#and i love emily and richard too and see their point of their view too i have so many bones to pick with GG but lorelai’s relationship with | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

maya-matlin · 1 year ago

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Pick your most unpopular opinion about each of these shows (only if you want to!!): Degrassi, OTH, Gilmore Girls, Friends, Riverdale, That 70s Show, and Dawson's Creek :)

Degrassi:

This is so difficult because I feel like I've stated so many opinions in the past. Okay. I think the Degrassi nudes arc was theoretically really interesting from a psychological standpoint as well as how a survivor would cope after going through a very public sexual assault trial with the details of what happened to them being well known. Because it feels like something so human and yet so misguided, I don't view Zoe's role in it as harshly as others do. To be fair, the writers lost the plot. Literally. It got really sensationalized with blackmailing and cheerleader dolls and fake hostage situations. I also really hate how it turned into a Zoe vs Frankie situation with zero nuance. Their past involving Frankie being an unsupportive friend who victim blamed Zoe multiple times was never brought up once in lieu of Frankie being turned into Zoe's victim. So while I wouldn't say I like the arc itself, I feel like it had potential. The writers just weren't committed to seeing it through and let Zoe down as a character. The aftermath was really underwhelming and made the whole story line irrelevant.

OTH:

Even though I like the shooting episode for what it is, it's a pretty mediocre depiction of characterizing a school shooter. Following Jimmy's suicide, the writing consistently expects the audience to feel sympathy for him and remember him as a good guy who did one bad thing. It's to the point where the entire school ends up signing his high school yearbook. To be fair, a lot of the Jimmy romanticism came from Mouth, who had weird morals himself considering he was the show's resident incel. But beyond that, Jimmy quickly stops being the villain of the episode to orchestrate a scenario where Dan just happens to stumble upon Keith and a gun, giving him the opportunity to murder him. Also, every other scene features monologues given by the characters that are blatantly trying WAY too hard to be deep and profound. Not to mention this episode marked the official return of romantic Lucas/Peyton, but because Peyton was bleeding and supposedly didn't know any better she can't possibly be held responsible for selfishly making a move on her best friend's boyfriend in what she believed to be her last moments. Sorry, fuck that. Your last moments shouldn't include complicating things for two people you claim to care about. Especially not when you were the one who helped ruin their relationship the first time around, and you know for a fact that your best friend still has trust issues over what happened.

Also, Brooke was the love of Lucas's life. I'll die on this hill. Blame Chad Michael Murray's inability to stop giving his ex-wife heart eyes even during scenes post-Brucas, but it is what it is.

Gilmore Girls:

It's difficult to know what is or isn't popular in the Gilmore Girls fandom. I guess I'll say that Rory dropping out of Yale was the right decision? The way I see it, nothing bad was ever going to come out of that. Rory was in a transitional place where she was questioning a lot of her life decisions. She didn't currently feel up to attending school, so she took some time off. It was completely understandable, yet the narrative insists that this was indicative of Rory going down a bad path. I can understand Lorelai wanting Rory to take some time to make sure this was what she wanted but if anything, Lorelai's overreaction probably made Rory take even more time off from school. Had Rory had her mother and best friend in her corner, maybe she would have realized by the beginning of the next semester that she was emotionally ready to return to Yale. Just.. everything with Lorelai, Richard and Emily feeling as though they could force Rory to go back to school as though she was suddenly going to lose her place and never be able to return was stupid. Out of the two of them, Lorelai was the pettiest and most in the wrong during their estrangement. Lorelai was the parent. Lorelai chose not to tell her daughter she was engaged. Rory shouldn't have ever felt as though she couldn't come home until she basically did everything her mother wanted her to do. Considering Lorelai's own history with Emily, you'd think she'd realize that. But again, the writers made sure we knew how badly Rory was ruining her life and making bad decisions for committing the crime of taking a leave of absence from school and daring to try other things in the meantime.

Friends:

My opinions on the Ross/Rachel infamous "break" are all over the place. Technically, I think Ross is right that their relationship was no longer intact when he slept with another woman. Their communication absolutely sucked during this story line. No attempts at clarification were ever made. Ross just walked out when Rachel said she wanted a break, and Rachel let him. Honestly, I don't even think Ross sleeping with someone else so soon after splitting up from Rachel, in whatever form you consider that to be, makes him an asshole. In an ideal world where everyone makes rational decisions all the time, Ross wouldn't have coped with intense heartbreak by immediately sleeping with someone else. But it was a human reaction, and I don't fault him for that. What I do fault him for is hiding it the next day, running around town trying to stop other people from telling Rachel. It's all but admitting that Ross and Rachel were still emotionally connected and in the mindset of being in a monogamous relationship. Even if they technically weren't. What I also fault him for is being so stubborn and adamant on being right that he never admits fault or owns up to causing Rachel pain for several years after that. So what if he didn't technically betray Rachel? To Rachel, it felt like one. Sometimes, when you love someone, you have to be understanding of the complexities of emotions and just take the fucking L, even if you're technically faultless by definition. And honestly, Rachel was part of the problem, too. What kind of relationship or connection do you really have if you're having the same, obnoxious argument for eight years, never able to get on the same page? Like, I know it's a comedy, but Friends wasn't playing up the comedy angle during this arc. Anyways, they definitely shouldn't have ended up together if they were going to keep getting tripped up over one argument for eight years.

Riverdale:

I don't know how unpopular this actually is, but Veronica is extremely underrated and never gets the love and appreciation she deserves. Looking across the entire series, including time jumps, different universes, and eras where the characters literally had powers, Veronica was consistently the most selfless and considerate character on the show. Half the time, she was the mean girl in name only. There were countless occasions where Veronica forgave even when she shouldn't have and/or should have held out for more remorse and effort from the person that wronged her. The attempt to compare Veronica kissing Ginger Judas in the pilot after knowing Archie and Betty for two seconds to Betty doing it three years into Varchie's relationship is.. it has some nerve. Anyways, Veronica was wonderful, ambitious, and everyone on that show was better for having known her. Sadly, she was underappreciated more often than not, rarely ever getting her due. I really wish anyone but Archie had been the love of her life, because he really didn't deserve her by the end.

That '70s Show:

Sometimes, Hyde gets way too much of a pass for his treatment of Jackie. I feel like he's overall the most popular character on the show with his relationship with Jackie being the most popular, resulting in a lot of his questionable behavior getting swept under the rug. Obviously Hyde had issues he needed to work through stemming from his childhood and struggled to let other people in. But Jackie was consistently a pretty great girlfriend for him, going out of her way to show love and affection, only for him to not 100% reciprocate. Fuck Danny Masterson (and honestly Mila at this point too), but a lot of what made that relationship what it was is the chemistry between Danny and Mila and how they chose to demonstrate the love between those two characters. Hyde was still miles ahead of Kelso and Fez and had great moments with Jackie. But it still needs to be said. Hyde put Jackie through a lot.

Dawson's Creek:

While not perfectly written, most of Andie's fall from grace during season 3 makes a lot of sense. I even think Andie cheating on Pacey was in character. It's a controversial take because no one wants to believe that season 2 Andie would have ever done such a thing. But the reality is, Andie had a literal mental breakdown. She says it herself. When Andie went to get mental health help, she was no longer the same girl Pacey fell in love with. Andie was in a dark, lonely, vulnerable place, and she met someone else. This guy understood parts of Andie's mental health struggles that Pacey couldn't, and it led to a friendship that became an emotional affair. They made their own world together, and then had one, impulsive slip up. It doesn't cheapen Andie's love for Pacey, but it's still understandable that Andie crossed a boundary of Pacey's that couldn't be uncrossed. After this, Andie's attempts to recuperate post-breakup, including her treatment of Pacey and even stealing the test were pretty consistent based on how desperately Andie wanted to appear normal and as though everything was under control. However, I also think early season 3 stacked the deck too far against Andie, resulting in her character leaving the show early. The supposed "false accusation" meant to make Andie look bad from a misogynistic, ableist showrunner took it too far. I personally think even during that episode, there are enough hints, including Rob's desperation to shut Andie's story down when she hadn't even gone to the authorities, indicates she told the truth. Seriously, his happy ass was all cocky when Pacey confronted him, but once he sobered up he practically sprinted to Joey's house to use Andie's mental health against her, even manhandling Joey multiple times to force her to listen. But whatever. The intent was obvious, and I still hated it. Anyways, Andie McPhee was great, and I wish people would still appreciate her at her worst. After all, it's what led to season 4 Andie, probably the strongest iteration of her character even though she sadly wasn't around for long.

#mayamatlinscello #Long post #I promise I never mean for these answers to be so long #I just have so much to say #Also the two OTH opinions aren't technically connected #I was just going through my Brucas tag and had a realization so my petty ass couldn't help it

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vanillann · 5 years ago

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pickup lines without the picking up (spencer reid x reader)

thank you for the request love!

warning: mentions of sex(if you really look into it) and maybe swearing I can't remember

word count: 1.2k

“Hey Spencer, you must be a tower because Eiffel for you.”

“Did you know that the Eiffel Tower has a science lab on the third floor-”

I let my head fall back, hitting on the back of my chair. Morgan and Emily laugh could be heard from somewhere near my desk.

“I actually didn’t know that Spence,” I looked back up at him, his smiling face looking at me.

“It also is covered in scientists name, it’s craved all along the side.”

I smiled to myself, the way his eyes lit up anytime he spoke about something he knew made the annoying feeling in my chest leave.

JJ came speed walking around the corner, in her hand was a case file. I jokily rolled from my chair, placing my hand on my forehead as I laid on the floor.

“Are you okay?”

I opened my eyes to see a worried Spencer Reid standing over me, his hand held out for me to grab.

“Perfect Spence,” I grabbed his hand, that was oddly warm, and watched as he easily pulled me from the floor.

Suddenly his eyebrow drew together closer and he stuck his tongue out the side of this mouth.

“You didn’t actually fall did you?”

I shook my head and his face scrunched up, his face became red.

“You’re getting better at the social cues kid,” Morgan clapped him on the back as he headed up to the roundtable room.

“You actually are, I’m super proud.”

Spencer smiled at me, letting go of my hand and following behind Morgan, whispering something in his ear.

Emily came up behind me and threw her arm over my shoulder, a smirk across her face as we both walked to the room full of profilers.

JJ stood in front of the room, the remote held tightly in her hand. I took my seat in between Spencer and Emily. JJ smashed the button while I opened the hard copy of the case file in front of me.

“Richard Todd was found dead 12 hours ago,” the ID picture flashed across the screen.

“He is the third victim over a 48 hour span, Keaton Grant and Ruben Martin are the other two victims.

“How do we know it’s the same unsub?” Rossi asked while he looked up at JJ.

“Each victim had a cheesy pickup line stapled to their shirt.”

I felt myself drop the file in my lap, the irony of this whole situation had me rolling my eyes.

Morgan chuckling could be heard from the other side of Spencer.

“It’s said that the unsub had seduced the men online and that’s how they know each other.”

“Great,” I mumbled under my breath, watching as JJ looked me over with a twinkle in her eyes.

“He doesn't have much of a cool down period,” Emily spoke beside me, placing a hand on my shoulder.

“That’s why we are leaving soon, wheels up in 15.”

Hotch charged out the room, Spencer quickly grabbing the paper from the desk.

“(Y/N), do you want me to get your go-bag from your car?”

I smiled, standing up while I picked up my papers. I felt the team's eyes on me but I tried to ignore it.

“I can get it, don't worry.”

I pulled my key off my belt loop but as soon as I had it in my hand, it was gone. Spencer held it in his hand, a proud smile on his face.

“I think you forgot I’m a magician.”

Without another word Spencer left with my keys sitting in his hand, a skip in his step.

“I’m going to kill you JJ.”

I sat in one of the uncomfortable police chairs looking over the crime scene photo tapped to the board.

Spencer walked in the room, another police officer behind him.

Before even thinking about the situation, I looked back down at the file in my lap and started talking.

“Spence, even if there wasn’t gravity on Earth I’d still fall for you.”

“If there wasn’t any gravity then the Earth would quickly break into millions of pieces and float off into space. Also our head would most likely implode due to the fact that the air pressure would increase.”

I heard the female officer behind him giggle, sliding her hand up and down his arm. Spencer looked up at me with begging eyes, pointing his head over to the woman.

“Babe, can you look at this.”

Without another word Spencer ran over to me, mumbling the word ‘thank you’ over and over again. The female officer gave me a thin lipped smile and left the room.

“I didn't realize she was flirting with me until it was too late,” Spencer spoke, looking at the crime scene photos over my shoulder.

“You never realize.”

I felt my cheeks heat up, Spencer moving his head to look me in the eyes.

“What?”

A light “shit” fell from my lips and I looked the other way.

Suddenly JJ came into the room, making eye contact.

“(Y/N), Hotch thinks you should join the Press conference with me.”

I quickly nodded and threw the file on the table. I said nothing to Spencer as I ran from the room, watching the female officer slip in as soon as I was gone.

I sat on the back of the ambulance, my head hurting from the but of the unsub gun. I felt an ice be held to my head, I opened my eyes expecting Emily. Once Spencer sad face came in the view, I was glad I had something to blame my red cheeks on.

“How are you feeling?”

I only shrugged, moving my hand so I could hold my own ice pack. Spencer moved and sat beside me.

“Hey (Y/n)?”

I turned to look at Spencer, his eyes trained to the road underneath us.

“Yeah Spencer?”

“R-rose are red, my f-face is too, that only happens when I’m around y-you.”

I felt a roar of fireworks in my stomach, a small light giggle falling past my lips.

“Who told you to say that?”

Spencer ran the tip of his converses on the road, kicking a few rocks in the process.

“Penelope sent me a website full of pick lines.”

I laughed, knowing it’s the same website Penelope had sent me multiple times.

“Do you mean it all?”

Spencer finally looked at me, a sad smile on his face.

“Every time, did you mean that?”

“Yeah, I really do. I don’t steal all the team's keys to get their go-bag, do I?

I laughed, liking the way he gave me a light smirk with the sarcastic comment.

“I just we both aren’t good at this.”

Spencer only smiled, playing with his fingers.

“I know something I am good at,” he said it quietly but I heard him.

“What’s that?”

Without another word Spencer grabbed the back of my head, pulling at my hair slightly. He crashed his lips into mine, his tongue swiping over my bottom lip.

I felt my body pull into this, the warmth felt nice across my cold arms.

I gently pulled away, not moving far just enough to set my forehead on his.

“Excuse me, I lost my teddy bear. Will you sleep with me?”

Spencer laughed as he kissed the tip of my nose with a quiet “I thought you never ask”.

cm tag list:

@itsarayofsunshine

#spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #bau #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader

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quietmyfearswith · 5 years ago

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narcissist {carter baizen x fem!reader} 2/3

status — ongoing series

warnings — name-calling, hint at alcoholism, attempt at angst

word count (without the lyrics) — 1,904 words

a/n — so this is for @baezen’s the other guys writing challenge and my prompt was alcohol is the only constant in my life; tho in this one i didn’t mention it i like to think i was able to reflect the prompt.this is based on narcissist by no rome ,, listen to the song here if u want ,, feedback is appreciated and hope u guys have a lovely day !! :> y/f/n = your full name

masterlist | series masterlist

Stay out late, I just wanna get stoned

Telling all your friends that I'm never at home

And my face filling up with blood

But you're still saying they don't like your bourgeois

Surprisingly, the meeting with the representative from Eichner Enterprise went well.

The rest of the day seemed like a blur to Carter that is until he came back at 2:00 in the afternoon after having his lunch. “You have a 2:45 pm appointment at this address,” Y/N informed him as she prevented him from entering his office. Carter looked down on the piece of paper she held and looked at her oddly as he looked up at her — she never informed him this late of having a prior appointment with anyone.

“And I’m only hearing about this now because?” Carter might have sounded rude and discourteous, but in his defense he was simply mirroring the cold tone his assistant used on him. Which, thinking about it now, was not the best way to repay her for her efforts in keeping the company together, and if he was being honest, she was the glue that prevented him from crumbling down and giving in to his negative thoughts and going insane.

Y/N wasn’t fazed or didn’t flinch upon his reply and instead put a hand on her hip, “They suddenly became available and this is an appointment you were looking out for a while now.” He nodded, only then realizing how she was able to organize and plan ahead most, if not all, of his errands. “After this what’ll my day look like?”

Walking away from standing in front of him, she was now heading back to her desk to complete her work but she informed him, “You’re free to go after you meet up with that appointment.”

He nodded and debated about whether or not he should apologize for what he had said earlier. Deciding against it, he went inside his office to quickly retrieve his car keys and other items. As he brushed past her work desk, he muttered a simple goodbye to which she just curtly nodded as she typed away on her desktop.

The drive towards his destination was filled with his denial of his current state of being. He kept convincing himself that truly, there was no problem with how he was living his life and that there was no reason for him to be alarmed, right? Upon arriving at the address, Carter’s confusion increased. He was standing in front of what looked like to be a residential building.

Walking in front of the entrance, he noticed how the building seemed to be the location of some services — some doctor, lawyer, legal advice. He shrugged off his doubts and trusted Y/N’s words that he had an appointment here that he was putting off for some time. The lack of elevators in the premise prompted him to take on the two flights of stairs in order to reach room 207.

Knocking on the door, he heard someone give him permission to enter. A female receptionist immediately greeted him warmly, “Welcome, do you have an appointment?” Carter scratched his neck and looked around, trying to get a hint of what kind of appointment he was going to have. “Yeah, I believe a 2:45 appointment,” he replied meekly, which was unusual for him to sound like for he always needs to sound confident.

As she nodded, her auburn wavy hair moved along with her and quickly typed on her computer, “Dr. Richards will see you know, it’s the door to your left.” She pointed at the door to which Carter followed his gaze at and mumbled a soft, “What?” to.

Not sure what came over him, he did follow where the receptionist pointed to and found himself knocking on the door. “Hello, Mr. Baizen, come in and make yourself comfortable.” A woman kindly welcomed him as she opened the door and directed him to sit on the couch near a coffee table.

Once he sat down, the lady with salt and pepper hair immediately began to strike up a conversation, “So, how are you today, Mr. Baizen?” As she sat down on the opposite side of the coffee table, Carter noticed how she had a clipboard on her lap as she held a ballpen on one of her hands.

“Honestly? Confused. I don’t know why I’m here, my assistant just told me this was an appointment I’ve been holding back on,” he blurt out as he started to feel that his long sleeves were too tight on him, which prompted him to unclasp the top button as he settles both his hands on the arm rests of the couch.

The woman nodded and smiled warmly, “Y/N has been telling me for months how much she worried about your well-being. And that she was trying her best to convince you to see a therapist even though,” she was quickly cut off when Carter questioned, “Y/N? Therapist? What the hell are you talking about?”

Dr. Richards was silent for a few seconds, and Carter was waiting for her to admit that she was pulling his leg and that she really was a businesswoman who was interested to work with him. However, she was just really trying to piece together what was going on.

“Y/F/N is one of my patients, and I am her psychologist. You know her as your assistant, yes?” She began her explanation, Carter nodded in confirmation and as a cue for her to continue, “One of the things she usually talks about during our sessions is her worry for your well-being. That you might be abusing certain substances as a coping mechanism. She told me how she desired for you to meet up with me, in order to address your issues and other possible problems.”

After hearing her explanation, Carter found himself with his mouth wide open in shock and disbelief. He didn’t think how serious Y/N really was when she said that she was concerned about him. That she would go out of her way to clear his schedule and book an appointment for him, it made him feel something that was weird and something he hadn't felt before — he just couldn’t name what it was.

“Well I’m here now so how does this work?” he managed to say as he shrugged his shoulders. Dr. Richards smiled in surprise and appreciation, in her point of view, it looked like he was willing to comply and cooperate with her. “Let’s start with you recalling your earliest memories with alcohol.”

Coughing up the promethazine

Living like an evergreen

Sorry for the things that I've done

Now Selena won't be friends with me

I was kissing Emily

I love you, it was never your fault

(Got me like)

Nursing a scotch, Carter laughed quietly as he recalled the events of earlier.

He could not believe how he immediately opened up to Dr. Richards. How he told her that his father introduced him to alcohol at an early age and he saw it as their way of bonding. How he picked up on his father’s habits of turning to alcohol when they felt upset, confused, sad, or if he felt any emotion really. On how he fears he might turn up like him or worse. How he wants to continue to be successful in his business ventures.

Part of him is thankful for the appointment Y/N set up; it allowed him to be vulnerable and open up to someone who listened to him without judgement or careless replies. But the bigger part of him felt angry with her. Why did she think that he needed professional help or some shit?

A girl flirted with him earlier, to which he of course flirted back with. He suggested that they go back to his place to which she agreed but first she had to tell her friends about where she was going. Finishing up his scotch, he dropped a few bills on the counter, while another girl approached him.

In his distracted and preoccupied state, he asked, “You ready to go take this to the bedroom?” The girl looked taken aback, she had yet to mutter a word and yet he was already asking her to go home? Seemed like a win for her either way. She nodded and looped her arm around his and he guided her to where he parked her car.

The following morning, Y/N knocked on the bedroom door and hearing groans was her usual cue to enter the room. “Oh God, you didn’t mention you had someone with you.” She exclaimed as she avoided looking at the bed where Carter laid with his female companion and instead made a beeline to his closet to pick out his outfit.

“Selena, babe, you need to leave now,” Carter sweetly cooed to the woman beside him which was a contrast to what he wanted her to do. The girl shot up and slapped him, “Dick! My name’s Emily not Selena!” The slap added to his headache but he was relieved to see her wear her clothes from the previous night and hastily make her way out of the suite.

Carter removed the duvet from his body and stood up and walked to where Y/N was, he leaned against the wall, “You know I’m still mad about how you deceived me yesterday.” On cue, he was handed his outfit for the day as his assistant brushed past him, “And how exactly did I deceive you? I said that it was an appointment you were holding off on which is true because you scoff at the mere mention of help.”

He threw his clothes to the side and angrily snapped at her, “And what makes you think I need help huh? So what if I drink every now and then? Don’t think that equates to me having a problem!” She rolled her eyes and pointed a finger at him, “That right there is a problem! Your denial! You deny the idea that there’s a problem with how you always need alcohol! Not want, need. You deny the help I give you! You know what Dr. Richards told me following your appointment? She said that when you left you seemed a hundred pounds lighter!”

Carter’s jaw clenched and he looked cold, but he was just really trying to organize his thoughts and prevent himself from lashing out on Y/N. “I care for you, Carter,” she softly said as she was brushing her hand up and down his forearm, “I don’t want to see you lose everything you worked hard for. Or even worse, see you lose yourself.”

His heart twisted upon hearing her say that. He never had someone genuinely care about him and go the extra mile in proving so. But there was something about the unfamiliarity with the situation that made him resort back to denying this kind of comfort and care. “You’re suspended from your duties for 2 weeks.”

She looked at him in disbelief at what he said, and if he was being honest he too was surprised with what he just told her. But there was no turning back now, was there? Her look of disbelief was only visible for a brief moment before she looked at him pointedly, “Fine. I’ll forward your schedule to Melissa and the other files you need.”

The sound of her heels clicking away made him look at her retreating form, he found himself following behind her with small and slow steps. Before she exited his bedroom, he gave her one last look as she bid farewell to him by saying, “I’m not sorry about what I did. Alcohol’s not the only thing that can be there for you, I’m always here for you, Carter. But I guess that’s not what you want.”

#carter baizen x reader #carter baizen series #ceo!carter baizen x reader #carter baizen x fem!reader #ceo!carter baizen x assistant!reader #sebastian stan fanfiction #quietmyfearswith #My writing #please dont steal my work thank you #narccisist #togwc

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welcometotheocverse · 4 years ago

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Who would be friends with - Regina Gilmore, Grace Kim, and Richie Gilmore? 🥺

Regina Gilmore

Elliot would be friends with her I think, he might be a bit nervous because of his and Emily’s relationship ( Emily often very obviously prefers Rory because El sides with his mom and disapproves of how they treat her especially in s1) but once he figures out she’s nice and especially because Friday Night Dinners give him hella anxiety he’d see her as a friend and family and probably bond with her pretty fast. I can see him lighting up when he sees her and forming a bond with her like he does with @randomestfandoms-ocs ‘s Sophie. Especially because they both go to Chilton. El would also be super supportive of her dating Grace ( since he and Lane are pretty close he’d probably know Grace too) and she’d probably be one of the first people he comes out to.

Kit is also good at charming people and getting along with them ( he takes after his mamma) and would be pretty psyched he has an aunt that’s also his age. He isn’t thrilled about being at Chilton or the Friday Night Dinners ( he’s not academic like Rory so he has uh...less Emily And Richard Aprove..ness ( Kit: yeah that’s a thing now) ) but he’d love Regina and getting to see her. I can see them becoming friends.

Hope would adore her and also since I get the feeling your Emily and Richard are nicer and we would merge verses in an xover I think it would actually lead to her reconnecting with her parents sooner ;A;. ( in her canon it kind of ...yoyos as she’s mainly there to call them out on how they treat Lorelai) She’d very much try her best to get along with them for Hope as she does for Lorelai and Rory and be super supportive of her baby sister like if anyone looks crooked at her she’ll bring a house down on them omg. Also they have similar tastes from having grown up in the Gilmore household. Also the Power they would have together omg im here for it.

Amelia would like her because she’s family and Amelia’s a pretty kind kid. I can see her keeping in contact with Regina even as her own relationship with her grandparents is a bit on the rocks at times ( the wedding episode’s...gonna be rough for her) and she would be so interested in getting to know her and think she’s p awsome. She’d also support her and Grace and probably squeal when they get together. ( because it means Regina would be around stars hollow more often and she loves her and Grace and they’re happy )

Noah because he’s a good boyfriend to Rory and would get to know her family. Noah’s a pretty chill dude so he gets along with people easily and they both have hearts of gold. He would also know Grace since he goes to Stars Hollow High and would be happy for them. I’m not sure if he goes to Yale yet but I do know he visits Rory there and of course eventually fall for Logan so I can see them being in the same circles at times and keeping in contact.

Grace Kim

Elliot!: Elliot is close to Lane and would definitely be friends with Grace too. He might actually be closer to her than Lane because his whole thing is he feels isolated being one of the few not-straight ppl he knows of in Stars Hollow and he’d definitely be supportive of her dating Regina and be there to make sure she knows her happiness matters if Mama Kim doesn’t approve.

Kit like Elliot would have grown up with her and gets along with Lane so he’d be friends with Grace too! They could bond over going heart eyes for Hartford socialites lol ( Regina for Grace and Tristan for Kit) and Kit would be supportive of her writing like a lot and sibling adopt her like he does Lane.

Lily since she grew up with Rory and Lane would know Grace and be friends with her. She’s a bit prickly but she’s incredibly ride or die and since they would have met as kids, Grace would pretty much be in her circle and have seen her when she was less so.

Amelia would be friends with her since she considers Lane family and would think her writing is so cool. She’d be super supportive of her dating Regina since she’d see her as family already. Also Amelia likes songwriting so I can see them bonding over that.

Noah since he goes to Stars Hollow High and would be in Rory’s ( and Lane’s) orbit. They don’t have too many interests in common but I still think they’d still be friends.

Richie Gilmore

Elliot! Listen I’ve thought about them being brothers a lot and it’d be so stinking cute. El is younger by a few minutes but they confide in each other and El would actually come around to support his decision to date Paris because yeah she’s mean to him and Brad but “you’re my brother Rich of course I want you to be happy.” El also has a pretty bitter view of Cristopher despite him being a soft aro ace fluff so they could bond over that. Also they both love Andrew’s bookstore and are into STEM careers.

Kit would get along with him and support his as he does Rory. Kit’s a bit chaotic so I feel like who’s older wouldn’t matter lol but they’re brothers and Kit would be very ride or die for Richie.

Lily since she grew up around Rory would see Richie as a sibling too. He’d be one of the few people she opens up to and would absolutely love him. Especially because he learns to cook from Sookie I can see them hanging out and bonding. He’ be one of the few people she isn’t angry/defensive around and they could bond over how much they hate their fathers.

Sophia: Since she runs away from Harford around season 1 I can see her bonding with Richie. She had a pretty lonely childhood and had no siblings ( I mean Lorelai but hella distant for obvious reasons) and she bonds pretty quickly with Rory in her own canon. She’d probably be a bit jealous that her parents like him and Rory so much when her own relationship is strained with them but over all she’d see him as family. And she very much wants family.

Noah because he’s a good boyfriend to Rory Noah would make it a point to get to know Richie and I can see them getting along tbh. Noah’s a pretty chill dude and he needs friends who don’t really know him as “the Doose kid that had a meltdown” thanks to the town humor mill lol. They could be soft disaster boys together ;A;

Henry would love him as we’ve said before these two would wind up adopting each other. He ends up loving going to Andrew’s bookstore when he settles into the town so I can see them finding each other there and Henry just lighting up at seeing Richie.

Hope would love him like she does Lorelai and Rory and be very much “if anyone so much as looks as this kid crooked I will end them.” She’d make it a point to encourage his dreams and ask about how he’s doing.

Amelia would adore her big brother to pieces, thought she’d be able to pick up on his feelings about her being Luke’s bio kid. As far as she’s concerned he and Rory are his siblings no question. She also would admire the fact that he tells Lorelai and Luke to get it together because boy howdy do the arguments between those two give her whiplash sometimes.

Here’s the Gilmore Girls Masterlist!

Send me one of your ocs and I’ll tell you which of mine would be friends with them

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noxstellacaelum · 5 years ago

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Filtering Female Characters Through the Male Gaze

Female characters filtered through the male gaze: A (way) too long post about why we need a more diverse and inclusive approach to staffing showrunners, writers, directors, crew – heck, all roles -- in TV and movies.

Yes, I know I am not the first person here on this.

And note that while I have included a few tags b/c I talk about my frustration with Shadowhunters, Veronica Mars, the Irishman, Richard Jewell, and a few other recent shows/movies, I don’t get to this stuff until the very end, I appreciate that fans may not want to wade through the entire essay, which (again), is a bit of personal catharsis.

I recently had a random one-off exchange with a TV writer on twitter. The writer said that she had enjoyed the movie Bombshell much more than its Rotten Tomatoes rating would have suggested. She wondered if the disconnect between her experience/perception of the movie and that of mainstream reviewers might have been shaped by gender: Specifically, she observed that Bombshell is a movie about women, but most reviewers are male.

I have complicated feelings about Bombshell. On one hand, yes, there was and is a toxic culture at Fox News. Yes, Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly were victims of that toxic culture. But no, these women were not mere bystanders: They traded in the racism, misogyny, and xenophobia (for starters) that still characterize Fox News today. Why should these wealthy, privileged white women – both of whom spent many years as willing foot soldiers in the Fox News army -- get a glossy, Hollywood-approved redemption/vindication arc? On the other hand, I am glad that the movie makers made a film about sexual harassment, and that the movie presented Kelly, in particular, as an at least somewhat complicated character. This would not be the first time that a movie about women – especially complicated, and not always likeable women – has proven to be polarizing.

My ambivalence about Bombshell notwithstanding, the writer with whom I exchanged tweets is (not surprisingly, since she is in the industry and I am not) on to something when it comes to gender, character development and critical reception. It’s not just that Bombshell was about women, but reviewed largely by men; it’s that stories about female characters (real or fictional) often are filtered through the male gaze in Hollywood: On many projects – even those focused on female characters – creators/ head writers are male, directors are male, showrunners are male, and producers are male. This matters, because preferencing the male gaze impacts what stories about women get told, who gets to tell them, and how these stories are received inside and outside Hollywood.

First, though, the caveats. I do not mean to suggest that men can never tell great stories about women. Of course they can. I also don’t mean to suggest that being female exempts creators, writers, directors, showrunners, etc. from sexism or misogyny (or any other forms of bigotry, as my discussion of Bombshell suggests). There are plenty of women who prop up the patriarchy. Rebecca Traister’s work speaks to this issue, as does the work of Cornell philosopher Kate Manne. There is an important literature on the concept of misogynoir (misogyny directed at black women, involving both gender and race), a term coined by black queer feminist Moya Bailey, as well. Intersectionality matters in understanding what stories are told, who gets to speak, and how stories are received in and outside Hollywood. I also don’t mean to suggest that there are no powerful women in Hollywood. Shonda Rhimes; Ava DuVernay, Reese Witherspoon (increasingly, given her role as a producer of projects like Big Little Lies), Greta Gerwig’s work in Lady Bird and Little Women, and others come to mind. As I am not in the entertainment industry, I am sure others could put together a far more complete and accurate list of female Hollywood power brokers. And, finally, I appreciate that Hollywood is a business, and people fund and make movies that they think their target audiences want to see. So long as young, male viewers are a coveted demographic, we are going to see projects with women who appeal to this demographic onscreen.

Given these caveats, why do I think that the filtering of female characters through the male gaze is an issue? For me, it has to do with a project’s “center of gravity” -- that place, at the core of the project’s storytelling, where the characters’ agency and autonomy comes from. It’s where I look to understand the characters’ choices and their narrative arcs. When a character’s center of gravity is missing or unstable or unreliable, the character’s choices don’t make sense, and their narrative arc lacks emotional logic. Center of gravity is not about whether a character is likeable. It’s about whether a character – and the project’s overall storytelling and narrative voice – make sense.

When female characters are filtered through a male gaze, a project’s center of gravity can shift, even if unintentionally, away from the characters’ agency and point of view: So, instead of charting her own course through a story, a female character starts to become defined by her proximity to other characters and stories. She becomes half of a “ship” . . . or a driver of other characters’ growth (often through victimization, suffering, or self-sacrifice) . . . or mostly an object of sexual desire (whether requited or not). Eventually, she can lose her voice entirely. When that happens, instead of a “living, breathing” (yes, fictional, I know) character, we are left with a mirror/ mouthpiece who advances the plot, and the stories, of everyone else.

What are some recent examples of this? The two that I have mentioned recently here are Shadowhunters and Veronica Mars S4.

- With SHTV, I will always wonder what might have been if the show – which is based on books written by a woman, intentionally as a “girl power” story – had female showrunners. Would an empowered female showrunner have left Clary, THE PROTAGONIST OF A 6 BOOK SERIES – alone on an NYC street in a skimpy party dress, in November, with no money, no ID, no mother, no father figure and no love of her life, stripped of her memories, her magic, and chosen vocation, as punishment, after she saved the world? Would a female showrunner have sidelined Clary’s love Jace, and left him grieving and suicidal, while his family lived their best lives and told him to move on? Would a female showrunner have said, in press coverage of the series finale, that the future of the Clary and Jace characters was a matter for fan fiction? After spending precious time in the series finale wrapping up narrative arcs for non-canon and/or ancillary characters. And to my twitter correspondent’s point, I guess I am not surprised that mainstream entertainment media outlets didn’t call out the showrunners’ mistreatment of Clary, and by extension, Jace, and the obliteration of their narrative arcs -- and yes, I am looking at you, Andy Swift of TV line (who called the above-mentioned memory wipe “actually perfect”).

- Likewise, with Veronica Mars, would a more diverse and inclusive writers room have made S4 Veronica less insightful and less competent than her high school self, or quite so riven with self-loathing, or quite so careless and cruel with the people in her life who love her? Would a more inclusive creative team have made S4 Veronica less aware of the class and race dynamics of Neptune, yet more casually racist, in her mid-30s, than she was in high school?

- There are so many other examples from 2019. Clint Eastwood falsely suggesting that a female reporter (who is now deceased and thus unable to defend herself) traded sex for tips from an FBI agent in Richard Jewell. Game of Thrones treatment/resolution of the Ceresi and Daenerys characters – where to even start. Martin Scorsese’s decision to give Oscar winner Anna Paquin’s character a total of 7 lines in the 3-plus hour movie the Irishman.

- And, in real life, I wonder whether a Hollywood that empowered and supported female creators would make sure that people like Mira Sorvino and Annabella Sciorra got a bunch of work while also making sure that Harvey Weinstein never again is in a position of power or influence. Same with female comics targeted by Louis C.K. Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose … the list is long, and Kate Manne’s work on what she calls “himpathy” is useful here.

To be clear, I am not saying that stories involving “ships” of whatever flavor, stories of suffering and self-sacrifice, and stories of finding (or losing) intimate relationships are “bad” or “wrong” or inherently exploitive of female characters. I don’t think that at all. I also don’t think that female characters have to be perfectly well-adjusted, virtuous, or free from bias, or that they should never be make bad choices or mistakes. I want female characters who are flawed, nuanced. I don’t mind lives that are messy, or romantic entanglements that are complicated. Finally, I don’t think that that faulty, reductive, or unfair portrayals of female characters is a new thing. Mary Magdalene was almost certainly not a prostitute, after all. And classicist Emily Wilson – the first woman to translate the Odyssey into English – has brought a hugely important perspective (including an awareness of how gender matters in translation) and voice to the translation and study of canonical characters and works.

At the end of the day, I just want female characters to be able to speak with their own voices, from their perspectives. I want them to have their own, chosen, narrative arcs. I want them to speak, act, see, and feel as autonomous individuals, with agency, and not just in reference to others. And, I think that more a more diverse and inclusive approach to staffing writers rooms and in choosing show runners, directors, and key positions in storytelling would help.

#shtv #veronica mars #clary fairchild #clary #jace #clace

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basketcasemp3 · 5 years ago

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Have you ever seen any gifsets or posts about Emily and Rory's relationship? I see a lot about Rory and Richard, and obvs Lorelai and the others, but I've always been really interested in how Emily tries to bond with and support Emily and how Rory tends to stick up for her against Lorelai and sees her grandparents home as a safe space.

actually I haven’t seen anything about, at least not recently which is a shame because I think its definitely an interesting relationship. maybe people aren't interested in them as a dynamic because it’s not as volatile as lorelai & emily but it’s also not as fun as lorelai & rory, but tbh I think there are a lot of other complexities that come with rory & emily. obviously, one of the main themes in the show, especially the earlier seasons, is that rory is the daughter that richard and emily wish they had. she’s quiet and polite, yet intelligent and completely capable of taking care of herself. she didn’t get pregnant at 16 and they don’t see her as someone that they can’t control, like they couldn't control lorelai. and even though in the earlier seasons, there were aspects of society life that rory hated (the cotillion), there’s also things that rory does like that they can share with her, because they could never share those things with lorelai.

what i think is really interesting is that emily, unlike chris’ parents, don’t view rory as a burden or a mistake, which she makes very clear to rory in christopher returns after chris’ father throws a hissy fit. I love this moment sooo much because we know that Emily hates that Lorelai get pregnant at 16 and thinks that Lorelai “threw her life away” but she tells rory that she doesn’t blame her for it at all and when she sees rory, she doesn’t see a mistake. I think this is a MASSIVE reason why rory is so forgiving of Emily and tries to stand up for her against Lorelai- she sees another side to her that Lorelai couldn’t. and obv there are things to be said abt the Lorelai of it all because I think Lorelai's valid in her dislike of her parents and hatred of her childhood and I do think she’s allowed to feel whatever she feels about them, but rory knows Emily as someone who loves her unconditionally and offers her a safe space. Emily creating a room for rory in Emily in wonderland is one half spiteful to Lorelai for taking rory away, but it’s also one half genuinely wanting her granddaughter to have a place to go to, which is another reason why I think rory gets comfort from her. Emily doesn’t always do things without an ulterior motive, but a lot of the time I don't think she desire to passive aggressive to Lorelai outweighs her desire for rory to be taken care of. her decision to call rory and ask for her opinions on things to decorate the room shows me that making the room wasn’t just about getting back at Lorelai, because if it was, she wouldn't have tried so hard to make it a space that rory would actually like. she does this in rory’s birthday parties too, when she asks Lorelai to help her pick out a gift for rory. i’m using this as an example because doing the fancy party was for show and to impress their friends, in which case she could've gotten rory anything and we know that rory is very gracious with her grandparents in s1 and would've accepted anything, but emily taking the effort to ask for help and then getting her something that she would actually like meant to me that she wanted a relationship with rory that she never had with Lorelai. I think the reason rory views the Gilmore's as a safe space in say, ps I lo..., for example is because she feels as though they love her as a privilege, instead of just their right, and that they’re a place that's not so...hmm I don't know, maybe not so loud as lorelai and stars hollow? I think maybe i’m trying to say that they expect things from her, certainly, but they expect different than lorelai and in season 1, it’s a place she felt comfortable and welcome.

which brings me to my next point which is that previous paragraphs were about the earlier seasons of the show, where rory is still impressionable and young, where she doesn’t push back against emily and agrees to a lot of the things that emily asks her to do. she badly wants to please them, but knows doing that is pretty easy. season 5 is where things start to change, specifically in the party’s over. Emily knows that rory wants to please her, so she knows that she’ll agree to the party & can meet loads of more “appropriate” boys (and she does because this is the beginning of rory/logan) and will eventually move on from the “losers” in stars hollow. Emily's adoration of logan & logan’s whole family is where he view of rory changes from seeing rory to seeing who she wanted Lorelai to be. if you believe asp that logan is rory’s chris (he’s not but whatever that's another issue that I don't actually care all that much about) then it makes sense that she fixates on their relationship so much, because Emily starts to see rory as her actual daughter and this only continues into season 6. it’s too abrupt for it to be believable, to me, because Emily's always valued rory for who she is and has always been proud of rory’s education and career goals, but it’s at the point in season 6 when rory dropped out/joined the DAR that Emily actually starts to see rory as her own child which we know is problematic and begins a huge shift in their relationship. rory then moving out, re-enrolling in school, and accepting chris’ money is a huge push back to Emily, which she’s never experienced all that much before from rory. what I find sooo interesting about that situation is that once Emily started thinking about rory as a “new and improved lorelai,” and treating her own child, that’s when rory started acting like the actual lorelai and tried defying her. the reason I find this so interesting is because, in an earlier draft of this long winded response, I wrote that grandparent/child relationships are so different than parent/child relationships (depending on the situation), and once Emily stepped back from her loving & safe grandparent role (that was able to connect with rory) into a motherly one, she began making the same mistakes she made with Lorelai, thus fracturing their relationship.

as weird as I find Emily in season 6, I think it did a service to their relationship because now they can both see each other as they actually are, instead of the fantasy of each other. Emily fantasized that rory was the perfect child that she never had and rory fantasized that Emily was the perfect grandparent that would always support her and them realizing that the other one isn’t as perfect as they pretended to be for awhile is what saved their relationship going forward. they both learned a lot about forgiveness and managing expectations and loving people for who they actually are and you know what im so sorry that this got so long and makes no sense but basically I agree with you I think they’re a very interesting but a massively underrated dynamic

#ask #anonymous #gilmore girls #I didn't mean to write this like an essay but im in that mode so skdgjldgd #anyway I have MUCH to say

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elcrivain · 7 years ago

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It’s time. You have to pick up that dreaded classic you have lying around. Maybe it’s Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, or even worse, William Shakespeare’s Richard III. Those things look terrifying with all that fancy bindings and annotations. But you have to read it anyway, either because some lame English professor assigned it or because you want to be well-read. Either way, you know it’s going to be hard.

Why do we struggle so? Why do such books make even the most avid of readers tremble in their boots? What is the problem with these damned things?

It’s all about the context. Or, rather, about how most modern readers lack the context to understand and appreciate classics. The boring dictionary definition of context is: The circumstance or setting in which an idea or even can be fully understood. If you don’t have context, an idea — such as the ones in classics — are liable to be misunderstood or outright overlooked. We, in all of our modernity, lack context for many classics in several respects.

The Context of Prose and Style

Language evolves. Sentence structure shifts. Words fall in and out of fashion. Even word meanings metamorphose.

It takes only a quick survey of English literature to see how much can change in a few hundred years (and we’re not even getting into translations):

A wys wyf, if that she can hir good,

Shal beren him on hond the cow is wood,

And take witnesse of hir owene mayde

Of hir assent; but herkneth how I sayde.

— Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Wife of Bath” in The Canterbury Tales (1475)

This isn’t the work of a drunken five-year-old with atrocious spelling skills. It’s Middle English, a variant of English spoken after the Norman Conquest in 1066 and before the 16th century. It bears some resemblance to modern English, but it’s gosh-darn hard to read without annotations (and alcohol).

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? — To die, — to sleep.

— William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1603)

Now that we’re in Modern English — yes, Shakespeare is modern — the spelling is improving, but it’s still tough to get through. Shakespeare’s heavy use of figurative language flummoxes us, literal-minded modern readers. No, those slings and arrows aren’t real!

The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in one corner; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint. This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters, large and small — Catherine Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine Linton. In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window, and continued spelling over Catherine Earnshaw — Heathcliff — Linton, till my eyes closed; but they had not rested five minutes when a glare of white letters started from the dark, as vivid as spectres — the air swarmed with Catherines; and rousing myself to dispel the obtrusive name, I discovered my candle wick reclining on one of the antique volumes, and perfuming the place with an odour of roasted calf-skin.

— Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847)

Compared to Shakespeare, Brontë seems straightforward, except for one thing. Like many other 19th century writers, she uses long, flowing, and descriptive sentence structure that seems incongruous compared to today’s staccato sentence structure.

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

— George Orwell, Nineteen-Eighty-Four (1949)

Now that we’re in the really modern part of Modern English, things are so much better. Orwell adopts the simpler, more direct style that we’re more used to. Whew! (Note that simple and straightforward prose doesn’t always translate into simple and straightforward meaning.)

Not all troublesome prose comes from old and dead white folks. Some contemporary authors eschew plainness for some flair in their prose. Whether you find that dazzling or confounding is up to you.

…I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire… I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.

— William Faulkner, The Sound and Fury (1929)

Faulkner’s convoluted prose forces the reader to focus single-mindedly to follow along. Confusing as it may be, Faulkner’s marriage of the stream-of-consciousness writing of modernists and descriptiveness of Romanticism give a certain élan to his writing. Just don’t read him before bed as you’ll fall asleep without any memory of what you’ve read.

Now a member of the company seated there seemed to weigh the judge’s words and some turned to look at the black. He stood an uneasy honoree and at length he stepped back from the firelight and the juggler rose and made a motion with the cards, sweeping them in a fan before him and then proceeding along the perimeter past the boots of the men with the cards outheld as if they would find their own subject.

— Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian (1985)

McCarthy’s combination of complex sentences and a disdain of punctuation gives his writing an air of inscrutability. Love or hate him, you have to admit that the dude got a style.

The Context of Historical Settings and Culture

Most authors write for their contemporaries, not for some unknown high school student 100 years in the future. They assume that their reader knows the social and cultural contexts. Once a book survives the test of time, this assumption fails.

Jane Austen’s books serve as a good example of how our ignorance of the social mores of early 19th century genteel society can lead the reader to miss allusions that would’ve been obvious to a contemporaneous reader.

“Are any of your younger sisters out, Miss Bennet?”

“Yes, ma’am, all.”

“All! What, all five out at once? Very odd! And you only the second. The younger ones out before the elder ones are married! Your younger sisters must be very young?”

“Yes, my youngest is not sixteen. Perhaps she is full young to be much in company. But really, ma’am, I think it would be very hard upon younger sisters, that they should not have their share of society and amusement, because the elder may not have the means or inclination to marry early. The last-born has as good a right to the pleasures of youth at the first. And to be kept back on such a motive! I think it would not be very likely to promote sisterly affection or delicacy of mind.”

“Upon my word,” said her ladyship, “you give your opinion very decidedly for so young a person. Pray, what is your age?”

“With three younger sisters grown up,” replied Elizabeth, smiling, “your ladyship can hardly expect me to own it.”

Lady Catherine seemed quite astonished at not receiving a direct answer; and Elizabeth suspected herself to be the first creature who had ever dared to trifle with so much dignified impertinence.

“You cannot be more than twenty, I am sure, therefore you need not conceal your age.”

“I am not one-and-twenty.”

— Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

A reader unaware of the importance (and meaning) of “being out in society” in Georgian gentry wouldn’t note how uncouth it was to have five sisters out all at once, a serious social misstep by the Bennets. (And no, “coming out” doesn’t mean the same thing as it does today.) They would also have missed how tactless it was for Lady Catherine to harp on this point and Elizabeth’s impertinence for evading Lady Catherine’s question. This is why an unschooled reader would overlook the biting satire in Austen’s novels, which is a horrible shame.

Many classic novels attack contemporaneous cultural, religious, and social conventions. If you don’t understand the norms under attack, you lose context to why the novel was so daring, so bold.

I made this mistake with Jane Eyre. Upon my first reading at 13, I dismissed it as melodramatic slop. When I revisited it at 18, I saw how Charlotte Brontë criticizes the prevailing religious belief of charity and how remarkably independent Jane Eyre is, a shocking thing for a Victorian woman. I, however, still think that the book has too many dei ex machina (overly convenient plot twists).

The Context of Narrative Conventions

Following or breaking it, many classics take a stance on narrative conventions. Thomas Hardy embraces the pastoral and tragic narratives in Tess of d’Urbervilles as James Joyce bucks the Realists’ more removed narratives with his stream-of-consciousness writing.

To understand a book’s attitude toward narrative conventions is to understand why certain writing, plot, or characters elements exist (or disappear) from a novel. These expectations ease the way for your reading. Really!

When I began reading Tess of the d’Urbervilles, I knew that it was a pastoral tragedy, which prepared me for two important things. First, since it was a pastoral, I knew Hardy would describe the setting to such detail that the town(s) would become characters in their own rights. So I was prepared for passages like these which would seem unnecessary and boring to the average modern reader (fairly enough):

The village of Marlott lay amid the north-eastern undulations of the beautiful Vale of Blakemore or Blackmoor aforesaid, an engirdled and secluded region, for the most part, untrodden as yet by tourist or landscape painter, though within a four hours’ journey from London.

It is a vale whose acquaintance is best made by viewing it from the summits of the hills that surround it — except perhaps during the droughts of summer. An unguided ramble into its recesses in bad weather is apt to engender dissatisfaction with its narrow, tortuous, and miry ways.

— Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Second, since Tess is a tragedy, I prepared myself for many frowny-face moments. If you go into a Hardy expecting a happy ending a la Pride and Prejudice, you’ve taken a wrong turn in the 19th-century bookstore.

The Context of Symbolism

When you’re a high school student studying The Great Gatsby, it might seem like the teacher is inventing all those meanings from rivers and currents to justify their paycheck. You think, “Damn it, why can’t a boat just be a boat?”

English teachers’ flights of fancy aside, symbolism is a real thing. Under the best of circumstances, symbolism deepens existing themes and ideas already present in the novel. Problems begin when you don’t recognize the signs of symbolism.

Here’s an example: The last lines heard ‘round the world:

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And one fine morning-

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Scholars have quarreled over the meaning of this passage for decades, showing that there is no purely correct answer. Therein lies the subjectivity of literary analysis — but it remains vital that you understand the purpose of symbolism and are able to recognize it. (Hint: watch for recurrent motifs and ideas.)

The Context of the Original Publication (or Performance)

This oft-overlooked context can massively alter your reading of a classic. Many classics weren’t originally presented in the format in which it is read today. Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales was performed in verse. Shakespearean plays were meant for the stage, not small English classrooms. And so it goes.

But those are well-known examples. The examples nobody talks about are these 19th-century epics, most of which were originally published in a serialized format where the author was paid by the word (Anna Karenina, A Tale of Two Cities, The Count of Monte Cristo). This small detail completely alters the structure and flow of those stories. The serialized format and the pay scheme encouraged such writers to write more, more, and more. This is why Anna Karenina clocks in at almost 1,000 pages filled with descriptive passages of Levin moving grass. The format also means that the author didn’t consider the “flow” of narration from chapter to chapter, creating a disjointed reading experience as the story hops from one perspective to another. These stories were never conceptualized as a novel in today’s sense. You might even benefit from reading in small bursts, just like these newspaper readers did more than 100 years ago.

If you happen to read a classic out of its original publishing context, be mindful of how that’ll affect your experience. To get the fullest and richest experience, you might want to revert back to the original storytelling form, such as watching a Shakespearean play or movie. (I recommend Much Ado About Nothing, just ignore Keanu Reeves.)

Context is everything. Without the right context, many classics appear inscrutable and downright mystifying. Most of us aren’t born with a knowledge of Middle English syntax and deep knowledge of manners among the English gentry during the Georgian era.

Where does that leave us, the befuddled readers? It leaves us with the hard reality that we need to investigate the context in which the classic was written. That means glancing at a Wikipedia page about the French Revolution before (and during) reading Les Miserables. It also means preparing yourself for a fantastical twirl through time in a South American village before you read One Hundred Years of Solitude. With some preparation, you can actually appreciate those dusty little classics.

N.B. I adopt the more expansive definition of classics as notable works of literature due to their excellence and significance, rather than the more traditional definition as pre-17th-century works of literature.

#classical literature #topic #classics #classic lit #classic literature #count of monte cristo #jane eyre #pride and prejudice #great gatsby #jane austen #les miserables #context #english #literature #studyblr literature #narrative #shakespeare #this is my first post #im sorry its so long

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typologicalmusings · 6 years ago

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Monica Geller: ESFJ

Extraverted Feeling (Fe): Monica is “always the hostess” (The One with Rachel’s Crush, 4x13). She loves throwing parties and cooking for her friends – when Phoebe’s apartment burns down, she affectionately names her own apartment “Hotel Monica,” and takes delight in creating a guest bedroom so that Phoebe is comfortable (The One Where Ross Dates a Student, 6x18). She is upset when the group stops spending time in her apartment and refurnishes Joey and Chandler’s place so that she can play the “hostess” role once again (The One with Rachel’s Crush, 4x13). Monica is the glue that holds the group together and is always there to offer emotional support for others, such as counselling Ross through his feelings for Rachel, supporting Chandler through his breakup with Kathy, or advising Rachel about her feelings for Joey (The One with the Soap Opera Party, 9x20). She values group harmony, and frequently makes personal sacrifices to ensure everyone is happy, such as cooking different kinds of potatoes for her friends so that they could all enjoy Thanksgiving like they had as children (The One Where Underdog Gets Away, 1x09). At times, Monica can feel undervalued by others for her group sacrifices – she refuses to cook Thanksgiving dinner one year because she “doesn’t think it’s fair” the burden falls on her each year (The One with the Late Thanksgiving, 10x08), and is upset when Rachel doesn’t appreciate a birthday she throws (The One with the Two Parties, 2x22). Monica has a strong understanding of social rules. When Phoebe invites a stripper to Rachel’s baby shower, Monica is aghast, calling Phoebe’s actions “totally inappropriate” (The One with the Baby Shower, 8x20). Similarly, she is shocked when Phoebe plans to wear a bohemian dress to meet Mike’s conservative parents, urging her to buy something more suitable for the social setting (The One with Ross’s Inappropriate Song, 9x07). Monica is mortified when she breaks social rules, such as forgetting to invite Rachel’s mother to her baby shower (The One with the Baby Shower, 8x20), and is equally mortified when others break them too, being aghast that she wasn’t invited to her cousin’s wedding, a major social faux pas (The One with all the Cheesecakes, 7x11). At times, she uses her understanding of social rules to manipulate others, such as wearing a white dress to a wedding to spite her cousin for not inviting her (The One with all the Cheesecakes, 7x11). Her manipulative capabilities extend to other areas of life, where she tricks Chandler into having sex with her (The One with Phoebe’s Birthday Dinner, 9x05), and writes a speech to make the audience cry at her parents’ wedding anniversary (The One in Massapequa, 8x18). Monica desperately wants to be liked by the people around her, and often goes to great lengths to receive positive regard from others, such as making candy for everyone in the building so that she would be liked by her neighbours (The One with all the Candy, 7x09), flattering Rachel’s mother in an attempt to win back her approval (The One with the Baby Shower, 8x20), or continuing to wear a pair of uncomfortable boots because she “loved the compliments” (The One with Monica’s Boots, 8x10).

Introverted Sensing (Si): Monica describes herself as having an “eye for detail” (The One with the Joke, 6x12). She has a knack for noticing differences in the environment, immediately being able to tell that the apartment has been cleaned after Chandler employs a maid (The One with the Stain, 8x07), and that the green ottoman has been moved when Rachel vacuums (The One with the Butt, 1x06). She frequently uses past experiences to assess the present, such as comparing a previous thanksgiving dinner to one she had made the year before to assess how much her cooking had improved (The One with the Late Thanksgiving, 10x08). Monica is uncomfortable with change in her environment – she immediately dismisses Rachel’s suggestion that an ugly lamp be added to the living room (The One Where Heckles Dies, 2x08), and feels uneasy when Rachel moves the green ottoman to a different location because she wants things in her apartment to stay the same (The One with the Butt, 1x06). She also struggles with changes in her personal life – when she and Richard break up, Monica shuts herself inside her apartment because she is unable to adjust to life without him (The One with the Princess Leia Fantasy, 3x01). Likewise, she is deeply upset when Rachel has to move out, calling it “the end of an era” (The One Where Ross Hugs Rachel, 6x02). Monica takes comfort in the familiar and the predicable – when times get tough, she tends to turn to things from the past for comfort, such as smoking cigars to feel close to Richard after they break up (The One with the Princess Leia Fantasy, 3x01). She is deeply aware of her past, and is often haunted by her negative childhood experiences – when Rachel and Ross kiss on her engagement night, she is reminded of being overshadowed by Rachel through childhood, and thus accuses Rachel of “stealing her thunder” (The One with Monica’s Thunder, 7x01). Likewise, when Chandler mentions he ended a relationship with a girlfriend because she was overweight, Monica is reminded of being rejected by a boy in fifth grade because she was “too fat” and becomes upset (The One with the Nap Partners, 7x06). Monica is a very sentimental person. She enjoys collecting and reminiscing over past memories, and loves keeping old photographs – she is delighted to share an album full of childhood pictures with Emily (The One with the Fake Party, 4x16), and vows to take more photographs as a new year’s resolution so that she can remember important moments with her friends (The One with all the Resolutions, 5x11). Monica values past relics that hold personal significance – she keeps an antique cabinet because it belonged to her grandmother (The Last One: Part 2, 10x18), and is excited to receive her aunt’s dollhouse because she always wanted to play with it as a child (The One with the Dollhouse, 3x20). Likewise, she is devastated when her childhood memories are destroyed through flooding of her parents’ garage (The One Where Rosita Dies, 7x13). At times, Monica is inclined to project her sentimental streak onto others, who may not always appreciate it – she hires a bunny costume for Chandler because his favourite childhood book was The Velveteen Rabbit, failing to realise that the costume would make him embarrassed instead (The One with the Halloween Party, 8x06). Monica has an excellent memory for details – at one point, Rachel berates her for her ability to remember “every little thing” (The One with Joey’s Dirty Day, 4x14). For example, she remembers each step of a dance routine she and Ross invented as kids and is able to perform it perfectly several years later (The One with the Routine, 6x10). She also has a love for detail which manifests in her approach to planning – she organises a party for Rachel with detailed sketches of the cake and an alphabetised list of music (The One Where Rachel Smokes, 5x18), and plans the seating arrangements for her wedding through strict adherence to a detailed seating chart (The One with Rachel’s Big Kiss, 7x20).

Extraverted Intuition (Ne): Monica is able to see situations not only for what they are (Si), but for what they could be (Ne). When she is offered a job at Alessandro’s, Monica agrees to take it on because she can see the potential of the restaurant, despite giving it a negative review several days previously (The One Where They’re Going to Party, 4x09). She is well aware that the food is bad, her co-workers are unkind, and the restaurant has a terrible reputation, but she embraces what the restaurant could be with an optimistic opening speech (“with a pinch of excitement, a dash of hard work, and a dollop of cooperation, we can have the recipe…”). This ability to see the potential in things is a persistent trait that manifests itself throughout the series – when Monica is forced to move into Joey and Chandler’s apartment, she sees it’s potential as a comfortable living space, and works to transform it into one despite her initial disgust (The One with the Embryos, 4x12). Similarly, she senses the potential in the fake chocolate product “mockolate,” and seeks to improve it by incorporating it into a series of baked goods (The One with the List, 2x08). Monica is open to new opportunities, especially when it comes to her career – she drops her catering gig with Phoebe to accept a job at Alessandro’s (The One Where They’re Going to Party, 4x09), and declines moving with Chandler to Tulsa because she is offered a position at Javu (The One with the Pediatrician, 9x03). She is fairly flexible when it comes to her work, and is willing to try several alternatives (Ne) if it means being able to address more practical concerns like maintaining a steady income (Si). For example, she accepts a job as a kitchen hand (The Pilot, 1x01), a caterer (The One with the Dirty Girl, 4x06), a waitress at a diner (The One with the Two Parties, 2x22), a food critic (The One Where They’re Going to Party, 4x09) and a head chef (The One Where They’re Going to Party, 4x09). At times, Monica is undaunted by change – she views Chandler’s unemployment as “exciting” while he is terrified by the lack of security (The One Where Rachel Goes Back to Work, 9x11). She’s also quick to make connections, realising that Phoebe and Rachel know about her relationship with Chandler without it being overtly stated (The One Where Everybody Finds Out, 5x14).

Introverted Thinking (Ti): Monica has a solid understanding of how things work. As a chef, she knows the flavours that complement each other, and is easily able to pull a recipe apart and put it back together again, such as deconstructing a cookie to figure out the recipe for Phoebe’s grandmother’s cookies (The One with Phoebe’s Cookies, 7x03). She is excellent at troubleshooting – when Joey admits he is unfit for a role because he has been circumcised, Monica helps to solve the problem by fashioning him a range of foreskins from processed meat (The One with Ross and Monica’s Cousin, 7x19). Similarly, she creates a series of baked goods for Mockolate in an attempt to improve their taste (The One with the List, 2x08). She is curious, sometimes even obsessive, about finding out how things work, on one occasion destroying Joey and Chandler’s apartment in a search for where a switch was (The One with all the Rugby, 4x15). Monica is fairly logical, and often hands out quite frank advice to her friends. When Rachel confesses that she wants to fool around with Joey, Monica advises her not to follow through with it because she believes it “will never work” (The One with the Soap Opera Party, 9x20). Likewise, when Phoebe ditches plans with David to go out with Joey as a way of upholding her personal values, Monica informs Phoebe that her actions are ridiculous (The One with all the Cheesecakes, 7x11). Monica is equally capable of applying the same logical principles to her own life – for example, she breaks up with Richard because she knows a relationship between them is futile when she wants children and he doesn’t (The One with Barry and Mindy’s Wedding, 2x24).

Note: Like Rachel, Monica was incredibly difficult to type because she appears to use Te and Fe equally prominently. Truth be told, I’m not completely sold on ESFJ, and could possibly be convinced by a solid ESTJ argument. This problem can be attributed to inconsistent writing – Monica is generally warmer and kinder as the series begins, before becoming more brash and competitive in later years. I chose ESFJ because Monica appears to use Ti more than Fi – she’s logical, good at troubleshooting and tends to be externally directed with her feelings. If she used Fi, Monica would be less concerned about group harmony and more influenced by her own feelings.

#myers briggs type indicator #mbti #monica geller #friends #f.r.i.e.n.d.s.#pop culture analysis #friends mbti #friends typology #esfj #extraverted feeling

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therewatcher-blog · 6 years ago

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Best Underrated Scene: Gilmore Girls - 1x08 Love & War & Snow

gOh hello there, I kinda left off doing these, but I want to keep going. Even if it’s just for me. It’s a fun exercise. So here we go, Love & War & Snow. I don’t exactly know why, but this is one of my favorite episodes, especially in season one. It’s one that I’ll consistently rewatch out of context. I think the fact that there is really almost no conflict is just so comforting to me. I also love the introduction of Lorelai’s obsession with snow. It’s one of the things that makes this show so cozy. This mystical connection she has with snow, is like a bit of magical realism sprinkled over this somewhat quietly realistic (if not idealized) show. That mixed with the absurdities of the townies of Stars Hollow just makes for the perfect rewatchable episode.

I honestly think this episode has a lot of quietly great scenes. Luke and Lorelai’s small interaction and Rory’s dinner with the grandparents are contenders. However, I think the scene with Luke and Lorelai doesn’t have enough in it to make it underrated and Rory’s dinner with Richard and Emily is perhaps maybe too obvious in what it accomplishes. I also think their abrupt end to the reminiscing as soon as they see a picture of Lorelai in her coming out party is maybe a bit over-the-top in it’s awkwardness. We know they have a discomfort in talking about Lorelai’s pregnancy, but you’d think they would better control this clear discomfort when in the presence of their granddaughter who resulted from the pregnancy. It’s just a little bit more than heartbreaking and unfair.

So moving on to my pick:

The First Stars Hollow Town Meeting:

I don’t imagine too many town meetings will make the list, but I think this introduction to the town’s weekly ritual is seamlessly done in the opening sequence of the episode. It’s also sets up the small D?-plot that follows Luke through the episode. I always like when the cold open has a bit of bearing on the episode rather than being completely without context.

We open with the town meeting already out of order as Miss Patty attempts to reclaim some control and Taylor complains that no one is listening to him. We know immediately what is happening, but as we will come to learn in the future episodes this course of events is incredibly common which makes rewatching it that much more enjoyable. It’s as if we already have a little inside joke with the characters.

I think something that struck me even more on watching it this time through is that I still chuckled at a couple places. Taylor is perhaps a frustrating and divisive character, but I think he’s a character who is hilarious because of the hyper-realism of what he’s playing. He’s obsessed with rules and order to the degree of insanity. He enjoys the small power he holds in the town and he uses it to his advantage wherever possible, but ultimately has something resembling good intentions. So when he claims Andrew is “peddling drug paraphernalia to kids” when all he did was sell a lava lamp, I can’t help but laugh. He does make a good point that there is no use for a lava lamp unless you’re on drugs.

Of course, Lorelai enters the scene late, carrying food and drinks for her and Rory (something that we find out in a future episode is not allowed during these meetings - again an inside joke we now share on rewatching) and Rory quickly catches her up to speed on the small town politics surrounding the removal of a no-parking zone sign. Lorelai astutely observes that Taylor only wants the sign removed outside his store so he can park there all day.

Mayor Harry (a character who only shows up one or two more times, unfortunately) begins a speech about the townspeople being like his children which, from the cutting to stifled giggles and knowing looks between Lorelai and Rory, we can deduce is a speech the town has heard more than once. This flowery language is only used to launch into a small chiding of his “children,” reminding them that "we have leash laws, people!” We can see the GIlmore girls having a blast listening to the small town’s petty grievances and we are put right there with them.

The mayor shifts gears to the “legendary Battle of Stars Hollow.” As he begins to give the recap of the battle, we hear the girls commenting on Luke who is “shifting in his seat” and “adjusting his hat” in annoyance before he finally jumps up and interrupts the mayor’s recounting of the battle - “Oh for god’s sake! Do we have to go through this every damn year?” Mayor Harry asks who is speaking and Luke answers, “It’s me, Harry, Luke. You’ve known me since I was five years old.” I think this is the first mention of Luke having lived in Stars Hollow his whole life (I could be wrong), which is a fascinating facet of his character. Luke detests change and is stubborn beyond reason, but in this storyline and many of his storylines that boil down to Luke vs. The Town (and/or Taylor specifically), he is often anti-tradition. Or at least he thinks the traditions of his town are silly. That is certainly the case here as Luke argues that the battle reenactment for a battle that never occurred is really just beyond ridiculous and embarrassing.

“Have any of you ever considered the fact that you’re glorifying a war we fought so we could keep land that we stole?” Luke argues in vain. Oh, woke hippie Luke. How I love you. I said it in a previous post, but they really leave this quality of Luke’s behind as the show continues. I love whenever it pops up and I will try to always note it here. I like to believe it’s always there in some small way even as he starts to become more of a somewhat stereotypical manly man in later seasons. “If you don’t like it here in America, why don’t you go stand in line for toilet paper in the USSR!” Mayor Harry retorts to no avail. “There is no USSR, Harry,” Luke responds. The girls make a quip about the sense of community being so important as Harry and Luke continue to argue and we fade out to the opening credits.

This is one of the early scenes that really starts to shape the wonderful townie relationships that add color to the show. Luke is more of a townie than a leading man at this point, so it is important to see his relationship to the town fleshed out in this moment. His deep roots as well as his antagonistic feelings regarding the town’s obsessions with tradition are set up in this scene and explored even more in the episode. It’s a light and fun exchange with a few chuckles, but more than anything these meetings become an important and unique backbone to the Gilmore Girls viewing experience. Some of them are zanier than others, this one is certainly more grounded and realistic than some others. But in this first town meeting the seeds for all the different characters and their strong opinions regarding the town, it’s rules, traditions, and festivals is established efficiently through action and dialogue that doesn’t feel overly expository or stilted while offering more of a glance into the backstory of a character who will become increasingly important as the show goes on. All in 3 minutes. Not bad.

#gilmore girls #luke danes #mayor harry #108 #1x08 #love and war and snow #love & war & snow #love&war&snow #season 1 #rory gilmore #lorelai gilmore #miss patty #taylor doose

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cookiedoughmeagain · 7 years ago

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Haven DVD Commentaries: 2.12 - Sins of the Fathers

Commentary with Eric Balfour, Lucas Bryant and Emily Rose.

As might be expected there is a lot of ridiculous randomness and interrupting and talking over each other*, interspersed with short-lived attempts to be serious and concentrate on the plot. It’s hard to capture everything that’s said, particularly the humour, but there are some interesting points in here I think. Happy to take questions if anything doesn’t make sense:)

[* Eric sounds a little more echoey than the other two, so I don’t know if he’s speaking from a different place which would maybe contribute to the talking over each other aspect.]

Eric: “Did you see how good my hair looked right there? My hair looks amazing. I actually gauge the quality of episodes by how good my hair looks” Lucas: “I think most people do.”

*General agreement on the fantasticness of the director for the episode, Lee Rose*

Lucas: “So this felt a bit different from shooting the finale for the first season, because then it was the finale finale, and we were almost crying every day. This episode is episode 12, the season finale, but we knew that we were going to shoot the Christmas episode after, so it sort of felt strangely anti-climactic.”

[As we see Audrey and Duke park up their cars and speak to each other on the street] Eric: “I remember at one point they were going to cut this scene out, and I was really glad they didn’t.” *agreement from Emily* Emily talks about the “temperature” between Audrey and Duke being important at this point and there’s discussion about how they have just found out that she is supposed to kill him, and reference to “or was it the other way around?” Lucas: “It changed a couple times didn’t it? Who was supposed to kill who?”

*Emily approves of her outfit*

As Audrey confronts Vince and Dave about knowing Lucy, Lucas talks about how he loves this scene because we get to see Audrey really go for it. Lucas: “I think people are always a little bit shocked when you are allowed to throw down, but I’m really glad that you got to. It’s beautiful.” Emily: “I think it took Richard off guard for a bit. It was a really cool scene to get to film.” Lucas: “I think the fans wanted to see you finally lose it. Like, why doesn’t someone just grab these guys and say what the ____ is going on. And you got to finally do that.”

Eric offers a theory that when Audrey disappears in between the Troubles she goes to a Sandals resort.

Emily: “I think what’s great about this episode as well is to see these two [Vince and Dave] at odds with each other. Usually we think they’re in cahoots, but now this episode when Audrey leaves, they’re at each other’s throats as well.” Eric: “Actually I’m kind of hoping for an episode where we find out that they’re not brothers, but they’re actually lovers.”

[As we see Vince give Audrey Lucy’s ring] Lucas: “Do you want to talk about this ring, Parker?” Emily: “This ring? Well I remember when they were talking to me prop-wise, it’s a bit reminisceint of the ring that you also have.” Eric: “Could they not afford a second ring? It’s the same ring?” Emily: “No it’s not the same ring.” There’s some joking about, maybe we could only afford the one ring, then Lucas starts to say “I think some people [fans] picked up that there might be something too those rings,” and then changes track with an “Oh my goodness,” as the screen cuts to a shirtless Duke. As Lucas and Emily joke about getting distracted, Eric talks over them to point out that it is a Falling Whistle’s necklace that Duke has.

[After Duke’s ‘Dad?’] Eric: Why do they always use the worst takes of every performance? I know that I did a better, ‘Dad?’”

[As the credits play] Eric: “Remember that there used to be different music that we all loved, and when we heard this we were all a little disappointed that this became the theme song? But now? I kind of love it.” *agreement from Emily* Lucas: “I dream this most nights. This is the sound track to my dreams.” Eric: “Do you have the deep house remix?” Emily: “You need to come up with that, DJ.” Eric: “Somebody already did, I think. It’s already out there.”

[As we see Audrey arriving (late) to the crime scene] Lucas: “So this is the first time we’ve seen each other on screen since that fated moment right? That thing that happened before.” Emily: “And you’re giving me grief.” Lucas: “Because I don’t know how to deal with my feelings. About … feelings.”

*general joking agreement about how Arlo McMartin is an awkward name to say*

[As Nathan is asking Audrey out to dinner] Emily: “Here’s a fun fact about this scene. There were some people who won a contest, and won the chance to drive all the way to our set and be background people for the day and so they are in the back by the cop cars because they won a contest and drove all the way out to Nova Scotia to be on set that day. Sorry, we probably should have talked about the specialness that just happened.” [As the view switches to the Rouge] Emily: “Oh my gosh look how good Eric Cayla made that rusty boat look.” Lucas: “Look how good Mr Balfour made that wifebeater look.” [Me: While I thoroughly agree with the sentiment, how is this an acceptable name for an item of clothing? If it’s not a vest can someone please invent a new name for it? kthanks.]

Emily: “And we got the opportunity to have a really well-known guest star who I have a really hard time pronouncing his name.” Eric: “I think they did such a good job, because we look so much like each other. He is actually a really good actor he just … doesn’t look like he could be in the same gene pool as me.” Emily: “Well but it was a choice, right? I remember when they were talking about casting him, they were saying they wanted to cast a young version of your dad.” Lucas: “So sci-fi fans were very happy to see Mr Battlestar.” Eric (surprised): “Oh is he on a ….?” Emily: “Yes, huge.” Eric: “Oh. See, nobody tells me anything.” Emily: “So that was a little sci-fi shout out. A meta sci-fi moment.”

Emily: “This is a story I hope they go down with more with you Eric; with your father feelings.” Lucas: “You’re very good at father feelings.” Emily: “I love it when I get to see your father feelings come out.” Eric: “I don’t think you want to.” [I think. There’s definitely a wry kind of ‘be careful what you wish for’ laugh] Emily: “Yeah but that initial impulse you’re having right now, we wanna see that.” Lucas: “Let it come out in your work.”

Lucas: “And I just want to mention that I love, and my wife loves Mr Balfour … I don’t need to get into that right now ‘cos I’ll get a little heated, but you, I think I’ve said this before, but I love to see how you are very funny. You’re a very funny man. This is a very funny scene, I think.” [Simon and Duke talking in the Rouge.]

[As we see Audrey and Nathan walk into the graveyard to talk to Kyle] Emily talks about how the order of the scenes changed and Lucas adds, “There were some people online who picked up on that, I was reading something,” where people were wondering about the transition between scenes, “and it’s absolutely true, that this was a scene that was cut from somewhere else at first.”

As Audrey is telling Kyle he needs to watch his mouth, Emily is talking about seeing the actor in the Tudors, but Eric interrupts her with an emphatic, “That was hot. I like when you say that ‘you need to watch your mouth mr’.”

As we see Arlo’s body in the coffin, Eric asks if the effects were all practical make up and Emily tells him Yes, then adds that they might have enhanced it in SFX.

As Audrey and Nathan are in the station, Emily and Lucas talk about always having weird stuff written in the files and joke about writing silly notes to each other.

[As Vince and Dave come into the station] Lucas; “Now, there was one of the greatest lines in that little scene, and it got cut out! What the what! After Vince and Dave come in and say ‘We heard blah blah …’ I say ‘Why do you guys even ask me questions?’ Remember?” Emily: “Yeah!” Eric: “They always cut out the best lines.” Emily jokes about how he represented Vince and Dave’s lines as ‘blah blah’ and Lucas jokes, “Well that’s kind of how I see the world.” [i.e. everyone else’s lines blurring into insignificance besides his own]

As we see the Rev. Emily talks about watching Immortals and seeing “Mr McHattie” turn up in the middle of the movie.

[As we see Simon telling Duke about Mrs Holloway’s camp fire story] Eric: “You can tell this was an early morning shot because my hair’s still wet. I must have got to work late.” Emily: “It all comes back to the hair Ladies and Gentlemen. He has a hair ritual in the morning.” As Eric is describing his hair-drying method, Emily adds some details and “And I get to see this every morning ladies and gentlemen, aren’t you jealous.”

As Nathan and Audrey are making eyes at each other in front of the computer screen Emily: “It was a fun scene to shoot.” Lucas: “It’s fun to get to do playful, physical comedy.” Emily: “Well especially with scenes like that because it’s not about what we’re saying, it’s about what’s not being said.”

[As Kyle is looking at the list of Troubled names with the red X] Eric: “Hey isn’t that down the street from where I live?” Lucas: “Yes. But don’t tell people though.”

[As Nathan is telling Audrey how his Trouble was triggered] Lucas: “See this is the scene that was cut from the other one. This is how it started before.” Eric wants to talk more about the list of Troubled names (and his idea that everything should look old like it’s from the 1800s and burnt around the edges), but Emily brings him back to this scene: “You know what’s funny though; he’s talking about how bad you are right now Duke. Or about how you guys had your bromance back in the day, he’s talking about your history.” Lucas: “I like that there was a reason.” *agreement from Eric* Lucas: “One of them. I’m sure we’ll learn many more. And just to talk about how amazing I am for a minute .. because we never touch on that ..” Eric: “We talk about how beautiful your eyes are all the time. Your sensitive, sensual blue eyes.” Lucas: “Oh thanks man.” Eric: “Your deep masculine voice.” Lucas: “No but this speech, this story changed like 90 times in the last 7 hours before we shot it. Remember?” Emily: “Oh my gosh, that’s right! You had a whole page of dialogue and it got changed, and finally it was at the point where you were just like, it needs to be this, cut it to what you need it to be.” Lucas: “My tiny brain can only handle five changes.” Emily: “You did a great job.” Lucas: “Well and I think the story itself, the last one that was decided upon, was great. But it’s just funny how such a lynchpin piece can be changed so many times right up to the moment.”

As Audrey and Nathan walk up to the Fresnel grave, there is some discussion about the pronunciation (Emily having initially pronounced the S) and then about how the interesting part about this styrofoam gravestone is that Emily’s cell phone and sides [which google tells me are the pages of the script that will be shot that day] are hiding underneath it. Emily: “Let’s talk about how many hiding places does Emily have in a scene for her cell phone and her sides.”

Emily: “It was raining a lot this day.” Lucas: “It was raining a lot this whole episode.” Eric: “What are you talking about? It was raining a lot this whole season.”

[As we see all the ghosts walk up to Aurey and Nathan in the middle of the graveyard] Lucas: “So this ghost stuff was fun because we would shoot me seeing them, and then we would shoot Emily’s perspective where she couldn’t see any of them. And so I had to act like they were there.” Eric: “I think it would have been cool if all of those people were in their funeral clothes that they were buried in.” Emily: “I guess the idea was that they were all in what they died in.” Eric: “Yeah. I don’t get it.” Lucas: “Balfour, we have to explain how much to you? All of it?” Eric: “Yeah, pretty much.”

Lucas picks up on the American flag by one of the graves, “a very important prop to convince people that we are in the states and not in Canada where we actually shoot.” Between them Emily and Lucas say that Novia Scotia means New Scotland, Lucas adding “I have no idea why it’s called that.”

[And then the three characters are coming to stand under the trees by the bronco] Emily: “Here we had one of my favourite blooper moments of all time that I hope they see in the blooper reel. Not only did it take us a good two hours to do this little tiny scene, because water kept dropping on our faces and they had to shake the tree to get the raindrops out, but Lucas has one of his shining blooper moments where he has to say Arlo McMartin. And having trying to film the scene for an hour, we were dying about all of the rain and then he couldn’t say that and we almost couldn’t complete the scene.” Lucas: “Yeah. And it was funny, and also quite tense. Because people were like ‘guys come on, really; you have a 20 second window of no rain to get this out.” Eric: “We almost stopped that day, remember? We almost shut down production.”

And then they discuss how they did have to shut down production one time in the season, the first time they’ve had to do that. Lucas: “Of all those rainy days, there was only one that we got, screwed.” Emily: “Because you can only shut down production if there’s thunder and lightning that could zap the generator. Not when it’s a monsoon and raining horizontally at your face.” Lucas: “Right. We don’t worry about people, we worry about the generator.”

[As Nathan comes back to Audrey and Duke there is a general ‘here it comes’ (about Lucas’s blooper] Lucas: “Look at Balfour trying not to laugh.” Emily [laughing]: “I know!” Lucas: “And me, trying not to laugh.” Lucas: “Thank god Mr Nick Campbell comes back.” [Garland] Emily: “This was a really cool thing, having Nick Campbell back.” Lucas: “Yup. I love my dad and missed him all season.” Eric: “Dude’s awesome.” Emily: “And your scene was incredible together. I came to set early to see it.”

Emily: “Look how good your truck looks.” Lucas: “Look how good this whole show looks. Let’s talk about Mr Eric Cayla.”

[As we see Garland and Nathan talk] Emily: “I love this scene, it makes me so happy. It’s the kind of scene I want to put a warm blanket around me and sit and just watch it happen.” Lucas: “He’s so easy. Real, fun, serious.”

Emily: “I remember there was a big question about what shirt to put Nick in, because they wanted everybody to be in their clothes that they died in, so when you look at the explosion of the rocks in the last episode when he exploded, the back side of all those rocks have this plaid on them, and it was a big problem because they needed to be able to green screen the ghost stuff later on and it had strips of green in it and so they were concerned about that and were thinking about switching the shirts, but it looks like they made it happen.”

Lucas: “I’ve probably talked about this before, but we are so blessed to have guys like Nick and Richard and John.” *Agreement from Eric and Emily.* Emily: “They enrich the story so much.” Lucas: “Absolutely.” Emily: “And this is just a great example of a scene that’s written well and acted well, and you can just sit and enjoy it.”

Lucas tells Eric to talk about his ride, nothing that having the steering wheel on the wrong side confused some people. Eric: “Oh yeah, this is a landrover that was built in the UK.” Emily: “That’s a request that I would have for next year is that I actually get to have a cool car.

[As Audrey and Duke spot the red X on the road and walk up to the house] Emily: “OK this house was creepy. I went up in it and it had an entire attic with children’s drawings and writing on the walls, and there were these secret staircases.” Lucas: “You think children are creepy?” Emily: “It was a huge attic of old art, with children’s scribbling on the walls.” [There’s a little pause and then] Emily: “The owner was really great, she was really sweet.” *laughter from Eric and Lucas* Eric: “Nice save!” Emily: “That’s the coolest part about filming in Chester, there’s all these old houses. Our producer stays in a house with all these weird staircases in it, it’s just weird. And this town has one of the oldest taverns in North America.”

[As Duke and the Rev. talk on the veranda outside the house Audrey has just gone inside] Emily: “How did you feel about this new direction in the relationship between the Rev. and the Duke? It was very unsettling to me.” Lucas: “I was wondering why Duke is protecting the Rev. in this scene, what’s going on?” Eric: “In this scene? He wasn’t protecting the Rev.” Lucas: “Well why didn’t he tell Audrey that he was there?” Eric: “Because he was afraid that he would hurt Audrey, so he felt no choice but to go with him.” Lucas: “So he was actually protecting Audrey?” Eric: “Yeah, he was protecting Audrey.” Lucas: “Right.” [Me: Don’t you know by now Lucas? Duke is always protecting Audrey]

[As Audrey and Nathan talk to Kyle’s wife outside their house] Emily: “This was one of my favourite things to do here, for the first time Audrey and Nathan in this small town actually acting like they’re someone else. … And that’s a big thing we always wrestle with on Haven, is the size of the town. It’s a small town but yet it’s big enough that not everybody knows each other.” Eric: “Yeah, well I think we get confused being where we shoot the show because the fact is everyone *does* know each other. You have to get pretty far outside of town before people don’t know your middle name.”

As Kyle’s wife is walking through the woods Lucas talks about how she was having to walk through the mud wearing heels, it had just rained, and we learn that Emily thought “for days” that the actor was really pregnant. Emily: “I’m an idiot.”

Emily: “These poor background guys; they show up for the day to be part of Haven, and we tell them to haul people out of vans, and carry them.” Eric: “That guy was already passed out and they re-chloroformed him.”

Emily: “This was just a really interesting episode because there was a lot of, doing the scenes with the people there to see them, and then doing them without them there.” Eric: “Yeah, and I actually had fun doing the scene over and over with Stephen McHattie there and then with him not there and just be talking to air.” Lucas: “Some of these people were from this town, and it was a totally different experience shooting there this year because people had seen the show, and all of a sudden it was a show on TV and they I think for the most part liked the show and liked how it portrayed their town so people were much more excited to have us back this season and I felt totally embraced by the community, and they were super helpful despite us getting in their way all the time. It was a really nice feeling.” Eric: “This was my first year living in the town, because last year I lived in Halifax., and besides the drunk lady who would show up on my doorstep at midnight, I had a great time. This is a perfect opportunity to give a shout out to Nicky Butler who owns Nicky’s Inn, my favourite place in the world. I love that woman.” Lucas: “Fantastic mother of us all in Chester.”

[The scene outside the shed with the Rev. and Simon and Garland] Lucas: “So this is the longest scene ever…. There’s all sorts of things going on, people are seeing ghosts, people are not seeing ghosts, he’s realising that he’s Troubled, and how can we save him - it was mental. And we’re all standing, for the most part, still. Emily: “So then what you end up doing is shooting it in directions, like pieces of the pie. You shoot one side and then just go around the circle, shooting all that’s happening.” Lucas: “Right. And I think Mr Balfour did a stand-up job of selling this whole scene with his dilemma. And we sort of all revolved around his issues - as we in real life do too.” Eric: “Yeah, mostly about my hair.” Lucas: “But it was fantastic because there was not really much else to hold on to but I think Eric was fantastic in this scene and it all worked in the end and it was kind of amazing.” Eric: “I thought this music worked really well.” Lucas: “And although it looks sunny there, this was the day we had to shut down - because the generator was going to get wet.” Emily: “It felt like a snow day at school, I was kind of giddy about it all.” Lucas also mentions the issue with the rain and the ghosts; that they couldn’t have the ghosts with their shirts getting wet because that wouldn’t make any sense when they can walk through gravestones and can’t pick up whiskey glasses. And also makes the point about how rain typically doesn’t show up on screen. And Emily mentions that they had a tarpaulin covering them, so they were dry but then that creates its own issues because you can hear the rain hitting it.

[As we see Duke’s eyes turn silver] Eric: “Whoa, great eyes! I hadn’t seen this part before. That looks crazy.” Lucas wonders if the effect is different from the one he original saw, but then he and Emily decide it’s just because they’re watching it on a better TV now. Lucas: “Shawn has a terrible TV at his house.”

[As Simon and Garland fade away] Eric: “This whole thing feels very much like the movie Ghost. I wish Whoopi Goldberg was there.” Lucas: “Me too. I wish we had a pottery studio.” Eric: “Yep.” Lucas: “Yep. We haven’t seen Duke’s pottery studio have we? Actually, maybe in season three when we see Nathan’s home, we get to see the pottery studio.”

[As Audrey picks up the gun and arrests everyone] Eric: “Your favourite line.” Emily: “I so did not want to say that line. There was a note about we had to show that Audrey was in control…. I played it down, I didn’t know how else to do it.” Lucas: “I think you did a very stand up job, Parker.”

[As we see Vince and Dave arguing] Emily: “I often wonder how they do these scenes without really knowing what the thorn in their side is. But you guys have a little bit of that too. Well you know it now, but you had to play that opposition with each other without really knowing what the history was.” Lucas: “Right. Well, we just went off real life basically.” *general laughter* Eric: “Well except in real life you’re usually upset that I won’t cuddle with you, and that’s what creates most of the tension.”

[As we see Audrey getting kidnapped] Emily: “Oh gosh I did not want to get tasered. I fought for every other way of getting knocked out possible. I wanted to get hit over the head with a gun. … So now we’re coming up on the end of the finale that actually changed pretty drastically.” Lucas: “Changed a million ways from Sunday.” And they both tell each other how they can’t talk about what it was originally going to be Eric: “We can talk about one thing, when we get to it.”

[As we see Nathan come into the Rouge] Lucas: “There were a couple takes of this where I came in shouting, and my daughter was outside and heard me screaming ‘where is she?’ and then I just hear ‘Why is Daddy yelling?’ so my wife had to hustle her outside.”

[As Duke and Nathan start to fight] Emily: “So disappointing, we thought they were actually on the road to being good friends.”

As we see the tattoo on Nathan’s arm, there is a general ‘!! What does that mean?’

[As the credits start to roll] Eric: “So originally, you never heard that gunshot. That was something added, I think that was a Scott Shepherd idea. Which I’ve got to give him credit for; that was a really fun idea.”

#haven syfy #haven dvd commentaries #long post #2.12 - sins of the fathers

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darklingichor · 7 years ago

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Gilmore Girls: Season 2, episodes 19 & 20

I am so tired, I have not slept well the last couple of days. Not sure why except that I live on the third floor and am back to sleeping during the day and can't keep my windows open. My downstairs neighbors must be cold because it is so hot in here I have considered reinstalling my portable air conditioner... In January. So this episode set is going to be interesting because I actually watched it a few days ago and am going by memory which is fuzzy because I'm sleepy.

On with the show.

Episode 19 - Why does Lorelai not see that Dean is an asshole? Yeah, Rory is developing feelings for Jess but lets think about this. Even if she didn't have a crush on Jess, she would still have helped Jess with his studies just because Luke asked. She also would have felt compelled to have her mom tell Dean that she wasn't with Jess simply because Dean is jealous and clingy. She is always worried that he's going to be mad! Why? Because when something doesn't go his way he gets mad. Rory has to perform in a play with Tristan, he got mad. She doesn't want to spend one night with him, he got mad. Rory tries to be civil to Luke's nephew, he got mad. Rory's catch phrase in this relationship is "Don't be mad". Hell, in the next episode Rory had to write him a *note* to keep him from exploding after the accident. Don't know much about relationships, but this doesn't seem healthy. Rory's feelings for Jess are really neither here nor there because even if everything was completely platonic, Dean would still be pissy.

I totally get Lorelai being livid and freaked out when Jess crashed Rory's car but I also understand Luke being angry at Lorelai for coming at him. She comes into the diner like a cyclone and tells him that the kid he is responsible for was in an accident and missing. He's scared too.

I also understand Rory getting annoyed at everyone blaming Jess. It was an accident. It probably would have happened if Rory would have been driving and as irritating as Jess is, he did make sure that Rory was okay before he took off. Better than Dean, really, because he sort of seemed to shrug off Rory's arm and wrecked car as soon as he found out that Jess had gone back to New York.

I did love how both Lorelai and Christopher both slept in Rory's room, it was very sweet. I actually like how Christopher tries in this episode.

About Rory's wrist, how fast does she heal? I had a hairline fracture in my wrist when I was 8 and I had my cast on longer than two weeks!

The other parts of this episode, Lorelai choosing the movie, Kirk's short film (Oh my God, hilarious!) and Luke going to the school were really good and needed to cut the Dean shit.

Episode 20 - Even though I get Rory's point of view, being upset that everyone in town blames Jess when it was an accident but, again, I understand Lorelai's grudge against Jess. It is one thing for the person hurt to forgive some one, it is another for the people close to the person hurt to forgive someone. I think of when someone has hurt one of my friend's emotionally. I tend to hold that grudge much longer than my friend does.

There haven't been very many scenes between just Rory and Luke, the one in this episode was actually sweet for all the awkwardness. The conversation about casts was great. It was nice that Luke told Rory that he knew it the accident wasn't Jess's fault. The acting in that exchange was really nice.

The bad cafe that the girls had to eat in was interesting, I liked that Michel frequents this one.

The really interesting part of this episode, to me was Lorelai and Richard working together.

First, how helpless are rich people? "I can't get my old secretary so I can't open the business." If that's his viewpoint how likely is it that he will succeed? Minor setback, I quit! He went to the Yale? How did his head not explode? The first time he overslept did he need to visit the school doctor for nerves?

He never bought office supplies. Silly but I can believe it... However he must have thought that fairies refilled his pens and made more paper. Not long on critical thinking, the insurance industry? Slightly frightening.

Secondly, what is with Emily and Richard not getting that Lorelai has a job? I get that Lorelai and Richard work well together and that he liked having this bonding experience with his daughter but he acted like he expected that Lorelai would give up her career to be his secretary. I would have thought he might have finally started to understand that despite not going to a fancy university, Lorelai's experience has value. Nope, just pouting.

Don't get me wrong, the interaction between them was great but (and this is one of the few times I will criticize the writing of Richard's character) it seems like the writers don't know how to complete his development. He only goes so far before he retreats back into his fog of privileged smugness. It is frustrating to watch. Almost as frustrating as Emily's tendency to have a personality like a revolving door.

These episodes weren't bad, but sort of blah to me.

#gilmore girls #rambles

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mattyrambles · 8 years ago

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k e l s e y // Nicholas

Penelope has a kind of boyfriend. She tells me on the sofa of her living room, over ice-cream, True Romance on tv.

“I have a kind of boyfriend,” a dulcet sound, reminiscent of late night whispers in darkened rooms.

I know it’s not Matty, not something I need to ask. I already know who it is, we all do. Something we’ve been waiting on. Tension.

“It’s not Matty.” She says, blunt.

His name his Nicholas and he likes drugs, and he’s older than Matty.

“His name is Nicholas and he likes drugs - and he’s older than Matty.” She says, in hazed sort of rush, while digging out pieces of brownie from the tub.

I don’t know if I should ask about Matty. So I don’t.

“Oh,” is what I manage to drag out instead. It sounds vaguely interested. She smiles - there’s chocolate ice-cream smeared around her mouth. “What kind of drugs?”

That sounds less vague, more interested. I’m surprised, mildly confounded when she tells me. It’s a lot more than weed. A lot more detrimental than weed. Something that would later become apart, a flaw in Penelope’s make up. Thrill seeking, the insubordinate need to seek out danger. Adrenaline.

A sinking sort of static - spirals through me, an emotion I haven’t really come to terms with, come to understand. It happens again - when she starts talking about Nicholas and white powder. The way she talks about it - makes the feeling intensify. Glorifying - the tone of her voice, light behind her eyes makes it seem like something divine, seraphic. The complete antithesis of dangerous.

Love, concern, annoyance, awe, disappointment - it all fizzles, tumbling over each other. The numb feeling, the emotion I can never grasp.

Sapphire - wide, alight. A look of naivety, innocence - paired with the chocolate, her mouth. She looks far to young to be talking about any of this. Penelope.

He’s in a band. A band that’s not really a band anymore. A heavier sound than the boys, more metal. She can’t tell me when their next gig is, only saying I should go with her.

I nod. It’s vague. Knowing I won’t have much choice in the matter.

Her mum arrives home a few minutes before the film ends. It’s a bit past nine, a Saturday. October.

She doesn’t know my name - but still asks if I’ll stay for dinner. Penelope tells her we’re getting a pizza in Matty’s, promptly dragging me from the room. Ice-cream left melting on the coffee table. Chocolate.

It turns out Nicholas’ gig is a week or so later. And of course it’s in bar, that is of course over 18′s.

So, naturally - I end up in Penelope’s bedroom. A commonplace - before most nights out. A touch of genius in her own way - she makes it look easy, to make me look at least five years older in a sophisticated way, not in a ‘I’ve just raided my older sister’s makeup drawer’ kind of way.

“Less is more and all that,” she often mutters, especially when doing my eyes, I think it’s to stop herself from getting carried away. Neutral - is usually the colour palette, shimmers. She always says my eyes should be the focus point, main feature. Hazel - she likes how brown fades to green, depending on what I’m wearing, what kind of makeup she does. Experimentation.

Lips - her main feature, tonight - blood red. I watch - her reflection, dresser mirror, sat on the edge of her bed. A Killers CD humming - When You Were Young. The second it starts - something ignites. It’s kind of a tradition between us, something that reminds me of late summer nights.

Effusion - energy, a different kind. Penelope - hiring the volume, until bass floods through the room, trembles in the floorboards, bounces off the walls, so loud I can feel it reverberating, my chest. Alive.

Giggles, laughs - dancing around her bedroom, half dressed and screaming, shouting along with the lyrics. That cliché you always see in movies, read about in books. But - fuck does it feel good. Alive. That’ something no one likes to admit about clichés, that’s why they’re called that. But - in the end, what wasn’t cliché about us. Barely legal, spending hours making ourselves look older to meet up with a friend’s older boyfriend, sounds familiar right.

But when Penelope leaps onto the bed and screams, “Watch it now, here he comes!” - I don’t think either of us care anymore. The whole facade of trying - trying to be older, trying to be cooler, trying. Thrown away - with the strumming air guitar, reckless headbanging that would no doubt ruin try hard hairstyles. Alive, clichés.

Flushed cheeks, dilated pupils - indigo ebbing, focused on my lips - finishing effects, makeup. Jagged breaths, heartbeats, still echoing. Humming along - Read My Mind. Following - the glints of her necklace, moving against the walls. A present - Matty. My eyes close. Perfume - hers, filtering. Content, alive.

Penelope’s kitchen - mostly all black clothing, mine a skirt, hers a dress, equally as short, tights, fishnets. Clichés. Leather - hanging off my shoulders, Matty’s fur coat off hers.

“Wow, you two could be sisters,” Penelope’s mum, an entertained smile. Kitchen island - crossword puzzles, coffee. She looks tired. She works at the hospital - something I had learned from Matty, as well as her name. Corrina. Greek - like Penelope’s.

Penelope - an eyeroll, her eyes are nearly the same shape, shade as her mums. Deeper - darker blue. “Can you drive us into town?”

Blunt - an edge to her voice. The tv kind of mother/daughter angst. Cliche.

A smile, sickeningly sweet - “Please, Mum?” She leans over the counter then, honey dripping, her voice, smile. Fingers - tucking a curl, behind her ear. Another thing seemingly inherited from the woman sat across from us.

Her mum looks surprised at that - “No chauffeur tonight?”

I don’t know what she means, but Penelope does, a sigh. “Mum, Matty has to set up for the gig and all that, didn’t have time to pick us up, he was running late.”

The lie slips so smoothly, naturally. I struggle not to look, double take. She didn’t know about Nicholas. Or maybe she did, maybe it’s just because Penelope knows she has a soft spot for Matty, the chances of her giving us a lift into town are better. I like to think the latter is true, but I know it’s not. She shrugs it off, picking fluff from her jacket.

Her mum’s car smells like a hospital, no matter how much the green pine air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror tries to mask it. A Fleetwood Mac song - the radio, low. She asks a bit about Matty, the band - Penelope answers in more sounds than words, drawing shapes on the windows, fogged up from the heat. Penelope used to be close to her mum before, really close. Matty told me. Before. Before her dad died, before her older brother left for uni and never came back, at least not the same. He doesn’t like to talk about any of that.

Sapphire concern - a familiar look, but from a different set of eyes. Penelope’s already halfway out of the car, shouts of thanks, see later’s. I hesitate.

Something flickers - darting back to Penelope, who’s telling me to hurry up, back to me. Lingering - a second longer, a smile. Covering, concealing - she tells me to have a good night, to take care of myself, her head tilting back to her daughter outside - “And take care of that one for me, yeah?”

Warmth - a fondness, her voice. I feel sorry for her.

Night air - harsh, cold, Penelope pulling the door open before I can say anything, all but yanking me from the car, only managing to get out a rushed ‘thank you, I will,’ before the door slams. The car - pulling away, a honk of the horn - a goodbye. Penelope’s window - drawings of rectangles, hearts, and Matty’s name. Cliche.

“So fucking annoying,” - giving me her cigarette, fingers - threading through mine, leading the way to the bar. Her hands are cold - they always are. A shift - a certain disconnect, how she treats her mum. Something I want to bring up, but I know I won’t. It feels like it’s going to snow.

Semetary Sex - is the name of Nicholas’ band, spelled with an S instead of C. I kind of hope it’s in relation to Pet Semetary, and not just a try hard attempt to be different, edgy. Either that or it’s an ode to Richard Ramirez. I ask Penelope - she doesn't know, I don’t think she cares either. She just says it’s cool, innit - proper metal.

I roll my eyes, it’s not. It’s cliché metal. From the sound to the name. Thankful - that we’re late, missed half the set. Lights - red, blue, warm. Watching - how they cast shadows, patterns on my skin, Penelope watches the band. I wish she had brought pills, far too sober for this. Everyone else - isn't, maybe that’s why they’re enjoying it so much. Maybe it sounds better when you’re high, more than high, off your face high.

“Emily, Kelsey,” - Penelope, over music. When a lilac haired girl shoves drinks into our hands. Apparently - someone heard my silent plea, wish of sorts. Lilac - the same colour as my new saviors hair, pushed past my lips. Penelope winks, Emily laughs - I presume at my eagerness. I’ve never much thought about first impressions, I suppose it’s something that I should. Cliché.

Red, blue - Emily’s face. Shadows - flicker, waiting for the high to fizzle it’s way through veins, work its way back up to my head. She’s pretty - but not as pretty as Penelope. They share a common ground in dark makeup and wild hair. I think her eyes are green, and she has a lot more tattoos. Older.

Gin - I hate gin.

Eyes - following the lights, blue - fading into indigo, glinting against metal - her nose, lip. A buzz, beginning to spiral - familiar, welcoming. My smile - mirroring hers, for different reasons. Her focus - the frontman, Nicholas. I’ve seen him once or twice before, I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I don’t know if i want to be. Penelope, Emily - their voices sound louder, louder than the music, louder than everything.

Bass - thunders through me, reverberating through bones, echoing through blood, bouncing around the hallows of my chest. I hope it finds an exit soon, consuming. Focus - on Nicolas, on the lights soaking into his skin, and I can hear the blood rushing, his jugular, strained - as if it’s about to tear through skin, melt into the lights, Red.

My vision - hovering over the edge, starting to blur, bounce. But I can still make out the shoulder length dirty blonde hair, oversized flannel and t-shirt. Tonight - his hair paired with his outfit, wananbe Kurt Cobain. Cliché.

Shirt sleeves - rolled up, ink underneath, spiraling down both arms. Metal - glints against his lips, like Penelope. Lips - curving, a smile against the microphone. A giveaway that he’s found her. Penelope. Vision - jumping, blurring - and it’s Matty. It should be Matty. An action reserved for him - a habit at gigs when he found her. It;s all wrong.

Matty - is better looking than him, I think. I think Matty is better than him in every sense. Another cliché.

Warmth - flooding, my skin. And the bass still hasn’t managed to escape my chest yet, shrugging off my jacket. Penelope’s friend asks if I’m okay - and I nod, although I don’t think I am. Familiar - the underwater quality ebbing it’s way into my vision, hearing, and my heart is about to burst from my chest at any second. So it can melt into the lights - red.

Emily is kind of seeing Danny. Penelope tells me. I don’t know who that is. He’s the drummer. Emily informs. I nod - it’s vague, hinting that I care but I don’t. I really don’t

Her pills were different. Stronger than Penelope’s. Everything - louder, piercing. A creeping kind of claustrophobia. Faces - fading into lights, something about the last song, Penelope’s laugh. All swirl together, blood rushing faster, bass thundering harder. Relentless. I want to leave.

I think my glass drops, Penelope’s cigarettes. Bodies, lights - pushing until I find the way we came in. I don’t know how long it takes - time lapsing, everything slowing down. Except for the bass, blood - speeding up. A sickening sort of dizziness, my tongue, mouth dry.

Cold - frost embedding itself into the pavement, taking up residence on windows of cars. Breath - fogs, dancing with cigarette smoke. I watch - blue and red sparks between. Blue and red - cold, burning. A dangerous game. My fingers tremble around the cigarette.

I think it’s snowing now - cold hitting my face, blue melting against red. I’ve always liked snow. I’ve always like cold compared to warmth, heat. It’s quieter.

“Kelly?” - my eyes flicker, despite it not being my name, despite how many times I’ve corrected him. I know his voice - even underwater, when light is rapidly fading. George. Fucking George.

“It’s fucking Kelsey,” - it comes out wrong, doesn’t sound right in my head. It must not sound right to him either - muffled curses, and then - warmth, resurfacing. I realise it’s his hands, holding me up. Slipping - down the wall I was leaning against. A harsh sound - somewhere between fuck and my name. My wrong name. Telling me to look at him, and I laugh. Light - fading more, bass thundering on.

“Fucking Christ - Matty! Matty, it’s Kelsey - I don’t, she’s fucking taken something.”

Footsteps - heavy, more of my name, a different voice. Matty. Nothing - coming through, making sense. Far away noises, fading. But he said it - it replays on loop, in time to the bass, my name. He knows it.

#wow hey look im back

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gulmoregirls · 6 years ago

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the end.

I’m not sure how to describe the series revival. There are so many mixed feelings, it’s just hard to separate and look at them separately.

It was good to see the girls and, in fact, the whole town, after all these years. See how they have changed - or not - and remember their first appearances.

On the other hand, I hated some stuff too. Of course it couldn’t be perfect and please everyone’s expectations, but in my point of view, some complaints are universal in the fandom. Such as Rory Gilmore. She was done wrong! This girl who settles, forgets about her own boyfriend, cheats on him and sleeps with an engaged man from her past does not remind me at all of the Rory Gilmore we first met. People change? Hell yes! But in my head, it didn’t make sense. She was already annoying on the last seasons, the revival should have been an opportunity to fix this.

So yes, I hated the Logan thing. Even for his character. HE deserved better than to cheat, I wish we could remember him as the young man he was on the original series. I also hate how Lane is just there for Rory, how they don’t focus on her or her kids. And also Sookie: we don’t even know her last kid’s name! I also didn’t like how, after everything, Lorelai and Luke still hide things from each other. Hope they outgrow it during the marriage.

Unpopular opinion: the musical wasn’t THAT bad, but the time was indeed misused. Wish we could have seen more of Paris and Jess, who OWNED their eps. (still mad that after 4 years without seeing each other, Jess and Rory don’t hug when he comes back. i mean why they don’t have any good hugs if they are good friends sad hours: open)

Lorelai proposing to Luke - again - was everything. And Kirk’s decoration was wonderful! We stan.

Emily Gilmore. I call that character development. She’s still herself, and that’s obvious, but they managed to show perfectly how the grief and the loss of a very loved one can change and motivate people. The acting was flawless, and the fact that in the end she not only keeps a maid, but also her family, is the kind of change i liked to see. But the best part, by far, was the way she quit the DAR and started working in the area she studied: History.

I don’t even have to thank Jess for motivating Rory and blah blah I think it’s obvious. But Lorelai... and i understand her reasons, but the way she reacted when Rory told her she was writing the book was way too intense. It was her story, yes, but rory’s too. they’re both grown ups and could have handled things better.

Richard ): I cant even put into words the feeling. He will be forever remembered and missed.

Cant talk about my reaction to the final four words because I already knew them, but it was a shook to my mom. She says she wants another season, to know more about this. I mean, if they find a way to make it make sense, I’d appreciate it too. But as long as they don’t, I feel like we already have the answers. It’s the full cicle, the story repeating itself. The fact that Rory talked to Chris about Lorelai raising her alone means she doesn’t want Logan (the obvious father) to give up his marriage and help her. Jess is gonna be her Luke, Lane her Sookie and the only thing different is that Lorelai will be there for her in ways Emily never was. In my mind I don’t need any scenes to know it’s canon.

So that’s it! At least for now.

It was an incredible path that forever changed me and my mom. Now, when we’re watching a movie and it snows, we always look at each other and talk about how it reminds us of Lorelai. And that’s only one example.

Gilmore Girls is not the best and most famous tv show ever, but it’s special and has a space in my heart. Can’t wait to watch it again ❤️

/ Follow me on my regular blog; @ifavtalent

/ Maybe I’ll keep posting and rebloguing stuff about the show here. Lets see!

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metawitches · 5 years ago

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12 Monkeys was a Syfy network series, loosely based on the 1995 Terry Gilliam film of the same name, which ran for 4 seasons/47 episodes, from 2015-2018. It focused on a near future post-plague world and the survivor, James Cole (Aaron Stanford), who is sent back in time from 2043 to the decades before the plague in order to stop the deaths of 7 billion people.

Though the series uses concepts and characters from the film, it’s largely left the plot of the film behind by the end of the pilot. In the original 12 Monkeys film, the Army of the 12 Monkeys is a red herring. In the series, it’s a vast, secret organization which is responsible for the plague. Cole and Katarina Jones (Barbara Sukowa), the scientist who sends him back in time, assemble a time traveling team who oppose the Army of the Twelve Monkeys and their mysterious leader, the Witness, in a war to control the fate of the timeline.

In the future, post-plague world, Katarina Jones and her people find a damaged recording made in 2017, at the height of the pandemic, by Dr Cassandra Railly (Amanda Schull), a CDC virologist who specializes in epidemics. The recording asks “Cole” to hurry and names “Leland Frost” as the originator of the plague. With this starting point and a time machine that barely works, Dr Jones sends James Cole, a barely civilized scavenger, back in time to interview Dr Railly in order to learn further details about the start of the pandemic. His mission is to use the knowledge he gains from Dr Railly to stop the plague virus from being released.

Of course it’s not as simple as that. Time travel isn’t precise enough yet to get Cole to the correct moment in Dr Railly’s timeline. He arrives in 2013, meets kidnaps Dr Railly, figures out that he’s too early for her to have the information he needs, then gets shot by the police in the process of jumping to a later point in her life. When she meets him again in 2015 and sees his fresh bullet wound, 2 years after she watched him receive it, Dr Railly is convinced that Cole is telling the truth. Together, they investigate the origin of the virus, which eventually leads them to Leland Goines (Zeljko Ivanek), code name “Frost”.

As viewers will expect, by the end of the pilot they’ve realized that Goines is only a piece of the puzzle. Information they glean from him, and later from his daughter, Jennifer (Emily Hampshire, brilliantly playing the role originated by Brad Pitt in the film), will draw them deeper into the conspiracy than they could ever imagine. But the Army of the 12 Monkeys is way ahead of them, already expert at time travel and manipulating events to suit their agenda.

While I love this series, the pilot is not one of my favorite episodes. I suggest watching the first several episodes, or even all of season 1, before you make a decision about the show. The plot is intricate and fast-paced, requiring close attention if you want to keep up with all of the clues and mysteries. There are set ups that don’t pay off for 2 or 3 seasons, but all of the dangling threads are addressed by the end of the series. I think it’s a great show to binge watch (over a few weeks) for that reason. If the episodes are spread out over several months, never mind years, it’s difficult to remember all of the tiny details that become important later.

But 12 Monkeys can also simply be watched as a fun romp. It’s one of the best scifi action-adventure series ever, with enough episodes to make it a meaty experience, but not so many that you feel like you’ll never finish. It’s well-made from a technical aspect, having been nominated for and won several cinematography awards. There is an overall series long quest, plus each season has its own arc. The series is full of great stories that range from the pandemic, various future dystopias and alternate realities, time travel, romance, detective noirs, comedy, Cold War spy vs spy, World Wars 1 and 2, mad science experiments, terrorism and revolution, fantasy to an art heist or two.

Some episodes can be viewed as entertaining stand alones, with familiar guest stars such as Christopher Lloyd, Matt Frewer, James Callis and Madeleine Stowe, as well as many faces that are recognizable to genre fans. Jay Karnes’ arc of episodes is a particular favorite of mine.

If you want to examine the episodes more deeply, the show also explores philosophy; the ramifications of scientific and technological progress; the long term effects of political decisions, corporate greed and organized religion; what long term poverty does to people on a personal level and on an organizational/ disorganizational level; and more. 12 Monkeys extensively explores the concepts of cycles, motivations, emotions, and morality. The ideas that are explored rotate through characters, groups and time periods, examining how varying circumstances affect the outcome, and how they don’t.

But this no Ground Hog’s Day- 12 Monkeys is well-written and original entertainment. You have to be paying attention to pick up on all of the social commentary and loops. In the end, it’s a show about love, loyalty, persistence and sacrifice. Showing the relationships between the characters is one of the things it does best. Many types of love are highlighted, including familial, romantic and brotherly. Intense religious devotion and ideology are explored as well. I would say that only same sex love is short changed. It’s hinted at, arguably to the point of queerbaiting and mild homophobia, but never fully expressed.

The characters are likeable, well-cast and acted. They all have chemistry together, including the recurring and guest cast members. Aaron Stanford, Amanda Schull, Barbara Sukowa, Kirk Acevedo, Emily Hampshire, Alisen Down and Todd Stashwick comprise the core cast who circle in and out of relationships with each other for 4 seasons. They are all outstanding as individuals and in their many configurations.

The female characters are complex and fill a variety of roles in the story. The main cast is mostly white, with only a couple of men of color to add diversity in the first season. The show eventually adds women of color later in background/minor recurring roles, but it also drops Kirk Acevedo (José Ramse) as one of the regulars. 12 Monkeys did have a female showrunner, Natalie Chaidez, for season 1 and a few female writers and directors over the course of the series.

Within the series universe, physical, medical and mental disabilities and differences were extensively considered throughout the show’s run. One of the main characters struggles with mental illness, while others have chronic illnesses, addictions, or susceptibility to the plague virus that makes them functionally disabled in the future. There are a variety of conditions that are unique to the 12 Monkeys universe that can be considered gifts or disabilities, depending on the situation, and this is also explored.

The series is character-oriented enough that each main and recurring character has a chance to be fleshed out. Several switch between villains and heroes, then back again. I found the main villain particularly compelling. Not because they’re so out of control or murderous, but because they’re trying so hard to understand themselves and their place in the world, and then to create a world where they can feel free and okay about themselves. This isn’t the usual selfish, OTT megalomaniac. All of the extraordinary actions in 12 Monkeys are motivated by very human reactions.

Because 12 Monkeys is about a global pandemic, there are some eerie similarities that predicted how the real world would change in a few years. Without the comforting distraction of zombies, watching a show in 2020 which depicts the death of 7/8 of the world’s population due a virus, followed by an inevitable break down of civilization, might not be for the faint of heart.

On the other hand, this show is sustained by the characters’ belief that they can find a time or place in the world where they can be happy with the people they love, even if their loved ones are currently lost to them. Throughout the grueling struggles in the series, the characters never give up hope that they can make things better in the long run. They have an amazing amount of grit that carries them through as a group, even when some stumble along the way. That’s a powerful message.

All of the struggles are brought to a big finish in the series finale, which is one of the best I’ve ever seen, also in my Top 5. I cried happy/sad/emotional tears throughout the last 2 or 3 episodes of the series. There’s nothing I would change about the ending. The characters and all of the many dangling plot threads are given closure in a satisfying way, with just a tiny opening left should someone want to revisit the universe again in a spin off. Given the complexity of the story and everything viewers go through with these characters, it was an incredible achievement for the showrunners to also bring the story to such a perfect end.

This show was created by showrunners with a clear vision and an ending in mind from the beginning, which is reflected in the show’s consistency across 4 seasons and in all areas of production. 12 Monkeys was created and executive produced by Terry Matalas and Trevor Fickett. Richard Suckle, Charles Roven, Natalie Chaidez and Jeffrey Reiner were also executive producers. It starred Aaron Stanford as James Cole, Amanda Schull as Cassandra Railly, Kirk Acevedo as José Ramse, Noah Bean as Aaron Marker, Todd Stashwick as Teddy Deacon, Emily Hampshire as Jennifer Goines, Barbara Sukowa as Katarina Jones, Demore Barnes as Marcus Whitley, Alisen Down as Olivia Kirschner, Andrew Gillies as Julian Adler, Tom Noonan as the Tall Man and Brooke Williams as Hannah Jones.

Currently streaming on Hulu.

Images courtesy of Syfy.

12 Monkeys: Review of Entire TV Series-1 of the best scifi shows ever. 4 seasons of action-adventure, time travel, a global pandemic, true love, & a vast conspiracy that spans the globe & all of time + questions the nature of reality. 12 Monkeys was a Syfy network series, loosely based on the 1995 Terry Gilliam film of the same name, which ran for 4 seasons/47 episodes, from 2015-2018.

#12 Monkeys #Aaron Stanford #Amanda Schull #dystopia #Emily Hampshire #Kirk Acevedo #metacrone #plague #post apocalypse #Quick Review #review #SYFY #Time Travel

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