#riley is the most boring character in the entire show but everyone else is so good

[napneeders]

i forgot Buffy was this good

#started watching in the middle of s4 #riley is the most boring character in the entire show but everyone else is so good #he's interesting for exactly one episode they should have leaned more on the 'monster human cyborg asking existential questions calls you #his brother' angle #anyway #I LOVE TARA #I LOVE ANYA #I LOVE GILES #buffy the vampire slayer

[opinated-user]

Another important example of LO's enbyphobia (and arguably the most obvious one if I'm not mistaken) is when in the su video she literally complained about Stevonnie being Nonbinary, called it a lazy choice and very strongly implied, if not outright stated, that they should have been trans because they're on the femmine side of gender presentation (debatable tbh, the only "feminine" thing about them is having long hair and wearing shorts and a pink crop top, which are all thing we should stop gendering) and because Steven sung giant woman. Ignoring that Steven wasn't talking about himself in that song but was trying to encourage Pearl and Amethyst to fuse... Look, I'm not saying an arc about Steven realizing to be a trans girl wouldn't have been amazing, but come on. How anyone in the comments thought that she was supportive of Nonbinary people is beyond me. (1/3)

(2/3) unrelated to the enbyphobia is that she also claimed Stevonnie was heavily sexualized. They're not. LO, just because you emediatelly sexualize female and female presenting characters doesn't mean everyone else does. If you see any shot of them as sexualized that's on you really.

i need to remark the last part of your first comment anon because: 1. the comments are highly moderated so any dissenting voice that LO couldn't think of a good enough dunk on was purged. multiple people have spoken about how their own critique of the video, no matter how respectful and polite they were, were deleted no long after. try to argue with LO on a space where she has total control it's a waste of time. 2. the author of the essay that LO basically plagiarizes for the racism portion of the video actually left a comment long when the video came out about how enbyphobic LO came out and they didn't agreed with her approach overall. i think their words was something like "just say that you hate non binary people and go". you know what's interesting? i tried to search that comment to show it here and i couldn't find it anywhere. she deleted the words of a black non binary person, whose essay she plagiaraized word for word, just so no one would even think to suggest that she could be wrong. as a side note, the crediting to Robobuddies's video, that LO also plagiarized, was erased from the description. so LO now has profitted from the hard work that someone else made, called them a loser when they had a problem with that and then erased the credit so now no one will even know that LO's stole their words. only the link to Riley's essay remain. finally LO did aknowledged that some of the language that she used herself on the video was racist... 4 years after the video was already out.

2 weeks ago LO suddenly thought to adress her racist language on a video that was meant to call out the racism of someone else. she could have done that in 4 years but instead she prefered to keep being antisemitic towards a non binary jewish woman who doesn't even know she exist. if that isn't sad and funny... 3. the portion that i found the most grotesque about her portion about non binary people is how LO basically said that "non binary people are inherently interesting" and how stevonnie's design was boring because they didn't had multiple arms or something. that string of word has been stuck on my head ever since i heard it because it couldn't believe someone would say that... on the same breath where they complain about how there are not more human non binary characters. stevonnie is literally more human than any other fusion, that's the point of their design being "normal", because some non binary people look exactly like stevonnie and they deserved representation too. you can be safe knowing that part was entirely from LO's point of view and she didn't steal it from anyone because of how borderline fetishistic and misguided it was.

#lily orchard #lily orchard is transphobic #lily orchard is enbyphobic

[hello-nichya-here]

Who was Buffy's worst boyfriend and why was it Riley?

*cracks knuckles* let's do this.

No Personality

This is by fair the biggest problem with how Riley was written. See, Joss Whedon never wanted Buffy to hook up with any vampire, but he was forced to write her romance with Angel. Buffy's college years were his chance to make the message of “vampires represent the struggles of adolescense, something the characters overcome as they grow” finally happen. He even added the episode “Something Blue”, that had Spike and Buffy dating because of a spell, as a way to make Buffy get over her thing for “bad guys” and moving on to liking guys like Riley, who are completely boring Nice Guys.

The problem is that there was nothing truly outstanding about Riley for us to get attached to him. Xander once says that he is a “once in a lifetime” guy, but what we actually see is that, because of his years in the initiative, Riley doesn’t think for himself, he is used to only doing things one specific way, and there are many, many, many, many, MANY others like him - and he ends up joining his buddies again after not that much time had passed since he left them, essentially negating any growth he could have possibly had. Buffy even straight up says that the whole reason why she was first drawn to Riley was because he was “a normal guy.” His appeal is supposed to be the fact that there is literally nothing unique or special about him.  

Angel was defined by guilt, Spike was defined by passion, and Riley was defined by "This Guy Is Not A Vampire" and that, by itself, is simply not interesting enough to make a good character - and Joss just had to go shoot himself in the foot by making an entire episode dedicated to Buffy ignoring him so she could make out with her evil boyfriend who was a fan favorite character because he had a fuck ton of personality from the very first moment he was on-screen.

Rewarded For The Bare Minimum

This is another case of Riley being more defined by who he isn't rather than by anything that makes him his own person.

Buffy’s first time was pretty traumatic. Angel lost his soul right after they first made love and became Angelus. He abandoned her, tortured her mentor, killed Jenny, attacked everyone she loved, stalked her, nearly caused the apocalypse, and all while twisting the knife further by constantly reminding her that all of this was happening because of what was supposed to be one of the most special moments of her life. Later, when she is in college, she meets Parker, who seems really nice at first, but then dumps her right after getting what he wanted.

Riley is appalled by all of this... but so is everybody else, including the audience. He puts Parker in his place, which is nice... but so do Buffy and Willow. He tries putting “Angelus” in his place... but Angel already has his soul again - he had it for almost two years by that point. He doesn’t break Buffy’s heart (by that point)... and THAT is supposed to make us adore him until the end of time.

Sure, it's great that he didn't bail right after sleeping with her... but the fact that this is a big deal is evidence of how shit Angelus and Parker were, not of how amazing Riley is. And even that positive trait of his is going to be thrown out the window later, so retroactively these sweet moments don’t mean anything, because we know he is going to show his true colors eventually.

My Way Or The Highway

Like I said, Riley’s time in the initiative, and his eventual return to being just another soldier among them, were a big part of why he had no real identity of his own, and it also leads to one of the main issues in his relationship with Buffy: Riley doesn’t know how to adapt.

He can’t bring himself to accept that, while he is part of a team, the world of the Slayer just doesn’t work like the military world. He can’t adapt to no longer being the special boy that is going to save everyone, and instead being the one who needs to step aside and be protected instead of protect every now and again. He can’t understand that Buffy telling him to take care of her younger sister in case shit goes wrong while she’s patrolling IS her including him in her life, both personal and as the Slayer, and trusting him with the person she loves the most. He can’t even accept the basic concept of “My strength is not why my girlfriend is attracted to me, nor was vampirism the reason why she started liking her ex.” 

And, most important of all, he refuses to see that just because Buffy isn’t completely useless without him that doesn’t mean she doesn’t need him, AND that him not constantly leaving her heartbroken is NOT a problem and that his belief that she can only truly show she loves him by suffering for him is weird as hell. For fuck’s sake, he makes her struggling to deal with life now that HER MOTHER IS DYING all about him and his insecurities.

Riley doesn’t really have anything going on in his life, and thus he just doesn't understand that Buffy isn't wronging him by having other things going on in her life, and that sometimes these things exclude him, or don’t include him in the exact way he hoped he’d be included.

The Season Five/Six Fuckery

After all that insecurity and hurt ego, Riley starts cheating on Buffy with what are essentially “vampire prostitutes” (Buffy even refers to them as his whores) - and this infidelity starts while Joyce is sick and dying. He is still constantly paranoid about Buffy leaving him for Angel, Spike, Dracula or literally any vampire that shows up, even though HE is doing the very thing he is borderline accusing her of doing, and he even leaves the house after making love to Buffy to go be with the vampires.

When Buffy finds out about this, he says what happened was not her fault... and then immediatelly proceeds to show he did not mean it, as he starts shifting blame, including complaining that she didn’t stop everything to call him when her mother was at the hospital nearly dying. He talks about he the vampires made him feel needed, and how Buffy neved did that for him, and then announces that he is going to disappear from her life forever unless she forgives him right that second.

But then, a season later, he comes back! He doesn’t apologize for shit, but he is being all sweet, and charming, and flirty, and Buffy is all hopeful... Except, surprise! He is married now! And he conveniently didn't mention that! And as a bonus he asked her, the SLAYER, for help to hunt the monster of the week, but just casually forgets to tell her THEY NEED THE THING ALIVE. Excellent job, writers, I am totally on his side here. Totally. I am definitively not making a Riley vodoo doll just so I can hurt him. 

No Remorse

This is the one that personally pisses me off the most. 

See, I never cared for Bangel and I don’t like the way Angel broke up with Buffy, but he DID feel bad about everything he did to hurt her AND he was worried that he was stealing her chance of having a happy life. It was a flawed, but genuine attempt at doing something good for someone he loved.

Spike is a fucking mess, and because he had no soul he did some truly horrible things, including almost raping Buffy - and the realization of what he almost did to the woman he loved made him so disturbed and disgusted at himself that he willingly went through hellish torture just to get his soul back so he would, in his words “Be the kind of man who would never... to be a kind of man.” He was a monster, and he changed for Buffy.

Hell, even Parker apologizes for what he did to Buffy. A minor character that wasn’t even that important and wouldn’t be getting the show any awards for brilliant writting was allowed to grow and learn from his mistakes.

Riley hurt Buffy deeply. And at no point does he show any understanding that this was wrong and he never gives her a proper apology.

The Realism Problem

I feel this one explains why people get such an intense negative reaction to characters like Riley (and Xander, even though I personally like him despite him angering me sometimes), while “forgiving” characters like Angel and Spike who, on paper, are much worse. It’s a lot easier not to care about behavior we don’t see in our daily lives. 

Sure, we all at least heard of an adult man that stalks and dates a teenage girl and crushes her heart by showing his true colors after he gets what he wants from her, or an obsessive guy who stalks the object of his affection and violently lashes out when rejected. But how many of us know freaking vampires? How many of us know a literal creature of the night that needs to drink blood to stay alive? How many of us know people that are possesed by demons and had their souls sent to hell? How many of us have casual interactions with what is basically a corpse? How many of us built relationships with what are serial killers by nature? How many of us met someone who tried to end the fucking world?

Vampires are monsters - but because they're not real it's a lot easier to turn off our brains and just enjoy the good side of these characters, since there isn’t really a real-life equivalent of their bad side.

Riley on the other hand? He is just a whiny, needy, selfish, hypocritical guy who never takes responsibility for his mistakes and that everyone keeps telling us is the best thing in the universe even though he is as interesting as watching paint dry. Once again, he is completely human. Which means everyone knows a Riley. Everyone knows A TON of Rileys. And people get sick of meeting them, be it in real life or in the media they consume.

How The Show Frames His Actions

THIS is the final nail in the coffin. This is what made Buffy and Riley’s romance age like milk and forced everyone to either choose between the two blood-suckers, ship Buffy with someone else, or want her to be single.

The main problem with Riley, the thing that makes him so disliked by so many, is that his flaws were accidental, not acknowledged, and, worse of all, presented as positive traits of the character. 

Nothing kills a story quite like the people writting it not understanding what they're creating. And the writers did not notice that Riley wasn’t a good guy and HE did not deserve Buffy, not the other way around.

#asks #fuck riley #anti riley x buffy #buffy the vampire slayer #buffy deserved better

[sfb123]

The Final Goodbye - Chapter 1

Book: The Royal Romance, Book 2

Pairing: Liam x Riley

All characters belong to Pixelberry.

Description: In a slight canon divergence from book 2, Riley reaches her breaking point with the engagement tour and decides to restart her life when the court gets to NYC. Can the rest of the group clear her name, and convince her to come back before it’s too late? 

Rating: PG (I think there are a few swear words in there, very angsty, but otherwise pretty mild)

Word Count: 1,496

A/N: So, I did a thing. This started as a one shot that I half wrote like a month ago and gave up on. Then I got haunted by Whitney Houston (and later, when she got sick of bugging me, she moved on to @jessiembruno, I’m assuming to send her to harass me about finishing). This week, inspiration struck and I finished it...and it became a mini-series. So look forward to this over the next 4 Wednesdays. 

A couple of quick shout outs I wanted to get out there: @callmeellabella, thank you for being so sweet and taking a look at the snippet I provided. @queenrileyrose, thank you for taking the time to chat with me, I hope the story lives up to the hype I gave it. 

A not so quick shout out to @jessiembruno, I pretty much annoyed you every step of the way in writing this one, sharing screenshots, and letting you know every time that damn song showed up in my life. Your notes when you read it for me gave me so much encouragement, you were invaluable in helping me get through that last emotional push at the end. Hell, you even titled the thing! I don’t know why we hurt Liam the way we do, but I know in the end, we’ll always give him a happy ending (wait...not like that...well, maybe sometimes like that). 

Tags: Listed below. If you’d like to be added or removed, just let me know! 

Riley sat on the rooftop overlooking New York City, Maxwell rattling off the different images he saw in the stars as she got lost in her thoughts. They were in New York as the last leg of Liam and Madeleine’s engagement tour. Soon, they would be going back to Cordonia where she would be expected to sit in a cathedral and watch the love of her life marry another woman. 

They had been investigating the scandal that came out at the coronation for weeks, and didn’t seem to be any closer to finding Tariq. As the time ran out, Riley’s hope of a cleared name faded further and further away. Could she really go back there and watch another woman steal her happily ever after? She was already in New York, it would be easy to just stay and try to start her life back up again. Honestly, if she wasn’t going back there to marry Liam, what was the point of going back at all? Sure, she had made a couple of great friends, but there were a million and one ways for them to stay in touch. Or ghost them, to avoid hearing about Liam and his wife. She wasn’t quite sure which option she would choose once all was said and done.    

She weighed out the pros and cons, and finally decided that she would not be returning to Cordonia with the rest of the court. But she wasn’t going to tell anyone, she wasn’t going to give them the opportunity to team up on her and talk her into going back. And she certainly wasn’t going to tell Liam, he had already talked her into being the other woman for this entire tour, a moniker she swore she would never take on in her lifetime. She knew she wouldn’t be able to say no to him, and would be convinced to come back to Cordonia and be miserable. She would do it tonight, once they returned to the hotel, she would get her things together, and sneak out while everyone else slept. Daniel had an extra room, conveniently, he was using it to store the stuff she didn’t bring with her when Maxwell whisked her away. 

“Earth to Riley. Are you even listening? I’m dropping some of my A+ material right now.” Maxwell waved his hand in front of her face, snapping her out of her thoughts. “Where’d you go?”

“Sorry Max, I was just thinking. Must have zoned out a little.”

“It’s ok, I get it. There’s a lot going on right now.” He replied empathetically, suddenly jumping to his feet in excitement. “I know, let’s go out!”

“We are out.” She looked up at him.

“No, not boring UN Gala out. Fun out! I’ll grab everyone, the dream team will cheer you up!”

Riley paused to think about it for a second. If she wasn’t going to give her friends a proper goodbye, maybe one last adventure would be the perfect way to remember them. They could do it up big, and then she would start over in the morning. She smiled softly at her friend before responding. “That sounds really nice Maxwell, I’d love to.”

“Yes!” Maxwell raised his fist in the air and pulled her into a hug. “You go back to the hotel and change, I’ll get the gang together and text you where to meet.”

Riley went back to the hotel and put on some more comfortable clothes. Something she would typically wear on a night out in New York. She didn’t want to start packing yet, in case Maxwell offered to walk her back to her room. She reached out to Daniel to make sure she could stay with him. Of course he said yes, while also trying to get the details. She promised to fill him in on everything when she got there. The more she thought about her plan, the more she started to worry. Maxwell said he was going to get everyone together. Did that mean Liam would be there? Would she be able to keep herself composed, and keep her secret, knowing that this would be the last time she would ever see him? She started second guessing her plan, she should have just left. Tonight was going to suck. 

She entered the bar, and immediately noticed Maxwell, Drake, and Hana in a corner booth. No Liam. She took a deep breath and approached them. “Hey guys!” She put on her cheeriest face. 

“Thank God, Brooks. Maxwell can harass you now.” Drake rolled his eyes and patted the seat next to him. 

Riley slid into the booth and put her arm around Drake, giving him a side hug. “Aww, poor Drakey. I’ll save you from big bad Maxwell.” Hana and Maxwell laughed, and Drake rolled his eyes. “So Maxwell, why this place? You know I’ve lived here for like ever, I could have picked.”

“No, this is your cheer up night, so I needed to find the perfect place, and this is it.” He gestured to the stage. “It’s karaoke night!” 

“So, if this is to cheer me up, and it’s karaoke night, does that mean Drake is going to serenade me?” She turned to face Drake, smiling sweetly and batting her eyelashes. 

“Fat chance.” Drake looked at Riley with a stern expression. “I’ll buy you drinks, that’s as cheery as you’re getting from me.”

“Sold!” She put her hand out and shook Drake’s. She signaled for the waitress to come over, and ordered a round of shots for the table, and a drink for herself.  

As the night went on, the group laughed and sang and told stories. Riley was having a great time, and wasn’t letting on in the slightest that this would be the last time they were all together. Maxwell had just come offstage from his third performance of the night, as he walked toward the table, his smile grew and he waved his hand to greet someone. “Liam, you made it!” 

Riley’s breath caught in her throat, and she could swear she felt her heart stop. She closed her eyes briefly to compose herself before standing and turning toward the door to greet him. “Hey, I didn’t know you were coming.”

Liam’s eyes started to sparkle the second they met hers, his smile lighting up at the sight of her. She looked just as beautiful as she did the night they met, he loved when she was dressed casually. Sure, she was stunning in ballgowns and expensive designer clothes, but this was her. Authentic Riley. The Riley that had captured his heart. “It took me some time to get away, but Maxwell said you needed cheering up, so this is where I need to be right now.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek gently. 

Suddenly, Riley was frozen. She wasn’t sure what to do, or what to say. Everything had been going so smoothly. Why did he have to show up? She couldn’t be there anymore. Not as long as he was. Now that she was faced with the reality of her plan, she didn’t know what she was thinking just leaving Liam without saying goodbye. Without telling him how much he truly meant to her. But she also knew she couldn’t give him a chance to talk her out of it. She decided she would use this opportunity to sing her feelings. 

“I have to go. It’s my turn to sing.” She turned away from Liam abruptly, pulling the shot glass out of Drake’s hands before it could reach his lips, bringing it to hers and throwing her head back. With that, she walked to the front of the bar.

After a quick conversation with the DJ, she walked to the microphone and looked down. As the music started, she looked up and locked eyes with Liam. She proceeded to sing ‘I Will Always Love You’ while keeping her eyes locked on his. Their friends looked back and forth between the two of them, seeing the pain in both of their expressions. As the songs continued, Riley was finding it harder and harder to keep her emotions in check. She started to avoid Liam’s gaze, only glancing up at him occasionally. To most of the room, it sounded like she was leaning heavily on her vibrato, but her friends all knew that was her emotions getting the best of her. 

Once the song finished, she placed the microphone back on the stand and quickly ducked into the crowd, before any of her friends could catch up to her. She carefully made her way to the door and left the bar. She walked a few blocks before she lost the battle she was fighting with her tears. After taking some time to gather herself, she continued on her way to Daniel’s apartment. There was no way she would be able to go back to the hotel, she’d figure out how to get her stuff later. 

Permatags: @anjanettexcordonia @athena-penrose @chemist-ana @cordonia-gothqueen @cordoniaqueensworld @gabesmommie1130 @gkittylove99 @hopelessromanticmonie @iaminlovewithtrr @jessiembruno @kat-tia801 @khoicesbyk @kingliam2019 @lucy-268 @marshmallowsaremyfavorite @mile9213 @mom2000aggie @pixie88 @queenrileyrose @secretaryunpaid @sweatyrysconnoisseur @theroyalheirshadowhunter @twinkleallnight @txemrn

Liam X Riley:

@jared2612​

@choicesficwriterscreations​

#choices #play choices #choices stories you play #pixelberry #choices trr #choices trh #trr/trh #trr fandom #trh fandom #trr fanfic #trh fanfic #the royal romance #the royal heir #choices the royal romance #king liam #King Liam Rys #choices fic writers creations #liam x riley #liam x mc

[therealvinelle]

Vinelle (and muffin since I know they'll see this too~!), I don't know if you guys have made a post ranking the Twilight books and why (including Bree and L&D if applicable) but I'd love to hear your opinions! (also if you could rank the Twi movies from least worst to most worst and why that'd be awesome too! 030 hi key love your rants on the movies and would love to hear y'alls thoughts more on them)-Sw

You’ve caught us out, anon.

And thanks to you, we spent last night watching Breaking Dawn Part 2 so we could rank it. @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin hadn’t seen it at all, while I half-remembered it from years ago. A terrible time was had because that movie was unwatchably bad.

Since this ask was sent jointly, our answer was co-written.

So, without further ado, movies first:

1. Twilight

This is a bad movie, but it’s recognizably a movie. The scenes are connected, there are things it did well, and we could tell you what the plot is. The awkwardness, for instance, is very well done. The weaknesses are glaring, the main one being that the film never sells us on the characters of Bella and Edward, nor on their relationship, relying instead on the audience knowing they’re in love because- well, they’re in love.

Diving deeper into Edward and Bella, there’s an understandable explanation for this. Edward of the books is terrifying, and I don’t think there’s a translation to screen that could have kept the romantic atmosphere surrounding him that we see from Bella’s point of view.

Bella can listen to Edward eating Biology and how he explains that it means how much he loves her and not blink. An actual audience hearing that dialogue will have second thoughts.

Right out of the gate, Twilight has a very difficult task: Salvage Edward Cullen while still producing a somewhat recognizable character who will take the same actions (or near the same actions) that Edward Cullen did in the book.

In the effort to make Edward palatable but save some of his original character he loses his more terrifying lines (as well as his hilarious ego) but becomes weird, awkward, and vaguely creepy. Edward Cullen of the films is that weird, friendless guy in your high school who you feel kind of bad for but don’t want to eat lunch with.

Bella faces a similar transformation. Bella’s insecurity is completely removed (or else the screenwriters somehow failed to notice it). As a result, we get this strange antisocial girl who is too cool for school because she’s a stuck up bitch.

Between Edward, this creepy guy who sits next to her in Biology, and Bella, this girl who enters school too good for everyone else, we see no reason why they would ever be interested in one another.

In an attempt to make these characters likeable they made them both unlikeable and boring. The film series as a whole never recovers from this (indeed, the quest to make Edward look good keeps leading to stranger and stranger places). 

It also forgets to explain why the Cullens live among humans, they’re attending high school… because. It’s a movie that explained to us all those terrible 2010 era memes and “still a better love story than Twilight”. And frankly, those memes were great, better than the movie. Case in point.

Everything is weirdly blue, which is atmospheric but also makes everything and everyone washed out. Everyone is super pale, so you have Mike looking just as vampire-y as Edward. However, it’s recognizably a movie. It introduces the characters, recognizes that the audience needs to be informed of things that are important to the plot, and most scenes are in some way connected to the plot. This is more than can be said for the other films, which is why it lands the top slot.

2. Eclipse

Eclipse earns its second place by process of elimination. The remaining three were worse. Eclipse also features Edward being cuckolded mercilessly, which is hilarious. Oh, and Victoria playing Riley, that was another beautiful scene.

Apart from that it’s just a deeply boring, borderline unwatchable movie.

Special shoutouts go to:

The opening scene of Riley getting turned, a ridiculous and poorly executed scene that served no purpose for the movie whatsoever.

Rosalie dropping her backstory without any context, Bella walks up to her and Rosalie launches into this horrific story for no particular reason. Both her and Jasper’s backstories could have been cut, as they served no purpose to the story and felt really thrown in there.

The many, many redundant scenes. The Victoria chase that ends with the Cullens and Quileutes squabbling could have been cut entirely. So too could the Seattle subplot with the newborns and Bree.

It’s a movie that isn’t about anything in particular, so it throws subplot spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. It dutifully regurgitates the Jacob/Bella/Edward love triangle while also trying to convey that Bella’s about to lose her mortality, while also trying to introduce suspense and excitement with the newborns. It fails to execute either of these, and it also fails to tie them together.

3. New Moon

The movie that wanted to skip itself.

This movie had two jobs, show that Bella is depressed when Edward leaves and convince the audience of Bella and Jacob’s strong friendship. And apart the rotating shots and the occasional Stewart voiceover, the former becomes one of those “just stay with us on this one, guys” failures, and the second is failed on every level. Jake and Bella are much closer at the beginning of this movie than they were in canon, and a montage of Bella hanging out with her buddy is just that, it’s a montage of Bella hanging out with her buddy. It speaks volumes that Stewart’s voiceover has to remind us she’s depressed and Jacob is helping her heal, because there’s no indicator on screen that this is happening.

This, in turn, makes Bella/Jake as weak and unconvincing as Bella/Edward was in the previous movie. We just have to take on faith that these people are important to each other because that’s what we’re told.

There’s also the wolves, who are completely butchered. In the books, there’s this great mystery with bears in the woods, there’s Bella wondering why Laurent ran off, there’s build-up, then when we find out what’s actually been happening it’s a satisfying explanation, all the pieces come together really nicely. This is not the case in the movie. Meeting the pack is just weird in this context, because we never wondered who they were. Bella is randomly invited to breakfast, we meet Emily with the scarred face who won’t ever have a line again, and that’s it, these characters don’t become important to the movie in any way. It’s a pointless scene that could have been cut, much like so many other scenes in these movies.

Apart from that, the Volturi scene from the books is butchered so I hardly recognize it, and Alice, Carlisle, and Edward’s characters are assassinated to an impressive degree considering they were barely in the movie.

It was hard to watch.

It lands third place because somehow, Breaking Dawn was worse.

4. Breaking Dawn Part Two

I’ll just list the positives: the intro was very pretty and promised a better movie. It was also long, which we appreciated because it took away from the movie’s runtime. (This is not at all an exaggeration, a lot of the time watching all five movies was spent looking at the remaining runtime and groaning.) The Tommy Wiseau sex scene in the sex cabin was uncomfortable, but the fact that it would have fit perfectly in The Room made it funny. The Romanians were genuinely, unironically, great, because of all of Carlisle’s trashy friends, these were the only ones the movie didn’t try to convince us weren’t trashy.

This movie ranks above Breaking Dawn Part One because of the things listed above.

Apart from that, something all of these movies, but especially the last four, suffer from is that they don’t have plots so much as they have a check list of things to put in the movie before they can call it a wrap. This movie is the worst offender of that, and it’s made worse by the film’s expectation that the people are fans who already know what’s happening, and therefore don’t need anything explained. I’ll explain what we mean by that.

We get Bella waking up a vampire, and absolutely nothing is explained. If you don’t know what happened in the last movie then fuck you. Bella then goes hunting, we get the hiker, we get the mountain lion, she goes back to meet Renesmée, finds out Jake imprinted on her daughter, we get the sex cabin, the handwrestling with Emmett. The Charlie problem is introduced (poorly), only to be solved a scene later with emotional payoff that had absolutely no buildup. All of these things, and the rest of the movie as well for that matter, feels like we’re just crossing items off a list.

Since the audience is expected to already know the story, the story only bothers to explain about half of what’s happening, if half. Who’s the lady living with Charlie? If you don’t know, don’t worry because it’s not important anyway. When did Kate and Garrett fall in love? If you don’t care, that's understandable, because they’ve barely interacted in the movie. Who are the Amazonian women? Do they have names? Don’t worry about it. Did Alistair actually leave, if so did that have an impact? Well, Bella stared at a window for a few seconds.

Every so often the characters will start quoting the books, and it’ll be completely out of place because these movies veered off course long ago. Carlisle references his great friendship with Aro, a friendship that was only briefly mentioned at the beginning of the second movie. Aro randomly starts talking about how scary human technology is.

All of these scenes feel like Marcus is telling the story, he’s just listing events waiting for the story to be over, and forgets a lot of pertinent details because he doesn’t care enough to remember them. There’s no effort to tie these scenes together, no effort to build up to anything.

There’s also one significant failure, and this is a failure shared by all five films, but it affects the plot (I use the term “plot” loosely) of this movie which is why it gets a special shoutout here. Vampires in these movies look human. The fact that Bella has to ask Edward is Gianna the secretary is human says it all, because in the books you know instantly, there’s not even a question. This makes the Charlie subplot ridiculous, because Bella looks and acts the same as ever. She had a trashy makeover, maybe, but she’s still Bella. Watching her get human acting classes after we watched her act perfectly human is just silly. Now, we’re all for suspension of belief, but this movie just pencil drew a moustache on her and the audience is supposed to go “My god, Bella, I didn’t recognize you!”

We then get to the atrocious fight scene, which was somehow worse than I remembered. It was also oddly long for a giant fake out. This scene took significant run time and it turns out to have 0 effect on the plot. And when we get back to the real world, the tonal shift is extreme. You can’t go from Jane being choked, dragged across the snow and face eaten by a wolf to her standing around chilling. We could have skipped it entirely, just had Alice touch Aro’s hand, and he goes “Ah, I see, cheerio.”

The end credits were pretty funny, “here are these random characters with bit parts in previous movies, isn’t this nostalgic?”. Nice try, movie. The fact this came after an extended clip show of the great romance of Edward and Bella, through blurry montage images that failed to be convincing in their original films let alone this one, just made it even more hilarious. Hope you didn’t completely ruin the director’s career, though honestly you should a bit.

5. Breaking Dawn Part One

As you can probably tell by the above entries, the fact that this is the worst one is really saying something. All the movies were hard to watch, but this one required pure strength of will to power through.

The big issue is that Breaking Dawn shouldn’t have been split in the first place. However, it was, and that meant that we got a movie that was almost entirely filler. (Followed, somehow, by a movie that was also largely filler.)

We get everybody preparing for the wedding. What do Mike and Jessica think of Bella and Edward getting married? What’s that, you don’t care? Well, now you know anyway. We get the full wedding, as in the whole fucking thing, including the afterparty. We get Bella and Edward traveling to their island, and there’s filler in the filler where they go clubbing in Rio. We then get every minute detail of the wedding night followed by every minute detail of the honeymoon.

There’s fanservice, and then there’s this. This was live action fanfiction.

NOTHING that in any way is relevant to the story happens, the closest we get is Irina looking stoned. Too bad the Denali’ refusal to help out in Eclipse was cut from the last movie, in fact I’m not sure they were mentioned at all previously in these movies (I think maybe Edward had a one-line reference in Twilight?) so this means nothing to people who haven’t read the books.

We then get to the pregnancy arc, which could have been Rosemary’s Baby but is instead as outrageously boring as the first half of the movie was. The director must have realized as much, because he gives us Jacob’s alpha plot that should have been cut from the movie (yes, I know it was in the books, but the thing about adaptations is that things have to go. For the record, I think Meyer should have cut it too). That subplot was straight out of an anime, by the way. Jacob claiming his ancestral rights as alpha while listing off his titles and the soaring music, was… every shounen anime, ever. Complete with the shitty voice acting.

It was a soul-crushingly boring movie.

-

Something that screws over the last four movies is that they were made to feed the fangirls, and generate revenue because the producers knew the fans were coming to watch the books they liked come to life, so they just had to throw scenes from the books and into the movies and let the magic happen. This is a terrible way to adapt something.

Special shoutout too to having to watch Taylor Lautner run around shirtless in four out of five movies. That was very uncomfortable and none of us needed that in our lives, Lautner included.

Super special shoutout to the fact that we disagree with nearly all the casting.

And this isn’t the post for that, but all of the characters were butchered. Some more than others, and some more insidiously than others. It’s the big things, like Carlisle’s character being turned on its head since he thinks all vampires are damned, exactly the opposite of what he thinks in the books, and the little things, like Jasper and Bella being buddies who bicker fondly in New Moon. 

Then the books:

1. Midnight Sun

HANDS DOWN. This is easily our favorite thing to come out of the entire Twilight franchise.

Edward is every kind of crazy at the same time, all the time, and it makes every single sentence packed with delirious entertainment. Reading this book is having a stroke, a psychotic episode, and watching five different true crime shows all at once. We adore every letter of it. (That’s no exaggeration, we even laughed about Edward capitalizing “Son” when Carlisle refers to him as “son” in conversation.)

The book was more than we’d dared to hope for, one of those rare books that makes you go “This was written just for me.”

2. Twilight

The one that started it all.

Vampires are wonderfully creepy. Things like Bella staring at Carlisle acting like the mundane town doctor shortly after learning just how old he is, Alice explaining how vampires kill all, and the uncanny valley perfection of the Cullens all add to the otherness of these vampires, and the general atmosphere of the book.

The love story is convincing. Edward seen through the eyes of Bella is wonderful, the red flags are there but if it weren’t for the books that followed we wouldn’t have decried the ship the way we do.

3. Eclipse

Breaking Dawn is the more interesting book, but Eclipse has less things we outright don’t like. We get to know all the characters better, Edward and Bella are their usual beautiful selves, and it’s overall peak Twilight.

4. Breaking Dawn

Would have ranked much higher, we like what it did. Without it we wouldn’t be in this fandom now, as it brought so much amazing content. The baby plot is fine by us, Carlisle’s friends are great, the Volturi confrontation is a beautiful, if bleak culmination of preventable events. There’s a lot of great stuff in this book.

Unfortunately, and there’s just no diplomatic way to put this, so I’ll just come out with it: there’s too much Jacob.

He no longer had a reason to be in the story, given the way Eclipse ended he had every reason not to be in it. In spite of that we get an entire third of the book from his point of view, and then damned if he’s not shoehorned into the last third as well. He added absolutely nothing to the story, he was just there taking up space and being possessive of a toddler. His POV section was tough to get through, and his presence in book three was just painful. He should have been cut.

5. New Moon

This was the book we had to power through. There are some very good things in it, most notably the Volturi scene, but the Muffin and I enjoy Twilight for the vampires, and that makes Laurent and Hallucination!Edward the highlights of the part of the book where Edward is gone.

There’s also the fact that Jacob isn’t a very compelling character. He has to carry the book now that the Cullens aren’t doing it, and he simply isn’t up for it.

-

Yes, we’re aware that these books are ranked according to how much Jacob is in them. We don’t even hate him, not at all, it’s just that he’s boring.

(That being said, the books at their worst are better than the movies at their best. Jacob narrating his perfect playdate with Renesmée would still be preferable to… I’m trying to think of a good scene from the movies. Hm, nevermind.)

As for The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner and Life and Death, only I have read Bree Tanner and I don’t remember it well enough to give a proper assessment. I was bored with the OCs, though, bored to tears, throughout that book I was itching for Victoria and the Cullens. We have not read Life and Death, but we’re offended by its existence so it ranks bottom.

#books vs. movies #twilight movies #twilight books #the twilight saga #twilight renaissance #twilight meta #twilight #movie review #twilight review #i'm using all the tags tonight #the carnivorous muffin #thecarnivorousmuffinmeta #Anonymous #ask #long post

[meant-to-be-a-hero]

Ranger Rankings - Power Rangers Dino Charge/Dino Super Charge

Spoiler alert - these two were really great.

Premise - 4.5

The Energems give the team a reason to come together, and to stay together until everything's sorted. We've already had multiple dinosaur themed seasons, but this one really uses dinosaurs as a backdrop even moreso than Dino Thunder did, right up to the very end.

The mythology around the Energems evolves nicely, and it feels like something that's constantly important rather than just relevant when the plot demands it.

The museum setting works really well (although how many people need to work in a café at once?) and the idea of an intergalactic bounty hunter has been played with before, but these seasons really go in on that a bit more.

The only problem I have is that they could have been a little more serialised in the search for the Energems they didn't have, a la Operation Overdrive.

Character Dynamics - 4.5

This season's characters are all so good, I don't even know where to start. Everyone's totally different, and they take a little while to get to know one another and grow into their own. But they're all totally formed characters rather than just bullet point character traits, and they're all believable too.

Everyone has an arc, even people like Kendall who only really comes out of the cave when she needs to yell at people initially, and it doesn't feel like the story's weighted in anyone's favour particularly. Even Tyler, whose quest for his dad feels super-important, doesn't override everyone else's stories.

I just really love these idiots. They're all so good.

Sixth Ranger Arc - 4.5

If we just limit this to Ivan, then it's probably a 3.5 or something. He's great, but he does fade into the background a little every now and then after his initial arc. He gets some fun spotlights though, and I liked the relationship between him and Koda as men out of time.

But this season had the most Rangers ever on a team, so the entire series basically becomes a Sixth Ranger arc, because after Ivan and Phillip (who turn up in quick succession) there's James, Kendall, and Zenowing to take into account, and with each successive Ranger the team grows stronger and has even more interactions to balance.

Phillip's probably the least developed of them all - he has his initial arc of learning not to throw money and things and not to be a pompous ass, but after that he kind of just shows up as needed for Sentai footage. He's a good guy, but he does become a little faceless.

James' plotline takes its time to get going, but I liked his interplay with Tyler a lot. They actually had plausible reasons for him to go off and do his own thing too, I'm glad they took the time to explain his absences.

And Zenowing, who I thought would be daft, was actually a decent addition to the team. He's again totally different to everyone else, and he does have a role to play rather than just standing in the background.

Oh, and Kendall becoming a Ranger and just taking it in her stride and no one questioning her on it at all? Yeah, we like that.

Plot Development - 4

I'm proud of these seasons for having plots that thread through both Dino Charge and Super Dino Charge rather than just closing everything down at the end of one to start something new. Samurai did it too to an extent, whereas Megaforce you could basically cut down the middle. Dino Charge and Super Dino Charge really do feel like evolutions of one another.

The search for the Energems is a good impetus to keep everything going, and it presents good reasons for the villains to keep going after the Rangers specifically so they can take them back, rather than just attacking the Rangers because they're in the way.

If anything, there can sometimes be a few too many one-and-done episodes where the villains JUST go after the Rangers, which stalls the momentum somewhat, but you can't say that the threat doesn't escalate as the plot goes on. Compare where we start with where we end and it's such a huge difference.

Villains - 4.5

I don't think I've had as much fun with villains in a season since Lothor or Dai Shi.

Sledge could easily have become one-dimensional, but his relationships with everyone else on the ship kept him interesting. I never knew whether he was going to yell at Poisandra or kiss her.

Speaking of, Poisandra was hilarious. Again, she could have been far too one note, but they made her interesting in her own right by giving her her own plans, and Curio, while a tad bland, was a good straight man for her plots.

I did get a little bored of Fury by the end, but at least they kept him relevant by having him face off with other generals. It's nice when the good guys get along, but it's better when the bad guys don't. I also really liked Wrench, who wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty even though he was the tech guy.

I do think Dino Super Charge has the better villains though; Heckyl and Snide were a good pair, and Heckyl's eventual face turn was actually a nice surprise. The idea that he wasn't evil at all until the Dark Energem was well handled, and while his redemption arc came right at the last minute, it did feel complete and earned.

I also really liked Lord Arcanon and Singe; they ran the risk of being too little, too late, coming in with only like 8 episodes of a season left, but they had history with the other villains that made them relevant, and Arcanon's overblown sense of self-importance made him fun too.

Overall - 4.40

Hottest Ranger - Oh god, this one's far too hard. It's like a four-way tie between Tyler, Chase, Riley, and Koda, all for different reasons. Stick them in a blender and give me the perfect Ranger.

Notable Episodes:

When Logic Fails - A crystal maze-esque episode which shows off Riley's unique talents.

Wishing For A Hero - The Rangers make wishes that all go terribly, terribly wrong.

Love At First Fight - Mostly for Beauticruel's terrible accent.

Freaky Fightday - Body swap episode? Body swap episode.

Edge Of Extinction/End Of Extinction - World-wide Zord fights! Time travel! A black hole! A happy ending!

I'd also like to mention how good all four holiday specials were. They're all clip shows, but they have such good, fun set-ups that they're not a chore to watch like the holiday specials usually are. Trick Or Trial was especially good.

#Ranger Rankings #Power Rangers Dino Charge #Power Rangers Dino Super Charge

[androgynousblackbox]

I saw Midnight Mass and here are thoughts (spoilers)

I mentioned something about the Flanagan Checklist on a previous post about all the themes, plot point, character type and beats I keep seeing on his productions, and I am mad with myself because I didn’t included four more points that I should have see coming before:

-Cheating is going to be used as a shocking plot twist. -Familial relationships are more important than anything elsse. And it has to be immediate family, cousins and uncles don’t count. -It always ends with a couple on some way. -There is a character who just HAS to go on a bit too long monologue about death and life close the end. Most of the points I mentioned there happened, even on ways I didn’t necesarily thought, and merely one, arguably two points didn’t happened on any sort way. The ending being mostly happy with some just tragedies and then the sibling relationship being vital for the plot. Everything else was exactly as you could have expected if you watched any other Mike Flanagan show before. Does that mean is a bad show? Well, not, not really. Just predictable, a bit full of itself (especially with the monologues, god does this show loves to monologue) and underwhelming. There can be some sort of comfort on that, and there is some things I do genuelly like and applaud the show for being. 

What I didn’t liked: -The whole cheating being used as a plot twist and the fact the doctor was a lesbian was kinda… why. Like, I know the point of those two things. The doctor being a lesbian was just there in order to foreshadow something about how the priest sees her, which relates back to the cheating and how he is her real father. I don’t know how to explain it but there is something about “we are going to present a queer character purely for the sake of the development of this straight character” that makes unhappy. I don’t mind the fact that she dies in the end because literally everyone except for two kids are dying so it’s fair, but it’s the fact that they present this lesbian living closeted on a small community that WOULD have rejected her, made her feel rejected and have her entire value reduced to the daughter of a Fucking Useless Dad in the end just feels like… you presented that theme of religious homophobia and then did fucking nothing with it. Literally nothing. We had plenty of time for all those monologues about death and the foreshadowing of the death of Riley, for that we had no fucking rush, but for that issue, that still many works don’t dare to even touch? Nah, not a priority. Just the smallest of talks about being a thing and then forget about it, it’s all about Useless Dads and Nuclear Famiy up in here. It’s just a wasted opportunity and I feel cheated, because you could had a really touching moment to show the doctor realizing that she always had at least one place she could have gone and be accepted if she wanted to. But nah. -The big bad vampire was boring as hell and his actions made no fucking sense. Is he supposed to be smart at all? Or is he supposed to be just some wild animal that moves on instinct? How the fuck did he stayed however long on the ruins alone but still have the enough self control to NOT kill completely the priest so he could get out in the sun, but also just don’t fucking react when people are literally shooting him, drenching him on gasoline or stabbing his wings? How does he have the enough intelligence to tell the priest to keep quiet, to dress on the whatever religious clothng those were on the church and to bleed himself for the glass recipient, but then just forget about the fucking world when he is feeding off random ass people and not even killing them completely? The vampire wasn’t a character at all, he was just whatever the fuck the plot needed him to be at the time and that made him annoying and boring, not scary. -And you know, I don’t really like to bash any show, book or anything on the base that if they are scary or not because that is not the point of stories, not even horror stories or at least not all of them. Some horror stories can be just tragic or cathartic or fun and that is fine. Not all of them have to keep you awake at night and be considered bad if they don’t manage to do that, as long they are still are an engaging story that keeps you interested enough until the end. But this story didn’t do that. If your big baddie is already boring to me and he seems easy enough to harm or to kill, then all that there is left is to at least care for the characters to get out alive and I didn’t cared about that either because I have already seen all these characters in shows where I liked them even more than here. Everyone is just… kinda there. Maybe it’s me, or maybe it’s because this is shorter and had to move things faster (even though, again, we had plenty of time to show for the fourth time or whatever Riley being hunted) but after seeing the family drama on the Haunting of the Hill House and the interpersonal relationships on the other show whose name I can’t even remember, but it was about a haunting manor, this all feels very underdeveloped and underwhelming. The notes are there but they aren’t being hit enough or in a satisfactory enough way, and I don’t know why. That’s why the monologues feel kinda awkward because I am there watching this guy spill his entire life story to this other person who is not saying anything and thinking to myself “really? We couldn’t come up with any other way to talk about the past of this character so now we are doing just plain old infodumping?” -The “old people make up” was fucking awful. Like absolutely horrible. Who the fuck green lighted that. It was fucking obvious that the old lady and the old man were going to become young because why else would they put all that silicon on the face of clearly younger people? Why they couldn’t just hire older actors or at least older than them who looked alike to play on each stage? It’s not like we actually see them getting younger. Just have the older people do their job, maybe use a bit of make up to make them look younger to a certain point and then you use the younger actors that stay until the end. You clearly have the budget so why the fucking awful make up. -Related to that, I don’t know about the priest because we never actually see Old Priest talking and interacting with people, but I didn’t believed for one single second that the lady who played the Old Mom was a 80 something woman on the body of someone becoming younger. I don’t know if it was an issue with the lady herself or the script, but something felt goofy about it. -Riley was such a non interesting or engaging character for me. Like, at all. He is a general “good guy who made a mistake, don’t you feel bad for him”, and his whole story didn’t made any sense either in the end. Like, before the night he went to confront the priest, I didn’t get why the fuck that happened except because the plot said it needed to happen. Riley heard the priest said that the other drunk dude was going to visit his sister and he IMMEDIATELY call him a liar and demands answers. This guy jumped to that conclusion so fucking fast because the plot needed him to move fast and I find it so ridiculous. Like, yeah, he had already seen that something was going on with the priest and the island since he came, something didn’t felt right, but why is that the point where he decides is too much? If I hear someone saying “I am going to visit my mom” and I find out that their mom is actually dead I don’t think that person was lying, I think that person must have meant visiting the place where their mom is buried because that is exactly what I have heard other people say before. So for Riley to immediately think something is up when he could have easily thought the priest meant that Joe went to visit his sister’s grave, to make amends, some kind of closure or whatever, and calling him a liar it just felt forced. When he got attacked by the big vampire all I could think of was “well, he was an atheist character on a american show about religion, obviously he wasn’t going to survive” and when he died for real I was “well, that is done now.” Like, I didn’t give a fuck about him by the end. -It bothers me that nobody as much mentions the word vampire. Like I can get the priest and the Karen that helps him out straight up not knowing shit about vampires because they never watched tv or are tech savy on any sort of way to even hear the stories, but what is the excuse for literally everyone else? For Ali, a teenager that surely was fucking alive when Twilight was a thing and still living on an actual city? “Hey, that is no fucking angel, that is a vampire” was something I was waiting for fucking ever for anyone to say, even if they are immediately disregarded, and then nothing. And it’s not lke they invent some weird name for him like they do on the zombie movies where they call them anything but zombies. It’s just angel or “thing” and that is it, like why, literally what was the point of being all “ooh we don’t know what he is oooh” when the audience would have known already. Or they thought because the audience would immediately know what is up there was no point into saying it? Because that doesn’t make it any better, it just makes it even more frustrating and it had me baffled for the longest time becuse I kept wondering what time period was even this where no one heard of vampires. -Too many monologues. And the final one where Erin is slowly dying literally made me roll my eyes because it was the same thing as seen on other shows, but somehow even more pretentious, goes a bit too long and doesn’t really connect with anything, it just happens and then it ends. I feel like someone took themselves a little too seriously for that one. What I did liked: -I am not muslim, I am not intimate familiar with muslim representation beyond “stop treating them as terrorist”, so I can’t really know for sure how accurate or fair is the portrayal of the muslim Sheriff on the show. But I can say for sure I do appreciate that, even if it turned out to not be perfect, there was a legitimate attempt to show another faith just as valid and important as cristianity, another religion that meant something good and positive for characters that we are meant and succesfully empathatize with. Every time the Sheriff talked about his faith and what it meant for his family I was fully entranced by that. He was my favourite character in the entire show and I was so pissed off by the way people, especially fucking Karen, kept treating him and his concerns. At some point I was pissed at Erin too because she saw Karen was going too far and being an asshole, but she didn’t said shit until much later and didn’t helped when the Sheriff HAD to defend his religion on a room where he knew was the minority. Like, I even feel like the show kinda dropped the ball there because by the end of that horrible scene we are meant to empathatize with ERIN and not with the Sheriff, who had to keep dealing with his son being openly indoctrinated by a racist dick. -Having said that, I also understand where Ali comes from because sure, he lost his mom, any contact with any previous friends or whatever he had before going to the middle of fucking nowhere to an island where they never even heard of Twilight, so of course he wants to fit in, of course he is going to search for community and acceptance outside of what his father taught him. I did really loved how in the end he praises alongside his father after realizing the church was full of shit. -The actor who played the priest was top notch. He did an excelent job as a cultist leader who knows what to say to get people fired up, emotional and less critical, as a man who is nice enough to offer comunion to an old lady that couldn’t go to church and who actually wanted to help an ex convict like Riley. Like, even if he had his ulterior motives all along, I could totally believe him when he did all of that and also keep that air of mistery where you weren’t really sure what was he thinking. If I kept watching the show until the end it was in big part thanks to him and the Sheriff, because I loved the way he was just a selfish man but not an evil one, someone who truly thought he was doing some good until he wasn’t. -The way they play with the sound was really cool. There were two particular moments I fucking loved. One  is when Riley diez and you can still hear Erin losng her entire shit even as the credit rolls, like, fuck Riley, but that is some eerie, cool way to let him go. And the second one, that I loved even more, was when the survivors were singing in the island and it all went dead fucking silent the moment the sun came out. Not even a scream, not even a plea. We just went from a moment that seemed straight from the ending of Grinch, with the entire town uniting after realizing what is important, and then nothing but silence. That gave me legit chills. -The lady who played the Karen, whose name is not really Karen but fuck it, is a Karen, she was… like frighteningly good as a Karen. It did felt like by the end she was kinda of a caricature because she never hesitated for shit, she never stopped to think on anything, and maybe that was kind of the point, but to me it felt less like she was becoming unhinged and more like, again, the plot needs to move on so we don’t have time to deal with normal human reactions from Karen. She was still a solid dick and I fucking cheered when she finally died and when she was told she wasn’t a good person. -The effect for the eyes was cool and I was surprised for how well they kept using it every single time. Maybe they couldn’t hire older actors because they spend all the budget on the eyes and the scenes with the flying boring vampire, who knows. However, after all these points, would I recommend this show to someone? If you already saw the other shows, not really, because there is not much of a difference that justifies going out of your way for it unless you just want to put something horror related this Halloween. If you just want that, something spooky top ut on and don’t think too hard about it, then yeah, absolutely, go for it. Like I said, there are some good moments there and even though I didn’t enjoyed it all I wouldn’t called it a complete waste of time either. But I still prefer the other shows, especially Haunting on the Hill house. That is still my favourite one. If you enjoyed this review and would like to see more, consider supporting me through Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/andro62259

#racism mention #andro just watched #homophobia mention #the midnight mass #midnight mass #netflix midnight mass

[takaraphoenix]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 5

1. Favorite character of this season?

Anya, I love her arc this season. She's just kind of been... there, in season 4, running along. No one really acknowledged the demon thing, there was no real bonding between Anya and everyone, she was just there. This season, finding her place in the world? Working at the Magic Box, then her in The Body – I mean seriously, her confronting mortality like that, I love it. I love her growth.

2. Outstanding minor character (positive or negative)?

Dawn. Sure, technically you could argue she's a “main character”, however... she's barely even a character, she's a plot-device so that really qualifies her as a minor character for me.

I always disliked Dawn, even when I was a teen myself. With some things, perspective shifts when you grow older, but Dawn just... always sucked. As a teen, I found her to be a cringey parody of the teen girl experience and now as an adult I still think that this is the peak of what a middle-aged man thinks the teen girl experience is. She's a cheap, one-dimensional caricature of a teenager.

She is a whiny brat, she constantly acts like “no one sees the real me”, she becomes a kleptomaniac to try and gain attention, she acts like no one loves her even though everyone constantly fawn over her every chance they got, she is a spoiled little brat that is completely unappreciative of all the things she gets. It's like they crammed every single shallow teen stereotype into this one character, making her a very one-dimensional character. Which is a bafflement considering Willow, Xander and Buffy started out as teenagers but they were always fully fleshed out characters with actual personalities. Heck, Cordelia was the most stereotypical character in the teenage years but even she got more depth and individuality.

Though I'd like to point out that while, as a character, Dawn is incredibly obnoxious, I do like her as what she is – a plot device. The way she creates new dynamics among the Scoobies, how other characters play off her and grow on her existence, the villain-plot she triggers.

3. Favorite character dynamic?

Too many, honestly. I adore the way Tara-Buffy grow in this season. Generally the friction between Spike and the Scoobies. Spike and Dawn in particular. The Buffy-Dawn dynamic too – Dawn being such a blank slate of Teen AngstTM allows for the other characters to shine in comparison. They get a new dynamic here, through the New Kiddo that puts them in perspective. Caring, gentle. The sisters-angle is a new one for Buffy and I do love her as a big sister, even if I wished her retconned sister had like... an actual personality.

4. Favorite canon romantic ship?

Spike/Buffy. Sue me, I'm Spuffy trash. Always been. The way he cares for her, the things he's willing to do. The little things. The self-sacrificial side, how he drops everything to help her whenever she needs him. And, I know, I give other ships flag for things equal or less in comparison to some of the shit that's happened/happening between Spike/Buffy, but see that's where taste comes into play. Liking and disliking things is just... all about that taste and tastes differ. For me, Spike/Buffy hits all the right spots. I love them so much.

5. Least favorite canon romantic ship?

Riley/Buffy. Once again. Seriously, this is just such a bad relationship. From the get-go she constantly put herself down to lift him up. Holding back her powers – which, of course, because otherwise she'd snap him in half during sparring – but pretending that's the max. She is always going out of her way to make him feel special and useful.

And he goes and gets fed on by a vampire and has the audacity to blame it on Buffy, because Buffy doesn't make him feel wanted enough. Even though she continuously tries making him feel important. It's ridiculous. Complaining that she didn't think about calling him when her mom went to the hospital, like she didn't have something else in her mind there? Setting her an ultimatum that she has to give him a reason to stay. After he essentially cheats on her, by sneaking around with vampires and letting them feed on him for the rush.

Now to go and leave with his little military buddies once more. After everything the military has done to him...? Their relationship was so bad for Buffy.

6. Favorite episode?

The Body. This is the singularly best episode... ever. In all television I've ever seen. This episode is overwhelmingly good. Sarah Michelle Gellar's acting is overwhelming in this episode. The choice to exclude music entirely, not even sad ones. How silence is allowed to longer, how unnerving the background noises become due to this silence.

The writing too, of course. Anya's words about death and mortality are so intense, they'll always stick with me. And not just her. Xander, Willow, Dawn, how they all handle this in a different way.

The choice alone that Joyce dies from something so fundamentally human, something no one could have prevented, something Buffy couldn't have fought. And – yes, that reaches ahead some – but the fact that the next episode also serves to have this unfold. It's not just “death and move on”. It's being dealt with, it's being digested, it's being taken seriously.

Too many writers feel the need to fun things up when it's getting serious, because they are afraid to lose their audience if there isn't a joke every five minutes. There is not a single joke in that entire episode. This show is funny as hell, but they know when not to joke. There is nothing to be made light here, this is serious, they are truly suffering. They know how important that is.

I've seen this episode surely a dozen times now. I cry so much every single time. Not just once. There are so many well-written, well-acted and well-executed moments in this episode. It's brilliant TV-making. It encapsulates what's so brilliant about this show overall; the human element, suffering, pain, dealing with pain, the balance between seriousness and humor and knowing when not to use humor.

7. Least favorite episode?

Episode two Real Me. It's the Dawn introduction episode and I've made clear what I dislike about Dawn; this episode introduces it all in the most teen angst cliche possible – writing a diary entry about how no one sees you for who you are and like no one could ever actually understand you.

8. Favorite Monster Of The Week?

...Dracula. I still... I consider that episode a fever-dream. It's one of the ones I opt to forget about whenever enough time has passed since my last rewatch because it just... doesn't fit into this show at all, it feels like a whacky filler arc in an anime, or a one-shot comic spin-off. But it's fun.

9. Least favorite Monster Of The Week?

This season doesn't actually have much of those. There's 4 or 5, depending on how you'd count, out of those 22, because this season is very streamlined about the Big Bad, more so than previous seasons were, and it is also very focused on the human issue – on Joyce's sickness and then her death. Out of those few, I guess the “let's split Xander in half” demon from episode 3 was my least favorite. It was... boring and due to this season's streamlining the fact that this was the most fillery filler episode felt a bit out of place, really.

10. Rate the overarching villain!

SO FREAKING GOOD.

Glory is a truly glorious villain. She's a god. But she is so – so frantic, so manic. She is fun to watch as a villain. The sheer size of the threat too. Which, it figures. There's always an escalation of threat.

(We will get back to that in the season 6 review though.)

Glory may just be my favorite Big Bad on this show, which only adds to how much I love this season. It's one of my favorites. Granted, I have a lot of favorite seasons.

Bonus: Other thoughts?

I love this season so very, very much. The human element, the growth, the villain-plot, the relationship developments. It's an incredible season. I'll get back to this when I finish my rewatch and actually do my ranking of seasons, but I am rating each episode – 1 to 5 – and getting the point-average, to have a more factual look at how much I loved a season. This one is through the roof, it scored an entire 1,5 more in average than season 4 did. There's only one episode in this that I gave a 1 to, but there are so many 4s.

That ending, to truly kill off your main character like that. So many gut-punches – but deserved gut-punches, not the ones that come out of nowhere and only serve shock-value.

I greatly enjoy and love seasons 1 to 3, but this season – this season reminds me why Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the best damn TV show ever created.

#Buffy the Vampire Slayer #Season 5 #Phoe's Random Show Rants #Buffy Review #Phoe Watching Buffy

[dukereviewsmovies]

Duke Reviews: Guardians Of The Galaxy

Hello, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews As We Continue Our Look At The Marvel Cinematic Universe...

By Talking About The Guardians Of The Galaxy...

And I Have To Admit Before This Movie Came Out I Knew Who The Guardians Of The Galaxy Were As I Saw Them In The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes Animated Series The Possibility Of Me Wanting To See Them In A Movie Wasn't Too Bright But I Still Wasn't With Everyone Else Who At The Time Believed It Was Going To Bomb

So, When Trailers Came Out, I Was Excited To See The Film So I Eventually Saw It...

The Film Is About A Ravager Named Peter Quill (Played By Chris Pratt) Who Goes By Star Lord Who Forms An Uneasy Alliance With The Daughter Of Thanos, Gamora (Played By Zoe Saldana) A Green Warrior Who Seeks Revenge Named Drax (Played By Dave Batista) A Wisecracking Raccoon Named Rocket (Voiced By Bradley Cooper) And A Walking Tree Named Groot (Voiced By Vin Diesel) Who Go On The Run After Stealing A Powerful Artifact...

Will They Manage To Get Rid Of This Artifact Before Ronan The Accuser (Played By Lee Pace) And The Other Daughter Of Thanos, Nebula (Played By Karen Gillian) Find Them?

Let's Find Out As We Watch Guardians Of The Galaxy..

The Film Starts On Earth In 1988, As A Young Peter Quill Is At A Hospital Where His Mom Is Dying From A Tumor In Her Head...

Yes, It Is Arnold So Shut Up...

Anyway, With His Mother Not Having Much Time Left, His Uncle (I Guess?) Played By James Gunn And Joss Whedon Regular Gregg Henry Brings Peter In To Say Goodbye To His Mom, But Not Wanting To Say Goodbye To His Mom, Peter Runs Out Of The Hospital Only To Be Abducted By Aliens...

Only To Time Jump 26 Years Later To The Planet Morag, Where A Now Grown Up Peter (Played By Chris Pratt) Who Goes By Star-Lord Arrives On His Ship The Milano (Named After Alyssa Milano)...

Well, At Least It Isn't Named After Rose McGowan...

To Get An Item On The Planet Which Leads To One The Best Scenes In This Movie...

The Opening Credits...

And By God, This Scene Is Just Fantastic Despite Them Ruining It In Avengers Endgame...

(Start At 0:26, End At 0:40)

You See What You've Done, Russo Brothers! You've Made The Fanboys Cry! It's Okay, This Scene Is Awesome....Shh...

Eventually Finding And Geting What He's Looking For, Star-Lord Is Soon Confronted By One Of Ronan The Accuser's Warriors Korath The Pursuer Who Wants What He's Got But He's Like Screw This And Decides To Fight Them...

(Start At 1:00, End At 2:50)

Being Contacted By His Boss, Yondu (Played By Another James Gunn Regular Michael Rooker) He Asks Quill Where He Is But He Decides Not To Tell Him That And Says That He's Keeping The Orb For Himself Which Leads Yondu To Put A Bounty Out On Quill While Worrying About Who Else Wanted The Orb...

Which Leads To The Introduction Of The Big Bad Of The Film, Ronan The Accuser (Played By Ned The Piemaker) On Board His Ship, The Dark Aster. Who Decides Not To Abide By The Treaty His People, The Kree Have Signed With The Xandarians Of Xandar Recently Because He Believes Their Culture To Be A Disease Upon The Galaxy...

And They Killed His Family So Many Years Ago...

Well, That Might Be A Good Reason To Want To Kill Them...

With Korath Returning, He Tells Ronan About Star-Lord And Says That He's On His Way To Xandar To Give It To Someone Called The Broker, Wanting To Retrieve The Orb To Give It To Thanos So He Can Wipe Out Xandar In Repayment For His Services, Ronan Sends One Of Thanos' Daughters, Gamora (Played By Lieutenant Uhura) To Retrieve It For Him From Star Lord On Xandar...

Cutting To Xandar We Get Our Stan Lee Cameo When Rocket (Played By Faceman) And Groot (Played By Dominic Torretto) Look For Potential Targets To Get Money For...

Stan Lee Cameo!

Eventually Star Lord, Rocket Sees How Much He's Worth And Turns Out...

It's Alot So They Decide To Go After Him...

Taking The Orb To The Broker In His Shop, Star-Lord Mentions That Ronan Was After It Which Forces The Broker To Say No Thank You To The Orb And Tells Star Lord To Get Out As He's Afraid For His Life...

Running Into Gamora, She Steals The Orb From Star Lord Which Leads To A Fight Between The Two But When Rocket And Groot Get Involved Someone Calls In The Nova Corp Led By Mr. Cellophane Himself, John C. Riley And They Arrest All 4 Of Them...

Back At Nova Corp HQ, Nova Prime, Played By Cruella De Vil Tries To Get The Kree To Work With Them In Stopping Ronan But They're Too Busy Trying To Find Captain Marvel And The Skrulls To Give A Shit...

Meanwhile, Downstairs Riley Who Actually Plays A Character Named Dey Shows His Boss, The Tick, Star Lord And The Others And He Decides To Send Them To A High Security Prison Called The Kyln...

Given Prison Garb, They're All Mixed In With All The Other Prisoners, One Of Them Being Voiced By Nathan Fillion...

Seriously!?! You Have The Most Badass Browncoat In The Verse And You Only Use Him For A Voice Over Character?!? Screw You, Marvel, Screw You!

Being Taken That Night By Prisoners Who Have Lost Their Families To Either Ronan Or Thanos, They're Stopped By Drax The Destroyer (Played By Dave Batista) Who Wants To Kill Gamora Himself In Revenge For Ronan Killing His Family Despite Gamora Saying Earlier That She Wasn't Getting The Orb For Ronan But For A Third Party Seller...

Not Believing Gamora, Star Lord Intervenes To Say That Because She's Betraying Ronan It's Most Likely That Ronan Will Come Get Her Eventually Which Will Give Drax The Opportunity To Kill Him, So Knowing Star-Lord Is Right He Lets Her Go...

Taking Her Back To Her Cell, Star Lord Wants In On Gamora's Deal Despite Rocket Wanting To Take Star Lord To Yondu After They Escape But After Hearing Gamora's Buyer Is Paying More For The Orb Than Yondu Is For Star Lord, Rocket And Groot Are In...

Summoned By Thanos When They Discover Gamora Had Her Own Plans, Ronan Explains To Thanos What Has Happened Despite The Other Not Helping The Situation So Ronan Kills Him...

Bored By Ronan's Words, Thanos Just Says That He Will Honor The Agreement He Made If Ronan Brings Him The Orb If Not...Well I Think You Know What Will Happen...

Coming Up With An Escape Plan, Which Includes One Of The Security Guards Bands, A Prisoner's Prosthetic Leg And A Quarnyx Battery By The Control Tower, Groot Gets It For Them Which Forces Them To Place Their Plan Into Action Now...

(Start At 0:30)

Asking For The Coordinates For Her Buyer, Gamora Says That They're Going The Right Way And That She'll Contact Him While Back At The Kyln, Ronan, Thanos' Other Daughter, Nebula (Played By Ruby Roundhouse) And Some Of His Soldiers Invade To Find Out Where Gamora And The Orb Went To No Avail...

Back On Xandar, Yondu Discovers Through The Broker What Is In The Orb And Who His Buyer Is And It Turns Out That It's The Collector (Played By DJ The Codebreaker)...

But Wait A Minute...

Doesn't The Collector Have The Aether? And Didn't Volstagg Say In Thor: The Dark World Say That Having 2 Infinity Stones In One Place Is A Bad Idea?

Arriving At The Place Where The Collector Is Dubbed Knowhere, The Team Gets Drinks And Has Some Fun While Waiting For The Collector...

Going Outside To Talk With Gamora, It Leads To A Bit Of A Romantic Scene With Her And Star Lord, Until Gamora Backs Away Believing That Star Lord Is Pulling A Human Trick On Her. But Hearing Noise Inside, They Go In To See Drax, Rocket And Groot Having A Drunken Fight With Each Other...

Luckily Before They Kill Each Other, The Collector's Assistant Comes In To Get Them For Her Master...

Entering The Collector's Wherehouse, They See Some Of The Things He's Collected Including Cosmo The Space Dog Before The Team Is Introduced To The Collector Himself...

Opening The Orb, It Is Revealed To Be An Infinity Stone Which Leads The Collector To Tell The Team About How After The Big Bang, Six Infinity Stones Were Created And Wielded By Beings With Extraordinary Strength Though The Energy From Said Stones Eventually Wiped Them All Out...

Not Hearing That Whole Infinity Stone Speech Apparently, The Collector's Assistant Takes The Stone And Basically Destroys His Entire Collection, Which Forces The Team To Take The Stone Elsewhere With Gamora And Star-Lord Suggesting The Nova Corp...

But While Star-Lord, Gamora, Rocket And Groot Were Dealing With The Collector, Drax Had Someone Call Ronan And His Forces So He Could Get His Revenge...

(Start At 0:54)

With Ronan Defeating Drax And Getting The Stone Along With Nebula Destroying Gamora's Spacecraft, Star Lord Calls Yondu's Ship To Pick Them Up As He Goes Out To Save Gamora By Giving Her His Oxygen Mask...

Luckily (Unlike Yondu Himself) Star Lord And Gamora Are Saved By Yondu Before Star Lord Can Die...

Groot Saves Drax Who Was Mostly Dead (And As We All Know There's A Difference Between Mostly Dead And All Dead) Admits He Was A Fool For Calling Ronan Blaming It On The Grief And Anger Over The Loss Of His Family...

As Rocket Arrives To Get Groot So They Can Get As Far Away As They Can From Ronan And His Forces Before They Wipe Out Xandar And Possibly The Entire Galaxy, But Groot Wants To Stay And Save His New Friends Along With Drax To Rocket's Dismay...

Meanwhile On The Dark Aster, After Discovering What Thanos Wanted, Ronan Betrays Thanos And Takes The Stone For Himself To Use To Destroy Xandar And Once He Is Done, Destroy Thanos Himself With Nebula By Ronan's Side...

On-Board Yondu's Ravager Ship, Star Lord And Gamora Manage To Make A Deal With Yondu And His Ravagers To Help Them Take Down Ronan In Exchange For The Stone To Which Yondu Agrees Despite Rocket And The Others Trying To Save Star Lord And Gamora...

The Team Argues While Coming Up With A Plan But Star Lord Eventually Gives Everyone A Reason "To Give A Shit And Not Run Away" Which Gets Them To Stand By Him...

So, The New Plan Is That Rocket Will Lead A Team That Will Blow A Hole Into The Dark Aster's Starboard Hull So The Milano And Yondu's Craft Can Enter The Ship. After That Gamora Will Deactivate A Impenetrable Shield To The Main Deck Where Ronan Is So Star Lord Can Use The Rocket's Hadron Enforcer To Kill Ronan...

They Give The Ravagers Containment Cases For The Stone While Star Lord Contacts Dey From The Nova Corp To Try To Get Them To Help Them Save Xandar...

With Everyone On The Team Except Groot Surviving (For Now) They're Surprised To See Ronan Survived As Well. About To Wipe Xandar Out, Star Lord Pulls A Last Ditch Effort Of A Dance Off To Distract Ronan While Rocket Prepares To Fire The Hadron Enforcer At Ronan...

Firing It At Ronan's Hammer, Rocket Destroys It So Star Lord Can Get The Stone, Unable To Handle The Energy The Team Takes Each Others Hands To Take A Piece Of The Energy For Themselves...

Using The Power Of The Stone To Wipe Ronan Out, Star Lord Places The Stone In One Of The Containers Only To Give It To Yondu Despite Begging Him To Reconsider...

Yep, Star Lord Gives Yondu A Fake And Gives The Real Stone To The Nova Corp, Who Discover That Star Lord's Mother Is An Earthling But His Father Is Something Else Entirely While Drax Decides Ronan Was Just A Puppet And That It's Really Thanos He Needs To Kill...

Also For Helping Them With Ronan The Nova Corp Gives The Team A New Ship Along With Clean Criminal Records, Oh And We Discover Groot's Alive...

As The Guardians Fly Off On Another Adventure Which Leads To The Mid Credit Scene Of The Movie With...

Dancing Groot...

And What Can I Say About This Scene? You've Heard About It, You Love It, Who Doesn't? It's Cute And Funny Period....

After The Credits Role We Get A End Credits Scene Back At The Collector's Wherehouse Where We Get A Cameo From Howard The Duck (Voiced By Seth Green)

And That's Guardians Of The Galaxy And What Can I Say About It Except It's One Of The MCU'S Best...

The Story Is Fantastic, The Characters Are Well Written, The Effects Are Awesome And I Honestly Have No Complaints For This Movie Whatsoever And I Say See It...

Till Next Time, This Is Duke And Next Week We're Looking At Age Of Ultron!

#guardians of the galaxy #chris pratt #zoe saldana #dave bautista #bradley cooper #vin diesel #lee pace #karen gillan #john c. reilly #star lord #gamora #rocket raccoon #Groot #nebula #ronan the accuser #thanos #marvel #marvel cinematic universe

[varialibraria]

Review: Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me

by Mariko Tamaki & Rosemary Valero-O’Connell Published by First Second 

Song of choice: the scary jokes—Emotional Vagrant (the entire “Burn Pygmalion!!!” album by @snout felt like a good fit, but especially this song) Recommended meal: a vegetarian wrap. Not the pretentious bullshit kind from Whole Foods, but the kind you get from a little hole-in-the-wall that isn’t going to be there a year from now. The woman behind the counter has tattoos you can’t make sense of and can’t see entirely. Tonight you will not remember how the wrap tasted, but you will, synaesthetically, remember the taste of her subtle smile. A feeling of something missed, lost time from a timeline that diverged away from this one.

I’d seen “Laura Dean” around. I hadn’t realized, somehow, that it was a graphic novel, or that it was queer until i cracked it open almost as an after-thought; the titular Laura Dean is the blonde-haired figure in the foreground, while the one looking at the viewer is the book’s protagonist, Freddy Riley. Freddy was named “Frederica”, but she can’t stand being called that. She likes to take apart thrift shop and secondhand dolls and plushies, and reassemble them into unique new creations with her best friend Doodle. She’s the kind of person who, at sixteen, still hangs out near the jungle gym with her friends. Her family goes bowling, she works part-time at a lesbian-themed organic wraps restaurant. She’s a little quirky by most standards, and fits in well with her friends who are the odd ones out.

And so, she makes a very odd couple with popular party-girl Laura Dean. And Laura can’t seem to stay faithful to Freddy, and doesn’t seem to think enough about other’s feelings to consider responsible non-monogamy. When the story opens, Freddy waits for Laura at a school dance—where was she? Laura, annoyed, says that she said she’d meet Freddy at the gym. A glimpse at Freddy’s text message history shows that Freddy sent messages asking if she’d do that, but Laura never replied. Mid-way through the dance, Laura excuses herself, and by the time Freddy finds where she’s gotten off to, she’s managed to get all the way into a storage closet and halfway up the inside of another girl’s pants.

Freddy relates all this in narration that takes the form of emails to an advice column. It allows the story to break from needing to have narration at all times, makes the lack of consistency a reflection of Freddy bouncing in and out of love with Laura Dean, in and out of the relationship. It allows for all the little moments where someone’s internal dialogue is made external as inanimate objects converse with them in pink-lined speech balloons. 

About that: the book makes use of a limited color palette—grayscale except for rose pink used for accent and emphasis, sometimes bringing attention to a particular object, drawing the eye to a single panel on the page, or even creating contrast with the parts of the page that are not in pink, to give a feeling of loneliness. And the loneliness is deep and aching. Laura openly fetishizes Freddy, saying that her full given name is “hot”, because “it’s so multicultural to have an Asian girlfriend with a name like [that]”. She mocks Freddy’s time spent with her friends as “boring” and talks derisively about the hobbies Freddy shares with Doodle. 

It’s very easy to hate Laura. It can, at times, be easy to feel contempt for Freddy and how she keeps falling for Laura, and ignoring her friends and her commitments in order to follow along with Laura’s flippant, hi-and-bye lifestyle where everyone else’s needs are secondary and selfish.  At the same time, for anyone who has ever been in love, who has ever been infatuated (whether romantically, or in general being so passionate about another person that you lose your own selfhood), it can be easy to sympathize. And when Laura finally gets a taste of her own medicine, there’s a little sting of sympathy. 

It’s messy, it’s complicated. Like relationships, like being a teenager. Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me is very much about the dumb shit we do as teenagers trying to be adults. About the dumb shit we do as adults, too, because becoming an adult is a process. The adults in Freddy’s life fuck up, too. 

Things resolve. Not neatly, not with everyone feeling better. But bridges are mended, or burned where they need to be. New connections are made, deeper understandings.

It’s a book worth reading quickly, and then going back and savoring. The weak points? ...hard to pin down, really. Maybe the bits with the inanimate objects; it feels just a bit too tangential to the rest of the story, and there are points where the interaction between them and the human characters confused me, especially at the very end. There were times when the splashes of pink distracted too much, but maybe it was deliberate, meant to unfocus a panel. 

In the end, it’s a book that has gone onto my birthday wishlist. I need a copy of my own.

Content warnings for readers: infidelity, underage drinking, unsafe sex, abortion.

#audio #book review #laura dean keeps breaking up with me

[spaceorphan18]

TDB Rewatch: The New York Arc

I was originally going to do a post for each episode - but you know what? I think I’ve talked about this particular part of the series more than any other part - and even though it’s been seven weeks since I’ve even seen an episode of Glee (!!) - I’m not entirely sure I have anything new to say about these episodes, so here we go with one big post for you. 

New New York

Is this still the best episode of the series?  Yes - I think it is.  The entire episode is completely watchable, the music is great, the Klaine stuff is great, everyone gets something interesting to do, Rachel is interesting again, Mercedes re-joins the cast, and even Artie has some funny lines.  This episode almost feels like a pilot of a spin-off series, and I’m a little sad we didn’t get to see more than this arc, because these characters still seem fresh and interesting - and this episode is clearly all setting up the status quo for living in New York.  

I’ve seen the episode so many times now that this one flew by, and while I’m always here for the amazing Klaine stuff - the nice thing is that watching the episode as a whole, I’m not bored with any of it.  I have no new meta to add to the piles of things I’ve already written and said on the podcast, but I’m glad this episode remains enjoyable even after a million rewatches.   

Btw - I still say they should have asked Adam Lambert to be a regular - he adds so much and I’m sad that this is his last appearance on the show. 

Also - I can tell it’s been a while since I’ve watched the show - Chris and Darren are really pretty.  Just thought I should remind you ;) 

///

Bash

So, while Opening Night might be my least favorite of the bunch, but I think as an episode Bash might be the weakest? And actually - I think it might have been better if the Kurt being bashed story line was a) more prominently in the episode or b) not in it at all.  It feels like it’s almost an after thought to Rachel’s (absurd) story - and there’s such a rich story with Kurt (and Blaine) that feels wholly untapped because it’s more about Rachel Berry and her feelings. :P  I do like the little bits of it that we did get, Kurt and Blaine are superb as they are in all of these episodes.  And I mean - it’s nice that Rachel gets yelled at twice for being a moron - even if the whole thing doesn’t hold together very well.  

Meanwhile, I’m not sure how much I have to say about Sam and Mercedes - I enjoy them as a couple, though I can’t say that I’m riveted by their story line. It is nice, though that Amber Riley gets a chance to shine since she’s been away from the show for so long.  I think the awkwardest thing about this episode, (besides Sam’s impressions) is the fact that that the two story lines don’t mesh well, and it feels like the episode starts off as one thing then pivots and does something else entirely in the second half.  

That said - the music is great, as always, everyone sounds really beautiful on all the Soundheim things.  And while I didn’t need two Mercedes solos - she is lovely as always.  

///

Tested

Who knew Artie having an STD would be such a fun episode.  Honestly, I think this is the best episode the show does about sex.  Yes, even over The First Time (even if I like TFT just a smidge more).  Each of the characters are in a unique situation, and come at sex in a different way - and it’s actually pretty cool the way the show handles it.  They’re not usually great with these kind of topics, but I really have no complaints about how they handled anything in this episode.  I especially like the fact that a) Mercedes gets to choose how she wants to deal with sex and b) they let Mercedes and Rachel be actual girl friends when it comes to a topic - again something the show doesn’t always handle the best.  Yes, for all the sex positive conversations in this episode.  

Also, the ‘I’m slut shaming you’ scene might be one of the funniest things the show ever did.  

The only one weighing this one down, and why it isn’t passing NNY by on my favorites list - is that the music just isn’t good.  I mean, all the songs fit the episode fine, and the performances are great, I just don’t like any of the songs.  

Also - Kurt is super extra in this episode - which really reinforces my headcanon that Kurt not getting regular sexy times is super grumpy. 

Anyway, I give kudos to the show for doing an episode that has some actual layers to it in all of its plot lines.  Usually, Glee’s pretty anivilish about everything, but there’s some actual nuance in this story - good job show.  It’s nice to be not spoon fed everything all the time.  

/// 

Opening Night

Well...  This remains the worst of the NYC Arc - and really, only because the stupid and a bit convoluted Sue plot.  Rachel’s arc is a bit silly too (really - I roll my eyes at the whole ‘oh no NYT reporter’ bit, especially when the dude just waxes praise on her like everyone else on the show) - but are some legitimately entertaining things going on during the Rachel side of things.  And I dare say the episode is a little underrated?  There are some good jokes and nice music, and it is exactly what you’d expect from Rachel’s first night (even if I still think Funny Girl should have been placed at the end of the show) and Rachel has been rather held back and used well during the NYC Arc so I don’t mind her spot light here.  

But man, the Sue stuff is tedious.  I kind of forget Will is apart of it (and did logic take some time off again? Because the Emma having a baby thing is...  let’s not get into it).  Sue actually has already arrived at her season 6 self - and even some of the early sequences with her kids aren’t bad, but there are really two scenes that drag this entire episode way, way down -- the date with Mario the restaurant guy, and the last five minutes with Mario the restaurant guy.  Oh my god - why is this the only thing they could think of to do with Sue?  I mean - everything about this plot line screams contractual obligation - needing to give Jane Lynch one episode during this 7.  But could they really not think of anything more interesting for her to do??  DId she really need a date so she and Rachel could sing that song together??  Ug - it is really frustrating that this takes up a third of the episode.  What a waste.  

But, I mean, as a whole, it’s not terrible in the way the worst of Glee is - and really, everything on the Rachel side (mostly) works for me.  It’s a good thing all that Sue/Mario stuff is pretty easily skipped.  

///

The Back-Up Plan

Hey! Another solid episode! It’s weird - the focusing only three story line lets the episode breathe - a lot - to the point it seems strange, lol.  But anyway...  

First there’s Rachel’s story - which I know people were annoyed that Rachel bails a month into Funny Girl, but idk - this seems like Rachel.  And this is the one and really only time she faces serious consequences for her actions.  It’s refreshing really.  Also - Jim Rash is a delight, and that audition scene is priceless.  

Meanwhile - Mercedes and Santana have a great story that I kind of wish there was more of.  Santana’s been gone for most of the arc so far, but I don’t mind her coming back - she’s rather civil and low key during these last few episodes, and it’s a bit refreshing, honestly.  Anyway - I like that pop business is treated with a little more realism than Broadway, as D’Shawn (Mercedes’s producer) seems to tell it like is.  But more so, I feel like there’s a genuine friendship between Mercedes and Santana and that’s pretty refreshing, too.  

And then there’s the June story line.  You know what? I really do not like June.  Sorry.  And I find it a little creepy she wants to mold Blaine into something of her own making.  I’m also... not sure what the purpose of this entire story was? Ah well...  At least we get some really lovely Klaine moments out of the whole thing.  

Bonus - the music in this episode is all pretty solid.  

///

Old Dog, New Tricks

You guys ever notice Artie’s eating dog biscuits in this? Weird things you notice when you watch the whole episode.  Anyway...

Hey - it’s that episode that Chris wrote.  And yeah, it’s a little awkward - in a - you can tell this is a new writer for TV kinda way not in a - this sucks kind of way.  I really wish Chris had stuck with TV writing, I think he showed some real promise, and writing for other shows would have been great experience.  Ah well.  It all just makes me miss Chris actually doing things that are not related to middle school fantasy novels.  

So, for the record, if you guys ever wonder who Chris is, seemingly, frustrated with? Watch this episode - and how he writes Rachel.  She’s been almost acting human in the rest of this arc, and in this episode, she really is back to being really awful.  At least multiple people get to tell her off again - it’s, again, refreshing.  How many times as she been told off during this arc? Not enough, but it’s been kind of nice when you string them all together.  

Anyway - this episode, as you’ve probably heard me say before, works pretty well.  Santana as a publicity is brilliant (and perhaps the best aspect of Chris’s writing), Sam and Mercedes relationship issues are handled rather maturely, Chris as Peter Pan is incredibly inspired, and the music is pretty solid (even if it’s not my personal favorite).  There’s even a sweet Klaine scene (though - I still maintain it was wise not to have Chris write too much Blaine).  The only thing that really doesn’t work to for me, and maybe we’re far enough away that I can say this honestly without feeling like there will be too much repercussion - I don’t think June Squibb is very good.  I mean, yeah - part of it is the awkwardness of the story itself.  But - Maggie just doesn’t work for me.  Sorry :(  

///

The Untitled Rachel Berry Project

I know a lot of people say that this episode feels like a finale for them.  And I kind of get that, I do. But, honestly, it feels more like a chapter break.  This episode is incredibly bittersweet - as if it knows (and it does) what’s coming in season 6.  But, also, it’s the ending of a show I kind of wish we had much longer, and I guess it feels a little sad to get to the end.  

The episode itself is solid - there are only really three plot lines here, and they all work pretty well.  The music might be the weakest element (I only like about half the songs in this one) but it’s got comedy and drama and warmth and sadness, and does make for a great season finale.  (It’s the best season finale the show did -- really, it is.)  And I guess - everyone ends up where they’re supposed to end up, and it works for me.  

I don’t really have a lot to say about it, or at least anything new to say.  It’s good, it’s solid, and while I’m super tired of watching TV all day, it’s a great ending to a really good chunk of TV.  

///

Final Thoughts: 

I am a little saddened that we didn’t get those two episodes that were taken from the season.  I feel like another couple of beats in the story lines would have worked wonders, and of course, selfishly, we’d have a little more of my favorite part of the story. 

Interestingly, though, I don’t know if this makes any sense - but I got the feeling the writers were always more comfortable writing stuff back at McKinley.  Like - they did this because they had the time, but they wouldn’t have been able to sustain an entire season writing it.  I know we could all come up with great stories, but I think it’s better that they were wrapping things up at this point, because the show feels like it’s headed towards an ending. 

I thought I’d get more insight about things watching them all in one sitting - but I’m not sure I did.  I think the show almost works better as a week to week so you can sit with each episode.  I think when strung together the arcs don’t seem as fluid as we have them in our heads now that we’ve spent years talking about each episode individually.  

Weirdly - the music of this arc is really hit and miss for me.  It’s interesting, to me, that a lot of times when the story is stronger, the music isn’t always as good.  A lot of other times, it’s vice versa.  The really, really good episodes can balance the two.  

I feel bad for Kevin McHale - who really had nothing to do other than be a giant STD.  

That said - one of the most refreshing things about this arc was the lack of toxic masculinity crap, as well as some of the best writing for the women ever on the show. 

I enjoyed the little bit of Santana and Brittany that we got - this was, like, the prefect amount of them.  

One of the downsides of everyone being paired off is that we didn’t get to see interesting mixed-up pairs - one of the draw backs of the show having such little time in New York.  

One thing that stood out to me, and god I hope I don’t get too much hate for this, is that Mercedes and Sam don’t really work... at least at this point.  Seeing the entire arc all together, it’s very apparent that while I don’t doubt how much they care for each other, they’re definitely in two different places in their lives.  And while I applaud the maturity that the relationship was handled with, it’s clear that they’re not ready to be in a long term relationship (yet).  

Rachel! Was bearable for most of the arc.  Yeah - there are still a lot of special snowflake Rachel moments.  But Lea Michele can do comedy well, and they let her do that.  

I didn’t find anything wrong or unusual about Chris’s acting choices.  **shrug**

Kurt’s mildly unhappy through a lot of these episodes - but much of that is at Rachel.  And really at his own place in life.  And the one episode where he’s super sexually frustrated.  

The Klaine stuff is delicious - and of course, discussed many other places that you don’t really need me to rehash it.  

It’s also unfinished.  

They should have made Adam Lambert a regular. 

Alright - bring it Season 6.  

#tdb rewatch #anyone miss my caps? #eh probably not #but they're back!

[thejonzone]

Jon Writes a Year-End List

My favorite songs of 2020, alphabetically by artist

Bedouine (Margo Guryan cover)- The Hum

The original Guryan version is good but Bedouine’s take is cleaner, all the better to emphasize Guryan’s blissful songwriting. I could listen to the chords in the chorus forever.

Bob Dylan- I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give My Heart to You

It’s nice to hear Bob sing a yearning and clear-eyed love song. And the way he stretches out his words gives the whole thing a confidence that’s easy to get lost in. 

Boldy James- Giant Slide

Boldy had a great year, and it’s The Price of Tea in China with Alchemist producing that stood out to me. 

Empty Country- Becca

I don’t go to music festivals anymore, but listening to this album makes me dream of hearing it live, while being dehydrated, sweaty, feet hurting, holding in a p*op, a late afternoon sunburn loading. I want the whole thing!!

fawning, Rui Gabriel ft. Jack Riley- God

Toss it on the cloudy day walking playlist!

Frances Quinlan- Went to LA 

Great cathartic yell in this one. Quinlan builds up a palpable tension here. It rocks.

Judy ft. Jack Dolan, jommis- Say What U Mean

You’ve got to imagine these fellas knew they had put a few catchy melodies down while trying to out-croon each other.

Kurt Vile ft. John Prine (John Prine cover)- How Lucky

A Prine acolyte with a feature from the man himself. RIP.

Lala Lala, Grapetooth- Valentine

Kind of like a slow-dance song at nightmare prom. I love the percussion and Frankel’s villainously-low voice.

Lil Durk- Street Affection

The range of emotions Durk can access and scroll through is impressive.  

Miranda Winters- Little Baby Dead Bird

Scuzzy guitar and violin create a hypnotic effect in this evocative dirge. Miranda Winters is such a good singer. Check out her main band, Melkbelly-- they put out a great album this year!

Nap Eyes- Mark Zuckerberg

Two guitars: one is pointy, the other is chugging. That is the correct way to do two guitars.

Noname- Song 33

This song is 70 seconds. 70! Noname casually negates J. Cole and the song isn’t even about him. She’s so great. 

Ratboys- I Go Out at Night

Julia Steiner is on her The Hours shit in this melancholic fantasy of leaving and not returning. 

Rio da Yung OG, Lil Yachty- 1v1

I like how Yachty comes in on his verse! It’s been fun to see him back in action with his new Michigan friends. Rio is the star here, though. And Enrgy too. 

Soccer Mommy- yellow is the color of her eyes 

Sophia Allison’s delivery of “The tiny lie I told to myself is making me hollow” might be my line of the year. 

Swamp Dogg- Memories

The whole of Sorry You Couldn’t Make It is great, but for Swamp Dogg, who has covered John Prine, to work with the man before he died is a special accomplishment, and we’re better off that it’s recorded. 

Tall Juan- Irene

One of my favorite 2020 releases. And I’ll be a bit vulnerable here folks….when I am walking outside and this song comes on, I push my butt out a little bit and walk like I have rhythm and purpose. 

Tierra Whack- Dora

I’m so excited to see what Tierra Whack does, from her beat selection to how she jumps between flow and cadence. She understands herself so well. 

Non-2020-specific Music I Enjoyed, in Superlative Form

Group Vocal Performance Most Likely to Pierce Your Heartless Facade

Yesu Ka Mkwebaze

Best Song to Listen to if You are an 1850’s-era whaler in Your Feels

Mary Ann

Favorite Duet (Not Blood-Related)

Emmylou Harris and Herb Pedersen (but mostly Emmylou) create such an intricate and gorgeous melody on “If I Could Only Win Your Love”. Pedal steel heads and mandolin freaks, eat up.

Favorite Duet (Blood-related)

The Louvin Brothers- When I Stop Dreaming

Any longtime friends of the show know I’m a big fan of the singing duo The Louvin Brothers. They’ve got that golden country tone but it’s the blood harmony that turns these guys into something else entirely.

And here’s the kicker, folks. Emmylou covered When I Stop Dreaming! How coincidental for all of us reading this End of Year list…. The Louvins are my preferred version, but Emmylou, that you could help me make this connection is enough, dayenu!

Most Surprising Use of a Song in a Network TV Show

"Yama Yama" by the Yamasuki Singers, Fargo Season 2

When I was a dishwasher at St. James Cheese Co., late 2016ish, this CD was in our back of house music rotation. It is a magical album-- a Japanese children's choir with French pop production (think a bunch of bells and shit). I never learned the name of the album while working there and it fell out of my mind until years later when, after remembering how much I loved it, realized I had no idea how to find it. The pain of typing different spellings of “japanese children’s choir” into google for days on end.....I literally yelled when Fargo used this in its Season 2 big boy shootout. *chef’s kiss*

Best Album by a Spiritually Hungry Musical Genius, Lapping Her Contemporaries in Arrangement, Theme, and Songwriting, Gone Before Her Time

Judee Sill’s self-titled debut. 

Best Use of a Second Keyboard in A Keyboard Solo

Fountains of Wayne’s Red Dragon Tattoo

Do I mean to say synthesizer? Not sure. RIP Adam Schlesinger and long live FoW. What a loss.

Best Vibes/ Song I’d Most Want to Show Ezra Koenig so That We’d Bond & Become Friends

Zibote

Best Lyrics Written by a Jew in 1920’s NYC Being Sung by Willie Nelson

Lonely rivers flow to the sea, to the sea / to the open arms of the sea

Favorite TV Shows

Ramy

-Second season shook its focus on the titular character and oh am I thankful. Not that Ramy himself isn’t great, he is, but the entire cast here deserves attention. The Uncle Naseem episode. The Uncle Naseem episode. Ahem. The Uncle Naseem episode.

Joe Pera Talks with You

Lovecraft Country

-Small gripes and complicated plotlines aside, this anthology connecting gothic horror, racism, and American history is phenomenal. 

Small Axe

-The second installment in this series, Lovers Rock, which takes place at a party, is the vicarious shot in the arm you deserve, you little extroverted thing you. 

I May Destroy You

Betty

The Last Dance

-The first Bulls game I ever went to was the first game *without* Michael Jordan, at the beginning of the ‘98-’99 season. Bad timing.

The Chi

Schitt’s Creek

-This show was never about the plot. Am I allowed to say that? I’ve never cared less for a plot and more for a cast. Catherine O’Hara is in her own league above us all.

Jon Writes a Year-End List

In 2019, my roommate June and I took a road trip through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I was out of a relationship, happily or unhappily I wasn’t sure yet, but along the way I downloaded Tinder hoping to meet a local who’d be excited to make out with me. There wasn’t much bite on my line, but by the time we reached Marquette, largely due to my good looks and charisma I’d orchestrated some type of group date with June, me, a girl from Tinder, and her friend. 

We met at a dingy karaoke bar and drank for cheap. Nobody wanted to hear me sing, but I got on stage anyway and gave “Willin” by Little Feat a go. Some guy at the bar in a maroon work shirt looked at me, scoffed, and left to smoke outside. The four of us weren’t hitting it off, even with alcohol. I and the friend made a plan to sing “Mommas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow up to Be Cowboys'', but she quickly abandoned the duet after we had begun, citing a lack of vibes.   

But we kept singing and drinking and hours later I was leaning against the bar, waiting to order, standing next to maroon-shirt guy who had so easily shrugged off my existence earlier. What caught my eye as I stood next to him was a Star of David tattoo on his forearm. And sure enough, the name tag stitched onto his shirt identified him as “Isaac”. Well I’ll goddamn be-- this guy was frickin Jewish! I was shocked-- I assumed he was goy in the same way I assumed everyone I ran into up there would be. 

For just one unconscious assumption (I’m the only Jewish person in this Marquette karaoke bar) to be wrong felt great. My assumptions are really awful. I assumed maroon-shirt hated my guts. I assumed these two girls we were drinking with thought I was a loser too. I assume people don’t like me or respect me or have any interest in getting to know me. I tell awful stories about myself to myself, and my assumptions about the world are limiting and boring! With patience, “guy at bar who kinda scowled at me” had all of a sudden turned into “my new friend Isaac” who, after a few minutes of conversation, I “asked to bum a cigarette from.”

One of my favorite shows of 2020 was Joe Pera Talks With You. I still remember watching Joe Pera’s stand-up for the first time, and then rewatching and rewatching, savoring his cadence. He dressed and spoke like a grandpa, replete with pitch-perfect, kinda-gross mouth sounds, stutters, and low-but-driving energy. It’s a good bit, and Joe has morphed it into probably the funniest, sweetest, and least-pandering show of 2020. What I love about this show is its foundational belief that anyone can surprise you, you just need to give yourself time to notice.

I didn’t end up making out with anyone but I did wake up the next morning with the worst hangover of my life. Wake up, barf, whimper. As June drove us out of Marquette, I could barely keep my eyes open. I did notice, however, a massive, wooden structure jutting out into Lake Superior.

It is this same Lake Superior structure that Joe Pera Talks With You fixates on for its first shot of Season 2. Yes, this is an Adult Swim show that takes place in none other than Marquette, Michigan! Which is weird. Think about other movies, shows, or books that take place in the U.P. You can’t! Even zooming out to include the larger Upper-Great Lakes region leaves us with an almost-empty net: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot and titular Gatsby’s origin story on Lake Superior. These are stories of hard living and life and death on the dangerous Great Lakes. But neither of those are specific to the Upper Peninsula.   

Regions are an easy if reductive lens with which to attempt to view and understand people. In 2020, broad and sweeping generalizations about large swaths of people continued to gain power. There was the movie adaptation of JD Vance’s ahistorical Hillbilly Elegy. Woolly-eyed liberals trotted out fake maps of a preferred America that holds only the “good” blue states, not at all engaging in the history of racism and voter suppression that got us here. Besides the fact that Georgia went blue. And Democratic strongholds like California, New York, and Chicago betray any notion of a “better” America. The sins of this nation are not cordoned off into one section or time zone, no region is monolithic, and most importantly, no person can be explained away with a quick sentence.

There is no regional monolith more widely misunderstood than the Midwestern gestalt. Fargo (the show) does a great job of serializing this one type of Midwestern character-- they say “oh sure, happy to help” and they’re murderers. So for Joe Pera to settle his show in the U.P. is a fun choice. Most Americans are probably hard-pressed to conjure an accurate mental picture of who the U.P. is, so Pera creates his own flavor of a seemingly-recognizable small Midwestern town.

In the first episode, Joe walks us through the bean arch he’s growing. Why grow snap beans? “Beans are straightforward.” Straightforwardness, or the appearance of, is central to Pera’s charm. Pera’s shtick is walking the audience through a basic task that can serve as a metaphor for a larger existential question. This conceit isn’t new to Pera, but it has been en vogue recently, with shows like Andy Daly’s Review and the new HBO show How To with John Wilson. These shows present a simple stated goal that obfuscates a larger, more complex grapple. 

Joe Pera Talks With You is incredible and endearing because of the genuine tone Pera gives his tight-knit Marquette. We’re getting deranged lunatics like Conner O’Malley and Dan Licata to write jokes for 70-year old Michigan grandmas at a salon. The show trades in the perceived Midwestern folksiness for a punchline, yet doesn’t lose itself in irony or resentment. 

Every character in the Joe Pera universe has the opportunity to be profound. Pera gives every character the patience they deserve; even O’Malley’s berserk Joe Rogan listening-caricature Mike Melsky gets incredible moments of vulnerability. It’s a rare comedy: self-aware but not self-obsessed, sweet but not gross, and uniquely funny.  

Nowhere else on TV are you going to see such consistently great acting. Some of the best working comedians are in this season. Conner O’Malley has found a way to tap into his unsettling grotesque that is a pleasure to watch, playing characters at the ends of their ropes, shrieking. Jo Firestone is hilarious and essential as Joe’s doom-prepper girlfriend Sarah. We get guest stars like  genius Carmen Christopher. Even one-line role players like Joe’s teacher-coworker, who says Joe and Sarah go together “like desk and chair,” knock it out of the park. 

The questions at the heart of Talks With You feel more pronounced in a year of death and isolation. How do we connect with people? How can we really be there for our loved ones? How can we feel comfortable in our own skin? The show came out pre-pandemic but Pera’s touch and pacing is universal.

It’s difficult not to compare Talks With You to How to with John Wilson. The two shows have a lot in common. Both protagonists are soft-spoken, and speak at an arrhythmic clip. John Wilson’s voice is affected just like Pera’s; both vocal deliveries are meant to engender trust by signaling to us that they’re lacking some social confidence. But I don’t buy Wilson’s shtick as much as Pera’s.

John Wilson’s show is not straightforward in the same way Pera’s is, and the show suffers under the added weight of pretense. Wilson’s tangents lead us to places that barely fit under the established thematic umbrella and feel forced. On memory, Wilson’s adventure with the Mandela Effect turns from fascinating to boring as the truthers devolve into sketch characters, viewing simple spelling errors with magnifying glasses. “How to Cover Your Furniture” spends an upsettingly long amount of time with an anti-circumcision advocate as Wilson works through the question of how much we are allowed to change parts of other people. Meant to appear as if they effortlessly fell into place, these characters feel shoe-horned in.

Both characters and shows are performative authenticity, and Joe Pera and John Wilson’s whole deal is their status as observer. This year, many of us have become observers. I know I have: unemployed, unable to see people, watching death counts climb, sending money to various bail funds and rent relief to people and organizations near and far. There is a responsibility to being an observer. It is not some callous task. Being an effective observer means allowing your subject the space they need to be as they are and not foisting your own nonsense onto them.

In Joe Pera’s America, it’s understood that everyone is weird. By virtue of being human, we are all weird, off, we do confusing things, and say dumb stuff that doesn’t make sense. Even you’re a weird freak. John Wilson’s subjects seem like circus animals, squeezed in front of the camera for their fucked-up little flip. I can’t shake the feeling that John Wilson is making fun of the people he’s observing. Pera’s observations are rooted in the fairness that comes from seeing humanity in people-- every person has an equal chance of surprising you with how weird they are if you just make them comfortable and let them talk. We owe that to each other.

To be fair, these shows are also very different. Wilson’s found-footage, documentary style is ingenious, hilarious, and completely not the vibe that Pera and Co. are going for at all. And region here is everything. Wacky stuff happening in NYC? Eh, isn’t that par for the course over there? Wait, a show set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula? Ok...now that I’ve never seen. 

Obviously I was wrong about Isaac in Marquette, just as any broad assumption about a region and its people will be. I actually learned that Jews have a significant relationship to the U.P. And I found similarities between my own Jewish history, covering a similarly nebulous area of the Rust Belt/Midwest, and my U.P. cousins. Yes, home was closer than I thought, even across the length of Lake Michigan. Yes, people don’t just hate my guts. Yes, we can overcome lazy assumptions and we can even connect with people. We can make a better world. It just requires patience and listening.

Now, on to my thoughts regarding Fiona Apple’s landmark album Fetch the Bolt Cutters...

[buffyanon]

This is... uh... hatemail (?) about Riley. *shakes fist* (and totally not an excuse to write a dissertation about why you think he’s a good fella, nope definitely not that, not what I'm after at all)

pffffft thanks pal. Putting it under a read more cause it got stupidly long.

Alright so I’ve really only seen 3 arguments as to why he’s shit, but to be fair I follow not very many people, and I really do like Riley a lot so I unfollow people who regularly are mean about him because it bums me out, so there might be a whole section of discourse that I’m missing. But as it stands, I’m aware of 3 points. 

1. Riley was an eager member of the Initiative, who put away demons and creatures without a trail and kill them or jail them for however long they want, and Riley never seemed to have a problem with this. To which I would respond with... I mean, that’s true I guess. But what other options are presented? Ethan is the human that they put away. Could they take him to court? That’d expose magic. Should they let him go? No, because he’ll keep causing a ruckus. It’s not a great system, but that’s kinda the price of admission with this show, because it’s what the scoobies do, too. They don’t lock people up, but they do kill without trial, or hearing the full story, cause it’s what they have to do. And I get that most of who they kill aren’t people, but a lot of the demons in the buffyverse have been shown as being human like, and have shown morality. (But also Buffy definitely killed two baddies who I’m pretty sure are humans, in Homecoming, the Germans.) It’s kinda just what needs to be done until there’s a better system in place, at least the way the show frames it. 

2. Riley was manipulative (and abusive, by some accounts) because he gave Buffy an ultimatum.This one I get, because we see it from Buffy’s perspective, and that’s what it seems like. But I’m gonna present a different sequence of events that I think is very cannon supported, and frames how Riley left in a really different way. So, Riley is half a country away from home, but he finds family and purpose with the Initiative. And he gets a mother figure, someone he really connects with and looks up to. He’s happy. He believes he’s doing the right thing and he has a real sense of belonging. Then, a girl steals his heart, they start dating, he finds out she’s also fighting against demons, and that’s awesome! Life is good! Then, something happens that completely shakes his worldview; this parental figure who he admires so much tries to kill his girlfriend. It’d be easier to side with Maggie, to deny what she did or make excuses for it, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t even give her a chance to explain. Then, she dies. There’s no closure for Riley there, there never can be. He discovered something awful and evil about her, and then she died. I don’t think I need to explain the kind of awful, empty, guilty, confusion that had to come with that. That all comes along with finding out he’s been being drugged, not only bringing a sense of violation to his body that it was happening without his consent or knowledge, but also a hit to his self esteem. He was never as strong or capable as he thought that he was. Ouch. Then, Faith happened. I’ve talked before, probably excessively, about That Scene but it’s really important here. It’s important, in Riley’s story, that we talk about him being raped. He and Buffy were both raped by Faith, but neither one understood that that was what had happened. Riley feels guilty over this encounter, like he should’ve known better, and Buffy’s mad at him about it. (To be clear, I don’t blame either of them, it’s misplaced and bad writing but that’s another essay.)He has to kill his already dead best friend. The point has already been hammered home but fuck that’s gotta be so isolating. At this point, the scoobies are kind of all he has, and he’s not really close to any of them except Buffy. (It would have been healthy for everyone involved if he tried to get closer to everyone else, but I can understand why he didn’t. This entire explanation thus far, that’s why he didn’t.)Now it’s season 5 and he’s feeling weak and shitty. He doesn’t have a place anymore. He’s not as strong as he used to be and he doesn’t have a real hand, most of the time, in saving the day. He doesn’t think his girlfriend needs him, and that hurts, because he loves her so much and she’s the only thing he has. He needs a release, so he goes and gets sucked on. He probably justifies it to himself, saying he’s not hurting anyone, and maybe he’s even helping because if they take his blood, they won’t need to hunt. Right?And Buffy finds out, and they fight, and then he gets an offer to leave. Riley didn’t decide that this offer was time sensitive, but he needs to make a choice. He has no idea if Buffy, his only reason for staying in Sunnydale, will ever forgive him. He doesn’t want to leave- he’d choose her over his job and his sense of meaning- but how could he doom himself to staying in this place that’s sucked everything from him if there was no chance of her ever talking to him again? This wasn’t “take me back or I’m leaving to punish you,” this was “I love you, but I need to take this opportunity if there’s no way you can see yourself forgiving me.”That’s sad, but it’s not mean. It’s a horrible situation for both of them, I think that’s what it comes down to. Especially because of how he is when he comes back. He’s kind, and understanding, and he respects her. He’s moved on with his life and he’s happy, Sam seems happy, and he’s not rubbing it in Buffy’s face or saying “look what you missed out on.” 

(There are so many points in that where he could’ve made different, healthier choices, but I don’t think any of them are out of malice or manipulation, which is my point. And there are points were he could’ve been a better boyfriend, especially when Joyce died, but again, this is just what I see as his perspective and why he made the choices he did.)

3. He’s boring. That’s subjective so I can’t really argue against it, but if I was writing a secondary character and in less than two seasons his mom figure was killed, he was drugged a lot and went through withdrawal, he had to kill his best friend, and he was raped, I would be thinking “jesus christ I need to make this guy less tragic and more boring.” But I guess if your definition of “boring” is “never tried to murder his girlfriend” then yeah, you got me there. 

This was too long for anyone to read which is good because I didn’t proofread it and it’s probably messy and leaves some stuff out but anyway! Riley Finn is a good fella!

#rape cw #drugs cw #riley #I don't wanna discourse about this #largely because I haven't seen the show in forever tbh so I'd be lost #but! these are my thoughts! love this farm boy! #long post #butjustwhatif

[tyrantisterror]

Bonus: More Buffy Characters I’d Ruin

I had to cut myself off while writing my How I’d Ruin It: Buffy the Vampire Slayer article because it was almost 10pm and I still hadn’t finished, but goddam if there aren’t more Buffy characters I wanted to talk about, so here’s the “deleted scenes” for the article.

Anya: Introduced as a monster of the week (specifically a demon), Anya was demoted by her bosses to a mere mortal human after she was defeated, and went on to be a recurring cast member.  Anya had a delightfully warped outlook, since she really wasn’t accustomed to human society and as such didn’t understand many social taboos. While she could be blunt and callous, she meant well, and was a good ally.  Unfortunately, she was also written to be Xander’s love interest, and most of her plots were built around him.  Worse, the rest of the characters kind of treated her like shit, regarding her with annoyance at best and outright hostility at worst.

Since my reboot is a bit kinder to monsters in general, we’d go a different way here.  Instead of being annoyed by Anya, the group would all actively try to rehabilitate her – their end goal is coexistence with the supernatural, after all, and Anya could be instrumental in that.  Though it takes a while and is often frustrating, they make progress, and Anya eventually learns the value of humanity and in turn becomes an essential ally.  Especially once her powers start coming back…

Tara: Introduced as Willow’s first female love interest, Tara was a young witch whose family told her (and all her female family members) that women in her family would become demons on their twenty first birthday, and thus had to be hidden away to keep from incurring the wrath of the outside world.  This was resolved in one episode, and afterwards Tara had little to do except be Willow’s girlfriend.  The writers later killed her off for drama because they had nothing else for her to do.

But, I mean, c’mon!  A young woman raised by an abusive and misogynistic family goes to college, discovers witchcraft AND her own homosexuality, and then rebels against her family despite being told that doing so will reveal her true inhuman nature?  Surely that has potential for more than just one episode of focus!   Let Willow and Tara have solo adventures!  Get her involved in helping the rest of the cast!  Shit, you know what, given our reboot’s stance on monsters, let’s make the family’s threat true – maybe she IS part demon.  Demons rebel against authority, and some authority needs to be rebelled against.  Tara has the potential for interesting and awesome plots – plots about how being different from what is normal doesn’t have to be a cause of shame, but can instead be literally empowering.  Let’s make it happen.

Jenny Calendar: Jenny Calendar was introduced as the high school computer teacher, and also a “technopagan,” i.e. a witch who incorporates modern technology into magic, rather than remaining in the past.  That is such a badass concept that it’s a damn shame they never did anything with it.  Instead, Jenny became Giles’ love interest, and then was revealed to be part of the Roma family that cursed Angel to have a soul, which is treated as a betrayal for some reason.  Then Angelus kills her so Giles can feel sad.

Again, there’s so much lost potential here!  Given that this reboot is playing up both the magic AND technology expertise with Willow, Jenny could easily find stuff to do as Willow’s mentor, and making a mix of magic and technology more of a thing could also allow for a lot of weird and fun monster plotlines that they would be key in solving.  Having a strong, adult female role model would also be good for, like, all of the main characters – Buffy’s mom can’t fill the role entirely since she needs to be out of the loop for plot reasons.

Kendra: The first time Buffy died and came back to life resulted in another Slayer getting called into being, violating the “there can only be one Slayer” rule after a grand total of one season.  Kendra is one of the few black characters in Buffy who gets more than one line, AND she’s a Slayer, AND she’s from Africa!  There’s a lot of potential there!  Sadly, she was kind of, well, boring, and her case wasn’t helped by the fact that the writers clearly didn’t do a whole lot of research into any of the various countries and cultures in Africa, resulting in a character that’s pretty stereotypical.

But that potential though! Let’s have the reboot violate the “only one slayer exists at a time” rule right from the get go – instead, there are many slayers, albeit still very few (definitely under 100).  Each would be the hero of their own story, and there could be fun stories where we get glimpses of the different types of supernatural threats on other parts of the globe.  We could explore how different Watchers work with their respective Slayers, comparing Giles and Buffy to others while also examining the problems with the Watchers Council (and perhaps showing that more Slayers than just Buffy realize they’re getting a raw deal here).  The potential is so great!

Faith: As mentioned in the article proper, Faith is Buffy’s evil opposite, the rogue Slayer who became a villain.  Faith loves fuckin’ and killin’, and the show makes it very clear that both of those interests are the reason she’s evil – everyone seems to go out of their way to slut shame Faith, to the point where “evil” and “skanky” are both treated as her defining attributes, each equally vilified. While Buffy has a fairly normal middle class life (despite being in a single parent household and, y’know, a vampire slayer), Faith grew up poor in an abusive environment, and has overall had a hard life.  She is very clearly a troubled person before she turns full villain, and her character arc is primarily focused on her envy of Buffy’s life.  She rants repeatedly about how often she is unfavorably compared to Buffy, and one of her evil schemes involves swapping bodies with Buffy to escape punishment for her actions.

The fact that Faith is positioned as Buffy’s evil opposite because her life situation sucks is, well, problematic, and the slut shaming piled on top of that definitely doesn’t help. However, since we inverted Buffy for this reboot, why not invert Faith as well?

Reboot Faith comes from a ridiculously rich family, is valedictorian at her school, and treats vampire slaying as an unfortunate responsibility rather than an adventure. She’s a brutally efficient yet utterly merciless Slayer.  In her mind, she’s an exterminator, not a hero who saves civilians and certainly not someone who wants to find a peaceful solution to the humans vs. monsters conflict. As far as she’s concerned, supernatural creatures threaten humanity just by existing, and the conflict can only end with one side’s total destruction.  She is essentially every negative implication of a typical “Human slays monsters” story condensed into one character – a proper opposite for Reboot Buffy’s open minded rough housing party girl monster fighter.

Forrest Gates: “Who the fuck is Forrest?” you may be asking. Working for the same government monster task force as Riley Finn, Forrest was essentially Riley’s sidekick and foil.  He was both Riley’s second in command and best friend, and he stuck with the government when Riley rebelled to be with Buffy.  Being a foil, his personality deliberately contrasts with Riley’s: while Riley is straight laced, soft spoken, and “nice” in a bland “I’m not vocally racist but I still voted for Trump” sort of way, Forrest is hot blooded, individualistic, outspoken, sarcastic, and sometimes deeply cynical. If you were to guess which of the two would rebel when they learned their government employers were up to shady shit, you’d guess Forrest – which I suppose makes it an interesting twist that he stays while rule-abidin’ Riley goes rogue.

Forrest doesn’t develop more than that, and when I first saw the series I wrote him off as just what he was written to be: Riley’s foil.  Upon rewatching the series this year, though, I noticed something: Forrest is, well, interesting.  He’s far more analytical and aware than Riley.  He’s got better lines, he’s got a good sense of humor, and he brings a wild sort of energy to every scene he’s in.  He’s got more vocal interest in and chemistry with Buffy than Riley did before they hooked up (not a hard feat, to be fair – Riley has all the romantic energy of two week old mashed potatoes).  And, yeah, he seems much more believable as the army guy who would spot the flaws in his organization and go rogue.  Let’s make Forrest the Initiative Agent who switches sides and goes with our heroes.  It verges into crackfic territory, sure, but that’s what How I’d Ruin It is all about.

Harmony: Starting as “Cordellia except without the depth,” Harmony was just a Mean Girl stereotype until she became a vampire. Then she evolved into something slightly more complex: Harmony was a woefully ineffective villain, a ditz who was not cut out for causing evil that everyone, good and evil alike, made fun of. She also became an abuse victim, which might have been poignant if the show didn’t spend all the rest of her screen time making fun of her for being dumb, shallow, and promiscuous.

I have a noted soft spot for affable and ineffectual villain characters, and I think Harmony could play a valuable role in my heretical reboot’s approach to monsters.  Harmony would be the rare person who actually improved upon becoming a vampire, as her death and rebirth as a monster helps her realize how bullshit all her high school clique nonsense was.  At the same time, she’s grossed out by the whole “eating people” thing, and her general cluelessness actually gives her a unique perspective that other vampires and monsters lack – Harmony, in her own simple way, could note the pragmatism of not eating people, since no one’s gonna stake you for buying blood from a butcher.  When grander villains rope her into their schemes, they quickly find she’s more of a hindrance than a help.  She’d be the loveable rogue of the story – not quite a hero, but never a true villain either.

And maybe we could explore toxic relationships with someone who isn’t quite so cartoonish.

“Angel”: While the core of Angel’s character – being the only vampire with a soul and the guilt that comes with – doesn’t work in the reboot’s setting, that doesn’t mean we can’t have him altogether.  Reboot Angel would take a page from his spinoff and make him a vampire Private Detective, and one of the first vampires Buffy meets that is inarguable a decent person.  He helps the helpless, gets his blood from non-human animals in a human way, and is generally a good person despite being a vampire.  In this take, Angel wouldn’t be a love interest – ‘cause even when he’s not evil, there’s a creep factor to the whole “vampire with a body that’s in its mid 20’s dating a 16 year old” thing, and also because it would be kind of funny to me for a vampire to rebuke the interests of a young vulnerable woman, since, y’know, that’s the opposite of what vampires usually do. Buffy’s crush would, painfully for her, be unrequited.

“Angelus”: In the original show, Angel lost his soul and became the evil Angelus when he and Buffy bumped uglies in the figurative way instead of the literal way they usually do.  It’s one of the more clever results of the show’s “All monsters are metaphors” approach – a guy seems nice until he sleeps with you, then he turns evil. That’s a really good way to use a monster story as a metaphor for a real problem young women face.

But.

There is a crucial difference between the figurative meaning of this plot and the LITERAL events of it, and that difference rests in the guy’s autonomy.  Angel has NO CHOICE in the matter – he has no control of his actions, no agency in the horror that follows.  His soul is magically removed by the coitus, and the evil done by Angelus is the responsibility of the vampire spirit that now runs his body. The only one who has agency here is Buffy – the person who, in the real life problem this situation is an allegory for, should be the VICTIM of the resulting abuse.  Women get blamed for making men abusive a LOT – “she was asking for it” and all that bullshit.  And here we have a monster plot that literally makes the victimized woman the only person in the relationship who has agency in causing the abuse that follows – she literally removed his soul by sleeping with him.  It’s not an unintended thing, either – some of the characters call Buffy “rash” and “careless” for sleeping with Angel, and  taken within the show’s general opinion that girls who sleep with men before marriage are bad, it’s not something we can ignore.

Still, there’s a good idea beneath the awful execution.  We just need to tweak it.

So our “Angelus” would begin as a decent guy who dates one of our young female characters – maybe Buffy, maybe Willow, maybe Cordelia, we’ve got options here.  He seems nice at first – he’s got sort of a bad boy thing going on and he’s a bit older than is normal, but whatever doubts he inspires are quickly dissuaded by the help he offers the group and his general kindness. He might be broody and angsty from time to time, but any red flags he sends are easy to write off.  Until he sleeps with the girl in question.

Then, quite literally, he turns into a monster.  Up till this point the audience would be lead to believe he’s human, but no, he reveals his true colors as something inhuman and heartless – perhaps something much worse than a vampire.  The personality change is as drastic as the physical, and our heroes quickly learn that all his “kindness” before was a ruse.  He is nothing more than cruel and sadistic predator, and one that needs to be put down.

Vampires as a whole: Buffy’s take on vampires is one of my least favorite in fiction, since they’re basically just strong guys with sharp teeth, weird eyes, Klingon bumps, and often an inexplicable knowledge of martial arts.  Like most post-Anne Rice vampires, they’re very simple so as to avoid being “goofy” – no transformation, hypnosis, etc.  My preference is for the “goofy” stuff though – turning into mist, or a giant bat, traveling on moonlight, commanding legions of rats, all that good Bram Stoker shit.  I also love some of the weird folkloric takes on vampires, like the ones with multiple hearts and other weird shit.

Borrowing a page from my own fictional universe, the vampires in my Buffy reboot would be weird and varied.  There would be multiple breeds, and even within those there’s a lot of individual variation.  While some vampires are stronger than others, ALL would be significant threats.  We’d be going for quality over quantity – while Buffy has less vampires to fight in this reboot, the ones she does slay take a lot of work to kill.  So, in short – vampires by way of Stoker rather than Rice.

#buffy the vampire slayer