#obv theres stuff to criticize of hers both musically and personally

[immaterial-girl]

ill stare. directly. at the sun. but never. in the mirror

[celestialarcade]

okay so thoughts on never have i ever after watching all 10 eps:

-like first and foremost as much as i can criticize about this show it really is incredible to see a girl like me like an actual sri lankan tamil girl being the lead actress in a netflix original and like i will not shut up about this bc i don't think i've ever seen a sri lankan tamil actress in western media before

-also piggybacking off that its also so so amazing to see actual tamil being spoken on screen in a western teen comedy

-that being said tho i feel like the tamil was super minimal and would have loved to see way more of it especially w devi calling her parents amma and appa!!! also something super common w a lot of tamil kids i know is where their parents will speak to them in tamil and they'll respond in english like i wouldve loved to see conversations like that between devi and her mom

-again the whole thing w ep 4 and it seeming like a White Person's Introduction to Hinduism instead of being like. how tamil hindus actually worship yknow

-the high school age characters are cringey but maybe i'm just getting too old to watch high school shows lmao (although i only just turned 20 so idk??)

-i LOVE kamala her character feels so real to me and i would love to see a show focused more on her and her situations with both steve and prashant like the show did a good job w her like wanting to be w steve but also how she legitimately gives prashant a chance too and i LOVE love love how her and prashant decide to like date for a while and see if theyre compatible but while still having the end goal of marriage on the table from the beginning, like thats def super realistic to modern arranged marriages

-nalini sometimes feels like a typical tamil mom and then other times feels too whitewashed like idk i know a lot of ammas who've lived in the states for 20-30 years and don't act as white as nalini does sometimes

-i think the fight between devi and her mom in the last 2 eps felt super real, like my mom and i have also had similar fights like the whole thing about her losing the sheet music like i definitely felt that super hard, my mom's always been super tough on me and it def made me feel like shit at times even though i obvs know now that she cares abt me

-i love devi's dad i think the portrayal of mohan waa rly well done especially since i know so many tamil girls who are their appa's chellam lmao, overall he was a rly likeable character

-ALSO i love how nalini and mohan are shown to actually be in love like we def need more rep like that instead of parents begrudingly stuck in an arranged marriage bc its their duty (even tho that definitely happens in real life and is the case w my parents)

-i wish the show wasn't so focused on devi wanting to have sex like she's supposed to be 15!!! let her be 15!!!! let her have other interests and don't make her blow off her friends just for some guy

-i wish devi didn't hate her heritage so much :( like idk. i also went through a period where i felt too brown for white people and too white for brown people but i feel like she refuses to acknowledge ANYTHING good about her culture??? like the show took normal child of immigrant feelings and blew them way out of proportion to essentially be "i hate being indian"

-p small gripe but since the lead actress is sri lankan it would've been so cool to have a sri lankan family instead of an indian family but honestly its not that big of a deal

-devi should not have gotten with either paxton or ben both of them kinda suck and i wish mindy kaling would stop doing enemies to lovers in all her shows bc i don't think she ever executes it well

-idk i didnt care too much about most of the other characters but i do love how the main cast wasn't all white minus the main character (aka like the mindy project was) and i also thought fabiola's coming out storyline was nice but can we please get some other non cishet characters!!! its 2020 a lot of teens aren't cishet

-also tho i did wish some of the other characters got more closure or had more complete ends to their storylines like the whole thing w eleanor and her mom, idk i guess if theres a season 2 hopefully there's less loose threads that need to be tied up at the end

-i'm probably missing some other stuff but again overall even tho i'm not the biggest fan i'm definitely rly happy for the tamil representation and would love to see the show get another season to really explore the juxtaposition of american culture and tamil culture that comes with being a child of immigrants