#they probably wont even think danny is a meta

[dyinggirldied]

sleeping bait?

Based somewhat on that line “death’s cold embrace/the eternal sleep”, like when Danny, through whatever reasons you decide, came to DC universe and the different dimension stuff + half dead nature = energy drained Danny, who fell asleep without meaning to at the worst or best of times.

Imagine big, strong Red Hood got ambushed by a gang but got saved by a small, Batman’s adoption bait kid who just beat all the bad guys’ ass with a thermos and won. Once he finished, the kid plopped down on Jason like a particularly lazy, sleepy cat and just stayed like that, using the big man as his personal pillow 😆 

Maybe Jason brought him back to one of his warehouses but the next morning the kid was gone.

The same thing repeated with the whole other bat siblings and they just plotted to kidnap the kid back to the mansion, for Danny’s own sake of course.

[sanchoyo]

danny phantom season 2, episode 17-20 thoughts! finishing up season two! the finale is the THIRD 2-PARTER OF SEASON 2. that's so many! I wonder how many season 3 will have?

see prev episode thoughts in this tag <3

-UERGH WHY DOES VLAD HAVE AN AI WITH MADDIE'S FACE ON IT. SOOO CREEPY. AND MORE 'CREATIONS' waiiiit. vlad is Dr. Frankenstein! (despite his ghost design obviously referencing vampires) HE HAS 'CREATIONS' HE MAKES THEN WONT TAKE REAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR!!! this bitch.

-danny was late and his friends immediately start going off about how hes inconsiderate, and has been treating them like sidekicks??? he just overslept, my god. chill. even if he has, be nicer about talking about it with him?? he really can't help that he sometimes has to chase the ghosts, or has a secret identity to protect...

-'what kind of ghost haunts a miniature golf course' umm. me as a ghost. next question

-imagine going home and theres a tiny child on your bed claiming to be your cousin. with as many cousins I have, I would probably believe her. but the 'ran away from home' BIT....SHES 12?? SHES SO TINY. I hate that they have her belly out in her ghost form, but I like how her colors are asymmetrical. something about her design...maybe the proportions?? are weird to me...anyway danny was good to feed her, but he shouldve taken her to his parents FIRST. or, tbh, probably jazz. (JAZZ DIDNT EVEN GET TO MEET HER!!! NOOO. I mean she said she'll be BACK BUT STILL)

-ANYWAY. shes voiced by AnnaSophia Robb, the girl who was in because of winn dixie, played as violet from charlie and the chocolate factory, and was the girl from bridge to terrabithia. (the movie that made me cry hysterically when I was 12 and I never watched it again because it Broke Me!) thats super cool.

-vlad sucks: the episode, basically. what's new!! I love how he's like, I'm Not A Villain. *immediately cuts to him torturing danny to make him transform, to get mid-transformation DNA, to perfect a Clone.* *immediately shows that he doesnt give a shit about his new daughter Dani and just wants a ''more perfect clone'' and will put her in danger to get that. will let her DIE to get that*

-Dani is danny's clone and is a girl? transgenderism....one of them has to be trans. or they both are.

-dani just. leaving at the end. WHAT? SHES 12. DONT JUST. NO!!! SHE WAS PROBABLY JUST BORN, A MONTH AGO AT MOST, RIGHT?? SHE NEEDS...SOMEWHERE TO LIVE. MONEY? FOOD?? A FAMILY?? AN EDUCATION???! WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE'S LEAVING!!! OKAY BYE I GUESS!!! D: concern!!!

-the next ep opens with skulker chasing a ghost down. ...does skulker count as a ghost hunter in the way valerie and danny do? I mean, sure, he hunts the good guys too, but he. he hunts ghosts...also, we haven't seen his Real Form since his debut episode! tiny...

-the guys in white are back! ngl, I assumed they were a gag for that one episode. you're telling me they might actually be a threat? ok.

-valerie in her lil nasty burger uniform looks so cute!! glad shes not in that mascot uniform this time. I guess she stopped hiding that she's working there now?

-gregor having white hair, dressed in black and white...and green eyes...sam has a Type, I guess.

-danny being unnecessarily hostile about gregor. danny!!! hes been nice so far. he looks a little...tall to be 14, but. danny doesnt know anything about him! (he does Suspect, but...you cant just spy on people and be rude to them from a hunch.) also, gregor kissed her, and when she freaked out, he was like 'oh no!! sorry, we can take it slow! I understand!' which was NICE. I hate jealousy plots still tho.

-altho. umm. tucker, being concerned about danny spying on them??? SAM AND YOU WERE SPYING ON DANNY AND VALERIE A FEW EPISODES AGO!!!!! im not saying its RIGHT, but dont be a hypocrite!!! AND THEN SAM BEING MAD ABOUT IT, TOO.

-DANNY IS A 7 ON THE SCALE OF ECTOPLASMIC POWER!!! out of 10? so I want to know where the other ghosts rank...I mean it's a list from the guys in white, so, it may not even be accurate, like, they havent seen ALL of his powers, have they?

-Lancer being like 'im not cooperating with the FEDS' until they said they could access his tax records. they already did that joke with jack, but like, its still funny. kings of tax evasion.

-tucker's aggressive third-wheeling. but gregor being super into it. gregor/tucker is the real ship here. then gregor kissing danny on both cheeks after hugging him. bi poly king gregor. (he does turn out to be a liar with a phoney accent. unsurprising, BUT THE CONCEPT OF HIM BEING GENUINE AND THEM ALL DATING IS FUN)

-THE...GUYS IN WHITE THINKING GREGOR IS DANNY PHANTOM. LMAOOO. GET HIS ASS. or,, Elliot. lmfao

-sam saying tucker is part of the package because theyre friends was super sweet <3 but also 'part of the package'...polyships are obviously the solution to these dumb jealousy/love triangle plots.

-danny crashed a whole plane. the collateral damage...

-is he....

-you know....

.... (ITS NOT GAY IF YOU'RE DOING IT TO PRETEND TO BE SOMEONE YOU'RE NOT, AND LIE TO A GIRL. RIGHT? he was getting a little too into pretending to enjoy tucker's company, and the above...c'mon, guy.)

-lmao, freakshow is in actual prison. I didn't expect a follow up, or for him to show back up! in the finale of this season, too!

-THE SICK TATTOO GHOST IS NAMED LYDIA!!! more Lore On her. freakshow seemed genuinely concerned about her. also, is she mute? I don't think she talked the first time we saw her, either. and we didn't know freakshow 'envied' ghosts, either, the first time, we just knew he was controlling them. interesting!

-...they literally stole the infinity gauntlet from marvel and called it the reality gauntlet. is that legal. what the fuck. even with the gems in the lil slots, having different powers...they had freakshow in jail, but didnt check his pockets??! hes just still in his lil outfit??? what kind of ...oh, its in amity park. yeah, all of the adults are idiots, okay, sure.

-'freakshow!' 'in the anemic flesh!' dude take some iron pills then. also, sure, the red eyes could be contacts for his aesthetic, but the whites of his eyes are yellow! does he have jaundice?! he severely needs more...like, every kind of vitamin. (this is what im worried about as freakshow attacks danny with giant robots)

-again, goth circus is a sick theme, and I love his goth train.

-oh FUCK every single person saw danny transform. on a stage. including his parents via TV. oh god. the guys in white and immediately like 'youre coming in for experiments!' SCARY. at least the crowd is willing to help him to escape...perks of now being a local celeb! even the kids at school are accepting :) this is what, the third time his family has found out? its always been an alt timeline tho. and danny fully intending to just rewrite things again instead of...I dunno, trying to roll with it this time? hes really worried his family won't accept him, huh...

-'maybe our son IS THE GHOST BOY, but its not as if our family's ghostly activities have EVER PUT YOUR FAMILIES IN DANGER' maddie. mmmmmmmmmmmm. okay.

-danny 100% prepared to run away from home because of this :( oh :( and saying his parents are 'looking for him, or a scalpel to dissect him with' ouch...

-THE GUYS IN WHITE TRYING TO ARREST A 14 YEAR OLD. fuck da feds.

-side note (another one about voice actors...) freakshow's voice actor, Jon Cryer, was lex luthor in pretty much every DC tv show, which is why I recognized his voice, because my dad loves those shows so I've seen a good bit of them without seeking them out...)

-the old man saying 'hey, i still had minutes left!' and danny saying 'you gotta watch those roaming charges!' about danny destroying the people in the diner's phones so no one could report seeing him...would kids today understand these things. can you even BUY minutes anymore...I remember my first phone being a flip phone, and the fact I always had minutes when my sister ran out super fast, because I didnt have friends calling or texting me like she did...:/

-the fentons being genuinely like 'why didnt danny trust us and tell us this, we love him :(' and JAZZ LAYING INTO THEM WITH THE 'DISSECTION/MOLECULE BY MOLECULE' LINES. LITERALLLLY. they need to apologize

-technically, lydias stronger than you! -jazz lesbianism moments! when did you even learn her name!!! but also get freakshows ass. lydia is also cooler looking. looove her design sm still.

-jazz psychoanalyzing freakshow... (also, her also having ghost envy? au where jazz is a ghost!! id like to see it)

-im glad the kids still got to go to their respective vacation things, even if they cant really stick around and enjoy them much...

-furry: confirmed. (also tucker calling her hot. tucker is a furry confirmed)

-danny being mad someone at the comic con is selling comics of him without permission, lmfao. give him his royalties!

-freakshow > thanos because hes a drama clown and does use his gauntlet to be FLASHY AND DRAMATIC.

-jazz's 'USE PYSCOLOGY' to danny about freakshow LMAOO. AND THEN IT WORKING. but, oh, freakshow's ghost form sucks. I like him as a clown better tbh. good thing danny took away his ghost powers!

-his parents hugging him and saying theyre proud :"( and saying 'of course you lied to us, we never gave you a reason not to!' and saying they were in the wrong basically for always talking about hurting ghosts aaaa :""(

-then he WIPED THEIR MEMORIES AGAIN!!! FUCK. I can understand him wiping the goverments/student bodies' memories, but why his parents?? they were being accepting!! ARGHHH. season 3 couldve been them all trying to adjust to them knowing!

-I know, on a meta level the showrunners probably wanted to just reset things to the status quo of him having a secret identity. But. We've been doing that for (2) seasons, I'd love if season 3 could be like, his parents adjusting to this and trying way harder to learn more and accept it (and the shenanigans that could come from that) and for fun, if he didn't wipe the students memories, it could be him being popular for a while, then everyone slowly realizing, oh, he's still Danny. Like. he might have ghost powers but hes Just The Same Guy instead of putting him on a pedestal (and seeing them all try and help him hide it from the giw/people who don't know!!)

-fuck they didn't even explain WHY he wiped everyone except sam, tucker and jazz's memories. he just Did It right when his parents were saying they loved/accepted him!! and sam and tucker didnt question it at all!!! HELLO??? very annoyed about this turn of events.

-anyway. onto season 3! I know its shorter than the first two seasons, and is the last season... I might just do it in 2 bursts if I can... :3c depends on the episodes' content and how much I want to say about each!

[amplesalty]

Christmas 2019: Day 12 - White Christmas (1954)

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

Twelve singing soldiers!

So, Christmas has passed for another year and I have one movie remaining. Unfortunately, this is the closest I’m getting a White Christmas, in reality it was a relatively sunny affair this year, I only recall a couple of times that we had snow on Christmas Day in my life.

This was originally meant as a joke during last years viewing of the animated Mariah Carey movie ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ but why not, it’s nice to have an earlier entry amongst all the post 2000 media that these Christmas marathons tend to throw up. Evidently even back then I had envisioned this whole musical motif that has run throughout the month.

The song White Christmas actually had its origins in an earlier film ‘Holiday Inn’ back in 1942, starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, which led to it winning the Academy Award for Best Original Song before going on to be the best-selling single of all time. The Crosby version I find a little bland though and it moves at a glacial pace. Maybe it’s just because I’m more used to it due to its use in Home Alone but The Drifters version is a bit more interesting, probably down to the ‘doo wop’ style.

Crosby had quite an extensive on-screen career, matched (if not exceeded) by his work in the music studio given his 100+ albums. Granted about 10% of that are from post-humous compilation releases but it seems pretty crazy to me that someone could have so many albums., he almost seemed to be putting them out at the rate of one a month at times. I feel like I don’t know where to start when I get into a new artist and they have 5+ albums, nevermind 100. Though, in looking at this, Buckethead is infinitely worse due to his ‘Pike Series’ of mini-albums of which there are 275, leading to a total of 306 total albums when combined with his other work.  

I know I mentioned it in that post and have probably made reference to it before but in regards to Crosby’s treatment of his kids, this seems to stem from the memoirs of his son Gary in which he talks about the cruel treatment he and his brothers received. His brother Philip disputed these claims, whereas other brothers Dennis and Lindsay seemed to lean more towards Gary’s side of the story. Most of it seems to boil down to Bing being one to use corporal punishment, perhaps a little too heavy handedly at times, rather than him doing it just for shits and giggles. Whilst we’re talking family though, Denise Crosby is Bing’s granddaughter, she of Star Trek and Pet Sematary fame.

The movie starts out with its own form of violence, taking place during Christmas Eve 1944 as Cpt. Bob Wallace (Crosby) and Private First Class Phil Davis (Danny Kaye) are entertaining their troupe. This includes a big finale as a toast to their departing commanding office, Major General Thomas Waverly. It certainly creates some unique visuals, the performers vibrant Santa outfits standing out amongst the otherwise gray/green/brown looks of fellow soilders and the surrounding area. Their background of an idealic landscape of snow topped houses stands in stark contrast to the actual background of a bombed out town where the only houses left are but crumbling remains.

All this singing and dancing seems to have attracted the wrong attention though as a bombing run ensues and Davis only narrowly manages to drag Wallace out of the way of a falling building. When Wallace thanks Davis and offers to repay the favour sometime, Davis immediately asks to perform with Wallace when they get back home, to which Wallace reluctantly agrees. They’re a hit though as we montage through the end of the war, them returning home to some initial success before growing to the point where they’re producing a hit musical.

Shortly before Christmas, they receive a letter from one of their old army buddies suggesting they check out his sisters new act. There appears to be some initial attraction between Wallace and one of the sisters, Betty, which Davis and the other sister Judy are keen to fan the flames of. But first they have to deal with the sisters being outlaws of sorts when their landlord comes knocking with a bill for a burnt rug for which he holds them responsible.

He’s even roped in the local sheriff to come arrest them so it’s up to Wallace and Davis to form a distraction whilst the two ladies pack up and bundle themselves into a waiting taxi. This leads to them performing their own version of their ‘Sisters’ number involving hitched up pants and fancy father fans. It makes for an entertaining, campy performance, albeit one that is a bit repetitive having already heard the song in full minutes earlier. Betty and Judy perform it again later on as well, it would have been nice if they’d given them another song or two on their own.

This initial courting period is fun, it plays up this dynamic between Wallace and Davis where Wallace is a little more curmudgeonly and Davis is trying to lighten him up a bit. It looks like it would be shortlived as the guys are heading to New York and the gals to Vermont, but Wallace is talked into staying on and all four head to Vermont and even sing a quartet about how much they’re looking forward to the snow.

Only, they find there isn’t any snow and the hotel that booked the sisters is empty, to the point that they offer to pay the ladies half their fee to make up for the cancellation. By happy coincidence though, the hotel is run by the boys old CO Waverly. It’s amusing to see these big shot producer types still stop dead in their tracks in fear/respect of the guy. Wallace gets the idea of bringing their whole show up for the holidays in order to try and get some guests through the door.

It takes on a more personal edge though when Waverly shares with Wallace that he’s applied to go back in the army. Only, his contact in Washington doesn’t even register that Waverly might have been serious, playing it off as a joke that Waverly is enjoying a life of luxury in his retirement whilst everyone else has to suffer through work. Either that or he’s being too polite to reject him outright. Sensing Waverly’s feeling of being forgotten and useless in his advancing years, Wallace sets out to invite all the old gang to come up on Xmas Eve to show their appreciation.

This does all lead to a sweet, It’s a Wonderful Life-esque finale which I surprisingly didn’t feel emotional about. Probably down to Waverly not being the central focus of the movie, most of the second half is dedicated to the will they, wont they romance of Wallace and Betty. There’s a big misunderstanding when Wallace arranges a TV spot to invite all of his army buddies to the hotel but Betty thinks this is being done only as a form of free promotion for Wallace and Davis’ stage show.

You see quite a few musical numbers from the show throughout the second half of the movie as well, often under the guise of rehearsals. A lot of that is dancing which, whilst technically very well done, isn’t particularly interesting to me. There is one avant garde looking number where Davis and accompanying girls are clad in all purple and he’s singing about how old forms of dance are being replaced by modern ‘choreography’. They’re doing all these weird interprative dance looking poses and in one line he sings ‘through the air they keep flying, like a duck that is dying’.

There’s another song which involves a character called ‘Mr Bones’ who seems to tell terrible jokes in a very self aware manner so between that and the very meta choreography song, I have no clue how this show works structurally. Frankly, I’m just relieved this wasn’t a horrible black-face affair that I was worried about when it started as the ‘minstrel number’.

I preferred the songs that involved Davis more, Crosby is a bit dry on his own and Davis just injects a bit more fun into proceedings. There’s a bit of campiness to Danny Kaye’s performance, very exaggerated body and facial language at times. He’s like that even off stage, very eager to try and push Wallace and Betty together but when Judy proposes a mock engagement between the two of them to try and spur the other two on, he’s like a rabbit in headlights. I mentioned it earlier as well but the playful bickering between Wallace and Davis is entertaining, Davis more than willing to bring up the fact that he saved Wallace’s life every chance he gets.

It seems apt that music of this era is now very evocative of playing Fallout given that Danny Kaye was responsible for one of the songs that featured in both 3 and 4; Civilization. There’s a very tongue in cheek tone to that song which seems to be representative of him in general going from this movie as well.

Between this movie, the aforementioned Mariah one, Rudolph, Frosty and even The Christmas Shoes, we certainly have stumbled upon a strange trope of song based film adaptation. Perhaps this might turn into a running segment but that’s a story for another year...