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LeoSellitti

Welcome back to another entry of IAs. Today I'm going to be doing something a little different... I'm going to propose a character from the spin-off series, Mystery City. The rules for the main series still apply, and the characters still need to compete against those from the main series.

What's The Work?[]

Just Add Magic: Mystery City is a spin-off of the Prime Video original series Just Add Magic. It takes place almost immediately after the original series, where Kelly, Hannah and Darbie had recently ended their era as the Cookbook's protectors, and the book moved on to a new trio of protectors, and Zoe Chua and her mother Erin were moving back to Bay City. And wouldn't you know it, Zoe's one of the new protectors, alongside her new stepbrother Leo Sellitti, and their downstairs neighbor Ish Gupta.

This write-up is for the Caucasian member --and only male member-- of the new trio: Leo Sellitti.

Who's Is Leo Sellitti?[]

Leonardo "Leo" Sellitti is the son of Nick Sellitti. His parents had gotten divorced at some point prior to the series. His mother's still alive, but his father Nick has sole custody of him.

Fast-forward to the events of the series, and Nick Selltti is getting remarried as the fiancée and later husband of Erin Chua, Zoe's widowed mother. This would make Nick Sellitti the stepfather of Zoe, and Leo would be Zoe's stepbrother. Anyway, Leo's father is the owner of a self-titled pizzeria.

What Makes Him Admirable?[]

  • He helps his father Nick get dressed for his and Erin's wedding, and served as Nick's best man, writing a speech for the wedding. While he initially wanted to create a fun, exaggerated story for his spell, he settled on telling the truth between him, his dad and Erin.
  • He and Ish aid Zoe in cooking a "Gazpa-Chill Soup" in order to reverse the effects of Zoe's previous spell (Make It Hot Dogs), save his father's wedding, and get everyone in town to stop fighting and being so hostile. (having their emotions "heated up")
  • In spite of him not always getting along with his new step-family, or having to share a space with them, it's cleat that he still loves and respects them, especially his step-sister Zoe.
  • He'd learn about Ian Maddox and the Sour'Au starter from Zoe and Ish, as well as how Ian set up a complex scavenger hunt to find three coins in order to access the starter before the Wesson family finds it and uses it to cause massive destruction and harm. Afterwards, he'd immediately jump at the call and volunteer to help the girls, especially since it would give him great material for his graphic novel.
  • After learning about the downside for "Early Memory Mashed Bananas" --the recipient (Zoe in this case) needs to be asleep for the spell to take affect, and they can fall asleep at any time unpredictably, and often risk injuring themselves-- Leo shows concern for Zoe's safety, hoping she didn't get herself hurt with the spell by walking down stairs, or something similar. Leo also desperately tries to get Zoe unspelled before cross country tryouts.
    • Numerous times he and Ish would catch Zoe when she passes out, in order to save her from getting hurt.
  • After Pierce Hamilton and his kids manage to collect the second coin, Leo and Ish would learn that Pierce would have the coin with him at his job, and they'd use a spell to appear as adults so they could get into Pierce's automobile job and get back the coin.
  • He consoles Ish when the latter completely loses her trust and faith in Lexi upon learning all of the coins went stolen by Lexi.
  • Lexi would get a change of heart, and return all three of the coins to the protectors, though she'd also tell the trio about a bird-related antique store she passed by and thought it was a clue to help Leo's break his black-and-white spell. Naturally Ish is unwilling to listen to anything Lexi says after her earlier betrayal, but Leo was actually willing to take Lexi's advice due to how nearby it was, and convinced the others try it. Leo even acknowledged that Lexi being willing to return the coins showcased that she was capable of doing good and breaks Ish out of her Heroic BSoD.
  • After he and his partners finally manage to reach Unity Station, and get ahold of the Sour'Au starter, they planned on destroying the starter by magically super heating it, so it couldn't be used for additional harm. The attempt backfires, but it was still worth a shot.
  • After Pierce and Cody Hamilton attract some gold with the Sourd'Au recipe and accidently endanger Bay City by causing the power to go out, electronics to stop working, and buildings to collapse (due to gold being common in wires, pipes, microchips and even electronics and buildings), both protector trios would cook multiple spells to teleport into houses and buildings, freeze time to take back the starter, and telepathically move metal to fix damage caused by the starter, allowing Zoe, Ish and Leo to teleport their neighbors and the restaurant customers out of the buildings and subways to safety while time's frozen.
    • Leo in particular stands out among the trio, as he's the one who rescues Pierce, Cody and Lexi Hamilton from the destruction and rubble, and brings the family to safety in spite of everything they had done up to that point, including accidently causing the destruction in the first place.
    • Leo also telepathically fixed the damage from the collapsing buildings.
  • He and Ish were able to talk Zoe out of going to 1875 to convince Ian Maddox (aka her father James Walters) to not travel to the future to prevent anyone else from using the Sourd'Au starter for nefarious purposes, and needlessly sacrificing herself in the process.
  • After regaining the Sourd'Au starter, they six of them decided to repurpose it so that instead of stealing riches, it shared riches: in this case, it would share magic.

What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]

  • He's way to much of a jerk to be anywhere close to Pure Good for the following reasons:
    • He's constantly getting into arguments with his partners Zoe and Ish (often for trivial reasons)
    • He has a handful episodes where he loses his temper or gets impatient.
    • After the three of them messed up a spell that was meant make them strong enough to lift heavy blocks (instead it made them do the opposite of whatever they were told), he yells at Zoe and Ish for being unaware of him putting in a magic spice and unnecessarily put the spice in, and for not putting in a different magic spice that was actually needed.
    • He tends to be extremely disrespectful to his cousins, as in spite of him watching football with his cousins every Sunday for years, he openly admits that he didn't care about football.
    • After learning that Cody and Lexi Hamilton were descendants of the Wesson family, he instantly assumes they were evil, and that they were onto him and his friends. He even tries to get Ish to break off her friendship with Lexi, and calls Ish "irresponsible" upon learning she was at the Hamilton residence with Lexi (despite Ish not even knowing Lexi was a Wesson descendant at the time)
      • After Lexi starts to get a change of and feels her father's obsession is going too far to the point where she gives the protectors their coin and makes an effort to help them, Leo refused to believe that Lexi can ever change her ways, and simply assumes she's trying to con them, even when Ish and Zoe are willing to work with her. Keeping an eye on Lexi most of the time, refusing to inform Lexi about how the recipes worked, let her so much see the cookbook, or even eat one of their magic cookies they made.
        • He harshly shoots down and dismisses all of Lexi's ideas and advice, even when she's proven to be very helpful and efficient.
      • While under the black-and-white cookie spell, he refused to aid Zoe, Ish and Lexi in breaking the spell and solving the mystery by simply pointing out what he saw in color (It was birds, by the way). And all because his distrust of Lexi ran so deep, and he assumed Lexi taking Ish to a record store (which by the way, was to search for a possible clue) was just a way to distract them from the mystery. Even Lexi and Ish called him out on this. Lexi also points out that Leo disliked Lexi because he was jealous Ish spent a lot of time with Lexi rather than him. While he does apologize for how he treated her, he immediately snaps back to strongly disliking her upon realizing the coins were gone.

Competition[]

Just to a heads up, this is an urban fantasy series rather than an epic fantasy like most of you may be familiar with. That means the admirable standard for this work is lower than a lot of other fantasy works, so don't be expecting a lot of the characters to save lives, risk their lives for others, or throw themselves in harms' way.

With that in mind, a lot of the franchise's characters still manage to commit a lot of noteworthy acts. Obviously most of the candidates will be protectors due to them actually having more resources, but maybe some of their muggle companions can be honorable mentions. So... here we go:

(Keep in mind, this is only comparing her characters with acts that are actually known or present in the works. There are no doubt tons of other protectors with other heroics that may outshine everyone below, but since they weren't seen or mentioned, it would be unfair to use them as a comparison.)

  • Kelly Quinn, Hannah Parker-Kent, and Darbie O'Brien: These three girls are the main characters in the original show, and were chosen to be the keepers in the book in 2014 and kept the book for approximately 6 months. Comparing them to the OCs or Charles Peizer would be completely unfair, as the four of them have far more resources and knowledge about magic and the works then these girls do. Here some notable acts they've done over the course of the show:
    • They spent the majority of Season 1 caring for Becky Quinn (who was emotionless, and rarely ever says anything), and trying to find a cure her.
    • Word of God confirms that when Mama P froze the attendees at the festival in the Season 1 finale, it left over 200 people frozen over the course of several hours. The three of them would try making things right by creating a new magic recipe using what they knew so far about magic (Last Ditch Layer Cake). Said recipe would end up allowing the people of Saffron Falls to move again, but it would also break all of the curses present in the area, including Grandma Becky's curse, and allowing Ms. Silvers to play piano in public again.
    • In Season 2A, Kelly would detect that Chuck was "broken" while under the fix-it spell, and come the mid-season climax, when she learns that Rose's imprisonment was an accident, she believed there was good in Chuck, and forces him remember fond memories with his sister prior to the incident, reminding him that he loved his sister. It actually made Chuck cry as he had known what he had done, and he actually backs out of his plan. And it turns out Chuck showing remorse for his actions against the protectors (for possibly the first time in 150 years) and opening up to others about his endgame was just what was needed have Chuck redeem himself, and break him and his sister's immortality spell. This would save Rose from her inprisonment the cookbook, and Hannah from nearly being imprisoned in Rose's place.
    • Season 2B has the trio tracking down a mysterious mastermind who's erasing people's memories of magic (both protectors, and their companions) and preventing them from ever returning, plus destroying all of their spices and every possible trace of magic. But thanks to a surviving Cedronian vanilla bean, the girls were able to restore the magic spice garden, saving magic from extinction, despite knowing there would be a strong price to pay with the Cedronian spell they were using. Plus, the following season would have them restoring Gina, Becky and Jake's memories of magic (Night Bandit Kelly restored Mama P's memories for the sake of her plan, but the latter would regain them on her own anyway.)
    • In Season 3, Kelly was poisoned by the aftereffects of the aforementioned spell for the garden, and when Hannah and Darbie learn this, they also realize Kelly was insecure over their friendship potentially not lasting without the magic, so they'd alter the "In Your Head Banana Bread" to make Kelly see the truth in their minds and how they really felt, which was just the push needed for Kelly's curse to be undone.
    • In the final episode of the original series, Becky would fade away as a effect of the trio becoming the permanent protectors by mistake, Kelly, Hannah and Darbie would desperately try to use a recipe to end their protectorship and save Becky from disappearing forever, even creating a new magic spice for the recipe, which symbolized the trio's friendship.
    • On top of that, the three of them also committed some smaller heroics that didn't involve magic: For instance, they all try to help Jake with his food bike business in several occasions; Kelly helped out her mother in preparation for her mayor's speech, and took part in a canned food drive at school; Hannah supported Rockbury Middle School's underfunded music club and tried to help the club get a new piano by taking part in a debate, and got Gina Silvers an interview to become Fox Canyon's new music teacher, and helped her prepare by trying to make her less stressed with pretend interviews; and Darbie made a video to recommend her father to become her school's new shop teacher, due to his passion and kindness, and the fact that he was fired from his previous job
  • Becky Quinn, Ida Perez and Gina Silvers: The 1965-1975 trio of protectors, often nicknamed the The OCs. They were keepers of the book for 10 years.
    • Becky's easily the nicest member of her trio as she's friendlier and more approaching and forgiving then her partners. (though let's get real, considering who her partners are, it's tough not to be the "good teammate") And while she did use her morbium to end her trio's protector-ship, dispose of the book, and leave her former friends cursed for 40 years without apologizing during that time...she secretly regretted doing so, as she knew that her partners' misery under their curses was partly her fault. Plus, she'd apologize to Gina about how she used her morbium in the season 2A finale. She'd also find a mysterious box in Season 2B with the vanilla bean inside, and after finding a photograph of Laura with Jill, she'd send a voicemail to Kelly telling Kelly to call her back, warning her about the wooden box and how "the book [was] the key to the magic" shortly before losing her memories of magic mid-sentence. She likely would have also warned Kelly about Jill not being who she seemed if she had maintained her memories long enough. And yet, by taking the photograph from Laura's house and warning Kelly about the wooden box and how the key was meant to be used, Becky played a posthumous role in the girl trio learning that Jill was Caroline and saving the magic from going extinct forever, due the vanilla bean being used in a recipe to bring the garden back. However, she fails the In-Story Standards to both of her partners (Gina and Mama P) who have far more prominent roles in aiding the girls with magic threats due to their stashes of spices in their cabinets/pantries, whereas Becky prefers to stay away from magic whenever possible.
    • Ida Perez (better known as Mama P) plays a major role in aiding the girls with magic-related issues, she a textbook example of an anti-hero, and yet she still stands out enough to be Inconsistently Admirable. She has a spice cabinet in the back of her restaurant. Both before and after her reveal in the Season 1 finale, she regularly provide the girl trio with magic spices for their recipes and allows them to access her magic spice pantry when necessary, thus playing a major role in them being able to cook certain recipes and help their town. In Season 1, she served as a trickster mentor to Kelly, teaching her about a lot of the magic's risks, what certain measurements were, how to identify spice families and rearrange them and placing a spell on Kelly that Kelly would have to undo with P's teachings. Season 2B provides her with additional noteworthy acts. For instance, upon learning that Noelle Jasper (the owner of the competing Saphroon restaraunt) was spelling her customers into loving her food (like she once did) and tricked the girl trio into spelling themselves, she'd tell the girls the materials need for a counter-spell and how to make it. She'd also personally deal with Noelle, saying that she had Noelle's spices and wouldn't give them back so she wouldn't continue spelling her customers. (She's atoning for something she did in the past, and preventing a similar threat from endangering the public the same way, and helping hundreds of people in the process, by preventing history from repeating itself. It's the main reason she made the cut) In the season finale, Mama P would prevent Adam Lever from becoming mayor, using a scheme that involved breaking into Lever's political headquarters and looking through his records. And when Adam Lever arrives in the room and brings up that he had no intention of actually living up of his promises as mayor and that he had a reporter trash Terri to make himself look better, Mama P secretly recorded his speech and sent to the news resulting in everyone turning on Adam and him getting disqualified from the election, making Terri Quinn the next mayor by default. She'd even apologize to Terri Quinn and Jake and admit she was being selfish. While Becky and Gina also helped P in exposing Lever, it was mostly P's idea, so it counts as a heroic act for her. Not all noteworthy heroic acts need to involve magic, sometimes an act like this would still help to make one stand out.
    • Silvers also plays a major role in aiding the girls with magic-related issues, tried to warn them the magic's dangerous capabilities (though poor communication lead the trio astray), has a hidden cabinet with earth-related spices that plays a key role for some of the girls' acts and allows them to cook, and saw the good in Charles Peizer when neither of her partners did, defending him from their distrust of him, and in the present, she was the only one of the trio concerned over him having amnesia. On top of that, she knew about how Mama P was enchanting various customers into loving her food, and shutting down any competing restaurants in town during the 40 years P was trapped in Saffron Falls, and it's heavily implied that Silvers tried to stop Mama P from spelling people several times in the past, or at least hold her off as long as possible. Even if her efforts turned out to be futile, she still did what she could. In the present, she was willing to let the girl trio use her morbium so they could amplify their Last Ditch Layer Cake meant to save the town, despite Silvers originally planning to use to break her own curse. While the girl trio turns the offer down, the fact of the matter is, Silvers was willing to make a sacrifice even if it meant she'd be stuck without a way to reverse her curse. Thankfully, the Last Ditch Layer Cake would break her curse anyway. There's also an episode were the girl trio loses their memories regarding their friendship, thus Silvers and Jake would recreate how their friendship started beat-for-beat, to restore the trio to normal.
  • Zoe Walters and Ish Gupta: The other two members of the Bay City Trio (from around 2015) which discovers that Ian Maddox (later revealed to be James Walters, Zoe's late father) set-up a super advanced/secret scavenger hunt in their time to have Zoe and her partners find a Sourd'Au starter before the Wessons' descendants did (in this case, Pierce Hamilton and his children, Cody and Lexi) and caused more damage to their town. The three of them would also save Bay City from destruction by teleporting their neighbors and the restaurant customers out of the buildings and subways to safety while time's frozen. However, all three of them have a noteworthy act to make them stand out:
    • Zoe's noteworthy act is that she was willing to go back to 1875 and convince Ian Maddox to not travel to the future to prevent anyone else from using the Sourd'Au starter for nefarious purposes, despite knowing full well that Ian would never met her mother, and thus Zoe would never born and cease to exist in the process. Nobody else ever made or attempted to make a sacrifice that big before.
    • Ish's noteworthy act is that she saw the good in Lexi Hamilton, and knew that in spite of her being a Wesson descendant, Lexi didn't want to aid her family in their scheme or endanger anyone, and Ish would even defend Lexi from Zoe and Leo when they distrusted her. This would play an indirect role in Lexi turning on her father and brothers, and aiding the heroes in getting the Sourd'Au starter.
    • I'll explain Leo's noteworthy act at the end of this section...
  • Charles Peizer: A Victorian Era protector who once wanted him and his sister to be the permanent protectors, but after accidently imprisoning Rose in the book, he'd spend the next several decades studying various spells and magic spices hoping to free his lost sister, and eventually become Gina Silvers' boyfriend. Even during his time as a villain, most of his "crimes" were very standard, and he was shown to have an honorable side and was typically friendly towards the heroes when they didn't interfere. (He also saved Buddy from getting run over a speeding car, attended Mama P's grand re-opening and gave Silvers some money after hearing her beautiful piano performance, kept his promise to give the heroes a cure for his sleeping curse despite not having to, and was friendly towards the girls while posing as Jake, even consoling Hannah about her new school) Besides, after managing to rescue Rose from the book, he'd immediately reform and return to 1868 which started a new timeline where Charles would do what he could to atone for his sins. He'd become a ranger in Saphron Falls, put his magic knowledge to good use, work alongside Ian Maddox to protect a powerful spell from getting into the wrong hands of his rogue partners the Wessons (which plays an indirect role in saving the town), and then when he and his sister grew up, they'd would go on to become philanthropists who would use the family's wealth to improve the lives of the poor, including developing a program to curb hunger, and starting one of California's first soup kitchens, where they fed hundreds of impoverished citizens. In a way, Charles is basically the Jean Valjean of JAM.
  • Ian Maddox: He's a protector from 1875 who worked alongside Folsom and Clint Wesson. While he used to be on good terms with them, eventually the Wessons would discover gold in Saffron Falls and got greedy, the duo would create the Sourd'Au (as in gold) starter recipe and reckless usage of it would cause the collapse of the Hasberg Gold Mine -- which clearly took several lives in the process. Ian knew the Wessons would continue using the starter regardless of how many lives it endangered, so he did what he had to and stole the starter from them and hid it in the future hoping that future protectors would be able to destroy it for good. He also set-up a super advanced/secret scavenger hunt so that only a worthy group of protectors would be able to find it. While in the future, he fell in a love with Erin Chua, got into a relationship with her, and eventually gave birth to Zoe. But, Ian knew that staying the future for too long would be dangerous for him, and was warned by Charles that he'd lose 3 days of his life for each day in the future. Sure enough, the magic came back to haunt him and Ian would die when Zoe was young. But Ian stands out for hiding the Sourd'Au starter in the future and preventing lots of additional causalities and lives being lost for 140 years.
  • The Traveler: She's the guardian of the cookbook itself and the original protector, so naturally she's going to stand out and using her as a comparison to others isn't really fair. She's as old as the cookbook itself (which is thousands of years old, by the way) She's responsible for whenever a duo or trio or people gets selected for the cookbook and its power. She'd even personally give the cookbook to a number of chosen groups over the ages. When a group's selected, it means there's a mystery to solve within the town the group resides in. She mentioned that while she may be a protector, she "cannot wield its power", thus preventing her from being too involved with the cooking. However, she'll still occasionally pop-up to mentor the protectors every once in a while. For instance, when she give the The OCs the cookbook, she warned them about how the magic "can be a wondrous gift or an unspeakable burden", and could "bring you [them] closer together, or it can tear [them] apart." She also helped Kelly by providing a spell meant to break Becky's curse (Curse Breaking Candied Stone Fruit), though she didn't count on the spell being misused to endanger the mass public. And while she did confiscate the cookbook from Chuck Hankins and prevent him from being able to access it sometime after his sister Rose was imprisoned, this was mostly because Chuck wanted to imprison some other protector in Rose's place. She understood Chuck's pain, but disapproved of Chuck's methods. She was even willing to give Chuck a fresh start if he abandoned his plan, and when Chuck insisted in continuing, the Traveler ate a mysterious bar which sacrificed her body to give Chuck temporary amnesia. She was left in a weak state and only appeared in dreams for the rest of the season, but she was able to use her remaining strength to warn the heroes about Rose, and in the finale when Hannah in danger of being trapped in the book, the Traveler would hold Hannah off from eating from the mulberry tree, trying to save Hannah from being imprisoned. And considering she never appears in Season 2B or 3, it's heavily implied that she may have died at the end of season 2A.
  • Jake Williams: Is a close companion of the girl trio, and isn't even a protector and yet still gets a number of noteworthy heroic acts in after finding out about the magic. For instance, in the finale, he lets Kelly drink his Protein Protection Shake to protect her from Mama P's curse over the Pluot Festival, despite knowing that Jake would be vulnerable to the curse himself. He also served as a Morality Pet for Mama P being the main reason she changed her ways and became a nicer person, helped Darbie and Mama P with a lockpicking spell meant to save Kelly from being locked in Chuck's trailer, and in one episode, he and Silvers recreated how their friendship started beat-for-beat, to restore the trio to normal when they lose their memories regarding their friendship.

However in spite of all this, I personally think Leo Sellitti still manages to stand out for a number of reasons. Comparing him to Charles Peizer, the The Traveler, or any of the OCs would be extremely unfair considering they all of them have far more experience with and knowledge over magic than Leo does.

As previously mentioned, all three members of the Bay City trio have a noteworthy act to make them stand out. And Leo's noteworthy act is that he telepathically fixed the damage from the collapsing buildings, and when time was frozen, he's the one who saved Pierce Hamilton and his kids from being caught in the destruction and brought them to safety, in spite of them antagonizing the heroes for the Sourd'Au starter. (It helps that Pierce realized what he had done, showed extreme remorse for it, and desperately looked for his kids when they went missing, worried about their safety.) By fixing the damage from the collapsing buildings (and taking part in teleporting a fraction of the residents outdoors and away from instant harm), Leo singlehandedly saved dozens if not hundreds of lives.