#too 5 are set the rest are pretty interchangeable

[fightingdragonswithwho]

my official best picture ranking that no one asked for 🫡

[quietgamelover]

Randomly chose my next victims for ratings

Power Rangers Wild Force was chosen

Been a hot sec since I’ve seen it and honestly the best thing I remember is Zen-Aku. (Foreshadowing)

Anyway, megazord time

Wild Megazord: 3/10

I got mixed feelings about this guy, I like that all the zords are super interchangeable so he has the range. Visually? Idk man this one’s kinda all over the place (I’m lowering the score actually from a 4 to a 3 after thinking about it some more)

Kongazord: 7/10

This guy has some good design. Not sure if I love that this megazord has the bison as the legs still but I mean the design of all the zords together is DEFINITELY more coherent than the Wild Megazord. Also the helmet and the black and white bear arms just looks really clean together cause they all have gold accents

Predazord: 7/10

Most of my love for this guy is nostalgia (if I wasnt nostalgic about him he would probably lose a few points) visually the vibe is there but the actual details are kinda messy. I wish the crocodile/wolf/hammerhead had a bit more cohesion with the colors cause imo they just stand out too much from each other. The wolf helmet and the crescent moon though? Top tier vibes, as weird as he looks now the Predazord is still kinda cool.

Isis Megazord: 5/10

the falcon zord is pretty cool (i remember this one using more zords that werent from the og megazord but I couldnt find a damn picture so) idk feels like the megazord designs got kinda lazy around this point and I also wasnt a fan that they only really had one megazord for the primary team. I’m like very neutral to this one

Animus: 7/10

TECHNICALLY hes not a megazord hes an actual god or whatever (I’m rating him as a megazord not as a character…) visually this dude is sick, the colors are super cohesive and all the zords look like they fit together instead of just being snapped onto the megazord haphazardly. Also this megazord takes a lot of the design issues I have with the wild force megazord and just fixes em. The (eagle?) is more prominent on the design, the bison looks pretty cool, the shark/tiger zords dont stand out horribly cause of their non existent gold accents like the rest of the wild megazord.

I’m getting off topic, in conclusion Animus as a megazord, pretty dope.

Maybe I need to make like a roulette wheel or something to decide on my next set of megazords?

[dicloniusgames]

LEGO Speed Champions 007 Aston Martin DB5 Build Review

This message is for your eyes only. Agent 00Brick reporting for duty. It has finally happened. After the retirement of the Creator Expert Aston Martin DB5, LEGO has finally created the Speed Champions version on a smaller scale but is it an affordable scale? Does the iconic car retain the look and features of the previous build or eject the build via the ejector seat? Let’s find out. 

Design

For being on such a small scale, the DB5 looks true to form in what the Creator Expert version brought to the table (Don’t worry, this isn’t a comparison review between the two). 

The printed pieces used in this set such as the front grille, the headlights and the taillights are pretty awesome to see as those could’ve easily been cheapened out and been used as stickers but LEGO made the right choice in making some unique print pieces. Overall, the car looks nice even if some of the smaller stickers included could’ve easily been made into print pieces, but LEGO probably figured it’s easier to make a sticker sheet than try to print some things onto the piece itself to keep it affordable within the pricing of what Speed Champions sets go for. The major design flaw comes from the color difference of the roof compared to the rest of the build as the grey hues look distinctively different from one another and could be a potential eyesore dependent on the person. 

The minifig of James Bond himself looks neat as well with his tuxedo and hair piece. They definitely were aiming for the Daniel Craig look and they did an alright job. One of the flaws here though was including a wrench for his accessory. It’s weird to see in his hand but thankfully the build itself remedies that minor mistake by leaving a spare piece for a quote un quote “pistol.” 

Build & Difficulty

At 298 pieces, this isn’t too difficult of a build to do. The only real difficult part of the build is the amount of stickers required to place onto the set and even the difference in size of them. 

One of the more interesting portions of the build is the interchangeable license plates. While they’re stickers (Would’ve liked those as prints), at least you have the option to change out license plates from the ones you’re required to build in the set. I personally chose to display the ones from Skyfall (BMT 216A) but you can choose which ones you want on your set and you get four pairs to choose from which gives the set some nice variation. The wrench given with this set would’ve been better suited with Dom in the Fast & The Furious Speed Champions set, but it’s a minor nitpick at best. 

Final Thoughts

At $19.99 for 298 pieces, this is a pretty decent value for the build you get. The car looks as accurate as possible compared not only to the Creator Expert version, but the film version as well. While some of the stickers could’ve been printed on, LEGO’s goal was to keep this as close to the Speed Champions look and price as possible while giving people the iconic car in an affordable way and this is definitely affordable if you weren’t able to find the Creator Expert version or if you have it, it’s a great addition (now retired). The actual James Bond minifig looks neat even if he comes with a wrench, but as noted, the set gives you a certain spare piece that can act as a pistol of sorts. The stickers are both a positive & negative as some of them could’ve been printed but some were also necessary to keep the build at $19.99. This could’ve easily been a $29.99 set if LEGO really wanted to in order to incorporate more print pieces but they found ways to keep it affordable. 

Pros: 

+Great addition/substitution to the Creator Expert DB5

+Good value for the piece count

+Great details on the car & the James Bond minifig 

+Great choice to give a different selection of license plates

+Spare pieces fix the accessory issue 

Cons: 

-Some stickers could’ve been prints & could be an issue 

-Minor discoloration issue between the roof & the rest of the car

Score: 

Build Design: 4.75/5

Build Difficulty: 2.5/5

Creativity & Fun: 5/5

Final Score: 12.25/15

Final Grade: B-

Recommendation: Buy It 

[worse0mens]

Britpicking Help Post

Maybe I’m really late to be doing this but for any fic writer out there who speaks an American dialect of English but wants to write British characters/fics set in Britain, here’s a help post for some common words that are different in a British dialect*.

American dialect = British Dialect

Sweater = Jumper

Buck (as in, one dollar) = Quid (as in, one pound) — NB: When referring to £5 notes or £10 notes we may also say “fiver” or “tenner”. This only applies to these two notes specifically.

Hood (as in, the thing on a car which covers the engine) = Bonnet

Trunk (as in, the storage space typically in the back of a car) = Boot

Chips = Crisps

French Fries = Chips

Block = trick question, we don’t have ‘blocks’ in our towns and cities. They aren’t planned that well, they just grow and spiral out at random over hundreds of years.

Highway = Motorway (typically; a British person may refer to the highway, but I would say motorway is more common)

First floor = Ground floor (this is a little confusing even to Brits sometimes: we refer to the bottom-most floor of a building as the ground floor, and the floor above that as the first floor; i.e. the second storey of the building is the first floor in Britain. You will notice this when you use the elevator and stairs in multi-level buildings)

Elevator = Lift (these two terms are used pretty much interchangeably in Britain nowadays, though)

Pants = Trousers

Underwear = Pants (though we also say underwear)

Sneakers = Trainers

Gas (as in, what fuels a car) = Petrol/Diesel (depending on what it is)

Gas Station = Petrol Station

Service Station (a place where you can stop on a long journey to rest, eat, use the toilet, etc) = services/the services

Mall/Shopping Mall = Shopping centre

Store (as in, a place to buy goods) = Shop

Cotton Candy = Candy Floss

Biscuits (those... soft scone-looking things? What even are they? I don’t understand what they are and I can’t even translate that. Bottom line: in Britain, those aren’t biscuits.)

Cookies (as in, a baked good which is typically thin, sweet and crunchy) = Biscuits

In Britain, a cookie is a very specific type of biscuit; it can be soft or crunchy, but it is usually thicker than an average biscuit and contains (usually) chocolate chips or some variant of chocolate chips, like m&ms. “Cookie” is never used to describe, for example, a jammy dodger, or party rings, or shortbread. Oh, and we don’t have Girl Scout cookies. It’s just not a thing here.

Candy = Sweets

Candy Store = Sweet Shop

State = County (this is a very loose comparison more than a direct equivalent; we don’t have “states” in the UK, we’re divided up into counties, which is sort of similar but also different because our systems of government are fundamentally different. If you want to understand the difference between a US state and a British county, I’d recommend more research)

Sidewalk = Footpath/Path/Pavement

Fall = Autumn

Vacation = Holiday

Couch = Sofa

Faucet = Tap

Basin (as in, where you wash your hands after using the toilet) = Sink

Flashlight = Torch

Apartment = Flat (these are increasingly used interchangeably in Britain)

Garbage/Trash = Rubbish

Trash can/Garbage can/Waste paper basket = Bin

Mail = Post

Principal (as in, the head of a school) = Headmaster/Headmistress/The Head

Recess (as in, the break taken by children at school) = Break time

Eraser = Rubber

Period (as in, the punctuation mark which ends a sentence) = Full stop (“full stop” is substituted in idiomatic phrases too, for example, “I won’t do it, full stop” as opposed to “I won’t do it, period”)

Elementary School = Primary School

High School = Secondary School (The two words for school are used as a loose comparison here; the schooling systems of the UK and US are very different, especially as time goes on. If anyone would like, I can make a different post explaining how UK secondary schools operate, in terms of the system of years 7-9, 10-11, and 12-13 [aka Sixth Form] and GCSEs & A levels)

NB: College is not the same thing in the UK as in the US. As I understand it (and I’m by no means an expert), US College is more comparable to UK university. In Britain, college is ‘further education’ (as opposed to ‘higher education’, which takes place generally at a university), taken usually at the age of 17-18. Further education can also be taken at a Sixth Form/Sixth Form College instead. In the UK, everyone must stay in full-time education until the age of 18 by law.

Zipper = Zip

Bathrobe = Dressing gown

Diaper = Nappy

Soccer = Football

Resume (as in, a document which details the skills and qualifications of a job applicant) = CV (which stands for curriculum vitae)

Cellphone = Mobile phone/Mobile

Movie = Film (increasingly used interchangeably, but film is the default for most Brits)

Cop (as in, law enforcement) = Police Officer/Policeman/Policewoman (or pig, but this is a derogatory term) — please remember that British police do not carry firearms; in the event of an emergency in which firearms may need to be used, the British police must call in a specialised Armed Response Unit. Armed officers may also be put on as a precaution/deterrent at a large event, but this is rare, generally only occurring if serious disturbances are anticipated or if there has been a recent spate of terror attacks.

Math = Maths (small difference but I promise you, British people do not say math, including in idiomatic phrases like “do the maths”)

Tuxedo = Dinner jacket

Janitor = Caretaker

*Please remember that the terms I provided are just common ones that I see often, not by any means an exhaustive list. Additionally, dialects are different in different parts of Britain; a Scottish person will speak different to an English person, and a welsh person, and so on and so on. There are even regional variations within England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. If you want to be very specific when you’re writing, that might be something you want to keep in mind!

If anyone has any questions or requests for future posts about Britain (though I don’t know everything!), feel free to leave a reply!

[where-theres-smoak-2]

Darkling Character Analysis

Full disclaimer, I’ve not read the books, though I have ordered the first so I am hoping to have read that soon. But just so you are aware this character analysis is based entirely on the show version of the character. Obviously there will be spoilers for all of season one. Also I just want to say that my aim with this analysis was to sort of get into The character’s head and so alot of this is just what I think the character might have been thinking, feeling and what his motivations may be, it does not mean I agree or disagree with his actions. When I am giving my view on his actions I will try to make it as clear as possible. Also this is just my interpretation of the character and my own opinions on the character, it is ok if you disagree. So obviously this is an analysis of the character The Darkling but I am also going to be talking about his relationship with Alina so I guess its also a sort of analysis of their relationship too just solely from Aleksander’s side of it. I will be using all of the names he has interchangeably because he has so many that I don’t know which one to stick with (seriously haven’t seen a character with this many different names since Jace from Shadowhunters) so sorry if that’s annoying. Fair warning this one is probably the longest analysis I have ever written and they are usually pretty long so I would suggest if you are going to read this maybe get some beverages and snacks first. I mean I think it shows how compelling and interesting a character he is that I was able to waffle on as long as have about him. But yeah its long. Of course you can also always scroll on past. But if you would like to read it then the rest is under the tag. 

Ok so first off I think the show does a really good job of building up the character in the first episode by giving us some information on The Black General before we and Alina officially meet him, they really give the character this air of mystery by giving us only a small amount of information about him but also by not letting us see his face. We get small tantalising glimpses of him, a shot of his boots in the mud, his carriage passing by, the back of him with his cloak billowing in the wind as the skiff enters the fold. It’s just enough to peak the audience’s interest. But most of what we learn in episode one is from what other character’s tell us. The very first mention we get of The General is from Mal and it’s a very small detail but I actually think it can tell you alot about The Darkling’s character. When Mal and Alina come across the Grisha practising Mal says ‘They’re always picking on us when their General’s not around.’ This seems like such a throwaway comment designed to show us how the First Army feel about Grisha and paints this picture of the Grisha thinking they are higher and mightier than those who are not Grisha. But it actually suggests that if they only do it when The General is not around then he does not tolerate Grisha bullying First Army. That he doesn’t think its ok for them to act like they are higher and mightier than those who are not Grisha and that he believes in humility even. Which I think is really interesting. This tracks with Nadia’s comment later in episode three when she says that General Kirigan insists that the Grisha eat peasant fare to keep them humble. Yet while he encourages humility he also makes sure that the Grisha have everything they need in order to flourish and he obviously cares a great deal about the Grisha, I feel like rising the Grisha up and making them strong has been pretty much his only drive and motivation over the hundreds of years since the fold was created. 

The other thing we learn which is repeated a couple of times by a few of the characters is that The General cannot bring down the Shadow Fold. In fact I think there are two conversations about it. The first between Inej, Jesper and Kaz when Jesper asks why the General hasn’t taken it down to which Inej replies ‘Have you ever put out fire by adding more fire?’ The other conversation is more flippant and is between Dubrov and Mikhael, where Mikhael sarcastically says the General is there to save the day and Dubrov asks if he’s going to tear down the fold. So on two occasions we have characters believing the General is powerful enough to fix the problem of the fold only for them to be corrected and told that he can’t. It seems like the show wants to make it very clear that the General will not be destroying the fold and I could be reaching here but this could be foreshadowing for later when we learn he doesn’t desire to bring down the fold.       

Of course even after the first episode the character of the Darkling still remains a bit of a mystery. He’s the kind of character where the more you learn about him the more questions you have. This tactic of giving us small pieces of information about him, just enough to keep you interested continues throughout the season and of course you have the twist in episode 5 where its revealed that he’s the ‘villain’. And yes I did put villain in quotation marks because I personally feel like its too simplistic a term to use for the character. I do feel like he’s more than just a two dimensional villain and there is alot of complexity to the character and his actions just for him to be considered the ‘bad guy’. 

So lets have a look at some of those actions and think about what might have been his motivations and what he might have been thinking and feeling. I want to start with one of the more controversial of his actions and as a warning this is a sensitive topic. One of the earlier things we find out about is that General Kirigan gifted Genya to the Queen. I’ll be honest when I first watched this scene I was so caught up in the new character and what was going on in the scene that I didn’t think much about Genya’s comment about being a gift to the Queen but when I thought more on it later I realised that it was a rather dark idea, that you could gift a person to another person. It becomes especially darker later when you find out what Genya suffered at the King’s hands. I kept wondering a few things, one being why the General would gift a child to the Queen in the first place, two whether he knew what the King was when he put Genya under the royal family’s care and three if he didn’t why he didn’t remove Genya when he discovered what was happening with the King. I do feel that we didn’t get enough information in the show (I don’t know if there’s more information in the books) to really answer these questions but I’ll give it my best shot. Firstly why would the General gift a child to the Queen? Well I actually think this one is easy to answer, he needed a spy within the Royal Family. We know that Aleksander has suffered and been betrayed by a king in the past. He won the Old King a war and in turn that King turned on not just Aleksander but on his people too. I feel like Aleksander was blindsided when this happened and he just didn’t see it coming and because of that his people were slaughtered. It would make sense then that the General would want to keep an eye on the royals and get a warning if they were planning on turning on Grisha again. I also think this is why they refer to Genya as a ‘gift’. That was just the wording the General used to manipulate the royals. Here’s a gift that I am granting you out of respect and to honour and please you, is going to go over a lot better than hey here’s a spy I want in your household. Genya is essentially the General’s trojan horse. As for it being Genya as oppose to someone else, like a trained adult Grisha, well I think that’s because it would be easier to get the royals to take a child into their household than an adult, even as a gift. They will be alot less suspicious of a child than they would an adult. Also they might bond with a child and therefore treat them as more of a confidante as time goes on. As well as that Genya had a very specific set of Grisha abilities that made her perfect for a vain Queen. I may be wrong on this one but thinking back to my history education I think I remember being taught it was fairly common during the time period if a young lady was discovered to have a particularly special talent, like say singing for example, they may be given as a gift to the Queen as this may gain favour for the maiden’s family if she is made a lady in waiting. So if I am right about that then whilst it might seem strange to us it may have been a fairly normal practise to the characters. I mean Alina didn’t seem shocked when Genya said she was a gift to the queen it was learning about the King that upset her. 

Also I do wonder if some of the reason why he placed her with the royal family was because he believed she wouldn’t fit in with the other Grisha, she does say that she is almost as rare as Alina. I don’t know for sure but maybe the General suspected she would struggle with being different from the other Grisha and so decided the best way to help her grow and flourish was by giving a special mission of her own. 

Ok so what about question 2? Did he know what kind of person the King was when he placed Genya under his care. In my opinion I don’t think he did. I am basing this on how he always seems to want to make Grisha safe and wants them to flourish and also due to his actions with Alina when things between them became more intimate, we know that consent is something Aleksander cares about. So to me it would be out of character for him considering how much he cares about the Grisha and consent for him to knowingly put Genya under the King’s care whilst having the knowledge of what would happen to her. I feel like he would also consider it as a disrespect towards Grisha from the King for him to harm a Grisha woman like that especially as she was ‘gifted’ to them. Also when Alina herself asks a similar question in episode 7 when she says ‘did you think Genya was safe when you placed her under the King’s watch?’ To me I think the Darkling looked somewhat upset that she would think that he would knowingly put Genya in that situation. However I do think that by the time Alina was discovered and brought to the Little Palace he was aware of what was going on with Genya and the King as he makes that comment about Alina remaining at the Little Palace with him to train undisturbed. The way he said undisturbed made me think he thought the King might decide he wanted Alina and the General was warning the King away, making it clear that if he wanted the fold destroyed he would have to leave Alina alone. His actions here in protecting Alina also make me think that he didn’t know at the time of placing Genya with the Royal family what would happen to her. He doesn’t want to make the same mistake with Alina that he made with Genya. 

As for number 3, why didn’t he remove Genya from the King’s care once he did find out about what the King was doing? I saw a few comments about this. All of them saying the same that because he didn’t get Genya out he was as bad as the King and was complicit in what happened to Genya. But I actually think it’s more complicated than that. For one thing technically he did remove Genya from the King’s care when he had her poison the king and then made her Corporalnik. Though obviously he didn’t do it immediately. We’ve got no timescale as to when he find out so who knows how long they were planning this. But also there was one line in episode 3 that I think answers this question best, when the General says ‘I may lead the Second Army, but the King is still the King.’ Whilst the General is powerful he still only has so much power over the King. He needed the King’s permission just  to have Alina at the Little Palace and for her to train, which is what the demonstration Alina had to go through in episode 3 was all about. I don’t think the General had the power to just walk into the Grande Palace and take back Genya. The only way he was getting Genya out of there was by killing the King. Also correct me if I am wrong but I feel like what the King was doing to Genya was a large part of the General’s motivation for poisoning the King. I mean we weren’t given much information about the King other than what he was doing to Genya, which made me think that’s why he was poisoned as we weren’t told about any other bad things the King had done that might lead to the General deciding to poison him. I think once he found out what the King was doing to Genya he allowed her to be the one to carry out the poisoning knowing that she would want revenge rather than trying to remove her right away and potentially causing tension with the royal family and also making it harder if not impossible for Genya to be the one to exact her revenge on the King. I guess what I am saying is its possible that Genya was the one who wanted to stay because she wanted to be the one to kill the King. I mean that’s the impression I got from her conversation with Alina where she says ‘I waited for years for my chance at revenge.’ For all we know General Kirigan might have offered to remove her from the Royal household and she might have told him she wanted to be the one to help him take down the King. Whatever his motivations were and however much he may or may not have known I think we can all agree that him ‘gifting’ Genya to the Queen was a mistake. I personally feel like it was more of a similar mistake to when Alina burned the maps. She had good intentions, she did it to protect someone she cared about, but in the end she caused others harm. With Alina she wanted to protect Mal and her whole unit was killed. With Kirigan I think he hoped a spy in the Royal household would protect the Grisha but in the end Genya was harmed by the King. One question I do have is whether Kirigan feels any guilt over what happened to Genya, whether he regrets his decision. I mean we did see him protect Alina from the King when he insisted she remain at the Little Palace. But was that just because it was Alina, the Sun Summoner? What if it were someone else. For example say the King came to the General and said he had taken a fancy to Marie, or Nadia or Zoya, and asked for them to be sent to the Grande Palace, would the General have agreed or would he have made some excuse as to why they couldn’t go, maybe even sent them on an assignment to protect them? There’s no way we can really know the answers to these questions as we just don’t know enough about the situation. All we know is that the General ultimately decided to get rid of the King but even then we don’t know for certain what his motivations for that were.   

I suppose you could say that him plotting against the king and conspiring with the apparat to usurp the throne was also a ‘bad guy’ move. But to be honest after telling us everything that the King did and just generally presenting the royal family in a negative light, I was surprised that Alina had such a problem with what the General did. To me it didn’t make sense for her to be upset and using that against him. I mean after learning what he did to Genya I was fully on the Darkling’s side when it came to killing the King. If they were trying to present this as a ‘villain’ move on the Darkling’s part then they did a poor job of it because I completely understood where he was coming from with that one. 

I felt a similar way with his other big ‘villain’ move when he expanded The Fold into Novokribirsk. At first I found it hard to have sympathy for them considering literally a couple of minutes before we were being shown that the soldiers were planning on murdering everyone on the skiff as soon as it docked. Couple that with the fact that Zlatan had arranged to assassinate Alina and once again I found myself on the Darkling’s side, I mean screw Zlatan and his soldiers. It was another case of it wasn’t until I rewatched it that I realised the villainous part of what the Darkling did was that there were civilians in the city that were also killed. To be honest I do wish that the show had done a better job of showing those civilians to really get across the horror of what the Darkling did. I mean on a rewatch I could see a few civilians mixed in with the soldiers but they were blended in so were hard to spot. I guess that was the purpose of Zoya having family in the city, to tell the viewer that there were innocents there but I just don’t think it made enough of an impact. I feel like if they had focussed in on actual civilians running and being swallowed by the darkness as well as the West Ravkan soldiers it would have had a bigger and more horrific impact. Instead it just kind of came across as the bad guys who had been built up as being bad throughout the season, who were rebels and who had tried to kill the main character, were finally eliminated. Lets be real if Alina had been the one to take out those soldiers we would all have been cheering. Lets talk about Game of Thrones for a moment as an example (spoiler alert for GOT here) however you felt about the way Dany’s descent into madness was written one thing the writers did right in The Bells episode was focus on the civilians that Dany was killing on the ground. They cut away from Dany completely and stayed on the ground with her victims and so you get that impact of what she has done, you see the horror in what she has done and I think this is something that would have worked well with Shadow and Bone. If they had just cut away from the skiff for a scene showing the civilians, the victims that were being effected by what the Darkling was doing then I think I would have been more shocked and effected by his actions. 

Ok so lets focus back in on the character and talk about what his motivations might have been for Novokribirsk. Why did he expand the Fold and take out the city? Well again I don’t think its hard to answer that question. We have to remember that he is a General that is fighting a war on three fronts. He’s fighting the Fjerdans on one side, the Shu Han on another and then the cherry on top is that the West Ravkans are rising up in rebellion. It’s already hard enough having to fight two enemy countries without also having to split your forces again to deal with a rebellion. The General knows that they are already overstretched without having to split their force again to deal with Zlatan. So if you look at it from his point of view striking down Zlatan now before the rebellion gets too large is a tactical military move. Also the fact that it is such a violent move will act as a deterrent for any remaining rebels who might think of trying to restart Zlatan’s movement. As well as to Fjerda and Shu Han, a this is what we do to our own people when they act against us so think about what we might do to you if you cross us, kind of deal. As for the innocent civilians that were in the city well I think the Darkling would convince himself that it was a numbers game. He might have killed hundreds of civilians but as far as he sees it he has spared thousands of lives that would have been lost if they had gone to war with West Ravka. By now the General knows the cost of war, so to him sacrificing a few hundred civilians is worth the price of saving thousands of his soldiers. Of course there is another motivation for the General, one that is less military strategy and more personal and emotionally driven. As Kaz says he was a man fuelled by vengeance. These soldiers standing on the dock had turned their back on Grisha and even worse than that they had tried to kill Alina. In the scene where The Darkling is talking to the Conductor and the Conductor admits to agreeing to assassinate Alina for a million kruge you can see how angry this makes The Darkling. This idea that someone would harm Alina for something as material as money is unforgivable to him. I said in a previous post that I wondered if the General always planned to expand the fold into Novokribirsk and I actually think the answer to that is no he didn’t. I actually think he was trying to make up his mind about what to do about Zlatan and his rebels, its possible he had a number of strategies to go with and was trying to decide which to choose, with expanding the fold being the most extreme of them. I actually think this here is the moment he decides to go with that plan. As he walks away from the Conductor and the Conductor asks ‘tell me how I can help’ The Darkling replies ‘you already have.’ I actually think what he meant here was you’ve helped me make up my mind. Them daring to harm Alina was the linchpin.         

Which brings me to the next part of this analysis, The Darkling’s manipulation and relationship with Alina. One of the great things the show did with the Darkling’s character was making him so complex and nuanced that the audience is in very much the same position as Alina when that reveal is made about Aleksander being the Black Heretic. Just like Alina (if you haven’t read the books) you are left sort of blindsided. Also just like Alina the audience is left wondering how much of it was a manipulation. Was all of it part of his manipulation? Or were there some moments that were real? Did he care at all about Alina or was he just interested in her power? 

Well I will say this, while I do think he always planned to manipulate her, I don’t think he ever planned or tried to use seduction as part of that manipulation. I think we have to remember that he was waiting for the Sun Summoner for hundreds of years and I think he spent that time creating his plan for her and her power. We also have to remember that when he was creating this plan he was expecting to find a child. I think his plan was to earn her trust as a mentor and build a confidence between them. I think he planned to bring her up with his ideals, to bring her up believing the best thing was to use the fold as a weapon, to bring her up to always want to protect the Grisha and to bring her up to embrace her power. However this whole plan had a wrench thrown in it when he does finally find Alina and she’s not a child, she’s a grown woman and one that has been taught her whole life that the Sun Summoner’s purpose is to tear down the fold. Changing the ideals and beliefs of an adult is alot harder to do than a child. On top of that I think he does develop real feelings for her. But these feelings get in the way of his plans, which makes everything all the more complicated for him.        

Lets go to the moment they first meet. I do think right from the get go he is intrigued by her and mean I think when you watch the scene you are so focused on Alina and what she must be going through and feeling, how scared she must be being dragged in front of this powerful General that she’s only ever heard stories about, that we don’t think about what this moment meant to the General. I mean he has been waiting for this woman for so long. She could be the solution to all of his problems, a fix for all of his mistakes. She has been his one glimmer of hope in the vast darkness of eternity. And now she’s here in front of him. Jessie said in an interview that Alina felt a connection to Aleksander right from the beginning, but I think he felt a connection to her too. I think you can even see the moment they make that connection and it’s when he takes her wrist in the tent.

Once he takes her wrist they never break eye contact even as he draws her sleeve up higher, their eyes are glued to each other. Then they both pause for a few beats and again just stare at each other.

The tension between them is so thick it almost makes you want to yell get a room at the screen. It’s like they both suddenly felt something click between them, a oh I know you, kind of moment. But I also feel like Aleksander is a bit surprised by this feeling, he wasn’t expecting it. They don’t break eye contact until The General cuts her arm releasing her power and causing her to look down in surprise. But almost immediately Alina brings her eyes back to his. One kind of cool little detail I did notice is that you can see the reflection of the beam of light in both their eyes.

It’s like a thread connecting them both, I don’t know why but it sort of reminds me of that red thread of fate legend. But also with them both having dark eyes the beam of light reflected in them sort of reminds me of yin and yang. The other thing of note is the General’s facial expression when he sees her power. Whilst everyone else is looking on is awe and surprise, he looks almost content, definitely happy and maybe even a bit hopeful. To me he kind of looks like he’s just had all his prayers answered. 

I think Kirigan is further intrigued by Alina in episode two when she talks back to him with that rant about maybe he hasn’t found anyone with her power because they didn’t want to be found. I think its the first time in a long while that anyone has stood up to him and not just said yes sir. I actually found it really comical how surprised he was when she said no to him. You just know he hasn’t heard that word much in recent lifetimes. But I do think this plants those first seeds of him seeing her as an equal to him. I think this is where he starts to see her as not someone to bow at his feet but someone who belongs at his side. Then when she confesses that she hid from the testers because she didn’t want to feel even more alone I think he really saw something of himself in her. I mean you can see his facial expression shift. I think this furthers his idea that she is meant to be at his side, that she is the same as him and I think even at this early stage he begins to hope that maybe she is someone who will understand him as no one else ever has. In that moment he is determined to make sure she doesn’t ever feel alone again and that is why he tells her ‘you are Grisha, you are not alone.’ You can see from the passion in his voice when he says it that this is something very personal to him. 

However despite this connection he feels to her and the care I think he has for her too, he does manipulate her. I think one of the more obvious manipulations happens in episode 4 when he takes her to the fountain. Something that is worth noting is that before setting out on their ride Aleksander takes off his Kefta. Their Keftas in the show are presented as their armour, so I think it was a very deliberate move on his part to sort of send the message to her, look I’m taking my armour off for you and I am being vulnerable and open to you. He furthers this by giving her his name to create this familiarity between them. Then he takes her to a place that is personal to him and then he really gets into his manipulation game. Here’s the thing though, I feel like most of the time when we think of manipulation we think of lies. But sometimes the best way to manipulate a person is through twisting the truth and I think this is what he does here. From their conversations so far I think he has figured out that Alina feels like an outsider and that she fears being alone and not fitting in. I definitely think he uses this information to manipulate her by telling her the story about how he used to go to the fountain as a boy after he discovered he was descended from the most hated Grisha in Ravka and wished to be anybody else. He knows that Alina will respond to this story, that it will make her feel sympathy for him and also make her feel like he is someone who understands her and therefore someone she can trust and rely on. He is also most definitely being deceitful in that he knows she thinks he is talking about being related to the Black Heretic when in fact he is the Black Heretic. However that doesn’t mean that what he said was untrue. I really do think he used to go there as a boy and wish to be someone else. As for being the descendant of the most hated Grisha in Ravka well my theory there is that he could actually be talking about Morozova. In the flashback in episode 7 Aleksander says that he and Baghra are his descendants and that means that if he created the amplifiers than Aleksander could create an army. Baghra gives the warning that Aleksander will die like Morozova. This makes me think that Morozova died in quite an unpleasant way, maybe even killed because he was feared and hated. I mean sure the Black Heretic is the most hated Grisha in all of Ravka now, but whose to say there wasn’t someone who came before him? Another Grisha who was hated like the Black Heretic is now. And maybe when Aleksander was a boy he discovered he was the descendant of Morozova and that was a burden on him, so much so that he wished he was someone else. 

I also think he was being genuine when he talked about how he is never seen as the solution only a reminder of the problem. I mean we’ve seen this ourselves in episode one its one of the first things we learn about him, that he can’t bring down the fold. I also think he’s being truthful when he says they always need someone to blame but again he’s twisting this truth. Alina thinks he means he is being unjustly blamed for not being able to fix the Fold but I think he actually is talking about how the Old King turned on him. I’m also sure over the years many people have blamed him and the Grisha for all the ills the world has suffered. But I do think he really meant it when he told her that he wouldn’t let the world make her the new Heretic. I think making sure that doesn’t happen is something he cares deeply about and I think it shows that he does have some care for her that he is so determined that she doesn’t go through what he did with the world turning on him. 

Slight diversion here but I do want to talk about whether or not this hatred the world has for him is justified, I mean he did create the fold and that fold has killed alot of people since its creation. So surely just the fact that he created the fold is enough to solidify him as the villain. Well I think that depends on why he created the fold. I mean we get three different versions of how and why the Fold was created. The first one we hear is in episode 4 when Alina tells us the story that is taught to children in school. They say that history is written by the victors, and whilst I personally don’t think there were any victors in the creation of the fold, The Black Heretic disappeared with its creation, presumed to be dead, so the Old King probably considered himself the victor and was left to decide the history. Therefore this story was most likely the Old King’s version of events. In this version of the story it talks about how the Darkling hungered for more power after being made the Kings military advisor and this made the king fear that the Darkling would try to overthrow him. So he put a bounty on his head and that of anyone who stood by him. Eventually the Heretic realised he was outnumbered and decided to create an army using forbidden science. But he failed, creating the fold and killing himself and countless others. The second version we get is from Baghra and it is similar to this one. She says that he created the Fold to use as a weapon, that he tried making an army with merzost and that he didn’t think about what that would do to the people who lived there, that it turned the men, women and children into the Volcra. That she had warned him there would be a price and that he didn’t listen. She also says that he took a noble’s name to hide after. Baghra’s version paints Aleksander as power hungry and as someone who will stop at nothing to get what he wants no matter the cost. But there are somethings I think its worth noting about her version. The first is that it is very brief, sort of like the cliff notes version, as they are in a hurry and she needs to get Alina out of there pronto. She doesn’t have time to go into all the details so she tells her enough to convince her to leave. Which brings me to my second point, Baghra’s motivation here is to get Alina to flee, so logically the best way to do that is to tell her the worst parts of the story and leave out anything that might make Alina feel sympathetic towards Aleksander and therefore hesitate about leaving. Another thing to remember is that Baghra whilst she might know somethings wasn’t there for a lot of it, she didn’t see Luda killed by the soldiers just knows that she was killed and she didn’t witness the confrontation between Aleksander and the soldiers. However what she did see likely had an effect on her. There is one moment in particular during Baghra’s story where she becomes emotional and choked up, there are tears in her eyes and you just know she is reliving a bad memory and that is when she talks about the women and children who were turned into the Volcra alongside the soldiers. Think for a moment about where Baghra was when the fold was created. She was inside the sanctuary with the women and children who were hiding from the soldiers. Which means that she would have witnessed them turning into the Volcra which must have been a horrifying scene. 

Eventually we get to episode 7 and we learn what really happened when the fold was created and the story is more tragic that first told. I mean first you have the whole situation with Luda. He obviously loved her deeply and I can only imagine how painful it must have been to see her murdered right in front of him and to feel that guilt of her dying because she was protecting him. I mean the words ‘just mortal’ now make me want to burst out crying anytime I hear them. Then he gets to the sanctuary and there’s all these Grisha there that need protecting. I think he feels a responsibility for them. Then his mother reminds him that they are not fighters, they make things. Which gives him the idea of creating an army using merzost. It is worth pointing out here that when telling the tale to Alina Baghra says that she warned Aleksander that there would be a price for using merzost, but when you actually see the conversation what she says is that whilst the small science feeds them merzost feeds on them. This suggests that the price to be paid is by him. So yes he was aware there would be a price but he assumed he would be the one paying it. I think if he knew that the people inside the sanctuary would be turned into Volcra he might not have gone through with it. This is another thing that makes the story even more tragic. Aleksander was driven to create his own army by his wish to protect his people, but he lost control and ended up destroying the very people he was trying so hard to protect. Another thing I noticed when Alina is telling the story of the heretic in episode four when she gets to the part about the Heretic being killed along with countless other you can hear what sound like screams in the background, also Aleksander looks really sad and guilty. It is also right after that he says he had devoted his life to undoing the great sin aka the creation of the fold. We see this look of guilt again when Alina confronts him in episode 7 about being the one to create the fold and therefore responsible for the deaths of her friends and parents. You see him look to the floor.

 I really do think that he has alot of guilt about the fold, he sees it as a mistake.  We see both Baghra and Alina make the claim, the fold was no mistake. But in episode 7 we learn that it was, Aleksander did not deliberately set out to create the fold. It wasn't his intention. It seems to me that he wanted to bend the will of the soldiers to his, to make them his own army, but I think he lost control due to the emotional state he was in at the time. I mean right before the soldiers were threatening to murder all the people inside, including his mother, and were mocking him about Luda’s death. He was grieving, he was angry and he was fearful for his people. We were told the fold was born out of greed but lets be real it was born out of grief and out of pain and anger and fear. 

So if he considers it such a big mistake why doesn’t he want to tear it down? Well I think its two fold. On one hand he might be afraid of what he’ll see. It’s like Kaz says to Zoya ‘it’s dangerous to go looking for the dead. What you see may haunt you for the rest of your days.’ Tearing down the fold will reveal all the destruction he caused to the land and to the people who lived there, he’d have to really confront what he did to his own people. But I think another motivator is what he said about undoing the great sin. I think he thinks if he makes the fold useful then at least it would have made the ‘deaths’ of his people mean something somehow. If creating the fold cost them their lives then maybe by making it a weapon that can be used to protect Grisha will make their ‘deaths’ a worthwhile sacrifice.

Ok so diversion over, lets go back to the Darklina relationship and how much of his actions were a manipulation. We’ve already established that he was being manipulative when taking her to the fountain and was telling her twisted truths. But if we stick with episode 4 there’s the scene where she comes to visit him at night in the war room. This whole scene I actually think he was being completely genuine. I don’t think any of it was part of his manipulation of her. First off is the way they are both dressed. They are both in their nightclothes which gives this idea of them being more intimate and more exposed to each other. I said above that the Kefta is seen as the Grisha’s armour, well here neither one of them are wearing their Kefta. They have both taken off their armour and are letting each other in. When Alina first finds him he is looking over the war map and you can see that he looks troubled, which you know fair enough considering he’s fighting a war on two fronts, having to deal with getting supplies through the fold and how to deal with the rebels. I love the way he looks at Alina when she comes in though, its just so soft and I feel like he feels instantly calmer when he sees her. But then he starts talking about how he’s been fighting the war alone and lost friends, about how their own people are turning on Grisha just as their kin once did and he is clearly thinking back to when the Old King was hunting him and his people. When the shadows start creeping in I think his pain is very real, I don’t think this was an act at all and once again if you listen closely you can hear those faint screams in the background. Then Alina dispels the shadows with her light and repeats his words back to him, ‘you are not alone.’ I think in this moment he truly does feel like he’s not alone. That he has found someone who understands him and who is his equal, who is like him. So he reaches out and cups her face and tells her he’s been waiting for her a long time. But then she pulls away and says she should go. I think Aleksander is afraid at this moment that he has frightened her away or that he misinterpreted the situation and he becomes very confused. So when she lingers at the door he goes to it and contemplates calling her back, just as she struggles with whether she should go back. But then she walks away and I think he thinks that maybe he was wrong and she doesn’t feel the same as him and he is a little angry with himself for losing focus and for feeling something for her and so he locks the door between them.  

Another question I asked myself was whether he always intended to put the stag collar on her and to control her powers. In my opinion this one has a bit of a yes and a no answer. I think he kept changing his mind. He clearly knew that by killing the Stag and putting the amplifier on her he would gain control of her powers. As I said early I think his first draft of the plan, shall we say, was to find the Sun Summoner as a child, to gain her trust as her mentor and teach her that the Fold is a weapon to be used as opposed to something that needs to be torn down. If he had found her as a child he would have had a lot more control over her and could shape her into what he wanted. However when they find the Sun Summoner she’s an adult and believes that its her fate to tear down the fold so he has to do a rework of his plan. On top of that he’s got this problem that she clearly doesn’t want to be the Sun Summoner she has no interest in saving anyone and she just wants to go back to being a mapmaker in the First Army. I think it is during that speech where she talks about him transferring her power to someone else that he starts to look into whether that is possible. But as he gets to know her more I think this changes again and he starts to feel things for her and I think he starts to believe that they want the same things and that maybe taking control of her powers won’t be necessary. I think the turning point for him is in episode 5. In the breakdown video of their first kiss Jessie says Alina goes to the General’s rooms because of what happened the night before in the war room where they had a moment in episode 4. Alina wasn’t sure what that moment meant and so she was seeking out Aleksander because she was intrigued and wanted to know if there was something there. Aleksander is once again clearly happy to see her but I do feel like there is some awkwardness there because of what happened in episode 4 and because he feels like he had misinterpreted things and maybe was too intense with her. It’s an interesting dynamic because as Jessie says in that video in this moment he is the vulnerable one. One moment in particular that I think shows this vulnerability is right after she helps him into his Kefta. Again going back to the whole the Kefta is armour thing. When Alina first enters the room like in episode 4 she is wearing her dressing gown she has come to him with her armour off so to speak. He is also out of his Kefta and this early conversation is playful where they are joking about Ivan and the Volcra. But after she puts the Kefta on him is when his mood shifts a little and you see him kind of tug the Kefta tighter around himself. I feel like he was trying to protect himself because the more time he spends with her the more vulnerable and confused he feels, he’s feeling alot of feelings he hasn’t felt in a long time and I think he knows by now that he is well on his way to falling in love with her and this scares him a bit because he has lost loves in the past. Him putting the Kefta back on is like him attempting to put that armour back on. There is another way of looking at it too though. It’s worth noting that on this occasion Alina is the one helping him put the armour/Kefta on, like she is the one giving him protection. Then he turns around Alina is alot closer then he anticipated and you can actually see him struggling to even form words. Then she leans in close to him like she's about to kiss him but changes her mind and walks into the other room leaving our poor guy more confused than ever. Then Alina makes the speech about how she finally feels like she is part of something bigger and that they can offer hope to the Grisha and to Ravkans. In this moment our girl was talking straight to our boy’s heart. I think this is all he has ever wanted to hear her say, especially the ‘we can offer hope.’ I think he really means it when he says it means a lot to him and you can hear the passion in his voice when he says ‘you mean a lot.’ Of course when she looks down he once again becomes afraid he’s overstepped, gone too far and so he tries to backtrack with ‘to everyone’. And well we all know what happens next. Alina kisses him and as he says after he is surprised and not many people do surprise him. I think there is something about this woman that just makes him lose all his senses until his whole world becomes about her. I feel like throughout episode 5 Aleksander feels like he’s gotten everything he’s ever wanted. Because maybe she does feel the same way he does, maybe she wants the same things he does, maybe he has found his life partner, another immortal who will always be by his side, finally he’ll never have to feel alone again. I think the moment I decided this fool was definitely in love with Alina was the look on his face when she enters the room and he sees her in his colours for the first time. After watching her demonstration I think he does see her as his equal. He’s in complete awe of her and the only time he looks away is to look at the Monarchs to see their reaction. Basically from the moment Alina kisses him to this moment where he is seeing her take command of the room and truly showing her power, having people bow to her, Aleksander is living his best life, he’s on cloud nine. 

Then he gets word that someone has located the stag. We don’t see the scene where he gets informed of this but you can imagine he probably can’t believe his luck. Not only are things perfect between him and Alina but now someone has found the amplifier. But I feel like he gets a bit of a reality check when he discovers that Mal is the one who found the stag and he’s now here in the Little Palace. I feel like Aleksander sort of came crashing down to earth here and realised he might have a bit of a problem. Once again he’s having to do a quick, rapid, rework of his plan. Which brings us to another moment where the Darkling is being manipulative. He uses Mal to find out what Alina’s favourite flower is. I mean I suppose you could argue that he’s only doing what every other person does when they want to get a gift for their crush and don’t know what would be best, ask the best friend. But all jokes aside this move was clearly calculative on The Darkling’s part. But I couldn’t help but wonder why he decided to use the Irises. What was his motivation here. It’s clear that he has already won Alina over seeing as she was kissing him not to long ago. Well I said earlier that I think he changed his mind about using the collar on her. I do think after their conversation in episode 2 where she talks about how she didn’t want any of it and could he transfer it he thought she was going to be a problem and difficult so maybe he should look into finding a way of controlling her power. In the beginning she was focussed on her old life and I feel like she didn’t have much loyalty or care for the Grisha, it took her awhile to accept who she was and she was also struggling to use her powers. All she wanted was to go back to Mal and I think this may be why, or at least part of the reason why The General takes their letters. For one he didn’t want her to go back to him and so making her think that Mal didn’t care would encourage her stay put and discourage any ideas of leaving. I mean given her comment in episode 3 where Alina asks Genya if anyone had ever escaped the Little Palace, which the General overheard, its not that surprising that he would decide to confiscate any of her correspondence out of the Palace in case she was organising a breakout with Mal. Secondly as I said she was having trouble using her powers and I think after reading the letters maybe he figures out that its because of Mal that she is struggling, so he either stopped the letters because he wanted her to continue feeling abandoned by Mal and therefore he was hoping she would shift her dependence onto him or because he knew if she let go of Mal then she would be able to control her power more and more power for Alina means more power for him to control. This was all very manipulative on his part and obviously not the actions of someone who cares about Alina’s feelings but at this point she wasn’t Alina to him she was the Sun Summoner, a tool to be used and he was thinking as a General who had people and a whole country to protect and if that meant putting the collar on this stranger then so be it. I think he set out to win her trust to make it easier for him to put that collar on her when the time came. But then as he got to know her more, started catching feelings for her and after their conversation in episode 5, I think he decided that maybe he wouldn’t need to use the collar after all. My theory is that he got her the flowers and he took her to the war room instead of the dinner because he was planning to tell her some of the truth. I don’t think he was going to tell her about who he really was and about him being the Fold’s creator but I do think its possible that he intended to tell her about the Stag and maybe even try to convince her about using the Fold as a weapon. So I think he just wanted to put her in as good a mood as he could if that makes sense, sweeten her up before he brought it up. Also telling her about the Stag means telling her about Mal. I think he actually felt a little threatened by Mal because having read their letters he knows how she feels about Mal. So he wants her attention as much on him as possible. I think he very much felt like his dream was slipping away. As for the make out on the war table moment, that could have also been an attempt to keep her sweet on him like the irises. But as I’ve said before Aleksander seems to lose all his senses when he’s with Alina. When he’s with her the only thing he’s focused on is her, and I personally think it was just a case of he really wanted to kiss her. Some of it might also have been to reassure himself that those feelings between them were real, especially now that Mal has shown up. I mean they are both so giddy and happy when they break apart for him to answer the door that I find it difficult to believe that the whole kiss was a cold manipulation, he was grinning like a school boy. My favourite kiss between them (as steamy as their make out session was) was actually the one where he comes back to kiss her one last time. This is right after he has learnt that she was the target of an attack that happened inside of his Palace, which is the one place where his people are supposed to be safe. I think in that moment he just needed to reassure himself that she is safe, you can see his desperation in the kiss. There was just something so soft and pure about it. If I am sure about anything is that one was definitely real, I may have small doubts about the other kisses but that one kiss was 100% true.   

Things only get worse for Aleksander in episode 6 when he realises that Alina is missing. I think how he behaves in this episode tells us alot about how he really feels about Alina. He becomes somewhat unhinged when she goes missing and only becomes more so the longer she is gone from him. His sole focus is on her and finding her, to the point where he kind of forgets about anything else as we see when Fedyor comes to report about Nina, The General has completely forgotten there were other missions and things he was dealing with. Later when he calls Zoya to tell her to prepare a team to track down ‘Alina’s abductors’ and she puts forward the suggestion that Alina ran by herself, he doesn’t even consider it a possibility. The idea that she would willingly leave him is just too hard for him to wrap his head around because as he says to Zoya he is sure he knows exactly how she feels. He is usually the composed, unfazed General but he very much snaps at this moment and I think reveals more than he intended to Zoya, who clearly looks surprised by his outburst. He even says himself with Alina gone he’s not himself, he’s feeling unbalanced and tense without her. So when Zoya offers to help him relax he tells her that he’ll relax when he has Alina. I think its important as well that he says Alina and not the Sun Summoner. It’s not the Sun Summoner he’s lost without its Alina. When he finally catches up with Kaz and is told that Alina fled on her own you can see how shocked he is at this.

 And even then he has trouble believing it because he once again asks where she is and its not until the line ‘It was pretty clear she wasn’t interested in being a captive any more’ that it begins to set in for him and you see his shadows creep in. After you can see the heartbreak set in and then the anger.

 This anger only grows when he learns that she is with Mal and that she is going after the Stag. I think he very much feels like everything has been snatched away from him in a blink of an eye. I think he is angry that he was blindsided by it and he’s angry that he let his feelings for her cloud his judgement and distract him from his plans. Because of his feelings for her he might now have ruined all his plans and, as he would see it, risked the safety of the Grisha in doing so. Naturally its back to plan A of forcing the collar on her, because no matter how he feels about her he can’t let that distract him from his mission to protect the Grisha again. 

However no matter how angry he is at her and how hurt is is that she ran from him, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about her. I see alot of arguments that he can’t have loved Alina because you can’t hurt someone you love like he did when he put the collar on her. But I’m calling BS on that one now because the people you love are the people who can hurt you the most, especially when they are hurt or angry. It doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t love you it just means they are human and make mistakes. However that doesn’t mean you should tolerate those mistakes or brush them under the rug, absolutely they should be called out for them and held accountable for them and I am really glad that Alina does do this. The Darkling's anger at her is what drives him to find her and to kill the stag himself so he can collar her and I think this anger builds up whilst he is away from her, again showing how unhinged he has become without her. But I feel like some of that anger ebbs away a bit when he does find her and once she is in front of him again. That moment when he finds her and the stag and Mal is hurt and he calls out to her that she can’t save them, that as powerful as she is she does not have the power to heal. He is obviously thinking back to Luda here. Because as powerful as he was he was not powerful enough to save her, in that moment he was utterly powerless to keep her from dying. I think despite how hurt he is he cares about her too much to watch her go through the same pain and grief he did which is why he offers to heal Mal if she gives him the Stag. The similarities between the two scenes (the one with Alina, mal and the Stag and the one with Aleksander, Luda and the king’s men) are clear and I think really have an effect on Aleksander. I think when he says that Mal was only protecting Miss Starkov there are two interesting points. One is the use of the term Miss Starkov. This is a name he mostly called her when they barely knew each other and I think he is trying to distance himself from her again by making things more formal between them. The other thing is that it draws a parallel between both Mal and Luda. Both Mal and Luda were just trying to protect the people they love and Aleksander clearly doesn’t think either one of them deserved to die for it so he lets Mal live. 

Another scene I want to talk about real quick is the one right before he puts the collar on her. This scene is eerily similar to when they first meet. Once again they are back in a tent. Once again the scene starts with the Darkling’s back to her and with Alina in the hands of a guard/s. I said before that I think alot of the reason why he decides to collar her is because she doesn’t share his views and he feels like he needs to control her so he can weaponize the fold and save his people. That he was angry at himself for believing she might be his equal and share his goals. I think this scene where he talks to her shows that. The fact that he lowers himself to her level I think shows that he does see her as an equal. Then he talks about how together they could end all wars and protect their own and asks isn’t that what she wants. I think he is still clinging to that belief that he wasn’t wrong and that they did want the same things and maybe some part of him was still hoping he might not need to use the collar. But then she asks if they are going to tear down the fold and you can see the disappointment on his face because he understands now that she won’t see it his way. So instead he deflects the question and I think this is the moment that cements his choice to collar her.  

Further evidence that he does still care about Alina comes when he puts the collar on her. This is obviously a very distressing and gruesome scene. What he is doing is obviously wrong and I think deep down he knows it too. He can’t bear to look at her as it happens and so her turns away and its the second time he does as he also looks away in guilt when he threatens Mal. I don’t think he can handle her looking at him like he’s a monster and he can’t cope with seeing the betrayal and hurt in her eyes. It is also worth noting that I think part of the reason why he goes through with putting the amplifier on her is like he said to Mal, he thinks that over the years she will come to forgive him. Now this conversation where he talks about how she might take years to forgive him but he had patience also tells us that the fact that he is hoping for forgiveness shows that he knows what he is doing to her is wrong, that it is something that will require forgiveness. When he comes to see her later in her tent, can we just talk for a moment how nice that tent was, I mean he really went all out for her with lace and flowers like he somehow thought that would make up for him fusing a antler into her collar bone, but again even the fact that he gives her all these nice things shows that he wants that forgiveness and the way he approaches her as well is cautiously, like you would a wounded animal. He knows he’s hurt her and made her angry so he comes in with sweet words of compliments, telling her how special she is, and very quickly comes to know that she’s not having any of it. I mean that look she gives him when he first comes in, if looks could kill he’d be six feet under now. But I really do think he did go to her just because he wanted to talk to her, despite his words to Mal about having the patience to wait however many years it will take for her to forgive him, he wants to fix things between them now. He doesn’t want her to be angry with him and he doesn’t want her to be in pain. He’s desperate to get back what they had in episode 5. Also I think its important that we remember that until that conversation with her in the tent he didn’t know that she had discovered who he really was, so when she ran he believed that she had ran because she wanted to be with Mal which I think contributed to his anger at her and his feeling of betrayal. He couldn’t understand why she would want to be with someone who he believes never appreciated who she really was and who is mortal and will eventually just be a blip in her very long lifetime, instead of being with him who is her equal and immortal like her. This is another occasion where I feel like he gets a bit of a reality check and realises that she didn’t run because of Mal, she ran because of his own lies. So all that anger he felt at her ‘betrayal’ was unjust. But then I think he feels a different sense of betrayal in how easily she believed Baghra. I mean looking at it from his point of view she didn’t come to him and ask for his side of the story or demand an explanation she just trusted Baghra and ran. He is clearly desperate to make her understand and you can see his composure begin to fail as he stands and tells her that everything he is ever done has been to make Grisha and Ravka safer. I really do think that line was true, he really does believe that what he’s doing is the right thing for his people and his country. You can feel his frustration and desperation continuing to build throughout the scene as he pretty much pleads with her to understand and can see that she doesn’t. I think the part that really hurts him though is when she says ‘we could have had this, all of it. You could have made me your equal, instead you made me this.’ This line is so powerful and I think its at this moment that he realises just how badly he has messed up. To be told that his actions are the reason why he hasn’t got her, the one thing he wants more than anything else in the world right now. Also the line of making her his equal I think would have hit him hard because he did see her as his equal and so I think he’s surprised that she believes that he didn’t make her his equal and then when she says ‘instead you made me this’ he realises that whilst he might have seen her as his equal he wasn’t treating her as one. His need for control made her a slave to him and I really think that in this moment he is realising that, I genuinely think this dumbass got so caught up in his own dream of what the two of them together could be that he didn’t realise that whilst he thought he was protecting her and helping her grow into this saviour for their people he was taking away her choices and he was making her feel like a captive, the dummy didn’t think to ask how she felt about any of it because he assumed he already knew, it was the same as what he wanted, to protect their country and people. So his anger when he says the line ‘fine make me your villain’ isn’t just directed at her but himself too. It’s not just his hurt and anger that she doesn’t understand his reasons and that she isn’t seeing it his way, it’s also because he knows it was his own actions that lead him to that moment when the woman he loves is standing in front of him and looking at him like he is a monster. He can’t go back and he can’t undo it and worse than that he can’t seem to get her to understand why he did it. I think he feels trapped and so the only thing he can be to her now is her villain. 

It’s after this conversation that his demeanour towards her changes and you can see that he sort of stops trying to win her over. He’s not as gentle with her, I mean he ties her to the deck of the skiff and answers mockingly when she points out it’s not a good look for him with the ambassadors. I did notice though that after that conversation he seems to have trouble looking at her. When they are walking to the skiff and he tells her that Mal is being held captive and will be released if she does her part, he isn’t looking at her but straight ahead and this is something he does alot when he is threatening Mal. The moment when he takes off her cloak he does glance down at her. I seen alot of debate about that scene, as it does come across as having a bit of sexual tension in it and some people thought it was a rather sexy scene whereas others pointed out that he was holding her captive and mocking her. Me personally I actually think its both. People talk about how it has to be one or the other. But yes in that scene he is holding her captive and that part’s not sexy but there is a moment where I feel like he still feels that draw to her. Before reaching up to undo her cloak it seems to me like a hesitates for a moment. When he goes to whisper in her ear that he doubts they’ll notice her feet and I think he feels that pull and that attraction to her and he is really close to her, I don’t think he’s been that close to her since the war room in episode 5. You can see him lean slightly towards her and I think he really is struggling with the desire he feels for her which is why he steps back with the cloak rather forcefully, like he's having to force himself away from her again. It kind of reminded me of the scene where she helped him into his Kefta. So no the situation itself is not sexy but I do still think there is tension in the scene because the attraction they feel for each other didn’t just disappear despite how hurt and angry they are at each other. It’s like their words are saying one thing but their body language is saying another. 

When they are in the Fold again at first The Darkling avoids looking at her particularly when he is forcing her to use her power to create the tunnel of light. His focus is on The Fold. Again I think this shows that he is determined to not let his feelings for her get in the way for his goals, yet he knows he is taking away her free will and her choice and that’s hurting her so he can’t really stand to look at her. Its the same when she asks to tear down the fold and he answers why would they destroy the best weapon they have. Again he doesn’t look at her when he says it because he knows that he deceived her by letting her believe that was what they were going to do and he doesn’t want to see the disappointment and betrayal in her eyes. Again this is something he does alot and look, I love The Darkling’s character, I do, but that doesn’t mean I can’t recognise his flaws and for me I kind of saw him as a coward for this. I mean if you are going to deceive and manipulate a person and force them to do something you know they don’t want to do, then at least have the decency to look at them. He does however look at her when she tries to save Novokribirsk after he lets the fold consume it. He stops her and you can see the anger when he says they are traitors who tried to kill her and that this action was retribution. I think he hates the fact that she is trying to save the very people who tried to hurt her. But again he looks away from her when he sees the way she is looking at him and how horrified she is by what he has done. 

Their very last interaction is when she uses the dagger to cut the amplifier from his hand and shows him what she is and that she’s the one the stag chose. He sees this as her betraying their people which is interesting because at the end of the episode Alina says that Kirigan turned on his own people. So they both believe the other turned on their own people, the problem here is that I feel like Alina feels more loyalty towards the non Grisha Ravkans, she still sees them as more her people due to spending more time as just a ordinary mapmaker then as Grisha but the Darkling has more loyalty towards the Grisha. Its like how you know parents aren’t suppose to have a favourite child but we all know they do. Well I feel like the Ravkans are Alina’s favourite child and the Grisha are the Darkling’s. Of course they still care about the other but their ‘favourite’ is their priority if that makes sense. By the end of the season when we see the Darkling emerge from the fold I think he is feeling very angry and very betrayed by Alina, however I actually think the fact that she bested him has only made him look at her as even more of an equal than before. Not only is she someone who will stand up to him but now she has become someone who can match him. I do think he’s in this very complicated situation where he is on an opposite to the person he believes is essentially his soulmate. However as much as I think he does love her I still think he will put his people above her and so will continue to act in what he considers to be the best interests of his people. It also seems like he’s got some new powers and was able to create shadow soldiers which again is interesting because he basically just accomplished what he meant to do in the first place when he created the fold, he’s created his own army. 

Ok so that’s all for now to be honest I could talk about the Darkling forever but I think this is already long enough so if you have read all the way to the end thank you for your time. I am thinking of doing other character analysis posts so keep an eye for that if its something that interests you, I think I might do Alina next. I’ll also post my thoughts on the book once I’ve read it.        

[district2001]

Leader Maknae Date

Seventeen AU: 14th member

Jangmi x Seventeen (mainly Coups)

Recap: When Seungcheol whisks Jangmi away from practice to ask her a very important question

Words: 2k

Requests are OPEN: Please please please send me what you want to see from Jangmi. I’m also open to feedback :)

Jangmi’s Masterlist

“I swear to god if Hoshi Oppa makes us go through the dance one more time, I’m going to die.” Jangmi complained, as she flopped on the floor in the dance studio.

“If he starts complaining about how our jumping isn’t the same height, I will personally take one for the team and murder him.” Seungkwan agreed.

“You know I can hear you right?” Hoshi yelled from the speakers. Jangmi snickered, praying that he wouldn’t play their song again.

She loved the song, and thought Woozi had done a phenomenal job with it. Apparently the staff weren’t too thrilled though, hoping for something darker. But leader line had backed him up, with Hoshi calling the song ‘pop perfection.’

Her favourite section was her interchanging rap part with S.Coups, where the contrast in their tones was noticeable, yet blended together really well. Plus the dynamic of the maknae with the eldest would look quite cool in the music video.

She reached over towards her bag and grabbed her drink bottle. The room temperature water wasn’t the greatest thing to drink, but she was so thirsty she would probably have Minghao’s hot water without complaint.

After she emptied her bottle, Jangmi lay on top of her bag, closing her eyes to get some rest. She knew debuting would be hard, much harder than being a trainee, but she was exhausted. Between online school, group dancing lessons, private dancing lessons, rap lessons, song writing sessions, recording sessions… the list was never ending. She was barely getting 5 hours of sleep a day, and she needed as much as she could get to grow. She’d made a bet with Dino that she’d grow taller than Woozi, and she wasn’t willing to admit to defeat.

Her short nap was interrupted by someone clearing their voice above her. Opening one eye, she saw S.Coups newly dyed blonde hair looking over her.

“5 more minutes.” She whined, closing her eyes again.

“Can I talk to you for a second?”

She opened both her eyes this time in confusion of why he was using his leader tone with her.

“Uhh. Yeah. Sure” She sat up, stretching out her hand. Seungcheol grabbed it, and pulled her up to her feet.

“I was thinking we could go grab a coffee?” Seungcheol asked as they walked out the practise room.

Jangmi didn’t know what he wanted to talk to her about, but she had a feeling it was serious, seeing the way he was avoiding her eyes.

“Yes of course.” She replied, fidgeting with her fingers.

They walked to the café in silence, with both of them trying to break it by trying to start a conversation, only for it to die down within a minute.

She was very aware that some bad news was going to be given to her at the café, and was mentally preparing her reaction in case he told her that she’d have to leave Seventeen.

Once they arrived at the café, Seungcheol had asked her to take a seat whilst he placed their order. She asked him for a water, and when he questioned her terrible choice, she explained that it was healthy and free.

While waiting for him to come back, she started playing around with the ring on her finger, a new unconscious habit she had adopted after being given the ring a few days ago. No formal ceremony, a staff member had just dropped it off in the middle of her dance practise with Jun.

She was brought out of her thoughts with Seungcheol plopping down the 2 drinks on the table- 1 lemonade and 1 chocolate Frappuccino. She raised her eyebrows at her leader, who smirked and placed the straw of the lemonade in his mouth. “Eunwoo said this was your favourite drink.”

Jangmi tried to hide her smile, knowing very well that she was not doing a good job.

She took a sip of her Frappé, before setting it down on the table. She knew he was trying to butter her up before breaking the bad news, but she wanted to hear it outright. Not sugar-coated in chocolate goodness.

“Is it ok if I ask you something?” Seungcheol asked tentatively.

“Of course.” Jangmi nervously smiled.

He cleared his throat again, before continuing. “How’s everything?”

Jangmi narrowed her eyes, “everything?”

“You know…” he signalled with his hands, “everything.”

“Good.” She nodded, waiting for him to continue speaking.

“Come on Jangmi, you’ve got to give me more than that.”

She chuckled, happy this awkward tension between them was slowly dissipating.

“It’s been good though. Honestly. It’s a lot of hard work, and I don’t think I can feel my feet at all right now. But it’s been fun. I’m learning a lot.” She smiled politely before adding “thank you for the opportunity.”

“Stop being so polite with me. Let’s go back to how we were before.” Seungcheol dismissed, taking another sip of his lemonade.

“How were we before exactly?” Jangmi cocked her head to the side, waiting for his response. Sure, she had spoken to him during her visits every holiday, but they hadn’t really spent much time together- and never one on one. There was no need to. He was busy leading the boys to debut, whilst she was just a random trainee who kept popping up every few months.

“I don’t know.” He struggled. “Not this awkward for sure.” They both giggled, glad that they both were acknowledging the tense atmosphere.

“Seriously though, I’m really enjoying working with you all. Plus you guys are so talented. Legit. Did you see Minghao’s freestyle dance the other day. I didn’t even think it was possible to be that flexible.”

Seungcheol chuckled, taking another sip of his drink.

“Don’t get me started on the vocals of this team. I heard Seungkwan and Seokmin singing the other day and I was mind blown. And then I found out that they were only messing around. How can they seriously be that good when they are taking the piss out of it.”

“Glad to know you think the team is talented!”

Jangmi smiled, “Of course you guys are. That’s why you’re debuting.”

“Why we’re debuting” Seungcheol corrected.

“Oh right! I’m sorry.” Jangmi bowed again, causing Seungcheol to get up slightly and smack her head.

She faked a pout and took another sip of her drink.

“Is everyone treating you well?”

She nodded. “Yeah. You don’t need to worry. I was friends with most of them before anyway.”

Seungcheol hummed before talking again. “I definitely think you transitioned well. Although, I feel slightly bad for stealing you away from Sungyeon. I saw her the other day and she told me that if any one of us made you upset, she’d come and hurt us.”

“She’s just very overprotective.” Jangmi giggled. She had been so busy with catching up that she barely had seen Sungyeon over the last few weeks. She missed her best friend. Maybe they could go out and get some food together. Well, Sungyeon could eat food whilst Jangmi would be stuck eating salad.

“Well, now you’ve got 13 more people to protect you.”

“I can protect myself, thank you very much.” Jangmi sassed back, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Somehow I don’t believe that.”

Jangmi leaned over the table. “Is it because I’m a girl.”

Seungcheol leaned over aswell, looking directly into her eyes. “No, it’s because you ran out of the recording booth the other day after seeing the cockroach.”

Jangmi’s eyes widened. “How’d you-”

“Sungyeon told me.” He smirked, whilst moving Jangmis’ glass away from her elbows. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

Jangmi leaned back into her seat in defeat, crossing her arms.

“Stop pouting. That’s my thing.”

“I’m the maknae, I can pout as much as I want.”

“You’re such a child”

“Takes one to know one.”

“Do you always talk to your elders with such attitude?”

“Not the ones I respect.”

‘Ya!” Seungcheol raised his voice, before realising that he had perhaps spoken too loudly in the café.

Jangmi shone her victory smile, and grabbed her drink off the table.

“Is there any reason you asked to hang out with me?” She asked. After their little banter session, she was starting to doubt that she would be leaving the band. Her leader was too relaxed.

“I was getting to that”

“Well, today would be nice, considering we have more dance lessons in 20 minutes.”

“Oh shit!” Seungcheol jumped up from his seat. “Grab your drink, and we can talk the way back.”

Jangmi nodded, before following him out the door. Stopping to yell ‘thank you’ to the staff.

Walking back to the Pledis building, Jangmi noticed how the sun was starting to set. She would have stopped to take a picture, and send it back to her parents, but Cheol started talking at that moment.

“I just wanted to take this opportunity for you to tell me if you were unhappy.” Jangmi looked at him in confusion.

“Like if anyone was making you uncomfortable, or if you were having trouble fitting in. I don’t know you well enough to read your mind, and Vernon said that you’re pretty reserved, like him, so I just wanted to make sure. Even if some members take longer to warm up to you, they will eventually.” She looked over to him and smiled.

Taking that as a sign of reassurance, Seungcheol continued. “I just wanted you to know that it might take a little while for you to feel completely at home. Or as homely as one can feel when they’re literally on the opposite side of the world from their friends and their family. I feel homesick sometimes, even when my home’s just a few hours from here.”

“If anyone mistreats you for being in our team, by talking shit about you let me know, or any of the other members. Seriously. We all look out for each other. And I know it’ll take some getting used to, but you deserved a spot on this team. I’m not just saying it as a leader, but as a friend. And hopefully soon you’ll think of me as an older brother. I overheard you telling Jihoon how you’re an only child aswell. This team is more like a fami-”

Seungcheol abruptly stopped mid-sentence when he realised Jangmi wasn’t walking beside him.

He quickly turned around, and let out a sigh of relief when he saw she was only a couple of metres behind him, wearing a massive smile on her cheeks.

“What?” He asked, genuinely confused to why she had stopped walking. Considering she was the one who reminded him of rehearsal.

“Do you really mean that?” she asked so quietly, that he could barely make out her question. He walked over to her and pulled her into a hug, “of course.”

Jangmi smiled into his chest. She had brothers.

Previous: First Official Meeting

Next: Debut.

[replaygifs]

»        𝐆𝐈𝐅 𝐈𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐓𝐔𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐋 𝐁𝐘 𝐑𝐄𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐆𝐈𝐅𝐒   !

hi folks! i’ve gotten a few messages on how i make my gifs, on what tutorials i used, etc. so i decided to make my own (since i didn’t use one) in hopes of helping a few people get their footing on how to make gif icons from scratch! this tutorial has been made with the assumption that you have prior knowledge of using photoshop (e.g. like smart filters), but please don’t be afraid to ask me any questions if you need anything explained or you’re a lil confused. however, do bare in mind that i am no photoshop genius, and have never become more advanced than what i required for my needs. anyways, without further ado, the tutorial on how you can make something like the above can be found below the cut. please like or reblog if you found this useful in any way!

some starting tips:

gif icon making, or gif making in general can be strenuous. do not give up if it doesn’t look like you want it to the first time! it’ll take time to find what you like. 

don’t compare your gif icons to other’s, which i’m guilty of, but your gif icons are unique and lovely in their own way and you should view them as such!

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i am using a macbook, with a mac operating system and adobe photoshop 2020. keep in mind that this is the way i make my own gif icons, and i’m just sharing what i know so this may not be the best/easiest way to go about things, like you can probably include scripts that save it for you, etc. but i prefer having more control over to process.

♡

screenshots will be distorted, for easier viewing i’ve added a link that will take you to the full size image.

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before anything, a high quality gif comes from a high quality video. when downloading your content, make sure it's either 720p or 1080p resolution.

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step 1: open up your .mp4 file

open it up as if you are opening any other file on photoshop. no need to import video frames to layers or anything of the sort. i find that way better for making gifs for gif sets instead of like 100+ gif icons. your photoshop should look like the image below.

this works best with shorter video files of around 1-3 minutes.

step 2: find your faceclaim

your video should now be open in photoshop as a video timeline, keep this the way it is, you’ll be able to move along the video to the next gif. using the timeline layers (see:layer 1), you can slide along until you find your faceclaim.

*extra info for those that don’t know. to extend your layer and make it easier to find your faceclaim, you can use the slider down below which looks like this:

this will essentially space the frames out more, if that makes sense?

step 3: select your gif focus and crop

use the rectangular marquee tool (circled in red) and select the area of your gif icon.

following this, use the crop tool (again, circled in red) to cut out the rest of the area. you are now left with a square.

step 4: select the length/frames of your gif

this step can be done pretty much anywhere between step 2 and step 7, depending on your preference. anyway, use the slider (red arrow pointing to it) to decide where you want your gif to end. 

then, bring the end of your video timeline (red arrow pointing to it) to where your animation slider is. your video timeline should now look something like this:

the space in between the lil sliders will only includes what will be in your gif. 

step 5: resize

using image size, resize your gif to whatever size you wish. i prefer 80px. 

following this, it should say that your file is going to be converted into a smart object, click okay. (i can’t show the pop up since i got rid of it). 

yet, now that you’re looking at your gif icon, you’ve realised you don’t really like the placement of it. simply cmd/ctrl+t to go to free transform. i moved it a tiny lil bit to the left. 

as you can see, the rest of the video area is still there. you can now transform it to your liking. this will be useful when you want to change the area again.

step 5: add sharpen settings

you now have an icon, you can sharpen it to your liking. 

i use smart sharpen and gaussian blur. i tend to have them in this order. 

you can change the opacity of each smart filter to your liking. i won’t be sharing my exact sharpen settings (not that they’re hard to figure out), as i’d like them to stay unique to me, but do play around with this and see what you like the most (the key is less is more). 

the trick here is to include the sharpen>blur>sharpen filters, which will give a sharpened appearance without overdoing it, and make your gif icon a lil smoother as well due to the blur.

**also, you may see the lil video group 1 in my layers there (and in your own too), this isn’t really necessary and is more of a pain in the ass that anything. if you have this, you can get rid of it by right clicking on it and ungrouping layers.

step 6: add your colouring

my colouring is a mixture of psds i’ve interchanged for years and i have lost the originals so do not intend on sharing. do look around at psds or make your own colourings that suit your tastes. 

BE MINDFUL OF WHITEWASHING!!! if you are giffing people of colour, use colourings that do not make them into a white sheet or a gray mess. i see this constantly as if it isn’t 2020. 

adjust! adjust! adjust! your colouring will not always work on different people or different scenes. adjust your levels, saturation, selective colour, brightness, etc to make sure the colouring works for your previous gif, as well as your next one.

even you can see here that my layers are mess because i adjust constantly. 

step 7: save for web

now that you’ve made your icon all pretty, save it for web and it should look like this:

step 8 (optional): speed

if you like your gif icons slower, you now have to upload the gif file into photoshop again. this will take you to the frame timeline. you can change the speed of your gif to whatever you want, and save again.

and there you have it, your is gif icon complete.

step 9: making more!

instead of going through this whole cropping process again, you can continue to move along the video timeline to different frames of your faceclaim, and making the next gif with just the exact sharpening settings, colouring, etc. this will make it super easy to make more gif icons in less time.

this can be done by simplying moving your animation timeline.

again you can use cmd/ctrl+t to adjust your gif placement. of course, this doesn’t always work, and you may need to revert back to your original video to crop the area again. an example of this is if you need a bigger or smaller area for the gif.

i just made this gif in a few seconds.

action

i use my own script to crop and have included the rest all in one action file. i did a lil digging and found this gif icon making action (resizes to 80px) that does essentially the same thing with no script. this will make it already 10x easier to make an icon. you can then make your sharpening into an action and you’ll basically have most of the job done for you in one click.

tips: 

make things into actions! for example, i cut down a lil on the speed changing process by making actions that change the speed for me.

save your actions! you never know when you’ll lose them

you might get tired of looking at your gif icons after a while, they might even start to look ugly but that’s most likely because you’ve been looking at them for too long, so don’t feel discouraged! 

crop close to the face, this is important! what in the fresh hell am i supposed to be seeing in a 70px gif icon if its so far away, or in general tbh

anddd that's about it! i hope you find this useful! again, if there are any questions, feel free to im me or send in a message and i'll do my best to help!

[elenajohansenreads]

Books I Read in 2021

#99 – Listen to Me, by Kristen Proby

Mount TBR: 81/100

Rating: 2/5 stars

I think this romance is more interested in its faintly ludicrous premise, and setting up the rest of the series, than it is delivering on the actual romantic relationship contained in its pages.

I’m not against the idea of friends going into business together (they do all the time, even if a lot of people would caution that it’s a bad idea) but this restaurant situation is too cute to be true, in the interest of providing a stage for the “rock star slums it as a gig musician” setup. And a stage for constantly having Talking Heads conversations with the four other female friends who obviously will eventually get their own books, and it’s so incredibly transparent who’s next even before I got to the ending, which is a happy ending for our main couple, paired with a blatant fishhook of a cliffhanger for the upcoming couple.

The four friends are given physical descriptions and names, so they’re clearly intended to be different people, but for the most part they’re interchangeable–they’re all sassy, tough-love friends who are uniformly amazing at whatever their role is in the restaurant, workaholics who want the others to have time off but won’t take it themselves, and unquestionably devoted to the heroine in a way that I found both cloying and envy-worthy, as I am currently an adult woman with few close friends, and it’s true, it really does get harder to make them the older you get.

And notice how I haven’t said anything about the hero yet? He’s fine. I like his sense of humor, and the banter could be pretty good sometimes. He’s most of the reason this gets a second star. But he’s just fine, I’m not swooning for him, even though rock stars are definitely a thing with me.

But even though he gets roughly equal screen time with the heroine, I’ve come out the far end of this book with the impression that it’s really about her, and her circle of friends, and their not-believable business venture, and making sure the reader knows they’re all incredibly Tough Independent Successful Women who just happen to also want romance in their lives. Any minor differences in their personalities don’t really come through in her half of the book, because there’s five of them, and half the book simply isn’t enough time to make them all into real characters, apparently. (The hero’s friends fared slightly better, because there were fewer of them, just two primary friends, and their significant others, who were bit players and that’s fine. They didn’t have to try to wrangle equal screen time with each other like the Four Besties did.)

And because I want to add one more minor complaint that doesn’t fit anywhere else: these were some underwhelming sex scenes. They felt really dry and mechanical, even when the lovebirds were ostensibly professing their deep and profound love for each other towards the end. I never got any sense of passion from them, so the scenes were just awkward, until they usually ended abruptly. One in particular also started abruptly, and with a pretty inappropriate lead-in: the hero tells the heroine about his best friends’ tragic backstory, which I won’t spoil but is really seriously tragic and two pages later, minutes of story time and with no scene transition, he’s getting a blow job. Complete tonal whiplash.

Not going on with this series.

[iatheia]

EDA reviews Part 6 - books 47-55

Previous part 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5

47) The Slow Empire - Uh, couldn't really follow this one at all. There are books when the first person narration works, but not here - too many jumps in setting, too little connective tissue, most of it told from the POV of a person who is barely connected to the protagonists? And that's even before they started repeating chunks of text wholesale between various parts - and I couldn't figure out if it was intended, or if it is the ebook was acting out on me. More than half way through the book, I still couldn't entirely tell what the story is supposed to be about, or if the plot has even started yet. Even having finished it, I find myself somewhat aghast. There are a few glimpses of something interesting, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what. 4/10

48) Dark Progeny - Also not really feeling it. It's not a bad story, but I do rather prefer a Doctor Who story to actually feature the Doctor and the companions front and center, whether they are POV characters or not. Here, though, they are barely in it - it's even more egregious than the previous one in actually giving the supposed protagonists stuff to do, and even on rare occasions we do switch back to them, it is all pretty generic. Anji developing telepathic abilities and the Doctor trying to calm her down all the while Fitz is freaking out in the background? Yes, please, more of that. Following around 20 interchangeable OCs that have nothing to do with the trio? No thank you. 6/10.

49) The City of the Dead - If you are invoking magic in a sci-fi universe, you need to be able to handwave it. It doesn't need to be awfully complex, "something something aliens, something something energy" is usually enough, but without it, you can't just throw magic about willy nilly. There are rules.

There are moments when it is a beautiful story, evoking a lot of dream-like wonder, and if it managed to remain a hazy dream, it probably would have been better for it. At the same time there is something very uncomfortably cynical about it, to the degree it left a bad taste in my mouth. There is a narrow line between not shying away from the ugliness of the world and deliberately making something ugly just for the sake of it, and often it felt like it was leaning towards the latter. Dunno, I started out wanting to like it, and feeling rather conflicted about it, but by the end became utterly indifferent. 7/10

50) Grimm Reality - Pure crack. Mind Robber wishes it could be as hilarious and off the wall as this story is. It throws every cliche fairy tale narrative device in the book at the characters and expects them to take it with the straight face, all the while realizing that the rules of the world are completely bonkers. And it manages to sustain this energy throughout, which is a no small feat. It's actually pretty exhausting by the end of it. Fairy tales stories do not belong to a lengthy literary genre, and even taking time deconstructing them, at 95K words becomes it becomes just too much - figuratively, and, on occasion, literally. Still, pretty great, I wish more books had its energy 9/10.

51) The Adventuress of Henrietta Street - *sigh*. My expectations were pretty low to begin with, and I still am somehow disappointed. Credit where credit's due - it is probably most coherent of the books from Miles. And at least it's better than Interference. That's really not saying much, though.

Honestly, if you've read any story about prostitutes, murder, satanic sex rituals bordering on blatant pornography, eastern culture and "mysticism of female sex" used for fetish fuel, written by a dude who clearly gets off on all of this - you've read all of them. There is really nothing revolutionary or compelling about it. On the list of "plots I never want to see in Doctor Who", they are definitely up there. And the Doctor is dying again, because it wouldn't be Miles's book without it. And he's, uh... living in a brothel, trying to marry someone, in order to, uh..... ritualistically tie himself to Earth, for, reasons? Did I read that right? After over 100 years of living on Earth and wanting to do nothing else than seeing the back of it, right. And writing books not quite about sex but definitely about sex. Because that's the thing the Doctor apparently does now. Self insert what self insert. And Fitz and Anji are just... there. On an occasion. All of it exposed on in a dull faux academic style without a shred of characterization, all the while absolutely nothing of note is happening, despite being a singularly longest EDA.

Just, if you hate the characters so much. If you don't understand what makes them tick to this degree. If you don't even care to learn. If you consider any established emotions they should have about the plot you are putting them through beneath you. Why are you writing in a shared universe to begin with? 2/10

(I did have an unintentional moment of hilarity with it, though. There is a character that is referred to as Lord ______, as if his name is censored. TTS would always pronounce it as Lord Underbarunderbarunderbar. Always gave me a chuckle).

52) Mad Dogs and Englishmen - A hilarious story, a very easy read, flowing from scene to scene. There are several occasions of fridge horror treated with levity that I would have rather have avoided. Plus, it is as incestuous as a book about books can get, and yet.... It is just absurd enough to work.

Plus, the whole, “His books are full of black magic, mind control...and perversion - moral and ethical and sexual. He is polluting the atmosphere of our group”, “What’s next? Rewrite War and Peace so it’s about guinea pigs?” - Oh, the shade. It is a good book in its own right, but just for this alone, 10/10

53) Hope - It's a pretty average book. Not outstanding, not horrible. Would have made a decent episode, all things considered, in a bread and butter sort of way. It does have some great ideas - the refuge of humanity, the conflict between Anji and the Doctor finally coming to light - not quite the type of conflict I was hoping for, though. If only it had a bit more nuisance, without neatly delineated black and white, if the antagonist didn't end up being a mustache twirling villain, if the Doctor didn't end up strong-arming everyone in a much more macho manner than he normally goes for (with a rather clunky dialogue). It had potential, even if it didn't end up being realized in full. 8/10

54) Anachrophobia - Very meh. The set up was fairly contrived, it never made me care about any of the characters, including whatever the hell the Doctor and co were doing, not to mention any of the secondary characters. Not terribly engaging, after a point I was mostly flipping through it. There is some big conflict brought up at 95% mark, and it is resolved in just couple of pages via a deus ex machina and a paradox. Overall, I might have said that I would have liked it better if I was in a mood for existential horror, but I took a break in the middle to listen to the Lease of Life - and it actually touches upon several similar themes, but with and outstanding character drama and much more graceful execution, which made this book look even more poor in comparison. 5/10

55) Trading Futures - I will give the author all the points for keeping an eye on the future. Perhaps, in 2002, predicting tablets being used as menus in fancy restaurants wasn’t that big of a reach, but I absolutely had a spit take when TTS has read to me something about “eye-phones”. There are some modestly clever moments throughout the book. Too bad that the rest of it is a complete rubbish. Not terribly original, either - a lot of ideas are copied directly from other books and other franchises. Reasonably entertaining, all things considered, but in a much more slapstick sort of way than was probably intended. 7/10

Overall impressions so far - This batch is, for the most part, fine. Some stories are worst than others, some better. With one exception, nothing horrendous, but nothing to write home about, either. They are, for the most part, serviceable. Individually, they have decent enough plots. But. There is very little character work. They can generally be read in any order, or dropped entirely, and you wouldn’t miss anything. The Doctor is mostly coasting from the excellent streak in the last batch, always in a spot light. I am starting to tire of the whole amnesia arc, though - it was good, but it ran its course, and at this point, with everything functionally back to norm, with barely a stray mention of it here and there, we are starting to be overdue for some semblance of resolution of all that. Henrietta Street is entirely a step in the wrong direction - not only it does nothing worthwhile for the characters, it’s just getting unnecessarily further into the weedworks, adding yet another plot thread that is forced on other writers to carry (they mention it occasionally, but it’s not like there is much to build upon) - rather viciously reminding of the previous mess of an ark “don’t you dare to think that it is over”. And I am so over it. Just, move on.

The companions fare rather worse. They are decent enough, they participate in action, in each book, they are mostly staying in character, with a handful of neat moments here and there (in a blink and you’ll miss it sort of way, though), they aren’t written off as an unnecessary burden to carry, which is an improvement. There is nothing meaty given to them though - they ask the necessary questions, do the things required of them, and generally stay out of the way when they are not needed. I guess Anji has at least some character driven moments, even though most of them are reduced to “I miss my dead boyfriend”. Which is... fine, we’ve all lost people, we all mourn them in our own way, but it has been 14 books since her introduction, and she is leaving in another 10. To have her character reduced to just that bit from her first book, with barely anything else to offer.... Plus, all the while, she rarely felt like she integrated into the team - because she is constantly eying her exit and returning to normality (even though she always decides to stay just a little while longer due to circumstances), it’s like from the very beginning she had one foot out of the door.

But while Anji is a bit of a one trick pony, at least she has that much. Poor Fitz gets absolutely nothing to do. The last meaningful book that addressed his character in any way was all the way back around book #42-43, and even that was just catching up on plot after his prolonged absence. He’s been essentially frozen since early 30s books. He is generally a fun character to have around, and does good supporting work, but can he please get something more impactful any time soon? Heck, by this point I’ll even take the recurrence of “finding a new love interest number 20 who will inevitably die by the end of the book” - it has been overdone, and it is certainly not a very exciting plot, not to mention reductive, but at least it’d be something. Though, I guess only one companion is allowed to carry that staple at the time, and right now Anji is it, two dead lovers is just an overkill.

And it is an absolute shame - especially when considering that on the other side, Big Finish was in the middle of streak of some of the best stories. Over the same time that these novels were published, we had audios such as Project Twilight, Eye of the Scorpion, Colditz, One Doctor, Chimes of Midnight, Seasons of Fear, which were full of character.

[babettekourelos]

Flour Power

Flour is flour, right?

Wrong!!

All flour is definitely not made equal. Not only do we need to differentiate between cake flour, bread flour and all purpose flour - we also have to consider the differences between commercial and artisanal flour i.e. bleached/unbleached and roller milled or stone ground flour. Not to mention organic flour, enriched flour, whole wheat and rye. Gluten free and alternative flours are also worth discussing but will form the subject of a different article.

If we were to take a look inside most pantries around the world, we would in all likelihood find a bag of cake or all purpose flour. These flours are perfectly suited for the occasional weekend or holiday bake. In the last 12 months however, another flour has become prevalent in our kitchens... I am of course referring to bread flour. As a result of the lockdowns imposed by governments across the globe in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the world watched a bread baking revolution unfold on social media. When our survival instincts kicked in, flour became a hot and very scarce commodity. Bread after all is and has always been the staff of life. Suddenly GLUTEN was the least of our problems and everyone scrambled to get their hands on the last available bags of flour. Even the folks who had never baked a single thing in their lives prior to the pandemic, now boasted well stocked baking cupboards but had no idea where to start. I am guessing that many have eventually taken the leap and at least baked a handful of times - but for those of you who are still sitting on the baker's fence, hop on over and let me guide you the first steps of the way.

First off, we have cake flour. As the wheat flour with the lowest protein content (5% - 8%), cake flour is perfect for making soft, light and airy baked goods such as cakes, cookies or pancakes. Cake flour is made from soft spring wheat and due to the low protein content, this flour is not suitable for bread baking as it is impossible to achieve a strong gluten structure which consequently results in a dough which cannot retain its shape (unless it is baked in a bread tin). Cake flour is able to absorb more liquid and sugar than all purpose or bread flour and thus your baked goods will stay moist for longer. Yum!

Pastry flour has an 8% - 9% protein content, which results in a slightly more developed gluten structure, which in turn allows for easier shaping and handling of the dough. Pastry flour is best suited for flaky pastries, sweet or savoury pies, tarts and quiches. Not as common as cake, bread and all purpose flour, you will probably struggle to find pastry flour at your local grocery store. You may have better luck sourcing it from a speciality bake shop or online.

Next up, we have all purpose flour. This flour is pretty versatile, as it is a perfect mix of soft and hard wheat flour. With a protein content of 10% - 12%, this flour is well suited for bread baking as it is capable of forming a decent gluten structure. All purpose flour is most commonly found in North America, where it is the go-to flour for most types of baking. You can easily make your own all purpose flour by mixing together equal amounts of cake and white bread flour. If a bread recipe calls for all purpose flour, but you only have bread flour on hand, don't stress - you will still be able to bake a decent loaf of bread. There really is no reason to over think it.

Bread flour usually has a protein content of 12% - 14%. Due to the high protein content, this flour is able to produce a strong gluten structure, which will allow the dough to easily retain its shape. The final loaf will also boast good volume and yield a wonderfully chewy crumb. The terms whole meal ,whole grain and whole wheat are often used interchangeably and simply refer to bread flours containing varying degrees of the entire wheat kernel. If you are looking to incorporate more whole grains into your diet, you can easily replace half of the amount of white flour required in a recipe with the same amount of whole grain flour. Whole grain flour boasts a slightly darker colour (think brownish/tan) and coarser texture as a result of the presence of the wheat bran. Unlike pure white wheat flour, baked goods made with whole grain flours will be a little more dense, heavy and compact. This is due to the fact that the bran is razor sharp and easily severs the delicate gluten strands, which severely weakens the dough structure and thereby inhibits the size of the final loaf. However, rest assured that while you may be sacrificing volume, the final loaf is guaranteed to offer a tastier and more wholesome loaf than a standard white loaf.

Next we have rye flour. Rye falls within the wheat family but has a low glutenin content, which consequently results in a lower gluten content in the dough and the final loaf. (Note: Gluten = a full/complete protein and is formed out of the two partial proteins 'glutenin' and 'gliadin'.) People who suffer from slight gluten or digestive issues, may find it beneficial to favour rye bread over pure wheat breads. It is important to note however that some folks incorrectly assume that rye is gluten free. Although lower in gluten, it is definitely not gluten free. It is also worth mentioning that the three types of commercially available rye flours (light, medium and dark) actually do not refer to different varieties of rye, but rather to the amount of bran left in the flour. Thus, the darker the rye, the more whole grain the flour. The lighter the rye, the more refined the flour. When it comes to baking, the texture of rye can be a bit intimidating if you are new to rye - it is sticky and tacky and a little tricky to control. So you may want to consider using a mix of 50% white flour and 50% rye instead of immediately tackling a 100% rye recipe. Although rye is considered by some to be an acquired taste, I believe the only reason people think they do not enjoy rye is due to the common addition of caraway, cumin and sometimes fennel seeds. You can easily omit these fragrant seeds and enjoy the natural taste of the rye instead.

When you are just starting to bake bread at home you, you have the wonderful opportunity to make informed decisions about the type of flour you will be using. Thus it is important to understand the manner in which the wheat was grown, harvested, milled, and which (if any) additives are present in the final product. However, before I delve into the finer details, I would like to mention that no matter what flour you do decide to use when baking at home, your final loaf will be a million times better and healthier for you (and your family) than the commercial sandwich loaves from your local super market. So if after reading this article and weighing all your options, you still decide to rather buy bread than bake your own, I urge you to seek out your closest artisan baker - who (if worthy of that title), will take the necessary care on your behalf.

Stone ground, unbleached flour is the flour of choice for most artisan bakers. Sometimes referred to as artisanal flour, this flour (if true to its name) should be free of pesticides, preservatives and any other additives. When flour is milled using millstones as opposed to high-speed roller mills, more of the natural goodness of the grain remains in tact. This is due to the fact that stone milling doesn't reach the same high speeds or searing temperatures, which ensures that most of the nutrients remain undamaged and are not burned off. Furthermore, stone ground flour is also more likely to be composed of the entire wheat kernel. I.e. It still has the wheat bran, endosperm, and wheat germ in tact. (Having said that, I would still recommend checking with the miller, as this may vary from brand to brand.) The advantage of having all three components in the final flour, is that you are getting all the natural goodness (vitamins and minerals) as well as the added benefit of the fibre which is provided by the wheat bran.

Commercial flour on the other hand, has the wheat germ and bran removed in order to extend the shelf life and to produce a whiter, more refined flour. This flour is often bleached using chemicals such as chlorine, bromic acid and peroxide. (On a side note, there does however appear to be some movement away from bleaching and a focus towards the optimisation of the shape of the wheat kernel - to achieve a higher yield of the white starch). Wheat germ, which is oily by nature and consequently has the tendency to go rancid, is removed from the flour. This extraction, in addition to the nutrients which were already lost during the milling process results in a flour with very little nutritional value. The solution?  Commercial flour producers add artificial vitamins back in to make the flour more nutritious. This is referred to as 'fortification' or 'enrichment'. Take a closer look next time you buy a bag of flour and scan for the words 'fortified' or 'enriched'. In some countries, the enrichment of flour is enforced by law. (In countries where bread is an important staple food, fortification is often used as a means of improving what may otherwise be limited access to essential micronutrients. Fortification has however not always proven to be successful. This is due to the difficulty of successfully spreading a concentrated amount of micronutrients into an industrial bread batch - some loaves end up with too much and others not any. It is also questionable whether those micronutrients are bioavailable.)

At this point the flour has already undergone quite significant changes, but is then subjected to further preservatives, dough conditioners, dough enhancers and other chemicals in the commercial bakery setting (which speed up or entirely eliminate the bulk fermentation time). This is good for business, but not so good for our digestion. What makes matters worse, is the fact that many of the additives and processes are conveniently omitted from the list of ingredients on the final loaf. Some commercial bakeries also request that the additives be added at the milling and flour production stage, which allows them to circumvent providing a full disclosure of all the additives. Hungry yet?

When it comes to organic flour, it is required (at least in theory) that the flour be made from top quality natural and GMO free grain, which was grown in soil containing only natural substances/fertilisers. In addition to this, no pesticides or other chemicals should be used in the growing or harvesting of organic wheat. True organic flour is also not subjected to fumigation or irradiation -  measures which facilitate pest control and prevent food poisoning from harmful bacteria. The problem with organic flour however is two-fold. One - it is considerably more expensive than the rest of the flour on the market. Two - not all products sold under the organic label are in fact organic. Business is business after all. Even more reason for the concerned and responsible consumer to start asking pertinent questions.

However, judging from the growing popularity of home mills (small counter top grain mills), and an increasing community of small, independent millers, the importance of good quality natural flour and the need for clear/honest labeling are slowly but surely becoming topics of global discussion. Knowledge is power and an informed consumer can be the catalyst for positive (and healthy) change. So don't be fooled by natural looking packaging and words such as natural, organic, 'bio', artisanal, etc... Ask the relevant questions. Take an interest in the way your flour and other foods are produced. Have discussions and share your findings. If we are what we eat, shouldn't we be paying closer attention to what we are really consuming?

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts. What flour are you currently baking with? Have you made any interesting discoveries? 

You can reach me at babettesbread@gmail.com

© Babette’s Bread Ltd.

[transrightsjimin]

@trespassers-will​ ok here we go

i also watched the various videos hidden inside each photo and the videos that were posted today as well and took notes too hjfhk

1. hobi’s room

okay so i thought i would rank jin’s room first but then i saw hobi’s room and i saw that couch nd went OMG okay thats no.1!! i love this interior so so much, like i normally hate orange and blue as a combination but this seems almost more like red and blue and it really reminds me of hopeworld. there’s many pop art-like graphic design posters adorning the walls, showing lines like ‘hope‘, ‘sweet’ and ‘my way‘. the shoes on the closet(?) behind him were disaplayed bc those are the colours we wears the most in his fashion. and then there’s this iconic inflatable clear pink couch and him wearing a pink robe and just GOD what a mood, i want a room like this!! the chair reminds me a lot of the type of fun quirky furniture i fantasized about and incorporated into my drawings as a kid when i was around 8-11, probably because i got inspired by stuff like totally spies and polly pocket, which had all these designs clearly inspired by 60s and 70s space age design but more in pink and purple i guess.

also i hate the search for such stills bc even w safe search on, you still have godawful f3tish drawings depicting those kids from totally spies ending up in search results and it’s disgusting. but yeah it reminded me of that

when i say polly pocket, i particularly mean this quik-clik (magnetic clothes and hair) era in 2005 which was what i had some stuff from. i had that couch / movie night! set and the pool and that

also i just really like hobi’s room because with all the posters and cabinets and clothing items laid out and a carpet and fun colours and whatnot, it really feels like an actual room you could live in, unlike any of the other rooms which feel very empty or too minimalist to me. but YEAH hobi’s room is my fav, i love the way a fuller room feels more cozy and habitable and floaties and inflatable floaties are AMAZING

2. jin’s room

jin’s room is so prettyyyy!! jins explanation of the room was very uhm confident and funny but i love that. the couch looks like a lilac shell, which makes sense as everything else looks very pearlescent. i really love cool-toned pastels like lilac, powder / baby blue, periwinkle and everything just looks like it’s part of a waiting hall for mermaids or something. there’s also gems in it which took me a while to realize bc i only noticed the glass chandelier and lamp but then i saw them in his hand nd on the table. i dont rly care abt gems / jewels but overall i just love how this whole room speaks ‘pretty‘ to me. robes are always a plus. as i was writing this, i was also reminded of hair extension mullet jin with iridescent clothing and all and that is actually my all time fav photoshoot / look of him. him saying he’s the gem of the room makes sense too as he’s sitting in the shell like a pearl. jin pretty pretty mermaid

ok from here on its getting harder bc place 3-8 is not so much abt which is nicer but which one actually makes me feel any emotion bc i just feel too exhausted for excitement over comebacks or anything really. also minimalism doesnt make me feel anything either. but ill try

3. jungkook’s room

ok ive been staring at a screen w few sleep for too long so ill try to go through my ranking faster bc ive been working on this post for too long, also partially bc i cant focus nd partially bc theres some i just rly dont feel much for but i feel bad for ranking one lower than the other or ranking smth higher when ive talked to someone who dislikes a room i like dghkfdf

but yeah i like jungkooks room! its a very intense blue tht might make you depressed if youre in it too long but again i love how theres multiple items stacked in the bg and intense blue lights, and the ceiling looks like it has soundproof padding. its like youre in a recording studio or at some vaguely nostalgic party of a friend of my mom, who had plants in her home nd rock music nd the tv on and was smoking nd it was a bit dark and mysterious. i like it, it intrigues me a bit nd makes me miss going to concerts. also this pic rly just reminds me of 2008-2010 pop music videos where theres always a party and dj and people are wearing sunglasses or something and theres a dance break at the end

4. yoongi’s room

also blue!! the first time i saw this pic it was bc someone sent it to me to say how ugly they thought the decoration / editing looked w the metallic dripping stuff from the couch and whatnot but i kinda like it :( i like his velvety clothing and the light blue in the rest of the room is really pretty. i like mirror themes when done well nd i like how the reflectiveness shows also in the metallic dripping nd metallic spheres and the mirror hes standing on nd the way light reflects on his clothes and from the lamp. only the lamp feels a bit too much like a contemporary art installation for me nd his room already is a bit too empty for my liking nd i had the feeling when i watched the vid of him walking through the room that there was not much to interact w in the room like it was a bit dull. his voice in the explanation videos made it feel more like a place of peace / solitude rather than boredom or loneliness though.

5. namjoon’s room

ehh i think place 5, 6 and 7 are interchangable at this point. namjoon woulve ranked lowest but i listened to his explanation videos and saw him goof around in today’s video and appreciated it a bit more. the room still looks quite minimalist and not super comfortable, like youre not allowed to touch anything there (which is the same for jin i guess but i dont view that as smth meant to look like a living room). i do like how the wood theme is present throughout each wall nd in various items and w the windows nd use of space it feels a bit inspired by japanese interior design and that that is inspired by his bonsai tree nd love for woodwork, but im not sure. i was actually quite shocked some of his explanations were so short. so yeah i place this 5th bc i like how coherent the theme is but it doesnt feel cozy or inviting nd still very cold to me, maybe bc it looks too expensive or minimalistic in terms of colours.

6. jimin’s room

i like the flowers but also i dont like tiny flowers nd they tend to be the stinkier ones. i kind of like how jimins room feels the most like a grandma one w all the flowers nd offwhite and the lamp and beige i think? but the colours are so muted and if anything it feels like a place for a bridal photoshoot nd im just so bored. i love jimin nd feel bad for ranking a room he curated so low but it rly creates no serotonine in my brain, just melatonine bc im sleepy. i like how the room i obviously quite packed w stuff, but then the washed out colours make everything still look very bleak. hmm. i do like how the flowers reach outside the borders unlike w any of the others’ photos. im about to fall asleep so let me quickly finish this post

7. tae’s room

the picture in the middle behind him is interesting nd i dont know how he made that, nd i do like how he described his room as a place where there would always be enough food for visitors. i know it’s meant to communicate some highbrow, artsy vibe but w the weird editing and lightning nothing looks real in the room he’s in (including himself, like it doesnt even look like hes in the room) and it just looks kitschy instead of artsy. yeah i dont gravitate towards this one, it’s like deep-fried and desaturated at the same time nd i tend to avoid looking at it subconsciously

8. the first room photo

i first posted a long description here why but it disappeared but in short. this photo evokes no emotional response to me other than think of kind of crappy hotel rooms i was in w my parents while on vacation nd we slept in the same room or something nd the beds were awful nd made my moms chronic pain worse. the clothing is very boring and so r the colours of the room. i know bangtan curated stuff but its still the least interesting photo to me, maybe im too depressed to feel anything idk

im sorry this was prob very boring TT_TT i tried my best to make a ranking but i rly dont know nor care as much as i would want to

[pernilleharders]

I think the only thing missing from the tram right now is solid defensive subs, not players who are shifted from defensive mid to CB, solid options, even if they are baby players that can come into that position. The back line, as good as the main 4 are, they are the ones that make me the most nervous if they get injured. I’d say Hayes needs to bring in some players, preferably academy ones that can be groomed to play a certain way to fit the team (like they need to train players to mirror Brights long ball plays).

I would also say the other thing missing is the entire squad playing as such a cohesive unit that they can always be interchangeable and performance doesn’t drop. If you watch the Brighton game it’s a clear example of things missing in a sense of the subs made had to try and save the game when that shouldn’t have been required (and ultimately it didn’t work anyway!). There has been a level of improvement in regards to how they did in the Athletico game with someone like Charles coming in and owning everything she did despite having not had many minutes recently due to injury. So I think there are a few tweaks that need to happen within the squad in terms of ensuring that every player could start and Chelsea wouldn’t drop form.

i definitely think one of our weaknesses is our lack of natural CBs subs... it’s gonna show more with multiple competitions because our backline will need rest at some point. 

i know it was early on the season and i can accept that the team was starting to get to know how to play with each other (and also like you’re not gonna win every time) but in the loss against everton i think we were overthinking our finishing in the final third despite having good chances, idk how to say it but like too many passes in the area? like part of me just goes: shoot! it doesn’t need to be a pretty play!

the brighton game is tricky i think because the lineup wasn’t bad per se, but leaving melly as our only defensive 5 didn’t allow for too much pause and play building... like you could see the change in our attacks as soon as ji and p came on. ultimately i just think 6 changes from our normal lineup was too much. i haven’t watched that match too much but the goals came from set pieces so... something was going on with our marking. i just think we can’t relax and we can’t underestimate the teams we go against because united, everton and brighton have shown us we can be predictable.

on another note niamh is such a good sub... she comes on and does was asked of her and more, her goal against city... man, i just love her. she was also great against arsenal for the conti cup too if i don’t remember wrong. 

[bearpillowmonster]

Xenoblade Definitive Nonspoiler Review (Gameplay)

The combat is pretty simple but it gets better after the first little bit. If I were to add something to it, it would be to push the analog stick in a certain direction at certain points for more damage. It already has you pressing B at the beginning of the battle, just more of that. 

Some moves are more effective from "the side" or "behind" but your enemies move so frequently (unless you topple them) that you may be on the side when picking the move but that doesn't mean you will be by the time Shulk hits it. Same goes with Monado arts, there's that one move that you use when an enemy is inflicted with Break so that you topple them and it takes so long to activate that the break effect wears off before you even get to use it. Same with the Daze. I've felt so cheated so many times by that alone, I could keep going though. So many moves wasted.

Enemies can topple you, rendering you helpless and if they choose to use a special move right after then you're screwed because your party members are more than likely toppled too. That mechanic is stupid, I get that enemies can do what you do to them but it's not satisfying. 

You can play as a good variety of characters and they all have different weapons and move sets. Also your health auto-replenishes after a battle so healing is just during battles as certain characters moves. There’s an affinity system, so any NPC (and Playable characters for that matter) with a name can get put into the affinity log. You can also trade with them which is pretty cool especially considering you might need a specific item but don’t have the money to buy it (you will have the money) but relationship points are nice too, it kind of reminds me of the villagers in Minecraft but it puts you in the world a bit better.

The day and night cycle initially stressed me out but you can just change it if need be in the menu which is really handy because sometimes NPCs or a mob is only there during day or night.

But the quirk for playable characters is that reaching certain levels unlocks a “heart to heart” scene and if you know me, then you know I’m into that cheesy goodness. You see where they are on the map but it’s not like “Should I do this one with Fiora or Reyn or...?” They’re already set up for specific characters and have to be unlocked after certain main story events and relationship levels. Coming on top of that is that characters getting discouraged in battle, it doesn’t happen often but when it does, you can encourage them and that’s really cool because it improves stats.

Seems like even if a party member is in your reserves (you can only have 3 to fight with, the rest are interchangeable) then they still get the exp so you don't have to worry about grinding up a specific character, they're all pretty even. The one thing that doesn't improve is affinity, you need to have them in your party to improve that. All in all, it really just comes down to your level, who you have in your party, and luck, if you can't beat a battle, just switch around your party.

Sometimes you use a Monado art only for the boss to use a special move right after (which a Monado art would've come in handy with dodging that) but then you have to rely on using your teammates. You can't switch characters in battle and can only use links when they're available but whenever there's a special move coming, you can warn a party member and you can pick the move that you think most appropriate. A lot of time I heal or revive party members only for them to be killed straight after, or another party member already heals them, so it didn't matter if I used the move but it still counted. You can choose to have the party members stay near you and such but most of the time, I had worse things to worry about. Plus sometimes the enemy can just change targets in the middle of a special move, so if you used shield bullet, you better hope it's on the right person. Despite all this complaining, somehow the gameplay felt like just enough to make the grinding not as bad as it could’ve been because you know there’s a lot of it.

With the affinity system, it says a character’s “likes” and “dislikes” so you can increase relationships between characters by giving gifts from your spoils. And accept as many side quests as you can because chances are that they’re just clearing out specific monsters that will be in your way anyway. I’ve finished more side quests unintentionally than intentional. Plus, accepting missions can increase relationship, specifically with Reyn because he likes to help people.

Speaking of monsters, this game can be compared to Monster Hunter, there are so many different varieties and drops you can get, I take out certain ones just to put them in my index because they look cool. The one thing about the Monster Hunter games is that they lack any motivation or story and this game has plenty. The chests stay in place even if you die. I actually left some at Eryth Sea and came back multiple times and they were still there after most of the story (we’ll call it an experiment but the truth of the matter is that new enemies spawned and I couldn’t beat them at the time)

QUESTS I have a small complaint about the quest system. So you can set a side quest as active, except for the Colony 6 items, but in order to see where the location is, you have to be in that area. So imagine there’s one in Colony 6 for example, you’re in Colony 9, it’ll tell you it’s there but not where you should teleport. You teleport somewhere in Colony 6 and then it tells you where the side quest is. Why couldn’t I just go there directly?

Another small gripe, it auto saves but you can also manually save but if you die it doesn’t load the most recent one, it automatically goes to the auto save but you can manually load your manual save and it’ll be right where you left it but the enemies still respawn. It’s confusing because with auto save, I’ll find chests from the battle I just failed in, so did I still get the exp?

Normally with open worlds, you end up exploring all the parts but even if you count side-quests, that doesn't account for the vastness, I was surprised at just how much you can explore. I wanted to dip my toes in earlier but I realized "We're already past that section!" (story-wise) it just keeps expanding. Luckily, it's like Skyrim and you can fast travel and go back and do stuff you might've missed. It kind of justifies that it holds your hand trying to navigate you but I'm not complaining.

The side quests don't offer much, just kind of a time filler but I wanted to get the full experience so I played all of the Alcamoth as well as Colony 9 quests that I could get, to see if I got anything special (both day and night), yeah there's nothing special, I'm not sure if it does anything if you beat every side quest in the whole game but there's a ton. I worked on Colony 9's affinity a bunch so that I could unlock more, but I finished all the quests so what you need to do is talk to all villagers with a name and trade, I could never get to 5 stars so I quit and I’d rather be playing missions instead of hunting down villagers all day. Why did I try it though? For Desiree, she has a quest and I was interested in it, it even involves Dorothy. You'd think I'd be super buff and stuff for finishing everything in those two areas but no, not really, it certainly helped but I was very under leveled at various points, a habit that I have with RPGs because I hate grinding.

[selfwriting-sugarquills]

Heat in the rain pt. 9: Between time.

|(Sorry for the lack of activity, been real busy :(( But here’s the second to last chapter! ooooh!!! It’s getting pretty fluffy in here *nudge nudge* - alright I’m going to bed now lmao - Hope you enjoy!) 

Description: Reader and the twins decide to bake the last cookies in the time between Christmas and New years, however, Fred skips out on the actual baking which allows reader and George to spend some time together) 

Warnings: Nothing. 

Wordcount: 947

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |  9 | 10 | 

It was that strange time between boxing day and new years’ eve.  Time seemed to slip by in short spurts of energy, relaxing and being active interchanging constantly. At this moment, however, you were stuck in the living room. It seemed that you and the Weasley siblings had finally grown tired of snowball fights and drinking hot chocolate whilst listening to Celestina Warbeck, 

“I’m so boooored,” groaned Fred, he had slumped down on the sofa, his long frame filling the furniture as he dramatically had flung a hand over his eyes, 

“We all are,” retorted George from the corner chair, he was slouching as well, throwing the packaging from a chocolate frog from one hand to another, 

“There’s leftover dough from the cookies,” Molly appeared in the living room, she was slinging a scarf around her head with one hand, her other hand holding a small basket which you could only assume was filled with her cooking, “I’m headed over to the Diggory’s for tea,” She said as she noticed Fred eyeing the basket with curiosity, 

“but feel free to make the rest of the cookies, they won’t make themselves you know.” She said with a smirk. 

Soon after the sound of the door closing could be heard and you and the twins looked at each other, “I was thinking,” remarked Fred, “that it’s been a while since I beat you two in something,” 

“Baking cookies isn’t a competition, Freddy,” You said, “Not unless you make it one!” George said, sitting up, you shook your head, the last thing you needed was the twins burning down the kitchen two days before new years eve, 

“Christmas is not about competition,” you said, “Christmas is about relaxing and enjoying each others’ company,” the twins exchanged a quick look, 

“But when I’m beating you two at something is when I enjoy your company most,” Fred grinned at you, 

“And what’s more relaxing than baking?” George asked as he stood up and stuck out his hand for you to take, with a sigh you took it and let yourself be heaved up by George. 

***

“Alright, so we’re agreed that the competition itself is in the cookie decorating,” Fred asked and when you and George nodded he continued, “cool, so until then, the actual act of baking the cookies will not play into who will win in the end?” Fred continued, you furrowed your brows, 

“Uhm no?” You said, brows still together, Fred smiled, 

“Great, so I will return when the actual competition begins,” He said and disapparated with a pop, leaving you and George in the kitchen, 

“Git,” George chuckled, “So I guess we’ll have to do the work,” He added, poking the film covered dough, 

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” You said truthfully, “I roll, you cut?” you asked him. George smiled, 

“You know,” he said, picking up the rolling pin “maybe I should do the rolling,” when you looked at him with a raised brow, he pointed to his arm, which he flexed, “Former beater, y’ know,” he grinned smugly, you tutted and snatched the rolling pin, “Former, Weasley, besides I still beat you in arm-wrestling match once,” you retorted, grabbing the dough and peeling off the film, 

“That was one time!” George said, “And I let you win,” 

“Sounds an awful lot like something a sore loser would say, Weasley,” You smirked. George leaned on the counter, 

“Touché, madame L/n,” He laughed. 

***

It turned out you and George made a pretty good team in a kitchen, 30 minutes later you were done, although you would probably have been able to finish earlier if it hadn’t been for the escalating discussion over who won the and-this-was-the-name-given-by-a-certain-Lee-Jordan “THE EPIC GRYFFINDOR ARM WRESTLING MATCH OF ‘93” which resulted in a flour-fight, which had ended with you both looking rather dishevelled with white powder colouring your hair and clothes, pushing the tray of cookies into the oven and closing it, you set a timer and sighed. 

“I suppose we should clean up a little,” You said before letting out a laugh, “you look ridiculous, George,” 

George looked down over his dusty clothes and started laughing too, 

“You don’t exactly look better yourself,” He said. You dusted yourselves off, using a quick cleaning spell to take care of the cleaning, whilst the duster swiped over the counter, followed by an enchanted cloth, George stood in front of you, at first you were watching the duster, thankful that you had magic to take care of these small things, then you glanced to the side and caught George’s eyes, he had a hand placed on the kitchen counter, the other placed lazily on his hip, his head was tilted slightly as he watched you intently, you mimicked his posture, tilting your own head. 

“You have a little flour,” He reached a hand and touched your cheek gently, swiping his thumb down, your breath hitched in your chest, “Right there,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper, you swallowed. This wasn’t the first time George had touched your cheek but following the weeks of him acting strange, this felt like a breath of fresh air. His hand lingered for a second and you had to stop yourself from placing your own hand on top of his, you wanted to lean into his warm hand, 

“So my little elves,” Fred’s voice could be heard coming down the stairs. Clearing his throat, George’s hand fell to his side, “How are the cookies coming along?” Fred asked, grinning happily as he entered the kitchen, though he stopped abruptly when he noticed how his brother was staring at him with panic in his eyes, and you, staring at George like he’d fallen from the moon. 

___

Taglist:  @lilcutekittykat​ @proflongbttm​ @silentexplorer18​ @lovinnholland​ @veraart​ 

[luvdsc]

hey!! it’s 🧋 anon!! i hope you’re doing well! thank you!! ive got 11 more exams this coming week so i’m a lil 🥲 and then 3 more maybe the week after? exactly! i was so paranoid in the exam like “am i suddenly smart or a grade a idiot?” but it’s comforting to know that others feel the same about tests in general 😅. i’m learning python! i know there are better languages but ehhhh it’s just high school sjdnndn. and thank you about my bias choice sjsjndn. oh no not the 10th floor 😭 i’ve heard horror stories 🤧 i just can’t get over how sweet, funny and gentle he seemed in the jolly interview 🥺. thank you!! for letting me claim 🧋! and i wish i could say the same about not knowing that it was released but i’ve legit been checking since pre-quarantine for a boba emoji bc emojipedia said it would be coming out 😭 i had to start claiming it soon bc i’m NOT letting someone take it from me 😠 (but also! look how cute these are: 🦤🦭🐻‍❄️🐈‍⬛ ). as for my regular boba order, i’m still a lil new to the boba world bc i first (finally) tried it like 2 weeks before quarantine 😭. so everytime i go to this boba place (which is hardly ever for obvious reasons) i try to get something different! bc it all seems so cool!! the place i go to has popping bubbles in different flavours! so i always try to get a different drink with different popping bubbles and regular boba. i think my favourite so far is any drink (maybe mango?) with apple popping bubbles and boba!! but i’ve also been making boba at home for agessss and i usually just make regular tea or green tea with it! 💗

awww 😭 thank you ma’am sksndjdj. i mean, you do give off very motherly energy so i’ll happily accept being a baby 🥺 awww you think my accent is cute? ms cat i’m blushing 😭🥺 oof yeah the exams are not fun™️. but like you said, it does kinda prepare us for them more but the stresssssss is 🥲😭 okay so i’ll answer these in order if that’s okay?

do you still have class going on in between these exams? i assume you mean specifically when we have exams? so unfortunately yeah😭 it depends on the teacher as to wether they’ll let us revise in lesson or if we have to do regular work

do the gcse’s determine your college field of study afterwards? kinda? i mean, colleges have a minimum enterance requrement for courses. although it varies course to course, it’s usually somewhere around the 4-5 (high c-low b) mark. but you can do any course you want at college as long as you have passes in most subjects (usually an emphasis on core subjects (english, maths and science)). (so like, if you didn’t do history in high school, but you wanted to do it in college, then you could do the course as long as you meet the courses’ gcse grade requirements).

is college different from uni? yeah! college is for 2 years and straight after high school. in england you legally have to be in education until you’re 18, so all education is free until then, meaning that college is free! (unless you want to go back to do something else later in life). uni is after college and is optional. that’s where you get things like a bachelor’s, masters and doctoral degree. usually it’s for 3 years although it can vary and you have to pay! we have a student loan system too!

don’t worry about the questions! i enjoy the differences too sjdbbdd. and oooo! here, high school is 11-16/year 7-11, then college is (usually) 16-18/year 12-13 (although we don’t tend to refer to them by years) and uni is (usually) 19-22! (although you tend to go back to that for higher qualifications).

ansnsekndj i’m sorry ms cat 😭 and for me college will start in september of next year! we finish year 11 really early compared to the other years (usually we finish in july (my birthday month!!) but in year 11 we finish the day our last exam happens! which is usually around the end of may to the start of june!) so the holiday is the longest we’ll ever have 😭. that’s one of the reasons i envy americans because the summer breaks are SO long 😭 here, they’re 6 weeks sksndn.

i hope i answered all of your questions ms cat! ily! 🐈‍⬛💗~����

hi, lovebug!!! 💓 i’m going to put my answers under the cut since they got pretty long 🤧

i’m doing good!! i got soo much sleep over the weekend and am well rested, so this means tomorrow’s 6 am meeting won’t be too bad 🤧 YOU HAVE ELEVEN EXAMS THIS WEEK???? what on earth 😭 that’s like 2 per day and one day has 3 aksjlhflajkdfaskdjf why don’t they spread them out??? and three more the following week 💀💀 this sounds absolutely brutal, i’m so sorry, lovebug. have you been studying for all of them? LOL yeah, i feel like something is wrong if i can just breeze through a test akjdlhsflask python is a good start and easy to understand! honestly, most codes are pretty similar tbh, so once you get a good grasp of one, it’s easy to learn the other ones :’) do you enjoy cs? 💕 aldskjfaslk yeah, jaehyun does seem like the perfect boyfriend, doesn’t he? 🤧💘 LOL i heard there would be a boba emoji, but i didn’t know if it was true or not, but woooo it’s good to know it’s finally here!! 🥳 and omg the dodo bird and seal emojis 🥺💗 those are all sooo cute!!! aslhfdlkjasd first time trying boba, i just gasped out loud 😦 i’m so happy to hear that you enjoyed it once you tried it though! 💜 omg the popping bubbles are really yummy! and i LOVE mango!!! 🤩 that’s one of my favorite fruits :’) same with apple!! omg you’re making boba at home asdjhfas i’m so jealous 🤧 i haven’t had any boba ever since quarantine started in march 😭 aaaah i loooove green tea and black tea ones :’) have you tried the cheese boba tea before? i thought it wasn’t going to be that good, but i was pleasantly surprised with the taste, like it wasn’t that bad actually. cloud tea is also really nice, too ☁️💞

akjashdlfkja you are the absolute cutest omg 🥺💖 the british accent is sooo nice like wow, you can just be reading me your grocery lists and i’m like 🤩 amazing, perfect, wonderful, never been done before. meanwhile, i’m here with some kind of american valley girl accent LOL 🤧 you shouldn’t be having that much stress at 15 what the heck 😭 i wish they would cut down on the number of exams for you because having 11 in one week is not okay at all ): and oh my goodness, thank you sooo much for giving me such thorough answers to all my questions, honey bee 🥺💛💛✨

ah, we also have classes going on during exams too, so i can relate unfortunately. it really sucks when the teachers continue to teach new material, instead of helping you prepare for the big exams /:

ooo i see!! i think it’s really cool that colleges actually show minimum requirements for acceptance. here, there’s no set criteria at all, so it’s kind of a shot in the dark. they do post the averages of past students’ grades/scores and whatnot, so we have a vague idea of what each school wants, but some schools are weird af, like my friend with a lower gpa and less extracurriculars got into stanford university, meanwhile my one friend who won essentially the youth’s version of the nobel prize and was even acknowledged by obama during his presidency was waitlisted 😬

oh wow, i wish it was like that here :o education is so expensive in the US, like student debt is the norm. do you still have general education classes in college, or is this where you can choose a specific field of study? and university is only 3 years oh my gosh wow, only three years of tuition to pay!! the US could never /: it’s like 70k/year for private universities, 5k-15k/year for public schools in state, and 15k-35k/year for public schools if you’re out of state 💀

the words “college” and “university” are pretty much interchangeable here in the US, so that’s really cool to know! years 6-8 / ages 11-13 (i think that’s the age range?) is considered middle school here, so it’s interesting to see that some of those years are considered high school for you :o

ooo ok, that’s when my school years ended too back in high school! i ended in may and started school again in august. but in uni, i started in september and ended mid june :’) ah yes, our summers are around 2-3 months, and i really miss having that now that i’m out of school 😭 only 6 weeks??? that’s so short omg i’m so sorry ): do you have anything fun planned for your summer? also, do you have prom there? 💕

thank you soooo so much, sweetpea, you answered all of my questions so nicely, and i appreciate you so much 💝💝 ily too, and i hope you have a good week ahead, angel!!! 💖🌷

[maymothsandmiracles]

One thing my friend, who’s never published any of their MLB fanfic and I wish they would write more, does that the rest of the fandom tends to forget to do is that they always remember MLB is set in France.

Like, the majority of fics I read, you could find and replace any references to “Paris” or the “Eiffel Tower” with American landmarks, and nobody would have a clue it was supposed to be a French city. Cities aren’t interchangeable, the mark of a good writer is that if you did the search and replace people would still know it was set in (insert region here).

And tbh that’s really frustrating as a reader? Like I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade so I keep my comments to myself because I don’t do unadulterated praise very well (I hate feeling like I’m forced to bite my tongue), but here’s a few things I wish fics would do more:

Call Emilie and Gabriel “Maman” and “Pere” instead of “Mom” (gag, it doesn’t get any more Yankish than that) and “Father.”

Monsieur Agreste. Monsieur Agreste! Madame Sancoeur! Not Mr Agreste and Ms Sancoeur!

Little French words/phrases being dropped in conversation. It doesn’t have to be anything complicated, just a “Oui”, “ouais” or “non” here or there go a long way.

The French seem to be huge on nicknames? Like “my flea” is a common pet name for a partner. It’s adorable.

Have characters curse in French, pls! Not English!

It would be so cool if people used street view and referred to actual streets and shops in Paris.

Paris doesn’t have skyscrapers! I don’t expect anyone to know that it’s because Paris has miles and miles of winding catacombs underneath it which interfere with the foundations you need for skyscrapers, but I am surprised at the amount of people who don’t notice that there aren’t any in the show. Even when Marinette & co are in the CBD -- it doesn’t look like the CBD of other cities.

And a few labour things that get my goat, too:

At will employment, I’m pretty sure, is not a thing in France. Now I may be wrong, but from what I know of France, they are hugely socialist and it’s a lot harder to fire people in France than in the US. You can’t just say “you’re fired” and that’s it.

Along that note that is me just being nitpicky, but if Nathalie quits she can’t hand in a two weeks notice. It’s two months if you’ve worked for your employer for X amount of time.

(Along that note no, just because you dislike Gabriel doesn’t mean he’s made Adrien into a child slave, pretty sure the French also have strict laws on that. If he was, he wouldn’t have time for Chinese/Fencing/everything else he’s doing.)

Working more than X hours a week is illegal. Like, beyond a certain amount of hours it goes beyond overtime territory into flat out illegal. A common trope I see in GabeNath fic is Nathalie working herself half to death. It is literally illegal. I’m sure it happens, but there’s... sorta a huge discrepancy when it comes to a fic where Gabriel is simultaneously in love with Nathalie but also okay with her working an illegal amount of overtime.

Along that note and another nitpicky thing, but the French also have the “right to unplug” where when you’re away from work, you can turn your phone off and ignore your inbox and if you're punished for doing that, you can take legal action against your employer. Nathalie's at home and feeling pressured to get some work done? She can go “fuck that” and nothing will happen.

Like maybe I’m being nitpicky about the above, but that was info I found from a 5 second google search about French labour laws. :( 

I just kinda wish people would take a few minutes to do just the most basic research? Like you don’t need to get buried in French history or the nuances of court room law, but a quick google search “what do French teenagers call their parents”, “French labour laws”, “can you get fired for X in France” would absolutely go a long way.

It’s just the little things that make a fic really, really feel like an MLB fanfic and I wish it was more common to just throw in little Frenchisms that make it feel more authentic.