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wondereads · 2 years

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Personal Review (08/14/22)

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

Why am I reviewing this book?

I love it when popular books live up to the hype. I've known about this book for a while, and it's been praised quite a bit, so I knew I'd have to review it once I finished.

Plot 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Juliette Cai and Roma Montagov are heirs to rival criminal gangs in 1920s Shanghai, the Scarlet Gang and the White Flowers. They have history, just like the criminal empires they're supposed to inherit, but when a vicious monster starts plaguing the streets of Shanghai they'll have to work together to save the city.

I was on the edge of my seat for most of this book. The idea isn't super original, but the tension is high and while I suspected who was behind it there were smaller mysteries that surprised me. I loved the way the plot interacted with history; the conflicts between the foreigners, Nationalists, and Communists alongside the gangs gave it a sense of realism that might have otherwise been lost. After all, the subject matter can get a bit ridiculous—Romeo and Juliet on its own is very melodramatic—so bringing in some history makes it feel much more serious.

The biggest complaint most people have about this book is that it's slow. I will admit, it is on the slower side. The writing, which I will discuss more later, goes very in detail, which can slow down the plot significantly. Personally, I find the trade-off worth it and don't mind slower plots that much, but I know it really irks or bores some people, so I wanted to mention it.

Characters 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I think my favorite thing about these characters was that they perfectly emulated the roles they were supposed to play according to the original play without being carbon copies. It didn't feel like they were being forced to make decisions to follow the story, but they were fleshed out and original. For example, Juliette is ambitious and dedicated to her position in the Scarlett Gang, but her history with Roma and general impulsiveness allow her to make some ill-advised decisions. The idea of giving them a past relationship was a good one in my opinion that made the romance more believable while still giving room for that animosity and hatred that would eventually mellow out. This book also went much more in-depth in Juliette and Roma's shared struggle of choosing between love for a city and love for a person. They both have a desire to see Shanghai into the future, but doing so would mean giving up on each other, so they're stuck in the middle.

My personal favorite characters were Kathleen/Celia and Benedikt. I loved that even in a time period when LGBT people weren't accepted, a trans character exists who, although she faces trouble, is truly loved by the people who matter. Even though she mostly goes by Kathleen in the book (having taken on the identity of her younger sister), it's hard to think of her as anyone but Celia. Also, her and Rosalind's relationship, closer and a little more nuanced than Juliette's with either of them, was very interesting to read. As for Benedikt, I've always had an attachment to the original character of Benvolio, and while I love both him and Marshall (Mercutio), I appreciate his relative level-headedness.

I would say the only things I didn't like about the characters were some of the minor characters who felt very flat. Examples of this would be Juliette and Roma's parents, leaders of the Scarlet Gang and White Flowers, Paul, whose motivations seem shallow at best, and Tyler. Tyler I hated in a good way, but I also wish some more nuance had been afforded for him. Anyways, I hated his guts and I couldn't wait for him to die (in case you couldn't tell, he's Tybalt).

Writing Style 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I absolutely loved the writing in this book. As a lover of flowery language, it's like this book was written for me. The descriptions are just gorgeous and add a lot to the atmosphere. Being set in 1920s Shanghai is certainly intriguing, but the writing really did the setting justice, and I don't think it would've been as effective without the writing. I will admit that the hyper-detailed, poetic style isn't for everyone, and it can slow the actual plot down, but I actually prefer a slower plot if it means I get beautiful imagery in exchange. As such, the pacing is a little slow, but not unbearably so. Also, this is a Shakespeare retelling; I'd be a little upset if the prose weren't a little longwinded.

Overall 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I was so pleased that I liked this book after hearing so many good things about it. While it was not the flawless book I'd been led to believe, I still think it's pretty great! The plot mimicked Romeo and Juliet without relying too much on it, the characters had autonomy with some really incredible side characters, and the writing was just phenomenal. It is a little on the slow side, and it's not as if you're going to be surprised by the ending, but I enjoyed it and I think many other people would too.

The Author

Chloe Gong: 23, Chinese-born New Zealander, These Violent Delights is her debut book and she has since also published Foul Lady Fortune

The Reviewer

My name is Wonderose; I try to post a review every week, and I do themed recommendations every once in a while. I take suggestions! Check out my about me post for more!

#books #reviews #these violent delights #chloe gong #fantasy #ya #historical fiction #romeo and juliet #shakespeare

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c0ffeebee · 4 years

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Uma or Carlos from Descendants

ok so my first attempt at this died because of tumblr app but let's try this again

i will answer both because i love there two so much 💛

first uma 💙

OTP for them: umvie, my blue queens

BROTP for them: huma (they are the ultimate brotp of all time), sea 3, vk 7, uma x carlos, audruma, uma x celia, umal

Other ships: huma MY GOD I LOVE THEM SO MUCH, uma x gil, sea 3, umal, audruma

What kind of fic I’d write about them: well i actually have an idea crafted for a sequel to my accidental love spells harlos fic, this time about uma and evie, but to talk about it would spoil the plot of the harlos fic so yeah, then also first summer uma spends in auradon, vk7 are living in evie's castle but since jay and gil left for their vacation and mal moved into the castle with ben, it leaves only harlos and umvie and of course the romances are starting to bloom, then also i had this au idea with no isle and the evil queen is ruling in her own kingdom and evie is an heir to the throne and so the queen arranges a marriage for her, but evie falls in love madly with the pirate captain uma and in the end uma is basically stealing her away right in the middle of the wedding and they run away on uma's ship (and if evie's best friend runs away with them and uma's best friend is her first mate well then it's a whole other story)

A favorite canon moment: "what's my name", that high note in "it's going down" you know the one, every time she is a giant octopus, her SMILE when she saw the bridge at the end of d3, "i'm right here girl" i cried, her reading audrey's diary in audrey's bed, that tender hug with harry in d3 when they all meet at evie's, i just love her and now i want to re-watch these silly movies

Color that reminds me of them: teal (wow, what a surprise xD)

Song that reminds me of them: WHAT'S MY NAME WHAT'S MY NAME SAY IT LAUDER (this and "chilling" are my two favorite songs from all three movies), every other song from descendants she sings in

A headcanon about them: harry is the only person (until evie) that she is comfortable enough with to let her guard down, she can't even allow it to herself with gil because he has this image of her that he admires and to show him she's not exactly that image is like tell a kid that santa doesn't exist, she can't bring herself to do it, but what she doesn't realize is that gil is a lot smarter than she thinks when it comes to feelings and he already knows when she's not fine, he can read it, he sees her vulnerability anyway and she is still the strongest and the most magical thing he ever seen in his life, she calls evie "blueberry" in the sweetest way possible, when harry is starting to date carlos she gives carlos a whole lecture of "break his heart and i'll break your face" (yeah haha but really she knows harry enough to realize he's not used to being in love or feeling emotionally vulnerable and she doesn't trust that carlos has intentions serious enough, so she's actually ready to kick carlos's ass if he hurt her platonic soulmate), water heals her and gives her strength, she is a waterbender but she knew nothing about it until she left the isle that was blocking her powers, now she's trying to learn how to control it and sometimes fails, and it's really dangerous because she can control all the substances that have water in them, blood included, one time harry is injured and he's feverish and so carlos just asks like "why don't you cool him off with your powers" and uma ABSOLUTELY REFUSES because she is terrified of freezing harry to death on accident, she lets evie play with her hair but no one else (except for harry of course) is allowed to touch it, evie helps uma with developing her powers and discovers her own magic in the process

A random AU I think up on the spot for them: no magic au where uma and harry work as lifeguards at the local pool, evie and carlos can't swim to save their lives but come to the pool every day FOR REASONS (insert w|w & m|m solidarity here)

Anything else: uma was never a villain, end of discussion

and carlos ♥️

OTP for them: harlos (painfully obvious at this point)

BROTP for them: CARVIE OH MY GOD I LIVE FOR THEM, jaylos, core 4, carlos x uma, vk7, carlos x jane

Other ships: benlos (they own my whole ass heart), ben x carlos x harry, uma x harry x carlos, carlos x sea3

What kind of fic I’d write about them: 32k words of story about accidental love spells apparently (see i actually finished this one in may 2019, but my beta still has it, she's having some health issues), then also a fic where harry gets injured (see that scene with uma i've talked about) and he's feverish and in that state he calls out carlos's name, mind you they are not even friends at that point, more like forced roommates (AND THEY WERE ROOMMATES!) so carlos gets scared because he never wanted harry to catch feelings for him or vise versa, so he's distancing himself and it all goes to hell, but believe it or not the fic is more of a comedy and nsfw than angst xD, also again lazy long summer at evie's with just carlos, harry, uma and evie around, it starts with jay sending carlos a massage, it's a photo from a vacation, him and gil and a lot of snow and an actual penguin, on the picture gil is kissing jay's cheek and the caption says "wish you were here, except not really" which is a joke and carlos is laughing and it's ok but he does miss jay a lot, and the fic ends with jay receiving a message from uma of all people and it's a photo of carlos and harry sleeping in a hammock with dude and beelzebub and the caption says "he wishes you were here, except… well you know" and then also the next message with "p.s. except you and gil won't fit in there with them i mean, we need a bigger hammock, when are you back?"

A favorite canon moment: HEAR HER VOICE IN MY HEAD, "chillin like a villain", him saving core4's asses in the museum, his and ben's first meeting "is that chocolate?", him going off when cruella threatened dude GOD I LOVE MY BRAVE SON, him trying to fight the guy who was aggressive to ben on the isle and jay literally DRAGGING him away, GIRL TALK I REPEAT GIRL TALK, him taming the beast ben, him being ready to kick harry's ass as soon as harry steps on that bridge, him and harry dancing together in "break this down", THAT JAYLOS DANCE IN GOOD TO BE BAD OH MY GOD, actually every time carlos is dancing, i just love him a lot

Color that reminds me of them: red, white and black (to the surprise of no one)

Song that reminds me of them: "chilling like a villain", every song in descendants that he's a part of, and also "hooked" by why don't we just because it's such a harlos song

A headcanon about them: ok so… i don't believe it's even a headcanon but he can kick some serious ass, he's not a coward and in fact it's the opposite he's always ready to fight and the others have to stop him (like jay did in the situation i've talked about above), evie is his first and best friend, he's the only non-magical person in his friend group (evie and jay are both magical ok? I SAID WHAT I SAID), he can't swim at all but learns eventually to prove to harry he can, he sometimes is a mom-friend to jay and mal if evie isn't around to do the job, he can't cook but keeps trying and failing, HARRY IS THE ONLY ONE TO EVER CALL HIM "PUP" (it doesn't even make any sense for anyone else to call him that, if you have a phobia no good friend would ever call you by the name of the thing you're scared of, if my friends would call me spidey i would be like… excuse me bitch what?), harry is the one who's sometimes scared of HIM and not the other way around because carlos can be really REALLY mean without even opening his mouth, his passive-aggressiveness is the worst and harry can't stand it, he hates when carlos looks at him the way he did back at the bridge, carlos is very enthusiastic in bed and he knows almost everything there is to know in theory but lacks practice so harry sometimes feels like a lab rat or something because carlos treats sex like he treats scientific research, he just needs to try a bunch of stuff to know what works best, harry is not against it, carlos pranked chad more than a few times and it wasn't kind at all, maybe carlos isn't gay, maybe he's on the spectrum but he still prefers guys, him and jane break up eventually but stay good friends, HE STARTS TO WEAR EYELINER AGAIN AND STOPS STRAIGHTENING HIS HAIR because previously he just adopted to auradon beauty standards but then he sees harry rocking that eyeliner and goes like "ok if he can do it then so can i!" and it's glorious, carlos knows a bunch of seemingly useless scientific facts, he's good at sports but only the ones that interest him enough, and i should probably stop because it's getting too long

A random AU I think up on the spot for them: werewolf carlos and vampire harry (witch uma and fairy evie is also welcomed to join), i desperately need this in my life, ok? ok

Anything else: i really wish dude never talked because this dog stole carlos's entire story arc and all the interactions he could have had with anyone but jane the moment it opened it's mouth

#bee answers #uma #uma daughter of ursula #descendants #carlos de vil #long post

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idk-my-aesthetic · 5 years

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isle kingdom au

so i’ve had this idea for an AU for a little while, but i don’t wanna actually write anything for it until i’m done w/ my current descendants wips, but i also wanna talk about it lol so ig im making a post? please send me asks about it i wanna talk about it.... anyway

**tw for child abuse and semi-graphic descriptions of violence.

basically the premise of the au is that even though he tried to get it passed at first, ben never went through with pulling the vks off the isle. he kept meaning too, but it just kept being pushed to the back of his list of priorities bc he was so busy w/ being king and never happened

so bc of this, the core 4 stayed on the isle and never got off it. if you’ve read the stuff in my keep them close series u probably have a better idea of my hc of the isle, but the basics of it are that 1) most of the parents are really bad and abusive + the conditions are disgusting 2) none of the kids are really evil and 3) the vks are all kinda frenimes/rivals and will work together to keep eachother alive even if they act like they hate eachother or will even hurt eachother

so, in the ‘canon’ timeline before going to auradon the core 4 are a gang and slowly gaining power. they’re already the top of the vk gangs and are like gaining on some of the adult ones.

bc they never go to auradon, they just kinda keep doing what they already are and gain more and more power. but, as they gain power their parents start becoming afraid of them and acting like more abusive in attempts to keep the core 4 under their control

ok bare w/ me for this next bit bc it’s gonna sound real ooc for like a sec then make sense

so, as they’re gaining power and their parents are haveing more and more trouble controlling them their parents are becoming more and more violent.

im not sure on the order yet, but basically cruella, jafar, eq, and malifacent all do something like really really bad to their respective kid, so one of the other core 4 kills them bc like. yeah.

i have some vauge ideas of what each of them could have done and i don’t really know if i want to say them or even use them tbh bc they’re like.... bad, like real bad. which they kinda have to be, you know? bc like.... none of the core 4 would turn to killing if they didn’t have a real good reason, and their parents continuing the abuse that they always have woulden’t be enough, so the parents would have to do something really really bad for one of the others to justify killing them

its important to mention that none of them kill their own parent. it’s always one of the other 4, im not sure who kills who just yet, but none of them kill their own parent. They’re saved from their parents by each other and they never really have any confrontation with their parents (which will change l8r 👀👀, let me explain)

Even tho they didn’t kill their own parents, everyone kinda assumed they did in order to take their places/gain power. A handful of their friends know the real story, but it’s mostly kept under wraps and it’s like general “knowledge” that they killed their parents for power. They’re not really hiding it or anything, I mean they did still each kill one of the 4 most powerful villains so it’s not like anyone is gonna be less afraid if they knew the truth. ppl just make assumptions and never really question them and they just let ppl think what they do

So bc their parents are dead and they let everyone assume they killed their own parent they very easily climb up the ranks and end up in charge of the isle bc atp they’re seen as the most ruthless/evil/powerful

So now that they’re in charge of the isle they start like..... actually making it a livable place. Ofc at first they try to make a version of Carlos’s machine to break the barrier, but they can’t get it to work so he just modifys it to steal magic from the barrair for them to use. (Another idea stolen from my keep them close series but like I like the idea lol)

And when I say they make it a livable place I mean they start doing stuff like building water purifiers, making like safe houses, establishing some kind of working economy, taking control of the barge drop offs and how everything is distributed, fixing broken electricity, etc etc

A lot of what they do is based off of Carlos’s machines and designs, which like obvi other ppl are helping him gather materials and for and build, since he has power bc he’s like one of the ppl in charge. And he like teaches other ppl how to do what he does and fix anything that goes wrong

Evie kinda puts herself in charge of setting up like medical centers + homes for kids and stuff. Also some kinda way to grow food. B4 they’re in charge nothing can really grow but they use the magic they steal from the barrier to make stuff grow. And evie can use it to make like lots of healing items and such

Jay ends up mostly in charge of like collecting and distribution of their recourses. At first like the barge is kinda a hugeeee problem to deal with bc ppl are fighting over the like moldy food and destroyed clothes and stuff. But eventually they get it organized and have stuff sent to the respective place it should, like clothes and scrap fabric are sent to a place that repairs and sells them, parts and electronics are sent to Carlos or his helpers, etc

Other minor vks like Celia, dizzy, the sea three, Diego, etc are all in this two but this is already really long so just know they’re like helping and like pretty high ranking/highly regarded. Send me an ask with questions please

Mal is kinda regarded as the ultimate leader/queen of the isle ig even though the other 3 have basically the same amount of power. Mostly bc her job ends up being keeping the adults who dislike them inline and keeping their power as heads of the isle

Most ppl are just kinda chill w/ them being in charge, especially a lot of the ppl who were banished for minor crimes. A few of the adult villains try to fight them and end up dead lol, and anyone caught doing especially bad things, like r*pe, hurting someone they shouldn’t have, being a child abuser, etc will end up killed by mal or one of the others. They don’t kill u for like every crime obviously only the like inexcusable ones. Stuff like stealing or mental illness or w/e they basically just help you work through

They’re aren’t any like real laws ig but they deal with issues as they go and give harsh punishments if needed. It serves to keep themselves seen as strong/evil/powerful despite all the good they do and helps keep others too afraid to challenge them. Like frollo isn’t going to challenge them if Ursula tried the same thing and got killed. (The fact that she abused uma and her siblings obviously had nothing to do with that,,,,,,,,,,,)

So yeah! They basically turned the isle into a inhabitable place in the years that they spent as its leaders, and it functions as its own kinda kingdom despite its harsh and confusing laws/rules

But we ain’t done yet, lol

Basically everything I’ve just explained is.... mostly backstory? Kinda? It’s the type of thing where you slowly find out about all this stuff while they actual story goes on, but I figured it’d be less confusing to explain it first :3

So the Actual story starts a few years after when Ben originally was supposed to take the vks off the isle. He, all the other princess/princes he want to school with, the core 4, the sea 3, etc are all in their mid to early 20s.

Auradon has basically no clue what’s the deal w/ the isle. They’re only interaction w/ them is through the like goblins that bring over the trash barges, but those guys are chill and basically don’t tell the aks anything lol.

So Ben is ruling his kingdom, and the core 4 are ruling their own, both sides are doing pretty well and ignoring each other, but then! All of a sudden there’s these sudden deaths/fires/some kinda terrorist attack on the outskirts of the kingdom.

I haven’t thought through this part too much, but basically he knows that they’re is some kinda threat, but he doesn’t know excatly what it is. All he does know is that the villain that is attacking is demanding to speak to the children of malifecent, jafar, cruella devil, and the evil queen.

He basically rounds up the heroes of those respective stories bc they’re all being threatened in some way or another. The mystery villain continues to do more damage and seems basically impossible to beat, and has given them a time limit b4 they’ll go and start destroying more

They discuss their options and decide their best plan is to go to the isle and convince them core 4 to help, bringing along the heroes and some of the main aks w/ them

Obviously it doesn’t go well bc they show up and mal basically has them arrested lmao

Again I have more in-depth ideas for this part but this post is already wayyyy to long so I’m trying to hurry and finish up

The talk, vks meet their respective heroes, everything is from ak/hero POV so as they explore the isle and talk to the core 4 and other vks they slowly find out about all ^^^ that stuff up there

The core 4 are eventually agree, and they go to face the villains only to find out its their parents who have been resurrected!!!! Fuck!!!!

Idk how or why just yet lmao but I will soon

Parents are obvi pissed, core 4 face their own parents and finally get like some kinda closer or smthn idk I feel like y’all get the gist

in the end auradon agknolages the isle as its own kingdom and the core 4 as its leaders and open trade/remove the barrier so the isle can continue to grow bc it’s been struggling due to lack of recourses

And that’s like the basic outline of my au! I wanna write it eventually but tbh I’m expecting eventually to be like 3 years from now bc of how much other stuff I have so for rn I’m just gonna blog about it. Obviously there’s a lot of other stuff/plots/emotional arcs etc I didn’t talk about bc like This Post Is So Long I’m So Sorry, So please please please send me asks/questions/comments/even your own ideas!!! Please. Everything about this will be tagged with “isle kingdom au” :3

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madisonrooney · 5 years

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THOUGHTS ON D3

(some of these may be points about stuff we already knew going into it but like now that weve gotten to see it all together its easier to discuss)

- i like what they did with audrey’s plot. her and mal’s relationship did feel pretty unresolved after d1 so im glad they went this route. not to mention being able to bring her back after her being absent in the second. also i like the message that it gave off about being able to be good or bad regardless of where you come from

- i loved hades! he was so fun and i loved how things ended up with him. and DO WHAT YOU GOTTA DO WAS AWESOME probably my fav song. but i cant say im a huge fan of him being mal’s dad. like i loved the way their relationship played out but while the descendants fan in me is happy the disney stickler thinks its a bit too much creative license for them to make a kid the child of two disney characters from two different movies. it also kinda like...almost invalidates her character of “maleficent’s daughter” now shes the daughter of two villains and it?? feels different?? if that makes sense?? could the other VKs possibly have another villain as their other parent?? who knows. also i wish they hadn’t made it so obvious so early like people guessed this A YEAR AND A HALF AGO WHEN THE TEASER CAME OUT. maybe had it just been a few months it wouldnt have been as bad but yeesh. it made the shock factor...well, almost non-existant.

- continuing on their relationship, i thought tackling the idea of an absentee dad was a bold move for a movie like this and i applaud it. not to mention with an upbeat musical number? they really did that

- i loved celia too!! i was afraid she was gonna be more bad news than she was but she was super cute and sweet. loved her friendship with dizzy. and loved getting to see more of dizzy! and even though dr facilier wasnt in it much he was fun. i thought it was sweet that he and celia seemed to have a good relationship. im also glad we got to see lady tremaine! but wheres drizella lol

- also in regards to hades and celia, i liked that they brought in two more movies into the universe that hadnt yet been acknowledged (not counting wicked world or the books). i love both hercules and princess and the frog and while i wouldnt call them underrated theyre not quite as mainstream as some of the other movies in the descendants universe so im happy with that.

- on the other hand, i dont really like it when they get more kids from movies that they already have kids from. in this case, squeaky and squirmy. gil seemed out of place to me when i first watched d2, especially cuz like why would gastons son be a pirate, but since he had some funny lines with ben (in this movie too!) it was worth it. but squeaky and squirmy had no lines with harry? THEY ALMOST DIDNT HAVE ANY LINES AT ALL??? so why couldnt they have had them be kids from a movie they hadnt used yet? the more the merrier imo. idk.

- mal and uma repairing their relationship was like the highlight for me ugh it was so good. i think we all had a feeling that would happen (not just from speculation but from set pics and whatnot) but it felt satisfying regardless. uma saying “im right here mal you got this”? love that

- WE LOVE MORE DRAGON MAL. EVEN MORE THAN IN D2. WE LOVE THAT A LOT.

- WE ALSO LOVE MORE DUDE. OK SO MAYBE THATS JUST ME BUT SCREW IT I LOVE TALKING DOGS SO IM GLAD HE STILL TALKED. DOVE CAMERON AND A TALKING DOG IN THE SAME MOVIE IS BASICALLY PANDERING TO ME OK

- WE ALSO LOVE MALVIE CONTENT!!! love that evie was the only one who knew hades was her dad AND LOVE THAT THEY SAID I LOVE YOU TO EACH OTHER LIKE DAMN. AND DURING MY ONCE UPON A TIME WHEN MAL LIKE CARESSES HER FACE??? LIKE HER INTERACTION WITH HER WAS MORE INTENSE THAN WITH ANYONE ELSE EVEN BEN??? GOOD SHIT

- OK I KNEW ABOUT THE DID I MENTION REPRISE AS OF A FEW DAYS AGO BUT IM A SLUT FOR PARALLELS SO THAT STILL KILLED ME

- any parallels killed me. especially, ofc, ending with “cuz were rotten...to the core” (tho i was hoping the rotten remix thats on the soundtrack would be in the movie)

- loved getting more harry and gil content. gil is so blissfully stupid and precious and i love him and harry is so chaotic and i love him too

- and just...love the sea three bonding with the core four. also it felt well paced. wasnt rushed, had its moments to slowly get us there (mal+uma, jay+gil+harry) it felt like it went just the way it was supposed to.

- the whole series of events felt well paced and well ordered

- tbh i think its hilarious how chad’s douche baggery never dies down. i mean points for consistency i guess

- (did anyone catch the sign on the isle that mentioned monstro? good easter egg)

- (im really going out of order ik)

- one kiss was fun and cute, but i never felt like doug and evie were like...behind in their relationship? if anything i thought as of d2 their relationship was more stable than that of mal and ben

- night falls was a little silly and felt a little too similar to its goin down to me but it served a purpose and it was still fun

- and ofc it was so bittersweet to watch cam. the dedications were heart-wrenching but beautiful.

overall it really could not have been better! great new characters, great development on the characters we love, great soundtrack, and, most importantly, a story that perfectly wraps up the franchise. its hard to get a trilogy right. i love a lot of trilogies but a lot of them have some major flaws. with like say the kung fu panda movies, the 2nd and 3rd feel like theyre about very different things than the first. it doesnt feel like its telling one cohesive story. some have a second that feels unimportant to be between the 1st and 3rd. this just felt like perfectly coming full circle. everything from the beginning of the first movie to the end of the third felt necessary to tell the story. no useless filler, all essential to the plot, adding more as we go and resolving more, but having a hell of a lot of fun the entire time. i remember d2 being one of the most, if not the most, satisfying sequels ive ever seen. maybe part of that has to do with descendants being such a main fandom of mine when it came out, but sometimes, even new additions to my main fandoms can disappoint. these sequels really haven’t. part of that may just have to do with my love for the franchise regardless of the direction it goes in, but i know that it also has to do with just a great job in storytelling. continuing the story and wrapping it up just right. when the first one came out, we didn’t know it would be a trilogy. it works great as a standalone movie, but when you see the third one, you would think it was intended this way from the beginning, which honestly gives it even more power.

it breaks my heart to let this franchise go, but ofc in mal’s words “this is not the end.” with it just coming out, that means its just the beginning of discussions, gifs, memes, fanart, and all that fun stuff. so lets jump right in!

and, as always, every bit of love in my heart goes to cam tonight. we still miss you endlessly and we always will.

#descendants #descendants 3

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multimetaverse · 5 years

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Andi Mack 3x13 Review

Mount Rushmore or Less was a gut punch of an ep. Let’s dig in!

Positives:

The Tyrus scenes in the beginning were very nice. Great callback to the somersault scene and it was nice to see them be so open flirty with each other. That ‘Cyrus my man’ line was pretty telling. It’s clear that TJ isn’t ashamed of his feelings for Cyrus but is afraid of being outed as his crush on Cyrus is becoming obvious enough for someone like Kira to pick up on (and Andi and Buffy on the texts)

I do wonder if matching outfits for Cyrus and a boy is a red line for Disney; they never did let Cyrus wear his Space Otters jersey after all

Some really strong performances tonight. Luke did an excellent job showing TJ’s weariness and sorrow in his last scene. Josh was another mvp tonight

First time TJ has said sorry

The one nice thing I’ll say about Kira is that she really jumped to the top of the Andi Mack villains list. She pretty clearly wanted to get back at Buffy by messing with Cyrus and TJ and is desperate to play on a team again. She picked up on TJ’s crush pretty quickly and knew just the right buttons to press to scare TJ. Now I don’t think the show will actually delve into homophobia and she’ll ultimately be redeemed but it’s going to be very hard to do so in the 3 eps she has remaining especially since Raquel was only on set for one day each in 3x15 and 3x21

I believe that this is the first time we’ve ever seen a secondary character have scenes with a tertiary character without a main character present. It was necessary to give us a peak into TJ’s head but it might also set the stage for Kira to redeem herself by turning into an ally for TJ which is horrifying that TJ might have to rely on her but it may be the only way to redeem Kira

Kira really is an evil Buffy; just the complete opposite of how Buffy has supported Cyrus this whole time in regards to his sexuality

If the show can actually explore TJ’s fear of being outed it would be an amazing story line but I am deeply skeptical that the show will be allowed to do so

Marty is finally back for good. I really liked his re-introduction; they did an excellent job of reintegrating him into Buffy’s life and the show as a whole very quickly, it makes total sense that he’ll be at the wedding. The writers were wise to not ruin Muffy this ep too; they’ll have their ups and downs of course but their dynamic really helped lighten this ep. Glad they mentioned he had a girlfriend upfront but it’s not like Buffy or Marty are letting that stop them

Marty seems written more like Garren now than he was in S1 and S2 with that ‘Yoo’ bit

The contrast between Marty and Buffy having fun in the costume and Andi and Cyrus looking distraught was darkly funny

This ep showcased once again that Buffy is the glue holding the Good Hair Crew together. She was the go between for Cyrus and Andi and got Marty to join as a replacement

Andi and Amber’s friendship wasn’t ruined this ep which is nice

Glad that Buffy understood why Cyrus wanted to match with TJ but I really wish we weren’t still stuck in subtext

I liked the shazam and shrek references tonight

Jonah was very on brand when he didn’t acknowledge Marty being back in the group at all; just like the gun drama it has no bearing on him

I’m glad that Bex and Bowie were upfront with Andi. It’s delusional to think that not getting married won’t have serious long term effects on their family but it’s in character for them

We got a Jandi and Tyrus parallel tonight with both Jonah and TJ disappointing Andi and Cyrus

Glad that they clarified that Jibby is sunk

Negatives:

The show has barely been able to tell Cyrus’ sexuality story line and I really doubt they’ll be able to do TJ’s any justice especially when he has just 3 appearances left. They really need to let TJ look back in ep 15 because the audience needs to know he’s actually gay for this to have any impact. A lot of his arc is going to be off screen and the rest is likely to be very very coded and will probably look more like a peer pressure story line to the kids than anything else

And shouldn’t Cyrus be getting a story line like this? He’s out to his 3 closest friends but not to his parents or the world and we’ve never even caught glimpses of how he feels about that

It’s so funny how they can do anything else with TJ but have him get together with Cyrus. At this point he’s had way more character development than Jonah

Presumably Kira will eventually help Tyrus get together if she’s to be redeemed but what a waste of Tyrus’ story line to have her inserted into it for no real reason; they could easily have kept Tyrus from canoning until the finale by other means

Jonah sucked this episode. His refusing to do the costume came out of nowhere and really just made him look like a bad friend to Andi. He’s like a goldfish, he just keeps making the same mistakes in his various relationships and never learns any lessons

Not a fan of Marty blaming Buffy for him icing her out and her not calling him out. I get that the show doesn’t have time to waste with these two but it’s sloppy. Also not a fan of us never getting actual confirmation that Wuffy is over

Looking Ahead:

I’m sure this ep will age much better once we get the remaining 8 eps but this was an awful ep to enter a hiatus on. The hype for most of the ships and story lines was destroyed tonight and having that angsty shot of Cyrus and Andi looking so sad be the last we’ll see for a while is not going to bring the audience back for 3c

Well now we know why Josh began publicly doubting the endgame after filming ep 13; he never would have doubted that the endgame was TJ but there’s no way they’d get together before the finale after the events of this ep

Buffy fainting next week looks dramatic; we’ll see what comes of it

Raquel confirmed that she’s in 5 eps this season and we already knew about 15 and 21 so there must be a third where she didn’t post from set like she usually did. If she’s going to be shadowing TJ the whole rest of the season she’d show up in ep 19 but if she’s meant to have scenes with Buffy again or even Cyrus she could show up in 16 or 17 as well

It’s a sign of how little we’re going to get of Cyrus and TJ’s story that TJ and Kira only have 3 eps left while Amber has 6 and Marty has at least 4 but possibly 5 with these new reshoots. Ep 15 is likely to be a wash unless we get a look back or Kira realizing the hurt she’s caused but hopefully ep 19 has some good moments

This ep is probably a pretty good template of what the finale will look like in terms of juggling characters and story lines except that it will be even more crowded as Bex and Bowie will have more screentime and Celia likely has some screen time as well (the writers really do seem to act like they’re writing for an hour long show with the 5 or 6 plot lines they juggle each ep)

That Marty never interacted with TJ this ep and given that TJ hasn’t met Amber and they don’t share eps until the finale it’s likely that the Tyrus confession scene is in the last 10 minutes of 3x21 as the party is winding down and with only Buffy and Andi and Jonah knowing that they get together when they return from the backyard into a now empty house (though Kira may have learned off screen that TJ is gay by this point). It seems unlikely that the show will allow TJ and Cyrus to get together and then immediately be out to Marty and Amber and possibly Bex and Bowie when they haven’t had even brief scenes together this season

Well hopefully we don’t have to wait longer than a couple of months for 3c to air and hopefully the re-shoots go smoothly. Pretty wild that we only have 8 eps left; we’re in the home stretch now Ladies and Gentlemen

#Andi Mack #Tyrus #TJ Kippen #Cyrus Goodman #Kira #Muffy #Buffy Driscoll #Marty from the party #Jonah Beck #Bexie #Bex Mack #Bowie Quinn #Andi Mack Reviews #Andi Mack Meta #Andi Mack Season 3

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crystalelemental · 4 years

Text

Character Analysis - Faye

I’m basically writing this as I go with the asks, so let’s compile. Faye! She’s a really, really disliked character in Fire Emblem! I get it. A lot of her dialogue is obnoxiously Alm-centric, and her support conversations are...oh boy are they not doing her any favors. Despite all this, I still like Faye! Because I guess it’s just some personal affectation that I must always like the generally disliked characters. I will say though, that a lot of this is personal interpretation of Faye as a character. None of this is inherently written into the canon, but I do think the game offers evidence that can substantiate what I’ll be saying. Hopefully, you too can come away from this having at least a different outlook on Faye as a character. But...well, I’m not gonna hold my breath.

Faye Sucks Okay, let’s get this out of the way: Faye seems like one of the most universally disliked characters in the series, and with damn good reason. She’s the third in a line of characters born from IS not understanding Awakening’s success. I’m serious, even as recent as the Three Houses interviews, they’ve stated they still do not know how Awakening did so well. A lot of tropes established in Awakening carried over to subsequent games as a result, and one such trope is the “overwhelming devotion” character. Tharja started the trend and was one of the most popular Awakening characters. Camilla followed suit, and while she’s one of the most divisive characters in recent memory, she’s also got a huge fanbase, and won CYL3 in Heroes, so clearly doing something right.

Faye was the third use of the trope, and yet somehow, everyone hates her. What the hell changed? I’m gonna cut straight to the point: her supports did it. It’s 100% because of her supports. She only gets two, and they do not paint her in a flattering light at all. Tharja had some fantastic supports, like the serious tone and getting to see positive sides of her with Libra, or the comedy with Frederick. Camilla similarly has great supports, like her verbal smackdown to Niles, and her sweet interactions with Elise. Camilla also benefits from being a prominent character in Conquest, giving her a lot more of the plot spotlight to develop.

By comparison, Faye gets exactly two support lines in the entire game - Alm and Silque - and has no story relevance at all after the party leaves Ram village. Faye is given dramatically less time to explore her character, and it really, really hurts her. So the next time someone says “Support conversations aren’t important,” just remember: they’re the difference between a Tharja or Camilla, and a Faye. But hey, quality over quantity right? Surely a few really good supports can salvage a character!

Faye does not have good supports. In Silque’s, C and B support are entirely Faye rejecting Silque’s offers of friendship, largely pushing the narrative of disliking gossip and preferring to be near Alm to just talking about Alm. She apologizes and tries to make up in the A-support, but damage already done.

In Alm’s supports, it’s arguably worse. The first two are Faye pretty flippantly declaring that she’s ready to kill in Alm’s name, and it’s at a point where even Alm acknowledges that something’s off. And Alm is a dense, dense boy. If even he’s noticing, it’s bad. Again, her A-support tries to tilt thing back, but for many, damage already done.

Based on these two being just about the only real dialogue or development that Faye gets the entire game, it’s not unfair to say that people’s dislike is well-founded. There are tremendous problems with Faye’s character that largely come about as the result of limited supports and the writing not working in her favor. That said, I wouldn’t be writing this if I were just going to say “They’re right, Faye sucks, moving on.” I’m here to argue that Faye’s A-supports, and one particularly well-hidden piece of dialogue that I only found out about recently, do make the case for Faye being more compelling than she initially seems.

The A-Supports Let’s start with Alm’s. In Alm’s A-support, Faye approaches him and tells him about her dream. Faye dreams often that, when the war is over, Alm will return with her to Ram village, and they’ll live a quiet life never having to fight another battle ever again. For the first time, Alm finally comes forward and says no, that’s not going to happen. He’s very direct about acknowledging how Faye feels about him, and that he doesn’t feel that way toward her.

Surprisingly, she takes it. Faye’s a bit self-depreciating here, stating that she had hoped that something would change if she continued to fight by his side, but should’ve known better. She states that she’ll be able to move on, but while they’re adventuring, wants to keep her feelings for him, “at least until we part ways.” Which I think is fair. You don’t just snap to getting over someone, especially while they’re still close. Faye takes the rejection really well, which is something I really don’t think she gets enough credit for. “It’s because the ending card-” no. All of those are stupid and non-canon. If you honestly expect me to believe that Mathilda gave up being the best knight to be just Clive’s wife, or that Sonya went off and became a witch despite witches being the direct product of Duma’s power and Duma being dead by the point she goes off, you’re crazy. The ending cards have no basis in canon, in this or any other game. Canas died to a blizzard my ass...

Anyway, the other important part of this is that Faye’s dream is specifically going back to the village and never fighting. Fighting is not something she enjoys. Despite her apparent zeal during the C and B-supports with Alm, she wants nothing more than to stop fighting altogether and live quietly. This seems contradictory now, but hopefully I’ll be able to make sense of it later after exploring the remainder of her dialogue.

For Silque’s A-support, Faye apologizes to Silque and states that she missed her company when Silque finally backed off. They start to hit it off, and Faye expresses that she’s still not interested in gossip, but she would like to know more about Silque herself.

This is small, but I think very informative for what Faye values. She likes people. Not initially, mind. She’s very hesitant to get to know Silque, for reasons I’ll get into later, but once Silque’s been established as just a part of the group, Faye warms up and wants to get to know her better as a person. Silque’s offers of “talk not meant for the ears of men” and talking about Faye’s interest in Alm aren’t important, and never were. That’s not what Faye’s about. She just wants to get to know Silque personally, once she’s comfortable with her. Which I think is telling. Faye’s reserved around people, but once comfortable, is really driven by those personal bonds she has. She cares about the people in her life as people, but is very hesitant to established new bonds. I think, for two reasons.

Faye and Celica But first, we need to talk about the hidden dialogue I mentioned. Did you know that Alm can reject Faye’s offer to join his army, and that you can talk to her with Celica? Yeah, me either until like three days ago. Never would’ve crossed my mind to try this. I didn’t even think about having Celica go back through Alm’s areas, but yeah, of course you can. You learn some good stuff if you do, too, but we’re focusing on Faye right now.

So, with everything you know about Faye, and all the negative perceptions around her, let’s play a guessing game for those who don’t know the answer already. Alm and Celica are basically the destined pairing. Even as kids, Alm started playing more with Celica than his friends. Faye has a crush on Alm, and even as a child, recognized Celica as a romantic rival. And Faye, who is often labeled a yandere because of the “killing in your name” bit, is now brought face to face with Celia, who has returned after years of being away. How does Faye react to seeing Celica again? My guess was terrible. I actually dreaded any Faye/Celica interactions in canon, because despite my own interpretations of Faye, it seems obvious they’d play up the jealous yandere aspect.

“Oh, Celica! You’re back! Gosh, how long has it been? I’ve missed you so much!” That...is not the reaction of a yandere. Yes, I’m saying Faye doesn’t really count as a yandere. Yandere comes with the specifics of active violence and harm toward romantic rivals as well, and Faye’s downright happy to see Celica.

This dialogue made me so happy, because I feel like it’s stronger evidence for what I’ve been saying: Faye is people-driven. Even though she loves Alm, and Celica is a rival for that affection, she holds absolutely no animosity toward Celica at all and treats her like a close, personal friend. Because they are friends. They were friends years ago and that still holds true now.

Faye goes on to talk about how Alm left her behind and went off with the Deliverance, and how at first, she thought about chasing after him but decided against, expressing she’d probably be killed if she adventured on her own. But when she realizes Celica is also on a journey, she excitedly asks to go with.

Now, much like Alm, Celica has a choice at the end of their dialogue. Recruit Faye? If you recruit her, that’s it. That is the last thing you will ever hear from Faye. Yes, it bothers me a lot too. No hidden support conversations, IS? Come on. This would’ve been perfect. It is worth noting that Faye is willing to go with Celica at all. If Faye’s motivation is solely on following or being with Alm, why would she agree to go with Celica? I’d argue it’s because she’s not fighting for just Alm. That becomes a centerpiece of her fixation when she’s with him, but Faye fights for more than just him. More on that later.

The interesting thing is when Celica rejects Faye too. See, when Alm does it, Faye’s response is almost playful, as if she doesn’t expect him to stick to that answer. “I guess I’ll just...stay here and be...sad...forever.” Not exactly the heavy dialogue you’d expect from rejection. It’s almost like she disbelieves. But then he does leave, and Celica finds her in the village instead. If Celica also rejects Faye’s aid? “R-really? Oh. I suppose it was foolish of me to ask something like that.” She’s completely defeated. Unlike the first time, this response carries a lot of sorrow in her voice. Faye’s downright heartbroken over the second rejection, even though Alm’s should’ve stung worse. Why?

Faye’s Motives I argue that Faye is a character whose primary motivation is in proving herself. Both in Alm’s A-support and Celica’s rejection dialogue, Faye gets really harsh on herself, claiming she should know better than to expect that Alm would love her back, or that Celica would want her along on the journey. Faye’s incredibly self-depreciating, and doesn’t seem to find much worth in her own abilities at all. Hell, when it comes to combat, she’s so unsure of her ability that she’s not even sure she’d survive trying to chase after Alm.

Let’s run through some scenarios. Suppose you’re Faye, someone whose entire focus is on your bonds with others. Suddenly, everyone talks about leaving the village to go fight in a resistance army. Everyone’s leaving. All your friends, and the person you love. They’re all just...going off, away from the quiet, happy life you’ve been living. Now you make a choice: stay with your quiet life as the others leave, or go with to protect the people closest to you.

Scenario 1: you go with. Alm accepts the invitation, and you’ve now joined up for constant military engagement, in order to protect your friends. Along the way, the person you love, who’s always been close with your group of friends, starts taking up a leadership role and has no time for you anymore. You never get to see him on a personal level, and all you ever do is fight. Your motivation is attention and connection, and that’s being taken away amidst war. How do you get that back?

Performance. Those who do well in battle get recognition, and rise up the ranks the same way. But you have no confidence in your own ability as a fighter. You’re not sure you can win that recognition in battle. So you follow up with the next best thing. You literally beg to be acknowledged. Watch me in battle, Alm. I’m ready to fight for you, Alm. You may not be able to succeed overall, but you can still get that recognition from the person who means the most. But, what you want most hasn’t been addressed, and it’s not coming up. After a while, you’re tired of fighting, and approaching the end of the journey. It’s now or never, so you share your dream with him. And he rejects it. You knew it was coming. You’ve been here this entire time, watching him drift further and further from you and your home, and you knew full well there was never any going back. But you had to try.

Meanwhile, all through the campaign, more and more new faces get added in. The first is Silque, who’s a bit chatty and gossipy, but seems nice and wants to talk to you. But, your main ambition has been to go back to the village, and return to the life you once led. Every step through this war sees that dream drift further and further away, as Alm takes up leadership, and even your friends become invested in the military life. The more people added into this group, the more likely your inner circle gets pulled away. So you push anyone new back. You don’t want to make friends. You don’t want them in your life, drawing everyone away, and ruining what should be your happy ending after the fighting. You do your best to keep people away, but she’s also...the only one paying any attention to you. She’s kind, and even in spite of your attempts to act stand-offish, she keeps coming back to check on you, to talk to you. That’s more than anyone else is doing. So when this person finally gives up, you realize...it’s lonely, not having anyone to talk to. In spite of your efforts, your friends are already drifting apart, and you pushed away your chance at meeting someone new. Now you’re going back to them, apologetic for being dismissive, and trying to get to know them because they’re right, you do need a friend.

Suddenly, all of Faye’s disconnected actions start to make sense. Faye is someone marked by insecurity, and trying to compensate by making herself valuable. She’s not even sure that’s working. She doesn’t like to fight, and doesn’t think she’s all that good at it either. But she tries, and frankly, probably fails. She doesn’t excel at combat like Kliff would, and doesn’t have the same outgoing personality as Gray. So she gets left behind, and is desperately trying to cling to the person who meant the most, to have hold of some kind of stability.

Scenario 2: Alm refuses to let Faye go with, and instead she’s recruited by Celica. There isn’t much dialogue, in large part because this isn’t your friend group. Your main desire of preserving the status quo is already ruined, and there’s no one left for you. Suddenly, an old friend shows up, and is willing to take you along. Same as before, you want to be useful.

But this time, Celica goes straight to where Alm is. This is a perfect chance to meet up with Alm again, to demand joining his party, or even just refusing to continue to adventure with Celica at all. But that doesn’t happen. Celica and Alm leave on bad terms, but let’s be honest, Alm gave you an answer. He doesn’t feel the same way, and may not even think you’d have practical use in a war. Celica, though? Celica brought you along. She acknowledged you, and even though it’s been a while, she’s still your friend. You can’t just leave her.

If Faye’s devotion were only to Alm, she’d likely ditch Celica in a heartbeat. But as we’ve seen in her A-support, Faye is willing to take a clear rejection, even if it hurts. When that rejection is delivered early, she stays in the village, until Celica recruits her. And when Celica recruits her, now she’s wholly devoted to Celica’s cause instead. She had the perfect opportunity to prove herself solely focused on Alm, and instead, she sticks with Celica. That’s not the choice of someone only motivated by self-interest, and the love of one specific person. Faye does love Alm, but at the end of the day, she’s just as attached to any of her other friends. The intensity she has in her supports with Alm are a mixture of proximity to the object of her affections, and feeling like she’s getting left completely behind. She wants nothing more than to stand out, to be important to other people the way they’re important to her, but in war, there’s no time for personal relationships, and she’s not an experienced fighter like the others. She’s watching everything she wants crumble in front of her, and is downright desperate to preserve that sense of connection to her old life. She joined this war to keep those bonds, and is keenly, uncomfortably aware that killing is part and parcel to the job she’s being asked to do. She doesn’t want to be fighting, but this is the choice she’s had to make, and she’s going to carry it out.

Conclusions As I’ve stated many times before, all of this is me reading between the lines, and crafting the character in lieu of the support conversations she should’ve had. I think the evidence is there to back me, though, and looking at her character through this lens, there’s an edge of tragedy to her character. All she wants is to keep her peaceful life, and everything is working against her. Her friends are scattering apart, risking their lives, and what she wants most is to see them safe and to come back home. She’s willing to risk her own life for that goal, even though it’s something that cannot come to pass.

If you’ve read this far, hopefully it’s helped you appreciate Faye just a bit more, or at least got you thinking about your own interpretations of her actions and motives. Thank you for reading, hopefully this kind of post doesn’t become a thing with me because oh god am I tired...

#fire emblem #fire emblem echoes #faye #character analysis #I guess faye got added to the list of characters I'm willing to argue over #so that's a thing #guess that's what happens when you make someone a FEH merge project

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roxaeri · 5 years

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please tell me about your trash vamp tristan -candy pop anon

Alright buckle in coz I'mma tell y'all about my shitty vampire pretending to be a human pretending to be a shitty vamp. Tristan is the manifestation of a dumpster fire—and if there is a dumpster on fire it was most likely his doing.

((LONG POST IS LONG. I’MMA INFODUMP ABOUT MY SON.))

I believe I have a post or two that has dialogue from him, in which he’s not his usual self. He’s got some profound wisdom hidden in him somewhere, and some repressed sad from his life, usually buried down until he connects with literally anyone on a deeper level than: “Tris, why the fuck is there a skeleton in your cupboard?”

I'mma come back to Profound Wisdom and Repressed Sad later because let me first get y'all to the subject of Tristan’s cupboard skeleton.

Now, when I say trash vamp I mean that he’s not really a good guy. Like, he’s not evil, but he’s not good either. He’s a mess whose day job ((night job, considering he’s a nocturnal vamp)) is being a Certified Spook. It’s in his job description to cause just enough chaos that the supernatural is plausible in case anyone fucks up their cover, but still make it easy for the supernatural to be denied or debunked by humans. He maintains that stupidly specific balance.

Shitty Vamp = he’s got a lot of debilitating, stereotypical vampire traits that makes it super hard for him to do his job when the sun’s out

His cover is he’s a human from Ireland ((which is true, he was born in Ireland who knows how long ago)) but he’s pretending to be a stereotypical vampire from Romania ((half true due to him first being stationed in Romania due to his eldest adopted brother)).

So, technically he’s a supernatural government worker. But, again, he’s a fucking mess. There’s shit he’s repressed, or has been helped in repressing. There’s a lot of advantages to being adopted into a magic family. But there’s also a lot of disadvantages to being adopted into a magic family that descends from a hell realm.

So’s, he wasn’t raised with the best morals, and with some abstract-ish laws from a realm that birthed The Boogeyman and The Big Bad Wolf and Death’s Daughter and the Mother of Shadows. But he was also able to complete all requirements from two foreign governments and their realms to be able to have the job he does. So even if he doesn’t have the best morals—depending on your own standards, honestly—Tristan does adhere to local laws. Mostly.

Which brings us to Cupboard Skeleton aka F??? aka Frederick aka Tristan-doesn’t-remember-the-guys-name-other-than-it-starts-with-F-and-he-was-an-ass-in-life-so-Frederick-it-is

Frederick McCupboardSkeleton is the skeleton that someone—Tristan doesn’t remember if it was him or not—shoved into his cupboard in between all the cereal boxes and liquor bottles. He has slowly become a cursed skeleton since his death. Tristan’s a vampire, he doesn’t have the power or magic to banish an angry spirit or seal non-human bones to trap him. But he can contain him and keep an eye on him until he figures out who this guy was and why he (Tristan) was involved with his death (Tristan assumes). Thus he’s cursed and Tristan doesn’t keep him all in one piece.

So if ya spot Tristan anywhere outside his apartment or his eldest brother’s house, you can assume that there’s a skull in his bag and that it’s Frederick and you’d be goddamn right. They’re a pair until Tristan figures shit out OR Frederick enacts whatever revenge plot(s) he’s got stewing in his skull.

Tristan’s the one that’s usually shit on publicly and openly out of his brothers.

Ji’s the eldest and raised them all. He the one you truly have to look out for but no one’s gonna say shit to his face or even in his general direction. He’s That Guy. He’s old magic and hellfire. He’s got a reputation older than human civilization.

Isidore is biologically Ji’s little brother. Just basically runs Ji’s Estate, acts like an assistant, keeps tabs on Tristan whenever he’s home and will watch Frederick’s skull. Because he’s actually a witch that can deal with restless spirits. Not as intense as any of his brothers or his mother. The Calm One.

And the youngest is Luca. He’s a werewolf. No one truly knows if he was born that way or infected or born from infected parents. His origins are as unknown as Tristan’s. Luca was practically a baby when their mother brought him home. Just as traumatized and repressing just as much as his vamp brother. But Luca is Dealing with it, because he’s the Most Responsible of the four. Some-fuckin-how. (Izzy’s The Calm One, but don’t think he won’t go off the rails. You just won’t know until it’s too late.)

Luca works as head of personal security for the Song Siblings—who go between all the realms really. But they’re usually on Earth working with humans so he’s the closest to Tristan—also closest in age. Luca sees most of the shit Tristan ends up doing. He’s the first to point out Frederick’s bones to Tristan, actually.

But as much as he shit-talks Tristan’s bad habits—mainly mixing up the milk bottles and blood bottles and liquor bottles in his fridge when the vamp is having cereal in his presence because Luca can smell all the things—he does it out of concern. Tristan isn’t indestructible, and even as a vampire, the amount of alcohol and cigarettes he goes through a day has to be doing something to his body. Also the sugar in his favorite cereals can’t be mixing well with the blood Tristan actually has to consume to sustain himself. If sugar affects the being that blood came from, it’s probably doing even more shitty things to his brother. He’s the one that will fight you then and there if he catches you. (Ji causes paranoia because what the fuck is he up to and wHEN, and no one ever suspects Izzy until After the Fact.) ((You just can’t shit on Tristan just to shit on him.))

Tristan got fucked up by his birth family, and then by being raised in an environment where he only had one source of sustenance and it was heavily laced with things that are addictive to vampires. Addictive in ways it fucked him up even more. Namely magic, but There’s More. It’s a Big Concern for everyone who knows, because ya can’t exactly synthesize that shit. There’s More changes anyone who’s exposed to it long enough, and Tristan’s been eating it since he was a babby vamp. He doesn’t have much choice but to live off it and he absolutely hates it.

Tristan has that habit of trying to kill something inside him he can’t see or remember. He’s picked up the habit of eating junk food that’s almost pure sugar, smoking, drinking anything. He’s a fucking neon sign of reasons why preternatural mental health is A Thing they should be researching more. But also the poster boy of: We should be taking a vampire’s physical health more seriously than Just-Feed-Them-Blood.

But catch Tristan passing on some profound wisdom to school kids and anyone that reminds him of Luca. Partly because he feels like a shitty brother so here kid have some advice. Also because Ji won’t let Tristan suspend too much time with either of his kids, even with Ji’s son being 20-something now. Like, he gets it, and he’s not proud of it being that, but he’s not really changing because he has Luca and the Song Siblings. He has his friends in Louisiana. He’s buddies with Willy Shakes--

Now I’m spewing all this bullshit because a lot of it comes from a story I scrapped where Luca’s a teenager and Ji has the one kid and you meet the Song Siblings before they’re ever—Celebrities, I guess??

Because Tristan was worse. He was the brother you absolutely hated. There, you had the rest of the brothers who followed the law and then Tristan who was headed towards a Dead End. But when it came down to it, he was there for Luca. Because he was the only one there. Tristan risked himself for this baby werewolf and his friends.

And that’s where my tag in that one post comes in. Where it ties in with my dialogue posts.

It has to do with Tristan watching sad scared little witch Celia Song growing up confident-in-herself Song Seonmi.

Tristan has a habit of flirting with everything, mainly dating ghosts so far, so he has no fucking clue when she got under his skin. And as much as Luca tells him to back off his friend (and boss) he really can’t be mad that Tristan dropped The Worst of his habits to keep seeing her. Because the first time she walked out of his life completely was a disaster until Tristan figured out that she would keep disappearing before he ever reached her again so long as he was being a complete bastard. Because when she left she took her brother and his own with her. And he really didn’t want to go back to living on lockdown with Ji—or worse, with his mother in the hell-realm. Isolation does shit to you.

So the Tristan you see in the story is a better off vamp than the one from Alex and Celia’s story. That was. . . Bad. As in that story probably won’t ever see the light of day because I cried every time I sat down to write that Tristan. Like, maybe I’ll incorporate bits and pieces into other stories, and most of the TrisMi growth is written in their interactions. But I just can’t do it, yo. I love my trash vamp because there’s hope to him and just watching the change in him as he grows in the background of everyone else’s stories. I can’t write him being an Absolute Asshole.

What sealed the deal was when I wrote about Tristan losing control because of There’s More in his diet and Seonmi—still going by Celia at that point—does her damned best to try and snap him out of it. Like, my girl had hope in him and didn’t give up so I couldn’t either. Now here we are.

Tristan is as On Brand as I’ll ever be. Horrible Past, Trauma, Found Family, Walking Shitpost, Angst, and Hope. He don’t really know what he’s doing but he’s still going.

I mean yeah, I can get real deep about Tristan as a moment’s notice—i.e. this whole post because I’ve been in my feels tonight. Like, Tristan will do a bunch of shit to comfort himself. Dumpster fires. Speaking at preternatural schools (like cryptid academy I brainstormed with @ladymaliwan). Setting out food and drinks for Frederick’s skull because he feels awkward leaving none for the skull when he has his own.

Catch Tristan smokin cigs with the skull in a dumpster, both wearing sunglasses. Find trash vamp poppin out like Oscar the Grouch for advice. It’s not always good or profound, but he always got something. But also save him—because he’s sensitive to the sun as a ginger nocturnal vamp raised in a dark hell-realm, later an cold fog realm where a sun doesn’t really exist. Toss him in your trunk or a body bag to help him get home.

Dear lord, I can keep going and dump everything about him but this is long as it is. He’s one of my oldest characters. I created him before Isidore and Luca, but not too long after Ji and their mother—and Ji and their mom are fucking old. As in I’m finding scraps of paper where they’re mentioned. But it’s also telling that I’ve written Tristan on my blog more than any of my other OC’s for an original story.

#roxawrites #candy pop anon #tristan æfentid #song seonmi #luca æfentid #isidore æfentid #jianael æfentid #frederick mccupboardskeleton #listen I'll reblog this later at a more decent hour but currently the godless hours of 3am just feels right #also because i can't schedule an ask anymore??#but I can't write tags on asks on desktop anymore either???#i have such a large cast of characters that i gush about to friends #currently reworking some shit in worldbuilding but Tris won't change much I don't think #at least not as drastically that I'll scrap the story again and leave it at vague mentions #ladymaliwan #your tag since I mentioned cryptid pta story that I joked about tossing Tristan in once upon a time #also for adoring my trash vamp as much as i do #when the formatting gets fucked up after editing between devices because of the fuckin tags h el p

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tjkiahgb · 6 years

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Episode Recap: 2.19, “Andi’s Choice”

The episode begins with a cold open that’s a solid instructional video for good oral hygiene. Which is important. Take care of your teeth, folks. Always remember to floss.

It really has nothing to do with the plot of the episode, though, other than to inform us that Andi’s breath probably doesn’t stink in any of the scenes that follow.

Bowie and Jonah hang out at the music store talking about how Jonah didn’t go to the high pressure music audition. Jonah talks about how something came up and worries Andi doesn’t like him anymore. Bowie says last he heard, Andi thought he didn’t like her. But now Jonah really likes her. And Bowie wants to know if she knows that. And the answer to that, Bowie, is nobody knows. Maybe? Probably? Maybe.

Jonah says he bought her a gnome, and Bowie says “A gnome is nice...”

Counterpoint:

No.

Bowie knows something Andi would like, though: writing her a song. It’s also easy, he says. Just sing your feelings. Jonah says feelings? He says he doesn’t talk about his feelings, coming oh so close to really nailing the problem but still coming up empty.

If it makes Jonah feel better though, that doesn’t disqualify him from a successful career in music. There’s more than enough room on the market for another singer doing meaningless, catchy songs about nothing. Whoa. You didn’t come here for jokes about the state of the music industry, but you got ‘em anyway!

Bowie presses on. Talking about liking someone and them liking you back? That’s feelings! Bowie asks Jonah for a word that rhymes with back. Jonah says quack. Bowie asks for a non-duck word. Jonah says plaque. In fairness, Bowie didn’t stipulate that these words be any good.

Andi heads into The Spoon when Walker facetimes her. Andi explains how Buffy’s moving in a few days. Walker says if she can, get a bubble machine, it makes you happy.

But listen, I want to warn anyone considering this: rent, don’t buy a bubble machine. First, no one ever factors in the cost of maintenance for your bubble machine. But, second, the happiness bubbles give you reaches a level of diminishing returns very quickly. Sooner rather than later, you’re making excuses to use it just because you have it and you feel you need to. You take it out to the yard and turn it on, but the happiness is never the same. The bubbles float down to the earth and pop like so many unrealized dreams. Eventually you stop using it all together. It gathers dust in the closet. Things pile up on top of it. One day, you accidentally come across it and sigh. Where did the spark go? That old adage is an adage for a reason: the two best days of a bubble machine owner’s life are the day you buy it and the day you sell it.

Andi says she’s already got a bubble machine, and I think the fact we’ve seen how little use it gets throughout the course of this show proves my point.

Over at The Fringe, Bex is covering the store with sticky notes for free makeup appointments she’s got coming up.

Brittany tells her that they can’t do free makeup appointments anymore, things have been too slow around the store. Bex says she can’t just start charging for them, but, Bex, yes you can. Obviously you can. That was the point of getting your certificate of completion from the beauty school: to get paiiiiiiid. Frankly, it’s sort of nuts that you were going to do all of those for free. That’s so much makeup and time to just give away.

Hey, listen, I know I got in some trouble last week for talking about people’s choice of expression, but I have to say something again.

I hope those are earrings meant to look like screws and not real screws. The thought of Brittany jamming a real screw through her ear hole is making me wince. Do you twist it in? Could you use a screwdriver to do it? (Phillips head, clearly.) Also, she has to realize if she bumps the side of her head into something, she’s going to stab herself in the base of her skull. The risk of it all! I’m just going to assume they’re earrings. I need to to move on.

Brittany was close to laying Bex off, but she won’t now that Bex is the top rated cosmetologist on Whelp. Whelp: it’s the “Property” of internet review sites.

Property: Now With 40% Less Lead™

Brittany thinks Bex has left all those fake positive reviews for herself to increase her status among the local cosmetology ranks, but Bex hasn’t. Bex realizes Celia must’ve done it.

Buffy joins Andi and Cyrus at The Spoon with a box full of stuff they’ve left at her house.

She presents Andi with Noodle, which is clearly a stand-in for Tamagotchi, which made me wonder, do you kids still know what Tamagotchis are? I had one when I was a kid but only because we didn’t have smartphones back then that had whole worlds of much more interesting stuff than a stupid pixel-y digi-pet that would whine all the time and die constantly. I wouldn’t guess there’s any way a child of Andi’s age would’ve had one.

Andi realizes Noodle’s dead because she hasn’t fed him for seven years. A moment of silence for Noodle please.

♪ ♪ In the arms of the Angel ♪ ♪

Buffy then takes out a letter of recommendation Cyrus’s mom wrote on behalf of Cyrus when they were in the second grade, which is embarrassing, sure, but it’s also a strong letter. After reading that, I’d definitely consider adding him to my friend group. I’d need to see his résumé, first, of course, but a good letter of rec goes a long way.

Walker then shows up and for some reason Andi acts like a horse wearing a hat just walked into The Spoon: surprised and mildly upset?

It’s a weird reaction that gets carried over into the scene after the commercial.

Listen, Walker seems like a perfectly fine young man to me. Charming, if quirky, as artists can tend to be. But I feel like the show’s done him wrong by making some of his interactions play out stranger than they needed to be.

Like, I think the facetime convo from a few episodes ago was not meant to come off as stilted as it did. I think it’s the product of editing together two people who aren’t really having a conversation, especially because his interactions with her in real life were much more natural. (The facetime scene from earlier in this episode was better, but still not totally fluid. They probably should stop doing scenes like that as a general rule.)

And the reaction in this scene? I still have no idea what effect they were going for here.

Even after Walker has introduced himself to Cyrus and Buffy and they’re cool with him and happy to have him sketch them, Andi continues throughout this scene with this body language.

On Mack Chat, they suggested that while Walker is comfortable with Andi, she’s not as confident with him. Is she still trying to get a feel for his personality? I suppose it could be that. My best guess was it being guilt for going on a date with him while still being in limbo with Jonah? But again, I’m really not sure about the whole mood of the scene, at least from Andi’s perspective.

About the actual scene though, Walker introduces himself to Cyrus and Buffy as the caricature artist from the Bash Mitzvah, which, by the way, did we ever get an answer as to why the party planner or whoever hired a child to work a large Bar Mitzvah party? Then again, they also hired what, given what we know now, appears to be a fortune teller with legitimate psychic abilities.

She’s 3 for 3 on nailing Andi’s, Buffy’s, and TJ’s fortunes, and we won’t know about Cyrus’s fortune until he goes to college, so, her track record is perfect as far as I’m concerned.

All that considered, maybe hiring a child isn’t the weirdest thing.

Walker wanted to meet Buffy before she left and wanted to sketch the whole group as a going away present for her and so Cyrus leans in to what’s bound to be a long, uncomfortable pose for that.

At The Fringe, Zoe, a rival cosmetologist comes in looking for a fight. She thinks that Bex is using fake Whelp profiles to attack her business. She reads the fake name on the review and Brittany gasps and Zoe has determined that’s enough to take Bex to court and sue her. I disagree. Seems like flimsy evidence at best but what do I know, I’m only the assistant professor of law at Yale.

At the music store, Jonah rehearses his song for Andi. Jonah isn’t confident but Bowie tells him performing is all about confidence. He says the audience will know if you’re doubting yourself and then they’ll rip you to shreds like a pack of hyenas. Oh, by the way, you’re performing in front of an audience tomorrow.

Again, I’m but a humble professor of law at Yale, not a trained psychologist, but is treating panic attacks by trying to force the person experiencing them into constant high pressure situations a thing? I’m starting to feel like Bowie is not a trained psychologist, either.

Jonah reminds him he has panic attacks and Bowie says he won’t have them because he’ll be playing guitar. Jonah thinks maybe he should just go to Andi’s house late at night and throw a rock at her window and perform it for her like that. Bowie thinks that’s too cliché. I mean, in movies maybe. In real life, it wouldn’t be. It’s actually pretty rare in real life because it more often than not leads to too much broken glass and the police being called.

Plus, Bowie suggests, everything is so much cooler on a stage.

This somehow assuages Jonah of his fears.

The GHC gather to discuss Andi’s two-guy dilemma. Cyrus says Andi’s been keeping stuff from them, but it’s probably more that they haven’t really hung out together since “Perfect Day 2.0″ which was like a week ago in show-time?

Andi says Walker was just one date, but Buffy and Cyrus still think it’s a big deal. Cyrus says Andi’s life is a romcom now and he’s her “sassy friend Cyrus.”

Really feels like there’s an adjective missing there. “Sassy __ friend Cyrus.” Sassy something friend Cyrus. I can’t put my finger on what that word would be.

Buffy argues she’s Andi’s sassy friend. It’s kind of equal parts funny and sad that they both realize they’re the supporting characters of the Andi show. Things are getting real meta up in here.

Andi’s having a tough time figuring out how she feels about both Jonah and Walker. Cyrus says it’s a real job being her sassy friend. Almost like it’s a thing he has to do. Almost like he’s paid every week to be around Andi and get involved with what’s going on in her life. Like it’s a role he has to play. Like everything’s scripted. We’re all just pawns, moving where others tell us, saying words others write for us. This isn’t a house! It’s a set! Are we even real?! I’m freaking out here, man!

Anyway, Bex goes to talk to Celia about her reviews. Celia doesn’t want to take them down even though Bex is worried about being sued. Celia says no one’s going to sue Bex because all they would get is a used motorcycle and a punch card for a free taco, which is just a devastating slam.

The best slams on this show always seem to come off-handed.

Bex wants to succeed on her own. Celia will take down the reviews if Bex lets her help in other ways. Bex doesn’t want it, but Celia tells her she won’t get anywhere if she doesn’t think big and take action. She wants to know what’s next for Bex but Bex leaves.

Hey, I have a question. Why is The Spoon populated almost entirely by loose children?

Do none of these kids have parents who eat? Is The Spoon a daycare center?

Cyrus and Buffy continue to razz Andi about picking between Walker and Jonah when Jonah shows up to invite people to the show that night.

He tells the GHC about the open mic and invites them. He says he’s performing a song and everyone seems surprised. Andi didn’t know he sang or played guitar, but Jonah says he didn’t know either. As of a week ago he hadn’t ever picked up a guitar and now he’s performing original music on stage. Oh what a week it’s been!

At The Fringe, Bex has run out of sticky notes to make appointments on when Celia shows up in time with a day planner. Bex thanks her for the gift, but Celia says she has another gift: The Fringe. Bex is rightfully confused, but Celia says the business wasn’t doing well and it wasn’t even that much. This store is mostly full of the cheap stuff you win at a carnival and the walls are made of papier-mâché! I bought it with the loose cash I had rolling around in my purse!

Hey, where is Ham? Is he ok? I wonder how Ham feels about this. Buying a small, failing business. In this economy. Looks like they’re delaying traveling the world for another year.

Also, Bex couldn’t figure out to buy a planner for herself. She kept filling up the store with sticky notes until she ran out of them. That was her long term plan for that system. Anyway, here’s a small business to run.

Celia wants Bex to take action and this is action. Bex asks if Celia remembers promising to let Bex succeed on her own, and the way Celia says “No.” is perfect.

Also, she didn’t.

At the music store (Red Rooster Records, I’m going to try to commit this to memory eventually), there’s an accordion girl on stage and she is, no lie, killing it.

They say accordions are only for old mustached men to play at romantic Italian restaurants and Weird Al Yankovics, but don’t listen to them. I love what you’re doing. You go, Accordion Girl.

Jonah, intimidated by the other acts, heads backstage to talk to Bowie. He’s nervous, but Bowie says he was nervous before performing, too. He got over it by finding Bex in the audience and singing to her.

Jonah asks if he should look at Bex while he sings.

“Explain this to me as if I was a Golden Retriever in a boy suit.”

“What?”

“Nothing. No reason.”

Bowie tells him to look at Andi and that he’s got this.

Meanwhile, on stage, Accordion Girl finishes with a heck of a flourish and not a single philistine in the audience throws her a damn rose. Shame on them all.

Bowie comes out and introduces Jonah. Jonah gets out there with his guitar and sort of sits around awkwardly. Things are looking bad.

Then he starts playing. It’s going alright, but then he looks at Andi and does start getting into it.

The GHC start realizing this might be about Andi.

(The song is actually pretty sweet. And Asher performs it well.)

The performance goes well and Jonah gets applause as the open mic ends. People start filing out. Buffy touches Andi’s shoulder and I’m thinking DON’T DO THAT!

You’re going to rip the pearls off!

Jonah asks Bowie how it went, but Bowie directs him towards Andi for his answer.

Andi walks up to Jonah, grabs his hand, and gives him a kiss and the episode ends with them smiling at one another.

So... I guess this is going to be the worst thing I ever say on this blog, but... I didn’t hate that.

If you aren’t a Jandi fan, I wouldn’t panic too much. I very much doubt this is the final iteration of that relationship.

The show is about change and growth. First season Jandi obviously wasn’t going to work because both Andi and Jonah weren’t in an honest place. Andi was trying to change herself too much to make Jonah happy. Jonah was everybody’s friend, carefree Jonah Beck who doesn’t have labels.

This version is better, but still not quite there. Jonah still has trouble confronting his feelings and is definitely leaning too hard on a relationship to fix things. Andi, at least, is more comfortable being herself with him.

But for things to advance anywhere plot-wise, this needs to happen. They have to figure out what works and doesn’t work: with relationships, with themselves. Maybe this will be the beginning of the last version of Jandi, or maybe it’ll eventually return and be endgame. Who can say? But the only way to know is to try.

As much as I joked about Bowie pushing Jonah too much, too fast with the music, there’s a certain wisdom to the idea of just getting on stage and going for it. There are certain things you don’t learn until you test the idea yourself.

#Andi Mack #Jonah Beck #Cyrus Goodman #Buffy Driscoll #Bex Mack #Bowie Quinn #Celia Mack #Walker Brodsky #Brittany #Accordion Girl #Andi #episode recaps

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ladyherenya · 6 years

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Books read in July

Four audiobooks (two fantasy, two historical). Two graphic novels and a Webtoon (fantasy). Five fantasy novels, including an illustrated children’s novel. A short story collection (also fantasy). One YA book from my shelves (mostly historical). All library books were borrowed through Overdrive.

(Longer reviews and ratings are on LibraryThing. And also my Dreamwidth blog.)

Lore Olympus by Rachel Symthe: Not a book but a Webtoon released in weekly episodes. I binged 23 episodes of this in July (and have read another 5 since). A modern retelling of Hades and Persephone. Parts of it are super cute! The artwork is gorgeous, bold and vibrant; I particularly like the night-time scenes. Persephone is a utter delight; Hades owns a lot of dogs and his initial kidnapping of Persephone is accidental and short-lived, effectively sidestepping the hugely problematic basis for their relationship in the original myth. This is a story interested in respecting characters’ agency. So far, the darker episodes have been handled sensitively. I want more RIGHT NOW.

Letters from the Lighthouse by Emma Carroll (narrated by Victoria Fox): After 13 year old Olive is injured during an air raid and her older sister goes missing, Olive and her younger brother are evacuated to the Devon coast. This is poignant and eventful, about life during WWII and attempts to help refugees. It twists and ties everything together very neatly -- more than I was expecting, but this is a children’s novel. I’d have thought it perfect when I was Olive’s age! Reading it now, I was struck by how relevant this sort of story is today. I also really liked Olive’s observations, and the vividness of the coastal community.

Clocktaur War by T. Kingfisher (aka Urusla Vernon):

Clockwork Boys: I wasn’t sure if I’d like this -- criminals on a suicidal mission isn’t my thing -- but I finished it and the sequel within 24 hours. A convicted forger with allergies, an assassin, a disgraced paladin and a young scholar are sent to stop an army of clockwork boys. I loved this! It isn’t as grim and cynical as it sounds. There’s banter and teamwork -- and amusing commentary on the physical discomforts of travelling on a quest. (One of Kingfisher’s strengths is taking something typically fantasy and blending it with something prosaic.) And I cared more about the characters than I expected to.

The Wonder Engine: Slate and her companions have reached Anuket City but are still in danger. I really like this. Again, it involves humour and the teamwork and characters I cared about. I appreciate that these are characters who have made mistakes and have have work out how to move on from their failures. I like the way the romance develops. The beginning of the book meanders a bit but then things become tense and fraught, drawing together various aspects of the story in a way which is unexpectedly clever and unexpectedly heartbreaking.

Faro’s Daughter by Georgette Heyer (narrated by Laura Paton): Oh, this was so much fun! It brims with Pride and Prejudice parallels, but that doesn’t bother me because the characters’ personalities, circumstances and motives are different. When Max Ravenscar hears that his young cousin plans to marry “a wench from a gaming-house”, he sets out to intervene. Deborah doesn’t want to marry Mablethorpe, but, insulted by Ravenscar’s attempts to bribe her, she pretends otherwise to annoy him. I was delighted by their interactions. Deborah’s passionate, with a fierce sense of honour, but also sensible and kind. Ravenscar’s level-headed, has a sense of humour and knows when to apologise.

Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples:

Volume Five: This deals with the aftermath of Volume Four. It is full of missions which succeed in some way... only to then fail in another way. I was relieved that nothing worse happened, but I didn’t enjoy it much. There were a couple of deaths which disappointed me -- not because I was sad but because their deaths didn’t feel necessary and they made the story less interesting and less complex. I like seeing characters grow and change, and there’s just less potential for a character to build new relationships or challenge other characters when they are dead...

Volume Six: Hazel starts attending kindergarten in a detention centre, her parents search for a way to reunite their family and their enemies continue to pursue them. I enjoyed this volume a lot more than the previous two, because it has what they lacked: Alana and Marko working together! Their relationship is one of my favourite things about this series. They are delightful -- sometimes impulsive and reckless, but also optimistic and loving. They’re the reason I’m prepared to read a story which is frequently darker than I’d prefer. I also appreciated that there was positive resolution to the Hazel-is-abducted plotline.

Granny was a Buffer Girl by Berlie Doherty: A short coming-of-age story about love and leaving home as experienced by several generations of a working class family. On Jess’s last evening at home, her grandparents and parents tells stories about growing up in the 30s and 50s, and Jess reflects on her own experiences. There are all sorts of interesting details in these stories. Telling them side-by-side shows how times changes and how people take different paths to adulthood, but I wished it had focused more on some stories than others. Some of the prose is lovely, and as a whole this book is… oddly melancholy and memorable.

Discworld books by Terry Pratchett:

Wyrd Sisters (narrated by Celia Imrie): A king is murdered by his cousin, his young son is hidden with a group of travelling thespians and three witches break with custom by meddling in politics. This has some fabulously funny Macbeth references and lots of clever descriptions. I liked the witches, especially Granny Weatherwax and Magrat. However, I found some of the witches’ cattiness and pettiness frustrating. The plot is also more predictable than some of Pratchett’s. I wonder if I’d have been more invested in the story had there been more character growth (or more personal stakes) and less parody… Anyway, I liked this enough.

Making Money (narrated by Stephen Briggs): Reread, originally read 2012. I didn’t have much to say about it at the time: “Clever, witty and satirical, like Going Postal. I enjoyed it, but it failed to impress me (or make me laugh) quite as much. Perhaps it was a bit too much more-of-the-same?” No, the problem was that I didn’t listen to the audiobook! Pratchett is more engaging and much funnier when read aloud. Moist von Lipwig is the sort to get into trouble due to boredom; he’s at his most inspired when he’s flying by the seat of his pants. This is fun to watch. I couldn’t remember much about his adventures in banking, which made this reread even more entertaining. And appearances are made by the Watch… I would very happily gobble up more.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik: Compelling and beautifully written, a story about winter, silver and girls who make themselves cold to protect those they love. It most obviously draws upon “Rumpelstiltskin”, but I recognised elements from other fairytales. I liked how the girls’ stories fit together and how they have to work together (and would have liked it even had there been more of that!) They come from different classes and family situations, but they each have to navigate limited choices, unwelcome offers of marriage and unexpected responsibilities. Their most important, most positive relationships, are familial ones -- a source of warmth in this wintry story.

The Halcyon Fairy Book by T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon): This has two parts. The Annotated Fairy Tales is a collection of strange fairytales interrupted with amusing commentary from Kingfisher, highlighting the weird bits and speculating about explanations for the characters’ behaviour. Some fairytales are even weirder than I realised. My favourite for its wackiness was “The Golden Apple Tree and the Nine Peahens”. My favourite as a story was “The Deer Prince”. Toad Words and Other Stories is a collection of Kingfisher’s short stories and poems. I love how she blends fairytales with reality, and does so with honesty, hope and humour. I should read everything else she’s written.

Nurk: The Strange, Surprising Adventures of a (Somewhat) Brave Shrew by Ursula Vernon: Nurk the shrew receives a letter intended for his grandmother, whose whereabouts are unknown. Nurk has never left home before but, packing clean socks and his grandmother’s diary (for advice), he sets out to return the letter to sender. Short and illustrated. Cute without being twee.

#Herenya reviews books #T. Kingfisher #Ursula Vernon #Clocktaur War #Georgette Heyer #Discworld #Naomi Novik #Lore Olympus #Berlie Doherty #Saga comic #Emma Carroll

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thebadhorse-blog1 · 6 years

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RPER Resolutions

Write your RPer Resolutions for 2018! (What are some goals for yourself as a writer? Improve descriptions? Plot with more members? Etc.

I want to do better at describing things and doing more action-based things. I feel like I’ve gotten really bad at that so I want to majorly improve that for sure. Add more detail and that kind of thing. I really really admire people who can do good action based plots or fighting or something like that. I want to be able to do those. I really do. So those are things that I definitely want to improve on. And of course I would love to plot with more people. I’m a tad awkward so it takes me some time to throw myself at people but I really would love that too.

Write at least one resolution, or “goal,” that you have as an RPer for your character(s)

I want to actually have Shego do her job. As a “henchwoman” or as a “thief” let Shego take from your character and get away with it. Let your character be frustrated with whatever was taken. Is it valuable? Sentimental? Even better. I also want to focus a bit more on the financial circumstances of my characters. Maximus and Shego both don’t have a lot of money, and neither of them have stable work right now, so my goal is to explore just what they do when the money gets really tight and stuff. Shit what else? I think I talked about my many goals for Maximus in an ask, but to summarize I want him to be more comfortable with his magic, and to actually be able to joke about it and see where he goes from there. Shego I want to actually do shady shit, and make really cool connections, and I want to honestly explore her backstory a bit and how it’s made her who she is. I want to do more one shots with that because there are still so many things about her, and it’s close to the chest cause she doesn’t share with anyone. She doesn’t trust people. So giving her a person to trust would be cool. As for Wilbur? He’s got his major quest to hunt down the stolen item, but I want him to get into other trouble. I want him to be manipulated by someone shady, or maybe have him jump into a situation he’s not well informed on and majorly fuck up.

Write at least one resolution IN CHARACTER for your characters. What do THEY want to accomplish or change in the New Year?

Shego: “Okay, so I really don’t buy the new year’s resolution thing. I think you should make up your mind to change whenever the fuck you want. But, I suppose my new year’s resolution is to at least not be in an empty bed on next new year’s. I plan on having a good lay for the next one. Oh is that a bad one? Fine, my new year’s resolution is to have a stable job with a sensible boss, so that I can do my job and not have to worry about him fucking up his or her side of things. I deserve a good boss fucking hell.”

Maximus: “I...well I’d like to make up for being gone. I want to show Gabe every day how much I missed him, how much I love him, and how much I want to spend every day with him if I can. Really all I can think about is making right for my past mistakes. I want to do better, and be the person that Gabe seems to think that I am.”

Wilbur: “I feel like I’m doing pretty good with this stuff. Last year I wanted to jump into the lake when it was winter and I did that so go me. This year...uh..let’s see. I want to start a food fight at school, learn a little more about kissing, FIND MY DAD’S INVENTION, learn how to drive, find a way to fly just once that’d be really fucking cool, pass my classes, do something wild in the nude, ride a horse in tandem (so like where me and a friend ride the same horse) because why not? also bareback would be rad, go cliff diving (i heard it’s awesome). meet a shapeshifter and ask them to do something cool, have a sorcerer cast a spell on me (yolo), fight a magical creature and not die (but you know just a friendly duel nothing serious) and uhhh....not tell my parents about any of this.”

List one or more characters you have never interacted with that you would like to do so:

Oh I have so many characters that I’d love to interact with. I’m going to go ahead and list at least one per mun cause I want a lot of things. Yep okay:

MK- Hercules largely

Lauryl - I want to meet Charlie, but also Merida I think would be interesting

Avarick - okay but imagine putting Shego and Jessica in a room together. Right? I’d love to write with Jessica, but also Alasdair and Terence.

Alex - Kim. Possible. Yes. Let me actually write with her properly this time that’d be great. I would love to write with Kim. Also really wanna meet Tito tbh. Tito seems great.

Andy - Jiminy and Mateo. Honestly all of my kids could use some therapy tbh. And Mateo...well he’s part of the Avalor squad and I want to meet them alllll. Let me at him.

Ashley - it’s in the works interacting and all, but I would love to meet Panic too, and Moana.

Bee - god damn let me interact with Sgt. Tibbs!!! I want to so badly! He seems so great! Also Judy or Marie would be rad for different reasons. Honestly just all of these. All.

Carter - I would happily interact more with Orville. He’s great. I really like him.

Chloe - okay so I’d love to put Mitte and Shego in a room together lol. But also I really really want to write with Perry. Come back soon so I can love them okay?

Dee - Miss Spider would be absolutely fascinating. Give me a chance to get to know her.

Emily - dude I want to meet the Huntsman. I think ooo him and Maximus could be a rad combination, but him and Shego could be great too.

Faith - um both of your characters. but damn WOODY! I wanna meet him. With my former cop, my criminal, or my troublemaker, any will do. Any.

Ginny - I mean I’ve got my hook into you already with Namine and Hook who I love. But I’d also enjoy meeting Thomas O’Malley, or perhaps Cornelia. She seems like she’d be a good time. I think she and Shego could theoretically see eye to eye.

Jaby - lol listen I always want to write with you and your characters. Particularly Tink, Soleil, -whispers Adam-. Honestly. I love all your babes. I will write with all your babes. Haven’t met Rita yet though so I’d love to interact with her for sure.

Kate - I am here for interacting with Tombo! Granted I know very little about his story, but I’d love to find out about it.

Katie - ugh omg I want to interact with so many of your babes. Why have I never had the honor? I’d love to be able to write with Celia or Dodger. They look like they’d be so fun to interact with.

Kiara - my god you have the incredibles babes, and I love them. I’d love to write with Dash. Dash and Wilbur maybe causing trouble. or who knows really. Yeah I’d love to be able to meet Dash.

Lauren - EEYORE pretty please!! He’s so precious! i have in fact gotten to interact with Roscoe a little teeny tiny bit i think. And I love him and want more chances. But my god Eeyore is a cutie patootie.

Lichi - Wendy is awesome, I love Peter Pan characters, and I’d love to throw my children at her. Possibly Maximus? I’m debating on what would work best.

Lily - Beau Dunn looks absolutely adorable and I’d love to meet your other babes Lily.

Macy - damn I want to interact with all the Adamsons tbh. But yeah Barrell. He could influence my youth Wilbur, or Shego could mess with him or idk. Either would be cool.

Mathew - it’s Nick Wilde! Yesss. Idk maybe throw Nick and Maximus together? lol they’d probably hate each other. But that’s always fun.

Mckala - well I’ve gotten lucky and been able to interact with two out of three of your children. So last left? I must interact with Will obviously. Not sure yet who would work best with them though.

Pet - all your babes. lol but real talk I’ve never met Lymantria or Dipper or Alana...or Callie even honestly. Any of those I’d love to write with. Dipper I think would be fun to put with Wilbur. Wilbur is just the kind of guy who would go along on an adventure with Dipper. Whatever that might entail.

Reanna - SHOCK! And Kovu!!! Pretty pretty please? Shock and Shego perhaps? Shogo? Shock and Go? Go Shock? lol idk but I think they’d be fun.

Sam - Jenny and Theo omg goals. Theo and Wilbur really should meet. They could both make terrible life decisions. Also they both have big families right? They can relate to each other sort of?

Sarah - I think I’m getting both of yours, so for now I shall say I look forward to getting to know both Cass and Penny <3 and to plotting more with them.

Sav - uh I want to write with both Shere and Frollo like wtf. VILLAINS. Everyone knows I love villains. Let Shego get close to both of them. My dream.

Sierra - Rapunzel! And Lock! I would love to have Rapunzel and Maximus meet or to discuss their stories some more. And my goal to interact with the Adamsons is real. Shego or Wilbur to get into trouble with there.

Silv - okay I really want to meet Goliath for very obvious reasons, and Jim cause he seems great. lol. Jim and Wilbur possibly, Goliath and Maximus or Goliath and Shego lmao. That would be incredible.

Plotting Exercise! Pick one of the resolutions/goals in #2 and plan a rough guideline to how you could accomplish it.

Shit okay...so for the one goal with Shego to steal stuff it’d be like

Part 1: Shego seeks out target

Part 2: With mun’s permission, Shego sneaks into place and takes item she wants (in a one shot or if you want your character can get a glimpse of a figure or a green glow idk)

Part 3: item is stolen and your character gets to go to the police or worry over the item and Shego gets to go try to pawn it off somewhere out of town for money.

For Maximus:

Part 1: Maximus connects with another person and gets comfortable being around them/friendship

Part 2: He shifts around said friend and the reaction to that etc.

Part 3: Maximus starts shifting more if said friend reacted well to part 2.

For Wilbur:

Part 1: Wilbur meets shady af character

Part 2: Shady af character convinces Wilbur to do something

Part 3: Wilbur does something hella sketch and gets busted

#bdrptask #holy shit this is so long #i'm sorry #but i really do want to interact with everyone okay?

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team-andi-blog · 7 years

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can you give me your opinion on these cannon, potentially canon, or new possible ships that could happen? thanks! andi and jonah cyrus and jonah buffy and marty jonah and amber buffy and cyrus andi and cyrus cyrus and iris buffy and jonah bex and bowie amber and iris marty and amber and celia and ham 😂

oh dear, okay, this might be a little long so bear with me here xDJANDI (andi x jonah): this is by far the most expected ship of the entire show but despite it being predictable it’s not even a bad ship?? Like Jonah and Andi are pretty cute together and have an intriguing plot going on with the bracelet and whatnot and I’d at least love to see them establish a really good and close friendship with each other (especially since I really think Jonah needs good friends) and I honestly wouldn’t mind it becoming canon either, and my guess is that it probably will be. The most predictable thing of the show, but not bad either.JYRUS (jonah x cyrus): I do ship jyrus, yes, but not as much as everyone around me seems to. I ship it just as much as I ship jandi tbh. I don’t know if jyrus will happen though, and I don’t wanna get my hopes up or anything. Even though Jonah hasn’t exactly stated his sexuality on the show, I just feel like he is straight and the more that I think about it the more my heart breaks for Cyrus because of it. That’s why I’m leaning more towards wanting Cyrus to get a boyfriend who is going through the same realizations as he is, because Cyrus really deserves to be with someone who he can connect deeply with. I still ship jyrus though, but I’m not gonna get my hopes up for them to only end up being crushed.MUFFY (marty x buffy): Muffy is the best ship out of all the kids ships on this show I s2g. They have so much chemistry and a great plot going and are super flirty… I just love them! They really seem to have a special relationship, and even though it’s just a friendship for now, they are fire. I need to see their relationship develop even more in season 2!JAMBER (jonah x amber): A complete abomination to society, literally the worst thing ever, and I’m glad that this toxic relationship is dead now. Thank the heavens! Nothing was worst than tuning in to each new episode every week to see Amber treat Jonah so badly. I was literally panicking over my poor son. I’m so happy that he finally realized what was happening though, and dumped her. Good for Jonah!CUFFY?? (buffy x cyrus): I know that I say that I appreciate and respect all the ships of Andi Mack, but there are a few that are just too unimaginable to me, and buffy x cyrus is one of those. They have too much of a sibling-like relationship… literally all the good hair crew are like siblings.CANDI (andi x cyrus): even though the ship name for this is a freaking blessing I do not ship it lol. I have the same exact feelings as stated above about how they’re like siblings, so, yeah…CIRIS (cyrus x iris): I didn’t even ship it from the start tbh. Iris I have mixed feelings about because we haven’t even seen enough of her, but if it means anything, I feel like Iris is somewhat helping Cyrus figure out his sexuality by helping him to realize that he does not like girls in a romantic way. Of course this is all based on the season 2 promo that we have… that part where Cyrus seems confused when Iris tries to kiss him is all too obvious.JUFFY?? (jonah x buffy): I literally laughed when I saw you listed this omg. The first thing that popped into my head was Buffy doing impressions of Jonah and then I realized that this ship would be weird af because it would be the most unpredictable thing ever. Buffy liking Jonah could never happen…. she seems to be the one who likes him the least on the entire show lmao.BOWEX (bowie x bex): Due to the fact that shipping kids can sometimes be a bit odd I think that this makes Bowex my OTP. I’m a little more comfortable shipping it than anything else, yes, and I do want it to happen. I just hope it doesn’t go too fast, I would really like to see Bex and Bowie reconnect, so hopefully Bowie backs out of asking Bex to marry him this soon. I really love this ship so much though.ARIS (amber x iris): If I ship these two with anyone tbh it would be with each other haha. I like the thought of this ship, but I feel like it probably wouldn’t actually happen on the show. It’s still really cool to think about though, ngl.(amber x marty): I couldn’t even come up with a name for this one lol. I definitely don’t ship it, mostly because they’ve never interacted, and also because I’d fear that this would just end up being another jonah x amber situation.HAMELIA (celia x ham): well um, first of all they’re married, and so what’s not to like about this ship? I would love to see more of Celia and Ham as characters, so hopefully more insight on them is to come during season 2! I don’t really have much to say about the ship in general, other than I like the way that their personalities seem to help balance each other out. They make a good team.Now that’s pretty much all I have to say about my honest opinion on these ships. It’s really easy to get me to ship anything that’s obvious, so that’s probably why I’m pretty much okay with the majority of these ships happening.

#sorry that was so long #but I had so much to say #and I still feel like I could've said more #but my opinions are never final #I'm always changing my mind #especially about ships #andi mack

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