#whereas mom wants that in theory but i think part of her dislikes that coming from her own child even tho. y'know. she raised me this way

[princess-stabbity]

my mom has this tendency to assume, if i express a strong opinion on something, that i'm having a kneejerk emotional response, and haven't thought it through. and i wonder sometimes if other people do too, and it's just less obvious (because mom will try to counter with hypotheticals meant to challenge my statement).

the thing about me, tho, is when i let loose with a strongly-worded opinion, it's usually something i've been gnawing over quite a bit, actually. i have a deep-seated dread of Being Wrong, factually or morally, like to a clinical degree so usually when i say something, it's carefully couched in tentative language, and/or something i've thought about quite a bit.

this is not to say that i'm never acting or speaking emotionally, or that i never give in to kneejerk reactions. quite frankly, the people who brag they're perfectly rational tend to be the least, because they believe rationality and emotionality are inherently mutually exclusive. since they have assigned themselves the identity of A Rational Person, any reaction they have must be rational. So they conflate their emotions with objective reality, and at best work backwards to justify their initial emotional response, rather than examine and process it.

but despite the platitudes about missed opportunities, most of the regrets i've had in my life have been about shit i've said without thinking. times i've said something ignorant, or unkind, or just been confidently incorrect about something and embarrassed myself. so, in my dotage, i try very hard to restrain my impulse to shoot from the hip.

i'm still wrong sometimes, i'm sure. but at the very least, i can usually say i did the due diligence of trying to think it over thoroughly first. reading conflicting opinions, trying to get all the facts, investigating every possible counterpoint i see, consulting someone whose insight i trust, and finally just writing it down and coming back later to see if i still feel the same way. i literally have over 3,000 drafts on this site, in large part because that's the primary place i dump my hot takes. (as you can imagine, learning there's apparently a bug where sometimes people can see shit from your drafts on their dash was a fucking horrifying revelation.)

i guess i just wonder why she makes this assumption. like, is it just her (possible, she really prides herself on "seeing things from all sides")? or is it something about me: does the force of my expression alone makes it seem as though i'm working on pure emotion, because people instinctively assume that's incompatible with reason? or is it perhaps the contrast with the overly meek way i often express myself otherwise (for ex, i remember saying "i think we're out of those" once to a customer at work when i knew for a fact we were, and mentally kicked myself when they demanded i check to be sure). or is it something else entirely?

i don't know. all i can say is when i do actually post rants here, it's typically, like, the fourth draft on a topic that's been pissing me off for months, not something i threw out there in the heat of the moment

[thorias]

Random thoughts watching Riverdale episode 6

First thing we see is Betty and Polly as kids. There goes the Polly-is-Betty’s-split-personality theory, I guess. It was a long shot anyway. 

Alice is the first character to draw attention to how bizarre Jughead’s name is. Nice try, Alice, but I still hate you. 

Delivering on all the build up Polly has had is going to be tough. I’m thinking about what Polly could be like and imagining everything from Norma Bates to Patrick Bateman. 

I think a big reason why the story about Archie and his music doesn’t feel terribly compelling is because it’s too reminiscent of the comics, whereas everything and everyone else has been so heavily reimagined. We’ve got this Polly story and how it all connects to the murder mystery and it’s pretty fascinating stuff, but then we cut over to Archie having stage fright in a variety show, and it’s not bad, but I just want them to go back to the murder mystery because this part seems so unimportant by comparison. As much as I disliked the Grundy plot, it was the only thing Archie had that was as twisted as the other big plots on the show. Without it, he’s rather boring right now. 

Archie hallucinating people wearing wolf masks gets my attention, but Betty’s already got the ‘mentally unbalanced’ storyline wired and he’s got a long way to go to catch up to her. 

Reggie heckles Archie after Archie let him have the captain’s job on the football team last week. Because Reggie is a dick. 

Archie asking Val to sing with him at the show seems like a reasonable request and her excuse doesn’t really hold water. She “can’t step out on the Pussycats?” He’s not asking you too, sweety. If your band is already performing at the show, fine. Is there any reason you can’t do both? I wouldn’t put it passed Josie to try to put a stop to that, but Josie seemed cool with Archie after he helped them with that song, so where’s the issue here?  

Polly’s “group home” sounds less like a hospital for the mentally ill and more like a puritanical reformed school. Yeah, that seems like a place Alice Cooper would send her daughter to. 

Veronica ‘ex machina’ Lodge is a thing now. I was trying to come up with a nickname for her, so how nice of her to do the work for me. 

Thirty seconds into a Pussycats practice session and it seems that Josie is huge a control freak. Weird that Josie is the one credited as a regular cast member, yet Val is the one emerging as the more likable character and has had more screen time at this point too. 

Josie says Val can sing with Pussycats or Archie, but not both. Apparently, Archie helping the band with that song meant nothing to her. First Reggie and now Josie -- the short term memory loss seems to be spreading. I’m dangerously close to feeling bad for Archie here. 

The look on Josie’s face has me cheering Val for calling her bluff and walking out. 

Veronica stumbling upon her mom making out with Archie’s dad has me torn. On the one hand, it’s so awkward, I can’t look away. On the other, the kid in me who read the comics is fashioning a crude crucifix and waving it around in utter horror that likely mirrors Veronica’s. 

Archie is surprisingly cool with his dad potentially dating Hermione. Yeah, Archie is suddenly the well-adjusted one. How did that happen? 

Wait a minute. Val writes the Pussycats’ songs? Then maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to practically kick her out of the band, Josie! Dumbass. 

So Josie was stressing because her big shot musician dad is taking time out of his busy schedule to come visit and see the show, but if it sucks, her mom will get blamed for it? FFS, that’s ANOTHER kid with insane parents! I’m starting to think the luckiest ones on this show might be the kids being brought up by only one adult. Archie, Veronica and Kevin have no idea how fortunate they are. 

Josie certainly makes a lot more sense now that I’ve seen her with her mom. It’s crazy how so many of the problems the kids on this show have can be directly blamed on the people raising them. 

“What about dad?” Veronica asks her mom, as if her dad being in prison and causing his wife to become a social pariah didn’t likely cause the end of their marriage already. Ronnie didn’t really think they were going to work things out, did she? 

Archie is quick to swap Veronica out for Val as his singing partner, which is kind of a dick move. But then Veronica fires back by being a jerk about his dad and her mom kissing. Archie then stumbles onto the topic of his parents being separated and Hiram’s biggest romantic concern these days being to make sure he doesn’t drop the soap in the shower. So I guess the upshot of this scene is that they’re both being assholes and Val is the only nice one simply because she was the only person smart enough to keep her mouth shut. 

“Garden of Deliverance?” Yeah, that doesn’t conjure up any horror imagery at all. Are we adding religious thriller tropes to the mix now? 

At least Alice didn’t force an abortion on Polly, but sending your child to mental institution/religious-themed prison seems pretty damn cruel. Then again, having seen what lunatics Cheryl’s parents are, maybe Alice had the right idea by taking steps to make sure they don’t find out that Polly is carrying Jason’s progeny. At this point, I wouldn’t put it passed Mrs. Blossom to try to cut Junior out of Polly’s belly with a spork. 

I might believe that Jason only broke up with Polly because his parents forced him too, but the idilic future Polly said they had in store for them sounds downright psychotic. I knew people back in high school who became parents at this age and... let’s just say that it working out as perfectly as Polly describes is pretty freaking unlikely. 

Polly not being taken away until July 4th feels a bit awkward. I was under the impression that she’d been gone longer than that. But her being dragged into a van against her will isn’t exactly helping with the allusions to Polly basically being a prisoner here. 

In the blink of an eye, Polly turns the crazy up to eleven and it’s a little disturbing. Yeah, she definitely needs to be in a hospital, but I’m not entirely sure that’s what this place is. 

First Josie gets pissed at Val for singing (god forbid someone in a band try to do that) and now she’s pissed at Veronica for NOT signing? This girl has no idea what she wants. 

Veronica is upset that she hasn’t seen her dad in three months. Man, that really makes you think. So many of the parents on this show are out of their damn minds, but they still get to walk around free, so what exactly did Hiram do that was bad enough to land him in prison? Cannibalism? Murder/suicide cult? I’m guessing it was a wee bit more extreme than embezzlement or whatever the excuse they gave us in the pilot was. 

Archie and Val actually sound good together. See, Archie? This is what a healthy relationship with a female looks like. 

Alice was definitely being cruel by not telling Polly that Jason was dead, but considering how quickly Polly’s mental stability just shattered like stale potato chips, keeping her in the dark may have been the lesser of two evils. 

Fred, Hermione, Archie, Josie, Josie’s control freak mom and her arrogant asshole dad are all having dinner and the tension is thick enough to kill a horse. Should they just call for an ambulance now or wait for someone to draw blood first? 

Betty straight up asks her dad if he killed Jason. I’m surprised they’re playing that card this early, but I guess red herrings aren’t meant to last long. 

Oh shit! Don’t use the “C” word around Betty! Even at the best of times, she’s one bad day away from breaking out that Darth Betty wig and going to town on this whole cast with a meat cleaver. Why tempt fate? 

I wouldn’t put it passed Josie’s parents to not give Archie’s dad the contract simply out of spite for his son luring Val away from Josie’s band. That’s not the reason they give him, but that’s probably what it’s really about. At any rate, those two are world class pricks for coming to dinner with him and letting him go through that whole presentation just to tell him that the contract was already given to someone else. 

Hermione is trying to get Fred the contract, which is self-serving, but also a really nice thing to do considering the way Hiram wanted to go was undoubtedly a lot shadier, but Veronica refuses to put her signature on the thing because she doesn’t like her mom dating someone. This is one of those rare occasions in Riverdale when the parent is actually more likable than the kid. I get that Veronica is upset about this, but seeing as her dad has most likely spent the last several months behind bars being someone’s bitch, maybe she should give her mom a break.   

Archie tells Val she should perform with the Pussycats. I think he’s trying to do the right thing here, but doesn’t this mean that he just dicked with Veronica a second time since she just replaced Val in the Pussycats and Val coming back will make her a fifth wheel? 

“They’re parents. They’re all crazy.” On this show? Yeah. Truer words have never been spoken in Riverdale. 

JUGHEAD KISSES BETTY?!?! WTF IS GOING ON?!?! THE ONLY WAY THIS HAPPENS IS IF HE’S IMAGINING A HAMBURGER WHERE HER FACE SHOULD BE!! FUCK THIS!! THESE WRITERS KNOW NOTHING!! 

The Pussycats sing a cover of some disco song at the variety show. Wasn’t them not doing other people’s songs a big thing for them? I’m pretty sure there was a line in the pilot about that. 

Poor Veronica looks like she feels really out of place onstage with the Pussycats and I feel bad for her. Sure, she’s been a jerk at times in this episode, but she’s been jerked around by other people just as much. 

The Pussycats give a great performance which Josie’s musical snob dad leaves in the middle of. Because Josie’s dad is a jackass. 

Archie and Veronica apologizing to each other was sweet. Something I’m noticing with Grundy gone now is that, while Archie continues to screw up pretty regularly, his mistakes are becoming less severe and he’s getting quicker at trying to fix them. 

Archie has to follow the Pussycats on top of battling stage fright. They really threw this poor schmuck into the deep end head first, didn’t they? Did Reggie choose the order of these acts by any chance? 

Awww, Betty feels bad that she’s missing Archie’s song. This girl is so pure that she has me absolutely dreading her inevitable psychotic episode. Crazy does seem to run in her family after all. 

Archie does really well and gets a standing ovation. Because no matter how many times he screws up, I guess it wouldn’t be Riverdale if everyone in town wasn’t in love with this guy. But, hey, he had a personal problem that didn’t involve statutory rape and he overcame it. I call that progress. 

So what was that stuff with the wolf masks all about? 

How long is Veronica going to be passive aggressively giving her mom shit for this thing with Fred Andrews? I’d tell her to be realistic about the chances of her parents getting back together, but this is apparently some wacko, bizarro world, parallel universe where Jughead likes girls, so clearly the writers have checked realism at the door.  

Polly escaping the mental hospital (or whatever it is we’re calling that place) seriously plays like the beginning of a slasher flick. But she jumped out of a second or third story window, heavily pregnant. How far could she possibly have gotten?  

My newest theory is that Polly killed Jason and then convinced herself that it never happened because, you know, she's fucking nuts.