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Monday, October 30, 2017

Disney Release Dates 2018 - 2019


 Okay, this is a little late. Read; about a month and a half late. But it's still news, since none of these dates have come to pass / the entire point of this blog was to be movie-oriented, not just about kid's media.


Chapter 3: Ginger in the BreadHOUSE / Ashlynn's Fashion Frolic

Welcome to Chapter 3, the first and only chapter that actually gives us several multi-episode storylines, ties it into dolls released at the time, and it quite entertaining and good to boot!

In a few episodes. But now, we have another character to introduce, the second in our Dark Forest Girl Trio; Ginger Breadhouse. I have a feeling they could have gotten more creative with that name, but she is quite adorable.

Ginger is a girl (baked from a cookie?), the daughter of the Candy Witch who aims to eat Hansel and Gretel, who we will also meet this webisode. She likes to bake and cook for people, but many people distrust her because of her heritage.

In the book Kiss and Spell, Ginger's cooking show, Spell's Kitchen, is trying to survive in the ratings - if they don't go up, she loses her spot in the broadcasting room.

She also gets a bit of attention in Faybelle's book - their mothers are allies and, as children, they were quite close.

Also; Dark Forest reminds me of Redwall, although there it's a euphemism for the (good) afterlife.


Sunday, October 29, 2017

Soundtrack Sidetracked: Disney's Descendants 2


Disney's Descendants came out in July of 2015, to about as much acclaim as a Disney Channel movie can get that's not called High School Musical.

Simply put, the sons and daughters of certain villains are chosen to go to Auradon Prep with the children of heroes and good princesses. It has (had?) webisodes and books.

Sounds familiar (& more competently distributed, maintained, and diverse) to a certain Mattel property, doesn't it?

With any property like this, Disney will push one of the stars to be the Next Big Thing. Here, it's Sofia Carson, who plays Evie (the blue girl). Disney loves reusing it's stars though - Dove Cameron (Mal; The purple girl) stars in Liv and Maddie as...both of them, and China Anne McClain was the lead in ANT Farm.

(China voices a completely different character than Uma in the animated show.   My friend just informed me that her sister voices Freddie in the show now. I have no idea when that happened. If there's one thing this franchise royally messed up with, it's the continuity between mediums. There's plenty of characters with dolls and webisode and book presence that have no mention in the movies.)

Interestingly, quite a few characters ended up being written out - there was a son of Aladdin and Jasmine who was even cast and costumed but never made it into any film, a daughter of Rapunzel, and Audrey, daughter of Aurora - The Sleeping Beauty.

She was actually the "antagonist" of the first movie. I say that, lightly, because villain is too strong. Audrey was simply upset and confused at a bunch of uncouth kids showing up to her doorstep without even trying to fit in or learn...and then her boyfriend falls for the lead? Hoo boy.

She doesn't appear in any capacity in the sequel. I think they say she's on a carriage ride through a forest for the duration.

I'm not here to recount the stories of either movie to you too deeply - it's so nonsensical and foolish that I'd have to refresh my memory to be accurate - but they are both very good fun, goofy times.

Why am I looking at the soundtrack of this instead of the first movie? Well...I only like two songs from the first movie - Evil Like Me and Rotten To the Core. Technically, it's just one, seeing as the latter is a cover of one of the songs by Sofia Carson.

There were also songs that didn't make the final cut - covers of Poor Unfortunate Souls and Kiss the Girl, from The Little Mermaid.




Personally, I'm not fond of them. I think if they let China do a simple cover of PUS (ha) instead of embellishing it with modern day noises, it would have been pretty good. This? No.

Actually, I don't think any covers of old Disney songs make it into this movie.

The first one...blessed us...with a very strange cover of Be Our Guest. Perhaps the director heard our confused cries and gratefully let these stay on the soundtrack but out of the film.

So, with all that said, let's go. I'm going to try and do these in the order they appear - but the soundtrack involves songs that were webisode-exclusive, and I've got to remember what those are to avoid them. The only one worth listening to is Rather Be With You anyway.

The first song - and first song released period for this soundtrack - is by far my favorite. Premiering an entire three months before the movie or the rest of the soundtrack, here's Ways to Be Wicked;


Thursday, October 26, 2017

Chapter 2: Best Feather Forward + CH. 2 Ending Thought

Best Feather Forward is the last episode in Chapter 2.



Duchess Swan believes she's destined to fail her Muse-ic Class project--until Humphrey Dumpty lends a hand.


Humphrey Dumpty is very excited to break some eggs - kill his relatives, I guess - and make an omelette, until he drops them down the stairs.



Kings Horses and Kings Men: New phone who dis.

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Chapter 2: Thronecoming / And The Thronecoming Queen Is...

On this very special school holiday, life is turned upside down when a Royal and Rebel switch sides… and the Storybook of Legends goes missing.
Thronecoming! Possibly my very favorite of the specials. In the doll world, this was another 'super expensive froofy dress' line, and frankly I loved every bit of it. I had Cupid (I still have those cool wings though), and still own Raven and that gigantic book playset with the Briar. Every so often I will take it out, unfold it, and stage pictures, because it really is just amazing.

This one clocks in at almost a full hour, and we're treated to the slightly extended theme song. Fun fact, for the final special, Epic Winter, I'm pretty sure they replace it with that 'Power Ballad' Power Princess Shining Bright.


Sunday, October 22, 2017

Chapter 2: Duchess Swan's Lake / Cerise's Picnic Panic / Kitty's Curious Tale +1 more


Another three-fer of a post because the next post...is Thronecoming! My favorite special!




Duchess Swan enlists the help of Ashlynn Ella and Hunter Huntsman to save her beloved Enchanted Lake from pollution.


I like this episode for a lot of reasons;

  • Duchess
  • Ashlynn
  • Reaffirming that Ashlynn is the nature princess and Hunter swears to protect wildlife too.
  • The fact that a problem isn't solved by Apple for once.

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Rec Center: YouTube


This is not an entirely Ever After High centric blog! Just for now it is...

My Youtube likes can be easily sorted into a few categories;

  • Movies and / or Animation (Trailer reviews and news)
  • Gaming (Mostly Reviews and retrospectives)
  • Information
  • Cooking
  • Other
Well, 'other', anything could be other. I have many, many subscriptions, but there are some channels that I always tune into. Also, some of these channels are a bit multi-oriented, and I'll note those.


Thursday, October 19, 2017

Chapter 2: Apple's Princess Practice / Lizzie Shuffles the Deck

Here's a better episode for all the girls involved.





Apple White may be the fairest of them all, but there are more than tiaras and tea parties in the typical day of this busy Royal.

AKA: "Please stop hating one of the two people this franchise is built on when we made her really unlikeable because we want your money."

One of the comments at the source wonders when we will see Apple with her glasses. Yes, in the story books and her diary, she mentions needed glasses, but refuses to wear them because it will ruin her ~perfect image and that's all she tries to be.

Never mind the fact that other people wear glasses, like Rosabella, and they're reasonably cute and stylish. "Glasses make you weird and nerdy, girls!" What another nice message that both the visual and written medium fails to resolve.

Also, contacts don't exist in this world?

Monday, October 16, 2017

Chapter 2: Maddie's Hat-Tastic Party / Lizzie Hearts' First Fairytale Date

Surprisingly an episode pair where I like the Maddie one and hate the Lizzie one.



When Wonderland Grove needs a boost of wonder, Madeline Hatter decides to throws a tea-riffic tea party to recharge this magical spot.


Hat-Tastic Tea Party where only a few dolls got dresses - Apple, Briar, Cerise, and Cedar got standalone dolls, and Maddie got a playset.


Sunday, October 15, 2017

Chapter 2: Poppy the Roybel / O'Hair's Split Ends

Introducing the blandest characters that Mattel never stopped trying to force on us, Holly and Poppy O'Hair, the twin daughters of Rapunzel.

Holly is the younger one who wants the Rapunzel destiny [long hair], and Poppy is the older one who doesn't [short hair]. That's supposed to be a secret. It was probably going to culminate into something, but just like Cerise's secret, ha ha, I can't believe you thought EAH had some sort of follow through.

This is when people started to realize how insanely same-faced most of the white girls were. Besides hair, and even then only slightly, there's not a whole lot of distinction between Apple, Blondie, Poppy, and Holly. Especially in their dolls. Note their eyes here - kind of a very very pale green. Their dolls all have teal-ly blue eyes. Hmm.

I'll give credit where it is due; They do try a little harder with Holly than Poppy. She knows she's going to be in a tower for years, so she's a writer. She's got an agent and everything, and has rewritten her classmate's destinies and put them on her blog. Poppy just cuts hair. Maybe they thought her wearing pants and having short hair was personality enough.

 Surprise! They were wrong.


Saturday, October 14, 2017

Chapter 2: Rebel's Got Talent / Once Upon A Table / Blondie Branches Out

I'm putting three together because

A) The next pair introduces characters that we won't be rid of will play a role until the series' death.
B) I'm not even bothering to review one of them very seriously because you can see the conclusion a mile off.

Rebel's Got Talent
(They really like calling back to reality shows)



Raven Queen and Sparrow Hood go head-to-head in a wicked awesome guitar duel at the annual school talent show.

Raven auditions to Grimm, who asks her "What evil act are you going to perform?"

Because she's the token goth, she's musically inclined.  Wouldn't it have been interesting if she wanted to be a writer instead of Holly? That truly takes 'I want to write my own destiny' to a new level. Holly could have created love ballads or whatever, but her One Trait is cool too.

What if she killed a student who didn't have a serious destiny? Would Grimm care?


She starts playing a pretty cool guitar. The song is weak though, and Grimm agrees, though he tries to trot out "YOUR DESTINY" shit and she stops him, pointing out that she's still here after rejecting her destiny.

Grimm says well, anyway, too bad, Sparrow has already signed to play the guitar, who slides onto the stage to be obnoxious, until Raven glows with magic and comes close to losing her temper...which Grimm likes, and lets her play her guitar.


Friday, October 13, 2017

Chapter 2: The Beautiful Truth / Mirrornet Down



When Cedar Wood™ enters the Royal beauty pageant, she inspires Apple White™ to spellabrate the true meaning of beauty.
Ashlynn is sitting with her new Rebel friends, and asks if anyone wants to go shopping after school. When the others agree, Cedar jumps in - she can't, because she joined the Royals Beauty Pageant, but she didn't tell anyone because she thought that they thought it would be silly. "But I love being awesome, empowered girls!"

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Chapter 2: Class Confusion | Apple's Birthday Bake-Off



When Raven Queen™ decides to sign up for Princessology, Apple White™ decides to flip the script and sign up for Home Evilnomics to spite her roomie. Though, she may get more than she bargained for...
One of the few times these girls actually go to class. And where Apple is likeable. Double feature!

Sunday, October 8, 2017

Hanazuki Full of Treasures

So I saw My Little Pony. The movie.

Actually the goal was to see Ninjago but the crowd was too rowdy, so I snuck into MLP.

I got there a minute before the actual presentation, and it had a cute short in delightfully wild colors and a little girl with a little rabbit thing, dodging a dragon and finding a jewel and saving the day.



It's called Hanazuki, subtitled Full of Treasures, and there is apparently merchandise. Amazon is showing me a giant collection of....charms? And a handful of plushies. They're a bit too simple design wise to be full fledged dolls, but I'd have liked to see something.

There's a webshow that started in, get this, January of 2017, and this is literally the first i'm hearing about it, in front of a pony show.

It's very reminiscent of Star Darlings, except less stereotyped and obnoxious.


Saturday, October 7, 2017

Chapter 2: True Hearts' Day [All Parts]

The first real special and not extended webisode. 

Spring is in the air at Ever After High, and following their true heart's desires is the only thing on students' minds. Or it was, until C.A. Cupid came across The History of True Hearts Day book and rallied the students to spellebrate the long-lost True Hearts Day holiday.


Welcome to Spring! The season of romance! And brief character catch-up introductions!

  •  Ashlynn and Hunter are in the forest! 
  • Apple is walking around being admired by every boy within arm's length.
  • Another girl is behind her and gets ignored by everyone except a goat. 

Friday, October 6, 2017

Introducing Chapter 2 + Blondie's Just Right

Welcome back to Chapter 2 of our Ever After High retrospective.



I want to point out a few things;

* I will watch the specials that I can find easily. 90% of the time, I do not own Netflix, and truth be told, the later specials don't matter anyway besides looking nice and going to different places. Dragon Games is kind of an exception to that, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

* Some episodes are listed in a bit of an odd order between sites, both on the wikia (which is a good resource) and Mattel's actual upload. With the exception of some episodes with clear chronology, it doesn't really matter.

Here's the episode listing;

Chapter 1: Replacing Raven + Ch. 1 Thoughts

I completely forgot about this episode, hence why it's not with The Day Ever After. But at least there's a review of the season! 


Raven decides to find a replacement for her in Apple's story, and a random member of the Three Little Pigs shows up


Unsurprisingly, this is the first and last time we see this character for more than ten seconds. His plan to be evil is accompanied by vocally going "DUN DUN DUN" as he does harmless things like switch condiments. There's even a failed attempt at chemical warfare by filling balloons with 'dangerous gasses' like...helium. 

Apple is disheartened to see that Raven is being nice to her again, and insists that they're supposed to be Frenemies so she can have her perfect destiny.

Now the pig has been caught in the mass of harmless balloons and decides to abandon "evil" to be a balloon enthusiast.

Raven sums up my reaction pretty well;


There's nothing here. 

But here are my thoughts on Ch. 1 as a whole...


Thursday, October 5, 2017

Book Look: Fairy's Got Talent (Really, it's a Character Spotlight) - Faybelle Thorn

We interrupt the crawling through the visual medium to talk about one of the books in the series, my favorite book in the series; Fairy's Got Talent by Suzanne Selfors.


And why is it my favorite? Because not only is it entertainingly written, it focuses on my favorite character in the EAH World; Faybelle Thorn, Daughter of The Dark Fairy in Sleeping Beauty.


Monday, October 2, 2017

Chapter 1: The Tale of Legacy Day



This one is three times as long as the regular webisodes!....which means it clocks in at slightly more than six minutes.

And much rejoicing was had in the streets.



See? She's happy.

Sunday, October 1, 2017

Chapter 1: Catching Raven

Episode 12, I'm having this be a separate entry because the next one is The Tale of Legacy Day, and that's quite a big turning point in our story.



Honestly this was a pretty bad one to do a separate page on. It's not bad or good, it's just there.

Dexter wants to ask Raven to a party but is nervous, and Cupid drops hints that she'd go with him, but he's a doofus, and practices asking out other girls instead.

Briar is asleep which, same. I know it was just practice, but was he going to ask her to her own party? Also, as someone who has never gone to a party, do you need a date to go to one?

Maddie thinks he's speaking riddlish with his weak delivery of "Did you fall from heaven, because you're an angel." which, also same.

He gets kissed by a troll? Okay.

While sitting on a balcony, Raven comes up....and asks him to the party as a friend, he accepts, falls off the balcony, and kisses Cupid in thanks.

I can appreciate that Dexter wasn't "Oh woe is me, she only sees me as a friend," and is happy to go with her anyway. I also like that  Cupid doesn't try to sabotage his efforts. There's also not really any forces against him saying "You can't date a rebel!" - I don't remember any in the printed media either.

All in all, the episode simply exists.

Avatar: The Last Airbender live action

   Spoilers for a 19 year old show and a 50 hour year old show.'   Things I like: Having Azula in the first season was seen as a content...