Hello and welcome to Year in Review, ghulsona's version! I've always wanted to do one of these things, but never had the compulsion to actually sit down and write something out. This year, I forced myself to put something together, and though it took several days, I was surprised at how easily the words just flowed out when I put my mind to it.

There is no formal structure or analysis being done here – I took this opportunity to ramble about various things that I was obsessed with over the past year, and truly, this is just a heavily edited brain dump. That being said, I'm very pleased with the end result. This is probably the longest thing I've written since high school, and I'm proud of myself for trying to verbalize why I liked what I liked.

Anyways, please enjoy ghulsona's Year in Review!

January - February
A Different Man is probably my favorite of all the movies I've watched this year. I loved everything the movie had to say about self-hatred and how we pay so much attention to how we're perceived. Dare I say, it was everything I wished The Substance had been and more. I'm obsessed with how at first it seems like your typical 'disabled people have feelings too' type of flick (a la Wonder, The Elephant Man, etc), but it goes totally off the rails in the second half, each scene wilder than the last. Several scenes had me crying from laughter (Oswald crying "I don't know my own strength!" after inadvertently causing the stage to fall on Edward still makes me giggle). Adam Pearson is a star and was criminally overlooked during the awards season. I had only known Sebastian Stan as Bucky and had never realized he could be doing so much more beyond the MCU. I watched The Apprentice shortly afterwards, and he and Jeremy Strong were great in that, but I was pretending the Oscar nomination he received was for his work in A Different Man.


Seeing Stan hug it up with Marvel co-star Anthony Mackie during his Golden Globes win brought back a lot of old memories of my 2016 #TeamCap days. I ended up rewatching Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a movie that was a canon event for me along with most tumblrinas. An unforeseen consequence of my rewatch was that this movie was all I could think about for the next month or so. It seems I really will always be chasing the high of watching the "I'm with you til the end of the line" scene for the first time as an eleven year old. While lost in the Stucky sauce, I checked out some of the movies that the Russos mentioned as influences in their director's commentary – All the President's Men, Three Days of the Condor, Marathon Man – and gained a newfound interest in the political thriller paranoia genre. I loved All the President's Men especially, but the news of Robert Redford's passing that came later in the year definitely hit harder as a result.

Other things I enjoyed: Red Rooms (2023), Strange Days (1995), Spike Lee's Malcolm X (1992), A Real Pain (2024), Sing Sing (2023), Rick Remender and Roland Boschi's Winter Soldier: The Bitter March (2014)

March
In an effort to be more spiritually focused during the month of Ramadan, I strayed away from most media entertainment. Instead, I had been determined to put in some effort in building some more knowledge on the religious side of things. I've always been turned off from looking deeper into religious topics due to the insane conservatism of most popular experts, but this year I found a book that suited my interests well enough, Qur'an of the Oppressed: Liberation Theology and Gender Justice in Islam by Shadaab Rahmetulla. This was my first time looking into Islamic liberation theology and just Quranic interpretation in general, and as far as introductions to those concepts go, I think this book worked really well. I was anticipating the text to be more challenging and academic than what I'm used to, and while it did take me a better part of the year to get through, I was thoroughly engaged and found it easy enough to understand for the average layman. Four theologists and their arguments were introduced, and the examination and analysis of each theologist and their biases was very well-constructed. I came away from this having learned so much; I had never considered that there could be space for progressive-minded ideas/theories like this in Quranic commentary. It was truly nothing short of enlightening.

April
When Ramadan comes to a close, it's become a tradition of sorts for me and my sister to stay up the night before Eid and catch up on all the musical releases we had foregone during the previous month. Like most years, we had a stack of K-pop releases to go through and found that there had been an outpouring of top-notch K-pop in the month we were away. In general, I really loved the K-pop output this year, especially compared to the previous few years.

STAYC's house-dance title track "BEBE" instantly went triple platinum in my room. Every time it came on, I found myself transforming into that one dancing emoji (this guy 🕺). I can't exactly put a finger on it, but something in the chorus kind of reminds me of Max Coveri's 1998 Eurobeat technosong "Running in the 90s"? I loved R&B pop b-side "PIPE DOWN" even better and rewatched the stages for it very often. Sieun is such a star!


NMIXX has been on my radar for the past year ever since that last minute of "BOOM" blew me away, and I've always found that there's at least one song on their EPs that make me go absolutely insane. They didn't disappoint with their earlier release this year, Fe304: FORWARD. The chill vibes of title track "KNOW ABOUT ME" and the cyber sea-faring aesthetics of the music video were great, but in my opinion, the b-side "Papillon" is the EP's (and possibly their discography's) crown jewel. It's a relatively short song, a little over two and a half minutes, but boy does it pack a punch. The intro is absolutely electric, layering a distorted version of the chorus's hypnotic "ooooo weeee ooooo woahhh"s on top of a warbled electronic voice and a subtle but steady beat. The adlibs are stretched out like taffy in the pre-chorus, building up the tension, before you're slingshotted into the chorus where NMIXX's rapline spit rapidfire, each word landing like a punch to the test. It's followed by glitchy and broken up vocals that build up for a mere split second, before the song finds release in the post-chorus's drawn out "ooooo weeee ooooo woahhh"s that beckons you like a siren call. The distorted vocals and effects that're interwoven through the song add so much texture, giving it a futuristic, digital feel, not incompatible with the aesthetic of the title track's music video. I seriously feel like I could flip a table, do some backflips while listening to this song. It's so cool! The b-side "High Horse" was another instant hit off the EP – absolutely loved the melancholic elegance combined with the steely resolve and grit present here. NMIXX is truly on a generational run right now. Every release from them is such a treat.


I was initially skeptical about tuning into Ten's sophomore EP, STUNNER. Ten is one of my favorite performers in NCT and K-pop in general, but as much as I love watching him on stage, I always have very low expectations for his sonical output. Out of his many previous solo endeavors, I've only truly loved the dreamy landscape of his first aptly-titled SM Station project, "Dream in a Dream". "Birthday" was just fine, but I'll only ever listen to it if I want to watch the accompanying performance. Don't even talk to me about his other station projects. 

Ten's official solo debut in 2024 with his self-titled EP TEN further entrenched my opinion of his musical vision. While the dark electronic vibes and the absolutely insane choreo of "Nightwalker" initially drew me in, but the screechy prechorus made it something I didn't come back to often. I actually liked the rest of the songs on the EP (with the exception of boring easy listening track "Lie With You"), but while I wouldn't skip them if they came on shuffle today, I didn't find myself reaching for them again after two weeks. Looking back at the project now a year after it came out, I honestly think Ten made a misstep using those particular songs for his debut. Almost half of the songs on the EP feel like rejects from senior SM acts and are practically begging to invite comparison: the retro-pop "Dangerous" feels straight out of Key's vault, "Shadow" has Taemin written all over it, and the groovy latin-pop "Water" is very Kai-esque. You could say that it showcases Ten's versatility, but I think he didn't do a very good job in establishing his own artistic identity, what sets him apart from the other guys, which is so important for a debut.

So needless to say, I wasn't expecting much when I queued up the "STUNNER" music video to watch that night. I have never been more glad to be proven wrong. "STUNNER", simply put, stuns. It's sleek and glossy with an addicting post-chorus that shot it straight to the top of all of Ten's solo projects so far. The obligatory talk-rap section in the middle does bring the song down a bit, but the soaring heights the song reaches afterwards makes me not mind it so much. The English version is a rare exception in K-pop of matching up to and even surpassing the original version. The titular Stunner is now interpreted as Ten himself instead of the person he's been bewitched by, and the swaggering confidence of the lyrics and Ten's airy delivery compared to the very sweet, romance-tinged verses of the original give the song an extra fizz. In particular, I thought the cheekiness of the self-referential lyric "Drip, drip, looking like a ten, so fine" and the airy "ah ooh ahs" in the changed chorus lend the song an extra oomph. I like that the self-conceited tone continues into the dark sultry b-side "Sweet as Sin", where Ten assumes the role of a shrewd vixen-like figure ("I'm napalm with a cherry on top"!!!). The Justin Timberlake-reminiscent b-side "Enough for Me" switches up the energy a little, with Ten stating in the repetitive chorus that he's fine with his lover's dismissive attitude and their meager scraps of attention as long as he gets to see them, but the confidence still bleeds through with his nonchalant, almost smug delivery, like he knows they'll always come back; he's it for them as much as they're it for him ("You know there ain't nobody, ain't nobody like me / And there ain't nobody, ain't nobody like you").

The rest of the EP's b-sides are unmemorable (asides from "BAMBOLA", which is memorable in a different way), but these four songs were so good that I don't care. I love the throughline of Ten basically going "I'm hot shit, don't you want me so bad?". Even the mischievous "BAMBOLA" lends itself to this theme. It's an easy concept to do wrong, to come off as haughty and undeservedly arrogant, but Ten absolutely pulls it off. He is Stunner! I'm so glad to see him stepping out of his seniors' shadows and starting to establish his own identity with this EP. I can't wait to see what he puts out next.

Other things I enjoyed: Doechii's "Anxiety" (this sample is everything!!!), Kilo Kish's "digital emotional" and "reprogram", Chuu's Only cry in the rain EP (she finally made some music I can vibe with lol), Tradd Moore's Doctor Strange: Fall Sunrise (2022), Joy Crooke's "I Know You'd Kill", SPELLLING's "Portrait of My Heart"

May - June
My family received some very tough news during April, and the late spring-early summer period of this year was probably the hardest months of my life. As a result, I ended up going back to familiar comforts, hoping that nostalgia would soothe my nerves. My interest in the MCU has already been reseeded with my rewatching of The Winter Soldier earlier in the year, and it fully blossomed during this month as my sister and I rewatched all the Avengers movies and tried to get through Phase 1. Time does not heal all wounds, but I actually had a really fun time airing out our old grievances as we went through the movie list (I'm still mad about Steve's ending in Endgame!!!). I was really surprised at how much fun I had watching The Avengers, a movie I had never cared about during the peak of my MCU interest in middle school and had probably only watched once. This time around though, I was really charmed. Maybe it was an effect of seeing how it was back when the MCU actually had some novelty compared to the recent slop they've been putting out. While I wouldn't call this movie groundbreaking cinema or anything, it is kind of sad how later MCU projects never really achieved the feeling of this one.

Towards the end of June, KPop Demon Hunters got released, and I became obsessed. I wouldn't even say it was particularly fulfilling as a story for me (its short runtime did not allow for most of its characters/concepts to get satisfyingly fleshed out). However, Rumi and Jinu as characters and as a relationship dynamic were literally made in a lab for me. I love characters with deep-rooted shame, I love toxic codependency, I love it when the love was there even though it didn't change anything or save anyone but the love still was still there!!! From the soundtrack, "Free" and "What it Sounds Like" were my personal favorites in sound and cinematic moments. I was immediately able to identify the 'influence' (lol) of IVE's "I AM", but I didn't really care for "I AM" so it didn't move me much. "How It's Done" was fun, but wow the people really yearn for a Blackpink comeback huh?  


Other things I enjoyed: What's Up Doc? (1972), Bringing Up Baby (1938), Erika de Casier's Lifetime album ("Seasons" was in my top 5 songs of the year), Mythic Quest season 4, PinkPantheress's Fancy That album, Certain Women (2016) (specifically Lily Gladstone's section), Irene & Seulgi's TILT EP, Lexie Liu's "FFF", ARTMS's "Icarus" music video and "Goddess", Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez's Absolute Martian Manhunter #004 (the whole series is great, but this issue in particular!!!)

July
After watching My Cousin Vinny (so much fun!!!), I sorta fell under a Ralph Macchio spell for the month of July. This guy's baby face is actually kind of insane. Did you know he was in Psych? I watched the first two Karate Kid films and also rewatched The Outsiders, which led to me rereading the book and experiencing emotions I haven't felt since I was thirteen years old. Stay gold, Ponyboy . . .


I got caught up in the Superman hype, but my interest in the new film was practically non-existent given my aversion to anything James Gunn-related. Instead, I ended up starting Smallville, which was a ton of fun. I also got more invested in Buffy the Vampire Slayer after finally making it through the slow first season. I'm on season 3 currently, and it's hitting me that in today's 8-episode season norm, we would have never gotten room for a season subplot like where Willow and Xander cheat on their respective partners with each other and have to deal with the emotional fallout of that. It sounds horribly tedious and annoying, but I love drama like this! It really solidified for me that the monster-of-the-week format and the 20-episode season length is simply the superior version of television. There's just so much breathing room to flesh out characters and relationships and really go into everyday minutiae in a way that you can't get with the more concise, serialized format of modern TV shows that're trying to be 8-hour long movies, and I miss that.



Other things I enjoyed: Emma (2020), Flo and Kaytranada's "The Mood", Aespa's "Dark Arts" (their only hit for me this year T-T), Psych: The Movie, Jae Stephens' "Kiss It", Blackpink's "JUMP", Kings (2009), Enhypen's "Fate"

August
My journey as a NCT fan has been . . . tumultuous, to say the least. Through middle/high school, in an effort to mesh with my 1D/5SOS/BTS/etc-obsessed agemates, I tried to get into various different boy groups, but nothing really stuck. But when I got to know of NCT in 2020, I became somewhat obsessed. It was a little embarrassing to have my boyband phase the minute I exited high school and officially left my teen years, but I couldn't bring myself to care. I blame the lack of social interaction and being cooped up inside due to the pandemic for the deep parasocial bond that sprung up.

For a short while, I had a great time keeping up with everything the group would do and following other fans on the TL. Then, the constant controversy the group found themselves embroiled in, alongside my own grievances as to how the group was managed and how annoying the fandom became, chipped away at my enthusiasm, leading my to gradually distance myself more and more. To give you an idea of how checked out I had become: the last era I tuned into for WayV (a group I used to consider one of my two ults) was On My Youth in 2023; while I listened to and enjoyed their recent title tracks, the last NCT 127 project I listened to in full was the Sticker repackage album in late 2021; I don't even remember what my last NCT Dream comeback was. The last straw was the horrific case that came out last summer against their former main vocalist. My interest in NCT and K-pop fandom in general completely fizzled out, and while I still had a fondness for a few members, the only time they registered to me was when they came out with something major or when I would see a mutual retweeting something on my TL.

That changed after watching KPop Demon Hunters. The display of fan antics in the movie reminded me of how much fun I used to have from keeping up with a group and fans. It led me to watching a few old videos for old-times sake, which quickly spiraled into a deep dive of their old content. I wouldn't say my NCTzen chip ended up getting reactivated, because I haven't been keeping up with what the group is doing/releasing recently and don't see myself redeveloping that interest in the future, but, well, something did end up getting reactivated for sure.

In my revisit, I really think 2016 - 2018 were NCT's prime years, their peak if you will. The creative direction and (unpopular opinion) the discography were just on a whole 'nother level. In particular, their 2018 filmography is so cool to me; I want to do another blog post just about my favorite NCT music videos. The group dynamic were a lot more fun as well, with less of the awkwardness between different units that appeared in future group projects. Things changed very noticeably after 2018, most fans say for the better, but I'll say maybe not for the worst, but certainly not for the better either.

Interestingly, looking at all their old content felt very bittersweet and made me kind of sad. Which is silly because I didn't even know of the group's existence during those years! But, when I was watching their old stuff, there was just this underlying sense I had of how nothing would be like this ever again; so many things I liked about them during that time in their history are barely present now. I wonder how I would have fared as a fan if I had kept up with them from the start; would I feel a deeper attachment to the group or be even more heartbroken than I am now?

Very cringe, I know. I can't wait for this NCT bug to get fully flushed out of my system.


Other things I enjoyed: Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Ríos's Pretty Deadly and Pretty Deadly: The Rat, oklou's choke enough album, Emotional Oranges and Jaehyun's "Call It Off", the new tracks from Jae Stephens' Sellout II album, Twice's "Right Hand Girl", Jaehyun's J album

September
Despite a relentless California sun and temperatures regularly reaching in the 90s, the last dregs of summer felt absolutely dreary to me. Mostly, this had to do with the lingering effects of the trouble that had plagued my family earlier in the summer, but I can't say that the books I were reading also didn't lend to my mood.

I finally finished up Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, a series I had probably started over more than three times in my childhood but had never finished. I'm glad I finally got to it as an adult, though. The writing style of fictional narrator Lemony Snicket just appeals to me so much. I love the utter misery he's perpetually in, I love the dark comedy, I love the winding tangents he goes on regarding things unrelated and related. As a tragedy enjoyer, the exploration of moral conundrums, injustice vs justice, and the mundanity of evil was just so *chef's kiss* to me. There's something to be said about how childhood, a period in your life when the adults in your life routinely overlook and dismiss you, is one of the biggest overlooked injustices. My personal favorite of the series had to be the appropriately named The Penultimate Peril, after which I finished reading, I had to stare into space for ten minutes. It's so good!

I also finished Jane Eyre and came away with a deep sadness for Bertha's character. I'm excited to read Wide Sargasso Sea next year and go more into her perspective. I also want to finally get around to watching Sangdil, a 1952 loose Hindi adaptation starring Dilip Kumar and the marvelous Madhubala (what a pairing!), and the main reason why I wanted to pick up the novel in the first place.

Other things I enjoyed: Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948), Singin' in the Rain (1952), Arrested Development season 2, Haechan's "WYN?" and "Adrenaline", Love in the Big City (2024), WJSN's "Babyface"

October
Yves's trajectory as a solo artist post-LOONA disbandment has been an absolute joy to witness. Her Soft Error EP that came out during the summer was great and you can see her really honing into her sound. The title track "Soap" was fine but weirdly mixed; I found that the Rebecca Black sample and PinkPantheress's feature here end up doing some heavy lifting. I might have been satisfied with it as a track if it had come from any other artist, but it truly pales in comparison to some of the tracks on the EP. The hyperpop "White Cat", electronic instrumental track "Study", and the slower "Do you feel it like I touch" that evokes oklou were showstoppers in their own right, and showcased Yves's refusal to follow generic trends in K-pop.

But personally, "Ex Machina", the add-on single to Soft Error that was released in October, was the true standout of Yves's musical output this year. I was sure I was going to dislike it at first based on the initial guitar strums (I do not care for acoustic tracks at all), but the guitar gets built up and as we reach the two-thirds mark, a glitching electronic effect slides the song from bare bones to something more layered. The previous verse gets echoed in the next chorus, and the song turns from subdued melancholy to downright haunting as strings and a looping beat pounding like a heart gets added on. This is the meltdown; the system is breaking down, short circuiting, decomposing. It feels like if you reach out and peeled back the singer's skin, you would find that underneath the frayed artificial skin, there lies a decaying metal heart, flickering and sparking. That "I wanna knooow ya / I wanna hooold ya / I wanna seeeee ya / But you just fade away from me" in the ending post-chorus is one of the few breaks we get from the incredibly high tones Yves's autotuned voice goes to in this song, and the effect is absolutely heartbreaking. The accompanying visual memo for "Ex Machina" is similarly haunting and gorgeous. I'm so glad that LOONA's legacy of cinematic masterpieces is living on (ARTMS's 15 minute short film for "Icarus" earlier this year was another iconic MV moment!)

Yves's feature on PinkPantheress's remix album for "Stars" was also great. As someone who ranked the original track last amongst the other songs of Fancy That, the added emphasis on dnb and the heartfelt sincerity of Yves's verse elevate it so much and made it one of my tracks of my year.


During October, I also grinded through and finally completed Disco Elysium. It was kind of surprising how the grimy, broken-down, hopeless setting of Revachol served as a comfort after a grueling day of work. I couldn't wait to throw up the game after logging off and hear those tinny horns that're constantly playing in the background, evoking the faded majesty of the city. I really loved the worldbuilding happening in the game and the decades of history contained in every crack, every bullet-hole in this run-down part of the world. And the simplistic gameplay was so engaging too! The military tribunal scene in particular was so insane, my heart felt as if it had permanently relocated to my throat during those five minutes. When I tried to get through the scene, things kept going wrong, and I repeatedly broke my "don't-go-back-to-a-previous-save" rule in order to try and salvage the situation, but in the end I just gave up and played it through to the best of my ability. Thankfully, I made it through, haha. Loved, loved that ending with the Phasmid creature. I'm looking forward to revisiting the game in the future and exploring more of this world.

Other things I enjoyed: Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Yasmine Hamdan's I remember I forget album ("Shmaali" is my song of the year), NMIXX's "Spinnin' On It" and "Podium", Lexie Liu's "Deeper & Deeper" and "X", Hearts2Hearts's "Focus" (the music video was literally like Cocomelon to me), Casablanca (1942), Sudan Archives's THE BPM album (my album of the year!)

November
I watched Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein in theaters at the beginning of the month. It was my first time seeing a movie by myself in theaters, and it was a great experience that I will definitely recreate in the future. I felt like that one pic of Don Draper in the cinemas, cigarette in hand as he looks contemplating at the big screen.


As for the actual movie itself, it was an entertaining two and a half hours! Not having read the book beforehand, I went in as a total blank slate and mostly enjoyed it. The sets and costuming were stunning, and Jacob Elordi delivered a heartwrenching performance as the Creature. It did feel like del Toro didn't trust his audience enough to come to the conclusions he wanted them to have (having a character say something along the lines of "Victor, you're the real monster" was bad enough, but having it outright repeated a second time later on in the movie by another character was just egregious), but in the end, I came away not having regretted the ticket price.

I did pick up Mary Shelley's novel afterwards, and having finished it, I get why readers were aggrieved by the movie adaptation. The characters are just so much more layered and interesting. Victor especially stood out, he's so one-note in the film by comparison. And while del Toro's sympathy towards all things monstrous is endearing, so much is missed by having the Creature be completely sympathetic, almost never in the wrong. The novel's version of the Creature is so wretched, so vengeful, so feeling, but it's precisely that that makes him sympathetic! Additionally, the omission of Justine's and Safie's storyline makes sense within the context of the movie, but I also feel like removing those scenes missed so much about what the novel was trying to say. You start to wonder why del Toro would choose to make this adaptation if he was just going to strip away all the nuances and themes that made it interesting in the first place.

Other things I enjoyed: Pluribus, The Hour season 1, Yerin Baek's Flash and Core album, Charli XCX and John Cale's "House", FKA Twigs's Eusexua Afterglow album, One Battle After Another (2025), Jennie's "Seoul City", Krystal's "Solidarity", Hridoy Khan's Bolna and Chowa albums

December
The long-awaited TV show adaptation of Percy Jackson and the Olympians was a major disappointment for me when it came out in winter 2023. Prior to the premiere, the main tagline for the show was that it would finally be the "faithful adaptation" of the Percy Jackson universe that fans had never gotten before, with the author and showrunners constantly using the infamous movie adaptations as their marker for everything that the show would not be. I thought it was really petty of this rich and successful author to still be taking shots at a ten-year old piece of work that had mostly become forgotten, but I can't say that the prospect of a filmed adaptation (The Lightning Thief musical my beloved <3) that finally got it right didn't thrill me. So of course, with these expectations, I hit play on the first episode that December night, expecting to see my favorite characters and universe come to life.

What a whiplash it was then, to see how unfamiliar everything had become. By the time I finished season one, it seemed clear to me that the word "rewrite" better suited the show than "faithful adaptation". Almost all characterizations had been changed in sometimes debilitating ways, important plot points were modified or omitted for seemingly no good reason, and it became increasingly obvious as the season went on that the trajectory of the show would not follow the books'.

Okay, so the book didn't exactly translate to screen. I was disappointed, but I could have lived with that, if the show also hadn't committed the cardinal sin of being mind-numbingly boring. The books have always dealt with serious topics, but they also knew how to strike the balance between life-and-death stakes and lightheartedness. One of the main things everyone knows about the franchise is that it's funny! How do you make a Percy Jackson adaptation so devoid of its inherent goofiness and humor? Additionally, the writers struggled so much with incorporating exposition, and there was a severe case of telling but not showing. There were so many moments where for some reason, the characters would already know literally everything when they found themselves in situations, which defanged so much of the tension. It was also such an odd choice, given that the reason the PJO worldbuilding works so well is because we're discovering how the world works along with Percy. But when Percy already knows everything and sees traps and monsters coming from a mile away, of course the viewer is left feeling a little out of it! This, combined with the awful pacing, the hesitance to depict any violence or action due to the age rating and restrained budget, and the rewriting of several plot points lead to no sense of urgency or stakes whatsoever. For all their faults as adaptations, at least the movies were entertaining to watch as their own things and worked well as movies. And they were funny! 

The overwhelming midness of the show tanked my obsession with PJO, an impressive feat considering it had been one of my longest-running hyperfixations. I mean, Percy had been in the running for my blorbo of the year pretty much every year since I was eleven years old, but after that first season, he was more or less non-existent to me. For a good two years, I ignored everything related to the universe. The trailers that came out during the summer for season 2 did pique my interest, so when the first two episodes rolled out this month, I decided to give it a try, but went in with significantly lower expectations. Initially, it seemed I was right to be cautious – the season premiere almost felt like a remnant of season 1 with how clunky the pacing was and the simultaneous over-explaining and breezing past important moments/details. It was so meh that I ended up ignoring the show for a couple of weeks, until I saw the overwhelmingly positive reaction to episode 4, even from longtime critics. Given that its subject matter personally appealed to me (will expand on this in a sec), I decided to give the show another chance.

I'm really glad I did, because at the time of writing this, I can honestly say this season is so much better than the first. Thank God!!! With episodes 2, 3, and 4, the show seems to have hit their stride. The thing that stuck out immediately was how much more watchable these episodes were, compared to the slog that was season 1. The increased budget allowed for more and better CGI and effects, leading to action sequences that actually feel tactile and gritty. And I cannot overstate how much better the writing direction is this season – there's definitely a deviation from the books, but the new choices the writers have made so far actually make sense, feel emotionally earned, and in some cases, improve upon some beats in the book, which is great considering The Sea of Monsters is widely considered the series's weakest installation. Combined with well-placed humor and jokes, the show is finally starting to feel like Percy Jackson. And best of all, the main cast's acting has improved so much – I thought the trio in season 1 all embodied the spirit of the characters, but there was a slight awkwardness and stiffness which I'm happy to report is barely present in the new season. I feel like a proud mom watching them nail their delivery and sell the hell out of weaker moments in the script :')

Episode 4 has got to be the show's best so far. I'm probably biased because of the episode's premise, but I don't care. The broken trio of Luke-Thalia-Annabeth in the books is one of the reasons why I still keep coming back to this series. The story of these three is one of the cornerstones of what made Riordan's storytelling in the original series so great, and the way he constructed this dynamic is something he hasn't been able to surpass yet in his later works. It's why I was so happy to see this trio and their past getting delved into further. Thalia is one of my favorite characters in PJO and I love this iteration of her. Tamara Smart brings the punk rock fierceness the character is known for, but also imbues an underlying gentleness towards a seven year old Annabeth that's so tearjerking, you can't believe we only got a glimpse of this in one sentence in the books. I love, love, love the connection we're getting between her and Luke – I've been an enjoyer of the Thaluke tragedy since forever, but the majority of the fandom doesn't see what I do, so I have been living off of literal crumbs for years. So you can imagine my delight at seeing their dynamic play out in live action. I can't wait to watch her kick him off a cliff in the next season <3.


I will say though, the show is still now without its flaws. One of its main detriments is that as much as I love this version of Annabeth, I wish they hadn't stripped away so much of the 12-year old girl in her character in favor of doing a character arc where she has to learn "how to be a kid" and "get in touch with her humanity". For all that she's a hardened warrior demigod, Annabeth early in the book series is also so clearly a pre-teen girl with all the messiness, silliness, and immaturity of one. She cries easily and she gets flustered around the older boy she likes and she's kind of bossy and smug at times and she makes unneeded detours during a time-sensitive quest so she can nerd out over architecture and she gets so angry and blows up when she's confronted with betrayal. We've only gotten the barest hints of this side of Annabeth in the show, which makes me so sad. Leah Sava Jeffries is doing a fantastic job in delivering Annabeth's warrior side and displaying her grief and her hope for connection with others and the overwhelming pressure she feels, but I wish the show would let her be a silly kid sometimes! I know she could do it!

And I've heard that the second half of the series is going to drastically depart from the book canon, which has made me very nervous to be honest . . . So far, the writers have at least been using the books as a bare outline and have recently done a good job of reinterpreting the text, but if we're going completely off script, I'm not too sure how much I'll like the end product. We'll see when we get there, I guess.

Other things I enjoyed: the new songs on Jae Stephens's Total Sellout album, Holly Black's The Cruel Prince trilogy, Zayn's Mind of Mine album, Frank Ocean's Blonde album