#Big Bad Younger Sister (Ramona)

[writergracethepanda]

I genuinely can't think of a destiny that is more tragic than Cerise and Ramona's.

They are literally children of rebellion. Their parents are Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, two people who by destiny's dictation are enemies and incompatible. But they fell in love, and because of Ever After's rules, are forced to hide their family.

Ramona is given the Badwolf name and Cerise is given the Hood name, and in public the sisters are forced to keep their distance from each other except to antagonize each other. (Both for show and, ya know, sisters fight. That's normal.)

And in the end, destiny dictates that Ramona must eat her younger sister, and then get killed. Obviously, this won't happen after all because of Raven and the Rebel movement, but they spent their entire lives thinking that that would be what would happen.

[blanketorghost]

Okay hi hello I have seen a sudden new influx in EAH fans (hiiiii welcome <3) and while I am very happy to see this little fandom still be more than three pieces of lint and a paperclip, I am here to give y'all a list of already DEBUNKED EAH myths that somehow always show up whenever this happens every 1/2 years:

"Apple White and Raven Queen are related."

They are not. In Chapter 2 Episode 11 "Blondie Branches Out" there's a throaway line explaining how the 'Prince Charming' role is distributed between multiple unrelated Charming families. There is also no mention in any of EAH media of Apple and Raven being related. The only related characters are:

Poppy and Holly O'Hair (Twins)

Giles & Milton Grimm (Siblings, Milton is the oldest)

Cerise Hood and Ramona Badwolf (Siblings, order not specified)

Daring, Dexter and Darling charming (Siblings, Daring is the oldest and Dexter and Darling are fraternal twins)

Briar Beauty and Rosabella Beauty (1st Cousins)

Gus and Helga Crumb (1st Cousins)

The Hood/Badwolf sisters, Sparrow Hood (Distant cousins)

In Apple White's 'Royally Ever After' diary, the retelling of the Snow White fairytale has Apple be Raven's personal assistant that later overthrows her rule, meaning familial relation and them sharing a royal bloodline is not a necessary part of the narrative.

"XYZ Background character is the descendant of ABC fairytale character."

Unless directly confirmed by a GURU media employee or mentioned in the show, none of the background characters have a direct counterpart.

Most of the most famous background characters are actually cameos/based off of animators (pictured below):

The fandom wiki is not a reliable source given the fact it has no edit protection and the moderators are no longer active.

Be carefulnot to confuse popular hedacanons or fan designs (more often than not fanart by red_red_heels, boots.caitlin and/or theprincessswan on instagram)

"XYZ's fairytale parent is dead."

Unless specifically stated, this is also not true. Certain stories have a loophole or workaround that prevent major character death. So far we have been given confirmation of:

Cinderella (Unknown loophole): shown to still be alive in 'Ashlynn Ella's Story'

The Swan Queen (Turned into a swan forever): It is not known wether or not Duchess' mom gave birth to her while she was still a human or if she was born from an egg. Raised by her grandmother. It is implied her curse is generational.

The Little Mermaid (Happy Ending): The first time this loophole is mentioned explicitly (Meeshell's diary). She was given a happy ending and lives under the sea, unlike the original HCA story. Story variation further explained in 'Fairy Tail Ending'.

The Big Bad Wolf (Unknown loophole): Self explanatory.

Baba Yaga (Possible Immortality?): Self explanatory.

The Candy Witch (Version recorded in the Storybook of Legends confirmed to be inaccurate): Explained in 'Kiss and Spell'.

"Descendants killed EAH."

Look, I am as much of a Descendants hater as the next guy, but the unfortunate truth is that EAH was never as successful as Mattel expected it to be. Their style was too 'childish and girly' for kids who were already into Monster High, and their themes were far too complex for younger kids to fully grasp. So their target audience was unfortunately not very interested. This is coming from someone who was around 11-12 when EAH came out. As an existing MH fan, I was turned off by it as at that time kids were entering their more 'edgy' phase and wasn't willing to give it a chance.

What dealt the killing blow was Mattel and Disney severing their contract over the Disney Princess doll line due to decreasing quality, and then after the release of descendants with Hasbro, one of Mattel's biggest competitors.

-

There's probably some other myths I missed, but these are the most common/widely believed ones. I'll maybe reblog/update later with more myths as I come across them.

[adrianasunderworld]

Like the idea of Jack being the son of both Werewolf and Red riding hood. I wonder if has any trouble hiding since Cerise has to hide her wolf heritage while Ramona embrace it. Maybe Jack wanted to be seen as a nice wolf and maybe want to follow his mother's destiny.

My thought is Jack is essentially the reverse Cerise. There's no hiding his wolf ears and tail, so he has to live as the next Big Bad Wolf. No one knows who his mom is and when asked Jack and his dad's only reply is that "it's complicated"

Jack in canon has two much younger siblings. Maybe one of them ,like his little sister, was born without the obvious wolf features. So she's like Cerise. Everyone knows her as Reds daughter and successor and their mom can be out in public with her. All while Jack, his other sibling,and their dad have to pretend they are not family if they see each other. For the most part though, their family lives way out in the woods far from everyone so they can live together. Red hiding each and every one of her pregnancies, only a select couple people knowing and being able to help her. (I like the idea of Reds grandma being in on it and helping them run off to the woods)

Jack tries his hardest to uphold his future Big Bad Wolf rep. But as we know, Jack is actually the sweetest boy. He's a romantic, he doesn't like lying, he always tries to do the right thing. And everyone kinda side eyes that. "That's not very villainy of you." Jack is his mama son.

[solomonish]

ooooh wait! tell me about ur old books!! or like, if you could experience reading a specific book again as if it was your first time reading it, which would you pick?

OK. HI. HELLO. I didn't mean to leave you in my inbox for so long I was simply asked a question and then forgot every book I've ever read ever alskdjfdfklkf

BUT I don't usually reread books because I can remember them pretty well so I don't have any book I've thought this before, but I wish I could read the hunger games series for the first time again? I think this is equal parts the books were good and also I wish I was reading them while they were popular because that was just fun. I kinda miss that era where there were like three major book series being turned into movies (I think it started with twilight from like 2009, then the hunger games came out 2012, then the great gatsby movie came out the next year, then in 2014 we got the giver, the divergent series and the maze runner series so it was a hot time for books to get movie adaptations and WHILE THE BOOKS WERE ALWAYS BETTER.........they hype was fun. i say this only having watched twilight, the hunger games, the giver and the first divergent and only having read the hunger games and the giver and the first twilight book haha)

the only book i've reread is hatchet by gary paulsen because I read it in 5th grade on my own time and then it was required for 6th grade and my teacher got mad at me when i told her i already read it aldkjfdkfdsk

when i was a kid...i never really liked many children's series because i've been an advanced reader since day one, so when many big series were being introduced i was uninterested because they were too easy :/ i do remember really liking the Magic Treehouse series though! and also anything by Lois Lowry???? She is a LEGEND oh my GOD

I got into these books when I was a bit too old for them but liked them because they were cute - the Ramona Quimby series? The big, multichaptered books. Those were cute.

OH OH the Sweet Valley Twins? I LOVED those books too. I was a kid in the 2000s so they weren't new when I was around but schools always had lots of worn and random installments of the series and I would always try to find ones when I was done with my work for free reading.

Um.........I read the first three books of the Guardians of Ga'Hoole and those books are why barn owls are one of my fave animals lol they were good!!! although i recently looked up a summary of them and sometimes i wonder how adults come up with the ideas for children's books lmao but more power to ya man i ate that up and if I still had the books I'd read them again!!

I also read a few books of the Mary Kate and Ashley series, both the ones where they're detectives (the Case of Camp Pom-Pom??? Hello) and the one where they're teens (Never Been Kissed? I wanted to be them so bad)

Yeah I used to be a reading monster when I was younger. I had this giant tub of books from when my older sister was younger and just random ones I'd collected from family members giving them out and gifts from school and events and stuff and I've read through all of them. A few years ago I got rid of them but I remember sorting through that tub and being like huh. nothing new just like last time lol

I remember being SO BORED as a kid when we'd have to do reading in class because I'd get done so quickly! And there was a time where every week we had to pick a book from a small collection the teacher had and I read through the entire collection before the school year was up and the teacher didn't have more for the program and she got frustrated with me (no shame to her I imagine forcing a gaggle of children to read and then having one need more books that the school can't/won't pay for is tough) but it just struck me as being so frustrating! because i wanted to read and do as i was told! but alas my brain was too big smh

These are not all of them by any means but some of the bigger series that i remember off the top of my head lol. Did you read any of these? Or did you pick up some other series that I've never touched?

[anxiousbunny04]

Since i have nothing to do, bere my oc's as ever After High fanmade

Wilona (Beauty) Beast

Daughter of Beauty and the Beast and younger sister of Rosabella Beauty by One year.

She actually doesn't have a story since the next Beast will be a prince who will marry Rosabella, so Wilona Is quite free to choose her destiny like Poppy O'Hair (kinda).

Wilona Is a very shy and anxious girl, a big scary-cat and pretty clumsy, but also a very sweet, gentile and protective friend, espetially With her big sister.

But, unfortunally, all Roses have thorns.

When She was born, her Destiny was already written in the black thorns that strangle her Heart and lungs. The vines Will keep growing until they suffocate the young breast.

Best Friends: her sister Rosabella, her cousin Brair and "Hoody bestie", Cerise Hood.

Enemy: i don't really have one, but i don't like to be around Kitty Cheshire or Duchess Swan.

Biggest fear: show the others my real appearence and having to tell about my curse. It's already very painful see my parents and sister be so scared, i don't want to see that emotion on someone else's face because of me.

Romance status: "i'm not really in a relationship, but... Ryder Is quite kind".

Funfact: She presente herself as a Beauty to avoid suspects about her curse.

Ryder Badwolf

Middle son of the Big band Wolf and Red Ridding Hood, Brother of Ramona and (secretly) Cerice.

His Destiny Is to be the next Big Bad Wolf in the story of the Three Little pigs.

But, as a Rebel, he does not want in any way to follow his destiny to go down a chimney, fall into a pit full of boiling water and be cooked to death.

As a Badwolf, his "magic touch" Is have pretty large lungs that allow him the ability to Blow away anything (exept houses made of bricks).

He acts a lot like a big bad guy, but he's actually a big jokester with a Golden Heart covered in flanel.

Best Friends: his big sister Ramona and Sparrow Hood.

Enemy: Hunter Huntsman

Biggest fear: fireplaces

Romance status: "Is Wilona single? I'm asking for a friend'.

Funfact: in Spellementary School he got suspended for Blowing away the class by mistake while sneezing

[wlwdarlingcharming]

Hii do you have any bios for your eah oc's?? I'm so interested to know more about them!!!

yes my dear <33 these are very messy and i tried to keep some outline but oh boy did it go downhill after godiva.

elias wykkyd, son of the wicked witch of the west and the good witch of the south: he/him/they/them. bisexual. wants to protect the family secret (their mothers were not supposed to get together and if grimm found out, he would lose his shit) but his sister’s outbursts make it very hard. he’s very stressed all the time and would benefit greatly from a nap. they like to hangout with raven queen and thinks she’s pretty chill. he loves the other oz kids, but sometimes they are too much for them. he really, really doesn’t want to fight his sister or try to kill rowan. they don’t know that his destiny is to be the next good witch of the south. rebel.

godiva southgood, child of the wicked witch of the west and the good witch of the south: she/her/fae/faer. lesbian. very crazy. loyal to faer brother, but to no one else. has a “it’s me or them” mentality. believes she’s the hero and everyone against her is a villain. has too much power and probably (definitely) doesn’t use it for good. wishes her brother would understand what fae’s going through instead of blaming fae for everything. has a crush on farrah goodfairy. fae doesn’t know that her destiny is to be the next wicked witch of the west. royal.

rowan gale, son of dorothy: he/him. ace & gay. he’s passionate about photography and is on the bookball team. he never knew his mom, because he was taken away from her as a baby (👀). besides the ozians, he’s very close with alistair wonderland and would go far as to say that’s his best friend because he understands how hard it is to be a leading man. rowan is very scared for his destiny, because he doesn’t want to fight elias (godiva) and almost die. rowan is very sure of himself and has a god complex mixed with deep insecurity. people look up to him which defintely fuels his ego, but it makes him feel more insecure himself because “what if i just disappoint everyone more?”. he also feels like a disappointment to his mom but aggressively covers that up with false confidence. he gets bored easily and looks uninterested a lot. he doesn’t mean to, but school just can’t capture his attention. his destiny is to be the next dorothy gale. roybel.

valora de lioncourt, child of the cowardly lion: she/her/they/them. bi disaster. local furry. GORGEOUS. hangs out with cerise, ramona and rosabella. will do anything that anyone asks of them. gets into many hijinks with the other oz kids. plays for the lacrowns team and is surprisingly good. everyone always assumes she’s really shy and scared all the time (which in their opinion gets really annoying), but she’s very confident in herself. their destiny is to be the next cowardly lion. royal.

tinnafy manns, daughter of the tin man: she/her. panromantic asexual. total party girl. doesn’t sleep, ever. gets called a robot a lot and it hurts her feelings. hangs out with briar, melody and siobhan. close with her dad, but he doesn’t approve of her party lifestyle. rebel.

felix crowfield, son of the scarecrow: he/him. pansexual. coolest guy ever. literally so chill. how does he do it? it’s because he has dealt with godiva and elias’s screaming matches for years and has learned to tune them out. he loves creating costumes, as well as acting, and is apart of the ever after high players. doesn’t want to be the next scarecrow and would much rather make costumes thank you very much. his destiny is to be the next scarecrow. rebel.

lilith whiteford, daughter of the white queen and the white knight: she/her. ace lesbian. badass knight princess. has a cold exterior, but once you get through that, she is one of the most kind and caring people. loves her brother and her parents. loyal to a fault. wanted to be the next white knight of wonderland, but later decides she wants to date the future white knight of wonderland (one darling charming). was taught by her parents to never speak unless spoken to, so that’s how she talks to others. people think she’s just a scary knight princess, but she’s really not. secretly a huge nerd. older twin. royal.

lysander whiteford, son of the white queen and the white knight: he/him (ftm). gay. sad boy. sad, rich boy vibes. makes everyone think he believes he’s above them, but he is so insecure about everything. he wants to be the next white queen (king) more than anything. doesn’t like his mother or his father, but loves his twin lilly. he pretends to be a pompous jerk to everyone, and it pains him to act that way, but it’s the only way he knows how to talk to others. younger twin. royal.

coraline sirenowitch, child of the sea witch: she/her/they/them. lesbian. egirl energy. looks mean, is actually very nice. very, very powerful. besties with faybelle, actively tries to avoid meeshell. hates forks with a burning passion. (coraline: they’re like tRiDeNtS, fAyBelLe) likes to make their own jewelry. vegan. their destiny is to be the next sea witch. rebel.

eira nordskov, daughter of the snow fairy: she/her (mtf). bisexual. oh BOY she is my BABY. her story has developed wildly over the past year. she’s very shy, has limited snow powers and loves ballet and ice skating. friends with justine and duchess. she loves sugar plums (much to siobhan’s dislike). gets very angry really quickly, which causes some mild changes in weather. hate hate HATES her roommate, crystal winter and they have the biggest rivalry. has the biggest crush on nathaniel nutcracker (who i have also adopted from the books). her destiny is to be the next clara. royal?

siobhan plumfairy, daughter of the sugar plum fairy: she/her/they/them/he/him/xe/xem. the coolest out of the nutcracker kids. hangs out with briar, melody and tinnafy a lot. basically only talks to nath, cordelia and eira because they’re all childhood friends. IS the life of the party. wants to be anything other than the sugar plum fairy. has a good control on xer magic, but uses it to make decorations, clothes and lights for briar & mel’s parties. very insecure about their wings and doesn’t like to talk about her parents. uses his “cool girl” connections to get himself things. rebel.

cordelia mouse-king, daughter of the mouse king: she/her. very smart when it comes to sciences. likes to make potions and other concoctions in chemythstry and prides herself on getting good grades. likes to talk to cupid, because cupid’s old school is near where her cousin mouscedes lives. also friends with ashlynn and dexter. very short and small, but can be very scary. has a bad relationship with her dad, and usually spends break with her cousin or siobhan. super awkward around nathaniel and doesn’t like when they all hangout. rebel.

nathaniel nutcracker, son of the nutcracker: he/him. disaster bi. LOVES DANCING. absolutely loves ballet and literally any type of dance. good friends with justine. mostly hangs out with the other nutcracker kids. very uppity and preppy. scared of cordelia’s dad and refuses to hangout with cordelia outside of school, which makes group hangouts really awkward. royal.

jocelyn “jj” hook, daughter of captain hook and the big bad wolf: she/her. pirate lesbian. mostly hangs out with ramona, cerise and winnie. (as well as the hypothetical ever after high fight club) thinks of little red as her mom. refuses to talk to jamie (her mom). has a pirate ship. rebel.

winona “winnie” darling, daughter of wendy darling: she/her. bisexual. badass pirate queen. in love with jj and would fight anyone for her. hypothetical head of ever after high fight club. short queen. very shy, but once you get to know her you won’t be able to get her to shut up. rebel.

[popculturebuffet]

Scotrospective: Scott Pilgrim Vs the World (The Comic)

Hello, Hello, Hello scottaholics! And what a beautiful day it is: After decades lost in the lost woods, at least it had that catchy tune to keep it company, Scott Pilgrim Vs the World: The Game is FINALLY back and performing for you on all platforms!

Even Stadia, the platform most likely to disappear like this game did for a while! Cheap shots at the stadia aside as a huge fan of the franchise as a whole and of this game who played it back on the 360, and had since sold said 360 so I had no way to get it back or ever play the dlc packs. Seriously who didn’t want to play wallace but never got to? Everyone, everyone is the answer. But with those the entirety of what I consider to be the main cast is playable, it has online so you can beat up hipsters, guys in costumes and robots with your friends, it’s a good damn feeling.  And since i’m in a celebratory mood, naturally i’m also feeling like a review. And since it just so happens the next volume up in my look at the comics is Vs the World, seriously I planned this review for this month without thinking to have it come out on the same day as the game until a week or two in, I felt there was no better way to celebrate the biggest day for Scott Pilgrim fans in some time.. and for Brian Lee O Malley as he’ll stop getting twitter asks about it. So with all the exposition taken care of LAST TIME, and the link right there if your curious, we can jump right in. On with the show!

After our opening titles, and yes this comic has opening titles, with Ramona sitting solmely in the rain. 

And Scott caught in the title. The rain shot is real pretty by the way. But yeah once we get past those we’re taken back 7 years ago. Finn found out his father was an asshole, and voiced by Stephen Root so hey you take the good with the bad, Steven just learned the horrifying truth about Gem Monsters, Guardians of the Galaxy saved the MCU and I was trying to find work after college.. wait... sorry sorry that was 7 years ago from THIS year. The comic came out in 2005, though the comic takes place on a sliding timescale where only like 2 years pass so I dunno when this is. Let’s just say 98.  Okay so 1998: Bill Cllinton’s sex scandal breaks, and puts way too much of hte blame on the young intern whose life came to be defined by one stupid mistake she made with a man who was way older and should’ve known better, the tide of the Monday Night War turned in favor of the WWF as Stone Cold Steve Austin became a household name, and it was an utterly standup year for video game relaases with Ocarina of Time, Banjo-Kazooie, Crash Bandicoot: Warped, StarCraft, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, WWF: War Zone, Pokemon Stadium, Spyro The Dragon, Pokemon Yellow, WarioLand 2, Oddworld: Abe’s Exodus, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Pokemon: Trading Card Game and Sonic Adventure. It’s like someone took a good chunk of my childhood and squeezed it into one year holy shit, I did not expect this when looking up what came out in 98. 

And while the movie pool wasn't’ quite this amazing, we still had The Wedding Singer, The Big Lebowski, the dude abides, Batman and Mr Freeze: SubZero, The Truman Show, Mulan, the good one not the one made near concetration camps that makes her into a demigod, Saving Private Ryan, Blade, Simon Birch, Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, Rushmore, Bride of Chucky, HalloweenTown, Plesantville, and the Prince of Egypt. And in music Weird Al changed from his first signature look to his second, getting Lasik and growing out his hair. Seirously had no idea that was this year. Good to know. Also Elton John got his knighthood. Super shooters. I could go on with 1998 triva for days but I cannot go on for 8 weeks so let’s get to the point here.. during alllla this  Scott Pilgrim, age 16, was starting St. John’s Catholic School and a couple of guys who were up to no good started making trouble. . by threatning to beat him up for no real reason. A fight insues and we cut to the principal’s office as Scott’s still a minor and not allowed to get into death fights just yet under the people’s freedom of choices and voices act. 

It’s here he meets Lisa Miler, a peppy and sarcastic blonde, who’s intrigued by the fact Scott somehow got beat up after being here just 15 minutes and wants to be friends. Naturally for scott next we see him he’s busy playing video games, and annoyed someone else is around and wondering who this person whose now in his basement is. God no wonder teenage me related to him. So for the next few pages we see their friendship in time lapse: Lisa joins him at lunch, then geninely wonders since Scott’s Untentionally a dick if he hates her.. it’s part of why I think Scott has some form of autisim. And not just because I tend to belivie a character is on the spectrum all the damn time, it’s because of the way he acts: while he is nice and charming at times.. he also clearly has trouble relating to people or realizing how his actions effect them and as seen here in a younger form can often be compeltely distanced from normal social queues, not getting how his actions might be seen until Lisa outright talks to him about it. I mean.. it’s not a huge stretch, and it dosen’t mean he’s nto responsible for his own actions, but it does EXPLAIN a lot of them better: why he just sorta forgets about Knives post-ramona but at the same time still cares enough he dosen’t want to hurt her despite you know, that ship sailing just by having moved on. 

But now the two are friends and his parents, who we meet for the first time and sister inquire about her being his girlfirned.. and by next jumpcut his parents apparently don’t want him hanging out with girls? What exactly the fuck? Also they mention Laurence, Scott’s brother whose missing for most of the books and has no real payoff for not being around. Next cut we get KIM!

Thank you Prissy. And she’s.. not all that different, assuming, correctly that their partner project, how she meets scott will just result in her doing all the work.. which not only is how these things usually went when I was in high school a decade later, but reminds me of the time me and my friends curtis and justin were put on a project and when asked who the alied powers were, guessed “Germany?”.... you can understand my fear. And also Curtis punching him for getting nothing done.. and not hard or brutally mind you just once quick in the gut and with full warning. Ah... the adaquate old days. 

So back to Lisa as, since Scott’s Mom has a guitar.. a fact I.. never honestly thought about. Seriously I never realized her children, since the Bass Scott has for most of the books is Laurence’s, getting into music was probably due to her. Also Lisa makes her case for WHY be a band: the school has a regular event called Lunchapalooza, where everyone goes to and since by teen logic, just being in a band is automiacally cool, she figures they can jump from not QUITE being in any cliques to being super cool. Which honestly yeah... while I didn’t know any bands in high school, the fact one of my friends, ironically named Scott, was a DJ automatically made him pretty damn cool once he got past his awkard phase. I never got past mine but somehow was loved by all except that one douchey kid in our group who mocked me for naming my Luxray kim, assuming it was based on Kim possible and not Kim Pine... though frankly how that’s an insult when Kim Possible was a fucking awesome show and character is beyond me but he was just 17 and also a douchebag, it didn’t have to make since it just had to piss off the easily pissed off kid with aspergers. So Scott poses how they can be a band with just their guitars and Lisa concedes drums WOULD help.. I mean it’s what MADE Shallow Gravy. 

So while Kim wonders if Scott is dating Lisa, because teenagers don’t really get girls and boys can be friends without wanting to be together, though not often as teenage boy brains can be rather stupid and horny... can confrim from personal experince. So it becomes clear Scott has a thing for Kim, and when Scott tries broaching it with Lisa she dosen’t take it well and he backpedals to asking her to be her drummer and plans to monday, proving Scott has somehow not gotten better at reading women, or anyone after 7 years. Can relate. 

So yeah he decides to ask Monday, same day as their presentation.. and thankfully missed the bus as he arrives to find the Benvy Tech boys came in, took everyone out and abducted Kim. Because yeah, just in case you were wondering Scott’s life was always like this.. or was it? Questions for later. So one Canadian Version of River City Ransom later, Scott’s made his way to simon... who, since most of you have probably seen the movie or art of the movie.. looks an AWFUL lot like Gideon. Hrmmm. Simon is naturally the final boss here and wonders if this is the best St. Joels can muster. Scott quips back as only Scott can. 

So cue an unsuprisingly awesome actoin sequence. IT’s part of why I love these color editions: While they already LOOKED thoroughly fantastic the added colors really help the series shonen manga meets old school video game vibe REALLY fucking pop. So Simon pleads mercy which like Scott delivering a good quip.. should’ve really been a red flag to younger me and is foreshadowing for later in case I was too subtle. He then does what any noble hero would do.. kicks simon into the sunset, tells Kim how he feels and asks her to play drums. They then make out. Awwww. 

Lisa suprisingly takes it well as the next montage shows.. granted we’ll learn in Feburary she wasn’t QUITE as over scott as it seemed, but the three, along with a friend of Lisa’s whose name I forgot and who DOSEN’T come back so I’m not going to bother learning, form their own friend group, Scott and Kim get an A, and Scott, Kim and Lisa’s band is dubbed sonic and knuckles, which is an objectively awesome band name. Something the series really does great: Video Game Based Band Names. Crash and the Boys, Sex Bomb-Omb, Clash at the Demonhead... we need more bands like this in the real world dammit. So then they play their big game, the two loose their vrigniity.. and then Kim asks scott “your moving to tornoto?” And.. for now.. that’s that. 

While the framing of that will be VERY important in the last volume, as notice how KIM’S the one who brings it up and it’s not explicitly stated scott actually told her, this flasback is great. While it does contribute to the volume’s drifty pacing, more  on that as we go, it brilliantly sets up a LOT of stuff for later, paticuarlly Lisa who I assumed wouldn’t be back and younger me’s jaw fucking DROPPED when she popped up in Volume 4. Granted i’m spoiling that suprise for you now but odds are most of you reading this have either alreaddy read these or were probably wondering if the girl from the animated short ever had any actual relevance in the books. So yes, yes she does. She’s also the pink haired girl you see pop up in the game in the background, as a nod to O’Malley’s comic strip style which had her and Kim as the leads.  Also yeah for fans of the game or movie or even the comics who were unaware.. this prologue got an animated adaption on adult swim to promote the movie. Naturally Micheal Cera and Allison Pill reprised their roles as Scott and Kim, with Mae Whitman voicing lisa.. and honestly being perfect for the roll, and Jason Schrwartzman voicing Simon naturally. While the animation is slightly limited, it still looks decent and expertly translates O’Malley’s art, while sliming things down slightly where needed to fit a short, and the anmation takes a huge bump for the fight scene which like the comic is short but awesome. While it has no real bearing on the film as Kim’s former relationship with Scott never really comes up or has any impact, as the Film while good was based primarily on volumes 1-3 with small pieces of 4 (paticuarlly the iconic “Lesbians gag”), with Wright working off outlines and drafts of 5 and 6, so the last half hour or so is mostly Wright’s invention. 

Not a bad thing as it’s still awesome and not o’malley’s fault but it means kim dosen’t get to do much, and is a big reason why I want an adaptation on netflix or hbo max. While i’d still want changes both because there’s no sense doing an adaptation if your not going to make some tweaks of your own and because it’d be intresting to update the series to modern day, both in societal conventions and so everyone stops saying the r word. Seirously the most telling sign of the series age is that word showing up quite a bit during the first half of the series. Point is there is merit in doing another remix of the story and doing a longer form one so we can get more of the characters, as well as flesh out ones like Steven, Neil (Who was done WAY better in the movie adaptation thanks to the wonderful Johnny Simmons), and Stacey who got the shaft in the books. Again, not slagging off the movie, it’s really great. Just saying there’s always room for more Scott Pilgrim content and we all know it. 

We’ll get back to the comic proper, and the present day of 2005, after the cut. 

So the story proper opens with Scott dreaming of playing video games... because of course he is with Ramona walking in. and finding it charmingly pathetic but wanting her boyfriend to you know, get out of bed. It’s 11:30.  So with Scott’s ass out of bed, we find Scott, Age 23 idiot with a heart of gold and Wallace, 25 king of all gays, on the bus as they talk it getting warmer and Lucas Lee, movie star and jason lee stand in coming to town to film a movie.. and Scott being Scott gets him confused for Luke WIlson. He’s also seen Bottle Rocket which.. good on him. Seriously while not wes anderson’s best film, those were made long afte this comic was published, it’s still a damn good one.. where was his career at this point... looking it up life aquatic was his most recent films and is still one of my favorites. So yeah he was in a good place career wise. 

Scott proudly talks about having Ramona over in a couple days so she can see his place and meet Wallace. But as explained by Wallace for those of us just tuning in, he already met her last volume. You know during that time Stacey thought she could magically make her date not be attracted to someone else.. and yes even almost a month later not letting that one go. Stacey should know better. Not saying i’ts right Wallace keeps poaching her boyfriends, but she still shoudlnt’ try and force a relationship with a guy or even finish a date with one who makes out with someone else, regardless of gender, mid date. She deserves better. In general not just in this one scenario but we’ll get to that. 

Point is while Scott, as usual, is a bit pissy about this Wallace.. has no time for that and issues an ultimatium

And he’s not bluffing, as he fully intends to tell Ramona the minute she walks in the door if he dosen’t break up with Knives. It really shows Wallace off at his best and why he’s Scott’s closest friend: Kim and Stephen do care about him but Kim both has a LOT of unresolved issues and sexual tension with him and keeps eveyrbody including Scott at arm’s length. And Stephen.. while he will OCASIONALLY call Scott out mostly just enables him, either ignoring his college buddy’s shittier behavior or playing along with it and backing him up when Kim rightfully calls him on being a dickhead. While both love their friend they just aren’t the best at dealing with his shit or getting why he does the things he does good and bad.  Wallace on the other hand geninely likes Scott. He’ll lock him out of the house and tell him to sleep elsewhere so he can bang one out, he’ll not wear pants if he dosen’t have to and he’ll certainly hit on Scott just to get a rise out of him, phrasing.. but he also genuinely cares for the guy’s well being. He lets him sleep in their house basically rent free since scott has no money, buys most of their stuff, and is, as we’ll see in this one, the ONLY one of his friends to take an active part in the fight against the exes, training Scott and researching his opponents when he can get info. He won’t baby Scott as seen here, but he will help him, and he will be the harsh voice of reason his friend needs.  And he did TRY doing a softer approach last time, simply telling scott to break up with his fake high school girlfriend. Scott had every chance to dump Knives during the last third of the first book.. it’s just a combination of both Knives and Ramona being in the same place and Scott getting panicky meant he balked. He NEEDS to be pushed into leaving Knives or he’s not gonna. And he also gets it’s not just Scott being a shifty coward: Scott DOES like Knives.. he just found someone who actually challenges him, intrests him and connects with him on his level, versus someone who worships and adores him like a puppy who just happens to be skilled with knives. The relationship with Knives. was an ego boost, an unequal paring that gave Scott the illusion of moving on from Envy. Ramona is him ACTUALLY moving on and given how badly Envy fucked him up, which comes into play in this book and the next, Wallace recognizes that Scott does need her... but this relationship can’t go anywhere if Scott is seeing someone else, and they both know it. Wallace is just the one who’s willing to do something about it to force scott to do something about it. He’s doing this for Knives too: it’s very clear he cares about the girl, was against this from the start, and knew this was going to end in pain and the faster Scott rips off the Band-Aid the faster she can move on to someone closer to her age and far more equal to her. Scott.. takes this about how you’d expect, even calling Double Standard, as Wallace does sleep around.. and while Wallace will be a homewrecker to Stacey.. otherwise it’s not remotley the same. Wallace does his sleeping around either casually or when he does get a partner, with their consent from what we can tell. He never cheats or anything, he just likes to bone. So yeah Scott doesn’t have a leg to stand on and acts accordingly. 

One of my faviorite gags in the series and one that’s etched in my head for keeps. So with a justified Ultimatium over his head Scott calls knives to hang out. Knives.. shows off that as adorable and trusting as she is.. she’s also kind of creepy and shows up just outside the phone booth he’s calling her from.  So the two go to a record store and Knives tries to get Scott into Clash at the Demonhead, her faviorite band. But since i’ts you know, headlined by Scott’s ex as we’ll find out, he’s not into it. But before that can get awkward.. it gets awkward in another way as Knives invites Scott to dinner at her parents place. Which is an objectively bad idea even before you get into the fact Scott wants a way out and as Volume 4 will show us her dad is both not happy with the idea of her dating a white guy and willing to use a katana to prevent it so he dodged a bullet there. Scott TRIES weasling out of it, but his “I’m too old for you” thing falsls on deaf ears.. and actually explains why she thinks this is normal: her parents are 9 years apart. of course obviously two consenting adults with a decade between them is a mite bit diffrent than 5 years between a teenager whose taking this way too seriously and a grown man whose taking this not seroiusly at all and dosen’t get how effed up this is. But Knives is too naive to get that, and papers over any possible concerns about her parents not wanting her to date a white guy with i’m in love.  Seeing that he has no EASY way out of this, as he shouldn’t, Scott just rips off the band aid and bluntly breaks up with her, saying it’s not going to work out. Knives.. is clealry devistatd. To her this was a serious relationship.. and Scott realized that too late.. and thankfully while he didn’t break up with her in the best way, at all, simply syaing i’ts not going to work out and confirming to her he means it, it’s clear from his face this hurts to do and he knows he’s REALLY hurting her and REALLY shoudlnt’ of dated her to begin with. IT’s why Scott dating a teenager dosen’t make him a morally rephrenisvie monster: because he was genuinely intrested, didn’t use her sexually, and there are tangible consequences for his actions. Knives just dosen’t disappear neatly into the sunset so he can be with ramona. The rest of the series covers her emotoinal recovery from being with Scott, and how she very horribly handles it and that’s why this plotline works at all: she’s not some act one contrivance to be thrown away, sh’es a human being, and more than that a young woman who got hurt REALLY bad and got way too in over her head with someone who just..wasn’t the one fo rher no matter how much she can’t admit that. 

We also get one of my faviorite sets of pages as Scott relfects on things and the sheer devistation on Knives face, which credit to a series that even at this early point loves it’s big bold facial expressions.. her’s being more subded just makes it sting MORE. 

This bit to me is vital to keeping Scott sympathetic and to his character. We see he really does regret what happened, dosen’t know how to process it and genuinely feels awful. As I said instead of some exgerated face that would still hurt him.. her face is quiet, clearly unable to process this and clealry lost and hurt.. and that hurts more than any fuck your or sobs he was probably expecting. Just her clearly not getting WHY he’s doing this or why he hurt her, and he KNOWS why he just knows telling her the truth would hurt her even more. But.. as he thinks.. his thoughts move to something else.. and the WHY of why he did this. 

He did it for Ramona. Wallace was as harsh as he was right: he needed a clean slate to actually give this relationship a shot and the smile comes off less as him being a calous dick whose just happy to move on, I mean he is a little, but more jus tsomeone READY to finally move on. He found the right person, he let the wrong one go if clumsily.. he has a future to look forward to and he can smile about that. 

Granted he’s still his usual unteitonally callous self and his way of telling his friends he and knives broke up is to casually say so and say “dont’ worry you’ll meet my new girlfriend soon.” Their reaction.. is my own. 

Look just because Scott is a nuanced douchebag dosne’t stop him from being a Douchebag. It just means he isn’t intolerable to watch and you actually care about him growing as a human being is all. 

So with that out of the way, it’s date night and Ramona is coming over.. also Scott is considering calling her Ramy which no. I'm genuinely in favor of a pet name that’s just a variant on someone’s name but a bit cute, as it’s just the right level of obnoxious, but no, just no Scott. No.  Ramona enters, meets Wallace again and sits down while Scott tries to shoo him out.. because turnabout is fair play bitch. They also see Ramona’s new hair as she dyes it something new for the first time, in this case a very lovely two tone, the purple from last volume but with a darker purple bellow it. I honestly wish she went for multiple colors in her hair again, but likely didn’t since the book was originally in black and white... which still dosent’ make sense as it would’ve been EASIER that way. Regardless Wallace makes himself scarce proving that he’s more than willing to be equal in terms of one of them spending the ngiht elsewhere. What a guy. 

Ramona finds out a few things about Scott: That his apartment is VERY small, just one room with a bed, a cabinet, a small kitchen and a bathroom, which despite what scott says I REALLY dont’ count as another room. Just common sense. She also learns that he can COOK. Yeah while you’d expect Scott to just get a wad of “I did the ultimatum thing okay now gimme” money and buy dinner but no.. he made the whole thing himself from his own recipe.  And once we cut to them eating on the floor.. turns out yeah he not only can cook but is REALLY good at it. She wishes there was a table which, small as the place is.. fair point. I mean at least get some tv trays. You have chairs. Or at least the easy chair. You can get nice padded folding chairs so you have a second chair guys. I know your poor but come on. Also Scott leanrs bread makes you fat. Good stuff. Also Scott freaks out when , while making out with Ramona in bed later, she mentions his hair’s getting kinda long and could use a cut... which turns out to be a thing for him. He isn’t an ass about it he just panics a bit because he’s partially convinced his last relationship’s nightmarish breakup was because of a bad haircut he got. As we’ll see next week, that’s a no but as someone whose a touch neroutic myself I get blaming a larger issue on something trivial. 

So we then get to the next chapter where it’s KIM’S turn to have a dream.. and the only time we see someone else's dreams. Honestly.. I really would’ve liked if it was a recurring device, even have Ramona pop into other people’s Not used ALL the time but I could easily see it being used with Knives to convey her obsession with Scott and her pain or kim again to help move her plots along or Wallace because I want to know what’s going on in his head. It must be a maze of male gentalia and fine liquor the likes of which has never been seen. It’s scotts funeral as Simon killed him and Scott’s corpse wonders if she dreams about this a lot. 

So we see her get ready and wake up her roomate Sarah whose a bitch. And as we’ll see in one of the backups, so’s the rest of her roommates. So drifting into work. Hollie is a character I really liked... the past tense will be explained later. And the first scene is probably why as her and Kim banter effortlessly, with Kim suggesting maybe she was a happy kid... only to admit quickly no she wasn’t, she was pretty withdrawn and then pretty angsty over someasshole who will be named Scott. “Your a holy terror kim, and i’m glad your on your side”> It’s a short scene but the kind this series excells at: just realistic, fun little exchanges bursting with character. I also GENUINELY wish we got more of this kind of thing, as only Knives really gets these kind of scenes to herself for the most part. There ARE scenes without Scott, but not enough like this that just give us as look into what his friends lives are like during the moments they aren’t putting up with his dumbassery or watching him engage in mortal combat. It’s why i’ve been hoping a spinoff will happen even though it likely won’t SOON. I’m sure O’Malley will return to this world some day, but between Snotgirl and Wicked World, which will come out when it’s ready but should be good.. he’s just really busy. But i’d love to see more of Kim.. or Wallace or Knives. The latter two are a no brainer: Knives is the tritagonist of the books, and it’d be intresting to see what she’d be like 5 years at the book, at the same age and stage in life as Scott. And with Wallace it’s because we really DON’T see his friend circle, life or what goes on with him. We hear him talk about a new boyfriend, who we don’t meet until near the end of the series, though you can see him in stage 3 of hte game if your curious, we see him with some random friends in volume 4, but we really don’t KNOW what hyjinks and lojinks wallace gets up to. He’s pretty isoalted from the rest of the main cast, something I hope an adaptation could fix as while realistic i’td be curious to see what his relationship with Kim or Steven would be like. Just food for thought. 

Point is this was a good scene. But as is typical for Kim’s life just when she has some serenity her ex crashes back in. In this case Scott needs to rent some movies, kim works at a rental store and god teenage me really wanted a clerks style spinoff.. but enough spinoff talk. Scott asks kim to bororw them, of course and explains he’s training for his fight with Lucas.. which Kim reacts to finding out her second best friend is in a series of death matches. 

She has understandable questions such as how the hell doe she know that and is he stalking Lucas and just hoping he’s an ex.. which let’s face it would be a very scott move. But nope Wallace told him, likely learning in an interview he dated Ramona or is coming for scott because he knows everything. We also get one of my faviorite exchanges when Kim wonders why Wallace and Scott are roomates.. a valid question he deflects by saying i’ts a long story. 

Also yeah, as much as casting Micheal Cera backfired for the movie.. that panel there proves there wasn’t another choice at the time. When you want a loveable, somewhat douchey, but also somewhat innocent and oblivious slacker.. who you gonna call. Also before we move on.. Kim.. how are you this suprised. You were there for the fight with Matthew. And Ramona giving out the exposition on why he’s there.. and you even did that whole weird space channel 5 thing no one ever did agian and to this day I will never understand what O’Malley was going for and only know the refrence by hearing that’s what it was. Point is you shouldn’t be this suprised.  Anyways we next cut to Ramona and Stacey, as Ramona enters her workplace, second cup, and they talk and Scott’s spider sense goes off... 

I mean it’s just a bad feeling but still.. weird. WE’ll get back to that later. Scott is in the middle of his training.. and I love the mentor side of Wallace and feel it didn’t get used enough as the series went on. As said before he cares about Scott, so he serves as his Shounen Mentor and a great one: he’s stern and makes Scott work, but he also gets his student and what Scott needs to work. I just wish he’d taught Scott some actual combat, but as we see Wallace’s combat skills boil down to yelling useless info from the sidelines.. I mean he can be useful, we’ll see that next week, it’s just he’s not an action guy. But spirtually he’s the guy scott needs to kick his ass into shape. That being said his “training” consists of watching Lucas’ movies, playing tony hawk and when Scott wants to play more Tony Hawk, having Scott do pushups while Wallace plays Tony Hawk.  Before we turn... there is an elephant in the room I just gotta shoo out: Lucas.. is easily the worst setup of the 6 exes. Patel SEEMINGLY comes out of nowhere but his letter and email hint SOMETHING is coming up, and his flashy dynamic entry intro is damn cool and is what turns the series on it’s head, from an indie comic about a guy getting it together.. to that but with huge shonen dustups with epic visuals. Todd is introduced masterfully here, and is a presence from the start of volume 3 as a result, Roxie gets a slight tease in the free comic book day issue, and her not attacking for two months not only sets up tension but allowed for a red herring.. im’ not only hiding that the fourth ex is a she because anyone whose seen the movie or played the game knows the fourth ex is a woman. The cat’s out of the bag, no sense hiding it. The Kentangis show up pretty early on and Gideon is hinted at and built up, as this towering, mysterious figure, his relationship with Ramona, who he is, why he set up the league, and just how fucking strong he is is all obscured, with his only four apperances simply teasing the big final showdown and giving him that much more mysitque. 

Lucas.. is just sorta intorduced like “Hey I gotta fight this guy”. There’s just.. nothing. Scott’s just gotta fight him because he’s next up and Wallace knows that because plot convience. It’s VERY lackluster given what comes before.. and frankly while I like Lucas, he’s the weakest plot and character wise. HE’s not even really EVIL, just a sellout and is more doing this because he has to I guess, and likely because of stuff we find out in Book 6 but sssssshhhhh. We’ll get more into that when the fight happens but it’s one of the books weakest points. The evil ex.. just feels like an afterthrought again despite there being no reason to. Thankfully this would never happen again as I said, but it dosen’t make this any less frustrating. 

So we cut to Sex Bomb-Omb practice, and after that we get more tease for Clash at Demonhead. And Stephen.. is cool with them and entirely happy one of them made it, while Scott is understandably pisssed off about it and not happy one of his best friends is you know, promoting the band of his ex who broke his heart and as we’ll get more into next time, said rising career is what tore them apart. So yeah Stephen’s a dickhead, and I was wrong last time that he got better. He really.. dosen’t. He gets less CREEPY.. but out of the main 6 characters he’s the weakest: he dosen’t have much of an arc, does some very questionable shit in the second half, and his being around means we have to suffer through Julie. I’ll tear into him more on a case by case basis but for once Scott’s not overreacting. While Kim does nothing she also has no idea just HOW bad things were and Scott won’t tell her. Stephen was there the whole fucking time. He just saw Scott’s rebound with a teenager. He knows he was kind of messed up after this. Dosen’t justfiy knives but still he looses the moral high ground he tries to have at times. 

So while Scott shops a song for Ramona to her, Knives calls Scott’s place clearly setting up another suprise apperance. Wallace.. figures out what sh’es doing quick and simply gives her a stern “You have to go” And to me it’s not him being a dick.. he’s both trying to save her from seeing Scott with Ramona and fucking her up worse... and is looking out for her. She needs to move on and moving up to stalking Scott’s not going to help that. Scott dosen’t WANT her anymore, and while he handled it bad, Wallace gets she needs to see that. Granted he could’ve you know explained it to her and tried talking, but as i’ve said he’s not a perfect person and he was also on a time table to get her out of there in case Scott you know, showed up with his new girlfriend and made things a billion times worse. And the two are indeed headed to his place to watch one of Lucas’ movies, and part of that weak setup is that Ramona.. just has no connection with him. It was high school. Scott also pretends he dosent’ remember his. You are a lying liar sir stop that.  So they watch the film together hanging out, and it’s.. really bad. The good one was rented out. I miss rental stores.. a magical time. I mean i’ts better now, streaming means 80% of movies are avaliable if you have a bunch of services and even if you just have netflix or hulu or hbo max, you still get a pretty decent selection each month. Plus digital rentals are super easy. Do miss redbox though. I mean it’s still there I’m just warry of something that relies so heavily on touching things in a state with a lot of trump morons. You CAN get Covid twice and I don’t wanna. Also we get some dated Dialouge as Scott commenting on Lucas being hot, he is good taste Scott, is given a “good job convincing me your not gay”. He and ramona end up having sex though so .. yay? I dunno. The series has a really weird thing about not getting bisexuals exist and as someone whose bi, and really against bi errasure it bothers me, it bothers me a lot. Though given O’Malley apparently has not only far more queer rep in snotgirl but a bisexual lead, he’s clearly learned so i’m not going to drag him too hard on this. It was the early 2000′s. People were pretty damn stupid about this. Creators have gottten MUCH more important issues much worse. 

So the next morning, Scott gets a call from his well meaning but ditzy mom, and reacts like you’d expect. His parents are in Europe to keep them out of the action and what not. Though apparently according to the last book his mom did read volume 3 at least. Or Wallace told her about the relevant bit. You make the call. 

So i’ts Ramona’s turn to meet Sex Bomb-Omb. The group hang out and discuss Gordon Downie. 

Look I don’t know indie bands. I have no idea who the tragically hip are I just know the name is really hipstery. We also get the recipe for Vegan Shepards Pie. None of them are vegan they just wanted to try it and I.. really want to make this some time. Just to see if it’s any good. But yeah it’s in general a fun casual scene, as Kim reveals she and Scott dated, just to break the tension, and Scott tries out Rammy but quickly backpedals. Just fun slice of life stuff. Oh and Knives is watching them from the window and takes Scott dating someone else as well as you’d expect. 

So she gets some hair bleach to do some highlights and calls her friend Tamara over. We met her last volume as she dragged her along to the show, but it’s here we really get to know what she’s like.. i.e. the sane one in the duo, rightfully pointing out Scott’s not that great. Also Knive’s points out ramona’s “fat”, which is thankfully portrayed as petty sniping as while Ramona does have some curves it’s you know.. not remotely a bad thing and the kind of thing a teenage girl would harp on. Still she’s just in STEPS from this happening. 

But yeah.. it’s clear here Knives has some underlying issues to address and really needs therapy  not to go after her ex’s current girlfriend with knives. I mean it’s in the name but still. Then again volume 4 has her dad going around with a katana or something like it wanting to murder her daughter’s older ex boyfriend he dosen’t realize is ex so it’s clear her whole FAMILY needs some therapy. But this does round her out and show there’s more to her.. a pretty violent and obessive side sure, but it shows she wasn’t just some one dimensional ego boost for scott but a person. One whose just as flawed as the rest of the cast.. but more sympatheic because they’ve all got about 6 or 7 years on her and at this age that’s a lifetime. And while Scott DID set this off by dating her which was objecitvely a bad idea... the rest of this isn’t remotely on him. He handled things BAD.... but all he wanted was for both of them to move on. Knives.. simply can’t admit Scott is not a nice person, was probably two timing her as Tamara points out, which as we know he 100% was, and is not some perfect guy she can’t replace: like Knives.. he’s just a person with faults and she’s too blind to see that. 

So before we can get to the crazy stalker ninja fight, let’s instead get to Scott and Ramona hanging out where we meet Gideon, Ramona’s Cat who i’ll call Cat Gideon, both because I love steven unvierse and because it’s less confusing. This is a pretty slight scene as Ramona admits not a lot happened with Lucas and Scott’s apartment is a hole.. which yeah, yeah it is. Also she DEFINTLY dind’t cheat on him with any cocky pretty boys. Which would come off worse if it wasn’t for the pact Ramona was clearly doing it out of regret and Scott just liked like 50 pages ago about rembering his exes when one of them is his second best friend.. which neither would admit but you know it’s true. Stephen is third where he belongs. 

So next morning it’s fight time, and Scott is glad wallace is going with him. It’s awkard going to fights alone. Which leaves me to wonder if before this comic Scott just.. fought random guys letterkenny style. Like they’d call up, schedule it and then he and one or more of his friends would go beat up a guy. It’s just.. hilarious knowing that this kind of thing is common in canda minus the ki attacks , flash effects, wizards, vegan psycics, ninjas, and roboticists. But damn I now want a scott pilgrimized letterkenny now more than ever. You know you do too don’t deny it. I”d love to see the hard right jay fight but iwth a loud “KO!” when he gets his ass knocked out. Also Casa Loma is a very real, very cool Toronto location, as I never realized as a kid, to the point that the lucas fight was filmed there for the movie. 

So Scott approaches Lucas a bit star struck and upon finding out scott is.. punches him out as seen in the header image and throws him into a tower. When Scott regains conciousness, Kim and Neil have arrived and Lucas calls a time out. And it’s here we get to, while being the weakest of the 7, why I like Lucas.. he’s actually a pretty nice guy. At WORST he sold out. But the two have a pretty nice conversation over ritz and baby carrots, with it turning out, unsuprisingly Ramona did cheat on him with a cocky pretty boy, and while like Ramona he’s clearly moved on, it still hurts a bit and understandably so. He also warns scott while she might seem nice i’ts an act. 

I mean it isn’t ALL an act, but she does have a tedency to put up walls and act pretty badly as we’re slowly finding out.. though given Scott does the exact same it only means.. she’s human. She’s not MUCH higher above him in terms of morality and this is where we get our first peaks into the fact the series isn’t just about Scott’s development but hers. But it’s understandably absent from volumes 1 and 2 since we need to know her first, and this volume is about getting to know her a bit and get a feel for who she is, something I ddin’t really get a grip on as a teen, but do now. We see more of who she is good and bad as the walls go down. She’s more SURFACE LEVEL functional than scott, but beneath it has a lot of the same exact issues.  Lucas and Scott continue to GENUINELY bond, as Scott genuinely thinks the guy is talented and Lucas want’s an Oscar this year.. maybe not for the current film which is a romantic comedy with a teen star but hey, stars have done far worse in their Oscar years. I mean at least he’s not making a comedy about himself in a fat suit domestically abusing himself in a wig while he also plays an asian sterotype. He explains he almost didn’t get into the league but felt too important to ramona’s past.. plus he looks cool. Plus they let Patel in despite barely being in a relationship with her and being kind of a tool so they kinda had to let the handsome affiable movie star in. Scott wonders “wait league” and Lucas is understandably frustrated to find out Patel just sent a letter Scott didn’t read.. and at Matthew let’s be clear. I mean.. Gideon has to have known Scott wouldn’t read that since he’s been in his head. We’ll get to that in part 6. Point is they formed a league, hence why their organized enough to come after him like this and Scott understandably glares at Wallace for you know, having him play tony hawk and watch movies yet missing the fucking obvious clue they were all working together and they were only coming at him one at a time by choice. 

Lucas offers to just.. take a bribe and SAY Scott beat him, Scott calls him a sellout jokingly and Lucas proves that while not AS bad as the rest of the League, he’s still a dick by telling him to kiss ramona’s sweet ass goodbye pilgrim. Okay either he’s seen her since high school or he’s fondly remembering a high schooler’s ass. Neither one is nice to think about. But Scott gets out of his ass beating by pointing out a ramp, real thing too used for the movie, and asking him to skate down it. Lucas says i’ts impossible, and Scott just whistles. So Lucas tries skating the impossible and dies via velocity. Yes really. Scott collects his change and gets a gift, a mytryil skateboard he.. can’t use because he dosen’t have a proficency for it and bemoans not picking it up in 5th grade. Also he didn’t get his autograph. He does get some coins though so neat.   Yeah I mentioend Lucas was the least of the exes and I stand by it: He’s an intresting character, not a GREAT person but clearly a charming and nice enough guy who likely offered the bribe not because he’sd a sell out but because he genuinely liked scott, and is easily the best adjusted of the exes. But obviously a near non existant setup and a really hilarious and unsastifying finish just.. don’t really feel sastsifying. I mean i’t slampshaded, but after all the build up of her having 7 evil exes, the next one is just..filler. Not BAD, but not really anything special and giving Scott a an early pokemon victory, but unlike ash having done nothing to really DESERVE it.  Thankfully both adaptations so far VASTLY improved on this. While Lucas is still affiable in the movie he’s also smarmy, if on better terms with Ramona, saying “he seems nice” after the tower throw and throwing in some stunt doubles. His fight goes from one of the least satisfying and weakst of the series, to easily one of the best of the movie. We’ll talk about that more there but obvious Chris Evans version is far superior, keeping the good traits while giving us an intresting fight.. and still keeping the skateboard death because it’s fucking hilarious and the movie improves on THAT too by having scott give flat wows as he slowly dies. The game likewise keeps teh skateboard death, if shortening it, and the skateboard, and while not changing his apperance does make him a hell of a tough boss. Took three tries and some online grinding to take him out. Still a hell of a fight. Point is while I genuinely like Lucas story wise.. this just dosen’t work for me and is pretty damn weak, even if it gives us some godo character insight we could’ve got that, and a fight and still had the finish we did. 

That being said.. we DO get a fight instead, likely why the Lucas fight was so truncated. Next chapter and that evening or the next day or whatever, we pan over the real life tornto refrence library. It is a VERY nice touch thatt the comic and it’s adpations use either real places in toronto or reasonable subsittues. While not canadian myself I love the place and hope to visit Tornoto some day when the world isn’t a living nightmare and it’s really nice that like New York for Marvel, Brian Lee O malley really makes the city feel integral to the comic, like it’s own character. But Knives is ominously perched above.  At second cup Scott is horrified to find Julie. Seconded. Julie takes the moment to give out to scott about him dating Ramona despite telling him no. Okay... 

Yeah as you can probably guess I don’t like Julie. She’s not a good character. The movie did her better, with the bleeping gag and aubrey plaza’s performance, but in the comic.. she’s just the worst. She sucks bad. If she were an ice cream flavor she’d be pralines and dick. While she’s fine on OCCASION, and actually works in the next volume, outside of that she just gets more unplesant, more unlikeable, more bitchy, more unfathomabbly assholish every. damn. volume. I”ll give out about that a bit then too but I have to put up with her for the entire damn comic. Now her being bitchy to Scott is fair to a point: Scott is a mess, and she’s loyal to Envy in the breakup, and Scott’s own friends drag him on a daily basis.  The problems are that she’s like that to EVERYONE, even Knives who isn’t about to stab her much as i’d like that. She’s unberable to Stephen whose tolerance for her is unfathomable, though the ending bits of volume 6 show maybe he just has terrble taste. She’s just a throughly unplesant, social climbing bitch who thinks she’s better than everyone. And it sticks out badly against the main cast; Scott is very bad with women and relating to people, but is also nice, charming and most of the damage he does is not intetional. Ramona puts up walls to keep others out but is also a responsible adult and often cuts through Scott, and at times others, internal bullshit. Wallace is an alcholic, but still a very responsible, very loveable guy who clearly cares about scott and supports him finacially and emotionally. Kim is VERY emotionally distant, very misntrhopic.. but also a good person who as we see as the series goes, has an inner light to her and often drags on Scott because she’s been putting up with his shit the longest and WANTS him to be better. Knives is an obessive and violent stalker.. who was also deeply hurt by an older man, dosen’t GET that her realtionship with scott was wrong and uneven, and is clearly not emtoinallyr eady for the deep feelings she’s having. And Stephen.. well he’s a talented guitarist but also enables scott and julie. Especially him enabling Julie. 

Point is their all pretty well rounded, llikeable characters with flaws. Julie.. is just an ass. And this scene demonstrates that with flying colors. While Scott does ignore her because he’s too worried about his sister and girlfriend becoming friends, understandably given Stacey knows all his dark secrets, Julie spends two pages giving out and treating scott like some bad guy for persuing Ramona against her orders. And i’m going to break down why.. this dosen’t work.. on any level for her.  1) Ramona is not Julie’s property. She’s a big girl with her own free will. They aren’t even remotely close: Julie met her only barely before Scott, and given the dream thing probably not even that. And you could say Julie is just looking out for her... she dosen’t know Ramona well enough to KNOW if Ramona is still smarting over Gideon. She probably was.. but she readily, once the awkwardness passed, went out with scott and dove right into the relationship. While there’s still some scars as we’ll see.. she CHOOSE to move on and that’s her choice. If she wasn’t ready, she woudl’ve turned him down or broke it off by now realizing it was a mistake.  2) Scott has no reason to listen to her. She hates his ass, somewhat justifably but still, she hates him and has been against him since fucking colllege. She took his exes side in the breakup despite Envy still being partly in the wrong but paints him as some abusive dickhead and not just an insesntive dickhead. To him he’s just some villian she needs to reign in for her cool friend who wants nothing to do with her and grows to justifably hate her over time. Scott and Julie TOLERATE each other. They are not friend,s they do not like each other and never will. They are around each other because of Stephen. That is it. If Kim , Wallace or Stephen had asked, or at least made him wait for kinves. he probablyw ould’ve or at least considered it since while they take the piss out of him, they genuinely care about him and actually have shown they care about something other than themselves! Speaking of which the cou de gras 3) She’s a selifsh bitch: She is NEVER not  in any volume seen as out for anyone but herself, and thus scott has no reason to trust her judgement. She berates Stephen, him and anyone who will listen, is only so loyal to envy because she’s famous, and as I said treats EVERYONE like dogshit.  And given Scott is still a very flawed guy.. it takes a LOT for him to be so right and he runs out screaming when Julie mentions her.

So back at the library, Ramona brought Stacey along because the place is a maze. Scott calls Stephen and calls julie evil.. which given the last two paragrahs. Yeah. She is. She really is. But that goes nowhere as he dosen’t have Stacey’s number. He also thinks Julie was responsible for this which while she’s very much not.. would it REALLY be that suprising that if Julie were there she would’ve introdcued the two and set up their little hangout just to piss scott off? God I’m  so sick of talking about her. 

So the two after dropping off Ramona’s package decide to hang out a bit.. not long as Ramona’s got shit to do, but hey I agree with her logic i’m curious about this palce too. But before they can go up an elevator Ramona spots incoming.. and thus we get the fight of the volume. Though given the next one has two climatctic fights and one or two before that, they easily could’ve had both.. this is still the highlight of the volume.  So Ramona snaps off a railing and before Stacey can give out about that she finds out WHY as Knives attacks with a pair of sais. And O’Malley did his homework as while you’d THINK it was just another dumb white person mistake.. O’Malley is asian, thoughw ether he’s candaian korean or canadian chineses, as his last name is korean but he has a large chinese cast in this very comic that might come from experince, I do not know and if you do know tell me. I’d like to refer to him properly as I don’t LIKE lumping all asian cultures into one basket. But not only that he did his home work, as Sai’s, while popularized in Okinawa Japan, were also used in other countries. I bring this up since I assumed it was just a simple mistake even knowing Brian was mixed-race, and was plesantly suprised to fine that know, I was the moron. And i’m fine with admitting that. 

So we get a damn good fight.. and Knives figures out Scott WAS cheating on her. Granted she assumes so due to seeing Ramona at the refrence Library, before he actually cheated and clearly blames Ramona for it, but still, it fucking hurts. Plus while her attacking Ramona, who initally assumes she’s gideon’s doing, which.. yeah sending a teenage assasian just to mess with her head does sound like him. So while Stacey does complain “ramona you can’t just tear out art objects” to which I say... yeah high, Stacey? NOT THE POINT RIGHT NOW SCOTT’S EX IS TRYING TO KILL HER. SHE’S DEFENDING HERSELF.  So we get one hell of a fight. It not only shows off that Ramona is one hell of a fighter herself, as is knives, but just how immature knives is, resorting to constnat fat jokes and taunts showing just how immature she is.. and unlike volume one where it was endearing and we just saw how sweet she was here it just comes off as mean, bitter, and uncomfortable. But again part of the series biggest charm is the main cast are all well fleshed out and throughly human. She’s doint this because she dosen’t know better and was raised in a house where, again as volume 4 will bear out, finding out her dad is going after scott with a samurai sword just warrants a “dad’s are so weird aren’t they” my point is her frame of refrence is a mite skewed. Plus this is a world where everyone but Stacey just calmly accepts big shonen fights break out, so it’s not that unsuaul to want to settle things with a fight and while i’ve joked about her killing Ramona we genuinely don’t know that was the goal> Could’ve been, easily given murder is peachy in this setting and just leads to a respawn according to O’Malley and would’ve just sent ramona back to her apartment. But I genuinely don’t think she has it in her to do it and while she could’ve planend to, she never would’ve. Plus Ramona easily leads the fight as while Knives uses hit and run tactics and tries make her follow.. Ramona is more annoyed than anything as she has shit to do. Knives only gets one hit in and while i’ts a pretty nasty scratch on the cheek, if thankfully not scarring.. Ramona shrugs it off when she brags about it and easily takes knives down with a potted tree. Knives runs and while she tells herself it’s to fight another day.. its really because her opponent was WAY stronger and way more ready for something like this than she probably planned on. She did defintely want a fight, she just wasn’t prepared to be outmatched so handily. It’s also a nice  parallel to last book’s fight: Like with Scott and Matthew,  while the fight SEEMS pretty even, in reality our hero/heroine was alwasy teh one in control and easily took care of the less experinced and less ready upstart, who likely wasn’t expecting a fair fight much less to loose. 

So Ramona and Stacey wisely get out while Stacey explains Knives is indeed Scott’s ex, though is unaware of the cheating thing. Speaking of Scott he’s playing sonic and knuckles, and in fact kept wallace on the line before just to get advice because of course he did hence why stacey didn’t get through to him, but gets a call... from Envy. 

This is easily the second best sequence in the boook, which was lovingly and wonderfully adapted to film and as a result I cannot read it without hearing Brie Larson’s voice for Envy , a nice mixture of seduction and condescension. It’s CLEARLY painful fo rhim, and we do get some things established as Envy toys with him, that it’s been about a year and that she left him for a cocky pretty boy, familiar.. and while Scott claims to not know what he looks like.. given Todd is clearly on her band cover... it’s not exactly hard to put two and two together. So after some awkard catchup and Scott telling her about ramona against his will, we get to the reason she’s here with Scott understanndbly being supscious and calling her a user.. which while Envy denys.. she ends up admitting to. She’s coming to town as estalbished and her opening act backed out, and since Scott has a band, and one that 2/3 of which she knows, she wants them to open for her.  Scott naturally isn’t too intrested and thinks it’s just pity. The sequence. is masterful, using a watchmen style 9 by 9 panel layout and intercutting scott’s pained reactions and clear lack of comfort with flashes of envy on her side.. never showing her proper, but showing his memories or what he’s seen in magazines. It’s really striking and really sells the sheer discomfort Scott’s going through.  So soon after Wallace gets home.. and finds Scott, drained and miserable on the floor, not even responsive. And this really is the scene that shows me that Wallace cares for the guy and cements that asshole he may be, he loves his buddy. He goes through possible scenarios that fit scott: Food poisoning, finding out Wallace saved over his final fantasy save (though he rules it out as last time that happened he was crying), that ramona dumped him.. before Scott let’s out a pathetic and miserable “Ennnnnvvv”. Wallace , who was at ground zero for that relationship as we’ll find out, realizes this and lets out a little shit, unsure how to help and pissed off at that bitch for once again hurting him like this. As I said it shows how Wallace knows scott in and out and loves him dearly.. and how he knwos about this paticuarly heartbreak better than anyone but Scott and Envy themselves. IT’s just a really tearjerking scene, as we get a sense of WHY scott spiraled into an ego boost of a relationship: His last one REALLY tore him in half, and he’s still not completely healed from the emtional bisection. 

So Scott gets more bad news next chapter as Stacey tells him about the fight and he’s worried he’s going to loose ramona on top of this. I mean he desrves it.. .but it’s clear she’s the best thing to happen to him after a really rough year of denial and poor decisionss and loosing her will likely only make him WORSE. He also breaks the bad news, to him at least to the band about the gig. Stephen, being kind of a dick who while understandbly excited about a big gig fails to see his friend REALLY isn’t happy about this nor remembers you know, that the person offering this tore his heart out indiana jones style and while they should take the gig despite the risks, it’s too big an opportunity not to, he should be fucking senstive about this. Kim however... has a suprising and heartbreaking reactoin to this. Which is spread over a few panels but i’m gonna string into one image for convince sake. 

Just.. DAMN. I honeslty missed this both as a teenager and as an adult when I read through the books last time but holy shit is this a heartbreaking little moment, even more with the development she gets in later books. Keep in mind, over two books so far, Kim.. really hasn’t shown a lot of emtion. The most upset she’s gotten was getting a bit pissed about another a girl drummer. The only other time we’ve seen her sad was at 17 when Scott left. Her only emotions that we could see were angry and surly. But here? She’s genuinely upset and we see her walls break down for the very first time.. and it’s with the clear indication she NEVER really got over Scott. She never got proper closure and while she hasn’t let it so.. it’s been VERY clear she's been grossly uncomfortable with how he just likes to brush off their history, something that very clearly still bothers her and understandably so: 6 years , while a lot of time, still really isn’t long enough to just .. FORGET your first boyfriend , how he made you feel or the fact he took your virginity and you took his. Stuff like that sticks with you.. I’m ony assuming on the virginity thing but my point remains: To Scott it’s SEEMINGLY nothing, when really he’s probably just trying to brush it off because he dosen’t like dealing with things and given how Kim is wrongly assumed she can’t feel pain. I mean to anyone else i’d be a fair assumption and even i’m not convinced if she touched a hot stove she’d burn, but that’s phsysical this is emotional. DIffrent playing fields. Point is Scott’s kind of a dick and not having ANY closure for anything, Kim is still smarting from him leaving as much as Scott is smarting from Envy dumping him.  And it somehow gets MORE painful.... which should’ve been the tagline for Bojack Horseman now I think about it but yeah: her line is what cuts me up the most “I saw her on the cover of Now. She’s pretty”. It’s a little line, it’s easy to see why I missed it .. but the subtext really stings. It’s that despite being VERY pretty, I had a crush on her as a kid and I still do now.. Kim just can’t help but compare herself to someone whose now a glamrous rock star.  Their equally attractive but all Kim can see is ANOTHER person who Scott cared about more than her. Which seems petty but again he just.. abnadoned her. His moving wasn’t his choice but his not telling her as was framed earlier sure as hell was. And then just.. look at the next people he dates: A glamorous rock star (She wasn’t at the time but that’s for next week), a much younger girl who can’t possible challenge him, and an ultra cool american. To her.. it must feel like he just looks right through her to every other person intersted in him and never even consdered her as a person anymore. I mean.. jesus christ that hurts.. and makes me hate Stephen more since you know he dosen’t notice any of this.. though at least unlike with Scott it’s a bit more understandable because Kim’s so unflappable and he’s already ignoring very obvious and transparent emotional pain why shouldn’t this be any diffrent.  So yeah no one’s happy about this, and that ends up including Stephen as he’s so insecure about his band’s talent he’s pretty sure they suck when their probably at least adaquate. 

So while Scott dosen’t say anything, it’s clear he’s at least consdiering the offer as when we next see him he and ramona are heading to Envy’s show. And honestly it’s just a really sweet scene as Ramona asks about envy and the two banter and hold hands. A really nice palletee clensar since hte last few pages were like I was the one lucas socked in the gut. Also she assures him she dosen’t hate him, and asks about how the breakup happened, turning down any offers to hear the good times.  It was new years eve one year ago, and he mentions it was over her leaving to meet some guy named Todd.. and Ramona finds the story familiar but brushes off Scott wondering if her todd and Envy’s todd wer ethe same guy as a douchey joke. When prying about what happened otherwise, Scott admits it was all a blur.. Ramona isn’t ahppy with the answer.. but it’s nto like it’s that unresonable: he was in deep with Envy, and the breakup was damn bad to the point it took a year for him to recover and end up in the relationship he is now and the one before this was clearly a cry for help. It also helps reinfroce just how much Wallace was there for him and probably WHY Wallace hates Envy so much. They probably live together simply because Scott needed a place after college, was in zero condition to get a job or do anything given his zombie like state.. and Wallace just had him move into his bed, platonically and into his place. It’s probably why while Wallace will complain ocasoinally he isn’t that on scott to find a job. He dosen’t need a paying roomate, they do fine just on his sallary and he has a steady, secure job in some sort of calling office, probably working in medical stuff like my mom. He needs his friend to be safe and happy, then he can get on his ass about being functional, as he is in present day. If nothing else this volume made me realize just how good a person Wallace is.  The one thing he CAN remember, to Ramona’s disbelif is a restraunt opening up, the job story he hinted at last volume: basically it was a fancy tex mex place called, and this is one of the best restraunt naems in the history of fiction brace yourself: The Gilded Palace of Flying Burritos. Naturally, as would I as I love tex mex and that name, Scott loved the place, ate there most of the week and like me with some places I liked waited impatietly to get a job. He did and they were even super generous as the food was FREE.  Which is a euphoric feeling I relate to, though I also liked any discounts I got. seriously when I worked at Bagel and Bagel a good chunk of my paycheck was eating there for dirt cheap every shift. I miss that place so much. Like even after I left there I still like a good bagel sandwitch. And it wasn’t covid or anything it was just low staffed and slowly coming apart due to a lack of a solid manager after Crystal, the manager who hired me, transfered to a store closer to her home, which I do not blame her for. 

Point is I get it even if Ramona thinks this is all made up. Anyways at Lee’s Place, based on the real life Leo’s place, everyone’s gussied up: Steven got an awful haircut and Kim... 

But no time to dwell on how great kim’s..everything is.. who DID  Neil bring to the concert? 

While Kim is VERY much enjoying this, everyone else is a bit freaked with Ramona getting assurance her and Scott dated breifly, with Kim quipping her and neil will probably date even breiflyer, and Stephen.. freaking out, wondering if she seduced him, and asking if they should take him out back and kick his ass.. 

Just..... that’s a lot of douche to unpack and this review has been VERY long and suprisingly hard already.. but fuck it, we don’t have much left to go let’s do this. Okay one did she seduce him.. I mean I GUESS, but really let’s be clear here: Neil is a horny, lonely, monosolobic 19 year old who lives with his sister’s college friend and whose life revovles around said guys band. Knives is adorable. She likely barely had to flirt with him to get him to say yes .As someone who was a lonely 19 year old doofus, I guarantee no matter the red flags I probably woudl’ve said yes provided she was 18 instead of 17, despite the abudant red flags such as neil vaugely looking like scott, neil being the one single man within scott’s circle to get her way back in, as Knives hasn’t realized she’s bi yet or given how much she looked up to Kim, she probably WOULD’VE gone for it. As would any sane person, which neither knives nor I entirley are. So she didnt’ so much seduce him as offer him a girlfriend he didn’t have and him being too intrested in having a sweet, caring girl on his arm to see the giant army of adrestian soldiers needed to carry all the red flags this presents. 

And as for “do we need to kick his ass. “ Stephen.. did you kick SCOTT’S ass? No, you fucking abetted him and only stepped in for the good girl thing. You did NOTHING to stop his relationship with knives or tell him he was screwing up or look out for that girl’s well being. This will bite him in the ass even harder in volume 5, but even now it just makes him look REALLY fucking bad that, even if he probably dosen’t mean it, that’s at all on the table. Also.. Neil, unlike scott is doing slightly less wrong. While he is 20 to her 17, three years.. it’s HALF of what Scott and her’s age diffrence is, and far more equal in power structure. It’s still not.. GREAT, but my point is you did NOTHING when Scott did this, for far flimiser and less forgiavble reasons.. but when NEIL, whose been nothing but weirdly loyal to you dates her, you want to kick someone’s ass. I mean yes he’s being stupid: in a clear role reversal of the Scott and Knives situation, it’s obvious just from her expression that KNVIES is the one in control here, and the one using someone to ease her own pain. Granted it’s wrong, if not as wrong as Scott should techincally know better and Knives very clearly dosen’t, as well as get into a show of her faviorite band. Is what she’s doing wrong.. yeah... while she can’t see it again it’s what Scott did just not QUITE as fucked up due to not being AS embalanced. Should neil probably be dating her after scott did ? No. But should you be threatning him and not scott for you know, setting all this in motion? No. Jesus christ you suck Steven. 

Thankfully while Scott presumibly calms Stephen down, Kim spots Hollie and her roomate Joseph, who will be suprisingly important. He’s very gay, very quite, very bearded and is only hear because the bass player is hot and when prodded on it....

Well said. Also I read that with John Heder’s voice fo rsome reason.. don’t know why, his career ended as quickly as it began because he REALLY did not pick his films well. He saw that he was going to be in a film with David Spade and Rob Schinder and didn’t fire his agent for suggesting it. Meanwhile Scott and Ramona run into Sandra and Monique, Scott’s old classmates who just sorta.. show up every so oftne, often backing up Julie because every Alpha Bitch needs a posse. As Boscha has proven once you loose your posse you loose your bitchy powers. They also ask if Scott and Ramona are an item which leads to a fantagious visual gag. 

Also Stephen awkardly talks to the new couple, about how much Knives loves the band, and because why start reading the room now just sorta.. CASUALLY slips in the fact he knows her is because she and scott dated. 

Granted Knives action this book really EARNED her that curveball.. but still, it’s transparently clear she’s both not over Scott and Neil’s a placebo, and that she loves the band... how the fuck did you get through college, much less get two loyalish friends Steve. 

Kim tries to hide when she runs into Sarah whose with.. someon O Malley does not know, literally captioning it “I don’t know htis girl”. Fucking love that gag even if SOMEHOW kim is the roomate they all hate. Despite hte fact as the side story will bare out, her roommates are all pretty obnoxious, so i’ts probably because she’s the only sane person in that group and their VERY lucky kim just dind’t set the place on fire on her way out and let god do what he should’ve a long time ago. Also we meet Lynette, the band’s drummer who smokes “She must be evil” “Still hot though”... both accurate. Also Luke wilson is there.. no really. Just holy shit that’s awesome.  Okay so with all of that out of the way, it’s time for the show. So after a full volume’s build up , and a really cool build up in the page before we finally properly meet clash at the demonhead, and miss envy adams. 

Heck of  a reveal and not the only one as ramona realized what the audience probably already guessed....

Dun dun dun! And since I don’t like leaving a cliffhanger dangling lest I have to... we’ll be getting to this next week.. what you thought i’d say right now or tommorow? This was a lot. But no i’m not leaving you too long. Next week, Evil Ex Crossover! Ramona and Wallace become BFF’s! We learn what the deal with Scott and Envy is! Scott faces the Ken to his Ryu! And Wallace gets a boyfriend. All this and more next week. for now...

Final Thoughts: This one.. was a VERY rough one to review and it ties back to this volume’s biggest problem: it is not paced very well. Like the series as a whole it has a pretty easy going, slice of life pace. The only ones without this kind of easy pacing are 3 and 6, and even 3 has some slice of life bits, their just both more focused due to the events going on. This one... well....

Pretty much. While this one has very important stuff going on, Scott and ramona getting closer, ramona getting more fleshed out, Wallace showing how deep his character is, Kim also getting fleshed out quite a bit, Knives showing off her crazy side, setting up the next volume, the second ex fight.. it’s all just kinda.. jumbled together. It’s not really until the knives fight onward the book takes on some really solid pacing and really gets going.It’s not a BAD book: ther’es some REALLY good character stuff as I dug into.. but the pacing is just really loose and without the Evil Ex fight as an anchor and with ramona and scott just sorta.. getting to know one another, in both biblical and non biblical senses, it dosen’t have either of the series main narrative thrusts. Even the knvies subplot really amoutns to nothing for now, as Ramona dosen’t find out Scott’s a cheater, and only distrusts knives now. That’s about it. It does improve on book one in characterization, with eveyrone being MUCH cleearer in terms of who they are and settling into their iconic selves nicely. Wallace’s more selfless and protective side pops up, Ramona starts to show mroe of her personality good and bad, Scott’s better traits are mixed a bit mor eeven with the douche ones,  Knive’s far more unstable and violet stalker side emerges, and Stephen.. well fuck him, point is things are coming together.. but O’Malley still isn’t quite at peak power yet. Not bad and still worth a read like last time, just a bit uneeven is all. That being said... if you want O’Malley at his peak.. well then come back next week. Until then i’ll be doing my usual buisness of reviewing birds, refrencing simpsons and letterkenny, and putting my eyes back in after kim’s look up there. For now the sun’s setting and i’m out of here. 

[wickedbadwolfarchive]

tag dump

[buckyshenley16]

The Tales Of The Winter Soldeir and Winter Witch

Book1, Chapter 1

3 Years before Bucky was drafted

February 5th, 1940

Ramona’s POV

Putting my stacks of paperwork on my desk ready for tomorrow as my work day comes to an end, I find myself sighing in relief after a long day of again getting nowhere with the ‘Jeweler Case.’ It seems to be a never-ending case as this is our second week trying to solve the jewelry store robbery and who did what and when, why, and so on.

“Lover boy is on the phone Ramona.” Peggy gloats with a smug grin on her face purposely making sure the speaker was not covered.

“Like I’ve told you almost a hundred times Carter, he is not my lover boy.” I exclaim emphasizing the word ‘not’ with an eye roll and taking the phone off her. “Why hello Buck, what would you be calling to ask the 3rd time today?” I ask with a slight chuckle whilst throwing a rubber at Peggy who is winking at me.

“Just checking before I leave to walk you home doll, did you bring a jacket today? It’s freezing outside and I can see your jacket still hung up, would hate for ya to catch a cold especially when you live with someone with an immune system like Steve.” Bucky says, his Brooklyn drawl being clearer than ever.

“You know, I do have more than one coat Buck?” I ask. “Just checking Mona, I didn’t walk you today so I didn’t see what you left in. Just seen what you woke up in or should I say what you didn’t wake up in.” Bucky asks with a hint of flirting and a hint of cockiness in his voice.

“Yes, and if you carry on with your Mr, big ego act that’ll be the last time you see that, Barnes.” I retort.

“Okay we both know that’s not the truth. Anyway, I’m bouta leave doll, will be there in half an hour, will wait in the usual spot.”

“Not true but okay, see you soon Buck” I say trying not to drop the phone from between my ear and shoulder whilst locking my cabinets. “See you soon, darlin'.” Bucky finishes before putting the phone down.

Bucky and I had known each other since being 6 and 9 being introduced by our friend Steve. Steve had been like a big brother growing up, Sarah being nothing but welcoming to my family when we fled to Brooklyn from Russia. Sarah and my mother would both take turns between childcare; me, my three younger sisters and brother being at the Rogers’ every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and half the day Sunday whilst mother would go to work at the laundry where Sarah also worked.

And obviously Steve would be at our house every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Every Sunday we would have dinner at the Rogers’ with our mother. Our father stayed in Russia with mother wanting to flee a situation I wasn’t told about until I was old enough to understand. Father was abusive and an alcoholic and had a job mother didn’t agree with, but we were never told what that job entailed and whilst I found myself wondering every so often, curiosity never killed the cat and I was enormously proud of that.

Bucky, Steve, and I were best friends growing up with Bucky and Steve being stupidly overprotective of me even when I became a fully trained agent and officially full time at SSR. My mother never 100% agreed with my job and whilst Bucky and Steve questioned it at first for my safety, but once they realised I could handle myself (after witnessing me defend myself against a couple of not so nice men who got a bit too close for my comfort) they were 100% supportive of my job, especially Bucky with one less person to save from the allies and one more person to help when Steve found himself on the not so nice ends of the alleys face first into the trash cans.

It was around 18 years old I'd started developing feelings for Bucky, not that I’d never admit it to him, I was far too proud and full of denial for that because he would never go for a girl like myself; at least that’s what I thought until I found myself intertwined in his sheets with his body wrapped around mine after one passionate, unexpected night a year later.

This went from happening every few weeks, to every two weeks, to maybe once a week to every few nights and I’m still in denial that he would ever want to make things official.

I question whether I want to become his girl, especially with my line of work and seeing my parent’s relationship be the bane of their lives when I was younger. All I’ve ever seen is relationships fail and that is why I refuse to put myself through the pain of one. I care about Bucky, he’s the one person who no matter how rotten the day be I’m guaranteed to have a smile on my face when I see him.

When Sarah died both mine and Bucky's families became close ensuring two big family units to support Steve and even a year and a half after she passed; me, Bucky and Steve got a shared apartment together. Sure, it was no five stars, but it was home and as long as the three of us had each other that was all that mattered. Steve was aware of mine and Bucky's “situation” but chose not to get involved.

Stuck in my own little world I'd not realised half an hour had passed and Bucky would be waiting for me so after grabbing my coat and bag I made sure to say bye to Peggy and arrange coffee and breakfast before work tomorrow morning where we could discuss some of the cases privately, seen as though we knew we were massively undermined at SSR we got a lot of thinking and solving done mostly when we were alone together where no male could underestimate or interrupt us.

Walking down out of the doors I spotted Bucky with a glowing grin on his face, it took everything to keep my footing steady. “Hello, beautiful. How would you feel about hot chocolate and dinner on me at our spot?” Bucky asked holding his arm out to me which I gladly took.

“Gee buck, almost sounds like you’re asking me on a date!” I tease earning a nudge to my side causing a fit of laughter.

“One day doll, I’ve already asked several times but one day I will get a yes out of ya.” Bucky retorted.

“I’ll hold you to that Buck, how was your day?” I asked clinging to his arm.

“The usual, woke up to a fine dame next to me, crappy coffee, got to work. Left work, pulled Steve out of an ally, nagged Steve how he’s not ten men and should think before he acts, walked the little punk back to the apartment, read the paper and now I'm here to pick up you. How bout you doll?” Bucky explains with a hint of sarcasm.

“Same old, really strugglin’ with this case I just can’t seem to understand how a whole jewelry store could be robbed without even a fingerprint left behind nor how someone could even get a hold of that damn gas. How many men was it today? Did you or Steve get hurt?” you ask with a sigh giving Bucky's arm a reassuring squeeze.

“Hey Mona, don’t worry too much about it, we both know you’ll get to the bottom of it like always and I’m sure whoever’s guilty will regret it when they have to face the bottom of your shoe. Two guys, managed to reason with them after giving one a right hook.” he winked.

“Oh, I know I will, thanks Buck I can always rely on you for some good old confidence boosting. I give up telling the jackass he’s gotta stop this, I may as well be talking to a brick wall!” I finish with a chuckle. As we walk into the bright, retro diner Bucky holds the door open for me before guiding us both to a booth. As we take our coats off a waitress comes to us.

“Well would ya look who it is, only our two favorites! Where’s Rogers tonight?” Our waitress Nancy asks.

“Probably at home bathing his black eye, sulking about his fight whilst planning his next one.” I exclaim earning a laugh from both Bucky and Nancy.

“I don’t even gotta ask, usual for you two?” Nancy asks pointing between us both with her pen.

“Of course!” Bucky says with a grin

“That’s two hot chocolates and a portion of fries coming up!” Nancy exclaims.

“Thanks, Nance!” we both call.

Me, Bucky and Steve have been coming to this diner since we were in school. Their hot chocolates were practically the glue to our friendships. As I looked up from my hands, I spotted Bucky looking at me with a smile on his face. “What’s got you all smiley?” I ask with a grin.

“Just you!” Bucky exclaims grin turning wider.

“Are you purposely trying to make me blush?” I ask with a chuckle feeling warmth go to my face praying my blusher somewhat cancels the blushing.

“Always doll, I just like to make ya blush and to know I’ve still got it.” Bucky explains with a cocky smirk. Damn you and your godly smile Barnes!

“Glad my embarrassment gives you an even bigger ego boost Buck!” I laugh before our food and drinks get set down and we start tucking in.

*An hour later, on the way home from diner*

“Thank you for that Buck, it was fun. Was nice to be sat anywhere but that office.” I explain.

“S’alright doll, anything to put a smile on your face. I wanted to actually talk to you. This, us been goin' on a little while too long now.” Bucky stopped walking and turned me to face him taking both my hands in his.

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” I ask feeling my heart rip into two.

“Yeah, doll.” he grins.

“Oh okay, no I totally get it Buck we’re kinda not going anywhere and I’m really not ready to put myself into a relationship right now and you wanna move on or you’ve already found a girl. I get it, no hard feelings.” I say holding back the tears.

“Woah doll, no no! You’re completely taking it the wrong way. Mona, I like you, scratch that I’m crazy bout you. I understand you don’t wanna take this further just yet, but I can wait,” he says cupping my face in his hands looking into my eyes.

“Buck, I appreciate that so much but there’s so many better girls throwing themselves at you and you’re going to waste them just to wait for me? I could make you wait years and I wouldn’t want that.” I explain placing my hands over his.

“I don’t want them other girls, I want you. You’re the most beautiful, loyal, caring, and bad ass girl I’ve ever met. I will wait as long as you want me to if it means I can have you. Just please tell me you feel the same.” he begs his eyes searching my face for any sign of feeling the same.

“I do Buck, I have for a while.” I admit a small smile making its way to my lips. Bucky gently strokes his thumb across my bottom lip before pulling me in for a sweet, loving kiss. It was suddenly like it was just the pair of us that existed, nobody mattering in that moment but us two. Bucky pulled away keeping his hands on my face, placing his forehead against mine. “I got you, doll” he says before pulling me into his chest resting his chin on my head, wrapping his arms around my shoulders tightly; sighing contently.

“I got you too, Buck.” I reply wrapping my arms around his waist and smiling contently to myself.

“Let’s get home to the punk before he can’t help but lead himself to another alley huh.” Bucky says whilst linking our arms together and directing us both out of the park.

“We should probably check the alleys on our way back Buck.” I suggest

“Glad we're on the same page doll.” Bucky chuckles.

So, It’s the first of many chapters🤩 I’m so so excited!! Just wanted to give a shout out to @i-write-bucky and @jbarness for proof reading this for me!! Angels🤩❤️

[tabloidtoc]

Globe, December 7

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Hillary Clinton health crisis 

Page 2: Up Front & Personal -- Larsa Pippen in a bikini in Fort Lauderdale, Olivia Culpo wrestles with recycling outside her L.A. office, Shia LaBeouf ditches his face covering for a phone call in an L.A. market 

Page 3: Pete Wentz plays tennis, Bachelorette Kaitlyn Bristowe outside the Dancing with the Stars studio, Sean Penn hits the beach in Hawaii 

Page 4: Barbara Walters was sharp as a tack when she grilled the world’s biggest leaders but ravaging dementia has now tragically turned the 91-year-old into a prisoner in her own bed 

Page 5: Pistol-packing Elvis Presley was so gaga over guns that he’d even take a firearm to bed with him 

* Ringo Starr’s childhood bout with appendicitis at age six caused him to fall into a coma and spend a year in the hospital to recover then five years later he contracted tuberculosis and spent two years in a sanitarium where he discovered drums as part of the hospital band 

Page 6: If it’s true that Gentleman Prefer Blondes Marilyn Monroe was the perfect star for the flick because she dyed her carpet platinum to match the drapes -- beauty guru Kenneth Battelle suggested Marilyn change the color of her pubic hair after a jerk spilled champagne over her sheer dress at a party showing everything because she didn’t wear skivvies so the guru ran to the hotel drugstore and got some dye and told Marilyn to go in the bathroom and bleach 

Page 7: Celine Dion has turned into a frightening bag of bones leaving friends worried she’s headed for a catastrophic health crisis -- now down to a gaunt 96 pounds the star is driving herself to the brink of collapse with a diet and exercise plan to prepare for the relaunch of her hit world tour and she starves herself in her drive for perfection and to maintain the stick-thin look that helped turn her into a fashion icon

* Julianne Hough confesses feeling she didn’t deserve the A-list life she enjoyed while dating Ryan Seacrest where she was on private planes and yachts and living in a very well-off house and her life was pretty different from where she grew up -- she left Ryan in 2013 after three years because she wanted to create that for herself because she felt like she didn’t deserve it 

Page 8: Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson is searching for the Fountain of Youth by working out with Pierce Brosnan’s trainer -- the ex-wife of disgraced Prince Andrew is following a grueling exercise regimen in hopes of joining people who are said to be biologically younger than their true age 

Page 9: Disgraced Prince Andrew has been kicked from the royal family and now Prince Charles plans to boot his sister Princess Anne from his inner circle once he becomes king -- while the princess has carried her share of official engagements Charles plans to shrink the monarchy after his mother Queen Elizabeth passes and the phrase slimmed-down royal family constantly keeps coming up and the royal family will evolve with Charles coming to the throne -- Anne will be on the chopping block mostly because of ambitious Duchess Camilla who is Charles’ wife and who has carried out a ruthless dirty plan to be queen for decades and she wants no one else taking the limelight and that includes Charles’ sister

* Prince Harry and wife Meghan Markle dissed his dad Prince Charles with a surprising public snub as the couple failed to publicly wish Charles a happy birthday when he turned 72 -- Queen Elizabeth and Prince William and Duchess Kate all sent birthday wishes to the future king on social media but Harry and Meghan took a pass even though Harry popped up on the British TV show Strictly Come Dancing that night to wish a pal good luck

Page 10: A nuclear-sized catfight has exploded in North Korea where dictator Kim Jong-un’s baby sister and his pop star lover are battling to claw their way to be top gal -- while sister Kim Yo-jong seemed to be running the nation after Kim vanished and was rumored dead he popped back up with old galpal Hyon Song-wol on his arm and his current wife Ri Sol-ju nowhere to be seen 

Page 12: Celebrity Buzz -- Mario Lopez wearing a clear mask (picture), Lauren Simon of The Real Housewives of Cheshire in the U.K. claims to have had sex with an actual ghost, Kaley Cuoco has a theory about shooting those sexy big bangs with ex-boyfriend Johnny Galecki that the pair’s sneaky sitcom boss got a kick putting the real-life former lovers under the covers, Reese Witherspoon lost her beloved dog Pepper to cancer and returned to her ole Southern roots when picking a name for her brand-new puppy: Minnie Pearl, plagued by seemingly endless allegations of being mean and ignoring a toxic workplace Ellen DeGeneres is now plugging a Be Kind subscription box valued at $270

Page 13: Kristen Taekman tops of her gas tank in L.A. (picture), Jeff Goldblum feeding a parking meter in L.A. (picture), Hilary Duff gets primped and primed on the NYC set of Younger (picture) 

Page 14: Reclusive ailing widow Yoko Ono finally loosened the reins and is handing over her $800 million empire to Sean Lennon her only child with Beatles legend John Lennon but John’s eldest son Julian Lennon was left out of the hitmaker’s will but Julian managed to eke out a $25 million settlement okayed by Yoko after he dragged his famous dad’s estate to court, Kelsea Ballerini snapped at a nosy fan for rudely asking if her rounded tummy was a blossoming baby bump

* Fashion Verdict -- Lara Spencer 9/10, Laura Veltz 2/10, Lauren Akins 3/10, Lauren Alaina 4/10 

Page 16: Michael Jackson’s baby mama Debbie Rowe reveals getting pregnant was no thrill because she was artificially impregnated -- Debbie met ex-husband Michael when she was working for his dermatologist and she insists the couple never had sex and a sperm donor fathered the pop star’s two kids she carried in her womb -- son Prince Jackson is rumored to have been fathered by Debbie’s doctor boss Arnold Klein -- British actor Mark Lester claims her could be Paris Jackson’s father -- Debbie is unsure of the paternity of Michael’s youngest son Blanket who now goes by Bigi Jackson

Page 17: Fans gaga for Dr. McDreamy on Grey’s Anatomy got a super thrill on the season 17 premiere when Patrick Dempsey returned to the hit hospital drama after departing the show five years ago -- Dempsey whose character Dr. Derek Shepherd died in a car crash came back in a dream sequence reuniting with star Ellen Pompeo’s Dr. Meredith Grey on a beach -- Dempsey split from the show to spend more time with his family and pursue his auto racing hobby but he’ll return to the show several more times 

Page 19: 10 Things You Don’t Know About Emma Corrin

* Reba McEntire reveals she turned down The Voice gig that went to Blake Shelton and now she regrets it big-time 

* Nip/tuck junkie Dolly Parton says she plans to keep freshening her face by going under the knife and crows she’s gonna look like a cartoon and she’ll look as young as her plastic surgeons will allow her 

Page 20: True Crime 

Page 21: Former soap stud Cody Longo was socked with a domestic abuse charge following a jealous booze-fueled attack on his dancer wife Stephanie Clark -- Cody played Nicholas Alamain on Days of Our Lives from 2011-2012 

Page 23: Meredith Baxter felt booby-trapped by her enormous breasts and confesses she welcomed breast-reduction surgery after getting cancer -- the Family Ties star reveals her former 42-inch bust was the plague of her life

* Weatherman Al Roker has a secret weapon in his stormy battle to recover from prostate cancer surgery which is the love and support of his wife Deborah Roberts who is keeping him happy and positive doting on him day and night plus they talk about everything and make medical decisions together so there’s no fear or anxiety entering their world 

* Jennifer Lopez kicked booty when a federal judge dismissed a $40 million lawsuit brought by a former stripper who claims she inspired the hit movie Hustlers -- Samantha Barbash claims she’s the real-life model for J.Lo’s pole-dancing swindler Ramona Vega and insisted the movie ruined her rep by implying she did drugs around her kids but the judge tossed the case because Barbash’s name or portrait or picture or voice wasn’t used in the film 

Page 24: Cover Story -- Hillary Clinton has tragically packed on nearly 100 pounds since she vanished from the spotlight four years ago and is struggling to breathe and walk and now a medical expert is warning the 73-year-old is facing a health crisis as she tips the scales at 247 pounds -- Hillary has a history of broken bones and shocking collapses 

Page 26: Health Report

Page 30: Country girl Carly Pearce’s divorce from Michael Ray has gone from bad to ugly and he’s now parading his romance with Travis Tritt’s daughter Tyler Reese Tritt -- Carly was all for taking the high road but now she’s taken off the gloves -- they’re bad-mouthing each other far and wide and Carly’s tossed everything that reminds her of Michael 

* Southern Charm belle Madison LeCroy has been flashing a pic of her newest charms which is a set of bigger boobs 

Page 36: Diva Mariah Carey’s demanding ways are driving her boyfriend Bryan Tanaka bonkers and the couple of four years may be headed for Splitsville unless she changes her ways -- Mariah treats Bryan like an assistant instead of a lover and it’s giving him fits and he’s been so patient with Mariah and he loves her but she’s wearing him out with her incessant orders like she has him drawing up her schedule for online greets plus she’s ordering him to do all her holiday shopping for friends and be in charge of everything from decorations to food prep 

* Emma Roberts confesses being pregnant makes her weepy and she’s hit the point where like halfway up the stairs she has to sit down sometimes and maybe tears roll down a couple times a week but despite that Emma says she feels grateful and lucky to be expecting her first child

Page 38: Real Life 

Page 40: Phil Collins’ embarrassing court battle with third ex Orianne Cevey is casting a pall over his daughter Lily Collins’ wedding plans -- Lily is desperate to tie the knot with Charlie MacDowell but the dirty charges flying back may force her to put the happy day on hold and it’s hard for Lily to concentrate on making wedding plans when her father is caught in an ugly public fight -- Orianne is battling over Phil’s $38 million Miami mansion where they lived after reuniting in 2018 

Page 44: Straight Talk -- NXIVM cult is warning to us all 

Page 45: Treasure hunters have launched a frantic search for a $150 million stash of gangster gold hidden by mobster Dutch Schultz in Upstate New York after two sleuths recently discovered coins they believe are linked to the stash -- following a long list of cryptic clues Canadian fortune seekers Steve Zazulyk and Ryan Fazekas uncovered gold coins dated 1903 a few miles from the Prohibition Era beer baron’s hangout in the Catskills town of Phoenicia and their find triggered a race against other prosecutors seeking a two-by-three-foot steel box filled with diamonds and gold coins and $1000 bills and $7 billion in World War I Liberty Bonds and the hoard has an estimated value of $150 million today 

[wonwoosthetic]

1+1=4 || Jake Gyllenhaal

MASTERLIST is linked in my bio! :)

This request is soooo cute, so thanks a lot!! I hope you enjoy it :)

Request by pjsis: Hi! If you still take request, can I ask for a Jake Gyllenhaal imagine, reader telling him she's pregnant with twins or triplets? Uwu and maybe a time skip to right after the birth, Jake being crazy in love with the kids? ÚwÚ

Characters: Jake Gyllenhaal x Reader

Warnings: none :)

Word Count: 2.014 words

1+1=4

It finally happened, you were pregnant. After trying for over six months, you were able to tell your husband, Jake, the good news. But you couldn't just tell him, it had to be grand, that was for sure. At the perfect time was just around the corner:

The following day you were invited over to Maggie and Peter's place, your sister-and brother-in-law, for dinner. A few hours in advance, you looked up some cute ideas for announcing a pregnancy and found just the right one.

On the way, the nervousness started to build up and you let it show by picking at your nail polish, making your husband in the driver seat notice, "Are you alright?", he asked, looking over and seeing your chipped nails.

You quickly looked up at his side profile, "Yeah, sure. Why?", you tried acting oblivious. He stopped at a red light and grabbed on of your hands, "Well, you did your nails just about an hour ago and now you're ruining them again?", he wondered with a chuckle. You copied his action and started smiling while thinking about a good lie, "I don't like the colour."

"Alright", with a smile he dropped the subject, knowing how indecisive you can be.

Soon enough you reached the beautiful brownstone house after looking for a parking space for a good fifteen minutes. You went through the plan the entire drive and even standing in front of the black door.

"Everything's gonna be alright", you kept repeating in your head.

Jake knocked on the door that Peter opened only seconds later with a welcoming smile on his face,

"Hey, guys! How are you?", he laughed and hugged the both of you tightly. Jake and Peter quickly enveloped in small talk as Maggie appeared from the kitchen to greet you with open arms.

You started talking about the recent renovations and DIY projects you started in your guys' new house,

"How's the house?", your sister-in-law wanted to know.

"I'd say not too bad but I'm sure your brother would call it 'one heck of a mess'", you laughed.

You followed Maggie into the kitchen to help her with the food she had prepared while the men made themselves comfortable in the living room.

"I'm currently working on the master bathroom -it's a work in progress-"

You got interrupted by two pairs of feet running towards you, attacking your legs,

"Hi auntie (Y/N)!", your nieces shouted in sync, clearly excited to see you. You crouched down to hug them properly, suddenly getting butterflies in your stomach when you remembered what you had planned.

The girls left to play a little bit more - the conversation about the house went on for about thirty more minutes before Maggie called everyone to the dining table. As you went to place the big bowl filled with a salad you made, Jake noticed your shaking fingers and grabbed your hands gently,

"Everything ok, (Y/N)?", he asked concerned.

You snatched your hand back and nodded quickly, "Yeah, yeah, my hands have been kinda shaky... I don't know why", you brushed it off, hoping he didn't think much more of it.

Everyone gathered around and started placing food on their plates. Just before the eating started, you called for a photo,

"Wait, guys, I want to get a picture!" You shot up from your seat to stand in front of the table, trying to find the perfect angle for the photo - only that it wasn't a picture you were taking... but a video.

"Everybody say: cheese!", you said, watching as everyone smiled brightly after following your orders, "and another one, say:... congrats!", you kept on acting, "and the last one. Say: Jake's gonna be a dad!"

"Jake's gonna be a dad!", your nieces shouted whereas the adults gave you wide-eyed looks. Maggie's lips parted and formed the brightest smile you had ever seen on her, Peter's mouth hung open, and Jake just looked at you.

"What?", his voice was barely hearable, only a whisper - tears started forming in his eyes. You could feel your eyes starting to water too. Gloria and Ramona looked around slightly confused, slowly realising what was happening.

Your husband stood up from his seat to walk over to you,

"Are you serious?", he still couldn't believe it. You didn't trust your voice enough to actually speak, so you just nodded with a wide smile.

"Oh my god...", and with those words, he grabbed your face with his big hands and kissed you deeply. You put your hand on top of his while moving your lips slowly too. Gloria let some puke noises escape from her mouth, making you separate and laugh.

Jake's sister was by your side within seconds to embrace you tightly, congratulating you, quickly followed by Peter who also complimented your idea on how to announce it.

"Oh yeah", Maggie agreed, "how did you get the idea? That was genius!"

You just shrugged and laughed at their kindness. Your significant other right next to you didn't leave your side, planting multiple kisses all over your face, making you giggle.

Turning your face to look at Jake, you could see the few tears that had already left his eyes and made their way down his cheek - you kissed it gently. The little girls were now next to you, poking each one of your guys' legs,

"Are we going to have a cousin?", Ramona asked carefully.

You crouched down and put your left hand on her upper arm to caress it,

"Yes, sweetie", you smiled.

"There's a baby in you?", the younger girl wanted to know.

You nodded and put your hand on your abdomen, " It's in my belly" before the tears were able to escape, you wiped your eyes.

You had forgotten about the phone in your hand and quickly realised that you were still recording, so you ended the video.

--- Three Months Later ---

Lying on the examination bed with your shirt pulled up slightly, showing your growing bump, with Jake on a chair to your left, you could feel your heartbeat quickening. He was holding your hand, gently caressing it, trying to not only calm you down but himself as well.

You saw his leg twitching and smiled, "You're making nervous."

His head turned to you quickly, "Sorry", he apologized.

"It's cute", you smiled kindly. He shook his head and laughed as an answer.

Your doctor entered, "Good morning Misses Gyllenhaal", and shook your hand before leaning over to greet your husband," Mister Gyllenhaal."

She took a seat to get ready: put on gloves and turned the monitor on.

"So, today we're gonna have a look at what we're expecting, right?", with a wide smile - kind as always. You nodded.

The older woman grabbed the gel from a cabinet underneath the monitor and opened it, "You know already know it but I'm gonna say it again: This will probably be a bit cold", "Yeah, I know", you smiled.

She squeezed out a generous amount of it on your abdominal region and started spreading it with the ultrasound machine that looked like a handle. You looked at the TV in front of you, which was connected to hers, so you could see everything she saw. The doctor was quiet for a bit, making Jake start to worry slightly, especially after seeing her frowning eyebrows, "Everything alright, doctor?"

She took a deep breath and started explaining, "Well... I think you're in for a surprise." You turned to Jake, only to see him looking back at you with the same confusion written all over his face.

"So... here", a little arrow appeared on the screen, "here you see your baby boy."

Your husband's hands flew to his mouth in happiness as he looked at you with an 'I told you so'-look since he was certain you were going to have a boy ever since he found out you were pregnant.

"And then", she continued, confusing you, "here, you also have a little baby girl...", with a smile she looked at you.

"Twins?", you couldn't believe it, "We're... we're having twins?"

Before you were able to continue, you felt Jake grabbing your hand tightly with both of his. He placed his head on top of your intertwined hands.

"Yes, the girl's quite small, I guess that's why we haven't been able to see her. Congratulations.", the woman said before explaining that she would print out the ultrasound pictures, therefore she had to leave the room for a short bit.

"Twins, (Y/N)", Jake's voice was as quiet as when you told him you were expecting. You nodded with tears already rolling down your face.

"Yeah...", if one word could describe the look on your face it would be love, pure love because that's all that you were feeling at that very moment. Love for the man by your side that has been there for you for five years and, you know, will be there for you till you take your last breath. Love for the gift of life that you were experiencing. And love for not the one but the two human beings growing inside of you. You suddenly felt a strong sense of protection you hadn't felt before, now that you know it was three people that you were going to have to take care of - Jake was the same.

He was going to have a baby boy AND a baby girl. Two small humans at once that he was already loving more than he could ever imagine. His life properly started when he met you and now it felt pretty much complete. This was the start of a journey with a lot of ups and downs, some of which he knew were coming and some of which he wasn't prepared for.

--- Five Months Later ---

Exhausted. That was the word to describe your state. Exhausted but happy - more than just happy. You were lying in the hospital bed, with your healthy firstborn placed on your naked chest for some bonding time. Your husband was sitting in a chair to your right that was now much more comfortable than during the night when he tried to sleep in it. He had been able to dry his eyes after absolutely losing it and breaking down in happiness as soon as he saw the firstborn.

"I'm so happy he's not the baby boy", he nodded over to the little one you were holding, "once he's older he's gonna be happy too."

You laughed, thinking it's cute how much he had wanted the boy to come to the world first, which he did by exactly thirteen minutes, so his baby girl could have an older brother AND an overprotective dad.

"He's gonna be my baby boy", you cuddled him, "forever."

Jake stood up carefully, trying to not disturb the sleeping princess in his arms, to come over to your bed. "I'm so proud of you, babe", he kissed the top of your head. Suddenly the boy in your arms started to turn and opened his mouth to let out a cry. As soon as a whining sound escaped his mouth, his sister started to cry out loud too.

"Jesus, they're already competing about who can cry the loudest", he laughed about the situation. While the both of you tried to soothe the crying newborns, it was as if the future lying ahead of you was flashing right before your eyes. All the cries and the laughs you would be sharing with the man in front of you and the two bundle of joys - maybe some more.

Your thoughts got interrupted by knocks on the door followed by your mother- and sister-in-law slowly entering. As soon as Naomi saw her son, that she birthed and raised into the gentleman that he now is, with his own daughter in his arms, tears started streaming out of her eyes and her hands flew to her mouth. Maggie came right over to you, excited to meet her nephew. Let's start this new chapter of life.

-----------------------------------------------------

Thank you for the lovely request and thank you to everyone who read it, I really hope you enjoyed it!! :) I apologize for every grammar or spelling mistakes!

I hope you have a great day/night! :) <3

[angrylilfic]

Momma Bear Ramona

Aka the one where you follow me as we explore the dynamic of Ramona basically being the mom of the group :)

_____

Ok so as we know from the movie, Ramona basically is like the mom of the group. Aka "that's Mercedes she's my baby"

She mother's the shit out of Annabelle and Mercedes.

"Have you eaten yet??" "Did you remember that important thing?" "You look tired are you ok?" Etc.

So, as we know Annabelle's family basically disowned her when they found out she was a stripper.

In my head this was the exact moment Ramona was just like, "Yep that's my kid. No I don't care that she's old enough to be my little sister THAT'S MY DAUGHTER."

Annabelle is baby, we know this. She loves Ramona and obviously sees her as a maternal figure.

Here's a short ficlet about it:

_____

It had been a quiet night at work, they had made their usual amount and set off for home at around 3 am. It was too early in the week for Destiny to stay the night, so she had left a couple hours ago, leaving Ramona too her much-too-big bed alone. Ramona was just getting ready to fall asleep when a knock at the door alerted her. It was too early for it to be Manuela, so she was confused about who could be at her door at this hour.

Ramona peeked through the peephole, standing there was Annabelle, drenched in sweat and looking absolutely exhausted.

"Hey baby you alright? What's wrong?" Ramona asked the girl as she guided her into the apartment.

Annabelle couldn't even talk. As soon as she had stepped in, she began to shake violently. She shook her head as tears started to fall rapidly from her eyes.

Ramona sat her down on the couch. The poor girl was shaking so bad Ramona thought her couch might break from the movement.

"Hey, hey. Calm down, look at me sweetheart. What happened?" Ramona cupped the younger girls face in her hands.

Annabelle looked up at her with unshed tears. She took a shaky breath, "My mom called me today."

Ramona wrapped her arms around Annabelle. She had talked very little about her family, but from what she'd said, they weren't very pleasant.

"She said she never wanted to see me again. Everything I left was either sold or thrown out. She said I wasn't allowed to come home and I wasn't part of t-" she choked out.

The tears fell harder. Annabelle could barely breathe she was crying so hard.

Ramona did the only thing she knew, she took the girl in her arms and rocked her. Annabelle tucked her head underneath Ramona's chin.

"Shhh. It's ok bunny. I'm here just let it out." Ramona whispered.

Annabelle's crying went from a howl to a whimper. Ramona pulled back and tilted her face with a finger.

"Look at me. Annabelle you are strong, and smart, and beautiful and your mom doesn't get to decide what kind of person you are. A mother's job isn't to create a copy of themselves, it's to raise the best women they can, so that maybe their daughters go further than they did."

"Sweetheart we love you, I love you. And nothing will ever change that. So if your family doesn't want you, who cares? You still have one family who will love you no matter what you understand me?"

Annabelle nodded. The fight finally leaving her body. She sunk deeper into the couch. Ramona pet her hair, unlike Ramona, her mother was never very affectionate with any of her children. She had never quite realized how warm Ramona was to the girls. She closed her eyes for a moment, just allowing herself to be loved.

She hadn't even realized she dosed off until the next morning when Ramona went into the kitchen to make coffee.

"Morning baby. You feelin' better?" She asked while setting a mug down across from her at the counter.

Annabelle said nothing but nodded as she sat down on the stool.

"Ramona how are you such a good mom?"

Ramona gave her a soft smile, "It takes a shitty mom to teach a girl how to be a great one."

The pair said nothing more as they enjoyed their coffee. The air around them becoming silent, yet comfortable.

If Ramona Vega was anything, it was a good mom. Maybe others would label her something different at first, but at her core Ramona was a mom trying her best. Even if the kids she was trying to protect weren't necessarily her own.

[rr-89p13]

Let's try this again! Facts about modern/human Rocket

Everyone calls him Rocky but his real name is Rodrigo

He is the youngest of three siblings, having his big brother and sister from the cartoon

He still lives with with mother

His brother is named Rafael, his sister is named Ramira and his mother is named Ramona

His father died when he was younger and he never really got over it

His family moved to New York from Philadelphia

His brother is a police officer, his sister is a nail technician and his mother is a housekeeper

He works as an engineer at Half Corp, a rival industry to Stark Industries

Before that Rocket served as a Marine for a few years before being discharged after an incident took out his squad and left him with pretty bad PTSD

He meets with Khevix at the VA and they spend time together

When he's not there, at work or home he's getting into trouble

He still has OCD

Still an alcoholic

Instead of wearing jumpsuits all the time he wears hoodies

Living off coffee and booze

Antisocial and keeps to himself

Doesn't know the Half Corp. built the weapons that got his friends killed

Cares for a bunch of plants to help his anxiety

Owns a bonsai tree he calls Groot

[aletaevers]

( cisfemale ) haven’t seen ALETA 'PIXIE' EVERS around in a while. the FREYA MAVOR lookalike has been known to be (+) DRIVEN & (+) RESILIENT, but SHE can also be (-) VAIN & (-) UNRELENTING. The 22 year old is a JUNIOR majoring in NURSING. I believe they’re living in TERRA FIRMA, but I popped by earlier and no one answered the door. ( james. 20. EST. she/they. )

i’m......so excited......................like i LOVE aleta and im so iskdjfg !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

pleathe give this a like if u’d like to plot w/ her !!! esp if u have a hendrix bb as they’d know her more ... obv

TW: child abuse, alcoholism, death, violence, grief. just some really tragic shit, man. self loathing.

a e s t h e t i c s

french-pane windows and ivy-coated bricks, silk pajama sets and champagne bubbles, wind through hair and constant, constant running; red cards and penalties, explosive words and hair-tugging, tear-soaked pillows and red eyes in empty bathrooms, the smell of roses and death, loose curls and sharp scissors, fairy tales and their endings -- how bittersweet, nails against desks, against backs, nails down a chalkboard, nails breaking skin. thrown fists and bruised knuckles, late night cereal-runs, getting lost in the woods, sleeping in fields. choking down insults, forced smiles, a wish for comfort.

general information !!

full name: aleta marit evers

nickname(s): pixie, tbd

b.o.d. - june 17th, grand ol’ gemini

label(s): the vixen, the amaranth, the hellcat, etc. etc.

height: 5′8″ tbh

hometown: giethoorn, netherlands

sexuality: bi as hell

pinterest

stats

biography !!

all aleta has ever wanted was to be happy. to just, for once--be content.

born to anton evers, a well-known neurosurgeon and eleanor evers (nee du pont), a talented actress appearing on several tv shows in her youth -- privilege is, essentially, her middle name

her parents met on the set of a hospital show, anton a consultant and eleanor a ‘patient’; it was the kind of love that was volatile and loud and known -- dangerous, in the end, maybe.

this was only possible because eleanor had always dreamed of being a star, instead of inheriting her families’ horse racing business; which thus resulted in her traveling across an entire ocean to pursue her dreams where there wasn’t already a name made for her.

lil fun facts about the evers: anton’s older brother is a partner with their father at evers & evers, and his younger brother is koninklijke marechaussee.

life was normal in the beginning; eleanor had her firstborn, rhys -- a son, which made anton happy. then, her second born, aleta -- a daughter, which made anton less happy. a few years after aleta came laurel, another daughter. and that was that.

it was supposed to be the three of them.

anton evers, in all his glory -- was nothing more than a no-good cheater with a bad temper and a lack of empathy. which, of course, led to his numerous affairs with one of his nurses. which -- in turn, led to the birth of one ramona evers, only to be discovered six years later. 

pre-ramona: when the kids got too much for eleanor, she’d let them fall into the hands of the nannies. plural, as there were many; not all willing to deal with three spoiled devils from the deepest pits of hell. she loved her children, but god, was she not built for motherhood. eleanor spent her days drinking wine and champagne, excessively, while the nannies chased after mud-coated children and faced their tantrums head-first.

their house was old and ~vintage~ and more like a mansion than anything else, a backyard leading into woods--countless woods. this is where aleta spent most of her time, when she got sick of rhys pulling her pigtails and him refusing to play knights and princes with her.

after a severe accident, ramona was suddenly left motherless and thus: custody went to anton. it came to a shock to the entire family, but eleanor the most -- she’d gone six years unknowing of the fact that her husband had another child.

it was like watching their mother turn into a completely different person overnight -- while never cruel to her own children, eleanor was relentless towards ramona. whether it were insults or nails dug into arms; more often than not a martini glass in her hand.

aleta had always loved her mother -- even with nannies looking after her more often than not. in her eyes, her mother and father had a marriage that fairy tales were based off of. anton worked often, but everyday he’d bring home flowers for eleanor; their home was essentially a garden; vases and vases of roses.

if her mother hated ramona then aleta hated ramona. rhys had begun closing up and laurel, out of fear than anything else, stayed clear of the soap opera that was now their life.

these were aleta’s nightmare child gone extreme years. unapologetically violent towards any other student who dared step in her way, she took what she wanted and was a typical bully throughout her school years. she was essentially just. a really angry brat. with dyslexia, which also made school Hard which in turn made her Hate School. 

more often than not, she was alone at home. more often than not, she was in the woods. they were her only source of peace. it was in the woods that she met vos. whether that was his real name, she didn’t know. she didn’t care. he’d gotten his foot stuck in a rabbit hole, and she’d gotten it out. and from that point, they were friends. it was like a fairy tale, which aleta had always been big on. she went by duif, going along with his shenanigans.

together they played knights and princes (aleta, always the knight. always. vos, the prince. always.) practically everyday until sundown, where they’d part ways.

throughout this all, eleanor had been getting worse. her alcoholism had taken an extreme turn for the worst.

when aleta was 12, she found her mother dead. she doesn’t remember much, just red wine mimicking blood and pearls strewn across the room, shattered glass and her own screaming sobs.

the day after the funeral, they moved.

aleta was, essentially, alone in the world after that. rhys had gone off with the bad sort of crowd and had no time for his mourning sister; he was grieving in his own way. laurel had befriended their neighbor, eva, and aleta had immediately taken a dislike towards her. she thought she looked like a rat. aleta told eva that much. and ramona was...off doing ramona things, avoiding her family by any means necessary.

time sort of...flew, after that. aleta channeled her anger through sports--and as she got older, into parties and general reckless activity involving alcohol and whatnot. grief still hung heavy in her throat, but she put on a mask of cynical coldness and became known as the resident bitch. it fit her. she didn’t care.

her moods calmed a bit as she entered university, but not by much tbh.

uuhhh hmmm. met tiago through her brother, and only pursued him because she had overheard ramona gushing to either laurel or eva or whomever the fuck about her little ~faraway crush~. so, like, obviously aleta fucked him? and somehow! they wound up dating! she’s very much in love with him, which terrifies her because she’s very scared of loving someone.

also...........uh......................may have gotten ramona expelled out of sheer pettiness. more on that later. :~)

personality !!

frank, rude, and spiteful -- at least she’s honest. even if her comments are riddled in backhanded compliments and eye-rolling. 

she’s not the....easiest person to befriend. has a habit of really only paying much attention to people she finds interesting; if you bore her then you’re out! thanks for playing!

despite how off-putting she can be, she’s pretty well-known. whether its because of her viciousness on the field in the many, many sports she has played for hendrix, or her presence at parties, or ‘cos she made your cousin or best friend or whomever cry in the bathroom, or y’know. her famous, dead mom.

doesn’t...seem to have a problem with her reputation? likes being seen as this tough, untouchable person.

is soft with very very few people, like, maybe three at the max? and she’s not even soft towards her siblings so difjgkh. one of these people is obv tiago.

she’s endlessly loyal, even if she does flirt with other people to make her bf jealous ?? like, she’d never actually cheat. not after what her father did to her mother. does it excuse her actions ?? fuck no. she’s still a bad person

hates her dad so yay !! daddy issues. p sure papa evers is part of a secret society but, y’know. just dad things.

she’s....very emotional. very prone to sudden spouts of just, anger. it doesn’t take a lot to piss her off, and she’s not a particularly friendly whirlpool.

cries a lot tbh. usually before she sleeps, or in the shower, or in one of the campus bathrooms. doesn’t let people see her cry but like...it’s also not surprising to catch her fixing her eyeliner in the bathroom after an episode.

she’s just in general p moody ?? petty ?? will talk shit to you in dutch, even if u fucking speak it. she doesn’t care. would probably spread a rumor about u just for funsies.

she’s gr8 at parties, usually ‘cos shes too crossed to be actively mean.

like, okay, i’ve made her out to be pretty Horrible but hbjnfdmgh she isn’t going to look at your character and just. start beating them down with words n fists and shit, y’know ?? she might be thinking it, but she’s not That impulsive

is apathetic at best towards most people otherwise, like, idk -- if she doesn’t have a reason, even if its a very small reason, she won’t bother with you. 

this VIDEO right fucking here. GOD. that’s an aleta vibe. it’s probably not something she’d say but just. the tone ?? awful. it gave me flashbacks to middle school when i watched that video.

has a sketchbook which is essentially anatomy notes and like, lil doodles n shit of fantasy scenery n shit

kinda...escapes into her mind sometimes ?? is still in love w the concept of fairy tales and perfect love and just. happiness. like she’s kind of obsessed with it ?? with the perfect image ?? which, hence, leads to her illustrating it. hence why she’s just so. in love. hence why she sabotages everything for herself too ‘cos ! she just sort of hates herself and knows nothing will ever be magical and perfect and shit.

so like, big secret fantasy nerd. probably has tried to sing with birds once when nobody was looking. she cant even sing. she shower sings and like maybe the bathroom acoustics make her sound not horrible but ?? she’s mediocre at best. it’s tragic, really.

there’s sm more, like, she’s just got a lot of feelings and contradicting personality points and she’s udfjighk she’s annoying. that’s what she is. aleta is CANCELED

ok ok ok but GOD is she good at sports ?? like genuinely just. she does like, track, hockey, lacrosse, tennis prolly idk, maybe other shit. and like granted she gets angry n then gets penalized for almost beating a girl down but isjkdfg she’s good at sports 

got the nickname ‘pixie’ on the field ‘cos shes fast and also has bitten a few people and is just very aggressive

EDIT: i forgot to mention that she !! stopped relying on her father for money (this does not include....stealing from him, which she most definitely does!!) and she’s kinda paying for things w/ savings and like...soon, she’ll get a job, i promise uhdfijfkg 

wanted connections !!

like...two close friends. pleathe, for her sanity.

uuuuuHHH god, just enemies of all sorts. ex-friends or never-friends or exes before tiago. people she’s talked shit about, or spread shit about

maybe she fucking poured her alcohol on ur muses’ head during a party

GOD i don’t know she drops people so much !!

other....friends, y’know, that she isn’t ~close~ to, but she gets along with fairly well

people she flirts with to make her bf jealous !! because she’s awful !!

temptations...b/c commitment is difficult for her b/c of y’know. her parents. not an actual affair but just...y’know. checking each other out, flirtatious banter, the whole ‘no i can’t ive got a boyfriend’ and shit like that.

teammates !!

dead parents club.

somebody who caught her crying in the bathroom hfdjgkh whether theyre concerned for some fucking reason or r straight up like ‘lmao...u deserve it’

ummm give me rhys ?? and laurel ?? or people who know them

rhys is a drug dealer so like.............she prolly knows a few ppl who get their drugs from him

friends of ramona’s before she uh . . . disappeared / got expelled

good influences who r like ‘stop being such a fucking dick aleta get ur shit together’

cousins !! she prolly has a ton

maybe......an online friend ?? who shes known for a while ??

bad influences who r like >:3 yes stay angry. stay bad. here, break this fucking window with this bat. yes, good.

literally i will take anything sjkfdg

people she’s tormented ??? has bullied ?? has embarrassed ???

[lilahharlow]

( FREYA MAVOR , FEMALE, SHE/HER ) I, LILAH HARLOW am a LEGACY student and would hereby like to submit my application to Kingswood Boarding School. I am SEVENTEEN years old and will be a JUNIOR. I would describe myself as DRIVEN and RESILIENT, but also VAIN and UNRELENTING which I plan to work on during my time here. This is my request to join the ELIZABETH building as a house MEMBER and look forward to hearing back from you. 

hi lmao u thought u saw the last of me?? sike bitch!! u thought !! (none of u r bitches i love u all <3 <3 <3) anyway here’s lilah she’s a bitch and i love her

TW; ALCOHOLISM, DEATH, ABUSE KIND OF ??

born to eleanor and anthony harlow; both legacies down lines of legacies

eleanor was originally eleanor du pont, from a family of old money that found fortune through gunpowder manufacturing and whatnot

eleanor’s father has been involved in breeding and racing thoroughbred horses and establishing several racehorse venues; like many in the family

eleanor found that life boring, and sought out fame on the west coast

quickly became tv’s sweetheart due to her lovable and soft characters in several tv shows; including a then-popular sitcom

eleanor retired after becoming pregnant with her first child, but still remained in public eye due to her career and her family--would still do interviews and photo shoots to remain relevant

anthony’s father owns the law firm harlow & harlow with anthony’s older brother after anthony’s father’s father’s passing

the firm works only with significant figures in society and they’re well known for winning cases--regardless of whether they’re on the morally right side or not

anthony himself took a different path and became a renowned neurosurgeon in the US, considered an expert on the brain and spine

his younger brother is heavily involved in the FBI, though nobody is sure of his position

they had met briefly during kingswood, anthony a senior and eleanor a freshmen--it wasn’t until she moved to california that they met again many years later, anthony only in town for a medical convention

they had fallen in love fairly quickly, and it hadn’t taken long for them to marry. super cliche shit; when anthony went back across to the west coast, eleanor followed

they moved to pennsylvania due to how many members of eleanor’s family resided there

eleanor officially retired from acting when she was pregnant with rhys, their only son and eldest child. a year after that, lilah followed suit. another year, and laurel was born.

they were a typical american family, anthony was constantly at work and so eleanor took care of the children with the assistance of a few nannies

lilah was always an especially bratty child--almost entirely always impossible to please; she found fault in everything and always wanted things to go her way

her sister took after lilah and developed almost the same entire personality, though there was a sweetness to laurel and lilah simply did not possess. rhys was the tamest out of the bunch, but simply because he never gave a shit

when the children were all too much, eleanor and the nannies sort of just...left them to their own? they resided in an old victorian-esque mansion with a backyard leading into the forest; almost fairy-tale like

lilah often found herself in the forest, playing snow white on her own because rhys always refused (he enjoyed hitting things with sticks) and laurel only wanted to pick flowers and stay close to the house

when lilah was seven things took a turn for the worse

anthony had cheated on eleanor with a nurse six years prior, and the past had come back to haunt him.

it was soon revealed, after an unfortunate accident involving the other woman, that she had left behind a child whose father was listed as the one n only anthony harlow

he took the child, a girl named ramona, in. she was laurel’s age, with only a few months difference

this broke eleanor--she was heartbroken, but remained married to anthony for the sake of the children.

never treated ramona as her own, and lilah took after her mother (and her brother--who also was incredibly against the idea of having another sister); becoming relentlessly mean to the younger girl

eleanor began to drink herself away to deal with the misfortunes that had struck her, which only worsened her temper (which was...only directed towards ramona)

it was during these years that lilah went from a normal nightmare child at both school and home--to an extreme nightmare child. she took things when she wanted, stopped listening to adults, normal child-acting-out things.

around the same time that it was all happening, lilah found herself running through the woods more often--simply to get away from the drama of it all

most of the time she was always alone; nobody roamed the forest, despite several other homes having the same backyard situation as hers

‘course, one particular day, lilah found that she wasn’t alone

she ran across a boy of similar age, who had gotten his foot stuck in a rabbit hole. when asked his name, he called himself ‘fox’ and that was all. this, to a young child, was perfectly acceptable and lilah deemed herself as ‘sparrow’--unsure as to if his name was really fox, or if he was making it up

after freeing him from the hole, they soon deemed themselves best friends for life.

they played princess and knight until the sun set, then they’d part ways until the next day

these adventures became lilah’s safe haven--even as she got older, and meaner--fox was one of the few people who she showed kindness towards. part of it was because of the mystery of the boy, and part of it was because lilah was, well, lonely. 

feared at school, the kids who were her friends were only her friends because they were scared of her. or they were her sister, who didn’t really count

despite her popularity status, lilah hated school. words never formed correctly on the paper, and she struggled immensely with reading, though she tried her best to hide it

the only subject she enjoyed was art, tbh

rhys also acted out a tons and got into a bad crowd of boys; they would terrorize the younger kids and vandalize mailboxes. y’know, just little baby crooks in the making

eleanor stopped taking care of the kids, she often locked herself away in the bedroom, leaving the nannies to care for the children when needed

lilah never saw her mother, only heard her; breaking glasses or falling down in the halls late at night, or a shout towards ramona

laurel and ramona soon got closer, the more lilah pushed her family away by playing fantasy in the woods, and by the time their mother died--laurel didn’t want much to do with lilah or rhys

eleanor died when rhys was 13, lilah 12, laurel and ramona 11

her body couldn’t handle it anymore; anthony found her body, sprawled across their kingsized bed with a shattered wine glass and pearls scattered around the sheets. romantically gruesome.

the funeral was filled with distant relatives that all mourned eleanor, as if they had been crucial parts of her life--though perhaps they had been, lilah never knew much of her mother’s side of the family. there were old costars, neighbors, family friends, and a distinct closing of lilah’s throat at the stuffiness of it all. the air stank of death and roses.

she had left early, finding herself in the woods once more.

and there was fox, as he always was. it was the only time lilah had ever felt secure.

but, soon after the funeral, anthony decided to pack up and move the family out of the state. there were only bad memories in pennsylvania, so they moved to massachusetts.

lilah never got to say goodbye to fox. it is one of her few regrets

and a few months after that, rhys began attending kingswood to wreck havoc there instead

(he got into some shit, but always talked his way out of it; always a troublemaker yet somehow made his way into edward house his junior year. probably for the drugs he sells. is currently a senior)

lilah herself remained a devil in school, distracting herself through several sports and her one drawing class and avoiding her sisters.

the year after, she began to attend kingswood as well

the year after that, laurel and ramona also began attending

lilah is currently in her junior year and not much as changed.

she’s an incredibly cold girl, extremely elitist

often refuses to associate herself with those she considers ‘lesser’ than her; scholarship kids, kids from ‘lower’ houses, underclassmen, the whole ordeal

has learned how to manipulate others to get what she wants; usually includes making the other feel special and think they’re different from the others when they’re painfully...not. 

all she really has to do is bat her eyelashes

is big on sports and has joined several; has an extreme interest in anatomy and all her drawings/sketches are based on people--hopes to become a surgeon of sorts, funnily enough

still fucking hates english and history and anything else she can’t understand; dyslexia is a bitch

kind to her friends and would defend them with her life; is the kind of bitch who’ll get into petty cat fights if she overhears somebody talking shit about them

at the same time, she loves spreading rumors and gossiping about literally anybody else

it’s ... a good thing, to be her friend. she’s endlessly loyal, even if she has odd ways of showing it

she’s rude and mouthy--has no problem saying awful things; whether they’re rude, mean, or morbid. has definitely made the freshmen cry multiple times.

refuses to associate herself with her sisters and barely talks to her brother; thinks they abandoned her when family is supposed to be forever

really doesn’t trust anybody but herself; even if she does love her friends, she’s not exactly known for letting her emotions be known

literally she’s just a typical rich mean girl, like, if she doesn’t like you then she’ll just be relentlessly rude.

definitely sleeps around, though, and is unashamed of it. is overly confident in herself and her looks , and her . . . abilities

simply does not give a fuck about anything that doesn’t involve her, and will talk her way out of situations she doesn’t want to be in

has recently been in contact with her mom’s side of the family, sucking up to them and whatnot

wanted connections; yes i’m lazy please excuse me

best friend - the only person who can really break through to lilah, not that they really want to. same mindsets and same values.

other close friends - lilah made it a point her freshmen yr to befriend only the best of the best bc she knows what she wants out of life and it’s being untouchable

friends who like...think theyre friends but lilah is kind of like lol sike

ex-boyfriends - she broke their heart, they broke her heart, yadda yadda

ex-hook-ups

current hook-ups

ex-friends

enemies

her tutor lmao

roommate

her childhood friend !!! uwu

‘first love’ but lol is she capable of love

teammates

etc etc etc

[jedifighterpilot2727]

I have this straight up head cannon about Lexi being a little cuddle bug with Lena, this is completely self indulgent but could you write a wee drabble about Lena getting hurt and Kara of course freaks but Lexi won’t let go of her mama and it’s like a thing™️

Lena Gets Hurt

It’s happened before, a handful of times.

Assassins come and Kara isn’t there in time to stop them.

Or rather, she isn’t there in time to stop Lena from taking care of them herself.

She’s been training with Alex for years, and she’s pretty decent in the martial arts department; she can hold her own at least.

But she isn’t indestructible, like her wife, and she inevitably comes away with some bumps and bruises.

Kara always acts a little weird after it happens.

A little more doting.

A little more protective.

A little more clingy.

Lena doesn’t mind, knows it’s just Kara’s way of coping with Lena’s mortality.

It hasn’t happened in a long time though; probably because the number of attempts on her life have decreased significantly since they adopted Lexi - Lex declaring some sort of odd truce.

But it happened today, a disgruntled investor deciding that Lena needed to be threatened and roughed up a little bit.

Fortunately, the two guys he sent for the job weren’t expecting Lena Luthor to fight back; and it wasn’t hard to keep them at bay until security made it to her office.

Unfortunately, one of them was a south paw and managed a solid left hook to Lena’s cheek - leaving her with a nasty purple bruise.

Alex had insisted on taking her back to the DEO to get checked out, eventually determining that it wasn’t that bad and nothing was broken at least.

Alex words don’t do anything to assuage Lena’s nerves though; because she knows that as soon as Kara’s through with the alien threat across town -

“Lena!” The quick shout is the only warning Lena gets before the superhero is super speeding across the med bay to wrap her in a gentle hug.

“Are you okay? I’m sorry I couldn’t get there in time there was a - what is that?”

Tender hands tug her face to the side, Kara gasping when she catches full sight of the bruise blossoming along Lena’s cheekbone.

“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry, I should have -”

“Kara.” Lena interrupts gently. “I’m fine, I promise. It’s just a bruise, ask Alex.”

Kara looks to her sister who nods in agreement before sinking down onto the stretcher next to Lena and wrapping an arm around her shoulders to pull her close.

“I hate it when this happens.” She breathes out before placing a kiss on Lena’s hair.

“I know, but I’m fine, I promise.” Lena stiffens as a thought comes to mind. “Where’s Lexi?”

“Winn is picking her up from school today. He said he’s going to bring her here in a few.”

A sense of panic rises in Lena’s chest, because she can’t let Lexi see her like this.

There aren’t many people that Lexi’s warmed up to.

Even fewer that she actively likes.

Lena.

Kara.

Alex.

James.

Winn.

Maggie.

J’onn.

Eliza.

Pretty much in that order.

Not that Lena is trying to keep score and say that their daughter likes her more than Kara.

But, okay, EVERYONE likes Kara.

Everyone.

And people ADORE Supergirl.

But no one particularly likes Lena all that much.

Well, she has no doubt of Kara’s love for her. And she and Alex started off a little rocky, but they’re best friends now. And sure, she and James didn’t get along great in the beginning, but they’re better now! And Winn, Winn is her tech buddy. Eliza, hell, she’d treated Lena better than her own adoptive mother, so she really has no complaints there.

But Lexi, Lexi trusts her completely.

Lexi had no knowledge of the Luthor name, had no qualms about Lena’s name, or her money, or her history - but she loves Lena, completely and unconditionally. She trusts Lena to take care of her.

And it’s a responsibility that Lena takes seriously.

Only a part of protecting Lexi is protecting her from seeing the people she loves hurt.

Now Lena has failed, miserably so; because one of the people Lexi loves the most is sitting in the DEO medbay with a black eye and a limp.

When it’s Kara hurt … Kara is easy. Kara is Supergirl, and sometimes Supergirl gets hurt while she’s out fighting bad guys, and even when she does get hurt, the signs of battle rarely last for more than a few hours, most of them gone within a few minutes.

But Lena, Lena has no reason to be hurt; other than homicidal family members, and you can’t exactly explain that to a six year old.

She can’t let Lexi see her like this.

But she also can’t just hide away, because Lexi would ask questions, and that would probably be worse.

“Mama! Yeyu!”

And it doesn’t matter anyway, because Lexi is here.

Kara meets her eyes for a moment before stepping aside, giving Lena a direct view to the little girl standing in the doorway, one hand grasped firmly by Uncle Winn. She looks adorable, as always, hair falling out of her braids and her school uniform slightly askew. Lena’s heart clenches as bright blue eyes fill with worry behind little glasses, Lexi tearing away from Winn to run towards Lena.

“Mama? Are you ok? What’s wrong with your face?”

Kara swoops Lexi up in a bear hug, peppering kisses to her cheek and giving Lena a moment to think.

“Hello, Little One, how was school?”

“What’s wrong with Mama’s face?” Lexi asks again, ignoring Kara’s attempt at distraction.

Kara looks to Lena and she holds her arms out for Kara to pass Lexi over. Once, Lexi is settled in her lap, she speaks.

“Well, you know how you fell off the monkey bars last week and you bruised your arm?”

Lexi nods.

“It’s kind of like that.”

“You fell on your face?”

Alex snorts from the corner and Lena shoots her a look.

“Not … exactly. There were some bad men that were trying to steal something, and one of them hit me in the face.”

“Oh.”

“But your Aunt Maggie came, and put them in jail. So they can’t hurt anyone ever again.”

“Is it like when we got kidnapped?”

And Lena doesn’t want to attach the two events in Lexi’s mind and reopen old wounds, but the child therapist always says that Lexi can tell when she’s lying so …

“Sort of like that, yeah. But they didn’t take me anywhere, I’m right here. And Yeyu is here now, so nothing bad is going to happen.” Even as Lena says it, she knows it’s as much for her own benefit as it is for Lexi’s.

“Oh.” Lexi is silent for a moment. “Does your face hurt?”

“A little, but you know what would make it feel better?”

Lexi shakes her head.

“Ice cream.”

“Ice cream?!”

“Does that sound good to you?”

“Can I get two scoops?”

“You can even get sprinkles!” Lena promises with a smile; and Kara reaches to pull Lexi out of her lap so she can stand up, only for tiny arms to loop around Lena’s neck.

“I wanna stay with Mama.”

“You don’t want to ride on my shoulders?” Kara sounds almost offended, and Lena laughs.

“I wanna stay with Mama.” Lexi repeats, burying her face in Lena’s neck.

“Ok, chickadee. You can stay with me.”

And Lexi is heavy and Lena doesn’t have Kara’s super strength, but she manages, because she really doesn’t want to let Lexi go either.

* - - - - - - - -It three days of constant snuggles - if Lexi is awake, she’s glued to Lena. School is the one exception, and Lexi doesn’t pitch too big of a fit about it.

Day four, and the bruise is mostly healed, reduced to a slightly yellow tinge around Lena’s eye. She’s prodding at it in the mirror when Lexi walks into the bathroom.

“Does it hurt?” Lexi asks before climbing up onto the counter.

“Not anymore, it just looks a little funny.”

“Well don’t worry, Mama, it won’t happen again.”

Touched, but a little suspicious, Lena feels the need to question it.

“It won’t?”

“Nope. I talked to Uncle Lex. He told me to tell him if I ever needed anything, so I told him to make sure no one hurts you.”

Lena feels the panic rise in her chest, and she’s glad to meet Kara’s eyes in the mirror.

“You talked to Uncle Lex?”

“I sent him a letter! Ms. Ramona lets us write letters during free time.”

“And you wrote Uncle Lex a letter?”

“Mhmm, so don’t worry, he’ll take care of it.”

* - - - -

Kara, Alex, and Maggie use all of their resources, but it appears that nothing untoward has been put into effect.

Just a little girl sending a letter to a maximum security inmate.

Lexi gets a formal reply - a letter promising that her request will be followed and a giant teddy bear; how Lex managed to arrange the delivery of a giant teddy bear from prison, Lena has no idea. But it’s safe, both Kara and the bomb squad declaring it so, and Lexi is happy.

Lena’s response comes the next day, in the form of a nondescript letter waiting on her desk.

 Lena, Your munchkin is concerned for your safety. I can’t protect you from the dangers your alien wife attracts, but I can assure you that no one paid by a Luthor will ever harm you again. Not even one of mother’s goons. Consider it a truce in honor of the younger generation.  Lex.