#so many perfect conveniences and coincidences to the point it all made one huge plot hole

[pawblematic-moved]

it's almost interesting how some people just like being cruel for the sake of being and how it almost always is just targeting LOL

[sicklyscribe]

hey so if you wanna hit me with that sweet sweet elijah’s characterization meta anytime please feel free. or direct me to any previous posts because my dumb ass is using this time to re-obsess over vampire melodrama.....

It appears that most of my non-tag and non-petty-casual commentary is still in drafts... so instead of finishing the ‘What the hell is wrong with season 4: an itemized list’ meta and finishing answering the ‘What would you change if you could rewrite any of the show?’ ask from a while ago, I’ll just pick out the Elijah bits and add on to them for garnish. (Those posts might exist at some point. But honestly not soon enough for me to worry about people getting annoyed with copy/paste so PREVIEW TIME: ELIJAH FLAVOR)

This is way sloppier and un-cited than I usually meta, by the way, but what the hell, The Fandom is Dead and I Only Have Friends to Entertain Now, so if anyone gets angry and tries to step into my asks then it’ll just be nostalgic rather than annoying.  Here’s the starter, which is from the F*CK YOU SEASON 4 meta and quite a few of these points will be repeated later because you asked for it technically so.

The cracks in the narrative began to show as early as season two, and believe me when I say I’m not saying this because I love him - it began with Elijah. I can make a lot of arguments to this effect, but the only one that I am certain is not propelled by my very strong bias concerns the presentation of the Red Door.

Initially, I was ecstatic at the opportunity to explore Elijah’s past, his perspective, his darkest moments. I was a bit wary in that it seemed as though the narrative wanted to Explain Everything about Elijah through this device, but he was finally getting some attention so I tried to hold back judgement.The result was pretty promising. One of the most gorgeous moments on the show occurs when Klaus enters Elijah’s mind and tells him how much he needs him. It showcases the main pillar of the show - the structural trifecta of Hope, Klaus, and Elijah. And afterwards, as usual, Elijah pushes the experience away.Until it’s convenient. 

Elijah begins to be erratically vicious. At first, I felt as though it wasn’t handled poorly, I could explain away my worries easily, and that was all I needed. But it happens over, and over, and over again, with the same excuse - protecting the family, protecting Hope. Elijah’s triggers, once so crucial, begin to break down, but we don’t see why or how that process occurs. He begins to be the character that is level-headed when it is convenient, and a violent one-track-mind when it’s convenient. Eventually, in order to maintain balanced tension with a softening Klaus, Elijah became violent without nuance in every situation. His continued development is no longer possible, since his character no longer displays depth.

Which is annoying, as a fan. But as a person who loves to analyze narrative, it’s a huge red flag. Elijah is necessary for this story. His love for Klaus, and Klaus’ relationship with him, is one of the things that holds the narrative together as it goes forward. The two of them need each other in order to experience growth, but cannot grow from each other any longer - and that friction is what provides energy and substance that can help drive a multi-year melodrama. This is why I mentioned above that Elijah’s violence was likely intended to balance with Klaus’ changing heart - but there is no balance in the level of development the two brothers experience. It has been shoddy in many places, but attention has been given to Klaus’ journey towards peace and kindness, while Elijah has been given a single metaphor, a single psychosis, and is expected to carry half of the narrative weight. The story has no choice but to make a plot device out of him - he simply does not have the required depth to be anything else, which is made obvious by the attempt to do so in the ritual to bring Inadu to the material plane, which I will discuss later.

When his development is ignored, when he is used as a tool to get from point A to point B time and time again - that’s when the pillar starts to crumble.

Zooming back in on s1, this was actually my only major structural gripe with season 1, so it comprises the entirety of the ‘what would you change’ for that season:

The poison that rotted the whole dang show started very small — casting Elijah too strongly as a white hat, to offset the darkness of the rest of the main family. This was the right move, of course, but it was pushed a twinge too far and it was the tiny weight that set everything wobbling. As an offshoot of that, this was also done with Hayley to a degree. I would have had them bond very similarly to the way they do in the show, but I would have had them connect at least once over the skeletons in their closets. (Only once or twice, again, since their ship relied in this season on the fallacy of each other being saviors). In fact, this was one I felt so strongly about that I actually did rewrite their scene in 1x07 ‘Bloodletting’.

Then season two when it gets more pronounced: 

The rift in the show widened with the swing-and-miss that was The Red Door arc. Elijah became a Problem when it was convenient for the plot and A Fixer/Sounding Board when it was not. They used probably the most INTERESTING and INTEGRAL part of his characterization -- which had been a mystery for YEARS counting The Vampire Diaries appearances -- and Elijah discovering that either from trauma or his mother’s magic, he has repressed the moments which forged him. This lack of knowledge, this lack of control, should have been something much more cataclysmic and its effects should be clear when comparing ‘Elijah Before’ to ‘Elijah After’. Instead, it kind of served to take off Elijah’s ‘White Hat’ that he’d been illy-fitted with in S1, and allow him to accessorize with it or whatever version of Elijah fits the episode at hand.

This tension, and this chaos should have been much stronger and much more messy than simply putting the Suit back on and being Pretty Much Okay (barring one plot-insignificant diner massacre) only a few episodes later. It would make the therapy scene later with Camille even more gorgeous than it already is and it would then place Elijah’s moment of catharsis, and the beginning of his attempts to move on, with Klaus’ monumental forgiveness in 2x11. I think this is what was intended, but it was not at all achieved, because Elijah is such a tricky character to write, and it is so very easy to use him for whatever the scene requires. Because of this, Elijah’s struggles got dropped just long enough for Klaus’ forgiveness to hit powerfully in viewers for Klaus, but not for Elijah. The writing began to lean on Elijah as a Drama Everyman more and more throughout the show, and it’s just tragic to me that The Red Door wasn’t utilized to its potential. (And that we didn’t have a Klaus/Tatia conversation, but hey, I have an unfinished fixit for that whole saga on Ao3, you’re welcome and I’m sorry).

In season three, we got a few good glimpses of the kind of complexity that Elijah should live in -- the way he kills Arianne, for example, I’ve linked what I called a ‘headcanon’ but in retrospect it was pretty explicitly canon -- and we see the youth and terror and involuntary power in him in the flashback where he discovers that Klaus killed their mother. But the relationship between Tristan and Elijah? The man that he made, and that made him? That was far too pedestrian to have produced either of them. If Elijah learned ‘nobility’ from Tristan, learned what ‘superiority’ looked like, and this was the time that he began to change... we should have had words between them, or a scene highlighting just them, at least once in the flashbacks. 

If this season was supposed to be about the creation of the Trinity, the First Children (because Finn didn’t tell no one that Sage is actually the oldest ‘cuz he’s an ashamed little bitch) why did we see only TWO of the THREE transformations? Klaus turned Lucien accidentally, trying to heal him. Rebekah’s sympathy and love were used as Aurora’s tool to turn herself. When and how did Elijah turn Tristan? It is explained that Elijah turned him in order to create a third vampire for his plot to trick Mikael into chasing them instead -- it is explained that Tristan, Aurora, and Lucien were compelled to believe that they were in fact Elijah, Rebekah, and Klaus in order to make their decoy impeccable. But when this compulsion was shattered -- when Lucien learned that he had been used and made monstrous as a tool for a monster who wasn’t even noble -- did he confront Elijah? Did they ever speak, or was their next meeting the day Elijah learned that Tristan had taken over Elijah’s coven? I would argue that Elijah needed equal weight in the France flashbacks even though he didn’t have a flashy romance (though if early press release rumors were true, he and Tristan could have had one and that would have been perfect) 

Season four is really where you can pick an episode and Elijah will put on the stage makeup and play any part. It’s also -- BIG COINCIDENCE -- where the plot deteriorates completely. Here’s just one example from my Excuse You What the Hell? Season Four meta: 

On to the next moment that showed major neglect (I know this has been Elijah-heavy so far, but again, this is where the problem started so I want to carry this thread through for a while before addressing other issues) - the ritual to bring Inadu to the mortal realm. The purpose of this ritual was to scare viewers with the risk of Hope’s safety and hype the Hollow’s “bad”ness, but also to make the first move in the ‘Letting Go’ thread between Hayley and Elijah. Elijah was supposed to be forced to choose between children's lives and letting the Hollow loose upon the world, and decide to kill the children. That was the dramatic point of placing this ritual in the narrative, but it isn’t mechanically sound.

It is stated outright that the ritual has to end with the death of the children linked to the spell. The children were linked via their totems found in 4x03 - placing Hope definitively in this group.

But we only ever see four of the five in one place. Maybe it was worth it to the Hollow to reach as far out as Hope was to bind her via her hairbrush, maybe it was worth it to the Hollow to drain her from afar, I’d buy that easily. But they made no attempt to kidnap her and place her with the other four children during the ritual. The ritual that required the deaths of five children. Unless it required Hope to be there only on standby, which is absolutely ridiculous. They had the kids on an alter, even if it was just for show. But why not all of them? If the real goal of the ritual was to lure Klaus and/or Marcel, wouldn’t kidnapping Klaus’ child be a more surefire way to accomplish that rather than just hoping the Mikaelsons would come to the right mystical diagnosis in time?

The reason why Hope wasn’t there was because the ritual was never thought through. The reason she wasn’t there is because it didn’t make sense for Elijah to want to kill Hope to stop the Hollow, which is what this ritual actually demanded if it actually worked the way Vincent claimed. In actuality, all that was desired was for Elijah to display a willingness to kill innocents in front of Hayley, and in doing so it demanded that Hope’s life both be at stake and not at stake at all. This failure to coherently execute a single-episode arc is plainly poor storytelling. It displays not only disrespect to the narrative structure, but a blatant flippancy towards one of their main characters and arguably the most complex one on the series. The sloppily contrived tension here between Hayley and Elijah does eventually contribute to the supposed theme, yes, but at what cost?

Elijah was neglected because he was hard to write, and even harder to write well as a ‘light’ foil to Klaus. Marcel should have fully owned that role, and not been similarly jerked around as a plot-serving every-man once the mystery of season 1 and the reasons behind Marcel’s ‘senseless’ cruelty were revealed. 

Elijah was always the cornerstone of the family’s narrative, because he was complex enough to carry it. Camille provided an additional column of support to Klaus’ individual journey as a person/father, but she was bulldozed for Allmighty Plot as well. By the end of season three, both she and Elijah had effectively been thrown in the garbage one way or another, and the show tried to go on without them. It couldn’t. 

I will say that Elijah’s conversation with Hope in that ludicrous backdoor pilot did make me feel things. I did also see the clip where Elijah and Klaus have a heart-to-heart in some sort of european flashback, which was touching, but felt incongruous for their relationship/dev at the time. Hope asking Elijah how old he was when he made his promises to Klaus, though? Elijah offering carte blanche to Hope for how to punish her friend’s bullies? TWO OF THE THREE SCENES INVOLVING ICE CREAM? 

SOME of season 5 is valid but ONLY because it stole scripts from my headcanons.

[zetalial]

BH rewatch episode 26

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Episode 26: Reunion

Hey, this is the final episode in part 2. It’s also the best. Yeah, this is definitely the best episode I’ve watched so far. (That might be heresy, I know a lot of people love Death of the Undying.) But this episode is both Ed-centric and emotional. What’s not to love?

Ling and Ed fight Envy who’s regrettably still in his giant, incredibly distracting form. They’re just swinging swords about and Envy’s absolutely huge so it’s not going all that well. At first, Edward is just as angry and determined as Ling. But then he starts hearing the souls speaking.

Envy’s body is huge, made up of countless trapped souls that make up his Philosopher’s stone core. All over his skin are these faces and they’re in pain and they’re speaking. Seeing one crying out in pain makes Ed freeze as he finds he can’t attack.

Ling’s telling him to ignore them, that they’re just a mindgame and they’re not really people anymore. But Ed hears one that gives him a flashback towards Nina. He’s reminded of his failure to save her and he can’t allow himself to hurt these souls either.

Envy, meanwhile, confirms that these were the souls from the lost city of Xerxes. Edward gathers that Envy’s creator must have somehow been responsible for its destruction and he wonders who might have done such depraved acts. This is all leading up to the introduction of Father. 

Outside, Alphonse is still following Gluttony into Father’s lair. Mei and Scar are still looking for her panda and they hear its in the possession of Alphonse. They see him and Gluttony (whom Scar recognises as a Homunculus) and follow them at a distance into the sewers.

The show hasn’t hit me with too many contrivances lately but this one is annoying. Mostly Al has been keeping the panda inside his armour so it wouldn’t be visible to onlookers but just now he’s carrying her around on her shoulder. I know that Mei and Scar were searching but it still seems incredibly convenient that they would spot Al and Gluttony just before they head underground. The fact that Al having her bear by complete coincidence is turning into a plot point necessary for the story to advance is already slightly annoying.

And the presence of both of them in the next episode will be incredibly important. Their presence is critical to the story. Not only in helping save the Elrics in the immediate but also giving the two of them the idea to seek Mei out later which will be their entire motivation for going north to Briggs. It all happened because Al grabbed the panda in their earlier encounter. And then Scar spots Al mere moments before he heads underground so they follow him down.

Oh well. We also get another look at the Fuhrer. He tells Roy the story of how he was made because he felt like sharing I guess. It’s also foreshadowing how a Homunculus can be made out of a human by injecting the Philosopher’s stone into them, allowing for it to take over its host. 

Bradley speaks of a program with an evil scientist training a whole class on becoming the perfect leader and each subject being injected. Twelve have already died before Bradley is tried and he of course manages to survive. Unlike other Homunculi, he is a single, particularly Wrathful soul. 

He does identify as Homunculus though and makes it clear to Mustang that he has no intention of becoming human, that he takes pride in being Homunculus. He mentions Lust here, how she died with her pride as a Homunculus intact. 

Back to the Envy encounter. Ling is still urging Ed to fight, that he can’t let himself be distracted by the faces as they’re no longer people anymore. Edward doesn’t listen. He’s lost his will to fight and no longer puts up any resistance. There’s this awesome image of Envy’s tongue sliding out and the souls inside it all lifting Ed up from the ground, slowly enveloping him as Envy swallows him.

Wow Ed, first you’re eaten now by Gluttony, and now Envy? 

Eventually, Ed sees the Philosopher’s stone at the centre of Envy’s body and finally thinks of a way out. Telling Envy he’s thought of a way out is enough to convince Envy to let him out, of course. 

Ed points out the stone’s from Xerxes and Envy fetches some of the other pieces. Most of this circle had been swallowed by Gluttony long ago to hide the evidence of the destruction of Xerxes and Ed finds it similar to what he saw in Lab 5. He accuses Envy of trying to recreate the same thing that happened in Xerxes in Amestris. 

Ed’s plan is clever. They perform human transmutation- this time on themselves, living people rather than dead - to open up the true portal of Truth. That way they can get out of this fake Gateway and end up back in the real world. 

Ed tells them that any backlash would affect him if it goes wrong. To do this though, they’ll need to use the Philosopher’s stone. Edward doesn’t want to ask, he’s afraid and disgusted at the idea of using souls to do this. 

(Does he not see that the souls, whatever’s left of them seem to be in great pain? I wish he thought about using them in a way other than simply it being wrong. Or just explored his sense of morality here a little more. Ling and Envy are both perfect people to debate with about this, both being far more willing to use the Philosopher’s stone. There’s this line in 03 where Tucker tries to convince Ed to use the incomplete stones in Lab 5 and when Ed points out that they’re people, his response is a cold “Would you be able to turn them back?” I’m not saying it needs to go the same way as 03, I just sort of wish the topic was being broached here a little more. Sorry, really must stop mentioning 03...)

Anyway, Ed reluctantly goes through with his plan. He offers an apology to the souls he uses up. He opens the gateway of Truth again and their bodies all disintegrate (to be reformed outside Gluttony’s stomach.) Truth, on seeing Ed, notes that he’s not even trying to get his body back. That makes me think he could’ve used a couple of those souls to get his arm and leg back while he’s transmutating Envy anyway. Alas, Edward is not willing to even consider something like that as it wasn’t so much as discussed before. 

Anyway, best moment coming up. Ed appears in the void and now there’s two gates here, his and his brother’s. In front of the opposite Gate is his brother’s body. It’s not looking well, being incredibly malnourished with the stomach so sunken in. His hair has grown out too. Ed goes up to him but arms drag him back. Al tells him that he’s sorry but only his soul can take back his body.

Ed’s pulled away. The gate closes. Silence. Then they open up once more as Ed fights against the hands dragging him back. Music comes in as Ed promises that he’ll save him and get his body back before being pulled away once more.

I love that ending. And that’s the end of Part 2. It really closes on a great moment! 

No more hearing Hologram, which is probably my least loved opening song anyway. Oh, I like all of them. Rain is my favourite, then Again, then Golden time lover, then Period. Sadly Hologram isn’t my favourite though it does have that awesome image of a grinning Lust and the tree from Rain and the traintracks from Rewrite. 

Er anyway, I loved the emotion in this episode. I complained last episode that there was too much comedy and we don’t see Ed being hit with much despair and this episode actually has Ed in a moral dilemma and its good. The tone here isn’t comedic, it’s full of emotion and that’s just what I love.

I’m actually going to skip the next episode. I have no interest in ever watching the creepy episode interlude party again. It’s mostly a recap and it just makes the Trisha/Hohenheim dynamic really creepy by having her show up as a young kid. Ugh. So next episode will be episode 28. 

[sxpiosexualx]

why do you ship jonsa? my best friend is a hard core jonerys shipper but lately ive been really critical of daenerys, so i cant really hop on that train. i dont really have a preference for jon either way so i wanted to know why you ship them

Oh hello! What a lovely question to ask, though I must warn you this could most likely get draggy and long because I’m so passionate about these two and this ship, they’re my OTP. Actually I only started reading the books last year, before then I was a casual watcher until up to Feb 2016 before season 7 aired. Jon and Sansa had just reunited on the show and I came across this Jonsa instagram on my explore page and I thought, what the fuck is this? It was such an absurd ship to consider - and this is coming from someone who was crack shipping Tommen and Sansa! But I kept scrolling through, the captions in the post came from posts on Tumblr(with credit) explaining the parallels and the ways in which Jonsa could go down and it was sort of like… this strange theory that I subscribed to and was soon convinced of. I tried bringing it up to my friend but she was a casual watcher and didn’t really pay much attention to it so I was craved of my need to discuss this. So come season 7, I rejoined Tumblr and the Jonsa tag was SO rich in content and meta, detailing all the parallels, how it could happen, why it makes sense and how it would wrap up up the narrative in the most satisfying manner. I’ve never shipped something so hard and wanted it to be canon more than with Jonsa(though canon or not I’m not fussy lol).

I’m gonna outline to you some of the main reasons why I think Jonsa has a strong chance of happening in canon, because they’re really why I ship them so hard, they complement each other perfectly though it’s very easy to miss this. I’m keeping this under a ‘Keep Reading’ tab because I know this will get lengthy. Also, any of my followers/people seeing this, do add on in the comments why you ship jonsa or perhaps leave some links to some of your fav meta’s in the comments for OP to screen through if they feel like it!

This will be lengthy but remember I am trying my best to be brief, hopefully the other Jonsa’s will link some metas/parallel series to give you a better idea - I’m only outlining the backbone of the ship!

The Ashford Tourney Pattern

So it actually began when I came across this theory: The Tourney at Ashford was held in-universe, and I wont go much into detail except to mention that all of the 5 champions in that tourney coincide with the houses of the men Sansa is betrothed/married to (i.e. Sansa’s suitors). It goes

Lyonel Baratheon

Leo Tyrell

Tybolt Lannister

Humfrey Hardyng, and,

Valarr Targaryen.

Now, granted the show’s made some changes but ultimately they’re coming to the same conclusion, and as for book!Sansa(i.e. canon) she’s first betrothed to Joffrey Baratheon, then is promised to Willas Tyrell(changed to Loras on the show), marries Tyrion Lannister, is currently in the works of being betrothed to Harry Hardyng(in the Vale - the Ramsay plot is not hers), and so the logical conclusion would be to complete the pattern by marrying her final suitor, the endgame - a Targaryen. That makes Jon the only candidate viable to her, and yes that sounds ‘out there’ but if you take a look at the narrative, it could make complete sense, so let’s go into how this could logically happen.

Logic

Given the story began with the Starks being the heart of the series, you can only anticipate that the final installation, initially named A Time For Wolves would promise a continuation of the Stark line, and that could come about through Jon and Sansa. They are the only Starks left who’s storyline touches on ideas of fatherhood and motherhood - the only Starks left to ever consider having future children(and weirdly enough where Sansa wants to name her children Bran and Rickon and thinks of a girl who looks like Arya in her dreams of children, Jon wants to name his son Robb - even their dreams complement each other, they’d be rebuilding the Stark family with themselves), the only Starks left to think of restoring Winterfell(and they already go on to do this on the show) etc. When you think of Sansa and how she’s had to fight hard to retain her Stark identity and reclaim it, I cannot imagine GRRM marrying her off to some random lord at the end of the series, when she’s just made it back home. For Jon too, he’s wanted Winterfell, and dreamed of that domestic life as Lord of Winterfell, as a Stark, and Sansa, the Key to the North, could give him that - the same way her marrying Jon who’s actually a prince would be fulfilling her childhood dream as well. They both get what they want in the way they least expect it, something very GRRM-esque. There’s the narrative convenience of R+L=J that would allow for some catharsis once Jon realises he’s not her half-brother, and the convenience of them being the only Starks to not have an established relationship beforehand. But despite that, whenever they do think of the other in the books, it’s never with any resentment, contrary to popular belief, they don’t hate each other(they think of each other fondly, even). It’s something that could work politically in show!verse just as well, say word gets out that Jon’s a Targaryen, the Northern lords would never accept him unless Sansa brokers a political marriage to tame them.

History would also be repeating itself in a poetic way, but done right this time. Jon and Sansa marrying would parallel Ned x Cat, they each parallel them so much and S7 has hammered those visual parallels more than ever. A Stark would be wedding a Tully. And if you embraced Jon as a Targaryen, then they would parallel Rhaegar and Lyanna in a sense too by having a Targaryen prince wed a Stark lady. It also nicely twists what happened to Cersei, where she was supposed to marry a Targaryen prince(Rhaegar) but ends up marrying a Baratheon(Robert) - Sansa was betrothed to Joffrey Baratheon, but would be marrying a Targaryen prince in Jon, which only adds another layer to her being the YMBQ from Cersei’s prophecy if you subscribe to that!

Complementary Storylines

If you take a closer look at Jon and Sansa’s arcs, they tend to echo off of each other, always linking the two through themes, yet the author does a great deal to ensure they’re the last two Starks we ever associate with each other which honestly, would be something he’d do if he meant to pull them marrying as a huge plot twist no one would expect. But thematically, both Jon and Sansa:

 start their arcs as naive,

are the Starks most interested in leaving WF - Jon goes to the Wall where he assumes the men are ideal knights, and Sansa journeys South with romanticised ideas of court, and both characters are quickly disappointed. 

Jon gets dubbed “crow” for most of his arc, the same way Sansa gets dubbed “little bird/dove”. 

Both characters at the same time, have to pretend to be something they’re not around their enemies - Jon going undercover as a Wildling, while Sansa had to blend in with the Lannisters. 

They both get dubbed traitor around the same time too, Jon’s seen as a traitor for leaving the Wildlilngs while Sansa gets dubbed traitor/murderer once they thought she poisoned Joffrey as she leaves KL. 

Jon who starts off as a bastard, rises to the title of Lord Commander at the Nights Watch the same time Sansa, who starts off as a Lady, gets forced to pose as Littlefinger’s bastard daughter. 

It’s the same case on the show, and there’s reason enough to believe Jon and Sansa will be the first Starks to reunite in the books and reclaim Winterfell as well(though the circumstances may be different, it’s heavily foreshadowed in Sansa’s final ASOS chapter).

Complementary Dreams

GRRM has a weird way of connecting these two through their shared dreams. Where Sansa’s final chapter in ASOS heavily foreshadows that she’ll come to rebuild Winterfell with Jon(and she already goes onto do this on the show with Jon), Jon is also the only other Stark to think of reclaiming and rebuilding it, and this occurs in the same book. They’re both weirdly also the only Stark kids to be referred to as the Blood of Winterfell. ASOS(the 3rd book in the series) is also where both these characters start to undergo a sexual awakening(Ygritte’s attempts with Jon, and Sansa coming into her own body and developing). 

It’s the same book where Jon considers having a son of his own, thinking he could name him after Robb, and Sansa thinks of giving her betrothed children, noting that in her dreams her children looked like the brothers she had lost and that she wants to name them Eddard and Brandon and Rickon(after the brothers she’s lost). So yes, while that sounds very odd, these two coming together would actually be giving each other what they long for in a family, children who look like named after their pack. Once you remember that book wise, Jon looks like a carbon copy of Ned and Sansa looks like a more beautiful version of Catelyn then you could only assume their children would look very much like the siblings they grew up with too.

It’s actually strange how alike they are and how their arcs tend to echo off of each other but it even comes down to the same romanticised idea of courtship. Sansa remembers the rose Loras gave to her during the Hand’s Tourney, and when met with the prospect of marrying Willas, starts fantasising of sitting with her lord husband in a garden. Lo and behold, a couple chapters later Jon thinks of showing Ygritte Winterfell, and plucking a flower for her from Winterfell’s glass garden. In other words… they would be perfect together.

Their first loves are stand-ins for each other

Ygritte could actually be seen as a foreshadowing for Sansa, namely because so many of her traits are things we’ve come to associate with the latter but GRRM makes a point to keep this out of Jon’s subconscious in his POV chapters. First in the choice of words in her description, her red hair, her blue-grey eyes(sansa’s eyes are blue), but people tend to stop right there and use it as an excuse to mock the idea of Jon x Sansa immediately which honestly, is lazy. It goes deeper than that. Ygritte weeps when she sings and hears the song of the last of giants, and she’s known to favour songs and tales - things we again associate with Sansa. There’s also the instance of her telling Jon Snow that she’s “half a fish” which seems to nod at the fact that Sansa’s basically half a fish too(Half Tully). Strangely, right after Ygritte words out her famous line “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” in Sansa’s chapter, Sansa sees Margaery’s cousins and comments that “they know nothing,” on their naivety. When Jon gets stabbed, the line is again associated with Sansa in his final thoughts:

“Of Sansa, brushing out Lady’s coat and singing to herself. You know nothing, Jon Snow. ”

In Sansa’s case, her first love(crush, really) was a man of the Night’s watch named Waymar Royce(“She had fallen wildly in love with Ser Waymar,”) - who is described as grey-eyed, graceful and slender the same way Jon is first described in AGOT as having grey eyes, being graceful and being slender. The connection between Waymar Royce and Jon Snow is further strengthened in the fact that Waymar(who appears in the very first prologue of the first book) death foreshadows Jon’s death.

Other parallels and easter eggs

There are other ways GRRM’s linked the two in his novels through easter eggs too, for e.g. Sansa calls out for the heroes she knows, calling for Prince Aemon the Dragonknight(from the songs), and then we get a flashback of Jon remembering how he’d play with Robb in the field and pretend to be Prince Aemon the Dragonknight. Sansa also wishes someone would behead Janos Slynt, and Jon goes onto do this in ADWD, unknowingly being the literal hero she asked for. 

They both have a strong connection to the pomegranate symbolism, tying them both to the greek mythology of Persephone. And in terms of actual history, Jon and Sansa share heavy parallels with Henry Tudor and Elizabeth of York(who ended up joining their houses through marriage after the War of the Roses of which one of the main conflicts of GoT was based on). 

There are plenty of other parallels throughout their chapters, one off instances of both characters put in the same environment or situation, more than I could count really. But what I personally find most odd is how some of their chapters completely mirror each other’s in terms of environment, theme and situation. Look to Jon and Sansa’s first and second ASOS chapters(that come right after the other’s) and you’ll find it’s almost like reading the same chapter twice. GRRM’s a man with words, it’s strange how similarly he words and crafts the environment he puts them in, unless he meant for their chapters to echo each other.

It’s not beyond GRRM

We know from his original outline that he intended for Jon and Arya to be the first Starks to reunite at the wall and struggle for non-platonic and very inappropriate feelings for each other which would torment them until Jon’s parentage is revealed in the final book - sounds not that far from what’s happened with Sansa tbh. Again, you have to remember that yes things have changed from the outline, Sansa was meant to choose Joffrey over her family, bore him children, then die, and none of that happened. Arya was also supposed to do a heck lot more in her storyline but what seems to happened is that GRRM knew he could never have Arya accomplish that much plot in so little time and so he might’ve split initial Arya into a fully fleshed version of Sansa, thus why Sansa and Arya are two sides of the same coin. It would also explain why while Arya looks like Lyanna, both sisters possess her traits and parallel her in their respective ways.

With Jonerys… listen… it’s just a doomed pairing. I was open to the idea but there are one too many kinks in it to have it be endgame not to mention Jonerys on the throne would completely go against the anti-war message ASOIAF has established. Not that doomed pairings have ever stopped me from shipping but they’re just so fundamentally different at this point that the idea of them just doesn’t work anymore(season 7′s rushed tryst was problematic and didn’t sell it to me either).

Additional Thoughts

I could drag on but these I think are some of the main points for me. There are a plethora of other reasons backing this up but yeah I think they have a solid chance. Points aside, I guess I also ship them because there is literally no man who’s a viable suitor for Sansa and her status, that could treat her how she deserves - show!Jon has proved himself worthy, and Sansa has fed him with the well deserved validation he’s needed and craved, acknowledgement of him being a Stark. They work so well together. 

Jon is the only man in her arc who canonly has acknowledged that “Winterfell belongs to […] Sansa.” i.e. the only man who wouldn’t marry her for her claim. For a girl who came to the realisation that “No one will ever marry me for love.”(which was followed by Jon’s chapter right after btw), that’s a huge deal. A JonSa endgame would be done so out of political reasons but love would no doubt follow. He is the only man to respect her boundaries and treat her as a human being, to see her for more than just her beauty. You can comment a suitor in her arc she was involved with and I will be able to point out how it’s problematic and wouldn’t work for endgame, how Sansa deserves better. JonSa is my OTP because they genuinely and effortlessly are perfect for each other :)

Trust me I could point out more and more, but hopefully people who see this post link some of their metas/own reasons in the comments in case you want to learn more! Thanks for the ask, this was lovely x

[ppatibandla]

Quite a Few Things Wrong with ‘A Quiet Place’

So if you don’t live under a rock, you’ve probably already heard all about A Quiet Place and all the fantastic reviews and success it has gotten so far. But just in case you’re Patrick Star, A Quiet Place is a horror movie which came out last week, directed by John Krasinski, who also plays the lead in the movie along with his real-life and onscreen wife, Emily Blunt.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a horror and apocalyptic movie enthusiast, particularly of the zombie variety. I enthusiastically watch almost every movie/TV show which comes out in these genres and consider myself a connoisseur of sorts of all things eerie. Oh and not only do I enjoy horror, but I particularly love watching scary movies alone (well as alone as you would be in a movie theater full of other people, I guess). Call me weird if you will, but the adrenaline rush is well worth it and you should try it too!

So obviously I knew I had to watch A Quiet Place as soon as it came out when I first saw the trailer. 

I set out to watch A Quiet Place this past Friday night using my MoviePass - side note, I can’t sing enough praises on what an amazing investment the MoviePass has been! 

I went to my regular theater but the show I wanted to see was all sold out and the next showing wasn’t until 10.30 - 3 hours later. I did not want to wait that long so I looked up a theater which had an earlier showing and decided to drive 10 miles to get there. I’m not gonna lie, this theater was in the middle of nowhere and the route there took me through parts of Riverside which I never knew even existed despite having lived here for over 2 years now. That completely unnecessary adventure later, I successfully managed to catch the 9 o clock screening of A Quiet Place.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved the movie and enjoyed the experience of watching a movie that almost entirely had no dialogue, just silence, and sound effects. But I unwittingly had a lot of Taro milk tea earlier and expected more from this movie, so my bladder and brain were both in some serious pain for most of the movie. 

Yes, I’ve been on the receiving end of many “Omg, it’s just a movie, let it go” s and “Why do you analyze and rationalize everything so much” s but I’m sorry, okay?! Plot holes are usually glaring at me in the face and it's very hard for me to not see them. While there were many aspects of A Quiet Place that I thought were brilliant, a lot of it also made me go: 

SPOILERS AHEAD! You’ve been warned!

Firstly, a baby? Really?!

Yes, yes, I know this one doesn’t take Einstein and everyone who has watched the movie has already thought this. But I tried really hard to understand what was going on in the minds of the lead characters when they made this choice. Kids are hard enough to raise in a normal world. But in this specific scenario, there is a couple that’s living in a world where you can’t make a sound or you die. And they basically went:

“We had three kids out of which, one is a huge liability already because she can’t hear and one got killed for doing things that kids do like play with toys. You know what would be a brilliant idea? Let’s have a baby!! Because what do babies do? They cry and make involuntary sounds. That sounds perfect for a world where you can’t make a sound, doesn’t it?!”

Pregnancy is some seriously complicated shit and women risk their lives every time they choose to have a baby EVEN in a world with complete access modern healthcare. Let alone in one with no access to medication, food or even the ability to let out a fart. And there are dramatic moments in the movie where Emily Blunt’s character Evelyn says things like “who are we if we can’t protect them (the children)?”

Bruh! Really?? Maybe if you don’t keep bringing children into this post-apocalyptic world where it is highly likely that they will be eaten for reasons outside their control, they wouldn’t need protection!

Have doors stopped existing?!?

Okay so unlike most post-apocalyptic universes like the one in The Walking Dead, for example, these guys still, somehow (reasons never explained in the movie) have electricity so they are clearly more advanced than other typical characters in such scenarios. So what do they do? They build a beautiful, Pinterest weddingesque farm with string lights and sand and carpets and what not.

But why do they not have doors?!? They basically welcome the alien creatures into their homes with doorways which are always wide open apparently for the creatures to just waltz through at any given point in time. Why did they not use the resources they have to fortify their home and build a fortress-like Will Smith’s from I Am Legend? And Will Smith only had his German Shepard for help. These guys had an entire squad worth of child labor that they could tap into!

Well, you could argue that doors are loud etc. But seriously though, they were apparently living on that farm for over a year at least and had access to electricity. I feel like they have no excuse for not being able to figure out a creative solution with all the resources they had. They instead chose to use their time to make a liability a.k.a a baby.

In the same line of questioning, why didn’t they soundproof their entire home the way they did with the basement they built for the baby? Why didn’t they live near the waterfall when they were clearly already aware that the creatures couldn’t hear them near water? So many questions!

This movie should be called ‘A Series of Unfortunate Coincidences’

Okay so as we go through the movie, we are essentially taught two things about this world: 

1. The creatures can’t hear you over the sound of gushing water. 

2. The basement that they created was soundproof.

How did Evelyn wake up to find that the creature had not only conveniently found the basement despite the background noise created by the flooding water, but it also got in quietly (see people, this is why you need doors). And how did the baby, which was floating around in the floodwater (how the f*** did the crib’s lid come off in the first place?!), not make a single sound up until that point? I mean, these guys had to have had the worst luck in the world to achieve that level of coincidence.

Also, Krasinski’s character Lee MOST DEFINITELY did not have to dramatically sacrifice himself. Sure, he did a noble thing to protect his kids. But by getting himself killed, he was leaving his injured wife who JUST nearly died delivering a baby, to deal with a rebellious hearing impaired teenager, a terrified son, a newborn baby and terrifying creatures that hunt on sound. That’s a bit much to have on anyone’s plate, even a highly capable woman’s.  For all he knew, he was basically dooming them to die too.

Okay, end of rant. Again, just to reiterate, I loved the movie and in fact, I’m kinda itching to go watch it again. I do realize that you can’t enjoy most movies if your brain is actively picking it apart but I wanted to specifically write about A Quiet Place, maybe because it was one of the few movies in recent times which I engaged with the storyline, fully. 

I’d love to hear your thoughts too, cheers!

[lj-writes]

@birdcagesanddemons replied to your post “two-dollars: I don’t want Rey to be Luke’s daughter so that Luke can...”

Just wondering: how would rey solo work?

I’ve been wanting for a while to write about my Rey Solo theorizing, and this is as good an opening as any.

The thing that got me to start believing in Rey Solo was this Movie Pilot piece arguing that a “profound tragedy” referenced in the Visual Dictionary that shook the Organa-Solo family was the loss of a younger Solo child, that is, Rey. I won’t go into everything the essay did, but it certainly does explain some things such as why Leia sent Ben away and why she and Han were leading separate lives, though still amicable and in love, years before Ben’s fall.

Another reason I like Rey Solo is because it makes for such a good story. @brehaasolos has pointed out the many ways this one plot point would solve story problems and improve the story, including sympathetic motivation for Kylo Ren and a close relationship between a protagonist and the main villain. Other parentage theories such as Rey Skywalker, Rey Kenobi, Rey Random, and Rey Palpatine(??) all have their merits but none makes for as satisfying a story in my opinion. That’s my basic approach to speculating about ongoing stories, to focus on not only in-show clues but what would make a satisfying story.

Below the cut are more details of how Rey Solo works for me:

This theory obviously can’t work with Han or Leia abandoning Rey on Jakku. That would completely undermine who they are as people. The Movie Pilot essay I linked above similarly speculates that Rey was taken, not abandoned, and I agree. To add a few more pieces of speculation, I think Snoke was behind it. He tried to get his hands on Leia’s child, powerful in the Force, but failed. (More on that below.) Ever the resourceful villain, however, he made lemonade out of lemons by using the grief from that loss to turn Ben.

I also think Snoke, during the time he had Rey in his power, did something to her mind that resulted in her amnesia. She had no memories by the time she ended up on Jakku, which is unusual even considering the spottiness of childhood memories. Since Snoke was interested in her as a potential minion he might have done something to jump-start her Force abilities, hence her ability to use the Force later in life without training. She had been trained, just not in conscious memory, but the experience had damaged her mind and left her traumatized.

In my theory, as also implied in the Movie Pilot piece, Rey was not just gone but thought dead. The people Rey pleaded to come back in her flashback? Not Han or Leia. as discussed above. I think they were pilots, likely former Rebels, who managed to rescue her but came close to being caught. Desperate, they left her on Jakku and tried to draw the pursuers away from her, and were shot down before they could communicate to allies that the child was alive.

Their sacrifice serves several story purposes: The little girl was thought to have been with them and no one knew she was alive and on Jakku. This would explain why the Organa-Solo family were grieving instead of combing the galaxy for her. It also explains Maz’s statement that the people Rey are waiting for are not coming back, by the simple expedient of being dead. It would give a deeper emotional meaning to Rey’s fascination with Resistance pilots (the pilot doll in her home, the helmet she likes to wear): It was former Rebellion pilots she was waiting for without consciously realizing it, whom she had bonded with as family in the midst of her traumatic amnesia. The Rebellion and Resistance, aside from the former being the direct precursor of the latter, also have the same pilot uniform design and insignia. It would be easy to see why her positive emotions for the Rebellion would transfer to the new Resistance.

Another piece of the puzzle is the Millennium Falcon. It looks like a huge coincidence that the Falcon just happens to be there for a new generation of heroes, and would be an intolerably pat plot convenience if it just happened to be there with Han’s lost daughter. What if it‘s neither? What if it was there within sight of Rey, through all those years, for a good reason?

So here’s my headcanon in full, putting these pieces together: Little Breha Solo, Han and Leia’s daughter, is kidnapped while on the Millennium Falcon by Snoke’s minions (possibly Ducain, referenced as the original thief, was in league with Snoke). While in Snoke’s hands her powers are forcibly and prematurely awakened but the process also damages her mind, causing amnesia.

The Solo family and their allies, frantically searching for her, track down several leads at once. A force that includes Republic pilots, formerly of the Rebellion, find the Millennium Falcon and the child. They make a daring rescue, stealing the Falcon and flying Breha out on it, and the two ships--the ship the rescue force came in on and the Falcon--fly out under heavy pursuit.

Snoke is now determined to kill the entire escape party. Breha might still be able to identify him if the damage to her mind is repaired, and he has no intention of being revealed this soon. Besides, he can still use her death to help turn Ben to the Dark Side.

The pilots manage to get out a transmission that they have Breha, and help is on the way when their ships take damage and it is only a matter of time before they are caught. They land at Jakku and cut a deal with a local crime lord to take custody of Breha while her family comes for her, with the promise of a big payday. Leaving the more heavily damaged Falcon behind with Breha while she shouts at them to come back, they take flight again to distract Snoke’s forces. They make a hurried jump to get far away from Jakku, and are followed and shot down before they can broadcast that they have left Breha behind. Snoke, presuming he has destroyed all evidence, is satisfied.

The tragedy shatters the Organa-Solo family. Leia sends Ben away in her grief, burying herself in work, while Han leaves to get some time to himself. Ben blames his parents, especially Han, for both the loss of his little sister and for abandoning him when he needed them most. This, as Snoke foresaw, becomes a perfect vulnerability to exploit.

Breha, her name lost except for the nickname her rescuers called her during the short time they were with her, settles in to wait. Her young mind, fresh from Dark Force-inflicted wounds, can’t hold on to the conscious memory of who she was waiting for, but she does find that imagery and objects from the Rebellion and later the Resistance, especially those of pilots, help her feel safe and protected. She makes a Rebellion/Resistance pilot doll (I mean, look at how crude that thing is. It wasn’t the work of a grown or even teenaged Rey, she made it as a child), pores over information about starships and piloting, and finds comfort in wearing an old abandoned Rebel helmet.

The Organa-Solo family’s breakup is complete when a second tragedy--Ben’s fall to the Dark Side--tears them apart yet again. It is, in many ways, a direct result of the first. Ben has come to believe that it was the disorder that the New Republic was unable to control that resulted in his sister’s kidnapping and death, and under Snoke’s influence comes to revile everything his parents stood for. The Republic is an irredeemable failure; the universe must be brought to order under a strong leader no matter what the cost. If his soul is part of the cost, so be it.

Meanwhile Han, adrift and in despair, does one of the only things he can think of: Finding the Millennium Falcon. It may look like incredible vanity to fixate on this in the face of all his family has been through, and maybe it is, but it never sat right with him that they didn’t find the Falcon. He searches for it out of a desire for closure if nothing else, running up debt and jumping into increasingly foolhardy ventures to finance his hopeless search. He doesn’t care, this drifting life is what he knows and it feels comfortable. He knows it’s a fool’s mission and probably no more than a distraction from his grief, but if there is the tiniest chance that Breha lived, maybe, just maybe...

And one day, out on one of his riskiest ventures yet, he catches the Falcon’s signal in space. On the Falcon he finds a young man and a young woman. He finds himself drawn to the girl for reasons he can’t name, but something about her seems so familiar...

Han dies without realizing that the Falcon was, indeed, the key to finding his daughter, and that he had been reunited with her before the end. He never knew it consciously at any rate, but whenever he talked to Rey his heart felt just a little more whole.

Also imagine what this would do to Rey? Her hated enemy is her brother, who did all those terrible things out of losing her. He killed her father before her eyes, a loss she screamed and wept over long before she learned the truth. Her overriding desire all her life has been to have a family, but a member of her family did this unspeakable thing. Yet he did so out of love and grief for his sister.

The conflicting pull of pity, love, and hatred would tear her apart. She was already tempted to the Dark Side out of hatred for Kylo Ren; the impossible dilemma of their relationship could push her over the edge.

No other family origin story comes close to introducing this kind of conflict and emotional payoff. The only one that comes anywhere near it is Rey Skywalker, and even a cousin enemy dynamic is only a pale reflection of what a sibling enemy dynamic would be.

And with apologies to Rey Skywalker theorists, I believe Rey Skywalker is a giant red herring to distract us from Rey Solo. Yes, the relationship between Rey and Luke is crucial; he is her uncle and will be her teacher. It’s also true that Rey can’t go back to her original family in many ways. One of them is dead at another’s hands, and there are too many lost years between her and Leia. Luke is her new family, as she foresaw.

But he is not her biological father. There’s just no way Daisy Ridley, she who is bound by the NDA, would be screaming “Rey Skywalker!” from the rooftops if this were the actual reveal. It’s close enough that it’s plausible and distracts from the possibility of Rey Solo. Of course Luke would be the one to give Rey away at her wedding, because her father is dead and Luke, in addition to being a near male relative who is not a murderer, will also be a father figure for her.

That became really frickin’ long, but like I said this has been percolating in my head for a while so I might as well have a master post type thing lying around. It’s also fun to put this out there ahead of time so that I have a record of my prediction, whether right or wrong.

[sawthefaeriequeen]

6, 14, 17, 20, 21, 35, 36!

6: Which book was the last one youreally, really loved?

Answered here!

14: Name a book where the movie/tvadaption actually was better than the original

 Ohhhh, I turned this over in my head a lot — Howl’s MovingCastle? But I liked that as much as theoriginal! It doesn’t count! Stardust? But I only read a little of the bookbecause I couldn’t connect with it! It’s not a fair comparison!

Then I remembered Stand By Me (adaptation of Stephen King’sThe Body) existed and all bets were off the table. :D

Don’t get me wrong, the book was good – I think Stephen Kingis a great writer even though I am a chicken and have read a grand total of twoof his books.  It’s good in a gritty,end-of-summery way and I loved his sensory prose. But the thing is it’s very muchframed as an older guy looking back at a time long gone.  There are jarring moments where Gordie  (main character) drops little bombs inadvance ala Death in Book Thief,  like“Teddy, what a crazy kid, man. Oh, by the way? He didn’t make it very far inlife. Anyway, on to the story of  ouradventure…”

And that’s okay! That’s how some stories are told! I justprefer how the movie told this story,where the four boys’ adventure is front and center, where you can watchchildhood innocence being lost’ as it’shappening, and  you don’t have theretrospective view of older!Gordie.

Another thing, the movie is a lot more, well, tender with  the characters.  They’re a lot more demonstrative andaffectionate with each other. The book-to-movie transition of the characterswas pretty faithful (and all the kids’ acting is so good!), except they madeGordie more fragile and introverted. Which actually served the story better. Because it’s so much moresatisfying , then, that the movie makes Gordie more proactive, and changes itup so that it’s he who saves the day and saves Chris (aka the gallant tough-guyBFF who is the one in this role, in the book).

I think the very last one is why I prefer the movie,honestly. Even Stephen King said “wow, I should’ve thought of that!” when hesaw it.

17: If you owned a bookshop whatwould you call it?

Lol, probably a bad pun with my name in it. I mean, justlook at my Goodreads name.

20: Bestsummer read?

Hah, so Ihave this unapologetic thing for contemporary YA summer books. I unabashedlylove Sarah Dessen (especially the books that take place in the beach town,Colby), and the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (although not the last one,which made the old, crinnge-y mistake of thinking ‘adult’ meant dark and miserable).

I alsopicked up The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson last year because she wasdoing a signing here and I figured, eh why not. I’m really glad I did becausethat book had all the ingredients for my ideal summer book which were 1) girl goingsoul-searching and finding fulfillment, 2) romance I can get invested in, withactually-lovable nerd love interest  4)All sorts of shenanigans that make you wish you were right there, and 4) FRIENDSHIP – a strong group of lady friends,and a couple of guy friends too (and her love interest gets seamlessly integratedin the friend group, which was particularly delightful!), 5) Strong familybonding. # 5 was particularly nice in thisbook because usually, in the Summer Books, they only come to anunderstanding with their Estranged Family Member* at the end of the story. Here,she and her dad start actively repairing their relationship almost midwaythrough the book, and it’s great.  

*there isalmost always one!

21: Best winter read?

Oooh, okay, so I lovewinter books because obviously I live in a place without any snow at all. Sogrowing up, everything about wintery settings seem like a completely magicaluniverse* to me and I always devoured the obligatory ‘snow books’ thatcame in Sweet Valley, Baby-Sitters Club, American Girl etc. I mean, my favoritechildhood coloring book was one about the Arctic Circle.

Anyway, my favorite of those was The Bobbsey Twins At Snow Lodge. Such a delightfulwish-fulfillment  book, that one.  Some of the highlights:

1)     The obligatory mystery was set in this tiny cozycabin battered by snowstorms and the twins all had to spend Christmas there! Mybb id was so pleased at all the loving descriptions of wind howling and crazycold snow falling because in tiny!me’s head, they were sort of like the typhoons we get all the time, except excitinglydifferent.

2)     Of course, by the awesomeness of coincidence,their two cousins had to get away from their parents for Christmas too, becausePlot Reasons, and the Bobbseys are only too glad to take them in. “We can havea cousin Christmas!” I played with my cousins almost every weekend at thattime, and I thought that was most excellent.

3)     Copious and charming descriptions of hotchocolate, of a grandfatherly guy who drove an actual sleigh around town givingpresents to children, of having dress-up parties because there was nothing todo (and I loved that, because we did that too!), of a secret undergroundpassage that of course was  connected to the cabin, and of an oldfashioned Christmas where you had to hand-makeyour presents for your loved ones. I was so charmed.

4)     Back to the hot chocolate, because seriously. Inone of the scenes where the twins are fighting a sudden snowstorm to get backto their  cabin (which was another thing that pleased my tiny id.Because parents totally let their 7-12 year old children go boating and hikingby themselves all the time, yup) theyhave to take a break and so they take shelter under a convenient tree. And oneof the cousins whips out a freaking chocolate bar and melts snow  using a thermos and a convenient lighter andmakes hot chocolate right then and there for all of them to enjoy. I was all D:D: D: hot chocolate that wasn’t Milo or chocolate balls (which, cacaofarming  is/was a thriving business in myhometown )?! What sorcery is this?!

(And um yes, at some point I tried that trick with a candleand a chocolate bar. It did not work and I was Sad.)

*even the Madeleine L’Engle one where Vicky is trapped on anisland in Antarctica! And that one Sweet Valley where they have to fight forsurvival in an ice cave! And the one where the Baby-sitters are getting creepedby a stalker in a ski lodge. Because hey, I always I knew they’d survive and atleast it wasn’t happening to me.

35: Name a book you consider to beterribly underrated

Answered here!

 36: Name a book you consider to beterribly overrated

It kind of pains me to say, but whatI’ve read of the Lynburn books by Sarah Rees-Brennan.

 I wanted to like it! Her Demon series totally appealed me on a viscerallevel with its characters and the relationships between them (even though I willbe the first to admit that it’s really flawed as well). And the Lynburn series was set in a mysterious town with a spooky old house to be investigated –  it had a similar setting to so many adventurebooks I loved as a kid and a teen; it shouldhave been catnip to me.

 And yet I felt lie SR  was trying TOO much to pile the quirk andWhedon-esque dialogue on, to the point that they piled and piled and thecharacters did NOT feel like characters to me. They felt like caricatures. And therewere all the yay-ain’t-I-clever moments that threw me out of the story becausethat can’t possibly be realistic – likethe scene where the dad leaves her with Jared (who he doesn’t even know) in her room and all Dad can sayis wisecrack, wisecrack, wisecrack and he leaves them both for the night? Sorrybut no way an Asian parent is ever gonna act like that, EVER, no matter howcool they are.

 The thing that also really annoyedme is, it seems she gave all the big, juicy flaws to her male characters, andher female characters were just ‘quirkily nosy’ and ‘quirkily misanthropic ’but omg love them! Love them! Please love them, they’re awesome because I sayso! Eyeroll.  Just…eh, lady, do you nottrust me to love a girl character with huge flaws?

 Lastly, I quit in the second book becauseI kept seeing exchanges like this, which… say what you will about MaggieStiefvater, but she is still way better at writing a realistic woke teenager.For example, I like that scene where Blue tells off the condescending old guy (withAdam quietly supporting) because her dialogue doesn’t seem to me so darn contrivedand Tumblr-post-perfect as SR’s above. Those scenes were all over the place and they just threw me out of the book. As in, I stopped reading.

 And okay, people love this series alot, maybe for the same reasons I dislike what I’ve read of it. That’s cool . Ijust get a bit bristly when it’s touted as soooo much better than herprevious  one, because for me, sometimesless is more.