#major spoilers ahead if you haven't read the books!

[a-koschyei]

VER. THE RED SORCERER WILL WAKE THE SLEEPER & SILENCE THE BELLS

♔. synopsis : canon adjacent, mixing in elements of deathless and taking this verse as koschei's alt. tsar of life origin story. rewriting some details & emphasizing the undercurrent of the plot to reveal koschei faked his death in book 2 and was the mastermind behind the events of the series. he usurps medved, and becomes the new summer-demon towards the end of book 3. most plots can take place after the series, when he's on the brink of waging a war to take over medieval rus' and the other chyerti realms, particularly morozko's.

in the 11th cent. during the reign of vladimir the great, yuri, a polovtsian khan who plundered and traversed the entirety of the great steppes with his nomadic warriors, sacked a village near serbia and took a country girl as his wife. the girl's name was danika, and she belonged to a balkan line of witches & sorcerers who worshipped the giver, dazbog (the chyert of summer and tsar of life).

some time later, after confirming she had the ability to see the unseen chyerti, dazbog gave her his jewel, the alatyr stone. he promised to protect her so long as she wore it and did not let him fade from memory. when the time came, she was to pass it down to the youngest of her three sons. she only had two at the time.

that year, yuri led an unsuccessful attack against prince mstislav, son of vladamir. yuri was killed in combat, but danika and her sons were spared, though taken as slaves, under the condition that they assimilate and convert to christianity. danika converted, for the sake of her children and the unborn one she carried, but hid dazbog's jewel, wove him into her prayers and never forgot about the chyerti.

♔. the polovtsy / polovytsians. turkic nomadic warriors (aka the cumans). the name comes from the old slavic word for "blonde" "pale yellow" due to the color of their hair and/or their cream colored akhal-teke horses, known for their speed and golden metallic sheen. by the events of the book (14th cent.) the polovtsy fled from the mongol invasion of rus' to different countries, but many also joined the golden horde and became generally referred to as tartars, along w other turkic groups. (koschei's fairytale is based on a famous polovtsian, khan konchek) ♔. dazbog / medved. a slavic solar deity who resided in buyan but also the underworld. in the summer, he was a man in his prime, accompanied by wolves. in winter, he was a one-eyed old man who wore a bear skin during his hibernation in death's realm. canon doesn't say this explicitly, but medved is lame daba, aka dazbog after his demonization, which christianization (and koschei) caused. very few know him by his old name & nature. ♔. alatyr stone. in this verse, it's a red-gold jewel connected to dazbog's power and a gateway to buyan. it's his equivalent to the sapphire morozko passed to vasya. in book 2, it's the stone koschei uses as a decoy death.

i. three roads, three sons: koschei was born and raised in tmutarakan as a slave, serving first as a groom, then a farmhand, and when he came of age, he and his brothers were dragged into a war between princes for vladamir's throne. koschei's mother gave him dazbog's jewel hoping it would protect him, and it did, but during the winter march, his brothers were taken by the frost. in the spring when the war was in full bloom, koschei's contact with dazbog became more direct and frequent. he often carried him away from the brink of death in the battlefield in the spirit of a wolf to buyan, where he'd heal him, feed him, and teach him the art of war and magic.

eventually, dazbog aided koschei in deserting the war. during this time, he traveled the principalities around kiev freely, but the past, the threat of death and imprisonment, and the growing disdain for witches and sorcerers chased him out of every place he hoped to settle. he went to baba yaga's midnight country where he formed a romance with tamara and earned the favor of the golden mare and firebird, zornitsa, the fastest horse of yaga's flock. with her, koschei was able to outrun any threat or foe, and was carried to farther lands, away from kiev and the church bells.

♔. the golden mare / firebird : diverting from the book, koschei's mare is named zornitsa, the morning star, and she's the same in every verse. koschei wins her favor on his own, as he was a worthy rider at the start. later, he loses favor and that's when tamara & the golden bridle ( without spikes !! ) come into play.

ii. the wolf, the firebird, & the horse with a golden mane: he ended up in the newly founded village of moscow when it was still pagan, and was set on making his home there. ivan yurovich was the name he used to avoid recognition (given his growing reputation in kiev), and upon his arrival the lord offered him riches, land, and a seat at his table if he sold him his golden mare. koschei accepted, but used sorcery to transmute a wolf into the likeness of zornitsa, then asked her to hide in the wood in her firebird form.

the lord's sister, yelena tomislavna, had the gift of sight too. she caught on to the ruse, but kept koschei's secret. in time the two fell deeply for one another, but koschei was not a preferred match. he contrived a plan to have the lord spot the firebird during a hunt, and as he suspected, the lord promised yelena's hand to anyone who'd manage to catch it for him. koschei rose to the occassion, again presenting a wolf who simply forgot it was not a firebird, and the wedding was set.

♔. ivan yurovich : his birthname in this verse (see this post to dive into the rabbit hole). after his brothers' deaths, their nickname for him (due to his lankiness) continued to be his preferred name. he goes by koschei yurovich through his pre-immortal travels, then later koschei bessmertny. kasyan lutovich is the current alias. after his identity reveal he goes back to being referred to as koschei bessmertny. it's a name he's proud of, so if you ever call him ivan, it's on sight !!

iii. the midwinter feast : during their engagement celebration, morozko was an honorary guest, as it was his midwinter holiday too. he took great interest in yelena and had her tend to him the entire night, much to koschei's agitation and moscow's speculation. when the frost demon left, a panicked idea took root among the folk that yelena could not marry. she would need to be morozko's tribute for maslenitsa, the sunfeast, or else they'd face a late summer and risk another deadly famine. to escape the hysteria, koschei and yelena fled to a secret place tucked between realms in the midday road which koschei called yaichka for it's golden wheat fields that looked like a sea of yolk.

it was in that field, while koschei was stealing food from buyan, that the noon wraith, sent by dazbog, lured a lounging yelena into a trance and danced her into midnight and then back into moscow. when koschei found out, he and zornitsa raced through the midday road from buyan to moscow, but a devotee of dazbog could only find the middays of spring and summer. what felt like hours of riding were actually weeks. he arrived on winter's last sunset, through the red flash of the last day of the sunfeast, but the people of moscow had already strangled yelena in the snow and tossed her body into the sacrificial fire.

koschei begged morozko and dazbog to undo what the people had done, using the water of life and the water of death, but the twins refused to intervene with fate. herein laid the trappings of a secret war, where koschei set his heart towards revenge against the people of rus' and the twins who'd wronged him. for the moment, they were none the wiser. dazbog took koschei into buyan and continued to mentor him until he eventually used the knowledge to formulate a spell that would have him take dazbog's power and remove himself from death's reach so that he could confidently enact his revenge on the frost demon and people of rus'.

♔. the chains of the winter king : this feast was the memory vasya found morozko imprisoned in, and the man she saw was koschei ("ivan"). as tamara's sister later explains, kasyan's face is not koschei's real face which is why she did not immediately recognize him. so this is the first glimpse we get of him in the series. i'm establishing that koschei, working through medved, was responsible for the creation of this prison memory, but it was just that. a magical simulation on loop. no historical events could be changed by meddling.

iv. the golden bridle: zornitsa urged koschei against his plan, but he needed her speed to catch dazbog's chariot in his journey towards death's country, when he was most vulernable. he created a golden bridle that would bind zornitsa's will to his own. then he seduced tamara once more, and tricked her into placing the bridle on zornitsa. with the bridle on, koschei seized his opportunity and struck his fatal spell on dazbog just before he could reach morozko's country. but the spell was complex and too slippery for a human mind. they both tumbled into rus', and when koschei finally came to, he found himself immortal and alone, but not entirely successful.

v. lame daba : killing a dual natured god in one blow was impossible. in the fall, dazbog split in two: his primary form (the summer wolf) was killed and absorbed by koschei; but the winter bearskin of his hibernating form still remained, and koschei's spell had inadvertently reanimated the husk in the effort to make himself deathless. koschei's life force was removed from his body, but was stored in medved, the eater, whose mind and memory became a mangled and rotted version of dazbog's, tainted by koschei's essence and vision of him. medved then represented a mockery of life fueled by it's hardships and became the tsar of the upyr, the insatiable undead.

medved had no true recollection of his previous life and neither did anyone else. koschei then realized that to kill and usurp a god meant to erase them from memory, and when medved began to wreak havoc on rus', morozko imprisoned his brother with a murky recollection of the time before they were at odds. likewise, the world had an obscured recollection of koschei and who he was before -- but the witch women of midnight and the crossroad demons who had witnessed what he'd done remembered. they did not have the means to intervene, but yaga did cast out her daughter tamara, and shut all the roads of the chyerti realms to her and koschei so they could never come back.

vi. the tower of bones. now unable to reach buyan and the sleeping bear to retrieve his death and finish what he started, koschei set up camp in a place he called, bashnya kostei, the tower of bones. he offered tamara a place at his side, but she refused and left him. thus began the campaigns against the people of kievan rus' that inspired the tales of koschei the deathless. eventually, he took to keeping a lower profile, used sorcery and glamors to hide his rotting appearance, recruited the surrounding chyerti to do his bidding, and conjured scrying spells to keep morozko blind to his machinations and whereabouts.

vii. the bear & the nightingale. in dreams, koschei could sense any perturbances with medved given their inconvenient entanglement. after years of nothing, he saw a young girl with familiar green eyes and the gift of sight approach the bear at his clearing. if koschei could not get to buyan, he figured the sacrifice of a witch could summon medved into rus'. so he riled the bear awake in secret and planted the idea in his subconscious. the bear was successful, through the death of a different witch, but when he was foiled and bound again by the sacrifice of a father. koschei moved on to the back up plan: a counterspell to yaga's banishment using the alatyr stone, the red flash of the last winter sunset on maslenitsa, and the power charge of a witch from her bloodline.

book 2 & book 3. from here, we set up the events of book 2. koschei's core motive is a power grab, particularly for buyan and the chyerti. not knowing where vasya ran off to, he took on the alias of kasyan lutovich to infiltrate moscow and investigate vasya's remaining family there, hoping to find another witch/sorcerer with the sight who could charge and destroy the stone, thus "killing him" but really his body disintegrated and reappeared in the water of life in buyan, where he began to gather his own chyerti forces and used medved as a puppet & distraction in book 3 to buy himself time.

taking over moscow & destroying the bells was supposed to be an added treat that went a little haywire (understatement), but was not the primary goal. this was getting medved bound again at the right time while koschei was in buyan, getting his death back, hiding it somewhere else unknown, and merging with what remained of dazbog's power so he could become the new tsar of life. when vasya returns to the clearing seeking medved's aid, she finds his bearskin limp and koschei standing in his place. further notes & divergences can be discussed and/or will be posted as hcs.

[imajinxnation]

How You Kiss - Divergent Preference/Reaction

So Divergent has been my bitch lately so.. I decided that I'm gonna write for the Divergent fandom

I should mention I haven't watched the movies yet, and I am only starting the second book, so NO SPOILERS PLZ!!

Aimed at FEMALE READERS, but no pronouns mentioned, I think.

WARNING: Fluff, a bit Steamy, kinda Angsty as well.

Eric

Kissing, majority of the time Eric is very sudden, like you'll just be standing there, reading about new techniques to use in combat and then suddenly he's in your face, lips on yours. He likes it when you're focused on something your passionate about, when you show passion about what your interested in, chances are you won't get to finish whatever you were doing 'cause Eric's just going to throw you over his shoulder and take you to his room. When you feel passionate, expect passionate kisses from him. Also he doesn't really do 'soft', so when he kisses you, it's hard and passionate (I need to stop saying passionate lol).

Tobias/Four

I can see his kisses being really sweet and soft! We all know about Tobias' past and the abuse he went through, so I think that he would try to be as gentle as he could with you, whether it's kissing, cuddling, or anything, he makes sure that he is never harsh with you (I mean.. unless you ask him😏), because if he ever hurt you, he would never forgive himself.

Peter

Oh my lordie lord, this boy hates to admit it, but he absolutely loves when you take control! He just loves a strong partner and when you take control over him during makeout sessions, ho boy, things are gonna get hot quickly! He especially likes your jealous kisses, the ones where you know he's been flirting with others to make you jealous, and, goddammit, it worked. So now you gotta show a bitch that he's taken, you know those types of kisses! But if it's him kissing you, majority of the time, he kisses you like it's the last time he's gonna see you.

Tris

Tris is new to relationships so you're going to have to be her guide through all of these new experiences she's going through. She picks up on things quickly though, so after all the firsts are done with, she probably won't need that much help through all this relationship stuff. Anyways, kisses with her are always soft, on her part maybe a bit hesitant, as if asking for permission, but you just reassure her by pressing your lips harder onto hers. You kiss her a lot, whether it's to sooth her when she's feeling down, or just when she's looking kissable, she always appreciates it. When she kisses you first, she needs a little nudge from you, just to say, go ahead, I don't mind, and she will.

[wisdomssdaughterr]

FRIENDS? FRIENDS.

percy jackson x annabeth chase blurb

warnings: none, just some pre-percabeth cuteness! some minor spoilers for the TV show & the books but nothing major or all that important

note: percy & annabeth will forever have a place in my heart. I'd love to write more little drabbles of them! feel free to send it any requests! I'll also write for other character (but keep in mind I am just now reading the House of Hades so I haven't reached the end of the heroes of olympus series yet). also, please use your imagination a little as to where this would fit it post the lightening thief quest lol.

...

Moonlight reflected off the steady water, bringing a sense of peace to Percy as he dangled his feet off the edge of the pier. He traced patterns in the wood grooves and attempted to clear his head which hadn’t stopped spinning since he arrived at camp. 

He should have been more alert, but he missed the series of footsteps that crept up on him until he felt a presence at his back.

Percy jumped, startled, and reflectively reached for Riptide. 

“Hey,” Annabeth greeted, instantly disarming Percy. He let out a sigh of relief and dropped his hand back onto the pier. 

“Hi.” 

She looked wide awake despite the late hour. All of the other campers were asleep or tucked away inside their cabins. Percy had spent the better part of a couple of hours tossing and turning until he gave up trying to sleep and wandered out toward the lake, the only place at camp where he felt the most at ease. 

It looked like Annabeth was in the same boat as him. Instead of her usual orange camp shirt and cargo pants, she wore a matching, soft pink sweatshirt and sweatpants. Little hearts were embroidered on the front pockets of the sweats and the neckline of sweatshirt. 

With a light smirk, Percy said, “Nice PJs.” 

She rolled her eyes in typical fashion and moved beside him before she took a seat. Annabeth sat close enough that her arm brushed against his. Percy didn’t know if she meant to sit that close, but she didn’t move away. She stayed with her arm nearly resting up against his and dangled her feet over the edge of the pier.

“They were a gift from the Aphrodite Cabin,” she said, rubbing her thumb over the little hearts on her collar with a small smile on her lips. “They help my bunkmate, Veronica, with my braids.” 

Percy hummed in response before he said, “You look like you belong in their cabin.” He didn’t quite realize what he said until the words left his lips and his cheeks heated up instantly in embarrassment; however, he didn’t get the chance to say anything before Annabeth did. 

“Are you calling me beautiful, Seaweed Brain?” 

Percy silently thanked the gods it was dark on the pier and that Annabeth couldn’t see the red hue of his cheeks. He cleared his throat and shook his head. “No! I mean, that’s not what…not that you’re ugly…oh jeez.” Ducking his head, Percy contemplated throwing himself off the pier.

Annabeth was cool and she obviously was cool looking. It wouldn't have been a shocker if she had been claimed by Aphrodite, but because of her wicked brain and the fact that she was always six steps ahead of everyone, Athena made more sense. Athena was probably cool looking too; she was a goddess after all. Everyone in the Aphrodite Cabin was also cool looking because their mother was known for being the most beautiful goddess of all, or whatever, but they were no Annabeth.

A belly laugh erupted from her throat and echoed through the quiet air, taking Percy by surprise. She slapped her hand over her stomach and threw her head back as she managed to say between laughs, “You should see your face right now!” Percy couldn’t help but smile sheepishly. 

Once her laughter subsided, she shook her head. “I’m just teasing you.” 

“Very funny,” said Percy, desperate to change the subject. “What’re you doing out here, anyway?” 

“I couldn’t sleep,” she replied. “You?” 

Percy had gotten used to his mind racing and almost never turning off, but after they returned from their quest and he finally had a second to think over everything that had happened since learning he was a half-blood, his brain was in overdrive. There were a million more questions he had but was slightly scared to get answered. He needed to sleep off their quest, but every time he closed his eyes, he was bombarded with visions that made little sense and unsettling memories of every time he, Annabeth, and Grover nearly died over the course of one week. 

“I just needed somewhere to think,” he answered. 

Humming in response, they let their conversation drift off into comfortable silence for a couple of moments. 

Percy wondered if her mind was also swarmed with too many thoughts, memories, and questions. It seemed unlikely, Annabeth having questions. If there was one thing he learned about her from their time together, it was that she knew the answer to nearly everything, and if she didn’t know the answer, she would figure it out before anyone else. 

“Percy?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Can I ask you something?” 

He furrowed his brows and turned his head to look at her. “Uh, sure.” 

“You remember when we were at Meduas’ and you were telling Grover and me about the prophecy the Oracle gave you?” He nodded, urging her to continue. “You said that you only picked me for the quest because you couldn’t see us ever becoming friends.” Her voice had become a lot softer than normal, which freaked Percy out. A part of him wanted her to insult him or start bickering with him instead. The small but noticeable twinge of sadness in her voice and the frown that rested on her lips twisted up his stomach in a really weird and uncomfortable way. 

“Do you still feel that way?” 

“Are you insane?” he asked, wide-eyed and confused. She simply shrugged and kept her gaze set on the rippling water ahead of them. “No. No way. I didn’t even fully feel that way I said it. I was just really worried about the Oracle and really, really confused.” 

She met his gaze and narrowed her eyes slightly, not believing him. 

“Okay, I guess I meant it a little but only because you were intense and I didn’t think you would’ve wanted to be friends with me, especially after you left me to fight Clarrise alone and then shoved me into the lake.” 

“I needed proof that you were who I thought you were,” Annabeth defended, causing him to smile lightly. 

“Yeah, and it worked. My dad claimed me because you didn’t really give him a choice.” 

“I think the words you’re looking for is ‘thank you.’” There was a beat before she sighed and backtracked a little, even though Percy wasn't upset at her for it. He understood why she did it, and who knows when or if his dad would have claimed him if she hadn't. “Sorry. I maybe could have helped you a little or not pushed you so hard.” 

With a wave of his hand, he dismissed her. “Nah, I get it. It did help, and you got to go on your quest. But then we kind of fought at the beginning and I figured you really didn’t like me.” 

Annabeth moved her hands into her lap and picked at the skin around her fingernails, almost like she was nervous, which seemed unlikely. Maybe Percy was just really bad at reading people. Annabeth seemed good at it, though. She was kind of like Grover in that way; she could sense danger or a problem before it appeared. 

“Though, I kinda got the idea that maybe you didn’t totally hate me by the end of the quest.” 

She shrugged again, but her frown disappeared. “Maybe I don’t.” 

“Cool,” he smiled until he realized maybe he was smiling a little too big and he needed to chill out. “Because, you know, if I have to go on another quest, I would…well, I’d probably pick you again.” 

Annabeth moved to look at him. “Probably?” 

“Definitely, actually.” 

That got her to smile, and Percy felt himself relax. “I’d pick you too,” she said before quickly adding, “As long as I’m still in charge.” 

Percy put his hand to his forehead in a mock salute. He was not going to argue with her, not after she was the main reason they didn’t die on their quest.

A yawn escaped Annabeth that she tried to muffle under the sleeve of her pink sweatshirt. The night had caught up to him too, and the fatigue of the past week settled in his bones. He rolled his shoulders back with a stretch before he stood to his feet. 

Outstretching a hand toward her, Percy said, “We should head back.” 

She didn’t hesitate to grab his hand and let him help her up. Her hand was really warm compared to his cold one, and he held it just for a second longer after she was standing up. Annabeth cleared her throat and tucked her hands into the pocket of her sweatshirt before she led the way off the pier. 

Together they walked the footpath back to the cabins, listening to the croak of the frogs around the lake fade and the buzz of crickets grow louder.

They arrived at Percy’s cabin first. Annabeth paused alongside him and offered him another smile as she said, “Night, Percy.” 

He grinned. “Night, Annabeth.” 

She turned on her heel and started walking toward her cabin, still with her hands in her pockets and her head held high. 

Friends. That was nice. He had another real friend that he trusted and who trusted him. If nothing else went right for him, at least he had that. Maybe that was all he really needed to survive as a Half-Blood. Maybe he would be okay.

[sadhornydemons]

Rapid-Spoiler-Season-Speculation: Apology Tour/Ghostf*ckers

Caution: some references are made to other spoilers, so proceed with caution if you wish to avoid.

Apology Tour:

Alright, I'll admit, this episode I think I understand the least, so I'm sure I'm completely off the mark in even attempting to make sense of it.

Cake will be served, and it's clown Blitz version. Heart on an item in the back, heart on the knife. How many years has it been and she's still obsessed?

WHATEVER this is, Blitz didn't just stumble into it, I wonder if some type of invitation got him there.

Blood/red stained sheet for unknown reasons.

I think I'm the only one who preferred the earlier design, but guess I just have a type.

WHAT. DA. FUCK.

Yeah, of course, this is when my imagination starts churning.

Did Stolas reach just the perfect amount of drunk before his Spotify breakup playlist reached Olivia Rodrigo, causing him to throw on last year's Halloween costume and portal himself to his ex so he could express himself properly?

No, Stolas had an entire stage prop production prepared. That or we haven't seen the full extent of his magic conjuring abilities.

(same outfit, I'm keeping my eye on the spiked collar 'cause it's new to his wardrobe)

I don't know what could bring this on. At first, I thought it was a dream sequence, but the spiked collar turns up in a later scene. Maybe I just haven't accepted that my fav character could be an asshole?

Screenshots of Blitz, sheet is now a hoodie, we really don't know what he's looking at in this particular scene.

I don't think this is a full scale concert, though. Probably more of a private event. Maybe Verosika was planning a gathering of the 'We Hate Blitzo' fanclub, but Stolas was the only one to RSVP.

If it is, a public concert, I mean, I can just imagine the headlines:

Prince Stolas shocks audience members by appearing as the opening act in Verosika Mayday's concert, preforming his original ballad, 'Imp Dicks Aren't Worth the Heartbreak'.

And if it is a regular event, there's the possibly Blitz attended on purpose..to apologize about things? (hence the title) I don't know, it just all seems too weird.

As poster bleucaesura noted, Stolas is on his couch in this scene. The red stained sheet, presumably with Blitz under, stand before him. Stolas's collar is spiked, so this seems to happen after the musical number.

This is mainly all the info we have this episode, but looking ahead to future ones, I'm thinking this is gonna conclude the majority of the Stolitz angst. Or at least the current ones.

As many have noted, this season has been following a pattern of focusing on, and occasionally resolving Blitz's relationship problems. Unhappy Campers introduced Barbie properly, adding more details to the fire incident. Oops and Mammon's Magnificent Musical Mid-Season Special added to that by focusing on him and Fizz. Full Moon and Apology Tour seem to be based around Stolas and then both Stolas and Verosika, fitting since it's comparing people from his love life.

Hence, I believe the next episode will instead prioritize Blitz's relationship with M&M:

Ghostfuckers:

The IMP mobile is totaled and appears spray painted. Therefore, guessing this scene must take place first:

But what would cause "a life on the run", as Blitz puts it, unless he wasn't completely serious?

And I'm not sure if the hooded folks, "Come out, we've got your surrounded." scene was edited in before this or not.

There are those clouds in the background and it seems to call for a more scary scene, or at least until he checks his watch.

(actually those could all take place in previous episode or the ones to come, for all we know!)

Blitz wears a bad disguise rather than using an asmodean crystal. We could read too much into that because maybe Blitz just LIKES coming up with disguises, but in other spoilers, we see Blitz using a book for portals.

The enemy is doing bad things to the character's mental health, bringing about their worse fears. In reference to Blitz, I wonder if this is this is where those scenes come into play:

Interesting how it's edited like Blitz watching a filmstrip of his life, complete with a decorative frame.

Shown in a different style, I wonder if this flashback will also be used:

And, (if my earlier theory is wrong), this has to appear somewhere:

We see a flashback to a younger, longer hair Millie (not unlike her wedding photo):

(and it looks like outside a ship? Hey, maybe pirates really did have port windows!)

Which may be used to match up with this fight:

This, however, is hopefully, just another hallucination:

Okay, for the rest of this episode, one can't really speculate because the (looks both ways cautiously) storyboards leaked last year reveal a good chuck of the action and dialogue. So without getting TOO into that, for those who want to avoid getting too spoiled, I'll conclude this episode may turn out to be a fun, scary, but with admittedly triggering subjects, that showcase Blitzø's messy and occasionally obsessive relationship with Moxxie and Millie.

...and possibly new issues with Loona? Something is hinted out, but I might get into THAT speculation in the last two episodes.

[e-adlirez]

Thea Stilton Treasure Seekers Review/Ramble

Behold, an impulsive ramble about a possibly-obscure trilogy that's been translated to English during quarantine-ish, adding to the obscurity.

So the Treasure Seekers, huh? :3

Coming out a little prior but more or less over the course of quarantine and thus a lot of people not having ready access to it, the Treasure Seekers is what turned out to be a trilogy of what it says on the tin: the girls hunting down cool treasures as a result of going down the world's biggest and highest-stakes scavenger hunt written a hundred-ish years prior to the present time.

Gonna be giving MAJOR spoilers for the first book in the trilogy, and there'll (probably) be one post per book in the trilogy. If you haven't read the book, here's a copy on the Internet Archive you can read before skipping ahead to the review, enjoy, it's pretty good. If you've already read the book or don't care about spoilers, please proceed below the cut :3

The story begins with the girls on summer vacation in Scotland. Shenanigans get started when they meet this old hermit woman who has in her house a mysterious heirloom tapestry with a mysterious poem on it.

The tapestry has this poem that talks about a place with sweet winds, petals that will lead you to something beneath them, something about midnight and birds, and an alabaster garden created for the "jewel of the palace" (like me to you), that is guarded by a friend with deep feet. Sounds like a whole lotta cryptic shnit the theory heads would enjoy :D

Anyway so the girls go visit Beitris (the hermit woman) the next day to return something they borrowed from her only to walk into a holdup :D

Said holdup-ers are these two grunts led by this mysterious lady hiding her identity under a black fedora and thick-framed Ray Bans. The girls deal with that situation real quick and get the guys to scarper (if you're wondering how they did that, "the police are coming"), and once it all blows over, they find that the thugs only stole the tapestry despite ransacking the entire place like raccoons. Such a realization leads to a revelation on Beitris's end, so she entrusts the girls with the tapestry's backstory in a segment I will describe as LAAANNNEEEE LOOOORRRREEEEEE (said in a MatPat voice, we'll miss you king :'])

-

The tapestry was a family heirloom passed down to Beitris by her grandmother Petra, who got it from her older sister Aurora Beatrix Lane, who is basically British Amelia Earhart. Wasn't into girly shnit, liked being outside and also archaeology, studied in the University of Cambridge as an Archaeology major and learned how to fly a plane, all while punting early 1900s gender norms into oblivion with her pants and motorcycle. Motorcycle queen, plane queen, archaeology queen, but then everything changed when this British Amelia Earhart did a British Amelia Earhart.

The context behind Aurora Beatrix Lane's disappearance is something relating to her work with her mentor Jan Von Klawitz, who was doing archaeology things with her and probably got up to some wild shnit, but we would never know because Aurora is very secretive about her plans and her destinations, and she only came home to the UK once, after her first trip, and that was when she gave smol child Petra the tapestry to guard because it led to "a very precious treasure", but she can't show it yet for the time being. The vibe was Aurora was planning on using the tapestry to show the treasure it hides once she's done with her archaeology shenanigans.

But then she did an Amelia Earhart but completely untraceable since she never revealed her destinations, so uh there's that :D

-

Back to the present, this little storytime from Beitris has gotten the girls sucked into a rabbit hole. They are now hyperfixated like nobody's business and this Aurora Beatrix Lane is JUST LIKE THEM FR, and as a result they decide that y'know what they still have a few days before classes in Mouseford starts, and while they're at it, they're gonna find Beitris's tapestry and maaayyyybeeee find the alabaster garden. First destination: Girton College at the University of Cambridge, Aurora Beatrix Lane's alma mater.

The girls take a quick jaunt to Girton by train and then by bus to have a lil' chat with the dean, who reveals to them that they're looking for the central archive if they're gonna be looking for the deets on a student from a hundred years ago, but uh the archive is closed for the day, please come tomorrow. (Wonder why, maybe it's because they rode from Scotland to Girton by train which takes a shnitload of time. /nsrs but fr tho I wonder if the original Italian had them drive over there by car-- they did rent an SUV, and going by car would be way faster, like it'll only take a seven-hour drive faster) They come back the next day, are let into the archives, and oop, they find a well-preserved diary with Aurora's initials hidden in the Stanley Library.

Y'know what that means, LANE LOOORRRREEEEE

-

So two months into her accompanying Jan on his excavations, she notes that Jan's been acting a bit sus lately-- being very nervous, being extremely protective over his luggage, being weird about hiding some of the relics he's found, and also a weird-ass incident where while exploring a small village's old castle, Aurora found a hidden chamber with a tome inside that Jan immediately snatched and was like "I'll take care of it don't worry, don't worry about the protocol stuff I'll be fine I'll take care of it". And then he went back to "normal" after that. Hmmmm.

A month later, while Jan was talking with one of his collaborators on their train to England, Aurora stumbled into the tome again, suspiciously in Jan's personal luggage instead of being properly archived and catalogued like it should've been. She read it, saw a thing about the Seven Treasures of the World, and that caused her protagonist genes to kick in since now she's now very tempted to look into finding them and showing them to the world.

After that, she went to some libraries to investigate and eventually decided to confront Jan about the whole treasures thing and his first reaction was he was pissed, calling Aurora a snoop and everything poking into his things. Then after calming down he said "just pretend to not see", but oh no, dear reader, Aurora was not gonna pretend to not see. She ain't gonna pretend to not see the fact that her mentor was actually a treasure hunter and collector who'd been using his occupation as an excuse to snatch some nifty treasures and keep them to himself like every European country who's stolen artifacts from Asian countries ever, ohohohooooo noooo, she's gonna do something about it.

-

The girls scuttle on over back to Scotland and Beitris, to find that uh oh dear, the thugs came back again and this time they were asking about the girls specifically. Beitris pulled the same trick the girls pulled to get them to leave. So NOW the thugs are looking for the girls for whatever reason and wanna know their deal. Anyway, the girls show Beitris Aurora's diary, tell her about the summary, and also that unfortunately some of the pages are missing, and the diary doesn't say shnit about the tapestry so far. Beitris helps by giving them a letter that Aurora sent to Petra about the tapestry and its treasure, but interestingly mentions that she should "only trust Robert".

Since I haven't mentioned him before, Robert Neville was Aurora's flight tutor, a flying medic, and was toootttallllyyyyy just friends with Aurora you guys they were totally just frie--

He is dead in the present time, but his nephew John Neville is a (former) lighthouse keeper for the Ar-Men lighthouse in the IÎe de Sein, Brittany, France. So the girls head on over there, land in France, insert a thing where Vi feels like she's being watched but is like "maybe it's just a me thing, I dunno".

They head over to the Île de Sein, find an old man who turns out to be John, are invited to his house, tell him about their situation, and John mentions that he himself has been researching like crazy too about Aurora ever since hers and Jan's simultaneous disappearance over the same place at the same time in the same terrible storm. And also the fact that Robert was totally devastated when he got the news and spent years looking for her. He gives them his notes that he's accumulated over decades of researching in his pastime (which amounts to just Aurora's trip to Mexico), and tells them that since Aurora was looking for seven treasures, they'll need to find out where her seven trips took place, which will not be easy because Aurora was extremely secretive, and she only made her first trip even remotely public.

First place is Mexico so might as well head on over-- oh god the holdup-ers are back to holdup.

The thugs snatch Aurora's diary and book it before the girls can do much besides get an impromptu ocean bath, and oh dear, the thugs' boss has them now, and it's not the mafia cosplayer lookin' woman. But that's something I'll address later :3

Nonetheless, they carry on since the thugs never stole John's notebook, and they use it to go to the Puuc Route in Mérida, Yucatán (sounds very specific until you realize that Mérida is the capital of the Yucatán, and one thing everyone and their mother knows about the Mayan ruins there like Chichen Itza) to find more clues.

They do some more research on the Puuc Route, find some clues about "an invisible place, guarded by the chattiest of creatures", discover that it means they have to go to Uxmal, get a dub against the unfortunately acrophobic thugs, and realize that yes, Aurora did in fact sneak another one of her diaries in there.

This one doesn't have as much Lane Lore to contribute besides a clue that the girls find leads to Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh, India, a city known for its perfumes :3 sounds like "sweet winds", doesn't it? Oh and there's also something about a place with two lakes, which turns out to be Lakh Bahosi, a bird sanctuary about an hour's drive away from Kannauj. The girls head on over and try to do some investigating, but it doesn't take them that long to find a pair of grunts struggling under the weight of a very familiar tapestry while their boss was struggling to supervise them with her heels constantly digging into bird sanctuary dirt.

Anyway so the girls concoct a little scheme to steal the tapestry and the thugs fall for it like fish for a fishing lure, and they managed to scatter with the tapestry. After getting to a private space in the sanctuary, they find a clue that leads them to a set of coordinates that they find is a beeg tree. Oh and the treasure seems to be a present that was made for someone close to Mumtaz Mahal, as in "the jewel of the palace", the woman the Taj Mahal was made for; and the tapestry has a set of coordinates that is leading them to a beeg tree, with deep roots/feet. Oh hell yeah it's all comin' together.

They get to the tree, deal with the mafia lady for a little bit, find the treasure, and it turns out it's a very exquisite perfume bottle made of alabaster called "The Perfume of the Earth". They find a little note from Aurora explaining the treasure and its value and the significance of finding it, and now the girls have found the treasure Aurora had been searching for, and now's the time for a villain reveal?

So I haven't talked about him yet and have glossed over this guy for the entire ramble. See the mafia lady, Cassidy? Yeah she's not the big boss here. It's this guy who has a whole secret base in Denali National Park, Alaska, and has been overseeing everything behind the scenes. And by everything, I mean everything: He was alerted to the whole thing with Cassidy's first raid of Beitris's house, found out about the girls' involvement, and for a good half of the book, was trying to figure out what the girls' motives are for interfering with his line of work and what they might know about this whole thing he's looking for, which is the alabaster garden.

This guy has been keeping tabs on the girls through Cassidy and her thugs, who've been stalking the girls ever since France. He and Cassidy figured out in Paris that the girls are Mouseford students on vacation, and he was the one who gave the orders to snatch the journal from there. He was the one who told the goons to tail them to Mexico, and he was the one who managed to look up the girls' names, backgrounds, reasons for being in Scotland, all from the comfort of his base in Alaska. And only then, only then did he go to India himself to supervise and put a cap to his goons' buffoonery.

Who is this guy? Well, he is a treasure hunter who just wants to enjoy the treasures Aurora Beatrix Lane has hidden from his great-grandfather a hundred years ago. That's right, meet Luke Von Klawitz, the current heir to the Klawitz legacy and the treasure trove Jan Von Klawitz left behind in spite of his disappearance. Unfortunately Jan was better (and old enough) to secure a family legacy of greedy artifact hoarding.

So while the girls were in Lakh Bahosi, Luke was too with the goons and Cassidy (who is not his right-hand man and more just... a subordinate trying too hard to impress him), being the babysitter with these guys on leashes, as he tries to keep their stupidity under control. He intercepts the girls as they're about to leave Lakh Bahosi, blocking their path, and asks about the alabaster garden. The girls obviously don't spill and prolly would've gotten themselves blackbagged and interrogated had a friend they made prior to Lakh Bahosi not shown up in her dad's truck and came in clutch. (It sounds cliche and like it came out of nowhere but trust me it makes sense in-universe-- after the girls left the friend's family restaurant that they were hanging at, Luke's goons came over to interrogate them about the girls and where they went. Subtlety, who is she?)

The girls bring the perfume to a nearby university so it can be brought to a museum, send the tapestry back to Beitris, and return home to Whale Island, to read the last bits of Aurora's second journal and presumably to

So that's the book :D I put in a LOT of spoilers, but I'd say that reading the book is still worth it because you'll be able to get the connecting tissues that tie the organs of this story together. H-hopefully this all made sense . .'''

First things first, if you're not used to how Scholastic kids' novels are written, then uh, you might wanna get used to it, because the English translation of Thea Stilton is very... that. It's not beating the kids' book allegations in English, unfortunately. On the brighter side, though, it's pretty good for Scholastic standards! The pacing's very fast, but it feels about right-- gives me the same energy as diving deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole and going to all sorts of places because of the hyperfixation responsible for consuming their sanity for all of a week or so. The dialogue isn't nearly as atrocious as the worst it's capable of being (oh trust me we'll get to that). The tapestry puzzle and how the girls work towards solving it is very coherent and logical for the situation they are in at the beginning, and it's very satisfying to see everything come together and for things to slowly make more and more sense in the poem despite it being as vague and puzzle box-y as it was.

The Lane family lore is very well-thought-out, and Aurora Beatrix Lane is the perfect spiritual predecessor to the girls, what with her love for adventure, love for travel, strong moral compass, and the strong compulsion to elbow drop every single feminine social rule under the sun. I can totally buy her being someone the girls would totally hyperfixate on researching, because she feels like that kind of compelling character-- a passionate young archaeologist who decided to put her own safety on the line for the sake of what she believed in and to dunk on Klawitz and his selfish (and very illegal) goals of hoarding the treasures of the world to himself.

As for the villain, I'll be real gamers, Luke Von Klawitz is probably the most intimidating if not terrifying villain in the entire franchise. He has drones spying on every corner of the world for him, he has goons he can contact at any time and have them do his bidding (to mixed results it seems), he has cutting-edge technology that he uses for terrifying means, all in the safety and comfort of his secret underground base in Alaska where he has his little basement filled to the brim with historical artifacts he's kept all to himself to enjoy. Lemme run this through you again:

He was able to learn the girls names, the university they're studying in, and why they were in Scotland in the first place, all without ever meeting them face-to-face or having his goons interrogate them directly. All he needed to learn all of this was the (not very helpful) research by Cassidy, and a few commands put into his world-connected supercomputer.

Are you intimidated yet? I sure hope you are :D this guy's got a lotta potential is what I'm saying. He's a bit of a brat who wants what he wants and wants it immediately, but he's also a bit of a chess master who looks over things in the background while his minions do all the work for him. Really the only thing holding him back is the incompetency of his goons, and technically it's not even that they're very stupid-- Cassidy and her grunts Stan and Max are very good at swooping in out of nowhere to wreak havoc, dip in and get out before anyone can do anything about it. They're decent if not good at the job they're usually assigned: low-level grunt work. Unfortunately they're not good at much else, which drove Luke insane this entire book, haha.

The girls' dynamic with Cassidy, Stan and Max was refreshing in the sense that the girls aren't always getting punted by them, and the goons aren't always taking Ls just from physical contact with the girls. Cassidy and the goons always had the element of surprise on their side, being able to show up out of nowhere and do their thing before the girls have time to even blink; but once the girls figured out their whole shtick, it was easy to learn that they are easily outclass-able by five mouse Oxford students in braincell count and thus act accordingly. They force the girls to think fast and come up with some snappy plans on the spot, and the girls force Luke to realize he hired Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum, and Tweedle Dummy as goons :D

Now uh, I have been complimenting this thing the entire time, but there is one little thing I have an issue within this book, and that is the whole... Power of Friendship thing they've got going on throughout the book.

Yes, unfortunately, the Friendship Curse has claimed this hardcover series too, and while it's not the worst here, it's still... it's still a bit atrocious :D

For instance, the conclusion Cassidy and Luke come to for the girls' reasons for interference is "friendship". Literally, Cassidy literally says to Luke, "It seems they did it out of friendship, Sir", and then Luke responds with an evil cackle and is like "FRIENDSHIP? THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP DOESN'T EXIST IN THIS WORLD! AIN'T NO WAAAAYYYYY THEY'RE NOT FIVE SCHEMERS WHO WANNA GET THE TREASURES THEMSELVES", which is like... I don't get that vibe from Luke anywhere else in the book? Luke values efficiency and getting what he wants-- he's not hired Cassidy to be all buddy-buddy with her, he hired her for a job and she has to work to fulfill said job. He just wants competent employees, and y'know what, that's valid. Not a single part in that have I seen "ew power of friendship". It's very villain for the sake of villainy kind of energy, which I don't think fits Luke with the other bits of information we get of him? He's following his great-granddad's footsteps-- not a single minute of that did that mean "the spirit of friendship doesn't exist get yo head outa the cotton candy"

Then there's... how this applies to the girls.

inhales

WHY DID THEY MAKE VIOLET THE GROUP'S FRIENDSHIP PROPHET GRAAAAHHHH

I probably would make a full-blown rant about this at some point, but one thing I never liked about any of the hardcovers was how Violet of all people is the group's assigned friendship prophet. She'd occasionally make a comment about how uh something something the power of love is the strongest of all, and every single time I don't like it :D

Sure fine you can chalk it up to character development since her early months in Mouseford, but in the earlier books it's heavily established that she's the pragmatic one, the braincell keeper, the one who keeps the girls' group ADHD on track or the one who reminds them that "hey we've been at this for a really long time and it's now 2AM, we should really turn in now". Being a friendship prophet is a Colette thing, not a Violet thing, and I'm not trying to insult Colette or anything like that. I would be far more okay with it if Colette was the one to go on about the "power of love" because she's literally the HOPELESS ROMANTIC! She's the one with her head in the clouds, the one most likely to fangirl about ships in movies, the one who chooses to ship Romeo and Juliet and pretend to not see the entire second act of said play for the sake of believing in love.

If Colette had a line where she gushed about the power of friendship, I would've just chalked it up to "that cheesy-ass statement is something she'd totally say ngl", as opposed to the jarring whiplash I get from seeing Violet of all people call upon the Power of Friendship.

Again, probably will rant about this at some point (lemme know if you're into that idea), but yeah -m-

Literally just chuck the power of friendship bits and replace them with something more practical/realistic/grounded/whateveryouwannacallit, and it's basically perfect! Even the bits where the girls make friends on their journey is believable! Those don't have to be altered at all! Geuh it drives me insane, almost to the point of wanting to do something about it....

Well, that's enough rambling for today. I can't use up all my steam on this first book-- I plan on making ramblings for the second and third books, after all.

See ya Stilton fans, and for the newcomers from Twitter, welcome :D I hope you enjoy your stay :D

[popculturebuffet]

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Review: That's How It Could've Happened, But How About This?

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR SCOTT PILGRIM TAKES OFF AHEAD. IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN AT LEAST EPISODE ONE, TURN BACK. SERIOUSLY DUDE. DO IT NOW. IF YOUR COOL WITH SPOILING YOURSELF, ROCK ON.

Hello all you happy scottaholics. I"m back in the saddle again. For those just tuning in i'm Jake, I review stuff.. and a few years back I reviewed the entirety of Brian Lee O'Malley's masterpiece, and the movie as a chaser, having been a fan of Scott Pilgrim since my teens but only having just revisited it at the time I started my retrospective. It was a wonderful journey that made me appricate one of my favorite comics even more and gave me a ton of my best running gags. You can find links to each review HERE in one masterpost.

So naturally when the anime was announced last year, I was entirely on board: I loved this story in all three of it's major forms and was excited to see it again, maybe updated a tad. I was also curious if the story would get a setting update, what would change , and what subplots we'd FINALLY see on screen after the film had to trim a lot thanks to half the series not being finished yet and a tight two hour run time. I was cautiously optimistic when the cast was announced as while I was happy to see the massively talented breakout cast of the film return and get another shot at the characters, I was worried it'd just be the movie but animated.. which thankfully turned out not to be remotely true once trailers came out. Instead they'd simply get a shot at playing the characters again but this time with diffrent characterizations. I coudln't be more stoked.

As it turns out though.. O'Malley had zero intention of telling the same story again. In fact, he almost DIDN'T sign on despite getting the juciest of offer, with the anime's studio, Science Saru, wanting their next project after their breakout hit Devilman Crybaby to be Scott Pilgrim and coming to O'Malley Directly.

The problem wasn't the offer: O'Malley, unsuprisingly, was a fan of Science Saru, who in addition to Devilman had also made Space Dandy and the early pilot shorts for OK KO. The problem was O'Malley.. really didn't want to simply retell scott's story a fourth time. It was a story that was personal, deeply loved and made his career.. but after a movie that everyone knew and love and a video game that was so well loved it was many's holy grail for a rerelease for over a decade after it was delisted, he didn't know how to take the story in a new direction and didn't want to do the story again if it was simply going to be a rehash: people could read the book sometime or watch the movie if they wnated Scott fighting the exes.

Thankfully for us, Brian brought up the offer to his good friend BenDavid Grabinski, a tv and film writer. BenDavid was a huge fan of Scott Pilgrim and thus when the idea came up coudln't help spitballing ideas. And one stuck: What if Scott LOST that first fight. It was naturally just a joke.. but like when Superman died.. it's one that had some heft to it. If Scott were gone what would happen to everyone else? How would Ramona react to his loss? Was Scott really gone? how would his friends go on without him... and what would happen to the exes now they weren't guaranteed to die in a fist fight and the entire problem with Gideon's whole plan was laid bare?

These questions and more are answered as Ramona gets to the bottom of what REALLY happned to scott, who unsurprisingly is not dead and even more unsurprisingly the truth is all kinds of bananas. The story of a human tire fire learning to be a better person and not runa way from his problems... becomes the story of a much more composed tire fire learning she can't run away from her problems after she chases after what might have been, forced to get closure with most of her exes as she tries to hunt down the ex that never was. Along the way there's messy bisexual love triangles, movie rental melee's, Tony Hawk style antics done on swarms of paparazzi ninjas, the greatest musical of all time, the rise of Matthew patel, the fall and re-rise of Gordon Goose, explosions, cameos, and more as Ramona Flowers gets it together while Scott Pilgrim takes off, resulting in one of the best animated series of the 2020's and possibly the best of a very stacked 2023. So take off with me as we press start on a fresh new take on one of my favorite franchises under the cut.

Ramona Flowers Gets It Together

This one's going to be a LOT to unpack, and the best place to start is with our new lead: Ramona Flowers. Ramona has never been unimportant to this franchise: after all it's her exes that make up the fight of the week each volume and who give the franchise it's hook, and in the comics she develops alongside scott: As I said in my reviews, Ramona develops alongside him, having to learn to not keep people at arms length and to not run away, nearly running away from everything before coming back, realizing Scott's worth it. Through each other, they grow stronger.

So with Scott gone... Ramona is forced to grow all on her own. If she wants to date Scott, SHE has to fight this time, and she can't run like she tends to. In the comics, she had to scrap with Envy and Roxy, but all the weight to evolve as a person was put on Scott: Ramona had a stable job, was content in her life even if her friend group was basically "Whoever scott happened to be friends with", she was seemingly all together until the last three volumes slowly chip away at that and reveal she's just as bad at staying and improving instead of noping the fuck out of an intense situation as scott. She has to evolve.. but her getting better isn't the point till the climax of the story. It's a lesson in how while a relationship can HELP you grow, ultimately it's on you to: Scott grows because he stops running and embraces his evil self and thus the memories of all his fuckups, embraces that he could sometimes be shitty so he can learn past it. Ramona has to choose to stand and fight gideon and let go of hte hold he has on her, to let go of running and embrace what she has.

Here without Scott and only the vauge mystery of a guy she dated once, Ramona instead has to confront herself: many a character question her doing this. While it starts simple enough with just Julie questioning it, because Julie hates scott as much as I hate the comics version of her, we get harder questions from Kim, whose dated Scott and knows how insesntive he can be, and Lucas who KNOWS Ramona and knows her style is to run. That a happy ending isn't as easy as finding scott again andmaking out intensely. Ramona has to make her own happy ending.

As a result instead of being the sneaky deutratonist or a prop depending on the version (I Love the movie but man do they not do her well), Ramona has to confront her past on her own, and instead of just getting cathartic punchings, she has to actually.. TALK to her exes and resolve things like an adult. And you can imagine how much she likes the prospect of that.

And this flip in how the story works.. is brilliant: It allows us to get to know Ramona: We're seeing things from her perspective instead of Scotts so we see her way more vunerable, genuinely shaken by Scott's "Death", obssesed with solving his kidnapping, and forced to confront her past. Granted like the books we also get to see the lighter side: Ramona is still the straight man to a lot of the cast especially her exes. She and Kim are the sanest one's here and Kim is often out of focus, leaving Ramona one of the few rational people in a sea of gloriously goofy nonsense. Yet we also see her own intrests: she's a columbo fan, turns out to be a natural for stunt work, and has a meticulous routine for her hair dye. We also find out she's a blonde which is only TECHNICALLY cannon to this version.. but fits too well as her hair color to work.

We get to see Ramona not as some ideal to chase slowly turned into a person but just.. a person. Funny, aloof, kind, easily baffled... this is easily my favorite verison of her. Granted it's not exactly ac ontest: The comic's version is great and this simply takes the best of that and fleshes her out, the video game is a 16 bit brawler, and the movie... well look I like the movie, but the film version is a nigh emotionless prop that barely gave Mary Elizabeth Winstead anything to work wtih forgetting ramona HAS emotions who instead of simply having her emotoins amplified is outright brainwashed. I used to think Kim got the shortest end of the stick but doing this review.. no it was Ramona. Ramona got screentime but had any personality stripped. Thankfully both Ramona and Mary Elizabeth get a second shot on the screen here.

Mary Elizabeth's performanc ecan't be overstated: she nicely ballances Ramona's stocisim, something key to her charcter as her main problem is distance, that she puts up and that she creates by running away, with the emotoin peeking up just underneath to say hello. IT's a truly great performance and I hope she'll consider doing more voice acting, she's an natural.

And this is great as Ramona's quest eventually leads her back to scott.. and to an ending that's both profound.. and pokes some holes in the series itself.

The Adventures of Scott and Scott

So turns out Scott was kindapped by of ALL characters, Robot 01, the Katanagi Twin's robot minion who shows up for one fight in the comics and video game and then explodes real good. Here he's their little robot son.. and how Scott got kidnapped.

But thankfully the culrprit isn't the Twins. I would've liked for them to get more to do, more on that later. THeir involved, having leant their robot boy to a friend since , as a robot who can't eat, Robot 01 has never had meat and has no human limits and thus is the strongest robot vegan who ever existed.

God I love this stupid reveal. Anyways, turns out Scott's kidnapper.. is SCOTT. Specifically a version of him who did the usual story, won, had a happy ten years with Ramona, then it fell apart after an argument which he assumed ended in divorce.

This is another twist that was brilliant.. I thought Scott's kidnapper was another scott, but I assumed a clone situation. I never thought FUTURE Scott but it's such a brilliant move. We see a Scott who won.. but who simply didn't let the lessons he learned stick. It's easy to learn something about you sucks, I have many a time.. it's harder to make the changes stick. I can't tell you how many ephnaiinies i've had only to end up back where I started. Some change has stuck with effort, but it's not easy. You have to constantly work at it, to grow. And it's easy enough to backslide.. and thus sadly easy to buy that this verison of Scott , when hit with his relationship not working, spiralied instead of working at it , not helped by Old Ramona, their words not mine, ghosting him.

He's a ghost of Scott future, every bad thing about the guy amplified: he's oblivious, thinking his newest band is going anywhere with his gloriously crappy music video, and refusing to accept it was his fault, throwing a tantrum when Young Scott states the obvious solution: just tell his younger self some of his fuckups and hopefully that'll right the relationship. Instead Future Scott goes for the solution that's easiest and laziest: use time travel to undo his relationship. And naturally this being Scott he got this stupid idea from taking a joke Wallace told him seriously. I love Wallace's "Buddy I was kidding".

I also love the performance here. Rather than use Michael Cera , Future Scott is voiced by voice acting, comedy and beard legend Will Forte. Forte's goofy nature, penchant for playing man children blind to their own flaws, and deadpan deliveries make Future Scott work. He's deeplys ad, but also deeply hilarious, sharing some of Scott's weird intricates like assuming because Future Wallace's husband works for nintendo he gets all the video games for free and making a virtual boy scrapbook of his relationship.

He's still throughly Scott.. just one who can't get past himself, requiring Scott and Future Wallace to go to Future Ramona for help. Shockingly.. she's more than willing too: While she still has Ramona's own problem of running away at the first sign of trouble, she does still LOVE this idiot, she just dosen't know how to fix it and knows she can't talk him out of this, so she sends scott back to be with his ramona... well rides him back leading to some awkward selfies.

But naturally for this tale, Scott coming back.. dosen't fix things. And not just because his older self put anti kissing nanites in him.

Scott has grown some from seeing what he could be: He apologizes to Knives, in a scene that I truly love.. mostly for this line "Apparently a 23 year old dating a high schooler is frowned upon by society".

And I have to stop for a minute to give ALL the props to Michael Cera. He already had done plenty awesome this year as the boy of the year

He didn't need to go for two but he did. Cera wasn't at all bad as Scott the first go round: the character was different, a bit less goofy but still awkward as hell and oblivious to his own flaws: the core was there. Here .. Cera is playing the character as on page, if slightly amped up: Goofy, excitable, trying to ignore his painful past and flaws, charming.. all the good and bad of scott is bubbling around this guy. And the line deliveries my god: we have instant classics like "I'm using the world wide web" "The place where they make the video games", the instantly memetic sonic scene (Which would be me trying to flirt with a girl, ngl), and the above frowned upon line. Cera just bubbles in this roll, sliding into who scott is: Loveable but a total mess who needs to get his shit together and has made some grave mistakes.

Granted they also take steps to make sure Scott's relationship with Knives as judging from interviews, O'Malley is kinda tried of the take that scott pilgrim is a bastard man. I mean he is, but it's less that Scott has some shit to work out and need to be better and more that everyone acts like this is a new discovery. As the author himself said it's there on the first page and a good chunk of chapter one is the people who know him best asking what the hell is wrong with him.

Granted this is mixed with Stephen hooting and hollering as much as he can with his stoic personality, Neil being in awe and asking if they'd "done it yet" and Wallace being tempted with the idea of a high schooler himself, though I get the impression he never seriously considered it. So it is muddled slightly.. but not NEARLY enough.

I do get it with the movie: the movie.. outright portrays Knives as a legit love interest, and while it ages Scott down, it's not enough to make that not blehhhh and the game has Knives end up with Kim, which younger me didn't get was still pedophilia. So I do get it as while the comics make it clear this is messed up, it got muddled.. but it's also still a pretty weak gotcha when the source material has always said "This is wrong" They even bring up trainspotting for fucks sake, which I haven't seen but is a pretty good indication O'Malley knew what he was doing.

So here they make it clearer that while Scott's still stringing this poor baby girl angel baby along, he dosen't really consider it a relationship, or just dosen't want to and after seeing what he easily could be even with Ramona, apologizes way sooner. So they did make strides to make things a bit clearer here if only so another version didn't miss the point.

So one rant later while Scott and Ramona think things are wrapped up.. it's just not that easy. You can get closure, we'll get into the exes more shortly, but it dosen't mean your done or done growing... or that the past is done with you. Or future in this case. Like I said, Old Scott/Future Scott put nanintes in scott and after figuring out the exes aren't involved, the two get kidnapped along with the exes , knives, pretty much anyone who can throw a punch.

The kidnapper is naturally Old Scott.. EVEN OLDER SCOTT.

I love his look: he still has his old jacket, his iconic x-men one, but laso looks like Ryu from Street Fighter 5, just with a giant beard and crazy eyes, being a mix of that ryu and devil ryu.. and nega scott. Old Scott wasn't a great person but still had the potetial to turn it around if he got his finger out of his ass. Even Older Scott is every horrible thing Scott Could've been.. and this is something the comics foreshadowed was possible.

And the thing is while Ramona was being dickish in her own right there, not getting that while Scott cheated on Knives with Ramona he had changed since then, she's not WRONG. Scott was VERY close to giving up on change entirely if Kim hadn't turned him away. Hell had Ramona not come along Scott might've become Old Scott sooner just by dating a teenager. The potential to, like the exes, sink into his resintment and worst self was always there... this is just a Scott that did. A Scott who when faced with the fact change is hard would rather hull up, get buff and plan to kill everyone he cares about just to avoid changing. This is the Scott he almost became.. and sadly at least one scott did become.

He's also horrifying for more than just the implications of seeing this guy who while a dickhead, CAN be better if he puts in the effort and does change and grow in both main versions as his worst self. It's sad to see that.. but we also quickly see just how dangerous an evil ex scott would be: After all Scott beats all the evil exes... I mean original timeline scott beat Lucas and Todd via Indigo League style technicalities, but still. While Scott was still beatable, it took multiple rounds, a feint, and ramona's help to put down the last four exes, he was still fairly strong.. so give him 24 years more of experince with ten of those spent JUST training and specifically preparing to counter the exes , ramona and his past self.. and you have an unstoppable monster that NOTHING can stop and everyone else is very lucky they get sent back. They all put in a good offense.. but the league is out of their league.

Even Older Scott is a brick wall.. and one that smacks straight into Scott and Ramona trying to run from their problems. Scott is forced to face the fact that even getting better might not last even if he dosen't become this guy and Ramona's forced to face the hide this guy is right. Our heroes are up against the wall, their relationship almost over...

Enter Even Older Ramona. Turns out Even Older Scott just.. ghosted her. But her presence finally gives present Ramona the wakeup call she needs as finding our her older self just.. ran away each time her and scott had issues.. gives her a needed ephinay the same way Older Scott being a dumpster fire on cocaine gave this Scott one and Scott in the comics got one from seeing a dark mirror in gideon: Ramona Flowers.. always run. Lucas outright said as much and with the series fleshing out the exes more, almost there just give me a minute, we find out she just.. bounced on each relationship. Matt isn't a suprise, his backstory is the same as it ever was, and in some cases she was ENTIRELY justified in her assholery: Todd was an obnoxious prick she left another, far better guy for, the Twins were recontexculazed as serial predators who preyed on new freshman with Ramona dating them both being a way to get even on both of them, so while she still did a bad it was on legitly bad people, and Gideon.. is still Gideon. He may get more development here and have his own backstory.. but the series makes it VERY clear he was every bit as shitty to ramona as previous versions, he just hadn't got to using the glow or mind control chips levels of creep yet.

But as i'll get into more in a bit... she legitly hurt everyone else: While Matt didn't get into supervilanny till high school, it's hard not to think that being used as a weapon to keep other boys away didn't lead him down the tryhard path he now walks, Lucas was left devistated and became a xerox of a xerox of the kind of guy Ramona left him for, and Roxy was left genuinely devistated thinking she was nothing. All Ramona has done is run and deny people closure and the series reckons with that.. and like the comics forces Ramona to stand and fight, recognizing that her relationship with Scott could end badly.. but it's worth having.

It's a neat metaphor: our heroes see exactly how badly things could end... and that's how relationships can be. You worry about how badly things are going to go or how you'll fuck up. But the only way it can go forward.. is if you try. Risk the hurt for the good. present/past/whatever Scott made a valid point when trying to talk to his Older Self before seeing that was a lost cause: There had to be good times too? While Old Scott and even Older Scott bury them in self pity, a relationship, even if it fails.. has something to add. Something to help you grow. And given Brian himself had been through a divorce after a ten year marriage it's hard not to see the subtext, to see that idea of "would you talk yourself out of a relationship if you knew it'd end". And the answer he and Ramona have.. is no. It's worth the risk, worth the pain, and worth the possiblity that someone else can do it better.

Granted this being scott pilgrim doing it better involves the ramona's fusing and Even Older Ramona, while done with Scott (He ate up his second chance a LONG TIME AGO) gives both Scott's another chance. As she puts it "This one's just an idiot kid... and this one's a real mess" (When told to kick his ass) "It's never too late to clean up a mess.. " Despite it all.. part of her loves him.. and gives him another chance. Not with her, Oh lord no, but to be better. That .. we can always be better, no matter if your 23 or 47, you can become better. As Super Ramona says "What you've done in the past dosen't define you, hell me keep remembering that". It's a beautiful message: you can screw up, there is no happily ever after.. but you can always be better even if you stumble. And as our heroes face a new future together once again.. it feels a bit brighter this time, like these two kids will make it you know?

Not That Evil

One big pull of doing the story this way for Brian and BenDavid was the exes. Brian admitted in interviews he wrote the books by the seat of his pants and as a naive 20 something who didn't know how skaters or musicians worked except via magazines. Moving to LA among other stuff gave him more perspective, and he wanted to add that to the story, flesh the Exes out as people and use the bits he didn't have time for in the original.

As such 5/7 go from sometimes one dimension, sometimes wholly evil bastards for Scott to punch.. and Lucas, to 5 very flawed , very intresting people we get to see way more of and who all get something resembling a happy ending. Also Kyle and Ken are there. Getting them out of the way once again the adaptation barely uses them, as their more a plot device/backup so we can hear Will Forte sing the theme to Bubblegum Crisis. You know when Brian hinted at that scene in interviews pre show I expected to here Kirean Culkin, Bree Larson, maybe even Micheal Cera. I didn't expect Will Freakin Forte and god bless Brian for that.

So yeah the Twins are.. fine here and I love the anti climax: they don't get closure with ramona.. but are cool with Scott since they'll be buddies eventually. I also like that out of ALL the exes for Scott to befriend after they respawned it's these two guys.

Thankfully everyone else gets way more and no where is that more apparent than with MATTHEW PATEL, the first evil ex.. and the one who naturally gets the most to work with, going from the biggest jobber who ever jobbed, to the guy who killed scott pilgrim

Satya Bhabha gets to have a fucking feast here and I hope this leads to more rolls, voice acting or otherwise. While he was already one of the highlights of the film, easily, taking what was implied to be a music number and making it into this glorious thing.

The series takes it to new heights.. mostly by giving Matt his best life. Granted.. this life naturally dosen't include Ramona who walks out pissed off and Matt is befuddled "Wait we DON'T get her automatically if we win?"

So he does what you'd expect from an egocentric theater kid who realizes he was just played and this whole evil exes setup is a sham... call a meeting in GIDEON"S OWN LAIR to dramatically reveal it all. And punch the head off a good soft robot boy because he's a prick and a half. A loveable prick and a half but still.

It's something I just.. never thought about with the league. I assumed it was simply a "If I can't have you" situation as that was GIdeon's whole goal.. and to put her in his girlfriend freezer which i'm sure Matt released. Gideon and Roxy seemed like the only ones who wanted her back. But given the weird logic of this unvierse even if some of them DIDN'T want her, I like the idea they'd still like to keep that option open by unaliving someone. It's fucked up as it is sensical for a group that all gathered to keep their ex from moving the fuck on.

It makes equal sense that this was all a ponzi scheme, Gideon , being an entiled dick, just.. assumed he got her if anyone won. That the exes wouldn't object or, more likely, they simply woudln't make it far enough. They were just patsies so he could swoop in and score her on the rebound, also not getting that would never work and sh'ed just hammer his nuts so far in they'd be impacted.

What threw me after this.. was Matt's Challenge to gideon. Not him challenging Gideon, I expected that easily: Matt gets all of Gideon's empire if he wins, Matt dies if he looses. I figured Gideon would kill Matt, again, and would do some sort of cordinated strike. But as before Scott Pilgrim Takes off Decides

Instead we get an absolutely gorgeous, awesome fight scenes. one of the best i've seen in animation and one of the best of the year, which given Invincible came back, is saying something. Gideon, while not having his pixel or glow powers, fights well with swords, a harness and pure skill while Matt is consistently forced to push his powers in new and creative ways. While we get the ones he got to show off against scott, fireballs and demon hipster chicks, we also get to see a lot of cool new shit as he manifests arms ala the Hindu god shiva, with all his powers seeming to tie into Hindu mythology instead of "magic stuff I guess" like the originals. It's a tense fight I assumed would end one way.. but instead... Matthew Patel FUCKING WINS and wins Gideon's emppire, only leaving him alive as a brag

Yeah I assumed from this when first watching that this was some sort of Buffy "Superstar" situation, that Matt had altereted reality to make it better for him. Instead.. nope. This just happened organically. Turns out Matt is badass as fuck, Scott simply had the power of friendship and punches. No power scaling here bitches.

As a result... the League falls apart. Matt is TECHNICALLY leader.. but in practice the exes all go off to do whatever, with Ramona instead encountering them organically. Matt spends the season as a highly paid CEO, mostly showing up once in a while to shut down a whole movie production because it makes him look bad, pathetically hit on ramona.. then get scared when he finds out Scott is alive. My faviorite bit of that is his very timid "Is he mad at me?" like he's a second grader and Ramona's understandably irritated "I dont' know dude" as a response.

Granted this dosen't stop his dreams as Knives and Stephen are able to pitch him a Scott Pilgrim Musical, one of the most gloriously batshit subplots in the history of this franchise. Which really can be said for.. most of this fucking show, but I digress. Despite seemingly hvaing no talent, the prospect of finally getting his broadway dreams back after his dad crushed them is enough for him to level up again, do a performance everyone loves and become a broadway icon. I assume the last part. Hamilton move over, your new compettiion's in town.

(Sidebar to that refrence, I think Hidgens and Matt would be besties. THeir both weirdly violent and obessed with musical theater).

Hell Matt.. dosen't even get upstaged by Gideon. When Gideon tries a looney tunes plan to bomb the theater, the Demon Hipster Chicks just.. disarm it and Matt.. gives Gideon his company back. Turns out being a CEO is hard yo. He's already lost billions. So Matt has his career, his musical, the only thing he didn't want to give up and Gideon could care less about anyway, and a new evil bestie. Life is good.

And naturally it sucks to be Gideon Graves as a result, or rather Gordon Goose. I liked giving Gideon a backstory, aging him down to be julie's old peer who used to wear no fear shirts every day and got shot down hard. Huh I never knew the guy I knew in high school who gave every girl he knew an invitation asking them out in high school became a super villian.

So Gideon spends most of the series in a depressed daze secretly plotting revenge and watching anime. Why is every guy I knew in high school compressed into one sad canadian?

Where he's crashing though was a nice twist: Julie. For those who read my reviews of the comics, you'll recall I didn't exactly like Julie very much. And for good reason: she's the worst. Here she still is.. but Brian found the secret to having a character whose human garbage around without making the audience pull their hair out. You have to make them entertaing. Julie is still a high school alpha bitch all grown up here, but instead of just constantly talking about how Scott sucks, she gets to be funny. She swears constantly, taking a great gag from the film and escalating it, slacks off at her job, and snarks to Ramona about her taste in men.

She also.. gets redeeming qualities. Something I never thought any verison of Julie could possibly have, but here we are. Instead of just seeming to know Ramona and only claming to be her friend because Julie Powers is a starfucker, she's GENUINELY a good friend to Ramona, giving her the info she needs and being contrite when Ramona catches her with Gideon. Julie here feels more like a person and less like a blob of all the worlds sins congealed into that bitch.

And yes she ends up with Gideon, a ship I never thought of in my darkest day but somehow works perfectly. Their both awful in a way that's made for each other and Julie taking in Gordon at his lowest is genuinely sweet.

We get to see Gideon not as G-Man.. but as a nerd whose lost everything.. and gets the greatest and most wholesome montage ever with Lucas Lee. Seriously Lucas and Gideon fucking around Julie's house like two teenage boys is one of the greatest thigns ever put to film, even greater knowing it was somehow only 90 fucking minutes. It's fucking adorable.

What helps though is that while Gideon is a touch more sympathetic and pathetic... he's still not let off the hook for how he treated Ramona. He's not putting the glow in her and stuff, but he was still the same controlling manipulative asshat. I mean he still made the league just to win her back. It's just without the league or the trappings of power... he's a less charming scott, something the books largely hinted at. Ramona DOES get him to be a better partner to Julie, calling him out for leaning on her hard and taking advantage of her, and as a result instead of leeching off her they become equal partners in villianny with vauge never to be elaborated on plans at the end. And it's honestly.. sweet. It's nice their evil together. Sure they'll probably be meancing our heroes with a super mario bros 3 airship eventually, i'm sure, but at least their better. And matt freed his frozen kidnapped wives so we're good.

So moving right along fun and fancy free we have Gordon's best bro, Lucas. Lucas Lee takes more after the film, something Brian admitted was unavoidable for some things: after the movie made some versions of the characters more iconic he really coudlnt' go back. It's why getting the movie cast was so important: While this was going to be it's own thing, having them added a layer and frankly he didn't think anyone else could do it as well. I do think someone could've, there's tones of great voice actors, but i'm still glad he got the all star cast back as their just.. giving it their fucking best. God bless Michael Cera for reviving that email chains.

And you can feel the enthusiasm in most performances, but especially Chris Evans, who responded back within 20 minutes of being asked and hams it up. This Lucas is a bro whose on the verge of being cancelled and who is delightfully try hard, saying let's party as every other line in his films, throwing parties, and generally being axe bodyspray made into a person. He also tony hawks a lot, and you can tell BenDavid loves skater culture.

Lucas is fun to watch, being arrogant and an asshole, but one whose hilarious epsecially squeezed into Scott's t-shirt playing him in young neil's movie. It's a great visual. And his downfall being dating a 30 year old who happens to LOOK like a high schooler is both a brilliant meta joke on ellen wong, and just.. fucking great.

The show also, like all the exes, fleshes him out: It takes what we knew ,that Ramona cheated on him in high school, and fleshes it out: Ramona was his everything, helping a skinny skater kid get by, fixing his boards and generally being sweet.. then aburbtly left him for a fuck boy, with Lucas deciding to become the KING of all fuck boys in revenge.

Lucas isn't super deep, but I love that he's not just the dudebro party massacre we see on the surface: he does actually read the script, has genuine insight into ramona pointing out how unlikely the regular ending of the story is .. simply because she always runs. He also willingly skates into a cloud of ninja paparazzi to cover for her.

And the skating scene.. is one of my favorites in the show. Granted I like me some tony hawk even if I suck eggs at it, so that helps, but the animation is gorgeous. Granted this whole damn cartoon is gorgeous: Science Saru put their heart and soul into every frame and everything looks stunning, having a very early 2000's look with it's frayed edges on the characters, and capturing Brian's style perfectly.

The Skating Segment shows this off, with fluid motion, some great set pieces and some impressive jokes like the alien. It's fucking great.

So Lucas ends up not even able to afford a first class ticket back home.. but finds happiness as a barita. and Stacey finds happiness starring at his ass. Everyone wins. I kinda low key ship those two.. I mean Stacey's a bit younger, yes, but it's not knives level of age gap, and Lucas could use someone with their head mostly on their shoulders. They do try teasing him and kim.. but she'd eat him alive. It'd be fun but she would. So speaking of Kim and the evil exes, let's roll on to my faviorite, Roxie. Roxie is a fucking delight this time, with Mae Whitman, unsuprisingly, bringing her best. It's fun to get to see her cut loose and just play a horny lesbian ninja gremlin like she deserves, with Roxy hamming it up. She spends the evil Ex meeting dunking on everyone else ("Act like you've been here todd!"), and already being the best. She comes off as a combo of her two versions: she has the manic gremlin energy of her film counterpart, being as bi-furious as ever, but has the snarky energy of her book counterpart, being willing to take shots at people and question them... it's just spread to all of the exes since Scott isn't around to be the sole obstacle in her way of ramona.

She's then the first ex Ramona has to deal with herself on her investigation, and it perfectly fits her character: In the film she tried to jump the line, but got a cup of accidental boob punch instead, and while she did wait for Todd to get headbutted out of existence in the books, she also started her attack with some ninja poster clones of Canadian hillary duff in the excellent Free Scott Pilgrim one shot (The very comic that got me into the series), and tried the same sneak attack that ended up in boob punch city. No matter the version Roxy is an impatient little cave goblin and of course the second she realized Ramona was free and the others had stopped giving a shit she'd be the one to show up at her door.

She's also the only one Ramona has to fight instead of just having an adult conversation. And while Takes Off changes a lot by design.. it dosen't deny giving us another excellent Roxie vs Ramona fight, something that I didn't realize was a tradition till this one. Still they saved the best for possibly last as the two's video store dustup is one of the best fights of the series, only topped by the final battle with Even Older Scott and even THEN it's a very close call.

Starting with a furious one on one in No Account Video, one of my faviorite settings from the books i'm glad to see get fully fleshed out and used here, even if it gets wrecked and then shut down as a result, with sprinkler's going off, discount tapes being bodied and Hollie deciding fuck this i'm clocking out, we then get a fun take on an old trope as a stack of tapes fall on them, leading to the two getting stuck in video land. We get westerns, film noir, samurai flicks, Hollie griping about them ruining her faviorite movie but watching anyway, it's a gorgeous fight and the video tape grain just adds to it.

We also get at least one fun bit using the medium as when Ramona gets sucker punched, Kim simply rewinds to help her new bestie out.. and Roxie takes it like a champ and... exits the tape JUST to stomp the remote. Fucking amazing.

The best part though, like a lot of SPTO, isn't the punching, though it's glorious but the payoff. With both exhausted, Roxie lashs out in a brutally painful way, blood down her cheek. It wasn't just that Ramona left, it's that she left.. without saying anything: we get an actual sense of their relationship this time and rather than be the "phase" Ramona cruelly brushed it off as the last two times, we see the two slowly fall in love, a really cute shot of ramona throwing a blanket over the two of them.. and then Ramona moving out, almost saying something but not wanting to, leaving Roxie devistated. It's easy to see WHY she has this bubbling anger at Ramona: every time they've fought, she's made her feel like nothing, something she vocalizes here. It takes what was an extremley dated bit that made Ramona come off like a giant asshole in the previous versions, it's fine if she realized she's not bisexual (which any scene with her and kim in both the comic and this very anime proves is just.. factually false), but it's a face punching way to put it, and puts it in the context of really hurting someone. Ramona realizes she done fucked up, genuinely apologizes and the two.. just collapse. Their friends now.

I also love Roxie hitting on Kim. I could honestly see those two working out.. I mean yes there were no sparks but Kim was kinda put on the spot there and Roxie was on the rebound. Give em some time. Plus I think Kim would work well with a feral gremlin she has to reign in. She's done it before. Roxie also asking about hollie right after before cheerfully leaving.. it's the best. Mae Whitman's the best and I could see her headlining a spinoff easily. Give me more of my feral cave gremlin daughter comma you cowards.

Finally we have Todd. Unlike the others, Todd.. isn't really fleshed out more and is given an entreily new personality from the comics swaggering egotistical rockstar jackass (Since Lucas very much had that niche filled), and the film's errrr...

Brandon Routh done good with the cleaning lady bit, but he wasn't given much to work with. Here... he makes Todd into a gloriously dumb and horny slab of moron. The guy can't go ONE SCENE without nearly fucking envy, which is one of the funniest bits in the show, capped off with the glorious wolf whistling, then fucks Wallace about ten diffrent times that we see over three days, then gets an adorable wallace sailor tatoo.

Todd.. really isn't changed. He was a fucklord in high school and he's a horny cheating mess now. He's an excus efor an already rediculous show to take it up to 11.

So let's unpack the show's sense of humor since I hadn't got to yet: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off takes an already ridiculous franchise with psychic vegans, bollywood hindu sorcerers and literal one ups, and decides to take it to the next level with film fights, lucas lee pro paparazi ninja skater 3, future renditions of Konya Wa No Hurricane by will forte, the montage from stepbrothers: Canadian edition, stunt double fights, and Matthew Patel: The Main Character. This is a series that takes it's emotinal consequences seriously and not much else. And I love it: I love weird shit, I Love balls to the wall humor, and the humor still feels very much scott pilgrim just taken up a notch.

And episode 5 is where it hits it's what the fuck is this peak as Ramona infiltrates the set of the Scott Pilgrim movie. The episode feels like one long shit post and i'm entirely in favor of it. We have Wallace fucking todd and casually dumping him, Envy and Wallace siccing their stunt doubles on each other, an Edgar Wright stand in voiced by Kevin Mcdonald for some reason and Young Neil, who in this series is entirely shit post and i'm here for it. IT's glorious chaos and only the ending is really at all emotional on some level. I mean I feel for Todd, even if he was a cheating bastard, but it's hard to take his grief or envy's seriously when Envy is a carcature of herself in this series and Todd's depression is eating a KFC bucket of poutine and sadly recounting every place he and Wallace made out. Todd isn't given extra depth.. but even as a villian he never really had depth to begin with. He had a disapproving dad and a massive ego. It's fine if he's a giant goofy blushy man who's soul wallace destroys. Brendon Routh does a phenomenal job with that.

Overall the expansion of the exes is part of what makes this adaptation so fantastic. With the exception of the twins they all get to live their best lives, and we get to see more of them. It's fun to see them implicitly join scot'ts friend group, and i've already written little chats about that, as it's fun as hell now their full characters in the world instead of respawning back probably not having learned much except not to punch scott in the face.

And the Rest

So with everything upside down, how do the rest of the people in Scott's Precious Little Life fare when the main character their built to support is gone? It's another hook of this series: if scott's gone, even just temporarily, what happens to everyone else.

Sex Bomb-Omb naturally gets impacted the most, and the versions here are superb.

The standout of course is Knives who deals with Scott's death by discovering a new love: playing music. While Knives had always been a huge fangirl in past versions, it was in the way more teens find music: by glomming on to the first band or two that makes them feel something and guarding that new faviorite thing like a cat with a ski chalet

See? Despite letting these characters live rent free in my head for the past decade, I never once thought of this idea, letting Neil join shatterband, sex bomb omb's followup as it crumbles to dust in the comics, instead.

In hindsight this idea is the most obvious thing: Knives loves music, it's an easy excuse for her parents that eases them into the fact her friends are all 20 year olds, so she can stay with the group easier, and as for why Stephen and Kim would let it happen... both have always liked her. Kim's annoyance is more worrying about Scott scarring her for life, and Stephen an dher get really close towards the end of the series, with him becoming a big brother towards her. The two becoming big siblings to her and letting her join makes sense.

It's especially nice to see with Kim. Kim interacted with Knives a BIT in the books, being the only one on Team Sex Bomb-Omb (The band plus knives and young neil), to take scott to task for the Knives thing to his face, at worst getting annoyed Knives is copying her. Granted like most of the Team, Kim still fucks up with her, most notably.. this

Which at the time I, and apparently the devleopers of the game, saw as a shippable moment but nowadays I see as NOPE PLEASE STOP, PLEASE STOP.. PLEASE NEVER AGAIN. AGE GAP'S STILL AS WEIRD AS WITH SCOTT. PLEASE DONT' TRAUMTIZE THIS CHILD MORE. Kim gets more of a pass than her band mates and neil because she was drunk at the time and clearly regrets it, but it's still something entirely fucked up I wish hadn't happened and feel bad for all involved. This is not how you should find out your bisexual.

The series wisely avoids this as they've realized "This is also statutory". and instead nicely has Kim take up the big sis roll to Knives, being the only one to really look after her after her boyfriend allgedly exploded and was found to have been cheating on her.

Hence we get one of the the best scenes in the series, the drum session. Which I know some did interpret romantically but first off...

And secondly.. really dosen't given the context: Kim sees the band needs a bassist.. but more importantly sees Knives is trying really hard to learn and is clearly spiraling after Scott's death. So she invites her to play since Neil is busy with his screenplay and Stephen, as usual is handeling this sudden loss with all the grace and dignity he's known for

IT's a beautiful scene as two people simply bond as they jam, and both heal a bit from what they've lost. And we find out Knives is a musical progidy who mastered the Bass in only four hours, and masters a keyboard later in less.

This gives Knives her first real plot in the series that isn't tethered to Scott in some way, something that was jarring to realize, but easy to see why: the books are centered around Scott's life, his friends, his love intrest, etc. Their there as needed for his story. Knives has one of the most detailed and intresting character arcs of the main cast.. but it's still thorughly tethered to Scott: his dumping her sends her on a journey of spiraling depression and growth, eventually going from someone who puts scott on such a pedestal that she attacks his new girlfriend instead of seeing the obvious, to accepting Scott wasn't perfect, he cheated and that while he opend her world up, they were really bad together and it was never an equal paring. Even the fun subplot with her dad as the mystery swordsman in book 4.. is because he thought she was still dating Scott and thus attacked him for dating his daugther. The movie makes this worse by trying to make the relationhsip seem legit missing the point entirely. While Knives has a friend in Tamara an da passle of high school drama she gleefully tells scott about, neither are important to the narrative. We only meet her parents because her mom was there when Knives met Scott and her dad tries to run him through.

Here while Scott certainly is part of her story, why she met sex bomb-omb and why she wears his jacket for most of the series, and his death certainly had an impact, she moves on quickly here not because she forgot Scott like it seems a chunk of the cast do or she's TRYING to avoid thinking about him like Kim and Wallace seem to be, she just found a healthy creative outlet, something to put her pain into in a healthy way instead of getting highlights and trying to murder Ramona or dating a guy who looks close enough to Scott. Knives moves on faster here, taking what's implied to be maybe a month at most to move on versus a year.. because she's not isolated in her pain. Scott's friends dont' dump her because it's awkward now and then awkwardly let her stay around post neil because they feel bad. Kim invites her in and after hearing she can wail, Stephen warmly welcomes her into the band, and the two become besties. So we have to talk about Stephen really quick as his plot dovetails into Knives, with the two being a duo for half the series. Stephen is based more on his movie self.

Yeahhh while I love the books on re-read, Book Stephen sucks. He just.. sucks. If your wondering some of the lowlights i'm glad you asked, here's an expertly crafted montage.

And that's just what I could fit into a montage: he also cheats on Julie for most of volume 4, focuses on his affair with joseph to the point he refuses gigs when it's clear playing live is something Kim LIKES doing and helps her relax, and never even informs Scott the band's broken up. The last one's .. iffy because Scott was in a waking depression coma after loosing Ramona, so he coudl've told him and forgot, but out of Scott's friend group he's the most consistently dickish, with Kim's grumpy nature mostly being a wall. It's partly the writing as , again given this is scott centric, we dont' peel back the layers on him the way we do with say Ramona, Knives or Kim. We don't see why he thought it was easier to cheat like we do with Scott and Knives, which wouldnt' make it okay but would make him less punchable. we don't know WHY he stays with Julie. Stephen is just an enigma and as such comes off immesnely annoying when most of his major endevors screw up everyone elses life in some way. And as one final coda to this rant, i'm not saying telling knives about Scott's two timing is bad... i'm saying he's the wrong person to tell her as not only did HE cheat on his partner, and as the last panel shows, KNOWS it's wrong Ramona clearly dosen't know half a year into the relationship, but won't tell her anyway for a friendship he REALLY dosen't seem to remotely care about.

So yeah a hammy constantly anxious relatable stephen was better, and Mark Webber was a delight by contrast. We didn't get to know movie Stephen.. but I didn't want to punch him either. So having Anime Stephen be more like the one who isn't punchable was smart: He's still panicky, crying more over the fact Scott leaves them baseless than over the fact his friend's dead (Which is mildly douchey but as we learned with Julie, if it's for a joke it's fine), and still obessed with making music his career while his band mates are like "Yeah fine whatever", so he's not really changed hard from the core of the character, but he is a delight and him and Knives becoming best friends in a far less hypocritical sense is adorable.

I also REALLY love their pet project: After Young Neil's movie falls through, more on him shortly, they make Scott Pilgrim, the original timeline, into a MUSICAL, complete with a bread makes you fat music number. I do like the ocasional nod here and there: O'Malley and Grabinski conciously didn't want to just.. repeat a gag because it was expected, but threw a few of the more iconic bits in as long as they could remix the joke. It's why the pee bar and the shoe tying making cameos, as their in new contexts, while there just wasn't room for the l-word or scott going out a window.

This whole subplot is gold from Stephens aying "as a creative to another creative" a hundred times, something I relate to since i say as a critic way more than I probably should, to it paying off.

And this is where Knives asceneds. By the end she not only gets closure with scott, admitting she's glad he's back but is glad he died, as the relationship wasn't healthy and she could grow into a hit songwriter, but she has a huge career with an award winning (Probably) musical, a new best friend and mentor, and writing songs for her fav envy.

And most nicely for me.. .I get a reality where Sex Bomb Omb dosen't fall to pieces in some way or form. Yeah without Stephen's drama or callousness depending on the version and with Knives creative vision the band not only stays together, but has a real shot at being something, giving everyone in it a bright future. Knives Chau really got to take off.

Kim is as usual the meaning in my life and the inspriation, with Allison Pill getting to do more with the character since she's not shunted to the background to say one or two lines. I mean she's still IN the background sadly: She gets a major roll in episode 3 and then just shows up when Sex Bomb Omb's together, not even getting that involved in the musical. I really wished after the film Kim got a big beefy roll. She could've been Ramona's sidekick or something like that, the two been clue buddies together. But I suppose the raw sexual tension would've left Scott out. Still she plays of Ramona well and it woudl've been nice ot have Kim around to response to the madness of episodess 4 and 5 with ramona. Still she gets a better shake than the movie: Episode 3 highlights how this version is actually over him, but encourages Ramona's attraction to him, simply warning her of what he's like, is a good friend to Rammy, and gets that moment with Roxie. I love how sh'es just like "I'm not... oh alright". And I think given another chance there would be sparks. Kim is sadly not given MUCH but it's still more kim pine, and i'm always in favor of that.

Finally we have my newly adopted son Young Neil. Unlike with Stephen, they didn't really take from the previous neil, whose super excited, and goofy and better than the graphic novel version whose alright. They go back to the Graphic Novel's glass eyed, barely emotive werido.. yet STILL make him something new rather than just adapt that version.

The result is a neil whose spacey, barely emotive.. but also REALLY dumb and really weird. Naturally I love him and relate immensely. Neil is somehow CRITICAL to the plot this time and entirely unaware of what is going on. He's season 1 todd chavez and it's wonderful.

This Neil gets most of the best bits, with Johnny Simmons having perfect timing. A good chunk of this series weird shit comes form Neil, who takes Scott's death as as sign he should persue his passion for screenwriting and get's his big break when in a half assed wel lmeaning plan, ramona adapts his book into a screenplay and sends it to him. Neil sees a mysteriously cloaked future ramona writing the script.. then assumes it's his sleep paralysis demon and he's a scripting genius.

We then get two glorious episodes of Neil at a movie set not remotely qulaified to be there as he assumes Americans and then the japanese call golf carts mario karts, gets a perscription but somehow winds up with sunglasses, and barely registers Matthew shutting his expesnive nightmare of a film down becuase he can't drive golf carts anymore. It even takes a lengthy and fucking glorious scene with sex bomb omb for him to realize "oh maybe my sleep paralysis demon didn't write this". Just the casual way he says it while everyone else is baffled, and how Kim and Knives have to slowly explain reality to him is great. Neil is comic relief incarnate and I love him, easily the best version. I'm also happy that like most of the cast, he gets a happy ending, as he apparently got a job at the studio after Gideon reopened it driving his cart around. Nick Frost is right, Young Neil really is off the chain.

So onto the one charcter who over FOUR DIFFRENT MEDIUMS has never really talked to anyone I just talked about but knives, we have Wallace. First off: yes i'm still disapointed he never really talked to Sex Bomb Omb. I got it vibe wise: everyone has friends who just.. don't know each other, but the intro got my hopes up they'd actually.. hang out at some point. But just like everything else, the intro isn't remotely indicative of what happened in the anime. The comics sure. And it's a true banger.

Seriously the colors are vibrant, the song is vibrant and fits scott perfectly, with Necry Talkie really nailing him down, and it's a perfect intro. Even if it ends up being nothing like the series , I still love it. One of my faviorite anime intros of all time. Love that cute falling shot of scott and ramona and the bit showcasing the exes. So good.

What was I on about? Oh yeah Wallace. Wallace here is a mixed bag. As with the film Kirean Culkin is perfect as Wallace: he gets the dry tone down, his drunken antics down and the whole sarcastic vibes perfectly. He was the best performance of the film, and while the compettition's too steep here for him to win again, he's still amazing.

That said Wallace.. is a bit more of a dick here. He comes off more.. tolerating scott instead of having a genuine friendship with him, and the only hint we get of him mourning his best friend is just how plastered he is.. and even then he threatens to change the locks. If Ramona reminded him to. I get the two weren't going to be as focused on, but it's still sad.

I also wish his friendship with Ramona stayed. While it makes sense they don't bond, Scott isn't around to link them, it was one of the funnest parts of the books.

Really this Wallace shows why he needs Scott and what he might be like when his bestie isn't around: Just because Wallace is more put together.. dosen't make him not an asshole. While I admi the's more dickish here with reflection.. I have to say it's not out of character. He's still giving us killer bits from wanting to see a notriously straight actor play him, to his smug acceptance of becoming an actor, to his deadpan acceptance that todd's in love with him, he's still the wallace we love... it's just we're seeing the side of him that dosent look better with a dumpster fire constantly ned tot him.

The biggest douchery is of course stealing Todd from Envy.. but besides it taking two to cheat, Wallace stealing someone's boyfriend.. isn't new behavoir. I laughed at how out of left field the PARING was.. but Wallace is Jimmy's bi or gay or pan, whatever he is, awkaneing in the book and film, and Stacey's reaction in both makes it clear he steals her boyfriends CONSTANTLY. So him stealing Todd and then explaining it was just a fling to him.. is entirely in the realm of Wallac'es douchebagery. He's not a terrible person.. but like everyone else in the cast he's a mess. HIs abuse of his stunt doubles was a bit over the line, but is so over the top it works. And this wallace also sings us complicated. So while I wish we got to see more of the Wallace we don't in the books... what we do get is still great.

Envy.. gets the shortest end of the stick here next to the twins, as she at least had a fairly comepelling arc in the book, being the focus of volume 3 and a major part of volume 6. Here while Brie Larson is once again great there really.. isn't much for Envy here. Even the film, which basically squoozer her in at the last second, still gave us an awesome version of the phone call she gives scott and the iconic black sheep sequence. Here while Envy gets another all timer scene in her funeral concert, the second most obnoxiously awesome crashing of a funeral behind flintheart glomgold

Envy DID at least get to dance on his casket. Or a stage above his casket. still counts.

Envy.. is left at the face value we meet her at the start of volume 3: queen biatch, queen of all the chaos, queen of all you love and adore. She's still a lot of fun from the above horny antics with todd to her yanking Ramona out of a talking head interview to fight her battles for her, but there's .. nothing really to her and it stand sout in a series that gives everyone else but the twins something new.

Okay ALMOST everyone as Stacey is once again out of focus like the comics. The movie gave her a bit more, but here she's scott's sister who calls people. That's it. It makes sense, Ramona has no real reason to talk to her, but it's a waste of your Anna Kendrick to not find more antics for her, especially since they found wallace and Neil great subplots. That said she does live her best life at the end starring at lucas' butt.

I also want to note the presence of Hollie, kim's roomate, best friend and co-worker. She does little, Shannon Woodward does a fine job, but I like that she's in here at all: Hollie was a character I liked in the comics.. who went on to steal kim's boyfriend for plot convience. So having a verison of her that dosen't do that shit and is just Kim's snarky foil and friend again works for me.

Finally we have a bunch of cameos, the bulk of them legendary. We get Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as security guards, Weird Al as the intro narator for the doc on the failed Scott Pilgrim film, comedy and voice acting legend MIcheal Mcdonald as Edgar Wrong, Bowen Yang as a tv gossip, kal Pen as matt's lawyers and Kirby HOwell Baptiste as Lucas Lee's agent. All fun one or two off bits, all fantastic.

Finishing off the character stuff we have a missed opportunity too: Joseph and Lisa get to cameo.. but are once again left out, to my annoyance. I get not being able to fit them in and Lisa has less of a point without Scott around.. but it'd still be nice to get a scene or something, especially since I was far from the only person asking for Lisa Miller to get a proper apperance.

So with that we close the book on Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.. and it was phenominal. While I would've loved a new adaptation, this.. is even better: a spirtual sequel that expands the characters, is not afraid to go full nonsense, let's a lot of the cast from the film fully shine, and has a bitching soundtrack once again. Not a ton of original songs sadly, but I Feel Fine and Orange Shirt are bangers, and we get Will Forte singing an anime theme song. If the last part dosen't appeal to you, I don't know how you got this far in the review. Takes Off is one of the best entries in this franchise and leaves me hopeful we'll return to this world again. Maybe not on screen but hey, even with the mountain of work it took to get this cast together again, tthis adaptatoin has proven anything is posisble.

Thanks for reading.

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

SPIDER-VERSE On The Brain

Massive SPIDER-VERSE *spoilers* are ahead... Do not read on if you haven't seen the movie...

It's been four days since I checked out SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE in theaters... And I'm still processing such a rich layer cake of a movie with all this stuff going on, just the sheer ambition of it... And... This story isn't even over, that's the mind-blowing part...

This movie did have pretty strong arcs for Miles Morales, Gwen Stacy, and even Peter B. Parker to some extent, in addition to introducing a major conflict and a soon-to-be-primary antagonist in Miguel O'Hara/Spider-Man 2099... While a larger threat, The Spot, still looms, and there's even a closer to home threat for Miles himself as the picture wraps up...

There's so much more to go, assuming that BEYOND THE SPIDER-VERSE is also going to be a pretty long movie. That this movie was, in the planning stages, getting to be so big that they had to break it up into two parts? Who knows what we're in for...

I feel a lot of ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE's narrative brilliance is within its yet to be resolved conflict...

Canon...

Back in 2018, INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE came onto the scene with its dynamic new way of rendering CGI imagery in an animated feature, while throwing in eye-candy flourishes and other dynamic art styles to really make that movie pop amongst other mainstream animated movies *and* the entire comic book movie sphere. In a neat sense, this groundbreaking new way to make an animated feature strengthened the inclusive and quite simple overall message of the story: ANYONE can be Spider-Man.

Now, if INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE said "anyone can be Spider-Man", ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE asks what that "anyone" must go through to be Spider-Man.

Can Spider-Man truly be anyone?

What is "canon"?

Miguel is adamant that every Spider, from man to woman to animal to insect, must experience some major tragedy in order to truly be a Spider-Something. A loss of a family member, close friend, or any kind of loved one... That's that about that, that's the nature of the "Spider-Verse", it is set in stone, no other way! Seems to contradict "Anyone can be Spider-Man", right? Apparently Miles can't have a relatively normal non-costumed life, someone he loves HAS to be axed... And that's the case with... How many Spiders? Over 280?

... which quite frankly sounds very controlling and lacking in imagination. And kinda dumb on paper. Miles knows that, even... It all relates back to what his mother and father want for him vs. his ambitions and desires.

"Nah, imma do my own thing"...

Such a liberating line, during such a literally and figuratively heavy moment in the film...

Between Miles' arc and Gwen's story, this autistic queer right here felt something quite resonant from all of this... I needed to see and hear these classic story tropes pulled off in such a great new way at a crucial time in my life...

Now, this works even beyond one's personal journey and how a film relates to someone: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE seems cleverly critical of contemporary superhero movie culture and most nerd-dom, from its most toxic swamps to its most boring offices. Adherence to "canon", shackling oneself to hard-set rules that mustn't be deviated from. It's especially potent coming from a movie series where the main Spider-Man is a black/Puerto Rican teenager, and his pals include a trans Spider-Woman, an older adult Peter Parker who has a child, and many more.

The insistence that Spider-Man has to be this one thing, i.e. Miguel running a Spider-Society that makes sure all Spider-People have that very "Uncle Ben" tragedy happen to them, with NO ANOMALIES... Miles' whole existence as Spider-Man, of course, is revealed to be said anomaly... In that a spider from another universe, Earth-42, got to his, Earth-1610, and bit him... Messing everything up... He's even blamed for Earth-1610 Peter Parker's death, to add insult to injury!

Or DID he mess things up?

Maybe "canon" is a bunch of bullshit.

The very kind of thing that shackles whole characters and franchises down, instead of letting those who come to the sandbox play with the toys THEIR way. INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE came to CG animation and didn't do the Pixar style, didn't do what most other mainstream animated movies were doing, didn't follow the accepted "standard" or "canon"... A friend of mine, in his review of ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE, noted something very interesting: This also ties into how a lot of very online animation fans insist that every new movie now must be like SPIDER-VERSE. And like PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH. And like any other animated movie that they consider "top tier" or "based" or "cinema". Including a relatively-panned Mario movie. Screw off if you're Pixar making "mid" movies like TURNING RED and ELEMENTAL, or Disney Animation making equally "mid" movies like ENCANTO or RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON... "Canon" in feature animation, apparently, is now movies that must be like SPIDER-VERSE or PUSS IN BOOTS or whatever. Animated movie "requirements". You have to have scary dark villains, you have to have the most amazing unseen animation style ever, you have to do it all THIS WAY...

This whole "canon" nonsense also ties into superhero movies in general, as well. Even comics, like a lot of runs of Spider-Man are apparently doing... especially in a time of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC movie-verse being clamped down by such hard continuity... That has only morphed into a bigger cluster-cuss, post-SPIDER-VERSE.

I remember when watching the LOKI Disney+ series, thinking... This series is trying to explain in FIVE 40-MINUTE EPISODES something INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE effortlessly explained in less than 5 MINUTES... Then you bring in the Doctor Strange follow-ups, all this stuff about "incursions". Incursions this, Sacred Timelines that... Why is this so goddamn convoluted and wracked head-to-toe with all these RULES? Other multiverse stories don't do this, and Marvel's characters span DECADES... And a big criticism of the recent MCU output is that the continuity, the canon... Doesn't allow for the characters to have their own unique stories, told by filmmakers with individual unique visions working within reasonable guidelines. I feel these two movies, along with EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE, show what a multiverse story can still be in this day and age.

And by using Miguel's rule, ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE goes right for the jugular bearing its spider-fangs.

Anyone can be Spider-Man, Spider-Man can have ANY life.

May I also add? The Spot... He's not in the movie much, but his arc... Tying this back to the worst of toxic nerd culture. The Spot is shook by being called some villain of the week and everything else that happened to him (like getting conked by the very bagel from the first movie), and instead of using his weird abilities for something good, he's going to go great lengths to prove that he is not some villain of the week. To become a larger scale threat... And for what? To fill a literal hole in himself? What validity and happiness will this bring him? I see something similar in some aspects of nerd culture, where they take being wronged (I'll humorously compare this to being shoved into lockers, circa 1988) at some point in their life, and turning it into their literal villain origin story... Growing up to be the jocks that bullied them, growing up to be the ones making life harder for other people in the community... The very people complaining about how "w0ke" this movie is for having "forced diversity", the very people who also lob that stolen word at harmless things like the LITTLE MERMAID remake and virtually anything "W0ke Disney" puts out these days, the very people who had literal shit-fits over MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, every new STAR WARS movie, GHOSTBUSTERS 2016, SHE-RA AND THE PRINCESSES OF POWER, new MUPPET BABIES, any new STAR TREK media, the list goes on and on... That's The Spot. Funny how some superhero movies, even animated superhero movies, have these villains who feel like they've been wronged and feel like they're entitled to something...

Just more texture to this ludicrously-textured layer cake movie... Yeah, CAKE itself is a big part of the movie, too. Look at that-

All this, amidst a backdrop of hundreds of Spider-People, a surrealistic smorgasbord of visual styles and animation techniques (Spider-Punk alone, YOWZA YOWZA YOWZA!), a multiverse-spanning story, and at the end... All of it tying back to who Miles Morales wants to be. How he wants to tell HIS story... When he defies Miguel on the train, it's a monumental moment...

And the story isn't even over yet... This movie is something special.

[pixeldiaries]

BG3 Honour Mode Act 1 Route

I am currently playing Honour Mode in Baldur's Gate 3 and I wanted to start adding notes/guides to help others through it if they need it. Honour Mode is the new difficulty in Baldur's Gate 3 that's just above Tactician, and you only get one save file. So if you TPK (total party kill) it really is game over.

I haven't completed it yet, but I'm finding it surprisingly not difficult. However, I did a lot of planning. The first act is supposedly the most difficult. I'll add and update with more encounters as I go along.

I'm playing a custom character (Tav), as a moon druid. This is a guide for a Good/neutral aligned run.

Continue reading for the Level 1 to 4 Guide. FULL SPOILERS ahead.

Nautiloid:

pick up all the cartilogenous chests in the first room

rescue US

Free Shadowheart

kill the cultist thralls (for XP), either use the console or fight them

loot everything (you will need the gold)

there is a pink nautiloid explody vat by Shadowheart. Pick this up.

prepare the Command spell on Shadowheart before the Cambion encounter. I replaced Shield of Faith.

drop the chests you picked up in the door way right before the last sphincter. If you can't move past them, neither can the extra cambions. This will buy you time to kill things and loot the place

collect all the nautiloid explosive vats and the void bulbs

use command on Commander Zhalk. Save your spell slots for command. If you can't get him to drop it, you will have to kill him for the sword.

if he drops it or if he is dead, loot the sword right away and beeline for the helm. Go into party view and MAKE SURE THIS SWORD IS IN TAV'S INVENTORY RIGHT AWAY (just in case you lose your companions at anypoint)

The Crash Site

Save Shadowheart

loot everything. You need at least one set of thieves tools. Disarm kit is a bonus.

skip the intellect devourers by scaling the cliffs on the right.

Save Gale

Save Lae'zel

go back to the ship and kill the Intellect Devourers (xp!)

go find the Harper chest by the beach where Astarion is hanging out

go get ganked by Astarion

get some rest if needed. Switch in Astarion.

go to the Ruined refectory

intimidate or persuade the bandits there. No one gets any cheese.

Do not go into the refectory here. Go around the back, find the hatch to the crypt

read the Book of the Dead to give you inspiration.

fight the dead monks

go get Withers.

go the other crypt and open the trapped sarcophagus. If you don't have a disarm kit, keep 3 of your party outside, position 1 by the sarcophagus, turn on Turn-Based mode, loot the sarcophagus and dash out before the trap goes off. It's a nice spear.

Important tips:

long rest when your health and spell slots are low. Try to be at every major encounter fully rested

loot everything. Find every chest. Sell everything. If you fail survival checks, start digging anyway. You need all the gold.

COLLECT ALL THE EXPLOSIVE things. Put them in your camp traveller chest but loot them. I don't care if you think Barrelmancy is an exploit, this is Honour Mode.

The Emerald Grove

get some rest if needed

kill the rest of the bandits in the refectory for XP. Remember to have an escape route if things go south.

Tip: you can use the door to block attacks, and this way you can concentrate on any enemies that ran into the room.

go to the Emerald Grove, help Aradin, Wyll and Zevlor fight the goblins

do all the Emerald grove stuff

add Wyll to your group

talk to Ethel. Do NOT tell her about your tadpole. She will stay at the Grove and everytime you long rest, her stock replenishes. Suggested purchases: health potions, elixir of hill giant strength

only use gold on potions. Resist the temptation to buy all the dyes like I do

talk to Kagha. DO NOT USE FRIENDS ON KAGHA. Unless you want to trigger the tiefling massacre.

rescue Arabella

talk to Nettie. Loot all the scripts in the library.

Go talk to Alfira. Tell her you will help her write her song, so you get proficiency with a musical instrument. It's a bonus if you don't have a bard in the group, but distracting people will be very helpful.

don't fight the harpies just yet

Go find Sazza and free her (she will make it easier to get past the a goblin checkpoint).

DO NOT GO OUT the Emerald grove. Take the passageway behind the prison, and kill the goblins there for XP. Make sure to keep Sazza hidden in the back.

before you heal/wakeup the unconscious halfling druid there, pickpocket him for a +1 Nature head piece.

get out of the secret passageway. Go scale the cliffs in front of the Emerald Gold entrance. At the top, loot a skeleton for a Guidance neckpiece.

find the spider hole and grab he spider egg sac.

continue down the road and talk to the Absolute cultists. This is important: Try not to fight them. Have them "get revenge" on the owlbear instead.

it's up to you if you want to use the tadpoles or not. Tadpole powers make things a bit easier, but not necessary. Personally I have been resisting them.

go get Scratch

DO NOT talk to the Absolute siblings yet. Wait until you are level 4 for the Owlbear encounter

Blighted Village/Waukeen's Rest

persuade the goblins in Blighted Village to let you pass without a fight.

Rescue Barcus Wroot. Gnomes can't fly well.

If you trigger a fight, focus fire on the head goblin Fezzerk first. Once his health is low, he will beg for his life instead.

Talk to the ogres if you are confident in your persuasion skills or if you are sure you can beat them. At level 3, it's doable but a bit more difficult. You will want to kill them for Lump's intellect headpiece, but you may want them to fight for you instead.

You can find the cellar in the Apothacary shop, loot all the potions and herbs there

optional but tricky depending on your rolls and positioning: go kill the skeletons and talk to the mirror. Go find the Necromancy of Thay. Tav should probably read the book.

head north out of Blighted Village

find an uncommon (green) dagger stuck in some roasting mystery meat.

interrupt the bugbear and ogre in love if you want. It will be a bit of a challenging fight at level 3.

Go below the bridge, to avoid the hyenas/gnolls

Go to the tollhouse and talk to the paladins. Do not fight them.

If you collected the nautiloid explosive vats like I told you to do in the Nautiloid ship, start decorating around the Paladins with them. Two of them beside his desk should do. Do not fight them.

Go get Karlach

go to Waukeen's rest and do all the quests there. You can visit the Zhentarim hideout but be careful, if you fail with the guy keeping guard, he will blow you up. I recommend maybe keeping someone waiting outside.

Goblin Camp/Shattered Sanctum

go talk to the goblins. You can walk around if you are able to persuade the goblins at the first checkpoint

go talk to Volo.

go talk to Crusher. "Persuade" him to kiss your foot. He will go away and sulk alone on the bridge to the entrance

go inside the Shattered Sanctum.

talk to Priestess Gut. She will wait for you in her chambers

Rescue Volo

Rescue Liam

optional: talk to the Priest of Loviatar, Abdirak and get beaten by him. You get a buff.

I do not recommend talking to Dror Ragzlin or Minthara at this point, or attempting to rescue Halsin. If the talks go bad, you will have to fight.

if you still need more XP, you can fight the newborn gnolls on the Risen Road. They should be easy, but be prepared to kill the hyena runner fast, or deal with gnoll adds.

with Lae'zel in your party, you can also visit the Githyanki patrol and talk to Voss. Convince Lae'zel to play along and tell Voss that we'll help them find the "weapon" they seek. You DO NOT want to fight this patrol. They will murder you.

at some point after all this you should hit Level 4.

Owlbear

go to the Owlbear cave and head inside with the siblings

I'd recommend opening the Selune chest first to get the neck piece

go fight the Owlbear. In Honour mode, the Owlbear legendary action is that she will summon her mate so now you get to fight TWO full grown owlbears with the same HP and abilitlies AND the cub.

the siblings will distract the 2nd owlbear ideally.

Stay by the creek, it's a narrow section and doesn't let the owlbears maneouver very well

focus fire one, then the other.

make sure to pick up the owlbear egg and don't kill the cub.

Tip:

always kill one at a time if you can. This will knock enemies off the board, less chances for them to attack you. Even at 1 HP, enemies can cause trouble.

At Level Four you should be ready for most of the more trickier fights. I would recommend being at Level 5 to kill the Spider Matriarch, but all the other boss encounters in the area should be manageable. I'll write up my strat guide for the next post.

[konigscrusade]

(This is like 5% ask and 95% compliments) I have to extend all my love and thanks over Midnight Ocean! I’m on my third re-read of the story (and I’m severly dyslexic, so reading the entire thing multiple times is the most I’ve read probably in my entire life!). You are so beyond dedicated to your writing and I can’t thank you enough for it <3 Your story keeps me on my toes, all of the characters are SO rich and nuanced, all of their relationships, conflicts and imperfections truly shine in your work. I’m affraid your work has spoiled me for fanfiction, i keep thinking ”but damn… this isn’t Midnight Ocean levels” and then go and continue my re-reads. Once it’s complited, by the gods, I’m going bind it by hand in leather.

I’m beyond excited for the upcoming events when ever they happen: Hades finding out about Zagreus, whatever Persephone has got cooking up, their first true ”I love you” and of course the removing of the pall. (And events yet unexpected by me!!)

What is something you’ve been waiting to write and see readers react to? (As much as you can tell obviously)

Can’t begin to describe how much of a joy MO has been and continues to be. I look forwards to updates like the rising of the moon. Genuinely from the bottom of my heart, thank you <3

Thank you so much! It always means a lot to hear someone enjoys MO enough to reread it, let alone want to bind it. It's brought me a lot of joy to write, and getting to share that and know others appreciate it is really amazing.

I'll go ahead and answer the rest under the cut to avoid spoiling things.

And of course, as I was typing the spoilers turned... sort of major so lol beware?

I've gotten to a few parts I've been waiting and waiting to write recently, but they won't be posted to Ao3 yet (Moros Silly Boy Behavior, Alcmene's Return, Nemesis' Box Reveal, the joys of using Eros' book). But the really, really big ones I haven't gotten to yet are of course things that readers are most excited for, too, like the Hades meeting, Olympus' reaction, things like that.

A few I don't think people mention a lot, though: Theseus™, (maybe big spoilers for people who aren't familiar with mythology, though I think this has been mentioned in the notes) Theseus' whole deal with both Medea and Heracles (and how that then is meant to foil Thanatos' dynamics), Heracles for that matter, also...... Ares' return to the story... the DILF energy we need in these trying times.

Hades and Thanatos' relationship is one I've thought about so much over the years, and I'm so excited to finally get to put that on the page and see people respond. Demeter is also such an important figure in all of this that often gets ignored both by me and others, and she'll be very, very fun to finally include. The continuation of Hermes' background arc stuff...

Something only me and like two random people are invested in: the continuation of Moros bullshit. My poor little meow meow, my perfect uwu foil to my other perfect uwu baby (Thanatos). My silly rabbit, here to cause problems and help Zagreus establish more independence if entirely unintentionally etc. And Moros' goofy little romance arc, that will be fun.

Also, the actual proper Cupid & Psyche Moment, y'know, the big part of the narrative. Sometimes people ask if it will happen, really expressing that they can't see it as even a possibility in the MO narrative, or others express total unfamiliarity with the plot of the myth so they don't know about The Moment at all (part of why I'm reluctant to clarify What Moment lmao)... I'm eager for that, though I know it will result in people being very, very angry at me.

I don't think this is tooooo spoilery because I think it's been made clear it will happen, but Eros showing up will be so fun, not to mention Psyche! Actual Psyche lol! We can't have a whole narrative about soul porn without the OG soulfuckers.

Oh, Hypnos too. And Pasithea who has unwittingly had her marriage present (the Eros book) lowkey highjacked.

Sorry this mostly turned into incoherent babbling. I hope it's both not too spoilery, but also answers the question lol? Either way, thank you again!

[buttoncup]

Fourth Wing Theory...

Do not read if you haven't read Fourth Wing yet as there's a major spoiler ahead.....

Ok, so I know there's apparently 5 books in this series and Xaden has only just been introduced as the main love interest. Dain is clearly one of the bad guys right....

I doubt that a 5 book series that already has established a romantic relationship in book 1 will just carry on rosey posey from there. Yes there was the surprise at the end of book 1 but that won't be the only conflict for the series.

Hear me out, remember in Vampire Academy Dimitri the main love interest who gets turned into one of the Strigoi? What if that happens to Xaden? Like he gets turned into one of the "other" riders???

It would be so angsty, there'd be emotional conflict, the TENSION?!

That's my theory for the series anyway and I wouldn't be mad about it if that is what's going to happen.

[annabethchase06]

(Spoilers ahead, so please don't read if you haven't watched the show yet and don't want spoilers! Also some spoilers from Books.)

So in the past few days I've seen people getting really annoyed by how the writers have changed Sally's character. I personally think that the changes they did are really for the best, and add more to the characters as a whole.

Coming on Sally, I really love how they have portrayed her in the show. One of the major things people dislike about Sally in the tv show was that she stood up to Gabe, which actually enhanced Percy's character indirectly.

We all know Percy is 'impertinent'. Even though he's ADHD, he's more vocal about the gods than most demigods, which has been attributed to the fact that he's Poseidon's son, and that the 'sea does not like to be restrained.' Well, here's the thing. Children are influenced by their parents. Guess which parent was around while Percy grew up? Sally Jackson.

There are two ways to be disobedient – one is being a downright delinquent, and the other is being disobedient by standing up for what's right. We all know Percy is the second one, and where did he learn it from? His mother.

Sally standing up to Gabe's rubbish and to abuse influences Percy and makes him more strong willed. He looks up to her, he learns from her and he implements those lessons in his own actions. Percy stands up against what's wrong because he has seen HIS MOTHER do the same. So I feel like Sally being more strong willed explains A LOT of Percy's character.

Next thing, I really love how we see her being involved in Percy's life. She is the one who tells him about demigods and camp. She is the one who's helping him breathe while swimming. She is the one who has taught him so much about Greek mythology, even going so far as to teach Percy Ancient Greek.

This right here is one of the most important points. I personally feel that this is exactly what Sally would have done. She knows she can't fight her son's battles – but she's helping him prepare to stand up on his own. She's teaching him Ancient Greek because she knows it is very important that he knows it. She tells him about myths, while also giving him important lessons.

Remember, she says, "Not everyone who looks like a hero is a hero, and not everyone who looks like a monster is a monster." Yes, the first part can be applied for Luke. But the second part can also be used for him. In the end, Percy trusts Luke enough to give him the dagger because maybe, at that moment, it's Sally's words that echo in his mind – not everyone who looks like a monster is a monster.

Her lessons and involvement in Percy's life really shape it out. Also, her noting Percy's nightmares was something we never knew we needed, but we did. Overall, I just love Sally in the show.

Props to Virginia Kull for being such an amazing Sally Jackson and really breathing life into the character that everyone of us in the fandom loves, adores and worships. The show is amazing, so is Sally Jackson. She truly is THE GODLY PARENT, guys!

[sattlersquarry]

libby's review of the official "stranger things" choose-your-own-adventure novel, heroes and monsters (+ a relevant fic rec)

before i get into my thoughts, here's an overview of the book:

you are a high schooler at lenora hills high school and an aspiring journalist. for spring break 1986, you're headed to hawkins, indiana for a student journalism conference hosted by hawkins high schooler fred benson. unfortunately, things take a turn for the worse and you might just have to help save the world.

onto the pros/cons! spoilers ahead!

pros:

in one of the story options, the reader actually figures out that henry creel and vecna are one and the same before nancy's vision. i like that the journalism subplot makes the reader smart and observant in that way.

it's fun seeing the reader interact with the characters. in one of the stories, robin takes them to the empty base under starcourt mall. in another, they bond with steve over the fact that they don't have flashlights at the creel house. it's a small moment but it's cute!

so far, there have been two endings that i've liked: one that follows season 4's ending exactly and one that is a happier au of the season 4 ending.

cons:

i knew that the book is targeted toward younger audiences before buying it, but i was still surprised at how the tone reads like a book for elementary-aged readers. (also there are rarely any contractions in the descriptions which is very weird to me personally.)

some of the characterization is just...bad. robin is very mean to the reader in the library scene which is just SO unlike her it's not even funny!!!

i haven't read all the endings yet, but the majority of them are bad endings. :/ i get that that's classic for a choose your own adventure, and that season 4 has a pretty sad ending anyway, but it still sucks when you make all the "right" choices and do the smart things and still fail.

it seems impossible to get a good ending if you stay in california instead of going to hawkins, but i haven't done all the endings yet so maybe there is a way...

there are also some choices that just infuriate me. e.g. in one, you can choose to snitch to jason that lucas is lying about eddie's whereabouts (which ew, why would anyone do that), and THEN LUCAS GETS BEAT UP BY THE TIGERS AND THE READER CAN'T STOP IT. it's just horrendous! i refuse to read any more of that plot, that's just terrible.

i'm going to keep reading to try and discover all the endings, but so far, it's not as fun as i thought it would be. :( i'm tired of dreading every choice, knowing that one misstep and every character i love is killed OR i'm 1. killed horribly or 2. hated by the characters because of a dumb choice.

i'm honestly tempted to rewrite this book myself, which would be a HUGE undertaking and would take a lot of planning and brainstorming to get it right, but i might just do it. i think there's a lot of potential to make a choose your own adventure that follows the plot of the show really fun, despite the dark subject matter!

also! if we're talking choose your own adventure and stranger things, and if you're looking for something less stressful and more fun, @upsidedownwithsteve has a choose your own adventure type steve x reader fic that gets updated weekly on mondays. at the end of each chapter, you vote on the choice you want to see next week and the choice with the most votes is incorporated into the story. it's an enemies-to-lovers au about arcade workers and is very good and a fun read!

okay brb, gotta keep reading this book and try not to die. again. 🫡 if i can't find any more good endings i am rewriting this and sending my draft to penguin random house, wish me luck team!

[absolutebl]

Hello again! Forgive me if you've talked about this before with me, I have the memory of a goldfish. Faraway Wanderers book spoiler question ahead, (if you haven't read the book this won't really apply to the show Word of Honor):

What are your thoughts on Zhou Zishu and his willingness to enter into a relationship with Wen Kexing? For the majority of the novel Tian Ya Ke, he seems to be interested in and annoyed by and tolerant of and amused by Wen Kexing, but even at the moment when the two "get together" at the end, it seems he's still reluctant. As a reader that feels unsatisfying and maybe uncomfortable that he only gets to the point of tolerating Wen Kexing's physical sexual contact. Did I miss something earlier? I know he doesn't mind physical touch in general from WKX over time, but I am curious about your thoughts. Thank you!

Hi Hi!

Sorry I don't read OC 90% of the time. Occasionally something will come out of Japan where I have actually read the manga but only if it had print publication in the USA.

I didn't even know danmei existed until my dash blew up with Untamed. Cdramas were probubly the last piece of Asian content I picked up, and I still dither over watching them.

I went something like:

Yaoi -> JBL (forgot about it) (distracted by life) emotional crisis -> YouTube -> Thai BL + (Kpop) -> Taiwanese BL -> Pinoy BL & Vietnamese BL -> grey sites and illegal content acquisition -> (Korean dramas via Kpop) -> Viki sub -> KBL -> JBL rediscovery (GaGa sub & back catalogue) -> Cdramas (mostly on the perennial hunt of noona romances and because of the pretty robes).

Some of the early CBLs were sprinkled in there when I found them on YT but I didn't really think of them as belonging to a greater oeuvre until much later when I started seriously blogging here and decided to spend all of 2020 watching every scrap of BL content I could get hold of (and developing a tracking system for it).

Frankly the film side took all my focus.

But also, one of my degrees focused on literature so OC (Y-novels or danmai etc...) and fanfic have never been my thing. What I find tolerable or amusing in captions and graphic adaptations, I find intolerable in the full written translation form. Broadly speaking, the characters and plot aren't enough to distract me from problematic prose. (And by that I mean just sentence structure, repeat word use, incorrect word choices, odd grammar.) And before you ask yes I include Twilight, 50 Shades, and quite a few English pillars of fandom in this mix.

Which is not to say I don't enjoy commercial fiction, just that i prefer it if the English is well written at core. Which usually means the translator needs to have English as their first language or be entirely bilingual, and that's just really rare especially with OC BL content.

I know this makes me snobbish. I genuinely love so many other languages, particularly when spoken and as artifacts of socio cultural interaction/representation, but when I read something in English (and that's the only language I read fluently) I get too judgey and it limits my enjoyment.

What we have in English is an excess of nuance due excess vocabulary (and our predilection for bashing other languages on the head and ruthlessly stealing their words). I don't think, in its spoken form, that English is a very pretty language. But in its written form? Its beauty is in its capacity for nuance and flexibility, and a lot of directly translated stuff (particularly that which is done by or for fans) is awkward and almost brutal with my native tongue. It pains me to read and so I... don't.

Like there are subtle use pattern differences between many English words that the thesaurus claims are equal (dour/glum actually mean subtly different things, so too sullen vs surly). So picking the wrong one because you just never learned the alternative makes me wince. Also knowing when really only the original language word will work (like for honorifics) or when a very very old English word is a superior choice because of historical context.

I guess I just get annoyed because it feels clumsy and while I can readily forgive this one medium I can't in another.

Hang ups.

We all got 'em.

[louiemssleepsalot]

The Maggie theory

Good Omens S2 spoiler ahead.

I've read on some of the fan theories on Maggie.

That she could be a demon, or that she could have been a person written by Metatron or that she's just sus in general.

I would like to present to you another evidence on why Maggie could be written by Metatron. I noticed on ep 1. (I haven't read about this anywhere else but I'm sure I'm not the only who noticed it. )

First let me present the facts on the first scene on ep1.

Maggie hasn't paid rent in months. She owes thousands of pounds.

She has enough conscience in mind to at least leave because of this. Stating that she's going in 2 weeks.

Aziraphale mentions that he hasn't collected rent which makes it his fault.

Then Aziraphale mentions that if the shop is gone, where will he get his music.

Ok, what I thought first was just that 'oh, aziraphale is such an angel that he forgets he's supposed to do human responsibilities like being a proper landlord and collecting rent but fact number 4 makes us assume that Aziraphale is often there, getting music. So why was he not collecting rent? When he's such a regular? They make it seem like he's the only customer there as well.

But what if he's not?

1 and 2 suggests that if its been months that she hasn't paid rent, why give your 2 weeks notice now? You'd imagine that she'd have this conversation earlier. Because Aziraphale is a regular at the shop. Why wouldn't she talk about rent that was overdue? Its only NORMAL for a shop owner to think about rent right? So why didn't they had this conversation then? She was the one who initiated the conversation by sending that letter. If Aziraphale wasn't collecting but was going over to buy records, then shouldn't she have mentioned it then?

Which brings me to this possible conclusions.

Metatron made the mistake of making Maggie talk to Aziraphale about rent. Metatron surely doesn't know how businesses work. Months and they couldn't pay for rent, how are they paying for everything else? No one is in the shop, her LPs are being sold at 8 pounds and she owes Aziraphale thousands of pounds on rent. Quite suspicious right? That she allowed to accumulate that much debt. But despite that, she still has the time and money apparently to become a regular at Nina's shop. Oat milk latte. This doesn't add up. Unless she's just a written additional character with a backstory that doesn't make sense for a normal human. Like the backstory being given never happened. Metatron made the connection of Aziraphale's love for music and other worldly things and think what story would endear Aziraphale to this character. Oh. Make her a great granddaughter of someone he knew and that he's often there buying music, he's a nice angel who doesn't need money so of course he at the capacity to forgive her debt but he's being set up.

Also, for someone who clearly is going bankrupt, she can give Nina a free LP but its weird that she doesn't even offer that to Aziraphale. She owes him so much... She goes out of her way to give Nina one but doesn't think of giving Aziraphale more? hmmmmm

Anyway. yeah. Maggie is sus. Maggie is a book character. I can't believe I still have so much thought about the new season. Amazon needs to pay their actors and writers asap so we can have s3 soon. ughhhh

idk if this makes sense or i'm just reading too much into it. as a business major, maybe i'm just baffled at that shop and how its still standing XD

[white-light-on-my-prism]

Tagged by the lovely @letters-from-transylvania 🤍🤍

Name: I go by Lavanya(he/she/they) in the football fandom because why not? Also because she's one of my favourite fictional characters moulded by the one and only Rabindranath Tagore, the love of my life.

Birthday: 28th of May!

Zodiac sign: gemini according to western astrology and leo according to Hindu astrology, but I am way too ignorant about astrology to understand what either of those mean for me.

Hobbies: wayy too many holy shit, can you tell I'm neurodivergent? I LOVE MUSIC, so... it's not a hobby it's worship for me, and I don't care if it sounds corny. I was pursuing fashion as a career but now I've switched my majors so I guess it's a hobby? And writing is a hobby which I want to transform into a career going ahead. Nail art is a proper hobby though. It just exists and I do it and I enjoy it thoroughly. Picking out gay subtext from every piece of literature I ever– *gets shot*

Favourite colour: Blue and pink on the main, but I find anything softly vibrant to be visually appealing.

Favourite book: Sherlock Holmes. Everything of Sherlock. Everything of Poirot except 'Curtain' because spoiler alert he dies and he's not allowed to do that. I'm quite into Greek myth though a lot of that shit is messed up, but so am I. Recently read the second book of 'Aristotle and Dante' series, those two books SLAY SO SO HARD.

Last song I listened to: 'Still Alive' by Demi Lovato, it just came out and it's a punk rock masterpiece. Demetria🤌✨️

Last movie I watched: 'Is love enough? Sir' directed by Rohena Gera. It's in hindi and the artistry in the film it top notch. An excellent commentary on societal class divide, privilege, dreams, hopes, love and the complications that arise when all these intersect.

Something that helps people: Some wisdom I gathered from recent personal experience– acknowledge the negative impact of other people's actions on your life, and do not be afraid to take steps accordingly. Doesn't matter if the person did it completely unintentionally, doesn't matter if everybody around you says that they're "an angel" and they would "never do that to anyone" even though they did it to you, doesn't matter if even you genuinely believe that they're a good person and they didn't mean it. It still happened. And it affected you negatively. People can be the best people ever and still act in a shitty way on occasion because we are humans, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't be held accountable. So don't be afraid to admit it to yourself, or call it out, don't feel compelled to accept their apology, especially if their behavior doesn't change going forward, and don't shy away from drawing boundaries. You may lose friends in the process, people may attack you to defend them and it may hurt a whole lot, but, you owe it to yourself to not put up with bullshit, including unintended bullshit.

Meaning behind my url: I used to be a passionate science gay bb as a middle schooler lol. Had to let go of that part of me because of some traumatic experiences which are ☠️☠️ better not talked about but... I've always thought of the dispersion of light by prism experiment as a symbol of queer liberation for obvious reasons. That's where the url is from :)).

Tagging: @neyxmessi @ispeakmorelanguagesthanyou @dykes4neymar @emmacarsword @krocodilf if y'all haven't already done this, I'd love to get to know you but nothing compulsory. And anybody else seeing this, you're tagged!

[spiteless-xo]

Love your fics!! Because you follow a post schedule, what's your writing process like? Do you designate a day or time in your day to write for your stories?

Thank you so much! 💕 Apologies in advance for the absolute novel I'm about to write for this question lol

When I was posting The Boys at School, I had already finished the entire fic before I even posted the first chapter. I gave myself a weekly posting schedule so I'd have a timeline to reread and edit chapters before posting.

With The Boys at Work, when I posted the first chapter I think I had already written about 20-ish chapters? Same reason as above, I gave myself a weekly posting schedule so I'd have time to do rereads and edits, but also with the added pressure of finishing the story lmao

Right now, I have 31 chapters written and another 11 plotted out. Each week after I post the new chapter and answer comments, I usually read next week's chapter and do minor edits on Wednesday and then again on Sunday or Monday before posting. I spend probably like an hour after work each day writing and maybe another hour or two on the weekend if I'm not busy. I try to write every day even if I'm not really feeling it because usually I build momentum once I start writing. If I just waited around for when I felt inspired, I don't think I'd have written anything at all lol

For my writing process with TBAS, I literally just wrote what I thought would be an interesting story for me and then called it a day lol

For TBAW, I've put a lot more thought into the structure and the story so my process is a lot more intense? I guess? Maybe mini-spoilers ahead but nothing major.

The main plot is obviously the love triangle between Jean/Reader/Eren but there's also the sub-plots of Reader's work performance, Jean's issues with his dad, and Eren's denial of his feelings.

In Arc 1 I tried to introduce all those sub-plots, in Arc 2 they really ramp up, and then in Arc 3 they all get resolved. So when I'm planning out each arc I try to plot out how I want each of the main characters to change by the end of the arc and then that gives me a general idea of how I want my chapters to be structured, so then I plot those out, and then I just start writing!

I plot out my chapters in very vague point form because when I write, sometimes I write things happening that I never planned for and it ends up working really well. Literally, the whole scene in Chapter 5 where Reader and Jean go shopping for wine was just a free-ball. Most Core Four scenes outside of the Halloween and the Cabin chapters are free-balled.

And since I have so many of these off-the-cuff, unplanned scenes, when I'm editing I usually reread the ENTIRE ARC to see if there's a way I can tie that scene into the overall plot or if I can make the characters say something that alludes to a future chapter, etc. etc.

Honestly, most of the time when I'm editing, I'm actually just reading. I've reread this entire story SO MANY TIMES!!! I can't even count lol

But in general, I just sit down, write, and try to loosely stick to my rough point-form plot. Editing is the most important part of my story, but I can't do any editing if I haven't written anything. So I just write, no matter how bad it is or how disconnected or disjointed, etc. etc. and then I wait a few days, reread it with fresh eyes, and then start making changes.

Sometimes those changes involve rewriting the whole chapter, other times it's just minor edits or adding/removing a scene. I literally have a separate google doc of "deleted scenes" that's like 50k words of stuff that I've cut out from chapters in the main story, but that I wanted to keep in case I want to use them elsewhere.

ANYWAY sorry for the book!! I love talking about this stuff and my boyfriend doesn't really care so I don't have anyone to gush about this with 🥺🥺🥺 So thank you so much anon for the question, sorry I got out of hand, but I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about something that I love doing ♥♥