wings of fire opinions

the 2nd arc love triangle, turtlejou + anemarin

oh gee first thing i post on this godforsaken app is smthn that's probs gonna make everyone hate me lmao

OKAY starting off with the love triangle, in a way it kinda made the story worse and moon + qibli r both super unlikable

moon is a Mary Sue and the only good thing abt her is the fact that at least her having powers happened for a reason (even then how tf did her egg just COINCIDENTALLY roll under direct moonlight... cuz that's just plot convenience), everyone loves her, she catches the attention of two boys, she has absolutely 0 flaws, is described as beautiful by everyone and her anxiety just disappears after the 6th book with little explanation.

before you bring up her anxiety as a flaw, having a mental illness doesn't make you flawed and it disappeared after the 6th book anyway, her only other "flaw" was her trusting darkstalker

qibli is a total Gary Stu who's given a tragic backstory just to excuse it, but his past HARDLY effects his character.

winter's cool tbh, i was kinda annoyed by him sometimes but at least his arrogance is explained by his past (unlike qibli) and he's realistic in terms of character development and stuff. i like him and i don't ship him with moon OR qibli bc tbh he's too good for both of them. honestly i'd pair moon with someone who could help her lose the superiority complex but imo qibli is just a lost cause

ONTO TURTLEJOU, hoo boy i'm gonna get some backlash for this if anyone actually ends up seeing it

turtle x kinkajou is not rlly a good ship, ofc it was handled well which tui usually does a good job at but turtle and kinkajou wouldn't rlly have a good relationship and just bc a character has a crush on another character doesn't mean they should be/are in a relationship

first off, their relationship might not end that well bc while kinkajou's optimistic and outgoing personality could help turtle get over his anxiety and such it could also rlly overwhelm him, and his more shy behavior could leave kinkajou feeling a little underwhelmed. ultimately they'd go together far worse than most fans think they would bc this ship isn't rlly looked at realistically by most ppl, it's seen as "haha anxious ocean boy and overenthusiastic jungle girl go brrr" when in reality kinkajou should probably be with someone she could have fun with and turtle should be with someone calm who could actually help him get over his mental issues.

second off, kinkajou just doesn't like turtle back, it's as simple as that and i personally wouldn't ship two characters if it's one-sided love. when anemone cast the love spell on kinkajou we saw how she acts around dragons who love her, and she never acted that way around turtle before or after the love spell. they simply had some friendly moments. plus, while turtle clearly was against the idea of the love spell he still took a damn good while to actually do anything about it which i really can't blame him for but it's still pretty problematic

OH BOY ANEMARIN TIME

as a queer person i'm all for representation but this ship was clearly thrown in last-minute for the sake of anemone having a partner. if you think abt it realistically, anemone and tamarin wouldn't go together all that well, albeit better than turtle and kinkajou.

anemone is ambitious and goal-oriented, while tamarin is extremely calm. when looked at on a surface level it seems cute and yes it definitely could be, but it'd be problematic in some ways too and i feel like that at least deserves to be acknowledged. it's still realistic tho, which i rlly liked seeing.

but also as i said before just bc a character has a crush on another character doesn't mean they should date so.. i like anemone x tamarin platonically, and anemone x pike is better