#and I noticed that yes he will listen to the Watchers through the episodes in the first 2 seasons

[notsogoodangel]

Then he gets kidnapped by the Federation

Obligatory ramble about Watchers/Federation underneath.

So, in the Life Series Martyn can hear the Watchers constantly, which could be because of the Watchers' influence or maybe the Listeners (if CC Martyn has answered this, I am not aware, you are welcome to correct me). In the end, it doesn't matter because he still can listen to them and The Purgatory Watcher as well. I imagine he can listen to anything or anyone under his influence even if they are not Watchers themselves.

But that train of thought led me somewhere interesting: The Watcher is just a (theorized) corrupted overseer of Egg Island, just like Cucurucho is on Quesadilla, and the workers are the same. So that means Martyn could listen to the Federation and the workers and be a good spy.

Like, he probably already would have done that because his favorite pastime is to sneak around and listen to private conversations, but now he could do it, without even entering the Federation building, he could do it passively in a relatively safe place.

So his ass is 100% getting kidnapped because this man wasn't grown or raised in the Federation's grasp, they just took him to Quesadilla to fight the Watcher since he has experience with it BUT they don't really know what Martyn can do.

[jvstheworld]

The Buffy Re-watch: S1E12 (part 1)

Prophecy Girl

The last episode of season 1. I ended up writing 9 pages (A5 Pages, I don't like writing on A4, A5 is just easier to hold and rest on my lap as I write), so this might be another 3 parter. Here goes:

First thing I noticed was that the sign for the Bronze changed after the last episode still had the fumigation sign on it.

Xander practicing asking Buffy out and using Willow is his practice person. Oh boy.

Buffy is off fighting, and she lands on her back/butt, then she pulls out a stake from the back of her waistband. How did she not get stabbed by it when she fell?

Giles really does put in some serious overtime as a Watcher. The man needs more of a life. But I get the importance of why he's putting in the extra the time.

Earthquake. According to The Master, a possible 5.1. Can someone explain to me how earthquakes are measured? We don't get them here in the UK, except for that one time in 2008? where we had a small one. I slept through it though.

Giles looks like shit, after finding out some very troubling news. As we saw in Episode 10, Giles' biggest fear is losing Buffy so her will try to do anything he can to prevent that from happening. He definitely has a father's love for her by this point.

Okay, here we go, Xander is asking out Buffy. He was direct and to the point, that's good, get's the message across.

THEN HERE IS WHERE HE RUINS!!! Buffy turns him down because she sees him as just a friend only. Her friendship is more important, more valuable than the possibility of starting an ill-fated with him that could ruin their friendship. He likes her ad asking her out was brave, don't have a problem with that. The problem is how he reacts to it. Buffy doesn't feel that same so it wouldn't make sense for her to say yes, that would be leading him on and would be wrong. She also has feelings for Angel and would cause problems there. Turning Xander down was the right thing to do in this situation. However, Xander's snipe 'I guess a guy's gotta be dead undead to make time with you?' was fucking uncalled for and cruel. You can't help who you fall for, but you do not get to punish someone because it's not you. When faced with rejection you accept what the person has said and move on. You don't ever act like an entitled asshole because they said no. And while Xander may have apologised for his little comment after Buffy rightfully calls him out for it, he doesn't mean it. He hates Angel and takes any opportunity to disparage him in front of whoever will listen. He says sorry to placate Buffy, but he doesn't actually regret saying it because he believes what he said. Rejection fucking sucks. Whether it's by friends, partners, jobs or university, it hurts. But it happens. It's a part of life and you need to get used to it, because if you always take it so hard and personally it will eat away at you and leave you bitter and angry at the world. If left like this your mental will be in tatters. Learn to accept rejection and move on. In Xander's case, he can either accept that Buffy's friendship is enough for him, or he can walk away if he can't accept it. To quote Billy Butcher from 'The Boys' (I love this show) 'Don't be a cunt.'

I'm going to leave it there for this part. I will have more to say about Xander in the next part, but it will mostly centre on Buffy. Part 2 tomorrow.

[desolationcleo]

some life series martyn design headcanons i've had for a while now

(this originated when i noticed his ears aren't visible in his shadow alliance skin with the hood down, when they are normally, combined with how i generally call attention to jimmy and martyn's ears when drawing them to reflect their listener affiliation, and also some of it is taken from actual cape status. also when i tell you i lost it upon realizing cherri was on the same wavelength as me about having him grow his hair out over the course of a death game)

So, back in Evo, he had short hair, and sometime after first encountering the Listeners but before the dragon fight, he and Jimmy got matching pairs of crawler earrings with pale almost white gems hanging from them. He's also got that cape, with the fire looking design at the bottom.

In Third Life, he still has the earrings, though Jimmy has now lost his, given that it's pretty hard to wear earrings when you now have little canary wings where you'd expect your ears to be as a manifestation of your curse. Martyn's not quite sure where he got these earrings and doesn't know Jimmy used to have a matching pair.

Midway through Third Life, he starts growing out his hair a little. This coincides with him first making contact with the Watchers. Upon going yellow, he takes off his cape to show off the symbol on the back of his coat.

At the start of Last Life, he gets his cape back, but his hair length remains the same as it was at the end of 3l. Over the course of the season, his hair keeps getting longer.

Aside note, Ren begins braiding his hair with a ribbon woven in after devoting himself to Lizzie. This will be relevant later. Now, back to Martyn.

For those not in the know, crawler earrings, despite their appearance, only actually require one piercing. This means they're no harder to accidentally lose than any other earring. During the chase scene with Jimmy for his life back, he loses an earring and doesn't notice. This also results in him matching with Cleo, who also only wears one earring, foreshadowing their being linked in their next lives.

He gets rid of his cape again, this time so the moon kanji on his robe can be visible. After first putting on the Shadow Alliance robe, he now has a permanent shadow over his eyes.

By the time his friends start dying, his hair has grown long enough that his ears are no longer visible. This includes his remaining earring.

After he turns red, he now has scars from his death, and his hair is singed from the lava. It remains this way until his final death.

At the start of Double Life, his hair is still long though no longer visibly burnt, he doesn't have a shadow over his eyes 24/7 anymore, he doesn't get his cape or his earring back, his hopes of escape are dashed, and Mumbo is gone entirely and presumed permadead. He does what one does when bad things happen and cuts his hair. With a wooden sword. And no access to a reflective surface. Predictably, this leaves it rather uneven to say the least.

When he goes to the Nether, he makes a new pair of earrings, and incorporates glowstone. As a result, when he leaves the place, he has glowstone dust all over him for the rest of the episode. He also no longer matches with Cleo. (and yes, he did roll up to her covered in glowstone and with a laughable haircut)

Eventually he does fix his hair. That or it fixes itself when he goes yellow (a death which also leaves a scar).

In Limited Life, he once again has a cape, but as he dies over and over, it's more or less shredded by the end. He also starts growing his hair again and braids it this time, this combined with the streaks in his hair (which are unnaturally dark) makes him resemble Ren in season 2. Right before the final battle, said braid comes undone shortly before he does.

[whyamistillwatchingtheseshows]

This is really long. I am not joking, but I couldn't stew in my incoherent thoughts any longer:

I wanted to express about how three episodes ago I was like “I’m a Kinn apologist now” and how I totally somehow understood his intentions…and how I might be a little like a Kinn with the NOT COMMUNICATING and the major TRUST issues. However, my soul has left my body and I am now and forever in Pete’s shoes. Don’t ask me to elaborate, I just am. However, that doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention to the story and KP itself. In fact, it was what I was consistently talking about up through episode 9. Basically, I was all in for KP and didn’t quite give any notice to Vegas (literally didn’t even bat an eyelash at him) and/or Pete for that matter. Did hold onto the assumption that there was always something about Pete and now here we are so sucked into the VegasPete vacuum that we’re choosing to live there.

Still unsure of what else the show could’ve been titled because I get it. It’s called KinnPorsche and so everyone wants the focus there, but coming from a Supernatural watcher who spent most of their days arguing why in the living freaking world did Sam and Dean Winchester have to do this alone? Why did the freaking story just have to be about them when SPN had such an elaborate world system with plenty of side A and side B characters that could’ve remained as part of the integrity of the show (aka as part of the Winchester family business)? Does that even make sense? I don't see why more characters can't surround the main characters of a story, unless you’ve written a one- or two-person theatre production.

However, such series or shows exist as ENSEMBLE casts. And now is there a hierarchy to an ensemble cast? Yes, and it’s all dependent on INDIVIDUAL story as well. Most importantly, the individual story must also serve the MAIN plot, or some circumstances within an episode (which the show 911 does a lot- it serves purposes through each episode while in the end culminating their character/family stories together). Take for instance, (going back to KinnPorsche) we know more truths about Vegas and we know Pete must go back to the main family at some point; thus, relatively speaking it SERVES the PLOT while the last two episodes have ALSO served as individual character “growth” for Vegas and Pete’s characters.

Now, are there decisions story and plot wise that you as the viewer will go WTF over? Of course! But there’s civil discourse and then there’s just being reactionary for reactionary’s sake (aka hate watching). For example, I kinda felt a bit meh when Porsche did the thing of listening in on Kinn (AGAIN) and assuming he is cheating. Also, Kinn still doing that thing where he can’t just speak about his feelings? Could he at this point, plainly tell the man flirting, yeah, um no can do, there’s someone. No names, of course. Just basically saying it won’t happen and technically in his position he need not divulge any more information to the man (and yes, this would be a plausible scenario but the show elected not to do that).

Which also leads me to the fact that Porsche is no longer supposed to be his bodyguard so he's acting as the protective (jealous) boyfriend (AGAIN). And if Kinn is still going to be in this job and Porsche doesn’t have any AUTHORITY (because he's no longer working for the family) then Kinn won’t or can’t tell him shit anything? It feels like a vicious cycle and at the end of it we see Kinn choosing Porsche, suggesting he could and would relinquish his title? But then we still have this matter concerning Porsche’s parents’ death and how that’ll cause yet another rift between KP? Which Kim be out there solving but also not telling anyone what he knows for some reason because he knows more than KP, right?

Meanwhile, Vegas is eventually confronted by his father (which will SUCK all of us, Vegas included out of the VegasPete vacuum) and somehow Pete will "escape" that vacuum. Pete has his struggles back at the main family compound and then we’ll go back inside the VP vacuum when we see both VegasPete actively choose one another (LIKE FOR REALLY REAL) somehow…?

Ironically, KP is also inside a vacuum, consumed by the overwhelming need to hold onto what they have, but there always seems to be obstacle after obstacle (which could be natural for relationships- those bumps in the road kind of thing, but this is on such a dramatic scale, these bumps). Also, inside this KP vacuum, I kinda went WTF at how easily Porsche was like sure give me your lucky gun, Kinn, I’m going to kill this man. Immediately knew it wouldn’t happen at all, regardless of a child showing up. But that moment did showcase just exactly HOW MUCH PORSCHE HAS NOT LET HIMSELF BREAK DOWN OVER HIS PARENT’S DEATH.

To sum up my MAIN point that I never really established in this, but here it is:

In stories, it’s possible to focus on more than one thing and possible to say I like just this one thing and then also say there isn’t enough of that one thing. In stories, it’s possible to also have individual character growth that might be separate to the plot (aka how technically speaking VegasPete ain’t gotta go that hardcore for each other, because really does it serve the plot which could probably still be executed without the VP vacuum? But hey I live in that vacuum now and it’s such a HOT and DELICIOUS journey for the characters. Feed me, please). VegasPete exists in a vacuum because these two characters happened to be intertwined with one another and KinnPorshce exists in a vacuum because those two characters happened to be intertwined with one another too. Yet (as we've been told) each of these 4 characters are connected to the overarching PLOT and inherently SERVE the MAIN story; like a bridge.

[wither-rose-circus]

*slides into DMs*

Hello there, I would like to hear about your Listener Jimmy ideas

Disclaimer: this got really long I am So Sorry

So I’m not skimming through Jimmy’s entire series to get his full relationship with either entities it’s 100+ episodes long like Jesus fucking Christ but I did skim through a handful of videos to get a basic understanding

And I noticed they did mention Jimmy in the end credits, but I think what’s noteworthy is that they didn’t specifically praise him for anything like the others, only scolding him.

I assume that’s partially why the Listeners chose him.

For context, though, I wanna clarify my general Listener headcanons

• The Listeners are to the Nether what the Watchers are to the End

That is not to say they are from the Nether, but that it is their domain. Both the Nether and the End are (or were, in the Nether’s case) total wastelands. From what I understand, the series hinted at some sort of war between the two factions. That is what I believe caused these two lands to be destroyed. Prior to 1.16, the residents of the Nether were diseased and undead, hinting that some kind of disaster happened (Even now, the achievement for finding a bastion references some war among the Piglins, the End Cities have airships and are decked out with leftover enchanted diamond armor, etc). Now, what in the Nether has to do with the Listeners?

• The Listeners are related to Ghasts

Now I know that sounds weird, but hear me out. The description for the achievement Uneasy Alliance goes as follows: Rescue a ghast from the Nether, bring it safely home to the Overworld... and then kill it. This directly implies that ghasts are not native to the Nether, but to the overworld. Now what are ghasts obviously inspired by? Ghosts. What is the Nether obviously inspired by? Hell. What do you get when you put that together? Ghasts are player souls trapped in the Nether. How does this related to the Listeners? The Listeners had their souls trapped within the Nether in the form of ghasts in an attempt to wipe them out. Only some were eventually able to regain their senses and escape the Nether via players’ portals. But why were they trapped?

• The Listeners oppose the Watchers because they believe the Watchers are taking away players’ autonomy

This is less headcanon and more directly reading into the series. The Listeners tell the evolutionists that they need to take back their freedom, that the Watchers are controlling. My personal interpretation of the Watchers is that they are “Awoken,” which is based on how the credits poem references players awaking from dreams. They are essentially the end goal of that process. When a player passes through the portal in the End, the Watchers judge their soul and decide whether or not to awaken them. This leads to them ascending to the Aether (yes, that Aether), which they believe is the “perfect” version of the game (everyone being in creative and thus unable to fight or be hurt, constantly daytime so no mobs, access to the creative inventory to do whatever they please, etc). Now, how did they know what the Watchers were doing in the first place?

• The Listeners are former Watchers

Due to their similar designs, I believe Listeners are simply rebellious Watchers who believe no one group should have control over a player’s life. After the war, they were subsequently banished to the Nether, which has only recently begun to recover. However, this separation left them stripped of the Watcher’s all seeing eyes. This led them to utilize sound to more discretely convey their messages. They have dedicated themselves to “freeing” players from the Watchers’ grasps and recruiting whatever souls they can still get their hands on. This is where Jimmy finally comes in.

The Evolution server was unique in that the players brought to it were specifically chosen to be tested. It was essentially a recruitment effort. The Watchers state that choosing to take Grian was a difficult decision, likely meaning they assessed each one individually. Due to their dismissal of Jimmy, I take it he was not heavily considered. This negligence is what allowed the Listeners to latch onto Jimmy.

Jimmy arrives in the Evolutionist’s old spawn before any of them arrive. We know it was before because Jimmy placed the enderchests the Listeners gifted the rest of the team and because, upon returning in his next episode, the Listeners’ symbol is replaced with that of the Watchers. However, when the evolutionists show up, he’s nowhere to be found, only making his way back with the signs they left. But Jimmy’s videos imply he never really left the main area, so something happened to him between that cut. This is where I believe Jimmy was “marked” by the Listeners.

So now, tumblr user Harley the Pancake, I am so sorry I’ve rambled for like 3 pages without answering the question, but these are my headcanons for pseudo-Listener Jimmy, specifically in the context of 3rd Life:

• Jimmy has bouts of auditory foresight. They’re not consistent, but tend to happen in relation to bad things. This is why he got so defensive towards the Red Army. He foresaw them, specifically Ren and Martyn, killing Scott. However, these flashes are purely auditory, so he had no context as to how or why they killed Scott. His own paranoid imagination applied the idea of Scott being sacrificed (Ironically, this actually sealed Scott’s fate, as neither of them would’ve been killed the way they were had they joined the Red Army). Jimmy is not fully conscious of this ability and tends to chalk it up to gut feelings.

• Jimmy has Nether traits. This comes from more general evolutionary traits you would expect from having lived in a place like the Nether. Not being very affected by heat, more resilient to lava (yes I know that’s ironic for his first death to be lava but I said resilient, not immune), piglins are less likely to aggro on him, etc.

• Jimmy can understand both Standard Galactic and, to a lesser extent, Piglin. Standard Galactic is something he can read fluently while Piglin is something he can vaguely understand. He can’t speak Piglin because Piglin is a very guttural language and few players have the vocal cords for it. If you asked him how he knows these languages, he wouldn’t have an answer. (I also headcanon Scott to be inhuman in different ways, though, so he also knows Standard Galactic. Jimmy just kinda assumed it must’ve been a normal thing to know.)

• Jimmy vaguely remembers past dreams/lives, most notably sounds. He tends to remember sounds specifically so he gets this intense feeling of deja vu when several server members talk to him.

• Jimmy has incredibly conflicting feelings towards Grian for reasons he can’t explain. On one hand, Jimmy vaguely recognizes Grian as a friend from Evo. On the other, he has this instinctual discomfort due to Grian being a Watcher. He can’t tell Grian is a Watcher, he just gets this strange gut feeling around him. (Grian, on the other hand, is very aware Jimmy is part Listener.)

And that’s all I’ve got for now, sorry for how long this was!

[razorblade180]

Overall thoughts on V8? Assuming you didn't answer this already.

I meant to do a volume wrap up review but I got incredibly busy and it fell to the waste side. The thing about me judging RWBY I have to come at it from two angles or I won’t feel like I judged it appropriately. There’s the casual, first time seeing the episodes and seeing this through the lens as a casual watcher who probably only sees the episodes once or twice. But then there’s the other side to that coin. I review these episodes, write aus, theorize, check extended lore, listen to the music, etc; that means I have to go back and watch episodes several times for any given reason and that’s when you start noticing the holes or picking up on things you didn’t before.

As a casual watcher, I’d give this an 8/10. There’s plenty of moments where characters do things that got me excited and plot points I wanted explored. This volume actually gave a decent amount of things I wanted for quite some time and some things I didn’t know I needed. Certainly there are things I don’t like in this but I’m open and curious to see where RT takes their storie because it’s their story.

Okay, now as a someone who’s had to deep dive and take a step back multiple times for a variety of reasons. 6.5/10 maybe a 7/10 if I’m being generous. A lot of my problems with this volume are problems that aren’t new to RWBY and that’s just how surface layer portions of arcs are and how a variety of choices/bonds don’t exactly make sense with what we were previously shown, or they only make sense because the writers don’t want introduce other complexities even though they should be there realistically. I’ll give a couple examples of these and yes, I’m aware what I say doesn’t bother everyone but it bothers me.

Qrow was never angry at or brought up Robyn being the reason their airship crashed in the first place because she started the fight; which aids in Clover dying.

Emerald follows Cinder, not Salem. Even if Cinder is working under Salem, why would Emerald be so willingly to complete shift to the side that actively goes against Cinder? There’s been no grand revelation to make Emerald believe Cinder doesn’t give a damn about her. Leaving made sense because she was about to get tortured. Going full turncoat right now doesn’t. No change happened. Emerald always hated being near Salem but adored Cinder no matter the crimes and the show hasn’t done anything to switch that view point.

I’m happy Whitley and Weiss had a touching sibling moment that implies they’re okay and making/made up, but there was never a conversation about the actual problem and thoughts that had them at odds in the first place. Weiss saving his and Willow’s life shouldn’t be the thing that smooths things over. It would’ve been terrible if Weiss do something to save their life. Whitley helping Penny is okay I guess because he really had no reason to contribute but did anyways. Even so, a person doing a morally correct thing doesn’t automatically warrant the conflict between him and Weiss’s resolved.

We got Cinder’s backstory; it didn’t tell us anything about how she eventually came into contact with Salem. Honestly her back story felt more in line of her main goal through the series was an absolute freedom by the means of breaking down the systems that trapped and didn’t give a damn, rather than her quest for power. Yes you can argue gaining power means it’s easier to maintain her freedom to do whatever she wants but I personally think that’s a little off the mark when you gave her a story that involves her trapped by rules and time rather than being too physically weak to gain freedom.

This show has built up that the Schnee family has suffered various types of abuse because of Jacques and uses Weiss as a medium to build towards breaking free from that. Not just overcoming but confronting the abuse by cementing it’s place below you. We don’t really get that. There will never be a moment where the siblings and mother truly get to break out of Jacques grasps emotionally and then put him in his place because he’s dead! Yeah they never have to worry about him again but even last volume they showed Winter still having turmoil and being able to get strung along by him. We don’t even really know how Whitley perceived his father. It feels so lackluster. Then they care to mention how it’s Weiss’s idea to save him like it’s an empowering moment when in actuality, it would be against her character, values of a huntress, and morality to let a person die in cell when you’re the reason they’re in a cell! Letting him die in there would just terrible. I don’t even know why he wasn’t let out in that scene! He’s a coward! He’d follow their orders to save his skin. All he has to do is shut up and walk through a portal.

Ironwood and Oscar both knew they could remove that staff to use it and Atlas wouldn’t drop immediately. Why did nobody have any kind of compromise with one another since there’s nothing stopping them from using the staff for something and then putting it back? They had this morally gray thing going on which I liked but then they decided to make Ironwood go full evil. I’ve never had to say this before but the song he got in V7 and the character they made him be in V8 just don’t connect. I got upset listening to that song recently because I liked that Ironwood.

Clover’s importance. RT tried making a character who had no more than 9 minutes in the series and one meaningful line of dialogue into the cornerstone of a side plot. Clover is such a nothing character. Vine did more than Clover. They try to make him have such a profound impact to the people around him but we never see him bond with his team; Harriet specifically. We get one scene of Clover telling Qrow the kids are fortunate to have Qrow even if he doesn’t think so. First, I doubt Clover knows Qrow decided to get drunk in a ghost town and the kids nearly died and cellar while he did it so that compliment doesn’t hold much weight for me. Second, We see nothing meaningful between the two. V7 has a time skip and just expects viewers to be on board with Clover being this influential change on Qrow without showing anything outside of a witty remark and Clover flexing his semblance. I would’ve bought it more of Qrow almost relapsed and Clover stopped him then had a real meaningful conversation.

Ruby goes against Ironwood only to then want to do a plan that’s aligned to longer term thinking than even his, talks about how everyone should be working together, but then adds a part in her video to actively antagonize and vilify Ironwood. Afterwards, she wonders where everything went wrong and doesn’t think of a plan or do anything to immediately help either kingdom until the final hour between the ultimatum being made, to everything getting destroyed. The inciting incident was disagreeing Mantle should be left in favor of Atlas but the main character didn’t do anything to help Mantle 90% of the season and hindered Atlas’s safety up until the final plan.

Yang is used to be the devil’s advocate in a bunch of situations, but she’s wrong most of the time or her lines just don’t make any sense. They weren’t doing just fine before Atlas. They almost died every step of the way. The team didn’t beat a Leviathan; silver eyes and a robot take credit for that. Why would Blake think less of Yang for wanting to go save people immediately? Blake was never mad at anyone to begin with. Yang consistently calls out people for following orders as if it’s objectively wrong, but is never called out on the fact she hasn’t followed anybody’s orders but her own and added discourse to every situation. I get RT is making her ask questions because that’s what Raven told her to do, but all she’s really doing is picking fights and disobeying every order. Yang states to Ruby they accomplished more than they expected. That’s false, getting Oscar back is correcting a mistake caused by her own plan that she didn’t even complete.

It took 6 volumes before Yang had anything to do with the Summer Rose subplot again and 7 volumes before her and Ruby had a sister to sister conversations; 5 if you wanna count Yang telling Ruby to leave at the end of volume three. The reason I bring this up is because in V8 , they treat their argument as if it’s a big deal but then have every character say it wasn’t that big a deal; but then have two circle back to that conversation later after having neither character discuss to anybody that the argument actually did weigh on them. Yang doesn’t think about Ruby until she sees her again and the closest we get with Ruby is Blake reassuring her that people need her and how Blake admires her. I like that scene but it’s not the same as Ruby actually airing out the specific point that Yang said something that Ruby found hurtful. Vol8 in general people trying to comfort others but nobody ever actually addresses what made them uncomfortable to start with. Except Ren.

This one is a nitpicking but I’ll say it anyways. Penny getting hacked only served as a purpose to go to the vault, a thing Ironwood already wanted them to do. Nobody got her because she was hacked. You can’t even say her getting hacked is the leading factor to her actually dying because Penny became a vulnerable human afterwards that can’t be rebuilt. Pietro was gone, and already stated last volume he doesn’t have the aura to build Penny again. If she died as a robot then it’s still permanent death. No core, no Pietro, and no aura; hacking her was just to create a Hound reveal situation and make them go to the vault on a different set of terms. I’m not exactly upset with this, but I don’t understand why the extra steps. The Hound was hunting her anyways. I would’ve brought some kind of value if she hurt a friend and it caused them to potentially hinder the plan later on or remove them entirely. Penny could’ve rekt Yang and it only adds value to Yang getting one shot later. I don’t know. I’m rambling.

I think I’ve wasted enough people’s time. Honestly, I do like this volume. I’ve enjoyed a bunch of it. But there’s things that legitimately make me think it’s not as good others and makes V7 even worse.

[bubonickitten]

Relistening to TMA yet again (new hyperfixation, what can I say), and I can’t emphasize enough how much these early episodes kill me.

Because for a long time, Jon doesn’t realize what he’s becoming. And yeah, that’s obvious -- but it’s even more heartbreaking on a relisten, because he senses that something is off, but from his perspective the changes are so incremental that he doesn’t realize how much he’s changing until he’s in too deep. 

He finds himself getting attached to this tape recorder (even when he initially hated it), but tries not to think too hard about that. He’s becoming obsessed with recording everything, and tells himself that he’s doing it for posterity’s sake. Jon is adept at using outward denial to hide his inner, nonstop, overthinking doubt. (Eventually it escalates to full-blown paranoid information gathering, which I think is where the Eye’s influence really starts to show, but more on that later.)

At first, it’s a safe half-lie (or at least not full-truth) to tell himself. He’s an academic, a researcher. He no doubt has a deep appreciation for the preservation of history, for the documentation of human experience -- that part is probably true. It’s how he makes sense of the world (and that started when he was a child, when the main way he interacted with the world was through books). And let’s be honest, the man is a nerd, and (I say this lovingly and with a tendency to infodump myself) he was probably prone to infodumping long before he became the Archivist. (Giving a Wikipedia summary of emulsifiers at a coworker’s birthday party, anyone?)

But beneath all that, Jon is just... scared. And Jonathan Sims comes to fear a lot of things, but one of his first fears was being forgotten. So it’s no wonder he takes so well to the compulsion to record, document, archive. 

Makes sense; he was, by his own admission, emotionally neglected as a child. And sometimes harassed. He chalked it up to being “a deeply annoying child,” which -- oof, no wonder he acts like an ass sometimes. Even if he was adept at social interaction (which he’s not), keeping people at arm’s length can feel a lot safer than letting them close and risking rejection when they decide you’re too much to handle. 

Point is, being ignored or ostracized was already painful, but it became his normal. Being forgotten, though, would be a existentially terrifying step beyond that. 

All of this is put into even starker relief after “A Guest For Mr. Spider.” At 8 years old he witnessed someone get snatched from the world without a trace – someone ten years his senior, who died because he made the choice to torment Jon and just did so at the exact wrong moment (or perhaps right? Maybe the Web decided that early that Jon was more useful alive). But despite the fact that it was his bully, Jon has survivor’s guilt over it. He feels responsible. He admits that it’s illogical for him to think he could have done anything  differently—he was eight—but he still comes out of that experience with the fundamental belief that being forgotten would be a unique kind of punishment that he believes even his bully didn’t deserve.

It’s such a raw, vulnerable moment when he finally admits it out loud: “Because I’m scared, Martin!” All that denial was external, and so fragile that it took one panicked moment for him to drop the veneer. But internally? Jokes about his obliviousness aside -- and, yes, in a lot of ways, Jon is that smart dumbass -- he’s got some self-awareness. He’s put two and two together, realized that the “real” statements don’t record digitally. He’s seen the artifact storage. He’s had a Leitner-based trauma, like so many statement givers. He’s just scared and he Does. Not. Want. To. Talk. About. It. 

He tries to hide it early on behind a cold, stoic academic demeanor, but that… doesn’t last long, and once that veneer drops, he absolutely spirals into open paranoia and fear. And going forward, he really doesn’t hide his terror much. When he’s threatened, we hear him beg for his life. Even when he thinks the world might be better off without him, he still doesn’t want to die. He’s afraid of death, and after S1, he doesn’t try to pretend otherwise. (I really appreciate a horror protagonist who shows fear even when they’re trying to be brave.) 

So, by the end of S1, we get to see him start to admit that his new obsessive behavior is not just a detached academic interest, or his workaholic urge to do his job well. It’s because he’s scared. But beyond that, through S2 and into S3, he starts to admit that beneath that, there’s something else going on. His rapidly escalating paranoia spiral is due to trauma, as well as the realization that Gertrude was murdered, as well as the general sense of uneasiness and distrusts that permeates the Institute (the Eye loves that shit), but also, honestly?? I think this is where the Eye starts to really get a grip on him. The Ceaseless Watcher, the fear of, in Gerry’s words, “needing to know, even if your discoveries might destroy you. The feeling that something, somewhere, is letting you suffer, just so it can watch.”

Beyond the tape recorder obsession, Jon doesn’t seem to notice early on that when he reads statements, it’s almost like he’s in a trance. (I think one of the first episodes where he starts to notice this is actually in MAG 32, when he’s reading Jane Prentiss’ statement. His introduction to the statement is shaky, stilted, like he’s dreading it; when he’s reading Jane Prentiss’ words, it’s like he’s channeling her tone and delivery in a far more extreme way than he has before; and when he’s done, he’s clearly unsettled by the experience.) 

(Another thing that stands out to me on a relisten is his tone shift when talking to Elias in MAG 40 -- he has an almost dreamy, trancelike delivery of the line: “Tens of thousands of... things without mouths screaming as one.” Like he’s reliving a flashback, yes, but there’s something else in his delivery of that line that continues to show up in his later spooky-Archivist-powers moments. And Elias pauses, and I can only imagine him thinking in that moment, all smug and conniving, Good. Jon is starting to become The Archivist.)

And, of course, Jon also doesn’t notice when he starts being able to compel statements--which is kind of funny, because my first thought when listening to early statements was, “How are all these statements so detailed and coherent? Did all these statement givers take creative writing classes or something?” But Jon doesn’t really seem to question that at first. It becomes more clear when the archive assistants try to take statements -- the statement givers can’t stay on topic, can’t remember details, can’t relive the moment in the same way they can if they’re forced to through compulsion. Adelard Dekker mentions that in one of his letters to Gertrude, too. It’s also sad, though, because he kept getting accused of forcing people to answer questions when he didn’t realize he was doing it (e.g. his interviews with Basira, Daisy, and Jude). 

It’s just... such a gradual downward spiral. And yeah, there’s something tragic about that--and it isn’t going to end well; this is a horror-tragedy story after all--but one of the things I like about Jon is that he works so, so hard to change and become a better person in spite of what the Beholding is trying to turn him into. 

I’m getting way off-topic. Basically, Jonny Sims is... very good at character development, and it’s fun to relisten and start to pick out the moments when things start to go wrong, the little details that maybe didn’t stand out so much on my first listen. Admittedly I, much like Jon Sims, have my own little conspiracy corkboard flavor of overthinking, so some of this might just be me reading too far into it. But still, I like all the layers going on here. 

[darkestwolfx]

Hyperspeed - Re-Review #51

So, Scott’s back! He’s obviously been making the most of that vacation time Virgil mentioned, or maybe sorting out things for Tracy Industries? Who knows, choose what you like, but he’s back in blue!

And it’s another high-speed, runaway train (of sorts). He get all the best jobs, doesn’t he?

And hello to you David Tennant (aka Tycho Reeves, billionaire inventor), thank you for joining us in this great episode of TAG looking very like yourself.

Is anyone else getting 10th Doctor vibes? All we need now are his 3D glasses and the look is complete. Really though, they even put him in blue!

So this is the Hypercar - it’s like the next addition to the monorail or the underground (evolved obviously, the underground is redundant by 2060). It’s even faster than FireFlash apparently. That’s saying something.

Now, let’s meet Gertie Bunson - the next annoying reporter to grace TAG with her presence. Really, let’s just stop writing in reporters hey? That’s an idea right there.

“An excited crowds awaits the arrival of the very first Hypercar, which should be here any minute now! Isn’t that right Tycho?”

“Less than a minute in fact. We’ll be pulling to Nightbridge Station in sixteen seconds. Hmm, that’s two seconds early.”

A whole two seconds? To most people, that would go completely unnoticed. Two minutes on the other hand, that we tend to notice. Two seconds? I’m not a clock watcher.

“Here they come now! This is where Tycho and his guest will be arriving- whoa! Wasn’t it supposed to stop?”

Well, if you hadn’t asked that, Gertie, we might never have guessed that was the intention - you know, always try and cover your mistakes.

And then - in very 10th Doctor fashion - Tycho starts rambling on (like all great scientists apparently do) about the size of bugs. Oh, but, did we mention they’re still speeding up? Oopps.

Time to make that call, I think.

John is clearly taking his turn for vacation time now as Grandma’s at the desk doing a spell of monitor duty. At least it keeps her out of the kitchen!

“If anybody can catch up to you it’s us!”

Yep! Now we get to see them try. Love high speed chases me.

“Boys, sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep with an early morning emergency, but these people need help.”

“Time to fly.”

“And I’ll try to work out what has gone wrong with this amazingly brilliant design!”

Sleepy? Wake up as quick as you like, Scott, but ideally before you pilot One, and ideally before the Hypercar crashes. Gosh, really, what has that boy been doing since ‘Long Haul’?

“Closing in on the Hypertube now. Any luck figuring out what’s gone wrong Brains? Brains?”

“Uh, I think your friend may be a tad... starstruck.”

A tad? Brains is literally frozen starting with blinky eyes.

“I’m your number one fan!”

“Well Brains, if you ever want to meet Tycho in person, we better to figure out how to stop his car.”

And then Brains does the sciency bit with a whole lot of praise thrown in. It’s like the opposite of an episode featuring Langstrom Fischler, no negative vibes here please.

“I’ll be able to rescue you after the hypercar makes a water landing.”

“No!

“Absolutely not! We’re travelling in a vacuum.”

“Hitting the atmosphere at mach eight would be like-”

“-slamming into a brick wall.”

Nice try, Scott, but it seems like you’re on delivery boy duty. I love Brains and Tycho finishing each other’s sentences.

I can’t believe this screenshot is like nowhere over the internet! Seriously Gertie being blown away by Thunderbird One’s landing due to her own stupidity is absolutely class entertainment.

“We’ve been told to evacuate the platform as Thunderbird One lands, but we’re not gonna miss a chance to bring you this thrilling live shot of- whoa! Let’s move back a bit shall we?”

It’s like Ned Cook (TOS) reincarnated. Or maybe he finally married, or had a sister we never knew about.

He looks so happy! Honestly though, I would too if I could have a friend like mini-MAX. I want one.

“If you check your sash, you’ll find a new tool of your own.”

“Thanks Brains, but what does it- Whoa!”

“Meet Mini-MAX.”

“Brains, you always surprise me.”

“Just one question. How do you expect your hypercar to catch up with Tycho’s?

“I don’t expect to catch them. I expect them to catch me.”

“I’ve begun to question the merits of this plan!”

You and me both Tycho. I know Scott lives for a bit of speed and danger but this is a new one. 

“You must go faster Scott!”

“Kinda already knew that Brains.”

Tycho is a smart man. I would have strapped in as well.

“Good job! How did you make it go faster?”

“I’m not exactly sure.”

“I’ll try and figure out what you and Mini-MAX did. It may lead us to the problem.”

Now look at Mini-MAX holding on for dear life!

Good idea Brains! Let’s check in with Tycho and the others in their Hypercar, shall we?

“Bet you didn’t know you’d be getting a demonstration of our Collision Protection System, ey?”

“I feel like a balloon animal.”

Where as I saw this, and instantly my brain went;

It’s the Michelin Man!

No, seriously, it is, and he says hello;

And during these testing times, there’s something for everyone. You can join his lockdown running classes;

Or something steadier and calmer, like his yoga classes;

Feel the zen!

Or there’s even dancing classes!

P.S. Wait until we get to the end of the review, I swear this is where Brains gets his moves from. You’ll see, trust me. (And if you’re new to the Re-Review Series, my brains wonders a lot so... and if you’re not new to it, you should have expected to see this).

Right, back to impending doom;

“Tycho, so nice to finally meet you! Virtually at least.”

“Oh, impressive invention!”

It’s like Brains gets to achieve his dream meeting! That little mechanical hand is never getting washed.

Mini-MAX is great, really, I want one, but I’m with Scott here;

“Uh, guys, sorry to interrupt but uh, imminent doom?”

I called that!

“Right.”

“RAD.”

“Tycho’s design appears to be perfect. So the problem must have been a manufacturing error when the car was built.”

“I’ve been thinking the same thing. If the throttle is working, one of the plasma plugs must have machined improperly.

“Oh no.”

“Ah, a couple of bad plasma plugs should be pretty easy to fix.”

You obviously weren’t listening to Brains crucial “oh no” there Scott.

“Fixing them is the easy part, but reaching them is next to impossible.”

“The plasma plug assembly can only be accessed from outside the car. Specifically, underneath it.”

“Got ya.”

I love Mini-MAX clipping Scott to the train. I would trust Mini-MAX over my own self any day.

“Looks like a fun place to hang out.”

What is it with Scott and ‘hanging’ out? This does not look like my idea of fun, thank you very much. I would like to keep myself upright, and maybe in one of those comfy seats feeling like a balloon animal. That sounds appealing whilst the world falls apart... if you need me, I’ll be waiting out with the collision protection system and the Michelin Man.

Joke, I’ll be here working and writing the Re-Reviews! I would now like a balloon animal though...

“Dropping even a single bolt would be catastrophic!”

“I don’t think that’s going to be hard to remember Brains!”

At least we’ve graduated from ‘Runaway’ where Brains insisted Scott take notes. That would be a little impossible here, after all. The notepad would be blown away!

Borrowed just a few of Virgil’s power tools there, did you Scott? Best return them all in once piece or he might ruin your portrait too. I know he got Tycho’s from the control station, but I couldn’t resist the chance to reference ‘Inferno’ here. Whist we’re on the note of references, here’s another ’Brink of Death’ (TOS) situation.

I love our contest winners;

“That was Grandpa. He loves to go fast.”

“I do!”

“And you don’t?”

“Honestly, we’re just lucky I have thrown up yet.”

I’m with Tycho this time. Oh seems appropriate. I love that we’re breaking stereotypes here (something TAG have done pretty well at in general). You don’t have to be young to love a bit of speed.

“I probably want to replace these one at a time then huh?”

“Yes, and very carefully.”

Oh, uh, what were you saying about remembering? First the drill nearly went down and then- wait, down goes the plasma plug!

“Nice catch!”

Mini-MAX to the rescue.

“One more twist and we’ll finally be able to slow- down!”

Or not. You just had to say it.

I think Brains should have got on the phone to EOS - she knows all about hacking high-speed methods of transportation.

“Why would the speed increase at random like that! If the controls aren’t making the car go faster, then the only way it could be accelerating is... oh no! Tycho, one of your formulas has a small error.”

“Impossible! My calculations were perfect.”

“I thought so too.”

“No! That should be metres per second squared! Oh how could I be so foolish!”

“Even genius’ make mistakes.”

There goes that Scott Tracy trait of forgiveness and acceptance again. I do love it when they show moments like this. Of all the brothers, Scott is the best at staying calm and talking to people, reassuring them that things aren’t always black and white. These scenes were always building towards something, and we’re going to see the real test in the next episode. To do a job like this you have to be selfless, but Scott is almost self-sacrificing (well, the whole family is in a sense), but remember with Kat, for example, Scott had no reason to stay, but he did. It’s just him, and this is an excellent follow through.

“Yes, but my mistake is going to destroy us all! There’s no way for us to stop.”

“Let’s just take a breath and slow down so we can think this through.”

“Slow down...”

“Yeah, that’s the idea.”

“No, slow down! We don’t have to stop the car we just need to be in a slower vehicle that won’t vaporize when it’s hits the atmosphere! Oh, you’re a genius! Right the vehicle will need to be fast enough to reach us with enough thrust to slow down in time.”

“Brains, we need Thunderbird Four inside the Hypertube ASAP. And put it in there backwards.”

The man with a plan is on a roll again!

Cut back to Gertie Bunson reporting again, and a nice little reconstruction on Thunderbird Four’s traditional launch sequence, because Thunderbird Four has arrived! A submersible out of water.

And now we go from Scott Photo Central to squid screen time!

“Um, are we sure this is a good idea?”

Maybe not Gordon, but let’s launch before anyone answers you.

“Bad idea!”

And then you can answer yourself! Great times.

“You’re losing speed, Gordon!”

“Don’t worry, Brains. If I can see it, I can catch it.”

You know, I am jealous of how good an aim every member of this family has. I am rubbish at catch.

“Welcome aboard.”

Gordon steadying Scott is like brilliant. We need more moments of these two for sure.

“It’s working. We’re slowing down.”

“But will it be enough?”

And there go the hypercars... exploding.

“Virgil, they’re loading into Thunderbird Four, get ready to show them a way out.”

“FAB.”

And because you’ve got to get a daily dose of Virgil in there;

“Let’s hope you guys make a slower, gentler exit.”

“Hey, I’m nothing if not gentle! Brace for impact!”

We’ll ignore the oxymoron there.

“We made it! We didn’t burn up!”

Yeah, just give away to the poor civilians that you weren’t expecting to survive, Gordon. That’s really reassuring.

“Did you guys have a plan for how to land this thing?”

It’s Gordon and Virgil, Scott. There’s always a plan. Even if it’s a little improvised or thrown together at the last minute.

“Um, kinda.”

Just another mid-air catch of Thunderbird Four, nothing special to see here, folks.

Who am I kidding? Bring in the applause! We’ve seen this move in ‘Extraction’ and ‘Clean Sweep’ and Virgil never gets it wrong. Takes talent.

“Everyone ok?”

“Can we do that again!”

“No thanks.”

Yeah, I’m with Tycho again. Just watching it made my head spin.

“Big thanks to International Rescue for saving our lives.”

“And for the thrill of a lifetime.”

Nice to get a thank you in there for once.

More high fives! Is there a gif set of the TAG high fives yet? Keep them coming I like them. Nice happy moments, high fives. Brains has basically just got his dream come true!

Of this I have no wordable description, and it looks like Grandma doesn’t either.

Do you see?

Look at Mini-MAX! He’s like a robot version of a dog. I really want one, and I’m sad we never see him again! Bye Mini-MAX!

“I did - finally - get you to London.”

“Thanks, but um... how are we getting back to Tokyo?”

“Oh... yes, uh... Scott?”

Yeah, just turn to our ideas man. He’ll always come up with something. It’s a little like TOS ‘Cry Wolf’ here, where Scott lets Tony and Bob ride in Thunderbird One. He’s a crowd pleaser, this one.

“Want to go for a ride?”

“Wow!”

“Oh um, that would be great I guess.”

“Now, tell me about those engines.”

That smile of Tycho’s as they walk to Thunderbird One - goodness I love how much is contained in that single expression.

Oh, but don’t forget Gertie! Desperately trying to get her scoop - very Ned Cook. Maybe she’s his daughter? I don’t think I entertained that possibility earlier...

“Scott Tracy, any chance we can get a quick interview?”

*Engines start... deliberately*

“You know what? Nevermind. Another time. Maybe.”

What gave it away that he didn’t want to talk to you?

This ending scene is one of my favourite, little sweet moments. After an epic rescue like that, this was needed.

Well, let’s look to Monday for the final episode of Series 2! I can’t believe we’ve already made it this far. We can tell something is coming though - the end credit music had a slight variant to it. The musical score in this series really was on point.

[buffster]

The Yoko Factor (BTVS 4.20)

This is part of my ongoing Buffyverse Project, where I write notes/meta for every episode in an attempt to better understand the characters and themes of the shows. You can find the BTVS list here and the ATS list here. Gifs are not mine.

All I remembered about the Scooby fight was that it happened. I had forgotten how, and I actually do think it makes more sense now. It wasn’t about their friendship, it was about attacking each of their insecurities and making them feel that everyone else in the group had noticed them too. This was possible because the friendship has been so fractured that no one feels supported or even seen. They have no reason not to think they’re being judged. 

Unfortunately, the resolution to all this never really comes around. There is a ton of good stuff here--Buffy’s increased reliance on herself, Willow’s moving away from her computer skills and into witchcraft as a solution to everything, Xander not feeling respected and seeing Anya as an extension of that, Giles losing his sense of leadership and importance--but we never really get an acknowledgement of any of that until much later. And the real problem that Spike landed on--that the Scoobies aren’t paying a bit of attention to one another--gets a quick patch over but continues to be a problem. Yes, Buffy isn’t judging Willow, but is that a good thing or just a symptom of her ignoring her entirely?  

Spike is the one who comes up with this plan to incite drama, which I do feel makes sense for his character. He’s insightful and incredibly good at stuff like this. It’s also fun to see his perspective on Buffy and how fascinated/afraid of her he is. He keeps insisting to Adam that he needs to consider her a bigger threat. You can sense the admiration beneath the irritation. 

Adam: You feel smothered. Trapped like an animal, pure in its ferocity, unable to actualize the urges within… Clinging to one truth like a flame struggling to burn within an enclosed glass… That a beast this powerful cannot be contained. Inevitably it will break free and savage the land again… I will make you whole again. Make you savage.

This is the episode in which Forrest is killed. He claims his problem with Buffy is that Riley is willing to commit treason over her and turn against their “family”. I would have loved to see some more backstory on Forrest: either have him be an orphan who found his family through Riley and now he feels abandoned or have him have a romantic interest in him. Then you could even have had him join Adam willingly as a way to get his family back. 

Angel’s return also doesn’t fit into the story well. I covered over in Sanctuary why his coming here made no sense, and his drama with Riley was nothing but fan-baiting. It also felt like a bit of a step back for Angel’s character; he always seems less mature over on Buffy. On Angel he seems sad but resigned to the fact that he can’t have Buffy and she comes off as wanting more than he can give. But here he seems like a petty, jealous ex. I don’t see a scenario where he would like Riley, but beating him up, refusing to explain he’s not evil, and insinuating he might have slept with Buffy is ridiculous. The end scene where he says “I don’t like him” in a tone of resigned sadness makes more sense than everything before it.  

Buffy: Look, I… you weren't entirely wrong, what you said in L.A. We don't live in each other's worlds anymore. I can't just barge in on yours and make judgments.

Angel: I'm still sorry.

Buffy: Thank you.

Xander is the one who gives Riley the information on what turned Angel evil. Why does he have this habit of venting inappropriately when it comes to Buffy’s boyfriends (here, and when he tells Dawn Spike tried to rape Buffy)? In the script Xander decides to tell Riley even though it’s clear Buffy doesn’t want him to know, but in the episode it plays like Xander accidentally spilled the beans. 

As far as Buffy’s decision on this, I get it. It’s a bit easier for Willow, for example, to be totally honest with Tara about her past with Oz. She loved him, the wolf thing became a problem, he left. Angel will always hold power over Buffy and she will always have feelings for him, and basically the only reason they’re not together is because they can’t be. How do you tell a boyfriend that if your ex suddenly became human you’d be tempted to run right back into his arms? It’s unresolved and messy. 

Riley: I went a little nuts, you know? I mean, on the one hand, I should believe in us. But, on the other, sometimes things just happen between ex's and then I saw he was bad

Buffy: He wasn't bad.

Riley: Seriously? That's a "good" day? Well there you go. Even when he's good he's all Mr. Billowy Coat King of Pain and girls really-

After their talk they say I love you to each other and then Buffy has to tell him about Forrest. He abruptly leaves, and the cliff-hanger is that he goes to Adam.

Let’s get in to the Scooby drama. It’s clear Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles haven’t been paying much attention to each other lately, but you know who has been paying attention? Spike. 

Spike: Think you're neglecting the past tense there, Rupert. Besides, she barely listened when you were in charge. I've seen the way she treats you.

We’ve seen a few hints that Giles is insecure about losing his job as librarian and, more importantly, Watcher. He was fired way back in season three, but when Buffy belonged to the Council she continued to look to him for guidance and ignored the replacements. When she decided to drop the Council and stop taking orders she also stopped looking to him. She’s the leader now. 

Xander: This is so like them lately. It's all about them and the college life. You know what college is? It's high school without the actual going to class. Well, high school was sort of like that too but the point is, I'm the one working hard to earn a living and it's a huge joke to them.

Anya: They look down on you.

Xander: And they hate you…

Anya: But they don't look down on me.

Xander is struggling to find his footing post-high school, which we actually have seen hints of throughout. The ironic part is Buffy and Willow will be in the same place after college, but by then Xander is finding a place in construction and doing a bit better. Spike suggests they mentioned him going to the military, which was a strange choice. It would be fairly easy for them to shut down having ever said that if it came up. Spike only gets away with it because the fight is so chaotic. 

Willow: I am a whiz!

Tara: She is a whiz.

Willow’s insecurity is about her new relationship with Tara and her friend’s feelings about it. Spike slips up here; he says Xander said she was being trendy but Xander doesn’t even know about the relationship at this point. Spike points out something interesting here--Willow isn’t as focused on her computer skills lately. But that’s not something she or anyone else will be concerned about for awhile. 

Spike doesn’t say anything to Buffy, which makes sense because she’s sort of the center of this whole universe. Buffy has a lot of concerns, but her friends not liking or needing her isn’t one of them. The interesting thing about all this drama is that none of the friends care a bit about what the others are going through; they’re too focused on their own drama. Buffy and Willow don’t think about Xander’s employment issues, Buffy and Xander don’t think about Willow’s sexual preferences or her obsession with wicca, and Buffy, Xander, and Willow don’t think about Giles’ lack of employment in any real way.

Tensions escalate when they all convene at Giles’ house because everyone is overly sensitive (Buffy is totally lost). 

Giles: You never train with me anymore. Adam's gonna kick your ass.

Buffy: Giles?!

Giles: Sorry! Didn't mean to be so honest. Terribly sorry.

After seeing Forrest die, Buffy isn’t eager for anyone to come along with her. And that just further taps into their feelings of inadequacy. 

Xander: And if I did join the army I'd be great. You know why? Because maybe they'd give me a job that couldn't be done by any well-trained Border Collie.

Willow: Sure, you'd be wonderful in the army -- you think the umbilical cord between you and Anya would stretch that far?

Xander: I knew it. I knew you hated her.

Willow: Hey, I'm not the one being judgmental, here. I'll leave that territory to you and Buffy.

Buffy: Judgmental? If I was any more open minded about the choices you two make my whole brain would fall out.

Xander: Oh. And superior. Don't forget that. Just because you're better than us doesn't mean you can be all superior.

Buffy: Guys, stop this. What happened to you today?

Willow: It's not today. Buffy, everything's been wrong for a while. Don't you see that?

Buffy: Willow, what do you mean things have been wrong? Things don't have to be wrong, do they?

A major problem with the Scooby friendship is that Buffy is the leader--and she is both too distracted and too inclined to ignore emotional issues to lead effectively. Buffy is an avoidance type and so the entire group avoids talking or working through their feelings with each other. This is something Giles noticed in Once More With Feeling but it never gets fixed. The group is missing someone like Faith or Spike...someone who would be more willing to call out issues and bring them out in the open. Buffy hates that, but sometimes it’s necessary. Just look what happened to everyone in season six...

Character Notes:

The Initiative: They want Riley back. They (correctly) realize they can’t harm Buffy if they ever want to bring him back into the fold. When the relationship between them ends they do eventually lure him back, so good call there.

Spike: We learn he can’t even point a useless gun with the chip in his head. It appears to be activated by intent to harm rather than ability, which makes sense. He lists his past fun night outs as deflowering a virgin princess, killing a minister mid-sermon, and seeing the Sex Pistols in ‘76. 

Adam: His favorite Beatles song is ‘Helter Skelter’. 

[popwasabi]

Top 5: Jazz, Taiko Drums, and Hurdy Gurdies. My Favorite TV Intros.

It was not long ago when most streaming sites began offering a “skip intro” option for TV show content. Hell, it seemed some intros to the Netflix, Hulu and Prime content began intentionally making their original openers short and sweet so that viewers could get all the info they needed as quickly as possible.

These were welcome changes for most binge watchers who sometimes watch entire seasons of their favorite shows within a day’s time not wanting to waste time on seeing the same names on the opening credits over and over again.

(Yes, God damn it! I’m a slave to the stream!!)

Though this has been convenient for myself more than a few times I for one enjoy the artistic quality of a good TV show opener. It’s part music video, part amalgamation of everything stylistically and tonally you need to know about a series and a truly great opener can hook a fan to a show for life.

There are many shows, no matter how many times I watch them, I’ll never skip the intro too because they sum up everything I love about the series in a single 30 second to minute and a half long video and hey some of those songs really do “slap” as the kids say.

So, let’s talk a little bit about some of my favorite intros and why I love them so much in this week’s top 5.

Note: This isn’t just a discussion of the music used but the opening credits and imagery used to accompany it.

5. Cowboy Bebop

There’s a long list of truly great anime openers out there from the Karaoke-friendly J-pop tunes of “Neon Genesis Evangelion’s” “Cruel Angel’s Thesis” to the classic 80s vibes of Akira Toriyama’s “Dragon Ball” and “Dragon Ball Z.” But only one anime is going to make the cut for this list and that’s “Tank!” from the 90s classic “Cowboy Bebop.” It’s truly unique in the anime landscape as its one of the few that features Jazz and an opening that doesn’t overly rely on the tropes of more traditional anime drawing its influence instead from 60s and 70s spy movies and aesthetics. Fans of “Archer” will likely notice similar motifs in that shows own opening and Bebop’s “Tank!” is all about exuding this “cool” vibe of its show’s primary characters the fun and often dangerous missions they get involved in. It’s a hip, unique take that stands out distinctly in its genre and a truly un-skippable tune during a binge watch.

 4. Star Trek: The Next Generation

I think the first time I truly fell in love with a TV opener was watching the show I gained my namesake from.

Yes, I’m named after Wesley Crusher.

I know, I know.

Anyways, there’s something special about this intro and it’s not just its nostalgia or classic Star Trek vibes but the hopeful adventurousness of the music’s tone. “Star Trek” has always been about an optimist’s view of the future, a world where people of multiple creeds, backgrounds, races, species in this case come together not to fight but to explore the furthest reaches of the cosmos.

The music always got me in the mood to watch Captain Picard, Data, and Riker to go do there thing whether it was as banal as negotiating a dispute in the neutral zone, fun and often weird times on the holodeck, or taking on the dreaded borg. The music accompanied by the venerable Patrick Stewart’s brilliant voiceover and the sprawling, albeit dated, graphics of space helped make TNG iconic and I’ll never consider skipping it on a binge watch.

 3. Penny Dreadful

Though it’s later seasons never held up nearly as well as its first I became instantly hooked on Showtime’s “Penny Dreadful” largely because of Abel Korseniowski’s brilliant score, particularly the intro he wrote for the show.

Korseniowski’s use of classical and gothic tunes helped bring viewers back to horror’s more Victorian roots in the best of ways with an opener that felt touching, somber, emotional and chilling all at once. The images splashing across the screen of various classic monsters, arachnids, and ghouls as the haunting soundtrack played immediately drew me into the story in the same way the young Dr. Frankenstein in the show could not look away from the horrors uncovered in the narrative. It perfectly captures the ghoulish, dramatic charm of the show and though its later storylines don’t hold up as well it’s another intro that is undeniably un-skippable.

 2. Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009)

Bear McCreary is probably my favorite composer of all-time and his work on the Battlestar Galactica reboot is a big reason why.

Though he wasn’t the initial composer on the two-episode mini-series in 2003, the themes, motifs and tones he took from Richard Gibbs work he quickly made his own and created a unique outlier in the science fiction music landscape that has defined his style ever since. The opener is a big reason why his work resonates so much with me because it captures much of the these unique tones and styles not just of the music but of the series’ story itself.

It begins slow like the opening crawl to a great mythical odydessy and tale of survival as we see the last days of civilization play out across the screen. As spaceships begin to caravan across the screen we get a sense of the desperation of the story’s heroes and the stakes they are up against and as it begins to close that’s when the percussion goes into full gear. The use of taiko drums in the soundtrack is brilliant and none more so than this opener as its speeds through frenetically the events of the episode giving us only passing glimpses of the action that is about to take place. It might feel like a spoiler for the narrative but it gave each episode that extra jolt before stepping back into the story and I enjoyed it every single time.

 1. Black Sails

I knew I was going to love “Black Sails” the minute the opening credits began.

The scratchy, aggravating yet hypnotic tunes of the hurdy gurdy playing over the creepy, blackness of the ocean gave the series an immediate dark and unique tone I wasn’t immediately expecting when I began watching the series. I had heard bits and pieces about the show’s plot; a sort of prequel to “Treasure Island” and an edgier take on the prototypical Pirate story is all I knew about it going in but the opener lets you know pretty much immediately this isn’t your typical tale of swashbuckling buccaneers. Like a twisted sea shanty mixed together with a pirate themed rock bank, “Black Sails” intro is dare I say a banger that has you howling along to the righteous vocals of music in the most epic of ways.

But the music truly captures the tone and theme of the story in more subtle ways as well. Like an itch you can’t scratch the music tell it’s viewer and listener of a rage lingering deep beneath the surface of the waves of its main characters, one that’s barely being contained as the music hits these powerful offbeat notes between the electric guitar play and the offkey piano drops. As the series progresses you begin to understand more who and what it’s describing it makes the series that much more memorable.

It didn’t surprise me in the least that Bear McCreary was the man behind the brilliance of this piece and it makes each episodes’ opening a must watch.

 So, what are your favorite intros? What music paired with a unique and captivating opening title crawl captured your imagination and emotions the most? Let’s hear it!

Me in my car to any of these songs. All the time...

[centaurianthropology]

The Magnus Archives ‘Remains to Be Seen’ (S04E07) Analysis

A hell of a statement, a follow-up to the beginning of things, and an ill-advised visit.  Come on in to hear what I have to say about ‘Remains to be Seen.’

This was a hell of a statement.  Hell of an episode, really.  I know Jonny likes his historical statements possibly the best of all, and this is a follow-up of ‘Schwartzwald’.  After some decent statements and some general depression in the meta-plot, I was seriously happy to not only get some movement in a spookier and less wholly depressing direction in the meta plot, but also to get probably my favorite statement so far this season.

This time, it’s less ‘Count Magnus’ and more a sadder version of ‘Dracula’ at play.  It seems that Albrecht von Closen restored the books he found in the tomb in ‘Scwartzwald’, what many of us had considered an Archive prior to the one in London (and after the one in Alexandria).  Poor Albrecht quickly found himself being ‘read’ by the books, fed story after story and horror after horror.  In essence, he was instantly coopted as the first Archivist of the modern era.

And he was lined on the inside, every bit of him, with eyes (which is an extremely Bloodborne image). And so, I imagine, is Jon.  The more he grows and learns, the more eyes on the inside he acquires, looking in and looking out.    

And Jon knows he’s changing. He heals far too quickly.  He wasn’t killed by the blast that killed both Tim and even Nikola.  He knows things whenever he needs them.  He has a dam in his head, but behind it is an ocean of knowledge, pressing in on him, threatening to overwhelm him.  Holding onto his humanity sounds like a genuine struggle under all that weight.

It also sounds as though there’s very little way out for a budding Archivist.  Returning the books to the mausoleum didn’t help Albrecht. Returning the books simply killed the would-be Archivist, or whatever was in the stone coffin killed him.  It also sounds as though Albrecht either returned the wrong books (having been bound and swapped out by Jonah Magnus while he filled his own first attempt at an Archive), or that as Albrecht read, the pages went blank and he absorbed their stories.

But given that we have an Institute, I think it’s likely to be the former.  Jonah Magnus, desperate to establish himself as something in the supernatural community, leaped at the opportunity to get his hands on this collection.  Hell, it even seems like he was trying to establish a space for these books that was already aligned with the Beholding, if his clear connection to Millbank Prison is any indication.  I have to wonder if he and Smirke worked directly together, or if Smirke didn’t care one way or the other about who utilized what he built, so long as it created that balance he hungered for so much.

Whatever Jonah’s intent in clearing out the space in or under Millbank, and establishing this first Archive, it cost his friend’s death.  Did he know?  Did he care? Was Jonah more like Jon, who still has those he cares about die, but doesn’t want it to happen, or was he more like Jurgen Leitner, viewing everyone around him as expendable fuel to brighten his own ascent to knowledge and power?  

I have the terrible feeling, given what we know happened with Barnabas Bennett and others, that he was far more a Leitner.  And that a great many people died in the establishment of the Institute.

And a great many more continue to die or suffer.  Jon knows it. Basira knows it.  Melanie is shattered in a way that may not be reparable. She can apologize, but taking the Slaughter out of her may have left her defenseless in ways she wasn’t before.

And Martin is in an even worse position than we thought.  His mother died shortly after Jon’s coma started, and I really have to wonder how much of a hand Peter had in that.  Peter singled Martin out from the beginning, even in last season.  He’s the only person Peter will appear to, and Peter seems bound and determined to sever every tie Martin has to the world.  His mother’s gone, perhaps helped along by Peter. Jon was gone, and now Martin’s been convinced that whatever his plan is, it requires him to stay away from Jon. It seems like a terrible idea.  It seems like Martin both knows he’s being manipulated by Peter, but might not know how much.  

Either way, the one person Jon ought to talk to is the one person being deliberately held out of his reach.  But Jon, in a twist of events that I didn’t see coming, is actually trying to just gather information and help his friends right now.  He’s making good decisions.

Which, unfortunately, means other people have to make bad decisions for him.  And so Basira goes to Elias for help.  I really feel like having Elias finally appear in a Jonah Magnus statement is fitting.  They’re the same, he and Jonah.  I doubt that Jonah was ever the Archivist.  The Archivist is ridiculously powerful, yes, but seems more dispensable than Jonah wanted to be.  I think he carved out a position he considered unique (though it had almost certainly existed before, and would exist again) in order to watch over the Archives and the Archivist.  He created the Institute.  He wanted more than just to serve it.

No, Jonah wasn’t the Archivist sort.  He was the Head of Institute sort.  

And Elias is just as ambitious.  He wants the Watcher’s Crown to happen, and I really don’t think he trusts Peter to see that through for him.  So instead, with Peter having snatched up Martin, Elias is getting to work on Basira. He’s playing on her own need to protect people, her fear that while they saved Melanie as a person, they’ve lost her as a fighter.  Basira, just like Martin, is convinced that she has to act to protect the others, and rather than talking to them and planning with them, she ran to the most powerful being she could lay hands on.

All Elias wants to do is talk, and all he wants her to do is listen?  Terrible idea.  Elias’ words are his weapons.  So long as he can speak, he can twist reality around himself.  Even more than Peter, who seems to require Martin’s willing cooperation, Elias can blackmail and emotionally bludgeon people into submission.

And I imagine he can manipulate with far more proficiency than Peter too.

Now I’m really worried about Basira.  I had thought it would be Jon or Martin keyed in to kick off the Watcher’s Crown, but Basira seems far more lined up for it now.  She’s clever, but Elias is wily and vicious.  He knows she’s desperate.  He knows that Peter has her isolated and scared.  He knows that seeing Melanie needy and far too much like Daisy is leaving Basira vulnerable, loath though she would be to admit it.  So he’s going to stick the knife in and twist.  He’s going to go after her, and plant ideas in her head.

I get the horrible feeling that, if Basira really does start the Watcher’s Crown, she’ll honestly think it was her idea.  Elias talked about just needing her ‘time’, and I fear that has a lot more implications than just a chat.  He does love wordplay.  Could he steal time from her lifespan, or channel it into power?  Could he convince her that she could save the others with it (and likely, she could), but it also is a major step toward the Watcher’s Crown?

Or, he’s taking her time literally, as in taking the time she has as herself.  If Elias and Jonah are the same in a literal as well as metaphorical way, Jonah may be planning to jump from Elias’ body to Basira’s.  

I hope she has ideas and ways that will keep her safe from Elias, but working with him is a deal with the devil.  And I definitely think she may get burned.

We’ve now got two potential major threats set up: the rise of the new power, which is supposedly what Peter and Martin are working on, and the Watcher’s Crown, which Elias has been working on, and which he may have just subconsciously recruited Basira to help with.  And between them we have Jon, who’s just trying to keep himself from drowning.

Shit’s finally starting to move.  After being trapped in the emotional doldrums for the last few episodes, I’m honestly excited to see where things are going again.  Bringing Elias back in is always welcome, because the man is the antithesis of emotional stasis.  He’s got plans, and he pushes things forward.  And right now, Jon and his team need something big to shock them out of their own wallowing, and back into something resembling trust and working together.  I fear that it may require a genuine world-ending-level threat to do it, but I do believe that Jon, Basira, Martin, and Melanie have reparable relationships.  And right now they all need one another more than ever. They have nothing outside the Archives. All other allies have other motives and are more likely than not to use and discard them.  Having these four finally gel as a team is honestly all I want out of this season.

But in the meantime? I’m so glad the smarmy villainous asshole that is Elias Bouchard is back in play.  As worried as I am for Basira, for the story, he’s just what we needed. Peter’s too vague and too nebulous a threat to seem frightening right now, and his saccharine sweet manipulations make him a less likeable villain for me.  Also, his entire focus is to target the weak, the lonely, and the emotionally vulnerable.  

Elias’ sort of villainy, on the other hand, is direct.  He likes to target the clever, those so confident in their own abilities that they never see their own downfall.  Vulnerability, if anything, bores him.  Martin being as weak and as lovesick as he was made him beneath Elias’ notice. Martin’s ability to use that against Elias is commendable, but it’s also commendable that Elias most of the time lets vulnerable people to their own devices.  He let Basira do what she liked as long as she played hostage.  He roped Melanie into the job, but didn’t stifle her decisions until those decisions directly threatened his life too many times for him to ignore.

In other words, Elias’ villainy is fair, in a way.  Or at least he manipulates people who ought to know better.  It’s the sort of villainy to make me grin from ear to ear. Because he really is rather decent to his employees, and treats those not standing in his way with courtesy.  He keep things running smoothly, and wants to end the world on his own time and not interfere with his paperwork.  He manipulates Jon, yes, but in such a way that Jon knows it’s happening and will do what Elias wants anyway.  Elias’ need to show off and demonstrate how smart he is actually means he’s less underhanded than Peter.  

And the way Elias treats Jon?  Or even Melanie during her early attempts at his life?  The way he talks to Basira?  It sounds almost … fond.  Not the solicitous faux-concern of Peter, but a genuine delight in everyone’s fumbling attempts to foil him.  

Peter once said that Elias was too protective of his people, and I think that in a weird way that’s true. He won’t let any of them stand in the way of his ultimate goals or even his own power, no, but so long as that’s not the case, he treats them surprisingly well.  Especially seeing how quickly everything’s gone to shit under Peter, it makes Elias’ presence even more missed.  Elias will stab you in the back, but he really would prefer to stab you in the face.  He wants to do you that courtesy.

And so, yeah.  Very glad that ‘Stellar Firma’ isn’t going to be depriving us entirely of Ben Meredith’s presence on this podcast.  The team seems to get stuck in their own misery without him to provide a clear and present asshole to work against, and so Elias, both as an antagonist and as a team-building exercise, is more than welcome back.  

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG125 /o/

- I’m still going to nickname that power ~Insight~ until further notice because of MAG123 (“I have no theories on it, no… no sudden insights.”), though Basira’s “spooky brain” is A Very Tempting Phrase to cover it. Interestingly, there were similarities in the ways it has manifested so far:

(MAG124) ARCHIVIST: Still no sign of Peter Lukas of course, or Mar– [STATIC] Wait– Wait.

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: Peter Lukas is just… sitting up there, doing whatever the hell it is he [STATIC-] and Elias have planned, and Melanie still has that bullet pumping violence into her, waiting to turn this place into another Lanncraig. [/STATIC] I just wish there w– … w… … Wait, I, I, I didn’t… Did I read that somewhere, or…? R–right, yes [CLEARS THROAT]. The bullet, er, didn’t show up on… electronic or… mechanical scans, but it’s still lodged in her leg, just above the tibia. … And it’s been getting slowly infected ever sin– I have to find Basira.

1°) After Jon read a statement. (It had also been the case in MAG099 when he had dropped Gerard’s name amongst the list of Gertrude’s acquaintances when he’d been given absolutely no reason to do so.) 2°) Both times, regarding the assistants – who are Jon’s primarily concern as of now (at least explicitly). (3°) Right after Jon mentioned Peter Lukas, but that one is most likely to be a coincidence. Probably.)

-> … is this the equivalent of Beholding throwing him a treat and going “thank you for the meal”.

- If his screams are any indication: Jon got hurt. Again. Beating his own record from season 2, in which it had taken 7 episodes for him to Get A New Injury (the reopening of his worms-induced wounds in MAG041 notwithstanding). I wonder how long it will take for us to know where he got hurt and what happened exactly? It had taken from MAG047 to MAG053 to learn that Michael had cut him deeply enough to require five stitches – and even know, we don’t know where he got stabbed exactly. (I’m love it, I love that we know that Jon gets hurt but that it’s rare to know which part of his body was damaged every time around; we’re not even sure what hurt him here? Could have been the scissors, could have been the scalpel, could have been a surprise! hidden knife. So many sharps things laying around.) (*Tim’s voice from MAG082* “When you[’ve been hurt] and there are more than three different ways you might [have gotten sta]–”.)

On the one hand, insert jokes here about how Jonathan “Disaster” Sims is collecting the set.

…………….. on the other hand, he is. Indeed. Slowly completing the set of getting physical injuries from other entities, things that might be considered a form of marking?, and/or getting live-statements from other avatars, and it has never been highlighted as a problem by Elias – all the contrary, it’s technically a good thing according to what he said about Jon’s job description (MAG092: “It is your job to chronicle these things, to experience them, whether first-hand or through the eyes of others.”):

* The Web: encountered “A Guest For Mr Spider” as a child (recounted in MAG081: “The first of the dark powers to touch me, perhaps, but it did not claim me.”). * Beholding: claimed him hard (when becoming the Archivist? when he signed on as Head Archivist? when he began working for the Institute? when he watched the other boy get taken as a child?). * The Corruption: worms digging into him during the Jane Prentiss invasion (MAG039), Jon still has the scars on various parts of his body. * The Spiral: slashed/stabbed by “Michael”, probably on his arm/hand since he was trying to stop it? The injury required five stitches (MAG047). “Michael” gave its statement in MAG101. * The Desolation: one hand burned by Jude Perry following a Handshake Event (MAG089). Received her live-statement. * The Vast: thrown into it by Mike Crew, sayonara to your already tar-filled lungs motherfucker (MAG091). Received his live-statement. * The Hunt: Alice “Daisy” Tonner did something to his neck, half-strangling him or cutting it with his own knife, we don’t know, but it wasn’t pretty since Elias commented on it the following episode (MAG091). Received her live-statement in MAG061, and Trevor&Julia’s in MAG109. * The Stranger: terrorised by the Not!Them (MAG079), punched or strangled a bit by Nikola (MAG097), held captive by Nikola for a month (MAG101), the whole Unknowing mess (MAG118-MAG119). (And Nikola left her mark on his skin uwu) * The End: approached it following the bombing of the Unknowing, and received a live-statement from Oliver Banks (MAG121: “You’re… balanced on an edge where The End can’t touch you – but you can’t escape him”) + dead-but-not-dead-dead!Gerry’s in MAG111. * The Slaughter: given his screams, probably hurt by Melanie (MAG125).

Now, for the missing ones:

- The Buried: no direct injury on that front, but a few weird occurrences around that one – Jon received that live-statement from Karolina Górka in MAG071, who might have been claimed after her experience (“Aside from that, all that’s left to do is sweep up after Ms. Górka. She left the place rather dusty.”); the “DIG” ad that crept into Jon’s nightmares (MAG120) was not from a statement he had read, but from one read by Martin (MAG088), and Elias’s narration had the same static as Martin’s when he described it (what happened with that one?!); the statement-giver, Enrique MacMillan, had felt something in what is now Jon’s office and tried to dig it up in November 2003 (“cold, empty and calling. There’s something here, you see. Something to be dug up, rooted out, buried within. A hollow space that all eyes point towards. And I intend to reach it, if my fingers don’t give out first. I know where to dig.”) – the tunnels? Daisy had mentioned they felt “empty”… - The Flesh: attacked the Institute when Jon was in a coma (as mentioned in MAG123). Curiously, we haven’t met/heard any avatar of that one yet, not… in the flesh (badadadumdum), so it might be coming? - The Dark: has people lurking around (MAG125: “In the last week, I’ve seen two different people wearing symbols for the People’s Church of the Divine Host”) and, in the same way, we haven’t met/heard any avatar of that one yet (though Basira has). - The Lonely: has Peter as interim director of the Institute, and Jon has already highlighted that he’s feeling isolated on multiple occasions:

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: I wish I could talk it through with Martin. … Or Tim. Or Sasha. But we never really did that, did we…? … Everything’s changed.

(MAG124) ARCHIVIST: It’s been a week and… Melanie’s attitude towards me hasn’t softened. And Basira, though she is very willing to talk, still doesn’t seem to trust me enough […]. Still no sign of Peter Lukas of course, or Mar–

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: I find myself basically alone.

So… it might be at least affecting him already, although it’s not a physical injury (yet).

Once again: is Jon supposed to catch them all as a part of The Watcher’s Crown ritual…? ;;

- There were a few hours of panic for Patreons when the episode came out in early release, because Martin was listed in the voicecast for the episode. So, WHERE WAS HE. WAS HE THERE DURING THE SHOUTING AT THE END OF THE EPISODE?? HAD HE COME BACK JUST BECAUSE JON SCREAMED AND HAD BEEN HURT AGAIN?? HAD HE BEEN TRYING TO STOP THE OTHER TWO WHEN THEY BEGAN OPERATING ON MELANIE?? IS HIS VOICE SOMEWHERE IN THE CHAOS??

In the end, nop, genuine mistake, he wasn’t meant to be in the episode.

Schrödinger’s Martin.

- I stand with this statement-giver on the idea that Sheep Are Weird And Evil. You’re valid, statement-giver.

- I really like the way Slaughter statements are tackled, because there is an overall quietness in them: the violence erupts, or has left its victims behind and is only reconstructed through them, but it’s mostly… stillness and silence. The Slaughter has its own logic and, from an exterior point of view, you never understand why things are happening; they just happen, breaking all the links and coherences that had been reigning until then. It might actually one of the fears that gets me the most, now that I think about it, because of the suddenness of its outbursts, the fact that you don’t see the violence coming? (This plot in particular made me think of the last arc of Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, too!)

- … this statement felt especially gruesome, and one of the things that freaked me out even more, at first, was that Jon… was apparently unfazed by it?

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: Statement ends. Hm. An Englishman returning from Scotland with a fear of bagpipes and sheep. I’m sure we can all relate! In many ways, The Slaughter fascinates me.

Immediately throwing a joke and then going on philosophising about the Slaughter’s implications, without giving a thought to the villagers…? Really, Jon, really…? Nnnnnot the time, maybe? On first hearing, I was very unsettled/worried (comparatively to MAG123 and MAG124, it sounded… very harsh); after stepping back, I realised that it’s… actually a Typical Jon Thing, though. He wasn’t only doing that in season 1 (when it’s official that he was faking it to conceal the fact that he was actually afraid), and he wasn’t discovering the story for the first time (like us listeners), so that could be why he felt too detached to me there. Still. Not great, Jon ;;

(I’ll keep being a bit paranoid about Jon having lost something since he woke up, until we learn about what it’s supposed to mean for him…)

- Also, I’m *squints* about this bit:

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: Regardless, I’ve hit another research dead end with this. It’s… frustrating, to be honest. I finally feel myself, I feel… focused, and ready – and I find myself basically alone.

“READY” FOR WHAT, JON???

Sidenote, but I wonder whether Jon is absolutely sincere and genuine here, or trying to… wave a hand at Elias or whoever can be listening in, basically trying to bait them into acting by showing that he’s impatient/waiting for them to do something? I’m glad that, at least, Jon has no illusion that Peter’s behaviour might be going all according to Elias’s plan, slumping them in the same bag:

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: But honestly, it’s the internal threats I’m worried about. Peter Lukas is just… sitting up there, doing whatever the hell it is he and Elias have planned […].

(I love that although they’re (almost) entirely absent, Jon delivers a Quota of mentions about Martin and Elias(+Peter).) Peter could actually be something outside of Elias’s control/plans/interests but… I’m glad that Jon is assuming that they’re on the same side, and that it means Bad News, for now. (/ meanwhile, other side of my brain: “oh my gods, it sounds like Elias&Peter are a power couple when you say it like that, Jon.”)

- This is the third statement picked up by Jon since he woke up (since he didn’t have any say on MAG122’s), and the second one that delved a bit into an aspect of “control”, together with MAG123’s.

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: There seems to be, in all cases, a question at its heart about… control. Is it a mindless dance, dragging participants along by the beat of a drum or… is there a kernel of will in there, a lucidity and deliberateness to the random fury and violence? I suppose that’s the question with so much of “violence”, “war”: how much are you really in command of yourself or of others? I’m not sure what scares me more: the idea that deep down, everyone is in complete control of their actions, that everything is, on some level, intentional; or that ultimately, we don’t have any control of ourselves at all, and the rest is just… rationalisation.

It sounded a bit too Relatable to his own situation and concerns, uh? Since the end of season 3 had a few moments of Jon’s worry about becoming a monster and how to deal with it – Georgie’s advice in MAG093, Tim’s “These things aren’t human. It’s… instinct. You can’t not!” (MAG114), Jon’s decision to trust the assistants in MAG117, etc. Jon’s lines, here, specifically reminded me of Tessa Winters’s pondering about the human consciousness, what control you exert on it?

(MAG065) TESSA: […] Assuming I’m not losing my mind, of course. ARCHIVIST: Yes, I hear that a lot too. TESSA: Well, that’s what’s terrifying, isn’t it? Your mind is all you are. There’s no backup, no reset, if it goes… I’m not just talking about madness as it appears, but what it is from inside… The way people talk about it, it’s like you have to think you’re saying that our mind is everything we perceive, everything we are. Well that means… you can never know when your grasp might be slipping. I’m not convinced that’s it, though. Or maybe deep down, somewhere inside, you understand what’s happening to you and… No, I am… I don’t know which scares me more.

That’s still a relevant thematic, now more than ever, since Jon apparently ~became The Archivist for real~ and we still don’t know what that means, and what he truly knows about it (officially, he’s missing some of his memory, but to what extent?). Jon’s “and the rest is just… rationalisation” also put me to mind of how the Web tends to operate according to Trevor:

(MAG056, Trevor Herbert) The weirdest sensation began to flow through me; I wanted to leave. It wasn’t like with a vampire, where I would feel like I’d been spoken to. This was just a sudden awareness of my own desire. I’d been sober for three years at that point, but I felt like I desperately wanted to get high, and I knew that the best place to get some was out in the night. Looking back, I think it might have been my own mind rationalising the way I felt my will being tugged out of the room, but it was still very powerful. If I hadn’t had a lifetime’s experience of identifying and fighting off the effect of the vampire’s gaze, I probably would have done it, too.

Aaaand of course, what Elias had said to Melanie about her own intentions (which is a bit more relevant here in a Slaughter context):

(MAG106) ELIAS: Whatever I’m planning needs to be stopped! Even if it costs a few lives. Including your own. MELANIE: Well, that’s not even– ELIAS: A rationalisation, of course. A lie, about your own selfishness, that you would rather be dead than trapped without the self-determination you prize so highly.

I was assuming that Slaughter and Web would probably be on opposite sides on the spectrum of Colours-That-Hate-Me, since respectively unleashed chaos and absolute control, but I’m not so sure anymore?

- There was a tiny allusion to “What The Ghost?” in Jon’s pondering, though! Patreons got one episode of it (so far? I hope that they are more to come, the first one was… plainly amazing) and this bit sounded like a reference to its content:

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: […] In many ways, The Slaughter fascinates me. There seems to be, in all cases, a question at its heart about… control. Is it a mindless dance, dragging participants along by the beat of a drum or…

We already knew that Jon listens to WTG but still… nice!! … and also sad because that’s a way to think about Georgie without even naming her. *cRIES*

- Jon, please.

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: Another Leitner, obviously. Not one I can readily identify, though it sounds like it would now be… inert, anyway. Given the blank pages, I do wonder whether its destruction was a last-ditch effort to stop its effects, or the exact thing that released its power in such an… extreme way.

Technically Not A Leitner since the statement was from 1993 (implying that it never made its way into the library before it was destroyed in 1994), how dare you slander Leitner by associating his name to this book :ww

- Okay, so Melanie and Basira are now living in the Institute, that was made explicit.

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: You’ve been staying here too. BASIRA: Got a camp bed at the other end, near the tunnels. I like to keep an eye on them. Besides, I wanted to give her some space, y’know. But yeah. Living outside the Institute, ’s just not safe anymore. ARCHIVIST: What about Martin…? BASIRA: I think he’s still got a place? He’s not down here anyway.

1°) Not exactly sure where exactly they’re sleeping? It definitely sounded like they were in the tunnels, but Basira very clearly said that she’s sleeping “near the tunnels” (not inside of them)? Unless they’re in one of the rooms and Basira is staying close to its entrance to keep a broader look on the corridors? 2°) (Melanie and Basira… are… roommates… (OH MY GODS THEY ARE ROOMMATES.)) 3°) ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; Where is Martin sleeping, that is a good question. Does he really still have his flat or did he… leave everything behind when he began working with someone-that-we’re-assuming-must-be-Peter? Or is he living in the Archives, too, though in ~another space~? DO HE AND JON SOMETIMES ACCIDENTALLY SHARE A BED IN THAT-ROOM-IN-THE-ARCHIVES, WITHOUT EVEN REALISING IT? (… Or does he sleep at Peter’s place.)

- Except for season 1 (in which he was a stuck-up ass) and season 2 (in which he was a paranoid ass), Jon has never mentioned Martin so much, has never been so concerned about Martin… and it’s understandable that he would, if Martin is acting in a worrisome way!! But. But. Still. He immediately wondered about Martin’s own accommodations and, after their encounter in MAG124:

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: I am now sure Martin is actually avoiding me.

aOUCH… I’m glad that Jon is preoccupied about Martin, thinking about Martin and not taking him for granted anymore (kind of)… but AT WHAT COST………………

- uUUUuuuh… Meanwhile, Jon kind of implied that he is still going outside?

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: Basira was right about the Institute being watched, though. In the last week, I’ve seen two different people wearing symbols for the People’s Church of the Divine Host, and it’s rare I go anywhere without cobwebs anymore. … I, er, find myself keeping my guard up around mannequins as well, though I’ll admit that one is more likely to be my own projection.

I would have assumed that Jon would have been the most likely to migrate long-term in the Archives, there is something funny in the idea that he… isn’t, somehow. (Also, Jon: what. are. you. doing. with all this free time.)

I’m not sure if cobwebs are a new thing around Jon, or if it’s only that he is able to pay attention to their gravitating around him nowadays: spiders had been… very prevalent in the Institute before. Or is it just growing even worse? (;; Sad for Jon, regarding the mannequins mention… Jude Perry is a prime example of avatar being still around and holding grudges after Gertrude messed with them, so… Jon being cautious of potential Stranger agents is not unwarranted. Maybe some survived, and maybe some would want to go after him…)

I’m laughing at the fact that is sounds like you can NEVER GET RID OF THE PEOPLE’S CHURCH OF THE DIVINE HOST. From “a small cult that grew around the defrocked Pentecostal minister Maxwell Rayner in London during the late eighties and early nineties. […] Mr Rayner himself disappeared from public view sometime in 1994 and the group fragmented shortly afterwards.” (MAG009) to them being around in March 2015 (MAG025), to Maxwell Rayner being stopped by the police in February 2017 (MAG073). It’s almost a running gag at this point, that they’re still there and lurking in whichever circumstances efurefdvhjnref. (Julia!! Julia, come back!! They’re still around, surely you would like to take care of them? Please? Pretty please?)

- ONE GOOD THING ABOUT WHAT THEY DID TO MELANIE if it was indeed in the tunnels (it sure sounded like it): assuming that they’re right and that Elias can’t see shit inside of them… then Elias didn’t see it, didn’t watch as Jon was able to ~see~ the bullet inside of Melanie. I’m taking all the Positivity I can, okay. :[

- But also: Jon escapes your Eyes for 35min, and he comes back bloody and with a new stab wound. Typical Jon. (Do you think that Peter and Elias had a bet going on about how much time Jon would need before getting a new injury once he would be back? Or about the nature of the next injury? Who betted what? We know that Peter was implied to go with the gruesome option when betting with Salesa (MAG066); but on the other hand, Elias is supposed to know Jon a bit more. Who would have gone the most realistically pessimistic about Jon?)

- I’m worried that Jon is using his powers so much since he woke up, because it feels like there should be a compensation or a catch – it’s… very beneficial to Jon right now, and I can’t really believe that it could be solely positive and something he’s using without being used by it. Jon is more than ready to use it to his own advantage, quite obviously; the contrast with how he had been startled and thrown-off when Elias had highlighted the phenomenon in MAG102 is just… telling:

(MAG102) ARCHIVIST: […] Is there anyone else who might know what it is, or– or where? Aside from Leitner, or Gerard. ELIAS: … Sorry? Gerard Keay? ARCHIVIST: Uh… yes…? ELIAS: How did you… Who, who told you he was working with Gertrude? ARCHIVIST: No-one, I–I–I just, I… I read it in one of the statements. ELIAS: I don’t think you did. ARCHIVIST: I… but… aaah… ELIAS: You just… knew it! ARCHIVIST: What, no, I, I… Th– that’s not a– ELIAS: No, no, no. No, Jon, this is good. It’s a promising development! ARCHIVIST: [GETTING FLUSTERED] No, No I… It’s just, it’s just… just d–deduction or– ELIAS: Is this the first time it’s happened? ARCHIVIST: Look, I don’t– Look… Haaa… Gerard’s not really a lead. He… he’s dead, isn’t he?

^His stuttering was terrible back then. In MAG125, he was startled, a bit shaken at first, but quickly got back on his feet, accepted what had happened, and ran with the new information in order to do something for Melanie. More used to it? More comfortable with it? Ready to use everything he can in order to fight? There was something overall… more firm, more goal-orientated within Jon afterwards, and it also made me think of… Gertrude.

(MAG101) “MICHAEL”: Gertrude Robinson did not waver. She did not… hesitate. She gave no indication that she saw anything more or less than was expected. Hers was not a mind that left room for doubt. She stared into us carefully, her eyes scanning for something that was my heart. Looking for my door. And she found it.

(MAG125) BASIRA: The guy said you’d need to hit the right nerve for it to work. Do you know much ab– ARCHIVIST: [STATIC-] Here. [/STATIC] BASIRA: You sure? ARCHIVIST: [SHARPLY] Yes. […] … God. Look at that. [STATIC] BASIRA: I don’t… It’s a leg. ARCHIVIST: No. Inside… BASIRA: I don’t know what you’re seeing, Jon. ARCHIVIST: It’s… Christ, it’s all rotten… BASIRA: Can you see the bullet? ARCHIVIST: Yes… […]  BASIRA: You better be right about this. ARCHIVIST: I am.

Jon was sure when it came to what was happening and… that part was a novelty. It wasn’t the fake-it-until-it-becomes-real from season 1, nor the blatant bullshitting from season 2; he was certain of his information. (And!! Using it for good!! Gertrude had one priority, stopping the rituals, and… so far, it seems that Jon’s is more about protecting the assistants. … which means there will probably come a point where he’ll have to choose between the two, and it will hurt, uh.)

- But at the same time, it was still… Jon. Jon being awkward, Jon asking the wrong kind of questions to the person in front of him,

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: … yes, right. Sorry. You, er… you managed to get some anaesthetic? BASIRA: Here. The guy said it was a nerve block. Should numb pretty much the whole leg. ARCHIVIST: Right. Right. … Was it hard to come by? BASIRA: No, I just popped down Superdrug. Yes it was hard to come by. ARCHIVIST: You–you couldn’t get any general anaesthetic, knock her out fully? BASIRA: Oh, sure! Did your spooky brain tell you the right dosage to not kill her? ARCHIVIST: … N–no. N–no, it didn’t. BASIRA: Then it’s got to be the local. Here, get on with it. ARCHIVIST: What, me? BASIRA: Yeah, she comes around, she’s gonna kill us or someone, and… You know. Not it. […] Okay, go for it. ARCHIVIST: [SHAKY VOICE] R–right. BASIRA: And pray the injection doesn’t wake her. ARCHIVIST: Yes, thank you Basira. […] BASIRA: You ready? ARCHIVIST: [DRY HOLLOW LAUGHTER] No…? [SHAKY VOICE] You’re sure you don’t have… restraints, or…

1°) I’m love Basira. I’m love how casually dry and savage she can be, how she’s just throwing Jon into the lion’s den without any hesitation nor remorse. What a legend. 2°) That [“You ready?” “No…? *laughs hollowly and does it anyway*”] refdhbjrefdhj Jon, you absolute millennial icon.

The mix of Jon being certain and awkward and obviously thinking about how it could easily end badly for him was so… satisfying and fun and hilarious to me. Still an awkward dork, I’m glad!! =D

- BUT I’M STILL WORRIED ABOUT THE WHOLE “JON USING POWERS” DEAL… if Elias had portrayed it as a good thing and as Jon sinking deeper into Beholding territory, then it’s *gulps*:

(MAG0116) ELIAS: I have been doing my best to prepare you, Jon, to See. You should hopefully have it a bit easier than the others. ARCHIVIST: Another of my… powers? ELIAS: More… an aspect of your becoming. DAISY: You don’t say. ARCHIVIST: Er… right. ELIAS: Regardless, it should, I hope, give you an edge. Otherwise I would never suggest you go yourself.

It wasn’t only a punctual ~insight~, it was a series of them (helping Jon to know where to inject the product and block the nerve) and x-ray vision allowing him to see the Spooky State of Melanie’s leg, when it was officially fine in our realm (the scans hadn’t revealed anything). I’m glad that Jon is using his powers for Good, but I don’t believe that it can last and remains as positive as it is, even though there would be something very beautiful and satisfying in the idea that no, the Fears do not actually corrupt you – it’s just that most avatars were already rotten humans to begin with? ;; (There is something fishy, to start with, with the fact that Jon is missing memories…)

(… okay, and there would also be something utterly satisfying if Elias was proven totally wrong. And bittersweet, if Tim was also proven wrong about the idea that you can’t fight these things or things happening to you.)

- The way I understood Jon’s “The bullet, er, didn’t show up on… electronic or… mechanical scans, but it’s still lodged in her leg, just above the tibia. … And it’s been getting slowly infected ever sin–” is that: Jon had listened to MAG117’s tape(s), potentially even before the Unknowing, and knew about Melanie’s recollection of how she got shot – I think that part wasn’t coming from the Insight? But the new knowledge that was planted within him, or emerged from him, was something irrefutable: that the bullet was still there and the root of the problem (“Melanie still has that bullet pumping violence into her, waiting to turn this place into another Lanncraig.”) It could/should have been a hypothesis from him, it sounds like a logical explanation; but the way it was presented, it wasn’t some wild guess or pondering. It was a certainty.

Insert here obligatory sobbing about how compulsion and this power provide Jon, who is prone to paranoia fits, who is prone to be wary of people, with absolute truth… yeah, the powers cater a bit too much to him, as a way of keeping his own personal human relationships-oriented fears at bay, uh.

- On the relationship side: gOSH, Melanie… probably won’t be fine, and would have every right to not be ;; But Melanie specifically… won’t react positively with something deliberately done to her while she had not consented (MAG102, Elias: “Even more than the others she has a visceral hatred of being trapped. Regardless of how much freedom I afford her.”), even if it could ultimately save her from The Slaughter. She probably won’t forgive.

She was already in an antagonistic spiral regarding Jon, (MAG102: “We’ll try it your way. But whatever your way actually is, you’d better figure it out fast. Because it is your fault that I’m here. Fix it, or get out of the way!” / MAG124: “Wipe that look off your face. Like you’re not the reason all of this is happening. Like you’re any better than– […] He’s still alive. You are still alive. So THIS PLACE is still–!”), and even though part of it was probably Slaughter-induced (MAG117: “Elias thinks he’s got this ingenious way to hurt people, but it’s just the same old bullshit in a creepy new package. … asshole… God! I just want to rip his…! [BREATHES] When did I… start to lose the parts of me that weren’t just anger…? … Hum.”), Jon highlighted in his conclusions about MAG125’s statement that perhaps The Slaughter is not making people lose their mind so much as making them follow something they already had inside of them.

At the same time, we already got Tim resenting and antagonising Jon at every turn, so I don’t know if Melanie will ultimately follow the same path? Technically, it’s… probably Basira who should deserve her ire about the non-consensual surgery on her asleep body, since:

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: And it’s been getting slowly infected ever sin– I have to find Basira. [STANDS UP] [CLICK.] […] You’re sure we shouldn’t just… tell her…? BASIRA: … I really don’t know how she’d take it. Not well. If we want to get it out of her, this is it. ARCHIVIST: [SIGHS] Okay.

JON WANTED TO TALK TO MELANIE ABOUT IT!!! Holy shit, Jon!! Such progress ;__; First for going to talk to Basira about it right away, and then for offering to talk to Melanie, and for ultimately trusting Basira’s judgement about it!!

Basira’s cold pragmatism is not… exactly surprising, to be honest: she’s always been prone to assessing the situation and making drastic decisions right away when it comes to saving lives or to doing what she deems right (Daisy in MAG092, the expedition to stop Rayner, the fact that she took the tapes from the police to give them to Jon when they tried to cover up the reason her colleague died…). In this particular case, there was no right thing to do? Melanie would have probably exploded and ruined any chance for them to remove the bullet if they had even tried to mention its existence to her, true? But they took the decision for her and it was definitely wrong on many levels, and Melanie will have many reasons to feel shaken, violated and betrayed by what they did ;; She already had it bad in season 2 (the fact that her old team fell apart, her first injury, her downfall) and season 3 (the second injury, the lack of options, the fact that she actually got trapped in the Institute, Elias torturing her with the memories of her father’s death), I hope she won’t get too messed up by this new thing?? ;; But the concept of non-consensual surgery applied to her, with her personality, with everything that has already happened to her… is especially horrifying ;; (And she has no support network either… Maybe Georgie still applies, though, but the situation is likely to get complicated in that area since Georgie is also tied to Jon.)

… at the same time, there could be something comforting for Melanie in getting a hold back on her own anger, instead of the foreign surge of violence that was injected into her? I really don’t see how the situation could get better for her and ;; I’m sad sad sad.

… on the other hand, Basira will probably open up a bit more to Jon after this, since… he kinda proved himself to her, here? Proved that, even though he has powers, even though he’s ready to use them, even though he has sunk deeper in, he’s also there to help the assistants, even if it means getting hurt or ruining his relationships with them – as long as it helps them to survive. So. We’ll see.

;;

(I have trouble picturing that nobody will visit Elias in prison at some point, so, hey. Basira is the one who has contacts in the police. She might be a bit more willing to share them with Jon.)

- I can Never Believe how this show manages to always make moments… creepy, and tense, and horrifying, and convey that well a sense of dread while, at the same time, making them so hilarious. The dialogues are always lovely; but Basira and Jon were just… amazing, here.

  (- Patreons already got the title for MAG126 with the new schedule planning, and it feels so weird to speculate with the title alone! Not spoiling it, then, but I’m worried about its second meaning (outside of the statement itself). Could be many very wrong things, and the worst I’m coming to on my own, as of now, is “what if it’s about Peter and Martin”.)

[ursae-minoris-world]

Fans tend to forget that most Voltron viewers are casual viewers who don’t notice all the foreshadowing

I think a lot of people get frustrated with Voltron’s writing because sometimes it feels like we’re waiting for so long between the moment when we suspected something due to foreshadowing and the big reveal. What makes it worse is that in the meantime we keep projecting how we would like it to happen. And with fanfiction writers, comic artists and so on, we also see how others see it and we get excited about it, and sometimes are a bit disappointed when what happens in the show is not how we expected.

For instance, one of the first things that lets you suspect that Keith might have galra blood is in “return to the Balmera” when he interacts with Galra technology with his hand and it works. At least it’s the first thing I’ve personally noticed (I know he had his knife since episode one, but you couldn’t conclude much about it aside that it seemed important to him). And then evidence piles up, and the wait is kind of agonizing specially considering how we see Keith getting anxious about it...until the actual reveal in “Blade of Marmora”, 12 episodes later, right ?

Well yes, if you noticed this. Thing is... I’m pretty sure most viewers don’t.

Look, I’ve got 3 irl friends who are watching Voltron. They’re all adults, and I wouldn’t even call them “casual watchers” because they can be quite analytical in the media they consume, and some of them are actually storytellers themselves (in one case in a professional way as the person is a comic artist). At least two of them had realized Pidge’s identity from the photo in the pilot episode (which I had missed hahaha), so they’re definitely not blind.

None of them had caught that anything was weird with Shiro after his return. They all were REALLY surprised and not entirely convinced when I talked to them about clone theory and possible brainwashing.

In my case, when Shiro (or Kuron) escaped in “the Journey”, I was already wary at how easy his escape was, and was wondering if it was set up. When he saw that operation room with that other Shiro strapped to the table... for me it was such a punch in the gut that I literally had to pause the episode while cursing like a sailor and trying to catch my breath. Seriously.

Well... None of my friends had noticed anything. They just thought it was part of Shiro / Kuron’s flashback, and they hadn’t thought that usually his flashbacks are triggered by something...

So I asked one of my friends when she had started noticing about Keith’s origins. She told me “well given he looks entirely human, I hadn’t suspected anything at all until the Blade of Marmora episode.”

I’m putting the rest behind a "read more” because as usual this got really long.

Same with Keith becoming a Blade. I think a clever viewer realizes as soon as he sees the BOM episode that it looks kind of like an initiation. I personally only realized it in “Best laid plans” when Kolivan stepped in when Keith wanted to go on what he called a “suicide mission”. I thought something along the lines of “wait Kolivan why are you stepping in here he’s not one of your... oh sh!t he is one of your Blades now, isn’t he ?!” and Thace calling Keith a fellow Blade cemented it. So I got excited : are we going to see Keith join the Blades next season ? But, it was not addressed at all in s3, so I thought the show wasn’t going that route and that I had gotten excited over nothing. And then season 4 , 13 episodes after the BOM episode ? Keith joins the Blades. I was super excited first and then when he left Voltron I thought  “nooo I wanted it BUT NOT LIKE THAT !!!” lol.

I haven’t asked any of my friends about that. But I bet the casual watcher’s reaction is... to not think about this at all until they see Keith being a Blade in “Code of Honnor” and go “Oh ! Cool ! Keith’s a Blade, now !”

From the 2 more in depth conversations I had, my friends hadn’t noticed anything about Keith and Shiro’s backstory either, aside from “they knew each other”. They hadn’t realized at all that Keith got expelled from the garrison around the time where the Kerberos mission failed, and that those facts could be linked. We’re all here, trying to imagine it, writing / reading I don’t know how many “pre-kerberos” metas, fanfictions, fancomics, edits, etc. The average viewer probably just realizes they knew each other and seemed to be friends (and some even miss that). Even if they are curious about the back-story in the moment, when they don’t get it they don’t think much about it.

And look at Allura’s space magic ark : there are 17 episodes between Allura using magic to heal the Balmera, and her using it again against Haggar in “Blackout” ; then 13 episodes again before she uses it in “a New Defender”, and then 6 before the “White Lion”. Frustrating ? Yes. I bet the average, casual viewer, doesn’t think much about it and goes “oh, right, she does have space magic, that’s cool !” when she does use it.

And 23 episodes between Keith’s dad explaining that Keith’s mom gave him the BOM knife in “Blade of Marmora” and Keith finally finding Krolia in “Bloodlines”. But not every watcher expected Keith to find his mom. I know I hoped he’s find some answers, but I didn’t expect him to actually find her.

So here we are, waiting for season 6, and being impatient that “project Kuron” ark to finally come to an end, because we have been worried about it since season 3. Well, if, like me, the foreshadowing about Shiro’s arm being used to alter his memories in “Shiro’s escape” (s2) made you worry, then you’ve been anxious about it quite some time now.

After all, it’s been 14 episodes since “the Journey” so it feels about time for this to come to an end... Which is not that much longer than for Keith’s galra reveal (13 episodes) or Keith becoming a Blade (13 episodes). I admit it’s a particularly distressing ark : for “Kuron” who is in a dreadful situation ; for Shiro, if there is a double, because if that’s not Shiro... where is Shiro ? Is he ok ? Is he even alive ?! (oh please let him be alive). For the rest of the team, because of the way Haggar uses Kuron to spy on them. For Keith because he will be impacted by anything that affected Shiro, and because it really seems to me that his departure from Voltron was at least in part due to feeling rejected by Shiro (and the team).

But the casual viewer ? The casual viewer has only realized something was wrong in season 5 when he saw Haggar actually watch through Kuron’s eyes, and with the mindscape incident. He’s certainly hooked now on what will happen next, but not nearly as worried as the viewer who has suspicions since s3 (or even before).

And those viewers ? The viewers who catch the foreshadowing, and who try to see what’s coming ? They are a very little part of the general viewership of the show. And I’m just talking about the engaged viewer who notices stuff. The fans who discuss all that online, listen to every interview, dissect the show image by image, write long metas, or fanfictions or create art around it ? A very very small fraction of the viewership. We’re immersed in it; because well... we interact, and because we see those who interact (for the best and the worse) with the various creators of the show but... a lot of the viewers just enjoy their episodes, don’t dwell on them, and move on until the next season.

Voltron is written in layers so that different kinds of viewers can enjoy it !

Don’t forget that the most important target are young children who might want to play with the toys. Most of them will enjoy the fight sequences, the action, the funny stuff. Later, they’ll remember something like “oh I watched this show, the transformation sequence was cool, my fav lion was the red one and my fav character was Pidge !” and maybe a few of the most significant plot events. Maybe.

Older children might catch a bit more of the story, character arks, and themes. And start to enjoy the more emotional scenes.

The casual teenage or adult viewer will just... go with the flow and enjoy the plot twists when they happen.

The fans of the 80′s Voltron (another target, specially considering that they can have children in the age of watching too)  will mostly either enjoy the changes, or be frustrated about them. They will enjoy shout outs like Sven in “Hole in the Sky” or Allura’s pink armor, and so on. Other than that, their level of involvement can vary from “casual viewer” to “fan”.

Attentive viewers will notice some foreshadowing. They’ll probably be more engaged than the casual watcher because they’ll be more curious about how things will get solved. They might get frustrated when it takes to long to unfold, but mostly they should enjoy the story. (That was me while watching the first 2 seaons). I think attentive watchers are already a minority in the viewership. Honestly, most people I know are not that analytic about what they watch, and are casual watchers, whatever they’re watching.

And then, fans who are attentive watchers but also discuss and exchange theories on internet, and as such, miss even less of the clues ? They are the most engaged, but obviously also the most frustrated. We notice the most, we get more excited about it, we have more expectations because, as we’ve seen the signs, we start thinking about how we would like the story ark to be solved. Even if it feels there are many fans because we see a lot of them in our online experience... they are a very small part of the general viewership.

So when people get frustrated that we don’t have the answers for everything yet, and say it’s bad writing that it takes so long, or that some stuff isn’t addressed immediately... I’d like them to consider that the show isn’t written only for them. It’s actually quite impressive that this cartoons provides enough depth for us to be involved that much, to make crazy theories because foreshadowing, to make big character analysis because they are that well developed. In many tv shows, even ones for adults, you just can’t analyze that far. Because there’s just not that much to analyze !

But at the same time, it is still targeted towards kids. And it is still meant mainly as, well... commercials for robot toys.

Also, Voltron is clearly written as one, long, story. The seasons are only chapters. It doesn’t work like, say... Doctor Who, where every season is a story ark on its own that reaches a conclusion. It is normal to still have questions at the end of a new season. When we will have all the answers... the story will have reached it’s ending !

-----

So yeah, just my take on this, and I might be wrong but... really, I keep seeing fans being frustrated and considering that every watcher experiences the cartoon as they do but... I know that they don’t. A lot of people don’t.

And yes, people, it’s a cartoon for children. Stop comparing it to stuff written only for adults. Here the writers have to juggle so that children stay engaged and that adult viewers still have fun. And they managed to have a part of the viewers who have become deeply engaged fans. Honestly, I find it quite amazing.

[thecostumeplot]

Episode 14: Midsommar & Crimson Peak

Please consult these Instagram slideshows for accompanying images: Midsommar Crimson Peak

Both: Welcome to The Costume Plot!

Jojo: I'm Jojo Siu

Sarah: and I'm Sarah Timm. We're professional designers with a passion for costume design and the performing arts. Our podcast does contain spoilers! Accompanying slideshows for each movie are linked in the episode description.

Jojo: we hope you'll join us every other week as we delve into the wonderful world of costume design in The Costume Plot. [music]

Jojo: hello and welcome!

Sarah: welcome back!

Jojo: It feels like it's been forever.

Sarah: I know!

Jojo: every time.

Sarah: that's okay, I was listening to a podcast today and they were like, "we never know what to do in the intro!" so I think it's pretty common that people just... it's a little bit awkward just to start talking.

Jojo: socially awkward for the first five minutes.

Sarah: exactly. Well... welcome to The Costume Plot, we're glad you're here.

Jojo: Yay!

Sarah: We have a quick plug at the top, um, Jojo and I, just yesterday we were just on our friends' podcast. Tim and Ashley Espinosa. It's called Breaking the Fourth Wall...

Jojo: Yeah!

Sarah: ... and we had a really lovely conversation with them about theater, about design, our jobs, what we want to see change in the world of theater, you know... what we love about it, that kind of thing. So go check it out!

Jojo: Yeah there'll be some--there'll be some plugs and things to kind of get you guys to know where to go. To listen to our little interview.

Sarah: yeah. I'll put the link in the description of the episode and then there's also going to be a post in our instagram feed like, you know, showing you where to go. So yeah, it was really really fun and I'm excited to listen to their podcast, actually.

Jojo: Yeah!

Sarah: Because the conversation was so great that I want to keep listening so...

Jojo: they've got some pretty good interviews. And apparently we were their first designers on their podcast!

Sarah: Yeah!

Jojo: So that's really exciting. But yeah, shout out to other podcasts, and really we love to support other podcasts that are talking about theater as well!

Sarah: Totally.

Jojo: So, really exciting. Great! So you want to get into our topic, for our theme for this week, Sarah?

Sarah: so today's theme is has been a little bit exciting for us because, um... it's horror and neither of us watch a lot of horror. So it was a bit of an adventure for both of us.

Jojo: to say the least.

Sarah: I'm a scaredy cat. I'll speak for myself, I don't watch a lot of horror 'cause I'm scared.

Jojo: oh me too, me too!

Sarah: So yeah, I'm going first and my movie is Midsommar.

Jojo: oh, so scary.

Sarah: it was SO scary, I was ... shook.

Jojo: for those of you who are also not horror movie watchers, I tried to watch 10 minutes of this movie and then like, very promptly had to just find the Wikipedia explanation and promptly decided that I wasn't going to watch the rest of it. So Sarah is very brave for taking one for the team.

Sarah: I am VERY brave. I went in blind. I was like, "you know what? I'm not going to read any plot synopsis." I had no idea what it was about. I knew it was like, culty, and that's about it.

Jojo: yeah.

Sarah: I knew Florence Pugh's in it, I really like her.

Jojo: yeah.

Sarah: ...and I was SO scared. [both laugh] So I'll just dive in, uhhh... let me open my notes and THEN dive in.

Jojo: I'm already scared! [both laugh] This first image.

Sarah: I'm not going to jump scare you, Jojo!

Jojo: I know. [laughs] Thank goodness.

Sarah: so this movie, Midsommar, came out in 2019, directed by Ari Astor. Also written by Ari... I think he's a boy, written by him. He is known for Hereditary, which is another horror movie that made a big splash when it came out. Which I will not be watching, I'll just say that. [laughs] I'm sure it's great.

Jojo: I didn't even hear about it, so I mean...

Sarah: the costumes are by Andrea Flesch, who you might know as the designer of Collette, which was a Keira Knightley movie that came out a few years back. And then she's- she has had a lot of- she's been working a lot, but not a lot of titles I recognized. But this is obviously like— this is a really good costume movie. So I'm sure she'll be... we'll be seeing more of her. I think she's Hungarian. She lives in Budapest, I think. And this movie won for best costume design at the Fright Meter Awards, which I think is a horror awards thing.

Jojo: sounds like it.

Sarah: yeah, Fright Meter sounds, yeah... it sounds like horror. So the setting is modern day. And we start in maybe New York? It's never said, but it looks kind of New York-y. You know, young millennial people, very hip. I always assume that they're in New York. [laughs] And then we go to a remote commune in Sweden. And so the basic premise-- I'll just do a quick run down of the plot--is that Florence Pugh's character Dani and her boyfriend are in a really tenuous, like... crappy relationship. Where he wanted to break up with her and didn't. And then she goes through this horrible personal tragedy where all of her family dies. By the way, this movie is very rated R. So I'm not going to go into a ton of detail because our podcast is not rated R! [both laugh]

Jojo: yes!

Sarah: yeah, so then he can't break up with her because she's going through this. And then his friends are in grad school and they're gonna write... one of them, played by William Jackson Harper, who we love from The Good Place. Chidi on The Good Place. Is writing his thesis on mid-summer traditions in Europe. So they're gonna go to this commune that their Swedish friend grew up on to see their mid-summer traditions. So that's where we go. And then, uh... horrible things ensue. Lots of death.

Jojo: so many horrible things!

Sarah: lots of gore. A lot of- it's been a long time since I watched a horror movie, and really felt the the build-up of the tension and the unease that they build. It was like, I felt unsettled for most of it. [laughs] Okay, so that's basically the plot and like, I'm not gonna give away a ton of stuff because, as I said, it's super rated R and I don't need to describe what happens. I think if you've seen it, you know, and if you don't like gore you won't like it. Uh... yeah.

Jojo: yeah.

Sarah: okay so let's start with Dani. This is kind of, um... this is after she's already had her horrible family, like... trauma. Tragedy. So she starts the movie in very drapey neutrals. Everything looks really soft. I think she's a student, so it's all kind of basic. It all looks... like, it doesn't look cheap, you know? She doesn't look poor, but it's... this is kind of dark, but that's- that's kind of where we find her. And then quickly we go to Sweden. And this is her and the group of guys, the American people.

Jojo: Mmhmm.

Sarah: And then the guy in the blue shirt in the middle, the light blue shirt, is the Swedish friend. So I found this really interesting, that like... how they look as a group together, nobody's wearing pattern at all? It's all just solid colors, like really soft muted t-shirts.

Jojo: Mmhmm.

Sarah: Which is, I think, unusual. Like, when you have a group of American people, usually somebody's gonna be wearing some sort of plaid or a stripe, right? A logo.

Jojo: Right, right.

Sarah: So that was an interesting choice, I thought. Here's a front view of her outfit. She wears a lot of these cuffed pants. And they look like they might be linen, which makes sense because it's summer, so it's probably hot.

Jojo: yeah.

Sarah: so then this contrasts with the people that they meet in the commune, which is called... Hårga.

Jojo: [laughs]

Sarah: I'm excellent at Swedish, as you can tell! [both laugh]

Jojo: I would not be able to help you, Sarah!

Sarah: so we get to the cult. And classic cult, everybody's wearing white.

Jojo: Mmhmm.

Sarah: I will say, this is not... this is gonna be a little different from our usual coverage, because there's not a lot of specific costumes that I want to call out. It's kind of just like, overall themes, and you know... because everybody in the cult is pretty much dressed the same. So I'll have the opportunity later to give some information that I got from articles with Andrea Flesch. Just like, how— her process and stuff.

Jojo: Mmhmm.

Sarah: So yeah, it feels, um... folky? You know, apparently this movie, the genre is technically folk horror. That's what I learned.

Jojo: I didn't even know that that was a category! [laughs]

Sarah: apparently it is. It's possible that Midsommar invented it.

Jojo: right, right. [laughs]

Sarah: It's also like, everything happens in the daylight? Which is so unusual for a horror movie. Everything is very brightly lit.

Jojo: yeah.

Sarah: you know usually horror is all about the, what's dark, around the corner.

Jojo: that's almost more terrifying.

Sarah: yeah!

Jojo: they're hidden in plain sight.

Sarah: yeah. So basically, their midsummer tradition is like a seven day feast? Like a feast every day. So the designer started everybody off in mostly all white, and then as the movie goes on, brings in sort of one color at a time. Adds like, little hints of color, and then by the end they've all got color mixed in. So I thought that that was pretty cool.

Jojo: oh! Interesting.

Sarah: yeah. Here's more, more cult stuff. [laughs] So then like, the first ceremony is the first real scary scene. It's like, it's basically like a suicide ceremony. And it's- so these two people end up dying. They're very visually divided from the rest of the group obviously, they're wearing special outfits because they are the special people in the ceremony.

Jojo: yeah.

Sarah: And then we've got everybody else bringing in sort of hints of blue along with the white.

Jojo: yeah.

Sarah: oh, I love this stripy vest right here.

Jojo: yeah!

Sarah: I kept noticing this guy in all the scenes and being like, "there's that vest!"

Jojo: and he's got multi-colored buttons!

Sarah: Mmhmm. Some stuff I learned from the articles that I read is that, you know, they're really cut off from like, modern society. So they make all their own clothes. So everything looks very homespun...

Jojo: Mmhmm.

Sarah: ...looks like they made it themselves. And she said she intentionally made some of it look better made than others, like to, you know... because it depends on who made it, or whatever.

Jojo: yeah.

Sarah: I'll get-- I'll do some more information from those articles that I read. So she said not everything that she used, like... the embroidery, textiles, colors, are necessarily specifically Swedish. But she borrowed stuff from other folk traditions, like other Scandinavian countries... Hungary. She listed other countries, but I didn't write them down, so good job... me. [both laugh] But she basically kind of pick-and-choose what she wanted to use, and made her own sort of folk look.

Jojo: Mmhmm.

Sarah: and I think it's super effective.

Jojo: yeah.

Sarah: they filmed in Hungary, and they didn't have a huge budget, so she did a lot of her shopping in Hungary.

Jojo: Interesting.

Sarah: And she said that she found 700 yards of this linen that was a hundred years old! So like, a lot of it is made of hundred-year-old linen. Can you believe?

Jojo: that's fantastic!

Sarah: I know!

Jojo: like, when do you get a story like that? Especially for a horror movie!

Sarah: also where do you find hundred-year-old linen?

Jojo: so true! I guess in Hungary!

Sarah: I gotta go to Hungary! I would love to fabric shop in Europe. I've never been.

Jojo: Oh, agreed.

Sarah: I can't even imagine how...

Jojo: that should be our next trip,

Sarah: Okay, great.

Jojo: maybe when we get rich and famous, this podcast can pay for us to travel. [laughs]

Sarah: we'll do a little Costume Plot tour, we'll do some live shows!

Jojo: that would be amazing!

Sarah: oh, that would be fun.

Jojo: so fun! Down the line, down the line.

Sarah: I feel like we could... okay not to go too off topic. But like, the movie analysis podcasts I listen to, they do live episodes, and all we need is a projector and we do a slideshow, and we do this thing live! Wouldn't that be fun?

Jojo: that would be so fun! Okay, ten year plan....[both laugh] Five-year plan! I'd hope that this would be happening in five years but...

Sarah: DM us if you want to come see us live, and then we'll, um... Venmo us ten dollars for your ticket right now.

Jojo: then you can finally see our faces. [both laugh]

Sarah: exactly. Okay. Anyway. The embroidery is all done by hand and like, she found teams of people in Hungary to do embroidery for her. So I just love that it all looks handmade.

Jojo: yeah.

Sarah: that's very effective.

Jojo: I love that lady's I don't know if it's a bodice?

Sarah: that one?

Jojo: yeah the one you're pointing at. Oh, that's so beautiful. And her hat!

Sarah: she had another bodice later on that I really liked, and I couldn't find any good pictures of it, and I got sad. But she's always doing a cute bodice.

Jojo: mmhmm.

Sarah: so what's next? Oh this is a nice little shot that we get of this girl who's going after Dani's boyfriend. She's like, carving something to put under his bed. But we can see the embroidery on her cuff, and...

Jojo: oh wow.

Sarah: it's just like, really beautiful little details. Really well done.

Jojo: it almost looks like it's printed on the fabric too. Like a stamp or something?

Sarah: this? Yeah, she's-- she mentioned that some of it is painted, so I think that this red pattern right here is painted on rather than embroidered.

Jojo: ooh.

Sarah: beautiful. Beautiful! I labeled this picture "death". [both laugh] Because this is from the death ceremony. And this scene was really visually striking. Because like, the white outfits really blend in with sort of the white rocky backdrop. And so the outsiders who have been brought in are so visible. You can see this guy back here, his name's Simon. He dies. Everybody dies. [both laugh] You can see, like...

Jojo: classic horror movie trope.

Sarah: everybody ends up dead. Except DanI, spoiler alert.

Jojo: right. [laughs]

Sarah: the Americans, and here they are, they're not... I mean, they're not next to the crowd in this picture. But like, you can see they're so much darker in color--their clothes are--than everybody else. So like, in the big crowd shots, you can really pick them out, and they really stand out as being different from everybody else.

Jojo: yeah.

Sarah: here's Dani. So this is toward the end, I pretty much skipped the whole middle of the movie, if that's okay...

Jojo: [laughs] no worries.

Sarah: it's more folk costumes, you know, more white. So this is her doing a maypole dance with the women of the community. And I'm going to talk about these symbols right here on the front of her blouse, let's see... where is it... here. This is from an article on fashionista.com. They used a runic alphabet to create their own language called Affekt. And every person in Hårga has a rune assigned to them that has meaning for their life or their role in the community.

Jojo: Mmhmm.

Sarah: So then they give her this outfit to wear for the maypole dance, and apparently the runes on the front of her blouse, the hourglass one means "helplessness or innocence" and the backwards R "forebodes crisis and death." [both laugh] So...

Jojo: you know, just in case you needed some foreshadowing. At the end of the movie.

Sarah: They're like, "your role is crisis and death! Here you go, enjoy your dance!"

Jojo: oh gosh.

Sarah: and then we've got lots of flower crowns happening. Beautiful.

Jojo: those are very beautiful.

Sarah: they made all of them, they made everything. You know you can't rent 500 white costumes and stuff, so...

Jojo: right, right.

Sarah: it's all very well done. Beautiful, beautiful.

Jojo: I do love those flower crowns. I feel like when I think about making flower crowns now, it's like... I don't think I have any flowers that would make it that full looking. Like, mine would just look really sad and droopy!

Sarah: I think a good flower crown is the fuller the better.

Jojo: yep, agreed.

Sarah: This is like, a full body shot of later because she...

Jojo: Oh my gosh, it gets bigger!

Sarah: ... she wins. She won the maypole dance. So they named her the May Queen, and they give her this, which is-- apparently this little flower cape is actually an actual real thing. They based it on real regalia from midsummer traditions. so that's cool. Oh yeah, but then later on they kind of make it into something that does not exist in real life. I'll show you that in a second. I like this headdress, it's like....

Jojo: oh there's a space! I didn't realize it goes up.

Sarah: yeah it's like a... it's almost like a...

Jojo: like the top of a basket, holder?

Sarah: yeah! Like a little handle. But in some shots it looked almost like it was horns. So it was a really interesting evil... foreboding... pretty...

Jojo: yeah.

Sarah: like, contrast. I like that. And I like this, her skirt, too. It's got like, a little apron, so cute.

Jojo: yeah.

Sarah: honestly like, I would wear a lot of the clothes in this movie. [both laugh] I don't want to be in a Swedish death cult

Jojo: it's weird thinking about, "I don't want to be IN the movie, but..."

Sarah: I will take a cute linen skirt...

Jojo: "...but they look beautiful!"

Sarah: ...any day of the week. And then here's another shot of the side, where you can see the embroidery on her blouse. It's so beautiful.

Jojo: Mmhmm.

Sarah: such beautiful little details. And then this girl over here.

Jojo: yeah it is very like, I mean, forgive my ignorance. But it does look very Scandinavian or Norwegian. Which I think is so lovely.

Sarah: I thought that too, and I was like, "do I just not know?" Because she said you know, it's not necessarily Swedish. But like I think it looks pretty Swedish, based on Swedish stuff I've seen. I don't know.

Jojo: yeah.

Sarah: yeah. I'm not an expert but... yeah.

Jojo: that folksy, uh... folksy look that we all associate with east European countries.

Sarah: yeah!

Jojo: or like north European?

Sarah: oh and you can see in this, so this is toward the end of the movie. So like, we've got the white, and then we've got blue, red, and then there's some yellow that comes in too. To like-- as the celebrations continue the most important one has the most color.

Jojo: okay.

Sarah: And then so here we have this lady, who seemed to be in charge. I'm not sure what her role was, but she's like a priestess sort of role? She was like, doing the ceremonies and stuff, so um... I don't know what her rune means, but there it is.

Jojo: interesting.

Sarah: yeah, and then she has a cool headdress.

Jojo: yeah. Oooh.

Sarah: I don't know what that's called, looks good. And then this is her in her house, which is like.... crazy looking.

Jojo: mm-hmm.

Sarah: it's got, like...

Jojo: oh my goodnes.

Sarah: ...stuff all over the walls, yeah.

Jojo: it's like, tiles. But like, tarot card tiles.

Sarah: yes they do kind of look like tarot cards.

Jojo: but in white. [laughs]

Sarah: yeah. So she wears this for the whole movie. But I just wanted to show it because I like it.

Jojo: her hat looks very Danish almost.

Sarah: I'll take your word for it.

Jojo: But like, that could also be Scandinavian.

Sarah: yeah.

Jojo: I don't know. Someone out there who's Scandinavian, please-- please educate us. [laughs] Because I would love to know.

Sarah: yeah, I did a little research but I didn't do that much research, you know. Like, I didn't research into what things are called.

Jojo: it's really lovely, it's a really lovely silhouette.

Sarah: Mmhmm. And it looks like it's really soft. I don't know what it's made of, maybe wool?

Jojo: mm-hmm, like a felted wool, almost.

Sarah: yeah.

Jojo: yeah.

Sarah: Very cool.

Jojo: it does look very soft.

Sarah: what do we have next? Oh, these are… this is a scene of like, all the women that are— they're comforting her in a moment of scary… scary stuff happening. [both laugh] I'm not gonna talk about it. So you can see how they're ready for the party, so they're wearing super colorful stuff. I love these tassels. I love all of it. And you can see their hair too, very Swedish looking with the milk maid braids and stuff.

Jojo: Mmhmm.

Sarah: pretty.

Jojo: look at that blue trim!

Sarah: I know.

Jojo: so pretty.

Sarah: gorge. Yeah, I’ll also shout out— the production design is really cool on this movie. Like, even before we got to the Swedish commune, I really liked the color palette we were working with. Like, it's such a very clear visual language. You can tell that this director is one of those directors who has a vision, and I like that. It kind of gave me the same feeling as Parasite, where I was like, “this feels so well designed all of it.”

Jojo: right, right.

Sarah: So this is… this lady, how do I describe what happens to her in non-rated R terms? [laughs] She has a… fertility ceremony, let's just say that.

Jojo: Okay.

Sarah: And then after that, she she gets to wear this bodice. Which is— I think it's because she's like, more of a like a woman? She's like, moving into the next phase, or whatever. And she's wearing a red lip, which… nobody else is.

Jojo: yeah.

Sarah: so she must be special. [both laugh]

Jojo: I do love that vest, or like, bodice? It's not quite a vest. But it’s beautiful.

Sarah: I would call it a bodice, yeah. It's got like, tabs with lace around it. Floral print. Gorge.

Jojo: so pretty.

Sarah: what's next? Oh, here's more crowd people wearing all their colors. That's sad Christian.

Jojo: this is such a disarming movie because I feel like visually… if, you know, me just looking at all of these stills is like, “oh, this can't be a horror movie. Everyone looks so happy!” [both laugh]

Sarah: yeah

Jojo: it's like, that's what makes them more terrifying.

Sarah: that's why— okay so I had seen some pictures and I was like, “oh yeah, that movie looks beautiful,” you know. And I heard it was scary but I think I was… misled by the photos I've seen, about…

Jojo: [laughs] yeah.

Sarah: … like, it being scary. I was like, “it's probably like a little bit creepy, but not super scary.” It was SUPER scary.

Jojo: that's what I heard, yeah. Because I think when I first saw it on Netflix I just saw the the cover photo. And it's like, her crying. And so I was just like, “oh, maybe it's just like a really intensely felt emotion from the actual Midsummer Night's Dream?” Nope, that is not at all what it is. [both laugh]

Sarah: apparently Ari Aster originally was approached about making— well, I don't know if it’s his idea. Don't quote me. But it was originally just gonna be a slasher movie set in sort of like a Swedish cult…

Jojo: Okay.

Sarah: …and then he actually went through a breakup in his own life. And so he decided to make the movie about a relationship ending.

Jojo: yeah. Sarah: so that’s— you know, that's the central thing that's happening to the protagonist as she is also being tormented by these…

Jojo: right.

Sarah: …cult members. I mean, in this picture— so this is her boyfriend Christian. He's been given a paralytic and he can't move or talk, but he’s awake and cognizant.

Jojo: oh, that’s terrifying. Terrifying!

Sarah: yeah. Okay so… grand finale, are you ready?

Jojo: okay! I’m ready.

Sarah: boom.

Jojo: oh my gosh!

Sarah: yeah.

Jojo: she just keeps growing!

Sarah: so this is… not a very good quality picture. But this is what I could find. It’s— for those who haven't seen it, it's like a conical dress made entirely of flowers. And there's no sleeves, it's like she's in a cone made of flowers.

Jojo: Right.

Sarah: So I have some information about it. This is the thing that they made up. Like, this is not something that exists, in…

Jojo: okay.

Sarah: …folk traditions. It has a structure underneath it of a hoop skirt which is, I— like, that's kind of what I would expect to be under there.

Jojo: yeah, exactly.

Sarah: yeah. And it's got fabric and then they used over 10,000 silk flowers. And the designer was like, “well, you know, in my in my dream world we would have used real flowers but it took us weeks and weeks to make so that wouldn’t have worked.”

Jojo: they would have died. [laughs]

Sarah: yeah. And apparently, based on the interview I read, it seems like the costume designer herself was working on this piece.

Jojo: Wow!

Sarah: Like, was there sewing on flowers and gluing the flowers with her team. Which I was excited to see;

Jojo: yeah!

Sarah: That’s kind of unusual.

Jojo: I feel like I do that so much, it's like… [laughs] it's like, nice to hear that other designers are doing that too.

Sarah: if it's a lower budget movie, you know, they're all on location in Hungary, they're getting it done. Like, if it needs to get done, I can make— it make sense that she'll get in there and help out, so…

Jojo: yeah, and contribute.

S; Yeah, I love that. So yeah it's it's very striking, it's very strange.

Jojo: [laughs] she looks so upset being in there, too.

Sarah: that’s Florence Pugh's signature face. She has a downturn in her mouth.

Jojo: she really does.

Sarah: it’s really distinctive. Yeah, she's basically watching everybody die during this scene so it's traumatic.

Jojo: Ahh, got it.

Sarah: yeah.

Jojo: and stuck in this cone of flowers!

Sarah: apparently in between takes they would put a little chair inside the cone so she could sit in it. [both laugh] Because apparently it was really heavy and hard to move around in, which…

Jojo: right.

Sarah: …makes sense. So yeah, that's the end, I have one more picture and it's just a rendering. And I don't think that Andrea Flesch did this, I think she had them done, but they are beautiful.

Jojo: yeah!

Sarah: just a nice little rendering to cleanse our palates. Do I have anything else from the articles I didn't mention? No, I pretty much said everything! Yay me.

Jojo: yay! I know, it’s— it's funny because it's exactly like what you said, I think looking at all these images, anyone else would be totally fooled that this is a horror movie. [laughs] Because you don't see any of that, like…

Sarah: yeah.

Jojo: you just get trapped, and then and then you find out it's a horror movie, and then it's too late.

Sarah: I will say, blood and gore is also very jarring against the background of these all-white costumes.

Jojo: yeah. Oh, yeah.

Sarah: …and landscape and stuff. It was— it's visually very striking.

Jojo: right.

Sarah: I'll just say that.

Jojo: right. Whew!

Sarah: so yeah, that's Midsommar. I'm not gonna say I'm traumatized, but— because I'm okay, I have not been having nightmares or anything. But it was it was quite an experience. To watch.

Jojo: that's good, that's good. I do feel like as I've gotten older, I mean— scary movies will still scare me. Which is why I still choose not to watch them. But I don't feel like I get nightmares as frequently as I used to when I was younger, because I— I don't know, maybe my overactive imagination was just more rampant when I was younger. [laughs] I don't know. But yes, I feel like there's a lot more scary movies that I'm able to kind of push myself through. And then at the end of it I'm kind of like, “okay great, now I know how to compartmentalize that and just put it away and try not to think about it while I'm sleeping.”

Sarah: I will say that this— I can handle the violence and the people doing bad things to each other. What keeps me up at night and will give me nightmares is ghosts or demons.

Jojo: yeah.

Sarah: Like, haunted stuff really freaks me out. I can handle like just like creepy humans but not ghosts.

Jojo: I think watching ghost movies is much worse for me, like you said. But I do feel like I've gotten to a point where seeing that much violence is also— it's starting to— it gets to me when I'm watching too much of it over and over and over again.

Sarah: yeah, I mean, I think we are all a little too used to violence in our media.

Jojo: yes. Yeah.

Sarah: so it is good to kind of take a step back and be like, “is it a good thing that I'm used to this and it doesn't bother me?” Like, probably not.

Jojo: Yeah. There's still definitely moments where, I mean, even action movies sometimes, I'm just like, “OH! I was not expecting that to happen.” So…

Sarah: right.

Jojo: yes, I know that feeling.

Sarah: yeah.

Jojo: well thank you, Sarah! I'm glad I didn't get any information about what the actual scary parts of that movie were. [both laugh] But still got to see some beautiful costumes!

Sarah: yes, yes! I was watching it being like, “how am I gonna…?” And I was like, “you know what? I don't need to describe the plot.” Like, that's not what people are listening to us for. They're not listening to us for a plot summary.

Jojo: [laughs] it's true, very true.

Sarah: If they need to know what it's about they can go read Wikipedia or just watch it, because we're here to talk about the clothes.

Jojo: so very true. Okay, so…

Sarah: all right, I'm so ready to see yours. I've seen costumes from this movie and they're beautiful. I've never seen the movie, but…

Jojo: it's funny, because I had been talking about this movie, because I had covered it in class. And it was something that like— I was using a previous Powerpoint that had already been made. So I was kind of just talking about the same thing. But then I was like, “oh yeah, I forgot about this movie!" And I really really love Guillermo del Toro. I haven't seen Shape of Water yet, which I still really have to see, and would love to see. But I absolutely loved Pan's Labyrinth, which is also directed by him, if you don't know. But you know, just really really stunning. And again, I consider this a horror movie, but I really do feel like he's very much a kind of gothic romance type of director.

Sarah: Mmhmm.

Jojo: Because there's always a sense of romanticized fantasy about his horror stories. So yes, I will I will talk about that shortly. But I decided to cover the movie Crimson Peak, which again is directed by Guillermo del Toro, who's done Pan's Labyrinth, The Shape of Water. He actually also did both of the Hellboys, which I totally forgot about.

Sarah: yeah.

Jojo: He did Pacific Rim, and then he actually got really into animated movies recently. And I don't know if you've ever seen the show Troll HunterSarah: Tales of Arcadia?

Sarah: no.

Jojo: it’s— I mean, every once in a while I’ll watch animated shows, and tv shows, and stuff. But this one was really really good, I would highly recommend watching that as well. The storytelling is just really really great and the animation is actually pretty good as well. And apparently he's down to do an animated stop-motion version of Pinocchio, which I'm very excited to see. Obviously it's going to be a much darker Pinocchio, because it's Guillermo del Toro, but I'm excited to see where it goes.

Sarah: I think that story is already dark, like…

Jojo: oh, yeah.

Sarah: …Pinocchio is not my favorite story. It's creepy and weird.

Jojo: It’s definitely creepy.

Sarah: so I think a creepy weird adaptation is appropriate. [laughs]

Jojo: yes. Yeah. So it'll be interesting to see his take on it. And then the costume designer for Crimson Peak was Kate Hawley, who actually did Suicide Squad.

Sarah: Oh!

Jojo: she also did Edge of Tomorrow, she worked with Guillermo on Pacific Rim, she also did The Call of the Wild, and then she also worked with Guillermo quite a bit on the Hobbit trilogy. And so she has a lot of experience just working with creatures, and also just very fantastical elements, and also huge casts. So this was actually really great for her. And then she also did the movie Lovely Bones, which I included on there because that is also a kind of true crime, horror, psychological thriller-type movie.

Sarah: yeah.

Jojo: But it's actually— it’s also a book written by someone who wrote about her experience at Syracuse University, where I went! So…

Sarah: oh!

Jojo: so there's some terrifying real life stories about Syracuse that she based on her first book. Sarah: Really?

Jojo: But anyways, I just thought that was really interesting, that she also did Lovely Bones. So, the setting for this movie, of course, is in two locations. Which, actually— while I was thinking about it, this is not in interviews or anything anywhere, but she sets it in Buffalo. Or sorry, Guillermo, who also wrote Crimson Peak, sets the story in Buffalo, New York, where they start. And then as well as Cumbria, England, where they eventually go. And it reminded me a lot of Dracula, actually. Because, you know, he does kind of— I mean, it's a little bit backwards because they start off in Transylvania and then he comes to America. But it's this idea that there's this haunted sort of otherworldly building or location that the two—antagonists, I guess you could call them—are from. And then they come to America, and our leading protagonist is from Buffalo, New York.

Sarah: cool.

Jojo: So it's set in the early 20th century, which is the 1900s and it's a very Edwardian silhouette, for those of you who are costume history buffs. Which I think is such a lovely silhouette.

Sarah: yes.

Jojo: And she really— Kate really, really did some beautiful work for this costume— or, for this movie, set in that time period. And obviously, she pushed some things in terms of color and fabrics, and just silhouette, and surface decoration, that is probably a little bit more exaggerated than that time period. But there's also some very, very traditional— like, you see them in all the fashion plates for the Edwardian era. And it's very, very clear that that's the setting we're in.

Sarah: I love Edwardian, and I feel like it— it doesn't get done enough? Like, I think Victorian is what everybody always thinks of as “oldey-timey.”

Jojo: yes! Yeah.

Sarah: But Edwardian deserves some attention too.

Jojo: yeah, and there there is some leftover 1890s silhouettes, and almost even bustle silhouettes? That kind of carry over into some of these characters, because this idea of this house being kind of left in its old history, and sort of stuck in a period, and never moving forward. That's a big part of where we land when we go to England. But I'll talk a little bit more about that. So just to kind of give you a breakdown of the story first of all, the idea is that Edith, who is played by Mia Wasikowska— I think that's how you say her name.

Sarah: sure! [both laugh]

Jojo: ...who plays Alice in the new Alice in Wonderland. But she is our leading lady, and she's from Buffalo, New York. She comes from a very wealthy family. Her father is— I want to say he kind of owns a lot of land, and he's head of this conference of men who basically help fund different projects. So of course, this very wealthy man Thomas Sharp ends up coming to Buffalo, New York to ask her father for funding for this big project that he's trying to take care of on his land in England. And he's basically trying to dig up clay from his land to create this big thing. And he's created this invention and he's made a little model of it to bring into this first meeting with her father. But of course in the meantime, as he's coming to Buffalo, New York, he meets Edith on her way to basically publish a book. So she's kind of the “Jane Austen of her time,” is what they call her, because she's sort of this bookworm. She's very intelligent, she's very smart, she's always kind of the bright light in the room. And she actually— again, we don't really go into backstory of a lot of the characters. So I can’t— it sounds very much like I'm kind of confused about who the characters are because there are a lot of characters.

Sarah: Mmhmm.

Jojo: so there's a lot of backstory here. But basically, she comes in, she's this very naive and very innocent character. So as our protagonist, she's always seeing the positive. And she starts off the story talking about how she believes that ghosts are real, and that she's basically seen them since she was little.

Sarah: Ohh.

Jojo: So she lost her mom to… I want to say it was the the black plague? Or, sorry, black cholera. So she lost her mom to an illness when she was very young. But her mom immediately came back as a ghost when she was probably middle school age. So the first scene is basically her in her bedroom, seeing her mother come into her bedroom as a ghost…

Sarah: that’s scary.

Jojo: …and telling her not to go to Crimson Peak. Or, “beware of Crimson Peak” is the first thing that she says.

Sarah: Ohh.

Jojo: And of course she completely forgets about all of that. Her mom never reappears to her again until she grows older.

Sarah: right.

Jojo: So that's kind of the premise of the story. The protag-- or sorry, the antagonists that come that come into this world are Thomas Sharp, who's again trying to build his invention. And he comes in with his sister Lucille Sharp, who is played by Jessica Chastain. And she is gorgeous in this movie.

Sarah: She’s beautiful.

Jojo: all of the costumes are gorgeous in this movie. But she really comes in, and she's very mysterious, and there's this very standoffish feeling that you get from Jessica Chastain. So I will go a little more quickly into our costumes. [both laugh] I’ve talked very much about the story. Let’s see, let me go ahead and open our first one. Okay, one big thing I did want to talk about is that the costume designer talks a lot about how she associated Edith and Lucille with different kinds of butterflies/moths. So Edith is kind of our butterfly, very colorful, very vibrant. A lot of her color palette is kind of golds, creams, and warmer colors, in contrast to the moth. Who is kind of a reflection. Jessica Chastain's character Lucille is kind of the colored moth, where everything is very dark, very muted, and much darker than you would see in a lot of Edith’s costumes. So let's move on, so this is actually the first scene that we ever see Edith in. And this is— it’s kind of like her nightgown…

Sarah: wow.

Jojo: …she’s in this quite a bit during the movie, because we see a lot of scenes where she wakes up at night. And she's always in this very— this looks a little bit more Victorian to me.

Sarah: yeah.

Jojo: and it's almost like a combination of a couple different periods. Because she's got kind of the Victorian sleeves, but she also has the frilliness of the 1890s. She's got the high collar, which is very turn of the century, but then they've also added almost like a ruff? Which is a little bit Elizabethan, almost.

Sarah: yeah. I was thinking that, yeah.

Jojo: and again, this is also— being the first image, I think this is the other reason why I thought so much of Dracula. Because, you know, there's the new Bram Stoker's Dracula with Eiko Ishioka's costumes, and it's very, very similar in silhouette and shape. This idea that it's kind of this transparent white nightgown.

Sarah: Classic.

Jojo: And again, this is a kind of jump forward to the very end of the movie. And then they don't explain how she got here, what happened, they just show her in this quick moment first. And then, of course, you repeat back to it at the very end.

Sarah: right.

Jojo: so, kind of a haunting image. And she's also surrounded by by snow, because in England it's snowing at this time. Another nightgown shot…

Sarah: Oh, wow.

Jojo: …but again, you can kind of see her body through it. And this is— I just, again, that naivety and that innocence of her. This image was actually I just wanted to show this because it's just so luxurious. Like, it feels like you can taste these fabrics. [both laugh]

Sarah: Mmhmm!

Jojo: Like, everything is just so luscious on this set. And this is when they're still back in Buffalo, and her friend who's the investigator, who… you're not sure if he's in love with her the whole time, but he never really says anything. And Guillermo never really touches on that whole relationship, but this is his mother. So she, of course, is talking about the Sharps coming to England. You know, this is her daughter next to her. And they're very high society ladies, and they're bragging about how they're gonna catch Thomas Sharp's eye, and how he's gonna marry the next wealthy heiress to his humongous mansion. So they're coming in with all of these beautiful fabrics, and just the… mix and shapes of all the sleeves that she put into these costumes is… oh, it's just so lovely.

Sarah: beautiful, so sumptuous.

Jojo: yes. And even the hats and all the decoration that goes into that. I mean, even the ladies in the back, who you see for two seconds. You can see how much luxury is on here.

Sarah: Mmhmm.

Jojo: Which is pretty incredible. And then in contrast, Edith is in this very, very turn of the century silhouette. This is pretty standard, it's in a lot of fashion plates, but I love again that she's put her in this butterscotch sort of yellow-golden color. And she kind of remains in that color quite a bit throughout the movie. She kind of goes back and forth between this and the cream-white kind of nightgown that she's in a lot. So I just wanted— I just thought this was pretty, there was nothing else I wanted to say about it. [laughs]

Sarah: it’s very pretty.

Jojo: so this scene, again, kind of going back with that butterfly idea. This is actually a scene pretty early on in the movie, where she's talking to her father. She hasn't really met Thomas Sharp yet, but she's just been talking about trying to bring her publishing notes to a publisher. And it's interesting, because I watched this movie after Little Women, but I'm pretty sure they made it before Little Women. But it's a very similar idea, of this woman trying to publish her book. And she's trying to write this kind of scary story. Like, she jokes about how she wants to be Mary Shelley, and of course the the publisher tells her that she needs to include some sort of romance in there in order for it to be published. So she has this whole big—

Sarah: that is very Little Women.

Jojo: it is! And so it was just funny that she kind of had the very similar conversation.

Sarah: I mean, Little Women the book is very old. So you know, maybe they took a little bit of inspiration from it.

Jojo: it is, it is. Yeah, very much so. And I i think that also speaks a lot to her character, that she is this kind of naive— you know, she wants— she has such ideas about, you know, being this great author in this society where that's still not really quite accepted yet. Even though we are a little further along than Little Women.

Sarah: Mmhmm.

Jojo: But I think that was part of her character too, is that she keeps experiencing all these things that she doesn't really understand. She's always very innocent, and even in the way that her clothing is very, very transparent. I think that was something that the costume designer really talked a lot about wanting to emphasize, in contrast to Jessica Chastain's Lucille character that we'll talk about later. So this was just another close-up of how beautiful it is, and just look at that beautiful lace.

Sarah: I love that.

Jojo: one of the other things that Kate Hawley also talked about was wanting to really stick as closely as she could to the traditional kind of mourning practices of that time. So this idea, during during the 1900s, this idea of having human hair. Especially hair from a lost one, or someone who died, made into some sort of a jewelry item or accessory item that you could wear. And that way, you could always keep that person with you. So she actually made this belt out of human hair.

Sarah: what!

Jojo: and then they actually— I believe she said she also had someone make… they made a mold out of ivory, of these hands that she she found. Which are very from that period.

Sarah: So the belt itself is all hair? Or it just has hair in it, or…?

Jojo: yeah. It's all hair.

Sarah: Wooooow!

Jojo: like so, the braided part on the side. I wish I had… I had a image, and then I decided not to pull it. But it's it's a close-up image of the the belt. Maybe I’ll include it on YouTube.

Sarah: yeah, we have to edit ourselves down, unfortunately. [both laugh]

Jojo: I know! And I was like, “well, this is enough.”

Sarah: I take your word for it. It looks great.

Jojo: but yes, so all the the braiding on the side is all from human hair. Which I was like, “terrifying!” But, you know, for this time period, is very normal.

Sarah: I mean, yeah. Super normal. Kind of a weird idea for us, but like it was so… it was so normal back then.

Jojo: yes, absolutely. And then just again, having these little kind of delicate lace patterns and embroidery on there, that I think was very reminiscent of the butterflies that she keeps bringing back as a theme, in the differentiation between the two.

Sarah: Mmhmm.

Jojo: there's actually a whole scene where they're in a picnic in the park, and they're just picking up these dead yellow swallowtail butterflies. Which I was like, “oh that's so sad!”

Sarah: Aww!

Jojo: yes, terrifying. But yes, you see a lot of that in Edith's costume.

Sarah: oh I've seen this! Yes.

Jojo: yes, so this is prior to her going to the first ball. And she's been invited by Thomas Sharp, he's come quite late to pick her up out of his way to pick her up. And her father and her friend who's the investigator have already left. So she's in this robe getting ready to go to sleep, she’s not planning on going out at all. And this is what she's wearing before Thomas comes to her house. But even the fact that she's got this sumptuous robe, and it's got these beautiful flowers. Which— they talked at length about how everything was hand done and all the flowers were hand sewn. Which again is just an amazing feat.

Sarah: so much work.

Jojo: so that's all I had to say about that.

Sarah: gorge. Love it.

Jojo: so pretty. I wanted to pop this quick photo in there, because it just goes to show how wealthy everyone else in in this town was. Like again, this is the mother of her investigator friend who's trying to sell her daughter off to Thomas Sharp. And she's the one kind of running the party, and she's trying to get everyone to dance, but she's introducing Thomas Sharp, to say that he's gonna introduce how to do the dance— or, do the waltz, for everyone. He's gonna do a demonstration. And so she, of course, is expecting that he's gonna ask her daughter to dance with him. And he's walked in with Edith already, so everyone knows he's going to ask Edith. Except for this woman, apparently. But I wanted to just in indicate— you know, again, these giant sleeves, this really thin fabric. I think everything about this world, the costume designer really, really took the time to give everyone this sense of fragility. And almost this lacy see-through everything, but also mixing that with these luxurious fabrics, either satin or velvet. Also very of this time period. And really to show off that wealthiness of Edith and this woman.

Sarah: beautiful.

Jojo: so these are a couple images… I'm not going to talk too much about this, because we're going to go into this later, but just some images actually from— I believe this is from the FIDM exhibit.

Sarah: it is. You can tell, the mannequins always have that paper hair. [both laugh]

Jojo: yeah, I was gonna say, also the the text of the Crimson Peak in the back. But yeah, so just a couple of the of the costumes from the exhibit that I wanted to talk about, and we'll go in more detail about those later. So going back to the red dress. Guillermo talked a lot about wanting Jessica Chastain's first appearance in the ballroom, and first appearance on the screen, to be kind of like this “drop of blood”…

Sarah: Ooh.

Jojo: …in this presence of, you know, all these different dancers. So of course, this is her first dress. Just again, the sheer amount of work that went into building this dress. It's so beautiful. And it kind of looks a little bit more bustle period, because again, she's sort of frozen in the past?

Sarah: Mmhmm.

Jojo: but this is also the first kind of intimidating experience that you see, when we first meet Jessica, whose name is Lucille in the movie.

Sarah: I would be very intimidated.

Jojo: and she's a very accomplished piano player, very talented, she kind of runs ship at her house with her brother. And she's very, very close to her brother, so there's this very weird but also very tight-knit relationship between the two of them, and you're never really sure why. It's just creepy throughout the whole movie. And that's part of the unsettling idea, is that you don't really know if she's on your side or not on your side, and you never really know if she's for Edith or against Edith. Actually, most of the time you're pretty sure she's against Edith.

Sarah: [laughs]

Jojo: but she's the one who wants Edith and her brother to get married. Yeah, so there's a lot of sidebar conversations at the very beginning that kind of hint at what's gonna happen, but you're still kind of left with a lot of questions. Of like, who is this woman really? And what is her relationship to the brother? This is just a little more close-up of just the detail that goes into her dress. And again, it's I think it's velvet. it looks like it's like a velveteen, almost. And then they actually hand made all of it. Like, she has the same kind of pattern of leaves, kind of decaying and dying leaves, on most of her dresses, if not all of them. But just in different colors. So on this one, it's all the red, and then she has a blue dress later on. And it's a brown—like, really looking like it's rotted—trailing down her dress.

Sarah: interesting.

Jojo: So again, all hand done, all hand sewn, just really, really lovely. So I wanted to also go through another dress of hers, this is actually when they're in the park. And this is kind of the first time we see the Sharp siblings. And whenever they're in Buffalo they're pretty much always in this black, very somber colors. And then when they go to their house, it's funny because they get more color. But it's supposed to look a little bit more like their house, which is kind of decaying, so they're in blues when they go into their house.

Sarah: Mmhmm.

Jojo: Which we'll talk a little bit about later. But this is a very, very bustle silhouette. But you can still see some of that same kind of decaying leaf pattern that is also on this outfit, and just sort of artfully placed in a very different way than in her red dress or her blue dress. So then, of course, Thomas ends up asking Edith to marry him, at the dismissal of her father. Her father really doesn't like him, doesn't have a good feeling about him, basically is totally against the idea. And then her father gets his head bashed in, and gets murdered.

Sarah: Oh no!

Jojo: So, of course there's no one to say that— you know, we don't know who's murdered him. But he gets murdered pretty much the day that Thomas is asked to leave town, and basically breaks Edith's heart. And so Thomas waits behind anyways, and says, “I want to marry you, come live with me.” And she says yes. So this interesting first entrance— he kind of goes back to the blue of his house, which you can see here. It's distressed in such a way that it's meant to look decayed.

Sarah: Yeah.

Jojo: And then in the meantime, she's kind of dressed, again, as this beautiful butterfly. All of these flowers were hand done and hand tacked onto this beautiful coat. And muff that she's got, matching muff. [laughs] But even the hat, and the detail, and the sumptuous velvet that you see all over her. She's in a much lighter color again, to kind of reflect this idea of her being the beacon of hope in the midst of this very sad mansion that he's been trapped in for a long time with his sister.

Sarah: Yeah.

Jojo: So I thought that was a really nice contrast that the designer did. Just some more pictures of the back, you can see it's all hand done in the back as well.

Sarah: Wow, look at that.

Jojo: so beautiful! But yes, very deep care was taken to every part of this costume.

Sarah: Mmhmm.

Jojo: …and all of her costumes. This was sort of a quick— like, I'm not going to talk too much about him, because he actually is hired by her father to investigate the Sharps. The friend right next door is the one that I was talking about, the scientist who's also the investigator. But one thing I wanted to just mention about this costume was that I love this kind of green plaid that he's in. He almost looks a little bit like a leprechaun? [both laugh] But it's actually a three-piece suit that matches. And I love that he's also next to a green chair. So again, Guillermo plays around with a lot of this color matching, and sort of tone-on-tone-on-tone. Or same tone-on-tone-on-tone. So I love this this image of him, and the fact that he's got these crazy side burns that are also very period. Which, again, just small details for costume historians. But I just— again, he's not a major character, I just really liked his outfit. One thing that is very creepy about this mansion is that all of the clay, and the land that the house is built on, is all a red clay. So everything comes out red, and it's this really vibrant, almost bad horror movie blood red. So everything that you see in the house is sort of covered in red, or in some sort— or you see stains of bleeding red. So the house just constantly looks like it's kind of bleeding.

Sarah: wow, creepy.

Jojo: Which is very, very creepy. [laughs] And all the costumes—I think that was another thing, too—because there is, I mean, it is a very gory movie. So there's a lot of— they had to make multiples of all of these things. Which is the other humongous feat. Okay, so I'm gonna skip to… well, not skip to, but this is just some more of Lucille's costumes.

Sarah: wow, look at that.

Jojo: this is her costume when she's in the house, so remember, we see her in that red first, and then we see her in black when she's in Buffalo. But once she returns back to her house, her brother and her both return to this really deep blue velvet. And this is pretty much the dress she stays in for the rest of the movie. One of the things they talked a little bit about was that they wanted this idea of the decay, and the molding, and everything dying, to sort of carry over into the costumes. And they joked about her train being, like— getting longer and longer each time. Almost as if it was… I think they said it was like “the umbilical cord tying her to the house.”

Sarah: Oh, wow.

Jojo: Because she is very, very attached to this house. There's this whole idea of— Thomas tries to go away at some point, because Edith tries to convince him to leave. Because something in the house is clearly trying to hold him back. And she just refuses, and she obviously gets very angry that he's even considering leaving the house, because there's something mentally wrong with her. So you see that reflected in her dress. So not just the long tail, but also just the bustle idea. Again, this very dated look for this time period. Even the fraying and the kind of dying leaves that you see repeated, it goes— not just the front, but it also goes into the back. And again, all hand done. So…

Sarah: wow, SO much work.

Jojo: I think the next—

Sarah: Oh my gosh.

Jojo: yeah, these are some close-ups of all of that kind of dead, decaying… like, it almost looks like she's got even bullet… it's like those bullet casings? I mean, it's not, but it's this idea that she's got these dead… everything. Kind of growing on vines on her. Which the costume designer talked about a lot.

Sarah: It’s SO pretty. Oh, wow.

Jojo: yeah. Okay! Then… reflecting back to the swallow tail color of Edith, this is just kind of in contrast with the darkness of Lucille. And I wanted to just focus on how beautiful this looks. I think this is also from a 1900s portrait, I believe.

Sarah: Oooh.

Jojo: There’s actually a dress that exists like this. It's funny that it kind of reminded me a little bit of Mirror Mirror too, with the bow in the back.

Sarah: oh yeah, yeah.

Jojo: but there's a close-up of the flowers that they also hand tacked on there.

Sarah: [gasps] wow!

Jojo: it's so crazy!

Sarah: so much work!

Jojo: but yes, just so much stuff. So much everything. A lot of embroidery.

Sarah: beautiful.

Jojo: So this, I just wanted to focus on this, because this is the last scene that we see Lucille's character in. And I don't know if you care about the spoiler, but…

Sarah: no. [laughs]

Jojo: I guess this is not a spoiler-free podcast, we’ve mentioned…

Sarah: it's not! We say it at the top.

Jojo: but you find out that Lucille is clearly sleeping with her brother.

Sarah: I … thought so.

Jojo: So there's like this whole incestual relationship between the two of them, and so she's been controlling him, and causing him to kill all of these other women in order for them to gain money. To uphold the house.

Sarah: Interesting.

Jojo: so the whole time, he’s basically been going around and marrying women, and then killing them after he's gotten their money.

Sarah: wow.

Jojo: which was going to be the case with Edith, but he actually ends up falling in love with Edith because of her innocence. And when he finally gets the courage to try to up and leave, she ends up killing her brother. So this is the last look that she's in when she's doing all of that. And it’s— I mean, not only do you find her in her brother's arms, that's when Edith catches them. But she remains in this for the remainder of the movie, when she's basically trying to… not just kill her brother, but also kill Edith, as she's trying to chase Edith out the house. And it just kind of goes to show, this sort of— now that she's opened up and she's free, and this is, you know— everything's out in the open. She runs around in this, and this is also a very sheer garment. So it almost is like— it kind of reflects what Edith is wearing in a lot of her nightgown scenes, but in a much more regal way, as opposed to Edith's very done-up and conservative nightgown.

Sarah: Mmhmm.

Jojo: So just a couple more pictures of it, you can see how sheer it is on the dress form.

Sarah: So beautiful. So delicate, the fabric.

Jojo: yeah, so crazy. And then all the delicate lace at the top as well, and then this was just another image of the little… sleevelet.

Sarah: those sleeves are gigantic!

Jojo: yeah, they are. [laughs] It's SO much.

Sarah: so much fabric.

Jojo: it's so full, but also because it's so light and so sheer, you kind of really see how free she really is. But also kind of the most terrifying moment, because this is when she’s— when she's in the final stages of her gore, blood bath. Yep, that was it!

Sarah: awesome!

Jojo: that was the last one.

Sarah: I bet that that was a fun garment to wear, it looked really flowy.

Jojo: especially in contrast to all the other stuff, because I think the other ones, she actually had all the extra layers.

Sarah: corsets.

Jojo: they showed an image of an old corset that she had to wear, but it didn't make it into the movie. But it was a very old S-bend corset…

Sarah: Oh, gosh.

Jojo: …so it was really really restricting, and I think that was sort of to help her get into the character. Of feeling like she's trapped in this house and that she has to be a certain way.

Sarah: for those who don't know, an S-curve corset is the hardest corset to wear, because the ideal silhouette of the time was a full bosom and like— your pelvis tilted back, so that your hips were full and your bum was full in the back. So it puts your spine in this really horrible position where you're always tilted forward.

Jojo: Yeah.

Sarah: So if you're ever going to wear a corset, don't pick an S-curve one. [both laugh]

Jojo: don't do it.

Sarah: don't do it to yourself.

Jojo: one really quick quote I wanted to leave off with that was by— I believe it was by Kate. It said, “Edith reflects the Buffalo sunshine, whereas Lucille's heavy dark gown absorbs it. She looks like she's in mourning with the red rose detail as the only blast of color, and it mirrors the family heirloom…” which is the wedding ring that Edith gets from Thomas. And ends up going to all of the people that he kills. “…While also matching the crimson of her ancestral estate, and it takes its place over her heart that belongs to her brother. Whereas Edith wears a cornucopia of floral adornments on her hat and blouse to reflect new life.” So I think that was definitely carried throughout the movie. I think she did a really good job very— very kind of symbolic in all of the costumes. And I think I didn't focus so much on the men because there was just so much to look at for the women…

Sarah: [laughs] yeah.

Jojo: …but I did love that Thomas at least reflected his sister in terms of color palette.

Sarah: it's funny because I hear about that symbolism and I'm like, “Oh, that sounds a little bit heavy-handed.” But I think that that's only because I'm thinking about it, you know?

Jojo: Right.

Sarah: Like, if you're watching the movie, it's something that you might subconsciously recognize, but only if you're analyzing it do you think about how literal it is. So that means that it's not heavy-handed.

Jojo: yeah, right, right. Exactly. And you do focus a lot more on how beautiful these costumes are, because she focuses on luxurious textures, which I think is done very successfully.

Sarah: cool, I want to watch it now!

Jojo: so yeah… I know, it’s— like I said, this one is probably not as scary as Midsommar. [both laugh] I think because I kind of was like, “Oh okay, something is off about this relationship,” and then by the end you're like, “Okay, I kind of saw that coming.” There's a few jump scares, but there's not too many. I think I had my volume low enough that it also didn't make it as scary. [laughs]

Sarah: I've seen the trailer, I remember the trailer came out and being like, “So the brother and sister are definitely together, right?” Like, it's pretty clear. [both laugh]

Jojo: yeah exactly I was just like, “Uhhhh… something is off!”

Sarah: “…And I think I know what it is!” [laughs]

Jojo: yeah!

Sarah: well, cool.

Jojo: I will say, I think one thing that did bother me was the fact that I think Mia Wasikowska's character still looks so young… that it does feel a little bit like he's marrying a child bride.

Sarah: gross.

Jojo: Like, I think that is— I mean, it's emphasized with her costumes too. But it definitely gives you kind of like a creepy, “he's a little too old for you” vibe. Like, I mean, even though he's probably not that much older…

Sarah: yeah, and not uncommon, especially back in the day.

Jojo: true, true.

Sarah: but maybe not…. super comfortable to think about that hard. [both laugh]

Jojo: yes, very true. So yes, that's our horror episode!

Sarah: we made it!

Jojo: we made it. [both laugh] I know!

Sarah: it might be a while before we do another horror episode.

Jojo: yeah very true. [both laugh] Keep those suggestions, maybe on the limit.

Sarah: yeah, keep in mind that we're scaredy cats.

Jojo: yes.

Sarah: we haven't actually— I don't know that we've gotten any horror requests yet, so… good.

Jojo: that’s true.

Sarah: continue… not doing that, thanks.

Jojo: we haven't hit the horror niche yet.

Sarah: yeah. I mean, I think that, like… horror costume drama is a whole other, you know… genre. Because it's not like we're gonna—

Jojo: very true.

Sarah: I mean, I personally am not gonna just be like, “Oh yeah, I'm gonna cover Friday the 13th,” you know?

Jojo: [laughs] right.

Sarah: Like, it's not something that— Crimson Peak I think of as a costume drama.

Jojo: yeah.

Sarah: …AND a gothic horror movie.

Jojo: yes, very much so. Cool, well thank you, Sarah!

Sarah: great job. Thank you, Jojo. [both laugh] Okay, well…

Jojo: thanks, listeners!

Sarah: thank you! Don't forget to check out Breaking the Fourth Wall, the podcast that we're on. Once again, it'll be linked in the description. and thank you so much for listening

Jojo: see you on the next one!

Sarah: See ya, bye bye!

Jojo: bye!

[OUTRO]

Jojo: thank you for listening to The Costume Plot! You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @thecostumeplot. If you have a question, comment, or movie suggestion you can email us at thecostumeplot@gmail.com.

Sarah: our theme music is by Jesse Timm, and our artwork is by Jojo Siu. Please rate and review us wherever you listen to your podcasts.

[bizarrebird]

Guys. Guys. Guys. It’s the first Spike episode. He’s here. My shitty boy is here. Full disclosure, Spike is and always has been my favorite character and I do in fact ship Spuffy (yes I am fully aware of the fact that it becomes terrible in season 6 and believe me, I’ll talk about that when we get there. It’s bad, Spike is bad, the writing is bad, and I hate all of it) but this is not gonna become all Spuffy all the time, I promise. Even this one, no, this liveblog is about appreciating my mom Joyce Summers

So without further ado Season 2, Episode 3: School Hard

We start in Snyder’s office where he’s in full lecture mode to Buffy and random girl (Sheila) about how they’re both super troublesome because Sheila stabbed a teacher with pruning shears (hardcore but what the fuck) and Buffy burned down a gym*. Synder tells them that Parent-Teacher night is coming up and, to avoid expulsion, they’re in charge of setting it up and if they do well, he will tell their parents they aren’t complete gremlins. Buffy clearly wants to toe the line and Sheila doesn’t give a crap and runs off to make out with someone who she calls ‘meatboy’ (I have questions Sheila) Xander and Willow show up for playful banter and discuss the situation and then Xander jinxes everything cause he’s a fuck

And now we cut to the bEST FUCKING ENTRANCE EVER as a car mows down the ‘Welcome to Sunnydale’ sign, blaring music and outsteps my shit boy in all his duster wearing, bleach blonde, vampire glory. There he is. That motherfucker. Spike. And here we mark where the show really gets good** before we go to OPENING CREDITS

After the credits we see some generic vamps and the anointed babby talking about who’s gonna step up now that the Master’s gone. I guess there’s an evil power vacuum or something going on? but no one wants the gig cause Buffy will make whoever steps up dust. Random Vampire says he’ll kill her cause some vampire holiday is coming up that gives them more power, so it’s the perfect time to strike. He’s all speechifying and bragging when Spike (my sweet shitlord) cuts him off and calls him on his shit, cause Spike’s the guy you call when someone needs a dick slapped out of their mouth

Spike starts talking to the baby, saying he knows about the slayer problem and he can help cause he’s already killed two before (one of them who’s coat he’s wearing right now) But he trails off when Drusilla walks in, looking all dainty and lovely and he drops the vamp face case he’s gotta go be soft with her. We get the idea pretty quick that Dru isn’t all there and Spike makes mention of the fact that she’s weak for some reason (I think it’s explained later, but I can’t remember the exact details off the top of my head rn) Spike and Dru do their sweet, but creepy weird thing and he announces they’re moving in and that he’ll deal with Buffy as long as the baby keeps his goons in line

Now we go to Buffy and Joyce in the old Summers abode. Mama Joyce has apparently not been told by Buffy that parent-teacher night is happening and they have some serious talks about Buffy’s previous issues and how moving was hard on both of them. The scene closes out with Buffy being clearly iffy on her feelings about not telling her mom the truth about the slaying stuff and then we go back to high school and prep for parent-teacher night. Buffy (in adorable overalls) works on decorations with Willow and Xander’s there too I guess, and they decide to go to the Bronze because Angel, which means she has a million things to balance and here come Giles and Jenny with one more thing to add to the pile: super vampire night

Giles is... kind of a dick about things, saying slaying has to come first, but Willow and Xander volunteer to help to try to lighten the load. And here comes Giles with the Watcher’s shittiest rule that the slayer must fight alone because reasons???? (no like what the fuck, it’s the shittiest rule and clearly that hasn’t helped all the previous slayers not die, fuck the watcher’s council honestly) Synder shows up and notices Sheila isn’t there. Buffy covers for her just in time for a clearly hungover Sheila to show up and ask Buffy about the burning down a building thing (cause Joss just really loves sucking his own creative dick)

And we go to the Bronze where Buffy’s trying to study and party simultaneously and that’s going about as well as you’d expect. Buffy’s hoping Angel will show up, but so far nothing, so she agrees to dance with Xander as we see Spike looming in the back of the club. He talks one of his lackeys into attacking a random club goer and then loudly announces someone’s being attacked so he can watch Buffy in action (and he doesn’t have heart eyes yet, but like... you know he’s into it) Xander manages to not be a useless slug boy and goes and grabs Buffy a stake from her purse so she can kill rando vamp. Spike then slow claps (cause yes, even my baby is a tool) and says he’s gonna come after her on Saturday when the vamps get all super charged and slinks away

Next we see Sheila leaving the club with two random guys, who get yanked away off camera and then SURPRISE SPIKE RIGHT BEHIND HER. He flirts and it’s creepy and we know it’s not gonna end well. Cut to the library with the Scoobies trying to research Spike and coming up empty. Luckily Angel shows up then and he knows what’s up with Spike although Buffy’s a little more interested in why he didn’t show up earlier. But then just as people are asking Angel about Spike, Angel just leaves cause drama and he’s an asshole

There’s dramatic music and some chanting as we move to Drusilla being creepy with some dolls. Spike tries to talk her into eating because she’s weak (something something mob in Prague), but Dru just wants to be weird and tells Spike he has to get the other vamps to trust him more. He agrees, on the condition that she eat Sheila. The scene cuts before we see what happens and we find the Scoobies prepping for parent-teacher night and super vamp throwdown

Parent-teacher night begins and Buffy’s big plan is to just stop Snyder from getting anywhere near Joyce (fair, he’s a disgusting lizard man) Buffy is stressing as Cordy approaches and tells her her mom is super hot (not in those exact words, but listen Cordelia is bi and she’s a queen) Joyce mentions that she’s having a strangely difficult time actually talking to any of Buffy’s teachers, how strange. This of course is wen Snyder finally catches up with her and asks to speak to her in his office. insert scare chord here

Meanwhile in the library, Giles finds a book talking about Spike and his old moniker ‘William the Bloody’ and that he has killed two slayers, so he means business. Back with Buffy we see Snyder and Joyce return and clearly Mama Summers isn’t happy with whatever he told her (idk what the fuck he even would tell her, Buffy has don’t nothing wrong ever in her life and the lizard man is just mad that he can’t ever hope to be as pretty as her) As Synder’s turning off the lights on parent-teacher night the school windows get smashed as like a dozen vampires burst through cause Spike got tired of waiting and decided to  say fuck it and attack early. Great idea there. I love this guy, but he’s an idiot

Buffy leaps into action and gets her mom and most other people to safety. Cordelia and Willow get attacked by a vamp, but Willow saves Cordy and the two of them stumble into a supply closet to have their shared gay awakenings (okay listen it would be a good ship, I swear) Buffy tries to get everyone into the library, but vampires cut them off and she has to herd them into a different room. The power goes out and one of Spike’s lackeys says they lost the slayer. Annoyed, Spike murders a random teacher/parent and decides if he wants something done right, he has to do it himself

Giles apparently has a secret way out through the library and sends Xander (after some whining) to go get Angel cause he knows Spike somehow. Back in the classroom Snyder’s a little shit and wants to bust out the windows to run, but Buffy tells him not to and starts giving orders before making to head into the vents. Joyce tries to stop her, but Buffy goes anyway (mooooom, all the other kids get to fight demons) Spike’s wandering the halls being creepy and passes right by Cordelia and Willow’s hiding place. Cordy starts panicking, so Willow gets all up close and personal to put a hand over her mouth (hey Willow, you know another way you could keep her quiet wink wink nudge nudge IT’S REAL GAY IN THAT CLOSET LISTEN)

In the library, Giles is about to bust out to go help Buffy (who has to work alone now, huh? Look I’m glad he’s being less shitty now, but I’m still holding that line against him, that was garbage) But the air vent above him opens and surprise ceiling Buffy is here now. She insists she’s gonna handle all the vamps, just like Giles told her too, and she has to do it alone, just like Giles told her too (HMM PERCHANCE A PATTERN IS HAPPENING HERE) And she tells Giles that he’s gotta get her mom and the others out in case she doesn’t make it back

Back in the classroom, Snyder’s being a dipshit and Joyce is telling him not to and being a proud mama saying they should listen to what Buffy says. Snyder’s a fuck stick and convinces another guy to go out the window anyway (guess how that’s gonna go) Out in the hall, Spike finds a fireaxe (that they just... have in a school??? really???? no one thinks this is a safety hazard???? okaaaay) and in three two one--the guy Snyder sends through the window gets munched on. Who could have guessed. Joyce quickly shuts the window and is a big enough person not to say ‘I told you so’ even though it’s totally warranted

Xander gets there with Angel, who goes all vamp mode and pretends he caught Xander. Meanwhile Cordy and Willow are still in that closet, sitting real close cause they’re totes gay. Buffy’s still in the ceiling, which Spike has picked up on and he starts trying to force her out. She pops out right on top of the vamp trying to get at Joyce and the others and stakes the shit out of him. Joyce, who is also a queen, tells Buffy to save herself, but Buffy says nah. Surprise Sheila from nowhere, who Buffy tells to go hide, but she grabs a fireaxe and follows Buffy to ‘help’

In another hallway, Spike’s still jabbing the ceiling fishing for Buffy when Angel shows up all vamp face. Spike calls him ‘Angelus’ (huh wonder what that’s about) They hug and that’s not a bro hug cause these fellas are bi (Joss can deny it all he wants, but they are. We all know it, say they’re bi Joss, say it you coward***) They shoot the shit, clearly showing they go waaaaay back. Angel’s putting on a decent act, which Xander apparently falls for cause he is instantly down to believe any guy who’s into Buffy**** is super evil, and he offers to let Spike snack on him

Meanwhile, Buffy’s about to do some slaying, but we see Sheila behind her all vamped out, not surprising, but kinda sad. Giles sees her through the window and yells warning her to look out. Buffy ducks and stakes the first vamp, but lets Sheila get away. With the way clear, she has Giles get her mom and the others out and, despite Joyce trying to get her to come along, Buffy doesn’t go. There’s more vamps to slay

Back with our totally hetero boys who are about to share a tasty Xander snack, Spike asks Angel why he hasn’t killed Buffy and he says seeing her kill the master made him play good vamp. Spike goes with it for two seconds and then punches out Angel, cause he knows he’s full of shit and starts getting really upset and emotional, you know the way a totally straight dude would when his totally straight friend bro betrays him. He moves in for the kill, but Angel and Xander book it out the door. Before Spike can follow, he hears a Buffy sound that draws his attention

Spike brags a little about the last slayer he killed begging for her life, but says he doesn’t think Buffy will do that (correct, he knows a tough lady when he sees one and he respects that) He then says that he’ll make it quick and try not to let it hurt when he kills her and sounds weirdly genuine about it, not that Buffy pays that much attention, cause she’s soooo not impressed with him. They fight and it’s super hot. Meanwhile outside, Xander’s getting his ass kicked and Angel saves him as Giles gets the civilians out, but Mama Summers stops cause Buffy still isn’t there and she has to protect her baby

Spike manages to get the upper hand, but then FIREAXE TO THE BACK OF THE HEAD AND JOYCE TO THE FUCKING RESCUE with a “You get the hell away from my daughter”

Joyce telling bitches to back off her daughter before it was cool, I love her so, so much

Spike runs off cause two powerful Summers ladies is waaaaay too much for him to handle. Joyce and Buffy hug and it’s wonderful and everything is good (wonder how long that will last, fuck you Joss) Snyder’s shown talking to the cops, who seem to know something’s up with the situation, syaing they’re going to tell the press the “usual story” and cover the vamp attack as gang violence, showing people in town aren’t quite as out of the loop as they’ve seemed. Giles and Jenny talk and flirt and that’s cute. We see Angel and Xander talking about the situation before, Angel makes excuses, and Xander whines

Buffy and Joyce walk together and Joyce is so proud and I’m gonna cry. Oh also, Cordelia and Willow are still in the closet and really, they should just make out already to pass the time

We go back to the anointed bab’s hideout where Spike’s complaining about this slayer having family and friends makes her harder to deal with (HUH WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT WATCHER’S COUNCIL HOW FUCKING INTERESTING) Dru reassures him before he goes to talk to the anointed one, who grumps at him for not killing Buffy. Spike makes it two words into an apology before changing his tune and putting the baby vamp into a cage, which he lifts into the light of the sun to burn him up, officially making him and Dru the new big bads in town

FINAL THOUGHTS: Good episode, my son is here now and we’re onto more personal conflicts, which is very much a good thing. Also Joyce was a shining star here and I love her.

For the record I’m gonna skip Inca Mummy Girl and Reptile Boy cause you couldn’t pay me enough to watch that first episode suck Xander’s dick, and the second one is very meh filler and Cordelia’s already been captured twice this season and I’m kinda tired of that.

So next up is Season 2, Episode 6: Halloween

*Ooookay so this probably confuses some people, and for good reason. See we don’t see Buffy burn down a gym ever in the show. This is because it was supposed to happen in the preceding Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie. To those of you who have seen that movie (I’m so, so sorry) that probably doesn’t make this make any more sense because no gyms burned down there. This is because the gym burned down in Joss Whedon’s original script for said movie, but it never made it to the film because the movie was a fucking trainwreck and you can literally see the point where he started to lose any creative control. However, that doesn’t stop Joss from thinking that scrip was god’s gift to cinema and will insist on referencing it and treating it as canon despite, you know, it never being more than just a script

**I don’t mean just because of Spike, though he does play a part in it. See, this is the turning point away from the more generic doomsday villains like the Master, who was vaguely threatening, but kind of a nothing entity, and go for more personal villains and overarching plots, which is really what makes the show special. Spike, Drusilla and *SPOILERS* later Angelus were the first villains who really made things super personal for Buffy and the Scoobies, giving the conflicts new depth and intrigue. Not that the show was bad before this, but this episode really marks where it starts Growing the Beard as tropers would say

***For the record, this is not shipping goggles talking. This is due to the fact that, in later seasons of Buffy and Angel, the Spike/Angel dynamic is played up a lot. There is very clear if not romantic, at least sensual and sexual subtext here, culminating with Spike’s line in season 5 of Angel “Angel and I were never intimate, well, except that one time” indicating that there is some kind of sexual history there. Joss Whedon has also vagued in interviews saying (paraphrasing cause I don’t remember the exact words) “they’re open minded guys, y’know they’ve been together for so long, something must’ve happened there” However, he won’t say they or any other characters are bi cause Joss Whedon doesn’t think bisexuals exist, despite the fact that he has written several bisexual characters whether he will admit it or not

****Any guy except Riley, who, when we get there, Xander’s never gonna shut up about how great he is and how really Buffy is the one that doesn’t deserve Riley cause of that cool thing Xander does where his mouth moves, but Joss Whedon talks

[marshmallow-the-vampire-slayer]

MTVS Epic Rewatch #177

VOTE ON THE SEASON POLLS!

BTVS 6x22 Grave

Stray thoughts

1) Okay, where had we left off?

Oh, right, right, Ripper is back!

2) “Daddy’s home! I’m in wicked trouble now!” I’ve always thought the way Dark!Willow delivered this line hinted at a different meaning of “Daddy,” if you know what I’m saying…

3) 

WILLOW: But, hey, if you'd like to watch... I mean, that's what you Watchers are good at, right? Watching? Butting in on things that don't concern you? GILES: You concern me, Willow. Stay on this path and you'll wind up dead.

Okay, let me preface this by saying that, like probably everyone else in the fandom, I legit cheered when Giles showed up and took Dark!Willow down. And let me follow that by saying that if you’ve been reading my recaps/meta, I’m about to get just a tad bit repetitive. As awesome as Giles’s arrival was, I can’t help but feel it was too little, too late.  If there was one person who could’ve predicted – and who I fear actually knew – the path down which Willow was headed, it was without doubt Giles. Let’s not forget that Giles had been a rebellious teen himself who had found power in magic. He, too, had thought he was almighty and that he was in control of magic, not the other way around. We all remember where that got him (2x08 The Dark Age.) And I know what you’ll say: he wasn’t Willow’s father nor her watcher. Pardon my French, but that’s a bunch of bullshit. The fact that he wasn’t Willow’s father nor his watcher does not excuse the fact that he stood idly by as a responsible and experienced adult witnessing how a teenager was in over her head with magic. The fact is, Giles acted irresponsibly and carelessly. He knew. And yet, from season 2/3 till season 5, all he did was either sternly frown or mildly warn Willow of how dangerous the magic she was dealing with was. Come season 6, and yes, I cheered when he scolded her in Flooded. Yet, I can’t help but feel this was, again, too little, too late. A good old scolding is hardly a deterrent for a witch intoxicated with the power of magic. If anything, it’s the opposite. Moreover, Giles found himself speechless at Willow’s not-so-subtle threats. I can admit that, in spite of how similar his own experience was to Willow’s, he might have been ill-prepared to tutor her or guide her in the right path (but then again, he does end up doing exactly that in season 7, so there really wasn’t any reason for him not to do it before she went dark…) If that was the case, then Flooded was probably the moment he should’ve gone to the Council or the Coven or whoever was better prepared to help her. That is, he should’ve done it when he first saw signs of Willow’s darkness. Not when she had already gone over the edge. So, as much as I’ll always see his return in Two to Go as a moment of awesome, I can’t help but feel he failed Willow. Rant over. (but will be resumed, you’ve been warned...)

4) And this is also a moment of awesome…

5) Of course, it doesn’t last long…

6)  This moment is so sweet… 

BUFFY: What did you do? GILES: Contained her and her powers within a binding field. It puts her in a kind of... stasis for the time... You cut your hair.

Damn, I will end up giffing this entire episode, won’t I?

7)

GILES: Buffy, what's happened here? BUFFY: God. I don't even know where to start. GILES: Well, Willow's clearly been abusing the magicks.

But you already knew this, dude!!!! The day you left she had erased everyone’s memories, for fuck’s sake! It was as much of a problem then as it was now!

8) Back me up, shouldn’t this be written on the season 6 DVD back cover?

BUFFY: [Willow] was [abusing magic]... and I barely even noticed. (...) Xander left Anya at the altar, and Anya's a vengeance demon again... Dawn's a total klepto... money's been so tight that I've been slinging burgers at the Doublemeat Palace ... And I've been sleeping with Spike.

All written on this screenshot, of course.

Yes, it’s a super dark season, and everyone screws up and suffers and it’s all #pain, but when you condense it all like this, it’s so outrageously funny, isn’t it?

9) 

WILLOW: I need you, Anya. I need you to do something for me.

ANYA: I know what you're trying to do. And I hate to burst your bubble, but that mind control mojo doesn't work on vengeance demons, so why don't you just- WILLOW: Stop talking and listen. ANYA: Okay.

10) 

GILES Can you forgive me? BUFFY: For what? GILES: I should never have left. BUFFY: No. You were right to leave. We're just... stupid. GILES: I know you're all stupid. I should never have abandoned you.

 No, no, you really shouldn’t have, Rupert.

11) 

GILES: Sometimes the most adult thing you can do is... ask for help when you need it.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING, GILES?!!! WHAT WAS ALL OF THIS, THEN, IF NOT BUFFY ASKING YOU TO HELP HER?!!!!

6x04 Flooded

BUFFY: I'm glad you're back. GILES: Well, I'm glad you are too.

6x05 Life Serial

BUFFY: This is, this is great. This is more than great. I don't... really know how to say this... but it's a little like having Mom back.

6x07 Once More With Feeling

BUFFY: Oh. I thought you took care of that. GILES: Right. BUFFY:  What would I do without you?

6x08 Tabula Rasa

GILES: You have to be strong. I'm, I'm trying to- BUFFY: Trying to, to what?  Desert me? Abandon me? Leave me all alone when I really need somebody? GILES: I don't want to leave- BUFFY: So don't. Please don't. I can't do this without you. (...) So I won't! No giving up. You can be here, and I can still be strong.

Like, I get that it all sounds so wise and beautiful in the dawn of their reunion, but it seems as though the writers totally forgot the way Giles acted prior to his leaving. Buffy did ask for help in absolutely unequivocal terms. And Giles deliberately refused it. So it’s all fine and dandy with him being back and them laughing it all off. But the crux of the matter is Buffy needed him and he wasn’t there. What’s worse, he comes back and tells her: “you should’ve asked me to stay and help you.” Are you for real, dude?

12) 

BUFFY:  Part of me. I just... I don't understand... why I'm back. GILES: You have a calling. BUFFY: But it was my time, Giles. Someone would have taken my place. So why?

Someone had already taken her place, but for whatever reason (the reason being she’s the title character...) Buffy continued to be the “official” slayer. I get that they were most likely setting up the arc for season 7, with the question of why she was back (a question that she quite conveniently hadn’t asked herself until the season finale...) but can we please remember that the Slayer line runs through Faith now? 

13) Oh, look, Puppet Anya! 

Also, is this where Taylor Swift got her inspiration for Look What You Made Me Do?

[this]

14) Why are they still walking?

Like, I get that it wouldn’t make a difference, either way, considering Willow can teleport at will, but idk, I feel I’d still want to put as much distance as humanly possible between the person who wants to murder me and my precious self.

15) Oh, Xander, your pettiness is showing…

DAWN: Where are we going?

XANDER: I have no idea. DAWN: What? XANDER: I don't know, okay? I can't even run away well. And that's something I'm usually good at. DAWN: Maybe we should we go back and help. XANDER: Yeah, 'cause I've been such a big help already. Standing around like a monkey while Buffy gets shot. Tara's dead... and Willow... losing... DAWN: Well, feeling sorry for yourself isn't helping either, Xander, okay? You know, if Spike were here, he'd go back and fight.

XANDER: Sure, if he wasn't too busy trying to rape your sister.

DAWN: What?!

XANDER: Forget it.

DAWN: I don't believe you. XANDER: Fine. DAWN:  He wouldn't do that.

XANDER: Is this blind spot like a genetic trait with the Summers women? The only useful thing Spike ever did was finally leave town.

There are a number of reasons why I find Xander’s behavior problematic here. First and foremost, this was Buffy’s traumatic experience to tell, especially where her little sister is concerned. Buffy’s. No one else’s. Okay? Second of all, it’s easy to tell he’s only saying this to A) make himself look good compared to a would-be-rapist, which is setting the bar very, very low, Xan-Xan. B) destroying Dawn’s idealization of Spike (which I think was definitely needed, just not in this way.) Thirdly, he drops this hell of a bomb to a 15-year-old, btw, just because he’s being petty and then he’s all like “forget it.” And it’s easy to tell he’s talking to Dawn as if she were an equal to him and Buffy, which she is not. She is a 15-year-old! Why did he think he had any right to be discussing - with Dawn of all people! - what had happened to Buffy without her consent and, more importantly, in those terms?

16) Meanwhile… 

I’ve never found creepy-crawlers this sexy, tbh.

But as regards the plot, the writers were definitely trying to throw us off. Like, it has always puzzled me how there are people who still believe Spike was there to get his chip out and then the soul thing just happened to him. Granted, the lines seem to be hinting at that, and James’s delivery every time Spike refers to Buffy is full of spite and resentment. And it was definitely all written in a way that would lead us to believe he wanted the demons to get his chip out. But, like, that’s what a plot twist is? Literally? You think the plot is going one way, and then, boom, it goes in another way. And if you reread all of his lines knowing that he was actually there to get his soul back, it makes even more sense. Still, the fact that people still believe Spike was there to get rid of his chip is completely perplexing to me. But more on that later. 

17) 

WILLOW: Boy, you just don't get it, do you? Nothing can hurt me now. This? ...is nothing. It's all... nothing.

GILES: I see. If you lose someone you love... the other people in your life who care about you... become meaningless. I wonder what Tara would say about that.

OOOOH BURN!!!

18) How sad is it that Buffy left to save Dawn knowing that she was most likely leaving Giles to die?

19) Giles kind of hit Willow with his horrible breath, didn’t he?

20) Ok, so this… 

…was his plan all along. But like, he was banking on a lot of things going his way to make this work, right? Like, how did he know that when given the chance, Willow wouldn’t kill him before even considering taking his powers? And even if she did take his powers, how could he be sure she would react to those feelings with compassion? (which she didn’t…)

21) This moment, though. Alyson just kills it.

WILLOW: Wow. Whoa. Who's your supplier? This is... wow. It's incredible. I mean, I am so juiced... Giles, it's like... no... mortal person has... ever had... this much power. Ever. It's like I, I'm connected to everything... I can feel... it feels like... I... I can feel...

WILLOW: ...everyone. Oh. Oh my God. All the emotion. All the pain. No, it, it's too much. It's just too much.

22) Oh, Jonathan, what happened to “we will do our time”? 

I get it, they had served their purpose from a plot point of view. They were merely a device to pit the main characters against each other.

23) 

GILES: I know where Willow is. She's going to finish it. ANYA: Finish what? GILES: The world.

24) I love how subtle Dawn is about bringing up the whole Spike thing…

DAWN: This looks a little like Spike's place. You know, under his crypt. What are you doing?

BUFFY: If we can pull these out, we can use the coffins for height. Maybe get out of here!

DAWN: Maybe one of the tunnels Spike uses is around here. Uh, we could use it to get to his place.

25) Dawn, you’re damn right. 

BUFFY: That's the last place on Earth we need to be. DAWN:  Oh, but it was good enough for you to take me there after what he did to you.

BUFFY: What he... DAWN: Tried to do. Whatever. BUFFY: Xander. DAWN: So it's true? BUFFY: Dawn, you may not have noticed, we're in really big trouble here. This isn't- DAWN: Why did you not tell me? BUFFY: Because you didn't need to know. DAWN: Yes, I do. I need to know! I'm not a kid anymore. BUFFY: Dawn, I'm trying to protect you. DAWN: Well, you can't! Look around, Buffy. We're trapped in here! Willow's killing and people I love keep dying! And you cannot protect me from that.

26) How was it day already?

TV show daytime savings, I guess.

27) 

BUFFY: There's... no temple on Kingman's Bluff.

Well, there is now…

28) 

ANYA Something else Giles said. No magic or supernatural force can stop her. BUFFY: What does that mean? ANYA: Don't know. He, he said, "the Slayer can't stop her," and then he said a bunch of other stuff.

Get it? This is the other reason why Buffy couldn’t have been the one to stop Willow just by talking to her. It just had to be someone else, someone human. But not just anyone...

29) I don’t know why I get so emotional with this moment. Seriously. Tears in my eyes, you guys.

BUFFY: They just keep coming. I can't take them all.  Dawn. Will you help me?

DAWN: I got your back.

30) Anya always telling it like it is…

ANYA: Giles? Giles! Don't die. Not yet, there-there are things I wanna tell you. Thanks a lot for coming. It was good of you to teleport all this way. Though in retrospect, it probably would have been better if you hadn't come and given Willow all that magic that made her like ten times more powerful. That would have been a plus.

31) And then, the final confrontation… (I’m crying already…)

You see, she attacks Xander just once, and she instantly flinches with regret and pain. But more on this later…

32) Yet another moment of awesome…

DAWN: What? You think I never watched you?

33) So, let me share some of the highlights of Xander’s and Willow’s confrontation and then – after I’m done crying my heart out – I’ll offer some of my thoughts…

WILLOW: You can't stop this. XANDER: Yeah, I get that. It's just, where else am I gonna go? You've been my best friend my whole life. World gonna end... where else would I want to be? WILLOW: Is this the master plan? You're going to stop me by telling me you love me? XANDER: Well, I was going to walk you off a cliff and hand you an anvil, but... it seemed kinda cartoony. WILLOW: Still making jokes. XANDER: I'm not joking. I know you're in pain. I can't imagine the pain you're in. And I know you're about to do something apocalyptically evil and stupid, and hey. I still want to hang. You're Willow. WILLOW: Don't call me that. XANDER: First day of kindergarten. You cried because you broke the yellow crayon, and you were too afraid to tell anyone. You've come pretty far, ending the world, not a terrific notion. But the thing is? Yeah. I love you. I loved crayon-breaky Willow and I love ... scary veiny Willow. So if I'm going out, it's here. If you wanna kill the world? Well, then start with me. I've earned that. WILLOW: You think I won't? XANDER: It doesn't matter. I'll still love you. WILLOW: Shut up.

XANDER: I love you.  I... love y-

WILLOW: Shut up!!

XANDER: I love you, Willow. WILLOW: Stop!

XANDER: I love you. WILLOW: Stop.

XANDER: I love you.

You see, this moment felt earned. This was a moment six seasons in the making. It just had to be Xander. There was no way around it. He was the only one who could get to her and break her defenses. He was probably the only one who could console her in the dawn of Tara’s death. The first interaction both of them had in the show was with each other. Long before Buffy, before vampires and hellmouths and werewolves and gay love and vengeance demons and magic and apocalypses, there were Willow and Xander, Xander and Willow. It is incredibly fitting, then, that come the end of either of them, the other should be right there by their side. I’m not diminishing Buffy and Willow’s friendship in any way. But Xander was the one who truly knew Willow best, and vice-versa. They knew each other since they were kids, and they were each other’s friends when probably no one else wanted to be. So the reason this moment feels so earned and overwhelmingly moving is because of the history. It’s the history we’ve witnessed since season 1, and the one prior to that, which we’ve been told and also pieced together. This moment has such a huge impact only because of the history between these two characters. Her love for her first and closest friend was the last spark of humanity left in her, you see?   Friendship love is the best kind of love. I’m so emotional right now.

34) Can you blame Dawn for asking this question, though?

DAWN: Wait, is... is that happy crying? BUFFY: Yes, dummy. You think I wanted the world to end? DAWN: I don't know. Didn't you?

35) 

BUFFY: Things have really sucked lately, but it's all gonna change. And I wanna be there when it does. I want to see my friends happy again. And I want to see you grow up. The woman you're gonna become. Because she's gonna be beautiful. And she's going to be powerful. I got it so wrong. I don't want to protect you from the world. I want to show it to you.

 And it also feels fitting that Buffy is finally overcoming her depression with the person who was the very reason she decided not to jump off the tower again at the beginning of the season.

36) But it’s not over yet… (and this is why I think it should be perfectly clear that Spike was in fact after his soul...)

DEMON VOICE: You have endured the required trials. SPIKE: Bloody right I have. So you'll give me what I want. Make me what I was. So Buffy can get what she deserves.

DEMON: Very well. We will return...your soul.

DUN-DUN-DUNNNNNNN!

37) All in all, a great season finale unlike any of the others. And a pretty hopeful end to a rather dark season.