The girl was really getting the hang of the whole childhood thing. Oh, sure, the move to San Francisco had rocked her world for a while (as chronicled in 2015’s Inside Out). But she’d settled in just fine (eventually). She was excelling in school. She was tearing up the ice. She had a couple of fantastic friends, Grace and Bree. What more could a girl want?

Yep, all of Riley’s emotions would agree that their now 13-year-old girl was turning out just great. And those emotions—Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust—rarely agree on anything.

Then, wouldn’t you know it, puberty had to come in and wreck everything.

Wreck is the operational word here, at least as far as Riley’s emotions are concerned. One minute, the puberty alarm on Riley’s emotional control bank is blaring. The next, a team of blue construction workers storms headquarters, saws and crowbars in hand, and completely decimates the control room. The workers say that it’s all to make room for the others.

And then those others start showing up.

Anxiety arrives first, all teeth and eyes and frazzled hair. Envy shows up and fawns over the control board. Embarrassment, a big galloot of an emotion, tries to hide in his hoodie. And Ennui lounges on a couch—oh so over everything—and fiddles with her phone.

No problem, right? I mean, it’s not like this is Joy’s first rodeo with meddlesome emotions. They’re all part of the team! And as long as Joy’s in control, everything will be fine. Just fine.

But when Riley goes to an important three-day hockey camp and (at Joy’s urging) goofs off with her friends, the hockey coach makes it clear that unbridled joy in this setting is not fine. It’s not fine at all. If Riley wants to be a top hockey player—perhaps even one that makes the high school team as a freshman—she’ll need to work. She’ll need to focus. There’s a time and place for joy, but this camp ain’t it.

Anxiety gently nudges Joy aside and takes the controls. If Riley hopes to succeed in this unfamiliar world, the girl could use a little anxiety. She could use a little motivational stress. Riley’s a teenager now, after all. Time to put away those childish things and grow up. Grow into an entirely different person who can cope with all of life’s present stresses and future uncertainties.

“This is not Riley!” Joy protests.

“I know!” Anxiety tells her. “It’s a better Riley!”

But is it?

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We might look to Dr. Onda, the leader of the Kaiju Defense Force, who lost his wife and daughter to those giant monsters. Now, he’ll do whatever it takes to find the hidden Kaiju island and slaughter the beasts once and for all in order to prevent that tragedy from happening to another family.

We could also think about the actions of the kaiju Gigantron. The dragon-like monster did everything in her power to protect and reclaim the egg containing her child—an egg which had been stolen by the KDF as a step in locating Kaiju island.

And we could certainly talk about Professor Sato. He’s got the power to transform into Ultraman, a giant humanoid robotic figure who defends Tokyo from the occasional kaiju attacks. Unlike the KDF, he’d rather repel the endangered and misguided beasts than turn them into sashimi. And because of his superhero status, he chose to protect his wife and son from his dangerous profession by sending them away to Los Angeles.

But if there’s anyone who needs to learn a lesson about family, it’s Kenji “Ken” Sato, Professor Sato’s son. In the two decades since he was sent away, Ken grew up to have both a professional career in baseball as well as a hefty grudge against his father for abandoning them. And just as Ken was about to take the Dodgers to the championship game, his father, weary from years of battle, asked him to come back to Japan and take up the Ultraman mantle.

Well, Ken does begrudgingly go back. By day, he plays baseball for the Yomiuri Giants. By … well, whenever there’s a kaiju attack, he repels kaiju as Ultraman.

But remember that egg Gigantron hoped to get back, prompting her attack on the KDF? Well, just after Ken watches the KDF blow Gigantron out of the sky, the egg hatches, and the tiny kaiju imprints on Ken. And, just like his father, Ken can’t bear to see the KDF kill the creature—so he vanishes with it before the KDF can secure their asset.

And so Ken begins to discover just how difficult being a father can truly be.

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You’ve got Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, Animal, Rowlf and, of course, Kermit the Frog. They, alongside plenty of others, are famous names in households all across the world.

But every story has its beginning. And Kermit is ready to share it: the story of how the Muppets—approximately—got started.

You see, Kermit wasn’t always the green movie star you know him as today. At one point, he was content simply to play his banjo in his Floridian swamp. But when he hears about an offer of fame in Hollywood that’d give him the opportunity to make millions of people happy, well, he’s as tickled pink as any green frog could be.

Along the way, he meets many others looking to find fame in Hollywood, too, including plenty of the aforementioned names so familiar with us all.

But he also meets a dastardly villain, too: Doc Hopper, a Col. Sanders-like man who’d like Kermit to be the spokesman for his fried frog legs restaurant chain. And let’s just say that he’s got the deep fryers already sizzling in the event that Kermit declines the offer.

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The man has a yurt, a pool and much more set up to “survive” in the wild. He proudly—and loudly–proclaims that what he’s got may just be enough to make all eight million of his subscribers come join him in the fun.

But this guy alone is bad enough, Woody thinks. He couldn’t stand eight million more. And so, with surprising finesse, Woody destroys the man’s setup in explosive fashion. But as the wily woodpecker soon finds out, the local park ranger isn’t too pleased with Woody’s shenanigans.

“Those chuckleheads got what they deserved,” Woody protests. “We can’t let loud and annoying creatures who only care about themselves ruin our forest, can we?”

Ranger Walters gives Woody a dry response. “No, we cannot.”

But the ranger argues Woody’s more of a nuisance than that influencer ever could have been. And until Woody can learn that the forest is for more creatures than just him, he’s officially kicked out.

Well, Woody has no idea how he’ll prove to Ranger Walters that he’s a team player. But a nearby camp, Camp Woo Hoo (complete with a “Dedicated to Teamwork” tagline) just might be the solution to his problem: Campers obtain teamwork badges at the end of the season. So Woody figures that’ll be the perfect certification to prove he should be welcomed back into the woods.

But as those campers soon discover, Woody really isn’t a team player. In fact, he’s such a nuisance that his actions threaten to get the camp shut down for good. What’s more, another outsider is all-the-happier to help close the camp for his own nefarious plans. And unless Woody can get his act together, well, both the camp and that coveted badge may be gone for good.

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Po still doesn’t look the part of a Kung Fu master. But his famed exploits brooch no argument: This panda can tanga. (Er, tangle.)

Po has beaten the mighty leopard Tai Lung. He bested the dastardly peacock Lord Shen. He walloped the nefarious yak General Kai and overcame his legion of Jade Zombies.

And now, just when he’s getting the hang of this whole Dragon Warrior thing, Master Shifu wants Po to give the whole gig up. Pass the torch. Become a mentor … like Master Shifu himself. Ensure the Valley of Peace is peaceful for a new generation.

Boooooring.

Yeah, Po’s not quite ready to step down just yet, thank you very much. This panda’s still got plenty of punch in his paws, kick in his caboodle.

But Shifu insists. So Po dutifully holds tryouts for the next Dragon Warrior. The applicants are impressive. And once the competition is over, Po chooses … himself! For just a while longer. Because the choice was just so hard, y’know?

Shifu once again grits his teeth and struggles to find a bit of inner peace—a peace that Po has, through three movies, done his best to trample into inner pieces. But perhaps in the back of his mind, Shifu hears his own mentor, Oogway, say, “There are no accidents.” Perhaps this delay in succession is for a reason.

Shortly thereafter, a possible “reason” bounces into the revered Hall of Heroes, home to the relics of the great warriors of yore. The interloper is a fox named Zhen, and she’s clearly after a relic or two—perhaps even the Staff of Wisdom wielded by Po himself.

Well, that won’t do. First, the staff needs to be freely given for its powers to be unlocked. Second, no thieving fox (no matter how skilled) can best the Dragon Warrior. Off to jail she goes.

But then Po hears rumors of a truly fearsome foe: the Chameleon. She’s a sorcerer of great renown, and it’s said she can transform herself to look like anybody she likes: Tai Lung. Master Shifu. Po. Anyone.

Zhen knows all about her—and she promises to lead Po right to her front door. If he lets her out of jail, that is.

Yep, good thing Po didn’t just step down just yet. This Dragon Warrior still has some dragon warrior-ing to do.

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Oh, sure, there’s something fishy about him, too. But that only stands to reason, given his scales and fins and whatnot. Where Luca comes from—somewhere in the briny deep near Italy—that’s positively normal. While his father raises competition show crabs and his mother frets, Luca shepherds the family’s flock of fish. (Which would make him a fisherd, I guess.) And even though the Paguro family can venture onto dry land—rumor has it that Grandma used to hit the town on weekends—why would they? It’s populated by monsters, by gum, monsters who’d want nothing more than to skewer creatures like them and hang them up above the fireplace.

But while Luca’s terrified of the land and those who dwell there (as his mother says he should be), he’s curiously drawn to it, too.

As well he should be.

So says Luca’s new friend, Alberto. He’s a little older than Luca, and yeah, he came from the sea himself. But Alberto lives all by his lonesome on dry land, and he considers himself “kind of an expert” on the whole terra firma thing. When he yanks Luca out of the water, he knows full well the kid’s going to change into a human form—just like he did. And he knows that human form can take a little getting used to, what with the whole clothes and air and walking thing and all.

“Walking is just like swimming,” Alberto lectures. “But without fins. Or a tail. And also there’s no water. Otherwise, it’s like the exact same thing.”

Clearly, Alberto knows everything about everything, and Luca idolizes him. But after a few days up top and one late night getting home, Luca discovers his worried mom and dad waiting up for him—along with Uncle Ugo, the family’s toothy, see-through relative from deeper waters. Apparently, Uncle Ugo is there to take Luca to the deep, black, sunlight-deprived sea, about which he paints a less-than-exciting picture.

 “There’s nothing to see anyway,” Ugo says. “Or do. It’s just you and your thoughts—and all the whale carcass you can eat.”

Luca loves his mom and dad. But he sure doesn’t want to go with Uncle Ugo. He’s enchanted with the land above—its sunshine and gravity and, most especially, its motorized scooters. And so—encouraged and accompanied by Alberto—Luca runs away, away to the human town of Portorosso, filled with dry cobblestoned streets and colorful buildings and fish-eating residents. Residents who all seem to own several harpoons. Residents who’ve heard about some sea monster sightings and are on high alert for anything that might be the least bit sea-monsterish.

The two new human boys in their midst certainly look normal enough—as long as they don’t get wet. But any little bit of water brings out their true natures, dip by dip, drip by drip. Luca and Alberto sure better hope it never rains.

The post Luca appeared first on Plugged In.

But then, out of the, uh, blue, he completely changed.

Megamind decided to become a hero. In so doing, he gained accolades from the cheering masses. He won the girl (otherwise known as intrepid reporter Roxanne Ritchi.) And he realized that saving the innocent was a lot more pleasant than smashing them. (And less clean up, too.)

Hey, he even earned his own fan club. Well, at least he thinks there’s a whole club. He’s really only met the middle school-attending, constantly streaming head of the club, Keiko. But this kid has, like, 500,000 followers and comprehends all that social media stuff that Megamind could never really wrap his ginormous brain around.

So, it was all good. But … then it wasn’t.

The troubles started when his minion (renamed Old Chum due to, ahem, copyright issues) went his own way. Old Chum just felt a bit underappreciated. He figured he should at least be promoted to sidekick.

Then, on top of that, Megamind’s former team of baddies, the Doom Syndicate, has escaped from prison. There’s Lady Doppler, the evil witch of weather. Pierre Pressure, the master of hypnotism. Behemoth, the burning hunk of burning rock. And Lord Nighty-Knight, the master of nightmares. (OK, that last guy is still working on a properly scary, dark name. But you get the gist.)

They’ve all come looking for Megamind, expecting him to be every bit as eeee-villle as they remember. They expect him to have completed Phase Two of his diabolically wicked masterplan.

And that is a problem.

I mean, if he tells them to leave, they’ll surely ask why. And if he tells them why, they’ll get mad. And the first thing villains do when they get mad is break things. And the first thing they’ll break is him. And he is his favorite thing in the whole world!

So, what’s a bad Megamind turned good Megamind supposed to do?!

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That’s no secret, of course. Why, adolescence itself is almost like an anti-secret—filled with all sorts of embarrassing things you’d rather just lock away. You grow what seems to be several feet taller in, like, about a second. You start growing hair in weird places. You sprout a tail. Your body odor ratchets up a notch or two. You—

Oh, wait. You mean to tell me that you didn’t sprout a tail when you were an adolescent? Well, consider yourself lucky. Mei is here to tell you that growing tails—or anything else more at home on a red panda—is no picnic.

Mei, a 13-year-old girl of Chinese descent and Canadian citizenship, never asked to transform into a gigantic red panda. In fact, she never knew the option was on the table. Her main concerns were keeping her grades up, keeping her love of boy band 4-Town strong and keeping her mom proud of her. And a little touch of puberty wasn’t going to stop her from performing her scholarly/friendly/daughterly duties to the letter.

But it seems as though her mom has been keeping a secret from Mei.

While most kids have to navigate cracking voices and oily skin in adolescence, Mei’s family takes puberty to a whole new level. Long ago, one of Mei’s ancestors made a bargain with the gods: Help me protect the village from rampaging attackers! She prayed. The gods granted her the ability to transform into a gigantic red panda, which did the trick.

But the gods, apparently having a rather twisted sense of humor, gave this gift a catch: All the women in the family thereafter would be able to turn into pandas, too—a neat ability in feudal China, but less ideal in urban Toronto. And the transformation itself can be a bit tricky. The panda comes out when emotions run high. And given that adolescence is a time of sky-high emotionalism … well, let’s just say that his magical red panda is about the only panda that’s not endangered.

But that’s not all. Mei’s mom, Ming Lee, warns her daughter that the panda comes with a dark side. As such, most of the women (Ming Lee included) have undergone a special ceremony that has separated the women from their panda alter-egos. Mei can—and will—do the same, once the full moon makes an appearance.

It can’t happen soon enough. Whether it’s the panda’s “dark side” or something else, Mei’s not quite thinking like herself these days. She’s angrier. More prone to lash out. She sometimes lies to her beloved family. Sneak behind their backs. Think about boys, and not just the members of 4-Town.

Mei’s not the sweet little girl she used to be. She’s part panda now. And the panda wants to come out.

The post Turning Red appeared first on Plugged In.

When Bagheera the panther found the human baby boy amidst the wreckage of a boat, he wasn’t sure what to do. But he couldn’t help but feel a bit of love for the child, and against his instinct, he gave the kid, Mowgli, to a friendly wolf family to raise. All was well in the jungle once more.

But while most jungle creatures—generally wary of humans—were willing to make an exception for Mowgli, not so with Shere Khan, the tiger. Shere Khan’s terrified of fire, and were it not in the possession of man, he’d wipe them all out—alongside any animal who tries to protect them.

So when the ferocious beast returns to prowl on Mowgli’s side of the jungle, the wolf pack tells Mowgli’s adoptive parents that the child is too much of a risk for them. In an effort to keep the boy safe, Bagheera offers to take Mowgli to a nearby “man village,” only a few days away.

But Mowgli likes the jungle, and he doesn’t want to leave. And he’s quick to gain the support of Baloo, a laid-back “jungle bum” bear who thinks that sending Mowgli to live with the other humans will ruin the boy.

Well, Baloo tries to teach the boy all he knows, and Mowgli would content to live with the “Bare Necessities” of life with Baloo for the rest of his days.

But no amount of back scratching and banana eating will stop Shere Khan from pouncing as soon as he finds Mowgli.

The post The Jungle Book (1967) appeared first on Plugged In.

Murderous gutter clowns, cancer induced by cell phone waves, infected mosquito bites, clogged toilets.

Orion has plenty of fears, and they cripple him every day. His school counselor told him that documenting them might help him overcome them. But really, cataloging them all just seems to authenticate them in Orion’s eyes.

Fear of rejection prevented Orion from finally mustering the courage to say “hi” to Sally, his school crush. Fear of being crushed by falling model planets prevented Orion from turning in his permission slip for a planetarium field trip. And fear of humiliation prevented Orion from saying “yes” when Sally asked Orion if he’d like to sit next to her when that trip arrives.

Instead, Orion walks home in terror, fearing that today will be the day that his parents moved away without telling him while he was at school. (No such misfortune, he finds, as his parents come to console his anxiety once more.)

But not even they can dispel Orion’s greatest fear of all: the dark. When the sun leaves and shadows reign supreme, Orion finds little comfort in his bed.

It certainly doesn’t help when the darkness itself converges around him, forming into a pudgy, cloaked figure. Orion screams in terror.

“OK, that’s it!” the entity yells. “I’ve had it with you! Of all the kids who are terrified of the dark, you are by far the loudest, the most obnoxious, and frankly, the most hurtful.”

Huh?

That’s when the darkness introduces himself as … well … Dark. And he’s keen to make a deal with the kid whom he and other supernatural night entities refer to as “Night Enemy Number One.”

“You come watch me do my job for one night, and you’ll finally see that I’m nothing to be afraid of,” Dark offers.

And maybe, just maybe, if Orion can overcome his greatest fear of all, it’ll help him get past his lesser fears, too.

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