Hmm. Peppermint for bingo
the thing with peppermint is there are kind of two peppermints to me?
pre-nccts peppermint as-voiced-by-katie is a being so fascinatingly, hilariously, suffocatingly rancid that i felt the need to take a breather at one point when the streams originally aired and still wince going back to her scenes, an erratic obsessive creep armchair psychologist writer and masochist on a constant dizzying sugar high who happily rejects all adherence to social contract in devotion to an evil god she's actively stalking who wants nothing to do with her in pursuit of an escapist fantasy she's projected onto him. (red candy)
nccts peppermint as-written-by-ryan is a particularly unstable cringe sad wet newly crowned old god in a box all alone with abrasive and obsessive tendencies over shipping, fandom drama and her own opinions about character writing to the detriment of her ability to engage positively with the 'real world' (Relatively Speaking) outside of those lenses, her derealization and her tendency to treat other people as fictional objects to project her desires onto in violation of their boundaries only being worsened by Prism's enabling of that mindset and her possessive and obsessive desire for a tooth-rotting archie-andrews ass romantic fantasy with Crimson, but she's observant and sharp and self-assured enough to stand her ground when she realizes she's being manipulated with the promise of companionship and to not waver in her conviction that Prism is wrong. (green candy)
these arent at all incompatible, in fact they read to me as two parts, almost two perspectives, of one greater whole, but they are pretty noticeably distinct in their focus execution and tone, i think?
she's still a creep, but ryan doesn't always sell it as hard or as strongly as katie did, often leaning on common (and thus usually less shocking and by extension less effective due to not hitting as hard) 'unpredictable viscerally lonely yandere' trope stuff. Or maybe the written medium just dampens its effect- hard to explain what specifically makes katie's pep character voice so Offputting, i cant imagine it's easy trying to translate it into text without losing some of its offensive punch when you lose the element of vocal delivery, im not sure how id do it. Havent gotten to the most potent ncct pep stuff in the reread we've been doing yet, my opinions' subject to change, maybe shes worse than i remember, lol
if peppermint's character premise is summarized and boiled down to the absolute basics as 'creepy and obsessive parasocial fan of the sport' then katie put the emphasis on 'creepy' and 'obsessive' and ryan put the emphasis on 'parasocial fan of the sport' to better use her as a character that reflects the concept of fandom and position her as being on the side of characterization over strict narrative structures and expectations for the nccts' metanarrative thematic purposes, you get what i mean?
marking 'couldve been a great character if handled differently' is admittedly kind of misleading when what i really mean is 'i hope these takes on her character maybe get synthesized a little more going forward now that prism's arc villain era in the nccts is effectively over and the narrative actively problematizes her violative and antisocial behavior more again because shes less interesting to me when its treated as inconsequential in the grand scheme of things as it kind of mostly is after ncct2, and that her loneliness and the roots of how she is and why are explored more.' alas the bingo board is written in past tense. None of this is a criticism really just kinda observations of the disconnect that sometimes comes into play when a character is really Made by their voice actor in a way thats sorta lost in translation to another medium and to the hands of another writer with different goals.
All this being said, i like her! In a show about identity and connection and our responsibilities to ourselves and eachother when living in community with others, a character defined by loneliness, disconnecting from other people and their own reality and sinking deeply enough into themself and their eccentricities and what little they DO find connection through to the point of lacking consideration for others' existence as full, real people, reducing them to picking them apart as though theyre storytelling tools, trying and struggling by navigating the world around her as though its the fiction she loves with no REAL consequences, until she upset someone badly enough to be forced to consider them as a real person with feelings (relative to her as. Also A Fictional Character,) is a really interesting character concept for a metanarrative arc of the show, and her being manipulated by the godly 'author' into being her lackey through a sense of companionship and enabling that perspective on the world by letting her in on the in-universe Cosmic Secret that their world IS a fiction to someone, us, the audience... its pretty fascinating, especially because she only falls for the lie in it for so long. It does matter. It may not be real, but it does matter. And she took us believing in her so close to heart...
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