#just rewatched the christmas episode where they get trapped in the buy more

[sevens-evan]

chuck is such a FUCKING good show. holy shit

[therewatcher-blog]

Introduction to The Re-Watcher: First Up, Gilmore Girls

Recently, I’ve accepted something about myself. I love re-watching television. I don’t think this is unique. In fact a good chunk of the streaming business model is predicated on the fact that most of us like what we already know. I started my third? fourth? rewatch of Gilmore Girls at the beginning of the month, and decided that rather than just mindlessly blazing through these rewatches of shows with the random tweet reinforcing the viewpoints I’ve always had, I thought I’d try to be a more active viewer. It will never be the first time again. I will always know what is going to happen to the characters in my beloved shows that merit this amount of hours devoted. So instead, I decided that each time I rewatch a show, I will choose a topic and focus on it in a mini-write up for each episode. Not only will this stop me from watching too quickly, I hope it will help me in forming skills writing about TV and maybe I’ll learn something new about the shows I love as I watch with a specific goal in mind.

 We’ll start with Gilmore Girls. The topic I’ve chosen is, The Best Underrated Scene. I want to focus on the scenes that don’t get necessarily quoted as much or that catch me off guard in my rewatch with their depth, brilliance, and significance. Amy Sherman-Palladino has finally gotten some awards and recognition with her newest show, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, but her talent was evident from the beginning and her cast in Gilmore Girls certainly did everything they could to take it to the next level. I want to look beyond the big fights and big cries and find those nuggets that offer depth to even the more cartoonish of Stars Hollow characters or reveal an important character trait and dynamic in a subtle way. Let’s see how this goes!

 1x01 – Pilot

 Pilots are difficult. I know this from watching many and from hearing screenwriters talk about it. Comedy is particularly difficult, it seems. With the exception of Veep, Cheers, and maybe Arrested Development, I have a hard time thinking of comedy pilots that operate at the same level of the show in its prime. Gilmore Girls was marketed as a typical WB teen drama, but also, it’s really a smart show about family and class. It’s a comedy, a family drama, a small town fantasy. It’s so many things and the pilot has a LOT of exposition to get through in as smooth a way as possible for a show whose premise is deceptively simple. As such, finding a truly great and understated scene that isn’t bogged down by introducing our big dynamics and long arcs for the season and series (Lorelai and Rory, Lorelai and her parents, Lorelai and Luke, Rory and Dean, the Inn, Stars Hollow, etc, etc, etc.) is difficult.

 With all of this in mind, my first pick for Best Underrated Scene is maybe a bit of cheat since all the scenes in this that are really worth talking about are all a bit iconic.

Lorelai Asks Her Parents for Money

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njZo0lvgCsY

This is almost halfway through the episode. It’s the turning point and the whole premise for the show. While Lorelai and Rory are interesting and fun and I enjoy their dynamic, Lorelai and her parents (Emily and Richard) will always steal the episode away with their interplay. The strain between these two generations is painted so beautifully and delicately from the beginning. The transition to this sequence comes from a picture that Lorelai keeps on her mantelpiece of herself as a young child in front of her parent’s mansion that seems dark and cold compared to the warm, tchotchke–riddled home that Lorelai has built for herself. Lorelai is looking at this picture as she realizes her only option to pay for Rory’s new fancy school is to borrow money from her parents. We cross-fade from this small token of Lorelai’s childhood to the present-day real deal. But even the fact that Lorelai has this picture is telling. For every bad thing she has to say about her upbringing and her parents, a part of her still holds ties. As the series continues we will see in which ways Lorelai is really a lot like her parents, but for now this maybe is just a slight hint that nothing has ever been as black and white as Lorelai likes to act like it was.

Lorelai waits with her coffee, next to her Jeep (which obviously stands out against the backdrop of her parents house…”HELLO! I’m different from you!” Lorelai loves to scream with all of her purchases). She is gulping down her pride, finding the courage to go in and do what she never in her lifetime wanted to do. Cut to Emily opening the door, clearly surprised to see her daughter who only lives forty minutes away. “Is it Easter already?�� she jokes. While we constantly have instances throughout the show of Emily and Richard not understanding Lorelai’s jokes, we can see from this first interaction that she probably got much of her wit from them. Emily is hilarious. She is maybe a bit harsher in her sarcasm, a bit drier than Lorelai’s hyper-joking mannerisms, but it is there and we see it right away. I love even more so that Richard makes the same joke when he first discovers Lorelai there unexpectedly (“What is it, Christmas already?”). Emily and Richard’s marriage has it’s ups and downs in the show, but they are solidly made for each other in many ways. They have a partnership that has lasted for decades and it shows in the way they at times seem to have one mind.

 As Lorelai and Emily make their way to the living room, making awkward chitchat we are greeted with maybe the longest pause in the episode yet. Pauses are a big deal in the famously wordy Palladino scripts.  It speaks volumes how little these women seem to be able to say to each other. “I’m sure I told you,” Lorelai tells her mother answering in a bit more detail about her business class. “Well if you’re sure, than you must have,” Emily bites back sarcastically. We get no answer to whether Lorelai did or not (my guess is that she didn’t), but either way we see so clearly the miscommunications that bubble up between these two who have so little faith in the other’s ability to understand the other. They don’t make this one a big fight, but it is part of the fight we will see later in the episode. Emily resents that Lorelai shuts her out of her life. Lorelai resents her mother’s controlling nature which causes her to avoid telling Emily anything rather than risk criticism or involvement in her choices. It’s a vicious cycle. Every bit of Emily’s dialogue is dripping with sardonic disbelief as she explains to Richard that Lorelai decided to just “drop in to see us” after her “business class” that “she told us about it, dear, remember?” “No.” Richard demures. He doesn’t play the same games that Emily and Lorelai do with each other. No, he doesn’t remember. This could be because he doesn’t listen, but it could also be a point in the column for the theory that Lorelai never told them.

 Just this small part is enough to make this scene practically perfect. We got the back story before this for the most part in a scene between Lorelai and Sookie, but so far this has given us so much of the relationship between Lorelai and her parents (and a bit into the relationship between Richard and Emily). It soars in it’s ability to shed exposition and get to the root of what this dynamic has been for the last 16 years. It’s even better than the first Friday Night Dinner that happens towards the end of this episode, in my opinion. But now we have the discussion of money and the loan. Gilmore Girls at times handles the class dynamics between Lorelai and her parents so well it approaches Mad Men in what it is saying about whiteness and power and inherited wealth and those that reject it. Other times it is a magical place where money and finances make no sense. But that’s down the line. Here we have the simple act of a child asking their parents for money. Something many people have done with various degrees of injured pride. For some it’s easy, for Lorelai it is immensely difficult. Her saving grace is that it is for Rory, not for her, that she asks. It is interesting to note, that while Lorelai is adverse to the moneyed class her parents are in and the trappings of the white, wealthy elite she still wants her kid to have those advantages that she turned down by having Rory and leaving her parents. She still wants Harvard. She still wants Chilton. She is asking her parents for the money to buy her and Rory’s way back into the world she left behind. Of course she believes that it won’t have to affect their quaint little life in Stars Hollow, but it is interesting nonetheless that this is what she wants for her child and what she believes Rory deserves and needs in order to be what Rory wants to be.

 Before Lorelai can even ask, Richard repeats two times “You need money.” Again, Richard doesn’t mess around and he doesn’t play games (at least not when it comes to calling his daughter out). He doesn’t need to hear her explanation, but Lorelai won’t leave until she gives it and says what she came to say in the way she wants to say it. It’s for Rory, for Chilton, she explains. Emily’s eyes brighten and she notes how close the school is to her house. “So…you need money,” Richard again chimes in, cutting through the bullshit. “Yes,” Lorelai has to admit. But it’s Rory, she repeats, and she will pay them back. “I don’t ask for favors, you know that.” (Lorelai’s anthem) “Oh yes, we know,” Emily admits.  Emily’s voice is rife with bitterness and sadness. She wants to help her daughter, but she’s not allowed to. “I’ll get the check book,” Richard says. It is a sweet moment that is cut short by Emily’s proposal, but sweet regardless. Despite their past and hurt feelings, there is love between these people. Richard does not hesitate and he knows that Emily agrees. Rory binds them all together and certainly they are willing to do this for her, but they are obviously just as willing to do this for Lorelai. 

 And here we have Emily’s proposal that sets up the backbone for this generational family drama. Emily wants to be actively involved in Lorelai and Rory’s lives. She wants dinner once a week and a weekly phone call in exchange for the loan. Kelly Bishop is honestly so pitch perfect in everything in this show. She has that pose and demeanor here that seems almost villainous. It’s why on first watch you might want to always side with Lorelai. Emily is controlling and privileged and she has many faults, but honestly she just loves her daughter and granddaughter and sees an opportunity to force a connection that Lorelai would have denied her for eternity if she had not jumped on it. There is a softness in this. She doesn’t comment on Lorelai’s inability to provide this schooling for Rory herself, or honestly do anything to make her feel bad (in this moment) about her life’s choices. She just wants to be a part of that life now.  Of course it gets messier the more we go into this episode and the series, but for now that’s all there is. We see again Lorelai’s pride, “I don’t want her [Rory] to know that I borrowed money from you.” But that’s not the only fault of Lorelai’s we see in this scene. We see also her stubbornness when it comes to her parents and her oftentimes inability and unwillingness to see the ways they demonstrate their love and their longing for her. She brushes past her mom’s request and agrees to the weekly dinners, but she is annoyed by it. She seems to see it only as her mother controlling her (of course it is this too, but as is often the case with the best scenes in this show people’s motives are both-and. Emily is controlling and vulnerable in this one). She doesn’t see that longing to connect as the simple love of a mother for her daughter that it is.

 And that’s that. So much is revealed besides the plot in this elegantly written and brilliantly acted scene. It is simple and yet I could probably go on about how much this one scene says about this show as a whole. So much is revealed and set up for the series. Of all the iconic scenes in this episode, this one stands above the others and for that reason I think it is underrated.

[one-of-us-blog]

Smile (Doctor Who S10E02)

Today Drew is forced to watch and recap “Smile”, the second episode of Doctor Who’s tenth series. Bill’s itching to get her feet wet as the Doctor’s new companion, and the Doctor’s bored of sitting around and playing professor. It’s off to the future with them, only they don’t find themselves in any sort of utopia. The Doctor says they’re supposed to be on a colony, but where are all the colonists? And what are those little robots so darned happy about?

Keep reading to find out…

Eli, happy Thanksgiving! I know it’s not Christmas yet, but your “Mrs. George Devereaux” recap was a real gift! That’s actually one of my favorite episodes, so I was really relieved to hear you ended up enjoying it. I agree that it feels pretty crazy while you’re watching it the first time, but that twist at the end makes it all worth it. I’ve rewatched it a few times, and even knowing the twist in advance I still always wind up having a lot of fun with it. Reading your reaction to the ending made me really nostalgic for the first time I watched the episode, and I’m really glad I got to relive it through your recap. That’s enough of this sappy stuff, though, because I’ve got a holiday special to deliver! Granted, this episode doesn’t actually have anything to do with Thanksgiving, but still!

Buttocks tight!

Episode directed by Lawrence Gough and written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce

The Doctor is giving Bill a rundown on how the TARDIS works, and his history with it, when they’re interrupted by Nardole. Nardole is intent on making sure the Doctor sticks to his oath of not leaving Earth unless it’s an emergency, and the Doctor assures him he’s not going anywhere. He sends Nardole off to get make some tea and promises to take the TARDIS back up to his office in the university. However, given that the TARDIS is a time machine and all, there’s a lot the Doctor and his new companion can get up to between here and the Doctor’s office before Nardole has his tea ready. Bill asks to see the future, because she wants to see if it’s happy, and off they go. In said future, a woman named Kessia and her smiling robot are headed back home to their colony. Another woman, Goodthing, tells her that the robots, known as the Vardy, as causing trouble. Kessia ignores her warnings, and inside Goodthing tells her that a whole bunch of people are dead. Kessia freaks out, and the Vardy, who seem to prefer everyone to be happy, sick a swarm of Microbots on her and she’s killed. Goodthing does her best to keep smiling, but the Vardy isn’t buying and goes after her, too.

After the credits, the Doctor and Bill arrive on the planet, and the Doctor explains that this is one of the first human colonies in space. The place is supposed to be pretty nice, and the rumor is that they’ve managed to crack the secret of human happiness. Bill’s full of questions; she wants to know why the Doctor never fixed the chameleon circuit on the TARDIS, figuring it must be because he likes it looking like an old timey police box, and she wants to know why he made an oath not to leave Earth. He says he owes her an explanation, but then proceeds to tell her nothing at all. A thing happened, and as a result he made a promise to stay on Earth and guard that mysterious vault. He tries to get Bill to focus on the wonderous architecture surrounding them, but they’re distracted by a swarm of tiny little Vardy flying above them.

The larger, emoji-faced robot are watching these new arrivals, and promptly fit them with an upgrade. They’re each fitted with a neural communication device that allows them to communicate with each other semi-telepathically. Bill notices that this colony seems pretty abandoned, but then they’re greeted by one of the emoji-faced robots. The Doctor explains that these robots are an interface which allows them to communicate with the tiny little Vardy. The interface gives them badges which function like high-tech mood rings which display how they’re feeling, whether they like it or not. The Doctor makes a point to act like an old curmudgeon and complain about those damn millennials and their love of emojis, and the Vardy interface sets up a meal for them. The Doctor’s not happy about all the questions that are piling up for him; everything here is set up for people, but there aren’t any people here. Plus, he just doesn’t get this crowdfunding craze that all the young people go gaga over.

Thanks to an offhand comment by Bill, the Doctor figures out that the Vardy arrived here before any of the colonists in order to terraform the planet and get the colony all set for the future human occupants. Bill’s having a hard time looking past the fact that the Doctor’s got two hearts, which she just found out about. Man, it’s been a while since we’ve got to see a new companion find out all this stuff! Bill wonders what they should get up to since there aren’t any people here to meet, but the Doctor finds a locket which definitely doesn’t belong to a Vardy. He keeps it to himself, though, and he and Bill take in a farm the Vardy are tending to. Bill’s thrilled at all of this, but the Doctor admits that he doesn’t really believe his theory about the lack of people here being due to the Vardy doing all the work before they arrive. There should be somebody here, if for no other reason than to make sure everything’s going according to plan and that the Vardy aren’t gorging themselves on avocado toast or killing the diamond industry. Bill consults his mood badge, and it confirms that he hasn’t been able to convince himself that’s what’s going on.

Bill’s curious about the dust that the Vardy are spraying over the crops, and the Doctor figures out it’s a mineral fertilizer made from the bones of the people the Vardy have killed. The Doctor’s able to get a psychic vibe off one of the skulls, and knows it belonged to the woman who owned the necklace he found. Now that they know the Vardy have killed the colony’s set-up crew before the colonists could get here, they do the only logical thing they can do: take a selfie, and then run. Despite the Vardy interfaces being very slow, there are a lot of them, and Bill and the Doctor are surrounded. The Doctor comes to the same conclusion that Goodthing did earlier; as long as they keep smiling, the Vardy will think they’re happy and leave them alone. The Vardy want humans to be happy, but the Doctor figures something went wrong while the colony was getting ready for its future occupants, and the set-up crew stopped being happy. The Vardy couldn’t cope with that, so they killed them. As you do.

Bill and the Doctor force some smiles, share some stories on Instagram and try to fake their way past the interfaces. The interfaces aren’t quite buying the act, but the two organics manage to make it outside. They run into more interfaces, though, and they figure out that Bill and the Doctor aren’t really happy. A swarm of Vardy and an army of interfaces follow them, but once Bill and the Doctor make it outside the robots seem to forget about them and go about their robo-duties. Back at the TARDIS, Bill’s ready to hightail it out of there, but the Doctor says that the actual colonists are going to be arriving at some point, and he can’t allow this death trap of a colony to be waiting for them. He’s gonna blow it up, by gummit, somehow or another. Bill agrees that someone has to do something, but why does it have to be the Doctor? The Doctor tells her to go drink a salted caramel latte or something while he runs back to the colony to save the day. She reflects on the message on the door of the TARDIS, promising to provide information and assistance, and it gives her pause.

Inside the colony, the Doctor opens up the locket he found and realizes the woman killed by the Vardy had a son. He manages to fake a smile when he runs into an interface, then gets surprised by Bill arriving. She tells him she’s figured him out; he doesn’t call anyone for help because he’s the one who helps others. He does his best to deny this, but Bill’s not buying. He quickly changes the subject, revealing to her that the Vardy are comprising the entire structure around them, meaning they’re surrounded by, like, a whole bunch of those murderous little bots. The two of them set off to find a real wall, one that isn’t made of tiny bots, and along the way tells Bill a little about Vikings. He says the set-up crew had to arrive in a ship, and since they haven’t seen a ship anywhere nearby he figures they must have turned the ship into living quarters when they landed on the planet and stayed in it while the Vardy where building the colony. They find entrance to the crew’s old ship, and the Vardy are alerted as they make their way inside.

They find an analog map, and the Doctor tells Bill to stay there and guide him as he makes his way to the engine room. He’s going to use the ship’s engine to blow this joint to kingdom come, and Bill tells him how to get to it. The ship is aware of their presence, though, and them being there is causing it to wake up. It’s also pissing off the Vardy, who are back in murder mode in no time flat. The Doctor finds the engine and says it should be a piece of cake to blow up, just as Bill realized he managed to memorize the map as soon as he looked at it and only had her stay behind to keep her out of trouble. She heads after him, but after taking a short break so she can refuse to answer any phone calls she gets, finds an old, dead woman with one of the mood sensors stuck to her forehead. The Vardy interfaces manage to get inside the old ship as Bill looks through a book laying near the woman. The book contains a condensed history of humanity, and to her horror Bill realizes that people were coming to this colony because Earth had been evacuated.

The Doctor manages to get the engine ready to blow and Bill sets off to help him, but she stops as she runs into a young boy suddenly standing in front of her. A Vardy interface sneaks up on the Doctor, but he manages to bean it with a wrench and knock it off the platform they’re both on. It almost manages to pull him down with it, but he’s able to send it back to hell as Bill arrives with the boy. Turns out this plan isn’t quite so simple; the colonists are already here, you see, and they’ve been sleeping in hibernation pods all this time. The Doctor realizes that the ship he’s been trying to blow up is actually the colony ship, and them being here inadvertently caused the ship’s computer to release all the humans from their pods.

The boy Bill found wanders off as more and more people crawl out of their pods. The Doctor orders the humans to stay near their pods while he tries to come up with a plan. He says he needs to know why the Vardy went nuts and killed everyone in the first place so he can prevent it from happening again. Bill takes him to the chamber with the dead woman in it, and use the book to figure out what led to the deaths of the set-up crew. Since this woman hasn’t been turned into fertilizer, the Doctor figures that she died of natural causes. However, her death caused her crewmembers to feel grief. The Vardy were designed to make people happy, and they didn’t know how to cope with people mourning for a dead friend. They treated grief like a virus, and killed anyone afflicted by it. The more people they killed, the more people grieved, and the cycle continued. Over the course of a day, the entire set-up crew was killed.

Bill wonders what’s going to happen when the newly awakened colonists meet the Vardy. The Doctor shows him the locket he found, inside of which is a picture of the (now absent) boy she met before. The Vardy have killed his mother, and the Doctor says it’s likely that a lot of other colonists had friends or family members working on the set-up crew. Once they know the crew is dead, they’ll grieve and the Vardy will go on the attack again. The Doctor decides that the opposite of a massacre is a lecture, so he assembles the colonists and explains the Vardy predicament. An interface approaches the boy and presents him with a badge to monitor his emotions. The colonists react poorly to the Doctor’s lecture, and decide to destroy the Vardy interfaces. The mob runs into the boy, flanked on both sides by interfaces. Despite the hitherto clearly hostile behavior of the Vardy and their interfaces, Bill and the Doctor try to convince the colonists that the robots aren’t their enemies. The boy gets upset because he can’t find his mom, and the interfaces go into murder mode. The colonists shoot one of them, causing the other one to feel rage and send in a fleet of tiny Vardy to kill the colonists.

The Doctor realizes that the Vardy are self-aware and therefore have become their own species. He pulls a desperate, last-ditch move and zaps the destroyed interface with his screwdriver. The Doctor recounts the tale of the magic haddock, who misinterpreted the wishes a farmer made with tragic results. Just as the farmer used his third wish to undo his first two wishes, the Doctor has reset the Vardy so that they’re no longer bound to their original programming. The Vardy are no longer subservient to humans, and consider this their colony and themselves the indigenous species of this planet. The colonists are still pissed about their dead friends, but the Doctor tells them to make peace with the Vardy as the robots are the only ones who know how to run this colony and there are a lot more of them than there are humans. The Vardy are willing to make peace with their new (to them) human friends, so we’ll see how that goes.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor says whether or not the peace lasts is up to the humans and the Vardy. Bill reflects on his role in the universe, flying around from place to place, saving the day and establishing peace. The Doctor insists he’s just a dude, but Bill’s not buying. He lands the TARDIS back where they started at the moment they left, only not so much. As they emerge from the TARDIS, they find that they’re in London, not Bristol, and it’s a lot more wintery now than it was when they left.

The End

~~~~~

What a relief this one was! I’ve tried my best to avoid spoilers for episodes I haven’t gotten to yet, but even so I’ve managed to hear a lot of derision about the emoji robot episode. Much like Star Trek’s space hippie episode, or the episode of NYPD Blue where we got to see David Caruso’s ass or the episode of Pokémon that gave all those kids seizures, there’s a certain level of infamy that’s sprouted up around this episode. I had a great deal of trepidation as I sat down to watch this one, so I was very pleasantly surprised by the end result! I can see why some people would roll their eyes at the whole emoji thing, but honestly that stops even feeling like a thing after a while. It was fun to see Bill get into the thick of things, and I’m really liking the dynamic between her and the Doctor. After seeing such a friendly dynamic between the Doctor and Amy/Rory for so long, then a vaguely romantic and then friendly dynamic between him and Clara, it’s really interesting to see him take on the role of Bill’s tutor and her become someone he can teach the mysterious of time and space to. I will say the shift in Bill and the Doctor’s thinking, where they decided that they needed to make peace between the humans and Vardy instead of just blowing the Vardy up, sort of came out of nowhere, but in the end I liked that the humans and robots will live together as equals and (hopefully) friends on their new colony.

I give “Smile” QQQQ on the Five Q Scale.

We’ll see you again soon as Eli does his best to get back in the game with his recap of the next episode of The Golden Girls, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun… Before They Die”, and then I’ll post my recap of the next episode of Doctor Who, “Thin Ice”.

Until then, as always, thank you for reading, thank you for emoting and thank you for being One of Us!

[sadbiittchh]

𝕝𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕤𝕚𝕔𝕜 𝕗𝕖𝕓𝕦𝕒𝕣𝕪 𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕧𝕚𝕖𝕨

✦ 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥’𝕤 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕗𝕒𝕧𝕠𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕖 𝕧𝕒𝕝𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕖’𝕤 𝕕𝕒𝕪 𝕞𝕖𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕪?  

i think my favorite memories are actually elementary school valentine’s parties, everyone had so much fun making valentine’s cards and we’d just hang out and eat snacks and it was great, we should go back to that. 

✦ 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕚𝕤 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕕𝕚𝕕 𝕠𝕟𝕖 𝕧𝕒𝕝𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕖’𝕤 𝕕𝕒𝕪 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕪𝕠𝕦’𝕝𝕝 𝕟𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕣 𝕕𝕠 𝕒𝕘𝕒𝕚𝕟?    

i hate going out to eat on valentine’s day. everyone else is trying to do the exact same thing, and there’s nothing more romantic than being squished between two other couples in a restaurant that’s so loud you can’t hear your date.

✦ 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕚𝕤 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕒 𝕠�� 𝕒 𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕗𝕖𝕔𝕥 𝕧𝕒𝕝𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕖’𝕤 𝕕𝕒𝕪?   

i think it’s really just going to depend on who you’re celebrating with, if you’re celebrating with a significant other then i think it should kind of be representative of who you are as a couple, but i don’t think you need to be in a relationship to have a good valentines day either. if you just wanna celebrate platonic love with your friends then you can still have a perfect valentines day doing that. 

✦ 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕚𝕤 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕗𝕒𝕧𝕠𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕖 𝕧𝕒𝕝𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕖’𝕤 𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕕𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟?   

valentine’s cards. i still buy a pack of scooby doo valentines every year to give to friends and family and stuff because i love how dumb they are, the way to my heart is through scooby doo and a good pun. 

✦ 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕚𝕤 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕗𝕒𝕧𝕠𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕖 𝕧𝕒𝕝𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕖’𝕤 𝕔𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕪?    

i’m gonna have to go with the classic candy hearts. i really can’t even think of other candy that they sell for valentines day other than maybe expensive chocolate? i did do fun dip valentines one year i guess those were pretty great. 

✦ 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥’𝕤 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕗𝕒𝕧𝕠𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕖 𝕣𝕠𝕞𝕒𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕞𝕠𝕧𝕚𝕖? 

i love romantic movies but there’s a few i rewatch all the time. 10 things i hate about you, baz luhrmann’s romeo + juliet, princess bride, dirty dancing and the holiday.  

✦ 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥’𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕟𝕦𝕞𝕓𝕖𝕣 𝕠𝕟𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕜 𝕞𝕒𝕜𝕖𝕤 𝕒 𝕣𝕖𝕝𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕙𝕚𝕡 𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕥?   

i think it’s really important that you’re able to grow together, because they might be the perfect person for you in one stage of your life but maybe not in another and vice versa. also the thing i’m the worst at which is communication. if you can’t communicate then the relationship is 100% not going to last.

✦ 𝕥𝕖𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕤 𝕒𝕓𝕠𝕦𝕥 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕨𝕠𝕣𝕤𝕥 𝕓𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕜𝕦𝕡? 

my worst breakup was actually my best. i met him when i was seventeen and he was my first really serious relationship, the kind where you experience a lot of firsts. he was the first person i had ever lived with and we had moved in together when i was working at jack in the box so i really didn’t have a lot of financial independence, all my money at that point was going to rent and stuff so i think i was a little too dependent on him and he took advantage of that. it wasn’t a good relationship at all but it took me a long time to see that. he made me feel crazy and like i was nothing without him, and i had to take a step back and look at it from a perspective that wasn’t my own to see how bad it really was. i wrote a song that pulled me out of it and i kicked that fucker out of my house the next day and it was the best thing i’ve ever done for myself. 

✦ 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕘𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖 𝕗𝕖𝕖𝕝𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕞𝕠𝕤𝕥 𝕣𝕠𝕞𝕒𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕔 𝕨𝕙𝕖𝕟 𝕕𝕠𝕟𝕖 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕪𝕠𝕦?   

anything that you know really came from a genuine place. it doesn’t have to be like a big romantic gesture it could just be that they got you coffee because they were thinking of you, or they saw a meme that made them think of you, i guess i just like to be thought of. there’s nothing more romantic than occupying a permanent place in someone else’s mind i think it shows they’re really invested in you and that’s something that’s really important to me. 

✦ 𝕕𝕠 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕒𝕟𝕪 𝕣𝕠𝕞𝕒𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕔 𝕡𝕒𝕤𝕥 𝕞𝕖𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 ��𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝕤𝕠 𝕘𝕠𝕠𝕕 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕪𝕠𝕦’𝕕 𝕣𝕖𝕝𝕚𝕧𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕞 𝕚𝕗 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕕? 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕒𝕣𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕪?    

it’s actually a really recent memory but i still think about it all the time. matt and i hadn’t been seeing each other for very long but he had gotten me hooked on him right before he left for tour, you know that feeling when you just start seeing someone and you just want to like, be around them all the time? but we were both supposed to be in new york at the same time and i don’t think we had even been apart that long but i missed him a lot. i got to new york before he did, so when he rolled up at like three o’clock in the morning and got into bed we were both sleepy and soft and we both fell asleep right away but it was so nice. 

✦ 𝕤𝕠 𝕪𝕠𝕦’𝕣𝕖 𝕕𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕞𝕒𝕥𝕥 𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕞𝕡𝕚𝕠𝕟, 𝕙𝕠𝕨 𝕝𝕠𝕟𝕘 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕘𝕦𝕪𝕤 𝕓𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕥𝕠𝕘𝕖𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣 𝕟𝕠𝕨?  

we never officially decided we were together he just started calling me his girlfriend one day so i never know exactly how to answer this question, but our first date was in october so i’m gonna say four months. 

✦ 𝕙𝕠𝕨 𝕕𝕚𝕕 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕞𝕖𝕖𝕥?    

i slid into his dms with this really lame line about the board game “don’t break the ice” and he said we needed to play it and 9 months later we still haven’t played it. 

✦ 𝕕𝕚𝕕 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕘𝕖𝕥 𝕥𝕠𝕘𝕖𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣 𝕣𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 𝕒𝕨𝕒𝕪 𝕠𝕣 𝕨𝕒𝕤 𝕚𝕥 𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕒 𝕤𝕝𝕠𝕨 𝕓𝕦𝕣𝕟 𝕥𝕪𝕡𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘?  

we were friends for a really long time before we started dating but i definitely flirted with him on and off for six months and he didn’t pick up on any of it. 

✦ 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕕𝕠 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕜 𝕚𝕟𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕪 𝕒𝕥𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕥𝕖𝕕 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕥𝕠 𝕙𝕚𝕞?   

i really don’t remember what pushed me to start talking to him but i know what made me want to keep talking to him. i told him to buy my favorite game, skyrim, not thinking he’d do it and he did and then we would talk about it and trade memes and i’d go over to watch him play and make fun of him always losing his horse and that was kind of the foundation of our friendship.

✦ 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕨𝕒𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝕗𝕣𝕠𝕞 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕗𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕤, 𝕗𝕒𝕞𝕚𝕝𝕪, 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕗𝕒𝕟𝕤 𝕨𝕙𝕖𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕪 𝕗𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕 𝕠𝕦𝕥 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕨𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝕥𝕠𝕘𝕖𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣?    

my family hasn’t met him yet but for christmas every year my mom gets everyone matching christmas pyjamas to wear on christmas eve and she sent him a pair and we took a picture in our matching pyjamas and she loved it so i think that’s her seal of approval. 

✦ 𝕨𝕙𝕖𝕟 𝕨𝕒𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕤𝕥 𝕥𝕚𝕞𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕜𝕟𝕖𝕨 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕨𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝕚𝕟 𝕝𝕠𝕧𝕖 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕙𝕚𝕞? 

i still don’t know when the exact moment was because i didn’t let myself actually feel it for a while, i really didn’t know why he would want to be with me when he could literally be with anyone in the world and it all kind of hit me at the same time when he told me he loved me the first time. i do remember the moment i knew i like liked him though. he sent me this selfie and he was wearing this track jacket and sweat pants and a bright red beret and he had this huge zit on his nose that he named otto and i remember there were a lot of thirst traps that day and they did nothing for me but when he sent me that picture it was like that scene in the grinch where he’s like “help me… i’m feeling”. 

✦ 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕒𝕣𝕖 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕞𝕠𝕤𝕥 𝕞𝕖𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕓𝕝𝕖 𝕞𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕤 𝕪𝕠𝕦’𝕧𝕖 𝕙𝕒𝕕 𝕥𝕠𝕘𝕖𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣?   

there were two days last month where we just looked at dogs all day, walking around little tokyo holding his hand all day, that time we were in vegas and i wasn’t 21 and couldn’t do anything so he let me drag him to an arcade. there are a lot more but i think i wanna keep those ones for me.  

✦ 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕨𝕒𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕙𝕒𝕣𝕕𝕖𝕤𝕥 𝕥𝕚𝕞𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦’𝕧𝕖 𝕙𝕒𝕕 𝕥𝕠 𝕘𝕠 𝕥𝕙𝕣𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙 𝕥𝕠𝕘𝕖𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕗𝕒𝕣?   

the first time i had an episode with him around was rough, i didn’t really communicate things very well and nothing was his fault, there were a lot of things outside our relationship that triggered it and i was terrible and somehow he still loves me after all that. the lesson learned there was that i should have trusted him enough to talk about it and i shouldn’t have been ashamed of my mental health. also the first time he told me he loved me i cried and now he’s always worried i’m gonna cry. 

✦ 𝕕𝕠 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕒𝕟𝕪 𝕓𝕚𝕘 𝕧𝕒𝕝𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕖’𝕤 𝕕𝕒𝕪 𝕡𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕤?   

matt’s birthday is on valentine’s day and we’re gonna be on a boat so we’re celebrating a little early, his favorite place is tokyo so i took him to little tokyo and tried to recreate all his favorite tokyo experiences. i’m still looking into how to get a birthday cake onto a cruise ship though for the actual day so i can embarrass him with singing. 

✦ 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕨𝕖𝕒𝕜𝕟𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕤 𝕕𝕠 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕤𝕖𝕖 𝕚𝕟 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕣𝕖𝕝𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕙𝕚𝕡? 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕤𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕟𝕘𝕥𝕙𝕤 𝕕𝕠 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕤𝕖𝕖?   

i know a big weakness is my inability to communicate but i’m working on getting better at it and not being so self conscious about sharing my feelings. i think what makes us work best is that he really is just my best friend and we can just nap or lay on the floor playing video games and we’re cool. he’s also way more willing to eat my cooking than he should be and i think that’s definitely a strength. 

✦ 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕕𝕠 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕗𝕚𝕟𝕕 𝕞𝕠𝕤𝕥 𝕒𝕥𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕖 𝕒𝕓𝕠𝕦𝕥 𝕙𝕚𝕞?    

literally everything. i’m always gassing him up, but obviously i think he’s really cute. he has these freckles that actually make me melt and his smile can literally turn my day around, like it could melt the cold it’s so bright and it might be my favorite thing in the world. his presence is also really calming, like he’s the kind of person who can just make you feel comfortable without even trying but he’s also really fun and weird and creative. he also has this confidence that i really admire, and you can tell he genuinely cares about people. he’s just a really good person and it’s so attractive i don’t know what to do with myself sometimes. 

✦ 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕒𝕣𝕖 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕘𝕠𝕒𝕝𝕤 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕣𝕖𝕝𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕙𝕚𝕡 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖𝕟’𝕥 𝕒𝕔𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕙𝕖𝕕 𝕪𝕖𝕥? 

i’m always telling him to stop being so mean to my favorite person, which is him, because he can be really hard on himself and i think my number one goal is to help him see how amazing he is and that he actually believes it. 

✦ 𝕕𝕠 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕓𝕖𝕝𝕚𝕖𝕧𝕖 𝕚𝕟 𝕤𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕞𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕤? 𝕕𝕠 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕜 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕪’𝕣𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕤𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕞𝕒𝕥𝕖?    

i don’t know if i believe in soulmates in the traditional way people think of them, that there’s one person out there that’s perfect for you and only you. i don’t think everyone has just one soulmate, and i don’t think soulmates really have to be romantic. this might get a little spiritual but i do think there are souls that are kind of drawn to each other and are meant to find each other and i do think my soul was meant to find his, it actually happened at a time when i didn’t know it yet, but i really needed it. 

✦ 𝕒𝕣𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕪 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕒𝕝 𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕤𝕠𝕟?  

absolutely, he is my person and i know i need him in my life. i’ve told him before that if he ever didn’t want to be in a relationship with me anymore that i still wanna be his friend, because he’s my best friend and i don’t know what i’d do without him in my life.