Netflix Shows: Gilmore Girls-Dean, Jess, or Logan?

Screenshot from ‘Gilmore Girls’ Season 2 (2001) starring (left) Milo Ventimiglia and (right) Alexis Bledel. Copyright goes to Warner Bros. Television.

Hi! It’s Annie!

Though this show isn’t originally a Netflix show, that’s where you can watch it now! Which is exactly what I’ve been doing recently with my Mom. I grew up with this show because my Mom loved it, and the mother-daughter bond portrayed in the show really made this something special for me and my Mom. So as we’ve been talking about it as we re-watch it, we ended up on THE fan question. The question on the minds of the fans of this show has always been; who should Rory have ended up with? Obviously, we don’t really ask this question about Lorelai because we know she should have ended up with Luke, which is what happened. But the newest season of ‘Gilmore Girls’ threw the Rory question even farther into focus. So-who should Rory have ended up with? I think that if you actually look at the options, the answer is pretty obvious. But let’s look anyways!

Dean:

The first candidate is Dean and he’s a pretty good one too. Rory’s first love and the absolute sweetest boy. At least at the beginning. When we first meet Dean, he’s absolutely perfect for Rory. He’s unassuming and gentle and just wants to make a good impression with her Mom. The way he handles Rory’s school bullies when he takes her to the Chilton dance is adorable too. He doesn’t pay them any mind and brushes them off, often finding ways to get Rory out of the situation in a safe way. Then everything falls apart after their first break up. Dean tells Rory that he loves her and freaks out when she’s unable to say it back. And though I do understand his heartbreak and the fact that they’re really young, Rory even explains why she’s unable to say anything back. It’s partly because of how divided her family is and because of that it takes her a while to get to the point where she can comfortably say it, even if she wants to. Dean does not understand this and breaks up with her. Then when they get back together, Jess gets thrown into the picture. Dean is immediately over-protective, even yelling at Rory for hanging out with Jess in front of her friends at some points. This definitely strains their relationship until it’s kind of a shadow of what it was. When Rory eventually leaves him, he’s still insanely jealous and tries to pick a fight with Jess several times. This all culminates into Dean jumping into a marriage very young and then him and Rory having an affair. Not to mention the episode where he says he’d rather have the kind of wife who makes dinner for him when he comes home from work. A little archaic. But their relationship did start out wonderfully before it crashed and burned.

Jess:

The second candidate could be described as Rory’s bad boy phase at first glance. Jess is a troubled kid when he comes into town. He picks fights with kids from his school, seems very ungrateful to Luke who took him in, and plays pranks on the people of Stars Hollow. He quickly gains the reputation of being a delinquent. Rory is sure that he has some kindness in him, even though she doesn’t always get along with him. This portrayal is great! Rory doesn’t exactly hate him nor does she like him, which feels a lot more realistic than hating him outright or blindly believing that he’s a good person. As she gets to know him she realizes that he really does care, but his home life before this was so screwed up that he doesn’t really know how to show it. Jess softens up after spending more time with Luke and Rory. When they start dating, he’s still very troubled and kind of a jerk. He flaunts his relationship with her over Dean sometimes. But he’s much more understanding about Rory being friends with Dean than Dean was ok with her being friends with Jess. He also understand Rory’s hobbies and interests a lot more than Dean does. Jess leaves and comes back multiple times, often because he thinks he’s not good enough for Rory, until finally he leaves to find himself. When he comes back again, Rory has dropped out of college, is living with her grandparents, and is dating Logan. While Jess has matured, is a lot more chilled out and less troubled, and has even written a book; Rory has made so many mistakes. Jess reminds her that this isn’t her. And though he raises his voice, he doesn’t do it out of anger. He does it because he wants his friend back and even comfortingly puts his hand on her elbow before remembering her birthday. Jess also seems to still have a connection with Rory in the new season. But he didn’t start out that great.

Logan:

The rich boy third candidate that might have been Tristan in an earlier season if he hadn’t left the show. Logan is certainly charming, but he’s also a massive jerk. Just like Tristan was! The thing is, he doesn’t mellow out. Logan consistently cheats on his girlfriends, gets everyone around him in trouble, and abuses his money and power. Often he pays no mind to Rory or her emotions. Let’s just say- Jess had a point when he said that Rory shouldn’t be dating a guy like him. Logan is a cautionary tale more than anything, despite his charms. A smiling face doesn’t necessarily mean a good heart. The new season just proves this as Logan is shown to have not changed in the slightest bit over the years. Logan will always be Logan. A frat boy with a tendency towards the awful. He should have never had a girlfriend in the first place. So, really, he’s out of the running for Rory in my eyes. When Rory admits to Jess that she loves Logan, you just can’t help but feel sorry for her after all he’s put her through.

Who should have ended up with Rory?

You might have already guessed, but I definitely think it’s Jess. Jess was definitely not the best boyfriend to Rory when they were first dating, but when he comes back he’s perfect for her. It’s almost like watching Lorelai and Luke. When one of them is ready to date, the other one isn’t. They just keep missing each other. But they will always have each other in their lives, and eventually you can’t help but wonder if that’ll lead to them finally getting together. Even when Jess wasn’t the best boyfriend, he was always a support for Rory that she needed. Dean was a nice boyfriend, but he didn’t completely understand Rory. Jess did. Jess was always unselfishly in love with Rory, sometimes even giving up habits in order to make her happy. Like quitting smoking and refusing to fight Dean. Though I believe that each of these three were integral to Rory’s growth, I think that, while watching the series, there is only one clear answer for Rory. Jess and Rory will always be endgame in my mind.

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

K-Pop and K-Dramas: ‘BE’ is Out!

Promotional photo of BTS on the set of “Dynamite”. From left to right: Min Yoongi (Suga), Kim Taehyung (V), Jeon Jungkook (Jungkook), Kim Namjoon (RM), Kim Seokjin (Jin), Park Jimin (Jimin), and Jung Hoseok (J-Hope). Copyright goes to Big Hit Entertainment and BTS.

Hey! Hallie here!

We ended this week with a few posts on K-Pop and K-Dramas, so it was only fitting that they lead up to BTS’s release of their new album, ‘BE’. As someone who absolutely stayed up all night streaming “Dynamite”, then streaming their entire album, then watching their V-Live, I celebrated the release just as obsessively as any ARMY could. The album didn’t disappoint. It captured the ups, downs, and complete restlessness of being in quarantine so perfectly. It spoke to me and my mental health in ways no album ever has. I initially planned to rank the songs on the album, but I can’t really bring myself to. All of the songs are so personal to the boys and to myself that I can’t put a definitive ranking on these songs. So instead, I’m going to be talking about why each one is amazing. There’s a bit extra to talk about here because all of the members of BTS were as involved in creating the album as possible. They were the writers, directors, producers, and took over even more responsibilities. So let’s look into the work they put into each song.

“Life Goes On”

This song was mainly written by the BTS rap line; Kim Namjoon, Min Yoongi, and Jung Hoseok. The accompanying music video for this song was dropped at the same time as the album and was directed by vocalist Jeon Jungkook. This song encompasses the general quarantine experience. It speaks about how everything seemed to stop when quarantine started except for time. While it talks about the feeling of loneliness and claustrophobia, it also reminds the listener that it will be over. It uses the phrase “life goes on” to remind everyone that we are moving forward even if we feel we aren’t and that we’ll come out of this on the other side. There’s also a few very sweet messages to ARMY that assure us that our relationship with the boys hasn’t changed despite how the world has changed. The music video emphasizes the song’s meaning. It mostly consists of all of the members of BTS lounging around inside, trying to keep a routine while everything’s gloomy. There are a few shots of Taehyung in a car and Namjoon on a bridge, isolated but attempting to get in touch with the outside world. These are definitely experiences many people have had in quarantine, but it uses them to give us hope that everything will be over. It’s a much needed message as we end the year.

“Fly To My Room”

This song was also written by Kim Namjoon, Min Yoongi, and Jung Hoseok. Park Jimin and Kim Taehyung are also noted as partial creators. It’s about the feeling of being stuck in your room during quarantine. It goes through the feelings of being trapped in one place before it takes a brighter turn. The boys sing about how they would rather take a more optimistic view of their rooms and invite their dreams inside. The song then reintroduces the room as a safe place where one can find happiness. It’s the second song on the album to convey a very relatable feeling of sadness connected to quarantine, before reminding the listener that there is hope.

“Blue & Grey”

This song was written by Kim Taehyung, Min Yoongi, Kim Namjoon, and Jung Hoseok. It was initially written by Kim Taehyung as a solo song for himself, but he ultimately decided to perform it with the rest of the group, causing it to have to be reworked. Taehyung wrote this song less about quarantine and more about the general feeling of unhappiness. The song goes through the confusion of not knowing why you’re unhappy and the guilt that comes with that. In the song there are mentions of this feeling appearing as early as childhood and refusing to go away. The chorus starts with “I just want to be happier” and asks if it’s too greedy to want more happiness. So many have gone through this form of depression, myself included. While BTS generally tries to spread happiness, they’ve always emphasized the importance of talking about ones mental health. This song is a beautiful reminder that no one is alone and nearly everyone has felt something like this at some point.

“Skit”

This isn’t a song! This is a three minute clip of all of the members of BTS talking about getting No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time in their careers. They even mention how strange it is that they’re practicing choreography for their very first song, “No More Dream”, when something so major has just happened. All on Jungkook’s birthday. The joy and excitement in their voices is what makes this skit so enjoyable to listen to.

“Telepathy”

This song was written by Min Yoongi, Kim Namjoon, and Jeon Jungkook. This one is probably the most upbeat of the songs on this album. It’s about feeling connected to those you’re close to, even when you’re separated. It’s about, you guessed it, quarantine. This song definitely uses quarantine imagery to emphasize the separation between loved ones. Specifically the separation BTS has felt with ARMY because of the cancellation of their concerts. While a topic like this could be sad, they manage to focus on the happiness someone feels when they talk to, or even think about, the people they love. It’s a nice feel good track amongst some of the other emotional ones.

“Dis-ease”

This song was written by Jung Hoseok, Kim Namjoon, Min Yoongi, and Park Jimin. It’s also my personal favorite song on the album. This song is about feeling restless during quarantine. It talks specifically about attempting to use the time to be restful but the desire to accomplish something productive keeps coming back. It’s one of the more upbeat tracks, with a pretty soulful bridge. Jimin is responsible for the bridge, which he wrote in about four minutes. He talked about feeling somewhat guilty for writing it in such a small amount of time because, Jungkook initially had a bridge prepared, but upon hearing Jimin’s, the rest of the group felt his bridge worked better. I feel bad for Jungkook, but I honestly can’t picture this song without this bridge.

“Stay”

This song was written by Jeon Jungkook, Kim Namjoon, and Kim Seokjin. Similar to “Blue & Grey”, it was initially written by Jeon Jungkook as a solo song, but was reworked to be part of the album. It was also written in English so it had to be rewritten in Korean. I’ll get to that in a second. This song is a bit close in meaning to the track “Telepathy”. It talks about the general wistfulness of being apart from someone who you know will always be waiting for you until you reunite. It also references ARMY’s separation from BTS during quarantine. This song is a bit lighter than “Telepathy” and it’s pop sound makes it very different.

“Dynamite”

This is the only song on the album that is written and performed completely in English. It’s also the only song that wasn’t written by any of the BTS members. It’s ALSO the song that put BTS on the Billboard Hot 100. This song has a pretty basic feel-good message of “enjoy yourself”. It was released as a bright song to help people get through some of the darkness that’s been going on recently. And it helped a lot. It brought a large amount of people into ARMY and became an anthem for happiness. BTS seemed to notice the danger with this song instantly after it’s success. It appeared to prove that Korean artists could better reach Western audiences by abandoning their native language. BTS didn’t want that. I can’t really blame them, either. Racism is the main reason why songs in other languages don’t do as well as songs in English among English-speaking audiences. All of the members of BTS were adamant that the rest of the album be in Korean, and they delivered. They made it very clear that they aren’t going to give up singing in Korean. I hope they find just as much, and even more, success with their Korean tracks.

That’s it for “Life Goes On”! I’m going to keep streaming it as much as possible. Hopefully one of their Korean songs will get them that second number one spot on Billboard. If you haven’t checked out this album yet, I’d highly recommend it. It’s emotional, relatable, and incredibly beautiful. I can’t express enough how much it affected me. I feel more at peace listening to this than I have felt in the past few months, and I know I’m not the only one. And to those ARMY’s who are right there along with me, listening to this album as much as possible and totally not crying, I’m happy to be right here with you.

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

K-Pop and K-Dramas: My Holo Love

Screenshot from ‘My Holo Love’ (2020) starring (left) Ko Sung-hee and (right) Yoon Hyun-min. Copyright goes to Studio Dragon and Netflix.

Hi! It’s Annie!

I wasn’t actually recommended this one as much as I just saw it on Netflix. Netflix really has been my go-to for K-drama stuff, just because it’s so easy. This one drew my attention mainly because it was short and I was in a bit of a time crunch. I was a bit put off by the premise of this one just because I thought the hologram aspect of it would be weird. For those of you who are more unfamiliar with this show, it follows Go Nan-do, an introverted genius working on a multi-purpose hologram. When other companies attempt to steal the product, the hologram is slipped into the possession of an un-assuming Han So-yeon who eventually befriends and then falls in love with the hologram. She is unaware that her new neighbor who never shows his face is the creator of the hologram, as well as the spitting image of it, attempting to get his product back. The falling in love with the hologram piece of this is what made me really skeptical, but this show did not turn out how I initially thought it would. As always-SPOILERS. Read at your own discretion.

The Good:

  • The main male character. No perfect boyfriend syndrome here! This male protagonist is not toxically masculine or lacking in sensitivity. In fact, he’s kind of the opposite. He suffers from social anxiety as well as a lack of hopefulness for his life. Both of these things are aspects of his life that he works out as the series goes on. You eventually find out that he created his hologram self to a be a perfect version of himself. A version of himself that can express emotion the way that he wishes he could. It’s only through the support of friends and family that he’s able to realize that this is something he can achieve himself. He’s not perfect or overly passionate and romantic. He really strikes you as a character that could really exist because he actually has real human problems. He’s definitely all the better for it.
  • The main female character. She also feels very real and very human. She deals with social anxiety as well and has trouble navigating her life at work. This is partly because she has a condition where she cannot process or remember faces, so her co-workers often feel that she is slighting them. She initially uses her new hologram to help her navigate life at work, as the hologram can recognize her co-workers. Eventually she gets to the point where she has to work through her own problems. One of them being the fact that she fell in love with a hologram. She is never too girly or too tom boyish. She doesn’t feel like some high standard or the type of character that is really hard to relate to. She feels possibly the most human of any female protagonist from a K-drama that I’ve ever seen.
  • The hologram. I really thought this character would be weird. I was pretty much convinced of it. But they really went out of their way to make this hologram feel more human and less weird. The hologram develops his own thoughts and emotions and makes his own sacrifices for the happiness of others. Though he has also fallen in love with Han So-yeon, he must come to terms with the fact that he isn’t a real person. Often times when the two protagonists have a romantic moment, it was instigated by him to make sure they are both happy. In the end you can’t help but see him as a sentient human being. You really do feel sorry for him at the same time you’re really happy to see the protagonists together. I did not expect them to so successfully humanize him in the way that they did.
  • The romance. Just like how the characters felt realistic, the progression of this romance also felt realistic. They don’t particularly like or dislike each other at first. She is definitely wary of him because of his history in trying to steal the hologram back from her, but she soon discovers that he’s a kind soul with a few issues. But what I like here is that she doesn’t try to fix his problems nor does she let his behavior slide because of them. She becomes emotional support for him, but she encourages him to fix his own issues as she knows that it isn’t her job. When both characters change for the better it’s because of their own willingness to. But they both remain incredible support for the other throughout their struggles. That’s where they really bond and that’s what makes them so good together. And the scene where he’s carrying her home is far too precious.

The Bad:

  • The side-plot romance. I’m not even sure if you’re supposed to like it. I really liked Go Nan-do’s sister and I thought she deserved so much better than the love interest they gave her. There were some points where it felt like I was supposed to really like it and some points where I felt like I was completely justified in hating it. He helps her sometimes which is good, but he’s also way too business minded and often put that over her. I just didn’t really feel this one.
  • The villains. This really could have done without the dramatic moments of other companies trying to steal the hologram. It didn’t really seem to serve the plot and the villains existence came up pretty inconsistently throughout the show. There really could have been another way that Han So-yeon ended up with the hologram. The villainy in this show just ended up being forgettable and on the boring side.
  • Love triangle. I’ve said it before and I will say it again- I really don’t like love triangles. This is probably more of a personal preference thing, but I just don’t think they’re ever written that well. I didn’t find this one to be an exception. The fact that there was a moment where Han So-yeon was choosing between the hologram and the actual guy was so bizarre to me that it took me out of the story a little bit. And it wasn’t just because he’s a hologram, because he was a very human hologram. It was because by the time she starts spending time with Go Nan-do, she has already found out that some of the romantic things she thought were done by her hologram were actually done by him. Not only that, but she falls in love with the hologram pretty quickly without much build up, unlike her relationship with Go Nan-do. It made sense for her to still care, but there were things that definitely made me question why she still felt the way she had.

I actually thought this drama was good! It definitely exceeded my expectations! It’s not the best drama I’ve ever watched, but it’s something I would watch again. I was really surprised at just how human this supernatural plot was made to be. I grew so much more attached to the characters than I thought I would. If you haven’t made the time to watch this one yet, or if you saw it and dismissed it because it looked kind of weird, I would highly recommend giving this one a second chance. It’s adorable and another one of those shows where you can just turn your brain off for a second and watch something cute.

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

K-Pop and K-Dramas: Common Misconceptions About BTS

Promotional photo of J-Hope (Jung Hoseok). Copyright goes to Big Hit Entertainment and BTS.

Hey! Hallie here!

I’ve been obsessed with BTS for a few months now. I discovered them while in quarantine, and I’ve been relying on their music and videos to get rid of my boredom. To many BTS fans I’m still a baby ARMY. I know quite a bit about the group, but I’ve only learned these things recently. BTS has been a large presence in the music industry for a few years now, so I absolutely had heard about them. But from what I heard, I presumed a lot of weird, and often undeserved, things about them. I’m not the only one, either. I see a lot of the same assumptions being mentioned quite a bit by people who don’t know much about BTS. So I’m going to clear a few of these things up right now. Whether you’re a long-time ARMY, or someone who just wants to know a little more about the boys, here are some misconceptions you should be careful of.

Jin is the weakest singer/dancer:

Kim Seokjin is easy to underestimate. He isn’t focused on as much as the other members in music videos and he’s said himself that he’s the worst at learning new choreography. But that doesn’t make him a bad singer or a bad dancer. Firstly, all of the boys dance in sync. If Jin wasn’t a good dancer, everyone would notice that something was off. But this rarely, if ever, happens. All of the boys are excellent dancers and skilled at keeping up with each other. Jin is no exception. The fact that it takes him longer to learn dances in no way means he’s less skilled at them when he does learn them. As for his singing, look up any of his solo songs. “Moon” is a good one to start with. His voice is beautiful, and that isn’t just me being encouraging. He has a large amount of talent and he’s released many, many, solo songs to prove it. His voice may not be your favorite of the BTS members, but that’s ok! You’re allowed to have your own personal opinion. Regardless of that, Jin has a gorgeous voice, and once you’ve learned to recognize it, you’ll notice he’s involved in many more songs than you might have originally thought. There are definitely music videos where Jin gets less of the spotlight than everyone else, but that has nothing to do with his talent. If anything, it’s probably because he’s the oldest member of the group, which is a lot bigger of a deal in Idol groups.

Suga hates everyone:

Min Yoongi is definitely the most introverted member of BTS. At any large event he shies away from large groups and tends to stick with the rest of BTS. He’s talked a lot about how he doesn’t like to go out very often. He can also seem stand-offish at times. He’s the most likely to shrug off physical affection and in a lot of BTS behind the scenes videos you’ll see him napping. But Yoongi is actually a pretty friendly guy. His introversion is simply something that affects him more than most. He’s talked about how going out to restaurants and movie theatres can cause him a lot of anxiety. Sometimes he’ll need to ask other members of BTS to get him food after performances because he can’t bring himself to go out to eat with them. He also really likes to mess around with the other members of BTS. Sometimes he’ll pretend to be disgusted by their hugs just to make them laugh. Other times they’ll wake him up from a nap and he’ll threaten them for fun. It’s all for their enjoyment, and if he or anyone else was actually uncomfortable, they would say so. But Yoongi is just one goof amongst a group of goofs and it would be a mistake to take every joke he makes seriously.

J-Hope is the ugliest member:

I’ve seen this going around a lot. A pretty large group of people have said that Jung Hoseok has a “horse face” and isn’t as attractive as the other members. This has caused a lot of new ARMY’s to believe that he has a small fanbase or that a lot of his fans pity him. This even got around to Hobi himself, who admitted that he was teased about his looks in school as well. You can catch a few videos where he compares his face to a horse and the other members of BTS playfully assure him that that isn’t the case. Yoongi has said that he believes Hobi is the most attractive member of BTS. Honestly, these were just mean comments that blew up at an extreme rate. It doesn’t take much to disprove this. As is true of most Idol groups, you won’t find anyone in BTS who isn’t conventionally attractive. Unfortunately, that’s a large part of choosing members of Idol groups. His fans don’t pity him, but they do appreciate him for his bright personality. This is coming first-hand from a J-Hope bias. And if you needed any more proof, look at the photo I used for this post. There. Disproved.

RM was only chosen to be leader because he knew English:

While this is definitely one of the reasons why Kim Namjoon was chosen to lead BTS, this isn’t the only reason. Namjoon was the only member of BTS who was part of the original lineup. He was the first one found because of his growing fame as a rap artist, and he was the most determined to stay out of everyone in the group. He even convinced J-Hope to stay after he decided to leave a day before their debut. In some instances, he was the reason why some members joined BTS. Jungkook has stated in multiple interviews that one of the main reasons he joined BTS was because he enjoyed Namjoon’s work. Namjoon pulled everyone together before BTS debuted. His leadership and determination didn’t go unnoticed. The fact that he could speak English was just a plus.

V is Immature:

Kim Taehyung is one of the youngest members of BTS, but he isn’t the youngest. Somehow, he still has the reputation of being immature while Jungkook, the actual youngest, doesn’t. Some of the members of BTS probably fueled this reputation. Yoongi has said that he found Taehyung quite immature in the first few years he lived with him and a fight he had with Jimin over dumplings is one of the most infamous stories the group shared. In some interviews he can also seem irritated, which has only worsened this reputation. Taehyung has talked about his immaturity before, but he has also spoken about coming a long way from that. He wrote an entire song about it called “Inner Child”. Taehyung doesn’t regret his immaturity. A lot of the youngest members of BTS had their childhoods stolen from them and Taehyung has appreciated that his environment, despite that, allowed him to be silly and goof around. But Taehyung has shown professionalism and wisdom throughout the past few years. As for his interviews, it isn’t a secret that many Western interviewers treat BTS poorly. Taehyung doesn’t put up with this treatment. He makes it obvious when he’s upset by sitting quietly and looking exasperated. He isn’t loud and he doesn’t disrupt the interview. That’s one of the most professional ways I’ve seen someone handle their displeasure while they’re being disrespected.

These are only a few misconceptions I’ve come across. There are many more going around. These are just some of the more serious topics I’ve seen. I can’t say I didn’t believe some of these at one point, but I’m glad I did more research. It’s important as ARMY that we appreciate every member of BTS for their uniqueness. They deserve to be respected for their accomplishments. And for those who aren’t ARMY, don’t judge a book by it’s cover! There’s much more to each member of BTS than just what a handful of people say. Look into them and form your own opinions! Whether you like their music or it isn’t really your thing, you have to appreciate the work they’re putting into make this world a better place.

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

Twins in Media: Hikaru and Kaoru vs Fred and George

Screenshot of Kaoru and Hikaru in ‘Ouran Highschool Host Club’. Copyright goes to Funimation and Nippon Television.

Hi! It’s Annie!

Now that we’ve covered a massive variety of twins in media, we thought we would pit them all against each other to see what’s really the best portrayal of twins in media out there right now. Of course, we have to start with the obvious pairing of Hikaru and Kaoru vs Fred and George considering it is very likely that one portrayal was based off of the other. Here we have two pairs of identical twins with red hair and a ‘partners in crime’ style mischief streak. But which one was a better representation of twins? I’m going to be judging these two based off of four categories; tropes, differences and similarities, relationship, and plot. Hopefully we’ll figure out which pair avoids the most harmful portrayal. Ready? Let’s go!

Tropes:

  • Hikaru and Kaoru. These two suffer from several tropes, one of them being the mischievous trope I already mentioned. For some reason, a lot of people seem to automatically assume that twins are mischievous and play pranks; which obviously isn’t always the case. Hikaru and Kaoru often try to confuse other people so that they won’t be able to tell which is which. In my experience with my sister and also with all of the other twins I have ever met in my life, that’s not something we really do. We would much rather you be able to tell us apart so that you’ll treat us as individuals. They also fall under the synchronized twins trope in that they talk at the same time a lot and say the exact same things. That would require a lot of practice on command and my sister and I barely do it on accident. When we say something at the same time it’s generally one word and not often. To top all of this off, we have one of the absolute worst tropes of all on this list. Twincest. I can’t even begin to describe how much this one grosses me out and I really hope I don’t have to say that this is wrong. I do hope you already know that. Incest is not made better or more acceptable by making the characters twins despite what media writers seem to think. Just…give me a minute to throw up.
  • Fred and George. These brothers suffer from the mischievous trope even more than Hikaru and Kaoru do. To the point where they actually open a joke shop together. It’s fun to see and here I feel it’s used a bit more tastefully than with Hikaru and Kaoru. With Fred and George at least it’s something they commit to rather than it being a random part of their characters. But it’s still difficult to not notice that this is still a trope. No matter how you look at it. The synchronization here is also bad, but at least they don’t say the same things at the same time so much. They have more of a habit of finishing each other’s sentences….which is also really unrealistic and barely ever happens. I honestly don’t know if finishing each other’s sentences or saying something at the same time is worse. Their particularly bad trope is different from the Hitachiin brothers, however. Here we have the much beloved by writers trope of one twin must die. This is another one of my most hated tropes. For some reason, writers believe that it’s less likely that a pair of twins will survive an ordeal than a pair of regular siblings. I’m very confused by this logic. Also, they seem to think that a twin will only be interesting if their sibling dies. That’s really nice to hear. Thanks.

Winner: The winner of this round has to go to Fred and George. Each of these twins’ synchronicity is different but equally as bad as the others and they each are the proud owners of some of the most annoying twin tropes out there. The only saving grace for Fred and George here is that the mischievous trope was actually ingrained into their storyline and didn’t feel as much like a random trope thrown in to assure the audience that they’re twins.

Differences and Similarities:

  • Hikaru and Kaoru. Hikaru and Kaoru are presented to the audience as being very much the same, but as the series goes on, you realize that this isn’t true. Hikaru is much more rash than his brother and also a lot more introverted. Hikaru still has this immaturity to him because he’s afraid to open his world view and get hurt. Which is entirely fair given his backstory. He doesn’t trust people and can often treat them badly one-on-one because of his lack of trust. Kaoru is much more mature and wise. While Kaoru is also an introvert, he’s a lot more open to other people. He is also afraid of what might happen if he lets people in, but he’s open to opening that door and trying it out. He knows he can’t stay in the dark forever. Because of this, Kaoru has a much sweeter disposition both in general and towards other people. They are never depicted as the opposites of each other and they do handle trauma and life in very different ways. In the end, they both realize that they will always be best friends but they won’t live the same same life nor have the same relationships with others.
  • Fred and George. Fred and George are never focused on individually. They are almost always seen together. You never get individual character growth like you do with Hikaru and Kaoru. They speak to everyone the exact same way and have the exact same relationships with their friends. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of the time siblings have the same friends. Hikaru and Kaoru certainly do. But because each twin has a different personality, their relationships with people around them are different. This doesn’t happen here. The most we see of them being different from each other is a scene in the fourth book, not the movie, where the two are fighting. Here we see a glimpse of George being a bit more responsible than Fred as he does take the more sensible part of the argument, but that’s about it. Not only that, but the scene after he lets Fred do whatever he wants and doesn’t even stop him. They have the same lives, the same relationships, they want the same exact job for the same exact reasons. I wish there were more differences here.

Winner: Hikaru and Kaoru. They are the only real answer here. Though Hikaru and Kaoru do have their bad points, the show goes out of it’s way to make sure the audience knows that these are two different people. Fred and George receive no such treatment. One of these pairs of twins are often treated as though they are interchangeable in the writing, and it isn’t Hikaru and Kaoru.

Relationship:

  • Hikaru and Kaoru. Admittedly, their relationship can sometimes be a little creepy because of the Twincest thing. Though I am glad that the show is very eager to point out that that’s something they do for show and definitely isn’t real, I don’t think they do a good enough job at that considering Hikaru and Kaoru still share a bed for some unknown reason. Also, I don’t think many siblings would be ok with what they do in the Host Club, so I can’t call that realistic. Thank god for that. However, it’s nice that there’s no evil twin act. They are best friends through and through. But they also don’t always agree and sometimes fight. Yay! What is incredibly realistic about them though, is how much they look out for each other. It’s never something super prominent, but Kaoru even sets up a date for Hikaru because he knows he has feelings for Haruhi. It’s nice to see that they’re so close without being exactly the same.
  • Fred and George. It’s also nice to see that Fred and George are best friends and I’m really glad that these two don’t weirdly share a bed. However, the scene I mentioned earlier is really the only time the audience ever sees that Fred and George aren’t agreeing on something. Being on the same wavelength all the time is impossible. They always want to do the same thing at the same time. We also don’t see a whole lot of occasions where one is actively looking out for the other, because their storylines are constantly smushed together.

Winner: Again, Hikaru and Kaoru have their issues, but they are the clear winners here. Fred and George aren’t explored by the author nearly enough to have a completely decent relationship. Hikaru and Kaoru at least feel like real siblings sometimes.

Plot:

  • Hikaru and Kaoru. Hikaru and Kaoru have different storylines branching out, which is incredibly important. Hikaru deals with his unwillingness to let people in and eventually has to help Haruhi when he wrongfully abandons her. Kaoru must learn to deal with change that he doesn’t think he’s ready for yet. On top of this, their backstories are incredible. Hikaru and Kaoru have an entire backstory based off of the disappointment of people not being able to tell them apart. This was relatable for me and my sister. This all culminates the best in a flashback where it is revealed that, when one of them would be asked out, he would go to the girl pretending to be his brother to make sure that the girl actually wanted to date him as an individual person. The girl would always eventually admit that she wouldn’t mind dating either or, which continuously broke both of their hearts. I’ve said it before, but my sister and I actually have gone through similar things. It really sucks, because I’m not my sister and she’s not me. We are very different people who actually don’t look all that alike once you get to know us. But people assume that, because we’re twins, it’s more ok to do something like this. I was really happy that they explored this storyline and put a massive emphasis on why you should never assume that twins are the same. Because they never are.
  • Fred and George. Fred and George are definitely more side-characters and less explored than the pair above. But that doesn’t really give them a pass. Fred and George are never a whole lot more than pranks, Quidditch, and being a massive twin stereotype. Them barely being seen isn’t necessarily an excuse for that. Beyond their joke shop, Fred and George only find major relevance again when they can be collateral damage for the war. George loses and ear and Fred loses his life because of tropes. The story is very unkind to them. Though they are fun to watch and you do grow attached to them, they have very little in the way of plot. Which makes the massive trope thrown in at the end feel even more like a punch to the gut. We didn’t even get to explore Fred as an individual person because he was written with twin tropes before he dies. Also, is no one talking about how she-who-must-not-be-named said that George married Angelina a.k.a Fred’s old girlfriend? Do you know how incredibly toxic that is? Firstly, my sister and I have never been interested in the same guys. Secondly, you just decided that George will never be able to have a separate life outside of Fred’s even after his death. Thirdly, this decision also treats Angelina horribly. Angelina is not Fred’s old blanket, she is an actual person. I just can’t begin to fathom why this decision was made.

Winner: Hikaru and Kaoru. They are the only ones with a real plot and they are also the only ones here treated with respect. Fred and George not being explored enough isn’t an excuse for how many tropes and stereotypes were just poured on there.

Final Result:

I’m sorry James and Oliver Phelps, I like you guys a lot. Hikaru and Kaoru are the obvious winners. Though they are just slightly worse when you look at initial tropes, when you actually look farther in depth they are WAY better. They have actual stories that are separate from each other and a lot of the tropes are dropped outside of the Host Club. At first glance they look iffy, but when you examine how the writers treated each character individually, there’s more substance to this pair. Hikaru and Kaoru actually feel like different human beings were written where as it barely feels like she-who-must-not-be-named put any thought into her characters at all. I mean, she didn’t even care when casting James and Oliver Phelps as the two. She just pointed at them in quick succession and gave them roles. The difference here is that Hikaru and Kaoru are actually meant to be human beings and Fred and George are not. Also, it’s really nice to see anything where both twins survive at the end of it with equal character development.

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

Video Games: Characters that Don’t Look Scary but Absolutely Are

Screenshot of Tom Nook from the Nintendo Switch ‘Animal Crossing’ teaser trailer. Copyright goes to Nintendo.

Hey! Hallie here!

I always like a good surprise when I’m playing a video game. But some surprises come from really unexpected places. I really enjoy seeing cute characters turn absolutely terrifying. Whether it’s a purposeful move or not. It bridges a gap between hilarious and terrifying we rarely ever see. These types of characters are always fun to see in a video game. They make you question your views of the game and give you a different topic to talk about with other gamers who were just as shocked as you were. But this surprise isn’t always a pleasant surprise. Some of these characters live in my nightmares. Here are some of my favorite characters that you shouldn’t underestimate, despite their adorable appearances.

Tom Nook (‘Animal Crossing’):

Tom Nook seems nice when you first meet him. He’s a small racoon with droopy eyes and chubby cheeks. There aren’t many characters in ‘Animal Crossing’ who aren’t adorable, and Tom Nook is no exception to this rule. He also offers the player a place to live with a mortgage they can pay off at their leisure. Sounds like a pretty nice guy. Until he starts constantly mentioning the money you owe him. He hangs it over your head every time you walk into his shop. And then when you finally pay him off, he offers you an upgrade to your property without having to pay any money up front. Only to reveal to you later that the upgrade costs more than the actual property and will take you much longer to pay off. This starts a cycle throughout the entire game. Tom Nook will do anything he can to make sure you’re indebted to him, and the more you pay for upgrades to customize your village or island, the more unashamedly greedy he becomes. After a while of playing his cute face becomes terrifying. You dread seeing him walking anywhere near your direction. There’s a reason gamers call him the devil.

Flowey (‘Undertale’):

Here’s a more purposeful creepy/cute character. Flowey is only cute in the first few minutes of the game. But he’s REALLY cute. There really isn’t much of reason why you shouldn’t trust him. He’s a small flower with an adorable smiling face. And then he attempts to kill you and his smile takes on a much more disturbing appearance. From there, you have no choice but to be terrified of him. Even his original friendly smile will make you want to scream and run in the other direction. And that’s not even the worst part. He shifts through three different levels of terrifying smiles, each more disturbing to look at than the last. And then, in your final battle against him, he shifts into a monster absolutely unrecognizable from his small flower form. He sprouts vines, has a large bug-like head with human looking eyes and teeth, all hooked up to a large screen with a deranged smile on it. Flowey never stops trying to kill you throughout the game and he’s pretty crafty about it. He manipulates your friends into betraying you without knowing they’re doing it (Mostly Papyrus), and, in some scenes, you can even see him stalking you from the side of the screen. Flowey has only increased my lifelong fear of flowers with faces (I had a really scary sunflower toy when I was a kid, ok?). He’s definitely one of the scariest video game villains I’ve ever seen.

Merrill (‘Dragon Age 2’):

Merrill is a short elven woman. Between her fairy-like features and endearing high-pitched voice, you can’t help but feel safe whenever she’s around. Then you figure out she’s a Blood Mage. For those who don’t know what blood magic is, it’s a school of magic that focuses on the manipulation of blood to either make someone stronger or completely control them. Merrill used this on herself so that she could complete a spell she did not have the ability to complete otherwise, but there is very much a reason why blood magic is considered taboo in all of the ‘Dragon Age’ games. It completely opens the Fade, the place where spirits reside, and entices demons to come through the barrier. While it is implied that the people who use this form of magic may be harshly stereotyped, the game shows far more people who misuse blood magic as opposed to those who use it for good purposes, including rich mages who use blood magic on their slaves. Merrill isn’t exactly innocent either. Seeing Merrill drain opponents of their life is unnerving. Merrill also willingly calls demons to help her, which comes complete with a blood splash when she cuts open her own arm to do so. After seeing Merrill brutally suck someone’s life out, she doesn’t seem so cute anymore.

Tiny Tina (‘Borderlands 2’):

Tiny Tina’s rare in that, even though her introduction is her brutally killing someone, you can’t help but find her unexplainably cute. She’s a kid who loves pink and bunnies. You can even help her put together a tea party for her various stuffed animals. But that doesn’t hide the fact that she makes giant explosives and her favorite pastime is blowing people up. She has a pretty tragic backstory to explain her love of murder. Her parents were killed while Handsome Jack was using them for human experimentation. Tina was there, but her mother gave her a grenade that allowed her to escape. Unfortunately, she escaped alone. Tina is out for revenge after what happened to her parents, but that doesn’t seem to dampen her attitude. She’s energetic and fun to be around. She names her plushies and she loves playing games. One of the ‘Borderlands’ DLC’s is her own Dungeons and Dragons campaign. But you don’t want to mess with her. Tiny Tina has blood on her hands. You aren’t likely to survive making her angry.

These characters aren’t the only cute characters you can depend on to scare you. There are many more and all of them are incredibly enjoyable. I love the characters that are made to be frightening on purpose, but the ones that were made without that scary aspect in mind are especially funny to me. I enjoy when the entire gaming community collectively agrees that a character is strangely scary regardless of what the creators intended when they created the character. It’s narratively interesting, however, when writers embrace a characters duality and write it into their story. There’s always a funny aspect of each character, but there’s also some interesting depth behind why such a bright character became so dark. This is even happening in ‘Animal Crossing’, where games have started to bring up Tom Nook’s past before he became so greedy. This character type doesn’t come up nearly enough in games, but it works so well that I hope we get to see more of this craziness in the future.

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

Marvel: Unpopular MCU Opinions

Screenshot of Elizabeth Olsen, Chris Evans, and Sebastian Stan from ‘Captain America: Civil War’. Copyright goes to Marvel Studios and Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

Hey! Hallie here!

While all MCU fans are waiting patiently, or not-so patiently, for the Disney+ shows to drop, everything’s pretty much been on hold in the fandom. The biggest thing that’s happened to it recently was the fandom collectively coming together to acknowledge that Chris Pratt is the least attractive Hollywood Chris. Which resulted in some of the Marvel actors getting offended for some reason. Anyway. As I’ve been waiting for ‘WandaVision’ and admiring Chris Evans for being a real life Captain America, I’ve been thinking a lot about the MCU. Especially after it’s first major storyline came to a close, I realized I have a lot of opinions that a lot of fans don’t necessarily share. This fandom is a big fandom, we aren’t going to agree on everything. Still, I like looking critically at the content I enjoy, so here’s some of my unpopular MCU opinions!

  1. Natasha Romanoff is the worst female representation in the MCU. Yeah, I said it. A lot of people felt the need to attack Carol Danvers for being a rushed attempt at introducing some strong female representation into the MCU, and yes, she had some problems. The writers wrote her with the same personality and characteristics as a good chunk of the male superheroes we see in cinema, which in no way celebrates femininity. But Natasha Romanoff is much worse. Natasha Romanoff was written for the male gaze. She was introduced in ‘Iron Man 2’ as eye candy for Tony Stark and constant jokes throughout the movie were made about her appearance. This included one sequence where she was changing in the back of Happy Hogan’s car and caught him watching her. She was re-introduced in ‘Avengers’, tied up to a chair in a little black dress where the camera spent a lot of time focused on her chest. Her suit throughout all the movies has been a skintight black suit. (Elizabeth Olsen has talked about her own discomfort with Wanda’s skintight outfit in ‘Captain America: Civil War’, so this isn’t a one-time deal.) She got her moment of peace in ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’, where her character was actually expanded on. But all that was over when she was shoved back in the hands of Joss Whedon to be reduced to Bruce Banner’s love interest in the second Avengers movie, without any real story of her own. Then along comes ‘Endgame’, which killed her off to further the male character’s storylines. They even had an angsty scene where all her male counterparts cried about her death so you could see their new resolve forming. Natasha hit every branch on the sexist tropes tree and I can’t like her character for that.
  1. ‘Black Panther’ has the best female characters in the entire MCU. On the flip side, let’s talk about a movie that still isn’t being advertised to women that somehow gave us the most badass women in the MCU. ‘Black Panther’ is such a good movie for so many reasons, but it deserves much more credit than it receives for it’s female characters. First off, let’s talk about the Dora Milaje. The Dora Milaje are the strongest fighters in the movie. But they aren’t just a fun thing to point out in the background. Okoye is the General of the Dora Milaje and she’s a main character. She acts as T’Challa’s body guard, can hold her own just as well, if not better than the Black Panther himself, and still doesn’t have a story that revolves around her devotion to T’Challa. In fact, when T’Challa is no longer king, she decides that the Dora Milaje must continue to serve the king and leaves him. Of course she sides with him in the end, but it shows that her loyalties aren’t limited to T’Challa. And that is true of all the female characters. Shuri works with T’Challa and she does it because she enjoys designing technology and pranking him. Her focus is on creating technology for all of Wakanda, which is shown to be tremendously impressive even though her skills don’t lie in her fighting. Nakia doesn’t even agree with T’Challa half the time because she believes Wakanda should be stretching their privileges to those who have none, which is something T’Challa isn’t really for at the beginning of the movie. All of them support T’Challa AND have their own goals. To be clear, the movie made T’Challa’s entire support system powerful women. Marvel still doesn’t seem to know what they have with these three characters.
  1. Peter Quill is more dislikable than Tony Stark. A lot of people came after Tony Stark after his death in ‘Endgame’. It was like his death caused thousands of Tony Stark haters to revive after years of slumber. I won’t deny, there’s a lot to complain about. He was a pompous jerk who’s main superpower was white privilege and being rich. He treated almost every woman in the MCU like garbage. He left Pepper to clean up his messes, flirted with Natasha while in a relationship with Pepper, locked Wanda in the Avengers facility because she was “dangerous”, I could go on. But Tony had his perks. If nothing else, he raised Peter Parker right. Meanwhile Peter Quill has so many more problems. We’ll move past the part where Peter Quill treats women like garbage because that’s well established in the first movie. Peter Quill has no capacity to think of anyone other than himself. He’s good a rallying others, which is why he’s the leader of the Guardians, but every time he does something heroic, like save Gamora from dying out in space, he seems to do it for bragging rights. He nearly betrayed all of the Guardians in favor of his father because he was being angsty about his past, and when that seemed like a one-time occurrence, Peter proceeded to completely ruin the first attempt at stopping Thanos by getting angsty and punching Thanos repeatedly in the face. Peter Quill has no self control and the majority of his character moments are either him bragging about himself, or getting jealous of someone else (Thor). At least Tony has the capacity to put others before himself.
  1. Loki’s “death” in ‘Thor: The Dark World’ was more emotional than his death in ‘Infinity War’. I know I’m not in the minority when I say that Loki’s death at Thanos’ hands within the first fifteen minutes of ‘Infinity War’ was written horribly. And that’s an understatement. Not only was it annoying for Loki fans, such as myself, to get into ‘Infinity War’ and realize the writers just decided to kill him off immediately so they didn’t have to deal with his character, but his death was out of character. There’s no way in the nine realms that Loki would attempt to attack Thanos with a tiny knife. That’s not how Loki does things. Loki only plays the game when he thinks he can win. The fact that Loki didn’t use the Hulk as a distraction to get his brother and get out of there is mind boggling. Loki is a trickster god. He’d rather manipulate and confuse his enemy than fight them head on. And that’s why his death wasn’t emotional. Because it was a dumb, quick way to get him out of the way. Meanwhile, his fake death in ‘Thor: The Dark World’ left no eye in the theater dry. He stabbed Kurse in the back and was “unexpectedly” stabbed with the same blade. But, as an audience member, you understood the mistake. Kurse was much stronger than even Thor anticipated, and Loki had spent the entire movie learning to care about people other than himself. It made sense for his arc that he would die protecting Thor, and would even use his last breath to make it clear to Thor that he wasn’t ever Odin’s son, but he was always Thor’s brother. Of course, I’m glad he didn’t die there. But it was still a death that made much more sense narratively than the ‘Infinity War’ one.

Those are only a few of my Marvel opinions. I’ve been obsessed with the MCU for quite a long time now and I have a lot of feelings about the movies. But all of those are for another post. If this post does anything, I hope it shines a light specifically on how Marvel has treated it’s female characters in the past and what it can do to improve. I’m definitely one of those people who questioned what Marvel was doing with all of it’s female superheroes after I watched both ‘Wonder Woman’ and ‘Birds of Prey’. The MCU is ahead of most superhero franchises on nearly everything, but it falls so far behind when the subject of female representation comes up. There’s so much more the MCU can do to be more diverse with it’s superhero characters. For now, I’m just hoping they don’t do anything crazy with Wanda now that she’s getting her own content!

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

K-Pop and K-Dramas: Get Well Soon, Yoongi!

Promotional image of Min Yoongi on the set of the ‘ON’ music video. Copyright goes to BTS and Big Hit Entertainment.

Hi! It’s Annie!

I’ve mentioned it before and I will not hesitate to mention again that I am a Yoongi bias. I could go on forever on how much of a comfort this man is to me. If you’re ARMY, or even if you just read the Twitter trending page, you probably already know about Yoongi’s recent shoulder surgery. I’m not here to go into the specifics of how he got the injury in the first place, but I know that this is definitely something he’s been dealing with for years. The shoulder surgery going well is amazing for him and you can’t help but be happy for him finally getting it done! Unfortunately, this also means that Yoongi might be out for a little while so that he can recover properly. So while we patiently wait for his return, I thought we should look back at some of the excellent artistry he’s put out there. I am an absolute sucker for a good Suga rap (which is all of them) so in the interest of time, I’m only going to talk about my favorite tracks of his that he’s put out under the name ‘August D’ rather than all of the amazing stuff he’s also put out with BTS. Just look it all up if you haven’t, it’s all good. So, let the Min Yoongi appreciation begin!

5. What Do You Think?

One of the two raps on this list that Yoongi referred to as roach poison for his haters just before laughing maliciously. Yoongi writes a lot of raps with the theme of “haters back off” and he pulls it off every single time. Not only are his raps extremely effective, they are also catchy. You just can’t help but feel like a badass after listening to any single one of them, and this is no exception. When going after people who dislike or troll him, Yoongi never really calls them names or makes a lot of direct insults. Yoongi is not the type of person to get into schoolyard fights. His argument is always along the lines of “When you become qualified to tell me whether or not my music career is good, come at me again”. Because why scream at someone that they’re bad when the awards and voices of thousands of people are pretty clear that you’re wrong? What’s really funny is that this is a roach poison. These people who hear the good reviews of his album buy it in order to pick it apart and are then greeted with Yoongi basically telling them that they can get back to him when they’ve topped Billboard. It’s a savage takedown and I’m here for it.

4. Agust D

His track actually titled ‘Agust D’ is definitely one of my favorites. This one feels a bit like an introduction to his Agust D persona and it’s one of the most badass introductions to anything I’ve ever heard in my life. Not only does this track show off the full extent of his talent, but it also is more of a description of him as a rapper. He talks again about his accomplishments but also refers to himself as a lunatic. The music video just reflects this as he does seem slightly unhinged in the absolute best way. For anyone who has ever expressed the idea that Min Yoongi is more shy than the others and therefore less of a showman; everything about that is wrong. Especially the showman part. I’ve said before that Yoongi is the type of person that you just can’t help but listen to when he opens his mouth. In this case, you not being able to help listening might be because you’ve lost the ability to speak. It is almost cruel to use this as an introduction and yet, it’s absolutely beautiful.

3. Burn It (feat. MAX)

It’s impossible at this point for you to not have heard of ‘Blueberry Eyes’, but not a lot of people seem to be aware that this collaboration between the two exists. It is definitely a far cry from ‘Blueberry Eyes’, as that one is sweet and this one makes you feel like a storm is coming. I mentioned in my intro post that I’m also a really big fan of soundtrack pieces from things like movies, and this feels like it alone could be used a soundtrack piece for an action sequence. The contrast between his incredible rapping and the calmer tones of MAX makes the song a strange and new form of beautiful to listen to. All that, while also making you feel like you could kick anyone’s ass after listening to it. This track also has a more emotional feel to it because of it’s meaning. In this track Yoongi ponders how much he has actually changed over the past years and isn’t sure who he’d be if he burnt it all. He fears what he would find if he faced his past self and also reminds his listeners that it’s ok to take it easy on yourself too. Every bit of this is emotionally charged and it becomes almost cathartic to listen to.

2. The Last

I would be absolutely remiss if I did a post like this and didn’t mention ‘The Last’. Yoongi has dealt with extreme depression, anxiety, a fear of social situations, and OCD; he is very open about this. His struggle with all of these things is laid out for everyone to hear in this track and it’s one of the most emotional things I’ve ever heard. I’m just thankful that he shared this with all of us. He expresses in this that he’s doing better and that’s a relief. This track is so raw and deals with issues in mental illness that we don’t even talk as much about. Like facing yourself in wondering if your negative thoughts are all you are. It also famously has the line about holding his shattered shoulder, which is a direct reference to the reason he had to get his surgery. It’s incredibly easy to look at any member of this band and just assume that their life is great and that they don’t have any issues or lasting problems. But these are human beings. Them being rich and famous does not exempt them from mental issues, nor does it somehow diminish the things they experienced in the past. Yoongi lived a pretty rough early life and he shows incredible courage by releasing this.

1. Daechwita

Who’s not surpised? Definitely not you! This track is nothing less than art. It is the best rap I’ve ever heard in my life; so good that my head spun after first listening to this. Also, if somehow you haven’t yet watched the music video, go do that. You need the full experience. From Yoongi as the mad king to Yoongi as the overthrower to a disguised Jin and Jungkook getting into a fight in the back of one of the shots. It’s absolutely perfect. This is the other track Yoongi referred to as roach poison, but he also referred to this one as the trap. Because it is both. This is the one that blew up and this is the one that they’ll buy the album for. And then they’ll listen to it and realize that there’s no way out. I have not met a single person who doesn’t like this rap, even the people I know who don’t like rap thought this was good once it started going around social media in mass. Yoongi is always at his best, but this is an entirely new level that he just created.

Yoongi once described himself as not being particularly talented and this is the proof that he’s absolutely wrong. Yoongi is an excellent rapper, producer, and human being in general. Though I’ll miss him while he’s recovering, I’m incredibly happy that he’s feeling better now. I have anxiety and also have had anxiety about health issues, so this was pretty inspiring to me. The fact that he made the decision to get surgery shows so much strength and it makes me so happy to hear that he feels like a weight has been lifted off of him. And missing him will just make his return all the sweeter. So everyone remember to stream ‘Blueberry Eyes’ for Yoongi and please cut him some slack. Do not complain about Yoongi not appearing in anything because I can assure you that he feels worse about it than you do, which is partly why he almost didn’t get this much needed surgery. Yoongi (and every member of BTS) is a human being, not a machine, and he needs time to heal. We’ll all look forward to when he gets back. Get well soon, Yoongi!

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

Twins in Media: Jacob and Evie Frye

Screenshot of Jacob and Evie Frye from ‘Assassin’s Creed Syndicate’. Copyright goes to Ubisoft.

Hey! Hallie here!

To close off this group of ‘Twins in Media’ posts, I’m going to talk about the most badass twins I’ve seen in a video game. ‘Assassin’s Creed’ isn’t exactly well known for it’s characters. It isn’t considered the best franchise when it comes to story writing in general. But some characters have left a lasting impression on fans. Jacob and Evie Frye are some of them. There are multiple reasons to admire these two. Evie’s the first female protagonist in a main Assassin’s Creed game. Meanwhile, Jacob has an entire portion of his storyline that implies his bisexuality, complete with a kiss between him and another male character, that the writers officially confirmed to be purposeful LGBTQ+ representation. I’m not going to go completely into the correct moves and missteps Ubisoft made with both these choices, because Ubisoft still has a long ways to go. The point is, both characters are well explored, interesting, and showed the games were taking a step in the right direction. But are they good twin representation?

The Good:

  • Different lives. These two are introduced as being in the same profession. The game wouldn’t be ‘Assassin’s Creed’ without the main characters being assassins, after all (Unless they’re Templars, of course). Evie and Jacob also make almost all of the same friends in this game. Which makes sense because the player needs to be able to switch between the characters with ease without losing resources or storylines the side characters provide. That being said, there is a very obvious difference with how Evie reacts to the things in her life as opposed to Jacob. For one, Evie lives much closer to the assassin’s code, and because of that, she spends most of her time looking for assassin’s relics like the Piece of Eden. Jacob, on the other hand, would rather beat up oppressors and form his own vigilante gang. Evie makes faster friends with characters that seem sensible and organized. Jacob prefers to spend time with people who are more spontaneous. The biggest example of the differences between the bonds they form with characters, comes in the form of Henry Green. Henry Green becomes the closest ally of both twins throughout the game. Jacob appreciates his kindness, but often teases him for his milder personality. Evie finds Henry easy to confide in because of his easy-going personality and constantly praises his intelligence. In the end, Evie develops romantic feelings for Henry while Jacob criticizes them from the sidelines. Evie and Jacob, much like many twins, have similar interests but very different priorities.
  • Best Friends. This entire game focuses on the sibling relationship between Evie and Jacob. They start out the game as inseparable and well-known amongst assassins for being so. The game follows the both of them as their different priorities start to drive a wedge between them and increase their arguments. But they still enjoy each others presence. They get frustrated with each other but they find it important to work together, and in some instances, they ignore their arguments to help each other. Evie helps Jacob form his gang despite her criticisms, and Jacob supports Evie no matter how stiff he finds the people she offers to help. Overall, they admire each other for their chivalry. By the end of the game, they realize that they like staying together too much to separate, and continue to work together regardless of their differences. Not all siblings are friends, but after growing up with someone who shares some of the same interests as you, you become pretty close. The game does a good job of showing a bond like that without putting a bunch of twin clichés on top of it.

The Bad:

  • Opposites. Evie and Jacob are written to be exact opposites. Evie is the intelligent one who looks before she leaps. Jacob is the over-excitable one who rushes into every situation with his brass knuckles ready. Even the game mechanics emphasize the fact that they’re opposites. Evie’s character is used more for stealth where as Jacob’s gameplay is more focused on combat. In fact, these opposite personalities are the entire reason the two are fighting throughout most of the game. Evie feels like she constantly needs to clean up Jacob’s mistakes because he’s too rash to realize the consequences of his actions. But Evie is too wrapped up in thinking things through that she doesn’t act as quickly as Jacob knows she should. While twins are very different, it would be extremely rare to find twins who are exact opposites. Twins are just different from each other. There’s no need for writers to make twin characters so different that they won’t feel like the same character. Because, if writers are approaching twins correctly, they shouldn’t need to do that to show that their characters are different. It’s tiring to see this trope everywhere, especially when it’s thrown in after the rest of the representation seems so promising.
  • Sibling rivalry. Many twin stories really like the moment where twins start fighting or competing against each other. It forces the twin characters, who are usually seen together, to stay away from each other and shock the audience with their temporary separation. This game uses that commonly used trope. I won’t say it’s badly used, though. It’s not like twins don’t have arguments, and despite the fact that this trope is used for twins too often, the game doesn’t take the worst turns with it. For one, the game separates the characters pretty early on, so the audience isn’t used to seeing them together. The game has a different storyline for each character, so the twins go off and do their own things even when they aren’t arguing. And when their stories come together, it proves that the sibling rivalry isn’t an absolute hatred for one another. It’s not one of those situations where the two twins ignore each other entirely. They can still get along even though they disagree. The point of their story is that their arguments make their friendship stronger. So it isn’t the worst thing in the game, but it’s still a trope that I’m tired of seeing being used for twins.

So are Jacob and Evie a good representation of twins in media? I’d say yes! They aren’t perfect, of course. I’ve found that a good chunk of the twins I like still suffer from the opposites trope, which shows just how common this trope is. But Jacob and Evie are pretty good overall. They have a relatable sibling relationship. They have many of the same interests without being the same character. The game points out that they’re twins without making their relationship all that different from a regular sibling relationship. Twins should be written as regular siblings. I just wish that we could get some more same-sex twins written like this. We’ve seen quite a few fraternal twins of two different genders get better treatment from writers because they don’t look the same. All twin characters should be written a bit more like this, even identical ones. Hopefully we can see a bit more of that in the future.

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

Twins in Media: Sumire and Kasumi

Sumire as Kasumi and as herself. Promotional images from ‘Persona 5: Royal’. Copyright goes to P-studio and PAL: Sega.

Hi! It’s Annie!

Welcome to another (slightly late) twins in media week! This will be the last week we do posts formatted like this, so next week we’ll be moving onto different ventures with twins in media. There’s definitely more to come! For our last week we decided on video games and, to be honest, these two were not who I was originally planning to cover. My original plan for this week was actually Mario and Luigi (who are actually fraternal twins, which I’m glad that they’re fraternal representation!) before I realized that there’s really not much story-line wise to cover when it comes to Mario and Luigi. But it’s fun that they’re fraternal twins I guess! However, I did look back into ‘Persona 5: Royal’ after my sister briefly mentioned these two and I realized that I have another serious beef with a pair of twins in media. When ‘Persona 5’ first came out, almost everyone was arguing about who was “best girl”. My favorite character in the game is Futaba, but even so I didn’t really understand why this was such a huge argument. Pretty much all of the women in this game are great! But when ‘Persona 5: Royal’ came out, it seemed as though those arguments were laid to rest as everyone pointed to Sumire from this game as now permanently taking the title of “best girl”. I was certainly intrigued, and even more so when I found out that she was a twin. And then I was very thoroughly disappointed. Let’s go over why!

The Justice:

  • Different personalities. For all the bad these twins do for twin representation, I do have to give them this one. One of the major plot points of Sumire’s story is pointing out that her and her sister are very different people. Sumire is not able to completely reconcile herself with the personality of her sister because she isn’t her sister. She never could be, because she’s herself. Sumire throughout this process must learn to be herself and value her own personality and traits just as much as she valued the ones of her sister. She and her sister are never presented as opposites either. They are just different, which is very important.
  • Similar and different interests. This was also really nice to see. My sister and I grew up in the same household, so obviously we grew up liking some of the same things. We still have different interests too, but liking similar things doesn’t make us the same. Not even deciding to go after the same goal makes a pair of twins the same. This highlights that very well. It is both Sumire and Kasumi’s dream to win internationally in gymnastics. Never does this allow the story to make them exactly the same. Even when going after the same goal they are very different. Later you learn that Sumire is actually pretty good at cooking while her sister had very little interest in it. Also realistic. It’s really nice to see a pair of twins portrayed as different and have both similar and different interests.

The Corruption:

Oh god, where to start…

  • One twin must die. This is one of my least favorite, if not my least favorite, twin trope in media. And it is almost always used for this purpose. The writers either don’t want to have to continuously write a pair of twin siblings correctly or they feel that, because they are twins, one is expendable. Either way, this is almost always used to dramatize and push forward the other sibling. One sibling is sacrificed by the writers so that the other sibling can have a more interesting storyline. This trope might be fine if it was done occasionally. Let’s be honest, almost every member of a family has been killed off in something to make another character more interesting or tragic. The issue is that this doesn’t just happen occasionally. It happens all the time. It’s almost as if the writers are telling us that we’re too weird and not interesting enough as two different individuals. So in order to at least make one twin interesting as an individual, they have to sacrifice the other sibling. Also, have you noticed that it is almost always the older sibling? Guess which one of us is the older sibling? That would be me. Yay me. I am just as interesting as an individual and my sister is interesting enough without needing my death to make her a tragic hero. Twins are not expendable. We are two different people. I don’t like people making jokes about my death because that’s what they see in media. I actually suffer from death anxiety, which makes these jokes even worse for me to hear. Please stop and actually write two regular individual twin siblings who both ACTUALLY SURVIVE. Thank you. And also, making jokes about any stranger’s death is not ok, so stop doing it.
  • Same person. I’ve talked about how a lot of people will sometimes see my sister and I as two halves of a whole. As if we’re somehow two parts of the same person. It’s absolutely awful and it can be really difficult to deal with. I’ve come to realize that the people who actually make an effort to see us as two individuals are really the ones that should matter; but that still doesn’t stop this from hurting. What makes this situation particularly painful is that the game actually started off well. They started off showing these two as different people, and you get hints of that throughout the game. But then somewhere in the writing process they decided that Sumire would take on her sister’s personality out of guilt, and that’s where they messed up. Though they do show this to be a bad thing, you spend much of the game getting to know how Sumire viewed Kasumi rather than getting to know Sumire, herself. In fact, as the picture above shows, when most people in the fandom refer to Sumire, they just use a picture of Sumire posing as her sister rather than using an actual picture of Sumire. None of this is ok. This pushes forward the same-person stereotype as well as dismisses Sumire’s personality to a degree. I know that everyone experiences grief differently, but I do wonder why they made Sumire experience grief this way when several other characters, like Futaba for instance, experience grief in a somewhat regular way. The writers seemingly went forward with this idea that twins are so weirdly close that this would be a normal way for a twin sister to grieve. Either way, it’s disturbing and pretty dismissive.
  • Confusing relationship. Even though they try to use the excuse that twins are close and that’s why Sumire takes on her sister’s personality, they never actually set up a reason to use this already really bad excuse. Sumire and Kasumi aren’t actually close even though the narrative seems to tell you that they were, which is why Sumire does what she does. Sumire was extremely depressed and felt inferior to her sister, eventually growing resentment for her because of this. Kasumi was the best at everything and often thought her sister was being silly about her depression instead of actually taking it seriously and listening to her. Neither of them were actually very close and they definitely weren’t good sisters to each other. Sometimes the narrative argues closeness with Kasumi for Sumire’s actions where other times it argues guilt. The issue is that it can never pull off either well because the narrative never truly seems to make a decision on what their relationship really was. It wants to rely on them being close as twins while at the same time telling a story about two sisters who never really liked nor understood each other. I have said many times that I want more supportive and healthy sibling relationships in media and this definitely isn’t that. This is also pretty contradictory and confusing.

So, are Sumire and Kasumi a good representation of twins in media?

Nope! The writers seemed to stretch in so many directions in their confusion over writing twins, and fell into so many twin tropes, that some of their twin tropes ended up being contradictory. These twins aren’t written to be good. They are written to be a plot twist in the game. You-thought-you-were-getting-to-know-Kasumi-all-this-time-but-you’re-actually-getting-to-know-her-twin-sister-Sumire-and-Kasumi’s-actually-dead. That’s what this is for. It almost seems like the writers decided on the relationship between the twins and Sumire’s actual personality very last minute. It feels very much like a plot twist for the sake of a plot twist and leaves the audience with a very poor representation of twins, or even siblings in general. Their relationship falls flat and is barely given any time, but at the same time they threw so many threads into it that it becomes overly complex. Sumire is pretty good in other ways, especially when you actually get to know her as Sumire, but this part of her story feels like a giant mess. And that makes Sumire as a character a giant mess. I like ‘Persona 5’ because, for a lot of the characters, it shows actual mental problems and illnesses you can face in your life and how to cope with them. Futaba deals with severe depression and grief and realizes that the voices in her head telling her to die are illusions given to her by her anxiety and trauma; not the truth within her soul. What Futaba deals with is actually pretty close to what they gave Sumire, but they focused so much on the plot twist that they focused too little on actually making this a learning moment for the audience. They eventually skid into a ‘learning to love yourself’ message, but it feels like a real mess getting there. Sumire is an adorable character though! But when I return to ‘Persona 5: Royal’ it will purely be because of my love for Goro Akechi. I’m sorry!

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie