#ramses o'flaherty

[thetruecthulhu9]

There's something special about Juno steel loving someone who can't keep their identity straight and coming out of it hurt, whether he did it to herself or if they hurt her directly.

[jamieontheroof]

JUNO KNEW RAMSES AS A CHILD?? HOLY SHIT

[geisterzeit-art]

"He keeps pushing. And pushing.

And pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing."

Aaaaaaa!!! I had the honor of working with @melonoverlord for their fic When The World Stops Turning, a TPP 1920's Anastasia au! Please go read it, it's absolutely amazing and full of intrigue and delicious drama and there was clearly so much love, care and passion put into the whole fic. I'll be putting a link to it in the reblogs shortly!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A digital drawing entirely done in shades of red. Juno Steel is pressing his hands on the chest of Ramses O'Flaherty, who is bleeding out. Juno is drawn sobbing and wearing a blood-stained dress. The background is a stylized, ornately designed theater stage. It looms over the both of them and looks a bit like a cathedral. END ID.

[orangetubor]

Juno eel

Peter neurenome

Rita

Ramseas O'Flaherty

Jetsom quiliak

I got nothin else

[ceaseless-rambler]

I don't normally tag spoilers and there have certainly been worse spoilers on my blog, but they're generally somewhat vague and this literally states what happened at the end of the penumbra podcast s2 (junoverse) so proceed at your own risk. I don't know how to cut the post so just scroll past

Junoverse s2 was actually so funny. Like, they built up their antagonist, made his actions feel super personal, gave us and Juno every reason to want and expect a final confrontation. And then he died offscreen of a heart attack, surrounded by drafts of his "I was right all along" speech. This has its merits thematically, but out of context? Fucking hilarious.

[lionmythflower]

Juno: wow u.... u rlly don't seem worried 🤨like 😶at all 🫥

Ramses: I don't have time to be killed Juno 😒it's that simple 🙃my schedule doesn't have an open time slot for an assassination until at least the third year of my term 🤓 if the proctor wants to kill me she'll have to wait 😇☝️

Juno:

Juno: ur a scary guy Ramses

[dinnerthyme]

not to be dramatic but oh my god. oh my god. oh my fucking god. the thea soul. oh my god. oh my god. mick mercury????? the thea FUCKING SOUL???????? OH MY FUCKING GOD

[quartzthequat]

I swear to god, I am going to loose it. Ramses O'Flaherty you piece of shit.

[skayafair]

Damn. It really hits different and much more the 2nd time.

Juno's VA is just. Unparalleled.

Upd. Gods, I have so many thoughts on Ramses O'Flaherty. Those episodes were INTENSE and so complicated, truly complicated and tangled in terms of morals. Humans are messy. There's never only good or bad, and they can be put together in such whimsical ways.

Also I understood what the harpies' tale was about. This podcast was certainly made to be listened to more than once.

Upd. The way Juno is talking with O'Flaherty is. Oh, I've had such types of conversations before - when the other party is saying things that sound right, but you just KNOW they are wrong, but there's no time to think it over to reach for the reason why they are wrong, so it gets really confusing and difficult to keep one's mind straight. It's rhethorics vs. the truth, only you never know what your truth is until you think it over properly and compare it to the 'common' truth. I am amazed with the writing of this conversation because it must have been a hell of a task to write both parts convincingly. And the fact that Ramses wrote all the routes this conversation could go and couldn't convince eveen himself in the end. Brilliand and tragic. Ramses disgusts me as someone in decades of contact with a self-proclaimed "martyr" with narcissistic tendencies but also I can't help feeling sympathy for him. He really wanted and tried to make things better, despite... oh I don't have time to elaborate now but hopefully will later.

It's so unfair of him to fuck up and tell Juno to figure out how to fix it. Manipulative jerk. Y'know what, while listening to this conversation further I lose more and more sympathy.

Actually, no, I'm not goung to elaborate later. Because I made the same mistake as a few years ago. Ramses is very conffusing and seems self-contradicting until you find the answer in his core: he's a fucking narcissist. Then all of his behaviour becomes crystal clear. Really, I want to give applause to the creative team because they nailed everything. The tendency to never say the important things straight, going in rounds around those, to confuse the opponent, to suddenly shout and lash out when something is going not as they please, bleeding their true colours, the mythical idea of themselves that has nothing to do with the real thing, the constant performance for the sake of performance... all of it. Ramses is using every damn tactic I've been through in that conversation with Juno, it's painfully familiar and makes me indignant. A+ for the portrayal, truly. And Juno's doing so well, never budging, no matter what webs O'Flaherty is spinning. Fascinating. Y'know what, I'll count it as the catharsis I never had.

Upd. a) Mick Mercury is pure gold.

b) It's so telling how Juno could go toe to toe with O'Flaherty, never letting to fool himself, but he failed with Mick because of his personal emotional attachment. It was complicated with Ramses but very simple with Mick who's just a friend, his best friend. (An obligatory reminder that Rita is a national treasure and where would they all be without her.) I didn't expect this 2nd listen to hit so hard :')

[glitterpricked]

listened to juno steel and the man of the future this morning and wow i have thoughts. i feel like it affirmed everything i said about heroes in my last post, but it also made me think a lot about the free dome.

there are a lot of obvious parallels between ramses o'flaherty in this episode and erin d'arc in juno steel and the promised land. for one, they both present themselves as people of the future. however, d'arc sees what the past and present have done to her world and her people, and she wants better; she is moving towards the future. in contrast, i would argue that ramses is running from the past. he is a man characterised by desperation and guilt and shame, and he has spent his whole life trying to assuage those feelings. as juno says, he is "self-righteous": he has his own stubborn view of what hyperion city ought to be, and he will carve out that idea regardless of what others think. d'arc, on the other hand, does not carve out a new world from what already exists, but creates one where she thinks no harm can be done.

for this reason, i think you can argue that ramses is more similar to marshall d'arc. marshall's work in the free dome was done partly out of obligation; his mother began the work, so of course he would continue it. but he sees his mother's idealism as flawed, and rejects the idea that anyone and everyone can find a home in the free dome. his sense of value is based on greatness, and he will only accept the greatest. while marshall is very open about this, ramses shares the same values in a more conniving way: he uses the theia, in its multiple incarnations, to mould Goodness in his image. marshall will take in only the best of the best, and that is partly why the free dome could never succeed (although of course there are a lot more reasons, like literal radioactive madness, but i digress). ramses, however, will carve out greatness no matter the cost. he argues insistently that he has always wanted what was best for juno and his mother and for everyone in hyperion city, but his idea of "best" is selfish and flawed.

while the free dome's biggest issue was its very location, newtown doesn't have that problem. but newtown will fail (i haven't finished the season yet so i guess i'll see) because ramses doesn't care to understand the very people he claims to want to save. another parallel between the d'arcs and ramses is that they're ostensibly very intelligent. but this season highlights that idealism and selfishness and self-righteousness can make that intelligence crumble to nothing. erin d'arc leaves spaces in her code for the future generations, but she and her free dome succumb to their inevitable mortality. ramses o'flaherty plans out every possible conversation with juno to win a single debate, but he succumbs to his own inevitable mortality.

his stubborn need to be right pushes him to persist and persist and persist, despite knowing his heart condition has weakened him. his guilt pushes him to places juno steel wouldn't go with a gun, the same juno steel who fights his own guilt in this episode when he talks to mick and rita about his selfishness. ramses has the audacity to accuse juno of being an idealist, but i think this episode shows that juno is no longer fleeing from his past the way he was before. nor is he desperately grappling for some great distant future. if ramses and juno are on different sides of "Good", it is because juno is living in the present, not in some twisted fantasy where a statue of andromeda in an aesthetically pleasing park is an attempt at an apology to a dead woman.

[somethingoranother7]

Puck Falco would've sucked Ramses O'Flaherty good if they ever saw him

[eyecollective]

Statement of Juno Steel

Horroreyecollective

Fandoms:The Penumbra Podcast, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)

Teen And Up Audiences

Major Character Death

Other

Complete Work

22 Aug 2024

Tags

Major Character Death Rita & Juno Steel Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel Benzaiten Steel & Juno Steel Benzaiten Steel & Sarah SteelJuno Steel & Sarah Steel Diamond Hijikata/Juno Steel Ramses O'Flaherty & Juno Steel Juno Steel Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Peter Nureyev Benzaiten Steel Rita (Penumbra Podcast)Sarah Steel Diamond Hijikata Jack Takano Captain Hijikata (Penumbra Podcast) Miasma (Penumbra Podcast) Canonical Character Death Canon-Typical Violence Canon-Typical The Lonely Content (The Magnus Archives) Canonical Child Abuse Child Neglect Child Abuse Canon Non-Binary Character Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives) Abandonment Nonbinary Juno Steel Juno Steel Needs a Hug Hurt Juno Steel Post-Episode: s01e18 Juno Steel and the Final Resting Place Emotional Hurt Manipulation The Lonely Fear Entity (The Magnus Archives) LonelinessSuicidal Thoughts Not A Fix-It Lonely!Juno Eye Trauma Prompt Fic Angstober 2024 Episode: s01e01-02 Juno Steel and the Case of the Murderous MaskImplied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism

Summary

Statement of Juno Steel about how he only hurts people so it ends here, statement begins.

Day 31: It Ends Here

Series

Part 1 of Angstober

Language: English Words: 1,344 Chapters: 1/1 Collections: 1 Kudos

[bigtiddyhoe]

Re-listening to old eps of The Penumbra Podcast for the first time in years and I forgot how clever and good the build up to the Ramses O'Flaherty arc was in season 2!

[thesecondcitadel]

sixteen tons part one reaction:

we're really coming back to those themes of home in a big way. juno missing hyperion last arc, the ruby wishing for home in the chistmas special, coming back to at least the general vicinity of nureyev's childhood, and, particularly interesting to me as someone who is mentally ill about ramses o'flaherty, a workplace that is trying to be a home.

this place gave me serious aurinko permanent corrections vibes with the scheduled movement. hypothetical dissertation topic: how the juno steel series interacts with different iterations of sci-fi utopian thought, from the perfect prison to the perfect job to the perfect galaxy.

also I was right but at what cost:

[hellpupp]

if i could convince all my friends, loved ones, and acquaintances to listen to One(1) piece of media that was formative for me, it would be Juno Steel and the Monster's Reflection parts 1-3.

it won't hit as hard without the context of the series up until that point, but it's still such a profound exploration of generational trauma, cycles of abuse, PTSD, and the ways we can understand the ones who hurt us as being complex individuals with a rich interior life. it even touches on how our memories are reshaped (sometimes even completely overwritten or erased) by the trauma we associate with them.

it forces us to grapple with the fact that most abusers aren't 2D cartoon villains who hurt others Because They're Evil- they usually had reasons for their behavior, but it does NOT try to say the existence of an explanation for their behavior absolves them of responsibility for it, nor does it try to say you have to forgive them.

i once saw someone tear the episodes to shreds bc they "humanized an abuser" and i've never seen someone look so directly at the point of a story & somehow completely miss it.

i've listened to the entire 3 part story probably 6 or more times, at least, and it's deeply emotionally impactful every time. it's been hugely cathartic.

anyway, if reading this makes you want to give the episodes a listen, here's a link:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

PLEASE take the time to read over the content warnings.

if you'd like a very brief summary of the most important previous plot points the episodes touch on, so that you have a better understanding of the circumstances, check below the cut:

early in the series, the titular character, Juno Steel, reveals that he had an identical twin brother (named Benzaiten) who died many years ago.

juno almost never brings up his mother, but it's clear that they had a VERY bad relationship. it's implied early on that she may have tried to kill juno, once, & that she was somehow involved in benten's death. juno also blames himself for ben's death.

juno struggles with severe depression, low self-worth, and persistent passive suicidal ideation. he tends to self-sabotage his relationships, and attaches most of his self-worth to his ability to stop crime & Catch The Bad Guys. the likely reasons for this are revealed here.

in a previous season, in order to keep it out of the hands of a dangerous criminal, juno took an experimental drug which caused him to grow an organ that an extinct alien race once used to communicate telepathically. he overtaxes the organ, causing it to rupture inside of his body. because it had attached to his optical nerve, the rupture also destroyed his eye.

juno's main employer in this arc, ramses o'flaherty, "generously" supplied him with a highly advanced, experimental prototype cybernetic eye, called the "Theia Spectrum." it comes with an AI which can help juno do all sorts of neat stuff- he later finds out it also allows ramses to see whatever he sees, and to override juno's nervous system if he does something ramses doesn't want him to.

the eye can't be removed through conventional surgical methods, due to the fact that it's become closely entwined with his own nervous system. in the previous episode, juno has finished a job for a different employer (buddy aurinko), in exchange for being taken to a clinic that supposedly has methods to remove this kind of prosthetic safely. the first episode of Monster's Reflection opens on juno's arrival to the secret clinic, alongside the escort buddy has sent with him ("big guy")

[lionmythflower]

"I just have a hard time trusting people who can't figure out what they want to call themselves" bc of Nureyevvvvvv :(((( I'm gonna start sobbing bro