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takaraphoenix · 1 year

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Shadow and Bone: Season 2 Review

Now that I’ve sat with my s2 feelings for a day, I want to put something a bit more coherent together.

Second seasons are always tricky. They tend to fall victim to a major quality drop; very often, a first season manages to be mindblowing and the second season falls completely flat. With how much I loved season 1, I spent the past year very afraid of what kind of quality season 2 might have.

The short of it: I was pleasantly surprised, I don’t think there was a quality drop, I think that quality-wise it was pretty much en-par with season 1.

Sadly, that does include the major flaw - cramming too much plot into too few episodes. Eight episodes are just not enough for just how much they make happen, watching it all is so overwhelming in how quickly everything happens and how nothing is allowed to breath because we have to rush to the next thing because we just don’t have the time to sit with anything. And that’s a shame.

At the very least they could have given this 10 episodes to allow it all to be loosened a little bit more, though I still think that this would have been the perfect jumping off point for a Six of Crows spin off and splitting the two major plotlines this season - the Shadow and Bone season 2 focusing on Alina’s story and giving the Crows their own spin-off. Simultaneous release and make them crossover, when Zoya and Tolya go visit the Crows and when the Crows come join SaB for the season finale, those interactions could have still happened, but I think there would have been less whiplash and more focus if the rest had been allowed to happen in two separate shows.

My favorite thing about this show has been and still is that it has great characters. The plot’s... questionable - I’m not gonna lie, I’m very happy they mixed the book series (despite what I literally just sad; I think it served s1 very well to mix them) - but the characters are so amazing? I’m the type of person who usually really latches onto one characters, that’s mine, and the others become secondary characters to my fave. I don’t think I’ve ever latched onto as many characters before.

I love and adore Aleksander so much, I don’t think I’ve ever felt this feral about and attached to a villain before in my life. Alina is the most compelling female lead I’ve met since Buffy Summers, honestly - she is strong, capable, soft, beautiful, amazing. I fell for Inej so very hard so quickly, she is so amazing. Jesper is absolutely brilliant, that balance of snark and soft coupled with canon bisexual. And I even latched onto Kaz in my own way, because his trauma-response in regards to touch made me project my asexuality onto him and there aren’t many characters that I headcanon as ace so I have a very, very soft spot for those characters in particular too.

That’s already more characters than usual and I genuinely that that would be it. I knew that season 2 would bring new characters and I had hoped they’d be nice additions but I actually grew unreasonably fond of them too.

Tolya and Tamar are absolutely amazing. I wish we could have had more focus on Tamar and particularly her romance - I didn’t like that the Tamar/Nadia basically only happened in the background, like I get that we are pressed for time, I do, but you are wasting so much time on so much straight relationship drama because this show is playing Noah’s Arc to degrees that are very rare to see outside of CW shows honestly, so it would have been nice if I had gotten at least a little focus on the one wlw ship on this show, especially since they did have great chemistry on their scenes together. And Tolya is adorable, the big, strong guy and then he loves poetry and I’m gone.

Nikolai actually makes me feel like someone tailor made that guy for me. The snark! The jokes! The insistence on not remembering Mal’s name! The high levels of chemistry with Alina and the fake marriage trope with Alina! He’s a pirate! He’s a prince! He’s handsome! He’s amazing! What can’t he do! Gotta love him.

Genuinely my favorite part really was on Nikolai’s pirate ship. I would have absolutely watched an entire season of Alina and Mal as parts of Nikolai’s crew. Just. Pirate stuff with Nikolai, Tolya, Tamar and Miradi.

I really thought I would be... disappointed this season. Maybe that’s why I’m not. Because I set my expectations incredibly low so they were hard to beat, but honestly? I genuinely enjoyed the season.

The costumes were absolutely stunning this season, the costume department went all out!

The new characters were great. The plot is still whatever to me, I have thoughts on that that may be worth a separate post at some point but the thoughts aren’t changes from season 1 so it’s not really impacted by season 2. Nothing in season 2 really did anything drastic that disappointed me plot-wise. Well, that’s maybe untrue, but... nothing disappointing in an unexpected manner, perhaps, would be a better way to put that?

Aside from maybe the book spoilers I knew, like that firebird thing. I read about that. I was expecting some epic shot, with an actual firebird, some cool reveal. Not an info-dump from Baghra, of all people. That was... anticlimactic. And it also honestly made no sense? In the books, Alina and Mal went and found the actual firebird, because they were looking for the firebird. Because Alina wanted to use the firebird as her amplifier. And then realized that Mal was the amplifier that would work for her. The show kind of... muddled that together and decided that Mal couldn’t find the firebird because he was the firebird. But he... he wasn’t? He wasn’t a bird, he may have been the amplifier, but he wasn’t the actual firebird. That was... weird, boring and also kind of illogical.

I do think the show’s biggest issue is its pacing. It’s like we’re running a sprint, but it’s actually the length of a marathon. I feel out of breath. Please slow down.

I liked the ending. The ending surprised me in a positive way. I did not see a corruption arc for Alina coming at all. I really didn’t. Been advocating for this since like episode 3, nobody told me there would be actual Alina corruption in canon so that’s a nice surprise. I like how this could be a final ending that would leave things open for interpretation while still wrapping up all major plotpoints, but it definitely invites season 3. A very sensible way to end a season when you write for a Netflix show and never know if you will be allowed to live or die.

#Shadow and Bone #Shadow and Bone Spoilers #Shadow and Bone Season 2 #Phoe's Random Show Rants

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msevelynsilver · 3 years

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SPOILERS AHEAD FOR ALL FOUR SEASONS OF BLACK SAILS AND ALL SEVEN SEASONS OF BUFFY + SEASON 1 OF ANGEL

I wonder what the level of overlap between these two fandoms is. I think it’s probably low and definitely should be higher.

One thing I can’t get out of my mind is the comparison between Buffy and Faith and Flint and Silver. There’s an especially good Buffy and Faith fan video that really inspired me to think about this, so I’ll leave the link below.

Amazing Buffy + Faith video: https://youtu.be/GpIHwrPhJyQ

But essentially both of these relationships have a friends-with-homoerotic-subtext-to-enemies-with-homoerotic-subtext story arc. And both play with the idea of morality, responsibility for others, the burden of power, and being/becoming the same person.

In Season 7 of Buffy, she becomes the leader of a group of young slayers and shoulders the responsibility of looking after that. But she is seen by the Potentials as cold and standoffish and as not having their best interests at heart. (Sound like anyone we know?). Faith then tries to take control of the girls and finds that it’s hard being first in command instead of second because you have to make the hard decisions and the people under you will resent you no matter what you choose.

Buffy says to Faith: “Whether you wanted it or not, their lives are yours.”

(I’m not bothering to look up episodes right now, but I have a near encyclopaedic knowledge of Buffy and I think this is 7.19 “Empty Places”.)

Does this not sound like something Flint would say to Silver? Silver, who as quartermaster was the better liked of the two but who had to shoulder more responsibility due to Billy’s creation of Long John Silver as a pirate king and who found that he didn’t like the role he was forced to play? Silver was responsible for the lives of all the men on the Walrus crew and while he liked the power it gave him, it also terrified him to have to account for and rely on people other than himself.

Here is more dialogue from Buffy. (Technically I think this is Angel 1.19 “Sanctuary”):

Buffy: “You told me I was just like you.”

Faith: “And you can’t stand that. You’re all about control. You have no idea what it’s like on the other side. When nothing’s in control, nothing makes sense. There’s just pain, and hate, and nothing you do means anything. You can’t even-“

Buffy: “Shut up!”

Re-read that but swap Buffy’s name for Flint’s and Faith’s for Silver’s. It’s not a perfect analogy. Buffy was created to be an expendable hero and Flint is seen as a pirate menace to society, so they face completely different issues regarding their role in the narrative. Faith and Silver do better. Both have relatively unspecified tragic backstories that turned them into cynical, self-serving people who are mistrustful of authority figures (Faith’s is never specified at least in-show, and I’m not taking comic book canon into account here because I’m not caught up). In particular, I think Faith’s line about “nothing you do means anything” is something Silver would agree with. I think if he had believed that Flint’s war could succeed and that they wouldn’t all end up dead, he would have followed Flint to the ends of the earth. But he thought that none of it would mean anything and that they didn’t have the power to effect that kind of change. It also might explain why he views his own past as story-less. Nothing you do means anything. I think he, like Faith, has experienced a complete loss of control over his circumstances and himself, and thus his story at some point in the past. It is their defined roles (quartermaster and slayer) which begin to give their life some shape and meaning, only to have it fall apart because of the burdens/limits of the role they are forced to take.

But my absolute favorite comparison comes from something Faith says to Buffy in season 3. (3.17 Enemies):

Faith: “What are you gonna do, B? Kill me? You become me. You’re not ready for that. Yet.”

Oh, the parallels. For context, if you haven’t seen the show, (and you should, it’s really good), Faith says this while she and Buffy are holding knives to each other’s throats. She then kisses Buffy on the forehead (like Judas did to Jesus) and runs away. The drama! The betrayal! The romantic subtext! The vague implications that Faith is a future version of Buffy who has lost her idealism and illusions about the world and that Buffy will one day sink to the same level of (perceived) villainy!

In this case I would flip it and say Faith is playing the role of Flint while Buffy is playing the role of Silver. Because in the end of Black Sails, isn’t this what happens? Silver kills Flint (literally/metaphorically depending on your interpretation), and in doing so assumes the role Flint had played. This is a man who has lost the two people who he loved most in the world to their dangerous idealism and who now shoulders the weight of being THE pirate in Nassau who society will brand as a monster. In killing Flint and releasing him from the torment of the ten years without Thomas (like a man waking from a long and terrible nightmare), Silver becomes Flint. He had already made so much of Flint’s mind his own and he kind of sacrifices himself so that Flint can live out his happy ending, knowing all the while that he won’t get his own (I know this is a generous reading of Silver, but I love him so I’m biased).

Faith and Buffy don’t get a story that is so neatly tied up because they’re not the two main characters. But Buffy develops a lot of Faith’s ideas about the inherent power of being a slayer (“There’s only me. I am the law”) and makes a lot of morally grey decisions that she probably would have condemned Faith for in her youth. (“Are you the bad slayer now? Am I the good slayer now?).

I need someone who’s talented at video editing to combine these two relationships because I’ve barely touched all the potential parallels (and the visual ones are so good as well!).

I feel like there’s also something to be said for “freedom in the dark” parallels in the two shows, especially with Spike and Buffy in season 6 but I haven’t thought it through and I would need to give a lot more thought to the implications of comparing society’s vilification of queer people and Buffy and Spike’s toxic straight relationship, which is nonetheless taboo for being a Slayer/vampire one.

#black sails #buffy the vampire slayer #james flint #john silver #buffy summers #faith lehane #friends to enemies

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my-personal-multiverse · 3 years

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Since I have decided that this is now a Buffy blog I'm going to put thoughts I've had over the past few months on here. It's all stuff I either wrote when talking to friends or arguing on the subreddit. First have some vampire lore and philosophy thoughts.

"I think the statement of "the person a vampire was is completely gone replaced by a Demon who wears their body" doesn't really hold up with anything we see on the show. Although it's probably good to believe that as a vampire slayer because otherwise most of what Buffy does would be in a morally gray area. I also personally believe that the watchers council deliberately gives watchers and slayers that wrong information (the dialog that says so in the beginning is mostly Buffy and Giles I think. Vampires aren't framing their own experience that way) so that they don't think about the potential moral implications of, for example, killing a vamp that was just turned and hasn't killed anyone yet. The way it makes sense to me is that two things happen when you get turned 1. You loose your soul 2. Some demonic energy/presence/thing enters you and becomes a part of your body through the demonic blood. Loosing the soul I see as essentially loosing an inherent sense of Morality and guilt and loosing (most) empathy. Neither of those makes you inherently evil and there's also the philosophical question of if you can even be inherently evil or if evil is something that you have to do. But you are obviously very likely to end up doing evil things to get what you want if you don't see hurting people as wrong and can't empathize with anyone. And without a sense of Morality you won't want to do anything good unless it also serves you and you will go after more simple pleasures without a care for anyone. But not feeling empathy or having morals doesn't mean you don't have emotions yourself. You will still feel good or bad and you can still fall in love. We don't seem to question that vampires can feel hate and anger without a soul and love is essentially just another emotion. Of course there's the question of how love expresses itself if you can't empathize with who you love. If you try to cheer them up when they are sad it can't be because you feel their pain... Do you look at them more like you'd look at a broken toy that can't give you what you want anymore and try to cheer them up because of that. Is that love or just an intense desire to be with someone because of how they make you feel. Does it matter as long as you are doing the right thing? Do I need to feel someone's pain to want them to be happy? I think there's a lot of interesting questions there but just saying no soul = no love is a bit too reductive for me. (I also personally feel like soulless spike does feel some empathy for people he loves just not for anyone else but that's debatable). For the second thing I think the demonic energy/thing/whatever is what keeps their bodies going, gives them the bloodlust / need for blood to survive and the problems with the sun and all that other fun vampire stuff. But I don't think it is a different entity/identity with a personality of their own taking over and replacing the person. The reason why vampires go evil even if the person they are wasn't before is just that the loss of the soul (Morality/guilt/empathy) coupled with the new bloodlust and being hard to kill by humans thus not having to fear consequences will lead them to murder pretty quickly. But what we see of people before and after they were turned it's always the same people just without a moral compass now going after whatever they want without a care. And one thing they want now is blood but they also still have the desires they did before. Their desires and personality and memories and such is the same. I think that that mind/spirit/whatever is what makes someone who they are. I think that another being with all my memories, wants, feelings and needs would be me. But I know that philosophically you could make an argument that loosing your sense of right and wrong and empathy is enough of a difference to make you a different person. I'd personally say they are a different person in the same way that I'm a different person to who I was five years ago. The person I was then is gone not because some other entity took over my body but because I changed. And being turned is a pretty big change to go through. Even humans sometimes change from one day to the next for example when they go through trauma but you wouldn't necessarily say that they died and some other person took over. In some ways who I was 5 years ago is dead and that person will never be around again. But that's not how we frame things for humans because we have a continuous sense of self and vampires on Buffy have that too. But I'm going to try to get away from the purely philosophical arguments and into the actual show canon. First of all there is the situation where a different demonic presence actually does take over someone's body, retains memories but completely eviscerates the person and becomes a completely new character... on angel with illyria. And it's very obviously a completely different situation to what we see happen with vampires. She might know who Fred was but she has different wants and a different personality and acts according to that. With vampires that's not what happens. Spike is the most obvious example. The first thing he does after being turned is try to save his mother. He cared for her before and he still does. And if he was just a Demon in a William suit he would have no reason to even call her his mother. Turning her is not a moral choice ( I don't think turning someone into a vampire can be unless they ask for it because if they don't you are essentially making choices about their body without their consent) and it's not (necessarily) because of empathy. It's just that his mother was someone he always liked to be around and he wants to keep her around. and spike was always motivated by his romantic obsessions and that informed everything he did after being turned too. Then we have dru who was driven mad pre being turned and stays mad as a vampire. And we have Darla who on angel when she gets brought back as a human with a soul doesn't act like "I finally have my body back" or "what happened, I was dead and have no memory of it". She's like "I was a vampire, that was me, I did that" and she doesn't just have a soul. She's a human with a soul again. But as a character she's a continuation of Darla the vampire. And we have dark willow and vampire willow both using the same phrase ("bored now") which to me shows that regardless of how willow turns evil its a continuation of her character and vamp willow isn't just a random Demon that looks like willow. In the same episode we also have angel basically saying the same thing. When Buffy tries to console willow by saying that a vampires personality is not related to the person they were Angel starts saying "well actually..." then seems to realize correcting her wouldn't help the situation and switches to "good point". And then obviously we have Harmony. Who is most obviously the same person, who still has a lot of the same wants that are not related to being a vampire ( status, money, a comfortable life, a boyfriend) and who stops drinking human blood ( in season 5 of angel) not because she had a problem with killing humans but just because it didn't serve her and it was easier for her to live the life she wanted while playing by the rules. She's clearly soulless but is probably the most interesting example if you want to argue about inherent evil vs. evil actions and "does it matter why someone is doing the right thing?". The one that feels like an outlier is angel but I think even he makes sense. If you look at Liam and Angelus I do see a continuation of character. He wanted to have fun, he already didn't really care much for others and I would argue based on what he does once he looses his empathy he probably already had some desire to hurt others. He just wouldn't have ever actually acted on it when he had his soul. Being turned unleashed the worst parts of him, living out dark desires he otherwise probably would have taken to his grave and the reason he changes so drastically as a character once he gets his soul back is because of the immense guilt of knowing that everything he did was exactly what he wanted. And with a conscience he doesn't want to want those things and won't indulge in those desires to torture and harm. Because all vampires kill and don't feel bad about causing harm to get what they want but Angelus does take things a step further and I think that's based in his own desires. ( A human moral equivalent for me would be the difference between hunting animals to eat and torturing puppies for fun ) And knowing where those desires can lead him makes him work on distancing himself as much as possible from who he was once he gets his soul back which is how he becomes such a different person.

#buffy #Buffy the vampire slayer #buffy summers #spike #angelus #drusilla #darla #harmony #illyria #vampires #buffy lore #btvs

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experiment-000 · 3 years

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My Top 10 Ships of 2020

It's been a weird year but I've seen other people doing this. Plus this year I've been way more into gen fics (love a bit of found family especially in clone wars and marvel) than anything shippy. So I genuinely don't know what imma put on here aside from two ships for sure. Sorry this post is super long idk how to do the below the cut thing and I've had this app for 5 years...

10) Viktor Nikiforov and Yuuri Katsuki - Yuri!!! On Ice

It was a real toss up between this, supercorp, kanera and wolfstar cos they're all very integral ships to my fan heart but this son because of the Yuri on Ice fandom's rebirth this year. I've never stopped shipping this, never stopped reading fanfic of them for any extended period of time, they're still my most bookmarked ship on ao3 (although I think now star wars - all media types may have overtaken them for fandom). They were one of the first things I watched where the queer ship I loved became canon and I can't wait for the film (and hopefully someday a season 2). Heck I even made my mum watch Yuri on Ice with me so I think that says it all.

9) Edelgard Von Hresvelg and female Byleth - Fire Emblem: Three Houses

My first fire emblem game was fates when I was like 14 (and finally gay awake lol). I was so disappointed that I had to be with a guy character because the only female option was kinda creepy and also I wouldn't get the character of kana. So when three houses came out I was so happy because finally there were beautiful incredible female characters my female byleth could romance (I'm so sorry mlm you deserved so much more than you got). I got the game as soon as it came out (had to search a lot of shops let me tell you) and started on black eagles. I was actually kinda disappointed back in 2019. I didn't like the explore the monastery bit (still find it kinda tedious) and the battle mechanics weren't quite the same as fates (no pairing up?! Aka my main battle technique for protecting the weaker units). So I got like 20 hours in and put it down. Came back to it in lockdown and finally finished it! I'm so proud of myself I virtually never finish games. And I fully fell in love with the useless lesbian edelgard in the process. When I started back playing in 2020 I was like eh I wish I'd picked a different character to romance (like shes an emperor that's morally very shady) but then the romance stuff started with edelgard and I fell the heck in love.

8) Cory Matthews and Shawn Hunter (and Topanga Lawrence) - Boy Meets World

Disney+ was released in the UK this year and I finally got the opportunity to watch boy meets world in its best quality (aka not on YouTube). I watched it back when I was like 12 or 13 and it's such a nostalgic show for me. Watching it again I still absolutely adore it (and my bi ass was low-key crushing on Shawn especially in chick like me - I'm 18 btw and I got so scared for a sec but rider strong was 18 when chick like me came out so it's fine woah). And of course now I see the possibilities of the beautiful Cory and Shawn relationship like they were so bromance it was basically romance and throw in topanga it's the perfect ot3 (but I'm also fine with just Cory and Shawn or just Cory and Topanga). Read some good fanfic for them this year. My favourite was one about Shawn stealing makeup and stuff and exploring gender (need more fics like this I'm biiii).

7) Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes - Marvel Cinematic Universe

I rewatched all the MCU films this year too. And got really into Peter parker whump and irondad. Plus my eternal obsession with identity and relationship reveals of course led me from Spiderman identity reveals (and found family cuteness) to stucky coming out. Especially when it involves the internet and social media. Not my favourite ship but it's been significant to my year due to the sheer amount of marvel stuff I've read.

6) Satine Kryze and Obi Wan Kenobi - Star Wars

I rewatched clone wars in prep for season 7 and wow Satine's death was sad and sudden. She first appeared in S2 E13 I think and just the sheer sexual tension of their bickering. "The sarcasm of a soldier. The delusion of a dreamer." Just ugnnhhh my bi ass can't take much more of this. And Anakin just sipping his wine in the background grinning. And I fully believe korkie is a Kenobi.

5) Commander Cody and Obi Wan Kenobi - Star Wars

I am very much an Obi wan multishipper. I don't really have a favourite but I fully believe he was with satine and Quinlan in his life. I don't think be would've actually done anything with Cody because of the whole superior officer thing. And this probably isn't even my favourite Obi wan ship - that honour probably goes to quinobi or obitine. However the most popular ships in the fandom are codywan, quiobi and obikin. No offence to anyone who ships these they're just personally not to my taste, but I can't stand quiobi, and obikin I find only slightly more tolerable and I think that's just because there's so much obikin content so if I like the concept of a fic that happens to be obikin I'll read it. I'm just not a fan of the mentor/student relationships. So I generally favoured the codywan fics when there was shipping involved meaning I read a lot of them this year. Needed that nice fix it content post season 7.

4) Zuko and Katara - Avatar: the Last Airbender

Again I am a multishipper I have nothing against zukka it's cute. But I'm a zutara shipper first and foremost because when I first watched avatar I was like 13 and denying my gayness and gayness in general so I shipped the straight things and the straight things only. Most of these ships I stopped shipping - dramione, spuffy, some my little pony ones which we don't talk about. Zutara stayed. (I have nothing against any of the things I used to ship I just stopped shipping them so much/shipped new things more). I've continuously shipped zutara since I first watched avatar even if I didn't necessarily spend that much time on it it has always been here as one of my favourite ships. It has such good fanfic I swear including my favourite ever fanfic from any fandom - love thy enemy. Plus like the black games (reread this for the millionth time this year), a delicate subterfuge (which I read for the first time this year and damn it's so good) and so many more. With the avatar resurgence this year I haven't actually rewatched avatar aside from my normal random episode every now and then when I feel like it. But there's been a lot of avatar on my dash from people I follow getting into it and people I followed for avatar returning so naturally I returned to the fandom and read quite a lot of fanfic. I also read just a lot of avatar gen fics which were great at the whole found family thing I've been so obsessed with this year.

3) Catra and Adora - She Ra and the Princesses of Power

Catradora is canon! They kissed! What more is there to say. Arguably they should've been top but I never shipped them that much since I was always very much a multishipper when it came to she ra so yes I was very happy it became canon because we actually won for once but also I've never read much fanfic for them etc. But they are very much a dynamic I love and watching she ra all again in prep for season 5 I really enjoyed the build up of their relationship. The other two only go above because Buffy is my favourite show ever and damn there's some good fuffy fanfic and Aphra and Tolvan is both fresh in my mind and star wars owns me. Would love some catradora fic recs btw if anyone has them tho.

2) Buffy Summers and Faith Lehane - Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I didn't realise it was last year that I got super into them but according to my ao3 bookmarks it was lol. 2020 I swear it's lasted an eternity. I got into them about a month before lockdown (which feels like another lifetime). I've loved Buffy since I first watched it when I was 13. It's arguably still my favourite TV show. I've been through a lot of ships for Buffy - bangel to spuffy and now fuffy. I still think angel and her were a beautiful ship back in season 2 and especially in the angel episode I will remember you. But faith and Buffy had so much chemistry in season 3 - she would've been a fresh start for Buffy and the amount of fix it fics I read I swear. My favourite has to be one where they met in LA during Anne and how that changed everything feat Buffy's internal homophobia.

1) Cheili Lona Aphra and Magna Tolvan - Star Wars

I read Darth Vader (2015) and Doctor Aphra (2016) for the first time at the end of 2020 (got a comic subscription which has served me very well already I've nearly finished the star wars canon comics). Just to see canon queer ladies in star wars was so magical for me as a queer lady. I didn't think star wars would be so overt yet as to have a queer kiss in canon (even if it's in the comics) and especially not with the main character of arguably their main comic series. Now we just gotta hope that we'll get it in live action someday soon. They weren't the ship I consumed the most content of in 2020 but they were the highlight of my 2020 because star wars did that and I finally found out about it

Honourable mentions: Vivian and Elle - Legally Blonde, Candace and Vanessa - Phineas and Ferb, Stevie and Alex - Wizards of Waverly Place, Xander and Spike - Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I actually don't ship this but damn some authors are good - this was the ship that made me realise I don't need to like a ship if the author is good enough to write it well), Eli Vanto and Mitth'raw'nuruodo - Star Wars (started reading the books last year but finished this year and only started with fanfic this year), Villanelle and Eve - Killing Eve, Kanan and Hera - Star Wars, Barriss and Ahsoka - Star Wars, Remus and Sirius - Harry Potter, Kara and Lena - Supergirl (let's hope this becomes canon next year!) (Those last four are ones I've shipped forever some of my og ships but nothing particularly big has happened for me this year with them so)

I got Disney+ this year so rewatched a fair few things from my youth and though hey my obsession with that character may have been a little gay.

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terryblas · 3 years

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On Television and Understanding

I love television. I often joke that when my husband and I started dating I asked him one night if he wanted to go out somewhere and he said "Well, I'd like to but we just have so much TV to watch," to which I replied, "That's the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me." And you know what? I kind of meant it.

I've never bought into the idea that TV rots your brain. I feel like TV taught me how to write. I paid attention to shows I was watching. To how long segments on sitcoms were. How there were usually two plots in an episode. I saw this before I knew they were even called an A plot and a B plot. I learned that what characters reveal about others could be just as important as what they reveal about themselves.

Today, my husband and I watch so much TV we've exhausted American television, British television and have moved into a lot of Canadian and Australian television. Seriously, check out Back to Life, Frayed, Back in Time for Dinner, and Kim's Convenience if you can find them. (Kim's is on Netflix)

Most families that belonged to the church I grew up in did not watch television on Sundays. In my house, we did. And that was because my dad loves TV, just like me.

When I came out to my parents they had a hard time with it. I often felt like we were growing apart and didn't have a way to relate to each other any more. When I would visit, they'd pick me up from the airport and I'd be overwhelmed with a certain sense of dread at the time we were about to spend together at their home in Boise Idaho. I'd joke and complain to others about my visits home. Today I'm sad that this year, I wasn't able to visit my parents in the summer like I have for the past five years.

Because of the visits we've had, I realized that where my dad and I could come together was TV. We'd watch Star Trek together and old Disney movies. The Haley Mills Parent Trap is a favorite of ours because it reminds him of his parents who were divorced. Witnessing this taught me that TV and movies were a gateway for emotion and understanding. It was then I decided that every time I came to visit, I'd expose my parents to a movie or show that they likely wouldn't have seen had I not recommended it to them.

I remember showing my dad Harry Potter. He liked it but complained that he didn't like that Harry was referred to as a wizard.

"They should just say he's a magician."

My dad's religious, so while that sounds funny, it was still a concern for him. I said:

"Well dad, he's doing magic. He's not doing tricks. He's not pulling a rabbit out of a hat with sleight of hand. This story is good because this kind of magic is dependent on yourself. Finding strength in yourself and not relying on it coming from some unseen source."

He watched all of the remaining films.

When I showed him the Hunger Games, he complained any time Katniss faltered or made a mistake. He's a retired colonel, so I reminded him, "Dad, Katniss is a 16 year-old girl. She's not a military man. She still won the Hunger Games."

And that was when I realized I could begin sneaking feminism into what I showed him. And that I could also do this with LGBTQ issues.

One of my favorite memories is putting on the movie Connie and Carla for my parents. If you haven't seen it, it's sweet. Do yourself a favor. Nia Vardalos created a heartwarming story about love and acceptance set in a down on its luck drag bar. In the film, there's a drag queen whose brother is struggling to accept him. By that point in the movie my dad was invested in the characters. I could see him struggle not to show emotion when the character told his brother,

"You can't pick and choose the parts of me that don't make you sick to your stomach. you can't have half a relationship with me..."

My dad was visibly angry when Charlie Price was verbally abusive to Lola in Kinky Boots and excited when she showed up to save the day.

I roped my mom into this experience. She's a bit like me, or rather, I've become a bit like her now, where I can't watch TV without doing something else. Computer work, drawing anything really. My mom was always ironing or cleaning something but I put on Coco for her and saw her relax and transform. Usually, it's my dad who barely explains things to her if she has a question while watching something since English isn't her native language. She speaks it well but movies all move fast now. This flipped that experience and my mom was singing along to La Llorona and explaining things to my dad. We ended up watching it in English and in Spanish.

A few years ago I sat them down and put on Season 1 of One Day at a Time. Never in my life did I think there would be a show about a military, religious, Latinx family. They devoured the show. My dad made some comments about immigration that were annoying to me, but what that did was start a conversation between us about the topic. Those conversations rarely go well, but if he connects with someone’s story, it’s harder to be against them and what they represent. When Elena came out he was already invested in her character and seeing Penelope struggle with it helped my dad understand his own feelings about me. Seeing Elena be abandoned by her father in Season 1 infuriated him and made him sad. It showed me that he loved me and wouldn’t do that to me. When Elena sat on the couch watching Buffy he couldn't stop laughing and saying, "That's you! Ha! I can't believe it!" He would never have compared me in a positive way to a woman before. This warmed my heart in ways I can't express.

For some reason, my mother has always been interested in the British royal family. Specifically, Princess Diana. When I told her about The Crown she practically jumped in excitement and after the first episode she asked "When does Diana show up?" I laughed and said, "You gotta watch three seasons first, Mom." She's seen the first two now and binged the first season with my dad when they came for the first time ever, to visit me and my husband for Thanksgiving last year.

I can't wait to show them The Queen's Gambit.

My parents don't have Netflix or Hulu or a roku or an Apple TV or anything. They're in their 70's and it would be a whole thing to try to get them to set that up over the phone. It just wouldn't happen. The next time I'm able to visit, I'll set something up for them because I want them to continue to realize what I discovered a long time ago: TV and movies are just stories. But stories aren't plot and events like many people think. They are emotion and connection. They serve a great purpose: to make us feel less alone. To help us feel understood and represented. It's a powerful medium and something that has brought my parents and I closer together in a way I don’t think anything else could have.

-Terry Blas

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felixcatton · 3 years

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rank the buffy seasons and explain why? (if u want!) love your meta

thank you! :) in-depth buffy discourse honestly terrifies me LOL because it is all so layered and intelligent and i've only seen the show once, like 4-5 years ago (and should/will definitely rewatch at some point). so this is based purely on what i remember having the most fun with when i watched, not on anything deep and analytical.

1. i think i liked season 3 the best, because i loved bangel in that season (i think season 2 is more generally popular for bangel, from what i've seen? which makes sense but i loved them more in s3) also and because FUFFY. the mayor was not my fave villain but faith's dynamic with him was well-written. honestly idk i just love s3.

2. season 5! this is a really close second i'd say. glory was SUUUCH a good villain and the entire season was so layered and smart. just great all around.

3. season 4 because college! i was in my first year of uni when i watched it for the first time so it was just kind of a cozy time to see these characters navigating their first year too and i'll always have fond memories of it for that reason alone. i thought the initiative was an interesting plot, idk if that's an unpopular opinion or not but i was very invested in figuring out what the hell was happening there. and BABY TILLOW! aside from how sweet they were as a developing ship, witches/magic was something i'd wanted to see more of on buffy so it was so exciting when tara came along and willow learned more.

4. season 2. angelus was chef's kiss, spike/drusilla were chef's kiss, kendra was chef's kiss, etc. this season probably had the most standout eps, as in episodes that are always gonna be stuck in my memory for one reason or another.

5. season 1 because it's just kinda cute and, at least compared to the other seasons, low-stress ksjdhsdk. again, has lots of those eps that i'll always remember (namely the preying mantis teacher, xander turning into a hyena, that one puppet). just peak 90s comfort show.

6. tbh the last two seasons are fairly tied because they almost blur together in my mind? but i'll say season 7 here because it was all so Epic TM and intense villain-wise. there's a lot about it that i don't perfectly remember (i was probably in crazy bringe mode when i watched s6-7 lol), but i do remember finding the first interesting. and i remember being so pissed about the way everyone was treating buffy. also i loved the series finale so much even though i lost my beloved anya.

7. season 6 had once more with feeling and i'll always thank it for that. but s6 has the worst villain(s) imo. plus, depressed buffy depressed me, dark willow depressed me, giles leaving depressed me, tara dying depressed me, etc. the season served its purpose in the larger arc of the show, but i'd probably consider skipping it if i rewatched??

#answered #anonymous #buffy the vampire slayer

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remythologise · 3 years

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Am I the only one who's super uncomfortable with the implications from the last two episodes? So Cas comes out and is immediately sent to superhell and then in the next episode his family who in earlier seasons would do absolutely anything to bring him back now all of a sudden (after he's come out) decide to not bring him back (despite having the ability) and allow him to suffer forever. I don't believe the writers are intentionally trying to be homophobic but...

Dude absolutely everything about the episode has shitty implications, not just Castiel. Let me bring in another anon ask onto this one too so I can address them together:

Apologies if you’re tired of talking about it, but I frankly can’t stop thinking about how they even fucked up Michael’s story. Michael’s whole “found family” arc and his relationship with Adam and him coming to terms with the shittyness of his family and realising that he’s not bound by the part God has ordered him to play. All those things, all those things that are such core themes of the show and that parallel the other main characters, and they burned it all to the ground (plus Michael fucking dies anyway). Like, they really did that, they really just trashed literally everything they claimed their show was about.

It is absolutely remarkable how this show managed to make me physically ill in the course of 42 minutes, by the simple act of bad writing. Let’s go character by character and where they currently stand in the show, in order of Most Upsetting to Least Upsetting:

1. Castiel - his love is currently unreciprocated in canon text, he has spent his entire life serving Dean and loving him and thinking of himself as a ‘tool’. Self-hating, self-doubting, self-sacrificial but loving until the end. Tells other characters in 15.18 that they aren’t tools, and that they deserve love. Does not get this told back. Has been sent to eternal suffering (according to the text about the Empty) because he admitted his gay love. If you rewatch the show, it is literally painful to have him on screen because of how tragic his character is DESPITE how fucking generous and loving a character it is. I can’t even put into words how upset it makes me.

2. Jack - his entire life is being a tool for the Winchesters and the world, and doubting he is really loved by them. At the end of the narrative, he is indeed just a tool used to prop up the world, and never allowed to simply be a kid. He goes out without Dean ever really resolving that talk where he goes ‘thanks for doing this so Sam and I could be free’ and ‘you’re not really family’. It’s so fucking bad. WHY didn’t they do a Buffy style thing here with Buffy’s sister, where it was about how the narrative was setting him up to be a weapon and plot device but he/The Winchesters reject that? He was just a fucking kid. The only reason he is not above Cas on how painful it is to rewatch his character is Castiel has more fucking screentime, and at least Jack is not eternally suffering. He did have some good times as their child... if nowhere near enough. It makes me physically sick to think of how Jack was just a plot device, in the end, and not allowed to be a kid. I thought that was the point of 15.17 Unity. Oh, and - COMPLETELY FORGETS ABOUT HIS LOVE FOR HIS DAD, CASTIEL. His most important relationship in the show done dirty. Christ. His farewell speech was appallingly written. They have so many opportunities to make this ep meaningful and create a lasting impression on viewers and the lasting impression I have is bile.

3. Dean - spends the whole episode grieving Cas and wanting him back then just suddenly forgets he exists and moves on as soon as it’s possible to revive him. Is totally fine and relatively unemotional about sacrificing his son, and seems pretty happy he and Sam made it out despite Cas and Jack metaphorically sacrificing themselves. Everything we have learned to say about ‘family don’t end in blood’ is textually erased and everything about the Winchesters sacrificing themselves has been rendered to lie on Cas and Jack’s shoulders instead. It’s like... Man. Rewatching the show, he is an abusive asshole to the man in love with him, doesn’t really care about the son that adores him, and is happy sacrificing others for he and Sam to be happy. I now hate this show.

4. Sam - same as Dean except maybe, AT A STRETCH, we can imagine he called Eileen offscreen. Both Sam and Dean do not check in on their friends. This was like. The ultimate bi!bro win, in the most upsetting way possible where they make it clear Sam and Dean only care about each other. In a way that totally undermines the previous episodes and even parts of THIS episode. Not to mention the Winchester ethos of saving their found family and Cas and Jack not just being temporary tools to them. At least on rewatch he’s not abusive to his love interest and son though! But I have no fondness for him now.

5. Michael & Lucifer - everything the anon said. It’s like the back half of the ep wanted to screw us even on this. Jake Abel’s incredible acting deserved better. There was also no narrative reason for it, and the flashbacks to explain the ‘plot twist’ were so fucking bad. Fuck, even LUCIFER got done dirty - both of the characters regressing to try and win their dad’s approval. There was no need for this, it made no sense, and it did nothing even in terms of contrast to Sam and Dean.

6. Chuck - his ending was fine on a relative scale to this mess but the editing was so bad dude it made the whole scene laugh out loud funny. Like embarrassingly bad shit. You know what saved this? Castiel, of course, and Dean telling Chuck that he isn’t who he thinks he is. Even the scenes with the boys standing up to Chuck were just so ... embarrassing and poorly shot.

Also like, most upsettingly, as a whole - Supernatural. All fifteen years of show canon and characters and fan investment. Nothing sums this up more than the montage, which by the way guys, the editors got really emotional over and thought was good. So please don’t say that was intentionally bad. It was just so fucking bad, like random scenes and a song that didn’t work. Really upsetting capstone to the series that was not only poorly made as a mockery of what greatness Supernatural once achieved, but undermined every part of the emotional found family narrative, the Winchesters trying to save the ones they love, and just made the characters point blank unlikeable. I cannot believe one episode soured the whole show for me, but it really did. Barring a fix-it miracle on 20, I don’t think that can be undone.

#ask #anonymous #spn spoilers #supernatural spoilers #like .... I don't want to talk about it anymore but I'm also like.#I don't know how not to care about this show that defined me and who I am for ten years #I don't know how not to care about these characters #I hope the finale fixes at least some of this. it's the only hope we have left

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Top 10 Thanksgiving Episodes

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody! Time to eat a ton, pass out, and watch MST3K and all that. And since I already covered most of the general stuff about how diffrent this holiday is in my Loud House Review, and to reitarate to anyone having a big, 20 or so people crammed in a room thanksgiving this year

For the rest of us like all of the big three of Holidays, thanksgivings also the time for some classic episodes of television. Granted most shows stick to one, with some exceptions like friends, roseanne and new girl, but most make their one count. Thanksgiving may not be as big as the holidays it’s sandwitched in between, to the point christmas is slowly but surely trying to swallow it whole, but it’s still a time for family, fighting, and food that brings plenty of opprotunity for greatness and even with a smaller pool, I stiill had signifigant trouble narrowing down my list to 10. But I stand by what I got it wittled down to. This is my top 10 thanksgiving episodes! And for my regular readers, there’s a suprising lack of animation but i’m more than willing ot go outside that and now’s the right time, asi’m currently having a black friday sale with reviews marked down by two bucks to just 3 dollars for an episode of any tv show. Yes it’s a shameless plug but since when have I ever had shame? So with that in mind let’s chow down, it’s my top 10 thanksgiving episodes!

10. Pangs (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) Buffy is as a show I REALLY need to revisit. While lately, what with the abuse he did that we can’t get details on when making justice league or his you know cheating on his wife on and off over a decade, I’m not at all a fan of series creator Joss Whedon, Buffy itself is still a classic in my eyes.

The tale of a teenager given the role of the Slayer, a chosen female asskicker given moderate super powers and the duty to defend the world from vampires and other ghouls. The show dealt with the usual teen superhero stuff, ballancing asskicking with saving the world and arguably codified the genre, to the point I hold it at least partially responsible for the bigger wave of teen heroes in the 2000′s in animation and comics. The show had smart dialouge, metaphors, mythology and a rich, and vibrant cast. Sure some things haven’t aged well like an adult vampire dating a teenager or the really dated ways Willow’s sexuality were handled, as groundbreaking as it was, from barely letting her kiss her girlfriend or be shown being intimate iwth her, or just entirley shutting out the posiblity she’s bisexual. But a few age wrinkles aside the show is still good and I still need to rewatch it and that includes our number 10 pangs, one of hte most memorable and well done thanksgiving specials and one fo the shows more comedy moments. It’s thanksgiving, and Buffys mom’s going out of town, so she decides to hold thanksgiving at Giles place to bring her slowly drifting surrogate family together. Naturally given the way things usually go for our Slayer, she has a hard time of it as Willow chafes at celebrating colonolsim, Giles dosen’t get what the big fuss is about that or the meal being british, and Spike shows up looking for protection from season big bads the initiative, a secret military unit that’s chipped him so he can’t harm humans, so he has no way to eat and spends the mal tied to a chair. Oh and of course, a vengeful native american spriti from the chumash tribe has given Xander syphilis and killed a currator as revenge for his people’s suffering, so now Buffy has to fight a ghost bear if she want sa happy thanksgiving. Also Angel is back in town and being kind of a dick, but hey it leads to a good episode of his spinoff so whatever.

Pangs is just a fun episode, not only does it do well by not ignoring american colonalisim, but it just has a fun energy to it as Buffy desperately tries to have a good thanksgiving, Spike instnatly proves his worth as an addition to the gang both chemstiry and comedy wise, and we of course get this classic moment.

It had to fight it’s way onto the list, but pangs is a holiday dish worthy of sinking your fangs into.

9. The Dressing (Aqua Teen Hunger Force) Speaking of nutty fun thanksgiving episodes.. this one is simply that. I love Aqua Teen Hunger force.. even if like a lot of comedy shows it drooped in later seasons, it still has it’s classics earlier on and even later on has a few gems. But on the earlier on side we have their utterly bonkers and delightful thanksgiving episode “The Dressing”, a sequel to the Christmas Episode “The Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from The Future”, which itself is an utter classic, but we’ll possibly get to that in december’s list.

The Aqua Teens are having Thanksgiving with Carl, whose naturally onlyt here for the free food and staying outside. it’s also days before or after, with black colored frito pie,a t urkey, and whatever else their broke selves could scrounge up. However, naturally, like Buffy a normal day for the Aqua Teens just isn’t complete without some weird shit happening, thanksgiving gets interrupted by the cybernetic ghost of Christmas past fromt he future, whose transformed himself into a turkey and wants to save their turkey so it can lead a rebellion in the bizzare hilarious distopian hellscape he comes from. This of course leads to him getting drunk, eating all their food and later showing up with a laser sock to murder carl after the episodes over. It’s just a fun time, a really funny episode and one of the teens more memorable outings. Not a lot to say here, it’s just really damn funny.

8. Arnold’s Thanksgiving (Hey Arnold!) Anoter classic I really need to revist but that more than earns his place here. Hey Arnold.. is easily one of the best animated shows ever. I say that with no hyperbole as it handled slice of life well while still getting dramatic when needed to, and is easily the gold standard for slice of life children’s cartoons to this day. And naturally it’s holiday specials were great, and I only r eally haven’t revisited them because they also hurt.. a lot. So unsuprisingly this one makes the list.

IT’s thanksgiving and given how chaotic things are for both Arnold and Helga’s families, our heroes are miserable. Arnold would understandably like just once to have thanksgiving on thanksgiving, his family instead doing fourth of july due to his grandmother being who she is. And Helga naturally is ignored and mistrteated as usual since her sisters home and her dad and alchoholic mother ignore her as usual even when she’s not around. What i’m saying is while Arnold’s issue is understandable, helga always wins a “whose got the shitter life” contest.

So the two flee to their teacher Mr Simmons, a character I genuinely loved and loved even more finding out he was gay as an adult, as he was a kind , supportive teacher who could be a bit softhearted but wasn’t afraid to step the fuck up when needed. But they find his thanksgiving isn’t much better, as his Mother and wont’ stop sniping at his boyfriend peter and clearly isn’t entirely comfortable with her son’s sexuality, his friend keeps snapping at peter and mooching off him, and his uncle.. well he’s just a loud asshole who wants turkey.. The kids naturally realize the meaning of the holiday, reconclie with their families who DID take genuine steps to make up for them being gone and missed them, all is well. It just shows nobody’s family is perfect, and is well done in that but also shows why thanksgiving has grown beyond it’s roots: It’s a day for families to get together and even if they may fight, recognize why they love one another. I also give the show balls for heavily imiplying a character is gay and not slapping a girlfriend on him or any of the usual bollocks: Simmons just very clearly is gay and it’s as transparent as the show could get at the time, with the show making it crystal clear years later with the revivial movie. Nice. We’ll have more servings of thanksgiving classics after the cut.

7. Slapsgiving (How I Met Your Mother) Oh How I Met Your Mother. You started out really good but boy did that go downhill fast and land in a nuclear inferno didn’t it? But I can bitch about the How I Met Your Mother Ending some other time, and probably will. In the show’s prime before they decided to stick with an ending no one wanted anymore, it was pretty great and while season 1′s also impressive Thanksgiving outing “Belly Full of Turkey” was considered, there was ultimately one slaptastic king when it came to Thanksgiving: Slapsgiving.

Naturally for this show Slapsgiving ties into the show’s suprisngly deep and rich lore: The season before this, Marshall and Barney made a “Slap Bet”, which is exactly what it says on the tin: A bet where the winner slaps the looser. And due to Barney prematurely slapping Marshall, Marshall got 5 penalty slaps to be dolled out whenever, one in that episode and another in a coda to another. For his next one though Marshall decided to outdo himself and set up a counter.. and it all comes down to thanskgiving. So we get a good ten minutes of Jason Siegel making meancing slap based refrences while NPH’s barney cowers in fear before Marshall’s wife lily pumps the breaks on the bet as comissoner.. only to reconsider when Barney makes the mistake of tormenting Marshall over it, resuling in the inevitible, and in THE thanksgiving song.

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Basically it’s what happen when you give three really funny people a subplot together. Magic happens. The subplot is not bad either as a pre-totallyinsufferabledouchebag Ted hooks up with Robin again over lingering feelings and thanksgiving prep and the two have to deal with that... though it’s mostly funny for Robin’s new boyfriend, who Future Ted acknowledges is barely older than them, but admits to remembering as decrept old man, which results in a 30 something’s dialouge coming out of a very old man and me laughing very hard. A simple joke but one that really works. Overall a slaptacular good time.

6. Two Turkeys (Brooklyn Nine-Nine)

NINE NINE BITCHES! I’m honestly shocked I haven’t talked about Brooklyn Nine Nine on here already, but it’s easily one of the best sitcoms in recent memory, if not of all time. It has one of the best ensemble casts, great jokes and timing, yet still ballances things out with a sense of realisim beneath the madness> It’s also noticable for holding it’s officers more accountable than most real world police departments, to the point all scripts that were written up for next season were thrown out post George Floyd. It’s truly a joy to watch.

So naturally they’ve had their share of Holiday episodes, with them easily having the best crop of halloween episodes since roseanne with their annual heists, and having some pretty damn memorable christmases, opening with this:

So naturally thanksgiving is no exception, with it’s last two being the best and it being a really hard choice wether to go with season 4′s “Detective Santiago” or this one. But as good as the other ep was.. this one inched it out for good reason.

The episode’s split into two equally good, equally hilarious plot lines. In the B-Plot, the 99′s Captain Raymond Holt, one of the best characters in sitcom history and gay icon, and his husband Kevin take their annual trip to get a pie for Holt’s families thanksgiving and come back with the well crafted pie, even if both prefer their food nice and bland. But the pie go missing and Captain Holt procedes to hilariously drill into each of the other members of the 99 and uncovering holes int their previous thanksgving stories with Rosa’s being suprisingly heartwarming (She’s going to a humilating minons on ice show with her family because they reconnected in jail.. setting up the equally awesome “Game Night” episode where she comes out.) and Boyle’s being utterly pathetic as you’d expect (Cooking his son mac and cheese because he’ll eat nothing else and declaring him a “basic bitch”). The solution however ends up being heartwarming as the culprit is actually Kevin, who hated the pie.. as did Raymond who suggests just taking the drive anyway because they enjoy the silent ride there and back every year. It may be boring to us.. but it’s preicious and really sweet all the same.. as it is hilarous when Kevin treats this as a big endugence and seems turned on by that. What i’m saying is these men are couple goals and Marc Evan Jakcson was awesome long before ducktlaes. The main plot is also great, as Jake and Amy, now engaged after this year’s halloween episode which is also , coincidentally, the series best, try to unite their families. It just goes about as well as you’d expect as Amy’s are type a control freaks, jake’s mom is a retired hippie school teacher and his dad is a human disaster area who has to be told to put on pants, cheated on his mom constantly, somehow got her back, and in general is barely functional on a good day. The families do bond breifly but things ineveitbly break down, hilarity and severed limbs insue and family comes together. IT’s just a funny, well done 20 mintues that’s also really damn sweet, with this plot ending with Amy’s dad accepting the chaos as that’s’ts what you do with family. Also jake naturally finds out he has a ton of step siblings as his dad was and still is a man whore. Happy Thanksgiving!

5. Bart Vs Thanksgiving (The SImpsons)

Let’s face it: if you follow my reviews at all you knew this was coming. While not one I go back to due to being an emotional kidney punch, i’d be doing this list a diservice if this classic wasn’t on there. In a nutshell, Bart starts a petty fight with Lisa over her centerpiece that ends with it in the fireplace, Bart sent to his room till he apologizes, and Bart seething insiting he did no wrong. It takes a visit to the homeless shelter after running away, and ending up on the news, to realize what an ass he’s been and one nightmarish dream sequence later, seriously why do you think I don’t revisit this one that often? This thing has traumatized me since I was a kid and unlike the slap song I will not be showing it to you, has a heartwarming reconcliation with his sister on the roof. It’s just a nice, sweet special that gets the holiday just right and i’d expect nothing less from Golden Age Simpsons.

4. A Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving (Gilmore Girls) Another show I need to talk about more, Gilmore Girls is fucking awesome. The story of a woman who ran away pregnant at age 16 and built her own life for her daughter in the quirky town of stars hollow who finds herself reconnecting with her parents in present day against her will.. is really good stuff. Funny, heartfelt and really damn well acted with one hell of a cast, the show is part of me and I make no bones about that, so it’s big thanksgiving outing naturally belongs on here. The premise is simple: Rory and Loreli end up having to go to four diffrent thanksgivings, which even for big eaters like them is a massive task, each unique and entertaining. The main event of course is Suki’s, where everyone’s faviorite chef agreed to let her husband cook the turkey.. of course with the plan to sneak in mid cooking and add her own touches. This gets foiled when Jackson and his family decide to deep fry the thing.. probably in part because Jackson knows his wife well and knows what she was planning. Though over the night while our heroines are at their other meals, it devolves into them deepfrying everything they can get their hand son including a shoe, and Suki getting plastered to tolerate it. While not topping it the other meals and the sheer lunacy of four thanksigvings in one day, are still memorable: There’s the natural posh one at Richards and Emilys, the dour joyless one at The Kims where Mrs Kim forces the band to play the whole time and forces our heroines to eat food as joyless as Mrs. Kim, and Lukes for a nice round of Rory grappling with having PDA with her boyfirend Jess before resolving it at the end. Also dean’s a jackass. No one is suprised. Jess isn’t one at this stage in his character which is. Also Kirk adopts a cat that slowly pushes him out of his own house which works comedically becaus Sean Gunn is a national treasure. Overall a really good episode and if you have netflix and haven’t checked the series out, this is a good one to try out.

3. The Thanksgiving Special (Regular Show) I already talked about this one in my top 11 Regular Show episodes so i’ll try to be brief. In a nutshell Mordecai and Rigby destroy thanksgiving and genuinelly feeling bad about it, scramble to win a thanksgiving bird from a Thanksgiving Song Contest, going up against an all star super group comissioned by Donald Trump. Yes really. Meanwhile Muscle Man and High Five Ghost go to get sides and the rest of the park staff’s attemtps to get a turkey are thwarted by a bunch of thanksgiving reinactors who go unexplained in any way shape or form which given how rare that is for regular show, which usually has some sort of explination for the madness, just makes it funnier. It ends with a REALLY touching song, a fight on a blimp with outgoing president trump, and a truly heartwarming thanksgiving meal. All in all a nice special that combines the shows madcap nature with the genuine warm fuzzies of thanksgiving.

2. We Gather Together (Roseanne) Another series I need to talk about more.. and another series where one of the creators has turned out to be a terrible human being. Seriously Roseanne Barr is is a terible person, she deserved to be removed from her show, and while the Conner’s isn’t GREAT it’s still FAR better without her. That being said I will still stick up for the original as she wasn’t the only one involved (indeed the aformentioned Joss Whedon worked on the show breifly and Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman Paladino not only worked there but later adapted one of Roseanne’s insane antics, making all the writers wear caps with a number instead of referring to them by name , to Gilmore Girls.). Her being a bad person even then dosen’t change the fact that the show is sitcom gold, one of my faviorite shows, and a true classic. And this episode helps showcase WHY.

What makes this episode special, even among Roseanne episodes is it’s structure: While there are things going on it’s mostly a free floating day in the Families life and thus feels like your there with them through thanksgiving. It feels genuine, like past thanksgivings i’ve remembered: Everyone has their own stuff going on, they all eat, and there’s naturally a big blowup.. and one that eveyrone else ignores to eat which I can relate to. That authenticity really elevates the episode and is why I seek it out every year.

That’s not to say nothing happens, it just flows in and out like it would in a normal thanksgiving. Roseanne deals with her parents, a pre-abuser version of her dad and her overbearing nightmare of a mother beverly, and the inevetible blow up when Bev’s needling about Jackie’s life goes too far , prompting Jackie to reveal her new job as a police officer before bursting into tears, all to Roseanne’s annoyance. Rosie also moves them to a hotel despite an attempted guilt trip from her mom.

Speaking of Mom’s we see Dan’s for the only time before the later seasons and the utterly terrible last season, a professional career woman whose moved on well from her ex and brought her new boyfriend there. Ed, despite some comptemplation over it is firmly accepting and instead starts flirting with the Conner’s friend Crystal. Dan, being overprotective because of his Daddy Issues, but ed cals him out on it “Being lonely is a hell of a lot for two people to have in common, you woudln’t knwo anything abotu that son, and I pray to god you never do” A great caper to a fantastic episode.. one I thought was going to top the list... THOUGHT is the key word here...

1. Turkey in A Can (Bob’s Burgers) This one is. Bob’s Burgers is one of the best things to come out of the 2010′s and i’ve fallen way too far behind on it, so I can’t say if any thanksgivings after thankshoarding top this one.. what I can say is this one is the gold standard for thanksgiving episodes, and is filled with great stuffing.

Thanksgiving is Bob’s holiday. Being a chef he loves the chance to go all out, and really flex his muscles for his families when it comes to cooking up a storm, and it’s endearing when bob gets just as nuts as his family. But this year someone keeps flushing his turkeys down the toilet despite his best efforts, so while Louise hilariously tries to solve things to proe it wasn’t her (though it’s entirely fair they thought it was her consdering.. everything), while LInda, Gene and LInda’s flighty sister Gale try to write THE thanksgiving song. And while it’s no you just got slapped, damn if they didn’t succeed.

youtube

Sailors in your mouth indeed. It leads to plenty of great jokes the best being the guy at the Deli Counter thinking Bob’s into him and bob not being sure how to respond, but being mildly recpetive. But the climax is what makes the episode as when Bob falls asleep we find his medication has been making him sleepwalk.. and thus put the turkey s int he toilet, as Tina’s desire to be at the Grown Up Table, itslef a REALLY funny runner as you’d expect, has him panicking internally and thus reliving her potty training. The episode ends with Bob letting her come to the adults table, and a rather heartwarming thanksgiving feast. All in all an excellent episode. It also leads to the chaos seen above whic hif htat’s not thanksgiving, I don’t know what is.

Have a happy thanksgiving and check out my black friday sale! Until then there’s always another rainbow!

#thanksgiving #top 10 #bob's burgers #gilmore girls #buffy the vampire slayer #aqua teen hunger force #hey arnold #how I met your mother #the simpsons #roseanne #regular show #brooklyn nine nine #brooklyn 99 #99

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fuckyeahwarriorwomen · 4 years

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Copy of article below thge cut, should the original ever go away

Leading up to the 20th anniversary of the March 10, 1997 premiere of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Yahoo TV is celebrating “Why Genre Shows Matter” and the history of how these shows have tackled universal themes (e.g. how much high school sucks) and broader social issues.

Perhaps because they seek to imagine the world that’s possible rather than the world that is, genre shows have a long tradition of striving to expand the horizons of what’s possible for women on television. Within the realm of space operas alone, there’s a direct line that connects Lieutenant Uhura’s prominent perch amongst the Enterprise‘s largely male bridge crew on the original Star Trek to The Expanse‘s fiercely independent engineer, Naomi Nagata. And each point along this continuum helps inform the next: commanding officers like Babylon 5‘s Susan Ivanova and Voyager‘s Kathryn Janeway are linked by a devotion to duty, if not necessarily temperament, while Killjoys‘ scrappy bounty hunter, Yala, could have been a student of Firefly‘s highly-skilled soldier, Zoë Washburne. On this International Women’s Day, we celebrate the accomplishments of one such influential intergalactic heroine.

Her name is Aeryn. Officer Aeryn Sun if we’re being formal, one of the interstellar outlaws at the center of Farscape, the wildly ambitious Australian/American space serial that ran from 1999 to 2003 on the Sci-Fi Channel. Bred from birth to be a loyal Sebacean soldier in the Peacekeeper army that patrols her section of the galaxy, Officer Sun switches careers after inadvertently ending up aboard a living spaceship named Moya that’s occupied by a motley crew of jailbreakers. These convicts-turned-comrades include towering warrior Ka D’Argo, blue-hued priestess Zhaan, flatulent deposed despot Rygel XVI, and John Crichton, an Earth-born astronaut who is very, very far from home. Created by Rockne S. O’Bannon and produced by The Jim Henson Company, Farscape enjoyed a bumpy four-season stateside run that ended prematurely when the network declined to fund a fifth and final year. (Sci-Fi later aired, but didn’t finance, a wrap-up miniseries, Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars, in 2004.)

The original cast of ‘Farscape’ (Credit: Everett Collection)

One of the joys of Farscape is that its defining house style is the lack of a defining house style. Episodes can range from standalone homages to body-switching comedies and vintage Loony Tunes cartoons to densely plotted multi-part stories that don’t conclude with conventionally happy endings. The primary constant amidst this narrative and tonal juggling is the turbulent love story between Aeryn Sun and John Crichton. Revisited today, Farscape stands as something of a bridge between eras of space opera, linking the last wave of episodic space adventures like Star Trek: Voyager and Stargate: SG-1 to the intensely emotional serialized narratives that later drove Battlestar Galactica and its ilk. Aeryn is both a traditional and transformational figure as well; raised to be an impersonal enforcer in the Imperial Stormtrooper mold, she comes to live out a promise that John makes to her in the very first episode: “You can be more.”

“Oh, I’ve got chills down my arm,” says Aeryn’s alter ego, Claudia Black, as she reflects on the character and those prophetic words nearly two decades later. “Her evolution as an individual takes off in an extraordinary way [after that].” Over the course of Yahoo TV’s hour-long conversation with the Australian actress, it’s clear that she does regard Aeryn as an individual unto herself, one who took on a life that sometimes superseded the actress’s own. “I was always happy to hand the character off,” Black says. “I would say [to the producers], ‘If I’m going in the wrong direction then please find someone to serve Aeryn, please. Because she deserves to have the full love of a person who can give you what you need.’ She was honestly such a privilege to play, and I never abused that privilege.”

And Black very nearly didn’t get that privilege. The role had already been cast when she first auditioned for Farscape, but the creative team encouraged her to read for Aeryn anyway. That reading later led to a screen test opposite Tennessee-born Ben Browder, who would be playing John Crichton. (Interestingly, Browder’s casting is, in part, what opened the door to Black inheriting the role from the English actress who had originally been chosen as Aeryn. “Because of the Australian co-production agreement, if they brought in a lead actor from America, the second lead had to be Australian,” Black explains. “So thank god for our union!”) Immediately recognizing the crackling onscreen chemistry between them, Browder pushed hard for her to land the role over network skepticism. “I was a controversial choice for sure,” Black says now. “I was just lucky in the end.”

Whatever the circumstances of how she got the role, Black climbed aboard Moya with strong ideas about how to play Aeryn. Superficially, the character is part of the wave of warrior women that swept through genre shows in the ’90s and early ’00s, whose ranks included Xena, Buffy, and even Cleo of Cleopatra 2525 fame. But as conceived by O’Bannon and carried forward by executive producer David Kemper, who became a driving creative force behind the show, Aeryn cuts against that archetype as well. Unlike Xena, she doesn’t necessarily relish battle; it’s something that’s been programmed into her. (Although, as Aeryn memorably remarks in The Peacekeeper Wars: “Shooting makes me feel better!“) She also reverses the arc traversed by Buffy and Cleo, which begins with them in places of perceived weakness — as a cheerleader and exotic dancer, respectively — and leads towards empowerment.

Because of her militaristic upbringing, Aeryn starts from a place of fierce strength. Her journey over the lifespan of the show, then, becomes about softening what Black describes as Aeryn’s “jagged edges” without surrendering her agency. “I’ve always loved science fiction because of the way it affords us an opportunity to look at humanity from an outsider’s perspective,” Black says. “And Aeryn really gets to experience it firsthand the best way that humans can, which is through love, in all of its forms. When I look at humanity, and my own life, we have to break before we can grow. That’s really what happened with Aeryn; she became stronger with softer edges.” (For the record, Aeryn may start out as a superior fighter to Buffy, but Black says that Sarah Michelle Gellar would easily mop the floor with her in real life. “Sarah has a black belt in karate, and I have two left feet! I always felt like a bit of an imposter [as Aeryn] just on the physical front. If I could push the reset button, I’d go back and get good at some form of martial art.”)

But that stronger-to-softer arc is also more treacherous to navigate than a traditional empowerment story, flirting, as it does, with the fanboy-friendly stereotype of the buttoned-up ice queen whose resolve (and inhibitions) melt when love, generally in the form of a strapping male hero, comes her way. The risk of falling headlong into that tired trope is something Farscape had to deal with throughout its run, especially as the core of the show was always the romance between John and Aeryn.

And while that romance takes a number of unexpected twists and turns — most boldly in a Season 3 storyline that saw Aeryn committing herself fully to a cloned version of Crichton, only to see him die and then have to re-learn how to love the original John — it ultimately culminates with two staples of a standard love story: a marriage proposal and a pregnancy. “It seemed pretty clear to me that Rockne’s intention in the pilot was that this was going to be a love story for the ages,” Black says. Not only that, but it was a love story penned by a largely male writing staff who had their own opinions about how to depict Aeryn’s gradual acceptance of Crichton’s love that sometimes ran counter to Black’s feelings. “I recall moments where they wanted me to be more vulnerable with Aeryn, and I didn’t want to be because I didn’t think it was time and I didn’t think she was ready,” she says. “But it wasn’t my place to say.”

Nevertheless, she persistently found ways to make her voice heard, whether it was by talking one-on-one with specific writers or her co-star, who was equally eager to avoid certain genre show clichés. Black recalls one instance early on in the show’s run when Browder actively pushed back against Sci-Fi’s directive that John Crichton demonstrate the same sex drive as James T. Kirk. “They wanted Crichton to have an alien girl of the week. Ben put his foot down and said, ‘No, he’s not that kind of guy. This isn’t the story I want to tell.’ And on my side I was saying, ‘Yeah, what does that say about Aeryn if she’s going to fall in love with a guy [like that]?’ We wanted to investigate and have them experience the more positive aspects of attraction, as well as what’s worth fighting for and what’s worth dying for,” she says. “Maybe the show would have continued longer if we’d been able to please the network! They know what they’re going to need in order to keep [viewers] interested and tuning in. But we’re very proud of what we managed to make regardless, because of those choices.”

The ongoing battle that Black personally waged throughout Farscape‘s run was ensuring that Aeryn maintained control over her own body. In the genre shows of her era, the female leads were stronger and savvier than ever, and that translated into fashion choices that expressed their own body confidence and sexuality. Xena rode into battle in a heaving breastplate, while Buffy fought vampires in halter tops and Relic Hunter‘s Sydney Fox always donned a tight tank top before exploring some ancient tomb. But flashing cleavage, leg, and midriff also made those characters desirable pin-ups for the male audience courted by networks and advertisers. (Farscape added its own version of a pin-up type midway through the first season in the form of Chiana, a grey-skinned con artist with a plunging neckline and a voracious sexual appetite.)

But those fashions didn’t make sense for a soldier fighting in an army where men and women’s bodies were interchangeable. In fact, Black remembers reading a very specific direction to the makeup department in the production notes for the pilot. “When I take my Peacekeeper helmet off [for the first time], the note read in big print, ‘She looks masculine.’ They thickened my eyebrows — which are already thick! — and shaded my face in very minimal makeup. All of the on-set gallery images of me in the first season are with that very masculine makeup.”

Aeryn in her ‘masculine’ Season 1 appearance (Credit: Everett Collection)

By Season 2, though, Aeryn’s appearance underwent a noticeable change; her hair got longer and straighter, and her Peacekeeper uniform gave way to outfits that walked a line between practical and revealing. Black, who describes herself as a feminist, agreed to these cosmetic changes as she felt they were part of a “natural progression” for Aeryn. “I was honoring where she had come from at the same time having to find a way to let her grow into whatever it is she was going to become,” she says. (This clip from Farscape‘s aforementioned Looney Tunes-inspired episode, “Revenging Angel,” neatly summarizes — and satirizes — the female body types commonly featured on genre shows that Aeryn deliberately defies.)

Already objectively beautiful, Aeryn’s sexuality continued to emerge as she grew into her new self. Even so, Black could sense it wasn’t emerging quickly enough to satisfy certain expectations. “I felt that I was being pushed to show more flesh than was necessary,” she admits, pointing to one incident in the show’s fourth season where it was written into the script that Aeryn would sit poolside in a bikini. “I just said, ‘I will get in a bikini for you if it makes sense, but this woman’s world is falling apart.’ It was the last thing I thought Aeryn would do [in that moment]. It felt really frivolous and superficial to me.” (Black had already donned a bikini to play pregnant Aeryn in a hallucinatory scene in the Season 4 premiere. “They not only had me in a bikini, but they gave me a pregnant belly as well, which is really hard to pull off and make it look naturalistic,” she says.)

Black remembers shooting down an even more egregious bit of flesh-flashing in an earlier episode. As an international production, Farscape frequently shot extra scenes for certain ad-free European markets that would fill the time normally allotted for commercials. The cast referred to these filler sequences as “Euro scenes,” and they rarely involved big story or character beats. According to Black, this particular episode dispatched D’Argo and Aeryn on a planetside mission, and the writers cobbled together a Euro scene that she describes as “absurd.” “They said, ‘Let’s have a scene where we cut to them by a lake, and Aeryn turns and sees a bunch of soldiers across the lake. Aeryn takes off her clothes, swims across the lake, and fights these soldiers completely naked, then comes back to D’Argo and off they go.'”

In later seasons, Aeryn naturally progressed towards more revealing fashion choices (Credit: Everett Collection)

“There were so many things about it that were so bizarre,” she continues. “I said, ‘You know what, please explain this to me, how this honestly can fit in.’ In the end, they just said, ‘All right, fine — we won’t do it.’ That’s what I felt I was having to haggle for a lot of the time: my right to keep my clothes on until it was appropriate. I’ve always felt as an actor — and I’m sure other females have felt like this as well — that when you sign on the dotted line and enter the business that somehow you’ve given your body away as a piece of property, and you spend the rest of your career haggling for pieces of it back.” And the actress credits Browder with backing her up in her fight for Aeryn to be in full control of her own femininity and, by extension, her destiny. “Aeryn is really as feminist as I am, but she’s nothing without Crichton, which is an interesting statement to make,” she says. “So as much as we praise Aeryn, we must give full credit to Crichton and to Ben for shaping him the way that he did. It’s the space that he gives her. He’s such an exquisite champion of her growth and development, that it becomes possible for her to grow to her full size.”

In the 13 years since the concluding Peacekeeper Wars miniseries, rumors have occasionally flown about Farscape‘s return. At one point, there was talk of a webisode series following John and Aeryn’s child, D’Ago Sun-Crichton, but funding never came to fruition. (The show did continue in comic book form for a time, but publication ceased circa 2011.) Black, whose recent credits include stints on The CW genre shows Containment and The Originals, has no updates on any future revivals, and jokes that if Aeryn and Crichton ever do return, they’ll be “tired, ornery, and not really wanting another battle.”

Claudia Black as Dahlia on ‘The Originals’ (Credit: Annette Brown/The CW)

In a way, though, Aeryn’s larger battle has already been won. One of the breakout characters on Battlestar Galactica — which premiered in December 2003, nine months after Farscape‘s series finale — was Kara “Starbuck” Thrace, who displays some of the same steely spine, and jagged edges, of Officer Sun. And today’s genre TV landscape is populated with women who, consciously or not, reflect Aeryn’s assertiveness, independence, and refusal to conform to societal (or genre) norms of appearance or attitude, whether it’s Orphan Black‘s Helena, Sense8‘s Nomi, or Jessica Jones.

For this Scaper, she lives on off-screen as well. When my wife and I learned that we’d be having a daughter, we thought about all the things we wanted for her life. To know that she, and she alone, is in control of her body. To be strong in the face of injustice. To be confident in her own power. And to know that when she chooses to give her heart to another person, that person will be her champion, and give her the space to grow to her full size. And so we picked a name that, for us, would embody all of our hopes and dreams for the individual she’s becoming with each passing year.

Her name is Aeryn.

#warrior women #aeryn sun #claudia black #farscape #feminism

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impalementation · 4 years

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“Something’s cooking, I’m at the griddle / I bought Nero his very first fiddle” -Sweet, 6.07 Once More, With Feeling

"Wow. They're all so...identical." "Yeah. They all start to look the same to me too." "Oh, no, not the employees, the, the chicken slices." -Buffy & Manny the Manager, 6.12 Doublemeat Palace

“Will you stop wolfing down those chips? One more bag and you'll pop right out of your cummerbund. You're not even hungry, you're just nervous.” -Anya, 6.15 As You Were

“No, we’re gonna sit down and have a real dinner. Someday.” -Buffy, 6.14 Older And Far Away

“So! Who’s hungry? We got, uh-” “Ice cubes.” “All you can eat.” Buffy & Dawn, 6.15 As You Were

“Breakfast will make all things better.” -Tara, 6.01 Bargaining, Part 1

buffy season six imagery: food [ 2 / 2 ]

[more quotes and images in part one. commentary below the cut.]

This motif is one of those things that you don’t necessarily notice until you know to look for it, and then suddenly it’s everywhere. Season six is stuffed with food imagery (so to speak), to the extent that I could have filled up an entire other image set with it. And all of that imagery is pretty meaningful.

The most obvious thing that food is associated with in season six is nurturance. Especially when it comes to Dawn. In Bargaining, Tara and the Buffybot make breakfast and sandwiches. But the fact that the bot overdoes the sandwiches shows that her nurturance is fake, and not a replacement for the kind of love that Dawn would have wanted from Buffy or her mother. It’s significant then, that when Buffy is trying to prove her okay-ness at the end of After Life, that she brings Dawn lunch. She is trying to be a nurturer for Dawn, but it’s still slightly put-on like the bot’s nurturing was. As Willow and Buffy spiral downwards in Smashed and Wrecked, once again Tara takes on the task of feeding Dawn, this time by giving her a milkshake and trying to make pancakes. The fact that those pancakes then burn shows how much everyone there is failing Dawn. And by extension, themselves. They’re burnt out, so to speak.

There’s also an implication of failure in feeding Dawn junk food. In Bargaining there’s a pizza box on the table between Dawn and Spike, and later in Gone Buffy will gleefully wave a pizza box around, to Dawn’s distress. In Life Serial, Buffy brings home a bucket of fried chicken that no one actually needs. In As You Were, Dawn is mildly disgusted by being given yet another squished Doublemeat Medley. (Later in the episode, Dawn will note that all they have in the house is “ice cubes.”) You could even maybe say something about the old man in All The Way calling himself “daddy” and almost feeding Dawn a rice crispy treat, and then ending up dead. Like even the unsettling version of a “parent” can’t feed her right. By contrast, Dawn is excited in Dead Things that her friend’s mother is going to teach her how to make “real tortillas”--as opposed to the “peanut butter and banana quesadillas” that she scrounged up for herself. Once again, she’s getting “real” nurturance from someone that isn’t Buffy. At the beginning of Older And Far Away, Buffy apologizes that she can’t be there for a “real dinner” with Dawn, and the party Dawn traps everyone in is full of fancy-looking canapés. As in, she wanted to trap people in a place with food. Finally in Entropy, when Buffy is in full seeking-forgiveness mode and wanting to be a good caretaker, she goes overboard in making Dawn breakfast. A sign that she’s now more fully committed to taking care of Dawn.

Symbolically-speaking, I’ve discussed in the past how Buffy’s relationship to Dawn in season six represents Buffy’s relationship to life. So Buffy being able to feed and nourish Dawn is really about Buffy being able to nourish herself and live a fulfilling and responsible life. And when other characters feed Dawn, or fail to feed Dawn, it’s a sign that Buffy isn’t present in her own life, whether because she’s actually dead in Bargaining or because she’s too depressed to manage it.

The junk food versus real food dichotomy goes beyond Dawn, though. Obviously, there’s everything with the Doublemeat Palace. The fact that Buffy is serving fast food--which the visuals go to some effort to make as grotesque and unappetizing as possible--is a sign that she’s not just failing to nourish Dawn, she’s also failing to nourish herself and the people she serves. It’s the opposite of fulfilling work (emphasis on “filling”). It’s work where she’s at first afraid that she’ll be eaten up instead. Willow too has her moments with food. In Flooded she snacks on a boxed cookie in a cavalier way, perhaps echoing the way that she doesn’t have respect for the reality of what she’s done. Whereas in Gone she tries to make herself an omelet, ie make herself something real, but isn’t quite ready for it, and gives up. Lastly, it’s significant to me that Xander and Anya spend parts of the season snacking on junk food, whether that’s Xander’s doughnuts in Once More, With Feeling, the popcorn in Doublemeat Palace, or the chips in As You Were. It’s food treated compulsively, or disrespectfully--when Xander plays with the doughnuts--instead of as a source of nourishment and pleasure. It seems meaningful to me that in Once More, With Feeling Xander fails to understand the appeal of Anya’s “stinky cheeses.” Xander’s lack of appreciation for a “real food” along with his playing with junk food, is perhaps a sign that he’s not ready for something real the way that Anya is. Anya in Older And Far Away is in charge of carefully arranging the canapés, whereas Xander is eager to chow down on the Buffybot’s mechanical sandwiches in Bargaining, and the fake-meat Medley in Doublemeat Palace. He also jumps to serve Buffy pizza After Life. In his future vision in Hell’s Bells, the meals are unhappy affairs accompanied by alcohol (which per this post on the season’s use of alcohol, is a sign of unhealthiness and irresponsibility). As in, he can’t imagine a real and nurturing future. And in general, just isn’t yet quite mature enough for it.

But the characters do yearn for something nurturing. There are lots of scenes with characters around Buffy’s kitchen island, trying to feed themselves. In All The Way and Older And Far Away, Buffy’s house hosts a party full of snacks. There’s also the “family meal” at the beginning of Life Serial. Almost all of those food scenes are troubled in different ways, but they speak to the fact that the characters are trying to have a house that is full of company and food. Even if they’re still too young and confused to really be able to pull it off.

#season six imagery series #s6 #i really like this one #since it's something i don't think i've seen many people talk about #but it's a big part of the season

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comradesummers · 4 years

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Faith vs Kendra Anya or Oz Buffy + Tara

Hi, thanks for asking. Sorry for taking so long to answer, insert obligatory excuse about college kicking my ass.

Faith vs. Kendra

So this one’s really hard, and my answer got way too long and pretentious, but I hope you’ll bear with me.

In order to understand Kendra’s fighting style, I think it’s important to talk a little about the fight she has with Buffy in What’s My Line (Part 2). That episode illustrates the differences in Buffy and Kendra’s fighting style when Buffy does “the chick fight thing” and Kendra doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Basically, this move is sort of a physical demonstration of their differences. Kendra is the traditionalist, therefore she is highly skilled in technique but less good at improvising and thinking outside the box. Buffy, meanwhile, is less traditional and less technically skilled, but she’s better at improvising and using her emotions to her benefit. These ideas are shown in the initial fight between Buffy and Kendra, and then verbalized by Buffy later in the episode.

Faith is on the other end of the spectrum. She has little to no formal training (she’s called after Kendra’s death in Becoming; in the few months between that episode and her arrival in Faith, Hope & Trick, her watcher is murdered; neither Giles nor Wesley put much effort into her training in season 3; and then she goes to prison for like 3 seasons). However, she’s clearly a skilled fighter, as evidenced by the fact that she can hold her own against a slayer as experienced as Buffy. Though it is never stated outright, it is reasonable to assume that her strengths lie in her ability to improvise and her emotionally driven fighting style. Basically, she’s a person who will use every tool in her arsenal to win, even if that means, for instance, throwing herself off a building so that her opponent doesn’t get what she wants.

By presenting Faith and Kendra as two extremes of this ideological debate, and then also showing that neither one of them is as successful at slayerdom as Buffy is, the show implies that Buffy’s balanced approach to fighting (and to like life in general) is the best. However, the nature of tradition is complicated by the later seasons. For one thing, the Watcher’s Council—the representatives of the traditional approach that Kendra follows—get blown the fuck up before they can do anything useful. This strongly suggests that the Council, and by externsion their tradition, is irrelevant. This idea is further underlined by Buffy’s ultimate decision to reject the Council’s tradition wholesale, and to create a new, Slayer-based tradition. It’s also reflected in her fighting style in the later seasons. Starting in season 5, Buffy begins to explore her slayerness in the context of the slayer line, and her training with Giles builds on that. It could be suggested that the tradition she is drawing upon in these seasons is that of the Slayers that came before her, not the watchers who tried to control them. This also serves as an in-universe explanation for why the fighting style from season 5 onwards looks so different (and so much worse) than what came before it. (Yes, I know there were new stunt doubles, but it works with my convoluted argument, so I’m going to pretend there’s some deeper meaning behind it.)

Anyway, my point in all of this is that while earlier seasons present the thesis that one should find a middle ground between tradition and innovation, later seasons suggest that embracing oppressive traditions is harmful. So while we should still draw upon tradition, we should always be critical of the kinds of traditions we draw upon. And Kendra, having been raised by watchers, relies solely on harmful and oppressive traditions, and is therefore at a serious disadvantage. Faith, meanwhile, isn’t hampered by the Council’s bullshit. While she doesn’t draw power from slayer-line mysticism like Buffy does, she still has the advantage of freedom from the Council and would therefore win in a fight.

However, this is a solely thematic view of things, and maybe proves less who would win in a fight and more who would win in like a philosophical debate. Also, Kendra was killed off before she could be developed further (insert my usual Kendra deserved better comment here). Of the three, she was the most victimized by the Council (because of course those colonizers would fuck over the black girl most of all). If she had been developed, and been allowed to process the fact that a bunch white people stole her from her parents and brainwashed her for the purposes of their personal gain, and that this didn’t happen to any of her white counterparts, I think she could have had a much greater understanding of the insidious nature of the Council than either Buffy of Faith. I also think that her interest in the slayer tradition would have surpassed Buffy’s. She is, after all, the traditionalist of the three, so I think she would be the most interested in finding a way to connect to the traditions of the past while separating that past from the oppression of the Council.

In other words, a Kendra that had been allowed to live past season 2 is quite possibly the most powerful slayer. But if we’re accepting the canonical versions of these characters (and not the headcanon that I just pulled out of my ass) I guess Faith would be the winner.

Anya or Oz

Oz is a great character and I totally get why people like him but Anya is more in line with my personal preferences when it comes to characters who are intially introduced as love interests, which are as follows:

Hot lady (I’m shallow, sue me)

Very funny (Oz is funny but Anya is the funniest character on the show and no one can convince me otherwise)

Is more than just a love interest

Now I feel like people might object to no. 3 in Anya’s case, because there’s no denying that Anya is criminally underdeveloped and is often relegated to the unfortunate position of Xander’s girlfriend. However, Anya has a Selfless and she has that scene in The Body, and she has clearly defined relationships with the other Scoobies (best demonstrated in episodes like Triangle). Oz doesn’t really have any of that. Like, he and Willow break up for like half a second in season 3, and in that time he’s just not on screen. That’s how irrelevant he is to anyone and anything outside of Willow. Also, the werewolf suit looks dumb, which I have to assume is why the writers did almost nothing with him being a werewolf until they had to write him out.

The point is, while both of these characters deserved more development, Anya still got more of it so I like her better. Also she’s a pretty girl, so I was probably going to choose her regardless (I may be shallow, but at least I’m honest about it).

Buffy + Tara

I am the no. 1 Buffy/Tara shipper because I like it when nice people are nice to each other. And yes, I recognize that these are two flawed, complicated characters, but I think that together, they have the potential to be one of the healthiest couples in the Buffyverse. This is mainly because their interactions with each other are always supportive and free of judgement. Buffy defends Tara against her dad and welcomes her into her family even after Tara puts everyone at risk. Meanwhile, Tara is pretty much the only character (except for Dawn, maybe) to immediately react with empathy and understanding to the revelation that Buffy is sleeping with Spike. I’m not saying that either one of these characters is always understanding and non-judgemental (okay, maybe Tara is, but Buffy definitely isn’t), but they’ve proven that with each other, they’re very good at communicating and empathizing, and just being what the other person needs, and I think that’s very sexy of them.

Also, they’d be really hot together, so I’m here for it.

#kendra young #faith lehane #anya jenkins #oz #buffy summers #tara maclay #btvs #buffy the vampire slayer #wow this turned out so long and convoluted

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takaraphoenix · 4 years

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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

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 4 years

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Here we are at the end of October, in the Year of Our Troubles, 2020. And here I am, continuing my journey to avoid reality by looking for meaning in nostalgia and TV Hunks. It’s Supernatural!

Alright so we’ve made it to my (possibly/probably) all time favorite quartet of the entire series - Disc 3, Season 1, episodes 9 - 12. For the last few discs, I’ve been keeping things pretty technical in terms of television production and broadcast. But frankly, this sh*t is my jam. All that gooey emotion, all that sweet sweet lore, throw in some man tears and *chef kissy fingers* c'est magnifique!

Now I’ll backtrack for a hot second here to talk about the filler vs. self-contained argument that I...probably jumbled in my last post. In shows like this, I tend to use “filler” to describe every episode that isn’t arc, but honestly, that’s not fair to a number of Supernatural episodes. The main difference being, is this episode meant to pad out your season or is it simply an episode that can stand on its own two feet? I’d say that’s the case for this entire disc.

First up, it’s Home. Guys, I think I cheered when I turned this episode on. We take our Winchesters, give them some small victories, build up their confidence, and then totally break them down again by sending them back to the beginning. This is not listed as the “official” return to the arc episodes, but I’d argue that Home is where we see a return to the Main Quest. Oh yeah, and Sam finally admits that he can see...what? What do we call these? Death Omens? I think Sam calls them premonitions? Either way, it’s…*shrugs* sure, do what you want. The premonitions do become important later and they’re basically the catalyst for the whole second season and that resolution takes us into the main conflict for the third season, and so on and so on, it’s a whole thing. It just seems like a hecking lot this go around, ok? But he finally admits it to Dean and that’s probably some kind of growth. Dean going back into that house again is also some kind of growth. Of course, he was like, 4 when he swore he’d never go back to that house again? Whatever, I didn’t care. I get too distracted by the fact that DEAN IS CRYING GUYS! LOOK! HE’S CRYING!!

Oh, and one more tie to the season arc - Hecking John Winchester shows up. I mean, he’s all over the episode and I think the most shocking thing we find out about him is that he was, at one point, a business owner?? But also it ends with conclusive proof that John Winchester is a massive dick who refuses to talk to his children. And I’m sorry, I don’t buy your “have to finish it first” excuse, I just don’t. To be clear, I’m not mad at the storytelling choice to do that, I’m mad at the character, which I guess is where it should be.

I like that this episode builds out more of the world that the Winchesters live in with Missouri Mosely (Not the State!). I like that we see they’re not alone in this very literal fight against evil. She checks back in later in the series and honestly, I love Loretta Devine so I would have watched a whole spinoff show about this character.

Two things I don’t like about this episode? #1 What genius decided that Mary’s ghost would just be on fire for 20 years? Like, cuz that’s what I am understanding about this ghost. That she is just constantly on fire. And that’s...unkind.

Mary, who did this to you??

#2 Only a man could have written this episode because no single mom is just gonna LET two rando dudes into her home.

Listen boys, you’re cute, but I’m a woman with two small children. Hell no you’re not coming into my house.

Next up is Asylum and this is so good at walking the line between creepy and Spooky. UNlike the Bloody Mary episode, I do not need to hide my face from the screen at any point during this episode.

Hey look, it’s like they’re brothers or something!

This one is another episode that does a good job building character and the world the Winchesters live in. Like any good procedural, it uses the main conflict to bring out the more important conflict. In this case, it literally brings it out, cuz the ghost is a psychiatrist who makes Same confront all his Daddy Issues. And by confront we mean, take it out on his brother who is the saddest-motherf*cker-I’ve-ever-seen BUT HEY! Salting and burning a body finally works for once in their lives! I love all the cringing that Jensen Ackles does in that scene because they clearly hadn’t figured out what that effect was supposed to look like yet.

It must have been a real surprise to find out the ghost didn’t light on fire.

Oh and then there’s the phone call! And man, this must have been a bitch of a mid-season finale, cuz this episode aired in November of 2005 and the next episode doesn’t come back until January of 2006 and so you’re just WAITING to hear what John has to say.

Now wait for two months to find out what he says.

And of course, it’s nothing. We come back in January to Scarecrow and John has nothing to say cuz he’s a massive dick. Just calling 6 months in to your nationwide search for me to let you know that I’m not dead, but also, I’m only here to send you on another assignment and cause tension. And so the show continues to break down our dynamic duo because the fight they have over whether they should listen to dad or not literally splits them apart. They also introduce Meg as a new and more involved villain for the series. I mean, sort of. We don’t see her again for like, another five episodes. And then again another five episodes after that. So like, I don’t really...know that introducing her as an antagonist...really had the effect they were hoping for?

Is she evil cuz she’s a demon or just because she’s blonde???

Here’s some issues I have with Meg, the first recurring female character who isn’t dead - she’s the first recurring female character who isn’t dead and also, I immediately hated her. I remember watching the episode the first time and as soon as I saw her I was like, oh she’s a ruiner. It was almost a relief to find out she was a bad guy at the end because it was like I was allowed to hate her? To be fair to me, Meg comes on hella strong trying to keep Sam from going back to his brother, so we’re not supposed to like her, but looking back on it now I feel like the perpetrator of some real girl-on-girl crime. Does Meg actually do anything wrong? Aside from leaning real hard on some indie-style manic-pixie bohemian free spirit nonsense, she doesn’t do...anything that should make me hate her? Until, of course, she actively acts as a wedge between our dream team, but before then, I don’t...think she does? Honestly, it could just be me, but I do think that TV has gotten much better at writing/directing/presenting female characters in a way that doesn’t feel like they’re literally shoe-horning in a third wheel. And again, ultimately we are supposed to hate her, I just can’t decide if I was picking up on signals that were intentional or not. I remember having similar feelings when they introduced Joe in season 2, but that’s still far ahead.

I am willing to admit that this might be just me. I will not take back the things I’ve said about Emma Watson though, those are justified.

And I think introducing more characters is important. It acts the same way introducing Missouri did -it broadens the world. For half a season, our only constants are the brothers. They’re these lone cowboys in a weird, mystical, dangerous wasteland and the villains are more obstacles than actual villains. When the story you’re telling needs to feel bigger than that, you need to do some world building and sometimes that starts with adding more characters. I will say, I hated Meg less this watch than I did on the first one. Or rather, I hated her cuz I knew she was The Worst, not because I felt like adding her to the show was a threat to the storytelling.

OH! ALSO! The first mention of Dean and Pie! My heart grew three sizes that day!

The hecking diner won’t serve him so he never finds out!!!

And finally, to cap it all off, we have Faith which is...a surprisingly rough episode? Ok, listen, Dean just resignedly accepting his own demise is like, ugh. UGH. ugh. Buddy. Buddy you are NOT Ok. Like, Dean is so intent on keeping everyone else in his family alive but does not seem as concerned about his own health and well-being and that...just...ughghghghg...I have a lot of feelings about that.

Listen, some day I will talk about Sam, but it is NOT THIS DAY.

Like, I get that Rev. Jerry Gergich Roy Le Grange is not actually healing people, but he literally tells Dean that Dean has a purpose and he was saved from an untimely death for a reason, and he’s kind of not wrong? But then he spends the rest of the episode stopping Roy from healing anyone else and feeling overwhelmingly guilty that he was saved over someone else. I think out of everything that season 1 has presented up to this episode, this is the most philosophical and thematically complex. There’s the question of faith vs skepticism - can we ever just blindly believe in a good turn? The fact that Dean can’t says a lot about him as a human. Then there’s the question of who gets to decide who lives and who dies? Who’s worthy of salvation and who isn’t? Why do bad things happen to good people and why do good things happen to Dean? I mean, when Dean sees the Reaper coming for him at the end, he knows that it’s in exchange for Layla’s life and he’s just...Ok with that? He doesn’t try to run or fight it, and it’s only because of Sam that he doesn’t bite it. And the end of this episode is just a real bitch slap to the feels because Layla, our Very Special Extra, knows she’s going to die and she knows she missed out on her chance to be healed because Dean was an Ass with a capital A and took her turn (probably). And she’s also just ok with that and it kills me a little bit on the inside.

Also, Layla is played by Julie Benze from Roswell and Buffy and Dexter and she’s always A+. And Roy was in Snakes on a Plane!

So yeah, not exactly “filler” in the true sense, but ties to the season arc are not as strong as in other episodes. And watching these episodes again I realize just how important they are to the series as a whole. I mentioned Helstrom last week and since then, I’ve finished the season. It’s only 10 episodes, and while I definitely enjoyed it, none of the emotional climaxes felt earned.

Is how I feel. About the Emotions in Helstrom. That doesn’t mean I won’t watch a season 2.

When you focus solely on the main arc in every single episode, you miss these little moments to develop character and relationships. When you get to the end of the season where the Winchesters are finally all in the same room taking on the Big Bad, there’s this feeling of satisfaction - you’ve been waiting for this moment. You’ve been waiting for Sam to reconcile with his father. You’ve been waiting for the guys to finally take on this thing that killed Mary Winchester. You’ve been waiting to see what will happen when the quest is over. That’s what makes the character decisions in the finale feel so big and so important, because they’ve been built up and built up for 22 episodes - 7 months in broadcast time. I think it’s harder to have the sort of weight that Supernatural builds in a show that stays so focused on the arc because its season is only 8 - 10 eps. There’s no room for sidetracking to build on the relationships in the show. You don’t have time for it, so you either have to keep character moments smaller (I’d argue MUCH smaller) or you end up with a finale that doesn’t resonate with the same gravitas as you want it to.

Don’t get me wrong - I know it sounds like I’m ragging on short seasons, but I think a short season can be very effective when it’s done right. I also think a full season of 22 - 24 episodes can be very effective when it’s done right. But I think there’s a fundamental difference in how you tell the story when you have a short vs. a long season. I think TV is still figuring that out as it goes, as writers who are accustomed to long seasons shift gears to tell their stories with fewer installments. But I hope that TV doesn’t completely do away with the more procedural-style/self-contained episodes since those can be a powerful way to connect with your characters. That’s why I’m here in the first place.

#Supernatural #Supernatural Season 1 #supernatural rewatch #Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Sam and Dean #Home #Faith #Scarecrow #Asylum #Jared Padalecki #Jensen Ackles #CW #Meg

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