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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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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.

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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.

#scott pilgrim #scott pilgrim vs the world #ramona flowers #kim pine #stephen stiles #wallace wells #envy adams #lucas lee #oni press #Brian Lee O'malley #knives chau #neil nordgraf

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miraculouscontent · 4 years ago

Text

Askplosion #11:

(note that I know I mentioned a “Voiced Askplosion” last time in the tags for anyone who put a 🎤 in their ask, meaning they wanted to hear me respond verbally to it, but I only got one and it wasn’t anything serious - just a tease from someone I know - so I either won’t be doing it at all or will be holding off)

Asks responding to previous posts:

ALYA NO!!!

(the idea of Sabrina avoiding not only Ms. Mendeleiev, but also Alya, is very amusing to me)

The fact that the special focuses on the love square instead of Sabrina and Delmar is a crime.

(also note that “Need some help?” is rhetorical in this context; Alya doesn’t care)

Highly recommended, honestly, otherwise it just turns into a big shame because there are shows I really like but with some content that I don’t like, and why torture myself with it when I can cut it out instead?

Just to give a rough idea, here’s my cut of “Desperada”; mind you, this is just my quick cut of it (basically a “beta” version where I just removed everything I disliked without much care for transitioning/having everything make sense; some of Marinette’s friends talking, the guitar scene, Aspik, etcetera), as I’m not comfortable handing over my “perfect” cut of it since it’s like my personal copy.

Yeah, that’s a super awkward scene. As much as I’d like to imagine that Adrien just doesn’t understand the “guy time” thing (which I still hate), the fact that they use the word “guy” specifically is--ugh.

I wasn’t aware of what he said in the French dub, so thanks! It’s really painful to see her throw so much love his way, openly and publicly and obviously, then be so humiliated for it, only for Adrien to feel nothing for her.

Say whatever you want about Chat Noir’s advances and how sAAAAAAD he is when she rejects him, but her rejections are just that; in private. There aren’t other heroes who are around and Chat is never really humiliated. Even in “Prime Queen,” Chat wasn’t the target - Ladybug was, and then Ladybug shifted it to Nadja - so Marinette is the one taking all the heat in love while Chat gets to sit on the sidelines (plus, then “Oblivio” happened and now people probably all thing they’re a thing).

Yeah! That’s the group I was thinking of!

Thank you!

I’m so sorry that happened. ;—;

I’m not aro but I am ace and I’ve gotten the whole, “oh it’s just because--” stuff before, so I know what it feels like to have people put on the pressure/invalidate you.

YES.

IT’S GORGEOUS.

I’m not really familiar with how holidays are celebrated outside of the bare basics of Christmas/New Year (which I am trying my hardest to forget lol), so I couldn’t say.

Sorry!

New Asks:

10/10 thought, would fantasize again.

Though would also accept MC Audrey just doing some “spring cleaning” of the whole staff in general. I have no idea how she’d replace Jeremy since he’s the company’s poster boy but most of the writers have to go at the very least and Jeremy should be given less power.

I think MC Audrey would appreciate how Kagami carries herself, though potential bonus if - while Tom and Sabine just openly trust whatever Marinette wants - Audrey does a bunch of digging to make sure Kagami is “worthy” of being with Marinette (she takes this all very seriously).

Double potential bonus if Kagami takes it just as seriously, so here’s Audrey and Kagami acting as if Kagami dating Marinette is like some sort of job interview.

Kagami handing over a “resume” of her accomplishments to Audrey. Audrey has already looked all of it up herself but appreciates the effort put in.

If the question in Miraculous is, “Do we really need a--” and the thing being introduced is something the staff came up with then the answer is usually “no.”

The movie will look pretty and that’s all I’ll expect. It’s just Jeremy’s take on Miraculous. Luka and Kagami probably won’t even be around so I’m not even interested.

I’ll watch it, but I’m also not interested lol.

Honestly, I’d rather turn into bubble froth.

oddly specific but... I mean, damn

I have no idea, and I try not to throw around words like “spite ship” because I know people could genuinely like the ship, though I will say that I went on AO3 and - unless I read from - the first Maribat fanfiction on there was posted after the airdate of “Chameleon.” I think it might’ve started with inspiration from “Marinette moves schools” ideas at the very least.

Non-Miraculous Asks responding to previous posts:

Oh, I understood, no worries! It was just funny for the split second it took me to figure it out.

My bad, that’s not how I meant to come off (especially since “magical girl shows” is a little broad; I mean, obviously I don’t think something like Cardcaptor Sakura is aiming for fanservice when Sakura’s--like... ten). I answered all those asks in the last askplosion in the same day so my brain was a little fried by the time I got to that ask.

I’m not even talking about Sailor Moon either; it’s just that I knew there are shows with fanservice and there are certain magical girl outfits where I kind of give the side-eye.

Absolutely zero problem with girls fighting in pretty outfits though. I fully admit that I’m a bit of a prude so sometimes I see fanservice where there might not be any. Super short skirts without shorts, for example, inherently throw me off (shout-out to Saint Tail - which I discovered while looking up “pretty magical girl outfits” - because the main character does have a skirt in “magical girl” form but also tights/boots and a cute hat, which is one of the more unique ones I’ve seen).

Non-Miraculous Asks:

Do you mean Sailor Moon Crystal? Yeah, the only reason I hesitate on Sailor Moon in general is because I’m not crazy about the transformed designs. It’s not really a matter of animation but more a design choice that takes me out of the experience.

I have seen all of Cardcaptor Sakura anime though, and then all of the Clear Card arc. I like the former, despise the latter, and I tried to keep up with the manga but once one of the big plot details were revealed, I officially dropped it.

As for Revolutionary Girl Utena, I looked it up a while ago and don’t remember what exactly turned me away. It might’ve been the darker tone though if what you say is accurate that it’s a darker take on a magical girl show.

Also, I may or may not have looked up the ending of at least Princess Tutu and I’m sorry, I’m sure it’s a great anime, but if there isn’t a happy ending then I give whatever anime a hard pass.

(note: yes, I realize the hilarity of saying that when I continue watching Miraculous)

(More Madoka Magica talk/salt below!)

Ohhh, it started a trend? I had no idea since I don’t actively keep up with every anime out there; descriptions need to really pull me in (the only current anime I’m keeping up with is Hanyou no Yashahime, Otherside Picnic, and Cells at Work (Season 2)).

The focus on specific--uh--body parts in magical girl transformations also reminds me that I think that’s usually what kills it for me, not because of the sexualization but because I expect transformations (especially ones that get repeated over and over) to be really dynamic with changing angles and such, which is harder to do when the camera is trying to draw focus to specific places.

Obviously you have to do it for some moments (I’ve always imagined Miraculous transformations like a potential sheep or another one for rabbit, then rabbit!Jean from Leave for Mendeleiev and fox!Juleka from LadyBugOut) because things will be weird if you focus on nothing, but I think there are ways to draw the eye without trying to sexualize.

Not having Ladybug-esque bodysuits is a good start. It reminds me too much of the Catwoman with just a bodysuit so it leaves nothing to the imagination.

How did I forget about that Sayaka scene? omg (though I dunno if the Bechdel Test is hard to pass if there aren’t really any endgame male love interests? are there rules about that? not saying a pass isn’t a pass but it feels like cheating)

It is nice when fans can respect the opinions of others without having to outright attack. I have had a few people come to me with, “I see your point/respect it even if I disagree,” instead of accusing me/others of--well, you get it.

Fandoms can be really messy, particularly as they get larger. I think there’s a certain balance between small fandoms that all know each other and a big fandom that’s out of control. Then there are things like “loud minority” and it’s just uggggh.

Anyway, back to the asks themselves, yeah, I’m not crazy about taking things that are just meant to be positive/cute/whatever and being like, “OKAY BUT WHAT IF IT WAS EDGY AND SAD.”

n o , p l z

Oh, I’ve never heard of that one!

Sayaka dying didn’t really do anything for me either. It’s hard to explain when I saw it so long ago, but it was just Sayaka’s attitude about the whole thing and it made it feel underwhelming. It was a shame too because I liked her and she had potential.

She was Madoka’s friend so I was just like, “Yeah, she’ll die soon.” Probably didn’t help since I knew what I knew about the show being “dark.”

Madoka/Sayaka is probably what I’d support the most out of all the potential shoujo ai ships. To my knowledge, none of them are really canon, though I remember a special song after the death Sayaka and Kyoko which I guess makes them the most canon and that did basically nothing for me since their relationship didn’t interest me (nor did I care for Kyoko as a character). The PSP game might have more intimate potential between the girls, but I never played them so I can’t make those claims (I only remember something about everyone potentially living and then a bad ending for Sayaka where part of her body was decayed when they didn’t get her soul gem back in time).

The tomboy argument makes me think back to a conversation with a friend of mine where we were discussing tomboys in anime and... we couldn’t really think of any? At least any that really qualify as “tomboy” for me.

Like, Misty from Pokemon, for example. I knoooooow everyone really likes Misty, but regardless of my opinion on her, it’s hard to see her as a tomboy.

I feel like they try to lean that way by making her super aggressive and violent (because... m E N) and I think Ash makes a comment once about her not being “like a girl,” but... I feel like that’s just how general “aggressive” female characters are written?

I mean, that’s tsundere female characters I’ve seen in general. Really loud (and not in a “gIrlS aRe sO lOuD aND ScReEcHY” way but like... the way anime gives them big heads while they scream at whatever male character they’re mad at), angry a lot, short fuse, etcetera.

But Misty is still crazy about clothes and dolls, she still gushes about cute things and romance, and both of those things seem pretty indicative of what “standard girl character” would be defined by, since they’re all “stereotypically girl thing” (I say stereotypically for obvious reasons since boys can like blah and girls can like blah and gender exclusivity is blah--). I get that she dresses differently, but that’s about it, and it comes off like, “she dresses differently and she’s ANGRY and VIOLENT, so she’s a tomboy,” which... yeah. They even gave her three beauty queen sisters with CURVES and BUSTS as if to say, “See?? These are GIRLS, not TOMBOYS.” (busty females can exist who are also tomboys, thank you have a nice day).

This becomes more complicated in magical girl anime since girly clothes are usually part of that so “tomboy” means that frills and skirts probably wouldn’t be a factor.

I mean, if you gave those sorts of outfits to me, I’d be like, “SCREW IT, I’M NOT A MAGICAL GIRL ANYMORE. IF LOOKING PRETTY IS REDUCED TO SKIRTS AND FRILLS, SOMEONE ELSE CAN SAVE THE WORLD.”

I’d also like to see some mixes between personalites and “tomboy” things. Like, non-stereotypical tomboy personalities doing tomboy things. Mix and match, y’know?

This was really rambly, but to answer the question... no, I wouldn’t count Sayaka as a tomboy.

All of this.

I think it also exemplifies the whole “dark and edgy magical girl show” thing because... ugh, how do I put this...

The “girls are overly emotional” thing is already bad, but then you realize that there not being any magical boys is also because that doesn’t hit the “shock value” threshold as much.

Y’know, because boys equal dark and edgy shows, so if there was even one magical boy it wouldn’t be as shocking when Mami gets her head chomped. They could’ve done, “emotional teenagers are the target because they’re in that vulnerable stage; smarter and more physically capable than children, but not as mature/stable as adults,” but having some boys in there for balance (it makes me feel weird saying that when I’m all for girl power shows with an all female cast, but in this show’s logic, it’s a different ball game) would make the show seem less bright and “girly” and thus lessen the shock value.

Does that make sense?

#((Aspies who also deal with Winter Blues or Seasonal Affective Disorder))#((how do you do iiiiiit))#((my usual methods aren't working and I'm constantly sluggiiiish))#category: trash #special: Miraculous New York #MC's Art #art: single picture #relationship: alya cesaire & sabrina raincomprix #category: salt #episode: Party Crasher #relationship: love square #relationship: adrien agreste & marinette dupain cheng #MC: Audrey Bourgeois #relationship: kagami tsurugi & marinette dupain cheng #character: marinette dupain cheng #other: non ml talk

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elecman108 · 4 years ago

Photo

Man, I forgot to post 90% of my art here for the past while. I’m gonna do an art dump in this post under the cut. Enjoy the bonk emoji if you don’t click the read more, and man am I dumb and forgetful lmao.

Includes: OCs getting names, a Sonic impression, a D&D map, homosexual energies, a sheep floating in the astral sea, a birthday drawing I already posted, Hex Maniac Ender, D&D Characters, D&D Characters as Miis in Miitopia, Little Hater Axel, local Demon in the consciousness of my D&D character yelling at him, illegal plants, a necromancer being cute, an actual event that happened in a D&D game two days ago, and Mermay drawing.

That’s everything in here as a TL;DR, I guess. Enjoy your day!

I’m gonna try and sort of have them in chronological order, oldest first, but I may end up putting them in the wrong order. If I do... Whoops, I guess?

[04/14/21] - This isn’t really new art, but I started to work on giving the four OCs of mine without a full name full names... I have not finished this bit, though. So Hunter and Akira have full names, and Warlock and Assassin only have temporary names. This may end up like Seven where I put in their names as a temporary name (7th OC I’d made at that time) and it just kind of... sticks. Lmao.

[04/20/21] - Alone on a Friday Night? God, you’re pathetic. I didn’t colour this one because it was a half-attempt at a meme image I still like it, though, so I might end up colouring it. It’s gonna appear again whenever I do my “unfinished drawings art dump” at some point probably in... June? I know I said I’d post them last month but forget it, lmao, it’ll happen eventually.

[04/20/21] - A D&D Map! This was to help me visualize the layout of my D&D character’s ship he used to be on. Also for my DM if they ever put us aboard the ship. The little fella in the corner is just there to vibe. This map is made of free to use assets from This Website, so while I’m gonna say DONT USE MY MAP WITHOUT PERMISSION, feel free to make your own!

[04/26/21] - Lesbian Day of Visibility drawing of yours truly, the disapointment! That’s... really all I have to say about this, honestly. It was just for that one day and that was it, lmao. I mean, I accidentally lined it in dark pink, so.. .That’s different, I guess?

[04/30/21] - Do Astral Seas dream of Ensorcled Sheep? Does the City know what Sheepleb is going to do? What crimes he may commit? Who knows! This was fan art of Critical Role ep. 134 if I remember correctly, right at the end when they jumped into the portal into the astral sea and Caleb was a sheep. Using my knowledge of the German language, I knew the word for “shit”, and had to use it.

[05/07/21] - This was already posted, but it’s going in here to dilinuate that it was drawn at this point. Also, aside from playing Miitopia, this is all I have to show for myself until the 12th.

[05/12/21] - Hex Maniac Ender challenges you to a Pokemon Battle! WIll you win against my team? My sis, who loves fairy types, pointed out to me that there’s a fairy girl and hex maniac duo, so I’d be the hex maniac. I spent... Over a week drawing this, because I basically had to redraw the Hex Maniac art from scratch in a higher quality size, and then draw myself over it. So... You can excuse the low-effort background for once. It was basically this, and then my birthday doodle from May 1st to May 12th, and then I took a break to draw up several D&D characters quickly for fullbody references.

[05/12/21] - Remember this art I made several months ago? I finally added my other two completed characters! I have three more named but without character sheet D&D characters, so for now this is just Kara, Axel, Golden Shadow, Kau, Cecillia, and Miri. Kress, Tempest, and Melia will have to wait until I make character sheets for them to be posted, and... For when I probably make more D&D characters. I have at least 9 additional, incomplete character ideas floating around, so... I’m never gonna be done this art, huh?

[05/12/21] - Speaking of D&D characters, did you know I’ve been making them as Miis in Miitopia? So here is their finished full body art next to their Miitopia self! Some of them look a little off (Golden Shadow, Cecillia) because of limitations of the editor and shading issues, some of them look a little off (Kau, Kress) because this is a human face canvas that I’m using to make a non-human face, and some of them (Melia, Axel) look REALLY GOOD. Common traits among my D&D characters include green eyes and tall. You wanna know why? Because I am tall and... despite having red eyes, I do have green eyes under the coloured contacts.

[05/15/21] - More D&D stuff! This is based around my D&D group’s current Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign where our Goliath Fighter, Nioh, ends up getting a little bit of hate for being cocky, and our little (well over 6′) hater, Axel, is just a man full of irritation. These are the tallest two characters of the group at the moment. Someone send help. Nioh belongs to one of the other D&D players, Axel (and his stupid additude) belongs to me.

[05/15/21] - This is what me playing D&D feels like. Me, the demon entity trapped inside the head of my D&D character, yelling at them to do things while the dice decide that they’re gonna get bopped a hundred times by a yeti and somehow still survive. This is also a reference to our first or second game where I just ran off like sixty feet to one side of the battle map to fight a Crag Cat and was just in Gay Baby Jail until like two turns later when I could run back to the others. I also drew him not in his winter gear even though this is a bit from when we were atop Kelvin’s Carin in an icy cave, so maybe that’s why he’s at low HP.

[05/15/21] - Melia has good gardening tips, such as Use A Mars Mii Trap To Hide A Body Because They Are Endangered And It Is Illegal To Dig Them Up. I love her a lot, because she’s the youngest of four, all four sisters based around the different seasons. She’s based around Autumn, so she’s all orange and yellow and brown and is so cute. Also she’s Chaotic Neutral, as if she didn’t need to be mildly more threatening.

[05/15/21] - Cecillia is my Tiefling gal who lived in a very northern town plagued by cold weather and snow, and Axel is my Pirate guy who spent most of his time further south on the high seas and warmer weather. So, naturally... I’ll use the guy more acclimatized to the hotter weather in the campaign where we spend 99% of it in the snow. She uses Tarot Cards as her spell focus, and I decided to sneak my other D&D characters onto her Tarot cards so naturally, Axel is The Hanged Man, given his backstory and personality. She’s a very cheerful and friendly Tiefling Necromancer of the Hexblade, so she’d for sure take care of those around her to ensure their success. Especially if they’re on her Tarot Cards, and their spirit comes to her aid when she asks for them.

[05/16/21] - Content Warning; Ryma thinks too much into local stupid moron’s lack of knowing how to answer a question and thinks too much into the reputation of Pirates. Poor Axel, man doesn’t know how to socialize with people who aren’t pirates and is used to being hostile towards everyone, so when he’s asked a question that his answer to is “uhh... no?”, he panics and ends up making a mistake that leads him to think that Ryma can read his mind. Ryma belongs to another of the D&D players. I guess me drawing all those spicy Cow Costumed OCs earlier just brought me to drawing Axel being a bottom in this, huh?

[05/16/21] - It’s Mermay, which means more OC drawings! Here’s Theo after drinking some potion that turned him into a mermaid, and Seven, tiredly, collecting his stupid boyfriend so that Lailah can fix the fact he’s turned into a mermaid. Mer!Theo is based around his sword’s colours of indigo-purple with red accents, which looks a little weird since Theo is the Blue one of the group, but... it looks cool, I guess. Seven’s just the same outfit as always, just no gloves this time.

And that’s it for the art dump! This was, frankly, MASSIVE. I’ll try and remember to upload both on Twitter and Tumblr at the same time, but... Ah... I have been drawing a fair bit. Just mostly sketches and linework that I haven’t finished and may not actually finish. If they’re not completed, I’ll dump them all into something at the end of the month or whatever. Maybe you’ll get the old sketch of the Axel face in panel 3 because in the sketch phase it was an Ahegao face, in the clean sketch it was a lip bite, and in the linework and final it’s just horny face. lmao.

Top ten things I have to remember for drawing: AXEL HAS A SCAR AND GREEN EYES. I remember his eye colour now, but if you look at his fullbody ref, he’s got brown eyes. And, naturally, I keep forgetting to put in his scar. He has more, but most of them are located in areas covered by his clothes. So if I ever draw him shirtless I guess I’ll have to place them somewhere.

Also maybe finish the reference sheets I have left to finish so I can post more of them, since I have two “Pets” completed (Roko and Mona’s nameless pet), but I have to do up Hunter, Warlock, Assassin, Akira, Myuut, and Stella. I’m betting when I do complete two more, it’ll be Hunter and Akira. Those two are the most fun to draw, at least.

#the disappointment speaks #drawings by me #OCs #D&D #art dump #Miitopia #of all of these drawings I gotta say the most cursed is censored bottom!Axel and the most blessed is Cecillia's lap nap #I drew a lot of D&D stuff lately! Most of my OC stuff has stayed in the sketch stage so #I guess that says something about what I've been prioritizing in my drawings?#Also that drawing a twunk as a twink is incredibly funny and cursed. love my pirate boy

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medea10 · 4 years ago

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My Review of Sarazanmai

How did I get into this anime? I heard “things” about this anime. 2019 was a weird time to be alive apparently. You know, before 2020 happened! As much shit as I give 2020, at least they didn’t give us kappas eating people’s asses.

Yes, I just said “kappas eating people’s asses”.

Be afraid. Be very afraid!

Kazuki Yasaka is a young boy who must carry around a box wherever he goes and follow specific directions day-by-day. Toi Kuji is a delinquent that breaks into cars and commits other crimes throughout the city. And Enta Jinnai is a childhood friend of Kazuki…He’s there too! These three boys have been chosen by the kappa prince, Keppi to help restore the Kappa Kingdom to its former glory. Kazuki, Toi, and Enta can now transform into kappas by being eaten ass first by Keppi and then shit out. Yes, I said eaten ass first and shit out by a kappa! These boys then must eat the inner-most desires of these kappa-zombies that are causing Keppi trouble. And these inner-most desires are located…in the ass. But there are those from the Otter Empire that cause this trouble for the kappas by turning folks into kappa zombies and causing havoc in the real world.

I would not expect any less of a mind-rape anime from the great Kunihiko Ikuhara.

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: Even playing a kappa, Junichi Suwabe still finds a way to give me an erection.

Okay, let’s try that again and not make it sound disgusting, Medea.

Right! Let’s talk licensing. FUNimation is the licensors of this fine product. Seriously? Eating ass is fine, but you frown upon the likes of Interspecies Reviewers? Yes, there is a dub to this and believe it or not, I pretended it didn’t exist. Not because it was bad or anything! It’s just that this anime had the likes of Mamoru Miyano, Kouki Uchiyama, Rie Kugimiya, and Mr. Sex-in-a-Voice Junichi Suwabe. Let me state that my infatuation with Suwabe is like John Oliver’s infatuation with Adam Driver.

That…totally doesn’t help my case! Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

JAPANESE CAST: *Kazuki is played by Ayumu Murase (known for Minami on Yuri on Ice, Luck on Black Clover, Asuto on Inazuma Eleven: Aries, Madoka on Shounen Maid, and Shinichi on SAO)

*Toi is played by Kouki Uchiyama (known for Yurio on Yuri on Ice, Soul on Soul Eater, Rui on Demon Slayer, Ikuya on Free!, Benedict on Violet Evergarden, Midnight on Fairy Tail, Yuu on Charlotte, and Ichijou on Nisekoi)

*Enta is played by Shun Horie (known for Kazuya on Rent-A-Girlfriend)

ENGLISH CAST: *Kazuki is played by Alejandro Saab (known for Leon on Pokemon Journeys, L’Arc on Shield Hero, Kuga on Food Wars, Yamazaki on Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, and Takezou on Kono Oto Tomare)

*Toi is played by Ricco Fajardo (known for Koutaro on Zombieland Saga, Itona on Assassination Classroom, Karim on Fire Force, Natsuya on Free!, and Kyousuke on Danganronpa 3)

*Enta is played by Justin Briner (known for Deku on My Hero Academia, Yukito on Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, Shou on Fire Force, Luck on Black Clover, and Ryouta on Danganronpa 3)

SHIPPING: Well…we got our BL kiss by the third episode. That’s quite early for an Ikuhara anime. Ooh boy, Enta loves him some Kazuki. He REALLY loves Kazuki! There’s a lot to be said of a boy that would sniff and fondle items owned by his lover and kiss his unconscious lover. I can understand why Enta would care for Kazuki. I mean after hearing that he’s truly his first friend after a childhood of traveling around and not making many friends, you want to feel for this kid. Key word here is “want”. But this boy goes too far sometimes and his jealousy does get the best of him to a point where I’m just saying, cut ties with the megane brat. But Enta ends up screwing things up again by taking a bullet for Kazuki and throwing all that anger out the window.

And then we have Reo and Mabu! God damn Reo! We’ve got shark teeth, an arrogant attitude, homosexuality, and the voice of Mamoru Miyano. This is just a Rin Matsuoka of a different color! If Reo and Mabu’s otter dance isn’t a dead giveaway, they totally love each other. To a point where they would sacrifice each other for the one they love.

POLE-DANCE ALERT: I don’t know why I always find random pole-dancing moments in animes so alluring. I guess I can blame the likes of Grell from Black Butler. But this moment was so random that it came right the fuck out of nowhere. Then again, this entire anime is an enigmatic brain-fart that it was only a matter of time before a kappa prince starts randomly dancing on a pole.

There we go, Medea’s love for random crap will never die!

ENDING: Throughout the series, Kazuki, Toi, and Enta were gathering these dishes in order to get a wish granted by Keppi. And each time they’ve gone up against a big bad otter, Reo and Mabu are usually the ones to bring out the kappa zombies. But everyone has a plan for using the dishes of hope for their own wishes. Enta wants to use it to stay with Kazuki so the two can remain the golden duo. Reo and Mabu want the dishes to be with each other and save one another after an incident nearly killed them. And Kazuki originally wanted to use the dishes for his baby brother’s own sake, but changes to wanting to help Toi (who ends up leaving with his older, criminal of a brother). And shit goes crazier than what I’ve just mentioned. Enta fucks up by stealing the collected dishes and really fucking up his relationship with Kazuki! Toi ends up leaving town with his criminal brother.

Reo and Mabu, the otter cops shoot Kazuki, but Enta takes the bullet and is hours away from dying. But then we learn that Reo and Mabu were actually kappas who worked under Keppi. It’s just that the otters have been manipulating these two. Mabu is just a hollow body created by the otters because of some accident that happened prior to the events in the anime. The otter gives Mabu a mechanical heart to keep him alive, but in order to stay alive, he cannot say he loves Reo. Unfortunately for these two, Mabu ends up saying he loves Reo and dies right in front of him and vanishing from his memories. Reo is then shot by Toi who comes in at the last minute.

Toi’s back. We all knew it wasn’t going to last. His older brother got shot dead the episode before. So Toi is going to use the dishes to resurrect his brother from the dead. This leaves Kazuki in shambles as he was going to use it on Enta before his body expires in like 10 seconds. In the last minute, Kazuki used the dishes on Enta and he’s going to live. End of story right? No, we still have a demented otter on the loose. And the otters have a dark Keppi that he’s been storing for just this sort of moment. And now it grabs Toi and Toi accepts. He wants to erase his existence from Enta and Kazuki’s lives. Problem is if he does that, Toi erases giving Kazuki the ankle bracelet that’s been a staple in Kazuki and Enta’s relationship when it comes to soccer. But the boys were able to connect, destroy the otters, bring the memories of Mabu and Reo back, turn Keppi into a kappa prince, and save the town from OTTER-destruction.

Yeah, if you watch this series, you’ll hear a lot of puns involving otters. I mean when you’re not smothered in sexualized otters and kappas.

The ending credits show Toi getting sent to juvie for three years. And it’s quite sad to see his dejected face while the ending song blasts. When the lyrics literally say “stand by me” it gets quite sad. Three years pass and Toi’s out of juvie. He goes to the bridge and jumps off. Keep in mind this is an Ikuhara anime, Toi’s not gonna die. Enta and Kazuki jump in and join Toi and welcome him back to society.

Good lord Ikuhara-san! I didn’t think you could out-gay an anime after the likes of Yuri Kuma Arashi. But good fuck, you found a way! This anime was…INSANITY. Pure insanity! Then again, this is the same director that did Revolutionary Girl Utena, Yuri Kuma Arashi, and Mawaru Penguindrum. Yes, connection and desires are a big take in not only Sarazanmai, but a lot of the other animes Ikuhara does. It’s just that Sarazanmai is the strangest acid-trip of them all. And that’s saying a lot because Yuri Kuma Arashi has sexy bears that say “Shaba-da-doo”. ALSO VOICED BY JUNICHI SUWABE! But people getting turned into kappas by being eaten ass first by another kappa and stealing spirits inner most desires, conveniently stored in their asses is some wonky-ass crack-fest. Recommendation wise, I would say watch some of the other animes Ikuhara has directed to get your feet wet in what you might expect in this kind of anime. After that, pop in a few Bakemonogatari episodes just for good measure. And after you do all that, take some CBD gummies and let-a-rip with Sarazanmai.

If you want to watch Sarazanmai, Crunchyroll and FUNimation have it available for streaming.

Okay, what’s next for my FUNimation list?

Okay, boobs! What are we talking here? Are these boobs flat as an ironing board or crimes against nature like in Eiken?

Oh, this can’t end well.

#sarazanmai #anime review #enta jinnai #keppi #junichi suwabe #toi kuji #kazuki yasaka #reo niiboshi #mabu akutsu

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smartguyreviewed · 5 years ago

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2x1 - Primary Brothers

Original air date: September 10, 1997

Season 2, what it do? Yes, the first season only had 7 whole episodes and now we are back. I hope everyone enjoyed heartwearming TJ in the last ep, because we’re getting a full push back into manipulative TJ. And what better setting for this little villain than politics?

It all starts with TJ, home from school and hoppin’ mad, slamming shit down and just letting his little lips pucker all the way out. The source of his ire is the broke ass science club at school. They have no money for anything cool. TJ, hon, you go to a predominately black public school that has no money for AP classes, so what did you expect? Go make some dry ice or something.

Floyd asks why Piedmont isn’t paying for its more intellectual extracurriculars and Yvette says the funds are allocated by the student council. It’s the reason why the Penguins got new gear even though their team is shitty. I get that Floyd is just trying to do his best here, but he’s completely out of touch by saying TJ should run for president. Yvette has to quickly shut that down by reminding TJ that it’s nothing but a popularity contest that a 10 year old has a chance in hell of winning. I personally remember when I foolishly ran for president in grade school. Quickly learned that nothing beats being tall, a guy and promising everyone Pokemon cards if they voted for you. This world is unfair, I tell you!

Even Floyd has to admit that Yvette is right, but TJ notoriously doesn’t take n for an answer and never accepts defeat. He decides to run anyway, with astoundingly bad results. These posters certainly don’t help.

Yvette checks in on TJ after Mo chides him for not having food. He tells Yvette that he’s failing and she reminds him of the missing height and age that would make running easier. We know where this is going. In true political form, TJ decides to make someone his puppet. Enter Marcus, who isn’t interested at first, but the moment a cute girl shows up and strokes his ego just a teensy bit, he decides to run. TJ is so annoyed that he breaks the fourth wall.

Now we’re on the campaign trail and first up are the “science dorks” as Marcus so eloquently puts it. When they roll up on the clique, one of them actually flinches. I’m just confused because Marcus doesn’t seem to have a bullying bone in his body but apparently he pantsed this kid. Weird. After mispronouncing the name of a comet, Marcus gets clowned a bit, but reassures them that their issues will be heard.

Next up is the jock table and Marcus easily wins this one by promising them a peek at the new Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue after school. Ah, the days when you actually had to turn pages to get your fap on.

Last but not least are the ladies. Now, if Marcus wanted to gain points in my book, he’d pressure the administration to get the girls free pads and tampons because they shouldn’t even have to buy them to begin with. Or he’d make sure to protect them from unwanted sexual attention on campus. But it’s okay because apparently, they don’t want those things either! All they want is a better sound system for dances. TJ is mad that Marcus is following his dick when the plan was to raise money for his science club.

Marcus however, has grown to like this and wants to continue to run alone. Good for you, Marcus! Don’t let that little pipsqueak boss you around.

Yvette always seems to be around whenever she needs to point out the obvious to TJ, so here she is, reminding TJ that Marcus is popular and has a real chance at winning. TJ realizes he needs to nab someone else with that popular proximity. Enter Mo. Because TJ can’t just do one thing at a time, he figures he can both win this election and break up his brother’s only real friendship in one go.

TJ is able to convince Mo that he’s in Marcus’s shadow because Mo is a lowly bass player and Marcus sings lead. But...it’s Marcus’s band! And what’s wrong with being a bass player? This doesn’t even make any sense for Mo to entertain because as we saw before, he clearly doesn’t even care what happens to the band as long as the puss keeps flowing. It’s really annoying to watch him blindly believe anything TJ says, especially when he’s not even really “friends” with TJ. Part of me would even think TJ is still mad about him getting kicked out of the band even though he deserved it. Wow, one bird and three stones, the third being possibly ruining Mackadocious.

Marcus comes around, being uncharacteristically mean to Mo and belittiling him for the plot’s sake. Mo naturally takes offense and now he has ammo to run against Marcus. TJ is a petty--yet brilliant-- little asshole.

At home, Marcus lets Floyd in on what’s been up and how he dropped TJ from his campaign that he didn’t even wanna run for in the first place. Daddy Flody is sad because for a moment because TJ and Marcus were actually getting along. Once he knows that Mo has replaced Marcus, he’s confused, The only one who wanted the damn science club fixings in the first place was TJ. I don’t get why he’s confused though. Doesn’t he remember what his son is capable of? He should totally know that TJ orchestrated all of this, but TJ just shrugs, pretending he doesn’t know why Mo of people is now his running mate. Do better, Flody.

Since this episode is about mudslinging and typical political treachery, Mo as TJ’s stand in is making fun of Marcus to the originally intended demographic. Yvette comes up to TJ and asks if he and his puppet are ready for the debate, and TJ deadass says Mo isn’t a puppet, “he’s a real boy.” Yvette just stopped by to say they’re filming the debate and she’s hosting.

In the midst of all this sneaky fighting and smear campaigns, Marcus actually comes to Mo and tries to apologize for being a dick earlier. Aww, Marcus. Too bad TJ is about to shit all over this because he’s watching and once Mo hears this olive branch, TJ is able to convince Mo that Marcus is trying to bait-and-switch Mo to shake him up for the debate. Marcus insists that it is genuine but TJ wins Mo over by just telling him things to repeat. At this point, Marcus is over trying to be nice and says autonomy is the shit. Mo says fuck autonomy and leaves with TJ to prepare for the debate.

I love how Yvette leans into this husky, reporter voice for the television. She even put on her best two piece lilac suit. She introduces the candidates and is baffled when she realizes that Mo has had his extracurriculars beefed up. When Yvette asks when Mo was in all those clubs, TJ says since earlier that day and that he can prove it. I’m sure that he committed a crime here with these fake documents, but it’s pretty on brand for him to do, so whatever. The view count for the debate goes down when Yvette starts going off into how long each candidate has to talk about issues and honestly, I probably would have left, too. This is a high school student council election, for crying out loud. Her audience went from this:

To this:

Mo and Marcus get into a fight over the stupidest thing: who calls heads or tails. After they start elbowing each other, a physical fight breaks out. Again, TJ tries to break it up, even though he just, you know, only is the reason they’re fighting right now. Intervening gets TJ some new eye makeup. But TJ hasn’t learned shit because at home, nursing his black eye, he is still trying to manipulate the two into being friends again.

Floyd has to remind TJ that hey, you can’t just play with people like that, even if you have good intentions. It finally sinks in that TJ could have very possibly ruined a friendship and broken up a band in one go. Floyd tells him to fess up to the boys and prepare for another ass whooping. Luckily, Mo and Marcus are guys and guys tend to resolve conflict--with each other--fairly fast. Mo comes over and gives something back to Marcus and just as he’s leaving, Marcus invites him back in to watch television. They chat and Mo reciprocates the olive branch with a pound. I really love these two together! They have so much chemistry that I honestly would be heartbroken if I learned that they stop talking after Smart Guy. Anyways, I ship it, Marcus x Mo forever.

Stuff I noticed:

- Yvette is her middle name. Her first name is Tasha!

- Welp, guess the white guy is still president.

- Pretty sure this may not have been intentional, but I love that there is a black girl at the science dorks table. We love our black girl nerds!

#tj henderson #smart guy #yvette henderson #mo tibbs #omar gooding #jason weaver #john marshall jones #disney #tahj mowry #marcus henderson #90s #nineties #essence atkins

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authorazumarill · 6 years ago

Note

Speaking of Hardenshipping AUs how about a “Shape of Water” one ;) ?

Omg yes. It’s too perfect! One of my fave movies paired up with my fave ship? Yes please. I can see it as Maxie is a scientist working for Team Rocket. Some of the grunts, when searching for Pokemon that could be sold for high prices such as Milotic and shiny Clampearls and whatnot, found Archie and brought him in. Instead of rambling on and on, I think I’ll write a little instead! I can’t guarantee that this will be good, but I just wanted to write SOMETHING.

Maxie Matsubusa hated his job. He truly did. He knew that it was practically impossible to find an amazing job straight out of college. All he wanted was a decent pay and a job in which he could let his intellect do his speaking for him. The world was a cruel place for someone who couldn’t speak, after all, so Maxie had to find a way to adapt, improvise, and overcome. Maxie liked to think that his brilliant mind gave him an advantage over the rest of the general population. Actually, there wasn’t a “liked to think” about it. He knew that his brilliant mind gave him an advantage over everyone else. However, in this horrendous job market, Maxie would be grateful for anything that he landed.

He really should have thought about his standards a little more. An organization known as Team Rocket seemed to have emerged in Hoenn overnight. He didn’t know of them, but they knew of him. They wanted him, and the handful of recruiters that knocked on his apartment door made that very apparent. However, every time Maxie tried to research the organization, no results emerged. He questioned it, writing down his thoughts and slid it over to the recruiter, the answer he received was just as shady as the organization. “We’re new and still trying to get our name out there,” she replied with a smile. “With you on our team, there is no doubt that Team Rocket will be a household name.”

Maxie still had his suspicions, but they pay was more than he could have hoped for. That pay, however, didn’t matter when he learned what exactly he would be doing. Everything that was assigned to him sounded strange and practically impossible. Find a way to evolve a newborn Feebas into a Milotic. Find a way to alter a Poochyena’s natural dark fur into a shiny, golden coat. The list of impossible demands were endless, but every time he attempted to express his concerns he would receive a “reminder” to not go against his bosses. Such reminders varied based on the mood his boss was in. Sometimes it would be a sharp smack across the cheek. Other times it would be a bite from an Arbok. No matter the “reminder,” Maxie didn’t want to deal with it. He wanted nothing more than to quit, but his bosses had made it very apparent that quitting wasn’t an option. Well, it was to a dead man.

The world was cruel and scary, but Team Rocket was much crueler and scarier. After months of dealing with such abuse, Maxie has learned to tone things out around him and simply try to conduct his work. The desperate mews from caged Skitties awaiting their deathbed just so Team Rocket could turn their tails and fur into profit were tuned out as he made his way to his lab each and every day.

Dragging himself into work proved to be interesting for once. The rut he was stuck in seemed to be the same day after day, but on this day there was some water thrown into his rut. The sleek tiled floor has splashes of water heading in the direction of his lab. He could only assume that the janitor really fucked up with his job this morning.

That didn’t seem to be the case.

After swiping his key card to enter his lab, he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw a few black clad grunts, white coated scientists, and a green haired executive all gathered around the tank where they kept the unfortunate water types. The water was murky, making it impossible to see what they all were looking at. The sound of the door opening had caught the executive’s attention. Proton turned around and gestured for Maxie to join him. Maxie obediently obliged, curiously looking at the tank himself.

“We got a little surprise for you and your crew, Maxie,” Proton explained. “We found this…thing when a few of the grunts went searching for Clampearl pearls. I’ve never seen a Pokemon like it. In fact, I don’t even think that it’s a Pokemon.”

As the executive talked, Maxie saw movement in the murky water but still couldn’t make out what was in it.

“That’s where you come in. I know you hold a special interest in mythology, so try and figure this one out. See what this thing is good for and let me know asap.” Proton patted Maxie on the back and ordered the grunts from his crew to follow him out.

That explanation wasn’t the least bit helpful, but Maxie knew better than to put up a fight. It was useless since the executive didn’t know an ounce of sign language and Maxie didn’t feel like wasting his notebook paper. The less he had to see his boss, the better.

With the crowd gone, Maxie examined the tank a little further. Now he could see a silhouette behind the glass. It looked human-like. Cautiously, he pressed his hand against the cool glass and quickly jumped back when he felt a thud come from the other side. For a brief moment he caught sight of the creature. It was very human-like. Digits similar fingers pressed up against the glass, but unlike human hands, they were webbed. Webbed and rather scaly. Scaly like the rest of its skin. Before it went back into the depth of the narrow tank, Maxie caught sight of what he assumed to be dark blue eyes.

Maxie didn’t know what this thing was. He didn’t even know why Proton had assigned this thing to him. He hated water creatures, but…he would be lying if he said that he weren’t intrigued.

And thus the research began. The research proved to be as fruitless as a harvest in winter due to the lack of mobility they had with the tank. Maxie could barely even see the creature half the time. He made a request to get a larger, more accessible tank, and to his surprise, his request was approved. They must have really wanted to get some use out of this creature if they were willing to put investments into it.

One day, his normal rut was interrupted again. This time, Proton stood in front of his laboratory door. “Well Maxie, since we like you enough, we were merciful enough to grant your wish. Follow me.”

Raising a curious brow, Maxie followed Proton down the hall into the restricted area labs. Labs where he always heard the most horrible of noises. Labs that he never wanted to step foot in. “Swipe your card,” he ordered once he stopped in front of one of the doors. “I want to make sure we gave your ID access to this one.”

Maxie nodded. He tucked his sacked lunch under his arm so he could grab his card and swipe it on the card pad, hearing the confirming click of the lock moving. Proton moved inside while Maxie followed behind, albeit a little hesitantly. The room was nothing worthwhile, but the treasure lied at the end of the room. A large tank sat there. The walls came up to around Maxie’s hip but something told him that it was deeper than it let on. Almost as if he were in a trance, Maxie walked past Proton and looked curiously over the water.

“I’ll leave you be,” said the executive. “The rest of your crew will arrive shortly.” With that being said, the man left.

The only sounds in the room came from the water running through the filter. He sat down everything in his arms on the cool tile floor and took a few cautious steps closer to the water. What in the world was he supposed to do? Rolling up the sleeves to his white lab coat, he patted the water before quickly pulling his hand back. Looks like stupid ideas really did produce stupid results.

He looked around the room for anything that could help him out. He wanted to see the creature, but he also wanted to be humane about it. No poking, no prodding, no stabbing. That knocked out literally everything in the room.

Everything except for a tasty lunch.

It was worth a shot, Maxie figured. He opened his sacked lunch and rummaged through the items in it. Since he didn’t know what the creature’s diet held other than fish Pokemon, Maxie figured his safest bet lied in berries. Fortunately, he had a plastic baggie of oran berries.

Figuring that it was best to start off small, Maxie placed a single berry on the edge of the tank before taking a step back, waiting with baited breath for the creature to make a move. Minutes ticked by and Maxie was beginning to believe it was hopeless, but finally, he watched as a head poked out from the surface of the water. The creature was unlike anything he had ever seen before. Blue, scaly skin covered his face and long, ragged fins were where its ears were supposed to be. On the middle of his face was a faded scar in the shape of an “X”. For such a fish like creature, the fact it had a head of hair as well as what looked like a beard completely threw Maxie off. He had only assumed the murky water of its previous tank was playing tricks on him. The creature looked at the berry before catching sight of Maxie. It grabbed the berry before sinking back down into the water.

It was hard to say what kind of hell the creature has been through within the past few weeks. Maxie always tried to keep it well taken care of in his care, but he couldn’t say the same for his co-workers. Taking another step toward the tank, he left another berry on the side of the tank and backed away. After another few minutes, the creature emerged, took the berry, and sank back down into the safety of the water.

Maxie repeated this process, noting that after the fifth round the creature didn’t immediately sink back into the water. Instead, there was a moment where the creature simply looked at him with curiosity before sinking back down into the water. Those moments became longer and longer, but every time Maxie tried to take a step further, the creature would hide away.

Finally, after placing the last berry on the side of the tank, Maxie didn’t back away. Instead, he leaned against the cool metal, waiting for the creature to emerge. Without being a disappointment, the creature poked his head out from the depths of the water and stared at Maxie. It was hesitant, but it slowly scooted closer and closer to the edge of the tank.

Maxie could feel his heart pound frantically against his chest. There was a very high possibility of the creature attacking him, pulling him down into the depths of the water just to turn him into a meal.

But it didn’t. It took the berry and plopped it into its mouth, revealing overly sharp teeth. Instead of sinking back down, the creature swam closer to Maxie. It took every ounce of self control to not instinctively back away. This wasn’t a Pokemon. It couldn’t be. It was something else. Something more unique.

Something Team Rocket was desperate to either sell or abuse.

Looking into those dark blue eyes, surrounded by inky darkness instead of white like a human’s, Maxie did see some humanity in there.

Human or not, Maxie had has it with Team Rocket’s shit.

The door opened again and the creature sank back into the sanctuary of the water. Instead of turning his head to see who had arrived, Maxie stared at the water, longing for the creature to come back.

This was one creature that he refused to let Team Rocket to torture, he decided.

They both were going to escape. They were going to escape and rid themselves from Team Rocket.

#awesome anon #hardenshipping #i know its not amazing but its something #im used to writing long chapter stories #not little excerpts

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ghostmartyr · 5 years ago

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Pokémon SoulSilver Randomized Nuzlocke [Part 2]

Standard Nuzlocke rules apply

Non-standard rule of only being allowed to catch something if it has a Type in common with the most recent thing you caught applies

Randomizer only touches wild pokemon; everything NPCs have remains the same.

So far, we have the first badge, and just caught our first official teammate for our starter. He is Fludd the Whiscash, to accompany Chance the Dewgong. Next pokemon has to be Water or Ground.

May I have the good fortune of finding one.

Fludd is Gentle and alert to sounds. He doesn’t have much in the ways of experience or moves yet, but we will soon see to changing that.

Route 33 has Shuckle! Adorable!

Fludd’s only offensive move being Mud-Slap is proving a trial of patience.

Wild Bastiodon appears. This is the route of tanks.

We’ve talked to Kurt, kicking off the Rocket plot of this section, and I think once Fludd is 10 or 11 we’ll continue down the Slowpoke Well. Where there will be non-Slowpoke things waiting for us.

I really just want Fludd to know something better than Mud-Slap.

..Water Gun is not terrible. Helps that the route I have chosen for training is beset by constant rain. Every single Shuckle having Berry Juice is not on the list of things that help anything except Shuckle delaying the inevitable.

I lied. Fludd is 13 before we start thinking about other things.

My current other thing is going to be Ilex Forest instead of the Rocket plot.

For reasons of pretty.

We find a Charizard!

That is very much not Water or Ground.

Cyndaquil is not Water or Ground either.

Hey, Fludd learned Mud Bomb. Yay.

Okay, fine. I guess we can save the Slowpokes if we really have to.

I love how as technology advances, video games get to be prettier. It makes me happy in my feelings places.

I also love how Kurt really doesn’t do anything. He tries. Then he falls and can’t get up. Then we go in and do the job he wanted to do.

Mawile is down here. Nothing I can do there.

The Grunts go down like Grunts, and then it’s Proton time!

Proton!

That guy!

He’s got... aquamarine hair! That’s like a personality!

Fludd beats him down, too. Party as it stands is Fludd at 16, Chance at 20, and Sleet and Cloud at 5. With only Fludd and Chance really counting as full party members. That will change slightly when I need something to Cut stuff.

Which will be right after we deal with this Gym.

-many weeks later-

-cough-

Anyway, Gym!

This will mostly be Fludd’s show, since he could use the levels. If anything happens to know Absorb, we’re bailing, but he should mostly be okay.

Upgraded Gym aesthetics are always good.

Almost as good as playing a Pokemon game without feeling compelled to give every single fight full play-by-play detail. Assume if I magically teleport through the plot that I did everything perfectly and expertly. All a result of my personal talent, not overleveling my precious pokemon in hopes of keeping them from dying from my stupidity.

Oh heck, whoops. One of the pre-Leader battles is a double.

Sleet is in the second slot.

Let’s not.

Good news! Sleet is still level 5. She still appears to be a casual passerby of this party, not an official member. This matters.

Bugsy looks so happy. Good for him.

(Unlike some Johto Gym Leaders.)

This will be more entertaining later in the game, but I think Pikasprey has brought up how this region’s Gym Leaders really are the most irresponsible about their job title.

Ultimately, Chance will take out Bugsy’s Scyther. Because it’s level 17. Like Fludd. And U-turn apparently really, really hurts.

No, Chance, you may not learn Rest. You’re a starting party member. That means you have nothing but attacks, and we compensate for our lack of strategy with levels.

Badge get!

But suddenly....!

-zooms through the battle at the speed of sound-

Good job, team!

Now we get to do a Farfetch’d puzzle that I am absolutely not terrible at.

Glory to Cut. Which we will be unceremoniously dumping on Cloud. Hi Cloud. This is your team. This is your role in it. Thank you for your contribution.

Oh.

Huh.

You’re part Water, aren’t you?

tfw I can actually catch something in Ilex Forest. Maybe I even will.

CAUGHT!

New member of the team, your name is now Downpour! Downpour is Quirky and highly curious, and we already love him. Even with the inevitable switch training about to go down.

We’re all just so happy that this place has been given level 6 Charizard to mine.

The truly nice part about being such a disaster in playing this part consistently is that Kurt gives me free balls. What, you forgot to play for a month? Your reward is not knowing what’s going on! Also free catching tools! You Win!

I also think that me being aware of EVs is the worst thing that ever happened to my enjoyment of pokemon playthroughs. I’m just left looking at wild level 6 Charizards with Sp. Atk signs in my eyes. What do those look like? The world may never know, but they are now part of my balanced breakfast.

Also, Nature Power becomes Rock Slide in Ilex Forest.

Downpour is going to be the most overhyped Special Attacker of its kind.

Assuming I ever find a Water Stone.

This is one of those changes from the originals that I’ve never fully understood or cared for. Except at the end of the day, I am a complete sucker for people you’ve helped along your journey all reuniting and recalling what you’ve done for them.

I just really miss the Eeveelution coolness of their dance hall.

And I don’t know why this one needed any help at all. Is that a lore thing? Are all your interactions with them just secret character tests?

Downpour is 19, which feels like good enough for venturing into Goldenrod. I really shouldn’t be living the life of mindlessly murdering wild Charizard for EVs for hours on end. Let’s just try to put a cap on it.

Forbidden Day-Care lore.

Lyra’s grandmother ships us. Awk.

I’m accepting everyone’s number in this. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that before, but unlike in the originals, I don’t think there’s a limit on numbers on your phone, so might as well hoard them up.

Geez I feel old.

Vote now on which NPC pokemon person gets to stay in your phonebook. Maybe if you’re lucky you won’t abandon the one who hands out random evolution stones. :)

Oh, hello. I can catch you.

Do I want to? I’d be back to Water/Ice, and right now I have the option of picking up a Grass thing somewhere along the way... hm.

On the other hand.

Cloyster is cool.

POKE BALL, GO!

Damn it, poke ball.

Heavy Ball?

Damn it, Heavy Ball.

And now I am out of Great Balls.

Poke Ball. How do you feel about a redemption arc.

The Poke Ball declines. I have one Fast Ball, and one Heavy Ball. The odds of me getting a new friend out of this are dwindling. The route’s death appears to be at hand.

One Fast Ball.

Yeah, it breaks out.

Okay, Downpour. Kill the non-friend.

With Chance’s help, because the non-friend knew Supersonic.

Bye, Route 34. You’re dead now, and I need to buy catching tools before I forget and meeting my next friend turns awkward.

Whatever. I have a bike now.

Failing basic trivia is my favorite part of each Pokemon game.

PSYCH I WON.

My prize is a Radio Card, but the real prize is getting Whitney back inside her Gym. Where I can now battle her if I so choose. If I want to progress in the game. Her Miltank is waiting.

So we’re just going to do literally everything else we can, except not literally; these games have too many things, and I’m not getting distracted by Voltorb Flip.

...What does Nature Power actually do? Because Downpour has been spotted using Rock Slide, Earthquake, and now Tri Attack through it. It’s becoming a staple of his kit. I don’t think I’ve ever bothered using it before. I was under the impression is was always Swift?

Or is that Nature’s Gift? That’s a thing, right?

Bleh. Fighting first, looking up vitally helpful information later.

The grass has Hitmontop. Not Grass or Water, so it must die.

Wait what the heck. I was out innocently Headbutting trees, why are you here?

This is intensely awkward. My usual mode with these things is that something only fits the requirement of my Nuzlocke team if it’s been Randomized, and for whatever reason, the randomness doesn’t touch Headbutt encounters. Exeggcute is part Grass, but it is not Randomized. Sleet and Cloud are more proper team candidates.

I’m just going to say that Headbutting doesn’t count for a route’s encounter. This run isn’t intended to be overly difficult (this is not the grindlocke); the aim is fun, and I have more fun not using the standard encounters for the game.

What I’m saying is the Exeggcute dies.

(I’m just never going to be able to get a Psychic Type in this.)

My thing at the moment is beating up pokemon in the wild because I’m not sure how to deal with Whitney. Stress-grinding. Chance can’t fight the Miltank. Rollout against Ice sounds like a nightmare. But Chance is also the only female on the team, and my teams have terrible luck in love, which Whitney like exploiting.

Fludd doesn’t really have moves. Water Pulse is nice, but Mud Slap is his only other attack. Downpour is theoretically a cool option, but I don’t know what Nature Power does in the Gym. These kiddos do not have movesets that play well together. Tickle spam would be ideal, but Fludd doesn’t have a physical attack. Only Chance does, and there we have the Rollout problem.

This team could have some nice synergy (for once I almost think I might want to have someone with Rain Dance), but right now they just don’t know enough, and I do not like heading into Whitney this way.

So let us continue to explore the countryside in hopes that a solution is found.

Yanmega is not Grass or Water. Neither is Pikachu.

RIOLU.

You’re not, either.

Neither is the Zubat in the next route. Bonsly looks like it should be, and yet. Volbeat is a nope.

You, on the other hand.

Okay okay okay. Downpour. Do not ruin this for us. I know you want to kill it. We can feel it in your heart. However, we could use a friend. We could use another link in our chain.

...Actually, Fludd, how about you lend a hand with this.

SHARPEDO GET!

I dub thee Hurricane. Hurricane is Modest (dang it) and alert to sounds.

To use, or not to use. That is the question. Physical attacker? Good. Yet another pokemon with a generic shrug at the difference between physical and special? Hm.

I think Hurricane is a reserve. If we’re leveling you, little guy, it’ll be a bit later. We’re happy to have you, but you don’t fix anything well enough that I think I want to train you up just yet.

On to the park. Where the Dunsparce lurk. More Smoochum. Zubat.

I found a Dig TM. That might go to Fludd. ..Or is Fludd going to learn Dig naturally? Fludd will learn Magnitude in a few. I can wait. I don’t remember if this gen allows multiple uses of TMs or not. I could look that up, but effort.

Er. On that subject, though... internet, where can has Water Stone?

“ Johto: National Park (Come 1st in Bug Catching Contest), Route 42 (PokéGear Phonecall) “

Uh.

Oh no?

Wait!

“ Johto: Pokeathlon Dome“

Hope.

Yikes. I wanted to avoid that, having no touch screen, but Downpour, I’m not abandoning you so easily. We’re a team, man. A team. We’ll get you your usefulness.

Welp, I’ve defeated all the trainers I can.

I guess.

It’s time.

Downpour is level 24, Chance is 25, and Fludd is 23. Fludd’s going to be taking the early parts in the interest of balance. For Whitney herself... I really don’t know. I’ll play it by feel. I do want to make sure Downpour uses Nature Power before that fight, though. I don’t want to go in without knowing what it does.

It does Tri Attack in here.

...Yeah, I’m looking it up. What the heck does Nature Power actually do? Besides use moves that are strongly connected with things occurring in nature?

Finding the gen four version is too much trouble. Let’s just proceed knowing limited amounts. Yay for Tri Attack.

-makes an unhappy face best represented by toddlers-

One Clefairy and one Miltank.

This is not a scary thing.

See? Fludd already massacred the Clefairy.

This is fine. It will be fine.

Fludd stop flinching.

Aaaaaand there’s the Attract. The Miltank’s been using Stomp only, so it should be safe for Chance to go in and get a few hits. Fludd used Tickle a few times to counteract the Stomp being annoying.

Chance. Sweetie.

Stop. fucking. flinching.

FUCK YOU AND YOUR SUPER POTIONS, WHITNEY.

YES. IT’S DEAD.

YOU ARE NOT THE ONE WHO SHOULD BE CRYING HERE. MY SOUL IS IN DESPAIR, WHITNEY. YOU AND YOUR STUPID MILTANK. EVEN WHEN IT ISN’T USING ROLLOUT.

I sort of ship the flunky that tells you not to worry, Whitney will give you your badge after she stops crying--with Whitney. Just because. I spend a great deal of time in my Pokemon playing shipping random NPCs.

Pokeathlon opened, time to. grind for the Water Stone.

If my memory of this is correct, before you beat the Elite Four, there’s a different evolution stone available for purchase each day. Today’s is a Moon Stone.

Oh, this is going to be hell!

tfw you remember the Jump course being the kindest so pick it but none of your team is actually good at jumping so you’ve got to bring in the reserves.

Hurricane, Cloud, Sleet? Your time is now.

...

These games are not meant to be played on a touchpad.

Yikes.

Oh my fucking gosh this is hell do not want.

Well.

I lost.

Yay for 325 points.

LET’S KEEP GOING, SHALL WE????

Where’s my mouse...

Let’s try Power on for size. Chance, Downpour, Fludd, go for it.

Oh look I lost.

Downpour, you better appreciate how much I love you.

LOOK WE WON THE STAMINA ONE.

I’m not documenting this further. Know that I am miserable, and this is not meant, in any way, to be played with a mouse. The levels of unfortunate are everlasting and I am sad.

-the next day-

I have to wait another day for a Water Stone, but I have enough for it, so now we can move on to fun things. Like the game. The game. Which is fun.

tfw Jirachi is secretly an odd tree.

Route 37, have ye any Water or Dark?

Chimchar, you are found lacking.

Ah crud.

Totodile is not lacking, but I really don’t think catching it is a good idea. Pure Water locks me into Water. We might end up there anyway, but I’m not in such a hurry to commit just yet. I can kill a route to keep some variety alive.

Sorry, Totodile. :(

Ecruteak means Bill, which means I could go back to Goldenrod and find out what his Eevee has become. Let’s do that before we think about anything fancy like plot progression.

Sleet, into the box with you. Maybe you’ll come back if I don’t like whatever Bill’s offering.

Carnivine. Interesting. Uh. How about... Drizzle? Drizzle. Cool. And. Uh. Sleet. You’re staying in the box. Sorry, but level 5 things that are filling out party count are really just going to end up as very sad sacrifices. We’re avoiding that for now.

-another day passes-

(without me getting balls from Kurt, whoops)

WE DID IT.

Now to find out that Downpour’s spending another twenty levels not needing it because moves matter more than stats. To the internet.

...Oh.

Oh, Downpour.

Oh, no.

You, uh.

Kiddo, you’re going to be needing some help as we move forward.

But the good news is that means we’re evolving you now! Yay! Power boost! You go, you funky little duck frog thing.

Maximum cuteness achieved.

That’s a good stopping point for this round, I think.

#Pokemon #Nuzlocke #Nuzlocke Challenge #playthrough

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maguneedsalife · 6 years ago

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WonFes Postmortem

Alright yall remember the bingo card I made a few days ago for my wonfes hopes?

turns out I did pretty good!!!

I did kinda shoot myself in the foot by dedicating a whole row to non-garage kit Granblue figures but... Granblue represents a pretty significant chunk of what I care about these days lmao. (Some optimistic part of me wonders if they’re holding off gbf figure announcements until the 5th anniversary in a few weeks...)

While there were many announcements/updates I was happily surprised by, there were a few things I’d been rly hoping to see but didn’t.... namely, a kotobukiya scale figure of Dawn. They’ve done all the girl protags except Dawn and Crys so far; since I don’t really think they’re going to make one of Crys at this point, I was hoping we’d finally get Dawn... alas, Koto’s big Pokemon announcement this wonfes was.... Professor Oak??? To say I’m disappointed would be the understatement of the century tbh!!!!! (like, I get it, I get why they went with Oak. Kanto hype is big rn and his voice actor just died recently. I get it. I’m still REALLY mad that they skipped Dawn)

Disappointments aside, we had some pretty big winners this wonfes!!! As usual, here’s my highlights:

Announcements

There were some pretty huge announcements this time around!! Figma and Nendoroid Goro Akechi are all a fangirl could really hope for, and I’m really, really happy to see that GSC decided to make the whole main party in P5 (esp considering they’ve skimped on persona figures before... no, I am still not over never getting P4 protag). I may be considering quitting figmas, but I may also get the Akechi one for my Joker, who knows? Nendo Akechi is gonna be an insta-buy though holy shit.

Also... all 12 Hypmic boys were announced as nendoroids!! I actually had a vague premonition a few weeks ago that we’d get Hypmic figures this wonfes but not like this!!!!! (I put Jakurai on my highlights bc he’s the only one I care about)

I put down nendo Amaterasu not bc I’m personally interested in it, but I have friends who were really excited about it. Also, I am kinda curious how they’re going to make a nendoroid out of a wolf!

Finally, I’m really glad that GSC could announce a Mutsunokami nendo with a prototype already made ;u; that swordboy deserves more love

Unpainted Prototypes

I mentioned Mutsu already, but I was also happy with a lot of the unpainted prototypes revealed this wonfes. (Not listed here were nendoroid Ann, nendoroid Hachisuka, and another scale figure of Arthur Pendragon; also cool, but not quite highlight tier). I’m glad nendoroid Mai-senpai is coming out so cute! And of course, I was pleasantly surprised to see Goodsmile shouting shuake rights with their photo of the Crow and Joker scales together. I prob won’t be buying them (I don’t like the poses that much) but I’m glad to see GSC is starting to realize that if you put the ships together, the fangirls will come in droves.

The most important prototype on this list though - Flare’s Oswald emerges from the ether after almost 3 years of silence!!! Unfortunately I’m now long past the point of caring enough about Odin Sphere to buy him (thats what you get for taking so long flare) but I’m still happy to see he hasn’t been forgotten or canceled.

Painted Prototypes

aaaand here’s where more of the heavy hitters come in. Romani was in a similar boat as Oswald (wonfes after wonfes passing without a single update after the announcement) so I’m happy to see him done and painted!! He’s cuter than I was prepared for!!

Ozymandias was bound to be a winner after his unpainted prototype was shown off at Animate Girls Fest last fall, and it looks like Megahouse knocked it out of the park this time too! He’s so handsome!!!! His pose is absolutely killer, and the paint is amazing.

Speaking of amazing paint... Altair’s Merlin is out here looking like a goddamn dream!!! I wasn’t going to buy him bc I have the nendoroid already, but scale Merlin’s hair came out so beautiful.... It really brings out the ephemeral quality of Merlin as a character. I might have to start putting money away in anticipation of his undoubtedly high price.......

I’d been considering swearing off scales for a while after I preordered Altair’s Arthur, but these three have made me deeply reconsider!!!!

Other highlights: Nendoroid Yusuke looks really good!! And I had to include the noodle-sitting Nitocris bc she’s just so cute!!! nito might be the closest thing I have to a fate wife

All in all, it was a pretty successful wonfes for me!! Lots to look forward to and be excited about and save up for. I probably won’t buy everything on my highlights list, but nendo Jakurai and Akechi are definitely winners, and I’ll likely end up buying one of those fate scales too... or all of them....

#anime toys #get off the computer ren

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ick25 · 7 years ago

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Rockman.EXE Episode 16 Review.

Is this foreshadowing?

Hallelujah!

We start the episode with Netto walking around, completely blindfolded.

Looks like something spontaneus because not even Rockman Knows why is he doing this.

We get a flashback of last episode where Enzan and Blues perform the Program Advance back when Count Elec did his static trick.

Back to Netto’s blindfolded walk, Rockman tries to help him but it only results in this funny scene.

And that is why Rockman is the Navi and not the operator, also, I have to point out the lazy animation, right at the start I can tell the animation for this episode is gonna be low quality.

After Netto falls on his back like a turtle, Rockman reminds him that Meiru and Tohru’s battle is about to start, which was mention in the last episode. The match begins and we see Tohru’s un-official plug-in secuense.

And we get a stand off between Roll and Iceman, who will win?

The first two of many mistakes we will find in this episode.

After the title card appears, we get a description of both challengers. I am loving Roll’s picture.

Followed by.. Tohru’s sad picture.

Again, Tohru?! Does your father hit you or something? Because that’s what everybody’s gonna think when they see your picture!

Mariko-sensei wishes both of them good luck, Masa takes out his special flag, Yaito and Dekao start talking about who will win, and Netto manages to arrive just in time.

Now we start the battle with Roll moving first.

EAT CANDY HEARTS! I dont remember this part from the dub, though.

Iceman avoids her hearts and shoots a snow crystal at her, which she evades gracefully.

Meiru decides to send the Aqua tower battle chip with the same beautiful animation for Roll from episode 8, and Iceman tries to counter it by summoning his ice pillars from episode 6.

This is what happens when two recycled animations collide.

Tohru decides to send the Ice cube or Ice block (Im not sure anymore) and Meiru sends the triple lance chip, which results in a draw.

As everyone is focused on the battle, Netto doesn’t seem too invested for he is busy practicing the Program Advance with Rockman. Hey, his mullet is back! XD

That’s mistake number three.

After this, we cut to the training room where two Net Navis are practicing for their next battles.

The Navis talk about how they are gonna defeat their opponents who are... Bombman and Stoneman? Poor guys.

However, they wont have the chance to even fight them since said Navis suddently appear to take them out.

Let’s cut back to the epic battle that is Roll vs Iceman.

They seem evenly matched and everybody talks about how the battle might end on a tie. They both get up again, as Tohru tells Iceman to prepare to use his Blizzard attack, Meiru sends, what I imagine is another rare chip Yaito gave her, the Cyclone chip.

Which makes Roll start spinning for some reason.

The Cyclone is a variation of the Typhoon virus we saw in the last episode, which might confirm my theory of Virus chips and Battle chips having the same name.

It’s a face off between Iceman’s Blizzard and Roll’s Cyclone!

This literally stops time with everybody, who cares about this match, waiting in suspense.

How will physics play out in this battle?

Like this, the Cyclone returns the blizzard to Iceman who freezes, resulting on the emo looking Tohru losing the battle. Iceman has been ICED!

The battle ends and Tohru congratulates Meiru for her victory. Oh look, Enzan was watching the battle too, does he have anything to say about it?

Or he can just ignore it and focus on these mysterious looking giants on the hallway. To be honest, after seeing Enzan’s giant bodyguards, I don’t find their hight weird at all, maybe that means they’re either Americans or Europeons.

We cut to mistake number four with Roll’s hair gone, as everybody praises Meiru and Tohru for their battle.

Except for Netto who is still doing the Program Advance air training.

Midorikawa announces the next two battles with the two strange operators, one in the main “flower” dome and the other in the “micro” sub dome, for what I can see from these layouts, the crowd is either really tiny or none existing!

Their Navis happen to be Bombman and Stoneman! We get full shots of both Navis resulting on consistant mistake number five, Bombman’s eyes are purple when they are suppoused to be red.

I say consistant since this happens a lot throughout the episode, so I better count this as one.

Midorikawa tells the audience that Bombman and Stoneman’s opponents have not appear yet, resulting in both Navis winning by default.

Its Drill Mach! Not Drillman! There is already a Drillman. EXE

Now that I think about it, how does one trademark their Navi’s Name? Does the internet tell you when a certain name is taken?

Anyway, Bombman and Stoneman win by default and Midorikawa says that they remain unbeaten, this not only confuses Netto, but Mahajarama tells the other World Three operators that they are probably the new Navis sent by Dr.Wily.

After commercials, we see the WWW operators having lunch outside the dome, complaning about these new operators whom they know nothing about. And I’m just focused on the weird hairdo of the little girl running in the background.

Wouldn’t it be akward if Netto just suddenly appear and see them all together like this and accusing them to be the World Three in front of everyone? But Netto is in the training room practicing the program advance with Rockman while blindfolded, however, something seems wrong because after the official animation for the program advance (in a completely different background BTW) Rockman falls backwards.

I’m gonna count that background fail as mistake number six.

Rockman tells Netto that there isn’t enough room, but Netto says that he is just too distracted by Bombman and Stoneman being unbeaten.

I found mistake number seven!

Netto tells Rockman that Higure-san said that all of Bombman and Stoneman’s opponents were attacked before their matches, making both of them very suspicious.

Dekao comes in to tell Netto that the pairings for the upcoming tagged matches are going to be announced. Meanwhile, Higure is trying to get an interview from the huge operators, but they end up destroying his mic leaving him terrified.

Netto and Dekao happend to see this and decide to follow the mysterious netops, who attemp to murder them by throwing them off the second floor.

Okay, there is water below, but turns out Dekao doesn’t know how to swim, and Netto does the mistake of trying to help him from the front.

Which is kind of weird because fat people are suppose to float easily, but it looks like he was just exaggerating since they stop splashing after Saloma appears to help them out.

FYI, when trying to help somebody who is drowning, never aproach from the front! Always grab them from behind or else they will take you down too.

Anyway, Saloma tells them that she is paired up with Dekao and, by the power of super plot conviniense, are gonna fight against Bombman and Stoneman.

Its Bombman, not Bomberman!

I didn’t even now he was in the tournament.

We start the first match of the tag team battles with Saloma’s first plug-in sequence.

Now its time for the mystery operators to plug-in.

HOLY COW, THEY CAN TALK!

We start the battle with Saloma telling Dekao that Woodman will fight Stoneman, so Gutsman charges at Bombman and starts punching him. Woodman uses some vines to inmobilized Stoneman, something I had no idea he could do.

Dekao then sends a Battle Chip to Gutsman which he calls by the wrong name.

This doesn’t do anything to Bombman, and Stoneman frees himself from Woodman’s vines. The two Navis tell their opponents that they will never be able to move them, making Meiru cheer for Dekao for once.

I don’t ship them but this is cute.

Dekao sends the same exact battle chip from before but this time with the right name, so I’m gonna count the scene from before as mistake number eight.

Gutsman uses the Guts Hammer but Bombman blocks it with a barrier, and Woodman summons wood towers only for Stoneman to break them as easy as breaking a toothpick.

During this, Netto tells Yaito that there is something strange going on with the mystery operators since they haven’t move since the battle started, which Miyuki, Enzan and Mahajarama noticed as well.

In fact, Mahajarama uses an insane Alakazam psychic move to prove his theory to the other World Three members.

Mahajarama is a POKEMON! That’s why he can use Teleport! O0O

How can you see that from up there?!

Higure tells her that they are not plugging out and Enzan figures out the truth.

Who said that? Did Netto hear Enzan say that just now? HOW?!

Stoneman and Bombman, with another shot of Bombman’s purple eyes, reveal the identity of the operators before the whole audience.

They are Robots! What is even happening right now?!

Turns out Stoneman and Bombman are completely independant Net Navis, which means that they don’t need operators to battle or plug them in. Which raises the question of how they even manage to enter the tournament in the first place. Maybe the staff is even more incompetant than I thought.

Gutsman and Woodman decide to attack again, but Bombman and Stoneman are just too much for them and end up beating them easily.

Still counting the purple eyes as one.

Gutsman and Woodman are forced to log out, and Bombman and Stoneman declare that Sharkman and Rockman won’t stand a chance, spoiler alert!

The next tag battle is Netto teaming up with Commander Beef, who suddenly appears next to him.

This is followed by Yaito’s remark of the Commander feeling familiar.

Huh, he helped you get rid of the fire viruses back in episode 13, remember?

So Netto ends the episode staring at his future opponents, determined to beat them.

My thoughts?

This episode would feel like a huge filler if it wasn’t because it introduced Bombman and Stoneman, although we already saw them back in episode 14, their names were still a mystery. Anyone who played the game know that Bombman and Stoneman were World Three Navis, but there was no mention of them having operators, so the anime kept it that way by making them the first independant Navis.

The animation for this episode was very low quality since it featured a lot of miscolors and mistakes, shots were reused and others were added, and I’m not talking about the dub, this is to save money in the animation.

If you follow me on Deviantart you would know that I call the art style for this episode “Simple”, because it is usually found in episodes that don’t require a lot of movement and the action sequenses are kinda slow.

An example of this style being used was in episode nine, which also featured some minor animation mistakes.

For the dub version, Roll throwing her hearts at Iceman was cutted for some reason, and for the dialogue change, the scene where Yaito talks about the Commander feeling familiar was changed to her noticing that Masa was gone, which makes more sense since he was sitting above them.

#Rockman.exe #MegaMan NT Warrior #megaman battle network #anime #dub vs sub #my reviews

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jspernst-blog · 7 years ago

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[ THIS IS QUEUED -- i’m most likely still sleeping ] mic check one two, is this thing working?? hi hey hello, i’m bunny -- i’m currently an unemployed, lazy twenty-three year old, and i go by she/her pronouns. i’m so excited to be here and i can’t wait to read all about the characters in this group, as well as write with you all! here’s my son, jasper -- he’s a new contradicting muse, so i’m still working bits and bobs for him. under the cut are some information about him, and i just want to apologize how shitty they’re written and how carried away i got. they’re literally word vomit tbh lmao dfhiaud i probably forgot a few things to add but that’s okie dokes!

anyway, if you’d like to plot, don’t hesitate to message me or you can like this and i’ll pop into your ims!! just a heads up that i get excited easily, and i tend to go wild with hcs when i plot so tell me to stop whenever you get annoyed please iuhdfiusdhfusd

hold on a second — is that BLAKE STEVEN i saw working on the sunny bay ship recently? oh wait, i was mistaken as it was actually JASPER ERNST, a CISMALE who is TWENTY-THREE years old and is an intern as a SINGER. i heard when they’re not on the ship they’re studying MUSIC INDUSTRY MANAGEMENT AND ARTIST DEVELOPMENT which sounds pretty awesome! they are often described by their friends as QUICK-WITTED and DEBONAIR but also RETICENT and VOLATILE which means they are often labelled as THE FERVOUR. i can’t wait to see what they have to offer on the ship!

CHARACTER INFORMATION —

TW: DEATH MENTION, DROWNING

001. BASICS / Jasper Harris Ernst, twenty-three, Australian-German, born and raised in Melbourne, Australia. Currently studying Music Industry Management and Artist Development; aesthetically (both vibe and music) a mixture of Alex Turner from the Arctic Monkeys and Jesse Rutherford – his voice sounding similar to the latter

002. FAMILY BACKGROUND / Born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, Jasper’s parents grew up together in the same neighborhood and were the perfect example of childhood best friends turned into lovers. Both Australian (his father being half German), they had their own complicated, rollercoaster-like timeline of growing up together and watching the other fall in and out of love with other people; only to realize they’ve been emotionally unavailable for one another upon reaching the end of their college year. They eventually tied the knot after their university years, building up their perfect and small-knitted family together - creating a family of three (excluding small numbers of extended families). While they weren’t exactly filthy rich, and though money was tight on certain days, the three of them lived happily and comfortably together with the love they surrounded themselves by. They were pretty much the average family on the street and share an awfully close bond with their extended families which can be quite troublesome and dramatic at times.

003. AN ABRUPT CHANGE FROM PERFECT ( DEATH MENTION TW) / Valentine’s Day is nothing but a curse to Jasper Ernst, for the meaning and the word “perfect” to describe the life he was living in, dissolved and erased itself from his vocabulary on February 14. He was with his grandparents on the night it all happened – his head tilted upwards, his wide eyes no longer on the building blocks and his enormous Hot Wheels collection; but instead, it was on the eyes that reflected admiration and care, as well as the wholehearted smiles that managed to brighten the features of his grandparents who were still ridiculously madly in love for one another at an age like theirs. Their shadows hovered above the surface of the carpet he was sitting on as they danced to Frank Sinatra’s Fly Me To The Moon. Jasper, despite being just five, was sure of himself that he knew what the word “Love” meant that night; nevermind the cooties, Frank Sinatra (the one name that took him almost a week or two to properly and correctly pronounce) must have to know what he was talking about when he sang his heart out about wanting to hold hands and kiss – at least, his grandfather did (very poorly, but sweetly) to the love of his life, which was close enough in his opinion. But happiness, that night especially, didn’t last.

Bright smiles on faces were replaced with loud cries and a sorry police officer at the front door of Jasper’s grandparent’s house. They were rushing to the hospital before he knew it, phone calls were made on their way there – one that was awfully hard to understand by the sound of his grandmother weeping, unable to catch her breath. He thought, during all that chaos, maybe it was better if he mentally recited his multiplication he had just been taught at school – a way to perhaps cheer up his worried grandmother and stop her from crying, but his heart was beating way too hard to focus, his fingers subconsciously fiddling with his seatbelts.

004. IT’S OKAY (DEATH MENTION TW) / Learning about the death of his parents (caused by a horrific car crash) was hard to understand – harder than his grandparents breaking the news to him. He wanted to trade his Hot Wheels collection and Pokemon cards then – for “a trip to heaven, if it’s possible,” were his exact words, his fingers twitching and the weight of his foot shuffling from left to right, as if they were ready to head upstairs to grab what could be his ticket to see his parents in a second if anyone ever said the word. But it wasn’t easy like that. He didn’t cry – he made sure that he didn’t in front of his grandmother, at least. He likes to think that he understood the telepathic message his grandfather was sending him through bloodshot eyes. He knew his grandmother cried about enough on her way to and back from the hospital, and will probably continue crying once he’s tucked in, hence why he cried to himself to sleep under his covers the second the lights of his brand new room were turned off – his nightlight not doing its trick.

005. GROWING UP / Jasper moved in with his grandparents a week after his parents’ accident. It was hard to return home without the two most important people greeting you at the front door; it was harder stepping in to have memories flood right back, hitting him where it hurts. Again, he made sure he didn’t cry. He needed to be strong and crying was only a flick away to twisting the tap of the tears his grandmother had shed nights after nights. Though it was hard at first, he needed to adjust and understand that his nights at his grandparents’ were no longer sleepovers – it was his new home. With the help of his grandfather, Jasper made sure his new room held memories that included his parents and made it more to his liking.

The three of them repaired and sew the holes of each other’s hearts together. Jasper’s grandparents made sure to give him the life he was meant to have, making sure he grew up healthy and happy; and though he missed his parents on certain days and at times wish they were around, healthy and happy he was. He was granted all the things he wanted; he wasn’t exactly spoiled, he was coddled and awfully sheltered a lot. Each time he fell and scraped his knee, there would always be a plaster to mend his wound and a hand to hold.

006. EXTERNAL PERSONALITY (NEGATIVE) / ill-tempered, misunderstood, short-fused, argumentative and defensive are some words to describe Jasper Ernst. Besides dealing with the death of his parents in an unhealthy manner since day one, the weight of being a victim of bullying accumulated a lot of pent-up anger and frustration inside him. He was bullied throughout his primary and high school years, constantly getting picked on for various reasons – one among the many included his absence of his parents and how he was living with his grandparents who were most likely just “stuck with him”. Unlike most victims, however, Jasper wasn’t one to stay silent. He would often pick fights and start them, only to end it with him being sent to the principal office with his glasses snapped into two and bruises; plastered as the problematic child (despite his intelligence) given his condition. He grew up short-fused and awfully defensive, constantly arguing with people who aren’t the slightest bit careful with their words. Little things would trigger him and start a wildfire.

007. EXTERNAL PERSONALTY (POSITIVE) / Despite his problematic and hard exterior, Jasper can be quite amicable. He has his days, to say the least; although he’s moody, he can be friendly when he wants to be and can come across as an easy going person when he’s in a good mood. He doesn’t hide the fact that he’s loyal to his friends – even though he does only have a few that he can sincerely count on.

008. INTERNAL PERSONALITY (THE FERVOUR) / There’s quite a lot of things hidden underneath the surface Jasper Ernst allows himself to show. There’s no in between when it comes to feeling certain emotions – in fact, he either feels or not at all. He suppresses the majority of his emotions and keeps them to himself out of the lack of trust he has, as well as not wanting to be a burden. He cares a hell lot, up to the point where someone’s feelings or emotions could potentially overrule his own and affect him in certain ways. With that said, Jasper is, underneath all that explosive trait, a hopeless romantic. He feels everything intensely, love not being an exception. He falls in smitten a lot, but once his heart’s been captured, he’s a lost cause.

009. MUSIC AND OTHER INTERESTS / Music is the only way Jasper can bleed himself dry. He self-taught himself the guitar at the age of eleven, and was introduced by his grandfather who promised him that he’d be able to swoon girls with it. Despite him only picking music with the interest of picking up girls, his interest soon took a turn and he found himself doing it for himself. He began to venture onto other instruments – such as piano and violin but always winded up back to the guitar. It’s how he channels his intense emotions; putting down how he felt in words and melodies.

(DROWNING TW) Apart from music, back in school Jasper had a thing with sports. He was always put into teams to represent his school when it comes to football and basketball though it was only to keep his body physically active and fit. Swimming, on the other hand, was a sport he failed terribly at. He suffers from a phobia for water out of nearly drowning at one of his friend’s birthday party.

#sunny:intro #hopefully it posts on time jhfdisd

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himbowelsh · 7 years ago

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Skip and Don for ship meme.

meme my heart away (ACCEPTING)

who hogs the duvet

Skip does this for sure. He’s aware of it, and he feels bad whenever he wakes up to find himself wrapped in a cocoon while Don has next to nothing, but his boyfriend insists he doesn’t mind. (He really doesn’t -- Skip is also a sleep cuddler, so that makes up for it.)

who texts/rings to check how their day is going

Skip will frequently text throughout the day, but he’s the biggest fan of good morning texts. Just a little thing to say, “have a nice day, I love you!” complete with an onslaught of emojis. It’s nothing huge, but his morning never really feels made until he sends that little text and gets a

who’s the most creative when it comes to gifts

Where does Skip even find most of his gifts? He’s the type of person who’s really dedicated to getting the perfect gift. It’s a matter of pride for him that he gives someone something they’re going to love, so he’ll always come up with something a little unexpected, but on the money. No one knows how he does it.

who gets up first in the morning

They’re both very willing to sleep in whenever they get the chance, but Skip is a little less lazy than Don. Doesn’t mean either of them will willingly be up before ten in the morning.

who suggests new things in bed

Skip’s probably a bit more adventurous. His logic is that he doesn’t know which kinks he has until he tries it, so he may as well try all he can. There have been things he’s very into (body worship, sensory deprivation) and things he’s very not into. (They still don’t talk about that time with the knives.)

who cries at movies

Don is the obvious crier (he gets teary eyed over a lot, but especially the movies with dogs in them) but when something hits Skip, it hits him hard. Don usually doesn’t tease him for crying over a movie, because he’s been in the same boat enough times.

who gives unprompted massages

Skip is in love with surprise massages as much as he is with Don’s arms. He’ll seize every chance he can get to put his hands on those glorious muscles.

who fusses over the other when they’re sick

Skip is good at looking after people when they’re sick, but he also knows when to give some space. Don is a mother hen. He fusses, and he really can’t help it. He worries a lot, and doesn’t know when enough care turns to too much.

who gets jealous easiest

Neither of them really get jealous too often. They’re both social people with a lot of friends, and aren’t too possessive.

who has the most embarrassing taste in music

Skip doesn’t even listen to showtunes, but somehow he knows how to belt them out whenever they come on??? He can take on the Phantom of the Opera like no one’s business. (Not that it sounds good, but he gets points for effort.) He also loves singing in general, so if there’s a song on he recognizes he’ll sing along a lot. Even if he doesn’t know the words, and has to improvise the whole way through.

who collects something unusual

Skip still has the Pokemon card collection he amassed when he was ten. He’s very proud of it.

who takes the longest to get ready

Skip likes looking nice, okay? That hair doesn’t do itself. Don doesn’t bother to shave some days, and doesn’t mind growing a pretty impressive lumberjack beard (which Skip teases him over endlessly). Skip likes to look clean-shaven and nice, because it just makes him feel good.

who is the most tidy and organised

They both allow their living space to fall into an apocalyptic disaster zone, but every so often something sets Don off, and he needs to feel productive. He will deep clean the entire house, and all Skip can do is stay out of his way.

who gets most excited about the holidays

They both get pretty excited for holidays, but Skip is a big Easter guy. It was always a huge holiday in his house when he was a kid, and he carries a lot of those traditions on as an adult. He loves decorating the eggs, and goes starry-eyed for chocolate bunnies, but he also goes to Easter service at his church every year. Don isn’t as religious, so he doesn’t get into Easter. However, they can both agree on April Fools Day -- in their house, it turns into April Fools Week.

who is the big spoon/little spoon

Skip is tiny and a little bitter about it, but one of the few times he isn’t annoyed by his height is when Don is pulling him close and wrapping his arms tightly around him.

who gets most competitive when playing games and/or sports

They’re both very competitive, in a playful way. Things never take a turn for aggressive, but they have a blast trying to beat each other at various games. (Skip remains tennis champion, but for some reason Don is a master at ping pong. It’s not fair.)

who starts the most arguments

They don’t argue much?? They’re both very chill people who don’t get riled up easily, and are quick to make amends whenever any real arguments come up. They’re always willing to work things out, but they click so well that very rarely do they get into fights.

what couple traditions they have

They talk about their homes and families a lot. Don has visited Tonawanda with Skip before, but Skip still wants him to come down with his family for a holiday, “this way you can really see the sights!” Don has less to rave about in Oregon, but Skip’s never been there, so he’s determined to get him there one day.

what other couple they hang out with

Not exactly a couple, but Alex third-wheels a lot?? He has an ongoing string of girlfriends (he rarely keeps them around for more than a week, he’s kind of picky) so he often finds himself hanging at his best friends’ place. Also, Luz and by extension Toye are frequent faces in their social circle.

how they spend time together as a couple

They’re the fun-time couple! They do all sorts of things together, because they’re both the sort of people who get bored if they don’t do anything interesting for a while. They love going to fairs together (they compete with each other to win carnival games) and that one laser tag match is still high up on the list of their favorite memories.

who made the first move

Don knew he was head over heels for Skip for a long time, but Skip always convinced himself that they were just friends, until Don finally got up the nerve to confess to him at 3am over beers and game night.

who is the better cook

Okay, they’re both kind of disasters in the kitchen. Skip has no concept of how much spice is too much, and just because Don knows how to cook doesn’t mean he cooks well. They order takeout a lot. Pizza is a favorite at their house.

#Anonymous #MY BOYS #skip muck #don malarkey #skip/malark

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drewxmay · 7 years ago

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Contestshipping Review - Part Nineteen - New Plot, Odd Lot!

Index

-The Title-

I don’t get it...

-Episode Link-

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClz9mwRi1C7ND91iiZB4ldg

-The Review-

0:00

So the episode starts out with Nurse Joy bringing May her Pokemon. May tells her Pokemon that she’s going to enter a contest and is decided who to put in which round. Nurse Joy then informs May that if she doesn’t win this contest she isn’t going to go to the Grand Festival.

0:42

And now the Title card. No theme song just the Title card.

0:50

Orange juice is a recurring theme in the Pokemon anime and it has been for 20 years and this may be the only time we’ve seen somebody drinking it with the straw.

Also what the hell is Max drinking?

May: :sighs: talk about pressure...

Brock: What’s wrong May?

May: I guess... I’m not sure I’m ready for all of this. Drew’s going to torture me forever if I lose...

Well I mean he’s been waiting for you to enter the next grand Festival sense the last one and he would be extremely disappointed but I don’t think he’s yell at you or anything for loosing...

Max: You’re not doing all this few Drew.. right?

I’d like to point out that everybody witnessed that scene in Spontaneous Cumbusken.

May: Max of course I’m not. I’m just sure that Drew has five ribbons by now, I just know it by the snooty way he was acting it the Chrysanthemum contest! :slams both her firsts on the table: I can’t lose!

Lines of dialoged by May.

If May doesn’t win this contest, she won’t go to the Grand Festival. Already upsetting enough, but what about the part with Drew? It wouldn’t be that important, but May feels like she needs to prove her worthy of his respect, even after people like Briana said that May does have that respect, but May wants to know that Drew sees her as an equal, not lesser. May wants him to see her as a rival worthy of his respect, not somebody he can easily beat.

One of the main reasons I make these reviews is to explain Contestshipping and that is why you get paragraphs like this.

1:27

"Let me guess. He’s behind me, isn’t he?”

Harley: :leans close to May’s ear: Peek-a-boo~. I see you~~.

May: :does about the equivalent of screaming in terror: Harley???

I can make this more perfect... later.

Harley: In the flesh! And how is my little May and her brood of boy-toys?

Ash: Brood of boy-toys?

Brock: Let’s ignore him.

Max: I think that’s easier said then done.

Harley: What? I heard that!

You knwo what I talked about this screenshots in the Masterposts before.

This is the picture:

Harley isn’t looking at May, and neither May nor Harley look mad.

May: I’m warning you Harley! Only one person is going to get to the Grand Festival today and that’s me!

Harley: Dream on hon’, but you’re cute when you’re mad.

2:00

Harley: :purposely drops something:

May: Uh Harley? Is this yours?

Harley: Oopsie~

Harley: :in shocked voice: It is!

and then the first thing May does is open the box. Geez May respect other people’s privacy!

In the box she finds Harley’s five ribbons.

This girl looks like she’s having an existent crisis.

Harley: Well now you know, I’ve already won my five gorgeous ribbons, now haven't I? No need for me to compete!

Harley: But of course you have to.

Ash: He’s so weird.

Hello orange juice.

Brock: But when it comes to thoughtful things to say our man Harley’s the king.

2:30

May: You are so... Annoying!

Harley: I love you too sweetie and I’ll love to watch you loose ta-ta!

Three words that I’ve muttered ever sense I finally realized Harley was a guy:

Harley is gay.

May: I can’t stand that guy!

3:00

And now May is training with Ash for the Contest.

She calls out for her Cumbusken to use fire spin. Pikachu dodges and uses thunderbolt, but then Cumbusken dodges and-

Never mind Max and Brock are watching in the background now we pay attention to them.

Brock: Little does Harley know he lit a fire in May, bragging that he won five ribbons before her- this ought be something to see.

Brock is literally the narrator.

3:26

Back to May and Ash’s battle.

Pikachu lands safely on the ground from whatever happened, and then it skips to something else.

3:40

Oh look it skipped to the Team Rocket scene.

So basically James spent all his money on buying this dress that Jessie would kill him is he didn’t buy it for her, and is dancing around in the new dress becuase she likes the dress.

James: I liquidated my bottle cap collection to make you look like a Popsicle?

Well put. That dress is not worth it.

And then Jessie says that she is going to use Meowth in the first round for comic relief.

4:10

Yay the contest has begun!!!’

It starts off with them already being in the middle of the appeals and it’s Jessie’s turn, and she has once again gone as Jessabella becuase last time she went to a contests she was Jessabella and played fair so she didn’t ruin her reputation and could have that name again.

Her appeal starts off with-

Wait their Japanese n- ohhhhh.

Then they do a joke that I assume is funny in the original version.

Jessie: It’s hot! How hot is it?

Meowth: How hot is it??? It’s so hot that when you try to pick one Pole(?) off of a tree, you’ve gotta use pot-holders!

I still don’t get it

somebody explain this joke I don’t even think I know what he said.

4:45

and it was aaaall just a fantasy made up my Jessie. Meowth says no.

Meowth: This Pokemon does moves not jokes!

Jessie: You ruined my costume!

but even then you don’t try to level up or improve your moves, also nobody has done anything to your costume Jessie.

Harley: Well we can’t have that.

James: Hey! It’s the contest thing!

So Harley’s an intimate object now huh?

Nonetheless that was funny.

Harley: Well I’ll be.

Harley: Well I guess it makes sense, no wonder Jessabella the looser is also from Team Rocket the losers!

Jessie: You wanna lose your teeth?

You know what the more times I re-watch this the more sarcasm and threats I find.

Harley: :walks over to Jessie and picks up her hands: Now hon’, I’m a big Jessalessa fan!

Do you see Jame’s disapproving glare?

“Contest thing is not allowed to steal crackship wiafu”

Jessie: Oh how nice!

5:15

James: Meowth. Prepare for trouble.

Meowth: I’d rather blast off then see this.

These two are really not liking the new Harley x Jessie ship.

Harley: You have such style, yet you lose every single contest you enter!

Harley: But now that we’ve had out litter chat chat chat, I want to help you out of your malaise!

Geez Harley uses really big words for a kids show.

Harley: I know! I’ll give you my Pokemon on loan!

omg somebody wants to actually help u out what a crisis

Harley: Don’t have a conniption, my Pokemon are A1! Lookie.

Harley: They got me my five ribbons.

Jessie then says that they will do anything he wants, and Harley says that they can have them for free, and then expresses the annoyance that is May. Jessie agrees and so they both decide she should be number one on their list to get rid of.

6:06

James: But hold on. What could account for you harboring all that twerpish malice?

Harley: Bitter memories that’s what.

Young Harley: Goodie! Octillary shaped snakies for lunch again!

All kids in Unison: It’s time to eat!

Harley: Listen to them. Lunch time was supposed to be as happy time, the time where the pressures of school and all of those obnoxious kiddie-poos could role off my back ever so briefly!

Harley: As always, I had saved one last scrumptious snaky for last!

Young Harley: Now, it’s your turn!

Demon child from hell: Harley not hungry anymore!

Demon child from hell: I’ll eat it for you, kay? :eats:

*Harley is paralyzed in fear over what just ate his lunch

Demon Child from Hell: There, the snack is all gone, aren’t I good? :walks off:

Headcanon: Demon child from hell grew up to become May from the games.

Young Harley: The little stink stole my snaky!

Young Harley: The girl gets it.

Harley: And that girl, looked exactly like May!

This isn’t the main resewn why Harley hates May but sense he was in a public school it is defiantly part of the reason.

Harley kept this grudge for a whole decade just to remind you.

7:25

James: I thought Jessie had issues.

Jessie would totally kill a man over that.

Jessie: Oh I know just how to feel! The snack you leave for last is always the best!

Harley: You do understand! Prehaps with a friend like you I can finally heal!

James: I can’t hold my breath.

Meowth: One shell with two nuts.

I’m on the same boat as Meowth and James.

Jessie: No mumbling!!! We don’t need those opinions!

7:45

So Harley sends out Cacturn and Benett and introduces them both to Jessie.

First time I saw this I related it to James’ Cacnia now I relate it to literally all of his Pokemon.

Also,

8:41

FINALLY THE CONTEST HAS STARTED.

9:19

I did this joke on the first contest now I’m going to do it for the last.

Are judges are, Mr. Narrator, Mr. Remarkable, and the person who should be taking care of your Pokemon when they are dying but is instead attending a Pokemon contest so you have to watch your Pokemon have a slow and very painful death, Nurse Joy.

9:32

Lilian: And this is what our contestants are competing for!

Drew: So I guess I’ll be waiting for you at the Grand Festival.

Harley: I’ve already won my five gorgeous ribbons now haven’t I?

She never forgot.

9:47

Jessie: Hello young lady. Nice to see you.

May: :Stands up: Oh hello! You’re Jessabella, aren’t you? Good luck today! :holds out her hand for a handshake:

Jessie: I’d never shake hands with competition, but I just wanted you to know that I’m winning.

May: We’ll just see about that! I’m one ribbon short for the Grand Festival!

10:05

:Everybody looks at May as she said that:

May remember you’re not the only one. Now everybody’s mad at you.

10:30

I am so proud of May. For a second when she realized that all of the others has four and will be tough competition, instead of freaking out and becoming full of anxiety like she would’ve just a while back, she took a deep breath and thought “I guess that mean’s we’re all on the same boat”, laughed, and walked away.

If only I knew how to deal with stress like that.

10:39

Preliminary rounds are starting!!!

10:45

Drew is in the episode and Bulbapedia’s Contestshipping page MISSED IT.

Drew had decided to show up to May’s contest even though he’d gotten his five ribbons a long time ago. Also, Back in “On Cloud Arcanine” Drew said taht he was looking for a Pokemon to strengthen his team and he wouldn’t be doing contests until he found it, and we can tell he got it by the time “Spontaneous Cumbusken” came out becuase he had entered more contests and presumable had his five ribbons.

Shouldn’t he be training with that new Pokemon, who will be going to the grand festival with him?

Shouldn’t he just be training for the Grand Festival in general?

He wanted to see May, this is her last chance for her to be able to get into the Grand Festival he said he wanted to see her at so long ago. He wants to see if May will get there, he wants to see if May can win. He truly cares about what happens here, and is willing to take way some of his precious training time for the Grand Festival in order to watch her.

(Little thing I bet that the animators didn’t intentionally put there but The only way for Drew to know that she was going to be here is becuase he watched her get her 4th ribbon, probably on TV becuase we didn’t see him in the audience, meaning he also wasted his time doing that too lol)

10:57

A few appeals, first one with a Firalligator, second with a Coffing, third with a Clafable, forth with a Bagon, and then I think the fifth Pokemon’s name is Clampearl? Sixth with an Articuno, Seventh with a Bellsrpout

11:30

And finally, it’s Jessabella’s turn. She sends out Harley’s Cacturn and makes him use Needle arm. Then Jessie throws a radish into the air or something and Cacturn cuts it into small pieces, that fall into a plate that Jessie is holding and stack on top of each other, and in the end look like a castle.

12:19

Drew: Those two [Cacturn and Jessie] will be though to beat...

Ya just hope your gf will make it to the Grand Festival.

12:34

Jessie’s appeal continues. Cacturn uses Cotton Spore, which releases a bunch of cotton Balls to go flying around the room, after a while of that Cacturn pops them all like balloons by using Bullet Seed. Sparkles come flying down onto the stage from the popped cotton balls.

Yup that is how cotton balls work.

They pop.

13:28

It’s finally May’s appeal!

May grab’s Cumbusken’s Pokeball, but as she is about to send him out she trips.

Harley snicker’s, and it’s obvious Harley did something to make that happen.

Drew is unpleased, also being able to tell that somebody did that and it wasn’t May’s fault.

14:10

Harley speaks into a mic to James, who is above the stage floor and is setting all of the traps. It’s then revealed that they are using Ariados’ string.

Once May finally releases her Pokemon, he jumps in the air and attempts to use Mega Kick, but then Meowth pulls Ariados’ strings Cumbusken flops into his back.

Harley this is too fucking far.

May runs over to her Cumbusken to go see if he is alright, and then trips when coming over, making this face only last a frame:

It’s literally the XD face.

14:37

Pikachu then tugs on Ash’s shirt in the most adorable way possible and then points up.

Ash and Pikachu run up to the top floor to go and stop whoever is making May trip.

14:53

There is one more scene with May and Cumbisken where He tries using sky uppercut on a Frisbee but then fails becuase his arm is pulled away.

15:00

Ash finds Team Rocket on the top floor. Pikachu tries to cut through Ariados’ webs by using quick attack, but then is shot by a web, and is kept in place.

15:30

May attempts at using Fire Spin, praying that it will work. Harley tells James about this, but the fire is already climbing up the web. Ariados starts climbing towards Pikachu to use another attack, the spider creates a dark orb and begins to shoot it at Pikachu

But then catches on fire.

Welp they’re dead.

The orb dissapears and James continues to make the fire worse.

The fire continues to go along the web and lights Pikachu on fire.

Welp he’s also dead. He will be remembered.

What actually happens it what once the flames hit the web the flames destroy the web and the fire dissapears.

Meowth attempts using Fury Swipes but then Pikachu uses Iron Tail.

James, Meowth, and the Ariados blast off and land not too far away from the building.

16:50

Cumbusken swirls out of it’s own Fire-spin, and uses Sky Uppercut on the Frisbee. May throws the Frisbee one more time before telling Cumbusken to use Mega Kick. He kicks the Frisbee, and kicks the Frisbee back over to May.

May is REALLY good with a Frisbee.