Maxwell because I love him!!! His attitude is perfect and the way he treats the students and everyone around him is just *chefs kiss*
Darra is the same as Maxwell. His attitude is impeccable around everyone and he has the emotional maturity to apologize to other as soon as something he does is wrong. Him and Kyra are OTP
Tayla is so gay!!!! Her and Imo are also OTP but Imo had a decline in her personality in season two where she becomes significantly less sassy and also randomly starts acting girly so Tayla makes the list Bur Imo doesn’t.
Ruksy makes me so happy. She is smart in a way that isn’t just “smart pretty girl who gets the guy” she isn’t a know it all but she makes sure EVERYONE knows that she is smart.
Lastly, how you feel about oral is how I feel about Apinya. I love the story line of how she seems to be helpful at first, then immediately think “oh, she’s a bad guy” and finally at the end it’s revealed that she is a good guy that went towards it wrong.
I've been re-watching the series along with @ayalaatreides (thanks to Teleparty!) and I'd forgotten a lot of the Season 1 stuff so I was somewhat unprepared for the Shit Gets Absolutely Real in S01E06 ("The Test").
Spoilers ensue, so I'm putting the rest under a Read More:
What I love about this episode is it digs into the very real challenges Kyra will face as a Tri-ling in the magical world she's only just begun to navigate via Professor Maxwell's school in River City, and the series personifies those challenges in the form of Orla Maguire, an elf:
Melanie Zanetti (Orla's actress) just nailed the menacingly benevolent way she approaches Kyra.
She's all smiles, but you can just tell she's ready to stab Kyra in the back at the slightest opportunity, and boy, does she get that chance this episode!
And she grabs the Shadow Cloud, after which she espies Peter across a park and chooses to let it out there:
And right here, this is where she crosses the Moral Event Horizon.
She purposely moves the cloud near Peter.
I believe this was deliberate, because doing this sets Kyra up for two equally bad alternatives:
She takes her mind off the Shadow Cloud threat and will have to rush and save Peter, failing the test, or
She fails to save Peter and ends up letting the Cloud go on to do further damage before containing it.
Kyra, luckily, knocks Peter out of the way and distracts him while Imogen manages to vacuum the cloud up using a magical artifact.
But regardless of the outcome, thanks to Orla Kyra was doomed to fail this test anyway, and we see that the reason for this is due to deep-seated prejudices that still exist within the magical world of TBoMT:
These prejudices play out in the relative socioeconomic positions of the Maxwell School students:
Imogen's and Darra's parents are hinted to be quite wealthy, given Orla's remarks about generous donations to the Department of Magical Intervention (also, noteworthy is that they're all full-blooded elves).
Lily's (a full-blooded fairy) father Sean Reegan (also a fairy) is at this point hinted to be a high official in the DMI (we later find out he's the Director of the DMI - effectively the Minister for Magic).
Ruksy's family situation isn't elaborated on by this point. However, given that she is treated the same as Lily, we can conclude that Ruksy's family is probably the equivalent of magical middle class.
But Kyra is a Tri-ling in a world where any mixed-ancestry magical people are regarded with suspicion at best, and her father is a policeman - good at his job, but hardly a rising star destined for fame and fortune.
So this firmly puts Kyra at the bottom of the socioeconomic hierarchy, a situation which Professor Maxwell sympathizes with, being a half-ling himself. He also remarks (anviliciously, perhaps, but some things need to be said) that it means Kyra will have to work twice as hard to be considered as good as the other students.
To bring this back to Orla, it's impressive how well this episode uses her character as a vehicle to show the extent of discrimination Kyra will face, and how prejudice against her can easily lead to abuses of magical power in ways that could hurt Kyra or her friends.
I'm purposely avoiding spoilers for Orla's later character arc, but feel free to bring those up if you've already seen the entire series and want to discuss! :)
So I speed watched (ten hours crammed into two) season 2 of The Bureau of Magical Things. I know it's for children (also, who cares); I was curious to see if they would give the very obviously sapphic character a sapphic love interest. The answer is they did... but didn't.
They built her side storyline around a character that has all the workings of a love interest – enemies to friends to """lovers""", special concern for each other's safety (going so far as to only being worried about THAT person amongst like seven of them and being ready to go to extreme lengths to make sure they're safe), spend all their extra time together, long stares, dopey smiles, saying the time they've known each other has been memorable, saving one another, making special childhood smoothies for comfort, one of them saying the other looks cute and everyone looking at them like 👀 that's gay 👀, etc etc etc (also, I already knew and love the actress who plays Tayla, Miah Madden, from another show - she's suuuper adorable and very, very talented imho), all without outright "calling" her a love interest.
I mean, google "bureau magical things imogen tayla". You'll see I'm not imagining things. IT'S MADE ITS WAY TO TUMBLR ALREADY.
So you have everyone paired off in actual couples except for two girls who are very clearly romantic but it never gets past the friendship stage, officially. And I get it, children's show, but also??? That doesn't fly anymore??? And it's a pity, because it's an adorable series, definitely something I would be okay with my young kids watching (if I had any), but this really sets it back. Modern TV isn't there anymore.
I mean, they're adorable and VERY CLEARLY romantic, even if the show doesn't make it official. But TV has already reached the era of calling a spade a spade. Even children's TV.
I often see people questioning the oversimplification of the BoMT world being restricted to humans, fairies, and elves, when the show itself brings up mermaids. I'm surprised people don't also mention goblins and nymphs, which are mentioned in the first two episodes of the first season. Maybe these other beings are minorities, who don't get a lot of representation? In which case, the DMI needs some serious affirmative action!
Imogen and Darra were absolutely competing for Kyra attention like listen they both continued to interact which isn’t unusual on it’s on own but Imogen expresses a lot of anger directed at Kyra so why continue interacting with her right? Right, anyways she also constantly demands her full attention for things that shouldn’t even really matter to her, Kyra that is, therefore Imogen likely harbors some type of feelings for her
I just finished watching the second season of The Bureau of Magical Things and I loved it! The couples this season were sweet. I also loved Maxwell this season I loved how he protects the students and how much he tries to help out Kyra.
Darra and Kyra are so cute I love them so much I loved the scene where they had lunch with her dad and when he tried running to her at the sports day.
Imogen and Tayla are definitely girlfriends you can’t change my mind. Their scenes were amazing and the painting scenes they shared were lovely.
Ruksy and Peter are adorable and I was so sad when they broke up for a while in the show and was happy when they got back together. Peter is probably one of my favourites I love him a lot he’s so funny.
Ben is a sweetheart and his singing is really good too. His and Lily’s relationship is great.
