#Captain McGee | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

diejager · 1 year

Text

Only Human

Pairing : Monster Task Force 141 x reader

Cw : canon-typical violence, bodies, death, blood, cannibalism?, wounds, trauma.

Wc : 3.2k

Note: the designs for the Monster 141 came from @bluegiragi

Only Human masterlist

When Laswell, a known figure in the Intel gathering ranks of the CIA and military, had called you for your new transfer, you were ecstatic about it. You showed up casually, still in your vest and whole attire from your deployment, you were told that Laswell was waiting for you in her office once you took your first step. You only had time to drop off your weapons in the armory before going straight to her office.

You were personally asked to join a Task Force, not another squad or team under a Captain, which you hadn't expected; an international Task Force to boot, it shocked you, even more, to have been asked to have you on a Task Force that spanned nations wide. The radar must've been wide for it to be an international one, important and specialized soldiers were probably the ones who were invited - green berets, if you guessed.

You were excited, though, to have the honour of joining specialized soldiers with only being a corporal.

"Which Task Force, ma'am?" you asked, back straight with your hands crossed behind your back.

"The 141, Hunter."

Your composure almost slipped, your mind buzzed with excitement and confusion at the notice. The 141 was a reputed group, having members from the United Kingdom to the Americas and allies in the south, around Urzikstan, and perhaps farther. They took down Major Hassan, killing the heart of Al-Qatala and weeding out traitors like General Sheperd and Graves' PMC, the Shadows. A closed group with secrets only they knew and would take to the grave, a tight-knit Task Force.

You've heard of some members, none being human. The Ghost - or Ghost - a wraith hybrid of some sort, as dangerous as he was respectable. He was the better known one, a popular topic from one's lips to the other, gossip and rumors about him being more monster than human. While some were harmless, others were made to be racists - or xenophobic in some rarer cases - most were gossip, exaggerated depictions of the man people feared and admired.

You were jumping under your skin for the day to pass faster, for your transfer to happen more quickly. You couldn't wait to meet your new teammates, you've heard good and bad things about them. Some were sociable, others shy or downright menacing to look and interact with (perhaps they specifically meant Ghost).

You've always wanted to work with monsters, the majority of the military was made up of human men and women with a low, low (around 5%) being monsters, creatures of the night that made them stronger, faster, and better than humans, but they were often hunted until the last decades.

You, however, expected that half of the Task Force was made up of humans, and the rest monsters. You were wrong, really wrong. The moment you stepped out, you realized how unfortunate - maybe fortunate to be stuck with broad, strong, and handsome men - you were to be the sole human. Perhaps it was the shock or the honour that made you freeze and shy away, but neither of them could make you feel as prepared as you should be for officially joining them.

"Welcome to the Task Force, Hunter!" Price yelled over the beating blades of the helicopter, blue eyes staring at you with a - sinful, you found it sinfully handsome - smile hidden under his beard. He also had a green tail that followed behind him, a long, strong tail, you mustn't forget that.

The first ones you talked to were Soap and Rudolfo, two jokesters within the group. Soap was cute, having almost a puppy-like excitement at meeting you with the way he greeted you, smiling and laughing boisterously. He was loud and warm when you first talked to him.

Rodolfo, or Rudy as he told you to call him (you stuck with Rodolfo, feeling too intrusive to call him by his lovely nickname), was Mexican, a special forces, just like everyone else in the TF. He was as warm as the Mexican sun, funny, and soft-spoken.

They had an accent, one a light Mexican and the other a deep Scottish slur in his words. Rudolfo incorporated Spanish words in his sentences, easily understood but adorable nonetheless. Soap's Scottish accent was thicker, deep with his jargon that you sometimes questioned if he was even speaking English.

You only found out that they were monsters when they were training outside. You watched Soap turn from under the shades, eyes keen on his rippling muscles and cracking bones. His jaw shifted, it grew longer and his ears pointed up, light brown fur sprouted from his skin and his mohawk traveled farther, turning into a mane. You could hear the whines and grunts from his transformation.

A werewolf, you learned. He had enhanced strength. He became more durable and agile. He had accelerated healing, almost ten times the speed of regular men, and his senses seemed to have heightened significantly. It looked painful, you concluded so from the bodily sounds and his moans. The heat he exhumed was searing hot, it turned the air around him into mist, burning the water in the air and turning it into gas.

Soap had heard you gasp and awe at his form, broader and taller, he towered over you when he stood on his hind legs. His eyes glowed a vibrant blue when they met yours, waiting and gauging your reaction, but he could only see awe and admiration, perhaps a dash of excitement beneath your gaping expression.

He padded towards you, lurching forward and sending you tumbling on your back as his tongue lolled to the side and hung from his panting maw. His shoulders shook, abdomen flexing rapidly, it looked like he was laughing. At your reaction, or you, you didn't know, all you had in kind wa the urge to touch him. He looked so soft.

It was ironic in some sense, for the man - now creature - who feared dogs to be a werewolf, a larger, more dangerous, and fantastical counterpart to the domesticated dog.

"Can I pet you?" the words fell from your lips before you knew it, your face flushed and your body seized in embarrassment.

Soap huffed and pushed his snout to your shoulder, lowering his head in approval. He would let you pet him, and you took it without complaint. His fur and mane were soft, maybe the softest you've ever touched (you grew up hunting with your father, you knew for as well as any other hunter). It was soft and silky, he had taken great care in his grooming.

He let out a satisfied rumble when he saw you smile, a childish wonder in your eyes. You were so captivated by Soap's looming form over you that you almost forgot about Rudolfo - keyword: almost. Something wet had nudged your elbow, you turned and saw a smaller dog, ghostly pale with glimmering, blue gems for eyes. It looked like a mix of a lab and a shepherd, the combination making this white dog adorable.

Your eyes observed the whole length of it, from its head to its tail, a long whisp-like swirl that turns blur at the end. It connected the dog to Rodolfo. You didn't know what the dog was. Was it a spirit? Or was it a familiar?

"Cadejos, Hunter," Rudolfo answered your silent question, smirking at your petting the spirit with one hand while the other scratched behind Soap's twitching ear. "Dog spirits. I'm their vessel."

That meant he was more human than Soap was, perhaps almost as you. You still gave him an awed look, amazed by the possibility of becoming a vessel for mythological beings and spirits.

You only truly found out whether or not Ghost was human or a monster on a mission. You were sent along with a team led by your Lieutenant to capture a standing AQ cell, one of the few that still stood without their leader.

You were, along with other sergeants, corporals, and privates, separated into two teams, Alpha and Bravo, one led by a sergeant and the other by Ghost. He had you follow him close, a way to watch how you did on the field. You made quick work of them, they were weak, disorganized, and fought with each other when they had no one to lead them. A pity for what used to be a big problem.

You were left on your own, Ghost having gone north to search for something. You had taken down the surviving men, pouncing on them in the dark. When you were done, you wiped your blade on your forearm, cleaning it from the iron stench of blood.

"Could've left one alive, Hunter," Ghost's deep growl made you jump, twisting to meet his dark eyes. They seemed endlessly black, like a void of darkness. "I'm bloody hungry..."

He crept closer, steps slow and purposeful, as if trying to spook you. He stopped before a fresh body, one you muffled and stabbed. The body was still warm, blood pooling from the wound and eyes glossed over with death.

"Hungry, sir?" you asked, unsure of what he meant or if he had muttered it to himself.

He hadn't replied, head turning to examine the rest of the corpses, strewn around you like a gift. A growl rumbled in his chest, mist rolling off his body like a crashing wave. It filled the area around you and tickled your feet in its cold, dark embrace. You watched the fog cover the laying corpses, dissolving and swallowing them into its murkiness.

When he meant by hungry, he actually meant eating humans, you shouldn't have been surprised, a was a wraith hybrid. Spirits of the dead that hate and haunted the living. It made more sense when he told you to let one alive, wraiths preferred living souls, dead ones were still filling but tasted lesser.

"Clean kills, " he finally spoke, his voice a timber lower than it was before his dinner. "Good job, corporal."

You nodded at him, stomach fluttering with his compliment, a praise from such a man - monster - was a prize, something he rarely gave to other soldiers. You smiled under your gaiter, you wore it for better protection in the sandy deserts of Al Mazrah.

"I'll remember leaving some alive next time, L.T."

He craned his head to look at you before he left, eyes squinted in what seemed like a smirk - devilish, you hoped - and gave you a firm nod. You scrambled to follow him, watching his broad, dark back as you walked a few steps behind him. He hadn't spoken a word to you since you got to exfil, but once you landed at the base, he motioned for you to follow him with the jerk of his wrist.

Ghost wasn't so bad if you got past the glaring image of danger he portrayed and the growls he gave. You couldn't wait to work with him again or with the others.

Gaz was a harpy, a very interesting and useful monster to have on your team. He was nice, not as chatty as Soap was, but he talked to you and smiled your way. His caramel-dipped smiles were to die for. He was easy to talk to, by far easier than your lieutenant had been at the start.

You saw him a lot in the rec room, sipping on tea or scrolling through pages on his phone. He was comfortable with you as you were with him, he let his talons out, lounging with his wings across the couch or over your lap as you cleaned them for him. The ever-so-teasing gentleman had a way with his words and his wits, often leaving you flustered or annoyed at his jabs.

Being a harpy meant he was light, bones hollow yet sturdy enough for a human body fitting his strong and slimmer frame. He could fly, and he became much more agile, more so than Soap's werewolf form (birds were naturally more graceful than canines) and he had a telescopic vision, razor-sharp and precise, more than any humans or monsters could have, it rivaled the falcon's keen sight.

If he was so light, agile, and all-seeing, without forgetting he could fly, how did he manage to fall from a helicopter not once, but twice? That question bothered you often, lingering at the back of your mind like a ghost (more so than the wraith himself that kept appearing at random and old moments behind you).

"You can fly, right?" you stared at his face, blank of any expression after finally mustering the courage to ask him.

"These wings aren't just for show, " Gaz hummed, leaning back into the chair that he brought out to watch Soap and Ghost spar. You would have your turn with the wraith after their matches.

"Then how do you manage to fall from a heli twice?" you shot, brows scrunched in a frown, confused.

His wings jerked, black feathers twitching at the reminder - an embarrassing one - of falling out, smiling sheepishly. He simply shrugged, every limb stretching, his wings lengthening to his whole span and toed talons stretching and curling. You were struck by its sharpness, his long nails and claws could cut a man in half, or completely sever a limb off.

You guess you'll never have an answer to your question, he could keep his pride and you could keep your question to yourselves. You wouldn't mind doing so, he let you preen his wings, you could touch those soft feathers and pluck dead or broken ones from his perfect plumage.

Alejandro Vargas, an unmarried and very eligible bachelor with a smooth tongue and a growl of a Mexican accent. He seemed almost too real to be true when he smiled charmingly your way, his perfect, white teeth glimmering under the yellow bulbs and his shiny, sweat-coated skin glowing golden after a mission.

Alejandro's a chivalrous person - and they said chivalry was dead - he's caring and protective. The Los Vaqueros, cowboys, were his team in Las Almas, a family that grew with every new batch of recruits and men and women devoted to the small village they grew up in. Mexicans were a tight-knit community from what you've seen in Alejandro's and Rudolfo's stories.

He was good, handsome, and strong, maybe too perfect to be human, and human, he wasn't. He's a shifter, like Soap, a full-bodied shifter from human to monster. Not unlike his human side, his Nagual side was mighty and honorable, a greater man and an even greater Nagual.

Although solitary by nature, Alejandro was a sociable character, the life of the party if he could, but he was also a responsible man. He was tall, but taller when shifted, claws sharp and a tail helped him balanced.

Once, you'd seen him shift, yellow and brown-dotted fur sprouting from his skin. His lower jaw had protruding canines, standing proudly over the ridge of his nose. He looked like a jaguar hybrid, wearing his golden fur like a crown

His other one, a panther, a jaguar born with more melanin than the usual one, was just as majestic. His fur was a darkened grey with black spots dotting his back and tail. He tended to use this form in darker places, or at night, hitting for efficiency and silence.

Captain Price, you knew he was a monster since your arrival, his long, green tail dragging behind him. You never bothered asking whether he was a lizard or a dragon, you only knew that his scaly tail was reptile-like in origin.

His smoking habit, girthy cigars burning and smoking at the edge, his chapped lips wrapped around the base of it as dark smoke leaked from the sides of his lips, curling in the air and around his beard.

Sometimes, there would be smoke without his cigar being lighted, a dry and unlit stick that still smoked. Charred gas, too dark to simply be cigar smoke. It came from him, inside, you concluded. Dragons could breathe fire and smoke, create it from within and push it out. Stirring around the mass of heat could feel overwhelming, warm, and uncomfortable without a release.

"Why cigars?" Price coccked his head, bro lifted at your question. "Helps me curb the need to burn." He breathed out another cloud, watching it swirl around his golden eyes. He explained it well and simply. Though he also liked the taste of it, an authentic, earthy texture.

Other than the occasional scales here and there that popped out, you've never seen his shift. Did he turn and grow like Soap and Alejandro? Did he change like Ghost and Gaz? Or did he have a dragon spirit? You were, albeit worried about prying, curious about your Captain's change.

Your chance appeared when he called you to his office, wanting your help with something related to his wing- wings? You weren't expecting much, maybe seeing a glimpse of the tip of his wings or the sharp edge of his horns.

He was leaning against his desk when you knocked on his door, letting you in with a sharp grunt. He was hunched over his desk, his wing, green and wide, stretched out. His bucket hat laying on his table, letting his horns grow out and curve upwards, both green and shiny. His tail was violently and anxiously swishing back and forth, hands and arms overturned with scales. His fingers turned green and callused, his nails became sharp claws and tinted green.

"You've got softer hands than any of those blokes, Hunter," Price said, his reason for calling you was for your talented hands, skilled at massages and with the knife. "Lost it in a crash, 's fine."

Although for a reason, you still got to see every part of him, hear the story behind his missing wing, and share a few pleasantries. He groans and grunts during your sessions, but the muscles on his back were less tense and strained.

Price wasn't one to brag about himself, tell his exploits to others, but yours, he did, how skilled your hands were at loosening the knots on his back and shoulders, turning them putty under your palms. Soap had come rushing, following your scent until he found you, for a massage like the one Price got.

You sighed, this wasn't what you signed up for, the sudden rush of adrenaline or scares they would cause, popping or jumping out of nowhere when you had your back turned. Some - Soap, Rudy, and Gaz - were mischievously childish, loving pranks as much as they did them. You'd get white hair before you hit your late 20s.

Fortunately, the three others were far more mature, one charming, one broody, and one proud. You don't regret joining, even with being the weakest and only human in the Task Force, the 141 was your family, a dysfunctional one with an occupational hazard, but still a little family.

After all, big, broad men working by your side on a daily had its perks, and brought a big, horny problem.

3K notes · View notes

popculturebuffet · 5 months

Text

Earth Day Special! (4-Episodes. Too Many To List, Comission for Weird Kev 27)

Happy Earth Day everyone! It's a day to reuse, renew and recycle, reflect on the gifts mother earth has given us and hope it dosen't die horribly from big corporations and general studidity bleeding it dry!

It's also a time to celebrate how cartoons tackle envornmentalism, as Kev, my sorta producer and the guy who pays for the bulk of my commissions each month, is an environmentalist, and thus thought it'd be fun to take a look at a few episodes that tackle a green message and see how they do.

Today we'll be looking at the Rocko's Modern Life Classic "Zanzibar" and three more recent examples; OK K.O. Let's Be Heroes "The Power is Yours", Big City Greens "Green Greens" and The Ghost and Molly McGee's carbon zeor heroes. So join me under the cut as we see how yesterday and today's toons try to teach kids what they can do to help the environment.

Zanzibar (Rocko's Modern LIfe)

We start with the oldest episode here, all the way back from 1996.

Zanzibar is a musical episode, a genre I can't belivie I HAVEN'T covered before but love dearly. Sure sometimes it can be done poorly, but when done right it's a thing of beauty and Zanzibar does it right.

A lot of that is in who wrote it: Dan Povmire and Jeff Swampy Marsh of Phineas and Ferb and Milo Murphy's Law Fame. This is where they got their start and you can tell it's them by the beautiful music and self aware tone. In a great joke everyone dancing and singing is explained by the fact they rehearesed every thursday, except Rocko who wasn't aware this was a thing and is deeply confused. The episode knows it's a musical and an environmental episode when the general strategy to writing one was POLUTION BAD. PEOPLE WHO POLUTE ARE GROTESQUE CORPRATE MONSTERS WHO POLUTE BECAUSE IT'S FUN OR SEXY TIM CURRY POLUTION. We all know grotesque corporate monsters pollute because it's cost effective.

Instead, Zanzibar is pretty blunt about where the issues come from: When Rocko arrives to a full dump after the catchy opening tune, Ed's solution is that "There's plenty of room over there".. in a park. Ed represents callous assholes who dump garbage everywhere, but in a realistic sense: some assholes really are that callous about the environment or act like damaging it dosen't matter. Ed even sings a whole song about how birds and fish are "brainnnnlesss pinheads", which is both beautiful to hear and also gloriously obnoxious.

Thankfully our heroes instead listen to Captain Compost Heap, a wonderfullyd eisgned pile of compost that sings the spelling song, the signature piece of this episode and the one that has been grafted to my head since watching. IT's catchy has hell.. and that's by design as it teaches HOW to help the environment in a way kids could feasably try while getting stuck in their head so the lesson sticks. It teaches the steps: recycle trash to reuse it, conserve power, and don't you P-O-L-L-U-T-E the rivers sky and sea or else your gonna get what you deserve. Simple but effective and it even talks about ozone depletion in detail, one of the best examples i've seen of that, only topped by Futurama's Crimes of the Hot later. Gotta remember that one and a big piece of garbage for next year.

OUr heroes DO mak ea change and help the dump reduce... but it also shows there's limits to what we CAN do as CCH points out the biggest polluter, Conglom-O the souless corporation that owns most of the city and city hall... to the point the crowd that's gathered decides to give up and sing about how you can't fight city hall. What's neat though is that Rocko.. dosen't and decides you can at least TRY to hold corporations accountable. Granted Rocko has a big unruly mob on his side but still.

Granted the episode does make the issue of holding them acountable easy as all it hilarously takes is Rocko barging in, adresssing the board, and then his big unruly mob singing a song to convince them "sure why not". IN real life.. they usually won't or may SAY they will but not actually do shit, and if they do do things it'll be in a performative measure. But I get this is a 90's era cartoon aimed at children, if fun for all, and thus can only do so much.

It DOES however work around this with catharsis: ed's in charge of it and thus gets the thankless job of undoing all Conglomo's shit which at least shows how big corprate greedheads really don't have to put any work into actually fixing their act and foster it on someone else. it's just in this case the someone else is a callous asshole incapable of learning a lesson, so it works out. And all Ed leanrs.. is to be pissed Rocko gave him extra work, and thus is smited by the ozone layer for his insolence. A bit broad? Sure but it works well for it's time and even now holds up really well, being a funny, sharply written episode that knows what it is and what it's limitations are and thus just has fun with it.

The Power is Yours (OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes!)

OK KO is already pretty damn insane and it's great for that. It mixes subtle character development episodes, well done story arcs and a fun world with just about every genre of protagnist stuffed in and juiced up on energy drinks with wacky nonsense episodes.

This is one of those as well as one of OK KO's crossover episodes. While OK KO would do a proper big ole crossover with conteperary shows with Crossover Nexus, most of the time Ian instead focused on older properties. It's why the Grimwood Girls made their triumphant comeback here, why the Sonic crossover had a LOT of adventures of sonic the hedgehog homages, and why for it's first crossover... they choose captain planet.

Keep in mind Captain Planet, while aired on CN and grandfathered in as something owned by Time Warner Bros Discovery, originally aired on TBS and long predated the network. Of all the many great shows Cartoon Network had aired, it was a very left of field choice.

But it's one that clearly ian sincerly backed and rightfully so. The Power is Yours shows a love for Captain Planet while also lampooning the hell out of how over the top it is, which Given OK KO is already over the top in it's world, fits perfectly.

Here Lord Boxman, our resident baddy, gets help from evil efficency effort and former Captain Planet Villian Dr. Blight. He finds her sexay, so he gladly endugles her when she claims poluting and destroying the planet will somehow equal profit, a nice take on how most captain planet villians were greedy buisness types.. yet engaged in stuff that vastly outstripped the profit they'd actually get. There's a reason Captain Planet Villian is now short hand.

As a result the ice caps melt flooding the plaza, smog encroaches.. but only our lead KO gives a fuck. Rad is of course oblivoius and self intrested and Enid dosne't care a lot this early in the series.

Thankfully KO get shelp from Kwame, leader of the planateers played by returning acting icon Lavar Burton, who does a wonderful job. He gives each of the cast a ring.. including A Real Magical Skeleton and his buddy brandon, who have to share the wind ring.

Captain Planet is able to turn the tide and the animators.. just have fun with the series cartoony nature, having Captian Planet do the goddamn certified Jojo pose, complete with araki style art shift, above, suck up all the polution like a ballon and generally get to do looney tunes stuff.

As is standard procedure if I remmeber right, Captain Planet gets struck down and as is standard procedure fo rour heroes, Rad and Enid bicker and it takes KO using the power of HEART to get them to care about the environment which powers up CP enough to save the day.

The plot's simple.. btu what makes it work is how tounge in cheek it is: this is captain planet taken to it's most rediculous extreme and it works. The only thing missing is ted turner murdering people to really fit. And the ending.. improves on the source with Captain Planet pointing out what they've done.. really dosen't GUARANTEE the world is okay. We have to take systemic, group action to really make a change and not let the planet fall into a firey hell pit and while doing what you can is good, if exagerated for parody's sake here, climate change is something that's not easily fixed nor going away. It's a lesson we all need to learn and one well taught, mixnig the over the top parody and moralizing.. with a real message that lands because it's so seprated from what came before without feeling jarring. Captain Planet calmly telling a small child that it's not that easy.. works. The power is this episodes and the onlyt hing it was missing was a ted turner rampage.

Green Greens (Big City Greens)

Green Greens follows our favorite family as they try to clean up their own environment.. and also showcases how while Recycling IS a good thing, sometimes doing so can be a trial.

The ep kicks off with Bill finding out his garden is rotting. Naturally like 80% of his problems, it's cricke'ts fault, who has created a trash hole in the garden not getting that their crops are you know.. how they pay for food and stuff. As usual it dosen't sink in, not helped by the revelation Gramma has been aiding and abetting this nightmare. Tilly didn't know because "We knew you would snitch sweety" and I assume Gloria, their live in 20 something the family basically adopted in all but paper, didn't either.

Bill plans to clean all this up but runs into a problem thanks to said gloria; A flourcesnt bulb is among the trash and if not disposed properly it can leak into the enviroment, something I honestly forgot and is good to know. Wanting to both prove a point and not kill their yard worse than his son already has, Bill agrees to Gloria's suggestion to take it to an e-waste center. Gloria will drive and Tilly will tag along because she's a pure ray of sunshine while Cricket and Gramma will clean up the consequences of their actions.. which admitely isn't the biggest punishment as Cricket mocks bill about how he gets to play in the trash... though Gloria calling hi ma little racoon is adorable. She's a good big sister.

Gloria DOES have her limits though as our heroes end up in a traffic jam, and Gloria has big plans for tonight

Okay she just dosen't want to spend her saturday in traffic when her surrogate dad and sister can just take the train so their left on their own. What follows is an epic quest, as our heroes have trouble finding the chartruse line.. a gag I really like as Bill wonders if tha'ts even a color. They find help with an activist who is suprised anyone is actually doing something as fortold in the prophecy and guides them to their destination: beyond the bridge of woe to the e-waste center, it's frought with peril. Bill has an understandable question

And there's no real answer but I get their point: sometimes city planning makes it hard to .. you know actually recycle. not everywhere collects recycling. I know my town dosen't. And while Big City DOES, it's e-waste center is on the other side of town, in the shady and smog filled industrial district. It's not making it easy to do the right thing and it shoudn't be this hard to properly dispose of a lightbulb.

Our heroes treck through urban mordor.. and fine their on the wrong side. Bill does the understandable thing and goes laughing mad, scaring away some toughs and planning to just chuck it. TIllyt alks him down pointing out sometimes doing the right thing is hard.. but you should still do it.. even if it means crossing an industrial waste. And the thing is getting the bulb there for the one day a week, if that, it can be recycled... dosen't really fill them with any satisfaction.

What does that and gives them closure with their quest.. is the b plot> Cricket and Gramma are naturally hot mess. They do clean out the trash hole.. but now have a full trash can and a GARBAGE MOUNTAIN to deal with. Cricket does what I usually doa nd jsut stuffs it all in.. and it predictably backfires, spilling out all over.

They go with plan b: just stuff it in the neighbors dumpster.. and said neighbor says i'ts not very chill so they back off.. but does provide a solution. Recycling! The episode shows how recyling trash.. helps reduce it to a managable level, helping break down the issue of "well it makes it harder to have to sort the trash. it does.. at first.. but doing so helps reduce their trash. It honestly makes me want to try recycling simply because it seems like it'd help my room not be the wasteland it is.

It also delivers the episodes aseop: doing your part for the envorment is hard and often thankless.. but just doing your little bit with worth it. Just doing that much has already restored the soil around the crops.. and that's enough to make bill and tilly feel like their journey was worth it. And Gloria. she helped too. Probably.

Carbon Zero Heroes (The Ghost and Molly McGee)

Our final stop for this special, as we look in on the recently departed the Ghost and Molly McGee. Fun fact this is the first episode from season 2 i've seen.

This episode is also my first exposure to Ollie. He's our protaganist Mollie's boyfriend and thus to the shippers

That's somehow not an exageration either: See in season one Molly was heavily shipped with her closest friend Libby and her nemises turned friend Andrea, the former because they have adorable chemistry and compliment each other and the latter for both some of those reasons and because Disney shippers really love enemies to lovers. Given I ship both Sashanne and Lumity, I sympathize. So introducing a canon love intrest whose not either of them was always going to be a struggle. I'm a shipper myself, I get it. Sometimes it's hard. I mean i've been trying to ship this dog for several days

But i'm still not sure exactly who. It's a hard buisness and sometims you can go years without finding a character to pair with a character. Especially when ti's a cartoon british dog who already has a LOT of shit to put up with and thus needs someone SOMEWHAT stable. and also like 30's ish. What i'm saying is shipping wendy is harder than I expected and I get canon sometimes sucks.

I won't however bash Ollie for that as he was already being created byt he time season 1 aired, and thus the staff really didn't have time to pivot with the tides. At worst he's kinda bland as in at least this episode he's really just.. molly but a dude. That's it. Their adorable.. but unlike Libby or Andrea he dosen't really play off of her in an intresting way. his voice actor, who also has the voice of an angel in the musical number for this episode, feels he boosts her up, which fits.. but I still get that it's just not as intresting as Molly helping Libby with her shyness and Libby consequently help;ing Molly take about 10% off or Andrea's cool demeanor and slow reform contrasting Molly just going for it. It's not that Olly is TERRIBLE, he's just nojt AS good as the ships the fans had built up by the time he popped into the world.

So where were we.. ah yes. Someone help me ship this dog. She does pilates, can deadlift a grown dog man, and is the loving mother of one. She'as also easily startled but given her neighbor once slapped his ass in front of her as part of a game with his daughter and got shoved down the stairs for the same reasons while treating it as if it wasn't a big deal, you can see why maybe I want her to be happy

And oh yes the episode. Okay so our episode is kicked off by a lecture on how if we dont' fix climate change

And leaves the children all scared. Scratch, our ghost and Mollys ghost BFF, figures it's humanity's problem as he's dead. He dosen't have to deal with this and he certainly doesn't have a human body he forgot about. Nope not him.

Molly, being a go getter naturally dosen't take this lying down and wants to do something while Libby.. feels we're all fucked and there's ntohing we can do and has prepared a bunker. I was not expecting this to have a LIbby subplot about her survivial bunker for the inevitable fall of mankind, but here we are and it is glorious.

Ollie however agrees with Molly that they can do something so in classic kids tv fashoin tehy start recycling, pick up garbage, do all the carbon zero footprint stuff all to a catchy well done song.. and costume changes. I did say they were adorable, I prefer molibby but they aren't bad.

The episode also does something few kids shows have done, and something I like: While Big City Greens talked about taking small steps, Rocko foreshadowed what a bit task it was and OK KO showed whatever steps you tak earen't enough alone, TGAMM shows just HOW MUCH it'd take to actually leave a zero footprint. Our heroes bike everywhere, can't watch anything, can't have pizza, eat turnips they grew but can't cook them because gas (even though fire is an option. Whose for fire?), keep bugs off said turnips, miss a birthday party and are generally utterly miserable.. and it only improves the earth by .00000000003%. The hard truth is doing NO harm to the envronment in a world set up that way... is simply impossible without radical life changes two 13 year olds simply aren't capable of. They can't buy a farm or have the money to grow crops and can't bike up hills reliably. As a wise 10 year old once said

It's a hard truth.. but one kids NEED to hear. You can't do everything yourself, the world is hard to change and you shouldn't kill yoruself doing so. It dosent mean having a trash hole or nothing matters it just means saving the earth isn't something you can do by yourself.

While our heroes were hitting rock bottom we get that bunker subplot, which is the best part of the episode. Granted I already liked libby a lot as a character but given her sometimes depressed nature, it fits perfectly that she simply decided instead of trying to change thigns to prepare to the end, and seeing the normally shy libby show off her zombie bunker is great. She even gladly invites Scratch. What's a bunker without friends. This plot is here for two reasons. the first is it's hilarious and provides a nice contrast from how.. rough the a plot can get as while there are some funny bits it's rough watching two well meaning 13 year olds nearly drive themselves nuts trying to fix climate change.

So instead we get another tween whose happily set up a zombie survivial bunker and counters Scratch's "those don't exist" with "People dont think ghosts are real either". Touche. She also has a blanket with spikes and a bed with spikes. Lots of spikes, canned goods and posters to prepare for the zombei apocalypse or any old apocalypse.

The other reason besides being objectively hilarious is it shows the other extreme: giving up, accepting the world will go to shit and errupt in fire and being prepared to live in a horrifying post apocalypse. And that itself.. isn't healthy. I mean having a bunker shockingly is as having somewhere safe and secure planned in case shit goes down, especially when your best friend has recently dealt with super ghosts, isn't that unresonable especially in these times. I can see why Libby's mom lets her keep it. They MIGHT need it.

The problem is just.. giving up: accepting the world will end instead of at least trying.

It's worth it to just.. try to make the world more sustainable. We can't probably entirely FIX climate change, but we can at least try. It's the lesson throughout all these episodes: climate change dosen't have an easy answer, but you can't give up.

So Molly and Ollie do.. but scratch encourages them.... ti's mostly to save ice cream as he realizes apocalypse food sucks, but it ends up being a good metaphor: that alone we can't save ice cream, but together we can. That community action.. is really what's needed> it might not fix EVERYTHING.. but we can at least try.

So Molly goes to town hall... which isn't as over the top as it might sound because she's tight with the mayor and has done a lot of community improvment. Of course their going to listen to her and her boyfriend and her future girlfirend and her army of racoons. She's earned it.

So Molly simply pitches a green intivaitve for the town which mayor patton oswalt naturally agrees to because he's a good dude and again, Molly has done a LOT for this town. He tried to make her mayor once. Simply doing their part, picking up trash, upping recycling, and setting up windmills... it'll only help them get carbon neutral by a decade from now.. but it's something, and shows you can acomplsih something by just trying. Also Scratch has become jabba the hutt from a lot of ice cream.

So that ends this retrospective and I gotta say.. not a bad episode in the bunch. All teach their lesson well without being patronizing or ignoring how hard going green CAN be. It was a great crop so this earth day, save a tree, try to recycle.. just do what you can. Do all you can do and it'll make the world just a little better.. and maybe tell a billionare to fuck off. I'm writing this in advance but Elon Musk will probably have done something that day. So thanks for reading and happy earth day.

#earth day #rocko's modern life #ok ko #ok ko let's be heroes #captain planet #big city greens #the ghost and molly mcgee

3 notes · View notes