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nobodiesheartlessshitblog45 · 4 years ago

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My headcanons For Gojo Satoru

This Dingus right here is a huge movie fan. Loves pretty much anything, the old classics black and white movies, foreign films, main stream movies and so bad that it’s good movies. He loves TV shows, he’s big Supernatural fanboy. Loves Dean Winchester and strong shipper of Deancel, Walking Dead fan all the way. Both the comics, Tv show and games. (He only played the first season and balled his eyes out for a weeks, and refuses to play rest of the games) Dose have a soft spot of horror movies, Like The Screams, Halloween, The Saw franchise, classic monster movies of course. Gotta respect the classics.

His favorite movies of all time are Beetlejuice (Satoru’s roll model) Corpse Bride, Frankenweenie, Edward scissors hand The Princess Bride , all the old George Romero zombie movies, again classic monster movies, The Lord Of The Rings and Hobbit franchise. He’s a big Bruce Campbell fan, and loves, loves all the Evil Dead movies and show. Loves Deadpool and has a huge man crush Ran Reynolds. Loves all Marvel Movies. Big Spider Man fanboy.

His favorite Disney movies are Princess and the frog, disney’s Atlantis, Tangrled, 101 Dalmatians, Emperors new groove, Hercules, Toy Story, but he can’t watch the 3rd because he will cry for ours.

He wasn’t a sorcerer, he would have loved to be an actor or film Director.

Dose play videos games, Pretty much played all the telltale games, Loves Red Dead redemption games The second one is his favorite, and loves Arthur Morgan. He’s only played Season 1 of the Walking Dead and still not over Lee’s death. Loves Stardew Valley, Pokemon and Animal Crossing.

Our boy loves his sweets, but hates eating his veggies. Trying to get this grown ass man to eat veggies is like a small fish trying fight a great white shark. It’s fight everyone is going to lose.

His favorite Tv shows’s are the Walking Dead, Game of Throwns, The Office both American and British, Big Big Doctor Who fan, loves the 10th Doctor (David Tennen is his boy) Watched Pokémon Anime that has come out the years, knows the lore like that back of his hand.

This man loves to crossdress, love to wear fancy ballgown dress, sundress and skirts. He can walk around in high heels with easy. He owns a lot high heels shoes.

Drinks a lot of coffee, 5-8 cups a day. Cannot stand the bitterness plane coffee. He adds 12 spoonful of sugar and milk to each cup. Hell is coffee isn’t really coffee pure sugar and milk or as Nanami dubs a cup of diabetes and tooth decay.

This man has the maturity of a 6 year old. He still think fart jokes are hilarious, it you say the word ‘booger’ this man child will start laughing uncontrollably, and he makes a lot dick jokes whenever he can and innuendos. He will even go into random empty classrooms and draw a lot of stupid doodles of random shit, like you would see in kids notebook if they were bored in class, and he draws lot of that penises. For some reason he draw dicks all over the chock bored. He’s been doing this since meddle and high school, he still thinks it funny. No body else dose. ... possibly Yuji.

He will out no where will start singing show toons. He just dose. Weather he’s in a meeting, doing a mission, teaching a class or singing in the shower, he will hum or sing out right of no where. Disney songs he knows by heart, themes of anime he’s into or watching. It helps him to relax... Or annoyed the shit of the others.

He dose not care spots but he dose enjoy baseball.

Gojo Satour’s ideal s/o

This man is a huge tease and jokester. He need someone who can match or almost his Energy. Humor is a very important thing to him, help deal with some shit that he had to go through. Someone with a good sence of humor is one attraction to him.

He’s a patien guy, and understands that it some people take getting out their shells, and he’s very excepting, but as long as you don’t try to kill or hurt is students things should be fine.

He is very overprotective lover. His s/o could very powerful sorcerer, capable of handling themselves in battle with curses or evil sorcerers, still doesn’t change that this man will worry and will step in if things will get hairy for liking. But al the same time of s/o a very strong sorcerer and knows how to care of themselves in n a battle it dose put Satoru’a mind at ease in away, still hate the idea of being away from his lover is something to them or they get hurt. If his s/o got badly injured or his s/o was about the brink of dying. HELL. HAVE. NO. FURY. TO. THIS. MAN’S. ANGER. He kill without think twice. No mercy, no secret changes, just death. He’ll rushed over to help his S/o and take them to Dr. Shoko, and will not leave until they are taken care and healed.

He’s his overprotective of his s/o and students so don’t fuck with any of them and no has to die. This man kill with thinking twice about it.

This man is loaded. As cash, and would give Yuji, Megumi and Nobara some money to enjoy themselves with. But this man dose love to spoil his s/o when he could. Somethings he will go overboard and his s/o tells him but it’s not necessarily to spend all this money on them. Which makes him love them even more because they not love him for his money. However Gojo being, well, Gojo will randomly get bouquets of flowers for his lovely s/o I will bring it to them randomly. It doesn’t matter if they’re teaching a class or and a very important meeting with Yaga-San, he’ll ust pop out of nowhere with a big goofy grin on his face and give his s/o the flowers kiss them and disappears, there is an awkward and annoying silence from from the students or the principal. And his s/o mildly embarrassed, but flattered shall go on as if nothing happened. And it becomes has become a running joke around in the school.

Hugs, Kissses and Cuddles are a must. Again Satour doesn’t give a shit there is a meeting or A class being taught when this man wants affection, he’s going to get affection. He’ll come from behind and rest his head on his s/o’s chin on his s/o’s head. (Because the guy’s freakishly tall) And will just annoyin the shit out of then until he gets what he wants. Then he will leave them alone, maybe not. He’s Hot mess of chaotic energy after all. Plus he thinks it’s adorable When they get a little annoyed with him.

Being Married To Gojo Satoru or just have a domestic life with him

This man never really saw himself getting married. It’s something that he was rather against for a while, until he meets his s/o. Nothings really changed in their relationship after they got married, did a few years and they just try to not have nowhere Most of everyone at the school cannot believe that someone would actually marry this maniac. Either his s/o is as as patient as a saint, just as bad shit crazy as Gojo Satour himself.

He dose everything in his power too make this work, and so dose his s/o. The two of them being power for sorcerers is basically a couple goal, The ultimate couple. At least Satour says. That being said working as a Jujutsu Sorcerer is both a mental, emotional and sometimes a physical strain on people. When things get too much for S/O, this man will stop what he’s doing, and will will be there his s/o, and his will be there for him when he the most. Having someone being there each is the most important thing in a relationships.

His clan was very against their relationship from the beginning. But Satour did not care, he loves who he loves so his clan/family can suck it.

His favorite nicknames for s/o are Sweetness, cutiepie, pumpkin, sugar, sweetheart, honeybuns and to get cringy Pookie. So weird one’s like Mochi cheeks, and beautiful or handsome.

His favorite nickname that his s/o calls sweetie, honey, goofball, goober and whackadoodle, knucklehead and dingus

When s/o are going away for a mission for a few a few days or few month, or Vice versa they would text, FaceTime pretty everyday. They talk about they day, and talk about the missions that had. Satour would have his students in the background who would say hello, and he and Yuji would make stupid jokes, and Nobara would laugh a bit and Megumi would roll his eyes in the background. And when his s/o get back from a mission this man is a very clingy little shit, he will hug the hell out his s/o when they get back. And would pout and whin if you have to a meeting or don’t have to see him. He’s a big a baby like that.

Over all this man is just big goofball, sure he’s annoying as fuck sometimes, but he dose cares about other’s. He’s a hot chaotic mess of a man, by God we love him for it.

#jujutsu kaisen headcanons #gojo satoru #gojo satoru headcanons

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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dizzydennis · 5 years ago

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10 Character for 10 People!

Nobody tagged me, but after talking with @beevean, I really wanted to try this as well.

Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic the Hedgehog) – My all-time favorite character. I think Sonic possesses the freedom and energy we all would love to have. He can be cocky and rude, but he has a good heart. I have said it hundreds of times already, but I love how there are two sides of Sonic. He’s very crude and carefree at most times, but when things seem dire that’s when Sonic buckles down and becomes a serious hero. I love that contrast and I just absolutely adore Sonic. Don’t forget how Sonic treats everybody as a friend even if they annoy him. Sonic isn’t the deepest character ever, but I still attest that he’s one of the very best!

Ranma Saotome (Ranma ½) – I love Ranma for a number of reasons. But I think the fact that while he is hot headed and has problems controlling his temper, in the end, he’s a really good person. He fights for his family and never puts good people in harms way…. Most of the time. Add in his curse to transform between genders and I feel like he/she speaks to me on a deep level that I certainly didn’t understand when I was younger. A classic character from the 1980s that taught me a whole lot about myself! Plus, it’s just great fun.

Leonardo (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) – What I love about Leo is the fact that he is often thrusted into the leadership position. He’s diligent and hard working and yet he loves his family more than anything. I like the conflicts he has to overcome both physically and internally. Often times, when Master Splinter is gone, Leonardo has to take on the responsibility and he’s so admirable in how he tackles it. I am not very keen on how he has been changed for Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but it’s a minor gripe and I am glad it’s a new take on the character.

Phoenix Wright (Ace Attorney) – I’ve raved about why I love Phoenix before, but he’s just the definition of a good person. Yes, he’s incredibly snarky in his thoughts and will joke with his friends, but that makes him all the more likeable. His job as a defense attorney is not like real life, but it works because Phoenix is such a good person who believes in his clients. The way he fights not for his own satisfaction, but to find the truth is admirable. His many different relationships also help define him!

Sumire Kanzaki (Sakura Wars) – Sumire is kind of a jerk, but as you get to know her, you can understand that there’s a lot to her. She has a lot of pain and is doing her best. She doesn’t always show it, but she cares for the people around her. Her “cool beauty” attitude is more of a front to hide how lonely she really is. Her change throughout the Sakura Wars games is incredible and her role in the newest entry is amazing! Definitely a character the people can see themselves in.

Mikage Sakurai (Kitchen) – Mikage is a girl who has suffered so much loss. Yet from that loss, she is able to persevere. Her independence is strong, but her ability to allow herself to be dependent at times is so realistic that I love it. Again, she’s caring and hardworking. What more could you ask for? I believe her endurance is one of her most amazing traits. Also, her favorite food is katsudon which is my all-time favorite too!

Captain America (Marvel) – Specifically the Captain America from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He’s just a righteous man with so much self-sacrifice. I love how much strength he puts in others and doing the right thing. Selfless and bold; he’s truly a hero. I am so glad he got such a special ending to his story.

Chihaya Ayase (Chihayafuru) – This one is fairly straight forward. I find Chihaya’s passion and her excitement to share that passion to be so endearing. Chihaya isn’t the smartest girl, but she is trying her best. She’s so supportive of her teammates and puts so much work into her karuta career. Seeing her mature and yet not lose what made her special is such a treat and I feel inspired just reading about her. It’s great that she’s perfectly captured in the manga, anime, and films.

Julian Bashir (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) – The appeal for Julian is simply how human he is. In such a fantastical universe like Star Trek, it’d be easy to blend in. While in the earlier parts of the show, he definitely does, Julian was able to become my favorite thanks to the friendships he forged with his crewmates as well as the fact that he genuinely feels relatable. Yes, he’s work-focused and has a peculiar background, but that doesn’t change the fact that he feels like a true friend. His excursion with “Our Man Bashir” is enough to make anybody become a fan.

Superman (Superman) – This one is rather easy. Superman represents an ideal for us to all strive for. Some people complain that he is a boring boy scout, but they’re just not understanding the character. I do not like the darker versions of this character, but when he’s done right… I get this sense of pride. It makes me want to be a better person. Superman inspires hope and I definitely have been affected by him.

#Sonic the Hedgehog #anime #teenage mutant ninja turtles #captain america #star trek

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bullshittierlists · 4 years ago

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I see no god up here other than me

Ty Lee- Ty Lee is best girl and I find it hard to argue with that statement. She’s just so bouncy and cute and honestly really powerful for not being a bender. I mean, the ability to paralyze someone on contact, much less being able to pinpoint specific parts of the body to paralyze, it’s just incredible. She was so cute in that beach episode because all the guys hit on her, which of course they do, have you seen how cute she is? I’m not super on board with her backstory, but it wasn’t a huge part of her character, so it’s fine.

Sokka- The man, the myth, the legend. It’s been said before, but the only reason Sokka couldn’t bend is because the creators knew he’d be too powerful. That’s the same reason he has to put his hair up. Also, he’s totally bi, change my mind.

Jet- I have several friends that watch this show and that watched the show before me. They all knew that I’d like Jet because he’s a “backstabbing traitor” despite their hatred of him and I guess I have a trend of liking those characters. I jokingly agreed with them and was excited to meet him. Little did I know just how much I would fall in love with him. A lot of my friends say that it’s just because he’s cute or he’s a sad boy, but there are honestly so many reasons to love him. I absolutely adore psychology and deep-diving into the minds of characters and his mentality is so intriguing. You would think this would lean me more towards Zuko, then. But Zuko gets so much focus that his psychology is always precedent, right front and center. But Jet doesn’t get that spotlight. I originally liked him more because he was under-appreciated, but now I realize just how amazing he is. At a very surface level, his actions are bad. He’s trying to murder innocent people for the sake of getting rid of a few fire nation soldiers. But as soon as you look deeper into his intentions, you can clearly see how badly he wanted to do good. These types of characters are always the saddest, the characters who think they are helping the world by destroying it. They legitimately think that the actions they are taking are the right ones even when everyone around them thinks otherwise. Other examples of this type of character are JD from Heathers and even Hector from Castlevania to some extent. Yes, he acknowledges that he will be sacrificing innocent lives. But he also knows that he will be saving lives in the future by going through with the dam plan. There’s so much more I could say about him, but I’ve been rambling for long enough.

Zuko- There’s nothing I could say about Zuko that hasn’t been said before. I already gushed about Jet for entirely too long, so have this instead: Sokka and Zuko have a wonderful relationship and I think that both parties could have benefitted greatly from being together romantically. Thank you.

You’re the best

Iroh- What can I say? He’s a good old man with lots of wisdom that we should all take to heart.

Momo- Some of my favorite parts of the entire show were scenes with Sokka and Momo just vibing. There should’ve been more emphasis on Sokka’s relationship with the animals in general.

Appa- I was really excited when Sokka started flying on Appa without Aang the first time, because I thought that meant that Sokka had created a really unique bond with Appa and was the only other one that could fly him. I was mistaken and incredibly upset.

Teo- He’s just a cute boy. I like his goggles.

Hey, I think you’re pretty cool, I like you a lot

Azula- Oh boy. There’s so much here to say, but she’s been analyzed to death, so I won’t go on for too long. As much as I would’ve loved to see Azula on the “good guy” team, I’m really glad she didn’t get a redemption. Not her, specifically, but more the villains in general. Zuko’s redemption was marvelous and there’s nothing that will ever top it, but if Azula had also gotten that redemption, his would’ve been downcast. It would’ve showed that anyone’s capable of a redemption and that he wasn’t special, he was just lucky to have that change of heart. Which maybe that’s still true, but at least with the ending we got, we give Zuko that spotlight. But back to Azula, she’s pretty cool, as the category would suggest. The Girl Gang (Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee) were a treat to watch and I instantly fell in love with all three of them as soon as they were introduced. Then they had to change to the Gayng once Zuko joined and I still loved all of them.

Longshot- It was super powerful when he spoke for the first time in Jet’s “death” scene. That was the first time he had said anything and he made it count. He helped show how even thought Jet is a “bad guy” at the surface level, he was still good enough of a leader and a friend for his group to stay with him in his ultimate time of need.

Suki- She’s badass. That’s about it. All parts of The Boiling Rock were my favorite episodes and they featured her pretty heavily in the back half. And I was not complaining.

Toph- Again, badass.

Aang- He’s the main character. I don’t have any super negative things to say or any super positive things to say. So he’s just here.

Kuei- I know he doesn’t do anything, like at all, but I can’t get over him and his bear.

Yue- When I started watching this show, I knew about some of the ships and I wasn’t super into it. Which was weird, because I’m always super into shipping. I wouldn’t have watched some of my favorite shows if it weren’t for the shipping aspect. But I just couldn’t get on board with it in this show. Aang and Katara felt kinda forced and weird, Sokka and Suki was alright, but I couldn’t quite get into it. But when I first saw Sokka and Yue interacting, I was enthralled. I was in love with their relationship and I thought it was so cute. I was genuinely excited to see where their relationship would go. But you know what happened next.

Mai- When I first met Mai, I loved her. She was an emo girl that just didn’t want anything to do with anything. Obviously, I still love her, but just slightly less. Something happened to her in the third season, and though I can’t pinpoint quite what, I have a feeling it was Zuko. I’m not a huge fan of Mai and Zuko’s relationship and I’ll possibly elaborate on that in a future post, but it really felt like the worst possible scenario for both of their characters. I do like Mai and Ty Lee together, but the shipping doesn’t really have anything major to do with it. She just dropped in quality a little in the third season and became a love interest instead of a character.

Kyoshi- Peace was never an option.

I remember you

Cabbage guy- This is normally the type of character I’d put at the top of the list and use as a joke to pretend like I especially enjoy the joke characters. Sometimes I do, but this list’s tone was a little different than usual, so I figured I’d put him where I really thought he should go. He was funny, sure, but I don’t religiously follow him like I do Ty Lee and everyone else in the top tier.

The other characters in this tier are in no particular order. Most of them are here just because I remember seeing them a little bit, but I don’t really remember much about them or I remember just not caring.

You are literally the worst. Actual scum. Leave this planet and never return.

Haru- This is more directed towards his newly-grown facial hair. He was so cute in his first appearance and then he had to do that. Even Sokka’s “I flirt with everyone” bisexual ass thought it was grody.

Hama- Nothing against her, personally, bloodbending’s just gross.

Zhao- He’s a typical villain. I can appreciate that, I just don’t like him.

Katara- This will take some explaining. It’s unpopular, but so is everything I say. I think of Katara in about the same way I do Allura. She was bearable in the first season, annoying in the second, and flat-out awful in the third. I understand that characters should have flaws, and I appreciate when they do, but her flaws aren’t necessarily treated as such. The worst offender I can think of with her is when she accused Sokka of not missing their mom as much as she did. This broke my heart. Seeing Sokka’s depressed face as he realized what his sister thought of him. He had been seeing her as sort of a replacement for their mom, but she accuses him of moving on without a second thought despite how much effort he puts into remembering her. This obviously isn’t the only bad thing she’s done. Another huge offender is when she assumed losing her mom was worse than Aang losing his entire nation. And then the show just keeps moving like she’s justified in thinking that. She’s done so many other things that caused other characters to halt in their development or causing the plot to just stop completely. Most of her actions are nonsensical at best and harmful at worst, but the show portrays her as always being a caring motherly figure. She does act like that at times, but we still need to acknowledge when she doesn’t.

Ozai- Literally the same as Zhao except he hurt Zuko physically AND emotionally.

#bullshittierlists #atla #avatar the last airbender #was a little confused why I wasn’t getting any notes and then I realized I didn’t leave any tags #sorry to everyone who likes Katara #but it needed to be said #tier lists #ty lee

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ruhrohcantthinkofagoodusername · 5 years ago

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My thoughts (not that anybody cares) about SCOOB!

When I first heard they were making a new theatrical Scooby-Doo film, I was over-joyed and enthusiastic, especially at the prospect of it being Scooby’s first animated theatrical film. Very slight dismay came over me as I heard the title was Scoob, which is kind of stupid to me, and the fact it was CG which I felt both excited and bummed out about in all honesty.

Every year, Pixar, Dreamworks, and a slew of other studies fill our theaters with 3D animated films, some good, some bad, but all CGI, with the very few exceptions of adaptations of popular animated shows, (MLP, SpongeBob (I wrote this bit in before the trailer debuted), and TTG). While risking the prospect of sounding like an anger-filled, nostalgia-blinded boy, I do miss the traditionally animated films. We do have television and most of Japanese produced animation, which consistently animates traditionally, and that’s great that it is exposed to people every day and keeps it from being a forgotten art, but an American television budget only goes so far. Animation cycles repeat, inconsistencies are abrupt and apparent, there are huge disadvantages to having a television or a direct-to-video budget, and to me, a show that is the pinnacle of animation errors, (@scoobydoomistakes) getting a full-fledged chance to show its progress and its (insert better word than clout) would be such a great success story to me. However, Scooby-Doo never having CGI adventures outside of videogames, lego movies, and the one-off commercials allowed me to suspend my anger towards the animation industry’s seemingly permeant gravitational pull towards computer-generated products and be excited to see how the characters looked.

Seeing the characters and their movements, I feel delighted about how cute and fluid they look, I feel the art is going to be very visually pleasing, the child designs being a huge highlight. In the tradition of humanity, I tend to accentuate the negative.

For much of Scooby-Doo, there has been a two-by-two factors of the human’s and their designs. Boy/Girl and serious/goofy looking. If you doubt this take a look at the Mook animated films and see how Shaggy and Velma look nearly the same just glossier versions, while Fred and Daphne look like anime-refugees. I am not a huge fan of this type of divide, but I like it much better than having Shaggy as an odd-man out which the upcoming movie does. I also feel that Velma’s design is much too cute, her hair is too bright, and her racial status thus far is too ambiguous. I also don’t have any problem with Fred’s design, which I know almost everybody hates but I think it’s fine.

The next piece of information I heard was the idea of this being the beginning a Hanna-Barbera Cinematic Universe, which is, not going to happen I bet. I love Hanna-Barbera and I would love to see it re-enter the American consciousness, but this trend has only worked for Marvel and the phrase is just cringe inducing in all honesty. I am perfectly fine with just a plain, huge crossover, but the term is a little saddening and reminds too much of my ideas on how to fix the DC universe (a WHOLE another thing their). Also Hanna-Barbera filled with such complicated properties, such diversity from talking animals to teen detectives to little village people to time-displaced fifties-styled families, yet for every show you have at least four clones of it, that a universe is just a little hard to market and think of.

I am alright with a big huge crossover, but it is fairly odd with what they have chosen to use with Hanna-Barbera’s other huge property seemingly ignored (The Flintstones) along with most of their action shows like Space Ghost and Johnny Quest, not to mention the funny animal erasure that built Hanna-Barbera. Also with Hanna-Barbera being synonymous with television animation, not to mention their previous flaws with theatrical releases, I would like to build their roots of a universe in a television set.

The next information I heard of was the cast and this at first was fine with me. I know this isn’t a permeant fix, the regular cast is still going to be in shows and DTV movies. I do largely hate the idea of using celebrity actors as voice actors in general it’s an annoying marketing gimmick and it’s obnoxious when you have a perfectly fine cast which put it much more in the negative category for me, but I could accept the change as I do want people to see the movie and this isn’t the first time abrupt cast changes in Scooby-Doo have happened. I also feel there is a big difference between Scooby-Doo getting a new cast for a theatrical release and another property like Teen Titans Go! which got to keep their cast. It is not like there is a long lasting series or animation style that would make a theatrical film have a strong basis; Scooby-Doo is constantly changing which makes it much more flexible in terms of casting.

Then Matthew Lillard tweeted his anger and not even being told about the change, which made a lot of people angry, including me. I did not feel that sympathetic to him in all honesty, if only because of a teensy-little incident he got into where a fan at a meetup asked him to perform Shaggy’s voice; he refused and proceeded to call them childish on twitter and the fact he has stated shame on doing the movies at times. I still feel angered at the animation industry as a whole for prioritizing celebrities. Grey Griffin, a forefront voice of millions of children, one of the most diverse voices ever, has only been in eight theatrical films, while Scarlett Johansson has voice-acted in five theatrical films. I hate this and wish, people would wise up and not feel excitement about seeing hearing a celebrity since there are very few that are actually that good at voice acting in general.

The plot form what I gathered from the trailer, which in all honesty wasn’t a lot, it seems to be fine, the only problem I have is with Shaggy’s separation from Fred, Daphne, and Velma in terms of plot wise. It’s very much used to make Scooby and Shaggy have a divide between them and the rest of the gang, but I just don’t like it. I understand most children will like it that way, and the movie’s main focus will be a boy and his dog relationship, but in all honesty I would prefer Shaggy to have deeper relationships with the human member of the gang.

That’s about all I have, and I realize a lot of this seems negative and rambling, but I just like to focus on it, it’s my bad that I do this, but it’s in my blood. I don’t have much else to say, largely since we’ve just gotten a teaser trailer, but I’m sure I’ll like it just fine despite it all.

#Scooby-Doo #Shaggy Rogers #daphne blake #Velma Dinkley #Fred Jones #SCOOB!#Voice-Acting #Hanna-Barbera #Scooby #Scooby Doo #Scooby Dooby Doo #Scoobert

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httyd2014 · 6 years ago

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Character Review of HTTYD 3

This is Part 1 of a two part movie review of How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. Next up is the plot review.

As of March 3, I've seen it four times. The first was the February 2 early showing, the second and third were on opening weekend in a regular AMC theater, and the fourth was in IMAX yesterday, which, like, I'm bothered by the fact that this third movie in the franchise only has limited IMAX screenings whereas the first two were released in all IMAX theaters, and released in 3D to boot. But anyway, character review: (Also, spoilers abound, so only read this if you've seen it already)

He was at his BEST. That speech he gives to the Vikings in the great hall after Grimmel burns his house down gets more chilling and chilling with each viewing. Years ago when Dean Deblois was dropping hints over what to expect in the sequel, I got the impression that the arch of the trilogy would end with Hiccup's coronation as Chief at the end of the third. Instead, not only is he thrust into the role early thanks to Stoick's heartbreaking death, but we get to see him grow and struggle in the role of Chief, and I thought that character arch was pulled off sensationally. Although he takes after his mother's idealism in his attempts to save all innocent dragons from the hostile Trappers, he also embraces his father's lesson from the sequel that his first duty is to protect his people from harm and danger. His speech in the great hall encapsulates that beautifully with one powerful line after another.

Hiccup is truly the leader of his people by the end of this movie, and not only that, but at least from my perspective, he's also imminently relatable. He genuinely struggles with himself and questions whether he's capable of doing what needs to be done as Grimmel and the legion of Trappers advance on New Berk. That lack of internal belief he carried around inside him as a scrawny 15 year old boy before he shot down the Night Fury is still there, six years later, as a handsome 21 year old chief. His internal struggle really showed his humanity, and in my opinion, it was Hiccup's journey that drove this third movie more than any other character, including Toothless. Which brings me to our beloved Night Fury:

Ok, so I must confess, I wasn't totally satisfied with how his character was portrayed. What made Toothless so amazingly endearing in the first one was how he struck such a PERFECT balance between being this fierce, ferocious beast on one hand, and being this adorable little puppy dog on the other hand. For the most part, he kept that balance in the sequel, particularly at the end when he challenges Drago's Bewildabeast and becomes the new Alpha of all dragons. In this one, however, I honestly didn't get the sense that Toothless truly was the "Unholy Offspring of Lightning and Death Itself" like the Viking legends said Night Furies were. Even during the above scene in the clouds where he does the Lightning Bolt thing and goes into stealth mode, it felt more like a cheap trick to impress Luna than a symbol of how utterly deadly he can be, and sure enough, he only uses it that one time to get those four Deathgrippers off his back. To me, all those puppy dog moments - of which there are MANY in this one - are less adorable because they aren't contrasted with enough moments of genuine fierceness. Simply put: I liked Toothless a lot more in the first and second movies than in the third one.

That being said - and I'm going to repeat this in the plot review - the flaws in his character are made up for by the ending. He does the most human thing we've EVER seen him do when he literally gives Hiccup a big bear hug as they say good by. I put my hand over my mouth to control my emotions when I saw that! And then during the final scene where Hiccup visits him after 5 or 6 years, Toothless does a very animal like thing by failing to recognize Hiccup at first, which, as a big fan of the Jurassic World movies, reminded me of how the velociraptor Blue didn't recognize Owen after not seeing him for a year, thus putting Owen in a dangerous situation. But then as soon as Hiccup does the Forbidden Friendship thing, BOOM, Toothless's eyes widen like the sea, and he embraces his dear friend that he can't see every day anymore. To me, that was totally in character of who Toothless is as both a deadly Night Fury, but also the best friend a human could ask for.

I'm gonna say this straight up: If Captain Marvel, or Star Wars, or Ghostbusters, or whoever, is going for the narrative of Strong, Female, Characters that do Strong, Female, Things, they already have an archetype that everyone loves, and her name is Astrid Hofferson. She is the true embodiment of a strong, female character, and I thought everything that made HTTYD fans love her in the first one was on display again in the third one. I was worried about this too, because in the trailers, it looked like Deblois might have been relying too heavily on the mythos of the first one, specifically the talk on the cliff, which from the trailers looked copied and pasted into the third one. However, it came off SO much better on film than it looked in the trailer, including one of my favorite lines from the entire franchise:

"But you know what? I am the person I am today because of you. And I have watched you doubt yourself every day ever since."

Astrid does what a good woman is supposed to do for her man: Be there for him when he falls down, comfort him with kind words, and remind him of who he is and what he can do. And she does all that in addition to being the warrior princess that Tuffnut correctly described her as. She fulfills the old saying, "behind every great man, stands a great woman." The talk on the cliff in this one is JUST AS GOOD as the same talk in the first one. It didn't come off as contrived or forced like I thought it would. Another favorite part of mine was during Hiccup's speech where she throws her axe on the table and demands that the Vikings hear out his plan to abandon Berk. She does that despite explicitly disagreeing with that plan earlier, which means that she was willing to stand by her man and her Chief even though she herself wasn't enthusiastic about the plan at first. Overall, I felt that the Hiccstrid relationship drove this story almost as much as the friendship between Hiccup and Toothless, and it did it without devolving into cliched romance.

She was good...at least when she had actual time onscreen (more on that in the plot review). I LOVED how she developed a relationship of sorts with her future daughter-in-law by encouraging Astrid to comfort Hiccup when he was doubting himself. I remember thinking to myself in the theater, "wow, Hiccup has two incredible women in his life! What a gift." I also liked how she automatically became an authority figure on Berk despite being gone for 20 years. She basically plays the role of General by scouting out Grimmel's advances towards New Berk and by bailing out Hiccup and the gang when Grimmel outfoxes Hiccup by trapping him on his ship. Between Valka, Eret, Astrid, and Gobber, it's really cool to see how Hiccup has a good leadership council behind him.

Believe me, his character is SO much cooler if you've seen Game of Thrones. I can't emphasize enough how Kit Herrington's personality comes alive in Eret. In this one, my only complaint is that I wish we saw him more in combat fighting along side Gobber and Valka, although even as an adviser to Hiccup, he plays the role really well. A part of me wishes he gave Hiccup and Stoick more of a challenge when he was working for Drago in the 2nd one, because his knowledge of the world outside Berk is impressive, not to mention he's a natural leader, as he demonstrates during the speech in the great hall when he augments Hiccup's points. Whatever goofball traits he had in the sequel are gone in this one, and I liked that. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about...

Ugh. The teens could have disappeared entirely and it wouldn't have effected the plot at all (Grimmel would have found New Berk eventually. Ruffnut's stupidity simply allowed him to find it faster). There was absolutely no character development from any of them, and in Snotlout's case, he outright devolved. The primary reason I didn't think HTTYD 3 was an A+ movie is because the teens would not shut the hell up. I did NOT find most of their lines or antics funny, I found them distracting and annoying. These characters reached their apex in Gift of the Night Fury, and they never got better after that.

Is Gobber. Good man, good leader, kind of paranoid. His shining moment in this franchise remains his eulogy during Stoick's funeral. In this one, you could tell that Deblois didn't really have anywhere to go with his character, so he added a subplot with the constantly appearing Hob Gobblers, which to me was what Legend of the Boneknapper should have looked like. One thing I do wish is that we saw one quick appearance of the Trolls alongside the Hob Gobblers on New Berk, as that would have been an amusing validation of his line to Stoick from the first one.

He gets two WONDERFUL flashbacks with Little Hiccup.* But, there's one error that was made during those flashbacks, and I apologize in advance to everyone who has already pointed it out: Stoick's beard should have looked scruffier and redder like it does in the first one when he's younger, as opposed to straight with grey spots like in the second when he's older. His beard is straight with grey spots during the flashbacks. Assuming that wasn't an oversight by Dreamworks, I'm guessing they did it that way because it was easier to animate. Which is understandable, but still, I'm a stickler for consistency. (The missing tree branch in front of Hiccup's face in the first one still jars me every time I see it).

*My gods, every animation studio from Dreamworks to Disney to Pixar has MASTERED the art of creating adorable children. It never ceases to amaze me

Ok, WOW, I loved him as a villain! He was everything Drago Bludvist wasn't: Cunning, crafty, smart, and above all, relatable. Grimmel is what Hiccup possibly WOULD have become if he stuck his knife into the downed Night Fury. Both of them are cerebral, and both of them play this delightful mind game where they try to anticipate each other's moves and countermoves, which Grimmel wins more often than not. As Gobber said to Hiccup, "one day, you're going to pick a fight you can't win." If Drago made Hiccup pay for his idealism by costing him his fathers life, than Grimmel makes Hiccup pay by costing him his Dragon-Human utopia. Grimmel's actions cause Hiccup to eventually accept the painful truth that humans living with dragons every day is not possible without resorting to war and death to keep that utopia a reality. When a villain can change things like that, then you have a damn good villain, and not just a guy who gets in the way periodically like Alvin and Dagur from the TV show.

Additionally, I thought Grimmel was so much more personable than Drago. His talk to Hiccup in the house evoked the same feelings in me as the talk between Evelyn Deavor and Elastigirl in Incredibles 2, which is to say, I was relating to what BOTH of them were saying to each other. It was like the Light and Dark sides that exist inside all of us were speaking to each other. Whereas Drago was just pure evil and brute force, Grimmel was genuinely compelling and interesting. I would have liked Deblois to take a different story arch with this third film than just throwing another disposable villain in the mix, but as it is, Grimmel was a worthy character.

In Summary

Hiccup and Astrid were spectacular, Toothless was very good but could have been better, Valka, Eret, and Gobber played their roles well, and Grimmel was an excellent bad guy. The only downside was the Teens. If their comic relief was cut, or if they were actual characters, this could have been an A+ movie from start to finish as opposed to A+ at the end and at specific parts in between (like the speech and the talks on the cliff).

#httyd 3 #the hidden world #hiccup #toothless #astrid #valka #stoick #eret #Gobber #grimmel #characters #review #hiccstrid #night fury #dean deblois

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rayroute-clear-saeran-text-sound · 5 years ago

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BRO I WANT A MYSTIC MESSENGER SHIP!!!! You already know my name! I always tell everyone that I am a mixture of a dolphin and lin Manuel miranda: talented but I don't shut up. Big musical energy with every genre of music imaginable. I love food and going to cool places and Disneyland! Movies are also a big yes for me (specifically marvel, star wars, disney, pixar!) I love art and am planning on getting a major in graphic design! I've been told that I am very positive and can get along with anyone

Aye, that’s my best friend!! I included details that you didn’t put down, because I love you <333

I pair you with Zen!

He was enraptured by your positivity, and knew immediately that he was going to be in love with you. He was super impressed with your ability to get along with Jumin, even if you didn’t like him, yet at the same time, super pissed and jealous.

Adding on to that, he was equally happy and irritated that you got along so well with the rest of the RFA. He knows deep down that you only have eyes for him, but he’s still very insecure about it. He’s a majorly jealous guy.

He is absolutely glad that you share his hatred for cats. Although it may be for a different reason than his allergy, he is so thrilled that you will decline cat-related guests and try to change the subject whenever talk drifts to anything in the realm of felines.

He is fascinated by your art, and tries to get you to teach him at first, but decides that it’s a hopeless cause. He absolutely begs you for a painting for his birthday (of course it would be of himself, because what a narcissist), and probably cries when you give it to him. Once he receives it, he will absolutely not stop hugging and cuddling you for the rest of the day. Most likely, he hangs it front in center where he can stare at it and show it to anyone who visits.

He will get you lots of graphic design jobs by putting your name and work out within his musical community, and eventually you get many job offers to design promotional posters for musicals. Some of them Zen star in, some have nothing to do with him. He knows you are capable of finding work without his help, but he wants you to have as many opportunities as possible, because he knows what it’s like to be starting out and struggling to force your way into the field.

This mans doesn’t hate animals, but isn’t totally in love with them, either. He had never really been around horses before, and never thought he would be nervous around them at all. But, when you took him out to the barn, he was unexpectedly intimidated by them. Eventually, he grew used to them, and would probably even ask for you to teach him to ride (nothing complicated, just simple walk, trot, canter) after learning that it’s actually good excercise. He gets really annoyed whenever they snot and sneeze on him though.

He could be convinced to get a dog, and whenever you were off staying the night visiting family or friends, he would cuddle with it as much as possible because it reminded him of you. Plus, he would take it out on runs with him whenever he couldn’t sway you to go.

He knows that you hate running and hiking, which are two of his favorite hobbies. He’ll try his best to get you to go on walks, maybe even a run or hike if you’re really feeling generous. He rarely succeeds, but when he does, he’s usually met with complaints throughout the activity.

He absolutely cherishes the chill nights he spends with you watching movies on weekends. Although you both love your friends in the RFA, you haven’t exactly been innocent of cancelling plans with the group on Friday nights to stay home for cuddles and film. He always teases you for your youthful taste in movies, but deep down those are some of his favorites, too.

If you two ever showered together, it would be 100% just singing show tunes together. Broadway is his passion, and he was even more smitten with you when he discovered that it was yours too. His favorite to perform with you is Something Rotten, because not only do you get super into it, but he loves the aesthetic and vibes of that musical. Whenever you two sing God I Hate Shakespeare, he is totally thinking about Jumin the entire time and you think it’s hilarious.

He knows he could never be as good as Alex Brightman in your eyes, but desperately wants to be at least your second favorite musical actor. At first he was jealous, but eventually just gave up and accepted it as reality. You made him promise that if he ever did a show with Alex Brightman, he would get him to meet you.

He secretly has a fund that he puts a little bit of money into every month in order to save up to take you to Disneyland. He knows you’re obsessed with the place, and since he’s never been, he knows that you’d be the best tour guide. He loves all the rides, especially the ones that go fast, bonus points if they remind him of riding his motorcycle.

You had to give him a full on lecture of the importance and greatness of food. The minute you discovered that the only thing he had in his fridge was beer and the occasional convinience store salad, you knew there needed to be a change. He constantly reprimanded you about some of your food choices not being healthy for the skin, but after weeks of ignoring those comments, he decided that they weren’t doing any good. He tried to cook for you, but was really bad at it.

He could never be convinced to go to any of your favorite fast food places, such as Taco Bell, so you would have to go with Yoosung or Seven if you wanted to go with company. Seven was always down to go, but you would tire a little of Zen bombarding you with questions about if Seven did anything weird afterwards. However, Zen loved going to Whole Foods with you. The two of you could spend hours in there.

You would always introduce him to new music, and he thoroughly enjoyed it. He often wanted you to make him playlists, and you were always happy to oblige. One of his guilty pleasures was Fifth Harmony, and once you caught that you would not let it go. Whenever you didn’t have guests, the two of you would perform your hearts out to those songs. Zen insisted that you could have a career on stage if you wanted it, but you declined immediately every time.

If the two of you knew you would be having a late night, or if you guys just couldn’t sleep, you would pull up bootleg musicals on the tv and watch them together all night. You two would sometimes watch the bootlegs of his own musicals, which would spark old memories from him, and he would begin to tell stories of crazy interactions with the cast and crew of those shows. You would have to beg him to play his oldest content, such as his debut in Thai’s Tea Leaf and Cube World. He would cringe at his old performances from his teenage years, and although you would poke fun at him for a little bit, by the end you were showering him in love and affection. Your favorite thing was to play Seven’s video that got Zen famous in the first place.

The two of you always praise each other all the time. It eventually will escalate to a full blown war of love and affection, and at some points it would get so extreme that the rest of the RFA would have to step in. You two were each other’s biggest fans, and would make sure the other knew it. Zen treats you like a goddess at all times, absolutely no exceptions.

He would make an attempt at quitting smoking if you asked him to, and would try so hard. He loves you more than anything, and understood that it was for his own health.

He wants to show you off always. You’re the best thing that has ever happened to him, and he wants everyone to know not only that you are his, but that he is yours. Lots of PDA, this boy can’t help it. Nothing too intense, but lots of handholding and cheek/forehead kisses because he can’t contain himself.

“This couch isn’t big enough for the two of you! Why are you even here?” Zen raised his voice, desperately trying to drag Seven and Yoosung off of your couch. You only watched from the safety of the wall, stifling laughter.

“Because we know you two have been cancelling plans to watch movies! So, we figured we’d have to invite ourselves over for movie night if we ever wanted to see you again.” The redhead rolled his eyes, making himself comfortable. It was clear that he had no intentions of leaving anytime soon.

“I could report you for breaking and entering, you know.” Zen grumbled, while you sighed and put the movie in, knowing that you would be joined by two extra guests that night.

“But you won’t.” Seven stretched out even more, pulling Zen down next to him. “Move, it’s starting.” Infinity War began blaring through the speakers as you made your way back to the couch, not even caring who was with you as long as Zen was there and you got to watch Marvel and see Chris Pratt on screen.

“Oh sorry, Elise. There’s not room here. Yoosung, Seven, one of you two idiots, move to the floor-”

“It’s fine!” You smiled as you interrupted him, but it was a troublesome smile. The kind of smile that Zen had come to learn would result in mischief.

“Are you sure? Because there isn’t any room to sit down right now.” He looked at you, red eyes filled with caution while Yoosung was immersed in the beginning of the movie. Only Seven seemed to be aware of the situation, and was smirking while trying to hide a chuckle.

“Sure there is!” You were able to make yourself a seat without kicking anyone off the couch by planting yourself right in Zen’s lap, leaning back against him knowingly. Although you couldn’t see it, you knew his face was bright red. If it were just the two of you, he wouldn’t have cared in the slightest and would have even encouraged it, but the two dorks of the RFA were sitting beside you two.

“Elise, come on-” You held a finger up and shushed him.

“Zen, I swear if you interrupt Chris Pratt with a lecture on your ‘beast’ or whatever, you’re sleeping alone tonight.” That shut him up immediately, and he suffered through the entire two and a half hour long movie, despite his legs going numb halfway through.

#fanfic #fanfiction #mysme #mysme fanfic #mystic messenger #mystic messenger fanfiction #zen mysme #zen #hyun ryu #mysme ship #mystic messenger ship #ship #zen ship #hyun ryu ship

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fairylynel · 5 years ago

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Actors : Songs Connection - Review

Contains Spoilers

So, hi, I guess I’m doing this again! This will be a short review for a 12 episode anime, called Actors : Songs Connection. This anime show in particular started in October 6, 2019 and ended in December 22, 2019. According to this show’s My Anime List page, it’s genre is considered to be School and Music. I have a bit of a different opinion regarding this, but I’ll talk about it later on.

I personally enjoyed quite a lot watching this anime. At first, the reason why I picked it up was because I was looking for an idol-ish anime with cute boys and so on, and I found this one. It wasn’t what I thought it was going to be, since it started in a quite pessimistic note, with the news that Saku Otonomiya’s sister, Nozomi Otonomiya, was close to dying due to a disease (it isn’t specified, I believe). He had started going as well to Tenshou Private School and was quite introverted throughout more than half of the show.

The main characters, besides Saku, are Sousuke Kagura and Uta Outa, two friends who compose songs, mostly using vocaloids. This was also something that peaked my interest quite a lot as I’ve been a fan of Vocaloids like Hatsune Miku, Luka Megurine and Gakupo Kamui for many years now and it was quite different for me to catch a show that would actually mention this type of “media”, I suppose.

Regardless, Saku, Sousuke and Uta form this trio, after many attempts of getting close to the first boy and trying to convince them to join. After the group is formed, they actually start to gain quite a following since Saku’s voice is, to be honest, quite magnificent. His voice actor, Gakuto Kajiwara, is marvelous at singing, despite his most popular character being Asta from Black Clover (possibly one of the most annoying characters out there).

The truth is, the show could have just been about this. Three boys getting to know each other and creating music along the way. Actors : Songs Connection decided to do so much more, that is a bit hard for me to even say which genre this anime belongs too. It has a bit of everything, to be fair.

While the days go on, Saku’s environment, this meaning school and neighbourhood, see an increasing amount of stray cats lurking around. Besides this, there’s this story that his older sister (the one who’s ill) told him previously about white shadows or white figures, resembling humans with only eyes and no mouth who seem to be maid of almost dust-like material. These shadows can only be seen by a few like some characters will sometimes note. Saku and Nozomi are a few of them, Akika Mitsuki and Harumoto Keishi are also aware of these creatures and what they are. A few others have seen them, but most only see them as myths and such things. These white figures are actually online players who are, I suppose, playing a virtual game where Saku, Sousuke, Uta and the others around them are in. This becomes extremly hard to explain as the show goes ahead.

The concept in itself isn’t anything new, someone who thinks they are a real person is actually a character in a video game is a trope used quite a lot. However, Actors : Song Connections fails at this, as the characters don’t realize what’s going on at all, they have no idea what’s happening throughout the entirety of the twelve episodes. The only person inside the game who seems to know more or less what’s happening is Akika Mitsuki. The rest, apart from Harumoto Keishi who controls more or less what happens in district 7 (where everyone in this anime lives), have no idea where or what they are.

This part is, with all honesty, done in a very sloppy way. Everything is rushed and the show barely focus in this important issue of it’s own universe. Some things aren’t explained either, like what happens to Mike Enjouji in Episode 7.

The music is actually really good. The intro is a very energetic song called Titania, performed by Sakutasuke, also known as the voice actors Gakuto Kajiwara (already mentioned before), Yuya Hozomi - Uta’s v.a and finally Wataru Urata, Sousuke’s v.a. My favourite song is Cloudy Day, sung by Saku Otonomiya. It’s such a beautiful song and the first I listened to it, or when it first played in the anime, it gave me so many goosebumps. It’s an amazing song and Gakuto Kajiwara’s voice sounds lovely. The original version, sung by a vocaloid, can be found here. Another favourite of mine is Yoshiwara’s Lament, sung by Mike Enjouji’s voice actor (Yuuki Ono). It’s so beautiful and fun and it fits very nicely with what’s going on in that episode. I believe the original song has the same name, but is sung by the vocaloid TETO KASANE. Waggaki Band has a wonderful rendition of it, as well.

Regardless, this isn’t exactly a bad show. It just isn’t great, for example, the animation has some great moments but goes downhill the exact same way. However, if you want to watch a musical anime with a bit of a plot twist, Actors : Songs Connection is the way to go.

Rating: 7/10

#Chisaijosei speaks #actors : Songs Connection #actors songs connection #actors: songs connection #anime review #anime #review

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littlemisssquiggles · 6 years ago

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RWBY Musings #72: A Farm Boy and his Bot. What if…Oscar gains his very own robot companion for the Atlas Arc?

So lately, I’m beginning to adore the concept of Oscar eventually gaining some kind of magical or rather unusual companion inspired by another known character from the Wizard of Oz. In my last musing post, I mentioned Oscar assuming control of Salem’s winged Beringels so that he may control them as the RWBY-verse’s equivalent of the Golden Cap.

Now I’m here to present another Oz-inspired possibility. What if…while in Atlas, Oscar either builds and/or gains the friendship of an Atlesian robot and this character will draw reference from the Oz character: Jack Pumpkinhead.

Oscar’s Robot

For those of you who might not know:

According to Wikipedia, in the second Oz book, the Marvellous Land of Oz, Jack Pumpkinhead is an animated homunculus. Jack is described as being incredibly tall with a skinny figure made from tree limbs and jointed with wooden pegs. He has a large carved jack-o’-lantern for a head which is where his name is derived from. Although, unlike most jack-o-lanterns, the seeds and other pumpkin guts were not removed from Jack so it substitutes for his brain.

Jack was originally made by a little boy named Tip (the male persona of Princess Ozma before she ultimately regained her true form) to scare his guardian, an old witch named Mombi. When Mombi saw Jack, she nearly smashed him to pieces but instead, decided to test out her new Powder of Life on him. The powder worked and made Jack come to life.

Jack has been noted to not be known for his intelligence which varies depending on the quality and number of seeds in his pumpkin-head at the time. Despite this, Jack manages to come up with random bits of wisdom and common sense often. That is the character of Jack Pumpkinhead.

As we know, Oscar Pine is alluded to Princess Ozma. Since Ozma is the original creator and parent of Jack Pumpkinhead, what if…Oscar will build his own Pumpkinhead in reference to how Tip made Jack Pumpkinhead or…perhaps Pumpkinhead is an Atlas Academy practice droid designed by Atlas for its students to gain hands on training during their combat simulation drills by fighting sentient machines

Perhaps…Pumpkinhead was an out-dated model that the school failed to maintain over the years. The bot had taken so many hits that it was due for decommissioning before being sent on its way to the junkyard scrap heap to be salvaged for it parts along with the others in its outdated series since Atlas was due to upgrade to newer, more efficient models in coming time.

Or…at least that was the plan before Oscar more or less rescues (technically steals) the machine---keeping it stored away where he and the other heroes were housed in Atlas---a full house suite organized for them courtesy of Winter Schnee and the General and overseen by Weiss who basically acts as landlady making sure nobody wrecks the place her sister generously helped organize for them. So Oscar keeps Pumpkinhead secured in his room while doing his best to repair the bot piece by piece with as limited resources as he had on his own time.

At first the former farm hand kept Pumpkinhead a secret away from the other heroes. But ultimately Oscar had no choice but to come clean about the tall, pumpkin-headed secret he’s been hoarding in his bedroom.

I’m kind of amused at the idea of Oscar being the type to pick up a stray robot without question. I think if done in the canon it could be a reference to Oz while providing a call back to Fullmetal Alchemist. After all, in FMA, Oscar’s VA--Aaron Dismuke played Alphonse Elricand us ole school FMA fans know how Alphonse was notorious for picking up stray cats.

Picture…Oscar pulling an Alphonse just with picking up a stray sentient robot he was trying to patch-up. One of my favourite Pinehead headcanons is that Oscar has a natural born talent for mechanical engineering as a testament to his upbringing back on his family farm.

In the V6 opening, Oscar could be spotted reading an Atlas Mechanics magazine during his shot with JNR and Qrow. A throwaway detail or conceivably a foreshadowing nod to what’s to be seen of this farm boy’s hidden talents during the Atlas Arc?

I’d absolutely love it if Oscar is good at repairing machinery with robots being no exception. I think that could be a really interesting skill for him to have. Plus picture the look on everyone’s faces to learn that our veteran farm boy’s got a knack for tinkering with them mechanical thingamabobbles and gadgets.

Remember how back in V2, Ruby snuck Zwei onto Team RWBY’s off-campus field trip to Mountain Glenn with Oobleck and we got that funny bit where Oobleck calls Ruby out only for Zwei to unceremoniously pop out of Ruby’s backpack; barking defiantly at her when she hisses for him to get back in the bag.

RWBY Squiggle Script #016: Pumpkinhead

Picture it. A similar scenario like that with Oscar where an online, Pumpkinhead is unceremoniously uncovered in Oscar’s bedroom closet and the farm boy is awkwardly put on the spot to explain himself; all the while standing between his profoundly stupefied comrades and teammates (at least Jaune, Nora, Ruby and Weiss for the sake of this scene. Let’s say the others were away on other errands or something) and a spooked Pumpkinhead who sat curled up in a ball behind Oscar, frightened by the unfamiliar non-Oscar faces.

Jaune: ….Oscar, is that a… 8ft robot standing in your bedroom?

Oscar: Actually he’s 7ft 11 inches tall to be exact. But…yeah…it’s---it’s a robot.

Jaune: Okay, let me try asking again. Oscar, why is there a 7ft 11 inches tall robot in your bedroom?

Oscar: *chuckling nervously with a shrug* Would you believe me if I said he followed me home?

Weiss: *incredulously* Oscar, be serious. Did you steal that Atlesian Practice droid?

Oscar: *awkward laughing intensifies* Psssh no, of course not. I told you. He followed me...sort of. Look I’ll explain everything just promise me you won’t freak out if I tell you.

Despite their equally doubting expressions, the others settled down to listen to Oscar’s explanation.

Oscar: It started a while back. It was the first Battle Sim class for us first years and our professor wanted us to practice combat against a moving target. For that class we were each paired up with a practice droid to spar with. I got this fella. *pats Pumpkinhead* For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to…hurt him. The minute I raised my weapon, he just looked at me and curled up all frightened and shaken. I know that sounds really, really crazy but… it did happen. Even my teacher took notice and started yelling at me to take it down. Show no mercy against the enemy, he said. Even if that enemy is a defenceless practice droid who was more scared of you and…refused to fight. So naturally, I refused to fight too.

I won’t attack an opponent who isn’t trying to harm me. So I ended up not fighting at all and…as you’d expect, the teacher sent me straight to Ironwood.

Jaune: *incredulously* So that’s why you were in trouble before? For refusing to beat up one practice droid?

Oscar: *nods* Yeah. Turns out you can get a full month’s detention for anything at Atlas Academy. As punishment, I was put in charge of helping with droid maintenance. The robo-tech guy supervising me is a real piece of work, to say the least, but other than that, it wasn’t half bad. I didn’t mind looking after the droids. From there, I noticed this guy following me around a lot. Even when he was supposed to be offline, everywhere I turned, he was there just…staring at me. I guess you could say he took a weird shine to me after our forfeit fight. It was really weird and really uncomfortable, at first.

But after a while I got use to the stares and actually started to appreciate the company. *chuckles* You can say he’s been my fateful companion during the more boring detention days and he’s a surprisingly good listener. Doesn’t say much…or…do much except stare but I think we became friends.

Weiss: *dubiously*…You befriended…a robot?

Oscar: *defensively* It can happen.

Ruby: He’s right. It can.

Weiss: *exasperated* Please don’t encourage him.

Nora: Can you guys quit interrupting? I wanna know what happens next? Go on Oscar.

Oscar: *frowning* Well…what happened next is actually the worst part. One detention, I didn’t find him with the other bods. Some first years from my class had rented him out for some extracurricular target practice.

Ruby: What… happened?

Oscar: *exasperated; fist clenching* What’d you think? They broke him! Wrecked him up really bad. Students are allowed to fight the droids after school but these students overdid it. And what’s worst is that after they were done, they just…left him. The robo-tech will clean up the mess for us, they said. They didn’t even bother returning him. Just left him in pieces. I tried to tell them off but I was useless. They just pushed me aside.

Nora: *annoyed* Please tell me you reported those jerks!

Ruby: Did you tell someone? Ironwood? The robo-tech?

Oscar: I tried but…it just made things worse. I told the robo-tech about what happened but… he didn’t care. I asked him if he could repair him but he said… *scoffs* He said fixing damaged goods isn’t in his payroll. It’s not in his job requirements to fix the bots, he’s just supposed to polish them up and make them look pretty. Who cares if a couple of them get ruined in a few rough sparring matches? Atlas’ got the funds so why bother fixing the broken bots when they could just as easily replace them with newer models. If I had left him as is, he would’ve been scrapped! I…couldn't just…leave him like that. I had to do something so…

Ruby: …So…you saved him?

Weiss: He stole it!

Oscar: I…*head handing guiltily* Yeah, I stole him, yes.

Weiss: I can’t believe it. We’ve been hoarding a felon.

Ruby: Weiss, quit being so overdramatic.

Weiss: I am not!

Nora: So…exactly how long have you been hiding this bot here under our noses?

Oscar: Let’s see, one…two weeks so probably…about a month.

Groans all around, the most audible being Weiss’. Ruby being Ruby appeared more sympathetic.

Ruby: Well… he seems to be up and running now. Why didn’t you try taking him back to the school again?

Oscar: He’s not completely fixed yet. There’s still more work to be done but I can only do some much with such little tools and with such a little workspace. Besides I already tried that but...he won't let me. I think he's too scared to go back there after what those kids did to him.

Weiss: He’s scared? He's a machine!

Ruby: Weiss, even machines can have feelings too.

Weiss: But---

Oscar: *wearily* Do you guys mind lowering your voices please? He doesn't like it when you yell. He hates loud noises.

At this, Oscar gently pats the tall robot behind him.

Oscar: It's okay big guy. We won't yell anymore. It's okay, Pumpkin.

Ruby: *snorts* Pumpkin?

Oscar:*embarassed* Uhh…yeah. It’s short for Pumpkinhead.

Nora: Aww. That's kind of sweet.

Weiss: *arms crossed with an incredulous expression* You named it!

Jaune: *reasonably* Oscar, I understand you want to help this bot but you do realize he's Atlas Academy property. You can't just keep him in the house. He's not a pet.

Oscar: *pouting* I know I can’t keep him but he's still pretty messed up. If I take him back to the school as he is now, they'll throw him away for sure. At least let me try and fix him first. Please.

Jaune: Oscar...

Oscar: *imploringly* Please.

Jaune and Nora exchanged unsure looks. Weiss huffed but in the end it was Ruby who spoke up.

Ruby: Okay.

Weiss: What! Ruby you're not serious!

Ruby: It's like Oscar said, we can’t send him back to the school broken. The least we can do is let him finish fixing him.

Weiss: Unbelievable.

Ruby: Weiss...

Ruby plants a firm hand on Weiss’ shoulder, looking at her squarely so she’s certain the Schnee girl could see her serious expression.

Ruby: Please.

Weiss stares at Ruby blankly for a few beats before finally sighing, admitting defeat.

Weiss: Fine. But it's not staying in here. *indicates to the bedroom* There’s an empty storage room downstairs in the basement. It's not much but it’s definitely more appropriate to house your...Pumpkin friend than a small bedroom closet. It’s yours till the bot is fixed and…I’ll see if I can get you some better tools to speed up the process. While I detest lying to my sister and the General, I guess I could always say it’s for a school project or something. Not making any promises.

Oscar beams.

Oscar: Thank you Weiss-cream.

Weiss: *eye twitching* Call me that again and you and your bot will be sleeping in the streets tonight.

Oscar: *nervously* Y---Yes ma’am. I promise I’ll move Pumpkin as soon as the storage room opens up.

Weiss: Good. Just…hurry up and fix it. The last thing we need is trouble with Atlas Academy.

---

As promised, Oscar moved Pumpkinhead immediately into the storage room after Weiss gave him access. In this next concocted scene, Pumpkin is safely secured with Oscar now standing behind him on a chair for added height while he worked diligently on repairing some of the remaining damages done to its head.

Oscar: Alright big guy. You’ll only feel a slight tickle but I promise it won’t hurt.

Pumpkinhead voices his disapproval with incoherent robot noises but otherwise stays trustingly cooperative while Oscar patches him. When Oscar was done, he patted the top of Pumpkinhead’s head with a proud grin, happy with his handiwork.

Oscar: There you go. Now that part’s all done for today. See. Not as bad as you thought, right bud? Nothing to be scared about.

Ruby: Didn't realize you were such a robot whisperer.

Oscar nearly falls off his chair as he zips around to find Ruby standing at the top of the staircase leading down into the storage room. She wore an amused smile; arms crossed as she came down.

Oscar: *embarrassed* Ru---Ruby? How---How long have you been standing there?

Ruby: *giggling* Not too long but long enough to see you sweet talk, Mr. Pumpkinhead over there. Are you sure you don’t need any help fixing him? Yang’s pretty handy; no pun intended and…I might know a thing or two that could help out too just so you know. I did built my weapon from scratch after all.

Oscar: Thanks but…as much as I’d love the extra hands, I don’t want to distress Pumpkin too much. He’s not really open to new people right now. Besides I used to help my uncle fix the machinery back on the farm. Fixing a giant robot, surprisingly not that different from fixing a tractor. I mean it is different but my Uncle Henry was the best mechanic I know. Taught me everything he knew and I've always loved a good pet project.

Wiping his grease stained hands on a handkerchief he kept in his back pocket, Oscar smiled broadly as he patted the top of Pumpkinhead’s exposed top once life time before closing it shut. After that, the young boy jumped down from his perch to stand next to Ruby, admiring the work he was able to get done that evening.

Oscar: *smiles at Ruby* It's a slow hurdle but at least we’re getting somewhere, y’know?

Ruby: *nods; smiling back* Well uh...you seem to be doing a pretty great job so far on your own. I'm actually really impressed.

Oscar: *blushing* For real?

Oscar tried leaning against a small table that was next to him; absently neglecting the table had wheels. Immediately Oscar scrambled to regain his balance and make sure the tools on top the table didn’t clatter to the floor and startle Pumpkinhead. While he was victorious in keeping the giant bot at ease, that didn’t stop him from momentarily making a spectacle of himself in front of Ruby who eyed him closely, hand covering her mouth to supress another giggle.

Oscar: *cheekily* I meant to do that.

For the sake of Oscar’s pride, Ruby ignored his last blunder as she slowly approached Pumpkinhead. Instantly, the bots beady white eyes swivelled around inside their socket to focus in on Ruby.

Ruby: He's looking a lot better from earlier.

Oscar: *rubbing the back of his neck bashfully; cheeks slightly flushed* Thanks. I owe Weiss big time for letting me use the storage room. It’s amazing how much more work I can get done when I’m not trying to hide a giant robot in my closet anymore.

Ruby nods wordlessly as she slowly edged closer to Pumpkinhead, eyes wide with curious wonder. Now Ruby was standing close to the robot’s legs. The instant she made an attempt to move further, that’s when the uproar started. Incoherent static mechanical noises echoed throughout the garage as Pumpkinhead made a fuss trying to move as far away from Ruby as possible.

Immediately, Oscar pulled Ruby back making sure to gently move her as far away from the robot as possible. After he did that, he ran to the robot’s side, doing his best to silence its distressed signals.

Oscar: Whoa! WHOA! Easy Pumpkin. She's a friend. She’s not going to hurt you. Easy bud, easy.

A few gentle words and reassuring pats later, Oscar managed to tame the robot yet again and Pumpkinhead settled silent once more. However its optical eye never left Ruby who now stood far, a bit shaken herself. Now it was her turn to be comforted by Oscar who returned to her side with a reassuring smile.

Oscar: … I should have warned you. Pumpkin doesn’t really like anyone coming near him except me. Sorry about that.

Ruby: No it’s….okay. Is he better now?

Oscar: Yeah, he should be good so long as you stay over here.

Ruby nodded. Rubbing her shoulder nervously, she made an attempt to break the awkwardness of her blunder.

Ruby: …So ......Pumpkinhead, huh?

Oscar: *chuckling* Name of the year, right?

Ruby: *smirking wryly* I guess. Why that name though?

Oscar: It’s an old boring farm boy story you probably wouldn’t want to here.

Ruby: *smiling* Oh yeah? Try me.

Her answer made Oscar smile.

Oscar: Well; when I was a little kid growing up on the farm, we had this old neighbour. I never learned what her real name was. I just used to call her Ms. M for mean because she was the meanest old lady in the world, at least to 10-year-old Oscar. Although she had her own farm with her own cornfields, she’d always let her pigs and her weird four horned cow wander onto our side of the land and destroy our crops before they could harvest.

Ruby: *disbelievingly* I’m sorry. A four-horned cow?

Oscar: *nods* Yep. And each time my family complained, she’d just laugh at us and still leave her animals to mess up our crops while hers remained perfectly fine. Not that it helped much. She was actually a really bad farmer and all her former farmhands couldn’t stand working for her.

Ruby: She sounds like quite the handful.

Oscar: She was. I hated that old lady. Aunt Em taught me that it’s not good to hate people but that lady was a real witch. She was never nice to me and she was even worst to my aunt. Reminds me a lot of that Mombi kid from school actually. Both are a bunch of bullies.

Anyways, one harvest, 10 year old me figured he had enough of Ms M and wanted to teach her a lesson. So I picked the biggest pumpkin I can carry and built this giant scare---er---pumpkin hoping he would scare Ms M and her animals off our land. You can probably guess what I named him.

Ruby: *drumming her finger against her chin, pretending to ponder* Hmm, think, think, think. *snaps fingers and grins* Pumpkinhead?

Oscar: *laughs* You've been paying attention.

Ruby: *giggles* So what happened? Did the OG Pumpkinhead scare away the old wicked witch next door?

Oscar: Nope. Didn't even phase her at all. Actually it was the ten shot gun bullets through the window from Aunt Em that did the trick. Never dared bother us again after that.

Ruby: *jaw hanging in a mix of shock and amusement* No way!

Oscar: *grinning wide* Yes way! I can still hear my Aunt Em now. Oscar, fetch me my gun! No, not that one! The bigger one with the bigger bullets.

At this point, Ruby was in stitches, hardly able to contain her laughter and Oscar joined her.

Ruby: *though laughter* I'm sorry. I'm having a hard time picturing your dainty old aunt firing a gun.

Oscar: *chuckling* There's an old Mistralian saying back home. You don’t mess with the west and if it hails from the south, get out. West and South Anima are mostly farming lands. If there are two things you don't play with in my neck of the woods, it's family and produce and that old witch had it coming big time.

I'd never forget the look on her face when my aunt marched straight up to her house and blew out all her windows. All ten of them on all sides. Not a single piece of glass was spared that day. Em even took out Ms. M’s glass eye. But for that she used a teeny, tiny pistol.

Ruby: *wheezing* You are making this up!

Oscar: *sarcastically* Would I lie?

Ruby gave Oscar a knowing look, punching him playfully in the shoulder.

Oscar: *chuckling* Okay, okay, you got me. That last part about the glass eye is made up but everything else is full proof. Farm boy's honour on my uncle’s grave.

Oscar grinned cheekily and Ruby only shook her head in amusement at the former farm hand.

Ruby: Wow. And I guess this Pumpkinhead reminds you of home.

Oscar: Yeah. Y'know he's not too different from the one on the farm. He's bright orange. Got two beady eyes and a crooked moon smile. Big ole pumpkin-sized head and skinny arms and legs---

At Oscar’s comments, Pumpkinhead made a noise from behind as if to show his displeasure of Oscar’s remarks about its physique. Oscar backpedals, turning to flash the robot a kind-hearted smile.

Oscar: *chuckles* I don't mean that in a bad way Pumpkin. You're a good boy. Yes you are, Whose the best Pumpkinhead in the world? You are!

At Oscar’s affectionate comments, the colour on Pumpkinhead’s eyes turned neon pink as if to reflect its delight of being coddled by Oscar and its robot legs even wiggled, as if mimicking a dog wagging its tails happily at its owner. It is a unexpectedly adorable moment that even makes Ruby gush. So much so that she forgets herself.

Ruby: *cooing; heart-eyes; clapping her hands excitedly* Awww, he is a sweet guy!

This time, Pumpkinhead sprung up suddenly; bursting through the cables that Oscar was partially using before in his current stage of repairing the bot as it shuffled behind whatever giant piece of infrastructure within the storage room was big enough to shield the bot from Ruby. From there Pumpkinhead remained.

Oscar groaned, rubbing his forehead. Ruby, in turn, looked to him guiltily.

Ruby: *apologetically* I am so, sorry. Things were getting so cheery, I forgot about…before. I’m really sorry Oscar. I guess Pumpkin really doesn’t like me now, huh?

Oscar: *exasperated but assuring* Don't…*sighs*…Don’t take it personally. It's not really you. Pumpkin’s scared of everyone. He's alright with me because I think I'm the first person who hasn't tried to hurt him before. Kind of a bad thing to say, isn’t it?

Ruby: Well...isn't he a practice droid? Aren't they built specifically for combat? To take a hit whenever on the battlefield?

Oscar: Yeah but...that doesn't necessarily mean he liked being used that way. What if all the other practice droids are like Pumpkin?

Ruby: I think your guy is a special case, Oscar.

Oscar: You’re probably right. But it makes you wonder doesn't it? I know you guys must think I'm being silly for caring about something that's technically not alive but...he feels alive to me. When he's scared...I feel his fear. I understand it as if it's my own. It's not his fault he was born to be this. He never asked to be made into a practice droid for others to beat up on him whenever they liked. It wasn't his choice. He just had to accept the role he was dealt with but just because this is his life now doesn’t mean he has to like it. He's free to feel scared and not be okay with everything.

Ruby eyed Oscar weirdly. Even though she knew he was speaking from the heart in defence of Pumpkinhead, she couldn’t help but get the impression that his words felt oddly off. As if there was more to them between the lines.

Ruby: *concernedly* Oscar, is everything...okay? With you?

Now it was Oscar’s turn to eye Ruby strangely.

Oscar: *surprised* Yeah I'm good. Why wouldn't I be?

Ruby: I---

Ruby opens her mouth to continue but instead decides against it; claiming it wasn’t the right time to pry.

Ruby: Nevermind.

Oscar looks over Ruby once more, waiting to see if she might say something else but when she doesn’t, he shrugs casually.

Oscar: I'm...going to go check up on Pumpkin. Did you need me for something?

Just like that, Ruby remembers why she came down to the storage room in the first place. She blushes, a bit embarrassed that she had gotten so distracted before.

Ruby: *awkwardly* Oh right! No, no, I just...came down to let you know dinner's almost ready.

Oscar: *smiles* Ooh good I'm starving actually. Let me just clean up here and I’ll join you up upstairs.

Ruby nods. As Oscar makes a move to tidy up to leave, that’s when Pumpkinhead peep its head out, eyes fixed on Oscar.

Oscar: Hey buddy, I'm going up to eat now. I won’t be gone for long but I need you to be on your best behaviour, okay?

Oscar had meant to sound more assuring but his attempt was met with distressed robotic chatter. At the noise, Oscar’s expressed dropped shamefacedly.

Oscar: …Look, I know you don't like it when I leave but…I’ll just be upstairs. I’ll only be gone for like four minutes. Three if I eat really fast.

The robotic distressed signals only intensified and Oscar slumps, face in hand.

Ruby: What's wrong?

Oscar: *sighing* He's…in one of his clingy moods, tonight. Must've been all the excitement from today. When he's stressed like this he doesn't like me to leave. Doesn't want to be left alone. *groans loudly* Guess I'm missing dinner.

Ruby: No you don't. I'll bring your plate down for you. I'll just let the others know we'll be having dinner in the garage tonight.

Oscar: Wait… we?

Ruby: Yeah. You, Pumpkinhead and me. *smiles brightly* You can keep Pumpkin company so he doesn’t stress out and I can keep you company. But…that's only if you---y’know, want my---

Oscar: No, no it’s cool. I---Pumpkin's not much of a talker anyways and...

Oscar flashes Ruby a smile.

Oscar: I'd like your company.

Ruby: *beaming* Great! I promise I won't overstep again this time. Besides…

Ruby turns her attention on Pumpkinhead who was still peeping out at them.

Ruby: *perkily*We may have had a rough start but don't worry Pumpkin, you and I will be bestest of friends in no time too.

Ruby flashes Pumpkinhead a big toothy smile, hitting him with a big ole Ruby Rose thumbs up only for Pumpkin to jolt and zip his head right back behind his hiding spot.

Oscar: *sweatdrops* Sorry.

Ruby: Playing hard to get I see. Not to worry, I've befriended your type before. You're not getting me to give up that easy.

With a determined huff that earns a chuckle from Oscar, Ruby turns on her heals to head back upstairs.

Oscar: Hey Ruby?

Ruby looks back.

Oscar: Thank you. From me and Pumpkin. *cheeks reddening* Mostly me.

Ruby says nothing. Instead she just smiles brightly, pleased with herself to see her friend smiling at her. With that, she leaves to go grab their food.

And scene.

What do you guys think? Now this squiggle meister has shared quite a bit of Oscar- themed theories and Pinehead headcanons before but I think this one has become one of my personal favourites especially as we’re going into the Atlas Arc.

I already got my wish last season with the introduction of flying monkey Grimm in the series. Now what I’d love to see next is Oscar awakening his inner mechanic and creating Pumpkinhead. And after Pumpkinhead, perhaps even Sawhorse will be integrated into RWBY as well as both characters were signature in Princess Ozma’s side of the story.

Words cannot fathom how much I really, really dig this idea. I really want Pumpkinhead to become a canon character in Oscar’s story now because I think it could be pretty cute for Oscar to have his very own robotic companion who he becomes attached to. Ruby had Penny but unlike Oscar, Penny wasn’t canonically invented by Ruby. Pinocchio wasn’t made by either Little Red Riding Hood or Dorothy Gale.

However Princess Ozma did create Jack Pumpkinhead and eventually Sawhorse.

Who knows? If my Pinehead theory comes true, perhaps Oscar will invent his own Pumpkinhead while in Atlas. Atlas is the most technologically advanced kingdom in Remnant so it is a huge possibility. Plus as I’ll point out again, this fits into the Wizard of Oz. If Oscar becomes an inventor on top of being a great and powerful wizard, I don’t think anyone can really complain because it comes with the source material he was influenced by.

Plus Oscar becoming an inventor could be something worth exploring as part of his individual story outside of his story with Ozpin. The whole Ozma reincarnation cycle and magic and longstanding battle with Salem to protect humanity became part of Oscar’s story via his connection with Ozpin who is essentially the Wizard of Oz.

But Oscar inventing Pumpkinhead is more connected to Princess Ozma who he draws reference from. So therefore, this is an opportunity to develop Oscar as his own character outside of Ozpin. Right now, most of Oscar’s story has primary been focused the part he shares with Ozpin.

That’s fine but… ya’ll know how much I have been advocating for Oscar to get his own fair share of development, right? And I think this is an idea on how RWBY can do that while drawing reference from the fairy-tale character Oscar was based off of. This is something the CRWBY Writers can do with Oscar while in Atlas as a means of fleshing him out. I’m just saying.

But y’know. For now, it’s only just another theory to add to the rest as always.

More Squiggles’ RWBY Content

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

#rwby #oscar pine #rwby theories #rwby volume 7 theories #ruby rose #rwby musings #rwby volume 7 #rwby v7 theories #squiggles scripts: rwby

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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The Legend of the Three Caballeros: Dope-A-Cabana Review (Commissioned by WeirdKev27)

Salduos Amigos! Since i’m covering a full series, i’d like to welcome any newcomers to the first part of the epic final stretch of THE RIDE OF THE THREE CABLLEROS! For those of you just joining us, a few months back WeirdKev27, easily my biggest supporter as the only one who comissions any reviews from me, asked if I could do a big project for him: a comission of EVERY major american apperance of those three happy chappies in matching serapes. Give i’ve ALWAYS loved the boys ever since house of mouse and had been sitting on Legend of the Three Cablleros for far too long, more on that in a minute obviously, I happily agreed. Plus the rather nice influx of cash from the comissions was very welcome. If your intrested in comissioning your own, hit me up via my direct messages. It’s 5 dolalrs an episode, though I do do discounts on orders of 3 or more, and 10 for a movie, with again discounts for orders of more than one. And yes that plug was very shamless, but again I have no other job than this. Back to the point these reviews have taken me on a wonderful journey: I got to rewatch the movie and revel in the fun songs, acid trips and super horny Donald Duck, got to both revisit one of Don Rosa’s best story and read another all time classic from the man I hadn’t before, took a trip back to the house of mouse to hear some great songs and see some great cartoons.. and some not so great ones, took a small detour to Mickey and The Roadster Racers to be baffled and annoyed though I am proud to say it was my first review back after I came down with Cornovirus and lost a week of work time. And finally I covered the town where everyone was nice, and got to see the boys have a joyous reunion with Donald and be lushly animated while.. Dewey jackassed around in a B-Plot and Webby resisted the urge to throat chop him. It’s been a long ride and you can find all of it is so far RIGHT HERE IN THIS CONVIENT LINK ! CLICK IT NOW IF YOUR CURIOUS. Point is while this was well paid for.. it’s easily one of the projects i’ve been most proud of and while i’m sad to see it winding down, i’m proud of what i’ve done so far, and I just wanted to heartily thank Kevin for the ride and for being so generious as to fund the whole damn thing. Your a good dude man.

Which brings us here, to the grand finale. The Legend of the Three Caballeros! As the boys first starring roll as a group since the movie, there was really no other way this retrospective could end, and since I have a terrible problem with procastination and really hated this series version of daisy I just kept pushing back watching the series until now. I’m not proud of it but I am happy to correct it and hope you’ll all come along with me. Before we get started I could not find much background on the show. It was directred by Matt Danner who was the character designer for the utter classic Xiaoilin Showdown and currently works on the Muppet Babies reboot, so i’m happy he’s still getting work. Otherwise I couldn’t find much. The most I could was on tv tropes, claming the series was orignally meant for Netflix.. and while I have no proof and this could easily be conjecture.. i’m inclined to belivie it. The series was apparently done long before the Ducktales reboot, to the point Frank Angrones was only vaguely aware of it and it didn’t even remotely impact the series, with Panchito and Jose only debuting in Season 2 because the original idea for bringing them in was scrapped. So while I don’t have proof.. I’m inclined to belivie it since it makes sense: Disney DID have a healthy relationship with Netflix once, setting up the MCU shows and likely being happy there.. but eventually they wanted their own corner of the sky, and likely didn’t want one of their shows bolted to the network like all their marvel shows were. The problem this created though is Disney was CLEARLY left with a show they no longer had a place for. But even with that the show was still done, they COULD have put it on the Disney Now app or just aired it on the Disney Channel. See if there was any fan intrest in season 2 or throw one into production to at least beef up the episode count. I mean the Cabs have a built in fanbase, kids would likely love it... it’s the logical choice. But this is Disney. They’ve had to be drug kicking and screaming into representation, to the point they had to be fought for the gay romance subplot in owl house to happen, try to hide that the Sparkshort “Out” is about a gay man struggling with coming out despite having you know reams of content on the service with either gay subtext or out and out gay characters, and their attempts at doing representatoin to score points in other little ways.. have been pathetic, easily missable bits in movies that could , and have been, edited out in more homophobic countries. My point is yeah i’m still sore about how they and a LOT of the animation industry have to be dragged into doing the right thing over profit, and they often make very stupid decisions for seemingly no reason. They are a good company a good chunk of the time.. but Disney has done fucked up quite a bit. This is one of those times. Instead they dumped the show on the Disney Life app in the phillipines and slowly some other countries, basically the Disney Now equilvent over there, and then just sort of forgot about it until Disney Plus launched. And given how many shows they HAVEN’T put on the streamer for again, seemingly no reason, it is a nice suprise the show finally got a release on there in the US. But before that, and proving what a massive mistake just abandoing the show was, the show did gather a massive fanbase via people uploading the episodes online. So yeah the show was treated REALLY shittily for stupid reasons, but thankfully it still has a fanbase to this day and said shabby treatment, as it always does, just encouraged fans to support it harder. So naturally i’m more than happy to give the series some spotlight as fanbase or no, it badly needs it and Disney sure as hell dosen’t want to do it. So if somebody’s gotta do it, might as well be me. This is the Legend of the Three Cablleros. We open on some narration from Xandra, Goddess of Adventure. Granted she hasn’t been identified yet, and won’t be till next episode.. buuuut it’s easier on me to not have to dance around her name so your learning it now. But Xandra narrates that long ago there were epic battles against the good and the evil and all that by epic heroes, and it’s all cumilated in the Legend of the Three Cablleros. Post title drop we’re treated to the boys, in cool looking armor and with neat weapons, fighting a purple monster man as you do in an really beautiful and epic sequence As this scene illustrates the animation for this show is GORGEOUS, a lavish update of the standard disney style with nice use of shadows. It feels almost film quality in it’s work, and it’s an utter treat to watch and opening at the end was a good call: it both ratchets up excitement and allows the first ep to have some action since this one, as part of a two part premiere, is mostly setup. It’s eyecatching, exciting and makes you want to know what the hell is going on. And since Xandra realizes MAYBE starting the story at the climax was a bad idea, she takes us back a bit.

Okay maybe not that far. No we open properly at Donald’s house, where it’s his birthday! And like the movie, it’s Friday the 13th, an excellent call back. Donald’s making his breakfast, boliling some tea and.. talking with the weird foced warped refelection in the kettle who can apparently only say “right back at you handsome, wink”. Seriously I have so many questoins and all of them are about what this guy is, why is Donald so calm about all of this, and is he still alive after Donald destroys his tea kettle later. Donaldo gets a call from Daisy, whose visting to spend the day with him and is waiting patiently int he bad part of town. I didn’t know Duckburg had a bad part of town but given Glomgold has to get his sharks and bombs somewhere, i’m not surprised. Unless he special orders them, but even then what if he needs a shark or a bomb in a hurry? He’s gotta get them somewhere and now we know where. So there’s that. So all’s going well until Donald’s asshole boss calls and forces him to come in despite Donald having the fucking day off and it presumably being on the schedule. So Donald rushes to work, and we do get some great gags but as you’d expect for Donald it goes poorly and he botches a kid’s haircut despite the mother being very rude.. and also a female version of pete. LIke.. did he remarry after the divorce from peg or is that his sister? Does that mean PJ and PIstol have a cousin I never knew about? I want answers dammit.. and picutures of spider-man. Not for any slander job I just really like spider-man.

Eh it’ll do.As i’m doing a full series this time i’m stopping to talk about the main cast as we go soooo.... Tony Anselmo is naturally Donald, even pitching in to consult the crew on Donald’s characterization here, as really what better expert is there? He’s voiced Donald since the original Ducktales and has stuck with the roll since, only taking a break for Mickey and the Roadster racers and that’s likely because between finishing up this series and the Mickey Mouse shorts, and moving on to Ducktales 2017, he likely simply didn’t have the time for it. Granted given how little he was used in the first season of the show, he probably still could’ve done it but regardless, he’s a legend. Daisy is voiced by Tress Macneile, who not only has voiced the character since House of Mouse and is easily the best voice for her, but is also one of the most storied and legendary va’s in the buisness, having been at this since the 80′s with zero signs of stopping. Just to name a few of her more notable roles, in chronological order; Gadget Hackenwrench, Babs Bunny, Agnes Skinner, Charlotte Pickles, Dot Warner (Which as of last year she’s picked up again and will do the same for Babs, just in case you thought i was exagerating on the “zero signs of stopping” thing), Pookie from Hey Arnold, Mom, Hoodsey Bishop, and Queen Oona among MANY, MANY smaller rolls. I didn’t even realize Charlotte or Hodsey were here, she’s that talented and deserves all the praise.. and way better rolls as Daisy than this one but we’ll both get to that and thankfully much like with Tony, the reboot’s giving her character some depth to work with so she gets to reallys tretch her chops. The woman turns 70 here, will likely keep going until she dies, and is wonderful and deserves more respect.

So because this is Donald, life wont’ stop punching him in the face and it turns out his house burned down, the fire people are destroying everything because their assholes, seriously they destroy both a family heirloom and a picture of his parents despite not being on fire. I’d be genuinely suprised if their general strategy wasn’t scremaing “fire, fire fire” and then going “rock rock rock” while they throw rocks on it. Super brucey bonus prize for the first person who gets that refrence and comments on it. I’ll get back to this in a second but SOMEHOW, beisdes loosing his home, all his possesions and his job... it gets even WORSE and Daisy calls, refuses to listen to him despite him having VERY valid excuses and breaks up with him. Oh and then the fire fighters gladly talk about going home to their in tact houses and partners.

So yeah let’s talk about this. This first 6 or 7 minutes.. is why I didn’t return to the show for a while. My brain has a bad habit of glomming onto certain parts of things, so it remembered the rough to sit through and not very funny first act.. and not the rest of the episode which is very good and likely more indiciative about how good the series is. Thankfully it does get better but this first act .. frames things like it’s DONALD’S fault somehow. I mean yes he did burn his house down.. but even that really isn’t his fault. He was called away suddenly, wasn’t thinking and made a mistake. Hell he proabably woudl’ve had more left if the fire department hadn’t gone crazy with the axes. His being called into work? He took the day off, and his boss was just a dick. His screwing up at the job? he was genuinely trying his best and doing his best and the client was just wholly unresonable. Donald did nothing wrong but the episode WANTS to frame him like some sort of screwup.. which he is, it’s Donald.. but not in this case. It was just a string of uncomfortable to watch bad luck that cumilates in him having nothing left. It’s not funny, it’s jsust really sad and it’s REALLY hard to tell the tone their going for as they seem to awkwardly bounce from jokes to Donald being utterly devistated and alone.

And the worst of this.. is Daisy. Daisy is EASILY the most infamous part of the show, as their portryal.. is pretty bad and apparently gets worse. We’ll see as we go but yeah.. her screaming at and breaking up with her boyfriend without listneing to his side and giving the claim we only have HER word on that he’s always screwing up, ON HIS BIRTHDAY no less, when he’s done nothing wrong, does not make a good first impression nor the fact the show seems to AGREE WITH HER. And look Donald is a trainwreck, this is true.. but the show dosen’t remotely portray him as one until AFTER this scene. As I said nothing that happened was his fault. Donald isn’t irresponsible or a screwup or dating a high schooler or anything. He isn’t Scott Pilgrim. He just has really bad luck. Again, we do see some foibles in the scenes to come.. but we don’t see any that would justify her claims, especially since she seemed perfectly happy earlier with him. Now if she’d say brought up some screwups in the first scene, and gently at that, then this would’ve worked.. but as it stands she just comes off as MASSIVELY unsymapthetic.. especially since Donald later calls her nieces over for help, which is objectively weird not gonna lie.. so she now KNOWS he had to move to a new house and his likely burned down.. yet still apparently has nothing good to say about him.

It didn’t help this rubbed me the wrong way in a very special way. As i’ve made plain before I don’t like THIS version of Daisy, the nagging, selfish, vindictive asshole who will gladly try and cheat on donald, dump him at a moments notice and you know PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE. Which just in case you think i’m exagerating...

She fucking upercutted him..and like here for something that isn’t his fault. I mean this Daisy isn’t physically beating Donald.. but that’s a VERY low bar to clear. And emotional abuse is just as bad, so there. My point is too often in the comics when written poorly, Daisy is a pretty terrible person and I REALLY didn’t want a screen adaptation of this form of Daisy. It took a WHILE to recover from not liking daisy over this version, with help from remembering house of mouse, some good barks story with her and the AMAZING Ducktales version and the suprisingly good Quack Pack version.. I did. But yeah.. this is not a good sign of things to come for the character in this show.

So yeah Donald’s heart is in the basement and his week is at an all time low when a post man shows up and gives him a letter.. well puts it in the box for a good gag but semantics. But the letter turns around as his ancestor Clinton Coot left him an inhertance for his 3Xth birthday: a house of some kind in the swanky neighboring town of New Quackmore. And i’ll also say.. it’s REALLY nice that for once, we focus on the Duck side of Donald’s legacy, or rather the coot but semantics, instead of the McDuck part. Don’t get me wrong, I fucking love the clanmcduck, always will and I love Ducktales exploration of it.. but it’s still nice to acknowledge Donald comes from two sides and while one of those may be humble farmers, they still accomplished a lot, including founding Duckburg in most continuities including presumably this one. It’s also a good way to seperate thigns from other properties including the reboot: focusing on a part of Donald’s lineage that isn’t usually touched on and making THEM just as badass as the other side.

So we get a quick montage as Donald takes a cab there and takes in the rich and fancy sights. It’s also a brilliant way to set up New Quackmore and it’s attached instutite as a fancy, upperclass place.. and thus perfectly clash it with Donald. Donald ends up getting dropped off at a big mansion.. which is not his , but belongs to the insittutes head, Baron Von Sheldgoose, played by WAYNE KNIGHT.

Hell. Yes. I freaking love Wayne Knight. In case you don’t know who the man above is, or at least don’t recognize his face, Wayne Knight is a very funny and talented actor and voice actor with a lengthy career primarily in side rolls, with the rolls that he broke out with being loveable asshole and Jerry’s enternal nemisis Newman on Seinfeld and Dennis Nedry, aka “that guy who got sprayed acid in his face by those horrifying frilled dinosaurs that will never not haunt my nightmares”. Seriously that scene fucked me up as a kid and I could not watch that part of the movie. For the most part he’s been a side character man but he has done a LOT of voice work, most notable Zurg in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Dojo for the aformentioned and excellent Xiaolin Showdown, and Mr. Blik for Catscratch and I wish he’d do more. He also recently voiced the penguin in Harley Quin so when I get to that you better belivie i’m looking forward to it. Point is while he may not always get the glory, and had to settle for starring in a mediocre tv land sitcom to get a steady paycheck once, the man is VERY talented, very funny and perfectly cast here.

So Donald makes himself home, finds out it’s not HIS home and gets thrown out by the snooty rich asshole’s bodyguards. As you’d expect. Donald does find HIS home, a run down cabana next door to the mansion with caution tape all over. Still Donald takes it best he can as it’s better than no home at all> What he doesn’t take well is finding out from the executor of the will that he’s not the only one inheriting the house... which is absolutley fair. The guy just had the worst day of his life, and this lady didn’t bother to put in the letter to any of them that they were sharing the house. The Sheldgoose thing was just an average Donald screw up. This is just this lady going...

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But yes we meet our boys.. and the introductions are naturally given this series is about them the best we’ve gotten so far: Jose is thrown off a bus, having ran out of fair, and having wooed all the ladies on board, and quickly charms the executor and is perfectly cordial to Donald, while Panchito parachutes out of a plane and marvels at how he went from nothing to having two new best friends, a run down shack and a sleezy lawyer! In short the two make a great first impression, helped by wonderful casting. Jose is voiced by Eric Bauza, a talented voice actor whose had WAY too many roles to list here, but two of the most notable are being the current voice of Bugs and Daffy, and his most notable role outside that recently has been playing Splinter in Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. But the guy is endlessly talented, seems really nice, and is easily one of my faviorite Jose’s so far after just one episode. He just.. gets the character perfectly and is thankfully NOT another white guy stepping into the role, so that’s nice. He easily oozes the charm and layabout nature Jose and was a natural in the role and i hope he gets to take it up again at some point. Speaking of naturals we have Jamie Camil as Panchito, who easily steps into the guys boundless energy and the sterotpical bits are swapped out for making him a cloud cuckoolander instead, which I genuinely love and fits the character perfectly. He’s best known for CW Soap Jane the Virgin, where his charcter Rodrigo just sounds like a delight, but has recently picked up a pretty good voice acting career, vocing Don Karnage in the Ducktales reboot, Globgor in Star vs the Forces of Evil and Todd’s Stepdad George in Bojack Horseman. I only hope he gets more voice work as he’s really damn great at it and it’s wonderful to get to see him in a role that’s not limited to a few episodes at best for a change.

So Donald’s less than happy about this, again it’s hard to really be that mad at him when he’s had a really, REALLY bad day and wasn’t told about this, but it’s kept to just the light level of grumpy as to not make him unlikeable. Granted after that intro it’d take a LOT to make him unsympathetic, but after their version of Daisy I really dont’ want to test this series. Our boys also find out they have a groundskeeper, ari, aka THE ARCUAN BIRD! He’s just a delight any time he pops up, doing his usual “ya ta ta ta” bit, and being adorable and hilarioius as always.. and also hilariously failing to fix the boys door. So Donald ends up just accepting he has roomates now, nothing he can do, and the three explore the house finding all sorts of cool old artifacts, feeling they’ve stumbled onto something specail. And you know what that means: YARD SALE! Seriously it feels like a bit out of Wet Hot American Summer or Stella, a series from the same creators you really should check out and that is high praise, trust me.

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I wish this series was streaming somewhere.. I mean we finally got Clone HIgh streaming Viacom, get on that. Anyways, it’s just.. fucking hilarious, and a LOT of this episode is once we walk back from the writers kicking donald in the junk and acting like it was his fault. Once Donald gets his inhertiance, the episode picks up immensley and we see the shows real charm and hilarirty fly, with jokes coming at a rapid and wonderful pace. The show really did impress me with the second half and made me utterly excited for tommrow.. or I guess today’s, look at the follow up. But we’re still in this episode and being a rich asshole, Sheldgoose isn’t happy about a yard sale, though given this series standards, we not only get some great deliveres from Knight of an outraged “A YARD SALE?!”... but a wonderful gag where Sheldgoose out to white guy it up and yell at them over this..accidently takes a wrong turn in his massive house, and turns around, not loosing how upset he is once. Meanwhile, we meet.. April, May and June. Yeah apparnetly Della isn’t dead or lost in this continuity, so the boys are MIA, and are instead replaced by Daisy’s Nieces, who I hope show up in the reboot before it ends. Especially since the show makes them WAY more tolerable than classic huey dewey and louie and instead enjoyable like Ducktales HDL. While not as indvidual as those three, the three are still idendtical outside of outfits, their voice actress Jessica DiCicco uses her consderiable talents and experince to give each one a unique voice, so while they all share a voice actress, none of them sound alike. And to round out our main cast for now, as our last members will be joining us fully next time, let’s talke about Jessica DiCicco. Jessica is a very talented and increasingly prolific voice actor and if you haven’t heard of her, and you probably have, you’ve defintely heard her voice. Starting out with Disney, hence why the probably called on her for this, she did the voices of Maggie for the Buzz on Maggie and Melina for Emperor’s New School before breaking out as Flame Princess on Adventure Time, whose both one of my faviorite characters from the show and one we’ll be digging into starting next month. And not one to rest easily she picked up a second set of iconic rolls vocing Lynn and Lucy Loud on The Loud HOuse, and funnily enough using those voices for two of the girls here. And along with Loud House she’s also currently starring in it’s Pony and is int he main cast of Close Enough as Candace. My point is she’s exceedingly talented.. as is this whole cast, as it’s a DAMN excellent cast and just further sells that this series deserves better. We’ll get into the girls more next time as they don’t do much here other than get called in by Donald for help, with what I saw of episode 2 fleshing them out more. Point is Sheldgoose offers a million dollars for the cabana and all it’s stuff and the boys are glad to sell.. they just have to find something Sheldgoose desperately wants, a mysterious golden atlas encrusted with Jewels. Our heroes head in to find it with Panchito finding it, and being very specific about it. We also get a nice call back to Ari destroying the door as Jose cleverly calls on him to destroy the lock. So our heroes open the book... and a goddess pops out and threatens to kill them all.

Final Thoughts: Dope-A-Cabana is a decent intro the series, but as i’ve said it’s heavily hampered by a weak and mean spirited first act. But once it gets going it REALLY gets going and as part 1 one of a two part pilot, it does it’s job well once it does get going: introducing our three boys and one of our antagonists well and setting up the side cast and preparing for our last to major additions Next Time: The Boys go on their first adventure, Sheldgoose finds a boss and the girls find their voice. Thanks for Reading, Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye.

#the legend of the three caballeros #The Three Caballeros #donald duck #Jose Carioca #panchito romero miguel junipero francisco quintero gonzalez #panchito pistoles #xandra #april duck #may duck #june duck #baron von sheldgoose #daisy duck #pete pete #disney plus #disney channel #animation #disney

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raeynbowboi · 6 years ago

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It Has to Be You Part III – A Helping Hand

Ashido blinked in confusion at the art gallery tickets in Yaoyorozu’s hands. She beamed warmly, her cheeks flustered with cheerful euphoria. Ashido scoffed, “You finally get the nerve to ask Kendou out and you decide to paint the town beige?”

Yaoyorozu frowned, “I thought it seemed perfectly suitable. Kendou and I love culture and artistic expression.”

Ashido waved her hand dismissively, “It’s all fine and good for like... something to do together, but it’s not exactly first date material. Dating is supposed to be fun!”

Yaoyorozu shook her hair loose from her ponytail and set her scrunchy down on the common area table. “Well, if we’re looking to do something fun, I could get tickets to the symphony.”

“The symphony?” Ashido pretended to gag, “Yao-momo, no offense, but haven’t you ever been on a date before? The whole point is to do an activity together. As in, to be moving, talking to each other, and forming an intimate connection.”

“You don’t feel intimate and emotional while listening to Mozart’s 5th Symphony?”

Uraraka scratched the back of her head, “I kinda have to agree with Ashido. It’s nice to find something the two of you can do together, but neither of those ideas is good for a date. A first date is important. It’s about getting to know one another in a comfortable and low-pressure environment.”

Ashido yawned, “Boring! Don’t either of you girls know how to have fun?”

Uraraka exhaled sharply, “Well, Ashido, since you’re such an expert on dating, why don’t you enlighten us? What is a proper first date?”

Ashido grinned, “Duh! Laser tag! It’s good for whether you wanna play as teammates or as opponents, plus you get to do something active and fun!”

Yaoyorozu frowned, “I’m not much of a fan of simulated warfare. I doubt I’d be much good at it either.”

Ashido looked thoughtful, “Well, why don’t we ask everybody? Heck, in a class of twenty people, someone’s bound to have a good idea for what to do on your date with Kendou!”

Yaoyorozu’s eyes lit up, “That’s a marvelous idea! I’ll take notes! Oh what the heck, I’ll even go a little zany and color-code it as well!”

“You’re a wild child, Momo,” Ashido said with an eye roll. Ashido and Uraraka went door to door drawing their fellow classmates out into the common area to gather around Yaoyorozu. Even Bakugou felt social enough to participate, following Kirishima downstairs.

Kaminari rubbed his chin in contemplation. “I’d say go to an Arcade. Lots of games, good food, happy atmosphere. All around a cheerful and energetic environment which is good for having fun.”

Sero shook his head, “Nah. Gotta take a lady to a comedy show. If you both laugh at the same kinds of jokes, it’s meant to be.”

“I’d take him to Karaoke!” Hagakure cheered, “Even if we weren’t that good, it’s a lot of fun, and it’s nice to be noticed for a change.”

Tokoyami folded his arms as he thought, “I’d go to a poetry cafe. They don’t have to write anything. We could just sit and discuss what we hear.”

“I wouldn’t do anything extravagant,” Midoriya said with a shy smile, “Probably just get some coffee and chat.”

Jirou twirled her finger around her earphone jack, “Rock Concert. Nothing is more romantic than sharing your interests with your partner. Though I guess as long as the music’s good, it doesn’t have to be rock.”

Kouda began to mutter something softly when Aoyama leapt up dramatically, “And what of moi? Why, I know this absolutement adorable little bistro on the west side of town that would make for a charming evening of superb cuisine! Anyone care to join me?”

Kirishima’s eyes lit up as a bright smile crossed his face, “I’d wanna go to an amusement park. There’s so many different rides and games, we’re sure to find something we both like!”

Ojiro stroked his tail absentmindedly, “I’d probably go pretty traditional. Dinner and a movie. Maybe a kiss on the cheek goodnight if she was okay with that.”

Uraraka beamed sweetly, “I’d probably take him on a picnic. Nothing too fancy. Just some sandwiches, some chips, and maybe a thermos of soup.”

Iida rubbed his chin thoughtfully, “I would vote to take Kendou shopping. It’s out in public in case you’re worried about being alone with her, it’s a casual atmosphere to encourage discourse, and by seeing the types of clothes she buys, you can ascertain her style and interests.”

Satou blushed as he rubbed the back of his head, “Honestly, I’d just bake her something. Mama always said a home cooked meal is the best way to keep a happy family.”

“I’d take them to a fancy restaurant,” Todoroki stated, “Treating someone to something nice is a good way to show them that they matter, and that they’re worth the expense.”

“Mini Golf,” Asui croaked, “it always makes me feel like a kid again, ribbit.”

“I’d take anything simple, really,” Shoji’s duplicate mouths grumbled, “A stroll in the park is really all it takes to make a tender moment.”

“I’d take them on a bicycle ride on one of the park trails,” Shinsou said with a yawn, “they’re usually pretty scenic, and there’s not a lot of foot traffic if you want to talk.”

“Man, it’s nice hearing a normal answer instead of one of Mineta’s gross innuendos.” Uraraka sighed wistfully, “Thanks for clocking that little cretin, Hagakure.”

“My pleasure! Serves that creep right for trying to sneak into the girl’s locker room!”

Yaoyorozu clapped her hands together triumphantly, “Thank-you so much everyone for your input! Oh! Kouda, we never got to hear your answer!”

Kouda looked down sheepishly, “I-It’s fine. I doubt my answer would have mattered anyway.”

Yaoyorozu shook her head, “Oh, I wouldn’t agree with that at all. We’re all sharing. I wouldn’t leave you out of that. Please, what is your idea of an ideal first date?”

Kouda twiddled his thumbs as he mumbled, “I like volunteering at the animal shelter. All the pets are really friendly. I couldn’t date someone who didn’t like animals.”

“That just leaves Bakugou!” Sero crooned with a smirk.

Kaminari laughed, “How much you wanna bet he’s gonna say ‘hand-to-hand combat’?”

“Whatever they want.” Bakugou’s voice was unusually calm. He wasn’t growling or sneering at anyone. It was almost smooth and sweet the way he said it.

“Boo! No cop out answers!” Ashido yelled.

Iida nodded, “I agree with Ashido. The purpose of this exercise was to help Yaoyorozu think of what to do for her date with Kendou. As a team-building and trust-building exercise for the entire class, I would hope that you could be a team player long enough to give a simple answer.”

A spark of irritation glistened in his red eyes, but he spoke with the same calm demeanor he had before, “If the whole point of the date is to learn more about them while having fun together, then doing what they want to do puts the odds in your favor that they’ll end up enjoying themselves. They’re more likely to think the date was fun, and by association, they’re more likely to think that being around you is fun. And by letting them pick the date, you also get to glimpse at the kind of person they are, what they like doing, and whether or not you like doing the same types of activities.”

“Aww!” Hagakure squealed, “That’s actually really sweet! And it came from Bakugou. Who’d have thought?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” The momentary glimpse of a calm Bakugou had been as fleeting as any would have predicted.

Kirishima scratched his chin, “But, what if they’re thinking the same thing and want to do what you want to do? What would be your answer then?”

Bakugou sneered, “I already gave you my answer! This is what I get for spending time with you people. Nothing but snide comments, mockery, and belittling my answers. I’m going to bed!” He got up in a huff and stormed off to his room.

Ojiro stretched, “And on that note, I think I’m going to turn in for the night. I don’t want to be too tired tomorrow.” One by one, the boys got up and trailed off to their dorms, leaving only the girls alone in the common area.

“That was awkward,” Uraraka said with a sigh, “Just when I thought Bakugou was starting to warm up to people, he exploded again.”

Asui shook her head, “I dunno, he did have a point. He came out here and he participated, and when it was his turn to speak, people poked fun of him and then objected to his answer. I’d say the blame is pretty evenly split this time.”

“I’m just annoyed that he hasn’t asked Kirishima out yet,” Jirou said.

Ashido scoffed, “Like Kirishima is any less to blame! The boy is crushing so hard and it’s so freaking obvious! Why can’t they just ask each other out already?”

Yaoyorozu ran a brush through her hair, “Between Bakugou, who is about as socially graceful as a drunk hippo balancing on a toothpick, and Kirishima, who has such a problem with confidence and rejection? I’m not really that surprised that they’re both afraid to make the first move.”

Ashido gasped, “Oh! We should set them up on a date!”

Jirou laughed, “Well then, it was nice knowing you. Bakugou would kill you if he realized you set him up like that.”

“Well,” Hagakure pondered, “What if they didn’t realize it was a date?”

“What do you mean?” Asui asked.

“What if they went into the evening thinking they were just hanging out with friends? If the evening started with a bunch of people moving together, and then by some weird circumstance, they ended up being the only two people still there… who knows? They might already be in such a good mindset that rather than getting all flustered and nervous, they just treat the rest of the evening like they were still part of a big group. And maybe that ease around each other will help them be more upfront with their feelings!”

Jirou smirked, “That’s downright sneaky, Hagakure. I’m impressed.”

“Who knew you could be so devious?” Ashido said with a coy grin, “I’ll take Sero and Kaminari on this stealth date, since they’re the people Bakugou is most comfortable being around.”

“Then it’s all set!” Uraraka said, “But, uh… what was Kirishima’s ideal date again?”

Yaoyorozu glanced at her notes, “An amusement park.”

“Perfect!” Ashido cheered, “It’s so big and crowded, so it’ll be super easy to ditch them once we get there.”

“Well, don’t ditch them too quickly,” Asui warned, “If you disappear the moment you get there, they’ll probably be just as stiff and awkward with each other as they would be if they knew it was a date. The whole point is to help smooth over the rough edges and help these two. In order to do that, they need other people around to help them relax.”

Ashido groaned, “I just want to skip all this angsty pining and get to the part where they’re dating already. I’m so sick of listening to Kirishima rant about how ‘this time he’s gonna do it. He’s totally gonna just walk up to Bakugou and ask him out’ only for him to come back like fifteen minutes later and report that he got too scared to say anything.”

“Well, we must exercise caution,” Yaoyorozu said. “We’re meddling with two people’s lives. There’s a line between jump starting a relationship and rushing one.”

“You worry too much, Yao-momo,” Ashido said with a dismissive wave of the hand. “We’re not forcing anything. They both like each other, but they’re too afraid to do anything about it. We’re just giving them a helping hand.”

Kirishima’s eyes lit up under the flashing lights of the Naboo Amusement Park, its giant Ferris wheel a stark part of the local skyline.

He turned with a smile toward his friends, “This was a great idea, Ashido! I really needed this.”

Ashido smiled back at him, “We all did! We work hard to do well in school, but it’s also important to remember to treat ourselves to a little fun every once in a while!”

The only one who wasn’t excited was Bakugou, who was trying and failing to hide how much he was already shivering in the late January cold. “Well let’s get moving,” he growled, “the faster we get moving, the sooner I’ll be warm.”

Kaminari opened the park map, “Well, where should we start?”

“Oh, I heard the Widow Maker opened up!” Ashido gassed, “It’s even faster than the roller coaster they used to have! Plus, they added a whole new feature called Dead Man’s Drop. It’s almost a straight 90° angle! 4/5 doctors guarantee you’ll lose your lunch!”

Bakugou sneered, “Don’t tell me you like that adrenaline junkie shit?”

“Hey, hey!” Kaminari interjected, “Check this out, they’ve got go-karting!”

Kirishima frowned, “But wouldn’t the track be covered in snow and ice this time of year?”

“Nah,” Kaminari grinned, “It’s indoors. So, there’s also centralized heating.”

Heating was just the magic words Bakugou needed to hear, “Where the fuck is it? I’m dying out here in this damn ice age.”

Kaminari pointed it out on the map, “It’s over that way, toward the spinning tea cups.” The group moved quickly, spurred on by Bakugou’s grumpy insistence, followed by his relieved sighs as they felt the internal heating of the go-kart speedway wash over them. They found an empty table in the waiting area as Kaminari went to sign them up.

“Well, it’s going to be a bit of a wait. The ticket taker guy said we should expect about a twenty minute wait time.”

Bakugou gave a small smile, “Eh, I don’t mind the wait so long as the heater is working.”

Sero threw his coat over the back of his chair as he flopped down, “I agree, Winter sucks. I always gotta choose between leaving my elbows exposed and risking frostbite, or covering them and not being useful if a situation were to occur.”

Kaminari chuckled, “Since when are you useful?”

Sero huffed in protest, “C’mon man, I expect that kind of razzing from Bakugou, but not from you.”

Bakugou snorted, “He’s right, Pikachu. He’s very useful. He can help kindergarteners with their arts and crafts.”

Kaminari laughed as Sero groaned. Ashido crossed her arms, “Shame on you guys for ganging up on Sero like that. Sero will be a great hero. He can help beauty pageant contestants tape their butts in place.”

Sero rolled his eyes and turned to Kirishima, “Are you going to turn on me too?”

Kirishima snapped back from wherever that train of thought was taking him, “Hm? Uh, sure, Sero. Hey, does this place sell food? I’m kinda hungry.”

Ashido arched an eyebrow, “Didn’t you eat before?”

Kirishima frowned, “You said there wasn’t time. I didn’t even grab my wallet.”

Ashido checked her pockets, “Aw crap, I spent all of my money on the entrance fee. Sero? Kami?”

They both turned out their empty pockets, and all eyes fell on Bakugou, only to find he was already at the snack counter. He returned shortly carrying a box of candy and he tossed it to Kirishima. “Geez, I knew you were a hair brained idiot, but how could you be so careless that you forgot to eat?”

Kirishima beamed brightly, “Hey, thanks, Bakugou! That’s real nice of you.”

Bakugou scoffed, “Like I’d let you starve.”

Ashido, Kaminari, and Sero shared a sly smile as Kirishima munched happily on the box of sweets. They’d purposefully let Kirishima miss lunch and subsequently ‘forgot’ their wallets in a ploy to get Bakugou to come to his rescue, but they’d expected it would take a lot more goading on their part.

“What are you idiots all grinning about?”

Busted. Bakugou’s fiery red eyes were locked on them. Ashido was luckily quick on her feet, “I was just thinking, you and Kirishima made it into the top 8 of the UA Sports Festival. I wonder how much better you would do if you found a way to use your quirks together for next year’s festival.”

Kirishima looked up, talking between mouthfuls, “Oh yeah, I remember Midoriya was muttering something about tag team combos and working on quirks together. I say, if he’s gonna try that tactic, we should too!”

Bakugou’s usual expression of apathy fell away at the mention of battle strategy. He began to tap his finger against his mouth when Sero and Kaminari’s snickering distracted him. “What are you assholes laughing about?”

“Dude,” Kaminari wheezed between laughs, “Do you realize you’ve started muttering like Midoriya?”

“What?!” Tiny explosions began to crackle in Bakugou’s hands.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Kirishima remarked, “Midoriya copied you to create his Shoot Style, and now you’ve started to mutter like him. Considering you two grew up together, it makes sense that you’ve sort of picked up behaviors and traits from one another.” He popped another candy into his mouth with a shrug.

“Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” Ashido urged, “What were you thinking, Bakugou?”

Bakugou leaned back in his seat, “Before I get ahead of myself, I’d need to know more about your quirks, and what their limits are. For instance, Alien Queen, what are the physical properties of the slime and acid you produce?”

Ashido threw her hands up, “Wait, you can remember the hero name Ms. Midnight disapproved of, but you can’t remember my actual name?”

“Why does it matter?” Bakugo arched an eyebrow, “You’re going to spend your whole adult life being addressed by your hero name, so it’s more important than your actual name. Plus, Alien Queen is a lot more memorable than… whatever your name is. Frankly, I thought it was unfair the way she shot your idea down.”

Ashido crossed her arms, “Oh, well, thanks I guess. Uh, what properties of the slime is it you actually give a shit about?”

“Your slime is similar to a liquid, but due to the acidity and viscosity, I wonder whether it’s as good of a conductor of electricity as water is.”

Kaminari snapped his fingers, “Ah! I get it! If Ashido can spread her slime while she skates around the arena, coating it in a layer of conductive acid, and then I put my full charge into that slime while Ashido isn’t standing on it, the slime will help contain the electricity, and it’ll zap our opponents, without any risk of hurting our allies!”

“That’s the idea,” Bakugou said.

“Acid does conduct electricity,” Ashido said, nose deep in her phone. “I just Moogled it.”

“That’s so cool!” Sero said with a toothy grin.

“Yes,” Bakugou agreed, “which is why I think it’s best if we keep this strategy between the five of us.”

Kirishima popped the last candy from the box into his mouth, “Are you suggesting some kind of an alliance to give ourselves a leg up in next year’s sports festival?”

Bakugou nodded, “We worked well together the first year. If onlookers see how we worked together one year, then how we actually worked to improve our teamwork, we could make a big show of our cooperation. It would win us a lot of attention.”

Kirishima smiled wide, “Count me in. We never know what kinds of challenges the sports festival will give us, so the better prepared we are to handle different kinds of obstacles and challenges, the better chance that we’ll thrive in any circumstance. The more of us working together, the better we can make up for each other’s short-comings no matter what the problem is!”

“Heck yeah!” Ashido cheered, “I’m all in!”

“You don’t have to ask me twice,” Sero said.

Kaminari chuckled, “I never thought I’d see the day when Bakugou Katsuki of all people was the one suggesting teamwork. But definitely count me in.”

Ashido clapped her hands together, “Then it’s settled! We train together in secret to take on the second sports festival as a unit!”

Sero stroked his chin, “Should we have like, a code name for it?”

Kirishima’s eyes lit up, “Heck yeah! The Bomb Patrol!”

Kaminari gave it a thumbs up, “I love it!”

“Look out, sports festival! Last year, only one of us made it to the podium! This year, let’s aim for two!” Ashido’s eyes burned with a feisty competitiveness.

Kirishima glanced at Bakugou, “So, now that we’re a team, what’s next?” As he spoke, their number came up for the track.

Bakugou smirked, “Now? Now, you losers choke on my dust as I run circles around you.”

Ashido frowned, “As if! You’ve got me all fired up now! I’m going to obliterate you boys!”

Bakugou sneared, “Like I’d let that happen, Raccoon Eyes!”

“Seriously? Hey, c’mon! We’re teammates now! Enough with the mean nicknames already!” Ashido moaned.

Kirishima laughed, “Well, it is still Bakugou after all.”

Kaminari strut out ahead of the others triumphantly, a smug grin smeared across his face. Bakugou grumbled in defeat. Ashido groaned, “I can’t believe I got fourth! How did you get so good, Kami?”

Kaminari grinned wide, “I spent a lot of time playing video games, working my hand-eye-coordination, timing, and reflexes. Why do you think I was so keen on go-karting? Hehe. I knew I’d dominate. I must have had half a lap on you, Bakugou!”

“Don’t get a big head on yourself, Pikachu,” Bakugou growled, “I’d hate for your only brain cell to get lost.”

“Awww,” Sero teased, “Bakugou does care about us, Kami!”

“Shut up, Flat Face!”

“Hey! Check it out!” Ashido pointed at a tall, mansion-like building that looked as though it was designed by the secret love child of Dr. Seuss and M.C. Escher. “It’s a fun house! I hear this one’s really good! They use mirrors and special effects to turn it into a maze! They even have designated staff whose sole job is to escort lost customers back to the exit! We should go!”

Bakugou sneered, “Pass.”

“It’s probably warmer inside than it is out here,” Sero pointed out.

Bakugou sighed, “Alright. Watch this ends up being a hoax and it ends up taking like five minutes to get out of there.”

The fun house ended up being a little more challenging than Bakugou had expected, but after about twenty minutes of walking into dead ends and getting turned around in a maze with mirrors for walls, Bakugou had emerged to the other side with Kirishima in tow. He’d kept Kirishima close by, knowing the doofus would get himself lost if he didn’t keep him on a short leash. Bakugou figured the others wouldn’t be far behind, until almost another full twenty minutes had passed.

“Oi, Kirishima, what’s taking those idiots so long to finish?”

“I’ll ask them,” he said, pulling out his phone. After fifteen seconds, his phone dinged. “Huh. They actually finished a while ago. They didn’t see us out here, and they figured you didn’t wait for them, so they went out looking for us.”

Bakugou scoffed, “Well, guess I can’t be mad at them for knowing me.”

Kirishima’s phone dinged again, “Oh dang. Kami says his phone battery is about to die, and he forgot to bring a charger.”

“What about Raccoon Eyes and Flat Face?”

Kirishima sighed, “Looks like Sero left his phone at home because it was doing some updating, and Ashido’s screen cracked, so hers is being repaired. Guess we gotta go find them the old-fashioned way.”

Bakugou groaned, “Great. They’re all so scatterbrained, they could have wandered off to any number of places.”

Kirishima thought for a moment, “Oh! Hey! Remember the other night when we all talked about our ideal dates? Kaminari said he liked going to arcades! There’s an arcade here in the amusement park! Maybe he’s in there playing games.”

Bakugou shrugged, “Can’t argue with that logic. It’s the closest thing to a lead we’ve got.”

The arcade was jam packed with little kids running excitedly between the flashing lights and loud noises. Some teenagers clustered around the games that required a bit more skill, while a couple grown men occupied themselves with some of the older games. Still, no sign of Kaminari or the others.

“Well, this was a dead end,” Bakugou growled.

“They could show up,” Kirishima argued, “Why don’t we play a few games while we wait?”

“Tch. Why should we waste our time playing games when we’re supposed to be finding your idiot friends?”

Kirishima smirked, “What’s the matter, Bakugou? Afraid I might beat you?”

An irritated fire ignited in Bakugou’s eyes, “Is that a challenge?”

“Name your game.”

Bakugou chuckled, “Okay, Shitty Hair. Ski Ball. I’m going to make you eat those words.”

Bakugou was a man of his word. Kirishima’s final score was completely dwarfed by the amount of points Bakugou accumulated. Kirishima laughed, “Okay! I concede! I should never have challenged a master at his own game!”

Bakugou snickered smugly, “I told ya, I’d win.”

Kirishima smiled, “But now, it’s my turn to show you up!”

“Dammit!” The air hockey table buzzed as Kirishima slammed the puck into Bakugou’s goal.

Kirishima laughed, “That makes 6:3! Are you scared of me yet?”

Bakugou glowered at him, “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Shitty Hair. I’ve never lost a game of air hockey before.”

Kirisima smirked, “Then I guess today’s going to be an auspicious day. Your undefeated title is as good as mine!”

Bakugou sank the puck into Kirishima’s goal as the machine rang, “You sure about that?”

Kirishima set the puck back at the center line, “By the way, did you have any ideas for combos we could do?”

“A few.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“Well for one, with your hardening and my explosions, I could effectively launch you like a cannonball to break through an enemy formation.”

Kirishima smiled, “Hey! That’s not a bad idea. Plus, it’s a great way to get me in close with opponents!”

“If we have Flat Face with us, we can use his tape like a bungee cord to bring you back to the team, or with a little momentum, you could get spun around with enough force to work like a wrecking ball.”

Kirishima smiled, “I gotta say, I like the new team attitude you’ve got, Bakugou! With all of us working together, we’ll really stand out during the festival!”

“What about you?” Bakugou asked, his eyes never lifting from the game, “You got any combo ideas?”

Kirishima frowned, “Kinda? I have like half of an idea? Like… What if you could basically use me like a battering ram?”

“What? You mean like… somehow launch ourselves together with me behind you or riding you somehow and using you to knock down walls?”

“Something like that.”

Bakugou frowned as he contemplated it, “It’s not a bad idea. I think if we could sit down and hammer out the details, that could work.”

“You think?”

“I think you have a lot of versatility on a battlefield with the right amount of creativity.” Bakugou grimaced as the puck slid into his goal and the machine buzzed.

“That’s game point!” Kirishima beamed, “Thus ends the reign of Bakugou!”

Kirishima wasn’t expecting to hear Bakugou laugh. “Okay, okay, Kirishima. I admit defeat. Tie breaker. DDR.”

The boys were evenly matched as they followed the commands of the machine. Bakugou was strangely beautiful when he was focused on something. The usually harsh lines of his face fell away and his eyes became sharp and determined. Yet, every other part of him became relaxed, and Bakugou entered an oddly serene and almost meditative state. Kirishima couldn’t help but smile, “You’re surprisingly good at this!”

“I don’t know why you’re surprised, Hair for Brains, I play the drums. That’s all about keeping the beat and focusing on timing. This game is basically the same thing, just with a few added steps and some flashy colors.”

“Yeah, I could see that.”

“What about you, Kirishima? How’d you get to be so good?”

“Practice. There was an arcade not too far from my house, so I often went there after school.”

“That would explain your grades.”

“Hey! I did fine in middle school! Okay, I wasn’t going to be valedictorian, but I wasn’t bottom of the barrel either! Heck, I’m still not! I’m not even in the bottom five of the class!”

“I’ll be impressed when you crack the top ten.”

“Mean. By the way, have you taken dance classes before?”

“Eh? What makes you say that?”

“The way you’re moving. You move like someone who actually knows how to dance.” Kirishima laughed, “You should see Iida when he plays this game. His upper body doesn’t move at all. He looks like he’s doing some kind of Irish jig or something.”

“So what if I have?”

“What kind was it? Hip hop? Jazz?”

Bakugou’s face turned pink as he muttered, “Ballet. Make one joke, and I burn you to a crisp right here.”

Kirishima just smiled, “That’s kinda cool actually. Do you do much dancing?”

Bakugou scowled, “What? No. I just took the class to work on my balance and my footwork. It was to make me nimbler and to improve myself as a hero.”

Kirishima chuckled, “Oh yeah. I’ve heard of some professional athletes who have taken dance lessons for basically the same reason. So, I guess I shouldn’t be looking forward to watching you in any recitals?”

Bakugou shook his head, “Nah. I was never that good. It was just some beginner classes. Like I said, it was more about focusing on my balance and my footwork. Though learning how to do pirouettes ended up being useful. I don’t get so dizzy when I use my Howitzer Impact.”

Kirishima arched an eyebrow, “Do you think I’d benefit from learning ballet?”

“Mmm, no I don’t think so. My fighting style incorporates a lot of acrobatics and relies heavily on mobility and agility. You’re kind of the exact opposite. You’re more focused on standing your ground and being an unmoving wall. Sure, agility might matter a bit, like just working on running faster so you can cover more ground, but I doubt having better balance or working on fancy footwork is going to make that big of a difference in your fighting style. If anything, you should focus on bulking up, putting on some weight, and maybe try taking some classes in wrestling, sumo, or martial arts. Those will probably be more useful to you.”

The song came to an end as their scores were finalized. Kirishima sighed, “I guess education does trump practice.”

Bakugou’s eyes scanned the arcade, “Still no sign of those idiots.”

Kirishima shrugged, “Mina mentioned the Widow Maker, earlier. Maybe they’re waiting in line to ride it?”

Bakugou groaned, “Can’t we just send out a search party?”

Kirishima sighed, “We are the search party.”

Bakugou’s teeth chattered as he shivered in the cold. They were almost to the front of the line, and still no sign of those damn idiots. “They’re not here, Kirishima. Let’s just go.”

Kirishima shook his head, “No way! We’ve been waiting in line for like forty minutes. I don’t want to make that wait meaningless. Besides, Mina made it sound like so much fun!” A warm smile spread across Kirishima’s face and Bakugou surrendered himself to his fate.

The metal bar latched into place and the cars began to clack as they rolled forward on the track. Kirishima’s heart leapt into his throat as the cars began their ascension toward Dead Man’s Drop. In the seat beside him, he could feel Bakugou tense up in anticipation of the coming ride. They slowed to a crawl as they reached the apex of the crest, and then, his heart was flung into his stomach as the ride plummeted them back toward the ground. Bakugou spat swears like a machine gun, “Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Holy fucking shit! Shit! Fuck!” By the time the ride came to a stop, he was clinging to Kirishima’s arm. The instant the metal bar released, Bakugou bolted out of his seat toward the exit. The first thing Kirishima did was throw up.

Kirishima moaned as he emptied the contents of his stomach into the trash can. Bakugou stood near-by waiting for him to finish. Kirishima lifted his head, “I thought I could handle myself. Guess I was wrong. Aw shit, I just barfed up the lunch you bought me. Sorry about that.”

Bakugou averted his eyes, “No big deal. The box wasn’t that expensive.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were afraid of roller coasters?”

Kirishima expected Bakugou to growl and yell and get defensive, but his response was rather quiet, “I didn’t want you to think less of me.”

Kirishima looked up from the trash can, “That’d be super unmanly, bro. We all get scared, Bakugou. I can still remember when I was about nine or ten years old, and my mom took the whole family camping. A wild bear wandered into our campsite, and she frightened it away. Not fifteen minutes later, she screamed because a cricket landed on her knee. Just cuz my mom is afraid of bugs doesn’t change the fact that she scared off a wild bear.” This beautiful sentiment was immediately followed by more vomiting and a weak Kirishima whining, “Now I’m hungry again.”

A small smile crossed Bakugou’s face, “C’mon, Kiri. I’ll buy you something sweet and some seltzer for your stomach.”

Kirishima groaned, “My hero.”

Bakugou paid the vender before handing Kirishima the dango, and a can of soda. “Thanks. We haven’t searched this carnival section, Bakugou. Maybe they’re somewhere around here.”

“We should split up,” Bakugou said, “We’ll cover more ground. Plus, both of our phones have more than half their battery life left, so we won’t get lost like those idiots. We’ll meet back up in thirty minutes over there by that shitty ring toss game.”

Kirishima’s search was fruitless. He walked among the stalls and booths of games, but there was no sign of the others. Me munched absentmindedly on his treat and washed down the taste of bile in his throat. After twenty minutes, he gave up and started back toward the ring toss game. When he arrived, Bakugou was already there waiting for him.

“Here,” Bakugou tossed Kirishima an ash blonde teddy bear, “I got tired of looking so I decided to play one of the shitty games. I don’t really want it, so you take it.”

Kirishima smiled, then he gasped. “Hey, look! The Ferris wheel! That’s gotta have a great view of the park! If we can’t find them from up there, well, we’re just not going to be able to find them.”

Bakugou sighed, “Honestly, I already stopped giving a shit about finding those fucking idiots. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re not even in the park anymore, and frankly, I’m about ready to follow their example and bail.”

“Well how ‘bout this: Let’s try the Ferris wheel, and if we still can’t find them, we’ll call off the search and go home.”

Bakgou scratched the back of his neck, “Alright. Guess I can’t object to that. But whenever we do see them again, I’ll wring their necks for making me waste two hours looking for them.”

The sky was swathed in the soft orange light of dusk as the car lifted Kirishima and Bakugou up into the air. Kirishima scanned the walkways below, the little toy bear’s head peeking out from his jacket collar. He sighed in defeat, “Yeah, I still don’t see them. Sorry for wasting your time.”

Bakugou shook his head, “Nah. Not your fault. It was a good instinct trying to look for the high vantage point. The only ones who wasted my time today was those loser friends of yours.”

Kirishima leaned on the guard rail, “I dunno. I don’t feel like my time was wasted.”

“Mm?”

“At least I didn’t have to look for them by myself. Thanks for the company today, Bakugou.”

“Oh, well… Yeah.” A cold wind blew through, as Bakugou’s cheeks and ears turned pink from the chill, and he began to shiver.

Kirishima scooted a little closer to him, “You okay? Hope you don’t catch a cold because of me.”

“Hmm? Oh, no it’s…. I’ll be fine. Just… I’m really tired.”

Kirishima nodded, “It’s been a long day.” He looked out over the cityscape as the light slowly changed from orange to red and gold. “The sky sure is pretty this time of day.”

Bakugou turned to look at him. “Yeah, it is.”

This was a long one in the making, but I’m really happy how it turned out. I’m also going to start doing half chapters starting with Part III ½ focusing on what was happening with other characters during the events of this chapter. If you missed the first two parts, they’re right here! [Part I] [Part 2]

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five-hour-anxiety · 6 years ago

Text

Valentines Day (and the Events Leading Up to It)

Summary: “Roman, why are you asking me for advice?” “I don’t know! Because normally I would go to Logan, but I clearly cannot for this!” (Or: five times Roman tried to ask Logan out, and the one time he really didn’t.)

Pairing: Logince

Taglist: @zerogettie @spacevirgil @tree4life25@thebiggestnaturaldisaster@pailettehazel@jordandobbertin@thecityofthefireflies @the-fabulous-kimball@azuranightsong @virmillion@erlenmeyertrash @irish-newzealand-idian-dutch @the-sanders-sides@punch-you-with-friendship@moonshadowsiren @clovenpinetree@jughead-is-canonically-aroace@aplaceinthevoid @that-random-fandom-girl@zennyo @unring-this-bell @liz-a-bell @vir-gull

Author’s notes: hey what’s up, it’s another collab fic done with @liz-a-bell. Go yell at them too. Also, Deceit is in this one, and falls entirely in the sympathetic category. He just wants to be left alone, Roman, leave him alone.

Can be read on ao3 here!

Virgil:

“Roman, why are you asking me for advice?”

“I don’t know! Because normally I would go to Logan, but I clearly cannot for this!” Roman flopped onto Virgil’s bed as he spoke, whining.

“Okay fine. Let’s see, you could just ask him.” Virgil drawled, holding out ‘could’ for a good four seconds.

“No!” Roman whined, stamping his foot, “It has to be special! This is me you’re talking to!”

“Okay, okay. What about, like, a sampling box of Crofters? You know, instead of a chocolate sampler?”

“Perfect! He’ll love it!”

Attempt One:

Roman thought he was being sneaky. He really did -- but there’s only so much he could do to keep this idea secret. Logan was picky about his jelly, even more so about Crofters. The side liked them all well enough, sure, but he had favorites and therefore only those flavors would be good enough for the box.

Only the best for Logan, after all.

So by the time he had all the flavors chosen, he was sure Logan knew what was going on. As much as he was loath to admit it, Roman was anything but subtle when he had breezed into the logical sides room and asked for the top ten flavors of Crofters.

So it came as a complete surprise when the idea crashed and burned faster than his pile of notebooks from middle school.

“Ah, how thoughtful Roman -- a box of Crofters in honor of our fan club anniversary!”

Roman thought, for just one moment, the air had been punched out of him. He squinted his eyes and tilted his head, hands holding the Crofters sampler lowering down to his waist.

“What?”

“Why this is wonderful Roman! Would you like to join me for a tasting? I could even make some tea to go with it.”

“No, that’s okay. You have fun with it.”

Patton:

“Padre! You’re the heart and I need advice over matters of the heart!” Roman sighed, collapsing into the small couch Patton kept in his room for sleepovers.

“Roman, hey! What can I help you with?” Patton, Roman guessed, must have been taking a nap. He fumbled around for his glasses as he spoke, and his cardigan was wrinkled and creased in odd places. “What kind of heart matters?”

“How do ask I out a… shall we say endearingly dense man?” Roman asked, hands twitching as he resisted the urge to fix Patton’s appearance.

“Hmmm, oh! How about a card? They make cards for everything!”

“Yes, that could work! If I can make the right card it could make everything so much easier!” Roman sprang up, charging towards the door with a new sense of purpose.

“Perfect! So glad I could help kiddo!” Patton laughed, waving as Roman threw the door open and left after dipping down into a bow.

“Well, I’ll see you later Padre, I have a card to make!” He called over his shoulder, already halfway down the hall.

Attempt 2:

“Ah, Logan! Wait just a moment, I have something for you!” Roman huffed, coming to a stop behind the logical side.

“Did you just-”

“Run across the mindscape to find you? Absolutely, this simply could not wait.”

Logan raised an eyebrow as Roman reached into his jacket, pulling out a handmade card. He presented it with a flourish, all but throwing it into Logan’s hands.

“A...card?” Logan asked, holding it between two fingers as glitter fell off it in waves. “Thank you…?”

“Open it, please! I worked so hard on it!”

After shaking the card slightly to get rid of the extra glitter, Logan opened it up and read it.

“Thank you very much, Roman, I appreciate the gift. I’m sure you are aware, given its nature, today is National Give a Card to a Friend day,” Roman’s jaw dropped as Logan spoke, “I regret to inform you that I have failed to procure a card to give you in return, but if you allow me a few hours I’m sure I could come up with a card almost as… lovely… as the one you’ve made?”

“No, that's okay. I appreciate it, but I just wanted to give you something nice, there's no need to reciprocate,” Roman grumbled, turning away. “Have a good day.”

Deceit:

“So you’ve tried twice already and it hasn’t worked?” Deceit sighed, trying and failing to walk away from the creative side.

“Yes, clearly,” Roman huffed, throwing his hands up.

“Well, you could just tell him how you feel.”

“Yes, you’re right, that would never work,” Roman sighed, bangs flying up and off his forehead with the movement. “You’re no help!”

Deceit watched as Roman did an about face and stomped off down the hall, slightly annoyed that Roman misunderstood. Not enough to chase him down and explain, though.

Attempt 3:

Deceit stared down at the trash can, a sigh tearing its way out of his chest. There, clear as day, were two bouquets -- one of red roses and the other a mish-mash of flowers that, if he could be bothered to do some research, probably meant something.

He didn’t care enough though, so he let it be.

Thomas:

“Wait, so let me get this straight-”

“You can’t and you know it, Thomas,” Roman interrupting, hands flying up to form handguns with an eh, eh?

“Whatever, let me get this right. You, an aspect of my personality, want to ask out Logan, another aspect of my personality.”

“Think of it as self-love, Thomas.”

“...Yeah, okay,” Thomas sighed, “So, you want my advice?”

“Yes! Please! I’ve already asked all the others and none of their ideas worked!” Roman groaned, shoulders slumping as a hand came to rest on his forehead.

“Well, I always like trivia. It lets you show off your knowledge of a subject, something Logan would definitely appreciate, while also letting you learn more about your date.”

“Yes! Of course, you brilliant man! Oh, you’re just too clever sometimes!” Roman cried, halfway sunk out of the room already. “But it’s no surprise, Logan is your logic!”

With that the prince was gone, leaving a confused Thomas behind.

“Good luck?”

Attempt 4:

“Okay, so the other two wanted to have a trivia night -- will you be my partner?” Roman batted his eyelashes as he asked, having cornered Logan against the kitchen counter. Logan looked around and cleared his throat, a slight blush spreading over his cheeks.

“Of course, it- it only makes sense you want the smartest side to be your boy- partner,” Logan stammered, slipping out of Roman’s range as he spoke.

“You think I want you as my partner because you’re smart?”

“Well, yes, that would be a logical conclusion.”

“No, I want you to be my partner because you’re my friend!” Roman cried, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

“Oh. Well, in that case, I suppose I can do so,” Logan conceded, raising a hand to his chin. “Do you know of the categories, yet? May I propose Valentine’s Day as one, seeing as the holiday is so close?”

“No, we can’t do that one -- you know Patton will win that one in a landslide,” Roman laughed.

“Oh, I see,” It may have been Roman’s imagination, but he could have sworn Logan frowned for a moment. Oh, well -- at least he got to spend time with the logical side tonight.

Joan and Talyn:

This was going to be a bit hard to explain, but Roman was out of people to ask for help. So, much to Thomas’s surprise, he popped up while Joan and Talyn were over. Thomas was the first to notice him, of course, and upon doing so was quite animated as he frantically gestured for Roman to sink out. That, however, caught Joan’s attention and they quickly turned around, freezing at the sight of Roman standing in the corner before slowly turning back to Thomas.

“....Thomas, what am I seeing?”

“Uhh, Joan, meet Roman? Roman, Joan,” Thomas sighed as he moved to stabilize Talyn, who had been looking a bit light headed.

After explaining the existence of the sides -- which took the better part of an hour -- Roman finally got to explain why he had chosen to pop up now of all days.

“You want to ask out Logan, who is another part of Thomas’s personality, and you need our help?” Joan asked, rubbing at their temples. “Thomas, aren’t you like, oh I don’t know… a little concerned here?”

“It’s like self love, Joan, just taken to a new level. I take it the trivia didn’t go well, Roman?” Thomas asked.

“You’ve already had this conversation? You know what, no, nevermind. Roman,” Joan turned back to the prince, “Have you tried a movie night? With just Logan?”

Roman was quiet for a moment, brow furrowed in thought.

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. Thank you, you magnificent human!” Roman cried, beginning to sink down, before popping back up once more. “Thanks for these marvelous new outfits, by the way. May I suggest a bit more gold for the next one?”

He was gone before anyone could respond.

Attempt 5:

“Logan!” Roman cried as he flounced into the logical sides room. “I would like to propose a movie night! We could watch a documentary, I do believe there’s a new one on the formation of black holes out on Netflix.”

“That does sound fun, but might I suggest we watch something you would enjoy as well? I don’t want you to fall asleep in the middle of the movie after all,” This statement was accompanied by a fond smile, but Roman seemed to miss it. He focused instead on what he felt to be a rejection.

“No, no, that’s quite alright Pocket Protector. I’ve, uh, I’ve just remembered I’ve got some work to do before the next video,” Roman sighed and turned to leave. Logan watched him go, a frown quickly replacing the smile he reserved only for Roman.

As he sunk out to retire to his own room, he failed to see the tv on with the documentary already queued and ready to go.

Roman (+1 Success):

Roman hadn’t slept well that night. After leaving Logan in his room, he had stomped into his own, proceeded to take a page out of Virgil’s book and put on a playlist consisting of pg-13 music. By the time he had grown tired of the music, it was three in the morning.

Not to mention Patton waking them up all up at six am so that the fam-ILY could start of Valentine’s day with plates full of heart shaped pancakes, resulting in a mere three hours of fitful sleep.

It was noon by the time Logan was alone and by then Roman had had it up to here with romantic gestures. He was on his fifth cup of coffee and still in his pajamas when Logan asked him to come into the kitchen.

“Roman, thank you for joining me. I was hoping to get your opinion on a few things.” Logan said, smiling at him as he gestured for Roman to sit with him.

“Sure, Specs, what can I do for you?”

“Well, I have this dilemma. There’s this person I like and I have been attempting to ask them to join me on various outings all week, but have been continually misunderstood,” Logan sighed, leaning back against the counter, “As the creative aspect, I had hoped you would offer some insight so as to make him understand my intentions?”

Roman, in a fit of sleep deprivation, snorted. The snort turned into a full-blown laugh and soon he was doubled over at the knees fighting to catch his breath.

“Are- are you kidding me?” He asked, still short on breath, “Go ask someone else, I am nothing but a failure in that department!” He turned to leave but stopped short when Logan grabbed his elbow.

“You… are trying to win over someone?” He whispered a look on his face that Roman couldn’t quite name. “How- Could you walk me through what you have attempted? Maybe that could help me… or, well, nevermind.”

“No, hey, Specs -- I’m sorry. It’s just,” Roman rubbed at the back of his head as he spoke, a shy smile on his face, “I was trying to ask if… well if you would go out with me, all week. But I realize now that your lack of interest must have been due to your own infatuation with another.”

“You...you think I like someone else? And turned you down because of it? Roman, that couldn’t be any further from the truth! I have been attempting to ask you out all week as well! We must have both become so caught up in our own attempts that we missed the others.”

To say Roman was shocked would be an understatement. He stared at Logan a good thirty seconds before he could say anything.

“You...were?”

“Yes! I asked you join me for tea when you gave me that Crofters sampler, I wanted to make you a card in thanks for the one you made me, I suggested Valentine’s Day as a trivia category, and I even wanted to watch a movie you would enjoy.”

“Oh. I guess I was just being rather dense then,” Roman blinked, his brain still trying to process the new information. “So, hypothetically if I had shown up at your door earlier this week with a dozen roses and flat out told you how I felt… it would have been reciprocated?”

“Why, yes -- I had also obtained a bouquet for you, but threw it away when I decided it would not be a grand enough gesture for you.”

“Deceit will never let me live this down,” Roman groaned, but quickly perked up and grasped Logan’s hands. “So! Logan, my dear -- will you do me the honor of being my Valentine?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Logan laughed. Roman whooped and picked Logan up into a twirl. “No really, I thought you’d never ask. What a wonderful, unforeseen event!”

“I tend to bring about a lot of those, yes.”

#sanders sides #roman sanders #logan sanders #sanders sides fic #thomas sanders #deceit #sympathetic deceit #virgil sanders #patton sanders #joan and talyn #ali writes

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