#the town in maine was giving twin peaks vibes i loved it

[theseance1968]

"a Klaus that Claire likes" 🥺🥺💕💔💟😭🥺💞🥺🥺💖💔❤️‍🩹🥺🥺🥺

[mejomonster]

So first of all, Dark Shadows is on archive.org library (so is Xena Warrior Princess)

Second of all, i started it. Getting gothic horror vibes. Victoria Winters is a perfect name. Ive never seen a soap opera older than the 90s so im curious of this writing steucture. Im also used to shows older than 90s having few character arcs or long term plots, as ive only seen old sci fi shows that were pretty much self contained stories with at most small background character arcs. So curious if the plot will be more involved since its long running and can manage to have the time for it. It gives off Twin Peaks energy so i think maybe twin peaks was a kind of evolution of this type of show - drama, gothic, surreal, unsettling, mysterious small town full of secrets.

[theshortwavemystery]

NOTES FROM WATCHING THE FIRST EPISODE OF “RIVERDALE”

1. Riverdale is a bizarre town that seems cut off from everywhere else, temporally straddled between an eternal 1950’s—more accurately a 1950’s stuck in an endless repetitive loop. But it takes place in the late 2010’s. Even so, the decor in the town is vintage, and the characters recognize this. The activities of the kids are vintage. the internet and cell phones exists, millennials are named, but it doesn’t seem to matter. something is very weird here, as if all these people are ghosts. all the stock scenarios and characters are here, which is to be expected for a teen drama, but there’s an exactness, a literalism, that is too perfect to be unintentional. 2. what is this world? it seems to be a staging of a certain inertia in american culture, which changes in superficial ways—technology, new TV shows, music new taboos—but all if this somehow serves to reinforce, or justify a return to the “leave it to beaver” universe. 3. any reminder that these are modern kids—their frequent references to contemporary TV shows like Mad Men for instance—only serve to increase the spooky vibe. everyone in this town seems to be low key crazy, making the show feel like twin peaks but written by what’s left of your local shopping mall. 4. the show’s script is constantly making fun of itself to the point that we seem directed by it to avoid taking the drama seriously—it is perhaps a smoke screen, like the haze of the presumably northwestern woods that seem to surround the town (it is filmed in Vancouver). the gay best friend is named as the gay best friend, establishing him as a living archaism—i felt bad for him after this. 5. plot points are shown to be cliche—the fake lesbian kiss, once scandalous in the 2000’s, is brushed off as false and an erasure of real lesbians. the script fools us, indicating it means to aim for more intelligent territory. and yet, veronica’s confrontation with cheryl, her tough girl speech, where she reveals her vulnerability as a rich girl fallen from grace but also stands up for betty—this goes without an ironic comment, even thought it is also a cliche, but a more contemporary oneq—the “mic drop” moment. so we see how the naming of particular cliches, employed ironically, serves to hide others the show is earnestly employing. 6. veronica says she needs to be redeemed for her father’s crimes, how is that fair. 7. archie’s desire to make music seems like a stand-in for a recognition that he’s gay. they cover this up by making his character straight but i don’t buy it. because his music itself clearly doesn’t matter. this is similar to the dead poets society where the kid kills himself obviously because he’s gay and he’s afraid his dad will disown him. why? nobody kills themselves merely because their dad shames them for doing theater. the reason is simple: theater is already such a humiliating and abject thing to love that you have to be totally shameless to even start doing it. once you become a theater kid your dad has lost you. in the second episode, the gay friend of betty reveals that he agrees with me here. 8. archie is the decentered center of the show, not a particularly interesting character so much as a holding container for female desire/fantasy. he’s dumb, cute boy who’s kind of artistic and kind of jockish, but the complex psychology belongs to betty, veronica, cheryl so far—all plotting, calculating characters, whereas archie just wants to enjoy himself and be liked—and to be fair, these shallow needs get him in plenty of trouble, but they’re simple needs. but this is always what archie was, even as a comic book character. he’s kicked around like a football like a more jocular charlie brown. 9. archie’s problem is identiied as the problem of "all millenial men", who need to be told what they want—but this is really everyone’s problem. what makes the girls/women different is that they don’t care that they don’t know what they want—they just act on feelings, and try to make the world match up with the feelings. archie thinks he ought to know what he wants, and then do it. but the women, whose desires as women are not even encouraged from day one, are free from this tedious problem. this is why archie is the one who has to be the moral authority regarding his mutual witness to the murder with the hot teacher, while the hot teacher is only afraid people will find out she fucked a student. veronica brushes off archie’s identity crisis as a false dilemma, critiqueing the categories of “jock” and “artist” and insisting he can be both, and anyway who gives a fuck? but this whimsy and indifference toward boundaries can get devious with veronica, who is betty’s friend one second and hooking up with archie the next. 10. although women are still often denied full subjectivity in literature, in real life it’s always been the opposite—men tend to forego personality development in favor of power or the illusion of power, and end up more shallow, rigid and fragile, more prone to the whims of their entourage. they never really have to become anything in particular--masculinity functions like a hive mind. if male relationships superficially appear to have less friction, it is only because men are brutally conformist and end up with little personal to argue about, usually coalescing around some common interest and not prone to discussing their respective inner lives--except, occasionally to defensively deny their existence. so-called "sensitive" men only do this in more devious ways--it's obvious that jughead is the most devious character we've met so far. women, in contrast, are each a hive mind unto themselves, compelled to construct an array of selves, carefully deploying them to get by in a world structured by the male gaze and booby-trapped by the machinations of other women. this complexity is of course terrifying to men who either submit to it as a fetish or suppress it— and one way of accomplishing that suppression in literature is to create stories where the men are supposedly complex and the women supposedly shallow and dependent wholly on men--the typical gaslight job of the mediocre male writer. this is clearly a show that, whatever its other blindnesses, is not going to let that happen. 11. we are told through veronica that archie is more dangerous than he looks. why doesn’t the show want us to figure this out ourselves? this feels ironic on the writers' parts, another winking use of cliche. 12. everyone’s problem is a cliche—archie’s father pressures him to do sports to get into college, he wants to do something else. betty’s mom is controlling and betty is a people pleaser who already in the first episode explodes about how perfect she has to be all the time and can’t she just do something for herself for once? 13. the music is annoying and cloying but it also grounds the contemporary nature of the show, because of its peculiar sense of melodrama, which is endemic to this time period, and the neoliberal overvaluing of the self. 14. the video on this show seems filtered into oblivion, or photoshopped or otherwise conspicuously treated. just like the self-awareness of the script, it contributes to the sense of unreality. 15. more self-aware cliches: archie and betty grew up next door to each other—they’re stuck in a feedback loop of being the ____ next door. cheryl describes herself as the queen on stage at the dance. 16. classic literature is referenced oddly—betty loves toni morrison, even though by the end of the episode, we have been introduced to zero black main characters. is this self-aware critique of white fetishization of blackness? and there's also thornton wilder’s “our town”… veronica suggests that the high school is part of the lost epilogue from “our town”—wilder also presented a transparently fake and timeless town to stage his existentialist story in, one in which horrifyingly, dead people remain in a liminal space between death and life, vainly trying to communicate with the living they can still see. 17. every celebrity/media reference is bizarre. a thin veneer draped over an unchanging reality. "Riverdale" seems not so much about the dark underbelly of suburbia, but about the idea of suburbia is the dark underbelly itself. a murder has to happen because someone has to bring death here, lest everyone become paralyzed by their immortality. 18. archie’s “making a deal” with the hot teacher is way more erotic than anything he’ll do with b or v… why is this happening at the Dance lol, unless we are to read it this way? they have shared the most precious thing in this town, death... why does archie love the teacher and toy with his peers? because they can't give him death. clearly archie is blackmailing the hot teacher into continuing the relationship, but he does so seemingly unaware of his own motives. he lives in the age of youtube tutorials, he doesn't need music instruction. and here is another paradox of the modern gender binary--men think they don't know what they want, but unconsciously they know what they want--they receive their instructions from the Borg Queen of masculinity and pursue it ruthlessly, whereas women end up thinking they know exactly what they want, but unconsciously they don't, because it's fractured amongst their afformentioned hive of selves. This is why both traditonally-socialized genders are completely right in saying the other is full of shit. 19. “we have no past” goes the song josie sings—and maybe this is america’s problem—the past is empty, the past of ordinary suburbia, interrupted only occasionally by wars perhaps but untouched by cultural progress—and because we have no past we can have no present, only an empty recycling of the same void, the same problems, the same catharses—new episodes of the same show. we live forever at the cost of never changing. is riverdale a socially critical prestige drama LARPing in the ironic costume of a CW teen soap??? 20. all the characters are trapped in a carnival haunted house ride. the theme: adolescence. 21. cheryl’s party—brett kavanaugh could have been at this party 22. jughead is the narrator, and i like the idea that this is all in jughead’s head, which is why it’s so unstuck in time aesthetically, so stylized and knowing. and it's no wonder he's the most popular character, because he represents the writers themselves, and fandom is to have an illusion of a privileged relationship not so much with the characters, but with the property's creators--and to be hyperinvested and, if necessary, hypercritical of their choices. 23. the gay hookup is interrupted by the presence of a corpse—a classic trope in teen horror but it’s interesting to see it with a gay pair. it’s as if in the clash between the perpetual 1950’s aura and the contemporary references and morality, a gruesome surplus appears, the specter of homophobia. which, incidentally is a corpse of a man guilty of a sexual act that is still considered taboo—incest. a corpse symbolizes the death of innocence for a hetero couple, but for a queer couple it can’t just be that—it also must evoke the threat of actual murder. which makes this a very different moment. 24. jughead says riverdale has changed—but it has only been revealed to be what it always was—"full of shadows and secrets", as jughead puts it. he must be putting us on—this place is way creepier than Sunnydale, and that place had actual demons… but this is often what a change amounts to—not the addition of a new trait, but the acceptance of one that was already there. 25. jason blossom is a ginger like archie and he therefore seems tied to archie in a unique way. he dies on july 4th, given some fuel to my reading as a show with something to say about america’s self-image. 26. all the parents are single parents or in strained, unhappy marriages in this town. this us realistic, but that should tip us off: what in the show has been realistic so far? debuting in january 2017, "Riverdale" seems retrospectively shaped by the trump era-a teen drama not about the undead, as buffy was, but a teen drama which is itself undead, fitting for a president who also wished to raise the dead, and also what had never lived. riverdale’s preservation of the old “great” america is superficial—indoors, a very contemporary isolation and alienation reign, in contrast even to the desperation of actual 50’s suburbia. 27. is everyone dead already in this show? is riverdale purgatory? is that what explains its being unstuck in time and drenched in fog? but i’ve been to small towns in the northwest that look like riverdale—nothing has been updated since 1954. in order to seem fake, riverdale has to be even faker that real life, even more uncanny—and that’s a tall order.

[thefatfeministwitch]

Monday’s Witch is tranquil and white Tuesday’s Witch wields fire and might Wednesday’s Witch is wacky but wise Thursday’s Witch keeps their eye on the prize Friday’s Witch mixes coconut and lime Saturday’s Witch can bend space and time but the Witch who works on Sunna’s day will always bring bright blessings their way

Everyday, as you’re getting ready to leave for work or hit the town with your friends or look for that perfect new job, you take stock of the general vibe of the day so you know how to approach it. You stick your head out the window to check the weather, notice how quick the second hand on your clock is moving, and try to read the dispositions of those you meet on the street. Every day has it’s own energy and when you walk out the door in the morning (or the afternoon, no judgements!) as a good little witch, it’s best to have your magickal arsenal backing you up!

The word “correspondences” doesn’t sound hella interesting or witchy, so don’t think of this as a post about magickal daily correspondences, think of this as your witchy weather report for the days of the week! Much like a daily horoscope (like the ones from Broadly, which I LOVE and check religiously), these daily bits of astrological magick will tell you the kind of spells to focus on, colours to wear and use, witchy tools to wield, or just in general how to be the best witch you can be that day. When you combine this daily witchery with things like moon phases, current astrolgoical phases, and the season you’re in with your own witchy intuition you have a fully fledged magical almanac.

One of my favourite things about daily magick is that it helps break up ruts and monotonous magical slumps. It gets you thinking magickally every day and gives you small things to focus on. Over time this builds into a great daily practice. You don’t have to be an expert, you don’t have to write your own horoscope or even be fully versed in astrology. I’m not! Every day and once a month I read a hororscope from Broadly, I get weekly and monthly astrology reports from Georgia Nicols in my inbox, and I love the Hoodwitch’s weekly witch tips. When we move into astrological seasons I trust other astrologers to give me the highlights, and the same with the astrological signs of the moon. I use that info from those brilliant people, with my own witchy knowledge of daily magick to give myself daily witchy forecasts so I have a head start on the day. I use a magickal day planner to keep it all in and make it look pretty and colourful so I can start the day off right. (OK SO YEAH I’M AN OFFICE SUPPLY NERD, OK??) This week I’ll be posting about the energy of the day every morning so you can start your day off right and maybe do a little magick.

Wednesday

Planet: Mercury

Planetary Symbol: ☿ Mercury’s winged helmet and caduceus

Element: Air

Colours: Orange, purple, yellow, light green, light blue

Stones & Metals: Quicksilver; Fluorite, quartz, opal, agate

Incenses, Herbs & Oils: Lavender, bergamot, eucalyptus, lemongrass

Tarot Cards: Wheel of Fortune, The Magician, Eight of Pentacles

Wednesday gets its name of the Norse god Odin or Woden, and was known as Woden’s Day. Before that the romans attributed it to the god mercury. It’s a day of wisdom, intelligence and communication, but has a mercurial almost trikster like energy to it. It can be a bit scattered or unpredictable.

Mercury and Hermes were the roman and Greek good of travel, communication, and self-expression. His winged sandals made him the fleet-footed messengers of the gods and gave him a ton of time to play tricks on his fellow deities. Odin was the king and patriarch of the Norse gods and was a god of great wisdom, shamanism, and poetry. His two pet ravens Huginn and Muninn – Thought and Memory – circle the earth and constantly bestow upon him news and knowledge from all over the world. Athena is a Greek goddess of wisdom, war, and crafts. Athena was serious and compassionate, and devoted herself to craft, knowledge and the safety of her people. She’s often pictured with an owl on her shoulder, which is a symbol of wisdom.

All of the birds associated with the gods above solidify Wednesday’s association with air, and airy and light scents like lavender and bergamot make excellent Wednesday incenses. For clarification and focus, eucalyptus is sure to wake you up. Bergamot is the main ingredient and earl grey tea, which is a perfect balance of calming and focus – thanks to magical, magical, caffeine.

  Stones for Wednesday are ones with varying looks and purposes, anything that can go with the flow. Clear Quartz, as a stone that can stand in for everything is especially good on Wednesdays. Opals appear differently in different light or from different angles and are a stone of transformation. There are as many different kinds of agate and there are birds in the sky and each has a specific purpose so you’ll always be able to find an agate for your purposes.

Types of Wednesday Magick: spells for communication and self-expression, crafting magickal items and tools, working meditation such as painting or colouring, spells for good luck and humour, space and energy clearing, “general purpose” magick such as meditation and spells for better focus and memory retention, communicating with other worlds and spirits, or other witches. Wednesdays are my favourite day for tarot readings because I feel the cards and I just communicate better, I also participate in #WiccanChat on twitter to talk with other witches about a whole bunch of magickal topics!

from the Tarot Del Fuego

from the Twin Peaks Tarot

Tarot: Though swords of the suit of air in the tarot, that sharp energy is just a bit too severe for Wednesday. The Wheel of Fortune card is the card of luck and fate, and carrying it without throughout your day may make fate smile on you. The Magician is often drawn as mercury himself and is a figure of communication, skill and confidence in himself and his magic. Use this card as a significator when you ask your tarot about increasing your skill in your craft. The Eight of Pentacles, though an earth card, is the card of craftsmanship and skilled trade and pride in your accomplishments. Use this as inspiration in spells for skill and creativity.

Dress for magickal success: Wednesday’s energy is ever changing and as such it’s hard to pin down a style. Patterns that are airy and feature imagery like birds, clouds and the sky work for mercury. Bright colours like yellow, lavender or bright green are colours of luck and magic. Wear something that really communicates who you are, and express yourself openly. Don’t be afraid to mix bright colours and wear colour changing stones like opal or fluorite, or even an old mood ring! I love to wear things that seem a little over the top, but are still really comfortable and airy. This bird dress is my ultimate Wednesday attire- mustard yellow with purple, teal, and hot pink hummingbirds and geometric shapes.

Older picture but I’d just gotten a really good haircut

  Wednesdays are one of my favourite days of the week. I don’t feel a mid-week slump now that I work for myself, and I like the kind of fun and wacky energy. I like how mis-matched things seem to go perfectly together on wednesdays and like anything seems possible.

TOMORROW WE’RE GETTIN’ RICH, WITCH!

Some of my favourite sources of daily magick:

Magical Fashionista by Tess Whitehurst

The Book of Witchery by Ellen Dugan

Coloring Book of Shadows Planners by Amy Cesari

The Witch’s Almanac by Weiser Books

Llewellyn’s Witches Companion and Datebooks

Plus the online sources listed above! Where do you get your daily magical advice?

It's a wacky, #witchywednesday y'all! Bust out your favourite mood ring and make some magick! Monday's Witch is tranquil and white Tuesday's Witch wields fire and might Wednesday's Witch is wacky but wise…

[bessiesreviews]

Hey everybody, I wrote a (totally not an assignment for my local newspaper) review of Riverdale.

(most under the cut)

I had almost no knowledge of the Archie comics when I sat down to watch the pilot episode of The CW's new show Riverdale. If anything, all I had was a vague familiarity with the characters and their relationships, and a dim awareness of some kind of love triangle.

That's probably a good thing. Apparently, that was all I needed.

The story of Riverdale takes place in the small town of the same name, which is populated by characters out of the beloved Archie comics. The pilot episode opens on the town at the end of summer. Golden boy Jason Blossom has just drowned in a tragic accident, and other dark secrets have been piling up, ready to be revealed.

The concept is intriguing, reviving a familiar universe with a well-meaning attempt at a Twin Peaks vibe. This update to the Archie story has brought with it a few refreshing details to delight fans of the original comics. There are several nods to the source material, from the old-timey Pop's Chock'lit Shoppe to the clunky computers of the school's newspaper room. Riverdale also brings a new level of diversity: main character Veronica Lodge and her mother are rewritten as Latina women, and the famous girl rock band Josie and the Pussycats become three African American girls with a serious message about equality.

If viewers come to Riverdale with a modern appreciation for diverse representation and serious issues, they must also come with an appetite for scandal and drama. In an attempt to deliver, The CW has been a little too generous. Along with the murder of Jason Blossom, viewers buckle under an avalanche of indulgent melodrama, from a social-media-incited revenge plot to a romantic relationship between Archie and his teacher. It is not surprising that this show comes from the creators of Glee and shares a channel with Gossip Girl. Fans of these shows should expect nothing less of Riverdale and, unfortunately, not much more.

One of Riverdale's initial hooks for me was curiosity. This program marks actor Cole Sprouse's first time on screen since he left his role as half of the famous duo in The Suite Life of Zack & Cody to finish his education. Though he hasn't acted professionally since 2011, he hasn't lost his touch. In fact, he is only one of a cast of impressive new actors, which also includes New Zealand actor K.J. Apa as Archie, whose sincere performance makes his fake red hair somewhat forgivable, and Camila Mendes, who plays her first-ever acting role of Veronica Lodge as just the right combination of caring and willful.

It is unfortunate, then, how these actors are limited by Riverdale's mediocre writing: the kind of cheesy one-liners and over-the-top dramatic pauses that you want to hope are ironically self-aware, but you can't quite bring yourself to pretend that they are. The show attempted to bring Archie and his pals into a refreshing new story, but so far, the characters and the dialogue are so two-dimensional that they belong in the panels of a comic book. Perhaps there, the stiffness and exaggeration would go unnoticed.

Some details are reminiscent of the comics in a good way. The coloring is even beautiful. Playing with bright reds and blues, it perfectly captures the neon-light glow of a 40's diner. Much of the set and wardrobe looks like it could have come right out of the first comics: cotton turtleneck cheerleader uniforms and letterman jackets show up beside both vintage cars and iPhones to evoke the feel of town caught picturesquely in the past. Visually, the show is a masterpiece.

So while not particularly sophisticated or compelling, Riverdale's pleasant visuals, classic cast of characters, and brave new spin (which I hope will be worth the risk) render it passably entertaining. In short, Riverdale could be your new guilty pleasure, but I expect anyone who gives up an hour out of their week to watch it (Thursdays 9/8c on The CW) to feel at least a little guilty.