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theseerasures · 3 years

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Conspicuous Media Consumption, 2020

it’s that time of year again! *saddest toot from the party horn*

for those of you just joining us: it’s a “consume a different content every week for 48 weeks of the year” challenge. for a longer explanation, check out last year’s write-up here, and as always, feel free to pop in and ask questions about any and all of this content.

(same disclaimer as last year too: content for this project ONLY here, and not certain...*looks at my billion Sad Cop Lady posts*...hyperfixations.)

(man remember when i was big into X-Men comics earlier this year? better times than these, if only because no one's discoursing about Emma Frost’s woobie/war criminal ratio anymore--her w/w, if you will)

(...i swear at one point i didn’t exclusively like platinum blondes but alas)

Bitter Root (comic, 1 issue finished 1/1/2020): still very cool on a basic concept level, but runs into the Image Comics problem of just not having enough content to keep my interest beyond that. part of that is on me, for picking it up again BEFORE the second arc rolled out, but the first five issues didn’t really follow (or resolve) any cohesive story either, so...meh.

Immortal Hulk (comic, 3 trades finished 1/17/2020): still not gonna be something i care deeply about (maybe one of Bruce’s Hulksonas dyed his hair???), but i do want to give kudos to Al Ewing for sheer consistency in terms of sustaining this level of quality storytelling month by month for more than two years now. working with the dense archive of the Hulk mythos and managing to make it interesting and thoughtful is impressive even if i personally would not expend the same effort.

Disco Elysium (game, finished 1/18/2020): honestly i should have twigged onto what this year was gonna be like when the third thing i drew from the barrel was pure uncut Eastern European flavored depression. i faintly recall people ragging on it for being pretentiously cynical, but i actually thought its core slid more towards idealism than people give it credit for. also gratified that i haven’t heard anything about Robert Kurvitz using slave labor to finish it, which is a thing we have to say about our video games now!!! fun.

Watchmen (TV, 7 episodes finished 1/27/2020): i am a fool who wants to believe in Damon Lindelof and I WAS RIGHT!!! honestly still cannot believe that he pulled off this highwire act with such deft aplomb. might be my favorite TV this year, which is a pretty high bar given how much TV i ended up watching.

On a Sunbeam (comic, finished 2/1/2020): Tillie Walden rightly deserves all the praise for inventive queer storytelling, but i will say that on reread--since i first read this as a webcomic--there ARE some issues with pacing here that clearly come from the foibles of its original intended medium. still just excellent, even if after some plot significant haircuts i was having trouble telling a few folks apart.

Lazarus (comic, 1 trade finished 2/8/2020): it’s so good and i want moooooorrrreee--though obviously Rucka and Lark have the right to take all the time they need. the newer longer issues work really well with the epic prestige drama vibes of the story! i’m into it.

The Good Place (TV, 4 seasons finished 2/18/2020): i’m gonna be super honest: i actually wasn’t a big fan of the finale, nor the last season as a whole. it felt like all of Eleanor’s flaws vanished for a majority of the season, and the Chidi-centric episode where they tried to give a legible justification for why he’s Like This was...i didn’t care for it. still, it’s so good and unique on the WHOLE that we’ll literally never get anything like this ever again, and that counts for a lot.

The Old Republic (game, finished 2/21/2020): it’s an MMO so it will never actually Be Finished so long as the servers aren’t shut down, but i caught up on the content i’d missed in the intervening months. Onslaught thus far has mostly been...kinda bland tbh; going back to Imps vs. Rebs after all the shakeups in the previous expansions feels like a waste.

High Road (album, finished 2/22/2020): someone should tell Kesha not to say that word!! otherwise i was very happy with this album, and happy FOR her even though we don’t know each other. being able to find joy again in the same genre of music you made while you were being horrifically exploited is very cool.

Young Justice (TV, 13 episodes finished 2/28/2020): given how much the middle stuff dragged--STOP KILLING YOUR HIJABI CHARACTER IN HORRIFIC WAYS--i was...actually kinda mad by how the end managed to stick the landing anyway. the day being saved by Vic’s self-acceptance and Violet’s sublime compassion was A+, and even the Brion/Tara switchup was a pleasant surprise, though it relied on me caring about Brion MUCH MORE than i actually did.

Manic (album, finished 2/29/2020): do people still care for/about Halsey? i feel like even That One Song that was on every tumblr gifset ever has kinda faded into obscurity at this point. this album was...okay. i feel like people give Halsey a pass for extremely obvious lyrical turns that they wouldn’t for other folks because of her subject material--which is fine. not really my cup of tea, but i also listened to lots of Relient K this year, so that’s probably a good thing.

Jade Empire (game, 3/10/2020): the only 3D-era Bioware game that didn’t franchise out, and for good fucking reason!!! the Orientalism and appropriation really haven’t aged well, and even beyond that the story was...standard Bioware faire. even my usual “my wife’s a bitch i love her” Bioware type didn’t do it for me, and i just ended up romancing no one. it did make me think a lot about what level of cultural borrowing is accepted nowadays, and why: people still look fondly at Avatar and talk about how ~accurate and respectful it was, for example, despite it being staffed almost entirely by white folks, and the Orientalism ALL OVER the monk class in DND is still fine for some reason.

Alif the Unseen (book, finished 3/31/2020): interesting to have read this AFTER reading The Bird King last year, because it highlights how the intervening years have shifted G. Willow Wilson’s thematic interest and improved her craft. i’m actually quite fond of how her characterization work is rougher here--Alif is extremely flawed to the point of being insufferable, but it makes his development by the end more satisfying. Dina is also just good and i love her

Baldur’s Gate (2 games, finished 5/31/2020): well, having finally finished the series i’m happy to say that it...still doesn’t really do it for me, sorry. any awesome story moments were overshadowed by the EXCRUCIATING inventory management system and the combat (i still don’t know what a THAC0 is and at this point i’m afraid to find out). these games crucially lack the Home Base that later Bioware games were so good about, and that (coupled with the huge cast of characters you can drop off and never see again) really hurts the intimacy for me. by the time we finally did get one it was the Hell Dimension in Throne of Bhaal, and i was just...trying to get through it. (yes, i did just say that about one of the most beloved expansions ever to one of the most beloved games ever.) THIS particular iteration of “my wife’s a bitch i love her” was very good, but the game wouldn’t let me romance her :(

The Underground Railroad (book, finished 6/19/2020): honestly what is there even left to say at this point! it was exactly as good as every critic on the planet said it was, even with my usual aversion to hype. draining and horrifying in turns but still insistent upon a future for Black folks.

Steven Universe (6 seasons and a mooooooviiieeee, finished 7/11/2020): yes, i DID finish the show and almost immediately begin a rewatch. this series is now one of my top five most formative things, and the amount of love and respect i have for it is incalculable. that said: i once again did not love how the central conflict of Future was resolved (just the resolution--i loved the finale just fine). for all of Steven’s breakdown was built up, resolving it with “EVERYONE HUG HIM UNTIL HE CRIES” felt...cheap, especially since up until this point the show had been so good about treating trauma and mental illness with the respect and nuance it deserves. it made me wish some of the earlier, less substantial episodes had been cut so we could spend more time at the end.

What It Is (comic, finished 8/19/2020): y’all i love Lynda Barry SO MUCH. for the longest time i was worried that One Hundred Demons was more a lightning in a bottle situation but every book of hers i pick up makes me feel obscure emotions i didn’t even realize existed. the compassionate way she’s able to describe her child self and how weird and fucked up she was (and still is) is honestly aspirational.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (TV, 5 seasons finished 9/26/2020): so here’s a reversal of what i’ve been complaining about with other shows: i was mostly lukewarm-to-warm about She-Ra, but the later seasons and the finale made me much more into it as a whole. more shows should improve in stakes and overall quality as they age tbh!! i still don’t actively love Catradora (my sole quibble with season 5 actually has to do with the way Adora kept backsliding as a character to make certain Plot/Relationship things happen), but i’m very happy for them nonetheless. i can certainly appreciate a show that will go for High Feeling over tight plot. dark horse standout moments: trees growing everywhere proving that Perfuma Was Right, and Hordak and Adora seeing each other--that weirdly intimate moment of recognition.

Fetch the Bolt Cutters (album, finished 10/7/2020): again i find myself not having much to say that no one else has said. it’s good! once again love it when an artist reclaims something they’d attached with negative affect (anxiety, depression, disordered eating) for better and brighter things.

Solutions and Other Problems (comic, finished 10/25/2020): i was very into Allie Brosh’s ambition with this book, which feels weird to say but i stand by it. it’s cool to see an artist try to make a new medium work for them instead of just sticking to what already works. not all the experimentation was 100% effective, but it was still delightful and occasionally devastating to read, so.

Legend of Zelda (3 games: Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Link Between Worlds, finished 11/1/2020): this was the third time i’d played Ocarina of Time, which made it the nice, comforting groove i settled into before Majora’s Mask blatted me in the face. i’m not usually a completionist Zelda person because...the gameplay in Zelda is bad, do not at me it just is, but i really felt like i HAD to be one for Majora’s Mask since the whole point is to get attached to the banalities of the town. i’m sure nobody’s surprised that i loved it, even if it gave me an existential crisis about how life goes on in the game for NPCs when you’re not there to save them from it, and there’s not enough time to save them all all the time (also not a surprise to anyone: Romani and Cremia gave Personal Feelings). Link Between Worlds...bad. not like in a “this is a bad story by every measurable gauge” way, but i was already struggling with the 2D playstyle shift enough that for the whole story to end with some “yes it’s v sad that Lorule is Like This but trying to steal Hyrule’s privilege is Even Worse Actually” noblesse oblige bullshit left a VERY poor taste in my mouth, this year of all years. i did audibly gasp when Ravio took off his mask, though. i’m currently playing Breath of the Wild in cautious increments; it’s the first time i’ve enjoyed early Zelda gameplay, but if they wanted fully voiced cutscenes i wish they got voice actors who...knew what words sound like.

folklore (album, finished 11/6/2020): my belief that Taylor Swift is Just Fine continues, i’m afraid. i LIKED this album, don’t get me wrong, and respect her constant drive to innovate, but i didn’t love it substantially more or less than any other Taylor Swift album. mostly i’m just tickled by how she thinks leaning into the indie aesthetic means borrowing Vita Sackville-West’s entire wardrobe, though i will admit to feeling Something when she swore in a song. i think it was like. savage vindication?? you go ahead and swear, Taylor Swift. you deserve it.

Shore (album, finished 11/19/2020): do people still care about the Fleet Foxes? i think there was some Drama with Josh Tillman a while back but i don’t remember where the discourse landed with who was being more problematic. it was nostalgic for me to listen to their new album--made me remember being an undergrad who exclusively listened to men who mumbled and played acoustic guitar all over again.

Star Wars (3 movies: original trilogy, finished 11/27/2020): there is So Much bad Star Wars these days that every time i rewatch the original trilogy i’m afraid that they will suddenly be bad, but guess what! they’re not. i love these children and their hot mess stories, i love that Lando doesn’t know how to say his best friend’s name. what stood out to me this time was the way Obi-Wan described the Force in A New Hope, which strongly implied that ANYONE can be Force Sensitive; that obviously faded with each subsequent movie, but part of me does wish they’d kept it.

X of Swords (comics, 22 issues finished 12/5/2020): i am enjoying Hickman’s X-lines!!! not so much here for the Grand Conspiracy or whatever, but the character work and highkey weirdness is fabulous--they FEEL like X-Men, despite all the shakeups in-universe. this crossover is a nice microcosm of all that: grandiloquently all over the place, but still full of cool standout moments and genuine hilarity. ILLYANA DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO SPELL MAGIC.

Fire Emblem (4 games: Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, finished 12/14/2020): this was the thing that i was closest to giving up early on, but i ended up hyperfixating on it instead. that’s a credit to what the gameplay does to my lizard brain more than anything else, because the story and character writing is...insipid. it was very bizarre to witness this franchise blunder around with its animal-people racism allegory around the same time i was getting back into RWBY, and ITS animal-people racism allegory blunders. Awakening was the first time i felt anything for the franchise beyond “teehee red units disappear make exp bar go up and brain go ding,” so i’m excited for more mature storytelling in subsequent games (they MUST get better. they MUST). the child husbandry thing is...very bad tho, and Apotheosis being “challenging” entirely through the game changing all the rules is also bad.

once again no vidya games that came out this year--i’ll probably pick up Spiritfarer or Hades after the New Year, though (or maybe TLOU II! but probably not. sry Laura and Ashley). more TV and franchises this year, which made me feel In Touch with the Children but was also kinda exhausting. nothing was so egregiously terrible i dropped it without finishing! in a year like this that feels almost like an accomplishment

#conspicuous media consumption

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giffingbuffy · 7 years

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20 Buffy asks: 2, 3, 4, 5

2. What’s your opinion on season 6?

Definitely my least favourite season. Season 6 is not neeeearly as clever as it thinks it is. The reason that it seems so dark is because the metaphors are so sloppy. That’s the word I use to sum up season 6, actually: sloppy. The show has always been dark – just off the top of my head, season 1 alone goes to some dark places: a mother feels her daughter is “wasting her youth” and so she steals her body; ‘The Pack’ is a dark episode so much so that it’s super uncomfortable to watch at times; the child abuse in ‘Nightmares’ etc. Basically, this isn’t groundbreaking.

Okay, so real-life is the Big Bad… I can see how this could be interesting. So much of the conflict feels unnatural and contrived to me, though. It’s like the writers brainstormed everything bad that could happen to a person and tossed it all in even if it would seem OOC. For example, Giles’ reasoning for leaving was ridiculous. Something simple such as needing to leave for important Watcher’s Council duties would’ve sufficed in writing ASH out, but instead this is done in a way to make Buffy’s life even more awful. Giles’ reasons ring untrue to me particularly because he was totally there for Buffy after her mother passes away. Way back in ‘When She Was Bad’ Giles is one of the few to recognise how traumatic her encounter with The Master must have been, especially given that she, y’know, died. And the circumstances in season 6 are much bigger; how is learning that Buffy was in heaven and feeling that she now lives in hell supposed to convince Giles even more that he has to go?? She’s been back for 5 seconds and he already thinks he’s standing in her way? What???

If this season gets its points for being so realistic, then I’m gonna nit-pick. Buffy’s financial issues also feel very contrived and are only there to add to Buffy’s misery; so Buffy comes back from the dead to Tara and Willow living in her dead mother’s room (I get it, this way Dawn doesn’t have to live somewhere else) the point is, there are four people living under this roof – that’s four people using up utilities such as water and hydro, needing twice as many groceries, etc. – and Tara and Willow don’t offer any help financially? What??? Willow could’ve been making some bank given her computer skills, but okay.

How can life be the Big Bad when there are no lasting consequences? This can act as a slight against season 7 as well but season 6 is the one that brings these issues up and the lack of follow-through is just further evidence to me that all of this conflict was contrived. Like, Tara dies and Willow turns world-ending-evil but all she needs to do is chill in a field for a bit? Okay. Spike tries to r*pe Buffy but we’re not gonna talk about it. Xander leaves Anya at the altar but don’t worry, they’ll make up. Money is a huge issue but next season there’ll be like 20 people living under Buffy’s roof, Doublemeat Palace who? Giles leaves but he comes back like three times and realises his “I’m standing in your way” riff was bullshit. Dawn was a klepto for a hot minute, but sneeze and you miss that plot.

And the thing is, there are actual things they could’ve explored with Dawn but the show chose to ignore the whole The Key thing. It’s not like everyone gets their pre-S5 memories back, so everyone still has years worth of fake memories involving Dawn. Dawn could have fears about how everyone she loves only loves her because of fake memories, it’s sad, of course, but that could be a huge worry of hers given her situation.

Then the magic=drugz thing (I can’t even call it a metaphor because it is way too unsubtle) was just… embarrassing to watch lmao. Nothing in the previous seasons indicates that magic could equal drugs; in season 4, it’s used as a way of exploring Willow’s sexuality or something to that extent. Furthermore, I never got the indication that it was the magic Willow was addicted to, but the power. And maybe the knowledge. But anyway, in season 6 we have Willow getting the shakes, hiding magic weed, needing a fix, “I feel so JUICED”

[looks up] Damn, this is getting long! I think I’ve kind of made my point by now lol

To end, though, I believe I saw someone describe season 6 as having an artificial darkness and I think that’s a good way to sum up my feelings.

3. What’s your opinion on season 7?

The thing with season 7 is that it frustrates me because there were ideas that I liked and it had so much – excuse the word choice here – potential to be a great season, but everything about the execution falls flat for me. And when I think of it as a follow-up to season 6, it works even less for me, which I already touched on in the above question.

‘Lessons’ ending on the “going back to the beginning” line seemed so promising to me, and it should’ve been a driving force for the season. From a storytelling perspective, it is bananas to me how little focus the original 4 get both as individuals (too much of Buffy’s plots are consumed by Spike) and as a group. The dynamic of the original 4 is tore down in order to make Buffy’s relationship with Spike more significant, which is incredibly irritating. As much as the “The Earth is definitely doomed” callback makes me go :’) the season really didn’t earn it. To be honest, how did we never get to see the new Sunnydale High’s library?

I think the most glaring problems of season 7 is that there is way too much going on, to the point where there wasn’t much room for character work. The Potentials actually don’t bother me that much, but they’re definitely a problem with the season. If they really wanted to go that route, it would’ve been more effective if there were significantly fewer potentials; the show makes it seem like they’re a dying breed but it sure seemed like there were a lot of potentials. I get that it takes away from the ~empowering images in the finale of young women feeling powerful, but I like the idea of the final battle somehow having all of the past slayers. That way, they wouldn’t need to be introduced until much later in the season which would leave more room for character work. And then of course The First turned out to be pretty lame.

Spike was given WAY too much this season and a lot of his stuff was inconsequential. Compare Spike in season 7 to Angel in season 3; Angel really doesn’t get that much to do, which is fine, because it’s not his show! He has this big moment with Buffy in 3x04 and then in the next two episodes, he gets two brief scenes. He gets one big episode in ‘Amends’ and other than that, his arc/plots are more on the periphery. There’s still plenty of room for the original 4 and other than in ‘Relevations’ the Buffy/Angel relationship isn’t used to take away from her relationships with the Scoobies.

Like I said, though, I like some of the ideas of season 7; I like the idea of going back to beginning, I like the idea of the final season focusing on the Slayer line, I like the idea of a Big Bad that can’t physically harm you, only psychologically. More than anything, season 7 is disappointing to me because I can see a path where it could’ve been so good, but it wasn’t the path taken.

4. What’s your opinion on Riley?

I really don’t mind Riley! His associations with The Initiative probably do not help him gain any clout in the fandom, but even The Initiative arc wasn’t that bad to me until Maggie was killed off. Anyway, back to Riley: I think he’s a nice guy and not in a Nice Guy™ kind of way. He fit in pretty well with the Scoobies – on my first watch, I actually thought he was being introduced as a love interest for Willow haha. He was pretty chill and seemed to make Buffy happy for the most part. He certainly has his moments where I’m like, “really???” even before the mess that happens in season 5, but for the most part, he’s fine.

Onto the mess in season 5… to me, a lot of the conflict was cooked up just because he was being written out and so much of it felt weird to me. Like, “she doesn’t cry as much with you” being taken as a bad thing? I found that really stupid. I get what the show was going for; that Riley was feeling useless, didn’t really have a place of his own without The Initiative, and felt Buffy didn’t love him. I just think it could’ve been done in a much better way. I basically already said this but it seemed like everything that happened was because MB was being written out and not because it was in-character; the writers kind of threw everything at the wall to make Riley terrible and because he already wasn’t a well-received character, it all stuck to the wall.

Anyway, his appearance in season 6 worked well enough for me. So he didn’t get to leave on a sour note.

5. What’s your opinion on Dawn?

I love her! It’s kind of weird to me how people can hate children in fiction so viscerally for essentially being kids, particularly when they’re played by kids and all of the other characters are adults. I don’t know, I just don’t have it in me. So right off the bat, I’m sympathetic to Dawn because just like any kid, she still has a lot of growing to do. Why do you expect her to not be immature, guys?? And then of course her situation makes me feel more sympathetic to her; her sister is out saving the world with her friends and Dawn still needs to be babysat but more importantly: her whole life is a lie. That’s a lot for an adult to deal with, nevermind a 14(? 13? idek) year old. It’d be interesting to see a side-by-side of Dawn at the same age as Buffy and co. during high school because I don’t think the differences would be that striking.

Anyway, I think season 7 is a good showing of who she’d become: selfless, wanting to help with the research, mature, etc. And you could see hints of that in seasons 5 and 6; Dawn was willing to jump and close that portal in ‘The Gift’

#buffy asks #i'm gonna be suuuuper slow at answering these if u can't already tell #luscious2 #anyone: buffy s6--#me: [rant]

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