aristaspark

[aristaspark]

You're the only kenlynn fan I know in the JWCT fandom and one of the people who understood Brooklynn's character the best. Please write a fic about them.😭😭😭

The only ones on Ao3 that involve them are just Benji-disguised stories.😤😭😭

Hey, we're not that rare anymore 🤣 There are a few of us on instagram, tiktok and youtube 🫡 (no, I'm not coping).

Thank you for the compliment 😭💖

And about the fanfic... I actually started writing a little something 👀, but it will take some time for me to post it because I'm super busy.

[aristaspark]

Although I have an idea, what is the order of your favorite characters between JWCC and JWCT??

Good question !

Jwcc:

1- Brooklynn. I don't know, I just love how savage she is. I love that she knows what she wants and that she always stands her ground (I was sooo team Brooklynn during the phone gate). And I relate so much to her struggles when it comes to her feeling like an outsider in social settings. I like the fact that she's kind of the "popular girl" archetype but introverted and genuinely socially akward at the same time, and not in a quirky way. I feel like a character like Brooklynn has rarely been done, if ever.

2- Kenji. I've always had a soft spot for the annoying boy no one can stand and Kenji fits the description to a t. I love him even more because they actually explained what had led him to be that way (he's not just annoying for the sake of it, it's merely the result of his father abandonment) and it just makes sense.

3- Yasmina: I really like her, and as much as I like Brooklynn, I think Yaz is the one who resembles me the most 😂 I found myself relating to her so many times. She's the least annoying and the most mature tbh.

4 - Darius: I really like him, and I like the storyline with his dad, it explains his fascination for everything jurassic well but he's at that place because he's often too one note for my liking. Like, he does struggle to put himself in other people shoes to understand them even when he's the one in the wrong and he is REALLY idealistic, sometimes to the detriment of actual people. But I like him 😂.

5 - Ben: Ok, don't kill me. Ben is really hard for me to place because I kinda not like him in some seasons but like him in others lol. If we're talking season 1 to 3 Ben, I find him annoying and too immature, it puts me off. The season I dislike him the most in is season 3 where he's really selfish and makes some really questionnable decisions, but I do like the storyline. Now, season 4-5 Ben? Love him, I'd place him above Darius and maybe even above Yaz.

6- Sammy: Sorry, but as an introvert Sammy is really too much for me even from behind my screen 😭 She struggles with respecting people's bondaries or straight up respecting people who don't share her worldview. And idk, she's too optimistic it puts me off sometimes 😭 I like her, I simply like her the least overall.

Now, Jwct

1 - Brooklynn : What can I say, I'm loyal 😂 No but I really love where they took her character because it doesn't come out of nowhere, the seeds of her "downfall" had already been planted in jwcc and I live for it. People who say she's not the same watched jwcc with their eyes closed I don't care 😭 And with all the trauma she's been through I feel even more for her, and I can't wait to see what the end of her story will be.

2 - Kenji: I absolutely love him in jwct, but for different reasons I guess. They turned the stereotypical narcissistic boy into a man who's desesperately trying to find light in the pit of darkness that his life has become and I feel so much for him. Idk, I relate to him so much and I just want him to get the good things he deserves.

3 - Ben: I love him so much in jwct. I find him funny but touching at the same time. What I will say might sound controversial but I think one of the reasons I like him so much more here is because Bumpy is not there. In jwcc he always was kinda detached from the group because he was glued to Bumpy so much that she had become part of his character, but jwct, by removing Bumpy for most of the season, allowed him to really find his place in the group and to developp an identity outside of Bumpy.

4 - Sammy: LOVE HER TOO. She's so much more...idk...balanced? She still has that optimistic personnality but she's allowed to be more nuanced and I love that for her. She's able to listen to others and to learn from her mistakes which is a big evolution when we look at jwcc (we can see this especially in her scenes with Yaz). So yeah, stan jwct Sammy.

5 - Yaz: I still like her, but I feel like her personnality took too much of a drastic turn. She kinda feels like a different character in a way and it's kind of a bummer because I liked her "harder" side. In season 2, especially, I feel like her character can be summarized with a single word (therapist), and that's never a good thing. But I like her because, let's be honest, they wrote her to be likable, but she's missing something.

6 - Darius: Little disclaimer, me putting him last doesn't mean I don't like him, I love them all in jwct, but someone has to be last 😭 I like him in season 1 and his inner conflict regarding Brook's death/his involvement in her demise. But in season 2 I really feel like he's just kinda there. And the way he confessed really left a bad taste in my mouth which affected my view of his character. The fact that he had the nerve to throw Kenji under the bus is messed up on so many levels and he has yet to redeem himself in my book. So I'm waiting to see where they'll take his character because this could simply be the foundation for a very interesting arc, and I hope that's the case.

[aristaspark]

You can say what you want about a certain dinonerd feelings for Brooklynn, but the truth of the matter is that Kenji loved Brooklynn through that haircut and nothing will ever beat that.

[aristaspark]

Amazing how a few words can tell you so much about someone.

This letter alone says so much about Brooklynn, and how her break up with Kenji affects her.

It's the fact that she first tried adressing Kenji using the "bro" talk. By doing this, she tried respecting his decision to break up with her. She's not his girlfriend anymore so she can't adress him like she normally would, and she does not want to make things unnecessarely unconfortable. "Heyy Kenji" doesn't seem too bad at first, it's impersonal and casual, something a friend would say. Kenji might want that from her since he broke up.

But it just feels so wrong to adress him like that. It's not sincere, it's not Brooklynn.

So she crosses it out immediately, before she's even done writing it.

In her second attempt, she's more honest, allowing herself to be vulnerable. She writes "Dear Kenji". It's still fairly neutral so it won't make her look like a delusional ex-girlfriend, but at least it conveys the tenderness and affection she has for him. Even if he doesn't feel the same way about her anymore, she still does, and she can't pretend otherwise, she won't. And she doesn't erase that.

[aristaspark]

That means a first teaser with a date soon 😆

BOOM SHAKALAKAAAAAAAAAAAAAA YESSSS GAWDDDDDD YESSSSSS GAWDDDDDDDDD YES GAWDDDDDDDDDD

[aristaspark]

Do you think season 3 will be the last season?

Honestly I have no idea, we'll see 🤷‍♀️ To me it's not really important in the sense that I think we don't have to worry about the show being rushed or dragged out because it was completed before season 1 even aired (the storyboarders were already working on other projects). So they made the number of seasons they saw fit from the get go, we'll just have to wait and see. But of course, I'd like it if we had a thousand seasons 😂

[aristaspark]

Idk if someone has asked you this yet but whatever. You’re probably the biggest Kenlynn shipper I’ve met, so I wanted to ask what your opinions on other ships are? Like Darilynn or Benji? What if one or both becomes canon in season 3?

Omg you've mentionned the two ships I can't stand 😂😂

I've kind of already explained my stance on Dinostar/Darilynn: I was open to the idea of them happening after season 1 aired, but season 2 made me really dislike them, but I think that was intentional on the writers' part. Darius confession was as horrifying to watch as a car crash for both Brooklynn and the audience, and to me it's obvious Brooklynn only ever loved Darius as a best friend. And I think even Darius at the end of the first season realized that his "feelings" for Brooklynn weren't what he thought they were. To me, he simply liked having someone with him so much that he confused that with love, but really he was simply lonely. Also think it would be fifty shades of messed up considering that he's Kenji's adopted brother and witnessed every step of their relationship unfold, like, to me they're brothers (even Kenji reaffirmed that fact) and it will never not be weird to date your brother's ex, especially when your relationship with her was as impactful and lasting as Kenji's relationship with Brooklynn. The only way I can be okay with them becoming canon is if the writers actually commit to it and don't get cold feet. Meaning Kenji better say f*ck you two, it was nice being friends while it lasted but don't ever speak to me again 🤷‍♀️, because there's no way either of their relationships would survive this, and how Kenji feels about Brooklynn doesn't change that. (Also worth mentionning that them managing to make a relationship work with all the guilt Darius carries and his link to Brooklynn's biggest trauma is extremely unrealistic on it's own).

Benji (I'm going to be brutally honest, sorry 😅): Oh boy, oh boy, don't get me started on what is, to me, the biggest mistery of shipping to have ever seen the light of day 😭. I truly don't get why so many people ship them and I never will. One of the storyboarders recently came out and more or less confirmed that the crew was as baffled as I was that the fandom shipped them and I felt so relieved because it was truly baffling to me to see so many people claim that they were set up. To me it was clear that the thought of Benji had never even crossed the writer's minds. I made a post a long time ago, it was at the time of season 4, or 5, on why I *hated* that ship and unfortunately still do, especially with how the fandom reacted to Kenlynn. But since it's been a long time, I can summarize it here, but I'll still post the link because it was much more detailed and my opinion hasn't changed. The fandom went as far as to harrass the creators of the show, invoking a moral issue with the age gap btw Kenji and Brooklynn while most of them shipped Kenji and Ben, which just proves to me that they literally didn't care and only looked for any reason to hate on a ship they disliked. Because while we were given the ages of the campers (not even their birthdays, meaning that we don't know the exact age gaps btw the characters, so for example Ben could be a month older than Brook for all we know), not knowing that info and looking at the first seasons of the show, everyone would guess that Ben is the youngest. He behaves like a kid, especially in the first season, and it's clear that that was what the writers had in mind when they wrote him. He had his mom give Dave and Roxy a list of things that made him unconfortable, he was scared of everything, he drew with colored crayons right as Kenji called it an activity made for children (the way he drew himself tells you everything you need to know about how he perceives himself, aka a little boy), he's the most emotionally immature, and I could go on. His entire story arc was about growing up. And the worst part is that, to me, his immaturity is the most apparent when he's with Kenji. The way he clings onto Kenji everytime he's scared like a kid would cling to one of his parents will never be romantic to me and I find it horrifying when people edit it in a romantic light. Even worse, Kenji is the ONLY camper to make fun of Ben for behaving like a kid, and he does it countless times, almost coming off as a bully at times. The fact is that Kenji viewed Ben as a kid, which made them (as a ship) truly disgusting to me, like, I could never get past it, even with the time jump, sorry if this is harsh 😭. Just imagining Kenji being attracted to Ben in season 1, which is the season where the fandom decided to make them a thing with the infamous gyrosphere pairs, will never not give me the creeps. About them being canon, there's no chance of that happening so I don't really have thoughts on that. There was nothing btw them back in jwcc (as the crew confirmed) and there's still nothing in jwct. They're friends, and I think that's a beautiful thing.

(the link of my initial post 😅)

I'm going to speak about the ships I do like because here I just sound like the biggest hater 😂

Yasammy: While I wasn't the biggest fan of how Sammy didn't respect Yasmina's bondaries, especially in season 1 (my personnality is very similar to Yasmina's and I know I would have despised Sammy for forcing me out of my comfort zone without trying to understand me 😭), their evolution was sweet and the way they care about each other is adorable so I ended up liking them and was happy when they became canon. I especially like them in jwct because I like how...real they are? If that makes sense?

Benrius: I'm not shipping them per say but I really like them, in both shows. I think their personnalities compliment each other and Darius always had that soft spot for Ben, which I think is adorable. Season 3 Benrius is really peak (Darius being the only one to sense that something is wrong with Ben, him going back to look for Ben when he left, their fight...). And of course, jwct season 1.

[aristaspark]

JWCT: My predictions for season 3 episode 1

(with a healthy dose of Kenlynn manifestation, as always)

- We're absolutely getting to see the moment that was missing in the last episode where Brooklynn gives them the egg. Possibility of a Kenlynn centric moment because of what we've seen in the last episode. Kenji was standing behind both Darius and Ben when the latter asked Brooklynn to give them the egg, and yet she still went through the struggle of giving it to Kenji, so I'm bracing myself for a good old tear-jerking moment btw them.

- Ben tries to explain to them what Brooklynn told him, that she wants to send Soyona to prison, but while Darius, Sammy and Yaz believe him, Kenji doesn't even want to hear what he has to say.

- The campers return to California and Ronnie, who's worried about Brooklynn since she hasn't heard from her since Dubaï, asks them to meet. She tells them everything about what happened, that Brooklynn didn't want to put them in danger and that someone needs to stop her before she puts herself into even more danger. Since it's not coming from Ben, Kenji believes her.

- Yk, that letter that Dreamworks showed? While Brooklynn would throw them in the trash as soon as she was finished writing them, Ronnie secretly collected them. She shows them to the camp fam, and Kenji realizes that during all this time Brooklynn wanted to tell him she was alive and that she regretted everything that happened which will help their eventual reunion.

- Since it was established that Ronnie knows what jet Soyona's using and can track it, she tells the camp fam where Brooklynn and Soyona are. They leave at the end of the episode for wherever Brooklynn and Soyona are.

[aristaspark]

Notice how Darius didn't look at Brooklynn's arm?

It's not me who's saying this. That's a conversation that's happening in the fandom that I wanted to talk about because I find it truly...idk, kind of icky, and of bad taste.

I decided to speak about it after having stumbled once again upon a post using Darius' lack of "notice" of Brooklynn's arm as an argument for the ship, but it's far from being the first time I've seen people bring it up.

Don't get me wrong, my problem isn't that they're supporting the ship, even though I believe Kenlynn to be endgame, I can admit that there are elements that could point towards dinostar possibly being endgame, my problem is with this argument specifically, because it looks like the ones using it are purposefully being obtuse, and are missing the point. To me it's a really disrespectful outlook on the work of the writers and their handling of Brooklynn's disability.

For context, Brooklynn explains to Soyona that she doesn't like the way people look at her ever since she has lost her arm. I love this scene. We get an insight into Brooklynn and her struggles, into how she is still adapting to the way people perceive her now that she's "different". The loss of her arm isn't brushed aside, it has lasting consequences that the writers don't shy away from. They consulted people with limb differences to make sure that they'd show an authentic representation of their expericences, and you can see the care that they put into telling that aspect of Brooklynn's story.

Now that we established that, yes, Brooklynn is struggling with the way she is perceived, let's talk about why I hate what the fandom makes of it.

There are two characters who react to Brooklynn's arm: Ben and Kenji. And from Brooklynn's reaction, we see that she feels some type of way about it, even though she has very different reactions to the two of them, because the two interactions are VERY different.

During the scene with Ben, we can see that Ben's gaze, despite himself, is drawn to her arm. That's mainly because he had no idea that she'd lost it, but since they were both very stressed and there were millions of other more "pressing" matters he should have focused on, it hurt Brooklynn that his eyes kept ogling at her arm. Neither of them were in the right mindset. He was slightly insensitive in the way he approached the subject, which caused Brooklynn to react negatively. But it's never shown as a black and white thing. Ben apologizes and afterwards, Brooklynn is able to focus on something else because she's an actual intelligent and social being who's aware that simply because Ben looked at her arm didn't mean that he thought of her as less than. It was a human interaction, realistic, and in no way was it implanted to say something about Ben and Brooklynn's relationship, to imply that Ben having a reaction made him a bad friend somehow. This is simply realistic.

Now, Kenji. He first notices her arm when she's talking to Ben, and we can see that he focuses on it for a hot second, before looking up at her face. Needless to say that in that moment there's a million things going through his mind. Brooklynn is alive, she's there, Ben knew Brooklynn was alive, she has lost a limb... We can see he is hit by all these informations which are way too much for him to process. It's NORMAL, EXCPECTED that he'd have a reaction to seeing her missing arm. Any other reaction would have been stupid. It's as if your lover left for a few days, came back with a missing limb and you said nothing. This doesn't happen. Them writing this into the show says nothing about Kenji's status as a love interest, he shouldn't have to ignore it to be considered a suitable partner and I find it kind of disgusting that people imply this. His lover has lost a limb, of course it will have an impact on him.

Now, the second time he looks at her arm is when he's finally reunited with Brooklynn. But simply reducing this interaction to "Kenji looks at Brooklynn arm -> Brooklynn scared -> Bad = Darius better" is a thought process I'd expect from a pre-schooler.

Kenji spends a very long moment staring only at Brooklynn, at HER FACE, expressing his emotions (beautiful scene by the way). Then he WILLINGLY looks at her arm. Kenji's aware that she's looking at him and he has already seen her arm, the only reason he looks down at her arm is because he wants HER to be aware that he has seen it, and one shouldn't have to be a genius to understand this. And he looks incredibly sad because, I know that's crazy, but as someone who love(d)s her, this impacts him. And Brooklynn has a reaction, I know that's crazy. But unlike with Ben, she looks scared, not mad. I won't spend too much time on this because I already did a brief "analysis" of this scene, but I took it as either she was scared that he'd see her differently, either it was the manifestation of all the hurt she's suffered (yk, often when you open up about something, you feel the emotions as you tell the story, and to me this could be Brooklynn allowing herself to show someone she's suffering for the first time, as if a silent conversation had taken place. Kenji asks what happened to her arm with his eyes, and all the hurt comes flooding back as she's reminded of everything she's been through).

Now, some people use the fact that Darius didn't even glance at her arm as, idk, a good thing, patting him on the back for it (which, on its own, is incredibly weird to me). Yasmina and Sammy didn't look at it either, but since they're not shipped with Brooklynn most don't care, it's not about disability but about somehow gaining points in the battle for Brooklynn.

But I'm like, you have to purposely being obtuse to use this as an argument. If I was Brooklynn and I was presumed dead for a long time, and when I came back I had a limb missing (implying an immense amount of suffering) I would absolutely want my partner and my friends to notice it ??? ESPECIALLY the person I love?? Actually, if he didn't notice I would straight up hate him because that would just mean that he DOESN'T CARE.

Implying that strangers looking at Brooklynn's arm and her loved ones reacting to her evident trauma are the same thing is wild, but using it as an argument for shipping is worse and, to me, an insult to all the work the writers have done to tackle the subject of disability. There isn't some checklist of people who looked at her arm and people who didn't, Darius (as well as Yaz and Sammy) don't deserve a cookie (or Brooklynn's love for that matter 🙃) because they didn't look at it. Ben and Kenji reacting to her arm doesn't mean that they somehow care less about the fact that Brooklynn's alive or that they love her less than the others, and Darius isn't "special" for not having looked at her arm, because Sammy and Yaz also didn't. It simply means that they are well written characters who react to things in their own, sometimes clumsy way.

What bothers me is that these scenes clearly weren't implanted for shipping matters, but are part of the characters' journeys with Brooklynn's disability, and her own journey. Them being present doesn't somehow put a definitive stain on Brooklynn's relationships with Kenji and Ben, things don't work like that. If anything I find Kenji's scene with her to be very touching, because you can just see how devastated he is for her, and how frightened she is.

It's not the fact that people look at her that hurts Brooklynn, it's the reason and the manner in which they look at her.

Idk to me it's kind of disrespectful to the work the writers did because it's implying that they tried to say Darius was the one for Brooklynn simply because he didn't care for his friend's severed limb. I think there are better arguments to make for dinostar, and less insensitive, than to reduce this very important topic to shipping.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my ted talk 😭

[aristaspark]

What do you think about the "he... wants me to be someone that I'm not" (S2E3, flashback in Darius cabin)? Here we see how Brooklynn ties her interests, work and identity and how she connects it to why she and Kenji breakup.

Also the "I don't like the way people looked at me back home" (S2E5, when Sayona was painting Brooklynn).

I really want to see how you, a Kenlynn shiper, see it

Well, she's wrong 🤷‍♀️

We know she's wrong, and that she's in the wrong. We know that Kenji didn't "want her to be someone else", all he wanted was to spend time with his lover, lover who started neglecting everything in her life that didn't relate to her work, including their relationship.

He had no problem with who Brooklynn was when she was present, the problem was that she was NEVER present.

So why would Brooklynn say that? Because that's the only reasoning Brooklynn was able to come up with to explain why he'd break up with her.

Brooklynn, in this moment, is so deep into her investigation, is so blind to how unhealthy her relationship to her work has grown that she's physically incapable of making sense of the reason why Kenji broke up with her, so she tries to rationalize it, and this is the only explanation she's able to come up with.

We even have the confirmation of this in the dialogue when she tells Darius "I've been a LITTLE distracted with work". I've seen a lot of people come at her for lying to make Kenji seem like the bad guy in the relationship, but that's not at all what she's doing 😭. What's happening is that she's so disconnected from her life and from reality that she truly believes that she was only a little distracted. And since to her, in her broker-obsessed mind, the cause of their break-up didn't exist since she was only a little distracted, then Kenji had no reason to break up with her, unless he didn't really love her.

One thing that I think is important to understand is that the show isn't trying to frame pre-fake-death-Brooklynn as being misunderstood but, on the contrary, as being the one who doesn't understand sh*t and is wrong about everything, and this scene is simply one of the many instances when it's shown to us.

This was one of the many instances when we were shown just how much she was in denial.

And so, because I think it needs to be adressed, Kenji's problem wasn't that Brooklynn's work was of great importance to her. She had always been like this, even back in cc, he fell in love with that part of her. It's not some mysogistic thing where the dude can't accept that his partner is career-driven. The problem was that there was a clear shift in her behavior after she discovered Dark Jurassic, a shift that, as I touched upon in on of my posts, was everything but a natural evolution of her character because she closed herself off to everyone. The lesson is not that she can't be passionate about her work, the lesson is that there need to be a healthy balance between her work and her life, a balance that completely got off the rails when she got on Dark Jurassic, and we got to see the consequences of that balance being thrown off: Kenji broke up with her because she was in denial, Darius didn't show up because it hadn't even crossed her mind that his fiasco of a confession could affect their relationship and their plan to meet up, and finally her arm got eaten because she had gone about everything the wrong way, thus ending up alone and traumatized.

I totally got off topic, but consider the first few paragraphs my reply, the rest in bonus, as per usual 🤣

Oh, and of course, narratively speaking she also said that to allow our dear Darius to bounce back on what she said, leading to the infamous confession. It was because she said that that he started rambling on about how he couldn't fathom wanting her to be someone else because she was so perfect, bla bla, the rest is history. So it's also partly there as a set up to allow for Darius' character to accidentally confess in the most awful way I might say 😂.

And about the second question I'm not sure I understand what you're asking me, sorry 😭 Is it about Kenlynn or simply Brooklynn ? Because Kenji's not in that scene. I don't think you're asking me what Brooklynn meant because I think it's pretty easy to get that people look a certain way at people who look different, even if they don't mean to, and that it's bound to hurt.

[aristaspark]

I was thinking about the possibillity of Darius and Brooklynn getting together.

What do you think would happen to Kenji if that happens?

It would be really sad for Kenji😭😭

Well, I'm sure that if the writers decided to go that route they would have Kenji somehow be ok with them being together, realizing him and Brook are incompatible now, so him being sad isn't really a worry I have.

But what I would hate is that it would simply be terrible writing and anyone should be able to see this. There's no universe where the relationships btw Kenji and Darius, and Kenji and Brooklynn wouldn't be destroyed by Brooklynn and Darius getting together, and the way Kenji feels about her doesn't change a thing. Actually, this is one of the MANY reasons why I believe Dinostar is simply a plot device and is not meant to be shipped.

We have to keep in mind that they made Kenji and Darius actual brothers, and that Kenji and Brooklynn dated for years while he was living with the Bowmans.

Even if Kenji realized he didn't want to be with her anymore, it doesn't change the fact that it would be straight up treason on both Darius and Brooklynn's part.

Yk, Kenji was quite understanding when Darius confessed he had feelings for Brook, and d*nostar shippers loooove to use this fact as proof that he'd be ok with them dating, but I'm sorry, no?

The only reasons he was "ok" with it was because, one, Brooklynn was DEAD, so there was no point in getting mad anyway, and two, having feelings for someone is not something you can control, and Darius was entitled to his own feelings. But having feelings for someone and ACTUALLY be willing to pursue someone are two VERY different things. Fortunately, as far as Kenji knew, Darius only did the first one (on this note, Darius is lucky Kenji didn't get to hear his *bold* confession).

What those shippers like to forget is that Kenji looked infinitely less sereine when he asked Darius if Brook loved him back, because unlike Darius, SHE had been in a relationship with him for years while being best friend with Darius.

If Brooklynn reciprocated Darius' feelings this would just send all these years of relationship down the drain because that'd mean that at any time during these 6 years Brooklynn could have fallen in love with Darius had she spent some time alone with him. And people somehow want that? 😭

Brooklynn was one of Kenji's most important relationships in his life for years, he went from a teenage boy to an adult while in a relationship with her, and they think he'd be okay having that being turned to dust upon learning that during all this time there was a possibilty she could have fallen in love with their SHARED best-friend, HIS ADOPTIVE BROTHER who he trusted to be around his girlfriend?

He would simply think about all the times the three of them had been together, feeling like he was once again the unwanted one. That as soon as he broke up with Brooklynn, breaking his own heart in the process because he just loved her that much, she got over him and immediately fell in love with Darius, if she wasn't already in love with him.

I understand liking d*nostar in jwcc, but in jwct it's waaaay too shady for me, and I'm surprised most of the fans are willing to ignore this simply because they liked them before, or simply because they still want Kenlynn to be destroyed because they hated them in jwcc.

Like, how could Kenji trust anyone EVER again, or even love anyone ever again, if the two people he loved the most did this to him? He had already suffered for years from his father treating him like a disposable son who didn't matter, there's no way he would be ok with Brooklynn and Darius doing the same thing to him, and if they wrote that in the show I'd actually be pissed.

But as I said many times, I truly think Darius and Brooklynn isn't happening, so this isn't to say that the writers are bad, because I'm like 99% convinced they didn't write this 😂

[aristaspark]

How high do you think the chances are that Kenji and Brooklynn will get back together ?

I really hope they will 🍀🩵🩷

Well, I'm everything but objective when it comes to them and it's quite a hard thing to quantify, the most I can say is that I personnaly believe the writers made them endgame in chaos theory 😭 I can only speak for myself so it's hard to give you a number, because if you were to ask someone who ships another ship the same question they would give you a completely different answer. Just gonna say that to me the chances are decently high, but that everything's still possible and that I only know as much as every other fan about what's to come (so, nothing) 🤷‍♀️

[aristaspark]

Looking through the storyboards (specially from S2E3 and S2E10), do you think Kenlynn still has chances to happen? 🤔

I know, what's truly important is what we got in the actual show. But those small details still play a interesting role in the characters and were planned to them

I can sorta see where you're coming from but to me the storyboards don't contradict anything that's in the show. We might see more of Darius in some of them, but it doesn't prove anything to me 🤷‍♀️. Brooklynn and Darius have a LOT of things they need to deal with so her having a strong reaction to his presence or the focus being on them/Darius isn't proof it's romantic. If they had shown another version of the confession scene where Brooklynn didn't look like she had just swallowed the most bitter pill ever I might have changed my mind, but they didn't 😂. Them interacting doesn't mean it's romantic and it doesn't go against my previous observations. There's one of them where we don't even see the moment Kenji grabs Brooklynn, so we don't even know what we're comparing it to. And if you're thinking about the fact that in a deleted scene Brooklynn is the one who ends up breaking up with Kenji, it also doesn't change anything to me. In that deleted scene she ends up doing it because her and Kenji can't see eye to eye and she feels attacked because she's in denial when it comes to the way she's been behaving. In her book, Kenji's only looking for a reason to break up with her because she doesn't realize that he's actually right, so she "frees" him out of spite. It's more a couple argument that ends badly than a real break up, we can see she's pissed when he leaves.

I was already aware of the storyboards when I explained my theories, so yeah. Sorry my answer is boring I don't really know what I can say 😂

[aristaspark]

As someone who loves to write but has never written in a group setting I find this SO fascinating 😁 Really, my dream job.

As part of a writer room, since it's a collective work, do you sometimes have to put aside your "real" self from your "writer" self? The wording is horrendous, but for example, when it comes to shipping, you like the trope of a certain ship and would like for them to happen, but as a writer you know that it wouldn't actually make sense for the characters? It just seems so hard to me to have dicern "good" ideas from selfish baseless wishes so I wonder how it's managed in a writer room.

Ooooh, a craft question! I love these.

So, basically, yeah, you DO have to set aside what you want from what is right for the story, because those are often not aligned. At the end of the day, if the Nublar Six were real people, I want them to all be happy and healthy and live conflict-free until forever. But that's not good story.

When you're in the room trying to tell the most interesting and meaningful/emotionally resonant story for these people, you can't do what you want with them -- you have to do what the story demands thematically. That's why we have writers rooms: we're constantly discussing not only what's cool, but what makes sense, both logically and emotionally. Thankfully for our room, we were all very aligned with what we thought the story was from the very beginning. There definitely some pitches I fought for that maybe weren't right for the show and we more based in what I wanted to have happen -- but that's part of the job. Discerning between ideas you like and ideas that make sense and ideas that make sense but are also surprising is a very tough muscle to work out, but that's all it is -- a muscle. That's why a good writers room will have long discussions about practically every choice to see if it actually works and means something for the story and the characters. It's also my favorite part of the process. And I like to think I only got better at this throughout our time in the room together, and that I'm continuing to get better at this on the new show I'm on.

Philosophically, I believe that, VERY often, what we want to see happen in stories are and what should happen in them are complete opposites. We don't necessarily want our favorite characters to be in conflict and find opposition -- but the problem is that without all of that, the characters don't shine their brightest or learn their lessons, and therefore neither does the audience. It's something that I wish chronically online fandoms would understand better so that they don't turn around and throw hate at people who are trying to tell good stories. Like, trust me, you don't want an entire episode where the characters just talk and laugh and have a fun little barbecue with their dinosaur friends. You'd be bored to fucking tears and your favorite characters wouldn't be people, they'd just be... I dunno, cardboard cutouts of the ideas of people.

Maybe it's not even about separating the two sides of yourself, but about acknowledging both sides within the scope that stories are not just a series of cool or nice events. Stories all come down to conflict, especially conflict between people, and the puzzle of writing a show is determining which conflicts mean the most and allow for emotional reactions and revelations, etc. If you're just watching the show for the dinosaurs (and I know some do), then you're missing out on all of the more important aspects of the story that was being told.

I think I got a little off-track there, but thanks for coming to my TEDTalk.

[aristaspark]

Can you talk about Kenji and Brooklynn love language?

So, I'm going to try to remain as close to their canon personnalities as possible 🤣

Kenji: His main love language is sharing what he loves with Brooklynn. Amazing views, a new food he likes, a new show he discovered... He loves to share his excitement over the simple things in life with her. Also physical affection (duh). He's super clingy and loves to kiss her (the picture in her appartment 🥹), to hold her close (we all know his favorite thing to do is to lay his hand on her shoulder).

Brooklynn: (She was a little harder to figure out but I eventually did). We know that Brooklynn is kind of a lone wolf, an independant person. She doesn't mind doing things on her own, it's actually easier for her because she sucks at... well, at socializing. So her main love language is doing activities with Kenji. Yk, doing things with him as a pair, because it's not something that comes easy for her, but she does it because she loves him. She always loved "unboxing" new things, but now she no longer does it alone. So everytime Kenji had something new he wanted to try, she gladly accepted, because she loved that it made him so happy (which is why it was such a deal breaker when she started becoming obsessed with the broker and stopped doing that 😭). The contrary is also true, everytime she discovered something new she no longer wanted to do it alone, but with him. And of course, physical affection (she becomes incredibly cringy, as we saw with the baby talk, face touching etc... and she can't keep her hands off of him 😂). Also, words of affirmation, since she knows Kenji lacks confidence even if he wants everyone to think the contrary. We kinda saw it back in camp cretaceous when she said that he wasn't like his father or that he deserved the good things happening to him. She wants to uplift him.

One thing that struck me when I watched season 2 is how clingy and flirty they were EVEN in their friends presence, as made apparent in the facetime scene where Brooklynn was literaly all over him, flirting right in front of their faces. I know that if I had been in the others' places I would have been like, 'are we interrupting something?' 😭☠️

They're totally the annoying couple who are way too demonstrative and refuse to tone down their 'displays of affection', even if it means making people around them uncomfortable 😂.

I realize their love languages are strangely similar to each other but I think that's why they worked so well 😂 (sorry if you were expecting something a little more original).

[aristaspark]

Brooklynn has a ao3 account... do you think she writes fanfics? Probably from her favorite show, but what your hcs abt her fics?

I wasn't going to include Kenji here, but you think he also reads fics?

Actually, sorry to disappoint, but she doesn't strike me as a fanfiction writer AT ALL. She's always been way too busy being out into the world to put her time into writing fanfics or to really engage with fandom activities. But reading them? Yeah, absolutely. She finds comfort in her favorite shows but since they all eventually stop she started reading fanfiction. Yk, not only does she get to choose what she wants to read but it's also free and easily accessible on her phone so she loves to read them. Often it's before she goes to sleep. She gets so excited she always leaves comments sharing what she liked and her theories to the author (as a AO3 fanfic writer I just love those type of readers).

And I actually could picture Kenji writing fics, but being extremely bad at it 😭 It's just that everytime he watches something he has thousands of ideas, different scenarios that come to his mind and he thinks they're too great not to be shared with the world but he's simply terrible at writing so they kinda flop 😭 And you know, he's posting a chapter once every 3 months when he remembers it so that doesn't help. Of course he mostly writes about Esther Stone (the first fic is about her complicated relationship with her father).

Once in a while he gets encouraging comments so to him it's worth it 🫠 (most of them are Brooklynn's and Sammy's, but he doesn't know. And of course the one reader who always calls him out on his typos or plot holes is Yasmina, but he doesn't know either 😂)

[aristaspark]

I can't wait 😆

😏 ehe