You Know, I've Seen Plenty Of Comments About "Descendants Should Have Been A Young Adult TV Series!"

Ben not seeing the love potion as malicious is actually so important to me. Because why would he think someone giving a love potion would have ill intentions for him? Sure, he's heard of the heroes horrific pasts but those are just stories of the ye ole' days the adults share. He's the result of the Happily Ever After, things like that don't happen anymore. All the evil-doers are put away. He believes all the Isle Kids have that same kind of experience. Of course he'd just think Mal was actually this shy girl who was too afraid to ask him out. He wants to see the best in her; he sees the best in everyone.

Mal, on the other hand, knows just how wrong it is. She never, ever corrects him on his assumption of her having a crush on him and being too afraid to ask him out. Because why would she want to do that? Making him understand the implications of a love potions just drags him into her world, into the Isle where stuff like that was always malicious.

Obviously I don't condone Mal's actions, and the implications of a potion that makes someone obsessed ("love") with another person is something from a fucking horror novel. I just think it makes sense (in-universe) that he'd never think that she had malicious intentions and that she would never want to tell him.

One of my hottest takes is that I think the mystery and more specifically the transition from a casual mystery show to a more thrilling and serious one was done much better in Detentionaire compared to Mystery Incorporated

U20 squad you are so so precious to me

come on, chase, i know my brother is still in there. where is he, chase? where is my brother?

Sakamoto's Store Trio ☆

I wanna have something clever to say about these pics (mostly the way he's staring in the first one because oh wow,) but that just made me realize this is really genuinely the last moment that he actually has any clarity or agency as a character, allowed to make his own decisions.

After this scene, for the rest of this movie and even D3, he's Never Allowed to Disagree With Mal Ever (but expected to take the blame for her actions, somehow) and like. I just wonder if he knows that's how it's going to turn out. He disagreed with her once, she ran off, and all her friends think he's the bad guy. He's still compassionate and it's framed as a bad thing ("The Isle are my people too" vs. "Ben, Uma captured you".) And he tells Mal, "do what you need to do."

The choice is squarely on her. If she wants to leave, fine. If she wants to stay, fine. She already told him they were done on the Isle of the Lost.

Cotillion comes, and hurray! Mal stayed! But Ben's under a spell and everyone acts like he's to blame, like he betrayed Mal somehow. Carlos even implying he would rather have left Ben for dead on the island.

I just wonder, if maybe Ben took a look at all the circumstances and everything, and Mal's mastery of manipulation, and understood what his future was going to be: Agree With Mal, Always, or he would be hated.

Unless Mal made the choice to leave again, but she doesn't.

the first two seasons of detentionaire:

Only in Descendants will you find every form of media made of it contradicting each other in various ways, I swear.

there is some rhetorical term to describe ashihara's decision to make suwa a prominent figure for osamu's journey at the beginning of both the rank war and the away mission test arcs...

like even though suwa is playing seemingly opposite roles (an opponent in the rank wars, an ally in the away mission test), he's ultimately serving the same role in the narrative: he's helping osamu grow as an agent and as a captain.

in the rank wars, he (along with arafune) was osamu's first rank war opponent. rhetorically speaking, he was there to kickstart osamu's journey into team-strategy.

then in the away-mission, he was the captain of the squad osamu was assigned to -- serving as a guide for osamu to learn the mechanics of an away-mission/learning how to work with agents he's unfamiliar with/even acting as a role model with him being the more experienced captain/etc etc etc

i think it's also interesting to note that suwa being the first of something for the the betterment of his juniors also literally happened IN the story when he got turned into a trion cube during the aftokrator invasion arc. in one of the trivia/author notes or whatever ashihara literally said that "[Suwa would] feel bad for Kitora or Chika if they were to be teased for [being turned into a trion cube], so it doesn’t really matter if it’s happening to him."

there is no point to this post. i just think suwa is neat. mama suwa real? idk