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funtimespringscare101 · 3 years

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Security Breach: Tainted Madness ~ Part 3

Scotty, Glamrock Freddy and Sunny were sitting in the Playground area, it was 5:56AM and it was almost time to go. Scotty had a important thing he has to do after his shift every day.

When his mother, Jane, walked out of his life, his dad's brother Rob became his guardian. Rob was a bit chunkier than his brother Jack. he was a bit more laidback than Scotty's father, feeling up the role of the "fun uncle" pretty well. Scotty remembered being 11 before his father died, and playing with Rob's ponytail. When Rob became Scotty's guardian however, he started to struggle with the responsibility and he became an alcoholic.

Scotty's watch beeped for 6:00AM, "Oh, I have to go, guys! I need to do something!"

"But we didn't finished our game of Go Fish!" Sunrise exclaimed in a childish whine, which she noticed and then apologized for. "I know, but I need to go do something first." Scotty replied, Freddy's chest cavity opened and Gregory peeked out, "I bet you five Bucks."

Scotty smiled, "Oh Yeah, where are you going to get it from?"

"I don't know." Gregory said with a childish confusion that made Scotty chuckle.

"Ok, guys, gotta go, ciao!" Scotty waved behind him, he walked to his car, a green Audi RS4 that Rob bought for him for his first day on the job as Nightguard. He kept it quite clean most of the time, because it was just a old habit of his.

He started the engine and drove out of the parking lot, he had to get Rob out of three bars this month, because he picked fights with guys who were twice his size, it wasn't something Scotty hated to do but wished would be toned down. He stopped at a traffic light and looked left to find a girl about 19, with beautiful brown hair and hazel eyes at a café. He sighed, he was never going to get a girl even if he wanted to, other than Ness, Vanessa, Luis and Michael from the other Freddy's nearby, he hadn't had other friends and frankly, he sucked at talking to pretty girls already, with a few exceptions.

he got home to his apartment, which was painted white to match the rest of the building, and was kept-clean most of the time. Scotty went into his room and changed into a clean white button shirt, some light brown jeans and a red sweater vest, he walked out of the apartment to find his neighbor from across his door, Jenna, in her doorway.

"Hey Scotty, How was your shift?"

"Oh, Hey Jenna! It was good, how was your shift at the new ice cream parlor?"

Jenna was close to Scotty's age, she was African-American, with dark brown eyes and had the most messy curly black hair Scotty has ever seen.

"Great!" she replied with enthusiasm, she leaned forward and whispered, "I think my boss likes me."

Scotty smiled "that's good. Hey, what are you doing tonight? We can watch Netflix again if you want."

"Okay. that would be nice!"

Scotty Arrived at Rob's house. Unlike Scotty's apartment, the house which came from the 90's had paint coming off the wall, the porch stairs had one broken step, and Rob didn't really keep the inside clean neither. He knocked the front door, and Rob answered after a moment. "Scotty Boy!" Rob exclaimed, "what do I own this visit from my nephew?"

"Hey Uncle Rob, I got your favorite." Scotty held up the bags of McDonald's and Subway, "and I got the movie, how does Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse sound?"

"Noice, good choice."

The movie was a good choice, they laughed a lot while watching it, and Scotty even compared Rob to the equally chubby Peter B. Peter.

"Well, at least I got a nephew here with me!" Rob said proudly. Scotty chuckled, then sighed.

"Hey Rob?"

"Yeah?" Rob replied,

"Do you think I'm good enough to find someone to love?"

Rob's eyes widened "W-What?"

it was now that Scotty realized that tears were coming down his face, but continued, "Do you think that there is someone out there who would love me?"

Rob was still shocked, "Scotty Boy, why are you saying that? Of COURSE you'll find someone, where is this coming from?"

"I don't know, but I felt this way for the last couple years but, you know, with Dad gone and Mom leaving, I just felt that no one might like me."

Rob smiled nervously, "What about Ness? She's your best friend, right? you hang out a lot at work."

"Rob, you know about Malhare and what he is, you even had a close call with him."

Rob chuckled, "you mean Mr. Weasel-face? He's just someone who will get karma eventually, right?" Rob put his hand on Scotty's shoulder, "I know that you're there helping Ness with that bastard, and i know that she means a lot to you." Scotty looked at Rob, who continued, "You're been doing that for me too, and I love you for that. I know that your mom left you at such a low point of your life, but you don't need to blame yourself for it."

Scotty wiped off his tears and sighed softly, "t-thanks, man."

"Nah, no prob, man, you really deserve it."

Scotty smiled, as a wave of emotions hit him like a truck, Rob was right, even with his dad and mom gone, he still had people he loved, Rob, Ness, Vanessa, Roxanne... Jenna.

"Well, I still want to say thank you, Rob," Scotty got up and went back to the car, opening the glovebox where he kept a photo of a 11-year-old him, his mom, dad and Rob on a trip, everybody smiling towards the camera, happy to be there. Scotty went back to Rob and gave it to him.

Rob put on his glasses and looked at the picture, after a moment, he teared up. The photo was the last one taken before Scotty's father died, Scotty and his father were a duo, they were close. Scotty and his mom, however, were like that kid Alec's that he met while at Freddy's with Michael, she was just as charming as his dad but she never been to get the parenting part of the job right, but at least she tried to, unlike Meg.

The only reason Jane left in the first reason was because she was grief-stricken, because she didn't believe she could be that much of a mom without Jack there to fix her mistakes when she messes up. Scotty never hated her for that, he understood that clearly, he enjoys seeing her smile in the photos he kept, he wished he could see her again more than anything.

"Rob? You Okay?" he asked,

"Yeah, I'm Fine," Rob sniffed between tears, "Just remembered this, it was the time at the cinema, right?."

"Yeah, What was the movie we went to watch, the 'best movie of 2010' as Dad put it?" Scotty scratched his head.

"Oh, Toy Story 3! Man, you cried so bad at the end!" Rob chuckled, "Oh come on, the ending got to me, all right?" Scotty replied.

Rob Sniffed again and turned to Scotty, "I bet she misses you, kiddo," Scotty smiled, "Yeah, I bet she does. Are we finishing the movie or what?"

Rob realized that they had a bit more to go, "Oh! I forgot that was still there," Scotty Laughed.

After the movie finished, Scotty waved goodbye as he left the house, Rob waved back and closed the door, he got into the car and sighed, he grabbed his phone from his pocket and called Michael, he picked up and Scotty could hear Lefty and Alec chatting in the background.

"Hey, man! What's up?"

"Hey, listen Mike, I'm calling because I was wondering if you and Lefty would like to have lunch at the plex again. How did it go with Father Blythe?"

Scotty heard Michael sigh, "great actually, he had a very nice talk with Alec, it was good to see someone helping the poor kid."

Scotty agreed,

"and I'll ask Lefty about lunch. Lefty!"

Scotty heard Lefty answer "Yeah?"

"Scotty wants to invite us to lunch at the plex again, want to go?"

"Well, what do you think, Alec?" Lefty asked,

"Sure, It would be nice, I find that place so cool." Alec replied

"Ok, We're in," Michael finally answered as he got on the phone again, "at what time do you want to meet?"

Scotty thought for a moment, and replied, "11:30?"

"Sure, we could make it."

"Great see you then, bro!"

Scotty returned to his apartment at noon, Jenna was waiting there, leaning on Scotty's door. he could see she changed for their "date". She was wearing a red plaid shirt which he knew was from her mom , her leather jacket, a pair of jeans and hiking boots for a strange reason. at this moment, he wished that he had changed, he was wearing the same shirt and sweater vest from earlier this moment and, compared to Jenna, he looked quite dorky.

"Hey," Jenna said as he noticed him, she looked at him up and down, "Wow, you kinda look like my dad."

Scotty laughed, he met Jenna's parents Jay and Nicky when they came down from New Harmony to visit, they love him.

"Look who's talking, Miss Hiking Boots." he said with a childish chuckle, "How was your visit to New Harmony today?" "Great, Dad made his signature pasta again!" Jenna replied with glee.

They went inside and sat down on Scotty's dark velvet couch, Scotty grabbed the blanket on the armrest and put it over Jenna's shoulders. "Thanks, what do you want to watch?"

Scotty shrugged, "What about we keep watching The Office?" Jenna agreed and put it on.

They were watching their 3rd episode when they laughed and Jenna accidently put her hand on Scotty's, he blushed as he internally freaked out.

"Oh Sorry!" she exclaimed as she panicked too, "nono, It's all good!" Scotty exclaimed, he noticed that now Jenna was blushing hard, it looked cute.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure!"

At 9:30, it's time to say goodbye, Scotty opened the door for Jenna but she stood there with her jacket in her hands.

"Jen? you okay? is there something wrong?"

suddenly she put her arms around him, and pulled him in for a kiss.

Scotty was panicking internally, when she released him, she went to her door, turned back to him and waved good night.

he waved back, his face still in shock, he went into his bedroom, and slopped onto his bed, still progressing what just happened.

Then along came the smile.

<;- Last Part Next Part ->

#five nights at freddy's #fnaf security breach #Tainted Madness AU #Scotty FNAF #Cameos from I Am Machine Crew #I found this so wholesomeeeeeee #I edited all the other stories as well #Sunrise FNAF #Gregory FNAF

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Ducktales Finale Review: The Last Adventure! or So Long and Thanks for All The Ducks

Hello all you happy people. The day we’ve all simultaneously waited for and dreaded is here. The grand finale to a five year journey.. and for me an almost one year journey of covering season 3 as it came out. It was thanks to this show i’ve been able to make money doing what I love. Without it I never would’ve found my patreon Kev, and I never woul’dve had the solid focus to keep going as long as I have. And I never would’ve had all you lovely people reading my work. Thank you for that. I hope you’ll stick around even though the series is gone, I love you all. But as the sun sets on this series I have one last episode of the season, and the series to cover. I won’t be doing it in my usual recap style due to it’s sheer length and scope, but I promise you if you join me under the cut I will break down eveyrthing I can about this final adventure, it’s huge, awe inspiring twists.. and it’s heartwarming conclusion. It’s everything you could want from a finale short of a Grandma Duck Cameo, and i’ts under the cut with full spoilers. Seriously if you do not want any spoilers TURN BACK NOW. I’m opening with probably the biggest spoiler of the finale.

I Think She’s A Clone Now You were warned. So.. Webby is Scrooge’s Clone, made by FOWL as part of a decades long scheme to find the papyrus of binding, and raised by Beakly to keep this precious child out of their sinister clutches. I have hundreds of reaction images, several for what the fuck.. none of them seem sufficient.. ALL OF THEM together like some megazord of what the fuck are not sufficient for how much this reveal caught me off guard. It caught ALL of us off guard. I’m sure even those who called it still were suprised that’s the direction it took. I think we all expected her parents died by FOWL, or her parents were FOWl with Pepper being one of them, or anything else. So naturally it took around 14 drafts, and me going the fuck to sleep as I had stayed up to watch the finale and thought I could just smoothly transition into writing the review despite there being a LOTTTTT to unpack.

Even after the recharge though this took a bit of doing... so now i’ve done it... what’d I think? Whelp....

I liked it. I like it the more I think about it. Even the problems I had with it just kinda melted away as I thought about it. I understand if you do not. This twist will not be for everyone, it changes Webby’s character and story entirely, ruins tons of fan theories, and in general is batshit even for a series that in the same finale, turned Manny into a shout out to Gargoyles, complete with Keith “My Body is Ready” David. This series is genuinely batshit and loves it, but this is a LOT to ask dramatically, a lot to rewrite expectation wise and a lot to thinka bout. There’s a reason besides sleep deprevation it took me a whlie to fully grasp how I felt. So if you don’t like it fine, but i’m going to make my best case.

Starting with something that made me realize I fully like it: It dosen’t invalidate Webby’s charcter. The one little problem I had left was “Well dosen’t Webby having the McDuck bloodline mean she couldn’t be specail if she wasn’t a McDuck? That sure the rest of the cast are specail but you can’t be really important without it?” Honestly.. no. Webby is who she is not because she’s a McDuck.. but because she’s Webby. She got her martial arts and mystery solving skills through Beakly and being raised. She had intate talent sure.. but as we’ve seen with the boys through the whole series, talent has to be honed. Skill has to be earned and learned. Webby worked hard to research other civilizations, worked hard to hone herself into a deadly fighting machine with her mother’s help, worked hard to be every bit as cool as her idol who turned out to be her biological dad. She earned her badassery, her wisdom and her courage SQUARE.

And more than that she’s her own person. Her adoptive parent and biological parent are both paranoiacs afraid of betryal, unwilling to trust, and slow to let anyone in. By all accounts Webby should be the same.. but she’s not. Oh sure she has some paranoia and is willing to slit some throats, she was raised by the world’s best spy and is the daughter of the world’s greatest hero, that was never going to be gone entirely. But at her core she just wants to trust people. She just wants to love them and be loved. And.. that’s why her family loves her. Because she’s the kindest, the warmest and the best of them. They love her because she’s Webby and that’s she’s family, they could care less who she’s related to. All it really changes is how Scrooge acts around her and that gives us fans tons to work with.

It’s also expertly revealed, which helped ease us into it. Webby is just as shocked and confused as we are and is seriously hurt, which makes her vulnerable to the villains. Kate Miccui deserves a goddamn award for voice acting and if their isn’t an award show for that their should be. While she’s been fantastic with Webby all series long this is her finest performance, going from Webby’s usual self, to all the hurt she goes through.. to her quitter moments at the end, calling Scrooge dad and giving out a little noise that makes it clear as Beakly tries to leave, that no.. she’ still her family.. she’s still her mom and she’s not going anywhere.

As for the concept being a bit ridiculous yes it is.. but so is this universe. This universe is entirely insane in the best fucking way possible: I mean.. look at this final group shot.

We have an old man whose somehow still alive simply because he was too busy to die, an inventor whose cloned himself multiple times so clones are fesable and is probably a clone himself given how the last finale went, an awkward armored superhero and his biotech filled girlfriend, a small boy robot weapon of discretion who put his head on his brother’s body, a no longer headless manhorse former harbinger of the apocalypse with the silky voice of keith david as one big homage to gargoyles, a lesbian living shadow and her sister, a superhero who based himself on a fictional character and his boyfriend/sidekick who by all accounts should be dead by now, a lesbian military superheroine from the moon, STORKULES COCKBLOCKER OUT OF MYTH, his moong goddes sister, two adopted family stunt pilots, a bunch of super intelligent mice, an odd duck whose kinda sorta dating a giant shrimp, his cousin with super luck powers, my globetrotting boys, an immortal treasure hunter and in the family proper: a former spy turned adopted mom of a clone, a woman who lived on the moon for a good decade, a man who once trapped everyone in what would essentially be the plot of the mcu’s second best work by pure accident, a blue boy whose piloted a plain, captained pirates, and has his own talk show, a green boy whose ran a multi-trillion dollar company, nearly destroyed all of time and space and is under investigation for fraud, and a red boy who has a hulk-esque rage filled embodiment of all his suppressed emotions, whose fondest wish was tall legs, and who can easily take out a giant magica supermachine with some fancy wiring. So the richest duck in the world having a clone daughter, while divisvie and what not.. is far more plausable than we give it credit for. As are her new sisters who Id in’t forget but are part of the whole twist.

So yeah, I like the twist and my nitpick is more that despite having a full season to set it up.. they saved it for the last episode. Instead of BUILDING on Webby’s desire to know more about her family and having the twins show up earlier.. it’s all shove into the finale. It’s a well done shoving but there’s so much that could be explored with Webby being Scrooge’s daughter, so much that futzes with the regular family dynamics and we don't’ get any of it. Sure it was probably saved for a possible season 4 but they treated this season as the last. Manny being an apocalyptic man horse voiced by the uber sexy keith david, and no I will not stop bringing that up even outside of it’s own section and why yes it is getting it’s own section, is the kind of revelation you can leave for one last episode. “One of the main cast is a clone” really isn’t and that’s disapointing.

Especially since thinking back to life and times.. Webby IS a lot like Scrooge was before circumstance hardened him. She’s tough, resourceful.. but also has a peppy spirit to her. It adds interesting shades to her character, where she zigs where Scrooge zags, how much of it is her upbringing with Granny versus his with his parents, how much did Beakley play into it. There’s A lot to dig into and given I have most of the series left to review, I will get to dig into it, and there’s a lot to be explored in fanfic so if I wasn’t already planning a massive one before I sure as fuck am now. So it’s not a bad twist nor bad we get to write the future.. but I do wish the crew THEMSELVES had done more with it. Still my bar for “not fucking up the entire show” is pretty low after Star Vs ended with her committing implied genocide to stop a genocide and How I Met Your Mother ended “But the real journey was in how much I want to bang, bang bangity bang I said a bang bang bangity bang your aunt robin now your mother conveniently died”. I can handle “This twist is kind of weird but also really intresting.” If the twist isn’t for you, as I said i get it. This is my opinion. Now for the thing I won’t shut up about.

I LIVE AGAIN:

Look i’ve made no secret how thirsty I am for Keith David nor how much of a national treasure I rightly believe him to be. He’s one of my faviorite voice actors, with a mind boggling number of awesome rolls, mostly recently as a fowl mouthed coffe cup encouraging a teacher to sabotage his rival teachers breaks on close enough. Even if I didn’t like Gargoyles, which I do, i’d have an entire section talking about that Manny reveal.

Manny was already objectively one of the best parts of the show, a hilariously weird addition that was also relatable as he just wanted to fit in. I did not know you could make him better. Then they gave him Keith David’s voice and revealed he’s one of the four horseman of the apocalypse, but doesn’t want to end the world he just wants to be a normal dude, AND turned him into a shout out to the last part of the disney afternoon they hadn’t touched, my favorite part of it and a show i’ve been sitting on watching in full for far too long. Motherfucking Gargoyles.

But given how unique it was for the Disney Afternoon and how much Disney had no desire to ever reference or use the franchise, still no fucking clue as to why they are sitting on money here, I expected it to be sadly but understandably left out. Instead they made Manny into an expy for them, gave him the voice of their leader Goliath, the voice of an angel, and had him say “I LIVE AGAIN” complete with the utterly transcendent theme song. Seriously give it a listen.

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So yeah I couldn’t not mark out at this. Amazing fucking stuff and almost as unexpected as the clone thing and easily my second faviorite part of the fiinale only NARROWLY topped by the curtain call. Which we’ll get to. Keith David took his time getting to this series but they saved the best guest voice for last. Utter tremendous.

Huey Season?: I”ll save more of this for my breakdown as the season as a whole but yeah while the finale as a whole was good.. I do feel Huey got short changed. He got PLENTY of development this season, and some REALLY good scenes with Bradford.. but ultimately he got overshadowed by the Webby thing. it just never quite felt like Huey got a real resolution to his character arc the way his brothers did. He still got some REALLY good moments, his “Just cough up the information Bentina!” was one of his finest and Danny Pudi did his best. The BUILDUP was good but hte payoff was non existant and easily the weakest part of an otherwise triumphant finale. I feel the final plot was ultimately just a bit too jam packed to really have Huey feel vital to it the way Dewey was to the Della arc and Louie was to his own arc. Both tgot big emotional payoffs in his finale but the most I could gather here was he accepted adventure? I guess. It just really feels off, like I missed the payoff to everything when it’s probably just nonexistent and that bothers me a lot. In a finale that was almost all hit.. this was easily the biggest misstep. I don’t have as much to say here on it.. but that’s because it’s really that simple: they gave Huey’s arc a ton of build up in this last episode and some of his others, really made him into Bradford’s good counterpart.. then just sorta.. forgot it because “oh shit Webby’s scrooge’s daughter kinda need to pull focus here”. Had they given this arc at least one more episode, we might of had time for it. Granted i’m not sure how much they could get away with but we clearly needed at least one more episode and what they chose to jettision, the climax to Huey’s story.. was way more important than they clearly thought and i’m heavily disappointed.

Bradford’s Big Hole Speaking of payoffs the missing mysteries payoff.. is a mixed bag. I expected all of them to combine some how into some elaborate plan I just wasn’t seeing. In hindsight it does make sense that wasn’t it: Bradford hates overcomplicated schemes, so his would be incredibly simple and require as few moving parts as possible. It still dosen’t stop the fact that the big plan to cap off the entire series built over a season... was to build a giant stygian hole of non existence to throw people into.

Yes really. Instead of using the Payprus to write them out of existance, if carefully worded or try doing it all at once or anything practical.. Bradford just plans to shove everything he dosen’t want in the world anymore into a hole. Look i’ts not like it ruins the episode, there’s still tons of tension from him holding Scrooge’s loved ones over his hole and threating to throw them into it’s gaping void. And it’s foiled by a 12 year old just.. shutting it off. Like I get him leaving an off switch on, that’s just common sense.. but why wouldn’t he have a remote or something to turn it back on? one with a password or something to lock it. There’s something inherently underwhelming about as series ending plan that can be summed up “hope no one shuts my unguarded hole. “

The finale does make for it by using the missing mysteries all in VERY clever ways. In fact every episode in the season had some sort of payoff here. It’s what makes up for how baffling the main plan is: every other thing, from the missing mysteries to the guest stars has lead up to this one moment, this one final adventure. Which leads me too

An Hurricane of Payoffs:

So from the top Challenge of the Senior Junior Woodchucks!: Isabella Finch herself ends up being VITAL to the story and to Bradford’s backstory, as does Junior Woodchucking as a whole. Quack Pack!: Gene is the fuel for Blot’s glove.. though he also fucks off right afterwords.. never to be seen again or help out at any point...

Double-O-Duck in You Only Crash Twice!: This was the most unexpected and elevated the episode in hindsight for me as what seemed like a waste of time.. wound up setting up the first part of the finale, and the final battle with Steelbeak, and in clever ways with Steelbeak using the intelliray on himself, Launchpad muttering the map in his sleep via his smart self and Dewey remembering the base layout.

The Lost Harp of Mervana: Used as a lie detector for that heartbreaking interrogation scene.

Louie’s Eleven: Introduced Daisy setting up Donald’s plot which i’ll get to.

Astro BOYD: My baby boy comes back for this episode! He also gets one of the best lines of it “I’m a Head!”. That is the most ralph wiggum the boy has ever been. I’m so proud.

Rumble For Ragnarok: Okay I was wrong nothing from this one comes back. Still a great episode. Same with the trickening. Both are VERY stellar episodes though, so I give it a pass. You can’t give a nod to EVERYTHING.

The Phantom and the Sorceress: The Blot and Super Sayian God Super Sayian Lena, as well as Lena’s character development from said episode. They Put a Moonlander on the Earth!: Launchpad helping Penny realize her purpose. Forbidden Fountain: Jeeves is un-babied as a trap Let’s Get Dangerous!: Drake and Gosalyn Return, and Solageo’s Circut ends up being vital to the climax.. in the strangest and funnest way to say possible but still. It counts. Escape from the Impossibin: Beakley’s near breakdown at the idea FOWL has come back. It was already heartbreaking and the first adventure had made it even more so.. but now it’s out and out DEVISTATING. The one thing after her daughter is not only back.. but SHE’S the reason he’s in Scrooge’s life and home and her giving up SHUSH has now left her wide open.

The Split Sword: Probably the best out of all of these as it ends up directly playing into the climax in an awesome way i’m saving for Bradfords New Gods: Storkules shows up. Okay so that every episode claim bit me on the ass. Also when did these two meet? I mean probably at end of spear of selene but the more important question is WHY DID YOU ROB ME OF THESE TWO MEETING AT ANY POINT IN THE SERIES.

The First Adventure: Naturally the Payprus comes back as Does herons needling bradford to stop denying what he is.

Fight For Castle McDuck: Suprisingly the blessed bagpipes ended up being VITALLY important. And giving us sexiest man alive infinity years running Keith David for an episode. Last Christmas; Santa Cameo

Beaks in the Shell: Gandra being taken and the Lost Library being setup for this episode.

Lost Cargo: The Stone of What Was. And Credit where its due what FELT like simply a filler episode with a tantengal connectoin.. ended up probably being one of the most important episodes. Fair play.

Life and Crimes: Magica turning Bradford into a non sentient bird, like what happened to her brother.... proving once again this episode really REALLY needed as subplot attached to lead into the finale or something.

Bonus Round: Pilot payoffs by the pound. Seriously Scrooge and Donald’s last lines to each other, the badass return of “I’m a Pilot”, more on that in a minute, and even other smaller call backs like “Keep Getting Up” and webby sucessfully getting some juice to Louie’s pride. All top notch stuff and it really makes the finale FEEL like one with all this coming back full circle. So i’ve hinted at it enough, let’s bring on the bad guy.

The First Woodchuck

We’ve had some mixed payoffs so let’s get to one that’s just out and out excellent. Bradford Buzzard.. is the best villian the show ever had. Now I will give the caveat that my favorite forever and always will be

You know it, I know it. But Bradford is the best genuine threat of the series, with Marc Evan Jackson perfectly balancing his menace and genuine evil.. with his steadfast believe that he isn’t evil, and his calm, controlled business demeanor. It’s one of the best performances of the show and he deserves all the credit for it and after seeing him in supporting roles for his career, even if his role as Kevin on Brooklyn Nine-Nine is fucking awesome and I’m sad that show is ending, it’s nice to see him step into a big meaty role as the big bad and utterly nail it.

And the finale.. pays eveyrthing off with him, apart from the plan itself perfectly. Starting off him being revealed as Isabella Finch’s grandson... was a stroke of genius. I didn’t expect her to come back in play but it gives perfect reason both why he knew about the mysteries.. and why he’s like this.

Like Scrooge did with his nephews, niece and daughter, Isabella dragged Bradford all around the world seeing the unseen, thinking it was fun. The problem was... Bradford HATED it. He hated every minute of it, like as one post pointed out Rusty Venture from the Venture bros, and felt he should be in school. He wanted a normal life and a normal world and not.. this waking nightmare. So to him, fixing the world, stopping this sort of thing is the only way and that doing so is a good thing. His problem is how he adapted to it.

We see that best in his mirror images, the people he’s in direct contrast with and the show knows it. Starting off with the one he’s not like at all is Scrooge. Part of what makes Bradford perfect is he’s Scrooge’s evil opposiite. The Luthor to His Superman, The Joker to his Batman, the Green Goblin to his Spider-Man, the Iron Monger to his Iron Man, the Sinestro to his Green Lantern. Both come from a long line of adventure but while Scrooge embraces that and loves it, Bradford hates it and wants to destroy it. One is energetic and always ready, the other’s calm, calculated. And one sees what he is.. and the other dosen’t. Simple as that.

But his other mirror’s are more like him, moving onto Huey. Their both woodchucks, both prefer caution and planning, and both want to make some sense of a nonsensical world. Both want to feel safe when they constnatly don’t. One’s prone to panic attack the other’s calm. But what makes Huey the better man... is that he accepts the world is the way he is. It goes all the way back to terror of the terrafirmains. While he was all for adventure he started his doubting things, not beliving things were real.. because the reality that there are some things you just can’t prepare for, just can’t know, and you can’t be always ready.. it shattered him. He nearly let himself die rather than live knowing what’s out there. Webby pulled him out of that, literally and figuratively.. and he never went back. Sure he still tries to have an order to things, still breaks when his structure’s broken.. but it’s gone from a paranoid fear of the unknown and weird to embracing it. To relishing in finding unsolved mysteries and new clues to unlock, to finding new things to explore. He went from seeing this chaotic world as something to run from, to embracing and studying it. To loving it the way it is the way his family loves him for who he is. Bradford.. denies reality belongs the way it is and wants to force it into what HIS idea of it is Superboy Prime Style. The world isn’t waht he thought it should be so he’ll MAKE it that way. Huey grew as a person.. while his arc didn’t have a full payoff.. it still pays off here by showing what he COULD’VE been. had he let his earlier fear and his always present neurosis drive him like Bradford has. Let his big brain make him think he knows what’s better for EVERYONE instead of using it to genuinely help people. Bradford lacks the boys heart and empathy and that’s why he fell. Huey had his family backing him, his best friends coming to get him, and his brothers ultimately rescue him. Bradford.. threw his only true ally down a styigan murder hole.

Finally.. we have the one that’s not brought up directly.. but is very much there. Donald. While the two don’t interact hardly at all... it’s VERY fitting that Donald is the one Bradford picks to threaten Scrooge with. Like Bradford... Donald grew to hate adventure, he wanted to get as far away from it as possible and took it from his boys for as long as he could. Granted that was in part Bradford’s fault, and that was an INCREDIBLY clever twist: it dosen’t make him entirley responsible or anything that robs the moment of it’s imapct, Della still chose to take it out by herself, she still lied to Donald and she still got lost all by her own decision and impuslviness. But it fits perfectly into it: Bradford’s horrifying smile when Scrooge gets taken away from saving her is even WORSE now with full context, and it still fits that knowing about the project.. he’d want to set it up to screw up Scrooge’s life. I don’t think he sabotaged the rocket or anything, too obvious and something Della would’ve mentioned by now.. but he knew it was unfinished.

Back to the parallel the diffrence is once again.. change. Donald let go of his hate of scrooge and his past and realized it wasn’t all bad. He let himself grow as a person after a decade of bitterness and anger. But most tellingly and poignantly is Quack Pack... both had a chance to make a world that was safe, normal and what they always wanted. Both out of terror of the danger of this world. Thing is.. Donald’s was noble. He feared for his kids, his sister, his uncle.. loosing one again and any of them at all. He wanted a normal life to be safe, to hide from that.. but it’s not what THEY wanted or who they are. He accepted that’s not how the world works and how it does.. is still pretty great. And his growth shows: he’s ending the series planning to go off with his girlfriend globetrotting, KNOWING things might not be safe, but diving into adventure, having accepted it as part of him. He even finds some new family and takes in two girls who badly needed a home. He learned to accept things how they are... and Bradford refuses, not beliving in this world as it is and vowing to force it into the way he wants it to be.

And it’s that inherent selfishness.. that makes Bradford the Cartoon Supervillian he desperatley claims he isn’t. Bradford dosen’t care how many lives it takes, how much worse it makes the world, or how many people he has to stab in the back... the world WILL be “normal”. Bradford cares for no one and nothing except his own ambition. He kills Heron despite her loyality, and his own clones who loyally served him.. simply because their chaos too. No one or nothing else matters, not how they feel, not their right to exist.. only HIS vision. If he wanted to keep the world safe he’d be more of a hero, if still throughly a bastard... but he dosen’t. He wants to make it “normal”. He wants the world the way he thinks it shoudl be and damn anyone else and perfectly represents all the old assholes like him today who refuse to accept something diffrent or against the norm because “that’s how it’s always been”. Like those real world assholes.. Bradford is wrong. The Duckverse is beauitful how it is in it’s chaos and risk and love. And he just can’t see it because it’s not what he WANTS to see.

And that’s why I also love the Sword giving him big, black and red classic villianous monster, slowly mutating him as he fights the duck family. Because that’s his inner strength: he may deny he’s a villian but he’s forcing his will on others, refuses to see the world as it is for selfish reasons, and is willing to kill his own friends and allies if it means getting it. He’s the bad guy. And while he denies it to those around him... it’s clear from the fact the sword is working for him that he KNOWS IT, he knows he’s a villian and this is just what he wants but is so up his own ass he can’t SAY it or admit it. And in the end he’s fully beaten by the fact that his forcing his will on everything’s what’s unnatural: While his plan was ingenious, have scrooge sign a contract agreeing never to adventure again, since he’s right Scrooge would solve nonexistance it’s the same reason “launch hulk into space” only resulted in a smarter, more skilled hulk coming back with a space army to get revenge. He just didn’t bank on the inherent rediclousness of the unvierse: family really is the greatest adventure of all.. and the papyrus accepted it. It was the one thing he coudln’t palnf or because he can’t see the woirld how it is.. and that’s why he lost. He was so confident how he saw the world and how he worked was the only way... another way beat him.

His fate.. was also awesome and endleslly apporirate. Being mocked by the other villians who while less capable aside from Magica, at least admit what they are and what their doing.. and turned into a Vulture for Magica, left to be a mindless lackey in tons of chaotic schemes for the rest of his life. It couldn’t of happened to a nicer jackass. Okay three more sections to go. Let’s go.

Come Sail Away, Come Sail Away, Come Sail Away With Daissssyyyy

Donald’s leaving for a long, romantic adventure with Daisy is the perfect capper to Doanld’s character. Donald started the series hating adventure: blaming it for della being gone, his rough times during it, and wanted to escape it in the boat and keep from loosing his kids to it. He felt like a looser for not having reached his dreams or properly provided for his nephews, when really he did his best and still raised three wonderful kids. A bit overproective, god yes.. but despite his grief and anger he still got through ten years with them on his own merits, hard work and determination.

As the series went he reconclied with his past, realized Scrooge lost something too and that blaming him soley when it was Della’s choice was just taking his anger out on the one person he had left to take it out on instead of embracing his only family left, accepted Storkules as his friend (JUST his friend), accepted adventure through quack pack realizing that while it may be weird, dangerous and sometimes stressful for him... it’s what his family love doing and they should be who they are instead of who he wants them to be, and finally.. accepted himself by finding Daisy, someone who loves him for who he is, and literally and metaphorically understands him and turned right back around from dumping him to save him from a giant monster she roared at. He’s finally at peace.

And that’s why leaving. Not forever, He , Daisy, and his girls will be back in a few months or even a month. It’s very clear this is a vacation.. but it’s one he’s earned. He’ll always love his boys, his surrogate daughter/cousin, his sister, and his best buddy launchpad. But it’s okay for him to want to form his OWN family, to spend time with his future wife and show her the world. To make his own story for once instead of sharing it. To find his voice.

I also find it very poetic that a story that started with Donald raising his nephews like their dad.. ends with him adopting two more children. Two kids whose lives had been misrable: rapidly aged in tubes, deemed failures, constantly bellittled by the closest things they have for parents, so desperate for answers they’d kidnap their own sister and betray her trust and do things they know are wrong, And all this.. for nothing as their Dad kills their mom, bad as she was, and plans to kill them. And Donald’s first thought when given the chance to have a kid free time to himself, with no guilt having earned it? To take these girls in, start his own family, if Daisy’s cool with it mind he thankfully clearly called to talk this over first, and give them their own. Because that’s who Donald is, a good man whose finally earned his happy ending and the life he always wanted.. and accepted who he always was. An adventuerer, a loving fiance.. and dad.

The Real Hero: One last one before the bonus round and a quick one. The Launchpad Scene.. was one of the shows best. His arc in this episode of thinking he’s not a hero.. made sense. He’s been plenty heroic.. but his boyfriend is a martial arts and gymnastics savant and one of his three best friends has a giant suit of armor and is a genius. But the payoff made even more: He may not be the strongest, the most skilled or the smartest.. but he has the heart of a hero. He’s always been the kindest, most trusting, most friendly one of the main family, a guy who never gives up, even when he should, never surrenders and loves everybody. And that’s why he’s inspired so many people: Fenton to not give up after his firing and keep going, leading to his path as Gizmoduck. When Drake was lost, his fllm gone and his mentor seemingly dead (In fact skulking around the sewers like an evil ninja turtle), and his future unclear... TOLD HIM he could be Darkwing, that he could become the hero they both ihdolized and the inspiration to kids he wanted to be by his own bootstraps, and he gave Gosalyn faith in darkwing and hope at at time she had none. He also gave those mice their freedom. Not as poignant but you try creating the rescue rangers and see how far you get. I’ve lost a lot of chipmunks and mice that way.

Launchpad’s last stand makes up for his lack of being in the season during the final half. Launchpad realizing that despite his quirks he’s just as noble, valuable and wonderful as his families, both of them. And that he is a pilot. Sure he gets the gizmoduck armor.. but the armor isn’t what makes hi ma hero... i’ts being launchpad that makes him a hero. Loving adopted dad, wonderful partner, best friend... and a pilot

Bonus Round:

Okay this is just stray stuff from throughout the episode I didn’t have several paragraphs worth of material on before we get to the final thoughts. But it had so much good I can’t not talk about it. So...

Gyro calling Little Bulb BOYD’s brother. My heart wept. So sweet. As was him fixing his son at the end. BOYD has the two loving families he deserves.. and the brother he deserves.. and the brother he dosen’t deserve who will probably also is skulking around the sewers like an nafarious ninja turtle as the series ends.

Gosalyn fixing up Darkwing’s outfit for him. Awwww. Adopt that child you coward. Also if they don’t base the reboot on frank’s work here, I will riot.

“Just cough up the information Bentina!” that was just pure comedy gold especially the sheer fear radiating off him. Also right.

Manny’s “I can explain” and , once he has silky smooth keith david voice going “Come on man I just want to live my life.” That man is a legend.

Dewey and Louie just not talking the “you kids stay behind shit” pointing out both their stake in this and how they’ll just go anyway and him proudly accepting it. Given the kids turned the tied of things a lot, good call.

Dewey and Don Karnage singing their own background music as they air joust. Hell yes.

Pepper got a promotion! Goodf or her... it’s meaningless now but hey she has a partner in both senses.

Speaking of pepper she had the best line of the episode “He’s a grown man who has the strength of a baby!”. Only Amy Sedaris could’ve given that delivery just the perfect way she did.

The Funzo’s opening sequence was dynamite, from how well set up it was as an infilfration, to Webby having learned how to scam free drinks (Louie was so proud), to Lena cheating for her sister at DDR, to Scrooge paying full price.. it was wonderful> The payoff was also great as rather than be mad her special day was used as part of an elabroate spy operation.. she’s giddy. Because of course she is. Two specitic bits that get their own items

The Cabs came back one last time! It dosen’t effect my now finished retrospective, but after spending all that time with them it was nice to see them for what will probably be the last time for some time.

The whole scene where Della finds out about the trip. Just all of it. Her casually and accidentally choking daisy TWICE, Fethry, who sadly did not get an episode this season, being the one to blab about it and only realizing it .. after repeating that they told him not to, and Gladstone who not only was casually winning at Skeeball while his cousins both got pissed at it, relateable as hell, but then awkwardly escorting his baby cousin out of the situation.

“Satstically with Hubert gone one of us should be pancking but WHO I ASK YOU WHO?” As if I needed more evidence they were perfect for each other.

Lena just.. slumping over after Dewey finally has her drop the cloak. Comedy gold. BOYD scanning her later likewise so.

The second best line and line read of the episode goes to Louie/Bobby Monihan. “That is not comforting, I do not want to die”. He couldn’t of summed up Louie in one line any better.

Ludvwig was a national treasure. Not only did I squeel internally when it turned out he was alive but the explination for it was hilarious as it was batshit, and him just causally revealing Webby’s origin was fucking amazing “Ill give you all a moment ot process” The acomplanying “bless me bagpipes” was also amazing.

I do wish we found out where FOWL went but it was probably to leave the remains all free to come back as villians of the week. Frank outright said they had a tailspin sequel episode ready to go.

The Webby and June fight was a masterpiece and I REALLY need to do a top 12 fights list someday.

Lena connecting with the new twins , having pretty much the same background of being created by a villian for shitty reasons.

“one is silver and the other is “ “Flintheart glomgold!” they should consider a teamup. What’s a little brainwashing between friends?

“We’re sisters’. No you and violet are sisters, Webby is your girlfriend your both just in denial. I only say this because Webby also thinks Della and Penny are just friends and I feel she simply dosen’t know what being gay is or again is in denial. They’ll get there. Plus it feels like Lena just didn’t want to loose her and would say anything which is valid.

Curtain Call and Final Thoughts:

The Curtain Call was the perfect way to end a spectacular finale. Each bit of it’s a masterpiece, and every character gets one last awesome, heartfelt and hilarous goodbye with the camera and ending how it should: on our five most important characters, in a circle, together, smiling, freefaling into the next adventure. I”d have it no other way and any other series finale credits and last moments will now pale in comparison.

So the finale as a whole is messy, some bits aren’t resolved as good as they could’ve been, Huey go the shaft, and it REALLY needed another episode leading into it to help take the pressure off. While it needed 90 minutes for the plot it had to tell, it needed more to build up to that and while the season was tight with episodes they BADLY needed one more they didn’t get or even a subplto to help take the load off this episode.

But even with that... it was an utterly awesome finale on par with other recent standouts like “Let’s Fight to the End”/ “Thank you For Watching the Show” (Both feel like finales to me but in diffrent ways), “The Future” and the whole arc leading up to it, both parts of “Heart” and “Nice While It Lasted” . It was heartstopping, heartrending and heartfelt and ended the show as it should be: with over the top insanity, big reveals, a hell of a final battle.. and a focus on family. It’s not the perfect finale, and I defintely need more ducktales.. but it’s still a classic one and one of the series finest hours.. literally in this case.

I.. am going to miss this series. I went into it before but it’s thanks to this series I make a living. If you’d like to contribute to that, I have a patreon, patreon.com/popculturebuffet, my next stretch goal is a darkwing duck epsiode a month so kick in a buck won’t you? and take comissions so if theres an episode from the first two seasons that’s not part of the season 1 arc (I’m almost done there) or Lena’s story (already being paid for that) feel free to shoot me a line to comissoin it for five bucks an episode.

But more than that it was an excellent well crafted show that took a franchise I love and updated it for a new generation. My nieces love it, I love it, and I will always love it for that. Young or old, this show as phenominal, it was stupdendous.. it was a duckblur. It will remain in my heart for probaly the rest of my life among such shows as Steven Universe, Parks and Recreation, The Venture Bros, Letterkenny, DBZ Abriged, and so many more that have touched my life. It was simply the best. And i’m going to miss it. Thank you for reading this, i’ll see you at another rainbow, if not one quite like this.

Next on this Blog: Duck week continues after this review took two days to complete. Sorry about that. Our heroes head to castle McDuck and Dewey is forced to face the consequences of his actions, while Scrooge yells at his dad , his dad yells at him and his mom is the most precious thing tha’ts ever lived. Also Launchpad in Donald Cosplay. And it won’t stop there as till saturday the rest of the week is all dedicated to Ducktales as I finish up the Della and Lena arcs for season 1 and get started on Lena’s last three episodes. So if you liked some ducktales, stick around. And once again.. thank you.

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theyarebothgunshot · 3 years

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ROSE I AM FREAKING OUT HAVE YOU SEEN THE PREQUEL STUFF???? WHAT IS GOING ON, my god... I was literally about to go to sleep, decided to check Tumblr one last time and see this.... what WHAT!! WHATTTT!!!!!! I don't even know if this is good bad or what but just JENSEN IS PRODUCING A SUPERNATURAL PREQUEL AND DEAN'S GONNA BE THE NARRATOR OR Sth LIKE???? -🐸

YEAH i am normal about this <3 (jk i am also freaking out) welcome to: people screaming to me in my inbox about prequelgate ft. j/2 fallout theory. let's goooo!

Another copypasta and suddenly chaos machine is full on gay I love this prophecy

you know whats funny i just checked the j/2 tag and i feel like for the first time in a long time they are starting to realise that maybe THEY should be the ones who are "gutted" *sips tea*

ROSE HOLY SHIT ROOOOOOOOSE ITS HAPPENING HOLY SHIIIIIT

YEAH

Nevermind just read prequel and well good luck I guess but just you know kind of bleh who wants to watch John Winchester well let’s have hope anyways

i know a lot of people are bummed out but i am kind of very excited actually?? i trust robbie and even though yeah j*hn winchester turned into a nasty abusive bastard, it can be interesting to explore how it all started (imo). it's just the first of many stories they can tell.

I can only accept this circus if it’s Dean telling the stories to his and Cas’ kids and then we have a revival to show that the whole finale was in fact the end Chuck wanted there Jensen I fixed it

i would not say no to this

heyloo bee anon here

um- wtf is happening?

jackles prequel series?? why? i want to be excited about this but sheesh im scared

because supernatural is never dead <3

okay, but, jensen... john winchester ≠ jdm, you don’t have to go /that/ hard for him 🙃

true true... though i am waiting for jdm to comment on this, please i need it

WAIT A SECOND J2 FALLOUT THEORY TRUE??

LMAO HELL YEAH BESTIE

Rose you really picked the worst time to sleep for real

bestie it was literally 4 in the morning, what do you expect from me sdfjsfhsf

I can’t literally can’t we were all right LMAO j2 fallout theory is real and cockles (Misha supporting Jensen) is [gunshots] I’m just laughing cause what the hell is this timeline we’re living LMAOOOOOOOOOO

we would always end up here <3

Do we have the copypaste anons to thank for JP basically confirming the J2 fallout? lol 🦚

yes, everybody say 'thanks annoying idiots!'

ROSE, WAKE UP, COME HERE,

THERE'S A LOT GOING ON FFS

YEAH I KNOW BUT I NEEDED SLEEP

Anticipating that there's going to be a lot of yelling about the prequel on here: I am cackling, but also, I mean, the first time Dean got a look into his parent's past, Cas was the catalyst: literally entered Dean's mind and catapulted him to the 70s. So idk, it's not completely unreasonable to expect some Cas cameos, maybe setting up a parallel timeline since Dean is narrating. What I'm saying is, this is Jackles, he's getting JDM and Misha in on this lmao -Honeymoon Anon

you were right lmfaooo also i fully agree. misha's tweet further cemented that thought for me. he knew about this prequel and i dont think he is cas-baiting us, i think he'll be involved. i'd also be obsessed to see jensen and jdm act together again (though idk who jdm could play seeing as it's a prequel and he is way too old to play young j*hn)

longlivethetribbles heeft gevraagd:

Heyyyyyy bestie, are you SEEING the absolute madness going on right now holy shit

well a little late but I SURE AM BESTIE

bestie wake up pls s16 finale just dropped.

- 🍯

and WHAT a great one it was

I love coming home from work to see all of the chaos unfolding on Tumblr and Twitter. I'm absolutely buzzing right now. I'll probably still be here by the time you wake up and check tumblr 😂 - 🐢

lmaooo and were you still awake?? did you see my freak out??

Oooh bestie wake the fuck up, I know you’re gonna be excited for this one jsnsjsj

god i had SUCH a morning like. it's 12:00 now and all i did since i woke up is check tumblr rip

short summary: jen and dee gain the rights, they post on ig/twitter about a prequel ft john and mary that no one asked for, the fandom loses its everloving shit as usual, they trend on twitter thanks to the beloved twt intern who missed us, misha qt’s jen about cas possibly benefiting from being in the prequel, then j*red qt’s jensen abt how his feelings got hurt by him not being told about a prequel his character as no involvement in & he initially throws a tantrum, and the rest is history - 🦋 anon (ps: i hope this helps a little, i’ve been scattered brained trying to keep up with it all night lmao so pls let me know if i missed anything, bug crew !!)

thank you so much darling i figured it out eventually but this is a helpful summary!!!

I hope you enjoyed waking up to all of this XD -🐢

i sure did!!! also that answers my question about you being awake lmao

I WILL NEVER EVER EVER FORGIVE MYSELF FOR SLEEPING THROUGH ALL OF THIS DRAMA AND NOT EXPERIENCING IT IN PERSON I DIDN'T NEED THIS SLEEP - tea anon

well the party was still going strong this morning so im not TOO "gutted" see what i did there lmaooo

Now that you are caught up with the news... So idk if you remember this but...didn't jarpad tell jackles he was up for a reboot in an online panel? And jackles answered that this was news to him??

-🍯

yeah i think you are right but he was clearly joking and didnt expect jackles to actually be working on something already

J2 anon spare more of those anons let's finish this - tea anon

please, we're having a ball in this bitch

I saw a post on tumblr where someone said now that Kripke gave J&D the rights, maybe they’re starting with a prequel just to end on a reboot in years time and honestly ? I wanna believe that so badly. This is tinhatty but what if this is all calculated in a way that makes it so that Jensen is slowly starting to fix everything that was wrong with spn - now that he has the rights and he’s slowly making spn his own story ?! I mean he did say in his ig post he wants to ‘fill in the rest’ - and maybe Mary and John’s story is only the beginning of spn related content from J&D to come ??? Maybe he wants to give spn the justice it deserves ?? Thoughts ??

i dont think this is tinhatty at all i think this is very possible and not that much of a reach. i could see this happening yeah for sure

want to hear something funny. I found out I had a ruptured blood vessel in my eye because I was sending my friend a video freaking out when the prequel news dropped and I noticed the corner of my eye was red af. and when I got back online jared had tweeted.

DJFHSJD ANON THE CHAOS OF IT ALL, HELP, are you okay? <3

rose.. bestie... how are you feeling about The News? nsfshsf being european is a curse </3 🐞

i feel GREAT im living for it i feel on top of the world tbh (and yeah it really is dsjfhs)

What am I waking up to I can't WHAT I rested my eyes for like 5 minutes help *hits reblog button* - anon anon

yep yep essentially djfhs

“Jensen and Misha are Co workers who barley talk”

I can’t be sure of course but I’m fairly certain that this is the copypasta that brought the j/2 fallout theory back to life. Who’s apparently ‘barely talking’ now? skansjsjsj. It’s almost prophetic, these j/2 anons have superpowers I’m telling ya.

-poker face anon

next time we get one of them we should be thanking them lmaooo

ok, but are we gonna talk about the "When Daneel and I formed Chaos Machine Productions, we knew that the first story we wanted to tell was the story of John and Mary Winchester [...]"-quote because the way this is phrased implies they formed CHAOS MACHINE Productions with the intent of telling this story (first), i haven't been in this dumpster long enough but the name just tickles me in that Misha way, isn't it so sus??? am i missing something???? i mean with this announcement they SURE lived up to that name... 🧩-anon

you are absolutely right, chaos machine SCREAMS misha and we are all here for it!!

hey hey hey. joining the clownverse, there's no way THEE cas girl danneel doesn't know just how much the fandom loves misha and cas. so 2 + 2 = misha in the spn prequel!

AGREED

So I think I finally managed to catch up on wtf happened while I was asleep and my brain melted. What a shit show to wake up to.

Anyway thoughts.

I don't hate the idea of a Mary&John sequel. I think it has the potential to be good (It has the potential to be really bad too, so I'm kind scared).

🕯️🕯️🕯️ manifesting Mary being badass and John being kinda useless🕯️🕯️🕯️

As for the Jensen and J*red thing.

I can see Jensen not telling J*red even if they are still friends, because J*red is kinda good at accidentally telling Secrets. He could have told him right before he announced it so, so that J*red didn't have to find out from twitter. He was on the show for 15 years, he is bound to get asked about it. The public twitter meltdown was really unprofessional so. Like you have Jensen's number J*red. You could have sorted that out in private like a normal person, but instead you choose to act like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

Is it weird that I'm actually going to be kinda that for them if the actually had a falling out, even tho I don't like J*red all that much. They seemed to be really important to each other and while I thought before that the might have triefted apart a bit, I didn't think that the where actively fighting.

- 🐌 anon

the thing is, the polite/normal thing for jensen to do was text him before announcing it on twitter. it's weird he didn't, and that makes me believe that maybe yeah they did have a falling out. especially with the way j*red responded to it on twitter. if he had no other reason to be this upset (no prior beef or falling out) you'd think that he wouldn't be responding like this. on the other hand, the man is a mysterie to me so who the hell knows. i'm not gonna mourn about it if they did/do grow apart because j*red is just.... awful imo.

#frog anon #bee anon #peacock anon #subtlerainy #honeymoon anon #bestie mutual #honeypot anon #turtle anon #butterfly anon #tea anon #ladybug anon #anon anon #poker face anon #puzzle pieces anon #snail anon #good lord i think i got more anons about this than about anything else before lmao #good luck to anybody who actually reads this <3

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travllingbunny · 4 years

Text

The 100: 7x01 From the Ashes

Disclaimer: This post is about the episode of the show The 100, From the Ashes, the season 7 premiere, and only about it. In this post, I will NOT be discussing any original scripts, unused takes, bloopers, behind the scene photos or videos, scribbled notes exchanged between the writers, or any tweets, Instagram posts, SMS or e-mails by any of the cast or crew members, considering the fact that none of those things constitute the show’s canon, which consists of the actual episodes.

I will also not be discussing anything about the future episodes posted by any ‘spoiler accounts’, and, in fact, I am unaware of most of these things, since I’m trying not to read any spoilers. Please do not tell me any spoilers for future episodes or ask me about them.

I really enjoyed this episode, in spite of the unfortunate lack of Bellamy (which I was already expecting since what happens to him here was already spoiled by the trailer. Of course, I’m looking forward to see Bellamy again, and, before that, to everyone finding out about disappearance and it becoming the focus of the season. But until then, the show has quite a few other storylines to deal with, from setting up and delving more into the Anomaly mystery, to dealing with the fall-out of season 6 in Sanctum, and both of these were handled well, for the most part.

This episode in particular had really good characterizations all around - for Murphy, Echo, Indra, Madi, Raven, Emori, Gaia, even Jackson - and, of course, Clarke, who had an arc that took her tendency to try to repress her feelings to an extreme, until they exploded in a most memorable way. It will cause her trouble, no doubt, but it was great to watch, and something I had been wishing for for quite some time.

There is just one character whose storyline I’m still not sure how I feel about, because I’m not sure what the show is doing with him.

After the last season’s cliffhanger, there was some concern in the fandom that Bellamy would regress to being all about protecting his sister, after their relationship had been redefined with “You’re my sister, but you’re not my responsibility”. Some of that was really exaggerated: there’s absolutely nothing odd or surprising about Bellamy crying over his sister disappearing in his arms. Of course he loves her and wants her safe. But I was concerned they may regress his development if they make him forget about everyone and everything else in his life in order to impulsively jump after her into the Anomaly. However, that did not happen - Bellamy didn’t decide to go on his own, rather than tell others and make a plan. He was taken.

The mysterious people from the Anomaly seem to be able to control the Anomaly, and have some sort of a cloaking device, presumably connected to their suits and helmets, that makes them invisible to others. They also have some sort of a screen inside their helmets, with facial recognition of targets and commands. It’s all a bit creepy - these seem to be humans, but they are receiving orders the way a robot would. (It’s all very Terminator-like!) Maybe because they also have lost their memories while going through the Anomaly? Where did they get the info about who Bellamy, Gabriel and Echo are - was it from Octavia’s memories?

Memories and memory loss are obviously going to play a huge role this season. People who come from the Anomaly to Sanctum seem to lose their memories, except when the Anomaly is still there. Does this happen only on Sanctum, or at the other side(s) as well? How does the fact that the Anomaly sucks in radio signals fit into that? Hope had to use a message she put into her own arm to remind herself to “TRUST BELLAMY”. (Interstellar is mentioned a lot as an inspiration for this season, but this reminds me of another Nolan film, Memento.)

We also see Clarke spout knowledge about how the big mansion was built (by Russell for Simone, to remind her of her house on Earth), which she would know due to still having some of Josephine’s memories. And I’m sure that the fact Madi still has the memories of past Commanders will play a big role - specifically, the fact she has Becca’s memories, which could be the way to tie the present day story to the prequel/story about what happened during and right after the apocalypse. (She also probably knows about Sheidheda more than anyone else alive, which may play into the Sanctum story.)

It’s too early to judge Hope as a character, but the mystery surrounding her is certainly super interesting. Why do the mysterious people from the Anomaly have orders to kill her on sight (as opposed to capturing, which they were supposed to do with Bellamy, Echo and Gabriel)? Is it because of who she is, or what she is - is it about her actions, does she know too much, or is her existence itself that’s the problem?

I loved the Octavia cameo in Hope’s hallucination, with the confirmation that she was an “aunt” figure to her, a part of a found family with Diyoza and Hope. The Anomaly makes you see your biggest desire or biggest fear - and Hope’s biggest desire seems to be to be reunited with her family

Echo’s hallucination, on the other hand, is obviously about her biggest fear - so it makes perfect sense that it’s Roan who appears to her, as he exiled her from Azgeda. Of course biggest fear would be losing her kru and her king/queen and being left alone and adrift. I’m as surprised as anyone that I found Echo's scene to be maybe the best in the episode. But she did have some really good character moments in seasons 6, and this is IMO her best character moment so far, picking up from her red sun hallucination in 6x02, and flashback from 6x11. which revealed that even her identity as “Echo” is fake. It seems the show is finally doing the character development it neglected to give her in season 5, and addressing all the obvious issues with Echo’s development and her relationship with Bellamy. I think this confirms that it was indeed Echo talking to herself while hallucinating Emori in 6x02, since her hallucination of Roan tells her the same thing, that she is still just a killer following another master’s orders. We finally see Echo feeling guilt over the things she did in the past, including her betrayal of Bellamy in season 3. When she imagines him calling her out on betraying “the man she now claims to love”, is it just about her thinking the others would doubt her love, or is she herself questioning whether her feelings for Bellamy are really romantic love, or just loyalty to her current leader? Their relationship, especially in S6, often came off more as the latter.

(It was also really cool to see Zach McGowan again)

The timeline of 7x01 seems to have confused some fans, but I think it’s pretty obvious that, at the beginning of the Sanctum story, no more than a day (probably less than that) has passed since 6x13 - going by the facts that 1) the Anomaly storyline picked up minutes after the end of 6x13, and the Sanctum story was presumably happening at the same time, and 2) Indra had to explain the situation in Sanctum to everyone. The only thing that seems to go against that is that Russell is said to “not have slept” since what happened on the ship, which makes it seem like it’s been longer. Or maybe Russell was just being extra dramatic. “Oh, I have no slept for a whole day!” He certainly spent a lot of this (his last) episode feeling sorry for himself. At least he seemed to have finally realized he wasn’t the superior good guy in all of it (”Tell them I’m treated better than I deserve” - yes, indeed.)

Indra was great, even though poor Adina was forced to be an exposition machine for a part of the episode.

A common complaint I’ve seen among fans is that it’s weird that Clarke and others in Sanctum aren’t worried about Bellamy and co. I don’t understand this complaint, as it’s clear that very little time has passed and that Bellamy, Octavia, Echo and Gabriel must have told everyone they were leaving and why (though I don’t know how many details they told them about the Anomaly Stone). People have been gone for a whole day in season 6 when they just went to the Offering Grove (Echo in 6x06) or the radioactive shield (Raven, Emori and Echo in 6x05), which are within the confines of Sanctum and much nearer than the camp by the Anomaly. What are they supposed to do but wait for a couple of days for them to come back? It’s not like they can call them, when radios and other means of communication usually don’t work on Alpha because of the Anomaly sucking the signals.

In fact, their absence was mentioned in the picnic scene, when Raven toasted to “absent friends” and we got a reaction shot of Clarke (I know, Clarke, I'd be annoyed too if I was you, but Bellamy had to be all "I'm gonna go now and explore the Anomaly Stone while Sanctum is in chaos and you're in mourning for your mom" because the plot needed him to..., before Niylah toasted to the “departed ones” (which would include Kane and Abby) and we got a close-up reaction shot of Clarke trying to keep it all inside, as she did every time in this episode someone mentioned Abby.

The idyllic picnic by the mansion - everyone’s attempt to get some rest and nice time after everything they had been through - was such a contrast to the “powder keg” of Sanctum and the end of this episode. But it also felt fake - just as fake as the deception and lies that Murphy and Emori are Daniel and Kaylee Prime, or that Madi still has the Flame in her head - to keep the devout and Wonkru under control, respectively - and just as fake as Clarke’s attempts to convince everyone she’s “fine”. As usual, the song playing in the background (”Darkness” by Pinegrove) was very fitting:

Suddenly I find I've got darkness on my mind It's a question mark that keeps me looking And it's never satisfied And it's never what I thought Saying I'm happy when I'm not No, I got darkness on my mind Leaning out the frame When it's particulate and gray I'm perpendicular to my whole being When I lean a certain way Saying I'm happy when I'm not Finding roaches in the pot Oh, I got darkness on my mind Some people spend their whole lives looking For someone who could understand While meanwhile a lilac blooming Sometimes on the driest land And I know it's been a long time coming I'm angry and I know that's weak And I'm longing out that open window For whatever it is I seek [musical breakdown] Some people spend their whole lives looking For someone who could understand And while meanwhile a lilac blooming Sometimes on the driest land And I know it's been a long time coming I'm angry and I know that's weak So I'm trying not to be so bitter I'm just looking at it honestly Well, I know it's been a long time coming I'm angry and I know that's weak And I'm longing out that open window For whatever it is I seek Some people spend their whole lives looking For someone who could understand While meanwhile a lilac blooming Sometimes on the driest land, yeah

I like that there was anger, blame and conflict between our kru and that everyone didn’t just forget what happened last season (and for once, Clarke is not the one getting the blame!) It would've made no sense if no one was blaming Murphy, and it makes sense it would be Jackson, who was so close to Abby and who’s not particularly close to Murphy. It also makes sense there was disagreement about the method of keeping peace in Sanctum, and that not everyone would be happy with Memori cosplaying the Primes.

Murphy himself had a really good characterization in this episode - we saw his grief and his feelings of guilt. While he tried to defend himself when blamed that he didn’t know what Russell would do, when left alone, he blamed himself for various actions that led to it, which is something Murphy from a couple of seasons ago wouldn’t do.

It’s great to see Raven looking more like her old, pre-season 6 self, and even better to see that her self-righteousness has gone. She’s more like the old Raven but without the snarky b1tchiness. I’m glad that she got called out by Murphy on her “Miss Morality” role from last season (which never really made sense, pre-time jump Raven was never a moral compass of the group, she was smart, pragmatic and could be as ruthless as anyone).

Another major theme of the Sanctum plot were the new beginnings. Clarke pointing out season 3 feels like another world seems almost like the show going meta and pointing out to the audience how much Clarke and all these people have lived through and been since.What is Sanctum now after the Primes have been defeated, with Children of Gabriel coming back home and clashing with the Devout - brainwashed and loyal followers of the Primes, with the rest of the Sanctumites in between? How are Wonkru and the 36 Eligius prisoners going to start again on a new planet moon? (36?! Wow, so they really suffered heavy losses in that gorge, too, when there are so few left?) Can Grounders be without a Commander? Gaia without her religion? Can Madi be a normal kid, without the Flame - or is that even possible while she has to pretend to still be Heda? The title From the ashes seems to refer to that - and maybe the end of the episode means that you have to burn down the old beliefs and old idols to build something new?

Mothers and daughters were another theme. I liked that Madi mentioned her biological parents (well, mother) on-screen for the first time, since the fandom tends to forget about them and ignore them too often. Madi was unsuccessful in her attempt to make Clarke share her feelings with her - maybe because this conversation showed a big difference in how they see each other? Clarke thinks of Madi as her child, but Clarke has never had a child before, while Madi had parents and suffered their loss; Clarke assumed Madi was talking about her and what happened in S6, but Madi always calls Clarke “Clarke” rather than “Mom”, and tried to connect to her on the equal level, as another daughter who’s lost a mother. Maybe it’s exactly because Clarke sees Madi only as her child that she feels she must be “strong” for her all the time and not show grief.

There was an unexpected parallel between Indra and Clarke in how Indra also tried to suppress outward expressions of grief when her partner - Gaia’s father died, which clearly wasn’t healthy and caused a rift between mother and daughter. (I’m not sure about when that happened, i.e. when Gaia first decided to become a Flamekeeper. I guess it must have been before the timeline of seasons 1-3. So Gaia’s dad is probably not the man that Indra recognized in 2x15 as one of the Reapers? I’m still angry that we never got any resolution to that storyline and that the Reapers were forgotten after season 2.)

The one thing I’m not sure about is Jordan’s characterization and arc. I’m not sure what the show is doing with his exactly, and I’m afraid that they’ll try to leave it ambiguous just how much he is or isn’t brainwashed. 6x13 made it very clear that he has been “adjusted”, which Russell confirmed here, and Jordan’s “adjustor”, who was creeping behind him in the season 6 finale, was very present and active in this episode, and clearly still had a big influence on him. At the same time, we learn that Jordan does not believe in the divinity of the Primes - instead of that, his hallucinations made him see something connected to the mystery of the Anomaly, which Russell describes as something “greater” (almost like he has finally found God, of sorts, after all, which he talked about 236 years before when he first landed on Alpha)? The good news is that it means Jordan will have a role in the Anomaly story, rather than being the advocate for the Devout. What I’m afraid of is that the show will gloss over the fact that Jordan was brainwashed - whether or not he came to believe that Primes were gods, he certainly did a 180 from despising Primes as murderers, being outraged by their actions and knowing very well that Priya was not Delilah but someone who took over her body; to (just a few days later, after “adjustment”) spouting Prime propaganda about the “peaceful” society they had before the Bad People from Earth came (that’s the peace they had when they regularly murdered their people to steal their bodies, left babies to die, and made them go crazy and kill each other from time to time) and having some kind of attachment to Priya herself and her mind drive.

At least, I hope that Russell unceremoniously smashing the mind drive means we’re done with that storyline. I loved it, it was my favorite storyline of the show, but it’s time for it to be over. It makes no sense that anyone is still letting Russell keep his mind drive, for starters. When will they realize they need to destroy these things?

- Clarke’s way of dealing with grief over her mom’s death was certainly unhealthy - repressing her feelings even more than usual, trying to be calm, composed, logical, to do the things needed to keep peace. In her last scene in 6x13, Clarke was open about her grief with Bellamy, looking to him for comfort, finding comfort in his arms and his words. But now he’s absent, there’s no one else she can be that open and vulnerable with. (The only other person Clarke looked for comfort to was Abby.) It’s nice to see that she and Raven have mended their friendship with Raven, she is starting to develop a new one with Gaia over their mutual care for Madi, she has mutual respect with Indra, she’s known others - like Murphy or Miller = for years, since the Delinquent days... and they all want to help her, but she’s not opening up to anyone, not even Madi. She thinks she must be “strong” for all of them, and her Head and Heart are unbalanced - she’s repressing the latter, until she finally explodes.

I love the scene of Clarke finally losing it and beating up Russell (I had already seen it in the trailer, and it was my favorite moment) and then crying while holding Abby's clothes. I don’t know about anyone else, but I love seeing an angry, emotional Clarke, letting it all out, especially when it's anger at people she has every right to be furious at. We haven’t seen that from her since early season 3 (when she yelled and spat in Lexa’s face over her betrayal). It had bothered me for a few seasons that Clarke - who used to be vibrant and could be impulsive, angry, hold grudges, yell at people in seasons 1-2, had become so repressed and muted due to her constant self-blame. I’ve had enough watching Clarke look sad while other people keep yelling at her and blaming her. (The only other instance of Clarke being furious was her hurt and rage at Bellamy and the slap in 5x09, but that was more of a silent, “internally screaming” rage/hurt, which turned into Clarke being emotionally frozen for the next couple of episodes, until learning he was alive. When Clarke is keeping everything inside and not yelling, that’s when she’s in the worst emotional state.)

It is, however, so sad that she still blames herself, too, for her mother’s death, whispering “I’m sorry”, the same way she whispered after seeing her father floated.

My only problem with the scene of that stupid palace burning down is that "mistakes" is a serious real understatement for what Russell has done. I know, I know, this will cause a lot of trouble in Sanctum and Clarke will probably have to go back on some of these decisions to keep peace. But there’s really nothing morally wrong with deciding to execute Russell - not only does he deserve it, but he’s arguably even an exception from the general objection to death penalty, since he’s lived several times the normal human lifespan, by stealing other people’s bodies. And the palace burning down is a symbolic way to send the message that the old power structures are gone - which Clarke pointed out when she said there will be no kings or queens anymore.

Sheiheda taking over Russell’s, or rather his latest host’s body, wasn’t surprising, as that was the most popular theory. But it was cool to see Sheidheda’s creepy mindspace again and Sean Maguire as the original Russell. The bodysnatcher got bodysnatched. That’s something like poetic justice.

I just have to post this because it’s such a beautiful shot!

Rating: 8/10

#the 100 #the 100 season 7 #the 100 7x01 #from the ashes #clarke griffin #john murphy #jordan green #bellamy blake #echo kom azgeda #madi griffin #the anomaly

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that-shamrock-vibe · 4 years

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Movie Review: Scoob! (Spoilers)

Spoiler Warning: Alright so this isn’t the type of movie that really warrants two separate reviews, but because it was only released recently I feel a spoiler warning is warranted as I will be talking about specific points in the movie. So if you haven’t yet seen Scoob! and don’t want anything ruined before you do, go and watch then come back.

General Reaction:

So, I’m having a hard time really getting to grips with my enjoyment level of this movie. Because while I don’t think this was a bad movie by any means, I always wouldn’t rank it as one of my favourites particularly with this new wave of nostalgia-based movies that seems to be a thing in recent years.

Maybe the problem is I am not an avid Scooby-Doo fan, a lot of people may think that is sacrilege and I did grow up watching the original Scooby-Doo shows and movies, but I wasn’t as into it as I was other Cartoon Network shows or even other Hanna-Barbera properties.

On that note, something that fascinated me about Scoob! in its promo campaign outside of it being a stunning CG-Animation movie was the inclusion of other Hanna-Barbera properties. In the trailer it is simply Dynomutt, Blue Falcon and Dick Dastardly, the former two who I believe were spin-off characters of Scooby-Doo originally and Dick Dastardly who of course is Dick Dastardly. Wacky Races and its spin-off Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines were shows I was an avid fan of, but once you see the movie and you realise that Warner Bros. Animation is really pushing for a Hanna-Barbera cinematic universe to stem from this with the amount of references and cameos of other characters and properties it is fascinating to me.

For instance, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 attempted something similar by effectively shouting about the fact that this movie was supposed to not only set up a third Spider-Man movie but also a Sinister Six movie and a Black Cat movie, then it was revealed Venom and Carnage were supposed to come into play, but then the whole thing got canned because the movie tried doing too much too soon.

Here though, they are subtle references that, unless you know the characters, don’t really register. I mean one or two are really obvious like having this universe’s version of Captain Caveman be somewhat of an antagonist here...I will be talking about him further down...but there are also just simply posters and name references that catch your eye if you know the characters. I don’t know every Hanna-Barbera character but the one that did catch my eye was a cardboard cutout of Hong-Kong Phooey.

As for the actual movie from a storytelling perspective, again I never really thought there was anything that grand about Scooby-Doo in terms of how they told a story. It was one of the first “monster of the week” shows in how formulaic it was and there was almost always a predictable formula in how each character would play their part.

In hindsight to that, I do appreciate both this movie and the first live-action Scooby-Doo movie for actually making that a satirical plot point, but in not having that much of a plot to base the movie on...I mean you can tell this is really an origin story of sorts in that if they are planning a cinematic universe this is that first rock, but unlike Iron Man they never had that hook that made you want to see the story continue.

I guess you could compare it in-house to what the DCEU did with Man of Steel. I didn’t really need more from after seeing that movie but I did want to see what this universe’s versions of some of my favourite DC Characters would be like, in a way this is similar.

It does sound stupid but the plot very much feels like a Scooby-Doo movie plot, in that the movie opens with that classic “monster of the week” unmasking, but the main threat of the movie is a real monster with some type of supernatural mystical twist.

But also, in adding the entire universe of Hanna-Barbera characters to that, you also have the most blatant in-movie Warner Bros. promo campaign with so many of the studio’s other properties being name-dropped it was borderline laughable.

In terms of the actual movie experience, this isn’t the first time I’ve watched a movie for the first time not in the cinema but knowing that the movie should have been released in cinemas rather than me simply not seeing it for any reason was rather surreal and, I do feel that this is the type of movie that warrants an audience viewing rather than just me watching it in my bedroom.

I also feel I would have enjoyed it a lot more with an audience, particularly an audience that doesn’t mind slightly dated, cheesy or somewhat really obvious plot points at times. I kind of predicted every major plot twist in this movie, although a couple of them I feel the audience is supposed to know from the get go otherwise why make it so obviously unless your pandering to a really young audience that don’t have two brain cells to rub together and tell that Fred with a really sinister grin full-naming Scooby is really the main villain in disguise particularly when you just saw him do the same thing ten minutes before.

But anyway, rather then going character by character in this spoilery section I’m going to break it down into what I liked and what I didn’t like. There was nothing I loved but also nothing I hated.

What I Liked:

But in terms of the overall message of the movie, Scoob! really hammers home that old-school notion of Man’s Best Friend, and not just with Shaggy and Scooby which is all I will say on that.

Alright so this movie is obviously called Scoob! and focuses on Scooby as effectively the main character as well as his friendship with Shaggy. The two really are one character in that you can’t really imagine one without the other, and the movie really explores that in both good and bad ways...we’ll get to the bad.

As a dog lover and dog owner myself, this movie really spoke to me on that level and the bond that Shaggy and Scooby share I finally understood. In all other media for me it’s more a case of Scooby and Shaggy just being friends but here that bond goes deeper because you see them meet and you see them essentially become family.

I really didn’t like the plot device of making them fall out only to have them make up later, it just is a very lazy trope at this point particularly as I’ve already seen it in a Scooby-Doo property before.

But they do kind of explain why it is necessary and why it happens because while they do have their friends at Mystery Inc. Shaggy and Scooby had no one before having each other, so when one feels like they’re drifting apart something flips and they get very possessive.

Also that ending, I mentioned this movie has a lot of things thrown in but while Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros. references are kind of in sync with this movie, how about Greek mythology to the point where they effectively summon the Underworld to Earth!

I’m a massive Greek mythology fan, and seeing the main monster of this movie actually being from Greek mythology and animated so beautifully is why this is in the good section, even if the Underworld actually looked like the Cave of Wonders from Aladdin.

The voice cast for this movie is also unexpectedly brilliant. A lot of people may complain that the original cast who are still all alive, I think, weren’t asked back but outside of Frank Welker as Scooby I don’t think you really need them.

Zac Efron is one of those actors at the moment that can do no wrong for me, he can do comedy, he can do musical, he can do drama, he can do serious gritty drama. I really loved him as Fred here.

Will Forte didn’t fool me into thinking it was Matthew Lillard returning to the role because I feel his voice here wasn’t as squeeky or high as Lillard’s, but he still did a great job, Ian Armitage voicing the kid version was great too.

Gina Rodriguez is a choice for Velma not just because like a lot of these characters the classic Velma’s voice is very distinct and almost iconic but to actively race-bend the character and make her Latina I thought added some much needed diversity to this movie and the Hanna-Barbera universe in general.

Jason Isaacs as Dick Dastardly was really a fantastic choice both for the actor and for the character. There were times particularly towards the start when he made Dick sound like Captain Hook and even his design here is very Captain Hook/Gru esk rather than the lanky Dick Dastardly design, and I was missing his classic hat. But for me Jason Isaacs is at his best when he’s playing a villain.

On that note, Dee Dee Sykes and Dynomutt I thought were absolutely wonderful here, I’d actually say these two and Dick Dastardly were my favourite characters. All the D’s apparently.

Not only was it a teachable moment for me because I had to look up someone I was pretty sure was someone I thought they were in terms of me knowing Dee Dee originated in Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, but here was on Blue Falcon’s crew with Dynomutt and no reference to Captain Caveman whatsoever I was okay with.

Also, I cannot believe I am saying this but, this movie actually made me like a Ken Jeong performance. I cannot stand this man, I do not find him funny, I do not find him entertaining, yet something about him voicing Dynomutt who originally I swear what meant to have the brain capacity I associate with Ken Jeong, but to make me like the character was impressive.

The final thing on my good list to mention is that opening sequence, after the very heartwarming opening scene of Scooby and Shaggy meeting and a Halloween setting of the team first coming together to battle a monster of the week in a It inspired haunted house, they show a shot-for-shot remake of the opening credits for the OG cartoon which is rather clever.

The only other voice actor to mention in the good section for me is Simon Cowell, not only do they have Simon playing himself in such a brilliant way but also his son Eric also voices a character, very brief and not central to the plot, but really a cute moment. Also I don’t know why but Simon in voice over sounds almost like a parody to Simon in live-action.

What I Didn’t Like:

Alright so these are really knitpicks but I think they’re worth noting in terms of moving this universe forward.

Scooby Doo is a dog, a talking dog yes but a dog none the less...so why the heck does he talk so much. I mean granted this is a universe with a robotic dog and a biped martial arts vigilante dog...but they never genuinely explain how Scooby can talk and while it’s understandable in the original cartoons as it’s mostly groans and the odd mispronounced word...here he was having monologues...also as a puppy he should have had a puppy voice, just saying.

As mentioned, I never really got into this franchise when I was younger so outside of Scooby and Shaggy I don’t really know these characters...but was Fred always so weirdly obsessed with the Mystery Machine? I get being happy with your vehicle but I thought Fred and Daphne were supposed to be the ship of this property...not Fred and the van.

I really really really really really really really really did not like the cop out ending they had, I didn’t let them get away with it in Stitch Has a Glitch and I am not letting them get away with it here. This big dramatic heartstring pulling thing happens, yet it’s almost immediately rectified with no solid explanation other then “we need to wrap things up”.

So to see one of these properties not authentically translate I thought was annoying, by which I mean Captain Caveman. Looks wise he is on point and I am fully aware that Mel Blanc is not going to rise up from the grave to voice him again, but the very essence of him being a caveman in his speech was not there for me here.

It would have been better if they allowed some time to go past and let the heroes stew in their sorrow before somehow discovering a way to fix things, but no it is literally as soon as the bad thing happens we are supposed to believe this was thought out?

My final thing is this. The Hanna-Barbera properties I grew up with are Scooby-Doo which I liked, Top Cat which I loved, Wacky Races which I loved, The Jetsons which I wasn’t as acquainted with as I would have liked to be, The Flinstones which I loved, Hong Kong Phooey which I liked and Captain Cavemani which I liked.

I’m sure Tracy Morgan is a likeable comedian, but then play on the comedy of the character and have him be like he originally was.

Hanna-Barbera Cinematic Universe:

I would love to see The Flinstones, Top Cat and the other Wacky Racers get this movie treatment. In fact if they market it correctly, Warner Bros. Animation could have a different genre movie for each property, be that comedy for Flinstones, action for Hong Kong Phooey, maybe a heist movie for Top Cat, sci-fi for the Jetsons, the list goes on.

As mentioned before, I do not see that groundwork for a cinematic universe here. Rather than it showing signs of being like the MCU I think it does stick more in-house as the DCEU by simply giving me the want to see other Hanna-Barbera characters inhabit this universe.

Do I feel this is the start of something big? No, do I feel there is potential here absolutely.

Overall I rate the movie a solid 7/10, it’s enjoyable, it’s cute, it’s family-friendly and I believe that’s its USP. It’s not a groundbreaking movie but it does have that cinematic universe potential and, as mentioned, I do look forward to see if more Hanna-Barbera properties get the same treatment.

So that’s my review of Scoob! What did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Movie Reviews and other posts.

#scoob #scoob!#scooby-doo #scooby doo #warner bros.#hanna-barbera #hong kong phooey #dick dastardly #wacky races #blue falcon #dynomutt #zac efron #jason isaacs #gina rodriguez #amanda seyfried #frank welker #muttley #captain caveman

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duhragonball · 5 years

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Dragon Ball Z 209

This is the “Fuck All Cameras” Episode, which is kind of awesome, but also a little outdated in this age of smartphones. If Piccolo blew up my phone just to keep me from taking pictures of his friends, that’d be really inconvenient. My boarding pass for the flight home would be on there, for example.

We open on this dude, who’s just doing martial arts stunts for a crowd of bystanders. Who is he? We never find out, but he does look pretty cool.

This somewhat less cool-looking dude shoves him out of the way before we can learn anything about him, and this reporter lady starts interviewing him instead.

So it’s the 25th Tenkaichi Budokai and Videl’s here to enter, but she also specifically wants to fight Gohan, so she’s trying to find him. Instead she runs into Sharpner, who for some reason is now madly in love with Videl. I mean, I don’t blame him, Videl’s awesome and all, but we saw none of this in Sharpner’s previous appearances. He sat next to her in school, so I guess he was trying to get close to her until he was ready to shoot his shot. But now he’s wearing a suit and offering her a bouquet of roses, so this seems awfully sudden.

Basically, Sharpner’s throwing out everything he knows to try, and he can’t even get Videl to turn around. This is downright painful to watch. Some dork probably told Sharpner to “just tell her how you feel” and here he is doing it and he’s going down in flames. You can make the argument that his approach here is kind of crappy, but it doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t have a chance here and he never did. Videl didn’t cut her hair for Sharpner, she did it for the boy who taught her how to fly. There’s no topping that, and he doesn’t even know that’s what he’s up against.

I don’t know, I feel for Sharpner here. That feels weird to say, because he’s presented as kind of a dick, but he’s not that bad. Yeah, he tried to pick on Gohan a little, but by the end of the day he respected him for being tougher than he looks. Vegeta beat the shit out of Gohan multiple times, and everyone loves that guy. I’m not saying Sharpner “deserves” Videl or anything, but it sucks that he clearly worked up a lot of courage to make this big play for her affections, only to find out that he’s a bit player in someone else’s story.

Likewise, this little girl overheard Sharpner’s invitation to go to some stand that sells fruit juice, and she’s smitten. Sharpner’s the handsomest guy she’s ever seen, he’s really old, like maybe ten. He’s offering to buy her juice and she’s taking him up on it. Apple, please! But alas, he wasn’t talking to her, and she’s just a bit player in his story, just as he is for Videl’s.

This is why I don’t respect people who just blow this story off as being nothing but guys screaming at each other for ten episodes. Yes, it has that. It makes time for that. But there’s also a lot of exploration of the human condition in this thing. You just have to be willing to root around for it.

Now, let’s hurry up so we can talk about the Punching Machine.

This shot of Goku strolling through the tournament grounds is awesome. He’s got his best friend and his grown-up son with him, it’s just really great to see. The funny thing is, Goku’s only been absent from the show for a handful of episodes, but it still feels like it’s been seven whole years. It’s just awesome to have him back, and in his old stomping grounds, ready to kick some ass and hug some children.

Trunks isn’t sure what to make of Goku, but he thinks his own dad is stronger. Goten replies that Gohan always said Goku was the “strongest in the universe”, which is weird because Gohan was demonstrably stronger than Goku before he died. Modesty’s one thing, but it’s strange that Gohan would just flat-out say something like that. I mean, Gohan honestly had no idea that he had surpassed Goku until Goku asked him to fight Cell. Could it be that he still can’t accept his superiority on that day, even after all this time?

Goku can’t get used to seeing Krillin with hair. He asks why he stopped shaving it, and 18 walks by. Well, it’s not because 18 likes the hair better. She shaved his head in Res F and seemed to like him better that way, or at least that was my take.

Then Goku finally notices 18 and he’s all “What’s she doing here?”

And Krillin’s like “Me, Goku. She’s doing me here. That’s your answer.”

Goku’s all “How’d you have a baby with a robot?” and Krillin has to explain that 18 was never a robot, just a human with cybernetic enhancements. This is a polite way of saying 18 has reproductive organs. This feels like a bit of a retcon to me. 19 and 20 had entire chunks of their bodies chopped off, and they appeared to be wholly metallic, except for some fluid that might have been blood, and Dr. Gero’s human brain. 17 and 18 claimed to be modified humans, like Gero/#20, but we never saw either of them take any heavy damage, so it was never clear how much of them was still human. At the time, it didn’t especially matter, but once 18 settled down with Krillin and had a baby, it was worth clarifying that this was possible for her. But if she had been in some epic battle and half of her face got ripped off, she’d probably turn out to be metal underneath, and the implication would be that she was just a brain in a robot body like Gero. It just depends on what direction the character went in. Schrödinger’s uteurs.

Later, Gohan runs into Videl, but he explains to her that he’s entered as the Great Saiyaman, so she has to call him that for the whole day. Then she shows off her flying ability to him, but she gets kind of frustrated that she can’t keep up with him.

Then Sharpner runs into them, and he quickly gets the impression that Videl is sweet on this Great Saiyaman person, if that is his real name, which it isn’t.

Gohan tries to leave, probably because he’s afraid Sharpner might recognize him from school, but Videl decides to play along. She doesn’t actually tell Sharpner that she’s dating Great Saiyaman, but she doesn’t deny it either. You can tell from the way she smiles that she enjoys watching him think about it.

Also, when the tournament contestants are summoned to the preliminaries, she takes Gohan’s arm in hers, just to twist the knife. Gohan’s even more unnerved by this, because, as Uncle Raditz once told him, he’s one of the mighty Saiyans too.

Speaking of Raditz, is that him posing in his underwear for a bunch of fans? Is that Luffa on the far left? Computer, zoom in sector 4 and enhance!

I mean, it’s not the standard color, and I’m not even 100% sure that’s supposed to be a woman, but the skin tone and the swagger are there. This isn’t a fan, either. You can tell by the gym bag she’s carrying....... which must contain her usual fighting clothes. It’s perfect. Anyway, she’s here to scold Raditz for skipping Tail Day.

So this reporter and camera crew are trying to get interviews with the contestants, but Vegeta and Piccolo blow them off.

Goku’s more accomodating, but they don’t understand what he means when he says he’s dead and he’s only visiting for the day.

And that’s when Piccolo gets fed up and starts blowing up cameras. Maybe he just doesn’t want Goku explaining the afterlife to the media?

Then we see this dude signing autographs... Is this Jonathan Joestar?

I mean, am I on drugs today? This episode is full of cameos. I came for the exploding cameras, but I stayed for the JoJo references and OC photobombs.

Meanwhile, Sharpner has made it his business to unmask Great Saiyaman and expose his identity to the world. Not sure how or why that would improve his standing with Videl, but I think at this point he’s just upset and this is the only outlet he has for his anger. I would give him credit for not stalking Videl or anything weird like that, but that may be more self-preservation than discretion. Videl would kick his ass in two seconds and he knows it.

The Z-Fighters all assemble in the area for the preliminaries, where all the other competitors are. A bunch of them are working out with weights to pass the time. I really don’t get that. This just seems like a bad time to lift, you know? Also, why bring dumbbells with you. You have to lug them around the whole time, check them on the flight, etc.

On the other hand, I totally get that guy on the left who’s stone cold taking a nap. I guess this is why I never had any talent for combat sports.

Hey, guess who it is? It’s the World Tournament Announcer! He’s still hosting this thing, and he’s delighted to see Goku, Krillin, and Piccolo return. As far as he’s concerned, these events are downright dull without awesome guys like these to make them cool. WTA’s gotten spoiled on gonzo super brawls, and now regular fighting just doesn’t do it for him anymore.

So the funny thing about all of this is that WTA is one of the few people who know that Goku and his friends beat Cell, and not Mr. Satan. King Furry figured it out, based on his recollection of Goku fighting King Piccolo, and he announcer knows it because he witnessed Goku’s battle with Piccolo Junior. That, and WTA watched Mr. Satan win the 24th Budokai, which must not have been nearly as impressive as the Goku/Piccolo battle from the 23rd.

Also, WTA is thrilled to see Goku’s brought even more cool dudes to join the action. He doesn’t understand Goku’s halo, but he still hasn’t made sense of Krillin’s resurrection from back in the day, so by now he’s just given up on trying to figure it out. He only asks that Piccolo doesn’t blow up the ring again, and Piccolo’s all “We’ll see,” which is probably exactly what WTA wanted to hear. Yeah, he doesn’t want the ring destroyed, but he likes the idea that it could happen at any time with this crew. Piccolo’s a master showman.

Does WTA remember that Piccolo’s the same guy who tried to conquer the world? He revealed himself at the 23rd Budokai, but the announcer doesn’t seem to remember, or maybe he figured out that Piccolo turned face by the Cell Games.

In any event, Gohan is pleased to see that there’s at least one person who knows and respects his father’s greatness.

Meanwhile, Sharpner tries to jump on Gohan from one of the rooftops, hoping to pull off his sunglasses, but Gohan bends down to pick up something at the last second, so it goes pear-shaped in a hurry.

Holy fuck he was picking up Captain Ginyu! This episode is truly a cavalcade of stars!

Also, Sharpner hit the pavement so hard he cracked it, and yet he’s still alive and unhurt, which lends to my theory that even ordinary people in Dragon Ball are much, much stronger than real-world people. Bulma could kick Brock Lesnar’s ass, is what I’m saying. He’d F5 her and she’d just jump back up and bitchslap him so hard that it’d break his neck. The cops couldn’t arrest her for murder because she’d be too strong for their feeble handcuffs.

Later, Sharpner gets a kid to pull off Gohan’s sunglasses while he lurks nearby with the camera. It’s too fast for him to recognize him on sight, but he knows the camera got a good shot, but then Piccolo destroys it, along with every other camera in the vicinity. So that takes care of Sharpner.

Okay, just to explain for younger readers, back in the day cameras relied on film, which had to be chemically developed before you could see the picture you took. So that’s why Sharpner didn’t just look at the photos he’d taken before it was too late. I think camera film is still common knowledge, but I’m trying to make sure this blog post will make sense in case someone finds it on archive.org in 2030.

Anyway, Piccolo just flat out explains that he destroyed every camera in the area. There’s a real Ron Swanson energy to Piccolo. “I don’t like flash photography so I murdered all of the cameras. You’re welcome.” Seriously, though, he did it just so Gohan can fight without fear of his disguise falling off. He’s a good friend.

So, in past tournaments, the preliminaries were this single-elimination tournament to choose eight fighters for the quarterfinals. This time around, they have a much faster system: The Punch Machine. Basically, everyone has to punch a device that measures how hard you hit, and the top 15 scorers get to participate in the tournament. The 16th slot automatically goes to Mr. Satan, since he’s the defending champion.

While the Z-Fighters are amused and/or disgusted by Satan’s antics, I think it’s pretty awesome how he comes out, holds up his title belt, and greets the other fighters by asking “Who among you will surpass me?!” I think in the dub he shouts “Who wants this?!” referring to his title belt. He knows one of these guys might beat him. If not today, then some day, and for all his glory-seeking, he accepts that. Plus, he gets the crowd all fired up. Goku just isn’t built that way.

So Mr. Satan does the first punch, which I guess is meant to establish a frame of reference for the machine. It scores him at 137, and I assume everyone thinks no one else can top that, since he’s thought to be the strongest man in the world.

While the gang lines up for their turn, Goku asks if Tien and “them” are coming. He really doesn’t know Chiaotzu’s name, does he? Is he using “them” to refer to Launch too? Or is he just not sure of Chiaotzu’s gender? Maybe he thinks Tien married a robot too. He has no idea.

Anyway, Krillin explains that Tien probably won’t be here. “No, dude, he just looked at us and said ‘I’m leaving now. Goodbye forever.’ And then we never saw him again. Pretty sure he’s not coming.”

All ofthese girls are here to cheer on Videl for when she takes her turn on the Punch Machine. Are they friends from school? Where’s Erasa, then? It seems a bit odd that they’re allowed back here, unless they’re entered in the tournament too, and they don’t appear to be dressed for it.

Anyway, this Punch Machine business really annoys Vegeta. Is that Nappa behind him? Wow.

18 takes her turn, and she tries to hold back, but she ends up getting a score of 774. Whoops.

Krillin scolds her for this, because now the officials think the machine is broken. She tries again and gets like a 206, which is still suspicious, but at least they can sort of buy that.

So the others just sort of barely tap it to get believable scores, but even so, they’re still higher than what the officials would have expected.

This is especially shocking to Videl, who hasn’t met the Z-Fighters yet.

So then it’s finally time for Vegeta’s turn. As it turns out, this marks the start of an epic battle, one of my all-time favorites. You don’t see a lot of talk about this one, but Vegeta vs. Punch Machine is a real classic. Over the course of the next six episodes we’ll--

Uh...

...

PUNCH MACHINE NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Videl is stunned. Punch Machine was her godfather, but now it’s just a bunch of scrap metal. And that red cushiony part on the front.

Look at this heartless bastard. He killed Punch Machine and he doesn’t even care. It had one more day till retirement. I... I can’t go on anymore.

Yeah, that’s the Great Saiyaman Saga. Not so great, actually. They should call him Stand-Around-And-Let-Punch-Machine-Get-Murdered Saiyaman, because that’s what actually happened. I guess “justice” is only for humans and cat people now. Way to drop the ball, Saiyaman.

#dragon ball #2019dbliveblog #great saiyaman saga #goku #gohan #goten #trunks #vegeta #piccolo #krillin #android 18 #videl #mr satan #sharpner #jonathan joestar #punch machine #rest in punches old friend #😢

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darkmindsthinktwistedthoughts · 5 years

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My Sweet Hero

Thanks to @a-shout-to-the-void and @xathia-89 for beta reading this for me. I hope you all enjoy this slice of life Modern AU, school Sasuke.

Warnings: Adorable School nerd, strong language, some appearances form U/T crew and a cameo from a Prickle Puff.

Masterlist

---

My Sweet Hero

This time of year was always one of those you either loved or hated. It was filled with so many words of love and candy you’d think the world around you had been sugar coated. Every year it was the same for him. He didn’t mind the loved-up couples or the fact their displays of love declaration were everywhere. He was actually a romantic at heart. No, what he felt was a pang of jealousy every year as he watched while others enjoyed the day and he remained in his classroom surrounded by textbooks and research.

There was a school open day planned in two days and some of the classes had decided to do Valentine’s day themed events. Couples signed up to take part in everything from scavenger hunts to locked room puzzles. There was even a race where you had obstacles and things too, “Test the strength of your love”. It all looked very nice and he felt warm looking at all the happy smiling faces of the people around him, even if he was envious at their ability to effortlessly interact with each other. What would I be like to be part of the crowd for once?

“Earth to Sasuke… Hello?” A loud and familiar voice came rushing up from behind him as he walked up the hill to the school gates.

“Mm? Oh, Yukimura good morning.”

“Morning. I’ve been calling you since you got off the bus you know?” Yukimura fell in line next to him adjusting his backpack on his shoulder.

“Sorry I was thinking about something.”

“Yeah? It wasn’t some of your weird mad scientist stuff was it?” Yukimura asked tilting his head a little to look at Sasuke a little closer.

“Theoretical Time Travel and Quantum Mechanics is not Mad Scientist stuff.” Sasuke’s familiar flat response resulted in a wry smile from his friend. They weren’t the most likely of friends but against the odds of basically every stereotype, they were best friends.

“That is exactly what a mad scientist would say.” Yuki chuckled a little as he teased before going bug eyes and jumping behind Sasuke. “Oh, crap.”

“What is it?” Sasuke looked around instinctively failing to see a threat.

“It’s that girl from class 4.” Yukimura looked comical as he poked his head out from behind Sasuke’s back to point out a girl in uniform walking with her friends a little ahead of them.

“You’re right it certainly looks like her.”

“No, you Dummy I mean… God, after school yesterday she cornered me as I was leaving. Girls are so damn scary.” Sasuke could tell Yukimura was turning red. It was something he did regularly. He was probably red to the tips of his ears right now.

“Cornered you?”

“Yeah for a love confession.”

“I see…” Sasuke returned to looking at the girl walking in front.

“Hey! What’s with that reaction? I’m not bad looking you know?” Clearly, Sasuke’s lack of response had struck a chord with Yukimura who had gone a little defensive.

“I never said you were. But I am however curious. I take the fact that you are attempting to hide means you turned her down?” Sasuke stopped walking causing Yukimura to lightly thump into his back.

“N-not exactly.” Yukimura became very interested in adjusting the strap on his bag when Sasuke turned to look at him.

“No?”

“I kinda freaked out and called her an idiot and she ran away in tears. I hate it when girls cry.” Yukimura raised his head. His face was indeed red and his eyes looked a little like he was totally bewildered. Perhaps this is why we are friends? I find it difficult to do standard social interactions with almost everyone and you struggle with anything that involves the opposite gender.

“If you hate it so much, I would suggest you pay closer attention to the many ways of making a girl happy that I’ve been trying to teach you for years Yuki.” The deep calming voice of a friendly Senior chimed into the private conversation. Shingen was usually surrounded by girls no matter what time of year it was.

“Gross I’m not saying any of that stuff.” Yukimura scrunched up his face at the idea of imitating any of Shingen’s dramatic performances.

“Agreed. I admit you have technique Shingen but why you have to be so vomit-inducing with it is beyond me.” The icy tones of another familiar Senior joined them.

“Morning Shingen… Kenshin.” Sasuke gave a polite nod as they continued to the gates as a group.

“Morning.”

---

On his way to the science block, Sasuke noticed a brightly coloured display outside the art department. “Wall of love”. Drawing closer to it out of curiosity he managed to read the notice pinned next to it. “Declare your love, admiration and appreciation here. Total anonymity. To shy to tell your crush you like them? Not a problem. Pin your messages here or post your notes in the box provided and we shall play Cupid and pass on your anonymous admirations.”

“Ridiculous isn’t it?” The gruff and tired voice of someone spoke up from next to him.

“Morning Ieyasu. It’s… different.”

“Waste of time.” Ieyasu poked one of the paper flowers on the display with his finger as he spoke. “But I suppose this is better than having someone come up to you randomly and disturbing your day with mindless love confessions. You using the particle simulator today?” One of the benefits of being part of this school was its affiliation to the University which meant students could access equipment usually unavailable. There was however usually a big waiting list, and today it was Sasuke’s turn to use the machine.

“Mm…Oh! yes.”

“Well try not to break it. See ya.” Ieyasu’s switch from casual conversation to business was fast. Without waiting for a reply, he stalked off towards the labs.

---

Lunchtime came around all to fast. The phrase time flies when you’re having fun came to mind and made him chuckle as he looked over his latest calculations to try to prove his theory on the ability to time travel. He was lucky if he was honest, the professors all supported him with his research as long as his other studies didn’t suffer. Thankfully his grades maintained their steady average in the 90% margin so he was free to do whatever he wished. One day I’ll crack this I just have to figure out a few more things. The bell sounded throughout the campus for break time and when he went to his locker to retrieve his packed lunch something small fluttered from on top of it. What is that?... Huh!?

After picking up the fallen item he noticed it was an envelope with heart washi tape on it. Was this one of those anonymous notes? Surely not. Much more likely its one of those guys pulling a prank again. The memory of a few years ago at the winter formal made him shudder. Being told to go outside as a girl was asking for him by name, to be bombarded by a barrage of snowballs and have them all laugh at him for being such a nerd. I’m not falling for the same prank twice. I might be a Nerd but I’m not an idiot.

Quickly stuffing the note into his pocket and grabbing his food bag, he made his way to the playing fields where he always met Yukimura for lunch. It was far enough from the main campus benches that they could always grab a seat. Also, Yukimura was a member of nearly every school sports team so it was handy for him to grab food near where he was busy working. He wasn’t there when he arrived so deciding to just set up his meal.

“Hey man sorry, I’m a bit late.” Yukimura jogged up, his hair still slightly damp from having a shower after last period.

“No problem. I wasn’t waiting long anyway.” Sasuke put his jacket down next to him and the “love note” fell out of his pocket landing at Yukimura’s feet.

“Hey what’s this?” Yukimura bent down to retrieve it flipping it over in his hand looking at it as if it might be some sort of weapon. You never knew with Sasuke. Last Halloween he remembered his friend dressing up as a ninja and throwing something that filled the whole house with smoke. His parents were not amused at all.

“I don’t know it was in my locker when I went to get my lunch. It’s probably a prank.” Sasuke shrugged as he took a bite from one of his sandwiches.

“Oh yeah? Well if it is, I’ll go and smack a few skulls together.” Yukimura handed back over the note and punched his fist into the palm of his other hand as he made his declaration.

“I’ll help.” Kenshin drifted into the conversation like a cold north wind. He was so silent at times when he moved, so graceful. Was that from the training he did as head of the fencing team or was that just natural?

“You two are always so quick to jump into a fight.” Shingen sighed as he lowered himself to the grass and reclined on it. The sight of his lunchbox being nearly completely only one filled with deserts had Yukimura pulling a face.

“Hey! I’m not as bad as he is.” Yukimura protested as he split up some of his own lunch and swapped it with some of the sweets from Shingen. Shingen didn’t bother to protest, they had been family friends and neighbour for long enough this was just a normal interaction for them now.

“Thank you both of you but I really don’t think its anything to worry that much over.” Sasuke said as he took a mouthful of chilled water from his bottle.

“And what if it isn’t a prank? Oh, I can see it now. A beauty sitting there all alone pining away clutching her chest. Her delicate little heart fluttering away as she stares out longingly from the window thinking of our own Sasuke.” Shingen was being dramatic. I guess it’s hard to turn off that great actor thing.

“Is there an intermission in this performance or are we to expect more?” Kenshin rolled his eyes as he plucked out a pickled plum from his rice and crunched it happily.

“I pity you Kenshin you have no sense of romance.”

---

By the time he looked out of the window from the science block, he could clearly see people milling around making their way home. He pulled the cuff of his shirt back and looked at his watch. Guess I got so into this I forgot about the time. I should pack up and go home.

After setting the lab back to its original state and putting his coat on the peg he trailed the familiar path back to the main gate which was when someone smacked right into him from one of the side rooms of the art department as he passed by.

“Ah!”

“Oh my god! I am so sorry. I didn’t see you and… oh no!” The soft chime-like voice of a girl addressed him as her bag tumbled from her grip sending its contents scattering all over the ground.

“It’s alright. Are you ok? Here let me help you.” Sasuke didn’t even pause before he had made his offer of assistance and was gathering all the fallen items for her.

“Y-yes…. err… thank you. God, I’m so sorry. I’m such a klutz.” She was clearly flustered. “I think that’s it all.” She placed the last of her notebooks back into her bag and gave him an embarrassed smile. Do I know her?

“Oh, wait is this yours too?” Sasuke bent to retrieve something that had rolled a little further away. His hand stopped slightly as he realised what he was holding. No way. It couldn’t be, could it? It's exactly like the tape on that note I got. But its common enough that girls these days have washi tape it could be unrelated.

“Ah! Oh yeah… thanks.” She gratefully took the tape and bowed to him. “I’m really so, so sorry.”

“It’s alright there was no harm done. As long as you are ok that is all that matters.” Her cute reaction and sincerity actually made him feel a little flustered.

“You really… you’re very sweet Sasuke. Oh! I gotta run sorry I’m gonna miss my bus! Thanks again, bye!” She snapped up with the brightest smile beaming on her face and turned on her heel and started to run. Did I tell her my name?

---

Curiosity is the foundation of his scientific exploration. Well, that and his desire to travel in time and see history with his own two eyes. He put his hand in his pocket and his fingers grazed over the edges of something, pulling it free he realised it was that note again. I wonder. Breaking the seal of the washi tape he saw the small delicate writing on the pale green paper.

“Sasuke Sarutobi. I really like you. I realise this is a long shot but even with the odds stacked against me, I cannot pass up the chance to tell you even if it is only like this. Your secret admirer.”

He stared at the paper in mild shock. Re-reading the words over and over as if he was missing something. If this is a girl. Could it be her? Don’t be ridiculous Sasuke she’s a popular girl why on earth would she notice a nerd like you? Still. Total anonymity huh?

---

It took a bit of planning but once the idea was there it was difficult to ignore it. I’ll put my own note in that box and wait for the reply then I should be able to see who it is. Sasuke thumbed the edge of his olive-green envelope as he walked the familiar route past the art department to the science block. He dropped it in the box in such a way that no one noticed, a small rush of adrenaline kicked in and now he just had to wait.

A group of kids emptied the box and began shuffling the notes like a deck of cards before dividing them up so they could be delivered. Clearly, this was a popular thing. A short time later and a familiar figure crept along looking around them shyly. She took out a note that even from this distance he could see was just like the one he first received. Before he knew it, his body was moving before his mind had even caught up to the motion and he was at her side.

“Hello MC.”

“Oh! Err… Hello Sasuke.” Her shoulders jumped as he spoke to her.

“Is that for me?”

“Huh?!” Her eyes were wide and swimming. Ok, Sasuke you could possibly have been a little less direct about that.

“Well, I would surmise from the fact you are using the same stationery as before that there is a high possibility that you are the one that wrote this note. Of course, if I am wrong and you aren’t then I am very sorry for making you jump.” Sasuke showed her the love confession he had in his pocket. She visibly froze.

“… You aren’t wrong.”

“Pardon me?” Her faint voice confirmed his thoughts and he had a moment of being unable to process thought.

“What’s with that look?” She smiled at him giggling at his reaction.

“Sorry, It’s just. I had no idea that we were acquainted enough for you to know my name. We are not only in different classes we are also in different years. And you are clearly on the more popular side of the fence.”

“I might not be as popular as you imagine.” She shuffled her feet adorably as she spoke

“And anyway, Of course, I remember the name of the guy that saved me after I transferred.”

“Saved you? Me?” Sasuke tried to go back over his memories in search of such a thing. She could have been remembering someone else.

“Yes. You.” She resigned herself to continue her explanation her smile faltering a little as she realised he had forgotten all about her. “I was completely lost looking for my class and you were in a rush but you dropped what you were doing and helped guide me to my location. I- I wanted to thank you more but… I… I’m sorry I was too nervous to approach you after that.”

“That girl that day by the gates, was you? I’m sorry I didn’t recognise you, I mean you were so…” Sasuke remembered a small new student struggling to look at a campus map in a total fluster. She… is that really her?

“Ugly?”

“I was going to say small and frightened looking. Clearly, you have settled in now and you don’t appear to be so small in fact you’ve grown up.” Sasuke cringed even he was aware of how awkward he was being.

“You talk a little like an old man.” Her laughter was a blessing to him and if it came from his own embarrassment, he would gladly embarrass himself as many times as she liked.

“My Apologises I am not exactly very familiar with socialising.”

“I see. Well, you were right the note was from me. I suppose now you know you are going to turn me, down right? I mean its how these things work.” Her shoulders slumped.

“Is it?”

“Yeah. Girl confesses, the guy isn’t interested so he turns her down…”

“What if I am interested?”

“Huh?” She looked at him as if he was some sort of totally new scientific discovery. Even he had to admit his fast response was a little shocking and it was him who said it.

“That is to say. I would like to test a theory if you’d let me?”

“You do know all theories work until put in practice then they have a failure rate.”

“Yes, depending on the experiment and its fundamentals, contributing factors that are likely to affect negative results it can be anywhere from…” Her decent back into laugher made him stop. “Oh, I’m sorry. I have been told I tend to ramble.”

“No, no sorry, I thought it was funny because it was kinda cute.” She waved her hands at him in reassurance.

“Cute?”

“Oh! Guys don’t like being called that… erm…” She was turning pink in her new fluster. She’s actually rather cute herself.

“No, If you are the one calling me that then I don’t mind.” Sasuke said softly as he drew closer to her side. “Mc?”

“Yes?”

“The open day is tomorrow and I understand it would be asking a bit too much if you wished to take part in the events but, would you consider allowing me the honour of escorting you?”

“…” She stood there, mouth hanging open totally mute.

“Did I say that wrong?” Sasuke cast his eyes down as he tried to think of a correction.

“N-no. You said it perfectly I’m sorry I thought I was being pranked.”

“That makes two of us.”

“I would love to go with you tomorrow.” Her answer washed over him like a wave of relief. I guess that means I have a date then?

“Great. I’ll see you at the main gates tomorrow then.”

---

“Hey look it’s Nerd-Suke. What are you hanging around here for don’t tell me you were waiting for someone?” A familiar school bully approached him as he stood at their meeting place. Oh great, not today, come on.

“As it happens…”

“Ha! What kind of loser would agree to…?” He rounded on Sasuke clearly enjoying himself and his easy target. This is not going to end well. Sasuke tried to remember some things Kenshin had showed him after telling him if he wanted to be safe, he would have to learn some sort of self-defence.

“Excuse me? Who are you calling a loser?” A female voice pushed past the large guy and joined Sasuke at his side.

“Huh? No way who are you?”

“My name is none of your business and if you are done with my date, I would like to have him back now.” MC took a firm grip on Sasuke’s sleeve. She was trembling a little but she was holding her ground. Mc…

“Date? Nah no way. A cutie like you should see sense and ignore him and go with me.” The bully grabbed her arm and looked her over from head to toe the smile on his face turning into one that sent a rolling rage through Sasuke’s body. “What you say- AH!”

“I believe the lady said I was her date.” Sasuke had not only removed the hand from the girl he had it twisted up the bullies back so hard that the others guys legs had buckled in order to prevent his arm being broken. “Sorry, Mc.”

“Sasuke…”

“You won’t get away with this!” The bully was released and threw out the customary threat expected as he ran from the scene. Even if I haven’t I won’t let you touch her.

“Shall we go?” Sasuke held out his hand and she gladly accepted it. Her eyes sparkling at him.

“You really are my hero.”

“I always wanted to be told that.”

---

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damienthepious · 5 years

Note

Co-stars AU Megamind - Roxanne

caveat that i know very little about the actual practicalities of how making movies actually works with a real budget and shit, or how acting contracts/agents/etc work. but i liked how this turned out regardless, and it actually felt long enough for a title. bless

Typecast

There wasn’t any netting or padding below Roxanne, which was kind of terrifying considering that the outfit the costume department had dressed her in allowed exactly zero room for a harness underneath the fabric. She was pressed back against the window of a fake high-rise, the ledge beneath her heels slightly wider than it appeared from the angle of the camera. Theoretically, all she had to do was stand and press herself against the glass and call for help. It wasn’t the best role, obviously, but at least some of the other scenes gave her a bit of interesting dialogue, and if she could just nail this, then maybe- maybe the next role-

Her heel wobbled and she jerked back in alarm, and the director swore and called cut. Roxanne let her shoulders sag. “Sorry, sorry, it’s just starting to get a little- slippery up here,” she said, hoping the laugh that came with the words didn’t sound too forced.

“It’s whatever,” the director said, which was discouraging. “Reset, reset all of it and we’ll go from the start again. Just- try to angle yourself more, yeah Roxie? We gotta see your face and if the wind is blowing the hair-”

“Can’t you move the fans?” Roxanne tried again. “If you want me to be looking at where-”

“I think I know what I’m doing, Roxie.”

Roxanne smiled with bright fury, an automatic response at this point. “Of course.”

Another take, the ‘wind’ buffeting her against the glass as she tried to make whining ‘oh please won’t someone help me’ sound in any way natural while also trying not to actually plummet down to the concrete ground beneath her, and when Stewart called cut she closed her eyes for a moment and hoped that her performance had been good enough to make this bullshit stop for like, twenty goddamn minutes, at least-

“Reset! Another one, go again, come on I don’t wanna waste any more time.”

“What was wrong with that one?” Roxanne called out, trying to sound enthusiastic. “What can I do better?”

“Y’gotta stop making that face, Roxie,” he called out, and Roxanne was desperately glad that she couldn’t see his goddamn face behind all the lights aimed at her.

“Face?” She chimed lightly.

“All scrunched up and like, tense and shit.”

“…. you want me to look less worried?”

“More worried! More worried but keep your face smooth!”

“So I have to… look scared, but not frown at all?” Roxanne asked in a voice of spiderweb-thin ice.

“Yeah! Exactly! Let’s go again-”

“What in the… that looks extraordinarily unsafe.”

The voice was new in the room, but Roxanne recognized it even though she couldn’t see the source through all of the lights. Megamind, the troublemaking former rock-star gone actor. He had to be here to film his cameo, for that scene near the end-

“Cut,” Stewart snarled, and then Roxanne heard the exact moment he realized who had interrupted him. “Oh- hey, dude, you’re kinda early-”

“Where is the harness?" Megamind failed utterly to acknowledge what the director was actually saying, and he strode directly onto the set beneath her, his sharp green eyes narrowing up at her and oh shit, he looked genuinely furious. Handsome as hell, too, but dangerously angry. Maybe his reputation was actually true, then. Maybe the reason he was typecast exclusively as villains was actually his attitude and not his appearance- maybe he actually was a terror on set, despite his sheer talent. “Are you comfortable up there?”

Or- maybe not?

“What?” she called down on autopilot, though she had heard him well enough.

He scowled, then snapped his head to look at someone to the side of the set. “Turn that wind machine off immediately, thank you.” His tone brooked no argument and the wind cut off as immediately as desired, though Stewart yelped a protest in the background. “I said, are you actually comfortable up there, Miss Ritchi? Those heels don’t quite look compatible with that ledge.”

Roxanne laughed weakly. “I- uh, I mean-” Megamind was still staring up at her, but she was more conscious of other eyes on her right now, the crew and the director in particular, waiting to see what she said.

“You don’t look comfortable,” he prodded.

“She’s not supposed to look comfortable,” Stewart called from out of sight. “She’s supposed to be in distress!”

“Her character is,” Megamind corrected.

“I wanted the reactions to be authentic, dude, don’t you get method? C’mon-”

“So you’re saying that you don’t trust her acting ability enough to successfully emulate the role you hired her for without actively putting her in danger?”

There was a beat of silence, and Roxanne felt a pulse of yes, thank you, god, but it was superseded by the absolute certainty that she was about to lose this job.

“Stop. You’re going to get me in trouble,” Roxanne hissed down at him between her teeth. “He’ll say I’m ‘difficult to work with’ and I’ll never get a role this big again, don’t screw this up for me-”

“You’ll get even less roles if you let him break your neck for his perfect shot,” Megamind retorted, full volume as the director sputtered behind him. “Come down and I’ll put you on the phone with my lawyer, and you can discuss exactly how many ways this mediocre auteur has abused your safety on this set.”

Roxanne hesitated for a long moment, then nodded. “I- uh, don’t actually know how I was supposed to get down from here, to be honest.”

Megamind looked, if anything, even angrier as he turned and snapped at a couple of crew members to grab a ladder already, and soon Roxanne on her way back to ground level, Megamind lifting a hand to her to help her wobble the last few rungs down the ladder. Stewart was still swearing and apparently hitting his chair in the background, though he seemed too terrified to come within ten feet of Megamind. Roxanne was substantially less intimidated.

“Not that I don’t appreciate being spoken up for, but you do realize that it isn’t easy to get a role like this, right? I can’t be picky when I’m trying to establish-”

Megamind instantly raised his hands in surrender as they started walking together away from the high-rise set. “I know- I know, I’m terribly sorry, Miss Ritchi. I tend to let my mouth run away with me when idiots like that Schteward think they can bully a better performance out of someone.”

“You- I assumed you agreed to cameo on this project because you liked the director,” Roxanne said with a raised eyebrow. “I figured it couldn’t be because of Wayne. Everybody knows you two don’t get along anymore.”

“Because I liked- oh goodness no,” Megamind sneered, dramatically flicking his wrist in front of him as if shooing a fly. “That was just an unfortunate cost if I wanted to get the chance to- er, that is-”

Roxanne tilted her head, trying to make sure that she wasn’t imagining the splash of pink flooding into his cheeks.

“It doesn’t matter anyway. Obviously I’ll be dropping out. He won’t want me on set anymore, no matter how much notoriety I would draw for him. I directly challenged him in the middle of filming. Someone with his ego won’t let that go lightly. And-” he sighed and shot her a guilty sideways glance, “likely he will lump you right in with me. Sorry about that. If you’d like, you can go back and loudly denounce me after we tighten up your contract and get you a better agent, if you want to finish this one up before your next role.”

Roxanne blinked. “You think I would just- go back and lie?”

He shrugged. “It’s your career, Miss Ritchi. I certainly wouldn’t blame you. I already have a reputation, and it wouldn’t hurt me any further for you to confirm it. I’m still going to get the roles I want regardless, so it makes perfect sense for you to distance yourself from me, since you don’t have that safety net yet.”

“That- that isn’t fair,” Roxanne said, brow furrowing. “Have people done that to you before? That’s horrible.”

He grinned a sharp little grin and shrugged. “Show business, Miss Ritchi. You’re just as familiar with it as I am.”

“No. That’s bullshit. I won’t throw you under the bus like that.”

The grin faded a little, surprise edging in at the corners of his expression. “That- well, that’s up to you, of course. But- you really shouldn’t risk your job for me any more than you already have.”

“It’s not for you, it’s just the right thing to do.” She stopped for a moment to kick her ridiculous heels off, opting to carry them instead. ”This was a shitty role anyway.”

“Well.” He laughed lightly. “I hope, then, that you’ll at least let me get you in touch with some other projects that will be casting, soon-”

“I appreciate the thought but I don’t need charity roles, Megamind.”

“Charity? No, I-” he flushed again, then bit his lip hard before he continued. “I’ve- I’ve seen your work before, Miss Ritchi, and I think you’ve been wildly, atrociously overlooked. You have this inherent charm and- and you always bring such nuance to roles that otherwise would have just been- and you do anger in this really fascinating way and-” he laughed, a nervous sound that he seemed to be using to make himself stop his jolting stream of words. “The only reason I even agreed to this idiotic villain cameo was because I thought- if Roxanne Ritchi is involved it might be worth- rather, if she’s attached, maybe this Schteward fellow isn’t as bad as they say he is. I was wrong about that part, but- well, you deserve to- you deserve a chance to- to work with people who will actually appreciate you. Is all.”

Roxanne stared at him as the words dried up, at the discomfort in his expression started to verge on panic, and thought, only an absolute asshole would think this guy is a problem to work with. And then, he’s actually even prettier in person than on screen, which should be both impossible and illegal. And after that, I did not imagine him blush three entire times while he talked about me.

“Okay. We’ll call your lawyer,” she said, “and work out whatever- business we need to, and you can give me contact info for some casting directors if you really think I have a shot. And then I’d like your number, if you’d be willing to give it.”

Megamind made a wordless noise, then shook his head. “Of- of course, I mean, you would want to get in contact with me for reference, of course-”

“Not for reference.” Roxanne stopped, turning to face him properly with a smile tugging at her lips. “I’d like to take you out for coffee, sometime.” She paused while he stared. “Unless you wouldn’t like that. I imagine that you’re probably pretty busy-”

“No I would love to- I mean, of course I would like- coffee, with you, obviously I would like-” he clamped a hand over his mouth and then gave that nervous, awkward, charming laugh again. “Like- but, of course you don’t mean- like a date, Miss Ritchi?”

“Like a date.”Roxanne smiled in earnest, now. She couldn’t help it. “And- you can call me Roxanne, you know.”

“Oh,” Megamind said, his voice gone light and stunned. “Oh. I would like that very much, Roxanne.”

#margoteve #asks #*VIOLENTLY SHRUGS*#sometimes i remember how to write fic sometimes my brain WORKS #megamind #roxanne ritchi #elle's fanfic #i should post this to ao3 in the morning #mmmmmaybe

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thekrazykeke · 6 years

Photo

Title: and it hurts like hell

Fandom(s): Deadpool, MCU

Relationship(s): Wade Wilson x reader. Bucky Barnes x reader. Bucky Barnes x Wade Wilson x reader

Series (War of Hearts): Sequel to Ass Backwards.

Summary: Sometimes what the world needs isn’t another hero, but a monster.

Warning(s): Angst, cameos by other MCU superheros (and villains), fourth wall breaking, inter-species relationship, violence, pre-polyamorous relationship, eventual polyamorous relationship

Tagging: @keya168

Something wet splashes against your cheek.

Pupils fluttering behind closed eyelids, you struggle to return to the waking world, feeling uncharacteristically resistant to that idea. After a few minutes, you manage to do so, the task proving to be a herculean feat. The sight that greets you is not the dark and perpetually chilly cell that you’d been forced into, nor your grandmother’s living room.

It’s a building, or a warehouse. Graffiti lines the walls, trash is scattered along the floor, a ratty sofa is lodged awkwardly in a corner and there’s a few sleeping bags, even a tent, with an industrialized, rusting metal trash can smack dab in the middle of the room.

“Go get Jamie, you dunderhead, and stop gawking!”

“Why do I have to be the one that gets ‘im? You go.”

‘Please, don’t be so loud.’ Eyes fluttering half closed again, you attempt to sit up, ignoring the unfamiliar voices whisper-shouting overhead, for now.

“Because between us, you’re the one with the longer legs, genius. It only makes sense.”

A hush suddenly fell over the room, although you strained your ears, you couldn’t hear any footfalls, even as the individual came closer. “Miss, are you well? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Your eyes opened once again and you just barely manage to focus on the person. He’s tall, Caucasian, brunette, scruffy looking with a beard and had eyes that are either pale blue or grey.

“...What ‘m I doing here? Where am I?”

Again, the brunette spoke, “Phillip found you collapsed about a block from here.” He nodded to the left and you glanced in the direction he’d signaled, seeing an dark brown skinned male in his early forties, glasses askew and the left lens cracked. “Brought you back here, made sure you were comfortable.”

Phillip puffed up with pride, though he tried to contain his reaction. “Couldn’t just leave you out there. Nasty folk runnin’ ‘round these days. Had to chase off some hooligans up to no good.”

“My head’s a little fuzzy right now, but thank you.”

“Hmph! Fuzzy, huh?”

“And that’s Lorenzo. Ignore everything he says. I do.” Phillips cautioned, cutting his eyes at the other Caucasian male, red haired, balding, with green eyes narrowed in suspicion and distrust.

“I’m just saying, you shouldn’t have brought her back here. She was bleeding something fierce--”

You couldn’t help interrupting, “I was bleeding, for real?” Briefly patting yourself down, checking for wounds and expecting pain.

“And she can’t even remember that she was bleeding, or why.” Lorenzo continued on, tone pointed and biting. “We don’t even know her, we’ve never seen her walk these streets, so--”

This time ‘Jamie’ interrupted. “We should give her a chance.” Lorenzo shot him a withering glance. “Like the two of you took a chance on me.”

Phillip was quick to throw his two cents in. “Thank you!” He turned to look at you. “Do you remember your name, kid? Or where you’re from, how you got like this?”

“My name’s Y/N.” You say confidently. “I was on my way to see my boyfriend...” A dull throbbing began to pound insistently at your temples. “It was Tuesday. I went to see him then. Something happened, I think I got jumped? They put something over my mouth and nose, it made me tired.”

“...Holy shit...” Lorenzo muttered.

You glance at Jamie and Phillip, both who traded loaded looks. “What is it?”

“It’s Sunday.” Jamie stated, tone matter of fact, features carefully neutral.

“Holy shit.” You breathed, fighting the urge to give into hysterical laughter.

Although you were reluctant to go to the hospital, Phillip was insistent that you had to choose to do something. There’s a very real possibility that the people who took you over a week ago could have hurt you. You understood and even appreciated his efforts, but hemmed and hawwed over it until Lorenzo eventually distracted him by making a ‘joke’, while Jamie gave you some loose change.

He was strangely intuitive, seeming to get that you needed to talk to your mother, hear her voice. You’d been away from her a week and while you’re mostly independent, you hadn’t gone a day without texting or calling her since your teenage years.

‘Get it together. A shitty day doesn’t give you the excuse to go all white girl Becky, woe is me, the world is ending.’ Fidgeting, you twirled the phone cord around your fingertip, listening to phone ring and ring.

And ring.

Then...

{Hello?}

Unbidden, tears welled up at the corners of your eyes. A lump was stuck in your throat and you couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak.

{Hello? Hello?}

“M-Mama, I--”

A pale hand reached out and ended the call. You were about to turn around and chew the person out but it was Jamie. “What the fuck?” You hissed. He crowded you in that tiny booth and you felt uncomfortable. “Seriously, you gotta back the fuck up.”

Ignoring your warning, he came even closer, his lips brushed against the shell of your ear. “See that guy across the street? No, don’t look!” You swallowed, heart in your throat. “He’s been watching you for the past fifteen minutes. And there’s a van, black, tinted windows, it’s been circling that cafe for more than twenty minutes.”

“It could be a coincidence.” Even as you gave life to that flimsy excuse, behind your eyelids, you caught a flash of a memory, recalling a black van cutting you off in both directions as you tried to run.

“You need to come with me.”

“Sorry, my mama taught me never to follow strange men to places beyond yonder.” You sassed.

Jamie looked equally parts amused, part exasperated and just as he nodded, about to back up, suddenly that van he mentioned drove by once again, the door opening to reveal men, soldiers, and one of the crew is manning a machine gun, aimed directly at the two of you.

Eyes widening, you froze like a deer in headlights. Jamie shoved you to the ground, his body shielding your own as the bullets ricocheted and sprinkled glass down around you both.

B-Bump! B-Bump!

It feels like cotton is in your ears or your head’s underwater. You can’t hear anything, you barely understand anything, but when Jamie grabs your arm, you don’t hesitate to grasp the appendage tightly, holding onto the appendage for dear life in a world that had so suddenly gone crazy.

“--ove. Move, move! Surround them, surround them, don’t let them escape!”

You came back to the sound of a woman screaming, someone’s baby is screaming, and while a part of you is concerned, self-preservation triumphs and survival is your main priority.

Confidently, Jamie stands right in front of you as the military personnel advance on the two of you, guns at the ready, fingers on the trigger.

Fuck, this a shitty Sunday.

The nearest soldier, the spokesperson of the group, said tersely, “We’re going to give the two of you one chance to get down on the ground with your hands behind your head. If you move, we will shoot you.”

“Aren’t they going to shoot anyway?” Your lips barely move as you mutter the words underneath your breath.

Somehow he heard you. “We even twitch and they light us up like the fourth of July.”

“So, we’re going through them, right?”

Jamie didn’t respond, merely took off his glove on his right hand, revealing a metal hand? No, a metal arm with a red star at the top of his shoulder. He shifted his stance and one of the twitchy military brats fired, his shot going wild, missing his face by a wide margin, and nearly clipping you in the ear.

All it took was a breath and then he was in motion, charging straight at the group while you ran away from the fighting. Or tried to, you were cut off by another black van blocking the passage way and taking up space on the sidewalk.

The feeling of deja vu became even stronger, as did the throbbing in your temples.

Blinking, you tried to shake off the sensation and hopped over the hood of the car, only when you hit the ground, the earth shattered a little beneath your feet, the ricochet reverberating up to your teeth. The van’s door was about to open and you reached down, grabbing the nearest object, and shove it through the door’s handle; the object you’d grabbed turned out to be a STOP sign.

‘Hoooooly shit.’

You heard someone take the safety off of their gun and you turn your head. It was a female soldier, eyes cold as ice, and she pulled the trigger.

But nothing happened.

She did it again and again as you stood up, feeling rage and irritation flow through you. Throwing the gun at your face, she attempted to lash out at you with her foot, perhaps wanting to engage in hand-to-hand combat, and you grabbed the appendage, lifting her right off the ground before slamming her down into the unforgiving concrete once, twice, before grabbing her other foot, spinning around in a half circle and chucked her away, she flew through the air and crashed into a speeding car.

She did not get up again.

Hearing the roar of an engine, you turn and catch sight of Jamie on a motorcycle. ”Feel like coming with me now?” Questions were burning at the back of your tongue, ready to be put into coherent sentences, but you found you nodded anyway and got on the bike behind him, wrapping your arms around his waist.

Questions could wait.

#mcu #bucky barnes #mcu imagine #bucky barnes imagine #marvel #black reader #marvel imagine #bucky barnes x reader #thekrazykeke

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daleisgreat · 4 years

Text

The Wizard

Today I am covering a movie I have been itching to write about here for years. It is an admittedly subpar film from 1989, but seeing it then as a six year old videogame kiddo, I absolutely adored it. Yes I am talking about the 1989 Nintendo adver-film, The Wizard (trailer). I have had a nostalgia-driven love/hate/love relationship with The Wizard throughout my life. Absolutely loved it as a kid, when I got around to re-watching it with adult eyes for the first time shortly after its first DVD run in 2006, I realized a lot of it then was hard to watch and thought the film took itself way too seriously. I embedded an old episode of my old podcast I recently un-vaulted at the bottom of this entry where we do a roundtable breakdown of The Wizard right after its first DVD release in 2006. Watching it again in 2020, I kind of came around to digging it again as you will soon read on to see. The Wizard never got a deluxe edition home video treatment until this year. Its DVD release in 2006, and initial 2018 BluRay release saw a basic home video release with no bonus material other than a trailer. After much fan outcry, Universal finally granted access to home video distributor Shout Factory to release a much desired special edition jam packed with extras. It hit BluRay at the beginning of this year, shortly after the film’s 30th anniversary. If you are unfamiliar with Shout Factory, think of them as the equivalent as the Criterion Edition, but for beloved B-movies instead.

This is a road trip film, where through the magic of Nintendo, a broken family is reunited…..yes I am embellishing, but only ever-so-marginally! After an earlier childhood crisis that is not revealed until late in the movie, nine-year-old Jimmy Woods (Luke Edwards) is left in a quasi-autistic state (his condition is never fully explained). Jimmy consistently runs away from home until his mother decides it is too much and puts him in a permanent childcare facility. Jimmy’s half-brother Corey (Fred Savage) would have none of this treatment to Jimmy and sneaks him out of the facility. Jimmy infamously references ‘California’ throughout, Corey decides to take Jimmy on a road trip to California to see just what Jimmy wants to go over there for. Along the way they meet Hailey (Jenny Lewis), who joins them on the run and helps discover Jimmy’s hidden talents at getting top scores at arcade games. The trio decide to embark to a huge videogame tournament in California they see a flyer for and think that must be what Jimmy is talking about that is awaiting them there. Watching the Wizard now in 2020 compared to the last time I saw it in 2006 what popped out to me was surprisingly the ‘heart’ of the family dilemma the whole film is predicated on. As I stated in my entries here chronicling the seasons of Roseanne, the reason that show is one of my favorite sitcoms is because my family was not too far off from how dysfunctional the Conners were. The Woods family here has their own twisted backstory that gets kind of fleshed out on why the family is split up and struggling to overcome a recent crisis that has had a lasting impact on them. I can relate to that with my various family qualms over the decades, so seeing Corey & Jimmy’s brother, Nick (Christian Slater) and father, Sam (Beau Bridges) go from being on rocky turmoil throughout the film, but managing to put their differences aside to go on the road after them kind of resonated with me a little bit on this viewing.

Nick and Sam playing catch-up on the road is an entertaining B-plot to The Wizard. The father and son team have a comedic foil in one Mr. Putnam (Will Seltzer), a professional tracker of runaway kids who I would imagine would be a realistic good kind of person, but the film portrays Putnam as a ruthless, slimy scumbag in it solely for the money. It is laughable to see Putnam get the villain stereotype checklist treatment. Balding, slicked back hair? Check! Cowboy-collar-string-tie? Check! Always chomping on gum? Check! Weasel-y voice? Double check! During their father-son road trek, Nick introduces his dad to videogames, and soon enough Sam is just as hooked as Nick in trying to conquer the dastardly original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game on NES. Videogames are featured predominantly throughout The Wizard and goes to show how big arcades were in the late 80s to the point where you can find a stray machine or two at any gas station or restaurant. Watching Hailey and Corey train Jimmy to get as much gaming knowledge in time for the videogame tournament in Los Angeles was a riot. The requisite-training montage scene perfectly encapsulates NES-mania at the peak of its powers in 1989. As you can see in the linked video it has the perfect training material for any grade school game player of that era in the form of arcade game practice sessions, Nintendo Power magazines and calling the Nintendo-endorsed game counselor’s hotline for pro tips! Countless games are shown off throughout. One of the most recognizable scenes of the film is when Jimmy meets his antagonist in the form of pro-gamer, Lucas (Jackey Vinson) who makes his unabashed love of the Power Glove the must-have NES accessory of the ’89 Christmas season.

Eventually Lucas and Jimmy clash at the ‘Videogame Armageddon’ tournament in LA. They are two of the three finalists and for their final challenge the AWESOME over-the-top host (Steven Grives) bestows upon them a brand new, unreleased game in the form of the madly anticipated Super Mario Bros. 3! The three compete for the next three minutes of film in what is essentially an infomercial for SMB3. Nintendo and Universal timed The Wizard to hit theaters several weeks before the release of the game, which only fueled demand and likely played a factor into SMB3 selling more than 17 million copies worldwide. I vividly remember being on edge in my childhood viewing of that contest finale making SMB3 seem like the coolest game ever, and re-watching it 30 years later the scene still gets me wrapped up all over again! Just click or press here to see it for yourself! Jimmy’s family is so proud of him that the whole family vaguely patches things up in a touching moment at a tourist attraction shortly thereafter to end the film on a feel-good note. As positive as I am on the film so far, it is all in a so-bad-its-good, B-movie way. I could rag on the many imperfections of The Wizard with its out of touch dialogue, overuse of New Kids on the Block in the soundtrack, misrepresentation of some of the videogames and some out of date cultural norms, but as you can tell The Wizard is somewhat of a special film for me so I will leave that to you to scour the Internet for those astutely valid points of criticism.

As I alluded to above, this Shout Factory edition of the film is loaded with extra features. There is 38 minutes of deleted scenes! Highly recommend checking them out, as the deleted scenes mostly consists of early first act backstory setting up brotherly differences with Corey and Nick, and also a whole abandoned sideplot that sees Corey sneak Jimmy out of the childcare facility multiple times to introduce him to the NES and becoming a pro at videogames. Director Todd Holland has a feature commentary track filled with tons of insightful factoids. Some highlights include regretting how unsafe parts of the production were, justifying why a lot of scenes were cut, pointing out a blink-and-miss-it Toby McGuire cameo, fighting to the bitter end to get his feel-good family reuniting ending and how a throwaway joke panning Universal Studios lead to a last minute final re-cut of the film to omit that line due to peeved Universal executives. There are two Q&A panels included totaling an hour and a half. Both feature Luke Edwards along with original writer, David Chisholm and producer, Ken Topolsky. A lot of good anecdotes and memories from everyone involved, but not necessarily required viewing since a decent amount of their responses are touched on in the last of the bonuses. Rounding off the extras are three more behind-the-scenes bonuses tallying up just under an hour. Critical Analysis of The Wizard is a 12 minute look at Jimmy’s childhood trauma and the psychological effects of his condition. How Can I Help You is a six minute interview with a former Nintendo Game Counselor detailing his work experiences. Road to California is the standout making of feature with it being a 40 minute comprehensive look at how The Wizard came to be with interviews with most of the cast and crew. It dissects the casting, selecting the gameplay footage from Nintendo-provided tapes, explaining the ending, making all the cuts down to a 90 minute film, dealing with the critical fallout and the belated public adoration from fans online who grew up with the film and spread the love once it hit DVD. There are a couple heartfelt fan testimonials it included towards the end with some passionate stories from serious fans of the film!

These last several days have been a ride to say the least while taking in everything this Shout Factory edition had to offer. I knew a part of me enjoyed The Wizard in a guilty pleasure kind of way, but taking it all in again with a 37-year old perspective made the family crisis element of the movie, regardless of how corny it is implemented, somehow make an impact on me and appreciate it in a way I was not expecting. Combine that with it capturing the aura of late-80s NES fever, and seeing all the ubiquitous love from the cast, crew and fans of the movie in the bonus feature interviews and it all adds up to The Wizard going from guilty pleasure to childhood favorite that I did not expect to find myself still a big fan of today.

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If you somehow quench for more Wizard coverage, then check out this episode of my old podcast I recently re-uploaded to my YouTube channel where we reviewed The Wizard right after its first DVD printing way back in 2006.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs 3 12 Angry Men (1957) 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown 21 Jump Street The Accountant Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie Atari: Game Over The Avengers: Age of Ultron The Avengers: Infinity War Batman: The Dark Knight Rises Batman: The Killing Joke Batman: Mask of the Phantasm Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Bounty Hunters Cabin in the Woods Captain America: Civil War Captain America: The First Avenger Captain America: The Winter Soldier Christmas Eve Clash of the Titans (1981) Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special The Condemned 2 Countdown Creed I & II Deck the Halls Detroit Rock City Die Hard Dredd The Eliminators The Equalizer Dirty Work Faster Fast and Furious I-VIII Field of Dreams Fight Club The Fighter For Love of the Game Good Will Hunting Gravity Grunt: The Wrestling Movie Guardians of the Galaxy Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Hell Comes to Frogtown Hercules: Reborn Hitman I Like to Hurt People Indiana Jones 1-4 Ink The Interrogation Interstellar Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Jobs Joy Ride 1-3 Last Action Hero Major League Man of Steel Man on the Moon Man vs Snake Marine 3-6 Merry Friggin Christmas Metallica: Some Kind of Monster Mortal Kombat Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge National Treasure National Treasure: Book of Secrets Not for Resale Pulp Fiction The Replacements Reservoir Dogs Rocky I-VIII Running Films Part 1 Running Films Part 2 San Andreas ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Shoot em Up Slacker Skyscraper Small Town Santa Steve Jobs Source Code Star Trek I-XIII Sully Take Me Home Tonight TMNT The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2 UHF Veronica Mars Vision Quest The War Wild Wonder Woman The Wrestler (2008) X-Men: Apocalypse X-Men: Days of Future Past

#random movie #The Wizard #fred savage #luke edwards #jenny lewis #todd holland #christian slater #beau bridges #ken topolsky #david chisholm #jackey vinson #steven grives

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negatistic-nocturnities · 6 years

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15-January-2018

One skipped day is fine, right? I’m getting better and I can function so it’s all for the best….RIGHT??

Right.

I am back and still without paragraph indents, whatever, just because I know how to grammar doesn’t mean I HAVE to!

Let me say that I generally do not type words in full-capital but today is an exception.

God, even my writing ‘voice’ sounds hoarse.

I have tossed and turned and lain awake for hours in sweat and for what, to eat Vanilla Wafers!

Yeah, I’m alright with that, that’s been my diet for a day or two. They’re pretty good. I got some stuff done, like packing! And cleaning and recuperating. I thought a bit about what I want to write and all.

I came to the conclusion that I need to give myself goals. A word-count goal a day or have a list of subjects to write about, even if it is opinion. Not every day has to be about what happened that day. Not every day is that memorably unique. Though maybe I’m just missing the best parts, haha.

Word didn’t like that last sentence, underlined it and everything. Seems I’m not making friend here anytime soon!

Let’s talk fun stuff. That includes y’alls favorite subject of mine, right? Ponies!

Or Trekkie stuff.

So, If I was in good ol’ Trek, I’d want to be either in the Science or Engineering divisions, sure I could talk an ear off in Ops but I could do that in Engineering or Medbay too!

I’d be fine with making friends in the lower decks and merely experiencing (surviving) all the Ops shenanigans. The reason, earlier, that I said I wanted it to be early Voyager era would be the uniforms. I don’t like the grey of late DS9 and I’m glad that Voyager never had to change it even after the bits of contact they had where Earth was already in full grey mode. I consider the grey obstructive; it conceals the division color and rank too well and generally looks dull. I know Starfleet had their war at this time with the Dominion (right? I need to finish DS9, sorry guys) and tried to be serious but man, did it look like it would kill morale or what!

I miss the division colors on shoulders and the jackets and all the team spirit and energy (I just made Voyager sound like a Hockey team or something).

So, I’d do that.

Hell, I’d write a Voyager fanfic of the sort if wasn’t already a continuity I had to follow, even if for myself. I’d like to branch off, just a little. Do a different area of space, maybe not unexplored. I mean, mine’s less on the action and more on the social commentary. I don’t even know if there are viewports down there!

I checked on the ‘Deck Fifteen’ and it turns out that it’s been too long since I last saw the episode. It was titled ‘Good Shepard’ and hey, it had a random guest star! Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello cameos as "Crewman Mitchell" in this episode, a background appearance but still! Cool. Voyager got some cool guests.

Deck fifteen did have portholes. That’s good, so when something is about to crash into them, you can still see it from there.

Now, do I do a self-insert or actually make a character? It’s easy to do with ponies but more complex beings like those in Star Trek, that’ll be more difficult. The joke here would be to combine the two but I think that’s been done maybe one too many times badly and I’d rather not add more bad to that pile.

I think a mostly human crew, including the ‘main’ character. It’d be a slice of life anyway and I can play off the typical federation mixture. Throw an Andorian in and maybe a Vulcan.. maybe, they are so hard to visualize and not be cheesy with. The show does Vulcans so well and I feel I might not. Tuvoc was wonderful! I’ll think on it.

Your friend Seth, signing off!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPE3ZkRMmkQ

PostScript. This one is a youtube music thing.

Also, don’t worry, I am getting better.

#me #rage against the machine #journal #15th #january #05.26 #star trek #my little pony #like my priority on tags? Hahahha

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boiledleather · 7 years

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‘Billions’ 2x04 Recap: Smart Money

There’s this bit toward the end of Road House—the 1989 cult classic in which, and I promise I’m not kidding, Patrick Swayze and Sam Elliot play world-famous bouncers trying to defend a small town from Ben Gazzara, the ruthless owner of the local JC Penney—which requires the main character, Dalton, to go to the titular bar twice in quick succession. Director (again, I am in no way kidding) Rowdy Herrington sets up both scenes with prolonged shots of Swayze pulling up to the bar, parking his car in its dirt lot, getting out of the car, trotting up the stairs, and entering the establishment. Suffice it to say that this film is not some vérité experiment; it depicts the parking of a car twice in a row because it’s slovenly, not thoughtful. Don’t get me wrong, Road House is a marvelous time at the movies, but not because of what the Mystery Science Theater 3000 veterans at RiffTrax refer to as “ah yes, the famous Parking Scene.”

Friends, a whole of shows these days are stuck with Dalton in that goddamn parking lot. From infamous victims of Netflix Bloat like Jessica Jones and Luke Cage to prestige (or prestige-adjacent) projects like Taboo and The Path, just to name a few, too many series pad out their running times and flatten out their editing rhythms with meaningless transition shots. WATCH as Tom Hardy walks down an alley to look for someone who isn’t there? THRILL as Krysten Ritter and Mike Colter stroll through a semi-reasonably realistic version of New York! SWOON as Aaron Paul and Michelle Monaghan drive places while looking anxious! Again, we’re not talking about shows that artfully force us to confront the slow passage of time for some aesthetic or moral purpose, like The Americans—we’re just talking doughy, underbaked filmmaking.

Billions, I’m pleased to report, is not that kind of show. Not by a long shot. “The Oath,” its stellar second season’s fourth episode, is a strict machine, a marvel of efficiency, in which scenes are pared down to their bare essentials for both plot and character. The ep is helmed by Noah Emmerich, the great Stan Beeman on The Americans,—the latest in the season’s motley crew of distinctive directors, including The Handmaid’s Tale’s Reed Morano, indie-film team Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck, and, remarkably, Going Clear documentarian Alex Gibney last week. Remarkably, every one of them takes the same “all killer, no filler” approach.

Which is nuts, considering all the crazy shit being flung at the wall; if you hadn’t watched a moment of this season and just heard it described, you’d assume the show was floundering. How else to explain this episode’s cameos by The Americans’ Richard Thomas as a billionaire philanthropist with a Deadwood-level flair for articulate obscenities, Mad Men’s James “Not great, Bob!” Wolk as an Elon Musk-esque aerospace entrepreneur, and actual literal Mark Cuban as himself?

Yet another crackerjack episode of Billions this week; I reviewed it for the New York Observer, and got some digs in on my least favorite trend in TV in the process.

#billions #chuck rhoades #wendy rhoades #bobby axelrod #lara axelrod #malin akerman #maggie siff #paul giamatti #damian lewis #sean t. collins #new york observer

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torentialtribute · 5 years

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Sportsmail goes behind the scenes of ESPN’s coverage ahead of 2019 MLB London Series

It is just before 3pm on a perfect day for a ball game at The Bronx and Yankee Stadium is slowly waking up. ]

The tourniquets are closed for the time being, but they wipe out the 45,000 seats hanging above the field, bags of popcorn and crates of beer are dragged to concession stands and the smell of freshly cut grass fills the air.

In just over three hours, the venue will host the second game of the season between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox and the trains that run past the right-hand line along the subway line will become busier and busier

The New York Yankees organized the Boston Red Sox this month at the beautiful Yankee Stadium. the Boston Red Sox at the beautiful Yankee Stadium this month

The New York Yankees hosted the Boston Red Sox at the beautiful Yankee Stadium this month

] Fans filled the stadium in the Bronx around three hours before the opening exhibition "

Fans filled the stadium in the Bronx around three hours before the opening place

The atmosphere is just as subdued on the field. A number of Yankees stroll around and stretch the pains and pains associated with scheduling the MLB scheme The Red Sox, desperately in need of some inspiration with the bat, is swinging in front of the fences while the area around second base occupies ground staff.

In the gut of the stadium there is ec With another machine working hard before the competition. ESPN broadcasts to millions of fans in the United States and around the world tonight.

When baseball finally makes its long-awaited debut in Europe in June, ESPN will broadcast one of the two London

On this specific evening, 45 crew members and 12 cameras are playing. Collect extensive images that producers have to exchange, cut and replay to offer viewers the ultimate gaming experience.

The voices of the ESPN broadcast are housed in a cage above the home plate to give them the perfect image to call the game. In Britain we are used to a considerable amount of pre-game reporting, but the first pitch approaches comment team Jon Sciambi and Eduardo Perez go through notes and stroll through the dining room

<img id = "i-8d4b738069890874" src = "https://dailym.ai/2GBVxih" height = "423" width = "634" alt = "In the stadium, 12 cameras & # 39; s In the stadium 12 cameras & # 39; s capture the images that producers have to turn around quickly

In the stadium, 12 cameras capture extensive images that producers must turn around quickly

[De gamedagoperatie van ESPN komt van binnen in grote vrachtwagens net buiten de locatie] daytime operation comes from within a number of large trucks just outside the location "

ESPN's game day operation comes from within a number of large trucks just outside the loc atie

There are 45 crew members dotted around Yankee Stadium covering the ESPN "

<img id =" i-384c178402f18005 "src =" https : //i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/04/26/11/12743816-6962849-image-a-18_1556275672337.jpg "height =" 423 "width =" 634 "alt =" There are 45 crew members spread over Yankee Stadium working on the coverage of ESPN "/ img-share"

There are 45 crew members spread over Yankee Stadium working on the coverage of ESPN

ESPN went over the air at 6:30 pm, about eight minutes before the first field, and that means Sciambi and Perez are thrown directly into the action. Sciambi has been the regular voice on Wednesday Night Baseball broadcasts for the network since the 2014 season.

As a New York resident, I have mastered the microphone with its excellent game-for-play narration and insight .

& # 39; Which sport you like best, this is the best broadcasting sport there is, because the canvas is huge & # 39 ;, he told ] Sportsmail

& # 39; Our options tonight to tell stories, for Eduardo to analyze, for him to view something on the field, for us to deliver the prepared piece of analysis because of

& # 39; I call basketball and it just goes up and down the courtman. I may have a good story about you, but if you are not on the free throw line, I may not be able to tell. But in this case I have a good story about a boy, then we get it inside. And that is not what I am jammed with, he will come to the plate and then he will be the ball and I will start the story and then it is a foul ball and I will continue.

& # 39; It's a great broadcast sport because of its pace. It is slow but then you can become very fast. I don't work with someone who sees the field better than Eduardo. He will show me and the spectators things that I just won't see tonight. "

In the early stages of the competition, they are accompanied in the stand by none other than Alex Rodriguez, one of the greatest players of all time and a world champion with the Yankees in 2009.

The commentary duo Jon Sciambi (R) and Eduardo Perez (L) are the voices of ESPN's coverage Jon Sciambi (R) and Eduardo Perez (L) are the voices of the ESPN reporting "

Commentary duo Jon Sciambi (R) and Eduardo Perez (L) are the voice of ESPN & # 39; s report

<img id = "i-e14942ddd2f6981a" src = "https://dailym.ai/2V4e8Ok" height = "423" width = " 634 "alt =" Alex Rodriguez is an integral part of ESPN & # 39; s programming on Sunday evening and will be in London "class =" blkBorder img-share "/ Alex Rodriguez is an integral part of ESPN & # 39; s programming on Sunday evening and will be in London "

Alex Rodriguez is an integral part of ESPN & # 39; s programming on Sunday evening and will be in London

<img id = "i-98327036809b9d5b" src = "https://dailym.ai/2GFzPdp. jpg "height =" 422 "width =" 634 "alt =" ESPN will broadcast one of the games of the MLB London Series debut in June "

<img id =" i-98327036809b9d5b "src =" https://dailym.ai/2V2cKLR "height =" 422 "width =" 634 "alt =" ESPN submits June one of the games from the MLB London Series debut from "class =" blkBorder img-share

In June ESPN will broadcast one of the games from the debut of the MLB London Series, Rod is still fully immersed in an integral analysis of ESPN & # 39; sp rogrammering on Sunday evening. He works with Matt Vasgersian and Jessica Mendoza, the first female commentator on MLB for a national broadcaster.

Although he is not strictly in service tonight, A-Rod's input is always welcome and he makes a number of interesting points in his cameo clip, showing the value of his insight and proving that he has more and more confidence behind the microphone.

I love it. I enjoy every part of it. Working with ESPN has been a treat, & he told Sportsmail in his luxurious residence in Manhattan. & # 39; I feel like a game steward that I have the responsibility to talk about the game. I really love it. I am passionate. I work a lot with MLB, thinking of creative ways to connect with the next generation.

& # 39; For me, people who understand it at a really high level, you have to be able to chew it up, digest it, and package it so that you can understand it. It's my job to make this recipe, to pack it nicely and tightly, so it's not boring and goes over your head. I am open to football and cricket in the same way, but if it is not explained to me in a way that it is bigger than someone just kicking a ball, then I can get lost and go back to baseball

A-Rod is back behind the microphone for ESPN in London when baseball rolls to town. Around 55,000 fans will stand up for their first introduction to the ESPN sport and their massive operation will just be another day at the office.

ESPN.co.uk and the ESPN app bring fans extensive online coverage of the regular MLB season, the postseason and the World Series, with highlights from the game, interviews and in-depth analyzes. BT Sport gives viewers live TV broadcasts about the MLB throughout the season, this summer's London series and magazine shows.

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#Sportsmail goes behind the scenes of ESPN’s coverage ahead of 2019 MLB London Series"

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martens-movie-reviews · 7 years

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Released: August 1, 2014 Running Time: 2 hours 1 minute

“Brash space adventurer Peter Quill finds himself the quarry of relentless bounty hunters after he steals an orb coveted by Ronan, a powerful villain. To evade Ronan, Quill is forced into an uneasy truce with four disparate misfits: gun-toting Rocket Raccoon, treelike-humanoid Groot, enigmatic Gamora, and vengeance-driven Drax the Destroyer. But when he discovers the orb’s true power and the cosmic threat it poses, Quill must rally his ragtag group to save the galaxy.”

Marvel Cinematic Universe – Source – Marvel Studios

You can find all of the reviews for the Marvel Cinematic Universe at the link here. At that link, you can also find the dates that the other reviews for the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be posted. My plan is to release one every single day, and because I’ve already reviewed Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 here, and Spider – Man: Homecoming here, they will not be included in the two weeks leading up to Thor Ragnarok.

As such, I will now move onto the actual review of the film, and I hope you enjoy!

Guardians of the Galaxy Trailer – Source: Marvel Studios

Cast and Crew

This film was directed by James Gunn, who also wrote the film along with Nicole Perlman. Guardians of the Galaxy was Perlman’s first writing credit in Hollywood, and has since worked on the 2017 short film ‘Raising a Rukus’, and was recently announced as one of the writers for 2019’s MCU film ‘Captain Marvel’.

James Gunn’s work as a director includes the 2006 film ‘Slither’ and 2010’s ‘Super’. He has since worked on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, as well as the sequel to that film which was announced shortly before the release of Vol. 2. His work as a writer includes 2002’s ‘Scooby-Doo’, 2004’s ‘Dawn of the Dead’ and ‘Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed’, ‘Slither’ and ‘Super’ as well.

From Left to Right: Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Chris Pratt as Peter Quill / Starlord, Bradley Cooper as the voice for Rocket, Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer, Vin Diesel as the voice of Groot – Source: Marvel Studios

The cast featured Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, John C. Reilly, Glenn Close, Benicio Del Toro, Laura Haddock, Sean Gunn, Peter Serafinowicz, Christopher Fairbank, Nathan Fillion, Alexis Denisof, Ophelia Lovibond, Josh Brolin, Seth Green and Stan Lee.

Review

Guardians of the Galaxy is by far the funniest movie from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For me the comedic aspect of the MCU is what separates it from the other comic book films, and you always know that you will end up laughing at one point during the film. This movie was a surprise hit for Marvel, but the quality and reputation of their films have been so high since Iron Man, that people were ready to go and watch a movie that includes a green alien, a retired WWE wrestler try to be an actor, a talking raccoon and a talking, walking tree.

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Peter Jason Quill, a.k.a Starlord, after being abandoned outside his mother’s hospital room by his shitty grandfather after she passed away, young peter gets abducted by aliens and goes on to lead a life of fun and adventure. This man, still a kid from the 80s at heart, learns to be a leader of sorts for this ragtag group of criminals in order to save the galaxy, and to top it all off, he was portrayed by the funny fat guy from ‘Parks and Recreation’. Chris Pratt did a magnificent job at being Quill, from the very first dance number on Morag, to the dance off against Ronan the Accuser. He captured the roguish personality of the character that the MCU adapted from the comic book character, and while I wish we would have had a more serious version of Quill, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this version.

Saldana can now add green alien to her resume, after playing a blue on in ‘Avatar’, Gamora’s family was killed by Thanos, and he chose to take her on as an adoptive child, but not in a loving and caring way, but more in a brutal turn you into a killing machine way. I really enjoyed the chemistry that she had with Pratt, and I truly enjoyed that while they hinted at a possible love connection, they always back off from it, either with Gamora not falling for Quill’s pelvic sorcery or Quill thinking it would be heroic on his part to save her, not mentioning the emotional connotations.

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The character of Groot is a lovable little kid stuck in tree form. I feel that adding the voice talent of Vin Diesel didn’t really add anything to the character, but was more of a fun thing to have someone famous to do press tours with. Diesel did a good job at saying 5 different words throughout the movie with different inflections and tones to make you sort of know what he was saying, while also entertaining you.

The character of Rocket was played by Sean Gunn on set, and had Bradley Cooper voice him, which as I mentioned with Groot, was nice to add talent to the film, but didn’t add anything in terms of character. I feel like they could’ve used anyone to voice Rocket, but I’m pleased with what we got out of Cooper, and Rocket and Groot were some of the best character moments of the film.

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Casting Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer is something that could have been very very bad for the movie, but it just magically worked. They powered him way down as a character to make the film more entertaining, but I still wish we got to see the real Drax in the films. Dave Bautista’s comedic timing and deadpan delivery was the standout performance of this film, and quickly became people’s favourite character after baby groot at the end.

Yondu Udonta is another character that they changed from the comics, and that’s by not giving him a bow, thinking that people would just associate him with being an alien version of Hawkeye, and I get that, making him use a sort of bolt/ arrow, and whistling it into action worked really well, but also made him extremely overpowered. Michael Rooker did a good job in his portrayal, and I was happy that we got to see his character one last time in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

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Del Toro reprising his role as Taneleer Tivan after a short cameo during the post credit sequence in Thor: The Dark World was fun and entertaining to watch. His scene in the film was mostly exposition to announce to the audience that Infinity War would soon be happening, while also explaining to everyone what they were, and the immense power that they hold.

Karen Gillan as Nebula was really robotic in her portrayal, and I think it was done on purpose, however she was barely used in this film, and got more character development in the second film. She was used as a foil to Gamora, and a sarcastic and attention seeking ‘teen’ in front of Ronan. She hates Thanos as much as anyone, and hopefully we get to see her return in Infinity War.

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Lee Pace did a good job with the very little he was given in terms of character background of development in the script, and none of the problems that I have with the character falls on the actor. My major problem with Ronan the Accuser is that he’s extremely forgettable, and lost the final battle because he got distracted by a Terran dancing in front of him. I feel like it was slightly wasted, but the movie is focused mostly on introducing the Guardians, rather than give them a compelling villain, and that was a problem for me, not a big one, but still there, which stops this movie from getting a higher score.

Thanos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been slowly exposed to the audience and it’s been building a lot of hype, while also making being impatient in wondering when we’re actually going to see him do something, and that time is nearly over, with him finally bringing the fight to the Avengers, and courting Death in Avengers: Infinity War which is coming to theatres in 2019. Brolin did a good job with the very little that he had, and I can’t wait to see more.

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Seeing the Nova Corps on Xandar was a fun little nod to comic book fans, and I loved all the scenes where they showed up, especially John C. Reilly’s character getting the ‘dick message’ from Quill and explaining that to his boss, Nova Prime (Gwen Close). I still really really hope that we get to see Nova one day, and until that day, I will sad.

The useless army that Ronan employs consists of Sakaarans, who you might be linking them with the world that Thor: Ragnarok will be taking place on, Sakaar, and you would be right in doing so. I do not know if we will see them in that movie, but they are indeed the insectoid race from that planet. They would often be used in the Kree military as cannon fodder, as from what we’ve seen in this film, they are about as useful as the Chitauri, as is the only other problem that I had with this movie, was that the villains were not given the time to properly develop. I totally understand the reasoning behind that, as they had to introduce the Guardians, inform the people of the purpose of the Infinity Stones, show more of Thanos, as well as have a villain that would pose enough of a threat to unite the heroes.

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The visual effects in this movie was mind blowing, easily the most beautiful since the first Thor film. The fact that they managed to make Rocket and Groot feel real, and possible is something that I am still amazed at to this day. They should be commended for that, and they were, when they were nominated for best visual effects at the Academy Awards (Oscars).

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The music score that Tyler Bates put together for this film is often forgotten due to the amazing soundtrack that it produced, with the song choice coming partly from James Gunn, but it’s still a great score to listen to, filled with heroic, alien, wonder, and fun themes throughout the score.

The musical soundtrack for this movie was by far the best soundtrack that became a character in and of itself in this film. The only movie that I can think of that did a better job at integrating a soundtrack into their film was ‘Baby Driver’. Whenever people hear the opening of hooked on a feeling, they instantly think of this film (if they have seen it), or they think of the amazingly horrible music video that David Hasselhoff did of that song (you should look that up, it’s so bad that it’s hilarious).

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The fact that Peter Quill thought that the best way to distract the villain with the magic stone of absolute doom was by challenging him to a dance off, was something so unexpected and absolutely hilarious that it was one of the best moments in the film. I later found out while watching the special features at home, that the gag reel includes a version where Lee Pace (Ronan) accepted that challenge and they actually had a mini dance off. You can find that clip just below this paragraph. Enjoy!

The final battle between the Guardians and Ronan felt a little sad in comparison to the rest of the movie, while still be an epically gorgeous scene. They foreshadowed earlier in the film that there were beings that had tried to share the power of the Power Stone between each other for a short period of time, but they only lasted a little while before being obliterated. After that was shown, I knew that that was how the film was going to end, there would be some heroic moment when they would all hold hands and with the power of friendship, vanquish their foe. I was pretty close with that analogy, except it wasn’t friendship, they’re the Guardians of the Galaxy, Bitch!. I also approve of the literal trolling done by Quill on Yondu, and that Yondu approved of that fake out.

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There’s one thing that I was still trying to figure out, and that is, who is protecting the Stone on Xandar? Didn’t their entire fleet get demolished by Ronan at the end of the film? That seems like either foreshadowing, or a simple overlooked mistake.

The Guardians (minus Groot) holding the Power Stone – Source: Marvel Studios

The Infinity Stones in this Marvel Cinematic Universe is finally ‘confirmed’, and explained in this film. I will now list the stones, and where they are at the present time.

Mind Stone (Yellow) shows up in Marvel’s The Avengers in Loki’s staff, and later in Avengers: Age of Ultron, where it is placed on the forehead of Vision.

Space Stone (Blue) showed up in Captain America: The First Avenger, post credit scene of Thor, and also in Marvel’s the Avengers. It is now in the Vault at Asgard.

Reality Stone (Red) showed up in Thor: The Dark World, and was given to the Collector during the post credit sequence during that film. It’s whereabouts are assumed to still be in his possession.

Power Stone (Purple) was in this film, and is shown locked up in a vault of some sorts on Xandar.

Time Stone (Green) was shown in Doctor Strange in the Eye of Agamotto, and was last seen still in his possession.

Soul Stone (Orange) not seen at this point in time, though some assume that Heimdal, the guardian of the gateway in Thor might be in possession of it due to his orange eyes, and his ability to see every soul in the universe (as mentioned in Thor: The Dark World).

The Collector explaining the Infinity Stones to the Guardians and to the audience. Yellow (Mind Stone), Purple (Power Stone), Blue (Space Stone), Red (Reality Stone), Green (Time Stone), Orange (Soul Stone) – Source: Marvel Studios

The mid credit scene features Groot slowing growing up, in his pot, dancing a Jackson 5 song, while Drax polishes his sword (euphemism?), and freezes whenever he is spotted by him. The post credit scene shows the Collector drinking in his destroyed show with Cosmo licking him. We then get to see Howard the Duck (voiced by Seth Green) telling him that it’s gross.

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Overall, almost everything that could go right for this movie, did. The cast was magnificent, the cinematography, soundtrack, direction of the movie hit was near perfect for this movie. My problem with the story and the problem for most Marvel Cinematic Universe movies as a whole, was the villain. Marvel ends up cheating on the story requirements for the villain, to better serve the heroes, however from a critical point of view, the villain is just as important, story wise. At the end of the day, my score for this movie is 9/10.

What did you think of the film? Are you excited for Thor Ragnarok? Let me know in the comments below!

Thanks for reading,

Alex Martens

Guardians of the Galaxy Review Released: August 1, 2014 Running Time: 2 hours 1 minute "Brash space adventurer Peter Quill finds himself the quarry of relentless bounty hunters after he steals an orb coveted by Ronan, a powerful villain.

#Comic Book Movie #MCU #Movie Review

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mikeyd1986 · 7 years

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MIKEY’S PERSONAL BLOG 52, May 2017

On Monday morning, I had my Healthy Cooking on a Budget course at Balla Balla Community Centre in Cranbourne East. This week we made a lentil and pasta soup, macaroni and cheese, foccacia bread with rosemary and a risotto. On paper, it seemed like a lot of dishes to cook in two hours but thankfully we shared duties as a group and it was easier to manage. We learned a lot of different skills including kneading dough, cutting vegetables, frying and using chicken stock. It actually feels good to be able to make my own simple meals and not spend a fortune on the ingredients. Plus it’s much healthier than buying packaged foods. http://www.ballaballa.com.au/progra...

On Monday afternoon, I started working through Lesson 4 of my online Wellbeing course through the MindSpot Clinic. This lesson focused on dealing with the behavioural symptoms of anxiety and depression which include avoidance and safety behaviours. We tend to avoid things due to fear and low energy. By using the technique of Graded Exposure, the symptoms can gradually be reduced over time. There’s also a really helpful guide on assertive communcation which is something I still find difficult to do at times. http://www.counsellingconnection.com/...

On Monday night, I had my strength training session with Luke Davey at Breakaway Fitness. I was feeling a bit run down probably due to the sudden change of weather but unless I’m sick to the point where I literally can’t get out of bed, then I’m gonna keep living my life. I recently learned that UFT - CrossFit Fountain Gate will be closing in a couple of weeks and all the personal trainers will be moving to UFT PLAYgrounds in Berwick. Of course the one thing that was dwelling on my mind was the possibility of bumping into my former personal trainer Nick Bradbury again.

For the record, I have forgiven him and moved on. However, part of me has been worrying that he still has unresolved issues towards me and that bumping into him will be awkward. But Luke has assured me that everything will be fine and I trust him. I genuinely want to get along with Nick and let go of everything that happened last year. I hate conflict and I’m way too old to hold onto stupid grudges. I’d rather make peace and love.

I had a pretty good session tonight. Once again, I was overthinking a bit especially when Luke asked me what I did in my spare time. I hesitated so much worrying that he’d think I’m a boring person but upon reflection, it’s simply not true. I enjoy reading, doing art, shopping, going to the movies, yoga, meditation, coffee dates with Mum and of course fitness classes.

The truth is that I still get really hard on myself in moments like this and honestly I do try my best to keep myself actively busy and productive during the week. Of course, sometimes my depression and anxiety can interfere and therefore I tend to procrastinate due to lack of motivation and low energy. Sometimes getting out of bed is an achievement for me. But I do try and do activities every day. https://www.facebook.com/breakawayf...

WARM-UP...Tonight’s warmup exercises included hip opening stretches, weighted squat holds, weighted butterfly hold and weighted glute bridges. I was struggling a bit with my squat holds due to my hips being really tight and not quite finding the right position to hold myself in but otherwise the rest of the exercises were fine.

DEVELOPMENT...Tonight I got to do weighted back squats again, doing 5 rounds of 5. I’m slowly learning to keep my chest lifted and my weight evenly placed into my heels. Otherwise, I think I’ve improved heaps since I last did them.

WORK-OUT...Tonight’s workout involved 3 rounds of the following exercises: 200m rows, 10 ring rows, 10 wall balls and 5 burpees. Luke set a goal time of 12 minutes for me. My performance tonight was a mixed bag. I smashed the rowing machine and was finally strapping myself in and out without being a klutz. I made the ring rows more difficult than they needed to be but eventually got through them.

My wall balls were all over the shop. I’ve never been that great at throwing a ball so it was really inconsistent and difficult to catch at times. My burpees however have improved tremendously. I feel a lot more confident about doing them now than when I first started doing crossfit training. Overall, I did pretty well and finished the workout in just over 10 minutes. The fact that I’m trying and not giving up is proof that I am good enough.

On Friday morning, Mum and I went down to Springvale Botanical Cemetery to pay respects to my late Grandma Mrs. Yvonne Margaret Dixon. We dropped into the on site florist and bought a couple of bunches of mixed flowers plus a small balloon and a tiny teddy bear of a stick. At the burial site, Mum played several songs on her phone from Glen Campbell, Elton John and George Michael whilst placing the flowers and gifts inside the plastic vase containers. It was a beautiful tribute, letting her know that she’s gone but not forgotten.

On Friday afternoon, I treated Mum with an early Mother’s Day present...lunch at the Cafe Vita et flores (Springvale, Victoria, Australia). We shared some scones, coffees and chicken salad wraps together, sitting near the wall-mounted fireplace. It’s been a really tough year for me financially so I really couldn’t afford to buy mum a lot but I can tell that she appreciated it. http://cafevita.org.au/cafe/

On Friday night, I went to see the new Alien film entitled Alien: Covenant at Village Cinemas Fountain Gate. Part of me was feeling conflicted at the fact that I had nobody to go with despite trying to put the interest out there. My social life has been rather dull and non-existent lately and so this has really impacted negatively on my mental health. It may come across as me being an attention-seeking sad sack but the truth is that I’ve been lonely and independent my whole life mainly because I’ve been forced to be that way. I really don’t have many friends who want to hang out with me socially and that’s my reality.

Alien: Covenant takes place 10 years after the events of Prometheus (2012) with the crew of the colony ship named Covenant being pre-maturely woken from their cryosleep. After discovering a ghost transmission from an unknown planet, the crew decide to investigate the source of the signal and see whether this planet is worthy to build a new civilization of human life. On the surface, the planet seems uninhabited and yet contains similar Earth-like conditions including a water source, weather systems, mountainous terrain and vital food crops. But naturally, nothing is as it seems.

Director Ridley Scott (Prometheus, Alien) takes us down a familiar road here in terms of the human vs. alien fight scenes but he manages to deliver plenty of gore and slow building dread leading up to those pivotal moments. The connections between this film and Prometheus are well handled with the concepts of creationism and the origins of life being further explored here. We also find out what happened to Dr. Elizabeth Shaw from the previous film.

Michael Fassbender reprises his role as the synthetic android David and he also plays the cloned counterpart of crew member Walter. This is very much the stand out performance as he manages to make each character very distinct. Katherine Waterston delivers a strong performance as Daniels which mirrors the female lead of Ripley from the original Alien film. And there’s also a brief cameo from Guy Pierce playing Peter Weyland in the opening sequence. Overall, a really solid entry in the Alien franchaise. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2316204...

On Saturday morning, my parents and I met up with my Aunty and Uncle at the Rochester Car Show. I’ve never really been interested in cars so I was worried that I would get bored quite easily. Quite a few blokes were rocking black leather bikie jackets and looked rather intimidating so I stuck close with my family. They had a large collection of classic cars and bikes on display from Ford Falcons and Mustangs to Porsches and Harley Davidsons. They also had a jumping castle, sausage sizzle, pony rides and even camel’s milk samples.

On Saturday night, we hung out in the outdoor living area designed by my Uncle Warren. It featured a plasma TV, wall unit, outdoor dining setting, fold out chairs, a BBQ and plenty of beer. We lit up some fire pits with logs, twigs and fire lighters before the temperature dropped and settled in for the night, watching an AFL game between Collingwood and GWS before putting the Suicide Squad DVD on.

On Sunday afternoon, we celebrated Mother’s Day by having a buffet lunch down at the Kyabram Club. For $25 a head, we certainly got our money’s worth. There was soup, roast vegetables, roast lamb, roast pork, chicken nuggets, chips, calarami rings, slices of pizza, apple crumble, ice-cream, pavlova, fruit salad, chocolate mousse and cheesecake.

Today was completely guilt-free for me though I was being mindful about not overloading my plate on each serving. Despite getting over being sick all week, I’m glad that I was able to take time off work and spend Mother’s Day with my family.

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