Things that happened!

New poll! This time definitely more in line with what I talked about last time. I tried, but polldaddy apparently won’t let you insert plain old text links to webpages despite having codes for linking to sound and videos and other social medias. 😛 So for the sake of anyone who’s confused on what exactly these other Mary Sue categories entail, have yourself a nice trip to TV Tropes and enjoy reading about all the various Mary Sue tropes out there. A while back I actually did a litmus test for Bloom (had to take some creative liberties since the test is more for your own self-made characters in fanfiction or original fiction; wasn’t 100% sure just how much Iginio Straffi adored Bloom especially when I’ve heard multiple sources say his favorite character is actually Musa, ahah), and… the total score was 150 points. Bear in mind 50 points and above is where your character is considered undeniably a Mary Sue, and my take on Bloom got her well over twice that amount. Feel free to try it yourself if you’re curious.

For those wondering, I do plan to continue talking about how Bloom has become a horrible character. Unfortunately, I’m on borrowed time right now so it’ll have to wait. The joys of being an adult with a full-time job with extremely limited access to the internet and no wifi around to leech from, sigh.

So I guess I’m one of the few who doesn’t mind Mythix that much… then again, I tend to prefer the transformations that cover the girls up decently. Also, everyone’s back to their proper colors!

So since December, Italy’s moved way ahead of us in season 6 to the point where Mythix is about to be a thing as of tomorrow… GermanWinxNews has been very awesome about providing links to the full episodes in a timely manner so I’ve been keeping up on the series well thanks to them. Speaking of season 6, I’m sure everyone is aware by now that Nickelodeon is dropping Winx Club after it’s over and done with, while season 7 will still be produced by RAI – just without Nick’s involvement, and consequently without their voice actors.  Well, this is a simplistic Winx blog; I never expected it to be a big news breaker. 😛 Of course a lot of us saw this coming just by paying attention to how poorly Nick’s treated the show, both in terms of an inconsistent airing schedule and in terms of marketing in terms of toys and just… advertising and stuff. Winx Club is far from the first show to suffer this very unfair treatment from Nickelodeon. Though as someone who grew up with Nickelodeon, I can assure you even in the early days Nick was pretty ruthless with some of the shows it aired, including those they themselves made. Particularly some of their Nicktoons; I’d say with utmost certainty that Nickelodeon hated Ren & Stimpy but couldn’t get rid of it right away because, much to their chagrin, Ren & Stimpy was quite near to being, if not already THE most popular show on the entire network. They managed to fire the creator of the show fairly quickly enough, and kinda slowly ran it into the ground with their own hands, but that’s just one of many examples of Nickelodeon not hesitating to turn on its own creations. Some Nicktoons had their series finales aired in other countries outside of the United States years before they’d finally air in the homeland… and even then, odds are you’d only be able to see it if you had the Nicktoons channel. -_- Ever wonder why the only Nicktoons you even see on Nickelodeon anymore are Spongebob Squarepants and The Fairly Oddparents? Yeah. Nick’s pretty needlessly elitist. Even TeenNick is better about Nicktoon variety these days, since they started their 90s are All That block at midnight that shows a wide variety of Nicktoons (and All That, and even the occasional live action show I grew up with, like Salute Your Shorts). Not to mention they show Winx Club reruns every weekday morning at 8 AM EST, without fail. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve caught the same episode whenever I call in sick from work or when I’m on vacation, though. The last few times I managed to catch Winx Club on TeenNick, it’s always the second episode of season 3 (I think?) where Chimera turns Stella into a monster. Ahh, those were the days. That’s just a really funny coincidence though; I’ve seen them run seasons 4 and 5 as well. It’s funny, though, whenever I see a season 3 episode dubbed by them. It reminded me that Nick’s dub did have some good points… but mainly they pertained to being faithful to the source material (aka dubbing seasons 3 and 4), rather than shamelessly wrecking two seasons’ worth of character development and world building just so they could condense those two seasons into a pretty little flashy abridged special in four parts.

To this day I still question why Nick and Rainbow decided to do that. I mean yeah, sure, the first two seasons aren’t very polished in terms of how they looked, but season 3 honestly wasn’t that huge of a leap in improvement and THAT got spared the butchery treatment (methinks part of the reason was they just wanted to rush straight to Enchantix without lingering around Magic Winx), and all of the show was computer animated, so it’s not like it was a major shift in that regard. In the time it took for all four parts of the special to air, Nickelodeon EASILY could have aired all of the first two seasons if they went with the airing schedule they did for season 3: new episodes every weekday. I feel like it was really just nothing more than a waste of money and resources to polish up the core points of the first two seasons when they could’ve used that time to make season 5 not suck so bad. Really, really, really, what was it about the first two seasons that prompted those pointless specials? If it was about money regarding dubbing those seasons, Nick could’ve done something crazy like… I dunno… air the Cinélume dub?? Really, the most cost-effective thing to do would’ve been to air the first four seasons of the Cinélume dub, THEN move on to the Nick VAs if they so insisted (but honestly, I have a feeling that Nick was spending more money hiring stars from their live action TV shows than just using the same group of people in Canada who’s done the show up to that point…). And before anyone mentions voice inconsistency, I’ll just kindly remind everyone that Nick obviously doesn’t give a crap for ANY kind of consistency whatsoever – replacing Tune and Digit with Cherie and Caramel is far more jarring of a change, and far more senseless than any VA change, when Nick not only dubbed the seasons that acknowledged Tune and Digit being Musa and Tecna’s bonded pixies, but included them in their abridged specials. I suspect their appearances in the third and fourth seasons are why Nick didn’t replace them right away, but they could’ve, you know, included Cherie and Caramel in the final abridged special just to acknowledge that they are in the Winx universe, seeing as they very much were not until this current season. Not so much as a throwaway line is given to us to explain the change… as if Nick and/or Rainbow really thought we wouldn’t notice the difference. And I’m not talking about us longtime fans either; kids are a lot smarter than TV executives give them credit for, and I’m sure they were just as confused as we were when we first found out two of the pixies were getting inexplicably swapped out for two complete strangers.

Needless to say that whole mess has made it impossible for me to enjoy ANY scene with the pixies this season. Really, every time I see them, I’m wanting Cherie and Caramel OUT of there.

Alas, poor Tune and Digit, you are both greatly missed. I also miss you being female, Digit.

So you all probably figured out the meaning behind my new banner of my new spring design for the blog already, I imagine. 😛 I’m just spiteful however way I can be, even if it is just a sloppy photoshopping of Tune and Digit over the Bloomix forms of Tecna and Musa. And Aisha’s with the original design of Piff… which I actually don’t mind that she’s been redesigned to look older. That makes sense and stuff. My initial plan for the banner was to have all the Winx with their pixies but… eh, things got cluttered real fast s0 I just left it to these three. Aisha was the closest to the pixies anyway, so it should be appropriate to have her in anything pixie-related. Plus it’s the first time I’ve had anything other than six people in the banner, so heh.

I haven’t brought much attention to it, but a while back I created a new page on this blog: my art page. I added some new stuff on it today that I’ve been working on for a while: I did a first try of everyone’s Bloomix forms, and since I never had a chance to formally do so until now due to difficulty in finding official material to go by, I went and drew everyone’s Sirenix as well. I’m also in the process of technically redoing everyone’s Harmonix forms but I’m only penciling them in at this stage and I’ve only got three of the six done. Definitely wanna color little-kid Diaspro, though, before anything else. 😛 Ahhh it figures after I make a big rant defending her character, days later she blatantly attempts to murder Bloom. Funny how I was still on her side despite all that! Still, even though Diaspro ended up kinda… helping Bloom get her Bloomix by trying to kill her, I feel like that’ll be the final nail in the coffin for Diaspro. If we ever see that poor girl again, I’m sure she’ll get some sort of shameful Mythix beatdown and get sentenced to the Omega Dimension. Honestly though, after realizing how petty Sky’s grudge over Thoren was, I bet whatever beef he had with Diaspro or any reason he might’ve had to not want to marry her besides Bloom coming into his life, I’m sure it’s nothing more than him being an overdramatic whiny brat. I’ve got bets that Diaspro probably just tripped on accident and bumped into him and inadvertently caused Sky to spill a drink on something. Yup, that is the headcanon I’m going with!

So there’s been a lot of discussion as to what network could pick up Winx Club next after Nick drops it. That’s a veeeeery, very tricky question. My thoughts on the matter aren’t much different from most others’; ideally, I’d love for Winx Club to be on The Hub, buuuuut unless Hasbro gets some major toy-making rights out of the deal, I don’t think that’ll be an option. That’s pretty sad, too. I personally find it kind of risky for The Hub to be almost totally reliant on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (which is a show I enjoy, in fact… it’s sadly much better written than Winx Club is today, I do not hesitate to admit). Littlest Pet Shop’s new season is about to end and Pound Puppies’ future for a new season is uncertain (the latter is also a very good show, surpisingly; its 80s predecessor it is not), so… really, I think Winx could be a potential ratings pull if treated well on The Hub. Let’s just try and imagine a Winx Club where at least one or two of the Winx will be voiced by Ashleigh Ball and/or Andrea Libman. 😛  Don’t give me wrong, I love both VAs, but they’re so recognizable to me right now, I’m not sure if I’ll contain my laughter to hear Rainbow Dash’s/Blythe Baxter’s voice coming out of one of the Winx.

Huh, yeah… besides the matter of networks, Winx needs yet again a new cast. And DEAR GOD no one mention 4Kids to me or I will maim somebody. 4Kids is… not what it used to be back when Winx was in its hands, these days, and hopefully they’re in no position to take Winx back. Even if they offered, I’d certainly hope Iginio Straffi shuts them down after what they’ve done to his show. My last poll certainly got some interesting results: the majority went to Nickbow, while 4Kids and “both are terrible in their own ways” got the exact same amount of votes. And really, the latter option is how I feel. Nickbow did a heck of a lot more damage to the start of the show, and the seasons they co-produced with Rainbow range from “okay-ish” to downright terrible, with the writing of season 5 definitely feeling on par with the likes of 4Kids’ rewrites. On the other hand, Nickbow had a much more tolerable cast of voices than 4Kids could ever hope to have, though they still don’t outrank Cinélume to me (especially not Jennifer Seguin’s Stella – I still can’t believe how many of you preferred Amy Gross over her, augh). Barring a few silly minor changes, they faithfully dubbed the third and fourth seasons and maintained the original music tracks. That right there is, to me, the worst possible thing you could do to the show: eliminate the original music. I can accept Italian-sung songs being dubbed, but I cannot tolerate ANYTHING replacing the BGM of the show, which 4Kids did 100%. The music is hands-down my favorite thing about Winx Club.

Just imagine, if you will, what kind of music piece 4Kids would have replaced the Sirenix transformation song with.

I think I’ve rested my case by putting that thought into your head alone.

Yes, Sirenix as an outfit and a transformation is lackluster, but NEVER – EVER – EV—ER, question the music!

Beyond that, well… I think 4Kids’ cast is overrated. I’ve enjoyed the VAs in other works they did, sure, but whoever was the voice director in Winx Club was downright unforgivably awful. Soooo many characters shouting their lines, overacting, dialogue that’s painful in more ways than one, needless friggin’ accents and HIP-HOP JIVE TALK JUST… no, okay, just no. I can probably shoot down any criticism of a Cinélume VA (barring a few exceptions) with a stronger rebuttal against a 4Kids voice, or even a Nickbow voice.

So yeah. If Winx was to ever somehow get into 4Kids’ slimy hands again, I’d throw my arms up and give up. Dead serious. Imma takin’ my videos of the Cinélume dub and going hooooome, thank you. Uh, barring that, um… as others said before me, Cartoon Network isn’t likely to be a good fit for it. They briefly aired Winx Club in the past (incidentally that’s how I was introduced to the show) with a chopped up and even worse intro than 4Kids’ original one (same song, just cut down a loooot with really stupid clips in it), but they’re also quite obviously in love with a couple of their breakout hit shows and couldn’t care less about anything else. Incidentally, I’ve gone out of my way to never watch Adventure Time. I get that way about obscenely popular shows sometimes. Don’t ask how I manage to still watch MLP, but I kinda discovered that one on my own before I learned about bronies. Disney’s far too elitist for Winx Club… not to mention they already have a major hit franchise that happens to be a lot like Winx Club in a thematic sense. Yeah, I don’t think Winx Club and Tinker Bell can be on the same channel together, guys.

(this is where I’d show a picture of Bloom and Tinker Bell duking it out if I actually had one)

Mmm, what else. Well, I’d like to thank everybody who’s left comments here. Even if I don’t respond to them, be assured that I do read them and I’m grateful for each and every one of you for sharing your thoughts with me. 😀 I’d like to make more of an effort to post here more often than just once a season and engage in some more discussions in the future! Thankfully summer’s upcoming, warm weather usually means I get more of an active mind! And there’s still quite a lot to talk about, so that’s good! I still post some random funny Winx-related crap on my twitter now and then, so check that out even if it seems this place is deadsville. I’d like to add more sections to the blog itself in the future as well; I’m not sure what just yet. I’m not gonna be a generic Winx site and copy+paste those goofy short Winx profiles from the official site that have questionable information in my humble opinion. 😛

But if any of you have ideas, shoot them over here and I’ll give a looksee and consideration. For now, I’ll end things off here. It’s getting a tad bit late… sorry, sleeping’s a thing too!

Why Diaspro Rules While Bloom & Sky Drool: Part 1 of A Bloom Editorial

ASIDE: If anyone’s curious what I thought about the two episodes that premiered today, I tweeted my thoughts live throughout the hour. Check them out it you’re interested. 😉

I’ll be upfront with you guys: from seasons 1 through 4, I actually tolerated Bloom. In the first two seasons I actually liked her, despite some mishaps that ended up causing major problems later in the series. She’s always been far from being my favorite of the Winx, of course, but I found her relatively easy to deal with before Season 5 came along. So I’ve decided to write an editorial series on why I feel that Bloom really sucks right now as a protagonist and why it’s gotten to be a pain just watching her these days whereas I sometimes found it a joy to watch her in the Winx’s earlier years. First topic of the Bloom dissection: Diaspro, and the not-so-perfect loving relationship with Sky.

From Season to Season, The Hiatus Ends Now!

Wow, yes, I haven’t formally made a post here since the summer. Since a ton of snow was dumped in my area recently, I thought it was a good time as any to give the blog a new design (again), give a new poll (again), and maybe, for once, provide some content! As a side note, my growing annoyance with many of the main Winx girls drove me to use some lesser-known characters and “antagonists” for the banner this time. This was inspired by a very nice fanfic written by Zadien. 🙂 If you like to read about the characters behind the scenes in Winx Club (plus Roxy), I definitely reccommend it!

My patience was bursting at the seams to rant about Season 5’s resolution (Daphne’s revival specifically) and Season 5 in general, but for the longest time Nick delayed in airing those episodes and it was a pain to be fair to the people who didn’t immediately go and spoil themselves watching the Italian episodes on Youtube. By the time the English versions finally aired, I was very much burned out and didn’t have the energy I had before.

There are several topics I do wish to cover in my old-fashioned, highly critical and verbose style still. For now, I’ll just leave this post up as a placeholder for things to come in the future.

But just so as not to come back empty-handed, I’ll throw in my project of self-torture that I embarked on ages ago: screencap every moment of senseless moping in Season 5. Aisha is generally not included here because she’s really the only one who was justified to mope. Can’t really grant that to the rest of the Winx; they were just leaking drama left and right this past season and I wanted to capture as much as I could to present the true essence of Season 5: “BAAAAAAAWWWWWWWW”

Simply Winx is now ready for the summer!

I should’ve gotten around to revamping the blog’s layout ages ago, but a lot of important non-Winx stuff happened around the time of the solstice, and combined with how I’ve become rather soured on Winx Club right now because of various things that happen by the end of season 5 (which I plan on talking about in my next post; I’m sorta tired of waiting for Nick to just air the last couple of episodes already so I’m gonna learn how to spoiler tag my ranting so I can freely vent on those matters at last (talking around it last time was no easy task!).

I also spent a ridiculous amount of effort on the BG of the blog considering you can barely see it, so I’m gonna link you the full product here and now; now you’ll see how much ridiculous pasting I’ve done from several different sources!

Also, gotta talk about the poll! Definitely got the most votes yet for that one thus far, which pleases me. Despite the show’s attempt to make these couples seem like they’re flawless and meant to be, a loooot of people certainly don’t feel that way, myself included.

I was admittedly surprised, though, to see Bloom/Sky tied with Musa/Riven for the most votes! Musa/Riven getting the most is really not a surprise at all; most of us have been vocal at some point or another about being sick and tired of the constant drama surrounding that pairing, and season 5’s easily has the weakest foundation for it. Musa was the one being a jerk for a change, jumping to conclusions by calling him a dog, choosing to sulk over it rather than actively check out the situation, and taking her frustration out needlessly on Tecna by suggesting that Timmy’s a no-good cheater (more on that later). It’s funny that the Musa/Riven drama occurred pretty late into the season; late enough that I was just about thinking we’d get by a season without that needless drama happening, but nope. Another thing that bugged me this season related to this couple is Musa’s general attitude. She’s gotten a lot snarkier out of nowhere, acting somewhat similar to Riven himself. That led me to believe the only way Musa and Riven were able to stay stable as a couple is if Musa just relented and took on her boyfriend’s less-than-admirable traits. 😛

I’ll be honest, though: I never really cared for Riven and Musa as a couple. I found Riven/Darcy to be much more interesting even if it was based entirely on deception, and the first couple of seasons endeared me to the concept of Musa and Brandon as a couple, believe it or not… mainly because Brandon actually listens to Musa’s problems and was a pro at finding answers for her (and was there to protect her when things got dicey in the first season while Riven was allied with the Trix). For more crazy purposes, I also am kinda endeared to the concept of Riven/Bloom (see season 1; you’ll see the basis for that :P) as well as Riven/Flora (which was due to a fanfic).

Musa/Riven wasn’t the only couple I voted for, of course (I think you all know by now that all my polls allow for multiple choice answers :D). I also voted for Bloom/Sky, which again, I was surprised ended up tying with Musa/Riven as the couple fans wanted broken up the most.Then again, given the nature of the couple in season 5, I guess it shouldn’t be so surprising. I’m actually gonna talk about why I hate the Bloom/Sky couples (as well as Bloom and Sky as characters; believe it or not I more or less tolerated them for the first 4 seasons) in another post. Long story short, I’m glad people see through the crap of season 5 where they tried WAY too hard to shove that couple down our throats.

Flora/Helia was the 2nd/3rd place for couple that should be broken up. It’s funny how a lot of people actually saw that couple as the best one pre-season 5. Then season 5 came and… yeah, suddenly their romance was not so pleasant and perfect anymore. Y’know, the premise was actually interesting at first since I know some of us WANTED to see something stir their ‘ship up, but it was so… uneventful and… hardly distinct from all the other couples that were having problems, and the resolution was possibly the most boring one for a relationship that I’ve ever seen. So yeah, I can see why this fell right behind Bloom/Sky and Musa/Riven. We never would’ve seen this coming during the gap between the seasons, that’s for sure!

I was surprised that Tecna/Timmy actually got 4 votes; for the longest time no one voted for it at all, which I thought was fitting because Tecna/Timmy was really the only relationship handled well this season.

Granted, it was a bit of a double-edged sword because they had reverted Tecna and Timmy back to their season 2 personas for no reason. Tecna and Timmy were back to being relatively distant from each other and strangely awkward around each other IRL. The other Winx went about judging Tecna for carrying her relationship with Timmy primarily over the interwebz, when none of them really had any room to talk given the state of THEIR relationships, because despite the distance there was still nothing actually wrong with Tecna and Timmy’s relationship.

It’s just really jarring that they reverted back to this “we mostly carry our relationship via instant messaging” when we saw so many moments opposite of this last season. Observe:

That’s right, they were kissing in person, IN PUBLIC both times no less, with no prodding needed from their friends.

They also hung out together IRL a lot, also with no prodding needed from their friends, and were just as cuddly and gushy and the other couples in season 4.

 So what’s the deal? Sometimes it feels like the writers didn’t bother watching the past seasons to establish anything more than bare-bones continuity. We can’t use the “Viacom & Rainbow retconned this out of the Winx Club canon” excuse that can be applied to most things that went wrong in season 5, but this discrepancy is certainly NOT one of them.

Despite that huge oversight, the way they handled the Tecna/Timmy date episode was far better than any other episode related to a couple. Also, major points for Tecna who stood up to Musa’s below-the-belt insinuation that Timmy was a no-good alleged cheater like Riven; despite having little personal contact (in this season anyway), Tecna fully trusted that Timmy was being faithful to her. I really found that admirable; the rest of the Winx would really benefit for actually having an ounce of faith in their boyfriends’ integrity. What was also admirable was how Tecna and Timmy clearly understood this thing about priorities; Timmy didn’t need some long, blubbering excuse to know Tecna was rushing out in the middle of their date for a very good reason. Tecna also didn’t hesitate or just choose to let the other girls handle the life-threatening, worlds-hanging-in-the-balance missions so she could spend more time with her boyfriend. She knew she had to go, even if it was at the expense of her and Timmy’s date. But I really liked how Tecna came back to Timmy eventually, and he trusted her well enough to know she would return, even if he had to wait longer than most boyfriends would be willing to.

I think it’s no surprise that Tecna/Timmy is the real best couple of the series now. It’s not without its flaws, naturally, thanks to the the writers, but the couple also had natural flaws that they had already worked out if you pretend for a moment that season 2 was not retconned. I certainly hope they stay this good for the next season.

Stella/Brandon had the fewest votes… and alright, yeah, for the most part the couple was alright this season; its main problems were in Stella’s horrible characterization. I honestly thought Brandon was a real trooper for putting up with Stella’s stupid nonsense (especially the horrid carrot dress), especially when Stella took her anger out on Brandon because he dared to be honest with her and not like her designs which no one else liked either because they were AWFUL. Really, had I been in Brandon’s shoes, I would’ve dumped Stella hard in that episode for being so obnoxious and ungrateful. Stella’s childish behavior and her habit of dragging Brandon away from his own important duties so he can help push his girlfriend’s latest eyesore of a vanity project, THEN getting screamed at after just being honest that her designs suck? It’s like Stella was begging to be dumped!

I wish there had been some proper resolution to that; it was a bit more tolerable when Stella’s fashionista aspirations were paired up with her parental problems later on in the season with Brandon helping Stella out with that, but really, I wish Stella realized she’d been nothing short of an annoying, vain, snotty, obnoxious, selfish, petty brat for most of season 5. Really, as someone who normally really enjoys Stella and considers her a favorite, I wanted to see this. I wanted to see some MAJOR appreciation for the needless crap Brandon had suffered through that season. Again, like Tecna and Timmy, it felt like the writers didn’t bother double-checking the actual progress Brandon and Stella made in the past few seasons. Hopefully next season Stella will be out of this horrible phase for good, because I feel bad enough for Brandon as it is.

So! That was the poll. We have a new poll now! This one sorta came to mind based on a post from Una di Noi Winx, about which color Roxy should adopt as her signature if, hypothetically, she became a Winx. Since yellow’s the only major color of the rainbow that hasn’t been claimed as primary, it seems that would be the pick to have, but ehh… somehow I don’t see Roxy looking that good in a predominantly yellow ensemble. Three of the Winx already have a shade of green as a major theme in their color schemes (being Aisha’s primary – well, jointly shared with teal/turqoise, and secondary for Flora and Tecna), though to be fair Roxy’s taken a shade of green that none of the Winx have really used much in their outfits. Purple is taken by Tecna, and depending on the fairy form you got Musa or Aisha claiming it as a secondary. Pink is Flora’s signature and Bloom’s trusty secondary (and Stella tends to sneak it in her accents a lot), and Blue is Bloom’s primary, sometimes Aisha’s as well if it’s green-toned, and sometimes Musa’s secondary.

Bear in mind the specific shades of each color I listed in the poll are shades that are rarely touched by the other Winx (if they’re even touched at all) and are close to Roxy’s general coloring scheme, both in fairy form and civilian.

This poll is also open for user-submitted answers like the Sirenix/Harmonix poll was, so if you have a preference not listed, by all means specify if you vote “Other”! Heck, maybe you guys would vote for like, brown, and find a color scheme that would make it actually work. 😛

And that’s all for today! I have a doozy of a post to make in the near future; just wanted to get some other stuff out of the way so I can properly focus my scorn. Again, it will be spoilery. I’m tired of waiting for Nick to get their act together; I feel the urge to rant about this NOW, man. Noooow.

Until then~!

Headscratchers of Season 5

Some minor thoughts and quirks that have popped through my mind during Season 5…

1. The Flora x Helia x Krystal Triangle

Alright, I will agree with everyone else that Helia should have been clear and introduced Flora as his girlfriend to Krystal so that she wouldn’t be inclined to have feelings for him. Would’ve nipped that in the bud, and unlike most Specialists, Helia is not one I expect that would make a boneheaded move like this.

However, one scarce detail struck me, that makes me somewhat understand why Helia was so inadvertently misleading.

You see, assuming that one season = one year in Winx Club canon, the Winx should all be in their twenties by now. Krystal has been established to be a freshman student in Alfea; a new arrival unlike the hundreds of background characters that still reside in Alfea since season one. As we know from what was established in the beginning, an Alfea freshman is 16 years old.

That’s quite the age gap (in fact, a relationship of that nature is considered illegal in lots of places in the real world); do you think that, perhaps, Helia didn’t feel it was necessary to hammer it into Krystal that Flora was his girlfriend right away since he might have assumed that, since Krystal is literally a kid while he’s an adult, she would perhaps know better than to pine over an older man?

Granted, we’ve had such things happen in the series already with other characters (Bloom with Avalon, Musa with Jason Queen – though she was legally an adult by season 4 anyway), but I’m willing to bet not a lot of people looked at the situation this way. In the end, Helia was still dumb and kinda rude for not introducing Flora as his girlfriend, but considering there was a sizable age gap between Krystal and Helia, maybe Helia didn’t think Krystal would go there?

How the triangle gets resolved is underwhelming, as naturally Helia and Flora solidify their relationship and Krystal respectfully backs off (hey, it’s not a spoiler if it’s obvious), but I much rather would have seen some backstory between Helia and Krystal – as in how they know each other so well. There’s a lot of signs that they’ve been childhood friends, but how did that work out? If Helia was from Linphea, don’t you think we would have learned this by now? I doubt he actually was, but there’s a lot of fanfic potential in this backstory that was never truly explained. The idea of Helia hanging around Linphea a lot in the past well before he ever met Flora, and somehow managed to never cross paths with her back then, is an interesting one.

There’s also the unanswered question of how in the world Helia knows magic. I don’t recall seeing Helia doing anything magical before season 5, but now he can make magically flying paper cranes…? The logical explanation would be something along the lines of Helia having the ability to use magic in his bloodline because he’s Saladin’s nephew (and Saladin has been shown to be quite the wizard), but I wish we could have learned more about this rather than… having multiple scenes of the Winx girls crying over their insecurities with their boyfriends. Meh.

2. Dilemmas of Diaspro, and WTF Bloom?

One scene in episode 18 really bothered me; after Diaspro trolled Bloom a bit over Sky since Bloom and Sky decided to ditch a super-important meeting for a moment to be sappy lovebirds (priorities, these two have them). This one line both angered me and made me very confused:

Bloom: “That’s Princess Bloom to you, Diaspro.”

First of all… Bloom? Your actions during this whole relationship drama scenario this season has reeked of Moral Dissonance (an offshoot of What The Hell, Hero?). We’re supposed to be taking your side in this mess, but your actions really don’t make you look any better than Diaspro. It helped that Bloom eventually realized how petty and selfish she was being, but her continued screentime-eating moments of “waaah I miss Sky” and the needless montages of “yay Sky and I are doing stuff together isn’t our relationship just wonderful LOOK AT ALL THESE SCENES”, along with other factors, has made me actually hate Bloom this season. Remember how she reacted in Season 2 during the episode in which Diaspro was kidnapped and Sky had to rescue her? Those were most understandable and realistic actions. Especially since Bloom was still a teenager back then; being an adult now, Bloom has no excuse to stoop to the level of a teenager in this mess.

The real question that piqued my curiosity from this line, however, was that while Bloom demanded Diaspro to call her by her formal title, she refused to do the same for Diaspro. Why is that a faux pas? Diaspro herself is a princess. That was solidly established in the first season, I’m pretty sure Nick’s retcon retained that at least, but then there’s the matter of Diaspro’s actions in season three.

I’m pretty sure Diaspro was let off easy because she was under Valtor’s influence (though she went with it willingly, to me it was an understandable “deal with the devil” kind of thing that I could see any character, good or bad, possibly going through with). I forgot what her fate was in season 3 after that mess was resolved; I vaguely remember something along the lines of banishment, but that obviously didn’t stick if that was the case. Maybe it’s possible that Diaspro was stripped of her royal title because of what happened in season three, but since no one’s said so one way or the other (and regardless of the punishment, Diaspro will always be royalty by blood). So her move to become the King’s Liason (and it annoys me that Sky only refers to Diaspro by that title alone) is rather confusing. I’m not well versed in world history, but it doesn’t sound like a job that a prince or princess would be taking up.

So is Diaspro still considered a princess or not? Even after her engagement to Sky was broken, she was still considered valuable enough to be kidnapped later on, so… it really makes you wonder. This is just one of many reasons why I hate that Nick opted to condense the first two seasons into flashy specials that changed so many things in the Winx Club canon.

Still, even though I think the drama with Sky and Diaspro was pointless (there was never once a moment that suggested Diaspro would ever win Sky over; the only real danger was Bloom screwing up with her lack of professionalism, clingyness, and disregard for the more important matters at hand), I was pretty much on Diaspro’s side the entire time. Even though her intentions weren’t pure, she was still justified to make sure Sky was actually doing his job rather than screwing around pointlessly. And it’s also not a spoiler to say the “resolution” to the Diaspro “problem” is highly unsatisfactory and continues to make Sky and Bloom way more jerk-ish than Diaspro’s ever been. Really, I feel sorry for that poor girl. She deserves better.

3. Did they just… retcon Daphne’s backstory?

I’ll try and speak as little of the ending of this season as possible; but I will say that I totally called it in one of my older blog posts. It was very sweet and touching, very adorable, but then it brought me back to a serious loophole that occurred here.

Did you read that description in Daphne’s photo here? It says that she was destroyed by the Ancestral Witches. In season one, Icy also said this much quite blatantly: “So they had to get rid of her.” Despite her spirit living on in Lake Roccaluce so she could give Bloom occasional dream advice, we pretty much acknowledged that Daphne was dead. That’s kind of the dramatic pull of the story, you know? Daphne sacrificed her life so that Bloom could live.

Now… they’re clearly messing with that in season 5. Like they’re toning it down by throwing Sirenix in the mix, and somehow that doesn’t make Daphne truly dead, but just cursed in a situation where her soul is separated from her body. It’s like the writers of season 5 totally forgot the canon that was established in the first couple of seasons and decided to just… ignore it. What happens just really annoys me, because technically the show will break its own rules. Technically it already has; Bloom was able to revive Sky from the dead in season two. Now we’re being told there’s no spell out there that can revive the dead? Yeah, whatever. There’s another part of this that really annoys me to no end, but I’ll hold off on it until the US catches up to that point.

Anyway, more food for thought. What do you make of all these inconsistencies, retcons, and unexplained oddities?

Season 5: The End and the Homestretch

So, in the time that elapsed since my last entry here, Winx Club season 5 has ended in Italy and will end in the US in a matter of weeks. Naturally, there’s a lot I have to say. Normally I couldn’t care less about giving out spoilers, but I guess I can afford some professionalism in this blog and keep my thoughts pertaining to the stuff that hasn’t aired in English yet within a tag.

I do want to thank those of you who gave me suggestions for a spring design for the blog, though I’m sure you’ve all long since noticed by now that I didn’t really go with any of them. ^^; But I kind of dug the idea of having a banner spanning across all of the fairy forms from Magic Winx to Sirenix (leaving out Lovix because A) there aren’t enough Winx to fill seven slots – and no, I don’t even want to begin to try and categorize Roxy into Magic Winx or Believix – and B) Lovix was the entire theme of the last blog layout, so it can afford to be left out this time). Hopefully you all will find some amusement in that too! I designed 3 backgrounds for the blog, all of which were based around Flora’s wings; one for Believix, one for Harmonix, and one for Sirenix. I ended up using the Sirenix BG for the blog while the Harmonix BG is being used for my Twitter account. Pretty sure I’ll be more inclined to take your all’s suggestions for the summer themes when the time comes, though!

Last minor topic: new poll. Last one only got 20 votes, but admittedly it wasn’t that interesting of a topic and naturally, most of us figure we’ll only ever see the Pixies in PopPixie from now on. I wouldn’t mind too terribly if the Selkies were even remotely interesting or unique, but they’re really not. At least with the Fairy Pets from season 4, pointless and annoying as they were, the show acknowledged that and didn’t try to make them out to be any more important than they actually were. The importance of the Selkies just feels like a gigantic lie; they’re only useful as portable batteries at best. They’re utterly pathetic as guards, which begs the question why they get to keep being guardians throughout this season when they always end up being completely ineffectual.

So this time I picked a more interesting poll topic! I decided not to include Aisha in the poll, seeing as she and Nabu are already broken up (by the power of untimely death), and though signs are definitely pointing to her and Roy this season, I’ll go ahead and say as far as I understood it, it wasn’t quite solidified by the season’s end. Basically, they haven’t kissed or anything. There’s that, and I know about 95% of the votes would be going to Aisha/Roy anyway, so I’m shaking it up and forcing you to think a little bit more about which official couple you really think deserves to be broken up. Makes for a more interesting poll that way, I think.

Anyway, I think I’ll be making multiple posts this week to cover everything I want to discuss, as it’s getting rather late for me.

At least we’re inching ever-so closer to post-season 5 territory. I’d be glad to never see another underwater battle or mission ever again, and I’ll be especially glad to see Sirenix go away. No more eyesore-inducing hair color-changing abominations…

Yes, this is from the last episode, but this spoils nothing expect the inexplicable decision to make Bloom and Tecna’s underwater hair colors EVEN WORSE. This was no error, either. These colors were in every underwater scene for the last episode. Why?!

That’s your food for thought until next time!

A Turnabout for Season 5…?

It’s been quite a while since my last post, but I expected to experience a little burnout after being less than pleased with the way the first half of season 5 went, and honestly, Winx news has been pretty slow between November and January, so there hasn’t been much to say.

But now we’re back on track with the second half of the new season with three episodes having aired now  (“Faraway Reflections” is next week – I’ll probably get a peek at the week after next’s episode title by tomorrow). I’ve been expressing my feelings on these episodes mainly through Twitter and some very lengthy comments on Una di Noi Winx if you’re interested. Unfortunately this same blog beat me to the punch about how insufferable Stella’s character has gotten once season 5 kicked off; really, they said pretty much everything I would’ve said. 😛 So I didn’t want to be redundant. I’ll still be discussing her, however, because she and the show and general made drastic improvements over the following two episodes. And that’s worth something.

Seriously, we went from self-centered, overly defensive Stella who has made fashion designing the center of her life once Bloom mentioned it early in the season (even though Stella’s been a fashionista since the beginning), even disregarding serious missions for it and sniping nastily at anyone who dared to criticize her unquestionably horrible fashion designs…

“Well, you’re wrong! You’re ALL wrong!!”

… to a Stella that finally has her priorities straight, acknowledging her true source of fear and pain, and even though it would have been understandable for Stella to stand by her father with her mother while he was on the brink of death, she knew she had the power to actively save his life and went out to do just that, without hesitation.

That’s right; the real Stella is BACK, baby.

It’s jarring that this jump happened within the span of one episode, but at the same time I’m not going to question it too much because I have desperately been missing this side of Stella all season. Eclipsing the sun and endangering King Radius’ life (as well as Solaria and pretty much everywhere in the magic dimension) was a great way to formally introduce Queen Luna into the show. Up to this point we only saw her in a dream sequence way back in season 1 – thoooough, that has since been retconned; newer fans to this show who aren’t internet-savvy will just abruptly be introduced to her. Though Luna has been namedropped at least once each season besides the fourth, meaning in Nick terms she’s been mentioned ONCE before.

One of these days I need to do a lengthy editorial on how I hate that Viacom and Rainbow decided to condense the first two seasons into four 40ish-minute abridged specials that cut out nearly everything besides the core plot points. Season 2 in particular gets a lot of flak for having much “filler” in it, but I find it to be one of the strongest seasons in terms of actual character development. Seriously, I will have to discuss this one day since I have all the episodes to review on my own time now, and it would be a nice change of pace from all the season 5 talk that all the other blogs are doing.

Anyway, many agreed The Pillar of Light was the best episode of season 5 yet; I considered it to be the first truly good episode of the season. The Eclipse, I personally did not find to be as good as last week’s episode (especially when the eclipse itself only lasted for like the first 6-7 minutes of the episode), but it was great to see some actual progress made in this episode. Aisha made use of the awesome Neptune’s Sword to restore Nereus and Tressa from their mindless mutant forms, though her aunt and uncle remain to be cronies. Still, with Nereus back in action and acting in his proper role as the succeeding king, I’m looking forward to him and Tressa actually doing something relevant now. Part of me actually wishes Aisha kept that sword, she was just so cool with it, but I understand why she handed it over to her cousin.

Radius was saved, and like last week we’re getting a very clear idea of why he and Luna divorced in the first place. I really liked Stella’s hesitation to return to her castle after saving the day with the emphasis that even with saving the universe, all that couldn’t mend the ties between her family. Though I personally found it nearly heartbreaking that Radius and Luna returning to their bickering after thanking Stella for her hard work (though I’m honestly siding with Luna on this – Radius’ pride really does make him come off as a jerk and Stella really does deserve more than a quick thank-you for saving his life), I’m glad they didn’t magically get back together here because that would have been cheesy and not even remotely realistic. We see that Luna clearly still loves Radius, and it appears that Radius does still love Luna, but he’s far too stubborn and prideful to admit to doing anything wrong… and until he overcomes that, they’re not reconciling anytime soon. I would’ve liked to see Stella yelling at her dad for treating Luna like this when she went out of her way to take care of them, but I can see how Stella’s torn between the two sides which would leave her clueless as to what to do and say.

I can relate to this a great deal because I also come from a divorced family. There was a lot of fighting and horrible things that happened even while they were together – things that kind of scarred my childhood memory – until they finally split up when I was 14 years old; personally, I think that’s the worst time of a child’s life to experience divorce. They never say how old Stella was when her parents split up, and thankfully her dad isn’t an unrepentant monster that mine still is, but the fact that she was very stuck on this issue (which was well displayed in different ways across the first three seasons) tells me it happened when she was old enough to know why it happened and be stuck in that position where she’s wondering, hoping, praying to find a way to get them back together so her family can be whole again… all through her teen and young adult years, just like me.

So I really hope this isn’t the last we see of Queen Luna. We already know Radius will be appearing in a summit next episode (I’m hoping this summit involves more representatives than from just Domino, Solaria, Adros, Eraklyon, and possibly Alfea – we’ve seen figures of royalty from both Melody and Linphea, after all), and the turmoil of Stella’s issues with her broken family are FAR more interesting and moving than her petty issues with her fashion designer dream that was planted in her head randomly.

Honestly, I’ve noticed a funny coincidence in that. Stella’s designed many fashion lines in the past across the series, most of which were pretty good for what they were meant to be… but the second Bloom inadvertently sets Stella on course to focus almost exclusively on fashion designing, her designs have largely been… rather horrible. Such as:

The clothes themselves weren’t bad, but the color streaks added were awfully garish and didn’t mesh well with the Winx at all.

… especially Aisha’s, YIKES!

The stuff Stella forced the freshman to wear were hilariously impractical and not all that good-looking…

… Leading up to this infamous atrocity: the Rabbit Food dress! (really, what was she thinking?!)

See what I mean? I can’t remember any other time Stella’s designs were so consistently horrible. It’s funny to think Bloom jinxed her, but no, being spelled is some crap 4Kids would be pulling if they still had control of this show.

Steering off the topic of Stella now, I will say I was excited to see Diaspro again in today’s episode, with an actual active role (being Erendor’s Liason) and a new design to boot! I rather like it; not as refined as her original design but appropriate because it seems she actually will be doing things this season after all! That brings me hope that Princess Krystal and Roy will also be doing more stuff as the season progresses too; it’s been a while since either one appeared, come to think of it.

And it’s worth noting that I do not feel sorry for Bloom at all right now. Diaspro has really done nothing wrong this season, Bloom and Sky trash-talked her needlessly, and honestly, Sky’s reason for coming to see Bloom in Alfea was quite weak. All he really did was just tell Bloom what she already knew. I understand the desire to keep maintaining a healthy relationship, but Sky’s got responsibilities now, and soon enough Bloom will too when she has to take Domino’s throne… stuff like this is to be expected. They try to make it out like it’s so wrong for anyone to be exasperated at Sky taking off without warning JUST to sweet-talk Bloom when there’s serious,  universe-threatening events going on that should be everyone’s primary focus right now. Really, I was totally on Diaspro’s side for telling Sky to get his crap together and get back to his job as he is direly NEEDED there; if he really needs to talk to Bloom, there is such a thing as a phone in this world, y’know. Her cattiness to Bloom was fully justified in my eyes. It’s weird as I held no particular strong feelings for the Bloom/Sky/Diaspro thing until this season, though I always took pity on Diaspro since all of this was out of her hands. In season 5, Bloom and Sky are practically rubbing it in her face shamelessly, so I enjoy any moment of Diaspro dishing out their bad karma right back at them. Really, at this point, I see Bloom and Sky being no better than Diaspro in any way. I know whatever happens will result with Bloom and Sky by the end, but I at least hope Diaspro gets some compensation for the horrible mistreatment she’s suffered since season 1.

And… surprisingly, the Trix weren’t much of a presence this week. Like everyone else I was shocked when Icy took a hit for Tritannus (which removed any doubt that Icy is stringing him along that was oh-so vaguely hinted the week before), but I still think Darcy and Stormy are set to turn on them both sooner or later. I really, really hope that happens.

Anyway, it seems this season is finally stepping up and getting the show on the road, so onward to see how this all turns out! Though I gotta say, even though I find Sirenix the ugliest of all the Winx transformations (ESPECIALLY when the Winx’s hair color changes underwater – doesn’t THAT scream eventual Sirenix doll set with hair that does the exact same thing in water?), it looks way more efficient for air and land battles than Harmonix, primarily because of the long trains the Harmonix designs bear that really only seem fitting for underwater battling.

Since I took a long hiatus, the last poll I had got a lot of votes. I was surprised to see the majority of the voters being cool with both Harmonix AND Sirenix. Though not far behind were the people who liked Harmonix but did not approve of Sirenix (I’m in that camp), a small but equal amount of people who actually preferred Sirenix to Harmonix and people who simply wanted Believix or Enchantix (I’m betting on the latter) back, a smaller equal amount of voters for simply hating both transformations and the vote for complicated feelings on the matter that don’t apply to any of the poll options (which I voted for as well), and only two votes for people who were completely neutral to the forms that possibly think there are uglier transformations out there already. I did get a handful of people who voted “other” with their own responses, but the only one that stood out to me was the one who felt both were okay, but lacked the originality of the Enchantix and Believix forms, which I honestly agree with.

While the Harmonix forms look nice, they all seem eerily uniform, and the Sirenix forms even moreso, whereas the Enchantix and Believix forms had little to nothing in common with their designs. I may make a post on that matter separately since that would be quuuuite image-heavy to elaborate on my points. Until then, enjoy my next poll about the possibly phased out of existence pixies!

Anyway, I’ll cut off here and update when I feel the need. I have a lot of obscure and random things to nitpick about, after all! And soon enough I’ll need to… sigh… think of another theme for the blog now that winter’s almost over. I wanted to give Lovix some love since it represents winter so well and most other blogs are all about the season 5 transformations, but what should I resort to for a springy design? Lovix has been done and is more summery anyway… this will require some thought. Though I am open to suggestions.

Until next time~!

Season 5 Mid-Point Analysis & Criticism

It’s been quite a while since the last post. But I’m not here to give excuses! So around last week the fifth season reached the midway point (episode 13) in Italy and since then there’s been no new episodes over there. They pulled this stunt with season 4, so that’s not surprising. Gotta do what you gotta do to stretch out the lifespan of a 26-episode series for marketing purposes, especially to those of us who aren’t in Italy and weren’t getting like 3 new episodes a week. 😛 It seems they’re skipping episode 10 this week (the Christmas episode) and going right on to 11, which I can understand because they’d obviously want to hold a Christmas episode off until it’s closer to Christmas time. It makes me wonder if they’ll change the “previously on Winx Club” segment in the beginning, since the Christmas episode is considered in continuity with the main story and the Italian version of episode 11 recaps that episode… so it’ll be funny if we’re recapped an episode we haven’t seen yet. XD

Anyway, I’ve noticed some running trends this season. They started out with a lot of interesting ideas and concepts, but… nearly all of them have gone to waste, and there is a MAJOR element of repetitiveness as we go on through the season. Oh, let’s see how many running themes they’ve run into the ground in the span of half a season.

1. One of the Winx gets transformed into something odd or terrible.

Let’s apply this to non-Winx characters just for fun, too. We’ve had Tecna turn into a robot, Flora turned into a statue, Musa turned into a monster, and Stella turned into a toddler so far. While Tecna being a robot was amusing, nothing truly interesting was done with it and every scenario that followed just kinda went through the motions, as if it were some everyday thing. Sky became an amnesiac (because of a stupid pendant), all of Aisha’s extended family have been transformed into mutant henchmen by Tritannus (which was so ridiculously drawn out; why not have Neptune and Tressa turned into cronies from the beginning if they weren’t going to really do anything before that fate befell them?)… y’know, there is such a thing as overdoing it.

2. Meet Selkie, watch Selkie get squashed by Tritannus and fail at guard duty, experience deja vu as Selkie bonds with a Winx, wonder how the Pixies enjoyed that ride in the dimensional paradox that eliminated them from the Winx universe and dumped them into PopPixie.

Self-explanatory, much? And I really cannot bring myself to care about the Selkies… at all. The Pixies at least had distinctive personalities and quirks. All the Selkies seem equally incompetent with their job and equally dull as dishwater, and all share equally boring and needlessly extended scenes of bonding to whatever Winx they take an interest in, usually one that’s from the sea gates they “guard”. Whatever. Winx, stop gushing every time you see bonding. I think even kids can grasp after the second time or so that there is bonding going on; no need to announce it every single time.

3. Pairs of threes for every single mission.

Maybe I missed something here, but from the time they start their Sirenix quest until they complete it, the Winx only go in groups of three to retrieve a gem while the other three are left to contend with the B-plot of the episode, which more often than not is a lot less important than the mission at hand. It was especially grating towards the later missions, where Bloom was blowing off these missions because she would rather force Sky to remember things. And earlier this season she actually seemed to have her priorities straight about that, but that sure didn’t last long. Stella, you never said a word about being a fashion designer until Bloom just suggested that one day, and suddenly that’s your whole life that takes precedence over not only the mission, but is apparently your biggest fear now that replaces your abandonment issues stemming from your divorced parents that was deep-rooted into your character since season one. Sure, whatever. Y’know, I’m not against shaking up the formula for some episodes and having the Winx split up into groups, but when it happens in pretty much every episode and the other half of the group isn’t really doing anything direly as important, I’m feeling some people are not on the same page here.

4. So many red herrings! So many ends that don’t justify the means!

Krystal seemed like a great source of inadvertent drama, instilling some much-needed tension between Flora and Helia and going out of her way to bring Diaspro to Alfea to help Sky with his memories. Well, Krystal has not only been background fodder since then, there’s been no further changes to Flora and Helia’s relationship and Diaspro was ushered out of the picture after only one episode when Sky suddenly decides she’s boring and thinks it’s totally cool to laugh about that with Bloom, the one who stole Sky from Diaspro in the first place, and yet has Sky’s complete and total trust. Yeah, that’s just not cool for protagonists to sink to such a level, especially when the story means for you to side with them over Diaspro, who honestly did nothing wrong at all this season. Given the circumstances, I think it was mighty considerate of Diaspro to actually come all the way to Alfea just to help out the childhood friend and only love of her life who just dumped her out of the blue for someone else.

Roxy, a main character last season, is now officially background fodder as well. There are so many instances in the series where her help could have come in handy, but nope. Let’s just leave her behind to hold down the fort. It’s come to a point where she’s not even getting dialogue anymore and is pretty much part of the freshman hive mind by this point, which is a real shame. And I’m seeing more and more background characters who’ve been in Alfea since the beginning of the series as I watch these episodes… arright guys, it’s been like two years. Are they trying to tell us that NO ONE since the Winx has earned their Enchantix at all?

And in contrast to last season where the Winx weren’t all that comfortable with overwhelming fame, they practically bask in it this season. Stella’s the biggest offender here, which I guess is to be expected, but she seems even more immature than her season 1 self in some of these episodes; the one where she forces a fashion show on the freshman and turns into a toddler is a prime example of that, but it was also pretty bad earlier in the series where she decides to have her picture taken with some freshman… only after she turns them all into clones of her. 😛  Admittedly I have to fault some non-Winx characters in this department as well, especially Faragonda. I was a bit bothered last season with how the Winx were able to juggle being superhero fairies, Love & Pet employees (who’s running that place now?), and rockstars all at once, but it’s even worse this season. At least in season 4 the gang wasn’t all like “Okay, three of you will go and check on that world-threatening situation, the rest of us will stick around and run our cutesy pet store and do our gig at the Frutti Music Bar, have fun!” … really, what are the Winx doing hanging around Alfea this season? If they went back to their teacher assistant positions maybe I’d understand (except that’s one more big task to juggle among many), but they’ve done zero teaching this season – if anything they look like they’ve regressed to students again because they’re sitting in on classes, and… where exactly are they living? Last season they were moved to the teachers quarters, but something’s suspiciously familiar about the dorm they’re hanging out in this season. Think the Winx are above kicking out the freshman who were assigned their old dorm last season…?

Neptune and Tressa also qualify as red herrings, in that I was hoping because they weren’t morphed into henchmen at the time Nereus and the queen were, that maybe they’d be doing something useful in the story. Turns out they really didn’t; Tritannus just felt like prolonging the hunt for kicks and giggles.

5. Icy being a goober.

Love can do terrible things to a person. You know it’s bad when Icy not only acts like an out-of-character lovesick loon, but Darcy and Stormy always mock her lovey-dovey brown-nosing right after she does so. You know, I think Ms. Griffin was on to something about witches never working in groups way back in season 2. The Trix have always been a group, sure, but as Griffin said… teammates can always betray each other, and how many times have the Trix bickered and squabbled over their higher-up now? I wouldn’t be surprised if Darcy and Stormy did ditch Icy by the end of this season; they reeeeally look like they hate being around her this time.

6. These oceans! Just… check out these OCEANS. What, you want to know more about Zenith and Melody above sea level? WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?! The oceans are ALL you need to know!

Well, uh… it’s nice we got some flashbacks of Musa’s mom during the Melody mission, but you don’t really get a feel for what Melody’s like as a planet because all you see of it besides one cliffy shoreline is the sea floor. In Zenith, that’s literally all you got: some fancy tower totally submerged underwater. Linphea showed some fauna that broke the surface of the water and that’s all, but we at least got a good idea of what Linphea was like in season 3; same deal with Solaria and Andros. Honestly, I’m thinking the whole basis of season 5 was Rainbow’s animators wanting to use their shiny new programs and skills to create some crazy underwater universe, and thought at the last second to put the Winx in it.

And for all they go out with trying to make the sea floor look pretty, it’s… honestly pretty boring as a setting after so many episodes. The differences between the planets’ oceans are barely noticeable, and I figured this was going to be a problem for season 5 before it even started.

But that’s enough about things being run into the ground. Let’s switch gears and talk about Roy for a second.

As a character, I actually don’t mind Roy, though he’s seeming more and more like one of the many red herrings this season. I definitely don’t support the idea of Aisha getting together with Roy, at least not this soon after Nabu’s death, but I had a weird personal theory about Roy that’s sorta skewed my view of him. Let’s see if anyone sees what I see, or if I’m just plain crazy.

Why yes this is a side-by-side comparison.

When I first saw Roy, I actually thought he looked exactly like Nabu. By facial structure, of course. I still see many similarities, though not as many as I initially thought. My theory was that somehow, Roy was Nabu, somehow reincarnated into another guy who didn’t remember his past life or whatever (though the traditional concept of incarnation makes this impossible, but this is a magical cartoon so shut up), but was drawn to Aisha because of his past life as Nabu. You know, that would be an interesting subplot and probably the least-cheesiest way to bring Nabu back to life. But I’d be putting too much faith in this show to hope this would be true. I suppose the physical similarities are just by virtue of both being young men in the same age range from the same planet. And this is probably just a huge coincidence, but I like the theory so much more than Roy being just some random guy who happens to like Aisha.

I was rather put-off with the Winx, mainly Stella, because they seemed utterly baffled by Aisha’s behavior during events in which couples were getting together. Dude, Stella, Aisha had an awesome fiance she loved very much, who died to save an entire magical dimension less than a year ago, and you don’t see how she might be put off by you forcing some random guys on her? How is this rocket science, especially for a girl who’s probably the most knowledgeable about boys and love of the Winx Club? At least Roy had the decency to back off in that episode.

But anyway, I’m all for Aisha staying single. I liked her being single before Nabu, and honestly, I don’t think anyone’s going to be able to top Nabu, so I hope they don’t force Roy on her in some highly unrealistic scenario. That said, I don’t hate Roy himself. I just have a feeling he’ll be mishandled just like most other things this season have been.

Speaking of mishandled, remember an older post I did where I mentioned how the cartoon tends to do outfit designs justice better than the more detailed stock art, mainly because the stock art was too detailed for its own good?

With all due respect I think I must retract that statement after seeing this.

So the most recent episode featured the girls finally getting Sirenix and gaining access to the Infinite Ocean, aka “world that temporarily makes everything CGI-animated”. And maybe this can be an exception BECAUSE it’s CGI, as the 2D Sirenix we see in the opening don’t do this absolutely retarded thing with the hair colors. Why did this happen?! C-carrot orange on teal streaks… what possible reason… honestly. The official stock art just depicts the default hair colors with streaks of much less obtrusive colors here and there. For this Infinite Ocean CGI segment, the Winx’s hair completely changes color in the worst possible ways.

Stop being so happy, Flora. You already had dual hair colors, why was that not enough for you?!

Lime green on platinum kind of looks like graying hair if you look at it a certain way. That’s why Stella’s got such a nasty look on her face right now.

Tecna’s got a similar problem.

Aisha got the worst of it, though. Ho-ooly crap.

Wow, I miss Harmonix already.

Also, Sirenix turns the Trix into tentacle hentai monsters.

… Yeah. Harmonix, guys. Look into it.

Speaking of Sirenix and Harmonix, I added a new poll, finally. I think I allowed for three options (plus the ability to add your own answer) this time, because it’s kind of a loaded question. I got 36 votes for the last poll, amazing! Though it’s also been up for over a month, but I was interested with the results. I think I’ll talk about it in more detail next time, though. This post… is pretty long as it is. And full of hate-o-rade, as people might put it!

But hey, it’s healthy to vent. And honesty is a virtue! I do still have a more positive, if nitpicky thing to write a post about that references older seasons in mind. Hint: it involves friendships! Ahahaha. I’m gonna go… work on a new banner that matches the new Lovix background now.

Slow Going

EDIT: News just came in; Winx is indeed continuing with premieres on Sunday, but airing an hour later at 1 PM.

Well, as we all know, Winx was preempted last weekend – the reason being, I suspect, is due to the premiere of the brand new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show, which encored on Sunday within Winx Club’s usual time slot. That was an hour-long premiere, which was probably why they couldn’t just have an encore AND a new Winx episode on Sunday. I’m definitely trusting my cable’s guide when it comes to news on the upcoming Winx Club episodes rather than direct sources from Nick – at least twice now they’ve been wrong about the episode title.

Presently my guide lists two repeats with no information outside of that, but that hasn’t been the first time this happened (I even made a blog post about it). I know the process of making the shows are definitely not the same, but as a South Park fan, I’ve grown accustomed to not getting new episode information until Monday (premieres air on Wednesday). In South Park’s case that’s because the creators say they can make an entire episode within the span of a few days, sometimes on the fly, so there’s literally no information Comedy Central has to go by until next week when the final product is ready. Of course, Nick must have all the season 5 information that there is to have since they’re airing it now, but in my experience I haven’t gotten any new episode information from my cable guide until late into the week – at least by Friday, wherein the second spot for Winx Club disappears and the first spot has an episode title and information. So I suppose they’re intentionally holding back on leaking the info until they feel like it.

So… I’d only take the current news of two repeats for this coming weekend with a grain of salt, because this early on, episode information is just scarce. We aren’t privileged enough to be informed of everything ahead of time, I guess. 😛 Now that TNMT has had its premiere exposure period (it also aired on Nicktoons a day or so after it premiered on Nickelodeon), I think Winx will be back on track, probably side-by-side with TMNT repeats of their Saturday premieres. That would make sense from my standpoint, at least.

Only real “news” going on is that we have official stock art (though not the full versions) of 2D Sirenix forms for everyone now, and wow does it look terrible. They’re doing something CRAZY with almost everyone’s hair, but it just looks… augh. I’m glad it’ll look better on TV. I find it no coincidence that we’re getting stock art from an Italian magazine, as season five is due to air this month in Winx’s homeland of Italy. I recall stock art being available pretty quickly after season 4 started up in Italy, so hopefully that’s a sign that more art will come in the near future.

Anyway, since it’s a new month, I decided to lay out a new poll for the site. When I started this up I already determined that my polls would last a month (on-site, at least; I didn’t close the previous one). Hopefully this new one should be a somewhat-original take that should make you think for a moment before voting (2 choices can be made). I only added Roxy as a courtesy, I suppose, since she was a main character in season 4 and did develop as a character. Hopes aren’t so high this season, but… take what you can get, I guess.

I’m happy I actually got 16 votes for my blog’s first poll! The majority went to Amy Gross for 8 votes, Jennifer Seguin not far behind at 6 votes, and both Caren Manuel and Christina Rodriguez got 1 vote each. Before I made this poll, I wasn’t even aware 4Kids Stella had two VAs. I thought only Tecna had that deal! I did vote in my own poll, of course. Jennifer Seguin is THE Stella to me; I actually think she’s a better fit for Stella than her Italian VA. That’s really my biggest regret for losing Cinelume’s dub to Nick’s. I like Amy Gross better than both of the 4Kids VAs (who are indistinguishable to me since I spent all these years not knowing there were two of them), but presently I find her to be my least-favorite of the Nick cast. It’s not her acting that bugs me, but just the sound of her voice. Where 4Kids Stella was constantly loud and overbearing, Nick’s Stella sounds… well, weird. High-pitched voices on Stella just don’t work for me. I’ve gotten used to her over time, but while I’ve been rewatching season 2 episodes this past weekend, it just reminded me how much I miss Seguin’s Stella. 😦

I have a major blog post in mind for some stuff based on the previous seasons, but I’ll probably save that for later… possibly next week. I have a vacation next week, and other than playing Pokemon White 2 and Pokemon Conquest, I’ll need something to occupy my time. 😀

Winx Fanartix! Also, episode title debacle.

This gallery contains 26 photos.

Sorry I’ve been quiet over the past week or so. During that time I have been drawing many new Winx fanarts of their Harmonix AND Sirenix forms. I have a  DeviantArt account where I’ve stored all my drawings of the six Winx from their Enchantix forms to their Lovix forms, including one crappy what-if picture […]