erasing the scribbles you wrote in my heart.

ahhh i saw this tweet yesterday and still haven't processed it! it does really look like braydriana on that cover, but there aren't any real descriptions other than a tagline teasing the continuation of the love triangle, so idk how anyone knows what the confirmed endgame is for a book coming out in 2027 (have there been advanced reader review copies floating around or...?).

but ok, as a writer/artist i have mixed thoughts on this. i'd have to revisit that book (i remember really disliking it lol, i don't even think the endgame was the reason haha) to comment on this for real, but in my vaguest of memories about it, i remember that even though i still did like brayden better, freddie had more of a role in the books, and the endgame didn't blindside you the way it does in the show. i read this ages before the show was even in development so this is about as objective as i can be without being biased by actors/marketing/appearance/tv series development, but it wasn't completely random. the writing just didn't do it for me, and even with more of an emphasis than in the show, neither did the endgame. (i do think i was always going to lean more towards brayden because mistakenly arrogant golden retriever blond fake dating bf is everythung i love in a mmc but even then nothing in that book made me such a diehard fan i would be yelling for brayden to get justice, like too much of everything else also didn't do it for me i ended up indifferent and annoyed i wasted time reading it lol).

anyway what i'm trying to say is, that book wasn't quite written like the show at all. he's still the better character imo but it didn't really revolve around brayden the way the show does, i didn't think the endgame was out of left field even though it still felt kind of contrived. i feel like when authors option their shows for loose adaptations, the show can do whatever it wants (which is why finding her edge essentially writing its own story but then clinging desperately to the book endgame made no sense). at that point, if you sold it without rights to control the writing (as many of these adaptations do), the show is its own entity. it doesn't really have to be the same. like, this wasn't a beloved multi-book series. idek anyone else who had read it when i did (i was going through an ice skating books phase). so as an author/artist it kind of makes me sad the author sold out lol. she defended her choice for freddie for months, and yes, it makes no sense in the show to defend that ship when they have zero development and barely any scenes together, but in the book it wasn't completely unjustified and that's how she kept insisting she wanted it to end, and it was honestly fine. her writing a new book to capitalize on the show's popularity and change the endgame (allegedly, because it could still just be a marketing ploy and then we get the book and it still ends with freddie or adriana chooses herself and no one gets a romantic ending—i'm a cynic haha) to the more popular character after saying things about that character that felt like she didn't even understand him (in the show! i would never presume to tell an author she doesn't know her actual character) is just kind of meh. like i guess she should be able to benefit from her intellectual property's success, but at the same rime, if you write something you passionately defended for months before realizing it wasn't changing the masses' mind, idk i wish authors stuck to the stories they want to tell and not cave for attention or because they felt bullied or whatever the reason. at the same time i can't even blame her because braydriana were far more interesting and it's totally possible she sat with the show's success and changed her mind for artistic reasons and not to sell out (which again, i don't really respect it but i do think she should be allowed to capitalize on her intellectual property's success).

lol see, mixed feelings.

oh i absolutely loved it actually (i'm sorry if my brief comment on it implied otherwise). i'm guessing you're a fan of the books? whenever i finish something i love i always feel compelled to see what the "general consensus" is and read social media/reddit commentary, and i kept seeing fans of the show who had never read the books go on and on about how frustrating pip was as a character and how much the season dragged compared to the first one which was exciting. objectively, if i didn't know those details were important, and if i watched the first season for the entertainment the overly romanticized version of andie/sal brought i can see where they're coming from, but as a book reader every aspect these people hated (including pip, who has always been this way and was more her than ever before in this season) was so necessary, it annoyed me. i am so glad other book readers agree (i noticed fans of the books were so pleased with this season! holly did her best trying to fix it), and i love that they spent so much of this season foreshadowing the next (and that they already filmed it).

I've seen a lot of mixed thoughts but I totally agree with what u said. I didn't expect to enjoy the show but I really did! I felt like the casting fit as did the writing (you touched on pwmov lacking in writing, and I agree. I love the cast and they were done so dirty by the film especially tom/alex!). my only major complaint was one I've had from the beginning, but I wish they tried to include somehow in the promo about the sa plot line, because that is so triggering but I'm curious at what you think

tbh without Braydriana this series wouldn't be worth watching the clip they released with all the chemistry from the dancing scene in the train is what tricked me into watching it so I have to watch season 2 to see how they'll resolve it. Yeah the interview sounds meh if they're doing all of that in season 2 and actually I wish that other skating show I think it was called Spinning Out got the renewal years ago instead I liked that one better.

i would love that for brayden. also actually would love to see him and freddie become friends too. they had some fantastic moments in season 1. (i always joke that freddie had more scenes and more chemistry with brayden than ariana but did i lie?)

riley/brayden revenge dating (where i think the show is going) makes no sense. i have a fear they're going to make them either fake date (so literally the season 1 plot rehashed) to try to piss adriana or freddie off and then they end up somehow falling in love fr, or that they'll just be partner and competing makes them end up actually dating but it is sooo ooc, and it annoys me when people think ice dancers all have to be a couple to work. that's just not true. brayden made a point to say he didn't usually feel things for people and want to commit to them, and that's how he knew his feelings for adriana were real. if he just ends up doing the same shit with someone else and then falling for that person it just invalidates those feelings idk.

(like, yes, i am biased because i watched for braydriana and their chemistry specifically, but logically they're making him sound insincere by pushing him into another ice dance relationship plot without exploring how he'd fallen for her the whole time and how she originally had feelings for him before he blew up at her and shot himself in the foot. they were both in denial for much of season 1 because they didn't want to get hurt and freddie was the safe option she needed closure on...like naturally if they're looking at the show they actually wrote there's a lot of things to unpack here rather than resorting to more cheap love triangle drama. no one needs them to create a riley/brayden/adriana triangle on top of the brayden/adriana/freddie one. it's an 8 episode season and that would be the biggest waste of space imo.)

lmao it bothers me soooo much that they never developed freddie/adriana at all. they come out of left field. freddie realizing he's in love with brayden makes more sense than him with adriana. they barely had scenes and he was either boring or an ass. even the marketing for this revolved around braydriana, their aesthetic and their chemistry. if the writers ignore that in favor of all the bullshit the author is saying then they're going to sabotage the only watchable aspect of this show. like it wasn't unique or well written or well acted and the ice skating is not good, the only thing it has going for it is braydrana and the chemistry madelyn and cale have.

i love that train scene. i actually saw teasers for this on twitter a month before netflix released the season, and in that teaser it was just them enemies to lovers bantering on ice. cale and madelyn looked so good together and had obvious sparks, i knew i wanted to watch it. i had read the book at some point 2-3 years ago and remember hating it a lot (not even because it was a freddie/adriana endgame since unlike the show, the book makes that obvious early on)—it was poorly written, none of the characters worked for me (i think i did still like brayden best but he's an obvious side character in this), and the plot execution was stupid. 😔 the teaser was just so interesting and one of the only things i vividly remembered about the book was that those two characters were not endgame so i was alarmed but thought maybe, since netflix was only promoting braydriana's relationship in those teasers, that they had altered the source to give us one hell of a single season show. sighhhhhh. freddie/adriana are so left field i went in dreading their inevitable presence in this, forgot that was meant to be a thing, and got attached...just for them to finally appear and smash brayden's heart. i'm still so annoyed by that last episode, and i think my lack of faith in the writers to pull off a great season 2 is why i was never hoping it would get renewed.

(that and i do have bitterness over shows just as popular as finding her edge, if not more, getting canceled. like, lockwood & co was phenomenal, it topped many countries, had the best reviews, was well written and well acted, but in the end it wasn't a viral sensation along the lines of wednesday and bridgerton so they canceled it. finding her edge isn't either and unlike lockwood, is poorly written and poory acted with the exception of braydriana....yet somehow here we are.)

(assuming you know it's been renewed for season 2) okay so the author said they're in the preproduction stage and that she's not "directly involved with the adaptation" but then she said that she and the show's writers were writing "with deliberate blinders on" (idk what this means. my hunch is that they're ignoring the book since it has no sequel but the events of the book don't even happen in season 1 outside of the end of the love triangle soooo????) which makes it sound like she is involved in the writing in some capacity, just not as a head writer (backed up by the fact that she also said she has no idea where they've decided to take the plot in s2). 

but ugh idk idk idk i liked finding her edge a lot before that last episode, but i knew how it was meant to end and i've watched a lot of netflix shows that go downhill because the show has become its own thing and they're trying to force it into fitting the source. which is what i felt like is happening with this show and is why i was kind of on team cancellation. 😓😅

and tbh, i still have zero faith in season 2. 😭 "i felt like the book and the show are thematically similar" umm i guess? in the sense that it explores themes of family and loyalty, but that's so generic. some aspects of those themes were much better done in the show through scenes that have no counterpart in the book. i agree that the characters are largely the same and any differences are more the charm of the real actors than writing decisions. 

i agree with the author that elise russo is an interesting character. i'd love the show to explore her relationship with figure skating and her place as the oldest. her heart isn't in the former and she struggles being there for her siblings with the latter. would love to see her reevaluate what her passions are and stop being such a shitty sister.

idk if i watched this show with braydriana blinders on but i disagree with the author's comment on friendship (it's not the first time she's made it either, she said it in so many s1 interviews and it made me ???? back then too). i never got the impression adriana had close friends firstly. maybe it's because it's easy for me to clock awkward former friends because of personal experiences but was that not riley from the get go? like so many things riley says to adriana are nearly underhanded and filled with jealousy. is she supposed to overlook that? that girl wasn't genuine every time she cheered her on. most of those scenes come after she started working with her former partner, thinking adriana didn't have a new partner and had no hope of competing anyway. like??? idk idk i didn't see sincerity there so idk why she needs to return sincerity and be there for this person. actually this brings me to the end of s1. freddie is the one who constantly took riley for granted, and deliberately chose never to express that he didn't like her romantically when it was obvious riley was in love with him. at the same time, adriana didn't know riley felt that way about him (freddie should have since he seemed to be going out of his way not to explicitly set boundaries and v much acted like a boyfriend and not just a colleague). so why is riley trying to partner with someone who at that point still is adriana's partner? and why does she speak to her like she's getting "revenge" when adriana isn't the one who betrayed her and isn't the one who went behind her back??? like, girl, your issue is with freddie.

i mean, there's an argument to be had that a better friend would notice her friend's poorly contained crush, but at that point they weren't that close and that dude is adriana's actual ex....i don't think it was her responsibility to back off unless she made some kind of promise to riley that she would, and she never did that. anyway it would be cool to see them actually rebuild a long strained friendship in s2 but that is a different statement than "adriana needs to learn to be a better friend." now to brayden? absolutely. she led him on, she kind of overlooked his feelings constantly, and while i agree with her right to shoot him down she was cruel in the way she did it (and also in the timing). 

same with the comment about elise. like???? adriana takes on a v eldest daughter coded role in trying to keep the family afloat despite elise claiming that's her role on the ice. much of their strained relationship is lack of understanding but so much of elise's character is just being selfish, entitled, and dismissive. how is any of that on adriana to resolve? would love to see elise develop a more active role as an older sister and learn to get over her own jealousy (maybe i see things through main character lens but was she not entitled and jealous for 3/4 of the show??), but idk what adriana needs to do to be better toward her because adriana was already trying her best to empathize. (elise is just so insecure she reacted poorly to any sympathy.)

"I’d like to see her stop trying to parent everyone around her, including herself, leave that to the adults in her life" i would love to see this too but for a child to stop being parentified the adults have to step up. (i say this as someone who had to fill that same role.) idk if i trust her father to do it but we shall see. the comment on being a better person????? lol why does this author hate adriana so much? i want to see adriana become more self aware and careful with her words and decisions because sometimes she gets tunnel vision and doesn't understand how her actions are coming across (her entire situation with brayden) but i don't think she's in the wrong in her interactions with every character sooooo. 

i don't personally care about the attractiveness of the actors (it's subjective anyway because i disagree with every man people have called attractive on the show agdjsjsjs and the photos i saw circulating when people were raging about this prerelease were all way more horrendous than the actual show so i have to think some of that discourse is disingenuous) because it means nothing really as far as adaptations go. the people we meet on vacation had fantastic casting, tom blyth is damn gorgeous and i could easily see him as alex, and then the film wasted the casting with shitty writing and changes that altered the entire essence of that character and his relationship to poppy, they were so awful in that movie i couldn't even bring myself to root for him. and i wasn't even a fan of that book, i liked the first 2/3 and hated the final third resolution. the movie had me appreciating everything i raged about when i read it (also two days before it released...i fear this is a pattern).

garrett and hannah were perfect. whether you like the way they look or not the personalities, their mannerisms, the way they are with each other all felt lifted from the book. the changes in the plot didn't fundamentally alter their stories or who they are as people or as a couple . i'm sorry if you were attached to the scenes they removed but i felt that the show's interpretation was a lot more realistic. garrett in the book has already dealt with his feelings on his father, who he is as a person, and hockey off screen. he is mostly fully self actualized aside from the fact that he hasn't shared the secret of his abuse with anyone. that guy 90% knows who he is. which is great. but tv shows need stakes. (mildly in the book but mostly off screen) at some point he would have had to grapple with that sad family history, his love of a violent sport, and have mixed feelings on his relationship with his father. this happening on screen is more interesting. i was genuinely dying when it looked like the show changed the fact that this dude lives and breathes hockey and grows up to become an NHL legend, so these changes also kept me on my toes but they just felt more real. (it's actually great that they distinguished him from his father by giving him consequences too, even some that actually were unfair.)

re: hannah. it never made sense that she'd like justin the jock, so i didn't mind that change and it brought him more directly into her orbit by making him a musician. again, the scholarship thing added stakes and removed unnecessary characters. it was more powerful to see her overcome her mental block and write a song than the song already written off screen pre-series. i didn't hate that amazon correctly called out that hands off thing garrett does in the book as problematic. they referenced it without it being his fault.

a lot of people mentioned that despite the book specifying that ivy leagues like briar didn't give elite athletes scholarships, it never felt realistic or logical. idk much about college sports but this is commentary i saw often, so lol at the show removing that plot entirely. tbh i'm going to defend that choice too: rich folks in the public eye aren't going to try to risk image and withhold tuition from their child. everyone knows who garrett is. if he's suddenly cut off that invites drama. no way a rich asshole obsessed with image is risking that. so it makes more sense his struggle with violence and his father would lead to him wanting to protect hannah by breaking up rather than the reverse. a more realistic use of the noble idiot trope imo.

doesn't really make a difference to the plot or characters making her rapist a hockey player. i do think it kind of sort of adds something to her relationship with garrett, that despite previous experience with a hockey player she felt safe enough with him to be with him ("sort of" because other than that random scene in the beginning when the hockey players pass her by (and i think delaney actually was one of them but it also could have been her imagination? the editing in that scene is intentionally hazy) it doesn't seem like she is generally afraid of other hockey players or the sport. but she did tell garrett she worked really hard to be okay so maybe that's why. also "sort of" because his abuser is also a hockey player, so it makes sense that the inherent violence in the sport and garrett losing it on delaney terrify hannah. these connections aren't explicit but i do think the undertones of these connections are kind of there. and from that lens add something to that climactic scene).

i didn't mind the emphasis on logan and garrett's friendship, but at times the conflict felt unnecessary and dragged on. like, there are things logan does that didn't make me on his side, i didn't think it was completely on garrett for him to be the only one to apologize. i get that he didn't know about his father's abusive history but meh. the jabs at how privileged he is without wondering why he was acting off (until later), idk idk at times it felt like he poked the bear.

i was genuinely sad cindy didn't leave phil's ass like she does in the book. also realistic that it wouldn't happen quickly but god i am so sad.

i could be wrong because i paid way more attention to garrett and hannah in the book but that crush logan has on hannah is way more pronounced in the show. also at times he made some weird underhanded comments about garrett and i get that they weren't that deep but idk idk. like i am not surprised they ended up fighting and maybe male friendships are all so all over the place they give you whiplash but i was ??? during some of those.

did like that hannah kissed logan instead of dean (i imagine they did that because they wanted allie/dean to start in this season and it would not have worked with hannah kissing him in the same season. also added substance to that crush logan has on hannah aside from just general jealousy at what he thinks is garrett's perfect life.)

i was hoping he'd tell more than just logan what a piece of shit his father is like in the books but perhaps that was always unrealistic.

i did not mind the allie and dean plot at all but i haven't read the score. i didn't think the 2 episodes (it's like one episode with some scenes in 2 more episodes but not as substantial as their part in that one episode they explore how they started hooking up. it's 25% of the show at best) of allie/dean took away from hannah garrett. the scenes they left out were tiny slice of life scenes (some of which were present in a dating montage). both of them had their solo plots explored and enough screen time to their own personal issues. and people calling hannah/garrett boring next to a friends with benefits plot are??? like one is about domestic violence and rape, the only thing we have explored with allie and dean is fwb and a conversation on monogamy. bffr. i do hope they skip logan's book to do allie and dean first because i imagine they've already started going through the scenes of that book in this show (idk how much crossover, i have not read the score).

i liked the change that allie didn't need hannah to tell her what happened and figured it out on her own. if they're best friends and she pays attention to her i think she could have figured out that something happened to her even if she didn't know exactly what. kind of an irrelevant change but i liked it because it demonstrated their friendship.

not nora calling marinette "baguette" 😭 i've seen this in fanfiction, why is this so funny.

that conversation with alya was the first conversation they had about lying that actually worked for me (and marinette) because it went beyond just half facts about the dangers of lying and was candid about messy feelings involved using a personal anecdote. no wonder it actually helped her instead of being another reason marinette hyperventilates.

i enjoyed marinette's conversation with the gabriel inside her head a lot more than her monologue with nathalie because it is one of the MOST candid moments we have of her and her feelings and internal struggles, right down to acknowledging their similarities that gabriel preyed on to refuting them. i have needed to see this girl have an honest to god breakdown for so long and it was soooo felt. also also also that part where she's like "HAS THE GABRIEL WE'VE CONVINCED ADRIEN WAS REAL EVER EXISTED???" and then he fights back with facts she knows are true inside her head but can't believe herself because she did not know that gabriel at all?? SO GOOD. also a huge fuck you to people in the fandom who have this weird idea marinette personally has deluded herself into thinking gabriel was some saint, y'all watch this show with your eyes closed she got over any idolization she had for that man ages before he was personally an ass to her. knowing he took certain actions because of a twisted sense of love isn't the same as witnessing that love or kindness or whatever the fuck nathalie said existed at some point in lady chaos. she never knew that man and he's been hurting adrien a lot longer than they were together and a lot longer than adrien even came to terms with himself. also i love that she acknowledged that the truth of his mother's illness would also hurt adrien because everyone glosses over that aspect of this lie his family has never mentioned to him either. that senti stuff hurts way beyond just an inconvenient existential crisis.

"love is a burden." and ladybug was going to let it hit her because she thought she'd make better decisions if she wasn't in love with him??? 😭😭😭😭😭 chat like, why is she just frozen in shock. the part where rena and ladybug have a heart to heart mid battle while carapace and chat are just dying. 😭

I HAVE TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT HOLY FUCK.

also i don't buy the ml twt theory that "adrien suspects his family/marinette are lying to him and also basically suspects gabriel was monarch and marinette is ladybug. i don't believe he's an idiot by any means, but idk why people want to believe he's omniscient, keeping it to himself, buying time for some reason and playing some kind of long game while visibly going through a crisis? it's more that, he knows ladybug didn't tell him everything (she tells chat something to that effect at the end of the london special and he comforts her because she appears traumatized, everyone is constantly ignoring this like he's not being suspicious here HE KNOWS FOR SURE SHE STRUGGLED SAYING EVERYTHING AND COMFORTED HER INSTEAD OF FORCING IT OUT OF HER), he knows marinette has been struggling telling him something for a while now and looks sad often and isn't sure what that's about but i doubt he thinks it's related to his father which is why he was able to believe the conclusion he drew in heartfixer.

ok but adrien hugging her immediately made me sob i wonder what he thinks she's about to tell him. ALSO ALL I WANTED WAS FOR HER TO TELL HIM HERSELF. SORRY TO EVERYONE WHO LOVES DRAMA AND ALSO THE PEOPLE WHO FOAM AT THE MOUTH AT THE CHANCE TO SEE THINGS BLOW UP IN MARINETTE'S FACE BUT I WANTED TO SEE A WHOLE CHARACTER ARC AND GROWTH AND BE HER CHOICE FIRST THANK YOU GOD. sorry but this girl never gets to rise above and i am here for it.

GIVE ME THE NEXT ONE NOWWWW.