#there were some good characters though i like gideon
Photo
*cough cough* *hack* *wheeze* *clears throat* you got some wader?
the sketch: it’s the 8 guy on the left. walmart draco, or whatever they have in new zealand
#the locked tomb#gideon the ninth#tlt fanart#tlt#dulcinea septimus#gtn#gtn fanart#silas octakiseron#gideon the ninth spoilers#(especially past this tag)#cytherea the first#cytherea loveday#the locked tomb fanart#gideon the ninth fanart#gtn spoilers#the book was okay but i didn't like the first two enough to get nona#there were some good characters though i like gideon#and mr my caviliar will hear about this was my favourite he was funny
7K notes
·
View notes
Text
My wonderful girlfriend got me Gideon the Ninth for Christmas and I realized why should I just give Worm recaps? Let's read some Locked Tomb! (We'll see how this format works, maybe I'll adjust it. Specifically might break stuff down into smaller segments instead of full acts, but I didn't think of doing this until after I had read all of act 1.)
Gideon the Ninth Act 1 (chapter 1 through 8) thoughts:
This book is so gay oh my god
Like, it's gay in ways I can't even explain. I love it.
Harrow beats the shit out of Gideon in chapter 2 and I don't know if I've ever seen someone get beat up in a more gay way.
"Oh Griddle! But I don't even remember about you most of the time." ROLL A FUCKING DECEPTION CHECK HARROW! You are saying this standing in the middle of the field you spent all night burying bones in just to foil her escape in the most dramatic way. You can't stop remembering her.
Gideon is the most herbo of herbos. I fucking love her. I love reading her PoV. She just knows punch and stab with sword and if those don't work than she'll just do them harder.
Also Gideon is SO fucking gay. Dear god. Dulcinea faints and Gideon turns off all though. HELP PRETTY GIRL. Nothing else.
Ok I could just make this whole thing "EVERYTHING IS GAY" but there is technically more than that.
I love how weird everything is and how little explanation is given. I don't want pages of exposition, I want to learn the world as it comes at me! This is perfect.
And just the very nature of things that seem weird not being given more than a passing thought in the book is information. Something may seem wild to the reader but it's so normalized to the characters that they wouldn't even think about the idea of it being different.
Lack of explanation also helps really show how much of a meathead Gideon is. Do the readers get to learn details about this thing? Only if it is a weapon, has tits, or Gideon is forced to listen while Harrow explains it. Otherwise no, why the fuck would Gideon spend her precious few brain cells on thinking?
And even if Gideon is forced to listen as Harrow explains it, the readers might not learn much cause Gideon might stop listening. I love her.
Aiglamene is wonderful. Crux is fine but I like her more.
Poor Gideon just wants a big sword that she can swing hard. It's not like she can't use a rapier. But why when she can go big sword?
SO MUCH CATHOLICISM
As someone who once was Catholic and then realized I was actually not a straight man, but instead a lesbian, I am in deep.
And the fucking slang used! Or whatever would be the right term. The shit they say! I love it. Just the weird sci-fi far future space necromancer universe and then suddenly "Are you asking me to . . . throw her a bone?", "Gideon had always known that this would be how she went: gangbanged to death by skeletons.", "Don’t hypothetically shove stuff up my butt again, it never does any good.", "Lo! A destructed ass.", "Well we were developing common sense, she studied the blade.", "Double Bones with Doctor Skelebone."
House of the First appears to be Earth. I kinda assume the House of the Ninth is Pluto, even though things obviously aren't in order given that the Seventh and Sixth are closer to the sun. Of course, I'm kinda expecting this to not technically be this solar system at all.
Undying Emperor, King of Resurrection, I Have Ten-Thousand Titles, Boss First, etc etc hasn't been on "Earth" in over nine thousand years. I wanna know MORE.
And the fucking Ninth House has their own prayer! Everyone else has one that the Ninth didn't know and then the Ninth had one that no one else knows! GIMME MORE!!!!
Also again, so many Catholicism metaphors or comparisons or whatever!
I could go on forever but gonna end this one with OH MY GOD SHE FOUND SUNGLASSES I LOVE HER. Fucking "I came prepared, my sweet." and "But then you couldn't have admired . . . these!" as she whips on the sunglasses. God. I nearly died.
#The Locked Tomb#tlt#Gideon the Ninth#Cairavende reads The Locked Tomb#Gideon Nav#Harrowhark Nonagesimus#Dulcinea Septimus#This might be the most lesbian thing I've ever read and I've read some pretty fucking lesbian things#Dulcinea might be my favorite so far
200 notes
·
View notes
Text
the locked tomb holiday exchange rec list
Behold! The good, the magnificent, the sad! The filth and the angst and the feelings! The weird shit that would make TazMuir proud! 💀🎉✨☠️🔥🎊
Here are some favourites from a skim of works posted for @tlt-holiday-exchange, both art and fic. They are MANY and they are JUICY. Find the entire collection HERE, and keep an eye on for authors reveal coming soon!
ART FILLS
A Beautiful Fairy Tale. Wake tells little Bomb a bedtime story but she can't mention a princess without talking about guillotines. Rated T.
Dubious Curiosity. Nona is curious. Nona loves everyone. And Nona wants Cam. (Camilla/Nona) Rated M.
Fingers In Her Mouth. Camilla Hect misses the Warden. Maybe he can lend a helping hand… even in death. (Camilla/hand!Palamedes) Rated M.
just guys being bros. Camilla/Gideon. Gideon touches a boob! A very happy new year to awkward butch lesbians everywhere. Rated T.
Pyrrha Dve Appreciation. Pyrrha & Nona, soft hugs! Rated G.
Stealing Breath. Camilla/Gideon butch-off make-out session. Rated G.
To Shreds, You Say? Pyrrha/Mercymorn/Wake fucking nasty. Rated E.
FIC FILLS
a buried and a burning flame. Coronabeth fucks Gideon's corpse. Rated E.
For all intents and purposes the corpse of the Ninth’s cavalier is a bad lay. That’s all fine, though.
a grave, deep and narrow. Camilla/Palamedes, GtN AU, Character Death, Tape Recorder Conversation Redux. Podfic included! Rated T
Only Lyctors were meant to leave the First House alive. Ianthe insists on bringing Coronabeth; Judith dies of her injuries. Camilla is stranded alone at Canaan House — alone, except for the persistent hallucinations of her necromancer.
affix. Coronabeth/Harrow, humiliation kink, improper use of bones, dom!Harrow, GtN era. rated E.
Cytherea doesn't go to Canaan House AU - Corona overconfidently approaches Harrow in the hopes of exchanging lab keys. Harrow humbles her quickly.
AITA for telling my dad I didn't like my birthday party? Gideon & John, In-Universe Social Media, Character study, Rated T.
I (20F) told my dad (45?M) that I wanted a cool birthday party, but he threw me a terrible birthday party instead. Am I really the asshole for telling him I didn't like it?
and kings shall come out of thy loins. Gideon/Ianthe, crack treated seriously, body horor, SNAKES. Rated M.
Ianthe saves God from the stoma and the River and all she has to show for it are these fucking snubes.
come, dearest heart. Lyctor Palamedes AU, HtN era. Camilla/Palamedes, Pyrrha/Palamedes, Pyrrha/Camilla/Palamedes. Rated E.
In Canaan House, Palamedes Sextus unwillingly ascends to Lyctorhood to put an end to Cytherea the First's rampage. He's left heartbroken, grieving, and terribly, terribly lonely.
Don't Care If You Think I'm Dumb (I Don't Care At All). Gideon/Ianthe, Gideon as Kiriona, Unwholesome Tower Princes Bonding ft. bad sex and retail therapy. Rated E.
The newly christened Kiriona Gaia is not having a good time on the Mithraeum. At least she has Ianthe there to make her worse.
Follow Your Dreams, Never Let Them Die. Gideon/Harrow, Pokemon trainers AU! Rated T.
On her Pokemon Journey, Gideon Nav approaches the mysterious Drearburh City Gym - but something feels oddly familiar.
Gaia's Natural Market. modern AU, retail hell, Harrow/Gideon, Harrow/Ianthe, Gideon/Ianthe. Rated T
RING-A-DING-DING, the Holiday's are here! And nothing says "Give!" like the bounty of the Mother Herself, so come on by to GAIA's Natural Market! Treat your family to a home-cooked meal with only the PUREST of ingredients - all Produce Organic, all Products non-GMO, and all Smiles Authentic and free of Toxins!
Good Girl. Coronabeth/Ianthe, puppyplay, muzzles, rated E.
Coronabeth is Ianthe's big dicked bimbo puppy. Ianthe's into it.
Goodnight, New Rho. Camilla & Nona. Domestic Fluff, Missing Scene. Rated G.
Nona gets a bedtime story. Camilla reminisces about growing up with an older sister. They both sleep well, despite a notable lack of dogs.
In the Empire of the Deeps. Gideon/Nona/Ianthe, Gideon/Ianthe, Pirate AU, monsterfucking-adjacent, Nona is an eldritch sea creature. Rated E.
A chance encounter on the beach. Ianthe is manipulative, Kiriona is sad, and Nona is not as innocent as she seems. Sometimes, you might yearn for one person and meet another one. Sometimes, you have to take what you can get.
just like normal. Ianthe/Coronabeth, Cytherea is also there. Penis in vagina sex, Exhibitionism, Squirting. Rated E.
Ianthe gives herself a cock, and Corona is increasingly bewildered that she hasn’t been allowed to sit on it yet.
language of its own. Camilla/Palamedes. Worldbuilding, idiots to lovers, pre-canon. Rated T.
Camilla Hect has to do an erotic poetry final.
Masochism Tango. Porn with feelings, knifeplay, vivisection, lyctor-typical everything. Rated E.
Two occasions in which Pyrrha Dve had the pleasure of being under Cytherea's knife, and Mercymorn had the pleasure of Pyrrha Dve.
METHODS OF SUBDUCTION. Judith/Cornabeth, Judith & Varun. Planetary science rizz. Rated M.
Varun the Eater teaches Judith Deuteros how to flirt.
midnight mass. Mercymorn/Cristabel, pre-canon, Character Study. Rated T.
A lifetime before the resurrection and two decades before the apocalypse, a novice nun and a third-year medical student discuss goodness, passion, and salvation at midnight on Christmas morning.
motherhood. Mercymorn uses flesh magic on Wake. Hate sex ensues. Body horror, motherhood as violence, canon compliant. Rated E.
“I will kill you,” you say, with all the placid fervor of a religious convert. When you’re on the edge of real violence, you lose that tense little furrow in your brow—it’s beautiful, really. “Please give me a reason.”
My Love Overflows. Corona/Ianthe, Strap-on, Dirty talk, Impact Play, Hair Pulling, Bladder control. Rated E.
The one in which Corona pisses all over herself at Ianthe's whims.
name and rank. Judith/Coronabeth, Judith & Varun. Judith's failwoman swag! Rated T.
As Judith lies dying, she has nothing but time. Varun the Eater uses it to teach her how to flirt with the Princess. Don’t worry. Varun has got this!
New Rule. Mercymorn/Pyrrha, Ranch AU, stablehand Pyrrha, boss/employee relationship. Rated E.
Never hire stablehands who are too handsome and capable for their own good.
no shade in the shadow of the cross. Cytherea/Mercymorn, angst, fisting, two pillow princesses NOT making it work! Rated E.
Cytherea and Mercymorn have an ill-timed tryst.
per my last email. Camilla/Palamedes. Academia, banter. On peer review and multitasking. Rated M.
“Warden,” she said patiently, “you want me so badly it’s making you stupid."
RISKING OUR LIVES FOR UNIVERSITY HOLE???? 🤯😳 University AU, Team 69. The hole is a basement to be clear! Rated T.
The difficult part of visiting the local haunted house for a feature in the university magazine is not actually the visiting; it’s the writing about it afterwards.
So Messed Up. Ianthe/Coronabeth. Puppy play, collars & leashes, tail plug. Rated E.
Ianthe using her flesh magic to give Corona a big cock for petplay because she loves the idea of her sister being a big dicked bimbo puppy girl who just wants to rut into her.
The Great Gamete Gambit. Camilla & Palamedes, Pre-canon, worldbuilding, sixth house reproductive practices. Rated G.
Palamedes and Camilla have an important package to send, but there's been a heist in the gamete repository! Can the 15-year-old Master Warden and his cavalier crack the case?
The Sextus Scandal. Camilla/Palamedes, Epistolary, Pre-Canon Divergence. Rated E.
Transcripts and documents relating to the disciplinary hearing and subsequent resignation of Master Warden Palamedes Sextus.
Ways to Be Perfect. Babs/Colum Asht, GtN era, Rated M.
When Naberius first glanced across the supper table at Colum Asht, he didn’t immediately get the impression that he was liked.
The end!
Thank you for making it this far. If you enjoyed any of these works, or anything else in the collection, please drop a comment to make our creators feel appreciated <3
[post creators reveal exchange wrap post]
#tlt fic#fic recs#tlt holiday ex 2023#tlt fanfic#tlt fanart#tlt#the locked tomb#if you enjoyed these pls leave feedback on the collection <3#and thanks to the mods for putting it all together#114 (!!!!) works now!!!
176 notes
·
View notes
Text
Scott pilgrim is a modern retelling of Dante’s Inferno, and I want to talk about it
Hi . Brought this up very briefly a while ago but i rewatched spto with friends last night and got my gears turning. I don’t usually make posts like this but It’s been on my mind and I want to share. Here we goooo. Under read more becwuse I wish not to disturb my beloved friends with a long post
First off, let’s start with theeeee obvious.
Say hello to our Dante and Beatrice.
I don’t think I need to go into this first one much, but Scott and Dante are of course the heroes(term used lightly. Scott is not a good person and honestly neither was fuckinh Dante of all people) of their respective tales, going through hell and back to win over this ethereal, “too good to be true” heavenly dream girl. Scott even dies to get her in the end, like Dante venturing down into the depths of hell, dying and then ascending to get to Beatrice. If I wanted to really stretch it I could say the dreamscape is a sort of purgatory but I don’t think there’s enough evidence for that one.
Next,
Our Virgil. What’s up, Wallace.
In the comics Wallace acts as a sort of guide to Scott. We end up seeing him less as the comic progresses, which I find lines up with Virgil having to part ways with Dante before he enters heaven. Not much to say otherwise admittedly. Love you though buddy
Now for the symbolism of hell. Since there are nine circles of hell, it obviously can’t match up one to one with the exes unless we add some of scott’s relationships to the mix, which both doesn’t make sense, causes this analysis to get stupider than it already is, and leaves some characters left over that already don’t fit in to these parallels.
Luckily, however, there are The Seven Deadly Sins. Going to be going in sin order rather than ex order here
Firstly,
MATTHEW PATEL - PRIDE
- the first boyfriend and the first sin very conveniently line up, which threw me off track because I thought the exes would go in the order of the sins. Enyways
- in the movies, comics, and shows, he is insanely flashy with how he presents himself. It’s the entrance, the dances, the expressive clothing (“that guy’s dressed as a pirate” “pirates are in this year!”, modifying Gideon’s suit to fit his color palette, the outfit he wore while kicking gideon’s ass). The theatre kid in him essentially
- taking the lead in the musical Knives and Stephen presented him with— they knew how to cater to him, because he views himself as the coolest bitch on the planet. Which honestly he kind of is but don’t tell him this
- so headstrong in his pride that he fucks up. Repeatedly. First to get killed, too cocky, spends all of gideons money “I’ve lost billions!”
- believes he’s entitled to Ramona as soon as he wins the fight against Scott
GIDEON- GREED
- I don’t feel like I have to explain this one but I will because I enjoy him greatly
- CEO, billionaire. Money money money mr rich
- literally “owns” or tries to excersize ownership Ramona in the comics and movie as if she belongs to him— with the glow, or with the chip implanted into her neck with his logo on it.
- has all of his past girlfriends cryogenically frozen. All for him none for anyone else. They should only love meeeeee.
- wants everything for himself in excess. Women, fame, money. Almost considered pride for him also but greed is more fitting
KEN AND KYLE- ENVY AND LUST
- holy shit this image has five pixels so sorry about that I’m on my phone and Google images sucks
- anyways of course they’re sharing sins
- not much to say here as they don’t show up much, and it’s easy to make the argument of envy or lust for ANY of the seven exes. These two were the hardest to figure out. Not as sure on Envy, but can definetly advocate for lust— playing around with women, thinking they were playing around with Ramona.
TODD- GLUTTONY
- this one was the easiest one for me. Like come on
- breaks vegan edge in the comics, movie, (vegan police), and show (Wallace breakup event 2 dead 5 injured)
- his whole persona revolves around food. Of course gluttony doesn’t always mean food but here it most definetly equates. Even when he’s vegan he always makes it a talking point of how superior he is to others because of this fact, only for it to blow up in his face when his enjoyment of non vegan food catches up to him.
ROXY- WRATH
- a very angry girl to be sure. Takes her emotions out using violence, attacking Ramona the first time she sees her, even though she is going out of the order of the league and supposed to be attacking Scott (although I guess that point is moot because they all think he’s dead at that point)
- “I’m bi-furious” line from the movie deserves a shout out here I think
- (completely justified) Unending rage against Ramona in the show, and scott in the comics and movies. She is PISSED.
Lastly,
LUCAS LEE- SLOTH
- also one of the easiest ones. Could have made an argument for pride (tries to prove he can land a sick ollie so hard that he dies) or greed (movie star who lives in huge mansion), but sloth ultimately fit the bill the best.
- even before we get into his reoccurring theme of “whatever” in the show, it’s pretty evident in the comics and movie that he doesn’t care enough to extend effort. He tells Scott he’ll leave him alone and say his ass got kicked if Scott gave him a twenty dollar bill, sends his stunt doubles to fight Scott in his stead.
- onto the show, he lets his stardom slip out of his fingers with his attitude, not even caring to read or memorize the script anymore (“is that why half the lines in your last film were ‘Let’s Party’?” “I uhh, read the title.” Etc). Just spends all his time messing around and skateboarding. The title of his episode is literally “Whatever”. He doesn’t give enough of a shit to care. Which. Respect I guess
Extra; the exes ARE referred to as “the seven deadly chumps” in the show.
In conclusion;
#Scott pilgrim#ramona flowers#Wallace wells#matthew patel#gideon graves#todd ingram#roxy richter#lucas lee#kyle katayanagi#ken katayanagi#scott pilgrim takes off#scott pilgrim vs the world#writing#not ocs#this took me an hour to write tghis is why there’s so many tags.#anyways thank you bye bye
156 notes
·
View notes
Text
I mentioned at some point I was gonna talk about how Gideon Ofnir's helmet is probably one of my favourite pieces of Fromsoft character design a little while ago, so I figured I should talk about it before I forget to again
I really like this helmet because it serves as an excellent crystallization of Gideon as a character, so I figured I'd break it down and go step by step as to why I like it so much
Firstly, its design is clearly based off the Greek Corinthian helm, which sticks out a fair amount when compared to Elden Ring's generally 13-16th century European fantasy aesthetic, doing a good job communicating that he is, effectively, much older than most of the other characters present, and conveys a sense of seniority that even he himself comments on when you first visit the Roundtable Hold. (There is an argument that it could also be based off a barbute helm, but I feel like the sharper shape language and closer-to-bronze coloration swing it more towards the Corinthian helm for me)
Secondly, and quite possibly more obviously, the ears. Viewed from a distance they give a vibe closer to a sort of scholarly beard almost reminiscent of greek philosopher statues, again tying in to his aged academic vibe, but being ears instead of a beard also hints at his deceptive nature as even his character design is somewhat misleading, but also hints at his more insidious habit of watching and especially listening to everything you do. He is called the All-Hearing for a reason, after all
The spikes on his helm mirror the shape of a crown, symbolizing both his lordship over the Roundtable Hold, but also his desire to become Elden Lord. Given how simplistic the points are, as well as how some of them (in the icon at least) appear almost bent or dented, I feel could also demonstrate how worthy of a lord one like Gideon may actually be, worn, out-of-shape, thin to the point of frail-looking and remarkably plain compared to the meticulous engravings and stalwart construction of a crown like Godfrey's, but that might be a bit of a stretch so take it with a grain of salt lmao
The eyes across the forehead lock in the crown aesthetic for him (as well as touching slightly on the double helix pattern that is literally everywhere in this game), while also further punctuating his motif of eyes and ears; always watching, always listening to what you do. Curious that the eyes are notably less detailed than his ears though, I wonder if that's relevant
Lastly, the "face". It's a fairly common trope out there that people tend to use masks in character design to portray an air of distrust about a character, in a sort of "If they were trustworthy why would they conceal their face" sort of way. This feels incredibly deliberate on Gideon's part, since a helm like that by all accounts should let you see a good portion of the wearer's face, and is indeed why barbute helms have been a staple of good guy knights throughout the fantasy genre for years, Gideon's quite clearly does not, preferring to cast his face in impenetrable shadow. and That, I think, is a pretty blatant and in-your-face indicator that you definitely should not trust him
Anyway character design is really cool have fun out there 👍
#Pun's text Posts#Elden Ring#Gideon Ofnir#The All-Knowing#There's other things I could go into as well too#like how meticulously detailed the ears are compared to like every other detail in this helmet#but idk how to put my thoughts about that into words so this is all y'all get from me lmao
151 notes
·
View notes
Text
PlayfulLand Theories before the event starts!
Everybody's excited for the New Twst Halloween Event coming to the JP servers, right? I am too. These bones been rattlin' since I found out. And my brain has been rotting with theories and predictions. Are they baseless? Likely. I would like to say I've seen enough of a pattern in this game to see a familiar plot coming down the pipe. Call it grasping at straws or pareidolia, but I'm having fun turning this all in my brain. Everybody in the Brainrot Buggie, we're making wild guesses and throwing shit at the wall to see what is right.
(SPOILERS FOR TWST PLAYFULLAND EVENT, TWST CH. 6, BLACK BUTLER: BOOK OF CIRCUS. CW for Child Abuse, manipulation/loss of physical faculties, and general body horror)
Biggest takeaway from this theory dump: Fellow and Gidel aren't the main antagonists of this event.
"But Trinket, they're the face of the event! How are they not the Big Bads?" I hear you wonder. It's because they weren't the Main Antagonists in their own source material. These two were:
Stromboli and The Coachman.
Assuming anyone reading has already watched the 1940 film, will note these two are connected to Honest John and Gideon/The Fox and Cat by their financial dealings. The Coachman in specific pays the Two for them to round up boys to bring to Pleasure Island to meet their fates. In most iterations of Pinnochio, Mangiafuoco/Stromboli and The Coachman are two separate entities. One adaptation, though, combines them. And while I will not delude myself to think it was an inspiration for the potential 'Actual Big Bad', an idea came to mind when thinking of the character from the 1996 The Adventures of Pinnochio, Lorenzini. A couple ideas, actually…
But before I get to that, where else in Toboso-sensei's work have we seen Charismatic Gingers in Circus Settings who are the bait-and-switch 'face' of a story arc?
That's right:
Joker.
I guess not really 'bait and switch', but a lot of emphasis was put on him as a character when Book of Circus first came out. But then he and the rest of the Circus troupe began mentioning a man they called Father. Baron Kelvin.
Before his obsession sparked for Ciel, he was a philanthropist who could have been considered a good man. But in the state we meet him in for the first time in BoC, he's a completely changed man obsessed with becoming physically appealing to Phantomhive, to the detriment of the children who had and would come under his 'care'. Their bones became the ceramic used to give prostheses to the rest of the circus.
What if we're gearing up to have a similar figure 'pulling the strings' in this coming event? An amalgamation of Stromboli/The Coachman/Baron Kelvin…and Monstro the Whale?
"Why Monstro? We already have a reference with Azul's cafe!"
Remember Lorenzini that I mentioned earlier?
He's also a combination of The Puppetmaster, Coachman, and Whale. What if this Combination character… was a Whale merman? A merman looking for a different way to stay human, in a sense 'Become a Real Boy'? What if his transition to humanity has him stuck in one location out of the way? What if this is all a trap to sap the life/magic out of these boys so he can shirk his mer form for permanent legs? While it could be a stretch to say this is the case, lemme see if I can coherently explain…
@thecosmicjackalope posed the notion that the extraneous went characters might in some way be foils/parallels to the Overblot Gang. So far we have Idia getting a parallel with Rollo (two siblings dealing with the grief over the death of their brother), what if this is an event paralleling Azul and his dynamic with The Tweels?
Shady fish men with (possible) varying degrees of disgust with their mer forms
Equally fishy business practices
Employ more physically capable individuals to do his 'legwork'
Plan(ned) on having the student body of NRC under their thumb of servitude
Employ magical tactics to entice and bind those they want into their grasp.
On top of all of this, what if his magic extends to both Fellow and Gidel? What if those two are just a regular fox and cat given sentience to do a whale's dirty work? Would they turn back after being defeated? That would explain the motivation, outside of just 'I'm getting paid handsomely to bring these boys in and not ask questions'. Even if this part is all thrown out the window, the idea that a shady Ringmaster lording over Playfulland just won't leave me. So then, what else can I guess about this event? (NOTE: THESE ARE ALL QUESTIONS AND THEORIES, not posed by much/any evidence)
The costumes/masks might specifically be used to control the boys. In a way similar to The Beast and the trees of Over the Garden Wall, thanks to @squidwen for the notion, maybe the masks progressively creep up on the NRC boys both subduing them, and eventually sapping them of life/magic? What if the incentive for the boys to act 'like jackasses' is how the mask takes root/grows? What if the end result (the host losing their life/stores of magic) their bones turn to wood? What if the park is literally built of the Bones of Fairgoers Past?
Something I already began to theorize about when the announced SSRs came out was: why those three were picked.
Ortho we know shares A LOT of parallels/references to Pinocchio already. It's basically a given that he'd be a part of this. He is naive and fresh, so he could very well follow wanderlust wherever (by whoever) inspires it. But why Kalim and Ace? Ideas for each:
Kalim:
He's a trusting person (played as 'To his own detriment')
A bit of a party animal
One to go with the flow, isn't quick to realize he's in deep shit til it's too late
Ace:
Brutally honest
Brother worked at a theme park. (Possible enticement to bring him in, on the promise of finding him somehow?)
One of the biggest liars of the cast-couple that with his immaturity and quick willingness to shirk responsibility, he's a prime candidate to pick off to someplace that promises leisure and fun away from school.
All three of the SSR boys are technically prime folk to lure off to the equivalent of Pleasure Island. Kalim with his weak will and shortsightedness, Ortho with his lack of experience both as a bot and now as a legit person, and Ace again because he has the most maturing to make for this arc. If anybody becomes a literal donkey in all of this: I can see it most likely being Ace.
Assuming the rest of the Event Cast are only there on the premise of having drawn the short straw and not able to go to the Glorious Masquerade, I don't have any other theories for them. (Though I gotta say I'm digging the much more blatant Mad Hatter Ref in Trey's design.) A gameplay theory I had is that maybe we have to fight them to 'cut them loose', with eventually Ortho, Kalim and Ace being the 'final' bosses of the event, who defend the Puppetmaster in one final stand.
For a TL:DR:
It's Book of Circus 2: Electric Boogaloo if it was written by Neal Shusterman (of Full Tilt fame). A Fishman wants to be a Real Boy, masks are terrifying, and Ace is an immature clown who's gonna get a lotta folks put in danger.
142 notes
·
View notes
Text
Axe Woves and his promotion from boyfriend to husband material.
I know I've mentioned it here and there, however, I'd like to get my thoughts and feelings that are going around in my head out in one post again.
I've got a crush on this men directly when he first appeared this season. I know that some found and still find him unlikable because of his statements and behavior. I think it's a good expression of where he comes from and how he was socialized and is in no way more despicable than the views Din's covert has, basically they are two extreme views of one culture.
Axe belongs to the ''modern'' Mandalorians who were born on Mandalore and who fought for Mandalore during the Purge. They have a different understanding of being Mandalorians than the followers of the old way. Both groups exclude the other, for different reasons, because of how they were taught. I don't want to justify his behavior, but I can understand there being animosity and mistrust, as I'm sure he's proud of who he is and that he fought for Mandalore while the people of the tribe were hiding on Concordia.
He insists on the importance of the darksaber to rule Mandalore, again an expression of what they must have been taught, though his attitude towards it will change greatly as we all know. His characterization and character development this season is wonderful, and I know I'm going to upset some people, but I think it's much better and more developed than Din Djarin's this season. That's exactly what I would have wanted for him.
He has a certain arrogance and doesn't hesitate for a second to fight both Bo-Katan and Paz. Others may call this immature, I would say it is a Mandalorian tradition to settle conflicts with a fight and I love how reckless he is even though he is probably aware that he will most likely get his ass kicked.
And I don't know exactly why, but I loved the scene with him and the forbidden lovers and his statement, ''I know it was for love.'' He is not heartless, he has a sense for the feelings of others in a way, but business is business and despite everything he handles everything calmly and without violence.
I know he acted like a smug asshole with Paz, but I can't deny that I was very amused by the scene, even if others find it problematic. And it just repeats the differences and conflicts of the two groups and it's all the more beautiful how they are later overcome. And I can't hide the fact that it's incredibly sexy how this man just doesn't have a shred of respect and fear for this mountain of man who could probably just stomp him into the ground.
But who knew what would become of this sexy, arrogant, and smug man in the season finale? Yes I got fooled like many others, I really thought he could be a spy and die, but we couldn't have been more wrong, I'm so sorry my love!
Just to start with how he just flies out into space with a damn jet pack without hesitation just to warn his sisters and brothers. He shows off his leadership skills on the Light Cruiser as he evacuates it and calls on the rest of the Mandalorians to help Bo-Katan. Only to be left alone to fight the incoming Tie Interceptors and then ship the damn ship to the planet. Without hesitation, even though he must have known he could get killed like a goddamn hero.
But best of all, he's not stupid enough to just sacrifice himself, bless the Mandalorians and their jetpacks. How he just flees the ship at the last second and lets it head for the damn base and is partly responsible for the fact that Moff Gideon ultimately dies is just great!
And the last scene, how he's standing there next to Ragnar and he's the one raising his voice and cheering for everyone, I love it. And the thought that he could be the one to take care of Ragnar from now on, despite the discord between him and his father, just melted my heart. This man has had such incredible character development this season and has become such a badass and important character that he's the only person to fall in love with, right?
Did I also make the post a bit to use all the pictures and GIF's again, because of course he looks super good and sexy and I can't get enough of looking at him? Yes maybe something. And people? We need more of these please!
This is the way and for Mandalore!
Screenshots are mine and GIF's from the wonderful @abnerkrill @tommymilller @itberice @providence-park
Thank you for your service ladies and gentleman.
#axe woves#the mandalorian#the mandalorian season 3#the mandalorian spoiler#axe woves appreciation post#I love my husband#from boyfriend to husband#that fine mandalorian man#star wars#ragnar vizsla#paz vizsla
173 notes
·
View notes
Text
Ianthe, Coronabeth and the Blood of Eden
Characters
<< Previous: Harrow | Masterpost
-
I gotta be perfectly honest here, I'm not overly fond of Ianthe. I can see why people love her. I appreciate her as a character construct. I don't like her though. Her attachment to Coronabeth is her one (1) redeeming quality, in my eyes.
And Coronabeth is now with the Blood of Eden.
Again I find myself really wanting to be a fly on the wall in that crucial little time at Canaan House between Cytherea's death, Blood of Eden arriving and taking all survivors sans Lyctors, and the Emperor arriving to collect Ianthe and Harrow.
Ianthe and Coronabeth have been plotting with each other their whole damn lives. There's no way they didn't have some kind of agreement with each other before splitting up. Something perhaps communicated in code, so neither Harrow nor BoE would have known what they were talking about. Perhaps they both decided then and there to join Blood of Eden, and that Ianthe would be a spy for Corona. Perhaps they've both been with them, or at least sympathetic, since before Canaan House. No idea if/how they would have kept up communication while Ianthe was at the Mithraeum, but maybe she was meeting Corona in secret while out killing planets? We know that after a while the old Lyctors didn't supervise their charges all the time when out killing planets, and there were lots of planets to kill.
Alternatively, could Ianthe have somehow managed to form some kind of BrainRiver Necromantic connection? That would be deep spirit magic almost akin to Lyctorhood - perhaps she did take a tiny bit of Corona without killing her, and then took Naberius instead - maybe she wanted to take Corona, but realised this would have killed her beloved sister, and killed Naberius instead? Maybe she figured out the secret to perfect Lyctorhood, and it is only taking a minuscule amount of your Cav - letting her take a minuscule amount of you - and as such, you can communicate with each other even when apart?
Would be a banger if so. Mad props to Ianthe if this is true. Might even be her 2nd redeeming feature.
Actually, no, it's still just the love for Coronabeth. If Ianthe had cared about Corona a little bit less, she could have taken and killed her. But she wouldn't.
So anyway I'm deeply sure that Corona and Ianthe are either already communicating, or both working very hard to get back together again.
Are they with the Blood of Eden, though?
Coronabeth, at this point, seems to have been taken in by them, according to Judith's journal; she could be a double agent type, or just doing whatever will keep her alive with the best chances of seeing Ianthe again. She also gets to keep Judith and Camilla alive. Coronabeth actually cares about people other than Ianthe, or at least it seems that way.
The epilogue suggests that either the three of them escaped from BoE alongside this random girl, or found her after escaping. Either that - or they're in BoE's network and maybe even under their protection while the three of them are off on a little side quest involving this girl. Either way, they're a united front of sorts, working towards the same goal (looking after this random kid, and finding out what her significane is, probably).
One who looks after her, one who teaches her, one who goes to work for her.
Camilla is revealed as the one to look after her. Teacher must be Judith, and Coronabeth got herself some kind of job to sustain them. Is it enough? One income for four adults? What kinda economy is this please? I guess she's a princess so she's probably demanding damn good pay, but still.
(Wait, is there money? I don't remember ever seeing any references to it - which would have caught my attention...)
Just checked -
(The nice thing about having the pdfs is that I can ctrl+f this stuff)
"Pay" is only really used metaphorically,
"Money" is Gideon hoping to be given some, Harrow imagining some in the Cohort being paid for someone's rank, and the idiom "[giving x] a run for its money" a couple times. No direct references to money as far as I can tell - there doesn't seem to be any needed in the Ninth, Canaan House, or the Mithraeum. The concept of money seems to be around. Maybe it's something only non-necromancers have to worry about?
"Loan" is mentioned only once, as something Harrow could have gotten to keep her house alive, so money in some form is around, or debt at least, but there's very little idea of what form it takes.
Sorry, let's get back on track. We were talking about the Tridentarii and Blood of Eden. And actually, I think I've said about what I can on them. I wanna move on!
>> Next: Camilla and Palamedes
#tlt theories#no nona the ninth spoilers please#tlt liveblog#the locked tomb liveblog#tlt spoilers#the locked tomb#tlt#gideon the ninth#harrow the ninth#ianthe tridentarius#coronabeth tridentarius#blood of eden
20 notes
·
View notes
Text
"Harrow the Ninth"
21/02/2024
Reading progress: 507/507 (100%)
Read through since last update: 157
Didn't think I'd cram the last part into one post, but here we are anyway. These last 150ish pages were... All over the place. In a good way!
Final notes:
Oh, there she is!!! Talk about a monster under the bed.
Ok, but how casual is that scene? I know something like that was coming (I've seen some fanart, but knew too little to know who it was about, just that Harrow and Ianthe would be peeking under the bed), but it's just so normal. I like it. Kinda eerie because it's not presented as scary.
Of course Ianthe didn't see it. Don't worry Harrow, I believe you.
Yeah, ok. It makes sense that Ortus was just fulfilling other to kill Harrow. His reasoning for it just wasn't strong enough. "You're a liability." Just like everyone else.
Oho! Here we go! Epiparodos! (Whatever that means.)
NUNLET??? 🥺🥺 That's such a cute word.
Ok, the lobotomy. Right. Also saw a fanart spoiler for it, totally forgot it was coming. I thought it was gonna happen later on? In any case. Ok. Yup. This happened.
Harrow NOVA. There we go. The other Harrow finally revealed by her full name. Though I applaud Muir, I haven't even noticed we never got her last name. Gorgeous and genius writing, through and through.
HAHAHAHAHAHA love how Harrow did the typical "I am small. Therefore, I will be a quick and murderous machine" but Muir decided to break up the cliché by saying she discovered that at the ripe age of 5. Man, I love this book. And I love Harrow as a character.
"What's that, you egg?"
Dying. 😂
Ok, gotta say, chapter 40 lost me.
I think... I got it? I might need to read the remaining pages for all of this to settle down, but this is much less complicated that I thought it would be.
What is the meaning of love if not sacrificing every single memory of a person in order to save them? 😭
Of course, it was not a dream. That would be too easy. The bubbles make perfect sense.
I know I said Ortus was annoying when quoting the Noniad, but I really like him as a character. And by that I mean how Muir has given him more depth and allowed him to grow. Which also made the scene where he hugs Harrow so impactful. 🖤
Ok, the Ortus thing was unexpected. And I'm excited to learn what it's all about.
But first. The Sleeper.
UGH! I love how considerate Gideon is with Harrow's body. Sure, she's a little awkward in it and puts out a dirty joke or two, but she's just trying to be respectful and useful. Also the way she's so worried over any and all her injuries, even though she knows they'll all heal? So fucking cute.
Protesilaus took Dulcinea in his care when she fell ill. That's so cute. 🥺
Oh, hell yes! Gideon stepped the fuck up. Time for Ianthe to meet her fucking match.
(I love how protective Gideon is ggghhhgghggh)
Man, I missed Gideon so much.
MATTHIAS NONIUS!!!!!!! :O
(Such a cool scene!!!!!)
You know what? After everything that happened, my reaction to finding out Gideon is God's daughter was just "Ok. Cool."
Cue John's corny dad joke. Love it.
Also I wouldn't have guessed they were related based on their eyes. Sure, John's eyes were mentioned multiple times, but they're silver and Gideon's are gold, so I wouldn't have put two and two together just by that. But! It fits. It's foreshadowed. It works. So yeah. Sure. Love it.
I knew it! I knew that he had a cavalier! I knew that he was a Lyctor! Hell yeah!
So much stuff happens at the end. I just kept on reading, without spending much time on commentating. I needed to know what happens and tbh, I have no idea what I just read. But that's okay! It was fun!
Ok, all in all, the book was spectacular. I liked it even more than I did Gideon. I liked how Muir handled Harrow's grief. I liked the reveals, the mysteries, the tension and the stakes. I liked the characters and I liked how Abigail got a lot more page time. I didn't even care about her in the first book, but now I really like her. I liked Ortus too!
Now, I'm still confused... About a few things. Primarily Harrow Nona. So I'll have to read an explanation or teo about it (or you can comment on the post if you'd like to help me out). Did... Harrow Nonangesimus kept watch and narrated over what Nona was doing? As in, she was dissociating from her body after the lobotomy and experiencing everything from a distance? Or was that all Gideon? Because I feel like it wasn't. Gideon's narration style is totally different and clearly comes out at the very end, but idk. I feel like I'm missing something here or that I'm not grasping something ridiculously simple.
Anyway, I'll be reading a little more about it, but yeah. "Harrow" is done, so I'll have to get my hands on Nona! In the meantime I'll be writing out my review. 🖤
#harrow the ninth#harrowhark nonagesimus#tamsyn muir#the locked tomb#locked tomb#book#reading journal#dnevnik citanja#dnevnik čitanja
26 notes
·
View notes
Text
✣ Blake Wrapped: 5 Star Reads 📖
The first half of this post can be found HERE, and these were my 5-star reads for the second half of the year (in rough order). Tagging @batrachised, who was interested in recommendations!
Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh
I posted a lot about this when I read it because in my opinion it’s one of the best SFF novels I’ve come across in a while. It reminded me of DWJ’s Hexwood, which is already high praise, but it’s a fabulous character study with incredible dynamics. It’s another new book with truly horrible marketing, imo—the whole “queer sci-fi” angle gives the impression of a Gideon the Ninth rip-off, but there’s much more political and social commentary with fabulous world-building. Highly, highly recommend this one.
He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan
I loved the first book in this duology, but this one was exquisite to new heights. Even though it was never that overt, it did a lot of great meta-commentary work on the chosen one trope vs the doomed by the narrative trope, especially their intersection with gender expectations. The prose was simply gorgeous, occasionally philosophical, always sure-handed. I recommend the whole duology, though mostly so that you can get to this one.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
I picked this up in my library’s for sale room, and it was the best choice I made this year. I can’t believe I had been missing out on Jackson for so long. It’s a ghost story and a Gothic novel and a girl book and feels a bit like the shadow side of an LM Montgomery story. The language and characters are rich and strange and is so thoroughly a Blake Book of all time. I want to be able to write something like this someday.
Yellowface by R. F. Kuang
The reports of its readability are true—I went through this in three hours. I get why people complain about certain elements in this, but it also lives up to the hype, in my opinion. I might be the target audience as an aspiring author (who got throughly traumatized by the portrayal of terminally online author culture lmao) but I do think those dynamics and circumstances are its strength, more so than the social commentaries on Asian American tokenization, etc.
How Long ’Til Black Future Month? by N. K. Jemisin
I don’t often read short fiction, but I was in the mood for some good SFF shorts to learn from, so picked this up. Jemisin is a master of form—her ability to depict a world in such a brief span, to make such deep characters with such clever scenarios is unmatched. Certainly, there are some better examples than others, but the best makes me wish there were a whole novel set in that world.
Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson
This one is a slight cheat because it’s not Jackson’s best, but it’s also a Blake Book of all time, so how could I not give it five stars? I wish I had discovered it in college, if just to be able to be insufferable and call myself “irl Natalie Waite” everywhere. It’s such a Tumblr book too—the veiled queerness, the Plath vibes, the dark academia setting, the unhinged vibes. The prose is gorgeous and unsettling and is such a good portrayal of a character.
#bookblr#book review#book recommendations#reading recommendations#some desperate glory#he who drowned the world#hangsaman#the haunting of hill house#yellowface#how long til black future month#nk jemisin#rf kuang#emily tesh#shirley jackson#shelley parker chan#blake's last braincell#immortal poets society#blake wrapped
33 notes
·
View notes
Note
okay, so there is a little buzz of bringing back once upon a time, nothing set but some ideas are out there, and I was thinking, I want to see maybe the kids of the couples doing their own adventures, especially with Gideon gold. I mean he would be a very interesting character, he's the son of belle and rumple, good and evil basically. like nothing more lawful neutral. if they were going to have an adult Gideon I think he would be a lawyer of some kind. likes rules knows how to bend them
God, do I want them to bring back the best worst show I've ever watched? OUAT was amazing and so, so bad. I was sad and ecstatic when they ended it and put me out of my misery.
The thing about OUAT though is that, because the show got so bad so fast (I'd argue that the show's only good season was season 1, things derailed in season 2 and crashed in season 3B) the one thing I liked were the characters because the actors who played them were so good. Robert and Emilie, in particular, kept the show alive and interesting for me, so I don't know whether I would be into bringing the show back without them.
If I could be guaranteed good storytelling I would really be into it. I love the notion of a magical world coexisting with/hiding from our real, non-magical world and what that would entail for magical creatures. And that is something that OUAT did not explore enough (or even at all). I would be into that a lot. Specially with Gideon.
30 notes
·
View notes
Text
I have such cognitive dissonance when it comes to Gideon x Julie in the anime because on one hand they clearly see each other as equals and Gideon never did anything wrong to Julie besides kind of leeching off of her for a while — BUT he literally canonically abused Ramona, his last girlfriend, and was still actively trying to get her back like a few days before moving in with Julie after Matthew beat him in their fight and disbanded the League.
I don't think he'd mistreat Julie but at the same time idk if sticking Gideon in a new, seemingly HEALTHY, relationship without expanding on his past ones was a good idea because in some ways I feel like it undermines how he literally abused not just Ramona but ALL of his ex girlfriends (I'm still wondering if him cryogenically freezing his ex girlfriends is canon in the anime).
The whole reason he was THE evil ex was because unlike the others who were just hurt and needed closure, or at worst kind of a dick like Todd, he was a manipulative control-freak who would get aggressive and violent when things didn't go his way (LIKE LITERALLY MURDERING SCOTT IN THE COMICS).
I can see why making him more "pathetic" was an interesting idea for what's essentially a what-if kind of show but idk. I just don't know how I feel about a canonically abusive character being portrayed as a "wet cat malewife." That's just my opinion on it though, I'm not saying this is a problematic decision or anything, just kind of iffy to me.
Btw part of the reason I'm saying this isn't because I dislike Gideon, he's a character I love to hate and actually probably my favorite evil ex because of how genuinely intimidating he is compared to the others. That's why I have a problem with his depiction in Takes Off, specifically his romantic relationship with Julie.
20 notes
·
View notes
Text
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Review: That's How It Could've Happened, But How About This?
WARNING: SPOILERS FOR SCOTT PILGRIM TAKES OFF AHEAD. IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN AT LEAST EPISODE ONE, TURN BACK. SERIOUSLY DUDE. DO IT NOW. IF YOUR COOL WITH SPOILING YOURSELF, ROCK ON.
Hello all you happy scottaholics. I"m back in the saddle again. For those just tuning in i'm Jake, I review stuff.. and a few years back I reviewed the entirety of Brian Lee O'Malley's masterpiece, and the movie as a chaser, having been a fan of Scott Pilgrim since my teens but only having just revisited it at the time I started my retrospective. It was a wonderful journey that made me appricate one of my favorite comics even more and gave me a ton of my best running gags. You can find links to each review HERE in one masterpost.
So naturally when the anime was announced last year, I was entirely on board: I loved this story in all three of it's major forms and was excited to see it again, maybe updated a tad. I was also curious if the story would get a setting update, what would change , and what subplots we'd FINALLY see on screen after the film had to trim a lot thanks to half the series not being finished yet and a tight two hour run time. I was cautiously optimistic when the cast was announced as while I was happy to see the massively talented breakout cast of the film return and get another shot at the characters, I was worried it'd just be the movie but animated.. which thankfully turned out not to be remotely true once trailers came out. Instead they'd simply get a shot at playing the characters again but this time with diffrent characterizations. I coudln't be more stoked.
As it turns out though.. O'Malley had zero intention of telling the same story again. In fact, he almost DIDN'T sign on despite getting the juciest of offer, with the anime's studio, Science Saru, wanting their next project after their breakout hit Devilman Crybaby to be Scott Pilgrim and coming to O'Malley Directly.
The problem wasn't the offer: O'Malley, unsuprisingly, was a fan of Science Saru, who in addition to Devilman had also made Space Dandy and the early pilot shorts for OK KO. The problem was O'Malley.. really didn't want to simply retell scott's story a fourth time. It was a story that was personal, deeply loved and made his career.. but after a movie that everyone knew and love and a video game that was so well loved it was many's holy grail for a rerelease for over a decade after it was delisted, he didn't know how to take the story in a new direction and didn't want to do the story again if it was simply going to be a rehash: people could read the book sometime or watch the movie if they wnated Scott fighting the exes.
Thankfully for us, Brian brought up the offer to his good friend BenDavid Grabinski, a tv and film writer. BenDavid was a huge fan of Scott Pilgrim and thus when the idea came up coudln't help spitballing ideas. And one stuck: What if Scott LOST that first fight. It was naturally just a joke.. but like when Superman died.. it's one that had some heft to it. If Scott were gone what would happen to everyone else? How would Ramona react to his loss? Was Scott really gone? how would his friends go on without him... and what would happen to the exes now they weren't guaranteed to die in a fist fight and the entire problem with Gideon's whole plan was laid bare?
These questions and more are answered as Ramona gets to the bottom of what REALLY happned to scott, who unsurprisingly is not dead and even more unsurprisingly the truth is all kinds of bananas. The story of a human tire fire learning to be a better person and not runa way from his problems... becomes the story of a much more composed tire fire learning she can't run away from her problems after she chases after what might have been, forced to get closure with most of her exes as she tries to hunt down the ex that never was. Along the way there's messy bisexual love triangles, movie rental melee's, Tony Hawk style antics done on swarms of paparazzi ninjas, the greatest musical of all time, the rise of Matthew patel, the fall and re-rise of Gordon Goose, explosions, cameos, and more as Ramona Flowers gets it together while Scott Pilgrim takes off, resulting in one of the best animated series of the 2020's and possibly the best of a very stacked 2023. So take off with me as we press start on a fresh new take on one of my favorite franchises under the cut.
Ramona Flowers Gets It Together
This one's going to be a LOT to unpack, and the best place to start is with our new lead: Ramona Flowers. Ramona has never been unimportant to this franchise: after all it's her exes that make up the fight of the week each volume and who give the franchise it's hook, and in the comics she develops alongside scott: As I said in my reviews, Ramona develops alongside him, having to learn to not keep people at arms length and to not run away, nearly running away from everything before coming back, realizing Scott's worth it. Through each other, they grow stronger.
So with Scott gone... Ramona is forced to grow all on her own. If she wants to date Scott, SHE has to fight this time, and she can't run like she tends to. In the comics, she had to scrap with Envy and Roxy, but all the weight to evolve as a person was put on Scott: Ramona had a stable job, was content in her life even if her friend group was basically "Whoever scott happened to be friends with", she was seemingly all together until the last three volumes slowly chip away at that and reveal she's just as bad at staying and improving instead of noping the fuck out of an intense situation as scott. She has to evolve.. but her getting better isn't the point till the climax of the story. It's a lesson in how while a relationship can HELP you grow, ultimately it's on you to: Scott grows because he stops running and embraces his evil self and thus the memories of all his fuckups, embraces that he could sometimes be shitty so he can learn past it. Ramona has to choose to stand and fight gideon and let go of hte hold he has on her, to let go of running and embrace what she has.
Here without Scott and only the vauge mystery of a guy she dated once, Ramona instead has to confront herself: many a character question her doing this. While it starts simple enough with just Julie questioning it, because Julie hates scott as much as I hate the comics version of her, we get harder questions from Kim, whose dated Scott and knows how insesntive he can be, and Lucas who KNOWS Ramona and knows her style is to run. That a happy ending isn't as easy as finding scott again andmaking out intensely. Ramona has to make her own happy ending.
As a result instead of being the sneaky deutratonist or a prop depending on the version (I Love the movie but man do they not do her well), Ramona has to confront her past on her own, and instead of just getting cathartic punchings, she has to actually.. TALK to her exes and resolve things like an adult. And you can imagine how much she likes the prospect of that.
And this flip in how the story works.. is brilliant: It allows us to get to know Ramona: We're seeing things from her perspective instead of Scotts so we see her way more vunerable, genuinely shaken by Scott's "Death", obssesed with solving his kidnapping, and forced to confront her past. Granted like the books we also get to see the lighter side: Ramona is still the straight man to a lot of the cast especially her exes. She and Kim are the sanest one's here and Kim is often out of focus, leaving Ramona one of the few rational people in a sea of gloriously goofy nonsense. Yet we also see her own intrests: she's a columbo fan, turns out to be a natural for stunt work, and has a meticulous routine for her hair dye. We also find out she's a blonde which is only TECHNICALLY cannon to this version.. but fits too well as her hair color to work.
We get to see Ramona not as some ideal to chase slowly turned into a person but just.. a person. Funny, aloof, kind, easily baffled... this is easily my favorite verison of her. Granted it's not exactly ac ontest: The comic's version is great and this simply takes the best of that and fleshes her out, the video game is a 16 bit brawler, and the movie... well look I like the movie, but the film version is a nigh emotionless prop that barely gave Mary Elizabeth Winstead anything to work wtih forgetting ramona HAS emotions who instead of simply having her emotoins amplified is outright brainwashed. I used to think Kim got the shortest end of the stick but doing this review.. no it was Ramona. Ramona got screentime but had any personality stripped. Thankfully both Ramona and Mary Elizabeth get a second shot on the screen here.
Mary Elizabeth's performanc ecan't be overstated: she nicely ballances Ramona's stocisim, something key to her charcter as her main problem is distance, that she puts up and that she creates by running away, with the emotoin peeking up just underneath to say hello. IT's a truly great performance and I hope she'll consider doing more voice acting, she's an natural.
And this is great as Ramona's quest eventually leads her back to scott.. and to an ending that's both profound.. and pokes some holes in the series itself.
The Adventures of Scott and Scott
So turns out Scott was kindapped by of ALL characters, Robot 01, the Katanagi Twin's robot minion who shows up for one fight in the comics and video game and then explodes real good. Here he's their little robot son.. and how Scott got kidnapped.
But thankfully the culrprit isn't the Twins. I would've liked for them to get more to do, more on that later. THeir involved, having leant their robot boy to a friend since , as a robot who can't eat, Robot 01 has never had meat and has no human limits and thus is the strongest robot vegan who ever existed.
God I love this stupid reveal. Anyways, turns out Scott's kidnapper.. is SCOTT. Specifically a version of him who did the usual story, won, had a happy ten years with Ramona, then it fell apart after an argument which he assumed ended in divorce.
This is another twist that was brilliant.. I thought Scott's kidnapper was another scott, but I assumed a clone situation. I never thought FUTURE Scott but it's such a brilliant move. We see a Scott who won.. but who simply didn't let the lessons he learned stick. It's easy to learn something about you sucks, I have many a time.. it's harder to make the changes stick. I can't tell you how many ephnaiinies i've had only to end up back where I started. Some change has stuck with effort, but it's not easy. You have to constantly work at it, to grow. And it's easy enough to backslide.. and thus sadly easy to buy that this verison of Scott , when hit with his relationship not working, spiralied instead of working at it , not helped by Old Ramona, their words not mine, ghosting him.
He's a ghost of Scott future, every bad thing about the guy amplified: he's oblivious, thinking his newest band is going anywhere with his gloriously crappy music video, and refusing to accept it was his fault, throwing a tantrum when Young Scott states the obvious solution: just tell his younger self some of his fuckups and hopefully that'll right the relationship. Instead Future Scott goes for the solution that's easiest and laziest: use time travel to undo his relationship. And naturally this being Scott he got this stupid idea from taking a joke Wallace told him seriously. I love Wallace's "Buddy I was kidding".
I also love the performance here. Rather than use Michael Cera , Future Scott is voiced by voice acting, comedy and beard legend Will Forte. Forte's goofy nature, penchant for playing man children blind to their own flaws, and deadpan deliveries make Future Scott work. He's deeplys ad, but also deeply hilarious, sharing some of Scott's weird intricates like assuming because Future Wallace's husband works for nintendo he gets all the video games for free and making a virtual boy scrapbook of his relationship.
He's still throughly Scott.. just one who can't get past himself, requiring Scott and Future Wallace to go to Future Ramona for help. Shockingly.. she's more than willing too: While she still has Ramona's own problem of running away at the first sign of trouble, she does still LOVE this idiot, she just dosen't know how to fix it and knows she can't talk him out of this, so she sends scott back to be with his ramona... well rides him back leading to some awkward selfies.
But naturally for this tale, Scott coming back.. dosen't fix things. And not just because his older self put anti kissing nanites in him.
Scott has grown some from seeing what he could be: He apologizes to Knives, in a scene that I truly love.. mostly for this line "Apparently a 23 year old dating a high schooler is frowned upon by society".
And I have to stop for a minute to give ALL the props to Michael Cera. He already had done plenty awesome this year as the boy of the year
He didn't need to go for two but he did. Cera wasn't at all bad as Scott the first go round: the character was different, a bit less goofy but still awkward as hell and oblivious to his own flaws: the core was there. Here .. Cera is playing the character as on page, if slightly amped up: Goofy, excitable, trying to ignore his painful past and flaws, charming.. all the good and bad of scott is bubbling around this guy. And the line deliveries my god: we have instant classics like "I'm using the world wide web" "The place where they make the video games", the instantly memetic sonic scene (Which would be me trying to flirt with a girl, ngl), and the above frowned upon line. Cera just bubbles in this roll, sliding into who scott is: Loveable but a total mess who needs to get his shit together and has made some grave mistakes.
Granted they also take steps to make sure Scott's relationship with Knives as judging from interviews, O'Malley is kinda tried of the take that scott pilgrim is a bastard man. I mean he is, but it's less that Scott has some shit to work out and need to be better and more that everyone acts like this is a new discovery. As the author himself said it's there on the first page and a good chunk of chapter one is the people who know him best asking what the hell is wrong with him.
Granted this is mixed with Stephen hooting and hollering as much as he can with his stoic personality, Neil being in awe and asking if they'd "done it yet" and Wallace being tempted with the idea of a high schooler himself, though I get the impression he never seriously considered it. So it is muddled slightly.. but not NEARLY enough.
I do get it with the movie: the movie.. outright portrays Knives as a legit love interest, and while it ages Scott down, it's not enough to make that not blehhhh and the game has Knives end up with Kim, which younger me didn't get was still pedophilia. So I do get it as while the comics make it clear this is messed up, it got muddled.. but it's also still a pretty weak gotcha when the source material has always said "This is wrong" They even bring up trainspotting for fucks sake, which I haven't seen but is a pretty good indication O'Malley knew what he was doing.
So here they make it clearer that while Scott's still stringing this poor baby girl angel baby along, he dosen't really consider it a relationship, or just dosen't want to and after seeing what he easily could be even with Ramona, apologizes way sooner. So they did make strides to make things a bit clearer here if only so another version didn't miss the point.
So one rant later while Scott and Ramona think things are wrapped up.. it's just not that easy. You can get closure, we'll get into the exes more shortly, but it dosen't mean your done or done growing... or that the past is done with you. Or future in this case. Like I said, Old Scott/Future Scott put nanintes in scott and after figuring out the exes aren't involved, the two get kidnapped along with the exes , knives, pretty much anyone who can throw a punch.
The kidnapper is naturally Old Scott.. EVEN OLDER SCOTT.
I love his look: he still has his old jacket, his iconic x-men one, but laso looks like Ryu from Street Fighter 5, just with a giant beard and crazy eyes, being a mix of that ryu and devil ryu.. and nega scott. Old Scott wasn't a great person but still had the potetial to turn it around if he got his finger out of his ass. Even Older Scott is every horrible thing Scott Could've been.. and this is something the comics foreshadowed was possible.
And the thing is while Ramona was being dickish in her own right there, not getting that while Scott cheated on Knives with Ramona he had changed since then, she's not WRONG. Scott was VERY close to giving up on change entirely if Kim hadn't turned him away. Hell had Ramona not come along Scott might've become Old Scott sooner just by dating a teenager. The potential to, like the exes, sink into his resintment and worst self was always there... this is just a Scott that did. A Scott who when faced with the fact change is hard would rather hull up, get buff and plan to kill everyone he cares about just to avoid changing. This is the Scott he almost became.. and sadly at least one scott did become.
He's also horrifying for more than just the implications of seeing this guy who while a dickhead, CAN be better if he puts in the effort and does change and grow in both main versions as his worst self. It's sad to see that.. but we also quickly see just how dangerous an evil ex scott would be: After all Scott beats all the evil exes... I mean original timeline scott beat Lucas and Todd via Indigo League style technicalities, but still. While Scott was still beatable, it took multiple rounds, a feint, and ramona's help to put down the last four exes, he was still fairly strong.. so give him 24 years more of experince with ten of those spent JUST training and specifically preparing to counter the exes , ramona and his past self.. and you have an unstoppable monster that NOTHING can stop and everyone else is very lucky they get sent back. They all put in a good offense.. but the league is out of their league.
Even Older Scott is a brick wall.. and one that smacks straight into Scott and Ramona trying to run from their problems. Scott is forced to face the fact that even getting better might not last even if he dosen't become this guy and Ramona's forced to face the hide this guy is right. Our heroes are up against the wall, their relationship almost over...
Enter Even Older Ramona. Turns out Even Older Scott just.. ghosted her. But her presence finally gives present Ramona the wakeup call she needs as finding our her older self just.. ran away each time her and scott had issues.. gives her a needed ephinay the same way Older Scott being a dumpster fire on cocaine gave this Scott one and Scott in the comics got one from seeing a dark mirror in gideon: Ramona Flowers.. always run. Lucas outright said as much and with the series fleshing out the exes more, almost there just give me a minute, we find out she just.. bounced on each relationship. Matt isn't a suprise, his backstory is the same as it ever was, and in some cases she was ENTIRELY justified in her assholery: Todd was an obnoxious prick she left another, far better guy for, the Twins were recontexculazed as serial predators who preyed on new freshman with Ramona dating them both being a way to get even on both of them, so while she still did a bad it was on legitly bad people, and Gideon.. is still Gideon. He may get more development here and have his own backstory.. but the series makes it VERY clear he was every bit as shitty to ramona as previous versions, he just hadn't got to using the glow or mind control chips levels of creep yet.
But as i'll get into more in a bit... she legitly hurt everyone else: While Matt didn't get into supervilanny till high school, it's hard not to think that being used as a weapon to keep other boys away didn't lead him down the tryhard path he now walks, Lucas was left devistated and became a xerox of a xerox of the kind of guy Ramona left him for, and Roxy was left genuinely devistated thinking she was nothing. All Ramona has done is run and deny people closure and the series reckons with that.. and like the comics forces Ramona to stand and fight, recognizing that her relationship with Scott could end badly.. but it's worth having.
It's a neat metaphor: our heroes see exactly how badly things could end... and that's how relationships can be. You worry about how badly things are going to go or how you'll fuck up. But the only way it can go forward.. is if you try. Risk the hurt for the good. present/past/whatever Scott made a valid point when trying to talk to his Older Self before seeing that was a lost cause: There had to be good times too? While Old Scott and even Older Scott bury them in self pity, a relationship, even if it fails.. has something to add. Something to help you grow. And given Brian himself had been through a divorce after a ten year marriage it's hard not to see the subtext, to see that idea of "would you talk yourself out of a relationship if you knew it'd end". And the answer he and Ramona have.. is no. It's worth the risk, worth the pain, and worth the possiblity that someone else can do it better.
Granted this being scott pilgrim doing it better involves the ramona's fusing and Even Older Ramona, while done with Scott (He ate up his second chance a LONG TIME AGO) gives both Scott's another chance. As she puts it "This one's just an idiot kid... and this one's a real mess" (When told to kick his ass) "It's never too late to clean up a mess.. " Despite it all.. part of her loves him.. and gives him another chance. Not with her, Oh lord no, but to be better. That .. we can always be better, no matter if your 23 or 47, you can become better. As Super Ramona says "What you've done in the past dosen't define you, hell me keep remembering that". It's a beautiful message: you can screw up, there is no happily ever after.. but you can always be better even if you stumble. And as our heroes face a new future together once again.. it feels a bit brighter this time, like these two kids will make it you know?
Not That Evil
One big pull of doing the story this way for Brian and BenDavid was the exes. Brian admitted in interviews he wrote the books by the seat of his pants and as a naive 20 something who didn't know how skaters or musicians worked except via magazines. Moving to LA among other stuff gave him more perspective, and he wanted to add that to the story, flesh the Exes out as people and use the bits he didn't have time for in the original.
As such 5/7 go from sometimes one dimension, sometimes wholly evil bastards for Scott to punch.. and Lucas, to 5 very flawed , very intresting people we get to see way more of and who all get something resembling a happy ending. Also Kyle and Ken are there. Getting them out of the way once again the adaptation barely uses them, as their more a plot device/backup so we can hear Will Forte sing the theme to Bubblegum Crisis. You know when Brian hinted at that scene in interviews pre show I expected to here Kirean Culkin, Bree Larson, maybe even Micheal Cera. I didn't expect Will Freakin Forte and god bless Brian for that.
So yeah the Twins are.. fine here and I love the anti climax: they don't get closure with ramona.. but are cool with Scott since they'll be buddies eventually. I also like that out of ALL the exes for Scott to befriend after they respawned it's these two guys.
Thankfully everyone else gets way more and no where is that more apparent than with MATTHEW PATEL, the first evil ex.. and the one who naturally gets the most to work with, going from the biggest jobber who ever jobbed, to the guy who killed scott pilgrim
Satya Bhabha gets to have a fucking feast here and I hope this leads to more rolls, voice acting or otherwise. While he was already one of the highlights of the film, easily, taking what was implied to be a music number and making it into this glorious thing.
youtube
The series takes it to new heights.. mostly by giving Matt his best life. Granted.. this life naturally dosen't include Ramona who walks out pissed off and Matt is befuddled "Wait we DON'T get her automatically if we win?"
So he does what you'd expect from an egocentric theater kid who realizes he was just played and this whole evil exes setup is a sham... call a meeting in GIDEON"S OWN LAIR to dramatically reveal it all. And punch the head off a good soft robot boy because he's a prick and a half. A loveable prick and a half but still.
It's something I just.. never thought about with the league. I assumed it was simply a "If I can't have you" situation as that was GIdeon's whole goal.. and to put her in his girlfriend freezer which i'm sure Matt released. Gideon and Roxy seemed like the only ones who wanted her back. But given the weird logic of this unvierse even if some of them DIDN'T want her, I like the idea they'd still like to keep that option open by unaliving someone. It's fucked up as it is sensical for a group that all gathered to keep their ex from moving the fuck on.
It makes equal sense that this was all a ponzi scheme, Gideon , being an entiled dick, just.. assumed he got her if anyone won. That the exes wouldn't object or, more likely, they simply woudln't make it far enough. They were just patsies so he could swoop in and score her on the rebound, also not getting that would never work and sh'ed just hammer his nuts so far in they'd be impacted.
What threw me after this.. was Matt's Challenge to gideon. Not him challenging Gideon, I expected that easily: Matt gets all of Gideon's empire if he wins, Matt dies if he looses. I figured Gideon would kill Matt, again, and would do some sort of cordinated strike. But as before Scott Pilgrim Takes off Decides
Instead we get an absolutely gorgeous, awesome fight scenes. one of the best i've seen in animation and one of the best of the year, which given Invincible came back, is saying something. Gideon, while not having his pixel or glow powers, fights well with swords, a harness and pure skill while Matt is consistently forced to push his powers in new and creative ways. While we get the ones he got to show off against scott, fireballs and demon hipster chicks, we also get to see a lot of cool new shit as he manifests arms ala the Hindu god shiva, with all his powers seeming to tie into Hindu mythology instead of "magic stuff I guess" like the originals. It's a tense fight I assumed would end one way.. but instead... Matthew Patel FUCKING WINS and wins Gideon's emppire, only leaving him alive as a brag
Yeah I assumed from this when first watching that this was some sort of Buffy "Superstar" situation, that Matt had altereted reality to make it better for him. Instead.. nope. This just happened organically. Turns out Matt is badass as fuck, Scott simply had the power of friendship and punches. No power scaling here bitches.
As a result... the League falls apart. Matt is TECHNICALLY leader.. but in practice the exes all go off to do whatever, with Ramona instead encountering them organically. Matt spends the season as a highly paid CEO, mostly showing up once in a while to shut down a whole movie production because it makes him look bad, pathetically hit on ramona.. then get scared when he finds out Scott is alive. My faviorite bit of that is his very timid "Is he mad at me?" like he's a second grader and Ramona's understandably irritated "I dont' know dude" as a response.
Granted this dosen't stop his dreams as Knives and Stephen are able to pitch him a Scott Pilgrim Musical, one of the most gloriously batshit subplots in the history of this franchise. Which really can be said for.. most of this fucking show, but I digress. Despite seemingly hvaing no talent, the prospect of finally getting his broadway dreams back after his dad crushed them is enough for him to level up again, do a performance everyone loves and become a broadway icon. I assume the last part. Hamilton move over, your new compettiion's in town.
(Sidebar to that refrence, I think Hidgens and Matt would be besties. THeir both weirdly violent and obessed with musical theater).
Hell Matt.. dosen't even get upstaged by Gideon. When Gideon tries a looney tunes plan to bomb the theater, the Demon Hipster Chicks just.. disarm it and Matt.. gives Gideon his company back. Turns out being a CEO is hard yo. He's already lost billions. So Matt has his career, his musical, the only thing he didn't want to give up and Gideon could care less about anyway, and a new evil bestie. Life is good.
And naturally it sucks to be Gideon Graves as a result, or rather Gordon Goose. I liked giving Gideon a backstory, aging him down to be julie's old peer who used to wear no fear shirts every day and got shot down hard. Huh I never knew the guy I knew in high school who gave every girl he knew an invitation asking them out in high school became a super villian.
So Gideon spends most of the series in a depressed daze secretly plotting revenge and watching anime. Why is every guy I knew in high school compressed into one sad canadian?
Where he's crashing though was a nice twist: Julie. For those who read my reviews of the comics, you'll recall I didn't exactly like Julie very much. And for good reason: she's the worst. Here she still is.. but Brian found the secret to having a character whose human garbage around without making the audience pull their hair out. You have to make them entertaing.
Julie is still a high school alpha bitch all grown up here, but instead of just constantly talking about how Scott sucks, she gets to be funny. She swears constantly, taking a great gag from the film and escalating it, slacks off at her job, and snarks to Ramona about her taste in men.
She also.. gets redeeming qualities. Something I never thought any verison of Julie could possibly have, but here we are. Instead of just seeming to know Ramona and only claming to be her friend because Julie Powers is a starfucker, she's GENUINELY a good friend to Ramona, giving her the info she needs and being contrite when Ramona catches her with Gideon. Julie here feels more like a person and less like a blob of all the worlds sins congealed into that bitch.
And yes she ends up with Gideon, a ship I never thought of in my darkest day but somehow works perfectly. Their both awful in a way that's made for each other and Julie taking in Gordon at his lowest is genuinely sweet.
We get to see Gideon not as G-Man.. but as a nerd whose lost everything.. and gets the greatest and most wholesome montage ever with Lucas Lee. Seriously Lucas and Gideon fucking around Julie's house like two teenage boys is one of the greatest thigns ever put to film, even greater knowing it was somehow only 90 fucking minutes. It's fucking adorable.
What helps though is that while Gideon is a touch more sympathetic and pathetic... he's still not let off the hook for how he treated Ramona. He's not putting the glow in her and stuff, but he was still the same controlling manipulative asshat. I mean he still made the league just to win her back. It's just without the league or the trappings of power... he's a less charming scott, something the books largely hinted at. Ramona DOES get him to be a better partner to Julie, calling him out for leaning on her hard and taking advantage of her, and as a result instead of leeching off her they become equal partners in villianny with vauge never to be elaborated on plans at the end. And it's honestly.. sweet. It's nice their evil together. Sure they'll probably be meancing our heroes with a super mario bros 3 airship eventually, i'm sure, but at least their better. And matt freed his frozen kidnapped wives so we're good.
So moving right along fun and fancy free we have Gordon's best bro, Lucas. Lucas Lee takes more after the film, something Brian admitted was unavoidable for some things: after the movie made some versions of the characters more iconic he really coudlnt' go back. It's why getting the movie cast was so important: While this was going to be it's own thing, having them added a layer and frankly he didn't think anyone else could do it as well. I do think someone could've, there's tones of great voice actors, but i'm still glad he got the all star cast back as their just.. giving it their fucking best. God bless Michael Cera for reviving that email chains.
And you can feel the enthusiasm in most performances, but especially Chris Evans, who responded back within 20 minutes of being asked and hams it up. This Lucas is a bro whose on the verge of being cancelled and who is delightfully try hard, saying let's party as every other line in his films, throwing parties, and generally being axe bodyspray made into a person. He also tony hawks a lot, and you can tell BenDavid loves skater culture.
Lucas is fun to watch, being arrogant and an asshole, but one whose hilarious epsecially squeezed into Scott's t-shirt playing him in young neil's movie. It's a great visual. And his downfall being dating a 30 year old who happens to LOOK like a high schooler is both a brilliant meta joke on ellen wong, and just.. fucking great.
The show also, like all the exes, fleshes him out: It takes what we knew ,that Ramona cheated on him in high school, and fleshes it out: Ramona was his everything, helping a skinny skater kid get by, fixing his boards and generally being sweet.. then aburbtly left him for a fuck boy, with Lucas deciding to become the KING of all fuck boys in revenge.
Lucas isn't super deep, but I love that he's not just the dudebro party massacre we see on the surface: he does actually read the script, has genuine insight into ramona pointing out how unlikely the regular ending of the story is .. simply because she always runs. He also willingly skates into a cloud of ninja paparazzi to cover for her.
And the skating scene.. is one of my favorites in the show. Granted I like me some tony hawk even if I suck eggs at it, so that helps, but the animation is gorgeous. Granted this whole damn cartoon is gorgeous: Science Saru put their heart and soul into every frame and everything looks stunning, having a very early 2000's look with it's frayed edges on the characters, and capturing Brian's style perfectly.
The Skating Segment shows this off, with fluid motion, some great set pieces and some impressive jokes like the alien. It's fucking great.
So Lucas ends up not even able to afford a first class ticket back home.. but finds happiness as a barita. and Stacey finds happiness starring at his ass. Everyone wins. I kinda low key ship those two.. I mean Stacey's a bit younger, yes, but it's not knives level of age gap, and Lucas could use someone with their head mostly on their shoulders. They do try teasing him and kim.. but she'd eat him alive. It'd be fun but she would.
So speaking of Kim and the evil exes, let's roll on to my faviorite, Roxie. Roxie is a fucking delight this time, with Mae Whitman, unsuprisingly, bringing her best. It's fun to get to see her cut loose and just play a horny lesbian ninja gremlin like she deserves, with Roxy hamming it up. She spends the evil Ex meeting dunking on everyone else ("Act like you've been here todd!"), and already being the best. She comes off as a combo of her two versions: she has the manic gremlin energy of her film counterpart, being as bi-furious as ever, but has the snarky energy of her book counterpart, being willing to take shots at people and question them... it's just spread to all of the exes since Scott isn't around to be the sole obstacle in her way of ramona.
She's then the first ex Ramona has to deal with herself on her investigation, and it perfectly fits her character: In the film she tried to jump the line, but got a cup of accidental boob punch instead, and while she did wait for Todd to get headbutted out of existence in the books, she also started her attack with some ninja poster clones of Canadian hillary duff in the excellent Free Scott Pilgrim one shot (The very comic that got me into the series), and tried the same sneak attack that ended up in boob punch city. No matter the version Roxy is an impatient little cave goblin and of course the second she realized Ramona was free and the others had stopped giving a shit she'd be the one to show up at her door.
She's also the only one Ramona has to fight instead of just having an adult conversation. And while Takes Off changes a lot by design.. it dosen't deny giving us another excellent Roxie vs Ramona fight, something that I didn't realize was a tradition till this one. Still they saved the best for possibly last as the two's video store dustup is one of the best fights of the series, only topped by the final battle with Even Older Scott and even THEN it's a very close call.
Starting with a furious one on one in No Account Video, one of my faviorite settings from the books i'm glad to see get fully fleshed out and used here, even if it gets wrecked and then shut down as a result, with sprinkler's going off, discount tapes being bodied and Hollie deciding fuck this i'm clocking out, we then get a fun take on an old trope as a stack of tapes fall on them, leading to the two getting stuck in video land. We get westerns, film noir, samurai flicks, Hollie griping about them ruining her faviorite movie but watching anyway, it's a gorgeous fight and the video tape grain just adds to it.
We also get at least one fun bit using the medium as when Ramona gets sucker punched, Kim simply rewinds to help her new bestie out.. and Roxie takes it like a champ and... exits the tape JUST to stomp the remote. Fucking amazing.
The best part though, like a lot of SPTO, isn't the punching, though it's glorious but the payoff. With both exhausted, Roxie lashs out in a brutally painful way, blood down her cheek. It wasn't just that Ramona left, it's that she left.. without saying anything: we get an actual sense of their relationship this time and rather than be the "phase" Ramona cruelly brushed it off as the last two times, we see the two slowly fall in love, a really cute shot of ramona throwing a blanket over the two of them.. and then Ramona moving out, almost saying something but not wanting to, leaving Roxie devistated. It's easy to see WHY she has this bubbling anger at Ramona: every time they've fought, she's made her feel like nothing, something she vocalizes here. It takes what was an extremley dated bit that made Ramona come off like a giant asshole in the previous versions, it's fine if she realized she's not bisexual (which any scene with her and kim in both the comic and this very anime proves is just.. factually false), but it's a face punching way to put it, and puts it in the context of really hurting someone. Ramona realizes she done fucked up, genuinely apologizes and the two.. just collapse. Their friends now.
I also love Roxie hitting on Kim. I could honestly see those two working out.. I mean yes there were no sparks but Kim was kinda put on the spot there and Roxie was on the rebound. Give em some time. Plus I think Kim would work well with a feral gremlin she has to reign in. She's done it before. Roxie also asking about hollie right after before cheerfully leaving.. it's the best. Mae Whitman's the best and I could see her headlining a spinoff easily. Give me more of my feral cave gremlin daughter comma you cowards.
Finally we have Todd. Unlike the others, Todd.. isn't really fleshed out more and is given an entreily new personality from the comics swaggering egotistical rockstar jackass (Since Lucas very much had that niche filled), and the film's errrr...
Brandon Routh done good with the cleaning lady bit, but he wasn't given much to work with. Here... he makes Todd into a gloriously dumb and horny slab of moron. The guy can't go ONE SCENE without nearly fucking envy, which is one of the funniest bits in the show, capped off with the glorious wolf whistling, then fucks Wallace about ten diffrent times that we see over three days, then gets an adorable wallace sailor tatoo.
Todd.. really isn't changed. He was a fucklord in high school and he's a horny cheating mess now. He's an excus efor an already rediculous show to take it up to 11.
So let's unpack the show's sense of humor since I hadn't got to yet: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off takes an already ridiculous franchise with psychic vegans, bollywood hindu sorcerers and literal one ups, and decides to take it to the next level with film fights, lucas lee pro paparazi ninja skater 3, future renditions of Konya Wa No Hurricane by will forte, the montage from stepbrothers: Canadian edition, stunt double fights, and Matthew Patel: The Main Character. This is a series that takes it's emotinal consequences seriously and not much else. And I love it: I love weird shit, I Love balls to the wall humor, and the humor still feels very much scott pilgrim just taken up a notch.
And episode 5 is where it hits it's what the fuck is this peak as Ramona infiltrates the set of the Scott Pilgrim movie. The episode feels like one long shit post and i'm entirely in favor of it. We have Wallace fucking todd and casually dumping him, Envy and Wallace siccing their stunt doubles on each other, an Edgar Wright stand in voiced by Kevin Mcdonald for some reason and Young Neil, who in this series is entirely shit post and i'm here for it. IT's glorious chaos and only the ending is really at all emotional on some level. I mean I feel for Todd, even if he was a cheating bastard, but it's hard to take his grief or envy's seriously when Envy is a carcature of herself in this series and Todd's depression is eating a KFC bucket of poutine and sadly recounting every place he and Wallace made out. Todd isn't given extra depth.. but even as a villian he never really had depth to begin with. He had a disapproving dad and a massive ego. It's fine if he's a giant goofy blushy man who's soul wallace destroys. Brendon Routh does a phenomenal job with that.
Overall the expansion of the exes is part of what makes this adaptation so fantastic. With the exception of the twins they all get to live their best lives, and we get to see more of them. It's fun to see them implicitly join scot'ts friend group, and i've already written little chats about that, as it's fun as hell now their full characters in the world instead of respawning back probably not having learned much except not to punch scott in the face.
And the Rest
So with everything upside down, how do the rest of the people in Scott's Precious Little Life fare when the main character their built to support is gone? It's another hook of this series: if scott's gone, even just temporarily, what happens to everyone else.
Sex Bomb-Omb naturally gets impacted the most, and the versions here are superb.
The standout of course is Knives who deals with Scott's death by discovering a new love: playing music. While Knives had always been a huge fangirl in past versions, it was in the way more teens find music: by glomming on to the first band or two that makes them feel something and guarding that new faviorite thing like a cat with a ski chalet
See? Despite letting these characters live rent free in my head for the past decade, I never once thought of this idea, letting Neil join shatterband, sex bomb omb's followup as it crumbles to dust in the comics, instead.
In hindsight this idea is the most obvious thing: Knives loves music, it's an easy excuse for her parents that eases them into the fact her friends are all 20 year olds, so she can stay with the group easier, and as for why Stephen and Kim would let it happen... both have always liked her. Kim's annoyance is more worrying about Scott scarring her for life, and Stephen an dher get really close towards the end of the series, with him becoming a big brother towards her. The two becoming big siblings to her and letting her join makes sense.
It's especially nice to see with Kim. Kim interacted with Knives a BIT in the books, being the only one on Team Sex Bomb-Omb (The band plus knives and young neil), to take scott to task for the Knives thing to his face, at worst getting annoyed Knives is copying her. Granted like most of the Team, Kim still fucks up with her, most notably.. this
Which at the time I, and apparently the devleopers of the game, saw as a shippable moment but nowadays I see as NOPE PLEASE STOP, PLEASE STOP.. PLEASE NEVER AGAIN. AGE GAP'S STILL AS WEIRD AS WITH SCOTT. PLEASE DONT' TRAUMTIZE THIS CHILD MORE. Kim gets more of a pass than her band mates and neil because she was drunk at the time and clearly regrets it, but it's still something entirely fucked up I wish hadn't happened and feel bad for all involved. This is not how you should find out your bisexual.
The series wisely avoids this as they've realized "This is also statutory". and instead nicely has Kim take up the big sis roll to Knives, being the only one to really look after her after her boyfriend allgedly exploded and was found to have been cheating on her.
Hence we get one of the the best scenes in the series, the drum session. Which I know some did interpret romantically but first off...
And secondly.. really dosen't given the context: Kim sees the band needs a bassist.. but more importantly sees Knives is trying really hard to learn and is clearly spiraling after Scott's death. So she invites her to play since Neil is busy with his screenplay and Stephen, as usual is handeling this sudden loss with all the grace and dignity he's known for
IT's a beautiful scene as two people simply bond as they jam, and both heal a bit from what they've lost. And we find out Knives is a musical progidy who mastered the Bass in only four hours, and masters a keyboard later in less.
This gives Knives her first real plot in the series that isn't tethered to Scott in some way, something that was jarring to realize, but easy to see why: the books are centered around Scott's life, his friends, his love intrest, etc. Their there as needed for his story. Knives has one of the most detailed and intresting character arcs of the main cast.. but it's still thorughly tethered to Scott: his dumping her sends her on a journey of spiraling depression and growth, eventually going from someone who puts scott on such a pedestal that she attacks his new girlfriend instead of seeing the obvious, to accepting Scott wasn't perfect, he cheated and that while he opend her world up, they were really bad together and it was never an equal paring. Even the fun subplot with her dad as the mystery swordsman in book 4.. is because he thought she was still dating Scott and thus attacked him for dating his daugther. The movie makes this worse by trying to make the relationhsip seem legit missing the point entirely. While Knives has a friend in Tamara an da passle of high school drama she gleefully tells scott about, neither are important to the narrative. We only meet her parents because her mom was there when Knives met Scott and her dad tries to run him through.
Here while Scott certainly is part of her story, why she met sex bomb-omb and why she wears his jacket for most of the series, and his death certainly had an impact, she moves on quickly here not because she forgot Scott like it seems a chunk of the cast do or she's TRYING to avoid thinking about him like Kim and Wallace seem to be, she just found a healthy creative outlet, something to put her pain into in a healthy way instead of getting highlights and trying to murder Ramona or dating a guy who looks close enough to Scott. Knives moves on faster here, taking what's implied to be maybe a month at most to move on versus a year.. because she's not isolated in her pain. Scott's friends dont' dump her because it's awkward now and then awkwardly let her stay around post neil because they feel bad. Kim invites her in and after hearing she can wail, Stephen warmly welcomes her into the band, and the two become besties.
So we have to talk about Stephen really quick as his plot dovetails into Knives, with the two being a duo for half the series. Stephen is based more on his movie self.
Yeahhh while I love the books on re-read, Book Stephen sucks. He just.. sucks. If your wondering some of the lowlights i'm glad you asked, here's an expertly crafted montage.
And that's just what I could fit into a montage: he also cheats on Julie for most of volume 4, focuses on his affair with joseph to the point he refuses gigs when it's clear playing live is something Kim LIKES doing and helps her relax, and never even informs Scott the band's broken up. The last one's .. iffy because Scott was in a waking depression coma after loosing Ramona, so he coudl've told him and forgot, but out of Scott's friend group he's the most consistently dickish, with Kim's grumpy nature mostly being a wall. It's partly the writing as , again given this is scott centric, we dont' peel back the layers on him the way we do with say Ramona, Knives or Kim. We don't see why he thought it was easier to cheat like we do with Scott and Knives, which wouldnt' make it okay but would make him less punchable. we don't know WHY he stays with Julie. Stephen is just an enigma and as such comes off immesnely annoying when most of his major endevors screw up everyone elses life in some way. And as one final coda to this rant, i'm not saying telling knives about Scott's two timing is bad... i'm saying he's the wrong person to tell her as not only did HE cheat on his partner, and as the last panel shows, KNOWS it's wrong Ramona clearly dosen't know half a year into the relationship, but won't tell her anyway for a friendship he REALLY dosen't seem to remotely care about.
So yeah a hammy constantly anxious relatable stephen was better, and Mark Webber was a delight by contrast. We didn't get to know movie Stephen.. but I didn't want to punch him either. So having Anime Stephen be more like the one who isn't punchable was smart: He's still panicky, crying more over the fact Scott leaves them baseless than over the fact his friend's dead (Which is mildly douchey but as we learned with Julie, if it's for a joke it's fine), and still obessed with making music his career while his band mates are like "Yeah fine whatever", so he's not really changed hard from the core of the character, but he is a delight and him and Knives becoming best friends in a far less hypocritical sense is adorable.
I also REALLY love their pet project: After Young Neil's movie falls through, more on him shortly, they make Scott Pilgrim, the original timeline, into a MUSICAL, complete with a bread makes you fat music number. I do like the ocasional nod here and there: O'Malley and Grabinski conciously didn't want to just.. repeat a gag because it was expected, but threw a few of the more iconic bits in as long as they could remix the joke. It's why the pee bar and the shoe tying making cameos, as their in new contexts, while there just wasn't room for the l-word or scott going out a window.
This whole subplot is gold from Stephens aying "as a creative to another creative" a hundred times, something I relate to since i say as a critic way more than I probably should, to it paying off.
And this is where Knives asceneds. By the end she not only gets closure with scott, admitting she's glad he's back but is glad he died, as the relationship wasn't healthy and she could grow into a hit songwriter, but she has a huge career with an award winning (Probably) musical, a new best friend and mentor, and writing songs for her fav envy.
And most nicely for me.. .I get a reality where Sex Bomb Omb dosen't fall to pieces in some way or form. Yeah without Stephen's drama or callousness depending on the version and with Knives creative vision the band not only stays together, but has a real shot at being something, giving everyone in it a bright future. Knives Chau really got to take off.
Kim is as usual the meaning in my life and the inspriation, with Allison Pill getting to do more with the character since she's not shunted to the background to say one or two lines. I mean she's still IN the background sadly: She gets a major roll in episode 3 and then just shows up when Sex Bomb Omb's together, not even getting that involved in the musical. I really wished after the film Kim got a big beefy roll. She could've been Ramona's sidekick or something like that, the two been clue buddies together. But I suppose the raw sexual tension would've left Scott out. Still she plays of Ramona well and it woudl've been nice ot have Kim around to response to the madness of episodess 4 and 5 with ramona. Still she gets a better shake than the movie: Episode 3 highlights how this version is actually over him, but encourages Ramona's attraction to him, simply warning her of what he's like, is a good friend to Rammy, and gets that moment with Roxie. I love how sh'es just like "I'm not... oh alright". And I think given another chance there would be sparks. Kim is sadly not given MUCH but it's still more kim pine, and i'm always in favor of that.
Finally we have my newly adopted son Young Neil. Unlike with Stephen, they didn't really take from the previous neil, whose super excited, and goofy and better than the graphic novel version whose alright. They go back to the Graphic Novel's glass eyed, barely emotive werido.. yet STILL make him something new rather than just adapt that version.
The result is a neil whose spacey, barely emotive.. but also REALLY dumb and really weird. Naturally I love him and relate immensely. Neil is somehow CRITICAL to the plot this time and entirely unaware of what is going on. He's season 1 todd chavez and it's wonderful.
This Neil gets most of the best bits, with Johnny Simmons having perfect timing. A good chunk of this series weird shit comes form Neil, who takes Scott's death as as sign he should persue his passion for screenwriting and get's his big break when in a half assed wel lmeaning plan, ramona adapts his book into a screenplay and sends it to him. Neil sees a mysteriously cloaked future ramona writing the script.. then assumes it's his sleep paralysis demon and he's a scripting genius.
We then get two glorious episodes of Neil at a movie set not remotely qulaified to be there as he assumes Americans and then the japanese call golf carts mario karts, gets a perscription but somehow winds up with sunglasses, and barely registers Matthew shutting his expesnive nightmare of a film down becuase he can't drive golf carts anymore. It even takes a lengthy and fucking glorious scene with sex bomb omb for him to realize "oh maybe my sleep paralysis demon didn't write this". Just the casual way he says it while everyone else is baffled, and how Kim and Knives have to slowly explain reality to him is great. Neil is comic relief incarnate and I love him, easily the best version. I'm also happy that like most of the cast, he gets a happy ending, as he apparently got a job at the studio after Gideon reopened it driving his cart around. Nick Frost is right, Young Neil really is off the chain.
So onto the one charcter who over FOUR DIFFRENT MEDIUMS has never really talked to anyone I just talked about but knives, we have Wallace. First off: yes i'm still disapointed he never really talked to Sex Bomb Omb. I got it vibe wise: everyone has friends who just.. don't know each other, but the intro got my hopes up they'd actually.. hang out at some point. But just like everything else, the intro isn't remotely indicative of what happened in the anime. The comics sure. And it's a true banger.
youtube
Seriously the colors are vibrant, the song is vibrant and fits scott perfectly, with Necry Talkie really nailing him down, and it's a perfect intro. Even if it ends up being nothing like the series , I still love it. One of my faviorite anime intros of all time. Love that cute falling shot of scott and ramona and the bit showcasing the exes. So good.
What was I on about? Oh yeah Wallace. Wallace here is a mixed bag. As with the film Kirean Culkin is perfect as Wallace: he gets the dry tone down, his drunken antics down and the whole sarcastic vibes perfectly. He was the best performance of the film, and while the compettition's too steep here for him to win again, he's still amazing.
That said Wallace.. is a bit more of a dick here. He comes off more.. tolerating scott instead of having a genuine friendship with him, and the only hint we get of him mourning his best friend is just how plastered he is.. and even then he threatens to change the locks. If Ramona reminded him to. I get the two weren't going to be as focused on, but it's still sad.
I also wish his friendship with Ramona stayed. While it makes sense they don't bond, Scott isn't around to link them, it was one of the funnest parts of the books.
Really this Wallace shows why he needs Scott and what he might be like when his bestie isn't around: Just because Wallace is more put together.. dosen't make him not an asshole. While I admi the's more dickish here with reflection.. I have to say it's not out of character. He's still giving us killer bits from wanting to see a notriously straight actor play him, to his smug acceptance of becoming an actor, to his deadpan acceptance that todd's in love with him, he's still the wallace we love... it's just we're seeing the side of him that dosent look better with a dumpster fire constantly ned tot him.
The biggest douchery is of course stealing Todd from Envy.. but besides it taking two to cheat, Wallace stealing someone's boyfriend.. isn't new behavoir. I laughed at how out of left field the PARING was.. but Wallace is Jimmy's bi or gay or pan, whatever he is, awkaneing in the book and film, and Stacey's reaction in both makes it clear he steals her boyfriends CONSTANTLY. So him stealing Todd and then explaining it was just a fling to him.. is entirely in the realm of Wallac'es douchebagery. He's not a terrible person.. but like everyone else in the cast he's a mess. HIs abuse of his stunt doubles was a bit over the line, but is so over the top it works. And this wallace also sings us complicated. So while I wish we got to see more of the Wallace we don't in the books... what we do get is still great.
Envy.. gets the shortest end of the stick here next to the twins, as she at least had a fairly comepelling arc in the book, being the focus of volume 3 and a major part of volume 6. Here while Brie Larson is once again great there really.. isn't much for Envy here. Even the film, which basically squoozer her in at the last second, still gave us an awesome version of the phone call she gives scott and the iconic black sheep sequence. Here while Envy gets another all timer scene in her funeral concert, the second most obnoxiously awesome crashing of a funeral behind flintheart glomgold
youtube
Envy DID at least get to dance on his casket. Or a stage above his casket. still counts.
Envy.. is left at the face value we meet her at the start of volume 3: queen biatch, queen of all the chaos, queen of all you love and adore. She's still a lot of fun from the above horny antics with todd to her yanking Ramona out of a talking head interview to fight her battles for her, but there's .. nothing really to her and it stand sout in a series that gives everyone else but the twins something new.
Okay ALMOST everyone as Stacey is once again out of focus like the comics. The movie gave her a bit more, but here she's scott's sister who calls people. That's it. It makes sense, Ramona has no real reason to talk to her, but it's a waste of your Anna Kendrick to not find more antics for her, especially since they found wallace and Neil great subplots. That said she does live her best life at the end starring at lucas' butt.
I also want to note the presence of Hollie, kim's roomate, best friend and co-worker. She does little, Shannon Woodward does a fine job, but I like that she's in here at all: Hollie was a character I liked in the comics.. who went on to steal kim's boyfriend for plot convience. So having a verison of her that dosen't do that shit and is just Kim's snarky foil and friend again works for me.
Finally we have a bunch of cameos, the bulk of them legendary. We get Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as security guards, Weird Al as the intro narator for the doc on the failed Scott Pilgrim film, comedy and voice acting legend MIcheal Mcdonald as Edgar Wrong, Bowen Yang as a tv gossip, kal Pen as matt's lawyers and Kirby HOwell Baptiste as Lucas Lee's agent. All fun one or two off bits, all fantastic.
Finishing off the character stuff we have a missed opportunity too: Joseph and Lisa get to cameo.. but are once again left out, to my annoyance. I get not being able to fit them in and Lisa has less of a point without Scott around.. but it'd still be nice to get a scene or something, especially since I was far from the only person asking for Lisa Miller to get a proper apperance.
So with that we close the book on Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.. and it was phenominal. While I would've loved a new adaptation, this.. is even better: a spirtual sequel that expands the characters, is not afraid to go full nonsense, let's a lot of the cast from the film fully shine, and has a bitching soundtrack once again. Not a ton of original songs sadly, but I Feel Fine and Orange Shirt are bangers, and we get Will Forte singing an anime theme song. If the last part dosen't appeal to you, I don't know how you got this far in the review. Takes Off is one of the best entries in this franchise and leaves me hopeful we'll return to this world again. Maybe not on screen but hey, even with the mountain of work it took to get this cast together again, tthis adaptatoin has proven anything is posisble.
Thanks for reading.
#scott pilgrim takes off#scott pilgrim#ramona flowers#netflix#lucas lee#roxie richter#kim pine#wallace wells#knives chau#stacey pilgrim#gordon goose#julie powers#todd ingram#matthew patel#the twins#robot 01#lbgtq+#kieran culkin#michael cera#mary elizabeth winstead#brie larson#satya bhabha#jason schwartzman#chris evans
46 notes
·
View notes
Text
My sister and I just finished binging the entirety of "Scott Pilgrim Takes Off" and I need to ramble about it.
SPOILER WARNING
It was REALLY good!!!
The show lowers your guard with this fake sense of familiarity, the first chapter is basically an adaptation of the first comic (just really condensed so it could fit mostly everything important in a bit over 25 minutes) up until the show removes the carpet from under you and decides to kill Scott during his first battle with the league of evil exes.
From there on out the show reveals that it's not actually an adaptation, it's actually an entirely original story that's just based on the same world and characters.
And Oooh Boy was it good, having Ramona be the main character of the show was a very welcome surprise, and the show instead of being about Scott growing as a person and facing his past as well as Ramona's it's about her being forced to face her past and grow, and the show pulls this off really well, we found ourselves actually investmed on the exes and their stories, a group of characters that before were mostly just generic bad guy.
Not all of them are great though, I found Todd's & Wallace's romance plot to work a lot worse than the plot he had in the comics with Envy, his entire thing in the comics was that he let power get on his head and because he thought he was better than everyone else he cheated on Envy and broke Vegan code, 2 things that in the end lead to his downfall.
In the show he's actually a nice dude who gets a crush on Wallace, cheats on Envy not because of ego but love, and only breaks Vegan code after Wallace dumps him, he's way too nice of a guy, and on the other side of the spectrum during this whole plot they decided to turn Wallace into a villain for some reason, he's the one who is actually taking advantage of Todd and when Envy confronts him about it he pulls the "fight my stun double's" thing from the second evil ex(movie only) and forces Ramona to fight them for no real reason since she had nothing to do with this love triangle.
The other Evil Ex who I didn't like as much was Gideon, who they tried to make a sympathetic villain but it just doesn't work, like you cannot tell me this is the same guy who made a weapon that traps you in your head with your own problems as a means to keep Ramona captive in an abusive relationship. (The Glow also doesn't get referenced even once in the show which I thought it was a bit weird)
But apart from those two and Wallace for a bit, I loved every character in the show and their portrait.
One thing to note is that I feel the show basically requires that you to be a fan of the franchise to get the most out of it.
There are a ton of twist that only work if you already know the story, a bunch of jokes and references to the comics/movie/game get lost, and the main twist villain is basically a metareference to the whole discourse about how movie Scott didn't grow as a person and how awful he is yet still got the girl.
Also the twist that it was future Scott doesn't work without previous context because before that twist we only got one episode to get to know Scott.
To wrap up this very messy rambling about a new story based on one of my favorite comic series, my least favorite movies, and a game that was OK (beat em ups aren't my thing but that's not really the games fault).
Amazing show and definitely worth a watch if you're a fan of the original story 8.5/10
Would recommend waiting until you've read the comics and watched the movie before checking the show if you aren't that familiar with Scott Pilgrim 6.5/10
#scott pilgrim#scott pilgrim vs the world#scott pilgrim takes off#Scott pilgrim takes off spoilers#SPTO#SPTO Spoilers#scott pilgrim spoilers#Netflix#Comic#Movie#Film#Comics#Movies#Shows#Streaming#it's 3:09 and I'm really tired so I might look at this tomorrow and discover that it's incredibly poorly written and delete it don't know
23 notes
·
View notes
Text
Insomniac thoughts about consistency of characterisation pre- and post-Resurrection, surfacing mid-morning because I couldn’t cope with the post editor in the iOS app at a quarter to three… *ahem*
My impression is that Jod and most of his OG duplicitous sluts were in their thirties, up to fortyish, at the time it was all going down. Old enough for some of them to have multiple tertiary degrees and be leaders in their fields; not quite older adults yet. In HtN Augustine tells us Pyrrha (the “stone-cold fox”) was ten years his senior, so probably in her late forties or fiftyish. In NtN:
I didn't have to worry about the public or the media — we had a pet cop, P—. She'd made detective by that point; was going on to big things in the MoD. Knew G— from way back, and G– and I were both hometown boys, so P– kept the heat down for us.
Later on Jod reiterates that he and G— grew up on the same street.
We also hear that P— “adored being a cop”.
This is of course off-putting for a lot of readers. But I understand that the New Zealand police, while by no means a squad of saints, are not abusive and murderous on the same level as the American kind we may be more familiar with (e.g. they don’t normally carry guns). So I’m fairly sure what we’ve got here is a character who might actually have been a good cop, in a country in which that concept is not implausible beyond belief — who then, crucially, turns her back on the law (and on her own successful career) to protect the kids from her neighbourhood. Because that was what it was about for her all along.
I don’t think the Dad Pyrrha we love to see is separable from Cop Pyrrha. I think in each life she lives her priority is to look after and protect her people, and she does that in specifically masculine-coded, paternal-coded ways. The Pyrrha we get in NtN is — as with the other Lyctors we know, charming Augustine becoming a man of plex, reproductive justice advocate Mercymorn stealing semen, dutiful Gideon obeying even the command to launch multiple violent murder attempts against a tiny traumatised teenager — someone whose best qualities have been worn out and warped by too many centuries of Jod’s unliving, undying empire. But, perhaps because Pyrrha was awake and aware for less time than the rest, that kind of love does palpably linger on in her.
Pyrrha practically stumbled away — she dropped to her knees before the chair and Palamedes — she reached out and took Palamedes's hand, and then Camilla's. Her face and hands showed only dumb despair.
"I've loved you two," she said. "Not well. Not even wholesomely. I don't have it in me. But I've loved you — in a better world I'd be able to say, 'Like you were my own,' but I don't know what that would even mean anymore. You've been my agents ... you've been stand-ins for something I haven't had for longer than either of you can understand."
You can feel it every time she bribes Nona into eating, or carries her when her legs fail, or buys a birthday present and hides it away under the sink for the big day. (And when she looks at her lover's daughter with that mute hunger to have been a parent to her, too.) It’s a feature of the system Jod designed, that Lyctors don’t get much of a chance to love anyone but him. His hands, his gestures… raised by him, bound to him, renamed by him… God must be able to touch all of creation... He’s the epitome of the kind of parent who can’t imagine or allow their child to have an existence apart from their own, who’d rather stunt them than let them grow. He claimed Kiriona as his child, but he also made her his construct. And we know what he did to Alecto. But six months with Pyrrha (and the Sixth, likewise good at modeling love) and Nona just blossoms. The betrayed soul of a murdered planet has learnt anger management techniques — and now she’s learning to dance.
It seems as though at every step of Pyrrha’s story (and, just to confirm, I shall be going on a bloody rampage if we don't get the missing pieces in AtN) she knows she can’t save everyone and get everything right. Sometimes she can't save anyone at all. She has often been a casualty of her devotion. But she keeps on and on still trying, also like the Sixth, to make the best and kindest and truest choices she can in this myriadic shit sandwich. And she never stops loving the people she loves. Wouldn't know how to.
In conclusion… since I should probably conclude something… let's see. Whatever she thinks of herself, Pyrrha’s a good dad. Her accidental agents are lucky to have had those six months with her. It's not ‘playing’ house if the love there is real. And you can’t take ‘loved’ away.
#the locked tomb#nona the ninth#pyrrha dve#big dve energy#and yes I had a dream about her#and no I won't tell you#gideon the first#augustine the first#alecto the first#NONA#ntn spoilers#nona spoilers#nona the ninth spoilers#acid jail for john#is my carthago delenda est
198 notes
·
View notes
Note
I saw it as Gideon feeding is own ego, with a protege of his own after being one to Max. He definitely was someone who could read people well (i mean he was a PROFILER). He found a young gifted man who didn't have anybody and paid attention to him and convinced him to join him in his career. I believe he tried to do the same with Ethan since they mentioned he was at the academy at the same time, but Ethan dipped to become a jazz musician. Gideon had the power to push Reid through the processes of joining theBau and Reid was essentially his pet project. Reid got someone who wanted him around and Gideon got praised for scouting him and their department running smoother than ever. Ultimately Gideon didn't really help Reid through anything, and then abandoned him with a letter instead of actually saying goodbye to him. He KNEW how much that would hurt someone like Reid and did it anyway. He set up a chess game and never showed and made him seek him out. (tw for MCD) Though, to be fair, it is surmised by some that they changed the script at some point, possibly due to Mandy's demands at the time. It's been said the original intent was for Gideon to have committed suicide and that Reid was supposed to have found him there along with a note. Which would have been WORSE, obviously. That all playing out just as Reid was also finally sober and had no other parental figures in his life, it would have been even more devastating.
I'm not looking forward to them bringing back someone with a connection to Gideon on the show, and without Reid being there who was arguably the closest person he had in the seasons he was on seems kind of dull. Then have Rossi bring him up, someone we only ever saw him talk to in flashbacks of their youth. He left the show in 2007 and died in 2015 I'm tired of Gideon. Are they going to just rehash Gideon drama forever?
Tbh, to me, it was Gideon assuaging his own guilt towards Stephen.
Gideon is a flawed flawed man, and a running theme they seemed to have with him is that while he takes those actions, with no malicious intent, he can't foresee their terrible consequences : the 6 agents, Elle in the Fisher King, Reid in Revelations, and in the grand scheme of things, bringing Reid into the FBI thinking he's doing right by him, which didn't turn out so good depending on how you look at it. When the consequences really catch up to him, he seems to be in way over his head and can't follow through. He didn't show up for his son to the point where Stephen thought he wasn't wanted (and was quite detached at the news of his death, in a striking contrast to Spencer). But Gideon is also compassionate and he genuinely cares, he bought Reid these tickets for his birthday, he walked him through that (not) date, through his first kill, told him he was proud of him. For me at least, the reason they gravitated toward each other is that for awhile they filled a void in each other's lives of the absent father and the distant son, and it was his way of compensating for abandoning Stephen. But I also think he cared nowhere as intensely about Reid as Reid cared about him, and even that too was not out of malice (which makes it kinda more sad)
He was right to leave, and he was wrong in the incredibly convoluted way he did it. He could have answered Reid's calls, he could have sent a text saying that he's safe but he's leaving, hell he could have MAILED that letter, because people loved him and were clearly worried for his well being and whereabouts at this point. But to make someone doing the whole guesswork of going to a cabin in the middle of the woods to fetch a letter? That looked bad. I would have had a heart attack.
I admit liked him a whole lot as a character, I particularly enjoyed seeing him walking in circles in Hankel's bathroom telling himself that he did the right thing. I genuinely like watching character's fuck ups play out, but I agree that Gideon at this point seems so detached from the show, and without Reid there either to act unhinged at the mention of him ... eh ..... we'll see I guess.
#criminal minds#spencer reid#jason gideon#interesting point about ethan! i almost forgot he and spencer went through it together#i will proceed to overthink thhis#ask
16 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
elisalikes
E. likes
hdfdsparkle-blog
MY MESS
siimiintomuch
I use Maxis Match and sometimes Alpha :)
himboniehuaisang
my head-shaking brings all the boys to the yard
dormantsinew
The Wordforge