#but i fucking called it on here shed be this huge fucking gross monster that would turn ppl away 💀

[grandfatherissues]

repost from my sideblog but needed it in the tags here:

since i had a lot of people approach me about that partner call i put out, i thought i would compile a list of plot ideas i have just to make things easier. please keep in mind that this list will contain dark, tcboo, and problematic content so read at your own risk. if you could message me if you're interested that would be appreciated as i'm on mobile 99% of the time and i'm a sideblog so tumblr likes to dick around.

001. an esteemed hollywood movie director casting a disney actor / former beloved child star in a controversial and exploitative role. probably takes advantage of her excitement to work with him and/or her eagerness to shed her good-girl image and not only moulds her into his dirty on-screen fantasy, but very likely becomes obsessed with her off-screen in the process. an age gap + power difference would be preferred.

002. a cult leader teaching his daughter / sister / granddaughter / niece / new young wife what a good and obedient follower of their cause is expected to behave, dress, and speak like.

003. a prolific and hardened criminal / gang member developing a fixation for someone who isn't interested in him / his lifestyle. cue him stalking her, threatening her and her loved ones, blackmailing her, all the fun stuff until she either gives in willingly, or he just decides to take her and keep her anyway.

004. an obscenely rich man and his mail order bride / trophy bride and their life in the domestic suburbia he's carefully chosen for them. a big age gap, power differences, + some bimbofication would be preferred.

005. a family dynamic (father x daughter, brother x sister, cousins, uncle x niece, grandfather x granddaughter, etc) where they only have each other left and try to take care of each other in the best way they know how. but along the way, their relationship becomes highly co-dependent and close, and they end up developing feelings and tension they never expected.

006. a gross old trucker picking up a runaway / traveller and agreeing to take her where she needs to go, but then pulling over somewhere dark and isolated because of course he requires some sort of payment for his service.

007. a science fiction / fantasy plot where humans are enslaved by monsters or a supernatural creatures. the humans are assigned as toys for the monsters / creatures fun and pleasure, or maybe even to be bred if you want to explore that. but basically a plot where a highly virile monster / supernatural creature gets their long-awaited assigned human pet / partner / bride.

008. a hardcore adult content creator and the young amateur just looking to make a quick buck making a video together. ideally it would include rough / dark kinks but it can be something they both enjoy and continue doing, or it can be something she's really not into but keeps coming back because his audience like her and he offers her more and more money to perform.

009. a much older man (ideally at least 50+) finally deciding he wants to be a dad so going after a much younger woman to make his wishes come true. a huge age gap, daddy kink, and breeding/pregnancy would be preferred.

010. brothers / twins going after the same girl and either making it a competition who can get her first, or maybe they end up playing fair and having her at the same time instead. if they're twins, maybe one of them starts fucking / dating her but the other twin also gets to have his fun by pretending to be the other, and it's a big old fucking mess but...they end up lowkey working as a trio? idk.

011. a young woman who's curious and needy falling for / being seduced by her best friend's dad. him being all supportive and sweet to her, always offering her to stay, giving her rides home, treating her like his own daughter. but then the immediate perking up whenever she's around, the way his stare lingers too long when she's hanging out at their pool, the way he finds excuses to be around her when she's staying over for the night. can instead be a dad's best friend plot if that's preferred.

012. an only child finding out his father had a love child many years ago which was the cause of his parents divorce. and now she's around and in their lives and he resents his new sister for his mother being hurt by his father cheating and their lives being disrupted by the divorce, but he also lowkey develops an attraction to her and begins a fixation that may or may not get pushed too far.

013. a guy fathered a child when he was very young himself (early to mid teens) and wasn't given contact by the mother / went to jail / the kid ended up being adopted, and now it's 18+ years later and he's finally reunited with the child he's always wondered about. but because of the smallish age gap between them in comparison to other parents and their children, and also because they're pretty much strangers getting to know each other for the first time, their dynamic leans more towards being friendly and fun at the start, and eventually develops into something romantic / sexual as they begin to spend more time together and get all their overwhelming and conflicting feelings / urges mixed up.

#plot inspiration. #wanted plot.

[ayma-nidiot]

In the White Light - Prideshipping fic Chapter 14

Also on AO3.

Note: Sorry for being slow with this fic lately. But I’ve been ABSOLUTELY SWAMPED at work.

Chapter 14 – The Edge of Dawn

Floating in a mostly dark space, Kaiba could hear bits a conversation in the distance. “…rich boy…”

It’s that damned Wheeler… Kaiba closed his eyes tighter, feeling no desire to wake up. So I must be inside Leviathan.

Kaiba…

Is… Is that you, Critias?

I know you don’t want to awaken, but I bring you good news. The pharaoh has beaten Dartz in battle. It will only be a matter of time before Leviathan falls.

“Haha…” Kaiba opened his eyes. “I knew you could do it, babe.”

“Eh?” Joey, who had been talking to Pegasus and Yugi, paused. “So. The rich bastard is awake. What brings you here? Ya charge into battle with the pharaoh and lost, huh?”

“Go to hell, Wheeler. After all I have been through, the last thing I need is to take shit from the guy I hate most.”

“There they go again… Huh?” Yugi sighed. Then, all of a sudden, he began to feel warm and glowed.

______

“Joey boy! Kaiba boy! Yugi boy!” Pegasus exclaimed. Their souls… Leviathan must be taking them!

I wouldn’t be too sure about that… So were Kaiba’s thoughts as the souls of his companions and him drifted back into the real world. While Tristan and Téa needed a bit longer to wake up, he and Mokuba woke up in no time at all.

“Ugh… My head…” Mokuba tried to slap himself awake until he realized his brother had waken up too. “Ah, Seto…?”

“Mokuba! You’re… okay…” Kaiba spoke as he stood up.

“Hehe, of course I am! It’s not the first time I’ve been thrown against a wall.”

Kaiba remembered his terrifying first transformation. “Now’s not the time for jokes!”

“I agree!” a familiar voice sounded in the distance.

“Ugh, you’re back too…” Kaiba looked past a running Joey to see Yami Yugi staring straight at him. “Babe…”

“Kaiba…?” Yami Yugi only took a few steps forward before running to his boyfriend. “K-Kaiba… Thank the gods… You’re really back!”

“Did you really think you could get rid of your greatest rival so easily?” Kaiba readily accepted the hug Yami Yugi gave him. “Even if I happened to leave you, I will always come back to you, babe.”

“Kaiba… My love, I know you weren’t gone for long, but it feels good to have you by my side again.”

Kaiba showed no shame in intensely kissing Yami Yugi in front of everyone, particularly Joey. “Whoaaaa! When did they become an item?”

“It’s… a long story.” Téa didn’t feel like elaborating.

“All right, you lovebirds.” Joey’s intervention broke the emotional reunion. “If rich boy and I came back, then where’s our Yugi?”

Yami Yugi turned away from his friends.

“He’s still trapped, isn’t he?” Tristan worried.

In his much shorter form, Yugi turned back. “What are you talking about? I’m right here!”

“It’s really you!” Téa shed tears of joy while she, Tristan, and Joey joined Yugi in a group hug. “I thought I’d never see you again!”

I guess I ought to show some respect. Kaiba barely tolerated this display of friendship.

“Still…” Joey suddenly broke the group hug when he began to feel uneasy. “Something tells me this isn’t the end of it. Everyone else’s soul is still gone.”

“Mr. Kaiba!”

Kaiba recognized the voice calling from outside. “It’s Roland! Come on, let’s go!”

“Right!” Joey, with the help of Tristan, lifted Rafael’s body off of the ground.

Unsurprisingly, the storm from earlier had not abated. “What’s that huge… city thing in the middle of the ocean?” Tristan asked.

“By the looks of it, I would say it’s Atlantis,” Joey replied.  “I know! Hey rich boy, you can change into a dragon, can’t ya? How about you fly us up there?”

“No way, Wheeler. This is my fight alone!”

“Come on, Joey, you guys just got back! You don’t mean to go out there again?” Téa whined. “You could get your souls taken again… Or worse.”

“And I wouldn’t try to ask anything of Kaiba, especially for him to transform,” spoke Tristan. “Believe me, we’ve tried.”

Before Yugi could say anything, he felt something in his pocket; to his surprise, the three Egyptian god cards were in there. The presence of those cards gave him resolve. “Téa, I know you’re concerned, but we’ve got to save everyone. And Kaiba, I’m sure the pharaoh has told you several times, but we’re a team now. You may not see him, but he’s right here with me.”

“…Okay, Wheeler and Yugi. I’ll do it.” Kaiba’s sudden response shocked everyone. “But I’m going to have to ask all of you to stand back.”

“Y-You got it, man…” Joey watched as Kaiba’s transformation kicked up wind and light. “I… Just wow.”

“Are you going to just stand there and gawk or are you going to get on?” Kaiba growled.

“Wow! Seto, you can talk as a dragon now!”

“Er… Yeah, whatever.”

As Yugi and Joey climbed on Kaiba’s back, Mokuba asked excitedly, “Hey, can I ride you too?”

“No, Mokuba. You’re going to go with Roland and the others to find somewhere safe to hide.”

“Hmph.” Mokuba reluctantly accepted this answer. “But after all of this is over, you better let me have a ride.”

“Yeah, yeah, just get in the bloody chopper.” With that, Kaiba stretched his wings twice before speeding off into the slowly forming hurricane.

“Whoooooo!” Joey didn’t seem even a little scared of the rocky ride there. “This is better than the theme park!”

“Can it, Wheeler. I’m not a roller coaster. Oh!” Kaiba noticed a couple of dragon monsters in the corners of his eye. He had to do a barrel roll to avoid them, and the recoil of his Shining Neutron Blast nearly knocked Yugi off.

“Kaiba, come on…” Yugi began to see stars. “I’m not exactly in the mood to start plummeting towards the sea.”

“Nice one!” Joey looked around, and thankfully, there were no other monsters. “Say, rich boy, any idea where Dartz is exactly?”

Yugi looked around too and noticed a green pillar of light shooting from the center of Atlantis. “Look, Kaiba, that’s probably where Dartz is!”

“Gee, I wouldn’t have thunk it!” Kaiba flew near this green pillar of light, but he soon began to feel weak. “Urgh…”

“Kaiba?” Yugi showed concern as Kaiba’s body started blinking like a car light. “What’s wrong?”

“I… I think I’m going to fall…” Kaiba abruptly reverted to human form as he, Joey, and Yugi started diving to the ocean.

“Waaaaaaaah!” Joey shrieked as he held his Duel Disk tightly and fished for his strongest monster. Thankfully, the trio managed to land on the floating city safely. “Thanks, Red-Eyes, I owe you one.”

“And I owe Kaiba one for leading you three right into my trap!”

Yugi knew that voice well. “Dartz! How are you still alive?”

“I really don’t feel like telling you that, little Yugi,” Dartz answered as an ice sculpture of himself appeared, as did the body of a giant sea serpent. “But I will tell you this; I don’t even need your guys’ souls anymore. You see, I’ve offered a much stronger soul as a substitute – mine.”

“And what a waste of time, as you’ll soon find out,” Kaiba angrily replied as he tried to find the will to transform but couldn’t.

“I’m afraid you’re powerless, Kaiba. You see, the power of the Great Leviathan seals your shapeshifting powers!”

“Powerless?!” Kaiba roared as he held three cards in his hand while he and Yami Yugi readied their Duel Disks. “Oh, I’ll show you powerless! Go! Vorse Raider, Gadget Soldier, and of course Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon!”

“Luckily I’ve come prepared with my Red-Eyes! Flame Swordsman and Jinzo will also be joining him!”

“Then I’ll summon Dark Magician, Summoned Skull, and Kuriboh!” Yami Yugi declared.

“Great, that bloody puffball will stop this giant sea serpent…” Kaiba knew firsthand the power of the seemingly harmless Kuriboh.

“Do you really think that all of those puny monsters will… Eh?” Dartz watched as the trio summoned their respective dragon cards alongside their monsters.

“That’s not all! Here’s Legend of Heart! Now, dragons, show us your true form!”

“Still powerless. Or do you need me to remind you?” With a snap of his fingers, three giants tentacles came out of Leviathan, encircling the three companions.

“Eyaaaah, gross!” Joey fell into Leviathan headfirst. “Guys, this is gross!”

“No kidding!” Kaiba struggled too, but he found it in him to half shift. “Dammit! If… If only I could transform…”

“My love, stop…” Yami Yugi couldn’t bear to watch Kaiba straining to transform. Happy to see Kaiba slowly relax, he continued, “I know what to do.”

“Okay, babe. I will trust you.” With that, Kaiba withdrew his wings and gave in to the abyss below.

———

 “Ngh…” Even if he wanted to wake up, Kaiba’s eyelids felt heavy.

“Yo, rich boy! There are better places to take a nap than on the ground, you know!”

Before Kaiba could react to the sound of Joey’s voice, a full bucket of water splashed him awake. “Aaah! Fuck it, Wheeler!”

“Man, Kaiba, take it easy! I just wanted to tell you where Yug is. How ‘bout a little gratitude?”

“Yugi!” Kaiba shot up and surveyed the surroundings; now, Atlantis barely floated above the sea. “Tell me, where did he go?”

“I take it you’re not talking about me.” Yugi showed himself. “We’re now free because the pharaoh unleashed the Egyptian gods.”

“Yeah!” Joey added. “Now they’re all fighting Leviathan… er, somewhere up there.”

Kaiba noticed a large aurora strewn across the otherwise dark sky. Taking a few steps forward, he spoke without looking back, “Okay, you dweebs, try not to die while I’m out there.”

“Kaiba, wait!” Joey tried to stop Kaiba as he jumped into the sea and emerged in dragon form. “There’s nothing you can do!”

“I should have known…” Yugi simply sat on the ground and stared at the aurora.

If only for the sake of KaibaCorp, Kaiba thought as he flew into the thermosphere, close to outer space. Though this area was home to erratic temperatures and very few life forms, Kaiba hardly felt any effect. Looking past the lights, it took him some time to locate Yami Yugi, locked in battle with Dartz.

Despair tempted Yami Yugi as he watched Leviathan engulf Obelisk in his tentacles, and attempted to trap the other two gods. “This monster can hold his own even against the Egyptian gods… If I can’t win here, then what can I…”

“Hahaha… My Leviathan is millennia older than your Egyptian gods! Now, Leviathan, attack!” Dartz pointed at Yami Yugi, taking advantage of his dropped guard.

Kaiba dove as fast as he could at the word “attack,” and his Shining Neutron Blast barely parried said attack. He temporarily ignored Dartz to admonish Yami Yugi. “Pharaoh! How dare you start losing to someone other than me! And for fuck’s sake, cut out the pity party! Or do you not remember your first battle in Battle City?”

Yami Yugi recalled the battle against Yami Marik, winning him Slifer the Sky Dragon, and Kaiba’s pep talk that helped him win. “I remember.”

“Then fight, dammit! Raaaah!” Kaiba shot another blast at Leviathan, freeing Obelisk from the binding tentacles.

“It can’t be!” Dartz was dumbfounded at this intrusion. “Leviathan should be able to seal your dragon powers!”

“Unfortunately for you, there’s only one champion, and that’s me.” Kaiba flew shoulder-to-shoulder with the three gods.

“G-Grr…” Dartz didn’t want to believe that his time was at an end. “Leviathan, turn that blasted dragon into scrap metal!”

“You will do no such thing!” Yami Yugi ordered the three gods to attack simultaneously while Kaiba added his own power. “Your formerly vengeful souls have transformed into kind souls full of light.”

“You… You can’t mean…” Dartz thought aloud as the four monsters’ attacks approached his monster.

“That’s right! Leviathan is powerless now!”

“No…” Dartz groaned as beams of light emitted from Leviathan, slowly tearing him apart. “No! Damn… you… pharaoh…”

Kaiba looked down to Earth; not only was the aurora gone, but so was the hurricane – and his will to retain his dragon form. “Please tell me that this is over, babe.”

As much as Yami Yugi wanted to say “yes,” he knew they still had one more task. Looking at the disintegrating Atlantis, he answered, “My love, Joey and Yugi are still on Atlantis. Before it crumbles, we need to save them. Can you hang on for just a little bit longer? Please?”

“Guess I’ll have to,” spoke Kaiba as he and Yami Yugi descended back to Earth, thankful that at last, the world appeared to be at peace.

#yugioh #ygo #prideshipping #kaiba x yami yugi #fanfiction

[theveryworstthing]

Downtrodden Answers: Lots O’ Bugs Edition

here are a bunch of answers for the staggering pile of downtrodden questions that have built up.

god, there are so many. this isn’t even a fraction of them. more coming soon.

@terminallytwisted

they’re uncommon to rare since they have such small clutches of eggs (for insects) and they’re not really the best parasites around. in fact, without breeding programs they would all be gone by now. like awful bug pandas.

there are specific breeders tasked with recreating ideal habitats and situations for the best results. these people train under other veteran breeders for years before they have the documentation and references to start managing their own clutches. of course, if you have a Walking Worm and the guy down the street has a Walking Worm you can breed them but the failure rate is high without a breeder’s counsel and if things aren’t handled correctly the worms can get defensive and aggressive. they’re intelligent social creatures and trying to mate them with a worm they don’t like or in a place they feel unsafe might get that other worm’s dick ripped off and you accidentally stepped on. not a good look. not worth the items or money saved on that counseling fee.

if your worms do manage to impregnate each other and lay clutches, congrats! no one lost a limb this time! you may now sell or trade those eggs to the highest bidder because those are some precious precious babies.

yup. they usually really excel at one or the other but there are shady places where you want to keep your pet close and most boat bodied worms get lonely if their owners are up on land for too long :(

@bleatingbico

there’s no really ‘taming’ snails. they just kind of do what they want. some people have them as pets though, and their mucus can be harvested for different healing and cosmetic uses.  rabbits don’t really breed them because their populations can get out of hand fast.

what do you think Wolves that never turn look like?

@sinezona

that’s such a cute idea! i decree it cannon. its probably more of a dark green though since it has to have as much contrast with the paper as possible for better low light reading. that or mixed in with glow in the dark liquids. as for newspapers, they’re not daily but there is an island-wide paper distributed by the postal workers covering general island news, predator sightings, deaths, that sort of thing. local news is covered by guilds who collect interesting findings and goings on in the surrounding area and then send what are essentially anchor rabbits to individual warrens to report them to the gathered crowds. these reports may also come by radio if the radio signals work there (owls do a number on radio signals).

@fignan

there are mines on the island, usually connected to special tunnels that connect to different warrens so that large groups of workers can get to work safely. what metalworkers do really depends on if its an area with other metalworkers present of if they’re the only one for miles. more crafters means more specialization. less means you’re kind of thrust into being the jack of all trades unless you order from other metalworkers. you might have to do this anyway though if you’re like great at cups but royally suck at daggers. in a wolf attack people will use your janky daggers but they’ll also come back and try to beat your ass with their remaining limbs. better to just get in contact with an outside source.

jesus.

1:yes

2: i’m totally using the bog iron idea thank you, also digging is more for home expansion/ underground transportation. its mostly done by hand with some shovel work to remove excess dirt and a few other tools to smooth walls and floors. mining is more intense and careful work. digging is about hollowing out the area, mining is actually searching for stuff. the two sometimes collide if interesting deposits are found while constructing burrows or warrens but rabbits try to keep mining operations away from their homes and water supplies just in case of disaster.

3: fungi, greens, squash, cabbages, bell peppers, seaweed, kiwi, coconuts, melons, peaches, almonds, and wheat. there are many more and there’s a lot of variety on the island between areas or just warrens. crops might also depend on how close to the Center you are. you can get a peach as big as a watermelon if your farm is far enough inland. they are prone to both dropping on unlucky people and producing the finest jams known to sapient life. you can barely taste the murder.

4: a lot of plant fibers like cotton and various woven items made of shed rabbit fur and the found pelts of larger creatures. rabbits like to use spider silk for durable items as well as sturdy wings and carapaces of certain bugs. it is important to note that many rabbits think wearing things from bugs commonly classified as pets is super gross unless its from your actual pet as a remembrance item. you’re not going to make any friends in a Walking Worm skin suit.

5: rabbits make 99% of their day to day items. they like mainland rice and a few other food items but if they import anything its usually luxury items like furniture or machines that were never commonly used on the island like cameras. when you can talk to the dead, keeping pictures around seems a lot less important. rabbits have really warmed up to photos though. despite the occasional flubbs like the shine of strange eyes hovering above nests of sleeping kits and shadowy figures sitting in on a family portraits, cameras are getting popular among those that can afford them.

6: rabbits have been obsessed with textiles since the dawn of their civilization. you know they know their way around a loom.

@crackingdrywall

warrens have a pretty tribal/family atmosphere. there is usually an ‘elder’ or ‘elders’ which are akin to the head of the warren who try to keep everyone from shanking each other, and then there are leaders for different facets of warren life. classically these were mated couples but these days its just two people who work well together and essentially act as managers for their specific responsibilities. its always two just in case something happens to someone and the next qualified person doesn’t have time to settle into the position, and its become more common for these managers to be comprised of one seasoned older person and one enterprising younger person. the common positions for management are:

kitchen (they handle food inventory, cooking, and food farming)

medicine (medical and rescue services, only led by midwives and doctors)

spiritual (priests and doctors who focus more on mental illness)

communication (necromancers, postal workers, journalists)

home (they handle the building, cleaning and upkeep of the warren. gotta make sure that the cranky old people are happy and that the bugs aren’t pooping everywhere)

entertainment (they handle the books, games, festivals, ect. diversions from the Bad Times)

and guards (the peeps who prevent the other peeps from being eaten by horror monsters)

of course these positions change and expand depending on what size your warren is, what the age demographic is, what the area is like, what predators are in that area, what the death rate is like, if you specialize in crafting or trading for certain things, if you’re made of family groups or guild workers who’ll just be there for parts of the year, if you’re a secret street fighting ring, ect. there’s a lot to keep in mind.

also those position names are boring and will probably be revised later but the fact that they’re basically just what they say they are is so Rabbit i don’t know if i should change it.

@joysweeper

not really. vultures are hard to catch and kind of gross to eat so they don’t have any real natural predators on the island. i mean, things only got after rabbits because they’re delicious and they can catch them. and some things, like foxes, won’t even bother with that if there are enough bugs and berries around.

there are still plenty of creatures that will fuck them up if they DO get caught but they can usually avoid them. its why they keep their meals short and don’t bring their children down to eat.

@balaur-of-four-toes

i really Feel that comic.

and those other creature thoughts are spot on. the fennecs would be a little bigger though. maybe the size of a real life wolf since Downtrodden foxes and rabbits are equivalent in scale to real life foxes and rabbits.

maybe when i’m done with the island and the mainland and the holy city, we can go to some far off places and meet some other weird talking critters.

i’m not sure if i answered this one but i have talked about house boats. as for pure underwater dens, there is a huge system of hot springs and fresh water underground rivers that rabbits take advantage of. a lot of rabbits like to make their homes near them. there are also the seaside glass caves where the tides and general proximity to the ocean can lead to warrens or burrows surrounded by cliff side waterfalls or aquarium-like glass walls.

@stanzicapparatireplayers

see above friendo :)

wellllll. you’re half right about what went down.

rabbits sort of used it to their advantage when they could. see, they have very little sexual dismorphia just like the mainlanders, and since the mainlanders were used to using social and visual cues to pick out the minute differences in reproductive roles they could call a rabbit maybe 60% of the time if they’re alone with them. but the fact that rabbits don’t really follow a super strict design template for body shape and height and they don’t have larger boobs unless they’re pregnant, currently nursing, or the mother of a bunch of kits, make a group of rabbits look like ten million different species with no discernible gender to the mainlander eye. at least in the olden days. so, the rabbits would use gendered pronouns to go places and exhibit behaviors that were seen as contrary to their gender roles. and the mainlanders would be so relived that they had a gender to go on that they didn’t really question it for quite a while. of course, then there were a few scandals over revealed homosexual relationships, obscenity charges slapped on people in places they shouldn’t be, ect, and the mainland got very strict about your gender matching your reproductive role. most rabbits stepped in line but the paranoia was already there. it was only ten years ago that most jobs required full body physicals before hiring rabbits.

it was kind of a sucky thing!

@adeterminedloser

they’ve had enough of my shit and i can’t blame them.

and the idea was very simple to me. life is hard. its weird and scary and awesome and everything is always changing. there are so many things that go wrong and so much danger. life is hard to control, even if that life is a little bean sprout.

meanwhile, death is pretty chill. you’re already dead dude! what more is gonna happen to you?

it also plays off something my mom and grandmothers told me about ghosts when i was little so i wouldn’t be scared.

you’ve got way more to fear from the living than the dead.

#rabbits of downtrodden #talkin #worldbuilding for days ya'll

[tialovestelevision]

Smashed

“Coping.” Right? It’s “Coping?” Anyone?

Another dialogue post! But before we start…

T: That’s Creepmeister on the Netflix splash screen for this episode, isn’t it? Goddammit.

{*\../*} : Because nothing says fun like proto-Gamergate dudes on my screen.

T: Previously On calls back all the way to Gingerbread in Season 3. Remember when Amy was a human? Remember when Amy was a character instead of a running gag? It’s also very long.

{*\../*} : Buffy is really damn funny in this opening scene as she’s fending off muggers (muggers! In Sunnydale!) and generally acting like a woman with her head together. Which goes really weirdly with the end of “Tabula Rasa,” I gotta say. And now Spike has show up, gotten jolted with pain for attacking one of the (human) muggers and generally embarrassed himself, and is now hitting on Buffy. “To that, an extreme ‘see you later.’” Oh, Buffy, if only that would sink this ship.

T: I was about to comment on Spike also being funny, but then he showers her with slut-shaming metaphors and pointing out her isolation. Lovely guy, that Spike. You’d almost think he’s a soulless monster. You’d almost think a guy has to be a soulless monster to behave that way.

{*\../*} : Meanwhile, Willow is opening her door on a silent house and staring gloomily, then wandering back into her room. Sad music is playing. Am I supposed to be feeling sympathy here? Is that what’s going on? Because I gotta say that the girl who MIND-CONTROLLED her girlfriend to maintain her relationship is not getting sympathy from me at this time. ‘Cause even if I take the magic mojo out of the metaphor, she is the abuser in this situation and I am not inclined to feel sympathy no matter how big her puppy-eyes are.

T: I feel sympathy for Seasons 1-5 Willow because she has to be put through this storyline and thus shed my sympathy going forward. Oh, look, it’s Rat-Amy. And Willow missing the point. And trying to cover just how awful what she just said is with calling it joke.

{*\../*} : “And leave you for no good reason.” Um.... REASONS! There are A LOT. Like you literally dragged your Buffy out of the grave and moved her into the house you share with your girlfriend, had a fight with her and wiped her memory - not once, but twice, and the second time after promising to ease off trying to solve every problem with your big magic hammer! Bad Willow. Bad!

T: I think Sweet lacks Willow’s talent for wrecking relationships this season. And for causing trauma. And he’s an evil mind control fire music demon. Can we get him back? He was fun. Willow casts a spell and summons paper. It’s a magic scroll. She should scribe it to her spellbook before she uses it… hey, it’s Amy. It worked. Wait, she could have summoned paper any time? Opening credits. No Tara, but given that I’m pretty sure she’s been written off the show for a bit that’s not a surprise.

{*\../*} : As an aside, screaming Amy right before the credits. Not a good omen for this spell, either.

T: “I was a mouse. I had cheese. I had four legs. I was happy. Now I’m a human again, with human troubles. Everything is cold and nobody lets me run on a wheel.”

{*\../*} : Stop making up dialogue, honey. It confuses the readers. Even if it is better than the show’s right now.

T: If they’re going to bludgeon us with the metaphor, they need to use a big bludgeon. No pussyfooting around it.

{*\../*} : We resume with Andrew doing a ridiculous entry to a museum which is thoroughly unnecessary. Much Trio ‘witty banter’ which is not. “Phase One of the plan is now complete.” That’s the dialogue that really makes a girl’s heart beat faster. They use a freeze ray on the guard, and Creepmeister dismisses the idea of the guard telling on them in a way that screams “murderous intent” to me.

T: Unless he’s already murdered the guard via Jonathan’s very chilly and almost certainly frostbitten hands and hasn’t told them. I’m not sure whether to expect Cinematic Freezing, which wears off with various degrees of side effects, or Actual Freezing, which kills you stone dead, in this show.

{*\../*} : Meanwhile, Willow is trying to ply a very nervous Amy with hot chocolate and looks guilty when Amy says she felt like she was in the cage “for weeks.” Because, you know, the girl who’s been a rat for years because she was in your coven and had to turn herself into a rat to avoid being burned to death because of a.... You know what? Nevermind. Feel guilty about your abused girlfriend who moved out of the house to we-don’t-know-where!

T: I forgot Larry died. The Mayor killed him in “Graduation Day,” for the record - had to go look that up. Amy wants to go to prom with Larry. Larry is gay, Larry is dead, and prom is very far past over. Apparently, Rat-Amy has no sense of time. Also, I will note that the fancy rat, which is the most common pet rat subspecies and likely what Amy was, lives for 2-3 years if taken care of well. Amy keeps getting forgotten by the writers and often was simply absent from dorm scenes in season 5 - I’m not sure if they moved her cage to the Tara/Willow dorm room set. Magic must have kept Amy alive, because I don’t know what else would. Maybe she drained the life of Miss Kitty Fantastico, who appeared in “Family” and hasn’t been seen since. “Family” was set more than a year before “Smashed,” as a note.

{*\../*} : “How have you been?” “Rat. You?” “Dead.” So Buffy comes home and comes up the steps to talk to Willow, and they’re sitting down to talk, and Buffy asks Willow how she’s doing in a far too sympathetic tone and then launches into a conversation about choices - good, bad, living with them - and I think she’s about to talk to Willow about Tara and magic and then I realize no, she’s about to talk about kissing Spike. And then Amy walks in, and that’s when we get the classic dialogue I just quoted while Buffy is sitting there with a huge stunned look on her face and radiating a general air of “I should leave you two alone” after MISTAKING AMY FOR TARA as if Tara would just happen to be there again. I don’t even know where to start unpacking what a huge mess this scene is after barely a minute..

T: I think Buffy thinking Amy is Tara is one of the more sympathetic moments in the scene. She’s in Willow’s room and someone comes out of the bathroom; to Buffy’s reflexive reactions, of course the person coming out of the bathroom is Tara. Also, I have to say… while I’m really not into the arcs we’re working on here, the dialogue in this episode is really snappily written. Buffy’s scene in the cold open and this one here both do some wonderful things with that.

{*\../*} :  All true. But not only is Willow acting like a girl who got dumped instead of a girl who’s abused girlfriend walked out, but Buffy is acting like a woman whose friend is having a ‘normal’ fight with her girlfriend. I mean, granted Willow isn’t Angelus in the abuse department, but seriously? Nothing? We’re just going to sit down and have girl talk like we used to in high school?

T: Honestly, I buy that too. I don’t LIKE it, but I buy it. Buffy is basically going through super-trauma (like regular trauma, but with superpowers). She wants to talk about her problems. Willow doesn’t want to talk about hers. Might as well meet somebody’s needs, right?

{*\../*} : Stop enabling abuse, Buffy! Anyway, we should roll on while I fume.

T: I really don’t like it. On the other hand, Amy wants cookies, and not cheese. I want cookies and cheese.

{*\../*} : And now Buffy is leaving without talking about her issue after making sad-face when Willow talked about it being nice to have a magically-inclined “friend” around. Are the writers trying to play a romantic jealousy angle here or are they just really oblivious? Because as a lesbian girl, I’m sitting there going “Buffy is there to reestablish her prime straight-but-intimate placement with Willow and then gets beaten out by ex-coven-mate Amy and looks upset by that.” Is that not how I’m supposed to be reading that?

T: What I read in the scene, from Buffy’s perspective: “I have Problems. I have an emotionally intelligent friend who I have relied on in the past when I have had Problems. I will go tell my emotionally intelligent friend! Wait… my emotionally intelligent friend is busy. And holy fuck that thing she just said was heartless and oblivious and awful, wasn’t it? My emotionally intelligent friend is not a safe place to bring my problems now. I will go to the living room and set up a sofa bed.”

{*\../*} : Legit. That does make more sense.

T: Amy has all the cookies. There will be no cookies for Dawn. Amy is watching the news and it looks like Rusty survived the freeze ray and is in critical but stable condition. But when we get to the museum, he’s still frozen solid and being removed from the building on a hand cart, which would make measuring his vitals a little difficult.

{*\../*} : Now Buffy is talking with Spike at the museum. More priceless dialogue. The way that Buffy is wearing her hair and the turtleneck is weirdly artificial, now that I’m looking at her, and oh God the writers are playing a “she wants to get with Spike but is trying to talk herself out of it by armoring up her look” angle, right down to the pigtails as a provocative touch to encourage him to push, aren’t they?

T: Pretty sure they are. I wouldn’t have caught that, but now that you point it out it’s really obvious. I really want to hate this scene - it’s very Buffy/Spike, with the unhealthy and the slut-shaming and the Spike everywhere, but the dialogue. The dialogue. It’s so GOOD!

{*\../*} : “When I kissed you, you know I was thinking of Giles, right?” “You know, I always wondered about you two.” “What? Oh! Gross, Spike!” Sarah does a wonderful little-girl-on-the-playground cadence on gross which is great acting but also makes me want to take an icepick to my temple.

T: Did Spike just punch Buffy then not have his chip go off? I think that happened. Yep. That happened.

{*\../*} : Yep. And then he tracks a girl into an alley with intent to kill, gives himself a rousing “I’m still a monster, I’m not housebroken!” speech and then has blinding pain when he tries to bite her. Soooo the chip is working (probably), but Buffy isn’t reading as human anymore, which was neatly suggested by Buffy’s venomous delivery on calling him an inhuman thing. Because that’s not ominous at all.

T: So now Buffy isn’t human, according to a piece of evil military technology. What was the last time one of our cast thought they weren’t human? Pretty much it was the same time we last saw Miss Kitty Fantastico. “Family.” With Tara. Hey, it’s Tara! She could have been added to the opening credits!

{*\../*} : She’s having a milkshake with Dawn, which is adorable. Tara is encouraging Dawn to eat leafy greens and gently prodding her about the size of her milkshake, and breaks with minimal encouragement into the “I will always be there for you” speech. This is playing like a mom-with-daughter-in-midst-of-divorce scene, and a cute one. Please, writers, acknowledge Tara moved out because she was being abused. Any moment now. Oh God, Dawn is deploying the “You still love her” defense. Oh... God. “She’s been really good about careful about stuff.” The writers are not off-point, actually, because this is not the nice sunny scene it’s being shot as at all. This is the daughter from an abusive household trying to tell the abused mom who moved out that the remaining parent has changed because it has been X days since the last incident. It becomes really obvious if you change the gender pronouns in Dawn’s dialogue here. “[He’s] been doing a lot better lately. [He’s] been really good about being careful about stuff.”

And now we’re having a nice normal investigation scene with the gang, everyone sitting around the table, more brightly lit shooting, but when Anya says they don’t have the right text and Willow says “We’ll do it another way,” sudden Buffy and Xander are on red alert. “I don’t think we need to resort to...” Buffy stumbles out, and Xander’s mouth is hanging open to add something, and then Willow pulls out her laptop and suddenly Xander is enthusiastically talking about going “back to basics.” Apparently “Tabula Rasa” didn’t actually vanish from everyone’s minds after all.

T: And Willow magics the computer. Magic hacking. That’s… a neat idea, or would be if not for the fact that we’re in Buffy Season 6. I believe magic hacking more than I believe TV hacking, which basically treats computers as magical anyway. Xander wants to go away from her. And Anya gets everything out in the open.

{*\../*} : Except she makes it about Tara having left her, which is NOT THE POINT. Which is okay from Anya, but then nobody else corrects her. Also, “It’s better this way,” Willow? Really?

T: Truth. Though Anya did point out that nobody wants to talk about anything. Either they don’t understand, or they do and they don’t want to talk about anything. Either way… I don’t have an ending to that sentence.

To be fair, it IS better that Tara has left her abusive, memory-deleting girlfriend. Willow is right on that note. That Willow is the abusive, memory-deleting girlfriend makes me less sympathetic to her rightness. Then she finishes her sentence and is no longer right. Oh god I hate this scene.

{*\../*} : “This time away will help us sort things out” (while she does nothing to acknowledge what the problem is in the first place). “Now let’s get through this. I don’t want to leave Amy alone in the house so long.” Umm.....

T: Now we’re talking about Amy. Willow implies that Amy might not remember how to use a toilet. Buffy is now good with this not leaving her alone in the house thing. Ye gods, though, Willow, straight to insulting Amy?

Season 6 Willow might be worse than Spike. If not for Creepmeister’s presence, she might be the worst character in the season. Is Creepmeister there to provide a counterargument to “Willow is the very worst?”

{*\../*} : Speaking of whom, we cut to the diamond. And a dick joke.

T: PENIS JOKES! And here’s Spike, to ruin days. MORE PENIS JOKES! He is threatening Boba Fett. I think Creepmeister is revealing things we already knew based on him being Creepmeister here.

{*\../*} : The comedy here is wonderful, but the most interesting thing is that Spike just walked into the headquarters of the season Big Bads and did not in fact notice they were doing anything. Including, say, the big diamond on the table. He’s so focused on himself and his chip and what’s going on with Buffy that he doesn’t see them as anything but an easily-dismissed tool for his agenda.

And now Willow is home and talking with Amy, who wants to make her dad forget the last three years. And Willow is making jokes about the poor aim of her forgetfulness spells, because ha-ha that’s funny.

T: I hope we’re meant to be horrified that Willow thinks that’s funny. Oh god, I hope we’re meant to be horrified that Willow thinks that’s funny. Amy wants to go somewhere. Not to her father’s. Was her father involved in the attempt to burn her at the stake? Amy is playing on Willow’s old insecurities. Willow wants to have fun.

And now we get Creepmeister doing diagnostics on Spike’s chip. Then the aftermath. Andrew is trying to impress Spike with his Doctor Who viewing. Spike yells for Creepmeister. Creepmeister says the chip works still. Spike understands what’s going on. “Nothing wrong with me. Something wrong with her.”

{*\../*} : Tara is walking into the house with Dawn.  Who is pressuring her to stay and invoking her own loneliness. That’s horribly manipulative. I really feel for Tara here. Dawn’s being a pretty typical teenager, but Tara’s in a situation where her maternal feelings about Dawn are being used to hold her hostage in the house until her abuser (who is out hitting the town with the ex-rat) gets home so that Dawn can try to push them to reconcile. Icky.

T: I feel for both of them. You’ve hit why I feel for Tara - whose situation is among the worst of a whole cast of people in bad situations - but Dawn is basically out of even partially functional parental figures. Giles left. Willow’s utterly ‘round the bend. Buffy is broken on a fundamental level and, even if she’s hiding it better than she was a few episodes ago, Dawn knows it. Tara’s the closest thing to a safe adult she has left in her life. That’s… really terrifying, when you think about it.

{*\../*} : And the correct answer is for her to move out with Tara, but Dawn’s need to keep an eye on Buffy and her attachment to the house and her refusal to really process what Willow having done what she did means is keeping her where she is. Someone writing this knows about abusive households.

T: It’s not just refusal. Dawn can’t escape. Not processing that is a psychological survival mechanism.

{*\../*} : True. Sorry, that’s correct. That it has the effect it has doesn’t mean it’s something she’s making a choice to do or that she somehow ought to be pulling herself up by her mental bootstraps to get out. She’s fifteen and ‘grew up’ in a household run by Joyce, for heaven’s sake - even Season 5 Joyce didn’t exactly teach her kids how to identify and stand up to abuse.

T: Willow and Amy are playing pool and talking about Xander and Anya. And are drunk. And it’s magic pool. Amy’s going to dance with a boy. And now Amy is casting attraction spells on girls regarding Willow. We know that’s a thing she can do. Willow, at least, is begging off this, though her stated objection isn’t “this is overriding their free will,” which really needs to be brought up because Amy does this, but is instead “I’m getting over a breakup” or maybe “I’m still into my girlfriend who I expect to get together with again any day now.” Goddammit, Season Six Willow. Amy is going to dance. And is dancing. Michelle Branch isn’t playing the Bronze today. Willow has a sad face. Now she’s drinking alone and threatening her olive. Amy runs back over and apologizes, which is better than Willow’s done about her much worse offenses so far. Amy says yet another really good line of dialogue (the dialogue writing, as I’ve said, is REALLY ON this episode), and now the guys are insulting Willow and harassing Amy.

{*\../*} : Homophobically insulting Willow. She and Amy are swapping significant looks. Incoming magical doom in 3, 2, 1....

T: And now they’re in Speedos dancing in cages. The guys, I mean. Really? That’s the magical revenge/justice? It… honestly feels very “exploiting gay panic” to me.

{*\../*} : The guys are clearly meant to be acceptable targets and we’re either supposed to laugh or be horrified at that moment. Or maybe the writers are splitting the difference, with the idea that we’ll laugh now and be horrified when the fridge logic kicks in?

T: Inasmuch as this show ever creates acceptable human targets (remember: violence against humans in this show is described as basically always evil), the guys come close. But this particular approach to responding to them just reinforces the stuff they were doing in the first place. How can an episode with such good dialogue keep tripping over basic plotting and themes?

D&D manuals don’t look like that, writers.

{*\../*} : That’s Dragons of Summer Flame. It’s a Dragonlance novel. No-vel. With novel cover art. I know because it’s sitting on my shelf in my bedroom. They stuck a D&D novel in his hands and called it a monster manual? I don’t know if I’m impressed they had a D&D book lying around or horrified they got it so wrong.

T: It’s too bad, because the actual pages of the Second Edition AD&D Monster Manual would make a GREAT sight gag here. With the little rectangles in the corners that have the monster pictures? If they were worried about copyright, they could just make sure Xander had it open to the Invisible Stalker page, since its rectangle was empty.

{*\../*} : Xander and Anya and Buffy are sitting around talking about how bad they are at research. Then they talk about Willow. Then Spike calls, and there is wonderful farce comedy with the conversation. Soo.... lots to talk about here.

Anya and Xander are pitching the idea that you have to watch out for quiet, responsible people because when they get a taste of being bad (or connecting to something bigger than them, or getting out of control) then they explode into a frenzy of bad decisions/power use/out of control. They’re worried that Willow was using too much magic before Tara left and now it’s going to get worse. “It’s human nature,” Xander says, and Buffy is immediately launching into a defense of responsible people and the importance of not assuming everyone is being seduced right before Spike calls. At which point the camera gets very close to her face and we watch her eyes get all huge while Spike growls at her over the phone, followed by protestations of how professional the call is from Buffy, followed by her immediately jumping on his double entendre on which he then doubles down. The camera work here is just screaming “bad boy, good girl, they’re thinking about having sex” and Buffy’s ditched the pigtails and turtleneck for a semi-transparent white blouse over a camisole that bares her neck and tied her hair back in a way that’s designed to make those close shots provocative. The costuming department is loudly telling us that this is a woman setting herself up to be seduced by a soulless dead guy who she was trading punches with earlier and who is now excited to know he can hurt her and planning to meet up in a CEMETERY.

Help me, Tia. I can’t even start to explain how problematic both those conversations are.

T: I feel like we’re beating a horse that is not only dead here, but has been turned, stabbed and thrown into Hell, returned from Hell, regained its soul, and become an unlicensed private investigator in a hotel in Los Angeles, but, once again, the entire cast - and probably the writers and almost certainly the director? - have fixated on the magic thing without acknowledging that Willow was abusing Tara, or that they were there, in the room, being Randy and Joan and witnessing it. Hell, Anya made out with Giles in the middle of the evidence; that’s how much in the middle of it they were. And nobody - ever - even Anya who talks about everything - has so much as brought it up. “She’s using too much magic,” they say, like when I walk into a room and find there’s blood everywhere and a corpse and I say, “Huh. This person uses too many knives.” The knife addiction is NOT THE PROBLEM HERE. I really don’t know how long I can go repeatedly saying “They’re not acknowledging the abuse and the writers are giving no indication that that’s supposed to be a problem,” but this episode keeps throwing at me in the midst of its immensely clever dialogue.

Buffy and Spike’s dialogue here? Immensely clever. Seriously, this is the way those characters talk at its very best. As for the content of it… I think you covered why it’s fucked up pretty well there, with a side order of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer, especially when it comes to its main protagonist, has a bad habit of being generally sex-negative and that makes it even harder to tell whether it knows this particular moment is extra-problematic and super-creepy.”

Heh. “Captain Peroxide.” Good one, Xander.

{*\../*} : Buffy is making excuses about Spike. Like a bad boyfriend she doesn’t want to admit to.  And now he’s stalking her outside the magic shop. And they’re trading threatening banter, and she hits him. He hits her back, and there is a distinct lack of pain. Buffy’s horrified face. “Don’t you see? Don’t you get it? You came back wrong.” More horrified face. Cut to black. Credits.

T: Did you know that Russian scientists are trying to bring back the fauna of the Ice Age to combat global warming? We might live to see wooly mammoths on Earth, which is a happy thought.

Less happy is Spike exploiting Buffy’s already-extant insecurities about her resurrection in his continued fucked-up pursuit of fucked-up fucking.

{*\../*} : Sex and violence is a longstanding literary mixture. No question, it gets a lot of people’s motors running, but let’s be clear - Spike is now literally threatening Buffy with physical harm and psychologically abusing her while pursuing having sex with her in a dark alley, and the writers have just spent an episode coding “She wants him to fuck her” into every interaction they have. This is not an okay set-up for a show being made in a culture where women are routinely raped and then face attacks on their personal worth, credibility and whether it was “true stranger rape” or not. If you do not explicitly give verbal consent or if you withdraw consent at any time and someone continues trying to have sex with you, that is rape. Period. It is never okay.

T: I think the last time Spike got this rapey was that scene with Willow right after he got his chip. Remember that one? The one we were supposed to laugh right after when they started making impotence jokes? This is an attempted rape scene, and… yeah. They loaded it precisely how Dragon is describing. So now they fight. Buffy throws Spike into an abandoned house. Amy and Willow are still at the Bronze, watching the guys dance and listening to the music… and… holy fuck really? Dragon? I can’t even. Can you even?

{*\../*} : I can very even. So let’s start with Amy and Willow up on the railing of the Bronze, with the guys from before still up in their cages dancing and a guy next to them doing the Robot and looking incredibly freaked out. Both of them look like the cats that ate the canary. Willow decides she doesn’t like the music and flicks her fingers. Disney sparkles. And then the male band leader turns into a woman in a tight shirt and sexy-makeup fronting a band playing a completely different sort of music. The rest of the band are also women. Right before he got hit with the magic, his eyes got huge with terror. Question: did she just transform them into the bodies of girls and magically compel them to play, or swap them for a different band who are not being magically compelled to play, or erase them from reality and replace them with magical replicants who exist to play the music she wants them to?

Hint: none of these answers is good, and the problem is not that she did it with magic.

Now Amy is making a guy fly, and Willow is making one guy incredibly tall and shrinking another, and Amy is turning people into sheep or possibly just summoning sheep. More magic sparkles, I can’t even tell what they’re doing now except making the club look like something out of Lewis Carroll by way of Circe and mind control fiction. Willow has a creepily sexy look on her face and is pressing her tongue to the back of her teeth. Cut to Buffy and Spike beating the shit out of each other in the abandoned house they charged into before. Spike is doing a creepy laugh and swinging on a chandelier that’s coming out of the ceiling. They’re throwing each other through stairs and the fireplace mantle. Buffy has started in on the verbal abuse now, too. “I’m in love with you,” Spike says in a creepy voice, and Buffy fires back with “You’re in love with pain. Admit it. You like me ‘cause you enjoy being beat down. So really, who’s screwed up?” And Spike, bless whoever hit this line and James Marsters for delivering it, says “Hello? Vampire. I’m supposed to be treading on the dark side.”

Yes. Yes. Stake him now!

No. More punching with a sexy camera angle. “What’s your excuse?” he says. She throws him into a wall and then flying tackles him.

Cut back to Amy and Willow still hanging over the rail. Guy floating in the background. Flying music. “So we’ve kinda played this scene,” Willow says, looking bored. “Return.” And now everyone’s back to normal and nobody seems to remember what just happened. And Willow is talking about somewhere bigger. Amy makes a joke about it being too early in the night.

Cut back to Spike and Buffy. Spike: “I wasn’t planning on hurting you. Much.” Creepy smile. Buffy: “You haven’t even come close to hurting me.” Is this supposed to be foreplay? Am I supposed to be getting hot for this? Because I’m gonna level with you, readers, I am a kinky girl who is into all sorts of stuff that isn’t allowed in mainstream movies and what this making me is excruciatingly uncomfortable.

More beating up the walls. And now Buffy’s kissing him and he’s shoving her into walls and they’re mixing fighting with more kissing. And literally taking the building down around them while we hear the sound of his zipper. And they’re having sex with their clothes on and staring at each other. Dramatic music chords. Building is come down without a sound, but we hear their noises and they go right through the floor without breaking penetration (yeah, right, that’s NOT how that works boys and girls) and finally, finally the credits roll.

T: Finally. Mercifully. At long last. So… “Smashed.” It’s not the worst episode? It’s got clever dialogue. Nobody tries to burn their children at the stake. That’s… all it has going for it, isn’t it?

This was an actively painful watch. I know we talked about it a lot during the synopsis, but the whole thing nobody acknowledging the fact that Willow was abusing Tara and the story as a whole not making clear that it was aware either (the scene with Dawn and the milkshake indicates it might be, or that someone in the writer’s room is, but… I don’t know).

This is Season 6. During Season 6, Joss Whedon was basically ignoring Buffy (though he wrote “Once More, With Feeling”) and left it in the hands of lead writer Marti Noxon, who was herself suffering from a huge, severe bout of depression. It’s possible that, in addition to that affecting the show’s creative direction, the lack of effective leadership on the creative side led to poor communication among the writers?

{*\../*} : Something is certainly going on in the production, here, because we’re being told several contradictory things here. On the Willow side - 1) The Dawn scenes tell us that Willow abused Tara and they’re broken up, and 2) the gang scenes are pitching us a Willow is high on the rush of magic, Tara was a speedbrake on that, and now she’s going out of control with Amy as her enabler-buddy. Depending on which of the two we believe, we can read Willow’s scenes as either her being in denial about her own actions and their costs and trying to hide from it with Amy’s devil-may-care recklessness - taking an active pleasure in flaunting what Tara was warning her about - or we can read them as a soon-to-be-junkie ceasing to be functional on her first night of binging. But we can’t do both. We just can’t - the text dissolves into nonsense if you try. Similarly, the Buffy scenes are telling us one of two things - either Buffy is in a state of existential despair and discomfort and her willingness to charge into Spike’s rape fantasy game is an act of self-destructive self-loathing, or Buffy is a responsible girl who’s been trying to live for others and Spike is the bad boy who’s about to introduce her to rough, reckless sex and embracing the kind of self-centered aggression that isn’t heroic. You can reconcile those two if you squint, but it requires saying that Buffy’s retreading Faith’s path from Season 3 and doing it while keeping it a secret from all her nominally supportive friends, and even Faith only looked like the second one - it was very clearly put out there toward the end of Season 3 that her bad girl attitude was very much a mask over the self-loathing and self-doubt that the Mayor eventually assuaged by being (perversely) a good father figure. And even then, the script doesn’t seem to know if we should be cheering her on or shouting no.

T: If it does know that, it’s certainly not telling us. I’m really not sure what to do with this episode… from the episode titles and the way it closes out, I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be a cliffhanger or a two-parter, but that also felt like they tried telling two complete, mutually exclusive stories with each lead within the course of an hour. Maybe “Wrecked” gives it some context, but I don’t expect it would be enough.

{*\../*} : Well, we’ll find out?

#buffy the vampire slayer #smashed #buffy season 6 #season 6 #dialogue post