They would definitely relate to each other’s scenario. Maybe it might be a Wall-E scenario, where Jones feels attraction towards a more advanced robot.
I was excited to see this show was coming back, last year. when I some episodes of the show, I thought it was, alrigh-decent. The show doesn’t have the same amount of charm from the original series, but I liked some of the episodes, like The episode of Penny’s ritual reunion with her family, the ai assistant episode, and I really enjoyed the Finale of season 2 with Rob. several of the episodes though, I didn’t find particulary funny or that charming, the first episode with the burger was just alright, I also thought the Masami macaroni was alright, the love rock episode was just okay, as well. I don’t know, it just doesnt have the same charm and vibe as OG Gumball. I’m also REALLY not a fan of all the nudity and butt jokes on the season, especially the climb episode and the finale of season 2. I find it really juvenile, cringe, and gross. I don’t know why the writers keep putting jokes like that in this revival series. Heck, one episode is called the Butts, I haven’t seen it yet but it looks gross. Why do the writers keep writing those jokes in?? I think the new Gumball and Darwin actors do a pretty good job, and I like the new Anais actor.
Let me know what your thoughts are!
An aspect of Watchmen is the different moral viewpoints we see with each of the characters. Rorschach is a moral absolutist, he only sees good and evil in the world, black and white. Dr. Manhattan is an apathetic centrist, he is disconnected from humanity due to his powers and doesn't care about them, he's incredibly neutral. Ozymandias is a well-intentioned Utilitarian, he wants to prioritize saving the most amount of people, even if he has to kill many others. He's willing to solve the trolley problem and only have one person be killed. I was wondering though, are the three other members of the main cast, Nite Owl II, Silk Spectre II, and the Comedian meant to represent other moral viewpoints? I was just wondering what your take on them is. Comedian seems to me like he's a nihilist, or something, and sees everything as a joke.
Just picture the Kid after the Glanton Gang was destroyed and he's in Hannibal Missouri, it really doesn't matter. I find it funny thinking of a rascal kid from a classic children's American novel, and a brutal youth from an adult American novel.
Credit to the Kid image goes to Jarrod Owen, I believe.
I mean, they both have fire related powers, they‘re both aggressive and think highly of themselves. what do you think?
I don't know why the latter look for Ninten is widespread on the internet. Maybe it's because of a trailer for Mother 1 featuring a kid with a similar look, I don't know. But anyway, which look do YOU personally prefer Ninten to have?
Art was by me.
There are so many covers of Blood Meridian, so I decided to make a tier list that ranks how a feel about each of them, and which I think is the best one. It's not EVERY cover, just many that I've found online. I'm going to be excluding fan made covers that aren't actually distributed with books, as far as I know. Also, this list isn't too serious, I came up with it in only a bit of time, like 15 or 20 minutes. Let me know If you'd change the placement of something, or if you think some other cover is your favorite instead! The way the covers are ranked are by how appealing they look, how compelled I would be to pick the book up if I saw it in a bookstore, and how well it represents the book. Without further ado, here's my description of each ranked cover.
Bleugh, yellow text, gross! The background is interesting looking, but that yellow text just does not fit, I'm sorry. The orange text is alright though.
I do like the illustration of a scene with the Judge and the Idiot, and the colors are nice, but I feel like using a random scene isn't the best way to represent the book. It does make me think of how cool a Blood Meridian anime, or western animated film might be.
I appreciate the idea of making a really detailed and large cover, but I feel like it's a little bloated and kind of too much, it does look nice though.
I like the picture in the middle showing a lone guy, probably the kid, but the curvy text on the top that looks like it was drawn using a yellow sharpie just doesn't look that good to me.
Obviously, it's not a detailed cover by any means, but the composition looks pretty nice. The shaded red grass, the blue sky, and the prominent sunset on the left, it can really highlight the feeling of certain scenes in the book. It's not fantastic by any means, but I appreciate the look behind it despite its simplicity which is why it goes at the bottom of B tier.
The one that started it all. It's pretty good. The colors just being one shade makes it look not the most complex, but the use of red is very nice and helps with representing the book. Also, the wagon in the center looks kind of cool because of it being like an old west scene, but it's a little confusing to understand the metaphorical essence behind it. Is it, meant to be the scene where Sproule and the Kid rescued. Ah, whatever, it's still pretty iconic. There is a better version of this which I'll get to later.
It lacks the color red, but it has a cool straightforward to it. A skeleton is left in the desert; that's a decent representation of the brutalness in the book related to the Wild West. Also, the sunset in the picture despite the black and white look is a nice touch.
Pretty good. It shows a landscape with a red filter on it, with the rest of it being white. It's not very complex, but it does a pretty good job representing how brutal and scary the book and the environments in it are.
Wow, that's a pretty cool one! It's a very well-drawn sunset with all the different colors, and the black at the very bottom below the sun is very ominous. I like how the text is formatted onto the page as well. It helps indicate how dark and scary the book is. Probably the best one out of the Japanese covers.
Alright, now, the massive text and bloody look and can be a bit, bloated, but honestly, this is pretty nice. There's no picture, it's just white, red, and white text with bloody marks on them. It does a great job in representing the brutalness of the book, and it definitely would stand out if you looked around a bookstore. It's nice when they have a picture, but this definitely does a great job in only featuring text.
WOW! Talk about an upgrade! The wider complexity of the colors looks great, and I really like the look of the white text having a glowing look to them. I also appreciate how the grid actually looks straight and equal, instead of looking funky like the original. I think I would've liked the title being on top rather than having been shifted, but that's just kind of a nitpick. I also like how the shade of the wagon has been changed from being in a tan landscape, to a green landscape. It looks really gross and just a little more ominous. I also like the use of that symbol next to the title.
This is just so great. The graphic is nice, and I like the symbolism of it being the kid riding throughout the West, with him being all black, and the landscape looking red and yellow. It just looks so cool. The use of white in the background works much better than #6 in my opinion. I really like how McCarthy's name looks black, and the title looks red, rather than both of them being the same color. That's a really cool, stylistic choice. I also like how the two o's in Blood are connected into an infinity symbol. This could be cool symbolism. Maybe it represents the never ending cycle of violence that the Kid partakes in even as an adult. Maybe it represents the never ending amount of blood and violence that is present throughout the story and through several situations in the book. this cover really combines so many great things from other covers, cool text, some simplicity, a fitting picture, nice symbolism and presentation, it is just so great. However, I think there is one, that is better.
Now this is pretty amazing. The black background gives off an ominous vibe. The red text for the title and white text for the author is again, a nice choice. the white borders are a little weird, but it doesn't take away much. But man, the picture is just SO GOOD. You have a red bull skull, with birds in it, and the sun showing on where the skulls eyehole would be. You also have a man, probably the kid, walking down the bottom of the skull around what would be its mouth area. His posture makes him look depressed, like he has to participate in violence not because he wants to, but because that's just the order of how he works, or he just has to do it to survive. The red really highlights the bloodiness of the novel, and it also represents the harsh environments in the book nicely as well. Maybe the more modern, clean look of it might be a bit off-putting to certain people, but honestly, this is the type of cover that Blood Meridian really deserves, especially considering the books timeless nature. That is why, I think this Picador Collection cover goes at the top spot of this list.
We first expect him to be an ignorant, lazy inventor with how untidy his home is, and how the girls outside describe him. Instead, it turns out that the glorified orange kid is nothing more than a poser, thief, and a disappointment. We invest money into him, and he gives us no results! Apple kid, on the other hand, helps us all throughout the game! He gives use the pencil eraser and eraser eraser which we use to erase any particular obsticles in our way; he gives use the zombie player to defeat the zombies in threed; he invents a yogurt dispenser which helps us infiltrate Mr. Monotoli's penthouse in Fourside, and he helps develop the phase distorter with Dr. Andonuts and Mr. Saturn to help us defeat Giygas! I mean, if it wasn't for Apple Kid, Ness and Co. would've had a hard time progressing through the game.
He really deserved to have been seen better by the people in Twoson.
In the High Honor ending on the mountain, after Arthur says some of his final words to Dutch, which leads Dutch to leave Micah, Micah just angrily walks away on his own. Here's a question though, why didn't Micah kill Arthur before he left? He had already beaten Micah up and had caused Dutch to walk away from Micah, in a way. Wouldn't Micah be furious at Arthur and kill him himself there?
BTW, I know he kills him in the low honor endings, but I was just wondering why you think he leaves him in the high honor endings?
Obviously, a lot of effort went into this shirt, but, imo, it looks kind of odd. It doesn't entirely look like Ness' shirt. The blue looks dark to the point where it looks a little more like purple. Ness' shirt looks more lightly shaded with its blue. Let me know if you've bought this shirt, before.
Credit to shirt is from Anime Ape.
The list is ranked from how much I enjoy the villains, and how good they are as a whole as villains for the show.
Hear me out. The Judge is immortal and has probably operated since the beginning of time if you believe he's the Devil. A part of how he got away with his crimes could be because of the lawlessness of the wild west in the 1840s, where there was a lack of civilization compared to the east. But seeing as how the wild west would become tamed as civilization was developed, what would happen to the Judge in the modern day. If he kept causing trouble across the country similar to the Reverend Green incident, and people reported his presence, what if the U.S. government investigated him? What if the FBI tried to confront him and sent military after him as well? Could the Judge handle this much attention in the modern day? I just think this is an interesting idea.
Ive read the book in intervals for over a year and got closer and closer to finishing it since around a month ago. Good…GOD! That has got to be one of the saddest, most brutal, nihilistic stories that I’ve ever seen. But you know what, I thought it was good. I wouldn’t put in my favorite books, but I defini can understand people calling it a masterpiece. The writing language was great, it felt like a poem extended to the length of a novel. The gore present didn’t feel like it was used as shock for shocks sake, but for representing the brutalness of the Wild West and humanity. The kid was a fairly interesting and tragic protagonis, and the other characters were interesting to read about. I like how this is just a book of evil, there are pretty much NO heroes in this story, it really highlights the presence of evil that can be in the world. I appreciated the deconstruction of the Wild West that was portrayed in the book, it reminded me of Watchmen, or BoJack Horseman. Judge Holden, even though his character was hard to understand near the end, was a fantastic villain. He might be one of my favorite villains, now. I can understand people saying he is one of the greatest fictional villains ever written. D*mn, that ending, so dour. The whole dance scene was so bizarre and dreamlike. So many scenes were brutally memorable, like the tent revival, the legion of horribles scene, the scene where the gang attacks and massacres a village, the Creation speech scene, the scene with the bulls, the War is God scene, and the Yuma ferry massacre, among others. I like how despite the constant nihilism represented throughout the book, there are some moments of the heroism and good in humanity shown, like when certain woman help the kid at points, when the group of women try to help the idiot, and when the kid as the Man stands up to the Judge despite how his fate would turn out. I don’t think I’ll ever read this again, considering how long it took to read, but this was a very good book. It was very brutal, very hopeless, and very descriptive when it came to exploring evil, and I liked it. I can certainly say I feel like a changed person after reading this book, and not many pieces of fiction make me feel that way. Let me know what your thoughts and interpretations on the book are.
Last year, when I binged Common Side Effects, I noticed some interesting things as the episodes progressed. There were elements in various episodes that reminded me of the story in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Obviously, it's not a 1:1 comparison, it's not like CSE copied ATLA, but I still thought it was all very interesting. I've decided to compile a list of many of the comparisons I've found. I may add more soon.
Zane refused to help Marshall gain more Peruvian turtles to increase the quantity of mushrooms and also sold-out Marshall's status of being alive as well as location to the DEA, jeopardizing Marshall's life, similar to how The Earth King decides not to help the Gaang in season 3 and also inadvertently revealed the invasion plan to Azula and her friends, jeopardizes the Gaang's lives and their friends'.
Episode 7: The last scene is Hildy murdering Marshall and seemingly killing him, similar to one of the last scenes in Crossroads of Destiny being Azula murdering Aang, before Katara revives him.
Episode 8: Marshall survives being killed by Hildy due to Capano feeding him the mushroom, similar to how Aang is resurrected by Katara when she uses her healing water. Rusty is killed, being one of the few prominent characters to be killed off in the show, similar to how Jet becomes one of the few prominent characters to be pseudo killed on screen in ATLA.
The last scene in the season is a closeup of Harrington's face, which is similar to Azula's face being the last shot of season 1 of ATLA, with them both going after the main characters.
Frances is initially only motivated with her own self-interests despite having moments that show her wanting to help the world with the mushroom too, just like Marshall. She later betrays Marshall but has a change of heart and decides to work with him again, become more empathetic. This is similar to Zuko only caring about his reputation initially despite having moments that highlight the good person that's inside of him, he later betrays the Gaang and his uncle, but eventually turns around and redeems himself, becoming a better person by the end of the series.
Connor is shown as a dangerous antagonist with how he almost had Marshall killed and tried to sell the mushrooms, but Jonas ends up taking him it, which could highlight the threatening nature of Jonas as a villain. This is similar to Long Feng being a prominent threat to the Gaang in season 2 before he is taken down by Azula. highlighting the threatening nature of her and the Fire Nation as villains.
Marshall has a pet Tortoise he constantly has around him that also has uses to him, similar to Aang and Appa. He also gains Socrates at some place, similar to how Aang met Momo later on.
Capano and Harrington are fairly talented but don't manage to catch Marshall, similar to how Zuko and Iroh continuously fail to Catch Aang and his friends. Capano and on a lesser note, Harrington also begin to become self-aware about the DEA's plans against Marshall and being to shift their mission, similar to how Zuko and Iroh go from villains to working with the Gaang against the Fire Nation.
Marshall wants to heal the world with his mushroom and feels that it's corrupted by Big Pharma and lots of unhelpful medicine, similar to how Aang and his friends want to save the world from the Fire Nation's tyranny.
Marshall getting hunted starts after he is pictured in a park with Frances and has Capano and Harrington sent after him, similar to how Aang gets attention as the Avatar after he activates his old air temple.
Jonas is a very powerful, threatening, remorseless character, similar to Ozai.
Cecily is also very threatening and powerful, as well as having a smug nature to her character which is highlighted with her interaction with Frances and Connor. She and Jonas have a strong partnership as villains similar to Azula and Ozai.
Zuko feels uncomfortable despite being welcomed back into the Fire Nation, due to his actions against the Gaang, his strained relationship with Iroh along with him being in prison, and the absence of his mother, similar to how Frances feels shallow with her fortune due to not having anyone to care about, with her mother being dead, her betrayal of Marshall, and him being in jail. Zuko also sends a note to Mai when he leaves the Fire Nation, with her feeling abandoned, similar to how Frances decided to suddenly break up with Nick before she returned to Marshall.
Ozai decides to send Azula after Zuko and Aang after Zuko and Zhao fail, similar to how Cecily decides to send the FBI on their raid on Marshall's place in North Carolina after the DEA fails in their previous mission to apprehend him. this could also be similar to Zhao trying to take over Zuko's mission, and how Zuko hired Combustion man to go after Aang.
Marshall is seen as a villain to the DEA, Jonas, and Cecily, despite being a genuinely good-natured person, similar to how Aang is looked at by the Fire Nation as a menace despite being a hero.
When Marshall is put in prison, certain people are still concerned about his fate, similar to how Azula and Zuko may believe that Aang wasn't killed. Marshall fakes his death and remains hidden for a while. similar to how Aang remained hidden due to the world thinking he was killed. Zuko is initially not that concerned about whether Aang is alive or dead until Azula questions him about it and causes Zuko to become anxious when she believes that he isn't dead as well and said interesting words to their father, Ozai. This is similar to how Frances acted carefree at first about her promotion until Cecily talked to her and made her anxious about the mushrooms, threatening to take it up with Jonas. Capono is also uncomfortable with his case on Marshall being over, and believes there's more to discover, with Harrington being hesitant to continute working with him, due to them being off the case. This is similar to Zuko considering going against the Fire Nation and working with Aang, when people like Mai think he should just relax at home. Capano and Harrington split ways, similar to how Iroh and Zuko change positions at the end of season 2, Iroh helps the Gaang, while Zuko sides with Azula.
When Marshall is getting used to his new home in North Carolina, he flashes back to when he first met Frances as a kid, similar to the flashbacks Zuko and Aang had in Avatar. Particularly Zuko in Zuko Alone. Marshall's parents even appear in his flashback, just like with Zuko's.
Marshall is comfortable staying in North Carolina so he could grow his mushrooms before his arrested and put in a New York Prison, similar to how Iroh was enjoying his own tea shop before he ended up arrested and locked in a Fire Nation prison, until he broke out and eventually got his shop back. Also, Marshall and Iroh both "broke out" of prison, rather than being released, due to Marshall faking his death and Iroh busting out during the Day of Black Sun.
Marshall and Frances start off as friends at first despite Marshall retaining feelings for him, and they end up mutually reciprocating each other's feeling by the end of the season, similar to the will they won't they relationship of Katara and Aang, with Aang initially having strong feelings toward Katara, and they would later become a couple.
Marshall is a very moral, pacifistic person, similar to Aang. He is hunted throughout the series by the government and DEA, just like how the Fire Nation is to Aang. Several teams and assassins go after Marshall, like the alien mask guys, spy-der guys, landmine assassin, and prison assassin, similar to that many teams that go after Aang and his friends like Azula and her friends, Zhao, and Combustion man.
Frances starts out the series in a rough place, and wishes that she had more in life, similar to how Zuko at the start of ATLA wants to be accepted by the Fire Nation again. Both of them start to understand the morality of the main character, Zuko helps Aang on certain occasions up to the end of season 2 after initially trying to hunt him down for a while, and Frances helps Marshall try to grow the mushrooms after her mother recovers from her dementia thanks to them. However, both characters decide to betray the main characters: Zuko sides with Azula at the end of season 2 and returns to the Fire Nation, and Frances works with Rick and gets promoted at Reutical. Katara and Marshall are both hurt by Zuko and Frances' betrayal and have lost their trust with them by that point. Marshall is arrested while Frances becomes very fortunate as a result of her promotion, similar to how Zuko is reintegrated into the Fire Nation while Iroh is put in jail for his treachery. Frances is disappointed by how Marshall refused to compromise, thinking that they could've come to an agreement, similar to how Zuko wished that he and Iroh both could've been accepted back into the Fire Nation. Characters like Kiki and Rick try to convince Frances that she did the right thing, similar to how characters like Azula and Mai try to convince Zuko of the same, with the characters putting pressure on Zuko and Frances. Zhao ends up being punished by the moon spirits after destroying the moon, hoping to become famous, and ends up stuck in a torturous purgatory forever, similar to how Jonas attempted to heal himself with the mushrooms, but ended up overdosing on them and corrupting himself.
Aang and Zuko have a similar spiritual connection due to their ancestry, similar to how Marshall and Frances are able to connect with each other in the mushroom world.
Let me know how you feel about these moments I cited, and if you have any other comparisons you'd like to share.