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With Dawn of the Vampires set to hit Disney Channel and Disney+ in July, stand by for my ZOMBIES movie bingo card ideas. Keep in mind, I haven't seen the trailer (if there is one) yet, so I'll edit when I've had a chance to check it out (if it exists yet).

Somebody has an identity crisis

The werewolves have a rivalry with the vampires

The vampires' clothing textile is leather (because bat wings are described as leathery)

Addison tries to play white savior

Zedd has a zombie-related crisis that makes him make everything worse before making it better

Wyaliza kiss

Zeddison are sad for some reason or another

Bree is an unconditionally amazing friend to Addison

Bucky

The people of Seabrook regress back to fearmongering over things they don't understand

One of the Wells parents pulls authority

High School Musical parallels (yes including HSMtMtS)

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I know I'm probably super late to the party, but I just wanna say how awesome it is that the Owl House did the usual 'four elements' thing in a cool way.

Fireball - Fire Ice - Water Plants - Earth Light - Air

Apparently, according to a friend during a discussion about Fate the Winx Saga, Trix's wind magic can generate lightning by doing some science-y stuff that goes over my head. Point is, we got the usual, run of the mill boring 'four elements' thing, but Owl House did it in a way that made it cool and interesting.

When I first heard King say, "Maybe the reason Luz hasn't discovered anymore glyphs is because there aren't any", I actually got kinda upset because it didn't make any sense to me at the time. There had to be more, because there were clearly more types of magic.

Then I remembered that Luz got her second glyph from nature, so of course there aren't anymore. Witches as we know them are connected to nature, to the world around them, and nature is made up of the four elements. There aren't anymore glyphs because the glyphs Luz has are the foundation of all magic.

It's really cool how they took something we've seen a million times and put a unique and interesting spin on it. Very nice, Owl House crew. Hat's off to you.

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Hm, She-Ra is back on the brain. I'm contemplating making a post to explain why Catra's redemption in season 5 doesn't erase the abuse of her relationship with Adora. In fact, if anything, her redemption emphasizes just how abusive she'd been to Adora, and how the confession at the show's finale is actually her only beginning to fix the repercussions of her behavior toward Adora.

Unfortunately, in order to make that post, I'll need to make one explaining why her redemption arc is actually a good one, or at least leagues better than most of the other ones I saw in the last decade. It will no doubt have to touch on the cycle of abuse and the different ways Shadow Weaver raised them. So I suppose I'll get started on that first.

Make no mistake, I'm not here to simply spout hate at the Catdora relationship, but this is something people seem to either not consider, not think about, or not care about. I have thought about it, though, and since I've nothing better to do, I guess this will be it while I'm thinking about what I'll watch this holiday season.

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I do not hate Ruby's semblance, despite how stupidly it was introduced, explained, and utilized a moment later.

I DO hate that they had her use said semblance to save Weiss and Blake from falling into the abyss. Literally BOTH of those people had been shown to already have a way to stop themselves from falling, and even to get back up to the bridge.

Blake and Weiss have already conveyed their ability to save themselves from falling to the audience. In Chapter 8 of Volume 1, in fact. There was no reason for Ruby to save them. The writers just wanted to show off the "cool new power" so they could pretend they were clever. Despite the fact that introducing something useful and then using it later in the episode is literally something children's cartoons do all the time.

I do not hate Ruby's semblance. But I will grow to if the writers abuse the usage of it. We've been here for 7 volumes. We already know she moves fast. No need to show it at every opportunity. (I say as a kind of knock on wood omen that they won't overuse her semblance. I can hope.)

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Mild speculation about Ironwood, Penny, and the Atlas military under the cut. Might go further into detail in the future.

Ignoring the fact that Ironwood brought his military to a foreign kingdom without permission, hailed said military as elite and better, and is part of the reason Vale fell victim, also ignoring that he was always one second away from panicking and going overboard even as far back as Volume 3, between his behavior toward Penny and the Ace Ops’ behavior toward Penny, his leadership leaves quite a bit to be desired regardless.

Not only does he say that Penny is ‘under his complete control’ like some remote-controlled toy car, but both he and the Ace Ops continually gaslight her into thinking everything that has happened is her fault just to get her power back on their side.

It’s no wonder Penny thought she wasn’t ‘a real girl’ in Volume 2. Winter is the only one in the military who has been shown to actually care about her as a person first, a weapon second.

I know I’m acting as if all of this was planned in advance, and I apologize because none of this show was planned very well to begin with. It’s just something that speaks a lot about the relationships in the show. Well, the ones that aren’t being constantly muddled every other episode.

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What Ruby said: If Penny stays out of Salem's reach, Salem can't open the vault or get to the relic. But if you open the vault and remove the relic [as the Ace Ops suggested], Salem will find it no matter where you go.

What some people seem to THINK she said: If Penny takes the relic up with Amity, she'll be safe. [Two minutes later, to the Ace Ops] Salem will find the relic no matter where you go!

Me, pouring my fourth cup of chai: Listening comprehension is no longer being taught in schools, I see...

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Alright, hot take:

Marrow is basically the Black Cop. Literally and metaphorically.

He’s the guy that the other racist cops point to to deflect accusations of criticism. “We’re not racist! See! We have a Black Cop in our ranks!” Says the racist police chief.

Now replace “Black” with “Faunus” and you have Marrow’s entire purpose on the Ace Ops team.

Well, that, and accommodating for their general incompetence with his OP Semblance.

Here’s hoping for character development to kick in and have him defect from the Ace Ops. Or, as we should be calling them: The A-Cops.

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Strange that the most popular posts in the The New Mutants tag mainly focus on the racist Russian chick instead of the Scottish girl struggling to reconcile her nature with her beliefs, the troubled Latina doctor who doesn’t want to harm the children under her care but has to on orders, or, you know, the Native American main character of the film.

Maybe I’m just late and haven’t scrolled down far enough, but it’s very telling...

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Usually, when the new R/WB/Y volume drops, no matter how much I’m dreading whatever the fuck the writers are going to put us through this time, I watch anyway. As a general rule, I don’t drop off the volume until around the 5th episode and don’t come back until around the 9th episode drops. However, I just can’t muster the energy to click on the first ep of V8. 

(just regular analyst ranting under the cut, specifically about Clover, powerscaling, and Watts)

I think part of it has to do with how much I just hated the last few episodes of V7. In those last few episodes, we had Clover getting himself killed, Robyn holding the idiot ball several times, Ironwood... Ironwood. The Ace Ops getting their asses kicked by people who haven’t even earned their rank, Cinder, and some of the worst fucking battle continuity and power-scaling to show up in this show.

Neo forced Cinder to have to bring out the bullshit power in order to stop a fight, but Oscar runs around the corner screaming and somehow lands a hit when even Yang still can’t? Penny, an inanimate object with someone else’s soul, can just jump through a swirling cloud of power when Winter’s gloves were getting burned away by it? We still have no idea what Neo’s semblance is or how anyone other than Cinder knows who she is, but Nora somehow knows her full name?

Clover was already heading to Atlas with Qrow, but for some reason thought it best to handcuff him? Qrow was coming along willingly, but yeah, handcuff him. That seems right. Tyrian is a known serial killer, and known agent of Salem, but sure, let’s attack the guy who has been fighting on your side the entire time instead of subduing Tyrian. Tyrian is an asset that can provide information, but sure, stop Qrow from apprehending him multiple times.

Not only that, but the writers continue refusing to kill anyone even remotely important. Clover was not actually important. The only thing we knew about him was that he worked for Ironwood, his weapon was a fishing pole, and his semblance was good luck. Meanwhile, Watts is known to have been a former coworker of Penny’s dad, he faked his own death, he’s a master hacker, he’s a negotiator, he managed to get Salem closer to any of the relics than any of the other agents under her, and he’s got a bullshit gun. But Ironwood left him alive. Even worse, he’s in the intro of the show which means he’s still going to be part of the show, despite the fact that, now that Salem is on the doorstep, there’s no reason to even keep him alive anymore.

There was just so much in those last episodes that I just can’t see this volume being anything less than another clusterfuck of the writers trying to be smart and failing miserably just like they always do. The difference this time is just that they’ll probably try to figure out a way to either redeem Salem when she doesn’t deserve it, or they’ll try to do the status quo reset so that they can squeeze another volume or two out of the show. That second one won’t work very well because Salem has gotten involved now. You can no longer do the status quo reset because the status quo changes the second the main villain steps up.

I’ll probably end up watching the first two episodes a little later, but as I said before, I do not have too high expectations. At this point, the bar is on the ground.

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I haven’t watched the episode yet, but the new R/WB/Y intro song sucks. It starts okay, but it got really bad really fast. Casey’s clearly doing her best, but it doesn’t sound good. The instruments strike together in a discordant cacophony and the beat points don’t always hit when they should.

Maybe the point of the opening is to sound out of sync and almost like an upset group falling apart, but there are plenty of ways to showcase that without the sound coming out terribly. I can hear the exact moment it all goes to pieces, actually. I can’t hear the exact words, but when watching, the moment Yang and Ruby nod to one another on either side of the split screen. That’s when the song loses all semblance of being a song. Up to that point, they’re trying. From that point on, it’s just terrible.

(Below this point is just my own personal opinion, so feel free to skip the rest of this post.)

This is especially disappointing since the opening songs of the last two volumes have been just fine. Rising is even still one of my top favorites from the series. Looking back at past volumes, my enjoyment of volumes usually depends on how the opening is presented because, retrospectively, I’ve enjoyed volumes with openers I like and been downright disappointed or bored during volumes with intros I didn’t really care for. It doesn’t fill me with hope for how this is going to go.

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*glances at Tumblr dashboard* Ah, the rwde tag seems particularly active. A new RWBY volume must be on the way and, no doubt, CRWBY have put their massive foot in their mouth again. Better get my laptop ready for November.

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It’s Not Broadway’s Job to Educate You

Alright. Fourth of July was a good three weeks ago by now, and I have gotten all of my thoughts organized. Today, we’re talking about Hamilton the musical. Something people have been saying about it really bugs me.

Full disclosure, Hamilton’s a nice musical. It’s got good actors, good visuals, good composition. It’s nice. Did I Like It: That’s a loaded question. I enjoyed watching the choreography, the lighting, costumes, and set design. I studied theatre for years, so I’m glad I could put all of that to use. On the downside, I can count on one hand the number of songs I liked enough to listen to more than once and one of them isn’t even in the musical. Hamilton itself is little more than a 2.5 hour nonstop soundtrack on the history lesson teachers understandably skipped. I’m not a fan of rap, so finding something to like musically was difficult, even with Thomas Jefferson’s motown entrance and King George’s ballad-esque solos. It’s a nice musical. Not one I would watch again, but still nice.

On to the actual issue I wanted to talk about.

I find it highly telling that people think Hamilton is downplaying the horrors of history, or diversifying it unjustly, or that it gives POC a bad name and will make things harder on them. Fundamentally, this is wrong.

In a medium where having dark skin could make or break your career simply because stage lighting was designed with lighter skin in mind, having a musical that is primarily people with darker skin tones, and on such a large scale is a positive. Hamilton gave these people jobs and recognition. It opened up avenues for them that would have been otherwise difficult. The theatre industry has unbelievable standards for a medium that touts differences as being no big deal. Who cares if Juliet is being played by a man so long as he can sell the role? So what if a Greek Play performance is nothing but women so long as they give their all to the performance? If anything, seeing people with varying skin tones on stage is a good thing. It’s called normalization, and there needs to be more of it, especially since, in this scenario, the people of color were technically the ‘good guys’.

As for how people will view this moving forward, I ask. Is that a failing of the musical or is it a failing of the American Education System? Is this the fault of Lin Manuel Miranda trying to bring something new to one of the most notorious theatre houses in the world or is this the fault of people who cannot determine the difference between edutainment and real life history? Carmen Sandiego was not a real person, but her entire franchise is dedicated to teaching people about other places in the world. The six wives of Henry VIII weren’t actually reincarnated for Six the musical, but they give the audience an opportunity to look at them as separate people with separate hardships and backgrounds. Dora the Explorer can’t actually talk to animals, but she teaches kids how to read maps and speak Spanish.

No. If people actually think George Washington, Aaron Burr, etc were black, that is not the musical’s fault. That is a failing of the American Education System, which is notorious for whitewashing and sugarcoating history without the help of something made for entertainment purposes. Yes, this may cause some problems in the future, but don’t act like it’s solely the musical’s fault. The stupidity of man has weathered the sands of time long before Lin Manuel Miranda was even a thread in the fabric of existence.

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I hate going to bat for him, too, but you’re right. Qrow was in the flying vehicle with Clover and not even putting up any resistance. In fact, Qrow is the one who mentioned going to Ironwood to see what all this was about. Clover was the first one to pick up the Idiot Ball and decide, “Hm, on this vessel that he can’t escape from without me seeing, I think I’ll handcuff him anyway.”

Once the vessel crashed, Clover was still more focused on apprehending Qrow than trying to detain the criminal they just finished catching. Instead of trying to cuff the raging serial killer, Clover decided to focus on someone who has been on his side since the day they met. Yeah, Qrow drew his weapon on the vessel, but this one really is completely on Clover.

@kaedeichinose replied to post:

Not really?- Wrow didn’t really team up with Tyrian. He tried multiple times to ignore Clover to focus on the serial killer. Clover teamed up with knockoff scorpinok first. Qrow was defending himself from the guy who decided an arrest warrant was a bigger priority than the agent of Salem.

Maybe we can agree that it’s a shared L that’s more on Clover than Qrow?

God, I hate going to bat for that asshole.

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Initial Thoughts on She-Ra

I wanna talk about that Netflix cartoon with gay princesses and a lot of emotional weight that just wrapped up, but thinking about it makes me... kinda tired.

On the one hand, I absolutely love how the themes (abuse, grief, neglect, abandonment, responsibility, love) were all handled from Shadow Weaver reminding me of my mother being the biggest bitch and thankfully dying to Catra not immediately breaking her cycle of abuse but making the actual effort, to Bow wondering why he’s the only one who ever tries to fix friendships, to Glimmer’s initial grief display, to Catra feeling betrayed by Adora because Adora left. All of that is amazing.

On top of that, I adore how Netossa and Spinnerella were handled in the final season. After three seasons of them not doing anything, and then one season where they get half an episode, the final season really amped things up with them. The VAs did an amazing job of selling the relationship and I loved Netossa’s dedication to getting Spinnerella free of the mind control. It was genuinely one of my favorite parts of the final season.

Additionally, I love that Catra’s betrayal is influenced by something. We’re led to believe it’s friendship the whole time, but it’s revealed to be romantic love. She loved Adora romantically and in trying to distance herself from the betrayal, Catra wanted to hurt Adora in a similar way as she was hurt, but couldn’t bring herself to outright off Adora.

Personally, I couldn’t really see Catra getting a redemption after season three, but season four came in hard to set it up. After a decade of shitty redemption arcs and flimsy villain backstories, seeing an actual redemption arc take place over the course of two seasons is a breath of fresh air. Especially since, unlike those shitty redemptions, Catra is shown to be remorseful at every possible turn. She does bad things because she’s trying to harden herself, but she’s shown time and time again to not be a completely bad person.

On the other hand, I have complaints, like anyone would. It took until the fourth season before the canon married LGBT couple spoke meaningfully, and until the fifth season before I even realized they were married at all. The second married LGBT couple has one episode in the second season and a tiny bit part in the final one. Those I can live with since all of them were background characters.

What makes me blink at the show and go “god fucking damn it” is that Catra and Adora’s relationship was ambiguous. You could say “oh the clues were there” all you want, but the truth of the matter is, I’ve seen and weathered way too many “Progressive LGBT media” pieces to actually see those clues. Guess what? If you have to go looking for clues, it’s ambiguous. For all any of the audience knew, they were friends the entire time. And that just... makes me tired. It makes me as tired as that last episode get together in the Avatar sequel. I’m tired.

Had Adora and Catra been outright stated to have been dating and Catra returned to the Fright Zone without Adora like in the first episode, and then started her spiral into betrayal and anguish, I would be fine. But they weren’t. The audience was led to believe they were just friends and no indication was given beyond that.

This might be hard for some fans of anything to realize, but not everyone ravenously eats up interviews and tweets and the like. Not everyone goes looking for that stuff. For a lot of people, it’s just consuming the content, especially when it comes to something like Netflix. If Noelle confirmed the relationship as endgame somewhere, not everyone would know that and therefore would have zero reason outside of personal interest to think the two were more than friends.

I flocked to Dickinson because I found out that the LGBT couple kissed in the first fucking episode. Actively stated their romantic love for each other, had a heartfelt kiss, and one of them was only going into a heterosexual marriage because she’d starve otherwise. It is clear from start to finish of all ten episodes that Sue loves Emily and Emily loves Sue. It’s clear. No ‘searching for clues’, no ‘subtext’, none of that shit that’s been lauded as “Progressive LGBT media” but is just doing the bare minimum.

But despite how I feel about it being held off til the last minute, do you know why I like the ending of She-Ra so much? Because even though some stuff was rushed and the love confession was at the very end, Noelle set out to tell an interesting story. She didn’t do this for clout, she didn’t do this for ‘the rep points’, she wasn’t trying to ‘make a statement’ or prove how clever she is. She wanted to tell an interesting story and she did. And that’s so much more than I can say about those other supposedly “Progressive LGBT media” pieces. Noelle didn’t do it for the gay, she wanted to make something people would enjoy. The gay was just her little added bonus.

For that, while I definitely think the show has flaws, I pass mad respect to Noelle, both as a creator and as a gay. She set out to tell a story. And it was a damn good one from start to finish.

I have a ton of positive other thoughts on the show, too, but I haven’t slept yet, so I’ll hold those off til later.

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Just listened to the Rotten to the Core remix for the first time in a few months today, and honestly? I still love the beat. It’s a jam. I like it. But I wanna strangle the lyricist, mostly for most of the first verse and the ending of the second verse.

The first verse is lacking because it doesn’t feel like the characters we’ve grown to know over three movies. I think that’s partially to do with the fact that we can’t understand Mal’s second line the lyrics trying to fit something old and something new together. It sounds relatively fine on first listen apart from Mal’s part, but then you give it another listen and the lyrics just don’t make sense? Literally what is Mal saying in her second line? Why is Jay talking about a trophy (I guess we’re supposed to make the connection to tourney+fencing)? I expected Evie to be watered down to nothing but fashion, but her second line feels forced because of the slant rhyme of ‘blood/gloves’ and because the two lines feel very loosely connected. Carlos is the only one whose lines sound like they capture what the song is saying.

The second verse is fine. Because they’re not trying to force the previous version’s lyrics on the first three singers, it feels fresh and new, and actually fits into the theme and feel of the song. It fails with Celia, though. “Show me the money/you ain’t seen nothin’ yet” feels stale. For the same reason the first verse does. They’re trying to fit the old and the new together, and it’s not working. Which is hilarious because there are actually ways they could have made it work. “How big is my cut?/You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” or “I see our future/You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” could’ve fit much better and still fit into Celia’s line.

After the previous two movies, I didn’t have my hopes super high for it, but I suppose I’m disappointed that they tried to keep so much of the original. It still counts as a remix if they only kept the chorus, so why keep so much of the verses, too? It just feels kind of cheap and flat, when it could’ve encompassed our MCs better if they had let the verses be new and the chorus stay the same. Maybe Carlos’ line could stay as is, because it does encompass what the song is trying to say, but everybody else in the first verse deserved better and should’ve been changed to incorporate more of their new selves including Mal’s part, but I’m mostly just saying that because I have no idea what she’s saying.

I know this is more of a gripe than an actual critique, and I’m sorry. I guess I’m just a little put-out by it.

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But no, seriously, Harley’s love for her sandwich was literally more gripping than most slapped together cardboard cutout romances and it was exactly a cardboard cutout romance. When Renee Montoya shows up at the evidence bay holding area and Harley’s just like, “YOU KILLED MY SANDWICH!” you really felt it.

Pros of Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey -Canon LGBT main characters -Diverse cast and crew -Shiny and nonchronological with more energy than a Redbull 4-hour energy combo -Margot Robbie Margot Robbie Margot Robbie -Black Canary singing A NOTE YOU’VE NEVER HEARD BEFORE -Psycho villain breakup is somehow the most realistic portrayal of a breakup you’ve ever seen -on a similar note, love between girl & sandwich is better than most Hollywood romances. The sacrifice. The love. The tragedy -Helena Bertinelli on a motorcycle was specially crafted from the screams of the bisexual goblin horde that is my heart, and is the awkwardest assassin -Main characters realize they are extremely flawed bad people and actually do something about it

Cons of Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey -gaining unrealistic expectations for love because Helena Bertinelli doesn’t exist in real life -there’s only one scene with a glitter cannon

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I can guarantee you that if YouTube required you to watch the full video before you could rate it or comment on it, and they prevented you from skipping forward, only back to parts you’ve already watched, most of the hateful commenters wouldn’t bother. Have the videos act the same way as the ads on mobile apps. If you click away from it, it pauses. 90% of the dumbasses on every video would not even be bothered.