#I literally can’t let trilogy go I try to find it in everything

[stuckinapril]

So obsessed w The Weeknd’s Trilogy sound that one of my main genres last year was literally “canadian rnb”

[ayudala]

Today I present to you an absolutely non-delusional analysis I’ve made for over a year now. The song “Man on the Moon” by Alan Walker and Benjamin Ingrosso reminds me of Luke Skywalker and Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader’s story in the events of the Original Trilogy. The more I listened to this song, the more I felt it was made for them so I will proceed to explain:

“What happens in dreams where we fly?”

It’s the first line in the song, and casually one of the first introductions that is given to us about Luke’s character. He feels stuck, head full of dreams about flying away from the desert lands of Tatooine into the wonders of the galaxy

“Never been as high as tonight”

The battle of Yavin. Not only is Luke high up in the sky, but it’s a high point in his life. It’s the start of his long journey on a crucial mission which he succeeds, but that comes with pressure

“Staring through a window in time for someone to show me what I’m like”

The forever iconic horizon scene. The horizon acts as a window in time through which Luke stares into nothing and everything, thinking about the future that could await him. He hopes to find answers to all the questions he has about his past but everything just seems to make him more confused

“He said hello, it’s like a mirror in the sky”

The vision in the cave. When Darth Vader’s helmet falls to the ground and explodes, Luke sees his own face inside. That’s the mirror of his fear, the reflection of what he could become

“Oh boy, we looking good tonight and I just don’t understand”

Luke’s first duel with Darth Vader on Bespin in which he decides to tell him the truth, the big revelation. He is his father and this stuns him as well as his emotions. At that moment Luke is vulnerable physically and emotionally: defenseless, one hand and his weapon missing, clinging onto a bar to keep himself from falling and fighting to deny what has just been told to him. Vader tries to use this vulnerability as a way of turning Luke, but he can’t understand his restraint as if saying “Imagine how great it would be if we could rule the galaxy together as father and son, I don’t understand why you won’t cave into temptation and join the dark side”

“I met the man on the moon”

Initially Luke thought that the Death Star was a moon. That makes Vader, the man on the Death Star, the man on the moon

“I met the man on the moon, he wore his hat to the side”

When Vader asks Luke to remove his helmet so he can look at him with his own eyes for the first and last time

“I met the man on the moon, he asked if I had a light”

This part is difficult to explain, but it’s in Vader’s last moments that he understands Luke “gave him light” (made him understand that there was still good in him) but it was too late

“He told us to hold it together, we’re falling apart”

When Vader tells Luke that he was right. “You were right, you were right about me. Tell your sister you were right” acts as a sort of reassurance and a way of letting him know that nothing was in vain. Yes, his death couldn’t be prevented, but now he would die as a good man. They are both falling apart in different senses: Vader is literally falling apart, falling into his inevitable death. Luke is emotionally falling apart, grieving for the death of the man he saved but couldn’t save at the same time

“Lost, all my tears have turned to dust”

The Ewok celebration is seemingly a time to celebrate freedom, the threats of the Empire are finally gone. Happiness arises while Luke tries to process what he just lived, he feels lost. The dust can represent the ashes of the fire in which his father is being burned

“Maybe somebody is calling us, the man on the moon”

This can represent two scenes:

The one where Luke is talking to Leia about how he must face Vader and try to turn him back to the light. His instinct is calling for him to go and attempt to save their father, the man on the moon

And the one where Luke sees the force ghosts of his former mentors and his father. His father out of his suit, not as Darth Vader anymore, but as Anakin Skywalker

English is not my first language so there might be some mistakes, but I needed to share this and finally get it out of my system

[wherewhereare]

@formerdetective 's View on the TIWTTFL bonus songs “Obsessed,” “Getting Warmer,” and “Splash” as a Trilogy (Parts 1 and 2 of 3 parts)

Credit: @formerdective.  Direct extract from her blog.

The song "obsessed" confuses me, I can't wrap my head around it in context to B & G's relationship.

— Asked by Anonymous

Okay, I look at the bonus songs “Obsessed,” “Getting Warmer,” and “Splash” as a trilogy. This is just my own interpretation, obviously, but here you go!

Gwen was a few weeks into the writing process when she got back to the Voice in late June. Which, it seems, means she was starting to heal a bit but also, her emotions were right at the surface. She was feeling everything really acutely, you know what I’m saying?

So then she gets to the set and here’s this guy. He’s her favorite co-worker, she’s had a crush on him since the day they met, practically, and she finds out not only is he single now, he’s also dealing with literally the exact same thing she is. So on top of liking him for all the reasons she liked him before, and they’re both available now, but he’s also maybe the only person in her life that can truly relate to what she’s going through. For a person who is already super intense, that is just so much.

Because of this shared connection on top of liking him (in whatever way), I think probably those days on the voice set they spent all of their time together, and even though they were both still really raw it started being more about each other than about venting about their exes/situations. And then, a kiss that was literally life-changing. (Or maybe an evening of kissing, let’s be real.)

And this is where Obsessed comes in. They’ve been hanging out so much, and the energy between them is totally intense. One lyric: “Cuz we keep locking eyes.”

And by this point, she likes him so much, it’s completely overwhelming. I think in the song “Obsessed” she’s trying to convince herself it’s not about him, he’s just a distraction, someone/something to keep her mind off of her problems. “She’s chasing a feeling and she can’t turn it off.” And the reason I think she’s trying to convince herself comes from the lyrics, “I’m pretending I’m falling in love” and then “Living in a dream don’t mean anything, my brain’s unorganized.” So she feels like she’s living in a dream when they’re hanging out? That’s major. She’s so into it that she literally doesn’t even want to go home, she just turns the car around to go hang with him instead. (I know this song seems super sexual but she might really just mean hanging out with him. Or maybe making out….I kind of feel like there was some making out.)

And I think she was trying to convince herself because she was freaked out. “There’s no way in the world that I would ever think that I would have this feeling that I’m having right now. WHAT!?” Like it had been a looong time since she was looking forward to seeing someone like this. And when she didn’t expect it at all. Had to freak bb out.

Anyway, not that you asked, but then we get to “Getting Warmer” where she seems to have accepted he’s not just a distraction, she actually really likes him. They are in similar situations, and they are such similar people, it seems like they probably talked a lot about having partners who lied–major, longterm lies, and were just generally not very loving, supportive people. Which is fine, except B/G are such kind and affectionate people there’s some compatibility issues. Which I’m guessing they vented about a lot. So knowing that he was suffering for the same reasons she was, which implies he wanted the same things she wanted…on top of really liking him…she’s like, woah, maybe this could like, be a real thing. But she was still so insecure, I think she really thought maybe he was just using her as a rebound…since as many people have pointed out to me, he was not as far along in his healing at this point (July). So in Getting Warmer Gwen’s basically asking him, do you like me, because I like you and I think this could be something.

And finally Splash…she realizes this is too intense, too perfect to not be real, and so what the hell, she’s diving in. By beautiful coincidence, I have read a lot about yogic philosophy and Kundalini energy is sexual, but it’s also a path to enlightenment. In the song she’s literally singing about how this energy between them is spiritual…like the universe has put them together. And she’s feeling so good because of him, so she’s decided it needs to happen. Like she said after listening to this song on repeat during her vacation, her life changed forever. I think it really was her way of convincing herself he was worth the risk. Basically I think Obsessed is about how much she likes him, but she’s trying to convince herself it’s just physical attraction, or just a crush, something to distract her because she’s tired of feeling bad.

1.1.1  Obsessed (Part 1 of a 3 part trilogy)

Credit: @formerdective.  Direct extract from her blog.

Gwen was a few weeks into the writing process when she got back to the Voice in late June. Which, it seems, means she was starting to heal a bit but also, her emotions were right at the surface. She was feeling everything really acutely, you know what I’m saying?

So then she gets to the set and here’s this guy. He’s her favorite co-worker, she’s had a crush on him since the day they met, practically, and she finds out not only is he single now, he’s also dealing with literally the exact same thing she is. So on top of liking him for all the reasons she liked him before, and they’re both available now, but he’s also maybe the only person in her life that can truly relate to what she’s going through. For a person who is already super intense, that is just so much.

Because of this shared connection on top of liking him (in whatever way), I think probably those days on the voice set they spent all of their time together, and even though they were both still really raw it started being more about each other than about venting about their exes/situations. And then, a kiss that was literally life-changing. (Or maybe an evening of kissing, let’s be real.)

And this is where Obsessed comes in. They’ve been hanging out so much, and the energy between them is totally intense. One lyric: “Cuz we keep locking eyes.”

And by this point, she likes him so much, it’s completely overwhelming. I think in the song “Obsessed” she’s trying to convince herself it’s not about him, he’s just a distraction, someone/something to keep her mind off of her problems. “She’s chasing a feeling and she can’t turn it off.” And the reason I think she’s trying to convince herself comes from the lyrics, “I’m pretending I’m falling in love” and then “Living in a dream don’t mean anything, my brain’s unorganized.” So she feels like she’s living in a dream when they’re hanging out? That’s major. She’s so into it that she literally doesn’t even want to go home, she just turns the car around to go hang with him instead. (I know this song seems super sexual, but she might really just mean hanging out with him. Or maybe making out….I kind of feel like there was some making out.)

And I think she was trying to convince herself because she was freaked out. “There’s no way in the world that I would ever think that I would have this feeling that I’m having right now. WHAT!?” Like it had been a looong time since she was looking forward to seeing someone like this. And when she didn’t expect it at all. Had to freak bb out.

1.1.2  Getting Warmer (Part 2 of a 3 part trilogy)

Credit: @formerdective.  Direct extract from her blog.

Anyway, not that you asked, but then we get to “Getting Warmer” where she seems to have accepted he’s not just a distraction, she actually really likes him. They are in similar situations, and they are such similar people, it seems like they probably talked a lot about having partners who lied–major, longterm lies, and were just generally not very loving, supportive people. Which is fine, except B/G are such kind and affectionate people there’s some compatibility issues. Which I’m guessing they vented about a lot. So knowing that he was suffering for the same reasons she was, which implies he wanted the same things she wanted…on top of really liking him…she’s like, woah, maybe this could like, be a real thing. But she was still so insecure, I think she really thought maybe he was just using her as a rebound…since as many people have pointed out to me, he was not as far along in his healing at this point (July). So in Getting Warmer Gwen’s basically asking him, do you like me, because I like you and I think this could be something.

[ragdoll665]

How I would “fix the sequel trilogy”.

Episode 1: The fix begins.

No changes to ep 7, for a few main reasons. Firstly, its actually pretty good, most people liked it when it came out, yes It plays it very safe and yes, it’s a lot of what we’ve seen before, (ep 4) BUT it nicely sets up our main cast of characters, builds some nice intrigue and mystery, who is snoke, what’s up with Luke etc etc etc. Its not perfect but its easily the best of the movies we got for numerous reasons, its only made worse because so much of what this set up was worsened by the lack of planning of what the overarching story of the trilogy was going to be, which I mean is going to happen when 3 different directors are hired to make 3 different movies all building off each other and no one though to make them go into a room together and actually discuss what they wanted to do.

The second reason is simplicity, a lot of my “fixes” are tweaks to the story structure of what we got, especially ep 8 which had a lot of good ideas it just didn’t really develop that well, and because of that keeping the baseline of ep 7 the same helps create a strong base to build on.

OK, with that out of the way lets get on to my changes.

Episode 2: the last retcon.

So this movie has a lot of good ideas and sets up some interesting things, I like Rey and Kylo’s dynamic each trying to convince the other one to change sides (this is a surprise tool that will help us later) fin still feeling like wanting to run but also not wanting to abandon his friends and kind of needing to find a purpose, and Poe advancing into a leadership position and having to learn that he cant do everything himself, he has to rely on others.

So, the movie would start in a similar way, a big space battle with the rebellion, sorry, resistance fighting the new order in space, cut a few of the marvel jokes, not that there can’t be funny moment or comedy in this movie but some of the humour in the movie really messed with the tone. Poe leads a good strike on a first order ship led by Kylo ren and snoke same as the movie they do a good job but lose some fighters and are forced to retreat again very much what the movie sets up.

Now the main changes, in this we have 3-4 main story’s going on at the same time, each of our main characters has a story that they are the hero of that build towards the overall lesson. Like ep 5 and ep 2 the movie will end on a loss for our heroes but will help them develop the skills necessary to win in the end.

So the resistance are on the run the new order are somehow tracking them and preventing them for resupplying, hoping to destroy home one and cut of most of the resistances leadership to cripple them, major difference here is that instead of being able to track them through hyperspace, something that I would argue goes against literally all of previous star wars cannon, there is a spy on board, sabotaging home one and reporting there location to the new orders, eventually due to the size of the new order fleet, being far from the core world were the new republic is running stuff the new order will eventually catch home one and destroy it.

Poe:

Poe’s story is similar to what it is in the movie, keeping things simple here, it’s about leadership, Poe leads from the front, he sees others die and wants to prevent it which leads to him trying to do everything himself, which he obviously cant do, his story is, with the guidance of admiral Ackbar, and Mon Mothra, our mentor characters he has to learn to rely more on others. Poe’s does everything he can to try  and catch the spy but at every turn he is just one step behind, the spy is sabotaging the ship, he’s getting frustrated eventually he walks into a trap and something bad happens, people are hurt and he gets really depressed, he is again reminded that he cant do everything alone, they reference how the rebellion is built from the hopes and dreams of thousands of worlds, callback to how the destruction of both death stars were team efforts, getting the plans destroying shield generators and actually fighting in space. Poe reflects on this, then he bumps into Rose, who was introduced earlier on and is still the sister of a pilot killed in the opening battle, of which po feels responsible for, rose doesn’t blame him maybe talks about how she wants to blame her self as a mechanic she should have seen any issues with the ship maybe if she had done more her sister would be alive, poe says that isn’t fair on her and basically gives the mentor lecture to rose which is how he finally realises he is in the same place, he asks rose for her help and the two hatch a plan. It turns out one of Poe’s friends, a pilot on his team is the spy someone who he never would have suspected or been able to catch because she always knows were he is and what he’s up to due to being on his team, but she doesn’t account for the background characters, the no named engineers working hard like rose who go unnoticed but who’s work is critical, its them who noticed the sabotage and suspicious log activity. Poe and crew confront them and they as a final act sabotage the ship, only partially, because they didn’t have time to finish, but enough because po spent so long trying to do it himself, destroys a part of the ship, Ackbar and Mon Mothra sacrifice themselves to save Poe and gang, in a heroic manner, pass on the message they trust them to keep the spirit of the resistance alive.

Poe is set up to be the new person in charge, Poe still takes an active role but is now ready to assume the mantle of being in charge, relying on other and live up to the expectations of the mentor characters we knew and loved.

This is the main theme of this movie in my rewrite, the conflict between Fascism and Democracy, fascism sets up everyone as trampling over everyone else to benefit themselves whereas our heroes benefit from mentors who seek to help them be better than they were, to make a stronger world for others not themselves. This point will be very apparent in the Rey arc but well get their eventually.

Finn:

Finn: Finn’s arc is about discovering his purpose and doing something with his stormtrooper background, he’s not super in the rebellion at this point but is willing to help to save Po and Rey, he sneaks aboard the enemy flagship and uses his skills as a stormtrooper to try and find a way to sabotage the ship or fleet to help the good guys get away. He is eventually caught by captain Phasma who in a twist is also in the process of building a rebellion, yea the reason she was so willing to give up the shield on star killer base was because she was also questioning her loyalty, maybe in part because of Finns actions. She reveals she’s been building a team of “dysfunctional” stormtroopers who would be killed or imprisoned for being to out of the norm of the stormtrooper brainwashing, we get a cool cast of wierdos with fun quirks, maybe one dude loves flamethrowers another like fighting in melee with batons basically just people who have a personality. A “bad batch” of troopers if you will. This is where fin learns his purpose, he wants to help other stormtroopers escape, obviously not all stormtroopers will be good people but within them will be some and it’s those people he wants to help, to give them a chance to live their own lives. The are the cool elite team that damages the star destroyer enough to let the good guy’s escape (barely) during the climax.

Again, leaning into the individuality is good, and how fascism crushes people’s personalities to just be cogs in a machine for the benefits of a few, it’s the actions of individuals which is why the rebellion won the war with the empire and why the resistance will eventually win against the first order.

Rey:

Rey: Rey jedi training arc time, this parallels very similarly to Luke in episode 5, she wants to be trained quickly so she can go back and help her friends, Luke who better than anyone understands this and understands that it’s the wrong decision, again the idea of learning to rely on others, and realise you cannot do everything yourself. Luke pulls a Yoda and acts senile and drags out lessons and points trying to teach Rey patience, she still has her talks with Kylo and the two continue to try and convince the other to swap sides (foreshadowing). eventually Rey makes the same decision Luke makes in episode 5 and runs off before completing her training to try and help her friend, Luke follows her. She gets to the flagship and confronts Kylo and snoke, they argue, fight etc. This is were snoke pulls a palps, and try’s to convince Rey to become his apprentice, talking shit about Kylo, how she has only had a small mount of training but can compete with him, who has “super blood” bloodline from the Skywalkers. Very eugenics reasoning from snoke which makes sense cause he’s a fascist dictator. Using his dark side powers and through manipulation he convinces Rey to fall to the dark side, before she can kill Kylo and take her place as his new apprentice (very rule of 2) Luke shows up and saves Kylo, forgives him for everything, apologies for failing him as a teacher and tells him to leave and warn the rebellion. In this moment Kylo and Rey have flipped teams, are enemies still but are now on different sides, Kylo returns to the light, early enough to take steps toward redemption.

Kylo flees the ship taking Fin, Phasma and the “bad batch” with them. Luke stays behind to confront snoke, and by time for our heroes to escape (very episode 4 obi-wan) it’s a fight he cannot win but he doesn’t have to, after an epic fight between him and snoke, with crazy lightsabre swings and force powers, they have a finally dialogue, snoke talks about how Luke is weaker than him and got the weaker of the two apprentices, how he fails to understand true strength, snoke is very much a use things so they can get further again everyone is a tool for them to use, Luke on the other hand counters with the idea that no, Rey and Kylo will both end up being stronger than he was, because that’s the whole point, to help people, to teach so that those who come after become better than those who came before the. Then he is struck down in a similar fashion to obi-wan.

I Think this is particularly important for Reys character, I think, more so in getting the audience to accept how strong she gets to be, same for Kylo, instead of just making her super strong which led to her being disliked (although a lot, and I mean A LOT, of that was just sexism from the SW fanbase tbh). Rather she and Kylo are stronger than Luke because the audience believe Luke is capable of training people to be better than him, think that Gurran lagan line.

Believe in the me, that believes in you.

Make the audience want Rey and Kylo to be cool as heck because doing so Honours the legacy of Luke and all the characters that came before them, not just to replace them.

Thus, ends episode 8, the good guys are on the run, Rey has fallen to the Darkside, Kylo and Phasma are on team good guy and while things seem dire, the characters are resolved to keep fighting, to win, to rescue Rey and stop the new order.

Episode 9: Rise of a good ending.

I won’t go into as much detail as I did for episode 8, mostly because due to the changes I would have made ep 9 looks very different and is much more a wholly different movie than ep 8 was. But I’ll hit the main points that build to the conclusion.

Time has passed since the last movie the resistance and new republic are putting up a fight against the new order, but things are still bad, Kylo and crew are still not wholly accepted by many in the resistance because of their previous actions but Poe, now helping lead and coordinate the resistance, trusts Tin and is willing to accept Kylo’s help. The major plot of the movie is about snoke.

Snoke is a very old very powerful Sith lord, he does an emperor from the old republic and every few hundred years kidnaps and tricks a bunch of force sensitive individuals and uses them in a ritual to make himself more powerful and extend his life spam. The good guys learn he is planning to do this again, soon on Rey and some of the jedi from Lukes old jedi school, including the knights of ren. The good guys realise they don’t have long before they lose Rey, and Kylo isn’t convinced he can beat Rey, let alone snoke alone. IF you wanted this is where you have fin be revealed to have been force sensitive and Kylo must teach him to be a jedi to help rescue Rey, and by teaching he learns, which is a common thing for jedi through all of Star Wars, like with Kanin teaching Ezra. Poe leads a big space battle to challenge the new order and by time for Kylo and Fin to sneak into snokes citadel and try to stop his ritual.

This is the plan to rescue Rey and kill snoke, like the empire snoke is the sole leader of the new order, everything comes from him (again fascist dictator) if they kill him infighting and power struggles should cripple the first order, like the empire after Palpatine is killed.

Poe leaves Kylo and Fin to rescue Rey, and kill snoke, he leads the fight in space, to buy them the time they need. When things get dire, he hops into his x-wing to kick ass while still coordinating the new republic forces in his custom 2-seater x-win with rose as his co-pilot.

Kylo and Fin fight through some punks to get to snoke and they fight Rey and “lose” because they are trying to convince her to rejoin them, Kylo and Rey could still have been having force conversations like the last movie throughout. Eventually just before snoke can kill them they manage to convince Rey who breaks through and saves them, they have a short heart to heart moment and turn to challenge snoke. Snoke is annoyed but he’s still in the middle of his ritual and if he wins, he can still use their energy. The three of them fight a big epic fight while the space battle rages on, each using a different lightsabre style, Rey with a double because she had a staff in movie 7, come on Disney it just makes sense, Kylo with his Cross guard but fighting more defensively and supporting his two friends, and Finn with the single, and give him a cool force power, he deserves it and the other 2 got one. The trio eventually end in a force blast clash with snoke, dragon ball z style, snoke boasts about how weak they are, how feeble their forces are how there are nothing to him, but they stand united and the force ghosts of previous mentors appear as the ritual is about to conclude, the extend hands in support of our heroes, again reinforcing the idea of building a better future, and standing together for the benefit of all rather than selfish power grabbing and being alone. With force ghosts at their back the win the struggle and kill snoke permanently, without snoke the new order predictably ends up infighting and power struggling which cause them to lose the battle even though they out gun the new republic.

Each character has their arc concluded, Kylo gets to be redeemed from being a villain and continue to teach to honour Lukes’s legacy.

Finn concludes his arc by helping convince Rey to switch sides, to rejoin the good guys, the power of friendship and acceptance, and gets to be a jedi, who spends his time helping other get out of bad situations.

Rey realises that the circumstance of birth doesn’t define you, she helped to convince Kylo to change sides, which was her main goal in the last movie to honour Leia and Han, gets to be a jedi and help people.

Poe is helping organise the new republic, not just in military efforts but has expanded to be in a similar position to Leia and carries on her legacy, as the surrogate son he always was to her.

Thus ends the sequel trilogy, which told the story of standing against fascism and how we build a better world by supporting each other and teaching the next generation to be better than we were. It passes on the mantle to new characters while honouring and respecting those who came before and for fans of the original series.

A couple optional things.

 I didn’t mention Leia much because I feel weird about how I would use her in the story given carry fishers tragic passing, you could potential have her be the main mentor of Po in episode 8 and sacrifice herself to save him, which I think would be the best way to do it, but also she obviously passed before the movie was fully shot so this might have been impossible and also killing of her character as she passed may come across as disrespectful to the actor, it’s just something I wasn’t completely sure how to handle.

If you wanted to set Rey and Kylo up I think this would give you more chemistry and time to see them bond, but that’s up to you I’m not a Reylo shipper, and I don’t particularly care one way or another.

I didn’t mention our little droid friend, their still here being comedic relief and sad when Rey joins bad guys, teams up with Kylo reluctantly because of Finn and does some cool stuff, at least that’s how I would envision it, but I didn’t feel this was critical to the changes in the story, so I didn’t mention it.

Finally, I just want to mention.

I’m not a good writer, I watch a lot of cartoons and some shows and have a lot of ideas that I think would be good, but I’m not a professional writer, I haven’t written any big blockbuster movies and most of my changes come from seeing a completed story, something the actual directors didn’t have, and hey maybe you even hate my changes or disagree with how characters should have ended up, that’s cool. This was just a very late frustration project from my experience of the trilogy. I really liked the characters of Po, Finn, Kylo and Rey and had my own hopes of the direction the movies would take.

Anyways hopefully you liked some of this ramble, maybe you have your own interpretation about how you’d have like to see the sequels go which I’d love to hear.

Live long and prosper all you SW jizz fans.

[h0wdyrobin]

I want to try out writing some book reviews so here I go!

Characters: 5/5

Plot: 5/5

World Building: 4/5

Overall Rating: 5/5

“Author of Empire of Sand and Realm of Ash Tasha Suri's The Jasmine Throne, beginning a new trilogy set in a world inspired by the history and epics of India, in which a captive princess and a maidservant in possession of forbidden magic become unlikely allies on a dark journey to save their empire from the princess's traitor brother.” - Goodreads

I’m sure it seems cheap to give a book a 5/5 rating, but I like to be liberal with my stars. This book is genuinely so amazing and I can’t recommend it enough (I’m going to keep this first part spoiler free, but I will go more in-depth later on, so beware if you have not read this book yet). Tasha Suri writes some of the most interesting and strong female characters that I have ever seen. Our two leads, Malini and Priya, are shown to be these very powerful and strong women who are also heavily flawed. I really appreciate the way she makes them flawed, everything about them feels natural and real. The world she creates is also incredibly detailed and interesting. There is a lot of political intrigue and religious conflict that I personally find to be very interesting. I won’t comment much on her representation of Indian culture or stories, since I have little knowledge on them, but in my opinion she does an excellent job of creating an interesting and vast world. The only complaint I could have is that it can be hard to remember the names or places since there are a lot of them, but that isn’t a specifically Jasmine Throne issue it’s present in almost all fantasy books. Overall, this novel is extremely well written, has good pacing, and great representation of a sapphic couple. If you aren’t hooked by just Malini and Priya’s relationship, the political conflicts surrounding them will surely get you. I would very much recommend it if you enjoyed Priory of the Orange Tree (which I will also be reviewing, hopefully).

Be warned!!! I am going to spoil things in this section, go read the book if you haven’t!

Now I, of course, must talk about the romance/bond between Malini and Priya because oh my god is it amazing. The slow progression of this love they have for each other is beautifully executed. Every small intimate moment feels monumental and earned, and by the end you can’t help but root for their relationship. At the end when they share their first kiss in the waterfall I was flailing with excitement. Suri does such an amazing job of making these complex and interesting female characters who are so much more than you expect. Malini is first talked about as a traitor, which can create this almost violent image of her, but when Priya first sees her she seems nearly pitiful. I sympathized with Malini’s pain but also saw the way she manipulated people to do what she wanted. I think the beauty in this manipulation is the fact she avoids using it on Priya. She could most likely use her silver tongue to get Priya to free her from prison, but she genuinely wants to gain Priya’s trust, which is just so romantic. And Priya is just amazing too, head strong and stubborn but not in an annoying way. I often see female characters who are written as stubborn but come off as arrogant and stupid. Priya is definitely stubborn, but in some ways it benefits her and helps her at times. Overall our main characters are just amazing in nearly every way. The side characters are not to be overlooked though. You have Bhumika, though she is pregnant she shows a considerable amount of strength and will. She is extremely dedicated to her community and literally kills her husband to get the Ahiranya temple back. She is the definition of girl boss lets be honest. Rao is also so great. I don’t have a ton to say about his character in this book because he doesn’t get a ton of chances to shine until the next one (I will also review that). But he is so endearing to me for whatever reason. He is so devoted to Malini, but in the most sweet and platonic way possible. It is so nice to see a true friendship between a male and female character that I know will never become a romance plot or anything. The conflicts outside of the romance are so interesting too. The way these different religions either work together or against each other for different reasons is very cool to me. I also love how she includes feminism and patriarchal ideas in it without it feeling out of place or forced. The patriarchal society that Malini and Priya live in feels realistic. The biggest issue I think I have is the lack of explanation for certain concepts especially for religious figures. I feel as if we got very little information about the Mothers of the Flame (I think that is Chandra’s religion?) or the Nameless Gods. You get quite a bit of information about the Yaksa and stuff, but I think a bit more explanation on these religious concepts could have helped me. Other than that this book is just so wonderful please go read it.

[wendytestabrat]

kyle thinks cartman is a good leader

kyle thinks cartman is a good leader. PERIOD. IT’S CANON ACCEPT IT. why do you think he always chooses cartman’s side when the group splits up or when stan & cartman get into an argument like in TFBW and the black friday trilogy? literally kyle went so fucking far simping for cartman in the black friday trilogy that he betrayed stan and their friendship when he believed some dumbass lie cartman told him that stan’s dad was working for the mall to help the ps4 side get in when stan didn’t even know randy was working at the mall LMAOOO. stan was so fucking pissed at kyle for getting him grounded or whatever tf happened i don’t remember that when kyle came over to try to kiss and make up (i mean ofc it was a stupid gaslighting apology where he took 0 responsibility for his actions bc kyle can’t admit when he’s wrong also like the time when he ‘apologized’ to ike after nuking canada) stan was so fucking mad and just wanted kyle to leave and had his mom come to get rid of him bc kyle STILL kept trying to justify why he was right and why XBOXes are better and shit LMAOO. anyways i went on a tangent i forgot where i was going with this but yeah it’s def shown kyle looks up to cartman for his leadership abilities and trusts him way more to come up with ideas and plans than he does with stan. like this is also why kyle is highkey jealous of cartman too for his confidence and ability to take charge of situations. like it’s def been shown the entire group relies on cartman for help a lot to come up with some plan or some shit but kyle does this the most out of any of the other boys LOL member when kyle went to cartman for help with getting him more friends on facebook? member when he turned to cartman for help to stop butters from his whole wieners out thing? i also loved in “faith hilling” (also an episode where kyle takes cartman’s side) when kyle fucking yelled at stan and was like “I THOUGHT YOU WERE MEETING US AT CARTMAN’S HOUSE” BWAHAHAH even in the streaming wars when they were making the boats the first thing kyle thinks of and asks stan “are we gonna get cartman to help?” this is also why kyle simped so hard in the crack baby episode, bc cartman was being chad-like running the crack baby basketball business. like literally kyle relies on cartman so much for everything and needs him for shit another good example is in the episode “mexican joker” ik kyle was PISSED at cartman for getting him sent to a detention center but lets face it, i’m sure kyle was secretly relieved to have cartman get locked up there too bc i doubt kyle would’ve been able to come up with a plan to escape on his own without cartman’s help LMAO. before kyle was just moping around and bitching and not doing anything about it but then when cartman was there and cartman gave that whole speech about how sorry he was and how he knows kyle is extra sensitive about it bc he’s jewish this motivated kyle and gave him the idea to have everyone in the center pretend to be jews so that was when he asked cartman to go get some aluminum foil and scissors so they could make yarmulkes. i mean literally all the other kids just ignore cartman and think he’s a loser so that’s why they don’t rlly care as much when he does shit or insults them bc they look down on him. the reason why kyle gets way more obsessive about cartman than anyone else is bc he actually does look up to cartman in many ways so it cuts deep when cartman insults him. that’s why even when cartman will say something completely ridiculous or downright make shit up kyle will take it way too seriously bc he thinks cartman has some kind of authority on these topics for some reason LOL like the time kyle went to see the passion after cartman kept talking about it or tried to look up and find out if a jewpacabra rlly exists.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

Gabriel Agreste: Interesting Villain, Horrible Character (400 Follower Special)

I'm honestly surprised more people didn't want me to talk about Gabriel, especially with how often I rag on how horrible of a person he is. But, three character analysis posts later, and we're going to talk about why the main villain of Miraculous Ladybug is a real letdown.

Gabriel Needs to give the Whining a Rest

The interesting thing is one of the few things I actually liked in Season 3 was Hawkmoth. His plans actually made sense (for the most part), and by playing the long game, he managed to turn Chloe against Ladybug and deprived her of several key allies. Granted, Season 4 immediately undid the latter, but I was still impressed by his strategy.

Generally, one of the better aspects of Gabriel as a character was just how over the top he was as Hawkmoth. Keith Silverstein is clearly giving it his all with his performance, and he is just so enjoyable to watch as a cartoonish supervillain.

And therein lies the first major problem with Gabriel as a character. While he is fun to watch as a simple supervillain, the show tries to give him more depth and unintentionally makes him worse.

In Season 2, when it was revealed that Gabriel was Hawkmoth, many fans speculated on what he needed the Miraculous for, until the Queen Bee Trilogy showed it was to save his possibly dead wife, Emilie. The idea of that is so the show can give more depth to its main villain, and I think it's an interesting idea in concept. After all, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

The problem is just how radically different Gabriel is normally compared to how he is as Hawkmoth. He always goes on about how he's “doing this for Emilie”, but it's hard to really sympathize with him when you consider he constantly gives evil monologues and evil laughs, really getting into the supervillain role. And let's not forget all of the “I'm going to wear Ladybug's skin as a suit” faces he loves to make.

Clearly this man is the picture of mental stability.

Gabriel's motivation for being Hawkmoth when compared to what he actually does as Hawkmoth is shady enough, but the thing is that the writers clearly want the audience to at least feel a little bad for him. They want to make the audience sympathize with him despite the way he acts with or without the mask. Without Miraculous Ladybug, he is routinely putting innocent lives in danger and never once shows regret for his actions. All he talks about is how “he's doing this for Emilie”, or that “he'll get their Miraculous soon”. There's no real reason to feel bad for him other than “because the script says so”.

Let's compare Gabriel to Malcolm Merlyn from Arrow. His big plan in the first season of the show is to create a machine that will cause an earthquake to destroy a crime-infested portion of Starling City, claiming to be trying to help everyone, but it's clear he is only doing it out of revenge for his wife getting killed by a criminal from that part of the city. In addition, throughout that season and future seasons, he always makes sure his plans lead to him benefiting in some way, showing he isn't just some noble man trying to achieve his goals with a less than noble method.

If we got some moments that showed that what Gabriel was doing was selfish, it would make him a more complex villain. But we don't get anything like that. What do we get instead? Well...

I Could Really Care Less About Emilie Agreste

We have known Gabriel's motivation has been to save his wife for a little over two years at this point, but at the same time, it's hard to believe that motivation because of how underdeveloped Emilie is as a character.

There have been a total of two lines in the entirety of the show that explain what happened to Emilie, and they're both vague as hell. One of them was from “Feast” that implied Emilie used the broken Peacock Miraculous.

Adrien: My mom used to have dizzy spells… just like Nathalie.

And the other that outright tells the audience what's happening to her in a clip show that most people will skip.

Nathalie: As I've watched Emilie falling deeper into an endless sleep, my sadness for her has deepened, too

That is literally all we get for an explanation, and nothing else. We have no idea of what she's like as a person or what her relationship with her family was like other than Gabriel and Adrien saying they miss her. Other than the way the narrative says she's important to Gabriel and Adrien, we don't really have a reason to care about her as a character. There have also been some lines that imply she went along with Gabriel's questionable parenting techniques, like how he was apparently only homeschooled as a kid (Origins) and never had a birthday party growing up (The Bubbler), so how do we even know if she's a good person? In fact, why not set up this question as a mystery to make the audience wonder if Gabriel has another reason to bring Emilie back?

It ultimately turns Emilie into a plot device and not a character that Gabriel and Adrien only bring up to make the audience feel bad for them, and meant to justify Gabriel's actions by saying that he's “doing this for his family”.

But hey, if he's doing this all for his family, surely Gabriel's redeeming traits come from his relationship with Adrien, right? Right?

As a Parent, Gabriel is Far From the Best

I've talked about this briefly before, but parenting in Miraculous Ladybug is written in such a black and white way, even by the standards of this show. Parents are portrayed in one of two ways. They're either amazing people who love and support their children unconditionally, or they're awful people who treat their own children like trash. And much like a lot of things in this show, there are times where the latter is treated like the former.

There are so many times where the narrative insists on making you see Gabriel as a troubled, but wellmeaning person who tries his best to be a good parent to Adrien, but it is far from the truth.

I'm not going to beat around the bush. Gabriel is a terrible parent. Like, he is awful at being a parent in so many ways, even before you find out he's Hawkmoth. In his first appearance, “The Bubbler”, he delegates getting Adrien a birthday present to Nathalie, his assistant. He literally can't be bothered to take time out of his schedule to get his own son a present for his birthday. And as the show goes on, he becomes more controlling and forbids Adrien from going out with his friends in other episodes (Captain Hardrock, Silencer). While this could be used to show Gabriel getting worse, it's never acknowledged in-universe, with Adrien continually defending his father essentially keeping him on house arrest.

“But IOTA!” You might say. “Gabriel has made efforts to bond with his son in some episodes.” While that might be true, most of those come right after his Akumas have almost gotten Adrien killed. He only hugged Adrien and made an attempt to learn more about him after Simon Says invaded their home, he only decided to watch that movie Emilie was in with Adrien after Gorizilla nearly dropped him off a building, and he only hugged Adrien again in public after he was turned into a gold statue by Style Queen.

In fact, let's talk about how Gabriel acts in the Queen Bee Trilogy. He actually decides to quit being Hawkmoth, but it's not because he realizes all the damage he's caused. Instead, he gave up because his “magnum opus”, a stronger than usual Akuma that only got the advantage on Ladybug ironically because of dumb luck, failed. Sure, he says he can't keep putting his son in danger, but he rarely ever acknowledges that he does so in the first place. When Riposte wanted to fight Adrien, Hawkmoth did nothing to stop her other than giving her a stern warning earlier on and nothing else. Where was this attitude earlier?

Hell, even then, he immediately goes back to being Hawkmoth as soon as he sees an opportunity, not even a day after his “mAgNuM oPuS” blew up in his face (because I guess Scarletmoth was just Plan B). If he made such a big deal about caring for his son, why didn't he try harder to spend time with him? Has he ever had doubts about what he's doing before? If Chloe didn't show up as Queen Bee, was he going to follow through on his promise and try to be a better father to Adrien instead of trying to get Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous?

And yeah, the whole irony is that Gabriel is doing this for his family when he is unknowingly fighting his own son, which could lead to some interesting drama if done right. The idea of how Gabriel would react to his son being Cat Noir could really lead to some internal struggles for him to go through. But then we got “Cat Blanc”, which shows just how terrible of a character Gabriel is.

In an alternate timeline where he found out his son was Cat Noir, what does Gabriel do? Does he try to steal Adrien's Miraculous while he's sleeping? Does he reconsider his actions or realize he was endangering Adrien's life?

NOPE! He just decides to akumatize him all while emotionally tormenting him, before causing the end of the world.

This is honestly one of the most appalling things I've ever seen in any TV show, because it's basically an abusive father ordering his son to listen to him all while referencing his (kind of) dead mother to back up his point. And rather than use this to show how despicable Gabriel is, the episode decides to blame Marinette for this happening. Yes, according to the show, her present to Adrien caused several events to happen which caused Cat Blanc, but this logic makes no sense. It's like blaming the JFK assassination on the man who sold a gun to Lee Harvey Oswald, instead of, you know, Lee Harvey Oswald.

Not only was this episode yet another excuse to blame Marinette for something that wasn't her fault, it leads into the biggest problem I have with Gabriel as a character.

Sympathize with Gabriel? Surely, You Jest

After everything I've gone over regarding Gabriel as a character, after all the awful things I've talked about, are you really surprised that I don't feel bad for him at all?

Gabriel is just an awful character and a despicable human being, but the show just keeps wanting me to feel bad for him. It's just so hard to when you consider everything he's done has made him anything but sympathetic. I'm just saying, it's kind of hard to feel bad for someone who tries to start World War III with the only justification being “i'M dOiNg It FoR mY fAmIlY”, especially when he treats his family like crap.

The writers go out of their way to show how horrible Gabriel is as Hawkmoth/Shadowmoth, but they think because they throw in a few moments where he looks conflicted, we'll immediately feel bad for him. What makes so many people interested in seeing Chloe become a better person is that they can tell she's the victim of a troubled upbringing, and know that because she's only a teenager, she still has room to grow as a person, represented by having more honest moments of vulnerability. Gabriel is a grown man who once caused the apocalypse because of how terrible of a parent he is, and has even fewer sympathetic moments than Chloe does. Which one of these two is supposedly irredeemable? The answer may surprise you.

But the frustrating thing is that this kind of villain could have worked. Instead of making him this mustache-twirling psychopath, show how much Gabriel regrets what he has to do, but keeps pushing onward despite all the lives he's risking if it means that he can save his wife. Instead of making Gabriel like Lex Luthor, make him like Mr. Freeze, who is basic a better written version of him.

But as it stands, there's a good reason why Gabriel gets little to no respect as a character in the Miraculous Ladybug fandom, as a villain, or as a father.

[descendants-brat]

How I feel about Mal Bertha and her character PART 1

 This is not a Mal bertha Biography and it is biased in the sense that I don’t like her at all. Read with caution.

Descendants 2 was actually the first movie of the trilogy that I had watched. My little sister was watching it and I happened to be passing by and sat to watch it with her when it caught my eye. 2017 me had a completely different opinion of Mal bertha than today not because I was younger but simply because D3 hadn’t come out yet and I hadn’t watched the first movie or even knew there was books. I can’t stand Mal bertha, not even the D1 version of her and that’s the one even Mal antis love. I didn’t like her in the first movie but it was more of a “I wouldn’t be friends with her.” I didn’t think that she was unforgiveable and that it was impossible to give her a second chance. She made her own bad choices but she expressed genuine regret for them and was only 16. Despite me, loathing Mal’s existence I related to her in sense that it’s scary wanting to change but you don’t know whether or not your actions have caused too much damage. 

In D2 watching it as a stand alone I saw a girl wanting something other than the ‘happily ever after’ and deciding she would go for what would make her happy when she went back to isle. I was desperately hoping that after the ‘It’s going down’ scene that she would go back to the isle and not choose to stay somewhere she wanted to leave. But we know how that went and the ending left me bitter and sad not for her, but for Uma. She began to leave a bitter taste in my mouth when she broke up with Ben and came back and just expected him to get back together with her. I’m going to go around every version of her character.

PRE D1

She was a dick. That’s the simplest way I can put it. I don’t like even acknowledging pre d1 Mal because it leaves me with this very negative view of her character that I don’t think was necessary. I feel like this is a big fuck up, wanting to have Mal be her ‘evilest’ before coming to Auradon. I understand the reason why they wanted to show her growth and change throughout the series. But after looking at some real life scenarios with a similar Mal situation it made me look at it differently. Imagine this: someone who severely bullied you and harassed you and everyone around getting to go to a new place and get the best treatment there, then she’s congratulated with becoming queen of that land and not only that she then decides she’s going to be queen of the place she was bullying and harassing people at without ever properly apologizing. This happens in real life and these people get exposed which is why I don’t like it. It would be different if Mal actual grew throughout the series but it was real just her gaining more power and the scenery changing from Pre D1-D3. She also continued to make the same type of ‘mistakes’ with no actual direct consequences all she had to do was cry and they forgave her. She would be okay if it Descendants was a stand alone movie. But knowing the type of life she would get to live after all of this behavior puts me off from reading it. It would also be different if Mal lived a simple life in Auradon (Aka not trying to take control by dating the king and then stepping all over said king) She got more than what she deserved to have. In my opinion she did deserve the chance at all better life just like all the other kids who didn’t commit any crimes to be locked up. But in the eyes of people she victimized she wouldn’t deserve to be Queen become royalty, live in castles and get gifted with limos and bikes. 

D1

 D1 is the version of Mal everyone generally likes however, like I stated before I didn’t like her even then. At the start we see someone who is clearly trying to please her mother so if her mother wants bad behavior she gives her that. Throughout the main plot she did things of her own accord that she can’t use her mom as an excuse for. There’s a couple different things but a lot of them had to do with Ben and I’m making a whole post on how Ben was treated like shit throughout the franchise so that will be addressed then and not in this post. However for a reference she drugged him with a spelled cookie into falling in love with her for the wand. He wasn’t even willing to eat the cookie at first but she guilt tripped him into eating it. We could brush this off as her doing whatever she needed to do to get to the crown but to me she took advantage of the situation by actually going on dates with him. He was already spelled and willing to listen to whatever she wanted so besides for her own personal interest why would she go on the dates? (Granted a 16 year old wanting to get cute and have a nice date with a nice boy is not a fault or wrong in any way the fault here is all of this was happening when Ben was not in his right state of mind until the spell washed off.) Her taking advantage of Jane’s insecurities was not cool either and I’m interested in what ways she would’ve tried to use Jane if it was easier to get to the wand through her. Since her main crime in my opinion was Ben and since he’ll have his own essay post I’ll focus on Audrey here.

Her disrespect to Audrey

It was unnecessary, she had no reason to have had Audrey’s name in her mouth as much as she did D1. It would make more sense for Mal to like Audrey’s sassy boldness to me not shit talk her every chance she got. At the start they had a small passive aggressive conversation that could’ve just been left at that because technically they burred the hatchet between the two families. It was a “hey I don’t fuck with you, you don’t fuck with me” type of a situation that could’ve grown civil. However, throughout the movie in comparison to Audrey who really just had a problem with Mal’s mother until she spelled ben then it became direct problems with each other. Mal was continuously talking shit about Audrey as if Audrey was the one who fucked with her family. This time her upbringing can be referenced, on the Isle she most likely was allowed to openly hate things and Audrey was most likely raised to at least pretend to be polite. But from the Audrey we’ve seen she clearly doesn’t care about holding her tongue she’s straightforward with how she feels and she didn’t have a problem with Mal she had a problem with her mother. The only time she talked about Mal directly was about the hair spells which she ended up being right about (Mal’s addictive reliance on magic in D2 and Jane at the end of D1).  After completely ignoring Audrey’s feelings and literally stole her boyfriend (not even on the the you can’t steal a loyal man type of shit she literally stole him he wasn’t even allowed to consent to it.) She later in Audrey’s Diary multiple times tries to reason this with she never meant to directly hurt Audrey and that she didn’t really want Ben she just wanted the wand etc etc. The evidence doesn’t back this up Mal, you’ve made your disdain for Audrey clear and talked shit about her to Evie right after you spelled Ben the did I mention bs claiming “Chad will see her horrible personally” as if you knew her personally and that Chad didn’t grow up with her. Mal can say she didn’t mean to hurt Audrey but she clearly didn’t mind that she did.

 I’m going to make a whole separate on Audrey and how I do think she gets a lot of slack because people can relate to her, but also how her treatment in comparison to Mal’s is unfair. 

 I did think she deserved a chance to show remorse for her behavior (spoiler: she didnt) Again, I like to look at things from the pov of other characters for things like this. If I was an Auradon kid who was friends with Mal and ended up finding out she was using me and plotting to take over and destroy the place I lived with/for her mother but changed her mind last minute. I would see her as forgivable I just wouldn’t want her around me. In other words I would expect her to start her own new life, not continue trying to live the one where she was plotting without even actually apologizing to people. AU: After descendants instead of continuing to date Ben she breaks it off and goes to an Art school frequently coming back to visit Auradon and after high school she goes on a quest (with the C4 of course) exploring all kinds of different kingdoms and countries because she was locked up on the isle her whole life. In the future she possibly returns to Auardon and even could get back together with Ben with a proper start.

D2

The first Descendants Movie I ever saw so it holds a special place with me and I actually rooted for Mal the first time I watched it. I sat in to watch at the argument scene and knowing all of the plots now and after rewatching  it my opinion has change greatly. We see a blonde and very stressed Mal who’s dealing with the pressures of becoming a royal in order to secure her place with Ben. I do feel bad for Mal when she was talking to Evie, she was trying to reach out to her friend about her situation and was basically told to stop talking about it. I understand Evie’s feelings of wanting to leave the past behind but I can also understand Mal feeling like she’s cornered and can’t even talk to her best friend. I can also understand her feelings of ending up overwhelmed with her decisions from going to somebody who did whatever whenever to becoming a royal with duties I get the pressure. If Mal decided that wasn’t the life she wanted to live and went back to the isle where she felt more comfortable I don’t see anything wrong with that. She wasn’t required to stay in Auradon if she felt like she was unhappy there. That says a little something about Auradon to me if somebody would rather live where they ate rotten food than live there.  My sympathy for Mal stops there because everything else was a result of her own actions and things she brought onto herself.

1. The royal situation

Let’s get one thing clear nobody was forcing Mal to hand sign up for the prime and proper royal life. She did that herself.

Nobody told her that she had to dye her hair blonde and have a complete wardrobe change, she did.

Nobody said she even had to continue the terrible relationship she had with Ben and go straight into being a royal in order to basically become Ben’s wifey, she did.

She’s saying all of these people are expecting things of her when 6 months ago she was stealing candy from babies when she was the one who let people have these expectations. She decided to take up the role herself because that was what she wanted. Let’s be honest with how it happened Mal would not live in Auradon if she had to be a regular citizen she wanted to be in control of everybody and to have power because that how she always lived. However once she realized that nobody was just about to hand her this power just for being with Ben unlike with her Mom  (getting to rule the isle just because she was her daughter and not because she actually worked her way up there) and that she actually had duties and work to fulfill if she wanted to be the boss. She let her pride get in the way by feeling she had to prove she could last with Ben and become an Auradon girl and ended up miserable and blaming Ben for  something she decided to do herself.

She then had the responsibility to fulfill all of those duties and she was struggling unlike anybody else who would’ve had to abide by the “don’t use magic” quote on quote rule she decided to use Magic after claiming she’d give it up and was still a hot ass mess. She can’t even use the excuse that was to help her with her lady in training because she was using it to not be late to class and later to try and manipulate Ben.  @ishiphumasohard made a good response on why it was unfair for Mal to use magic as her ‘right’ because at what point would it be unfair to other kids? While all the other kids have to show up on time to school Mal gets to use magic to turn back time instead of just being on time. If other kids studied all night for a test Mal can use a speed reading spell. If there was a cooking contest Mal can spell her way into a feast while the others would have to the actual labor. You get the point, because magic is not universally used by everyone in Auradon and it’s an unspoken rule that it’s not to be used then she should have followed this rule.

I will say the girl was stressed and was feeling alone, I already gave my sympathies for that.

The magic situation really hit the fan when she felt comfortable enough to spell the boyfriend who had already put enough trust in her to continue their relationship that started with her drugging him for her own benefit. Compared to her Ben did seem to be taking it easy but maybe like her, he didn’t want to show it. It seems Ben and Mal had a sort of pack to work hard together to become ‘the king and queen’ of Auradon they were supposed to be in it together. In my opinion it would make more sense for Ben to be hiding things from Mal than the other way around due to the nature of their shitty relationship. But that’s just not how it went down and after Mal tries to spell Ben into not finding her spellbook he gets RIGHTFULLY ANGRY. That entire scene was her fault, she could’ve explained herself and why she was using magic and that she was having a hard time but she once again decides to take advantage of Ben’s trust. Then proceeds to make sure she ends the  fight with her being the victim. So much so that the entire fact that she spelled Ben was never brought up again.

Going back to the isle 

She then decides to go back to the isle, if this was really her decision I wouldn’t mind it. There’s nothing wrong with her liking the isle better than Auradon if that’s where she felt at home. The problem was she was clearly emotional and let’s be honest, if she had called all of her friends together and actually broke up with Ben and told them this was her decision to go back to the isle before leaving they MIGHT (hard might) not have ran after her like they did. Not only that the duties that we were speaking of earlier, she didn’t formally pull out of anything which is why it irked me when she was so irritated that they came back for her.

Some people actually didn’t like her attitude as soon as she got back on the isle because she expected to run it. That wasn’t surprising to me honestly, because for her whole life that’s how it was, only person she was scared of was her mother. She quickly realized however now that her mom isn’t around and in lizard form nobody was scared of her. Most unrealistic part of D2 was how Mal didn’t get jumped as soon as people realized she got back. Like I said Isle Mal was a straight dickhead and had too many enemies to be walking around like she was. 

Another point was when she got her hair dyed by dizzy, the shop wasn’t open, she saw this, ignored it and went in anyway. Not even because her and Dizzy were tight like that she just expected her to do what she wanted (get the pattern with Mal here?)

 Skipping her scene with harry because it did nothing to the plot.

The rest of the C4 and Ben come to get Mal back as expected and she acts all surprised and angry. Ben apologizes to her and instead of apologizing for what she did and then explaining that she doesn’t want to go back to Auradon and be a lady of the court. She continues the narrative that Ben wanted her to change and that she’s not good for Auradon so she’s going to stay on the isle. What’s the difference between the two? The first one is her taking responsibility of her actions and deciding for herself that that’s not the life she wants. While the other is acknowledging none of the blame and deciding to run away not because that’s not what she really wants but because everyone will turn on her so she has to run first. It painted a narrative that nothing of this was her own doing while at the same time making it seem like she is doing the right thing by backing away which in hindsight probably was the better decision. Mal’s feelings weren’t the problem I understand them, she thinks she won’t be accepted as herself so she wants to leave before they can kick her out but that’s not what caused her to leave and she knows it. You got caught doing something shitty and instead of apologizing you ran away.

After Ben gets kidnapped she lectures the C4, again she does have some blame in this. With the way the fight ended it made it look like Ben was in the wrong so he was going to try and apologize regardless if they brought him or not. The rest of them came to keep him safe and as her gang members come back for her. Was this not something she considered after she calmed herself down? Ben honestly had no reason to be directly on the isle unprotected besides to sneak and apologize to you so are you really going to just blame the C4 for bringing him there and getting him captured?

Then when Uma, who has him captured plans a meeting she antagonizes her like that’s what is best for Ben at the time. Even in the mist of Ben being in danger she thought it was a good idea to try and piss off the person holding him captive. If you don’t remember what she did she called her shrimpy, insulted the smell of the restaurant and said she never thought of Uma while implying that Uma always had her on her mind for no reason. None of that was necessary to ask what Uma’s conditions were to give Ben back she just couldn’t help herself. 

She didn’t care about Dizzy

Who had just performed a task for her and right after she paid her got robbed and had the place trashed just for Mal to say she’ll be alright. This should’ve been foreshadowing at the very least that she wasn’t ready to be making decisions for other people’s lives because besides her own and her friends she didn’t care for many especially those on the isle.

It’s going down

Even though it was in the song and not directly her words again antagonizing the person who has Ben held captive and threatening his life, insulting them is stupid. This entire scene is messy and they shouldn’t even had been able to win a fight against pirates outnumbered. When has Mal ever picked up a sword???

Car ride Back

She gets mad when Ben has sympathy/ shows understanding for Uma. She somehow realizes that it’s wrong Uma kidnapped him but was comfortable spelling him without a second thought. In my opinion she thought she had some type of ownership over Ben she could do what she wanted to him and if somebody else did it was wrong. (Even though this can be applied to what she did in D1, I’m only talking about D2 because most people agree she showed regret for her actions in D1) When he calls her out on her hypocrisy she goes mute and does that thing, of letting her mouth hang opened whenever she gets called out on her shit.

END OF PART 1

I was going to make this one long post but I’ve been putting this off long enough so here is part 1, no idea when part 2 will be up. I do hope to have the Ben posts up before that.

[moomingitz]

It’s... interesting looking back at the Jak and Daxter series, because when the second and third games first came out during my edgy teen years my mindset for them was mostly, “OMG Jak is now a buff and rugged edgy boi, he’s saying curse words, and has a literal edgy dark side to him. And Daxter is a big playboi who doesn’t hide his love for bewbs. Jak and Daxter is no longer for babies but for mature big kids like me!”

But looking at the series now; Holy shit, Jak has had it rough. Where do I even begin? This is going to be long, so get comfortable:

First, Jak was ripped away from his father at a very young age due to an insurrection. Then he was kidnapped by one of the people who was responsible for it, with the intention of being used to awaken some ancient Precursor technology, but luckily he somehow escaped and then was taken in by a rebellion group.

Then he was sent back into the past to be raised by Samos, the Sage of Green Eco. While that was a good thing for Jak, since he was able to grow up in a loving and supportive environment, what happened to him before that is something that would still be traumatic to a little kid especially in the form of something like Separation Anxiety. While this goes into headcanon territory, I can’t help but wonder if that had a lot to do with why Jak was the mostly silent type before the events of the second game. But thankfully he was lucky to grow up with two best friends like Daxter and Keira.

Surely you think that would be the end of misfortune Jak would have to go through. Wrong!

Fast forward to where he’s now 15 years old and everything seems all good and exciting after he and Daxter saved the world from Dee Snider and his twisted sister. Sure they didn’t accomplish what they set out for by turning Daxter back into his old humanoid self, by Daxter is content staying as a furry anyway. At least they saved the world and found some ancient Precursor technology. But hold up! Turns out it was some kind of rift gate and the moment they activated it some giant bug monster pops out and they’re all separated and thrown into some new place they’ve never seen.

Literal seconds later, before Jak or Daxter have any time to react or process what exactly just happened and where they ended up, Jak is immediately arrested and knocked unconscious, despite doing nothing wrong. He’s then tortured and experimented on for the next two years, in hopes of turning him into a living weapon by pumping Dark Eco into him. Keep in mind Jak was only 15-16 years old during those nightmarish two years of his life. But his BFF Daxter never gave up looking for him and eventually rescued Jak.

Upon busting out Jak has no damn idea where exactly he is, and when he does it turns out him and Daxter are now in a totalitarian, police state of a hellhole where never ending propaganda is blared everywhere you go, and where Jak’s only crime is just existing. Oh, and there’s currently an ongoing war between this police state regime ruling the city and some species called Metal Heads, so the territory outside the city is near inhospitable. So just simply leaving Haven City isn’t really an option. It’s either deal with the Krimson Gaurd who will get on you for just sneezing in the wrong direction, or claw your way for survival outside the city walls.

Until finding Samos and Kiera much later, Daxter is the only familiar and welcoming face Jak still had until then(the only exception being Sig in the “welcoming face” department).

Oh, and it turns out those Dark Eco experiments gave JAk some dark Hulk like form that he has trouble controlling(at least that’s what the game tells us). Oh, and they eventually learn that this shithole place they found themselves in is actually their home 500 years into the future. Oh, and it turns that this little kid they’ve been having to protect from both the Krimson Guard and the Metal Head army is actually Jak’s younger self.

Despite all that, the rebellion group and many of the criminals they had to work with eventually warm up and even become their friends, the authoritarian regime eventually crumbles, and they kill the Metal Head leader. Even though Jak doesn’t go back to his childhood home in the past, Keira, Samos, and Daxter choose to stay with him in the future, so he’s definitely not alone in the end. Happy ending earned, and that should be the end of all the bad stuff to happen in Jak’s life, right?...

Of course that wouldn’t be the end of bad traumatic shit to happen to Jak!

Right after the events of the second game, Jak is not only blamed for the fallout of the Praxis regime falling and the Metal Head army’s demise, but he’s outright banished to the Wasteland, no thanks to some weasely council member, Veger.

But ya boi Daxter snuck out to join Jak in his exile, so at least Jak still has his best friend with him. Jak now has to survive in a Mad Max esque land after proving himself worthy to Damas, the leader of some refuge village. But it’s kind of good because he slowly gets on this guy’s good graces.

Oh, but later on it turns out this Damas guy is actually the very father Jak was forcibly separated from during his very early childhood. But, Jak only figured that out just as Damas was dying, and he didn’t have a chance to tell Damas that he was his son that’s he’s been wanting to find for years.

It also turns out this Veger douchebag was one of the people aside from Baron Praxis who was responsible for Jak being separated from Dadmas, and was the guy who kidnapped him in an attempt use him to obtain that ancient Precursor technology.

Of course everything works out in the end. But yeah... You see what I mean? Jak was put through the wringer during the events of this whole trilogy! He's done nothing wrong! Yet starting from a very young age he’s either been targeted or dragged into other’s messes for just existing, or for something he had no choice to do in order to survive. The only real thing he did wrong was dragging Daxter over to Misty Island, which led to him being accidentally transformed into an ottsel in the first place. But the events of the first games was all a lighthearted adventure anyway. Aside from that it’s been one unfortunate or traumatic event after another for Jak.

When letting everything Jak went through really sink in, there’s guaranteed trauma and the resulting PTSD this poor guy is going to have to address or else it will inevitably manifest itself in some way later on. Acting gruff and blase' will only work for so long. I know some people get tired with pieces of fiction being compared to Steven Universe, but Steven’s eventual mental breakdown seriously came to mind. And some people will say, “It’s just a vidya game, stop thinking too much into it.”, but there was a conscious decision to take this series into a more dark and mature direction after the first game. So, it’s a bit hard not to think about more possible unpleasant implications based on what happened in the sequels, especially when looking at the events of the games through the lenses of today.

Taking all of this into consideration is also why I think Daxter is seriously the “MVP” of the series.

Daxter grew up being Jak’s best friend, which I’m sure helped Jak a lot after being separated from his father and taken to a literal place in time completely different and unfamiliar to him. I’m very sure his time growing up in Sandover Village and hanging out with Daxter was the best period of Jak’s life. Even after Jak dragged him to Misty Island, accidentally causing him to be transformed into an ottsel, and sacrificing his chance to be turned back to normal in order to save the world, Daxter showed no hard feelings towards Jak and he even learns to like being an ottsel.

He spent two years trying to find out where Jak was being held prisoner in Haven City, and infiltrated the place once he did and helped Jak escape.

And despite not having any fingers pointed towards him for the fallout after the events of the second game, Daxter still chooses to join Jak in exile in the Wasteland.

Daxter has never shown any ill will towards Jak despite him being the one responsible for being turned into an ottsel, and he’s never really abandoned him even when he is given many chances to or a way to get himself out of really bad situations. Despite everything, Daxter is still the same quippy, upbeat dork of a friend Jak has grown up with.

I really believe Daxter helped a lot with keeping Jak’s sanity intact during all of the hell he was put through and beyond. If there was a guaranteed way for someone to sign their own death warrant with Jak, I think harming or outright killing Daxter would be it.

[theotherhufflepuff]

Simon Snow Trilogy Tarot Cards...

Ok so, a little while ago I saw this frankly stunning artwork by @vkelleyart and I started thinking about the Major Arcana archetypes and how characters from my favourite book series could fit into them.

So I made this list. It took a lot of thought and I’m still not 100% sure on some of them but I have explained my thought process for each card.

I don’t know how much crossover there is in the Venn diagram of “Simon Snow fans” and “tarot readers” but I’d love to hear your opinions and/or alternative suggestions (be respectful though, obviously). I’ve left “visual prompts” for most of the cards explaining what they looked like in my imagination and if anyone wants to draw any of these (or their own alternative version!) please tag me; it would make my day! I can’t draw for toffee so I am 1000% never gonna try to illustrate any of them myself.

List under the cut because it is loooong.

Spoilers ahead for the whole series!

0 The Fool - Shepard - Shepard just follows magickal creatures around and says “yes” to everything... he is the pure embodiment of the Fool archetype to me; care-free, innocent... prepared for everything and yet totally clueless. Visual prompt: Shepard about to (attempt to) step into the fog as he follows a fairy into the forest.

1 The Magician - Penelope - “Penelope Bunce is a fierce magician, I don’t mind saying” Baz, at least once in each book. Penny never worries about not having the power or words available to do whatever she wants; she is comfortable in her power and it is always there, ready to be wielded however she sees fit. Visual prompt: Penny wearing her Stevie Nicks cape, standing by a chalkboard in the classic “Magician” pose, ring clearly held aloft.

2 The High Priestess - Dr Mitali Bunce - Dr Bunce is possibly a more formidable magician than her daughter. Highly intelligent, straightforward and, let’s be honest, judgemental. But she does have all the answers. Visual prompt: Dr Bunce carrying around her laptop, phone sandwiched between her ear and her shoulder.

3 The Empress - Lucy Salisbury - Lucy exudes the nurturing, Earth Mother vibes that are central to the Empress archetype. She saw the best in everyone and all she wanted was to love Davy and live with him in their cottage with her chickens and their child. Visual prompt: Lucy, barefoot and pregnant, feeding the chickens outside of their cottage.

4 The Emperor - Lamb - This is one of the ones I’m not totally sure about. I went through a few different ideas but ultimately settled on Lamb as the “Vampire King of Las Vegas”. He is an imposing figure, ruling his city with an iron fist; if you are in his favour, Vegas is your playground, but cross him and you will suffer the consequences. Visual prompt: Lamb sits on an antique chair in his opulent suite at the Katherine, the lights of night time Vegas visible through the window behind him.

5 The Hierophant - The Mage - Again, this one took some thought and I’m sure some people will disagree with this interpretation... I’m not completely sold on it myself. The Mage was all about reforming the old traditions of the World of Mages and he amassed a following by doing so. But he turned out to be somewhat of a false prophet; abusing his power to oppress those he deemed “the enemy”. Visual prompt: The Mage in his Robin Hood costume, sitting at his desk at the top of the Weeping Tower, surrounded by his piles of banned books.

6 The Lovers - Simon and Baz - Obviously. As stated at the top of this post, I love @vkelleyart’s version of this card, but there are a lot of scenes across the series that could be used to illustrate this archetype. I personally always love to see the original “and then he kisses me” scene.

7 The Chariot - Fiona Pitch - I struggled with this one a bit and I don’t really think that this is the ideal version. But the image of Fiona, rolling up to Blackfriars bridge in her vintage sports car to rescue Baz from the Numpties really stuck with me so that’s what I went with, for lack of a better idea.

8 Strength - Ebb - Ebb is often dismissed and underestimated by other magicians but she is wicked powerful. But more than that, the Strength card is about inner strength, self control and the wisdom to know when to fight, and when to rest. Ebb is highly intuitive about the people - and goats - around her and is always careful not to talk about her twin brother, only conceding that she knows of his presence once a year and never giving in to the temptation to talk directly to him. Ebb saw the war coming and knew that she could probably end it all by herself with the power she had; but she also knew that she didn’t want that and she had the strength to say no, to eschew the expectations the rest of the World of Mages placed upon her and live quietly, instead. Visual prompt: Ebb in the hills behind the school with the goats, she wears a flower crown that the Dryad made her.

9 The Hermit - Agatha - the Hermit eschews the outside world in order to take an inner journey of self discovery, knowing that this is the only way to find real answers and achieve real growth. Agatha, jaded by the World of Mages, took herself off to California, leaving her wand at home. She didn’t know what she wanted but she knew it wasn’t magic. Visual prompt: Agatha sits on the beach at twilight by a small campfire, Lucy the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel by her side.

10 The Wheel of Fortune - The Crucible - The Crucible’s decisions, like the Wheel’s, are unpredictable and inevitable. Once it’s happened, you’re stuck with the consequences - sometimes bad (being stuck with a toff vampire who hates you) and sometimes good (getting the best room in Mummers house).

11 Justice - Natasha Grimm-Pitch - Natasha needed justice to find peace; her whole story is about justice. She was swift to act when the vampires attacked Watford, dispatching them without hesitation. When she came through the veil to find Baz and ask him to bring her murderer to justice, she knew that would also provide some closure for him, too, both for her death, and for his. Visual prompt: Natasha Grimm-Pitch appearing from beyond the veil, looking for Baz and finding Simon.

12 The Hanged One - Nicodemus - The Hanged One is about feeling stuck, but also about finding peace where you are when there’s nothing you can do about it. Nicodemus chose to cross over for eternal life, but he was stricken from the book; his (considerable) magic effectively taken from him and his fangs removed. He was stuck in between - not a full vampire, not a magician; he exists on the fringes of both communities. He got himself there and then he had to figure out how to get by, carve out a place for himself in order to survive. Visual prompt: Nicodemus sits in the tree in the garden of his mother’s house in South London, waiting for Ebb to come and sit on the empty bench beneath him.

13 Death - [scene on the Great Lawn] - Ok, so.. this might need some explaining. My immediate thought for this card was that it should be the Humdrum but Death is all about clearing out the old junk in your life that doesn’t serve you in order to make space for the new. And the Humdrum isn’t making space for anything. So I was thinking about times that has happened in the story and I thought about how the death of the Mage made room for real progress and an end to the war with the old families. Visual prompt: Penny and Baz (literally) run into a fleeing Agatha on the Great Lawn; the Weeping Tower looms in the background, the Mage and Simon visible through the blown-out stained glass windows.

14 Temperance - Simon and the Humdrum - Temperance is, as you might expect, about balance and harmony. Simon used so much magic at once that he couldn’t control it and it tore holes in the magickal atmosphere. Simon had to fill the Simon-shaped hole to restore equalibrium and stop the magickal firmament from collapsing altogether. Visual prompt: Simon kneeling in the Weeping Tower, pouring his magic into the Humdrum as he fades away.

15 The Devil - Smith Smith-Richards - The Devil is about feeling trapped by temptations in your life, often because we’re afraid of what we would do with the freedom we’d have if we let them go. Which got me thinking about Smith-Richards (that name never gets any less ridiculous) and all the magicians who were taken in by the temptation of “fixing” their magic. But it was a false promise and those magicians who narrowly escaped taking Smith-Richards’ spell were all freed from the idea of their magic being “broken” in the first place. Visual prompt: Smith-Richards (looking like the guy who would be cast to play Simon in the Netflix series) standing on a stage in the packed-out White Chapel, rapt audience hanging on his every word.

16 The Tower - The Humdrum - Originally I wanted to use the Weeping Tower for this card because the imagery is on point but the meaning doesn’t match. The Tower is about absolute destruction, the crumbling of something you thought core to your being. The Humdrum steals magic and renders magicians homeless because of it. The Tower is about having to start again from the ground up - just as the Grimms did when all the magic was drained from Hampshire. Visual prompt: The Humdrum, wearing Simon’s face, stands in the grounds of Pitch Manor, laughing. (I have always thought of the holes looking like a burn in a piece of paper - sort of glowing and smouldering at the edges as it eats away the atmosphere. I know the holes can’t actually be seen - the Normals would freak out - but that is imagery I would use here)

17 The Star - Lady Ruth’s candles - The Star is about hope and healing after the devastation of the Tower. Lady Ruth’s candles were a symbol of hope that kept her going when she thought she had lost her children. They provided comfort and, at the end when it became clear the Lucy was gone, the healing of knowing that her child had finally found his way home to his family. Visual prompt: Lady Ruth’s candles in front of a window, a bright star can be seen through the window.

18 The Moon - Agatha and Simon - So, the Moon is all about examining blurred lines between illusion and reality - nothing looks totally clear in the moonlight. It reminded me of how Simon never really seemed to have a clear view of his feelings for Agatha and what their relationship was. When he properly examined his feelings, he found that he didn’t love Agatha and was going through the motions because he thought it was what other people expected of him. Agatha was doing the same. It also brought to mind Simon, going out of his mind worrying about Baz when he was missing - as well as basically every other thought Simon ever has about Baz before Christmas Eve 2015 - and somehow mistaking it for hating him?? Simon is not stupid but sometimes he’s real dumb. Visual prompt: Agatha and Simon meet on the ramparts, both looking for Baz, and break up.

19 The Sun - Simon - This card is all about innocence, optimism and joy. Nothing about this series personifies this more than Simon flying above Shepard’s truck in America, feeling free and hopeful about the future for the first time in over a year. Visual prompt: Shepard’s truck drives through the vast empty desert, the sun beating down. Simon flies above the truck, joy on his face.

20 Judgement - Niamh and Agatha - Ok, this one was hard to figure out and this is maybe not the right solution, but I was very stuck. Judgement is about self improvement through self reflection. As a small twist on that theme; Niamh and Agatha challenge each other’s view of themselves and their interactions with the world around them. Visual prompt: Agatha and Niamh, sweating to death in Niamh’s “shitty Ford Fiesta” (I’m very salty about that line; my Ford Fiesta is lovely and it has aircon). Niamh is frowning, obviously.

21 The World - Simon, Baz, Penny and Shepard - The World is about completeness, the ending of a story, fulfilment and belonging. At the end of AWTWB, Simon has finally found his biological family, he is starting to accept that his boyfriend and his found family love him for who he is, magic or no, and he can finally start to imagine a future for himself. Baz has learned new information about his vampirism, Penny has found new confidence and Shepard is finally fully accepted into the group. Visual prompt: Baz, Penny and Shepard sit on Simon’s sofa (possibly still pink from Baz’s spell, possibly he spelled it navy blue again) Simon sits on the floor. They’re all eating leftover sandwiches and cake from Lady Ruth’s.

[rivalsforlife]

Do you have anything you wished was different from Ace Attorney canon?

Hello I'm finally slowly starting to get around to answering some of these! Sorry for the wait.

Uh this ask got super long so a basic summary of it: narumitsu being canon in a well-written way would be nice even though I don't think it would ever happen, I stand by not bringing back Phoenix as a main protagonist in DD, and I'd also want to rewrite all of SOJ so that Apollo goes to Khura'in in place of Phoenix, to have more interesting character stuff going on.

So the longer answer is this:

Aside from some of the actually problematic stuff that I don't feel qualified to talk about, story-wise, I answered a sort of similar question about a year ago here. I have changed my opinions a little bit since then, particularly with regards to the canonicity of narumitsu... because while I do love narumitsu I feel like I don't trust Ace Attorney to actually do it properly. After all if this past November has taught us anything "making a ship canon" could actually be quite undesirable and I have no desire to see Phoenix and/or Edgeworth sent to superhell. (I literally know nothing else about supernatural sorry about that.)

If capcom were somehow able to make narumitsu canon but in an unobtrusive way and as a natural progression of the storyline, like oh hey, the court record profile for Miles Edgeworth's Obligatory Last-Case Appearance has Phoenix mention they're dating, and maybe there's a few lines suggesting they live with each other, but it's not like... taking the entire story to force them together and otherwise does not change the way they interact with each other and butcher one or both of their characterizations in the process? I'd definitely be happy about that. Not gonna lie even if they made narumitsu canon in the most terrible way possible I'd have a "holy shit I can't believe they did that it's the best day of my life" kind of moment before I could think about it critically. But I honestly see no chance of them ever actually making narumitsu canon, so that's quite unrealistic to hope for anyways.

Aside from that in that other ask I talked about basically the premise of an Apollo trilogy and not bringing back Phoenix as the main protagonist in DD, and I still stand by that, buuut in my other ask I did touch on making SOJ a different game where Apollo goes to Khura'in instead of Phoenix - and you know what I'm going to take some time to actually talk about my dream version of SOJ because there were a lot of little things about the one we got that I didn't like. And it's going to be very long. So it's under a cut.

SO yeah I talked about it a bit in the other ask. I think that Phoenix going to Khura'in is a rather weak idea both externally and in-universe. In one of the interviews, too lazy to find which one, Phoenix basically goes to Khura'in because the writers couldn't figure out how to challenge him anymore. ... And then they don't actually challenge him at all. Because oh well now we're going to this new country where they KILL DEFENSE ATTORNEYS WHO LOSE and then it's supposed to be *shocking* that Phoenix would risk his life for a kid or his best friend. you know the guy who ran across a burning bridge to save his best friend. you know the guy who got punched in the face, nearly killed by the mafia, and tazed trying to save his clients. This doesn't tell me anything new about Phoenix's character. His whole travel in Khura'in doesn't tell me anything new about Phoenix's character. Basically the only reason he's there is to see Maya - Maya who theoretically would be returning home in about two weeks. Maya who was still in her training for two more weeks when Phoenix visited so he wouldn't be able to see her anyways. ... And in the meantime Trucy had the biggest show of her life that was going to be on TV and Phoenix wasn't there for it. And of course Phoenix didn't return home after Trucy was accused of murder (yes he couldn't be there for the trial, but he definitely could have for the emotional support afterwards) and instead just sits for two weeks in Khura'in doing literally nothing after Ahlbi's trial.

(And yes I know about the anime prologue that has Phoenix think Maya's in danger... but that's not strictly canon since it's never mentioned in game, isn't technically a part of the game, and even still, why wouldn't he go home after knowing that Maya's safe and that Trucy had been ACCUSED OF MURDER. Honestly that's what makes me angriest about this whole thing is that it makes Phoenix out to be a terrible dad. We really don't need any more takes like that, especially not from canon.)

And what about Apollo, you may ask? Well, given case 5 of SOJ, Apollo actually has a personal link to Khura'in and ends up staying there afterwards... after being there for like a day or two. I should note here that it has been a while since I went through SOJ in its entirety so I am fuzzy on many of the details. But both through what I remember and some conversations with people who actually played the game recently, the motivation for Apollo to actually stay in Khura'in isn't that great. It mainly seemed like guilt about his dead dad who he hadn't been in contact with for years and had completely written off until a few days ago but oh he died and then went to go visit him so... better take up the law office!

If Apollo had gone to Khura'in in place of Phoenix and spent more time there, reconnecting with his childhood home and actually getting passionate seeing how corrupt the legal system is there (even though we have a corrupt legal system at home) and being driven to fix it, that would make for a stronger story, I think. The Khura'in plot is more personally focused around Apollo than it is Phoenix. Phoenix's connection to Khura'in is through Maya, but Maya doesn't really have much of a connection to it aside from "it's where spirit channeling is from and she trains there". But Apollo, I guess, grew up there. So it's so strange to me that they force all of Apollo's connection to Khura'in in the last case while Phoenix is running around doing who-knows-what for the rest of the game. Phoenix spends more time getting to know the state of Khura'in and the Defiant Dragons and case 3's whole thing but he isn't the one who in the end decides to sit down and fix it; that's all on Apollo. It almost feels like they forced one of the two plots in to everything. And it was probably conceived as a Phoenix story that they needed to fit Apollo into last minute because oops he's supposed to be a protagonist too.

Some other strengths to Apollo going to Khura'in include that it would shake up the character dynamics a bit. Instead of Phoenix defending Maya, it's Apollo defending Maya, and that's a particularly interesting thing to look at in the context of Khura'in's "we kill defense attorneys" system. Of course, Phoenix would risk his life to save Maya, 100%, every time. But what about Apollo, who hasn't met Maya, who only knows her as "Mr. Wright's former assistant" - would he risk his life for her? And I feel like Maya would argue more against him defending her because of that. "We're strangers, you don't know me, you don't have to risk your life defending me." (Sidenote that I was always upset that Maya didn't protest much when Phoenix offered to defend her, knowing his life was at risk - sure she knows him better and knows he's always been able to get her out of these situations, but at the same time, the fact that there was no "what about your daughter?" conversation sucks. I really wish SOJ wouldn't have like. completely forgotten about the phoenix-trucy father-daughterisms.)

Let's say Apollo goes to Khura'in. Phoenix stays at home. Phoenix gets a call from Apollo that's basically "uhh hi Mr. Wright you know your friend Maya, she's been arrested for murder, if I defend her and I lose we're both dead," then you can tie in to that moment in 6-2 where Phoenix (who can't make it in time for the trial!) believes in Apollo and his skills as an attorney, not just to save Maya's life, but also his own. It ties in a bit more to the overall challenge of defending someone at the risk of your own life. Again, Phoenix would have very few hesitations, if any, risking his life to defend Maya. Apollo may have more defending a stranger at the risk of his own life.

Then if you can actually have Apollo and Maya talk together that would be neat - Maya can tell him embarrassing stories about Phoenix's rookie days, for instance. Their dynamic would be quite a bit different from Phoenix and Maya's, and that would be an interesting thing to see, unlike what we have in SOJ where all of Maya's substantial interactions are with characters she already knows or brand new characters.

(It would also be pretty neat to know more spirit channeling politics and dive in more to Maya's perspective on Khura'in and also her role as upcoming Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique and where she plans to lead the village in the future and also reconcile with her family's bloody legacy, but I'm not quite sure how to fit that in right now.)

And how about Phoenix, back home in Japanifornia? Evidently he'd end up being in charge of defending Trucy. Now, I did love the siblingsisms in canon 6-2, but I feel like there is still potential for Phoenix defending Trucy. All of Apollo Justice has a bunch of good moments between Apollo and Trucy, and she's co-counsel on all his trials, but we've never had any substantial Phoenix and Trucy investigation or co-counsel moments. I feel like AU 6-2 would be a great opportunity to dive more into Phoenix and Trucy's relationship and how it may have changed after Phoenix got his badge back. Plus, Phoenix being "the only one who knows how she really feels on the inside", he'd have unique insider knowledge into some of the Gramarye stuff that comes up in the case and Trucy's personal connection to the Gramaryes, which Apollo knows a bit of, but Phoenix knows more of. ... Or at least, should know more of, given that he raised Trucy for nine years at this point and they're very close, and Phoenix knows her better than anyone else does, even if capcom has forgotten this.

... Of course having Athena defend the case would also be great because more Athena spotlight is never a bad thing, but it's hard to come up with a reason why Phoenix wouldn't be there to defend her. And doing more switcheroos in terms of role in the plot is a bit beyond the scope of what I have in mind right now. Sorry Athena.

Aside from that, Athena still gets Storyteller, Apollo still heads Turnabout Revolution, and Phoenix still gets the DLC case. Apollo stays in Khura'in in the end with a bit more to his motivations. Rather than it just being about carrying on Dhurke's legacy, it's also something Apollo is passionate about after all he witnessed here. While we're at it I'd still rework a lot of Turnabout Revolution to make it so that Phoenix genuinely believes in Atishon because that makes for sooo much more interesting of a plot and actual character development on Phoenix's part than "Maya was kidnapped again and Phoenix is only wrong when he has no other choice", but that'd require some more detail and this post is long enough already.

And in terms of other details that need to be sorted out, there's the question of why Apollo would need to go to Khura'in in the first place. I'd probably say something to do with Dhurke. Maybe he comes back a bit earlier - actually alive, maybe, though crossing borders would be a bit of a challenge, or he reaches out to Apollo remotely somehow and Apollo goes to yell in his face about abandoning him (or at least that's what he thinks he wants.) Then we could have some more Dhurke and Apollo bonding time, potentially? Idk, if you switch up Phoenix and Apollo you're pretty much writing a whole new game and obviously I have not worked out all the details, but I think if Capcom had tried to go with this route from the outset they'd have a stronger game. At least stronger character motivations.

So... yeah. Those are my opinions. If you read through this whole thing I'm very impressed because it got very long!

[incorrectlumityquotes]

FULL REVIEWS: “Wing It Like Witches”

Damn, that last episode was something. It was so much of something that the hype for this episode didn’t come until after they released a screenshot of Amity in the grudgby uniform. Everyone predicted that this was the episode that had Amity join The Owl House squad and...they were right. 

The Lumity Trilogy ends with a sports balls game.

The cold open starts with Boscha of all people. 

It’s grudgby season again and all I can think of is “Wow how lucky is Luz to enroll in Hexside during the semester where shit happens.” Is the first semester the boring one with no holidays and/or events?

Anyway, I grew up in South Texas where high school football was treated like the biggest deal. I get why Boscha is being treated the way she is, and so does she.

Boscha goes to school expecting a hero’s welcome, but gets pissed when the attention is given to Willow.

Willow tells Luz that ever since she patched things up with Amity, she’s been feeling more confident. That’s really good character development. Without her resentment toward Amity (who was her oldest friend), Willow feels like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders. All that hate and sadness was bringing her down, but without it, she’s free to blossom. 

I don’t mean to quote Penn & Teller but, “And then there’s this asshole.”

Boscha is so not okay with Willow being happy with herself and just picks on her harder. Especially since it’s grudgby season and she knows she can get away with it. 

Amity tells her to grow the fuck up, and Boscha lets it slip that ever since grom Amity has been “getting soft.” This does fucking nothing since Boscha literally spends all day following Willow and friends all day picking on them like crazy. Like damn bitch, don’t you have anything else do do? Don’t you have any life outside of Willow’s?

People ask why I don’t ship Willow and Boscha and this is why. I get enemies to lovers. I get the bully becoming the love interest. Hell, it’s happening with Amity right now. But this is too needlessly cruel for my taste. There’s not way the Defeat Equals Friendship trope is going to work here. Not for me. But hope comes in the form of a useless lesbian.

Amity literally gay panics after getting ‘nam flashbacks of dancing with the girl she likes in the moonlight. Luz asks Amity for help about Boscha, and based on Amity’s answer, I don’t think Amity has ever liked Boscha. She agrees that Boscha is difficult to tolerate. It’s even worse during grudgby season because it becomes all the thinks about. Luz gets the wrong idea from that.

After literally pelting Willow with garbage, Luz challenges Boscha to a grudgby match for Willow. Again Luz’s character flaw of overstepping her bounds comes back. She never even considers what Willow might want or the fact that Willow has never even played grudgby before in her life. And that’s when another of Luz’s character flaws comes back hard. This time it’s Luz expecting life to play out like a story, or more specifically, a sports movie.

Holy crap. Is that the thorn-vault? I’ve never noticed that before.

Luz thinks that if they just try really hard they’ll beat someone who has been excelling at the sport for years. No. That’s not how life works, sweetie. I’m starting to think that maybe Luz’s mom was on to something sending her to camp.

Luz manages to convince Willow and Gus to be on board, but Amity...

She’ll be in her bunk.

Meanwhile in the B-plot (that should be my t-shirt by now), Eda is talking about her time when she was star player of her grudgby team when Lilith makes an unexpected appearance to arrest Eda. Lilith notices that Eda is wearing her old ass grudgby uniform and Eda’s response made me laugh.

“No reason. It’s laundry day.”

Lilith gives Eda a quick reality check to remind her that while Eda was good...

Lilith was better.

This photo really confused me and took me a while to realize that that was Eda and Lilith. Lilith gave herself a serious make over after school. Straightened her hair, darkened it, got ride of the glasses. I didn’t even recognize her. 

Since we all got grudgby on the brain, Eda makes a bet. She’ll go with Lilith to The Emperor peacefully if she can beat her in a game of grudgby. Luz is always pulling stuff like this and it works out for her, so why not? Speaking of which.

Willow and Gus teach Luz about grudgby. Luz teaches Willow and Gus about montages and it does not go well at all. The grudgby, I mean. The montage was great. 

In fact it’s so bad that Willow confronts Luz about the thing I was just talking about earlier. You can’t just shonen hero through all your problems. Willow and Gus give up and just leave.

I hate comparing shows because I believe they should stand on their own, but this really does remind me of when Lotte got mad at Akko in Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade. Being innocently insensitive plus expecting life to play out like a movie is not a good combo. 

Luz and Amity have a heart to heart. Luz’s character flaws do come from a place love. Willow is one of the best friend’s she’s ever had and it hurts to watch her get picked on. She’s not trying to make things worse but growing up on a diet of movies and cartoons, this is the only thing she can think of.

Amity reveals that she actually used to be a jock. No joke. She was the captain of the grudgby team before Boscha. But Amity decided to make the game all about her and her teammates got hurt. So felt so bad that she never played again. Amity is rough around the edges, but deep down she’s always cared about people.

Another gay panic later, and Luz gets the right idea this time. Luz forfeits the game and agrees to take all of Willow’s punishment so that Boscha will stop picking on her.

Bitch, works for me! Think fast!

Amity senses the obvious and immediate danger and goes for help. She reminds Willow and Gus that Luz always has good intentions and needs help because that’s what friends do.

This isn’t about “friendship” is it?

Gus and Willow show up to save Luz but you need three on a team. And in true sports movie fashion, the hero arrives in the eleventh hour to save the team. I.E. the only player who is actually good at the game gives the good guys a chance to win.

Let’s get it on!

It’s game on and for a bunch of nerds the game is actually pretty competitive. It’s a magic sport, so Willow focuses on the magic while Amity focuses on the sport. Luz being Luz, even congratulates the other players when they score. Luz discovers every RPG players favorite spell, fire. 

It looks like our heroes pull off the victory in true sports movie fashion when this happens.

I stand by what I said last time. Someone on The Owl House thinks Harry Potter is really fucking stupid. Boscha catches the rusty smidge which means she automatically wins and Luz let’s out two decades of Harry Potter frustration.

But she has a point. If the golden snitch gives your team 150 points and ends the game then the only way to play would be to play defensively and focus all your efforts on finding the snitch. It means there’s literally only one decent way to play the game if you want to win.

“That just invalidates all our efforts! If catching that thing is so important, why do anything else!? There’s no reason to watch any of the other players! THAT’S SUCH A STUPID RULE!”

You tell them, Luz.

But in a twist that everyone saw coming, all the other players (Skara, Cat, Amelie) all had so much fun playing that they invite Willow to join the team. Willow politely declines because Boscha.

But we can’t have Amity help with the season finale so she hurt her leg. Amity panics at the thought of Luz carrying her, so of course Luz picks her up.

“Oh. Wow. Sports.”

Speaking of sports.

It’s game on at The Owl House and Lilith and Eda have a one on one match that’s really close. Eda decides to cheat her way to victory until.

Dammit, Luz!

Eda wins and Lilith vows to return.

The episode ends with Amity joining the fam at The Owl House.

FINAL SCORE: 5 - LOVED IT!

This episode was the best of fun episodes combined with the development of Amity episodes and you get probably my favorite episode. This was so fun and touched on most of the major characters. Even the B-plot is important because now Lilith knows the location of The Owl House. The jokes were funny. It was cute. Just everything.

The Lumity Trilogy ends on a high note. Amity is officially crushing hard on Luz. 

[stepha199]

Ok I finished reading Shadow and Bonebook and I have *some thoughts*

I saw the show first, it was immediately obsessed with it.

I loved Ben Barnes and Jessie. I was blown away by their chemistry.

I loved everything about the show: The world building, Genya, Jesper, Inej, Mal was also cool and has such good vibes...Anyways, I was having a blast until the moment that I discovered the darkling was “bad”

I get it.

The guy hid Alina’s letters, lied to her about his plans, played the victim AND put a collar on her (very gross) (All bad things).

But the more that I thought about it, the more that I could kinda see his point.

Let me explain:

1) The Grisha were killed, experimented and persecuted all over the other countries.

2) He personally saw I bunch of people that he cared about died (Luda)

3) Then he thought that if he won the *freaking war* for that king, the grisha would find safety (In episode 7, we clearly see that it didn’t go that way) I mean they tried to killed him because the idiotic king was scared of the darkling powers.

4) then he created the fold (by accident) but discovered that it can used as a weapon to protect his kind because what would happen if they destroy it? The show is clearly showing you that he can’t trust on the king.

If they destroy the fold, the grisha (and him) would lost all power that they have now as the second army. He knows that they would probably be persecuted *again*

So what is the solution?

If I was him, I would probably use it too. But bad communication skills dude. I mean you could just talk with Alina before you tried to slave her (?)

I just fell in love with the lovers to enemies dynamic of those two (I tell you the amount of fanfics that I had read about them in Archive of our own) 🤪😂 I like the dark and light symbolism.

The age gap really didn’t bother me (We are watching and reading fiction) NO ONE IN REAL LIFE IS GOING TO FIND A PERSON THAT IS 500 YEARS OLDER THAN YOU. In the show they tried to level the power of their dynamics much better than in the book. Jessie herself said it on a interview.

I actually like Mal (the Malina relationship doesn’t do much for ME personally. Maybe because I had always hated that trope. I mean I don’t hate them their friendship is wonderful, some of their scenes are cute...but man the codependency of those two, it is annoying).

I liked that Mal was such a charming guy willing to do everything for his best friend. I really feel that Alina didn’t deserve him. The poor guy lost almost everything for her. Archie did a fantastic job!

Now Alina....

Man I hate when the main character is whiny...

Woman...you have the most unique and coolest power *ever* they took you to a freaking palace, they fed you, trained you, told you that you literally can save the world....... and you spent all time thinking about about childhood friend (IF I HAVE TO SEE THAT FREAKING MEADOW SCENE AGAIN YOU GUYS) and complaining and whatever. The last episode and the gorgeous Jessie saved the character for me.

Then I took a break and decided to read the book just to see how different things are.... and boy, oh boy.

The darkling is much more calculated in the books (I mean the show version is a softy compared to the book version) (Ben Barnes thank you) I wonder if those changes were intentionally made (?) maybe they will change the ending (I doubt it, but fingers crossed)

I knew that people hated BookMal and... I get it BUT hear me out. Is NOT Mal’s fault is ALINA’S fault.

The poor guy is just a regular dumbass 16 years old trying to figure things out.

In the books Alina just keeps thinking about him and whining about him and it gets annoying pretty quickly. BookAlina 🙃🙃🙃

Anyways those were my thoughts...

I just needed it to put it out there and get it out of my system.

Now I’m not sure that I want to read the second book. What do you say? Should I read it?

If Alina is going to keep whining about Mal is not for me...but I really want to read six of crows and apparently need to read the trilogy first.

Please be kind, if you don’t like my opinion you are welcome to share why but (kindly and respectfully)

Thank you.

[firelxdykatara]

kitty i can't wait for your thoughts of Shadow and Bone asdfasfaw

Ok well I just finished and I have so many fucking thoughts. Most good! Some, less so. Part of it may just be my bias because I’ve only read the Six of Crows duology and have little interest in actually reading the original trilogy, because I know how it ends and Leigh clearly hates me personally and doesn’t want me to be happy (/j), so I was already predisposed to be far more invested in the Crows and Darkling/Darklina segments (genuinely, the Mal/Malina scenes/storyline bored me to tears, and while I appreciate that the show went out of its way to change Mal’s character to make him much less of a toxic douchebag [I’ve read enough excerpts and explanations of his actions in the books to really loathe book!Malina], it isn’t enough to make me ship them when Darklina is right there), but I also don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the Crows absolutely stole the show.

It’s actually kind of funny, because I’d assumed they were only being so heavily marketed to hype the show up even more, since while there’s a lot of TGT/SoC fandom overlap they are also two fundamentally different genres and I’d wager there are a lot of people who are massive fans of one but not so enthused with the other, while remaining fairly insignificant to the overall plot. Turns out, they make up fully half of the show’s runtime (much to my delight). Which is part of what I think will help this series stand on its own, both as a book adaptation and simply as a fantasy TV series.

I’ll put more of my story-specific thoughts under a cut, so there’s lots of show spoilers to follow!

I know that a lot of early reviewers were saying that Alina’s motivations and storyline revolved too much around Mal, and that really held true for me. It made sense in the beginning--he was the only constant in her life, she was thrust into something new, terrifying, and completely unfamiliar, and they’d developed an unhealthy codependence as a coping mechanism for their childhoods and the traumas they faced, the lives they lead growing up in a war-torn country. But she started coming into her power, falling for the General--not just his power and charisma, but what she felt when she was with him. The way he helped her summon the sun, the way she felt free in a way she never had before.

Until it all went to shit--but the Darklina make-out scene in episode 5? Fucking iconic. Poetic fucking cinema. The way they were quite literally about to have sex on that wartable (and someone better write fic of that moment, what if they hadn’t gotten interrupted), and the General left, but then he ran back just to kiss her one more time... this is what OTPs are made of ok.

I think what really bothers me overall is that Alina ultimately lacked agency in her one storyline, pretty much the entire way through. She did make a few choices, but they were mostly incidental, and a lot of it was Alina desperately trying to get back to Mal rather than seizing her own power and destiny and running with it. The most prominent example is the end of episode 5--Alina is having happy make-outs and almost bones the General in his own war room, and then he leaves, and Baghra comes in and infodumps to her about how evil he is and how he’s only using her and she needs to escape.

I recognize that a lot of this is probably because that’s essentially what happened in the book and Leigh is an executive producer for the show so she has a lot of shot-calling power. However, I really think that even in the book this plotline would’ve been better-served by having Alina make these discoveries on her own.

For example, imagine that the letters which were used as framing devices for episodes 2 and 3 were vitally important to the plot, rather than being one-offs that are mentioned a few times but not really affecting much of anything. Alina begins to get suspicious when she doesn’t receive word from Mal, and she starts wondering if her letters are even reaching him--so she starts snooping. She finds ashes in the war room hearth, late at night,, and recognizes a fragment of Mal’s signature and larger piece of her own. She now knows that someone--possibly the General, but maybe that creepy priest guy, or someone else in the palace--is keeping her and Mal from contacting one another. So she starts snooping around even more. She asks the General leading questions, trying to figure out what the truth is of his intentions. She still feels this pull--this connection to him, and she hopes she’s wrong, but she’s not willing to just sit around and wait for the other shoe to drop.

The Winter Fete still happens, she still gets the hot make-out session with the General, and then when he’s called away, she snoops through his papers, looking for anything that can tell her the truth. She finds a hidden compartment filled with journals.

She reads about Aleksander’s past (and, incidentally, wasn’t that supposed to be a huge moment in the books, him revealing his true name to her in private? kinda wish it had been kept that way in the show but who knows where they’ll go with it in the future)--that leads to the flashbacks in episode 6. She feels for him, but she also reads further--she gets a firsthand look at his desire for power, something that began as a noble desire to save his people, but was twisted by a lust for vengeance (for his lost love and all the Grisha who were killed) and shot through with greed, the realization that if he found the Sun Summoner he could control the Fold, rather than just destroy it. He could create a new world where Grisha could live without fear--where Grisha could rule.

Alina is terrified. Whoever the General used to be--whatever humanity she saw flickering in his eyes, the way his heart fluttered when they kissed--she can’t trust that it’ll be enough to save her from plans centuries in the making. So she goes to Baghra, the woman who helped her discover her power, learn to channel it--the woman who always seemed to know much more than she ever let on. Baghra gives her side of the story--Alina got it from the General’s perspective first, now Baghra is telling her something framed much differently. She isn’t sure what or who to trust, but she knows that Baghra seems willing to help her escape--but rather than trusting her ‘loyal Grisha’, she makes the choice she made in the show, to choose the other path, and winds up with the Crows.

Idk how Mal and the Stag thing would fit into this (if it isn’t obvious by now, Mal just... doesn’t interest me), but Alina’s story and her character arc would be so much stronger for it. And she’s supposed to be the central character, so her story being weak and her agency so frequently being compromised ultimately hurts the show as a whole.

I know I’ve gone on and on about Alina and the Darkling (look, I’m a slut for enemies-to-lovers, and also lovers-to-enemies-and-back, so Darklina and Helnik are where so much of my investment is rooted--plus Kanej, but that almost goes without saying), but the true standouts of the series were the Crows. Inej, Kaz, and Jesper, and Nina and Matthias in their episodes, stole the show (along with the Darkling, Ben is far and away the best actor in the cast and I love that for him, but Freddy, Amita, and Kit are also amazing, and Danielle&Calahan were fucking phenomenal as Nina and Matthias--I do have to say, though, that the whole cast is really solid and has amazing chemistry).

They worked together so perfectly--Freddy and Amita communicated so much with their eyes alone, especially together, and a whole lot of their relationship dynamic is rooted in how they exist together, which really came through. The show altered the Crows timeline considerably (I’m pretty sure Kaz would’ve been 14 during the original trilogy lol), so Inej is still at the Menagerie, but things like Kaz putting up the Crow Club for Inej’s freedom, the way Kaz needed her but could never bring himself to say it (until the end of the season dklhfgdkjfgh i SCREAMED)--the way Jesper played off the both of them, and it’s so obvious they all love each other even though they’re criminals and thieves and murderers, and Kaz would never admit it (out loud--which actually feeds into my theory that his love language is acts of service; Kaz does things for the people he cares about, he never announces it and he will almost always try to downplay it, but the way you know he cares is if, for example, he puts his entire life, everything he built, up as collateral for your freedom), but they’re a family.

One thing that I was kind of iffy about was Inej’s refusal to kill--but I thought it might be something they were planning to work into her overall character arc, and they did. It was the one line she hadn’t crossed--in the books, I’d imagine that it took a while for Inej to wind up at that point, being willing to kill on top of everything else. So I actually like that they worked that into the Crows plotline, and Inej killing for the first time was to save Kaz’s life.

Just like Kaz’s first selfless act was to save her.

(He’d deny it, of course. He protects his investments. He needed her for the job. But the truth is, he did it for her. And he’d do it again. Even if he’d never admit it.)

Meanwhile, Nina and Matthias’ storyline was pretty much note-for-note according to their backstory as it was revealed in Six of Crows, and I loved every second of it. Their chemistry was perfect, their journey from enemies to begrudging allies to friends to maybe something more (Matthias’ stomach cockblocking them when they were about to kiss had me fucking SCREAMING AT THE TV, and then of course the whole ‘betraying him to save him’ thing happened and I sobbed), and then suddenly right back to enemies.

Because from Matthias’ perspective, he trusted a witch--believed in her, liked her, wanted her--and she turned on him. He has no idea that she wasn’t the one who knocked him out in the first place, and no reason to believe her, because as far as he knows, she just confirmed everything he’d ever been told about Grisha. That they are deceitful and treacherous, would turn on you as soon as look at you, that they are dangerous and not to be trusted. It wasn’t revealed in-show but I imagine Matthias’ backstory is largely the same, which means that his entire family was slaughtered by Grisha when he was a young boy, and then he was turned into a brainwashed child soldier by the witch hunters and never knew anything else.

They are perfectly primed for their SoC arc next season and I, for one, am so stoked to see the rest of their journey. And if I slip Netflix a couple twenties, maybe they’ll let Helnik have a happy ending please please please.

Anyway, yeah! I have a lot of thoughts but things are still percolating in my head so I’ll probably float around the tags for a bit and let things settle. This is just a preliminary overview of my thoughts in the immediate aftermath of bingeing the entire show in one night kldfjghdkjfhgkjgf

EDIT TO ADD: I CAN’T BELIEVE I FORGOT ABOUT THE TRUE STAR OF THE SHOW, M I L O

MILO BEST BOY. MILO THE MVP. MILO DESERVES ALL THAT IS GOOD IN THE WORLD AND I HOPE HE LIVES A HAPPY AND HEALTHY AND FULL LITTLE GOAT LIFE.

[ishouldreallybeelsewhere]

I Don’t Dance; An Analysis

By someone with no idea what they’re doing

Can I just say,,, this song slaps. Like, ignore everything,, all the connections, all the subtext, all the whatever, this song (I Don’t Dance from High School Musical 2) is just rlly good. I’ve been listening to it a lot (shocker) and I have to say, perhaps pop isn’t so bad. I’m lying, of course, rock forever, but also not the point. Now, onto what I was actually planning on talking about.

Songs can say a lot, especially when paired with dances, and to see the full meaning of a song, one must look past it’s surface level meaning and dive deep into the subtext. Contextually, the song makes sense as just talking about baseball, but on a surface level only. Look into it for even a moment and you’re sure to find all the queer subtext you need to confirm the theory that High School Musical as a whole is a metaphor for accepting your queer identity.

A quick overview of the song; it starts as a friendly game of baseball between Ryan and Chad, the dancer and the jock. That’s fairly straight-forward, and as they play, Ryan encourages Chad to dance, insisting that he can and should, while dancing in ways that enhance his own playing. I should mention right now, I know fuck-all about baseball. I learnt to spell it, like, 15 minutes ago. It should not be spelt like that. Regardless, I’m gonna do my best to some-what grasp/avoid the thing entirely. Anyway, I’m getting off track. Back to what I was saying, the song is Ryan encouraging Chad to dance, in a somewhat flirtatious matter. The song ends after a dance routine involving the entirety of both teams, and then, in the following scene, Chad and Ryan are shown having a good time, talking and laughing while eating lunch, WEARING EACH OTHER’S CLOTHES!! If someone can give me a heterosexual explanation for that,,,, don’t.

Now, for what I’ve been meaning to get to; what does the song actually mean? (I use the phrase ‘Now,’ at the start of a lot of sentences, sorry in advance.)

Obviously, it’s about accepting your queer identity and living your life to its fullest, not allowing the heteronoramilty of the world hold you back. Anyone who’s ever watched the movie can tell you that, however, as is the way with any piece of explanatory writing, I have to assume that you’ve never even seen any of the movies (heathen).

The plot doesn’t matter. I don’t care about all but four characters, Zeke, Sharpay, Chad, and Ryan. This will primarily be about the latter two, and their own acceptance of who they are.

From the start, Ryan is flamboyant and feminine, the archetype of a gay man, as ‘subtlety’ isn’t really a thing in High School Musical. Less so in the sequel, aside from the sub-text of course, but they had to get that past Disney’s censors. Also, Ryan is one of the ‘villains’ of the trilogy, meaning that he can be queer-coded as much as the writers desire. Off track once again. I apologise. No I don’t. Anyway, Ryan is a theatre kid. The theatre kid, excluding his sister, of course, but as I said previously, Sharpay is not the topic of today’s discussion. Why is theatre so important you ask? Well, not only is the whole point of the trilogy theatre and musicals, but it’s often associated with queer identity, gay men, and femininity. While that is not true, necessarily, it works well as a metaphor and for subtext in the series. Ryan’s theatre/dance-centered personality is made as such because he is one of the few openly gay students in the movie. Theatre and dance, in this context, are queer. And Ryan is incredibly open with his sexuality, especially after he steps out from his sister’s shadow and comes into himself, realising who he is in his entirety.

Chad is on the opposite side of the spectrum. He’s, to put it bluntly, a Chad. Sporty, masculine, ‘straight’, everything he’s expected to be, but, secretly, he knows that that’s not quite true. He’s likely bisexual, as we never recive a label I will refer to him as such, and he knows this about himself. He accepts it, but refuses to act on it, or really acknowledge it, so it is not true acceptance. He is still hiding and suppressing part of himself, dancing only when everyone around him is doing the same, conforming to the heterosexual society that we all must reside in. So much of who he appears to be centered around sport and straightness, but after he is left by his closest friend (Asshole Troy. My cousin stunt-doubled Zac Effron once lol) he’s unsure where to go, and accepts an offer to play a friendly game of baseball against Ryan.

Ryan knows that Chad is bi. He knows that Chad is suppressing and hiding a part of himself, and, on some level, understands what that’s like, and knows how harmful that can be, and takes it upon himself to change that, and the game begins. Literally. And of all games, it’s baseball, one of the only sports I know filled to the brim with euphemisms and gay slang, and let me tell you, I know very little about both things, but I did actaully do research before this.

Chad knows what Ryan is trying to do, and rejects it, insisting that he has to ‘just do his thing.’ He steps up, the batter, insisting that he can be straight, that he doesn’t need that other part of himself to feel whole. Ryan sees clearly that this is bullshit.

‘I’ll show you that it’s one in the same, baseball, dancing, same game.’ In this line, Ryan is explaining that Chad doesn’t need to give up his masculinity or his love for sport to live in his true identity, that dancing and baseball are the same thing, different flavours. He can stay who he is while still being true to himself and stop suppressing a part of himself. He’s also flirting, a lot. Saying that he can show Chad what he’s missing.

‘I wanna play ball now, and that’s all. This is what I do. It ain't no dance that you can show me,’ replies Chad, saying how he doesn’t agree, and has no wish to change who he is, regardless of the consequences. He doesn’t think that the two parts of his identity can live in harmony, and he’s gotten this far in life while suppressing his queer side, he can do it forever. Of course, as you likely already know, dear reader, this is far from true, and Ryan has made it his mission to prove that, through song and suspiciously flirtatious dance.

‘You’ll never know, if you never try.’ Ryan now is telling Chad that he’ll never know if he can be happier as an open bisexual if he doesn’t try to expirience life in a different way, and is also telling Chad he’s dtf.

‘There’s just one little thing that stops me every time.’ Chad is on the verge of agreeing, accepting Ryan’s advances, when it cuts to his team, watching him play. He can’t come out, can’t fully accept himself, even if he wants to, without risking rejection from his team, from his friends, and having to possibly leave behind the world of sports that he so loves. The masculinity is fragile in this one, I must say. But his team not backing him up, leaving him behind, that scares Chad more than anything at that point in his life. Even if it is living his truth, he won’t risk the life already built up around him. In his eyes, nothing would truly be worth it. But Ryan won’t give up on him.

Then the pair go back and forth, arguing over whether Chad has it in him to accept it, risk everything to be who he truly is. ‘If I can do this then you can do that.’ Ryan is telling Chad that if he can play baseball while still retaining his queer identity, then Chad can do the same while dancing. Doing one thing does not invalidate or cancel out the other. He can, and should, do both, to become a more complete version of himself. However, Chad’s team is still supporting him only in baseball, at this point in the song anyway.

‘Hey, batter, batter. Hey batter, batter, swing.’ At this point, no one is actually swinging at the ball, showing that this is not what they’re talking about. ‘Swing that way,’ is often used to refer to whom one is attracted to, and Ryan is telling Chad to ‘swing,’ to come to terms with his attraction to men, and to Ryan himself. While they are singing this, Chad is literally approaching first base, not too dissimilar from the bases in a relationship. Like, any other sport, any one at all, and they had to pick this one. Even urban dictionary agrees it’s gay as all hell.

‘Bases loaded, do your dance. It’s easy.’ Here, Ryan is telling Chad that baseball is almost a dance on its own, it requires movement and coordination like dance, and at this point Chad can’t disagree, because the bases are loaded (I do actually know what that means) and he has to hit the ball and free them up, else something happens (reaching the end of my baseball knowledge sorry).

‘I've got what it takes, playin my game. So you better spin that pitch. You're gonna throw me, yeah.’ Here Chad is admitting that Ryan is distracting him, his dance and words throwing him off his game. ‘I’ll show you how I swing.’ Chad is play-flirting now, not-quite-mockingly responding to Ryan while dancing, ever so slightly, while still remaining in the game. He comes closer to accepting it than he has before, but still refusing to truly accept it.

With Ryan’s line, ‘hit it out of the park,’ we return ever so slightly to the literal playing of the game, and Ryan telling Chad to give it his best shot, showing his support despite being on the opposing team. Moments later, members of Chad’s team begin dancing as well, using the movements to enhance their play somewhat, and, subtly, showing their support for dancing and all that comes with it. Chad, however, has still not reached that point.

‘Lean back, tuck it in, take a chance. Swing it out, spin around, do the dance.’ Ryan’s now explaining how connected dancing and baseball really are, how they can easily coexist, of course playing into what Ryan has been trying to convince Chad of the whole time, that he can accept himself and still remain as Chad-like as he wants.

‘I wanna play ball, not dance hall.’ Chad doesn’t care, instead staying steadfast in his position that sport and dance must stay seperate, but his actions betray his words, as, however mockingly it may be, he does in fact dance along to those lines.

‘I can prove it to you til you know it's true. 'Cause I can swing it, I can bring it to the diamond too.’ Ryan is not giving up. He’s trying his best to say that he’s a dancer, sure, but his skills help him on the field. Were he not a dancer, he would likely not be as good at baseball as he is, explaining that if you are repressing a part of yourself, then you are not living up to your full potential, and not living life to its fullest.

‘You’re talking a lot, show me what you got.’ Prove it, Chad is saying as he throws the ball. And Ryan swings, and hits it, sending it far out over the playing field, proving his point, and with that, Ryan relents. Now, as he says he doesn’t dance, he’s dancing with his whole team behind him. They’re showing their support, and the dance becomes almost making fun of his past stance, and now he and Ryan flirt relentlessly through the song, as they dance.

They repeat their banter, all while dancing, and they come extremely close, closer than anyone else in the court, coming closer and closer to first base.

‘You can do it.’ It’s Chad’s team now, dancing behind him, showing their support for him, and insisting that he can dance, he can accept his identity in its whole, and they will still be behind him, still accept him for who he is. Chad and Ryan dance across from each other, back and forth, all of both teams and the crowd, all of them showing support.

Even as it returns to Chad batting, he does so bouncing on his toes to the music, and as he scores a home run, clearing the bases, each of his team members who are on the bases reach home with a flourish, a dance move of their own, even though they themselves are straight. Likely.

However, during the whole song, Ryan and Chad were openly flirting, the song is many things, as Chad knew his sexuality, he just wasn’t comfortable enough to admit it. At first the flirting was jokingly, on Chad’s side anyway, but tensions rise as the song continues, and Ryan makes sure Chad understands that this isn’t a joke, he means it. And that takes a few minutes for Chad to truly accept. The song is about self-acceptance and the chemistry between the two characters, more chemistry than literally any other characters, including Troy and Gabriella.

As the song ends, and Chad scores a home run, winning the game, the two fall over each other at the home base, and it’s over, the scene is anyway, and with the end of the game comes the end of Chad’s suppression. He can finally accept his bisexuality with the knowledge that his team will stay behind him and that he can be happy with a man just as he could with a woman, something that prior to this song, he didn’t truly believe.

And then, in the next scene, Ryan and Chad are wearing each other’s clothes, talking about the game in a far friendlier manner than any previous interaction. Together, they have hotdogs and good conversation, and the swapping of their clothes, including hats, implies that they totally fucked. Not to sound insensitive, obviously, but please, if you can think of any other explanation, please enlighten me.

Now, how does this tie into the rest of High School Musical? I should mention now I’ve not seen the third one and can barely remember the other two. However, I believe I know enough for my point to have some grounds. In this movie trilogy, theatre is queerness, as I have already explained, and conforming to society is heteronormativity. The path of Troy accepting that he loves theatre and basketball at the same time is one of accepting himself in his entirety. While I don’t personally believe that the character himself is queer, it is still a path of acceptance that still resonates with much of the LGBTQ+ community who would watch this movie.

The whole idea of the series is rejecting the status quo and living your life without rejecting any part of yourself. This is taken to another level between Chad and Ryan, someone who has accepted himself completely, and someone who doesn’t want to give up the life he has. There is little else to be said on the matter (LIES! I could talk about this for so long) so it appears time to wrap it up.

I don’t care that much about High School Musical. That may seem surprising, but before this weekend, I couldn’t tell you the character’s names. It is a strange feeling to fall so completely into something that you ignore all schoolwork to write an analysis (strong word) of a clip of a movie. I downloaded the Osu map (after finding it by accident) and played it until I got an S, even tho I’ve had the game only for a couple weeks, barely ever play it, and the easiest version of the map was 2.3 stars. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to it, and I had to finish this piece of writing so I could have some semblance of peace, as all my friends are tired of hearing about it but I need to get my thoughts out. Perhaps now that this is done I can pay attention to the science class that’s been happening around me. I think I’ve said all I can, and I hope that is enough to satisfy my mind. And I am well aware that there is someone out there who has done this with fewer and better words, but I don’t really care.

TLDR; High School Musical 2 is gay, and even more gay than that is Chad and Ryan. Thank you and goodnight.

[ordinaryschmuck]

Top 10 Favorite Fictional Couples

Happy Valentines Day, people on the internet who probably won't read this! I'm an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons. And even though I'm a lonely bastard who will absolutely die alone one day, I am also a sucker for romance. If a story decides to include a cute couple in it, then you better believe I'm going to gush over them for an unhealthy amount of time for a man my age. Even more so if they answer the three most essential questions that I think applies to every romantic couple in fiction:

Why do they like each other? (Looks don't count. It can be an option, but it shouldn't be the only option.)

Would it make sense for them to be together? (Like, if this couple would exist in real life, would you expect them to last.)

Do they have chemistry? (This is the most important one as a couple can dominate just by the chemistry alone.)

So today, I am going to rank my top ten favorite couples in fiction, who just so happen to answer most, if not all, of these questions. Now, I could be cute and make a top fourteen list...but not too long ago, I just listed off the twenty best-animated series of the 2010s, so I think it's best if I stick to the basics. Also, I should make a few things clear:

A. These are couples, not ships. The pairing has to have a canon kiss, or at the very least, a canon confession to be on the list. This means sorry, Lumity fans, but Luz and Amity are not going to be on this list...even though they would absolutely be #1 if they could be!

B. The couple has to at least spend an entire episode being together, which means no last-minute hookups because the writers wanted to drag out the romantic tension. (Sorry, Catradora fans)

With that out of the way, let's get started with--

10. Laura Hollis and Carmilla Kernstien from Carmilla (Web Series)

The chemistry between these two is on point. Laura’s and Carmilla's actors Elise Bauman and Natasha Negovanlis are so convincing when acting like a couple that I am honestly shocked to find out they never actually dated. This is good because everything else about Laura and Carmilla's relationship is...kind of the worst. Don't get me wrong, as a couple, these two are fantastic, adorable, well-written, and well-performed. But the writers seem very fond of keeping them bickering and broken up rather than actually having them together. And that is where the issue lies. If the writers committed to Laura and Carmilla being together instead of doing this whole "will they or won't they" crap, on top of them being selfish idiots in season two, then you better believe they would be in the top three, at least. As they are, they at least act adorable enough to make the top ten.

9. Gregg and Angus from Night in the Woods

Ok, I'm gonna level with you: I just wanted to put an mlm relationship on this list, and this was the best I can come up with (I haven't seen Good Omens, nor have I finished Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts yet to see Benson's relationship with Troy. Leave me alone). As a male bisexual, I'm kind of disappointed. I know that male pairings exist in media, but for the life of me, I don't think they are as celebrated as much, or as frequent, as female pairings have been. This is sad because I would honestly love to see how more couples like Gregg and Angus.

These two act so much like a real couple. Gregg and Angus care and support each other so much, yet they still have big arguments as any couple would. They clearly love each other but still have issues they both need to deal with if they want to grow. Plus, I'm just a sucker for opposites attract. And you can't get more opposite than the loud and bombastic Gregg and his quiet and serious boyfriend Angus. There are probably better mlm pairings than these two (And if there are, then let me know. I'd love to check them out), but Gregg and Angus prove that any relationship, no matter the gender, can be the same as any other. Both the wholesomeness and the faults.

8. Peter Parker and Michelle Jones from the Marvel Cinematic Universe

I put these two a little low because we barely see them spend time as a couple. Peter and Michelle got together at the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home, and we only get a glimpse of how their relationship works in the last few minutes. However, I'm willing to argue that they count because they are guaranteed to be a couple in the sequels, and we'll be allowed to see them grow. How often do you get to say that for other fictional couples who get together at the end of a long story? Plus, Peter and Michelle earn extra bonus points for being the best couple in a Spider-Man movie. Michelle is a league's better character than the MJ in the Sam Rami trilogy, and the chemistry is still adorable but not overtly cutesy like it was in The Amazing Spider-Man movies. So even though Peter and Michelle just got together, they show a lot of promise, if you ask me. Their interactions are adorable, you can tell that Michelle likes Peter for Peter, and they are the most accurate depictions of young love you’ll ever see. Just look at that first kiss. It was one filled with inexperience and awkwardness and I just love it! I’m already interested in what these two have to offer and I can’t wait to see what happens next with them.

7. Andy Dwyer and April Ludgate from Parks and Recreation

The best description you'll ever hear about this couple is that they are what happens when a dog and a cat fall in love. Andy is dopey, happy, and loyal to no end. April is intimidating, cynical, and is already plotting your murder as we speak. What I'm saying is that these two shouldn't work...but they do. Somehow, by every leap of logic, Andy and April complete each other. They are both so far gone from reality, yet at the same time, both keep each other grounded in more ways than one. It's a weird paradox that never ceases to amaze, nor does it cease to be adorable. They do go through bullcrap love triangles and a "will they or won't they scenario" in seasons two and three, but once that crap is over, the writers lean into the potential these two have as a great couple. And trust me when I say that it is all lovely to watch.

6. Rapunzel and Eugene from Tangled: The Series

Huh. I guess romance really does exist after Happily Ever After.

Joking aside, I was surprised by how well these two work as a pairing. Usually, when the Disney Prince and Princess get together in the end, there is nothing more to the relationship. And even if their movie gets a spin-off series, the dynamic is as generic and forgettable as it can be. For Rapunzel and Eugene, it is different. Their chemistry is top-notch, their constant love and support for each other are admirable/adorable, and the complete trust they have for one another is absolute perfection. I was already surprised by how good Tangled: The Series was, but the fact that the main couple is somehow better here than they were in their own movie is something I would have never expected.

5. Rigby and Eileen from Regular Show

And seeing how we're talking about surprises, who saw these two being the best couple in the series? With the number of times that the writers focussed on Mordecai's romantic hang-ups and how often Muscle Man and Starla were considered the only canon couple, I was shocked when it turned out Rigby and Eileen have the best loving relationship in Regular Show. Even crazier, their relationship is built entirely in the background of the first six seasons. Since her introduction, Eileen has been head over heels for Rigby since the beginning (for reasons I'll never understand), and Rigby slowly reciprocated. Until the big reveal in the season six finale, there was nothing but implications as they were trying to hide their relationship and not rub how perfect it is in Mordecai's face (no matter how much Rigby wants to). But once we get to see them as an official couple, it all becomes clear why they work so well. Eileen loves Rigby for Rigby, and will always support him, faults and all. Rigby pays it all back in spades, wanting to be a better person, as well as a better boyfriend, for the one person who always believes there was something good inside. Not even his own best friend had that much faith in him. And on top of all of that, they're just cute. They may not have been the central hook in the series, but they are definitely much appreciated.

4. Chris and Elise from Dan Vs./Millie and Moxxie from Helluva Boss

These four are tied because they pretty much have the same dynamic. Chris and Moxxie are these pathetic losers who somehow managed to marry Elise and Millie: Badass assassins who could effortlessly marry any man they want. And what they want are their pathetic losers. It's extra wholesome for Chris and Elise, as Chris really can't do that much right, especially in comparison to the ever-perfect Elise. Yet, she still cares deeply for Chris and will promptly destroy anyone or anything that causes him harm. That being said, while Millie and Moxxie are both equally deadly, there is an odd hilarity to the fact that these literal demons from hell are so gosh darn wholesome. Seriously, their literal job is to kill people who screw over those who went to hell, and I'm always going "D'aww" when M and M always do something cute. Explain that logic to me!

There's nothing more I can say about these four, as they're adorable couples that prove love comes in the most impossible circumstances and the unlikeliest places.

3. Ruby and Sapphire from Steven Universe

I'll always remember that Ruby and Sapphire are the first couple that proved to me that there is nothing wrong with a same-sex pairing, especially in children's media. Before Steven Universe, I wasn't necessarily told that same-sex couples are wrong, but they're not meant for kids. Then I found out that these two girls, on a kids show of all places, we're madly in love and my first response was: "...Huh." And this was before I knew I was bisexual, so I wasn't even that obsessed about it at the time. But the more I saw Ruby and Sapphire, and the more I learned about how starved the LGBTQ+ was for representation, the more I really appreciated them. Ruby and Sapphire never fail to be precious, and the fact that they barely spend any longer than a few minutes apart is downright heartwarming (and incredibly literal if you've seen the show). They also broke a ton of barriers to proper representation. Not only were Ruby and Sapphire one of the first explicit lesbian couples in children's animation, but they're also the first ones to actually get married. Because of such a power move, many networks and shows make it less of a challenge for writers to include more gay characters in their stories. There is still a lot of hard work that those writers face, but it certainly seems it's less of a challenge than it would be before Steven Universe came out (Ha!). Ruby and Saphire are the first fictional gay couple I have been introduced to and have made an incredible impression ever since.

2. Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum and Marcelene Abadeer from Adventure Time

But while it's Ruby and Sapphire that introduced me to the concept of a same-sex couple, it's Princess Bubblegum and Marceline that made me root for one. In (I want to say) 2017, I started rewatching Adventure Time, knowing that queer relationships were indeed a thing. This means that not only did I finally caught the INCREDIBLY noticeable subtext in "What Was Missing," but I was legitimately chanting, "Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!" when I got to the episode "Varmints." And when they finally did kiss in the series finale, I full-on jumped out of my chair and screamed, "YES!" That never happens. Not even for the straight couples that I've obsessed over before this. Either I coo at how adorable they are, or just smile a warm and gentle smile. But letting out a very audible cheer that my college roommates definitely heard? That shows how deeply I cared for these two. And can you really blame me?

Not only is the chemistry on point with Bubblegum and Marceline, but it's interesting getting to see their relationship evolve through the course of the series. They have a dynamic of a couple who broke up on bad terms (long before "Obsidian" confirmed this), and you slowly get to see them reconnect to that spark they lost long ago. Plus, the more you see them interact, the more of their history is revealed, and thus it becomes clear why they fell for each other in the first place. Bubblegum keeps Marceline responsible, while Marceline helps Bubblegum learn how to loosen up. They balance each other nicely, and after some much needed growing up from the both of them, that spark returns. And they're much more of a loving unit than they were years ago. It's incredible to watch, and I would honestly see an entire spin-off series about them. But, as great as Bubblegum and Marceline are, there is a reason they are not my number one.

(There’s no art for this one because they’re characters from a book and I don’t want to steal someone else’s fanart for the sake of my crappy Tumblr post)

1. Percy Jackson/Annabeth Chase from Percy Jackson and the Olympians/Heroes of Olympus

And that reason is that I can't resist the first-ever pairing that I obsessed over. Percy and Annabeth might just be the example I live by for how couples should be written in media. Dynamic wise, of course. In terms of telling a story, their relationship was handled poorly in Percy Jackson and the Olympians. It was filled with agonizing love-triangles, a very long wait, and they were one of those couples who didn't get together until the end of the series. Which is a major no-no, in my opinion. But, when they finally get to be a couple in Heroes of Olympus, it is downright perfection. Percy and Annabeth are what happens if these two badass warrior heroes fell in love. They worry about each other and are willing to die for each other (if need be) but still have an intense amount of faith and trust for one another. The number of times Percy or Annabeth knew they would be alright because they have each other is incredibly high, no matter what series of books they appear in. They work well together, as well as off each other. Percy is this bumbling idiot who wins his battles through a mix of luck and skill, where Annabeth is this intelligent warrior who has trained since the age of seven. They compliment each other perfectly, and their constant playful bickering is always fun. I love these two, I love their love, and they will always be one of my favorite fictional couples in media.

(That is until Luz and Amity from The Owl House become cannon. In which case, you better believe they'll be number one.)

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And those are my favorite couples. Out of curiosity, what are yours? Or, at least, what are your top five? Don't feel afraid to let me know or even make a list of your own.

Have a happy Valentine's Day, with whoever you want to celebrate it with and however you want to do it.

Now, if you don't excuse me, I have an entire to-do list of s**t I have to do, and I gotta figure out which to work on first.

(Should I review Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles next, or do that scene breakdown for Amphibia? Oh, the possibilities are killing me...)