Tumgik
#I can’t stop thirsting for cartoon characters
nulvuu-2 · 3 years
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
😩
108 notes · View notes
helthehatter · 2 years
Text
Centaurworld Season 2 Review
I need to get my thoughts out to finally rest in peace. Spoiler-full review under the cut.
Ep. 1: Not too much to say on this one. We see actual horse centaurs (TMing the term is actually a pretty solid joke) course it would kill them to make an attractive centaur (but wouldn’t it be nice to have just ONE hot centaur? Wouldn’t it? I think so). And I counted three solid jokes (Zulius thirsting after a centaur, one of the THOUSAND of Glendale’s klepto jokes, and the weird black and white centaur kid who no doubt has bodies in his room). But the best part of the episode was seeing Ryder in the much prettier apocalyptic world with her hot ass general. The worst part was Durpleton massacring the you’re okay song with my new favorite character: Phillip Bonecrunch (aka, Stabby)
Ep. 2: If I said it once I’ll say it a thousand times. HOW THE FUCK ARE THE BIRDS CENTAURS?? They aren’t! They’re just STUPID BIRDS! And the only thing I liked about these stupid birds was there dislike of Wammawink like Cheers! I’ll drink to that, bro! Also the texting joke where they use the underdeveloped fetishes of bird eggs was SO fucked up. Also props to Zulius for being useful this episode, that makes things easier to stomach. Also HOLY SHIT I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT ENDING WHERE THEY MORPHED INNOCENT ANIMALS INTO MONSTERS HOLY SHIT NOWHERE KING!!!
Ep. 3: I agree with the Coldtaurs joining Nowhere King. Not because I believe in his cause I just want the centaurs to die. Also Comfortable Doug is not as good a character as the writers think he is. Also finally Glendale was useful, never thought I’d see the day. Also Rider had a very good reaction to Doug. Kick him into space Becky Apples.
Ep. 4: Yeah, sweaty, nippled moletaurs. That’s what I wanted to see. And Horse freaks out over Becky Apples and I’ll use this time to say NOTHING comes out of Becky Apples. I thought this bitch was gonna be working for Nowhere King or SOMETHING. Nope. She’s just there. Also way to go Wammawink making this about you again. Horse thinks her dearest and oldest friend has replaced her but you didn’t get to hook up with a dude you knew for two hours. Totally the same thing, I’m not even gonna say you were useful getting all the ugly holetaurs together I hate you Wammawink stop being clingy about making Horse ditch Rider for you.. Also Stabby gets turned into a little cartoon lizard but you know, props for him making Durpleton less annoying.
Ep. 5: Arguably one of the better episodes. Horse gets the powers to jump into someone and see their memories (this freezes the person while she’s in there-remember that) and we see more orphan of war Wammawink, teenaged Glendale, whatever. Ched’s was a bummer but didn’t stop his character from being annoying (also is he in love with Zulius? What the fuck? I can’t remember the last time they talked? Where did this come from?) And Durpleton was abadoned by his parents but it helped him and Ched not be so obnoxious so a necessary evil I think. I don’t know what Zulius’ backstory was but he was WAY too into Horse getting inside him and whhhyyyy did I say it like that?
Ep. 6: A Rider focused episode! Fuck yeah! She’s such a bad ass! Fuck yeah! One of the annoying birdtaurs got turned into a hideous monster that’s so messed up :D Fuck yeah! Nowhere king! Fuck yeah! Hot general! What a good time you can have when the centaurs aren’t holding everything back.
Ep. 7: Worst fucking episode. They put all the centaurs in one area and and it’s so got damn annoying I hated it. Wish I had a Team Nowhere King shirt. The most that happened was Zulius and that tiger dude are a couple now (sorry Ched? I guess?) and the Mysterious Woman is back (bitch where were you I missed you). It isn’t until the end where they are in Rider’s world and about to be overun by minotaurs and the Nowhere King that it gets interesting because Horse sacrafices herself to go inside Nowhere King’s mind and freeze him to save her friends. That’s a hardcore scene.
Ep. 8: Okay let me get this out of the way first. At the very beginning of the episode Horse is in the black void of Nowhere King’s mind and some DUMBASS in that studio thought “Hey, let’s do a joke where Horse farts for a good thirty seconds”. ...Yeah. BUT AFTER YOU SKIP THAT ITS LEGIT THE BEST EPISODE. Because it’s about the best character in the show: Nowhere King. WE find out he was once an elk centaur (AND HE WAS HOT FINALLY) who fell in love with the mysterious woman (who was a pretty princess). But instead of asking her if she could love him as a centaur he uses some fucked up magic to split himself. One half human and one half elk. The human half is the GENERAL and marries the woman. But the elk also loves her and wants him and the general to become one again and hopes she’ll love them as a centaur. We then get a fucked up scene of the general trying to drown the elk to only vomit water out of his mouth and eyes and stop because if one of them dies they both die. We are then witnesses to the elk using the amulet magic to make minotuars (trying to make his own ‘family’) and turning him into the beautiful eldtrich abomination we have now.  It’s a hardcore backstory.  And skipping over some details it’s the mysterious woman who slays him in the end, him having morphed back into a centaur to sing to her one last time. She sings a goodbye song to the tune of the Nowhere King. Hard. Core.
BUT the whole reason I made this list was for my criticism of this episode. The general wasn’t a character until season 2 and didn’t get a lot of screen time, nor did Nowhere King. If General had been introduced season 1 and the nowhere king had more screen time it would’ve been a bigger emotional hit when we find out they’re the same. Also there’s a scene where Horse tells Rider (she gets out of nowhere king) that they need to kill the general and Rider straight up doesn’t believe her and says she’s just a horse. Why the FUCK would Rider believe a dude she barely knows over her best friend? Makes no damn sense. But if Rider and the general got to bond I could understand it better.
Anyway even though Rider gets stabbed by general she surrives, and after the nowhere king dies everyone moves to Centaurworld. Which is suppose to be a happy ending but it’s CENTAURWORLD so...yeah.
The End. 
17 notes · View notes
ordinaryschmuck · 3 years
Text
What I Thought About "Through The Looking Glass Ruins" from The Owl House
Salutations, random people on the internet who most certainly won’t read this! I am an Ordinary Schmuck! I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons!
When Disney announced episode titles/synopsis for the new season (On a day that left my head SPINNING!), there was one episode that I knew deep down that would cause controversy and discourse amongst the fandom. And that episode was "Through the Looking Glass Ruins." Not because it would be bad, far from it. Instead, because the episode was a Gus episode with a Lumity subplot, that meant that discourse would start as fans decide which story they prefer more. A situation that, might I add, would result in no winners.
Do you prefer the Lumity plotline? Well, guess what! You're a racist who chose to talk about an overrated ship rather than a heavily underrated character who just so happens to be a person of color.
Do you prefer Gus' plotline? Well, guess what! You're a homophobe who decided to shine a light on a character who's underrated for a reason instead of praising a ship that just so happens to involve two girls.
Either side you pick is going to result in making people mad. The only way to avoid that is by explaining in heavy detail that you still enjoyed one side despite preferring the other. Even if you loved both, you'll most certainly have to explain to everyone that you mean it and that you're neither racist nor homophobic. And all I have to say is this: F that.
F that S in the A right now.
Because I, or anybody else for that matter, shouldn't have to explain myself when it comes to saying why I prefer one plot line or the other. I shouldn't have to prevent getting ripped apart by some bulls**t, black and white mentality of people who can't accept that others like a show for different reasons than they do.
You wanna know what I think about "Through the Looking Glass Ruins?" Well, continue reading to find out. You'll have to make your way through spoilers, but it's the only way for you to learn why I consider this episode not worth any discourse that I'm already certain is cropping up.
Now, let's review, shall we?
WHAT I LIKED
The Opening Scene: I'm kind of digging how snappy and to the point these opening scenes are getting. In the span of what has to be less than a minute, we're given all the information we need to know: Gus is insecure about his illusion magic because he accidentally got Willow injured. It's a great way of setting up why Gus wants to prove himself to the Glandus students and a great way of showing how much Willow's friendship means to him. Look at how he's reacting a few days after the incident. He's still mopey and guilty about it, and I feel bad for the little guy.
Gus in General: And while we're already talking about him, let's give this episode a round of applause for giving Gus the spotlight without having him screw over his friends...except for Willow.
"Through the Looking Glass Ruins" really fleshes Gus out much more so than past episodes. As I said, it plays heavily into his own insecurities while proving how he's capable as an illusionist. He's also the best possible outlet to explore more about what illusionist magic can really do. It can't hurt anybody or work well in a fight. Instead, its strengths lie in the act of convincingly tricking others into thinking that something that should be fake is actually real. And Gus got to prove he really is a super witch because of his illusions through a jaw-dropping scene that's as dark as it was enthralling. The fact that he did it all by himself, without the help of an illusion elder who was right there, is honestly even more impressive. A lot of people aren't that interested in Gus as a character, but I feel like, after this episode, he certainly won a few more fans over.
Willow Getting Injured and Missing the Episode: This is a smart move, in my opinion. Willow acts as the voice of reason in the friend group, so if she tagged along with Luz and Gus right away, she would have easily talked Gus out of joining the Glandus kids on a dangerous quest. I love Willow, she's a solid character, but writing her out is really the only way the plot could have progressed.
(I also love that she wasn't mad in the slightest over Gus getting her hurt. She has every right to be, but she also understands that it was an accident, and Gus wouldn't do anything to purposefully hurt her. And that's sweet!)
King’s Prerecorded Message for Gus: That's just adorable. We need more cute friendship moments between these two, DAMN IT!
Gus Being Sick of Luz’s S**t: Of all the characters I expected to get sick of the whole Lumity situation, Gus wasn't really one of them. I'd always thought it'd be Willow, primarily because the rest of the fandom latched onto that idea, but for Gus, I'd figured he'd be more supportive rather than annoyed. That being said, seeing him call Luz out for borrowing his library card to see Amity (Not ask her out. Just to see her) is not only a hilarious moment for Gus but also an adorable moment for Luz. It's something I would never have seen coming, but now that I have it, I want more. GIVE ME MORE!
(Sorry if I'm being a little intense)
Luz Trying to Cheer Up Gus: It's moments like this that prove why Luz is my favorite character.
Willow might have the most common sense out of the group, but it's Luz who still has the biggest heart. She knows her friend is down in the dumps, so Luz pulls out all the stops in cheering him up. Whether it's researching the first-ever human (really surprised he wasn't the tiniest bit excited about that, by the way) and lending him glyphs for his mission to help show up Mattholomule. She may be slow in the romantic relationship department, but episodes like this prove that she excels with a platonic friendship.
Bria: I consider Amar adorably optimistic, and I have no strong feelings for Gavin, one or the other. But with Bria? Holy hell, did the writers do everything they should with her!
At first, it seems like she'll be a generic nice girl for Gus to have a crush on. Only for that writing to be a perfect twist into how she's kind of the worst. You see hints of her true personality in the overly sweet way she threatens to force Amar to eat a bug he gets distracted by. A viewer's initial reaction to that would be to think that while she's sweet, she still means business. But no, it's actually a perfect way to reveal her true intentions while hiding them at the same time. Bria may be rotten to the core, but with how perfectly executed this twist was, I can't help but adore her contribution.
Mattholomule: ...I would sooner expect to have gone insane before believing that this little s**t weasel would make his way onto my good side. Despite that, here we are in episode five of the new season, and I like Mattholomule now.
The reveal that Glandus High forces students to believe that the strong survive and the weak are inferior explains so much for Mattholomule's thirst for power in "Something Ventured, Someone Framed." It doesn't excuse his actions, not by a long shot, but it definitely paints a clearer picture. It also explains his treatment of Gus, as well as Mattholomule's reasoning to help him. Because of Glandus High inserting a "the strong survive" mentality into Mattholomule, he belittles Gus due to thinking that illusion magic makes Gus weak. But after seeing how they're both stooges to Bria's mistreatment, he's quick to apologize and willingly helps Gus out. In the process, the two of them create a believable and cute friendship...a friendship that is absolutely going to be interpreted as something else by the fandom...which is something that I'm more than supportive of--HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?! I WENT FROM ONE OF THE BIGGEST GUSTOLOMULE DENIERS TO ONE OF ITS SUPPORTERS IN LESS THAN A DAY! HOW DO THESE WRITERS MANAGE TO TAKE ELEMENTS THAT WERE ONCE ON MY S**T LIST TO THEN MAKING ME MORE THAN OK WITH THEM!
IT'S INSANE!
Mostly impressive.
BUT ALSO INSANE!
Edric and Emira: More so than ever, I am so happy that the writers took their course correction with Edric and Emira. These two work so much better as supporting characters rather than minor antagonists like several fans thought they would be after their treatment of Amity in "Lost in Language." They're quick to pick up on Luz and Amity's mutual affections for one another and do their part to help their friend and baby sister out. It's wholesome to watch, and, you know what, I'm gonna go ahead and say it: Edric and Emira Blight are much better mischievous twin characters than Fred and George Weasley. As much as I adore Fred and George, there is an issue how they're always referred to as Fred and George, not Fred or George. It's because their personalities are as identical as they are, so separating them is pointless. With Edric and Emira, they have enough individuality that you could enjoy them separately as much as you could seeing them together. Emira is more emotionally supportive in how she listens to Amity vent her frustrations about her feelings, while Edric is more of a doofus who can't take a hint to save his life. It creates a great set of characters who can potentially work well on their own. I hope they get explored more at some point, but for now, I'm happy with the cute moments these two offered already.
Lumity Moments: BUUUUUUUUUUUUT, nothing compares to the cuteness of these two.
I don't care if I'll be called a racist for it because these! Moments! These moments are the highlights of "Through the Looking Glass Ruins" for me! Seeing these two interact in this episode, now that the pining is mutual, was everything I could have ever hoped for, and so much more. Seriously, how can you complain about anything about all of this when you get cute bits like:
Luz getting flustered of seeing Amity with her hair down
Amity risking her job to help Luz
Amity being motivated to find the diary due to the possibility of a date with Luz in the human realm
Luz going through hell and back to get Amity her job back
All of the blushing
And that F**KING KISS AT THE END HOLY SH--Don't you dare think I'm not going to further discuss that. DON'T YOU DARE!
Gus' story was entertaining with how it surprised me in all the right ways, don't get me wrong. But seeing Luz and Amity's relationship develop more and more always fills my heart with glee that, believe it or not, I'm always going to remember it more. I love you, Gus, but I love Lumity more.
Philip Whittabeen: So we finally have a name to the alleged human who was here years ago, and we get properly introduced to him through a really visually appealing animation change. I'm personally curious to see where the writers go with him, but it's too early to say if his inclusion will be worth something. But I will say one thing, though. One thing, and then I'm going to move on.
Here it is:
Philip sounds eerily similar to Emperor Belos to me.
That is all I'm going to say about that.
Luz’s Sentences in Spanish: I want to give a personal shout-out to mi buen amigo @l-egionaire for pointing this out because there are some things to analyze in what Luz says in Spanish in this episode. Knowing what she means, it's clear that they are ideals that Camila instilled into Luz. Ideals that possibly show a lot about Camila's personality on top of revealing where Luz got her hopeful optimism and sense of determination. It's the second sentence that Luz says later on that I really want to delve deep into:
"Nada funcionará a menos que lo haga funcionar."
Translated, that means "Nothing will work unless you make it work." Again, this proves the dedication that Luz has filled into her soul, but to me, it says a lot about Luz's dedication to Amity. She wants to make this relationship work but fully understands that it won't unless she puts in the effort. It's a sweet sentiment that says so much about how Luz feels about Amity that some fans might not be able to pick up on if they don't speak Spanish. Or, in my case, have a good friend who finds the translation for you (thanks again @l-egionaire).
The Galderstones: Pretty interesting concept, I'm not going to lie. It's also interesting that of all the types of witches in the Boiling Isles, it was illusionists who were the ones that guard over the Galderstones. Because illusion magic can't really harm anyone, it makes a weird type of sense that they would be the ones to keep the Galderstones out of the wrong hands. And, even better, it showcases Gus' strength as an illusionist when he was able to take down Bria, who was hopped up on Galderstone power, through that same "harmless" magic. It just goes to show that if you have a big enough brain, you don't need to overpower somebody. You need to outthink them.
Malphus Being a Surprisingly Cool Dude: What can I say? I'm a sucker for expectation subversion.
Luz and Amity Crying: First of all, a HUGE round of applause to VAs Sarah-Nicole Robles and Mae Whitman through their vocal performances in this scene! They really sold how upset and broken apart Luz and Amity were due to their feelings for each other messing things up. More so with Sarah-Nicole.
Second, this might be the closest these two have gotten to a confession so far ("so far" being the keyword). I specifically latch onto Amity's expression after hearing Luz agree that she's always weird around Amity. In one way, it looks like Amity is surprised to see she made Luz cry, but in another, it could be that she realizes that perhaps that Luz has feelings for her as well. Or, at least, that's how I interpreted things. The thing about art is that there's no one interpretation to agree on. And that's what this scene is: Art. It's performed, written, and animated well, that no matter how you look at it, it's a masterpiece.
“I’ll call the hounds”: One line. One line was all it took for me to love the Keeper of the Looking Glass Graveyard.
Amity Dyes her Hair: I always assumed that Amity would let her original hair color grow out as defiance to Odalia. But dying it lavender? Thus crafting her own identity without having her be compared to either Odalia or Alador?
...yeah, that's brilliant. Whoever thought of that, you are a genius and deserve all of the credit that comes from it.
ALL of the credit.
Amity Kisses Luz on the Cheek!: I'll save my "Wha-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo" for an actual kiss, but for now, THIS IS AWESOME!
This moment, much like other Lumity moments, was everything I could have ever expected and so much more:
Amity's instant panic after realizing she seriously just did that
Ed and Em looking fondly at their sister taking such a big step
The look on Luz's face, which may or may not hint that she realizes that the feelings are more than mutual
And the fact that Luz's legs give out soon after Amity leaves
It was adorable as all forms of hell, and it was a perfect way to end such a perfect episode...or, at least, an almost perfect episode. I do have some issues.
WHAT I DISLIKED
Mattholomule Helping Gus too Easily: The Glandus kids were right there, in-ear and eye-shot, yet did nothing as Mattholomule effortlessly helped Gus and the Keeper escape...how?
Gavin falling for Gus’ Illusion: I want to laugh at how stupidly easy that was...but it's too stupidly easy for me to forgive.
And that’s about it. Just two nitpicks that don’t really take away that much enjoyment from the episode
IN CONCLUSION
"Through the Looking Glass Ruins" keeps Season Two's winning streak going by being another solid A. It fleshes out characters, develops cute relationships, and keeps the story going despite being so character-driven. It's easily more than worth the time...but it's not worth any discourse that comes from some fans preferring one plot over the other.
I highly doubt that some people are racist for loving the Lumity plotline or homophobic for loving Gus'. Maybe some people are, but also consider that maybe, just maybe, a person loves a ship because it's their favorite, or a person likes a character cause he's their favorite.
Which.
Is.
Fine.
There's no definitive way to like a series, and demanding that people like it for the same reasons you do is not worth anything. Because, believe it or not, even Dana Terrace doesn't care how people love her show. In the AMA she did, when a fan asked if she's upset about fans obsessing over Amity's crush on Luz, this is her word for word reaction:
"Not at all! No, the main focus of the series will never be on any romantic thread but that doesn't mean those threads aren't important. And I'm thrilled that people connect to our characters!"
THERE YOU HAVE IT! The creator herself fully admits that she doesn't care what fans latch onto. She's just glad to have people who like the show in the first place! So don't create discourse just because some people enjoy a part of an episode more than others. The second you get that through your heads, the sooner we can all move on with our lives.
(Also, that's five episodes in a row that are hits. And, man, is that stinker going to hit harder because of it.)
52 notes · View notes
amuhseen2003 · 3 years
Text
SANDERS SIDES KARAOKE: GOTHIC LITERATURE MUSICALS EDITION
Okay, so after four years of being in the Sanders Sides fandom, I’m going to attempt to write some headcanons. Here we go.
Since it’s well-known in fanon that the sides do have karaoke sessions, imagine what would happen if they sang musicals based on gothic literature.
Roman’s happy because broadway, duh, Logan is happy because it’s canon that he enjoys gothic literature since he dressed up as Frankenstein’s monster for Halloween, same reason for Virgil and Patton’s happy that his family is bonding. He made extra cookies for the occasion. He’s dangerous like that. 
(I headcanon that when Thomas had to write analyses of gothic literature novels for school, Virgil, Roman and Logan would work together to come up with stuff and write the best essays in class and Patton would be so proud of them)
I’m not going to count Les Mis because I’m not too sure if that counts as gothic literature and whilst the Hunchback of Notre Dame is indeed gothic (trust me I read that in a plane once. An entire, like, ten pages is dedicated to describing the scenery) I don’t think it became a broadway show.
Now this isn’t like their usual karaoke nights, no sir. Just idly remaining in the living room won’t do. Where is the gusto? The pizazz? The accolade winning extravaganza? The-
“We get it Princey, can you just get on with it?” - Virgil
No, this type of singing can only be accompanied with an atmosphere that will do it justice. To the imagination they go and with Logan’s (who has practically memorised every single one of these books and is not geeking out at all) input on how the novels describe each setting, Roman creates very intricate landscapes for each song.
When they sing ‘Alive’ from ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ Roman thought that it would be really cool for Patton to play Mr Edward Hyde since Hyde is literally the human id and Patton, being the embodiment of morality, is literally the superego (although to be fair, Patton is also shown to be quite childish and impulsive since he’s also the base of Thomas’ emotions and Hyde is impulsive because he’s a way for Jekyll to act on his own emotions - especially since the only crime that Hyde does in the book are him over-reacting with his anger by beating a man to death. And in the novella, Jekyll writes that he and Hyde are like father and son and that Hyde is actually younger than Jekyll is, he does have that sense of childishness that Patton has only instead of that childishness being good and helpful, it’s bad and hurtful. Plus in the soundtrack of Alive, whilst Anthony Warlow does sing about how good being evil feels like, he also sounds like he is crying tears of joy of being able to be himself, the first words post-transformation being freedom and anyways these are supposed to be fun headcanons not analytical headcanons so I digress…)
Anyways Patton is happy to play the villain because “look kiddos, Roman conjured up this really swell cape” “the correct term is cloak” “and check out this top hat and cane!” and he’s just belting out the words and froliking around Victorian London without a care in the world, making his cape swoosh in the wind.
“Patton I would advise you not to take your shoes off. This is nineteenth-century London with people dying of cholera by the dozens, your feet could catch a myriad of infections.”
“Worry not, specs, the scenery is merely an illusion. I would never allow for our dear padre to succumb to the villain of illness”
“Aww, thanks kiddo (cue Patton’s sunshine smile) now where was I? IT’S THE FEELING OF BEING ALIVE! FILLED WITH EVIL AND TRULY ALIVE!”
They have Logan sing ‘I Need To Know’ because a doctor of science singing about wanting to expand his knowledge and having that thirst to do whatever it takes to get said knowledge. That is a Logan Sanders song right there. At first he’s like “why do I have to sing. I was happy enough giving directions and helping you with the scenery” but Roman creates this big scientific library that could rival the one from Beauty and the Beast/ laboratory from that’s practically the identical to Jekyll’s lab in the book and he’s like “Fine” like he isn’t enjoying himself. He is. They all know it. He’s not fooling anyone
Patton and Roman sing ‘Bring on the men’ together (yes, whilst wearing dresses) whilst Virgil and Logan drink apple juice from those big british beer glasses in the mind-scape created Red Rat (which Logan is quick to point out doesn’t exist and is vocally upset at how the musical adaptation added unnecessary romantic subplots with Lisa and Lucy when the book itself only had three background female characters who were only there for like one paragraph. He’s even more upset at the other inaccuracies with the book like how in the play Jekyll creates his formula as a cure for mental illness and Hyde was accidental whilst in the book he did it because he wanted to indulge in sin without fearing the consequences and Hyde, whilst not being exactly what he wanted, was actually created on purpose or how in the book Hyde only kills one man and in the musical he kills practically everyone except for the one person he did kill. Virgil pats him on the back with sympathy). Roman and Virgil are sniggering at the sexual euphemisms at the end of the song whilst Patton’s confused. She just seems really enthusiastic about food.
Roman sings both parts of ‘Confrontation’ by himself. He gets a standing ovation.
He also does ‘Transformation’. The problem is that he was so good at sounding like he was in complete agony and near death that they had to stop the song prematurely because Patton was getting upset. Don’t worry, Pat gets lots of cuddles by Roman afterwords.
(You know what I might do some sides reacting to The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde later because 1. It’s my favourite book and 2. All four of them would have very interesting takes on it)
From the Frankenstein musical Virgil plays the criminal from ‘Say Amen’ because he wants to (seriously, the guy’s first words in the song are ‘I curse the day that I was born into a world so black with hate’) and Logan plays Victor Frankenstein but Patton refuses for his son to even pretend to be executed by the noose so they have Roman play a man wearing a british executioner outfit with a foam sword and the creative side just bonks the anxious side on the neck with it. Logan despairs about the historical inaccuracy from his place in the stands whilst Patton is cheering next to him. Patton also hands him an extra jumper to keep him warm in the Switzerland cold. 
“Patton, I am grateful that you are thinking of my health but no one in eighteenth century Switzerland wore bright blue jumpers with cartoon kittens on them”
“Really, Logan, are you paw-sitive?”
“I would like to change places with Virgil. Immediately” 
Roman and Logan turn ‘Birth to my creation’ into a duet because Logan enjoys the scientific aspect of it and Roman can’t resist the drama (of course). He goes all out. He makes Victor’s lab perfect to the smallest detail (and cheers when Logan’s eyes start lighting up and he does that cute clappy thing when he’s excited), he conjures a storm and makes lightning strike at the best moments of the song. He even creates a ‘wretch’ (what Victor calls the monster in the book. I’ve heard that it’s name is Adam but all I remember from the novel is Victor calling himself god and the creature his Adam) to lie on the table. 
“And we didn’t even have to go grave-robbing for it. Or drop out of University.” - Roman
“No matter how many times I wanted to.” - Virgil
Roman and Virgil do most of the songs from Dracula. The creative side creates this huge, expensive-looking window-balcony thing with glass double doors and billowing silk curtains so that he could dramatically sing ‘the longer I live’ whilst the wind blows through his hair and he dramatically drapes himself on the balustrade so that the light from the full moon hits his figure just right. Patton’s close to crying.
Logan is very eager to give as many facts as he can about nineteenth-century mental institutions for ‘The Master’s Song’. He gets really into the history behind certain treatments and different cases. Roman plays Renfield and the others play doctors. 
Virgil is super into Dracula’s castle during ‘Life after life’. He and Roman duet that song wearing all-black. Logan tries to help Patton’s slight fear by telling him the history behind different pieces of architecture.
Patton plays Christine during Phantom of the Opera
Roman, Virgil and Logan sing ‘A story told’ from The Count of Monte Cristo around a circular table in a dimly lit tavern. Patton takes pictures and drinks hot chocolate in the sidelines.
28 notes · View notes
popculturebuffet · 3 years
Text
Ducktales Review: The First Adventure! or Baby Donald Says Eat the Rich
Tumblr media
Welcome back. I’d been looking forward to this one for some time in the hopes of getting one thing i’ve been waiting for.. sadly that thing didn’t come, we’ll get to that, but this was still a fun episode so let’s hop right in. Spoilers in a second but my tag is spoiler tagged soooo.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We open in the 1960′s. Austin Powers just went into Cryo Freeze to prepare for Dr. Evil’s eventual return, The Marvel Universe was in full swing, a teenager in baltimore was battling racisim via a dance show, and Black Heron had just been caught by Agent 22, aka Beakly when she was young and just as gorgeous then as she is now. Heron once again engaged in her usual cartoonish supervillian, and now SHUSH has her.  Meanwhile in a nearbye room a young accountant by the name of Bradford Buzzard is outlining his plan for Director Von Drake: The way he sees it every time a villian costs chaos Shush “Wastes” billions causing MORE chaos to stop it without controlling things. He proposes taking over the world, weeding out the chaos and ruling from the shadows. Naturally, Ludvig isn’t on board with any of this and points out they aren’t super villains. It’s here this episode fully defines something about Bradford’s character. Back in “Let’s Get Dangerous!” when Huey called him a villain, he said he’s not one... at least from his point of view. It’s here, in his youth we get a clear understanding why he dosen’t think so: So far most people we’ve seen in the world of Ducktales take the chaos and insanity of the world in stride: Either just numb to it like most of the citizens, Rolling with it like Daisy and Violet, or diving straight into it like.. pretty much the majority of the cast, either for the love of adventure and treasure like the McDuck/Duck family, or for their own ludcrious ends like Glomgold, Mark Beaks or Magica. To them the world’s fine the way it is and there’s to explore, take or whatever.  To Bradford.. this is madness... he feels all these people are just a bunch of overgrown children, and in some cases actual children, are just making the world worse and worse until one day their going to break it. One day skill, intuition, wit, and knowledge just wont’ be enough. Someday Scrooge, SHUSH or whoever’s standing in the way of evil will fail and the world will fall. This simply can’t go on, and SOMEONE has to control this, someone has to take this world, shake the chaos out of it and MAKE it sane. Make it work the way it’s SUPPOSED to. And to Bradford that’s him. Someone has to, no one else will, so he will. To him SHUSH doing this is just the logical thing: They want peace right? Their fighting for good right? Then what’s better than making the world a utopia? Ending these conflicts and remaking it.  The thing is.. that’s not what Heroes do. As we’ve seen in various stories where the superheroes, the Good Guys take over they do improve things.. but at the cost of free will. At the cost of free thought. At the cost of their morals. They become what they were fighting all those years and have to bloody their hands and keep them bloody just to make THEIR world right. And that’s not Utopia, that’s a dictatorship. The example I always come to, even though there were ones before and after this including Marvel’s incredible Squadron Supreme maxi-series, is Justice League the animated series’ two parter, like most of their episodes really but that’s not the point, a Better World, about an alternate reality where Superman kills Lex Luthor after Luthor kills the flash and hte League take over the world. The thing is.. the world isn’t BETTER. It’s just crime free. You can sweep the chaos and the crime under the rug.. but your not making a better world, your just making YOUR version of it. No one person is a god even if they have a power of one and no one person can or SHOULD be able to decide what’s best for everyone. It’s up to each of us to MAKE the world better, to fight for a better world. That’s what Ludvig knows full well and what Bradford just can’t see. You can’t control the world, you just have to accept the things you can’t change like it being chaotic and change the things you can like injustice. 
Bradford however, who was hired as a favor to his grandmother, can’t though Von Drake lets him off with a warning.. and a laugh about an accountant being able to be a super villian. Bradford however realizes ther’es some truth to that.. he needs someone to teach him out to operate outside the law, and if SHUSH won’t take the world and remake it.. maybe it’s time someone else did.  So in the prison cells of SHUSH, which are conveniently empty outsdide of Heron, Bradford outlines his plan to her. To create a massive orgnization to steal the world and give it the order it needs. To combine their skills: Heron’s for grandeur and crime, and Bradfords for strategy and focus, to take the world. The Orginzation for World Larceny, or OWL, fitting bradford’s hatred for theatrics. Heron objects, adding an F for fiendish, and Bradford relucntantly agrees to get her on board, lets her loose and fakes like he just saw her escape. FOWL is born. And the world would never be the same. Cue credits and cue the rest of the review under the cut. 
After the opening we cut to 1994-5.. sometime around then as it’s hard to get an exact year, and that’s how the crew likes it. Point is it’s the 90′s, and Scrooge is.. busy running his company. We’ll get into the weeds of that in a bit, but this is a different Scrooge, one who while no less capable, has no thirst for adventure or drive. He’s not nearly as miserable as the Scrooge we saw back in Woo-Ooo but he’s still a much less complete man. Anyways alongside him for his planning is Duckworth, whose very much alive at this time, and who tells his boss his sister Hortense left something in his office for him.  To no one suprise, that thing is the twins, at the tender age of i’m guessing 10. Since your probably curious, Della is still voiced by Paget Brewster, just using a slightly different voice like the Triplets and Webby’s voice actors do. It’s just a bit more jarring here since unlike those characters, we’ve seen adult della and thus are used to this voice coming out of a grown woman. It’s not bad and I got used to it eventually but it was jarring at first especially since once again Donald has a completely diffrent voice ACTRESS doing his voice.  This time around it’s cristina valenzuela, of Miraculous Ladybug fame, who I know more for her song work and twitter than her actual work ,but am delighted to see her here and she does a terrific job. I genuneily did not realize it was her, and while not exactly like the late great russi taylor, it is just similar enough to work. 
So we get to see what the Twins were like when they were the Triplets age: Della is about the same, but with more of Dewey’s impulsiveness, and Donald, much like he’d be a few years and some dead parents later, is a bitter, grungey musician whose constantly on his guitar and railing against the man.. which is Scrooge in this case which is fair. Hortense left a note.. which bothered me as I genuinely expected her to show up and was majorly disappointed she did not. We are in year 4 of this series, season 3 and STILL no appearance of Hortense or mention how she died, as she and Quackmore are still alive by the end of this. Given she’s easily my faviorite part of Life and Times, this bothered me, and the only reason i’m not more upset.. is the clever way they wrote around actually using her. The letter she leaves for Scrooge explaining things is the same one Della herself used in the comic strip, and using a bit of the postcard she left in the cartoons, when leaving Huey, Dewey and Louie with Donald, down to the Twins having left a firecracker in their fathers seat, thus leaving him in the hosptial. As disappointed as I am my favorite Ginger is completely absent once again, this is a brilliant reference, and I have to give them credit for it, so it’s a fair enough trade off.  As for his “Angel Nephew and Niece”, Della wants to dive into adventure while Donald struggles to write a song, singing throughout the episode. It varies in tolerablity, though mostly due to the writing, Cristina is doing fine. Della however is disappointed to find her legendary uncle views his past exploits as merley a means to an end to get his fortune and now he has it he can just focus on building it in the boardroom. This is an intresting take.. and one I could easily have seen happening to the Don Rosa version seen in Life and Times. The Scrooge there himself saw building his wealth as the most important thing until his encounter with Teddy Rosevelt, who taught him experince was what mattered and the having isn’t as fun as the getting. It works for me: This is a scrooge who never got that lesson so once he got to be richest duck in the world, having achieved his life’s goal nothing was left. He’s not miserable like the Scrooge we saw at the start of the series, having lost his love for adventure after loosing his niece/daughter, and having lost his fight. This one has retired.. but because he likely just sees no point in going on. He’s the richest duck in the world, has a vast empire.. no amount of treasure is really going to add to that like it used to, and as he points out in a second Shush has tons of agents at this point to clean up what’s left of FOWL. He’s the man who has everything, so why keep going. It’s weird to see a scrooge without the hunger to keep going, but it makes sense when his belly is full. Without someone to get him to see there’s always another rainbow, he just stopped chasing them. Also a fun nod to the comics I almost forgot to mention is when hearing about the “Gift”, i.e. the twins, Scrooge dreads it’s another surprise party, a nod to life and times where Hortense threw Scrooge one that went.. badly and lead to their entire relationship collapsing. Though Donald did get back at Scrooge for screaming at his parents and Auntie Matilda
Tumblr media
However his busy day is disrupted with a call from Beakly. They’ve found the last known cordinates of Captain Yellowbeak, but FOWL is on them and Scrooge is the only one Beakly trusts for this since they have a leak. Beakly is also director of SHUSH at this point, with Von Drake having retired or died or both at this point. Scrooge reluctantly accepts, while Della is excited at the prospect of a real adventure and Donald ends up sharing her enthusasim as it’d make a good song. Scrooge, naturally, has no intention of bringing them with him to their disapointment and leads Donald to sing another “Suck it the man song” which totally isn’t about Scrooge.... spoilers: It entirely is, he’s just a little dumbass grunge baby and I love him.  We then get a cute sequence of Della popping up in Scrooge’s Luggage and Trunk to try and convince him to let them tag along, before we cut to the Limo, driven by Duckworth at this point, which solves that mystery. Scrooge is firm in having his butler take them back and have them work with him and Duckworth’s fine with that.. but wants overtime, which is fair. Scrooge, being Scrooge, grumbles about not being made of money, proven wrong by gold spilling out of him. Though I do like the update of Scrooge’s classic cheapness when it comes to pay: INstead of barely paying his employees like a monster, he’s simply reluctant to pay extra if he dosen’t have to, and would rather drag two 10 year olds with him on a dangerous adventure than pay overtime, which tracks. It’s also clear if he had to he WOULD actually pay it, either due to legal reasons or his moral standards, he just isn’t happy about it. So he agrees, though he wants Donald to leave the guitar behind which.. given the most Donald’s been able to come up with is “Suck it THE MAN” and “This guy’s a greedy asshole”.. he’s extremely correct and when Donald tries to pull a “YOU CAN’T CENSOR ME MANNNN”, Scrooge just chucks it out of the car.  At the airfield while Della is excited like an rabid chipmunk, and genuinely thinks she can fly a plane because she’s played Outrunner 2.. which I have only vaguely heard of before now. And is apparently just a pc game where you run a lot so I genuinely do not get where Della gets piloting from that.. but she IS Dewey’s mother. So with that in mind the family take off and Scrooge explains what their after: The Papyrus of Binding. It’s a dangerously powerful magical artifact from Ancient Egypt that will make whatever’s written on it happen. The dangerous part is that it’s incredibly literal: As Bradford puts later in the episode, ask for unlimited power, it might zap you dead with a million volts, ask for infinite wealth, prepare to be crushed underneath it. It’s a nice twist on a Monkey’s Paw or Jackass Genie situation. Instead of either the source of the wish granting magic just being inherently evil, or some dickhead screwing with the hero.. it’s just an object that has no ability to interpret nuance, just like your phone with the goddamn autocorrect. It can’t judge intent or tone or meaning, it just gives exactly what it’s asked. It’s a thoroughly interesting concept. 
Something I really like about this episode is the fact it answers some little questions. While none were Hortense related, and I am still grumpy about that even with this coming out a good 17 hours after I watched it due to getting caught up with other stuff, it does have little touches that explain small parts of the lore: Who drove Scrooge? As just mentioned, Duckworth. Who flew scrooge? Paid pilots. Did he have a plane before the sunchaser? Yup. It fills in some small gaps in the world. Stuff we weren’t dying to know but’s stil lintresting. Said pilots in this case however are Heron and Bradford. This episode also fills in Heron’s character, as while we’ve already seen bits and pieces this season she LOVES being a classic, take over the world james bond type villian, like she stepped out of a duck version of kim possible.. and i’m just now realizing there probably IS a duck kim possible somewhere in this world as while far after disney afternoon, it fits too neatly to not be wedged in there with your tailspins and goof troops. I wouldn’t be suprised if there were brid versions of every human based disney afternoon and one saturday morning show. My.. my head’s swimming from this. I could be, and probably am wrong but the sheer idea of this... it’s amazing.  Back to Heron, she just LOVES being evil and destructive, letting the world know she exists and operating on a grand scale. Now we’ve seen more of her while she’s Beakly’s nemisis.. she’s really an evil scrooge.. yes another one. Like Scrooge, at least how he normally is,  she simply gets how the world of Ducktales operates and can take advantage of that to the best of her ablility. Just like adventuering, cartoonish supervilliany is about risk and reward.. sometimes you faceplamnt hard, that’s the risk, but the rewards and rush is worth it. She’s as addicted to grandoise villiany as Scrooge is to adventure by this point. And like Scrooge, and unlike her partner Bradford, she sees the world as it is: Chaotic and one big sandbox to play in. She contrasts Scrooge by the fact that while Scrooge is willing to bust down doors, he still has morals, as well as the wisdom to not go overboard Heron often lacks. It also makes her a good contrast ot the equally skilled Beakly: While Beakly is taciturn, controlled in all things especially her emotions, Heron is bombastic, gloating and borderline insane, and while deadly in a fight, dosen’t exercise any control in her plans, preferring it big and loud despite her partner usually being right about reiging it in.  So Heron evacuates dramatically, taking a grumpy Bradford with them, and sending the plane into a tailspin. 
youtube
I can’t wait for Next Year’s Tailspin episode. I swear to god. I’m hoping for Shere Kahn but this episode has taught me to be okay with disapointment, if a grumpus. Della however shows her natural talent and despite having no real experince with planes, lands it gracefully. While that’s going on, Bradford berates Heron for her plan, pointing out that they COULD have simply landed the plane, then captured the McDuck family and executed them quitely, versus leaving a chance they’ll survive which they do. They AREN’T supervillains.. or at least he thinks he isn’t. Heron does show off her competence though, pointing out that this way they can simply stay low, and FOLLOW the Ducks to the treasure. Bradford is impressed for a second.. till Heron’s evil shows as she plans to use the Papyrus. Bradford loudly objects to this, listing the possible risks shown before. If not used CAREFULLY, it could kill them, and she balks and wants him to just embrace being the Villian already. It’s what I love about their dynamic set up here: While they are equals, Bradford is a better strategist, able to think and plan way in advance, and prefers subterfuge, and if present day is any indicatoin probably used Heron’s flash to distract from the real mission or goal often or to do something on the down low while she kept SHUSH busy. His last two plans, while again requiring some pizzaz, relied on misdrection: having the ducks take care of an immidate threat like their used to.. while he gets exactly what he wants while their busy and whatever they get out of it is either nothing (Impossibin) or something he couldn’t use just yet and thus if he didn’t get it, no loss, but if he did it just moves up the timetable. Not only that but he’s outlasted all three other big bads, lying in the shadows till it was too risky to leave scrooge and play and even THEN, only coming out into the open when forced out. IT’s why he’s Scrooge’s most dangerous opponent: He knows how Scrooge’s other enmities operates as well as Scrooge himself. And since he knows everything he can maneuver Scrooge exactly where he needs him to do exactly what he wants. It’s unknown how the family will beat him, but he’s easily the biggest challenge they’ve had. 
But back to the show and the past, Scrooge bonds with his niece and nephew, retelling stories of his past as they get closer, with Donald ending up high at one point and thus seeing the ship stranded on a mountain. As he recounts a fight with El Capitan, the villian from the ducktales 87 pilot, he counts the story as as a loss: He didn’t get anything from it, no treasure no new contracts. But Della shows him the point he’s been missing; He got a story. Sure he lost.. but he got experince, a tale to tell and a legend grown.Just because you don’t get everything dosen’t mean it wasn’t worth the experince and you can’t hold it in your heart. And this episode shows why this scrooge needed his family: Without Teddy to mentor him, he simply never got that adventure wasn’t about gains or what you get.. it’s about the thrill of it, the enjoyment of discovery and the memories you make.. it’s about the Journey not the destination. 
As Scrooge starts to warm up to that, he finds a gap, with Della volunteering Donald to jump but Scrooge just having the kids hop on his back and pogo caneing across. The family find the Papyrus, and find out why the ship is all the way up here: Captain Yellowbeak, who’s a character from one of barks stories and the one who had the scroll last, wished to escape.. but that just stranded them. He asked for water.. and it drowned his crew.. and finally with the document hteir reading he asked for release... and thus is now a skelington. The kid are happy to have reached the goal.. while Scrooge is back on his Zack Morris phone trying to reschedule things and schedule a SHUSH evac, to the kids annoyance. However Scrooge raining on their parade gets interupted by Heron and Bradford, as Heron can’t resist popping out dramatically and Bradford is UTTERLY furious since she blew his cover, and Scrooge recognizes him from his christmas party, a nice callback. Scroog being scrooge figures out he’s the mole and Bradford runs , furious at Heron. Their conflict is an intresting one: Both have a point but both will not back down. Bradford is right this showboating nonsense has only hindered Heron’s plans.. and Heron is right that Bradford needs to accept he’s the bad guy. Even if he has well meaning motives, he’s the villian, he works with them, he leads them.. he is one.  He just can’t accept he’s wrong or dosen’t have the answers... huh.. I wonder who that reminds you of. And that’s 100% intentional as Frank has outright compared Huey and Bradford and like last season it’s neat to have the main vilian contrast our chosen Duck for the season. 
Heron outfoxes the kids and gets the papyrus and being just an enitrely black hearted bitch, plans to kill them just to spite scrooge.. writing that “his sidekicks will perish on this mission.”.... but Scrooge’s character development, and her choice of words, means nothing happens. As Scrooge outlines, “Their not my sidekicks their my FAMILY, and this isn’t a mission, it’s an ADVENTURE”. Scrooge has finally accepted his life for what it really is.. and the thrill of the chase over what lies at the end. There’s always anothe rainbow.. and he’s finally become the man who will chase every last one. 
OF course this is interupted, and Heron escapes with the papyrus, when a skeletal pirate attacks.. why is Yellow Beak alive, why’d the scroll do this?
Tumblr media
But we get a neat fight as Scrooge fights the skeleton while he sends the kids after Heron. Scrooge gets a cool looking swordfight, while Bradford gets the papyrus, and Yellowbeak even terrifies me what with his bestial roll and fucking centepede crawling out of him.. jesus those things freak me out.  Meanwhile the kids battle Heron, who throws della overboard... and thus for the first time, Donald taps into his beserker rage, snikty snoink, and easily incapaciates the more experinced and fully grown adul, though Della since we’eve been following her kids for the past three seasons, is fine, if suprised by her brother being the goddamn wolverine. 
While heron is out for a second, Scrooge heads after Bradford, and vows to tell Beakly and chase him all across the world. However Bradford gets an utterly awesome moment.. he admits scrooge may be right and probably would.. but since he has the papayrus and is careful in everything he writes his request carefully and perfectly “As far as the ducks are concerned, I was never here.” Grante dit COULD have left scrooge out.. but since he didn’t sday duck family or specificy, and likely knew it’d do that, it instead just means the three bilogical ducks. Bradford dissappears, turning invisble and leaving the papyrus for scrooge, who foils heron by simply writing that this scroll will be lost until one day found by his heirs.
Tumblr media
So Heron takes a fall and looses an arm, again.. or for the first time.. the family is triumphant and despite loosing his goal, Scrooge is convinced he and the kids will find it again. See above. Scrooge then pulls out his phone and tells Duckworth to rework his schedule.. but it’s so he can find someone to run his comapny so he can spend more time with the kids. As for why Hortense would allow this before her still mysterious passing.. i’m guessing A) she notices her brother is happier and more alive than he’s been for a while and B) they just blew up their dad’s ass with a firecracker, and she won’t be able to use it for a while, so she’s double mad, so if it means she gets a moment’s peace and is with someone she trusts.. why not?
So we end on Scrooge packing up, preparing for further adventures.. i’d love a spinoff of this one day. I mean Disney plus needs it, and since Frank is probably going over to Darkwing.. maybe matt could take a crack at this. Just saying. You have the cast ready, a giant world to explore, and 15 years worth adventures. Run that baby damn you! But yeah the inevitble happens and Bradford further proves his magificent bastardry.. by appling for the position of running the company as head of Scrooge’s board, and setting up said board. So now FOWL has unlimited resources, he has a direct eye on what he now realizes is his greatest threat, and the complete trust and faith of both Scrooge and Beakly. It also puts Beakly’s breakdown in context: We now see WHY she went as far as she did: While the revelation was bad for Scrooge, finding out one of his most trusted allies was a traitor the whole time and knew everything about him, for Beakly.. it had to be worse. Finding out one of your best employees, one of the FEW people you ever trusted, and someone you DIRECTLY RECOMMENDED TO SCROOGE, was not only the man who set up your greatest enemies, but had compromised your organization for most of your career. IT’s no wonder she broke down so hard.. while I already gave several reason adding “This level of betrayal and self doubt to the list” only makes it that much harder on her. But for now a partnership is started.. one that very well may end scrooge. 
Final Thoughts: A pretty good episode overall. It’s well paced, to the point I probably forgot a LOT, has some good jokes, and fills in a lot of the gaps in the lore, while giving us a nice insight into bradford and heron. Even without hortense this was a pretty good episode. 
Upcoming Reviews: LIfe and Times; Master of the Mississippi Ride of the Three Cabbleros: The Three Cablleros (House of Mouse) Tomtrospective: Lava Lake Beach
51 notes · View notes
babyybitchhh · 2 years
Text
I’m relatively sure none of my followers will care but what is Tumblr for if not screaming into the void? Anyway, I impulsively started watching the OG Dragon Ball series back in August and I have been pleasantly surprised at how good it actually is. I don’t know what exactly I expected from THE biggest name in the anime industry worldwide but I have been consistently surprised by not only its overall charm but also the quality of the animation.
Considering it started airing in 1986, and I’ve seen plenty of other titles from this time period, I was a little caught off guard by how fluid and lively it can be at times, and with some regularity at that. Overall, it’s been a really good watch so far and I’m glad I chose this for my next long haul anime. For whatever reason, I have a habit of immersing myself in long running titles when I’m feeling some type of way and believe it or not it actually does help me reorient myself though I can’t exactly explain why. 😅
I have no idea what I’m gonna’ do with myself when I eventually exhaust all my available options at some point in the future but we’ll just cross that bridge when we get there lmao
But to get to the main point, you know I can’t watch something with a bunch of buff dudes beating the shit out of each other without developing A Thirst for a few of them, and I actually went into this with a certain amount of curiosity regarding Vegeta. He was the first anime character I consciously daydreamed about in a self insert kind of way (innocently, mind you, because I was like 7 or 8 at the time lmao) and I’ve been eager to find out if he still gives me the doki doki’s and in what way since I’ll be looking at him through the eyes of an adult now.
Unfortunately, I have to get through almost 200 episodes before I can meet him again. 😂 But I’ll circle back around to that here in a sec.
Working my way through the first few arcs, I unexpectedly found myself really quite taken by Yamcha which is not an interest I can say I had beforehand. His himbo behavior is admittedly quite appealing to me and while I wouldn’t say I’m head over heels, I do like him quite a bit. I’m well aware of all the jokes surrounding him but I didn’t watch DBZ religiously enough when it was on Toonami* to really understand why he has the reputation he does so as of this moment all I’m seeing is a good boy doing his best in these streets. The fact he cut his hair entirely at Bulma’s request just to make her happy assures me his heart is in the right place and I appreciate him for that.
*I want to make it clear that I was a very casual viewer back in the day. The arc I was most up to date with at any given point was the Namek saga so I’m going into this more or less blind. I remember catching bits of the fight with Raditz and I distinctly recall Vegeta and Nappa landing on earth (and all the warm fuzzy feelings I got every time Vegeta said or did anything lmao) but my experience with them was very incomplete. Likewise, I only caught bits and pieces of the Buu and Cell arcs but as it just so happened Cartoon Network was airing the Namek saga at like three or four in the morning during one of my summer breaks from school so I would say I got to watch probably 70% of it in it’s entirety. Which definitely helped my crush on Vegeta 😂
But anywho, Yamcha is currently the only valid thirst option where I’m at and he seems to have already been relegated to a background character so I don’t have a whole lot going on in that regard. I will say, however, that I am absolutely obsessed with baby Goku. 😭 He’s so cute I almost don’t know what to do with myself. Just last night I watched the episode where they had to escape from an undersea cave that was actively collapsing and he stopped to look for a mouse he’d seen so he could save its life and I just … I’ve only had baby Goku for about three months now but if anything were to happen to him I’d kill everyone in this room and then myself. Such a good boy.
Back to the topic of thirst though … 👀 I just happened to see a thread on /a/ the other day talking about how Vegeta’s character has changed so much between his debut and now, and seeing those screenshots of how he looked in the Saiyan and Namek arcs really flipped a switch in my brain. People rarely seem to focus on that time period of the storyline in favor of more recent events (understandable, considering how old they are and the fact they’ve probably been discussed to the point of nausea already) but my interest was officially peaked, so of course my curious ass started looking through his tag here on Tumblr and phew girl 😮‍💨
I’m a little shook at how intensely my attraction has resparked just from these breadcrumbs and I’m more excited than ever to get to his introduction. I think I’ve still got something like 140 episodes to go, which is definitely a little rough, but I’m here for it either way. Lol I will say though, I’m a LITTLE surprised at how few self insert fics there are for the series but also this is a trend I’ve noticed with other long running shonen of the past as well. One Piece, Naruto, Bleach - these fandoms by and large seem to be more interested in canon character shipping, which is certainly valid, but it also just goes to show how (for lack of a better term) revolutionary the current fandom landscape actually is.
It’s basically a given now that modern shonen, in particular, will produce a slew of self insert content once they reach a certain level of popularity and I just think that’s so very sexy that we’ve collectively decided to forego using a canon character to vicariously live through (the first example to come to mind is Sakura, I know y’all don’t ship her with every single attractive character under the sun just because - and the wild discrepancy in her characterization is further proof of that, these people are not slick when they’re pairing her with Kakashi, Shikamaru, Kiba, Sasori, Itachi, Madara, etc but completely ignoring the dudes who aren’t widely considered good looking like Choji and Lee) (that being said, I respect the fuck out of people who do ship Sakura and Lee because they’re speaking their truth unapologetically and I think you can tell it’s not coming from a self insert angle but rather a genuine interest in the ship itself but anyway) I cannot stress how, like … frowned upon self inserting used to be. It was absolutely the minority in every single fandom and the oftentimes cringe worthy OC’s people would make did NOT help the overall opinion towards them either. It was much more acceptable to pick a female character you related to, or was most readily available to ship with your man of choice, and just live your best life through them. I, personally, always had a hard time vibing with this because I just can’t put myself in Sakura’s shoes like that and on the flip side it was nigh impossible to immerse in the OC content because they were not the (ideally) blank slates of today but rather Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way levels of wtf is even going on here.
Basically what I’m saying is that this generation of fandom peeps have really perfected the self insert experience in a way that I could have only dreamed of in the past, and every time I look into an older series with plenty of hot dudes to go around I’m reminded of just how bleak those days actually were. Hero Academia, Jojo, Haikyuu, etc have gone a long way in normalizing the idea of just going all in instead of keeping up the pretense or masking our intentions for the sake of being seen as “acceptable” by the rest of the fandom - and I know there are still people out there who snub their nose at self inserters but the sheer amount of staying power y’all have exhibited has been genuinely inspiring. I can honestly say that I probably never would have gotten back into writing had it not been for the blogs churning out more self shipping content than I could keep up with for OsoSan which unequivocally told me, hey. You’re not the only one who would rather fuck that man yourself with no canon character or overly detailed OC to get in the way. Just you and that good good 2D dick. 😩
TL;DR - I’m currently finding myself smitten with Vegeta all over again and the slim pickings of self insert content is reminding me how much I love and appreciate you guys, and yes it’s inspiring me to get back on the saddle again. I love being able to read and share thirst with everyone here, and as someone who knows too well how disappointing it is to have a hard time finding content for your fave it always fills me with such joy when I can give someone else that hit of serotonin. 🥰 Hugs and kisses, I WILL be back in full force soon and thank you to everyone who’s waited for me.
4 notes · View notes
bluejayblueskies · 3 years
Text
a rose by any other name would smell as sweet
Part 23 of Whumptober 2020
Fandom: The Magnus Archives Characters: Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood Tags: Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Very Very Long Naps
Read on Ao3
Martin remembers what it had been like, vaguely—to step over the threshold of Upton House and feel months of sleeplessness and hunger and thirst and filth accumulate on and within him all at once. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like—being exhausted to your very core, being startlingly mortal in your physical needs. Being human. He’d reveled in it, just for a moment, as his mind recognized his body’s old habits and sighed with a sort of content.
 Then, weakness and fatigue had crushed him with the weight of a thousand sufferings, and he’d collapsed. For 71 hours, apparently. He supposes when they say you can’t catch up on sleep, they don’t count on you staying awake for a literally uncountable amount of days.
 Now, as he watches the last eye overhead blink out of existence, its gaze burning through him until the very end, he feels that same crushing exhaustion return tenfold, nearly collapsing him on the spot, as the world lets out a collective sigh and mortality makes itself known once more. His hand tightens around Jon’s as he feels his knees weaken and his mind begin to turn fuzzy and blurred, and he knows that Jon’s feeling the same by the way he sways slightly, bumping into Martin’s side.
 “That’s… that’s it then?” Martin manages to say, tongue heavy with sleep that longs to claim it. “We… we fixed everything?”
 “I…” Jon trails off, and Martin thinks it’s just the exhaustion catching up to him, but when he glances over with blurry eyes, he sees that Jon’s forehead is knit in confusion. “I don’t know,” he says quietly.
 “You… you don’t…” Martin frowns, but the words slip from his tongue like water on wax and his mind can’t quite catch them.
 “I… I can’t…” Jon slumps fully into Martin’s side, the sharp angle of his elbow pressing into Martin’s stomach. “Too many… threads…”
 He sways, just once, and then collapses against Martin. And when darkness comes to claim Martin as well, he can do nothing but let it.
.
When Martin finally feels sleep release him, it does so to bright yellow light streaming in through a dusty window and a scratchy woven comforter slung over him that’s just a bit too hot. He groans and shifts, and his elbow comes into contact with something soft and pliant.
 He looks over, and a vibrant warmth curls within his chest.
 Jon’s next to him, still asleep and relaxed in a way Martin hasn’t seen him in months—hell, maybe in years. The persistent dark smudges under his eyes have faded into the barest hint of grey, and the lack of tension in his body makes Martin realize with a start that he’s actually sleeping, all of himself contained within his own mind, no parts stretched to touch the minds of others, to consume their suffering even under the guise of rest.
 He feels so unbelievably, uncontrollably happy, just for a moment, as peace finally begins to make its home in his chest.
 Then, he remembers what had come after the peace and happiness—the blank stares, the lost trains of thought and memories that slipped through fingers like water, the lack of Jon Martin saw when he looked into Jon’s eyes as they stepped back over the threshold and into the thrumming fear that called to them—and he’s seized by an all-too familiar terror.
 He reaches for Jon, but his hand stills just shy of his shoulder. He hesitates, just a moment, before his fingers curl back in toward his palm and he slowly retracts his hand. It might be the same as before, he thinks with a twisting sensation deep within him. It might not. Either way, he just- he can’t interrupt what little true peace Jon may have left. Not over a fear that can be dealt with in its own time. If it need be dealt with at all.
 Besides, his stomach is currently doing its very best to consume itself, and his tongue is dry and sticky with thirst, so he carefully extracts himself from the bed and moves to the door of the bedroom. It hasn’t escaped his notice that this is not the safehouse, nor is it anywhere that strikes a sense of familiarity within Martin. His hand closes on the door handle, and he offers a quick prayer to a God he has long since stopped believing in that this safety has been offered by genuine hands.
 He opens the door and steps out.
 He’s alone. Perhaps that should be a relief, to not have fallen into yet another trap with no escape. Perhaps he should be disappointed, to not see a familiar face—though there had been so few left at the end.
 He just feels tired again. So, with a sigh and weary steps, he makes his way to the kitchen to put the kettle on.
.
Upon the fridge, adhered with a magnet of a black-and-white cartoon spider:
 Martin,
 I do hope you and Jon are doing well. I suppose congratulations are in order—it couldn’t have been easy, bringing the world back into balance. Of course, now that the Ceaseless Watcher has—well, has ceased watching, I suppose—there’s a gap to fill, but don’t concern yourselves with that. We have it quite covered. Just rest now—you’ve earned it.
 As for the house—it’s yours. Call it a thank-you gift for all you’ve done these past few years. You’ll find the cabinets well-stocked, and there’s a university nearby with two staff openings that I believe you’ll find suit your needs exactly. It really is a lovely little town—quite similar to that Scottish one you both seemed so fond of. That one’s gone now, of course, remade in this world’s recreation, so this will have to do. But don’t worry—you’ll like it here.
 Also, please do let Jon know that should he need anything—anything at all—all he has to do is ask. After all, this is a wonderful new world that we live in—I think he’ll find that it will suit him quite nicely. Do make sure he remembers that.
 Annabelle Cane
 In the other room, Jon blinks awake.
.
They’re sitting in one of the green spaces of the university, on a wooden bench shadowed by a spiraling tree that looms just a bit too tall overhead. The birds that chirp from its branches are slightly too low-pitched, just a bit too harsh. Though they’re the only ones who notice. Who know. Who, when the world had been flipped on its axis, had been fortunate enough to Watch.
 Jon stares at the employee badge in his hand, proudly proclaiming him a new professor of information and library science, with a detached look in his eyes. “I… I just asked for it, Martin,” he says, running the pad of his thumb over the block letters that spell out his name: Dr. Jonathan Blackwood-Sims. “He… when he handed it to me, he said, ‘Welcome aboard,’ but his eyes, they were… I don’t think he actually saw me.”
 Martin fiddles with his own employee badge, labeling him Admissions Coordinator like that’s something he’s even remotely qualified for, and remembers with an unsettling twist of his stomach the way the man who handed him his badge had looked as he moved, his motions just a bit too stilted to be quite his own. He thinks of the note, left pinned to the fridge, and Jon’s maintained coherency, and the gap to be filled, and doesn’t particularly like the picture it paints. “Maybe he was just… tired,” Martin says, knowing it’s a bad excuse but letting it blanket them anyway. “And… thought you were someone else.”
 The dry look Jon shoots Martin matches that of the picture on his employee badge, and Martin gives up. “Yeah, okay, fine. Point taken.” They sit in silence for a few moments, letting the sounds of wind through the leaves and the gentle murmur of students passing by numb them to the growing unease within. Then, quietly, Martin says, “So that’s what Annabelle meant, then? When she said to- to ask.”
 Jon stares at the ground. “I don’t know.”
 “Because I would have thought that with the Eye gone, you’d be- I don’t know, released or something, not just pawned off to the closest available fear—”
 “I don’t know, Martin!” Jon’s eyes are alight with a raw desperation as he turns them from the ground to Martin. “I- I don’t know. I don’t feel different, but- but I also don’t feel like I’m fading, like I’m losing myself like I did before. I don’t know if that means that I’m- I’m just severed completely, if that’s even possible, or if I’m tied to the Web now, or if it’s something new entirely, something in between the Eye and the Web, or if it’s none of those things! I can’t know anymore.” Jon’s hand grips the badge so tightly Martin can see it cutting red lines into the flesh of his hand, and a subtle terror begins to creep in behind the desperation in Jon’s eyes. “I can’t See anything, but apparently I can Ask, and I don’t know which is worse.”
 “Oh, Jon,” Martin says softly, and he puts his arm around Jon’s shoulders and pulls him tightly to his side. Some of the tension bleeds out of Jon as Martin presses a gentle kiss to his temple. “I’m sorry.”
 “It’s.” Jon pauses, his breath hitching slightly. “It’s fine. It’s… whatever this is, I don’t think it’s something I can get rid of. Not… not like before. I’m… I’m stuck. Trapped.” Jon lets out a short, bitter laugh. “Though I suppose that’s rather the point, isn’t it?”
 “Maybe.” Martin glances out over the green, at the flowers coming into full bloom in the warm early summer air and the stone pavers that carve their way across the grass. It’s so alive, in a way that fills him with so much love and longing and joy it hurts him to contain it all, and he gets to share it with Jon. Jon, who he loves, who he married as soon as he possibly could because he couldn’t bear to lose his chance again. Jon, who he’d longed for for so long, through the Archives and the fears and the terrifying moments in that destroyed world when Martin thought he would lose him. Jon, who is his joy, chasing away the tendrils of fog that once curled around his heart and that still nip at his heels when he isn’t paying close enough attention. He can think of a thousand different words to describe what this world is to him, and what this world is to Jon, but trapped is not one of them.
 The Web doesn’t do favors, and it doesn’t offer kindness without expecting something in return. But this, Martin thinks, feels less like a kindness or a favor, and feels more like a thank you. And when faced with the scale of human suffering, a thank you feels quite all right.
 “It could be worse,” is all he says in the end, because he knows that Jon doesn’t want to hear another placation about how it’ll all be fine. Then, with a small smile, he adds, “After all, we have jobs now, and there’s a Sun in the sky again, and I love you.”
 There’s still uncertainty and distrust brimming in Jon’s eyes, undercut with something Martin thinks might be curiosity, but he lets himself relax into Martin’s side with a sigh. “I… suppose.” His hand finds Martin’s, and he threads their fingers together and squeezes, just once. “I love you too.”
 The wind blows through Martin’s curls, bringing with it the scent of cut grass and far-off rain, and he lets it soothe the last vestiges of nervousness that linger at the back of his mind, telling him that though this is a world that has righted itself, it has not quite given them the courtesy of being free.
10 notes · View notes
Text
Dobson’s favorite cartoon reviewed: The adventures of spandex girl in New York aka the Miraculous Ladybug movie
So THIS is not going to be about a Dobson comic, but rather with the lack of Dobson posting shit out here, I thought I give my opinion about something Dobson would have likely sperged out within the last few months. What could it be I want to talk about? The riots? The death of RBG? Cuties?
Are you insane? My brain may function better than Dobson’s, but even so I am not touching those subjects with a tong, seeing how I myself am lacking detailed knowledge on such subjects. No. I am talking about the cartoon that makes Dobson’s little brain (and dick) all tingly: Miraculous Ladybug.
For starters, let me just say that despite being an animation fan myself, I am not really into this show at all. For a magical girl show that goes on for over three seasons at this point, I just feel like nothing happens in it. Sure, A LOT of tokusatsu and magical girl shows run on repetitive monster of the week formulas, but overall they will still have some progression to themselves. Growing up with Sailor Moon, I always loved the first season and how it actually made me feel like things are increasingly at stake as the story progressed. Especially in the final episodes when the Senshis actually died protecting Sailor Moon and it was only thanks to a Deus ex machina everyone was reincarnated again. As melodramatic as Sailor Moon could be, at least each story arc had a beginning and ending that did not overstay its welcome. Ladybug meanwhile can be summed up as followed:
 Teenage girl is thirsty for obvious blond boy whose dad wants to get magic jewelry to necromance his comatose wife. Teenage girl gets magic jewelry and turns into heroine in ladybug mustered spandex suit that makes rule34 artists all tingly. Same goes for boy she has the hots for, only he becomes gimp catsuit shota bait. Bad guy transforms random citizens who feel down for some reason (often times connected to a blond whose family name Dobson can’t write) into action figure like super villains. Ladybug and Cat Noir defeat them, the damage is reseted, Ladybug and Cat Noir never figure out who the other one is despite things being so obvious Ray Charles could have seen that shit coming. Repeat not just for one, but ALL seasons so far and add as little as possible storywise to increase the roaster of characters, but not progress the plot.
 All that said, I can say that there are worse shows out there and for a show meant to sell toys to girls and be about a female hero, it is not THAT bad. But a) the creator is an asshole (think of functional Dobson) and b) there are still better shows to watch, even within the preteen magical girl genre, than this. Not to forget that this thing may be the indirect successor of Totally Spies and give certain people internet related fetishes within the next few years.
So, why am I believing Dobson would talk about the show at least for today more than he already tends to do on average? Because Ladybug actually got now a movie.
Well, it is called a movie, but in reality it is more of a 3 parter to start the fourth season if you really look into it. The thing is called Miraculous World: New York – United HeroeZ. It clocks in around 65 minutes and focuses on Marinette and Adrien in New York, teaming up with new heroes that are so unsubtlety promoted in this movie, I expect them to get their own spin off series by the end of next year so the showmakers can milk the cow even drier.
Let me try to elaborate in what is going to be a less than just a bit snarky summary with a few critical points and jokes at Dobson’s expense thrown in here. In other words, the typical biased youtube reaction channel/movie review.  Spoiler warnings are obvious and I promise than unlike certain pedos on youtube I am not going to focus on the assets of underaged French girls. I do warn however for increased levels of making a fool of myself by writing a multi page “mock summary” of this thing.
So because the movie is based on a children show, it has a very basic set up; Adrien and Marinette’s class is invited to spend one week in New York, because of a pointless international collaboration thing referred to as French-American Friendship week. The sheer existence of this showing that a) we needed any reason to get them there and b) this special was worked on LONG before COVID19 hit us all. And yes, I know animation takes its time to be done, I just think it is funny how in today’s international political climate and health situation this thing has become outdated already, when it is hitting the tv just now.
 At the same time, Adrien’s dad suspects that an artifact currently shown at a museum in New York may be a missing Miraculous that was owned by the Marquis de La Fayette and gifted to George Washington during the American Revolution. And yes, we are going there and you can guess what Hawkmoth’s goal this time is, while at the same time history gets fucked up the butt.
 But before we can get to any action in New York, we have to deal with the one thing Ladybug is known for best: Cringy shipping bait.
 Look, I know that shipping is a part of magical girl shows in general, but the shit going on in this cartoon is not only drawn out tediously even for children tv standards, I find it makes some characters outright dumb and unlikable. We get it Marinette, Adrien makes you tingle. But can you stop cringing your way through life around him in a manner that would make Tomoko Kuroki say that you are freaking pathetic?
Tumblr media
I don’t want anybody else. when I think about Adrien I...
 Just three minutes into this movie she essentially melts away at a poster of Adrien and throughout the first 15 minutes she just simps away in the big blue yonder. For example by asking Adrien’s dad to allow his son to travel with the others to New York, obviously stumbling upon her words when she needs to remind herself that she can only see Adrien now as a friend and not love interest (because this is supposedly set after season 3, when she decided to go for the second price in form of the guy who plays guitar), insisting that she is only “friends” to the point even her best friend Alya gets fed up. Or when Marinette gets more than just “a bit” nervous at the chance of sitting on her flight to New York next to Adrien, resulting in her fucking that chance up so badly, I felt an headache approaching. 
Not gonna lie, I had to pause a few times because it got so cringy for me, I wondered why Dobson makes primarily jokes on Adrien’s expense when Marinette herself is female thirst personified. Even the movie seems to point out how the two are so obvious to each other, when Alya has the following to say about them: I can’t decide if they are the most cutest people I know, or the most embarrassing.
Thankfully it is at 18 minutes into it, we FINALLY get something of a conflict. While still on the plane (And Adrien and Marinette watching a sunset through a window) a villain shows up, trying to steal the jet engine midflight.
Tumblr media
 Just roll with it
 Thankfully, before the plane can go down thanks to a Gremlin on the wing- I mean TECHNO PIRATE, the real stars of the movie show up.
 Wait, you thought this thing was going to be about Ladybug and Cat Noir being the primary heroes? WRONG!
 Okay, to put the summary on hold and explain what I mean: This “movie” introduces us to “United HeroeZ”, a group of American superheroes. Yeah, turns out Miraculous is essentially set in your average “Superheroes are everywhere, but primarily US dominated territory” world and this story is meant to introduce us to them and have Ladybug and Cat Noir team up in order to save the day. And while I don’t necessarily HATE the characters, I have to admit that I can’t help myself but snark quite a bit about them. Not only are they for the most part just expies of well known superheroes, the way how prominent two of them in particular are featured in this movie makes it very, VERY obvious that (As I stated earlier) this thing aims just to create a tie-in show for the creators to make more money of the property. Not just that, but their presence in a way reduces Adrien and Marinette’s importance as characters, even though the new ones at best would count as supportive characters overall. Which again makes me wonder, what does it say about Ladybug and Cat Noir’s “impact” in their own franchise when I actually find myself more interested in the side characters made to promote new toys, than the actual leads?
 Anyway, United HeroeZ defeats Techno Pirate and in doing so we are introduced to the main members of the group which are relevant for this movie:
So please, give an applause for…. MAJESTIA (aka actually decent Powergirl redesign/Non Superman)
Tumblr media
 SPARROW (Aka yet another Robin that may get hit by a crowbar)
Tumblr media
UNCANNEY VALLEY (aka The Shipper on Deck/Cleopatra in Tin Foil/Vision as your Waifu/the dumbest name you could have chosen for a character!)
Tumblr media
NIGHT OWL (aka Alan Moore is going to be pissed!/Oh look, it’s Batman!)
Tumblr media
You get where I am coming from when I call them expies, right?
 Anyway, with the plane safe the class finally gets to New York. Both Sparrow and Uncanney Valley get tasked to go undercover with the students and assure they are save during the trip, because plot reasons and New York is supposedly enough of a safe place that their services aren’t needed to fight bigger threats currently. Which confirms at the very least that a) this is not the Marvel Universe cause at this point the town may be ground zero yet again and b) a way more enjoyable version of the Big Apple than the real deal.
By the way, these are Uncanney (left) and Sparrow’s (right) civilian identities :
Tumblr media
I can now imagine Dobson wanting to proclaim how problematic the character is for being a native American who looks the way she does. But believe me. It gets kinda worse in all the right ways.
 Also, we are 28 minutes into the movie and we are introduced to the dumbest thing in the movie yet. The arch enemy of the Condiment King; Hot Dog Dan.
Tumblr media
A superhero hot dog vendor seller with a flying hot dog truck, whose hot dogs give you temporarily some random superpowers when you eat them. And it seems he uses hot dog tongs as weapons.
Tumblr media
I don’t know what the people making this show take, but I am torn between wanting some of that myself and putting them into rehab.
 I really bring the character just up because he is as a concept in itself so ridiculous that part of me thinks he is a fever dream of Dobson. Otherwise he has no real bearing on what is going to happen on the rest of the movie. He is just relevant for a three minute long scene of a house roof party during which Adrien and Marinette dance for a bit.
 Speaking of relevance, the next day the class finally gets to do something on the trip that leads into conflict for our heroes to face. During a visit of the museum where the La Fayette related Miraculous is hold, Uncanny and Sparrow decide to play shipper on deck by forcing Marinette and Adrien in a room and attempting to set a really stupid plot into motion (and no, I don’t mean they enforce a reenactment of Steven Universe or something). At the same time the villains finally do something, when Hawkmoth (now in New York) turns Techno Pirate into his latest minion and have him attack the museum to steal a saber by La Fayette as distraction, while he takes the charm he is out for. Long story short: Our heroes FINALLY transform and have to fight with Uncanney and Sparrow against Techno Pirate on the roofs of Manhattan.
 And while I don’t think it is all that great of a fight, it still means something aside of Marinette cringing her way through the plot is happening and the heroes are actually in decent peril. Plus during the fight the movie gives me one of the funniest moments possible. You want to know what it is?
 Well, while fighting the bad guy, Cat Noir and Ladybug obviously trigger their miraculouses. And what does Ladybugs miraculous turn into this time, to help her develop a strategy to defeat the villain and save the day?
Tumblr media
A bikepump.
Tumblr media
 ... yeah, I am going to give all of you now 5 minutes to laugh it off. Believe me, I needed them too.
Sure, it is a cartoon and I doubt anyone working on the show is even aware of our favorite uncare bear, but come on. At this point the universe itself is either mocking Dobson or tries to set up the perfect opportunity for an obvious joke from my side.
Not helped by the fact that once the bike pump shows up, the dialogue between characters that follows is, and I quote:
Cat: A bicycle pump? What are you going to do with that?
Ladybug: I may have an idea, but you wouldn’t like it
 Anyway, believe it or not, the fight actually ends with a surprising shock moment. Cat Noir, while having his cataclysm powers active (you know, the powers that make him decompose anything he touches), being thrown by Techno Pirate at Ladybug, resulting in Uncanney protecting her and being turned into scrap metal. Which in turn causes Techno Pirate to make the acquaintance with Majestia’s fist, as Uncanney is more or less her adopted daughter and I guess she has seen what was going on (but did not interfere because the plot says so) until now, pummeling him so hard he flies through a few buildings and causes at least three 9/11 to happen on this day in New York.
So, yeah. Uncanney is dead. The heroes experiencing their darkest hour in the movie.
… welp, can’t have that for long, so less than 2 minutes later Ladybug uses the Magical bikepump…
5 minutes of laughter later
Got it out of the system? Good. As I was saying; She uses the fetish toy to reset all the damage done by the akumatized villain and in doing so fixes Uncanney too.
Welp, that was a waste of tension. Guess someone watched the entire Lars dying thing from Steven Universe.
So, damage undone, but Majestia and Night Owl pretty pissed at what happened, want Ladybug and Cat Noir to give up their miraculouses (I assume that is the correct plural) until they leave New York. You would expect this to result in some dramatic chase scene or confrontation with the older heroes, but because this movie has just like 22 minutes left and we need to close act two now, our heroes instead flee and end up in the sewers of New York.
There they do NOT team up with a group of mutated reptiles, but have a heart to heart talk (I never thought I would agree with Dobson on something, but I have to agree on this: The show is kinda fixated on having important stuff happening in sewer channels) that is sort of an argument Cat Noir and Ladybug also had during the fight. You see, because those two idiots haven’t  figured out their respective civilian identities yet (something even Sailor Moon would have figured out AFTER THREE SEASONS!) Marinette assumed that Cat Noir would be in Paris while she is in New York to keep the city save. And Adrien/Noir was okay with making the promise of keeping the city initially save, because his dad only allowed him on the trip the day after he made the promise. So when the two transform out of sight of the other in New York and meet, instead of asking some logical questions (like “where is Marinette/Adrien and why is Cat/Ladybug here?”) they kinda argue wtf Cat is doing here while Paris may be in danger.
Long story short, she is angry at him, he feels guilty for having disappointed her and the thing with turning Uncanney into scrap, Paris was attacked by Hawkmoth’s secretary unleashing temporarily some monster clone because Hawkmoth thought that distracts the heroes in Paris (and really just results in damage that makes a city that experienced the destruction of Notre Dame the year prior just feel numb) and because this is the turning point in the plot, our hero needs to do something just a bit too melodramatic. Which is that Adrien gives up his powers and runs away.
… so, up to the final part in which things to care about start to happen.
Hawkmoth now has the Miraculous and unleashes its Kwami who is this eagle themed little thing referring to itself as the “Kwami of Freedom”.
Tumblr media
 … Yeah, this thing was NOT around for the last 200 years, wasn’t it?
 Anyway, it states that its powers are based on “freeing” people of limitations to achieve their full potential. What does that mean practically? It means that when Techno Pirate holds its powers on top of his regular powers increased by being akumatized, he can unleash some energy attack that removes moral inhibitions when getting hit by it.
… So it basically unleashes the Purge.
 Which is exactly what happens to Majestia and Night Owl, turning one into Man of Steel Superman causing nine additional 9/11s on top of the three prior (how the fuck did this movie manage to turn an American tragedy in a measuring unit?) and the other into All Star Batman.
Oh and it turns the President of the USA into a worse war monger than people accuse Trump of being.
Tumblr media
Oh, this is NOT going to sit well with anyone...
… Yeah, sidenote: The president of the USA in this movie is essentially Michelle Obama who ALSO is a superhero with an American flag theme and besties with Majestica and Night Owl, trying to protect the exchange students. Because supposedly NOTHING better needs to be done. Once she gets hit by the “Freedom Feathers” or whatever you want to call the Kwami power, she pulls out the Football and activates turrets all over the USA, ready to blow up anything that moves into smithereens. Including at least 10.000 such turrets on the roofs of New York and a nuclear missile in the bay near the Statue of Liberty.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
I’ll take it to the people with the eagle not the dove. If there is one thing that obedience is symptomatic of, it’s W-E-A-P-O-N-R-Y... WEAPONRY, from above!
(BTW, the rocket is animated like shit!)
I get the feeling someone on the production team is not the biggest fan of America.
 Anyway, with the heroes being useless and Marinette and Adrien mopping around for what happened during the battle (and Adrien being tricked by his dad to leave New York and get back on a plane cause this town is not save and Adrien can’t fucking stand up to his emotionally abusive father), Uncanney and Sparrow have to get the ball rolling so the day can be saved. Which means that Sparrow and Ladybug try to fight and distract people for time (off screen mostly), while Uncanney hijacks Adrien’s plane and brings him back to take up the gimp suit of Cat Noir again. Oh yeah, almost forgot, Uncanney, cause she is a robot, has figured out easily who Ladybug and Adrien really are cause scanning. Making our heroes literally dumber than a walking toaster.
 So the four finally together, fight Techno Pirate on the Statue of Liberty a second time (after some hijinx with another corrupted hero whose power is literally to create portals through doors, but he is irrelevant for anything so I skipped him up until now) and defeat him. He loses the Miraculous, Sparrow takes it on and becomes its next official owner, resulting in her costume turning into THIS
Tumblr media
 So now we have the native American girl turn into an eagle based superhero with a costume that looks like out of a western based Lego set.
Real talk here: Unlike Dobson I do not believe that everything is political or offensive or some other shit. In fact I hate his comic where he talks about “skin color changes” of the black characters in Ladybug, because he essentially tries to create a race issue and tension where there is none, just because he is a social justice moron. Which gets especially funny when his ideas for a progressive female results in characters like the black rat pirat who kicks you in the face for being hetero or infantilizing the characters of Patty to make them visually more appealing to Max Karson.
That said, in this day and age, doing a character like that… kinda yaiks.
Like, on one hand I think the girl has an enjoyable personality and the design of her hero outfit is okay for a kids cartoon. It’s not like she also talks in some cartoonishly native way or has suddenly a tomahawk as a weapon.
On the other hand, it is kinda stereotypical from multiple ankles and unfortunately there is nothing to the character past this point. Oh sure, Sparrow has now Miraculous powers, but really, all she does now is just use her powers to nullify Techno Pirates influence on the adult heroes before Majestia manages to reenact the bad ending for Majora’s mask and that is it.
Granted,  there is Hawkmoth also almost starting World War 3, but that is really just happening at the site and dealt with almost instantly. To be more specific, because Ladybug and Cat Noir did not hand over their Miraculous, he lets Techno Pirate launch one of the missiles near the Statue of Liberty (worse president than Trump, honestly) but before the thing can hit anything, Majestia sweeps it away and throws it into the sun.
You know, if the show writers want to make Adrien’s dad even remotely “sympathetic” or interesting/intelligent, they increasingly fail. Cause I don’t know about you, but causing World War 3 does not really feel like it will benefit in bringing your comatose wife back.
Bottom line: Nuke has been burned, Techno Pirate gets defeated, all the damage reseted, Sparrow is now the official owner of the latest Miraculous and renames herself Eagle, everyone is happy, there is a big celebration for the class and Hawkmoth is convinced there might be other missing Miraculous all over the globe he wants to get his hands on, meaning season 4 may have more globe trotting Miraculous “action” once it starts.
And also the last scene of the movie shows Eagle and Uncanney meeting some other guardian of the Miraculous box who wants the Eagle charm, but she seemingly convinces him to team up, solidifying that this one hour “movie” was really just a backdoor pilot for a tie in series about an American centered heroine that is so big, a freaking monster truck could pass through this backdoor.
 Yeah, if you can’t tell, I am not a big fan of what I saw.
Look, I will openly admit that my opinion on this is in large parts already tainted by me not being part of the demographic which enjoys the show. So this was never going to be considered “good” in my opinion. That said, I tried to be neutral to it for the sake of fairness. And I kinda failed.
Sorry, but I genuinely do not think this is a good “movie”. First, with barely 65 minutes I don’t really consider it a movie and more of a tv special meant to lead into the next season of the show. Second, I expect of a movie based on a tv show to have slightly higher stakes and presentation value to it than what you would expect from any average episode it has to offer. Which this thing doesn’t. Oh sure, the animation is slightly improved in some scenes, but overall just the same. And frankly, the writing is just still as “bad” as in the original show, if in parts not even worse. Aside of the typical stables, such as the cringy romance that does not move forward but is kinda on the forefront, the main heroes stumbling more or less into the situations instead of being more active in their duties, Hawkmoth not even in a movie having a genuine plan aside of “get this, see how it will help me defeat two kids and fail”, the movie also just never manages to induce a proper escalation of conflict to make it feel like something “special”. For example, we have a shitton of temporarily corrupted heroes. Do Ladybug and Cat Noir ever properly face them off at one point or have meaningful/fun interactions with Sparrow and Uncanney or each other outside of the first three minutes of the movie? Nope! I can name a few movies based on animated shows that gave me enjoyment, even those following basic shonen anime rules. But this one isn’t really among them. And taking into account that I consider at least the Steven Universe movie enjoyable in a dumb way, that says something.
 There is also just the fact that it takes away from Ladybug and Cat Noir too much. Sure, I don’t like the romance stuff with them because I think it plays out in some of the cringiest way possible. But I would have been okay with them or other already established sidecharacters doing other stuff and having to face some conflict that is centered more around them.
Instead the movie finds this bizarre disbalance where it focuses too much and yet too little on completely new characters, that feel shoehorned in to create a starting point for a spin off, making Cat Noir and Ladybug secondary characters in their own movie.
I mean sure, I have seen many shonen anime based movies where there is a set of “movie only” characters interacting with our heroes, but they don’t take too much away from the heroes being heroes. Say what you want about the 13th movie of any long running shonen anime, at least Luffy, Naruto, Son Goku etc. are still the central characters of their respective franchise affiliated flic. Here however we take too much away from Ladybug and Cat, while at the same time focusing also too much on their “struggle” as Marinette and Adrien (or rather just Marinette making a fool out of herself while Adrien is utterly obvious to her behavior) while the major heroics are reserved for the movie characters only, that this entire thing should just be renamed “The Adventures of Mummy Robot and Not Robin, also starring two underaged kids that Dobson is obsessed about!”
 All that said, I will give it a few things.
1) Uncanney and Sparrow/Eagle, despite my jabs, are kinda enjoyable in terms of personality. So are their partners/parents (Majestica and Night Owl are actually the (adoptive?) mothers of their sidekicks and also a couple openly caling themselves love, so yay, L(GBT) representation) and if the show would ever decide to focus also a few episodes on other characters aside of Ladybug and Cat Noir, I wouldn’t mind to see them. I just don’t think they are the most original characters out there and I think I may speak for some fans of the show when I say it sucks, that when it comes to the “action” within this “action adventure show”, they take up the spotlight from the actual main characters.
2) The fight scenes against Techno Pirate were okay overall. Nothing mind blowing animation wise but okay for the standards of this franchise.
3) Eagle’s costume design is not the worst despite my jabs at it being “stereotypical”, at least under consideration of cartoon designs (again, I can think of more offensive shit from the 90s or the Dobbear himself)
4) Well, it wasn’t for me, but I can say it was at least still on the same level of quality as the show. Make out of that comment however whatever you want.
My verdict: Three out of five Dobson’s would approve this movie. The other two would rant about stereotypes and be too busy incest shipping Majestia with Uncanney based on one shot of the movie. And none of them would acknowledge the flaws that make the “movie” a badly disguised jumping point for a spin off that makes the Equestria Girls look subtle.
 Hope you got some enjoyment out of this rant that ironically may have been overall more retarted and detailed than anything Dobson may ever say in regard of this movie.
12 notes · View notes
thegreymoon · 4 years
Note
How hot is the character: Webb and Keegan Sherman 😏
| 😐Not My Type😐 | Alright | Cute | Adorable | Pretty | Gorgeous | LORD MERCY |
*dodges sharp objects and runs into hiding*
I know, I know!! 😫 Just hear me out on this one, OK? 
First of all, let me just make it clear that this was absolutely deliberate on the show’s part. The whole point of this character (characters?) is that they are physical perfection and should be so hot, they would set the scenery on fire wherever they pass, yet they are so fantastically creepy, the hotness is just lost and you are sitting there, laughing uncomfortably, going what the everloving fuck?? 😅
Also, let me make it clear, this is yet another role where we see just how absolutely talented Bradley is, he is just gifted when it comes to comedy (not that he doesn’t do the serious, dramatic roles perfectly too, as we all have Damien to attest to that). 
All the characters in this show are caricatures to a greater or lesser degree, the villains are all ridiculous and hilarious. The Sherman twins are so incredibly unlikeable in every possible way, but they are absolutely entertaining! At one point, Leah describes them as “these creepy twins” and it couldn’t be more accurate! When I say “not my type”, I mean, they are exactly what you would expect a cartoon villain in a cartoon to be like; they are obscenely rich, live in this bubble of privilege and self-indulgence and are completely devoid of all empathy and conscience. Of course, this is carefully tailored to provoke a certain level of disgust in the target audience, considering the sociopolitical climate we are currently living in and the outrageous, ever-growing gap between the rich and the poor. The Sherman twins are a cardboard cutout of the sociopathic billionaire we all reserve our unrestrained loathing for. 
Mind you, physically attractiveness aside, the moral failings of various kinds of villains have never stopped anyone from thirsting after them (Kylo Ren and the clown from It come to mind, but hey, I have a loooooong list of my own guilty sins so I’m really not judging). However, one thing this show is extremely good at is taking obviously hot people and situations that should be sexy by all established norms of modern media and making them as unsexy as they possibly can in the most obvious but understated ways.
The Sherman twins are such a great example of this. Let’s start with their introduction scenes; the fencing duel is such an obvious, tropey thirst trap! It’s written and designed in a way that should (stereotypically) hit all the right buttons. Like, Bradley, goddamn: 
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
But then they go and do *this*: 
Tumblr media
Poof! All sexiness evaporated (and everyone who has watched this show will know exactly what I’m talking about 😂😂)!
Also, let’s talk about the incest. I was expecting the subtext (I’d seen all the stills and gifs, after all), but come on now, that is not subtext, it couldn’t be more obvious and there is not a single scene with the two of them together that does not rub it in! Mind you, sibling incest, especially twincest, also never stopped anyone from thirsting (yours truly here pleads the Fifth, not that her AO3 is any kind of evidence against her or anything 🙄🙄), but these two are just so goddamn creepy as individuals and as a pair. 
With all that said and the general understanding that the Sherman twins are the actual worst, Bradley James himself in this role is: 
| 🔥🔥LORD MERCY🔥🔥 |
I mean, this man is a Greek statue, OMG 😭 If he was born in the ancient times, I’m convinced he would be worshipped as a demigod or something: 
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Honourable mention to these strategically placed flowers: 
Tumblr media
And the infamous handjob scene: 
Tumblr media
(When this happened, I howled, I can’t believe they actually went there! Anyway, yes, the resulting mental imagery was very much appreciated! 😂😂)
In conclusion: Bradley James is perfection, news at 11, but I am going to take this opportunity to warmly recommend this show to anyone who has not seen it because, sadly, it doesn’t look like it’s getting much traction and I was shocked by how vicious the reviews on IMDb were when this is, hands down, one of the best things I’ve watched recently. 
The show is just hilarious, almost the entire cast is amazing, I loved every second and binge-watched the first season without even noticing! There was not a dull moment for the whole six episodes! It was such a breath of fresh air in all the cliched, poorly written, depressing nonsenseI’ve been watching lately and the pointless violence and unapologetic misogyny masquerading as being ‘gritty’, ‘edgy’ and ‘realistic’. 
Don’t get me wrong, Bounty Hunters is both shockingly violent and incredibly filthy (seriously, I did not expect that amount of graphic, brutal death going in), but it works. I am also not a fan of comedy in general, humour very rarely clicks for me, but this had me sobbing! The characters are so vibrant, vivid and interesting (with the exception of Nina’s niece 😫 Seriously, who did that girl have dirt on to get hired, she can’t act to save her life and was, beyond a doubt, the worst part of the show and her scenes were the only ones to pull me out of the story, but they managed to do it every single time, she is that bad 😖)! 
The main villains were all delightfully unlikeable and evil (with the exception of the ISIS bunch, who had zero charisma or interesting points and were just kind of… there). The Sherman twins were terrible but hilarious, the cartel was one of my favourite things in the show, Barnaby’s father was just so sleazy but I think that particular actor could make me laugh at anything! Barnaby and Nina are the only actual ‘goodies’ in the show (their words 😂😂) but they are so flawed and ridiculous and not afraid to laugh at their own expense! I just loved them! (Also, their mothers were a piece of work, Barnaby’s mother in particular, that woman is gifted, I swear 😂😂)
And I am really digressing here, but I just have to talk about those reviews on IMDb because I personally found the worst of the complaints completely ridiculous and something I couldn’t disagree with more! They mostly seemed to have an issue with the unapologetic violence, but for me, that was a part of the charm and there is no rule that says that comedy should be kid and family-friendly. I thought this was sufficiently grim without going overboard into exploitative and gross, and in spite of the dark undertones, the overall theme of the show is family, loyalty and love. Also, the second thing that really stuck out to me is that some people really seem to have an issue with the lead actress being an older woman, some complete moron called her a grandma in a derogatory fashion and said that she cannot be ‘a badass woman’ because of it (or a romantic interest, I imagine). Personally, I loved the unusual age difference, where, for once, the woman gets to be the older, more experienced and the more badass one, and the man gets to be young, pretty and naive. They don’t actually get together in the first season (I don’t know about the second one, I haven’t gotten around to it yet), but I personally enjoyed their will-they-won’t they and all the banter (seriously, I have not actively shipped the two het m/f leads in a show in ages). Besides, Barnaby and Nina have crazy amounts of chemistry together and I could totally get behind the two of them having all the filthy, kinky sex they can physically manage! Not to mention, I find it so incredibly offensive that an older woman somehow can no longer be hot of badass (and Nina is so, so hot and badass) and it is depressing that in the year of our Lord 2020 we still have to deal with this sexist, ageist, misogynistic tripe. If the ages were reversed, I promise you, nobody would be complaining! /end rant
And since I’m already way, way off-topic (and the general topic is all about hot people, after all), I’d just like to gush about these two 🔥🔥 LORD MERCY 🔥🔥 individuals, because goddamn: 
Tumblr media
This is Charity Wakefield, she plays Leah in the show (who is an absolute delight), and she is, IMO, one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen 😍
And this smouldering piece of perfection is Christian Ochoa:
Tumblr media
And these two stupid hot people somehow manage to have the least sexy sex in the history of TV (multiple times!!) and make a demon baby together (I hope, but like I said, I haven’t season 2 yet) 😂 As I mentioned earlier, this show loves to mess with our expectations of perceived hotness and I found it so refreshing and hilarious! 😂😂
I fully admit that if it wasn’t for Bradley James, Bounty Hunters is something that I would never have picked up (I very much doubt it would have even crossed my radar because I really am not a fan of comedies in general), but I am very, very grateful that I did! I am looking forward to season 2 and I read that season 3 is also in the works (please, Bradley, come back for that one too and do some more nude scenes with strategically placed flowers, we are all begging)! 😜
46 notes · View notes
sincerelyensouled · 3 years
Text
Cybersix episodes ranked by me being very biased and only watching the show though once
1. Episode 12: Daylight Devil
This episode slaps! I’m very happy it’s near the end because it takes the space we’ve built and plays with it so beautifully! The Adrian/Cyber6 conflict and having one’s actions impact the other and having to do superhero stuff in civilian identity! Lucas being worried about Adrian! All the morality that is brought into question!! Fuckin... we had such thing going here imagine if the series continued and we got more like this god bless. 
2. Episode 2: Data7 & Julian
I love Data7. Next post. Also gay teachers go on a date in the beginning of the episode, in the english version Adrian says “haha think! thoughts! yeah!” and that’s a quote that will change me for the rest of my life
3. Episode 10: The Eye
I’m a genderqueer person on Tumblr. Bitches like me love a giant ominous floating eye that eats souls! Also having Cyber6 do an action to the monster of the week that isn’t the “correct answer” and ends up hurting more people in the process.. I like that story concept a lot
4. Episode 3: Terra
I like!! The questioning!! Of Morality!!! Thank you Terra
5. Episode 6: Blue Birds of Horror
King of America speech but the super heros are the birds who work for the bourgeoisie. Also, I have an announcement to make, Shadow the hedgehog is a bitch ass motherfucker--
6. Episode 11: The Greatest show in Meridania
The concept is fun! Lucas is dumb as shit for not putting together Panther=Data7 C6=Cyber6 but,,, cartoon logic
7.  Episode 4: Yashimoto private eye
The.. japanese caricatures... aren’t great (I wonder how much input the Japanese studio had on that one) but I like both of the characters and seeing the kids stick up for themselves is really cute
8. Episode 1: The Mysterious shadow
Genuinely can’t remember this one because I watched it back in June
9. Episode 8: Gone with the Wings
I was so tired of seeing clips from this one in the intro I was so happy to get it over with. I like Data7 getting angry and then whining at Julian like a dog
10. Episode 7: Brainwashed
-shrugs-
11. Episode 9: Full Moon Fascination
I was so excited by the title of this one but it’s just a furry love triangle :/ I did get some good ooc content out of it like screencaps of Adrian being angee and a really bad Infinity Train joke
12. Episode 5: Lori is Missing 
Get fucked Lori <3 Get some healthy coping mechanisms girl, stop thirsting over your english professor you’re like 15
And episode 13 doesn’t exist <3
3 notes · View notes
caps-lockdown · 5 years
Text
Operation: Man Flu Part Four
Alright guys here is Part Four of the series, there’s only one more after this but I have a couple of one shots I’m working on as well. I’m so happy everyone has been enjoying reading this as much as I’ve loved writing it! This part is shorter than the last one, but I wanted to make sure I left enough for part five! Enjoy!
Pairings: Steve x Shield Agent Female Reader!
Words: 3,770
Ratings/Warnings: I’m going to put hard R here for the whole thing because there’s going to be cussing, mentions of sickness, alcohol consumption, physical fights, mental breakdowns. Jealousy, love triangles (sort of), angst, drama, and lots of crude humor. Part three has some slight adult situations. Just strap in.
Also no Beta so my mistakes are my only thing to claim, I don’t own any characters either, with the exception of the reader, a doctor, and some random characters here and there.
It is in Y/N (Your Name) L/N (Last Name) format. Enjoy!
(Flashbacks are completely in italics) (Picture of outfit not mine, found on the webs)
Part 4
Sunday, 0945 Hours
The busy streets of New York were packed for a Sunday morning. People avoiding each other. Most were trying to get rid of hangovers from the night before, or trying to make the church service on time. The autumn air blew past a small coffee house window, where currently you, Nat, Pepper, and Wanda all sat inside. You were currently having an emotional crisis, which is why you found yourself surrounded by the smell of coffee and three worried females.
“I’m telling you ladies, he had a towel just barely hanging off of him! Out here looking like a whole ten course fucking meal! What’s a girl to do?” You groaned into the table top, Wanda rubbing your back reassuringly. I am going to die if I have to face him sick again today.
“He is attractive. And he really seems into you. Why don’t you ask him out?” Nat inquired, putting your cup of coffee on the table. The coffee shop was just down the street from the Tower that currently held the person of your problems. You had invited the three women there this morning for some “girl talk”. And by that you meant ranting about a certain blonde man that was plaguing your thoughts. For the past forty-five minutes. Easier said than done Nat.
“He said we’d talk when he was better so I don’t feel like he’s not being himself. I can’t believe I almost kissed him.” You mumbled, slowly bringing your head up only to let it fall back on the table with a thud.
“Well I’d say it’s your lucky day because according to Sam he’s all sorts of better.” You brought your gaze up as Pepper showed you her phone. Sam had sent her a picture of your favorite avenger and his best friend doing shirtless pushups. Wilson’s deadpan expression in the corner, mixed with his sickly complexion caused you to crack up, nearly howling at the text.                    “I hate super soldiers.”
“Huh. Wonder why I didn’t get a text.” You wondered out loud, pulling your phone out to check it. “I got one from Steve at least.” Opening your text notifications, you nearly threw your phone out of the window upon seeing shirtless Captain America selfie. Sweet Jesus! He was giving you a smoldering look, and while the picture looked a bit blurry, the text that was attached sent your heart racing to a mile a minute. “Ready for that talk when you are Doll.”
“Steve sent you a selfie?!” Nat exclaimed, reaching for your phone and chuckling. “It looks blurry, but he looks…better.”
Pepper reached to look at it next, nodding in approval. “Like if Hercules was blonde.”
“Honey you mean HUNK-ules. I’d like a slice of that perfect man cake.” You swooned at your phone as you snatched it back from them, the three women laughing at your obvious thirst. Keeping your response short and sweet you just simply sent back, “Looking forward to it.”
“You’re looking a bit thirsty Y/N, maybe you should drink some of your coffee before it gets cold.” Nat suggested, you fanning yourself as you took a sip. “You’re going to change before you see him, right?”
“First of all, that was rude.” You pointed a finger at the smirking red head, looking down at your Sunday comfy clothes before frowning. “What the hell is wrong with my outfit?”
“You know we love you Y/N, but um…”Wanda trailed off, Pepper staring you down.
“You look like a hobo.”
“Gee thanks, love you too. Why did I invite you all here?” You questioned yourself out loud, the girls all chuckling as you headed back towards the tower.
“Don’t worry, we’ll help you out.” You smiled at Nat, walking to the elevators and later to your room, where the three women proceeded to ransack your closet in the pursuit of the perfect outfit.
“As long as I don’t look like a hooker after all of this.”
1030
“Y/N you look great!” Nat complimented you, turning you around to look in your mirror that sat along the far wall of your room. For once, you were sort of agreeing with her.
Tumblr media
“Now let’s go get your man.” Pepper pushed you towards the door, your nerves starting to get the better of you as you treaded down the hallway.
“You sure I look…”
“I swear you ask that one more time I’m going to hit this emergency stop button in this elevator and we will sit here until you have some damn confidence. If Steve can send you a blurry selfie, while shirtless then you can wear this skirt and look cute in front of him.” Nat barked, causing your mouth to slam shut. Wow, remind me to never get on her bad side. You noticed you were the only one getting out of the lift, Wanda pushing the button to close the door.
“Aren’t you coming with me?”
“Nope. We’ll be back later.” Pepper winked as the door shut, leaving you to face the remaining sick men. And a very healthy Steve Rogers. Alone.
“Shit.” Taking a deep breath, you straightened your stance before heading towards the quarantine. With the two super soldiers feeling better, that only left Sam, Clint, and Tony still under the weather. They would all be alright soon, and you would be going into a much needed coma when everything was said and done. Here goes nothing
“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!”
“I win!” Bucky exclaimed, you striding into the conference hall to find the men huddled together on the floor, blankets and pillows strewn about haphazardly and you laughed at seeing they were still in their pajamas. You took a drink from your coffee, seeing how long it would take for them to notice you standing there.
“I for one, am finally happy you idiots found a way to pick a game.” You heard Tony speak, looking to find him still on his bed, blankets wrapped around him like a cocoon. All you could actually see of his person was his face. He looks like something out of a cartoon.
“Best two out of three!” Sam whined, Bucky shaking his head.
“No way Wilson, I clearly won!”
“This is horseshit!” Clint growled, throwing a nearby pillow, you not able to contain your curiosity any longer when it landed near your feet.
“Good morning guys, what’s the fighting about now?” The men turned to look at you when your voice broke up their argument.
“Holy shit Y/N.” Was all Tony could get out, his jaw slightly a-jar.
“You need to wear skirts more often.”Bucky commented, a flush racing down your neck as Steve just continued to stare at you. He had put a tight blue t-shirt on, and you had to keep yourself from drooling. How is it this man looked so delectable all the time? I’m supposed to be making him drool, not the other way around! I hate his stupid perfect face right now. You took note of his jaw working as he remained seated on the floor, his wide blue eyes continually raking over your body.
“Uh, earth to Capsicle? Your soon to be girl is over here being complimented by other guys and you’re just gonna sit there? Did those pushups cause all the blood to go to your arms and not your brain?” Sam motioned you to go talk to him, because it became very clear he wasn’t moving.
“No I’m pretty sure seeing Y/N in that outfit made his blood go elsewhere. That’s why he can’t move. It all went to his third leg.” You held back a snort at Stark’s comment, stepping your way lightly over to the blonde Avenger, making sure to give ample space between the two of you.
“Uh…hi.” You greeted him, looking down in his direction.
“Hi. You look…” Steve gulped and you felt very self conscious all of a sudden.
“Is it too much?” You adverted your gaze, shuffling your foot against the ground, being mindful of the pillows and blankets.
“No no! You look amazing.” You smiled, tucking the hair behind your ear.
“Thanks, the girls picked it out.”
“I love them a lot right now.” His voice was low and almost husky, causing you to let out a nervous chuckle.
“What are you gentlemen up to?”
“Sunday morning board games. Bucky won so he gets to pick. Why don’t you have a seat and join us?” His blue eyes sparkled while he patted the available space next to him on the floor.
“Why don’t you just ask her to sit in your lap Rogers, we all know that where you really want her to sit.” Sam joked, you becoming very flustered, taking Steve’s outstretched hand to help you down. Not that you would have said no if that’s where he wanted you to sit. You weren’t going to lie to yourself like that. I’ve seen him shirtless in person now. He wouldn’t have to ask me twice.
“Thanks Steve, I think I will.” You carefully sat down next to him, his beaming smile putting you in a rather good mood for nearly eleven am on a day you usually call “Hibernation Sunday”. “How are you feeling?” You asked, noticing how he inched slightly closer to you.
“Better now that you’re here.” You blushed, your lips turning up just a little. “I can breathe out of my nose, so that’s a major plus. I’ll never take that for granted again.” You nodded at him, happy he was feeling better.
“Wow that’s shady as hell Y/N. Your best friend is over here on his death bed and you ask the guy who has crazy healing powers how he is FIRST?! That’s just messed up.” Sam looked genuinely hurt and you felt bad for a whole five seconds before he winked at you.
“I’m SO sorry Sam, how are you feeling?” Trying to make up for essentially ditching him for your crush, Tony muttering some insult at Bucky while he dragged his sick backside to join the group on the floor. Blanket cocoon and all.
“Oh no, you don’t get to play me like that! I see where I rank with you.” Laughter bubbled out of you as Sam fake pouted, turning his face back to the board game Bucky nonchalantly dropped on the floor and immediately frowning.
“I still think Barnes cheated.” Clint muttered, Tony nodding his head as the man in question began to take out the parts that made up Monopoly.
“I can’t believe I have to play this shit.” Sam grumbled, you all taking turns picking which piece you wanted to be. Bucky got first pick, quickly snatching the race car. Clint took the thimble, Tony grabbed the top hat. You laughed as Sam casually tossed the battleship token to you, before taking the boot for himself. Steve settled on the Scottie dog.
“I GET TO BE BANKER!” Bucky shouted, Sam covering his ears.
“What the hell Barnes we’re all right here! Jesus. At this rate I’ll be deaf before I’m Cap’s age.”
“At least it isn’t Risk.” You tried, flipping Bucky the middle finger when he told you to be quiet while he counted out the money for everyone. “Is it always like this?” You whispered, leaning into him and causing him to jump just a little, you clearly having an effect on him as a slight flush covered his cheeks.
“Uh, um yea pretty much.” Smirking you let yourself inch closer to him, allowing your arm to touch his. You felt him flex under your touch, your fingers slowly tracing up the back of his arm as you put your head on his shoulder. He seemed to relax after that, a sigh leaving his lips as he dropped his head to rest on yours. “But you always have a way of making it better Doll.”
“Glad to help Steve.” You whispered, giving him a coy wink before breaking away from him to focus on organizing your money and plan of attack. “Because you all are going to hate me after I kick your asses.”
“Fat chance Y/N. We’re sick, but we’re not stupid.” Clint challenged, Tony raising an eyebrow at you.
“Ten bucks says you don’t even make it thirty minutes.” The Stark scoffed, “Or do you forget who you’re playing with?”
“You should be asking yourself that question Tony. Consider this a little bit of good ol’ fashioned revenge.” You retorted, each of you rolling dice to see who went first.
“Revenge?” Tony asked, suddenly not liking the way you were grinning at him wickedly when you got to go first.
“Damn straight. I’m gonna murder you losers for costing me my weekend in.”
“We’re really scared Y/N. Now how about some quick house rules?” Bucky scoffed cutting in, allowing you a moment to breathe. “No buying first round. And we’re not auctioning off any properties to start.”
“Barnes that’s fucking bogus.” Tony muttered in the man’s direction.
“Come on Bucky that’s bullshit!” Sam complained, you groaning inwardly to yourself before intervening the argument before it escalated further.
“Hey I’m not going to tolerate any rude behavior! This is Bucky’s choice, Bucky’s rules. Now get to rolling Wilson, you guys are due some payback and mama’s got a boardwalk to buy.” Your voice was laced with annoyance and authority, Tony and Sam shrinking down in fear. Sam rolled his turn and passed the dice to the winter soldier.
“Thanks Y/N. I knew you were my favorite.” Bucky beamed at you, taking his turn.
“Aww thanks Barnes. You’re not mine but thanks.”
Everyone laughed as you deftly ducked out of the way from a flying pillow, you nearly dropping your coffee when the blue plaid covered object hit Steve square in the jaw.
1330
“Haha! Boardwalk with a hotel! Pay up princess!” You held your hand out to Bucky expectantly, giggling with pride as he began to gather up his money.
“Jesus, who knew Y/N was a damn shark at Monopoly?” Tony stared in disbelief as you abolished Barnes of all of his finances. Sam raised a shy hand.
“I did. She wiped the floor with some of us back when we were starting out.”
“Oh grow some balls Wilson, at least it wasn’t strip Monopoly.”
“I’ve heard the Ghost stories about that night. No thank you.” Came his reply, making you giggle.
You had been playing for a couple hours, making short work of sizing everyone’s game up. You had been playing this game since you were a kid, your father a businessman and a top negotiator for the company he worked for. You were no amateur, and the guys were starting to get the idea that you were out for blood.
“I’m out. Thanks a lot Y/N, you are no longer my favorite.” Bucky pouted, you smirking down at your side of the board, looking to see who was left to target to secure your win. Sam and Clint were out early on, you suspected they both made a pact to just give up as soon as they could, not caring about buying all of one color properties, not blinking an eye as they fell to your hotels and houses.
Steve and you were actually making a great team. You got him the places he wanted, he would willingly trade the properties you needed on complete sets. The only real opponent had been Stark, but with his genius level intelligence, sick or not you knew better than to underestimate the billionaire.
“I’m going to put you in your place L/N.”
“Bring it Stark.”
1345
“Holy shit, L/N you’re a force to be reckoned with.” Clint stared wide eyed at the board, which you had most of under your control.
“I’m really glad I’m not playing.” Wanda conceded, offering her own look of shock.
You bit into the sandwich Nat had brought you with a grin, the girls joining you about thirty minutes ago to watch the carnage once they got word of what was going on. They had been nice enough to pick up lunch for everyone, and you were more than grateful for the amazing grilled cheese and tomato soup.
“Yea there’s a reason the Ghosts don’t play with her anymore.”Sam smiled at you, everyone stifling their laughter as Steve rolled doubles for the third time in a row and now had to go to jail.
“Oh no! The boy scout is in the slammer!” Tony joked dramatically, you joining in and feigning worry.
“Don’t worry Steve I’ll get you out of there I promise!” You held a hand up as if you were on the other side of viewing glass in a prison.
“It’s too late for me Y/N,” He was talking in an over the top Brooklyn accent, reminding you of the silver screen age. You became putty when the blonde dropped his voice low, bringing his own hand up to yours. You couldn’t contain the delightful shiver that went down your spine as he leaned in to place his forehead against yours. “Jus’ promise me you’ll has a good life. Find someone else, someone who will treat you betta’ than I eva could. Have a bunch of lil ones that have your eyes. Buy that pretty lil blue house on the corner with tha white picket fence. Tha one you’ve always wanted.”
“No I won’t! I don’t want that life without you!” Tossing your head away in exaggeration, giggles escaped you as he slid his hand from yours.
“That’s how its got to be sweetheart. Imma bad man, and it’s time I pay for my crimes.”
Everyone else’s laughter rang out as you finally broke down, body shaking as you attempted to wipe the tears from your eyes. Tony started clapping at the performance, Nat and Wanda joining in. Steve dropped into a bow of sorts while remaining seated, motioning to you and clapping himself.
”Well done Steve, that accent was terrible though.” You struggled to breathe, the good captain only shrugging.
“Y/N you have some real talent. You sure you’re in the right business?” Stark laughed at you, your face heating up again as everyone continued to pick on you. Calming down you put your brain back into game mode, focusing at the task at hand.
“Thank you, thank you. Now roll Stark, mama needs another hotel!” Tony rolled the dice, moving his token along the board before stopping on park place, his anger boiling over as you clapped with glee. “That’ll be fifteen hundred fat ones ol’ sport!”
“I’m out.” The bitter Stark mumbled, tossing his money and property cards over to you. “You suck Y/N.”
“Dinner and drinks first Tony. I’m a lady. Now what was that earlier about you putting me in my place?”
“You play like a mob boss.” He blinked in disbelief as you sorted out your newly acquired goods, not taking offense to the comment.
“Learned from my dad, sometimes our games would last weeks. Don’t hate the player Stark, hate the game.”
“No I’ll hate Barnes. It was his damn idea.” Looking to Steve you ignored the angry man’s remark. Bringing your attention to Steve you extended your hand out to him, looking at him with a smile.
“Shall we call it a draw? Or do you want to play until I ruin you too?”
“I know when to cut my losses. Draw it is.” Both of you shook hands, the rest of the guys getting a head start on clearing the board off and putting things away. “Good game Doll.”
“Thanks Rogers, you weren’t so bad yourself.”
“You guys were only being nice to one another because you want to sleep with each other. It’s not fair!” Bucky shot out pointedly at you, causing you to stare at him wide mouthed in embarrassment feeling your face heat up.
“Life isn’t fair Buck, and you’re just mad you lost. Regardless of our personal lives, this was your idea, just man up.” Steve spoke, and you whipped your head to stare at the soldier in shock.
“It still isn’t fair.” Bucky stomped away from the group, board game in tow.
“Who’s up for clue? We’ll have to be on teams.” All of you looked at Nat, before looking at the group who all started nodding.
“I call Y/N!” Tony, Sam, Bucky, and Clint all said in union.
“No thanks boys, I’m sitting this one out. I need some more coffee if I’m going to put up with you any longer.” You stood up, stretching your arms above your head as Steve grabbed the dirty plates and bowls from everyone, standing up as well.
“Let me go with you Y/N. I could use some fresh air.” Steve offered, you only able to give a soft nod in response. “You guys want anything?” The group broke out in orders and you just laughed.
“Why doesn’t Nat just text me what you want? It’ll take us some time to get there after all.” You suggested, everyone agreeing. Taking that as your cue you headed towards the elevator, Steve not far behind you as he went to throw the used dishes in the office.
“Everyone seems to be doing a lot better, especially you and Bucky.”
“Thanks Y/N I feel like a new man.” You couldn’t help but feel giddy when his arm went around the tops of your shoulders.
“I hope not, I liked the old Steve a lot.” He smiled at your joke, the door closing.
“Well if you like him so much why don’t you go out with him?” The question came out and you felt your heart burst. His gaze was almost pensive, like he was worried you were going to turn him down. Bringing your hands up, you quickly brought his face down to yours, his arms wrapping around your waist to pull the two of you closer.
“I’d love that.” You whispered calmly, looking into his blue eyes with determination. Before you let yourself over think the situation too much you tentatively brought your lips to ghost over his. You went to pull away, not wanting to seem forceful, when Steve closed the gap between you again and crashed his lips to yours. You smiled into the kiss, feeling him move his arm up your back while you slid your hands to settle on his neck. The kiss left you breathless, every bit of it just like you had dreamed of. Letting out a happy sigh, the blonde reluctantly started pulling away, giving you the big lopsided smile that you’d come to love.
“So….coffee?” The floor bell dinged as the doors opened, you giving him a quick peck before grabbing his hand.
“Coffee.”
Tag List @kaytizzle @cuffski @giggleberts
57 notes · View notes
Text
Off Limits
Monsta X
Im Changkyun/Reader [F]
Genre: High School AU, Rebellious, Drabble
Warnings?: Smoking, Disregard for rules, Swearing, Inappropriate language
Words: 1.5k
Tumblr media
“Hurry your bitch ass up, I’m not getting any younger out here while your dick is stuck in some Spencer’s purchased, unsanitized fleshlight.”
“I’ve never been more offended or proud of you for your onslaught of insults lately,” Changkyun said back to your obviously fake rage over the phone.  “Besides, if anyone’s bought anything from Spencer’s, we both know it's you.  How else can we explain that kinky set up in your closet, hmm?”  He chided as you promptly hung up on him without a word. 
Slotting his phone back into his ripped jean pocket, he stuck his AirPods in his ears, blasting whatever edgy band he was into these days.  He found himself listening more to edgy American labels more than most these days, his time in America really laying into his DNA, despite not being born there. That is one more thing you never let him live down, his Western like behavior. 
You’ve claimed to be ‘scarred for life’ when you walked in on him in the middle of a keyboard smashing, screeching deathmatch in Overwatch while he was stark-ass naked at 3 AM. In your house mind you. Seeing his fake American Tit-Tat was one thing in life you never planned on seeing.  
You had to buy a whole ass new computer chair after that night, too traumatized with the imprint of his naked arse in your sweet leather seat to ever sit in it again.  You had half a mind to call a priest and have it excised, but you couldn’t afford a whole Holy Man in garbs, so new chair it was. Thankfully, as compensation, Changkyun pitched in on half the bill for it. 
He walked a bit further down the ever darkening roadside as he soon watched light post after light post flicker on.  Some with working lights, some with new LED lights that not only allow you to see below you but apparently 30 feet in every other direct resulting in direct blindless for 5 minutes if stared directly into. 
He soon rounded a corner as he saw your silhouette not too far off.  He watched your arm raise to your mouth, stay for a moment only to drop and a puff of smoke push past your lips.  It looked like you were wearing a jean jacket he got for you for no other reason than you looked good in it.  Jeans that nicely rounded your ass, even from his distance, and he could guess what shirt you were wearing.  Probably something about aliens if he had to guess. 
He reached for his phone, just before stopping and plucking one AirPod from his ear to hear his footsteps.  He had to be quiet; yes, very very quiet.  He moved along a barely holding together brick wall and slid along it, looking like a blond fool at dusk where he was still pretty much 90% visible.  
Taking step by step in his torn up, ankle black Harley Davidson biker boots, he held his partially painted finger in front of him.  Tiptoeing like some cartoon character, he stood nearly directly behind you now.  He waited, watched you take a breath of your nearly finished cigarette and once your hand was dropped to your side, he jumped into action.  
“HOWDY!”  He screeched into your ear as you whirled.  You swung your arm behind you, your stupid best friend ducking down, safely out of the way while your unfinished, but small cigarette fell to the ground. He looked up at you, seeing your shirt.  Black with white writing saying “I bEliEvE” in a pretty awful font.  Not at all pleasing to the eyes.  “Alien shirt, I knew it.”  You were quick to kick out your converse covered foot and push his squatted ass into the ground. 
He teetered over as you stood over him with your arms cross.  Hair hanging in tangling in front of your chest as you looked down at him. To any stranger, you would seem to be bullying the blond high schooler, but you two were fairly well known in your small town.  He pushed himself up on his elbows.  
“I always knew you were the ringleader of every relationship you’ve been in.  PUshing people down, oof.”  You rolled your eyes as you stepped over him. Not quite disregarding his chide. 
“This is why you can’t get a girlfriend.  You suck,” you groaned back as you stepped on your still smoking cig with the toe of your shoe. He hopped up like he wasn’t on the ground to begin with. 
You and Changkyun have known each other since middle school when you first showed up in his rinky-dink little town. Officially attached at the hip when you flashed your chest to some stuck up jock and got picture proof to frame him for sexual harassment, all because he kept making jabs about your ass. 
If one were to drive through your town and blink, you’d be in and out in a flash.  Population a whopping 500.  Everyone knew everyone, stories of “I taught so-so’s parent in school too” coming from every old and rotting teacher on school property.  
Not that either of you heard it much.  Neither of you really care much for the school scene.  Not fitting in with the small school system.  You’d think such a small town would go to a bigger town for schooling via bus, but no.  School houses were built, and by houses I mean houses.  You swore they held lectures in superstores, they were that small.  
It’s not like school was important.  Even in a small town, no one cared about grades or success.  It was all about who was wearing what.  The TV programs on the night before. Jocks trying to win over hearts of adolescent girls thirsting for whatever they could get for a night and $20. Or who was fucking who in the public bathroom at lunchtime. 
So, you both stayed in your world.  A world of bad choices, smoking, drinking having the time of your lives regardless of the opinions around you.  Some adults couldn’t wait for you both to just up and vacate town.  Maybe then they’d stop hearing about what you both did the night before.  
One time it was graffiti on the side of the doctors building.  Another it was tying every cart in the supermarket together with zip-ties.  One night you both decided to paint on your face and start a bond fire in a vacant abandoned lot and acted like fools.  Life was never dull with the two of you, that's why it was thrilling. 
“What’s the plan tonight then?” 
“Fuck if I know.  You’ve killed my last cigarette and I can’t afford another pack right now.”  You whined as he plucked a fresh pack from his back pocket.  
“Ah, my mistake.  Madam Piss-Poss needs a cigarette like an alcoholic need beer.  Just where have my manners gone to.” Packing the box in his palm you rolled your eyes.  
“you’re just as bad as I am.  Shut your mouth before you choke on my fist.”
“I’m not into  your kinky stuff, Y/n.” 
“You’re pushing it.”
“Pushing what?  Your buttons?  I suspect you only have 2, and they’re named as such:” He poked at your breasts. “Nip and Nap.”  
“You are such a pig!”  You whack at his head.  He swirls around completely unbothered as you fix your shirt he had bunched up. He tore off the plastic around his pack of cigs as he pulled one to place between his lips and offered you one more. 
“Pig that you can’t stand to be without.  How precious, you might be pulling at my heartstrings.” 
Although you gratefully accept the toxic stick of tobacco, you still get in one last jab.  “Don’t imply I make you horny,” you finished.  He chuckled as he plucked his lighter from the side of his boot.  You never understood why he kept it there, it always smelt of feet. He offered you the light, but you shook your head.  “I don’t want your smelly foot lighter.” 
Changkyun rolled his eyes.  “Then let me light it, baby.”  He stepped closer to you as you tipped your cigarette between your lips up with your tongue.  He always does this.  He grabbed the back of your neck with one hand as he steadied his light with the other between his black-tipped fingers. Pushing the fiery ash against the tip of your cigarette, it took a moment but soon you were huffing in the toxic fumes, same as he. 
It was stupidly intimate, but it was your thing. It was the thing between you two.
You refused to label it, as did he.  There were no titles, no distinguished relationship status: they were off limits.  You two were the pair who did everything together.  You’d hold hands, you’d hold each other, you’d ugly sob and get drunk together in an abandoned building.  You’d even get lost in lust from time to time; greed and lust were no exception to human nature. 
You both even sat at each other’s side and hyped one another up when you both got your first tattoo’s and piercings that continued to grow in number as the years ticked by.
Yet, you were also the pair who would call each other ‘pussy’ just because someone didn’t make a crumbled up burger wrapper into the nearest trash can.  Insults were compliments, and if a compliment was truly shared, then your bond grew tenfold.  There were no hurt feelings, no titles, no words to describe you both. 
You were just Y/n and Changkyun, just two humans living their lives. The words ‘I love you’ were strictly off limits.
106 notes · View notes
thelreads · 5 years
Text
And that the end of the chapter. Jesus this one gave me anxiety. I can’t wait to read the next one.
The battle has just began, both for Ida and Midoriya as for the pro heroes that are dealing with the Nomu. Chaos is running rampant, and Shigaraki couldn’t be happier about it. There’s a lot going on...
Ida got throw into the dirt almost died because of his quest for vengeance, he almost crossed the line, what I called the point of no return. He almost got so consumed by his anger and hatred that he was willing to kill another person. Sure, it was a crazy psychopath, but that doesn’t change the facts. And what is worse was that he didn’t stopped because he realized how wrong he was, he just stopped because Stain bet him up and he was able to fight back. The moment of revelation came waaay after that.
Goddammit, Stain is such a bastard, still, he giving Ida that breaking-speech was more than well deserved. Sure, he was the one that first instigated the later thirst for vengeance, but I think that if it didn’t happened now, it would happen someday in the future. After this day, Ida will never again stray from the path of the hero.
Shigaraki also got some focus this chapter. Not much, but it was enough to shine a light on his character and his relationship with Karen-Sensei. They are starting to look like a foil of All Might/Midoriya relationship. Both are young and aspiring for greatness, but in completely opposite directions, both are trying to grow, and their mentor figures want this, but while one is lovingly and full of incentives, with All Might always trying to suggest something that could work, the other is rather cold and distant, with Karen-sensei basically giving him the tools to build a shack and then telling him to figure it out by himself.
I’m curious to see if I’m the right path on this one, or if I’m just overthinking that little interaction.
ALSO MIDORIYA WALL-JUMPING AND KICKING ASS FUCK YEAH
But anyway, today there isn’t a character sheet for me to read, but there’s something... “peculiar” I would say.
Tumblr media
It’s the draft from chapter 39, the moment that Todoroki remembers about his past, and the reasons that pushed him towards the Hero path. That’s sooo cool. I love to see the rough sketches and the unfinished product that one day become a amazing story, be it book, a cartoon, a movie, a game, or a manga.
There’s something that intrigues me about seeing the different ways that a piece of the product could’ve been different, the other alternatives to tackle on the same moment in a story. Maybe it’s because I’ve been rewriting the same story for years now, always trying to see all of the different ways that I could do it, and never settling down for one.
But anyway, that’s it for now. Hosu is burning, Shigaraki is laughing, Ida is bleeding, and Midoriya is ready to punch a bastard to save his friend. Will his punches of friendship be enough to defeat Stain? Will Shigaraki shut up and go home to play some video-games instead of sitting around just watching the chaos? Find out, next time, on Chapter 52: Cinnamon vs Edginess - The alleyway of unexpected friendships.
Oh... Actually, I think I’ll answer some of the asks on my inbox. I’ve been saving some of them for after I finished the chapter,  but I didn’t realized that there were so many lol. That’s okay, I’ll answer some of them now, and the other part when I have the time. Probably not tomorrow, because I’ll go out with some friends from work, but we never know, maybe they’ll cancel it. At least I hope they do.
23 notes · View notes
aion-rsa · 5 years
Text
Why Batman Still Matters: DC on 80 Years of the Dark Knight
https://ift.tt/2HWmob3
Detective Comics hits #1000 as Batman turns 80. We talked to Kevin Conroy, Bruce Timm, Scott Snyder, and more about the hero's legacy!
facebook
twitter
google+
tumblr
Feature
TV
Movies
John Saavedra
Batman
Mar 27, 2019
DC Entertainment
Scott Snyder
Kevin Conroy
Bruce Timm
This Batman article contains spoilers for Detective Comics #1000. 
It all began with two shots in the dark, pearls spilling onto the blood-soaked cement. No, it all started when the bat crashed through the window. Actually, it was when the boy fell into the cave. Maybe it was that hostile takeover at Apex Chemicals? Dozens of stories have shaped the legend of the Batman over his 80-year history, tales that have made the Caped Crusader arguably the most iconic character in comic book history, rivaled only by Superman.
When Bill Finger and Bob Kane put pen and pencils to paper for 1939's Detective Comics #27, they had no way of knowing that they were creating a new American myth that would captivate readers and movie audiences for decades to come. They certainly didn't expect their first Batman adventure, "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate," to spawn 973 more issues of Detective Comics, let alone become a blockbuster franchise of movies, TV series, video games, and McDonald's Happy Meals. 
But here we are: this week sees the release of Detective Comics #1000, written and drawn by some of the best creators in the business. The giant-sized, 96-page issue features stories by legends such as Dennis O'Neil, Neal Adams, Steve Epting, Christopher Priest, Jim Lee, Kelley Jones, Paul Dini, Brian Michael Bendis, Warren Ellis, and Geoff Johns as well as the current custodians of the Bat-mythos -- Tom King, Tony S. Daniel, Peter J. Tomasi, Doug Mahnke, Joelle Jones, Scott Snyder, and Greg Capullo. And that's not even including the excellent covers by Jim Steranko, Bernie Wrightson, Bruce Timm, Frank Miller, Jock, Tim Sale, and more. 
Batman is only the second DC A-list superhero to reach such a massive milestone, the other being the Man of Steel, who celebrated his own 80th last year with the release of Action Comics #1000, and the company is celebrating every era of the character in this Bat-themed anniversary issue, from one of his very first (and longest) cases as a young vigilante to his very last on the eve of a lonely birthday. 
In one story, we see Bruce struggling with a fateful decision that will change his young ward Dick Grayson's life forever, while in another, Batman's extended family of heroes gets together for a hilarious reunion on a rooftop. There's also Bruce getting some much-needed guidance from Leslie Thompkins as well as a story about the worst henchmen in Batman's rogues gallery that perfectly recreates the tone of Batman: The Animated Series. The issue's most poignant tale is about Bruce's search for the gun that killed his mother and father in a ghastly scene that's been retold through every generation of the character. All of these excellent stories are meant to explore both Batman's growth, from pulpy masked vigilante to modern symbol of hope (Zack Snyder movies notwithstanding), as well as the nature of the legend itself.
What is it about this story of a boy who suffers a terrible tragedy and grows up to avenge the death of his parents night after night that has kept it at the forefront of our pop culture? Batman has been able to outlive or overshadow many of the characters that inspired his own creation -- Zorro, The Shadow, Doc Savage, Sherlock Holmes, The Phantom Detective, Dracula, among others -- but what makes him so special?
I was fortunate enough to speak to Batman writers Scott Snyder and Peter J. Tomasi, artists Bruce Timm and Jock, and the Caped Crusader himself, Batman: The Animated Series' Kevin Conroy, about why Batman still matters after all this time. Their answers showcase different aspects of the Dark Knight, from his flexibility as a character to just how damn good he looks in that costume.
But according to Conroy, who I spoke to at New York Comic Con in 2017 and 2018, Batman's continued popularity goes back to something way more primal than form and function. To the classically-trained actor who was immortalized as THE voice of Batman in the '90s cartoon, the Caped Crusader is a modern retelling of myths and stories humans have been passing down for thousands of years. 
"He's such a theatrical character," Conroy says, speaking of his initial hesitance to audition for the role. At the time, he was a theater actor who'd never done an animated role. But when he began reading the script, the character clicked. Conroy recognized this story. "They were absolutely right to cast a theater actor, especially one with a classical background, because this is Shakespeare. They're doing high drama. Batman is Achilles. He's Orestes. He's Hamlet."
The tragic Greek character Orestes is particularly on Conroy's mind when playing Batman. He's performed several plays as Orestes, a son who avenges his father's murder and goes mad because of it. By the end of the story cycle, Orestes has gone through hell and back because of his thirst for vengeance. Naturally, Conroy brought that familiarity with Orestes to his portrayal of Batman.
"He's a Homeric hero," Conroy says of the Caped Crusader. "I think of it often when I'm doing Batman because Orestes is haunted by the Furies. He descends into hell. He comes back. He's resurrected at the end. And I think so often, this is a very Orestial-like journey that Bruce Wayne goes on. His Furies are the memory of his parents' murder. It haunts him through his life. It's transformed him."
Conroy calls Batman a "classic character." Like Orestes before him, Batman has become the protagonist of our very own mythology, according to the actor.
"He's come out of such a fire and instead of letting life crush him, he turns that metamorphosis into something even greater than himself. He overcomes the tragedy that is his childhood to help heal the world...They've been telling that story for thousands of years, in different cultures and this is our culture's way of telling those stories, and I think they're just as valid."
"I think what makes him deeply enduring is that it's a really primal folk tale," Snyder, who's been writing Batman stories since 2011, says on the phone. "It's a story about a boy who loses everything and turns that loss into fuel to make sure that what happened to him never happens to anybody else."
While most of us aren't billionaire playboys with the resources to fight crime on a global (and sometimes cosmic) level, we understand pain, both emotional and physical, and a need to rise above it, even if we can't always do that. And we sympathize with Bruce's biggest regret -- if only he hadn't made his parents take him to see that Zorro movie, if only he hadn't been scared at the opera, if only he'd been braver and faster as the thug pulled the trigger, things might have been different. For Bruce, his crusade to stop evildoers comes down to replaying that single fateful moment over and over again. If only he'd done something...
Yet, Batman perseveres despite all of this pain, which is why people flock to the character, according to Snyder. 
"It's a story of triumph over your worst fears, worst tragedy, and about taking your loss and turning it into a win," the writer says. "There's just this kind of power to him that speaks to our own potential, the human potential, even when we're challenged by things that seem insurmountably horrible." 
Snyder has spent the better part of a decade showcasing Batman as a symbol of hope for the citizens of Gotham, putting him through the ringer, reopening old wounds while also making new ones -- the writer even killed the hero off at one point -- just so that he can pick himself up again and keep fighting. 
But the character isn't all tragedy, death, and knightmares. Who could hang with a downer like that for 80 years? 
"There are the fun elements, of course, that are similar to James Bond, like the gadgets, and the cars, and the planes, and just the cool factor of his costume."
Timm, who co-created Batman: The Animated Series and designed the show's iconic Art Deco aesthetic, is unsurprisingly most taken by Batman's look. 
"I just think Batman looks great," Timm says during our chat at NYCC in 2018. "He's got the best costume motif in comics. Nothing comes close. He's dark and sexy and broody. It's really intoxicating and compelling in a way that almost no other in comics can come close to it."
He also admires the durability of the character through the different eras of comics, from the Golden Age, to the sillier '50s and '60s stories of the Comics Code era, to the darker takes we're more accustomed to today. 
"It is amazing to me how flexible he is as a character. That you could have something as silly as the Adam West show or the old '50s comics, and then you have stuff like Neal Adams and Frank Miller and what we did. And you know, even more extreme, [Grant Morrison and Dave McKean's graphic novel] Arkham Asylum and things like that. And yet their all kind of the same character. It's like that character can encompass all of those different things. He can do space aliens and serial killers, you know? Yet, it kind of works."
This flexibility has allowed plenty of writers and artists to experiment with the Dark Knight, creating different versions of the character over the years. There really isn't a definitive take on Batman. Undoubtedly, one of the big reasons he's still so popular and speaks to so many people is that there's a Bat story for everybody. You can love the Batusi, Bat-Mite, or Mr. Freeze's cool party and still be right on the money about the Caped Crusader. You'd be remiss to call the character stale. The guy has done it all.
"It's almost like he's a force of nature, in which stories can happen around him, and there's something primordial, maybe, about the character and the way he looks, as well," veteran Batman artist Jock, who is currently working on a six-part miniseries with Snyder called The Batman Who Laughs, says on the phone. "You could put Batman in a new pose, and he'd still flourish, and I think those kinds of characters are very rare."
Tomasi, who has the huge responsibility of ushering in Detective Comics #1000 as the current writer on the series, puts it best in our email exchange:
"He's a character who can work across all genres. Somehow, someway, he can simply fit into every story, be it a war story, a western, a love story, a comedic angle, sci-fi, horror, fantasy, you name it, and of course any detective story you can possibly imagine."
Detective Comics #1000 closes with a prologue to Tomasi's next arc on the series, which will be drawn by Brad Walker (The Demon: Hell Is Earth) and introduce the Arkham Knight character from the recent Batman video game to DC continuity. While Tomasi can't say much about the story, especially when it comes to who is underneath the imposing Arkham Knight armor, he did share that the villain "looks at Batman as a curse on Gotham City and will do whatever it takes to destroy Batman and bring light to a city drowning in darkness."
Tomasi previously wrote the Batman: Arkham Knight tie-in series that acted as a prequel to the game, so he knows this rogue better than anyone. It's very fitting that he's using a new villain to begin Detective's run to another 1000 issues and a new era of Batman.
Will we still be talking about Batman in another 80 years? Sure, superhero stories are enjoying a second golden age, but tastes change and trends eventually end. Superheroes won't always be at the top of our pop culture food chain. It's inevitable that many of the characters we love today will fade with future generations, just as the Shadow, Doc Savage, and the Scarlet Pimpernel did. We may eventually embrace new forms of familiar myths, becoming obsessed with new idols. But only a fool would bet against a character who's survived as long as Batman has. Remember, the Batman always wins.
John Saavedra is an associate editor at Den of Geek. Read more of his work here. Follow him on Twitter @johnsjr9. 
from Books https://ift.tt/2CHhHP1
1 note · View note
twiststreet · 6 years
Photo
Tumblr media
It turns out that the guy who made The Raid has a new movie coming out in two weeks.  It doesn’t sound like an action thing, but I find it curious how today’s the first time I’ve heard about it because it’s coming out from Netflix.  Netflix doesn’t do that thing of telling people about movies months and months in advance-- they have no reason to. Movies just kind of appear randomly on Netflix and then get buried under Jeff Dunham’s new comedy special, the 12,000 other new Netflix shows (now including the cartoon version of Luke Pearson’s Hilda comics). Did I watch an episode of the new Tony Danza show last night?  Yes.  Did I enjoy seeing Tony Danza play a character named “Tony”?  Yeah, of course, I’m a human being.  So I can’t say they don’t know what they’re doing-- the algorithm has me; the algorithm figured out that people want Danza; next stop: sentience.  But I kind of liked that thing of looking forward to a movie coming out; I kind of thought the anticipation was nice, sometimes. It’s weird that’s going to be another thing the millennials kill.  I thought the millennials would settle for killing off bookstores, bar soap, post-it notes, hot cocoa  and the band Sugar Ray’s first three albums, but none of that was enough to slake their blood thirst. I’m so afraid, all of the time.
6 notes · View notes
notbang · 6 years
Note
1. things you said at 1 am
things you said prompt meme: send me a pairing and a prompt and I’ll write you a mini fic!
Nathaniel blinks a few times when he steps out into the passageway, confused by the lack of pitch darkness that greets him.
The television’s on, which is weird because he’s pretty sure he distinctly remembers switching it off after Rebecca fell asleep halfway through whatever inane high school drama she was watching this week, relieved he could finally review his case notes in peace save for her undignified snores into the back of the couch. Thirst outweighs his sleep-fogged brain’s desire to investigate further, though, and he continues on his path into Rebecca’s kitchen.
“Oh heyyyy,” a voice drawls, startling him in his survey of the contents fridge. The pile of blankets on the couch shifts and transforms into a shape vaguely resembling Heather in the shadows, her blue-green highlights illuminated in the soft glow from the screen. “Oh, good—you’re wearing pants. That’s always a bonus.”
Nathaniel shuts the fridge door and straightens up with a frown, crossing his arms over his bare chest a little self-consciously.
“You’re up late,” he observes.
“You’re… here,” Heather deadpans back at him. “Oh, I’m sorry—I thought we were just, like, stating the obvious.”
Pulling a face at her he swings the door back open, fumbling around until he finds what he’s looking for before heading into the living room, stopping beside the armchair to take a swig from his water bottle. He jerks his chin at the screen.
“What are you watching?”
Her eyebrows shoot up her forehead. “Dude, you did not just ask me that.”
“What?”
“Have you seriously never seen The Lion King? Does Rebecca know this about you? Because I’m pretty sure it’s one of her major deal-breakers.”
“Of course I’ve seen The Lion King,” he scoffs defensively. “At some point in my life. As a child. Have I retained any of it? No. In case you weren’t aware, I’m a lawyer. I’ve kind of got more important things to store in my brain than cartoons.”
“Wooow. I can’t believe Rebecca is dating a Disney-illiterate douchebag. I mean, it’s not the most confusing thing about the two of you being together, but you do realise she like, lives her life like she’s in some fairytale musical, or something.”
“I’m sorry—did you just call me an illiterate douchebag?”
“Disney-illiterate. I like to keep my insults precise.”
“Hmm.”
Against his better judgment, Nathaniel finds himself dropping down onto the couch beside her.
* * *
“Is there any particular reason you’re watching a children’s movie at one a.m. on a weeknight?”
She’s swung her legs up in front of her to make more space, sitting cross legged with a tub of Ben and Jerry’s cradled in her lap and eating it straight with a  soup spoon. She hadn’t bothered with offering him any, instead tossing an unopened bag of trail mix at him with a sigh and announcing it was the best she could do.
Nathaniel picks idly at the pepitas.
Heather shrugs. “I mean, I’m a bartender and a student, so. I have a different concept of time to you. What’s your excuse?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” he says. He pauses, tongue skimming the front of his teeth. “I’m… not used to sharing a bed. I’m kind of a light sleeper.”
Heather hums around her spoonful of Cherry Garcia in acknowledgement.
* * *
Nathaniel wasn’t lying when he said he’d seen The Lion King—he has a vague recollection of watching it in the cinema as a child and he’s aware of the general gist of it; it’s in the title, after all. It doesn’t stop his eyes from going wide as he gestures wildly at the screen when Mufasa falls to his death in an antelope stampede, leaving a distraught Simba to gingerly prod at his lifeless body.
“What the hell was that? This is supposed to be for kids! You can’t just kill off the main character’s father like that,” he protests, fidgeting in his seat and pulling the cushion he’s been holding tighter against his chest. “That’s just… that’s upsetting. For the children, I mean. It would be upsetting for children.”
“Oh,” Heather says, casting her eyes at him sideways. “Probably stay away from Bambi, then. Rebecca mentioned you might have some mommy issues, so. Zero out of ten, would not recommend.”
He frowns and digs his chin into his cushion.
* * *
When Simba starts to grow his hair out Heather slides to the floor and starts painting her toenails; when he narrowly avoids being mauled by his future mate and finds himself flat on his back, her snarling face dangerously close to his Nathaniel can’t help but huff out a dry laugh of painful recognition.
They both glance up at the shuffling noise coming from the hallway in time to see the back of Rebecca’s sushi pyjamas disappearing through the doorway as she stumbles into the bathroom. When she re-emerges a few minutes later to the sound of the toilet flushing she pauses in the half-light spilling from her bedside lamp, bleary-eyed and scrubbing at her face.
“Oh, are you guys watching a movie without me?” she mumbles, sounding vaguely disappointed but looking for all intents and purposes as if she’s about to fall asleep standing up. “I wanna watch a movie.”
She yawns loudly over the opening notes of what is very clearly about to be a disgusting love song and Nathaniel takes it as his cue to leave, pushing himself to his feet.
“No, no movies. I was just getting some water,” he promises, shepherding her back down the hall towards her bedroom. “Come on, let’s get you back into bed.”
“Hey,” Heather calls out, stopping him briefly in his tracks. He turns to look at her just in time to find her stretching out across the space he just vacated, eyes stubbornly on the screen. “I know I sort of called you a douchebag, but it’s like, cool that you’re back, or whatever. I think Estrella might have missed you. It’s hard to tell, though—that’s kind of just her face.”
It’s too dark to be completely certain, but he’s pretty sure she’s almost smiling.
28 notes · View notes