#the same ones who are trying to get us to shed a tear for maguire ??? it just doesn't add up

[mccleans]

[bearlythere]

so around a week ago i watched spiderman no way home (nwh) and can i just say THE WHOLE MOVIE WAS SO GREAT i literally cried. i'm going to talk about the movie below and my general opinions about spiderman so SPOILERS AHEAD please do not read further if you do not want to be spoiled!!

i have never really enjoyed mcu's spiderman movies due to the portrayal of spiderman. growing up watching the spider-man series and the amazing spiderman series, i always felt that mcu's spiderman is so out of touch of the typical spiderman storylines because it's more focused on spidey wanting to be an avenger, spidey wanting to be somebody big doing good for the world, whereas in personally i grew up watching and getting used to a spider-man character who is kind of supposed to be like matt murdock's in a way? just a low lying vigilante, wanting to do good for society. so when andrew garfield's spiderman AND tobey maguire's spiderman turned up mid-movie, and all 3 peters decide to "come up with cures" for all the villans who came to the mcu in the school science lab, there was a nostalgic feeling of "ah, yes, that's the peter parker i know". i guess it's because, for the first time, marvel is letting peter parker solve an issue by himself (in a way) without any intervention by other factors (be it technology or a person).

which brings me to my next controversial opinion. i personally feel that mcu's spiderman would be nothing (at least, not as popular or as involved in the mcu as today) without stark tech + tony's influence, which is why i also think the ending of no way home was super appropriate cause it leads into the next trilogy of mcu's spiderman potentially being that neighbourhood crime watch vigilante he was meant to be in the first place. by doing so, making the world forget about him, spiderman has to start from the bottom, relying on himself this time. i'm excited to see how future films portray this version of spiderman.

next, i'm going to talk about the "spiderman reunion". while tobey maguire's spiderman was known to be "a pretty face" to my parents' generation and from their era, andrew garfield's spiderman is the one i grew up with. i think one reason why nwh is such a box office hit is because the cast involved is so diverse, and its perfect for families to watch it together (parents and teens revel in nostalgia, children who are avid spiderman fans would be happy that instead of one, there's three). i had GOOSEBUMPS as the three appeared on screen together for the final fight scene, and how they worked together, dealing with one villain at a time. that whole portion of the movie i sat upright in my seat, hands over my masked mouth. i even shed a few tears because this whole movie just felt like a fever dream.

i also really like how the director / screenwriter paid homage to all the previous spiderman films through little details and lines. tobey maguire's spiderman (peter 2) had his own reunion with dr. octavius, where dr. octavius acknowledges that peter 2 has grown well, and peter 2 replied that he's still "trying to do better", a homage to the first meeting of the 2 characters in spider-man 2. andrew garfield's spiderman and gwen stacy's tragic death happened the amazing spiderman 2. in this movie, he managed to redeem himself by saving mj instead, in the same way that he would have saved gwen if she managed to. the bittersweet emotion i felt when that happened was indescribable.

lastly i'm gonna come up with some theories for that eddie brock / venom end credit scene. i think that the piece of symbiote that got left in the mcu will eventually make its way to become spiderman's symbiote costume / black suit (in the mcu, instead of sony's spiderman universe [ssu]). looking at the ssu's development, as well as andrew garfield's popularity after nwh, i am hoping for a day where we see andrew garfield's spiderman make a return to the big screens, as part of the ssu, concurrently with tom holland's potrayal of the same character in the mcu.

thanks for reading to the end! please feel free to discuss / state your own opinions on the movie / spiderman below!

[belletheoutsider]

How Once Upon a Time Changed My Life

With all of the latest news with Once Upon a Time when it comes to cast members not returning and such, I wanted to take the time to talk about this show in a more positive way than I have seen lately.

I know this seems like something extremely overdramatic, but I can honestly say that this show has changed my life. I am not even kidding. Please bear with me as I explain this. I hope you will click the “Read More” and follow my story.

First, let’s start with a little bit of backstory.

It was the summer of 2012 and after my freshman year of college. I was preparing for my recovery period after wisdom teeth surgery. I asked my friends on Facebook for TV show and movies recommendations to watch during my recovery. A family friend said I should watch Once Upon a Time since I love Disney and fairytales. It was the first show I watched during recovery. The show had me intrigued from the scene that introduced Rumplestitskin as he discusses the future with Prince Charming and pregnant Snow White. But the moment I knew I was emotionally invested was in the end of a particular mid-season episode.

You guessed it. “Skin Deep”. At first, I wasn’t sure about the whole “Rumplestiltskin is the beast” idea. I was skeptical, and Beauty and the Beast is my favorite fairytale and Disney movie. I was worried if this would be a good adaptation. By the end of that episode, I was sobbing. Needless to say I finished the series before my recovery was done. 

Oh, and let’s not forget the other episode that emotionally destroyed me.

Yep. This episode? I was a wreck. Not to mention this scene.

The acting in this scene was truly heart wrenching! Bravo to everyone in this episode!

So yeah, I was obsessed very quickly. As I watched other shows people recommended, I was simultaneously scrolling through Tumblr to find OUaT blogs to follow. I had already been on Tumblr, but I wasn’t extremely active in a fandom. Now I understood what it mean to have feels and ship and what OTPs were. I even got my mom and two close friends into the show.

Soon, I started contributing to the OUAT fandom. I started creating fan videos that combined Once Upon a Time characters with different songs from Disney movies and musicals. I had already been doing some voiceover work/dubbing on my channel, but not religiously uploading. During this fan video phase, I discovered a couple YouTubers that did voiceovers of Once Upon a Time scenes. I joined them on a few projects on both of our channels. There are two of them that I still continue to have friendships with that have gone beyond YouTube dubbing. 

I continued with my fan videos and showed them to my family and friends. One of them I even submitted to a Once Upon a Time fan-created video contest and won first place! People liked my videos and my family and friends said I had a talent and an eye for video editing. My parents started telling others about my videos, and I ended up getting 2 jobs because of them. One was a freelance job for editing a wedding video. The other was a summer job creating dozens of videos for a small company where I did everything from filming to archiving to editing. This job ended up being my first introduction to a possible line of work. This possible line became my first step into my career as a theater manager who is interested in marketing. I am currently in graduate school getting an MFA in Theatre Management and MBA in Business Administration. This is something I would have never discovered without Once Upon a Time.

Another thing that happened when I entered the fandom was I came across a great ask RP blog called ask-mr-gold. Unfortunately, that blog has changed names and I can’t find it anymore, but this was a great blog where someone answered questions as Rumple and Belle. Whoever the handler was, they did a great job and stayed completely in character. It was like I was talking to the characters themselves. In time, I found that they had a bunch of other ask blogs they interacted with who played characters like Regina, Emma and Henry. It was so much fun asking them questions and interacting with them. If the handlers who had those blogs find this, I want to say thank you for doing that. I think about you guys a lot and miss interacting with you all.

It was these blogs that got me into the world of roleplaying. I am assuming those who read this post know what roleplaying is, but in case you don’t, think of it as improvisational fanfiction. Basically, I play a character from a certain tv show, movie, book, etc. and I talk to someone else who plays a different character. We discuss a story to play out and we take turns telling the story from each of our character’s point of view. If you need more examples of this, please see more posts from this blog.

I started roleplaying by doing ask blogs, similar to the ones I mentioned earlier, but then I moved to para roleplaying, which is the ones where you are telling stories (again, see my blog). That is how I created this blog and have been here for 3 and a half years.

This blog introduced me to a huge friend group. While I did have friends who watched this show and were also in similar fandoms, I was finally with a group of people who loved the show as much as I did and were on this roleplaying this journey with me. Roleplaying was something others that people who don’t participate have a hard time understanding it. The roleplay partners were not just acquaintances of mine. Some of them were close friends. People I chatted with often or even Skyped with on a frequent basis. Some of them I was fortunate enough to meet in real life. One of those friends I met in real life took me to one of the best events of my life: Regal Con. This was a convention where I got to meet so many of the amazing cast members of the show including Lana Parilla, Sean Maguire, Rebecca Mader and so many more. I even ended up having a conversation with Eion Bailey where I had to explain him what roleplaying is (but he didn’t fully understand it at the end). I have also been able to meet Robert Carlyle and Emilie De Ravin twice, and I also served Jennifer Morrison as a cast member at Disneyland. The point is that this show has given me some of the strongest and most important friendships of my life and the best experiences that I will never forget.

Another huge way Once Upon a Time impacted my life was with relationships. I befriended another roleplayer who played Rumple. I guess to tell this story I need to start from the beginning.

We were friends for three years before we finally realized we had feelings for each other. Now we are in a relationship, and we are completely happy.

As corny as it sounds, this show helped us find true love and our own happy ending. Right now, it is long distance, which provides its own challenges, but we are fighting for it because we know we will eventually be together. And, as we have also learned from this show:

So, that’s exactly what we are doing. Once Upon a Time is always going to be a show that connects us, even after it is gone. It will always hold a special place in both of our hearts. 

To sum up, Once Upon a Time has been invaluable to me. It helped me unleash my inner nerd, find some long-lasting friendships, gave me some amazing experiences I wouldn’t change for anything, helped guide me on my career path, and helped me find the love of my life. 

I would not be the same without this show, and I owe so much that I will be loyal to the show until the end. Even if Belle will no longer be a regular on the show, I will continue to watch it. Even if the show does things I don’t like or don’t agree with, I still choose to watch the show because it will always hold that special place for me. In the end, the show has continued to have episodes that I connect to emotionally and throw a few surprises my way. When I think about it going off the air, it does make me sad. I have even shed some tears at the thought of it. I still love the show, and I will miss it when it is gone. I know I will go through a period where I feel that loss emotionally and maybe physically. Alas, I know the show will have to end at some point. It’s inevitable. Until then, this show has this loyal viewer who will continue to tune in every Sunday.

I want to end this post by thanking some important people. 

First, I want to thank all of the roleplayers that have interacted with me on my blogs over the years. Each one of you has been special to me, and I want to thank you for embracing me. 

I want to send a special thank you to those roleplayers who chose to befriend the person behind the blog. I cherish you all for trying to be my friend. It has meant so much to me.

I want to thank my Youtube friends Zora Catone and Charles (PengVoiceMan2) for your continued friendship. You are both amazing and talented men that I have been honored to dub with. I am happy that I can still consider you both my friends.

I want to thank my friends from Regal Con. I have bonded with you guys more than I have bonded with people I have known for years. Thank you for your continued friendship to me and loyalty to the show.

I want to of course thank my amazing boyfriend for being my oldest RP partner. I love you so much. Thank you for taking a chance on my Belle, on being my friend for 3 years, and for choosing to be with me. I may be the one who plays Belle, but so often I feel like the Rumple who found someone who sees them as lovable.

I want to thank the creators of Once Upon a Time, Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsis. I also want to thank the writers and other members of the creative team who helped tell this story for the past 6 years.  You guys are all incredible. Thank you for creating such a fantastic world where the fairytales we loved and grew up with have now grown up and allow us to see them in a new light as adults.

I also want to thank the other creative designers that were apart of this project. From costumes to scenic to sound and music, everything helped create this world that despite all of the danger and peril, so many of us wanted to travel there. That is because you all created a world that seemed so amazing to be in. Thank you all for sharing your talent on this amazing show.

I want to thank the main series regular cast. To Jennifer, Jared, Josh, Ginny, Lana, Rebecca, Colin, Robert, and Emilie, you all have created a main cast of characters that has kept us engaged. We laughed and cried along with your characters. You are our path into these characters and helped them come to life for all of us. Despite all of the love and respect I have for you all, every new episode or interview opens my eyes to admire you all even more. I will miss those of you who are not returning and will continue to support you all on your future endeavors. I am also looking forward to those of you who are staying to see what happens to your characters. Thank you all for putting your hearts and souls into these characters so we can come on the journey with you.

I want to thank all of the supporting actors who have come into the show. There are so many to count! From the larger roles like Sean and Michael to some of the roles that reappeared every so often like JoAnna, Beverley, Lee, Michael, Faustino and all the dwarves to the characters that were there for a few episodes or part of a season like Robbie, Victoria, and Barbara (to name a few). No matter how often your characters were on the show, it was your appearances and your unique stories that made us interested and kept us hooked. I always celebrate when your characters return for an episode, and I love you all.

Thank you. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for the memories. Thank you for the happiness. Thank you for the last 6 years. Thank you for the magic.

Here’s to Season 7!