#toad was NOT annoying to me in the film

[jelly-fish-wishes]

BGM - The Real Ming - Turning Red

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Previous (ending of ACT 2)

✨ACT 3✨

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[TOAD HAS ENTERD THE CHAT]

Oh man that stupid night to day transition had me for a loop. And I know Luigi looks pale, but it’s pretty fitting for a boy who’s feeling pretty sickly rn.

I know Toad is NOT KP, but maybe you guys might like how I rewrote him? So y’all will have to make do with the fungi boy. SPEAKING OF REWRITING, during this comic’s mini hiatus, I will be posting some scene changes for the film that take place before my comic to not only fit the continuity of it, but also because some of these are personal changes I would have liked in the film 😅. After all, this entire comic is a personal change of the film huehuehue.

The comic will be back in November. Hang in there, guys! ~chu 💚

[pianokantzart]

What didn’t you like about The Super Mario Bros Movie?🤔

I feel like I'm just gonna repeat what has already been said a hundred times over, but... Number 1 is the pacing. This movie could've benefitted so much from just an extra fifteen minutes tacked on. The experience of watching the film for the first time is comparable to going on a guided tour in a beautiful location with a super impatient tour guide who is eager to clock out. You want to take in the scene and enjoy the moment, but next thing you know you're being aggressively shoved to the next scene without a second to breathe.

Number 2 is the jukebox songs. "No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn" was fine. "Thunderstruck" was annoying. "Take On Me" was inexcusable when you listen to the song that was supposed to be playing during that sequence!

And look, I can sorta get what they were going for if they were trying to reference the pop songs that played during The Super Mario Bros Super Show, but the amount of people nostalgically connected to The Super Show is easily dwarfed by the amount people nostalgically connected to the OG music of Nintendo (no hate on Super Show enjoyers of course, just stating the facts.) You've got an incredible catalogue of music at your fingertips and a talented composer! Take advantage! Please!

Number 3 is (some of) the casting

Jack Black, Charlie Day, and Keegan-Michael Key were fantastic (Keegan-Michael Key in particular I feel doesn't get nearly enough credit for balancing sounding like Toad of all characters while not being grating to listen to, and actually putting in a darned good performance.) Chris Pratt was okay. His voice was surprisingly fitting for Mario once I saw it? It's very everyman while being a little naturally high pitched. The one thing he lacked was the super high Mario-levels of energy. The yelling in particular needs work. Speaking of yelling... I know they kept the actors in separate recording booths for secrecy reasons or whatever, but I think Chris Pratt would greatly benefit from sharing a recording booth with Charlie Day. Especially if The Mario Bros. are going to be on screen together in future installments. DK, too, I feel was just okay. Not distracting, still pretty funny, but he didn't wow me.

Anya Taylor-Joy was, unfortunately, kind of disappointing. It feels like they just went with a "pretty lady actress with a lady voice" in the casting call. She doesn't really sound much like Peach, and her delivery falls a little flat at times. I prescribe... putting her in the recording booth with Jack Black.

As for Fred Armisen's Cranky Kong, I have to mute and put on subtitles when he's on screen. I give his performance a solid 2/10 because he is putting in energy, but the delivery is so off and the voice doesn't fit. It's actually really distracting.

[evajellion]

Full thoughts/concerns about Mario movie Peach

Hi, I feel like my initial post on the matter didn’t fully explain my thoughts or have a lot of context. (but wow, I’m shocked so many people agree with it-)

First I gotta state the obvious. I love women, I love female characters. I keep seeing accusations about people not liking the direction of Mario movie Peach coming from “dudebros”, and while I’m sure they exist, they are merely a vocal minority I assure you. Most of the concerned people are women that love Peach!

Princess Peach is a character that was important to me as a child (along with a lot of female video game characters), I love the Mario games where she is a part of the cast rather than a damsel. So while I’m very glad she isn’t a damsel in distress for this movie… 

I have problems with the presentation and implication, which is that Mario and Luigi could be possibly depicted being inferior to Peach. My criticisms come purely from a place of love.

Mario being bumbling isn’t out of the ordinary, and him being a fish out of water is okay, but it could get annoying fast if Peach has to do everything. I’m not too fond of “delicate scaredy Luigi” being a damsel that people kinda… fetishize either.

Why does Peach need a halberd? It just seems out of character and kind of tacky. What’s wrong with her using her parasol? It could be intimidating in the right hands. Not sure why she needs to fight in her biker costume either, the appeal of Peach for me is that she goes out to fight in an elegant dress.

Peach can be aggressive and assertive while still being cute. We see in the comics, the Super Show, the BS SNES game, Paper Mario, and the OVA… from what we see in the trailer, this Peach doesn’t have any of that.

In fact, she feels… kind of boring. Which is a problem most of these “girlboss” movie archetype characters have. There’s little to no substance with Peach outside of her being “badass”.

In my initial post, I said the “girlboss” thing would have suited Princess Daisy much better. I want to emphasize the fact that Daisy, outside of spin-off games and Smash, hasn’t been been given anything character related in DECADES.

This would have been the perfect time to give her a new, fresh characteristic and personality, not Peach, who already has a grounded character.

Toadette could have also been the “halberd wielding cute badass girl”, because… honestly, outside of being Captain Toad’s partner, I feel like they should be doing more with her.

Peach also hasn’t been a damsel in… 3 years, that being in NSMBU Deluxe. She rarely gets kidnapped now. In the Mario+Rabbids game, she’s an equal amongst the party and it’s ******** (censored for spoiler reasons) that needs to be rescued instead.

So Peach not being a damsel actually isn’t anything special. If anything, it’s the norm for her to be a part of the group. It’s been that way since SMB2 and SMRPG. I don’t know why people treat it like it’s some kind of breakthrough.

Tl;dr: My issues with Mario movie Peach isn’t that she won’t be a damsel, it’s that she won’t be Peach. She’ll just be generic kids movie girlboss cliché. And she deserves better than that! I like a lot of the characterizations in the film so far and don’t want her to be… well, a stock character, while everyone else feels like a ringer to their game counterparts.

… also I don’t think her voice is very good. Like Pratt!Mario is so bored that it’s actually funny to me, but Peach is just ehh…

[raygirlramblings]

I can't bear it any longer. I have to share my thoughts on the Mario Movie because I have next to no one in real life to gush over this with and the next best thing is to scream into the lonely Tumblr void.

SPOILERS BELOW

I gotta say like 90% of the criticism levelled against this movie by critics and fans and haters alike can be countered with 'it's made for a target market of 6 to 12 year olds, adjust your expectations.'

LUIGI IS BEST BOY

NO REALLY

I don't get people who are upset that he's not in the movie more because Mario's entire reason for existing is to save Luigi. Luigi is endgame.

Seriously Mario gets his ass handed to him so many times in this movie. Almost everyone in this film got to take a whack at him, even Peach XD The Bowser/Mario fight at the end, poor lad could barely stand and STILL faced off with Bowser. Tenacious little bugger.

Knowing that Mario would throw himself into such physical danger to save Luigi is both heart-warming and heart-breaking. You can imagine that Luigi is the only thing that can make him stop.

Princess Peach more like Princess PARKOUR.

No really I loved Peach though I found her animation a little uncanny? But her personality was just right. Classy, Sassy and a little bit unhinged :)

Music choices were bloody weird. One of the few cases where Bonnie Tyler felt wildly out of place. More orchestral Mario music and less Kill Bill plz.

Luigi is such a golden boy. The part where Bowser is interrogating him and threatening to rip off his moustache, he asks if Mario is the kind of guy a princess would fall in love with, and LUIGI, WITHOUT MISSING A BEAT, is like 'YES MY BRO IS A TOTAL CATCH'. GOD DAMN. Little guy is scared for his life and he is still Mario's biggest wingman. He doesn't even seem to ponder the question. Sure you can say he's just giving answers to stop the torture but something in the line just screams he believes it to his core. What an A+ little bro

I was a little confused by the Toad personality they picked. Is 'outdoorsman adventurer' Toad a game character? Not that I didn't like it, I'm just wondering what the basis of that personality choice was.

Jack Black as Bowser was just having too much fun.

BABY MARIO. BABY LUIGI. BABY PEACH

I loved the scene where Bowser is 'practicing' proposing to Peach with Kamek playing Peach, and they are both so into it that even when a guard interrupts them they seem more annoyed than embarrassed XD Like 'dude we're in the MIDDLE OF SOMETHING can't it WAIT?!'

Kamikaze blue shell Koopa was NOT what I was expecting to see in this movie. Damn

Yes the scene where Mario and Luigi finally reunite was so PERFECT ♥ I could watch their joyful hugs until the heat death of the universe. The bit just after Mario lands and he looks like he's about to cry before he hugs Luigi, I just see a 'oh shit i almost lost you in boiling lava I'M SO HAPPY YOU'RE ALIVE LET ME HUG YOU AND HOLD YOUR FACE JUST TO MAKE SURE YOU'RE REALLY HERE ;-; ' moment.

'Why are you dressed like a bear?!' Luigi I adore you. Charlie Day gets a gold star.

I don't get why everyone hated Donkey Kong's voice, I honestly didn't find it that bad. 'He's just Seth Rogan being Seth Rogan'...yeah and? The voice fit? It wasn't out of character? They got a guy who's voice fit the obnoxious, bombastic Donkey Kong personality, I'm not seeing an issue. Maybe I just don't watch enough Seth Rogan stuff to find his voice jarring.

So many Easter eggs from all sorts of Nintendo properties.

LUIGI FACING HIS FEARS TO PROTECT MARIO FROM A FIRE BLAST HE IS TOO GOOD FOR THIS WORLD I LOVE HIM.

I made a prediction a week ago with a workmate where I said 'Mario will get to use all the powers in the movie and show them off, but in the end Luigi will get to use the invincibility star to save the day'....and I was totally half right :)

'See I told you I'd get you a turtle', MARIO XD

Had a convo with a workmate about this. It's interesting that the main conflicts in the film for Mario and Luigi individually (as in their own flaws they want to overcome) is that Mario hates being seen as small and worthless, and Luigi struggles with being cowardly and less assertive than Mario. And yet neither of these issues are the main problem that needs resolving. It's ALL about the brothers working together. 'It's gonna be ok as long as we're together' is the mantra. Mario isn't fighting Bowser to prove his worth or be a hero or even to be Peach's knight. He's fighting to get his brother back. Luigi leaps in to save Mario when things get hairy but the manhole cover wouldn't have stood up for very long. Mario proving himself and Luigi overcoming his cowardlyness is not what ultimately saves the day. The two brothers being together, fighting side by side and using Bowser's power against him does. And it's lovely. Mario may always have issues with people looking down on him, and Luigi might always be the anxious one, but that doesn't matter, because they have eachother's backs and they KNOW together they can save the world.

YOSHI.

[weirdgirl92]

You know, throughout the years of my adult life, I’ve been going back and forth on deciding whether or not Don Bluth’s Thumbelina is actually a “bad” film, or simply just a misunderstood one. It’s pretty easy to watch these kind of movies as a little kid, because at that age, you don’t often worry about the amount of plot holes or inconsistencies. That said, I used to say some pretty unfavorable things about Thumbelina herself as a character, but after looking at her arc from a more symbolic perspective (and after reading some people’s amazing essays on it here), I started warming up to her more.

However, there’s still a couple of glaring problems I have with the movie, and that’s these two characters:

Let’s start with Prince Cornelius. At first glance, Cornelius might seem like a nice match for Thumbelina, since the two immediately clicked after one romantic duet (as you do in most Disney-esque musicals), but once you remember all of Thumbelina’s other suitors, who only liked her for her voice and looks, you start to realize that Cornelius is no different from them.

I mean, it’s kinda understandable why Thumbelina would fall for Cornelius so fast, since we actually see her being lonely and feeling like she’s the only tiny person; but with Cornelius, he’s just a blank slate. Sure, we see a bit of his relationship with his parents, but we never see his relationship with the Fairy Court, or the other fairy women in his kingdom. So, while he tells his mother that Thumbelina is “the girl of his dreams”, we never really find out WHY she’s the girl of his dreams. All we got to see of his attraction to her, was when he overheard her singing, and when he saw how beautiful she was…by creepily peeking through her window.

As for Jacquimo, well, he’s just plain useless and annoying. I’m serious, the first thing he does when he meets Thumbelina is nearly drown her to death while keeping her from going over the waterfall, when he could’ve just picked her up and fly her over to safety! Then, throughout the rest of the movie, he just straight up abandons her while searching for the “Vale of the Fairies”.

Call me crazy, but I think the movie would’ve been MUCH better if Jacquimo and Cornelius were conflated into one character. Instead of being a goofy looking harlequin bird in clown makeup with an annoying French accent, why not have Jacquimo just be an ordinary looking swallow named Jaq, who’s really just a fairy prince under a spell? Also, maybe have Grundel and Mrs. Toad overhear Thumbelina singing at her window sill, and have that be the catalyst for their plans to kidnap her. AND also, have Thumbelina and the swallow try to find the Vale of the Fairies together, only to have them get separated by the strong autumn and winter winds, and make that the reason for Thumbelina to run into The Beetle and Mrs. Fieldmouse. I don’t know, I’m just spitballing here, because I so desperately want this to be a better movie than it actually is.

Anyway, sorry for the long post.

[schibi12]

So on April 5th i went to the theater and watched The Super Marios Bros Movie and i think it's really good!

Better than what i expected if i'm honest specially it being an Illumination film my expectations where not that high but it prove me wrong!

Animation was amazing! All the elements of the world looked so lively and wonderful from the details, character designs and just everything looked superb.

The story is quite simple and not that Interesting which apparently has been a big critique from critics and audience but i don't mind it honestly i felt it was necessary in order to introduce new audience or peeps who are not familiar with the franchise how the world works and it's rules and to just showcase the many characters and lands of the franchise.

As for the the voice acting i can't really comment about it since I watched the movie in spanish so till the movie hits Home Video i can say if i liked Chris Pratt or not as for the Latin American Spanish Dub all the voice actors did a great job really did the characters justice.

Speaking of characters i loved how they portray them Mario and Luigi have very straightforward character arcs and development but i still think it was good, i like that they didnt flanderized their characters and their sibling dynamic was just so wholesome and amazing like we got protective big brother Mario, he had a nickname for Luigi and they where so caring and affectionate to each other i loved it a lot i'm a sucker for sibling dynamics and relationships ok!

Peach was great i just wish she was little bit more feminine like her video game counterpart just a minor nitpick, DK was good liked the frenemy relationship he gets with Mario and his development, Toad was very funny and not annoying as other comedic relief characters i really liked him and Bowser was just an awesome villain.

So before i get into the score they where some modern songs in the soundtrack which i think it was good not as egregious and annoying as other animated films, they where okay at worst, as for the score Mr. Brian Tyler your Oscar Campaign starts now! I want to marry this score it is amazing, emotional and so fun, the samples from Koji Kondo iconic soundtrack of the video games makes it 100x better and score does have enough original material that it doesnt feel like it copy and pasted Kondo's work it gives it a life of it's own and stand out in the franchise.

Overall a great and entertaining film for old fans and the newcomers, has many references and nods to the good, old and cringe of the video games it truly is a love letter to nintendo most famous franchise.

I give it 3.5 Superstars out of 5.

🌟🌟🌟🌟

[ney-thank-you]

mario movie was a very movie.

🍄⭐️🍄⭐️🍄⭐️🍄⭐️🍄⭐️🍄⭐️🍄⭐️🍄⭐️🍄

there i said it. i know ill be murdered for such a hot take 😔

but seriously

⚠️spoiler warning⚠️

it was definitely a fun kids flick, it felt very "illumination-y" with some of the character designs (*cough cough* every human besides mario family and Charles martinet character *cough cough*) but i wont count that against the film. its a nit pick and i will admit that.

in fact most of my criticism are nitpicks.

- it felt rushed at times, scenes were back-to-back that felt like they needed SOMETHING, anything there to make them transition smoother

-luigi was painfully absent from a lot of the film. DK was underutilized, too

-while we're at it, why didn't Toad's character get to do anything else with his frying pan? was it really only a gag? i was waiting for him to use it again after the first time.

- that blue star thing was more annoying in its brief screen time than all three of the Gargoyles from disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

- Bowser.... oh Bowser..... i wanted to like him in this... Jack Black did a phenomenal job... but there was something slightly off about him that vibes with me wrong I guess...

-Chris Pratt sounded great as mario, actually, he and Charlie Day were the best parts of the movie IMHO.

-Peach, while she wasn't annoying, she lacked any depth... and speaking of,

- Honestly the stakes in the movie were in fact very high, but....it never actually felt like it..? Mushroom Kingdom was at risk of being taken over by The Big Bad^TM and yet. it didn't ever feel like there was danger?

-Mario's bizarro character "arc" if you can call it that. it starts with him, like Captain America, being like "i could do this all day" taking on the bully and being there for Luigi. i get it, ok. but there was never really a time when that was LEGITIMATELY challenge (save for the end, which is when he overcomes the challenge again) like, it felt like the obstacles for Mario's goal (save Luigi) felt manufactured at best and nonexistent at worst.

-Peach never got a good reason to trust Mario or spend all that time training him. I will put an addition to this post on what things i would change to fix these minor gripes*

- I did love all the little details and references, part of me wished it was taking place in the 80's instead of modern day, but thats again a personal stylistic choice.

- It looked very nice, The look of everything simultaneously seemed soft and sleek but also textured and real, idk it was a nice blend of "cartoony video-game world" and "life-like rendering"

- The whole wedding thing, while funny, (I freaking screeched at that first piano scene) fell short most of the time, and there wasn't enough juxtaposing Bowsers "evil bad guy vibe" with the "soft, i just wanna get married uwu" like he mostly felt like a dork who was lost in the script and almost fell in the just generic bland kids movie bad guy (something i personally think The Sonic Movie barely avoided with Dr. Robotnik)

-i have so much more to say but i think i will leave it at that. or i will make a yt video. who knows!

[thealmightyemprex]

Good Vibes Challange :The Wind in the Willows

@ariel-seagull-wings @amalthea9 @princesssarisa @angelixgutz @the-blue-fairie @themousefromfantasyland @goodanswerfoxmonster @filmcityworld1

Recommended by @the-blue-fairie ,I knew I had to watch this

So I never read the book,but I have seen several adaptations of the story .My first exposure was the 1949 Disney film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr Toad ,which has a short Toad centric tellling of the tale , but what hooked me on the story is the 2017 Musical version ,which is probabbly a contender for my favorite,and I quite enjoyed the 1985 Rankin/Bass version (EVen if I found Charles Nelson Reiley to be an odd choice for Toad ).I have grown very fond of this story (I'll go into why later ) and am always up to see a diffrent adaptation(I actually was going to watch this adaptation before but stuff got in the way and I forgot to finish it )

This 1995 film, isnt REALLLY a story its basically a bunch of scenerios connected by the characters .There is somewhat of a plot of Mole (Alan Benett),Ratty (Michael Palin ) and Badger (Michael Gambon ) trying to deal with the thrill seeking and egocentric Toad ( Rik Mayall ) who is obsessed with motor cars which gets him into a lot of trouble

I think the reason I love this movie and this story in general is it is just so CHILL ,your just hanging out with these lovable characters . The heart of the film really is the relationship between Ratty and Mole ,they have a very lovely relationship even when they bicker ,you can tell the care deeply for eachother ,my favorite scene being when Mole convinces Ratty to satay when he has the urge to travel and when they find Moles old home he abandoned to live with Ratty ,and Ratty is just complimenting the place the entire time when Mole is somewhat embarrassed ....I also dug the scene where Ratty and Mole met the God Pan,that was wild

Of course the comedic highlight is Toad ,I'll go into the voice work later ,but everything from the writing ,to the performance to the expressive animation make him such a funny character.He is the one character with NO chill and this might be my favorite take on Toad

The Animatiojn is beautiful,for a TV movie ,the production values are gorgeous,this is one of the prettiest animated films I think I have seen

This also hasthe best cast I have seen for this property I think these might be the definitive voices for me,being mostly comprised of great British talent .Of the main cast the one I am least familiar with is Alan Bennett as Mole (He seems to mostly be a writer ) but he gave a nice cheeryness to Mole.Michael Gambon is PERFECT as the grumpy Badger,and I actually had a tough ime recognizing him as he seemed to be putting on a gruffer voice but it so worked for the character .Michael Palin did such a fabulous job as Ratty ,you feel his love for his River ,his frustration with Toad ,and his friendship with Mole.Vanessa Redgrave does a marvelous job narrating ,and I like the wraparounds of her being a grandmother reading to her grandkids,just added to the cozy feel.Then we have Rik Mayall as Toad.Now Rik Mayall is a hit and miss performer for me ,sometimes I love him sometimes he annoys me ,and thankfully,,,,,This is one of his BEST performances,cause his abrasive style and obnoxiousness is PERFECT for Toad,like this is a perfect melding of actor and character akin to Gilbert Gottfried as Iago in Aladdin ,and Mayall is hilarious,sounds like he is having fun and is by far the BEST TOAD IVE SEEN .Honestly with these performances I forgot there were actors and just accepted them as these characters

I only have one gripe,and its I wish the finale where the gang fight off Weasals was longer and set up better (I like when the Weasals play a bigger role like in the musical )

Overalll.....Man this was good vibes.Just an enjoyable relaxing watch

[the-firebird69]

His other stuff going on and it's pretty huge and we will get to it now

-and it has to do with a lot of stuff going on around here it's not liked by a lot of people they're saying you're breathing fire and you're going home resting coming out being a big dick bothering a lot of people running around filming acting like a penis trying to steal her stuff going home taking a nap coming out being a dick trying to save one of you and not even paying attention to what you're saying or what he's saying so they're running up warrants on these people for their behavior it's similar to what they do before they evacuate an area and go to the islands like they used to so they're doing it to try and grab stuff and they're going to go to jail if they caught doing it and a lot of people found out what they're doing is illegal and my son said it is and he said during the state of emergency you can be arrested for doing it without anyone knowing what it is because it's causing disruption and they started to say this they listen to him a lot but here we didn't listen to him at all and it's where we needed to and they're getting arrested and taking the prison and dying a lot of them are dead from that trip and they just take the dead people off and they're burning and they burn them and they're taking the dead people off they said what do you do with them and they said nothing we take them to the hospital and they heard burn them and they said it started screaming no you don't you won't you can't and they're crying taking the prison they last like an hour they die from fright they're really sad people sad people and sad creatures I don't want to die for them that brings us to this point

-they've got their clutches into our son he keeps saying it too these people are annoying the living s*** out of me and they won't leave him alone and they won't get off him and they're trying to make him look bad no matter what we need to stop them and we need to use absolute Force and we need to do we need to do it right now as in the next 5 minutes would not be soon enough today immediately and I need groups to form up to get in there to stop them from ruining him he spent way too long on this project and too much effort and I spent a lot of it in the past let it go because a whole bunch of people are b****** and useless people who pretty much was lead to die by almost everybody it's not our problem it's theirs and I don't want this attitude about them being important that they're nothing it's just a buffets we have to get an objectives done and stop complaining he's trying to get rid of our plan so you don't use these AirHeads you make new ones because going to have to that's going to be wimpy wimpy wimpy that hit a nerve too cuz it's true I said he's going to recovery if you don't because we're going to still think these hogs are doing a job somehow it's true too so we're doing that we're going to publish now

Thor Freya

And they are a little hogs and turds and toads and no they don't do our job and we have to get going on it right now so I'm assigning teams and we're moving out

Hera

Good

Zues

You watch it buddy

Hera

I don't see teams coming in here

Zues

It's not what I meant but he's right he doesn't see any teams coming in she probably stop saying that

Hera

We won't stop saying that but we go to a different area there's a huge area out there and we grab tons of them lots of times these idiots run over there and get grabbed

Thor Freya

Good

Zues

Watch it buddy that's what I say he says good okay hey

Hera

Olympus

[love-and-other-potions]

Master List of  Imagines {11.3.21}

Golden Trio Era Men

Draco Malfoy

Blissful Revenge

New Attraction

Rehearsals

Armed with Love (Part 2 to Ruins of the Heart)

Twice the Arrogance

Avoiding You

Come. Warmth.

Curses

Cloud Nine {deaf/mute reader}

Harry Potter

No Homo?

Devilish ‘Puff

Power of Fear

Savior From the Prat

Annoyed in Love

Ruins of the Heart

The Books Have Eyes

Blind to Your Love

Fiendish Part 2

Out of this World

Ron Weasley 

Praiseworthy

Tension

Caught

Interrupted

George Weasley

Coping Mechanisms 

Imposter

Handsome Devil

Fred Weasley

Dared to Love

Dead to Me

Stinkin’ Mischief

Knock Knock {Male Reader}

Comfort {Trans Male Reader}

L.o.v.e.r.s

Neville Longbottom

Sliding Into a Relationship

Insane for Love

Sleepover

Get with the Rhythm

Blaise Zabini

Enchanted Films

Taunting

No Touchy Please

Serpent Admiration Part 1 

Serpent Admiration Part 2 

Colin Creevey

Number One Fan

You’re His Rosaline

Gregory Goyle

Best Friends with Benefits

Only Romantic on Thursdays 

Times Like These

Vincent Crabbe

Scorching Love

House 

Lee Jordan

Confrontations

Unexpected Kindness Part 1

Prank’d Part 2

Dean Thomas

Addicted to His Love

Seamus Finnigan

Hogwarts Manwhore

Oliver Wood

Sweeping Around the Point

Keeper of my Heart

Math and Other Drugs

Staring Problem

Cedric Diggory

Daring to Claim Ownership

Insight

Victims of Love

You Won’t Believe This False Hope

Dennis Creevey

Weirdos

Theodore Nott

Fake It Until You Make It

Charlie Weasley

Protective

Bill Weasley

7x+21 {mute/deaf reader}

Marauders Era Men

Sirius Black

Confessions

Sarcasm Gone Right

Puns and Other Accidents 

Rules Are Meant to be Broken

Asshat

Punk’d

Remus Lupin

All is Fair in Love and War

Discomfort at Its Finest

Man of my Dreams {Male Reader}

A-were-ness

Eyes to See, Ears to Hear {deaf reader}

Accidentally the Best Day of my Life {blind reader}

James Potter

I’m a Bitch, I’m a Lover

Cuffing Season Part 1 

Cuffing Season Part 2

Lovey Dovey

Shower Me With Pranks

Voice of an Angel

Lucius Malfoy

Territorial Barbie

Tom Riddle 

Teasing Pains

Follow Your Dreams

Taking the Fall

Severus Snape

Go to Hell

Disputing Love

Alternatives

I’m Trying to be Serious, I Swear

Hooked on a Feeling

Regulus Black

Sibling Trouble

Barty Crouch JR

Shadow Shenanigans

Running Into Your Arms

Golden Trio Women

Hermione Granger

Life-Altering Research

You Should Have Toad Me

Liplocking 101

Doodles

Mutterings

Cho Chang

Coincidences 

Ginny Weasley

Drowning Your Love

Obsession

The Streets Know Best

Angelina Johnson

Breaking Down the Closet Door

Luna Lovegood

Melodies of Love

Quirks and All

Homework and Billy Wigs

Pansy Parkinson

Oh Love

Fleur Delacour

Winking Flower {female}

Marauders Women

Lily Evans

Bent for Love

Challenged

Bellatrix Black

Insomnia for the Win

Madness Part 1 {female reader}

Madness Part 2 {female reader}

Leave Me Alone Punks {female reader}

Professors

Professor Snape 

Anything For an O

Love Notes {male reader}

Tutoring Gone Right

Love Triangles

Possession {Draco & Harry} 

Competition {Professor Snape & Headmaster Dumbledore}

Competition Part 2 {Professor Snape & Headmaster Dumbledore}

Sold {Severus Snape & Voldemort}

Love Potions and Other Tricks {Sirius & Remus & James}

Love Potions and Other Tricks Part 2 {Sirius & Remus & James}

Teach Me Your Love {Draco & Harry}

Moment of Truth {Harry & Neville}

Poly

Doggy Paddling Into Your Arms {Fred & George}

Two Princes {Fred & George}

Other

Young Dumbledore

Drawn to Life

Order of the Heart

Voldemort

Voldyshorts

Fiendish 

Dinner Date

James Sirius Potter

It’s in the Past

Annuals {Deaf reader}

Letters From Your Comfort Characters 

Follow this link for directions! Thank you, love!

[lord-valery-mimes]

Meet the Venoms - Lo Mang

Lo Mang (sometimes referred to as Lo Meng because apparently there are no hard and fast rules about how to translate Chinese characters into roman ones which is annoying as hell) is probably best remembered for one of his rare villainous turns as the eponymous Kid with the Golden Arm (1979). 

He is most easily distinguished from the other Venoms by his muscled physique. Dude is seriously jacked.

Apparently his stage name “Mang” means clumsy or foolish in either Mandarin or Cantonese which makes a hilarious contrast to his perfectly chiseled appearance. However after seeing him in a few of his more comedic roles, it’s quickly obvious that there’s much more to Lo Mang than a six pack you could crack open at a barbecue.

Lo Mang was the only one of the Venoms to have any formal kung fu training that wasn’t grounded in the Chinese opera schools. He trained in both tai chi and mantis-style kung fu. He also was the only Venom to not come from Taiwan as he was born and raised in Hong Kong making him sort of the odd man out. Hilariously, he started off in the accounting department at Shaw Brothers Studios, but quickly was noticed by producer Run Run Shaw. After playing smaller roles in a handful of Shaw pictures, he was cast as the Toad in the Five Deadly Venoms (1978), and he along with the rest of the Venoms were catapulted to stardom.

I’ll admit that I simply cannot choose which of the Venoms is my absolute favorite, but I find Lo Mang incredibly likable. He can go from tough and intimidating, to exaggerated and comedic in the blink of an eye. I feel like he makes himself memorable in every role he plays. I adore his tough-as-nails-but-also-naive-to-a-fault Toad character in Five Deadly Venoms, but he’s equally endearing as a tofu seller/would-be hero in Shaolin Rescuers (1979).

Look at those frickin’ dimples for fuck’s sake. He’s just too cute.

One of my favorite Lo Mang roles is Chu the Mantis practitioner in Invincible Shaolin (1978) who’s forced to eat eggs for months until he learns to do push-ups without breaking them under his hands.

But my absolute favorite Lo Mang role has to be Wei Da-Ti, the blacksmith from Crippled Avengers (1978). The fact that the character cannot speak or hear, means that Lo Mang spends almost the entire film having to emote using just his face and body and quite frankly, it’s a thing of beauty...

I don’t care how hammy he is, I find him just delightful. His performance in this film cracks me up no matter how many times I see it. He’s like the Harpo Marx of kung fu. 

Out of all the Venom Mob, Lo Mang has made himself the most accessible to western audiences. He’s been a guest to the Urban Action Showcase in Philadelphia on a few different occasions, and there are several translated interviews with him available on Youtube, courtesy of Celestial Pictures. He’s still active in Hong Kong entertainment, mostly sticking to television comedies these days, which doesn’t surprise me in the slightest considering what a flair he had for comedy in his Shaw Brothers days.

He also apparently still does kung fu every day, preferring that to working out in the gym. And he’s barely aged at all in the thirty years since the Five Deadly venoms, so kudos to him for that. 

Suffice to say, Lo Mang is an absolute treasure of kung fu cinema, and I’m so glad to know that he’s still around, and aware just how much his performances are loved by people to this day.

[jelly-fish-wishes]

I’m feeling a little too sick to draw the rest of the Mario Movie changes, so I’ll just type them in.

Mario mentions that Luigi landed in a dark place and everyone grows silent. Peach tells Mario that’s Bowser’s domain and Luigi is in danger. Peach gets excited about a third human and wants to test Mario so she can have him tag along with her to the Jungle Kingdom.

Peach shows Mario the course behind the castle and passes it. Mario questions how he can do all of that since he is short. Peach calls Toad to demonstrate. Mario gets embarrassed and peach offers the Super Mushroom. Events from the film occur, except Peach leaves because she has business to attend, but Toad stays behind to cheer Mario on. Before she could leave completely, Mario makes it to the end, except he loses his grip on the pole and crashes onto Toad. Peach asks Toad to leave so she and Mari can talk for a bit. Events from the film occur.

Note: All of the Luigi events stay the same.

Mario and Peach are about to embark on the journey to get to the Jungle when a Toad asks who Mario is. Peach hypes him up as another human just like her. The Toads get excited and Mario gets flustered, but stays a gentleman by waving at the oogling Toads. “Are you just as cool as the Princess?” “Are you helping her beat King Koopa?” “Are you two getting MARRIED?”

Toadsworth insists to go with her, but she commands that he stay behind to take care of things while she’s gone. She puts a little blind trust in Mario to Toadsworth’s dismay. They start traveling until suddenly, Toad appears to tag along. Peach insists that he stays behind because she doesn’t want to bring him down if she fails, which resonates with Mario. Toad begs to tag along to prove himself to be a Royal Guard. Peach can’t resist the face and agrees. Mario rolls his eyes in an annoyed but endearing way at Toad because he reminds him of Luigi. Events of the film occur, except a Laikitu with a camera shows Mario with the princess. Kamek sees it through a crystal ball.

Bowser sings his song as usual and is informed that there are TWO male humans that have the same face. Granted, they are separated but one of them is with the Princess and the other has been captured and on the way. Bowser smiles as he realizes he can use this to his advantage.

Events from the film occur except Peach reveals that after attempting to return her to her realm, the toads found the warp pipe destroyed. (A part of me wants to add the deleted scene here, but the moment between the two doesn’t feel earned, so Mario inviting Peach to Brooklyn feels better during Rainbow Road instead)

Luigi and Bowser meet. Except Luigi takes an in depth analysis at his situation. Big throne, lava everywhere, the smell of spicy cinnamon, the biggest one in the room and the only one with horns. This guy is in charge. The interrogation goes just like the film except when. Bowser asks if Princesses find Mario attractive, Luigi says “Do Mayors count?” R.I.P. his mustache. He ends up in the prison room. (Luigi’s Escape Plan comic where he escapes with Lumalee and the Penguin King starts :3)

Events stay the same for the most part up until Peach gets back to the Mushroom Kingdom after Mario and DK fell into the ocean. Toad begs to stay behind and Peach tells him that it’s best if he helps his fellow Toads get to safety. Peach marches outside with Toadsworth to defend the kingdom. Same events occur except Kamek tortures Toadsworth instead. They take Peach and they toss Toadsworth into the prison room. Toad hides, witnessing everything and sneak onto the fortress to rescue Toadsworth. Toad bumps into Luigi and Lumalee.

We are now caught up :3

[lifeiszestyy]

Gold

*A Sparkle Star Galaxy short story*

Day 3 of @writersmonth - gold / actor au AO3

Summary: Eterna T. is planning a movie adaptation of Mario's adventures and asks for advice. Eterna T. belongs to @juliettelime

Date: Gray Cloud 15, 4512 Scenario: During a period of downtime, the start of Winter Vacation Setting: Mushroom Castle, the Mushroom Kingdom, Astraea Characters: Eterna T. (16) + Hayce T. (20) + Gilding ("55")

“So, who do you think captures Mario’s essence better?” Eterna T. asks, a pen in her mouth, “Zip Toad or Doopliss?”

“I told you before we should have invested in an animated movie,” Hayce T. says, resting his forehead on the table and closing his eyes.

“You and everyone else in the brigade. Do you know how much it costs to hire animators?”

“And yet you’re going to hire CGI animators for the effects and pay them less.”

“It’s not cutting corners if that’s the going rate!”

“Eterna T., did you ask me for my honest opinion?”

“...No.”

Hayce T. sighs. “Then I’m gonna take a nap. You should ask the money Star for help.” Hayce T. produces a pillow from his backpack and places it on the table. “For the record, Zip Toad does a better impression in terms of voice and mannerisms, but Doopliss can look exactly like Mario in a way that Zip Toad will never be able to accomplish.”

“So, what you’re saying is that I can use both of them.” Eterna T. looks over to see Hayce T. fast asleep. She sighs and clasps her hands, closing her eyes. O Great Star Gilding, you’ve chastised me many times since we first met, and even though you’re really rude, your advice is very good, and as long as you never let my friends know that I think that, I’ll follow your advice this time, for real.

Eterna T.’s phone lets out a cacophonous clanging noise, vibrating the entire table. Hayce T. tenses, frowns, then slides under the table with his pillow and resumes his nap.

She picks up the phone and checks the message.

[You don’t have to pray anymore to reach me now that you have my number.]

[Old habits die hard. Give me advice, old man.]

[Eterna T., what are your reasons for pursuing this venture?]

[Because it’ll be both fun and lucrative, obviously.]

[If not for the sake of creating art, what is the importance of adapting Mario’s adventures to the screen when his adventures have already been adapted in the form of theater?]

[Theater is fine or whatever, but there’s something really special about watching movies. Some people are really intimidated by the idea of going to the theater, so they’re more likely to go watch a movie instead.]

[So, your reason for creating this movie is because it will be enjoyable to create and will give you a new source of income rather than for the sake of entertaining an audience?]

[Uh, entertaining the audience is part of the “fun” aspect.]

[I’m sure you’ve done your research so tell me: for the intended audience, would they prefer a live action film or an animated film? Are Zip Toad or Doopliss the right actors to pull in the right crowd, or will they draw in more criticism?]

Eterna T. purses her lips as she thinks, listening to Hayce T.’s gentle snores. She types, [I was told that this movie will air in other kingdoms. There’s conflicting information about what’s popular in the other kingdoms, so it’s honestly really annoying to think about.]

[Who is your main audience?]

[The Mushroom Kingdom, of course.]

[Then they should be your top priority. You wouldn’t want to create something to appease other people only for your main audience to feel dissatisfied, right?]

[Hmm… But I want that fancy gold trophy they give out at the Metro Kingdom award ceremony.]

[Is that your end goal?]

Eterna T. sighs. She types [Yes] then erases it.

[Well, it’s all food for thought. You don’t necessarily have to take my advice. Follow your heart as you always have.]

[Bold of a guiding Star to say such a thing. Anyway, why are you texting me? I’m going to call.]

[Don’t call–I’m in the middle of a meeting.]

Eterna T. snorts. [Aww, you’re texting me in the middle of a meeting? Nice to know I’m so important.]

[Young Toad, you are the only one in the Mushroom Kingdom with a combination of ambition, business acumen, and charisma. Most people have one or two of those traits. I’m interested in what you’ll do. But it’s also my job to make sure you don’t go off the rails. Do you really think I’m chastising you?]

[No, you’re not like my pops and grandpops. Besides, you ask me questions about things that I wouldn’t have thought about. Hayce T. does too, but sometimes I don’t listen to him.]

[Advice can only take you so far. Better to have as many experiences as possible and to learn from both your failures and mistakes. Well! It appears as though I’ve been caught. I’ll take my leave now. I look forward to seeing what kind of art a money-minded young person such as yourself will create. Ta ta!]

[How old are you that you’re getting caught like that?]

[Thousands of years and still young!]

“Thousands of years?” Eterna T. mutters. She puts her phone down and nudges Hayce T. with her foot. “Hey, are you sure animation would be better? Wake up!”

Hayce T. rubs his eyes. “I mean… You were always the one who cried about wanting to see morning cartoons instead of people in suits. I was just thinking about what you’d prefer.”

Eterna T. blushes. “This isn’t about me!”

Hayce T.’s laugh ends in a yawn. “Sure, keep telling yourself that.”

Eterna T. holds out her hand to help her friend up. “Let’s go! We’ve got work to do!”

[cococrim]

Fablehaven Headcanons (Singing edition):

Seth: Purposely sings in the most annoying voice just to annoy Kendra. He has the perfect Toad singing voice mastered. But he can be serious about it and he actually has a pretty decent voice. Never try to film it, there’s a reason no recording of Seth singing exists……

Kendra: Marla (her mom) legit has CD’s of just her singing from when she was younger. She’s kinda shy about it, but will sing with a group. If she’s comfortable around you and trusts you not to record it *definitely not Warren, her mother, and Ruth* she might if she’s in the mood. Prefers playing the piano to singing.

Bracken: No one has actually heard him sing. People assume because he’s from the fairy realm and everything that he’d have an amazing voice like the fairies, but it’s a mystery.

Warren: It’s so bad. Not that it sounds terrible, it’s just. He. Never. Stops. He’ll normally go around singing Taylor Swift or trying (and purposely failing) to rap Iggy Azalea’s “Black Widow” and “Fancy”, and asking him to stop only encourages him. Despite that fact that he’ll usually stop if people ignore it, but usually someone will end up paying him before it hits that point. His fees are astronomical, but sometimes worth it.

Vanessa: Heavenly duets with Kendra. Just, angelic. She knows her range and is amazing at picking songs that suit her voice. Everyone’s favorite to listen to until she tried to add a rap verse in “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow“ by Carol King. Kendra and Seth couldn’t stop laughing and always encourage it, but Ruth banned her from adding rap verses that weren’t already there into music while at Fablehaven, “What if the fairies pick it up and think that’s the actual song? It’ll be all we’ll hear for a week!”

Hugo: Hugo started a choir of fairies. No one knows how they were convinced (Kendra and Bracken are baffled). But occasionally you’ll hear him leading them in vocal warmups.

[popculturebuffet]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[mst3kproject]

The Navy vs the Night Monsters

Of course, it’s not like bad things stop happening now that 2020 is finally over… we just get to start counting again from zero. Kind of like how I’ve started counting thirty-six Episodes that Never Were per year, beginning with this one. It was co-directed by Wyott Ordung from Robot Monster and features familiar faces like Russ Bender and Mamie Van Doren, the latter for once not playing a teenage delinquent.  It also has one really obscure MST3K connection: it was based on a story by Murray Leinster, which the sharp-eyed will remember as the name of the ship attacked by Evil Count Zarth Arn’s lava lamp weapon at the beginning of Starcrash!

A plane carrying specimens of Antarctic flora and fauna makes a rather rough and unexpected landing at a naval base on remote Gow Island in the south Pacific.  There appears to be nobody on board except the pilot and a few penguins – the former is in a catatonic state, and the latter are... well, penguins... so what happened to the rest of the passengers and crew is a complete mystery.  Did the pilot go mad and kill them?  Did the penguins?  Or did it have something to do with those mysterious ancient trees discovered growing around a geothermal spring in the heart of the frozen continent?

The first ten minutes of this movie are spent trying to be a comedy.  Before we get anywhere near the plot, we first have to listen to the guys on the plane try to be funny about their lunch and their tastes in women.  Then on the island, we watch a guy who can’t seem to figure out how to inflate a balloon, followed by a dude talking to his dog, and then a really icky bit where two women convince a man he had sex with both of them, which he buys because he was too drunk to remember.  Only then do we finally establish what’s actually going on.  The impression one gets from this beginning is that The Navy vs the Night Monsters is going to be peopled entirely by Jackass Comic Relief characters, and I actually turned the film off and sat on it for a couple of days to psych myself up to watch the rest.

When I finally turned it back on, to my relief the movie turned out not to be quite that bad, but it’s still pretty damned bad.  The dull and unfunny opening is followed by an abrupt shift of tone, as a man maddened by terror jumps from the plane to his death!  The only thing set up by the opening that turns out to be relevant is Spaulding the meteorologist’s crush on Nora the nurse, when she’s in love with the base’s second in command, Lieutenant Brown.

I complain frequently about useless love triangles in movies.  This one is very useless, and all the more so because the script totally forgets to resolve it.  Spaulding hates Gow Island but stays because he’s in love with Nora – he wants her to go back to Miami with him and marry him.  When he puts this idea to her, however, it becomes obvious that Nora can’t stand him, and it’s clear enough why: Spaulding is an asshole and he treats Nora not as a partner but as a possession.  Never does he show any sort of tenderness towards her.  Every time they speak to each other, he seems to end up shouting, and his jealousy of Brown repeatedly leads to violence.

Brown, on the other hand, treats Nora with respect and actually shows vulnerability around her.  He’s been left in charge while the base’s commander is on the mainland attending an important meeting, and he’s really feeling the pressure as the base is surrounded by tree monsters in the dark.  He talks about his anxiety and Nora comforts him, and the audience rolls their eyes because it’s perfectly obvious which of these guys she’s going to pick.  And sure enough, at the end she’s in Brown’s arms… but nothing about the whole situation is exactly resolved.

Brown and Spaulding did get in a fist fight, though it wasn’t explicitly over Nora, but nobody ever talks about the problem. Spaulding never realizes that he’s treated Nora badly, and it never seems to even occur to him that she might prefer Brown over him, or even that she has emotions or preferences at all.  He definitely never seems to understand that he’s lost.  Brown and Nora seem to feel a need to hide their love affair from the other base staff, but we’re never given a reason why (although I guess ‘Spaulding’s a dick’ is reason enough).  Nora never tells Spaulding that she prefers Brown… maybe she’s afraid he’ll assault her?  I hate everything about this situation, but nothing more than the fact that as the movie progresses we get hints that Nora may be warming up to Spaulding, as if she’s supposed to consider these two guys equal contenders for her affections!  Fuck everybody who wrote this, seriously.

It’s kind of sad to see Mamie Van Doren in a role like this after meeting her in things like Untamed Youth and Girls Town.  Those movies were gross and exploitative, but Mamie’s characters were central to their plots and she filled those shoes reasonably well.  She wasn’t Oscar material but for what the films were, she was enough to carry them.  The Navy vs the Night Monsters is a little closer to being a ‘real movie’, but in this respect it represents a step down for her, as she is relegated to being something for two men to fight over.  Furthermore, Silver from Girls Town and Penny from Untamed Youth were both characters who required some range – Nora the nurse mainly spends the whole movie being annoyed with the men in her life.  Van Doren could have done much more if anyone had bothered asking it of her.

Let’s see… what else do I hate about this movie? I hate Private Chandler, the guy who stays a Jackass Comic Relief character once that opening is over. Shockingly, The Navy vs the Night Monsters actually kills him off, but he’s not nearly as annoying as Dropo or the guy from Outlaw, so his death merely feels mean rather than having any entertainment value.  The guy was just about to actually get laid by one of the women who’d made fun of him earlier – though she, like Spaulding, showed no sign of being sorry for past jerkitude.

I hate the monsters.  Normally I have a soft spot for plant monsters.  They’re a cliché in their own way, I guess, but they’re a fun idea.  The ones in The Navy vs the Night Monsters kill and digest people with acidic sap, and a character theorizes about how and why such a thing would evolve, which is cool. The execution, however, sucks. While the poster for the film shows us a humanoid Treebeard-looking thing, the actual monsters in the film are dumb-looking stumps that waddle along like a couple of guys trying to move a piece of furniture corner-by-corner because it’s too heavy to lift.  The result reminds me of The Creeping Terror, in that you have to want to get eaten by these things.  At one point a guy walks right up to one, inspects it, and escapes its clutches merely by backing away slowly!

The trees reproduce using insect-like larvae that are, themselves, lethally venomous.  This is also a neat idea which is, once again, ruined by the execution. The tiny ones are being pulled along the floor by a sometimes-visible string, and then they grow into stumps that look like they should be stools around a boy scout campfire, which move even slower than the adult trees!  There’s a scene where the characters are holed up in the base under an onslaught of these, with planes arriving to napalm them just in time, and it is ludicrous in its attempt to feel threatening.

I do like that Gow Island is a bleak middle-of-nowhere rather than a tropical paradise.  The landscapes kind of remind me of the Falkland Islands, though the weather on Gow is evidently better.  You can see why some of the characters hate it here, surrounded by barren scrub inhabited mostly by ten thousand smelly, raucous seabirds. Unfortunately this backdrop makes the ‘comedy’ opening seem even more out of place, though it’s also kind of nice that they didn’t give us any stereotyped ‘natives’ as either comedy or monster fodder.

As for a theme… well, The Navy vs the Night Monsters is clearly about an invasive species.  The biologist, in suggesting how the tree monsters evolved, points out that they are suited to the hostile environment of Antarctica in ways that make them nearly unstoppable anywhere else.  We’re told that they devoured all the penguins the scientists were bringing back for study, and as well as eating the people, they wreak havoc among the Gow Island seabirds and reproduce out of control.  The parallels to things like cane toads in Australia, or housecats just about anywhere, are obvious.

This isn’t something the characters care about, though, even the ones who profess to be scientists.  At the end, enough of the trees are destroyed that the humans can safely evacuate, and what happens after that is clearly Gow Island’s problem, not humanity’s. I really would have liked to see the script go into this a little more, but then, The Navy vs the Night Monsters is not a movie that wants to go into anything, even stuff it sets up in some detail.

At the end, The Navy vs the Night Monsters feels pretty half-assed.  Somebody wanted to make a movie, and then put in the bare minimum effort possible to have all the parts present.  They clearly understood how movies work, but they didn’t have the money and didn’t want to go to the trouble.  The result is deeply mediocre.  There’s a few laughs out of the dumb stump creatures, but mostly it’s just bad.