#i also think it’s interesting that you didn’t react the same way to Aisha being blasian that you did to Musa

[starlooove]

I got a point you can’t just take away rep bc you feel like it with your hcs. You literally have other characters to claim as other races bc their skin tones don’t matter (Bloom, Stella,Tecna) but sure take away Musa and Flora as if their skin and race isn’t important to their character just say your racist and accept that because you can have ANYONE ELSE. How about you go fuck yourself!! Y’all love making anything about yourselves. You aren’t the only other race in the world besides white people. 💀

It’s also extremely weird that you keep tryna do these one liners that’s like “brown people exist” or “you aren’t the only race in the world besides white people” when I already spoke on that in the reply which makes me think you saw the hcs and rushed to respond without comprehending anything I said which,whatever, but back to the first point; I think you see diversity and representation as purely skin deep and it’s lowk kinda weird. Someone being black and Latina, makes them black and Latina. The blackness doesn’t take away that they’re Latina. If you think it does it’s because you value pale skin and idk man that’s kinda weird it honestly tracks that you’d be too pussy to admit it with ur chest.

[couragehopelovefaith]

Unexpected bonding

(The short fanfic based on the first proper meeting between Musa and Riven on “Fate: The Winx Saga”. English is not my first language, so apologies for the possible grammar- and spelling-mistakes.)

Musa walked across the yard, among training and chatting students, trying to calm her twirling thoughts by firmly holding the combat stick. Usually, she enjoyed the lessons and this place felt like a second home to her. But in all honesty, these last few days could've gone a lot better. For some reason, this complicated mix of excitement, worry and determination around her was harder to take than usual. Everyone was restlessly and impatiently waiting for something to happen, even though they didn't fully know what it was. But it was there, hiding in the plain sight. This was the time her help would be needed the most, but she had never felt herself so...damn useless. How she wished she could've already been in her room, put her headphones on, focused on the music and let the rest of the world keep turning by itself for a while.

The sudden flash of obvious arrogance and more hidden anger was an oddly welcoming change in the common atmosphere and attracted her attention. It didn't take long for her to figure out its source: one of specialists was training with a battle rope a few long steps away from her, clearly apart from the others. His technique appeared to be nearly flawless, but she didn't need her powers to notice that behind it there was a deep need to let his frustrations out.

Musa didn't actually know much about Riven. Of course, everybody had heard of him - other than being close with Sky, he had gotten quite a bad reputation in Alfea, and his questionable habits with drugs didn't exactly help on the matter. These "stormy and unbalanced"-kind of energy auras were often too much for an empath like her, and that fact alone put him among the people she had usually been avoiding. 

Still walking forward, she answered his sharp glance nonchalantly – a neutral, silent hello, that didn't expect any kind of discussion. However, hearing quiet, out of the blue chuckle made her stop reflexively, full of doubt. They hadn't changed more than a few words with each other before and she had had no reason to believe it would change now. He stopped his training too and looked at her, estimating.

"You like holding that big stick?"

His slightly amused, undermining and suggesting tone after a long and exhausting day made Musa react quickly; with secure grasp, she rotated the stick swiftly and bent into an attack-position, holding the stick very close to his face – staying still, half waiting for some kind of anger or offended surrendering-movement. However, her intuition was wrong again: instead, the youngster touched the head of the stick lightly and lowered It, raising his eyebrows and smirking almost flirtatiously. "I'll take that as a yes."

Young fairy repressed her will to roll her eyes: sadly, Riven was also well-known for his narrow-minded, obnoxious and somewhat prejudiced comments and opinions. This year Terra and Dane  had seemed to have gotten the worst blows of them. Even though Terra hadn't admitted it to anyone, Musa had lived with her long enough to know that some of the remarks had really gotten under her skin. And that was saying a lot, when it came to a generally happy person like her. Some people just couldn't take a hint of crossing the line, and the boy standing in front of her was definitely one of them.

To show him that she really wasn't in a mood for such behavior today, she partly leaned on her stick and titled her head. "I think I just threw up."

In spite of the loathing tone in her answer, Riven couldn't help feeling a tad impressed: this tiny fairy seemed to have more fierceness and spunk in her than the most of the well-trained Specialists. After the lackey-like, avoiding or somewhat fearful reactions he had faced lately, this strictness from someone else than his best friend or mentor – especially a girl - certainly was something new. There was no denying that Beatrix had offered him quite a portion of that as well in her own, seductive and slightly twisted way, but this lass had some exceptional gentleness, vision and different kind of honesty in her that Beatrix just... had not. 

Still a hint of smile on his face, he came a little closer to her, unwilling to change the subject. "I saw you on the support rounds with Miss Dowling  at training." His tone was trying to pursue neutrality, but even the fool could've seen that he wanted to prove his point.

Musa tried to separate her own feelings from all the other auras around her to process his new, startling attentiveness. Was she honored or bothered – and more importantly, which one was the right way to react? At the moment, even the Expert of Emotions herself couldn't tell. What was the catch here? It would've made more sense for him to keep an eye on assertive and strong people like Stella or Aisha. She stayed quiet, letting a little patient smile crack her poker face, wondering where he was going with this.

Being wise enough not to test her patience any longer, Riven decided to answer the unspoken question himself. Without fully meeting her eye, he let his gaze linger at her feet. "I wouldn't have expected a mind fairy to have such good moves."

Without an invitation or permission, Mrs. Dowling's task-orientated but friendly voice echoed in her ears again.

 "Not all fairy magic is suited to combat roles. Support is equally, if not more, important. Your magic can help us assess the fragile states of minds and uncover hidden enemies."

It was a common knowledge that the Headmistress was encouraging to the core, cared for her students, and meant well. Still, Musa's speculative mind constantly found hidden subtexts in her words, which started with "too theoretic" and ended up at something like: "Insufficient" or "powerless when things actually go wrong."

"I used to be a dancer." The words escaped her lips, before she managed to stop them. Whether it was because of Mrs. Dowling, her own defense mechanisms against Riven's prejudices, his infuriating abilities to give compliments and offend at the same time, or just pure tiredness, she was surprised by her own transparency. She had told about this only to her very few close people in her life. Not even her roommates knew. And now she had blabbered it in front of a basically complete stranger! But on the other hand, it was really refreshing to talk to someone, who didn't pry or force their curiosity on her out of duty or responsibility. Unable to help herself, she admitted: "I kinda miss being physical."

When she had been younger, her mother had taught her to dance and they had made it something they shared. It had been wonderful to dive deep into music and focus on the movements and the different worlds, in which melodies had transferred her into. But when her mother had passed away, she hadn't been able to bring herself in that flow anymore. No matter how persistently she had tried, it hadn't felt the same. Now it only reminded her of everything she had lost.

Abruptly, she returned back to reality and noticed that Riven's gaze had found its way in her eyes again and his posture had returned to its natural defensiveness.

"Yeah, well, too bad", he spat out in a slightly husky voice. "You're a fairy. They don't care what you wanna be in this place, only what they want you to be."

Quite a nice reward for being honest! It would've been so easy and rightful for Musa to get mad at him. But her mother had always used to say that no one's story and melody should be shut out, and she had chosen to live through that code. Even with the douchebag like Riven.

Now that she looked closer, with a little help of her own, she was able to see the dark circles under his eyes – eyes that were actually really observant and sincere, like they were trying to convey her an important message. Under the arrogance and "know it all"-attitude, there was buried bitterness and sadness. This wasn't just a cocky boy fighting for his territory. It was a sincere warning, born by his own, long-term experiences.

When one really stopped to think about it, this guy had gone through quite a rough year. The first more hidden emotion Musa sensed – perhaps because it had been also her friend for the last couple of days – was the fear of not being enough. Mr. Silva had always been righteous and fair leader and mentor who wanted to treat everyone equally, but still there was a little...guess it could be called conflict of interest. Even though Sky’s bloodline had guaranteed him the place in this school, he had been motivated and trained himself to the top and hadn't expected any special treatment. But after his father, Andreas of Eraklyon, had passed away in a battle, Silva, as Andreas' best friend, had taken him under his wing and now saw him basically as his own son. Due to this fact and his carefree and rebellious stoner-history, Riven must have felt overshadowed and the need to prove everyone that he belonged here.

Obviously, there was also worry and complicated feelings about Beatrix on his mind. Despite her... interesting personality – kindly expressed – and her shady and threatening motives that were becoming clearer by the moment, they had been close. She had been one of the few people who didn't judge him in one way or another. And now she was imprisoned and not many people knew what the faculty was planning to do to her. He probably also wondered how big role he had played in causing the danger – partly by being nasty to Dane – that was now hanging above everyone. He clearly tried to act like it didn't have an effect on him, but Musa and Aisha had witnessed his lousily finished training this morning. All of this would've a lot to bear to anyone, and Musa couldn't help feeling a little sorry for him.

"You really hate being here, don't you?"

She hadn't even acknowledged she had used her powers on full force until she saw the look on Riven's face: it was disoriented, almost blank, and there was a hint of surprise in his eyes. Musa was fully aware of what her powers awoke in others: being mentally and emotionally exposed without their own control could be terrifying.

Suddenly, Riven snapped out of his slumber, obviously startled, and pointed his finger at her accusingly. "Stay the fuck out of my head!" His voice was loaded with as much poison as possible, but a tiny, unintended smile screwed his cover up.

Snorting, he shook his head a little and turned around, away from the control of her bright eyes. "Mind fairies..." Still somewhat confused, he started to walk away, mumbling something like: "Walking red flags..." Nosey even at their best, thinking of being know-it-alls because of their abilities... He had been a careless idiot for letting his guard down. There was no doubt that the girl would go straight to Dowling, perhaps Silva, too, to report that the school's unstable rebel should be watched under this big threat...

Annoyed, he lifted his gaze off the ground just in time to see Sam, Musa's boyfriend, approaching them. Personally, he had nothing against the lad: if anything, despite being a loner, Terra's brother always seemed to be nice to everyone. Truth to be told, there was nothing to complain about his fighting skills, either. Perhaps those traits ran in the family. Passing him by, he tapped Sam's shoulder heavily. "Good luck with that one, mate!"

Without his own will, the fairy had awoken something in him, something he both feared, wanted to forget and also secretly missed...things from last year, that almost seemed like another life... Needing his own space, he sped up his steps and headed inside, the image of deep purple eyes oddly and fascinatingly haunting him.

Musa couldn't help smirking to the different auras of these two boys: one reminded of the serene, sunny summer day, while the other one was pretty more like an autumn storm.

For a moment, Sam looked after Riven and then turned his confused gaze to his girlfriend. "What was that about?"

Musa came closer to him, smiling and enjoying his calming and innocent presence. "Nothing." Technically, she wasn't lying. She had no room in her heart to be offended; over the years, she had become quite familiar with those kinds of hostile reactions to her powers. Whatever that had been, she didn't have energy to analyze it now. Besides, she had more pressing, romantic and distracting matters on her mind right now. "Wanna head back to the suite?"

[darkpoisonouslove]

Riven x Musa

Ok, so I keep seeing posts everywhere that basically badmouth S8 and after seeing ten seconds of the trailer (YIKES to the animation, what’s wrong with the industry that they are making everything anime? Powerpuff Gen Z, I’m looking at you – obs: I didn’t watch it fully yet) I can see where some of the criticism is coming from but anyways…

My favorite Winx!couple EVER has always been Musa x Riven since I was kid and first watched the show (Netflix is not helping ‘cause I ship them even there).

I remember yawning at Bloom/Sky, rolling my eyes at Stella/Brandom and making a completely incredulous expression that I could literally feel forming on my face at Helia/Flora (can anyone say ‘unrealistic’?). Timmy/Tecna are a second favorite.

And why my Winx OTP are Riven x Musa followed after Timmy x Tecna? Because it reflects real life. In real life you’re not gonna stumble into people whose real and deep relationship problems are solved in twenty four minutes (not even that considering that some episodes present the “problem” half-way through said 24 minute-episode).

The breakup between Riven and Musa in S6 (spoilers everywhere after all) was one of the most mature breakups in the history of breakups with the hope for the future (yes, I’m completely ignoring S7, sue me, the whole thing was one huge filler anyways). And, after reading a lot of opinions on both ends (defending Musa/attacking Riven and defending Riven/attacking Musa) and watching the episodes in question (reuniting through reconciling) I think I can give my own analysis.

Since Musa AND Riven (individually and as couple) are my favorite characters in Winx, I think I CAN give a fairly unbiased view (hopefully).

*clears throat*

Ok, keep in mind that I’m defending BOTH of them, because I ship them too hard not to.

Musa Being OC (sometimes being called ‘brat’): C'mon, people! Musa and Tecna are OC since S4 anyways, where are the tomboy and the nerd? With the sneakers, T-shirt and comfortable-looking clothes? Noooo, now they all need neat skirts and hot pink high heels and long, glamorous hair. Do they look good? Of course, but and I would totally be less pissed if there was ANY indication on the reason for the change. Are they just maturing? Expressing themselves differently? Crowd mentality? Tune and Stella finally broke Musa down and Tecna followed soon after? Was it just to please Riven and Timmy? ANYTHING (even the 'pleasing a boy’ would at least be A reason - a ridiculous one that would piss me off, but A reason none the less), was just a sudden impulse that took?

Sure, we can talk about “character growth” until we are blue in the face, but the matter of the fact is that there was none.

The changes we see in Musa and Tecna are basically the creators making them more like the rest of the Winx (I’m including Aisha in this too, where is the sporty girl that matched the boy’s interest in extreme sports? C'mon! Even Bloom and her Girl Next Door looks are replaced with Bratz and Clueless-level of outfits).

Is anyone really going to look me in the eye and say Stella wasn’t a shallow (if friendly and good-natured) Mean Girl? She got better, but as I re-watch the show (currently in S3, meaning almost half-way through the content), Stella still worries more about her hair than anything else even while under literal fire.

More and more, Musa, Tecna and Aisha are losing their identities and what made them, IMO, the more badass Winx.

How did the two on the left went from this…

… to this:

Yeah, yeah, Musa still sings, Tecna still technobabble and Aisha is still a Warrior Princess but Aisha was the first one to go Bloom and Stella on us with Musa and then Tecna following soon after. It’s not just their clothing style, it’s the way they carried themselves too.

Right now? The only thing keeping them apart is their BF blues (different kind of blues) and some personal interests (singing, shopping, tech, the whole drama with Domino/Sparks, etc). But that’s IT, their personalities are going down the drain!

Sorry for the long-winded text, but the reason I’m expressing my disappointment at their change is because Musa’s reaction fits it. S6 we have such an AMAZING breakup (didn’t even think that was possible, WTH, right? Amazing breakup?) only for her to be mad as hell at Riven at S8? Bad writing, that has been dragging her (and the rest of the Winx) down to becoming just one unilateral, shallow character (the Specialists are also falling into that pit, what in the world did they do Helia in S8? He sounds like Thor telling about his “brave exploits” there, yikes). And continuity what? What continuity? Do they even remember how the breakup was written?

But ok, let’s put the Audience View aside for a moment and focus only on the In-Universe terms.

S6: You’ll always be my hero.

S8: What on EARTH are you doing here. 

I laughed a bit, the contrast just got to me but instead of getting mad at one or the other like most of the fandom, I laughed.

Musa followed that by saying that Riven has not maintained contact and just in that I would be beyond pissed as well and giving my support to Musa. WTH, Riven? I think that each season is more less six months to a year? Sort of? Still, zero contact for so long even after ending on amicable terms and wanting to stay friends? And he went off on his own! A text now going, “I’m not dead” would be the bare basics for Musa not to worry herself bald!

BUT then I also read comments about how this was a two-way street, why didn’t Musa call either? That’s unfortunately something that I very much doubt will ever be explained. One of those: did it or didn’t it? Musa could have called and went straight to voicemail with no signs of life from Riven or she might not have called and just expected him to call as if feminism were dead and all initiative must come from the guy (which doesn’t even fit because they parted as friends).

Since we have no info on the above, I put it on both of them. It’s not fair to say, “HE should have called!” or “Why didn’t SHE call?” because we don’t have fricking context. So the only thing we can take is: no contact.

BECAUSE I put the lack of contact on both of them, Musa’s reaction was a little too much, however, Riven shows up all smirks and leaning against a tree with his arms crossed and I would have flashbacks to S1 if it wasn’t for the animation style that made all the guys look like girls. Dude! Not the time for that kind of posture. Not saying that he should be all sheepish and rubbing his arm as if he had done something horrible (again: we don’t have context on the no contact) but a more neutral approach was warranted here. Nobody does themselves any favors with that kind of attitude no matter what how high of a horse they may be (rightly or not) riding on, if anything I would react like Musa solely on that one.

Next episode we have that Riven convinced the guys to follow the girls in some mission and Musa was angry. Again: I would be too. WTH? Yes, yes, they helped and if it wasn’t for them, the Winx would gotten seriously injured but Musa did have a point saying that this demonstrated that they had no trust in them and need their hand held, it was no sanctioned mission like on Earth after all. BUT, Riven does something that I would never expect from in S1-4: he explains, he reasons it, he puts it in all the words that he does trust Musa and co and that he only wanted to show that he’d be there for her (you know? One of the main issues in S6 that made them breakup in the first place? His inability to conciliate Specialist work with supporting his girlfriend and ultimately failing or feeling like failing in both?) and Musa still pouts, crosses her arms, and turns around. Geez. I expected that one from Stella, not Musa. I think the closest Musa has ever come to THIS was back in S2 when Jared explains that Riven was the one to recommend that he interview Musa and yada yada yada and she got mad and stomped off on the poor guy that didn’t even understand what was going on (only to immediately apologize to Jared and recognizing that it wasn’t him that she was mad at… like I said: what character growth?).

Riven then goes to show that he indeed grew when he asked for advice from Sky and Brandon (WTH, right? Can we picture that happening back in S1-3? He very grudgingly would LISTEN to UNSOLICITED advice from Nabu and Helia in S4-6). And does a very, very goofy and embarrassing show of affection. Yeah… again… I can picture Stella loving the light show with her face for IDK how many people to see but not Musa (although can we really blame the guy after the series went out of its way to make Musa all Stella-like? Clothes, attitude, the only thing missing is making Riven carry her shopping bags around and call him “Shnookums” (although the mental image is already enough for me to fall over laughing, just for the face Riven would make). Still, I have to count that one against Riven if only because (as much as the show gives only lip service to it) Musa isn’t Stella.

Riven being mind controlled (again) aside, those two are back together. And on the overall? Riven showed more growth than any other character in the show COMBINED (he is the Zuko of the show), that doesn’t go to say that he didn’t make mistakes since coming back in S8 (but that was more a guy trying to win back a girl than… betraying his friends for a pair of nice legs or… IDEK like in S1 – where, mind control or not the show itself made sure to make it clear that he had free will) or that he is now the one out of Musa’s league. I think that NOW it can actually work… if the show allows him to keep the progress, Musa is the next to see her flaws and work on them (which she showed to be able to do since S2) and put effort in the relationship. The difference between them is that Musa can actually work on herself and the relationship at the same time. That’s not me saying she is better than Riven in any way, everybody has their own pace and their own way to cope, to improve and to self-reflect.

I still root for them.

~*~

PS-IDK why, but I read posts about how Riven changed so much and posts about how all his progress disappeared and he is now back to his S1 attitude and I’m just cofused. Yeah, different of opinions and so on, but such opposite opinions on the subject of a guy whose relationship was focused on three episodes? 

[icecreamkink]

so i watched cobra kai all in two days and i have so many -

this show has so many cool and smart angles to it, but the same time.... its so stupid oh my god everyone is so dumb literally mr miyagi held all of the braincells in this whole universe 

like i am but at the same time i am not surprised it was made like this, bc in hindsight of course there were hordes of ppl simping over johnny lawrence ....  but it still amuses me that this is like... an Actual Official Thing

ok this will get long so cut it is

how much fun this cast has is super visible and i love it

i rly enjoy how the world was expanded ! i did grow up watching the karate kid movies, so watching how they progressed the world of the movies so organically was pretty cool. it rly feels like its the same universe

i fucking LOVE stories that are largely about a Thing. dancing ,skating, sports its just so thrilling to experience this all consuming relationship people can have with this type of activity? and martial arts are just that much more intense, so yeah, grown ass men kicking each other around at the lightest provocation and a war veteran caring so much abt teen karate is Ridiculous.... but i love it all because thats the intensity i find so thrilling

was kinda surprised with how much im missing mr. miyagi. first because, like everyone is so unhinged jesus christo, it just really throws into relief how much his character grounded the narrative of the movies. but also hes just a really great character

and on that note it rly Gets Me that the show itself aknowledges that and plays that into daniels angst and all the little ways they sorta weave myiagisms into the whole show........ im not getting emotional over this dumb karate dads show OK

related - i really miss hearing ‘daniel-san’ 🥺🥺

ACE DEGENERATE oh god oh no

they really went down the down and out johnny lawrence route huh. like i was always kinda bummed we see kreese choking him and then we never see him again in the movies, and while i love dumpster fire problematic trash himbo ck johnny, its like......................... actually really sad that his life turned out like this fjngn

everytime i hear ‘babes’ and ‘pussy’ i die a little inside. i know thats the point but i am a v cringe easy person, have mercy (ehe)

loved the way they are constantly drawing parallels between johnny and mr. myiagi of all people. hes the handy man of his building that has a bullied kid asking for help and eventually steps up to teach them karate, beats up a bunch of bullies for him, creates a friendship with said kid, estranged from family, drinks his sorrows away, surprisingly one of the least quick to anger characters (which says more about everyone else really but.... Well.), no schemes or ulterior motives hes just tryna vibe here.... oh and ofc magically heals miguel of is asthma apparently. the true disciple.. meanwhile daniel is his usual messy petty self even tho he wants to be mr myiagi so bad 

also interesting about that is how miguels character is a parallel of both johnny and daniel at the same time

overall the parallels in ck are done really well, drawing comparisons and also subverting them constantly. theyre well thought out

THE PARALELOGRAMS

fr tho, the angle being explicitly the cycle of trauma and its effects and how trumatized adults in turn traumatize kids, maliciously or not, is so interesting

but! on the flip side of that, it feels like the writers are getting in their own way @ letting the characters grow. especially this last season. theres only so many times you can do "johnny and daniel are getting along but 5mins later they are (literally) fighting over some dumbass random issue" or "johnny puts in 20% of effort with robby and then gives up" before it gets on your nerves yknow?

i see daniel no longer talks like macchio ingested 15 shots of espresso before every take and idk how to feel about that tbh

interesting tension in daniel, as in, in tkk mr miyagi was there and daniel was frankly, kind of a lil shit, this messy petty spitfire hot tempered sassy kid,(johnny lawrence voice: just... stop being so annoying) but now hes the adult, and he wants to be mr. miyagi... but hes just not, and never will be to his very core and it shakes him and in a way hes trying to find who he is now that he sees himself in a position to be a not! cobra kai figure. i kinda really like that 

plus how that relates to his cobra kai trauma. idk if the writers thought abt it Like That, i think so, but in any case, its interesting bc it seems like daniel has told everyone whod listen about johnny lawrence his Pretty Boy Karate Rival and high school and 84 cobra kai... But. no one seems to know what went on in 85 (or 86? idk) which was just so much worse

like ye og cobras were shitheads, but tkk iii is just two hours of daniel being emotionally and physically tortured. 

like, the third movie is.............chaotic, to put it nicely, and many people ignore it, but the writers clearly didnt. daniels actions are, in a way, responding so much more to the events of tkk iii than to the first movie ie. johnny himself, AND. daniel doesnt rly seem to have dealt with that trauma? he never told sam? doesnt feel like hes ever told amanda? he doesnt even say terrys name out loud? freaks Out over kreese ? the way he reacts to robbys deceit? his FACE when he walks past the new "fear does not exist in this dojo" paint or kreeses photo? hmMm i sense Pain

his fashion tho........... disappointing. where are the flower shirts daniel huh we had one (1) shirt what a tragedy STOP WEARING SUITS ALL THE TIME . also the band ts/grunge bi are a look for johnny but part of me longs for the preppy lovable 80s bully chic johnny lawrence getups

weird that they never used that last moment of karate kid where johnny kinda... snaps out of his anger and hands daniel the trophy almost in tears. like “youre alright larusso, good match” “thanks a lot”  that being their last direct interection seems like itd be perfect fruit for cobra kai but... they just dont. weird. 

especially when, the FIRST SCENE they see each other, suposedly in 30+ years, the first thing to come out of daniels mouth is QUOTE "u still got those golden locks huh?" WHO SAYS SHIT LIKE THAT DANIEL FUCKING SAN 

also amandas immediate reaction "your pretty boy rival?" like. can we talk about the fact that daniel had to have imparted to his wife the very important information that his high school bully/karate rival was like Really Cute and Fucking Hot Actually

 the writers Knew exactly what they were doing and honestly.............. power to them

tkk director voice: and billy was just so cute  

also I was thinking that daniel sounded strangely fond in that first scene, and i wonder if he developed a weird affection for johnny on the grounds that of all of his Karate Rivals johnny was actually the only one who didn’t actively tried to literally kill him

i was actually delightedly surprised with how great the chemistry between them is, like from the get go i am Invested. their rl friendship totally bleeds through and its fantastic

. granted, idiots enemies to lovers friends is my Thing so i am biased  

johnny lawrence: i am down in the dumps, i fucked up my whole life and my sons probably, largely in light of the trauma that the father figure sensei and the philosophy of my karate inflicted on me and all my friends. u know what i should do, as a traumatized, unreliable mess of an adult? teach that same philosophy to some other kids! what could go wrong! 

but really i enjoy the setup of it. i kinda like that i watched it late because, season 1 was johnny setting himself up for failure in a way and it was exciting to watch it all go to shit sjfn

Like. his heart might be in the right place, but theres just.... not a way to teach something like ‘strike hard, no mercy’ and not have it fuck up a kid 

case and point: aisha, miguel and hawk become annoying as all hell over that bullshit in the end of s1, even before shit gets truly fucked up

billys subtle panicked eyes when he sees hawk and miguel fighting dirty in the all valley was SO GOOD especially in parallel with the panic that is so visible in his face in the movie when kreese tells bobby to injure daniel and in the sweep the leg scene 

seen people question wether kreese should have returned and i absolutely think he needed to. johnny needed to realize that cobra kais fundamentals are flawed, at the root, beyond kreese himself being a toxic piece of shit 

also who are we kidding? we are here to see the tkk characters play on new playgrounds!

i get what they're doing abt kreeses backstory, ( also. cobra kai. pq eles caem nas cobras djjs sorry) but did it need to take up that much time? feels like they couldve  done it in half the run time and developed some other stories better 

martin kove has such an evil eye. i love it

love that we get a good follow up to kreese breaks johnnys trophy and tries to CHOKE HIM in the parking lot, which happened in the movie and then....................... was never mentioned again

“the gang is all back together again” aaaa u piece of SHIT 

also. terry silver is definetely appearing ha ha ha PAIN i cant wait

seen ppl say kreese was too much of a cartoon villain like..........................oh......... sweetie........... u dont even Know

interested how johnny will fit into that bc kreese was simping rly hard for johnny here. like i did not expect him to be so adamant to have him with cobra kai ... under his control, sure, but he really wants johnny by his side despite already having control of the dojo and how will terry silver self appointed jon kreeses forever simp going to feel abt that? 

like bitchs dropping by every episode like ‘joooooohnny ..... come bacc to me joooonny......... this ur last warning! for real this time johnny! i wont say it again! watch me ! im leaving johnny! im rly leaving ! im dragging a chair” and johnny is just like. dont let the door hit ya bitch it was so funny pls

and on that subject oof, johnny! doesnt! Know! he doesnt get that side of daniels cobra kai trauma. and i kind of.............. cannot wait for ck 2021 johnny lawrence to meet terry silver like. what a shit show i need a front row seat and popcorn (imagine terry tries some greasy charm and johnny just roundhouse kicks him in the teeth bc he just doest Not Have the Patience for This. glorious)

feels like we, as a society, should acknowledge that cobra kai will never die................ bc their sense of design is just chefs kiss. their name is COBRA KAI. they have sexie sleeveless black gis. theyve sneks. colorful leather jackets with embroided naja insignia, the get ppl thru the aesthetics. evil geniuses

the flashback cuts : masterpiece behavior

the other takes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! of the movie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the differente angles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! of the FIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE CLOSE UP ON JOHNNYS FACE AT THE KICK 

that scene of daniel and johnny vibing to 80s music in the car. just. oh my god. the fan wish fullfilment. no thoughts head empty.

the new characters! theyre .... good. but. idk. i really like miguel (save for the annoying phase mid s1 - end s2) and amanda, who is a damn riot and has some functioning braincells, but everyone else is       

like dont get me wrong, i dont hate anyone,its not a jane and rafael from jtv situation,  and i am interested and invested in their arcs, but i wouldnt say i like   Like them, as in, personality wise 

like, sams grappling with ptsd was rly gutting and i enjoyed that plus her slight rage issues, 

which nicely parallel torys rage issues. torys background is all over the place tho so im pretty on the fence abt her so far

robby deserves better in every way, and i like how smart and cunning and surprisingly sweet he is

hawk............... is there i guess,

 demetri is annoying in the best way possible,

 carmen is sweet but. i just feel like her character is blunted to make the johnny relationship easier. like when shes furious with him after miguels injury but then forgives him like an episode later? and then convinces him to fight for the tournament bc she had a karate epiphany off screen even tho she was always against it? meh. feels like with the plot thiccening she was swallowed and now shes like a crutch for johnny mora than anything, which is disappointing.

aisha was cool and im kinda mad she wasnt in s3, especially bc a storyline with her tory and sam was like RIGHT THERE , but also... cant say i was super super fond of her... doesnt feel like we ever spent enough time on her

moon the bi icon, 

overall its a good cast but the main draw for me remains the og cast 

the tory/sam miguel/robby Thing. enjoy how theyre Narrative Foils and i like how their stories were so dramatically entangled but oh god give me a break with the teenage love square for the love of god. if u gonna put us through that at least have the decency to not make it so straight

and honestly some sam/tory        miguel/robby romantic tension would even make more sense. just saying! 

also im not sure how i feel abt the cobra kai: red miyagi do: blue theyre going with since some of daniels most iconic looks in tkk are also red. like it was a color they (johnny and him) sorta shared. i get it, opposite but complementary but idk... a little too fire nation and water tribe for me .

 and like the cobra kai kids are so funny abt it bc their outifts grow progressively more ridiculously coordinated. its like do they group chat every morning before leaving their houses? 

robby still sticks out like that tho. he went thru an athleisure/daniel san tsleeves phase and now hes back in the bandts grunge, but his color scheme doesnt fully blend with the other cobra kais. hmmmm.

LOVED LOVED LOVED both the okinawa episode and the cobra kais easy rider episode just such good good heart aching fun

bobby is an icon. he was in tkk and he is now ck hope appears more and more

 tommy is like the most iconic background character. all his lines, freaking gold then and now. sigh :( 

the framing in the okinawa trip was so good everything was so good

i stand by the fact that kumiko was the love interest daniel had the most chemistry with and shes is overall such a joy to watch, loved to see her again, idola, fashion icon

also tkk ii is good u guys are just mean

also really enjoyed chozens role in the episode, his evolution; i love that they introduced the pressure points (ty lee the blueprint) and! the honk + karate! cousins! absolutely iconic

when kumiko reads mr miyagis letters........ oh my god, my eyes FILLED with tears, it was so heart wrenching :(( tamlyns delivery was so emotional and lovely and its so obvious everyone involved in ck has so much love and respect for pat morita and mr miyagi as character, and i adore that it exists like this electric current through the show

when we were watching i told my sister i thought that ali would be miguels big shot surgeon and ngl i am so disappointed that didnt happen. hire me cobra kai writers

also the johnny ali daniel amanda chemistry? off the charts

AND the sassy retconning of daniel and alis breakup! LMAO ‘I HOPE U DIDNT TELL MR MIYAGI IT WAS MY FAULT’ HFDJJGNKFKSD

i am preeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetty sure back injuries dont work like that    but oke

daniel and johnny are so good together whenever, like they never actually help the kids or get shit done and end up fighting anyway but its just so much fun when theyre hanging

JOHNNY LAWRENCE AND DANIEL LARUSSO FIGHTING TOGETHER

daniels “plan” on how to get robby to juvie was so stupid. literally were u TRYING to make him hate you. dumbass

parents at those hearing rly brave for ppl that did not do ANYTHING as their kids got involved in a karate gang war until now

“bullshit i heard u were the real bully!” i mightve screeched

this s3 ending was SO DRAMATIC omg

everyone is such a MESS go to THERAPY u unhinged motherfckers

also im sorry but uh. a richass neighborhood in california doesnt have some type of neighborhood watch? the larussos rly dont have any security at all? neighbors wont hear the sound of a damn karate brawl happening next door??? also wasnt tory all like ooo i cant go to juvie, my mom yada yada yet shes always running around town getting into fights even at the rich girls house she was kicked out of school for fighting??   ?  ??    ??        ?                ?    ?          ??                  ?    ? girl??

stop destroying the larussos house, its so pretty :((((

sam finding her center looking at mr miyagis picture...  uwu maybe

robby yelling ‘U ARE WEAAK’@  johnny \as he is easily blocking him is like.... so funny and so sad to me. sweetheart. 

also i know it was meant as ‘oh johnny pushes him and HURTS HIM’ but it just looks like robby runs himself into the lockers and IM SO SORRY I FEEL SO BAD BUT IT WAS SO FUNNY 

i like that he and tory are the cobra kai kids now. we need ppl we care abt there to not revert to a good vs evil schtick, and this is the most engaging it could be... tho it hurts that these kids cant catch a break

ah yes "lets bet some real shit on the result of this teen karate tournament bc that is always a great idea" is BACK

so daniel saves johnny from kreese..... maybe johnny will save him from terry 🧐

and dojos unite ohohoho. lets SEE how that’ll work out 

miguels face of Despair when the ck defectors and the md kids are bickering like 'this is never gonna work' : gold

also. Johnny Lawrence is gonna learn some myiagi-do karate AHAAHSJAKDFH

 ive been waiting for this moment all my lifeeee oh lawrd 

final thoughts! there are def things i hope the writers will improve on the next season, but i am very excited for it either way AND i feel like it has made me enjoy the movies even more and that is a win for a reboot/sequel to me!!

[multimetaverse]

Jamie Johnson 5x09 Review

We see Jamie at his sullen worst and poor Boggy’s mental deterioration  continues apace in what was a good but downer ep. Let’s dig in!

We finally return to the season’s most important story line, e-gaming. Jamie’s doing pretty good for himself in the virtual world of gaming so much so that he’s clearly willing to throw away his chance at making a full recovery in the real world. Jamie was well out of order this ep, just constantly burning bridges and being a sullen jerk. We’ve seen this play out before where Jamie can be a little shit but they really dialed it up to 11 this ep. In general from what I’ve seen of British TV they’re not afraid to have their characters be more unlikable then most American shows but we really do need to see Jamie act like a good guy at least a few times this season

A good start would be for Jamie to actually be a good friend to Boggy who’s not doing great. His anxiety is getting quite bad and we can see that he’s desperate for Jamie to talk to him again even though the pressure of being Jamie’s stat man is making his mental state deteriorate further. The only other example of anxiety being tackled on kids tv is Jonah Beck from Andi Mack and while the writers did a very good job in S2 with Jonah’s panic attacks, that story line was abruptly dropped half way through S3 without Jonah ever seeking treatment, telling his parents, or even telling Andi herself onscreen. I don’t expect the JJ writers to make those mistakes and I would imagine Boggy actually gets real help and Jamie does find out

The Jamie and Boggy friendship has become seriously one sided this season. During Andi Mack S3 the friendship between Andi and Cyrus wasn’t really apparent on screen but it just seemed like Andi didn’t particularly care about Cyrus, she was never actively malicious towards Cyrus like Jamie is being with Boggy. We certainly need to see Jamie being there for Boggy but we also need an apology and I hope Boggy gets one #justiceforboggy

As an aside, the writers obviously couldn’t have known in advance but this e-gaming plot would have been ideal for the post covid19 S6 they’ll eventually get to filming

There was a darkly funny moment where Jamie confronts Dillon about being jetpac11 only for Dillon to reveal he’s only texted his mom to let her know he wouldn’t be coming home and Jamie just drops it without asking follow up questions. I hope we get a Dillon coming out to Jamie scene as having Jamie Johnson himself react positively to Dillon coming out would be important in setting a good example for the mostly young audience

There’s been a lot of theories as to the true identity of Jetpac11 bandied about, the one I favour is that it’s Howard Royle’s son. We’ve seen him e-gaming, he has a grudge against Jamie which might explain the use of 11 which is Jamie’s jersey number, and he’d know all about Hawkstone’s strict social media policy which would explain why he got Jamie to post a sexist comment that would surely get him in trouble. Though one strike against that theory is that he might not know enough about Phoenix to correctly guess that it was Zoe who made Jamie take down his sexist comment

I’ve heard Jethro Stevenson as a possibility which would be interesting. He’d bear a grudge against Jamie, they specifically brought up the stolen bike escapade earlier this season, and might have learned enough playing with the Phoenix kids to guess that Zoe would make Jamie take down the post. I’ve also seen it suggested that Boggy created Jetpac11 as a way to get Jamie to need him which would be quite the twist but I don’t know if Boggy is capable of pulling that off at the moment. It seems that Aisha was ruled out as a suspect as she was seen doing other things when Jetpac11 would have been playing

I liked the detail of Dillon still wearing the same clothes he left home in

Nice to see Zoe and Kat being friends and good to see Zoe not just giving up on playing professional football. Her making Jamie write an apology post and then telling him she’d be watching him was hilarious

There were a lot of sad moments this ep but I think Liam bringing his kite to the beach in hopes of ‘’accidentally’’ running into the gang was the most desperate and pathetic moment of the night. He’s burned a lot of bridges and though he has made things right with Phoenix he’s still not in the inner circle. Clearly he regrets outing Dillon and he did have the good sense to wait until him and Dillon were alone to ask when he’d be coming home but he still needs to actually apologize for his actions. I’m excited to see how his redemption arc will play out

Poor Mike, you could see how disappointed he was when he caught Jamie lying  to him. We already knew about Mike’s career being ended by injury but it hammers home that Jamie still has the chance to go pro. It also adds a nice little parallel to Graham Simmonds, Graham wasn’t injured but he had been a talented football player in his youth who never went pro and that drives him to pressure Dillon and Liam to succeed where he couldn’t. Of course, unlike Graham, Mike has never pushed Jamie like that and has always been his biggest supporter 

I don’t know why we needed an Eric/Aisha/Freddie love triangle but I assume it ends with them learning to choose lads over lasses. It already seems that they’re taking this love triangle to a more textual level than they took the Jamie/Jack/Michele love triangle from S2

Looking Ahead:

Jack’s back, wonder if she’ll interact with Jamie at all

I assume the eventual reveal that Zoe has the pendant will put a damper on her friendship with Kat

Graham Simmonds goes to see Dillon in person. That should be an interesting scene to watch

Ruby and Alba’s adoption story line comes to the fore again, I wonder if we’l lget more light shed on their past before coming to live with Becky and Dawn

There’s not much left from the S5 trailer that hasn’t already happened. Dillon playing in blue against an adult team in red is the biggest thing. I could buy part of it being a dream sequence but I also think it’s likely that there is a real game he plays in. I wonder if he ends up signing for Northport since he knows that our problematic fave Duncan Jones is stridently anti-homophobia 

Until next week Jamie Johnsoners

[the-space-above-the-stars]

he said, she said

lee jeno x reader

Summary: You like Jeno. Jeno likes you. You think Jeno likes your best friend Aisha. Jeno thinks you like Jaemin. Aisha and Jaemin think the both of you are idiots. 

Warnings: none!

Word Count: 3K

Genre: pure, stupid fluff

Pairing: jeno x reader, friends to lovers!au

***

Ever since primary school, it seems like it had been the four of you. You and your best friend Aisha had met Jaemin and Jeno, another pair of best friends, and you all just kind of melded into this quartet, proving inseparable throughout high school. 

And somewhere, at some undetectable point in your journey, you had decided to be a clown had caught feelings for Jeno. At first, you were certain that it was just a short crush, a brief infatuation with the smiley-eyed boy that would go away, but time passed, you hit double digits, you went off to high school, and even then, even now, your heart still somersaults anytime you think about him. 

A few years ago, you had even thought about confessing, having a wild notion that there was a possibility that Jeno returned your feelings, but then you heard some schoolyard gossip that stopped you in your tracks. 

“I heard Jeno likes Aisha! Yeah, I even saw him giving her his jacket yesterday!” 

And that gossip worked as a catalyst, your fickle middle-school mind overworking the words in your mind and using them to overanalyze every interaction that Jeno and Aisha had from then, and you drew the conclusion that yeah, he did like her. After all, you were one of the people that knew him the best, and if you couldn’t trust your own gut...

So you backed off. You knew Aisha wasn’t interested in Jeno, but there was still no way in hell that you were going to confess when you knew you would be rejected, and possibly ruin your friendship. 

***

Aisha sat in the cafeteria, uninterested in the food that was slowly growing cold in her tray. Her chin rested in her palm and she tapped her fingers against her cheek, squinting at the two people in the lunch line on the other side of the room. “Hey Aisha-” Jaemin greeted her, only to be met with a glare and a hush. “Who’re you watching?” He asked, his eyebrow raised as he sat next to her, sneaking fries off her tray. 

“Jeno and Y/N,” she sighed, nodding to where the two were moving through the lunch line together. Jeno, first in the line, reached forward for the next food option, tater tots, and dropped some first into Y/N’s tray, and then some into his. “Look, he doesn’t even like the tater tots, but he always takes some so Y/N can take them off his tray.” 

“Ah yes,” Jaemin sighed, french fries being forgotten as he understood his friend’s predicament. “The crippling saga of When Will Our Oblivious Best Friends Get Together continues.” 

“It doesn’t make sense!” Aisha gestured wildly at the two. “There is literally nothing that should be stopping them from dating! Their families love each other, they’re good friends, they both like each other, so why the fuck can’t they just get together?” 

“Who can’t get together?” You asked, smiling at Jeno as he used his foot to pull your chair out for you. Aisha glares at Jaemin once again. 

“Uh- why Monica and Chandler can’t get together, on FRIENDS,” Jaemin stuttered.

Jeno raised an eyebrow, pulling his plastic fork from the packaging. “But- Monica and Chandler are together?” 

“Dude! Spoiler alert! So anyway, you guys doing anything after school?” You and Jeno looked at him with confusion, then at Aisha, but she had on her impeccable poker face, so the two of you just looked at each other and shrugged. 

“Uh, I’m tutoring Jeno for the chem test.” 

“Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, can you wait for like 10 minutes in the library? Coach told us he needs to talk to us about captains after practice today.” 

“Yeah sure, just meet me there. What about you two?” You smile as you nod at Aisha and Jaemin, using a fork to pick a tater tot off of Jeno’s tray. 

“Nothing much,” Aisha shrugged. “We’ve just got a project we need to work on.” 

“What pro-” Jaemin started, cutting himself off with a cough when Aisha pinched him from under the table. “Oh right, that project, I remember now.” 

Jeno raised an eyebrow, eyes darting between the two, but shrugged and went back to eating, transferring the rest of his tater tots to your tray. Jaemin looked at Aisha, but she mouthed “After lunch” to him.

***

“Okay, so either I have amnesia and we got assigned a project, or you were lying in there,” Jaemin dropped his lunch tray off, following Aisha into the hall. 

“Well, we technically do have a project. Just not for school. I’m initiating Project Get Our Dumbass Friends Together.” 

“Oh thank god,” Jaemin sighed as the bell rang, the two of them continuing to talk as they headed to class. “I thought we actually had to do schoolwork. So what’s the first step, Captain?” 

“Recon,” Aisha shrugged, the two of them slipping into their seats in Chemistry, lowering her voice to a whisper. “We talk to Jeno and Y/N separately and we figure out what’s stopping them from getting together, apart from the obvious.” 

“What’s obvious?” Jaemin whispered, trying to not get in trouble with Miss Lin, who hated his guts. 

“They’re both pussies.” 

***

After the final bell rang, Jaemin set off for the library, his work set out for him. Aisha was gonna talk to Jeno when he got out of basketball practice, which left him with you. The librarian glared at him as he walked in, pointing her pen on the “no food or drink” sign. The old bat’s memory apparently hadn’t begun to fail her. Holding his hands up in defense, he walked past her to where you sat, earbuds in and head buried in some book. “What’s shaking?” You jumped as he tapped her shoulder, falling into the seat next to you. 

“Jesus Christ Nana, give me some warning next time,” You sighed, rolling your eyes. “What’re you doing here, don’t you have to work with Aisha?” 

“Oh yeah, we uh, we actually got most of it done in Study Hall. And so I was walking by the library and who do I see but my favorite person to bug, Y/N Y/L/N,” 

“You’re such a pest.” 

“A loveable pest.” He coughed, not sure how to transition into the topic. “So you like Jeno, huh?” Your eyes widened, and you turned to look at him so fast he’s sure that he gave you whiplash. 

Well, that would work. 

“W-What?” You stutter, face reddening as you look down at your book. “You’re crazy Na. Me? Like Jeno? As if.” 

“Yes, I predicted that you’d react like this, so I’m just gonna get to it. Y/N/N, everyone can see the way you look at Jeno. Well, everyone but him, but that’s not the point. You guys practically do everything together, you’re tutoring him for Chemistry on a Friday night, for fucks sake and so help me if you don’t confess I’ll start singing right here, right now-” You cut him off by slapping a hand over his mouth, your face a furious shade of red. “So?” His voice came out muffled and you groaned, removing your hand. 

“Okay, okay, I like Jeno, okay? You can’t tell ANYONE.” 

“Why not! You guys would literally be the BEST couple-” 

“He doesn’t like me, Jaemin.” That took him a bit by surprise. “I’m not gonna ruin everything on a whim that he might feel the same.” 

“What the fuck do-” The librarian shushed him aggressively, and he continued in a whisper. “What do you mean he doesn’t like you?” 

“He likes Aisha, Jaemin.” 

***

Aisha tapped her foot to the beat of the song she was listening to through her earbuds, leaning against the wall outside the gym as she waited for Jeno. Her last class of the day was closer, so she had volunteered to interrogate him.

They were heading into their senior year of high school and it was frustrating to see that you and Jeno, two people that have had feelings for each other since forever, still hadn’t managed to put two and two together and start dating. She was doing this not just to get them together, but also she was curious to see what was stopping them. 

The doors to the gym opened and the basketball team started filing out, changed back into their daily clothes with their gym bags over their shoulders. Jeno was near the back talking to Chenle. “Hey, Jeno!” She called out to him, waving him over. His head perked up and he smiled at her, saying bye to Chenle and walking over. “I need to talk to you.” 

“Uh, I really need to get to the library, is this gonna be a long talk?” 

“Actually, we can talk on the way.” Pulling him by the sleeve, she started walking to the library. “So you’ve liked Y/N since forever, and I know that-” 

“Wait, wait wait-” Jeno looked around to make sure no one was around, looking at Aisha like she was crazy. “What do you mean I like Y/N?” 

“You’ve liked her since she pulled the fire alarm to get you and Jaemin out of detention on your birthday so we could all go celebrate. Am I wrong?” Jeno opened and closed his mouth, but no noise came out. Aisha shrugged and kept walking. “Didn’t think so?” 

“Wait- what, how’d you find out?” 

“You’re not too subtle, you know? The only person who apparently doesn’t know you like Y/N is, well Y/N herself. So tell me, Troy Bolton, why aren’t you confessing?” 

“I’m not gonna ruin our friendship just because of some stupid feelings,” Jeno huffed. “If keeping everything to myself means we can stay friends, then I’ll gladly never tell her.” 

“You’re actually so stupid. You’ve known the girl for over a decade and you’re this oblivious about the way she feels? Do you think she’d do the shit she does for you for other people, Jeno? Staying after school on a FRIDAY NIGHT to tutor you, when you damn well know that you guys could do this over FaceTime? Pulling the fire alarm? Y/N likes you, dumbass!” 

Jeno looked at Aisha like she was crazy. “No, she doesn’t. She likes Jaemin, Aisha.” 

***

Jaemin met Aisha outside of the library after Jeno went inside. “So what’d you learn?” He asked as the two watched Jeno walk up to you. Smiling, he put his head on your shoulder and said something, making you jump. Scowling, you hit him with a book. 

“Jeno thinks Y/N likes you.” 

“Oh shit, that’s crazy. Y/N thinks Jeno likes you.” 

“Dumbasses,” they sighed at the same time, looking at each other. “So what do we do know?” Jaemin questioned, following Aisha as she walked away from the library. 

“I mean, I guess we can set them up in some sort of elaborate blind date,” Aisha suggested. “We tell them both we have someone we want to set them up with, and then we just leave them together. Something’s bound to happen.” 

“Or we could do the simpler way and just lock them in a closet,” Jaemin suggested, shrugging as they walked out of the school. 

“What is this?” Aisha wrinkled her nose at his suggestion. “A fanfiction? Knowing them, they’d just sit in silence until we let them out.” Jaemin opened his mouth to argue, then closed it and shrugged, nodding in agreement. “Come on, Nana, Step 2 of Project Get Our Dumbass Friends Together has begun.” 

***

You hit Jeno with her book. “First, Jaemin scares me, then you? What is this, Terrorize Y/N Day?” Jeno fell into the chair next to her, trying to stifle his laughter, and her scowl faded away. She couldn’t stay mad at him, unfortunately. 

“So um, why was Jaemin scaring you?” Jeno coughed as he stopped laughing, pausing as he reached for his textbook to ask. 

You turned red, remembering Jaemin’s speculations and shook her head. “He sat me sitting alone and just stopped by to annoy me, is there any other reason for Jaemin?” Jeno just pursed his lips and nodded. You could tell something was bugging him, but you just couldn’t tell what. “So um, what were you having trouble with, exactly?” 

“Uh, everything?” Jeno blushed, scratching the back of his head and you laughed, hiding your smile behind the sleeve of your sweater. Jeno smiled. He loved your smile.

As the evening wore on and you kept talking about polar bonds and balancing equations and Lewis Structures, you couldn’t help but notice that Jeno was staring at you. Not looking, which would have the rational explanation that he was dozing off and staring off at nothing, this was full-on staring. His eyes flickered from your own to the strands of hair curling behind your ear to your lips- “What is it?” You asked, taking him by surprise. “Is there something on my face?”

“No, there’s nothing!” He stuck his hands up in defense. “I’m just thinking of something Aisha told me on the way here.”

Ouch. You purse your lips, avoiding his eyes and looking back at the textbook. “You and Aisha walked here together?”

“Yeah, she had to talk to me about something, uh where were we?”

“Molar mass,” you mumbled, that tiny bit of hope continuing to crumble away. At the end of the evening, they packed up and Jeno offered to give you a ride. Most of it was spent in silence, which was rare between the two, but granted they did have a lot to think about. “So what did Aisha want to talk to you about?” you asked, turning your attention from your fraying jeans to your friend.

Jeno ribbed the back of his head, awkwardly avoiding your gaze. “Um, this is gonna sound crazy, but she was basically saying that you like me.”

Your heart started going so fast you were sure it would set a world record at the Olympics. “Huh,” is all you managed to say, glad that it was so dark out that Jeno couldn’t see how red you were.

“Yeah I told her that was crazy, I mean... you don’t like me, like that, right?” Jeno pulled the car to a stop on the curb in front of your house, looking at you intently.

“Uh, yeah, I mean of course not.” There was something funny in the look on his face. It was almost a look of disappointment. But that’s crazy. “Jaemin actually said something similar about you, and I told him he was mad, I mean, you like Aisha, everyone knows-“

“What?” Jeno was now looking at you like you were crazy. “What- I like Aisha?”

“Yeah, I mean, don’t you?”

Jeno groaned, resting his head on the steering wheel. “no, I don’t- I actually like...” He trailed off, turning red and stopping himself before he revealed anything more.

“Who? Who do you like?” You were dreading the answer and honestly didn’t know why you asked.

“I um- okay, please don’t hate me, I like you.” His fingers tapped furiously on the wheel, looking out the window at passing cars. “But I know you like Jaemin, so can we just pretend I never revealed-“

“Wait a damn minute-“ You clapped a hand over his mouth, mind struggling to understand everything that was just revealed in the past 2 minutes. “I don’t like Jaemin, who told you that?”

“I- I mean you guys are always- You don’t like him?”

“No.” Groaning, you rested your head in your hands, hair falling over your face. “I like you, idiot.”

“You- like- me?” He worded it out slowly, finally comprehending the meaning of the words. “Man, we’re both dumb, aren’t we?”

“Yeah,” you laughed breathlessly, moving your hand from your face to pat his, which was still furiously clenched around the wheel. He slowly released his grip, turning his hand around to hold yours.

Making eye contact, you both flushed even redder than you were before, Jeno coughing and looking away. “So um, what now?”

“I- can I try something?” He nodded and removing your hand from his grip, you leaned in, cupping his face and pressing your lips against his. The initial shock wore away and he kissed you back, hands wrapping around your waist to pull you closer. Which was a bit difficult with the seatbelts, but you finally figured it out. Pulling away, you were both grinning like idiots, faces flushed and lips buzzing.

“Can I ask you something?” He tucked a strand of hair behind your ear and you nodded. “Will you be my girlfriend?”

***

Come Monday, Jaemin and Aisha we’re completely prepared for Step Two, which was probably a bit TOO detailed. “You got the roses?” Aisha asked, and Jaemin nodded.

“Yeah, you got the peanut butter-“

“Hey, guys!” You greeted as you walked into the room. They looked up, jaws dropping when they saw you.

There were a few things different. First of all, you were wearing Jeno’s jacket. To continue, Jeno’s arm was around you. In conclusion, you two did not look like two people who were JUST friends. “Hi,” Aisha managed to say, nudging Jaemin in the side. “What happened to you two?”

“Oh, we’re dating now, basically.” Jeno grinned, taking your hand in his. The bell rang to get to homeroom, and kids began to filter out of the halls. “I’ll see you in Chem?” You nodded and smiled as he leaned down and kissed your cheek, waving at Aisha and Jaemin as he walked off.

“I gotta get to class, I’ll see you guys later,” You waved at them, hands invisible in the sleeves of Jeno’s large sweater. and walked off.

Jaemin finally closed his mouth, looking at Aisha in shock. “That really happened?”

“Yeah,” she smiled, then groaned. “We have a lot of roses and peanut butter to get rid of, don’t we?”

“Yup.” They started walking to homeroom when Jaemin got an idea. “Do we still get to take credit for them?”

“Oh hell yeah.”

[simplecatgirl]

 (Note: I know Fate: the Winx Saga had only a teaser trailer, despite it blatant whitewashing of the cast, it seems unfair to shit on it. However, Netflix had proven themselves to be awful at adaptations of more varied or light-hearted stories in attempt to chase the popularity that GOT and Riverdale had succeed. So, it is fair for people to be pissed at Netflix’s latest attempt to chase a false trend).  

I want to take the time to talk about something that resonate with me in the series and I prayed doesn’t happen in the show: Sky and Bloom’s relationship along with Brenden(?) and Stella. I mentioning these two as they are seen in the trailer for the moment. (I think Brenden is the brown guy throwing around a knife while walking. I also think he is the guy fighting another guy). This a lot more personal as I’m not the most prepared of talking about the whitewashing, or I’m good at explaining the weird idea of darking the show. 

I don’t want Sky and Bloom’s relationship ending up like Archie and Veronica’s relationship in Riverdale. I’m going laid that out quick. Archie and Veronica’s relationship always put me cause how sexualize it always felt or overly dramatic. Every clip, reviews, and episode I seen with Archie and Veronica made me uncomfortable. (Didn’t help for a good bit, they supposed to be my age, which is yikes forever). It felt more like a soft-core porn than a relationship at times, which is fine itself if they weren’t teenagers. Anyone can argue that teenagers do have this kind of relationship, and I will agree with you. I had been friends or met teenagers that had this kind of relationship, but the way Riverdale put it in your face is grosser than it suppose to be. 

I don’t know how the relationship between Archie and Veronica actually played out in the comics, but I know what sky and Bloom’s relationship was to me. Winx Club, Kim possible, and varies other shows made me fall in love with establish relationships or relationships that get establish in series and stays together for rest of the time. I eat that shit up every time. I think slow burns are really great but I can’t stand much of them for long. The pining phase is great but I get bored of it really quickly. Give me the two girlfriends that babysit a cyrtid child. Give me the two husbands that run constant get-rich-quick schemes. Give me the ploy couple that run a flying ship. Winx club gave me that itch, which stay for so many years. 

Most of the relationships in Winx club have a speedy pace of getting together, although some don’t stay long due story (Aisha/Layla and Nabu) and others are just tiring to me (Musa and Riven). 

I had always wanted a romantic relationship when I was young. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much of example of what a healthy relationship looks like snice my parents’ relationships grew more and more unhealthily. Then Bloom met Sky...I think that was my first realization that my parents’ relationship doesn’t have to be mines. 

One word I would described Sky and Bloom together: loving. The series establish quickly that Bloom likes Sky and Sky likes Bloom; there wasn’t a wait where they constantly stringing you along on whatever they actually like each other than pining. No, they said, “They attracted to each other, let’s go.” It just felt much more refreshing to me. As they got more comfortable together, you get so much sense of respect and love between sky and bloom. Sky knows that Bloom is quite powerful, though he sometimes fumbled his bag with this. Bloom knows that Sky is a pretty damn good specialist. They never quite a time where they undermined each other on their albites. Sky drinks that respect women juice like a sailor with beer. Sky is himbo that adores Bloom, and Bloom adores Sky so much; in fact, varies villains use Sky against her snice they all know how much she cares for sky as much she care for her friends. 

When drama happens in their relationship, I never roll your eyes at it. I’m so hooked on it cause I have seen their struggle to stay together. I have seen the struggle they face separately and together as a couple. They always grew stronger together and I love that. Simple nuisances are also what made it so great. Sky is a lot more considerate to his duty as a leader and a prince, which can make him bump heads with Bloom, a princess without a kingdom. Sky get jealous, and Bloom does too. Yet, they always come on top, and I love it. 

Now, Stella and Brendon’s relationship is something I never notice the first time until I got more into reading media analysts. Stella and Brendon are similar to the same tone of Cleo and Deuce from Monster High. A lot of teen movies, books, and shows would have a female villain that was either a popular ‘slut’ or popular egoistical/stuck-up girl. This is for our main character to look better and look like a downgrade. The antagonist has a ‘I’m better than every single one of you’ attitude; These stories would demonize these traits in a female character as if you are major ‘bitch’ to be overly confident. Some stories would a more nuisance point of this trait if this trait is use cause damages to other. Most of time, it just use to make you hate a female character in order to left up the main character. 

Now, both Stella and Cleo are very egoistical characters but they are never shame of having that level of confident. In fact, no one ever really hates her for it outside of villains. Cleo was shame for being a bully, but she never change her ‘I’m hotter than hot’ attitude. Her attitude make other really like her, and she uses it to help others. In usual shows, they would be shame for their attitude; in their stories, they just shame for being jerks to random people. That’s it. 

Another thing, these egoistical female characters have a boyfriend. This boyfriend is the main character’s love interest. However, these writer realizes you wouldn’t be on board if this turn out into a cheating story, so they make the female villain basically be controlling. It less the male love interest escaping a abusive relationship and more: ‘Crazy bitch, lol.’ This never happen with Stella and Brenden. 

Like Deuce, when Stella on her ‘I’m amazing’ talk, Brendon never seems annoyed with it or tried of it. Brendon knows that this make Stella, who is amazing. Like Cleo, Stella cares a lot about her man. Like Cleo, her boyfriend’s support mean a lot to her. Like Cleo, Stella does know that Brendon isn’t what people consider her level but she doesn’t care. Both Cleo and Stella live for popularity but they cared more for friends and their boyfriends. Brendon and Deuce never sit in on their attitude unless it going far to hurt someone. 

Stella proud herself on her looks and loved the praise from Brendon and her friends. In episode 3, season 3: Stella gets turned into a fish beast and she started to freak out. Not only was she ripped away from her proud: her beauty, she was sacred on how Brendon would react as she knows he likes her looks. Then Brendon comes in like, “I’m going to love you no matter how you look like, cause you will always be Stella to me.” (This episode is a refence to beauty and the beast, just pointing that out there). Stella loves Brenden and Brenden loves her. 

One thing I would say that if they put the characters in a LGBTQ relationship in the new series, I would be so down for it. Especially snice a lot of the fans had the show help them realizes they were LGBTQ. It wouldn’t fucking justified this shit series pulls.

The original always had a complex concept under everything, it just never force it down your throat. It cares more about your invest in the characters, relationships, and the story. It was colorful and a fun trip. This idea of that complex concepts have to come from dark and edgy shows isn’t true. I don’t think Fate will hit half of what the original show has, but maybe it can be something.

Thank you for listening to my weird rambles and have a good day. 

[ranku-abadeer]

I’ve been thinking about Grue lately. (Big spoilers)

I hear a lot when he comes up about how he’s an under-developed character, even to the point where people question how his trigger event lines up with his power. (yes I’m aware that Wildbow has said that he lied about his trigger, I’m referring to people who claim that he made up the entire thing) And honestly, I’m thinking that his character building is a lot more subtle than people give him credit for, and a good portion of that character building ties right in to the details of his power and the story he told about his trigger event.

So I guess this has been a long time coming, it’s time for me to give Grue the treatment I gave his sister. 

First off, I want to establish an idea. Brian Laborn has what you could possibly call two distinct “personalities”, not in the traditional sense, but rather that he has two distinct sides to him that actually don’t overlap much but yet compliment each other in an interesting way.

There is Brian, the relatively laid back, hard working, compassionate, guy who learns quickly, and gets bored once he starts hitting diminishing returns. The guy who would do anything for his family members, and gets offended when Taylor says he sounds noble for saying so. The guy who is willing to become a career criminal in order to get into the position to become his sister Aisha’s legal guardian.

The guy who gives that “boyish smile” that Taylor fell in love with.

And then there is Grue, the methodical, practiced supervillain who thinks nothing of breaking the jaw of someone who was unwillingly recruited into the ABB. The guy who uses intimidation tactics and is concerned with his reputation and always votes for the plan that minimizes the risk to their team, even if the reward is a fraction of the other option. The guy who takes charge of his team and will go after any weakness that he sees in a confrontation. The “macho” guy who would cover up any weakness he sees in himself or else it will end up being taken advantage of in a confrontation.

The guy who can calmly have a verbal sparring match with supervillains who have multiple kills under their belt, and then lash out as soon as no one is looking.

These two sides of him don’t really clash, but instead sort of flow between each other. This isn’t too surprising, after all, just about every cape has some form of crisis of identity, after all Taylor herself has issues with blending the ruthless nature of “Skitter” and the heroism of “Weaver” when she joins the wards.

But Brian had this identity crisis a while ago, he’s been a cape for 3 years before the story began. He found his “middle ground” between these two personas, but the thing is... this “middle ground” is actually fairly lopsided. In the battle between his identities, Grue seems to have won. 

He seems like a fairly open guy at the beginning of he story, but the truth is that he’s not always telling the truth. He hedges when Taylor mentions his combat training, he trails off when he can tell he’s outnumbered in his team, he doesn’t really share his feelings, and he avoids his problems.

In fact, he avoids a lot of things, his emotions, discussing his family, risks in his career, and the eyes of those who hold any sort of power over him. And he forgets that people can see how much he’s avoiding being seen. Taylor does note after all that when he’s at meetings among villains and when he’s stressed out by the attention of someone that he produces visibly more darkness around his body. She says it’s to make himself look bigger, I say it’s to hide.

Let’s look at his trigger event, or rather, what he said his trigger event was.  

  “We weren’t close.  It wasn’t really possible, since I was living at the south end of the city and she was up here.  But one night, I got a text from her.  Two words: ‘Help me’.  I called, but the line was busy.  To this day, I don’t know why I took it so seriously, but I got over to my mom’s place as fast as was humanly possible.  Ran out the front door, sprinted two blocks to Lord Street, downtown, and grabbed a cab.  Left the cab driver shouting for his money as I charged through the front door of my mom’s place and found my sister.

“She’d been crying, but she wasn’t saying what was wrong.  I didn’t bother asking a second time.  I gave her a hug, picked her up and started to leave.  A man I didn’t recognize got in my way.  My mom’s new boyfriend.

“I knew he was the reason she had texted me for help, from the moment I saw her reaction.  Maybe I’d suspected there was something going on even before that, from the way her emails and texts had changed in tone.  It would explain that gut feeling I’d had that made me get over there as fast as I did.  I saw her shrink back, I felt her hold me tighter, and I went cold inside.

Immediately after this line, Brian pauses for a long enough period of time that Taylor thinks that he had finished his story already before he starts on a tangent for “context”, describing how his father taught him to fight. That pause was meaningful, he was stopping to think about how continuing to talk would make him appear weak, because he just conveniently sounds very bad-ass when he gets back to his story.

I didn’t say a word, didn’t make a sound.  I put my sister down and beat my mother’s boyfriend within an inch of his life, my mother screaming and wailing the entire time.  When I was done, I picked my sister up and returned to the cab.  We went to my father’s that night, and we went to the police station in the morning.”

“When you throw a punch barehanded, it doesn’t leave your hands pristine.  A few good swings, you connect solidly with someone’s face, someone’s teeth, and it tears the fuck out of your knuckles.  It was at my father’s place that night, washing and cleaning my hands, when I saw it.  It wasn’t just blood leaking out of my torn up knuckles, but there was the darkness too, like wisps of really black smoke.  You hear about the trigger event, you might think it’s all about rage or fear.  But I’m a testament that it can be just the opposite.  I didn’t feel a fucking thing.”

Now let me just go ahead and say, those lines in bold are all lies. According to Wildbow himself, Brian was abused as a kid by one of his mom’s boyfriends, and when he came to help Aisha, he saw the exact same man and knew that he had done to Aisha what he had done to Brian. 

Now let’s look at some details about his power. He generates clouds of darkness that block out all light and sound and muck with your sense of touch and these clouds do not affect him at all. But there’s also another detail that gets forgotten due to how rarely it comes up.

Scentless man makes Brutus nervous because he is big but he has no smell.  But he is Master’s alpha so Master stops and listens.

-Brutus

Darkness boy isn’t around anymore or I’d be able to smell him.”

-Stormtiger

 I could smell his sweat, with the faint traces of his deodorant beneath.  It was funny, because when we’d settled in, I hadn’t been able to smell anything.

-Taylor

When Brian is using, or has recently used his power, he has no scent. But the thing is, that all 3 of those people have displayed being able to smell things inside his darkness, only Brian’s scent is gone when his power is being used, no other smell is affected. It also just happens that the first person to bring this up is a dog who throughout the chapter repeatedly mentions smelling emotions from other characters. 

So when faced with the person who had hurt him when he was a kid, who had been hurting his sister, he gets a power that lets him hide himself. A power that means people can’t see him shrink back or flinch, a power that means you can’t hear him scream or whimper, a power that means you can’t feel how badly he’s shaking, and a power that means no one can smell his fear. He’s a perfect stranger trigger.... 

But there’s more to it, He’s not the one who needs to hide, not really. He’s a fit teenager, he’s had experience in the boxing ring, he doesn’t just know how to throw a punch, he knows how to take a punch. But above all else he wants to keep those close to him from experiencing the things he has, which is the perfect stress for a shaker trigger. So of course his power doesn’t blind him, he still hears the screams, he still sees the violence, he still feels every tremble of his body perfectly, but everyone else is shielded from it. He didn’t break when his mom’s boyfriend beat him, he broke when his mom’s boyfriend moved on to beating his sister.

He didn’t break when Bonesaw had cut his chest open and crucified him in a walk-in freezer with his organs on display and added nerve endings stretched across the room, making him feel immense pain any time someone even entered the room. He even remained stubborn and refused to use his power to keep Bonesaw from getting the data on his power that she wanted, it didn’t matter how badly she tortured him, he could take it.

But the second his team are dragged out in front of him, with taylor’s skull cut open and Bonesaw straddling Aisha while holding a circular saw? 

Then it stopped.  I could hear a strangled noise.

“Aw.  Look at his heart beating!  So fast!”

...

Another strangled noise, trying and failing to form words.  It was so forced and ragged that it made my own throat seize up in sympathy.

Then Bonesaw starts taunting him. She tells him about how much suffering they have already put his sister through, how they had her begging them for help a while ago and he only just found out about it.

He made a sound that might have been a growl or a howl of rage, but there was no volume to it, and it was more high-pitched than anything else.

Once he finds out how his sister has been hurt badly by those who have hurt him, he howls in rage.

I felt a hand pat my cheek.

...

“It’s just so funny, watching him react.  His heart beat faster when I touched her.”

and then she calls out him reacting to her threats and Burnscar readies to attack his friends and his darkness pools out and he has a second trigger.

Now compare this to his first trigger. My interpretation of the exact scene would be that Brian recognized the man who had abused them both, and he taunted them, talking down about them both. Brian most certainly reacted to how he talked about Aisha. Brian was terrified of the situation, But he wanted to be a shield, he trusted his body and knew what he wanted to do, to beat the abuser’s face in, like how he punched his mom’s boyfriend in the face until his knuckles bled, and how he pulped burnscar’s skull against a counter-top, and above all else he didn’t want people to see any sign of weakness from him, and he wanted to shield those he cared about from the violence around them. And most importantly he wanted them to not see how violent/abusive HE was capable of being. Which I believe is part of one of the biggest details about a line that he says in arc 2 and expands on in arc 5. A line that I actually have never seen anyone bring up in discussions about him.

“I hate this, Rachel.  That you make me do shit like this.  That when I say things like that, I sound like everything I hate most in this world.

That right there. His issues with abusive family members aren’t just limited to his trigger event, this at times leads to extreme self hatred, because he is aware of how similar he is to the people who haunt him at times, he’s even caught himself lashing out at Aisha in similar ways before, and that was a pivotal moment in his life.

“I know, but you’re not getting it.  I was the type to go after someone if they showed a vulnerability.  Wasn’t until I’d had my powers about a year, Aisha tells me I was being an asshole, just like one of her stepdads used to be.  So I tried to be better, but I always wanted to protect her, always wanted to help others. 

He’s deeply afraid of being like other people in his family, and it’s not just his mom’s boyfriends that bother him. He seems to have other traumas specifically related to his mom that eat at him that he doesn’t tell anyone about, even to the point where Aisha is less bothered by their mom’s issues than he is.

“And mommy’s on a bender,” Aisha said.  “Don’t think it’ll end anytime soon.”

It was odd, but Brian looked more upset at hearing that than Aisha was about saying it aloud.  Hadn’t he grown up with his dad?

15.1

“Look, Mr. Laborn, we have to consider Aisha’s perspective.  She’s a serial runaway.  She clearly doesn’t see your father’s place as a home.  Extra care should be given to ensure she sees this as one.  Assuming she winds up here and not at her mother’s.”

“My mother’s,” Brian’s expression took on a more serious cast.

“I’m aware of your concerns on the subject of Aisha’s mother, Mr. Laborn.”

6.3

All together it’s clear that even pre-Bonesaw, Brian was a deeply traumatized individual who was just good enough at putting up a false face and avoiding his traumas enough that no one could use it against him. Good enough even that us readers could barely see a sign of it.

Except his fears still get expressed notably no matter how much he hides them, in fact, they get noticed because he hides them. Every time he is faced with his traumas and fears he defaults to “orders, rules and self-discipline” according to tattletale’s power, and he is always noted to make himself appear larger to the point where his body language is impossible to read.

When faced with the members of Empire-88 accusing him of being aggressive on neutral ground, he swells up to “look more imposing” or possibly to hide his body language from the neo-nazi’s who have a history of attacking his family and have almost certainly targeted him in his civilian identity at some point. When he is spit up by Echidna he becomes a blob of shadow so shapeless that Taylor can’t tell what position he was sitting in. And then when he sees Bonesaw standing across from him at a meeting between major cape groups, his darkness was literally writhing as he struggled to not look at her, which his teammates immediately knew was him withdrawing and burying all of his emotions, every time he does it, his team notices and quickly figures out the reason.

The one time he doesn’t do this is after his second trigger, where he is on his knees, visibly sobbing in front of his entire team, the one time where the pain is so raw that he can’t hide, his default instincts of self discipline fail. 

His power helps him hide, but not well enough to keep those close to him from knowing his reactions. But still well enough to keep everyone, including the readers, from seeing too much of the traumatized scared teenager who knows he is in way over his head named Brian, and instead to see the intimidating supervillain with an impressive track-record named Grue.

[reactingtosomething]

Reacting to The Bold Type

And Yet -- Here I Am.

Justin Coit for Getty

The Setup: Previously Miri has written about her love for Freeform’s The Bold Type, a drama centered on three young women -- Katie Stevens’s Jane Sloan, a fledgling reporter; Aisha Dee’s Kat Edison, a social media director; and Meghann Fahy’s Sutton Brady, an executive assistant in fashion -- who work at a women’s magazine inspired by Cosmopolitan. Kris watches and loves it too, and so does our friend Candice, who joins us as a Guest Reactor! Assume spoilers for the entire first season throughout.

MIRI: I just really love this show, guys

CANDICE: It's been one of the most refreshing shows I've watching in the past few years.

I can't predict it, or often outthink it. I so appreciate the storytelling .

MIRI: And that is super rare, so the fact that they do it and do it well is awesome

KRIS: And yet the twists also never feel unearned

I think a lot of it is also the willingness to (at least apparently) shake up the status quo 

Source

SEASON FINALE SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP

I feel like most shows would have had Jane stay at Scarlet, right?

MIRI: I'm honesty shocked they followed through on Tine Jane leaving Scarlet, but only because it's not what I've come to expect from a show

Yes, exactly!

(Kris always beats me to the punch by had a second and it drives me crazy)

KRIS: Oh Tiny Jane

I hope there’s a supercut out there of every “Tiny Jane”

MIRI: Hey call her that more than once an ep at this point and I love it every time

KRIS: (Is it always Kat?)

MIRI: *they

It might be, I don't know

CANDICE: Most shows would have Jane stay! And likely compromise the other characters' ...well, character.

MIRI: Nice

CANDICE: I feel like I've heard Sutton say it before?

MIRI: And the Sutton/Alex thing wrapped up so quickly! That could have been drawn out waaay long and painfully

KRIS: Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised Jane wasn’t much more of The Lead

I did not expect a reconciliation with Richard! Although maybe I should have?

CANDICE: I'm just gonna say it, wrong or right, Meghann Fahy had comedic chops and I love her.

KRIS: Sutton was my FAVORITE

K: To be fair, I was predisposed to like her because she’s also a minor character in Miss Sloane

MIRI: It's a nice example of the pilot belonging to one, but being a true trifecta

KRIS: The BEST reaction shots

CANDICE: Totally!

MIRI: I love them all too much to pick for more than an episode!!!

Fahy plays drunk and high amazingly, btw

CANDICE: Heard a rumor they went down to the wire with how everyone would "end up".

Unpopular opinion? I didn't like how things wrapped with Richard and Alex.

KRIS: She also squeezed in a lot of, like, emotional micro-beats, if that makes sense? Like in episode 3 or 4 when she’s giving Kat a hard time about texting with Adena

MIRI: Yes! I've heard that they shot multiple options

Candice, you don't want them together? Or just not so easily?

CANDICE: I'm not a true shipper of either, but I didn't want the Alex thread to be so quickly tied up.

KRIS: It did seem abrupt

Did we think Alex had a personality? Allison Shoemaker at the AV Club did not

MIRI: Hmmmmm

CANDICE: Yes, Kris, Sutton brings this great piece of heart that can be so often dragged along a drama or comedy to the point of making the character "flighty" or "ditzy" but Sutton is not.

Source

Alex had... drive... and was cute. He felt a little used by the plot.

Guys, love triangles are harrrrrd.

KRIS: (I hit return too soon earlier; the moment I was getting to was that when Kat is texting in the fashion closet, Sutton’s line is “Really?” but the button on the scene was Sutton immediately posing for a selfie with Kat)

MIRI: Yeah, I liked him better as a friend than as a love intersect

CANDICE: Lol

KRIS: Miri’s autocorrect hates her sometimes

MIRI: God dammit

CANDICE: Yeah, Miri! And there's nothing to say he might turn into something more later. 

HAA oh no!

KRIS: I really liked Alex and Jane’s friend dynamic and that almost entirely fell off once the love triangle started

CANDICE: But on the surface, it just felt like "welp, here's another office romance, kiddies! Enjoy! They're doomed!"

MIRI: (Also I'm logged out of iMessage on my computer and I don't know how to fix it, so I'm on phone)

M: I did eventually fix it, but please feel free to continue to blame all my errors on this

CANDICE: Oh! Hadn't tuned into that, Kris! Yep

Gah~

MIRI: That is SO true 

They let two cool friend dynamics go for one romance

Boo

I did like how he handled the ending of it, though 

CANDICE: And look, I love that Richard says he should have done more, but their office romance was already becoming a huge risk. 

MIRI: Yes! And now there's even more risk

CANDICE: Fighting for Sutton may have put him in the stairwell when Jacqueline walks in and that - does not bring about the same reaction and chill-ness she had with Alex. I don't think.

KRIS: For sure

MIRI: Definitely!

CANDICE: I could go on for days about that ^^ 

MIRI: And now there's no plausible deniability

About which aspect of that, Candice?

CANDICE: Balancing work relationships. 

It's worth addressing because they DO happen. And treat it as a segue, if you will, bringing intimacy/sex into the workplace isn't always Richard and Sutton.

*cough* Jacqueline's story

MIRI: Her story knocked me sideways

I was pretty sure that was where it was going and it still was SO effective

KRIS: Yeah, same, it was pretty clearly telegraphed but the blocking and everything of that moment was amazing

Source

MIRI: And her FACE

Just so good

CANDICE: She never felt out of character, in pushing Jane, but I had a feeling when J seemed so emotionally involved in her encouragement that this was more than losing a writer to Incite.

MIRI: It’s really really good writing and acting

CANDICE: Maybe it was getting a story right for readers she KNEW could hold many survivors.

But then we see truly why and it's near devastating

Y'all Melora Hardin is perfect for this character.

MIRI: It’s also a version of the story we don’t see often--someone years later, thriving but definitely still impacted

CANDICE: I watch for her just as much as our trifecta. She's compelling and much more than a boss to me.

MIRI: I LOVE her

CANDICE: Certainly! And not the story, too, of going for #alloutrevenge #diebastards

MIRI: Right--it’s not about the man/men. It’s about her

KRIS: I’m a sucker for good mentor characters

MIRI: which is really consistent with the show in general

I like that she’s a good mentor without that being her entire role in the story, too

She gets to be funny and scary and have her own shit going on and also be so supportive and not a dragon lady boss

Can we jump back to Jane for a sec?

CANDICE: Yeah! Even Richard with Kat and Jane - it doesn't feel like his reactions to their lives are coming from a superior being. He genuinely cares - about them, their jobs, and the company. 

Sure!

MIRI: Yes! that is why this show works for me the way it does

Ok, do we think Jane made the right choice?

CANDICE: I don't think she could have made a wrong choice.

I know, I'm being a snot.

MIRI: No, that’s a good point!

They’re both good options

which sometimes makes it harder to pick!

CANDICE: But there's a side to taking Incite, that I see in my own life.

MIRI: Oh yeah?

KRIS: I’m reflexively defensive of legacy media and critical of “disruptors” so I was rooting the tiniest bit for her to stay at Scarlet but everyone will feel differently about that

CANDICE: It's promising, you have another strong female editor taking Jane in, being encouraging, supportive, showing her what she's capable of and being open to letting her do big stories and grow into that bigger role.

As much as Scarlet is an anchor for Jane, stepping outside of your base of security can be exciting and take you to new levels of success. If she's not feeling satisfied at Scarlet, why not?

Pinstripe! One of many topics we didn’t get to in the interest of time.

MIRI: I keep going back and forth between thinking she should have stayed at Scarlet and continued to grow more and thinking that this was way too big an opportunity for her to pass up

Really, both were good options 

And I think the chance was definitely the right call for the show!

CANDICE: But, to project my own experience, is she ready? Has she been at Scarlet long enough to be sure this is the right leap - regardless of pay, perks, or prestige. It's a lot to think about.

MIRI: Yeah, the readiness is my concern

Will she be mentored as effectively at Incite?

CANDICE: I don't think she will be.

KRIS: That was maybe one of the most “TV-ish” things, the idea that this few months has suddenly made Jane into The Next Big Thing

MIRI: Yeah

CANDICE: I don't get that vibe.

MIRI: Although that may be something they intend to explore if they get another season!

CANDICE: Right!

MIRI: Ok, speaking of big damn choices: Kat made one too!

CANDICE: If Incite is #theworst, does she go back to Scarlet? If she stays, how much will Jacqueline be involved in her life?

YA FOR SURE, BYE KAT ✈️

Wonder where she decided to go?

KRIS: I’m VERY curious about how Jacqueline will fit into the cast at the start of next season. I guess it’s possible she just doesn’t show up in the first episode or so?

MIRI: I totally assumed it was to be with Adena, but we don;t know that do we?

KRIS: I assumed Peru since it was the last place Adena said she was

but I didn’t look too closely at any of the signs or anything

CANDICE: Kris - totally... we'll have to see!

MIRI: We might get to see Jacqueline interact with Sutton more than we have before? That would be interesting

CANDICE: Miri - I assumed to Adena, at first, too, but Kat's finale seemed a bit vague.

MIRI: That would be very interesting

Her going to find herself/have experiences for her own sake, not tied to a whirlwind romance

I would be super into that

CANDICE: There's a story to be told about Kat doing some traveling and getting out of her Manhattan shell.

MIRI: because as much as I want them together, they have had like 1 3/4 dates and that’s not enough to build something solid on!!!

CANDICE: It's very late 90s Julia Roberts rom-com, of her.

MIRI: I love that

KRIS: Part of me expects a fast-forward to Kat coming back from her trip at the beginning of (fingers crossed) season 2

MIRI: Or she’s back by the end of 201

KRIS: Right

It’s also hard to imagine this show without gatherings in the fashion closet

CANDICE: I think Adena would be supportive, there's stories to be had, too, of Kat running a travel vertical at Scarlet either via social media or under a separate medium.

I knowww, I LOVE that closet.

That carpet is too real. 

MIRI: The closet scenes are the BEST

Source

But I think they have been deliberately moving towards apartment scenes as season one progressed, so it wouldn’t be AS MUCh of a lurch to lose them for a while

KRIS: I also really liked the detail more than once in dialogue that they borrow clothes from it, whether that’s intended to explain their TV-level wardrobes or not

CANDICE: A nice justification, too, for maybe some of the more sophisticated pieces we've seen these moderately-paid ladies wear.

I see that, too, Miri.

KRIS: Yeah that definitely makes sense to keep having three-handers even if Jane’s at Incite for awhile

CANDICE: Haha, Kris, see above - it bugged me 'til I realized! On a much lower level, I borrowed things from the drama departments all.the.time.

KRIS: Maybe there will be more opportunities for Miri’s bathtub envy series

CANDICE: Yep.

MIRI: I could see an episode (or maybe like a 3-4 ep arc) of Sutton and Jane skyping Kat in, and then in person again

RICHARD’S BATHTUB IS MARVELOUS

Source

CANDICE: How very Sarah/Cosima of you, Miri.

MIRI: Exactly what I was thinking

CANDICE: Richard's aparTMENT is #goals.

MIRI: So much

CANDICE: I also enjoyed their "getting ready" in the bathroom scene. 

MIRI: Honestly, Sutton could stay with him for that apartment and I would be borderline ok with it

CANDICE: I've been watching some older sitcoms and love those moments shared over a brush of the teeth.

LOL 

MIRI: I love the way you just phrased that so much

CANDICE: :D

MIRI: Can we have a moment of appreciation for the fact that the trifecta are all straight up talented in their fields? 

They’re not perfect at their jobs, but they are talented

And I really appreciate that

CANDICE: I'm so glad you phrased it that way!

And the trifecta being thus isn't a negative.

They have a few edges and lessons left, but their stretches and mistakes feel genuine.

MIRI: They all have shit to learn, they’re like 24 or whatever, but they have ability and drive and I love it

KRIS: Yeah I feel like talented-but-not-fully-formed is something you almost never see

CANDICE: And yet- here I am.

MIRI: ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ 

CANDICE: To be bold.

MIRI: Bold

CANDICE: That's really what sold this show to me.

MIRI: I see what you did there

CANDICE: They have (haha, thank you thank you)

MIRI: 😉 

CANDICE: They have lessons to learn, but this is clearly not an after-school special.

MIRI: Yes!

KRIS: It’s also been an organic way to get in all the This Is How Magazine Journalism Actually Works (or Close Enough) stuff

CANDICE: They have an intense, amazing boss, but we're not gonna drag you through The Devil Wears Prada again.

MIRI: Kris, how much are you loving the (more or less) realism here?

KRIS: So much

I guess in the interest of clarity I should note that I am not actually a journalist, but did it in college and have friends who went on to do it professionally

It’s also one of the fun things about reading reviews

All these journalists who are like FINALLY SOMEONE GETS US

CANDICE: Yes! 'Cause they have got some aspects of "being in your 20s" down pat.

KRIS: in a post-Zoe Barnes era

MIRI: Who is Zoe Barnes?

CANDICE: House of Cards

Just had to look it up.

MIRI: I thought that might be it!

(Sorry, I’m cooking)

KRIS: sleeps with a source, etc etc

CANDICE: I suspect her journalist character is a bit...heightened?

OKAY then

MIRI: There’s that really great Toast piece about a day in the life of a fictional female journalist

CANDICE: Mercy. But nice to know we're getting some accurate depictions.

MIRI: I always think of her and that together

KRIS: (It’s a bad show, readers, the only reason to watch it is Robin Wright)

MIRI: (Robin Wright is such a badass. Just in general)

CANDICE: I want Robin, Melora, and Helen Hunt to play sisters in a fiery, blockbuster.

MIRI: YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES

YES

CANDICE: they all are just LOADED with talent

KRIS: Oh man I hope we get to meet more people from Jacqueline’s life

CANDICE: Her support system! 

MIRI: Seriously, if you want to see a completely un-Jacqueline performance, check her out in Transparent--the woman is SO talented

Yes, I want to see her friendships!!!

K: Oh, I forgot I wanted to talk about this. I felt like Jane had legitimate concerns here that were never really addressed? Which made it a little weird for Jacqueline to say in the finale “It’s one thing to write about yourself” as if that was something Jane had even wanted to to do in the first place.

CANDICE: - can we visit, at some point, Kadena's dating history, and I quote "1 3/4"??

KRIS: I also kind of want to meet Kat’s therapist parents?

MIRI: I like her husband a lot, but who are her friends??

KRIS: Sure let’s do it

MIRI: I forget the context of that??

CANDICE: I need to KNOW who raised Kat because we are missing a few facets.

Gah- so many things! Umm, i think it was your justification of Kat and Adena not ending up together post-finale.

MIRI: She is a bit of a mystery

Oooohhhh gothca

or gotcha

one of those

I meant that they had only been on like one date and maybe two partial dates

Which is not a relationship. It’s a good start! But it’s not solid

CANDICE: It's hard to get ones bearings on their relationship, with so many other storylines to address.

MIRI: I know they’ve been talking a ton, but they still only partially know each other

KRIS: I was never entirely sure how much we were supposed to assume they were in touch via text/social media

MIRI: Right!

CANDICE: Yeah! And, Kat's curiosity of Adena and lifestyle is lovely, and we're getting lots of support from Sutton and Jane

But we've yet to explore Kat alone with this. Well, other than her semi-topless photo to Adena.

MIRI: I’m honestly still in such a state of delight about how they handled Kat’s coming out arc

K: The physicality in all of these performances is so great

hahahah true

I just love that she got to be unsure without being self loathing

CANDICE: Absolutely.

She already seemed quite positive, both about her self and sex.

MIRI: I would love for them to say the word bisexual at some point

CANDICE: PLEASE?

Yes, please. 

MIRI: All the fingers crossed for season 2

CANDICE: I love Adena. I want her in Kat's life. But they've now gone through two dramatic goodbyes, and I just need some of dat good domestic cuteness. 

MIRI: YES

CANDICE: Their scenes together in the airport will suffice for now. 

MIRI: Kat needs to have her ‘find myself’ adventure, and then get them both in NY for a while for some cute dates and shit

OMG that whole sequence was lovely

CANDICE: But then we gotta get back to whatever the hell Sutton and Jane are doing.

I feel kind of a lot of stress coming their way? Yay, Season 2?

We're gonna have hella conflict and difficulties.

MIRI: Hahahah well you gotta have stakes!

What would you guys like to see in a second season?

KRIS: I’m actually not sure if I want this or not, but I’m curious about the possibility of Jacqueline as a POV character

CANDICE: Hmm?

MIRI: Ooooh

KRIS: I maybe phrased that poorly; I haven’t seen anyone suggesting it, just started thinking about it while we were talking about her before

MIRI: I’m fascinated by the idea of that

CANDICE: I'm wondering more what you mean by POV character.

Am totally lost.

KRIS: That she’d have like a B-story of her own or something, where she’s in scenes without any of the other series regs

CANDICE: Oh!

KRIS: I guess there have been scenes between Jacqueline and Richard

CANDICE: I am pro-that

Out of necessity, really, though.

KRIS: Yeah

CANDICE: I wonder if there's a world where Sutton and Richard are "together" publicly at Steinem

KRIS: I kind of want to see more interaction with other publications? That’s super nerdy

MIRI: I mean, we’re all nerds here

CANDICE: How does that affect the way they're treated? Oliver? Alex? Etc?

MIRI: Yeah, that would be a lot of shakeup

CANDICE: I agree! Oooh, a scene with Scarlet and Incite.

MIRI: Yes! I want to see that!

CANDICE: Perhaps NOT making it an editor vs editor "thing".

MIRI: When Teen Vogue first started getting a lot of public praise for being so “woke” they very deliberately pointed to similar reporting in Marie Claire and others

I’d like to see something with that kind of camaraderie 

KRIS: Yeah, I like to think it’s more likely we’d see stories about journalistic solidarity, especially since they’ve gone ahead and explicitly made Trump part of the world

CANDICE: Totally!

MIRI: While we’re on the subject of woke-ness, I’d also like to see a better/wider discussion of race in season 2

CANDICE: Could even have a line with Kat, should she be outside the US, getting reactions to our country.

MIRI: Ooh, yes to that!!

CANDICE: How every USA-centric of me, alas.

KRIS: But I could totally see that

CANDICE: Agreed, Miri. We've talked about this before - Kat's arrest...

MIRI: Yes, exactly--we talked about it last week but I think it bears repeating here

CANDICE: Not everyone's story should be one of prejudice and persecution...

MIRI: That’s very true

CANDICE: But there was a naive quality about Kat in that moment that felt...honestly untrue to Kat, in addition to what I expected to see from the writers.

KRIS: TOTALLY agree

CANDICE: I can't really sit here and demand a specific experience - because I can never fully relate, but something felt off and overlooked.

MIRI: Kat’s blackness is basically never a part of her characterization, even when stories specifically feature racism or microagressions (I believe our friend Jess pointed that out to me)

KRIS: I got what they were going for with having Adena lay out how big a deal the deportation risk was, but still

CANDICE: She has very well-off parents, and my god what a world for her to apparently have not had to deal with much...

MIRI: I also think there’s an interesting facet of privilege to be examined--Kat is a WOC, but also a wealthy, attractive one. Looking at how that has that changed her experience compared to other black women would be interesting

But a) they don’t seem to be doing that

CANDICE: However, her own experience seems "missing" rather than "minimal"

MIRI: and b) exactly what you just said

CANDICE: Yep

KRIS: Right, and on some level I also get the appeal of, I guess, “aspirational” world-building, which is generally my own preference in writing, but hard to juggle with the real-world-ness of this show

CANDICE: YEP

Yes, Kris!

MIRI: Yeah, they can’t discuss these very concepts as central themes of episodes and also never address them for one of the main characters

KRIS: (Tangential: Is this the sort of show that would have, say, Lauren Duca show up as a guest star, or would that break it in a weird way?)

MIRI: (I could totally see them doing that)

CANDICE: You can only give the excuse of -having little script real estate to work with- for so long....

It's a possibility!

Depends a little on what the showrunner/Freeform wants to say?

MIRI: I wonder if they didn’t write Kat to be black--they may have kept her ethnicity (or all three!) open and not written in any particular direction, whereas Adena was very very specifically written as a lesbian Muslim

KRIS: Yeah, that seems like a safe guess

CANDICE: Hmm... maybe in the pilot, at least.

KRIS: So I know this is not an original observation, but I do think it’s kind of funny and kind of great that the biggest suspension-of-disbelief thing the show asks of us is to accept that everyone is Emotionally Mature and conflict-averse, at least most of the time

CANDICE: I could easily hear Kat pitched as she is, too.

MIRI: And they definitely have Things to Say and write (quite well) to those things, but I think we can agree that that kind of consideration isn’t present in all of Kat’s stories. It feels like a lack of realization that those moments would be omnipresent, not just in big Story Moments

KRIS: Right, feels like an all-white-writers-room situation

(although I haven’t looked up their staff makeup!)

CANDICE: Iiiiii don't believe Kat is emotionally mature.

MIRI: I think from photos I’ve seen it’s not all white, but pretty white

No, she is not

CANDICE: Nor Sutton, in some situations.

MIRI: She is making some progress, but she is not

Also, they are all 3 damn stubborn in their own ways

(which I quite like)

KRIS: I guess I mean on the baseline of how “catfights” are never a thing, and how the storytelling isn’t driven by characters being unbelievably stupid

CANDICE: Truly! Stubbornness is grand for drama.

Oh, yes, Kris, indeed!

MIRI: Oh, Kris I totally missed the original Emotionally Mature message

KRIS: And even Richard and Alex didn’t get saddled with the worst takes on Jealous Lover tropes

MIRI: whoops!

CANDICE: Our trifecta will reason with each other, but their decisions are their own.

MIRI: Yes, I really like that people don’t immediately jump to the worst possible conclusion

CANDICE: Thankfully so!

$11,000 plane ticket? "You do you"

MIRI: They’re willing to hear each other and forgive, which is honestly rare in tv

CANDICE: Moving onto Incite? "You do you"

KRIS: My god that plane ticket

MIRI: Yeah, I don’t know if I can endorse the plane ticket

CANDICE: Was she flying first class to Narnia???

KRIS: HA

MIRI: hahahahahahah

CANDICE: Questionable decisions a la Edmund and the Turkish Delight

ANYWAY

MIRI: 😂

KRIS: A+

CANDICE: I guess Sutton's "You Do You" moment would be making the leap over to fashion

MIRI: Oh, I loved the “we’re your support safety net” of it all so much

Source

CANDICE: Or deciding to break it off with Richard

KRIS: Yeah, contrasted with Richard’s “are you sure you don’t want to do finance?” (or whatever it was)

K: Marketing? That sounds closer to being right.

CANDICE: Fhaihjeisosncyensx

Dammit I GET where he's coming from, but - Sutton would regret not exploring that avenue at the age/place she's currently at

Again, I'm projecting.

MIRI: Yeah, I think he was very well intentioned but she made the right choice

KRIS: Oh I totally get that, Sutton’s story in the first act or so of the season was Too Real for me

CANDICE: It just felt like that parental type of "this is more secure, you're qualified for this, too, and it's safer" vibe coming from his insistence.

MIRI: (We have all 3 moved out to LA to pursue TV writing, so we’re generally in favor of big leaps, readers. We’re also in favor of crying into wine bottles sometimes.)

K: Or staring glumly into whisky tumblers

CANDICE: That's what it boils down to, Kris. We are hella relating to this show.

MIRI: YUP

KRIS: Not that “philosophy PhD” has anywhere near the job stability of finance, but film school was my version of the Sutton leap

CANDICE: I'm the first person in my family to move 24 hours away and pursue a career like this.

I am lovingly encouraged every month to do the things Jane and Sutton moved away from.

MIRI: I could have done a fully funded PhD program in English lit and stayed on the east coast. We have all made questionable choices, but we would have regretted not making them

KRIS: I’m the oldest of the cousins in my family, and of the adults the one who least has their shit together, which I try not to think about

MIRI: I didn’t realize you were the oldest overall. I’m the youngest cousin and everyone is very parental towards me in how they ask about my career and love life and everything

KRIS: We have some fairly young readers, right? That’s right, folks, “humanities PhD” is safe compared to Hollywood, WHEEEEEEEEE

MIRI: HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA please insert the Will and Grace “it’s funny cuz it’s true” and “it’s funny cuz it’s sad” gifs here

KRIS: OK OK sorry I’m derailing us

MIRI: No, it’s semi-on topic!

KRIS: bathtubs! closets! Tweetdecks?

I don’t actually know what a Tweetdeck is

CANDICE: Hahaha, y'all are fine- I don't know how to say - my cousins don't really care?

MIRI: Damn, me neither. I just assumed you would know

Candice, we’ll care in their stead

CANDICE: Or at least, don't let on? They're either married with 2+ kids or teenagers making...um, decisions....

Yeah, we'll go with Decisions, bless their hearts. 

MIRI: I have googled “what is a tweetdeck”

CANDICE: Thanks!

I only have heard Tweetdeck from Earpers

MIRI: “TweetDeck is a social media dashboard application for management of Twitter accounts. ... Like other Twitter applications it interfaces with the Twitter API to allow users to send and receive tweets and view profiles.”

KRIS: *nods as if he understands*

Jessica King would be disappointed in me

MIRI: It was a separate app and has now been absorbed by twitter, apparently

CANDICE: Ahh, a mission control kind of situation, it seems

KRIS: oh my god

wait

MIRI: Oh noooo If she’s disappointed in you I can’t imagine what she thinks of me. This hurts

What?

KRIS: does Jacqueline remind me of Jessica King?

MIRI: HAHAHA

YES

CANDICE: All on one page, you can view a live stream of tweets, tweet on your own, and also open new frames to reply?

MIRI: Ohhh, Candice that makes sense

CANDICE: Iiiiinteresting.

MIRI: Kris: She totally does. The strength and the mysterious wisdom

CANDICE: I didn't get enough J King in my life

She just had to sit through my nightmare of a thesis.

MIRI: No such thing as enough Jessica King in anyone’s life

CANDICE: Lol :D a few bits of myself I wish I had fleshed out before having her as a prof/mentor.

MIRI: Are you calling the situation a nightmare (which i know it was) or the script (which I’m sure it wasn’t)

CANDICE: Mainly the situation.

MIRI: Good, I don’t have to bully you into saying nicer things about yourself then

CANDICE: The script made it out safe, despite being in a metaphorical full body cast around... January 2015

Har har

MIRI: WAIT sidebar how long has twitter been around for???

KRIS: I don’t think I’ve ever had a formal mentor-mentee relationship with anyone (which either explains why I like them so much in pop culture or makes it weird that I do) but JK was as close as it got

CANDICE: 2006?

MIRI: TweetDeck has been around since 2008! That is so long ago for a technology!

Kris that definitely explains it

CANDICE: Formal is always kinda... I don't know if I've had a formal one either... you really just are all of a sudden under someone's wing.

MIRI: Or at least makes sense with it

CANDICE: But I get wanting to see it fulfilled in media, too, ab-so-lutely.

KRIS: I feel like I sort of forced myself under Jessica’s

CANDICE: That works, too :)

MIRI: Kris, you were her favorite and everyone but you knows it

KRIS: Part of me understands why people would think this but a bigger, less rational part of me refuses to accept that this is possible

CANDICE: 💥

MIRI: Well you know which part is the less rational part so there’s nothing more I can say there

CANDICE: 🔥🚶🏻‍♀️

MIRI: Ok, do we have anything else to say about The Bold Type?

Source

CANDICE: I love it. Please renew it, Freeform!!!!!!!!!!!

MIRI: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Accurate

KRIS: ANYWAY I’m normally BOO NEEDLE DROPS Guy and Allison thought it was too much in the gazebo scene, but possibly because I recognized it as “Quiet” aka the Women’s March anthem (and I don’t know that she didn’t, but I feel like she would’ve made a note of it in her review), it worked for me, and I wonder if there’s a correlation between recognizing it and liking its use (assuming other people have Opinions about needle drops in the first place)

CANDICE: First non-genre show in forever I've been in love with.

MIRI: I LOVED that needle drop

Also, really love that studio version of the song

KRIS: I would like to outsource my reactions to possibly all things to Sutton’s face

CANDICE: I love a good needle drop.

MIRI: Kris, now I want to make a study of your reactions to needle drops that you know

CANDICE: #musicnerd

KRIS: I love a GOOD needle drop but I feel like they’re way overused

MIRI: Ok, that’s fair

I love the Bold Type soundtrack in general

CANDICE: Hahahaha, when Sutton dropped for that moment while schwasted in the tub, I died.

MIRI: I’ve listened to it on repeat on Spotify since I started watching the show

CANDICE: I wanna hang out with the music supervisors for The Bold Type and Wynonna Earp so bad.

MIRI: I want to go to a party they co-DJ

KRIS: Yeah, Wynonna’s smart about them too

CANDICE:

It was just. perfect.

MIRI: My god that is such good face acting

CANDICE: I'm still cackling at it.

MIRI: I really do love that they leave room for little moments like that

KRIS: I want to see the outtakes

MIRI: That’s such a stupid little friend moment

CANDICE: Oh, they'd be a RIOT

It IS

MIRI: And that’s what makes it feel lived in and wonderful

And YES to seeing those bloopers

KRIS: I’ve mostly stopped buying DVD sets but I would consider it here just for a good long outtake reel

CANDICE: Oh, Lived In

That's the phrase or idea I've been searching for- you said it!

Definitely.

MIRI: 😎

KRIS: It definitely is riiiiight there on the line between naturalistic and hypernaturalistic, in the best way

CANDICE: I mean - I want my own shows to feel alive, so having this feeling about TBT amongst relating and loving the cast is just icing on the cake.

That sums up my feelings!

KRIS: #RenewTheBoldType

MIRI: That’s really all there is to say

KRIS: Candice thanks SO much for joining us!

MIRI: Seriously!!!

❤️ Much appreciated!!! And if you have interest in doing it again we’d love to have you back

CANDICE: Thank you both for having me!!

It's been a pleasure! I love reading!

For sure.

MIRI: Ooh make Kris watch Pure Country! Let’s do that

CANDICE: HAAA a'ight

MIRI: Awww, thanks, babe! We’re glad you like it 😊 

CANDICE: 😘👌🏻

MIRI: Alright, I’m going to get ready for bed because I kind of forgot that I have to be in the office again tomorrow morning

CANDICE: Night night! I'm about 13 minutes away from bed, myself

MIRI: Also last night I fell asleep with a sheet mask on my face and got super confused when I remembered that fact (5-10 minutes after I woke up) and couldn’t find it, so I think I have some sleep to catch up on or something

KRIS: *British Lady Narrator Voice* Getting a good night’s sleep is important for the bold type

While you wait for season 2, you can follow us on Twitter, where you can also bombard Freeform with the #RenewTheBoldType hashtag! Also, please note that Miri is obsessed with the British Narrator Lady and deeply regrets not remembering to bring it up during our discussion.

[purplekimberly]

Headcanon 008 ⚡ Character Sheet

The Questions

Date this form was created: May 21st, 2017

Full name of Character: Kimberly Ann Hart

Reason, meaning or purpose behind the name: It’s a canon name. And  a sexy one, if I do say so myself.

Nickname: Kim, Kimmie, Kimmy

Reason for nickname: Various... ways of shortening Kimberly.

Race: Caucasian

Occupation/class: Women, Gender, and Sexuality studies professor

Social class: Lower upper class

Physical Appearance

Age: Thirty-eight

How old they appear: Amy Jo Johnson is ageless. Uh, mid-30s?

Eye Color: Brown

Glasses or contacts? Will sometimes wear glasses when reading.

Hair color length and style: Dark brown (sometimes lighter in the sun), shoulder-length, plainly down/sometimes tied up in a ponytail or a bun

Weight and height: 143 lbs / 5 ft 2 in

Type of body (build): Athletic with a soft tummy

Skin tone and type: Tan, burns easily

Shape of face: Angular

Distinguishing marks: A mole on her neck

Predominant feature: Her smile and her laugh

Is s/he healthy? Somewhat

If not, why not? Or why are they healthy? She eats healthy for the most part. Junk food sometimes.... just kidding, junk food weekly. Sometimes daily.

Do they look healthy? Why/why not? She looks very healthy on a normal basis. Just occasionally grumpy.

Favorites

Char’s favorite color: Pink

Least favorite, why? Yellow

Music? Pop, pop rock, dance

Least favorite music, why? Probably screamo

Food: Frozen yogurt (specifically vanilla/chocolate swirl with strawberries slices, chocolate chips, whipped cream, and a cherry on top)

Literature: She’ll read anything that she’s interested in which can range from biographies to YA fiction.

Expressions: "Morphinomenal!” “Totally styling!” (It’s not the 90s anymore.)

Expletives (curse): Any regular four-letter word does it for her.

Mode of transport: Either her Kawasaki Ninja or KIA Cadenza

Hobbies: Shopping, reading, exercising, binging Netflix, roller skating

How do they spend a rainy day? Sleeping or watching TV

Personality

Are they a daredevil or cautious? Both tbh, sometimes she’s impulsive, sometimes she’s cautious

Do they act the same alone as when with someone? It all depends on who that someone is, but usually, yes.

Habits: Tucking her hair behind her ear, shaking her leg, overall fidgeting

Drinks: Non-alcoholic - Dr. Pepper, water, Sprite, strawberry lemonade / alcoholic - frozen strawberry margarita, cherry cola cocktail

How much: She’ll have alcohol once a week probs.

Greatest Strength: Empathetic, physically adaptable, expert hand-to-hand combatant

Greatest Weakness: Too big of a heart, trusts too easily

Soft spot: Always fellow Rangers

Is their soft spot obvious, why/why not: Hell yeah! Kim is nothing but obvious. She has a hard time hiding her emotions so you can easily tell she cares about people very easily.

If not, how do they hide it: -

Biggest Vulnerability: Always! Being! Emotionally! Compromised!

Background

Birthplace: Seattle, Washington, USA Hometown: Angel Grove, California, USA

Type of childhood: A good one! Kim grew up very well off.

First Memory: Her mother holding her

Most important childhood event that still effects him/her: Probably becoming a Power Ranger but that was when she was 14 so technically not a “child” but I still count it.

Why? It really shaped her as a person and helped her figure out what life was about. And also lowkey gave her PTSD but yeah.

Education: Finished high school, college undergrad, and grad school

Religion: Christianity

Finances: She pays her own bills? Owns a house? How am I supposed to answer this question tf.

Family

Mother: Maddy Beaumont (née Graham)

Relationship with her: Good but somewhat distant since her mom lives in France

Father: Ted Hart

Relationship with him: Alright; they haven’t talked in awhile; her dad still lives in California

Siblings, How many, relationship with each: Edward Hart (younger brother) - she loves him a lot even though he was a little punk when they were younger; talks to him every now and then and he lives in New York

Children of siblings: N/A

Other extended family: Steve Hart (uncle)

Close? Why or why not: Very close when she was a teenager but less so now that she lives in Massachusetts and he still lives in California as well

Attitude

Most at ease when: She’s with people she cares about.

Most ill at ease when: She’s got too much to handle on her plate and is mentally/physically/sensorially overwhelmed.

Priorities: Happiness

Philosophies: If she can’t succeed the first time, don’t stop trying until success happens.

How they feel about themselves: Pretty confident! Kim’s got good self-esteem for everything. Except for when it comes to being a Ranger mentor.

Past failure they would be embarrassed to admit: Her inability to cope with her post-Ranger PTSD

Why? She just... never found peace with it.

If granted one wish what would it be, why? Trini being alive again

Traits

Optimist or pessimist? Why? Optimist - there’s always room for more good in the world

Introvert or extrovert? Why? Extrovert - she just loves people, man

Drives and motives: Kindness and overall love for everyone and everything

Talents: Gymnastics! Being kind and caring! Grounding her Rangers and giving them the Mom Look™!

Extremely skilled at: Gymnastics, hand-to-hand combat, archery

Extremely unskilled at: Mostly anything to do with science and math

Good characteristics: Supportive, trusting, enthusiastic

Character flaws: Gullible, too kind-hearted

Mannerisms/Peculiarities: Tucks her hair behind her ear when she’s nervous or flustered

Biggest regret: It’s either 1) leaving the MMPR gang or 2) breaking up with Tommy, both of which she knows she’d still regret the alternate outcome if she didn’t do them. And, of course, 3) not spending enough time with Trini but there’s no such thing as enough time.

Minor regrets: Not pursuing her feelings for Kat, Adam, or Aisha sooner

Biggest accomplishment: Being a Power Ranger

Minor accomplishments: Placing gold in the Pan Global Games 4 times, becoming a professor at Harvard

Darkest secret: Uhh, probably her PTSD and, like, the fact that she still sometimes guilts over the time Divatox turned her against the Turbo Rangers

Does anyone know? All of the MMPR crew knows about the former but she’s never said much about the latter, save for a few brief conversations with Kat and Tommy about it but never really let them in on how bad she felt.

Self-perception

One word they would use to describe themselves: “A Power Ranger.” (Yes, that’s three words but Kim feels like it says a lot about her in those three words.)

One paragraph of how they would describe themselves: tba bc I’m lazy

What do they consider their best physical characteristic and why: Her smile! Kim loves smiling and she knows she looks super cute when she does.

The worst one? Why? Ehhh, Kim doesn’t really feel negatively about her body.

Are they realistic assessments? Yep

If not, why not? N/A

How they think others perceive them: Probably small and fairly airheaded

What four things would they most like to change about themselves: She wouldn’t wanna change anything about herself. Except maybe get rid of all her negativity/resentment/guilt

Why? She hates it, period. She hates knowing that she has the capacity to be a bad person on the inside and that it’s never going to ever completely go away, no matter how hard she tries.

If they were changed would they be the same person, why/why not: Nope, she’d probably be less self-aware tbh.

Would changing of number 1 make them more happy? Supposedly but in reality, no.

Why/why not: Kim might dream that having her negativity etc. changed might make her happier, but in reality, what she’s gone through makes her who she is today. And who she is today is a strong, brave woman, and changing that wouldn’t help her at all.

Interactions with others

How do they relate to others: Very strongly; she doesn’t always know what to say, but she cares about people deeply.

How are they perceived by strangers: Energetic and talkative

Friends: Warm, loving, passionate, brave, wise

Wife/husband/lover: A small dork who, despite everything, is really a shy lil’ nerd

Goals

Immediate: Just get through the rest of the school year

Long term: Find peace and happiness with herself

How do they plan to accomplish them: Focus on getting back to a positive/optimistic mindset by opening herself up again and hoping for the best instead of expecting the worst

How will others be effected by this: Probably going to perceive her as very emotionally open and maybe a little needy

Problems/Crisis

How do they react in a crisis: She usually looks to the leader-type of the group for direction since she’s used to it being Jason or Tommy. Now, it’s her. Which is, in short, absolutely terrifying. She’ll have to deal with possibly freezing up during really tough decisions.

How do they face problems: Her first thought is to talk it out, if possible. Violence is a last resort, one she never wants to touch unless forced to. She’s pretty emotional so she tackles her problems with her heart and gut rather than her head.

Kind of problems they usually run into: Used to be stuff like evil Power Rangers, giant monsters, and intergalactic evil space beings. But now it’s, like, heated class discussions and Prof. Tanner taking her favorite parking spot in the teacher’s parking lot.

How they react to new problems: She might hesitate a little bit and internally panic but not necessarily freak out or freeze up unless it’s a major, tough decision; she’ll still be able to work out a solution.

How they react to change: Kim’s good with rolling with the punches if they’re small changes. New teammates, new town, etc. are all fine. It might take some time getting used to, but she’s good with putting on a big smile and trying to make herself as comfortable as possible. Big changes, though? No longer being a Power Ranger? A death in the family? She still hasn’t gotten over them, and the more she thinks about them, the worst her anxiety over them gets.

General

Favorite clothing, why: Kim loves flowery sundresses just because they’re comfy and cute.

Least favorite, why: She’ll wear anything tbh. Except crocs.

Jewelry: She has this one necklace that she got after Trini died. Or maybe she got it before Trini died and she buried the matching one with her best friend. Who knows.

Other accessories: Her... communicator? Jk.

Drives: Is this about motivation or transport... Because both were answered above.

Where do they live: Boston, Massachusetts

Where do they want to live: Boston’s fine.

Spending habits, why: Kim loves her shopping sprees. She indulges every now and then. Which is, like, every few weeks.

What do they do too much of, why: She definitely worries too much and dwells too much on the past and things she can’t change.

Most prized possession, why: Her old MMPR morpher, definitely.

People they secretly admire, why: It’s no secret that she looked up to Zordon as a father figure. Which, speaking personally, I think is a terrible idea. But, canonically, Zordon was, like, one of The Greatest beings to ever exist or something, despite being a floating head in a transparent PVC pipe, so. 

Person they are most influenced by, why: Zordon, mostly, and her fellow MMPR gang. She admires Jason’s commitment, Trini’s calmness, Billy’s intelligence, Tommy’s confidence, Rocky’s easygoingness, Adam’s bravery, Aisha’s softheartedness, and Kat’s selflessness.

Most important person in their life, why: Herself because she knows that’s where she needs to focus all of her energy since one of her weaknesses is neglect of self-care. But, also, of course, the living members of the MMPR gang.

How do they spend a week: Doing the usual - work, going to the gym, shopping, watching Netflix, spending time with her cats, etc.

[popculty]

Represent Spoiler Special: Wakanda Forever!

Weekly-ish transcriptions of Slate’s Represent podcast for the deaf and hard of hearing. This is a labor of love. Please share!

First up, we’ve got a spoiler-filled, all-black roundtable discussion of Black Panther. Enjoy!

[The following podcast contains explicit language.]

Aisha Harris: Hello, and welcome to another Slate Spoiler Special. I’m Aisha Harris, Slate culture writer and host of Represent, and this week we’re spoiling Black Panther.

T’Challa: Shuri!

Shuri: Brother!

T’Challa: Turn on the train on the bottom track.

Shuri: The stabilizers will deactivate your suit! You won’t have protection!

T’Challa: Neither will he.

Shuri: Okay!

[gadget beeps]

AH: Here to talk with me about the film are Slate’s chief political correspondent, Jamelle Bouie – Hello, Jamelle.

Jamelle Bouie: Hi, Aisha.

AH: And Represent producer – my producer – Veralyn Williams. Hello, Veralyn.

Veralyn Williams: Hey, girl, hey! [both laugh]

AH: Okay. So, this is probably the most anticipated cultural event for black people of the year. [Veralyn laughs] It’s a big frickin’ deal. And before we even get into spoiling it, I would love to just hear ya’lls’ initial thoughts. Now, I know that Jamelle and Veralyn, you saw it more recently than I did. It’s been more than a week since I’ve seen it, so I’m still basking in the glow of everything, but it’s not as fresh in my mind as it is for you, so Veralyn, why don’t we start with you.

VW: I went in very excited, but I was also trying to remind myself not to go in with too high of expectations. I was a little nervous about being disappointed. And I can honestly say that, if possible, it exceeded my expectations. And I’m sitting here like, “We’re cool critics, we shouldn’t be excited about things.” But this movie was… It was so beautiful. The storyline stayed with me the whole time. I’m not a huge superhero fan because I sometimes feel like there’s a lot of kicking and screaming and action stuff and not enough dialogue, but it didn’t disappoint on that level. And you know, I’m Sierra Leonian-American, and it tackled deep issues that I wasn’t expecting from a superhero film.

AH: Mm-hmm. What about you, Jamelle?

JB: I was also very enthusiastic about it. Upon leaving the theater, I’ve been thinking a lot about it because I’ve been writing about it for Slate, but also just my own kind of trying to absorb what I witnessed. And the two things that stand out the most to me about the movie are that I don’t think I’ve seen a world this fully-realized on screen, at least not in a superhero movie, ever. I think I’ve seen the vast majority of films in this genre of superhero movies, and there’s just nothing like Wakanda. And the visual style and the fact that it lives and breathes like every other character in the movie – That to me is just really striking. The second thing is just how political this movie is. I was not expecting that whatsoever. Most superhero movies deal either not in ideas at all, or they deal with ideas in this very sort of high-conceptual way, like the Nolan Batman movies. But I feel like Black Panther is actually dealing with concrete political ideas in a provocative way. And I’ll be very interested to see how mainstream movie-going audiences react to them.

AH: Yeah. The politics are something we can definitely get into to. I was also struck by that, and I walked away from it thinking, “There are gonna be some white people who are not gonna be happy with this movie.” [laughs]

VW: Were there any white women, besides the one that dies right at the top? In the whole film? I don’t think so.

AH: [laughs] Uhhh, no…And there were only really two prominent white guys involved--

VW: The villain and the token, which usually is reserved for the people of color.

AH: Right! Right. So, this was very much unlike other superhero movies, I think. Jamelle, you are definitely, I think out of all of us, the one who’s most aware of these things, but it does seem like this was definitely a case where they went into a completely different world. I think maybe the Thor movies are also similar to that, where they’re like in a completely different world, and it’s not all necessarily taking place here in America. And there’s no real crossover with the other Marvel movies, it just kind of stands on its own, so I really appreciated that.

JB: The Thor movies also take place in a fantastical place of Asgard, the Guardians of the Galaxy movies take place in outer space. But Asgard feels very sterile in those movies and the Guardians of the Galaxy films are taking place in sterile landscapes. It’s a very contained, closed world, and thinking to other franchises as well, there really is nothing like the scope of Wakanda. Every time Wakanda is on screen, something’s happening in every little corner on the frame. The closest comparison point I have for it is the first Star Wars movie, in terms of a cinematic world that feels completely lived in.

AH: By that you mean, A New Hope, not…

JB: Right. [laughs] I do not mean the prequels.

AH: Or The Force Awakens.

JB: No.

AH: So, let’s actually just get into the nitty-gritty of what’s happening here and what exactly Wakanda is and what it means. As someone who has not seen any of the Captain America movies, this is my first introduction to Black Panther the character--

VW: Same.

AH: --on screen at all. Because Chadwick Boseman popped up in, is it the last Avengers?

JB: It was the last Captain America movie - Captain America: Civil War.

AH: Right. So, I feel safe saying that even if you’re not familiar with it, it does a good job of setting things up – I think to some extent, to its detriment; That was one of my issues with it, was that it felt like it took a while to get into the beginning of it. Let’s actually just start off with where it begins, and Jamelle, I will volley that over to you, since you are familiar with Black Panther the comic and how that translates from there to the screen.

JB: Right. So the movie begins with sort of a quick pre-history of Wakanda. Wakanda is a central African nation, very tiny. Sometime in the distant past a meteor that was made of a fictional material called vibranium hits the location where Wakanda is, and the tribes that are in that location – all but one tribe, the Jabari, which pops up a plot point in the movie – join together to build a civilization centered around this metal. This metal basically is magic in the Marvel Universe. It is virtually indestructible, it can become all different kinds of other materials, it can be woven into materials, and it sort of has special properties that the Wakandans have basically figured out over the course of thousands of years. They’ve been using it and studying it. It’s worth noting that in the context of the Marvel Universe, Captain America’s shield, which is also a strangely magical creation, is made of vibranium.

VW: I thought about that. And so the white superhero’s secret weapon was made from stolen vibranium? Is that brought up in any way in Captain America, that it’s from Wakanda?

JB: I think it’s touched on in the first Captain America, or maybe Iron Man 2…It’s a very minor point in one of the earlier movies, and this hasn’t really been addressed in the MCU, but in the comic books it is canon that yeah, during the second World War, some vibranium was stolen from Wakanda, and that’s what became Captain America’s shield. Anyway, the very beginning of the movie rushes through “this is what Wakanda is,” “this is what the Black Panther is.” He’s the protector of Wakanda,  he gets his powers from a special herb that represents the panther god. And after that quick prehistory we are dropped in Oakland, California in 1992, and that’s where the film really takes off.

AH: Right, and we have our first glimpse of one of the many stars in this movie, and that is Sterling K. Brown playing King T’Chaka’s brother. And it seems he is doing something illegal with another character…

VW: This is in the midst of maybe the Rodney King riot era? Am I correct in making that assumption, Jamelle?

AH: Well, 1992…

JB: Right, it’s not in LA--

VW: It’s in Oakland.

JB: It’s quite a ways away, but that’s the atmosphere, yeah.

VW: It seems clear that he is a Black Power revolutionary of some sort. So there’s a knock on the door and the other guy that’s with him looks out the peephole and says--

AH: “Yo, there’s two Grace Jones-looking chicks outside.”

VW: [laughs] One of many beautiful lines.

AH: And so of course N’Jobu is like, “You better not make them knock twice.” And they open the door and in come these beautiful black women wearing African garb--

VW: Designed by the one and only Ruth Carter, who’s been on the show.

AH: Who’s been on Represent, yes. And they enter with T’Chaka and T’Chaka is upset because N’Jobu has been going behind his back, and this is what I wasn’t very clear about, what exactly he was trying to do…

VW: My understanding is that he is the inside person that got the vibranium stolen. He was how they figured out how to steal the vibranium from Wakanda.

JB: He was in Oakland as basically one of Wakanda’s emissary spies, keeping an eye on things and reporting back to Wakanda because Wakanda’s cloistered away from the world.

AH: And this is the first time we see something that we see throughout the movie, which is people revealing that they are actually Wakandan, because there is some confusion or deceptiveness sometimes happening. So [N’Jobu] and the other characters will peel back their bottom lip to reveal a glowing code, which indicates that they are Wakandan. And it turns out that [N’Jobu’s] friend is also Wakandan and had actually been spying on N’Jobu for T’Chaka. Then what happens?

VW: Then he’s like, “You betrayed us. We’re going to take you back so you can face whoever to get your judgment.” And N’Jobu goes to kill Forest Whitaker’s…What’s his name?

JB: The actor is Denzel Whitaker.

AH: Is that his son?

JB: Yeah, it’s Forest Whitaker’s son.

VW: Whaaaaaat?!

AH: I thought they looked alike! I was like, “That is really good casting!” So anyway, Denzel Whitaker’s character has been spying on N’Jobu, Sterling K. Brown’s character.

VW: So he goes to kill the person who’s been spying on him and T’Chaka is not having it and ends up killing his own brother. And then he leaves him there.

JB: Two things should be noted. The first is that [N’Jobu] hadn’t just helped someone steal some vibranium, but the thief – a character named Ulysses Klaue – ended up killing a bunch of Wakandans in the course of that, so [N’Jobu] helped assist a really horrendous terrorism. And the second thing is that witnessing the Wakandan ship arrive in Oakland is a little boy, who is revealed to be [N’Jobu’s] son.

AH: So that takes us to only the first ten minutes of this movie. [all laugh] So let’s keep going. We cut to then the present day…

JB: We’re in Wakanda, or not quite Wakanda, but in a Wakandan aircraft carrying T’Challa, Black Panther, played by Chadwick Boseman and his general, the chief of the royal guard played by Danai Gurira, who stars in The Walking Dead. They’re on some kind of mission – T’Challa is trying to contact and retrieve a spy, Nakia, played by Lupita Nyong’o, who herself is in the midst of a mission, what looks like trying to save some women from human trafficking. And what ensues is the first taste of action in the movie. The Black Panther drops down from the ship, startles the convoy of soldiers, and together with Nakia they save these women, stop these soldiers, and Nakia is brought on the ship where she is informed that T’Chaka, T’Challa’s father, the king, has died (which was the inciting incident of Captain America: Civil War), and that T’Challa is about to perform the ceremony that will elevate him to the throne of Wakanda.

AH: Yeah, a lot happens. We have T’Challa returning to Wakanda with Okoye and Nakia, and they’re being greeted by the wonderful Angela Bassett, who is playing his mother, and they are also greeted by his sister—

VW: Shuri, played by Letitia Wright, who is new and was such a breath of fresh air.

JB: Oh, she’s delightful.

AH: She stole basically this entire movie. She’s kind of the very spunky, very smart sister. She’s the tech wizard, she’s designing all the weapons, she designed the suit for her brother…

VW: She says, “Just because something is good doesn’t mean you can’t make it better,” and I was just like, “That is a word.”

AH: She’s just so delightful and it’s great to see that banter with the two of them. The other thing we should talk about is the romance between Nakia and Black Panther. We also see in this scene that they’ve had a thing in the past, and there might be a thing happening again, but we never really find out exactly tore them apart before.

VW: I think this is the first rumblings of the political tension. She wants to be out there doing good, helping other Africans outside of Wakanda, whereas T’Challa was the heir to the throne, and is now King, and way more concerned about Wakanda and making sure that where they live is taken care of.

JB: Can I just add real quickly that in the lead-up to this we see these great aerial vistas of Wakanda, we see the Wakandan countryside, we see the city…

VW: We see baskets! You know, the African baskets that you see in every African market today, which is so cool to see.

JB: Right, but what is so crazy about this movie is that it’s not just a superhero movie, but you could easily spin it off into like an African Game of Thrones, because this sparks the period where we’re meeting various members of the royal court. When T’Challa takes part in the ceremony where he becomes king we are introduced to this wide range of characters from every region of Wakanda, and each one of them is someone who I would happily watch a movie about.

AH: Now that T’Chaka has passed, [T’Challa] is going to be heir to the throne, but before he becomes the heir we have to see if he’s going to be challenged by someone else from either their tribe or from other tribes. And it’s really, really beautiful the way it’s set up: It’s on a cliff that’s kind of encaved, and you see all the families, the different tribes, different garbs, different colors, different markings on their bodies depending on what tribe they’re from. They spend a decent amount of time in this moment, and it’s the Jabari tribe from the mountains that actually challenges Black Panther, and watching that scene I was like, ”How is this movie rated PG-13?” Because it was very brutal.

JB: Yeah, I have my criticisms of some of the action of this movie, especially towards the end, but this fight scene is brutal and intimate and I was legitimately a bit disturbed throughout at how genuinely threatened T’Challa felt in the midst of it.

AH: Yeah, I feel like it was a bit much for me. I usually am totally fine with these types of action sequences, but I think part of it is just that usually when we see violence it’s high-tech weapons, it’s guns, it’s blah blah blah, but with this, it was fists and spears, and you’re seeing things go into bodies, and pounding heads on ground. I don’t watch Game of Thrones, but I imagine this is kind of what Game of Thrones is like. It felt very Game of Thrones-y in terms of the type of violence we were witnessing.

VW: I think there was also something about the value of life, you know, something about the way they were fighting made you see that every hit, every punch, every thrust was for a purpose, whereas in other action movies, someone gets shot and then they die and you move on. It kind of lessens that person’s value in the world, and there was something about the way that they were fighting that made me acknowledge that if someone were to die, it would be through a purpose-driven motive and – spoiler! – he doesn’t die, he almost kills the Jabari challenger, but he spares him.

JB: Two quick thoughts: First, my friends, the thing you are describing is the wonderful thing about good action choreography.

VW: [laughs] I know. I know.

JB: Truly good action choreography isn’t just showing fighting. It’s showing character, helping advance plot and story. We learn something about both T’Challa and M’Baku through the fight, and you don’t really see that very often in these kinds of movies. The second thing I want to say is that M’Baku is kind of an infamous character in Black Panther –  More in the comic books, and especially in the original issues in the 60s. He was a character called Man-Ape, which is as--

VW: --Er?

JB: [laughs] –iffy…

AH: Well, in the movie they’re also like gorillas, essentially.

VW: Oh yeah, they’re like, “Hoo hoo hoo hoo!” Like, that’s their chant, right?

JB: What I really admire about the movie is that they were able to take this character who, in its original form is kind of racist, and actually not just transform him, but make him and his tribe part of this coherent world. And while they seem threatening, are fundamentally part of it and not some sort of weird character. Because I could easily imagine it in much lesser hands being disastrous.

AH: So he spares M’Baku’s life and Black Panther is now the King. And I guess we’re at a point where we get the sort of weaving in of Michael B. Jordan’s character.

VW: The very good-looking Michael B. Jordan.

AH: Yes, yes. Wearing those beautiful glasses. Michael B. Jordan’s character is Erik Killmonger. He helps steel vibranium from a museum in London, and soon Okoye I think is alerted?

JB: The Wakandan royal court is informed that vibranium has been found out in the world and that it’s in the possession of Klaue, their old nemesis. And here is when we get a bit of conflict with them in court. One of the members of the court played by Daniel Kaluuya, a close friend of T’Challa, his family died in the terrorist attack perpetrated by Klaue years back. He agrees that T’Challa should don the Black Panther garb and go after Klaue, and he says to him, “You need to either kill him or bring him back for justice. There is no other choice here.” That’s our next big action set piece, which takes place in Busan, South Korea.

AH: I love this montage. I thought it was really, really great. And again, it’s so rare to see movies where white people are just in the background. But you have these African people going to South Korea, and the way they interact… Nakia knows her way around because she obviously gets out more than the others do, and so she actually knows where Klaue is gonna be. It’s not a speakeasy per se, but it’s sort of a secret. You have to know the code or know the woman at the front who‘s selling fish. It’s a market outside and inside it’s a giant Casino Royale deal, and this is where the exchange is supposed to go down between Klaue and the person who is going to buy the vibranium. It felt very James Bond-y because they’re all communicating with each other via comms and just like, “I have eyes on him, twelve o’clock.”

VW: And here’s where we meet our other token white person, Everett K. Ross played by Martin Freeman, who is a CIA agent from the United States. And he’s the person who is buying the vibranium from Klaue, and immediately he recognizes T’Challa when he walks in and he’s like, “What are you doing here?” Jamelle, do they meet in a different series? I get the feeling that he knew that he was Black Panther.

JB: Yes. Captain America: Civil War, which came out in 2016, is kind of the prequel for this movie in a lot of ways. I actually recommend watching it you haven’t. It’s pretty good, I think a top-tier Marvel movie. And there’s sort of three plot lines in the movie, and the B plot is about T’Challa and Black Panther hunting down the Winter Soldier, who he believes killed his father. And so in all that, Martin Freeman’s character is introduced in that film, and that’s how they meet. That’s the backstory there.

VW: That’s good to know.

AH: So Everett’s not happy that Black Panther is there, he’s blown up his spot. Eventually what happens is Klaue shows up, he has the vibranium in a suitcase, he makes a weird crack – Oh, he walks in with four or five other people, these big hulking guys, and Everett says to him, “What are you releasing a mix tape or something?” I loved that part. And then the deal does not go as planned. We get an intense shootout  between Nakia and Okoye and Black Panther, which turns into a giant chase scene that I also thought was really well played.

VW: Highly entertaining.

AH: Yes, there were multiple cars happening. You had Okoye and Nakia in one car, Black Panther was sort of jumping from car to car...

VW: No, he was in a car that was being controlled by his sister in Wakanda.

AH: Oh, right! That’s probably worth explaining, how Shuri is in Wakanda and she was remote controlling a car, and so he was in the car alongside her. And so a chase ensues between them that I thought was just really well done.

JB: Car chases are really hard to do. A lot of them are poorly edited and you don’t get a sense of motion and who’s where and what they’re doing, but I thought this was a very competently-directed car chase, and it was a great showcase for everyone. You saw what Klaue could do, you got a taste of Black Panther’s agility and strength – There’s a great moment where the car he is on is about to run into a wreck and he jumps to the side of the car and uses his strength and weight to give it a sharp cut left to keep on with the chase.

AH: It reminded me sort of sailing a boat, in a way. I don’t know why, but I thought of Moana.

VW: You would think of a Disney movie.

AH: Well, look, this is a Disney movie too. [all laugh] Anyway.

JB: And Okoye has some really great moments too, using her spear.

AH: Planting that spear in the ground…Yeah, it was great.

JB: After the chase they’re able to stop Klaue. T’Challa is about to kill him right there but there are people watching, so he takes him to a CIA holding cell where Everett interrogates him to get a handle on what’s going on. I actually really love the scene because it’s where Everett realizes that what he believes about Wakanda isn’t quite right.

VW: It was so interesting because the idea that he believed it is, to me, kind of sign-posting of sorts, because he’s like, “There is no way what you’re saying is true. [Wakanda] is one of the poorest countries.” To me, he represented America.

AH: The thing he keeps saying is, “You’re a third-world country.” That’s what everyone thinks of course, and I think that because T’Chaka has done such a good job keeping it from most people – That’s his whole MO, is we don’t want other people to know what we even have. It’s very isolationist policy, in my reading. Is that wrong, Jamelle?

JB: I think that’s absolutely right.

VW: But I think the possibility of it…

JB: Veralyn, I think you’re right too.

AH: Yeah, I think it goes both ways.

JB: It’s not just a reflection of how well T’Chaka has been able to conceal Wakanda’s wealth and power, but that Everett Ross is incredulous. It’s not just that they’re a third-world country but that they’re a third-world African country, and I think that subtext is clearly there.

AH: After we have this exchange between Black Panther and Everett, where he is surprised that vibranium could even exist or that Wakanda would be able to harvest it at all, Klaue gets busted out of his cell by Killmonger and his cronies. As he escapes, Black Panther sees the necklace he’s wearing, [with his grandfather’s ring on it]. So all the sudden, he thinks it could be two things: it could be either something’s amiss – this guy’s actually a Wakandan – or he stole it from someone else. And eventually Killmonger winds up killing Klaue.

VW: When T’Challa sees the ring, he goes to confront Forrest Whitaker’s character (Zuri) and is like, “Tell me the truth,” and he says, “I promised never speak of what happened with your father,” and T’Challa’s like, “I am your king!” And he essentially makes him tell him the story of how T’Challa’s father kills his brother and abandons Killmonger, his son.

JB: So Killmonger is T’Challa’s cousin.

VW: Yes. I guess we realized that with the ring, but the reality of it happens to T’Challa at the same time that Killmonger brings Klaue’s body to Wakanda and is like, “I did something that your king couldn’t. I’ve brought Klaue here, dead, and now I’m going to challenge and I’m going to claim my seat at the throne. At first everyone was like, “Whatever, get outta here,” and then he’s like, “Ask me who I am.” For me, there were a lot of notes of African norms and tradition. Like, who hasn’t heard a Nigerian say, “Do you know who I am?” Just this idea of “I am the such-and-such” there, and what I recognize as African mannerisms throughout that blew my mind. And finally, one of the members of the High Council asks him right before he gets thrown out, and he just rattles off all the names of who he is.

AH: And then they’re all bewildered and probably my favorite line of the whole thing: Angela Bassett is like, “I can’t believe this!” and she’s making a face, and Michael B. Jordan is like, “Hi, auntie.” That moment is just… He said “auntie,” that is so black! [all laugh] So then we get another fight scene, this time with Killmonger fighting T’Challa, only this time it’s more brutal because we know this backstory. Not that with [M’Baku] it wasn’t also a life or death situation, but we have all this backstory that we didn’t necessarily have with M’Baku. We get the Jabari backstory a little bit later, but this scene was also brutal, and essentially what happens is that Black Panther loses.

VW: Here Killmonger is saying, “I have been in America, living as a black American, having to navigate this white structure and learning their ways…I had to navigate all these struggles, and here you are in Wakanda with all your fancy equipment and fancy technology and you’re doing nothing for people who are us that are out there. So this fight is almost the tension of that conversation, which I’ve thought about throughout my life, because growing up as a black-presenting girl in the Bronx, and not feeling necessarily Sierra Leonian enough and not feeling black enough – This fight I felt represented my fight.

JB: I’m a regular American black person.

VW: You black! [laughs]

JB: But the last African in my family was brought here in like the 1830s, or before that actually because the slave trade was over by then… the American slave trade anyway. I said earlier that this is a provocative movie and this is what I mean, because I feel like in the conversation leading up to the film, lots of conversations about Wakanda, lots of conversation about the idea of what Wakanda means to people of African descent (black Americans or otherwise) – This uncolonized, technologically advanced, powerful nation. But the film I think very smartly brings up the other side, which is Killmonger’s point that if this existed, where the hell have they been? Why have they abandon the African diaspora? Why have they allowed countless people to suffer and die under racist oppression? And Killmonger’s argument to T’Challa and the Wakandan court is that you are wrong, you are immoral, and if I become king, I will use this country’s power to right that wrong. And the other side of that is almost a genocidal thing – He wants to wipe out everyone else and dominate and rule over the planet. He says at one point, “The sun will never set on the Wakandan Empire,” which is directly taken from “the sun never set on the British Empire,” but watching it, I was like, “You know, is he wrong?” [laughs]

AH: Yeah, I saw him as sort of like a mirror of Nakia, in terms of they both have the same goals, in a way, of “We need to be helping other nations and other people who look like us because they need us and we can’t just keep pretending that there aren’t all these problems out there.” But then he goes and takes it in just the wrong direction. He’s basically the Azalea Banks of this movie. He says things that make a lot of sense, but then he goes about it all the wrong way, or wraps it up in this rhetoric that borders on Hotep, and even if you agree with him it’s kind of uncomfortable to watch because you’re kind of like, “You just want to watch the world burn.” You can understand why he wants to, because there’s a personal aspect to him literally being abandoned, but…

VW: There’s also the whole idea that if Wakanda had opened up their doors to help other African nations or other people around the diaspora, would they be Wakanda? And that was something I was thinking a lot about when Everett comes to Wakanda to be healed because he gets shot, and the first thing Shuri says when she sees him is something like, “Hello, colonizer.” I’m reading Yaa Gyasi’s book Homecoming that gets into what happened at the Gold Coast during slavery. What role Africans played in it and how the British pitted different tribes against each other and got them to essentially sell their people into slavery. And so there’s this question of what happened: Why is it that African countries are some of the richest and well-resourced countries in the world, and what happened? Colonizers came in and did their thing.

AH: I guess to Jamelle’s point about it being provocative, we obviously see Black Panther wrestling with this, and in many ways he knows Killmonger’s right. And by the end of the movie, he offers to give him vibranium and help him now that he’s weakened and basically dying. And I thought this was a very clunky line of dialogue, but Killmonger says something about his ancestors on ships.

JB: It’s a very clunky line.

VW: I found it effective. I don’t know.

AH: I did not. I kind of laughed. [all laugh] But I get it. What I liked about it is that it takes elements of both. By the end of the movie, we can understand T’Challa’s hesitance to embrace what Nakia and Killmonger have wanted, which is to go out there, because again, yes, once they open themselves up you do you have people trying to come in. But at the same time, they’re actually going to take some of what [Killmonger] said and apply it to what they’re doing.

VW: Okay, this was my one beef with the film: The solution is community centers? That’s the solution? I did kinda feel a certain way about that because with all your power and all your vibranium, your solution is opening up centers around the country?

AH: Well, what would you want? They’re not just going to go and give them a handout of vibranium and say, “Do what you want to do.”

VW: I don’t know… What do you think, Jamelle?

JB: I mean, thinking in terms of the characters, what Nakia wants is sort of a humanitarian Wakanda. What Killmonger wants is an activist, almost neocon Wakanda. And T’Challa seems not quite splitting the difference, definitely going in Nakia’s direction but he’s also Black Panther, so presumably he’ll be working in world affairs that way. But I think the conclusion he comes to is that the best thing that Wakanda can do is go to – because they set up the center in Oakland – go to those places where black people are suffering and try to provide them with the tools and resources to advance without violence. That seems like a fair split, in terms of finding an equilibrium here.

AH: Yeah, it also seems like this is a theme that comes up a lot in a lot of black movies – This idea of the upwardly-mobile black people who made it and what they owe to the hood or the community. I mean, I guess every piece of literature, movie or even music when it comes to black identity…I’m gonna plug myself, but I just wrote a piece about this movie I discovered that we actually mentioned in our episode on Friday, Abar, The First Black Superman. It’s a blaxploitation flick that came out in 1977, and the basic crux of the story is a doctor who moves into a white neighborhood being coerced by Abar, who is a sort of Black Panther figure and leader of this revolution that’s sort of like the Black Panthers. And he’s like, “You need to come back to the ghetto and contribute to your brothers and sisters. You can’t live here. You need to live there.” And I was kinda surprised to see that same strain in a Marvel movie. Even Wonder Woman I feel like didn’t dig that deeply into its feminist aspects. It was feminist in the way that it did things, but not as overtly, and, dare I say, it sometimes did feel a little preachy. I guess I agree with you that the ending [of Black Panther] felt a little after-school special, Veralyn.

JB: I see where they’re going with this, because part of Killmonger’s grievance was specifically about living under white supremacy: “I am a Wakandan who grew up under white supremacy and you owe something to black people who grew up under white supremacy.” And that’s where T’Challa’s uncle died. I mean, I see why they do it in Oakland. But I want to say real quickly, black people aren’t the only people who are going to be watching this movie. This is going to be a huge movie, and the fact that we can all agree it’s good adds to the fact that this will be a huge movie. Probably the majority of audiences are going to be white and the extent to which the film doesn’t really condemn Killmonger’s basic premise, or grants him his premise and says, “You’re going too far,” but doesn’t really dispute that yes, Wakandans do owe something to the rest of the world that suffers from racism. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything that pointed in this kind of blockbuster before, something that’s directly challenging its audience.

AH: I agree. I do think to some extent that pointed nature, for the majority of non-black people who will see this movie, I think the fact that we do have one good “white” character really tempers that and helps make that seem not as pointed, or at least balances it out for a lot of white audiences. Had that character not been there, had this been a Get Out situation (Spoiler if you haven’t seen Get Out, but come on, it’s been a year now) where none of the white people are good… I think that it helps that we have someone who’s literally flying shit.

VW: Yeah, he’s putting himself on the line. He’s sacrificing himself.

JB: Can I say, I think the movie copped out by not having him die during that scene.

AH: Yeah.

VW: Yeah, that would’ve been powerful. And symbolic in a lot of ways.

AH: Yes, because the people of color are always dying in these things.

VW: They’re always sacrificing their lives for everyone else.

AH: That almost happened in The Last Jedi, but it didn’t, thankfully.

JB: Right, but having a character be incredulous about Wakanda then come to realize what it is and then come to feel that he ought to defend it, not out of any glory but for the good of the Wakandans, and then having him die in the process of that – I think that would’ve been good, story-wise, but of course the reason why he’s not dead is that the Marvel movies, for this next phase, need a kind of bland-ish audience viewpoint character to carry through the various franchises. In the previous movies it was Agent Coulson but he died in The Avengers, so Everett Ross is the new version of this character who kind of touches each franchise and acts as a bit of connective tissue between them.

VW: And I feel like we’d be doing an injustice if we don’t mention how on-point all the black women were in this film. I went to go see it with Marissa Martinelli, Represent’s social media assistant (whoop, whoop!) and I was like, “Why are black women always on the right side of history?” [laughs]

JB: I mean, just to add to that I’m using the word “first” a lot because there are a lot of firsts in this movie. This is the first of these superhero movies, not just Marvel but across the genre, where women aren’t just a major part of the story and plot but who drive the story and plot. They are central characters whose actions have weight on what happens going forward. This is as much Lupita’s movie as Chadwick Boseman’s movie or Michael B. Jordan’s movie. And Wonder Woman is really the only other movie that you can say that for.

AH: And she was amongst a bunch of men.

JB: Half the speaking cast are black women.

AH: Yeah. Well, I feel like there is obviously so much more we could have talked about…I think we got into the politics. We could’ve talked about this being a black American movie in many ways…

VW: Mm-hmm. Yeah, is Lupita the only African actor?

AH: No, no. Danai [Gurira] is…

JB: Danai, Daniel Kaluuya is African.

VW: He’s British, but he’s African. Well, I mean, everyone’s African, but… [laughs] Can I ask you two, as black Americans, how do you feel about the argument that Africans sold my ancestors into slavery?

JB: First of all, just as a matter of historical record, the initial trading in the 17th century and early 18th century did involve African tribesmen selling defeated enemies to the Portuguese, to the French, to the British, and to whomever. But by the time you get to the heyday of the slave trade in the late 18th century, that’s straight-up theft. It’s raids and that kind of thing. For me, slavery is bad, obviously, but I’m not sure one should hold those African tribal leaders in West Africa responsible for the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

AH: Well, yeah. Also, many cultures in different places outside of Africa also had slaves. They weren’t doing it based on race. Like you said, it was, “These are my enemies I have defeated.” Not that it was good, by any means, but it wasn’t insidious in the way that it was when it came down to the caste system and race and all that stuff.

JB: Slavery has existed through all continents, through all times, but racial caste chattel slavery is an American innovation. You encounter a lot of “what-aboutism” from people who are like, “Well, slavery wasn’t that bad…”

AH: I know.

VW: Oh, god.

JB: So the idea that there ought to be equal responsibility just doesn’t track with me. We should be accurate about the history that yes, African tribes sold other Africans into slavery, but that was distinct from what happened in the United States.

AH: Yeah, so I don’t have any hard feelings towards Africans, [laughs] to sum up your question.

JB: To be honest, the only hard feelings I ever have is towards people who denigrate black Americans.

AH: Yes, that’s when it becomes a problem.

VW: We are definitely going to link to this documentary that I sent you both called Bound: Africans vs. African Americans because I think it does a good job talking about it from both sides of the coin. I’ve heard from family members, “Veralyn, don’t behave like those black Americans.” I have also heard it from my black American friends that don’t know that I’m African saying really messed up things about other Africans around me.

AH: Yeah, that’s a whole other conversation. [both laugh] Anyway, thanks for listening.

VW: I hope you’re fully spoiled!

AH: Thank you, Jamelle, for joining us.

JB: My pleasure.

AH: And thank you, Veralyn.

VW: Of course.

AH: And thanks everyone else for listening. Please subscribe to the Slate Spoiler Special podcast feed, and if you like the show, please rate and review it in the Apple podcast store or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have suggestions for movies or TV shows we should spoil, or if you have any other feedback you’d like to share, please send it to spoilers@slate.com, and for more Black Panther coverage (of which we have done a lot) check out Represent at Slate.com/represent. Our producers are Daniel Schrader and Veralyn Williams. For Jamelle and Veralyn, I’m Aisha Harris. Thanks for listening.

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