#like it or not a big chunk of Will’s arc became about romance the second he said this line

[curiositydoorunlocked]

(Not sure where this gif comes from—my apologies! If anyone knows the source please let me know and I’ll edit the post to credit the creator.)

God, “I’m not… gonna fall in love” never fails to stab me in the heart. Will may have called Jonathan and Nancy “gross” but the way he says that line isn’t at all “ewwww love’s disgusting.”

It’s “this isn’t in the cards for me, Mom.” It’s “do you really think people like me get relationships like that?” It’s “I know it’s not possible and I’m not going to delude myself into thinking it is.”

It’s all of that. And Will’s fourteen.

[datesoma]

                   Why you should get into Black Clover.

I know some people are undecided on whether or not they should give Black Clover a try, so I came up with a list of reasons why they might like the series, and why I think it’s worth the time. If you have any to add, feel free to!

1. Asta is an amazing protagonist. He was born without magic in a world where everyone had it to the point that the only means of transportation are magic-based (spatial magic, brooms that you have to feed your mana to etc), and as an orphan in one of Clover’s outskirt villages to boot. Yet Asta worked hard every day anyway, and through his own efforts became the 2nd physically strongest character after Yami. Because of this, he got a Grimoire from which (so far) three swords can emerge, and which allowed him into the Magic Knights. Asta’s main sword cannot be held by anyone else both because of its massive weight (which Asta can easily endure because of his physical training), and because the sword sucks the person’s mana out of them (which doesn’t affect Asta since he has no mana).

Despite always seeming cheerful and headstrong though, Asta actually suffers from deep-seated insecurities and depression. Being the only person without magic in the world, he was subjected to ridicule, discrimination and comparisons ever since he was a young child; and in the beginning of the story he almost had his breaking point, had it not been for Yuno’s words helping him get back up, which is when he swore to never come close to giving up again, as well as made sure that his personal issues wouldn’t interfere with his self-image and relationships.

Asta also tries to understand his enemies, where they come from and what drove them to act that way, as well as tries to help them. He doesn’t like going straight into the fighting, and would much rather settle it verbally, since that wouldn’t result in any casualties. He values life, and doesn’t want to see others throw theirs away for something that could be easily resolved with words; so every time one of his enemies dies of their own volition, Asta is shaken by their actions. He also has respect for most of his enemies, and was even seen picking flowers and putting them at the enemy’s grave while being saddened by their death, even though he had no obligation to.

However, Asta does want to hold bad people accountable for their actions instead of symphatizing with their backstory right off the bat. He will understand their motivations, but if they’ve already done the evil deed, they’ll have to deal with the consequences and make sure they’ll never do anything like it again. Like I hinted above, by “consequences” I don’t mean death. Asta never stands for the death sentence, and instead tells his enemies that they’ll have to spend their lives making up to the people they’ve hurt, both by serving time in prison, and by apologizing and outright helping others. After they atone for their sins, Asta is also wholeheartedly fine with becoming friends with them and helping them be better.

Asta is a truly inspiring and refreshing character, and has come to be one of my favorite characters of all time, even though I don’t usually fall for the protagonists. He’s humane, kind and has a certain charm that drags you in; and he’s per overall a feel-good character who motivates you to be your best self.

2. Black Clover has the best fleshed out female characters in all of Shounen so far, and they’re not sexualized. It was made obvious in the latest popularity poll, where we had 5 women and 5 men in the top 10. The only issue I’ve seen from the fandom regarding Black Clover’s female characters is that “they all have a crush on someone”, but that’s wrong. Black Clover has some great female characters that don’t have anything to do with crushes and romance, and the most striking example is Mereoleona. Other than her, we also have Theresa, Puli, Dorothy, Fragil, Nebra, Grey, Mariella, Kahono, Charla, Elf Fana and the Witch Queen.

Noelle may have a crush on Asta, but it’s not her defining trait. She has her own personal issues that stem from her backstory, and she works through them as the story progresses. She gets plenty of character development, and a lot of screentime. The anime tends to exaggerate her crush on Asta for the giggles, but the manga handles it pretty well. Mimosa, Charlotte and Charmy are all strong women whose crushes only come in second place to their actual parts in the story. Their crushes aren’t there solely for the trope either, since they serve as one of the girls’ motivations to get stronger.

To top it off, the women fight on equal grounds with the men, and some of them are even stronger than the best male fighters in the series. Mereoleona for one, is done so well that even the men watching the show had to admit she’s probably stronger than Yami, who is one of the strongest people in the entire series, Asta’s mentor and one of the fandom’s favorites.

As for the sexualization, there have been three instances in over 200 chapters that I can think of, one of which was in the anime and I am fairly sure Tabata didn’t even want to add them in (I’ve read a post once that said Shounen Jump probably has an agenda of a minimum amount of fanservice they push onto all their authors, and it’d make sense if it's true).

3. Yuno is different from the typical Shounen rival in a refreshing way, the rivalries shown in Black Clover are generally healthy and the show makes a point of showing you’re always stronger when you’re supported by and working alongside your friends. Yuno doesn’t “turn evil” & isn’t on bad terms with Asta; instead, he’s supportive and genuinely wishes for Asta to thrive and become his best self. Their rivalry is based on mutual respect, friendship and trust, and they’ve known and lived with each other since their early childhood.

While Yuno does encompass the “gifted kid” trope, he never once thought he was better than Asta, and instead of gloating about his magic, he continued to work hard magic-wise and physically (which many wizards tend not to, especially the gifted ones). He holds similar values as Asta, and wishes to become the Wizard King to make the country more accepting, equal and overall a better place. Because of this, the end of Yuno and Asta’s rivalry could go either way, since both of them deserve the title of Wizard King, and there’s no way to tell which one of them will become the Wizard King for sure, even though Asta is considered the main protagonist (I sure hope Asta will, though).

Other important rivalries are Luck and Magna’s, two misfits who prank but nonetheless still respect each other and who would go to amazing heights to make sure the other is alright; Asta, Yuno and Leopold’s, which helped Leopold grow; and Nozel and Fuegoleon’s, who have a slightly more tense rivalry, but who have competed since their childhood and who care for each other despite some of their moments of animosity.

The Black Bulls are a prime example of the found family trope, and their relationships with each other played major parts in each of their character stories.

4. Black Clover deals with several issues we also face. One of the main themes of the show is classism, and the way the poor and the disabled struggle in the corrupt system made by the rich and abled. Despite being orphans from the country’s outskirts (meaning one of the poorest places with the least amount of magic in the entire kingdom) Asta and Yuno’s goal is to attain the title of Wizard King, who is the strongest and most beloved wizard in the entire kingdom. To do so, they have to gain the citizens’ support and approval, and tear down the walls that oppress the poor and uplift the rich; but because of several centuries of discrimination, most royalty and nobles believe they are superior to the peasants, and that’s painstakingly clear from the moment Asta and Yuno leave their village and head for the more noble-populated cities.

Family problems and abuse are present in a good chunk of the Black Bulls’ stories, but the blame is never put on the victims. Instead, each of them gets their own arc in which they deal with their trauma, and it’s all handled well. Their issues don’t magically stop in their respective arcs either, but rather that’s the starting point of the change.

There are also several instances thorough the show that deal with suicide (mostly from the enemy’s side), as well as Asta’s great distaste of it and attempts to stop his enemies from killing themselves for their cause. Asta’s speeches on this topic are always positive and motivational, and I like reading them since they make me feel better, too.

Another shared issue is the racism, which also delves further into genocide. I won’t say too much as to not spoil it for those of you who will read/watch Black Clover, but this theme is related to the humans and the elves.

5. On that note, there are several races in the Black Clover universe that we know of so far. They are the humans, who the series is mainly focused on; the elves, who play a very big part of the show’s first saga; the devils and the dwarves. It’s likely that we’ll also get introduced to more races as the story goes on, and so far all of them have been done nicely.

6. The art style of the manga is stunning and the anime is also getting good. Per overall, I’d say the manga has the better aesthetics, but the anime does come in clutch with some of the fights (a couple of them were also extended in the anime, which was great; and Black Clover is known for its use of different animation styles in fights), while the music also helps add a certain feeling to the scenes that didn’t hit so hard in the manga. The Black Clover anime’s openings and endings are by far one of the best in all of anime. Even if you don’t plan to watch the show, you should definitely watch those. Currently we have 8 ops & eds, and they’re all bops. They’re one of the many reasons why Black Clover has become famous, anime-wise. 

Also, since I’ve seen a lot of complaints about Asta’s voice in the earlier episodes, it does get much better. The VA was new so his voice acting wasn’t too good, but it’s really come a long way since and it now fits Asta’s character perfectly. You should give it at least ten episodes before you make an opinion on whether to continue or drop the anime version (although I’d say it gets really good after thirty).

7. The series lets you choose what kind of pace you want. If you’re into faster paces, then the manga’s the perfect fit for you. Some people complained that the story moves too fast in the manga, but I personally like it. If you’re into slower paces, you can try checking out the anime. Since Black Clover’s an ongoing anime rather than one split into seasons, Studio Pierrot had to try and stall for time so the anime wouldn’t close in on the manga too soon; meaning the original content got stretched over a couple episodes, but nothing too bad.

8. Black Clover doesn’t have many fillers. People complain that it does, but it doesn’t. As of right now (ep. 96), there have been 5 purely filler episodes, out of which some were recap episodes. Other episodes have had some filler mixed into them, but it’s not obvious and it does add well to the story. We also got Yuno’s first mission (ep. 13) and the Light Novels animated (ep. 55-56 & 85-86), and those are to be considered canon.

9. The mystery of Asta and Yuno’s backstory pre-canon. The series takes a different approach with the protagonists’ backstory, and instead of telling us everything outright, it only shows Asta and Yuno as babies, left at the door of a church in Hage village at around the same time, 15 years prior to the story. At the time, they only had their names written on their clothes, and Yuno also had a necklace. Right now, we still don’t know who their parents are, what were the circumstances of their birth, if they’re blood related or not, and how come they were both left in the exact same spot, nor why there out of all places. I’m assuming this will be important later on in the series, since one of the arcs has already teased a possibility that was denied by the end of said arc.

10. The story mainly takes place in the Clover Kingdom, but there are three others that will become a focus later on. Diamond Kingdom, a hostile country that deals with black magic, human experimentation and wars; Heart Kingdom, a neutral country rich of mana that prefers to remain unseen and whose citizens use an unique style of magic; and Spade Kingdom, the most massive of the four, and also supposedly a militant country of winter. So far in the story we have learned several bits about the Diamond Kingdom, while the information on Heart and Spade is still very new and brief. This does for a nice change of settings. 

Also, since I’ve brought up the ‘unique style of magic’, Black Clover has a great power system, based on the elements and their subtypes, and even the most bland-sounding magic you never even thought of, can do wonders.

11. Black Clover is a funny show and it has various types of humor. Not only does it have comedic relief, like with Sekke, Yami and Gordon, but in the anime we also get Petit Clover, which is a short and usually amusing chibi-styled moment at the end of each episode. This was derived from the manga’s omakes in the same style and I’m guessing it had some success, since earlier in the year we also got an entire Petit Clover-styled series, named Mgyutto! Black Clover.

I’m a fan of both the manga and the anime, so I’d recommend reading and watching the series, but it’s fine no matter which you choose, and I hope I convinced at least some of you to get into this great show!

Credits for some of the points: 1, 2 (spoilers), 3 (spoilers), 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

[k-corner]

Ashes of Love: The Problem with the ‘Protagonists’ Actions and Characterization, and an In-Depth Look at their Concerning ‘Romance’

Now, as anyone would be led to think about my opinion of Ashes of Love based on previous things I’ve written is that I didn’t like it. Nothing could be further from the truth. I adore Ashes of Love and the imperfect world that it’s created and most of the stories that unfolded from there. Unfortunately, the odd thing that has to be addressed is my absolute loathing for the supposed ‘protagonists’ of the story Jin Mi and Xu Feng, and that’s long before I get into the idea of their absolutely creepy romance. Now I’ve watched Ashes of Love about four times now before this post idea hit me, only wholly through once and the others were more picking the episodes I liked and skipping around, but I was curious why I hated what was arguably the backbone of the entire show. If there was no Jin Mi and Xu Feng and their ill-fated romance then wasn’t there no show? Isn’t their love supposed to be the thing that drives the plot forward and fleshes out all of the characters around them?

I’d actually argue that they’re not, and I do think that’s one of the biggest problems that Ashes of Love has.

That’s not to mean that I despise all of the time spent on secondary characters and their motivations. I actually think that so much time on the secondary characters saved the show. I think it was necessary to know why Run Yu became the token ‘bad guy’ in order to try avoiding the ‘second male lead is evil just because’ trope. I think it was necessary to have other characters for the audience to root for or like outside of the main characters. Unfortunately Ashes of Love even with all of this extra backstory never manages to accomplish the Run Yu task and gives up near the end to just make Run Yu Evil Incarnate™ just because. I’ll touch on the problems with Run Yu and his storyline/characterization in Ashes of Love in another post. This one is focused on my impressions and read on Jin Mi and Xu Feng.

Now in order for me to truly understand why I despised these characters so, I decided to rewatch their scenes without the distraction of other characters storylines and really try to wrap my mind around why I just couldn’t get behind these characters. Unfortunately these days we have to add this, but these are my personal opinions. Respond accordingly. 

Here were the results: 

Part One: Plot Problems and Character Actions -

Right away, jumping into the story we have the inciting incident that starts us on our journey through this world. Zi Fen, the Flower Immortal and Jin Mi’s mother, has experienced a series of horrifying events and fears that her daughter will go through something similar and attempts to circumvent that problem in the strangest way possible: she decides to take away Jin Mi’s ability to understand love. This is a simple enough start, however already the narrative fails to deliver on what this actually means and what this little anti-love pill does. Jin Mi is portrayed as someone who can feel love but cannot understand love. And not all love, just romantic love. She loves her friends plenty but does not understand the subtle nuances of her feelings for Xu Feng.

Xu Feng and Jin Mi have a chance meeting when Xu Feng’s assassination attempt lands him right in Jin Mi’s backyard. The two strike up a quick friendship and Jin Mi runs away from home to go off with Xu Feng. Upon getting to the troubled Heaven Realm she meets the secondary male lead Run Yu and strikes up a bond with him. Through a series of quirky events we find out that Jin Mi is no ordinary grape fairy but instead the daughter of the Water Immortal and the Flower Immortal! What? Who knew? Just kidding, we all did, or at least the second parent. After this the narrative comes up with an obstacle for these star-crossed lovers – Jin Mi is engaged to Run Yu! She’s the bride he’s waited thousands of years for! Oh the drama!

Here's where the plot really starts to fall apart though. I’d argue that they should have scrapped the majority of the demon realm arc and give more time to the before period of Jin Mi and Xu Feng prior to finding out that she’s the Water Immortal’s daughter and bringing in The Engagement. Why? Because Jin Mi’s naïve personality and Xu Feng’s constant hounding starts to lose momentum once this piece of information is revealed. At that point I still found myself asking ‘Why are they together? Why are they so determined to be together? Why is their love so intense and eternal?’. We needed more scenes of just the two of them building a serious relationship instead of just short comedic and cutesy scenes between them. I truly don’t feel that the narrative gives us an answer for any of those questions other than a ‘because it’s their love story duh!’ response. As much as these are immortals going through thousands of years, the narrative never really does a good job showing that a good chunk of time is passing and it feels like all of this nonsense is taking place right after the other. It gives a feeling of weakness to the main characters love and their trials. It feels too new, it feels untested and like the roots it has are unearned and just exist just because it says they do. [Understand this is the show and not the novel which I have heard is better at handling this problem and is nothing like the show not that I’ve read it]

This leads into the problem that really started to drag on me. The Engagement.

For how flippantly Xu Feng seems to believe that anyone can end this engagement at any time: see him tell Jin Mi she doesn’t have to, see him ask Run Yu several times to break it and so on and so forth; it doesn’t make any sense to the rules of this engagement. The Water Immortal and Run Yu express that it is an absolute, and that breaking it in terms of the Night Immortal equals demoting to the human world and stripping of their immortal title. That seems like a heavy price to pay to break this engagement and yet several times this heaviness is undersold by the narrative as a ‘Water Immortal almost ends it but Run Yu manages to say tricky words because he’s a tricky little schemer watch him scheme’. Later Jin Mi decides not to tell Run Yu that she wants to end the engagement in order to spare his feelings. The strength of the engagement and the consequences of it never really settle and it’s confusing up until the end. Not to mention, just the politics of it all.

Ashes of Love is a heavily politics driven show but not in a completely BAM in your face sort of way but more as the setting/backdrop/reasons why people are stupid sort of way. It never fully addresses the issue of Xu Feng’s constant chasing of Jin Mi considering that the eldest royal brother is already in a pre-contract engagement with her that has been there for at least several thousand years. Xu Feng seems unchallenged by the rules and continues blatantly chasing Jin Mi throughout it all.

The secondary characters need to push Jin Mi and Xu Feng together doesn’t truly make rational sense either. Jin Mi is engaged to Run Yu so why is the Moon Immortal and Immortal Yuan Ji going to Xu Feng to discuss acceptable choices in Jin Mi’s human redemption? Why does no one intervene in the Moon Immortal using his strings to tie the two together in the mortal realm? Why doesn’t anyone point out how out of line Xu Feng’s reactions are and how much he’s insulting and shaming Run Yu?

The return from the mortal realm is where things really fall apart long before the demon world arc. In fact, I’m not even going to mention the demon world arc because at this point is where my feelings on the main characters were solidified and I could no longer find it in myself to care about them in the slightest. A big thing in the show is the Engagement and the problems that it causes for Jin Mi and Xu Feng to come together. During the mortal realm we as the audience were able to see how much danger Jin Mi was in and how much extra effort Run Yu went through to protect her while Xu Feng was off playing mortal with her. Jin Mi returns and acknowledges that she loves Xu Feng. She wants to be with Xu Feng, but her father basically tells her no. That ‘human Jin Mi’ and ‘Immortal Jin Mi’ have different responsibilities and requirements to fulfil. Jin Mi then goes and does two things: one she does not break off the engagement accepting Run Yu’s request for time during his mourning; and two she has sex with Xu Feng.

…While still engaged – to Xu Feng’s brother. While Xu Feng’s brother is in a fragile state so she didn’t want to hurt him by breaking off the engagement, she goes off and starts a sexual relationship with Xu Feng which is so much worse than just telling him no to the marriage.

Then the next problem occurs – the Water Immortal and the Wind Immortal are murdered! There’s evidence that Xu Feng did it! Not just that - Run Yu finds out about Jin Mi’s affair and infidelity and restores the no love pill inside of her to put a stop to it! Drama!

This leads Jin Mi to accepting her responsibility and duty to the contract and goes to marry Run Yu, but wait! There’s more! Xu Feng arrives at the wedding to stop a coup from Run Yu [sorely needed coup] and Jin Mi kills him! Shook! Shock! Only then does the pill break fully and Jin Mi is released from the spell but it’s too late! She’s killed her love! Commence with the convenient restoring him to life plan and Jin Mi’s inability to let go of Xu Feng and her guilt about what she did – although she will eventually throw all of the blame onto Run Yu in order to clear herself of wrongdoing because ‘she was deceived’ and the narrative will side with her on this in order to clear up the problem of Jin Mi acting of her own accord to enact revenge and cannot handle what she did after she realizes that she didn’t have all of the proper facts. So she can’t be guilty even though she did it – the Evil Incarnate Run Yu™ was solely responsible [cue eyeroll].

This all accumulates in the major part of the plotline wherein we’ve followed the meeting of these two, the falling in love, the obstacles and the separation and return. Unfortunately the narrative never fully manages to give these lovers a weight to their story making their struggle seem pointless, self-created and exhausting. The problems they’re having are by their own hands and it never gives me, in my opinion, a reason to believe why they can’t let go of each other.

Xu Feng has no true hardships to overcome. He’s the spoiled prince who everyone loves despite being an arrogant bird. He’s loved by the beautiful Sui He but he’s so put upon because he doesn’t want her. He chases after his brother’s fiancé and gets annoyed that his brother won’t relent and give her to him. He goes down to the mortal realm to protect her but becomes useless in that endeavor and just plays king, because his mother refuses for him to have true hardships, and goes after the girl that he has no reason why he should be going after her and why no one is stepping in to prevent this. He’s unchallenged by any character. Overpowered and adored. Everyone prefers him. Everyone loves him. He has no real growth or reason to grow because everyone becomes ‘yes men’ in his presence and lets him do what he wants with no consequence. He’s blind to his parents true natures and cruelty to the worlds at large, coming across as sheltered and self-righteous in the worst ways. He’s not a hero, he’s a spoiled prince being denied a toy for the first time and he doesn’t like it.

Jin Mi goes from hopelessly sheltered and naïve to cheating fiancé. Neither character are very likeable or able to be stood behind despite everyone doing it for reasons unknown.

Side Note Expansion of the OP- Rant Ahead: If you can’t tell, I can’t get over the affair. Honestly at that point they became absolutely irredeemable which is why I didn’t need to go into the demon realm arc. There was no reason for it at all. Don’t care if you ‘love him’, you had the option to break the engagement or at least mention it. You are a piece of shit character and Xu Feng is worse sleeping with his brother’s fiancé after pawing at her for who knows how long. Run Yu could have been the evilest of evil and yet he still wouldn’t deserve that to be done to him because NO ONE DESERVES THAT! Having witnessed it before I know how much something like that fucks you up; and regardless of it being an ‘arranged marriage’ and ‘oh but Jin Mi truly loves Xu Feng’ – to Jin Mi it references that Run Yu and her were supposedly friends and that she cared about him as a friend and just not as a lover, and Jin Mi and everyone in the Heaven Realm knew how Run Yu cared for her. You don’t do that to your friends. You don’t do that to your enemies. You don’t do that to your future spouse and certainly not with their brother.

Part Two: Issues with Characterization Coming Next

[scgdoeswhat]

Unpacking The Elementalists Finale

I’d like to dedicate this to my dear Kane anon (and other TE anons) who have been hitting my ask box up for the last several months. I’m sorry this took forever to get out and I know it doesn’t ease the fact that they ixnayed Kane, but hopefully this makes a little more sense of TE’s abrupt ending.

Without further ado...

I’ve been wanting to make this post since Book 2 Chapter 10, but life has been hectic. TE’s finale finally forced my hand and so here I am, with a bunch of theories, points, and thoughts I've had noted since the book came back from its hiatus. First off, now that TE is officially over (😭) we now know that the hiatus was primarily used to tie up all the loose story lines and to give us a tidy ending. The writing in the second half of the book was more solid, concise, and had a clear cut vision of what the writers wanted and where the plot was headed. As much as I hate to say it, the first half of the book may have been overly ambitious. They introduced the Moral Compass, potentially two villains in Kane and Alma, and a plethora of different storylines. I had a number of people tell me through the first five/six chapters of Book 2 that they were confused with the plot because it became too convoluted and hard to follow along. I think they introduced too many elements into the story, which dragged down the arc. Let’s break down some of these individually: The Moral Compass was something we were all excited to see implemented, because it gave us the potential to be an evil MC. In the end, we know it didn’t make much of a difference, save for dialogue and/or violent options. I think this was originally something intended to be greater than what it amounted to, and part of it is the limitations of the medium that the app is and simply, resources. This also ties into…. The plot involving Kane and Alma. I don’t believe having Kane as the Big Bad was supposed to be as defined as it ended up being. The two Sources were written far more ambiguous in the beginning, with the chance that depending on your choices, you could side with either one by the end of the book and/or series. The hiatus streamlined the plot, discarding elements that were difficult to pull off, including multiple MC point of views that may have held the possibility of being evil or choosing Kane, therefore placing Alma as the antagonist. In a narrative story app such as Choices (as opposed to Lovestruck, where the routes have the same players but different stories altogether), I just don’t think this advanced storytelling would have been doable. These plots are primarily linear, and MC being evil/with Kane/etc, it would present a different set of problems, including the fact that this becomes an entirely different story while there is supposed to be one solid ending. (For what it's worth, I enjoy the MC customizability of Choices more.) Looking at the group of friends, obviously Beckett was incredibly fleshed out while the others were not as much. I wanted to delve further into our friends’ backgrounds a bit more, and I think at the beginning of the book, we were on that path. Aster and her wood nymph family was a perfect example of table setting. We had two or three scenes before the hiatus to go to the forest, and I thought the Wand Wars and their involvement against Kane was slated to be more prominent. I think the writers had something bigger planned, but how would it all tie in if players started choosing the evil choices? Again, having too many choices causes a domino effect that makes it nearly impossible to navigate when the story is supposed to end with a particular goal in mind. The chapter where we can receive the wand was a symptom of ending the book early and I think the execution of the actual Wand Wars scene was lacking the emotional punch the initial introduction of it warranted. This is unfortunate because the setup they had in Book 1 made it seem much more violent, disastrous, and full of hate compared to what was shown (i.e. Attuned just being greedy bastards). We were introduced to Shreya's Serene & Sublime business and the potential of family disapproval and lack of support in the beginning, but everything was tied up with the gala chapter. Looking back, I was curious why it was so easy to get so many financial backers this early into the series, but knowing that TE only went for two books makes much more sense why we knew whether S&S succeeded or failed. (Tangent - for anyone who didn't secure backing, is S&S successful at the end of the book?) I think Griffin, his scholarship, and his decision between Natural Sciences and Thief was also slated to be a bigger subplot. We never met his parents, despite them being brought up very early in Book 1. If TE had gone the originally planned three or four books, I have no doubt his family would've been introduced and MC would have needed to help sway his parents (and the committee for the scholarship) whether Griffin continued on the NS or professional Thief path. Doing the Griffin scenes (even as platonic friends) influenced his standing for the scholarship and not doing them made him lose out to Amy, if I'm not mistaken. Question for everyone regarding Zeph and the Thief captaincy: Does he get it in everyone's playthrough? I wonder if the writers always planned for Zeph to get the captaincy or if Griff would have kept it depending on your playthrough if they had all four books to use. Another big plot point that resolved itself out of nowhere was Atlas and MC butting heads over their Sun Source mother. I was not a fan of this storyline at all. I felt like the disagreements between the siblings was unnecessary drama that came off as forced. They tried to explain Atlas' position, and I understood where they were coming from, but Atlas was very unreasonable with their constant “who cares about mom” shtick.

I think this was something that could have been more impactful if there weren't so many plotlines happening and more focus could have been given to it instead of a few screens of Atlas saying they were pissed off before storming away from MC. This was also a plotline that was directly influenced by the Kane/Alma decisions. If MC sides with Kane, it makes much more sense for MC and Atlas to be against each other as opposed to MC being good/siding with Alma.

Five major subplots were opened, but how do you seamlessly weave these elements into a 17-19 chapter book? In my opinion, you can't. Each time something new was introduced, I felt things were glossed over, despite big chunks of chapters being focused on whichever subplot the chapter was about. Throw in the romance and I think it is nearly impossible to resolve each aspect in a complete manner.

What also hurt was the pacing of the series. This was also seen in Book 1, where sometimes a chapter would span one or two days, only for a huge time jump to occur in the next chapter.

So many ideas could have been explored through the course of four books (which is what I believe they had planned), but all the different elements should have been introduced at different times. Instead, Book 2 was an amalgamation of so many ideas but not enough time, space, or resources to thoroughly hash out and have a satisfactory resolution. For what it’s worth, I don’t think it was having too much Beckett that hurt the series. He obviously kept the series afloat and was one of PB's biggest moneymakers in recent history. Despite the constant complaints on tumblr, people fail to realize that the ENTIRE online fandom (FB, IG, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, Wiki) comprises maybe 0.5% - 2% of the ENTIRE player fan base. It only made sense that PB capitalized on him because their numbers dictated that the resources should be spent in that manner. The fallout from this was that Beckett was the only one who had his storyline relatively complete, and that was due to the spending power of everyone who romanced him. I think what hurt them the most was the multiple storylines and the indecision of which direction they wanted to go. They had a grand idea of the direction through Book 2 (and Book 3, let’s not lie here) but in-game mechanics and the type of game Choices is made it difficult to pull off. The app wasn’t the correct medium for what they envisioned. In my opinion, the overall story arc had the potential to be brilliant, but again, the app wasn't designed for the type of story the writers wanted to tell.

I also think the timing and having a very short turnaround hurt, as well. Players had high expectations and when you factor in the hype around the other books that were also released on Fridays, TE lost some of its sparkle. Most players didn’t get a chance to miss it for the regular 2-3 months we’ve been trained to wait for sequels. (I recognize that I’m an anomaly and the previous three sentences do not apply to me at all.)

Even with all this, I applaud the writing team for wanting to deliver a story that was worthy of a magical world. I love all the Pend Pals (‘Motley Crue’ for me), the familiars, the side characters, loved to hate the villains, and from someone who is not into Harry Potter lore at all, I was absolutely sucked into the magick universe that the writers built. (Metal Att for life ⚙!)

If TE does return in the future (and I REALLY hope it does), I think it will be even stronger than the first two books because the world building is complete. We know almost everything we need to know now. Instead of using a Book 3 to search for Sun Mama, the family is complete, MC and Atlas are attuned to all the elements, and there are so many open-ended questions that Book 2 left us.

If they implement a time jump where MC and the Pend Pals are all post grad/mid 20s, it also gives the writers a chance to move the story from the Young Adult genre to a more mature setting. We saw this in the later diamond scenes, where the writing appeared similar in their vividness (and coding in the final scene - THANK YOU, glorious writing team) to Open Heart, Bloodbound, and A Courtesan of Rome. This removes the restrictions placed on the group of being college kids, and therefore are almost fully developed with their magick, giving the possibility of moving the story out of a university setting.

If you've made it all the way here to the bottom, thank you for sticking with me and apologies for spelling/grammar since this has all been on my phone 😂 I think this comprises almost all my notes I've been keeping for the last 2 months. Feel free to agree or disagree; I just wanted to post my thoughts on this book and series that I love so much.

Now, I'm going to go back to my holiday (don't worry, I didn't write all of this while on vacay lol) and I'll try to answer asks when I have downtime.

[turningpagebooks]

ARC REVIEW: “Twice In a Blue Moon” by Christina Lauren

Title: Twice In a Blue Moon Author: Christina Lauren Publisher: Gallery Books Source: Netgalley Publication Date: October 22nd, 2019 Format: eARC Page Count: 368 (paperback edition) Plot Summary: Sam Brandis was Tate Jones’s first: Her first love. Her first everything. Including her first heartbreak.

During a whirlwind two-week vacation abroad, Sam and Tate fell for each other in only the way that first loves do: sharing all of their hopes, dreams, and deepest secrets along the way. Sam was the first, and only, person that Tate—the long-lost daughter of one of the world’s biggest film stars—ever revealed her identity to. So when it became clear her trust was misplaced, her world shattered for good.

Fourteen years later, Tate, now an up-and-coming actress, only thinks about her first love every once in a blue moon. When she steps onto the set of her first big break, he’s the last person she expects to see. Yet here Sam is, the same charming, confident man she knew, but even more alluring than she remembered. Forced to confront the man who betrayed her, Tate must ask herself if it’s possible to do the wrong thing for the right reason… and whether “once in a lifetime” can come around twice.

Twice In a Blue Moon on Goodreads | Chapters Indigo | Amazon CA

I received an eARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

If you've been following my blog for awhile, you'll know I've read a lot of Christina Lauren books. I really enjoy them, with their humour and romance. I was super excited for their latest release, but sadly I didn't enjoy it as much as I've enjoyed their other books.

I think my biggest issue with the book is that I wasn't personally grabbed by the story. The pacing is a bit on the slower side, and as its a more series book, it made the story drag a bit for me. We first meet the characters when they're young adults, and I kept waiting for the story to progress into their reunion. The thing is, that took awhile to happen on the page. We stay with them as young adults for a good chunk of the book, and the second half therefore seems like it didn't get enough time to develop.

I adore the two main characters, I really do. Tate is feeling stifled when we meet her, and as she's on the verge of adulthood and independence, she's hungry for new experiences. This includes falling in love for the first time, and having her first time. She's a well written character who we vey much root for. But I feel that as an adult, there's a lot of questions left unanswered.

Sam is the same, really. As a young man, he's kind and thoughtful, flirty and sexy. He's a bit of a mystery, but also not a mystery. It's very clear why they break up in their youth. This book is very much about forgiveness and a second chance at love. I loved how it was done in Persuasion by Jane Austen, but here the ending felt too open. As this is a modern story, I couldn't help but wonder why it ended the way it did. And where things would go after the book ends.

The book tackles some complex topics, like trust, love, family, and more. I was drawn to the power of love, which is a big theme in the book for various relationships. I enjoyed seeing how each relationship functioned, and how family plays such a vital role.

I think I just wanted more from this book. It's kind of a more quiet story, driven more by characters' actions and reactions. I did enjoy Twice In a Blue Moon, but I wasn't in love with the story the way I wanted to be.

[arkus-rhapsode]

What is your opinion on Jerza? With the ending coming up, how do you feel it was as a romance?

Oh god this... Okay first off, before I answer this, I need to establish that this is my opinion on the ship, I’m not trying to say mine is the correct opinion. This, is not to force you too look my way, and I would never tell someone what they can and can’t ship. This is just how I feel about it.

Second, I know I’m going to get shit regardless what I say. I know people are going to say I just don’t get it, or I I’ just a hater, so please, I’m trying to go about this as civil as possible.

Alright so, first and foremost, no I didn’t dislike it on arrival. When I first heard about Jerza and it’s dynamic I actually got very hyped. The idea of mutual love, but both aren’t together because of the mistakes made by one and how much they both through tragedy came to inspire each other. That sounded amazing and boy was I disappointed. Now before I really start, Jerza is not the worst thing in the series. I’ve seen people say “It’s half the problem with FT” and I gotta say it really isn’t. Does it have flaws? Yeah. But I can’t say this is genuinely the worst thing in the series. I do believe it’s one of the more disappointing things in the series. Yeah, the way I feel about Jerza is the same way I feel about Jellal, I can get behind the idea of it. The idea is phenomenal. But in execution it just falls apart for me.

Okay well I should explain, first off the characters in question, Erza and Jellal seemed like I be a done well, with Jellal being an established character along with Erza being one of the main characters. With their shared past and already first confrontation so this relationship is actually very plausible. One of the things really touted about this romance that I have to agree with is that they are allowed to be in love, but still apart, that’s really unique, but then we get into the execution. Now I actually like Jellal’s reason for falling in love, her being the one to give him a reason to live. Her inspiring him to go not waste his life and it’s a really organic reason that I can easily see manifesting into love. So really in terms of reasoning, I think Erza is the one I have a problem with is she really doesn’t have a reason to be in love with him. Look I’m not going to get on the bandwagon and say that “Erza shouldn’t have forgiven him for the tower”, Because here’s the thing, Fairy Tail has a lot of forgive and forget, I mean they forgave Gajeel after he straight up crucified 3 members. Erza is also a paragon of fairy tail’s ideology, so it’s not hard to believe her forgiving Jellal. But what I do feel that’s missing is a reason to love Jellal. She kinda just falls in love with him again and it’s very weak because there is no real transition. I guess you can say that it’s still the childhood romance thing coming through, but here’s the thing, Jellal isn’t the same guy as he was as a child. After all the crap that happened to him, how can he be? But it  really doesn’t feel strong when Erza seems to still be in love with that boy in the tower and associating it with Jellal. It would be way more powerful if she came to really love the way he is now. It just feels weak when you have this powerful moment of, “You inspired me to live on”.

Then lets touch on another thing that kills this for me, it’s often said that Jerza is strong because both of them are independent characters, and no. Jellal sadly falls into the same trap that Levy and Juvia did where their ship became their character and eclipsed really any development. Not to say that a character can’t develop from a romance, in fact I really believe that romance can add a dimension to the characters involved. The problem comes when one character in the relationship has a lot of their development undercut and they really just become “This character’s boyfriend/girlfriend”. A good romance should often be used as a source of overlap for characters individual development. But Jellal really got shafted in terms of story telling. He had a lot of stuff built on him that could’ve been great, his survivor’s guilt, his mental hang ups for losing his mind to possession, and having the roles of leadership thrust upon him. But we really only get shallow glimpses of that. Not helping that a lot of time Jellal is more shoehorned into the arcs and really not given enough focus outside of “by the way we’re in love”. So yeah he deserved to have more screen time solely to himself, to his journey, and while he still has that love and motivation from Erza, he still tackles his own development. So no, it’s not really all that independent when Jellal’s character really did just become defined as “Erza’s love interest” and that sucks. There is so much that can be done with him.

That leads into my other complaint, it’s very rushed. Looking at the other ships in the big 4, they all have problems, but I can at least say I saw a good chunk of the actual development on screen. With Jerza, it’s always off screen, and when it is on screen it’s more the bear bones story telling. It hits all these points that I think could actually be very powerful, very beautiful moments, but due to the lack of development, it doesn’t feel earned. It feels like it’s hitting a checklist, and when you have such a complex idea, you want to see more of it. You want to see the character plans that Mashima had in store in full, but instead what’s really given is just the implication. A lot of the emotion at times, comes down to the reader interpretation.

And interpretation is what I think is the strength and weakness of the ship is. As I said before, the idea of this romance is beautiful. When writing it out on paper it seems like it can be any writers dream ship, and it is. Many fans of the ship seem to gravitate to it their way of interpreting it, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Readers creating their own connection to a ship such as attaching their own ideas to it really makes it easier to have a connection with it. A lot of Jerza shippers actually can make great work, I’ve read fics of it and the Jerza written out in them can be downright touching. But the thing about this is, interpretation only works for individuals not as whole audience. While some are able to see things in a way that’s romantic, some actually want to see the romance. Liking the potential of a ship is fine, afterall, that’s how crack shipping started, people wanting to see characters in a way they feel could work. But then when you have a romance like Jerza, which is a canonical romance, you want the romance to stand for itself. As I said, others can see things in a way others can’t when it comes to ships, but as an audience, there is a need to see it on screen, have something everyone can see.

I myself have lived by the ideas that good ideas don’t make a good story, while I can apperciate someone’s idea, how they execute it is a key for me. But that is just me. Other people do ad still continue to enjoy it, and find it a something that makes them happy, good for them. So I’m not going to say that they are dumb r they are wrong for thinking something different than I, I’m here to just explain why this ship just doesn’t hold up for me.

Anyway sorry for eating up your time, I hope you enjoy.