#yes the title is a dumbo reference

[ginnyweatherby]

Baby Mine (Part One)

I really missed writing Stanfou, so I decided to write a little something in the universe of “Hands” and “Family”... and that Little Something turned into a Long Something that I’ve had to break into three parts.  It’s probably best read as one piece, but the thought of 6000+ words in a text post just seemed obscene.

So, this is the first part of my newest story - a modern AU with just a touch of dyslexic!Lefou.  Lefou and Stanley make a big decision.

[Part 2] [Part 3]

Lefou could hardly believe Barney was almost nine, already.  He had nearly lost all of his baby fat and was getting so tall.  He had always been small for his age, but within the last year he had hit some sort of growth spurt and shot up so quickly that Lefou had to rush to the store to buy pants that didn’t show his ankles for school.

He saw Barney was sitting at the dining room table, concentrating on his reading homework for the day.  Stanley was in the chair across from him, his eyes on the newspaper.  He would occasionally pipe up if Barney mispronounced a word, or asked for a definition.  Lefou was glad that reading seemed to come relatively easily to his son, having struggled with it himself for many years.

Lefou smiled as he fell into the chair next to Stanley.  Barney had his brow furrowed as he focused on the book.  He was reading aloud under his breath, and Lefou watched his dark eyes scan the page.

“That’s the end of the chapter,”  Barney announced a few minutes later, looking up from the book,  “can I be done now?”

Lefou laughed a light breath through his nose and nodded.  “Is it a good story?”

Barney nodded, as he slid the book into his backpack.  “I like it,”  He hopped off of the chair without another word, and ran into his bedroom, presumably to continue the video game that Stanley had recently bought him.

“We’ve got a good kid there, you know,”  Stanley commented, as he flipped the page of the newspaper.  Lefou peered over and noticed he was only reading the comics section.

“I agree,”  Lefou said, reading the Peanuts strip over his shoulder. “Then again, I raised him so I’m a little biased,”

Stanley closed the paper, and Lefou was only a little annoyed he didn’t get to finish reading Charlie Brown.  “I have been meaning to ask you something about that, actually,”

Lefou raised an eyebrow, unsure where his husband was going with this. “About what?”

Stanley cleared his throat, suddenly looking awkward.  “About... Barney...”

“Is something wrong?”  Lefou asked.

“No, no,”  Stanley shook his head, “well, not about Barney but...”

“Just say it, whatever it is,”

“You think I’m a good dad to Barney right?”  Stanley asked in a rush.

Lefou softened.  “Of course I do!  You’re better with him than I am, sometimes,”

Stanley smiled,  “Well, I’ve just been thinking... Barney’s getting older now.  He’s nearly your height,”

“He is not,”  Lefou huffed.

“My point is,”  Stanley said, stifling a chuckle, “have you ever considered... having more children?”

Lefou blinked.  He hadn’t expected this conversation, especially not on a Thursday afternoon at the kitchen table.  “Oh, um...”

“Forget it,”  Stanley said, shaking his head.

“No, hold on,”  Lefou put his hand on Stanley’s arm to make him look at him again.  “I want to talk about it,”

Stanley licked his lips, nervously,  “You do?”

“Yeah,” Lefou said, “it’s not that it hasn’t crossed my mind, I just wasn’t sure it was something you would want,”

Stanley didn’t respond to this, but was fidgeting with his hands as Lefou continued,

“I adopted Barney on my own,”  Lefou said, “you didn’t have to come into his life, but you did.”

“I love Barney, you know I do,”

“I know, but he was almost seven when we got married.  I didn’t know how you felt about babies,”

Stanley hummed in thought, “I’ll admit I don’t have a lot of experience with them but... I’m willing to learn,”

“Is this something you really want?”

Stanley shrugged, but Lefou could tell by the look in his eye that he liked the idea more than he was willing to show.  “It’s not something we have to do, of course.  I’m perfectly content with you and Barney... which is another thing to consider.  Barney has been an only child for so long, how would he take a younger brother or sister?”

Lefou nodded, understanding his concerns.  “I was seven when my sister was born,”

“Did you take it okay?”

“I think so,”  Lefou said, scratching the back of his head.  “I remember being a little jealous but... we get along fine now,”

“So you’re... open to the idea?”  Stanley asked, hopefully.

Lefou reached over and squeezed his hand.  “Of course I am!  I love babies... maybe we should talk to Barney about it, though?”

Stanley nodded, squeezing his hand in return.

The more Lefou thought about their conversation, the more he liked the idea of another baby.  He and Stanley had been married going on three years, now, and it wasn’t like they were getting any younger.  He remembered the little clothes he had for Barney, the hats and shoes that seemed impossibly tiny.  He remembered feeding him a bottle and rocking him to sleep.  He remembered taking a ridiculous amount of pictures the day he brought him home.  While he still liked to sit on the couch with Barney cuddled into his side, and still took a lot of photos, Lefou did miss having a baby around.

Barney was in his pajamas, and stifling a yawn behind his hand.  It was close to his usual bedtime, despite his protests.  Lefou usually sent him to bed with a book, and would later find him asleep, the book tented across his nose, his hand draped over the edge of the bed. Lefou wanted to catch him before that happened tonight, though.

“Why don’t you go into your room, Barney, I’ll be in in a minute, I want to talk to you,”

“Am I in trouble?”  Barney asked, knitting his auburn eyebrows together.

“Not at all,”  Lefou assured him, “Daddy and I just want to ask you something,”

Barney nodded, suspiciously, but sleepily wandered into his room.

Lefou stuck his head into his own bedroom, to find Stanley lounged on the bed, typing something into his phone.  “I want to talk to Barney, are you coming?”

Stanley nodded, locked his phone, and followed Lefou into Barney’s room.

They found Barney laying on his stomach, the reading light near his bed illuminating a magazine.

Lefou sat on the edge of the bed, pulling one leg underneath himself.  Stanley settled in the folding chair by Barney’s desk.

“What did’ja want to talk about?”  Barney asked without pretense, as he tossed the magazine onto the floor, causing Lefou to roll his eyes.

“I... we, wanted to ask you about...”  Lefou coughed.  No wonder Stanley was so uncomfortable earlier.  He didn’t know how to approach the subject, either.

“Babies,” Stanley blurted out.

“Babies?” Barney echoed, looking from Stanley, to Lefou, and back again. “What about ‘em?”

“Do you like babies?”  Lefou asked, the ice beginning to melt, but not quite broken.

“I guess so...”  Barney said, confusedly.

Lefou sucked in a long breath of air before asking, “Have you ever wanted a brother or sister?”

To his surprise, Barney’s face broke into a wide smile.  “Of course I have!”

“You have?”  Stanley asked, his eyebrows shooting to his hairline. “You’ve never mentioned that before,”

Barney shrugged.  “All my friends have brothers and sisters,”

Lefou nodded, slowly.  “Nothing is decided yet, officially, but Daddy and I were thinking about maybe bringing another baby home,”

“Another baby?”

“Well, besides you,”  Lefou explained.

“Papa, I’m not a baby,”  Barney said, rolling his eyes.

“You’re my baby,”  Lefou said, cracking a cheesy smile, “I’ve known you since you were this big,”  Lefou held his hands apart, about the distance of a loaf of bread.

“Would your new baby be that tiny?”  Barney asked.

“Probably,” Stanley said, moving from the chair to perch on the opposite side of the bed.  “Babies are pretty small,”

“Whoa,” Barney said, breathlessly.

They continued to talk about babies and being an older brother for awhile, before Barney fell asleep with his head in Lefou’s lap.  Lefou gently moved him into a proper sleeping position, nestling him in the fluffy blankets.  Lefou and Stanley kissed their son’s forehead before quietly exiting the room, shutting the door behind them.

“Well,” Stanley said as they retreated back to their room.  It was getting late.  “that went smoother than expected,”

“I had no idea he wanted a brother or sister,”  Lefou agreed.  Barney was usually an open book.  It made him wonder if there were other things Barney wanted that he didn’t talk about.

“I guess now it’s official,”  Stanley said, pulling off his shirt to change into his pajamas, “we have to have a baby now. Bartholomew’s orders,”

“Well, who am I to argue with that?”

In the next few days, Lefou began researching adoption.  Barney had been a private adoption, his mother the daughter of a friend.  He wasn’t sure what it would take to bring another baby home.  There was an overwhelming amount of things to consider, it would appear.  What their living situation was, what their current finances were, meeting someone who would be willing to trust himself and Stanley with their baby.

It was scary... but exciting, he decided.  Lefou and Stanley had both taken a long weekend off from work so they could spend time going over the necessary reading while Barney was at school.

“Wow,” Stanley said, when Lefou brought up a few websites, and even a few books he had borrowed from the local library.

“I know,”

“I guess I didn’t realize it was such a... such a long process,” Stanley chuckled, nervously rubbing the back of his head.

“Barney was a pretty simple process, all things considered,”  Lefou said, “although the situations were different,”

“Do you think we can do it?”  Stanley asked, doubt clouding over his eyes.

“Of course we can do it,”  Lefou said, “we both have good paying jobs, so the money isn’t a problem, we have stable living conditions, food on the table.  It just might take some time,” Lefou corrected himself, “it will take some time,”

“It’ll be worth it though, right?”

Lefou smiled.  “I can assure you, it will,”

“Well then,”  Stanley heaved a heavy book onto his lap and began scanning through the pages, “let’s see what it takes to get us a baby,”

Lefou began to search a few websites, while Stanley flipped through books, both of them jotting down notes as they read.  It was going to be a long process, but Lefou knew everything would settle into place... eventually.

It was a Friday afternoon, a few months later, when Lefou walked through the front door.  Stanley usually got home earlier than he did, and today was no different.  Lefou could smell something cooking from the kitchen, and could hear one of Barney’s TV shows blaring from the living room.  Finally home, he thought as he hung his jacket on the coat rack.

“Hey, love,”  Stanley greeted.  Usually Lefou was the one to cook dinner, but every once in awhile, he would come home to find his husband standing in front of the stove, stirring a pot or pulling something from the oven.

“Smells good,”  Lefou commented, pulling on the side of the apron Stanley was wearing, “but why are you wearing this?”

“... I like this shirt,”  was all Stanley said, and Lefou understood. Stanley tended to be something of a mess in the kitchen, it often taking close to an hour to clean up after they finished eating.

“It’s nearly ready,”  Stanley said, snorting when Lefou’s stomach made a loud grumbling noise.

“What? I hardly ate any lunch,”  Lefou pouted.

“Good thing I made your favorite, then,”  Stanley said, kissing the end of Lefou’s nose, “why don’t you tell Barney it’s done?”

They were halfway through their meal, Barney picking at his vegetables, Lefou buttering his third roll, while Stanley told some story about what happened at work that day.

Stanley opened his mouth after a dramatic pause (Lefou was always amazed with his ability to turn a conversation he had with an unpleasant client into such a tale), but before he could speak, the phone rang.

“I’ll get it!”  Barney cheered, apparently excited at the prospect of abandoning his peas.

“Nope,” Stanley said simply, already out of his seat, “I really shouldn’t be answering it during dinner, either,” he added, as Barney slumped back in his chair, crossing his arms with a loud huff.

Lefou took a leisurely bite as he heard Stanley’s voice drifting in from the other room.  “Just eat a little more, please.  I bought ice cream for dessert,”  he said to his son, who was stabbing harshly at his plate.

Barney perked up at the thought of ice cream, and continued eating.

Stanley poked his head into the room, his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone.  “Um, Lefou, can you come in here, please?”  His eyes darted to Barney, and back to Lefou.

Lefou blinked.  Who was it on the phone?  His grandmother had taken a spill recently, was she okay?  Before he could work himself into a fit, he followed Stanley into the living room.

“Is everything okay?”  Lefou mouthed, as Stanley removed his hand from the phone.

“It’s perfect,”  Stanley mouthed back, a happy glimmer in his eye.  “alright, I’m back,” he said into the phone, “I have my husband with me,”

Lefou leaned in to hear the person on the other end.  A woman’s voice he didn’t recognize.

“Congratulations, you two!  You’re going to be parents!”

[tortilla-of-courage]

Skyward Sword - comparing NPC names in English and Spanish

For this I’ll be comparing mainly 2 (technically 3) translations of SkSw: English (ENG), Spanish (Latinamerica) (ESP-LA) and Spanish (Spain) (ESP-SP). If available, I’ll add the Japanese (JP) too. The spanish ones might be the same in some cases, which will be marked as (ESP). (I might also add an extra translation or two if i know them)

Link (リンク - Rinku), Zelda (ゼルダ - Zeruda) and Impa (インパ - Inpa) stay the same in all translations. Some of them have some minor changes tho (beware of slight spoilers for SkSw)

(Special thanks to @sunnylaurels for sharing the Japanese names for the Skyloft NPCs! And to @attllhak for sharing some French ones! - Really Long post under cut)

Main/Important Characters

Fi (ENG) - Fay (ESP) - ファイ (Fai) (JP)

These are basically the same, just different spelling. There’s a lot of speculation as to what Fi’s name is based on. For some reason I like to think it’s because of “Wi-Fi” but anything goes

Ghirahim (ENG) - Grahim (ESP) -  ギラヒム (Girahimu) (JP)

This one’s interesting because both ‘translations’ are technically right. English follows it more “to the letter” doing “Gira” as “Ghira”, while Spanish interprets it as “Gra” since Japanese doesn’t do the two-different-consonants together thing, but overall both are the same

Groose (ENG) - Vilán (ESP-LA) - Malton (ESP-SP) -  バド (Bado) (JP)

Groose, Groose, Groose. Probably the main character with the MOST changes. “Bado” seems to be referencing the Japanese pronunciation of “bird”, but could also be interpreted as “Birdo”. LA Spanish’s “Vilán” is sometimes seen as referencing the english “Villain”, but recently @/deerdroo pointed out to me it’s most definitely referencing the “Gavilán” bird, which resembles a little eagle (Wikipedia calls it a “sparrowhawk” in English). Not sure what Spain’s doing with “Malton” but I like it. And of course “Groose” follows the bird naming theme most of Skyloft has (referencing grouse and goose). Also his name in French is “Hergo”

Demise (ENG) - El Heraldo de la Muerte (ESP) -  終焉の者 (Shūen no Mono) (JP)

Okay this guy. “終焉の者” could be translated as “The One Who Brings The End”, according to @/sunnylaurels. So, in a way, I guess it makes sense for the English translation to just grab “Demise” for the name but also I feel it REALLY takes away from how it’s a Title rather than a name? He’s an ancient being, him existing as a “concept” and having no name adds a lot to his character imo. Anyways, “El Heraldo de la Muerte” would translate as “The herald of death” or “the messenger of death”, which is like really ominous i think - imagine having to fight some guy and everyone on earth calls him the messenger of death. I’d be so scared. Yes I’m very aware Demise means Death i just think it’s silly he just gets called that and that’s it. Also i keep reading it as Denise so really, who’s losing here? Not me. 

As a fun add-on to this, in German his name can be translated to “Death-bringer” (thanks @/aureateart), while in French it’s Avatar du Néant, which would translate to “Avatar of the Void” (thanks @/attllhak)

The Imprisoned (ENG) - El Cautivo (ESP-LA) - El Durmiente (ESP-SP)

“El Cautivo” basically means The Imprisoned, but “El Durmiente” means “The Sleeping One”, which... fits, but also i find it a bit funny, not sure why. Fight the sleepy avocado everyone

Deities + The Surface’s Main Places’ Names

The Goddesses stay the same in these translations too:

Din (ENG, ESP) - ディン (Din) (JP)

Nayru (ENG, ESP) - ネール (Nēru) (JP)

Farore (ENG, ESP) - フロル (Furoru) (JP)

Hylia (ENG, ESP) - ハイリア (Hairia) (JP)

The dragons, for the most part, too. The only one that really changes is Faron, which changes to “Farone” much like in Twilight Princess with the Light Spirit of the same name.

Eldin (ENG, ESP) - オルディン (Orudin) (JP)

Lanayru (ENG, ESP) - ラネール (Ranēru) (JP)

Faron (ENG) - Farone (ESP) -  フィローネ (Firōne) (JP)

Levias (ENG) - Narisha (ESP)

I couldn’t for the life of me find Levias’ name in Japanese, but considering EVERY translation EXCEPT English has him as Narisha? i’m gonna take a wild guess and say it’s ナリシャ (Narisha) or similar. His name Levias is based off the word Leviathan. And Fun fact! Did you know the spaniard Zelda Wiki lists him as being one of the dragons? as in, him being a whale-shaped dragon? yeah.

The Surface (ENG) - Las Tierras Inferiores (ESP)

Las Tierras Inferiores would translate as “The Lower Lands”

Faron Woods (ENG) - Bosque de Farone (ESP)

Eldin Volcano (ENG) - Volcán de Eldin (ESP)

Lanayru Dessert (ENG) - Desierto de Lanayru (ESP)

These ones mean the same for the most part, just with the change of Faron to Farone.

Skyloft / The Sky - Places and Animals

The Sky (ENG) - El Cielo (ESP-LA) - Celéstea (ESP-SP)

“El Cielo” literally means The Sky, while Celéstea would be a play on “Celestial” (From the Heavens/Skies). Fun side note - “El Cielo” also means “Heaven”, so when i was younger everytime i went back to the sky i’d be like “rip Link he’s dead :/”

Skyloft (ENG) - Neburia (ESP-LA) - Altárea (ESP-SP)

Neburia, from what I learned after a 4 am Wikipedia dive, could be based off the word “Nébula”, which can mean “Cloud”. It basically means “Cloud Town”. Altárea, I think??? would be based off the word “Alto” which means “High (Altitude)” so basically, “A Place High Up”? If anyone wants to comment on this i’d appreciate it

The Lumpy Pumpkin (ENG) - La Calabaza Flotante (ESP-LA) - Calabarza’s (ESP-SP)

“La Calabaza Flotante” literally means “The Floating Pumpkin”, while “Calabarza’s” is a really clever play on Calabaza and bar. I’m not sure what the name of the island itself is in english, but in Spanish it’s “Isla Calabaza” (Pumpkin Island) (ESP-LA) and “Calabia” (word play on “Pumpkin Place”) (ESP-SP)

Loftwing (ENG) - Neburí (ESP-LA) - Pelícaro (ESP-SP)

Neburí would also come from Nébula, so it’d translate to something like “Cloudy (thing)”? possibly. Pelícaro seems like a play on the word “Pelícano” which means Pelican.

Remlit (ENG) - Lémury (ESP) - Remuri (JP)

Lémury is a play on “Lémur”, probably because of Remlits’ ringed tails. Remuri might be the same play of words. 

Skyloft/The Sky - NPCs

(I might revisit some of these at one point since some of the references they could have flew over my head!) (haha get it? flew? the sky? ok)

Batreaux (ENG) - Mursego (ESP-LA) - Batolo (ESP-SP) - Morusego (JP)

My friend! my buddy! Batreaux is an obvious play with “Bat”, since he kind of resembles one. This is kept in both Spanish names - Batolo seems like a combination of “Bat” and “Bartolo” (a spanish name), and Mursego is based off the spanish for Bat “Murciélago” (as well as being the closest to the Japanese “Morusego”!!). Keeps the “flying animal” theme in all three languages.

Beedle (ENG) - Terry (ESP) - テリー (Terī) (JP)

The man, the myth, the legend. Beedle’s name is similar to “beetle”, the insects he loves in BoTW and SS. Not sure what the deal with “Terry” and similar is. He keeps the “flying animal name” theme with Beedle, sort of, but loses it in every other translation (which, btw, is also Terry or a variant in most languages)

Bertie (ENG) - Arín (ESP-LA) - Alfred (ESP-SP) - Arin (JP)

This poor man. Working all day and all night. Bertie’s supposed to reference a type of sparrot called “lovebird” (the bird part). For Arín, besides being basically the same as Japanese, could reference the word “Cantarín”, which means “singsong” and is used to describe birds that sing a lot. Alfred... no clue.

Cawlin (ENG) - Corvy (ESP) - Ras (JP)

In the same way “Cawlin” references “caw”, which is the sound crows make, “Corvy” references this same bird, called “Cuervo” in Spanish. In french he’s “Orbo”, which if i had to guess also references crows.

Croo (ENG) - Gurriaco (ESP)

“Croo” could reference both the “cooing” of birds and “crow”, like Cawlin above. Gurriaco, if I reach enough, could be referencing “Urraca”, a type of bird in Spanish.

Dodoh (ENG) - Dodo (ESP) - Dodo (JP)

Referencing the extinct bird of the same name in all languages, I guess. 

Dovos (ENG) - Dombo (ESP)

Dovos feels like it’s referencing “Dove”. Dombo gives be “Dumbo” vibes - probably could reference it because he flies? not sure

Eagus (ENG) - Aquilo (ESP) - Igurusu (JP)

Eagus, Aquilo, and Igurusu are referencing Eagles. It’s more obvious in Eagus. The spanish for Eagle is “Águila”, which is just two letters off from Aquilo. 

Fledge (ENG) - Gruyo (ESP) - Sebasun (JP)

Fledge is referencing Fledgling, a young bird. Gruyo comes from “Gruya”, which is Crane in spanish. In french his name’s “Célestin”.

Gaepora (ENG, ESP-LA) - Gaépora (ESP-SP) - ゲポラ (Gepora) (JP)

Pretty much the same. His name is also a combination of the Owl from Ocarina of Time’s name “Kaepora Gaebora” (ENG, ESP) - ケポラ・ゲボラ (Kepora Gebora), probably because he looks a lot like the Sage of Light Rauru and the owl he turns into. One of the few Skyloftians not named after a bird in English, though technically he is if we consider the above?

Gondo (ENG, ESP-LA) - Dorcon (ESP-SP) - Doruko (JP)

Not sure what Gondo might be referencing bird-wise exactly? though i think “Gondo” is similar to “Gonzo” (from Wind Waker), with who I think shares some design aspects. Dorcon in Spain’s Spanish seems to just take from the original Japanese. In French his name’s also “Dorco”!

Goselle (ENG) - Alani (ESP) - Otaka (JP)

I’ll be real, not sure what’s going on with her names in either language. Goselle gives me bird vibes but i’m not sure. Alani reminds me of the spanish “Alaja”, which means Jewel

Greba (ENG) - Ornella (ESP) - Miho (JP)

Ornella reminds me of the word “Hornilla” (mute H), which is basically the hole where the heat comes out of in wooden ovens... but! according to the dictionary it also means “(a) hole where pigeons make their nest” so i guess it’s bird related too!

Gully (ENG) - Gabio (ESP-LA) - Gabi (ESP-SP) - Garu (JP)

Gully most definitely references a seagull. Gabio and Gabi references the same animal, but in spanish obviously - “Gaviota”. 

Henya (ENG) - Galina (ESP-LA) - Zenona (ESP-SP) - Heena (JP)

Henya references Hens, as does Galina (Hen being “Gallina” in Spanish). Zenona... uh.. not sure where that came from? I’m halfway through this post realizing i’d gladly accept comments from any spanish speaking person who wants to give an input on these things im missing 

Horwell (ENG) - Asteus (ESP) - Hoonelu (JP)

i’ll be real im not sure what Asteus is referencing. Horwell seems to be pretty close to the japanese for the most part though

Jakamar (ENG) - Carpín (ESP) - Geran (JP)

Carpín is most definitely referencing Wood Peckers (“Pájaro Carpintero”/Carpenter Birds)

Karane (ENG) - Grusi (ESP-LA) - Gracielle (ESP-SP) - Kuranu (JP)

Karane seems to be almost the same as in Japanese, while Spanish went crazy and gave her a completely different name, tho at least they’re kinda similar between each other. Also in french her name’s “Grida” (another Gr name!!)

Keet (ENG) - Pío (ESP-LA) - Pitxi (ESP-SP) - Michiru (JP)

Pío is, quite literally, the sound birds make (or the way we’d write that sound in spanish), especially chicks. Pitxi is a mystery to me

Kina (ENG) - Calabel (ESP-LA) - Calabelle (ESP-SP) - Panan (JP)

Calabel/Calabelle is referencing the spanish for Pumpkin, “Calabaza”, giving it a more feminine name-esque ending (like in Anabel/Anabelle)

Kukiel (ENG) - Picalia (ESP-LA) - Cuqui (ESP-SP) - Kuuko (JP)

Cuqui could be referencing that exact same word (often spelled “Kuki”) that just means “cute”. Picalia seems like a play with “pícara” which basically means “gremlin” (google translates it as “sassy” but im not sure if that word fits)

Luv (ENG) - Mandi (ESP-LA) - Amanda (ESP-SP) - Manda (JP)

Mandi and Amanda seem to stay close to the Japanese name, both of them being common spanish names. Luv, like i mentioned in Bertie’s part, would reference “love bird” (the love part)

Mallara (ENG) - Pati (ESP-LA) - Patty (ESP-SP) - Rubia (JP)

I only now realized Mallara is referencing mallard ducks. wow. Pati/Patty are just a common name in Spanish. Lil fun fact related to her Japanese name! Rubia means “blonde” in Spanish

Mia (ENG, ESP-LA) - Miwi (ESP-SP) - Mi (JP)

mia my baby girl. i love her. im yeeting her off Skyloft. seems they all reference meowing in some way

Orielle (ENG) - Corina (ESP) - Kuina (JP)

LISTEN. the other day i was trying to think just WHAT Corina could be referencing. And the only thing that popped into my brain is that “Corina” is the name they gave the bird Tokyo Mew Mew girl in LatinAmerica. It’s literally the only bird related thing i can think of. Also it sounds a bit like “Kuina”. French name is “Kinaé”, similar to Japanese!

Owlan (ENG) - Buhel (ESP) - Aoulu (JP)

Owlan seems to keep the owl theme across all three! Aoulu seems to just be “owl” quite literally, and Buhel is a play on the spanish for Owl (”Búho”)

Parrow (ENG) - Golondro (ESP) - Parou (JP)

Golondro comes from “Golondrina”, a type of bird! I think it’s called “swallow” in english ... so it kinda fits Parrow anyways! Also Parrow seems to be his japanese name too

Peater (ENG) - Panolo (ESP-LA) - Paul (ESP-SP) - Jakusin (JP)

This guy. man. Seems to be “Jackson” in Japanese? But everyone grabbed a P and ran. Panolo seems like a play on “Manolo”, a nickname for people with the name “Manuel” - maybe mixed with the P for “Pájaro”(Bird)? Paul’s just a common name as far as i know.

Peatrice (ENG) - Panalí (ESP-LA) - Paula (ESP-SP) - Jakuriinu (JP)

Peatrice seems to always be named after her dad. “Jackeline” in Japanese i believe, and barely “feminized” names for the rest. Panalí sounds a bit more like “panal”, the spanish for “hive” (as in beehive)

Piper (ENG) - Joana (ESP)

There’s not much to comment here. Joana’s a common name in Spanish

Pumm (ENG) - Vito (ESP-LA) - Ruperto (ESP-SP) - Puukin (JP)

I have NO clue where Vito came from. It sounds like a badly spelled “Victor”. Where did the Pumpkin theme go???? huh?????. Ruperto’s kind of the same? Unless i’m missing some pumpkin related words in spanish, it’s just a common name.

Pipit (ENG) - Cocu (ESP-LA) - Coocker (ESP-SP) - Kikoa (JP)

This guy. It seems a lot of languages kept the C/K sounds in his name? He’s Kiko in French and Cuco in german (thanks @/aureateart). They seem to reference cuckoo clocks maybe? and the german’s really close to cucco. 

Rupin (ENG) - Rupín (ESP-LA) - Milo (ESP-SP) - Kookin (JP)

Rupin/Rupin are referencing Rupees, since he’s the shopkeeper and the alike. Milo... I... I’m not sure what’s referencing?

Rusta (ENG) - Ganzo (ESP) - Rostaa (JP)

Rusta and Rostaa seem to be referencing Roosters, while Ganzo’s referencing the spanish for Goose! (Ganso)

Scrapper (ENG) - Serbot (ESP) - Sarubo (JP)

Including this lil guy here coz... why not? Serbot seems to be almost the same if not the exact name as Japanese (though Sarubo could just be Server?)

Sparrot (ENG) - Aspir (ESP-LA) - Gorronte (ESP-SP) - Subuha (JP)

Gorronte seems to be a play on “Gorrión” (Sparrow), so, pretty close to English. Aspir..... I’m not sure?

Strich (ENG) - Vestro (ESP) - Osta (JP)

Vestro, like Stritch, references Ostriches, with Ostrich in spanish being “Avestruz”. Seems Japanese references the same animal? and I think french too, since he’s “Latruche” in that language!

Wryna (ENG) - Elenia (ESP-LA) - Alisia (ESP-SP) - Arisu (JP)

Alisia seems to stick to the Japanese name Arisu (Alice), while Elenia went... a different direction. Elenia is a variation of a common spanish name, Elena.

[themoonwheniamlost]

Pink Elephants

OMG Happy (belated) Valentine's day!!! This is my gift for Nat @strangehighs in the BoN Cozy Gifts exchange. I was hella intimidated by trying to make something nice for one of the best artists in our fandom, but I saw the request for idiots in love and I thought: I can work with that!

Nat! Thank you for sharing your big brain with this tiny fandom. I’m so grateful we have you. I hope you like this!

I think I leaned a bit away from your exact request, but I hope this silly little thing still holds to the spirit of what you were looking for. (If you don’t like it, I’ll write you something new!)

Many thanks and all the flowers to @mprosperossprite!!! for organizing this! Appreciate you! And I hope you enjoy all the cake going around!

Also to my Beta and Bestie @jesuisnilunnilautre !!! Ilysm thanks for putting up with me. I would be lost in a starless universe without you! Be my blorbo?

I’m putting the Ao3 card here. The fic can be read on Ao3, or in this post under the cut! (I'm at work rn so please feel free to point out any errors! 🧡)

Rating: M 

Archive Warnings: N/A

Title: Pink Elephants

Fandoms: The Old Guard, (movie)

Relationships: BoN, 

Characters: Nile, Booker, Copley, Guard Gang

Tags: established relationship, Idiots in love, a bit of a crack fic?, mission? fic, non-linear timeline, theft, circus shenanigans, New York setting, (how do I tag that she knows things about the situation and he doesn’t…) (how to tag about circus animals/animal captivity), ethical debate, got a tiny bit angsty, sorry not sorry, references to Dumbo, first time stealing (not really) from a circus?, short fic, circus is a Mashup of Universe Soul and Ringling Brothers, please watch Sidetalk NYC,

Collections: BoN Cozy Nights Gift Exchange

Summary: 

This is the first time either of them has stolen an animal. Let alone 15 animals. Or,

Nile does a small study on how this man leaves stupid in his wake. It’s honestly something she loves about him.

“Nile! What are you doing here?!”

“What am I doing here? Why are you dressed like a clown, Book? We had a plan!”

“I can explain. But that will take too long, so I’ll sum it up. For now I just need you to get ready to drive this trailer so we can save those animals. ”

“Give me the clown nose! We had a plan. A staged, step by step plan. And now you want to jailbreak these animals out of the circus tonight?”

“... Yes.”

“... Move over. There's a reason we never let you drive.” 

********~~~~~~~~~~~~~********

Nile knows herself, okay. She’s a military brat with a little brother. She’s a smart Black girl from Chicago. She happens to be one of a very small group of immortals trying to do good in the world. She’s even in love with one of them. 

These things to say, Nile knows stupid when she sees it. Not that Nile is good at saying no to stupid. Again, Nile has a little brother. Nile's journey with the Guard so far has involved a considerable amount of stupid and reckless decisions. And still, for all her practice in stupid, this man constantly pushed the boundaries of how far stupid can go. 

Case in point. Who the fuck thinks it would be easy to steal an elephant?!? 

… Apparently her husband.

********~~~~~~~~********

If you were in Manhattan on February 16th at Nathan’s Famous on the corner of 5th and 60th?  You would've gotten dinner and a show. The crowd is taking sides and chiming in. It’s not a domestic dispute, oh no! More of a theoretical experiment. It sounds like this.

“An elephant can weigh anywhere from eight to thirteen thousand pounds. That’s 13 tons!”

“But let's say that there is already equipment to move them. Then all you would need to do is load them onto those vehicles and drive away!”

“Do you think no one is going to notice if an elephant is missing?” 

The crowd mutters, and someone calls, “I’d sure fuckin’ notice! It’s not like elephants can fly or whatever.” 

The crowd laughs.

The vendor’s son leans out of the window in order to shout this directly into the face of the man in question. “Sure, it’d be a piece of cake with a getaway car! Okay. Whatcha doin’ ‘bout making ‘em trust ya? Dem elephants smart, you know?” 

“... Hmmm.”

The woman has her hair braided in front and hand-picked out in back. She looks at the sky likes she’s expecting God to say “Bing Bong!” God does not say this. 

Nathan the Hotdog Vendor does pull his son up by the collar and say, “Alright move it along. You ain’t gotta go home, but ya can’t stay here!” 

Two weeks later, when the biggest Circus act on the East Coast announces that all of their animals have been phased out of the performances and given to sanctuaries, no one thinks of the couple at Nathan’s. 

********~~~~~~~~********

Nile hadn’t been to see the Big Top since she was 10. Booker remembers her saying so. It’s why he thinks that his gift this Valentine’s will be worth it. What better way to celebrate a legacy of death that has sparked much love, hate, and capitalism? 

He asks her over dinner. Watches her light up, holds still while she covers his face in smiling kisses and a soft, “Thank you. I’m so happy you remembered, good job,” and small squees of happiness. 

If she cries he pretends not to see it. Sébastien knows that she aches for the things she’s lost. Knows how badly she wants to touch her childhood. And while he can’t give her that, giving her a Big Top is easy.  

He just never expected that giving her a gift would make him feel caged. 

********~~~~~~~~********

Nile loves doing things that can let her be normal for a second. Being Andy’s heir apparent can get so heavy. It makes her so excited when she can just be a person for a few hours. This Valentines day at the circus she takes full advantage of the opportunity. 

A nice summer dress, big earring and beads in her hair. She makes Sebastien take photos with her in the tiny booth, eats a whole funnel cake by herself, and buys a huge light stick all before its time to find their seats. On their way down to the center ring Nile buys a glow in the dark tiara, a snowcone, and a bag of kettle corn. 

Nile bounces in her seat, glad that there is no one very tall in front of them. They ooh and aah along with the rest of the crowd at all the different acts. 

Thinks that Nicky should try the trapeze. Wants to bet Joe that she’d be better than him at fire breathing. Knows that she’d lose at sword swallowing, how do they even do that without a accelerated healing?!

Nile sing along when The Ring Master starts a round of Superstition by Stevie Wonder. 

Looks back at Sebastien when she feels hater on her hand. 

He kisses her. And the look in his eyes means something stupid is coming. It’s fine, the stupid can wait until after they Leave the Big Top with a huge tiger plush and clown hat. 

After all, Nile is pretty susceptible to stupid when it might be fun.

*********~~~~~~~~********

Sebastien had his arms around her but he was looking steadily at their ceiling fan.

“So,” he started

“It made you feel something, didn't it? Watching the lion tamer. Watching all of the animals really. ”

“I just thought that I had almost done the same things to us. And they deserve so much better! So I want to steal them from the circus and take them to a better place where they never have to perform again if they dont want to.”

Nile looks at him, looks through him and says “We just gotta plan it right. No problem.”

********~~~~~~~~********

Booker was very aware that some circuses have animals. He’s seen dozens of them over the last two centuries. Dancing bears, the tigers through flaming hoops you name it. 

What he wasn’t used to was hearing about their natural behaviors in the wild. He wasn’t one for documentaries so he soaks up the knowledge like a sponge. Hears about how elpphants vist the graves of their dead, about the care of the matriarch. He learns about their memory about how elephants will sacrifice themselves tp help others in the heard, or other species of animal in times of drought or flood. 

Wonders how he could have had less love in him than these creatures. 

By the time hears about the tiger cubs, he knows Nile is watching him cry into their popcorn. He kisses her just because he can because the man he is now deserves her, and he’s crying for the man who didn’t.

All he know is that he’s grateful. He loves her, He loves these animals, and gotta get them the fuck out of this circus.

********~~~~M~~~~********

 

They made love like this often. Face to face in some configuration. Hands tight on skin slow and forceful. She likes the heft of him. The broadness of his chest. But today he shudders, there is something caged in him, and as usual she wont let him hide. 

He hold her open to bury himself in her heat, like if he tries hard enough he can burn away all the parts of him that arent her. 

She flips him, refuses to move until he looks at her. He’s a bit lost still but grounds himself in the roll of her hips and the sound of her voice. They stay locked in that dance for hours. After the musics ended, he hold he close rubs his hands up and down her spine. She watches the sunset and waits for him to tell her.

********~~~~~~~~********

When they get to the preserve its pretty smooth sailing, considering that Book doesn’t realise whats going on. Nile had called ahead to let the sanctuary know where they would leave the animals. 

They park. They to extra care to make sure that they leave the keys in an accessible place. 

Booker puts his face next to Rosie’s.  She sneaks her trunk out of an open section to touch his face. He hold onto her trunk and cries, about how he fail his past self living in a cage of hurt, how he tried to trap his family in bars because he though it would be better. Rosie lets him hold her trunk. The sun is crawling up above the treeline. 

Nile lets him cry. He needs it, In the meantime she says goodbye to everyone, The dancing tiger, the wild horses, and all the elephants, adding an last tender thank you to Rosie. Then she goes to him. Puts hel hand on his shoulder, kisses the side of his face that does not have elephant snot on it. Tells him “Lights up, we gotta go.”

“Whats that saying, the show-” He’s gripping her hand in his as they walk away

“Must go on. Yeah, so lets get out of here so that they can get started.”

They walk back out to main road. Which is when Nile realizes. That they have no car to drive back. She cusses down a storm as they get ready to hitchhike their way back to any major city. Sebatien laughs at her the entire time. 

He says thank you later, in the warm dark between them. She says you're welcome by putting her cold feet on his back. 

********~~~~~~~~********

Copley had received some strange calls in his life. Especially over these last few decades.  But to hear Nile call him on February 15th to buy all the animals from a prominent circus troupe. He’s stunned. The man is too stunned to speak, which is fine because Nile is still talking.

“-I know it won’t solve everything. And there are way more animals in need out there. But i know that Booker needs this. Needed to feel like he’s freeing something instead of breaking it. So yeah. If you could buy the animals from them please. Oh! and then the animal sanctuary up north a bit-”

And so this is how Copley spends the day after Valentine's day arranging for the sale of animals, and for supplies and costs for their next five years of care are sent to a nearby animal sanctuary. 

Perhaps selling the Rodin was good for something. 

[spadesinglasses]

Agents of SHIELD (Series)

I finally finally finished the series. Figured a reaction post would be nice to air out all my sentimentality about the show.

Disclaimer btw, throughout this post, I would be writing shit that I hate. It might include character hate from specific situations to seasons. If you don’t want to read people hating on your fave characters, click away. If you want to change my mind about my hate, please just move on, we’ll just be wasting each other’s time.

Years ago I stopped watching AoS around season 5 episode 3.

Just this week I decided to pick it up again from the start. It was a roller coaster of emotion. From having to go through Season 1 again and how different they all are, dealing with Grant and the other arcs.

I’ve rewritten this post so many times now. One time I would be writing so much, even doing it per season only to delete it all and do it per arc, only to again delete it all and start over again.

I don’t know anymore how to write this down. But ya know what, I’ve never been that serious or technical with my reactions. So i might as well just whine about it lol.

So here ya go, a rant.

In my blog I gifed a total of 3 scenes for AoS.

The Spy’s Goodbye.

Hive and Lincoln’s death.

and Enoch’s death.

A lot of scenes made me sob like a fatherfucker but these three was too much.

The Spy’s goodbye scene was a bittersweet good bye. Not seeing Bobbi and Lance anymore was such a devastating reality, but it’s good to know that at least they do not die or sth tragic like what they did to Triplett.

Hive and Lincoln’s death was devastating in a way I wasn’t expecting. Daisy’s acting during that scene was fucking too much. THAT SHIT HURT. Lincoln’s sacrifice was something of an expected scene but god does it not have to be like that.

ALSO Hive just taking it all in, letting his death be is the most unexpected thing there. To him just saying that he just wanted connection, to make the world better was fucking sad. I understand what he said, Lincoln did too. 

Enoch’s death was fucking unappreciated.

His death was silent, he died without his best friend by his side, without Jemma, without even Deke. No, he was left with Daisy and Coulson who if I remember correctly, didn’t even have that much scene with him.

And how he just accepted it and understand that It was a necessary sacrifice was soo fucking bad.

HIS LINE ABOUT ANY OF THEM SACRIFICING THEIR LIFE FOR HIM? AND HIM JUST WAS SO SURE ABOUT IT? IT HURT BECAUSE ITS A LIE.

Y’all can tell me how the crew can do that sacrifice for Enoch, but it won’t change my mind. None of them barely even tried to understand Enoch in more ways than what was just presented in front of them.

Maybe its the curse of being a minor/side character, but that shit was sad. I wonder if that sentence was more for himself, to comfort himself in his death than him being confident about it.

Again, y’all can fight me about it, tell me off how wrong I am but nope nope nope.

-----------------------------------------------------------

warning : Mackenzie Daisy Hate 

Now I can’t exactly remember what season or arc it was anymore. If it was during the lighthouse with the kree arc, or after or before, but damn Mackenzie really pissed me off.

His hypocritical holier than thou attitude pissed me so much. He’s a conflicting mess that adjusts his morality based on what’s in front of him. Everyone going against Elena was a fucking hard pill to take because she really was in a different sphere compare to where the others are.

I see her as doing her best to fit in with the group but unfortunately she didn’t just have that same experience with the others to be on the same wavelength as them.

Coulson agreeing with her was a small comfort. But Daisy and Mack and May? Dang that shit hurt.

There was a season where Daisy and Mackenzie annoyed the fuck out of me. I couldn’t stand a scene with them on it. I just can’t remember it much. I think it was after the framework scene.

Now that I finished the entire series, looking back to it, it’s not exactly OOC of them to act that way. But it sure was hell annoying and just ugh.

-----------------------------------------------------------

warning : Fitz Hate

This portion would be ranting about how sucky Fitz became after his trauma. I’m not even technically talking about what Fitz did to Daisy with her limiter and his whole “Oh Dark Fitz is doing all this bad shit, oh no wait its me all along” schtick.

I’m talking about how he responded to Deke throughout the series.

He was shitty to him. I’m not sure if its because of his immature ass, his fucking issues with Nazi Fitz, or whatever. He was shitty.

Deke did his best to connect with Fitz in anyway possible, DEKE IS STUCK IN A GODDAMN WORLD HE DOESN’T KNOW SHIT ABOUT, A SIMPLE SOFT WORLD EVEN COMPARE TO HIS OWN WORLD, and for Fitz do be that shitty to him?

I don’t even think there was one scene where Deke and Fitz even did not butt heads off.

YES them bantering, sniping at one another can be funny but damn was it draining after Deke chose to stay behind.

Deke did his best, but let’s face it, only Jemma truly accepted him in the group.

Not fucking Coulson, not fucking Mackenzie or May, not even Daisy and Elena. SPECIALLY not fucking Fitz. I hate what he did to Deke, and I hate all of them for not reaching out more.

I don’t think I’ll ever forgive Fitz ever anymore.

I truly enjoyed his character but after framework, or it was just too much.

Yes, he was traumatized by his own actions in the framework, all of them are but goddamn.

I don’t even want to drag Sousa in this but we can all agree that they all embraced Sousa quicker, and much warmer than how they all did with Deke. 

-----------------------------------------------------------

I think the arc I hated the most was the Lighthouse/Kree arc. The crew acted so fucking ignorant despite seeing what the circumstance is. They acted in ways that could’ve endangered the lives of the people who live in the Lighthouse, and yes sure if they solved the problem none of that would’ve happen in the first place but fucking hell they were all so ignorant.

Mackenzie’s shit with the guy with the baby was fucking unnecessary. I hated that scene so much.

Let’s talk about Season 7 which was fucking great.

After the seasons I felt meh about because of reasons written above, special mention to season 5 and it’s shitty ass, let’s finally talk about good stuff.

Let’s talk about young Malick first. Freddy opening that door was a fucking revelation. At this time I didn’t know he’s a big baddie, but goddamn was the actor so fineeeee. Like literally I was on my phone when the scene came up, and when I looked up, my jaw dropped.

ALSO LET’S TALK ABOUT THE COMICAL SEXISM AND RACISM IN THE SEASON. 

Time travel to the past has always been an iffy plot for me. Because I don’t really wanna deal with people being sexist and racist out in public, (pfft as if the 21st century was any better about it)

But they deal with it with a comical spin. Daisy and Mack threatening shitheads back was fucking awesome. THE SCENE WITH THE WHITE DEFENSE GENERAL WAS MAGNIFICENT EVEN. DEKE WAS SO FUCKING DONE WITH HIM. HAHAHA.

In season 7 the editors really had fun changing the title sequence to accomdate each time period. It was really great!

Let’s talk about Daniel Sousa, our cinnamon bun of a man who is the only one that will now hold the title “Man out of Time” now that Steve Rogers time traveled his ass back for some fake ass moving on shit.

UGH I THINK WE ALL FELL IN LOVE WITH DANIEL SOUSA IN THIS SEASON. His go to attitude and just so ready to be with Daisy was fucking great. I love Daisy and him together. After all the shit that Daisy went through, FUCKING FINALLY SHE FINALLY GETS THE HAPPY ENDING SHE DESERVESSSSS.

I want a Daniel Sousa myself. He seems to be like a traditional man who isn’t sexist and racist and homophobic ya know. (side eyeing some traditional male actors who I thought would not be shitty only to be proved wrong by them)

Anywho their kiss was fucking satisfying. And I hope that they will fucking have a great long life with Kora. 

OH I WANT TO MENTION AGENT PIPER AND AGENT DAVIS BEFORE I END THIS REACTION.

THIS TWO DUMBOS ARE FUCKING GREAT. Still not sure about reviving Agent Davis as an LMD but at least they didn’t keep it a secret that he isn’t a real person anymore.

OH SPEAKING OF AGENT DAVIS.

I shipped him one with Agent LT Koenig. I know Davis is already married and probably has a child based on his interaction with Elena but daaang.

ALSO ALSO I WANNA SAY THAT THE ENDING WHERE ELENA IS WITH DAVIS AND PIPER? THAT WAS FUCKING GOOD SHIT.

Earlier I wrote something about Elena trying to penetrate the Coulson group but not exactly being able to?

Honestly, it makes sense to me that Elena is closer to Piper and Davis than she is with any of the core 6. And I truly love the fact that Davis and Piper is Elena’s new squad. I wish they interacted more honestly.

Also I miss Agent Fox, he was a fucking cutie. Agent Keller was also damn hot lol.

I think I’m done. I can’t think of anything more to say. Oh wait maybe the bit where the guy who acted as young Garrett was actually the son of the actor of old Garrett. Lol I was shooked when I watched them have the same smile. It was eerie without knowing they are father and son lol.

Okay im done, I’m happy that I finally finished AoS. I miss the scenes where they still reference the MCU movies but it seemed like after the gravitonium arc, they didn’t do any of it anymore. Sad truly.

[chiseler]

Utopia and Apocalypse: Pynchon’s Populist/Fatalist Cinema

The rhythmic clapping resonates inside these walls, which are hard and glossy as coal: Come-on! Start-the-show! Come-on! Start-the-show! The screen is a dim page spread before us, white and silent. The film has broken, or a projector bulb has burned out. It was difficult even for us, old fans who’ve always been at the movies (haven’t we?) to tell which before the darkness swept in.

--from the last page of Gravity’s Rainbow

To begin with a personal anecdote: Writing my first book (to be published) in the late 1970s, an experimental autobiography titled Moving Places: A Life at the Movies (Harper & Row, 1980), published in French as Mouvements: Une vie au cinéma (P.O.L, 2003), I wanted to include four texts by other authors—two short stories (“In Dreams Begin Responsibilities” by Delmore Schwartz, “The Secret Integration” by Thomas Pynchon) and two essays (“The Carole Lombard in Macy’s Window” by Charles Eckert, “My Life With Kong” by Elliott Stein)—but was prevented from doing so by my editor, who argued that because the book was mine, texts by other authors didn’t belong there. My motives were both pluralistic and populist: a desire both to respect fiction and non-fiction as equal creative partners and to insist that the book was about more than just myself and my own life. Because my book was largely about the creative roles played by the fictions of cinema on the non-fictions of personal lives, the anti-elitist nature of cinema played a crucial part in these transactions.`

In the case of Pynchon’s 1964 story—which twenty years later, in his collection Slow Learner, he would admit was the only early story of his that he still liked—the cinematic relevance to Moving Places could be found in a single fleeting but resonant detail: the momentary bonding of a little white boy named Tim Santora with a black, homeless, alcoholic jazz musician named Carl McAfee in a hotel room when they discover that they’ve both seen Blood Alley (1955), an anticommunist action-adventure with John Wayne and Lauren Bacall, directed by William Wellman. Pynchon mentions only the film’s title, but the complex synergy of this passing moment of mutual recognition between two of its dissimilar viewers represented for me an epiphany, in part because of the irony of such casual camaraderie occurring in relation to a routine example of Manichean Cold War mythology. Moreover, as a right-wing cinematic touchstone, Blood Alley is dialectically complemented in the same story by Tim and his friends categorizing their rebellious schoolboy pranks as Operation Spartacus, inspired by the left-wing Spartacus (1960) of Kirk Douglas, Dalton Trumbo, and Stanley Kubrick.

For better and for worse, all of Pynchon’s fiction partakes of this populism by customarily defining cinema as the cultural air that everyone breathes, or at least the river in which everyone swims and bathes. This is equally apparent in the only Pynchon novel that qualifies as hackwork, Inherent Vice (2009), and the fact that Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaptation of it is also his worst film to date—a hippie remake of Chinatown in the same way that the novel is a hippie remake of Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald—seems logical insofar as it seems to have been written with an eye towards selling the screen rights. As Geoffrey O’Brien observed (while defending this indefensible book and film) in the New York Review of Books (January 3, 2015), “Perhaps the novel really was crying out for such a cinematic transformation, for in its pages people watch movies, remember them, compare events in the ‘real world’ to their plots, re-experience their soundtracks as auditory hallucinations, even work their technical components (the lighting style of cinematographer James Wong Howe, for instance) into aspects of complex conspiratorial schemes.” (Despite a few glancing virtues, such as  Josh Brolin’s Nixonesque performance as "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, Anderson’s film seems just as cynical as its source and infused with the same sort of misplaced would-be nostalgia for the counterculture of the late 60s and early 70s, pitched to a generation that didn’t experience it, as Bertolucci’s Innocents: The Dreamers.)

From The Crying of Lot 49’s evocation of an orgasm in cinematic terms (“She awoke at last to find herself getting laid; she’d come in on a sexual crescendo in progress, like a cut to a scene where the camera’s already moving”) to the magical-surreal guest star appearance of Mickey Rooney in wartime Europe in Gravity’s Rainbow, cinema is invariably a form of lingua franca in Pynchon’s fiction, an expedient form of shorthand, calling up common experiences that seem light years away from the sectarianism of the politique des auteurs. This explains why his novels set in mid-20th century, such as the two just cited, when cinema was still a common currency cutting across classes, age groups, and diverse levels of education, tend to have the greatest number of movie references. In Gravity’s Rainbow—set mostly in war-torn Europe, with a few flashbacks to the east coast U.S. and flash-forwards to the contemporary west coast—this even includes such anachronistic pop ephemera as the 1949 serial King of the Rocket Men and the 1955 Western The Return of Jack Slade (which a character named Waxwing Blodgett is said to have seen at U.S. Army bases during World War 2 no less than twenty-seven times), along with various comic books.

Significantly, “The Secret Integration”, a title evoking both conspiracy and countercultural utopia, is set in the same cozy suburban neighborhood in the Berkshires from which Tyrone Slothrop, the wartime hero or antihero of Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), aka “Rocketman,” springs, with his kid brother and father among the story’s characters. It’s also the same region where Pynchon himself grew up. And Gravity’s Rainbow, Pynchon’s magnum opus and richest work, is by all measures the most film-drenched of his novels in its design as well as its details—so much so that even its blocks of text are separated typographically by what resemble sprocket holes. Unlike, say, Vineland (1990), where cinema figures mostly in terms of imaginary TV reruns (e.g., Woody Allen in Young Kissinger) and diverse cultural appropriations (e.g., a Noir Center shopping mall), or the post-cinematic adventures in cyberspace found in the noirish (and far superior) east-coast companion volume to Inherent Vice, Bleeding Edge (2013), cinema in Gravity’s Rainbow is basically a theatrical event with a social impact, where Fritz Lang’s invention of the rocket countdown as a suspense device (in the 1929 Frau im mond) and the separate “frames” of a rocket’s trajectory are equally relevant and operative factors. There are also passing references to Lang’s Der müde Tod, Die Nibelungen, Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, and Metropolis—not to mention De Mille’s Cleopatra, Dumbo, Freaks, Son of Frankenstein, White Zombie, at least two Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals, Pabst, and Lubitsch—and the epigraphs introducing the novel’s second and third sections (“You will have the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood — Merian C. Cooper to Fay Wray” and “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more…. –Dorothy, arriving in Oz”) are equally steeped in familiar movie mythology.

These are all populist allusions, yet the bane of populism as a rightwing curse is another near-constant in Pynchon’s work. The same ambivalence can be felt in the novel’s last two words, “Now everybody—“, at once frightening and comforting in its immediacy and universality. With the possible exception of Mason & Dixon (1997), every Pynchon novel over the past three decades—Vineland, Against the Day (2006), Inherent Vice, and Bleeding Edge—has an attractive, prominent, and sympathetic female character betraying or at least acting against her leftist roots and/or principles by being first drawn erotically towards and then being seduced by a fascistic male. In Bleeding Edge, this even happens to the novel’s earthy protagonist, the middle-aged detective Maxine Tarnow. Given the teasing amount of autobiographical concealment and revelation Pynchon carries on with his public while rigorously avoiding the press, it is tempting to see this recurring theme as a personal obsession grounded in some private psychic wound, and one that points to sadder-but-wiser challenges brought by Pynchon to his own populism, eventually reflecting a certain cynicism about human behavior. It also calls to mind some of the reflections of Luc Moullet (in “Sainte Janet,” Cahiers du cinéma no. 86, août 1958) aroused by Howard Hughes’ and Josef von Sternberg’s Jet Pilot and (more incidentally) by Ayn Rand’s and King Vidor’s The Fountainhead whereby “erotic verve” is tied to a contempt for collectivity—implicitly suggesting that rightwing art may be sexier than leftwing art, especially if the sexual delirium in question has some of the adolescent energy found in, for example, Hughes, Sternberg, Rand, Vidor, Kubrick, Tashlin, Jerry Lewis, and, yes, Pynchon.

One of the most impressive things about Pynchon’s fiction is the way in which it often represents the narrative shapes of individual novels in explicit visual terms. V, his first novel, has two heroes and narrative lines that converge at the bottom point of a V; Gravity’s Rainbow, his second—a V2 in more ways than one—unfolds across an epic skyscape like a rocket’s (linear) ascent and its (scattered) descent; Vineland offers a narrative tangle of lives to rhyme with its crisscrossing vines, and the curving ampersand in the middle of Mason & Dixon suggests another form of digressive tangle between its two male leads; Against the Day, which opens with a balloon flight, seems to follow the curving shape and rotation of the planet.

This compulsive patterning suggests that the sprocket-hole design in Gravity’s Rainbow’s section breaks is more than just a decorative detail. The recurrence of sprockets and film frames carries metaphorical resonance in the novel’s action, so that Franz Pökler, a German rocket engineer allowed by his superiors to see his long-lost daughter (whom he calls his “movie child” because she was conceived the night he and her mother saw a porn film) only once a year, at a children’s village called Zwölfkinder, and can’t even be sure if it’s the same girl each time:

So it has gone for the six years since. A daughter a year, each one about a year older, each time taking up nearly from scratch. The only continuity has been her name, and Zwölfkinder, and Pökler’s love—love something like the persistence of vision, for They have used it to create for him the moving image of a daughter, flashing him only these summertime frames of her, leaving it to him to build the illusion of a single child—what would the time scale matter, a 24th of a second or a year (no more, the engineer thought, than in a wind tunnel, or an oscillograph whose turning drum you can speed or slow at will…)?

***

Cinema, in short, is both delightful and sinister—a utopian dream and an apocalyptic nightmare, a stark juxtaposition reflected in the abrupt shift in the earlier Pynchon passage quoted at the beginning of this essay from present tense to past tense, and from third person to first person. Much the same could be said about the various displacements experienced while moving from the positive to the negative consequences of  populism.

Pynchon’s allegiance to the irreverent vulgarity of kazoos sounding like farts and concomitant Spike Jones parodies seems wholly in keeping with his disdain for David Raksin and Johnny Mercer’s popular song “Laura” and what he perceives as the snobbish elitism  of the Preminger film it derives from, as expressed in his passionate liner notes to the CD compilation “Spiked!: The Music of Spike Jones” a half-century later:

The song had been featured in the 1945 movie of the same name, supposed to evoke the hotsy-totsy social life where all these sophisticated New York City folks had time for faces in the misty light and so forth, not to mention expensive outfits, fancy interiors,witty repartee—a world of pseudos as inviting to…class hostility as fish in a barrel, including a presumed audience fatally unhip enough to still believe in the old prewar fantasies, though surely it was already too late for that, Tin Pan Alley wisdom about life had not stood a chance under the realities of global war, too many people by then knew better.

Consequently, neither art cinema nor auteur cinema figures much in Pynchon’s otherwise hefty lexicon of film culture, aside from a jokey mention of a Bengt Ekerot/Maria Casares Film Festival (actors playing Death in The Seventh Seal and Orphée) held in Los Angeles—and significantly, even the “underground”, 16-millimeter radical political filmmaking in northern California charted in Vineland becomes emblematic of the perceived failure of the 60s counterculture as a whole. This also helps to account for why the paranoia and solipsism found in Jacques Rivette’s Paris nous appartient and Out 1, perhaps the closest equivalents to Pynchon’s own notions of mass conspiracy juxtaposed with solitary despair, are never mentioned in his writing, and the films that are referenced belong almost exclusively to the commercial mainstream, unlike the examples of painting, music, and literature, such as the surrealist painting of Remedios Varo described in detail at the beginning of The Crying of Lot 49,  the importance of Ornette Coleman in V and Anton Webern in Gravity’s Rainbow, or the visible impact of both Jorge Luis Borges and William S. Burroughs on the latter novel. (1) And much of the novel’s supply of movie folklore—e.g., the fatal ambushing of John Dillinger while leaving Chicago’s Biograph theater--is mainstream as well.

Nevertheless, one can find a fairly precise philosophical and metaphysical description of these aforementioned Rivette films in Gravity’s Rainbow: “If there is something comforting -- religious, if you want — about paranoia, there is still also anti-paranoia, where nothing is connected to anything, a condition not many of us can bear for long.” And the white, empty movie screen that appears apocalyptically on the novel’s final page—as white and as blank as the fusion of all the colors in a rainbow—also appears in Rivette’s first feature when a 16-millimeter print of Lang’s Metropolis breaks during the projection of the Tower of Babel sequence.

Is such a physically and metaphysically similar affective climax of a halted film projection foretelling an apocalypse a mere coincidence? It’s impossible to know whether Pynchon might have seen Paris nous appartient during its brief New York run in the early 60s. But even if he hadn’t (or still hasn’t), a bitter sense of betrayed utopian possibilities in that film, in Out 1, and in most of his fiction is hard to overlook. Old fans who’ve always been at the movies (haven’t we?) don’t like to be woken from their dreams.

by Jonathan Rosenbaum

Footnote

For this reason, among others, I’m skeptical about accepting the hypothesis of the otherwise reliable Pynchon critic Richard Poirier that Gravity’s Rainbow’s enigmatic references to “the Kenosha Kid” might allude to Orson Welles, who was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Steven C. Weisenburger, in A Gravity’s Rainbow Companion (Athens/London: The University of Georgia Press, 2006), reports more plausibly that “the Kenosha Kid” was a pulp magazine character created by Forbes Parkhill in Western stories published from the 1920s through the 1940s. Once again, Pynchon’s populism trumps—i.e. exceeds—his cinephilia.

[weirdthoughtsandideas]

The Quagmire-Baudelaire switch part 1: Don’t worry world don’t feel disgrace

Reference guide

Chapter 1: A very sad day

There is a long reference to the Catalan Kids show ”the triplets” but it’s explained there what it is and what it’s about

”Quiet you will wake up Tweedle dee and Tweedle dum” a reference to the characters of the same name from Alice in wonderland

Chapter 2: Why Mr. Poe should not take care of guardian choosing

”One bed.” Isadora sighed. ”Fantastic.” A reference to the deleted scene from the 2004 movie

Chapter 3: Olaf slaps a child (or technically a teenager)

”Quigley had got stuck on a story about three children that ran away from home, and they just found a homeless man that sold glue” A reference to the swedish movie, ”På rymmen med Pippi Långstrump”, or in english, ”On the run with Pippi Longstocking”

”Duncan had found an autobiography about some girl that claimed she was the most prettiest (...) girl in the world.” Reference to Carmelita’s autobiography

Chapter 4: A spoon of complaints and a cube of evilness

No particular references in this chapter

Chapter 5: Duncan is made for theatre

"Only something about a lady giving all of her money to her cats after she died, so the butler kidnapped them and then he got himself to Timbuktu." Obvious reference to Aristocats

Chapter 6: A long and confusing chapter including a play

No particular references in this chapter

Chapter 7: The Quagmires first (and last) day of school

”It was the roof of the house she and her sister lived in. And the girl wanted to see if she could fly, so she borrowed her dad’s umbrella and jumped of the roof to see if she would fly away!" A reference to Astrid Lindgren’s ”Madicken” which is the book Isadora was reading

”(...) You can't kill the one who the story is about!" Reference to all the... stories where the main character dies?

”(...) And you were already weird because you just invent things and have to put up your hair to think!" This is most likely a very famous character they have encountered

Chapter 8: Everyone is unharmed in the reptile room

”Holy shiitake mushrooms.” A reference to Carmen’s catchphrase in Spy Kids

Chapter 9: Why Stephano is something you shouldn’t name your child

No particular references in this chapter

Chapter 10: Stephano gets kicked out (or does he?)

No particular references in this chapter

Chapter 11: Stephano goes Carrey-style

"Probably some old man's fucking bones." A reference from a line in IT chapter 1 (2017)

"Did he just do a Carrey?" This refers to the title but also the fact that in the 2004 movie, Olaf, played by Jim Carrey, just dashes out of the house when he’s Stephano.

Chapter 12: Three four year olds vs a large lake

No particular references in this chapter

Chapter 13: No one listens to Quigley

"I remember a lot of things from my early childhood! Like the time we broke that spoiled girl's teddy (...)” A foreshadowing to a later chapter

Chapter 14: The Quagmires have various conversations

No particular references in this chapter

Chapter 15: Candy canes for the people

I don’t know if it counts, but Poe calls the Quagmires the wrong names multiple times. He calls them the ”Baudelaires” and the ”Calibans” for example.

Chapter 16: Isadora speaks like a finnish female pirate

"Shiitake mushrooms." Again, a reference to spy kids

Chapter 17: Everything happens so damn fast

No particular references in this chapter.

Chapter 18: Why Duncan hates treehouses (and trees in general)

"Don't call me Ish!" ”Why would he call you Ish?" A reference to a certain dictator who doesn’t force you to use that name

"Tattle-tale." Isadora whispered grumpily. Hard to know, but it’s actually a reference to Berlioz calling Marie a tattle tale from the Aristocats

Chapter 19: Phil is happy to be your co-worker

"I had a dream where I lived in ancient Greece and met some girl with black hair and a bowtie who wanted to tell me something." Ok. In ancient Greece lived Sappho. Sappho was a poet, just like Isadora. The girl with black hair and a bowtie is a main character in asoue.

”(...) what kind of irresponsible teacher would just forget three children they are responsible for?" A reference to all the fucking irresponsible teachers in the world

Chapter 20: Duncan gets dust in his eyes

"Duncan, I can assure you that nobody here will break their arm or leg for that matter due to any wood." Fooooreshaaadoowiiiing~

Chapter 21: Inordinate amounts of weird behaviour

No particular references in this chapter

Chapter 22: A fatal, optimistic accident

"Why, but you are so small!" (...) "Uh, yeah?" Duncan said, "We are children." A reference to a line from Charlie and the chocolate factory from 2005

Chapter 23: A real fatal accident at Lucky Smells

No particular references in this chapter

Chapter 24: The Quagmires kill a spoiled girl’s teddy bear

Carmelita’s mom is named Veruca, based on Veruca Salt

Chapter 25: New school, new chapter

No particular references in this chapter

Chapter 26: Where the shipping starts

No particular references in this chapter

Chapter 27: Very lovely indeed with a twist

No particular references in this chapter

Chapter 28: Olaf ruins everything

”What if we walk in on him stroking his violin?” I did this joke some chapters ago but this time someone else than Nero says it. It’s a dirty joke.

Chapter 29: Why many children was afraid of P.E after reading the austere academy

No particular references in this chapter

Chapter 30: An examination gone wrong

”This is a solidarity act” Violet is bisexual and Isadora is a lesbian. It’s a WLW solidarity

”Quigley, what color were the elephants I saw floating in the sky (...)” ”Pink” This is a reference to pink elephants on parade from Dumbo

”What comes after ’love love, peace peace’ in the second chorus of the song?” ”It’s ’and a burning fake piano” THIS GUYS is a reference to the song Love, Love, peace peace from Eurovision song contest 2016.

Chapter 31: Rich kids exploring a rich party

No particular references in this chapter

Chapter 32: A penthouse of familiarity and funny names

”I am Isadora Avi Quagmire.” A reference to the actress Avi Lake who played Isadora in Netflix

The hairdresser is named Bobbi, after Bobbi from Phineas and Ferb (who also was a hairdresser)

Chapter 33: Gunther ruins everything, yeah thanks for that Gunther

”I have seen stranger things.” ”We all have.” A reference to Stranger Things

”My name isn’t Quiglefort.” ”Yes, it is.” Foreshadowing to a thing in part 2 of this AU

Chapter 34: This abyss of world destroyed

The title is a reference to the Gothic archies ”This abyss”

”Don’t worry Baudelaires, don’t feel disgrace (...) The Quagmire triplets are on the case.” Reference to that poem from TAA, and also a reference to the title of QBS. Part 1s undertitle is ”Don’t worry world don’t feel disgrace” and part 2 is ”The Quagmire triplets are on the case”

Chapter 35: Runaway triplets

”Duncan? Did you just OD in there?” A reference to Steve and Robin’s famous bathroom scene from stranger things

Chapter 36: Too many rules for a village

”Rule 2001 says ’do not quite people from other universes’.” Quigley said shiitake mushrooms, which I have explained twice is from spy kids. Spy kids came out in 2001.

Chapter 37: Why children shouldn’t help someone out of jail

”(...) if the council of elders find out-” ”We’re dead!” A reference to a line from stranger things 3 episode 1

There’s a whole paragraph where Duncan said he has checked atleast ”seven million billion thousand times” and then the triplets remember how they used to dance around a coffin in their uncle Elwyn’s house. That was a reference to the musical Fun Home, particularly the song ”Come to the fun home” where the children make a commercial about their funeral home.

Chapter 38: An emotional escape

”Shit.” (...) ”Where?” A reference to when Violet said ”rats.” in TVV, and Klaus thought it was actual rats. But, in the swedish translation they translated ”rats” to ”shit”. I thought it was so funny I had to include it here

That was all for part 1! Thanks for supporting this fanfic of mine!

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael in the Mainstream: Peter Pan

I think I should come out and say it: I’m not the biggest fan of classic Disney films. I mean, obviously I appreciate them for what they did for the company, I would never deny their artistic merit, and it’s not even that I think they’re bad per se, it’s just that I am most definitely a Renaissance man. The Disney Renaissance is what I grew up watching, and the decade before and the decades after it are where I find most of my favorite Disney films. All that being said, though, there were always a few exceptions: growing up I loved Pinocchio, I’ve always been very fond of Sleeping Beauty (I still call it one of my favorites), and then there was the subject of this review, Peter Pan.

Peter Pan is the sort of movie I have very mixed feelings on nowadays, as it has a lot of strong elements as well as some… unfortunately glaring weaknesses. Would I say it’s a bad movie? No, I don’t think this movie is, on the whole, bad, and I think it is rather fun and enjoyable for the most part… but it’s not a film I’d ever be able to say is one of my favorites ever again after having watched it as an adult. I think there is sort of an irony to that, all things considered.

Let’s look at what this film does right first. As is pretty typical of the Disney classics, the villain really steals the show here. Captain Hook is just an absolute delight, a true ham for the ages who manages to be gut-bustingly hilarious and truly threatening whenever the scene calls for it. What really helps is that Hook, despite his unsavory qualities, actually ends up being rather sympathetic due to his animosity towards Peter Pan being extremely warranted and his general ineffective qualities and the constant slapstick aimed at him. You almost want to give the poor guy a hug with all the crap he gets put through. To not much lesser extent there is his sycophantic sidekick Smee, an absolutely goofy delight of a man who slavishly helps his Captain and usually bumbles whilst doing it, leading to ever more hilarity. These two really make the film, and every scene with them is delightful.

Then of course there is the stunning, iconic little fairy that is Tinkerbell. While she would not get much expansion or development until decades later, Tinkerbell cemented herself as one of the faces of Disney with this film, where she plays a cranky, sassy, silent sidekick to Peter. While the audience doesn’t understand her, the animation does a good job at helping show what sort of emotions she’s feeling at any given time. The animation in general is fantastic in this film, but really that’s just par for the course for old school Disney animation. 

But, see, that’s about all the praise I can give to the characters in this film. The rest of the cast is rather bland, with Wendy and her brothers getting hit especially bad; not a one of them is interesting or memorable, which is a real shame especially in Wendy’s case, as since she has the same actress as Alice from Alice in Wonderland (Kathryn Beaumont) I’d expect a bit more personality from her performance. 

The Lost Boys too are a pretty shabby bunch; perhaps it’s just the fact I’m such a big fan of Hook and the colorful cast of Lost Boys there (particularly the inimitable Rufio), but these Lost Boys just don’t do much to stick out besides where different costumes. And while the eponymous character is memorable in his own right, he’s rather arrogant, childish, and rude… which is probably the point, considering he is an unaging magical child. I still find him rather unsympathetic and more than a bit unpleasant, but unlike the other characters there’s at least something of a reason to it. And to be perfectly frank, after reading about the tragedy that befell his voice actor Bobby Driscoll, I feel a lot more inclined to give the character a break.

And then we come to the elephant in the room, and no, I am certainly not giving these characters a break. The big, red, racist elephant… I am, of course, referring to the Indian tribe of Neverland. Frankly, these guys are the reason why I wanted to talk about this movie, because it gives me the opportunity to talk about some of the absurd racial caricatures of Disney’s early years.

Now, these caricatures rely mainly on stereotyping, and with stereotyping you’re obviously going to slap elements onto a given character so the audience “gets” what you’re going for. Si and Am from Lady and the Tramp, the crows from Dumbo, characters like that are all examples, as despite being animals they feature traits that heavily imply the races they are mimicking. And yes, it is easy to see them as racially insensitive… but it’s easy to defend them, too. For instance, there are plenty of black people who defend the crows in Dumbo, and plenty of Asians like Si and Am. Obviously no one can tell you what to get offended by, so if you find those characters insensitive, that’s totally fine, and it’s hard to say that they aren’t, but at the very least them being animals with stereotypes slapped on them are a bit easy to swallow, and I can s ee why people like them. Like yes, Si and Am are clearly aping those good ol’ “Yellow Peril” stereotypes, and sure, maybe those crows are a bit iffy, but it’s easier to enjoy the characters for what they are because the characters themselves are not really trying to make any sort of commentary on the race they’re representing stereotypes from. They’re just evoking it, however tastelessly. 

But the Neverland Indian tribe are humans, and that does kind of make things a bit more uncomfortable, as they are ostensibly supposed to be like you and I. But between their exaggerated skin color, voices, and overall aesthetic, it’s hard to take them seriously. Only Tiger Lily really escapes this, as she is about the only Indian treated with any sort of dignity. All this being said, however, I have something of an ironic fondness for these awful characters. For one, as terrible and insensitive as they are, they manage to clear the incredibly low bar of not being portrayed negatively; the tribe is portrayed as good people. And as mentioned before, they are so deeply caricatured with all the ridiculous stereotypes of the time that they are just impossible for me to take seriously; the characters manage to cross the line twice, turning their insensitive designs into a laugh riot of “what the hell were these animators thinking?”

So in the end, Peter Pan is a bit of a mixed bag, but it’s one I think skews closer to the good end of that than the bad one. Classical animation fans and Disney buffs will at least appreciate this movie, and I do think there is some value in watching it even now, though it’s probably best to have a talk with any youngsters about the insensitivity of the stereotypical Indian tribe. When the movie is good, it’s very good, and it has a lot of fun and creativity in it, and even if the title character is a bit of a brat, it’s hard not to like him a little, especially if you’ve read up on the tragic story of his voice actor. All in all, this is a decent film with some good qualities, though I don’t think it’s really one you need to trip over yourself to watch.

[a34trgv2]

Top 10 Disney Disasters

#10. Renewing Pickle and Peanut: I acknowledge from a business stand point, if a show is popular, it should get another season. Pickle and Peanut, however, is not that popular. Not only have ratings declined since it’s premier, but less and less people are talking about it, and when they do it’s not positive. But apparently, no one at Disney Television give a shit as it’s been renewed for another season. If you thought less people were watching it by the end of Season 1, then no one is going to watch it at the start of Season 2.

#9. Giving up on John Carter: After being in development limbo for over 80 years (I’m not kidding, Hollywood’s been trying to get this character of the ground since the 30s), Disney finally gave John Carter his cinematic debut. Despite under performing at the box office and getting mixed reviews from critics, audiences were very accepting to it and wanted more. However, instead of let’s say attempting to make an animated show based on it like one of their other cult films (Tron) or having the character find new life in video game form, Disney just gave the film rights back to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ estate. Really? After decades of being stuck in development limbo, John Carter is just thrown back in? I know Disney lost money on the film, but they could’ve saved the character from falling into obscurity again by making a tv show. But, that’s reality I guess :/

#8. Ripping Off Ren and Stimpy: I’ve talked about this before, so I’ll keep it brief. Disney is a company that has made a name for themselves in pushing the boundaries of animation and story telling. So they should be more than ashamed of themselves for mooching off the success of their competition instead of making their own original show -.-

#7. Ending Wander Over Yonder: Just, why? About a year ago, Disney decided not to renew Wander Over Yonder. Why? Honestly, I don’t know. I know Craig McCracken said they “felt 2 seasons and 80 cartoons was enough,” but he never explained WHY they felt that. And no, it wasn’t because of the ratings nor was it because Disney didn’t like it. It really does baffle me how Phineas and Ferb got 4 seasons and 222 episodes before getting the axe (not bashing the show, I actually like it, I’m just trying to prove a point) and yet they felt Wander Over Yonder was just a 2 Season show and a 3rd would spoil it. What?!

#6. Canning Potentially Good Sequels: I know the direct-to-video sequels are notoriously unpopular, but that doesn’t mean they’re all without merit. Cinderella 3 told a fairly solid story and had some genuine stakes involved. Tarzan 2 you could argue is just filler, but kid Tarzan does go through a real character arc in this movie. And Return to Neverland is my personal favorite of the bunch and that’s mainly because of Jane. Disney Toons had plans for sequels to Dumbo, Chicken Little, Meet The Robinsons, and Pinocchio among others before John Lasseter shut them all down. I respect his dislike for these films, but I honestly believe some of them could have been more than just run of the mill. Like, more adventures with Pinocchio or The Robinsons; I actually wanted to see a Mulan 3 (Mulan 2 isn’t in my top 10 Disney sequels, but I don’t think it’s that bad). At the very least, these movies could’ve been decent with the right amount of effort, but like with Circle 7, John would like the rest of the world to pretend these ideas never happened.

#5. Bad Timing on Release Dates: Winnie The Pooh, Muppets Most Wanted, The Rescuers Down Under, The Rocketeer and Treasure Planet. You know what these movies have in common? They were all released at the worst times for their respected genres. I’m not a box office analyst (check out Grace Randolph for those statistics; yeah, yeah I know “she’s terrible” “kys” blah blah blah -.-), but last time I checked, you shouldn’t put something as innocent and family friendly as Winnie The Pooh up against something massive like Harrry Potter. Nor should you release a goofy family comedy like the Muppets in the spring if you expected similar results like its predecessor. Also, who’s idea was it to release one of, if not THE best Disney sequel the same week as Home Alone? I don’t know about you, but that’s not very smart if you ask me. Why? Really think about it; this was Disney’s first sequel and it’s set in the desert of Australia. They put in alot of effort to make this an improvement over it’s predecessor; from the animation, to the characters, to the story, even down to the humor. All that effort and yet they decided to release it around the holiday season, as opposed to, I don’t know-SUMMER?! I know no studio is perfect, but there should be no reason why they messed up these release dates so bad.

#4. Sitcom Overload: You know how many sitcom are on Disney Channel right now? 6. And they’re all about preteens or teens going through their everyday lives with wacky hijinks and some character bonding along the way. To be fair though, they are better than the Stupid Sitcoms on Nickelodeon, but the quality of them isn’t the problem. The problem is that there’s so many of them and not enough animation. Like I said earlier, Disney has made a name for themselves in pushing the boundaries of animation and storytelling. So, where on Earth is the animation on television? Answer: Disney XD. The reason why this is bothersome is because when people think of Disney, they think of the animated content first and the live action stuff after. Disney has made some good live action movies and tv shows for sure, but they’re not nearly as remembered as the ones that are animated. As such, the Disney Channel is generally regarded as the Disney Sitcom Channel. Yes, from a business standpoint, sitcoms are profitable, but too many sitcoms can damage you brand as an animation company and in a sense it has. Also, on a minor note, can we change Disney XD back to Toon Disney? I’ve honestly never understood the name change so can we turn it back? No? Worth a shot :/

#3. Controversial Jokes: I know comedy is subjective, but that doesn’t mean joke’s can’t cause an uproar if handled poorly. And boy were these handled in the worst way possible. Making a joke about models barely eating on paper, sounds exactly what you think it sounds like: a joke that inadvertedly sounds like an eating disorder joke. And it was. The joke was from an episode of Shake It Up and while that joke was removed, this wouldn’t be the last time Disney did something like this. Did you know Jessie has a character who eats a glutten free diet and they made an episode revolving around this? No? Because alot of angry parents saw that and Disney was forced to change it or risk getting doxed. Disney should really remind themselves that they can’t make light on topics like these as it does more harm than good. They didn’t joke around with racism, so eating disorders should obviously be a no no.

#2. Producing Dumb Ideas for Bad Movies: Mars Needs Moms, Alexander and the God Awful Title, The Santa Claus 3, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen and Prom. All of them were terrible ideas made into equally terrible movies. Mars Needs Moms, from the title alone is their worst film, no contest. You know it’s bad when the title sounds like a 4 year old thought of this film. The plot is nonsense, the characters are awful, not even the animation does it any favors. This isn’t the first time I’ve ranted on this film, so let me explain the biggest problem with this movie: the concept. Why would an alien race need our human mothers to grow the species? They were doing just find before. Alexander, meanwhile, is based on a kids book. Wouldn’t be so bad if A. The title wasn’t stupid and B. The plot wasn’t a light version of Everybody Hates Chris. I’m aware The Santa Claus has its fans, so it wouldn’t be fair to put it on the list because of my hatred for the film. Objectively, however, The Santa Claus 3 should not have been made with the generic It’s a Wonderful Life plot. I don’t care if It’s a Wonderful Life is a classic, it should not be remade and retold over and over again. The other two were based on a joke or dare, I swear. Who was asking for a movie about going to the prom? And don’t people hate Lindsay Lohan? And drama queens? Especially if they’re teenagers? I’ll refer you back to my point at #s 4 and 8 because I hate repeating myself -.-

#1. Ignoring Song of the South: In the Tom and Jerry Highlight Collection, Whoopi Goldberg did an introduction explaining why the cartoons featured in the DVD included Mammy-Two Shoes despite her being criticized as a racist stereotype (I’m with BenTheLooney in that this criticism is bull: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl01VhWbC74). Whoopi said that taking her out of the DVD would be the same as pretending she didn’t exist. Don’t get me wrong, racial stereotyping is bad, but so is pretending films and cartoons involving black characters didn’t exist. Case in point, Song of the South, I feel, is one of Disney’s underappreciated films simply because of the portrayal of blacks in the Post-Civil War era. I get it, slaves were miserable after the war; that said, that’s not what the film’s about. Its about a boy living on a plantation who listens to the stories of Brer Rabbit, told by Uncle Remus. The film was last seen in theaters in 1986 and never received a home release in the U.S.. Bob Iger calls it “fairly offensive” and you can debate all you want, but not giving this movie a home release isn’t helping your case. That only makes people want to see it more. Whoopie Goldberg herself wants this movie to have a home release. Sure you can just bootleg it or watch it online, but if you were to own it on Blu-Ray, you could get some insight into the process of making this movie, a brief history of racial stereotyping in movies. They still play the Zip-a-dee-doo-dah song, and they put alot of effort to the theme park attraction. This movie should not be ignored because the company wants to stay family friendly. Families don’t keep things from each other, just saying.

Conclusion: I love Disney, just about everyone loves Disney; but they’re not perfect and to think otherwise would be foolish. Pointing out their flaws and criticizing their actions is the only way they can get better. I’m aware of the Marvel, Star Wars and Pixar problems, but I wanted to focus on Disney specifically. Know any other Disney slip-ups? Let me know in response to this post. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you soon.

[sammyday-everyday]

Disney films of 2018, ranked

I finally watched Mary Poppins Returns yesterday, and I realized that I watched every Disney film this year, at least, according to Wikipedia.

really weird, I was expecting a Disneynature film, Ghibli film or a Disney India film at least but hey, who cares anyway, we got an Incredibles sequel. Yay. So, here are the 6 Disney films of 2018, all ranked from best to worst.

#1: Mary Poppins Returns

Finally a good Disney film! I have so little to say against the Mary Poppins sequel-- it embraced the original’s magic and resurrected the cadaver that is Disney magic. If we look at only Disney titles (excluding Pixar and the others), the last good Disney film was 2016′s Zootopia, that although very good, was very different. I’m talking the classic Disney magic, the grandiose musical numbers, colorful characters, original narrative and of course, 2D animation.  The music is amazing, I don’t know how music works really, but the songs of the sequel matches what I’d call a “musical palette” of the original, hence each new songs sounds like unused musical number from 1964′s Mary Poppins, making it so you could listen to both soundtracks on shuffle together and they’d match perfectly. Then, as you might know the movie features 2D animation, and it is beautiful: exactly what you’d expect from Disney, and I missed it so much I can’t hide that a few tears made their way into my eyes. Emily Blunt nails Mary Poppins, keeping the character very much alive, Lin-Manuel Miranda is Lin-Manuel Miranda, so he is obviously great in this movie also. Still, the film feels a lot like a big broadway musical, which is to be expected since it was produced by the same guys who brought you Into the Woods and La La Land, but the problem is that if feels too much like a broadway musical. Not that much of an issue, but I wondered, a few times too many during the film, why they didn’t just made it into a broadway musical. Finally, it is a sequel, and unfortunately it does exactly what the original did, rather than doing something different, fresh and special. It is frustrating when sequels does that, but that’s a common problem, and even though it makes Mary Poppins Returns less special, it doesn’t make it bad. If you miss the old Disney magic though, that’s the best you’re getting these days.

Beautiful, magical, but still a sequel.

#2: Ralph Breaks the Internet

In a world where big studios try to be relevant to the youth by making films featuring Internet and its wonders, Ralph Breaks the Internet surprisingly isn’t a wreck. The same post-mermaid structure, still very boring, but that’s practically every Disney film these days, so let’s ignore that. The film itself is a great sequel, as nice as the first and they’re trying something different. Sadly, in the end, it’s just Emoji Movie by Disney, a lot of references to giant companies and culturally important websites, making the film feel a lot like one big ad. I won’t go too deep into the film right now, but I’ll say that although I have good things to say about the film, it’s forgettable. They’re still mocking the Disney genre much like Moana, pretending Enchanted never existed, but it’s all fine, then I enjoyed the little hint of a message about Internet hypocrisy in anonymity, but it’s so small you could miss it, and for a film about Internet, I was expecting more of that. The film is so filled with references that it becomes the one thing driving the film forwards, almost forgetting that it is a film, so rushed character introductions leads to a rushed ending when the filmmakers realized they were making a film. Little to see here, but if you like Internet, it isn’t bad, you can try it. For others, this film will be irrelevant. Only notable moment is the Disney Princesses’ appearances, which is excellent, but fan service over-shading the whole film is pretty embarrassing.

Film so empty it makes you wish it was just 112 minutes of Disney Princesses hanging out.

#3: Incredibles 2

Little to say here; to me, Incredibles 2 was a big let down. Misses the magic of the first film, and really fails to give out the same 60s atmosphere the original gave out. Little to no grown-up humor, only the best part from the first, and of course, a lot less fresh and special. If you like the Incredibles, you will get enjoyment out of this one too, the characters are as great as they were in the first. My biggest criticism is that the film doesn’t understand what made Incredibles so special: not only did the original animated a realistic and relatable family as the protagonists, it brought something new to the superhero genre. The first had washed out superheroes and illegal superpowers, really different from the superhero films of the time, like X-Men, Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, but first and foremost it was a family film, about the struggles of an unsatisfied family. The sequel focuses way too much on superheroes, and the superhero part isn’t even anything special: the question of “are we giving too much power to superheroes?” is nothing new, we’ve all seen Civil War and Batman v Superman and we’re all already tired of it.

We wanted a sequel, but not THAT.

#4: Christopher Robin

I am huge Winnie the Pooh lover, my childhood was marked by hours of Winnie the Pooh episodes, hence you might think I found 2017′s Christopher Robin a huge embarrassment and disappointment, but you’d be wrong: I loved it, although I recognize it was junk. You don’t understand how much I love Winnie the Pooh, I love him so much you put him in the worst film ever and as long as you don’t mess him up too much, I’ll love your film. So, what about Christopher Robin the film? It’s lovely, because Winnie the Pooh’s in it, but even Winnie and the gang aren’t as lovable as they used to be. They’re good, but they miss the quotable lines and dreamy metaphors to gain forgettable quotes that’ll make you go “I guess that Winnie-ish” and really obvious metaphors that’ll make you “yeah, I got it, thanks.” The Winnie part was failed, and the rest of the film isn’t better. It’s exactly like Mary Poppins Returns, same concept of retrieving your inner child, but done lazily and without passion. Winnie the Pooh was great because you knew it lived in Christopher Robin’s imagination, now seeing Winnie in London is really weird and unpleasant. Nobody asked for that.

Masters of the Universe but it’s Winnie the Pooh.

#5: The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is one of those horrible films that had good ideas, not that it could have been good, but it could have been a lot less horrible. It has an ensemble of characters that are either painfully annoying, terribly boring or plain forgettable, and although it tries to be that grandiose adaptation of the gracious Nutcracker, I wish I could say it’s all “Razzle Dazzle”, but even that isn’t true. I went to see it with my mom and she kept saying how beautiful the film was, and while I guess they were fine, you’ve probably seen awful films with prettier shots, I know I did. Nothing to see here, the story is terribly boring and makes no sense, but it’s so boring you won’t even care about making sense out of it. It’s sprinkled with fragments of good ideas like “let’s have a ballet scene in the film explaining the origins of the four realms” ruined by more obvious annoyingly awful ideas like “but since it’s so genius and subtle and hard to understand let’s have the annoying pink b**ch explain everything during the scene and ruin everything”. Fortunately, I’ll forget about it soon enough. The film tries to be an epic tale but it ends up being insignificant, little, and forgettable. 

Let’s make The Nutcracker but stupid.

#6: A Wrinkle in Time

I wish I could hate A Wrinkle in Time with a burning passion, but I just don’t understand it. If I’d tell you the plot of the film, you’d say “This is so stupid, this does not make any sense”, but don’t go thinking A Wrinkle in Time is one of those films, those that makes you go “I mean sure it sounds stupid but if you watch it it’s a lot better.” It is stupid, and the film glorifies not making sense, or at least I think it does. Most scenes I don’t know if it’s one of those glorified scenes of nonsense or just a metaphor for something I don’t get. Scenes come out of nowhere and lead nowhere, to an extent where you’re left with scenes like “so the kids go to the beach and a guy gives them food, but then one of the kid eats sand so the girls’ brother becomes evil” and concepts like “to teleport to another dimension all you need is to set your frequency to love”. With an ending where the kids exterminate all evil in the universe so everyone in the planet becomes good or something, I can’t find anything good about this movie. It’s so weird and unpleasant and incomprehensible, I couldn’t recommend it any less. It’s a mess trying to be progressive and give a message of love, but even Barberella is better in this department.

“...what?” -Me, during the entirety of A Wrinkle in Time.

What 2018 a good year for Disney? Well, it was better than 2017 so I guess yes. This year we’re having a couple of titles too. Remakes of Lion King, Aladdin and Dumbo sure sounds like big disappointments, and I wonder if they’ll give the Genie a kid since he’s played Will Smith-- can’t imagine the guy playing a role other than a tragic dad. Frozen 2 and Toy Story 4 have potential, but they will be sequels. I am curious for that Artemis Fowl film though, but since Kenneth Branagh is directing it (Director of Thor, Cinderella and Murder on Orient Express, all the worst ones) I’m gonna be expecting a bad year. 

[watchtheblog]

when you’re here, you’re family

(upon rereading, i have deemed this to be the first in what i imagine will be a highly in demand series of: places i visit in los angeles besides the bed in the house i reside or the alley i go on walks in in order to obtain vitamin d which i am severely deficient in… on account of never leaving the bed in the home i reside because i hate everything in this city!)

if you didn’t study obscure satirical literature, you’ve probably never heard of samuel butler’s novel ‘erewhon’ and if you’ve never been to la, you’ve probably never heard of los angeles’ local delight erewhon, a supermarket only referred to by its formal, proper noun name.

erewhon.

i can only assume the progeny takes its name from the novel - in which (like many of the characters’ reverse spelled names) “erewhon” is intended as a backwards spelling of “nowhere” (“w” and “h” are inverted) - because, like… the store erewhon is the embodiment of irony!

erewhon is my safe space. erewhon is where i go to escape the ugliness of the real world, to soak up the glory of wealth, to revel in my ability to buy a pressed juice in a pinterest worthy, artisanal glass milk jar for $13 that i could easily make at home if i had the culinary wherewithal to effectively cut up fruit and vegetables… or, alternatively, a juicero.

erewhon is where i go to release myself of the awareness of poverty and death and the notion that there’s something wrong with paying a grip for a machine that will squeeze a sack of juice ingredients in ALLEGEDLY the same manner the hand of a mere mortal will squeeze it.

*please someone buy me a juicero. i do not fucking care. buy me the machine. i love waste and excess. PLEASE. I IMPLORE YOU.

shopping at erewhon is like stepping into a real life snapchat filter where every face around you is beautiful, smoothed, and adorned with a flower crown or the ears and nose of a ethereal puppy.

but shopping at erewhon is also like running into someone you didn’t know you owed money and then having that person shake you down for it… over a highway. in a city whose language uses a different alphabet!

if, like me, you are v rich but still enjoy the playfulness of frugality, walking up to the register after carefully curating your purchases will fill you with a sense of shame and dread. if you cannot relate to me in this way, i would liken the feeling of S&D to a “walk of shame”.

*though, perhaps i am incorrect as i have never been on one such walk, for i have never allowed a man within me who was not my boyfriend, and therefore have never needed to shamefully leave his home in clothing worn the night before.

and, anyway, had i ever experienced the rush of passion and lust that precedes the big mistake. *huge* that is a one night stand (which i haven’t because my sex organs don’t work!) i would have infuriatingly elegantly slept through the night and in the morning demanded the man send an uber: invisible cloak for me to go home in!*

imagine the feeling melania must have had walking down the aisle on her wedding day to - self professed human man, star of the failing ‘apprentice’ and noted despicable dude - donald trump, knowing she’d be divorcing him eventually because all she wants is an offspring and her share of the doll hairs.

so, that. that’s what it’s like... tto walk up to the register at erewhon, knowing what you’re about to do, while it will serve you in some way, will also hurt you gravely, and then, finding yourself with nary an exit strategy, persevering out of sheer obligation.

that’s what happened to me the other day when i blacked out at checkout and came to behind the wheel of a shopping cart only to find that i’d been charged $15.88 for a bag of cherries. and no, the “bag” in the “bag of cherries”, holding the “cherries” was not a birkin.

$15 is more than my cherry cost!! and i was eighteen! and a beautiful, angelic, genius baby with a faint english accent, an ass from the gods and:

and i gave that thing to my 29 year old out of work actor friend person (who after three months i had finally coerced into being my boyfriend) during my college’s parents’ weekend in this dumbo’s subsidized, low income housing project apartment… for FREE.

nah. i’m jk. that shit wasn’t free. he’s paying for it handsomely by never being able to escape me dragging his name and imdb profile through the dirt in perpetuity… and also by never being able to love again with the pureness of heart i invoked in him and by being tortured by the fact that he will never get to marry me… bc he’s getting married to a successful tv star. lol! lol lolololol! we’re all laughing. it’s v funny. ha ha ha. it’s good to laugh.

ok! that was nice. back to the expensive - but less expensive than my virginity - cherries.

even though i am certain the only people who read this live in LA or NY (hello, dad; hello, person who is not my agent at an agency where i could potentially be signed because currently i am unsigned, though i am taking meetings, but i guess what i really want is a manager and not an agent anyway but hi), if you live elsewhere, i hope you have not died from a shock induced heart attack from knowing that ya girl paid $15.88 for a bag of sugar balls.

the world is insane and abundant, what else can i say!

(actually. if you live elsewhere… talk to me about how you found my blog. thanks!)

erewhon purports (by way of their paper bags, which you are shamed for buying for ten cents (even though you are PAYING for them) because you should bring your own because… the environment) that “if it’s here, it’s good for you” and honestly, even though that apodictic maxim is eerily similar in tone to distinguished, repugnant company snapple’s “made from the best stuff on earth”, i believe them intrinsically...

because i don’t trust anything unless it is upmarked 300%. please see: “buy me a juicero” and accompanying sacks of juice ingredients.

that being said, the problem with the cost of the cherries and with every product being gracefully shilled at the almighty erewhon is that, yes, on the one hand, you know that what you’re getting is “good for you” (even though for $15.88 per handful of red gumball fruits you’d prefer a slightly more ardent adjective than “good” but okay)… but on the other, more pragmatic, less organic hand: YOU JUST SPENT FIFTEEN FUCKING DOLLARS ON FUCKING CHERRIES, you absolute pile of disgusting MF house rich, cash rich garbage.

like the masturbatory act of giving anonymously (lol), on the one hand: yes yes yes, wonderful. giving is excellent. on the other (ugly) hand: no one will ever know you did this! it is for naught!

photo break: me being organic... in that i have not showered in a fortnight:

and that is true. no one will ever know of your aspirational, enviable pursuit of health and a body not made of flaming hot cheetos… unless of course you write a blog about it and demand your closest friends and family read it. then they’ll know.

… and maybe they’ll venmo you some money to offset the price… and then, then that will have been worth it.

or maybe i’ll get an agent to sign me based off a blog about cherries - not the euphemistic usage of cherries but of the far less interesting, actual food item, literal word: cherries.

*also, real talk the title of this is the catchphrase of the iconic eatery “olive garden”, a place i’ve been to once, unceremoniously, despite being on my bucket list. please see the below and understand that my twitter is where i speak my truth.

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: Andre Cymone

Andre Cymone came from a musical Minnesota household, where he and Prince began playing together as teenagers. Cymone joined Prince's band for a few years from the late 1970s to the early 1980s before breaking away to release three solo albums where he merged his funk and rock influences. For 27 years, Cymone moved away from the microphone, working as a songwriter and a producer for acts like Adam Ant and, most notably, Jody Watley. Early this decade, he returned with a few political songs and 2013's The Stone. The death of his father led him to a period of reflection on pop history and the similarities between today's sociopolitical and those of the 1960s, an era whose music particularly inspired him. These thoughts led to his new album, 1969, in which Cymone draws from the title period. While there are clear sonic references, the album's no simple rehashing of an earlier period of protest. Cymone decades of work pull together for a record that's both personal and political, as grounded in the urgent issues of today as it is in a consideration of the past.

1. Snatch & The Poontangs 

I used to sneak and listen to this album on a regular basis. It was one of the first albums that I heard where they combined raw profanity and serious blues guitar playing. My mother had a pretty raunchy collection of Moms Mabley, Millie Jackson and Rudy Ray Moore.

2. Hofesh Shecter — Political Mother 

I saw his company perform this piece a few years back at UCLA and, yes, it blew my mind. It's the ultimate Rock and Roll extravaganza. The multi stage set ups and combination of music and dancing is a visual dream. The lighting and the mood and tone it sets are insane. This is what I would love for my live show to look and feel like one day.

3. Charles Atlas and Antony and The Johnsons — Turning 

In 2003, I moved to Harlem and got lost and ultimately fell in love with a city I used to hate. New York is a complicated place. You gotta dig your way deep down to get to the underground of the metropolis. It's the only way I found that you can really appreciate it. My wife, Katherine Copeland Anderson was working with visual artist Charles Atlas and they invited me to a show they were doing in Dumbo with Antony and The Johnsons. The combination of Antony's (Anohni’s) haunting voice made me feel the heart and soul, the pain and the triumphs of the women in this piece.

4. Nine Horses with David Sylvian — Wonderful World 

This song just takes me away. The voice of David Sylvian is a treasure. When I listen to him sing I imagine they put the microphone straight down his throat so you could feel the deep resonance. It's beautiful. I had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know David and I consider him a friend. We shared a laugh that I think to this day, I have not laughed as hard. 

5. Curtis Mayfield — Superfly  

This was part of the soundtrack to my youth. I had the movie poster on my wall and our band covered a couple tracks from the soundtrack. In fact I think I saw the movie at the Capri theater in North Minneapolis, the same place I performed with Prince for his very first concert as a solo artist. 

.

6. Sanford Biggers -- Moon Medicin  

I came across Sanford Biggers maybe 15 or 20 years ago. He was recording some super eclectic music in a studio I owned a while back. Fast forward 2004, I see an incredible art exhibit in New York, turns out, it's Sanford and it was amazing. I kept following him and watched as his art evolved. It blew my mind cause it went beyond what I saw with my eyes and went straight to my heart. You watch his Moon Medicin piece and it goes above and beneath the surface and it’s just cool how he presents his collaborative performance art collective. With it’s massive video as a backdrop, DJ and four piece band In the forefront, playing music that seamlessly and directly connects his art, with video clips and images that you see on screen, it’s just cool.

7. Jimi Hendrix — Axis Bold as Love

When I first heard Jimi I thought he was awful. Thought he sang out of key, guitar was out of tune, just didn't understand why my band mates were trying to get me to like this guy. Then our drummer brought the Axes Bold as Love LP over to rehearsal and dropped the needle and that was it, I absolutely got it. I went back and fell in love with almost everything he had done. 

8. Joni Mitchell — Hejira 

First of all I think I may have every album this woman has ever put out. Her music was almost all I was listening to when I was in San Francisco when Don Juan's Reckless Daughter came out. To this day when I hear it, it makes me think of Sausalito and the Haight-Ashbury scene in the late 1970s when I was there working with a friend recording his first album. I think for me, Joni Mitchell epitomizes and represents what it means to be a non-conforming musical artist. And she's a beautiful painter as well. 

9. Stevie Wonder — Innervisions “Living for the City”

As a young musician Stevie was my guiding light. I would race downtown the day I heard any of his new albums would come out. It became a religious act for me. I'd beg borrow or steal enough money to buy his album, take the bus downtown and back, turn down all the lights, light some candles in my attic bedroom, lock my bedroom door, get comfortable, drop the needle and go on Stevie's musical trip. And it was always a beautiful trip.

10. Public Enemy — Fight the Power 

When hip hop started really getting popular people would come to me and basically talk about how it wasn't artistic or creative and had no imagination. I think they were trying to say it wasn't real music. I said "if you think that, you haven't heard ‘Fight the Power’ by Public Enemy" because before I heard that track I may have thought the same thing but for me there was before “Fight the Power”” and after. Just listen to that track, there's probably anywhere from 30 to 40 little snippets, loops, samples from films etc. Puttin’ all that together and making it not just musical but funky and drop a serious message on top of all that, that's art.. 

[furederiko]

Sheeesh!!! It's happening again. All these huge news came out just a day after I posted the last Random-News-Digest. I could've included them in that post instead!!! Personal ranting aside, let's get right through the news then... PS: Yeah, this one arrives a little early than usual, because I have to go off the grid for a while. At least until I return from embarking another exploration to the far off galaxy this week... ;D

Disney Live Action

Guy Ritchie is doing the live action adaptation for "Aladdin"? I'm sure you've already heard about that. The movie is going to be an action musical with Middle Eastern leads who have natural talents in singing and dancing? You've heard this before early last month? Well, it's a first for me, but of course... hell yes! That's GREAT news. But did you know which actor Ritchie is currently approaching to play the magical Genie? The answer is... much to everyone's surprise: Will Smith!

Okay, this casting? I'm not too sure about. The last time we had an African-American as a geenie was Shaquille O'Neal in "Kazaam", and that was... uhm, how do I put it? ODD? Not saying I don't like the idea, or that Smith's a bad actor, nor that I'm being racist or anything. I guess I just can't see the "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" in this role. And if we're indeed going about race, why couldn't we get another Middle Eastern actor, or at least an Indian for the job? Someone who's more 'racially appropriate'. Of course Smith's appeal is understandable. He's an actual singer so he'll nail the musical part nicely, a natural Oscar-darling for dramatic moments, and has comedic chops that might rival the late Robin Williams. Even if I feel Williams is pretty much irreplacable in this role.

The problem with Smith however, is that he has turned down Tim Burton's "Dumbo" before. That was due to scheduling issue with "Bad Boys 3". That Michael Bay movie had just lost its director, thus putting it on an uncertain delay, yet Smith hasn't walked back to "Dumbo". Thus suggesting that he's probably just not 'keen on' the project. If that's any indication, could we even expect Smith to take a higher coveted role like the Genie instead? Many seems to doubt it. Beside, the current situation is, he's just in "early talks" for this role, and we know that in Hollywood, that means 'nothing is yet set in stone'. Or legal papers, if you prefer to be more modernly accurate. LOL.

If I have a voice in this movie's production, I say just let Genie become a fully CG character. You know, like those household members in "Beauty and the Beast"? Thus they can get practically anyone who's NOT Will Smith to voice the role. Someone who has strong comedic timing, and is equally masterful at singing. Hmmm... why am I suddenly reminded of Seth McFarlane? Perhaps, because he was a standout in Illumination's "Sing!" last year? He can even be a prolific Broadway actor. What about Jamie Fox, Hugh Jackman, Nathan Lane, or... LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA? I think those names are much better choices than Smith. Here's a completely random suggestion though: Timothy Omundson, or Ben Presley from "Galavant"!!! They live in UK, have worked with Alan Menken before, for a Disney's ABC series, and CAN totally sing. Anyway, we can expect confirmation to this pretty soon, because apparently the casting call explicitly stated that: "Rehearsals begin April 2017. Shooting July 2017-January 2018 in the UK.". And April is about to end pretty soon! LOL.

DC Films

Here's a quick one from Warner Bros and DC! Because as we all should understand by now, they won't ever let Marvel take the whole week of spotlight onto themselves, right? They just need to sneak a completely random news of development here and there. This time, it's from Joss Whedon, whose name has been kindly talked about recently thanks to Kevin Feige kindly mentioning him during Marvel Studios' open house. And this news came from a very ironic place too: The red carpet premiere of the new Guardians movie! LOL to that.

The news was, well, Whedon is NOT looking for a big name to fill in her lead actress for "Batgirl". He said clearly, "I don’t have my eye on anyone. I’m creating this character, I’m in a dialogue with her, and then we’ll see who joins that later on. I doubt it’ll be a name.", which means she can be anyone. Whedon had a soft spot for Oscar-nominee Saoirse Ronan before ended up going with Elizabeth Olsen for Wanda Maximoff in "Avengers: Age of Ultron". And his TV works have always involved a strong female lead, like Sarah Michelle-Gellar in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". So he can practically choose any actress for the character, including a relatively unknown. The big question though, how does WB feel about this? And considering the studio's really BAD habbit of pointlessly putting reference, will this actress debuted in "The Batman" before her solo movie? Which means she needs to be cast right away. We'll have to wait and see how this develops.

Wait a sec... turns out this news didn't really come from WB after all. But due to Variety asking Whedon about the project, when they bumped into him at the premiere. So not WB's intentional spotlight-hogging trick this time around. LOL. Sorry WB, my bad. This is why you shouldn't do that to other studios, as people would easily assume you're doing it again and again eventhough you're guilty of charge. Ahahahaha... *sigh*.

Fast and Furious

"The Fate of the Furious", which is a dumb title albeit a nice little twist on 'F8', raced through the box office and conquered the winning lane ever since it debuted. It has even amassed a record breaking global opening of all time, beating 2015's "Star Wars: The Force Awakens"! But with the franchise started getting a little... tiring, the question is, for how much longer it has the engine to keep on running? If the latest statement by producer Neal Moritz is to be believed, we're going to see this drug race-inspired movie - at least - up to "Fast and Furious 10". Which might be dumbly named "Fasten Your Seatbelt". Get it? LOL. That's already one more than the previously reported "Fast and Furious 9" by the way. Remember when Lucas Black was approached to do it until 9, but ended up a no-show in 8?

It certainly ain't stopping anytime soon though. Why? Because already, a plan is in motion for a... spinoff. Yikes! Yes, because apparently, due to the much publicized rift (is it real or fake? That has been settled though, I think... *sigh*) between lead actor Vin Diesel, and new regular Dwayne Johnson, it seems fans are now shipping Johnson's Luke Hobbs with Jason Statham's Deckard Shaw. Yep, the bad guy who killed Sung Kang's Han Seoul-Oh. Seriously, will Han's death ever be avenged? I haven't seen the eighth movie yet, but it sounded like Hobbs and big bro Shaw (while lil bro Shaw was singing his way in "Beauty and the Beast") actually had... great chemistry together?

It's currently 'in talks' stage for now, but I can already see it happening. Particularly considering The Rock would do any film, while Statham is in need of another franchise after his participation in "The Expendables 4" is put into question. Chris Morgan is expected to write, and the timeline would put it between the 8th and 9th movie. I'm not too sure about this idea, but perhaps, somewhere along the line we might be seeing a Han and Gal Gadot's Giselle "Mr & Mrs Smith"-esque movie along the way? Especially after Gadot's profile will get another significant boost following this year's "Wonder Woman". I'd certainly would watch that.

X-Men Universe

Now here's what I consider a rather 'dumb' report serving the headlines for "Deadpool 2". Actress Leslie Uggams is set to reprise her role as Blind Al in the sequel. Why is that dumb? Duh... because she's an important element of the first movie, stealing scene every single time she showed up. It would be a crime to not have her back! Not to mention, he's Wade's roommate. What I'm curious to know however, is whether Morena Baccarin will indeed reprise her role as Vanessa as well. I sure hope she will, otherwise it would mess up continuity... not that FOX have actually cared about it. Then again, Deadpool could've gotten away with it by turning it as a mockery excuse towards FOX. While at the same time, punching jabs towards Marvel Studios' case of Pepper Potts and Jane Foster. Ain't that a good idea, right?

Oh yeah, by the way, FOX has announced the official release date for the movie! Eventhough the first movie opened in February, its success has apparently warranted this sequel to change gears into a Summer movie. Yes, it will now open in June 1st, 2018. Which is a rather crowded spot, since Disney has "Han Solo: A Star Wars Movie" to open in the previous week, and the following week has WB's all-female "Ocean's 8" and Paramount's "Bumblebee" movie. Is this a wise move, then? I doubt. That's the way it is with FOX though, they don't give a damn about things like this. They've also set up Josh Boone's "New Mutants" to arrive on April 13th, 2018. Which is, a few months... AHEAD. Huh?

And a little movie called "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" that will arrive in November 2nd, 2018. Squaring off directly against Disney's "Mulan" live action revisit, this news just came in several hours ago (thank Jesus I can add it before this post goes up *sigh*)! Nope, don't be mistaken, it's not "X-Men: The Last Stand" that practically ruined the franchise the first time. It's a... reboot of said movie? Meaning it has the ultimate potential (same story, same WRITER) to do the same? LOL. Need I remind you, these are 3 different movies, set in an entirely 3 different timeline/universe, right? Once again, LOL to that.

Aaaaanyway. With the uncertainty of WB to produce any DC Films earlier than December's "Aquaman", looks like FOX is snatching all the empty superhero slots, eh? The only empty space is in January, March, and August to October, with SONY's "Venom" already dated in the last one. So NICE move to FOX....!!! I guess? *sigh*

Avatar

This is a direct follow up to the above paragraph. Remember the James Cameron's sequel that was supposed to open on December 2018, but got delayed and thus became occupied by "Aquaman"? Yep, I know what you're thinking. This whole release date business already sounds like a confusing game of chess! Well, brace yourself, because "Avatar 2", the sequel we never even asked, will now open on December 18th, 2020. Eeeeh? Not kidding. But what took Cameron so long to get one done? The answer is, because he's doing all FOUR sequels altogether. Yes, "Avatar 3" has been scheduled to open on December 17th, 2021, while "Avatar 4" and "Avatar 5" are coming in December 20th, 2024 and December 19th, 2025 respectively. Ain't that a mouthful to write! Those, if there's any among you, who are waiting for these... sequels, should be really happy to hear this news. You have 5 years of Avatar-time! You've got to hand it to Cameron though. This here is risky business. VERY risky. I can't even imagine what would happen if the 2nd movie is a bomb.

Marvel Studios

Let's start with the juiciest part! Just last week, I speculated that Marvel Studios will announce the female director for "Captain Marvel" when they return to Hall H of this year's San Diego Comic Con. Well, this is Marvel Studios, a studio known for catching people off guard, and they've done it again. Not just for one, but a double surprise at the same time.

Yes, the director for their first female-led female-centric movie has indeed been selected. And it's not one, but TWO of them! Marvel Studios officially announced (first reported by Variety) that Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have been assigned to helm the project. So to you who wanted a female director, you get one. And those who prefer a male director, also get one. Fair and square!!! Intriguingly, their names weren't even part of the frontrunners list, so it certainly caught almost everyone by surprise. According to The Hollywood Reporter, apparently Marvel Studios met with several female directors since last summer; from Niki Caro (who has been hired to do "Mulan" instead), Lesli Linka Glatter, Lorene Scafaria, to Lucia Aniello, and Quicksilver's real life wife Sam Taylor-Johnson, with Jennifer Kent and Jennifer Yuh also in the early mix; before ultimately settling in on this "Mississippi Grind" duo. Turns out, they've managed to impress the studio with their vision for the movie, which put focus on elevating character's journey beneath all the spectacle. Sounds like something right up on Marvel Studios' alley, huh?

Just like the Russo Brothers, Boden and Fleck have done more TV based project, instead of big features. Does the similarity to Anthony and Joe feels more than mere coincidence? Clearly Marvel is taking their first female-led superhero VERY seriously. I wouldn't be surprised if Carol Danvers will be taking Steve Rogers' important role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe going forward. To be honest, I'm not at all familiar with the duo's work, not on movies ("It's Kind of a Funny Story", "Sugar", "Half Nelson"), nor TV ("The Affair", "Billions"). But I'm hearing good things about them, and considering Marvel Studios has a powerful knack in choosing who they partnered with (particularly ever since they no longer serve under Ike Perlmutter), I've completely put my trust in their decision. Lest we forget, people doubted that Joss Whedon, James Gunn, and also the Russos would deliver before. And now their movies are considered among MCU's best. With the smart and loveable Oscar-winner Brie Larson more than excited to front, a script currently in progress by Nicole Perlman and Meg LeFauve, and an official production targetting a February 2018 start, "Captain Marvel" will arrive on March 8th, 2019.

After debuting their first worldwide tour in Tokyo, Japan, the Los Angeles Red Carpet Premiere for "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" has been held on Friday. As always, the glamorous event took place at the El Capitan Theatre. Unlike previous movies, I couldn't catch the live stream of this premiere, because I'm running out of data charge on my internet! After all, when you're saving up money to watch the movie (tickets' pre-ordered by the way, yaaaay! XD), you have no choice but to wait until early next month to get it reinvigorated. Whoops, let's get back on track. Most of the cast attended the celebration. Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige, co-president Louis D'Esposito, VFX producer Victoria Alonso, and director James Gunn were obviously leading the pack. They were joined by returning actors Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Karen Gillan, Michael Rooker, and Sean Gunn, as well as new cast members Pom Klementieff, Chris Sullivan, Elizabeth Debicki, and Tommy Flanagan. Veteran actors Kurt Russel and Sylvester Stallone were also in attendance, with a surprise appearance of one David Hasselfhoff! Okay, I didn't even know he has a part in this movie. I thought his name in the recently released Original Soundtrack was just pure coincidence. By the way, said album's tracklist could potentially be considered spoilerish, so you might want to avoid it the way I do.

Another press junket was held following the premiere, and the folks behind this movie has been spilling additional details here and there. The kind of information that you would want to steer away and avoid, if like me, you don't want to be spoiled ahead of the game. This could range from the simplest bit like: - Various critics' reviews as well as the first accumulated RottenTomatoes score can be expected to arrive very soon. So check your favorite entertainment sites in the next 24 hours or more, to see what their journalists have to say about this movie. I'm personally avoiding the internet after this to avoid spoilers, and will get back once I've seen the movie. 3 days from now! YAAASSS!!! \(^o^)/ - The fact that the movie's core theme is about family. Sean Gerber of Modern Myth Media, even said that the movie was "pure love", and something that should be watched together with their family. Gunn even dedicated this movie to his parents during the LA premiere. - That baby Groot is the star of the movie! Even fellow Marvel Studios director Peyton Reed thought he could win an Oscar! - New official images released on Entertainment Weekly that hinted towards various plot points. - A supposed Nathan Fillion's cameo that got edited out. Complete with proof by the actor himself, that turned out to nothing but a... prank? LOL. Though it's possible he's indeed the actor that Gunn openly admitted had to cut during post production. - About "the collector’s museum"-level Easter-Eggs-filled scene that went out in the cutting room... and might not be available as the Deleted Scenes. - About a surprise pop star cameo. - To the more complex one, like the removal of one character by the name of... *drumrolls* Adam Warlock!

Yes, turns out the Warlock was originally a major part of "Vol. 2"! Confirming that it was indeed his cocoon we saw in the first movie, but was decided to be saved for later movies. Once again, Gunn has been pretty open about this before, as he said that the script originally had 'one other' member of the team that he unfortunately had to let go. Yes, he WAS talking about Warlock, as the decision to omit him was because "it was one character too many and I didn’t want to lose Mantis and Mantis was more organically part of the movie anyway. So I decided to save him for later.". Gunn expressed his love for him though, eventhough we also shouldn't expect to see Warlock in "Avengers: Infinity War" as well, much to fans dismay. Nevertheless, Feige gave assurance that we will definitely see this important cosmic being in future movies.

By future, I believe we can expect this important character to show up later in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3", or even earlier in the UNTITLED 2019's Avengers movie. As I've always said, Adam Warlock is an amazing character because he's basically serving as both protagonist and antagonist due to his alter-ego Magus. And the prospect of having him playing a crucial role in future Marvel cosmic universe is enough as an excuse for me. Gunn stated to EW, that the "the three movies work together as a whole, they’re going to tell one story,". Which is exactly the reason why he agreed and excited to continue with "Vol. 3". Don't forget, we're getting Warlock's comic-book's 'sister' Ayesha and her golden-skinned race in this second movie. It would be very obvious, if Warlock will indeed take the follow up spotlight on "Vol. 3". One more thing, Gunn's collaboration with Marvel Studios won't be stopping after "Vol. 3". Birth.Movies.Death speculated, that Gunn is basically the architect of Marvel Studios' future cosmic universe, and I'm inclined to agree on that. Which his role important going forward. After all, Feige himself stated that Gunn "could easily oversee additional stories beyond Vol. 3.". I honestly can't wait to see what we can expect next in the massive galactic side of MCU, considering some of its more popular properties like Galactus, or Silver Surfer, are owned by FOX.

With one movie of 2017 out of the way, when can we expect the 2nd one then? The Los Angeles premiere for "Spider-Man: Homecoming" has been set for June 28th, 2017. Similar to the case of "Vol. 2", we can expect first screening reactions, critics reviews, and all the information dump related to Tom Holland's solo movie, beginning on early June. Or perhaps, much earlier? Yep, L.A. Times shared a new official photo of Spidey inside a pipe, accompanied by a breakdown of what his VERY convenient suit can do. After all, it's Tony Stark's creation! LOL. There's another one from EW, included in an article that focused on director Jon Watts' and Holland's experience with the production, considering the two "were in the same boat". In case you forget, "Homecoming" is the only MCU movie this year that takes place on Earth! So in that sense, it could be considered an important movie, because it's one of two that will directly lead up towards "Infinity War".

The other one is of course, Ryan Coogler's "Black Panther" that will arrive February 16th next year. A movie that had just wrapped production in Atlanta, but already sounds stunningly promising in many delicate ways: first female cinematographer in Rachel Morrison, dashing 'tribal-modern fusion' costumes by Oscar nominee Ruth E. Carter, fully imaginative high-tech metropolitan Wakanda, and stellar supporting cast, among others. Both Holland's Peter Parker and Chadwick Boseman's T'Challa debuted in "Captain America: Civil War" to critical acclaimed last year. We know that the two has officially joined the MCU's shirtless club, that even the bigwigs at Marvel Studios thought as something brag-worthy (LOL!!!). Yet the biggest question for them, is whether their stand-alone features will perform as good, or even better as the hype. Whether the directorial visions of Watts and Coogler are the right ones to catapult each solo title into their own franchises. Because if they are, then they will be joining the likes of Peyton Reed and Scott Derrickson who are moving forward with their second MCU movie.

Meanwhile, production for "Infinity War" is still ongoing in Scotland. And the latest sighting will make fans of the comics glee with joy. Why? Actor Paul Bettany was seen filming a romantic scene with Elizabeth Olsen, confirming that the relationship of his Victor Sha... I mean Vision and her Wanda Maximoff actually have progressed significantly since their encounter in "Avengers: Age of Ultron". There's something more to the scene though, because Bettany is NOT in his thick Vision makeup! Thus many have been assuming this could be either a dream-scene, or an alternate reality caused by one of the Infinity Stones. In fact, it makes sense to be the movie's happy ending too.

Speaking of 'happy ending', don't assume that this scene is part of the 2019's UNTITLED Avengers movie. Why? Eventhough the Russos DID plan to film both movies concurrently, apparently what might have sounded possible in theory, didn't work out so well in practice. Feige revealed to Collider, that the studio has decided to change course, and film both movies as back-to-back but entirely separate productions. "It became too complicated to cross-board them like that, and we found ourselves—again, something would always pay the price", he admitted, which might point out various issues like technical requirements of making sure both movie would be different from one another, actor's scheduling, and others. Which means, every behind the scenes candid images we've seen so far, are all part of "Infinity War". Feige then confirmed that they expect filming for the first movie to wrap in July, before moving on with the next one in August. Think of it like how Peter Jackson worked on his "The Lord of the Rings" or "The Hobbit" trilogies.

Last but not least, Feige also teased that while they are focusing on the seven ongoing tasks at hand, the MCU might be 'evolving' into a different form/route beginning in Phase 4. If... it can even be called that way, of course. "Certainly as we get to Infinity War there is a sense of a climax if not a conclusion to, by the time we’re at untitled Avengers 4, the 22 movies that will have encompassed the first three phases of the MCU. And what happens after that will be very different. I don’t know if it’s Phase 4, it might be a new thing.", he openly said to Collider. Intriguing, because if we observe closer, two of the confirmed titles ("Vol. 3" and "Homecoming 2") have their own separate and unique timelines; one probably mere months apart, while the other taking the "Harry Potter" yearly approach. A third that has been unofficially confirmed, the next chapter to "Doctor Strange", isn't likely to be bound by time and space either. Feige summed up that after 2019's Avengers movie, the MCU is "gonna be very, very different.". Hmmm... let's just say, I won't be at all surprised if the official title for Avengers 4 is called... "AVENGERS: SECRET WARS"! *wink*

Marvel TV

As Marvel's "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." closing in on its 4th season finale, the fate of this ABC network series remains a huge question. Will it be renewed for a 5th year? And will it serve as the final season, as Entertainment Weekly has predicted before? Fans of the show, however small and numbered it might be, are anxious to find out. But while we're waiting for the answer, Marvel TV isn't stopping anytime soon. Instead, they are moving forward with their two Freeform projects.

The first one is Marvel's "New Warriors", as the former ABC family network officially announced its main roster! As speculated, it's a combination of actual "New Warriors" members from the comics, as well as ones from "Great Lake Avengers". The characters were revealed last week, complete with a catchy comic book art to accompany the announcement. They are (in list, because I love one): - Doreen Green, or Squirrel Girl. Well, duh? Obviously she's part of the show! Because it's the character that Freeform has always wanted to get from the beginning. According to Freeform, Doreen is an empowered girl, and a natural leader. Fitting to her power of acrobatic, and as such, she is bouncy and energetic. She will be accompanied by her pet squirrel Tippy Toe, everywhere she goes. - Craig Hollis, or Mister Immortal. True to his superhero alias, he's practically unable to die. Problem is, the lazy guy hasn't made use of this ability at all, and tends to be cocky and grumpy instead. Freeform calls him as the team's troublemaker. Or as I would see it... the jerk whom I would easily hate. - Dwayne Taylor, or Night Thrasher. He doesn't have any super ability, but he's a... Youtube artist? Huh? Ain't that something that the millenials would dig, right? He's rich kid who's pretending he's not, because he's a local celebrity 'hero' who is... shamelessly full of himself. Wow, our first two guys both sound annoying already. - Robbie Baldwin, or Speedball. His ability is to launch kinetic balls of energy, which of course would require CG work. His character description is kind of important, because it confirms that the show takes place in the MCU. Yes, because he's a fan of the Avengers Tower. Unfortunately, he's "impulsive and immature people-pleaser with a misplaced sense of confidence". My oh my, why do all the guys are characterized like this? - Zack Smith, or Microbe. This guy might already be my favorite, because he's a shy and sweet big guy who... talks to germs? Huh? Yep, his ability practically turns him into some kind of telepath, as he can tell everything from the millions germs scattering in the planet. Considering the MCU has very few people who can be categorized as an actual telepath (Scarlet Witch, and Mantis?), this is a good excuse to make Zack be another one. Judging from the character design, it seems like an Asian-American is going to be cast for this character. - Deborah Fields, or Debrii. This lesbian African-American is proud, and has a sharp tongue. Always unafraid to say what she thinks, and calls out people on their BS. Sounds like an amazing frenemy to either Craig, Dwayne, or Robbie, right? She has the power of telekinesis, and also acts as some sort of trickster.

If you ask me, I think these characters are good, and also wise choices because they represent diversity. No actor has been announced just yet because the casting process is said to commence very soon. But considering how fast this show is moving forward since it was greenlit, I wouldn't be surprised if we're getting cast announcement next week! I'm still not sure if I can see this show, considering it's airing on Freeform, but the idea of a 30-minutes 10-episodes only live-action comedy is too good for me to miss out. Obviously, if there's one main concern I have for it, is whether they can nail the VFX for show or not. And how much practical effects that will be utilized. Like the case of Tippy Toe, will an actual squirrel plays the rodent? Or a completely CG character? Of course, having characters like Mister Immortal, Night Thrasher, and Microbe is a beneficial cheat, considering their abilities can all be done practically. Even Debrii's power can also be done through simple camera tricks. The biggest challenge would be Speedball's, and the appearance of Squirrel Girl. Let's hope showrunner Kevin Biegel, and Marvel TV can work these out. Marvel's "New Warriors" is expected to arrive in 2018, which means, plenty of time to get the VFX done.

The first trailer for Marvel's "Cloak and Dagger" has been released! I did NOT see this coming. After all, the series won't premiere until Winter 2018, right? Unless, that literally means January or February, since both months are still regarded as winter. Hmmmm. Anyway, as soon as I'm done with the trailer, I'm 100% certain that this show is NOT for me. Not saying it's bad, because the whole teenage romance thing is, well, certainly new for Marvel. So a 'good job' for them is at hand? I don't know why, it just doesn't work for me. The lack of special effects, perhaps (that practical one looks... weak, and fake)? Too soap-opera for my taste, probably? Or is it because a conservative soul like me and some others just couldn't get the charm of it. Maaaaan, I feel old *sigh*. As I said before, as much as I liked the characters in the comics, I'm going to give this series a pass. It's definitely a no go for me. The only thing I liked about this is the logo... and that's saying much.

I can't help but wonder if these lovers would somehow, in some way, have a crossover with the "New Warriors". Both are running in the same network, and the age gap between their characters aren't too big. Of course, we must not forget that "Cloak and Dagger" takes place in New Orleans, while "New Warriors" will be in... hold on, they haven't mentioned where the setting will be, huh? Character description for Speedball mentioned 'Avengers Tower' though, so it likely takes place in New York. If that's the case, now I'm wondering if Squirrel Girl and her friends will bump into any of the Defenders, or Doctor Strange, or even Spider-Man? Aaargh.... this whole #itsallconnected thing is confusing.

Netflix

Would you look at that! Marvel's "Luke Cage" has... begun production for its 2nd season? Wowzers... Marvel is certainly firing on all cylinders, attacking on all front last week, huh? However, just like Marvel's "Jessica Jones", this report didn't arrive from Marvel, who usually posted an official announcement for a start of production. Instead, this silently came into public's attention through some keen-eyed fans who spotted the working title of "Luke Cage" being set up in Port Washington, New York. Add to that, Simone Missick's tweet about her training for the new season, and many can easily come into the same deduction.

Intriguingly, assuming this report IS true, "Luke Cage" going into production at the same time as "Jessica Jones" feels a little suspicious, eh? If I recall correctly, "Jessica Jones" showrunner Melissa Rosenberg did teased about Mike Colter's Luke's appearance in the series. So I'm secretly wishing this is the case, because his presence did wonder in the 1st season. Don't forget, Colter was cast due to his chemistry with Krysten Ritter! As for "Luke Cage", we need to remember that showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker actually wanted to do a "Heroes for Hire" show. But we all know how it turned out right? He was hired to do the solo series instead. With Scott Buck being occupied with Marvel's "The Inhumans", and the uncertainty of his Marvel's "Iron Fist" getting another season (sad to say, it's Netflix and Marvel TV's worst-reviewed show so far), could we be seeing Finn Jones' Danny Rand and Jessica Henwick's Colleen Wing entering the world of Luke Cage instead? I certainly hope so, because that would be the WISEST decision for both series. Coker would get what he have always wanted, and Marvel fans can finally see these two lead characters turning into that charming best buddies we've always seen in various other medias. Not to mention, Missick's Misty Knight can pair up with Henwick's Colleen as well. Once again, just like in the comics! To be honest, I don't have any interest to see new season for both series at this moment, but a pleasant twist like that would totally alter said plan completely... XD

Of course, that's merely a random speculation on my part. And a wishful thinking too. If the recent exclusive on MCU Exchange is also true, then well, such fantastic crossover already sounds unlikely. Which means, there goes my excitement level...

As for Marvel's "The Punisher", Tyler Bates who has done work for James Gunn's MCU movies, will be lending his hand to score the series. Possibly hinting towards a more rock and roll, or heavy metal vibe to the music. One more thing, actress Rosario Dawson had openly stated that she won't be showing in the series. Not really a surprise, because her Claire Temple never really interacted with Jon Bernthal's Frank Castle before. I think her role will specifically be taken over by Deborah Ann Woll's Karen Page this time. She did remark that she would love to be in it, but scheduling conflict somehow prevented her from doing so. Marvel's "The Punisher" is expected to premiere this Fall.

Kamen Rider Shally

Tokusatsu scooper Dukemon, posted some reports regarding the next Kamen Rider season following "Kamen Rider Ex-Aid". According to him, the rumored title will be "Kamen Rider Shally", and as previously hinted before, is a SUSHI-themed. Shally will be using the Shally Driver, and Neta Units to transform. He added that Shally will have three forms, obtained through the Neta units: Maguro, Ika, and Tamago. These are all obviously named after variants of Sushi that uses tuna, squid, and roll-egg respectively. For now, we need to consider this rumor with a huge grain of salt. But Dukemon is reliable, as many report he posted ended up becoming a fact. So I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Persona

"Persona 5" is still taking the main attention of many Persona-fans until now, but it seems Atlus is already moving forward with new projects for the franchise. According to Gematsu, Ryu's Office, the company who worked with Atlus to register domain names, has submited several Persona-related ones on April 18th. These names include: P3D, P5AG, P5D, P5R, P5U, Persona-Dance, PQ2. Three more were submitted on April 4: Persona8, Persona9, and Persona10.

Since they have created a crossover title between "Persona 4" and "Persona 3" before in form of "Persona 4 Arena", it seems likely that one of said domain might be a continuation to said title. Perhaps, the P5U one stands for "Persona 5 Ultimax/Arena"? I hope that's the case, because the possibility of the Phantom Thieves of Heart crossing path with the Inaba Investigation Team is too good to ignore. The notion of a Persona title from 8 to 10 is also intriguing. I don't recall we have heard any rumble of a "Persona 6" just yet, but they already book the spot up to 10! That's... WOW, right? Nevertheless, if Atlus can continue building better and better game like what they have done with P5, I don't see why there can't be a "Persona 10" somewhere in the franchise's bright future...

[likethedew]

Amendment 4 – Will Florida’s x-felons finally get to vote?

“These restrictions are not required by the plain language of Amendment 4. Nor are these restrictions what a supermajority of voters contemplated when they voted Yes on Amendment 4.” – American Civil Liberties Union (Florida)

The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals got Florida’s case to decide the legality of adding on financial requirements (poll taxes) not referred to or required by Amendment…

[zhumeimv]

Easter Eggs You Missed In Frozen 2

Easter Eggs You Missed In Frozen 2

Date: 2019-11-22 23:34:31

[aoa id=’0′][dn_wp_yt_youtube_source type=”101″ id=”LzfshDE8chg”][/aoa]

There’s so much to look at and think about in Disney’s long-awaited sequel that it’s easy to overlook the many jokes, references, and shoutouts hidden throughout. Fortunately, we’re here to help you make sense of it all with this look at some of the best and most memorable Easter eggs in Frozen II.

I…

[theatresleepovers]

disney princesses vs. Disney Princesses

Disney Princess is a franchise separate from characters in Disney movies who are canonically princesses. I’ve often noticed how Disney Princess products sometimes like to emphasize certain (*cough*white) Princesses over others, even though Disney Princesses are all equally Princesses, regardless of the story in their movies.

Using this list as a reference: (List of Walt Disney Pictures films), I decided to try to find out who qualifies as a disney princess or a Disney Princess. There are other movies that Disney has produced besides this list, however. Feel free to peruse the Wikipedia links for more information, but that link is complete enough for my purposes here.

The current (2018) Disney Princesses are as follows: 

Snow White

Cinderella

Aurora

Ariel

Belle

Jasmine

Pocahontas

Mulan

Tiana

Rapunzel

Merida

Tinker Bell was originally a Disney Princess, but no longer.

First, I figured that to be either a disney princess or a Disney Princess, the character must be fictional and animated. So, starting with the list of Disney films linked above, I excluded all films that are either documentaries or completely live action (some examples removed from list: Treasure Island, Sacred Planet, Parent Trap). This leaves 106 movies.

Secondly, I figured that a disney princess/Disney Princess must be humanoid, and should have a name and a speaking role. So I eliminated 29 movies that have no animated humans that speak (some examples removed from list: The Lion King, The Jungle Book 2016). This leaves 77 movies.

Third, I assumed that a disney princess/Disney Princess must be a woman or a girl. So I eliminated 18 movies that have animated speaking men/boys, but no animated speaking women/girls (some examples: The Jungle Book 1967, The Dumbo, The Tigger Movie). This leaves 59 movies.

Fourth, I decided that a disney princess/Disney Princess cannot be a villain. Are there any movies still on the list whose only women are villains? Yes, indeed: The Sword in the Stone is off the list. This leaves 58 Disney movies with at least one animated, humanoid, speaking, non-villainous woman. (see bottom of post for the list)*

Now, I wondered how many of those movies feature a canon princess as the leading animated-humanoid-speaking-non-villanous woman? My definition for “princess” here is this: 1. must be a royal in a monarchy; 2. must be EITHER the daughter of a royal, OR the wife of a royal, and this must be DURING the movie.

I counted 13 disney princesses (this list is NOT SPOILER-FREE):

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Snow White is the stepdaughter of a Queen, and presumably the daughter of a king or prince consort).

Cinderella (the last scene wordlessly depicts Cinderella and Prince Charming leaving their wedding).

Sleeping Beauty (Aurora’s parents are a king and a queen).

The Black Cauldron (Eilonwy is referred to as a princess in the movie; I’m not sure if it’s explained in the movie but the book makes clear that her mother was a princess).

The Little Mermaid (Ariel’s father is a king).

Aladdin (Jasmine’s father is a sultan**).

Atlantis: the Lost Empire (Kida’s father is a king).

The Princess and the Frog (Tiana marries a prince and turns human again after becoming a princess).

Tangled (Rapunzel’s parents are a king and a queen).

Arjun: the Warrior Prince (Draupadi’s father is a king).

Brave (Merida’s parents are a king and a queen).

Wreck-It Ralph (Vanellope is a princess in the monarchy previously headed by King Candy).

Frozen (Anna and Elsa’s parents are a king and a queen. Elsa is queen for part of the movie, but she’s also a princess during the movie).

So, here are the characters who are both disney princesses (of the list of 13) and Disney Princesses (of the earlier list of 11): 

Snow White

Cinderella

Aurora

Ariel

Jasmine

Tiana

Rapunzel

Merida

Cinderella and Tiana became princesses by marriage, and the rest were born princesses.

Canon princesses who are not Disney Princesses: 

Eilonwy

Kida

Draupadi

Vanellope

Anna

Elsa

And finally, Disney Princesses who are not canonically princesses: 

Belle (is not of royal blood; dances with the prince at the end, but neither marries him nor becomes engaged to him).

Pocahontas (belongs to a chiefdom**, not a kingdom; does not marry a royal from a monarchical society.)

Mulan (is not of royal blood; does not marry a royal).

And that’s about all I have. I spent too much time reading about this so I figured I’d share. Hope you found it mildly interesting.  

*(the list of 58 below the cut)

**(also a note on types of government)

*Here are the 58 movies with at least one one animated, humanoid, speaking, non-villainous woman, along with an example of such (sometimes the only one). I tried my best on this, but I haven’t seen all of them recently so I could be wrong on some. Organized chronologically.

snow white and the seven dwarfs: snow white

pinocchio: blue fairy

cinderella: cinderella

alice in wonderland: alice

peter pan: wendy

lady and the tramp: aunt sarah

sleeping beauty: aurora

one hundred and one dalmatians: anita

the aristocats: madame

the rescuers: penny

the fox and the hound: widow tweed

the black cauldron: princess eilonwy

oliver & company: jenny

the little mermaid: ariel

beauty and the beast: belle

aladdin: jasmine

pocahontas: pocahontas

toy story: bo peep

the hunchback of notre dame: esmeralda

hercules: megara

mulan: mulan

doug's 1st movie: patti

tarzan: jane

toy story 2: jessie

the emperor's new groove: chicha

atlantis: the lost empire: kida

monsters inc: boo

recess: school's out: becky

lilo & stitch: lilo

return to never land: jane

treasure planet: sarah

brother bear: tanana

finding nemo: darla

the jungle book 2: shanti

home on the range: pearl

teacher's pet: mary lou

the incredibles: helen

the nightmare before christmas 3d: sally

enchanted: giselle

meet the robinsons: lucille

ratatouille: colette

bolt: penny

wall-e: mary

a christmas carol: belle

the princess and the frog: tiana

up: ellie

tangled: rapunzel

toy story 3: bonnie

mars needs moms: ki

arjun: the warrior prince: draupadi

brave: merida

frankenweenie: elsa

wreck-it ralph: vanellope

frozen: anna

big hero 6: honey lemon

inside out: joy

moana: moana

coco: coco

**On monarchies and terminology: 

1. I counted “sultan” as a monarch, because he’s depicted as a monarch in the movie. Wikipedia says: 

The term is distinct from king (ملك malik), despite both referring to a sovereign ruler; the use of "sultan" is restricted to Muslim countries, where the title carries religious significance,[2][3] contrasting the more secular "king", which is used in both Muslim and non-Muslim countries. In recent years, "sultan" has been gradually replaced by "king" by contemporary hereditary rulers who wish to emphasize their secular authority under the rule of law.

2. The Powhatan government is not a monarchy, neither in real life nor as depicted in the movie. Chief Powhatan (the father of Matoaka, the woman who “inspired” Pocahontas) seems to have been a somewhat less democratic chief than other Powhatan chiefs, and political power seems to have been largely family-based in the 16th century, but I don’t think that makes it a monarchy. At least in the 19th century, Powhatan chiefs were elected to the position and served as one branch of government with a council comprising the other branches. It appears that this form of government continues to this day, with formally elected chiefs. Settlers sometimes call chiefs “kings” but I don’t think the Powhatan people use the terms “king” or “princess” themselves.