#but Buttercup says its the Villain you want to beat up

[littledorkydemon]

Events and things mentioned in book: Powerpuff Girls Party Savers

• Starts with the girl at recess and Buttercup is mad because Harry Pit is having a birthday party at Townsville Amusement Park, and he didn't invite the Powerpuff girls.

• Blossom asks Mary to be sure and Mary says Harry didn't want the girls to think his party was stupid or boring because they can already fly around.

• The girls say they would never think that about his party and go back inside looking really sad

• Meanwhile Mojo finishes building a robot army and plots a way to get rid of the girls before having his army take over the city, so he leaves to spy on the girls

• The girls get home and the Professor makes them “Super Creamy Powerpuff Balls” as a treat for them

• The girls try to get exited but can't, when the Professor asks what's wrong Bubbles tries to speak only to end up bawling, Buttercup is calling everything stupid, and Blossom explains they weren't invited to a party because they're superheroes

• The Professor says that they should throw a party for all there classmates to show them that the girls have normal lives outside of crime fighting.

• The girls like that idea, Buttercup only agreeing so long as she doesn't have to wear a party dress

• Bubbles wants to wear a blue one with gold ribbons and all kinds of beautiful butterflies with little sparkles, she mostly would have listed more but was cut off

• Blossom suggests they have a costume party, Buttercup adds that it should be a “Come as the Villain you'd most like to beat up” party

• The Professor says they can have the party that Saturday, so Harry can come and possibly change his mind on inviting the girls.

• Mojo hears all of this

• The next day the girls pass out invitations for their party when the hotline rings

• Downtown the Gangreen Gang are messing with the traffic, Ace and Snake were messing with the control panel for the stoplights, while Arturo in a police uniform signaled cars to drive right into each other.

• Ace wanted to have traffic so bad that they could rob every store and the police would be stuck in traffic

• The girls deal with the guys, throwing them all in the dumpster, and head back to school

• Ace, fed up with the girl, decides to go to Mojo Jojo to help the deal with the Powerpuff Girls

• Mojo thinks the Gangreen Gang are idiot that “give villains and monsters a bad name”

• Ace is said to actually be a little afraid of Mojo

• Mojo does agree to work with them

• Mojo has them pass out invites; Ace, Billy, and Grubber head to Fuzzy's house, Snake and Arturo have to take an invitation to Him.

• The girl are getting their costumes ready, Buttercup is dressed as Big Billy, Bubbles has a Fuzzy costume with butterflies all over the overalls, and Blossom is dressed as Mojo

• The Professor tried to make party favors for the kids to let them experience temporary powers, though the jet pack and eye beam glasses are deamed too powerful to hand out to a bunch of five year olds

• Supersticky silly string gets a pass though, it binds two things together instantly in a cement like bond, that last twenty minutes before evaporating

• There are more people then planned at the party so the girls only pass out the cans of silly string to their classmate, having them take off any mask their wearing to make sure their a classmate

• Bubbles tries to take off a Mojo mask off someone only to find out it's actually Mojo at their party

• All the villains start to attack and the kids scream and scramble, and to prevent mixing up classmates with villains Bubble screams for everyone to take off any mask they're wearing

• The girls then go after the villain they were dressed as, Buttercup taking on all five of the Gangreen gang, but the kids running around make it hard to fight without getting them hurt

• The girls then get all the kids to use the silly string to tie up the villains one by one

• Him doesn't do a thing, he calls Mojo to say he's going, then once the villains are starting to get tied up he is mentioned again and disappears

• Once everyone is tied up and dealt with the party goes on, and Harry invites the girls to his party next week

[wuxiaphoenix]

Writing Fanfic: Another Weird Trick

Now let’s talk about the neatness of very different cultures or groups running into each other. This is far easier to pull off in original fiction than the AU Villain. Entire books and even series can be made out of cultural clashes; Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold is one stunning example, and C.J. Cherryh’s Foreigner series is one of my personal favorites to read and re-read.

The thing is, it usually takes a whole book - or series! - to set up a proper cultural clash. If all you want is to write a relatively short, fun story exploring the concept, you may not have the energy for that. So how to do it in a short piece for fun?

Trick #2: Crossover Cultural Clash.

Every show, and group of heroes, has its own “culture” and standards as to what are the proper ways to do things. How do you defeat an enemy - by beating them in a card game, or beheading? How do you treat a friend; candy and hugs, or a rough pep talk when the chips are down? What are the limits when you’re defending people you care about? What’s the worst thing that could happen to you on any given day?

If you find two shows that you think you can make fit together for a story, you have a built-in culture clash.

Three authors on Archive of Our Own I’m particularly going to recc’ for this: Kryal, Ellen Brand, and Jedi Buttercup. I’m sure there’s plenty more, but I’ve been following these three for a long time.

For Kryal, two that are particularly good are The Dragon-King’s Temple (Stargate/AtLA) and What the Cat Dragged In (MCU/Miraculous Ladybug). The usual levels of violence are higher in Stargate and the MCU, so there are some interesting ways things either get toned down (ML) or we see more real-life consequences than usual (AtLA).

Ellen Brand has plenty, but I really like Unprofessional Opinion (outsider take on Detective Conan) and Loose Ends (Tony Hicks of Godzilla: the Series poking Sunnydale). An outsider’s look at how really weird a canon situation is brings the wonder of the original canon right back again.

Jedi Buttercup... wow, so many awesome crossovers. Pausing to Wonder (CSI/Dragonriders of Pern), imagine the delinquency (Sleepy Hollow/Guardians of the Galaxy) and Of Iron and Fire (Fast and Furious/The Last Witch-Hunter) are three in particular you would never think work... and they do.

In case anyone’s wondering, there is one particular culture clash I’d like to see in a fic, but I’m not sure I can write it myself. That would be Shen Yuan (Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System) as Shen Qingqiu suffering reverse culture shock by getting dumped back into the modern world still as a xianxia cultivator... and still up against monsters that need his level of skills and power to take down. Say, if he ended up in the Chitauri invasion of NYC, or something....

(Which a friend pointed out is actually three culture clashes in one neat package. 1) Reverse culture shock of coming back to the modern world. 2) NYC is definitely not China. 3) Aliens WTH.

Bonus: I'm a scholar and geek, not a fighter, why does everyone expect me to use this sword, I'm not Liu Qingge-!)

Free to good home!

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

The Princess Bride: The Characters, Part 2: The Sicilian Crowd, the Villains, and Conclusion

When we are first introduced to Inigo, he’s not exactly a glowing example of heroism.  A former alcoholic, Inigo is a Master Swordsman, working as a mercenary, he is one of the trio who first kidnaps Buttercup (under Humperdinck’s orders).  He’s fine with the abduction itself, but shows a few of his true colors when he objects to murdering her, already proving himself a little more decent than Vizzini, the leader of the band.

A little later, during the duel with Westley, much is revealed about Inigo, more in fact than you ever learn about the backstories of either Westley or Buttercup: the story of his father’s murder and his own desire for revenge, so strong that it has encouraged him to dedicate his life to mastering the art of fencing.  The duel, exciting enough from an action and comedy standpoint, also clues the audience in on a few other key details: Inigo isn’t really all that bad of a guy, just a man on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, again demonstrating the same duality (just reversed) that Westley does.

Despite not having as much screen time and focus as Buttercup and Westley, Inigo is the Breakout Character of The Princess Bride, a Determinator, the Lancer of the film.  As I mentioned, he’s also the character we receive the most information about, learning that he is a man of honor, good hearted, and loyal through his interactions with other characters, notably Westley and Fezzik.  Thanks to his sympathetic backstory and one-track mind, he’s understandable to the audience: we know everything about him and why he is doing everything.  He’s totally transparent in the best way, he makes sense, and the audience roots for him.  They care about him, even when he’s initially introduced as a more villainous character (albeit one with truly hilarious lines).  The audience arguably has a stronger attachment to him than they do to Westley and Buttercup, which is very unusual, especially when Inigo disappears for a while after Westley defeats him in battle.

In a way, Inigo would seem to have the qualities very necessary to carry a film: tragic backstory, sympathetic motivation, understandable actions rooted in very clear character traits, and indeed, a lot of elements that put him in the Hero camp.  And yet, like Buttercup and Westley, while some things fit him into this mold, others don’t.

Although he doesn’t have a connection to Humperdinck (aside from him being a distant employer), he does have a very strong tie to the main villains of the story in Count Rugen.

Rugen is, of course, the six-fingered man who murdered Inigo’s father so many years ago, and scarred Inigo himself.  It is he that Inigo is out to get throughout the entire film (and his entire life), a much stronger tie to an individual character in a personal way than Westley’s nemesis: Humperdinck.  Rugen is much more of an arch-nemesis, representing a very personal loss to Inigo, something that cuts much deeper, even, than true love.  While Westley never seems particularly worried about himself or Buttercup because he just knows that True Love will keep them together, Inigo reacts very strongly to Rugen and his own emotional journey, traits more typically associated with a protagonist than a cool confidence in how everything will turn out.

As a direct result to this personal stake in the story, Inigo, being at full strength and in full health, is the one who is given the final climactic battle at the end of the movie.

Where Westley has a rather anticlimactic confrontation with Humperdinck, Inigo gets a huge duel with Rugen, the climax centerpiece, the scene most memorable and most quoted in the entire film, ending in Inigo actually achieving his goal: getting revenge.  Afterwards, he even muses that after having gotten his revenge, now he no longer knows what to do with his life, with the film implying that he will become the next Dread Pirate Roberts in Westley’s place.  

Unlike Westley, and even unlike Buttercup, Inigo has an arc, pursuing what he wants actively, achieving it, and moving on.  He makes choices that have huge consequences in the plot: pursuing revenge, leaving Vizzini, finding Westley and bringing him to Miracle Max.  In a way, a huge part of the story is Inigo’s, just as much as it is Buttercup and Westley’s.  

Westley has the Heroic qualities, Buttercup has most of the focus (and her title in the movie’s name), and Inigo has the dramatic arc and climactic battle.  On their own, no one character manages to pull off the full requirements for being a fantasy protagonist, or even a protagonist at all, but together, they manage to make one complete protagonist between them.  While the story of The Princess Bride, in plot beats and story elements, seems very much like your very traditional fairy-tale story, in terms of protagonist, the execution is actually very complex.  By taking the traits of a protagonist and dividing them equally between three characters with varying levels of screen-time and activism within a story (not always at the same time), the story manages to get the audience’s interest invested in not one, but three characters equally, weaving the major threads for each of their stories in amongst each other to keep it all tied together.  And in the end, both the characters and the audience (even the Grandson!) feel closure and satisfaction.

But Inigo, Westley and Buttercup aren’t the only characters in the film.  Every story needs their supporting cast, and none are quite as supportive as Fezzik.

Fezzik is a Gentle Giant.  He’s big and strong, for sure, but he’s also very kind, the Big Guy with a heart of gold who, while not exactly being a pushover, isn’t out to hurt anybody who doesn’t deserve it.  He’s the Brute of Vizzini’s Beauty, Brains, and Brawn trio, and manages to subvert the Dumb Muscle stereotype.  He’s not terribly clever, but he does have a wit and intelligence to him that isn’t typical of most fairy-tale giants.

He and Inigo are borderline inseparable, and much like Inigo, Fezzik is somewhat okay with kidnapping Buttercup for money, but he’s considerably less approving of killing her.  Like Inigo, he is a man of honor, preferring to fight Westley in a ‘sportsmanlike’ way instead of clubbing him over the head with a rock like Vizzini first suggests.  He’s a good, loyal friend, rescuing Inigo from the palace guards, sobering him up, and then accompanying him throughout the rest of the story in finding and reviving Westley and then storming the castle.

Unlike Inigo, Westley and Buttercup, Fezzik has no stake in this story.  He has no goal to achieve here, no personal mission.  After Vizzini, his ‘boss’, is killed, there’s nothing keeping Fezzik in the story except his own will, like the Chewbacca to Inigo’s Han Solo.  He’s here because of his loyalty and concern for his friends.  He just wants to help, and help he does, turning his back on his mercenary ways pretty easily and without any real convincing.  He’s along for the ride, a supporting character that manages to be more than just ‘the comic relief’.  (In a way, one of the smartest things The Princess Bride did in terms of its characters was to make everyone funny, so no one is relegated to ‘just’ the comic relief.)

With that said, Fezzik still remains an active character in the story, helping with the storming of the castle and providing the Muscle (and the heart!) for the mission, and providing the escape by finding Humperdinck’s four white horses in his stable.

Starting out as a Minion with an F in Evil, Fezzik ends The Princess Bride as one of its most memorable and loved heroes, a kindly figure of support who’s anything but minor.

Which is more than we can say for the deceased leader of the trio of kidnappers: Vizzini.

Vizzini is the smartest of the trio sent to abduct Buttercup, but despite his bragging, he demonstrates hints that he’s not half as smart as he thinks he is.  The brains to Inigo’s beauty and Fezzik’s brawn, Vizzini is merely a Big Bad Wannabe, the final obstacle for Westley’s initial reunion with Buttercup, a Disk One Final Boss before the plot kicks off with portraying Humperdinck as the real villain.  However, while the film points out that Fezzik and Inigo fight Westley with honor, and he leaves them respectful of their talents (defeating them in the process), Westley shows no such respect for Vizzini’s ‘talents’, and simply Out-Gambits him, despite Vizzini’s Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo.  In the end, Vizzini is Too Clever by Half, and is the only one of the Sicilian Crowd to be killed, most likely due to his arrogance.

Despite his death being one of the most memorable scenes in the entire film, Vizzini doesn’t receive much screen time, or even narrative weight, in comparison to the true villains of the movie.  After all, Vizzini is only a hired stooge, a pawn in Humperdinck’s evil plan.

Humperdinck, as far as fairy-tale villains go, isn’t terribly impressive.  He’s no great dragon or emperor, or evil wizard.  He’s just a prince, a man with a lot of power who’s used to getting his own way.  He does plenty of rotten things along the way (torture Westley and kill him, order Buttercup’s kidnapping, attempt to kill her) but in the end, his goal isn’t world-domination, or wealth, or anything like that: he’s just after an excuse to go to war with the neighboring country.  He’s not after Buttercup for her beauty, like many other fairy-tale villains before him, he’s just after her to use as a political figure, aiming to kill her after their wedding night and pin it on Guilder.

Arguably, this makes him worse.

There’s no great, over-the-top explanation for his villany.  He’s not cartoonish or after traditional fairy-tale things, he’s actually after something that we’d see in the real world.  He is the true Big Bad, the Chessmaster, The Evil Prince obsessed with war, who, ironically, happens to be a Dirty Coward.

Oddly enough, throughout the film, although Humperdinck is presented as the Archenemy of Westley, there’s no real personal connection between them.  This isn’t like Beauty and the Beast, where both men are vying (in their own way) for Buttercup’s affection.  Humperdinck honestly couldn’t care less about Buttercup, viewing her as a tool to get what he really wants.  In the end, he rushes through a marriage ceremony in order to murder Buttercup after the wedding, again, nothing personal, just business.  His only connection to Westley is happening to choose the wrong girl to murder.

As such, as opposed to Count Rugen’s thematically resonant demise, Humperdinck is actually allowed to live, and go free at the end of the story, which seems to be a big-time rule-breaker in terms of fairy-tale storytelling.  The Grandson himself expresses irritation and disbelief at this fact, after all, villains should be punished, not sternly talked-down by a paralyzed hero.

Yet, that’s what happens.  Considering that the most Humperdinck managed to do was temporarily kill Westley, he gets very little ‘revenge’ in return.  Like I said in the Story article:

Westley couldn’t care less about Humperdinck other than the fact that he’s getting in the way of his and Buttercup’s storybook love.  Humperdinck is an obstacle to his true goal and drive, and he’s not worth the killing.  Once he’s out of the way and Westley and Buttercup are reunited, Humperdinck ceases to matter to Westley.  If the story had been from Miracle Max’s point of view, Humperdinck would have died or at least, have something more horrible happen to him, but since Humperdinck never really succeeded in doing much of anything throughout the story, he’s actually so pathetic that he’s not worth Westley’s time.

So, yeah, Humperdinck is left to live with his cowardice because his death wouldn’t have provided the characters anything except maybe catharsis, and honestly, that’s not really a good enough reason to off your villain

He’s such a coward, he doesn’t even have a chance to take part in a climatic duel.  He’s so unimpressive as a fantasy villain that he even strips the audience of their chance to see another sword fight, without diminishing his hatefulness and narrative weight as a villain.

Thankfully, the audience does get their climactic battle: thanks to Count Rugen.

Rugen is Inigo’s archenemy, rather than Westley’s, and unlike the rivalry between the main protagonist and antagonist, Rugen’s relationship with Inigo is very personal indeed.  Rugen, the six-fingered man that Inigo wants to hunt down and kill so badly, is the man who killed Inigo’s father, and left him scarred as a little boy.  Rugen is the Dragon, a Soft-Spoken Sadist who serves as Humperdinck’s Right Hand Man and Torture Technician.  He is the inventor of the torture machine that ends up taking Westley’s life, and throughout the film, serves as co-conspirator to Humperdinck.

He’s pretty rotten, and just like Humperdinck, proves himself to be a Dirty Coward too.

However, while Westley let Humperdinck live with that knowledge, Inigo offers Rugen no such mercy.

The final duel between Inigo and Rugen is one of the show-stopping setpieces of the film, paying off a considerable amount of buildup foreshadowed with much of Inigo’s dialogue and character.  Like I said in the ‘Story’ article:

On the other hand, Inigo’s villain, Count Rugen, is killed, for a very simple reason: that’s the logical end to fulfill Inigo’s story.

In order for Inigo to feel fulfilled and gain satisfaction, to lay his father’s spirit to rest, Rugen has to die, knowing why he’s dying, and who it is who killed him.  In a sense, the antagonists fit the ‘antagonist’ bill much the same way the protagonists do: by splitting the roles, from Humperdinck having the main plot being responsible for most of the obstacles, where Rugen fills in for the emotional punch instead.

There are other characters too, of course: Miracle Max and his wife Valerie, offering a comedic look at a few other residents of Florin, The Albino, Rugen’s assistant, The Impressive Clergyman, and even Yellin, the captain of the guard, but for the most part, these characters (aside from Miracle Max and Valerie being responsible for resurrecting Westley) serve as comedic filler, without much actual narrative weight.

As fairy-tale archetypes with surprising amounts of dimension, the characters of The Princess Bride all do their jobs with ease, falling into natural roles in an organic fashion, despite the unconventional structuring of the characters’ parts to play.

The beauty of all of these characters is that none of them are in the slightest bit realistic.  These are very clearly ‘fairy-tale’ characters, who don’t think about things in the way that we do, and yet, the audience still relates to them, is entertained by them, is concerned for them.  Even though characters don’t act in terribly realistic ways, they are motivated by things that we understand: love, revenge, etc.  The audience feels and understands their emotions, and therefore understands where characters are coming from, even if the actions taken by the characters are primarily ‘fantasy based’, superhuman, incredibly skilled and heroic or villainous in the context of the story that the Grandfather is reading to the Grandson.  

The Princess Bride’s characters are not portrayed as ‘people’, instead being played as simple characters typical of traditional ‘fairy-tale’ stories.  Each character, whether hero or villain, behaves almost as though they know what part they inhabit, playing the ‘fairy-tale’ aspect straight, with a comedic edge to the archetypes found in a book, a familiar-feeling, simple, but emotional story that people have loved and laughed with for decades.

The characters of The Princess Bride serve their purpose incredibly well: making the audience care about what happens to them.  Every role is memorable, unique, distinct, with plenty of quotes and character tics to be referenced and replicated decades later.  They perfectly match the film they belong to: a fantasy classic that has finally been Vindicated by History, gaining it’s rightful place among fantasy greats.  

Thank you guys so much for reading!  If you have something you’d like to add or say, don’t forget that the ask box is always open!  I hope to see you all in the next article.

[glapplebloom]

BONUS ARTICLE AND SPOILER WARNING!

@RiseFallNickBck

I make it no secret I am a fan of the Powerpuff Girls. I got every original episode on DVD, saw Dance Pantsed and even enjoyed most of the Reboot (yes it has problems but there are things I do enjoy about it). But when I heard about the Live Action Reboot even I think it was a terrible idea and reading the supposed leak proved I was right. If this leaked script was indeed true, it would explain the re-working they’re doing for the pilot. So this post said that it is unsalvagable. I’m willing to give it my best shot. To add to this challenge: I am keeping the cast the same. And I’m not going to just use my own version of the Future PPGs.

First, for this, I would animate most of the opening to be cartoon representatives of the cast. This way, people will know this is a new take on the Powerpuff Girls off the bat. Inspired from the PPG movie, we see the Professor looking at Townsville and wanting to bring something positive in this town. The a recreation of the opening, you know, the Sugar, Spice and everything Nice bit. Then the Narrator talk about how they were successful, showing a montage of them fighting all sorts of villains. Also showing them slowly maturing and changing their costumes to reflect their personalities. Then puberty hits.

Two things I am going to keep from the Pilot script is Blossom doing some serious studying and Buttercup being a cheating lesbian. Like my own future PPGs I do believe Blossom being the serious one and Buttercup being the wild one makes the most sense. But for Bubbles, they want her to be Hollywood yet making her more like Brittany Spheres at her worse. So I’m going to make her more focus on that. She was tired since she was doing numerous interviews with various magazines. So when they confront Mojo Jojo, who is human, they’re not at their best.

Mojo does his thing, but because they were tired they messed up. Instead of tackling Mojo out of the giant machine like always, they tackled below it, With Mojo’s last words, he curses the Powerpuff Girls before dying, either by the machine being destroyed via explosion or the head falling down, crushing him (this will depend on the twist ending). Now with blood on all their hands and not because Mojo tried to be a hero by attacking the girls, they all take this differently. Blossom has PTSD since she feels she’s responsible for it. Buttercup, who you think would be excited about it, is horrified. And Bubbles being so focused on the spotlight ignores it by saying “that’s right villains! If you mess with Townsville ever again expect the same!”

After that statement, there are no more villains in Townsville. They either quit or left Townsville. The Professor, who is not trying cash in on them, sends them to therapy to help them deal with it. Bubbles is in denial, Buttercup is getting better, but Blossom needs more of it. And when they turned 18, they felt it was best to move on. Buttercup is a traveling hero now, saving the day where she can and sleeping around when she can’t. Blossom graduated college, got the job at the Biotech Firm in Boston and has a boyfriend with Clive. She still goes to therapy and she is seemingly better. Bubbles went to Hollywood to cash in on her fame. No blonde drunk here. The Professor? Well, he is dating Sara Bellum after the Mayor lost and she was out of a job. She now works as an office secretary while the Professor is still doing his thing.

Currently being the Mayor is one Jones (played by Jojo’s actor). He is up for re-election and seems to be losing his chance at a second term. So he comes up with an idea: bringing back the Powerpuff Girls to Townsville. Even after the girls left Townsville has been pretty safe (at least to the the public’s knowledge) so he figured them coming back would give his campaign a boost. Around the same time, the Professor began to notice that there is an unusual concentration of high frequency technology happening recently. He fears that Darkness is coming back to Townsville and decided to call the Powerpuff Girls. Buttercup is a little worried but is alright. She promise to call the girl later. Bubbles sees this as an opportunity to get a chance in the spotlight, so she informs the media about a PPG reunion and gets her camera crew and agent. Blossom panic attacks as Clive reminds her of her therapy. Blossom calms down and decides to go see. It can’t be too serious she thinks. 

When Buttercup arrived at Townsville’s Airport, Bubbles is there with her cameraman and manager. They take an uber as they catch up. When they arrive at Townsville, the media is there since Bubbles informed them. Buttercup tries to get pass them but Bubbles embrace them. Especially a little girl who seems to be a fan. While Blossom is her favorite, she is excited to finally see them all in action. She asks for a hug, Bubbles goes in (thinking it’ll be a great camera shot), a caterpillar crawls up from around the girl to Bubbles, Buttercup flicks it, Henrietta said it was her pet and Buttercup rushes Bubbles inside. Blossom was already inside, sneaking in with Super Speed since she doesn’t want to have another panic attack. With the Professor there they he makes a claim. Blossom faints

Meanwhile, we find out that Henrietta was an evil genius. She wanted that caterpillar to crawl into Bubbles’ head to control her. And with all three together, she continues to want that power to herself and makes a move. Sometime later, Blossom recovering from her panic attack. She does not want to return to the Super Hero life and the others are accepting yet still needs her help. They promise she won’t have to fight but they still got to investigate. Drake thinks that if they can find the source he can take care of the rest since technology is his thing. Though they decide to humor him since despite being a scientist he hasn’t have the best track record for detecting things. And it gives the three girls to catch up beyond bitmoji. 

They decided to go to the Cano: the bar that’s located to the old inactive volcano that no one previously used. The owner is Butch who had a thing for Bubbles but she broke it off to presume her acting career, so he has a grudge. He’s cool with the other two. The girls catch up for a bit, Buttercup eyes Macy for a brief moment, they drink. Maybe too much as the three are different levels of dazed. Bubbles is making out with Butch while trying to find the source of an evil lab (at least she thinks she does), Buttercup is okay talking to Macy and Blossom is calling Clive while a little drunk. That’s when this guy who was Henrietta’s neighbor and being a little too aggressive. Buttercup does not take this well. 

After being escorted out of the bar (with the exception of Bubbles because she is trying to milk it for the camera) Blossom was commenting on how the guy had yellow eyes which Buttercup dismisses. With the computer stuff, they wrongfully suspect a charging station to be the culprit. They return back home unbeknown that it was indeed Henrietta’s Evil Laboratory underneath it. She has an army of caterpillars and decided to send them after the girls. If they can’t get them themselves, they’ll get other people. Back at the home, they relay their discovery to the Professor. He could have sworn but eventually settled that “maybe technology is advancing faster than he thought”. He invites them to stay the night but Bubbles and Buttercup got arrangements. Blossom stays, hoping to get some more talking.

With Bubbles, as the Cameraman gets some shots of the city for B-Roll, Bubbles and Ace (her manager) look over the footage. As he praises her, Bubbles notices there was a kid there. Before she can recognize who it was, their van got hit by another car. It was four people with yellow eyes. Bubbles goes in for the attack, taking it easy since she knows she can beat them easy. But as she knocks one out, she notices a small caterpillar coming out of their ear. As soon as it went back inside, that person gets back up. As she sees this, another tries to sneak up on her to place one near her ear. She’s too fast and makes the connection. So one by one she KOs a person and crush a caterpillar. With one remaining, they decided to take their own life by snapping their own neck. Bubbles breaks down. With Mojo, she told herself it was his own fault since he was a bad guy. But this is an innocent person who got killed to get to them. Ace comforts her telling her that it isn’t her fault. He even suggest to forget the filming and go see her sisters: because if this happened to her the others have to be in danger too.

At Macy’s place, the two are making out, not noticing the caterpillar getting closer and closer to them. That’s when Bubbles comes in. Thanks to the Friend Locator she knew Buttercup would be here. Buttercup goes to see Bubbles as Macy gets infected. Bubbles is hysterical trying to tell Buttercup what is happening but Buttercup isn’t understanding. That’s when Macy hits her with a lamp. Bubbles punches Macy and finds the caterpillar and crushes it. Now getting it, the girls go to see Blossom. At the PPG House, Blossom is getting some one on one time asking for relationship advice from Sara Bellum. Unbeknownst to the two of them the Professor walks out the door. Sometime later, Buttercup, Bubbles and Macy arrive to inform them of what’s up. They went to see the Professor but finds out he’s gone. Not suspecting the worst (probably thinking he’s getting dinner), Blossom examines the remains of the caterpillar and realize its a mind control device. And after Bubbles show them the footage of the girl, Buttercup realizes something isn’t up. That’s when Sara calls them to the living room.

The news are reporting that Townsville is having a rampage and the Professor is claiming to be the one behind it. They see the yellow eyes and Blossom makes the connection that he’s under mind control. Bubbles realizing the danger rushes out the door to try to stop it. Blossom is hyperventilating as she can’t get back out there. Buttercup tries to convince her but decides to leave her be since she can’t let Bubbles do it alone. That’s when Sara comes to talk to Blossom some more. Blossom discuss her therapy session and all the issues she had with it. Sara makes a comment that calms Blossom down and makes her realize that she needs to help (basically have Sara be the Young Blossom). Meanwhile, Bubbles figures that since the civilians are standing in water, they can give a small electric shock to stop the threat without killing them. Henrietta then shows up making the threat to kill the Professor if they don’t stop. Bubbles wants to save him but Buttercup can’t keep the telephone pole up without her. The Professor falls. Blossom saves him and knocks the Caterpillar out of him. With no where to turn, Henrietta calls all her Caterpillars to come together to create a giant armor for her and the Powerpuff Girls fight her.

After a lengthy battle, the Citizens cheer for the Powerpuff Girls as Blossom admits that she did miss this. Sometime later, Clive hears Blossom plans and while he hopes she would change her mind he understands. The Mayor Jones arrives to thank the girls and hope they continue to stay. And the Professor thanks them for saving him. But Blossom feels that despite how evil Henrietta was, there was no way for her to have the funds to create such a laboratory and suggest they continue to stay to figure out the true mastermind behind everything. Bubbles and Buttercup accept as the Powerpuff Girls are back together once more.

The episode ends with Jones revealing that his real name is Jojo and he is the one behind everything. This is because Jones is really the Son of Mojo and he wants revenge on the Powerpuff Girls. 

And that’s how I would rewrite that supposed leaked pilot. It may not be huge improvement since I kept certain things similar, but I do hope it shows that it could be better. My goal is to keep the humor parts separate for the serious parts and inject some more action. But if you have any thoughts, feel free to make your own version of the pilot, one that would most likely be better without the limitations made already.

[reidecorating]

The Exquisite Pain of Love

Requested: Yes! I hope this isn’t too far from what you’d imagined, nonnie

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female Reader

Word Count: A hefty 2.1k of heartbreak tbh

Summary: Sometimes, even when we love someone more that life itself, the universe just gets in the way.

Warnings: None, it’s just Spencer being soft and a tiny bit heartbroken :(

It had made a home in his wallet, the photograph. Its bottom edge slanted slightly, making it clear that skaking fingers had torn apart ground that scissors should have tread. JJ first pointed it out when Spencer offered to pay for lunch at an unfrequented diner on the outskirts of New Orleans after yet another apprehensive case.

“You keep a photo with you,” She’d observed. 

“I do,”

“You do.”

Spencer’s lips formed a tight line across his face before his eyebrows furrowed in knitting together an excuse as to why he keeps the picture of the two of you, frozen in  both time and a New York winter, in his wallet, when every monochromatic detail of the snapshot had already been whittled into his temporal lobe. JJ regretted bringing it up as she almost visibly saw barricades beginning to compile behind the already tenacious walls Spencer had built around himself. She tilted her head in hopes of meeting his eyes as he sat in the booth across from her, refusing to touch his meal. “Look, I didn’t mean to pry... it’s just that-”

“Everything exists to end in a photograph,” he cut her off, with the words of Susan Sontag, intuitively knowing what she was about to say. Still not meeting JJ’s gaze, his mind travelled coach, two hours north of the diner, to the day you two had parted. 

Spencer remembered the Christmas trees and tangled scarves, falling for you in more ways than one, when his ice skates wouldn’t let him stand straight, and pumpkin spice breath. Memories of twinkling fairy lights and you exhaling against his neck made his heart writhe under the hands of nostalgia. Woollen volts of static electricity sparked as you grabbed him by the hand in the direction of the small booth sitting outside a festively grandiose café corner, ignoring the pain in his bruised knees - courtesy of the rink. “Do you ever get tired?” Spencer asked you. Leaning against a street sign belonging to Manhattan, he beamed a smile and simultaneously attempted to catch his breath. “Sorry about the rush, I just assumed that with all the time you spend in the field running from psychopaths you would be in decent shape,” you teased. “Yeah, well this time I was running after a psychopath. She actually told me that she wanted to get a photo with me,” he retorted, making you roll your eyes while you slipped through the curtain of the small box. Spencer followed suite, knocking his elbow on the side of its entrance making him grimace in pain. “Karma, for implying that I’m crazy,” you giggled, as he scrunched his nose at you, feigning hurt, before sitting beside you on the plush velvet seat. The interior was lavish, despite the corroding metal of its outside, and, naturally, you took advantage of the warmth provided by the enclosed space combined with Spencer’s body heat radiating towards your own. “A Siberian immigrant in the nineteen-twenties named Josepho Anatol, invented the modern photobooth and actually made his first million after it appeared on the streets of this very city,” Spencer rambled as you fumbled with your gloves and coins and the tiny slot they had to slip through. “Why in New York?” you asked softly, still wrestling with the coins. Spencer thought for a moment. Normally, when he prattled on with trivial information, it wasn’t long before someone told him to stop talking, or false heartedly smiled and nodded in hopes that maybe he would be quiet. It was for this reason he found you enamouring. You, who questioned almost every detail he’d paint, who took in every word from his mouth like it was the air you depended on.

The first time you had taken him stargazing atop a sequestered museum observatory years ago, he had talked for an unfathomable amount of time about how all the planets in the solar system were named after Roman gods, “Except for Earth of course - and Uranus. It was named after a Greek god. Herschel wanted to call it Georgium Sidus - meaning George’s Star - after King George the Third of England,” he’d explained to you, talking with his hands. His eyes shifted from the constellations above to your features, indecisive of which view could be deemed more breathtaking. The man who spoke multiple languages almost forgot all of them once he felt you laying your eyes on him in a way that no one else ever could. “Um… but… that didn’t really sit right with anyone who wasn’t from England so they derived its new name from that of the Greek god of the sky: Ouranos,” he had managed to keep his composure long enough to conclude his history lesson, as you looked up at your favourite person, thanking whichever planets that aligned to bring him into your life. “What a wild ride,” you had said to him. “Although, judging by the last name, Herschel must have been German, so the poor guy wouldn’t have had any idea what ‘Uranus’ would sound like in English,” you burst out laughing. His heart fluttered in his chest, almost trying to escape through his throat. As he joined you in appreciating the joke, he smiled down at you with a certain fondness only the poets would understand. He knew he loved JJ, but the love he had for you was something else. When he went home that night and his ceiling hid the stars from him, he thought about JJ. Washing his face as his reflection copied his actions, he thought about how easy it was with her, they were hardly ever apart. He thought about you. He thought about the job that demanded so much of his time and how difficult it would be to give love to someone millions of miles from Washington. Most importantly, however, he thought about how hopelessly, desperately, violently in love he was with everything about you. He looked himself in the eye through the glass. “Can we just make a decision? Please?” he let out a frustrated groan into his mirror, trying not to tear his hair out.

Now, huddled together in the tiny booth, as your hand innocently lay draped across his thigh, he was reminded that he loved you just as much as he did that night under the stars - if not even more. “Why New York..?” he repeated your question. “Because every second spent here is a second worth remembering.” You let your eyes roam over him as he spoke. A brown mop of hair lay tousled on his head after losing a battle with a beanie which had been discarded. You wished you could reach out and tuck each strand back into place, but you knew better. The coffee coloured light in his eyes poured into your own, and your heart melted, regardless of the now falling snow outside. “Everyone who has been here has a life that could be transcribed into volumes upon volumes of stories, but there just isn’t a library big enough to house every story belonging to every stranger. So I guess if they’re worth a thousand words, pictures will have to suffice,” Spencer said to her. He licked his lips, chapped and bright pink against his pale complexion which was iced with snow dust. You wanted nothing but to feel them against yours, to allow the warmth between the two of you to thaw away the harsh frostbite of undue love. “You’re spectacular, you know that right? I could spend the rest of my life wandering through your mind and never get tired,” your words flooded his ears, as he released a shaky breath through a fervent grin. A blush crept up the sides of his cheeks, meeting at the tip of his ski-slope nose at the sight of you beaming at him, when an unexpected and delayed flash interrupted your conversation, making up for the disruption by capturing the moment. You both laughed at the timing, while Spencer struggled to figure out whether his heart was racing because of the slight scare, or because of you. After presenting the camera with a multitude of poses, the two of you emigrated into the street, you gripping the fresh strip of film between gloved fingers. 

By the time you and Spencer had caught a cab to the airport, heavy ropes of easterly winds had drawn closed the ebony drapes of night, leaving vague silhouettes of skeleton trees holding the stars in their raw-boned hands. You rest your head on his shoulder, him using the side of your head as a temporary pillow in turn. The two of you had gotten a scarce amount of shut-eye over the past few days since neither of you wanted to lose a second with each other to the villain of sleep. In the backseat of the taxi, which rumbled along its much too short route, Spencer lifted his head off yours, admiring the way you peacefully slept against him. He glanced down to see that your hands had found each other’s in the dark and now lay entwined on your lap. After a long sigh in an attempt to stop his heart from beating so fast, “I hope you know just how much I love you,” he mumbled to your sleeping figure. Unbeknownst to him you lay conscious, your heart stopping when his lips pressed a stamp of love onto your forehead as the driver parked the cab. “Hey, wake up my sweet buttercup,” You felt his hot breath carry the whisper into your neck. “We’re here.” Your heart sank as familiar sounds of the airport could be heard through the windows.

Goodbyes should never have to be this hard, you’d thought to yourself. The time was nearing to when Spencer’s flight number would be called, and in the crowded terminal, the two of you faced each other, but didn’t say a word. He took one of your hands between his, looking at you through glossy eyes. “I don’t want to go,” his quiet voice cracked. You took a step closer. He leaned into your touch once your palm cupped his jaw, chastely tracing your thumb over his cheek. “Spencer Reid, this past week has been unforgettable, you are unforgettable. Everyday of my life I’ll be mad at the world for making it so hard for us, but we can’t keep doing this to ourselves. Sometimes people have to drift apart for the better,” your words trembled before him as tears threatened to spill from the corners of your eyes. “I hope you know just how much I love you,” you recited his words back to him, causing him to squeeze your small hand between his own. “The world is a better place with you in it, Spencer, and I hope the people in your life never take you for granted. You have so much love for JJ, and I know she’ll give you the world. I want you to be happy… even if its not with me, so as selfish as I would like to be, and as much as I want to, I won’t beg you to stay,” you let yourself fall apart. He nodded, only sniffling in reply. You drew your hands away from him to reach into your coat pocket and pulled out the photostrip from earlier today, carefully tearing off the first one in the series and slipping it into his hand. Spencer pulled you into his chest as his arms tightened around you. Your face was buried between his collarbones, the faint scent of cinnamon and dry leaves surrounding you with warmth. His chin rested on your head, your hands tightening their grip around his waist in an attempt to be as close as humanly possible in the middle of an airport terminal. It was true, you were a fly stuck in spilt honey when it came to his embrace. When he pulled away, he realised that if he looked you in the eyes, he would immediately cancel his trip home, so Spencer gathered every ounce of strength in his body and turned towards the direction of his gate. You watched him walk away, his silhouette getting smaller and smaller as the distance between you did the opposite. 

Spencer hated reliving his heartbreak, and he didn’t expect to do it so soon in a run down New Orleans eatery, but you were right, he realised. Like you were about most things, you were right about JJ giving him the world, but when you crossed his mind, he hoped and prayed that someone did the same for you. “I keep a photo with me, JJ, because what we do for a living, drags us to hell and back each day. So with that, I need to be reminded, sometimes, that even when I feel numb to the world around me, it’s still possible to feel as infinitely happy as I did that day in Manhattan,” He pulled out the photo and placed it in front of his partner in solving crime. She nodded understandingly, observing the two people caught off guard, candidly sharing smitten smiles. Spencer had the time of his life with you, and while he had the image forever in his mind, the only physical poof he had of it ever happening was the torn black and white film he kept in his pocket, of a girl smiling up at him like he was the only thing in this life worth looking at.

[bre-meister]

I loved your greens drabble! I have a suggestion. With the greens from PPG again. Buttercup is heavily injured in the hospital (they are around 24 years old) and Butch just waits for her to wake up, apologizing he wasn't there fast enough.

Hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long

Not Your Fault

Butch stared at the comatose body of his wife lying in the hospital bed in front of him. The steady beeping of the many monitors hooked up to her frail-looking body the only sounds he could hear - that and her breathing. Ever since he’d arrived, pulling a chair right up next to her bed to keep vigil, he’d turned his x-hearing in to focus on her breathing. The knowledge that she was still alive only gave him the slightest of comforts. Buttercup, The Toughest Fighter. She’d put up one hell of a fight against that three-headed ugly that had crawled its way out from under some oversized rock on Monster Island. Or, at least, that’s what he’d heard from her sisters because he hadn’t been there. 

The Powerpuff and the Rowdyruffs had ended their long-standing feud years ago and they had been working together ever since to keep their crime-infested city safe (It still amazed Butch how one town can have so many villains and criminals - and that’s coming from an ex-supervillain himself). When the monster attack happened, the boys had been dealing with a robbery at the museum. If only Butch had worked just a little faster. Then, maybe, he’d be at home, holding his sunshine close, in bed, together, where they belonged without a care in the world. Instead, here he was in the hospital going on three days praying to anyone who would listen not to let the sun he orbited around die out.

She’ll fight this. Just like she fights everything and everyone else - with everything she has. 

She’ll wake up and start fussing at us for making such a big deal out of it, just you wait and see.

She’d do anything to come back to you and she won’t stop now. We just have to give her some time. She’ll wake up when she’s ready.

The sound of his family’s voices floated in his head - his brothers and her sisters, they were all family now. Affirmations that it will all be ok, that Buttercup will come out of it even spicier than before...they helped make the whole situation hurt just a little less. But not in the way one would think. For Butch, it helped to know that their family was holding out just as much hope in this seemingly hopeless situation does make it that much easier.

Don’t blame yourself, Butch.

It wasn’t your fault.

You couldn’t have known. Don’t put this on yourself.

No one blames you so stop blaming yourself.

They said that a lot too. He just can’t agree with them though, it was his fault. If he had taken that robbery more seriously - Brick had told him to stop playing around. He was too cocky and Buttercup suffered because of it. 

They flew directly from the museum to the fight after everything was taken care of and they arrived just in time to see Buttercup blow off one out of three heads. But she wasn’t fast enough in her tired, battle-worn state, to avoid the other two heads coming at her from two different directions. Butch remembers everything that happened afterward more in a continuous haze than a series of actual events. He’d seen his wife fall out of the sky…he saw the blood...so much blood. He remembered the rage filling his body and suddenly, he was being forcibly pulled off Buttercup’s unconscious body so the EMTs could do their job. Butch remembers being forced into a shower by Boomer to get rid of all the monster guts he didn’t remember spilling, and then rushing to the hospital to be by Buttercup’s side. 

It’s not your fault….

Not your fault….

Your fault…..

Yes. It was his fault. Even if - no, when - BC woke up, he’d have to live with that for the rest of his life.

Butch looked down at the ring in his hand. It was simple - a solitary emerald set on a slim gold band. They had been in a jewelry store looking for a gift for her sisters when she’d come across it. She liked it, she said, because the stone was the color of his eyes. So he had returned later that week and purchased the ring and now, she wore it every day as a symbol of the promise they made to love each other and to care for each other. The latter of which Butch was obviously doing a stand-up job. She only ever took it off when they were on Puff and Ruff business. She said she didn’t want to worry about ruining her wedding ring while punching Mojo in the face. 

“Hey,” Butch cringed at the sound of his own voice. He supposes he hadn’t used it in a while - the last time he spoke to anyone was hours ago when he’d returned to see Blossom and Brick keeping vigil. He had asked them to give him some time alone.

“Hey,” he starts again, “so um, I’m sorry I left for a while there. Boom and Brick made me, said I was starting to smell and I needed a shower so they made me go home and get some rest. I fought them though, I didn’t want to leave you.

“I picked up your ring while I was at the house. You always said you liked it so much because it reminded you of me; like I was always there even when I wasn’t. So I thought, just in case my brothers make me shower again, I’ll still be here watching over you, waiting for you to wake up.”

His voice cracked on the last word and he broke out into tears,

“I’m so sorry, Sunshine. You’ve gotta wake up. Wake up so you can beat my ass for acting like a dip shit like you always do. Wake up so I can hold you and kiss you again. Please, I’ll do better, I’ll be better but I need you to wake up.”

He dropped his head onto the bed, unable to look at her in that state any longer.

Your fault

Should have been faster

Should have taken it all seriously

Should have--

“Butch?” 

It was a mumbled whisper. So quiet anyone without x- hearing would have missed it. His head shot up.

“Buttercup? You’re awake.” He kept his voice low as well hoping not to jar her too much and exacerbate her injuries.

She shifted in the bed, all her movements were jerky and week; so unlike the strong, sure woman she usually is.

“Hey, don’t try to move too much. You’re in the hospital ok? You got hurt real bad in that last fight.”

Buttercup made a noncommittal noise. Not listening to him about keeping still, she moved her left arm to stroke his hair obviously catching on to his emotional turmoil. Always looking out for him first. Suddenly the comforting act only made his guilt worse.

“I’m sorry Sunshine. I’m so sorry.”

“What are you sorry for? You didn’t put me in this bed. You have nothing to apologize for.”

Even injured and weak as she was her tone procured no argument. Hearing her say that did put some things in perspective but it still didn’t wash away all of his guilt.

“You got my ring, thank you.”

“Of course. I didn’t know how long you’d be asleep so I wanted to make sure I could be here with you in some way at all times.”

She hummed and smiled. Butch smiled at her smile. Suddenly, he jumped up, diving to press the call button on the wall near her bed.

“What are you doing?”

“You woke up! You’ve been in a coma for days, pretty sure the doctor should know you're awake. You need to be looked over and I need to call everyone.”

She reached out and grabbed his arm as he turned to leave the room.

“Don’t leave?” her voice was soft in that tone she only used for him. He smiled,

“I’m just stepping right outside the room for a moment; just long enough to call our family. Besides,” he lovingly touched the ring on her finger, “ I’ll be watching over you the whole time.”

She smiled again and as the doctor entered the room and began to check her over, Butch walked out the door to make his phone calls. Butch felt better. It would take time to truly forgive himself but if Buttercup, his sunshine, could forgive him, then he supposed he could do the same. After all, he’d do anything for her.

[femalechibiblogger]

5 Anime Series with Weird Plots

1. Akikan!

Plot: Akikan (”Empty Can”) is the unlikely story of high school boy Kakeru Daichi, whose can of melon soda magically transforms into a human girl. More "akikan" girls begin appearing, each of them needing to be infused with carbon dioxide from their respective drink types to survive. The akikans were created as part of the 'Akikan Elect' to determine whether steel cans or aluminium cans are superior. The akikans must battle each other until only the strongest type is left standing.

This series doesn’t really make much sense. I mean...humanized, fizzy drink girls fighting to prove if steel or aluminum drink cans are superior? And it’s all part of a military experiment run by a gay guy and a strict secretary whose name is always mispronounced? While there are anime series about magical girls and a normal guy who gets involved with them, which is not unusual at all in the world of anime. But at least give it a storyline that actually makes sense!

It’s like they just came up with something random that could be used to advertise carbonated drinks. What better way to do that than to make fizzy fruit drinks into sexy, battle girls!

2. Asobi Asobase

Plot: The series centers on Hanako, Olivia and Kasumi, second year students at an all-girl middle school and the only three members of the Pastimers Club, a not officially recognized club. The club has very ambiguous goals, usually consisting of whatever so-called "pastimes" the girls happen to think up.

While this series does have its good moments, and has some clever jokes...the odd visuals, outrageous episode plots, and out-of-this-world facial expressions are what make it very, very strange. It’s basically one of those shows that is weird but good at the same time, depending on what you like.

If a Pastimers Club were to exist in real life...it would probably be something like this.

3. Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt

Plot: The show revolves around the exploits of the Anarchy sisters, Panty and Stocking, angels who were kicked out of Heaven due to their bad behavior. They are sent to Daten City, a place on the border between Heaven and Hell, which is besieged by evil spirits referred to as "Ghosts". The sisters take refuge under the care of the reverend Garterbelt; under his watchful eyes, the sisters are tasked with using their ability to transform their lingerie into weapons, and using them to destroy malicious Ghosts. By doing so, the sisters earn "Heaven Coins" with which they intend to one day use to buy their way back into Heaven. However, Panty and Stocking are constantly sidetracked by their respective interests in men and sugary sweets.

The series is, by far, a very weird one. I mean...two fallen angels who turn their lingerie into weapons to fight evil ghosts, an afro priest with an interest in boys, a nerdy guy with a crush on the slutty sister, and a dog who looks like a knock-off of ‘Gir’ from Invader Zim? Just when you think it couldn’t get any stranger. 

While I admit, the show does have its serious moments...but it still goes pretty overboard with adult jokes and visualizations. No wonder these girls were banished from Heaven.

4. Powerpuff Girls Z

Plot: It takes place in Tokyo City (New Townsville in English dub) where Professor Utonium and his son, Ken Kitazawa and his toy dog, Peach were busy working on Chemical X, a powerful chemical substance but when they decided to have a tea break, Peach accidentally dropped a daifuku to a vat of Chemical X and the vat magically transforms to Chemical Z, a whole new form of the original powerful substance. However, when the Professor, Ken and Peach were discovering Chemical Z, a sudden climate change happened where several countries around the world were having an instant weather calamity so Ken used a beam ray attached to the vat of Chemical Z and blasts Chemical Z on one of the main icebergs in the Tokyo City bay and the impact of Chemical Z from the iceberg causes several black and white rays of light to appear in the skies above it.Then, three ordinary 13-year-old girls, Momoko Akatsutsumi, Miyako Gōtokuji, and Kaoru Matsubara, were engulfed in separate rays of white light and transforms them into Hyper Blossom, Rolling Bubbles, and Powered Buttercup, the heroines of justice, the Powerpuff Girls Z and Peach was also engulfed in a separate ray of white light transforming to a toy dog who can speak and calls the girls to transform into the Powerpuff Girls Z and then, numerous rays of black light engulfed several people, animals, objects and transforms them into evil monsters who wants to take over Tokyo City, so the Powerpuff Girls Z must protect the city thanks to the Professor, Ken, Mayor Mayer and his assistant, Ms. Bellum and uses their respective weapons like Blossom's yo-yo, Bubbles' bubble rod and Buttercup's hammer from evil monsters like Mojo Jojo, Fuzzy Lumpkins, Princess Himeko, Sedusa, the Gangreen Gang, the Amoeba Boys and numerous monsters to defeat them.

Everyone knows that this Japanese remake can never replace the original Powerpuff Girls. While the series isn’t terrible, and does have its moments, it’s still strange to see Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup not being sisters or having Professor Utonium as their father. I think the only part of the story that I actually liked was how the villains became the villains. 

But hey...we can see that the studio tried to make it a bit like the original cartoon. But it’s like they say: You can’t beat the classics. 

5. Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo

Plot: In the year 300X, the entire world is under the tyrannical rule of the Maruhage Empire and their ruler Tsuru Tsurulina IV (Chrome Dome Empire and Baldy Bald the 4th in the English dub). His Hair Hunt troop captures innocent bystanders' hair, leaving the people victims of the Hair Hunt troop's head shaving and their villages in ruins. Standing against this evil regime is the heroic, but bizarre, rebel Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobo who fights the Hair Hunt Troop with his powerful Hanage Shinken (Fist of the Nose Hair). His team consists of the normal teen girl Beauty, the smelly teen warrior Heppokomaru (Gasser) and the Hajike leader Don Patch (Poppa Rocks). Bo-bobo is on an exciting, gag-filled quest in which he uses his hair as a weapon in many locales to fight the forces of the Maruhage Empire as he gains other allies along the way.

I don’t even know where to start. While we all like having a full head of hair...one could have never imagined that there would be an anime about it. This series is obviously a comedy and isn’t meant to be dramatic or anything serious like that.

We all know that this show is meant to be weird on purpose. If you love shows that are random and don’t make sense...then this show is perfect for you.

[dracoisalooker76]

My Heart is Heavy - an Everlark!Bachelor-ish AU

I’m trash. I haven’t updated my fics in years but after watching The Bachelor last night (major spoilers below if you follow and know what the references are) I couldn’t unsee this little scenario. Sorry in advance. Maybe more to come.

Title comes from the Albert Camus quote: “Yes, be patient with me. My heart is heavy.”

...

My Heart is Heavy

She wasn’t supposed to be here. In what universe was Katniss Everdeen a contestant on The Bachelor?

This universe apparently. A universe where her nosy sister and her college roommate joined forces to submit her application. Prim thought Katniss needed love; Johanna thought Katniss needed to get laid. Regardless, they joined forces and for some reason the producers liked her look and the bio that the two had concocted without her knowledge. When she got the casting call, she figured they’d send her packing. She would do the audition process to appease Prim and get Jo off her back, but she would never get chosen. Somehow, the producers came back to her not a day after her final meeting with an acceptance. They probably figured she could be villain of the season - a surly, scowly girl bound to cause drama without even knowing what she was doing.

She really had no idea what she was doing. She didn’t know then. She didn’t know eight weeks ago when she first stepped out of a limo and stood face-to-face with Peeta Mellark. And she sure as hell doesn’t have a clue what is going on right now. 

It is absolutely surreal. She just spent the entire day in Portugal with Peeta. Sweet, adorable Peeta, who took her to an old folks’ dance class where they spun with people who could be their grandparents, who didn’t speak a lick of English but smiled and pointed at them kindly, warmly, as if they were proud of these two random Americans with cameras following their every move. One woman, with curly gray hair that reminded her of Sae back home, danced with Peeta and pointed at Katniss - esposa? Esposa? And Peeta smiled that smile. The one that makes her stomach clench, a touch too shy not to be genuine, and met her eye.

“Maybe,” he told the woman. “If she’ll have me.”

And that’s when her stomach bottomed out.

She paces the floor of the extravagant 5-star hotel they’ve been staying in since they arrived a few days prior. Tonight is the infamous “Fantasy Suites” and on the way in from the airport, the other two contestants left - Glimmer from Alabama and California Cashmere - could not talk about anything other than what they were going to do to Peeta as soon as they got the key from the host, Caesar Flickerman.

I’ve heard great things about that mouth of his.

She takes a breath and continues to pace. Her poor producer has the camera trained on her as he sits on the couch. Pollux is quiet, but so is Katniss. They make a great pair - except for the fact that she’s sure they’re going to be hounding her for additional sound bites later because she and Pollux didn’t tape enough to fill her scenes.

There’s a knock on the door and she stops mid-step. Maybe it’s Caesar. Maybe Peeta decided to dump her before the evening portion of their one-on-one. She shakes her head. Peeta is too much of a gentleman for that. If he was going to send her home now, he would do it himself. Peeta has been nothing but honest this season - something some of the girls have been whining about behind his back. He hasn’t told any of the girls that he has loved them yet, specifically telling them on the very first night that he was going to try not to hurt anyone, try not to lead them on.

“The first time I say I love you on this journey, it’s going to be to my wife,” he had said. “And I’m so excited to figure out who she is.”

She looks up at Pollux and swallows her spit. It’s accumulating in her mouth like a fountain.

“Do you know who that is?”

Pollux shrugs, looking guilty. As a producer, Pollux is typically one step ahead of her at all times. She likes that though. He has been nice about it, sending her nonverbal hints about what is going on since she has never watched a single episode of The Bachelor in its entirety, though Prim gave her an excellent recap of the recent seasons before she left. He definitely knows who it is because he has his camera steady, poised and ready to go.

She walks to the door and swings it open. Her mouth drops.

“You gonna let me in, sweetheart, or you just gonna stand there dumbstruck?” Haymitch says, before pushing passed her.

Cressida, Peeta’s producer, told her that everyone loved Haymitch during her “Hometowns” filming and that the editors are having a field day with all of his one-liners. Prim was sweet and dainty. Jo was brash as usual. Haymitch was...Haymitch. That’s her family. Small, but hers.

And now the whole country’s, apparently.

“What are you doing here?” she demands. “Did you just leave Prim all by herself?”

“She’s a senior in high school, not a toddler,” Haymitch says. He smirks. “I left her a bowl of food next to Buttercup’s.”

Katniss glares and Haymitch collapses on the couch next to Pollux.

“What are you doing here?” she says, crossing her arms. “You flew all the way to Portugal? You’ve never flown anywhere before.”

He shrugs and eyes something in the distance. Before he answers, he stands back up and strides to the mini-fridge, rifling through before pulling out bottle of white liquor.

“I figured it was high time I explored the world’s bounty,” he says, gesturing to the liquor. “Also, when someone hands you a free ticket, you take it, kid.”

She sighs. The producers. Of course. Cressida mentioning Haymitch the other day wasn’t a fluke. It was a warning she never would have caught about them flying him in. But why would they fly him in?

Haymitch strides passed her and presses his index finger into her forehead. “You’re gonna get wrinkles if you keep overthinking everything.”

She swats his hand away and scowls as he takes his seat back on the couch. Then he pats the cushion next to him.

“Get over here, girl.”

She glares at him for a beat before she sighs and does just as he says, taking the seat beside him. They sit, both stiff beside each other, looking straight ahead.

“Go on.”

“Why didn’t you give Peeta your blessing?” she hisses. “He’s so upset.”

Haymitch keeps his eyes focused ahead of him, but taps his fingers against the glass of the bottle in his hand.

“It’s not mine to give,” he says slowly.

They sit in silence as it digests. Peeta asked all the families for permission to propose, something the other girls thought was sweet. Haymitch was the only father figure to say no. Normally, that wouldn’t bother her, because Haymitch is not her father, the tradition is a little archaic even if her father was still in the picture, and Haymitch would be the first person to tell Peeta that the permission isn’t his to give, it’s Katniss’s herself. But the fact that it meant so much to Peeta and Haymitch said no…

“That’s not it,” she says, finally turning to look at him. “Tell me the truth.”

“You’re right. I could have. It wouldn’t have been any skin off my nose to make some dumb line up to tell him.” Haymitch blows out a breath. “Katniss, I didn’t give it to him because I didn’t want to get the poor kid’s hopes up.”

She had a feeling that’s what he was going to say.

He shrugs and continues. “That kid loves you, you know. It’s written all over his face.”

She squeezes her eyes shut. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

“And?”

Haymitch raises his eyebrows. “You need me to tell you everything?”

She covers her eyes with her hands before Haymitch can see the tears pooling in her eyes. It doesn’t matter. It isn’t as if Haymitch is going to pull her in for any sort of affectionate hug like the producers would want him to do. They just sit, side-by-side, while Katniss tries her hardest not to cry.

She knows Pollux is taping her. She knows this is going to be the start of her villain storyline. He told her the other day - when they got drunk at a bar together after Peeta left her hometown and Johanna cheers’d Katniss to ‘definitely getting a rose this week and getting her fantasy’ - that the producers all initially thought Katniss was going to be the villain but they had been pleasantly surprised. He told her that he was sure when the edits were made and the show started airing in January that she was going to be the frontrunner. She was going to be the girl the entire nation rooted for - he was, Cressida was, heck even Caesar Flickerman was rooting for her.

Until now. Now she is sure that the edits are going to make her look like a villain because she is one. And now that is finally going to come out.

“Talk, sweetheart. Just spew.”

She doesn’t remove her hand from her eyes but she does talk.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” she murmurs. “I’m so confused, Haymitch.”

He sighs but doesn’t move to comfort her. She wants him to say something to contradict her. But he doesn’t and so she starts saying words she doesn’t want to mean but she knows she does.

“I can’t do this. I never wanted this,” she says. “I don’t know what to do.”

“And that’s fine because you are twenty-three and you have all the time in the world,” he says, in a rare show of wisdom.

“I can’t give him what he wants,” she says. She turns to him. “He wants a wife at the end of this and I...I can’t do it.”

Haymitch puts a hand on her knee. “That’s up to you.”

He knows why she ‘can’t do it’ but he doesn’t say anything for Pollux to catch on camera, to which she will be eternally grateful. It’s not something that she wants the entire world to know.

She hasn’t been totally honest with Peeta during their one-on-ones. He has told her very vulnerable things about his life. He has told her about his lackluster relationship with his father, his borderline abusive relationship with his mother. How his brother Rye is the only family member he really talks to anymore. She told him her father died and mother isn’t in her life right now but that’s all. He took that as enough vulnerability, giving her the rose for the night without pushing her to delve deeper.

She should have told him that seeing her mother turn to drugs after her father died swore her off relationships. She should have told him that she ruined her only solid friendship, her friendship with Gale, because he wanted a relationship and she told him to disappear if he couldn’t get over it. He couldn’t - so when he left for college that was it. She never saw him again.

Instead she told Peeta that when she was little she used to imagine a fairytale ending to her life that looked just like her parents’ - the big white dress, the happy little family, the whole soulmate thing. She just didn’t tell him that it all changed when she was eleven and her world collapsed around her.

No matter what she feels for Peeta - which is something she hasn’t allowed herself to even think about - this isn’t a good start to a relationship. It’s not fair to him when he has been completely honest and she has been manipulating him.

She puts her head in her hands. She was supposed to go home a long time ago. She wasn’t even trying to be the Bachelorette like some of the other girls, who strived to stay long enough to be considered. So why did she stay so long? Other girls have sent themselves home, why didn’t she?

She can’t think about that right now.

“I have to go home,” she says, looking up at Haymitch with puffy eyes and a red face the producers will love. “If I can’t accept his proposal, then I need to go home. He deserves someone better. Someone good like him.”

She has never once cried over a boy. When you close yourself off to the idea of love at eleven, it doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for crushes and first loves that leave you heartbroken, she supposes.

It had to happen sometime apparently.

Pollux shuts the camera off, giving her some dignity. She will have to thank him before she leaves. She probably won’t see him again after she and Haymitch board their flight back to the US. Will they stay tonight? She hopes that as soon as she tells Peeta, they’ll just head straight to the airport. She wants to go home and curl up in her bed and think about how horrible she is for what she has done. Remove all of her social media accounts and pretend like nothing ever happened.

Cashmere and Glimmer both actually love Peeta. Whether or not they love him more than the idea of being the Bachelorette or Insta-famous is yet to be seen, but they can say it. They can say that they love him. They can say yes when he asks to marry them.

She never wanted to get married. Prim and Johanna both promised her that she would be off the show before that was even a question.

Joke’s on them.

“You know you can’t go on Twitter when this airs,” Haymitch says. “Because everyone out there is going to roast your ass.”

She nods.

“I can see it now. You can live a thousand lifetimes and not deserve that boy.”

“Are you going to be one of my internet trolls?” she deadpans.

He smirks and tips his mini-bottle toward her. “Prim already made my Twitter handle.”

She chucks a throw-pillow at his head and Pollux laughs, the first noise he has made since Haymitch arrived.

...

Maybe more to come if anyone wants to see Peeta get heartbroken and then the two coming together. 

[fly-pow-bye]

Powerpuff Girls 2016 - “Small World: Abra-Disaster” (Part 1)

Written by: Haley Mancini, Jake Goldman

Written & Storyboarded by: John West, Angela Zhang

Directed by: Nick Jennings, Bob Boyle

Like this reboot was a world of laughter before...

This special begins with Penguin Pete's, complete with their theme song: "Penguin Pete's, Penguin Pete's, yum yum yum yum yum." It's certainly no Cookie Cat jingle. This special will really focus on each of their personalities, at least early on, and this starts right from the beginning in this scene.

Buttercup has a brownie chocolate fudge that is so extreme, it's banned in six countries. Blossom, on the other hand, has gelato made of wheatgrass and soy. Because only nerds would want to be healthy. Bubbles has all 42 flavors, because, fitting to her character in more than the ways that they intended, she couldn't decide on which one to get.

However, this all gets interrupted by a bunch of minor villains starting crime. The Gnat is also swatting some poor sap with a giant fly swatter. And all of this is happening at the same time.

When the original Puffs had to do something like this, it ended with them getting exhausted to the point where they had to consider creating another sister. The Reboot Puffs can barely take on one crime at a time, so I highly doubt they're just going to beat up all of these villains and then eat their ice cream.

Except, that’s exactly what they do in this episode! In fact, they don’t even let go of their ice cream while they’re easily trouncing these villains. They even beat up some villains that didn't make it into that intro, like Pot-Head, Fuzzy Lumpkins, and even the Amoeba Boys.

Discount Jojo shows up with his Baggy Jeans Bot. Apparently, he's very conscious about being with the latest trends in fashion when he's committing his crimes. He even confirms to some random hipster passing by that it is acid-washed. With real acid, as he almost douses that hipster with it from a hose. At least it's because Jojo missed, and we can't use this as proof that the regular Townsville population have better reaction time than the Reboot Puffs.

With this powerful jeans robot that seems to fit the Fashionistas more than him, nobody can stop Jojo now...

...until Blossom pops him right in the kisser. Another big surprise: we actually see Blossom punch Jojo in the face without a hit flash! They just bash him left and right. Bubbles even takes over the jeans robot, and kicks his butt with its giant butt.

Unfortunately, before the Powerpuff Girls can punch him repeatedly and take him to jail just like the old days, with Buttercup even threatening to actually "lock him up for good", he suddenly disappears in a puff of smoke. The Powerpuff Girls say "huh" at this, but don't seem to pay it any mind. After all, maybe they were just so strong that Jojo ran out of HP!

However, that turns out to not be the case, as we see where Discount Jojo ended up. He has a decent theory just after waking up in this overly fancy place.

Discount Jojo: Oh no! Those Powerpuffs punched Mojo so hard, he landed in another dimension!

Didn't think this reboot would steal from the old Dragon Ball Z dub. Discount Jojo does seem like an infinite loser to me. No, not really, as the owner of this "another dimension" turns out to be a villain of legend! The Archduke of Anarchy! The King of Coiffures!

Lester Van Luster!

Don't worry if you never heard of him before, because it turns out this is his first appearance. However, we're supposed to see this guy as this legendary villain who managed to shrink the Eiffel Tower. I think this guy is supposed to be like some sort of Siegfried and Roy parody, but he looks more like some overly sugary cupcake to me. A Cupcake Shrinky Boy, if you will. I wish I came up with that.

But none of that matters to Discount Jojo, who is this guy's biggest fan. He kept a scrapbook of him, and even asks him to sign his brain when he shows off the shrunken Eiffel Tower. Yeah, in a way far too similar to Gru from Dispicable Me, this guy's gimmick is that he likes to shrink things.

Would the real Mojo Jojo look up to anyone, never mind someone like Cupcake Shrinky Boy here? Even this Jojo was angry over someone being better than him in previous episodes, but now we're supposed to believe he's a total fangirl of someone who we never seen before. That's one of the many reasons why we call him Discount.

Speaking of Not So Secret Service, the Powerpuff Girls are celebrating their victory by playing another violent fighting game. The Professor's strategy from keeping them from those has been replacing One Must Fall 2041 with Brutal: Paws of Fury. Nobody would want to play a fighting game ever again after playing that, but sadly for him, it didn't work.

As they're beating each other up in the game, they talk about how everything is just so easy for them. I understand that it was a general problem that the Reboot Puffs get beaten up, but this is really overcompensating that. In other episodes, they could get beaten by glitter, the Dewey Decimal System, and air, but not this time. Here, they can beat anyone, anywhere...

Bubbles: ...with any hair!

Ah, a running gag that even the other characters are annoyed by, as Buttercup tells her to stop doing that the very first time she does it. This running gag is supposed to be bad, guys! Laugh!

This episode goes in the complete opposite direction of most reboot episodes, which usually sees the Powerpuff Girls getting defeated rather easily so someone else can save them. It does not even try to ease us into it. Do not give us 90+ episodes of Monster Punch, Girls Down, and then tell us “these girls are invincible! Anytime, anywhere, any hair!”

Suddenly, their video game gets interrupted with a message from Discount Jojo. How did he get on the moon? How can he breathe in space without any kind of space suit? How did he hijack a video game like it was a late night Doctor Who rerun? He'll give us the answer in just a minute!

Blossom is, of course, worried. Via a bunch of stock images with some decent amount of work to make them a little more animated. Bubbles adds that if the moon blows up, the cow wouldn't have anything to jump over!

Cow: (scare chord) Mooooo!

Yes, that's a cow. The reboot needed to let us know what a cow is, just in case we didn't know. They were even helpful enough to make it moo. Who said this show wasn't educational for your toddler?

Much like the last beatings they dished out, they’re not even going to focus 100% of their energy on beating him. They bring their video game with them, which manages to still work even though there’s no electricity around. Maybe this is one of their other rare superpowers: the ability to give out electricity to video game consoles.

While speculating on how many seconds it would take to take Jojo down for what is supposed to be the umpteenth time, they’re suddenly whacked in the face with a magician's top hat. Discount Jojo the Not-So-Magnificent shows his face to these Puny-Puffs, and Blossom can't help but point out something I already pointed out.

Blossom: Hey, how can you even breathe in space?

Discount Jojo: MAGIC!

Oh, hush, Discount. Even Buttercup calls this a lame excuse. They rush in, and I'm sure they're going to beat this monkey up again and finish their video game just like they said they would do.

Magic Punch, Girls Down, womp womp. In several different "magic" ways, too. He's really taking his new gimmicks very seriously. He uses playing cards to stick Bubbles to a rock. He bashes down Blossom and Buttercup with a hammer after doing a disappearing trick. Bubbles then gets distracted by the classic "pulling a rabbit out of a hat" trick. Despite what Rocky says, that trick may work after all! The last one's a bit slow, but the others are okay.

It seems like it's another "Powerpuff Girls get beaten up until some magic being shows up to save them in the end" scene. Thankfully, that doesn't happen, as they do manage to get up and do a few parlor tricks of their own. Just like a certain episode of the original, really.

Specifically, Abra-Cadaver. It is one of the episodes they definitely have seen, since they referenced it in Memory Lane of Pain. In that episode, Abra-Cadaver, not Memory Lane of Pain, a magician is thwarted by the Powerpuff Girls learning a few magic tricks of their own. That's essentially what they do here, even combining it with their own aura powers for good measure. Fighting fire with fire, and there's some good gags here, too.

It all ends with Blossom doing a grand finale: putting him in a coffin. Thankfully for Jojo, Blossom decided not to use an iron maiden this time. Jojo gets put in iron chains instead. Probably not as strong as ordinary rope, but that probably terrifies them.

But, uh oh, they spent all of this time beating up Jojo the Not-So-Magnificent, they forgot all about the bomb! The Powerpuff Girls decide to stay in one place and do a big no, knowing that even if they tried, they would just fail anyway.

How do they manage to get rid of this bomb without making that poor cow angry? Turns out, they didn't need to, in a twist that even I couldn't expect. If you read this far, I'm sorry to say I do not do the ellipsis any more because I now assume you read these after you watch the episode. Right?

The bomb "explodes", with confetti and a big sign that says "BOOM". The bomb turned out to be a fake, and it was all just a distraction; an "opening act" for the real act. Besides, with his brains, Discount Jojo knows the dangers of blowing up the moon. I mean, what would the cow jump over?

Cow: (scare chord) Mooooo!

Just in case you missed it, kids. This is a cow. She goes "moo". He then uses his magic hat to show a projection of said "real act": Sparkly Sprinkles is about to do his biggest magic trick yet from his sky-high Secret Lair. Pretty sure you can't really be that secret if you're up in the sky, but that's beyond the point.

Blossom gets a call from the Mayor on her smartphone, which apparently gets really good reception on the moon. She hears the Mayor is adoring this big shiny light in the sky that is getting ever so closer. They fly all the way down to the place they called home for so long, only to find that...

Blossom: It's...it's gone.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Wow. I mean, that's actually a very powerful end for this first part. No unneeded random quips, no farting, no fancy dream catchers, just "oops, Townsville's now a giant crater, and it's all our fault!" It made me anxious to see the next part, and that is something I didn't expect.

Does this part’s title fit?

Yeah, this is the one that really plays up the magic angle.

How does this part stack up?

The “we’re invincible” gag got really old, especially considering this reboot tends to go against that far too often for me to take that seriously. That’s really the only problem with this particular part. The whole special has its own issues, which I’ll detail when I’m done with this.

Some decent magic trick jokes, some good cameos in the beginning, and an ending that actually hooks you in for the rest of the special. All in all, a pretty good opener.

With a relatively good opener, it could only go downhill from here, right? See you tomorrow for Part 2.

← Salamander ☆ Small World: Stone Cold Spider (Part 2) →

[spicedchampagne]

Fire

“Those who play with fire should expect to be consumed by it, but should hope for escape.”

Buttercup had barely kissed the ground when a guy stepped up from the shadows to greet her. She resisted the urge to smile as he pulled her into a tight embrace instead pushing him off and ruffling her hand through his brunette mop that he insisted on growing out.

"Popeye," Her lips quirked up into a ghost of a smirk. "Always a pleasure."

"Thorn," he responded in kind. "Always painfully out of reach."

She clucked her tongue pityingly, "Tsk, Mitchelson. I thought you loved a little pain with your pleasure."

Buttercup didn't wait for his reply, instead opting to help herself. She punched in the code without even looking and let herself into his garage.

"No guy likes that much pain, babe." She told her eyes, already knowing where this was headed. "Y'know 'cept maybe–"

"Finish that sentence and I promise you'll be in so much pain you may never feel pleasure again." She warned, aiming a wrench straight for his junk.

He just laughed like the sailor he got his nickname from and started to help her dig through his tools. Tonight would be the night Mitch won for a change.

It went without saying that when Buttercup first fell in with this crowd she felt more at home than she'd ever been. Popular as she was she didn't care to hang out with people from her school outside of school.

Those guys' idea of fun was parties and gossip, and where an underage drink or a badly rolled joint was enough to get their hearts racing.

That was all well and good y'know because to each their own, right? But Buttercup had superpowers, it took way more than that to get her blood pumping.

She liked being on the school teams—during which they had her wear a special bracelet that neutralized her powers, which was fair. And she loved fighting monsters and criminals, except fighting those guys couldn't be her only source of real fun—that wasn't fair.

So imagine her surprise, or lack of it or whatever, when she runs into none other than the Rowdyruff's during a routine sweep of Townsville and finds out what they've been up to.

It all threw her for a loop at first, that these guys couldn't give less of a damn about who she was other than her police connections. Despite all this, by the time her initiation process was over she had grown pretty close with them.

The boys had by no means cleaned up their act. The crimes that they committed weren't much of a public endangerment. She didn't care what the Ruff's or the other guys did crime-wise as long at it was one of those lesser evil crimes.

Like when Butch killed someone (brutally because he was quite possibly incapable of anything less) it didn't matter because the guys he bothered killing were murderers and rapists.

Or when Boomer stole shit, why should she care that he stole parts off of a stolen bike? And she could hardly bust Brick for assault from a fight club she was part of.

She was practically one of them, they just had different day jobs. Buttercup was a superheroine and they were criminals. Tomato potato.

"Ace and the gang still at the shop?" she inquired, wiping her hands off on a random rag.

"Yeah, you should stop by. They tricked it out to look all professional and shit."

"That can't've been too hard considering what it looked like the last time I was there." Buttercup rolled her eyes.

Just walking through the door made her feel like she needed a bath, lest she catch hepatitis's A through E. It was anything but professional.

Even so, she'd gone there for her piercings, all seven of them. Though she did make sure to buy all her own tools and jewelry.

The gangrene gang was less of a gang now that they were in their mid-20s, less evil more fucking about. Their main haunt was the tattoo parlor Ace won in an all-or-nothing fight.

The guy he won it off of was huge and didn't take into account that the green skinned asshole used to face up with superheroes.

While they worked on Mitch's motorbike she let her mind drift back to her sisters. They were almost certainly still at the party pretending they weren't bored to tears.

Blossom and Bubbles weren't quite the adrenaline junkies their green-eyed sister tended to be, still, they felt their classmates had other drawbacks.

All they ever asked Blossom about was leader stuff or how smart she was and they went to Bubbles for smiley face stickers and kept dumping all their problems on her like it was her job to give them a pick me up.

Bubbles was definitely more comfortable with her assumed role among the three of them, only the idolization seemed to bother her. It was almost as if the girls' word meant more than their own personal opinions.

She always felt a little guilty when she ditched them for her friends although they had each other so that did make her feel a little better.

Maybe one of these days I'll bring them along. Buttercup mused before a terrible shudder went through her. No, she'd be an outcast. Everyone would think she narc'ed and her sisters would probably be uncomfortable.

"Alright, I think I'm ready to go for tonight!" Mitch declared proudly tossing his tools to the side. "You going domestic tonight?"

"I might hop on if Baron or Duke ride. I'm more in the mood for a good old-fashioned leg race." She shrugged unsurely.

"With your Ruff of choice of course," He snickered. "we both know who that'll be."

She didn't even bother telling him to shut the hell up. Everyone knew no one normal bothered taking up against her. She always ended up battling the Ruffs and when she got her pick of which one to go against she almost always chose the same one.

Mitch mounted his bike and Buttercup led the way in the sky towards the main warehouse. They were late, evidenced by the girls lined up at one end watching Jet spinning around in the pit.

Buttercup slapped hands with all the guys, who were already two deep apparently, and nodded in the girls' direction, with most of them waving back.

A patent smirk found its way to her face as she stuffed her hands in her leather jacket that Kim, Mitch's girl, had just brought out to her. He hooked his arm around Kim's shoulders and planted a kiss on her head prior to shrugging on his own jacket.

The twins were shoving each other and ambling over but Buttercup just shot them a quick 'hey' and floated away.

Normally she'd stick it through their crude humor and incessant arguing that'd just make her more wound up. Buttercup had had a really shit week.

On top of failing her math test, getting detention on Monday, and being benched for the soccer game, she and the girls had defeated not one, not two, but three damn villains this week. One bank robbery and two monsters.

The bank robbery and lizard monster were a breeze. However, the other monster was made out of some strange sludge and proved to be a real challenge.

It looked like the Slime Monster they'd faced when they were little but much more…viscous, like it was made of gum or something. Buttercup loved to fight as much as the next gal except that punching sludge was no damn picnic.

She and her sisters hadn't even actually beat the Slime Monster either, they'd just found its stupid kitty, so they were shit out of luck.

Eventually, they defeated it with a combination of Blossom's freeze breath and Bubbles' scream. She and her sisters had taken the next day off school because they were so exhausted (and also because they felt gross and it took goddamn ages to clean the sludge out their ears).

Anyway, between the stupid monster and school Bloss had insisted they all make an appearance at that party in midtown.

She wasn't too keen on those parties though she did agree that she needed a good dose of fun. It just so happened that she wouldn't have any of it in Townsville.

Finally, she laid eyes on the Ruff's who were, predictably, going on about some stupid nonsense. Brick and Boomer seemed to be having the main disagreement. Butch was leant against his bike sniggering at his brother and occasionally offering his less than helpful input.

"Woah, 'sup dickheads?" She swiped Butch's bottle of jack that he kept in his back pocket and smashed it, just for kicks.

He snarled and made for her neck but Boomer caught him with lightning reflexes and threw him to the floor. Butch didn't bother to get up he just sat there laughing with his arm propped up on his knee.

"Boomer wants to change his name." Brick rolled his eyes. "Sissypants here doesn't like his current one."

"Fuck off," Boomer narrowed his eyes at his leader. "the Dumbest of the Dumb isn't fair. Not up against Duke of Destruction and Baron of Berserk anyway."

"Fuck off, DotD stays."

"Hold up, if Boomer gets a new one I want a new name too." Buttercup demanded. She hated Thorn.

"Double fuck off, I picked your name myself!" Butch cut in. He'd finally gotten up from the ground and had mounted his bike. "It's a pun. You just don't get it, you dick."

"I get the stupid pun, asshole." She growled. "It just isn't funny."

"Shut up, both of you." Brick yelled and held his hand up. 

[littledorkydemon]

Events and things mentioned in Powerpuff Girls comic Mini Series: Second Chances

The mini series is broken into 6 chapters and a short epilogue, as are the notes. In total the notes are just shy of 4,000 words

Chapter One

• The comic starts with the City of Townsville being set on fire

• The girls are called and fly downtown to find Mojo is the cause and Buttercup starts complaining

• The then start trying to recall what they fought already and when, this includes a giant metal robot, giant metal spider, and a giant metal shotgun

• This time he's using a giant metal exoskeleton, and apparently this isn't the first time he's used one

• Exoskeleton looks like the one from the Alien movie

• Mojo tries to convince the girls how cool his and better this plan is only to get upset when they show disinterest

• “Oh, what do you know anyway? It's not like I took an industrial design course! I Mojo Jojo have no need for a college diploma on account of my superior intelligence- ...and superior firepower”

• He then fires a barrage of missiles at the girls, who get them all together and following them before leading them back to hit Mojo

• Buttercup taunts him after, saying they haven't fought a Giant Metal Hedgehog yet [Fist Bump cover by Natewantstobattle played right after I read that]

• Mojo is taken back to jail and on the way he is talking out loud trying to figure out how his genius plans are always stopped by children

• The officer lists off all of Mojo's belongings which are:

    ○ One big hat

    ○ One singed purple cape

    ○ One death ray gun

    ○ One pack of gum: Mint Fresh

    ○ Two double-A batteries

    ○ One Frequent Coffee Buyer's Reward Card

    ○ One Self-Help Book on Public Speaking

• The girls are at Malt's Shoppe when the shop owner, Mr. Malt, gives them a banana split as thanks for taking care of Mojo. He also tips them off to a special event happening tomorrow in honor of the girls

• Buttercup is exited thinking they finally made statues of the girls

• The next day the Mayor unveils the gift for the girls, Three sets of golf clubs and a Lifetime Membership to Townsville Golf and Country Club

• And the Mayor hopes they'll join him for a round of Charity golf that weekend

• Buttercup is upset, finding golf boring

• A swamp monster rises from the water trap at the 16th hole and the Girls fly off to fight it, but not before making a bunch of golf puns

• The girls fight the monster, not understanding it's heavy accent

• It slaps Bubbles away into a puddle of algae to which both she and Buttercup find disgusting

• The girls use their new clubs to slice and hit the monster, and Buttercup shouts that she now loves this game

• The monster turned out to be a man, Jock Scott, at its core, who thanks the girls for freeing him

• Blossom knows the man saying, “Not Jock Scott, famous golfer who hit a 225 on a Par 72 and mysteriously disappeared at the Masters open in 1963?” to which he confirms he is.

• Blossom says she likes to watch golf

• Mojo is shown watching the live new of the girls' fight

• on the cell wall it says “The Amobea Boyz wuz hear”

• Mojo is upset and ranting about how he has never won against the girls, then asks the visitor he requested see him, free Mojo from the prison of his mind and the memories of his repeated failures

• He begs the Professor for Antidote X

Chapter Two

• It starts back at the prison, with two inmates talking about Mojo Jojo giving up villainy

• It's all framed like Mojo is on death row and heading to the electric chair

• He's last words before Antidote X enters the gas chamber are an apology for any and all inconveniences he's wrought on them. Them being The Mayor, Ms. Bellum, and the Girls

• The gas is let in and Mojo breaks his bindings, but as more of a reaction to the Antidote X

• The Professor has the girls stay back while he gets a sleeping Jojo out out of the chamber

• He also says that Jojo is his responsibility and is thus taking Jojo is as part of their family, to which Buttercup protests claiming it's just some trick of Mojo's

• despite her protesting, they take in Jojo, throwing him a “Welcome Home” party

• Jojo starts running around the kitchen, swinging from the banner and falling on the cake they had for him, which starts a food fight between him and the girls

• during that he manages to slip passed them and into the lab where he is running around breaking more things, and knocking down a beaker of Chemical X

• The Professor catches it before it can fall on Jojo's head

• The Professor locks away the Chemical X in a safe and gets everyone ready for bed

• Bubbles really likes Jojo and wants him to like living with them, while Buttercup hates the idea, saying “A leopard doesn't change its spots”

• Blossom says that he's not Mojo Jojo anymore, that they'll have to find it in their hearts to forgive his past attempts to destroy them, saying it's the right thing to do and that everyone deserves a second chance

• Him is shown watching the girls and complains that they never gave him a second chance

• Enjoying the idea of an eventual betrayal of the trust earned in a second chance, Him decides to “give these girls a little lesson in 'forgiveness'...”

• Him's eyes glow green, and so does every major villain in Townsville

• Blossom bolts up out of bed the next morning and rushes to the window followed by her groggy sisters

• They fly off to get the Professor and all go outside to see Townsville's villains doing a bunch of chores; mowing the lawn, washing the car, repainting the house, and gardening

Chapter Three

• Starts with the Ex-villains of Townsville

    ○ Sedusa is a hair stylist working on three clients' hair at once

    ○ Princess is at a soup kitchen ladling money to the poor

    ○ Fuzzy is a Realtor selling properties to people

    ○ The Gangreen Gang are making a large statue of the girls in the park

• Buttercup thinks its all fishy, complaining that she hasn't been able to hit anyone in the past week because their all too nice

• Bubbles says she and Fuzzy are volunteering at the animal shelter after she's out of school

• Blossom says she and Sedusa are going to get things ready for the annual tulip festival in the park

• Buttercup points out the weird timing, first Mojo then the rest of the villains, gets frustrated talking to Blossom and unable to completely voice her feelings, and says warned them for when it all goes wrong

• Meanwhile The Professor is having a hard time with Jojo

• The Professor sets some bananas down on the floor below Jojo

• Jojo takes the bait and the Professor sets off a rube goldberg machine to trap him in a cage

• The phone rings and the Professor politely refuses their offer saying his too busy to play any games, and saying he's been getting a lot of telemarketing calls lately

• He then goes to show a grumpy Jojo the experiment he's working on; “an atomic-powered coffee maker guaranteed to keep your coffee hot for 24,100 years!”

• Also meanwhile, Him is shown taking a bath and watching what's going on in Townsville; Blossom is flying kites with Little Arturo, Bubbles is fishing with Fuzzy, and Buttercup is by herself looking grumpy

• There's also two monitors? Him has of cats just to the side of the ones of Blossom and Bubbles

• Him goes on to the next step of his plan and wakes up a giant octopus to attack the city

• The girls are in class when they hear a loud boom and see smoke coming from the city

• Buttercup is excited, taking the lead on the way downtown and saying that she is going to knock Ace and the Gangreen Gang into next month

• Her sisters point out they don't know who is causing trouble yet, and after saying she'll beat up who ever is actually responsible, she's going to beat up

• They get downtown and notice Ace is there

• He and everyone else are wanting the Powerpuff Girls help in fighting the monter

• The girls are all stunned, Buttercup thinking it's weird but doesn't care as she gets to punch something

• Working together, they all fight the octopus; who, when it's had enough, squirts ink on all of them and runs away back to the ocean

• Sedusa says that from now on they'll all fight together to defend Townsville

• Princess suggests they all go for malts, and that it's her treat

• Buttercup says this is going to take some getting used to

Chapter Four

• Starts with the Gangreen Gang at the park playing basketball when a business man walks by throwing his empty coffee on the ground

• Ace, “Eh, youse might want to reconsider your decision there, mister”

• Business man calls them punks and says he has more important things to do, to which Ace replies, “Oh, far be it from me to stifle the progress of commerce in our fair city, but you is gonna put your litter in its proper place if'in you know what's good for ya.”

• Guy still refuses and they stuff him in an trashcan with his empty coffee

• Fuzzy is aiming his shotgun at a poacher planning on killing a moose

• Princess is helping out Madame Foster cross the street and carrying her shopping bag

• The Amoeba Boys join the army

• And the Girls are dealing with a robbery at the jewelry store, and the robbers involved are two nameless guys never seen before

• According to the Narrator, Him resides deep below the city of Townsville

• Him's monitors are place so that Princess's head is covering Ms. Bellum's head

• Now that everyone in Townsville believe the villains have turned over a new leaf, Him says he'll loosen his mind control over them and watch the villains slip back into old habits

• Looking at a screen of Ace and Buttercup laughing together, Him says, “A leopard doesn't change its spots, you know!”

    ○This saying dates back to the Old Testament, Jeremiah 13:23

• Blossom and Princess are fixing beams under a bridge when Princess's eyes glow green and she aims her laser to hit Blossom

• Buttercup is with the Gangreen Gang cleaning the subway of all their graffiti when Ace's eye glow the same green and he pushes Buttercup in front of a Subway

• Buttercup is able to stop the Subway, pushing against it to stop it

• Bubbles and Fuzzy are having a picnic

• Fuzzy says that he love all the forest animals and that he plays the banjo for them, also stating that the rabbits are his favorite

• Bubbles complements the sandwiches Fuzzy made, and he informs her that they are; meat jelly sandwiches, and are a family recipe

• Fuzzy's eyes glow green and he gets mad at a group of ants on the picnic blanket

• Bubbles tries to calm him down, but Fuzzy says that this is his home and they don't belong here. Then pointing out that all this land belonged to his ancestors until Townsville came along

• He give Bubbles to the count of five before he chases her off his property with his boomstick, and she flies off crying at his threat

• The Professor is at home putting sugar, spice, and everything nice into a bowl

• Jojo is next to the bowl looking ad a bag of Flour and the Professor is laughing about the nostalgia

• The phone rings and The Professor tells them that he's busy at the moment and has no time for games

• He state after hanging up that he's going to have to talk to the mayor due to crank callers constantly calling

• Bubbles flies home just as Jojo spills all the flour on himself, and the Professor mistakes her being upset over the lost of the cake he was preparing

• Bubbles tries to tell him why she's really upset but the Professor interrupts her saying that they'll take a trip to the store and stop for ice cream on the way. Bubbles then tries to bargain for three scoops

• Blossom and Princess are fighting as Bubbles and the Professor drive by on the bridge, Bubbles trying to get even more scoops of ice cream

• Princess says bridges are stupid and blasts a chunk out of it, and Blossom rushes down to catch it, punching Princess on the way and telling her to stop

• Meanwhile the Gangreen Gang are at the park cleaning up litter when Billy sees a hot dog vendor, and starts eating all the hot dogs despite not having money

• Ace says that he's had enough of “this goody-goody business” and he and the other start making a mess of the park

• Sedusa is working again as a hair stylist and is bored and irritated with her clientele, and she shaves off all the ladies' hair. Their screaming gets Buttercup to crash through the window and start a fight with Sedusa

• Meanwhile the Amoeba boys are in the Nevada Desert and put in charge of guarding the states supply of canola oil said to be the backbone of the fast-food economy

• The boys can't stand the heat and head to the mess hall for a drink of plankton water when a bomb goes off on one of the canola silos

• The Amoeba boys get court-martialed, and Slim says Bossman is a criminal genius, while Bossman looks unsure of what happened

• Back at the Utonium house, the phone is ringing non-stop

• Jojo gets out of his cage, smacks the phone and leans in to hear it, hearing, “Why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?”

• His eyes start to swirl green and he sets up a game of solitaire, muttering, “Jo, Jo.” three times before, “Mo- Jo. ...Jojo” and turning green and sneering finally says, “Mojo.”

Chapter Five

• Starts with Bubbles and the Professor at Malph's getting flour when Fuzzy is outside shouting at everyone to get off his property and turning everything into various cuts of meat

• Bubbles is scared stating the last time Fuzzy used that meat gun he turned her pigtail into a drumstick

• The professor comforts her when Blossom and Princess come flying by, only to continue their own fighting

• Princess says that being good is too much work and not enough pay, also saying bridges are for people who have to go work for a living and that she is never going to need a bridge

• Blossom gets one more hit on Princess before Buttercup gets thrown through the window

• Outside, Sedusa, Fuzzy, Princess, and the Gangreen Gang are running amok

• Buttercup and Blossom get ready to go out there and fight them all when Bubbles tells Blossom she doesn't think she can do that. Admitting that she is a little scared of Fuzzy as well as that there's still good in him, that she can feel it.

• her sisters help her not be scared and that while Fuzzy may still be good deep down, he is currently doing bad and needs to be taken care of.

• The Girls start fighting all the villains in the parking lot when an earthquake happens and Him rises from the ground

• Calls the girls gullible children for believing they could reform the worst of society with kindness and understanding. Adding that the girls “never want to see the shadow cast by all living things.”

• Him claims that “They just take what they want, without remorse, and give nothing in return. It's in their DNA!” also says that all it took was a “teeny bit of mind alteration” to have them all getting along

• Him tells Ace that all he did was “put a cork in their bad habits” for a while and when he stopped the suppression of them, all the villains when back to petty crimes and misbehavior

• All the Villains are upset at Him, Fuzzy saying he had a good thing going with the real estate business, saying he was a closer.

• Him says it's all in their nature, and not to blame the chef when the ingredients are rotten

• Fuzzy rallies the villains to stand up against Him and Fuzzy shoots him with his meat gun

• Him gets mad that Fuzzy “dare turn [his] weapon on [Him's] haute couture” and sneers asking what he's going to do about it, calling Him a “Lobster Man”

• Saying that they have their own demons to battle, Him names off the seven deadly sins and the shadows of those around Him, villains and heroes, weigh down the person and bare the names of various sins

    ○ Sedusa's shadow is Envy

    ○ Princess's shadow is Greed

    ○ Big Billy's shadow is Gluttony

    ○ Blossom's shadow is Pride

    ○ Buttercup's shadow is Wrath

• Blossom's and Buttercup's shadows actually speak

    ○ Pride, “I'm the prettiest, smartest, and most important Powerpuff Girl”

    ○ Wrath, “I have so much anger in my heart. I must hurt others to keep the rage at bay.”

• Bubbles doesn't have a shadow bearing a sin, saying Him's whole shadow talk “falls apart when the light is too bright!”

• Bubbles starts to actually shine, blinding everyone, but also makes the shadows disappear, saying that nobody is perfect but there's goodness in everyone, and all you need is love

• Him has had enough and leaves with these parting words, “Take heed! Trust no one and forgive no trespass. Suspicion, fear, and hatred are the natural order of things, and you'd do well to embrace that.”

• Ace suggest that everyone just go their own way since Him messed with all of them, to which Buttercup protests, but Blossom agrees to, since they aren't actually at fault this time

• Bubbles asks Fuzzy before he goes if they could finish their picnic sometime and though he's still grumpy says maybe, and Bubbles hugs him thanking him

• Blossom and Buttercup are ashamed and tell the Professor that they aren't perfect little girls after all, But the Professor says they're perfect to him, and loves them just as they are, which gets the girls to smile again

• Buttercup asks the Professor how long until go back to how they were, and the he says its hard to say. That real change takes time, but every good deed leaves it's mark, and that the hard part is never giving up hope

Chapter Six

• Starts with the girls and Professor driving home, and Buttercup asking the Professor if he saw all her attacks, getting so excited talking about it she doesn't see that their house is smoking with the Front door blasted away

• The Professor is worried about Jojo and the girls clear the smoke to make it easier to see

• They see the Lab also has blast damage and find the safe with Chemical X has been broken, with the beaker broken on the ground

• Buttercup points out a message written on the wall saying “I'm BACK! -sincerely, Mojo Jojo”

• The message is brown, and Mojo left his diaper pinned to the wall of the lab

• The girls are understandably grossed out

• The Professor points out his coffee maker full of Plutonium-239 is missing as well

• There's a loud, earth rumbling boom and the girls fly outside to see a laser coming from Mojo's volcano top lair

• Buttercup says, “I told you so” to her sisters before braking in to stop Mojo

• Mojo tells the girls he plans on destroying Townsville to rebuild it as he wishes, and when Bubbles asks what changed his mind to make him go back to a life of crime, Mojo admits this has been his plan all along

• Hours before his original attack in the exoskeleton robot he realized that his plan would be stopped again by the girls so;

    ○ He hypnotized himself with subconscious instructions to find Chemical X

    ○ Faked all his moping while being dragged to prison

    ○ Tricked the Professor into giving him antidote X knowing he'd feel responsible for Mojo, and take him back in

    ○ Set up a giant drinking bird that would make a phone call to the girls house every hour and play his trigger message, “Maybe you should play a little solitaire”

    ○ Once he heard the message, he sought out chemical X, got back to his old self and stole the Professor's coffee maker

• Mojo had an atomic bomb powered by the Plutonium-239 coffee maker and plans on sending it down into the volcano where it will cause lava to rain down on all of Townsville and cover it in atomic ash for then next few decades

• Mojo also says he has a secret plan B if the girls stop plan A, and Mojo leave in an escape pod while the girls are left trying to stop the destruction of Townsville

• They can't find the button in time and the giant drinking bird hit the button sending the rocket and bomb into the volcano

• The girls dive after it and it's going to fast to disarm it, so instead Blossom get under it freezing the cap with her ice breath to cool the lava under it and slow the rocket, Bubbles screeches to get the outer shell of the rocket to break away and buttercup spirals around the plutonium case and bringing it up with her

• Buttercup's spiral keeps the lava from pouring out after she' out of the volcano,

• Blossom and Bubble are both shown using ice breath to cool the pillar of lava into rock

• Way above the earth Buttercup gets dizzy from all the spinning, but manages to kick the plutonium right into the sun and just missing Mojo's escape pod, to which she's irritated she missed

• Buttercup, still dizzy falls off the top of the very narrow volcano and her sisters catch and hug her, and starts shouting “enough of the mushy stuff! Sheesh.”

Epilogue

• Mojo is in space and not terribly upset that his plan failed, saying that's why he has a plan B

• He hits a button and a “World re Vision” is on the screen with a download bar under it

• Says that he'll come back after a few weeks and come out of his egg ship and the people of earth will worship him like a king

• Realizes that if he's going to be up in space orbiting the planet for a few weeks, that he should have installed a bathroom, adding that he really didn't think this plan through

[fly-pow-bye]

Powerpuff Girls 2016 - “Bridezilla”

Written by: Haley Mancini

Written & Storyboarded by: Jaydeep Hasrajani, Leticia Abreu Silva

Directed by: Nick Jennings, Bob Boyle

Oh no, they say she’s got to go!

The episode starts with the Powerpuff Girls opening an invitation for the Utonium Family. Not the Powerpuff Family, the Utonium Family. Even the people who wrote the invitations don't agree with what you think your last name is, Blossom. Maybe it's a retcon, and we never have to hear "Blossom Powerpuff" again. Wishful thinking.

I'm also glad to see the Bikini part of their name hasn’t been retconned by how often they call them “The Fashionistas”. Speaking of which, that jail sentence at the end of Monkey Love must have been pretty short lived; it's not even mentioned in this episode despite clearly being a sequel. Townsville's jail must have a revolving door, just like Gotham City's.

Blossom: BYOB. Bring your own...bananas?

One minute in, and we’re already far closer to "Monkey Love" than the actual Monkey Love.

Blossom and Buttercup immediately think something is going on. Not because of anything in the letter, but because they’re villains. Bubbles, on the other hand, thinks it’s just going to be a normal wedding, and accuses Blossom of judging a villain by its cover. Blossom picks up a book that says “Always Evil: A Memoir”.

Mojo Jojo shows up, smashing through a door for no reason other than to give Blossom and Buttercup a reason to not trust him. He calls for the Professor in a threatening way...to stay with him at a bachelor party! It even has a catchphrase: "Don't Lose The Mojo"! Yeah, he already did since his first appearance, and only got slightly better over time.

After the Professor leaves with his former lab assistant turned evil chimp, Bianca Bikini shows up, also smashing through a window for no reason other than to give Blossom and Buttercup a reason to not trust her. A reason they won't even use.

Buttercup: Ugh, does anyone know how to use a door?

This could have been a better gag if the Powerpuff Girls were still bashing through walls. If they didn't want to make them hypocrites, they could even reference it as a reason why they don’t do it anymore. I would rather them break through walls, since even this reboot's theme song says they do, but an explanation would be better than nothing.

Bianca is here to tell the Puffs that if the wedding happens, Townsville will go "ta-ta". Blossom and Buttercup do question trusting her after all she did to them, even referencing the brainwashing in Fashion Forward, but they believe her anyway. Because VILLAINY! Bubbles is the voice of reason in this episode, Blossom and Buttercup don't even get unique roles.

UNDERCOVER OPERATION!

They go undercover as non-discriminate gal pals at Barbarus’s bachelorette party. They tell Barbarus that Reboot Jojo told them her butt smells. This completely backfires, as she takes it as a compliment, because apes. Bubbles and a group of people from previous episodes, such as the inept camera girl from Bubbles of the Opera and Zeitgeist from Road Trippin’, go aww over this moment.

UNDERCOVER OPERATION!

After that failure, they go undercover as non-discriminate guy pals at Reboot Jojo’s bachelor party.

Reboot Jojo: And his monologues would go on and on!

Must be talking about his more competent and funnier brother, Mojo Jojo. They try to do the same thing they did to Barbarus. I did mention the whole "two characters, one role" problem, but there is one subtle difference: while Buttercup was able to do the butt line on the spot, Blossom needs index cards to be mean. Good touch.

Blossom: Barbarus told you you're unfunny, unclassy, a weak villain...

Love it when Blossom does my work for me. Unfortunately, she also does a butt-related comparison, which makes him really happy. Bubbles and a group of people from previous episodes, such as the monster-for-hire from Princess Buttercup and the talking zebra from Tiara Trouble, go aww over this moment.

UNDERCOVER OPERATION!

No, it's done, random voiceover guy. Where is the Narrator, anyway? At least this season is consistent with his non-appearances.

Blossom and Buttercup go back to their drawing board, showing that they tried everything to stop this wedding. They tried fabricating lies, photoshopping jealousy by putting a picture of Barbarus's head on what looks like someone going on a date with Fuzzy Lumpkins, and anti-Barbarus campaigns that look suspiciously like anti-Obama stickers. I'll just let that unfortunate implication speak for itself.

Before we can think about that too hard, Bianca shows up to tell Blossom and Buttercup that they're going to do something evil at the wedding. Just from that, Blossom and Buttercup assume there's a bomb in the lasagna at the wedding. Bubbles tries to be the voice of reason, but Blossomcup trusts the person that tried to drown them in tye-dye and already left.

And so the wedding begins to be ruined, starting off with Blossom and Buttercup beating up the bride and groom and asking where the bomb is. At least I can say they’re not being weak this time, as they easily trash the party. The same two people that were able to hold down Bubbles and Buttercup like they were weaklings in the last episode. I guess it just takes evil.

Being the voice of reason in this, Bubbles tries her, but failing. One scene in particular has Blossom and Buttercup throwing out the cake to find the bomb. Bubbles desperately tries to catch the cake, and succeeds, but it gets hit by the Wedding Hippo. Bubbles questions the existence of a Wedding Hippo, and that’s all anyone is going to get. Random!

One thing I will say: they seem to do a far better job at making this a monkey wedding rather than a generic couple wedding. Not necessarily the villain part, but the ape part. This is shown when they eye laser the presents, and a bunch of bananas come out of them. At least it's something!

Blossom and Buttercup declare that the day is saved, as the wedding is now in ruins. Reboot Jojo tells them that, no really, he just wanted to have a normal wedding. Possibly to defer blame, Blossom and Buttercup blurt out that Bianca told them all about their plans. Bianca gets angry, but Barbarus gets even angrier knowing that Bianca caused this misunderstanding to happen. Barbarus growls Bianca's face off. Literally.

It was probably less freaky in the storyboard.

This anger turns into outright rage, with Barbarus even hulking up slightly, and she starts chasing after Bianca and rampaging through the city. She picks up taco trucks. The Powerpuff Girls try their best to save Bianca. Because they're superheroes, they can't just kill people, right?

We even get the classic “people carrying glass across the street gag“, where Bubbles smacks right into it. Bianca was easily able to break glass in the opening. Sad to see that aspect continuing from the last episode.

The Powerpuff Girls struggle to keep Barbarus from ripping apart Bianca, showing her determination to “get” Bianca and showing the writers lack of determination to give any truth to the “girl power” tagline put on this show. Well, Barbarus is a woman, so I guess it would technically still be true.

The Powerpuff Girls aren’t just, but they also want to give her a chance to say sorry. They beg her to say sorry, but Bianca just tells them to stay out of this. The Powerpuff Girls decide to follow that advice, and let the dress go. Jeez, Reboot Puffs, I thought this was the lighter and softer reboot; they're actually going to let a giant angry gorilla maul Bianca to death.

Nah, of course not. At the very last second, she finally says sorry. This immediately causes Barbarus to turn back to normal. It was a good thing the Powerpuff Girls knew this was going to happen! Bianca explains her motives: ever since Barbarus started dating Reboot Jojo, they haven't been together. This doesn't really fit with the last episode, which had Bianca join in on every date, but that's par for the course for this show.

They hug each other and make up, Bianca finally accepting Barbarus's love. This sisterly bonding is so sweet, that not only does Bubbles goes aww over it, Buttercup starts crying over it. I do like the line she says to cover it up, she's just allergic to sad things. A minor like. It’s almost like a drama version of the fistbump joke, but I don’t see it as bad. Maybe it’s because this it’s a very rare occurrence in this show.

For the record, before they can say “I do”, they get into an argument and never actually get to it. It’s left open on whether or not this negates the wedding. There is one line I really like, coming from the hateable-in-this-episode Blossom of all people.

Blossom: Maybe this is why you shouldn't get engaged after two dates.

It's almost as if it was making fun of how sudden the relationship was. The episode ends with Jojo threatening to destroy the city, justifying Blossom and Buttercup's prejudice, and the Powerpuff Girls beating up Reboot Jojo in an off-screen fight. It seems like they can only show violence when it’s bad.

Does the title fit?

The bride rampages through the city, just like a certain giant monster.

How does it stack up?

I like how the Bianca plot was wrapped up. Even the Barbarus x Jojo relationship, which I didn't agree with, seemed to be played for humor more than the last episode. Sure, the ending seems like a way to reverse everything back to the status quo, but I didn't want to see it happen anyway.

I can see how people could hate this episode, and it's all on Blossom and Buttercup. While their cruelty isn't rewarded like in certain episodes of the original, it's not exactly punished either. Then again, Reboot Jojo is supposed to be their most notorious villain, and Barbarus isn't much better. I just didn't feel like it was as forced as this relationship was to me. Your mileage may vary.

I can see how people would hate this episode, but I found it alright. I would give this a high Neutral, but I've been giving those out like candy on Halloween lately for episodes worse than this one, so I'll be nice here.

Next, the big one. I'll wait until the episode airs to tell you my plans for that one.

← Monkey Love ☆ Power of Four (Parts 1-2) →

[fly-pow-bye]

Powerpuff Girls 2016 - “Power of Four” (Parts 3-5)

Written by: Jake Goldman, Haley Mancini

Written & Storyboarded by: Kyle Neswald, Benjamin P. Carow, Julia Vickerman, Cheyenne Curtis, Alicia Chan, Grace Craft (sic), Jaydeep Hasrajani, Leticia Abreu Silva

Directed by: Nick Jennings, Bob Boyle

Sorry for the wait, everyone!

Part 3 - Blisster Sister

Written & Storyboarded by: Julia Vickerman, Cheyenne Curtis

Despite having superpowers, she doesn't even know if she can be a Powerpuff Girl, but the Powerpuff Girls insist that it's "in her blood". Their first priority is not seeing if she could stop a crime, but some "new superhero threads". Because that's what the reboot Puffs are all about, putting on new costumes for the toyline to show how fashionable they are!

She first comes out in a business suit, much to the joy of Blossom, but the other two don't really care for it. She tries on a cutesy costume and a slasher villain costume, appealing to Bubbles and Buttercup respectively, but they still say no. She also picks up a costume that's clearly meant to be a Wonder Woman reference, but the Powerpuff Girls immediately shoot it down because, in Buttercup's words:

Buttercup: Where's the rest of it?

Blossom: PASS!

Not that I would want Bliss in Wonder Woman's costume, but it's really telling that the first joke the writers think about with Wonder Woman is how skimpy her clothing is. It just feels wrong, especially after that amazing movie that inspired girls far more than this show did. Not to mention that whole scene in Equal Fights. She tries on a few other costumes, some of them parodies of other superheroes, one of them a pear because random, and most of them unseen because they ran out of ideas.

They eventually decide on a costume that looked just like what she wore before. "Always a classic", says Blossom, unintentionally telling people that they really were afraid to stray too far from the original when it comes to the looks. Blossom does add one thing to the costume: her old headband she lost when she was a kid, which still fits her because, as said previously, she didn't age from the waist up.

This gets interrupted by the Gnat, a reboot villain I particularly liked in his first episode, mostly because of how mediocre at best everything else in that episode was. We even get to hear his origin story, and the Powerpuff Girls lost the ability to fast forward through origin stories in this part. The Powerpuff Girls can't skip the Gnat's origin story, but Reboot Jojo is fair game! At least we get an explanation on why he doesn’t look like an ordinary gnat: he was bit by a radioactive middle-aged man, gaining his strength! Not even Marvel is safe.

The guy is basically the Amoeba Boys, except instead of being an incompetent villain, he's more of a troll. He even kind of looks like one, which makes me wonder if he was meant to be a trollface reference at one point. Blossom tells Bliss this is the perfect opportunity to show off her crime-fighting skills, as the Gnat is easy.

Unfortunately, thanks to conflicting advice from each Powerpuff Girl and her getting stuck on the one-liner, all she does is another emotional explosion, wrecking the clothing store, but not the Gnat. The Gnat gloats until Blossom punches him through a wall. A rare scene of a non-Bliss Powerpuff Girl beating a villain easily in this episode.

Bubbles suggests that this is all due to "stage fright", and recommends relaxing on some swan boats to treat her anxiety. Blossom and Buttercup give their own ideas, a tax book, because that's relatable, and heavy metal, because Buttercup's the rascally little green princess, and they start arguing again. This almost leads to another explosion, but the Gnat shows up just in time for Round 2. This is just the same scene as before, except this time, it's the Gnat's trolling that causes her powers to go haywire.

Buttercup does her own idea to relax Bliss: a demolition derby! Buttercup's reasoning is that she can blow stuff up, and nobody would care. The problem is that Bliss cares and doesn't want to blow stuff up, so Blossom gives her a simple task: divvy up the chili dogs. Unfortunately, they get into another argument over who gets the one with the most chili.

Buttercup: Don't give Bubbles that one! She gets gassy!

Yup, they really are trying to make "Bubbles is the farty one" a thing. Thankfully, there's no Bubbles fart joke this time. This argument causes her to make the chili dogs explode. They're not really that consistent with it. You may notice a pattern, and you'll be right in guessing that the Gnat shows up here, too. This time, in a giant robot suit! The three try to fight the Gnat, while Bliss goes away to get chili dogs and mope about how she'll never be a superhero.

As she's moping, a flaming tire almost goes towards the chili dog stand, and it suddenly stops in its tracks. This gives her an epiphany: all she had to do to control her powers is to not think about it too hard. She's just that powerful; all she needed to do is not try.

Meanwhile, the Powerpuff Girls are, surprise, aren't doing too well against the Gnat's giant robot. He even traps them in a sticky fly trap, a reference to his origin story. This episode has a habit of reminding me of classic episodes involving new superheroes, whether it be Powerprof's 3D movie gag, or Stray Bullet's sticky fly trap!

Before he can use his giant fly swatter to swat the bug eyed freaks, Bliss shows up and saves her sisters by making the Gnat hit himself. So far, she has saved the ultra-super-powerful superheroes twice, once by just the majesty of her appearance, and the other just after she found out how to control her powers.

It's a a very by-the-numbers part, and just wasn't interesting to me. After a part that was shockingly decent, and a part with silly and terrible retcons, we get an episode that’s repetitive and predictable.

Well, okay, maybe not every scene is predictable. The part ends with Mee, as the closed captions spell his name, looking ominously at the camera. He then farts, because even in the special, we have to have needless fart jokes. It’s funny low little this elephant even comes up in the first three parts. Almost like they’re building him up to be the...elephant in the room? Eh? Eh?

Part 4 - Breaking Bliss

Written & Storyboarded by: Jaydeep Hasrajani, Leticia Abreu Silva

We suddenly cut to the result of a Monster Punch Girls Down on the Powerpuff Girls by Tyranosaurus Tex, a cowboy dinosaur. This feels very abrupt if you don't know this was the 4th part; they really needed a fade-out or something. Thankfully for those poor little ultra-super-powerful heroes, Bliss comes in to save the day with her telekinesis and her 60's Batman hit flashes. Glad to say her telekinesis isn't used as an excuse to have her not punch.

This randomness all turns out to be simulation from the simulation room from Bubblevicious, which is proof that they must have watched some of the original. Hey, maybe the Powerpuff Girls were intentionally struggling to test Bliss's abilities. Yeah, that's gotta be it! While her not-overpowered powers not-overpowered every simulation, the Professor still can't trust her to fight crime, and disallows her from participating when the girls get the emergency signal on their phones. Finally, some sort of explanation: it's actually an emergency signal.

While the Powerpuff Girls go out to fight the crime, Bliss stays in the Powerpuff Girls' room. Even Buttercup questions how it became hers. She plays Cattleship with her pet friend Mee. Four parts in, and we finally get to see Mee in a major scene. He starts off by just say "mee mee mee mee mee mee", but Bliss tells him to talk normally. Well, at least it's good to know she can't speak animal. However, much like almost every other animal in the show, Mee can actually talk.

Not just that, he can transform, too, as seen here as he mocks the Professor for not allowing her to fight crime. So, not only does this special newcomer to the series not just have a pet elephant, but have a magical transforming talking pet elephant. I would talk about this more, but there's actually a reason for this. Surprisingly, it will be satisfying.

The Powerpuff Girls come back after successfully beating up someone named Chipmunk Commando. I assumed this was going to be another offscreen random villain like the "plate smashing ninjas" I forgot to mention in Part 1, but we'll see him later. Bliss is still sad that she couldn't join in and make the Powerpuff Girls completely useless, but Buttercup tells Bliss that the Professor usually gets over things like this at dinner time.

He doesn't. In fact, he doesn't even want her to go to school, telling her to learn from a Fischer Price See N Say parody. Such a great father, he only does this so Bliss can have a reason to hate him. This also avoids the question on whether or not she would go to that unnamed school the Powerpuff Girls go to. It is a school without grades, apparently!

As the Powerpuff Girls try to comfort her when she cries in her room about how much she hates that her Dad doesn't trust her, the emergency signal goes off again. Because there's no way the Professor would allow it, they decide to let Bliss sneak out with them, just so they show that she could fight crime. I do like how she makes an extra hole in the house, as if they're saying she's the fourth wheel of the tricycle.

As mentioned before, it's Chipmunk Commando, and we get to see him in action. The name suggests a certain Austrian Death Machine, but he seems to have some sort of Australian gimmick, as if they mixed up the two countries. He references shrimp-on-the-barbies, he calls someone a kookabura, and Bubbles even uses a kangaroo aura to try to attack him. Chipmunks aren't even native to Australia, or even Austria for that matter. Random!

Notice I said "try". Despite being able to defeat him before without Bliss, when Bliss is around, the Powerpuff Girls get destroyed by the chipmunk with his ability to make everything else slow-motion. It's almost like they're forcing a situation where Bliss would have to help them again. Yeah, we can't have any scene where the Powerpuff Girls can defeat anything more than a gnat without a robot suit. That would be too insulting for our marvelous little girl!

Of course, he suddenly forgets that ability when Bliss starts throwing garbage at him with her telekinesis like she's Darth Vader. Defeated easily by the not-overpowered new sister, he tries to tap out, but she continues the carnage. She even throws a barrage of energy balls out of her hands. I'd talk about all these "special powers" she has that the other girls don't have, but she is made of a different chemical. This could be the Chemical W version of the eye lasers. The Powerpuff Girls don't use eye lasers in this episode either, so it's anyone's guess.

While that's unclear, she makes it pretty clear why she's going overkill with this chipmunk.

Bliss: This is everything the Professor wanted, but that's not enough! I'll (blast) show (blast) you (blast) what (blast) I (blast) can't (blast) DO! (readies big fireball)

She has so many of those certain issues, she didn't even call him Dad this time! As she gets ready to vaporize him with a huge fireball, the Powerpuff Girls try to stop her. They fly right into the energy ball, and the Powerpuff Girls get hurt.

The Professor rushes to the scene, just magically knowing the Powerpuff Girls were there, and assumes correctly that it was Bliss's fault. Unfortunately

Professor: You'll never control your powers!

Bliss: Never?

Professor: No, no, not like that...

That loving father figure finally decides to backtrack from his statements, possibly realizing he's doing more harm than good, but it's too late. Not helping is that Mee, who happened to be brought with them, decides now is the time to not be shy and begins to talk to Bliss in front of them. The Powerpuff Girls are shocked that an animal can talk.

Buttercup: Wow! Just like the dog from the baked bean commercials!

Huh, I guess their Bush's Baked Beans endorsement didn't go through. Mee even turns into a butterfly, sort of like what a certain villain turned into in the original's All Chalked Up. It's here that I had a inkling of what this elephant's twist is. Even with that one scene of him looking menacingly in the camera, I didn't really know what was going on.

Among a few other lies, Mee tells her that she really wants to be the only Powerpuff Girl, which is the only time that is even brought up. With the main trio's on-screen record of getting destroyed by trains, gnats, and squirrels, Bliss may as well be the only ultra-super-powerful superheroine here. It gets slightly better for the main three. Slightly.

Mee then turns into a snake, and now it's really obvious what this is going to be. I'm actually really shocked; I didn't think they would outright reference the most well known "deal with the you-know-who" ever. Oh yeah, notice every time I said Mee's name, I said that's what the closed captions say? It turns out, they have been misspelling the transforming stretchy elephant’s name the whole time, because the actual spelling is Mih.

As in Him backwards, as he turns into his usual form. To be fair, you couldn't make a name like Licosi out of a three letter name. By the way, Him sure likes to play the long game, does he? Him has been doing this "act like the elephant friend" thing for at least 10 years. He probably had to do this while he was juggling around being the guitar shop guy and Harvey from school.

Him offers her the chance to get what she wants, all she has to do is take his hand. Bliss finally gets a flaw in her character besides "she's so powerful, but she causes issues": she immediately trusts Him. She decides to shake one of his claws, and they both get covered with red spirals, her headband gets broken in a symbolic way, and they explode into a Him/Bliss fusion.

HimBliss: Now the real fun begins! Hahahahahahaha!

That's a really great way to end the part. Instead of ending it there, they have the Professor telling her, "well, someone's grounded". This takes away a little bit of the weight. Not only is it not necessary, he never follows through with that. She really must be the Professor's favorite.

There was quite a bit of inconsistency for me to give this a Happy, but that last reveal was actually decent. Once that commercial break hit, I had to know what came next. We finally get to see Him terrorize the city rather than be the evil item peddler, though the way he does it is a little odd, to say the least.

Part 5 - Blisstersweet Symphony

Written & Storyboarded by: Kyle Neswald, Benjamin P. Carow

Breaking news from the somehow overly happy news crew: Him and Bliss have fused, and is now causing chaos. This is the only part that really does any kind of recap of the previous episodes events, which is a good idea.

It seems like every character tries to defeat this fusion to no avail. Bubbles tries to talk to Bliss, which leads to a decent scene where Bliss tries to burst through the fusion's chest, Blossom tries to just punch the fusion, Buttercup tries to use a tree, and even the Professor tries to use a ray meant to seperate fusions. None of this works, with the Professor getting turned into a See N Say as some sort of karmic retribution. Reboot Jojo shows up too, but he gets hit while doing an overly long monologue. Wow, that's really close to something Mojo Jojo would do!

And yeah, Him's whole idea of chaos consists of turning people into silly objects. It seems like more of a Discord thing, but it's still far better than the "strange item peddler" he was in previous episodes. It helps that he's doing this while Townsville is on fire, adding to how hopeless everything is. It does make me wonder: couldn't Him do this on his own? I guess he just needed some power from someone who totally isn't super-overpowered.

One Bliss power Him does use for sure is her telekinesis, which, persumably combined with Him’s near infinite power, is used to rev up Saturn and turning its rings into a giant buzzsaw heading towards the Earth. Okay, that's a neat idea.

Their options limited, the girls decide to a plan they haven't done before. Something that was completely out of the question. Something dangerous. They really build this up as this forbidden thing to be only used as a last resort. It must be the Dyna...

...oh, it's just another combined aura called the Mewtilator. Maybe it's for the best it wasn't the Dynamo, because it doesn't even last long. BlissHim smacks down the chipmunk riding a this thing shoots out, and grabs and immobilizes the aura with her hair. The only actions her massive hair did in this entire special was give the devil a place to rest, be used as a weapon, and to make her unrecognizable in silhouette.

Reboot Jojo shows up again, thankfully only getting into a Spongebob mushroom cloud rather than being transformed, with a spiked ball. Initially failing because he's just not as athletic, Bubbles has the idea to use the Mewtilator's tail to throw it at BlissHim's face. In other words, Bubbles saves Bliss with her butt.

No really, all they had to do to free Bliss is to throw a spiked ball at the fusion. Who would have guessed demonic possession had such an easy cure? Unfortunately, this happiness doesn't last, as it turns out Him is still alive. That's only the ordinary bad news.

Him: What you've done is made more powerful than you can ever imagine!

Thanks to absorbing Bliss's power, that is something implied he could do later in the episode, he turned into a huge demon similar to his transformation in Speed Demon. He uses his newfound powers to turn the Mayor's office into a giant crying pickle baby! I guess he couldn't really top the Saturn thing.

Speaking of which, Saturn got close enough that it sawed through the Moon. The tides disappear, the Earth gets rained upon by the Moon's pieces, the seasons start changing rapidly, and the Earth comes to a demise much ahead of schedule. Way to go, Bliss!

Do the titles fit?

Nah, I'm just kidding, it's just a random scene that never comes up again, only to show how little time the girls have left to save the day. Even the Powerpuff Girls must have realized how useless they are at the almighty fourth sister, as they try to get Bliss to save the day herself. However, Bliss doesn't trust herself anymore, as she's just too unstable. Not like that other 4th Puff they forgot about. Again, she never gets mentioned.

The girls, knowing that she's kind of right, decide to do another plan. It's very anime, even one of the onlookers turn anime faced at it.

Combining their auras with Bliss's power, they turn into the Mighty Powerpuff Sisterhood. I'm surprised to say: I have no problems with this fight scene. Him gets some shots in, the Sisterhood gets some shots in, they have a sword fight out of nowhere, it actually feels like an actual two-sided fight rather than the Monster Punch Girls Down that usually happens. It's the best fight scene in the entire reboot so far, though that's not much of an accomplishment.

Eventually, Him gets the upper hand by grabbing them, and threatens to absorb their power and possibly turn into a another fusion. We don't get to see this, as the Powerpuff Girls and Bliss join hands once again and free themselves with the power of sisterly love.

A giant laser beam from the heart works, too. It even makes the ending hearts, referencing something they have not done in a long time. This disintegrates Him, and, consistent with the last time he got disintegrated, he takes it by laughing. and, of course, prove that fusion is just a way to make weak Puffs stronger. I'm sorry, I had to put that line somewhere.

This majesty is so good, that Saturn just stops in its tracks. We can assume the moon just magically reassembled itself, as it never seems to come up.

Oh, of course Bliss has to be written out, as the writers can barely make plots for three Powerpuff Girls, never mind four it is her solemn duty to bring Saturn back to where it belongs. Forget lifting buildings full of people, this girl can move an entire planet nine times bigger than the Earth. A gas giant, but still.

Even Reboot Jojo is sad, with him even repeating the "I'm allergic to sad things" joke from the last episode. Most importantly, she hugs her Dad goodbye, who now accepts her as the fourth Powerpuff Girl...just when she has to leave.

This is the most entertaining part of the five. The best Him appearance yet, and a fight scene that isn't one-sided!

Do the titles fit?

Power of Four - We do get to see the Power of Four at the end, though most of it is just "The Power of One because we decided to make the other three weak for most of the special."

Find Your Bliss - They don't really find Bliss, it's more like Bliss finding them.

Bliss Reminiscence - Most of the episode is a flashback.

Blisster Sister - The episode is all about Bliss's sisters trying to give her an identity.

Breaking Bliss - Bliss is at her lowest point here. Also, they were on something when they thought up the "23 chemicals" gag.

Blisstersweet Symphony - It's supposed to be a bittersweet ending, as Bliss has to disappear.

As a whole, how does it stack up?

Bliss is definitely overpowered and definitely feels like a "DeviantART OC", but they don't do a horrible job of balancing it with her inexperience. What I really didn't like is that the original three Reboot Puffs had very little chance to shine, as if them doing anything cool would take away from how special Bliss is.

It had a great beginning and ending, and a not so great middle. It all kind of balanced itself out into an "eh, I guess I can't say she's Chloe from The Fairly Oddparents." In fact, I actually wouldn't mind seeing Bliss again, as I didn't exactly hate her.

Next, we go from beating up the devil to...something. I honestly wouldn't blame Cartoon Network for wanting an at least two week break between this and the next one.

← Power of Four (Parts 1-2) ☆ I’ll Be Bake & Bliss Unaware (shorts) →

[fly-pow-bye]

Powerpuff Girls 2016 - “Somewhere Over The Swingset“

Written by: Haley Mancini

Written & Storyboarded by: Julia Vickerman, Diego Molano

Directed by: Nick Jennings, Bob Boyle

Swingsets! Rainbows! The worst GIF I have ever created!

…is that a rainbow? No, it can’t be. There’s not as many memes anymore, so they must be learning from previous mistakes, right?

A carny with rainbow eyes introduces a new swingset, and challenges all of the kids of Townsville to stay on it. At the first second, I already know what the twist is. I think having an overly happy fat guy introduce the swing is a good enough hint; we didn’t need the rainbow eyes. Not only that, but the swing’s seat is rainbow colored, and a rainbow also shows up in this introduction. There's foreshadowing, and then there's just giving it away.

Big Joey, the big kid that exchanged with Donny in Odd Bubbles Out, tries to conquer this challenge, but almost immediately flies off into the distance, causing a mushroom cloud. Because it was funny in Spongebob, so surely it must be funny here, right? It turns out, no kid can last more than 3 seconds on the swing, as we see a bunch of children lying on the ground. Maybe they should try not letting go? There must be someone who could figure that out, especially kids that have powers beyond any mere mortal.

The Powerpuff Girls show up, dressed up in fancy costumes. I think they’re trying to go for some sort of Siegfried and Roy effect, but all I’m seeing is a desperate plea to the toy makers. Yeah, I have a feeling all of this is for naught.

They walk up to the swing, because the director never realized how awkward that is, to a bunch of cheering fans. All of this gets interrupted by the Professor.

This seems to be a recurring spot for the Professor’s character: he’s going to tell them to do something, which they will do anyway, and he’s going to end up being right in the end. Blossom tells him that they do dangerous stuff all of the time, citation needed for the reboot, but the Professor is only okay with putting his “kids” in danger if it’s for the safety of Townsville, also citation needed for the reboot.

That rascally little green princess outright tells the Professor that they’re not showing off, they’re just showing that they can do something other people can’t. Like lifting buildings full of people and fighting giant monsters, but clearly being on a swing set is more impressive.

We get another Blossom stock image monologue, another reaccuring bit of joy. Her speech concludes that they want to inspire and show the power of “female determination”. Because the Powerpuff Girls are girls. The writers wanted people to know that. Oh, and they want to go on the Townsville Book of World Records. Makes me wonder; does the DC universe have a world record book? Do they have to disqualify Superman and The Flash from breaking every record in it? Thinking about that is more entertaining than this.

Needless to say, the Professor doesn’t budge. He urges them to promise not to go on the swing set. They promise…

Buttercup: …to wait until you fall asleep, then go down in swing set history.

Blossom: Got to hand it to you, Buttercup, it was sneaky for you to wait this long to finish that sentence till just now.

They send out a group text to all the kids, waking them up past their curfews, so that they can have an audience. I guess that’s required for that world record book. By the way, that book doesn't show up again, because it fufilled its purpose of being an excuse.

Even though the only challenge was stay on the swing, they decide to up the ante by swinging over the bar. Swinging over the bar is a physical impossibility for a human being to do by themselves. In fact, even with help, the Mythbusters couldn’t do it. Well, I guess that's why the Powerpuff Girls can do it and nobody else can.

The Professor shows up at the last second to try to stop them, but it’s too late. They go over the bar, and they seemingly disappear in an explosion.

They find themselves back in bed. They immediately assume they must have been knocked out after falling out of the swing. Sad that even the Powerpuff Girls know how easy they can get knocked out in this reboot. The Professor comes in, and he apparently took it very well!

Professor Utonium: Good morning, girls!

(laugh track)

Yes, a laugh track. An ironic laugh track, but a laugh track nonetheless. At least I can know what lines were supposed to be funny.

Not only is he not mad about the girls doing that dangerous stunt, he was impressed! They eventually get a call to the Mayor's office. Something is clearly not right; this is the reboot, we don't have time for actual emergencies!

It turns out, there isn't one. They go in and find a Mayor that is competent. He can open jars of pickles by himself! He wins Nobel Prizes! He even has assistants! Huh, I guess assistants can be "fitting to our messages" if they're generic and not strong independent women. Why did the Mayor need the Powerpuff Girls? Beats me.

He then cartwheels into a helicopter, because running would take more money away from the marketing would be less impressive. Honestly, even the Cheat would scoff at the animation for this television show. The Powerpuff Girls get another call, saying that they're needed back home!

Reboot Jojo and Reboot Fuzzy are there, but they're not tearing up the place. The villains are all good guys now, and are more interested in book clubs rather than causing crime! Insert long and unfunny scene about books.

If you haven’t noticed, this episode is a ripoff of Tough Love with dashes of Speed Demon, except done in reverse. Not just in the way everyone’s so positive and not hateful, and that this world is apparently a utopia, but also in the quality of the episode.

Well, maybe there’s one good scene. They see the Professor in a mirror, crying over his missing girls. It certainly sets the Twilight Zone tone of this episode. If only they could go all the way and have the Narrator play the role of Rod Serling.

Other than that, it's just wacky scenes that are wacky. Maybe if this episode started with a call to the Mayor's office to open a pickle jar and them beating up Reboot Jojo and Reboot Fuzzy, there could have been some contrast. Sure, I know the Mayor usually has trouble with pickle jars and that Reboot Fuzzy doesn't act like this, but how is anyone going to know from this slice-of-life non-superhero comedy?

The Powerpuff Girls instantly decide that this "perfect world" is too much for them, and go outside to find a way out. In episodes like this, there's usually some pondering about whether they should stay in this world, and that doesn't exist here. Whoever is doing this is doing a terrible job. Speaking of which...

After seeing the entirety of Townsville welcoming them to their new home, the rainbow swing set guy from the opening descends down from the heavens on the giant swing set. He talks about how this is the perfect place, and they can stay forever! He swings forward…

…and Allegro swings back, turning the world into a rainbow nightmare. If the traumatic flashbacks aren’t coming back, this is the villain from Painbow, the episode that proved to me that not only will this reboot not live up to the original, but not even live up to my lowest expectations. He's happy that all of that energy the Powerpuff Girls used to go over the bar revived him! Painbow II: Electric Buttercup Boo-a-Hoo.

The townspeople are wandering to them like zombies. I guess this is supposed to mirror the affection they were trying to get by going over the bar. Blossom laments that she shouldn’t beat up people they know. After the Mayor tries to eat her, just go with it, they decide it’s for the best. A fight scene? Maybe?

The girls beat up all of the Townspeople, who turn out to be Allegro’s party minions in disguise. Not in any clever disguise, but they just poof into their real forms when they get punched in the face. Of course, much like most of the violence in this show, it’s ruined by more Nike product placement!

At first, I thought it was the usual “gotta make it G for the toyset“ censorship, and it is, but I noticed a peculiarity when I made that GIF. I decided to cut out every frame of that dreadful hit flash, and…

…I realized the hit flashes didn’t cover anything, they’re just there. Sure, there isn’t a frame where Buttercup’s fist makes contact with Barry’s face, but the mind fills the blank. All the hit flash does is make the scene pause for a quarter of a second, distracting from the action and making it not as exciting as it should be.

Three paragraphs on this one little fight. I’m really delaying the inevitable.

Since Allegro is too busy partying, he’s not on the swingset anymore, and the girls plan to get on it to go back home. Blossom calls on the other girls to join in. Buttercup shows up immediately, but Bubbles is a too busy doing…

You know what, 🚚🚚🚚 this.

Remarks:

None.

Final Verdict:

Next episode, who cares.

← Snow Month ☆ Anything Else →

…

Nah, I won’t do that, but I really should have.

I could at least, with a very, very, very tiny sliver of honesty, say that the scene from Painbow could be defended. Blossom and Bubbles were hypnotized by the dancing lobsters, and Buttercup reacted with disgust. It was supposed to be gross. Here, Bubbles is just shaking her butt with a hippo out of her own volition, and it’s treated as another “oh, that silly Bubbles” joke.

It’s not funny, it doesn’t add to the plot, and it doesn’t really help Bubbles’ character. This scene could have been removed, and only one thing would have changed: this reboot would have one scene involving barely-out-of-kindergarten girls twerking instead of two.

There is no point in continuing, but I might as well say what happens at the end: They beat up Allegro while on the swing, he turns into a gummy bear again, and the Powerpuff Girls successfully return to their own universe. The Professor, while glad that they’re okay, still grounds them. Aren't your expectations subverted?

I would say if they took out that scene, they could have room for the hearts, but they didn’t really save the day here. They stayed up past their bedtime, too. Odd in this episode that rips off two episodes of the original, they couldn’t be further from the original’s tagline.

Remarks (for real this time):

Is the title accurate?: I guess they do go somewhere when they go over the swingset.

Better use for the title: A Wizard of Oz parody would have been better. A 12 minute still shot of a jar of mayonnaise would have been better, but still.

Fun fact: The Powerpuff Girls, the real ones, co-hosted an airing of Wizard of Oz on TCM back in 2002. They were big in the early 2000s.

Final Verdict:

It’s slightly better than Painbow in that it doesn’t have any tired memes, and there is some logic in this episode in that I don’t have to ask why the Powerpuff Girls aren’t affected by Allegro. Still, it’s not much of an improvement, and when you’re not much of an improvement over Painbow, that’s not even a mediocre sign. As it stands, the only alternate universe where this episode is good is the one where it doesn't exist.

Next, probably the falsest title of any episode of anything judging by the reboot. Yeah, even falser than “The Return of Slade.“

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