#continuation of penguin-based shenanigans

[north-blue-hearts]

Heart of Gold

CisFem Reader x Trafalgar Law

CW: ptsd, trauma, depictions/implications of suicide and suicidal ideation, language, violence, blood, canonical character death, mature themes and events 18+

Summary: There's a year before the Straw Hat Pirates will return to the Grandline Metro - and all of Law's plans and contingencies are coming together. Until his crew stumbles upon an island that's not connected to a log pose or a sea chart. A small blip on the Polar Tang's sonar was the only clue that changed their course, and now it could change the course of the Grandline itself.

Chapter 1: In Case of Emergency

The only reason the Heart Pirates were on this island was because it had been picked up on the sonar. There was no log pose pointing to it, and it wasn’t on any of the sea charts that had been compiled or gathered by the crew during all their expeditions.

Trafalgar Law, captain of the Heart Pirates, and current possessor of the Ope Ope No Mi, stood inside the walls of the small military base that he and his crew had infiltrated. Law’s general demeanor was irritated, but this base – it’s location, size, and lack of ample defenses – had him looking more irritated than usual.

The crew had handled all the military personnel in short order. No distress signal had gone out, and the skeleton crew wasn’t very talkative. Not that they could be, none of these men had a tongue amongst them. Add to that the minimal amount of supplies, as though the men here were kept on a short leash, it was too much cloak and dagger for his liking.

There was nothing else here though. No minerals to speak of, no odd flora or fauna, and no strange animals. It was a small island, and aside from a freshwater reserve, there really wasn’t much else.

“Captain! Caaaaaaptain!” Bepo called out, running toward Law by himself. He waved his arms until he was sure he had the man’s undivided attention. “You need to come this way, Captain!”

Bepo caught his breath while Law started toward him, and the mink turned back the way he came and broke into a jog before Law could catch up with him entirely. The urgency was understood, and Law broke into a jog to keep up with Bepo.

“We found a room coated in sea stone,” Bepo starts to explain, already gasping a little. “It took Shachi a long time to break into it, but once he did, we knew you’d need to see it.”

Law couldn’t help flinching at the mention of sea stone, but he also knew that whatever effect it would have on him to walk into a room coated with it, his crew wouldn’t leave him to an ill fate. He might trust Bepo, Shachi and Penguin more than the others, but there wasn’t anyone on the crew that he distrusted. Not even the newest addition, Jean Bart. The massive man could snap him in half if he so chose, assuming he could catch him off-guard, but Law knew that wouldn’t happen.

Bepo led Law into what looked like a storage building. Behind several stacks of supplies and a few shelves was a heavy metal door. Beyond that was a spiral staircase heading down into the depths of the island. The air shifted to something cooler, and Law zipped his coat up. The further down they went, the colder it was, and the cold quickly became unnatural.

It wasn’t painful or uncomfortable, but puffs of smoke appeared when either of them breathed out, and normal underground temperatures didn’t naturally get that cold. The stairwell was well-lit, and surprisingly well maintained for something that seemed to be as out of the way as anything could be on such a small scrap of land.

The idea of continued cloak and dagger shenanigans made Law’s frown deepen. The Straw Hats would be back in the Grandline Metro in about a year, and now was not the ideal time for something else to come along and complicate things. It was enough of a headache that the Alliance included who it did; additional variables were unwelcome.

Law’s contingency plans already had contingency plans of their own. The idea of adding more, or another layer, was even more irritating than this island was, and he was already contemplating burning it down to ashes and dumping the surviving marines off on whatever island they came across next.

“Captain!” Shachi called out as they got to the bottom of the stairs. There was ice clinging to the walls. “It’s almost like a recovery room. But I’ve never seen the kind of tech that’s in there – it’s beyond what we have on the Tang.”

“What are you -.” Law’s question died on his lips as he stepped into the room.

In the center of the room is a large pillar that could be made of ice or crystal. Within the center of it was a young woman, who appeared to be in religious vestments of some kind. She was posed in a way that made it look like she was floating, or had been trapped in ice so quickly that it lifted her off the ground.

Her hands were reaching out in front of her, protecting what looked to be a facsimile of a heart made of gold. The kind of heart you’d expect a child to draw, and not one that was medically accurate. Something about it seemed uncomfortably familiar, and it only made the entire vibe of the island more unsettling.

The soft beep of a heart rate monitor catches his attention. It’s painfully slow, barely a beat a minute, but following the wire and tech it’s obvious it’s the young woman’s vitals that are being watched.

“What do you know?” Law asks, handing his sword off to Bepo and stepping through the room.

“She’s stable, and if I had to guess, I’d say she’s in suspended animation.” Shachi answers. “Some of the writing on the machines looks to be what they use on the Poneglyphs, but some of it’s more common and modern. Like someone translated the important parts for whoever was going to take over.”

“If I’m reading this right, she’s been in stasis for… seventy-six years.” Penguin says, leaning back and looking at the file again. “That can’t be right, can it?”

“If it’s successful suspended animation, it could be seven hundred and sixty years.” Law admits, looking over the file Penguin hands him. “Seventy years, or seven hundred, from the looks of it she’s not in there willingly.”

“Nailed that one, Cap’n.” Shachi says, handing over a different file. There’s a flash of anger on his features before he looks up at the pillar.

Law reads the file. It outlines a short list of crimes; heresy, threats against the world government, denouncing the celestial dragons, inciting violence, impersonating royalty, and several other infractions. Something about it screamed fabrication, but he wasn’t sure why. Flipping the page, he found what had made Shachi angry.

Her family had been executed prior to her containment. According to the notations, she “failed” to save them by confessing to her crimes publicly. Memories of Flevance flickered through his mind, and the dissonance of what the government saw as criminal, and what it saw as justice.

“We need to verify these events and see if we can validate the timeframe.” He says, handing the file back to Shachi. “Get the crew in here. Every scrap of paper comes with us. Penguin, Bepo, you two are going to assist me. We’re going to get her out of this even if we have to shatter it to free her.”

“Aye, aye, Captain!” Came the response from all three.

Law reached out, and ran his fingers over the cold, smooth pillar. He froze in place, and stood still, straining to hear the monitor and focusing on his fingertips. Maybe it was a trick of his mind, but it shouldn’t be possible.

Just before the monitor beeped he felt it again. It was the unmistakable sensation of a heartbeat. It should be impossible to feel through crystal or ice, and honestly neither substance would be acceptable for preserving someone within them.

“What the hells is this?” Law murmurs to himself before turning away to assist Bepo and Penguin.

Over the next six hours the crew of the Polar Tang collect, catalog and organize every file on the island, and not just what was in the hidden room. Ikkaku and Hakugan try to get the marines to communicate – either through sign language or by writing, but the only thing they learn for certain is that the marines don’t know any more than they do.

Aside from surviving on the island, it seems their only job was to make sure nothing changed inside that room, and that was it. They marked down vitals once a day and once a week a ship would come to collect the data, drop off supplies, and then leave.

It would be three more days before another ship arrived.

“In exchange for passage to anywhere but here, they told us what they know, Captain.” Ikkaku says, updating Law as steps back into the room. Law doesn’t say anything, but when his focus is split the captain often doesn’t respond even when he’s heard the report.

“Penguin.” Law says after a moment.

“Almost got it, I think.” Penguin responds. “There! It should start -.”

[Theattho sequence.  Hwopinm cume, flop, soo, um.  Thawing sim tlonem, sclithpou thounthlon ioom al so tleeck.] 

A voice speaks from the walls, and there’s a shift in the air. The room goes from cold to warm, and cracks begin to form in the pillar.

[Sequence hwiath.  Sopfleeck ca thounthlon soo ou thomthleap onm.  Scloonshom idol ca un revived.]

“Am I losing my mind, or do some of the words make sense?” Penguin asks as he and Bepo step a little further away from the pillar.

“You’re not losing your mind.” Law replies evenly, eyes on the pillar as the cracks deepen. “Pay attention, there’s no way to know if it will crumble or shatter outward.”

[Scloonshom seat stable.  Scloonshom idol hwat.  Scloonshom seat intact.  Sequence somflep.  Notification released, seelfloo iack ca pomhwoom.]

A moment later the pillar crumbles. The young woman that had been contained within it stays in the air for a moment, slowly descended to the clear ground beneath her. The golden heart between her hands rests safely against her palms and her eyes open as her feet touch the ground.

The emotionless look upon her face is so completely devoid of expression that Law feels himself tense under the gaze. She’s wholly unreadable, and the unsettling feeling is otherworldly, like something inhuman could tear him apart at any moment. He’s almost afraid to blink, worried he’ll lose track of her if he does.

She looks from him to the golden heart in her hands and then looks back at him.

“I will take it as a sign.” She says, in a voice every bit as empty of emotion as her expression. “The first eyes I see are golden like this, so I will,” her voice wavers, and her body shivers. “Trust,” however long she had been in the pillar, she hadn’t moved at all. Law’s room fills the air. “You.”

Her body crumples, but before it falls to the ground she’s shifted into Law’s arms. The stoic captain looks down at the body in his arms, struggling to stay conscious, clutching the golden heart with more energy than she should possess.

“Don’t… lose…”

“We’ll keep it safe.” He says curtly. The effort concerns him, she’s not strong enough after decades in stasis. Coming out from suspended animation so quickly is risky, as well as he understood the process. “Conserve your energy.”

She nods once, and her entire body relaxes. Handing her off to Bepo, Law pinches the bridge of his nose. There wasn't a lot in the announcement that was in a language he knew, but two words echoed in his head.

Notification released.

Whatever was going on, he was going to have to move faster than the notification, and who ever it was that was meant to receive it. Just because there were marines on the island didn’t mean the notification would go to the World Government.

After all, there was at least one instance he was aware of where marines meant pirates, more than they meant anything else.

#Heart of Gold #trafalgar law #x reader #reader insert #law x reader #grandline metro au

[thewertsearch]

Asks Compilation 16/6

The best thing about categories like Sburb Titles is that once you have a big enough sample size of Person/Category mappings, you can extrapolate their traits to any character you like. 

Example: I got an ask a while back asking whether I have any Titles for my own OCs, and to be totally honest I can’t stop thinking about it

Oh, that is awesome. I’m bookmarking that for reference, when I’ve finished the comic. Biology is not my strongest suit, but I do find it fascinating, and speculative biology is my jam. 

It’s a balancing act, trying to make a quirk both unique and readable. i thought about a capitalization quirk WHERE i only capitalize common programmINg keywORds, but it looks kind of funky, and I wasn’t sure how to define what keywords to include. 

@capribornio​ submitted: Part 1! Terrible memes to help you cope with what just happened.

Part 2! (Dunno why tumblr wouldn't let me submit you the two images at once, but.)

jettison to the moon drop it on those stupid pawns bye bye kids, you're gonna die now your session's dead and gone

That was made by abysswarlock! Their blog is linked below the main links in my bio.  It’s great, isn’t it? Really makes the Land come to life. 

Man, I’m really mad I missed the Club Penguin craze, because if I’d played it, I would absolutely have answered this ask with penguin designs for each of the kids. 

Classic Tumblr. When you edit you blog description in the appearance editor, it actually scrubs all the HTML you added, and replaces it with plaintext. To update your description properly, you need to do it in the theme editor. 

I fixed the blog description on desktop, but I don’t think it ever worked on mobile, since tags generally don’t work properly on the app. I think it should work if you access the blog through say, Firefox, rather than the app itself? 

So do I!!!

That’s one of my favorite anime tropes, and it’s vary Homestuck-friendly, considering how many characters are bespectacled. I’m glad that my ‘sona is continuing this proud tradition. 

Thank you!  I think a big part of it is just that Homestuck happens to deal with stuff I’m really into. I love time travel and alt-self/identity shenanigans, so I was already looking at the Paradox Clone system from every angle even before the Veil. Once that cursor targeted Nanna, a lot of things immediately clicked into place. 

I didn’t see the paired tubes coming, though. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that moment. 

Maid! That was the first class I chose for myself, because I liked the connotations around ‘organizing’. 

I’m planning on doing a bunch of Title tests over the weekend. The Official Sally Classpect will be an open question for a long time, but I am interested in how much the various tests will agree. 

We’ve already talked a bit about it on the blog, but Homestuck is a kind of meta story on a lot of levels. 

We saw it with the reader suggestions at first, but there are other things too, like Hussie’s narration interacting with WV. Is that ‘canon’, per se? Much to think about...

[ sent on the 12th! - Cat ] 

Happy belated birthday Carcino ‘Cancer’ Geneticist! May this year bless you with Grist, Boondollars and a successfully salvaged Sburb session!

Honestly!!! 

Hussie is very good at turning on the waterworks. It doesn’t happen much in Homestuck, but when it does, it hits hard. 

True, true. But that was just John’s opinion - now Hussie’s narration is saying she sucks!

These guys really have been great recently. It’s like Hussie has spent a while giving them improvised character traits based on reader commands, and now that their personalities are fully established, they’re actually getting full arcs with awesome moments of development. 

I honestly can’t wait to see what the Windswept Questant’s real plan is. She’s abdicated to PM, and seems to be putting a team together. Did she know WV had the Ring all along? What’s up next? 

#full liveblog #act 4 #asks #classpect

[pastafossa]

Matt keeps a straigh face while handing Jane an actual rock in front of Foggy who is having a MELTDOWN bc he does this in front of a zoos penguin exhibit

Ok so in between my project (*shakes fist*) this idea was giving me LIFE. Because it is ABSOLUTELY in character for Matt being a sassy little shit, and like OH MY GOD, he would.

You all had just passed the seal exhibit when Matt started to grin. And not the good grin—no. This was the bad grin: a Danger Level 7 on the Matt Shenanigans scale, of which Foggy kept meticulous record. Daredevil-based antics generally categorized as a 9 or a 10, while the pig that Matt had somehow smuggled into the dorm back in college rated about an 8. And to think, he'd claimed he thought it was a dog. Foggy had sensed the stench of bullshit even then, but there'd been no evidence to prove otherwise.

Now he knew better.

You were still a little behind Matt and Foggy, caught up watching the admittedly-adorable harbor seals splash and swim around but you quickly moved on, meandering towards Foggy and Matt. Matt suddenly pulled away from Foggy, and that's when he knew the devious bastard was up to something. The few other zoo guests passing by shifted wider, giving Matt a surprisingly polite amount of space as he tapped his cane. And just like that he put on his best 'innocent, no-super-senses blind man' face—the one with the puppy dog eyes you could feel behind the glasses, the mouth tilted just so, not a smirk or a smile to be found. Foggy narrowed his eyes.

Matt called you over as Foggy hissed out a quiet, "What are you up to, Murdock?!"

Matt shifted his stance a little, the glass of the exhibit now at his back. Foggy still hadn't quite figured out what was in the enclosure but there was a lot of water. Once you were close enough to hear him, Matt reached into his pocket. "I just remembered. I almost tripped on this earlier," he told you, borderline angelic, as if he wasn't in fact a metric ton of audacity in human form. "Too much noise, threw me off. I picked it up but I'm still not quite sure what it is. I just know I didn't want it out where anyone could step on it."

Je-sus, the good Samaritan ploy. Foggy rolled his eyes, muttering a prayer to the heavens. Matt's hand had closed entirely around whatever object it was that he passed to you, scarred knuckles and callused fingers blocking Foggy's view. You carefully took it, your head dropping as you glanced down at it. As you did, Matt lifted his head and directed a quick smirk in Foggy's direction. Behind him, briefly glimpsed through glass and cold water, a black and white shape swooped by.

Holy shit, he wouldn't!

No, no. Not even Matt was this ballsy, this blatant, and Foggy nodded to himself, lifting his giraffe cup to drink from.

"Wow," you murmured, turning whatever it was over in your hand. "I mean, it's a rock, but it's really pretty. Where did you say you found this?"

Foggy spat back into the giraffe's plastic face, choking and coughing. He waved off the passersby who'd paused even as he continued to hack, because holy shit—

"Found it up towards the front," Matt said innocently, which he absolutely was not, not one bit, the bastard—

"Some kid probably dropped it after picking it up in the gift shop. God, it's pretty." You let out a quiet hum, still seemingly entranced by the stone in your hands. Foggy took a step to the right, just enough to get a glance at the rock. And then he had to turn away, wheezing in disbelief because how did Matt pick a red geode?!

"Nothing we can do about it now, kid's probably long gone," you said thoughtfully, and Foggy whirled back around, not willing to miss even a second despite himself.

"You're probably right," Matt said, as another penguin drifted by. This one paused, however, posing behind Matt. Aaand now even the penguin was staring at Foggy mockingly, those fucking macaroni penguins with their sarcastic, dastardly eyebrows.

You tried to hand the rock back, but then Matt shook his head, throwing you a warm smile. "I can't really appreciate it as much as you since I can't see it. Why don't you keep it?"

Foggy made a strangled noise, choking on air as he swallowed down a shriek and oh god, this was it, this was how he died, because Matt Murdock was literally giving you a devilishly-red rock in front of the fucking penguin exhibit. You tentatively drew your hand back, staring down at the stone and turning it over in your hands, and how could you not know?!

And there was a moment, a moment, as your head lifted and you caught sight of the penguin swimming by, that Foggy thought, Aha! Yes, you've got it! You'd realize, wouldn't you? You had to, and then-then Foggy wouldn't be alone seeing the sheer shamelessness in Matt offering you an actual rock in front of penguins when penguins courted with rocks, right?! You tilted your head, eyes flicking between Matt and the penguins as you considered them both. "Do you know where we are right now?" you asked slowly.

Matt shrugged, giving you a baffled look. "The... grizzly exhibit hit me a little hard, and there's a lot of noise. I can smell water at least. Are we near the seals?"

No, no, Foggy did not buy that for a goddamned second, but apparently you did because you gave a little snort and shoved the geode into your pocket before holding out an arm to Matt. He gently took hold and then his face turned towards Foggy over your head, and his smirk turned absolutely shit-eating.

"Fuck you, Murdock!" Foggy whispered as emphatically as he could, resisting the urge to flip Matt off when there were children present. "You insane, rock-gifting, hellspawn of a penguin!"

"Language, sir!"

"Sorry, ma'am."

#Matt Murdock x Reader #Daredevil x Reader #Foggy Nelson #Matt Murdock #Daredevil #Ask fic #Ask prompt #continuation of penguin-based shenanigans #Matt Murdock's audacity #the NERVE #not only did he give a rock #he gave you a RED ROCK #*cue Foggy screaming* #Matt absolutely knowing how to use the sad innocent puppy face #for sheer evil #macaroni penguins are sassy looking bastards go look it up #the red thread

[popculturebuffet]

The Three Caballeros Ride Again Review!: And Ladies (Ride of the Three Caballeros)

Saludos Amigos! I’m back with yet another comics review! And we’re back on The Ride of the Three Cablleros! Thanks again to WeirdKev27 for commissioning this retrospective. It’s going to get pricey and I greatly appreciate it.  PREVIOUSLY ON RIDE OF THE THREE CABLLEROS 

In short.. a bunch of short segments of varying quality, a very thirsty Donald hitting on ladies, the first appearance of Panchito and some very good music. A fun time was had by all. Along with a LOT OF drugs by the Disney Animators. The film wasn’t a huge success, but out of the 6 package films, it was a fan faviorite alongside the Mr. Toad and Ichabod movie, and thus was rereleased quite a bit, as well as being one of the first of this era to end up on VHS due to it’s cult popularity.  As for Panchito and Jose they’d get plenty of success overseas, with both getting solo series in their respective home countries, Jose himself having just resumed having comics again this year, and being rightfully massive characters. But despite being a hit with fans across the world.. in the US... they were pretty much shoved in the Disney Vault for a few decades. Jose would show up on the Wonderful World of Disney, in it’s various forms, three times after the Three Caballeros while Panchito just vanished aside from reuses of the Three Caballeros footage. Their careers in the US just sorta vanished for a few decades. But as suddenly as they vanished, our boys returned triumphantly. Naturally being the most used out of the duo, Jose would show up for the first time in decades during Mickey Mouseworks, a show full of new late 90′s produced Mickey Mouse shorts, all but two of which would end up being recycled for the much more popular and well loved House of Mouse, which would feature the triumphant return of the Cabs to animation after so long away. We’ll get to that next time, as just a year before the Cabs had already reunited in the pages of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories in one of Don Rosa’s best loved tales. The Ride of The Three Caballeros was something Don Rosa had wanted to do since he got the job writing Duck Comics in the first place. As he explained in the back of the complete library edition named after this tale, Uncle Keno isn’t the biggest fan of the Donald Theatrical shorts. Having experienced the Carl Barks comics first, and having built his career around them later, he just wasn’t a fan of the goofier, angrier, less nuanced theatrical short Donald, often feeling like he was an entirely different character from the one he loved. And.. honestly he’s not wrong. Both were built for entirely different kinds of comedy: While both did slapstick, Slapstick, along with standard comedy shenanigans, was the main weapon in Shorts Donald’s comedic arsenal. Barksian Donald, while not immune to slapstick, was more like a well built sitcom character: Multi layered, sympathetic when he needs to be, but still having tons of faults to be exploited for laughs and to play off other characters. As a result while I like Donald in the shorts I do prefer Barks version of him, and the shorts Barks did are usually the best of both worlds, combining Donald’s everyman schtick with his slapstick schtick. Of course later cartoons would pick one or the other or combine both, but I do get his point and at the time he wrote this story the only cartoon show starring Donald was.. Quack Pack.. which I can only imagine his reaction to seeing that train wreck. 

But as you can probably guess there was one exception and it was The Three Caballeros. Don genuinely enjoys the beautiful music and the wonderful chemistry the three have. So after a trip to Mexico gave him the perfect setting and the fire in his belly to finally do it, he finally wrote the story. And since they weren’t Barksian characters and hadn’t had any other apperances in decade, Don also took a dive into their comics. Since Jose was more of a fancifial freeloader in his comics, Don decided to ignore this characterization and go with his own based on the film: A latin playboy and lounge singer. And i’m okay with him doing that, as unlike say with Marvel and DC when they destroy a character, Disney characters are both more fluid continuity wise and his is still rooted in a version of the character, and he’s fully accepting and apologetic that some fans hate him for this. Also for some damn reason they redesigned Jose at some point in his Brazil to look like this:

This is far from the dumbest comic book costume change i’ve seen, but it’s certainly one of the most lame, as his original outfit is dapper, stylish and fits the Brazilian version of him well. And it’s not like you CAN’T update the classic Disney characters with modern appearances. Quack Pack, which has somehow come up twice in this review, did so great with Donald and Daisy, giving them new clothes and a haircut in Daisy’s case but both still look great. Same with Goofy for Goof Troop who just wore a dad sweater and bow tie, which puts him in the small but significant club of “Bow Tie Wearing Characters who have defined my life” with Opus the Penguin and the 11th Doctor. You can update a classic character’s’s appearance without coming off like...

Which given Jose’s outfit there is horrifyingly similar, says something. Anyways, Rosa had more use for Panchito’s stories, which had him as a cowboy protecting small towns with the help of his trusty steed Senor Martinez. Rosa loved both aspects and thus used them here, with Martinez getting a makeover to fit Rosa’s style better. Rosa is also the one to popularize Panchito’s last name, having found it on a scrap of research, not realizing the character’s last name was not at all widespread and thus giving him a canon one that has stuck to this day, and sighing in relief when he finally got conformation from another fan this name was indeed something Disney had used after loosing his research scrap.  So with the two boys characters set, a plot set up and a whole sequence planned we’ll talk about on the way “The Three Caballeros Ride Again!” was born. How good is it? Well join me under the cut and i’ll tell you. 

We open in Mexico, specifically near the Barranca Del Cobre, aka The “Copper Canyon” of the Sierra Madre, a natural land formation simlar to the Grand Canyon that Don Rosa saw during his trip and thought would make a great setting. While larger than the Grand Canyon, Rosa figures in his notes it simply isn’t as popular because it’s more isolated than the Grand Canyon and that, combined with it having trees inside distracting from it’s rugged beauty, makes it much harder to build a tourist industry around. The four are headed to El Divisadero, because this comic is determined to kill me with it’s difficult to spell names apparently, where Huey, Dewey or Louie spouts off for no particular reason about the currently being built Chihuahua El Pacifico Railway. Seriously the boys might as well be the security guard from Wayne’s World in this comic, their role for most of their brief page time is just to set up stuff for later. I mean i’m fine with setting up your setting but there are better ways than just spouting off tons of exposition apropos of nothing. 

Donald has driven the boys here for a Woodchuck Jamboree. I did actually look into Jamborees, as before this it only had ever come up in one of my favorite movies of all time, Moonrise Kingdom, and mentioned occasionally in the Ducktales Reboot. Jamboree was first used for a worldwide scouting Jamboree but has gone on to mean a huge gathering of scouts, with the Boy Scouts of America having one every four years, so odds are it’s just a big yearly or quarter yearly thing for the woodchucks. Still it would be nice to see a big gathering like this in the series, especially since several of our cast are involved in them, including the possible power trio of Huey, Violet and Boyd, and Della and Launchpad could easily be slotted into the plot as seen in this season’s premiere.. as could Dewey and Louie if they really want to since according to Frank their members.. they just aren’t nearly as invested as their brother, and thus  don’t do Woodchuck stuff unless he drags them into it, as seen with “Day of the Only Child” in the series itself. It does make sense: Dewey doesn’t have the survival instinct or patience for camping, and Louie hates effort, the out doors, and doing things for anything but profit. Scouting is all of that.  So the boys have driven all this way for the Mexican Jamboree, as they’ve been carefully raising their tarantula Tara, and the Tarantula Breeding Badge is only given out in Mexico, which is plausible: Different branches of a worldwide organization would have different awards and what not in different countries. And Tarantula’s are also native to mexico so that makes sense.. and I want you to apricate that I’m afraid of spiders, not cartoony ones, for instance, this is adorable. 

Galvantula4Life. But real life ones or realistic looking ones? Yeah no fuck that. So I had to go to the Wikipedia entry and see several horrifying looking sizeable spiders for this one tiny fact. Your welcome. Tara ends up on Donald’s face with the boys assuming Donald is sad to see her go instead of you know FUCKING TERRIFIED A GIANT SPIDER IS ON HIS FACE. This gag does not work.. but probably because as I said i’m afraid of spiders and this is my nightmare, you little sociopaths. 

The boys however worry about what Donald will do for the weekend as they prepare to board the bus to the Jamboree... why it’s meeting in an out of the way town like this I have no idea, but i’d guess plot convince. They realize he has no friends, which Donald shrugs off, and they REALLY shouldn’t say to his face, but ruminate on it once he leaves to do whatever after vaguely talking about friends he had in the past. 

I like this scene even though it annoys me a bit: Ilike it because it does set up how Donald really DOSEN’T have any friends in the comics. It’s part of WHY Rosa was drawn to the Cabs: Their one of the few equal relationships donald’s ever had, people who treat him as a partner, in both sense probably, a friend, a true amigo. As the boys point out Scrooge is a monster to him in the comics, paying him 30 cents an hour which I actually put into an inflation calculator to get an accurate read on how little that was by 2020 standards.. and it’s 3 dollars an hour. Hence why I call him a monster, why that bit hasn’t aged well, and why Rosa REALLY, REALLY should’ve retired it. It dosen’t help reading that knowing Disney largely treated Rosa the same way is cringe inducing at best, if not for any fault of his own. It being cringe inducing for an employer horribly mistreating and underpaying his employees though is his fault, he’s a grown ass man, even in the 90′s this had to be a problem, be better. 

And yes i’m being hard on Don Rosa but just like with the comics thing, I simply expect better from the man given just how much respect I have for the guy. His art is gorgeous, his research is immaculate, his knowledge of old films is wonderful and his love for them so infectious i’m tempted to seek the ones he’s mentioned in notes out. He’s a truly wonderful guy and one of my faviorite comic writers.. but I have to treat him fairly like I do ANY of my idols. Just to prove that, I love Grant Morrison, especially his run on New X-Men, but a lot of it hasn’t aged well including some of the language and the entire subplot with Emma manipulating Scott into having an affair when he wasn’t in the best mental place and she knew that and was acting as his therapist, and treating that as a regular affair REALLY doesn’t play well nor should it have. I love Al Ewing, with all my heart and soul, but his run on Ultimates, while having some great worldbuilding and a spectacular cast, ultimately wasn’t very good after the first arc. Not terrible but not good. John Aliison, of Scary Go Round and Giant Days fame, while impressive has had plenty of stories I just didn’t like for various reasons and will probably get into some day and some parts of his stories haven’t aged well. It’s the hard but necessary part of being a critic: You have to be objective and see all the parts of a creator’s creation, not just the ones you like and call them out when they screw up. To me being a fan isn’t about just blindly loving something, it’s about knowing WHY you love it and being willing to call out faults while still thoroughly enjoying the work. There’s a fine line between being blindly loyal to someone, which has created Zach Snyder's awful cult of personality that I hate so much, and being an overly critical shithead and I hope I’m straddling that line. 

Back on the scene after that filibuster they point out Gladstone, who himself is a monster to me for how he doesn’t lift a finger to help his nephews or cousin, and constnatly flaunts his luck to Donald, and is a bit more than teasing especially since he tried to, you know, steal your house once boys. That’s canon.. that’s a barks story so it’s canon here. You.. You remember that right? He tried to steal your house. And we will be getting to that one next month, just you wait.  Finally the Daisy part that annoys me slightly. The boys being sexist.. was sadly the style at the time this story is set, the 1950′s, and thus plays better for me than it does in Ducktales, as their just little boys and don’t know better. Them assuming Girlfriends aren’t like having friends, while accurate though does bother me a bit, but only because the way this story treats Donald’s relationship is PRETTTTTYYYY bad and this sets that up. But we’ll get to that.  Thankfully this foreshadowing of terrors to come is quickly forgotten as we get a GENUINELY great two panels of Donald lamenting his lack of friends. It just works really well, selling his loneliness and how isolated he truly feels without any, which while I have friends I can relate to as I only really hang out with on regularly. 

This is what I was talking about. While I will point out Rosa’s flaws.. their truly outweighed but his artistic mastery. In just three panels he really has a truly emotional and heartrending scene, and just that one close up among them is all we need to get the true depths of Donald’s loneliness. I can be hard on the guy, but it’s because he’s one of the best there is, best there was, and best there ever will be and thus I hold him to a high standard.  But with that we transition to...

Or rather first his boss at the hotel, whose pissed his headliner has skipped out on him again to woo a lady, and while he plans to fire the guy, only isn’t throttling him because he figures one of his “Senorita’s” boyfriends will do that for him. And while I do like Jose as a playboy i’m not really fond of him trying to have sex with someone in a relationship, as it puts both him and the person he’s having an affair with in a really bad light. It does fit the character, I just don’t have to like it. As for this particular Senorita, it turns out her boyfriend is a notorious Bandito and is thankfully out of town. So yes, Jose is essentially acting out Come A Little Bit Closer by Jay and the Americans. 

Naturally just like the song, said Bad Man returns, Alfonso “Gold Hat” Bedoya, a machete wielding baddie who while understandably pissed about another man making time with his girlfriend, is less understandably about to murder Jose. Though unlike the song, Alfonso’s Lady, rather than help Jose, encourages her boyfriend to murder him and clearly has a fetish for cheating on her boyfriend with various men and watching as he kills him which.. Jesus. This is why while I don’t LIKE the idea of Jose hitting on women in a relationship it does work here, as he’s still not nearly as bad as either of these two, so it evens out. Jose escapes with his umbrella but crashes.. right into the back of Donald’s car. Rosa, Alfonso’s lady, encourages him to murder both of them for funsies, and being a brutal thug, Alfonso obliges and shoots at the car. And since, to quote the duck himself, Donald doesn’t like being killed “Even a little”, he books it out of there. 

Alfonso doesn’t peruse them though. He’s on the trail of a treasure hunter who has a map to the lost town of Tayopa, which contains untold silver, but before he can do that he has important buisness to get to. 

I fucking love that gag and that Rosa snuck more adult gags in there knowing plenty of Duck Fans, such as myself, are grown men, women and others who can handle this sort of thing, while still slippnig it past the kids. 

Donald, once the fear’s worn off a bit, starts to wonder WHY he’s running when he’s not the one who pissed off the guy, and ignores Jose’s good point about the fact Alfonso really dosen’t seem like a guy who sees nuance.. until Donald sees a wanted poster for Alphonoso and keeps driving. He eventually gets far enough away to feel safe.. and confront the guy who got him into this mess. 

Now kiss. While sadly, they do not, we do get a lovely warm reunion between old pals. Rosa keeps their past vauge as, correctly, he pointed out in his authors notes that the Cabs movie really had no plot, accurate, so instead just vaguely alluded to Donald having known the two in his pre-daisy and boys past and likely had similar adventures to the movie, but adapted more for Rosa’s barksian universe. Jose explains he often finds himself cash poor and thus hits the road to drum up some money, and Mexico is a great place for that as it has plenty of tourist money. 

Though as Jose talks about their past we get the most uncomfortable running gag of the story. 

While Donald’s paranoia here is played for laughs.. it just.. isn’t all that funny that Donald’s relationship with Daisy in the Rosa canon is apparently sooooo deeply unhealthy that just HEARING about him having a romantic past before him, as Rosa confirmed this was pre-daisy in his notes, causes Donald to panic and worry she actually somehow heard this. It just isn’t funny.. it speaks of MASSIVE relationship issues and some form of domestic abuse on Rosa!Daisy’s part. It’s stuff like this why there’s only a handful of Donsy relationships I like: Her treating him like shit is reduced to a punchline, instead of being used for character growth. It’s also why I’m deeply dreading covering “Legend of the Three Cablleros” at the end of this retrospective. I just don’t like when Disney media treats Daisy expecting too much of Donald or being hyper jealous of him as hilarious and while I take this more as the story not ageing well rather than barks fault, as since then Domestic Abuse against Males has become a more widely known and talked about issue, it still doesn’t’t make it plesant. It just makes this not entirely his fault. Just like it’s not Stan Lee’s fault this panel is both deeply hilarious and uses a now kinda racist term. 

I named an entire youtube channel after that.. we all have our regrets. I also bring it up since currently Harry’s become terrifying villain Kindred... and thus the current big bad of an entire Spider-Man run and the being hopefully bringing one more day into the light and hopefully leading to it’s undoing.. once had a goofy mustache he genuinely referred to a “Fu Manchu Face Fuzz” that for all we know he regrew under the mask. 

Donald fondly remembers the old days of being a badass adventuring team and decides, screw it, let’s go show that Gold Hatted Paloka whose boss.. but being Donald ends up driving them into The Copper Canyon instead. Our heroes end up lost in the canyon and , fitting for Donald get shot at. I can only imagine his thoughts right now. 

Their mysterious attacker threatens them.. before revealing himself to be Panchito, whose glad to see his friends having mistook them for Alfonso. Turns out HE’S the mysterious treasure hunter Alfonoso was after, to no one’s surprise. We get another deeply unfunny “Daisy’s only a thousand miles away gag” as the boys reminisce and get introduced to Panchito’s horse, Senior Martniez. He also tells the boy about his map.. but how he’s hit a snag as the lost town where the silver, from a silver mine.. is now buried under pounds of volcanic rock, a volcano having erupted. This is artistic license as Don Rosa admits there aren’t any known volcano’s in Mexico, but that they also still haven’t found that missing town, so this was his explanation.  All is not lost as Donald’s globetrotting with Scrooge meant he knows his history.. and thus spots an old mission which, at the time, were used by preists as cover for secret mines. Donald naturally bungles his way in and we get the much better running gag of the Cabs thinking Donald did something amazing when he really just wondered into slapstick. They end up down the shaft, with Jose deciding Donald can’t do all the work, and finding a secret entrance under a sanctum sanctorum.. a religious thing I have no idea what it ii s but is clearly where Dr. Strange got the name. Regardless they find some old kegs filled with pure silver. As Panchito puts it: 

And he did ideed. In a nice moment that shows off his character, Panchito has no hesitation for sharing the wealth: He wouldn’t of got this far without his friends, and he wont get the Silver cashed in without their help. He also fires off his guns in celebration.. forgetting their in a cave, a gag I genuinely like. 

After some off screen loading and hoisting, the boys are slowly on their way out of the canyon, with Donald’s Car and Senor Martinez pulling the cart with the silver together. With some downtime the three talk about what they’ll spend the money on. 

About what you’d expect. A big beautiful music venue

For Jose, and a nice ranch to retire at for Panchito. Both despite being wondering souls would love a simple place to call home, in their own personal styles. While they are BIG goals, their also likeable and understandable ones: Jose just wants to stop having to do all these tours and carouse and party and perform at home. Be his own boss, and live his own dreams instead of working for whoever will put up for him. Panchito just wants to retire from being a wondering hero to a peaceful life of farming, an honest reward he well earned. And Donald? 

This is easily one of my faviorite moment’s of Rosa’s, one that really cuts to comic donald’s character: Sure he can be lazy, a trickster, hot tempered, and overconfident.. it’s why we love him.. but at the end of the day he genuinely loves those boys and their his first prority and I can see why the reboot took that trait and made it his defining one. They may annoy and frustrate them and he may pull a switch on them, 50′s after all.. but he loves his boys and knows they’ll do great one day and despite his spendthrift ways when given big money.. their all he can think about. Sure Donald probably has his own personal dreams, but instead of going big and retiring he’d probably just take only a small sliver of that money to open a humble hot dog stand or something, so he could have something of his own to provide them, while still giving most of the money to their college. Scrooge is who we all want to be.. Donald is who we are at our core: Flawed people who just want to do our best. It’s why I love the guy so much.  The boys rest in the small town of El Divisadero, which like the town we started in is a real place, though both are much smaller, even as of 2000 when Rosa made his visit, so he had to embelish slightly. THey stop at a local watering hole only to find Alphonso. While Jose is naturally worried, Gold Hat has moved on to Panchito and wants to know why he’s here. However Donald thinking quickly says he’s part of their nightclub act, and we get a rousing version of the three cablleros, which when reading this I synched up to the song. I won’t put it here, as it’s too big for tumblr and it really works more as a whole, but needless to say, it’s the highlight of the comic. While Rosa did have doubts about putting a musical number in a comic, and it’s often trickey, he makes it work with the energy, vibrance and number of gags, that compensate for the music not being there. There’s tons of great gags, from Donald getting thrown out  window, to the stone faced crowd who only cheers when Alphonso ends the number by whacking the three with one of their own guitars.  Alphonso quickly realizes what’s goin on, finds the silver, and then hyjacks the train. The boys take off after him in the car, as Donald triumphantly states “The Three Cablleros Ride Again!”. The three head after Alphonzo, who finds them when trying to release the other cars to increase speed, and then shoots at them. It seems hopeless... until donald gets launched into the air, into a cactus then back into Alphonzo knocking his guns out in a great bit of slapstick. The Conductor, likely not knowing about the others or not carring, detaches the cars though, so our heroes and villian are now sent rocketing through the world’s most dangerous railway. Which, as you’d probably already figured out, is very real and what inspirited rosa to use this setting and thus indeed wind through dangerous mountainsides and over thin cliffs like a real life Donkey Kong Country level.  Eduardo still has his machete though and easily beats Jose’s umbrella, but some more Donald slapstick and him apologizing to daisy about the senioritis as he wishes her goodbye seriously GET SOME COUPLE’S COUNSELING IF THAT EXISTS IN THE 50′S. It puls his sombrero down over his head, and with jose’s umbrella top landing on it, carries him off where he ends up in a lazy asshole sheirff’s jail for a gag. The boys however continue going back.. and the railway is unfinished at this time in history and while they save the silver, their fucked. But Donald has a plan, running to the back of the cars to get his car, and while it has trouble starting, Panchito throws some chilie’s in the tank to get it moving again.  The boys find the silver.. but when one barrel spills they find out it’s not actual liquid silver.. but quicksilver, which was used for silver refinment. So while i’ts shiny, and toxic so of course Jose sticks his hand in before knowing what it is, it’s worthless. Probably. The boys.. all have a nice laugh over it. I love this moment. Sure the boys lost their dreams.. but like Scrooge, the three belivie theirs always another rainbow. What matters is the journey they had and the reunion that restored their friendship. Donald also muses the boys are smart enough to get their own scholarships anyway, so it’s no big loss.. but he does have to get back to Disvadero as the jamboree ends tonight and Jose agrees as he now needs a job again. The owner balks, understandably since Jose missed a performance to get laid and then disappeared overnight.. but the Hotel Owner is visiting so as long as he can provide a big act he’s good, and while Jose is worried as he already gave them his best, the boys naturally pitch in to be the cablleros once more. After all

So we close on Huey, Dewey and Louie returning, still worrying about donald, when they find him on stage. We then end on a truly heartwarming and great last few panels. 

Final Thoughts: What else can I say? This story is beautifully drawn, as usual for Rosa, well paced, fun and really fleshes the Cabs out from the movie. It has a warm, fun adventurous tone and it’s nice to see Donald in the lead since Rosa usually did Scrooge stories and thus Donald was the justifiably surly sidekick instead of the main man> here he’s in the spotlight and gets to show just what he’s made of, while still being the hilarious mess we all know and love. The story honors the original film well, while forging it’s own path and is beautifully built into history. My only real complaints are the nephews being annoying, Alphonso’s somewhat overwrought accent, and of course the daisy gags.. but it’s all HEAVILY outweighed by one of Rosa’s finest hours and easy enough to ignore. Check this out if you can. It’s a classic for a reason. 

If you liked this review, you can commission your own by messaging me on here or at my discord technicolormuk#655 for five dollars a comic story or animation episode. Whenever the ride resumes next, we’ll coming on down to the house of mouse to see the boys return to the screen. In the meantime keep an eye on this space for regular Ducktales reviews every Monday, including once this run ends as I intend to start playing catchup, loud house reviews whenever, my tom retrospective that’s returning soon, and my retrospective on the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, with chapter 2 of that also coming soon. Until then, there’s always another rainbow. 

#the three caballeros #jose carioca #panchito pistoles #donald duck #don rosa #ride of the three caballeros #the three caballeros ride again #huey duck #dewey duck #louie duck #daisy duck #mexico #comics #reviews #elmo keep

[charmergirl2468]

Hermitcraft Babus #2

Chapter 2: Greetings

Authors note: Sorry if this just sounds like infodumping, but I honestly feel I need to get this info outta the way so I can get to the cute one shot stories! So don’t worry, the next one will 100% be a misadventure instead of this!

Grian expected very little when waking up that morning. Working on Sahara? Of course it was on the agenda. Pulling a prank? Perhaps if the need arises. Area 77 shenanigans with Renbob? He’d have to see if Renbob was up for it.

What he didn’t expect, out of everything, was to find that his dragon build came to life and is now his very moody daughter.

He wasn’t the only one though, looking around the impromptu meeting in front of iTrade. Scara was currently hanging off of Scars arm, swinging about playfully. Iskall was trying to console the little baby that was strangely his dabbing penguin. Cleo talking with a young girl with black tentacles for hair and punk clothes, all signs pointing to the girl being Cleo’s Kraken. Doc was grooming the hair of a boy a little younger than the Kraken, who Grian estimated was Doc’s bush. Ren was happily chatting with a boy who was using sign language. Said child looked to be around eight years old with white hair tied in a long braid and maroon eyes, which Grian guessed was Ren’s dragon skeleton brought to life.

Grian stared at the girl in front of him. Her arms were crossed and she had a scowl, evidence that she’d rather be anywhere but here. “So…” he trailed, trying to think of something to say. He hadn’t expected to have a child at this point in his life, but he just rolled with it. No amount of disbelief will undo the fact his dragon is now in front of him.

“What is it, dad?” The unamused teen asked.

The question snapped Grian back to reality.

“R-Right” he stumbled on his words “Well, I’m sure you’ve got a lot of questions, all things considered. Can I at least get your name?”

“You never gave me one,”

“Now that I think about it,” Doc said, lifting his hand away from his bush son, “I didn’t give my bush a proper name before. Is Scara the only one with a name?”

“I think so,” Chimed In Cleo, “To be a little fair, none of could have seen this situation occurring”

“We can fix that right now” Iskall smiled as he rock the now resting baby, “I think I’ll call him Pip”

“That’s adorable!” Stress cooed, standing next to Iskall.

Cleo gave herself a few minutes to think before asking her now daughter “How do you feel about Kasey? Not really extravagant, but it has a K like Kraken…”

“I love it!” The newly named Kasey exclaimed before giving her mom a big hug.

The timid bush spoke up before his dad did “I-I was actually thinking about it before you found me. C-Can my name be Sycamore? I-I-I know its a tree type and I’m more of a bush but I thought that sycamore sounds a little like a name and-“

“It’s perfect” Doc rustled his son’s hair in approval.

Ren’s dog ear twitched as he pondered a name. “How aboooooout… Mephisto? It could work… and we can call you Meph for short!” Meph signed at Ren with a huge smile.

When it came down to Grian, his mind blanked from the stress. Amongst all the other weirdness that was builds turning into kids, it never crossed his mind what he could name his own children. Being married and having kids eventually has of course, but not the finer details such as names. Then, almost as if it was slipped into his head like a letter under a door, he had an idea.

“How do you feel about Ember?” He piped up, “Since you breathe fire and all, it does fit a bit”

The redhead gave an aproving smirk and said “Yeah, sounds really punk… I like it. Surprised someone as bland as you picked it”

Grian half wanted to fight back, but the other half was just confused as to how Ember could’ve ended up so different from himself. Kids grow to have their own minds and feelings of course, but there’s usually some semblance of their parents in there. He could only theorize as to how his daughter had ended up punk.

“Ok, all the kids officially have names,” Xisuma stated, his hands clapping together for emphasis, “Next on the agenda should be finding them a place to stay, seeing as we all have builds we go to-“

“Some builds will have to be put on hold,” Iskall interjected, “We can’t just leave the kids to fend for themselves! Especially a baby like Pip…”

“Plus we have more space than we know what to do with” Stress added, “Pip can stay in me fortress with me, Ember and Scara can live in Hermitville, Kasey can live in Cleo’s pirate ship, the list goes on!”

“Point taken,” Xisuma continued, “Guess this just leaves my task of asking the Void about this…”

“And for me and Scar to check with the Vex” Cub said.

“Sounds about right. Anything else?”

Without much other warning, little Pip let out some babbles before crying.

“Other than feeding Pip, nope” Iskall stated, trying his best to adjust his elytra with one hand.

“Guess that about does it for this impromptu meeting then. Good luck being parents!” With that, Xisuma rocketed away towards his base. Once the admin left, everyone dispersed in to their own groups. Grian and Ember were the only ones left purely because Grian has to look through five separate shulker boxes for his elytra. He had no idea what possessed him to think that was a good idea but he finally had his artificial wings on (after five minutes of searching and putting away the shulkers) and was ready to take off.

“Are you ok to Fly?” He asked, rocket in hand and facing his daughter.

“‘Course I’m ok to fly!” She huffed, spreading her wings for emphasis “The wings aren’t for show!”

She then took to the sky, leaving poor Grian in the dust. After registering that he was being left behind he too started to fly, a single rocket sounding off. Still, he couldn’t help but his a small mischievous smirk on his face.

“Race you back to my base!”

“You’re on!”

#charm art #hermitcraft babus #hermitcraft child au #hermitcraft #hermitcraft scara #goodtimeswithscar #zombiecleo #grian #docm77 #iskall85

[vividlybnha]

Warmth In The Cold

Warnings: Cursing and shenanigans.

Word Count: 1895

Relationship: Bakugou x Kirishima, platonic or not is up to you.

Author’s Note: This is from @sittingontheceiling​‘s amazing antartica AU  where Bakugou is a scientist in Antartica and Kirishima is a photographer.

It's cold. 

Blistering cold.

The wind bustles across his cheeks, bringing his blood to the forefront and painting his face red. He use to be very disagreeable with it, the fact that it looked like he was always blushing. Over time he had gotten used to it, he had to. But that doesn’t at all mean that he can’t grumble and complain about it. 

He had probably complained about every and anything about Antarctica at one point. The cold, the snow, the wind, their base, his coat, and the penguins. God, the penguins. Bakugou had come here for the science. That was it, science was all he really needed, nothing else mattered to him. He would stay in this cold hell for months just for the science and that's what he did but not he did not sign up for the penguins. Of course, he knew there was going to be some chance encounters. How could he not think that but he was entirely wrong on their behavior.

He had seen penguins before when he was younger. In the zoo exhibit, squawking and screaming as they plunge into the water, droplets of water splashing against the glass. Seeing their habitat, rocky and icy, snow around the corner, dents where they slid through was amazing. Though he was far more invested in the science in the ice.Kirishima was entirely different. He’d smile bright as he waved his camera around hand tightly curled around it as not to drop it, despite it being secured with the strap, and explain for the fifth time that day how much he loved this job.He’d say some sweet shit about animals, about his love for them and the surrounding nature but while Bakugou could admire his dedication, going so far from home into an isolated continent full of ice and with him of all people, he could not get over how much he loved penguins. He just didn’t understand it. 

It wasn’t just his insufferable hate for penguins but the fact that the penguins loved and practically fawned over Kirishima (which faintly surprised Bakugou when he first saw it, they’d both thought that maybe the penguins would be scared of him, his shiny sharp teeth a possible threat but they weren’t). Kirishima spent hours later screaming about how he felt so loved and accepted. They’d see him taking his pictures and rush over, squawking and flapping their fins as the surged him. It would be adorable if Bakugou liked penguins, but all he saw was the small hell demons as they swarmed his friend (and no, he wasn’t jealous). 

Disgusting.

Usually, they’d leave him alone, they’d stalk close, softy squawking and watch him and he’d stare back. Staring with pure anger in his eyes. This would go on for at least an hour (he wouldn’t be the one losing this contest), it happened enough, enough that Kirishima had a whole Instagram of the pictures; him in stare offs with those demons, them standing and staring (the others at the station loved to tease him about it). There was the occasional time he’d befriend some, loners, they’d come by, and softly rub against his knees, soft chirps and he’d pet them, knuckle under their chin as they nuzzled into him. Kiri has far less pictures of that. But even with the vast majority of penguins, most preferred Kiri,and of course Bakugou had his favorites to but there was one. One penguin Bakugou despised with all his being.

Kiri has stuck to calling him Pep, Bakugou didn’t know or care to as why but he hated that penguin with everything he had to offer.

He was a smaller fellow, constantly tripping over his feet as he waddled around. It started out soft and nice and fun. He favored Kiri at first, and stuck around the camp more than the others, wandering around curiously and chirping, he loved to watch Kiri take pictures or bite at the bolts in the equipment. But that wasn’t why Bakugou hated him.

Bakugou, due to his quirk had to take some of his layers off when the wind had slowed and he was overwhelmed with the stuffy warmth and he usually found himself pulling his scarf off and setting it beside him, under his mug of coffee or book. It was a bad habit he had, he can admit that. They needed to say as warm as possible, as to not catch a cold or something worse but it was usually fine, no extreme backlash or punishment, just a gentle reminder from Kiri and everything would be fine.

But Pep had to mess that up.

He remembered the day it started up. He had set his scarf off to the side while he made some dinner for him and Kiri (the only good bean soup, Bakugou couldn't wait for real food when they finished in Antarctica), the heat from the pot boiled up at him, steam coating him face, one of the understandable times that Kiri would allow for him to take off some layers. He ignored the vast amount of texts from his friends, Kaminari and the others pleas for them to eat at the station. Kirishima just said he’d need a few more pictures and they would be done. Bakugou could go with a few more samples anyway. 

He heard Pep’s small chirps, approaching slowly, Bakugou has very stupidly ignored him, thinking he was looking for Kiri or just inspecting the equipment again. Oh, how he was so wrong. He only knew something happened when he heard the loud clatter of objects falling.

“What the fuck?”

He turned around just in time to see the small tower of his objects smash against the white floor, snow spraying everywhere. Bakugou had rushed to pick up the objects, carefully inspecting them, searching for any cracks or fractures. He heard the faint call from Kiri, somewhere of in the distant roll of the white hills, “Hey what happened? You okay?”Bakugou simply waved a hand back at him, “The equipm-“

Squawk.

 Oh.

Everything had made sense at that point. He didn’t even need to look up and see the small penguin fleeing the crime scene, Bakuou’s scarf securely tucked in his beak.

That damned penguin. 

“You motherfucker!”

Usually, Bakugou was usually able to control his quirk, in favor of keeping the expensive gloves intact (and making sure he doesn’t get frostbite and lose his finger) but with the anger that surged through him he couldn’t help but let a few explosions leave his palms. He could hear the faint screams of shock from Kirishima.

“Get back here, you fucking-“

Kirishima had slid down the hill fast enough to see the start of the small battle. Bakugou letting out his loud disgruntled screams as he chased the small bird, stumbling over his feet and the scarf in between his beak. Pep had already made it quite a ways away from the scene, Bakugou already gaining speed. 

He couldn’t stop the laugh that left him as he quickly stuffed his hand into his pockets, fumbling with his phone. Oh, he just had to get this on camera. 

“Stop running, you bitch!” 

Bakugou’s palms lit up with small pops of explosions, his gloves beyond saving at this point. Pep simply squeaked happily and ran faster. Bakugou could hear Kirishima’s laughter in the background. 

“This isn’t funny! You're enabling this bastard!” In the far distance Bakugou could see a small audience of penguins. Anger pulsed through him. 

It didn’t take long for Bakugou to catch up to Pep, grabbing the edge of the scarf and pulling at it. Pep let out a loud squawk before falling backward and screaming up at him. 

“Give it back you flightless fuck.” 

Pep offended, pulls back and lets out a series of fierce honks.

“Don’t yell at me, you thief!” Bakugou yanks again, attempting to grab more of the scarf just to have his fingers bit at. 

“Ow, you fucker! It's not yours!” Bakugou only got angry squawks in response, he felt the small pops coming off his palms. Pep continued nipping and pulling back the scarf.

Bakugou growled back and wrapped his hands around Pep’s small body. Pep squirmed, screaming and trying desperately to nip at Bakugou’s fingers. Bakugou growled at him before pulling the scarf out of Pep’s beak, who squawked sadly at the loss. 

Bakugou sloppily wrapped it back around his neck, half of it hanging halfway down his back before pointing sternly at the penguin (who was angrily glaring back). 

“Stop stealing my shit or I’ll kill you,” setting Pep back down and stomping back to the base. Pep let out another honk, nipped at Bakugou’s feet and then fled back to the audience of penguins near Kirishima. Probably to gossip to his friends about angering the tall monster. 

Bakugou shoved his hands into his pockets and grumbled about the lack of respect and idiocy of the penguins before picking up the mess that Pep had made. 

“He sure does seem to like you.” He could hear the smile in Kirishima’s voice. Bakugou simply growled, waving a hand at him, signaling him to leave.

Kirishima chuckled then dropped down to help pick up the items on the floor. 

“It doesn’t matter if he likes me, I absolutely hate him.”

“Well, you just gotta warm up to him, you use to not like me!” With a quick slurp of the soup, Kirishima declared the soup done, pulling out two bowls and passing one to Bakugou who snatched it and took a seat.Kirishima watched as he took a generous pour of the soup, pulling his clothes tighter as the wind picked up.

 “Well, you weren’t a kleptomaniac. That bastard is.” Bakugou angrily scarfed down his food. Kirishima blew the steaming air off his. “I don’t know why I thought coming this far away from the station was smart.” He leaned back, back pressed against the boxes of samples, his scarf flapping in the soft wind. 

“And he ruined my gloves.” The fabric was hanging on, barely, burnt to a crisp by the fabric around his wrist. 

Kirishima swallowed down another spoonful before accusingly pointing his spoon at Bakugou, “I don’t think he forced you to use your quirk.” 

This sent Bakugou into a spiral. Listing the many things that the Penguins destroyed whilst they stayed in this icy hell. 

Kirishima enjoyed the entertainment, agreeing and disagreeing when need be. He barely saw the small mass of black scurry toward them. Kirishima smiled before matching Bakugou’s angry gaze.

“You know it’s not their fault they are so curious.”

 Bakugou scoffed before pouring more soup into his bowl, “Well it is their fault if they are being assho-“

Bakugou let out a choking sound as he fell to the side, dropping his bowl and tainting the snow. It looked that of a murder scene. Bakugou laying on the floor next to the red splatter. Pep squeaked in achievement pulling the scarf free from Bakugou’s neck and diving away into the snow. 

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME.”

Kirishima watched as Bakugou chased the penguin across the white plains, cursing loudly as he ran.

Bakugou was right about a few things about Antarctica. There were things Kirishima could stand to lose but if he had Bakugou and the penguins he would stand through all of it. 

#bnha #boku no hero academia #Kirishima Eijirou #bnha kirishima #mha kirishima #katsuki bakugou #bakugou katsuki #bakugou x kirishima #bnha bakugou #mha bakugou #mha bakugo katsuki #bakukiri #kiribaku #AU #antartica AU #mha antartica #bnha au #writing #story #mha #my hero academia #fanfiction #bnha faniction #bakusquad #sorry this took actual months #fics #my fics #fanfic

[bandicoot88]

First Gotham story I ever wrote, written in one sitting at stupid o’clock because I’m a moron. Based somewhat on Gotham’s Season 5 Trespassers Promo, with mentions of episode 1 (major spoilers there!) and the parallel I spotted between Oswald and Edward and their reunion.

Lemme know what you think. Honest opinion, etc. It’s not the best it could be, seeing as it was written in one sitting (while being tired writing it), but... I like it, and it’s basically how I want it to go.

Alternatively, read it under the cut:

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

  Oswald lies about the streak being overcooked. He put on his usual, melodramatic attitude. An absolute bastard. People were starving, though it was important for Oswald to spoil his dog with the meal Oswald had just rejected. The dog... the only living being that held any connection to the man he loved. Still loves. A dead man now. Hugo Strange had the power to bring back the lives of Jerome Valeska, Fish Mooney, and Theo Galavan, but not Edward? Unacceptable! Even Lee was a success in being brought back to life, after Edward had stabbed her. But not Edward. Oswald relives the memory of that moment when Hugo had broken the news to him. A knife through the hand was what awaited Hugo for his failure, while Oswald darkly promised that he would make Strange's life a living hell. There wasn't even a body he could mourn over. A part of Oswald wished he had just killed him, but a part of him could respect the man's work at least, and that, somehow, perhaps... Edward could still be brought back if Hugo tried again. Clone him even! But would that even be Edward? It didn't stop Oswald from thinking such thoughts though. Even if he only got to see him once, it would be something.

  Oswald never loved anyone else, apart from his parents, and Fish of course, who had been his mentor during his days as a mere umbrella boy. He had risen himself from the cold slabs of Gotham, its icy waters, survived being shot... and for what? He had all this power, but no one to share it with. Edward... a man that liberated the Penguin after the death of his mother. Fish wasn't the only one who left a mark on creating the Penguin. He remembered the day she had spared him in the woods, despite that he had killed her once, and threatened to kill her again. But no one ever stays dead in Gotham. Except Edward. Fate was a bitch.

  Fate... such a funny thing. Edward had asked him if he believed in it. After everything they had been through, it was somewhat hard not to ponder on the idea. If Edward had not found him in the woods, he surely would have died, and the two would have never become friends. That night Oswald had learned about love, and how it can hold you back. But Edward's words were lost him, as all Oswald could do was trip over his own thoughts when he looked at Edward's face. If only he had told Edward he loved him sooner... What a mess. And now Edward is dead, stabbed by the one he loved. Oswald almost laughs at the irony.

  Oswald knows he should just move on, but he couldn't bare Edward's name to be lost to the wind. People would talk about the Riddler and his exploits, but who fucking cares if he's dead? Oswald needed some normality, to have Edward in his life in any shape or form. As a mark of respect, he passed the man's name onto his dog, allowing some days for him to forget and pretend that everything was dandy. He could spoil Edward and love him, and Edward would show unconditional love in return. But some days were not everyday, because some days he had to cry and shout at the walls. Oswald would be forced out of the bubble he had created for himself, and be reminded of the reality he was living.

  “Do you believe in fate?”

  Those days, Oswald companied himself with alcohol, attempting to forget that reality. Though the memories didn't fizzle.

  Bitch.

  Tomorrow, the sun will rise over Gotham, and life in dead man's land would resume. Again, without Edward.

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

   Several weeks had passed since Edward had awaken in the presence of Strange. He wasn't even sure if he had died, because how would he know the difference between that, and losing consciousness? Strange however did inform him that he was revived, confirming that he himself had found Edward's and Lee's bodies. He never disclosed as to why someone like himself would be wondering The Narrows, but with Gotham gone to hell after the bridges blew and the likes of Jeremiah running things, it wouldn't be the strangest thing to happen. With Gotham in the shape it was in now, Strange told Edward that there wasn't a better time than now to gather allies in this waging war, and as thanks for saving Edward's life, that he would be willing to work alongside him. Besides, there wasn't much love to be shared towards Jeremiah. Even Oswald hated him!

  Oswald...

  Oh, yeah, the guy he'd locked in the bank with Butch to favour Lee.

  So much for being smart. Oswald, yet again, had proved himself to speak the truth. He really did know Edward inside out. He had heard Oswald was residing in City Hall, controlling Gotham's ammunition, and basically having an army of people working for him.

  It had to be said, Edward had to admire him at least a little for that. Already, Gotham was at war with itself, and Oswald wasted no time in moving in on taking the opportunity to cease power.

  What a bastard, and oh how Edward hated him for that.

  Strange allowed Edward to leave, telling him that he would be in touch if ever a time were to present itself for the two to work together. It's not like Edward had much choice... Still, he wasn't proving much help when he found himself waking up on discarded sofas located on rooftops, and even dumpsters. Honestly? Quite humiliating! Strange never left a contact. Oh, of course he didn't, because he was the one likely controlling him! The snake probably had gone into hiding, working within the shadows, behind the smoke and rubble of Gotham's labouring backbone.

  On the way back to the library he had cooped himself in, his thoughts were interrupted by something calling his name.

  “Ed?”

  He addresses the voice in question.

  Barbara. Her hair was different the last time they saw each other, shorter. Edward's own hair was looking very different these days too, allowing it to grow past his cheeks.

  “Barbara. A surprise to see you here. Looking... deadly as ever.”

  “Likewise! Well.. I wouldn't put you down as looking exactly someone I should be terrified of. That hair? Total disaster, honey.”

  Now isn't the time!

  “Barbara... can you help me? Something is happening to me. Strange brought me back to life and I keep waking up in random places, I-”

  “I know, sweetie,” she interrupted.

  She knew?

  “What do you mean!? How-”

  “It's not exactly news, Eddie. Strange may have been the one to bring you back, but those orders were on Penguin. No doubt whatever is going on with you, it's through him. I heard you two didn't exactly leave on the best of terms after all...”

  Revenge?

  “Oswald, of course! This'd be so like him to get back at me! That pathetic birdbrain!”

  “You can say that again. I suggest giving him a visit. He's fortressed himself in City Hall, but no doubt the Riddler can find the answer on how to get inside?”

  “Oh you better believe it... Got a spare gun I can borrow?”

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

  The great Riddler shouldn't be crawling through narrow, dusty vents, but needs be. Oswald's security was tight, and Edward saw no other way to get inside other than this. His string-like body, legs especially, made manoeuvring a challenge. He was half afraid he would get stuck in there forever. Turning a corner, he could hear Oswald's demanding voice.

  “Edward.”

  Edward froze. Had he been caught?

  “Edward! You can't play with that! Give it back...”

  Edward continued to listen.

  “Good boy. Now, go to bed. Mr. Penn, can you bring Edward his bone?”

  “Certainly sir!”

  “A bone!? Oswald... has a dog? And he called him after me!? That twisted minded freak, wait until I- Ah-aah-ah...”

  Cursed these long legs. His ankle was caught on a corner of the vent as he was turning. Why did vents have to be so small? How can a criminal like himself work with such impracticality? Edward's voice seemed to have attracted the attention of the dog, as he eyed the creature who was looking back him.

  “Oh crud...”

  The dog barked back in response.

  “Shhhh, I'm not here,” Edward answered, flailing his arms slightly in order to put a finger to his lips. Right, like the dog could understand...

  “Edward, come now! Daddy has work to do.”

  “You have GOT to be joking me,” Edward sighed in mild disgust. This was absolutely not happening.

  Thankfully, Oswald paid no mind to Edward the dog's shenanigans, allowing Edward the continue on nearing himself closer to their long awaited reunion. Edward was thankful to Barbara for not only providing him with a gun, but a knife. A knife could often prove more intimidating. And personal, yet intimate. Edward remained still, listening for the nothing that he was waiting for, to allow himself to sneak in undetected. It was risky, which proved to be exactly that when he heard Oswald's footsteps and voice carry themselves closer as he began to return. Edward was barely out of the vent, and made haste behind a pillar, leaving no time to hide the evidence that someone had sneaked in. The door to the vent had to be left open.

  The double doors to the room squeaked as Oswald entered. Edward attempted to calm himself, gripping at his gun to make sure he was still holding it. This was insane. Oswald was surely going to kill him. Edward listened for Oswald to near closer, until he heard Oswald gasp. The vent had been discovered. Edward held his breath as Oswald neared closer to inspect it. Taking advantage of Oswald's distraction, Edward emerged from the pillar, gun in hand, aimed straight for Oswald, grabbing Oswald's attention.

  “We have a great deal to talk about.”

  Oswald's face was filled with pure shock. Edward is somewhat surprised as to how much.

  “But first, did you name your dog after me?”

  Edward waits for Oswald to reply, but receives nothing more than the gaping look Oswald was already giving him the moment the gun was pointed at him.

  “Oswald! Answer me! Now!”

  The look on Oswald's face reminded Edward of the time that Oswald announced that he had something very important to tell him, only to supposedly forget. Edward still remembered the slight crushing of his heart that he felt when he thought that maybe, just maybe... Oswald was going to tell him that he loved him. Right now, history was repeating itself, as Oswald couldn't find the words to speak, like his voice had been stolen from him. It was aggravating.

  “Well come on, Oswald, speak up. I'm sure you have a lot to say!” Edward exclaimed, flinging his arms out in classic Riddler fashion.

  “I- Ed... you're alive?”

  “Well clearly! Why, half hoped that I wouldn't come back to life after you brought me back? We both know I can be a threat to you, Oswald. Perhaps you should have just left me dead.”

  Edward taps the side of the gun to his forehead.

  “But then, that wouldn't be a good revenge now, would it? Penguin, in classic villain fashion, cooks up the perfect revenge for his most hated enemy. I mean, look at what you did to poor Butch. I must say... that's cold.”

  “Revenge? Ed, w-what... what are you talking about? How are you alive?”

  “You tell me!” Edward advanced, pressing the gun right into Oswald's head. “You did something to me, and I'm not leaving until you tell me what, and how I get fixed!”

  As soon as Edward finished talking, Oswald no longer felt his lively presence upon him, as Edward stormed off, seemingly requiring space. Oswald somewhat missed the closeness, even if it meant having a gun on him. Angry Edward may be, but he was alive nonetheless.

  “Fixed? Ed, what's going on? I thought you were dead!”

  “Well I'm not okay!? My brain, it's- Half of me wishes I was dead, Oswald! I'm freaking out and waking up in random locations over the city. I'm being controlled, and I know YOU are responsible! After all, it's revenge for locking you in that bank isn't it?”

  “Strange told me you died.”

  “LIAR! You're lying, Oswald, I know it! You brought me back to mess with him. And why not? I would have! It's a brilliant idea, y'know? Why kill someone when you can just have them be miserable, like what you did to Tabitha when you killed Butch? Not that I really cared for that guy, but Tabitha? She has to live with that, just like how I'm living with THIS!”

  “No she isn't.” Oswald's voice sounds somewhat cold.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Tabitha is dead. She came after me, so I killed her.”

  Well this was a turn of events.

  “Really? Huh... Well, she'll hardly be missed. But still, she would have been alive if she hadn't come after you I gather. So...”

  Edward paused.

  “What's going on with me, Oswald? Enemies we may be, but don't I at least deserve to know what's going on? Or am I not even worth that?”

  “Ed, this is sil-”

  “I mean!” Edward can't help but laugh in-between his words. “It's not like I'm that important to you as an adversary is it? Replace me with a dog that you coddle so it can love you back? It's sick, Oswald. Absolutely sick!”

  “Hello, Ed!? I thought you were dead.”

  It's all Edward can stand. This petty squabbling was getting them nowhere. He indistinctly throws the gun on the floor, and pulls out the knife Barbara had given him. He grabs a piece of Oswald's suit, drawing him closer to the deadly metal.

  “You broke me!”

  He hates that he can hear the fear in his voice. No doubt Oswald picked up on it too. He's losing his nerve. If he breaks, Oswald will certainly be taking advantage of that. Edward expects Oswald to say something, and is disappointed when all he is given is silence and a look he can only describe as pity.

  “I am broken, Oswald... I-” A shaky breath escapes him. “I am nothing. I HAVE nothing!”

  Oswald remains quiet still.

  “I think it's high time you got your revenge on me, Oswald.”

  “Wh-?”

  Oswald could barely comprehend what had just happened, but Edward had retrieved the gun he had discarded earlier, and placed it in-between Oswald's own fingers. It was pointed right at him. Edward wasn't going to get his revenge today, or any day. He was right... Oswald was going to kill him. And that was fine.

  “Do it, Oswald. Kill me. Living like this... it's hell. I want out. At least show me some mercy, please... I ca-”

  The tears are coming now. Wonderful, what a way to die! He imagines that Oswald is finding this hilarious. He is literally the King of Gotham now. Here is a man that once fed his step-mother her own children, before killing her. The man that outwitted him on that damn pier and had him frozen for months in his club. The man that saved his life on the same pier, only to be betrayed for a woman Edward knew was using him. And now that man has a gun pointed at him, ready to fire a single bullet into his heart. The wait is antagonizing.

  “Oswald... please... kill me?”

  The bullet never comes. The gun hits the floor at their feet.

  Edward's body quakes when he feels Oswald draw him in for a hug. Maybe Oswald will stab him instead? It would be the perfect opportunity. Instead, Oswald's fingers are stroking themselves through Edward's overgrown hair. Edward finds this to be torture. He feels like he's being mocked, and yet... like he's home.

  “Edward?”

  “Hmm?” It's all Edward can manage at the moment.

  “You once told me... that a man with nothing can be a powerful thing. You opened my eyes that day, and although I didn't heed your words about having nothing to love, I have still risen. You too can be someone, Ed. You already ARE someone. You're Edward Nygma, the Riddler, are you not?”

  “That still doesn't explain my blackouts, Oswald. Strange and Barbara told m-”

  “That bitch! Of course Barbara's involved in all this. Payback for Tabitha no doubt.”

  “So the stuff about how you thought I was dead? That was...”

  “Strange told me he was unsuccessful in bringing you back to life. I was... distraught. We didn't leave on the best of terms, but we've done worse to each other. Edward, my dog, came into my life. I named him after you. I missed you, Edward. After everything we've been through? I still... can't live without you. And this isn't me asking you to return those feelings for me, Edward. Love is a weakness, you taught me that, which is why it's taken me this long to be someone. I didn't heed your words, but you can, Ed.”

  Neither one of them notice the slight swaying they are doing, as if a slow dance. Real slow.

  “Of course you wouldn't heed my advice, Oswald. How can I expect you to when... when I... can't even follow them myself?”

  The distance Oswald puts between them is horrifying as he pulls away.

  “What do you mean?”

  Edward looks Oswald dead in the eyes, hoping that Oswald can read them. But with everything that had happened, all the betrayals, how can Oswald be expected to know?

  “Oswald, I don't-” There's a pause. “Nothing.”

  “Ed...? Come on, tell me. It's okay.”

  “It's really not. You'll laugh.”

  “I won't, Ed, I promise. Please?”

  Oswald's hands touches Edward's face, and again, Edward feels at home, like he often did with Oswald, yet unable to really pinpoint as to why. Being Edward and the Riddler in one body came with its difficulties. Not to mention that Oswald did kill Isabella, which put a damper in their relationship.

  “I tried, Oswald... I really did. I wanted to be somebody so badly, to be noticed, to be seen, acknowledged... loved... in a sort of twisted way. You showed me that, until you killed Isabella. I hated you for that, STILL hate you for that, but I... couldn't just switch off these feelings I had for you, Oswald. You said you were sorry, and I believe you, but apologies don't bring back the dead. Although... it wasn't really about her, it was more about us. You and me. Heck, I called her Kristen that one time didn't I, back at your home? She was a dead ringer for Kristen, I don't know why I didn't see it really. Or maybe I saw it too much that I was blinded. I wanted Kristen, and I wanted Isabella, and when you stole Isabella from me, it broke my heart, Oswald. You were my friend, so I shunned friendship entirely, because in the end, betrayal is the only thing that's left.”

  Edward spots the tears forming in Oswald's eyes.

  “Ed... I know I've said this before, but I do regret that decision. I felt like you were being taken away from me. You were my first real friend, and the thought of losing you... it scared me. I can't change the past, because believe me, I would if I could and give you that happiness with Isabella, or Kristen, or whoever you desired, because that's what you deserve, Ed.”

  Edward half chuckles at that. This situation is frightening.

  “Oswald, did you not hear me? Kristen, Isabella, hell, even Lee... I don't want them. I want... you, Oswald. I think I always have.”

  Oswald can scarily believe what he's hearing.

  “I'm just so messed up in the head though I- I'm the Riddler, but I also feel-”

  “Like Ed?” Oswald finishes.

  “Yes! How d-?”

  “Ed, listen to me. I told you, I could see the man you could one day become. The man you called the Riddler? That's not who I saw, because that's not him. He was a part of you, but he wasn't the whole you. This,” he jabs a finger at Edward's chest, “is you. You, here? That's the Riddler, and Edward Nygma, as one.”

  Edward properly laughs this time, and it's the kind of laugh that Oswald adores, because Edward shines brightest when he's happy. When Oswald's hands return to his face, Edward uses his own hands to hold them in place there.

  “You were always good at this, weren't you?”

  Oswald offers Edward a reassuring smile, using his thumbs to wipe away the tears from Edward's eyes. The sob comes shortly after.

  “I have a riddle.”

  “Of course you do,” Oswald half scoffs.

  Edward clears his throat.

  “To seal me, I am one, but to achieve me, it takes two. What am I?”

  They both feel the rush when Oswald's hands quickly escape from under Edward's own hands, favouring the back of Edward's head in a half-hard grasp.

  “Oh, Ed... that's too easy,” Oswald coos.

  “So give me the answer.” Oh, it was like that. Okay.

  Oswald yanks Edward's head down in a haste, their mouths finding each other in a desperate need to regain lost time they had wasted. Years they had known each other, too busy trying to kill each other, or in Oswald's case, just trapping him. All their petty fights and bickering, what good did it do them? It just made them look like three year olds. Edward's hands flail until settling on the front of Oswald's suit, where he grasps for dear life. Oswald feels a surge of power running through him, and proceeds to force Edward backwards until he's pinned to the nearest marble pillar. Edward's chest heaves at the impact, his body tingling as he's dominated by the Kingpin.

  “Oswald...” His heart flutters as he hears himself speak Oswald's name.

  The moment is ruined when the double doors suddenly burst open, revealing to be Mr. Penn.

  “Mr. Cobblepot sir, I've just had word th-!”

  Before he can fully process what he is seeing, Oswald spoke first, distancing himself from Edward, while smartening his suit up.

  “Do NOT say a word, or I will kill you. What is it?”

  Mr. Penn whole body rattles at Oswald's tone. Oswald probably meant it.

  “Yes... sir, word has it that Jeremiah Valeska was the one responsible for the chopper that was shot down recently. Perhaps you could pass this information onto Gordon, despite your...”

  “Despite the fact, that he SHOT me in my bad leg? Bastard... but yes, I suppose! You may leave!”

  Mr. Penn wastes no time in leaving two alone again.

  “Jeremiah huh? How dangerous are we talking?” Edward inquires. “You know, apart from the blowing up the bridge thing.”

  “It's hard to say, the guy is a filthy rat, and a scumbag at that! But, my dear Ed, I don't believe he'll be a match for the two of us.”

  “I hope you're right.”

  “Oh, that reminds me. It's high time we gave Strange a visit. That bastard has lived for long enough.”

  Oswald appreciates the way Edward grasps hold of his left arm as if he was a high schooler.

  “Yes, Oswald! Let's kill him! And our first date!” Edward is giddy.

  “You're impossible, Ed. Come, let's hear what Strange has to say.”

#Batman #Gotham #Nygmobblepot #Oswald Cobblepot #Edward Nygma #Penguin #Riddler #My Fanfic #My Batman Fanfic #Batman Fanfic #Gotham Fanfic #Fanfic

[dcautimeline]

So, I wanna talk about a group of BTAS episodes and Batman Adventures issues that I’ve recently been referring to as “The Web”. It’s 25+ episodes and issues that all tie together for continuity purposes that mostly involve villain crossover plots. While I’m sure it can branch out even further, I’ll try to keep this post contained mostly to the entries seen in the accompanying picture.

Starting from the bottom, in Batman Adventures #17: “The Tangled Web”, we’re told that Batman and Ra’s have been fighting each other for years. I’ve mentioned before that I believe the era of BTAS ends in January of 1997 (You can see my reasoning in text form here or in video form over at The Watchtower Database)  This means essentially everything in that era occurs by 1996 with potential for a few adventures to bleed over into the first two weeks of 1997, but it’s not very likely. Keeping that in mind, that means Bruce’s first encounter with Ra’s would then be around 1994 at the latest. This is further backed up when we take into consideration that The Demon’s Quest features the giant penny from Two Face’s flashback segment of Almost Got ‘Im and Two-Face’s history in the DCAU places his two-part debut in May and November of 1994 (More on that in this segment I did for WDb). With his history, we can deduce that Gotham City’s District Attorney has a 3 year term limit (watch the video if you’re lost.) and since he’s already served two terms by the time of Two-Face Part 1, this means the flashback in Pretty Poison where Harvey is a brand new DA is set in 1988 and thus, 5 years later, the actual story of that episode occurs in 1993. [Side Note, with Pamela Isley being 28 years old at the time this places her birth year in 1964-1965 depending on whether or not she had a birthday yet that year.]

Past that, in that bottom corner, we can narrow down the date for the Mad Love flashback (aka Harley Quinn’s Origin). As I mentioned in my Mask of the Phantasm write up (which you can read here), the earliest possibility for the Joker’s origin is 1992. We learn in Paul Dini’s more recent “Harley Loves Joker” series that Joker was on his own for an undetermined amount of years prior to Harley joining him. This puts her origin in 1994 at earliest. Looking over at Harley’s Holiday (Which, I know isn’t represented on the web) we’re told she had a gun on Veronica Vreeland a few years back. Keeping in mind that this era wraps up in 1996, that makes 1994 also the latest those flashbacks can occur. This works well when keeping in mind that Poison Ivy was in Arkham during that scene. So, to recap:

1964-1965 - Pamela Isley is born (Off-Screen)

1988 - Pretty Poison (Flashback only)

1992 - Joker’s Origin (Off-Screen, reenacted in Beware the Creeper)

1993 - Pretty Poison

1994 - Mad Love (Flashback Only)

1994 - Harley has a gun on Veronica Vreeland (Off-Screen)

May 1994 - Two-Face Part 1

Nov 1994 - Two-Face Part 2

Late 1994 - Almost Got ‘Im (Two-Face Flashback Only)

Late 1994 - Demon’s Quest

1996 - Harley’s Holiday

1996 - Batman Adventures #17: “The Tangled Web”

January 1997 - Dick Grayson leaves Gotham

So, now out of that bottom left corner the only things we don’t have pinned down are Almost Got ‘Im and Off Balance. Let’s put a pin in that for now and move on to the top right, splicer heavy corner.

In On Leather Wings, we’re shown that it’s July. Since Harvey is present, and we already know he turns into Two-Face in May of 1994, this means July 1993 is the latest this can take place. Also important to the episodes placement is the fact that we see Hamilton Hill acting as mayor. Batman Adventures Vol. 2 #12 tells us that he only served two terms as mayor before Penguin was voted in, and that run also tells us that Gotham’s winner for Mayoral races takes office in December. Typically, a mayor’s term is 4 years long, so that means Hill would have served 8 years total. Context clues in that run also point towards it occurring in 2000, between Eel O’Brien not yet being Plastic Man (which he is by the time of JLU’s Greatest Story Never Told) and Harley mentioning a recent presidential election. With all this in mind, that means Hill would have become Mayor of Gotham in December 1992, and thus On Leather Wings would have to occur in 1993. For full disclosure though, we do see Hill acting in some form of Government capacity in 1988 during the Pretty Poison flashback and is billed in the credits as Mayor, however, it’s very likely this occurs the same time as the flashback in The Clock King which places him as a lawyer at that time.

From here we know that Terror in the Sky occurs at some indistinct winter, and is followed by Batman Adventures #11: “The Beast Within”, Batman Adventures #21: “House of Dorian” and then Batman & Robin Adventures #11: “Windows to the Soul” in that order due to Bruce listing the man-bat appearances in order during the events of “Windows”. So, right now those are all in flux as some time between Winter of 1993-1996. However, interestingly enough, in “House of Dorian” Batman tells us that he recently had to go to Nepal on short notice. I’ve scoured through a lot of stuff, and right now the only times I can find reference to Nepal in the DCAU  (or at least this era of it) are in “The Demon’s Quest” and Batman Adventures #29. Seeing as this was in issue #21 it likely isn’t a reference to #29 and I’m leaning towards it being a reference to “The Demon’s Quest”, If I come across weird timeline shenanigans that make it so that doesn’t work I’ll adjust accordingly, but currently the evidence seems to point towards “House of Dorian” occuring in late 1994 shortly after Demon’s Quest. This in turn places Terror in the Sky in Winter 1993 (i.e. Late ‘93/Early ‘94), “The Beast Within” in 1994, and Windows to the Soul (Which is said to be months after House of Dorian) in 1995. So now I’ll add all that to the recap: 1964-1965 - Pamela Isley is born (Off-Screen)

1988 - Pretty Poison (Flashback only)

1992 - Joker’s Origin (Off-Screen, reenacted in Beware the Creeper)

December 1992 - Hamilton Hill becomes Mayor of Gotham City (Off-Screen)

1993 - Pretty Poison

July 1993 - On Leather Wings

Between Late 1993-Early 1994 - Terror in the Sky

1994 - Mad Love (Flashback Only)

1994 - Batman Adventures #11: “The Beast Within”

1994 - Harley has a gun on Veronica Vreeland (Off-Screen)

May 1994 - Two-Face Part 1

Nov 1994 - Two-Face Part 2

Late 1994 - Almost Got ‘Im (Two-Face Flashback Only)

Late 1994 - Demon’s Quest

Late 1994 - Batman Adventures #21: “House of Dorian”

1995 - Batman & Robin Adventures #11: “Windows to the Soul”

1996 - Harley’s Holiday

1996 - Batman Adventures #17: “The Tangled Web”

January 1997 - Dick Grayson leaves Gotham

I’m keeping track, we’ve still got a pin in “Almost Got ‘Im” and “Off Balance” from the bottom left corner, and now we’re missing “Moon of the Wolf” from the top right corner.  That’s A-Okay, cause I want to move on towards Joker-ific center of things.  

As we’ve established, Hill became mayor in December of 1992, and since he appears in that capacity in Batman Adventures #1, we know that the issue must occur then or later. That issue is also part of a three issue arc that all occurs back to back between #1-#3 and since issue 3 features Harvey dent pre-Two Face, we know it must be before May 1994. Another clue we get in this arc is the Bat-signal, which appears in #2 and #3. We know the first chronological appearance of the signal is during “The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy”, and I think we have enough info to slightly narrow that down. This is a bit more speculation based as it’s related to characterization rather than math, but hear me out. We know that “On Leather Wings” occurs in July 1993, and as I’ve said already, the latest Mask of the Phantasm can take place is 1993 as well. Both entries in the DCAU show us a side of Batman that is very much not trusted by official government apparatus, and as a result, that leads me to believe the Bat-Signal was instated sometime after July 1993, because why would you have a special signal to get the help from someone your police department absolutely doesn’t trust? So, this now narrows the gap for Batman Adventures #1-3  and “The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy” to sometime between July 1993 and May 1994. This can be even further narrowed down when we take Christmas With the Joker into account. Due to Joker stating he doesn’t have a family to spend Christmas with, we can conclude this occurs before Harley joins up with him in 1994. Which leaves us with Christmas Eve 1992 or 1993. However, Batman Adventures #1-3 also introduces us to the first form of the interactive television technology that we see him use in this episode, which means it must occur Christmas Eve 1993. I know that paragraph was a mouthful, so let me add it all to the recap:

1964-1965 - Pamela Isley is born (Off-Screen)

1988 - Pretty Poison (Flashback only)

1992 - Joker’s Origin (Off-Screen, reenacted in Beware the Creeper)

December 1992 - Hamilton Hill becomes Mayor of Gotham City (Off-Screen)

1993 - Pretty Poison

July 1993 - On Leather Wings

Between July-December 1993 - The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy

Between July-December 1993 - Batman Adventures #1: “Penguin’s Big Score”

Between July-December 1993 - Batman Adventures #2: “Catwoman’s Killer Caper”

Between July-December 1993 - Batman Adventures #3: “Joker’s Late Nite Lunacy”

December 24th 1993 - Christmas With the Joker

Between Late 1993-Early 1994 - Terror in the Sky

1994 - Mad Love (Flashback Only)

1994 - Batman Adventures #11: “The Beast Within”

1994 - Harley has a gun on Veronica Vreeland (Off-Screen)

May 1994 - Two-Face Part 1

Nov 1994 - Two-Face Part 2

Late 1994 - Almost Got ‘Im (Two-Face Flashback Only)

Late 1994 - Demon’s Quest

Late 1994 - Batman Adventures #21: “House of Dorian”

1995 - Batman & Robin Adventures #11: “Windows to the Soul”

1996 - Harley’s Holiday

1996 - Batman Adventures #17: “The Tangled Web”

January 1997 - Dick Grayson leaves Gotham

Other than “Almost Got ‘Im”, “Off Balance”, and “Moon of the Wolf” this now leaves us with the top left Catwoman corner! And this is where things get very confusing for me. Catwoman’s first two chronological appearances are “The Cat and the Claw” and “Cat Scratch Fever”, in CSF she’s on trial for the events of “The Cat and the Claw” and is given five years probation and if she doesn’t comply the judge will “throw the book at [her]”. This gets me really confused, because as we’ve deduced it seems like the majority of BTAS occurs between Dec 1992-Jan 1997, which isn’t a full 5 year, and we see Selina return to crime multiple times with no repercussions, in one case even stealing a police car which is absolutely absurd to do as a masked criminal whose identity is publicly known. Sure, it’s possible that her arc starts earlier than Dec 92, but it still doesn’t explain how she’s able to get away with the stuff she does when her identity is public??? But I digress, there are a few things we can kind of piece together, so let’s try to do what we can.

For starters, “Tyger, Tyger” features an appearance from Kirk Langstrom, so we know this is after July 1993. We’re also told during “House of Dorian” that these events happened months ago. So, if that issue occurs in November 1994 at earliest, that means the earliest that “Tyger, Tyger” can occur is December 1993 (11 months prior.) and with it being December 1994 at latest, the absolute latest this episode can occur would be October 1994. Taking episode production order into consideration, it seems Tyger Tyger occurs during Selina’s hiatus from being Catwoman. Since we’ve already determined that Catwoman’s return to crime is in full force by mid to late 1993 as she’s active as Catwoman in Batman Adventures #2 “Tyger Tyger” and “Catwalk” would then seem to be shoved into December of 1993, the earliest possible date for Tyger and latest possible date for BA#2 [Note: this will drag “House of Dorian, Demon’s Quest, and Two-Face’s Almost Got ‘Im flashback to November 1994. Busy month for Batman]. Her crime spree between Catwalk and BA#2 happening in quick succession makes a lot of sense as well when you take into consideration the whole “throw the book at her” thing. That all being said, in “Catwalk” we learn that Veronica Vreeland and Selina met last year, to which Veronica replies “love what you did with your hair”. At first, this seems like an innocent statement to be made, but Selina’s hair is literally the same as her first appearance in “The Cat and the Claw”. When you couple this with the fact that we learn in Gotham Adventures #4 that Selina’s hair is naturally dark and she had been bleaching it during the BTAS era, it seems very likely that was what Vreeland was referring to and thus her first on-screen appearance happened within the past year (1992 at earliest). We also see in “Cat Scratch Fever” that it’s winter time so it seems that Selina’s trial occurred sometime late 1992-early 1993. While it’s not listed on the web, this also helps narrow down the events of Feat of Clay as it seems as though it’s Batman’s first experience with Roland Daggett who returns in  Cat Scratch Fever. Beware the Gray Ghost ends with a magazine dated for October 1992 that announces the return of Matt Hagen [Clayface], so this means Feat must occur between October 1992 and early 1993. That being said, let’s add it all to the recap again:

1964-1965 - Pamela Isley is born (Off-Screen)

1988 - Pretty Poison (Flashback only)

1992 - Joker’s Origin (Off-Screen, reenacted in Beware the Creeper)

1992 - The Cat and the Claw Part 1 and 2

Between October 1992 and Early 1993 - Feat of Clay Part 1 and 2

December 1992 - Hamilton Hill becomes Mayor of Gotham City (Off-Screen)

Winter 1992 [Late 1992-Early 1993] - Cat Scratch Fever

1993 - Pretty Poison

July 1993 - On Leather Wings

Between July-December 1993 - The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy

December 1993 - Tyger, Tyger

December 1993 - Catwalk

December 1993 - Batman Adventures #1: “Penguin’s Big Score”

December 1993 - Batman Adventures #2: “Catwoman’s Killer Caper”

December 1993 - Batman Adventures #3: “Joker’s Late Nite Lunacy”

December 24th 1993 - Christmas With the Joker

Between Late 1993-Early 1994 - Terror in the Sky

1994 - Mad Love (Flashback Only)

1994 - Batman Adventures #11: “The Beast Within”

1994 - Harley has a gun on Veronica Vreeland (Off-Screen)

May 1994 - Two-Face Part 1

November 1994 - Two-Face Part 2

November 1994 - Almost Got ‘Im (Two-Face Flashback Only)

November 1994 - Demon’s Quest

November 1994 - Batman Adventures #21: “House of Dorian”

1995 - Batman & Robin Adventures #11: “Windows to the Soul”

1996 - Harley’s Holiday

1996 - Batman Adventures #17: “The Tangled Web”

January 1997 - Dick Grayson leaves Gotham

So, out of this whole web, this just leaves us with unplaced positions for “Almost Got ‘Im”, “Off Balance”, “Moon of the Wolf” and “Read My Lips”.which will have to do for now because it’s almost 4AM and I need some sleep. I’ll try to figure them out soon.

#DCAU #batman #Batman: The Animated Series #dcautimeline #catwoman #the joker #two-face #ra's al ghul #clayface #man bat #batman adventures

[inexchangeforyoursoul]

... look. There’s no guarantee that I’ll ever finish the next chapter, which is... about halfway done, maybe. As for the whole thing? It will never survive till the end. I just know it- my attention span is shit, as soon as I hyperfocus on another thing it’s adios, amigos. Also, I don’t write a lot and my style is rather convoluted, sorry about the consequences- you are already experiencing them. Anyway, I’ve never jotted down any of... these types of ideas, ever. So there’s that, too.

Either way, here lay the specifics: series is One Piece; the basic setup is an unfortunate body swap; this is a self insert fic with an insert that borders an OC- little is specified about the female insert’s looks, but a lot about her personality. This might change, but let’s stick to the topic. If -and let me emphasize IF- I get into this far enough, it will be, like, OCxCanon, with Law as a target.  But since I have logorrhea and such, we’ll never get there.

I also like to stick to Gen, sfw, and also canon while randomly entering other territories on a whim. I also have really dumb jokes.

If I get as far as 2 chapters, I’ll scrape together a title for an AO3 upload and put a link here (which is now a thing... here’s the link), until then you’ll have to tolerate my blog’s looks. The combination of Ctrl and +/- are your friend. Anywho, without further ado...

„I imagine... this is pretty high on your list of 'worst decisions ever made'.” is all she can muster in a voice that has an unfamiliar tinge of a higher pitch while looking down at an extended arm that is definitely not hers. As in, things she wasn't born with.

“I...” he starts, trying to rationalize the situation, but cuts the sentence off right there. The face, which used to be her playing field, looks just as stern and vaguely embarrassed as his would, and is quickly losing color, then gaining more than usual. A slim hand halfheartedly twitches into motion to reverse the mistake, to no avail- another digs into now longer hair in disbelief.

His devil fruit was, naturally, left with his body- a body which now she resides in. So if they want to regain their... privacy should be the word, well...

She looks back at her “new” hands- this doesn't feel all that different. Apart from her head not hurting from hitting it into a shelf yesterday, that is- instead, there is an easy to ignore stinging in her left wrist and side which might as well be from straining or a fall. As far as powers are concerned, though... she has no idea where to even begin if she wanted to give them a try. She's not even sure how Law ended up swapping them in the first place; after the first few hours of acquaintance it's clear that it takes little talent to push the man's thinly veiled buttons; playing dumb is beyond effective, even if it's sarcasm, -to which he is no stranger to in the first place, so what even is his deal?- but no matter what happened, he always kept his head straight. At least he did in this almost-week of acquaintance. He didn't drink as far as she knows, either, nor had an especially bad day, so... what was it that pushed him over the brink?

The handful of eye witnesses are also frozen in shock.

“Holy shit,” is all that Usopp breathes as the 'yes, that just happened' sinks in. Chopper keeps slurping from his straw, even though his cup of milkshake has been empty for the past ten seconds. If the legends are to be trusted, they've experienced the consequences firsthand, and are also connecting the one, big, problematic dot in the picture based on it. Shachi and Penguin, who have presumably witnessed the effects more often, seem to be taking it better. Seem to.

“Well... thiiis is awkward,” states the latter.

“And will remain so until it's... fixed,” adds Shachi, scratching his nose. “... does this mean we have, like, two captains now?” he asks a second later, wondering.

“Well... I ain't no captain of yours.” The statement in the de facto voice of their actual captain ups the awkwardness by multiple levels.

Grimacing, Penguin looks at Law, who has been staring at a nondescript wood grain on deck and is holding his head as he's likely trying to figure out something to deal with the problem; then shifts his attention to his captain's body and her in it, where he's greeted with a shrug. “As nice as it would be to have a cute captain, I guess we better hurry and do something as soon as possible.” He summarizes. Shachi hums.

„Shucks, thanks~” The uncharacteristic tone makes the boys rather squeamish  at this point while Law is reconsidering his life choices. The girl continues unfazed, though: “As for the fix, it's not that I couldn't... try. What's the worst that could happen, right?” Unsettling visions of many kind flash in front of everyone's eyes; before the occupant of her body could say anything, she states her own conclusion: “Ripping out some vital organ and killing us both in an instant is what it is.” She scratches her beard- this is a thing she has now. Which is actually pretty cool, because sometimes she muses over growing one, just for the hell of it- but then keep shaving for the rest of her life whenever she doesn't want it around? No, thank you. Now she gets to experience it free of charge, if this can be said about the situation.

Also, she's so... tall. She could get used to this, yes... feeling it. A lot.

“Is what it is,” he speaks up finally, ignoring the amused half-smile that's slowly spreading over the girl called Kat's new face; “You'll need to go through some training before we even attempt this, or anything else, on a living target. Until that...” he takes a hard-to-identify look at himself, “we'll... have to get by as we can.”

“No need to overthink it, alright. Should be fine.” she assures him. “The longer I think about it, the more enjoyable this adventure seems, actually.” She couldn't hide her grin if she wanted to. And even if she could... that glint in her eye? Whatever she's thinking of, it's a No and earns a suspicious look on Law's part.

“No funny business with my body.” As the imagination if the boys is taking an obvious and immediate turn towards uncharted, wild, wild territories, he feels the need to clarify. Really now, if these hooligans had popcorn lying around, they'd be munching on it as if watching some especially exciting play unfold. “You will stay put; as in, right here. On board of one of the ships. Meanwhile I will stay put as best as I can while managing my crew, too, got it?”

“Yes, yes, geez,” she says, rolling her eyes. Her place is right over there, down the coast past the docks, within plain sight, but whatever. He's lucky that right after the weekend there's a holiday, so she's free to play along for roughly six days despite having had other plans.

He doesn't look convinced. Well then.

“I will not promise to stick to your diet, training plan, music taste, or... whatever your daily routine is, okay?” she continues, counting out the items on her hands- those tattooed to hell-and-back hands. Steering her attention back on topic, she straightens herself to pledge in as official of a manner as possible, even forcing herself to keep eye contact for more than one second: “But I hereby also declare to do my best not to get your body maimed by marines, headhunters, or any of the people you've pissed off with your attitude in the past twenty-something years.” She closes her left hand, save one finger. “Pinky promise.” After a moment of consideration, she adds 'you better give me a list, though'. He is a man of many secrets and twenty locks on his mouth, after all. Also, she doesn't actually know shit about him past being as much of a wallflower as her, possibly having a degree and also a Reputation- keeping up with the news in general is not Kat's forte.

Law pulls his mouth to the side, but seems more relaxed upon hearing that. Then he turns around, leaving the expectant audience somewhat disappointed. “I'm... going back to my room. Come down tomorrow at 8. And do not fool around with the devil fruit powers until then.”

“... should I just tell people who come to me that you fucked up?” she shouts after him before the door of the submarine could close. It stops halfway and stays ajar for a while. A harder pill to swallow than expected, huh.

He needs a minute to consider how to answer- the initial thought was to groan an exasperated “no, pretend everything's normal”, but... getting his body back may take anything from a few days' time to... straight-up months, depending on her skills and outside forces. The option also leaves way too much room for shenanigans, which, based on the past two days, this woman here appears to indulge in. The harmless ones, yes... but she didn't appear to be one for Strawhat-brand tomfoolery at first, either, and what did he know. All in all, he's better off being safe than sorry. “Don't advertise it outside the alliance for both of our sakes, if you please. Also, they should look for me--- I mean, you, if my skills are needed. The remaining ones, that is.”

“Aye aye, captain~” he can hear from not too far away, with sarcastic tinge still intact. Law closes the door, staying still for a few seconds before making his way down to his chamber- does he really sound like that? He really needs to sleep on this if he can. Also, he has a rather big bump on his head and it stings.

The cool winds of the early night dissolve Kat's excitement from a mere minute ago, and she can feel her inner clock hitting one before bedtime. As she's about to turn around and get her stuff, it occurs to her that she's not supposed to go home- which gives her another rush of blood, and a slight sense of alarm.

“Wait... where will I sleep?” she snaps back, expecting the answer from the four silent judges still idling by.

Chopper stops slurping.

#opfic #op fanfic #you know what these will be more than enough #also in the end I decided to go for third person instead of second #Kate writes #KMKY

[theconservativebrief]

After more than eight years of shenanigans involving candy people, alternate universes, vampires, nearly 3,000 wiki pages’ worth of lore, some highly unusual exclamations (“Mathematical!”), and bacon pancakes, Cartoon Network’s beloved Adventure Time is coming to a close.

Since its debut in 2010, the series has evolved into one of the most popular and influential programs in the channel’s history. Despite being first and foremost a kids’ show, it built a sizable fan base among older audiences and gained mounting psychological and even philosophical weight over its 10-season run. The September 3 series finale marks the end of an era in imagining new storytelling possibilities, not just for cartoons but for TV in general.

Adventure Time spans nearly 300 11-minute episodes involving hundreds of distinct characters — so it’s no easy feat to describe. But in brief, it takes place 1,000 years after a nuclear apocalypse known as the “Mushroom War” warps the Earth into a fantasy landscape; its main setting, the Land of Ooo, is populated by offbeat creatures and people made of candy, fire, or “lumpy space,” among other things.

A young boy named Finn (Jeremy Shada) is apparently the last human being on the planet, and he and his foster brother/best friend — a shape-shifting dog named Jake (John DiMaggio) — have taken it upon themselves to be as helpful around Ooo as possible. They lend their treasure-hunting, monster-fighting, errand-running prowess to their many friends and neighbors, and along the way, the complex backstory of Adventure Time’s characters and their world is unspooled.

That supremely odd summary belies the fact that Adventure Time has sneakily persisted as one of the most critically acclaimed shows of the 2010s. When considering the recent “Golden Age” of TV, few would rank it alongside the likes of Breaking Bad, Mad Men, or Game of Thrones. And yet it has received high praise from sources as wide-ranging as the A.V. Club, the New Yorker, NPR, and this very site.

In addition to being aimed at kids, Adventure Time lies at the intersection of multiple artistic categories that often struggle to attract serious critical consideration — namely, animation, fantasy, and short-form episodic TV (which for a long time was mainly the playground of experimental Adult Swim shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force). Still, it has won over many critics. And though its erratic airing schedule has led to a decline in viewership and prestige in its later years, it has maintained a consistent standard of quality nonetheless.

With its series finale now on the horizon, let’s take a look back at the brilliance of Adventure Time, both as a singular achievement and as a show that has left a lasting impact on the TV landscape.

Adventure Time began as a short film made for Nicktoons. After the short leaked online and subsequently went viral, creator Pendleton Ward was able to successfully pitch it to Cartoon Network as a series. Produced in 2006, it exemplifies the “random” style of internet humor of that time, pioneered by the likes of Homestar Runner, eBaum’s World, and Newgrounds.

[embedded content]

In just under seven minutes, a boy and his dog fight an ice-powered, princess-abducting king, with a brief dream excursion to Mars for a pep talk from Abraham Lincoln, before ultimately running off to confront some ninjas who have stolen an old man’s diamonds (ninjas were to internet comedy in the mid-2000s what bacon would be to it in the early 2010s). Millions of people loved it when it hit (the then-young) YouTube, and the short was eventually nominated for an Annie Award.

Once Adventure Time the show made its Cartoon Network debut, it found instant success and regularly drew millions of viewers per episode for many years. Examining the phenomenon, critics have often cited the show’s broad appeal for both kids and adults as a big reason for its popularity.

Cartoons have long embraced an anything-goes sensibility, but Adventure Time took the approach to a new level. Every single episode would pack its brief running time with strange new characters, places, and ideas: A vampire who drinks the color red. A pack of sentient balloons eager to die. An imaginative robot that “switches places” with its reflection. And to fit within the 11-minute runtime of each episode, it all came at the audience at a breathless pace.

Animated shorts are as old as television itself, but Adventure Time spurred a revival of the format, especially on Cartoon Network. The show also led the way in turning “random” humor and world-building from a niche interest into what is now practically an industry standard, not just for animated series aimed at kids but for adult-oriented ones as well. Shows like BoJack Horseman and Rick and Morty demonstrate a common willingness to indulge the strange, an instinct that Adventure Time arguably introduced to the mainstream.

It didn’t stop there. Even as Adventure Time told bizarre tales of trickster gods from Mars and penguins that turned out to be world-threatening alien abominations, it worked hard to incorporate them into its complicated backstory and world, maintaining dense continuity through multiple long-running story arcs. In the grand tradition of prestige TV, it featured overarching plots about Finn’s search for his birth parents, or the recurring threat of the fearsome undead sorcerer the Lich. And yet it also made time for many standalone episodes, sometimes ultimately folding them into the larger picture, with major characters like Marceline the Vampire Queen being introduced in apparent one-off installments.

Adventure Time’s penchant for experimentation was both admirable and skillfully executed. The show didn’t hesitate to hand over multiple episodes to guest directors simply to riff on a different animation style. It occasionally adopted an idiosyncratic airing schedule, where several new episodes would drop over the course of a single week and then months would go by with nothing new. While the inconsistency sometimes hurt Adventure Time’s ratings, the show’s creative team used the “episode bomb” approach to produce several miniseries that featured some of its most ambitious ideas and set pieces.

Despite the show’s overall comedic tone, it handled its biggest ideas with gravitas and sincere emotion. And for all the manic energy it could indulge, Adventure Time never hesitated to slow down for a scene or two, or even a whole episode. American animation sometimes has trouble simply putting breathing space into shows and movies — superfluous gestures, brief pauses, and other moments that aren’t necessarily propelling the plot forward. Hayao Miyazaki once explained this to Roger Ebert as ma, the soundless beats between claps of the hand. Adventure Time had lots of ma.

Look at this scene from the “Stakes” miniseries, in the episode “Everything Stays.” In less than a minute, the episode creates an extraordinary evocation of intimacy between a parent and child. The animators inject dozens of little gestures to establish this feeling — note the brief shot in which young Marceline strokes her mother’s arm. And then the scene is over, and it’s on to the next beat.

[embedded content]

This kind of formal economy, doing a lot in precious little time, is rare in television. Today, many prestige shows are running longer with each installment yet still struggle to carve out time for characters to simply be. They could learn something from Adventure Time, a show that used its 11-minute episodes to explore myriad genre ideas and flights of fancy, and to demonstrate the endless potential of simply being artistically open and flexible.

Every single character on Adventure Time, from the regulars to the one-episode guests, had a distinct voice. And I don’t mean in terms of acting (though the show’s voice acting was excellent), but in how each person spoke. The writers gave everyone a unique slang, or attitude, or cadence to work with.

Finn and Jake had their own adolescence-inflected goofy rapport and strange swears (“Aw, dingle!” “Algebraic!”). Marceline was a laid-back slacker punk rocker. Princess Bubblegum was officious and scientifically minded. Finn and Jake’s parents, who only appeared in a few episodes, had ’30s-style trans-Atlantic accents (“Make like there’s egg in your shoe and beat it!”). One episode set in an alternate universe introduced an entirely different future lingo. No character was too minor to be considered as a distinct individual.

Adventure Time frequently devoted entire episodes to fleshing out secondary characters, sometimes shining a spotlight on someone who had only existed in the background for the entire show up to that point. It drew up complex inner lives for the likes of characters with names like “Root Beer Guy” — a sentient, walking mug of soda — and “Cinnamon Bun.”

And what it could do for its main characters was even more impressive. Some of them were hundreds of years old, with a few of them predating the Mushroom War, and as we got to know them better, we came to understand a long history of regrets, which stemmed first from the act of survival and then from trying to build a new society out of the ruins. Their arcs were contrasted with the subtle but definable trajectories of Finn and Jake, who slowly matured over the course of the show from goofballs to responsible figures.

Many episodes of Adventure Time took detours to toss out different philosophical challenges, aiming them at both the characters and the audience. In one, Finn got trapped in another world and lived an entire lifetime there before returning to his own as a child again. In another, Finn and Jake confronted a population of people willingly submitting to a Matrix-like virtual reality existence. In a sequence emblematic of the series’ simultaneous whimsical tone and intellectual seriousness, one character mused: “What’s real? Your eyes think the sky is blue, but that’s just sun rays farting apart in the barf of our atmosphere. The sky is black.”

Adventure Time dared to be anything and everything, often at the same time. It was a silly, plotless kids’ show. It was an epic fantasy adventure. It was a long-term coming-of-age story. It was an experimental exercise. It was a stoner’s dream. It was a relationship drama. It was a heartbreaker.

Episodic television offers a canvas unique among the arts: time. The best shows make use of this canvas to tell their stories as creatively and ambitiously as they can; Adventure Time used it to become one of the best television series of its day.

Adventure Time’s four-part finale, “Come Along With Me,” airs Monday, September 3, on Cartoon Network.

Original Source -> An ode to Adventure Time, one of TV’s most ambitious — and, yes, most adventurous — shows

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

[popculturebuffet]

Animaniacs: King Yakko Review (Comission by BlahDiddy)

Hello my beautiful technicolor rainbow! It’s time for Animaniacs, and while there is no balonga in my slacks there is one last christmas review for my friend to finish up, and after two visits to Acme Lab for the spinoff we’re finishing up with a look at Animaniacs proper.  Suprisingly for a show that stands so easily on it’s own it’s existance is entirely thanks to another show: Tiny Toon Adventures, which had largely the same staff, including ep and co-creator stephen speilberg and Todd Ruegger, who was brought aboard from A Pup Named Scooby Doo. Since TIny Toon was a colossal hit with tons of awards and merch, including some very good video games I wish Warner would find a way to re-release, I mean.. come on if disney can rerelease the disney afternoon games (If...not..for..switch), and LIon King and Aladdin games (If somehow FOR switch), then Warner, which has it’s own game stuido no less, can put together a collection of the good Tiny Toons games when the new show comes out soon. 

Point is it was a mass sucess and Warner Bros likes money, so they had Speilberg try to get Rutger to come up with another show for the two of them to do, something with name value. Rutger found his inpsiration when seeing the iconic warner water tower and taking some platypus characters, came up with our heroes and the rest is history.. well okay he retooled them from plataups’ to early looney tunes and other toons style characters minus the racisim of say bosko the tall ink kid but still, the rest after that is history. And the rest of this review is after the cut

The show was, and KINDA still is, a variety show: taking a page from looney tunes, as well as tex avery’s other work, the crew decided rather than just focus on the warners, to instead create a whole cast with various ensembles to work with so we got Pinky and the Brain, The Goodfeathers, Rita and Runt,  the Hip HIppos, Katie Kaboom, Chicken Boo, and my personal faviorite Slappy Squirrel.. and the bane of my existance, Buttons and Mindy.. or rather Mindy’s Mom. The kid did nothing wrong.  So naturally the first thing Animaniacs related I cover.. is an episode entirely breaking from format for one 20 something minute Warners cartoon. I do intend to do more animanics stuff in the future, so i’ll hopefully get a chance to talk about everyone, I just feel unlike with say house of mouse most people reading this probably know who they all are, and I can save any deep dives for if I cover the characters specifically. Spoilers: there’s probably never going to be a buttons and mindy deep dive unless someone tourtues me by paying for it. 

So with that out of the way, we can dive into the episode.. which I won’t be covering in my usual recap it point by point because the writers have freely admitted that’s not what Animaniacs is about. While some of i’ts SEGMENTS are more story based like Pinky and the Brain, Goodfeathers and Rita and Runt, most are just based on simple set ups to reams and reams of gags. And I love it. I grew up with this stuff not just Tiny Tunes and Animaniacs but the classic Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and Droopy shorts. 

Their well timed, well executed feats of comedy and most have aged pretty well.. emphasis on MOST. I’m keenly aware why there are several gaps in the shorts for both Tom and Jerry and The Looney Tunes on HBO Max, including all of the Pepe LePew and Speedy Gonzalez shorts. Also all of Droopy is missing. 

My grumblin aside though, it is VERY NICE to have all the classic Warner and Tom and Jerry shorts at my fingertips and it was one of the biggest selling points of Max for me. Last year I gained an intrest in the old disney theatrical shorts, hence my various birthday specials, so I BADLY wanted to revisit the theatrical shorts I grew up with. And honestly.. Max is the best way to do that: their in crisp hd, in neat season collections (Though the Looney Tunes one is better sorted, tom and jerry’s seasons are just.. random smatterings of shorts across various eras), and most importantly EVERY SHORT they felt comfortable with putting up there is on there. Every. Single. One.  I make a big deal about this because Disney.. has only maybe 30-40 of their hundreds of shorts on there. Now lucky for me the vast majority are still on youtube and I get why some really arne’t suitable.. we probably don’t need the donald duck short where he prepares to shoot a penguin in the face or the Goofy short where his own reflection, the goofy equilvent of tyler durden I guess?, keeps saying “Hey Fat” to him. And yes BOTH of these actually happened. But.. there’s MANY shorts with no clear excuse why their absent like the triplets first apperance, gus’ only apperance, and one a friend told me about.. that time mickey built a robot to box a gorillia. Again not making this up, just wondering why you can’t restore the rest of these for plus. They’ve ADDED shorts ocasionally, but it still dosen’t make a whole lot of sense to just.. not have them all up there. and to not put them in some sorta collection for easier consumption but hey it’s Disney. They either full ass things or half ass it. There is no middle ground.  Point is Warner.. actually cares about their heritage in shorts and honors it and thus has everything avaliable in the best quality, so tha’ts nice.

My point after that detour is I really love this kind of humor, and now as an adult I can see the effort the timing, pacing and character chemistry these shorts had takes. And Rugger and co.. they got it. They got it down perfect. And this episode is a great show of that and just how they barely updated this format for the 90′s. But as I said it’s more about the jokes and basic setup, our heroes are slotted into x scenario and just left to run wild. It’s been the basic seutp for looney tunes, tom and jerry and all the gag based greats, and it works perfectly here. Sure there’s some setting and continuity with the warner lot, scratch n sniff, ralph, plotz and in the reboot Rita, but it’s mostly just our heroes go up against “X asshole” and it just works. 

And that’s.. entirley what this episode is. The short is an homage to the graucho marx film Duck Soup, which given the warners were based on the marx brothers that isn’t a huge suprise, a film like brian’s song I have not seen, but genuinely want to. The basic setup is the same: An underqualified womanizer, though since htis is Yakko it dosen’t get past hitting on his chancelor, played by hello nurse, constantly, which is still.. ewwwww... but clearly not the same thing, becomes king of a small nation and ends up at war with another country. There were spies and other stuff in the original short but that was left out to streamline things.  But this homage stands on it’s own fine: The basic plot is this: Yakko, due to being a distant relative and the last one alive, becomes king of the small happy and very musical, as the wonderful opening number shows, country of Anvilania, which makes anvils and why yes there is one MASSIVE anvil gag as a result at the end. Yakko says he’ll try his best and geninely tries to with the shenanigans you’d expect, including Dot not gettnig Polka Dot’s are a thing and instead taknig any mention of it as a sign to polka, Yakko again hitting on his colleague and wanting ot get a new anthem because the current one by “Perry Coma’ puts people to sleep. Honeslty that gag didn’t do it for me: Partly because I genuinely know next to nothing about Como and he’s far past my generation.. and because despite this, SCTV did a MUCH better Perry Como gag over a decade before this episode that while still left me baffled as to why anyone cared about mocking him, was 80 times funnier and felt far less like you needed to know who he was to be funny. 

That being said it’s one of only three running gags, and jokes period that didn’t land for me. The other ones being the hello nurse bits, because it’s aged really badly to have Yakko harass one of his employees and his age is hte only thing that keeps it from scuttling the episode as he’s just 13 or 14. Maybe 15. 

So SO glad I now have that on hand whenever i need it. The other being the “Your highness” joke as it just.. dosen’t make much sense and isn’t very funny. But that’s it: a refrence i specfically don’t get and I doubt most of you will, and if you do fine we all have our frames of refrences, a joke that’s dated very poorly, and one that just.. didn’t land. And even then the Perry Coma thing’s third use to knock out the opposing army DID work for me as did the VERY clever joke of “Sire” “Maybe later”, so even the weaker bits still had some legs.  But getting back to what little plot there is the king of the rival country, upon hearing this, assumes he can easily intimidate a child into giving him the throne and goes to a royal reception. Instead, as you’d expect, the Warners mistake him for a party clown, show him no respect and fail to take his delcration of war seriously, and while in a REALLY great gag, and the reason i’m not doing a strict summary is 90% of the review would be me saying something to that effect, Yakkos’ call to action for his troops ends up having them all run off in fear, the Warners take out the army as noted above and then in one of the most GLORIOUS climaxes in the series history...

 In which the Warners give the bad guy “all the anvils” as he requested. I sadly coulnd’t find a clip of it but seek it out if you got hulu, my words can’t do it justice as they hit him with anvil after anvil in increasingly clever and insane ways till the guy finally gives up and it .. is glorious.  Other highlights not already mentioned include: The opening song, the bad guy dictator from the other nation not being able to hear because of his helmet and his attendee having to lift it, leading to Yakko taking off his helmet just to end the “what’ running gag, Yakko’s bit explaning his distant relation and more.  So yeah not a ton to say on this one. It’s a very good, very funny episode but also very typical of a warner cartoon in structure, just stretched over 22 or so minutes. As I said with few exceptions the jokes work, the anmation is crisp as always, and the climax is one of the series best. A crisp, quick watch and a nice quick review after a week of with some really tough ones behind me and ahead of me and a month of rather large ones a few weeks out. So yeah if you like animaniacs, even ifyou’ve seen this one worth a watch, if you have any more animaniacs you’d like me to take a look at feel free to comment or comission and until the next rainbow..

#animaniacs #yakko warner #dot warner #wakko warner #anvilania #hello nurse #king yakko #duck soup #goodnight everybody #hulu #warner bros #kids wb