侍神令 The yinyang master - 2021

 Nothing special, really. Not bad, no, by all means it’s entertaining, but the first one was much better, to me. The other was romantic/sentimental, with a bit of mystery and awesome battles, while this one has odd-looking monsters, very few words of loyalty that are neither here or there, and a final battle between two characters who re-enter the scene after becoming super-mega-sayan or something like that. 

It is rather silly in many moments, kind of ridicule on purpose, like when the guards run away, or the ferrets playing-fighting, or the butt-shaking dance or whatever the monsters were doing, or when the huge hand-monster hits him like a volleyball.

It was well done, though. I liked the actress playing the snow queen, she was cool. The effects were good.

Story:

Seven years ago, QingMing was found among lots of corpses of his fellow… yin yang masters? Even though they were kids? Lots of masters? Quite easy to become masters around here, apparently… anyway, they were all there to guard a special stone, very dangerous for some reason. Everyone believes he did it, tried to steal it and killed all the others for it, and unable to successfully defend himself, he fled. He had always been sort of ‘part monster’, so everyone easily judged him guilty. Chief Baini doesn’t want to, but she’s alone in that.

Now: Imperial guard Boya is attacked on the road by some ferret-monsters (meaning they are not human, they belong to the other world of ‘monsters’, but they aren’t either ugly or evil). QingMing also appears, and all together they rob Boya of all the imperial tributes he was supposed to guard. The rest of the imperial guard fled quite early, shame on them! Because he lost it all, he is stripped of his rank (I think, but he keeps calling himself a guard) and forced to get it back or else.

So he’s very determined to find this thief and get it all back.

Qingming lives in a nice little heaven for monsters that he took as familiars, meaning they fight and die together, never betraying each other, but most of all these monsters have a safe place to stay and will never become evil because they are familiars. Or so they say. But when a black-winged monster sent by the snow queen steals the red stone and, hit by Baini’s arrow, lands near the ferrets, one of them swallows the stone instead of giving it back (they really like their shiny things) he becomes contaminated. Qingming doesn’t know right away what he has inside (I think) but locks him away with a spell nonetheless.

Baini and her people now hunt him down believing he betrayed them and stole it. They also fight over a special sword that should be dangerous to monsters.

Boya and a girl obsessed with serving Qingming find him and Boya ends up with the sword by accident. Qingming gets it back when all the monsters attack them to get it back, and Baini is injured protecting him and he saves her life bringing her to his house. Boya frees the ferret from the spell, because he’s an idiot, so Qingming has to kill him with the sword and Baini gets the stone back. She goes away but is attacked by the snow queen. Qingming arrives to help her after all her men are defeated - dead, all of them. He already told her that he didn’t kill the others seven years before, it was the snow queen, and he’s been searching for her, and now he follows her to fight her and he kills her - quite funnily in a creepy sort of way she starts speaking and revealing all after he cut her throat: she says she did it all to serve her master, yin yang master Cimu that he thought had died back then, but he didn’t. He orchestrated the whole thing to get the stone, but being human he couldn’t touch it back then so she took him away leaving the stone behind. Now Cimu attacks Baini and gets the stone and it goes inside him making him extra strong and half-monster. He releases the power of the stone contaminating all monsters around, sending them to attack Qingming’s place. All the familiars together fight to keep them back. 

Qingming tries to stop him, but he’s more powerful than the sword, breaking the stone instead of dying after he stabs him. Everyone thinks Qingming has died, but the soul of the evil serpent with nine heads offers him to join him to get his powers. This Xianglu is the same that kept talking to him when he was younger, and sort of influenced Cimu, although not entirely its fault. Cimu himself says that he started thinking about power when he saw how much power a half-monster like Qingming had, and started craving that power for himself.

So, what I understood is that Qingming accepted Xianglu as his familiar and the spirit sort of got into him granting him immense power, so he started flying around and he fought Cimu and his huge hand-monster, and somehow defeated him, but the fight wasn’t very captivating to me.

After he won, he released everyone from the familiar-bond and went away. Boya was declared the hero that saved everyone from the monsters. The red stone is no more because after taking it out of Cimu’s body Qingming destroyed it crushing it in his hand like nothing. 

阴阳师: 晴雅集 The yinyang master dream of eternity - 2020

I liked this movie very much, really. The scenes were just beautiful to watch, really beautiful, and the plot was very oriental-romantic. It reminded me of Reyheart, the way he almost destroys the world only for her love, not because she wants him to, she’s good, but because he wants to be with her and be able to protect her forever. 

The fact that Wang Duo has an important role in this movie was fantastic, I loved it.

Details (as I watched it):

A Yin-Yang master teaches QingMing a protection spell, but the boy can’t do it. When the snake of evil appears, the master and all his apprentices fight him with three spirits, but only manage to seal him back into ice at great cost. A spirit sacrifices himself, while the master gets hit and the snake’s venom can’t be cured.

The body of the snake is in the Imperial City; 300 years ago the four lands (South land, East islands, West region and North city, or something like that) locked it in there, putting up four statues to protect the world, and now the master tells Qinming that he must go to the east as the yin-yang master… (wait, why him? where are the others? they could do the protection spell, he couldn’t, why is he the new master?)

Anyway, at the imperial city there’s an old empress and a young princess who rumours say manipulates the empress a she likes, maybe even using dark magic.

Qingming is there with the other masters; Boya is the only one dressed as a warrior with a sword, Qingming uses spells and his fan, then there’s a girl and there’s He (Wang Duo !!!)

Boya hates demons and would like to kill them all, but Qingming uses them as his guardians, because not all demons are evil, like his butterfly girl who only eats honey.

I think they have to kill  demons to gather this life-energy-balls or something, to feed the protective statues, but Qingming doesn’t seem in a hurry to do that.

I think master He Shouyie is not a man but a guardian spirit, and now that his master is dead he doesn’t have long to live? But since the body of the snake is locked into the empress body, they have to protect her at all cost (this one I think I understand, because its body is immortal, so they can’t kill it, only imprison it, and if she dies it gets released )

Qingming tells Boya they are stupid to kill so many and  do so much work, he wishes to kill one really bad and be done with it.

A demon of obsessions attacks the princess, meaning she’s quite obsessed, and Qingming saves her and feeds that demon to the statue, and that one alone is enough to wake the guardian statue. 

Then the girl master is killed by the hair demon that already killed a master in there. Before dying she said it was the princess, so Qingming thinks that she’s the culprit, that she wants to free the snake, while he believes that He can’t do that because of his link with his old master, but I heard He telling the princess that he must kill the others and then free the snake.

Boya thinks it’s He Shouyie, while Qingming thinks it’s the princess, so they test them separately, and find out that they are working together, the princess is actually the empress, and He Shouyie didn’t betray her but is helping her. Now Boya and Qingming confront them, and the princess admits everything. A long time ago she ate the flesh of a siren to become immortal, so that she could contain the snake forever, but she became a prisoner herself. She changed her identity lots of times, a florist, a singer, until the emperor chose her and when he died she became empress then she became the princess. She keeps losing everyone she loves, so now she wants the snake’s immortality because He Shouyie is dying. 

The snake comes out of her body and enters He Shouyie’s, who instantly heals, but it’s not enough. They free the snake who eats people’s desires and becomes huge, gigantic, and He Shouoyie plans to leave the city with the princess, and wander the world, but she’s touched by people’s sufferings and instead choses to die with him. They get eaten by the snake but are not dead, somehow He Shouyie is part of the snake now and controls lots of power. Qingming calls three spirits, one of them the demon he saved from Boya the first time they met, and they fight but it’s not enough because the four guardian statues were not awaken, He Shouyie should have taken care of the fourth but he didn’t, so Boya wakes it with his own blood becoming another spirit guardian or something. He’s now like a winged spirit who flies to fight him.

So, uhm… He Shouyie is actually Zhongxing, the late yin-yang master. He was in love with the princess, and she loved him, and because of this he left, because she had the snake in her (who would have fed on her emotions?) and he went to teach Qingming. Before leaving, he create a paper guardian with his feelings and the order to protect her forever. To fullfill her wish to see him, He Shouyie became Zhongxing and became obsessed with his task, to protect her forever, and to do it forever he needed to become immortal.

Now she sees what is happening, confronts her sadness at knowing that Zhongxing is dead, and stops him by cutting her throat. He’s half defeated by the Boya-spirit, but launches a last attack, and Qingming finally manages the protection spell to protect real-Boya, becoming a true master, and defeats him. He Shouyie dies after grabbing Fangyue’s hand (the princess), and for now the snake has been stopped, but Qingming and Boya know that it might come back somewhere in the world, maybe in a few decades, and then they’ll fight together again.

A heartfelt goodbye, Boya stays behind while Qingming goes away.

Unicorn store - 2017

 I liked it, I did! Surprisingly. I wasn’t so sure after the first few minutes but it turned out good.

Details:

We see Kit growing up. Born in 1990, we see a beautiful, adorable little girl growing up, laughing and colouring, until she’s actually painting right now, in front of three very stern looking people, who of course do not like her exuberant painting style and do not accept her.

She goes back home to her parents, feeling very low and a bit of a failure. It doesn’t help that her parents kind of walk on tiptoes around her and bring home Kevin, who now works with them at Emotional Quest, Kit feels like they like him more than they like her.

She ends up blurting out that she has a plan, a temp agency she heard on tv, telling them what the commercial said.

She leaves her colourful clothes behind and wears a serious outfit that once belonged to her mother. She says she wants to be a professional from now on, she doesn’t want to be a disappointment to her family. She wants to be a new improved her, a grown-up who eats her veggies even though she hates it, and who wears a grey outfit instead of a rainbow one.

She starts working as a temp in a company where she… uses the copy machine. At first that seems the only thing she has to do, but on her first day she meets Gary, the vice president, who apparently likes her. She asks him if ever wanted to do something else, and it appears like he did have a dream when he was little, but then he says “why not wish we could fly? we can’t, so we focus on what we can do”.

Apparently she works in a company that makes commercials, and they are working on one for the ‘mystic vac vacuum’ product, and she tries out a few sketches ideas.

After finding a strange card on her desk, or her purse, or delivered to her (or all of them, not sure actually) she goes to this place called The Store that promised to sell ‘what she wants, what she needs’ without any other specifics. She goes there and the place is big, but there are no customers and no goods, only a man who calls himself The Salesman, and they talk. She always wanted a unicorn, since she was a child, and he says that that is in fact a unicorn store, and she can get her own if she wants. A magical creature full of love who will love her ForEver.

Of course she wants. 

The man doesn’t ask for money, but gives her tasks. She has to provide a suitable home-like place first, so she wants to build a mini-stable. She goes to a hardware store but since she doesn’t seem to know what she wants, the man there probably thought she was a bit looney and directed her to another employer called Virgil, probably because he doesn’t like him and likes to dump annoying customers on him. The young man tries to tell her no but she insists she needs his help and he accepts.

Then The Salesman tells her about providing food adequate for a unicorn, so she buys lots of hay and kips it in colours to make it more… appropriate. After all, this is a girl who likes glitter almost too much, and still talks to the stuffed Care Bears in her room, and is planning to actually buy a unicorn. Plus, the coloured hay really did look good and suitable for a magical ‘horse’.

At this point, The Salesman tells her she has to provide a loving environment, loving family, so she tries to get closer to her parents, sort of make peace although it’s not like they actually fought or something. So she goes on a “Emotional Quest” trip with them, and it seems to be going well until night time when it’s ‘truth circle’ time. Two of the girls there tell her that they always lie, that there must be tears otherwise it won’t be enough, and that they always make up sad stories. Every kid share a story with the others, and Kit’s parents listen and nod and say encouraging words, until it’s her turn. She doesn’t really want to, but they really want her to join in so she does, she asks if they want the truth and then she says it all, she says she is going to get a unicorn. Her parents are a bit… upset? worried? both? On one hand there’s the question, is she ok? is she still this childish? on the other hand there is: is she doing it on purpose? is she not taking this seriously? is she just taking the piss? I think it’s a combination of all this points that has them taking her away from the others to talk, but she insists she’s being serious, she’s really getting a unicorn, and then she tells them that they listened and believed all those lying kids but not to her. Her mom storms away, her dad tells her that they know perfectly well those stories were lies, that many kids often lies, but that they all had tragic, hard stories behind and even lying could help.

After this, she focuses on her job presentation, she paints the vacuum and covers it in glitter, she goes to work in ostentatious clothes and throws glitter everywhere. It’s a real mess, honestly, but her presentation is good, if rather messy, and then she explains that it would be a vacuum for ones problems and fears, but the lady in charge of deciding isn’t convinced at all, she doesn’t like the mess and the rainbows and all that mess, and they go instead with the other, the previous idea (the usual stuff, you know, only made it worse for effect: a sexy lady in lingerie with a baby in her arms vacuuming her house, the modern sexy version of a 50s perfect housewife, whenever there’s a commercial like that I make a note to NOT ever buy anything of that brand). And of course she’s fired, not promoted. 

Through all this, she kept working with Virgil, talking to him, doing everything with him unless she was at work. They were having quite a nice relationship. He only said ‘okay’ when others would have asked her if she was insane, he was admiring her art work and said the guy who said she wasn’t good was an idiot (the artist famous for putting a stick in a box), who smiled fascinated at her when she was being her odd-self, honestly, they were adorable together really, but then she finally decided to tell him why she wanted that stable. She already said it was not a horse, not exactly, so now she tells him about getting a unicorn. Of course he doesn’t share her enthusiasm. He doesn’t yell or anything, he’s really a dear, always sweet and funny, but of course he doesn’t believe in unicorns and wants to go with her to the store. They go together, and the place is empty, nothing of all the things she saw before, no Salesman in sight. Virgil tells her that it was a con-man, but she doesn’t understand. She didn’t give him money, she didn’t give him financial details of any kind, nothing really, so how? why? 

She tells him she wanted a unicorn so it would love her ForEver, and rejects his attempts to say that he likes her - in a very friendly way, though, not in a ‘hitting on her’ way, not at all at his point, so it’s not like a ‘I don’t want to sleep with you’ rejection, it’s actually a ‘nobody can really like me, you’re just saying that but you don’t, I can’t believe it, nobody really likes me for who I am’ kind of feeling. I really felt for her there, it was the first time my soul felt like exposed. She also thinks she failed in her task to provide a loving environment when she had that fight with her parents, and that why she blew her chance with the unicorn.

She’s so down now that she throws out all the stuff in her room, all her childhood drawings and paint and stuffed bears and of course the glitter and everything like that. Virgil is not talking to her, apparently, she left him two messages, but then she hears him working in the backyard and she comes out to see the small shed is now completed and full with all her stuff, completely decorated with the stuff she tried to throw away. It’s very full, quite colourful, and very very ‘her’. 

“It’s an art show of my life”, she says, and then he says one of the sweetest things: “if you were a building, this is what you’d look like”, and I like it so much, feeling a bit weird because maybe not everyone would like to be compared to a home-made little shed in someone’s backyard, full of childhood drawings and glitter, and yet it was very sweet because spoke of understanding and acceptance, because it was indeed very much her, and he put it together with her parents, without anyone asking any of them, witch spoke of true affection.

She felt like me though, because she replied: “that is the nicest thing a man ha ever said to me”, although I’m not sure why specifically ‘a man’ and not ‘anyone’, but it’s okay, it works either way.

Now, her phone rings and it’s The Salesman, telling her her unicorn has arrived. He also says that the store is only for her, that Virgil couldn’t see because he doesn’t believe, and that there is another woman who wants the unicorn, so if she wants it she must decide now and hurry up. Virgil wants her to say no, thinking it’s not true, but she says ok, she says she must go, she can’t live not knowing, or something like that. So she goes, apparently she goes immediately since she seems to have on the same colourful pajamas and also slippers.

The Store is there again, and she goes in and finds… a white unicorn, like the one she always dreamt about. She talks to him. It’s a male. For the whole movie she kept saying ‘she’, having already decided on two names to call her, but now The Salesman says it’s a he and she starts talking, remembering when she was little and a unicorn was her imaginary friend that she called Steve and that used to play with her, and how she loved Steve, and also adds that now she can go on, there is another woman who needs him and he will have to be there for her, be her best friend like he once was for her, and I had tears in my eyes. I had a tree. I loved that tree. I hope it’s still alive, but I don’t live there anymore and people often don’t care about trees even if it was important and made the best, most delicious cherries in the world, after many years still haven’t found the likes anywhere.

We see that The Salesman enters the room with Virgil, who apparently now can see it, and they go out together, bumping into a nervous woman who received the same card she once got, evidently the ‘other woman’ that needed the unicorn. A woman dressed in black with tears in her voice.

Kit and Virgil leave hand in hand. The end.   =^_^=

p.s. The Salesman is a pink-wearing Samuel L. Jackson with glitter in his big hair… who sounds a little bit creepy when he tells her if she doesn’t want to “hug the shit out of her very own precious pink unicorn? Braid its hair? sing it songs? ‘bake it cookies’?”  and who also sounds so very serious when he replies to her “unicorns aren’t real” with: “as a person who works in a unicorn store, I take great offence in that”. SLJ can really do anything, can he? Not many are so versatile, he’s really something ^_^

p.p.s. Larson and Athie were very good too, I liked it very much ^_^

Kit- Brie Larson

The Salesman- Samuel L. Jackson

Mom- Joan Cusack

Dad- Bradley Whitford

Virgil- Mamoudou Athie

Sabrina- Martha Macisaac

Gary- Hamish Linklater

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone by JK Rowling

(Audiobook read by Stephen Fry, loved his narrating voice a lot)

Well, I enjoyed the Potter books much more when I first read them years ago, I don’t remember but I guess it was twenty years ago or something more. Now, I’m too grown-up to fully enjoy the magic and the descriptions without getting irritated at ‘adult stuff’, like the absurdity of the school for example.

Also, I now found it so very sad… so sad, really, the beginning almost had me in tears.

Anyway, on with the book in details.

The first chapter is all about the Dursley family, how Vernon dislikes anything eccentric and his wife Petunia pretends she doesn’t have a sister anymore and she has never seen her nephew Harry. Their baby son Dudley seems to be a spoiled bully already. At night, Dumbledore and McGonagall wait for Hagrid - who arrives flying Sirius’ motorbike - to bring them Harry, the son of James and Lily Potter, recently killed. Minerva does not agree, but Dumbledore says that leaving Harry with his family is the best choice they have, and that it’ll be alright, he’ll be safe, he left the Dursley a letter and they’ll be able to explain it all to Harry… (knowing the story already, I found this very very sad…)

Poor child Harry has to endure his cousin being a bully and hitting him a lot, unless he can escape. He can never leave the house, aside for school, he only has Dudley’s old clothes and eats what they leave for him. When they want to take Dudley and one of his bully friends to the zoo and there’s nobody to watch Harry, they have to take him. Suddenly Harry thinks he’s talking to a snake, and all of the sudden the glass disappears and the snake scares Dudley a lot. They get very angry with him. He is forbidden from asking any kind of questions.

Harry never gets mail, but finally a letter arrives for him, addressed to the cupboard under the stairs where they have him sleep. Vernon takes it away from him, and they keep coming, and Vernon tries to burn them all, and to lock all doors and windows but they keep coming, so they take the car and he drives a lot, stops at a hotel but the letter arrives there too, so they drive some more and stop at an old broken house at sea. 

Harry is cold and hungry, and in ten minutes it’ll be his eleventh birthday. Harry still hopes and dreams, and when midnight strikes there’s a boom, someone’s knocking! The knocks are like booms. Vernon has a rifle. The door is broken down, then the giant man puts it back and asks for tea…

Hagrid smiles at Harry and says he looks like his dad but has his mother’s eyes, then he bends Vernon’s rifle and says Happy Birthday to Harry, giving him a broken box with a large chocolate cake inside. Hagrid introduces himself, lights the fire with magic and sits. Makes tea and food, Harry is very hungry. He knows nothing about Hogwarts and magic stuff, and Hagrid is shocked and tells him everything he can, about being a wizard and about Voldemort.

The Dursley knew how his parents died, but kept it hidden to beat the magic out of him. Vernon still protests, and Hagrid gives Dudley a pig tail.

Harry thinks it’s all a dream and doesn’t want to wake, but it’s real, and he’s happy.

Hagrid, with his pink umbrella, takes Harry away. They go to London, to the Leaky Cauldron where they meet people and prof Quirrel, then he touches a wall and they are in Diagon Alley. They go to Gringotts underground first, for Harry’s money and for Hogswarts business.

They need to buy his stuff, first his uniform. He meets a pale boy very snob that reminds him of Dudley. Then his books and cauldron. Hagrid buys him an owl as a gift, then it’s time of his wand. Ollivander is not very nice, i think. When all is finished, he goes back to the Dursley.

They ignore him all August, then they take him to the station and leave him there. He asks around, starts to panic, then he meets a family. The twins find out who he is and tell Ron, who then sits with him. He says that in his family they are all wizard, apart from a relative nobody speaks about…. what about that??? 

They meet Neville, crying because he lost his toad, and Hermione, who is very bossy. Draco arrives with his bodyguards Crabbe and Goyle, and offers his hand, but Harry refuses. Malfoy acts very snobby again.

They arrive at Hogwarts, meet McGonagall (someone not to cross). Harry is scared it’ll be a test, then they see ghosts about (fat friar was hufflepuff), then they go in… the hat sings a son about how Griffindors are brave at heart, about daring and chivalry. Hufflepuff are just and loyal, patient and true, and unafraid of toil. Ravenclaw are ready of mind, have wit and want to learn. Slitherin are cunning and will go to any means to achieve their ends.

Harry feels like none of them.

Hanna Abbot is a Hufflepuff, Susan Bones too, Terry Boot is a Ravenclaw, Lavender a Griffindor, Bulstrode a Slitherin, Justin Finch-Fletchley a Hufflepull, Finnigan a Griffindor like Granger - Ron groans, not happy about it. Harry is worried he’ll be thrown out. Neville falls, and after a long time is a Griffindor. Malfoy is immediately a Slitherin. Finally Harry’s name, and there are many whispers. Apparently it’s a difficult choice, the hat sees plenty of courage, not a bad mind, talent and a thirst to prove himself… at which point Harry keep praying “not Slitherin” so the hat says “better be Griffindor”. After the sorting ceremony, the tables fill with food, plenty of it. The Dursley didn’t exactly starve him, but he could never eat all he wanted because Dudley hate most of it.

Harry sees Quirrel talking to Snape and his scar hurts. 

Seamus says his dad is a muggle and knew nothing of his wife being a witch until after the marriage. Neville says his wizard family thought he had no magic and tried a lot to make it happen, he was almost drowned and he almost died falling from a great height, but luckily he bounced - showing he had magic - and then he got his letter.

The first potion lesson is horrible, Snape aims at the new celebrity, it’s only nice to Malfoy and very unfair to Potter. He takes 2 points from Griffindor. In the afternoon, he has tea with Hagrid and Ron. Harry wonders why Snape hates him.

Malfoy is more hateful than Dudley. It’s their first flying lesson, and he’s happy to see Malfoy got the position on the broom wrong. Malfoy wants to put Neville’s remembrall on a tree but Harry flies after him. Malfoy throws it and Harry catches it. McGonagall sees him and bends the rule to have him play Quidditch as the new seeker. 

At meal, Malfoy challenges him to a duel at midnight. Hermione, very interfering, wants to stop them. Locked outside the dorm, she goes with them. Neville is found asleep on the floor because he forgot the password, so he goes with them - since the fat lady was gone from the painting.

Malfoy is not there. Filch arrives, so they hide. Harry leads them away and they arrive on the third floor. Neville makes a noise so they run. Later they meet Peeves who yells on them, so they run away again. They are in the forbidden corridor, and they see a room with a three-headed dog. They run away again, to their dorm. Hermione noted the dog was standing on a trapdoor and complains “we could have been killed or worse expelled”. Putting things together, Harry knows the dog must be guarding what was almost stolen at Gringotts but taken by Hagrid before the theft.

Harry starts Quidditch training, and two months go by. Hermione hears Ron saying that everybody hates her, and cries all day locked in a bathroom. When Quirrell warns them all about a troll, Harry remembers her and they hurry to help. In the girls bathroom, they hear her scream and run to help. Harry jumps on it, she’s terrified, Ron uses “wingardium leviosa” on the club and knows the troll out. McGonagall is furious with them but Hermione lies saying she went after the troll and they saved her. The boys are speechless. From this moment on, they are friends.

It’s November, and after weeks of training there will be Harry’s first Quidditch match, against Slytherin. Hermione helps him with homework. Snape is limping and Harry suspects him (he suspects it was caused by the three headed dog).

The Slytherin seeker is called Terence. Suddenly Harry’s broom moves strangely, out of control, and he’s dangling off it… Hermione suspects too so she looks at Snape and sees him muttering, so she goes to him, knocks down Quirrell then set Snape’s robes on fire. 

Harry gets the snitch in his mouth, still counts, so they win, 170 to 70. 

They tell all to Hagrid but he won’t believe Snape would do that. During the chat, he mentions Nicholas Flamel.

For Christmas Harry will stay at Hogwarts. The Weasley too, Ron’s parents are in Romania. 

They research Flamel but find nothing. It’s the Christmas holidays… and Harry’s got presents!!! One from Hagrid, and Mrs Weasley made him a jumper. Ron unhappy because his jumper is always maroon. Hermione gave him chocolate. Last, he finds… the invisibility cloak.

There is no name, only a note saying that it belonged to his father before he died. “Use it well”, the note says… 

There’s a feast and they can play with the snow, and it’s Harry’s best Christmas ever. 

Harry uses the cloak that night, to go to the restricted section of the library… but then a book shrieks so he runs. He goes in a room to escape Filch. He sees a mirror, but it doesn’t simply reflects his image. Harry sees at least ten people. His parents and family. The next night he goes with Ron. Ron sees himself older and Head Boy, winning the house cup, and the Quidditch cup, being a Quidditch captain…

Ron tells him not to go again, but Harry can’t resist and he goes. Dumbledore sees him and he explains that the mirror shows one’s deepest desire. Dumbledore says he sees socks, because no-one gives him socks, only books…

Neville was hexed by Malfoy and Hermione helps with the counter-curse, and Harry says that Neville is worth twelve Malfoys and that there’s a reason if the hat put him in Gryffindor, making him smile.

Harry gives Neville his last chocolate frog and Neville gives him the card, and finally Harry finds the name Flamel in Dumbledore’s card. Hermione has a book that says of Flamel’s work in alchemy, the “only known maker of the philosopher’s stone”, which “will transform any matter into pure gold, it also produces the elixir of life, which will make the drinker immortal”. 

So Hermione says that the three headed dog must be guarding the stone, that Flamel asked Dumbledore to keep it safe because they are friends…

The next Quidditch game will be very important, but Harry is very worried because Snape will be the referee. They are all scared but Harry plays anyway. 

Nobody was ahead of Slytherin in nearly seven years or something. Harry feels better when he hears that Dumbledore is watching, because he won’t let Snape kill him… while he plays, Ron fights with Malfoy because Malfoy was insulting Neville Harry and Ron, and Neville helps fighting Crabbe and Goyle… then Harry wins after only five minutes. Harry is happy, very proud for something he has really done. He’s about to put his broom away when he sees Snape going to the forbidden forest, so he follows him. Snape has a secret meeting with Quirrell, and he thinks that Snape wants Quirrel to help him get the stone…they think there are other things protecting the stone, and Snape wants Quirrel to help him with that, so Quirrel must resist…

Since Snape hasn’t the stone yet, they think Quirrel is stronger than they thought and standing up to him, so Harry smiles at him and Ron stops other guys from making fun of him. Hermione starts nagging about exams in ten weeks. They need to pass their exams to get into second year. The Easter holidays are passed studying. They meet Hagrid in the library and realise he was reading about dragons, but keeping dragons is illegal. Hagrid says both Quirrel and Snape put some of the protection for the stones.

Hagrid calls them when the egg hatches. Malfoy finds out about it, so harry convince them to send Norbert the dragon to Charlie in Romania. They’ll send it off at midnight, but Malfoy found out that too, very probably, so they must be careful.

Malfoy tries to catch them but is caught by McGonagall and given detention. They are under the invisibility cloak. Harry and Hermione because Ron is in the infirmary. They give Norbert to Charlie’s friends.

They are caught by Filch because they left the cloak at the tower. They lose 150 points, and also the chance at the house cup. All Gryffindors hate him but Ron. Harry, Hermione and Neville also have detention, with Malfoy. Filch takes them to Hagrid and they enter the forbidden forest, investigating what is hurting unicorns. Harry then finds a dead unicorn and a strange figure drinking its blood, but a centaur called Firenze comes to help him and lets him ride him until they meet the others (where’s Malfoy and Fang the dog now?)

harry tells the others and realises that Voldemort is trying to stay alive drinking unicorn blood, until he can drink the elixir of life and come back.

Finished their exams, Harry finally realises what he had missed. Who gave Hagrid the dragon egg?

They ask Hagrid, and realise that after drinking a lot, he told a complete stranger that with a bit of music you can put Fluffy to sleep.

They go out that night to stop Snape from taking the stone. Neville tries to stop them but Hermione casts a petrificus totalus on him and off they go together with the cloak that appeared back in his bed.

They rush to the third floor, and there’s a harp there, Snape passed already! Harry plays the flute Hagrid gave him for Xmas, and Fluffy sleeps. Ron and Hermione open the trapdoor, but there’s a dark fall so Harry volunteers. Hermione plays the flute and they jump, then she jumps, and they land on a plant, the devil’s snare, and it starts trapping them, so Hermione uses magic fire on it (so ‘Snape’ didn’t kill it? or maybe the fire only stops it for a little while??)

Then there’s a room full of flying keys. There are brooms and they fly and catch it together. Next room, there’s a big chessboard. Ron takes charge and they take the place of three pieces who move out of the way. Ron sacrifices his own piece (himself) so they can win and move on. 

(so far: Hagrid with fluffy, Sprout with the devils snare, Flitwick with the keys, McGonagall with the chessboard, it leaves Snape and Quirrel’s traps-protections)

Next is a troll, already knocked-out. Next, a series of potions, and a roll of paper with a riddle with clues. It’s a game of logic, and Hermione says wizards have no logic, so it’s difficult for many of them. 

She solves it and she drinks the one to be able to go back, so she gets Ron and a broom and go owl Dumbledore. Harry drinks another and goes forward. There’s someone there, but it’s not Snape. 

It was Quirrel. Quirrel tells him that Snape was always trying to save his life while he himself tried to kill him. 

Quirrel says Snape hates him because he hated Harry’s father, but that he never wanted to kill him.

The next protection is the mirror of Erised, and a voice says “use the boy” so Harry looks and sees the stone in his pocket and then feels it there. Then Voldemort gets angry, so Quirrel takes his turban off and in the back of Quirrel’s head there’s Voldemort’s face. Voldemort knows it’s in Harry’s pocket and tries to get him, to get Quirrell to kill him, but he gets hurt when he touches Harry, so Harry sticks to him so he can’t curse. His scar aches.

Harry wakes after 3 days in the hospital wing with Dumbledore. He says: the stone was destroyed, and Quirrel nearly killed him but Dumbledore was on time to save him.

He answers some questions, not all of them of course, and tells him that his touch hurt because he’s protected by the great love of his mother who died for him, and that he was the one who  gave him the cloak. 

Harry tells all to Ron and Hermione, then Hagrid comes crying for putting him in danger, then gives him a book with pictures of his parents at school  :’(

At the feast, the hall is decorated for Slytherin, who won the house cup for seven year in a row. 

Gryffindor was in fourth place, but Dumbledore gives Ron for the best chess game 50points, to Hermione for her use of logic, 50points, to Harry for outstanding courage 60 points, and now they have the same points as Slytherin, then Dumbledore adds that: “it takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends” and he gives Neville 10 points, just enough so that Gryffindor wins.

Exam results: they all passed, and Hermione is the first in her year. They all go back home, and at the station Ginny yells when she sees Harry, then they all see the Dursleys, but Harry smiles: they don’t know I’m not allowed to do magic at home…

The alienist - season 1

 Not sure I’ll ever want to see more. It was really tough, but it wasn’t the murder per se, although the close images were not easy. What really weighed on me was the common cruelty of the ordinary people: the corrupted cops, the attitude towards women, the hipocrisy towards prostitutes (those who enslave them are respected businessmen, the prostitutes, young boys and girls, are subjected to disgust and ridicule and violence). It’s all known of course, same old same old, those with money are important even if they are walking-shits, while the poor people count for nothing. The world is not changed that much, in this respect, but right now I’m not strong enough to deal with this. I liked the Sara character and would have liked to see more of what it’ll be of her, but not enough to deal with what to every character is the ‘normal’ way of life. 

1 - The boy on the bridge

It starts with a young boy who I think had a vision of something, or maybe he saw the corpse, I’m not really clear on that, but since nobody doubts him he probably saw it.

Dr Kreizler sends for John Connor (who can always be found in his favourite brothel) to do sketches of the crime scene and the body. A young boy prostitute has been killed in a horrible way, all cut and disemboweled. The captain of police is a disgrace (no surprise when later we see that he’s corrupted) but the commissioner seems to want to investigate. Still, the captain beats a confession out of a man convicted for another murder, but Kreizler is sure he didn’t kill the young boy. Commissioner Roosevelt refuses to give him the files on an old case he thinks is related, a boy and girl killed, the boy much the same way, but when Sara provides them with the file there is nothing relevant in there, so he has two people try an autopsy on the bones of the unearthed corpses.

The old guard - 2020

I liked it a lot, it’s a well done mix of action and depth. It’s much sadder than I would have guessed before watching, but it has a reason, which is not always the case. Every sad story have a deep reason to be told, and I liked that a lot. It’s quite rare to find reasonable stories. Many times action movies have sad moments only as a brief explanation for all the action, like 'they killed my wife so now I'm gonna kill them all'-end of plot. 

This story is about fate, basically.

I’ll explain that with the details of the story:

Andromaca di Scizia, Andy for her friends, is the leader of a small group of warriors. They are extremely skilled, but are not affiliated with any one kind of regulated group. They work for themselves and by themselves, but they are good and fight to help people. 

We see them getting together, after who knows how long, for a new job. The others are three males, Booker, Joe and Nicky. They are told that a group of little girls has been kidnapped, and they want to save them, but when they arrive on the battlefield there are no girls, it was all a trap and they are greeted by bullets, lots of them. For a few seconds the four of them lie bloody on the ground, then they start breathing again and get up and kill all the soldiers there. The whole thing has been recorded, and now someone knows what they are, that they don’t die.

Somewhere else, a Marine named Nile is killed in action, a man sliced her throat. Despite the horror and desperation of her fellow Marines that saw her die unable to do anything, after she actually does not die, and her throat heals completely without a scratch visible, all of a sudden she loses all her friends and everyone looks at her with distrust. 

(I know it’s a big thing, I know nobody can explain it, she doesn’t know what happened or why or how, I know and understand that it’s all mysterious and whatever, but still I can’t accept people acting like that, I just can’t, she is alive and that in my book is a good thing! She is a young, good and brave woman, who is alive and I’d be happy about that before everything else! )

We see that Copley shows proof of their existence to Merrick, the ceo of a pharmaceutical industry or something, and he wants them so study them and test on them and generally use them, and it is easy to understand that he did this after the pain of losing his wife. We know that he lost her recently, or maybe a year, and that probably shocked him into trying to find a miraculous cure.

Andy is fed up with it all, she’s tired and has lost her fire and her faith, she thinks nothing ever changes and nothing they do changes anything, that the world is only becoming worse.

Andy and the others have visions of her death/not-death, and realise that there is another one like them. Not at all a frequent thing, but now that they know about her, someone needs to go to her. 

The men go track down Copley, the man who sent them into the trap, while she goes to get her in Afghanistan, and takes her away. Nile tries to fight, of course, so Andy shoots her in the head and then promises her answers. They board a plane to reach France where Nile meets the others.

Here we learn that Booker was the last one to join the group, in 1812. Before him, Jo and Nicky fought against each other in the crusades and killed each other many times before they became a couple. Andy is the oldest, but won’t tell her age. (Still, if she’s from Scizia is it really too far to say she might be around 2000 years old?)

She was alone for a long time, then she met Quynh (credits write it that way) and they fought together for a long long time, until they were captures during the witch hunts, and of course the fact that they didn’t die condemned them as witches, so to break them apart they took Quynh away and put her into a cage, an iron maiden it should be called, and thrown into the ocean, to drown and come back, drown and come back, and they say that it’s been 500 years now. Andy never forgot about her but even if they looked for her for years or decades, they never found her.

Andy also explains that they can indeed die, sooner or later, one day their injuries stop healing and that’s it. As Nicky puts it, they fight for what they think is right, and everything happens for a reason, and everyone dies when it’s their moment.

Soldiers attack them while Andy and Nile are talking outside. Jo and Nicky have been kidnapped. Booker is really badly injured, but makes it. Andy goes alone to kill the soldiers so that the three of them can escape capture.

I liked that when Nicky regains consciousness he instinctively answers in Italian :-D when he says something like I’m here wherever here is, and Jo answers in Italian as well, before they go on in English so everyone can understand them, soldiers and audience both.

Andy, Booker and Nile go to a cave where Andy has hidden lots of things. Booker tries to find Copley on his computer, and then he speaks to Nile. He remembers when he died, he went back to his family, but he could not get old anymore, so he saw his sons age and die, and when one of them got sick and suffered, he begged him to help and didn’t believe that he couldn’t and cursed him and cried, and it was very painful, so he suggests Nile not to go back to her family. Andy can’t even remember her mother or sisters any more, after so many years.

Andy finds out that a recent wound has not healed. She tells no one, and goes to a shop to buy something, and the girl working there helps her tend to the wound.

Booker says he found where they are, right outside London, and they move. Nile refuses to follow them inside, she says she doesn’t want to become like that. She doesn’t even know for what they are fighting, and she doesn’t want to become like Andy, and she thinks she still has years to be with her family before they’ll notice that she doesn’t age, so she stays behind. Andy gives her a gun and the car and Nile drives away, but then she notices that the gun was not loaded, and it was the gun that Booker handed to Andy, so Nile goes back to help her.

Andy and Booker enter the place alone, see Copley but get nowhere because Booker shoots her in the back. Booker says that finding out why they don’t die could also get them a way to end it, and that was what she wanted… but a better explanation to me is that he did it because he never got over how painful it was to see his sons die.

Only, now they realise that her wound is not healing, and try to help her, but Merry arrives with his soldiers and care nothing about the fact that she’s not immortal anymore.

Andy and Booker are taken to the lab to join the others. Nile arrives to Copley when they are away already, and to prove to him who she is she shoots herself in a foot (she could have said she’s one of them, but I guess this cut all protests). Copley shows her his extensive study of what the group, especially Andy given she’s the oldest, have done during the years. All the people she’s saved, and many times the children or grandchildren of someone she saved did something remarkable for the whole world. Nile understands now. He stays behind but she goes alone to save her. She learns pretty quickly how quick those men are to shoot, but of course they didn’t know about her being immortal as well, so she gets up and goes on fighting, and gets to them. The soldiers manage to injure her a few times, but she can heal and move on, so she frees them all - well, she goes to free Andy and then the others, and she tells Andy she’s seen all the good she’s done.

They fight all together. Andy has no intention of being protected, she goes forward as she always did. Long fight short, they kill everyone, (ok, Andy stopping a bullet with her fire axe was a bit too much) and then Andy uses her double-round-axe thing that I don’t know what it’s called on Merrick’s neck, then Nile catches him and launches herself out the window with him, from the penthouse. Then she comes back alive and they go away.

They decide that as a punishment for his betrayal Booker is to stay alone for 100 years.

Copley shows them all everything he found out looking only at the last 150 years, so the four of them (without Booker) tell Copley that he’ll have to cover their tracks and find them jobs.

This is the end of this story, but we are shown that six months later, a drunk Booker returns home to find Quynh in his house.

Andy - Charlize Theron

Nicky - Luca Marinelli

Nile - Kiki Layne

Booker - Matthias Schoenaerts

Joe - Marwan Kenzari

Copley - Chiwetel Ejiofor

Merrick - Harry Welling

Quynh - Van Veronica Ngo

Fate: The Winx saga - season 1

Well, it’s not too bad, scenery is nice, but the main character is unbelievable in her selfishness and righteousness and hypocrisy. It really annoyed me that she did so many wrong things and yet she’s the heroine, the good, beautiful, powerful girl that they all adore. 

She was so set on having her answers, because they were important to HER, that she couldn’t wait a single day to get them. 

Of course it’s not all her fault, no, I see that. The adults here keep saying that they are preparing these students to fight, and yet they keep treating them like children, hiding everything from them. 

And of course, it gets more complicated when you see that it was the Queen the first to want to hide the truth. 

So, I realise the trouble at the end is not totally and only Bloom’s fault, but it annoys me that nobody has her acknowledge how selfish and dangerous she has been. 

Nonsensical things: really, every time these first year fairies meet one of those creatures, they always manage to stop it, and yet lots of soldiers die every time they hunt them. *rollingeyes

Details as I watched the episodes for the first time:

1 - To the waters and the wild

Bloom never knew anything about the Otherworld until three months ago, and now she’s in Alfea at a school for fairies. She wished to learn control, but she discovers that it will be a long, slow process.

She settles in a room with other first-years. Bloom is apparently a fire fairy. Aisha is probably a Gryffindor :lol: while Bloom is half Ravenclaw half Slitherin. Terra is a earth fairy, no surprise there (cousin of Flora).

Stella is a light fairy, and a second year, which makes sense since she’s a mentor and seems pretty settled; Musa likes music.

Even if it’s another realm, she can still use her phone and videochat with her mom. 

The other building is for the Specialists, boys and girls who prepare to fight. There are creatures, called the Burned Ones, that were supposed to have been killed, all of them, but now that a farmer found dead it seems that might not be the case.

Sky has taken a liking to Bloom and warns her not to go outside the barrier, but since she hears that there are no people there she goes anyway for some peace and quiet. She wants to learn to control her magic on her own, seems impatient. I personally don’t think that the woods are the right place to practice fire, and she learns the same when she loses control and almost burns everything down, but luckily Aisha saw her and followed her and used her water to stop it.

It’s sharing time, and Bloom tells her of how he doesn’t get along with her mom at all, and after another fight she got so angry, that she set her parents room on fire. Then the headmistress found her. Aisha thinks she’s a changeling, a fairy baby switched at birth with a human one, because she says she’s too powerful not to be pure-blooded. 

Riv forces a first year, Dane, to drink alcohol and Terra comes to his rescue, because she’s had a bad day and she’s had enough, and almost strangles him with vines. Musa is a mind fairy. Jealous of Bloom talking to Sky, Stella gives her a ring to go back to her world, for which she has to go outside the barrier, deep into it. She goes back, looks at them through the window, talks to them on the phone. Bloom cries and goes to hide in a warehouse nearby - or something like that, when she is attacked by a creature. She loses the ring, but luckily the headmistress comes to deal with the creature. After she got the truth out of Stella, Terra probably warned her, with Aisha and Musa.

Stella goes to Sky, to seduce him after she broke up with him before the summer, and also because she thinks that after the stupid thing she did everybody hates her.

Bloom is worried because the Burned One took Stella’s ring and is worried for her world.

Terra is sad that Musa doesn’t seem to like her, and avoids her all the time, and tells her ‘I’m an empath’ so she can feel her anxiety, insecurity and anger, so she puts headphones on to be left to her own emotions for once.

The headmistress chained the creature but didn’t kill it because she wants to learn more; she admits to the Specialists teacher, Saul, that she found a changeling in the human world, left there 16 years ago and feels it’s all connected. 

It ends with Beatrix, using her electicity on the Burned One.

2 - No strangers here

Stella freaks out knowig the Burned One now has her ring, because she’s an actual princess and that ring is the Queen’s and now she’s desperate to get it back, so she plans to go and get it with the help of Bloom who feels responsible.

At their first lesson, everyone can access their magic but Bloom, who tries to thing positive thoughts and emotions but it doesn’t work. Later Stella sort of helps, teaching her to use negative emotions like fear and rage, but when she finds out Aisha is not ok with that because she says negative emotions are unreliable.

Musa finds a boy who… I don’t know, has a peaceful effect on her. She can sense other people at all time, causing a great chaos in her head, but when he’s around it becomes peaceful, and then Aisha calls him so they can meet and it’s Sam, Terra’s brother.

When the girls go to get the ring, it turns out the creature escaped and killed many soldiers. Silva is injured and therefore infected, but Terra has him drink an unguent she made to subdue the creature, and then she and Musa bring him back to school.

Beatrix calls the headmistress to Silva’s side, and then she searches her office, finding a hidden place. The headmistress assistant apparently is on the same side, they are working for someone and she wants to uncover the secret the school has kept secret for 16 years. She can’t enter the room though, and goes away.

Bloom and Aisha manage to stop the creature and get the ring (oh la la, why send soldiers when two teenage fairies can do the job?)

Blood and Aisha talk in their room, and suddenly Bloom kinda goes in a trance and her eyes are white.

3 - Heavy mortal hopes

Silva can walk around but his infection is not healed and won’t be until they kill the Burned One that attacked him. Sky is very worried because after losing his father now Silva is his father figure, his father’s friend.

There’s a Specialists party and Terra wants to go because Dane will be there, and she has her roommates go with her. Aisha is having trouble controlling her magic, while Bloom is doing fine now. She’s irritable and upset.

Bloom is concerned with Sky and they talk and drink at the party, but then Riven tells her that Stella purposefully blinded her best friend because she dare flirt with Sky, so she leaves and finds pictures of Rosalind, and she’s the woman she saw in her vision, but when she asks Beatrix lies and says she doesn’t know who she is. Beatrix then goes to the headmistress office, using the assistant to trigger the ward, so after he’s on the floor in bad shape she can pass through. She finds another barrier down there, and she leaves after attacking the assistant until he vanishes.

A Burned One has been killed, but Silva hasn’t healed, meaning that it probably was another one, not the one that attacked him, so it was not the only one.

At the party, Musa talks to Sam, but in secret because she thinks Terra won’t like it and her emotions are always strong. They also kiss.

Bloom confronts Farah about Rosalind, who was the headmistress who taught Farah, but apparently she died years ago, but Farah won’t tell her anything more about her. Bloom goes at the stone circle to use a lot of magic and maybe have another vision but it doesn’t work and she breaks down in tears. Sky finds her while he’s going to search for the Burned One by himself, but she can feel it like it happened the first time. She can sense it nearby. Sky runs ahead. All the roommates get a text informing them of this (while Musa was kissing Sam again), although the text said Stone Circle, and yet they arrive at the right place just a few seconds after Sky and Bloom arrive there after their run.

The fairies together attack him, including Stella, and Sky stabs him, but it’s not totally dead until Farah shows up behind them and finishes it off. Now Silva is healed.

Terra cries after someone sends her a video of a drunk Dane fooling around with River and Beatrix - I mean, they were already drunk and smoking pot and sort of touching each other and talking shit, but we don’t know how far the fooling around went.

The ep ends showing us what behind all those ward barriers, what the school is trying to hide: Rosalind, and Farah says that if Rosalind is calling to her there must be a reason, therefore they can never meet.

4 - Some wrecked angel

Farah, Saul and Ben discover that the assistant Callum is dead and that there’s a murderer in their school.

Aisha took his job, because Bloom suggested it so she can give her hints.

There’s an assembly about the Burned Ones, and the Queen is coming.

From the reaction of Terra’s father and brother when Dane showed up to talk to her, was the video sent to her or uploaded on the net? Nobody else is talking about it, but seems strange she would talk about it to her family. She shuts him out, telling him to be careful who he trusts (difficult thing since he seems to like Riven, and he’s trouble, and in close proximity to the murderer.)

Bloom sneaks down the east wing while everyone’s at the assembly. Sky goes with her and later are joined by River and Beatrix. Sky and River have a confrontation leaving the girls alone. Farah tries to find the magic that killed Callum at the assembly, but nobody notices that four students are missing. The girls find a war room.

The Queen, other than very powerful, is also very tough and strict, and irritated with Farah for how slowly she’s teaching Stella. She wants her daughter to be powerful, but the was the girl was instructed before didn’t have the right result and she feels she’s improving, but mom does not agree.

Terra, Aisha and Musa talk to each other and figure out that a fairy killed Callum, and when they tell Sky he realises it must be Beartix, and they text her a lot but she only cares about misteries and her own search so doesn’t read them.

Sky is looking for Bloom and has a fight with Stella about it. The girls have words with Farah and Ben, Terra is pissed because Bloom might be in danger because they lied to the students.

Beatrix steals a car and takes Bloom to a hidden town, Aster Dell, hidden by Queen Luna to hide the fact that everyone in that town was killed while they hunted the Burned Ones. Beatrix calls it a war crime: she was born there, and her family died, and she says Bloom was born there as well. Beatrix says she knows what happened because Rosalind rescued them both, and imprinted the memory in her mind. She says that their three teachers did that, and that Farah imprisoned Rosaslind and that she wants to break her out, but the three catch them and arrest Beatrix and bring Bloom back. Her roommates tell her Beatrix killed Callum, but she’s not sure what to believe because those three told them and she doesn’t trust them now.

Terra is so upset that her dad lied to her, that Musa feels guilty and tells her about her having been dating her brother for weeks; luckily Terra takes it well, glad she told her.

Queen Luna takes Stella away to teach her herself. Silva orders Sky to stick to Bloom and basically spy on her to refer to him, but still won’t tell him the whole truth.

When Bloom talks to Farah, the woman only asks question but doesn’t tell anything on her own. So Bloom lies, of course.

5 - Wither into the truth

Farah tries to break Beatrix mental defences to learn about her mission. Beatrix doesn’t break, instead tells her that she’ll appear like the victim to the school.

All the kids are now training hard for war. Silva and Farah keep telling the students nothing, only that they have to trust them, without regard on how they feel. 

Soldier Marco is injured because the Burned One his team attacked wasn’t alone like it should have been, and the Solarian soldiers left. Only now he learns about Stella taken away from the school. The Queen has been distant since then.

Dane seems to still be on Beatrix side, and he helps Bloom get inside to talk to her. Beatrix admits that she killed Callum, but says there’s much more to it, and she can take her to Rosalind if she frees her, with Dane’s help. Dane wants to help her because Beatrix is the only one who made him fell good, like being different is ok, and she’s the only one who gave Bloom some answers.

Stella has been hiding in their suite, invisible. She talks to Musa about her life and her mother, how she trained her with negative emotions wanting her to be powerful at any cost, which caused her magic to be erratic and she inadvertently blinded a friend. Her mom wanted people to believe it was on purpose, it made her look strong and not weak.

Sky admits to Bloom he’s been ordered to spy on her, and she gets angry, but then he finds the thing she’s supposed to use to let Beatrix have her magic back or something, and Bloom wants to convince him that what she’s doing is right. They kind of bond on how broken they both are and then kiss. Then he falls down after she gave him the sedative Dane gave her.

The battallion out to kill the Burned One that attacked Marco is killed, all of them, because there were lots of them.

Terra and Aisha forced Dane to tell them what was going on, and then go to the cell, to stop Bloom for freeing Beatrix. They argue and Bloom almost attacks them, and that’s when she steps down and goes instead to confront Farah, appalled that Rosalind is still manipulating people after all those years. Farah now tells her that that day, Rosalind told them all that the town had been totally evacuated by her, only the Burned Ones were there now, so they combined their magic (another thing she kept secret until that moment) and unleashed it on the place, destroying it. Only later she found out the truth, seeing the bodies. She has no idea that Bloom comes from there , but insists that nothing is worth returning the threat that is Rosalind to their world, and tells her she’ll help her find her answers, tomorrow. She goes out with Silva, they have six Burned Ones to hunt.

Musa reveals Stella’s presence to Terra and Aisha, and Stella says they should help their friend Bloom. So Terra and Musa give the device back to Bloom and she breaks Beatrix out. The girls go to Farah’s office again, and Beatrix wants to push Dane to the ward like she did to Callum, but Stella materialises and pushes her instead. They go down but Bloom enters the last part by herself. Aisha instead goes to warn Farah.

6 - A fanatic heart

Rosalind speaks to Bloom’s mind, and in return for answers wants to be freed. 

Stella, Terra and Musa notice Beatrix has disappeared, then Farah and Ben arrive with Aisha, very angry, but Rosalind has already been freed.

Terra is still angry at her father lying to her.

Rosalind tells Bloom that what Farah told her is true, she lied to them. They were an exception. Only fairies should be able to do magic, but those people where human witches, and she got her chance to destroy both them and the Burned Ones, but since they were witches and not fairies, they were not Bloom’s parents. Rosalind says the witches kidnapped her to use her great power.

Burned Ones attack the school and Sam is injured. Bloom runs to help, Rosalind stays behind.

Dane is the one that helped Beatrix.

Sky finds Bloom but is still angry at her, and she’s still convinced she did right.

Now Bloom confronts Farah, totally on Rosalind’s side, when her words let Farah understand that Rosalind is the reason the school is in danger. Rosalind is drawing the magic that kept the school safe.

Dane and River wake Beatrix and she’s on Rosalind’s side.

Silva tells Sky his truth. About his fight with Sky’s father. The two of them knew about Rosalind’s lie, but Andreas was on her side, so they fought. Saul killed him and ran to stop the attack but he was late.

Musa runs away from Sam’s pain. She felt every moment when last year her mother died, and now she can’t bear it with Sam, but then of course she goes back to help him, give him peace and takes his pain.

Bloom sneaks out with Stella and Aisha. She knows the Burned Ones are looking for her so she goes out. She wants to draw lots of magic to defeat them, and Aisha provides a water barricade to make her feel safe, while Stella hides herself and Aisha from view.

Bloom grows fire wings and shoots fire balls to the Burned Ones. She kills the six of them, or how many there were. She summoned ancient fairy magic, apparently.

Rosalind joins Beatrix and the two boys.

Farah tells Silva about Aster Dell people being blood witches, Rosalind never told them.

Finally Bloom admits ‘I’ve been a brat’ to Farah. And is forgiven. And Bloom hugs her.

Bloom goes back home, with her four friends, to tell her parents the truth. Rosalind told her that she gave her to them because their daughter was dying so she gave them both a chance.

It takes time but they all love each other and they all spend time together.

Queen Luna arrives with her guards to arrest Saul for the attempted murder of Andreas, who now is right there in front of his son.

Rosalind tells Farah of a legend, that the Burned Ones were created thousands of years ago (I didn’t understand how or why) and basically she let them into the school to test Bloom’s power who has in her the Dragon Flame or something. She talked to Queen Luna and didn’t even need to threaten her, she was already mad at Farah, so the Queen now is arresting Saul and also putting Rosalind as the new headmistress. Andreas raised Beatrix.

Farah doesn’t want to leave the school, so Rosalind kills her.

When the girls get back, instead of Farah, Saul and Ben they are greeted by Rosalind, Queen Luna and Andreas.

So here we have it. Bloom freed a self-confessed murderer because she couldn’t wait ONE day. Farah promised her to help her find her answers, but no, she wanted them immediately.

Bloom also freed Rosalind, who put the school in danger, killed Farah herself and changed the school in a war school. 

Bloom - Abigail Peters

Stella - Hannah van der Westhuysen

Aisha - Precious Mustapha

Terra - Eliot Salt

Musa - Elisha Applebaum

Sky - Danny Griffin

Beatrix - Sadie Soverall

Riven - Freddie Thorp