#and he does it so with Ramona; as partners

[sirghostheart]

[ID: The stick figure violence meme. The top text says: "Girls when" and the center text says ""Gideon...I think I understand you man... And now I have to kill you."". End ID.]

I really hope I get to see this scene animated in the new show.

[silver-tangent]

You know… the bait and switch of Scott Pilgrim takes off was needed.

Scott Pilgrim was meant to be a subversion of tropes, and it got picked up by a bunch of nice guys, myself included at one point, who turned it into their anthem.

The original comic was about Everyman Scott Pilgrim having to win a woman by fighting her evil exes, and on the surface that’s what it was. Between the fanbase and the movie, that’s as shallow as anyone goes…

Except that Scott didn’t win her by defeating her evil exes. Scott was troubled and problematic. In the end he wasn’t abusive but he was neglectful and took Ramona for granted to the point that her abusive and manipulative ex managed to convince her to go back to him… mostly out of fear of what would happen to dumb, hapless, Scott.

Scott was an exceptional fighter in his videogame world… he beat like… one of the seven. The rest of the time he was saved by complete dumb luck, by his friends, and by Ramona.

The entire point was slowly realizing how silly the situation was, and how he wasn’t a white knight… he was set up to be a white knight only to knock that idea down and have Ramona and friends help him.

They learned, they grew, they were both toxic and broken people for different reasons, Scott through ignorance and a lack of experience and Ramona through trauma and abusive relationships…

And in the comic… they don’t exactly break up but she ghosts him. Horribly… and he ends up fighting Gideon anyway, and rescuing her… by gaining the Power of Understanding. That’s right, not self-respect. Understanding…

And the last page they decide to try again, but we don’t know what that means… everyone moves on to a better place in their lives, a lot of them move on from Scott and Ramona romantically… and Scott and Ramona get to just… see where this goes…

and that’s a sweet note to end on. Two people who didn’t know how to be healthy partners growing up, and timidly trying it all over, with no confirmation of how it works.

Movie? Movie came out before book 6, audiences didn’t like the ending where Scott chases after Ramona (differently from the books like he literally chases after her) so Scott earns the power of self respect, and gets back with Knives…

And intended or not, it just sets up this idea that Ramona was the bad guy. Ramona, the abuse victim, was friend-zoning Scott; the nice guy…

And for a decade, the fandom has kinda devolved into that mentality; Scott Pilgrim is the savior of the nice guys. Ramona is the unobtainable girl. Knives is the victim…

O’Malley’s original point, that relationships are hard and trauma is hard, and nobody can do it alone… lost.

To the point that we are so deep in this nice guy culture that making a sequel disguised as a reboot (will not spoil more) was necessary. He had to make the point more obvious, that the story was always about Ramona working through her relationship trauma… Scott was the house husband. He was always meant to be.

Everyone I see complaining about the twist… does not get the point of the comics… and I’ve been bitching about the movie for more than a decade so I’m sorry… it’s not a *bad* movie… but it’s clear most of the fanbase only watched the movie. And it’s clear most of the people complaining are Gideon in denial… no… Future Scott in denial… which is in fact the point.

[toaarcan]

I know this discourse is going to start flaring up again because Takes Off just released, and I've seen bits of it already, but the point of Scott Pilgrim as a series is not that Scott has to go through character development and stop being an ass in order to 'win' the girl of his dreams.

It's that Scott and Ramona are two fundamentally very similar people with a long list of exes who they hurt in very similar ways and they both need to stop that and grow as people in order to have a healthy relationship with each other.

This is highlighted mostly in Books 4-6. Volume 4, Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together, has Scott and Ramona's relationship hit a low point because they both mistake the other for cheating. Ramona thinks Scott is getting too chummy with Lisa, and Scott thinks the same about Ramona and Roxie, and they nearly fall apart because of it.

Volume 5, Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe, contrasts Ramona finding out that Scott two-timed her and Knives and becoming outraged by it, and Scott being told that Ramona did the same thing to Kyle and Ken. In fact, Scott almost loses to the Katyanagis, and only manages to pull out a win because Kim lies about Ramona having off-screen growth to give him enough motivation to fight back.

And it's in Volume 6, Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour, that this finally gets hammered home. In the aftermath of his and Ramona's breakup, Scott slips into a self-destructive depression where all he does it sit around the house and play old videogames, until Wallace convinces him to go into the wilderness to find his feet again. After Ramona returns, she reveals that she attempted to go into the wilderness and find her footing again, but all she did was sit around her dad's house and watch old TV.

They're so similar to each other that they even mope in the same general way.

They're both hot messes who did some dodgy stuff, the major difference between them is that most of the people Scott hurt were, y'know, relatively normal, while Ramona's exes are mostly crazy people who decided to join up with a "League of Evil Exes" whose main goal is apparently "Murder any of Ramona's future partners and take her back by force."

The books are relatively light on details for how the League actually worked, but it's clear from the second episode of Takes Off that all of them besides Gideon believed that whomever killed Ramona's new partner would automatically be with her again, and they're shocked when Matthew tells them that she rejected him. Meanwhile, Gideon's overall objective wasn't elaborated on in the show, but it's presumably the same as it is in the books: Cryogenically freeze his own seven exes, Ramona included, and use the Glow to brainwash them all into being his girlfriends at the same time.

In Takes Off, Ramona is able to mostly resolve her issues with the Exes herself, over the course of her investigation into who took Scott and faked his death, but the overall difference between the book timeline and the show timeline is that one spotlights Scott's growth, and the other spotlights Ramona's growth.

They're perfect for each other, and it's because they're both hot messes who need to grow the hell up before they can have healthy adult relationships.

[centrally-unplanned]

The thing about morality is that it only matters when it's real. Discussions of rules or norms for what is right or wrong are almost always, at some level, illusions, approximating reality and guiding decisions in an uncertain world - which does not make them useless, just contextual. Profaning god in your bedroom can never be “wrong” - there is no one to hear you, no one to be hurt by it. You can only show something is really wrong from the intentions of the actions and their results.

So with that out of the way, lets talk about Knives Chau - and specifically, how the comic vs the anime handled that part of the story.

Scott Pilgrim vs The Reification of Dating a High Schooler

There is an extremely pervasive meme in Scott Pilgrim discourse that our titular Scott is a scumbag. Our returning whipping boy the Kotaku article loves this idea, describing Scott’s “detestable behavior” and wondering “was it too subtle the first time about Scott being an absolute shitbag?”. There is this viral headline screenshot from an interview floating around right now riding that same line:

Which is, of course, pretty much false. Its up to you in the end, “shitbag” is a subjective description, but the story just isn’t about events that would be described that way. Its the story of a guy getting over an awful ex, hurting some people, then meeting a new person, and realizing step-by-step what it takes to be their partner and levelling up as a person each time he does. He starts off broken, and Ramona of course is just as broken - getting better is their mutual arc. And its fundamentally about relationship drama - those stakes don’t make you a scumbag lol, just clueless, unless you are terminally online and don’t know what real stakes are.

I will let O’Malley get the last word in with his quote the writer of that interview is hilariously trying to torture into his headline:

There's a bit of, like, young people see Scott Pilgrim a certain way, and, you know, there's a lot of, like, 18-19-year-old fans that are really judgmental of the character. They're like, "Oh, he's a bad person. I would never do that." But I always tell them, like, get back to me when you're 25 or 30, tell me how your 20s went. Were you a bad person? Everyone has to make choices and do things in life that maybe they're not going to be proud of later.

Scott is a scumbag the way everyone is - you yourself will likely commit similar sins; that at least seems to be the authorial intent, and I agree with it.

So how does dating Knives Chau slot into this?

Despite the memes, age, in fact, is just a number - two consenting people dating does not a sin make. The reason dating underage people is bad is because of its consequences, not the categorical imperative. So what are the consequences of dating Knives Chau in the comic?

Knives is, as a consequence of dating a guy who is simply via his age able to appear so much cooler than her peers to her, absolutely obsessed with Scott. She worships his band:

She starts aping his taste in music and interests; she slots herself into his circle of friends, who don’t relate to her, even after their breakup (often drinking her way through it):

She totally spirals after he cheats on her and leaves her, blaming everyone but him; she is wounded and hurt for months, a year, over a relationship that lasted weeks:

Knives Chau is a literal poster child for why you should not date a high schooler. She is, at every turn, emotionally not ready to date someone who is not at her own level of social development, and is deeply affected by it. It is, sometimes, played for laughs - that is the nature of the comic, everything is played for laughs, but I would have given it a bit more dramatic space myself - but over the course of the story Scott himself realizes how much of an ass he was to her, and how he didn’t take what happened seriously.

The reason I view this with charity is what Scott did to lead to this - he met a cute girl on the bus! He was deeply hurt and kind of numb in life, and found someone who was safe and easy to talk to. He never attempts to kiss her (she starts trying to kiss him which he repeatedly rejects) they don’t even hold hands, and it lasted a few weeks. He knew deep down, pretty much immediately, it was fake:

Then he met an actual person he liked, and with some browbeating from Wallace agreed to break up with her, but chickened out for a day. Then the next day he decides to break up with her, and she drops the L bomb before he can, so he instantly ends it. It is really awkward for everyone involved.

Pushing off an awkward and uncomfortable conversation resulting from a dumb decision you made on a whim for a week - god I relate to that, that’s everyone! If you think it isn’t you I think you're lying. Its why this relationship is so interesting in the comic - Scott is always one step removed from it, putting it at abeyance, and the fact that something so minor to him is so destructive to her is a really good portrait of how these kinds of things happen. Its so easy to hurt someone when you don’t even know what the stakes are, and when its coming not from malice, but from weakness. Its a very good portrayal of a bad relationship because its bad in a relatable way, even if as a story is a bit more dramatic than is typical. And its a great portrayal of how fraught age gaps can be - this bad relationship is part of what makes the comic a good story.

But its 2023, we don’t give a shit about any of that anymore!

O’Malley in the same interview discusses the cultural shift around these kind of relationships:

I felt like in this day and age, I had to provide clarity on that [relationship]. Because when I wrote the first books, I took it for granted that people would understand that dating a high schooler was a bad thing. But on the internet, in this day and age, people are like, "He's dating a high schooler. That's terrible!" Like, that's pretty much what I say on page 1 of the book. But I try to spell it out a little bit more this time.

He isn’t telling the full story though - it was bad in 2004, but not bad the way it is today. Its dubiousness was mitigated by its frequency; people were doing this kind of shit all the time. Scott Pilgrim is a bass guitarist in an indie band; fucking groupies is like built into the cover charge. Half the problem Scott has in dating Knives is that she is the wrong kind of 17-year-old - had Scott met her at 1 am in the aftermath of a Born Ruffian’s concert at the Whippet Lounge knocking down shots off the back of her fake ID, no one would have even noticed. Hell, no one does notice; there is someone who actually makes out with a drunk 17-year-old Knives Chau in the comic Scott Pilgrim, and isn’t Scott Pilgrim:

No one cares about Kim’s inebriated petting session here; that is 10% because she is a Girl and Girls Can’t Be Predators, 40% because she isn’t the main character, and 50% because Kim Pine’s dating history is not a useful proxy battleground for GamerGate-adjacent nerd culture wars in ~2014; but that is road that goes directly to hell, so let's veer back.

The point, of course, is that in 2004 this is a crime flecked with normality, something your friend would do and you would maybe just cock an eyebrow at:

Its not that in discourse today - it is radically more condemned. It is not a contextual sin, but an original sin. It underwent a process I am calling reification - where it goes from being just a shifting descriptor of reality, to a thing in itself, with a defined (reified) meaning. And to be clear, that is in a lot ways on net a good thing? The reality is that, despite everyone’s protestations, there are today thousands of 17-year-olds taking the L line out to a gig at the Brooklyn Steel and going down on a 25-year-old guy they just met in a back alley off Frost St who swears he’s a “drummer in a sick new band” that played here “just last week”, he promises, and she is having a great time, bragging to her friends about how hot his tattoo was, and then shipping herself off to Cornell next year to start on her pre-med track with barely a memory. But for every dozen of those, there is at least one person who is deeply, deeply hurt, a Knives Chau who never deserved this. The rest can have a slightly worse time, its probably worth it.

That does not make it a categorical imperative, though - the reification has masked that truth. The crime comes from the context - those other girls aren’t victims, they would laugh at you for suggesting they were. But in 2023, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is no longer concerned with context. It is telling you, right to your face, that Scott is a bad dude. Over and over and over - jokes from the Evil League about “wow, I thought we were evil”, its not subtle.

Yet meanwhile, Knives Chau is, like, fine? She dates Scott, is totally into him, and then literally in the middle of his funeral forgets about him for Envy crashing it:

Picks up the bass and has yuri-inflected playtime with Kim the literal next day:

And less than a week later is pitching an off-broadway musical adaption of Scott’s life to a billionaire Matthew Patel - I can’t explain that okay, I’m as confused as you are.

She is mad at Scott, sure, but she is over it in a matter of days. Hell, notice how she was already a fan of the Clash at Demonhead now? There is no scene of Scott introducing her to his kind of music. He didn’t change her. By the end she is a member of his band and they are totally chill:

This is, again, about a week or two later.

Knives is not an important character in this show, way less than in the original, this is no grand sin. But I still find it very interesting: O’Malley is wrong. He “spells it out” way less in this version when it comes to the actual consequences of Scott’s actions. Everyone’s verbal condemnations are substitutes to replace the real damage his actions dealt in the comic. Scott is a better person this time, in a world that has universally agreed he is worse (still not a good move ofc). Even Scott’s moment of apology to Knives about their dating is so tepid its almost Straussian:

Its ‘frowned upon’…which is not the same thing as saying it was wrong! I don’t think this is intentional, its just funny, but its a nice capstone nevertheless.

And it had to be this way, not just for media in general, but for Scott Pilgrim in particular. Not only are sexual crimes far more reified today, but Scott Pilgrim’s sin of dating a high schooler is reified as well - its the first piece of discourse everyone encounters about it. Its the ur-debate of the franchise. The idea of actively engaging on this point, and digging deeper into it…its too hot, too controversial. Way better to shy away from it, disown it. The discourse wrote this part of the script over the course of a decade; its not something the creatives had any say in.

Honestly they should have just gone all the way - just make Knives 19. Then how tepid it is wouldn’t be a distraction anymore. Scott can just be an asshole for cheating on her, that would work fine. If you aren’t going to commit to the reality of these things, you shouldn’t bother with it at all.

[kniveschaudefender]

overall gideon relationship headcanons please :)

of course !! sorry for doing this so late omg i genuinely forgot i had tumblr but im so back !!

GIDEON GRAVES RELATIONSHIP HC !!

please, this man loves you with his whole heart

literally your number 1 supporter (sometimes TOO supportive, even if it’s completely wrong he thinks its okay only because youre the one doing it)

will NEVER let a single drop of your money go torwarda anything as long as he’s there. He will pay for everything and always just says its because he has the cash for it so why make you pay ??

this man absolutely CRAVES affection. he needs it as bad as the way a plague spreads. after everything he’s been through, he truely wants someone to care. so if you show him any sort of affection, hes swooned and will most definitely return it one way or another

back to the money thing, hes a strong believer that ‘money buys happiness’ and all he wanta is to see you happy so all his cash will probably go to you.

anything you hint that you want ? yours immediately . he will buy you ANYTHING if it means youll be happy.

also, this man will do anything in his power to keep you as far away as possible from the league. youll meet them maybe once or twice if youre lucky but will make sure they are nowhere near you at all times. after you two got together, he saw them more as a danger or threat and he doesnt wanna risk you getting hurt.

he probably also passed the league down eventually. i mean, he got a new partner so whats the point in chasing ramona anymore ??

but overall, he really does love you. this man will do some sickening things to ensure your safety and will always be by your side.

(MAKE SURE TO SUPPORT YOUR WRITERS BY REBLOGGING !!! THANKS FOR READING AND MAKE SURE TO LEAVE SOME NEW WRITING IDEAS FOR ME <3<3)

[theshotsheardacrossworlds]

Jealous

Seeing his lady attract so much attention got Gale going in more ways than one. NSFW. Based on this post.

On the outside, Gale Dekarios was charming. Smiling. Happy. Polite. On the inside, however, he was seething. He and Ramona had decided to head downstairs to get some light refreshment when he noticed several people leering at her and now one man was speaking with her at the bar.

He’s close.

Dangerously close.

Don’t you dare touch her.

She likes it when I touch her. Only me.

I am her lover. I am her future husband…hopefully. I am her god…well, in bed. Don’t worry, Selune---you’re very much her favorite deity!

Gale stared at young tiefling flirting with her. He was tall, muscular, and had incredibly menacing horns. He’s got a handsome face as well---square jaw, a perfectly proportional nose, and striking eyes. And what a head of hair!

Everything I’m not.

No. No. She wants me. She chose me. Even when Astarion was throwing himself at her left and right, she still chose me.

He decided he had had enough and made his way to Ramona.

My beautiful girl. Perfect in every way. So damn oblivious. A trap could bite her and then detonate, and she’d still be looking for it. Gale casually walked up to her and the young man, hearing the last part of their conversation.

“—the bluebonnets are nice this time of year. Maybe we could go and see them if you want?” he asked, smiling warmly.

Ramona, however, was nodding politely, and her expression completely neutral. She lit up when she saw Gale approach, turning her head to greet him with a kiss. A chaste one. I’m not some lout wanting to show everyone who leered at her to whom she belongs. No, I will show her that in private. “Oh, sorry---my partner’s arrived. Hope you have a good rest of your evening, saer.”

The look on the young man’s face was pure disappointment. He bowed. “You as well, my lady.”

When he was out of earshot, Ramona sighed and placed her hand over her heart. “Oh thank fuck you arrived, love. I was desperately trying to think of ways for me to stop talking to him while still waiting here for our food.” She beamed at him, and Gale felt her tail wrap around his hips. Good gods, the things she does to me.

“Dearest, I very well could not have left you here to suffer inane conversation. What kind of gentleman would I be if I did?” He draped his arm around her broad shoulders, his fingers daring to go just the slightest, no one will see bit under her top to play with a bra strap.

Her cheeks flushed a deep red. “Well, you could’ve…I don’t know…let me suffer?” She glanced up at him and giggled as his index finger traced a circle with the strap in the middle. “No, you’re far too good of a man for that. A very naughty, good man.”

That’s it. I need to get her upstairs. Now. He turned to the bartender and flashed a grin. “My dear man, could the food we ordered be brought to the second room in the suites upstairs?” Gale smiled to himself as he caught her raising an eyebrow, placing several good pieces on the counter. Not to worry---the countess can always send more gold.

“Aye, sure. No problem.”

With a nod, he took her hand and led her towards the stairs. As they walked up, she laughed breathlessly. “Gale love, what on earth has gotten into you?”

“I’ll explain in one moment, my beauty.” They entered the suite common room and then made a beeline for their room, closing and locking the door behind him. Gale could feel the sweat dripping from his brow as he touched his earring, the glamour disappearing.

“Love—”

His lips crashed against hers in an instant, and his arms wrapped around her soft, thick waist. When he broke the kiss, he began to paw at her top. “Do you know how many people were staring at you? Watching you? Leering at you?” he growled. “All of them looking at your every curve, your pretty eyes, your heaving cleavage…and that young so-and-so, thinking he could charm you? Ha!” Once she was down to her smalls, he practically ripped his robes off. “What fools these mortals be---thinking they could compete with me for your affections?” You chose me. You want me. Out of all the people in the world, all of our companions…you chose me. And most days I still cannot believe it. “You’ve shown me time and time again one fundamental truth, my love. Do you know what it is?” He reached behind her and unclasped her bra with ease, freeing her large and extremely soft breasts from their confines.

Her bright blue eyes never left him as she watched him help her with her clothes and then remove his. “N-no?” she whispered; her eyes wide.

Gale cupped a breast and leaned against one of her short black horns. “That I am yours, and you, in turn, are all mine.” This pair of underwear is already tight enough and falling apart, so I suppose… His other hand reached for an existing tear in his underwear and tore them off, finally liberating my cock. Gods take me, she does things to me. “My love, my sweetest lady, my dearest one, I need you. I need you right now.” Backing her up towards the foot of the bed, he kissed her again. The kiss was sloppy and passionate, not his usual controlled, chivalrous ones he shared with her in public.

As she hit the bed, she fell backwards and let out an amused cry. “Gods Gale, were there really that many people looking at me?!” She panted in disbelief and removed her panties, tossing them on the floor. I’ll put them in the dirty clothes pile later. Everything should be organized, my dear! She moved up the length of the bed, her tail swishing all the while. “I didn’t think anyone was—”

“By Elminster’s beard, of course there were!” He sighed as he crawled to her. Stopping to line himself with her glistening cunt (fucking hells, she is so wet), Gale put his weight on his hairy forearms, nearly pressing onto her. “My love, you are alluring to anyone with eyes! And I suppose, everyone without eyes when they hear you speak! So many eyes on you—ah!” He exhaled sharply as he entered her, and she moaned wantonly. Sing for me, my angel. I want to hear it all…hear how you’re mine… “But all I could think was how you. Are. Mine.” Punctuating each word with a thrust, his rhythm became faster every second. Mine. Yours. All mine. All yours. Forever. Always.

The claws on one of her hands threaded through his silky hair as the other lightly dragged along his back. “Gale…please…”

“Too much?” He panted and hung his head to glance at her face. “If it is, I—”

She shook her head, her expression as light and bright as could be. “More, love. More…please…”

Whatever the lady desires, so it shall be done! Thrusting harder, he tugged at her plump lower lip and moaned. “You are…so beautiful…one day…you’ll see…will do anything…to have you see…what I see…”

“And you?” she asked as she reached where they were joined. Good girl. Such a good girl. “Will you see yourself as I see you, my handsome wizard?” Ramona moaned again, her cheeks now bright red. “Gale…so close, love…”

He quickly pressed a kiss to her lips. “So am I, my sweet…ah, tell me, darling…tell me I’m yours…”

“You’re mine!” she cried, her climax hitting her hard. “You’re all mine…my Gale…”

Burying his face in the crook of her neck, he nearly screamed as he released several torrents of seed into her. He rolled off her, panting heavily. “Thank you for indulging me, sweetness. You truly are the most wonderful woman in all the realms.”

Minding her horns (she’s always so careful not to nick me with her horns and claws), she curled into his soft side, head resting on his plush hairy chest and her tail swishing happily. “And you are the most wonderful man.”

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Ramona quickly rose from bed and grabbed her black silk robe. As soon as we “moved into” the Elfsong Tavern, she grabbed that very sexy robe and returned saying she “needed” it. Well, it turns out I need it too because godsdamn, she looks incredible wearing it. “Hi, thank you so much! Here you go.” She took the tray of food and handed the waiter a handful of gold before she closed the door. She didn’t tie it well enough because there it goes! Dinner and a show---who’s better than me? His mouth salivated at the sight of her jiggling belly and swaying hips more so than the charcuterie plate he ordered.

A long night ahead, I think. Perhaps I should give into my less than gentlemanly tendencies more often…

[mintharaworshipper]

BG3 headcanons (modern AU)

My brain is full of headcanons and I need to get them out!

Shadowheart: She’s an English teacher. Always advocates for her queer students, who see her as a refuge. Loves sweets and pastries and is always carrying a snack in her backpack. Dyes her hair once a month, different colour every time. Chronically online, Tumblr and Twitter user, has the best taste in memes out of all the gang. Writes poetry and fan fiction. Grew up in a cult and lives with religious trauma, but she goes to therapy and does her very best.

Astarion: He’s a lawyer, of course. Has an impeccable aesthetic in his instagram profile, with a defined palette. Very good taste in clothing. He was physically and emotionally abused by his stepfather when he was a kid and hasn’t really worked through this trauma (Shadowheart always encourages him to go to therapy). Very close friends with Shadowheart.

Minthara: Lawyer, but has specialised in finance and has rapidly climbed the financial ladder via questionable methods. CEO of a major company. Impeccable taste in fashion. Vegan. Has a section in her closet filled with BDSM paraphernalia. Everything she owns is expensive. She’s the daughter of a powerful senator who was very emotionally abusive to her growing up. Staunch defender of capitalism. Wakes up naturally at 5 am. Does yoga and tai chi.

Lae’zel: She’s in the air force, has wanted to be since she was a girl. She’s in the spectrum and has only recently realised. Her special interests are planes and meteorology. Wakes up very early to run 10k. Extremely mindful about her eating, every meal is perfectly balanced for her specific nutritional needs.

Karlach: Non-binary. P.E teacher, works at the same school as Shadowheart and that’s how they met and started dating. Loves large dogs. They are a personal trainer on the side. Loves going to the gym and is very supportive of new people. Friends with Wyll since high school.

Jaheira: Anthropologist, environmental and anti-gentrification activist. Has lived in her neighbourhood forever and hates that it’s getting gentrified. Being a local icon and leader, a few political parties have tried to get her to run for office but she always refuses because she doesn’t trust the establishment. Has been arrested multiple times at demonstrations. She’s so devoted to her activism that she has neglected her children at times. Chain smoker.

Halsin: Environmental lawyer. Has worked in multiple NGOs. Has been to therapy. Single, not for a lack of suitors, but because he wants to find a life partner. Has been a vegetarian for decades. Has a bear tattoo.

Wyll: Entrepreneur. Devoted to The Grind™. Has taken classes on gender politics. Goes to the gym with Karlach and uploads mirror selfies. Has asked Minthara to be his mentor but she keeps refusing. Has also been to therapy.

Gale: Successful academic. Has been going through a terrible divorce with another famous and powerful academic. Excellent cook, makes his own sourdough bread. Likes the finer things in life.

Bonus: My OC, Ramona

Literature major but has no academic ambition whatsoever. She does know a lot about it and runs a literature club for troubled teenagers with Shadowheart.

Was working as a barista when she met Minthara and was immediately enthralled.

Has shared a flat with Shadowheart since uni, and they’re best friends.

She’s easily the funniest one in the gang.

Always manages to get free stuff or discounts just because of how nice and persuasive she is.

Excellent liar (white lies, mostly).

Wears recycled clothing almost exclusively, which Minthara hates.

Everyone hated Minthara when they first started dating but over time, as she changed, they managed to put up with her, even growing fond of her (most of them).

I’ve been trying to write some fics but I can’t seem to find the courage to. I enjoy coming up with headcanons more

[hestiviea]

Part 2 of Scott Pilgrim Swap AU

Seven Evil Exes and Their Relationship with Ramona

continuation of this: scott pilgrim swap au but i can't draw

considering the fact Ramona made a comment that Matthew only became evil when he got into high school, meaning that Ramona still kept in touch with Matthew or Matthew was there in the same School with Lucas and Todd. So in this AU, Matthew and Ramona are still friends and basically are supposed to be Kim and Scott roles. Matthew becomes depressed but hides it well by making it seem like he's just being emo and overdramatic, cause you know, theatre kid

Lucas like I said before, was probably just going on with the other exes' evil plan thing and without the revenge thing, he basically got better for himself, making a name as an actor and getting strong. so in this AU, Lucas is basically Ramona's Wallace, kinda, he gives genuine advice coming from someone who worked to improve and get better for himself, But the moment he meets Scott, he vents and talks about how heartbroken and how hard it was when Ramona cheated on him

Envy had enough of Todd being a like a man-child and also being a douchebag, so She kicked him out. Todd in this AU is kinda like stephen but without the anxiety, he works to improve and explore himself, but that only starts to happen after Ramona remeets Gideon, because Todd really gets a reality check and also breaks down when Gideon belittles him

Roxy tries to do everything she can just so she can meet Ramona, like coincidentally having an art show in Toronto or passing by town, to me, Roxy is Ramona's version of envy Because after meeting with Scott and after a few weeks or so, Roxy snaps and tries to kill Scott

Since the Twins don't have much character, I'm just going to use @ken-katayanagi Headcanons, thank you for feeding the Katayanagi Twins fans for so long. Ken and Kyle have an estranged relationship because everyone assumes that since they're twins they basically are the same person, so they try to be as individual as possible but in doing so cause their relationship to be strained, it was only after Ramona dated both of them since in her mind it was just a fuck buddy situation but to the twins, they thought it was more

They reconcile and realise that they never truly knew eachother, so they swear to always have time for one another. They get over Ramone pretty quickly and after Ramona breaks up with Gideon, She calls them to get a drink but it's so she forgets about Gideon. In this AU, they're kind of like Julie, Stacey, and Wallace in two, they're aware of Ramona's flaws and call them out, they're not subtle or kind with it either, they bluntly say it. When they first meet Scott, Ken basically whispers for Scott to run, also have the best relationship with Scott, they provide alot about Ramona's past whenever Ramona tries to hide it and they genuinely care for Scott's wellbeing, while Scott was temporarily out of Sex Bob-Omb, he also temporarily joined the twins music career things

Gideon was already over Ramona when she left him, he isn't going to get her back for his harem, instead he just plays around, he only cryogenically freezes people he considers as partner material and people that genuinely interest him plus can deal with him, Ramona isn't suitable for his standards of a perfect girlfriend, so he didn't truly care when he saw ramona again

but he does insult and mock Ramona when he finds out that she's dating Scott, aka his lead bassist of the band he recently is working with (but also/probably plot twist scideon, cause i find that to be hilarious and fun to explore)

[whatsaudreythinkingabout]

randomly assorted scott pilgrim headcanons!

(mostly involving roxy)

(some involving future scenarios)

envy & roxy have the same weak spot behind their knee. they are also girlfriends. this is the most important headcanon & i have a whole separate thing that goes more in-detail on this but this is all you need to know

kim is a huge tegan & sara fan (she’s from canada and definitely bi so it makes sense). she likes their earlier albums (since it takes place in the mid-2000s it would probably be around the time so jealous and/or the con were released), and when heartthrob and lytd came out she tried to pretend she hated the new pop sound but she secretly loves it.

lynette lost her arm while performing a show with tcad that brought the house down. literally. the frequency of the vibrations emitted from their performance was powerful enough to cause a minor earthquake, and while the band was trying to escape the venue, her arm was crushed by falling debris.

envy is bilingual, having grown up in montreal, and speaks both english and french.

roxy & matthew are best friends. however, when they first joined the league, they absolutely could not stand each other. each thought the other was totally obnoxious, and they would constantly bicker and fight with each other. they also definitely got into the pirates vs ninjas argument on more than one occasion. eventually, after a sparring match gone wrong, they bonded over the fact that ramona had used them in some form while they were dating her (matt for his powers, roxy for her sexuality), as well as their love of too much black eye makeup, and they’ve been inseperable ever since. they definitely have a partners-in-crime dynamic, and their friendship is 80% snark and 20% chaotic dumbass.

later on, lucas gets roped into their friendship as well, and they form an unstoppable friend trio. roxy sees him as a cool older brother type. matt has such a huge repressed crush on him you don’t even KNOW and roxy teases him about it literally all the time

after the events of the series, they form a 3-piece punk band called roxy & the hooligans (title derived from a book i read when i was a kid). roxy is the lead singer and bassist (she learned how to play out of pure spite just to flex on scott & todd), matt is lead guitarist & backup vocalist, and lucas is the drummer. matt is also their special effects/pyrotechnics guy.

they’re also housemates for a little while, then matt & lucas start dating and roxy moves in with envy when they start dating. of course, this does not affect their friendship, and they have double dates frequently.

after she starts dating envy, roxy also forms another best friend group with julie powers and lisa miller. at first envy is worried roxy and julie won’t get along bc she thinks julie will be jealous of roxy for “stealing” envy’s attention, but they end up bonding over their shared hatred of scott.

lisa and roxy are identical twins who were separated at birth. (this was bc they’re both portrayed by mae whitman but i might retcon this one, idk)

meanwhile, roxy & todd actually, genuinely HATE each other. todd was always kind of a bully to her when she was in the league & she hates how much he gets on her nerves. to make up for it she loves to rub in his face how much he fumbled the bag with envy

envy was genuinely hurt by lynette going behind her back with todd bc she thought they were friends. lynette is pretty indifferent about it.

after the events of the comic, ramona starts a support group for all the women affected by gideon.

envy is a natural redhead, but started dyeing it blonde once she had her big rockstar makeover, and often alternates between the two shades.

(tentative, still figuring out whether i wanna make this a full headcanon) roxy is a natural brunette, but dyed (and maybe also cut) her hair after ramona broke up with her, as the gays™ are known to do. she also used to wear her hair in space buns instead of pigtails (whaat nooo this totally wasn’t inspired by spinel what are you talking about)

roxy doesn’t really care about the spelling of her name; she spells it with a “y” and with an “ie.” (alternate idea: she spelled it with an ie before the breakup and with a y after the breakup?)

barbie movies exist in this canon, and envy recorded “hope has wings” for the magic of pegasus when she was a teen (back when she was still going by natalie) but she’s super embarrassed about it. she has literally done everything in her power to hide it, but as soon as her friends find out about it they refuse to let her live it down.

likewise, finally out of pe exists in this verse except now it’s just part of envy’s early discography, which she wrote before she formed TCAD.

technically the events of the story happened at the same time the early barbie movies & brie’s album came out but we can afford to move the timelines around a lil bit just for funsies

kim created the maid costume herself, & she’s a closet geek/cosplayer. later on she & envy end up bonding over their secret nerdy sides.

she’s also a closet theatre kid

roxy is the kind of person that tries to put on a tough front to avoid getting hurt & being seen as weak but if you give her even one (1) single tiny bit of affection she will instantly fall apart (especially if you happen to be a pretty girl)

when gideon was messing with everybody’s memories, he ended up causing a rift in the universe that caused the timeline to branch into two separate realities (the books and the movie, respectively). when he was defeated, they merged into one again, but the characters now have memories from both realities. it’s a little confusing

wallace ends up getting together with stephen later on (maybe? they seem like they’d have a fun dynamic), and they’re happy together, but once wallace finds out about matt & lucas dating he’s so fucking salty about it bc HE HAD A CHANCE WITH LUCAS LEE THIS WHOLE TIME

ramona eventually becomes the lead singer of shatterband. scott & kim decide the two-person lineup isn’t working out for them; they need a frontman, someone with charisma to tie them all together. then they hear a voice coming from the bedroom. they go to investigate and find ramona singing softly to herself. she’s a bit hesitant to join at first bc she’s not super confident about singing in front of others, but they manage to convince her by telling her how she could totally one-up envy.

matthew is a proud, unabashed theatre kid. roxy is the kind of person who acts like she absolutely despises theatre kids (even tho she’s really just as melodramatic as matt but won’t admit it) until karaoke night rolls around & she suddenly knows all the songs

roxy is a mixed media artist & is proficient in quite a few different techniques, but her specialty is graffiti. since being a ninja takes a lot of discipline & she often got criticized for letting her emotions get the better of her, it gives her an outlet to be more uninhibited.

the twins are pretty aloof & don’t really talk to anyone else besides themselves; they just kinda do their own thing while viewing everyone else with either mutual respect or smug superiority. gideon doesn’t really give a shit about the other league members, but the twins are his “favorites” (relatively speaking) just bc of how efficient & powerful they are

scott & ramona end up in sort of a semi-throuple with kim. no one really knows what their exact situation is; whether they’re an open relationship, friends with benefits, or just officially all dating each other, but wherever they are, kim is usually also there, & they don’t question it. (honestly the more i think about it the more i like the idea of polyamorous ramona just bc there’s so many characters i ship her with)

maybe wallace also gets involved. just for funsies

in the future, roxy ends up taking knives on as her ninja protégé. as a mentor, she’s pretty no-nonsense bc she wants her to be able to reach her full potential, but she also tries to keep her temper in check & not be overly harsh on her just bc of what she went through in her own training (at the ninja academy she was looked down upon for her half-ninja status & constantly belittled for being too soft, undisciplined, emotional, etc. which caused her to push herself to the brink of total physical and mental exhaustion to prove them wrong, & that led to her parents pulling her out bc they were worried she was gonna push herself so hard it would kill her, & that whole situation is the main source of most of her insecurities). at first she’s put off by how relentlessly upbeat knives is, but then she sees how eager she is to make her proud & roxy can’t help but see a bit of herself in her. over time she comes to see her as sort of a kid sister, especially when knives eventually comes out to her, though she refuses to admit how much of a soft spot she actually has for her. she knows knives can handle herself, but she’s also grown more than a little protective of her (and scott is terrified of her for this reason)

i have a LOT of other HCs regarding specific backstories/relationship dynamics/etc that i might post later if i get the motivation for it but these are just some of my shorter ones

[chiropteracupola]

now that I have finished watching All The Sharpe That There Is, we have made a Tier List of our Very Strong Opinions. behold.

further (condensed) commentary from yours truly and usual partner-in-crime @sailorpants under the readmore:

S: Eagle, Company, Battle

Eagle: 'the plot of this one makes sense,' 'it really does show (well!) that this was the first book,' 'one of the ones we rewatch,' 'a good episode of television!'

Company: 'Pete Postlethwaite is a great actor -- Hakeswill made me want to throw up,' 'the lads and also the horrors,' 'genuine emotions were elicited,' 'well-established team dynamic at this point'

Battle: 'bad men! good men! beautifulest ladies!,' 'if Perkins must die then at least he gets a really cool death and to be bridal-carried by Harper and mourned by everybody,' 'the fucked-up love square,' 'plot hangs together well,' 'this episode has the most women of any Sharpe episode: four,' 'I have watched this episode three times', 'these rewatches were with lust (for the beautifulest ladies)'

A: Enemy

Enemy: 'decently written,' 'all the lads are there,' 'type of enemy Hakeswill becomes isn't as compelling and the inconsistency brings down both his episodes,' 'egregious women-tossing,' 'it is cool that there are other women; however Sharpe would not do That,' 'French people allowed to be interesting as a treat,' 'Sharpe and Teresa SOULMATES quote [screams]'

B: Rifles, Honour, Sword, Siege, Waterloo

Rifles: 'bit of a rough start,' 'the first half is good and then it gets Weird... phobias of sorts are In There', 'TERESA!'

Honour: 'extremely cool fights in this one,' 'Ramona!!,' 'some of the best Chosen Men banter in the whole series,' 'fake-Sharpe's-death plotline is quite well done,' 'unfortunate nonsense'

Sword: 'epic Harris moments cannot earn this episode a better ranking,' 'good casting and the background characters are cool,' 'the Lass deserved much better than this episode gave her'

Siege: 'oh, the chemical warfare episode,' 'they've learned to workshop their plans since Honour,' 'made me believe that Sharpe and Jane's relationship could have worked out, 'plot hangs together well (rare in a Sharpe episode)'

Waterloo: 'the scale of it doesn't quite sit right,' 'pretty good episode,' 'Paul Bettany is uncanny and I don't like whatever it is is going on with him,' 'getting the gang back together for one last Lads Adventure!'

C: Regiment, Mission, Revenge, Justice, Challenge

Regiment: 'more time with the Chosen Men could have saved this,' 'Company was a better 'the army sucks' episode,' 'the wet soupy episode'

Mission: 'it takes me two minutes to remember what happens in this one whenever I think about it,' 'again epic Harris moments cannot save this episode,' 'quite a high SCUM score,' '[impact font] MARK STRONG'

Revenge: 'ehhhhhh,' 'Lucille's nail-gun is the only thing that is cool and fun,' 'weird vibes about it,' 'Ducos' Bond-villain stuff is needless escalation,' 'Frederickson's ending is fun'

Justice: 'he's a cop in this one,' 'don't like Hagman's mustache,' 'Jane plotline no good, '[from sailorpants] when I actually watch this one I'm gonna have THOUGHTS'

Challenge: 'would rank this higher but I do have receipts on the fact that I was having a Bad Time throughout,' 'Toby Stephens makes this worth watching,' 'almost everything else about it is bad,' 'high points in every SCUM category,' 'four whole named plot-relevant speaking-role-having women! haven't had that many since Battle!,' 'TOBY STEPHENS CUNTSERVACIOUS LITTLE OUTFITS'

D: Gold, Peril

Gold: 'we don't need to discuss why we are ranking it like this'

Peril: 'the secret good Peril that lives in my head is so cool but unfortunately it is not real,' 'they are trying to have Themes and it is not working,' 'casting director is now finding conventionally attractive men instead of weirdguys with interesting faces,' 'Daniel Deever should have his own entire show but unfortunately this is a show about Richard Sharpe (I would write about him so much if I felt that I could do him justice but therein lies the Research Pit)' 'most important point is that he has a locket with Antonia's picture but the rest I could take or leave and I will probably leave it'

[fabuloustrash05]

ramona 21, 28 and 34

OTP + CHARACTER ASK

21. Any routines one has that the other had to get used to (ex. morning, nighttime, sleeping habits)?

When first living on Earth, Mona defiantly had to adjust to not just Raph's, but all mutants routines of how they can only be active and go out during the night. Mona is not used to living on a planet where 6ft tall alien lizard are uncommon and seen as freaks, so her living a life in the shadows is something she's not used to, but Raph is there to help out and give her tips.

28. Who always steals the other's food? How does their partner react to it?

Mona defiantly has a bigger appetite compared to Raph (I HC Salamandrians have appetite's similar to Saiyans from Dragon Ball) so he always give her some of his food when he can tell she's still hungry. The couple is always happy to share each other's food, so there's no need for stealing.

34. How do they cheer the other one up during sad times?

When Raph has a bad day, Mona is always there to listen. She'll have him rest his head on her lap, comforting him as he rants to her about everything that pissed him off/is bothering him for hours on end. And she listens to EVERY. SINGLE. WORD.

For Mona when she's feeling sad, she just wishes to cuddle with Raph, have him hold her in his arms and tell her everything will be okay. Feeling at peace in the comfort of her love's arms is enough to make her feel better.

[christian-oc-tournament]

Please vote based on the picture AND the description!

Ramona Gabriel Ibañez Madrazo [Spn OC @sugarandice3]

Physical Description: Ramona is tall for a Hispanic woman, standing at around 5’6”. Her dark hair is thick and long (hitting mid-back), always pulled back in a simple braid or up into a bun. Her skin is olive toned and deeply bronzed with darker sunspots sprinkled on her face, shoulders, neck, and chest from years of riding in her convertible. Dark russet brown eyes are set into a round, weathered face decorated by crows feet and hounddog lines. Ramona also has a lean body with wide shoulders and comparatively narrower hips. After years of fighting ghosts and monsters, she has collected many scars, but the biggest one is a set of claw marks running down her back from the bottom of her left shoulder blade to the cinch of her waist from a werewolf attack that nearly killed her and turned her husband. Her style tends to be modest and muted, even though she prefers vibrant colors. Even though they remind her of home and heritage, they stand out too much for a hunter’s needs so she goes for neutral tones in blue-collar styles. She also wears a pendant around her neck of her patron saint, Gabriel the angel. It normally stays tucked under her shirt unless she’s praying, thoughtful, or anxious. Personality: Ramona is a protector, first and foremost. The drive to protect others from the fate she suffered is partly what fuels her hunting career and keeps her going despite the darkness and death she faces on a regular basis. The other thing that has prevented her from becoming hardened and cynical is her devout Catholic faith. It provides her with a weighted sense of joy and justice that help anchor her throughout each job. Although she’s considered a bit of an oddity by her peers, Ramona is also well respected by most because of these differences. She loves people, but tends to take a long time to bond with them. Ramona doesn’t have a lot of personal relationships, but that doesn’t mean she treats people with any less love than if she did. She is sharply maternal in nature which is very strange in this line of work, but not entirely unwelcome by the hunters she has partnered up with.

Ramona is a planner; very routine oriented and extremely careful on every hunt. No matter how simple the job, she always takes the time to create a plan of attack along with a plan for escape in case things go wrong. She is as “lawful good” as a hunter can get, refusing to steal or cheat for a living. While this does mean that she sleeps in her car and skips a meal from time to time, she doesn’t mind. She is a very disciplined and skillful woman, which makes her an excellent hunter. Personal History: She was born to first generation immigrants and grew up in south west Texas where her father was a ranch hand and her mother sold lovely hand-made rosaries. Ramona was the second of six children, with an older sister, two younger sisters and two younger brothers (Sister, Ramona, Brother, Sister, Sister, Brother.) Her childhood was happy and largely uneventful. She got married at 22 and was set to have a happy life until a couple years later when she and her husband took a trip to Houston. It was there that they were attacked by a werewolf. It caught her and was going to turn her when her husband intervened, body slamming it to the ground. Ramona was too injured to really run away, but luckily a hunter, who was tracking the monster, rescued her and got her away before it was too late. He rushed her to the hospital and stayed by her side until she woke up. He told her what his job was and took the time to explain what had happened. Unfortunately he had to break the news to her that her husband was most likely dead or, worse, turned into a werewolf. She was discharged from the hospital the next morning, but the hunter wouldn’t let her go home just yet. He was worried that if her husband was still alive she would be the next target so he left her in his motel room with a gun loaded with a single silver bullet. Hours dragged by and young Ramona got restless and decided to go on a short walk to clear her head. She wandered around and around until night fell. She was on her way back to the motel and crossing through an alley when she was ambushed. There stood her husband, snarling and monstrous. There was a brief fight and chase but Ramona eventually gunned him down. ater, the hunter found her grieving over his body. He would take her back to the motel and offer to take her home, but Ramona refused. She wanted to know more about this life and the supernatural world around her. The hunter was originally hesitant, but she was quite instant so he made her an offer. He would give her two years to get her affairs in order and then find her again and see if she felt the same way. Fast forward a couple years after the investigation and the funeral and the hunter came back and Ramona went with him. They spent several years traveling together and would eventually get married. They would have a couple decades of happy hunting before they meet Quinn.

Rannis [TGEOI @cygnascrimbles]

When a dragon, a creature unheard of for hundreds of years, destroyed Rannis’ remote mountain village and everyone in it, he hunted it for days and killed it- not for revenge, but to make sure it would never hurt anyone else ever again. Now he travels the land as a monster-hunter, trying to bring peace and security to those who have felt the same kind of senseless loss. His best friend is the faerie Cymin Silfay, a tiny spore-shepherd turned adventurer who joined him not long after Rannis had killed the dragon. They have been inseparable ever since. Rannis is quiet, sincere, and protective of anyone smaller than himself (which is almost everyone- he is a giant after all).

[womenloverlmao]

SPVTW with a partner who plays Rugby

These are gender neutral

ALSO WE NEED MORE X RUGBY PLAYER SHIT. LIKE???

Kim

-She doesn't tell anyone about it, but she goes to all of your games.

-She’ll occasionally go to practices but lets you have space, knowing that if she’s there too much it’ll humiliate you.

-One time she missed her own practice for one of your games. One time. Still.

-If you're a woman it's kinda like ‘my girlfriend plays rugby you really wanna fuck with me?’

-When you get hurt shes kinda like ‘yeah you play rugby what the fuck did you expect’

Knives

-Goes to everything. Games, practices, hangouts. Everything.

-She brings a bunch of people with her too. (well she doesn't have many friends but still)

-”GO Y/N WOOOOOOO I HEART YOU.”

-team merch? She has it.

-Bro is so worried if (when) you get hurt

Neil

-”You play rugby???? Coooooool.”

-”Wait whats rugby??”

-bro doesnt understand it, he just thinks it's like a homosexual game of intense ass/thigh gripping (as a rugby player, can confirm)

-he’ll go to games but wont let it get in the way of his schedule

-he does toss the ball with you sometimes.

-when you get hurt??? Bro is freaking out.

Ramona

-she likes rugby in the first place so she was chill with going to your games and shit.

-she’ll walk you to practice and things its kind of sweet.

-out of all these characters, shes most likely to understand what it is (wallace probably would understand but he would make fun of you for it) and not make fun of you for it

-if you get hurt? She takes care of you but still, gets kind of nervous when you play again.

Roxie

-likes rugby, does not understand it at all.

-she would play touch with you though its so sweet even though she has no idea what shes doing. Sweet girl probably goes backwards.

-if youre a woman? ”GUESS WHAT FUCKERS??? I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND AND SHE PLAYS RUGBY!”

-all over you when you get hurt. She is like ‘what MONSTERS would do this???’

Scott

-”wallace, they play rugby.” “cool.” “whats rugby?”

-he’ll occasionally show up to games. Like once a month. He doesnt understand it. At all.

-immediately asked if you were gay because of it.

-if youre a dude ‘scott baby what the fuck we’ve been dating’

-is confused on how you get hurt if its like intense hugging (you explained touch to him and now he thinks thats rugby)

Stacey

-thinks its cool.

-acts like she doesnt care but she goes to every single one of your games without fail.

-is really nervous about you getting hurt but doesnt show it

-when you get hurt she like pretends shes not having a full blown panic attack

Wallace

-knows what rugby is, says he wouldnt date someone in rugby…

-and then you come along.

-honestly though i feel like rugby people is something hes attracted to but he hates so much.

-goes to your games but pretends he doesnt like it.

-when you get hurt and complain he is like ‘yeah so maybe you shouldnt play something that getting hurt is a requirement for???’

-does take care of you thoug

[typingtess]

NCIS: Los Angeles Season 14 Rewatch: “Game of Drones”

The basics: A bombing at a drone facility kills one, injures another and sets off the search for some terrorists in Los Angeles.

Written by: R. Scott Gemmill wrote/cowrote “The Only Easy Day”, “Brimstone”, “Breach”, “LD50”, “Found”, “Borderline”, “Absolution”, “Archangel”, “Tin Soldiers”, “Impostors”, “Cyberthreat”, “Honor”, “The Watchers” and both sides of the NCIS Los: Angeles/Hawaii Five-0 “Touch of Death” episodes, “Recruit”, “Free Ride”, “Wanted”, “Ravens and The Swans”, “Impact”, “War Cries”, both ends of the “Deep Trouble” season five finale/season six premiere, “Inelegant Heart”, “Praesidium”, “Traitor”, “Active Measures” (season seven premiere), “Blame It On Rio”, “Internal Affairs”, “Matryoshka” part one, "Talion" (season seven finale), “High Value Target”/”Belly of the Beast” (season eight premieres), “The Queen’s Gambit”, “Under Siege”, “Unleashed” (season eight finale), “Party Crashers” (season nine’s premiere), “This Is What We Do” (episode 200), “Các Tù Nhân”, “Goodbye Vietnam”, “Ninguna Salida” (the season nine finale), “Hit List”, “Asesinos”, “Till Death Do Us Part”, “Choke Point”, “The Guardian”, “Hail Mary”, “Kill Beale Vol. 1”, “Alsiyadun”, “Fortune Favors the Brave”, “The Bear” (season 12 premiere), “Angry Karen”, “Love Kills”, “Russia, Russia, Russia”, “The Noble Maidens”, “A Tale of Two Igors” (season 12 finale), "Subject 17" (season 13 premiere), "All The Little Things", “MWD” and “Work and Family”.

Directed by: Kevin Berlandi. Berlandi is new to NCIS: Los Angeles. He has directed episodes of Criminal Minds, Bull and Partner Track.

Guest stars of note: Kavi Ramachandran Ladnier returns as NCIS Reserve Agent Shyla Dahr from “Work and Family”. Both Natalia Del Riego as Rosa Reyes and Richard Gant as Raymond Hanna are back from “Come Together”. Jennifer Marshall as Navy Commander Neal, Jamil Zraikat as Cyrus Karimian, Jenapher Zheng as Janice Ng, Anna Rajo as Maria Estevez, Turhan Troy Caylak as Darius “Bunny” Vale and Ramona Dubarry as Monica Tavares

Our heroes: Are back at it for season 14.

What important things did we learn about:

Callen: Asks to bring Hetty’s remains home from Syria if she was the one who perished. Sam: Bringing his father to an activity center so he can swim, play pool and poker. Kensi: Sniper. Deeks: Would have been killed without Sniper Wife. Fatima: Doling out assignments. Rountree: Starts an interview with an engineer and ends up defending what he does. Kilbride: Commandeering helicopters.

What not so important things did we learn about:

Callen: Self-titled world’s coolest uncle. Sam: Not thrilled his father broke away from the activity center. Kensi: First day school drop off. Deeks: Not built for first day school drop off or public restrooms. Fatima: Old show went into syndication so Fatima has cool new wheels. Rountree: Calculus is better than is algebra. Kilbride: Betting his non-existent grandchildren.

Where in the world is Henrietta Lange? Not in a schoolhouse/safe house in Syria although some of her alias IDs were.

Who's down with OTP: Kensi and Deeks get to be anxious parents dropping Rosa off for her first day at school. They have a long and serious conversation bracketed between some Deeks jokes about how brutal their jobs can be, how awful the world is and that letting Rosa into the world to be her best self is an act of faith that the world will be kind.

Who's down with BrOTP: Not a lot of BrOTP situations. Callen works with Fatima, Rountree is mostly solo and Sam is only around at the end.

Fashion review: Callen is wearing a red, white and blue plaid button-down. Long sleeve black tee-shirt for Sam. Kensi wears a blood-red tee-shirt. Deeks starts the episode in a pale purple tee-shirt before wearing an LAFD fire inspector/marshal’s uniform undercover. White turtleneck for Fatima with a buttery looking black leather jacket (spectacular!). Rountree is wearing a blue, white and grey jacket over a pale blue tee. Dark blue three-piece suit, white dress shirt and blue and white tie for the Admiral.

Music: Not today.

Any notable cut scene: See music.

Quote: Kensi: “You know, all this is making me feel like I want to call Rosa and check in on her.” Deeks: “Okay, pull up on that stick there, helicopter mom, because she's fine. You just need to give her some space and time to find herself and-and to grow. Put the phone down.” Kensi: “Yeah, I know, but how many parents dropped their kids off at school only to never see them again because of another school shooting” Deeks: “Okay, you can't, you can't think like that.” Kensi: “How can you not think like that?” Deeks: “I mean, all right, you can consider the possibility, you can do the drills, but at some point, you just have to give in and believe in a greater good. I just feel like that's getting harder and harder to do. Yeah, well, that's why they call it faith.”

Anything else: A security guard is making his way through an engineering firm. The firm builds drones. The guard’s route is very deliberate, logging in and out of areas as he makes his way through building. As he gets near the exit, he sees a janitor’s cart just off the entrance.

Exiting the building, the guard locks up and logs out. There is a massive explosion. The guard is thrown ten feet from the door and fiery debris lands all around him.

Cue the new credits – a little red in the logo.

A really overprotective Kensi and Deeks are dropping Rosa off at school. Deeks is worried about bullying which makes Rosa nervous about bullying. Kensi and Deeks will pick her up after school but will text if there is a delay. There is a back-up plan with “Naomi’s mom”. After reviewing the alarm code for the house and the panic code, Rosa is finally on her way. Kensi and Deeks rethink their plan with home schooling a possibility. Deeks announces “I’m not built for this.”

As Sam is ready to take his father to an adult activity center, Raymond is walking around in his pajamas and slippers. Raymond is has no interest in “adult day-care”. Sam sells the place which has a gym, pool and library. Raymond is fine with Sam leaving him at a gym, a pool or a library. Sam notes this place has all three. The two bicker before Sam asks Raymond to just try the place. Since they have billiards and poker, Raymond is a little more interested but disappointed that the poker games aren’t for money. “The only fun is when you’re winning real money.” Mrs. Williams, Raymond’s caretaker, will be picking him up at the end of the day. Raymond complains about her driving. He’s also not keen on the idea of making new friends at the activity center since as soon as you get to know someone, they die. The only new things there are hips and pacemakers. Sam is patient with his father as he makes old age jokes.

Arriving through the side door, Fatima sees Callen looking at party venues. She offers some help – she’s good at planning things. Callen was looking for wedding venues. Fatima asks what does Anna want. Anna is torn between a trip to City Hall and Arkady’s dream of recreating “Doctor Zhivago”, complete with horses and snow. Fatima asks if Callen has a theme – traditional, fantasy, cosplay. Callen asks about “fantasy” and Fatima goes on including Sam as a troll, Deeks as a pixie, Kilbride as a wizard. Shaking his head, Callen tells Fatima he’s going to run these roles by them to see what they think. Fatima says no. “It doesn’t hurt to ask,” Callen replies. Fatima knows he’s kidding and asks that he not. Shyla interrupts, Kilbride needs to see Callen.

Walking to Kilbride’s office, Callen asks Shyla what’s up. She isn’t sure but there has been a communique from Syria. In his office, Kilbride tells Shyla to hold his calls and patch the Commander through to the plasma in his office. Commander Neal pops up on the screen. With the help of the Syrian Democratic Forces, Neal and her team were doing some recon work. At an abandoned school, known to be a safehouse, there was an ambush. Human remains were found, burned beyond recognition. One body had documents identifying them as Trudy Chambers, an American female. Callen looks stunned. Asking if the remains of Chambers were that of a small woman, Neal confirms they were. Dental records and DNA is still be checked. She will contact them when they have an ID. Trudy Chambers is one of Hetty’s aliases.

In Ops, Fatima arrives and asks Shyla what’s the new case. There is television coverage of the explosion and fire at Havlock/Haines Aerospace the prior night. Havlock/Haines builds remote piloted vehicles for the Navy. A janitor was killed, the security guard was badly injured. ATF said the bomb was nitroamine high explosive. The dead janitor was Luis Estevez, the guard Morgan Reynolds. Neither fits the profile of a bomber – more wrong place, wrong time. Fatima will go to the crime scene with Callen, Kensi and Deeks will look into the janitor while Rountree looks into the security guard. Shyla seems a little surprised that Fatima is doling out assignments – that is usually the job of a more senior agent. Since Shyla does not see a more senior agent in Ops, “go get ‘em girl,” is her advice.

Asking if the remains will be flown back to the US, Kilbride tells Callen they will be if they are positively identified. Callen wants to accompany them. Kilbride agrees. Callen then brings up Harris Keane, who was travelling with Hetty. Once the forensic team completes their work, the Admiral thinks they’ll know more. Knowing if she was ambushed at a safe house – even if it wasn’t Hetty – Callen believes she’s in danger. Kilbride disagrees – Hetty was in danger the minute she went back to Syria. And there are no safe houses in Syria right now. But since this is Hetty, she has more lives than a barn cat and is just as mean. Callen nods his head in agreement.

In the boatshed’s main room, Kensi and Deeks are speaking to Maria Estevez, daughter of janitor Luis Estevez. After offering condolences, they asks Maria about her father. He liked working as the night janitor – the money was good and it left him time during the day for other projects. As a skilled carpenter and mason, Estevez worked construction jobs when they came up. Kensi asks when did he sleep. Maria has an immediate answer – Sundays. During family dinners in the fall, he’d doze off watching football. Deeks asks why did Estevez work two jobs. Maria explains that years ago, her immigrant father worked two jobs to make ends meet. In recent years, especially after the death of his wife/Maria’s mother from COVID two years ago, it was to keep busy. Estevez did not work with explosives but loved fireworks. The Estevez family loved to put on a display. Asking if there were any financial issues, drugs, enemies, Maria states her father was a gentle and caring man who did anything to help others. Since Maria was told Estevez died in a factory accident, she wants to know what’s going on. Kensi and Deeks would like to see Estevez’s home.

A sullen Callen is a bit surprised by Fatima’s new Porsche. She explains her old TV show was just sold into syndication. When Callen notes the vehicle isn’t subtle, Fatima replies that in LA, subtle stands out. Callen is still distracted so Fatima asks if he is OK. He updates her about the body found in Syria. Fatima offers condolences and asks if they can do anything. They can’t so they should work the case.

Calling in to Ops from outside the hospital, Rountree has no luck with the security guard. He’s lawyered up but even if he didn’t, his doctor said he was in no condition to be questioned. Shyla notes he was healthy enough to find a lawyer. The Admiral wants the hospital staff and the lawyer to be put on notice, “as soon as he can eat his Jell-O, he better start talking.” Shyla is going to get a warrant to search Reynolds’s residence while the Admiral wants to question the staff at Havlock/Haines about Reynolds.

At the crime scene, Callen and Fatima are in the bombed out facility. The sleek, modern place is now a mass of burnt walls, cables and wires hanging from the ceiling, rubble all over. Speaking to executive Monica Tavares, she explains that the explosion is a financial hit to the company. Not only do they have to rebuild but they are not going to meet certain orders from contracts. Callen asks if she knows who would do something like this. Tavares has a list – anarchists, right-wing extremists, anti-war activists. Fatima asks about industry rivals or disgruntled employees. There are some – a few staffers left after they started working for the government – conscientious objections to making “weapons of war”. When Fatima asks for contact info, Taveras agrees to cooperate but makes it clear, none of them would blow up the building.

Callen asks if there were any other issues in recent weeks and months. Nothing as obvious as blowing up the facility but Havlock/Haines has been subject to a “relentless” series of cyber-attacks. The company is working on where they are coming from but no luck finding who is behind them. Callen gets a call from Shyla who has the terribly burned corpse of Luis Estevez on the big screen (ick, show, ick). Estevez was already dead for several hours when the explosion occurred.

Later speaking to Fatima, if Estevez was dead before the explosion, they likely used him to get into the building. Fatima agrees – the bombers killed Estevez, used his ID to get into the building, probably put his body and the bomb into something like a cleaning cart. That would be Fatima’s plan. Callen finds it scary but thinks it would be a good way to dispose of the body. Fatima agrees – it would make it look like Estevez died in the explosion.

Walking around the immaculate home of Luis Estevez, Kensi is on the phone with Callen. Thinking unless he was Jekyll and Hyde, Kensi believes Estevez was Mr. Rogers only more neat. Callen wants Kensi to check if Maria has power of attorney so they can access his phone and financials. Fatima asks about home security but Estevez barely locked is doors. Fatima wants to check the neighbors’ security systems to see if anyone was following Estevez. Kensi will ask. They also want Kensi to ask about Estevez’s daily routine. Meanwhile, Estevez’s Jeep is going to NCIS’s carport – they will check to see if he had GPS.

Moving to the kitchen, Maria is packing up the food in her father’s home. She talks about her father’s truck. Deeks assures her the truck will be released to the family when NCIS is done with it. Maria seems less worried about that, more thinking about how much her father loved the truck. It was his first ever new vehicle. Kensi asks about power-of-attorney. Maria got it after her mother passed away, her father got all his paperwork in order. Kensi tells Maria that they can take info from her father’s phone and financial records and maybe find who killed him. Maria is weeping. Deeks looks so uncomfortable. Kensi, seeing Maria’s distress, asks if she would be able to come up with her father’s daily routine, “Can you do that?” Maria says she can try.

Outside of the house, Kensi and Deeks are wrecked about the pain of the day. Deeks makes a joke about the pain being as bad as kidney stones, annoying Kensi. He extends to the joke to childbirth, leading Kensi to calling him an idiot. When Deeks says he’s joking, Kensi wants to know why. “Because if I don’t joke, this job is too sad for me to keep doing it.” Kensi understands but thinks he’s an idiot – a loveable one. All the sadness has Kensi wanting to call Rosa and see if she’s OK. Deeks stops her – this is Rosa’s time to “find herself and to grow.” Kensi brings up school shootings, something Deeks does not want to think about. It is what Kensi thinks about. Deeks tells her they can do the drills and prepare Rosa the best they can but at some point “you just have to give in and believe in a greater good.” Kensi finds that hard to do but Deeks tells her that’s what faith is. “I mean George Michael even wrote a song about it.” Deeks makes some George jokes.

Arriving at Ops, the Admiral wants a sit-rep. Shyla fills him in on the team’s status. She is also working with NCIS CYBER to find who is behind the cyber-attacks against Havlock/Haines. The Admiral figures that whoever did this was willing to kill an innocent man and used high end explosives – they are not militia “idiots”. Shyla suggests industrial espionage – a rival company that wants some of the hundreds of millions of dollars available in military contracts. The Admiral is rooting for that because the alternative is state sponsored terrorism.

As Kilbride walks back to his office, Callen calls up from the bullpen, looking for news about the remains and Trudy Chambers. Kilbride assures Callen he would have updated him if there was any news from Syria. The Admiral’s more pressing concern is whoever blew up Havlock/Haines since they like aren’t done. He wants Callen focused on the task at hand and not Hetty. “Now go catch these bastards before they strike again.”

In the carport, Fatima is working on Estevez’s truck. She tells Callen that the vehicle was wiped clean – she can still smell the bleach. Callen gets a call from Alex asking if she wants to hang out with Jake. Fatima wishes she had a niece or nephew – it seems like fun. Callen agrees it is while they are young. When they get a little older, less time for the world’s coolest uncle and more time for teenage girls. Fatima asks if Callen gave himself the designation of world’s coolest uncle. Callen wants to know who is cooler than he is? After Fatima laughs, she announces he’s cool, “like supercool.” “Let’s not oversell it.”

In the boatshed, Rountree and Shyla on the plasma are chatting. He is meeting with Janice Ng who left Havlock/Haines when they started working for the DoD. Shyla gets an alert from CYBER – the source of the attack is coming from Beirut, Lebanon.

With Fatima and Callen back in Ops with Shyla, they are discussing Lebanon being an US ally but Hezbollah, a militant group with a political arm, is not. Callen brings up two Hezbollah operatives who were arrested in the US for planning acts of terrorism. Those arrests were for fundraising and weapon buys but things may have gotten more aggressive since the US’s relationship with Iran gets worse. Iran funds a lot of Hezbollah’s actions. Asking about Estevez’s truck, Callen tells Shyla that the truck was wiped clean as was his GPS. Callen wants a list from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence of any known Hezbollah members in the US, especially anyone on the West Coast.

In the boat shed, Janice Ng explains she joined Havlock/Haines to be part of the team that put the first person on Mars. She did not sign up to build weapons of mass destruction. Rountree tells her the drones aren’t weapons of mass destruction. Ng disagrees – they could be armed with a nuclear weapon. Rountree points out they aren’t but Ng thinks he’s being naïve. But she thinks it is Rountree’s job to cover up the military’s crimes against humanity. Explaining that it isn’t his job to cover up anything, Rountree is there to find the truth about who set the bomb at Havlock/Haines. Ng is annoyed – since she quit for not wanting to be “a warmonger”, she’s being treated as a suspect. She’s waiting for Rountree to beat a confession out of her.

Deeks arrives at the boat shed with Kensi right behind him. Rountree explains that he isn’t there to beat a confession out of Ng. Pointing to his wife, Deeks tells Ng that what Kensi is there to do as he walks into the restroom. Kensi tells Ng Deeks is just kidding. Rountree updates Kensi on his questioning and Ng lawyers up. Rountree tells her she doesn’t need a lawyer. After she warns them against railroading her, Rountree just cuts Ng loose.

Sighing that it is just “one of those days”, Rountree tells Kensi he’s gotten nothing from the former Havlock/Haines staffers. Kensi explains that they got some security footage and were going to Ops when “somebody needed a potty break.” Deeks returns from the restroom where they’re out of towels so he airdries his hands all over Kensi and Rountree. He explains that he would rather use their restroom than some public restroom. Rountree is more concerned that some of Deeks’s air-drying got into his mouth.

Contacting Ops, Kensi pulls out the thumb drive with the security camera footage and sends it to Shyla. Shyla has camera footage from other places as she tries to stitch together Estevez’s day. Kensi and Deeks are on their way to Ops to help Shyla. Deeks signals to Rountree that he probably shouldn’t use the restroom.

In the bullpen, Callen is reviewing some street camera footage with Fatima. With the coroner estimating Estevez’s time of death around 4PM, Callen sees white van for Bunny Vale Laundry and Dry Cleaning outside of his house at 11AM. The branded van is still there two-hours later. While it could be a long lunch or a day off, it is just as likely a stakeout. In Ops, Shyla has info on Bunny Vale Laundry, a chain in LA. Tracing the specific van, for the last few days, it was always near Estevez, either at his home or following him around.

Bunny Vale Laundry is owned by Darius “Bunny” Vale and his wife Sara. They are first-generation Persian-Americans, born in America. No links to Hezbollah but Fatima wonders if Vale is using his business as a front. There is a laundering money suggestion from Shyla – she really does fit right in. Callen and Fatima are going to speak to Vale.

In interrogation, Darius “Bunny” Vale is on the wrong side of the table. Callen shows him a photo of the laundry truck outside of Estevez’s home. Vale claims to have over a dozen vans like it. Callen tells Vale the van was used in a crime. Vale was worried something like that would happen – the van was stolen. Callen mentions there was no police report but Vale says the truck was gone for a while and then returned. He never knew it was missing until one of his employees found it. Since there was no damage to the van, he didn’t report it, figuring it was some teenage joyriders. The van was found near one of Vale’s locations by an employee who was with Vale for years. “Anything else?”

Pulling out his phone, Callen shows Vale Estevez’s dead body. Vale expresses his disgust in Farsi. Callen explains that Estevez was a father and a grandfather who was likely murdered in Vale’s van. When the forensic team goes through the “stolen” van, if they find any evidence Vale will be connected to Estevez’s murder and the attack on Havlock/Haines. Fatima asks how long as Vale supported Hezbollah. Vale is stunned – he’s never supported Hezbollah. Callen threatens a trip to Guantanamo Bay but Vale claims he had nothing to do with what happened.

When Callen says “last chance” to Vale, he explains he can’t help, “they’ll hurt my family.” Fatima offers protection but Vale is speaking about his family in Tehran. While NCIS has agents all over the world, they are not in Iran. Fatima tells him the threat is to his family in the US as well as Iran. If he helps them, they can stop threat.

Vale explains that two men demanded a van, was told if he didn’t cooperate his family in Iran would pay the price. He was told to not ask any questions and to not tell anyone. Vale gave them the van and then the van was returned. Vale doesn’t have much information – he didn’t know the men, he didn’t know where they were staying. In Farsi, Fatima tells Vale he needs to help them. He is in danger if he doesn’t cooperate. Vale mentions a friend named Ava who was threatened as well. She had to provide a place where the men could work. Callen wants Sam called in – this is a full team operation.

Joining Callen, Fatima and Rountree at an office park, Sam and the team are all wearing their kevlar with the big guns out. He thinks this assignment is easier than getting his father to behave. When Fatima asks how Raymond is doing, Sam replies he’s doing everything possible to make him crazy. The Admiral has had enough chit-chat – and Deeks isn’t even involved. Fatima and Rountree take one entrance, Sam and Callen take another. Shyla tells the team the building is owned by Ava Safari with only a 26% occupancy rate due to COVID. The terrorists are set-up on a vacant office floor. The Admiral considers them armed and they are dangerous since they have access to high end explosives. He warns them of booby traps. That doesn’t sit well with Deeks, who is dress as a fire marshal/inspector. “I’m not the bomb disposal guy.”

Deeks walks through one of the offices. It is empty though there is a cot and a lantern flashlight in an open area. He is approached by a man asking why Deeks is there. After saying he’s happy the place is rented again, Deeks claims to be LAFD there for the building’s monthly inspection. The man wants Deeks to leave and return the following day. Deeks explains he can’t do that. Deeks is walking ahead of the man, through the office. He is rambling about the inspecting the Nakatomi Plaza – nice “Die Hard” shoutout – and puts on soundproof headphones because he’s about to set off the building’s alarms. The man behind Deeks pulls out his gun. Kensi says “weapon” and takes out the man from an office building a healthy distance away. “Tango down.” Deeks seems surprised.

Callen and Sam join Deeks – “Nice shot honey,” Deeks calls to Kensi. He starts talking about having a BB right under his scalp from being shot by Darrel Dinkins. Sam mentioned the BB migrating to Deeks’s brain. An arriving Fatima and Rountree enjoy the show. Deeks tells Sam he missed him. “I bet you did.”

While Fatima sends the dead man’s prints to Ops, Callen has the dead man’s burner phone and wants to Shyla to check the contacts and any GPS info. Sam finds a Canadian passport for the dead man issued to Cyrus Karimain from Fort Erie, Ontario. It is likely a fake. Sam has four other passports for four other men. There may be an entire cell in Los Angeles.

Deeks find a trash pail full of shredded documents. One looks like a map but he could only figure it out if he was the Amazing Kreskin. Fatima doesn’t know who the Amazing Kreskin is. “That was before Google,” Sam tells her. Callen finds something and shows it to Sam. It is a symbol of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s staff college. The men in the office aren’t Hezbollah, they are Iranian special operatives who usually train proxies to fight, not do the fighting themselves. The Admiral knew this was state sponsored and is willing to bet his grandchildren that the drones that took out Soleimani was manufactured by Havlock/Haines. Shyla notes the Admiral doesn’t have grandchildren. “This team America, is payback.”

Tracing the location of the cellphone numbers in the dead man’s phone, they are all traveling on the PCH, just passing Malibu. While Deeks thinks they are surfers, Sam realizes they’re going to Point Magu. Point Magu is the home of the Triton drone project. The Admiral wants the team in helicopters on their way to the base in two minutes. When Shyla asks how, the Admiral doesn’t care – Coast Guard, National Guard, borrow a TV traffic helicopter.

At Point Magu’s entrance, a Bunny Vale Landry Van shoots its way past a guard station. The sole guard tries to fire on the men but is overwhelmed by four men with military weapons. Driving the van into the base, there are two barrel in the back with explosives. The men all exit the van before it plows into a trailer with a satellite on top. Since this is NCIS: Los Angeles, there is a massive explosion.

One of the men tries to enter a structure next to the structure that just was blown up. He has a keycard to get in but the door does not open. Callen comes out from the side of the structure and tells the man “nobody’s home.” The men are surrounded by Callen and Sam on the right, Kensi, Fatima and Rountree on their left and Deeks from the top of the structure. Behind the on the ground team is more armed Navy sailors. It was set-up as a kill box. Fatima starts ordering the men to surrender in Farsi. The men surrender. Deeks wonders how he is getting off the building – he asks Rountree to catch him.

Stepping away, Sam has a call from Mrs. Williams, his father’s caretaker. Raymond left the activity center without the caretaker. He instead left with a woman named Victoria. Callen is impressed – one day at the activity center and Raymond has a girlfriend. Callen thinks Sam could learn a little something from his father.

In the armory, Kensi, Deeks, Fatima and Rountree are dropping off their gear. Fatima thinks they should go out for drinks and Rountree should pay. This surprises Rountree until Fatima says she’s buying. Deeks offers to take everyone out to dinner if Rosa could join them. Kensi steps in – not on a school night. Deeks asks how is Rountree’s calculus. It is better than his algebra but it is not very good.

Pouring two glasses of scotch, the Admiral offers an arriving Callen a glass. Callen asks if he is going to need it. The Admiral thinks the longer Callen stays in their business, he will but he won’t need it today for Hetty “Not now anyway,” he tells Callen. The remains were of a female child, not Hetty. Callen asks why were Hetty’s IDs found on a dead child. The Admiral thinks Hetty planted them. Without the forensics the US military has, anyone who saw the remains and the ID thinks Hetty is dead. Thinking Hetty is in trouble – and the Admiral saying she was in the trouble the minute she went to Syria, Callen asks for permission to look for her. That’s a no from the Admiral. If they had actionable intel, they would go. Until then, Hetty is on her own.

Saying he has a lot of personal time, Callen is thinking of going anyway. The Admiral makes it clear LA just had foreign terrorists attack a building and a Naval Station so there will be no going halfway around the world “searching for your surrogate mommy.” Telling the Admiral to enjoy his scotch, Callen storms out. The Admiral drinks his own scotch and then Callen’s untouched glass, saying he intends to.

Not enjoying his scotch is Sam, sitting with a glass at his dining room table. Raymond sneaks in almost like a teenager caught by his parents. Sam asks where his father was. Raymond said he took Sam’s advice and made some friends. Sam thinks Raymond should have called. Raymond is sure he sent a text but he didn’t. This is every parent-child discussion about being out late with friends, just with the roles reversed. When Raymond says he’s not a child, Sam tells him he's acting like one. Yep, parent-child in reverse. Sam is angry that Raymond “hooked up with a woman on your first damn day. An angry Raymond talks about Victoria, who is married to Cliff, a bedridden veteran. After his time at the activity center, Raymond went to see Cliff, providing him such much needed company. Sam is instantly remorseful until Raymond makes it clear that he also provided Victoria some much needed company. Sam isn’t sure his father is joking as Raymond says good night.

They changed the fonts on the credits too.

What head canon can be formed from here: Sort of an update to the season 13 finale – Callen is looking at wedding venues, Sam is dealing with his father, Kensi and Deeks are taking Rosa to her first day of school. Family continues to play a big part.

Shyla is great with the team. She has a different relationship with Kilbride – more casual and fun than any of the team members.

Visiting the bombed out drone place had to be pretty brutal to Callen, who less than an hour earlier learned his “surrogate mommy” may have met her end in a similar action.

The Kensi and Deeks conversation about doing their jobs in the world we live in has been going on now since season eight. This was another variation of it with Kensi sounding a little more done this time.

The program used real events – the arrest of two Hezbollah terrorists, the bombing of Soleimani- to make the story go.

Episode number: Season 14 (a healthy run for any program), episode one. Episode 303 overall. These recaps will go up every Friday (save one in mid-March) until season 14 wraps.

[aleximology]

CRIMSON - What would it take for them to kill someone they know?

SCARLET - How do they grieve?

WINE - How do they act when drunk?

CHERRY - Why did you create them?

GARNET - If they had to kill someone, what method would they choose?

BLUSH - Who flusters them most?

LIPSTICK - What is their love language?

KISS - Who did they last kiss?

for octavios and ramona 😋

- tired

𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐒𝐎𝐍 . What would it take for them to kill someone they know? for OCTAVIOS it wouldn't take much! he has very low empathy, so for most of his casual relationships, minor broken promises is enough!

for RAMONA it takes a lot more, she is a coward at heart and if you make her feel threatened she WILL FIGHT!

𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐄𝐓 . How do they grieve? OCTAVIOS grieves in madness. if you think of Achilles Anger, you could expect something similar from Octavios. if he lets you in, he will stay in the crumbling house seeking vengeance.

RAMONA grieves in sadness. she's the type to easily break if she sees something that reminds her of the deceased. The type to spend days crying over death.

𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐄 . How do they act when drunk? OCTAVIOS is a very flirty drunk! when drinking, he's a lot more loose with his words, which allows him to indulge without feeling "guilty" afterwards.

RAMONA is an emotional drunk, her tolerance is super good, but when she does get drunk she's super nostalgic and prone to heightened emotions.

𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐘 . Why did you create them? OCTAVIOS was created because i had a crush on him when he was just "dream guy". his character concept was far too good to let go.

RAMONA is one of my OLDEST oc's. originally she was created just because I wanted a girl oc, but then it evolved into her holding a place in my heart, 5 years going, girl!

𝐆𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐓 . If they had to kill someone, what method would they choose? OCTAVIOS goes for traditional long and painful deaths. Anything involving asphyxiation, or poisons / herbs.

RAMONA is the same, poison is the way she would go about it. its not bloody, but its still effective.

𝐁𝐋𝐔𝐒𝐇 . Who flusters them most? Its impossible for OCTAVIOS to feel flustered, the closest it would be would be nervous, and PROTAG is the only one to get that out so far.

ARANEUS, who else but the one who gave up their life to love? Araneus' pure affection and devotion gets her more flustered than anything, but if she actually met KALLISTOS, it would be them.

𝐋𝐈𝐏𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐊 . What is their love language? OCTAVIOS' love language is receiving gifts. he's the kind of guy to be infatuated with riches, so as much as he likes to receive it. when he cares about you, he wants to shower you in gold.

RAMONAS love language is words of affirmation, she adores to be loved genuinely, but she gives acts of service to her partners!

𝐊𝐈𝐒𝐒. Who did they last kiss? OCTAVIOS last kissed some random fae they hooked up with to get their mind off things. meant nothing.

RAMONAS last, and only kiss was with Araneus. Then she met her end, to her it meant everything.

[plasplasplas]

any good ramona hcs [look angel's shoddy writing gave me a bad beat i need something more leveled out]

Ur sick of Angel's writing..... so you turn to Ramona? The one-off character from batb who's entire personality fits into this? Nah can't say I think bout her much, mostly because she's so specific to the show's version of Plas who I also don't think about much, beyond entertainment value lol

Thanks for this ask tho, made me go re-watch that ep she's in and it was still pretty good. The really ugly baby. The whole 'plastic cave' bit. Woozy holding the little wiener dog. Woozy in general I actually really like how they wrote him. Really didn't like any of her scenes tho just cuz the 'yelling angrily for seemingly no reason' joke just hits too close to home to ever be funny personally :P

If I had to speculate maybe she was dating Plas before his powers? After a little bit, she didn't like his criminal lifestyle, dumped him and moved on, and despite Plas being heartbroken, he didn't have the motivation to patch things up. Then he got his powers, a little more confidence, went back to Ramona, she saw that he's smartened up, they get married(?), have Baby, now they got the whole nuclear family (plus woozy).

But Plas hasn't actually changed too much from criminal to hero. He's still doing dangerous stuff, even if it's on the right side of the law. He's still running around with people she doesn't know, doing stuff she's not aware of. Maybe she regrets getting back with him, but if Plas can prove she can have one night where she could relax by herself, without worrying about her husband(?) and kid, then maybe it could work out. But it doesn't work out, and that really upsets her. She really does want Plas to change, she cares about him, but she has to care about herself and baby too, and all that emotion comes out in the yelling at him.

There's not really a resolution to her frustration in the show, as the ep ends soon after they're saved. Plas doesn't really seemed to have learned any lesson, the ep closing on him and woozy sharing a joke. He doesn't even really check if Ramona and Baby are ok, just "yup they're out of immediate danger time to go right back to what I was doing before". It's a children's show with time constraints however, so I don't care too much. A more well-rounded ending could be something even as simple as Ramona and baby being in that final shot, laughing with Plas and wooozy, just y'know really showing that they're all family, all's forgiven, everything will work out in the end, and it won't be like pulling teeth for Ramona the next time she asks her partner to take the baby for the evening.

Oh I guess you can have one headcanon before I go: I think she's still a party girl at heart B)