#the more I ruminate on this character the angrier I get | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ka-writes · 4 years ago

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Notes: I had already started on the second chapter before I posted the first one, so don’t expect updates every day... I also had to do a lot of googling for this chapter.

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Chapter 1 in case you missed it:

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Inspired by:

Humans are Space Velociraptors

By:FreshRoses_InMyGarden_NeedTheRain

Some kids come from storks, others come from crashed spaceships

By: mmmajora

Home Again, Home Again

By: teeth_eater

All works can be found on Ao3

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Warnings: Cussing, needles, character conflicts, intentional poisoning, poisoning, Jaws reference

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“Humans are [and text here]”

Chapter 2: What is this, an interview?

Tommy was now restrained to a chair six feet away from the weird scientist alien. He had a dark brown lab coat with a fuzzy yellow sweater underneath, matched with black pants and black leather boots. His gold rimmed Harry Potter glasses slipped down his nose bridge a bit before he pushed it up and shuffled through papers. He wore a red beanie with a big whiff of his curly chocolate hair. His skin was a weird translucent grayish color with blue speckles decorating it. He had deep brown eyes with an odd electric blue circle outlining the pupil.

His tongue licked his finger as he turned the page. This was a habit that most of the weird teachers and counselors did. It always annoyed Tommy. This time fear was also mixed into that annoyance. His saliva was tinted blue and he had sharp teeth which immediately reminded him of a shark.

“You have shark teeth.” Tommy stated absentmindedly. Clearly, this caught the scientist alien off guard.

“I have what?” The alien asked, confused.

“Shark teeth.. ya know like the weird fish creatures that eat people.” Tommy started rambling causing the shark-alien to become even more confused and slightly alarmed. “I mean I think they eat people. That’s what the shark movie showed… what was its name, Jaws I think? I dunno, my foster mom freaked out in the middle of it and we went home. That lady was weird.. She made us wear itchy clothes and take weird photos before she sent me back to the group home.”

“What?..” The shark-alien asked. Tommy jumped a bit. He forgot he was rambling to a stranger. Alien stranger at that.

“Doesn’t matter.. What's the first question bitch-boy?” Tommy liked the way the alien jumped at the randomly timed insults.

“Er- right.. First off, what’s your name?” The shark-alien asked after collecting himself.

“Tommy Innit. Yours bitch-boy?” Tommy replied.

“Wilbur Soot. Stop calling me bitch-boy!” Wilbur huffed.

“Next question, bitch-boy!” Tommy emphasized the name, getting an even angrier expression in return. Wilbur’s weird blue circle flashed red for a second which caught Tommy off guard.

Wilbur took a shaky breath before asking the next question. “How old are you?”

“Old enough! I am a big man!” Tommy stated. Yet another thing that pissed him off.

“Age?” Wilbur asked, clearly irritated.

“18.” Wilbur raised a brow, “14.” Tommy huffed. His age should only be his business not some alien-bitch who didn’t even have his file.

“If you keep lying, I may have to get the truth serum from the back.” Wilbur half-heartedly threatened. Tommy, the big man that he is, did not get scared at that statement, only slightly unsettled which clearly showed on his face.

“Now, do you have a family?” Tommy tensed at the question. It was a touchy question and was not one that was asked often especially with his reputation.

“I am a big man. I don’t need a family to be great.” Tommy stated, happy with the answer. The alien-bitch shifted awkwardly.

“Right… What is your diet?”

“Umm.. I dunno, whatever I can find. I am allergic to nuts though..” Wilbur nodded in understanding and wrote things down in his notepad.

“What plants are poisonous to you?” Wilbur asked without looking up from his notes.

“Ermm, poison Ivy, poison oak… uh I think parts of rhubarb, and most wild berries. I am not sure other than that.” Wilbur nodded while adding bits to his notes.

“What was the place you lived like?” This time Wilbur glanced up to look at Tommy. This was again another touchy subject… How many times would this alien bitch get into the sad background?

“Shitty.” Tommy snapped. That was the only response the bitch was gonna get.

“Right.. Do you have music on Earth?”

Tommy scoffed, “Of course we have music, dumbass!”

“Can you tell me about the animals there?” Wilbur asked, almost hopeful.. which was weird. What was he hoping for?

“Erm I guess..” Tommy mumbled, trying to figure out where to start, “There’s a bunch of animals. Mainly on land. My favorite would be the cow.”

“What’s that?” Curiosity stained Wilbur’s face. This got Tommy excited; he was practically beaming as he started talking.

“Well they are these big ruminants that make milk and have horns. There are a bunch of types too like the highland cow, which obviously is the most poggers one. They are a Scottish breed with really long hair. I met one once, on a field trip his name was Henry.” Tommy rambled on for the next two and a half hours, jumping from topic to topic and explaining anything that wasn’t personal. He usually ended those paths with short insults.

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Wilbur hated to stop the kids' detailed story, but two and a half celestial hours had already passed, and Dream would be coming to check soon. Luckily, he had a couple new poisons that could pass off as a research development. He had even managed to send the distressed signal and no doubt Phil would already be there with the SBI craft ready to fly at any given moment.

“Alright Tommy.” His voice dropped to a serious tone causing the kid to stop his story of how he got poisoned by mushrooms on a camping trip. “You’re gonna have to trust me just for a bit. I am going to get you off the ship at the next stop but in the meantime I need you to tell me how allergic you’re to nuts.” The kid immediately tensed at the question.

“I am mainly allergic to tree nuts.. almonds being the worst. After a few minutes I can’t breathe properly and I usually pass out. The doctor said if I don’t get it treated within 15 minutes, death is most likely.” He took a moment to go through the information. The kid most likely has an anaphylaxis reaction to tree nuts. Meaning either he would have to know the exact time of landing and exactly where Phil was or he needed another poison that was less severe.

“Alright, here is what we’re gonna do. I have a chemical mixture that is similar to that of rattlesnake venom. I also have a chemical substance that numbs any pain you may feel. Side effects would include being very very tired and delirious over the next few days. Along with being knocked out for a good ten hours. To put it simply I am gonna fake poison you, in order to get you off the ship. It’s your choice if you’re willing to do it.” Wilbur paused to study the kid still restrained in front of him. It was odd how relaxed the kid seemed to be in a situation like this. He had no urge as far as Wilbur was aware, to fight against anything that happened. His complaints only being those that touched on personal matters. It was unsettling to say the least, and intrigued Wilbur. He really wanted to unravel the life the kid had lived before this and how he was actually dealing with the situation.

There was a long pause before the kid spoke, “I wouldn’t mind getting away from the weird smiley bitch.. plus you seem nice and to know what you’re doing so sure. Poison me bitch.” He said the last sentence with an enthusiasm Wilbur wasn’t expecting. He took a moment to rethink his plan, which was interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Dream says you better have advanced in your stupid testing. Otherwise he’s gonna kick you off the ship at the next stop.” Stated the rather rude blazeling, Sapnap. The blazeling never liked Wilbur and made a point to argue against any advancements at meals. That led to Dream installing a new system of emails and Wilbur eating meals alone.

“Yea yea, it’s going!” He yelled through the metal door.

“Better be.” The blazeling snapped before making a non quiet track back to his quarters.

“Stupid blazeling.” Wilbur grumbled as he sorted through vials and picked up new needles and measured out the substances. “We are going to start with the anesthetic then move onto the poison.” He softly addressed Tommy.

Wilbur swiftly disinfected Tommy’s shoulder and gave the needle. He then gave the second needle. Immediately Tommy slumped over. Wilbur swiftly took off Tommy’s restraints and moved him on to the patient bed in the back corner of the room. After the transfer was done he clipped the body restraints around Tommy and waited for the alert signaling landing.

After about five minutes the light next to the door turned blue. He moved over to his seat and clipped on the safety belts. The light turned green and the ship shook momentarily before a thud could be felt. Quickly as Wilbur could, he emptied the needles into the waste bin and waited for his soon-to-be-ex-boss to arrive.

Dream stepped through the door and glanced around the room before heading to Wilbur for his report.

“Report.” The dreamon commanded.

“The subject's body would have gone through a painfully slow death and have multiple organ failures if I did not intervene. The chemical mixes used created a conflict in the patient’s body which resulted in the patient falling into exhaustion as they recovered.” He responded in a monotone tone. Dream looked over Tommy. He flinched back in disgust as Tommy grunted in his sleep.

“Is that all?” The dreamon questioned.

“No.” Wilbur swallowed down his panic, “This is the last testing I will be doing with this crew.” The dreamon scoffed.

“I am assuming you’re getting off at this planet?” Dream spit. Wilbur knew he absolutely hated when people left his crew as he saw it as a direct violation of his loyalty.

“Yes.” The phantom stated, keeping his even tone apparent. With that Dream stormed out cursing in Siestian. Somewhere in the mess of words he told Wilbur to get his things.

Without hesitation he grabbed his bag from his quarters, which was held in a small room that branches off the lab. He half sprinted down the short hallway and straight to the bed Tommy was on. He swiftly unrestrained the human and sat him up. He slipped on boots and gloves then tied a cloak around the kid. He pulled the hood up and carried him off of the closest exit. There were faint yells from Dream down the hallway and reassurances from the only two beings that put up with him. And with that Wilbur was off to find the only craft he had ever called home. The SBI ship.

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Chapter 2- End

Words~ 1774

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End Notes: ‘‘twas to lazy to reread... sorry for minor mistakes. Also suggestions are always appreciated!! Please reblog...

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Chapter 3:

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Wilbur:

#my writing #my fanfic tag #wilbur soot #sapnap #dream mcyt #tommy mcyt #dream smp fanfiction #space au

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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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ladyzayinwonderland · 4 years ago

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Hiya Zay! So I noticed you posted about a Hadestown crossover and I wanted to ask you what you love about the musical! Favorite song? Favorite quality? What about the story/songs/costumes/characters/choreography/atmosphere/etc evokes Feelings? What is/are the primary mood(s) it inspires in you? Favorite headcanon or tender moment? Favorite line/lyric? (FYI I know you're not on here regularly and I RESPECT that, so if you want to answer, feel utterly free to take your time)... ❤️ Poly

Okay this has been a long time coming (I just didn’t realize how long it would take) but I finally have an answer! Thank you for your patience, dear Poly, and thank you for the super ask! I’m always willing to gush about Hadestown and it was so fun to have the opportunity ^_^

It is, however, a very long answer... it kinda got away from me in the process, hehe.

Favorite song: I feel like it might be cliché to say Wait for Me, but… all the versions of the song are gorgeous in different ways. If I had to be more original, then I would have to say We Raise Our Cups. I tear up every time I listen to it.

Favorite Quality: In the words of Hermes, “it’s a love song.” Orpheus loves Eurydice enough to go to hell to get her. Eurydice loves Orpheus enough to follow him out, though the way is hard. Hades loves Persephone, though he doesn’t know how to show it and is afraid to lose her. Persephone loves Hades enough to keep coming back to him to “try again”. I know that some of those loves are flawed, but they’re human. The beacon of that love and what it represents is important.

Story: I adore the inevitability of Hadestown. We know from the very beginning how this is going to end and yet we still hope that maybe it might just be different this time. We can’t help but hope. I think it speaks to the quality of the musical that it can still pull you in every time. Very cathartic.

Songs: My favorite thing about the songs is having been able to witness their growth and maturity from album to album! Themes, lyrics, and melodies have so many subtle changes that only seem to ring more true with time. It’s also so cool to see how it needed 10+ years to ruminate into the musical we have now. (But this might also be subjective to me because I found out about Hadestown when there was only a concept album, then kept up with each new development until my husband and I were able to see it on Broadway just after its premier.) And I’m very excited to see how the national tour turns out!!

Costumes: I love the tattered/steampunk/industrial look of the OBC show. But I also love what I’ve seen of the off-broadway show, the whimsical costumes of Nabiyah’s Eurydice and early Persephone’s dresses and boldness of Damon’s red jacket (bring! it! back!). The costumes definitely change the vibes of the show though, which is just fascinating to me. Mostly in Eurydice’s character, so…….

Characters: Eurydice. Has. Character. She is three-dimensional, rounded out, and can stand on her own. (this was always something I wished had been different with the myth) It’s interesting to note how her character is portrayed slightly differently depending on the show though? I can’t speak so much to Nabiyah’s portrayal because I didn’t see it, but the music makes me think that she’s harsher and angrier than Eva’s softer and more hopeful version. Orpheus too experiences subtle shifts between Damon and Reeve, specifically bolder to more naïve, which… I don’t hate, but I miss Damon’s Oprheus. I also love that all the main players experience change/growth! They all have agency!

Choreography: I love the transition between carefree in the world above to stark and sharp down below. Tbh Livin’ It Up On Top is not my ~fav~ choreography-wise, however, I recognize it’s a chance for the cast to let loose and have a good time, and it’s important to show just how different things are between the two settings. But the moment we are down below? Stellar. Sharp, synchronized movements that immediately remind you of the cogs of a machine. And I do love how the movements become more human by the time we get to If It’s True and Wait for Me II.

Bonus—the lamp choreo in Wait for Me. I sobbed when I saw them swinging and being used to light an otherwise dark space, leading Orpheus deeper underground.

Atmosphere: slight steampunk vibes my beloved. The off-broadway and Canadian productions’ Tree is something I wish had stayed for the OBC production. In addition to being gorgeous, it adds an element of nature to juxtapose to Hades’ cold, harshly lit, industrial underground. The OBC loses that little bit of earth by taking place in a train station bar. That said, I do enjoy the bar setting in parallel to Persephone’s dismal speakeasy down below. The presence of the band on stage, motley but involved in the story beyond just the music.

Inspired moods: I like angst, for better or for worse. I’ve always been drawn to Orpheus and Eurydice because of how tragic it is. I think it’s very Romantic™. Therefore, any incarnation or representation of the story is automatically my jam. I like that, regardless of how many times I have listened to the album, I still hold on to the hope that it might turn out differently. Just once. That hope is something so precious, something that still deserves to be passed on even if it’s been dashed to pieces. It’s never in vain, you can always try again.

(And, this probably isn’t as relevant, but I think there’s something to be said from a Christian perspective on the show as well. Orpheus is just a man and prone to doubt, as the show illustrates. He fails. We all fail. But there is hope found in One who literally can’t fail in bringing the lost back to Him, and that is an encouraging thought.)

Headcanon: I hold to this one interpretation of the tale that Orpheus looking back was a sign of love (though I don’t discount it being an act of doubt or weakness). I like to think that he was just wanted to see her again, wanted to make sure she made it too, but he was just a fraction of a moment too soon. It almost makes her “death” more tragic.

Tender Moment: my favorite tender moments from the show are 1) when Orpheus runs to the stage through the audience to reach Eurydice again in the second act. Mostly because I didn’t expect it. I was focused on her when a white and red blur with a guitar ran down the aisle to peek his head above the edge of the stage with a joyful “come home with me?” My Heart. 2) when Orpheus finishes Epic III and Hermes says “and you know what they did? They danced.” There is a twenty second bit of acoustic guitar and violin while Hades and Persephone dance for the first time together in ages. It wasn’t a grand or sweeping moment—it was just an old man stumbling through a rusty dance with his wife, and it felt genuine.

Favorite Line/Lyric: starting off strong with the first words of the show. There’s no introduction to Hadestown, no warning it’s about to start. Just Hermes sauntering onstage, looking you straight in the eye, and saying “Alright?” Then the band starts playing and the show begins. Incredible. Unprecedented. But also I weep for all of the Epics. Such solid poetry. So soft.

So anyway, those are my thoughts! They may be a little repetitive, but hopefully I conveyed myself decently enough. Thank you again, lovely!! <3

#I felt like I was writing an essay for the first time in years in the best way possible #my original notes were twice as long #written in the downtime between phone calls and emails at my job #so that's why it's so late in coming... but now it's here!!#Poly #zay answers things #Hadestown

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stranger-who-writes-fiction · 4 years ago

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Alright HERE WE GO...SOME PRESS!

By which I mean, Tom King was on ComicPop discussing Supergirl! So we have CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND INFO! WOO!

Gonna get into it below, but my recommendation, as always: the best way to have an informed opinion is to get the info firsthand, so don’t just take my word for it! Go forth! Watch the thing! (Language advisory, though. There is some swearing.)

Okay. With that out of the way, LET’S GO!

Gonna lead off with a summary of the Supergirl bits, as they discuss a variety of things, from Strange Adventures to Batman/Catwoman to the canned New Gods project:

How Tom King came to be the writer of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow:

King’s longtime editor, Jaime Rich, was moved from the Bat books to the Super books.

King, historically, likes to take on characters that ‘need help.’ He cites the example of Kirby who, upon coming to DC, asked what their lowest-selling title was, which is how he ended up on Jimmy Olsen.

So, when King asks which character needs help, Rich, to King: Supergirl. We have trouble selling that book.

King, describing Supergirl: ‘She’s singular in a way Mr. Miracle and Vision are not.’ Says that if you ask any four year old who Supergirl is, they know.

Editors asked him, ‘what’s your take? what are you gonna do with her?’

King then discusses the difference between his approach to Bat people vs. Super people.

Bat people: It’s a deconstruction approach. King brings up Kite Man from his Batman run. You tear the character down and build them back up, a la Dark Knight Returns

Super people: It’s not about deconstruction. Let them be themselves. They’re wonderful, let them be wonderful.

But he does mention sort of stripping down the character to their purest form; he describes it as chiseling off the barnacles that have built up on the character, over the years.

Additionally, he says ‘evil doesn’t work for the Super family of characters.’

He mentions Superman: Up in the Sky. He says that there’s deep stuff in Up in the Sky, but the theme of every page is simply: Superman is awesome.

King: “I don’t want to make Kara mean or sad. I want to test her.”

The host compares ‘angry Kara’ stories to ‘evil Superman’ stories in that there are many of them, such to the point that people think Kara is relatable because she’s miserable and angry all the time.

The host: I don’t get that.

(Same dude, same.)

King talked to Steve Orlando

They discussed the fact that Supergirl knew her planet; the people who died were her friends, family, classmates.

King summarizes Kara’s original Silver Age origin: she witnessed three huge, traumatic losses of life. First, when Krypton exploded. Then again when the Kryptonite started killing Argo residents, and then again when the meteorites destroyed the lead shielding that was keeping Argo safe.

King: “That’s some f-ing trauma! I don’t know if you’ve read my books, but I love the trauma in characters.”

King thus describes Kara as world-weary, she swears, ‘she has seen some sh*t’.

On the new character, Ruthye:

She’s a child on a vengeance quest.

She’s named after King’s niece, Ruthie.

The pronunciation for the comic character, though, is Ruth-Eye.

One of his sons told him to add the ‘e’ on the end to make it look cooler.

Further discussion of Kara herself:

King noted that there’s sometimes a tendency to be very precious with the character.

King: ‘Let’s not be precious with Supergirl.’

This is not the story of a sixteen-year-old girl discovering the world; King says that Supergirl has been that sixteen-year-old for a long time now.

He describes it more as a move from Supergirl to Superwoman.

Art and Influences:

Talking about the red sun planet that Kara visits for her twenty-first birthday, King says he was reading a lot of Conan, which influenced the look of that portion of the story.

The impetus for getting Evely on the book: King said his editor emailed him, ‘Hey, how about Bilquis?’ King: “And I did a happy dance!”

Evely sent King a mood board of the types of things she wanted to draw; Moebius, Kirby, Wally Wood, landscapes in particular.

Also, King says Evely is fast! She’s already halfway through the book, art-wise, and King is confident the book will release on time.

The host asked him, following up on King’s description of the book as a fantasy/western, ‘Is this True Grit?’

King: “It’s True Grit inspired. The novel AND the movie.”

If asked to give the Hollywood pitch: ‘It’s True Grit in space with Supergirl as Rooster Cogburn.’

Details about this book, as compared to Other Tom King titles:

He’s using captions on this comic--he’d thrown out captions as a storytelling device after Batman, but he found a ‘good voice’ for this comic.

King was prepared to do his usual twelve issues, but they said no one buys Supergirl comics, so it’s eight issues.

King says that Strange Adventures, Rorschach, and to a lesser extent, Batman/Catwoman, were written at a time when the world felt very apocalyptic.

He considers them to be angrier books; they are about what happens when evil is in our life, and how we deal with that.

Supergirl is the start of the ‘next generation’ of titles.

It was written during the pandemic, but King hoped that by the time it was released, the pandemic and this very dark time in our history would be past.

He says it’s a ‘roaring 20s’ book. Not about anger, or trauma, it’s about stepping into the future and kicking a**.

THUS CONCLUDES the Supergirl portion of the interview.

Okay, so! Now that we’ve been objective and presented the information in a straightforward, unbiased manner...SOME THOUGHTS AND OPINONS!

The thing I was most curious about was how King got the book, so I was EXTREMELY PLEASED to get the full story.

This wasn’t like. King desperately wanting to do a Supergirl book, nor was it DC coming to King like, ‘Take Supergirl!’

Sadly, it was, ‘which book needs the most help right now? In the Superman lineup?’

He even said that Supergirl was kind of just sitting around, no one was doing anything with her/there were no plans.

(So the idea that King stole this opportunity from a woman is not true. There were NO PLANS.)

(Also it’s not based on the FS stuff, I suspect they gave the FS team some ideas from his pitch to work with, as that entire event was sort of a stop-gap/fill-in as they hurried to relaunch their line.)

Anyways!

My initial thought that this is DC’s attempt to sell some dang Supergirl books? Not that far off! XD

Boy, I hope it works.

(Important to note: This is not news. Supergirl has historically always sold poorly. I’ve heard from actual Supergirl writers that the trades do not sell, which is a huge problem.

So King, who is KNOWN for having really good trade sales, is as solid a gamble as they could probably hope for.

He said Superman: Up in the Sky is his third best-selling trade. A WAL-MART BOOK! Is just behind Vision and Mr. Miracle!

Basically: If this doesn’t work, I don’t know that anything will.)

As for the specifics of King’s take in particular!

Again...I really want to see it, before I pass judgement on it.

I liked the Andreyko run! And that was pretty edgy!

Also, we have never seen a twenty-something Kara, post-Crisis. She’s always been a teenager. Thus I’m pretty willing to go along with this approach because it’s entirely new territory.

And it does seem like King is enjoying leaning into the idea of a Super who swears and kicks butt and is just a little ‘done’ with it all.

It might not mesh with my ideal Kara but again. I need to see it, before I come to any firm conclusions.

Honestly the thing that gives me the most pause? Is that King says this book really focuses on Supergirl, not Kara, which is a more recent identity for her.

(That is somewhat true! The ‘Kara Danvers’ identity is wholly new to the show; she’s always been Linda Lee, Linda Danvers, Kara Kent, or Linda Lang, when she has a secret identity. Sometimes she doesn’t.)

(Also of note: Tom pronounces it ‘Care-a’, like the cartoon.)

(PERSONALLY I like KAHr-a, like in the show, because it creates a phonetic consistency with ‘KAHl-el’ but that’s not really relevant to a comic book. You can mentally pronounce it however you choose! XD)

So, yeah, I like the Kara Danvers part of her identity, I like earth-bound Supergirl stories, but. This isn’t that. Which I’ll need to make peace with, I guess. XD

Otherwise? Tell me a story, Mr. King. Even if I hate it, Evely will draw it beautifully, Lopes will color it masterfully, and that’s half the battle, right there.

I’m sad King didn’t mention the Gates/Igle run! But I also understand he’s probably been looking at more recent stuff; those Gates/Igle comics are fifteen years old, oh man, oh geez, how are they that old already.

King did confirm that this is 100% in-continuity, and will affect the character going into the future.

But, IDK, given the sort of. Grim beginnings of how this book came to be, what with the reminder that the Supergirl title doesn’t sell well...who knows what the future will look like, for Kara!

I stand by my guess that Kara will graduate to ‘Superwoman’ and the Supergirl mantle will pass to someone else, maybe Ruthye? She might be a bit young, though.

Mmm. What else, what else?

Oh, this is pretty funny, IMO: when King first teased the new character, Ruthye, a bunch of SG fans rushed to google to see if there was any clue as to like. What it could mean.

And they freaked out over some obscure connection where that name appears but hey, turns out! It’s just a made up name! Based on King’s niece!

It’s funny because SG fans never learn, man. Just chill out, read the dang book, then get all upset and huff and puff and blow your twitter house down.

They briefly mentioned the Peter David run; King said the PAD stuff was great.

He’s already teased that ‘treat’ and, okay. Time for some rumination on that specifically.

I’ve read the whole PAD run. It wasn’t my cup of tea, I don’t really like the DnD, angels and demons stuff. Also, it wasn’t Kara; it’s an entirely different character who uses the name ‘Supergirl.’

Also, stuff from that run didn’t age well.

And on top of that, PAD turned out to be...kind of a jerk! As so many folks in the comic industry are.

There’s also...an extremely weird, mean-spirited vibe through the whole back half of the run; I thought maybe I was imagining it at the time, but I recently went back to “Many Happy Returns”, the final story arc of the title, and David’s introduction in the trade...it doesn’t read like a guy who was in it for the love of the character, you know?

All of which to say! I’m not excited about connections to the PAD stuff.

But I know a lot of fans who love that run, love that version of the character.

So like. Eh! Not for me, but to the folks who enjoy it, I hope it’s cool/fun, whatever it is.

(Still think it’ll be a variant or an easter egg or something, but we’ll see.)

(Oh, hmmm! Evely *did* post a WIP of like. Some creepy skull gate that they presumably encounter...hmmmmm.)

Okay, this is crazy long, and there’s no fun art or anything to go with it--OR IS THERE?!?!?!

BOOM. From Bilquis Evely’s twitter today. (GO. FOLLOW. HER. FOR THE GOOD ART.)

(LIKE!!! I look at this and I just! Can’t! Bring myself to not be hyped as all heck! LOOK AT THIS! AND iT’S JUST THE PENCILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

God, wish that Supergirl sold better, so we could get a full year of this. HNNNNGGGGGGG.

Oh! That was another thing King discussed in detail; that 8 is way different from his usual 12, in terms of pacing and story. The beats fall at different places (obviously) so it was a bit of a challenge for him.

Actually, now that I’m thinking about it...maybe 8 will be good. Issue 10 just dropped for Strange Adventures, and wow, it has felt LONG. (I mean, the last four? Three? issues are also bi-monthly so that doesn’t help but. Still.)

(Superman: Up in the Sky was twelve issues but half the length, because it was a Wal-Mart book, so it was more like six.)

OKAY! For real, I’ve gone on long enough. XD

SOON. Soon. June 15th, to be exact. Mark yer calendars!

#stranger speaks #supergirl: woman of tomorrow #long post #LONG!#dc comics

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iandeleonwrites · 5 years ago

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“Why did I come to Brooklyn to see this?”

It’s a Saturday night in Greenpoint. The brisk autumn air is moist with traces of the East River only a block or two away. I’m famished. There isn’t anything like a bodega or deli anywhere in sight. This is barely Brooklyn.

Nevertheless, here we were, discerning horror fans of the Greater New York area, all assembled in celebration of the Brooklyn International Horror Film Festival’s inaugural year.

Proudly local, this small festival has made great use of alternative spaces throughout the Brooklyn area for their screenings. Bushwick haunt Catland, an occult book store and performance space, in particular, has served as a hub of sorts for the fest, hosting a variety of spooky events throughout October.

But tonight we’re sitting inside a small theater at Triskelion Arts, a performance venue on what might be called the outskirts of Manhattan––just over the bridge from Bowery and Lower Manhattan.

A maximum of 40 people are in attendance to catch the premiere screening of We Are the Flesh (Tenemos la carne), a 2016 Mexican film that the BIHFF’s programmer describes in his opening remarks as being “like a Jodorowsky film, only angrier and more sexually perverted.” I tremble with anticipation.

The eager audience chuckles at the allusion to the Chilean midnight master––more, perhaps, out of a general sense of name recognition than a real understanding of what cinematic sensibilities such a comparison might yield. From the crowd’s subsequent reaction to the feature, I could almost guarantee these same folks would have booed films like El Topo and Holy Mountain as well.

The scene which really got everyone going tonight came about halfway through We Are the Flesh. It was a moment in which the adult brother and sister duo that make up two thirds of the film’s cast are compelled (with little persuasion, really) into an act of sexual intercourse with each other, their supposed latent desires laid bare and physically manifested.

The film’s other lead, a charismatic and manipulative older man (coming off like some kind of south of the border Charles Manson) berates the young brother for not being able to get a hard-on at the sight of his naked sister and proceeds to force her into fellating him until he does indeed get it up––again, not much force is required for any of these things to take place.

The film works more on the level of an allegorical exploration of sexuality and the unconscious than a realistic portrayal of incest and abuse. The brother and sister are also in their late teens or early twenties, so they’re not kids, and the sex scenes, as a result, are especially graphic.

As the scene progresses, there’s a jarring but delightful surprise in the use of multiple POV to depict the sex act from both of the sibling’s unique perspectives. Looking out from the brother’s eyes, we gaze downwards at his sister’s searching, hopeful eyes as her lips slide up and down his cock, willing her brother to forget their familial relationship.

Soon fully erect, a reverse shot gives us the low-angle POV of his sister, who stares past the brother’s cock, losing herself in a face that alternates between the wide, toothy grin of the lecherous older man and that of her brother. All three characters appear to be in the midst of surrendering to the pure ecstasy of taboos.

By this climactic point, the Greenpoint audience is in an uproar. Some presumed out-of-towner blurts out: “Why did I come to BROOKLYN to see THIS,” and turns the screening into a heckling session. A young couple walks out, never to return and someone takes out their phone, probably snapping a picture of the screen to share with their friends.

Others either laugh, smack their lips dismissively, or crinkle something loudly in their hands, shifting in their seats uncomfortably—anything to create some distracting noise to avoid sinking into the disquieting depths of the movie in front of them. They’ve lost all respect for the filmic experience, found the material too alien, too disturbing. But isn’t that what a horror audience is supposed to thrive on? And what did that guy mean about coming out to Brooklyn…what kind of associations did he carry inside about NYC’s second-largest borough?

We Are the Flesh is a sensuous film that celebrates the complexity of the human experience through visceral imagery that challenges conventional notions of family, impropriety, and the afterlife. But it wasn’t the ruminations on death or the gratuitous shattering of the incest taboo that sent this crowd of supposed horror hounds over the rails.

This was to be a group of people hardened by countless hours of gore and exploitation cinema, veterans of pornography and brutality in all its forms. Indeed, the audience seemed most at ease during scenes when a woman was either crying (performing femininity) or someone was screaming in anguished pain. Such actions are par for the course in the horror genre. Horror they could handle. But this was something else.

Why did we have to come to Brooklyn to see this?

The statement says it all. Considering Brooklyn’s infamous notoriety as a haven for queer, creative, and rebellious youth, it becomes clearer that what was most upsetting to this largely white male (presumably non-Brooklyn) audience tonight was the frank, public portrayal of a brown man’s rather large penis, just a stone’s throw away from the rarified and gentrified air around the Williamsburg Whole Foods and the city’s financial district.

Horror has always been mainstream, box office fare, romanticized in the American collective consciousness as a vehicle with which men may prove their emotional superiority over women in times of fictional distress and channel that supposed weakness into a chemically-charged sexual conquest of power dynamics and gender roles.

Yet these horror jocks were quaking in their boots at the mere sight of a rival penis rendered so gorgeously and prominently on the big screen. Their attitude toward the film, and by extension the festival’s selection committee, was disheartening. I wanted to turn around and reassure them, like Michael Jackson in the Thriller video: “It’s only a movie,” but there was no turning back. No amount of bloodletting or cannibalism would put this crowd back on the path toward enjoying this well-made, deserving movie we’d all paid to see.

I felt embarrassed to be there, though what began as an exaggerated case of locker room insecurities soon broadened to encompass much more, a very real over-arching fear of the animal body and its mechanisms. Without the need for Cronenberg-level depictions of anatomical monstrosity, this jumpy crowd was brought to an almost sophomoric level of vehement discomfort at the suggestion of even the body’s humblest functions.

Intimate views of male and female genitalia continued throughout the film, but it was really the following examples which opened up a whole new world of displeasure for the remaining members of the audience: 1) a shot of the sister squatting and vigorously peeing after sex, and 2) a scene in which the sister crouches over her brother’s mouth and dribbles a few drops of menstrual blood onto his lips while proclaiming the unattainability of real love. All common enough occurrences raised to the level of horrific by this hypersqueamish audience.

Now it was the women’s turn. The three ladies sitting in front of me are simply not having it, I literally hear them say: “I can’t even.” Everyone seems to be whispering to each other, talking over the subtitled dialogue. Not a single person ventured to shush the others. It was like we had all collectively given up on this movie, treating it with the kind of casual familiarity reserved for timeless communal favorites like Rocky Horror Picture Show. This was a shame, because it really was a beautiful film.

Later, when it had ended, the most overheard phrase in the lobby was: “I’m sorry,”—as in, “I am sorry I brought you here.” It didn’t seem like anybody had been a fan of the film, although it seemed to me we’d gotten exactly what we were after, we’d gotten scared, profoundly unsettled at the revelation of our basest selves, not long gone, but lying right there, dormant within all of us.

In thinking about this audience’s cool reception of the film, it became clearer to me how much the film’s narrative structure mirrors that of Plato’s allegory of the cave. Having reveled in the construction of their cardboard, womb-like cave, the film’s characters lose themselves in an orgy of sex and violence that culminates in a blinding act of consensual cannibalism. This is all they have come to know as real.

The next scene is a kind of morning after in which everything we thought we knew about the film suddenly changes as a queer boy rises from the floor of this mad party and stumbles out the door into the light, taking us out of the squatter’s flat we have been in for the entire film and onto the real streets of a large Mexican city.

The abruptness of this shift from dark to light / fantasy world to real, as with Plato’s escaped prisoner, is blinding. We know from Plato’s thought exercise that the escaped prisoner upon adjusting their eyes will perceive the new world as more genuine than the old. In attempting to return to the cave to impart this new found wisdom on their fellow prisoners, they would again be blinded, now by darkness, and may even be killed by the others for what they perceive as the disastrous effects of leaving the cave.

The idea of this liberated cave party in a squatter’s building seeming safer than the world outside resonates with the film’s overarching theme of acceptance of life at the margins. In this way, the story of incest and cannibalism appears largely allegorical, a place where fantasies are cultivated, rather than repressed.

Guess what these horror fans hated even more than a night out in Brooklyn, or giant dicks, or girls pissing?…ALLEGORIES, they can’t stand them. When the film takes viewers outside of the cave for the first time and the possibility that the events we had just witnessed were not meant to be taken literally, it hit these people in the audience like a flaming bag of dog shit to the face.

The teeth sucking began again in earnest then, and it was like Plato had freed all of those prisoners at once and they all got dragged out into the light only to beg to be put back in their chains. This audience was not ready to have the wool pulled from their eyes. They would have been much more comfortable with the standard slasher fare, women being mutilated, castration anxieties, all the usual stuff.

Programming We Are the Flesh was a brilliant move by BIHFF organizers as it pushed the envelope away from escapist fantasy and into a new, disquieting realm of social terror, one which forced these bourgeois modern viewers desensitized to violent acts of aggression to confront their complicity in the mundane horrors of globalization, poverty, and isolation. If you wanted to strike fear into the hearts of this Brooklyn borderland crowd, all you had to show them was a little honesty.

We all are the flesh. Grow up horror fans.

- Ian Deleón 2016

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its-just-like-the-movies · 7 years ago

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November 2017 Viewing List

Sorry I’m late to my own party. Here we go!

The Void (17, B): N/A - 11/1/17

Meet Me in St. Louis (44, B+): Garland emerges the gem of an ensemble, the shining sun of a star vehicle, and the co-director of the film. - 11/6/17

Colorful, warm, romantic, and with great reservoirs of feeling. Little dated, but a lovely, lovely experience

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (17, C): Cool vicious/funny tone bro. It'd be nice if anything, like, actually happened? - 11/8/17 (review)

Nocturama (17, B+): Elliptical with narrative, opaque with characters, slick in production, unflinching with violence. Hypnotic. - 11/9/17

Drag Me To Hell (09, B): Useless leads barely hinder this tautly made story, especially when the scares are this good. - 11/9/17

Michael Clayton (07, B): Stays slick, ambitious, and captivating, even when it stumbles with key elements. Tilda!!! - 11/10/17

The Villainess (17, B): Somehow grows even more narratively bonkers, vividly in service of its protagonist, with a firm grasp on her convoluted story. - 11/12/17

Wonderstruck (17, B+): Astounding number of gambits, for cinema and for Haynes specifically. Brilliant when everything clicks. - 11/13/17

I agree it's his least good film, but the rest are perfect, and this beats a lot of what 2017 has offered. Well made, majestic, and emotionally sweeping.

Now, Voyager (42, A-): Full-blooded romance that gives full view to its heroine's psychology and loves. Conviction gives creaks flourishing heart. - 11/14/17

Murder, My Sweet (44, B+): Dialogue sizzles, plot hums, cuts buzz. Powell a fine avatar. Great by Chandler, outdone by other '44 noirs. - 11/15/17

Beach Rats (17, B): Dickinson captivatingly holds the film together, even as the script peters in last third. Stunningly shot. - 11/16/17

I'm not sure how to describe the mood from watching the lead in Beach Rats get his head shaved but I just feel bad about it

Lady Bird (17, B+): Love without romance, full but something's missing. We're almost there, right? Or did we miss it? - 11/18/17

So authentically teenaged in its emotions, yet Gerwig sees everyone with maturity. Hits you with melancholy and warmth with such ease

Atomic Blonde (17, B+): Easily one of the best made films of the year. And one of the most endlessly watchable. And so much fucking fun. - 11/18/17

Whose Streets? (17, A-): Vital and alive, bursting with history in motion. Only grows on repeat viewing. How is this not sweeping? - 11/21/17

Daphne (17, C+): Imagine Julia in a low, quotidian, still-messy key. Beecham's fine, but there's barely a film for her character to exist in. - 11/21/17

Heal the Living (17, A- (now a B/B+)): Loosely structured, with formal panache and emotional sensitivity. Images and colors unlike anything this film year has produced. Not big, but full. - 11/22/17

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (17, B- (now a C/C-)): Emblem of every "I admire the ambition but the execution is wonky" film I've seen this year. - 11/22/17

Ferocious morals keep getting dragged down by a weird soundtrack, inconsistent cast. Tonal jumps don't always work, but it's got real conviction

Murder on the Orient Express (17, C):As plush, (over)elegant, stuffy, and bloodless as ads make it look. Cast underutilized. - 11/22/17

Hermia y Helena (17, B-): Featherlight and easy to watch, length makes it just airy. Hopscotch structure occasionally iffy. - 11/23/17

Strong Island (17, B): Meditative, almost novelistic rumination, on a brother's murder, a city's failure, a family's fallout. - 11/24/17

Patti Cake$ (17, A-): You've seen this kind of story, but not *this* story, these characters, this community. Fresh as hell. - 11/25/17

Crown Heights (17, C+/B-): There's an angrier indictment to be found here but this is still a potent, personal, and well-told story. - 11/25/17

The Florida Project (17, B): Colorful layout, emotional claims go far, but strained in places. End brings it together. - 11/27/17

The Birds (63, B): N/A - 11/30/17

Mudbound (17, B-): Fleeter and less full in some parts than I expected, but an ambitious and mighty experience throughout. - 11/31/17

#my posts #month logs #2017

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baileyrecovers · 8 years ago

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Where I was. Pt. 2

IThe first time going to the hospital was scary. I was in the ER for two hours, and I had to repeat my story many times to many different people. In the ER, suicidal or mentally ill patients get a “watcher,” this person literally watches you to make sure you don’t off yourself in the ER. They do not take their eyes off you. The first watcher I had was a middle aged redheaded woman with short hair. She talked to me once, she had a southern, lower-class accent. She asked me, “what brings you here?” After answering that question so many times, I finally just said “Suicide.” She said, “Aww, don’t do that.” She gave me a puppy dog face of fake remorse. “I lost many people due to that.” That didn’t even sound sincere.

They wheelchaired me to down to the mental health unit. I said I could walk, but they insisted. The privacy of the unit and lock downed environment made me anxious. It made me truly believe that I really was crazy.

I was given my bedroom (single rooms, thank god). I slept really soundly that night. Groups started the next day and I quickly learned I did not like them. They ask you to tell your story, and I was not the most open of person. I felt like everyone was judging me, but I learned that this was the last place I would be judged. I felt a source of guilt after hearing some stories, as many come to the MHU because they thought of suicide, and I actually tried. I never knew thinking of suicide was weird or worrisome, if I had known that sooner, maybe I would have been hospitalized sooner in my life.

My psychiatrist was a real character. It was a small mousy man, with gray blonde hair pushed flat back. He had an air about him that he thought he knew everything. It wasn’t confidence, but more arrogance. He was extremely honest with me. He told me that I intellectualize everything.

“In psychology, intellectualization is a defense mechanism where reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress – where thinking is used to avoid feeling. It involves removing one's self, emotionally, from a stressful event.”

Which in a sense is true. I could not name or face my feelings. I’m getting better at it, but I still struggle.

The second day I met with him, he couldn’t remember my name, and he said, “You are the raped girl, right?” Well, I suppose yes. That didn’t help me at all, because I also labeled myself the depressed girl, the anxious girl, the crazy girl. And I believed them. To hear that made me ruminate over the events that happened, and I began to feel how worthless and guilty I felt all over again. The MHU acted as an escape from my problems for awhile, as a way to not deal with them, but being locked away brings up its own set of problems, like dealing with an equally crazy psychiatrist.

I felt hidden away, like Anne Frank. Hardly anyone knew where I was, and that was how I wanted it to be. I was so ashamed of being there, it isn’t normal-everyone will think I am unstable-people will judge me, were thoughts running through my head on a consistent basis. They still do at times.

At this point in time, nothing really stands out ot me about my first stay at the hospital. I knew I didn’t want to leave, as I knew my problems at school were snowballing. They were just getting bigger. I didn’t want to face the real world, so I didn’t push for discharge. I said nothing at all. I guess they took that as a sign that I didn’t want to leave, and they didn’t kick anyone out.

My mom stayed with me that weekend to make sure I was stable. It was a good and bad idea. She helped me straighten a lot of things out, we went out to eat and shop, and she was just present. However, I tried to apologize for everything that had happened. She got really angry at me. She said I hurt her, my thoughts and feelings were not real because I was depressed and they were stupid, and that she would never forgive me for what I’d done. I was bawling my eyes out trying to trust her more and tell her what I felt inside, but she wouldn’t hear it. She would just get angrier. I started to have repetitive movements and muscle tensions. I began to hit and bite myself while she lectured, I pulled my hair, scratched my arms. She told me to stop and “TURN IT OFF,” like I had switch that turned off my depression. But, I couldn’t stop hurting myself that moment, it was a strange sensation. It was like my body was trying to protect itself from her words and thoughts. Or perhaps I was punishing myself for being a bad person. My mother and I have a complicated, at times abusive, and difficult relationship. It is too long to tell now, but we tend to brush off problems without talking or apologizing for them.

Many decisions had to be made about my future at UNI. I had to decide what classes to keep and drop. Lots of pressure was put on me to stay in two classes, but even one class seemed overwhelming. I decided to stay in one course. I had psychiatry planned, therapist scheduled, getting help. I was doing everything right, the one thing I did wrong was delaying admission into the Intensive Outpatient Program at the hospital because I didn’t want to drive, but I guess that backfired in the long run.

I am also very ambivalent towards treatment. I know I needed help, but I wanted to act and be as ‘normal’ as possible. I still denied I had a major issue and made lots of excuses for myself.

I was put on a drug called Welbutrin. I didn’t have hardly any side effects in the hospital. It helped stabilize my mood. However, when I returned home, I was not able to eat, sleep, and I had weird muscle spasms. I cried all the time again. All of my problems have returned in full force, and it was like I wasn’t on an antidepressant and never received help. Was the week in the hospital a waste of time? I still felt the same level of anxiety and depression, but I convinced myself that changes were going to happen.

One thing that stressed me out was telling my employers who felt like family what had happened to me for a week. I told them something traumatic happened to me, and I needed to get away for awhile. They were very receptive and helpful. I eventually told one of them I was raped. We talked about school and they helped me by finding out more about financial aid and what I should next in terms of classes. They allowed me to stay the night at their house. It was really nice.

I felt really loved by all the support I received from my friends who knew what happened to me and my mom. I had to tell a few more people, which made me anxious. Yet, I felt an underlying guilt. Everyone was constantly checking in on me. Are you okay? Where are you going? What are you doing? How are you feeling? Everyone had advice to give. I welcomed it at first, but it eventually made me worry about how much they worried about me. I’ve always been independent and I hated to make a fuss. I was taking up people's time, and I didn’t feel worthy of that time. I was struggling in one course. I was struggling with wanting to be a teacher. I hated and criticized myself constantly. I never forgave myself for what had happened. I believed that I was worthless, nothing, no one liked me truly or every one was going to leave me, and had no purpose. Everyone had a person they could go to if I killed myself, no one needed me, I was no one’s person, I would eventually be forgotten. I could see the pain and worry on my roommates face every time I brought ANOTHER problem to her attention. She wanted to hear them, but I could see how helpless and stressed she felt.

I also worried constantly about financial repercussions of taking one class. Money has always been a stress factor. I worried about my mother’s engagement to a guy she has known for a few months and how he was inconsiderate and overstepping his boundaries. It added more fuel to the “no one needs me anymore” fire. I still cried a lot, I often said my body and brain hated me.

I was invited over to dinner by the family I worked for. I was just expecting a pleasant meal and time with the kids. Little did I know, it was also a meeting to talk about my future living plans with them. They simply stated that there were no more future living plans with them, for (potential) financial factors out of their control. I tried to understand why they couldn’t have me live with them, but I was angry and sad. I was angry because they weren’t fighting for me even a little bit, and isn’t that what family did for each other? I wasn’t family, I concluded, which made me feel worse. I already felt bad, but the intensity went up 90%. I was sad because that was the one happy thing I looked forward to, as all my other future plans crumbled. They cherry on top was that they reduced my hours considerably, they didn’t need me much anymore as they said they ‘spoiled’ themselves with me. They gave me a short list of dates and times they needed me that month, which would amount to less than $100. They said they would be a great recommendation to other nannying jobs. But, I was so stuck in my ways and I wanted to be with them so badly because I felt like I belonged in a family for once. They gave up on me, so I gave up on myself too.

I didn’t have anything to look forward to anymore. No one really did need me. I felt numb. I lost everything so quickly in a course of a week. I cut myself that night and kept a knife close to me. I tried to pull myself out of it. I went to class and kept my nose in a book. I went swimming at the WRC, and I thought the activity and exercise would lift my spirits. I was doing everything so right! I was making so much progress some days, I was almost even happy! But it felt like a tight string broke that held so much, the wrong wire was cut in a bomb. I didn’t want to try anymore. I didn’t want to get out of bed. I just wanted to disappear. I was left with the darkness of my mind. I was my own worst enemy, but the superhero in me wanted it destroyed.

After swimming, I nonchalantly go into a gas station, buy alcohol with intentions of using it to kill myself. I calmly take it back to my apartment and hide it in my dresser. After talking and lying to my friend about how I was doing because I couldn’t face the guilt of being sick anymore.

I drank some of the alcohol that night and cut myself, but I was too tired to take the pills. Sleeping saved me that night, as it had many nights before that. That morning though, I woke up, canceled a job interview at a Montessori school, and took every prescription pill I had. I took all of my Welbutrin, Paxil, and a few sleeping pills.. Over 50 pills, enough to put me in the morgue. I wasn’t even crying as I was doing it. I was staring into space, not even thinking about how many pills I was swallowing. I kept taking more, and I thought, “well more can’t hurt, can it?” The rest is a blur. But apparently I called the dad of the kids I watched and asked him to tell me happy stories about them. Were they the last concern I had before I completely passed out? I told him what had happened, and he called an ambulance.

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