I think of Marin as that person you can't hate if you tried. Like you could be the most stone cold bastard on the planet, but you'd probably at least think she's okay. I like to think that trait would come in handy as a lawyer, because you wouldn't expect for her to completely destroy you, and then you'd be kind of okay with it when she does. My favorite trope are Jekyll and Hyde characters, who go from being crazy nice to just terrifying...we just haven't seen her really throw down yet. Mostly because I'm still figuring out when I'm going to shove a shopping montage into all of this. (Shopping montage.) My theory is that Mal uses her superior sense of smell to help her make really good coffee. She knows exactly when it's done by the smell, which seems like a natural thing when you grow up making coffee your whole life. I don't know anything about coffee so I'm gonna assume that seems accurate enough. I know you can burn coffee, so there ya go. This scene is going to spill into next week, and then we're on to...other things. Originally there was only one more page left, but I'll be honest that this close to the holidays, this particular scene is a lot easier to draw than the next one. Plus, it helps establish Malaya and Marin's relationship from here on out. I realized when I added one last page to this scene (the Wednesday page for next week), it actually made a good impact, plus we'll get a bit more Charlene, so that'll be good. Speaking of which, I get to drive all the way from Chicago to Mississippi tomorrow to spend time with my mom's side of the family for the holidays! I actually really like the drive, because I load up my phone with podcasts and then just listen to like, every show NPR has ever made for 9 hours. Then my family feeds me for four days and sends me home chubby. I like it. I've gotta be on my toes this year to shut down any weird political conversations before they start, though >_<. Last night I saw Star Wars! It was super good! I'm more of a Star Trek person, but I can see the appeal of Star Wars too. I keep thinking how exciting it would have been to have a character like Rey to watch on a big screen as a little kid, because even as an adult woman, it was pretty exciting to have a female protagonist. I was worried she would be shuffled off as a sidekick at best, but was pleasantly surprised. I also enjoyed that Finn ended up being the emotional backbone of the movie, and while it's not the norm to get a black main character (who's a former stormtrooper!), it's really unusual that he's not reduced to the unemotional muscle character. Finn ended up being the audience surrogate, the one who represents "the every man" who is out of place and is learning about things as they happen. That's pretty huge and super progressive. (Actually maybe a little regressive, because I feel like diversity in movies has actually gone down overall since the 80s and early 90s, and we're only now recovering...) But anyway, I liked the Star Wars. I almost want that little BB-8 toy, if only because it would be amazing to chase the cats with. The dog would wind up eating it, though.