#if it was a ship it would also help that mack and gina are the same age

[insomniactalks]

1/2 In a recent interview Meg said about working with Matt on s3 that: "most of OUR scenes were together". This doesn't look good for Portwell... What really annoys me is that it means they spent most of EJ's scenes with a character that won't appear in future seasons, instead of the wildcats... It's not even about the romantic ships... give me more of Ashlyn and EJ, or Carlos and EJ... we barely saw these characters interact and this season was a perfect opportunity...

2/2 Also, making most of his scenes with her makes me think that he will probably won't appear in the next seasons... It looks like they're preparing him to leave...

have you read that new interview with meg? she mentioned that most of her scenes and matt's were together- I think it's time we start saying goodbye....(this is another anon but putting these asks t/g)

I answer some of yall’s concerns in this post (give it a read if you can!) Just to clarify for you, anon(s), this is exactly what Meg said in the article, "most of our scenes were together so that was really cool." Just because most of Meg's scenes as Val were with Matt as EJ, doesn't automatically mean most of EJ's scenes were with Val. We have to keep in mind EJ is a main, meaning he's gonna get more screen time than Val (a guest star) and will share scenes with multiple characters. I deff agree I hope to see more Caswell cousins content and EJ bonding with the boys this season. I just love those diff dynamics outside of the romantic relationships, too! For the concerns about EJ sharing “most” of his scenes with Val, I wouldn’t worry too much about that b/c that doesn’t mean the same as Val being the one to share most of her scenes with EJ. Being a guest star, in only 8 episodes spanning 2 weeks, Val won’t be prioritized the way EJ will be as a main character. Sure, we’ll probably be introduced to Val thru EJ, and she may very well cause a ton of drama, but she might also help EJ’s character cont to progress in S3. One last thing that’s not included in my previous post: Don’t underestimate the power of Disney. Zombies 3 and S3 are premiering a week and a half apart. Of course Matt and Meg will have a ton of promo to do for these projects, and it makes sense they’d share a lot of scenes together. We’re gonna see Matt in Zombies 3 first, then see Meg in S3 soon after that. Disney is gonna wanna promote both projects as much as possible  (esp in July) so it would make sense Meg had a lot of scenes w/ Matt. I believe they wrapped Zombies 3 last June, then started filming HSMTMTS S3 about 6 or 7 months later. Having Meg and Matt share scenes (in both universes) gives Disney the chance to get ppl hyped about both projects. Remember when Asher Angel guest starred as Jack in S2? And all his scenes were with Sofia (Gina)? Disney gave us a mini-Andi Mack reunion in the best way possible (I missed the Buffy and Jonah banter LOL). We knew Sofia and Asher would probably share most of their scenes together, right? Did that mean the end for Portwell? Did Jack stand in the way of a potential PW relationship? No. Jack was used as a plot device to help further them along lmaooo Isn’t it possible Val may function in the same way? I know she’s in more episodes than him but they’ve already used two plot devices in the form of guest stars to help further develop Portwell. I wouldn’t be surprised if Val/Meg serves the same kinda role in S3.   

[multimetaverse]

HSM:TM:TS 1x01 Review

The Auditions was a great series premiere for High School Musical: The Musical: The Series and I’m very excited for all that’s to come. Let’s dig in!

Disney certainly got its money worth with this show. The gorgeous Utah scenery and actual on location filming really helps ground the series with a sense of realism. To that end, I really liked the little details, like the principal not wanting to spend anything on the musical, the kids social media use, and that the kids actually look like regular kids who live in regular houses and go to a regular high school

Such a talented cast! Olivia Rodrigo is a showstopper, what a wonderful rendition of Start of Something New that was and Joshua Bassett seems born to play Ricky. Sofia is an amazing dancer and I’m excited to see some of the productions they put on later in the season 

Miss Jenn reminds me of April Rhodes from Glee and I mean that as a compliment. Her delivery of, ‘’that is so fresh’’ still makes me laugh. I love that she cast Ricky as Troy on a whim for maximum drama and  of course she wants a Ms. Darbus song, she’s an agent of chaos and I’m here for it. I also liked her begging her mom for car loan payment money, you’re not really a millennial if you haven’t lived pay cheque to cheque at some point

Even though we’ve seen them in the trailer, Carlos’ first 15 minutes of both sequels and Broadway lines still made me chuckle

I like the glimpses we get of the kids home lives. Very refreshing to see Nini’s two moms and see that she has a mixed race family and with Andi Mack off of Disney Channel, tonight’s showing of HSMTMTS might be the last time any kind of lgbtq rep is seen on Disney Channel itself for quite a while. Her grandma looks too young to be in a nursing home but it was nice to see her helping Nini with her self-confidence. Poor Ricky with his parents marriage collapsing, that’s gonna be a tearjerker if and when his mom returns from Chicago to officially end things with his dad. Seems like Gina’s mom has high expectations of her which eventually lead to their scene we saw in the promo where Gina breaks down

We dove right into the love triangle at the heart of this season: Nicky vs NJ. As I was watching the first flashback scene between Nini and Ricky, I thought to myself that if they keep writing them scenes like this I just might become Nicky trash, I was trying to stay neutral but after Ricky’s audition I’m definitely team Ricky, that really was the #ultimatecomeback. Ricky singing ‘’I Think I Kind of You Know’’, the song Nini wrote for him was just too sweet; it warmed even my cold, black heart. And that shot of Ricky and EJ lighting Nini with their phones and forming a triangle? Poetic cinema

It really does seem like Nicky is the endgame ship with NJ just an obstacle in its path especially with Nini having been in love with Ricky just six weeks ago and only having met EJ four weeks ago. EJ is very supportive of Nini and I did like how sweet he is with her, that line about her being a cute chorus cow was great. I saw on Disney +’s twitter poll that the fandom is split about 66% team Ricky to 33% team EJ which is an interesting split but also reflects the writing tipping it’s hand, it does want us to like NJ but not at the expense of Nicky

One thing that I don’t like so far is the age gap between Olivia and Matt, she’s 16 and he’s 21 and they both look their age. I’m not saying that all teen roles need to be played by teens but that age gap is significant when they’re playing girlfriend and boyfriend and was an unforced error on the shows part. It reminds me of the problems GMW suffered by casting a much older Peyton Meyer to play Riley’s love interest. Matt Cornett’s age as well as EJ being the only senior of the main cast is another hint that he won’t be playing Nini’s love interest past this season

I do hope that however this love triangle ends that it’s done as cleanly as possible. Love triangles are rarely pulled off well because the show or movie or book will usually tip its hand fairly quickly as to which is the ‘real’ ship but they also usually end up damaging the characters involved. In this case Ricky is not just a rival for Nini’s affections but a would be homewrecker who’s set out to breakup Nini and EJ which if not handled carefully could make Ricky look like a bad guy

As an aside, Nini having a shirtless photo of EJ on her phone and her and Ricky hanging out alone in her bedroom in the flashback is spicy for Disney but does at least gesture more to the reality of teen life than the typical squeaky clean Disney fare

Carlos is the colour guard captain, that was in the original casting notice (back when Carlos was named Vikram) and Tim Federle mentioned in an interview that he based Carlos off of one of his best friends who was also a colour guard captain. I’ve been wondering for a couple of weeks now if Frankie Rodriguez was actually allowed to reveal that Carlos is gay because it hasn’t been talked about in interviews or mentioned in any reviews so far. His line about EJ not knowing who he is, seems like it could potentially be set up for an arc about Carlos trying to make himself known. He knew that Seb wanted to try out for Sharpay rather than Ryan so presumably he already knows him? We know that something is being teased between him and Seb but I won’t hold my breathe for getting very much from Disney, at least this season

Not much to say about the other characters so far. Kourtney is barely a step above the sassy black friend trope but I think some of it has to due with the fact that Tim Federle originally just wanted Kourtney to be a one off supportive friend for Nini but so liked the actress that he decided to make her a main. Ashlyn is supposed to have a powerful duet with Nini in the second ep so that is something to look forward to as is her relationship with her cousin EJ. Big Red is a nice supportive friend and that’s about it. Not much to Mr. Mazara either. It does seem like the dividing line between major and lesser main characters are those who have lead roles in the musical itself

I love that the mockumentary interviews happen even when they make absolutely no sense in universe 

We get some full character names from the cast list: Seb Matthew- Smith, Ricky Bowen, EJ Caswell, Gina Porter, and Nini Salazar-Roberts

Looking Ahead:

I read in reviews that EJ teams up with Gina to take down Ricky while Gina tries to take down Nini. That’s a pretty easy path to villainize EJ and sink NJ eventually while then using EJ’s panic attacks and Gina’s story line with her mom to build them back up. I sincerely hope that they don’t even try to go for one sided Gina and EJ as Sofia is the youngest cast member

Sofia did say that Gina would make things complicated for the love triangle and in a promo clip she said she was ‘intrigued’ by Ricky so we’ll see what happens

Miss Jenn supposedly left New York in unclear circumstances so I wonder where they’ll go with that. My own theory is that she used to be an extra on Law and Order: SVU and was having a torrid affair with Dan Florek before being exposed

I’ll try to have these reviews up Friday evenings but that’s dependent on when I can watch the eps. Because the pilot aired on tv we’ll actually get ratings either Monday or Tuesday which will be the only time we’ll get publicly released data otherwise all we’ll get is what Disney wants us to know and that will often just be spin. I’m very excited for this season and for season two and I can’t wait to see what’s ahead. Until next week wildcats

[claudia-kishi]

nikita mears, bex mack, joan watson, ezekiel jones, henry higgs, lara vega, dutch, anissa pierce, charley bordelon, amy sosa, alexis rose

omg this is SO MANY. also i’m deleting the hogwarts house one bc i have never read HP lmfao. i’m gonna do just my faves bc i’m lazy BUT THANKS FOR ALL OF THESE OPTIONS RACHEL.

bex mack

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bangbest quality: she wants to be a good mother to andi and she’s trying to make something of herself :’) worst quality: idk if there is one that i can think of she’s pure ship them with: some girl i wish it could’ve been miranda but ALAS.brotp them with: bowie tbh. i don’t ship them romantically needs to stay away from: idk really misc. thoughts: i would die for my wife bex mack who is! in fact bisexual

joan watson

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bangbest quality: that she’s my mother worst quality: my momther is Perfect tbh sorry  ship them with: honestly i don’t really too much with anybody. BUT marcus! and also gina! brotp them with: sherlock ofc needs to stay away from: i mean i don’t know him but let’s get her the fuck away from mycrosoft holmes misc. thoughts: i love my MOTHER joan watson and i would die for her… and she’s the most wonderful person and character and i love her and she’s my favorite character ever and i love her so much

ezekiel jones

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bangbest quality: HE CARES ABOUT HIS FOUND FAMILY AND WOULD LITERALLY DIE FOR THEM AS HE HAS ALREADY worst quality: his ego but i guess he’s allowed to be huh it’s endearing sometimes lol  ship them with: cass! brotp them with: eve  needs to stay away from: ummmmm hm. idk! misc. thoughts: i love my son ezekiel jones who literally has the most purest heart and he LITERALLY is CURRENTLY HIS WORST SELF… AND HIS WORST SELF CARES ABOUT EVERYBODY AND STEALS TO HELP THE LESS FORTUNATE AND IS LITERALLY THE ROBINHOOD BUT WAY COOLER

lara vega

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bangbest quality: she wants to get justice no matter what and honestly her hotness is also a great quality in my correct and humble opinion worst quality: nothing. my wife is perfect thanks ship them with: ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but also WILL I NEVER KNOW WHAT HAPPENED WITH WILL. BUT WILL. brotp them with: dash :’)))  needs to stay away from: ummm hm. idk  misc. thoughts: …i love my wife… literally she was the first character i truly fell in love with and have been This Attracted to to deem her as my wife and i’m in love with her and she’s also the CUTEST baby and also she just wants to help everybody and i love her and she’s so good and i hope she’s ok out there i love you

charley bordelon

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bangbest quality: she’s! just! trying! to! do! her! best! whY WON’T ANYBODY SUPPORT HER ;_____; worst quality: my girl is a little too ambitious and will do anything to succeed and that anything is scary like girl what are you doing right now  ship them with: remy but also not remy until he apologizes brotp them with: i mean all of her siblings tbh i love them all together so much needs to stay away from: THESE WH*TES WHY DID SHE HOLD HIS HAND IT’S BEEN MONTHS AND I’M STILL UPSET misc. thoughts: first of all she’s so fucking beautiful i’m crying and second of all she’s the cutest and third of all someone just let her be fucking HAPPY for more than one episode because i swear to god this girl has been struggling nonstop and i’m suffering for her

amy sosa

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bangbest quality: she is just trying her best!!!!!! give her the raise!!!!!! give her the world!!!!!! let her be happy!!!!!!!!!!!worst quality: she doesn’t think she deserves things when she really does :(  ship them with: honestly alex and me but like i GUESS jonah’s ok brotp them with: cheyenne! needs to stay away from: adam get him away misc. thoughts: she!!! is really the cutest person on EARTH and she’s the most small and cute like guys her green jacket in the one (1) still from 3.21 is too big for her like her hands don’t even come out of her sleeves i’m genuinely crying? also! she’s just the cutest baby and i love her and she REALLY DOES DESERVE THE WORLD I MEAN GUYS SHE WAS MARRIED TO SOMEONE SHE DID! NOT! LOVE! FOR 15 YEARS AND I JUST WANT HER TO LIVE HER LIFE AND BE HAPPY.

send me characters!

[multimetaverse]

HSMTMTS 1x08 Review

The Tech Rehearsal was a great ep. Let’s dig in!

Great Rini scenes tonight that did some heavy lifting to get them back to a place where they can almost be open with their feelings. Richard Bowen and Nina Salazar- Roberts being the reason the other goes by Nini and Ricky? Reader, that’s the cutest shit I’ve ever seen. The show really brought out the big guns with them knowing each other since Kindergarten. I think most of the casual audience is now shipping Rini, if they hadn’t already, so mission accomplished for the writers

Tim said on instagram that the writers wanted to show that Ricky and Nini had known each other since Kindergarten and it makes sense to use the Troyella rooftop scene and Gabriella’s line about meeting someone in Kindergarten and just becoming friends and use that to tie it all together. But it does somewhat conflict with Kourtney and Nini’s convo in 1x05 that made it sound like Nini only met Ricky in 7th grade. Now it’s true that Kourtney may have just meant it in the sense that 7th grade was when Nini started to have feelings for Ricky but if that’s the case then the writing should have been more clear

As Nini sang in All I Want, EJ is perfect on paper and in Miss Jenn’s notes she wrote that EJ was the perfect Troy on paper; it’s like poetry it rhymes

This is the second ep in a row where a main cast member has been missing. I do wonder if the writers felt that they had done too much work with Rina and keeping Gina off screen was the easiest way to set up a return to Rini. The writers have never been subtle when it comes to ending ships; when it came time to remove EJ as Nini’s love interest they quickly villainized him. I don’t think they want to undo the good work they’ve done redeeming Gina so keeping her off screen is the next best thing

EJ and Carlos had a fun dynamic. EJ trying to emote was so funny as was him stealing Miss Jenn’s notes, it really is his signature move. Matt Cornett does really well playing a dope. I liked that he gave Carlos a confidence boost. Nice to hear Carlos speaking Spanish

Also we now know that Carlos Surname is Carlos Rodriguez. Rodriguez, which means son of Roderick and originated from the Visigoths who conquered Spain, is the 4th most common surname in Spain but it also seems likely that the writers had never decided on Carlos’ last name and just gave him Frankie’s last name which is lazy

EJ Caswell is suffering from Lucas Friar and Jonah Beck syndrome; the handsome, athletic, and kind of ditzy love interest for the main girl who really doesn’t have much else going on when they’re not being shipped with the main girl. Lucas never really got much development but the writers could rely on Farkle to help balance out the show and in S3 the GMW became the Riley and Maya show so it didn’t really matter what Lucas got up to anyways. Andi Mack suffered greatly from never developing Jonah, especially in S3 once he was no longer Andi’s love interest his plot line was a total trainwreck. What made things worse is that the the writers couldn’t build up Cyrus like the GMW writers could build up Farkle since Cyrus’ story was restricted because he was gay. Luckily HSMTMTS has plenty of main characters and is less restricted so it doesn’t drag the show down so much that EJ is just kind of there. I also wonder if the fact that EJ is a senior plays a role in this, sure they can do S2 as the spring musical but what about S3 when EJ would be graduated? If he won’t be on the show long term then there’s no real pressure to develop him or give him that much to do

Big Red appearing behind Miss Jenn was the funniest moment of the ep for me. I also love every time we hear an adult refer to Big Red as Big Red because it’s just so silly

Big Ashlyn (I think that’s their shipname) remains cute. Very smooth of Ashlyn to use Big Red’s compliment to flirt with him

Loved The Role of a Lifetime, Lucas did great, nice little nod to Kate having played Glinda, and loved the ‘’contractually obligated dream sequence’’ line

Interesting motif of ruins tonight. The El Rey theatre is in ruins, on stage the backdrop is a ruined Roman city, and Miss Jenn must face the fact that her acting career and dreams are in ruins before she can start rebuilding her life

Dara can really sing, it’s hard to believe that Kourtney was just supposed to be a one off role. I thought her initial reaction to Nini potentially leaving was realistic but I’m not sure her calling the Dean to come and watch Nini perform was the right move to make it up to Nini

I liked the little Seb and Kourtney interaction. I know there’s been a lot of speculation that they’re setting up a genderfluid Seb story line but I’m deeply skeptical that’s something Disney would allow. And if they were willing to do that then I don’t think they would have allowed Seb to become a main character in S2

I really liked that Gina told Ricky via text that she would have to leave earlier than planned and that Nini told Kourtney and Ricky that she was interested in going to YAC. It was awful in Andi Mack when Buffy left early without telling her friends and then ghosted them for what was supposed to be two months in universe and it was weird that Andi never told any of her friends about SAVA so I’m glad HSMTMTS isn’t making the same mistakes

Looking Ahead:

Just for a Moment sounds great, Joshua and Olivia did such a great job. It’s great that Tim is giving the actors a chance to write their own songs, I hope we see more of it in future seasons. From a video Joshua shared on twitter we can see that they were working on the song during the filming of 1x02. The song must have been selected before 1x08 was written since Nini’s line that it was just a moment is clear set up for the song

The YAC dean is in the audience, does Nini flee and its Ricky who finds her which is why EJ is singing part of breaking free? Or is Ricky gone because he sees his mom in the audience?

How Gina’s move gets undone will be interesting to see. For Andi Mack at least they could say that government cutbacks led the Driscolls to return but if Gina’s mom has to follow natural disasters then it wouldn’t be so easy to just move her back to SLC

The show is flirting with disaster with the YAC plot. If Nini gets in then she will inevitably have to eventually return to East High and in the meantime she’ll be cut off from all the other characters and whatever focus YAC gets will necessarily take away from whatever is going on in East High. There’s a reason Andi Mack only introduced the SAVA plot in the final few eps, there would have been no way to actually pull that off if the series was going to continue 

I really do hope we get something with Seblos in the final two eps. 1x05 was great and I’m happy that they were able to do so much textual stuff already but that shouldn’t be an excuse to not touch on it further. I’m sure that with Seb being a main in S2 we’ll get more but we need more now in S1

Until next week  ep Wildcats