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bumblesimagines · 2 months

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Midnight Beach

Part 21/END

Request: Yes or No

~~~

"You're not Indiana fucking Jones, (Y/N)."

"What is with you and Indiana Jones?"

"Why are you going to South America? Like- Jesus, okay, what if El Dorado is real? What are you going to do about the amount of people who are going to come running for a taste of gold? The people who'll come after you for even having a piece of the real deal? What about this Singh guy? He's dangerous, you said so yourself!" The redhead sputtered, waving her arms around animatedly as he packed some things into his backpack. A simple change of clothes, underwear, deodorant, a hydro flask, his phone charger. He'd seen what Liv packed before her trips out to visit her aunt and go hiking but the experience of trekking through a jungle? Kildare wasn't exactly known for its jungles.

"At least we'll have an adult. Better than last time when it was just us on an island." He replied and swept his gaze over his room, searching for anything else he'd need. It almost felt like some sort of fever dream; clearing the air with Sarah and John B, hanging out with the Pogues on the Cut, preparing to go to a whole other continent. Christ, he'd only ever left Kildare a handful of times. Poguelandia had been a way to survive and Barbados an unavoidable accident. Now there he was, packing up to visit South America in search of someone who probably didn't even care for his existence. Completely and utterly avoidable.

"The adult is the one in trouble!" Liv nearly shrieked at him and slumped back on his bed. "You've finally lost it, (Y/N). You're flying out to South America on a presumed dead man's plane to save a deadbeat from some rich dude. Do you realize how crazy that sounds? How stupid? This is dumb. This is like... Topper Thornton level of stupidity. I hope you know that."

"I know how it sounds, Liv, but- I.." He sighed and finally turned to face the redhead. He pressed his leg against the edge of the bed and reached out to delicately comb his fingers through her vibrant locks. She puffed out her cheeks, a sign she'd be giving in soon, and stubbornly jerked her head in the other direction. "The Pogues have always been about adventures. This will be like... a farewell thing. We wrap this whole Royal Merchant and El Dorado thing up and I leave the Pogues to keep on treasure hunting or whatever it is they'll do after Big John's back home. John B's the biggest idiot I know. But even he deserves to have his father with him."

"And what about your parents?"

"I told them that the Pogues and I were going on a little trip to process what happened to us. It's not my fault they didn't ask where we're going." A grin slipped when Liv snorted and rolled her eyes. The redhead took a deep breath and pushed herself up, brushing aside strands of hair and reaching forward to wrap her arms around him. (Y/N) cradled her head against his stomach and kissed the top of her head.

"I'll stay safe, Liv. I promise."

"You better. I don't feel like going to South America to rescue your ass."

✽ ✽ ✽ ✽ ✽ ✽

Parking the jeep alongside Pope's dirt bike and getting out, (Y/N) nearly stumbled back against his jeep when JJ practically leaped into his arms followed by Pope and Cleo. (Y/N) laughed and did his best to embrace them in return, feeling JJ's hand ruffle the top of his head playfully. "You're late, man! Thought you chickened out on us."

"Not yet." He chuckled, nearly missing the wince from Sarah. He tried not to think about how the others would react to the news, especially after everything they'd been through. Rafe, Coastal Venture, Poguelandia, Barbados, and now... South America. He'd joined their little crew of misfits to help out his ex-girlfriend and now there he stood, waiting to hop on a plane to help her new on-and-off boyfriend. Fate truly had a twisted sense of humor.

"Hey, uh, where's Kie?" Pope asked and (Y/N) shifted to look over at the entrance of the tarmac. No sign of an Uber or Lyft or even one of the Carrera's cars. He frowned, thinking of her parents and how desperate they were to keep Kiara home and safe after their return. They'd always been so protective of her.

"It's gotta be her parents, dude. They've been up her ass." Sarah sighed, brushing her hair out of her face.

"They must've said she couldn't come." Pope sucked his teeth. "We're going to have to do this without her, then."

"No," JJ shook his head, adjusting the backpack strap digging into his shoulder and turning toward John B with his hand outstretched. John B immediately began shaking his head. "Gimmie the keys, man. Her parents already hate me, alright? Just.. give me an hour. It'll be like a black ops mission, in and out. Surgical removal type shit, alright? Plus... I kind of owe her."

"Oh?" John B's head snapped up and a twinkle appeared in his eyes, his fist digging around in his pocket to pull out the keys to the Twinkie. "You owe her, huh? Alright, you totally owe her. I appreciate the honesty."

"Give me an hour, alright, ya'll?" JJ snatched the keys out of his hand and sprinted toward the Twinkie, tossing the backpack through the open window before leaping in afterward, his body awkwardly landing halfway in while John B and Pope groaned. (Y/N) snorted, watching him wiggle his whole body through the window and climb into the driver's seat.

"Feather the throttle!" John B shouted after him and the Twinkie's wheels squealed loudly against the road. They watched him drive off toward the entrance to save his... 'friend.' His very good 'friend.' Totally not his crush or anything like that.

A hand came to rest on his shoulder and he looked back to catch Sarah's eye. She smiled at him, tired and nervous, and her fingers dug lightly into his shoulder. Sarah looked back toward the road where the Twinkie disappeared behind some trees and swallowed, her teeth biting down on her bottom lip. "Do you think he'll convince them to let her go?"

"Probably not." (Y/N) murmured. "I can't say I blame them either. I wouldn't want my daughter hanging out with people she keeps going missing with."

"I never really thought about it like that." Sarah dropped her hand and wrapped her arms around herself, the gentle breeze tousling around some of her hair. There was a heavy silence between them and despite the many discussions they had, it held an air of words yet to be spoken. Their history could never be unwritten, only forgotten over time as they entered adulthood. They'd eventually find their place in the world, their proper place, and begin a life without the other. It seemed fair to (Y/N). It was life. He'd come to accept it. Sarah Cameron had taken up much of his world in recent times, but like everything else, she'd eventually become a faint memory of his life in Figure Eight. A girl he loved and lost. An old friend. Someone he recalled both fondly and bitterly.

"I'll keep in touch, by the way." A lie or the truth? He couldn't quite tell. Did he want to stay in communication with them, with her? It'd be a risk. They'd eventually stumble into a new adventure, something new to discover and unveil that'd prompt them to reach out, whether to experience it with him or ask him for something.

"You could attend Chapel Hill, you know." She said softly. "It's close to home, close to us but not on the island."

"That's not happening, Sarah. I want to get away from here, from Figure Eight and Kildare. I've been here long enough. I don't want to regret not doing what I always wanted. I don't want to be like some of the miserable men here who only get genuine happiness when they go on business trips away from their families. The women here either love their lives or drown themselves in wine while the men inhale coke like its air and are barely ever home. It's a nightmare living here, Sarah. You see it, I see it. The Carrera's are one of the few that seem happy together and they had to prove themselves to even be accepted as Kooks. It's... hell."

"Not everything's so bad. There was... us and- and Topper and-"

"Things that are over, Sarah. Topper definitely won't be talking to us for a while and you and I... " (Y/N) inhaled deeply through his nose and released it in a heavy sigh. "You and I are done. For now or for good, I don't really know. If things change in the future... if we change in the future... maybe we'll find each other again. But I'm done with bullshit love triangles and John B."

"I know. I just-"

"Eight hours?! JJ, don't have eight hours! We've got a jet here. We're all waiting!" The two of them turned at the sound of John B's voice, spotting him speaking into the phone with a look of frustration. He blinked and shook his head rapidly, stammering and stumbling over his words before pulling the phone away from his ear and sighing.

"What's going on?" Pope asked as he and Cleo sat down on the steps leading up to the plane. John B rubbed the area between his brows and pinched the bridge of his nose, tucking his phone into his back pocket.

"Kiara got sent to a wilderness camp," He told them. "So, JJ is going to try to rescue her. He says he'll need eight hours-"

"Hours we don't have." Sarah cut in, folding her arms over her chest and walking toward him. "John B-"

"I know, I know. JJ said that if they don't make it in time, we should just go. That- That somehow they'll make it to South America." John B sighed again at the faces everyone made. Kiara locked away in a wilderness camp and JJ on a mission to rescue her. Sounded like an average Tuesday for the Pogues. "Yeah, I know, but it's JJ. He'll figure something out."

"So, what? We just waitin' around now?" Cleo questioned, her eyes flickering between them. "The longer we wait, the farther Singh gets, you know that, right?"

John B ran a hand over his face and nodded. The sky above them began to darken with the setting sun and gray clouds. Time seemed to tick by faster than expected. "Yeah, yeah, we know, Cleo. But this is Kie and JJ. We can't just leave leave them."

"Guess we're waiting then." Sarah pursed her lips. "Better get comfortable."

Another hour or two passed and night officially fell overhead, leaving them with only the lights along the airstrip. The plane pilot settled comfortably in the cockpit, awaiting instructions while the Pogues paced outside. No sign of JJ or Kiara, no calls, no texts. Dead silence on their end that only made frustration grow. John B continued to stare out toward the entrance, tapping his foot or dialing their numbers in vain.

"We have to go, John B," Sarah spoke up, pacing along the steps with her hands firmly on her hips. "We don't have eight hours. We can't wait around any longer, alright?"

"I'll try to call him again, okay?" As John B reached into his pocket and wiggled out his phone, the sound of a dirt bike grew closer and two dark figures on a bike appeared from the darkness of the airstrip. Everyone's attention immediately snapped toward it and Cleo groaned in relief. The scold on the tip of Pope's tongue halted and they all froze as the driver tossed their helmet off with their bloodied hands. (Y/N) felt his blood turn cold.

Hands left his sides and lifted to his face. Rafe roughly grabbed his throat, fingers digging into (Y/N)'s skin. A soft whimper left him and he pressed his hands against Rafe's chest, attempting to push back the blonde. "I need you to listen to me very carefully." He spotted Rafe's pupils in the light. He was high. "I need to get rid of John B. He came back to hurt my family and Sarah's helpin' him. I don't want to hurt her. She's my sister. But I can't let John B walk free. You know that, (Y/N). I'll let you come with me in case things get outta hand... But don't get in the way."

Taking in a sharp breath when Rafe released him, (Y/N) gingerly touched his sore throat. Rafe reached around the back of his waistband and took out a revolver, letting (Y/N) soak it in for a moment before tucking it back into its hiding spot. A coldness washed over him, making every hair on his body stand straight. Rafe ran a hand over his face and sniffled lightly, rubbing his nose and slapping a hand over (Y/N)'s back. He casually tossed the door open and stepped out.

"Come on, Barry's waiting."

He felt the phantom touch of fingers digging into his skin, hands coiling around his throat in an iron grip that left him momentarily breathless. Only the pained groan and Rafe's hurried movements broke him out of his brief trance, the withering and panting body on the back of the bike finally registering. Ward toppled over, bringing the bike along with him as he fell onto the concrete, revealing the large bloody circle on his shirt. Fucking Camerons.

"You're okay, Dad. You're okay, you're okay." Rafe breathlessly repeated as he reached down to bring Ward back up onto his feet. He finally knocked the helmet off Ward's head, revealing his pained face. Sarah staggered backward, staring wide-eyed at her father's bleeding form. Rafe turned to them, chest heaving. "Don't just stand there! I need some help! Come on, help me! (Y/N)! Please, Sarah."

Short, rapid breaths escaped Sarah's mouth and she hurried forward despite her previous hesitance. "What happened?!" She asked, pulling one of Ward's arms over her shoulder, helping her father wobble closer and closer to the plane.

"A fisherman spotted him, alright? They know he's alive. We gotta get him off the island right now." Rafe explained, tightly clutching his father's shirt and helping him inside the rest of the way. Sarah brought her hands to her forehead and moved away from the stairs, mumbling curses under her breath as she began to pace before bolting inside to check on them.

"Hell no. We are not getting on the plane with him. Hell no!" Pope shook his head as he cursed and turned toward John B. The brunette remained silent, eyes staring at the dots of red littering the ground and leading up to the plane.

(Y/N) rubbed his throat and turned around to face them, inhaling softly. Rafe looked different. Still had that deranged look in his eye but he'd buzzed his hair, ridding himself of the boyish blonde waves. The blood on his hands... a look that fitted him. A coked-up, daddy's boy who'd do anything for his approval, even if it meant staining his hands.

"He wasn't supposed to come," Sarah said breathlessly, heading down the steps and coming to a stop beside John B. "He stays on the island, he gets arrested."

"No, no, Sarah. I don't think you understand. I don't know if I can get on a plane with that guy-"

"Just listen, John B. This is his plane. I can't stop him from leaving. But he will still give us a ride to Orinoco, so if you don't wanna get on the plane, I get it. We'll find another way!"

John B swallowed, staring down at her as his lips pressed together. "There's no other way." He muttered, turning his head to look at Pope and Cleo. He took in a deep breath. "Let's go. Let's get on the plane."

"With them?" Pope stared at him, completely bewildered, and features slightly hardened with bitterness. With Rafe? (Y/N) grimaced. He'd be fine with just Ward, even if the man appeared half-dead with his groaning. At John B's nod, Pope sighed and turned around, preparing to head into the plane when Rafe stepped out. The two stopped and stared at each other, jaws clenching and muscles tensing. The air filled heavy with tension and unfinished business.

Rafe moved first, heading down the steps and brushing past the glaring boy. Cleo placed a hand on Pope's back, urging him inside and blocking his way until Pope finally headed up into the plane. (Y/N) took in a breath and walked forward, only taking a couple steps toward the plane before sweaty lean arms wrapped around his shoulders. He froze in Rafe's embrace, feeling those bloodied hands curl around the back of his shirt. "Keep an eye on him,' He whispered. "Please."

"He'll be fine." (Y/N) murmured breathlessly, and pulled himself free of the embrace to cut the distance between him and the stairs. He headed up them, hearing Rafe say the same sentiment to Sarah as she followed after him.

Inside the plane, Ward took up two seats near the front with his injury properly bandaged. He winced and groaned every few seconds, his face dripping with sweat. He seemed stable enough. Pope and Cleo sat far from him, side by side with Cleo quietly speaking to a fuming Pope. Sarah collapsed on one of the seats across from Ward with a first aid kit in her hands. John B sat a few seats down, looking weirdly calm about the whole situation. (Y/N) pursed his lips.

It was going to be a long ride to South America.

✽ ✽ ✽ ✽ ✽ ✽

"It's the Wild West out here," Cleo murmured as they stepped off the plane. The airstrip contained multiple people in military gear, some held guns or leashes clipped to attack dogs. Different country, different laws, different treatment. (Y/N) only prayed they'd at least manage to stay on the right end of a gun, far from the barrel or bullets.

"Sarah!" Ward called out, limping down the stairs and holding onto the railings. "I'm coming."

Sarah whipped around to face him, a scoff escaping her. "No, you're not. You got us here like you said you would. Now go on to Guadeloupe. You need to see a doctor!"

"You're way in over your head. I can help, let me help. Please-"

"No!" Sarah shouted, cutting him off sharply. "Get back in the plane. You promised you weren't a part of this."

Ward fell silent, his eyes trailing over each of them. He pressed his lips together tightly and nodded. "Okay." He sighed, turning around and wobbling back into the plane. Sarah turned away and ran a frustrated hand over her face, nodding for them to continue off the airstrip with a solemn look on her face.

Getting a taxi and heading further into Tres Rocas, they listened to the sound of fireworks and firecrackers as people roamed the decorated streets. Lively music played from different buildings and children raced up and down the streets, clutching flags and other things in their hands. Things seemed better, more friendlier than the dreary, heavily watched airport.

"Looks like a local holiday," Cleo mused, stepping out of the taxi and observing her surroundings. (Y/N) watched a firework shoot up into the air and hummed quietly before turning to face the others when the taxi drove away, leaving them in the middle of the crowded street.

"So, we have to assume that Singh's already gone upriver, alright? We're looking for a guy named Jose. He's gonna take us to the dig site. I, uh... I do not have a last name."

"I hate to break it to you, John B," (Y/N) began. "You're in a Latin country. Half the dudes here are going to be named Jose and most of them will be likely working some sort of job regarding the river since, you know, this is a river town."

"(Y/N)'s right. It'll be like findin' a teardrop in the ocean." Cleo rubbed her forehead as she spoke, a tired look passing over her face. "We'd have better luck tryin' to find Singh."

"Well, I'm assuming river guides probably hang out by the river?" Sarah attempted halfheartedly.

"Yeah, and if they're anything like the guys at OBX, they're probably getting drunk on a holiday."

Sarah hummed thoughtfully and placed her hands on her hips, a hopeful grin appearing on her face. "Let's start with the bars, then. Divide and conquer, ya'll."

And with that, the group split up and spread out around town. (Y/N) put his basic Spanish lessons from school to use, hitting up any place that looked like it sold beer and asking around for Jose the river guide. Many of the locals waved him off or shook their heads, unable to answer any of his questions with useful information. Regardless, he thanked them and went on his way until he met up with Pope and Cleo again near the center of the town, the looks on their faces telling him they'd have similar luck.

The sound of tires squealing caught their attention and they spotted a jeep driving down the road, heading straight for them. "Run." Pope breathed and without needing to be told twice, the three of them took off running down the street. The jeep honked repeatedly, the sound of it growing closer and closer as they ducked down different streets trying to lose it.

"Como estas, amigos?" A familiar face stuck their head out a windowless bus, speaking in barely understandable Spanish and with a hude dumb grin on his face. Fucking JJ and Kiara. Go figure. He laughed gleefully but the look quickly vanished at the realization that they were being chased.

"Already?! We just got here!" Kiara groaned, hurrying off the bus with JJ. "What's happening?"

"Singh's men are after us. We gotta think of a plan." Pope explained breathlessly, bracing his hands on his knees and attempting to calm his racing heart by taking deep breaths.

"Let's hijack the bus!"

"This bus?" Kiara scoffed at JJ's proposal, motioning wildly to the old rickety bus they'd taken. "It only goes ten miles an hour!"

"They're coming now, guys! Hide in the fruit stands, come on!" Cleo ushered them further down an alleyway where rows of stalls stood. They ducked and weaved around the bustling people until they found an unoccupied stand to hide behind. (Y/N) could feel droplets of sweat roll down his cheeks, his eyes locked on the rifles the two men carried around as they asked and checked the bus. The two eventually headed back to their jeep and took off down the road.

"Welcome to South America," Cleo said, tossing her arms up.

"They're foreigners, Cleo." (Y/N) murmured, catching his breath and running the back of his hand over his forehead. "The locals haven't done anything. They don't owe us any help either."

"So..." Kiara trailed off, her chest heaving with deep breaths. "What's the plan?"

JJ swallowed, his eyes flickering over the stands and locals bustling around before his lips twisted up. He looked back at Kiara, studying her face for a moment before looking back toward them. "Barracuda Mike gave us the ride here. We could... ask him?" He proposed, wincing at the deadpan look Pope gave him. "He's our only shot, man!"

"Fantastic..." Pope sighed heavily. "Barracuda Mike it is."

Barracuda Mike, as it turned out, was a smuggler who primarily dealt with smuggling drugs and other similar things out of North Carolina via his cargo plane. And, he seemed surprisingly understanding when the group returned to him asking for help, claiming to have a boat set up at the river. He led them to it, even offering over a mag of machetes for them to use as weapons as he led them through a short trek in the jungle and to a boat perched on the water.

"I'm addin' the cost of this rig to what you already owe me. I don't expect to see it again, anyway. I asked around at the landin' today. Your buds did leave this mornin', but I was able to get directions to El Tesoro. Pretty loose since only Jose knows the real way, but it'll get you in the right zip code." Barracuda Mike explained, handing over a piece of paper with directions written on it and nodding for them to climb into the boat.

Turning to look at him, Pope offered a small smile. "Thanks."

"Don't thank me." Barracuda Mike brushed him off with a dry chuckle and wave of his hand. "Start prayin'." Ah, that made his willingness to help more understandable. He wanted them out of his hair as quickly as possible. "

With a couple of strained grunts, Barracuda Mike pushed the boat further into the water and lifted his hand to wave at them as the boat began floating downstream. JJ got the motor started and their speed increased, releasing a soft hum that mixed with the distant singing birds, chirping insects, and even the occasional hoot of a monkey. The five of them settled comfortably on the boat, filling the silence with chatter. (Y/N) spent his time gazing into the murky, brown river water until night fell and they took turns steering the boat to get some rest.

By the early morning, the sound of another boat heading down the river prompted JJ to wake everybody up and steer the boat closer to the bank where it'd be hidden by foliage and low-hanging leaves. They ducked down and waited, watching as a boat filled with Singh's men passed by, armed and going rather fast.

"They're not lookin' for us." Cleo mused. "They're movin' too quick."

"They're looking for John B and Sarah." JJ realized quietly, darting up from his spot and starting the motor back up. "They gotta know where they're headed. We need to go. They're gonna need us!"

The boat quickly resumed its journey down the rivers, speed fast enough to keep up with Singh but slow enough not to draw their attention. (Y/N) watched the boat drift in and out of view, disappearing over the horizon until JJ sped back up. His gaze moved over to the bag of machetes resting on the floor of the boat. Weapons, Barracuda Mike had called them. Weapons meant to help them against armed and trained men with guns. Maybe he should've listened to Liz, after all.

Early the next morning they encountered a small docking area by the riverbank. Kiara studied the paper Barracuda Mike had given them, her head lifting every so often to look at the village before she nodded to herself. "Guys, I think this is El Tesoro. The trailhead to the mountain is supposed to start here." She told them.

"Oh, shit," JJ whispered, motioning ahead to two of Singh's men lingering on the docks. "What are we gonna do? We gotta get past them somehow."

Pope's lips pursed and he slipped his backpack off his shoulders, setting it down on his lap and rummaging through the contents before pausing and looking up at them. "I... may have an idea."

"This is so stupid." (Y/N) whispered, peeking over the windowsill of the old, abandoned shack that had the perfect view of the men. One of them dozed off on a boat while the other fiddled around with different things, seemingly bored of waiting around. "If one of you gets shot-"

"It'll be fine, (Y/N)." Kiara assured him, ensuring the note she'd tied to the end of the fish hook wouldn't fall before she tossed the line out. It landed in the boat the napping man lied in and he startled, sitting up with squinted eyes and looking around until he noticed the note. "Get ready, ya'll.... and.... now, JJ!"

The blonde lit a firecracker and tossed it into the air, far enough that it hit the side of boat and exploded in the water. The man scrambled up and grabbed his rifle, his head on a swivel as his partner ducked down. Another firecracker landed and exploded nearby, prompting the man to start shooting blindly and forcing them to duck down to avoid being seen or hit.

"Return fire, Pope! Return fire!" JJ shouted and Pope quickly lit another firecracker, tossing it over the roof of the shack.

When that one exploded, they heard the man shouting at his partner to get in the boat. The boat quickly sped off with the two men on it and the group sent them off with one last firecracker. Once they disappeared down the river, (Y/N) stood up and shook his head, rolling his eyes at JJ and Pope's celebratory handshake.

"Hey, hey," Cleo called, stepping out of the shack and sucking her teeth. "No time for celebrating. We didn't do nothing yet."

✽ ✽ ✽ ✽ ✽ ✽

"You know," (Y/N) exhaled breathlessly, sweat dripping profusely from his skin from both the humidity and trek up the mountain. Kiara answered with a soft groan, clutching her side as she leaned against a tree and turned back to look at him. Pope and Cleo had long gone ahead of them, clearing a way with two machetes as if they were used to hiking through jungles. "I'm glad this little last adventure... with you all has been... interesting, to say the least."

"Last?" JJ repeated, quickly as breathless. His blonde strands stuck to his forehead and temples, soaked as if he'd taken a plunge in the river. "What- What do you mean, last?"

"Yeah, I mean-" Kiara took a deep gulp of air and swatted away a buzzing insect. "-I'm sure there'll be other adventures."

"Yeah, for you guys." (Y/N) stood up straighter and rolled back his shoulder, wincing when his back ached. His legs were in no better condition, aching and weeping for rest. JJ and Kiara stared at him, their brows knitting together. "I- I... Jesus, I hate hiking. I'm never doing this again."

"Ditto." Kiara laughed and turned her back to him, using the trunk she'd been leaning against to help her move over a fallen log. "But, what do you mean? We're Pogues. All of us. Even Cleo and you. We're... We're a family... one that should never go hiking again."

"Remember that night when Sarah told us about the plane?" You asked, waiting for JJ to step over the log and sighing quietly when the blonde tripped and nearly fell. He recovered quickly, shooting them both an innocent grin as he wiped moist dirt off his hand. (Y/N) cautiously stepped over the log, keeping in mind the root that'd nearly taken out JJ and glancing up at them as they continued the trek.

"Yeah, you and JB cleared the air, right?" JJ glanced over his shoulder at him.

"Yeah, sorta, I guess. But, uhm... I told them that I'd-"

"Woah, guys, look at this view!" Kiara suddenly called out with a giddy laugh, the path leading out to an open area where they could overlook the thick jungle and the mountains ahead. (Y/N) noticed Pope and Cleo breaking away from each other quickly and hummed quietly, a smile pulling at the edges of his lips. Kiara and JJ, Pope and Cleo... Sarah and John B. They all had each other, in some way or another.

"What were you saying, (Y/N)?" JJ turned to look at him, causing the others to turn as well.

"Oh, uhm..." (Y/N) trailed off and sighed, looking out toward the gorgeous view before him. A thick green jungle as far as the eye could see, giant mountains that reached toward the skies, the beautiful song of the jungle sounding through the air. Beautiful, but everything that'd led him up to that moment hadn't truly been worth the view. "I'm leaving the OBX. For good. I'm- I'm going to get my diploma and apply to colleges away from here."

"What?" The resounding response to his revelation.

"I know, I know... Poguelandia, I know. I deserve more than being the thirdwheel or the ex being dragged along, guys. As much as ya'll hate to admit it, I'm a Kook. I care about each of you, even John B... sometimes. You'll always be family. And sometimes, families have to separate to live their lives to the fullest, right? I want a degree, a proper job, and a safe life. It's boring but it'll be comfortable." The Pogues remained largely quiet, mixed expressions on their faces and different emotions flashing but in the end, they all settled on bittersweet smiles and nods. "And I promise to send wedding invitations, if I ever get engaged."

"You better!" JJ laughed, lurching forward to swing his arms around his shoulders and hold him tightly. "You better, you bastard. I expect to be a groomsman, you hear?"

"And you better keep in touch, too." Kiara piped in.

"And visit when you can, alright?" Pope added and Cleo agreed with a nod.

"I will, I will." (Y/N) chuckled, running his hand over JJ's back before the two pulled away. "Now, let's go find those two idiots."

They headed down the mountain after Pope pointed out a manmade trail heading down and further into the jungle. JJ took the lead with Kiara, using machetes to cut down any thick grass, exposed roots, or fallen wood. They walked with idle chatter until a loud, distant yet not far explosion sounded through the air, startling the animals and causing birds in a nearby tree to shoot up into the air in a panic. They fell silent and exchanged wide-eyed glances before a silent, mutual agreement passed over them and they broke out into a sprint in the direction of the explosion.

"Careful!" Pope called when Kiara tripped over a root but brushed him off with a wave and stood back up to hurry after JJ.

They continued through the path until they heard the familiar sound of Ward's voice, followed by Big John and Sarah. Immediately ducking down, they carefully made their way up the steep path and peeked over, spotting Ward holding Big John, Sarah, and John B at gunpoint while speaking quietly to them.

"What are we gonna do?" Pope questioned quietly.

"Is this ride or die?" JJ asked quietly, his hand curling around the machete sheathed away. The others mimicked his movements, freeing their machetes from their sheaths and holding tightly onto them. JJ glanced back at them and grinned. "P4L."

The group charged forward with battle cries, pulling Ward's attention away from the three and onto them. He swung his gun around frantically as the group shouted at him, demanding he put his gun down. Ward panted, his eyes wide and arm swinging around, continuously switching who he pointed the gun at in a desperate attempt to spook them into staying back.

"You can't shoot just one of us." (Y/N) exhaled, grinding his teeth when Ward looked back at him with softened features.

"If you have to shoot somebody, Ward, shoot me." Big John told him through labored breaths, his bloodied hands pressed against his side. Shit. Ward spun on his heel to face him but John B stepped in his way, staring him right in the eye and arching a brow.

"Or me." He said softly, watching Ward's features harden and the trembling of his hand grow. He curled his lip and took a deep breath, attempting to steady his arm but then Sarah stepped in front of John B, her eyes shiny with tears but her features showcasing her utter exhaustion.

"Stop." She whispered, swallowing as a tear slid down her cheek and she stepped forward, pressing the barrel to her chest and staring at her father. "Enough."

"Don't-"

"You're not gonna kill all of us. I know you won't. I know you." Sarah's lips began to tremble and she shakily exhaled. "You forget that I know you."

Her words seemed to have an effect on Ward, his own eyes flooding with tears and face scrunching up as his shoulders began shaking. Sarah placed her hand over his, pushing it down and pulling the gun from his weakened grip. "I couldn't." Ward gasped, tears running freely down his face. His palm came to rest on Sarah's cheek and he weakly smiled. "I couldn't do it."

"Yeah? Well, I can." A new voice called followed by the sound of a gun cocking. One of Singh's men stumbled out of the jungle, his gun raised and pointed at them before dropping down to Big John when John B pointed his own gun at him. "Toss it!"

"Take it easy, bud." Big John spoke weakly. "Your boss is dead. You got no reason to do this."

"I can think of a few reasons." The man sneered at Big John, his eyes jumping back to John B. "Toss it!" He demanded sharply and John B lifted his hands, letting the gun slip from his grasp. The man slinked forward, keeping his gun trained on them. "Thought you'd end up with the gold, eh? Alright, nobody move. My mate back there is dead. Because of you. You..." He pointed his gun at Sarah. "Can go first."

Exchanging one last somber look with his daughter, Ward charged forward, taking multiple shots to his body but refusing to relent until he tackled the man and took them both tumbling down the cliff nearby. Sarah staggered forward, short gasps escaping her that turned into quiet sobs. (Y/N) moved first, snapping the others out of their shock, and walked toward the cliff's edge. He spotted the two lifeless bodies at the bottom and grimaced, closing his eyes tightly and listening to Sarah's sobs grow louder.

"Big John? Hey, Big John?" Pope's panicked voice made him open his eyes and he turned his head, noticing Big John's head lolling off to the side. (Y/N)'s arms reached out, pulling Sarah against him, and nodded to John B. The brunette shot him a thankful look before rushing over to his father, speaking hurriedly to him and slinging on of his arms over his shoulder.

"Come on, we gotta get you out of here, Dad." John B told him, waiting for Pope to get his other arm before they began heading back down the trail as quickly as possible.

"We'll let them know when we get back that his body's here, alright?" (Y/N) took Sarah by the shoulders, squeezing them lightly. She sniffled, another sob wrecking her body but she managed to nod weakly, one arm sliding around his waist to use him as support. "You'll be okay, Sarah. We'll all be okay."

They took turns helping Big John, the weight of a tall grown man weakening them after some time. They managed to reach the deserted dock, getting to their boat, and laying him down. (Y/N) got the motor started, steering them up the river as the Pogues tried giving Big John reassurances through their tears. He remained by the motor, watching them slowly come to terms with Big John's fate. His breathing had long become labored, his body too exhausted to fight through the pain.

With a trembling hand, Big John took his son's hand. "We did it together, my boy. Just... just like we drew it up. Hey, hey, Bird... it's okay." He weakly smiled up at him, rubbing his thumb over John B's hand. "I know... that I wasn't any great shakes as a father... but you... you were the best son any man could hope for. I want you to know that..."

"Tell me when we get home, Dad, okay?" John B sniffled, reaching into his bag to pull out the block of gold they'd been able to get from El Dorado before exploding the entrance alongside Singh. He set the block on Big John's chest for him to look at, a pained, bittersweet smile on his face. "We did it. We did it, Dad."

Big John's eyes fluttered closed, his breathing growing weaker and shorter. John B's lips rolled into his mouth, the tears dripping down his cheeks and quiet sobs escaping him. "I'll see you... I'll see you at home, kid..." Big John told him, before his chest ceased rising and John B hugged him tightly.

✽ ✽ ✽ ✽ ✽ ✽

"Is this all of it?"

(Y/N) tore his attention away from his startling empty room to look over at Liz. He'd taken down most of his pictures, even those of him and Sarah, and packed them away in a box. He'd already chosen which ones he felt like keeping and which ones he felt fine with parting. His closet remained partly empty, a couple clothes kept in there just in case, but his essentials and anything sentimental had been packed away and in the back of his jeep.

"Yeah," (Y/N) nodded, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jacket and nodding to himself. "We're good to go, I guess."

"Good, 'cause I have a flight to catch." Liv walked forward, wrapping her arms around him before planting a kiss on his cheek. She scanned the room and hummed quietly, turning around and making her way to the door. "I'll be waiting for you on campus, alright? I already spoke to your future roomie-"

"Liv." (Y/N) groaned.

"And I have to say, he's pretty cute. I think you'll have fun together." Liv winked, her mischievous giggles echoing down the hall.

Rolling his eyes and quietly muttering to himself, (Y/N) took one last survey of his childhood bedroom. He'd miss it, even with all the lonesome memories it held. He walked toward the door and stepped outside, gently shutting it and making his way down the hall. His eyes took in every inch of the hall, gaze lingering on the rare family photos still hung up despite his parent's pending divorce. Things were better that way. They'd go their own way, find their own happiness. Communication with them had improved, at least. No more ignored calls.

"Goodbye, home sweet home." He whispered to himself, striding down the stairs and picking up his keys.

(Y/N) stepped outside and shut the door with a soft thud, locking it and double-checking it locked. He inhaled deeply and stepped off the porch, waving to Liv's car when it sped down the road. Topper waited at the end of the driveway, attempting to look as casual as possible while leaning against his truck.

"What's up, Top?"

"Came to see you off, is all," Topper responded with a shrug, pushing himself off the truck and walking up the driveway toward him. He stood in front of him, twisting his lips up a bit before throwing his arms around him in a tight hug. (Y/N) stumbled backward and chuckled, wrapping his arms around him. "I'm still mad at you.... but I'll miss you."

"Yeah, yeah, don't get into trouble, alright?" (Y/N) leaned back, ruffling up his pristine blonde locks and laughing when Topper huffed. "Keep an eye on Sarah, will you? But be nice about it."

"She's a big girl," Topper muttered, crossing his arms over his chest. "I will. Just for you, though."

"Uh-huh." (Y/N) climbed into his jeep and turned the engine on, feeling it come to life beneath him. He took another look at the boy and smiled, closing the door and resting his arm on top of it. "I'll be seeing you in a couple months, anyway. Got that big thing with the mayor, remember? Something about the treasure."

"Don't be a stranger, then!" Topper called, watching the car reserve out of the driveway.

With one last wave, (Y/N) drove down the street. He turned the volume of the radio up and absentmindedly listened to the random pop songs that played, his eyes focused on the scenery passing him by. The expensive houses, the snobby neighbors, the shimmering water peeking between the trees, the welcoming town between both worlds, the distant horn of the ferry. He'd miss Kildare but it felt good to finally break away from it.

The repeated honking of a car caught his attention and he rolled his eyes when the Twinkie drove up beside him with JJ halfway out of the passenger window. Whoops, hollers, and the occasional 'we'll miss you' came from the van and JJ playfully blew him a few kisses before being forced back into his seat by John B. The brunette pushed his hand into the horn a few more times before they turned down a different road.

"Idiots." (Y/N) whispered with a chuckle and pulled into a gas station, parking his car by one of the bumps and stepping out. He stuck his hand in his back pocket for his wallet and tugged it out, moving around his car and looking up in time to notice Sarah jogging across from the store.

"Liv told me you were gonna stop for gas here." She revealed with a chuckle, brushing back strands of blonde hair she'd recently recolored. Sarah smiled sweetly, glancing at the stuff stored in the back of his jeep. "The others are gonna pick me up in a second. I... I wanted to say bye to you alone. Well- Somewhat alone."

"All of you are acting as if I'm marching off war." (Y/N) snorted. Sarah laughed sheepishly and shrugged lightly, taking a few steps closer before she leaned up to press their lips together. She leaned back and rested her hands on his shoulders, her smile shifting into a sad one. She sighed shakily and chuckled again.

"Thank you, for everything... I couldn't have asked for a better boyfriend, ex or not. I'll really miss you and just know that- that I'll always have love for you, (Y/N). Remember that, okay? Promise you'll never forget how much I care about you... how much we all care for you." She told him softly, tilting her head up to gaze into his eyes. "Pogues for life?"

"Pogues for life." He echoed softly, combing his fingers through her hair and pressing his hand against her cheek. Sarah leaned into his touch and closed her eyes.

"I'm... I'm glad you're going for your happily ever after, (Y/N). Even if it's not with us. We'll always be here if you ever need us."

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gilbirda · 2 years

Note

I am currently FULL of RAGE!!!!

Do you have any Anger Management prompts in your brain that could make me feel better?

If not that is okay

I enjoy your content!

Hello!!!! Have you taken a look at the amazing asks I've gotten before? People do really come up with great ideas!

Random posts ideas:

Jason helping Jazz fix her car and giving her his number

I did a bit of Genderbent Anger Management! Could be interesting to go ham with genderbent

Soft Anger Management headcanons

How they react to each other being angry or sad

Jazz's and Jason's love language headcanons

Submission - Jason drinks Jazz's "kale" ectoplasm shake

Submission - Jazz and Jason cause and interdimensional political incident by dating

Would Jason and Jazz have children? Ft. a whole ass ficlet in the ask

Old Man Jason and tech impaired Jazz are a match made in heaven

Tall!Jazz and crime lord Red Hood are very like Morticia and Gomez Addams and have a healthy sex life

Prompt: Jazz makes cookies that taste weird and gives them to Jason's goons. They suspect the cookies are poisoned

Submission - King Regent Jason

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Asks:

Jason working part time as a chef and knowing what the cute Arkham doctor always orders

Green Lantern!Jazz x Crime Boss!Jason

Vlad&Bruce and Danny&Dick try to set Jason and Jazz up. It goes horribly wrong

Enemies to lovers Anger Management: Take 1 and Take 2

Angst Anger Management! With stellar mention to my Evil!Jazz snippet

Anger Management adopts a kid (this is from where my fic "Family" was spawned, but the idea can go anywhere)

Good Cop!Red Hood and Bad Cop!Jazz

Danny dies and Jazz hired Red Hood to help her avenge her brother - inspired my fic Deal

Jason meets alternate versions of his girlfriend (Krossan's Hunter!Jazz, Evil!Ghost Queen!Jazz, Mortified!Jazz, Halfa!Jazz)

Jazz is hurt and VERY liminal and Red Hood sees her jump from a window unscathed

Jazz is very liminal and is captured by the GIW, the Outlaws come to her rescue???

Ember comes to Gotham and Red Hood is smitten with Jazz. She has to deal with him, with the bats being suspicious of her and with Ember messing around

Jazz becomes a Indiana Jones kind of adventurer retrieving ghostly artifacts. One adventure makes her cross paths with the Outlaws.

Short ficlet of Anger Management wedding

Jazz (and Dani) go in the Ghost King's place to Aquaman's birthday party and the Batfam is there. Shenanigans ensue.

Jason ends up betrothed to the Princess of the Ghosts by accident

Jason is sent to Amity Park by Talia, framed for the Drs Fenton's disappearances and then he imprints on Jazz

Jazz and Dan for a new Outlaws team with Red Hood. Dan redemption with a side of Anger Management.

Jazz and Jason childhood friends, they met in summer camp

Neighbors Jazz and Jason meet cute

Social worker Jazz protecting children in Crime Alley

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More random ideas:

Regency era AU

Coffee shop AU (the barista is Jason and her order is super caffeinated and with so little sugar he is worried the girl's taste buds are broken)

Necromancer!Jazz is Jason's neighbor. She is needed for something by the JLA and Jason is set to convince her to help

Sick fic! Jason mother hens sick Jazz. She does the same for him when he gets sick. (thanks Impy for the idea!)

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At the moment I don't have more but this works as a masterpost now that I think about it! Will add more when more people comes to me with fire ideas or I get more plot bunnies I can't write!

I hope this helps and you can discuss this ship with me whenever you want!!! I love them so much (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

#gil answers #minnesota-fats #anger management ship #jazz/jason #dpxdc #danny phantom #batman dc #dp x dc #dc x dp #batpham #anger management masterpost

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 8 months

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About Me: Favorite TV Shows

I'm gonna be honest with all of you: I'm not much of a TV show guy. I'm just typically not one who likes sinking a lot of time into something unless it's a video game with a lot to do in it. This is why I review movies; they're typically the perfect length for my easily-distracted ass to take in.

But still, there are plenty of shows that have broken that rule and managed to keep me engaged and coming back for more. Some of these are favorites from my childhood, while some of these are more recent shows I finally decided to watch. It's a nice mix, but the main thing here is that all of these shows are something truly special to me considering I took the time to watch them all.

There's a few honorable mentions to go over. The four biggest ones are The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, and Rick & Morty. I love all four of these shows... for the most part. My issue with all of them is that despite having stretches that are some of the greatest ever in TV history, they also have huge chunks of absolute dogshit to the point it is debated to this day at which point the shows fell off, or if they even managed to get back on. And sure, every show has bad stretches, but with most of these shows being long running programs and all of them being massive cultural phenomena, it sticks out a lot more. Rick & Morty in particular was hit really bad by this. The reason these shows don't get on while I have other long runners with bad stretches on the list is simple: When these shows are bad, they're offensively bad. Like the middle seasons of SpongeBob are bad, but at least they don't have his giant sperms come to life and impregnate his sister's egg to create a giant incest baby or have an overly long sequence in which he vomits after finding out he fucked a trans woman.

Other honorable mentions include: Batman Beyond, Chowder, Catscratch, Codename: Kids Next Door, Fraggle Rock, Good Omens, Malcolm in the Middle, Heroes, Cardcaptor Sakura, Invader Zim, Ben 10, Gargoyles, and The Mandalorian.

30. Captain Planet and the Planeteers

I had to find a way to squeeze one "so bad it's good" show on the list, but how? Making a show that's pure camp is more difficult than making a movie like that... but they somehow found a way by giving us the adventures of racially diverse eco-warriors fighting against pollution with the held of an absolutely ripped planetary avatar with a green mullet who spouts an endless stream of cheesy puns and one-liners that would make even Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze take pause. Every time this show is on, you bet your ass I'm sitting down and watching; it's the most beautiful cheese there is.

29. Bluey

My wife and I caught this on TV during a Disney vacation and we ended up loving it! This turned out to be a blessing, because a while later we had our first kid and she's obsessed with the show (she's going as Bingo for Halloween this year). It's such a cute, charming children's show with relatable messages for both kids and parents, as well as a shockingly good score. It genuinely is one of the best pieces of children's media out there, much better than shlock like Cailou or Peppa Pig (are those shows even still on?).

28. Jackie Chan Adventures

Cartoons based on celebrities tend to suck balls, but maybe they were picking the wrong celebrities the whole time. Maybe instead of MC Hammer, they should have picked everyone's favorite homophobic, PETA-supporting Chinese nationalist action star, Jackie Chan! This show is literally the Saturday morning cartoon. It really had it all: Wild animated action, mystical artifacts acquired through Indiana Jones-esque adventures. all sorts of crazy monsters and supernatural entities, and memorable characters like my man Tohru, who walked so Prince Zuko could run.

27. Sailor Moon

I think everyone remembers their first anime, and this was mine. My mom loved the show, so I ended up watching it a lot back when it was airing on the early iterations of Toonami, and it has made me a lifelong magical girl fan. Maybe Cardcaptor Sakura and PPMM did that whole thing better, but neither show had Sailor Mars, my first anime crush. All that aside, the cheesiness and the sheer earnest power of love and friendship that managed to solve every problem is just peak fiction... I just wish it was nearly as good as the manga.

26. Green Eggs and Ham

If you told me way back when that someday there would be an adaptation of the Dr. Seuss book famous for containing a very limited number of words that expanded on the story, added drama, and threw in a villain who is a blatant spoof of former president and eternal idiot Donald Trump, I think I might have stared at you in utter confusion. And if you told me this show would actually be good, I'd be doubly confused. Thankfully, the show is really damn good, with an impressive cast and good humor that manages to capture the whimsy of the wubbulous world of Dr. Seuss perfectly.

25. Inhumanoids

I think everyone has a soft spot for an 80s toy commercial, but where most would pick Transformers, My Little Pony, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, my favorite of the lot was this obscure gem of a show. It's such a fun introduction of horror and Lovecraftian abominations to a young audience, and a lot of it is still unsettling and dark to this day. D'Compose will eternally haunt my nightmares between that raspy voice and the gruesome transformations he inflicts on his victims. Good shit!

24. Danny Phantom

Forget that stupid fairy show, this right here is the best thing Butch Hartman ever put his name on. It's a loving tribute to comic book superheroes in the same way Ben 10 was, but I think this show is ever-so-slightly better due to its blend of supernatural and sci-fi working really well (and also it doesn't retcon all magic as being alien energy or whatever the fuck they did with Gwen in the sequel series). The only thing holding it back from a higher spot is how hilariously bad the finale is and the rather scattershot quality of the final season in general. Too many loose plot threads hanging for my taste.

23. The Boys

Seth Rogen has seemingly made it his mission in life to adapt all of Garth Ennis' work in a way that makes it not suck ass, and boy am I here for it. Adapting one of Garthy-boy's most repulsive and spiteful works and turning it into a genuinely great superhero show that satirizes celebrity culture instead of just taking a huge shit all over comic book superheroes was really the way to go, and watching Anthony Starr and Karl Urban command the screen every time they take center stage is a blast. Sure, it's still gory and lowbrow, but it's done in a way where it's honestly appealing as opposed to whatever the fuck Ennis was doing.

22. Mystery Science Theater 3000

I mean, it should be pretty obvious that I love this series, right? If you ever had the misfortune of watching a movie at home with me, you'd know I just do not shut the fuck up and spend a lot of the runtime either pointing out trivia or cracking jokes, and it's mostly because of being inspired by this show. It's also partly because I'm annoying, but that's neither here nor there.

21. Batman: The Animated Series

No fucking duh this is on the list. This is pretty much the definitive portrayal of Batman for a lot of people, one that truly encapsulates everything the character is all about. Kevin Conroy truly owned the titular role, as did his costar Mark Hamill when it came to the Joker, and as if that wasn't enough this is the show that spawned one of my favorite comic characters, Harley Quinn. There's no denying the impact this show has had on Batman as a franchise, but even beyond that it's just a damn good show with really good writing. I sure am glad one of the guys who made it never went and flushed all the good will he garnered from creating this by constantly having Bruce Wayne lust after one of his teenage proteges!

20. Courage the Cowardly Dog

This show is pretty well-regarded for how it showcased some truly weird and fucked up imagery, but I don’t think any of that would be as resonant without the moments of tenderness and heartfelt emotion, the genuinely amusing slapstick, or the often clever writing. When it comes to episodic shows, variety is king, and this show has that in spades.

19. The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy

This show seems to be an answer to a question no one asked: What if they made Family Guy for kids? The black comedy, the negative continuity, the numerous pop culture references, the grossout humor, the musical numbers… it probably wasn’t intentional, but it sure adds up. The biggest difference is that this show is way more consistent in quality and has Jeff the spider, making it the superior show by a mile.

18. Digimon Tamers

What do you get when you cross the silly monster battles of Digimon with the writing of the man who brought us Serial Experiments Lain and a heaping helping of Lovecraft? You get this show, of course! It’s darker and more psychological than the goofier seasons before it, and while normally I’d balk at a series shifting tone like this, since this was my first ever Digimon cartoon I watched from start to finish I embraced it with open arms. Hell, this show is probably where my love of psychological and allegorical horror came from. And of course the show gave me yet another childhood crush, and if you’ve read the Rhine City stories I co-author you’ll know exactly which character it was.

17. The Twilight Zone

The brilliance of this anthology series is just the incredibly wide range it has with the supernatural and sci-fi stories. Sometimes you’ll get a resonant and hard-hitting allegory on a social issue, and sometimes you’ll just get a cool, fucked up horror story where some evil little kid can warp reality and holds an entire town hostage to his maniacal whims. I’ve enjoyed every revival they’ve done over the years, but the Rod Serling original just can’t be beat.

16. Stranger Things

I’ll admit that it’s really the first and fourth seasons carrying this show to #16; seasons 2 and 3 are wildly uneven, with 3 in particular veering close to the shark-jumping ramp with its cartoonish Red Scare stereotypes. But even in the show’s weakest moments, the characters and how they interact with each other have managed to keep me invested. How can I be too mad at season 3 when it gave my boy Steve (the best character) a new BFF, Robin (the other best character)?

15. Elfen Lied

I think it’s easy to write this show off as overly gratuitous because, well, it is. Everything here is turned up to 11, from the gore and nudity to the drama and tragedy. I kind of feel the same way about this show as I do for V for Vendetta, where if they cut the crucial tragic backstory it would make the work as problematic as the haters say. But with Lucy’s heartbreaking backstory left intact, it definitely elevates the story into something greater. The manga is still (mostly) better, but I have to give the show credit for introducing it to me, and also cutting out the character who constantly pisses herself.

14. Smiling Friends

Sure, the wacky shitpost humor and the black comedy are great, but can we just stop and marvel at how uncynical the show is? The core concept is a cheerful optimist and a bitter realist work together in a business that helps people be happy, and despite all the hijinks they get into they typically end up succeeding in one way or another. In a world where so many adult animated shows seem to revel in pessimistic nihilism (cough Rick & Morty cough), it’s nice to see a comedy with similar humor but a more optimistic outlook.

13. Ed, Edd n Eddy

This is one of the absolute funniest shows ever, making great use of the cartoon world to pull off the most wacky slapstick you'll ever see. But I think what truly pushes this series this high is the absolutely fantastic sound effects and music it utilizes. Like, holy shit this show is on another level. It all goes a long way towards making up for the living sexual assault joke that is the Kanker sisters.

12. SpongeBob SqaurePants

This show dropped almost nothing but bangers for three seasons, gave us one of the best show-to-film adaptations of all time, generated a near endless supply of memes, and was generally just really fucking funny. And sure, it dipped in quality a bit in its middle seasons, but I think the first three to three four seasons are good enough that they can fuck up as much as they want.

11. Invincible

Gee Amazon, how come you get to have two of the best superhero shows around? Where The Boys is more of a straight deconstruction of superhero tropes, Invincible feels like something of a reconstruction. We still have an evil Superman and morally dubious good guys, but Invincible himself is utterly unyielding in his desire to be good to the point he manages to break down his evil father’s emotional walls and save the world (for the moment) simply by being a loving son. Unwavering goodness even in the face of genuine horror is badass as all hell.

10. Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Not to be a stereotypical weeb, but this show is simply a masterpiece. Now I will admit, the first half of the show was honestly done way better in the original series, and that one also had some interesting takes on some of the characters once it started diverging from the manga. But this series has a much better finale with way better character moments, with stuff like Envy's final fate hitting harder than anything the original show could muster. There's a reason anime fans suck this show's dick so much; it genuinely is that good.

9. A Series of Unfortunate Events

I’m sure I wasn’t the only one disappointed that the original movie never got a sequel, so my hopes were high going into the Netflix series. Needless to say, I ended up extremely impressed; considering how they managed to incorporate the VFD plotline from the very start instead of throwing it in later in the series, I might even go as far as to call it an improvement on the books. I think the most surprising thing here is that despite expecting NPH as Count Olaf to steal the show, it’s actually Patrick Warburton’s portrayal of Lemony Snicket himself that brings the whole show together.

8. Peacemaker

youtube

I think this one speaks for itself.

7. Futurama

I love all of Matt Groening's shows, from the loose family sitcom shenanigans of The Simpsons to the great overarching plotline of Disenchanted. But it's really not surprising that the middle ground between tightly-plotted continuity and great humor is my favorite of his works. The best part of the show is no matter how many times it ends, it always comes back and finds new ways to bust your gut and tug at your heartstrings.

6. Gravity Falls

Disney has had many great TV shows in their time, but quite frankly nothing compares to this animated supernatural mystery series about a pair of twins having their summer vacation at a shitty scam shack. The episodes are mainly episodic with hints at the bigger lore, and it doesn't really ever feel like it's dragging its feet. It also didn't overstay its welcome, telling a fantastic story over the course of two seasons before gracefully bowing out while on top. Very few shows can say they ended in top form.

5. Jane the Virgin

One fine day I came home from work to find my wife watching this on Netflix. Curious, I sat down and watched it, not expecting much... and then proceeded to become so emotionally invested in the show I spent the rest of the series shouting at the screen as if the characters could hear me. It's sweet, funny, and absolutely ridiculous, a loving tribute to the telenovelas that inspired it, and a blessing unto this world for giving us the gift of Rogelio.

4. Avatar: The Last Airbender

Yeah, real bold and daring of me to say this is probably the best Western animated series ever, but it’s hard to deny that it’s true. With a rich world, excellent characters, and a strong story it’s to the point where the worst episode would be perfectly fine in any other show, and the best episode doesn’t even feature the titular Airbender at all. It’s just that good.

3. Breaking Bad

You know me, I love character studies of awful people, and few fictional villains are as awful as the egotistical meth manufacturer Walter White. Watching his rise and fall, the numerous moments where he goes further beyond the pale than before, is endlessly gripping, and the fantastic cast of characters helps keep things just as good even if we aren’t following Walt. Mike, Jesse, Gus, Skyler, the Salamancas, Hank, Saul… all of them are fantastic in their own right and could easily carry their own show. Speaking of which, about that last guy...

2. Better Call Saul

As much as I think Breaking Bad is objectively the greatest show ever, I prefer Better Call Saul. In hindsight, you can kind of tell Walter was bad from the start, but Jimmy “Saul Goodman” McGill? We watch him go from a morally dubious but ultimately well-intentioned man into the sleazy bastard he was in the original show, and it is genuinely heartbreaking. This show makes you truly dread the moment Jimmy fully becomes Saul, and considering how beloved the funny lawyer man was that is no small feat. The story of a good man falling from grace only to ultimately claw his way back to ultimately reclaim his humanity in the end… it’s beautiful.

1. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure

I don’t think I could possibly overstate the influence this series has had on me and my writing. The personalized superpowers, the meaningful names, the numerous musical references, the unashamed embracement of even the most ludicrous elements of the stories… If you read the Rhine City stuff you can clearly see where I’ve let the JJBA influence seep in. But even outside the influence, it’s just a damn good action/adventure series, with no part being truly bad (4 - 6 are my favorites, though). It’s never a dull moment watching what sort of insane feats the Joestar family and their allies will pull off against the increasingly deadly forces of evil; here’s hoping we get to see Steel Ball Run sooner than later.

#about me #tv shows #Youtube

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fairytalesandfandoms · 10 months

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anyway, some backstory for recent posts

Surpising emotions about rediscovering an old interest

under a cut because 1) length 2) Homestuck is mentioned and I get the impression some people don’t like it very much.

Let us turn back the clock to spring 2008. I was in high school and my Standard Grade exams were just a couple of months away. I had a lot of favourite media, but relevant to this story are examples such as: Treasure Planet, Dan Brown books (which I have definitely left behind in that era, but for a while they were definitely A Thing in my brain), Operation Red Jericho by Joshua Mowll, The Mummy, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Pirates of the Caribbean and Indiana Jones. Hopefully you’re sensing a theme here: I would absolutely devour anything with an adventure/mystery combo, especially if it involved codes, maps, riddles, secret organisations etc. And one day, probably a weekend afternoon, we switched on the TV to find this film was on.

And that film... was National Treasure. And surpise surprise, during the scene inside the Charlotte (and over the course of the rest of the film) I got attached to Ben Gates like a limpet.

Things then followed a pattern which had already become very predictable in my life. I liked a character, which then quickly merged into liking an actor (in this case, Nicolas Cage) and of course then Special Interest Brain dictated that I then had to watch as many of his films as I could. Over the next few years I saw... pitifully few of them, now I’ve finally got up the nerve to look on IMDb, but enough to make it a thing (6 before I went off to uni). Unfortunately, because I am notoriously bad at keeping my interests to myself whether I want to or not, my family inevitably finds out within, like, a week of any new obsession, which as a teenager embarrassed me very greatly (and still does a bit). My mum did try to relate to me with such things (she even got my dad to watch one of the National Treasure movies but I don’t think he was that bothered about it tbh), but that usually only made me awkward because I was watching things with my mum and it was embarrassing.

My Nicolas Cage-watching would get one last hurrah in 2010, when I went to see the university film society’s screening of Kick-Ass in freshers’ week. Again, obsessed. Obsessed enough to go as Hit Girl for Halloween that year, but we all know the drill by now - the highkey messed-up (but my kind of messed-up character, with a tragic backstory, incredible combat skills and a cardigan) Damon Macready was really the blorbo of choice.

But what happened then? Why did I go from this high point to trying to avoid mentioning Nicolas Cage as much as possible? Two words: ‘the’ and ‘internet’.

I was already aware that some of Cage’s films were, to put it bluntly. not great. I had felt the cringe a bit even as a teenager, but I soldiered on. However, when I discovered social media and other similar websites, all the memes and jokes and so on made me even more embarrassed about it, and I felt like no one should ever know because I was worried that then even people whose opinions I respected would just laugh at me and tell me I had no taste, and other things of that nature. Some of those jokes were probably exaggerated for comic effect, but I’m really bad at judging tone and to me they read as straightforward mockery or dislike.

Fast-forward to 2023, a week or two ago. I have just moved to a new flat and have no wifi yet. But clever me thinks “ah, but I have the Unofficial Homestuck Collection saved to my laptop, which requires no internet, and the whole new-job-new-flat hassle means I did get behind on my routine catch-up reading. Let’s do that.”

Those of you who are familiar with Homestuck probably knew where this was going as soon as you read the word in this post. For those of you who don’t know, one of the main characters in Homestuck loves the movie Con Air. It’s referenced at least a few times (I’ve just started Act 5, so there may be more to come). There’s one scene (pp. 1660-1666, CW for some ableist language on the last page) that just really made me emotional because it connected this film with the friendship of two of the characters, and it was like a switch was flipped back on in my brain. Or more like pulling down one of those giant switches they pull down to give electricity to Frankenstein. I felt like I had gone through the cringe and come out the other side. I had to watch Kick-Ass and I had to watch it now. Or at least as soon as I got a free two-hour block of time.

And then after a few days of reliving autumn 2010 (complete with Lady Gaga songs), I had to watch National Treasure. And I vowed that as soon as I got wifi I would watch The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which I had made myself avoid when it was first out. And now I have. I’m not quite on Javi’s level, because 1) I don’t have Javi’s budget and 2) I would have drawn the line at the sequinned cushion. But let me tell you, teenage me would have gone absolutely feral at that movie. I probably would’ve felt like I shouldn’t be allowed to watch the sauna and pool scenes, for a start. (Thankfully, I’ve become more chill and less wound-up about that sort of thing, relatively speaking.) But god, I had to really get up my nerve to make that ‘what is the internet’s opinion’ post. Now I’ve done that, and gone to the tags in a roundabout way by searching for related movies first and then tag-hopping, it’s a lot less scary. I even managed to look up IMDb, and ignore my brain shouting ‘THE SEARCH ENGINE WILL JUDGE YOU’.

So, my Nic Cage obsession is back “not that [it] went anywhere” (yes, that’s a reference to The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent). More to come, if I can find good content. Unless he gets overtaken by Good Omens

And in the spirit of the aforementioned Homestuck character, I leave you with Rosie, referencing a story I haven’t finished reading and a film I have never seen (YET. BUT SOON).

#stuff in my life #i am cringe but i am free etc #or working on it anyway #god i didn't realise until i wrote this how hard it was for me to even mention anything to do with the guy #and it seems so silly to spend so many words doing it! but it is done and it SHALL be posted #even though it's A Lot

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mothgodofchaos · 2 years

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Postcards

I’m not dead! Health has been kicking my ass, and so has this fic idea. I hope you enjoy your adventurer man content.

Illinois x GN!Reader, TW: none Words: 1218

Ever since your adventure together, you decided to keep in touch. Cell service wasn’t always available, so you both agreed to become pen pals. He’d write you letters or postcards from wherever he was in the world, sometimes sending you a small trinket or some other gift. You’d always write about it back to him, about how much you liked (or disliked) it. His sending address was always different, but he always assured you that he was getting your letters. Something about a friend that was house sitting for him or something along those lines. Marquis? You think that was the name, but you couldn’t be sure. As long as he wasn’t reading what you were sending, you didn’t really care. You looked forward to getting your mail, or the occasional text from him whenever he was in the airport. He’d send a selfie when he could, always sporting that charismatic grin and that stupid hat of his. But suddenly it was just, silence. He mentioned in his last text that you may not hear from him for a bit, that he was going on a “big adventure”. Something about scoring the biggest treasure of his career. You thought it would simply be another week or so, but it’s been months of nothing. No texts, no calls, no postcards, no letters. You wondered if maybe he got lost, or if this last one had been his final one. Until your phone begins buzzing, and you hear the rare but familiar chime of the Indiana Jones theme song. Your heart skips a beat as you pick up the phone frantically, your thumb missing the button to accept a few times. “Illy! Illy, where on Earth have you been! I’ve gotten nothing for months!” “I’m sorry, treasure. Just got a little caught up and didn’t have the time to mail the postcards I got for you. Have a big ol’ stack of them for you right in my hand.” He sounded out of breath, until you heard the slam of a car door, and his breathing slow, presumably he’s sitting down in it now. He gives some sort of instruction to the driver that you can’t make out, but you’re relieved just hearing his voice. “I’m gonna be on the road for a bit, why don’t you and I make up for lost time, no letter, just on the phone, here?” “Will you have service the whole time?” “Oh, absolutely, treasure. I’ll be okay. Just tell me how life has been.” As prompted, you begin telling him about all the things that have happened to you recently. How you got promoted and the guy who thought he was gonna get it is being all passive aggressive now and trying to undermine you, or how your car got hit by a rogue frying pan in an IKEA parking lot. He chuckles and offers his condolences, but as much as you try and pry, he insists he just wants to hear you talk. So you continue talking. About how you wanted to get a golden retriever puppy that you saw at the shelter near your work, name him “Nugget”. “That sounds like a perfect name, very fitting knowing you.” You beam at his compliment. The more you continue to talk, the better you feel. You make dinner as you’re on the phone with him, switching to Bluetooth earbuds so you can have your hands free. He spoke about how one day he’d like to cook with you. He enjoys cooking, but never has time with his job. You add it to a mental checklist of things to do with him, one day. For a few hours, you stay on the phone with him. Sometimes you were worried that you lost him, but he always assured you that he was still there if he was quiet for too long. It felt like he was there with you, and a big part of you wished he was. You hear the car stop, and the door open, and then slam shut again. He pays the driver, and you hear him hoist his pack onto his back, starting his trek to somewhere again. “Don’t sound so disappointed, sweetheart. I’m still on the phone with you.” “I know, but soon you won’t be. When will I see you again, Illy?” “I think sooner than you think~” You hear a knock at the door, surprising you. You open the door to see your adventurer standing in front of you, and watch as he hangs up the call in front of you. “Illy-” He lifts you up with his tanned arms, the shift of his shirt showing off his impressive farmer’s tan. You’re pulled up until you’re nose to nose with your adventurer, looking into each others’ eyes. You couldn’t help but get lost in his honey-golden eyes, that twinkles and shined as his infectious grin creeps back onto his face. “You came, you came to see me-” “I had to make sure my last adventure was for the most priceless treasure I could find. I’ve been all over the globe, but nothing has ever measured up to you~” A blush spreads across your cheeks, not used to the smooth talking that you used to simply brush off the last time you saw him. But, you couldn’t help but notice his face. Not the usual expression when he’s just trying to fluster you, a genuine smile, that he meant every word. Impatience gets the better of you, and you grab his face, pulling him in for a kiss. The kiss felt like all those years apart, all the letters, all the calls, the glimpses of him that you had been holding onto, and so much more. He was warm, like cinnamon, honey, and citrus tea. Soothing the harshest of colds, homey, and wonderful. And yours. You break from the kiss, both of you catching your breath as he sets you down. He guides you into the kitchen, setting a stack of postcards on the counter. He wasn’t kidding about the size, but you notice a lack of writing on them. “Will you go get your postcards for me, sweetheart?” “S-sure-” You move to the living room, grabbing the postcards you kept from the drawer or your desk. You bring them back to the kitchen, and he takes them from you gently. “I wasn’t able to send these in time, so I hope this will do.” He sets them up on the counter, overlapping them so only the first letter of the location was visible, carefully aligning their edges. You’re mesmerized as he works quietly, humming to himself. He steps back, guiding you gently by your shoulders to look at his work. You cover your mouth with a short gasp as you read it all out. “WILL YOU BE MY TREASURE FOREVER” He breaks the silence, rubbing your shoulders. “Sorry about the lack of punctuation, couldn’t find places that started with a comma or question mark~” He chuckles, but your lack of change in your expression begins to concern him. “Treasure…?” “Yes, Illy-” “Ye-” You turn around, pulling him down into a kiss that he happily reciprocates. “I’m not going anywhere without you, ever again. Or our little golden Nugget~” “Can we get him tomorrow??” “Anything for my precious treasure~”

#illinois james #illinois james markiplier #ahwm illinois #illinois ahwm #ahwm #ahwm illinois x reader #ahwm illinois james x reader #illinois x reader #illinois james x reader #markiplier egos #pantry dweller #chaoswrites

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bleakbluejay · 8 months

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I did one of these. This is still missing a lot of my favorite movies but I think it gets my brain across. I like to laugh. Under the cut I'll talk more about each selection, if you care to read :3

Feel free to do this yourself and tag me! I love to see what my mutuals are thinking.

Favorite Film/Big Personal Impact/Bad Day Cure: Better Off Dead (1985) is my favorite movie ever. It's a dark comedy about a teen boy named Lane Meyer who, devastated after his girlfriend breaks up with him for someone hotter, tries to kill himself. He fails every time. His friends (the French exchange girl Monique and the weirdo who snorts jell-o Charles de Mar) help him build his confidence in himself and get over her. The sense of humor in this movie is impeccable. It's so surrealist in a time long before surreal comedy became as prominent as it is now. Honest to god, if this movie came out today (with a few mild tweaks, given some social sensibilities between now and then having changed) it would be a total fucking hit. 100% chance if you message me saying "hey I'd like to try out Better Off Dead" I will find time to watch it with you. This movie has had insane impact on my sense of humor and how I see the world.

Best Script: I don't know if I've ever heard a script I've really liked or thought was flawless. All my movies actually have a lot of awkwardness in them. The best script I can think of is Forrest Gump, if we're talking overall quality. Script I like the most is a tie between Better Off Dead, The Lost Boys, and Moulin Rouge.

Favorite Movie Poster: This was a very hard one. My knee-jerk reaction was to select Star Wars OT (either ESB or ROTJ), Indiana Jones (the 3rd one), Back to the Future (any of them), or Adventures in Babysitting. I honestly just love old 80s movie posters in general. I settled on The Thing (1982) because I love the eerieness and stark, simple colors and shapes. It's also my favorite horror movie in general, but there' no slots based on individual genres.

I'll Watch It Some Day: Blade Runner (1982) and Sin City (2005) have been on my watch lists for a very, very long time. I want to watch more noir-typed films, especially ones with gimmicks that mess with visuals (cyberpunk in Blade Runner, and comics in Sin City). I'm so, so bad at watching movies, though LMAO

Best Long Movie (3+ hours): I'd rather roll around in a sea of broken glass than watch a 3 hour long movie. 2.5 hours is my limit. I like Forrest Gump (1994) a lot and I watch it every time I catch it on cable. However... if we're counting limited series that could be interpreted as movies... Color of Magic (2008) is really fucking good. It's split into two parts, with the overall runtime reaching 3 hours. But the fact it's split up feels better on my brain.

You Like, But Everyone Else Hates: 50 First Dates (2004)... I know Adam Sandler is bad. I know. I know. But. This movie is a guilty pleasure for me, as are a couple other of his movies. I know if taken literally and in the real world, this movie is creepy. But I like romantic comedies. I think it's sweet he loves her so much and wants to make it work. And I love Drew's character a lot, too. In a way, I also love how this movie challenges relationships that are "meant to be" -- given how Drew's character is only interested sometimes but hates him others. It puts into perspective "right time, right place/wrong time, wrong place". Leave me alone.

You Hate, But Everyone Else Likes: How to Train Your Dragon (2010) isn't necessarily a bad movie. I had the misfortune of being a 12-13 year old who really liked the books this movie steals its name from, and being an amputee myself. Something about how they totally butchered the story I really loved, and something about how they just decided to make Hiccup an amputee just like that, it rubbed me, personally, the whole ass wrong way. I can't bring myself to like this movie. It is what it is.

Underrated: Shaun of the Dead (2004) rocks hard and fast. It's silly and funny and has incredibly fun cinematography and I associate this movie with me and my mom watching it together in our shared room when I lived in the swamp ass of the United States, Missouri, so I'm extra sentimental about it. There's so many really solid jokes. In general, I love Edgar Wright films, and I love Simon Pegg and Nick Frost films, so together it just makes me go yippeeeee!!!

Overrated: Being a horror fan who doesn't like Halloween (1978) kinda sucks sometimes. I think it does beautiful things with lighting and shadow and camera, and I respect how it influenced horror as a whole genre. But I think the movie is boring as hell and isn't really that good as an overall movie. Watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre instead.

"Why do I like this?": My grandfather showed me Robin Hood (1938) while I visited him this summer. I typically hate older movies because my attention span is terrible. But I liked this one. I loved the costuming and the sets and I loved Errol Flynn as Robin Hood and I loved the colors and all of it. I was having the time of my life. I want to emphasize again how much I love the costuming. I love medieval shit so much that I want to throw up, and having the grace to allow medieval costumes to be relatively accurate (with creative liberties) and colorful? Oh my god. The embroidery on the outfits, dude. Ohhh my god.

Great Soundtrack: I watched Valley Girl (1983) for the first time with my mom like last week and I adored it. I grew up listening to the soundtrack, though, because it was one of my mom's favorites. It's really my style. Honorable mentions for this category are also Garden State (2004) (I didnt watch this, my mom just had the soundtrack CD in her car), and Moulin Rouge (2001), which we'll get into shortly.

That Cinematography...: In an effort to avoid mentioning Edgar Wright movies an extra time (Scott Pilgrim, Shaun of the Dead, and Last Night in Soho have very honorable mentions here)... Fight Club (1999) was so fun visually. It was punchy and wicked and it felt like living in a comic book to me. Vamp (1986) is a movie I saw last week with my mom so it's fresher in my head, but I really loved so many of the shots and the lighting choices. Two scenes in particular stand out to me: 1st, when the strip club ghouls are sitting in their dark office, with green light cast from the blinds shining on them; 2nd, when our protagonist is winding back a bow and arrow with which to kill our antagonist in the sewer, and a shaft of light hit the fletching of the arrow, I was hooting and hollering.

Favorite Protagonist: Picking just one was impossible. Lane Meyer from Better Off Dead (1985) is a psychotic, depressed, emotionally imbalanced teenager with an amazing sense of play and lessons to learn. Simon from Dinner in America (2020) is a blunt, feral, possibly autistic punk kid with a love of fire and a love of beating ableist ass. Ellen Ripley from Alien (1979) is played by Sigourney Weaver, which is a plus in itself, but she's a capable, badass woman who is intelligent and cunning. AND she makes sure to save the cat. Honorable mentions include Quentin Smith from Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) for being my specialist boy, Indiana Jones from Indiana Jones (1981-2023) for being a silly guy who inspired me to look into archaeology as a kid and also punches nazis, Donnie Darko from Donnie Darko (2001) for being another psychotic, depressed, emotionally imbalanced teenager with an amazing sense of play and lessons to learn, and Han Solo from Star Wars (1977-2015) for being stupid and cringefail and funny and a true hero against the Empire.

Favorite Trilogy: Asking me to pick between Star Wars the Original Trilogy and Indiana Jones is an impossible task, dude. They occupy the exact same place in my brain. They were both series that I grew up watching since I was old enough to look at a TV screen, and that influenced my whole sense of self. And they both have Harrison Ford, who is one of my favorite actors. They both have adventure and romance and father problems and a call to corruption we must reject and supernatural forces. They just occupy the same part of my brain.

Biggest Letdown: I watched Bram Stroker's Dracula (1992) like two days ago and it was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I thought it would be good because it was hyped up, it's full of actors I adore, it's about vampires, it's goth as hell. But other than the beautiful camerawork and special effects and stuff, I just wanted it to end. I was bored at best and disgusted at worst.

Biggest Surprise: When Dinner in America (2020) came out, it didn't find American distribution for a long time. But... I was in a very strong Kyle Gallner phase kickstarted by Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) and Cherry (2010). The idea that he was in a punk love story got my hackles up. Eventually, I was able to see the movie, and it was nothing I thought it would be, but it was perfect for me. I fell in love with it. It's a very surprising movie.

"Not the best, but I'm having fun"/Depressing Movie: Moulin Rouge (2001) had my brain in a twist from ages 12-15. I watched this movie over and over and over, to the point I knew half the script by heart. I was in love with the characters, the movement, the pacing, the story, the music. As I got older, I became more aware that the movie kinda sucks. But I still love it regardless. It's an incredibly fun movie. When it isn't ripping your heart out. I love you Ewan MacGregor and Nicole Kidman. Mwah.

Criminally Overlooked: I love you Lost Boys (1987). I love you SoCal 80s fashion. I love you punk vampires. I love you filthy city aesthetic. I love you grandpa. I love you saxophone man. I love you kids thinking they're badass vampire hunters. I love you milfs.

Favorite Active Director: Edgar Wright rocks lmao. I love his style of scene transitions and camera movement. Nobody does it like him. Any time I'm watching one of his movies, I can fucking tell. I'm a simple guy, you put moving pictures in front of me and it's fun and colorful, I'll clap my hands and holler.

Favorite Animated Movie: This is hard. I picked two. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) was one of my favorite movies as a kid. It had horses, good music, it's the wild west, and prominent Native protagonists (which were rare when I was a kid...). As an adult, I could recognize more what an awesome movie it was and what a great story about colonialism and fighting back against assimilation it was. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) is one of the most visually beautiful films I've ever seen. I was totally lost in the animation the whole movie. I think when I see the next in the series, undoubtedly even more beautiful, my eyes will melt and my head will explode, as though I were viewing the Ark of the Covenant in Indiana Jones, beholding something that should never be beheld. There's a lot of honorable mentions to possibly put here, like Ice Age (2002), or The Last Unicorn (1982), or Venture Bros: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart (2023), or Lilo & Stitch (2002), or Brother Bear (2003), or Over the Hedge (2006), or Balto (1995) or... the list goes on. As a kid, I was disabled and stayed inside most of the time, so I watched a lot of movies and TV, and have a lot of things I liked.

Not Usually My Thing, But...: Phantom of the Opera (1990) is so... different. They took a lot of creative liberties with the stories and the characters in this one, and I really like those creative liberties. I don't really like Phantom of the Opera. But I like this. I watched it because I was in the middle of a Game of Thrones rewatch, and I was really admiring Charles Dance, and my best friend is a Phantom fan, so I compromised between my special interest and theirs. Charles Dance is an incredible Phantom, in my opinion. I like how in this version, he feels like more of an overly supportive gay best friend to Christine than an obsessed stalker lover. I also love the costumes.

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anniesocsandgeneralstore · 1 year

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M here! Here are the AU’s I have come up with today!

The Princess Bride

When Jake Met Ronnie aka When Harry Met Sally

Pirates AU- spin-off of Pirates of the Caribbean: Jake is Will, Ronnie is Elizabeth

Indiana Jones

Kim Possible (maybe)???

Childhood pen pals

Strong Disney Princess: Ronnie saves herself; Jake is there for moral support

The Holiday

While You Were Sleeping

OOOOHHHH MY GOD OH MY GOD OKAY LEMME GATHER MY THOUGHTS FOR EACH OF THESE HOLY SHITE

new aus hot off the presses folks let's get it

1 The Princess Bride AU

like fuck dude that movie slaps so hard

and Jake as the Westley type with the ripped-open shirt after the ROUS attack?? that's some good stuff right there

i feel like this may be an au though where a lot of the original characters stay the same cause they really are just so classic and i just can't bring myself to replace them. as much as i love the other pilots.

the other daggers can just be friends within the castle or something

2 When Jake Met Ronnie AU

i've never seen when harry met sally, but you explained the general plot to me M and honestly it works

i feel like i don't have much to say since i haven't seen the movie lol but you know what's up M

3 Pirate AU

MOTHER FUCKIN PIRATE AU

this another one of my weird ass hyperfixactions, i own so many books on pirates

am I allowed to take this idea I had for a different fandom and change the characters? I mean it's my idea I should be able to right??

So Ronnie as a pirate captain, the other daggers besides maybe Javy, being her crew

Jake as the Commodore with the British royal navy who gets captured by her

something something adventure something something falling in love

but i also could see working JAKE being the pirate captain with the dagger crew and Ronnie is just a passenger on another ship that he takes and he takes her captive for ransom from her wealthy brother

i could see, and enjoy, it going either way

which do people like better??

4 Indiana Jones AU

mmm mmm Professor Jake Seresin in the anthropology department with the glasses and the tweed vests and the escaping out his window to avoid office hours

like of course he's the stud of the whole campus just look at him

i am in FUCKING LOVE WITH IT

i don't know if i would want to follow a movie plot exactly

so maybe he could go on a different adventure (perhaps looking for The Hand of Midas? or Excalibur?)

and maybe ronnie is the one who goes to Jake for help because her brother was tasked with looking for one of these things, finding it before the Nazi's do or whatever, but he's gone missing

they fall in love along the way, get into danger, she probably gets captured or something, they find brad, find and lose the treasure all the span of twenty minutes and bada bing bada boom

5 Kim Possible AU

yeah.....not sure how I feel about this one either lol

by design jake is too cocky to play a ron stoppable type, it just doesn't fit him at all

can see it as a couples costume though lol

6 Childhood Pen Pals AU

oh now this is interesting

everything is basically the same, so regular au but just like a bit to the left

maybe they started being pen pals through the navy when they were kids, a way to connect kids who have a parent who died in service

they sent their first letters and replies begrudgingly, at the insistence of their mothers

but pretty soon their back and forth was natural and consistent throughout the rest of their childhoods and even into their teenage years

they definitely developed crushes on one another, sent pictures back and forth. but they were too scared to exchange phone numbers or anything like that. this, with the letters, felt sacred.

but then jake went off to the academy and his replies took longer and longer, and suddenly they just stopped

ronnie knew it was going to happen eventually. but it still hurt. she moved on, but kept every letter and picture he sent in a box she moved from house to house because she just couldn't find it in her to throw them out

but then she finds herself in fighter town, working at a crusty bar, and some young aviator walks in and he looks vaguely familiar. she sees the last name Seresin pinned to his khaki uniform and her stomach drops

no fuckin way

oh my god this concept is making me lose my whole mind. cause they know so much about each other!! in such an intimate way!! in a way that a lot of people probably didn't. they grew up together in a way, within those letters.

excuse me as pace around my apartment thinking about this good lord

7 Disney Princess AU

this kinda already feels like the Fantasy AU i've already established

so i don't really know what to add to this lol

8 The Holiday

okay ive never seen the holiday, but i looked at the wiki plot synopsis so here is my best attempt

Ronnie and Jake's sister swap houses for the holidays

I'm not gonna focus on what happens to Jake's sister...she also finds a boo while staying in Ronnie's house it's chill idk

but i love the idea of Jake coming to his sister's house drunk off his ass to find some other woman there and they both decide to just fuck. that's so funny to me. and so on brand for those two horn dogs

but other than that i am unsure on anything else

like should jake be a widower with two daughters like the movie? should they get snowed in after the drunk sex and fall in love with some sweet forced proximity? do they just keep running into each other during her stay?

it's cute but ya know how it is

9 While You Were Sleeping AU

while you were sleeping is such a weird ass movie but i love it

i guess Jake's gotta have a brother in order for this to work (Jensen Ackles anybody?)

i still want this set in Cali, just because that is where Ronnie belongs in all honesty lol, so maybe she works at a surf shop/surfing instructor place and Jake's brother frequents

he gets into some accident and Ronnie takes him to the hospital, musing to herself about marrying him one day

according to movie jake's family shows up, they think she's his fiance, yadda yadda she falls in love with jake instead

her and brother almost get married but she can't go through with it

she ends up with jake instead

in this jake would come from a big family, and it's something that ronnie has always wanted since she only has brad

Thank you so much for sending this in my sweet M 💕

#annie answers #my precious m #annie the au gremlin #my hoard is growing #oc: ronnie bradshaw #jake hangman seresin #jake seresin #hangman #are there any of these in particular that y'all would want to see more of?

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echo-echo31 · 2 years

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Speaking of werecheetah!Yancy, since I mentioned before that cheetahs are chronically anxious lil’ bbs, I can’t stop thinking about werecheetah!Yancy being perpetually full of anxiety. This could totally work into his backstory as all his crimes/fights/murders could’ve been due to anger caused by anxiety (might sound a little strange, I know, but I am definitely the type of person who gets mad, loud, and even violent when I’m scared, especially if it’s a situation I have little to no control over. It’s likely an adhd thing, since my dad was like that too and I’m fairly certain he had adhd that went undiagnosed his whole life since he grew up in a family that didn’t exactly consider mental wellness to be… relevant. Anyway, siderant, but also potentially an argument for adhd!Yancy 👀). This could also be why he’s so attached to stuffed animals (@itsjustkyss 😏 hi) or Chica, for those who like either of those headcanons

But ALSO, I love the idea of Illy and Markus becoming almost like Yancy’s adoptive dads in a way, especially after they have Rosa. Markus meets Yancy in prison on one of the very few (not) occasions when he gets caught in the middle of a heist, and ofc Illy has to (reluctantly) bail him out (I think it’d be funny if Illy keeps saying “one of these times I’m not gonna bail your ass out and you won’t get out so easily”, which is the emptiest threat in the history of empty threats, especially after Rosa comes along, although I feel like Markus slows down with the heists after their daughter is born and this would all take place quite early on in their relationship).

Yancy gives Markus his whole “I don’t wanna be free” speech/song (it’d be hilarious if he did the whole musical number every time someone asked if he wanted to break out lmao), but Markus isn’t convinced. He recognizes the anxious part of himself in Yancy and knows that behind his cool and collected exterior, the real reason he doesn’t want to leave prison is because he’s afraid of the outside world.

When Markus gets back out, he talks to Illy about it, and soon the couple ends up visiting Yancy every third Sunday for visitation hours. They sometimes have long talks about how Markus is worried about Yancy, especially during the other times when Markus ends up in prison and tries to convince Yancy to apply for parole - he gets a strong NO in response every time. Although, as the months and years go by, and Markus and Illy visiting as often as possible, Yancy slowly, slowly starts to change his mind.

I like the thought of Markus and Illy being the reason Yancy applies for parole, even if he doesn’t tell the Captain that when they see him again - bc how strange would it be to explain that to his old friend? A rich Indiana Jones-esqe world traveller and adventurer/university history professor and a former crook who is clearly really bad at his job based on the amount of times he ends up behind bars who are also dating convinced him to apply? And he’s not even sure why it was them of all people who changed his mind, maybe because they were the first people - besides you - who were nice to him?

Yancy gets out and moves in with Markus and Illy around the same time as Rosa comes along, and suddenly the four of them are like a little family. Yancy was afraid at first that him being there would cramp Markus and Illy’s style or that he’d just be in the way while they were trying to be good parents (and, deep down, even though he knows it’s selfish, he was afraid that Rosa being around would make Markus and Illy not want him around as much or make them care for him less), but shockingly, the opposite is true. Markus and Illy are both thrilled to have Yancy around, and Rosa absolutely adores him, as he ends up spending time with her when her dads need a break from parenting.

I kinda hc that Yancy is younger than Markus and Illy by at least seven years or so, so while he’s not exactly young enough to be their son, they kinda do end up having that kind of dynamic, with Yancy becoming like Rosa’s big brother.

Sometimes Yancy has panic attacks or night terrors when he thinks about his life before prison, or about some of the things that were done to him while he was in prison (solitary was the absolute worst for him 😢), and on those nights he often ends up snuggled up between Markus and Illinois in their bed. Some nights Rosa gets fussy as well and refuses to sleep in her own room, so every once and a while all four of them wind up all sleeping together in a messy heap of blankets and limbs. (I also like the idea of Rosa being scared one night and not wanting to wake up her dads so she goes to sleep in Yancy’s bed, and Yancy is also feeling panicky that night and her presence helps calm him down 🥹)

On those mornings, Illy and Markus wake up, and upon seeing Rosa curled up against Yancy’s chest with his arms wrapped around her, they just smile at each other and bask in the beauty of their little misfit family

… this was a-fucking-lot and I absolutely need to write a fic about this NOW

~ @sammys-magical-au

WRITE. THE. FIC

#echo answers #hellinois thursday #dad!hellinois #hellinois + yancy

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msclaritea · 1 year

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As Harrison Ford and Stallone Age, Where Are Their Replacements? – Variety

May 21, 2023 7:00am PT

‘We Used to Treat Movie Stars Like Gods’: Hollywood Grapples With Loss of Young Star Power

By Brent Lang, Tatiana Siegel

CANNES, FRANCE - MAY 18: Harrison Ford attends the "Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny" red carpet during the 76th annual Cannes film festival at Palais des Festivals on May 18, 2023 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)

The hottest package at this year’s Cannes Film Festival stars a 76-year old action star and is a reboot of a movie that first dazzled moviegoers in 1993. That’s a time, in case you forgot, before TikTok or smartphones, Facebook or Amazon, or any number of technological changes that have reshaped our world and the movie business along with them.

And yet, “Cliffhanger,” with Sylvester Stallone bravely summiting the mountain again, is seen as one of the most commercial scripts out there for buyers hoping to make an adventure film that can traverse borders and bring crowds. With a nod to the younger audiences who will be needed to turn up if the movie is going to replicate the original’s blockbuster status, the producers teased that casting is currently underway for a (presumably younger?) actor to share the screen with Sly. But who will that be?

“Over the last 10 years, we’ve done a really shitty job of creating a new generation of movie stars,” groused one sales agent.

And a look at some of the projects on offer or premiering at Cannes seems to bolster that argument. There’s “Breakout,” an action-thriller featuring 75-year old Arnold Schwarzenegger that will be directed by “Expendables 4” filmmaker Scott Waugh; “Lords of War” with 59-year old Nicolas Cage returning to a role as an amoral arms dealer that he first played nearly two decades ago; “That’s Amore,” a rom-com with a 69-year old John Travolta; and “The Rivals of Amziah King,” a crime story featuring a 53-year old Matthew McConaughey. In most cases, these actors have been famous, globally so, since the 1970s or ’80s (McConaughey, a relatively newbie, had to wait until 1996’s “A Time to Kill” to make his mark).

On Thursday night, the increasingly geriatric nature of the star system was on full display at the Cannes Film Festival as an 80-year old Harrison Ford walked the red carpet for the premiere of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” for which he donned the fedora he first wore in 1981’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and is still well-preserved enough to unabashedly doff his top (“I’ve been blessed with this body,” he said sheepishly when asked about his shirtless scene at a press conference). Ford does get an assist from some of those technological breakthroughs, appearing 35 years younger in key scenes thanks to the magic of de-aging CGI...."

Wow! First off, they forgot about Tom Cruise, Mr. Deepfake, who's over 60. I don't think this is so much they've neglected to make new stars, it's that that lane is being choked by some of the very actors mentioned, who want to stay in the limelight but don't really make big box offices. They're just known. THEN there are powerful, male led groups pushing ONLY actors that appeal to them, not really audiences and especially not female audiences. THEN, there's the talented actors we all know now are being blocked from big budget pictures by the former group mentioned. Honestly, I think the groups running Hollywood actually DON'T want movie stars anymore because then they can mistreat and abuse everybody, equally.

Shout-out to whomever wrote this crap Variety article, with a whole two digs at Marvel, as though it were the real problem. I'm glad Johnny Depp cussed your asses out at Cannes.

#Go WGA

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championofravens · 11 months

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Misogyny in a game from 7 years ago: Uncharted 4

Game critic and youtuber Dunkey made a new video talking about Uncharted 4, a game both me and my husband despised after replaying it a year or two ago. It was a very well done and positive review, drawing a lot more out of the game than I ever did and it made me start to question *why* I couldn’t made those connections.

Dunkey says at one point "You are ruining this dude's marriage to make him feel like Indiana Jones" and that was very validating lmao But Dunkey was also saying that things like the marriage conflict, how much we wonder why the fuck Nathan would abandon everything he's got with Elaine, or things like how much we dislike and distrust Drake's brother, it's all intentional... and maybe it is. These were all things that made me really bitter about the game super fast but Dunkey is able to tie it all really well into the grander story and themes that come up over the course of the world trotting adventure.

But it also made me think that I don't think anything could make me like the story of it. Elaine is the most shafted character in the whole franchise and after the horrible bullshit of the third game with her especially, it's really hard to gear myself up for "one last ride" with mister Nathan Drake and his shithead brother, y’know? It isn’t a new or unique storyline to tread that Elaine and Drake’s relationship is rocky and unstable because he’s a selfish brat and he does shit that hurts her. From the very get go with revealing that Drake even had a long lost brother, it felt clear to me we were just going to revisit the same tired trope of making Elaine’s pain the emotional core without ever letting it actually effect the narrative in any way. It felt to me like the game honestly could not figure out a way to close out things without using her as a punching bag again. I hate to say it but I think it's just misogyny! I think it's just me feeling completely overwhelmed with stories of men with comfortable rich fulfilling lives and partners wanting to ruin that for glory, riches, thrills, adventures, whatever. Dunkey said the finale made him overjoyed because it told him that Drake did eventually come to his senses and choose a life with Elaine and decided to pass down that legacy to his kid... but to me it was inevitable. It was inevitable because the only constant in this story (and the other stories) is that Elaine will always take back Drake and give him a normal comfortable domestic life when he wants it. There was no joy, no sense of relief. What, was he going to say NO to going home with his sexy charming ass kicking wife? It's funny how much Dunkey was able to fixate on things like all the places you go, all the game mechanics, all these unique and enriching things in the game because I felt distracted constantly by a story that was just leading to an incredibly predictable end and who's real conflict was that Elaine was home without knowing anything and "oh no when shes gonna find out and be mad". And that makes me mad!

It's almost sad in a way that this game has aged so poorly by virtue of millions of the same stories came out before, during, and after this game's release and whatever subversion Naughty Dog was going for became trite. But I don’t even know if it would have stuck a landing to me regardless. I'm genuinely jealous to hear Dunkey make these narrative connections to things and to appreciate this game on the level the studio probably intended for it to be played. I admit some of this most come from marathoning the games and the sting of the third game being so major, it made me tempted to suggest to my husband we replay 4... but writing up my feelings has made me realize that the best I could ask for is to just ignore all my feelings on a central story aspect and that doesn’t seem fun. Dunkey mentions “the fantasy” at a few points in his video review. He mentions how he think it's the best triple A action in any video game he's played, how the gun fights and intense action comes up later and really rewards you with the big violent set pieces like an indulgence. The game plays into the fantasy of the adventure, both for the player and for Drake. You are supposed to at once disagree with Drake’s decisions but also be too swept away by the intentional fanservice to judge him too strongly. And so I think both the core message and themes of the game, as well as the game itself, is just built around something so inherently masculine.

#uncharted #text

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suth-sardian · 2 years

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love winsヽ(；▽；)

@ykoriana-imperatrix

#stone dance of the chameleon #sdc #birthday project 2022 #kuqenthe of the masks #Ikoriane of the masks #(the one who made the food)#my headcanon is that Varisite is a huge fan of Ikoriane because she was a renowned for her cooking in certain private circles #except Ikoriane couldn’t cook for shit 😭😭😭 it was just Kuqenthe not wanting to break her bae’s heart #maybe there’s a fic in this #Varisite is trying to locate the famous & mysterious cookbook of Ikoriane #it’s like a whole ass adventure like Indiana Jones #he finds it in the end 😭😭😭 and reads it #‘WHO TF IS PUTTING SUGAR IN FRIEND CHICKEN?????????’#on that day #the Ruling Lord Miroko Varisite found out #his entire life was a lie

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brokenhardies · 3 years

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OC HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE - DAY TWENTY FOUR

Multiverse AU - Power Rangers 2017 Gwax

Kristen Froseth as Gwen Hartford

Andre Dae Kim as Dax Lo

TAGLIST

@seize-the-droid @anotherunreadblog @ocfairygodmother @kazinejghafa @eddysocs @foxesandmagic @seymours-secret @witchofinterest @akabluekat @booty-boggins @anna-phora @starcrossedjedis @bravelittleflower @jewelswrites-ish @ryutabas @thecaillic @fuckitup-in-style

#ocappreciation #ocapp #ochub #queerocs #powerrangerocs #power rangers ocs #OC: Gwen #story: family ties #I HAVE A WHOLE ASS CONCEPT FOR OO IN PR2017 #basically; its a spy movie with elements of adventure films such as indiana jones #the four main overdrive teammates (so the original team of ronnie dax will and rose) were set up by andrew to find #the jewels of the corona aurora - mack (& gwen) wind up joining the team bc #andrew had a red ranger in mind but guess who turned out to be working for the bad guys?#yes miratrix was originally the red but uh... yeah lmao she turned out to betray the team #idk what the green tracker was for; i think maybe back up?#yeah its kinda a heist movie #also the first movie follows the first half (skipping once a ranger) and ends with mack finding his scematics #while the second movie follows from things not said to crown and punishment #ALSO the casting for the overdrive rangers mainly comes from #sorry for the rambling lmao im just like #GAH i really wanted more pr teams in the 2017 verse

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alloftheimaginesblog · 3 years

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Secret’s Out (Indiana Jones x Plus Size Reader)

Plot: Okay, but like Indiana Jones x Plus Size Reader where you're a fellow lecturer at the university and it's just peak handsome archaeologist and soft nerdy other academic (of any subject of your choice). Watch as I send you about 50 million requests for different things now, Ang xD

Requested by @hufflepuffing-all-day-long (thank u for the requests Charlotte!)

Character: Indiana Jones x Plus Size Reader

Part of my Plus Size History Professor x Indiana Jones series and part of my Plus Size Reader x Character series!

The clock ticking on the wall and the scratching of pencil on paper was the only sound to be heard in your classroom. You were grading papers with your free afternoon. It was either do them now or do them over the weekend and to be honest, you had plans to chill out and lay on the couch with a certain someone this weekend so... you were doing them now.

Your students had done well this semester, actually, you thought with a smile. You’d been teaching for years yet you did always worry that you weren’t doing enough for them but judging by their papers, you’d been doing pretty well. Grading their papers helped you to reflect and evaluate yourself as a teacher as well. There were mistakes made, like the wrong dates or misspellings here and there, but overall they were good; which meant you were doing good!

Someone cleared their throat in front of you which stopped you in your tracks, “Jesus!” You yelped, looking up to see Indy with a stupid grin on his face, “You scared me half to death!”

“I did knock, twice,” he smirked, “you were too busy with your papers.”

Your cheeks began to heat up, “Oh,” you looked at your papers, “They’re doing so well!” You gushed, “Every paper I’ve marked this afternoon has been at least a B- or above!”

Indiana - Professor Jones - smiled and sat on the edge of your desk, “And you were worried you weren’t doing enough. How many more have you got to grade?”

“Just this one,” you smiled, “then I’m all yours.”

You and Indiana had been together for just shy a year at this point. You’d met through working together, he was the archaeology professor and you were a history professor, so naturally you both kind of gravitated towards each other. Indiana liked turning up at your class with insanely cool finds, you quickly found out that being an archaeology professor wasn’t his only job - he was also quite an adventurer - and he would ask you about what he found. You sussed out quickly that he would already know about the things he was showing you but he just wanted to come and talk to you. It was sweet. He asked you out for dinner one night after work and how could you turn him down? He was incredibly handsome, charming, smart, funny and my god, he treated you like royalty.

He waited in silence, giving you time to concentrate, as he played with one of the nik naks on your desk. It wasn’t long before you were finished, “Finished with a bang,” you grinned, “A+!”

Indiana smiled, he admired how much you cared about your students and wanted to improve your teaching for them if it was lacking (though it never was), “And as a treat, I’m going to take you out tonight.”

You stood up and walked to the filing cabinet to file away the papers. You could feel his eyes watching your backside as you did so. He loved your wide hips, your plump backside and your thick thighs; that’s why you’d worn your new pencil skirt. Usually, you’d be self conscious about the tightness of it and the way it clung your lumps and bumps but that’s exactly what Indy loved. He’d spent many a night praising you, touching you and kissing you everywhere making you believe that you were truly beautiful.

You felt him walk up behind you before his hands were on your waist, “Maybe we’ll skip dinner,” he mumbled, hand grazing over your ass, “You look incredible.”

“Oh, I know,” you smirked as you turned around to stare up at him.

He pushed you softly against the filing cabinet, eyes watching your lips with a hungry look in his eyes. The man knew exactly what he was doing, he was too sexy and it killed you. You pulled him by the shirt collar to kiss you, falling straight into his trap. He liked when you took what you wanted from him, it only turned him on further. He tasted like coffee and chocolate.

The two of you got a little carried away as you continued to make out, pressed against the filing cabinet. Well, that was until someone cleared their throat from the doorway, “Um, Professor Jones?”

The two of you broke away, staring like a deer caught in headlights at the door. Your lipstick was smeared all over your face and Indy’s. It was one of his students, oh fuck, it was a group of about six students all grinning as they peered into the scene before them.

“Secret’s out now,” you whispered, quickly turning away wiping the lipstick off your face and flattening your hair.

“Yes?” Indiana asked, lips pursed, clearly annoyed that his students interrupted.

“We just had a question about the coursework,” one student - Ben - smirked, “but uh, we’ll go if you’re too busy.” The students snickered and you covered your mouth with your hand, trying your hardest not to laugh. Sure, it was embarrassing as hell and you knew that within an hour the whole campus would know, but you had to laugh.

“Sure,” Indiana said with a sigh, “better be quick.” He turned to you, “Wait for me?”

You nodded with a secret smile, “Sure thing. I’ll swing by your class in fifteen.” With his back to the students, he smiled back at you - obviously finding this situation humorous also but when he turned around to them, his face was stony.

“Oh, Ind- Professor Jones,” you said quickly, he turned to you and you handed him a tissue, “Lipstick.”

As he walked out with the laughing students, you were sure his ears were bright red and it wasn’t just lipstick. Indiana Jones was embarrassed.

#plus size reader #plus size #plus size series #indiana jones x plus size reader #indiana jones x reader #indiana jones one shot #indiana jones #ij #one shot #os #reader insert #secrets out saga #secret's out saga

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Don Rosa: “The Magnificent Seven (Minus 4) Caballeros!” or City Slickers 3: The Crystal City

Saludos Amigos, the Ride of the Three Caballeros returns! After some time off to take care of other seasonal commissions and to finally get the life and times fo scrooge mcduck back on a steady pace, everyone’s three favorite chappies in snappy serapes are back for another go round. This time i’ts back to comics one last time as we take a look at “The Magnificent Seven (Minus 4) Caballeros: which was the penultimate story from Duck Maestro Don Rosa, and as a result the final one set in present day, as while the next one would have a wraparound segment, it’s a flashback tiding up the one last bit of Scrooge’s past Rosa hadn’t clicked into place yet, and thus we’ll get to that eventually as part of life and times. And honestly it serves as a fittng and satisfying conclusion to Donald’s story.

The geneisis of this one is rather simple in comparison to “The Three Caballeros Ride Again!”. Don Rosa REALLY enjoyed writing TTCRA, wanted to have another adventure with Donaldo and his boys, and given the previous story was a huge hit likely had no trouble convincing his publisher. And since he set the first story in Panchito’s home country of mexico, it only made sense to have the next story in Jose’s home country of Brazil. Adding to it Rosa specifically wanted to avoid using the amazon rainforest this go round, as to him pretty much every story involving Brazil focused on the massive and wonderful rainforest. And while a great setting, Rosa knew there was much more to the country and wanted to show it off. And to his credit.. he’s 100% right as i’ve seen dozens upon dozens of stories set in the rainforest but not nearly as many set ANYWHERE ELSE IN BRAZIL. If their lucky we get to see Rio, but that’s about it. So kudos to Rosa for wanting to display more of a beautiful country and show it had more to offer than merely it’s biggest attraction. As for what treasure they’d be after, the lost city of crystal stuck out to him, having been described in a goverment document that was so degraded when it was found there wasn’t much left to go on and searched for by a famous explorer who was the basis for indiana jones whose name I forgot but we’ll run into his name again later. So yeah not as much setup here and what tiny bit is left can be covered when we get to our villian. So with all that out of the way, let’s ride on!

We open with Scrooge firing Donald and throwing his ass out on the street, berating him for screwing up and then telling him to be back early tommorow to make up for his firing. Then Gladstone literally walks all over him becausae he’s a jackass, and Daisy then shrieks at donald for you know, being stuck on the floor, having messed up the shirt she ironed for him without.. actually you know asking for context, HITTING HIM, then telling him to pick her up for dinner at the ritz.

It’s like this intro was perfectly designed in a lab to piss me off. All three of the characters who on a good day ar excellent but on a bad are outright monsters, at their worst, treating Donald like crap, i.e. the reason to call them monsters, and generally abusing him for flimsy reasons. And again Daisy HIT DONALD. No that’s not right, she shoryukened his ass! She upercutted him! God damn. And her just casually doing that is played for laughs. In a lesser Rosa story this would only get worst and be “oh haw haw”.. instead... to my delighted suprise.. this is all treated seriously. Yeah really. Instead of being treated for laughs like normal, and not being a dark enough work comedically to make it work like say It’s Always Sunny, Donald is seriously depressed, beaten down phsycially and mentlaly and when the boys, who’ve been present for all of this and tried to help him up off the ground, ask why he takes this.. the answer is pretty damn bleak.

Just.. holy shit that’s dark.. and I applaud Rosa for not only recognizing this isn’t always funny, but for actually tackling it. And I will grant Donald being a butt monkey CAN be funny, especially when it’s caused by his own ego. It’s the basis of his entire career. It’s good stuff. My issue has been more that Rosa sometimes dosen’t get that either some aspects have aged poorly, even by the 90′s, and thus dosen’t adjust them or play them more for drama, sprinkling a bit of that in with the comedy. So to see him do that HERE, to acknowledge in some way his own faults and do something with them.. i’m very proud of him and it warms my heart that he could do something like this that shows he could grow and change, even SECONDS from the end of his career, but with no intention of ending his career at that point or even after finishing his next and last story. It just ended up happening that way and as such this story carries even more weight as for all intensive purposes, this is the final tale of Donald Duck for Don Rosa’s Barksian universe. This is the last big tale before whatever triggers Scrooge’s retirement, the last tale he wrote in the here and now. And while not perfect for some reasons we’ll get to from a character perspective? It’s a pretty good note to go out on.

Anyways Donald somehow makes this SADDER by mentoing, when Huey, Dewey or Louie tries to make him smile that he hasn’t smiled in some time before sadly loping off to make their dinner before buying daisy’s.

Yeah... I just.. I need a moment.... Here’s my asistant iwth an important message

Okay i’ve regained my composuer.. and yes I will be shwoing that off at every opportunity. I have generous friends. Now where were we? Ah yes with their uncle in a depression hole, can relate, they figure he needs a nice gift to get him out of it. The boys think he needs friends.. and of course the boys come to mind, though the fact their on the other end of the contient proves a problem.. but Huey, Dewey or Louie has a solution and takes the boys to the Woodchucks because of course they do> Their primary go to for anything is the guide which to be fair contains the entire sum of the world’s knowledge in a guidebook.

So the boys, with the other two likely filled in on the way, plan becomes clear when they stop by Woodchuck HQ and talk to the guy in charge of the badge department, which ahs a fun acronym because of course it does, this is one of Rosa’s faviorite running gags and mine as well.. I just don’t have it in me stamina wise to type the whole thing out. Point is the boys ask that Donald be used as courier for a special shipment of badge’s to Rio. The authority guy is understandably a bit reluctant to give a non-woodchuck this duty, but the boys remind him that in a previous story, not sure if it’s barks or rosa’s, Donald apparently not only found the last remaning pieces of fort duckberg but saved them from the mill. As a result the Fort, which was the original HQ of the woodchucks until Scrooge threw them out, was apparently rebuilt. So the guy in charge is more than willing to not only give donald the duty, but an open ended plain ticket, i.e a vacation. The Nephews do have to guilt him a bit more to get donald a condsensed pamphlet based on the brazil chapter of the guidebook which at this point seems like overkill. Just.. buy him a guidebook boys. IT’s a bit much to ask that a portion of your heavily guarded and protected text be given to your uncle for a vacation and seems like a tad of a stretch but the gag, including the boys getting badges in guilt and convincing, makes it work.

So after the boys set off to telegram the rest of the Cabs, we cut to donald arriving in rio, passing christ the redeemer on the way

The Rio Woodchucks greet donald and take the package for him, giving him new orders to go by cable car to the observation deck atop Sugar Loaf Mountain. This is a real mountain in Brazil and frustrated Rosa because he couldn’t find any pictures of what the station looked like in the 1950′s, despite as he put in his notes having eager fans from the region, researchers and other contacts try to find it, settling for having vintage cable cars pulling into modern stations he got from photos from said contacts. If I hadn’t said it before i’ll say it now the man is a BEAST when it comes to getting things acurate, only bending it if it helsp the story and still making sure his drawings are as accurate as possible. It’s one of Rosa’s most adimirable traits.

Donald took a Donde, some form of streetcar there, hanging on the back and .. uh I have no words for this..

Donald Duck ran into a horse and it farted in his face. Just... why though. This horse naturally is Senior Marteniz, with Panchito currently being thrown out of a cable car for trying to put his horse in there which is fair. What isn’t is people having an issue with his hat. I mean.. people wear hats. I know it’s a bit big for the tight fit of the cable car but still it’s a bit weird to throw a strop about anywhere outside a theater or sports place where he’d be actively obstructing people’s view. And it appears to be the same weirdly crazy asshole.. Imean again the horse thing is resonable but calling it a “crazy hat” I mean yes it’s a big hat.. but ... you you do know mexico exists right? And sombreros? or other cultures at all you weirdly specific douche?

At the top, after a quick and funny hat swap gag, Panchito reveals the triplets called him here.. as did Jose who assuemd it was lovely senorita.. who uppercuts him. And it’s STILL more reasonable to uppercut some rando hitting on you, if not by much, than Daisy’s Domestic Abuse. Anyways the three put things together and Donald realizes via flashback the boys hoped his smile would return and said he’d have help.

Donald, being utterly beaten down by life, apologizes.. but it turns out the boys needed this as much as he did. Jose’s night club career is flopping hard, with his agent unable to get him bookings and Panchito has barely scraped any money together for his ranch dream from last time. It’s a nice touch: That the boys , while having more exciting careers have just as much strife as Donald does and as much problem. It helps make them feel as real as donald, as characters with their own lives and adventures outside of him and their own wants and needs and it really helps the story come alive. Jose however has some suggestions to escape their blues.

But Panchito suggests instead they go for some adventure and go diamond hunting in the plains of brazil, which the two agree to.. and Donald’s a big gung hoe about carving his way through human flesh.. just jesus man.. get a therapist. Your Ducktales counterpart did and he seems mildly well adjusted. So the adventure is on.. and they all toss their hats.. off a mountain. First thing on the provisoins list hats. Before we head on I just wanted to point out even though most of my audience here is likely unaware the movie exists that this Comic honestly reminds me of the 1991 comedy City Slickers starring Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern and Bruno Kirby. If your struggling on the name Daniel Stern, think Marv from Home Alone.

No.. the RIGHT marv. I may not be a huge fan of Home Alone but we respect Daniel sterns in this house. And yes if you didn’t know French Stewart played Marv in one of the sequels now you do. And i’m sorry you know that.

There we go. Right Marv and Wrong Dad from Christmas story. Back on point City Slickers is a terrific comedy I finally saw a few weeks back about three friends all facing mid life crisises, with Billy Crystal being unsatisfied with his career and undsure WHY he does, Daniel Sterns having cheated on his shrewish wife with one of his employees whose also now pregnant, and Bruno Kirby being a ladies man whose faced with the prosepct of settling down, go for a weeks vacation to a cattle drive, as Brunos character tends to set up these trips but this time they actually need it. They encounter cows, assholes and a cowpoke named Curly. It’s pretty good.

But yeah they both feel kinda similar, if with far less drama and crumbling marraiges on the cabs end because you know, this is for children. I’m pretty sure it’s just a concidence but given Rosa’s love of film, even if it’s more 30′s and 40′s films, and how the City Slickers seems right up his alley, I wouldn’t he suprised if he saw it and simply took some slight inspiration from it. Either way the similarity makes me giggle a bit. Again the plots aren’t all the same but the basic setup is about the same, complete with the main character’s family making sure he goes. It’s a bit of a stretch but I thought it was pointing out and while this review is comissioned, how I go about it isn’t so if I want to take a few paragraphs to compare this to an excellent comedy you should defintely see with two underated actors, maybe three i know nothing of bruno kirby other than the man had horse allergies and thus had to take heavy medication every day so good on him, and a lot of fun.

So our premise and pastiche firmly in place, our heroes fly out to the frontier to adventure and Donald even thought ahead on them needing two more mounts and bought them from the local farmer for 100 bucks: It turns out their a llama, who jose takes and an old ox which donald reluctantly takes and wonders how to steer.. which I just got the double pun. Nice touch.

So our heroes head on with Donald expressing suprise they aren’t in the jungle like the movies, Jose correcting him, you get the bit he’s going for. But as they travel Donald not only breaks out the pamphlet but also , once jose mentions finding el dorado, casually mentions he and Scrooge already found it in columbia, and when Jose incrediously mentions that maybe he also already found the lost mines of the incas.. turns out yeah they did that too. Dont’ know if it was a barks or rosa story for either, since I didn’t check that part of Rosa’s notes, but it brings the scene into greatness as the boys not only belivie donald and figure he’s not pulling their legs.. but marvel at his life. And it’s here Donald smiles a bit.. he’s already got his smile back realizing that as miserable as his life can be.. he’s still seen and done things no man, even his globetrotting pals, has sever done before or sense. Found long lost places, solved mysteries and rewrote history.. sometimes literally sometimes in the “found things that changed historical knowledge” sense. Point is.. he realizes he has more to his life than he thought and maybe it isn’t so miserable after all.

Donald also mentions the local waters are filled with stuff and the other Cabs mounts quickly climb on his continuting the gag of the Cabs assuming donald’s some big expert by accident. For me personally it varies in how funny it is, sometimes it’s grating othertimes it’s genuinelly pretty good, your mileage will vary. We then get a page and a half of slapstick with various animals and this gag repeated and it’s eh. Not bad, and there’s a REALLY great visual bit where donald gets squeezed by an anaconda and not only is he comically and tightly squeezeled, but it takes a few panels for it to wear off. Other than that not bad stuff but nothing especially new or really that funny.

Our heroes soon find a pit trap.. and a capybara in said pit trap.. which I also give myself credit for recognizing on sight. Who dosen’t like a good capybara? Their basically a large brazillian rodent if you were curious. Donald asks what can they do and hte boys take it as a secret test of character, and not just donald being kind of lost and decide to help free trapped animals instead of treasure hunt which Donald, much like his entire life, just reacts to with “what what are we doing now?”. But they manage to free the greatful Capybara and we get this inspired bit.

Naturally the sheer confusion of seeing this as well as being confronted with the relaly bizzare nature of his world, i.e. having both a rodent whose an old friend and one that’s clearly just a regular animal causes Donald to fall into the hole. He’s soon found by the natives.. and here we get one of the worst aspects of this story and one I honestly didn’t expect to encounter given Rosa’s research: Calling these indgeinous people’s.. “indians”. Yes really.

We were in 2004 by this point, and even in the cultural cesspool of the early 2000′s, a time where micheal jacksons actions towards children were used for reams of jokes and where R.Kelly got off for the same just because “he makes the good musics”. What i’m saying is even in this time in history, we knew better than to use the term indian and I remember distinctily the term native american being in my text books even at this point as a kid. So Rosa, a world traveled knowledgable adult.. has no excuse for this, not even “It was the 50′s when this was set and they’d used this” as while he had Scrooge being mildly racist in “The Empire Builder from Callisota”, he didn’t you know, have scrooge use the fucking n word or other slurs during the story because you know that’s racist and he knows it’s racist. I’m coming down so hard on him because I expect BETTER. I can, even if it bothers me and I will give out about it, KINDA ignore the daisy stuff because domestic violence against men wasn’t as wellk nown, so while it dosen’t play well and I won’t pretend to enjoy it I can at least understand why rosa thought this was funny when it isn’t> This? The man clearly should know better, should know to use correct terms, and is usually better about this, but just isn’t here and for one of his last stories it’s REALLY depressing to see a man I have a ton of respect for fail this badly. It’s just a small element of hte story but it really sticks out badly and says bad things about an otherwise good man. Even a good man can really fuck up and Don.. honestly really fucked up even when, normally his portryal of indigneous people’s is really good.. and is for the rest of the story. This is just a really bad if really easy to miss bit I feel he deserves some flak over it. He knew better. This story proves he knows better in other ways and knows indgenous people deserve resepect. He just dosen’t show it in his laungauge and it’s disheartaning.

Anyways, the Natives drop donald off with their cheif.. who turns out to not only speak perfect english, but has a rather nice modern setup and clothes. He’s the son of the former cheif whose dad, using a secret crystal city with a rich mine, paid for his son to go get an education in the US and hopefully bring back knowledge for his people. Instead all he learned was to be a greedy selfish asshat who calls his own people “savages”. This is what i’m talking about: While the indian thing is bad and Rosa should feel bad.. the rest of the story does treat these tribal peoples with genuine grace and care, as our main villian is shown as one partly because rather than respect his culture and simply use thenew knowledge of the outside world to help his people by educating them, bringing back new techniques and medcidnes while mixing it with thier old culture, the bastard prince simply wrote them off as savages and used his new learnings to rule them and get them into trapping, a buisness i’ts later made clear at the end of hte story they don’t like and only followed him because he’s their chief. And it dosen’t even come off as them following him as chief because their stupid, mainly just because of tradition and knowing they can’t escape him and he’d just find htem and find some way to cowtow them. The tribe here are innocent victimes forced into a life they don’t want by an asshole who became a colonizer instead of a hero and leader to his people and simply wants to sell them out as soon as possible to fiance a fancy and comfy life for himself. The bad guy here is recycled from Rosa’s pre scrooge work, and works well here and honestly.. is a good villian and a good antagonist, something Rosa struggled with sometimes when not just using what barks made. He’s a chillingly realistic villian: someone who would step on where he came from instead of helping it and again treats these people as simple victims forced to be minons by circumstance and as the end of the story shows, and we’ll get to that, not nearly as stupid or “savage” as this cruel bastard thinks. And naturally being a cruel bastard, Chief, since his name isn’t given, plans to ransom donald as he naturally has no hangups about selling people AND rare animals. Thankfully Donald’s only a prisoner for a bit as Donald’s ox makes a back door and with the help of their mounts the boys free all the trapped animals and escape.. with Senior Martinez accidently taking the Chief’s necklace. Turns out that’s the sigal that signals his right to rule, so he figures if the tribe finds out it’s missing they’ll rightfully dump his ass and tells them to give chase, which the cabs find out about via a wild parrot. It’s better not to ask.

So our heroes head into the wilderness to loose them and find a rocky slope, making their way up to some more plains. They now have both a high vantage, and a place to set up camp so do so. They also found out Martinez took the necklace, and now know why the chief is after them, but Panchito decides to keep it for now till they can figure out what to do with it. SO over the camp fire Donald decides that if they can find this lost mine that the Cheif’s dad used to go to, they won’t need to look for diamonds the hard way and Jose’s skepticism is rebuffed by the fact that Donald’s found plenty of lost cities with scrooge. So donald brings up the legend of the crystal city, with the guy who found it being colonel percy fawceet, and brings up more adventures you get the bit by now. Point is he mentions a crystal arch lighting up at night to ward off intruders.. and sure enough our heroes happen to be right by it, complete with a crystal road that simply had been covered by shale over the years. Donald decides to get some rest and head out in the morning, with a valid explination as to why not to worry about hteir perusers till then: It’s so dark that even if they left a trail, they can’t follow.. which the evil cheif agrees to though he finds the trail they dug up, pointing as an arrow and now realizing his dad’s treasure was real, plans to naturally exploit the hell out of it. So the next morning, bright and early, our heroes have built a raft, and are greatful they looked in first as the waters are stalked with dangerous predatory creatures. How htey haven’t all killed each other, I do not no, but it looks cool so i’ll shut up now. So our heroes leave their mounts behind and head in up the stream via the raft and find the massvie and awe inspiring lost city.. as for why it hasnt’ been found they soon figure out why: THe stream in is dangerous, and jose figures it was delebratly packed with dangerous animals, and thus few would think to go in there, and the only ohter way up is scaling the cliffs it’s build into, but as the cities built into the sides of said cliffs, no one can see it from a distance. It’s a birlliant way to justify just WHY something remained lost and somthing barks is tremendous at. Our heroes soon find though that the canal go deeper and approaches a water fall.. and thus jump off loosing their only way back and thus heading in deeper to see if they can find another way out. Meanwhile the Cheif has found the swamp and recongizes his dad mentoning it and being a greedy jackass, and suddenly realizing that maybe his people won’t want to loot the city their swarn to protect, tells them to guard the Cabs mounts while he goes on ahead.

Our heroes journey deeper into the unknown and after coming across pick axes mine carts and the like find the mines of fear.. lit with crystals and with wall to wall gems. So they’ve sucessful founds the lost minds of ophir, set up by one of king solomon’s realtiives. The actual King Solomons Mines had been found in a barks story, naturally and is also likely the basis for the african mines level in the ducktales game.

Donald being donald.. ends up sitting on a giant anaconda who swallows him whole as he dosen’t realize just how big the thing is when his pals mention it to him, and only escapes through Dumb Luck, as is the duck family way, lighting a match and causing the Anadonda to spit him out and run... unfortunately not only does Panchtio loudley announce he dosen’t have his pistols, The Chief shows up with a gun. Naturally he intends to plunder, because jackass you see, and intends to leave the cabs stranded, with the anaconda picking them off one by one when they inevitibly have to sleep while he’ll come back with inflatable rafts and boats to loot the rest. The cabs bemoan the fact that their fucked.. and then this happens.

So with that Donald FINALLY snaps, tired of taking the world’s shit and determined not to be the looser everyone around him but his boys clearly think he is. Seriously Donald.. dump. her. ass. It’d also tell you to dump gladstone in a shallow ditch but given your love for hacking through human flesh and his luck I don’t want you to impale yourself. So thus.. Donald stops getting polite and starts getting badass.. shouting THAT’S THE LAST STRAW BEFORE.. .. welll...

Bad. Ass. Also who knew Donald was part Kree? Wait .. how though? Questions for later. So as Donald gives the asshole his RICHELY deserved asshole a beat down, the anaconda pops up and grabs the boat.. with Donald STILL fighting the Chief the whole time. Holy shit. If this is your last time writing a character in a lead role what a note to go out on holy jesus. The cabs however show their CLOSE to as badass with Panchito roping the anconda and Jose attacking it once it curls around.. and unlike last time where his umbrella was quickly disarmed, here the Anaconda eats the tip.. only for Jose to expand it and on Panchito’s command, hook the damn thing. I didn’t relaize till writing this up just HOW badass this story’s climax is.. just holy shit this is awesome incarnate.

Donald ends up loosing the fight eventually as asshole whomps him on the head with the gems.. and sends donald flying, destroying the gate regulating the water thanks to freeing the anaconda. As a result asshole escapes.. for about five seconds till he drops over the falls, presumibly to his MUCH deserved death and even if he surivives, likely wont’ for long without anything to defend himself. Goodbye asshole, you were a good villian but you’ll be better tarantula chow.

Our heroes are still stranded.. but Panchito notices the Anadconda escaping and well... he decides to equal donald in badassery. Again..words do not do this justice.

Our heroes disembark, and find that the tribe has been held at bay by the noble steeds, and as I mentioned earlier, and why despite the frequent use of .. that word i’ve said enough already, this story isn’t too bad. The tribe, once free.. are perfectly intellegent and nice, only in the game because of tradition that asshole abused. Their going to head deeper into the valley on the offchance asshole makes it back so he can’t find them. So the tribe is free and seeing the emblem as the symbol of their opressor and not wanting it, they can likely make a new necklace honestly just without the gems, Panchito gets to keep it. So our heroes won, the adventure is over and our heroes head back to rio

In our final scene we get our wrap up with our heroes back in Rio to enjoy what’s left of their vacation.. which given the scope of events only two days of it have passed so far, so it’s nicely implied they have a day or two before Donald has to go back where he can just.. enjoy himself. Have an actual vacation now his soul is whole again. Our heroes went to the authorities, and it turns out the Chief was one of the most infamous trappers in Brazil, and is now again either dead or in no way shape or form easily able to come back into the country.. and when he does, he’ll now have every officer in the country on his ass.So in short he’s pretty fucked and i’m pretty happy about that. Naturally our heroes dont’ get to keep the mines, because well... it belongs ina museum.. or to become a museum and cultural landmark and the boys know and respect that. But Jose and Panchito both still got something out of the deal: for starters they have their confidence back, as seeing tthey could keep up with donald after realizing what a legend their friend is restored their own weary souls. Meanwhile, Jose’s newfound fame as the man who found a new brazilian cultural touchstone means his agent was able to get him booked up for a year, while Panchito , after consulting with the good senior martenez, decided ot keep the broach, and use it to get their ranch. And Donald? What did he find?

Donald found his smile again. He’s found himself again. After letting life beat him to near death, to just a souless shell. he’s found the real Donald. He’s realized that despite Scrooge’s finaical abuses he lives a rich full life. It’s part of why I compared the story to city slickers. While Donald’s life is far worse off than Billys, like him he finds himself again after the rousing adventure. And who knows what his future holds? Given Scrooge’s grave picture, yes Rosa drew that, he probably does marry daisy and work for the old bat.. but maybe now he can fight back, refuse to let htem walk all over him and actually find a healthy relationship with daisy and with his uncle before his uncle finally retires to Goldie’s loving arms. I could be wrong, it could be same as it ever was just he gets angry again.. but I like to think of something better for our boy. A better life and one more fufilled and more happy and one where he finally finds his pot of gold. He may not of found it yet but well.. there’s always another rainbow and he realizes that now just as his uncle did years ago. Donald is finally whole again to find his hapniess and a better life. Maybe with daisy, maybe with scrooge, maybe without them. Probably without Gladstone because he needs to cut that tumor out of his life, but still, he’s found himself and sometimes that’s all you need to find your purpose. So with that warm thought in my head our heroes play us out one last time. Well not for the restrospective obviously but still.

Final Thoughts; While I do prefer the previous story, on going through this again for the review, I did find this story utterly charming and a great way to send off our boys and Donald for Rosa’s work. While again that one word is very unfortunate and Rosa should’ve known better, otherwise the story is pretty imaculate, using history to build a thrilling story with tons of character and a tremendous arc for Donald. And as I said the villian is excellent and overally the story is pretty great. Maybe held back a bit by the racisim, but the rest of the story is so joyous, badass and well crafted, it’s easy enough to override the less savory aspects. Dosen’t mean they didn’t need to be noted it just means this story is magificent and as usual for Rosa’s work I recommend it.

Next time on the Ride of the Three Cablleros: We go to Disney Juinor for Mickey’s Perfecto Day! ..... whelp at least it’s a short one.

And if you’d like to comission your own review, their just five bucks, jsut direct message me, tell me what you’d like, and I will send you the link on my paypal and get to it asap. Thank you so much for reading and have a happy holiday.

#the three caballeros #donald duck #Jose Carioca #panchito pistoles #don rosa #duck comics #the magnificent seven minus 4 cablleros #the 2000's #comics #reviews #scrooge mcduck #daisy duck #huey duck #louie duck #dewey duck #gladstone gander

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