#I feel like there was a lot of early rejecting bad character stuff metaphorically and with actions

[elizabethrobertajones]

1x02 - Dean vs Roy

Everyone gifs the bit in 1x01 where he gets thrown over the hood of the car as the definitive start point to prove Dean's always kinda been like this since the start... I still get very amused by this instance...

DEAN Roy, you said you did a little hunting.

ROY Yeah, more than a little.

DEAN Uh-huh. What kind of furry critters do you hunt?

ROY Mostly buck, sometimes bear.

DEAN passes ROY.

DEAN Tell me, uh, Bambi or Yogi ever hunt you back?

ROY grabs DEAN. SAM looks on.

DEAN Whatcha doing, Roy?

I'm gonna quote me from 2 years ago because nothing really substantially changes about this moment except that I always wanted a gifset of it and had no idea the power to make it was in my hands the entire time...

Pfft Dean. Dean Dean Dean. We are two episodes in and you are making things weird and uncomfortable.

Yes, let’s posture about hunting monsters and make fun of the guy for only hunting deer and bears (to be honest Roy seemed to be paying zero attention to Dean’s attempts to assert himself as alpha male hunter of the group), and then when he grabs Dean to stop him standing in the bear trap, he gets really up in his face instead of actually looking around to assess the danger. Nope, you are way too in deep in whatever game you (and only you) were playing there… I mean, I don’t even think this is like sexual tension or whatever, except that Dean had a weird reaction to Roy from the start because of him being a competent woodsman, and Dean is… not. And then he sort of assumes because he’s been angling for a fight that this is Roy snapping and asserting dominance over him, so the feathers go up and Dean’s like I’m just going to stare you down with all this weird one-sided chemistry between us boiling over. And Roy is totally oblivious because he’s the bigger guy.

Dean is basically a small yapping puppy at this point in the show.

I suppose you could fill in some more blanks about missing father figures and how Dean's both going into the woods to search for John (but also knows before they even get there that he won't be there and it's going to be another job) and reacting to Roy this way because as a competent hunter (in his own field, which pisses Dean off because he knows that's nothing compared to hunting the actual, dangerous monsters, which makes him a hero and Roy a dude who shoots Bambi on his weekends...) Roy is kind of the John mirror in the party in a way. A bad one, to Dean.

Of course Dean's reaction is immediately to try and usurp his place - because Dean has now taken on the burden of being the hunter John never really was, the one who puts "saving people, hunting things" as his top priority, talking Sam out of going on the same revenge mission that he's lost John to already...

... But in that way where Dean does this sort of thing, of course there's a ridiculous amount of  momentary tension (pretty much all radiating from Dean's side of things) towards this guy where you can't tell if he wants to kill him or fuck him.

[pennylogue]

thoughts on “growing pains”

yeah, a week late XD but this episode was way too important for me to say nothing.

You can draw a lot of conclusions about why Steven has become so isolated from the gems and Greg, and why the Gems haven’t confronted him about any of his powers going awry, and it’s honestly probably a lot of factors at once…but his conversation with Greg at the beginning of the episode really says just about everything that needs to be said on his end. It’s reflexive at this point. He never wanted to be a burden on the Gems became a habit—he never wants to be a burden or anyone. Even when he should be. Or when he’s being short-sighted about how putting off addressing his issues is just going to make them even harder to deal with down the road.

Still, it’s so heartening that connie makes him go to the hospital. It’s really a solution that’s uniquely hers, something none of his other friends or family would have thought of.

I know very few people care about Steven having a confirmed height (of five foot six), but I care and I am happy. Give me this.

Tbh, hybrid biology is my jam to the point where I didn’t want to get my hopes up for an episode that literally promised to be about examining Steven’s biology. SU has been so obfuscatory about studying Gems that it seemed like this could be bait. But the Gems’ x-rays were so fun, I was on the edge of my seat going into Steven’s x-ray--

And you know, when I said I wanted hybrid biology facts…yeah, that was a monkey’s paw there. I am so fucking impressed with this episode, and how elegantly it found a way to lead into mental trauma from physical trauma. It’s a perfect representation of his problems—wounds that healed too invisibly for anyone to notice, but the strain of the wound was always there. It was just unnoticed. It really gets across everything it’s trying to say in such a simple and easy-to-understand way. Steven always seemed invincible. He just wasn’t.

God, that scene. The way it focused on how even the weird-toned s1a episodes contributed, used that to simultaneously put the events of 1a and later episodes into another light. I’ll admit it—I diagnosed the pink glow wrong. I didn’t know what it was, but I didn’t think it was literal ptsd. 

See, I didn’t expect the show to directly blame the overarching pattern of trauma Steven experienced for his actions, because it seemed to be taking it’s time, exploring each aspect of Steven’s problems through different lenses. He’s lost and without purpose after fixing everything, so he falls back on habits of being useful, trying to help people--but for some reason, that’s not working as well as it used to. He keeps hurting people. He keeps messing up. Everyone seems to be moving on, but he can’t. So he’s angry. So he’s confused. So he’s upset. So he feels even more out of control, and reaches to control even more—and inevitably lashes out because of everything he’s bottling up. Again and again, he tries to forge ahead, only to find he’s tripping himself up. It seems to be a spiral, growing from the stress of his mid-life crisis, his numerous issues (Rose just one among them), the way his upbringing has left him without the tools to really transition stages of his life. 

I think I was expecting some sort of fantastical metaphor. It wasn’t going to be one thing, it was going to be everything crashing down combined, making him more and more stressed, until he snapped and blew something up (I was never a huge fan of corruption), and the rest of the show would be helping Steven and picking up the pieces. Steven has so many issues, so many problems, and it was very, very distracting to focus on all of those and so very easy to miss the forest for the trees. There seemed to be such a surplus of “whys” that their overwhelming nature was self-evident. How could someone possibly function with so many issues?

So, why is Steven acting this way? 

Because X and Y and Z and CYM. 

Oh, you mean the pattern of traumatic events he’s been through.

Right.

That have caused CPTSD.

...HOLY SHI--

There are so many stand-out lines in this episode, but: “My body, it’s reacting like it’s the end of the world. I think I’ve seen the world almost end so many times now that everything that goes wrong feels that…extreme.....How do I live life when it always feels like I’m about to die?!”

That hits hard. It’s real. A lot of people struggle with that every day. It’s so brutal and so bleak, and it’s hard to hear.

And it’s even harder to hear it coming from Steven. Steven, a kid who we have been through so much with, and who is still so heartbreakingly young. Even though he’s always been the viewpoint character, Steven’s range of maturity and behavior, depending on the situation, have always kind of made it hard to nail down his exact psyche. I mean, never tells you how much of his early behavior is genuine and how much of it is him trying to make the Gems laugh--you just sort of figure that out at some point, maybe as late as “Familiar”, and go oh. 

So to hear that kid who, to some extent, is always gonna be that sweet little boy to us, to have him straight-up say that he feels like he’s always about to die, to know he means it, that that’s what been going, that that’s been buried inside of him for who knows how long--that this was the price all of his victories, the secret fact that he’d ruined his health in every way possible--

--yeah, it hits hard.

“Growing Pains” is really an episode that’s effective not just because, obviously, of all of SU, but all of SUF. For the last dozen episodes, Steven has been fruitlessly asking “why”, over and over. Why is he so angry? Why is he so lost? Why does he feel all of these things?

The answer to this question isn’t a flood of endless problems--It uses the entirety of SU and SUF to balance the weight of it’s precise strike, because rebecca knew exactly what she was doing here. The reason this episode feels like a reveal we always kind of knew was because that…well, diagnosing mental health disorders is about recognizing a pattern of symptoms and behaviors.

So what has SUF been doing? It’s been tracing that pattern. 

In other news,iIt does freak me out that corruption theory has actual concrete evidence at this point. I’ve never been a fan, but that glowing happened and I just went…WELP. “I Am My Monster” certainly didn’t help.

I do feel bad for Connie, and I really am glad she hopefully has the maturity to not blame any of this on herself, because she’s done literally everything she could--up to and including getting Steven to go to a hospital and calling Greg well in advance of when she knew he would likely be needed--and none of this is on her. Still, here we go. Here’s the ugly side of emotional repression. It’s gotta go somewhere, and when it comes out—it comes out in ways you’re going to regret later. Obviously, having Steven’s issues just make that way, way worse. Still, they always try to treat each other with care and respect, no matter how bad things get, and that’s something really wonderful.

And one final note, concerning Greg:

A lot of people have been digging into Greg’s reasons for never taking him to a doctor, defending him by saying he was too poor to afford it or calling him out, but tbh, I like fanfoolishness’s take on it the most. He hadn’t thought he could take Steven to a normal doctor without consequences early on, and later—well, his baby was half magic. He probably thought Steven would be fine, and there a lot of other things to worry about. Not great, but it’s understandable, and dude’s not perfect.

Speaking of which: Greg is an A+ dad, I adore him, I love him to death, and he fucked up. He fucked up big time, in the way that every parent is going to, because no parent is perfect--even the ones that do their best, like him, are going to have massive blindspots. Insecurities about his inadequacy and unimportance compared to the Crystal Gems and their mission likely led to him nodding along to what was probably the Gem’s ideas of how to go about training Steven. 

He didn’t want to get underfoot. He didn’t want to get in the way. He didn’t want to give bad advice, because he’s not good with Gem stuff, and it honestly makes him pretty uncomfortable these days, with everything that’s happened since Rose. In fact, him having as little to do with Gem stuff as possible is probably what was best for Steven--right? 

And he never really thought about how his implicit rejection of an integral part of Steven would affect Steven. He toughed it out, the loneliness, telling himself it was for Steven’s own good...

What I’m getting at is that I’ve been hoping for a Greg character arc for ages, and Future seems like a great time for it. Better late than never. And honestly, I can’t wait to see how Greg’s attempts to parent Steven go.

[pass-the-bechdel]

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend full series review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

100% (sixty-one of sixty-one).

What is the average percentage of female characters with names and lines for the full series?

43.18%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Thirty-eight, so, more than half.

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 50% female?

Twenty-one, and a few of those were 60%+.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

One.

Positive Content Status:

Ultimately, disappointing. There are definitely good pieces in there, and bad pieces too, and by the end I mostly felt too cynical about the way most of the good pieces were handled - as perfunctory, noncommittal brownie-points grabs - to be very impressed by anything. I think the show spent more time rejecting the branches of feminism that it didn’t want to be associated with than it did celebrating any branches it did want, and at the end of the day it had less progressive commentary to make than it thought it did (average rating of 3.01).

Which season had the best representation statistics overall?

Season four, in every category but the positive content, for which it scored average.

Which season had the worst representation statistics overall?

Season two dropped the ball on the percentage of female characters, slipping below 40% for the season average (and turning in that singular episode under 20%). 

Overall Series Quality:

If only it were as consistent as its Bechdel passes - unfortunately, it’s an absolute mess. I wish I could pretend that the rollercoaster of quality was a deliberate metaphor for the experiences of the show’s lead, but the show never has a strong enough handle on itself to pull off a feat like that; Crazy-Ex Girlfriend was rife with problems from the jump, and even as it resolved one thing (ditch a bad character here, finally achieve a less confusing narrative tone there), it always managed to wander off into some new mistake. The overall gives the impression of being poorly planned, and the show never settles down with itself or its characters in order to tell a cohesive story (hence the lack of payoff on almost any character arc). It’s a shambles, and while I did variously have a good time, by the end I was glad to be rid of it.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

Look, it’s no secret that this show caught me at a bad time. As I have pointed out, I have been pregnant for pretty much the entire duration of the viewing experience, and due to the various ups and downs associated with that, it took me something like seven months to watch a mere sixty-one episodes. I will readily admit, this show was not a good fit for me, possibly not at all (it’s...not my usual flavour), certainly not at this particular time in my life. I haven’t been very forgiving, and while I don’t feel that I’ve been unreasonable, I will allow that under different circumstances I might have enjoyed this show more. I did enjoy it, really, more often than it feels like I did on reflection; the bad taste that the show left for me, far too often, the irritation, the boredom, and the sense of unearned superciliousness I sometimes detected in the writing, it all left a stronger impression than the good, genuine moments, the insightfulness, the laughs, and the originality. There was more in the show worth seeing than what I feel when I think back on it. It wasn’t that bad. But, at the end of the day, I still don’t think it was very good, either.

(p.s. since writing that previous paragraph, I had a baby and many weeks have passed. This is not the ideal way to review a show).

I don’t know what was going on behind the scenes on this show - what they had planned from the jump, what was off the cuff, what changed, how much time they had to incorporate change into the story, etc - and I don’t really care to know either, since we are here to consider the product that was delivered, not talk about how it came to be that way. I don’t know if a colossal lack of fore-planning is the big flaw at the heart of this show, or if it’s just that what was planned was so basic it gives the impression of being half-baked. At any rate, I think a lot of the inconsistency in tone and quality and plot movement and narrative purpose can be traced to a lack of planning; the impression I get is of a ‘wing it and see what happens!’ approach which did not work for them at all - having everything locked down from the start isn’t always a good storytelling model since it leaves no room for improvisation as the narrative develops, but grow-as-you-go doesn’t work if you don’t have a strong sense of your moving pieces and their purpose, all you get is a disconnected shambles. It does not appear to me that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend ever had an overarching plan for where it was headed, nor did it establish enough complexity in its players to pull off an unplanned narrative. I feel like a broken record and I’m not gonna harp on this any longer, but the moral here is that you don’t need to have everything figured out in a story when you start, but you do need a trajectory, and for the love of God, don’t just figure out broad strokes of who you’re taking on the ride; figure out the two-fold why. Why is this character here, and why does it matter? Too few of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s characters had good answers (if they had any), and that’s how you end up with such lacklustre or shoe-horned character conclusions. Even Rebecca didn’t end up with a good answer to the second why?, and that’s just sad.

ANYWAY, there are frankly too many angles I could come at in how I felt this show failed, and as I said early, I don’t think it was that bad, plus I think I’ve railed at it enough that I am just repeating complaints - I told myself I should try to talk about what the show did do well, but I find I’m a little stuck on the subject; everything I liked seems to have some failing attached to it. So, I’m gonna just try and list the good stuff without equivocating - I’ll run with the idea that I already wrote the complaints part elsewhere, possibly many times over. The good things: Josh Chan was everything that a ‘perfect guy’ character should be and never normally is on anything else that plays with the concept; Rebecca’s BPD was often extremely well-handled and a lot of their best work went on doing justice to that part of the story; they brought Valencia around quite successfully to make her one of the more enjoyable characters on the show after a crappy start; Darryl’s bisexual awakening in season one was handled way better than I’ve ever seen a show handle that kind of thing; White Josh existed; Paula was a refreshing change from the usual best-friend/sidekick archetype; sometimes the show had something meaningful to say on the feminist front; Father Brah also existed; there were some great musical numbers; the show definitely offered some things I’d never seen before; Rebecca’s home decor was pleasing; there was that big crocodile plushie...ok, look. This show wasn’t for me, we all know that. I feel a little bad about the way the reviewing process went (up to and including this one) because I know I was distracted and had significant breaks between episodes/seasons way too often (and even now I am holding an upset baby and typing one-handed; it’s not conducive to good evaluation). There was definitely proper analysis that I put in the ‘I’ll get to that’ pile time and again for this show, only to forget it completely when I finally had the time to write anything up; that said, I still don’t think this show would have gone over well with me under different circumstances - better, perhaps, but not well - and that’s because it has a LOT of flaws. A lot. Fun idea, poor execution, and it’s not the baby that thinks so. It was an interesting ride and I am sorry I couldn’t appreciate the good bits better, but it’s time to go now.

[thunderheadfred]

Why I Love Spike But Also Hate Him A Lot: an unsolicited essay by me

OR: Why I personally relate to blood-sucking poseurs OR: dude what if I ever got high enough to rewrite season six?

(under a cut because this goes on for a while. also discourse frightens me)

Okay. I’m like twenty years late. But I’ve been rewatching BtVS s5 during my latest depression spiral and wandering against my better judgement into the Spuffy fic verse. Disclaimer that my grasp of the series’ larger canon is meh at best, and frankly I don’t care.

As usual, I have too many thoughts.

Spike is, hands-down, my favorite character on this show. Maybe one of my favorite characters, period. He’s just... good to watch. But listen. Secret poet or no, he was never an inherently good person. Meek and shy does not equal Buffy’s equal. I squirm at this apparently massively popular canon interpretation of his human character as some kind of adorable perfect cherub, as if William the Dipshit Poet is somehow preferable to Spike the Complicated Murderer or like, we should just automatically assume that cute shy white people who lived in 1880 London are default Lawful Good when in fact... ahahaa haaaa YIKES COLONIALISM?

I actually think the reason Spike is “more human” than other vampires (in the weird, contradictory Buffy soul-canon) is exactly because William was not Pure, he was a Pratt. Sweet? I guess. Loves his mum? He’s got that going for him. But that guy?? Is not Buffy’s long-lost true love, not a weepy ghost to be shoved into Spike’s Billy Idol cosplay bod at the last minute. In a show that, at its best, tries to give us a protagonist who fundamentally believes we must always make the choice to keep living mindfully, accountably, and with purpose... we get a love interest who is... Spike. A guy who, until the very end of his arc, acts as though he has zero fucking free will. Even though, through a combo of deliciously fun and inconsistent writing, Spike is apparently the only vampire in the Buffyverse who does.

I’ll get to that but first, let’s accept for a minute that Free Will + Buffy = good, and people who roll over and say “I had no choice” + Buffy = Mr. Pointy. This counts for her friends too, (*coughWILLOWcough*) and it’s one of the reasons I love the show despite its many textual problems. As a character piece, it’s great. People fail to take accountability for their behavior all the time. It’s an extraordinarily human flaw, one that rarely equals automatically evil, and I love that it can bite characters on the side of good, too. But that’s not the point of this, oh shit!

Okay. William, cute glasses aside, has no free will. He didn’t even sign up for the vampire thing, he just wanted to get felt up by a pretty girl who saw him cry and didn’t laugh at him. At every point, he was an immature, weak-willed, naive dreamer type who wanted nothing more than to be validated by his shitty friends. The vampirism made him a killer, yeah. But it also inadvertently gave a cowardly nobody a lot of good qualities. Now he’s a weirdly observant, relentlessly optimistic, fun-loving, sexually secure Cool Guy who gave up poetry for punk... but still tries too hard to impress his shitty friends. Basically, being a vampire made this guy a happier-but-still-undeniably-crappy version of himself, especially... considering all the murder. 

But now, let us transparently and metaphorically link cartoonish Vamp!Murder to addiction. Because wow, death in BtVS is either a manipulative authorial gut-punch or a dumb joke, and either way, it’s almost impossible to take seriously in this show, so let’s not.

How to make a remorseless bloodsucking fiend out of of “boo hoo I’m a bad writer and I wish some jerks thought I was cool?” Ha ha you can’t!  Turns out you basically recreate my early twenties but with more murder. Spike is a socially-dependent ADHD art school reject on a century-long avoidance bender. He’s a codependent, moon-eyed boyfriend who learns how to aggressively project not caring while caring Far Too Much, all while clinging to aesthetic as an identity. ALTHOUGH let us not deny that he 100% enjoyed all the killing - wtf so much killing - because for vampires, killing equals pleasure, and charming, “happy” addicts always justify the comforts of their vices. He talks the talk cuz fitting in is his whole deal, but he’s not actually in it for chaos and destruction or any high-falutin’ evil reason, or even really for eating delicious ladies but because, in the end, it feels good and the only girlfriend he’s ever had thinks eating people is cool. Even his whole (gorgeous, splendid to watch) episode-long speech about killing two slayers was written more for Buffy’s character arc than his; we don’t really know why he killed the slayers other than like, “Because they had a death wish I guess. Side note: it was fun.”

There wasn’t much legitimately vengeful or hateful stuff in sad little William for demon!Spike to work with, and apparently William’s soul-or-whatever moved about twelve inches over his left shoulder and stayed there, occasionally poking him for the next hundred years. So it should shock no one that he immediately switches sides when a) his girlfriend dumps him, b) his addiction suddenly hurts, and c) it’s time to impress a new friend group.

I get that Spike’s whole soul-getting between s6 and s7 has been interpreted in fanon as a grand romantic sacrifice (ehhhhhhhhhhhh) and I get why that’s tempting, but the show itself bungled that up way bad and I just can’t get behind it. R*pe idiocy aside, making it ultimately all about Buffy just kinda cheapens what could have been a really fucking powerful redemption arc, one that would have led to a far more satisfying love story. Especially from Buffy’s perspective. 

Okay listen.

We have a guy who has been playing the “duh, Vampire!” card for a century, pleasure-seeking and self-centered, pandering to various peer groups, murderous or otherwise, a happy addict, impervious to change. So when finally, after a HUNDRED SODDING YEARS of being a soulless, hilarious dick, Spike has consequences shoved into his gray matter by the government, he doesn’t change. At all. He just starts obsessing over another woman, doing what he thinks she wants. A woman he thinks will give him new pleasures, a new, perpetually fine status quo. But this woman is Buffy, whose identity is rock solid even though her life is constantly full of challenge and change and choices. She “rewards” Spike only when he makes willful, selfless decisions. And the rewards aren’t romantic, either. Not early on. Even in canon, she keeps rejecting him over and over again, for crystal clear reasons. Thank god. Because when he accepts that she’ll never have him, but still does the hard stuff anyway, he’s unwittingly starting to change. It’s not just Buffy. Buffy demands real personhood. Independence. Identity. Choice. 

Uh oh. She’s gotten to him, then. Though it starts out selfish, he still makes a CHOICE. Quite literally, he takes on the pain of self-improvement - first by embracing the consequences of his chip, later by going on his fancy sparkly soul quest. Buffy is the catalyst, no doubt, because once a poet always a poet and girls are pretty, but Spike’s path to improvement (if not redemption) was already there, laid out nice and neat. His narrative low point, the lightbulb moment that makes him want a soul again, should never have come out of a season of terrible backsliding, culminating in the shower scene we all regret.

It should have been The Gift. 

Death isn’t Buffy’s gift. It’s love. And not that simpering, easy kind of love that just says, “there there,” but the hard, truthful love that makes you want to keep getting that goddamn rock from the bottom of the hill. Yes, Spike’s arc should still be about Buffy, it’s Buffy’s show, but it should have been more about the hole she left behind. Not just in Spike but in the world. 

What’s left? This latest and greatest group of people who have so far RIGHTLY rejected a demon whose sole motivator seems to be comfort. And maybe when these particular people hit rock bottom, they have enough wisdom to see a monster down in the dark and recognize themselves. Maybe Dawn (whose humanizing effect on Spike has been nearly as important as his obsession with Buffy) shows him that rare, rare thing called Validation. And oh god, he realizes he’s never actually moved beyond trying to sell effulgence to Cecily Whatsherface, that he’s been sitting on his own grave for a hundred years, waiting for someone to coddle and fix him, and now the only woman who might have, the best woman, literally the one girl chosen one above all others... is gone. This would be a good time to die. 

Or...

...maybe there is no magic soul cave, maybe he tries to end it and makes the CHOICE not to. Chooses to stay and help, because what else is there? Then BAM! it just slams back into him in a way that hurts like you can’t even believe, because admitting how bad you’ve fucked up is the most painful moment of a lifetime and I’ve lived it and I wish I’d had a hellmouth to jump into, but the Scoobies pull him back, and he takes care of Dawn until life seems to have some meaning again, then Buffy comes out of the earth traumatized and broken and no one is better equipped to help her than a recovering Spike, not because he’s magically her rock but because he’s also learning how to roll his own rock and keep on climbing, because Camus ruined us all for metaphors...

THE END

Anyway. As a recovering addict and toxic person who has been struggling a lot recently... who wants to improve and be able to give more to the people I love, Spike has an arc that just like... cuts me deep, man. Especially because of what should have been.

[mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker]

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows Vol 2 #8-9 Thoughts

Previous thoughts here.

 With the Venom movie having been released recently I felt this was the  time to catch up with the Venom arc of Renew Your Vows. 

I’ll not lie to you all, exempting the hype surrounding the announcement for the series no arc of Renew Your Vows had me more excited to read it than this one. I knew how it was broadly going to play out, even without being mildly spoiled, because of course the broad idea behind the story is the way every instance of the Venom symbiote bonding to people tends to play out. 

But therein is why I was looking forward to it. 

I.Love. VENOM! 

Of course I do. As I mentioned in my post about the X-Men arc, I am a child of the 1990s and if you were a kid in the 1990s getting into Spider-Man then the chances were you loved Venom. 

This is owed in no small part to the 3 part Alien Costume story arc from the 1994 Spider-Man cartoon which was for most people of my generation their introduction to the character and to Spider-Man as a whole.

  It was in this cartoon that the very idea of the Venom symbiote acting as a corrupting force and a drug was first institutionalized and it has had an influence on absolutely every rendition of the character ever since, including in the original comics.

  This idea, that this costume can change a character, make them evil, darker and more dangerous whilst accompanies with a cool black makeover for them, is critical to the appeal of Venom as a whole. It is why in fan art, fan fiction, adaptations and stories people love to attach the symbiotes to other characters.

  Doing an arc featuring Venom in RYV was just the single most natural and perfect idea made even more natural by having MJ act as the host.

  Whilst neither Venom nor the Spider-Marriage debuted in the decade, both were in significant ways shaped and promoted at their heaviest during the 1990s and RYV being a book clearly riffing on that decade (as it did in the prior arc) made Venom a welcome character to tackle. But it goes further than that. Venom has an important history and thematic connection to the Spider Marriage.

  His co-creator David Michelinie truly began his long run on ASM (and thus became the chief architect of how Spider Marriage’s early years) in ASM #298-300, the arc introducing Venom where he infamously terrorized Mary Jane. So frightened was MJ of the visage of Venom  that she asked peter to abandon his black costume permanently.

  The Venom symbiote’s relationships with it’s hosts have also over the years been played as metaphorically romantic, with the second Venom story even floating the idea that it’s hatred of Spidey for rejecting it was rooted in something similar to love. Making the Venom symbiote symbolic of Spidey’s ‘scorned lover’ and thus the idea of it returning to haunt him in a series about his family and bonding with his wife utterly juicy.

  And of course Venom was critical in the first volume of Renew Your Vows where Spider-Man seemingly killed Brock and the symbiote to save his family.

  All this and it was IIRC the FIRST time that Gerry Conway was ever going to write for Venom.

  So with all this in mind I was HYPED for this arc and remained HYPED for it long after it came out and I drifted off from reading comics in general.

  Then of course we all learned that this arc was the main reason for why Conway left the RYV series, why Stegman had to handle some of the scripting duties and likely why we wound up with Houser and the controversial time skip.

And it was all because Marvel’s promotional department saw the sales of a MJ as Venom variant.

I am not making that up.

  Basically this arc has a lot of baggage for me and for fans in general.

  With all that said how did I feel about it when all was said and done.

  Basically more could’ve been done with it but what we did get was pretty much solid!

  In a way it’s a testament to sometimes the promotional department having good ideas. Sometimes. I also gotta give it up to Stegman. He stepped in for some of the scripting duties and really didn’t do a bad job at all.

  Lets get the negatives out of the way.

·         The story brings up Peter killing Eddie Brock but doesn’t really address it or explore it.

·         As I said more could’ve been done with this.

·         Annie barely appears and doesn’t significantly contribute to the story.

·         The symbiote’s corruption of MJ isn’t the way the symbiote’s influence usually works in the comics or adaptations.

·         Peter not cluing in immediately upon seeing MJ in costume that she’s bonded to Venom is questionable.

·         So is Liz Allan not realizing Spinneret is MJ.

·         So is MJ just immediately seeking out Liz to get new powers and wearing the ‘bio-suit’ without even talking to Peter about it. Not to mention her not realizing it is a symbiote.

HOWEVER...these are also small problems at best and/or stuff that can be explained away fairly easily.

·         Like I said more could’ve been done but what was done was sufficient enough. 

·         Annie got a lot of play in issue #3, was equal with her parents in issue #4, was a little more than equal with them in issue #5 and was really the main focus in issues #6-7. So taking a break from her to give Peter and more notably MJ the spotlight is justifiable. 

·         The manner of the symbiote’s corruption could be explained via it being an AU but at the same time I think you could equally argue that the symbiote doesn’t generically make someone more aggressive and violent. In the 1994 cartoon arc (which I recently watched) there was the implication that the symbiote actually accentuates attributes of the host and removes inhibitions. So in the show Peter did become more aggressive, but he also became more selfish, more assertive, flirtatious, creepy, egotistical, touchy and such. In issue #2 it was established MJ does a lot of stuff and juggles it all and in this arc we see her basically become hyperactive, she does more  becomes more  of a go getter. Even if you do not buy that the costume’s affects are metaphorical of a drug and drug addiction and MJ’s ‘symptoms’ are not dissimilar to those displayed by people who use certain drugs. If this was the intention it is actually pretty genius. 

·         Peter not realizing he is dealing with Venom could be explained via his presumption that the symbiote was dead. But also on a deeper level his need to believe it was dead because of the threat it poses to him and his family and the traumatic memories associated with his killing of Brock. To have crossed that line and it been for nothing would be too horrible. As is the possibility of MJ being bonded to it. this isn’t even getting into how the symbiote just historically freaks Peter out. So basically MJ bonded to the symbiote is something Peter just doesn’t  want to believe to the point where he doesn’t truly confront the idea until he has to and it becomes unavoidable.

·         Liz not realizing Spinneret is Liz could be explained by unfortunately just a conceit of the whole secret identity concept.

  ·         MJ’s actions could be explained as a result of her being freaked out by seeing Annie’s dying body. Parents (and stereotypically more commonly mothers) become emotionally unsettled when confronted with harm to their children and in this story MJ was so freaked out that she tossed an entire train at Mysterio (which Peter has done in 616 but the story claims he hasn’t in the RYV universe). Her rage is actually a nice tie-in for what we saw in issue #2 when Mole Man’s goons had Annie. So MJ’s questionable and impulsive actions might be the result of Mysterio screwing with her head.

Speaking of the Mysterio scene, it encapsulates something that I think was needed for the series by this point.

Not only does it explain MJ’s only been a superhero for 2 weeks but it showcases her inexperience relative to Peter. In prior arcs the series was slightly in danger of overwriting MJ at the expense of Peter, I am thinking more specifically of her single handily defeating Magneto in issue #7. And the manner in which MJ screws up in the train scene is totally believable and cuts to the heart of the series theme of family.

That scene along with the end of the story also displays some great, great relationship writing between Peter and MJ. It shows us how their dynamic works, how they can be playfully catty but also caring. So often we see MJ being the strong one, the shoulder for Peter to cry on but here she’s the one who needs him, she’s the one who screws up and whom he has to be strong for.

But wonderfully he doesn’t just save her and that’s it. He helps her by facilitating her the opportunity to save herself. The issue also manages to make Peter following her sidestep him being patronizing or creepy by framing it and acknowledging that it could across that way, whilst also not being the intention.

The relationship writing is really good even outside of the scenes where they are not together. MJ’s concerns about Peter resenting her and her not pulling her weight had me apprehensive at first because it is not true to their relationship in general. But the story made it clear they were referring to their dynamic as heroes specifically at which point MJ’s analogies and half truths when discussing her marriage at work made a lot more sense.

At the same time the series portrays Peter as very proactive and competent which is always nice to see and had I read these nearer their original release would’ve likely impacted me more since back then such a portrayal was lacking in the main book.

Speaking of which I appreciate that the series doesn’t feel the need to focus upon all three family members in each story. Issues #1-3 focussed upon them individually, issues #4-5 upon all three of them. Issues 6-7 upon the three of them but leaning towards Annie and issues #8-9 are about Peter and MJ, leaning more towards the latter. This mixing up of the dynamics helps keep things fresh and explore the family more fully.

You’d think then that Annie’s presence in the book would be superfluous filler but in fact what’s so clever in this arc is that Annie despite having little panel time is important in driving MJ

Now let’s get down to the main attraction, Venom.

I felt more could’ve been done but playing it as something that made MJ more hyperactive at times and exhausted at other times was a neat touch. Her outfit looked cool and the climax where she mentally duelled Venom was a wonderful way to pay off both her experiences in RYV vol 1 and ASM #300 with Venom, showing how much MJ has grown.

Finally Liz’s role in this story was...surprisingly effective.

In 616 I do not like Liz Allan being a villain but at the same time given her history (especially from the DeMatteis/Buscema run in the 1990s) I also have to admit it does make a lot of sense. This story in a weird way pays off the potential she had in that role and creates a compelling parallel between her and Mary Jane as mothers who are willing to go to extremes for their children and families.

Finally Stegman was God-tier in the art department as usual but Frigeri as guest artists did a surprisingly solid job nevertheless, with his style complimenting Stegman’s.

  Over all I give this arc a solid B+

  P.S. MJ having Spider Sense whilst bonded to the symbiote is...weird. The symbiote can’t really give you that power and even if could it didn’t alert her to Peter. Maybe the symbiote was altered by Liz and MJ never considered Peter a threat enough to register to her Spider Sense. The former aspect would help explain how and why she was apparently impervious to fire.

[wombathos]

1.5 never kill a boy on the first date

- “plunge and move on. plunge and - oh hello” one thing the first two seasons have going for them is all those times when giles and buffy hang around graveyards. it’s wholesome. also does buffy ever actually get to the point where she’s just plunging and moving on or

- oh I miss that early buffy thing where they make a big deal of individual vampires or groups of vampires (or assassins or whatever) with like fancy names and stuff who are meant to be particularly strong and then they get killed by buffy pretty fast and that’s that* - like it makes sense because s1 is so big on the vampire pomp and the rituals and the fancy orders and then that gets increasingly rejected (later seasons is more investigating types of demons or spells and less actual personalities, excepting big bads) (but then s5 had knights of byzantium, the human equivalent, so it’s not like this kinda thing completely goes away). anyway it makes sense you can only do that trope of *announcing the special vampires* so often, and it’s sort of pleasing how fast buffy moves beyond the big old names of the business to the new hip thing, robots and gods and washed-up nerds and the like

- “he’s more oweny” “sure he has a certain owenosity” this is well-covered ground but buffy does language good

- in the midst of all the high stakes (and regular stakes), it’s always nice just how earnestly btvs plays a lot of the high school-y emotional beats. there’s enough irony and comedy and cheesiness coexisting - and skill in how btvs manages to mix its tones - that those beats manage to be funny and moving at once

- cordelia’s role in s1 is so funny. she just drops in, does a one liner or two and consistently gets some of the best lines in the process, but is completely separate from the actual plot of the episode until the end of the season - except for occasionally being in danger herself so buffy can rescue her. which means that she’s starring in a show where she has no relevance to the actual plot, for an entire season! and yet she never feels out of place because of that whole thing she has going for her of being buffy’s shadow self and being tied to the mundane stuff that buffy is constantly forced to miss out on - or representing the selfishness buffy has to reject. like in this episode where she gets to dance with owen because buffy didn’t show up, or she’s complaining about the attention buffy gets from guys that buffy can’t really be with either. and because cordelia’s this avatar of the mean girl and so disconnected from buffy’s other life, the slaying, she ends up being central to the entire high school feel that needs to coexist along the slayer stuff for the season to work. so it does work, but in practice it’s still an odd role. I don’t know whether this is entirely my imagination (it might be), but I feel like I read somewhere about spike filling cordelia’s role post-s3 of the voice of doubt or something, and she does kinda remind me of his s4 role where he's just... around. it’s good stuff

- I like this owen and buffy moment where angel is in the middle of the shot between them - he’s out-of-focus in the background throughout the moment. it’s a nice bit of cinematography, especially how buffy briefly leaves the shot as the camera stays in place and then comes back into the shot to kiss owen and then runs off. if you wanted to read more into it, you might say that angel represents buffy’s “work” life (as he calls it in this episode) and thus is what separates buffy and owen (her ordinary, high school desires), which she can only briefly overcome... but that may be a reach

- this episode is the only (non-opener/finale) episode in s1 I can think of without like a really obvious metaphor, mainly because it’s all vamp-focused and setting up plot stuff. beyond the obvious of the vampire stuff keeping her from her social life which is less a metaphor and more a literal interpretation of what’s happening in her life. except, I guess:

- giles: “my father gave me a very tiresome speech about responsibility and sacrifice” buffy: “sacrifice, huh?” given that it’s setting up the finale plot stuff, it makes sense it’s also setting up the thematic finale stuff. suppose there’s a bit of a build up going on with the little sacrifice (no dating) coming before the big one (her life). not to equate slaying with growing up too much, but I suppose that is a heightened version of the teenage experience of having to accept more responsibilities

- always been curious about the problematising of owen enjoying their funeral house outing. from a character writing standpoint, it feels a bit contrived? I can see buffy realising it wouldn’t work just from the whole slayer/ordinary teenager angle, but less because of his actual personality. it’s also the first time (I think) they bring up the idea of enjoying danger too much, which comes up again with faith - and then perhaps most analogously with riley, by which point the idea of her duties being “fun” is even harder for buffy to stomach

*tbf order of aurelius does hang around for ages, I think? they still work with spike in s2 and all. speaking of, spike gets the dramatic special intro thing and he’s not exactly a one episode kinda vamp