#semmwatchlog

[steely-eyedmissileman]

Supernatural, Ep. 7x10

Death's Door

the more i learn about how supernatural treats death, the more i like it. okay, i don't so much like that the boys can come back forever. but, when death is real, when the show decides to give it the screen time and gravitas it deserves, the writers knock it out of the park every time. from death as a character to the episodes about death, they're all amazing. (the season one episode with julie benz is probably the supernatural episode i've thought about most.)

bobby's death is well done, it's emotional, it's perfect. i don't even mind that he's going to be a ghost (almost definitely). there were consequences and it felt a bit random. it gives the show gravity, consequences. it gives the show meaning.

when characters can live forever, come back whenever they want to, it makes it more difficult to care about anything that happens to them. bobby has proved that the show can change. it can genuinely change. it's been a while since that felt true in this way.

also, i cried.

[steely-eyedmissileman]

The Vampire Diaries, Ep. 2x06

Plan B

i was deeply afraid that this episode would involve some sort of vampire pregnancy. i am very glad to report that that isn't the case.

we begin the episode by watching elena staring at stefan sleeping, which is a nice role-reversal of the normal vampire tropes. elena's worried about katherine finding out that stefan and elena are faking fighting. katherine is, after all, dangerously unstable and prone to acts of violence. then, i get jump scared by nawm's back tattoo because i did not realize we had switched people. katherine's a biter, unsurprisingly. back at the gilberts', stefan is still drinking from elena, but only from her hands. which continues to be so fucking stupid. the parallels between the couples are very overt. katherine tells nawm that she loves him. i don't believe her. does this mean that we should doubt elena when she tells stefan she loves him?

jeremy and damon are teaming up to become a werewolf hunting machine. they're looking for the moonstone. and fighting with each other.

jenna is being the best character ever.

bonnie feels like she's losing elena after caroline. i think both of them share some blame for the distance between them. the problem is that elena's life is increasingly caught up in vampires and bonnie doesn't want to be dragged into that, no matter how inevitable it is. also, why are they always preparing for a party on this fucking show? every episode is preparing for some sort of event!

ht!!!! ht is here!!!!

we're really running with this aztec curse thing, i guess. personally, i wouldn't have done it like this, but whatever. nawm is going to try to remove the werewolf curse with the moonstone. damon says something surprisingly insightful: 'it's the same book that says a werewolf bite kills a vampire. ignoring it would make me an even bigger idiot.' he's so right. he is an idiot.

meanwhile, caroline and her mom are having a heart to heart, which is lovely! they deserve the bonding, since it seems that they've never really done that even before the vampire thing.

bonnie didn't know elena and stefan were pretending to fight, or fighting at all. she's upset by the distance she's put between herself and her best friend, as well as the distance elena thinks bonnie wants. they've both been pulling away. bonnie makes contact with nawm and sees a vision of katherine. thank goodness, we're figuring this out pretty quick.

damon's telling elena about jeremy and generally being weird and squirrelly. damon also dislikes nawm because 'werewolf thing aside, the guy is a surfer.'

now jeremy and tyler are hanging out because jeremy wants the moonstone now. however, tyler gave it to nawm last episode.

damon asks bonnie for help. he says, 'you're gonna play morality police with me right now?' which is very much what bonnie is doing. i love bonnie, i adore her, and i hate to criticize her, but it's time. bonnie believes that she should have moral authority over what happens in mystic falls. the thing is, though, that there is no completely morally right thing to do. it's impossible to make choices that don't harm anyone, and bonnie's moral straitjacket is only preventing her from minimizing harm and protecting her friends. if we apply a standard metaphor from teen supernatural shows, knowledge of the supernatural world and effectively moving within signals adulthood. bonnie's reluctance to enter this world and to work within it signals a desire to remain a child, an inability to grow up. bonnie then searches nawm's head for the moonstone location. it's in a well.

matt is asking about caroline, but mostly whether she's seeing something new. he is annoying me again.

damon is torturing nawm! it's heavy-duty torture and jeremy is helping. i don't know how to feel about that. jeremy reveals that aconite/wolfsbane is vervain for werewolves. damon uses that knowledge to great advantage. it is at this point that i really wish jeremy would leave because this is really intense torture.

meanwhile, stefan has jumped into the well and all the water is vervain. he is a real dumbass for this move, to be honest. elena is lowered into the water to save stefan and there are also snakes in the water, obviously.

nawm reveals that katherine wants to lift the curse. nawm doesn't want to turn into a wolf anymore and katherine's going to help him because she love him (according to nawm). damon is going to kill nawm. nawm wants to die. damon takes some pity on him as shown by, 'you know, i look at you; i see myself. a less dashing, less intelligent version... i've been where you are. but katherine will only rip your heart out. let me do it for her.' then damon uses his signature move, shoving his hand into a person's chest and pulling their heart out.

jenna and ht are having a lovely evening. anytime people are happy on this show, i get very worried.

caroline's mom claims she is going to keep caroline's secret because caroline is so confident and grown up now. caroline, intelligently, doesn't trust this change of heart. i think it may have been genuine, but i don't know that it could last for a very long time. the sheriff's knowledge is a liability for caroline, but more likely for the salvatore brothers. even if the sheriff doesn't betray caroline, she may betray damon and stefan. the moment where caroline erases her mother's memory was so wonderful. my heart broke. caroline loves her mom so much, and her approval means so much. to sacrifice the thing she has wanted most in the world to keep herself safe is so heartbreaking.

damon's provoking katherine after he killed nawm, which is so quintessentially damon that i want to scream. he is so fucking stupid. he declares himself on the phone with 'wrong boytoy,' which was a great move. unfortunately, it produces terrible results.

jenna is under katherine's control and she stabs herself in the stomach. now we're back in the worst hospital in the world. jeremy says, 'she's going to pay' as if he has any ability to make that happen.

elena and stefan break up for real. stefan looks like he got kicked. his face crumpled very amusingly. the song that plays over their breakup is too loud in the mix. this is a consistent problem. damon tries to comfort elena as she's leaving. she refuses it, though. 'it doesn't matter, damon. she won. katherine won.'

katherine is reveling in her victory by compelling matt. she needs another werewolf, and she's going to use matt to activate tyler. why?

[steely-eyedmissileman]

The Vampire Diaries, Ep. 2x01

The Return

very obvious title for this episode. uninspired.

we see the end of last season again, reliving the katherine of it all. this time, we see elena reach john. he tries to warn her about katherine, but katherine is moving too quickly, and is not seen by elena. when elena goes to the hospital, there's some confusion by everyone because jenna and damon thought katherine was elena. damon figures it out first, though. in some ways, he is the stupidest man who has ever lived. in other ways, he is very smart. he says that the gang should 'stake her [katherine], rip her head off, something poetic.' he's still hurt, but he is also insisting that he isn't hurt.

jeremy is fine, thank goddess, and he won't become a vampire. if he keeps being pathetic, i will be forced to care about him.

lydia martin's mom is back and she sucks slightly less now. and, tragically, there's another white man, an uncle mason. he's clearly here to be a werewolf mentor, so he is allowed, barely. i'll call him nawm (not another white man).

john's not fucking dead, unfortunately. elena tells him, 'you see the world with such hatred. it's going to get you killed.' then elena leaves and stefan threatens john's life. i am concerned. he hasn't had any human blood, right?

then, we go to the mayor's wake or whatever. we then see fuck face, who i will be calling tyler from now on (at least until he becomes insufferable again). tyler is bearable now, and he doesn't say the worst possible thing at every moment, so i'll extend him some grace. (i may also need to use the name fuck face for someone worse in the future.) tyler invites katherine into his house, which is annoying. he couldn't possibly know, though. he doesn't even know vampires exist, let alone katherine.

bonnie and damon fight and i see why the girlies ship it. bonnie also finds out about katherine. katherine tries to kill bonnie, but bonnie protects herself.

stefan and katherine go on a little walk and have a conversation. stefan repeatedly insists that he was never in love with katherine and she insists she knows otherwise. stefan is mean to her, tells her to get out of town. she stabs him through the stomach with an iron stick. (i thought that was pretty fun.) the immediate next scene shows elena trying to help heal stefan, which is a lovely parallel.

later, damon and elena talk. damon: 'you think katherine is going to send me off the deep end. i don't need her for that.' blah blah blah elena: 'i'm surprised that you thought i'd kiss you back.' there's more to this conversation, but these are the important bits. katherine is going to send damon off the deep end. i don't know which way he's going to go yet, but he certainly is going to go off the deep end. however, he says that he doesn't need katherine for that. damon is finally admitting to being deeply unstable, but the admission doesn't make me feel any better. it actually makes me feel worse. elena is surprised that damon thinks she would kiss him back. this can mean two things: either she's surprised that damon would think she could love him or she's surprised that damon would think she would betray stefan like that. i think elena mostly meant the second interpretation. it's clear that she likes damon, and i don't think it's a stretch for her to understand that, in different circumstances, she could have fallen for damon instead of stefan. damon, though, certainly takes the first interpretation. he thinks that elena has admitted to being disgusted by the idea of being in love with damon, which is not what elena meant to convey.

tyler and jeremy have a nice bonding moment where they agree that the mayor was a dick. i'm glad that these two are no longer in a contest to see which of them can be a bigger asshole. jeremy also talks to john. we learn that the no-dying ring doesn't save people from natural deaths. john tells jeremy 'you are a gilbert and you've been exposed to this town's darkest secret and with that comes responsibility.' jeremy responds, 'i don't believe in that family legacy stuff.' thank goddess, jeremy, finally some rationality. i do think that knowing about vampires does give some responsibility. you should do your best to keep people alive. however, the idea that knowing about vampires means that you have to spend all your time trying desperately to destroy all of them is deeply flawed.

stefan and damon had a talk shortly after stefan got stabbed (things are out of order in this post because i simply could not keep the chronology of the episode straight). damon wants stefan to fight him because he tried to kiss elena. however, stefan is unwilling to fight. he knows that katherine wants to drive them apart and he is unwilling to play ball. despite damon's desire to take out his aggression, stefan wants to present a united front. it's a noble message, but it won't last. these cracks will need to be healed eventually, and refusing to fight about it isn't solving the problem, it's just putting off the problem for a later date.

tyler breaks a bunch of pictures of his father, scaring his mother (who is kind of a terrible person, so i don't feel that bad). nawm calms him down and tries to figure out what the fuck is going on with tyler. he is not successful.

katherine comes to the salvatore house (ironically, as we were setting up this scene, i was talking about how stupid it was that damon killed the 'uncle' last season because there is no human living in the house and katherine can walk in whenever she wants). katherine and damon fight. why do they keep choking each other? do vampires need to breathe? katherine reveals that she never loved damon, only stefan. it's all about my boy and now damon's a wet rat.

damon reacts to this information in the only logical way, by going to elena's house to watch over her. he's extremely drunk and also quite upset. he kisses elena and she tries to get him away from her but he just won't go. she eventually says that she doesn't love him, only stefan. in almost the exact same words as katherine used. jeremy comes in to try to help his sister and damon kills jeremy. elena is distraught, but realizes that jeremy has the no-dying ring on. damon almost certainly did not notice that he had it, though. this means that damon intentionally tried to murder elena's brother. this is not a good look, damon. elena tells stefan that she hates damon and wants nothing to do with him.

in the last, and most upsetting, scene of the episode, we see caroline in her hospital bed. she was doing badly earlier in the episode, but damon gave her some vampire blood (on bonnie's orders) and she's all better now. katherine comes in, acting like elena, until she tells caroline to give a message to the salvatore brothers: game on. she then smothers caroline with a pillow. caroline still had damon's blood in her system. what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck

[steely-eyedmissileman]

The Vampire Diaries, Ep. 1x22

Founder's Day

it's the season finale, y'all! and the cult about the founders of this town is having its big year end bash! before i watched this episode, i bet damon and elena would kiss in the course of the episode. i don't endorse this, but i do think it will happen.

at the beginning of the episode, we think we are in the past, watching katherine get dressed. however, jenna is dressing elena in period clothing for the parade. at the parade, lydia martin's mom is holding court. stefan says he has no sense of 'damon humor.' elena looks so much like katherine that damon stops talking. this is going to be bad for everyone. i was not talking about jeremy with that last sentence, but he is dressed as a confederate soldier, so things are bad for him in a different way.

stefan reveals to elena that john is her dad. she's now worried that she's going to turn out to be an asshole because her father is an asshole, like that has any chance of happening. she's also upset that jeremy won't talk to her anymore, but it's been like two days since she confessed to him, so he is still reasonably upset. caroline looks beautiful and bonnie's bangs are gone! also the mayor is here. i hope he dies.

damon's being a dick. bonnie should kill him. also, damon wants to prove he's over katherine so bad it makes him look stupid. elena tells damon to back off her and stefan. 'don't make me regret being your friend.' go girl! set boundaries!

let's talk about the philosophical differences between stefan and damon. their biggest disagreement is fundamentally a philosophical one: what does it mean to be a good vampire (read: person)? and the difference in their points of view comes down to intent vs. outcome ethics. they aren't clear cut on either side of the issue, it's more nuanced than a philosophical treaty, but that is still the most salient difference between their worldviews. damon believes in outcomes: he is a good person if he does good things. lately, damon has done a lot of good, not only for people he cares about, but for the world at large. damon has killed vampires, and that has kept people alive. even if he killed vampires for selfish reasons, he has still done good and is thus a good person. now, damon isn't fully on hte side of outcome ethics because he still believes that intent to good is also important. he tries to prove to elena that he's a good person because he wants to be good.

however, stefan fully believes in intent. stefan not only believes that good intentions make one a good person, but that one's intentions must be one hundred percent good in order to qualify. that's why he's so hard on himself. any mental slip-up is yet another piece in the mounting pile of evidence that stefan is an irredeemable asshole who's destined to suffer for all eternity. he does not believe he should be saved because he does not believe he is worth saving, even though he is a perfectly normal person. he is about extreme self-denial because he is so fucking catholic it's hilarious. this is also a good place to talk about names! salvatore shares obvious linguistic roots with salvation and savior (jesus) so both of the brothers are posed as a quasi-christ figures. damon has pretty obvious implications: demon. damon is the bad brother, and that's obvious from his very name. i'll admit that stefan stumped me a bit, but a quick google has told me that stefan comes from the greek 'stephanos' meaning crown. stefan is a christ-figure twice over, in the nominative determinism sense.

now let's go over some plot because there's a fuck ton. we see some new tomb vamps we've definitely never seen before. the device goes off because bonnie didn't cancel the spell. tyler is driving a car with matt and caroline in it when he gets effected by the device and crashes the car (werewolf?!). the mayor goes down too, which is excellent news for my goal of the episode: the mayor dies. john kills jmpsg because he doesn't want jeremy to want to be a vampire. damon's locked in the basement. the mayor is killed. yippee! we see tyler's eyes and that boy's definitely a werewolf. caroline collapses. bonnie controls fire so stefan can save damon. elena is the catalyst for her spell.

then, we get sweet moments. first, elena reassures stefan. 'i love you, stefan. i know you're worried about that,' she says. stefan only somewhat believes her, though. stefan applies these terrible rules of goodness to himself, but he doesn't hold other people to them. damon doesn't have to be a good person to be worth knowing. in fact, it helps that he's not. stefan doesn't think he is good enough for elena (he's doesn't think he's good enough for anything), but he knows that damon is desirable precisely because damon doesn't have all the hangups he has.

next, we see damon and jeremy talking. damon has come to apologize to jeremy for his part in vicki's death (a sign that damon has changed a lot since hte beginning of the season). he also tells jeremy that anna is dead. he offers to take jeremy's memories away but jeremy says that that won't fix the problem. he would still feel 'empty and alone.' jeremy then asks if life is easier without emotions, as a vampire. damon says, 'life sucks either way, jeremy. but, at least if you're a vampire, you don't have to feel bad about it if you don't want to.' jeremy asks if that is what he does. damon replies, 'i did it for a very long time and life was a lot easier.' this is certainly not convincing jeremy not to become a vampire. however, the important point here is the past tense. damon is no longer suppressing his emotions. this begs the question, which jeremy doesn't ask, why did damon stop? i think we all know the answer.

let's talk about this whole not feeling emotions thing. it makes me really uncomfortable. working through emotions is the most important part of growing and developing. without the ability to feel, you cease to be a fully realized person, you cease to be a full character. turning off your emotions furthers the idea of vampirism as a drug. it's a seductive idea, but, in the end, you are in more pain.

next, bonnie issues an ultimatum to stefan: if damon kills anyone else, she will kill him. this is very reasonable, thank you bonnie.

damon and elena have a good heart to heart in front of her house. damon describes his mission to jeremy as a 'failed and feeble attempt at doing the right thing.' he really has changed. they go on to have a good conversation. damon: 'you know, i came to this town wanting to destroy it. tonight, i found myself wanting to protect it. how does that happen? i'm not a hero, elena. i don't do good. it's not in me.' elena: 'maybe it is.' damon: 'nah, it's reserved for my brother, and you...and bonnie...who, even though she has every reason to hate me, still helped stefan save me.' elena: 'why do you sound so surprised?' damon: 'because she did it for you. which means that somewhere along the way, you decided that i was worth saving. and i wanted to thank you for that.' despite what damon says here, i think he does believe that he is a good person, or at least has the capability of becoming one. he has done good tonight, and that good will make him good, at least in his mind. then, the worst thing happens. i'll let my notes take this one 'nononnononononononononononononnon oonnononononononononnonoonnoonnonononononoononon there’s kissing on tv and i hate it.' so damon and elena kiss. then jenna comes outside and invites elena in. she also asks her what she's going which is such a damn good question. you should listen to jenna, she's smarter than you.

then, it is revealed that nina dobrev has been playing katherine in that scene, in a twist i genuinely didn't see coming despite knowing that katherine shows up in season two. this means that elena and damon didn't kiss! this also means that katherine is almost definitely going to kill john! thus ends the first season of the vampire diaries.

[steely-eyedmissileman]

Supernatural, Ep. 5x13

The Song Remains the Same

it's time to talk about free will, baby!

free will is an incredibly important topic on this show, and we'll only barely touch on it. i'll have more and more to say as the show builds a body of thought on the subject. for now, it's a relatively simple discussion. as simple as it gets when we're discussing one of the most important topics in all of humanity. it's a big deal y'all, but not that big on the show yet.

michael says that free will doesn't exist. does it? i think it does, but i think it's hard. in the season 4 finale, chuck says that cas isn't supposed to be in this scene. cas says that he's changing the script. this is a clear indication that there is some free will in the world. chuck is a prophet. if free will doesn't exist, what he sees is what happens. but it isn't, at least in this one instance.

in the wider show, however, free will seems much harder to come by. the season 4 moment is worth bringing up precisely because it is unusual. the supernatural books are prophecies. it is implied, if not outright stated, that everything chuck writes is written before it actually happens. if what chuck writes is what happens, that means that dean and sam, in most cases, don't have free will. there are certainly moments that they do—chuck can't predict everything they do. he doesn't have visions of their every meal or when they go pee. if he did, he wouldn't have any time to write his books. he wouldn't have a life.

so, important actions are not free, but that can be overcome. unimportant actions are free. all this means that when michael says free will doesn't exist, he is wrong. he certainly believes he is right, but he is not. and that's the most important thing.

the other thing worth talking about in this episode is the conversation between john and sam. sam explains that he grew up as a hunter, in the life from the very beginning. john is vehemently against this, insisting that anyone who would do such a thing to a child is evil. to condemn a child, especially a very young child, to this life is to commit the greatest of sins. it's a moment that really explains how much mary meant to john. if she hadn't died in the way she did, sam and dean would not have been raised hunters. even if mary had died, if she had just passed in her sleep or in some mundane way, john would not have done what he did.

sam defends his dad, though. sam says he understands why john did what he did, and that he forgives him. sam recognizes that some things were out of his father's control and he did what he thought was right. even if it did traumatize his children, john kept them alive and well. in a lot of ways, john saved them.

in a lot of ways, john doomed them. michael is certainly right that dean and sam have been bred for this, led to this, groomed to start the apocalypse since millennia before their birth. however, john is not blameless. though he did give his sons many of the tools they needed to survive, he also destroyed their self worth and mental and physical health. john can be, and is, both villain and victim, both doing the best he could and destroying his sons. he kept his sons alive, but at what cost.

it's not all or nothing either. it's not a tremendous stretch to think of ways that john could have raised his sons in the life without driving them so utterly into the dust. there are a lot of points between 'tell them nothing' and 'do what john did.' john winchester did what he thought was best. but he was wrong.

[steely-eyedmissileman]

Supernatural, Ep. 5x12

Swap Meat

i was not expecting to like this episode, but it did grow on me. i always like an episode with minimal death. at first, i found the body swapping annoying, but i liked the way the episode ended. there were enough twists to keep me entertained, and it's always funny to see dean get really confused.

once again, we've got an episode that examines what it means to be a hunter. sam wants to be a hunter, can't imagine any other life, but dean is increasingly interested in 'that apple pie life.' i love to see non-introspective characters introspect for the first time, and that is exactly what dean has going on here. he's learning how to think about himself and his place in the world for the first time. it's actually really wonderful to see. more introspection, please!

[steely-eyedmissileman]

Supernatural, Ep. 5x04

The End

so, i've obviously heard a lot about this episode, as it is widely considered one of the best episodes of the series. and, the people are not wrong. this was actually phenomenal. from start to finish, i was locked in.

the thing i loved most was dean's questioning of zachariah. obviously, this vision of the future can't be trusted because we know zachariah's goal, and that goal is everywhere here. future-dean immediately picks up the same thread and gives the same advice. everyone wants dean to say yes, but what was more clear to me, and to dean, is that he needs to support the people around him. becoming a monster hasn't actually helped all that many people. in fact, it hasn't really helped anyone. he lets cas die. future-dean has convinced himself that the ends justify the means, a thing i told my mom he didn't do on the phone today (fun coincidence!) the beauty of dean over sam to me is that dean is never willing to sacrifice people for the nebulous 'greater good.' he will sacrifice people when he can see how that sacrifice will help (like killing one person to save a town [more likely letting one person die to save a town]), but he's unwilling to kill someone in the hopes that it will make the future better. sam is very willing to make that choice. in fact, dean is unwilling to even sacrifice one person's quality of life for the nebulous greater good (see 4x19 and 4x20). and that's what i love most about him.

i'll also say that i like the central conflict of dean and sam in this season more than last season. last season was so ends justify the means. now though, the conflict is whether it is right to have hope. dean (and hopefully cas) have hope that the future can be better than what is happening right now. sam (and the demons and the angels) do not. i think where lucifer is heading is trying to convince sam that life just isn't worth it. that isn't something you can convince dean of. he knows, deep in his soul, that this life is worth fighting for. he is buffy at the end of 3x10. he is strong.

[steely-eyedmissileman]

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990)

i love this movie. it's surreal in the best way. no one ever knows what's going on and yet everyone knows exactly what will happen. both rosencrantz and guildenstern are simultaneously geniuses and the dumbest men alive. like there is absolutely no reason they should have lived to adulthood. except for the fact that they may not have been alive until the movie started.

now, i know what everyone says, 'characters don't exist outside of the media they're in. they're not people.' but they feel like people. except, in this case, tom stoppard has done literally everything in his power to make sure that you know these two aren't people. in fact, they kind of know they aren't people. that's the unsettling beauty of it. they know Something Is Wrong With Them. but they don't have the words to describe their own situation.

one of the best scenes in all of cinema is the scene where they play questions. they think they've got it all figured out and then hamlet wrings them dry. i love it!

also, the set pieces of rosencrantz/guildenstern (i am of the opinion that their identities should never have been conclusively proven, even in the metatext) discovering the most famous physical concepts of history and then immediately destroying his apparatus is so amazing! this man is A Genius and he is So Stupid!

also tim roth sort of reminds me of oz from buffy the vampire slayer, so that's good too!

[steely-eyedmissileman]

The Vampire Diaries, Ep. 1x07

Haunted

this episode has the same title as a taylor swift song. amazing!

'fuck-face unfortunately has a very nice camaro,' said my girlfriend about the first scene. i did not have a reply as i do not know the breeds of car. then vicki tries to kill fuck-face. unfortunately, she fails.

then, vicki says the most relatable thing that has ever been said on television ever, 'why do i have to pee? i thought i was dead.'

in discussion on the layout of the gilbert house, elena and jeremy share a jack and jill bathroom, which has to be the worst concept ever invented in the world. you think you're safe in the bathroom, but there's this whole other door you have no knowledge about that is also vulnerable. how can i guard myself from two directions?

now everyone's going to the school for a halloween party. how is it halloween already? i swear that all the episodes start right after the one before, so it should have been at most three weeks since the start of school. how are we at the end of october? and these school scenes are terrible: too much flashing, deeply impossible to tell who's who. they are drinking, inside their high school! who allowed this? this entire town is off the rails.

meanwhile, damon is flirting, heavily, with lydia martin's mom, who is dressed in a terrible flapper outfit. he tells her that he can get her vervain. the scene is entirely too long.

back at the high school, vicki's trying to find jeremy, and she's almost definitely going to bite him. matt tries to fight stefan because he's a good big brother who has tragically misunderstood the circumstances. blah blah blah, terrible slow chase through the high school. then, vicki starts drinking from elena, who has pulled her off jeremy. stefan kills vicki rather than watch her drink from elena. in this universe, unlike buffy, vampires do not turn to dust. instead, they turn into dead bodies, horrifically grey dead bodies. stefan summons damon, the cleanup crew. he takes jeremy home.

elena sees matt on his way home. she tells him that he is good brother and then cries alone in her car. this is the saddest scene in the show thus far, and one of few moments where the characters garner actual emotion from me. elena has a huge secret that she cannot tell. and matt will spend the rest of his life wondering what happened to his sister. he will wonder and wonder and wonder, until he begins to forget, until the memory of vicki fades from him as he moves forward in his life.

in my notes, i have written 'vicki literally never had any agency and now she's dead,' which pretty much sums up my thoughts on the situation. she was a pawn, not only of the story, but of many of the characters within the story. none of her decisions ever felt authentic. and very few of them actually felt like decisions. i don't think vicki as a character ever had real interiority. for full clarity, this is in general not a bad thing. not all characters can be fully fledged. some will always have to fade in the background. however, the problem with tvd, at least thus far, is that all the characters (particularly the female characters) seem to lack interiority. also, most of the decisions that shape the plot are made by damon, then by stefan, then by everyone else. so it's hard to really feel for vicki, or most of the characters, because they haven't really done anything. and that sometimes makes the show difficult to watch.

to further illustrate my point, a few comparisons. in the first seven episodes of buffy the vampire slayer, there exists a character named darla. darla does not only appear in those seven episodes, since we see her in a lot of flashbacks, but we do see her die. she is not a major character. in fact, she has little to do or say. however, what she does do and say is incredibly impactful to the show as a whole. her choices have impact, and she does make (some) choices. mostly she's a pawn, moving where she's sent, but the way she chooses to do her errands has a major impact not only on buffy the show but buffy the character.

also in btvs, we have the character of harmony. she is in more than seven episodes by the end of the show, but her part is never very big (it does get bigger). she is cordelia's friend, and mostly exists to support and/or counter cordelia. however, she has a character. it's not a great character, mostly made of stereotypes. but, it's a character nonetheless. it's something. there is something to like and care about in this young blonde girl, despite the fact that she is incidental to the plot. however, her plot irrelevance does not prevent her from making choices. she is making choices all the time. they mostly affect cordelia, but they have an effect! (see bewitched, bothered, and bewildered for clearest examples.)

my final comparison is allison argent from teen wolf. yes, she is the female lead (so this will shed light on elena as well), but she doesn't have a super active part in the first season, certainly the first part in it. she is not capable of making relevant decisions at the beginning of the story because she does not yet know about werewolves. she cannot truly step into the narrative without proper knowledge of the consequences. even when she doesn't know about werewolves, she feels like a real character. we spend those first episodes learning about her as a person, her hopes and dreams, her life. we see her befriend lydia, we see her befriend scott. in those moments, we see glimpses of who she could (and would) become. vicki never got that. elena has gotten precious little of it.

then we go to the gilbert house. i have a brief flare of caring about jeremy. then, we get to see elena make her first big decision! she decides that jeremy's memory should be erased because she doesn't think he can survive this. nowhere in this discussion does anyone suggest asking jeremy if he thinks he can cope or if he would choose to lose his memories. his bodily autonomy is not considered. she first asks stefan to do it, and he says that he is not strong enough and could not guarantee that it would take. then damon offers, and elena accepts. damon goes upstairs to change jeremy's memory and stefan sits down on the bench outside the front door. then 'i have a feeling that elena has just made a decision that has drastically changed how stefan feels about her.' transcribed directly from my notes, i think it sums it up. she has made a decision, a decision not only to change her brother without his consent, but also to trust damon. trusting damon is the one thing that stefan would never do, and i'm sure he still doesn't. surpassing my expectations, elena and stefan do not get together again in this episode.

(i also had on my notes: 'talk about bonnie and her grandma,' but i think i'm going to save that for the next episode because i have already had much to say.)

[steely-eyedmissileman]

The Vampire Diaries, Ep. 1x06

Lost Girls

by some arguments, every girl in this show is a lost girl.

we begin with a historical flashback. i love historical flashbacks (in supernatural shows and otherwise). the best episode of late seasons teen wolf is undoubtedly the bete du gevaudan episode in season five. not only does it bring back crystal reed in a more satisfying role, it takes place entirely in eighteenth century france. many of the best moments of buffy take place in this past. taking the viewer to the past allows us to see how these characters became themselves. seeing the start explains the end.

i was very excited to see the historical flashbacks, and i will talk about the content of them, but i must first say 'holy historical inaccuracy, batman!' no one ever dressed like any of these people. also, stefan is wearing the stupidest coat i've ever seen. it look terrible! it's a bit unnerving how bad it is.

okay, so it's virginia in eighteen sixty four. they were always going to be confederates. which begs the question, why not just make it eighteen forty four or eighteen eighty four or something? why do we have to see damon in a confederate uniform? yeah, he's not very committed to the confederate cause or whatever, but they own slaves, and he's in the army. and i'm supposed to like these people?! i'm supposed to root for the former confederate and slave owner? i'm supposed to want him to get his happy ending. no thank you. and i am fucking sure the show isn't going to discuss this. if they do, it will be unsubtle and terrible. save me, please.

my final flashback thought: katherine has big darla vibes. the scene where she turns stefan is so reminiscent of angel's siring in becoming (part one). i think buffy did it better, but i am always happy to see more unhinged, evil vampire women. let's hope katherine gets to skip at least one darla plot line...

to tie the flashbacks in to the rest of the episode: is katherine a lost girl? i certainly think so. she's lost in a different way than the present day girls on the show. katherine is not a girl who is lost. she has lost being a girl. instead of girl, she is monster. she looks like a girl and should be a girl. however, she is only monster made flesh, evil in a beautiful mask. she has lost girlhood.

this also leads to the realization that stefan's obsession with elena is largely mommy issues. (at least his initial obsession.) damon fits this too. they are both into her because she reminds them of the woman who made them, of their some-kind-of-mother. katherine is not their biological mother, but she is their mother in the ways that matter most after over a century.

now on to the obvious lost girl: vicki. i've had some pretty bad stuff to say about the writing of vicki in previous episodes—that has not changed. vicki continues to have no agency. she is certainly lost, lost in her life. she has nothing to live for (except drugs). she has nothing to do, no one to love. everything she does feels more like a dart thrown at a wall than an intentional choice. she has been kidnapped by damon, she has been drugged by damon. she has been killed by damon. (i have to admit that the conversation immediately before he killed her was wonderful. damon is so out of touch with reality and the ways that humans normally conduct themselves are nearly in a different reality from his actions.) at none of those points did she have anything to do with the decisions being made about her body.

even when she kills news boy (yay!), that's not her doing. she is merely answering the whims of her body, not consciously choosing what to do. this entire plot line is a war over vicki's body, and how to react to her becoming a vampire. the one person who is not consulted on this is vicki. it's a proxy war for damon and stefan, not a place to listen to and help vicki. they don't ask what she wants, don't think about her as a character who can drive her own narrative, just a pawn in their fucked up family games.

the montage of her and damon was deeply funny. for one thing, damon dancing on the ceiling is one of the funniest things i've ever seen in my life. despite reports to the contrary, it absolutely belongs in the same category as 'cocaptains.' also we heard twenty one guns by green day, a song i love! i also knew the song immediately before it, but not the name. luckily my girlfriend could tell me it was enjoy the silence by depeche mode.

before we get to the end of the episode, let's discuss: will i ever care about jeremy even a little bit? signs point to no. like vicki, he is not a character, just a problem for elena to solve. (more on jeremy in the next episode.)

also, fashion: of the two thousand nine variety. stefan is wearing a boring ass blue shirt because he's a boring ass blue shirt kind of guy. it's less flattering than the leather jacket, but it's also more him. why is elena's hair always straighter than a piece of paper? even several hours after she must have done her hair. also why does she wear that horrible leather jacket? it's just so bad!

also, where was bonnie?

now, the last scene: elena breaks up with stefan. then she goes inside and sinks to the floor, sobbing. he stands outside the door, looking constipated sad. sad music that is entirely too loud plays over the sobbing. it somewhat undercuts the mood. i predict they will get back together in ~three episodes. the end.

[steely-eyedmissileman]

The Vampire Diaries, Ep. 1x03

Friday Night Bites

this is the best episode title we've had thus far. i mean, the first episode was essentially untitled, so it's not like we're fighting a real uphill battle on this one. friday night bites is not only my favorite episode title thus far. it's my favorite episode.

there's something about sports in high school supernatural shows that will forever enthrall me. it's the teen wolf of it all. for those not familiar, teen wolf is a show that premiered two years after tvd. it is about a teenage werewolf (not that deep). it is also, for the first twoish seasons, about lacrosse. in late seasons teen wolf, i always wanted to go back to those early seasons. i wanted the major problems in their lives to stop being an increasingly ridiculous series of monsters and implausible scenarios for teenagers and go back to the days where their most pressing problems were, to paraphrase a famous meme, 'the epic highs and lows of high school lacrosse.'

tvd is brushing up against the space that teen wolf occupies here. it is, briefly, setting its sights on those epic highs and lows. and it looks damn good doing it. stefan looks good playing football. he is good at football, i gather. for a moment, this seems like a different show, one where a vampire must avoid the reveal of his identity in increasingly ridiculous farces. i loved this brush at a show. however, we are in a much darker world.

there's blood all over this episode. this should not seem strange, given that's it's a show about vampires, but, as an avid buffy fan, blood always pulls me in. there were strict rules about how much blood buffy could show (see the infamous ice skate decapitation scene—there's very little blood, despite the fact that a man has been decapitated by an ice skate.) tvd is not fighting the same restrictions. instead, we can revel in the blood. we can bathe in it (countess elisabeth bathory!) mr. tanner's death is a spurting of it, followed by a pool. stefan bleeds after the fight. caroline awakens in blood, bites on her neck, the remnants of blood. (she's wearing a baby blue bra now, which is very different from the bright pink of the last episode.) elena cuts herself, almost revealing stefan (vampires have reflections in this universe!) there's blood everywhere, tying the characters together. pulling them apart.

(i found mr. tanner's death somewhat sad, despite the fact that he was an asshole. i was hoping he would be like coach from teen wolf, who was by far the best teen wolf character. and absolutely fucking nuts. in fact, he was the best teen wolf character because he was absolutely fucking nuts.)

in other news, elena organizes a dinner with just her, stefan, and bonnie. because that is the best possible way to make bonnie like stefan. this is what normal people do. the dinner is very awkward until stefan starts talking about how cool he thinks witches are. as he should! and then damon and caroline show up and ruin the party. not caroline's fault though! she is simply being swept along on the tides of damon's desire. damon, meanwhile, is an asshole. he corners elena and tries, again, to cast blame on stefan for past events. he wants her to be uncertain and self-conscious. he wants her to doubt everything stefan says. he wants to poison the waters. he also wants to blatantly flirt with her. he is annoying.

at the end of the episode, stefan resolves to deal with damon, who he now realizes is 'only a monster... who must be stopped.' of course, i disagree. damon is not only a monster. he has emotions. he is trying to find them, but he was clearly affected by what stefan said earlier. he killed mr. tanner because he saw himself through his brother's eyes—a broken man who deserves pity. damon salvatore doesn't want pity, so he made sure he wouldn't get it. however, that doesn't mean he doesn't deserve it or need it. and it sure as hell doesn't mean he's a monster. it means he's a man.

[steely-eyedmissileman]

Annihilation (2018)

i feel rewritten on a cellular level, which is ironic, given the plot of the film. i'd previously read the book (just the first one in the trilogy, which may have been a mistake), but the book didn't scare me or change me the way this film did. let's start with the laundry list of things in this film that set me up to like it, without commentary on their goodness: natalie portman, oscar isaac, tessa thompson, non-linear time, freaky alien stuff, colors, actors playing two different characters distinguished only by hairstyle, duplication, science, physics, etc. now here's the stuff i can say in a sentence or two: this film is visually stunning. the cinnamon topography is excellent. every shot has a reason to be there, every scene builds to the next. the score is unnerving, beautiful, terrifying. it tells you which emotion to feel, in ways that never feel overbearing. in terms of the technical aspects of filmmaking, annihilation has it.

so now let's talk about some interesting stuff. first, this movie has made me realize that i like horror movies (thrillers?). i'm a scaredy cat, and i don't think i could find a single person who knows me that wouldn't agree with that sentiment. but i liked being scared here. we don't have time to delve into the personal growth aspect of that, but i think it's fair to say that this movie scares you for a reason. the terror builds the plot. suffice it to say that this movie wouldn't work without the scariness. which is a deeply weird thing to say because, to make this movie not scary, you'd have to cut at least a quarter of it, probably more. the fear is the point, but without the fear, the emotional content gets lost. the value of the resolution depends on being afraid for lena. without lena's fear, the bit with the eyes at the end is incomprehensible. we're afraid, yes, but afraid for a reason. having said that, i don't like gore. there was too much of it.

moving on, let's talk about aliens. i don't think it will surprise many for me to say i like aliens. looking at the trappings of this blog displays an obsession with space, and that often translates to a fondness for aliens. there are types of aliens i like more though. the less like humans they are, the more i like them. if aliens are the problem in your story, it's a bit passe to frame them like the other side of a human conflict. in general, I'm a little bit over person vs person conflicts. anyone can write about fighting other people. it's a large portion of history. what interests me are person vs self and person vs nature. there's some person vs self here, but it's difficult to portray that in films, particularly in films with action set pieces, scary soundtracks, and other weird shit. person vs nature, though, that's something horror and scifi are both well-suited for. the idea of aliens as unstoppable force and immovable object is great. the aliens (alien?) in annihilation don't have nameable desires. they're just doing what they're doing. aliens gotta alien. life's gotta live. let's bypass entirely the question of whether this force is alive, in any sense of the word. more importantly, the aliens are not explicable in human terms. that's why humanity's quest to understand them is fundamentally doomed. humans are great at applying their own motivations to things, bad at accepting inexplicable or absent motivations. (see solaris by stanislaw lem, among many other works on this topic) the aliens here are not a character, so much as an expression of the callous juggernaut of nature.

now, story structure time! this is a mystery, and it does the thing that all good mysteries should do. it gives you information well before you need it and then prevents you from processing that information until it becomes relevant, at which point the revelation is both new and expected. you can't figure out what the shimmer is doing until tessa thompson (i've forgotten here character's name) tells you. however, you've seen the physical expression of this so many times that her words just give structure to thoughts you've thought for many minutes. mysteries that aren't mysteries. and yet, it's a mystery. we know that the shimmer is alien (the film told us in the first couple minutes) but none of the characters do. thus, the mystery the characters are experiencing and the mystery the viewers are experiencing are two different things. they both work, more or less.

but what interests me most about this film is the telos of it all. telos is a greek word that literally translates to end (according to google). ancient greek philosophers used it to describe the ultimate desire of an object (humans can have a variety of teloses, acorns have one: to grow into an oak tree). in literary criticism, teleological is used to talk about the extent to which a story is built to reach its own end. annihilation gives itself a telos within the first half hour of the movie: find out what's in the lighthouse. lighthouses, in themselves, have an implicit telos. the end of a lighthouse is the light at the top. the lighthouse is a structure that invites you to ascend, to discover its secrets by moving upward. the film points us upwards in another way. we know that this phenomenon is alien and it fell to earth. the answer to the characters' questions is undeniably upward. from above, the aliens fell. the characters must move inward to the lighthouse and then upwards.

now, those of you who remember the end of this film have a significant question here. no one goes up the lighthouse. we see the stairs, but lena never tries to climb them. instead, we reach the lighthouse and go downward. the film denies its own telos, contributing to the feeling of wrongness about the circumstances themselves. annihilation set up an ending point (particularly for those who have read the book) and then proceeded to deny the viewer the chance to reach that ending point. we will never know what was at the top of the lighthouse because that wasn't the point actually. the point was below. the point was within. lena and kane both confront their own mirrors. because the aliens weren't the goal of the story (they were a tool for the story to use to bring about its actual goal). the goal is that final scene, the reconciliation of kane and lena. it's a story about people dressed up in the trappings of aliens. that's good scifi, folks, a story about humans. if a story isn't about people, why write it? why watch it?

[steely-eyedmissileman]

The Vampire Diaries, Ep. 1x02

The Night of the Comet

i was very excited about this episode because it seems like it will be about space at least a little bit. and i love space! also, comets are often prophetic omens. and i love divination. it's my favorite of the magicks.

firstly, though, let's talk about the opening scene. like the opening of episode one, we begin with the murder of a (white, heterosexual) couple. the man is killed first and then the woman is afraid, cowering in the space that the man has just left. she is afraid because she doesn't know where he is. men are both predators and protectors, victims and violence. their absence is unnerving for multiple reasons. they could be hurt, they could be about to hurt you. we know, or think we know, that damon is the monster in the dark. a man stalking a man. a man killing a man. the woman in the tent is just watching, passive, side piece to the main action—murder. of course, she dies too. in this episode, the death comes after she claims that she was right about the rain. but the genre aware viewer will know that it's not rain. it's blood. she steps outside, she screams, and she's dead. i loved this scene. it's creepy and creeping, slow and methodical, claustrophobic and horribly open. it's scary because they're trapped in a tent. it's scary because a tent is such scant protection from the world. the trees protect them from prying eyes, which is good if you want to have sex in the woods, as they presumably do, but bad if you don't want to get horrifically murdered.

let's talk about vicki, who is, for those who are ever so slightly confused (me), elena's ex-boyfriend's sister (cannot determine birth order yet), who elena's brother is in love with and presumably lost his virginity to, and she is dating the ex-boyfriend's brother, who is a real piece of work. vicki got bitten by damon in the last episode and dramatically tells her brother she was bitten by a vampire before falling asleep in the hospital. i was very excited about this. maybe she will tell me the lore. she will not. vicki's purpose at this point is to be stupid, to have things happen to her, and to make the worst possible romantic decisions in the world. she fucked her fifteen year old drug dealer and he's the better option of her current romantic prospects!

thus far, vicki is mostly a pawn for men to fight over. she is certainly a toy in damon and stefan's game (who wants to be a murderer). she is also a toy in jeremy and fuck-face's (more commonly known as tyler) game (who wants to have a desperate girl attach her self worth to you). she is also a pawn to her brother, matt, who mostly wants her to just stop doing the dumbest shit in the whole wide world. but he wants that for himself as well as her. her actions reflect on him, in this terrible world where everyone is marred by the actions of their family. she is his damon and he is begging her to stop. (isn't it funny how close damon is to demon? isn't that just such a funny coincidence and not intentional writing?)

meanwhile, vicki is embroiled in a much darker family drama. in a nearly incomprehensible scene, stefan and damon fight over vicki's body (she is awake, but not for the purposes of the scene. she has become essentially an object.) it's clear that the real fight is something deeper, though it is not clear what the real fight is. there's a lot of talk about making stefan drink, about reversing his 'lifestyle.' (shades of homophobia, now that i type that out.) but stefan refuses, and damon doesn't kill vicki or let her tell on stefan because this seems to be the kind of show where we don't kill main characters or fuck them completely over (at least in the second episode). and then vicki's fine and there are no questions about why she was on the roof. because... she was high... at work.....????

meanwhile, elena is trying to talk herself out of dating stefan. which is a good idea because he is a vampire and his brother is a monster. but we already know she won't. because what's the fucking point of having a show with vampires in it if they aren't having sex with the heroine? la la la back and forth back and forth. bonnie is very team stefan which is funny because she then has a vision after touching his hand and leaves his team as fast as she can. anyway, elena goes to his house and they make out to gravity by sara bareilles because it's two thousand nine. meanwhile, caroline and damon are having sex. she is wearing a neon pink bra. this will be relevant in the next episode.

(also, earlier, there was this whole bit where elena talks to damon and it was weird and i don't remember it and i have more interesting things to say about elena and damon in the next episode so we'll go through it there.)

[steely-eyedmissileman]

The Vampire Diaries, Ep. 1x01

Pilot

they did not name the pilot, but that's okay, most shows don't. however, sometimes pilot works for a show, sometimes it means something more than 'we are in hollywood and they didn't want us to name this thing.' for instance, in one of the (many) soft reboots of doctor who in recent years, for season 10, the final season of peter capaldi as the twelfth doctor, the first episode is called the pilot. the pilot is a character in that story, has a meaning. there is no pilot in the vampire diaries. from the very beginning, this show is pilot-less. it does not seem like any of the characters are driving the plot. unlike similar shows, like teen wolf and buffy the vampire slayer, there is not a choice in this episode that makes it clear that our protagonist(s) have agency over the things that happen to them. there is no 'body in the woods,' body of water or otherwise. there is no rush towards the graveyard after a girl we barely know. there is just a girl and her sometimes ridiculously overwrought diary.

i want to take a moment to discuss my history with vampires. simply put, i'm obsessed. i watched buffy the vampire slayer in high school and it fundamentally change me (for better and worse). i think about vampires a lot. i talk about vampires a lot. my classmates are not always very receptive to this as we are in grad school for physics and most physicists do not talk about vampires loudly in the office every day for months. i am more interesting than most physicists (i like to think.) i will compare the vampire diaries to buffy many times. i think many of those times will make tvd look bad. i have also seen teen wolf. teen wolf changed me too. when i watched the first episode of tvd, i thought 'he's so derek hale' about damon. then i realized that derek hale is so damon. this will not be the last time this happens, i am sure.

i have not seen the vampire diaries before. i have multiple friends who are obsessed with it, so it's not like i know nothing, but i'm coming to this from a position of familiarity with vampires, not these vampires. my immediate goal is to learn the rules of this particular set. it is not as easy as i would like.

full disclosure here: i watched this episode about two weeks ago. i just read a summary of what happens in this episode specifically because, unlike buffy, like teen wolf, tvd thus far exists in an unbroken stream in my mind. individual episodes are not distinct from each other, not units of meaning, simply dependent clauses in the runon sentence of this season. but we'll come back to that at the end of the season, probably.

dear god, so much stuff happens in this episode. i'm not going to talk about all of it. we are introduced to elena, who should have a cooler last name than gilbert. she is played by nina dobrev who is quite hot. she dresses like i did in elementary school (i was in elementary school when this episode premiered.) i find it very unnerving. we are then introduced to an absolute glut of characters who are hard to distinguish between and also incredibly difficult to remember (especially the men). no one looks the age they theoretically are. notably in the fucking revolving door of characters who pop out of the woodwork to assault me with their two thousand nine fashion, we meet bonnie. i like bonnie. she has prophetic visions and will become a witch. i was told i would like bonnie before i started watching this show. my best friend was correct. i love bonnie. i am more interested in her than anyone else. nevertheless, she, like all the other teenage characters, behaves in a way that i'm pretty sure american high schoolers didn't, even in two thousand nine. why was there such a big blowout party in the middle of the fucking woods with beautiful lanterns everywhere. (props to tvd for being able to light scenes well, even when they are in in-universe darkness. it is much better than some more recent shows i know.)

we also meet two vampires. they are obviously vampires, even if i didn't know about stefan and damon before just by virtue of having been a teenage girl when this show was coming out (to reconcile this time statement with earlier statements about my age, this show ran for eight seasons.) both of them are incredibly creepy. the only difference in how i felt about them after the pilot is that one of them is creepy and hasn't bitten a teenage girl in this episode and one of them is creepy and has bitten a teenage girl in this episode. stefan is currently my favorite (the non-biter. i like my 'good' vampires to do consensual biting.) i still not care for stefan all that much.

[steely-eyedmissileman]

The Witcher, Ep. 3x01

i really don't know how to sum up my thoughts on this episode. the wonderful thing about supernatural is that i usually know what to say about an episode because i have some idea of the direction the story is going. it's easy to comment on the little important things when you know the broad strokes of a season. i'm sure i'll come to a point eventually where i have an intuition of where season three is going and why we are going there. but i don't yet, which is its own kind of fascinating.

i love to pick apart a story, and this is a story with tons of threads. there are so many to follow that it's hard to follow any of them. i'll start down several paths and then leave it there, i think. that's the smart thing to do. don't play your hand too early.

jaskier's motivations confuse me. i may have missed something last season, but i don't know why he is on the mage's payroll. what does he get out of this arrangement? because it doesn't seem like him to enter a partnership that he isn't benefitting from. (on the other hand, he is still friends with geralt, so this judgment may not hold water.)

geralt's motivations are just as clear and opaque as they've always been. he wants to protect ciri, but beyond that, it's the wilderness.

ciri is finally getting on the page of her destiny. her path has always been clear, it's just a notion of whether she can succeed or not.

i know that yennefer has great faith in tissaia and aretuza, but i don't trust either of them. the mages have too many frying pans on too many fires for me to be comfortable putting anything in either of them, let alone my most important asset.

and francesca has let herself be pulled too many different directions. she has too many goals and the elves are being fractured under her leadership. something's got to give. i hope it is not her.

[steely-eyedmissileman]

The Mandalorian, Ep. 3x07

i'm finally caught up!

the beauty of the destroyed mandalore is so breathtaking. i love the views of the great forge and the city under the rubble. it's so beautiful and tragic. i love a tragedy, and the visual remnants of a once great civilization are one of the best visual tragedies. also, so much of this episode felt like a post-apocalyptic movie. which just goes to prove my on-going point that star wars can have every genre inside it. you can do a star wars rom-com (arguably done), western (done), horror (done in novels), fantasy, workplace comedy, etc, etc, etc. this is an excellent post-apocalyptic moment.

also, poor din. man's just trying his best to raise a child and then the kid gets a droid body that he can use to wreak havoc much more efficiently. but this is a great episode for grogu! he gets to annoy his dad, and then he becomes the only person who can step into a fight. him holding back the fighting mandalorians and saying no over and over again is so wonderful.

also, the ending! as the mandalorians were chasing the stormtroopers down the hallway thing, i was yelling at the tv, 'don't be like than!' it's never a good idea to follow stormtroopers down a hallway. that's your life lesson for the week!