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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Prince of Wishful Thinking (Tom Retrospective): Tough Love or The True Monster

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to Prince of Wishful Thinking, what is usually my look at the life and times of Tom Lucitor but since I NEED to cover the season 3 finale as vital part of Tom’s story, we’re taking one last look at the tragic tale of Meteora Butterfly before the finale sends these two stories hurtling together. You’d THINK this would be the last detour of this already sizeable arc.. and you’d be wrong as i’ll also be covering Kelly’s World, as I feel it’s vital for both “Curse of the Blood Moon” and “A Boy and his hard to remember title”, as it provides extra context for Marco’s anguish in the former.. and provides extra evidence for why a CERTAIN MOMENT in the latter pisses me off to no end.. seriously even when as universe dies and the only people left are Frankllin Richards and Galactus, there will still be a little note reading “Fuck how they treated Kelly” written in all caps so Galactus remembers to yell it.

So sadly that DOES mean it’s been three entries in this retrospective in a row that either haven’t feature Tom at all or in the case of the last episode only had him in short cameos. I mean we did get his love affair for pie but we also got a creepy goblin man forcing his girlfriend and best friend to kiss each other, his best friend being WAY to eager to jump to that conclusion, and neither considering using Marco’s Scissors because the writers only remember he has those half the time in Season 3... and clearly I ddn’t either as I forgot to mention that plot hole, something @jess-the-vampire brought up to me. Sadly I DID forget to consult on this when we talked earlier this week , and she’s not online as I write this so I won’t have her insight for this one.

But if you want some Tom content, i’m happy to share my crossover ship for the boy with you. I’ve been shipping him with Octavia from Helluva Boss lately. Because of course it’s Helluva Boss, i’ve not been at all subtle with my obession with it and much like Letterkenny, X-Men and Dragon Ball Z Abriged it is a love I never plan to be subtle about.

But I just think they compliment each other well: They have contrasting atittudes, and tastes in music, but seem like they’d share hobbies. Like taxidermy.. I could see Tom buying this... demonic combination of a badger, a skunk, a deer and my nightmares Octavia is preciously holding up.

Granted I also feel tom would both animate them with their dead souls.. and then use his new woodland friends of the dammned as a chorus to sing “Can You Picture That” from the Muppet Movie, because that’s what my mind does on a regular day. I think the contrasting attitude creates great chemstiry and it made me also realize I have a thing for ships with directly contrasting home lives. Tom has two loving decent parents who deeply love one another and at worst simply didn’t reign in his worse behavior because it was standard for demon stuff. Octavia in contrast simply has two parents, one who DOES love her and tries his best, but his best includes calling his side piece “My big dicked blitzy” right in front of her and hiring said side piece to guard them, and her mother who clearly thinks so little of her daughter’s emotional well being she hired a cowboy to shoot her daddy dead in the middle of a large crowd. The point is I think they’d be adorable and they both badly need to be happy after being emotionally fucked over by people they care about.

But alas my new ship will have to wait as we marginally important things to get down too.. things that will impact both this season and the next’s endgame and utterly destroy Eclipsa and Moon’s relationship for good. Sound fun? Well if so join me under the cut won’t you?

We open in the Pidgeon Kingdom.. and things aren’t exactly great.. and by that I mean Meteora stomped a hole through it and ravaged the place and Rich demands blood.. and vengance.. and possibly blood vengance. But not Tekken Blood Vengance.. he already has like 5 copies of that on dvd. Still needs it on Blu Ray though, hook him up if you got it.

So Moon and Eclipsa are trying to smooth this over/find out which way did she go George which way did she go, and are angrily dismissed after they try Rich’s patience, not helped by Eclipsa not being familiar with the Pidgeon Kingdom because they hadn’t slaughtered everyone who used to live there yet. Look that’s what happened, Star outright mentions in the Big Book of Spells that htey suddenly sprung up where another kingdom was and no one knows what happens. There was some bird murders up in that place.. or birdur if you will. Some birds drank some human blood. This is what Alfred Hitchock tried to warn us about with his film built on horrifying actress abuse.

The point is with some more pidgeon-led murder stabbings on the cards our heroines are trying to find her since their attempts to convince Rich not to go on an Archer Style Rampage fell on deaf ears.

But it’s clear from the second the two are alone both have diffrent priorties: Eclipsa desperatley wants to find the daughter she lost and talk her down from what sh’es become, help her become better and hopefuly heal from the pain she’s been in. She’s lost her husband, her kingdom and centuries. She can’t loose her baby girl too.

Moon on the other hand... clearly has no intrest in helping Meteora or stopping this peacefully. Her first thought is stopping Meteora. Her living through it is not necessary. It’s also clear her racisim isn’t REMOTELY gone depsite Buff Frog and Star’s best attempts and despite learning just how deeply and horribly Mewni’s engrained racism has hurt eclipsa and destoryed Moon’s own family history. To Moon this is just a big monster to fight.. i’ll dive into this more in a bit.

For now our heroines encounter an angry mob. This time their not here for Homer Simpson, but for Meteora as her rampages have destroyd their towns, livelehoods and given some weird guy a hat. It’s the best bit of the episode and i’m embarassed I forgot it happened.

So with them being no help our queens back out but end up finding some actual help: Eddie! You know the guy from the episode I skipped over... River’s cousin or something like that. He dosen’t have a wiki entry, I do not know why. He’s voiced by Rhys Dharby of Flight of the Conchords Fame whose since made quite the career as a voice actor. No major roles yet that i’m aware of, but a lot of delightful minor ones like this. It’s good to see him he was one of the highlights of that show and not just because he sang this..

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Eddie showed up in the Bog Beast of Boggabah and I honestly forgot he was in this episode.. but again, it’s Rhys Dharby. It’s not like suddenly finding out “Aw god dammit Pauly Shore is in this”. So Eddie agrees to help as he’s been tracknig Meteora.. and we find out something troubling: Meteora is getting BIGGER. Gradually, to the point the bog from said episode Is skipped over is drained because she DRANK IT. We also get a great exchange “I’d hate to see the size of her mother” “Actually her father more than helped with that”

Awwwww.... seriously Esme Blanco is a national treasure and has some great deliveries in this one.. and some heartbreaking ones. But before we can get to that it turns out Meteora sucked the powers out of Eddies family.. who he misses..e xcept one guy> That guy can fuck right off. Seriously Eddie is also a national treasure and I wish he’d shown up in season 4. I mean he couldn’t of HURT it. For one it’s Rhys Dharby and for another that season shot itself in the face, both feet, the groin and then the face again enough that I don’t think anything could hurt it as bad as the writers already did.

But sadly we say farwell to Eddie as he goes out how men have since the begining of time.. deciding to poke a strange creature till it murdered him. Or took his soul out in this case, speaking of which...

Yeah while I couldn’t get Jess in time for this review, she did bring this up in the past: Meteora’s ablility to pull a

Comes right the fuck out of nowhere with no build up and no explination for it. She DID drain personalites and according to this episode youth.. but that was with a big ole machine. It MIGHT have been intended to be one of Globgor’s powers.. but that makes zero sense, as if he COULD do that, as we saw with Toffee last season when he had that power, also out of nowhere but at least it made a touch more sense given his power was draining magical energy anyway at the time, so adding souls to that isn’t a huge stretch, but as we saw that would’ve been game over for the comission, especially since we DO see him fighting them one on three next season. If he had this power, he wouldn’t be in crystal and I think they realized that, but just tried to act as if his daugther COULDN’T do that and assumed everyone would casually forget. And I get not accounting for me writing about this years later, even I wouldn’t of thought that, but not counting on fans both young and old to latch onto a continuity error? Have you met fandoms Disney, have you? It dosen’t bring the story down entirely and I get WHY ti’s there, so she can nonlethally kill people so we’re not down most of the cast for Season 4, but it feels like an easy win button and one she barely uses despite it being eye beam activated. It should be easy enough to pull, boom, soul suck, win, rinse and repeat. It’s okay to have uber powerful tequniques but they have to have a drawback. For instance the Kaioken from DBZ. It’s a really damn cool technique that gives the user a neat red aura and amplifies poewr.. but the more you amplify the more strain it puts on your body and the more likely you’ll die, and Super later creatively explained why it hadn’t been used since Super Sayian was introduced because said form would’ve sped it up so much it’d be too much for a body to take. Here whie Meteora dosen’t use it in EVERY fight, she uses it enough that it makes no sense this isn’t just her first move for every fight she gets into, mental breakdown or not.

That being said Meteora’s current mental state as she talks to her mother, having regressed to talking in only a few words and acting like a child, makes perfect sense. Henious already wasn’t in great mental shape to begin with, having a slow sustained breakdown since Marco overthrew her. and now on top of this she remembers her whole life has been a lie, starts to mutate into her natural state at a rapid and likely unehalthy pace, and then finds out on top of all of this Mewni is rightfully owed to her. Given she ended last episode blowing a guy up for rejecting her, it’s not a stretch that given even more power and no time to process anything, Metora would deteroate further.

Esme and Jessica really knock this scene out of the park as Eclipsa presents Metora with her old doll Bobo and gently trying ot talk to her.. but you also get the fear Eclipsa feels as she tries to awkardly manuver around the fact her daughter is far more unhinged than she was prepared for, even threanting Eclipsa simply because Eclipsa wanted to be called mother instead of mommy. But despite this fear.. Eclipsa wants to help and Walter beautifuly captured metoera as a hulk like tragic figure:a being with low sanity and too much power desperate to be loved by the one person it cares about. And it makes it even more heartbreaking as Eclipsa explains what happened: bad people trapped her , a disfunctoinal society with a racist queen and even more racist subjects has taken hold in her absence... and it’s clear both want opposite things: Meteora wants what sh’es owed, her family back on the throne and Mewni back in her graps, but has lost herself so much to rage, anger and insanity she can’t see it’s not hers to take, while Eclipsa.. just wants her daughter back. She’d be happy just settling down with her and having a LIFE after hers was taken away. Eclipsa just wants a chance to be with what family she has left. It just HURTS to know that despite RIGHTFULLY hating the comission, despite having eveyr reason to take the crown from Moon by force and make the world better by force.. she dosen’t want that. She just wants some peace. It’s selfish... but it’s hard not to be when you havealmost nothing to hold onto. Eclipsa has lost her legacy, her husband and her crown... Meteora is all she has and all she wants and sh’ed of been happy if she just accepted that. If that was enough.

But the real telling part, and the thing that ultimately makes this go as bad as it does.. is Moon’s reactions to all of this. Sh’es CONFUSED by Meteora having a toy as if that’s foreign to her a monster would, and she’s cleaerly livid , if restrianing it, at both Meteora’s deire for the crown and Eclipsa RIGHTFULLY calling out the state of how things are, and mildly at that. Despite seeing how much damage Mewni’s inherent racisim has done, how it lead to her living a lie, ruined Eclipss, Globgore and Metora’s lives, despite how DESPERTLY her daughter struggles to fight against it, despite seeing firsthand that Monsters can have famiies and lives... she can’t let it go. She can’t see monsters as people. SHe dosen’t see a flawed person who was turned into a metpohrical monster by years of brainwashing and abuse and is slowly unravling under the weight of her true self.. she just sees a threat to her kingdom. She dosen’t see her kingdom as racist, just as it should be. And she dosen’t see herself as stepping down like hse damn well should’ve the MOMENT she found out everything. Because at her heart Moon can’t accept the truth and clings to her racisim.

And that my friends.. is what ultimately leads to Tragedy. Not Meteora’s unraveling mental state, not Eclipsa’s naitvite. What happens next is ENITRELY Moon’s fault. Whle Eclipsa was failing to get through to Metora, she was trying her best and might of gotten somewhere.. but Moon was already settling to attack.. and does so, making it look like Eclipsa set her own child up.

A fight ensues, a suprisingly even one... but Eclipsa breaks it up and PROVES her way could’ve worked. In one of Esme’s best performances sshe tearfully tells her daughter she loves her.. that ALL she wants is time with her to make up for what she’s lost.. she dosen’t need a kingdom or her crown or her wand, all things she DESERVES... she just wants her daughter. She just wants to help her baby girl before she goes so far down this path of hatred and vengance she’s alreayd well trod upon there is no point to return to.

It gets through to Meteora, makes her stop... and Moon TAKES ADANTAGE OF THAT. She then restrains metoera with a magical rock barrier and starts palpatineing her to death. It’s a horrifying moment that ultimately shows who Moon really is.. that when given the chance to let Meteora go, let her CHANGE and grow as a person and help the kingdom.. she instead tries to kill her. When she’s no longer a threat, hasn’t seriously hurt her in their fight, and could use her power to RESTORE the damage she’s done, fix what she’s broken and help the kingdom grow and mend the bridges racisim has torn down. But all she can see is a monster, and something to destroy.. not someONE to save.

So Eclipsa does what Moon would do if it were star about to die and saves her daughter, desperatly trying to stop mooon.. and allowing Meteora to get a clear shot and take half of moon’s soul. While Eclipsa is able to stop her from taking the full thing, Moon is left disoreinted and half alive and leaves on insticnt to parts unknown while Meteora escapes. Eclipsa is left alone, devistated and with her daughter truly lost. And the worst is truly yet to come.

Before we get into final thoughts i’d like to talk about how this scene impacts Moon’s betryal later. To me having rewatched this scene.. it only makes it work MORE making it clear Moon simply can’t fahtom racial equality and that she can’t fahtom that eclipsa had very good reason for doing what she did ... to me it comes off as her using Eclipsa betryaing her as a very flimsy justifcation to not validate her rule and to first retire and then try a coup. That “Well she “BETRAYED” me so i’m fine. “ But in truth... she betrayed Eclipsa first. She attacked her daughter TWICE when Eclipsa was close to getting through to her Her reasons are flimsy.. because i’ts not ABOUT eclipsa, but what eclipsa represents: equality with a race Moon dosen’t see as people. It’s about Moon’s racisim coloring everything tills h’es truly blinded and should have lost everything She didn’t because the ending is a fucking disgrace, but we might get to that at some point, the point here is for all that disgrace’s faults... it did get it right here, and Moon was always portrayed as being unable to let go of her racisim no matter what it cost her or how much her daughter despteratly tried to change her. Trust me as someone whose Dad used to argue that gay marriage meant he should be able to marry his cat, and who still argues against trans people using the bathroom of their choice, I get trying desperatley to change someone who don’t wanna. “Sigh”.

Final Thoughts: This episode is truly excellent. The writing is top notch as is the voice acting for all involved and the climax isa true, well led up to tragedy. The animation is also on point, with the characters emotions on perfect display. This is an episode I now realize is one of the series best and worth ar ewatch if you haven’ts een it. Truly amazing stuff that gets me pumped for the finale.. and disapoints me in how the series could reach these highs for one finale.. but would sink to it’s lowest point for next seasons. Next Time on Prince of Wishful Thinking: Star tries depseratly to find her mom, while Marco, Tom and a motely crew of misfits try to take down Meteora and Tom learns the awful truth from the photo booth and wears a zuko ponytail which weirdly looks good on him. That boy can rock anything let me tell you.

If you enjoyed this reviews, please consider joining my patreon at patreon.com/popculturebuffet. As mentioned my 30 dollar stretch goal includes a review of the cluster fuck that is the series final arc, and the goals up to that , me making 20 and 25 dollars a month repectively, have their own nifty rewards: At 20 i’ll review Darkwing Duck once a month, the two remaning Ducktales 87 mini series I have not covered and the Danny Phantom film The Ultimate Enemy. 25 meanwhile gets you reviews of the Proud Family Movie, the theatrical recess movie and the Kim Possible almost finale movie so the drama. And 30 also gets you reviews of every episode of gravity falls season 1 at least one a month till I finish it at some point, so as you can see you get a lot of bang for your buck and these reviews will be public for everybody. Not only that but joining my patreon gets you a review a month if you pitch in 5 dollars and evne if you can’t swing THAT much just 2 bucks gets you access to my discord, a guarnateed pick in my shorts, votes for patreon exclusive reviews, and SAID patreon exclusive reviews. It’s a lot of bang for your buck is what i’m saying so please help me out so I can make a living off this and sign up today. I even JUST ADDED an exclusive and utterly insane scrooge mcduck review, The Great Wig Mystery. So throw in a buck to check that out.

And if your intrested in Tomtavia... please hit me up. I’m really proud of it and until then... i’ll see you at the next rainbow.

#star vs the forces of evil #tom lucitor #prince of wishful thinking #meteora butterfly #eclipsa butterfly #moon butterfly #rhys dharby #disney xd #disney channel #disney plus #reviews

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franniebanana · 4 years ago

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CQL Rewatch - Ep15

I forgot this guy’s name, Yao or something? Honestly, I don’t care enough to research this, like, at all. I hate this guy. My friend and I now refer to him as the Hype Man, so I might just call him that from now on. But I wanted to say that I didn’t realize he was in it so early, so when I saw him, I was like, “That fucking guy!!” And I also totally missed that the point of Jiang Fengmian leaving was to take this worthless piece of trash somewhere. I wish he’d died haha. But then I guess there’d be less reason to hate him, and I enjoy hating him.

I can’t believe this is the first paragraph that people are going to see. If you’re reading this now, you’re like, why do I want to read this crap? And y’know what, I can’t blame you. The next few episodes are gonna be rough. I don’t even know if there will be much to say on my end. My friend, after watching these few episodes commented something like, “Huh, that really dragged.” I could only agree, pulling my hair out from the headache these few episodes were giving me.

Okay, but seriously, Yao is so pathetic here! Talking about how he never thought they’d end up like this, and, “Oh, we were just a small clan, woe is me!” It’s amazing that he turns into the biggest prick, always right there hyping up the scapegoat-blame game rhetoric. Sorry, I hate this fucker.

A rare nice moment from Madam Yu. It was sweet having her show a caring side, packing medicine for her husband, snacks for her daughter. But of course, it was because Jiang Yanli had come to say goodbye to her earlier. Jiang Cheng is really like his mother—they can’t do anything for kindness’s sake, there’s always an obligation to the kindness.

I hate Wang Lingjiao, but I love her, and I love hating her. I’m conflicted. She’s just such a fun, evil character, more fun than Xue Yang in my opinion, probably because she actual interacts with the main characters in the story. It will forever annoy me that Xue Yang gets so much attention for appearing in a long-ass flashback (via empathy) and what should have been a flashback (Chang Clan) but wasn’t because they wanted it to be padding, I guess.

Anyway, Wang Lingjiao. She’s fun, she goes completely nuts—what’s not to love about her? She’s also someone who is so similar to Madam Yu, but because she also is ambitious and wants to take over Lotus Pier, Madam Yu wants her dead. Haha!

While Madam Yu is, objectively, a horrible person, I actually really like how her bodyguards aren’t treated like servants. I like that there’s mutual respect there, as there should be when you’re talking about protecting someone. Unfortunately, I think Madam Yu treats them better than her own family in most cases. It’s cool that the Jiang Clan doesn’t rely on servants to get food and tea and whatnot. These are things that the disciples and leaders must do for themselves. By contrast, the Jins have so many servants—it’s almost obscene by comparison.

Also I want to point out how hot-headed Jiang Cheng gets here, while his mother is just cool as a cucumber. It really shows you how unready he is to actually lead (which she points out). He’s so emotional, quick to anger, yet he has none of the foundations to really lead a group of people. Even when the disciples are explaining to them what happened to the kid and the kite, it’s Wei Wuxian who is keeping everyone calm and asking the questions.

I love that his first reaction here is to insult Wang Lingjiao’s intelligence. We’re basically getting a parallel to how he reacts to Wen Chao, which is fun because you can see how his behavior hasn’t changed at all. He uses his wit in both situations and is easily able to outwit both Wen Chao and Wang Lingjiao. What’s kind of interesting is that Jiang Cheng will speak up now when he wouldn’t before. And I wonder is it because he is guilty for being silent earlier with Wen Chao, or is it something else? I think ultimately Jiang Cheng blames Jin Xizuan, Lan Wangji, and Wei Wuxian for what happens to his parents and to Lotus Pier. Even though, logically, it would have been destroyed anyway, he still wants to place the blame on someone who he can reach. All this is to say, I don’t think Jiang Cheng regrets not speaking up at the Wen Indoctrination. So I think he feels superiority over Wang Lingjiao really because he thinks she’s a stupid woman. And duh, she is not that clever. But she is smart enough to be able to use what talents she has to get ahead. She apparently is favored over Wen Chao’s own wife (who knew he was even married—not me lol), and you have to be ambitious and have some smarts to get that far. That’s not to say that Jiang Cheng wouldn’t treat a man this way too—I think he would. I think he picks and chooses who he’ll stand up to. He’s on his own turf, she’s an invader, she’s a woman—she only brought a few henchmen, right? He’s also been charged with watching over Lotus Pier in his father’s absence. Maybe he just wants to look big for once. Just a thought. Take it or leave it.

So, I think Madam Yu is enjoying this. She’s getting two things she wants: the Wens are going to leave and she gets to beat the shit out of Wei Wuxian. She doesn’t even have to be prodded to punish him, right? She barely waits until Wang Lingjiao has finished speaking. This has something she’s wanted to do for a long time. I think she’s hit him before, yes? But she can go all out right now, since Jiang Fengmian, his only real protector, is gone.

Also Jiang Cheng! Man, he’s torn apart! He hates to see this happening to Wei Wuxian—yes, he blames him for all that shit, but he doesn’t want to see this happen to him. It’s actually harder to watch Jiang Cheng in all of this than Wei Wuxian, who mostly remains as stoic as he could possibly be while she’s whipping the shit out of him. And again here, we get Wei Wuxian telling Jiang Cheng not to interfere, because the last thing he wants is for Jiang Cheng to be penalized too. He’s fine receiving this punishment because it’s a “better me than him” kind of a thing. It’s harder to watch someone else suffer than to suffer ourselves, right? I’m like that, idk if you readers are, but I think a lot of people are like that. I mean, I’ve always been that way, but it’s been amplified since I became a parent. And not only is he accepting of being whipped by Zidian, he’s ready to lose his fucking right hand. The hand that he wields a sword with. His dominant hand. He is ready to lose it with absolutely no fuss. That’s how much Wei Wuxian cares about Lotus Pier. His response is, “I’ll have to learn how to use my left hand.” It’s a passing line, a line when you can’t even see his face—but do you get how big that is? Jiang Cheng is up there losing his mind, completely emotional, crying, yelling at his mother to stop—Wei Wuxian is just silently gritting his teeth and taking it. They’re both brave (I would not want to stand up to Madam Yu), but different kinds of brave, y’know?

I do love this part. I’m not gonna lie. Seeing Madam Yu slap Wang Lingjiao around is something that’s deeply, deeply satisfying. I guess it’s just nice to see Madam Yu’s anger turned towards an actual villain, since up until this point, it’s been directly mainly at Wei Wuxian and her own husband. I think this part is forever tainted if you know how the story goes, because Madam Yu is just on fire! But if you’ve seen this series before, which hopefully you have (otherwise spoilers abound), you know it doesn’t end well for her. I like this plot device here, making you think that the good guys are going to come out on top, and then reversing it so quickly as soon as the Core-Melting Hand shows up. One minute, you’re cheering, the next, you’re…not.

I also want to point out how quickly things reverse here as well. Jiang Cheng is trying to protect and comfort Wei Wuxian throughout this whole scene, which is something we’re definitely not used to seeing. This has always (and I mean always) been more of Lan Wangji’s thing. But in kind of a nice twist of fate, we actually see Jiang Cheng caring for Wei Wuxian. But then, boy, do things change! We see a complete reversal of this behavior—first Wei Wuxian has to be there for Jiang Cheng’s emotional state, and then his physical one. And the man does not complain about it at all.

I want to say that I didn’t cry in my first watch of CQL until episode 50. That is 100% the truth, so help me God. However, when I watched this scene in the donghua, I cried like a little bitch. Cried probably isn’t the right word—how about sobbed. I sobbed. I think because I knew it was coming when I watched CQL, it didn’t really affect me (plus my husband was right there, not paying attention, but still on the couch with me, so I tend to not cry as much when he’s around. I like to cry on my own, okay?). Having said that, the second time I saw this scene, I fucking cried, and I really didn’t stop until after they told Jiang Yanli, because that sweetheart crying makes me cry, okay? I have a really hard time watching things about children and parents, because I always think about my own parents and my own kid, so it just makes me really emotional. The idea of never seeing your parents again, especially in such a traumatic situation, at the age of what—17? That’s something I can’t even begin to imagine. In a word, horrific. Traumatic isn’t even a strong enough word to describe the emotional and mental turmoil that a teenager would be going through. But I can probably ramble about that later.

And my heart breaks for Wei Wuxian here too. Even though she hated him, even though she treated him so poorly, I’m sure he still thought of her as something akin to a mother. She was the only mother figure he had in his life who was still living, so there was definitely an attachment there (and this is proven later). Even being acknowledged by her here must mean something to him. She may hate him, but she trusts him to keep her children safe and to protect them. It’s honestly so sad.

Ugh, this is hard to watch. As a mother, the idea of sending your kid adrift when you know you’ll probably never see them again is so heartbreaking. The connection you have with your children is something that no other relationship can match, whether you physically bore your children or not. They are a part of you. Like, let’s be real, raising children is difficult—they can test your patience, make you angry, make you sad and hurt (toddlers don’t care about you, yeah, I said it)—but you love them in spite of it all. And for me, I can never really hate Madam Yu. I can find her attitude and treatment of certain individuals deplorable, but at the end of the day, she loved her children. Was she a good mom? No, probably not. But I don’t think Jiang Fengmian was a good dad either (although I think he tried a bit harder). But I think she loved A-Cheng and A-Li, and I think she trusted Wei Wuxian to protect them. I think she gave him that shred of respect at the end.

In case you’re wondering, I fucking cried through to the end of this episode. I mean, Jesus, Yanli just gets immediately thrown into another boat and tied up with her brothers, after finding out that her mother might be dead already, and then her dad abandons them too. I just can’t.

I’m sorry this was short (maybe I’m not sorry, depending on how much you like the episode). I’m going to try and knock out more than one episode per week because I just don’t have a lot to say. These are mainly getting through the plot episodes, if you know what I mean.

Other episodes: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |

#wei wuxian #jiang cheng #cql #the untamed #jiang yanli #jiang fengmian #madam yu #wen zhuliu #core-melting hand #wang lingjiao #jiaojiao #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #cql rewatch #wwx

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nicnacsnonsense · 5 years ago

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So right now as I sit here procrastinating on the things I’m supposed to be doing is probably a good a time as any to dump my Good Omens Jane Eyre AU thoughts on you all. (Quick side note: Aziraphale, Crowley, and Beelzebub are all female-presenting, she/her for the purposes of this AU.)

I want to start you off with a little backstory. The other day @eunyisadoran suggested to me that Gabriel and Beelzebub would make for a perfect Rochester/Jane Eyre AU. What my mouth said in response was “Sorry, I don’t really ship Ineffable Bureaucracy,” but my brain said, “Wait, shut up a second me; I can work with this.” But as I considered it I decided that while I could see Gabriel as Rochester — Gabriel isn’t someone I’d consider especially Byronic, but if you set that aside, he can still function in the story the way the character needs to — Beelzebub as Jane was not working for me at all. If Gabriel tried to pull on Bee some the shit Rochester pulled on Jane, Bee would just straight punch him in the face. By that point it was getting pretty late, so I fired a message off to Euny about how I’d do it that I’m pretty sure was supposed to be a joke at the time, but the next morning she came back to me super on board for it, so here we are.

Okay, stick with me, cause it’s going to sound weird at first, but I promise it all comes together. As I said, Gabriel as Rochester, but Jane is Aziraphale. Beelzebub is instead Bertha, Rochester’s mad wife. For Aziraphale and Gabriel’s relationship we’re going to take the things about Jane/Rochester that are a bit problematic and amplify them, while dialing down the idea of there being any genuine love there. For Aziraphale Gabriel is handsome and charming, but more importantly he holds a position of power over her, so when he starts showing an interest she subconsciously convinces herself she returns his interest. Meanwhile Gabriel is lonely and mentally exhausted and Aziraphale is emotionally easy for him. She’s attractive enough, she’s there when he wants her, goes away when he doesn’t, doesn’t ask anything of him, and is generally pretty compliant. I wouldn’t say it’s Gabriel’s intention to use Aziraphale like that, but that’s absolutely what he’s doing.

So we get to the wedding scene and the truth coming out about Bee — let’s maybe have Ligur as her brother, since in Jane Eyre Bertha is a POC — and Aziraphale leaves Thornfield. Eventually she ends up at the doorstep of the River siblings: Crowley, Shadwell (young ‘67 era Shadwell, obv, not old man Shadwell), and Anathema. (Which admittedly is a weird group of siblings. I’d probably make Anathema a half-sister, with a Puerto Rican mother.) Crowley instantly gets a massive crush on Aziraphale when Shadwell brings her in, and very quickly falls in love with her. However Crowley assumes Aziraphale couldn’t possibly love another woman, and so keeps pushing Aziraphale on Shadwell, thinking if those two get married, at least Crowley will always be able to keep Aziraphale close by. Meanwhile Aziraphale hasn’t figured out the whole “being into girls” thing yet, but knows she’s hurt by the way Crowley, who is Aziraphale’s dearest friend, keeps pushing Aziraphale away and pawning her off on her brother. Eventually Aziraphale does agree to go marry Shadwell and go to India with him because she’s convinced it her duty and she thinks it’s what Crowley wants. But at the last minute (and with some help from Anathema) Aziraphale realizes she can’t leave the person she’s in love with — her cousin Crowley. So Shadwell goes off to India on his own (and has a terrible time because we hate him), and Aziraphale and Crowley live together as wives with Anathema as their mutual best friend (aside from each other).

But we’re not nearly done yet. First we’re actually going to backtrack some to touch on some Gabriel backstory. I’ve rearranged the timeline a little to lessen the age gap between Gabriel and Aziraphale. Aziraphale can stay 18, but Gabriel I’m pushing down to late 20’s. Part of that means pushing his affair with Céline (who I think we shall leave as Céline) to before his marriage, while he was on break from university. Gabriel was not going to take her baby in — despite her claims that he is the father, he suspects the actual father was her other lover (who Gabriel didn’t know about and dumped her when he found out) Lucian. However, Gabriel’s mother found out about the whole thing and ordered him to take in the child, and Gabriel will argue with absolutely anyone except his mother. No one argues with Mrs. Rochester. No one. And that is how he ended up as the guardian of Adam, who is eight when Aziraphale is hired on as governess.

Gabriel graduates university when Adam is one, and at encouragement from his mother he goes to Jamaica to visit the Masons and potentially court their daughter Bee (apparently God just ships all the angel/demon pairings; all about that balance). They get married and then whoops, turns out “madness” runs in the family. Bee’s behavior starts to become erratic, and she begins losing touch with reality. They had back to England with hopes of better doctors and a cure, but during the voyage Bee’s symptoms continue to worsen and she becomes prone to violent outbursts. It’s so bad by the time they reach England, Gabriel ends up sneaking her into Thornfield at the dead of night. Little three year old Adam wakes up and sees this, but is told in the morning he dreamed it. He still tells the story to Aziraphale when she comes years later, but Adam tells a lot of wild stories and she assumes this is just another one of them.

Backtracking a bit, what Bee has is what we would recognize as schizophrenia and she is currently suffering from a psychotic episode (which are of course not usually violent, but in Bee’s particular case she can be). Unfortunately the doctors weren’t really familiar with that, so they just called it hysteria. It’s all those lady parts, making her crazy, as they do. Bee is prescribed with a frequent regimen of heavy doses of opium, to curb her outbursts. It does calm her down, but turns out one of the more uncommon side effects of opiates is to cause psychosis. So this medication actually exacerbates her psychosis, even if it keeps her calm. So she isn’t so much locked in the room as she is just in a constant drugged out haze — when she isn’t full-on catatonic — completely divorced from reality.

Grace Poole will be played by Madame Tracy, who I realize is pretty different from Grace in terms of personality, but I have my reasons. Tracy is the kind of person who is scatterbrained enough to occasionally forget to give Bee her medication and also kind-hearted and scatterbrained enough to sometimes deliberately skip a dose because she seemed like she was doing better, she was practically lucid today, and I really do feel she gets better quality rest when she’s not on the drugs. Those are the times Bee manages to break out, when the amount of opium in her system has dipped enough to allow her to actually get up and move around independently. Unfortunately she’s still suffering from her psychosis at these times. Mostly she just wanders around confused and getting up to small mischief — breaking things, moving things around, and the like — but she is still violent on occasion.

After Aziraphale and Gabriel’s aborted wedding and Aziraphale leaving, Gabriel snaps a little. He sends Adam away (to visit Grandma perhaps) as well as a good chunk of the servants, and then cuts off Bee’s opium. He claims he’s doing this to punish her for her part in ruining his wedding and his chance at happiness, but honestly the dude just misses his wife. Because he doesn’t see the vacant woman sitting doped up in a chair all day as his wife. At least when she’s off the opium and throwing shit it reminds him of the passion she used to have. At first it does get worse, but after a bit she starts to calm down. Tracy stays with her when she’s upset and stays calm and positive, Bee starts to get familiar with the house, less staff means she’s not running into people she doesn’t know as much. They figure out that most of her violent behavior was caused by her being confused and scared and lashing out. Then the morning she wakes up and is genuinely lucid. After 6 years, her psychotic episode is over. They conclude that while the opium was keeping her calm, it was also worsening her delusions, and resolve not to give her any ever again.

All of this about what happened after she left Aziraphale has had in a letter from Adam, written with help from Madame Tracy and his new tutor Mr. Newton Pulsifer. They have heard of Aziraphale’s new station and improved fortune, and Adam begs Aziraphale, as well as the Misses Crowley and Anathema Rivers, to come visit them all in Thornfield Hall as soon as they can. They all lived happily ever after, the end.

#good omens #ineffable wives #ineffable bureaucracy #jane eyre au #aziraphale eyre #jane eyre #fandom fusion #long post

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stevenuniversallyreviews · 6 years ago

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Episode 93: Alone at Sea

“But why would a fish ever bite a hook?”

Something I don’t believe I’ve mentioned here before is that both of my parents are ministers. I myself am not religious (not because of trauma or anything, my folks are great), but I was raised in the Presbyterian Church by a mom and dad who often saw things through a “hey, that could be in a sermon!” lens, and that tends to rub off on a kid. Not to oversell the value of these posts, but it’s not lost on me that I ended up writing something to share with people every Sunday. I can think of worse people to emulate.

So it’s hard for someone like me not to notice that Gems take crucial steps towards becoming Crystal Gems through some pretty baptismal circumstances. I’m not saying the symbolism is intentional, because neither aquatic rituals nor the show’s crew are uniquely Christian—Rebecca Sugar, for instance, comes from a Jewish background—but we’ve yet to see a Gem fall in love with Earth without being reborn through water. Peridot first bonds with Steven in the rain. Ruby and Sapphire land on solid ground together in the rain. Pink Diamond and Pearl first realize they need to rebel as a storm brews.

And then there’s Lapis Lazuli.

Lapis literally entered the series because Steven broke a mirror, so it’s no wonder she’s misfortune personified. Bad things happen to Lapis. Bad things happen because of Lapis. And sure enough, she might control the same waters that herald rebirth for other Gems, but she’s also consumed by them. Her old life can’t get washed away because she’s still submerged. So an episode about Steven trying to reconnect her with water is bound to be a bit more complex than a joyous scene in the rain.

Alone at Sea takes us to a dark place for Steven Universe, even compared to its preceding episode, the harrowing Monster Reunion. Plenty of bad things have happened to our characters, but for the first time since the Week of Sardonyx we must confront that one of our characters has herself intentionally done a bad thing. Not day-to-day meanness or misguided acts of loyalty to Homeworld, but something truly awful. Almost as if we’re priming for some big reveal about a core character’s moral ambiguity at the end of the season.

This isn’t to say that Lapis, who also entered the series by stealing the ocean and battling the Crystal Gems, is a stranger to doing bad things. But there’s a gulf of difference between seeing magic antagonist stuff and the learning that she was abusive to her ex. Not many kids are gonna cause marine catastrophes, but way too many kids are gonna have to deal with abusive relationships one day, so Alone at Sea can’t help but feel more raw.

The first moments of the episode show that Lapis is more than her suffering; she’s capable of having genuine fun, especially with Steven. She hints at her deeper issues by insisting she doesn’t deserve to be treated nicely, but she’s just as quick to snort with laughter. And even after boarding the rechristened Li’l Lappy, she’s willing to give happiness a shot. While she’s uncomfortable about dipping her toe in the water, she still finds moments of joy (particularly when it comes to horns). But more often than not, this positive outlook is hindered by her crewmates.

Greg, bless him, hurts more than he helps. He introduces himself as the guy whose leg Lapis broke, his discomfort around her water powers stifles her floundering self-confidence, and he bores her to death with regular fishing. Likewise, while Steven means well, he’s overbearing in his attempts to make Lapis happy. As awkward as it is, I’m glad the show acknowledges how easy it can be to mess up when trying to cheer up a friend in the dumps. Despite Steven’s apology about pushing too hard, we don’t get an explicit lesson about paying attention to how your friends are feeling instead of steamrolling them with fun. This isn’t a criticism: it’s okay to not get explicit lessons all the time, and it’s a nice change of pace from the show’s recent string of episodes that outright tell us the moral, even though these morals are sound.

Everything comes to a head when the rudder is thrown off, veering Li’l Lappy and her namesake off course. Steven gives that apology, but Lapis reiterates that she doesn’t deserve his help, and this time we learn why: as brutal and bullying as Jasper is, in some twisted sense Lapis learned to love their toxic relationship, using it to take all her grief and rage out on Jasper. We saw a hint of her aggression in Chille Tid, but in Jennifer Paz’s best delivery of the episode, Lapis reveals that she misses Malachite. And right on cue, the opportunity to fuse with Jasper again reveals itself.

Jasper’s last lines that weren’t just shouting “YOU!” at Steven were all the way back in Jailbreak, but Kimberly Brooks is worth the wait. Her hungry correction that she was “looking for you” instead of the crew as a whole is perfect (the woman knows her way around second person pronouns), and she manages to become even scarier when she transitions from menacing to begging. All at once we see that Jasper is still monstrous, but has been changed by Lapis. Not in the way she’s saying when trying to convince Lapis to fuse again—there’s little indication that Malachite would be any healthier if she came back—but in the way this massive warrior is on her knees pleading to essentially be made a prisoner again.

From her debut, Lapis has been the most powerful being on Earth by a country mile thanks to her mastery of its most abundant resource. She effortlessly bested the Crystal Gems in Ocean Gem, and had the mental fortitude to overcome Jasper’s iron will and wrest control of Malachite. But only now, in Jasper’s pleas, does a character finally acknowledge Lapis’s power. It speaks volumes to their relationship, because it’s not just about control and manipulation: at some level, beneath all the toxicity, Jasper understands Lapis in a way others don’t. It’s not enough to make them a functional couple, but it shows that there’s an uncomfortable level of nuance even in relationships that are obviously bad. It would be much easier to write either Jasper or Lapis off as totally rotten, but Malachite wouldn’t work without a hint, however small, of real affection.

Malachite made both Jasper and Lapis feel stronger, but they weren’t strong in the real way: they were suffering, and instead of trying to fix this problem, they each learned to like the suffering. And it might be easy to place more blame on Jasper than Lapis, because even here we see how manipulative and violent she can be, but Alone at Sea doesn’t shy away from Lapis’s complicity even when presenting her in a more heroic light. Steven doesn’t call her out on her behavior, but he doesn’t exactly correct her when she reveals how terrible she’s been.

Back in It Could’ve Been Great and Message Received, we got a taste of uncertainty in terms of Peridot’s future. Sure, a promo spoiled that she was staying with the Crystal Gems, but otherwise there was no telling whether she was a temporary addition. Lapis has the same quality, but amplified to a thrilling degree due to her rockier stance with the Crystal Gems. When I first watched Alone at Sea, I legitimately didn’t know what would happen next. Lapis was such a new and tenuous ally and had so much baggage with Jasper that it wouldn’t have shocked me if she had gone back to being Malachite, especially considering how underused Malachite ended up being. It gives the episode way higher stakes than, say, the Week of Sardonyx, where despite the turmoil you could pretty much guarantee that the Crystal Gems would come out of it okay. Lapis is fundamentally not okay, so anything could happen.

And that actual chance of returning to Jasper makes Lapis’s rejection so much more triumphant. She seems to sincerely consider Jasper’s offer, even when she sounds sickened by the prospect, but when given a true choice she’s able to see past her longing for that life. Malachite began with Jasper’s forceful “Just say yes,” and she can’t come back if Lapis says no. It might be alluring, but unlike Jasper, Lapis refuses to take the bait.

I haven’t gushed about Aivi and Surasshu for a while, have I? I’ll be honest, a big part of that is that with the release of Steven Universe’s first soundtrack, the composers stopped releasing background tracks on the internet, and only several years later have these tracks finally popped up again. Access to their music got scarcer and scarcer, but I’m so glad that before it dried up, we got the instrumentation of this final sequence, because it’s really something.

As the clouds gather and she talks about her time fused with Jasper, we hear the buildup of Lapis’s darker theme, and the moment she reveals that she misses being Malachite, the fusion’s ominous two-note motif clangs just once. The track is soon overtaken by Jasper’s synth drum war march, with only hints of Lapis’s celesta leaking in (just like in The Return), but as Jasper begs to fuse again we get the very first quiet version Malachite’s motif (at 1:49, it’s so easy to miss); the fusion’s theme is no longer a force of nature, but a desperate plea.

A piano rendition of Lapis’s theme drowns out Jasper as she considers her options. Strings build to the same fever pitch that we got when Lapis first agreed to dance, but they fade to a quiet conclusion as she refuses to go back to Malachite. Jasper’s drums make one last appearance as she lashes out at Steven, but Lapis’s counterattack is as musically calm as her rejection. Lapis could have gotten loud, dramatic variants of her theme for her one-two punch defending herself and then Steven, and it would have sounded awesome, but instead both big moments show that she’s shunning loudness for peace. Tying all these musical themes together is impressive enough, but that restraint ties the whole scene together.

Jasper is about to dominate the final arc of the season in a story that has nothing to do with Lapis, but everything to do with Lapis. It’s safe to say Jasper doesn’t handle their breakup well, and her collection of Corrupted Gems is less a matter of a soldier raising an army and more a jilted lover looking for acceptance after being abandoned for what’s likely the first time in her very long life. This is the first in a string of blows that knock Jasper down more than her fight with Garnet ever did: it’s one thing to lose, but it’s another to be rejected, and until Jasper learns to make a change, rejection is the only future she’s got.

Lapis goes right back to being an angsty teen after this, despite getting more comfortable around Peridot. But Alone at Sea makes me appreciate her eventual abandonment of Earth when the going gets tough again, because while it’s not the right thing to do, it makes sense that a character with massive unresolved trauma would follow the most defensive instincts possible to avoid further pain. I’m not huge on the show just saying Lapis did something awful and not following it up with much soul-searching, but she does plenty of work outside of Jasper and perhaps it’s for the best that she focused on less toxic parts of her life for self-improvement.

The big bummer of Lapis and Jasper’s story is that it never really resolves: even when Jasper halfway reforms, she and Lapis will never share a screen again, let alone have a conversation. I’m not saying I want a reconciliation, but apology is good for the soul, so I hope that someday Little Homeworld sees a moment where Lapis says she’s sorry for her part in Malachite’s agony, even if Jasper was worse.

Still, seeing Lapis refuse to re-fuse still works as a resolution to the episode, if not the arc. And she does work on her issues in other ways, even if Jasper doesn’t. But even though this is their last interaction in the series, admitting your mistakes and choosing not to repeat them is itself a noble step.

I’ve never been to this…how do you say…school?

She’s not even in the episode, but Pearl and her swim cap are the winner of this entry. Does nobody else care about their hair?

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

This is our second excellent feel-bad episode in a row. We may not ever get an acknowledgement about the abusive nature of Lars and Sadie’s relationship in Island Adventure, but at least we have this episode addressing the issue.

(Bear in mind I’m not champing at the bit for more abusive relationships in children’s media, but if you’re going to have them, I just think it’s irresponsible not to use them as an educational tool, is all.)

Top Fifteen

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Chille Tid

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Catch and Release

When It Rains

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

No Thanks!

5. Horror Club 4. Fusion Cuisine 3. House Guest 2. Sadie’s Song 1. Island Adventure

#alone at sea #steven universe #su #steven universally #review

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thevampirediariesdiary · 7 years ago

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2.03, Bad Moon Rising

Welp I accidentally took a month-long hiatus but I’m back! This semester has been kicking my ass, so I’ll do the best I can with getting one of these up each week, but go easy on me.

Damon, Stefan, and Elena convince Rick to help them go through Isobel’s research at Duke University – which is all still there, because apparently her only being missing and not dead means she gets to keep her office?? Tenure is one hell of a drug. The plan is to find anything on the Lockwood family, because for some reason Damon feels threatened by their very existence, and also Katherine.

“So are you sure you wanna do this?” Stefan asks. “Which part?” Elena retorts, pouting while she packs her road trip stuff. “Digging through my birth mother’s life work or –” she pauses, says with perfect derisive scorn, “going to Duke with Damon?” Stefan snorts a little, answers, “Either? Both?” “Well, I’m sure about the first part,” Elena answers, “but then again Rick is a good buffer, so we can bond in our anti-Damon solidarity. I wish you were coming, though.” “You know what?” says Stefan, “Why don’t we hold off a couple days? Wait until Caroline’s less of a danger and then I can go with you.” “It’s okay that I’m going right?” Elena asks. “And be honest because if it’s not then I can just stay here and we can take care of Caroline!” She’s warming to the idea as she suggests it, but Stefan says, “No, listen, I want you to go, okay, I do. You have questions about your lineage, about Katherine, and look, I’m not gonna let the fact that Damon is going keep you from an opportunity to get some answers.” Elena nods, looks at him, says: “You hate it though.”

“I hate it,” Stefan confirms.

“But I love you,” he says. “I love you, too,” Elena answers. They kiss. And with that, this very ambiguous conversation is over; does Stefan hate it because he doesn’t trust Damon (as established in 1.22)? or because Damon killed Jeremy and he’s siding with Elena in her unforgiveness? Why must they go to Duke now? Why is Damon going? Is Alaric really in anti-Damon solidarity with them, because last I checked they were on fine terms, and we never got a Jeremy-murder reaction from him so why assume otherwise? Where IS Jeremy? Is Damon giving him whittling lessons yet? So many questions left unanswered. Ah well.

Downstairs, Alaric and Jenna are being Super Mature about the fact that they’re interacting: Rick makes an excuse about how busy he’s been, Jenna tells him she’s grateful he’s giving Elena this connection to her birth mother. I’m proud of them both, but I’m especially proud of Jenna; Rick offers her an apology for their relationship being start and stop and says “Maybe once I”, and Jenna cuts him off with an “Uhhh, no. Don’t do that,” she says, not unkindly. “Not the half apology, maybe, hope-for-the-future thing.” He smiles wryly. “Do what you need to do, okay?” Jenna says. YOU GO, JENNA!! YOU ARE KIND AND PATIENT BUT YOU WILL NOT BE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF!! Elena asks her if she’s okay as she heads out the door; “Yeah,” Jenna answers, “just, men and their baggage!”

Now, this next scene is absolute gold. Damon leans against the car, says while pouting mightily, “Sorry you can’t come too, Stef.” Stefan ignores him, but Elena throws her bag into the car extra violently and glares.

Stefan tries to sidetrack her: “Call me if you need anything.” “Oh,” Damon says, inserting himself again, “I’ll take really good care of her.”

And Elena!! While maintaining eye contact with him!!! Grabs Stefan around the neck and makes out with him. Is this fucking Twilight?? I don’t know but it’s ridiculous and spiteful and I love it.

And then: they both turn around and look at Damon again? Stefan kind of…smacks his lips???

“Okay, time to go,” Damon says. Having adequately antagonized the person who literally killed Jeremy because Elena chose Stefan over him, they pile into the car and boogie on out.

Stefan sits down with Bonnie to convince her to make Caroline a daylight ring; it’s important, he says, to keep Caroline in contact with the people that connect her to her humanity, and that requires being able to go out in the sun. Bonnie’s not so sure she can trust new vampire-Car; Stefan says, “Then trust me.”

Sighhhhh.

In the car, Damon reaches back and appears to jiggle Elena’s knee?? “How you doin’ back there?” he asks. “You know, this whole pretending to hate me thing is getting a little silly.” Alaric, stuck in the middle of a classic Damon/Elena mess-around yet again, scoffs. “I don’t think she’s pretending. You did kill her brother.” “There is a HUGE asterisk next to that statement,” Damon protests, “he came back to life.” “Yeah,” says Elena flatly, “thanks to a ring you didn’t know he was wearing.” “Why are you so sure I didn’t know?” Damon says. “Did you?” Elena says. “Yes,” he says. Her eyes narrow; “You’re lying,” she says, unsurprised. “Elena!” Damon says, “I saw the ring! It’s a big, tacky thing, it’s hard to miss.”

Bonnie makes Caroline a daylight ring. “So I don’t get to choose the ring I wear the rest of my life?” Caroline complains. No, Car, of course you don’t!! Haven’t you ever heard of engagement rings? But for serious, I think this line is on purpose. This is the beginning of a love story between Caroline and vampirism. Also, this is her “skeptical about spell-casting face”:

Over at Duke, Alaric’s hair is doing something awful.

Vanessa, a research assistant, gets them the keys to Isobel’s office, and then attempts to shoot Elena with a crossbow. Three guesses how that turns out.

Yep, Damon vamps over and takes the arrow for her. Last episode he spared Caroline for her and she stopped Bonnie from killing him; now he’s risked his life to save hers. And what do you know? While Alaric is subduing the unfortunate academic,

Elena’s fallen to her knees at Damon’s side to check on him. This episode has a bunch of purposeful callbacks to Bloodlines – they’re on a road trip, looking for info on Elena’s ancestors, Damon steps in to save her from danger and then she acts worried for his well-being. But this is where the similarity ends. When we return from the commercial, Damon is nagging at Elena to pull the arrow out of his back and she’s making faces like she wants to pull it out and then immediately re-stake him with it. She pulls it out, and then while he’s yelling in pain reaches over his shoulder to drop it, presumably just to be annoying.

Damon blows out a breath, raises his eyebrows (you thought I forgot the eyebrows didn’t you), and announces, “that bitch is deaaaaad.” Elena’s eyes widen – how dare he talk about killing people when he’s trying to make amends for killing her brother – and she says, “Uh, you’re not gonna kill her.” He adopts a weird sultry voice: “Watch me.”

“You touch her and I swear I will never speak to you again,” Elena says.

“What makes you think that has any power over me?” Damon challenges. Elena blinks.

“Because I took an arrow in the back for you?” Damon says, mockingly. He slings an arm over her shoulder, which she immediately pushes off with disgust; “You are severely overestimating yourself,” he says, gleeful. “Right,” says Elena, “I forgot I was speaking to a psychotic mind who snaps and kills people impulsively. Fine. Go ahead. Do whatever you want.”

“You’re trying to manipulate me!” Damon says indignantly. “If by manipulate you mean tell the truth, okay,” Elena says, “guilty.” Damon, for whom manipulation is all tied up with love, kind of stares at her lips.

“Okay!” says Elena, and makes her exit.

Archery-happy research-assistant tells Rick she freaked because she thought Elena was Katherine Pierce, and then everyone digs through Isobel’s giant office holy crap how has Duke not given this office to someone else?? Damon makes a crack about Vanessa wanting to see him naked, and Elena tells her that he can be a first-rate jackass. Damon smiles; this is familiar, this is the way she talked to Jenna about him before everything happened. A bit later, he comes up behind Elena and tells her it’s too bad they’re not friends anymore, because he knows something she doesn’t know that would help her find more about Katherine. “Now who’s manipulating who?” she retorts. Vanessa explains the Aztec legend of the Curse of the Sun and Moon, which will become more or less significant later, and that werewolves in this mythology are hardwired to hunt vampires, who can be killed by a single bite.

Stefan takes Caroline wabbit hunting. He explains to her that vampirism amplifies natural behaviors and traits. “So you’re saying that now I’m basically an insecure, neurotic control-freak…on crack?” she asks.

“Well, I wasn’t gonna say it like that,” Stefan says lightly, and then offers to go with her to Tyler’s swimming hole party to meet up with Matt. Seriously, they both shine in this episode. Stefan’s “that-guy” awkwardness is perfectly foiled by Caroline’s sincerity.

They literally….cribbed this shot……..from a Twilight movie

Anyway…

“Why are you looking at him with your serious vampire look?” Caroline asks.

“My what – my serious vampire look?” Stefan repeats, aghast. “Mmhmm,” says Caroline, “I mean, it’s different than your worried vampire look.”

“Neither of which stray too far from your ‘hey! It’s Tuesday’ look.”

“Oh, okay, I get it,” Stefan says, “you think I’m too serious.” “Well,” says Caroline, “I wasn’t gonna say it like thaaaat.”

Did you notice how many emotions Stefan expressed in that conversation? I’m so proud of him. Real Eleanor from The Good Place flirts with Matt until Caroline compels her away; Matt gets angry at Caroline’s jealousy-drama and wanders off, and Stefan gets angry that Caroline used her compulsion for shallow reason. “So now I have magnified jealousy issues?” she says. “I might as well have stayed dead, my whole personality is killing me.” Stefan finds this freaking delightful:

“Shut up,” she tells him.

They hang out at the party together until it gets dark and everyone starts to pack up (on Mason’s orders), and Stefan tells Caroline to go talk to Matt. Caroline promises Matt no more drama, and they scamper off into the woods to kiss. This coincides with Stefan getting a call from Elena to fill him in on all the new werewolf lore – he looks around for Caroline as soon as he hears a werewolf bite can kill a vampire, but she’s nowhere to be found. Mason Lockwood is in the middle of transforming into a werewolf. Welcome, A plot.

Vanessa informs Elena that a doppelganger is a living, breathing double of oneself, who usually torments the person they look like, tries to undo their life. “More things we already know,” Elena says flatly. “I just wanna know why we look alike.” “Headscratcher, isn’t it?” says Damon, from over by the bookcase. “Do you know something or are you just being yourself?” Elena asks with more sass than you would think would fit in her tiny body. “Well, if I knew anything, I’m not gonna tell you,” Damon says, “not with that attitude.” Alaric looks like he needs a drink, but also a little bit like he’s trying not to laugh?

“That’s good, Damon,” Elena says, dropping the attitude down a notch, “and that’s coming from someone who wants to be my friend. Friends don’t manipulate friends, they help each other.”

This does not compute.

Back in the woods, Tyler gets the brush-off from Real Eleanor, Mason-wolf jumps out of his car at Stefan, Caroline bites Matt, and everyone runs around a lot. Thank goodness it’s not more complicated than that, because this recap is getting really long.

Elena refuses to admit that Alaric’s car is locked and stands fighting with the door handle like a petulant child; it’s been a long day. Damon arrives as the shining knight and unlocks it, and then opens her door for good measure. Then, good deed done, he gets all up in her personal space.

“You’re not going to be able to hate me forever,” he says. She rolls her eyes, says, “Can we just go?” He sighs and hands over a text labeled “Petrova”, for Katherine’s real name: Katerina Petrova. “Let me know what you find, I’m very curious myself,” he tells her; he’s trusting her with the truth, trusting that she’ll share it. She goes to move past him, he says, “You have every right to hate me. I understand. But you hated me before and we became friends.”

“It would suck,” he admits, “if that was gone forever.”

“So,” he says, with forced lightness, “is it?” She meets his eyes, but her face is more closed than it’s ever been. “Have I lost you forever?” Damon asks, like it’s a joke, like it doesn’t matter or like it’s impossible.

“Thank you for the book, Damon,” she says. He gives the smallest of nods, and motions her into the car.

Caroline compels away Matt’s memories of her biting him, and then she and Stefan have a heart-to-heart about their human significant others. “If I followed my own advice I would have walked out on Elena a long time ago,” Stefan says. “You think you should’ve?” Caroline asks. “I know I should have,” Stefan says, “I just can’t.”

Tyler confirms with his (very naked) uncle that he was in fact the wolf that almost killed all of them. Another secret, out. I’m resisting making a very stupid joke here, but I’ll probably succumb and post it separately later.

Caroline walks into the Grille and purposely starts shit with Real Eleanor so that Matt walks out on her. “So what, are you like, breaking up with me?” she calls after him. “Yeah,” he says, wearily, “yeah I guess that’s what I’m doing.” He waits, expecting her to fight him, but she only stares back and lifts her chin defiantly. Caroline is strong enough to walk away, and kind enough to let Matt think that he knows why. As, @itspileofgoodthings pointed out in these tags, she did what Stefan couldn’t do.

Having warned Vanessa against getting caught up in all the supernatural nonsense, Alaric realizes he doesn’t want to get totally caught up in it either, and is able to make good on his half apology maybe hope for the future.

Damon trails Elena up to her porch, exclaiming, “Road trips work well for us!” “This doesn’t mean things are back to the way they used to be, Damon,” says Elena. “Oh, come on,” Damon says, “you know I chipped a little bit off of your wall of hatred.” Elena turns to look at him, says seriously, “I need to know the truth.”

“When you broke Jeremy’s neck, did you know he was wearing the ring?” she asks.

“No,” he says, his voice so strained. “No, I didn’t.”

“Katherine really pissed me off, and I snapped, and I –” He stops, looks at her intently. “I got lucky with the ring,” he admits. “And I don’t know what I would’ve done if he wasn’t wearing it.”

She nods, slightly. “Elena,” he says, “I’m sorry.” She nods again, says, “Thank you for being honest with me. And the answer to your question, about our friendship?”

“Is yes…you have lost me forever.”

She turns to go into the house. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?” Damon says, bitter. She pauses, he accuses, “You used me today.” She looks at him, unrepentant.

“You had information about Katherine that I needed to know.” “I thought friends don’t manipulate friends,” he replies. She looks back at him, her response left unspoken: they’re not friends, and so it doesn’t matter. He swallows, tells her, “You and Katherine have a lot more in common than just your looks.”

Both women stood on this porch with him and pretended to be something they weren’t so that he would pour his heart out to them, and then turned around and rejected him. Living, breathing mirror of oneself indeed.

Katherine wakes Caroline, tells her not to be frightened. “We’re gonna have so much fun together.”

Music Moments: A Fine Frenzy’s “Ashes and Wine” plays over the final scenes, and wow that song doesn’t fuck around: “don't know what to do anymore / I've lost the only love worth fighting for”, “is there a chance / a fragment of light at the end of the tunnel / a reason to fight? / is there a chance you may change your mind / or are we ashes and wine?”

previous episode

#2.03 #bad moon rising #tvd #rewatch #I KNOW I WENT OVERBOARD #BUT THERE'S SOME DAMN GOOD FACE ACTING IN THIS EPISODE #long post

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