#choices guinevere spoilers

[queenbirbs]

✨☺️😍🥰✨

[superharriet]

SERIES finale 🥺🥺🥺 No more Arthur Pendragon. I guess I won't be able to click END BOOK again...

My darling, you were so much more!

[farizrz]

MC's last prem outfit

Arthur/Artura's Bertoral Outfit

Lancelot's Bertoral Outfit

[tyrilstarfury]

Oooooo I wonder what that could be? I'm so confused?

[lexicook74-blog]

Happily ever after! 🥺❤️❤️

[ananke-xiii]

Some speculations about the power of stories, cycles and karma and... Boyd.

***FROM spoilers (although it's mainly just my predictions lol)***

One of the things that I like about FROM is how they use different forms of art to help people remember things about their past.

Miranda used paintings so that she could remember and so does her son, Victor, who draws so that the pictures would remember for him. And it's precisely his sister's drawings that help him remember what he had removed.

Then, there's music, obviously, that make Tabitha and Jade remember not exactly their lived past but their karmic past.

There's also dance in the show but it hasn't worked its magic yet, I'm very curious to see how the ballerina is connected to Boyd and... Tillie? It's still minor compared to the previous two but I think we'll see our ballerina again pretty soon.

There's, finally, the power of stories. Ethan is the key-figure here because he's our go-to guy for all the crazy meta-ness of the show. But also Kenny and Kristi were reading a story together (cute and very Lancelot and Guinevere of them), they got stuck at chapter 6 or something before shit hit the fan so... I hope they won't forget about that.

More importantly, I'm very curious about one specific aspect: season 3 ended with Ethan saying that a story that has been told can't be changed so everyone is talking about how FROM is following LOST rule of "Whatever happened, happened", aka: you cannot change the past. Okay. But.

But I wonder if this is going to be the case with FROM since we now know for sure that the main theme is breaking the cycle of abuse. Since the show has introduced the concept of reincarnation I'm wondering if this means that yes, okay, the past cannot be changed, the story has been already told and there's nothing that we can do about it BUT isn't breaking it the whole point of karma?

I mean, a lot of major characters are starting to remember their trauma so this is good news but this also means that the show is faced with the three narrative choices, I think:

keep to its genre and let everything end in horror and blood. I think this type of ending can only be satifsying in movies but in shows where people invest a lot of time across multiple seasons spaced out over long years? Mmmm, it's very tricky to pull off. I mean, it can be done but I think it's very hard to convince people who have watched a show for over 5+ years that yeah, everybody dies horrendously, hurrah!;

the LOST way: some people manage to escape the town and go back to their lives and they all (more or less...) met there because they needed each other to move on from their past. I think this won't happen because of Harold Perrinau. He specifically accepted the role because he was promised it wasn't gonna end like LOST, so... Either FROM's ending will be a huge embarassment for everybody involved or it won't end the same way as LOST (fingers crossed);

since we've been shown that art has healing powers, stories too will be healing for the characters, aka they'll manage to change the narrative/the past. Now I think this is where the money's at and why I'm so intrigued by the introduction of time travels.

My istinct tells me that it's going to be a mix of 1 and 3: I think the show will end with the breaking of the cycle but I don't think that one particular character will make it to the end. The character is Boyd and I think that in season 4 he'll be key to understanding if the show will have a happy ending or not. So far I think it's not gonna be happy-happy for everyone.

I don't think Boyd will make it to the end because the elements so far tell me so:

1. The ballerina dance didn't help him remember anything, as a matter of fact he destroyed the music box to save people. This is a huge red flag: will he destroy his chance to break his cycle for the sake of other people?;

2. He's got two sons in the show: his actual son Ellis and his putative son Kenny. Kenny's father, Bing-Qian suffered from dementia and has been associated with feelings of confusion and with not being understood. He also talks about another form of universal language, that is chess. He unfortunately dies (Boyd seems to suffer from Parkinson's and he's convinced it's that because his father had it but he was never actually diagnosed with it. Or it's not been shown yet). Abby, Boyd's wife, also dies by none other than Boyd's hand. She was described as "confused" and people believed that she had started to show signs of some sort of paranoia, I think (we know now that, perhaps, she was remembering her past life). She wasn't understood/believed, too. Kenny's mother, Tien-Chen, dies as well and her death is also connected to Boyd. So, I mean, as far as parental figures with whom he's paralleled/paired go, things don't look good for our sheriff;

3. The point of the show seems to be that parents must avoid the sacrifice of their children. Boyd has two sons and he has martyr-like tendencies. Sooooo..... again, things don't look good for him;

4. Boyd-as-husband is connected to Henry and Jim. They're all husbands who didn't believe their wives and didn't support them. Henry and Jim are also heavily associated with the Man in Yellow who seems to be the primary abuser of the show (or he's very strongly related to the cycle of abuse that's been happening for who knows how long). Henry and Jim (and Boyd too, by extension) are portrayed as ambiguous figures, they're clever man who're also very morally skewed. There's something dark about Henry, I'm not sure about his intentions, his talk with Donna about thinking that, for a moment, he hoped that Victor were dead... I mean, it was a human moment but it was also ominous. (Let's also not forget about Boyd being a former-military and how the Civil War is a sleeping theme in the show. Henry was doing hard drugs with Miranda in the 70s so this tells me he wasn't sent to Vietnam? There's a latent element of actual war here. I don't know how it'll pertain to Henry, Jim (Jim's father was an alcoholic, is PSTD from war related to this?) and Boyd in the town but I KNOW there's something going on. I unfortunately don't remember much about my American History class at uni so I can only pick up the vibe without really explaining it, it's so frustrating).

While I'm more confident about points 1, 2 and 3, I'm not so sure about point 4. I think this will be the gordian knot of the story.

For whatever reasons, time travels are associated with grand-fathers/fathers and their assassination or impossibility thereof. On one hand, with the introduction of Henry (who's got the same function as Jim), Jim seems to be redundant and therefore his death is final. On the other, if his death is final it means that Julie, as a story-walker and time traveler, cannot change the past. This doesn't bode well for my hoped-for happy ending.

The shows seems to tell us: it's not about whether or not you can kill your father when you time-travel because it's about saving your father! (Julie saved Boyd-as-father in the well by handing him the rope).

So we have a story about parents saving their children and children saving their parents! Isn't this beautiful? I literally can't wait to see if I'm right or not about this, lol.

It all boils down to Boyd: so far the story is telling me that parents will most likely save their children but they probably won't be able to save themselves. However, Julie did save one father-figure so far, will she be able to save her own father? Can children save their parents?

These are very interesting questions but I truly hope they will stick to the "art has the power of changing people" theme (parents, children, everyone!) and give us a healing story rather than a hopeless one. Can we make it through the horrors or not? More importantly, can we make it together and stop this sacrifice madness??? I think we need stories that heal and give us hope!!!

p.s. for posterity: Season 4 will have "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" playing in one of the diner's jukebox. Mark.My.Words.

[queer-ragnelle]

Camelot (2011) | Created by Michael Hirst & Chris Chibnall

Arthurian Film List | Arthurian Show List | Movie review below the cut ⤦

Star Rating: 10/10

Content Warning: graphic nudity & sexuality, heavy gore, torture, rape

Overview: Full disclosure, I'm hella biased. I watched this every week while it aired back in 2011. But having re-watched the series again numerous times since then, I stand by my love for it. If there was anything I would add, it would be dogs. Where are the puppies?! The costume designer for this show went on to win awards for her work on The Tudors, all the acting is prenominal, the set designs, the score and sound design, the writing is just insanely good. Even when I don't agree with all narrative choices, I'm convinced to appreciate them here. Eva Green is by far my favorite Morgan and James Purefoy my favorite Lot. I wasn't born queer, their intense sex scenes with blood oaths and body hair queerified me. Who said that. Anyway the biggest thing to praise about this show is how abundantly and well it centers women's stories. Igraine, Guinevere, Morgan, Vivian, Sebile, Bridget. You're all really amazing. I support women's rights and women's wrongs.

Synopsis: Morgan returns from her many years at the nunnery and is immediately rejected by Uther and her step mother Igraine. She vows vengeance and returns to the castle later in the guise of a child to secretly poison the king. As Uther lays dying, Merlin gets him to sign over his kingship to the son he never met. The show then transitions to Arthur, who has been raised along side foster-brother Kay by their loving parents in ignorance they are not fully brothers. Merlin shows up and spills the beans, taking Arthur and Kay with him to Camelot, an old crumbling castle they need to rebuild as the center of a great city. There, Uther's old knights, including Lancelot Leontes and his fiancée Guinevere, wait for them. Meanwhile Morgan turns castle Pendragon inside out to remake it for her own liking, including bringing on Vivian as her messenger and handmaiden, and Sebile the nun as her advisor. She also allies herself with King Lot intending to claim the throne of Britain for herself. Morgan and Arthur must battle for the right to take their father King Uther's place.

Final Thoughts: This show really has it all. It's a tragedy it was cancelled after a single season. There was so much set up that will never get pay off. I cry every day. The homoeroticism between Kay and Gawain going unfulfilled haunts me. Read Exiled From Camelot by Cherith Baldry to get your fix but damn I'm so sad we didn't see more of them in a second season. HUGE SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING but it set up that Guinevere was pregnant with Galahad and would take the bloody seat of the Round Table where Leontes was meant to sit, meanwhile Morgan was pregnant with Mordred in a last bid for power after she was finally revealed to Arthur as a threat. GO WATCH!!!!!!!

[the-unconquered-queen]

Maybe you suspected them from the start and were annoyed you never had a choice about being on your guard about them. Maybe they took you by surprise but now every time you replay you end up frustrated by MC's naivete about them.

Maybe it was great writing! Maybe it wasn't. The degrees of "trust" MC displays vary from character to character, but what matters is how you feel about it in hindsight.

[cadybear420]

My thoughts on the 2023 Choices releases so far

I don't usually do this but fuck it. If I feel like it I'll do one for 2022 since I was active that year. Not for 2021 though, since I was still very new to the app starting in that year. I am currently working on a masterlist for all Choices books though.

Some of these books, I have not fully read or caught up with yet, but I'm still providing my opinion on what I anticipate for them.

Guinevere

Haven't started yet, but I heard it's really good. It doesn't seem like something I'll consider one of the bests, but who knows, it might surprise me.

Surrender 2

This one really cemented the Surrender series as the worst Choices stories ever of all time to me. All it does is hammer down how much worse Reagan is than Pat. They infantilize MC and are incredibly controlling to the point where they enforce BDSM outside of the bedroom and then straight up say "when a woman agrees to be my sub, she agrees to obey".

MC does leave them over this, thank God, but unfortunately her self-respect is very short lived. She seems completely unfazed when Reagan literally tracks her down on her getaway trip, and even proposes to them barely even a day after they talk things out (and keep in mind, that talk only happened because Reagan tracked down MC).

God this series was such a waste of potential.

Kiss of Death

I'm only in the middle of Ch1, but I've heard a lot of mixed opinions about this one. On one hand, there are options for MC to be more badass and proactive. But on the other hand, a lot of characters infantilize MC and she does get forced into a damsel in distress position often.

With other trashy smut books, I at least kind of know what to expect. But with this one, it's a very mixed bag.

Getaway Girls

I've only played Chapter 1, but so far it seems pretty fun and chill and I'm looking forward to playing it.

Roommates With Benefits

The first chapter wanted my MC to lap-dance on the LI. I think by that point, we already knew the cliched gender-normative smut romance we were in for.

But with that in mind, there wasn't anything that severely pissed me off about this book like there was about books like Surrender 2 and FCL. Well, besides the LI constantly calling MC "baby bird", but even that is relatively minor compared to the problems of books like Surrender 2 and FCL.

Overall, it's a pretty mid-level story.

First Comes Love

Awful awful awful. MC is a FemCeL. The story wants us to root against Rebecca despite that she did literally nothing wrong. Even when we choose to be nicer to Rebecca, it's all meaningless and they clearly want it to be fake kindness. MC basically gets rewarded for her behavior in the end as she ends up with the Blake.

I know MCs don't need to be goody-two-shoes all the time but if they're gonna be shitty or morally grey, at least give it more nuance. Have some self-awareness of some sort.

Overall, easily my number 2 worst Choices story ever.

The Duchess Affair

I haven't even started it yet and thus I'm mainly going off secondhand spoilers. But this is the one affair story where I'm actually more sympathetic to the affair. It's like, the 1800s. MC was married off into a loveless marriage with an abusive prick, which was common for women at the time. Those women, especially if they were sapphic, did not have a lot of options in those days.

It's also kind of nice that, as easily as this one could have been male-coded (and they do kind of end up doing that in the last few chapters), it actually makes even more sense with a female LI. Not only with the forbidden romance being spicier because 1800s sapphism, but a male tutor for a married woman would not be nearly as believable as a female tutor. I mean, I find most GOC-LI books to be better when played as anything other than wlm, but here the male LI situation goes from bland to straight up not even believable, so yeah.

But it's really hard to take it seriously when Nat is an entitled prick and they have bullshit such as MC watching deers mating or getting off from horseback riding. Just like MTFL, its sexual tone seems very out-of-place for the kind of story they want to tell. I swear to God they had to have hired some Brickleberry writers for that mating scene.

Crimes of Passion 2

Haven't started yet but I feel like it might be alright. The first one was mostly slightly above-lukewarm to me outside of MC, Trystan, and their dynamic. But from what I heard, this one is pretty solid too.

Kindred

Haven't started it yet, I feel like it'll be one that I'll end up being pretty fond of.

Blades 2

Haven't started yet but I'm a little worried about it. I really want my shamelessly-RoleReversal Imtura x m!MC moments, but from what I heard... it feels very disconnected from the first book, to say the least.

And I'm surprised that they're giving it a third book, what with their nowadays attitudes towards the series that actually have effort put into them.

The Billionaire's Baby

It's literally just TNA but with a surrogate MC instead of a nanny MC. The only thing that surprised me is that Joss wasn't the one Daphne was cheating on the LI with.

As if it wasn't already obvious from the Jenny/Aditya subplot in TNA 3, this book makes it SUPER obvious that PB would have had an accidental pregnancy plot in TNA Book 1 if Sam wasn't GOC. And I can easily say that if this book's LI wasn't GOC, they'd probably have had MC have an accidental pregnancy rather than the surrogacy plot.

This one gets a lot of hate, but I personally think it's not worth my anger because it's just... derivative in every way possible. It's perhaps the most soulless of PB's stories yet. Cheating, pregnancy, AND romancing a billionaire? Really? Pretty sure every other app that panders to Facebook Karen Moms has already done that story dozens of times.

Dirty Little Secrets

I'm a bit behind on this one now, but so far I do think it's one of the better releases of the year. It's a fun balance between spicy murder mystery and campy smut, and I like that it kind of knows what it is a bit more rather than books like TNA and TBB that force you to take them seriously.

It's definitely still one of those books where the mlw, wlw, and mlm routes are far more engaging and spicy than the probably-originally-intended wlm route where it's very been-there-done-that, but hey, I'm certainly enjoying the hell out of the mlw route.

Also, some of the male MC outfits are a little bit of a step up from the usual premium m!MC outfit we get where it's just something completely basic. Some of them definitely still feel very safe compared to their f!counterparts, but there's progress.

Alpha

Haven't started yet, but I'm looking forward to it. About time we got a werewolf book that's GOC. I'm sad we don't get to be the Alpha but at least I can make the route mlw.

Ship of Dreams

Haven't started yet, I don't have a lot of expectations for it.

The Cursed Heart 2

I want to bone Jack. I want him to sit on my face. I want him to flatten my pelvis as he rides my strap. Omnomnomnom sexy guy in crop top aahbhahghgahrbharhagrhahbrhgrbarkbarkabgrakagarkabrakarkrbark

[ladyhawke]

i just finished the doll factory and i’m so disappointed, it was a such an interesting premise with so many good elements (the double/mirror with the twins, the dolls, taxidermy, model vs painting) but it didn’t lead anywhere

(spoilers under the cut)

i hated the deliberate misleading narrative to make the twist more “surprising” silas having imagined everything was fine but louis’ house being called the factory and the “missing models” that ultimately meant nothing was very annoying

also silas being the bad guy left a bad taste in my mouth, the socially awkward outcast is evil and the misogynistic fuckboy is actually the nice one? seems like a bad thematic choice

maybe the point is that louis actually listened to iris at some point and silas didn’t? or maybe that someone who names their iguana guinevere and throws a birthday party for her can’t possibly be evil?

also i might have missed something here but why did silas even kill bluebell???

[guinevere-if]

Can you tell us more about Morgana? Pretty please?

Sure! I got you, Anon. Wink, wink.

Spoiler

Morgana, the daughter of Igraine and half-sister to Arthur, is seven years senior to Guinevere. Her fate took an unexpected turn when Uther, enamored by Igraine, vanquished her husband in battle and made Igraine his wife. It was with Igraine that he begot Arthur and another son.

Morgana is married to Lot and bore two children to him.

When she was young, Morgana found herself irresistibly drawn to a young knight who she fall in love with. However, her love was short-lived as Uther, disapproving of her choice, murdered her lover and buried him in an undisclosed location. Morgana was then coerced into marrying Lot against her will.

[queenbirbs]

✨🥹☺️🥰✨

[tansyuduri]

Wip Snippits

tagged by @shana-rosee

So Uh I'm somhow working on a few fics. SOO UM editing one, and writing two others due partly to a prompt I got in my inbox after asking a question So er! Here's a bit from the sequel to the one I'm posting on A03 now Found a bit that doesn't have too much in the way of spoilers! So from Let Our Souls Fight Together

“I hope I make the right choices…'' Merlin began “Goddess I hope I’m wise enough to make the right choices and it's not like last time. I will make the right choices. I won’t let it be like last time”

From his position a few yards away Arthur took a step forward and then found himself Instantly just a step away from Merlins side. 

As Merlin looked at him wide eyed Arthur realized that Merlin would never make the right choices, He wasn’t capable of that. Hadn’t he proved that before from all he had told Arthur.. His choices had meant Arthur died And Gwaine, and others. And he had to protect himself and his knights this time. He had to…

“Arthur..” Merlin watched him warily and Arthur’s mind rebelled. Had he just been thinking he had to kill Merlin? the man he loved?…That didn’t make sense… Hurting Merlin made no sense, but he had to do it. For the sake of the knights, For the sake of Merlin himself. Merlin would not be able to suffer if he was dead, it was really the best thing to do for him as well.

Merlin dead…His entire being rebelled against the idea. It was unthinkable. It was horrible. He would not let that happen. But what if he had too? All the people of Albion were in danger now, and it was Merlin that could harm them. 

“You want to hurt them.” His voice sounded uncertain to his own ears.

“Arthur.” Merlin took a step forward “Arthur..” His hands were held up appeasingly” You’re being controlled by the Sidhe. They are in your mind… Arthur, listen to me!”

That didn’t make sense, the sidhe were not in his mind, he would have known, This was Merlin lying to Arthur, as he had so many times before, He couldn’t be trusted, Arthur had to do something his mind screamed was unthinkable. He had to kill Merlin before more of his words could try to twist at Arthur. He didn’t want to kill Merlin. But he had too. His hand moved toward the blade at his side.

Merlin stepped forward and caressed Arthur’s cheek with his hand. “I need you to trust me Arthur , whatever you are thinking right now is not real. You’re my dollopheaded prat of a fiance and I’m apparently your idiot. I do not agree with that title for me by the way, Now fight whatever is in your mind right now cabbage head. Fight it!��� 

For the first time Arthur became aware of the presence in his head, it had been ready for begging, for pleading, for many things. It had not been ready for insults and the depths of meaning and love behind them. Now aware of it, Arthur thrust it away as hard as he could. He staggered slightly

Merlin moved to brace him. “They are not red anymore. You did it.” He looked proud of Arthur but there were other things to address besides how that look made him feel. Important things to address.

“MERLIN you idiot! why didn’t you use magic!” Arthur snapped  “I nearly had my hand on on my sword!” 

Now from the two I am just now writing one is in Gwens court post Camlann cannon verse. As you can expect NOBODY is having a good time in the begining of the fic. POV character will include Merlin, Gwen, and two suprises. One of whom we know from one episode of the show. This work is as of yet untitled.

Guinevere Pendragon woke up to crimson stained sheets and could not letting out an angished scream. The queen and ruler of camelot immediately pressed a clean part of the sheets to her mouth to stifle the sound coming from it,

There it was crushing the hopes and dreams she had been desperately clinging to. She was not pregnant with Arthur’s child. What's more she would have to marry again. Gwen was not ready to marry again. 

The queen of camelot took deep breaths to calm herself. In out. In out. She had been hoping, but perhaps it had been silly to hope. She had not gotten pregnant with a child in four years of marriage. Why would that suddenly change now? Still it would have been a comfort to find herself finally pregnant and when her courses did not come exactly on time she had allowed herself to think it. For two wonderful days she had allowed herself to daydream. Hope mingling with grief so raw it felt like there was a knife in her chest. That was over now, And she had to face the facts. Arthur was gone, She had no child to remember him by and soon enough she would have to marry and have a child who could be heir to the kingdom. She owed it to Camelot to secure the succession. She owed it to Arthur to try to keep the kingdom at peace. And it hurt. It hurt so badly.

Another deep breath and she composed herself enough to face her maidservant Once she had hoped she could find someone like Merlin had been to Arthur, well not exactly like Merlin had been to Arthur but a friend. She had tried with Sefa, she had tried with others. It never worked. Also I had a prompt about doing an AU of Servant of two masters where merlin does not get captured. I have some ideas! here is a bit of it?

Being carried caused pain. Trying to move himself caused worse pain. But as a pair of the mercenaries came into view, one aiming an arrow at Arthur's back from the rocks above, Merlin ingored that pain. He gasped in agony and used alll his willpower to ajust his body. To cover their likely target: Arthur. The world faded in and out of focus.

The Arrow pierced Merlin's back halfway though his gasped warning to Arthur. Pain. So much pain. Merlin's world became more of a haze. He could feel Arthur moving… fighting off the enemy but knew another arrow would be coming. In his last moment of lucidity he managed to make the archer fall from the rocks above with his magic. He could do nothing else. The world became a haze and stayed that way

Um! I TAG! @catsconflictscopicsandchamomile @saurix5 @247merthur @kadenemrys @poisonedfate

AND anyone in the merlin fandom who sees this and wants to join

[farizrz]

The Happy ever after.

About the end of book, it seem standalone. No more twist. No more hint about sequel. But i can't find PB thanks message even hint of second book

[silenceforetold]

Is love a feeling or a choice?

Before I begin the actual intention of this post, I would like to disclose that To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before had hastily become my favorite series of movies ever since Netflix’s first debut of the first installation. That could perhaps in huge part to having a modern, racially conscious film with a mixed Asian woman as the lead character, but it also might be due to the fact that I find myself relating to Lara Jean Song Covey as a person. With that in mind, you can feel free to call me out on personal bias if you think I might be too affected by rose-tinted glasses.

I also would like to say that my post will likely predominantly talk about the most recent and final addition to the To All The Boys universe, To All The Boys: Always and Forever, because of the fact the plot felt far more personal to me. That could just be because it’s been 11 years since I graduated from high school (lets be honest, though, high school is never like in the movies or on television anyway) and the first two movies felt very high school while To All The Boys: Always and Forever felt much more mature and adult. It spoke to me at a level much deeper than the previous two.

All of that said, definitely expect massive spoilers. And, yes, I am currently reading through the books from which the movies are based on. I can happily tell you that I am on the second book with no intention of stopping, and that the books are as dear to me as the movies.

As you grow up and begin your exploration into the world of love, romance, and relationships, you always hear stories and watch media that tells you what love should look like. More often than not, our first encounters with love are when we are still adolescent and learn of Lancelot and Guinevere, Romeo and Juliet, and maidens who find their shining knight or handsome prince. We grow up influenced by Romance and fairytales, shaping our expectations on fantasy and magic. Not only this, but we have the concept of “the one” or “one true love” and “soulmates” ingrained into us as the pinnacle of a fulfilled life’s achievement.

But then you grow up and experience heartbreaks, and you realize that love is not like in fairytales or movies or on television. Love does not come as easy as breathing, and you do not find yourself having an instantaneous, almost soul-crushing love-at-first sight sequence.

Admittedly, the first two To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before movies did have that air of sappy, cliché romance that is to be expected of all love stories that revolve around two teenagers, but there is a significant shift in the third as the characters themselves tackle moving into adulthood.

Rest assured that I will not make you endure an entire synopsis of the whole film, but I will give you the points that are relevant to this entire post.

In this installment of the To All The Boys universe, we are blatantly shown that the leading male character, Peter Kavinsky, suffers from abandonment issues stemming from how his father left their family and divorced his mother. We are also shown that, after the divorce, Peter’s father was not present any longer, essentially divorcing the entire family rather than just his wife. In one scene, Peter confides in Lara Jean that he has a deep seeded desire (as a result of his father leaving) to be chosen by someone else. As Peter says himself, “there’s nothing worse than feeling not chosen.”.

You can probably already see where exactly this movie is going, especially when you keep in mind that both Peter and Lara Jean are nearing the end of their senior year in high school; meaning that college applications and themes of where your adult life will begin is at the forefront of the plot.

At the start of the movie, it is stated that the hope for both characters is to attend the same local university in which Peter has an athletic scholarship. That plan is disrupted, however, when Lara Jean is rejected and forced to consider different universities. Of her list, she has two universities about an hour drive from Peter’s university, but her elder sister Margot convinces Lara Jean to also apply to a university on the east coast. Lara Jean mentions this fact offhandedly, explaining she only humored the notion because her sister believed that everyone needed to apply to at least one university on the east coast for the sake of diversity and experience.

During a class trip to New York City, Lara Jean visits and falls in love with the campus of New York University thus making her hopeful of the prospect of attending while simultaneously wondering if their relationship could be maintained if she made that decision. Lara Jean is allowed to push the idea from her mind so long as her application is still under review, allowing her to slip into a stage of denial that subsequently allows her to maintain her avoidance of communicating with Peter about the possibility.

Ultimately, and to no surprise, she is accepted into New York University and forced to finally talk to Peter about the future that she wants. Peter, who had been hoping that Lara Jean would choose another more local college and eventually transfer into the same college as him, immediately slips into his struggle with abandonment and accuses Lara Jean of choosing to leave him rather than choosing to put him and the future of their relationship first. As he claims, “you chose to be as far away from me as possible. You chose distance” and refers to her dismissal of another local college as evidence for not choosing him.

Lara Jean and Peter find themselves faced with a few questions, but the most imperative being:

Is love above all obstacles a feeling or an active choice?

On my own experiences with love, I came to the conclusion that real love is 10% the romanticism that is promised in popular media, 40% compatibility with one another, and 50% an active choice to love and stick with a person even when perhaps it would be easier or more convenient to be emotionally detached.

A relationship is always doomed to fail even if love abounds if neither party chooses one another time and time again, just like a relationship will not be healthy or fulfilling if both parties choose one another but lack compatibility or feelings.

As I sit here writing and contemplating, I beg the question: if someone is unwilling to choose you, then do they even love you at all? Yes, perhaps in some way, but not in the way of true love. After all, different types of love exist and a person can love many people, but that does not mean they enter a committed, long-term romantic relationship with everyone that they love.

The act of choosing is not always physical, however, as what Peter believed in his expectation for Lara Jean to prioritize attending the same college as him. In fact, one could argue that Peter was actually being selfish and choosing himself over Lara Jean.

My point could perhaps be best driven by quoting Lara Jean’s father: “you can’t save [a] relationship by not growing”.

This particular quote actually brought back to me the memory of a man’s story that I once had the pleasure of reading (unfortunately, I cannot recall where, but I believe it a forum of some sort). He spoke of his relationship with his wife and how she was ever-changing into a new woman, and how he had to choose to fall in love with the new her every single time rather than reject her. People change and the only thing that never changes is the fact that things change, and so we must all choose to adapt with that change or be left behind in it’s wake.

No one is immune to growth and attempting to avoid it is always to your detriment. The attempt to not change could actually bring about the doom that you fear most and try your hardest to avoid. Not only that, but it is a disservice to both your partner and yourself to stunt yourself from growth simply because you fear that your growth may also come with growing apart. That is, of course, a very real possibility, but so is the possibility of you growing together.

You must make the active choice to stay with one another and see which direction that growth will take you, which requires understanding yourself and honest communication. You must actively choose to make the hard decision of staying together through the unknown and allowing a positive possibility. You must continue choosing one another until a moment comes that you definitively do not want to choose one another any longer.

The film ends with Lara Jean narrating with a montage of she and Peter moving to their respective colleges, stating that:

“Life is beautiful and messy and never goes according to plan. And the truth is, I have no idea what it has in store for me. But I do know that love, real love, is choosing each other through all of it, every single day. Beginning and middle and end.”

If that is what Lara Jean and the original author of the To All The Boys novels trilogy, Jenny Han, believes… I would very much like to believe that too.

[lexicook74-blog]

The wedding ❤️❤️