Ass When Anakin Skywalker Comes Along: trauma, repressed emotions, questions that Jedi dogma can't sufficiently answer, got an unexpected Padawan but can barely take care of himself... like, the only thing he's missing is a forbidden romance (Avar and Elzar seem to have that plotline covered, I think/hope...)

None of that is a criticism, by the way: I'm 100% over here with popcorn screaming "YES, FUCK THIS GUY UP"

Everything's going to hell and people are about to attack one another? FLOAT IN MIDAIR BECAUSE WHO'S GONNA MESS WITH THE GUY WHO CAN FUCKING FLY

Orla Jareni, Heading Off to the Jedi Order's Version of Hampshire College

Her plotline felt very much like something from SWTOR, but that might just be because I started playing the Jedi Consular storyline, like, yesterday?

I really liked her flashback plotline because, like with Cohmac, this was another example of "I really wish the Order had addressed this issue before Anakin came along..." Namely, that she spent the flashback mission trying to ignore her instincts in favor of what she was told, and it naturally led to a catastrophe. I got a lot of shades of "I keep having dreams about my mother dying! Eh, it's probably nothing..." so anyway, I spent a lot of Orla's plotline silently yelling.

Also THANK YOU CLAUDIA GRAY for this amazing new addition to canon: "Orla had recently declared herself a Wayseeker--a Jedi who would operate independently of the dictates of the Jedi Council. Some Jedi, from time to time, found themselves drawn to a period of solitary action, whether that meant meditation on a mountaintop, helping revolutionaries on a tyrant-ruled world, or even, in one legendary instance, becoming a minor singing sensation on Alderaan." I HAVE ABOUT HALF A DOZEN FIC IDEAS NOW, MOSTLY AROUND OBI-WAN BECOMING A TEEN HEARTTHROB POP IDOL.

Dez Rydan, the Cool Kid?

This guy gave me serious Ganner Rhysode vibes and so I was not in any way surprised when he got the absolute shit kicked out of him, because he basically had Doom written all over him. I was, however, surprised that he survived?

The Barash Vow was really interesting, and I was actually relieved that the Jedi Order had something close to rehabilitation, even if it was just "meditate a lot."

Leox Gyasi, aka "Master Yoda on (Medicinal) Spice"

There's a canonically asexual character in the GFFA!!!

Which would make him...

...wait for it...

...

...

...an ACE PILOT

(ducks)

Anyway, Leox is played by Tim Rozon-as-Doc-Holliday-in-Wynonna-Earp and you cannot take that mental casting away from me.

Affie Hollow, You Sweet Summer Child

Yeah, that about sums it up, though I love that she really did think she could change her Bird Mafia Mom.

I also really hope that this isn't the last we'll see of her.

She suffers through Reath's explanation of what Jedi are and then asks what is quickly becoming The Question of the High Republic series: "So do Jedi have sex or not?"

Geode: Stone Groot

I just want to say how ELATED I am that there was NO EXPLANATION for what Geode's deal was other than: he's a Vintian, from Vint rock person. That's it.

[spongeguyandlelouchvibridankia]

SpongeGuy Reviews Every Disney Sitcom Ever!: Austin and Ally (1.1): “Rockers and Writers”

cI came, I saw, I.. Was ok with it.

Austin and Ally is a show about two people whose names you’ll never guess. It follows the adventures of Austin Moon, current internet music sensation and Ally Dawson, a shy but talented songwriter. Together, these two very different people try to make it in the music industry.

I remember when this show was SUPER POPULAR it aired all the time, and thanks to seeing a minute here a minute there I thought I would hate it.

And... I’m ok with it. Like, it’s not bad, it’s not great, it’s not quite good but it’s slightly good?

It’s hard to pin this one down so far, obviously once I’ve seen a few more episodes I will (I also must add thanks to an Even Stevens fan who contacted me about this that Yes, I am reviewing all the episodes when possible, not just the first one or two).

So... Yeah, let’s get to it!

SUMMERY:  Ally Dawson, a shy songwriter, works at Sonic Boom, a music store owned by her father, Lester, located at the Mall of Miami. Austin Moon, an aspiring singer, interrupts Ally while she is in her practice room, singing a rough cut of "Double Take". Unbeknownst to Ally, Austin and his best friend, Dez, accidentally use the song thinking Austin wrote it himself, create a video, and post it on the Internet, after which Austin becomes an Internet sensation. After performing the song on "The Helen Show", Helen suggests that Austin returns and performs another original song. Austin isn't good at song-writing, and the only solution he can think of is to plead with Ally to write another song for him. Ally initially denies in anger, but later agrees to help him. The two bond while working on their next song, "Break Down the Walls", and Austin asks Ally to be there when he performs it. However, when the pianist gets sick, Ally has to fill in. This was all part of Austin's plan to help Ally overcome her stage fright, but it only ends in disaster. However, Austin and Ally become partners, along with Dez as video director, and Ally's best friend, Trish, as Austin's manager.

COMEDY: 3 Out of 5

Originally I was gonna give a 2, as this show wasn’t really funny, but the more I dwelt on it, the more I realized how unfair I was being, so I gave a 3. And I think this might be a good time to go over how disney channel sitcoms don’t all have the same humor despite attempting many of the same jokes.

Example: Liv and Maddie and Good Luck Charlie are your average sitcoms (in fact, their template are about half of every sitcom that’s isn’t a “high concept”), but despite this they have more unique senses of humor (snark, mockumentary interviews, characters are multi-faceted, humor doesn’t undercut the moment).

On the other side of that, we have Lab Rats and Pair of Kings. Both have different, interesting concepts for a sitcom (Bionic teens and two brothers who are kings of an island). However, they attempt the same jokes we’ve seen over and over again, alongside some asshole humor (Lab Rats does it better but still).

In other words, contrary to popular belief, a sitcom can be a sitcom like you’ve seen over and over and OVER again. But that doesn’t mean it can’t work. The proof is in the pudding: The 3 best ones I’ve seen so far are all about families and learning to live with each other and stuff like that, your typical sitcom fodder.

So then we get to Austin and Ally. It’s your typical disney sitcom with a sort of high concept: Someone wants to be a music star because Disney are good at finding those and Hannah Montana was such a success, another person is helping them/falling for them/their opposite. BOOM. Recipe for success.

And the humor for the most part (there is a little snark and some surprisingly ok visual humor and slapstick) is your typical sitcom humor, with the obvious gags, the idiot jokes, the teen humor, yada yada.

But I didn’t groan. Maybe it’s because of the leads, maybe it’s the atmosphere, but for once, a few sitcom jokes and a little snark went a long way. In a weird way, it’s Good Luck Charlie’s humor but less fun. But... Well, it worked for me! It’s hard to explain these things sometimes.

But maybe it boils down to characters, and how the two leads are surprisingly likable.

CHARACTERS: 3 Out of 5

First of all, let’s be honest: I was always gonna like Ally. She’s level headed, relatable, understandable, adorkable, shy, smart. Hard not to like her! No wonder she got a high position right now in the character ranking lists. And it was fun to be in her world for a bit.

The real surprise for me was Austin. While I have nothing against Ross Lynch (in fact I like his singing in Teen Beach Movie) the channel overexposed him a lot and I tend to dislike those kind of actors. That and his character is an idiot, so that was worrying.

But to my surprise, Austin was more of a PJ in Good Luck Charlie than a Brady Bunch and Ok Boomer from Pair of Kings. He’s an idiot, for sure, but more of the sweet, gullible, well meaning kind. I mean, any episode where a character accidentally steals a song (which is actually totally possible according to a friend of mine) and doesn’t come off as a jerk is impressive, but even when he tries to help Ally lose her stage fright by showing her on stage when she asked him not to comes off as him trying his best and not him being a dick. And Ally does sort of get revenge on him, so there’s that.

So yeah, the two leads are fun, sometimes even funny characters with well defined personalities and no asshole tendencies. That’s super!

Sadly, the rest of the cast falls flat for now (and I understand they get worse so YEESH). Tish (PAUL BLART’S DAUGHTER) is that kind of annoying best friend you see in so many of these, and Dez is the idiot best friend you see in most of these, and they’re just... They’re just like that the entire episode. Their running gags of getting fired and coming up with stupid merch ideas aren’t bad but they’re not great, and I prefered it when it was just Austin and Ally. Lester, Ally’s dad, is also possibly gonna hurt the show according to my research.

Also this is a small thing but the Ellen Degeneres parody is so true to real life I’m shocked it’s not.

Anyway, yeah, a weak cast outside of two surprisingly likable leads.

STORY AND HEART: 3 Out of 5

I was gonna give a 2 here as well but decided to bump it up to 3. Why? Because is was surprisingly invested (I used that word a lot today). It was a typical story, no doubt about it, but I still enjoyed it. I usually use this segment to sum up my thoughts, so I think it’s best put like this. This was a basic, average story. There was NOTHING new here. You’ve seen this a million times.

I still liked it. I didn’t LOVE it, but I liked it. It was fun in it’s own way, it was ok. I found myself struggling to sum up my feelings for this yesterday, and I think I know why. We as consumers have massive expectations. We want originality and subversion, yet also nostalgia. We want to be surprised, but we also want things to go exactly the way we think they should. We want something new, yet also old.

Austin and Alley isn’t as funny and breezy as Liv and Maddie. It’s not as wacky as Phil of the Future. Not as relatable as Stuck In The Middle, not as high quality as Good Luck Charlie, not as life like as Even Stevens. At the same time, it’s not as disappointing as Lab Rats, average as Dog With A Blog, Mediocre as So Random, annoying as Pair of Kings and kind of meh as Bunk’d.

It’s just ok. And... I think that’s ok. Not every show needs to be the second coming. Old tropes are used a lot for a reason, not just out of laziness but because they work. And sometimes, what we need after a long day is something that’s just ok and makes you smile.

I smiled watching this. I didn’t wish for something else. I just let myself enjoy something that wasn’t that great but wasn’t that bad.

Sometimes, we just need a smile.

And that’s ok. :)

FINAL SCORE: 9 Out of 15

Wow I didn’t expect that score or for me to get so philosophical, but here we are. I liked this, so I look forwards to the next one.

Anyway, next time we have Lizzie McGuire! Cool! I was waiting for that one! High expectations for this one!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/100qHOP9aQ1AmKbrYuc--CQAP3LQnHfsS/edit#heading=h.nh4udkykrnki (I should add that the theme song wasn’t ranked because I need to hear it again to re-evaluate it)