#the trio!!!!! means they’re all moving forward together goddammit!!!!!

[akkivee]

it’s the way sasara and rosho’s solos express themes of moving forward, but rei’s is him stuck in his past 😭😭😭

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 272: (Directed by Michael Bay)

Previously on BnHA: The My Child Soldiers Academia arc finally started to live up to its name as Tokoyami became the first (but I assure you not the last) victim of traumatic mental scarring courtesy of Horikoshi’s sick games! So he and Dark Shadow showed up to stop Dabi from murdering Hawks and were all “please don’t kill our mentor.” Dabi was all “AH BUT YOUR MENTOR KILLED SOMEONE ELSE, AND ISN’T THAT JUST LIKE THE HEROES THOUGH, THEIR HANDS ARE SO STAINED WITH BLOOD” and then he tried to set both of them on fire several times in succession. Hawks was all “Tokoyami just run away while he’s in the middle of his five-hour sermon” and so they tried but Dabi followed them! But then Geten was all “ALL RIGHT EVERYONE... CHILL” and fucking froze everything for no discernible reason, and Tokoyami fled the building with an unconscious Hawks in tow as the battle raged on. The chapter then ended with Gigantomachia being all “I smell my master!” and standing up, hahaha oh fuck.

Today on BnHA: Well you guys are not going to believe this, but it turns out that Tomura waking up is actually a very bad thing. A “worst case scenario” if you will! Because, get this, he has a quirk that can destroy anything, which spreads from whatever he touches to fucking everything and everywhere else. Gosh, if only we’d known about this since like 35 chapters ago. If only we’d had a spy among the villains who could have warned us, and three entire months to plan our attack, and literally every single hero in Japan on call to help us when the time came. Anyway so you’re really going to be shocked by this I’m telling you, but it turns out that when a crazy powerful person who wants to destroy everything finally wakes up, he immediately starts destroying everything with his crazy power. So X-Less dies and Crust dies and everyone else runs, and meanwhile the kids, who are on the outskirts of the city finishing up the evacuation, stand there in shock as the plot rampages toward them ready to swallow them whole. The chapter ends with Deku powering up to FORTY-FIVE PERCENT YEAHHHHH, and oh shit. Finally we’re doing this.

I am not even remotely done with all the shit I’m supposed to be finishing up, but fuck it, I need a break and reading the new chapter is by far the funnest thing on my current to-do list, so!

OH SNAPS MY BOY HAS FINALLY OPENED HIS EYES

IT ONLY TOOK HIM... OKAY LOOK I’M NOT GOING TO GO BACK AND COUNT ALL OF THE CHAPTERS, BUT LET’S SAY... FIFTEEN. ...HUNDRED. CHAPTERS TO FINALLY SNAP TO IT AND COME JOIN THE PARTY. BUT IT WAS WORTH THE WAIT! PROBABLY. AHH LET’S JUST READ ON

-- ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohm --

[puts on glasses and unfolds map while poring through a mess of scribbles on post-it notes] -- hold up, if my calculations are correct, I’m pretty sure “somewhere a bit further from the hospital” is, in fact, where a certain THREE TROUBLE-PRONE DISASTERS ARE CURRENTLY HOLED UP. AHHH

can it really be true. are we finally rejoining our protagonist and his buddy cop friends after 97 years. how will everyone react to Deku reacting to Tomura waking up ahhhh

so Burnin’ is yelling at the civilians to let them know if they have any family or friends who need assistance evacuating

god I hate the fact that this is a fucking understatement

they’re not taking any chances after Kamino and Fukuoka huh. fool them once, shame on you. fool them twice, oh shit. but there will not be a third time! no one fucking destroys three cities in the span of six months on their watch, no sirree

(ETA: ...)

lol the kids are trying to get the elderly citizens on a bus to evacuate, but a lady is trying to give them candy and Kacchan and Ochako are of two different minds on whether or not to accept

Kacchan is absolutely right about Ochako’s motivations, but in her defense, who the fuck turns down free chocolate

IIDA!!

FUCKING CHRIST JAPAN IT’S 200 YEARS IN THE FUTURE AND YOU STILL HAVEN’T SWITCHED TO DIGITAL RECORD-KEEPING? WHY IS THIS THE MOST REALISTIC THING IN THE ENTIRE MANGA TO DATE. MY GOOD SIR, IIDA IS LYING THROUGH HIS TEETH, ALL RECORDS AND BUILDINGS ABSOLUTELY CAN AND WILL BE COMPLETELY OBLITERATED IN THE CARNAGE TO COME. I’M SORRY TO BE THE ONE TO INFORM YOU OF THIS, BUT DAMN IT SOMEONE HAS TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

(ETA: I sure hope these poor bastards had good insurance.)

also. this man here who looks like Beaker from the Muppets, who presumably has the power of Doing Anything Those Wacky Flailing Inflatable Tube Men That You See Outside Of Car Dealerships Can Do. ...yes. that’s it. that’s an intentionally incomplete sentence with a subject but no predicate. I just feel like we should all sit and stare at him for a good thirty more seconds before continuing on with our lives

OH MY GOD

THEY’RE EVACUATING THE PETS TOO AHHHH. EXCUSE ME CERTAIN SOMEONES WHO THINK ALL HEROES ARE “DIRTY.” I SEE YOUR ARGUMENTS AND RAISE YOU THIS ONE SINGLE PANEL. YEAH THAT’S RIGHT. NOW WHAT DABI. AT A LOSS FOR WORDS I SEE. YOU JUST SIT AND PONDER THAT FOR A WHILE

is... this... a space shuttle man

is this literally just a man with a Boeing for a head. FUCKING QUIRKS THOUGH!!!!! ~*~wild~*~

OH MY GOD AND WE’RE BACK

time for some HORCRUX SHENANIGANS!! IS YOUR LIGHTNING BOLT SCAR BURNING DEKU. I CAN’T BELIEVE HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED IS BACK AHHHH

so now he’s slightly hunching forward with his hands pressed together and Todoroki is immediately sensing that something is wrong ahhhhh

(ETA from like 5 days later: I had that as “Tokoyami” instead of “Todoroki” for the better part of a solid week you guys. SHOUTO YOU WERE GONE FOR SO LONG I FORGOT YOUR FUCKING NAME whoop.)

here come dat angst. here comes Horikoshi’s hand beckoning the trio closer and welcoming them to the pain parade ahhh. from now on that’s how I’m ending all my sentences btw. it just seems right. ahhh

OH MY LORD OH MY

ladies and gentlemen, YOU WERE SAYING DEKU DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT LATELY? HE’S NOT INTERESTING ENOUGH AS A PROTAGONIST, IS HE? well maybe that’s because Horikoshi has been saving this one juiciest of plot nuggets for a rainy day precisely like this! BRING ON THAT CHOSEN ONE ANGST AHHHHH

anyway so yes it is indeed OFA speaking to him in the form of Lil Bro a.k.a. the first user

lol I’m trying to think of commentary but it’s difficult seeing as I’M ALREADY SCROLLING DOWN TO IMPATIENTLY READ THE NEXT PAGE

lmao the fuck

okay Princess Zelda. can you get any more flowery with those descriptions though. A TRANSCENDENT BEING. A SUPERLATIVE ENTITY. A SUBLIME, PREEMINENT ORGANISM. FREED FROM ITS SHACKLES. UNFETTERED BY ALL EARTHLY LIMITATIONS

OH MY GOD

it absolutely boggles my mind that this guy is somehow still alive. ??! how many chapters and panels has it been now. he’s like the goat in the t-rex pen in fucking Jurassic Park. WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO GET EATEN ALREADY

...

do you... want a blanket. ...?

(ETA: do you ever just. wake up and you’re like “ah shit it’s cold”, and then you destroy an entire city. mm.)

do you all suppose X-Less is fully aware that he’s about to die though? he hasn’t even moved. I imagine that sitting next to Tomura actually is much like sitting next to a giant t-rex. like he has to know there is no getting out of this alive. poor guy

damn Mic isn’t even looking back he’s just running back into the main room where all the rest of them are

wow this fight is still going on

I don’t know why, I just expected it to all magically be over all of a sudden now that we have bigger things to worry about. do you guys remember when we were all worried about the High End Noumus being the biggest threat. hahahahaha

(ETA: moment of silence for ALL OF THE FUCKING HIGH ENDS lmao. that did not go how I expected that plotline to go AT ALL, but at least we got the best fucking battle in the entire manga out of it.)

jesus CHRIST ENOUGH WITH THIS

WE GET IT TOMURA IS DANGEROUS AND SCARY AND EVIL AND AWAKE!!! JUST PLEASE GET TO IT ALREADY GOD I’M BEGGING YOU

FINALLY

goddammit. my reaction to this should have been much more “!!!” and “OH SHIT”, but he dragged it out so much that my initial reaction was one more of relief than horror. maybe it’s because of the way I read the chapters, constantly pausing to do commentary as I go along, but whenever a chapter has a ton of panels of people just staring into the distance awash with dread, it really stands out to me lol. there’s only so much I can write about that kind of thing. ah well at least we’re finally getting to the action

I genuinely can’t tell if Ujiko is frightened that he’s about to be disintegrated by Tomura’s quirk, or excited that Tomura is awake

maybe both lol. well don’t worry you’re not gonna die that easily, much as you would not catch me complaining if you did

thanks Gran

lol where was all this speed throughout the rest of this arc though. “we’re only competent when the plot necessitates it” huh. is that right

oh shit it’s destroying the rest of the lab

those are all of Ujiko’s collected quirks, right? someone please tell me if this is a good or a bad thing. on the one hand if they’re all destroyed it means Tomura can’t get them and Ujiko can’t make any more Noumus. but on the other hand this means they won’t ever be able to give them back to the original users (if any of them are even still alive). and also that’s a lot of evidence that’s being wiped out as well

oh shit they didn’t know about this?!

even after Deika City, you didn’t put two and two together?? even with all of Hawk’s intel?? what the hell did you think happened there?

well this explains why everyone was so la-dee-da-no-rush about capturing him though. well that’s on you guys. next time maybe don’t waste 20 minutes uselessly battling redshirt Noumus while Mirko has to do everything herself

anyway so I feel like people other than X-Less are almost certainly going to die here, and fuck. I’m not ready for any of this

AHH THE KIDS

BIT SLOW ON THE UPTAKE THERE KACCHAN LOL. FOR A MOMENT YOU HAD ME WORRIED THERE WAS SOMEHOW A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THREAT APPROACHING FROM THE OTHER SIDE, BEFORE YOU TURNED AROUND TO LOOK WHERE THE OTHERS WERE LOOKING

ALSO JUST A FRIENDLY REMINDER THAT SHOUTO’S DAD IS IN THAT HOSPITAL, ALONG WITH THEIR TEACHER! HERE. COME. DAT. ANGST

LOOK AT THIS CONSPICUOUSLY INTACT BUILDING AS IT STANDS THERE ALL OMINOUSLY WITH THE NEARBY BIRDS AND CRITTERS FRANTICALLY FLYING AWAY

I want to see it crumble so bad. now this is the kind of foreboding cinematic disaster movie bullshit I can get into

FFFF WHY IS THIS PANEL SO HARD TO SEE

THERE’S TOO MUCH CHAOS AND TOO MANY PEOPLE LOST AMIDST ALL THESE SHATTERING AND FALLING TUBES, BUT I NEED TO MAKE SURE EVERYONE IS SAFE AHHH

...okay so I see Ryuukyuu in the top right, and I think that’s RockLockRock on her back. Thirteen is clearly there in the bottom center, but I don’t know who that is next to them. and then of course Gran and Mic on the left. and a bunch of others spread out in various other places, but... where the hell is Aizawa??

OH THANK GOD

FUCK YOU HORIKOSHI, I KNOW FULL WELL YOU’RE NOT JUST GOING TO KILL OFF THE WORLD’S PREEMINENT DAD STRAIGHT UP OUT OF THE BLUE HERE, AND YET I STILL FELT ANXIETY AT THIS LAST PANEL. HOW DID YOU EVEN

BITCH YOU BETTER LET THE FUCK GO BEFORE I --

!!!

oh my god I gasped in real life. stop making me fear for the lives of main characters!!

he. he --. crust. he. ...

I literally stopped reading and had to stop and cover my mouth with both of my hands I’m

silence. no screaming. no flailing. no freaking out. just silence

shit. rest in peace you old sedimentary bastard. respect to you for saving the father of my children in your last fleeting moments. I still have not the slightest idea how you rose through the ranks to somehow become the sixth fucking highest rated hero (HERO BILLBOARD CHART, IS EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT. ARE YOU FEELING OKAY), but you sure did go out with style though

also this may be tacky of me to point out during such an emotionally charged moment, but one second Aizawa is wearing his goggles like normal, and the next they’re suddenly pushed up onto his forehead so we can see the anguish in his bloodshot eyes. there was no reason to do that other than angst and we all know it. so yes Shouta you dramatic bitch, I am calling you out. why Horikoshi felt he had to add to your many accumulated traumas is beyond me. you don’t deserve this and I am so, so sorry

OH GOOD I WAS JUST ABOUT TO ASK WHERE THE FUCK ENDEAVOR WAS

seeing as we just went over this with Gran, I will take the high road here and won’t ask why you’re only this fast now and couldn’t have been this useful this ages ago back before Tomura woke up. oh wait does sarcastically saying I won’t bring it up count as bringing it up. well whatever. middle road, then

sob I’m getting flashbacks to the end of Return of the Jedi when they’re all frantically flying out of the Death Star as it explodes

friendly reminder that Ryuukyuu, clearly the fastest one here despite carrying like 20 people, was number 10 in the rankings for some unknown reason. again, r.i.p. Crust you well-meaning geriatric soul

also just a stray thought, I hope it’s clear now why it was so important to give Deku those additional quirks. at a minimum he needs Blackwhip and Float just so he doesn’t instantly die the moment he’s in Tomura’s general vicinity. sob I’ve joked so much about flying quirks and here they are becoming fucking prerequisites now

anyway so Ujiko is mourning the loss of his lab, which again, good riddance mostly. but r.i.p. that evidence though

(ETA: nah the “total loss” part is referring to how the heroes fucked up so soundly and thoroughly. anyway no one would blame Mic if he accidentally dropped Ujiko in the midst of all this chaos, I’m just saying. I guess they need any intel he could still provide now more than ever though.)

OH MY GOD!!

LAUNDRY HERO WASH?! THIS SUDSY BOI CAN ACTUALLY KICK ASS WHAAAAT

oh my god oh my god it’s still spreading??!

fuck fuck fuck at this rate it’ll reach the kids

(ETA: that happened really fast actually.)

-- oh FUCK NO you had better NOT FUCKING TOUCH FUCKING PIXIE BOB, I WILL MAIL MYSELF TO JAPAN PANDEMIC OR NO PANDEMIC. DO YOU NOT SEE THE SIGN THAT SAYS “OFF-LIMITS.” RESPECT THE SIGN

SOB SHE’S SO BADASS BUT IT LOOKS LIKE IT’S STILL DISINTEGRATING FUCCCCCK. FUCK MY LIFE, FUCK EVERYTHING

AHHHHH

I can’t tell if her earthbending was able to stop it or not?? god help us all if it didn’t, I’m not even sure what else could stop it at this point

SHUT UP UJIKO!!

they really did. only to fuck it up completely at the finish line. well, the man most singularly responsible for it is dead now, again r.i.p. Crust you useless old legend

lmao despite myself

“by a miracle, or maybe through sheer will” even he acknowledges that Tomura waking up was basically complete bullshit. yes blah blah yadda yadda got zapped by some exposed wires explanation science. because we all know that getting electrocuted will fix you right up when your heart has stopped and you have completely flatlined. you can definitely trust Horikoshi on this and there’s absolutely no need to google how defibrillators actually work

also is he somehow wearing a cape now. again by a miracle or maybe through sheer will

YESSSSSSS

(ETA: one has to wonder what Ujiko’s plan was, assuming this scheme had actually played out. were they just banking on Tomura not waking up cranky and disoriented and wanting to test out his power. his quirk doesn’t exactly distinguish friend from foe here I’m just saying.)

the part of me that goes all “ooh ahh” when all the buildings explode in Independence Day is singing inside. but never fear, the rest of me is appropriately horrified though. what was that Burnin’ was saying about the city becoming a large-scale battle zone? sob

also this page sure serves as a nice refresher for exactly why Tomura Waking Up Was Bad, which was inexplicably a topic of some debate in recent weeks. yes in spite of everything the villains are still the bad guys who’d have thought. almost as if the purpose of humanizing a character is to show that they’re human, not that they’re right

WHAT’S THIS NOW???

WELL I’LL BE. IT’S BEEN AN EVENTFUL THREE MONTHS, APPARENTLY!??

HOOAHHHHHHHH

IT’S A BIRD IT’S A PLANE IT’S A BADASS OH SHIIIIITTTTTT

finally finally finally!!!!!!

THE SHIT HAS HIT THE FAN, REPEAT, THE SHIT HAS HIT THE PROVERBIAL FAN. THE PLOT IS FINALLY HAPPENING, REPEAT, THE PLOT IS FINALLY FUCKING HAPPENING AHHHHHH

and there is no one coming to save them this time. no one to arrive at the last second and say “it’s all right now because I am here.” they have to save themselves. they have to save everyone. the training wheels are finally coming off. the safety net has been removed. after 272 chapters, the story has finally reached a point where these kids, these children, who in spite of all they’ve been through have been protected and shielded from the worst of it up till now, will finally have to be the ones to save the day all on their own

and they are not ready. but also maybe they kind of are??! but they definitely are not. and oh god oh god oh god, FINALLY WE’RE REALLY DOING THIS. TIME TO FIX THE MESS THOSE SILLY GROWN-UPS MADE, CHILDREN. YOU GOT THIS

[sepublic]

The Art Gallery and Mega Maze Car!

           …Goddammit Kez. I really don’t know what I expected, but of course MORGAN wants you dead as well…!

           Also, I called it- Morgan is the castle! Anyhow, RIP to the judge, I really liked her design and was glad she survived the zapper… But then Pig Toddler got interested in the word butter (clever writing for these two unlike things to come together like that), and I knew it was all over! Damn he was terrifying and hilarious, breaching the rubble like a freaking Mosasaur to devour the judge, alas! So much for a peaceful resolution… Also, seems only Pig Toddler and the Bouncer are left. What was up with the Bouncer at the end there? I dunno, but I’m glad the person with an actual family to feed has a new job now; Guarding Morgan might make ends meet and help them reconcile with Kez, or at least decide NOT to kill her…

           Seriously though, that gag with the Bouncer catching them at the end after you forget, only for THAT joke- This show is so funny you guys.

           But, let’s backtrack for a bit… Okay, that Hand Monster was TERRIFYING, and I was lowkey afraid it would join up with the posse after Kez, but thankfully not! But JEEZ, the shadowy hands, the sound design like it’s from the Grudge… And the DESIGN, it’s so visceral and grabby and uncomfortable, like it’s grasping onto and constricting and strangling you, it’s violating, and I LOVE IT! It’s SUCH a metal character design, whoever came up with it, I wanna shake your hand, and maybe even kiss you! I’ll have to plagiarize- I mean, TAKE INSPIRATION FROM, this type of superb peak character design later down the line!

           But seriously, with how it’s made of hands, and one of them has a number on it… Does this denizen like; KILL passengers, and add to its mass with their numbered hands; The higher the number, the better? I’d suggest it aggravates passengers, but Min and Ryan seemed to agree that it didn’t ACTUALLY influence them, this was just all them going out… That, or it enabled them to say what was on their minds the entire time! Oof, that thing gave me heebie-jeebies, but also…

           THIS is a character-heavy dump, let’s go into it! It seems Min and Ryan are afraid of being the other… But they also want to BE the other as well! And Min, he’s got abandonment issues, which makes sense- He’s clearly a more anxious and reserved person and an only child… But Ryan doesn’t think people will miss him because he feels like he’s always overlooked, that he has to earn attention! He doesn’t think Min cares that much about him, and vice-versa… Oof, love that trope, the tragedy of such misunderstanding because of insecurity and self-loathing, thinking you’re not good enough! And damn, Min really broke at the end there, thinking Ryan had abandoned him…

           I do wish Kez had cleared up that the Art Gallery Car would NOT let Ryan back inside and even silenced him, but like. It still opens how he feels in general, and it led to some honest discussion in the Mega Maze Car, so it’s fine… Love you Kez, you adorable weirdo just screaming and weirding out even this hand-monster! I love how she’s SUCH a shameless freeloader, but she also serves to lighten the mood, and she’s something Ryan and Min can BOTH agree upon! She’s the glue that holds the trio together, I love and adore Kez…

           But back to Ryan and Min! Like I suspected, being in a large family, Ryan feels ignored and undervalued, just another face in the crowd, so he wants to be somebody… And Min, he didn’t want to go off and abandon things, he felt Ryan wasn’t taking him into enough consideration; But maybe he also hoped that Ryan would see that Min wasn’t ready, and then stay for him? And then it broke his heart when he went on anyway… And Ryan, he thinks Min is looking down on him, and in a sense it’s like… They WANT to be one another in some ways, but are also afraid of that? Ryan wants to be more level-headed, Min more bold, but not to the extent that it becomes negative, because they can see the good AND bad in each other’s traits!

           Min is kind of jealous of Ryan’s boldness and more fun life… And it’s like, these two can’t progress until they learn to respect one another’s decisions and places in life more, to recognize their own decisions, etc.? To not look down on each other, to think they have to guide the other and look after them… Hence Ryan saying initially that Min is just ‘dead weight’ to him, because he still wants to be his own person and individual and live his own life, so maybe he doesn’t need Min anyway?

           And Min, he’s amazed at how Ryan can be so bold and be himself, but Min, like he said- He’s tired of faking things, pretending he’s fine when he’s not, that he’s okay with this… And he gets an outlet to admit how he feels aloud, instead of trying to be calm and level-headed about it! Min’s just having this identity crisis, figuring out who he is… Ryan probably thinks he’s secretly dumb, Min’s belittling didn’t help, as did Ryan admitting he could never get into university. Ryan doesn’t feel respected, and it’s just AMAZING how… How each has a trait that can easily be both the best and worst of them at the same time! It’s SUCH good writing… Min feels left behind from taking things too slowly, and Ryan keeps moving forward so he can stand out; One wants companionship from being alone, the other wants to be an individual and recognized!

           Min thinks that Ryan complicates things, that HE’s the one making them difficult, and Ryan feels like he’s being dragged down and discouraged, that he has to pull Min along, because he DOES care and wants him; And they think they’re the others’ caretaker. Ryan wants HELP, he wants support, and he feels like he gives it to Min, but Min doesn’t reciprocate and instead just tells him his ideas are dumb. And it’s this duality of Min wanting conformity and safety, belonging, while Ryan is sick of that and wants adventure, risk, individuality and to stand out after being overlooked, to be free and not weighed down! It’s fascinating, they’re like mirrors of one another, if one were a denizen I’m SURE Mace would get a kick out of this…!

           Overall, this was a really weighty pair of episodes. It helped us get into the meat and confrontation of their emotions, of their issues; The darkest parts, their low point. But they say after the low point comes the triumphant rise, hopefully… If Min and Ryan are about two coming together and becoming whole again, it could contrast with Amelia, who is missing her other half; Let’s hope it does! I’ve never seen passengers constantly go back and forth, relapsing, tugging on the progress on opposite ends- Really conveys the frustration of two people whose numbers are together, bound, like a three-legged race.

           And, well, we’re on it- The final pair of episodes! And possibly our last episodes yet, EVER… This might be the last time I see a new Infinity Train episode. Here’s to the final destination, guys… Our journey might be over, maybe not. There’s more to the journey than just the destination, but eventually you always get there; All things, inevitably, come to an end.

[knives-out20]

KISS And The Buddies - Cliff Booth x Male!OC

Fandom: Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)

Pairing: Bobby Brightside (OC) x Cliff Booth

Warnings: KISS, Swearing, Faggotry, Expecting homophobia, Fanboys being fanboys, My interpretation of real people, 

Notes: Yea....Yea. It lines up, before anyone asks; OUATIH was set in 1969, KISS formed in 1973. That’s a pretty small year gap. My buddy’s going through a KISS phase and dragged my willing ass into it (I remember ogling KISS as a kid when they were on Fairly Odd Parents) so...yea. Hey, at least it gave me motivation to write for Clobby, right? Enjoy!

Dedicated To: @mori-ohs​

Bobby, the Buddies, and Cliff stood on stage, looking around in absolute wonder. “Holy shit...” He breathed, stars in his eyes.

Then, four stars appeared in front of him: Gene, Ace, Peter, and Starchild.

Cliff eyed each individual member of the new band Bobby loved so much. “So...this is KISS?” He inquired.

“Mhm, aren’t they cool?” Bobby hummed, smiling slightly. He was absolutely thrilled that KISS was letting Bobby and his Buddies open for them. It would gain them more exposure, and hopefully more fans!

Cliff was silent for a moment. “Which one’s Starchild?”

“I- what do you mean which one’s Starchild?” Bobby scoffed.

“Well, that one-” Cliff pointed at Starchild, “has a star over one eye. And that one,” he then pointed at Ace. “Has silver stars over both of his eyes. So...” Cliff shrugged, taking off his sunglasses and putting them in his pocket. He offered the members of KISS a quick smile. Cliff’s gaze turned to Peter, “he looks like a cat.”

Peep, Deep, and Beep snickered from where they were.

Cliff turned his attention to Gene, the tallest of the group- certainly because of those boots, it made the man look massive. “Lemme guess. Gene?”

“Yessir” Monte nodded as he passed by.

“What’re all their names, again?”

Bobby purposely listed them out in the order they stood in, hoping Cliff would catch on. “Gene, Ace, Peter, and Starchild.”

Cliff nodded slowly. He pointed at the members in that exact order, “Gene, Ace, Peter, then Starchild.”

Bobby grinned up at Cliff, “yea.”

Cliff looked back over at Gene, sizing him up because he’s the biggest.

Silence ensued.

Cliff chuckled. “He’s not that sca-”

Gene grinned, lunging forward and sticking his tongue out.

Cliff swore under his breath, jumping back and clutching his chest.

Bobby’s smiling jaw dropped as he looked up at Cliff, amazed. He’s never seen Cliff get scared of anything, before! Bobby’s only ever seen Cliff be the scary or intimidating one.

Damien snorted by the drums, turning away. This was too funny.

“Oh. My. God.”

“Shut up-” Cliff groaned.

“You got scared...of Gene.”

“I didn’t man-”

“Yes, you did, oh my god, did you guys fucking see that?” Bobby asked, turning to his Buddies, who all held back smiles and laughs. “Oh, I’m never letting you live that down, b-” he quickly caught himself, “Cliff.”

Cliff rolled his eyes, crossing his arms. “So you said Gene, Ace, Peter, and Starchild. What, do Gene ‘n’ Peter get stage names or are Ace and Starchild just...special?”

“They do, actually” Maria piped up. “Demon and Catman.”

Cliff looked unimpressed. “Bobby said sum’n about Gene making caskets as merch?”

“You want one?” Gene smirked.

“No.”

Bobby pat his arm. “If it’s any help, Cliffy, if you had died right then and there, then I would’ve, like, sworn off of KISS forever. I swear!” He put his arms up.

Cliff looked down at him, suspicious.

Bobby giggled. “I would’ve buried you in the KISS casket-”

Cliff nudged him.

“Caskets? As merch?” Damien exhaled through his nose.

“And toilets, my idea” Gene put his hands on his hips, as Peter walked over to his drums. “Pretty cool, Bobby?”

Damien tilted his head. “...Bobster, can we-”

“No, Damien” Bobby shook his head.

Deep sighed, “rats!” He cursed to himself, Beep playfully shoving him.

“Any of you got stage names? Bobby?” Starchild questioned.

“No, Bobby’s very much my real fuckin’ name. Uhm...Those three over there are Peep, Deep, ‘n’ Beep. Their real names are Penelope, Derek, and Benji. When they’re not in my band, they’re a comedic trio” Bobby explained.

“Oh, really, Bobby?” Ace snorted. “Tell us a joke.”

The Sweeney triplets exchanged glances. 

“Why are bananas like people?” Peep started.

“What the f- why?” Deep asked back.

“You peel the skin and eat them, they die” Beep brought up the punchline, throwing Bobby and his Buddies into a fit of hysterics.

Cliff arched a brow, chortling softly as he noted a couple of the members of KISS trying to fight back smiles and failing.

Starchild quickly calmed down. “Also, you said there were eight of you in your lil’ band.”

“He called us a band-” Peep squealed.

“I know!” Damien whispered back to him, the two giggling in excitement as Bobby counted heads.

“W-Where’s Frankie?” Bobby stuttered, looking around. “Wait, no, there he is” he sighed in relief, catching Frankie in quiet conversation with Peter. “I knew those two would click” Bobby smiled, remembering how it was Peter who found them and introduced them to KISS earlier in the month. 

Starchild brought Bobby and the Buddies on stage, showing them around. “And this is where-”

“Where’s Ace?” Bobby inquired.

Starchild blinked. “Eh?”

“Where’s Ace?” 

“Where’s Ace?” Damien repeated, followed by Maria, Peep, Deep, Beep, and Monte.

Not Frankie, though. Frankie was just happy to be there and have that opportunity. 

Ace appeared from backstage, already drunk off of two wines. “Hello?” He called, having been summoned.

Bobby and the Buddies shared frantically excited giggles and balled fists, chanting. “Space Ace Space Ace Space Ace Space Ace-”

Ace hiccuped, nudging Starchild with his elbow. “Well, what do ya know? They like me.”

Bobby chuckled, glancing down at the stage floor. He pat Cliff’s hand, leaving the blond’s side to go help the Buddies set the stage.

***

Fast forward a bit, the bands were nearly ready to perform. 

Bobby walked past KISS, to the east end of the stage, having spotted Cliff. “Hey, babe, who’d you leave Brandy with?” He harmlessly asked, hand flying over his mouth as soon as the question ended. Bobby’s brown eyes went wide, his face filling with nothing but pure, unadulterated fear. “Shit.” He shakily whispered, the most genuinely afraid he’s been in ages,

Cliff looked back over at him, just as surprised but not as scared.

Bobby’s mind began racing. Shit, shit, fuck, shit, goddammit. Did he just lose the world’s greatest gig, did he actually? The thought brought him close to tears, the tension filling the air could be cut by a guitar shred.

His Buddies all darted their heads in his direction, then at the four members of KISS. The Buddies stood, ready to seriously jump KISS in order to protect Bobby if it came down to it.

Cliff slowly rose from his seat, eyeing the four men. He stepped closer to Bobby, neither he nor Bobby nor the Buddies knowing that in actuality, Bobby’s way of life was completely safe.

No one said anything or made a move for fuck knows how long, Frankie practically choking on the silence.

Then, Ace spoke up.

“Okay, uhm...” Ace started up. “That is- that’s clearly none of OUR business” he gestured vaguely towards his fellow KISS members, then himself. “But uhm, if you’re worried that we’re gonna call you a slur or something like that, then don’t sweat it, Bobby.”

Peter nodded in agreement. “Yea, Bobby. I mean...you love who you love, God made you with the best intentions in mind. You dating who you do was no mistake” he encouraged, tapping his drumsticks together.

Ace continued, getting hyped up with what Peter put down. “Yea! I mean, I’ve kissed GENE before, but even still, but no one cares who you sleep with, man! A score is a score, isn’t that right, Demon?”

“Yea, Ace’s right, Bobby. All that matters to us as a band is that you get the crowd pumped for our show, you got that?” Gene pointed at him, Starchild warmly nodding along.

Bobby and Cliff stared back in silence. 

Monte turned his head, hearing a noise. “Are you...crying-?”

“No- shut up-” Frankie denied, clearly crying.

Bobby opened his mouth to say something, but he was clearly speechless. He raised a finger to speak on that ‘God’ thing, since he firmly believed that Cliff was God.

Cliff pushed Bobby’s hand down, “not right now, baby.”

Starchild tapped his foot. “Plus, Cliff came t’pick you up when I first showed you around stage. We all saw him kiss ya” he smiled.

“Oh my god-” Bobby buried his face in his hands, embarrassed.

Cliff pulled Bobby closer, smiling softly down at him. “Give him a minute” he teased.

[tialovestelevision]

Smashed

“Coping.” Right? It’s “Coping?” Anyone?

Another dialogue post! But before we start…

T: That’s Creepmeister on the Netflix splash screen for this episode, isn’t it? Goddammit.

{*\../*} : Because nothing says fun like proto-Gamergate dudes on my screen.

T: Previously On calls back all the way to Gingerbread in Season 3. Remember when Amy was a human? Remember when Amy was a character instead of a running gag? It’s also very long.

{*\../*} : Buffy is really damn funny in this opening scene as she’s fending off muggers (muggers! In Sunnydale!) and generally acting like a woman with her head together. Which goes really weirdly with the end of “Tabula Rasa,” I gotta say. And now Spike has show up, gotten jolted with pain for attacking one of the (human) muggers and generally embarrassed himself, and is now hitting on Buffy. “To that, an extreme ‘see you later.’” Oh, Buffy, if only that would sink this ship.

T: I was about to comment on Spike also being funny, but then he showers her with slut-shaming metaphors and pointing out her isolation. Lovely guy, that Spike. You’d almost think he’s a soulless monster. You’d almost think a guy has to be a soulless monster to behave that way.

{*\../*} : Meanwhile, Willow is opening her door on a silent house and staring gloomily, then wandering back into her room. Sad music is playing. Am I supposed to be feeling sympathy here? Is that what’s going on? Because I gotta say that the girl who MIND-CONTROLLED her girlfriend to maintain her relationship is not getting sympathy from me at this time. ‘Cause even if I take the magic mojo out of the metaphor, she is the abuser in this situation and I am not inclined to feel sympathy no matter how big her puppy-eyes are.

T: I feel sympathy for Seasons 1-5 Willow because she has to be put through this storyline and thus shed my sympathy going forward. Oh, look, it’s Rat-Amy. And Willow missing the point. And trying to cover just how awful what she just said is with calling it joke.

{*\../*} : “And leave you for no good reason.” Um.... REASONS! There are A LOT. Like you literally dragged your Buffy out of the grave and moved her into the house you share with your girlfriend, had a fight with her and wiped her memory - not once, but twice, and the second time after promising to ease off trying to solve every problem with your big magic hammer! Bad Willow. Bad!

T: I think Sweet lacks Willow’s talent for wrecking relationships this season. And for causing trauma. And he’s an evil mind control fire music demon. Can we get him back? He was fun. Willow casts a spell and summons paper. It’s a magic scroll. She should scribe it to her spellbook before she uses it… hey, it’s Amy. It worked. Wait, she could have summoned paper any time? Opening credits. No Tara, but given that I’m pretty sure she’s been written off the show for a bit that’s not a surprise.

{*\../*} : As an aside, screaming Amy right before the credits. Not a good omen for this spell, either.

T: “I was a mouse. I had cheese. I had four legs. I was happy. Now I’m a human again, with human troubles. Everything is cold and nobody lets me run on a wheel.”

{*\../*} : Stop making up dialogue, honey. It confuses the readers. Even if it is better than the show’s right now.

T: If they’re going to bludgeon us with the metaphor, they need to use a big bludgeon. No pussyfooting around it.

{*\../*} : We resume with Andrew doing a ridiculous entry to a museum which is thoroughly unnecessary. Much Trio ‘witty banter’ which is not. “Phase One of the plan is now complete.” That’s the dialogue that really makes a girl’s heart beat faster. They use a freeze ray on the guard, and Creepmeister dismisses the idea of the guard telling on them in a way that screams “murderous intent” to me.

T: Unless he’s already murdered the guard via Jonathan’s very chilly and almost certainly frostbitten hands and hasn’t told them. I’m not sure whether to expect Cinematic Freezing, which wears off with various degrees of side effects, or Actual Freezing, which kills you stone dead, in this show.

{*\../*} : Meanwhile, Willow is trying to ply a very nervous Amy with hot chocolate and looks guilty when Amy says she felt like she was in the cage “for weeks.” Because, you know, the girl who’s been a rat for years because she was in your coven and had to turn herself into a rat to avoid being burned to death because of a.... You know what? Nevermind. Feel guilty about your abused girlfriend who moved out of the house to we-don’t-know-where!

T: I forgot Larry died. The Mayor killed him in “Graduation Day,” for the record - had to go look that up. Amy wants to go to prom with Larry. Larry is gay, Larry is dead, and prom is very far past over. Apparently, Rat-Amy has no sense of time. Also, I will note that the fancy rat, which is the most common pet rat subspecies and likely what Amy was, lives for 2-3 years if taken care of well. Amy keeps getting forgotten by the writers and often was simply absent from dorm scenes in season 5 - I’m not sure if they moved her cage to the Tara/Willow dorm room set. Magic must have kept Amy alive, because I don’t know what else would. Maybe she drained the life of Miss Kitty Fantastico, who appeared in “Family” and hasn’t been seen since. “Family” was set more than a year before “Smashed,” as a note.

{*\../*} : “How have you been?” “Rat. You?” “Dead.” So Buffy comes home and comes up the steps to talk to Willow, and they’re sitting down to talk, and Buffy asks Willow how she’s doing in a far too sympathetic tone and then launches into a conversation about choices - good, bad, living with them - and I think she’s about to talk to Willow about Tara and magic and then I realize no, she’s about to talk about kissing Spike. And then Amy walks in, and that’s when we get the classic dialogue I just quoted while Buffy is sitting there with a huge stunned look on her face and radiating a general air of “I should leave you two alone” after MISTAKING AMY FOR TARA as if Tara would just happen to be there again. I don’t even know where to start unpacking what a huge mess this scene is after barely a minute..

T: I think Buffy thinking Amy is Tara is one of the more sympathetic moments in the scene. She’s in Willow’s room and someone comes out of the bathroom; to Buffy’s reflexive reactions, of course the person coming out of the bathroom is Tara. Also, I have to say… while I’m really not into the arcs we’re working on here, the dialogue in this episode is really snappily written. Buffy’s scene in the cold open and this one here both do some wonderful things with that.

{*\../*} :  All true. But not only is Willow acting like a girl who got dumped instead of a girl who’s abused girlfriend walked out, but Buffy is acting like a woman whose friend is having a ‘normal’ fight with her girlfriend. I mean, granted Willow isn’t Angelus in the abuse department, but seriously? Nothing? We’re just going to sit down and have girl talk like we used to in high school?

T: Honestly, I buy that too. I don’t LIKE it, but I buy it. Buffy is basically going through super-trauma (like regular trauma, but with superpowers). She wants to talk about her problems. Willow doesn’t want to talk about hers. Might as well meet somebody’s needs, right?

{*\../*} : Stop enabling abuse, Buffy! Anyway, we should roll on while I fume.

T: I really don’t like it. On the other hand, Amy wants cookies, and not cheese. I want cookies and cheese.

{*\../*} : And now Buffy is leaving without talking about her issue after making sad-face when Willow talked about it being nice to have a magically-inclined “friend” around. Are the writers trying to play a romantic jealousy angle here or are they just really oblivious? Because as a lesbian girl, I’m sitting there going “Buffy is there to reestablish her prime straight-but-intimate placement with Willow and then gets beaten out by ex-coven-mate Amy and looks upset by that.” Is that not how I’m supposed to be reading that?

T: What I read in the scene, from Buffy’s perspective: “I have Problems. I have an emotionally intelligent friend who I have relied on in the past when I have had Problems. I will go tell my emotionally intelligent friend! Wait… my emotionally intelligent friend is busy. And holy fuck that thing she just said was heartless and oblivious and awful, wasn’t it? My emotionally intelligent friend is not a safe place to bring my problems now. I will go to the living room and set up a sofa bed.”

{*\../*} : Legit. That does make more sense.

T: Amy has all the cookies. There will be no cookies for Dawn. Amy is watching the news and it looks like Rusty survived the freeze ray and is in critical but stable condition. But when we get to the museum, he’s still frozen solid and being removed from the building on a hand cart, which would make measuring his vitals a little difficult.

{*\../*} : Now Buffy is talking with Spike at the museum. More priceless dialogue. The way that Buffy is wearing her hair and the turtleneck is weirdly artificial, now that I’m looking at her, and oh God the writers are playing a “she wants to get with Spike but is trying to talk herself out of it by armoring up her look” angle, right down to the pigtails as a provocative touch to encourage him to push, aren’t they?

T: Pretty sure they are. I wouldn’t have caught that, but now that you point it out it’s really obvious. I really want to hate this scene - it’s very Buffy/Spike, with the unhealthy and the slut-shaming and the Spike everywhere, but the dialogue. The dialogue. It’s so GOOD!

{*\../*} : “When I kissed you, you know I was thinking of Giles, right?” “You know, I always wondered about you two.” “What? Oh! Gross, Spike!” Sarah does a wonderful little-girl-on-the-playground cadence on gross which is great acting but also makes me want to take an icepick to my temple.

T: Did Spike just punch Buffy then not have his chip go off? I think that happened. Yep. That happened.

{*\../*} : Yep. And then he tracks a girl into an alley with intent to kill, gives himself a rousing “I’m still a monster, I’m not housebroken!” speech and then has blinding pain when he tries to bite her. Soooo the chip is working (probably), but Buffy isn’t reading as human anymore, which was neatly suggested by Buffy’s venomous delivery on calling him an inhuman thing. Because that’s not ominous at all.

T: So now Buffy isn’t human, according to a piece of evil military technology. What was the last time one of our cast thought they weren’t human? Pretty much it was the same time we last saw Miss Kitty Fantastico. “Family.” With Tara. Hey, it’s Tara! She could have been added to the opening credits!

{*\../*} : She’s having a milkshake with Dawn, which is adorable. Tara is encouraging Dawn to eat leafy greens and gently prodding her about the size of her milkshake, and breaks with minimal encouragement into the “I will always be there for you” speech. This is playing like a mom-with-daughter-in-midst-of-divorce scene, and a cute one. Please, writers, acknowledge Tara moved out because she was being abused. Any moment now. Oh God, Dawn is deploying the “You still love her” defense. Oh... God. “She’s been really good about careful about stuff.” The writers are not off-point, actually, because this is not the nice sunny scene it’s being shot as at all. This is the daughter from an abusive household trying to tell the abused mom who moved out that the remaining parent has changed because it has been X days since the last incident. It becomes really obvious if you change the gender pronouns in Dawn’s dialogue here. “[He’s] been doing a lot better lately. [He’s] been really good about being careful about stuff.”

And now we’re having a nice normal investigation scene with the gang, everyone sitting around the table, more brightly lit shooting, but when Anya says they don’t have the right text and Willow says “We’ll do it another way,” sudden Buffy and Xander are on red alert. “I don’t think we need to resort to...” Buffy stumbles out, and Xander’s mouth is hanging open to add something, and then Willow pulls out her laptop and suddenly Xander is enthusiastically talking about going “back to basics.” Apparently “Tabula Rasa” didn’t actually vanish from everyone’s minds after all.

T: And Willow magics the computer. Magic hacking. That’s… a neat idea, or would be if not for the fact that we’re in Buffy Season 6. I believe magic hacking more than I believe TV hacking, which basically treats computers as magical anyway. Xander wants to go away from her. And Anya gets everything out in the open.

{*\../*} : Except she makes it about Tara having left her, which is NOT THE POINT. Which is okay from Anya, but then nobody else corrects her. Also, “It’s better this way,” Willow? Really?

T: Truth. Though Anya did point out that nobody wants to talk about anything. Either they don’t understand, or they do and they don’t want to talk about anything. Either way… I don’t have an ending to that sentence.

To be fair, it IS better that Tara has left her abusive, memory-deleting girlfriend. Willow is right on that note. That Willow is the abusive, memory-deleting girlfriend makes me less sympathetic to her rightness. Then she finishes her sentence and is no longer right. Oh god I hate this scene.

{*\../*} : “This time away will help us sort things out” (while she does nothing to acknowledge what the problem is in the first place). “Now let’s get through this. I don’t want to leave Amy alone in the house so long.” Umm.....

T: Now we’re talking about Amy. Willow implies that Amy might not remember how to use a toilet. Buffy is now good with this not leaving her alone in the house thing. Ye gods, though, Willow, straight to insulting Amy?

Season 6 Willow might be worse than Spike. If not for Creepmeister’s presence, she might be the worst character in the season. Is Creepmeister there to provide a counterargument to “Willow is the very worst?”

{*\../*} : Speaking of whom, we cut to the diamond. And a dick joke.

T: PENIS JOKES! And here’s Spike, to ruin days. MORE PENIS JOKES! He is threatening Boba Fett. I think Creepmeister is revealing things we already knew based on him being Creepmeister here.

{*\../*} : The comedy here is wonderful, but the most interesting thing is that Spike just walked into the headquarters of the season Big Bads and did not in fact notice they were doing anything. Including, say, the big diamond on the table. He’s so focused on himself and his chip and what’s going on with Buffy that he doesn’t see them as anything but an easily-dismissed tool for his agenda.

And now Willow is home and talking with Amy, who wants to make her dad forget the last three years. And Willow is making jokes about the poor aim of her forgetfulness spells, because ha-ha that’s funny.

T: I hope we’re meant to be horrified that Willow thinks that’s funny. Oh god, I hope we’re meant to be horrified that Willow thinks that’s funny. Amy wants to go somewhere. Not to her father’s. Was her father involved in the attempt to burn her at the stake? Amy is playing on Willow’s old insecurities. Willow wants to have fun.

And now we get Creepmeister doing diagnostics on Spike’s chip. Then the aftermath. Andrew is trying to impress Spike with his Doctor Who viewing. Spike yells for Creepmeister. Creepmeister says the chip works still. Spike understands what’s going on. “Nothing wrong with me. Something wrong with her.”

{*\../*} : Tara is walking into the house with Dawn.  Who is pressuring her to stay and invoking her own loneliness. That’s horribly manipulative. I really feel for Tara here. Dawn’s being a pretty typical teenager, but Tara’s in a situation where her maternal feelings about Dawn are being used to hold her hostage in the house until her abuser (who is out hitting the town with the ex-rat) gets home so that Dawn can try to push them to reconcile. Icky.

T: I feel for both of them. You’ve hit why I feel for Tara - whose situation is among the worst of a whole cast of people in bad situations - but Dawn is basically out of even partially functional parental figures. Giles left. Willow’s utterly ‘round the bend. Buffy is broken on a fundamental level and, even if she’s hiding it better than she was a few episodes ago, Dawn knows it. Tara’s the closest thing to a safe adult she has left in her life. That’s… really terrifying, when you think about it.

{*\../*} : And the correct answer is for her to move out with Tara, but Dawn’s need to keep an eye on Buffy and her attachment to the house and her refusal to really process what Willow having done what she did means is keeping her where she is. Someone writing this knows about abusive households.

T: It’s not just refusal. Dawn can’t escape. Not processing that is a psychological survival mechanism.

{*\../*} : True. Sorry, that’s correct. That it has the effect it has doesn’t mean it’s something she’s making a choice to do or that she somehow ought to be pulling herself up by her mental bootstraps to get out. She’s fifteen and ‘grew up’ in a household run by Joyce, for heaven’s sake - even Season 5 Joyce didn’t exactly teach her kids how to identify and stand up to abuse.

T: Willow and Amy are playing pool and talking about Xander and Anya. And are drunk. And it’s magic pool. Amy’s going to dance with a boy. And now Amy is casting attraction spells on girls regarding Willow. We know that’s a thing she can do. Willow, at least, is begging off this, though her stated objection isn’t “this is overriding their free will,” which really needs to be brought up because Amy does this, but is instead “I’m getting over a breakup” or maybe “I’m still into my girlfriend who I expect to get together with again any day now.” Goddammit, Season Six Willow. Amy is going to dance. And is dancing. Michelle Branch isn’t playing the Bronze today. Willow has a sad face. Now she’s drinking alone and threatening her olive. Amy runs back over and apologizes, which is better than Willow’s done about her much worse offenses so far. Amy says yet another really good line of dialogue (the dialogue writing, as I’ve said, is REALLY ON this episode), and now the guys are insulting Willow and harassing Amy.

{*\../*} : Homophobically insulting Willow. She and Amy are swapping significant looks. Incoming magical doom in 3, 2, 1....

T: And now they’re in Speedos dancing in cages. The guys, I mean. Really? That’s the magical revenge/justice? It… honestly feels very “exploiting gay panic” to me.

{*\../*} : The guys are clearly meant to be acceptable targets and we’re either supposed to laugh or be horrified at that moment. Or maybe the writers are splitting the difference, with the idea that we’ll laugh now and be horrified when the fridge logic kicks in?

T: Inasmuch as this show ever creates acceptable human targets (remember: violence against humans in this show is described as basically always evil), the guys come close. But this particular approach to responding to them just reinforces the stuff they were doing in the first place. How can an episode with such good dialogue keep tripping over basic plotting and themes?

D&D manuals don’t look like that, writers.

{*\../*} : That’s Dragons of Summer Flame. It’s a Dragonlance novel. No-vel. With novel cover art. I know because it’s sitting on my shelf in my bedroom. They stuck a D&D novel in his hands and called it a monster manual? I don’t know if I’m impressed they had a D&D book lying around or horrified they got it so wrong.

T: It’s too bad, because the actual pages of the Second Edition AD&D Monster Manual would make a GREAT sight gag here. With the little rectangles in the corners that have the monster pictures? If they were worried about copyright, they could just make sure Xander had it open to the Invisible Stalker page, since its rectangle was empty.

{*\../*} : Xander and Anya and Buffy are sitting around talking about how bad they are at research. Then they talk about Willow. Then Spike calls, and there is wonderful farce comedy with the conversation. Soo.... lots to talk about here.

Anya and Xander are pitching the idea that you have to watch out for quiet, responsible people because when they get a taste of being bad (or connecting to something bigger than them, or getting out of control) then they explode into a frenzy of bad decisions/power use/out of control. They’re worried that Willow was using too much magic before Tara left and now it’s going to get worse. “It’s human nature,” Xander says, and Buffy is immediately launching into a defense of responsible people and the importance of not assuming everyone is being seduced right before Spike calls. At which point the camera gets very close to her face and we watch her eyes get all huge while Spike growls at her over the phone, followed by protestations of how professional the call is from Buffy, followed by her immediately jumping on his double entendre on which he then doubles down. The camera work here is just screaming “bad boy, good girl, they’re thinking about having sex” and Buffy’s ditched the pigtails and turtleneck for a semi-transparent white blouse over a camisole that bares her neck and tied her hair back in a way that’s designed to make those close shots provocative. The costuming department is loudly telling us that this is a woman setting herself up to be seduced by a soulless dead guy who she was trading punches with earlier and who is now excited to know he can hurt her and planning to meet up in a CEMETERY.

Help me, Tia. I can’t even start to explain how problematic both those conversations are.

T: I feel like we’re beating a horse that is not only dead here, but has been turned, stabbed and thrown into Hell, returned from Hell, regained its soul, and become an unlicensed private investigator in a hotel in Los Angeles, but, once again, the entire cast - and probably the writers and almost certainly the director? - have fixated on the magic thing without acknowledging that Willow was abusing Tara, or that they were there, in the room, being Randy and Joan and witnessing it. Hell, Anya made out with Giles in the middle of the evidence; that’s how much in the middle of it they were. And nobody - ever - even Anya who talks about everything - has so much as brought it up. “She’s using too much magic,” they say, like when I walk into a room and find there’s blood everywhere and a corpse and I say, “Huh. This person uses too many knives.” The knife addiction is NOT THE PROBLEM HERE. I really don’t know how long I can go repeatedly saying “They’re not acknowledging the abuse and the writers are giving no indication that that’s supposed to be a problem,” but this episode keeps throwing at me in the midst of its immensely clever dialogue.

Buffy and Spike’s dialogue here? Immensely clever. Seriously, this is the way those characters talk at its very best. As for the content of it… I think you covered why it’s fucked up pretty well there, with a side order of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer, especially when it comes to its main protagonist, has a bad habit of being generally sex-negative and that makes it even harder to tell whether it knows this particular moment is extra-problematic and super-creepy.”

Heh. “Captain Peroxide.” Good one, Xander.

{*\../*} : Buffy is making excuses about Spike. Like a bad boyfriend she doesn’t want to admit to.  And now he’s stalking her outside the magic shop. And they’re trading threatening banter, and she hits him. He hits her back, and there is a distinct lack of pain. Buffy’s horrified face. “Don’t you see? Don’t you get it? You came back wrong.” More horrified face. Cut to black. Credits.

T: Did you know that Russian scientists are trying to bring back the fauna of the Ice Age to combat global warming? We might live to see wooly mammoths on Earth, which is a happy thought.

Less happy is Spike exploiting Buffy’s already-extant insecurities about her resurrection in his continued fucked-up pursuit of fucked-up fucking.

{*\../*} : Sex and violence is a longstanding literary mixture. No question, it gets a lot of people’s motors running, but let’s be clear - Spike is now literally threatening Buffy with physical harm and psychologically abusing her while pursuing having sex with her in a dark alley, and the writers have just spent an episode coding “She wants him to fuck her” into every interaction they have. This is not an okay set-up for a show being made in a culture where women are routinely raped and then face attacks on their personal worth, credibility and whether it was “true stranger rape” or not. If you do not explicitly give verbal consent or if you withdraw consent at any time and someone continues trying to have sex with you, that is rape. Period. It is never okay.

T: I think the last time Spike got this rapey was that scene with Willow right after he got his chip. Remember that one? The one we were supposed to laugh right after when they started making impotence jokes? This is an attempted rape scene, and… yeah. They loaded it precisely how Dragon is describing. So now they fight. Buffy throws Spike into an abandoned house. Amy and Willow are still at the Bronze, watching the guys dance and listening to the music… and… holy fuck really? Dragon? I can’t even. Can you even?

{*\../*} : I can very even. So let’s start with Amy and Willow up on the railing of the Bronze, with the guys from before still up in their cages dancing and a guy next to them doing the Robot and looking incredibly freaked out. Both of them look like the cats that ate the canary. Willow decides she doesn’t like the music and flicks her fingers. Disney sparkles. And then the male band leader turns into a woman in a tight shirt and sexy-makeup fronting a band playing a completely different sort of music. The rest of the band are also women. Right before he got hit with the magic, his eyes got huge with terror. Question: did she just transform them into the bodies of girls and magically compel them to play, or swap them for a different band who are not being magically compelled to play, or erase them from reality and replace them with magical replicants who exist to play the music she wants them to?

Hint: none of these answers is good, and the problem is not that she did it with magic.

Now Amy is making a guy fly, and Willow is making one guy incredibly tall and shrinking another, and Amy is turning people into sheep or possibly just summoning sheep. More magic sparkles, I can’t even tell what they’re doing now except making the club look like something out of Lewis Carroll by way of Circe and mind control fiction. Willow has a creepily sexy look on her face and is pressing her tongue to the back of her teeth. Cut to Buffy and Spike beating the shit out of each other in the abandoned house they charged into before. Spike is doing a creepy laugh and swinging on a chandelier that’s coming out of the ceiling. They’re throwing each other through stairs and the fireplace mantle. Buffy has started in on the verbal abuse now, too. “I’m in love with you,” Spike says in a creepy voice, and Buffy fires back with “You’re in love with pain. Admit it. You like me ‘cause you enjoy being beat down. So really, who’s screwed up?” And Spike, bless whoever hit this line and James Marsters for delivering it, says “Hello? Vampire. I’m supposed to be treading on the dark side.”

Yes. Yes. Stake him now!

No. More punching with a sexy camera angle. “What’s your excuse?” he says. She throws him into a wall and then flying tackles him.

Cut back to Amy and Willow still hanging over the rail. Guy floating in the background. Flying music. “So we’ve kinda played this scene,” Willow says, looking bored. “Return.” And now everyone’s back to normal and nobody seems to remember what just happened. And Willow is talking about somewhere bigger. Amy makes a joke about it being too early in the night.

Cut back to Spike and Buffy. Spike: “I wasn’t planning on hurting you. Much.” Creepy smile. Buffy: “You haven’t even come close to hurting me.” Is this supposed to be foreplay? Am I supposed to be getting hot for this? Because I’m gonna level with you, readers, I am a kinky girl who is into all sorts of stuff that isn’t allowed in mainstream movies and what this making me is excruciatingly uncomfortable.

More beating up the walls. And now Buffy’s kissing him and he’s shoving her into walls and they’re mixing fighting with more kissing. And literally taking the building down around them while we hear the sound of his zipper. And they’re having sex with their clothes on and staring at each other. Dramatic music chords. Building is come down without a sound, but we hear their noises and they go right through the floor without breaking penetration (yeah, right, that’s NOT how that works boys and girls) and finally, finally the credits roll.

T: Finally. Mercifully. At long last. So… “Smashed.” It’s not the worst episode? It’s got clever dialogue. Nobody tries to burn their children at the stake. That’s… all it has going for it, isn’t it?

This was an actively painful watch. I know we talked about it a lot during the synopsis, but the whole thing nobody acknowledging the fact that Willow was abusing Tara and the story as a whole not making clear that it was aware either (the scene with Dawn and the milkshake indicates it might be, or that someone in the writer’s room is, but… I don’t know).

This is Season 6. During Season 6, Joss Whedon was basically ignoring Buffy (though he wrote “Once More, With Feeling”) and left it in the hands of lead writer Marti Noxon, who was herself suffering from a huge, severe bout of depression. It’s possible that, in addition to that affecting the show’s creative direction, the lack of effective leadership on the creative side led to poor communication among the writers?

{*\../*} : Something is certainly going on in the production, here, because we’re being told several contradictory things here. On the Willow side - 1) The Dawn scenes tell us that Willow abused Tara and they’re broken up, and 2) the gang scenes are pitching us a Willow is high on the rush of magic, Tara was a speedbrake on that, and now she’s going out of control with Amy as her enabler-buddy. Depending on which of the two we believe, we can read Willow’s scenes as either her being in denial about her own actions and their costs and trying to hide from it with Amy’s devil-may-care recklessness - taking an active pleasure in flaunting what Tara was warning her about - or we can read them as a soon-to-be-junkie ceasing to be functional on her first night of binging. But we can’t do both. We just can’t - the text dissolves into nonsense if you try. Similarly, the Buffy scenes are telling us one of two things - either Buffy is in a state of existential despair and discomfort and her willingness to charge into Spike’s rape fantasy game is an act of self-destructive self-loathing, or Buffy is a responsible girl who’s been trying to live for others and Spike is the bad boy who’s about to introduce her to rough, reckless sex and embracing the kind of self-centered aggression that isn’t heroic. You can reconcile those two if you squint, but it requires saying that Buffy’s retreading Faith’s path from Season 3 and doing it while keeping it a secret from all her nominally supportive friends, and even Faith only looked like the second one - it was very clearly put out there toward the end of Season 3 that her bad girl attitude was very much a mask over the self-loathing and self-doubt that the Mayor eventually assuaged by being (perversely) a good father figure. And even then, the script doesn’t seem to know if we should be cheering her on or shouting no.

T: If it does know that, it’s certainly not telling us. I’m really not sure what to do with this episode… from the episode titles and the way it closes out, I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be a cliffhanger or a two-parter, but that also felt like they tried telling two complete, mutually exclusive stories with each lead within the course of an hour. Maybe “Wrecked” gives it some context, but I don’t expect it would be enough.

{*\../*} : Well, we’ll find out?