#this is a 3k+ MONSTER yikes
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it wasn’t power i coveted; it was acceptance.
Titans 3.06
y’know, i was just thinking the other day that 1.06/1.07 and 2.06/2.07 were the best episodes of their respective seasons, so i have great hopes going in to this one. fingers crossed!
as always, typing this up as i see the episode.
SPOILERS AHEAD
1. oh! um... that was a Cold Open, all right. *nudges* get it? cold? because it’s snowing? and two people got murdered in cold blood? eh?
... oh, i’ve just started.
1.5. i wonder if “i want to be sipping pina coladas on a beach with you” is the new “i’m just one day away from retiring.” i was so on edge after that--i kept expecting that car to explode. even so, the way they died wasn’t an anticlimax: brutal, and quick.
1.75. so i’m assuming that’s the titular lady vic! this show better bring up why this doll was important or why these two cops needed to be killed, and not leave it to the ether like jericho’s little mindscape jaunt in 2.08 (i’m still dying to know what that was about???)
2.
i love how deliberately unappealing wayne manor is.
(sorry for the pic quality. i don’t have hbo max! ssshhh.)
2.3. i love the many references to “home” and “our house” when they’ve been here for less than a week and saw one of their friends get blown into pieces. i mean, i unironically love it: home is where family is, after all!
2.5. i’d like to say that kom is playing some sort of long game here, especially given the build-up we had last season and some of the more niggling details this season: why did kom choose now to use her bond to lure kory when she’s been on earth for months? why did justin call kory now, just around the time that she started getting kom’s visions? and what about kom’s ability to exactly imitate other people? hmmm.
2.75. the reason i wrote i’d like to say is that i’ve made the mistake of assuming plot complexity where there is none; i was so invested in the jason todd orchestrated his own death theory for instance, when it turns out that oops! ra’s al ghul just happened to leave a little lazarus puddle in gotham, and oh yeah! scarecrow just happens to have a network of henchmen working for him on the outside and a fully functional laboratory and a weapons cache fit for a new supervillain in the basement of the high security psychiatric unit/prison that he’s in!
(no i’m not bitter, why do you ask)
2.8. iiiii don’t know what to say about the implications of sex slavery being a thing on tamaran, so i’m not going to say anything at all. for now.
3. gotham, six years ago... wasn’t it five years before s2 that jericho died and the titans disbanded? and when was the flashback from 1.06 where dick let zucco die? i think it was after the events of 2.08: jericho? i can’t seem to find any transcripts or reliable information online, so i’m going to have to rewatch 1.06 at some point.
(i love the old-fashioned batman music in this heist scene)
3.5. “security is a joke... it’s my way of keeping my dad on his toes”. what you’re an ethical thief now, like an ethical hacker? i don’t think that excuse is going to sell, barbara, on the day you do encounter a decent security system and your father is forced to arrest you.
(then again, gotham’s security is piss-poor. did you know that you could just walk into arkham asylum without any official clearance, ply one of its most dangerous inhabitants with contraband, and said inmate could get away with having an entire laboratory and weapons cache--NO I’M NOT GOING TO LET THIS GO)
3.8 so that flashback between dick and barbara was really cute! and also illuminating:
a) dick sounds so light, so... um. look. i have some apologies to tender to mr thwaites, because while i’ve always thought he does a fine job as dick grayson, i’ve never been terribly fond of his cadence as he delivers dialogue. it’s often monotonous, i thought, but then again, he’s usually delivering exposition or dealing with one soul-crushing crisis or the other. so i was pleasantly surprised to hear dick sound so carefree and alive in his conversation with barbara, laughing frequently, his emotions so bare and bubbling to the surface. it’s really a fantastic contrast to the traumatised and world-weary dick grayson that we see now, even more so than the costume department just bunging a backwards-baseball cap on mr thwaites’ head and hoping that will convince us of his relative youth.
b) and god, when he wakes up from that memory, all alone in his bed, bleeding from bullet holes in his shoulder (bullet holes that are--in a somewhat convoluted way--barbara’s fault)? yikes. it’s great. you have my apologies, mr thwaites!
c) can you imagine dick just... crawling back to wayne manor, trying not to be seen by anybody, shedding his suit and just... collapsing onto his bed without even tending to his wound? the sheer emotional and physical exhaustion of it?
d) it’s so interesting to see how barbara and dick approach the idea of legacy--a big theme on the show!--in this flashback. barbara is the one bucking the idea that she should follow in her father’s footsteps, while dick seems pretty content with the batman-and-robin setup, and even tries to get barbara to join their team (robin-girl. pfffft). obviously after this several traumatic things happen wherein dick ends up questioning and then resenting his role as robin, his relationship with batman or even returning as a vigilante at all. and barbara... ends up replacing her father as commissioner. it’s tragic, really.
e) the dynamic between dick and barbara in the flashback reminds me of how it was between dick and donna in 1.08 and even between kory and dick in early s1. it’s like having an older, strong-willed woman by his side means he gives over the steering wheel for a while and lets himself... unspool, a little bit. it’s kinda endearing.
also:
*pinches his cheeks*
3. you know, we talk about dick and Eldest Daughter Syndrome, and that’s definitely valid, but here gar seems to me the embodiment of it, with all the emotional gardening and firefighting that he’s expected to do. he’s kind of the guy expected to keep his shit together and take care of everyone else while they are falling completely to pieces, unable to carve out time to process his own trauma. he’s also picked up dick’s and kory’s tendencies to bottle up their struggles and shun appearing vulnerable, and he’s struggling in the shadow of both dick and kory undergoing acute crises, his best friend (and frequent confidante) on the other side of the world, and seeing hank die, utterly helpless to stop it.
i’m glad that he got a chance to tell dick even a smidgeon of what he really feels, and i hope this is at least a semblance of a wake up call for dick to actually sit down and work with the people he repeatedly calls family.
3.5. it’s heartening to see that dick immediately makes it his priority to go talk to gar. but don’t blow off kory in the process, man!
4. i’m really loving this dynamic between kom and conner--i get the idea that both of them consider each other as Unknowns, alien two times over. but conner’s only ever known the titans, who embrace being different, and kom’s only ever known... well.
anyway, kory is Really Stressed, and honestly? #relatable.
when you’re forced to bring an estranged family member to hang out with your friends...
4.5. i love that the titans are spending so much time in the kitchen. a real family!
5. jonathan crane is a creep and i absolutely cannot stand him.
5.25. how did he get a whole lab setup (in the basement of a hospital...?) with a bunch of whitecoats to work for him? how did he just waltz into the viewing room of an operation theatre when he’s one of the most wanted men in gotham right now? why is jason wandering around maskless when--presumably--as the adopted son of the most famous person in gotham he’d be a tad more recognisable than your average joe?
why do i expect this show to answer anything anymore?
5.5. that’s not necessarily a criticism, mind; i’ve said since season 1 that titans is very comics-like in this aspect, all about the Aesthetic and the splash-page splendour rather than the niggling unimportant details of how or when the characters got to said location. like. the camera gliding over the operation being set-up, lady vic bursting in and doing her murder dance (imagine the luck of the poor intern who chose this day and this surgery to assist) and jason, shocked and slack-jawed, framed by blood.
5.75. it’s a sobering reminder for jason that, though he chose this path in order to gain control over a world that seemed like it was rapidly spinning out of his grip, he’s only succeeded in handing over even more control to a man with an agenda that is very clearly not aligned with his own. he’s in too far to stop now, though.
5.9. i have a lot more thoughts about jason! saving it up for the end of this recap, though.
6. more kitchen time! i better see dick do some cooking soon...
(”our kitchen”! it still delights me! kitchens are So Important)
6.25. so much of dick’s issues have revolved around his relationship with bruce, so it’s completely understandable that in the wake of a huge crisis where bruce literally asks dick to replace him and be a “better” him, dick would default to all the worst things he learned from the man. and i’m glad kory’s having none of it, but come on, guys. the woman’s literally fetched her fratricidal sister out of a hole in the ground with no idea what said sister is going to do next and experiencing a burgeoning sense of guilt far, far beyond her history with the titans, and dick’s too far into his autocolonoscopy that he can’t see that she needs help.
6.5. “he services your urges”--well, as far as we know, kory is the last person he had sex with...
7. “i hope [gar] isn’t angry with me...” SIR! i thought you’d already spoken to him! smh, as the kids say. kory wouldn’t be needing to reassure you if you just took the effort to build two way emotional relationships with the rest of the team. @superohclair was taking about dick’s relatively low emotional intelligence? i agree.
7.5. “i got my own problems [...] you and barbara? fix it.” YOU TELL HIM, KORY
8. man i really like this weird, sad tension between dick and barbara--this sense that both of them are approaching the other based on how they remember them and are ultimately disappointed by the truth. barbara thought she could trust dick to... well, be a better batman, but dick has not only failed at that in her eyes, but repeatedly undermined her while exploiting the authority that she gave him. in dick’s eyes, this is nothing like the barbara that he knew, rebellious and ready to do whatever it takes to find something.
like. this show sometimes really hits me in the chest about the ways it shows kids grow into adults and into caretakers, and the way it’s stop-start, the ways nothing can happen at all for a long time and then it’s Crisis Central all at once and there’s no space to breathe. the weird sort of sadness that comes with nostalgia.
8.5. oracle name drop! i agree with barbara, any system that can just randomly tap into gotham phonelines is a monster.
8.7. (i don’t know if it’s my imagination, but is dick holding himself... differently in this episode? like that wound is definitely bothering him, and he’s running on fumes)
9. man, that was a really sweet scene between kom and conner. “feeling alien in your own world”... “not quite here nor there”
honestly this team runs on conner and gar’s faith in their value as a family, and it’s a sign of conner’s generous heart that he extends that opportunity to blackfire. this arc of maturation for him, where he’s now able to consciously choose which parts of himself he can use to do the thing he wants to so--save people--has been so fulfilling to recognise. this baby’s grown with the titans! and what he’s learnt is that people can get fucked up, but the titans is a place where they can be fucked up, and grow.
MY MAN CONNER
10. oh man i’m drinking in the gar-dick interaction in this episode like i’m three days into the desert and it’s the only source of water for miles around!
a) gar is absolutely not dealing with dick’s bullshit this episode and I LOVE IT. it’s such a far cry from the man who was idolising dick/robin back in s1 and expecting him to solve all their problems. dick is fallible, dick is fucked up, but he Tries His Best and that’s ok.
b) dick, huffing and puffing through that vent, unable to put any pressure on his left shoulder, trying to have a heart to heart with gar... fuck i love this asshole.
c) bruce took in a kid who was suffering... “and made him into a weapon”. well. i absolutely agree with dick that it was bruce who put these kids into these horrible situations with him and they came away with a bucketload of trauma to add to the one that they already had. but we know that bruce was really trying with jason, and at the end of s2, dick was coming to acknowledge that bruce had offered him something that wasn’t just darkness. jason’s death and bruce’s reaction to that shattered that fragile progress.
d) “gotham got to me too.” i feel more sympathetic towards dick running off on his own than most, and it’s not just because i’m an unapologetic stan. we’ve seen before that dick... devolves when overwhelmed, and he lashes out and makes ill thought out decisions and just Does Not Deal. it happened after hearing the news that deathstroke had returned in s2, and it didn’t help that everyone around him was reeling at the news, either. this time, however, he has his salvation in his family, and despite some stupid decisions like running off and kidnapping supervillains without telling his team, he’s been really on the ball this season. thinking clearly and logically, holding it together and working on a plan, thinking two steps ahead of the villains... yes.
e) gar needing to believe that jason isn’t beyond redemption... there’s a lot of blood on his hands, too, from when he was manipulated by cadmus last season. it makes sense why he’d relate to jason’s predicament, and i hope dick picked up on that.
f) my head just added a plaintive ow after dick jumped feet first into the storage room
i need, crave gifs of this scene!
11. *sits on hands* i’m going to talk more about red hood, i promise!
12. more gar and dick! is it my birthday??!!
(actually, according to the tamil calendar, it is my birthday! my “star” birthday)
12.5. excellent. dick using some implausible training that bruce taught him to solve a mystery? passing some of that knowledge onto gar? that proud smile when he sees gar perfectly execute moves that he taught him? MY HEART IS EXPLODING
13. aw, i love flashback!dick and barbara, they’re so cute <3
13.25. why does it not surprise me that the way he proposes a relationship to barbara is by saying “we make sense”? this guy can deduce exactly who was present where and what weapon they were holding from a garbled audio recording but other times he’s utterly clueless, and that’s a consistent character beat right from s1
13.5. so.... that’s why lady vic has it out for... barbara....? i don’t get it. it’s flimsy. but hey! the fun thing about titans is that i don’t have to get it. the payoff has nothing to do with the plot.
14. i can’t believe that barbara fell for that, but at least that wheelchair fight looked awesome, so.
15. oh yeah, i forgot that red hood bullied the mob into helping him and scarecrow... at least that explains the whitecoats and the elaborate set-up.
15.5. honestly i love how this dynamic between kory and kom is developing, though i wish more of the team would pay attention to it. time to call justin, i think!
16. i wonder what happened after that second flashback where barbara got hurt during that heist. did she give up on doing any more (maybe jim caught her)? was it because dick was called away by bruce and then the titans and got caught up in his own issues? maybe barbara froze him out because she wasn’t looking for the relationship that he was looking for? maybe the idea of doing that with someone turning into batman-lite was just... unappealing? scary?
whatever it is, it doesn’t look like dick ever processed the end of that relationship. it’s very intriguing to see where their dynamic goes next.
17. so.... what, did vic deliver some fear toxin to barbara? i... what?
17.5. and i TOLD YOU that they would never explain that doll or why vic attacked those two cops at the beginning! oh, titans. never change.
18. did jason just randomly have tim’s restaurant burgled? god, i’m feeling a bit nauseous... are they going to kill tim’s father?
18.25. i feel like the rest of the season is going to wrestle with jason’s culpability in the horrible stuff he’s doing and i’m already seeing that prospect divide fans. on one hand, his story is taking a lot of oxygen away from other equally interesting story arcs, and he’s done some truly awful things, like indiscriminate murder, threatening to kill children, blowing up hank, and potentially killing tim’s parents.
there’s something to be said for the kind of hold that crane has over him, and the so-called ‘anti-fear’ drug that he keeps plying jason with--he’s alone, drugged almost constantly (to the level of dependence), fresh from the trauma of being bludgeoned to death. he hasn’t conquered fear; he’s ruled by it. on the other hand, given that he’s the one character on the show given an obvious and identifiable ‘mental illness’ arc (maaaaybe dick too), one can argue that it’s irresponsible to show this progress into such violence: jason was vulnerable because he was struggling, and that left him vulnerable, but it took only a push before he became a fucking serial killer.
but that could mean we underestimate the degree of that vulnerability, and the mechanics of this universe where he fell into the clutches of the one supervillain perfectly designed to exploit that vulnerability. that helpless spiral into further and further self-destruction is all too real. it’s valuable to know that someone who has sunk that low can still seek help--actual help--and get it.
18.5. i don’t know. it’s not a question i’m going to resolve at the end of an overlong recap at 1 in the morning. i don’t believe it’s even a question that titans can resolve. but i am interested in where they’re going next with jason.
19. this episode was genuinely great! i’m pumped for the rest of the season!
#titans#titans spoilers#meta#dick grayson#koriand'r#barbara gordon#garfield logan#conner kent#komand'r#jason todd#jonathan crane#a byronic cupcake#badass strawberry truffle#manic pixie pop tart#a tragic jalebi#this is a 3k+ MONSTER yikes
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tagged by the lovely @christchex :D
rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 favourite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world. tag as many writers/artists/etc as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!
1) all the oceans put together couldn’t hold me back
this was written almost exactly a year ago today (& imagine my surprise when i had to eliminate some of my favorite fics from this when i realized it’d been over a year since i posted them?!) & i’m still pretty happy with it. i never write short things, and this was a little under 3k, so it counts. it was also something i thought was AWFUL as i wrote it, and now, looking back, i’m actually pretty proud of it. there are no stilted lines or horribly awkward transitions that normally show up when i reread & make me cringe, & i actually wrote an ending that i’m happy with!
2) we’re all lonely together
i have such a love/hate relationship with this fic. i’m so proud of how it came out, but this fic went through at least SIX different iterations before i finally finished it in its current form, & i had to do a deep dive into the RNM timeline, which -- yikes. but i wrote something that’s more gen than shippy, shows the importance & my love of found family, & the kind of happy ending that makes me feel sappy.
3) give me strength so i can see
this fic is ... not my best work, but it’s brought me a lot happiness during quarantine because a lot of people are reading & rec-ing it, or leaving nice comments, which is really sweet. it’s my only work in the 911 fandom, & probably will be for a while since i don’t usually feel particularly motivated to write in this fandom, but i just loved the tsnunami arc & the angst that came with it was right up my alley.
4) not by blood, but by choice
i honestly think this is my favorite fic that i’ve written in the RNM fandom. i know that everyone loves to hate max, loudly, in this fandom, but he’s one of my favorite characters -- & trying to include alex in their makeshift, messed-up little family was a lot of fun. this is one of my own fics that i actually like to read, which pretty much never happens. & yeah. this one :)
5) bitch, i’m a monster
oh, boy. this thing. this was supposed to be a snapshot ficlet of a bigger AU that i was never going to write. the original idea was literally crack -- what if alex was a vampire? & thirteen thousand words later, plus one more part i’m yet to finish, & at least three assorted ficlets, it because an entire universe of its own. it’s as self-indulgent & silly as the title makes it sound, but i always smile when people mention enjoying my little corner of crazy.
tagging: uhhh who’s already done this? @soberqueerinthewild, @haloud, @tasyfa, @angsty-nerd ... sorry if y’all have already been tagged! i miss things when the dash gets moving too fast.
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A Buffy rewatch 4x17 Superstar
aka the shrimp problem
Welcome to this dailyish text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and go on an impromptu rant about it for an hour. Is it about one hyperspecific thing or twenty observations? 10 or 3k words? You don’t know! I don’t know!!! In this house we don’t know things.
And today’s episode is a really fun alternate reality-esque one-off, that still operates and builds on the reality of season, so there’s a lot to potentially talk about. Also, Tara’s in the gang now!
You gotta love an episode that commits to its premise. There are so many background details signifying the reality change with Jonathan’s face plastered all over them. And the episode leans heavily into these, with the camera often panning or focusing over all these posters, comics, TV appearances, calendars, and it’s just so delightfully over the top. I love it.
And then there are the opening credits. Not only do they include random Jonathan scenes from the episode, they even filmed some additional footage just to have those in the credits as well. So. Much. Fun.
There are of course some implications and a buttload of entitlement that comes with Jonathan’s spell though. The episode at some point also asks us to question how far he would go protecting the facade, and if he would kill Buffy to do so. That ends up being not the case of course, and by the end, we feel like there was a genuine attempt on his part to do something good in the world. And yet...
...I have to applaud the show for eventually making Jonathan part of the Trio, based on all this. The way his fantasy plays out, being the the guy who knows everything better also includes him making those around him less as well. He’s essentially putting down people to make himself feel superior.
This is most obvious in Buffy’s case of course, who is made to feel like she can’t even take on a small vampire gang alone. Jonathan takes away her confidence, and then has all these condescending fake speeches about how she’s “doing her best”. That’s some serious supervillain material right there.
Jonathan also made himself to be everyone’s sexual fantasy I guess?? And that’s sort of fun with the Anya and Xander scene and the implication that they’re both totally into him (continuing the good old tradition of vagueing Xander’s sexuality the fuck up), but Tara and Willow making their Jonathan collage is when I turn into that Leslie Jones tweet.
shegaydudestopitlol.jpg
Then there’s the question of the “twins” who Jonathan appears to be sharing his mansion with and... That’s where we potentially get to some real yikes territory. He even comments by the end of the episode that they moved out, re-affirming that they were only with him because they were under his spell? Big yikes.
Speaking of yikes, I already largely touched upon this with my Who Are You? rant, but this is where we get the fallout of the whole Faith slept with Riley as Buffy thing and... I pretty much said all that I was gonna say about it I think. It’s not good.
Buffy does acknowledge though that she shouldn’t blame Riley for what happened, even if she does have to get through her own emotions about the whole thing. Still, this is the one instance where we actually could’ve used some more Riley PoV here. Buffy’s hurt, sure, but Riley was violated here too. So... yeah. Good old yikes on that.
All that aside, I really love how Buffy gets to be the one who starts seeing through Jonathan’s shenanigans. When Jonathan dismisses the gang after the first girl gets attacked by his spell-monster, Buffy’s suspicious, but shakes it off. Once Tara gets attacked too though, Buffy’s like “Nah, bitch, this ain’t right”.
Essentially what I’m saying is that Buffy is already ride or die for Tara after like one episode. Bless her heart.
This is also the first episode where Tara is sort of part of the gang. Like, she’s not on patrol duty yet (even though she has powers, but whatev), but she’s there with them at the Bronze and in the last group scene. Which is nice.
Anya also refers to her as “Willow’s friend” at some point, which is funny, mostly because I just imagine that Willow never refers to Tara like that? She probably introduced her like she did with the Faith encounter, along the lines of “This is Tara, she was in my Wicca group”, and she and Tara then continued to be fairly obvious about their relationship. And everyone else just no homo-ed them into friends. Even Anya, who is like 1000 years old and should know better.
The way Tara and Willow say goodbye at the dorms as they walk with Buffy, is also just so painfully obvious with all the lingering glances and hand squeezes... And yet somehow Buffy remains completely oblivious, even though she’s standing right there.
But then again, I’m still not sure that Buffy realized at this point that Faith has been hitting on her for a full season last year, so I guess that’s in character.
Adam also makes an appearance, and I guess there are seeds of an interesting story there with him? The idea of what’s our purpose in life is one of those big life questions that a lot of people struggle on many different levels on a daily basis.
Except I just don’t feel like this theme ever gets truly explored on the show through Adam. Sure, he’s “aware”, because he knows that he was made with the purpose of killing. So he’s just gonna keep on doing that. Solid plan.
Well, next episode should be another wild one. Until then, I’ll have some shrimp.
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Tagged by @itsnotacrimetoloveyou (thank you so much).
Tagging @thetourguidebarbie @leta-lestrange @persephonesdarkness @accidental-rambler
(Nick)Name: Mimi
Fandoms: klaroline, star wars (specifically the prequels, even more specifically anidala)
Where you post: tumblr, ff.net and ao3 (it's mostly the latter tho these days)
Most popular oneshot: Our Sky Full of Stars, which is a Skywalker Family fluff fic.
Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story: Yellow Flicker Beat. Though, I usually shy away from multi-chaps because I lose my motivation halfway through.
Favorite story you wrote: Badlands, Breath of Life, Watch That Fire Burn, Our Sky Full of Stars.
How you choose your titles: songs, or episode titles, or maybe twisting some popular sayings, sometimes I just make them up, it depends.
Do you outline: Not usually no, I mean, my outline mainly consists of typing out the dialogue without any structure because that's when I am usually brainstorming, there *are* some stories where I do heavy outlining with paper notes and stuff but those are not the usual occurrences.
Coming soon/not yet started: hm, well, there's my kc!college au (that I haven't worked on for ages, yikes), another happy Skywalker Family fluff fic (because there can never be enough of those) a sw fic that I still haven't fully outlined yet but it's shaping up to be quite the monster.
Do you accept prompts: I haven't in quite a while.
Upcoming story you are most excited to write: all aforementioned fics mentioned above.
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A Buffy rewatch 4x16 Who Are You?
aka ACTING
Welcome to this dailyish text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and go on an impromptu rant about it for an hour. Is it about one hyperspecific thing or twenty observations? 10 or 3k words? You don’t know! I don’t know!!! In this house we don’t know things.
And you already know that today’s episode is amazing, but let’s talk a bit about the ugly, the bisexual disaster that Faith Lehane is, and how Who Are You? builds on the character arc from This Year’s Girl (that would then go on to continue over at Angel the series).
Let’s start with the fun though, before moving onto the heavy stuff. Like how Tara and Faith essentially gaydar each other - and only one of those is in a metaphorical context.
Well, alright, Tara “sensing” that Buffy is not Buffy is not a perfect fit for this metaphor, but the connection is still there. Tara seems very intuitive, and she previously also “sensed” that Willow had magic - a much more clear use of the metaphor in this context -, so her being aware of Faith has the same association.
Not to mention that we’re pairing this with Faith textually clocking Tara and Willow’s relationship as romantic / sexual just by a few interactions. And you know what, let’s talk a bit about Willow and Tara.
I’m usually listing New Moon Rising as the first episode where the show makes that relationship explicit, but I’m starting to think that that’s not very accurate of me. And I’ll talk about what that episode does when we get there, but the truth is, Who Are You? isn’t doing a lot of hiding behind subtext anymore either.
For one, the interaction with Faith is very explicit in its own. There is no question for the audience about what Faith is inferring between the two, and it’s certainly not played as some funny misunderstanding. We are being told in every conceivable way that Faith made the correct observation - and she’s being a dick about it.
The intimacy and the explicitness of the interactions between Willow and Tara is also dialed up to an impossible degree. There’s the knee touching and the hand holding, and the “I am you know.” “What?” “Yours.”… But then you also have to have them perform a spell that’s so blatantly sexual, that it instantly blows out of the water all of the show’s previous ridiculous sex metaphors (of which there were many).
So yeah, no wonder that Faith immediately picks up on it. She’s there at the Bronze having the time of her life anyway, riling up Spike, and dancing with all the boys and girls around.
It’s the part where she decides to have some more fun outside of the Bronze, that ends up being less fun…
And yes, we’ve got to the ugly section of this post.
Patriarchy and rape culture are kind of big themes on Buffy, as they’re often what the vampires and monsters Buffy’s fighting represent. Outside of that though, we’ve also got three prominent storylines with rape elements.
One is a very explicit rape attempt, and the other two use magical elements to remove informed consent. Faith sleeping with Riley is one of the latter.
I would also argue, that in some ways, this will become perhaps the most problematic of these storylines, as it fails to acknowledge Riley as a victim in the situation. He’ll even be made to feel guilty about it, as Buffy inadvertently blames him for what happened; even as she’s on a conscious level aware of how it’s not fair to him.
So… big old yikes on that.
I’m honestly not sure how to navigate that with Faith’s trauma either, that the scene chooses the focus on instead. But I guess this is one of the things that drew me to this rewatch in the first palce - the idea of having complex discussions about subjects that in the last couple of years, we’ve tried to put objective and absolute stamps on.
And don’t get me wrong - there’s value in that. It draws attention to issues and stigmatizes harmful ideas. But it also removes context, nuance and can lead to dehumanization, that’s helpful to no one. There’s power in refusing to engage with media, characters and people who’s done awful shit, but ignoring the context and circumstances, and leaving those unexamined will likely lead to the same pattern repeating itself in some other shape or form again and again.
…And with that tangent, let’s talk about Faith’s aversion to intimacy and affection.
There are two scenes that best demonstrate this. One is where Joyce hugs Buffy!Faith, and Faith’s face screams pure confusion before she makes a beeline to put some distance between them.
Then there’s the infamous Riley scene.
Faith may be there to use Riley to hurt Buffy, but she’s not ready for the intimacy of the act. We’ve seen before how Faith uses sex often to just let out some steam, and there’s nothing wrong with that between two consenting adults… But physical and emotional intimacy requires trust, and that’s just out of the question with Faith.
So when Riley tells her that he loves her, it becomes too much. She asks Riley who he is, and what he wants from Buffy in such a desperate, broken voice, that it breaks my heart, despite the circumstances of the scene.
You certainly get the sense that Faith doesn’t believe in unconditional love. We know that she didn’t receive any love at home, and that everyone she relied on is either gone or ended up betraying her trust. And that also explains her relationship with the Mayor. He showed her care and affection, sure, but also subscribed to Faith’s idea of how the world works, with the way he always asked something in return.
The Mayor’s love for Faith was conditional on her getting the job done for her and following his orders and instructions. It was something she was able understand.
Someone showing honest affection without any caveat just makes Faith suspicious. Who are they? What do they want from her?
Faith’s biggest issue however, remains to be her self-hatred throughout this episode. As she’s had her wishes from Enemies finally fulfilled, and she now has everything that was Buffy’s, she’s starting to distance herself from her own persona.
It’s an interesting progression too. At first, Faith mostly mocks Buffy from her own body, in a way that’s almost deconstructing Buffy’s character. But then… she slowly starts to disappear in the role. The scene where she first fantasizes about stabbing Willow, and then tells her that she would never let Faith hurt her feels somehow both ironic and genuine for instance.
The way she talks about herself however is consistent throughout. She starts off by making some awful jokes about prison life and then throwing away the lipstick she as Faith previously used, telling Joyce to “burn it”. That self-hatred is there the whole time, and it boils over in the climax of the episode, as she keeps pummeling her own face, calling herself “disgusting” and a “murderous bitch”.
It’s… a lot. And it brings me back to Faith’s dreams in This Year’s Girl, re-affirming my interpretation that the murderous Buffy Faith sees there is actually a reflection of herself in her subconscious.
So it’s no surprise that Faith instead chooses to be someone else, while in Buffy’s body. And it’s it’s intriguing to watch her come to a place where she takes on that responsibility too, going to the church to deal with the vamps instead of running away. It’s a big moment, because as much as Faith is supposedly playing the Buffy role, who she’s truly acting like then is the person she wishes to be. And Buffy represents and inspires that.
Also, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Eliza Dushku are fucking nailing each others parts. It’s amazing to watch them both, even if I’ve seen them play these types outside of the show since. (Please watch Tru Calling you guys and cry about its early cancellation with me.)
Brb, I’m off to watch Five by Five and Sanctuary to complete my Faith saga, even if I have no intention adding Angel to this rewatch cycle.
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A Buffy rewatch 2x02 Some Assembly Required
aka those wacky “kids”
Welcome to this dailyish text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and point out / hyperfocus on one detail in it in 10-3k words. Mostly. The rules are arbitrary.
And today I’ll be zooming in on Angel’s use of the word “kid”, as well as just run through all the other little moments that could’ve merited a post of their own.
You know, this episode didn’t really have an obvious hook for one of my rants, but the more I looked at it, the more potential I found to expand upon. Still, I primarily decided to go with my first instinct, aka the opening between Buffy and Angel.
There Angel is obviously acting jealous about Xander, what with the whole weird dance number Buffy did on him in the last episode. Buffy calls him out on it, but also admits that it was actually her trying to make him crazy / jealous (which... okay, girl, you were kinda all over the place there, and you were mostly trying to prove something to yourself). And then Angel’s like: “Pft, me being jealous of a kid???”
And I’m like:
.........
Buffy is literally the same age as Xander. And you have the hots for her. We’re not off to a great start here.
And then Buffy does call that out too, but I feel like she’s using a slightly different tone than my own inner voice. She’s like: “Oh, so you think I’m a kid then?” And it does feel a bit like Angel’s infantilizing her, but I’m also just kind of stuck with inadvertently connecting that with the knowledge that he wants to date her.
The end of the episode of course resolves the whole jealousy conflict with Angel confessing that he’s jealous because Xander gets to see her during the day, and he could never be with her fully like that. And it’s sweet, but he also opens that with “It’s silly that a 200-something-year-old would be jealous of a high schooler” and I’m just like...
OH MY GOD. HE’S LITERALLY THE SAME AGE AS BUFFY. And you keep talking about how absurd it is that you would feel threatened by someone so young / inexperienced.
I do not feel great about this storyline, at all.
I mentioned of course the age difference with with my Angel rant and how it’s an almost inevitable part of the vampire lore. There, I also said that despite Buffy’s age, I personally don’t take that many issues with it because of the shift in the power dynamic that her being the Slayer provides.
The way the conflict of this episode between them is written is sure making me reconsider that though.
Like, I get it: in high school girls find most boys their age dumb. (Because society made them take on more responsibility sooner while letting boys “be boys” longer, and therefore generally mature later... etc.) But it still bothers the fuck out of me that the whole conversation around whether or not Angel is jealous of Xander centers around his age when that is also Buffy’s age.
They could’ve just pointed out that Xander specifically is a doofus who Buffy is clearly not attracted to. It would’ve worked so much better and I wouldn’t be here ranting about this whole thing for like 10 paragraphs now.
Also better addition to the jealousy storyline? Cordelia clinging onto Angel and asking him to take her home after finding the dead girls’ body parts. It’s one of the first instances that they have scenes together, which is nice given what’s to come.
Speaking of which, just how many times do the Scoobies joke about Willow being the killer? STOP GIVING HER IDEAS, GUYS.
That being said, I wouldn’t have complained about a murder if the victim was Eric. He would’ve fit right in with the Trio, just... yikes. Even among other creeps the show would introduce he still stands out.
Maybe he was also supposed to make us sympathize with Chris more, but honestly, him working with someone like Eric just made me like him less. But then he talked to Buffy about how his brother said that he shouldn’t have brought him back after his reanimation - and that made me think of season 6, and suddenly it made sense that Willow would defend this guy.
I only planned to just run through some of these small moments, but they’re getting almost as long as my initial Angel rant, so speed round: Jenny smoothly asking Giles out and him being an absolute mess; Xander saving Cordy’s life and her thanking him - only for him to blow her off and keep talking to Willow about why they’re both single; also Xander talking about how people want the unattainable and not what’s right in front of their eyes, which now feels like a red herring to the audience about the show possibly exploring Xander/Willow; Buffy’s iconic “I was raised to believe that men dig up the corpses and women raise the babies” while her and Willow watch Xander and Giles work; Cordy trying to hang with them and get involved in their monster escapades under the guise of asking Willow’s help with her science project (”It’s a fruit.”)...
*takes a deep breath* Okay, I should stop there before I fall even deeper down the rabbit hole of “small moments” from the episode.
I just love these “kids” a lot.
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A Buffy rewatch 3x04 Beauty and the Beasts
aka men are still beasts part 2
Welcome to this dailyish text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and rant about it in 10-3k words. What you can expect: long run-on sentences and disjointed observations, often focused on one tiny detail about the episode. What you shouldn’t be expecting: actual reviews that make sense.
And I had some thoughts of today’s episode’s while watching, but I feel like I’m already forgetting half of them. Which might be the cider. (Or me being cranky about it being that time of the month. You know, the one where I turn into a hairy monster who may or may not have killed a man in the woods.)
I mean, what else are you gonna pair with background domestic abuse storylines.when you’d rather just chill with your wolfboy? Port wine? Get the fuck out of here.
Oz is always getting these all men are dangerous douchelords explorations I guess. It’s not that I don’t get it, his whole deal is about being seemingly the chillest guy on our Earth, except for 3 nights a month when he might just tear you to shreds. So yeah, I get it, Faith. All men are beasts. We all know your preferences.
(I believe we’ll definitely get more into Faith’s opinions on men, so let’s put a pin on that for now.)
As for the show, I’ve already had a rant about the Buffy feminism with Phases, which now I might just repeat (Idk, I don’t often read back these fever rants). The point though that I wanted to make here is when people say that Buffy’s ‘fighting the patriarchy’, they’re not just being melodramatic.
Like, that is a big theme here. Patriarchy, and rape culture, and the kind of aggression that’s specifically labeled as male. And then the show flips it sometimes, because we’re still playing with gender roles as well.
On the other hand, this story is maybe more aligned with the idea of ‘loving a beast’. Which… especially looking at the actual domestic abuse portion of the episode… is questionable at best.
I already mentioned my big ick when it comes to a lot of Buffyverse episodes that specifically delve into themes of violence against women. But in this case, the thing that makes me really uncomfortable is how much this is not phasing me.
Debbie and Pete’s - I think that’s their names, but the fact that I struggled during the episode remembering that, should be indicative of how much I was able to connect to them - relationship follows all the horrific red flags you could think of. The scene where Pete hits her and then Debbie ends up comforting him is just super fucked up.
…But they’re also minor characters in a storyline that’s stacked with main characters going through some pretty big stuff. The show often does this thing where everything is heightened, because supernatural elements, while still grounding the character stories in reality. And I’m not sure it’s working here, especially since we don’t really have a reference to grounding these two.
And then we get the bathroom scene with Debbie, Buffy and Willow. I understand the theme that’s going on there, how it’s a callback to Buffy’s S2 arc of ‘losing herself in love’… But it certainly doesn’t handle the subject of domestic abuse with any care or consideration.
“Don’t get hit.” Yikes.
There are intriguing ideas in this episode about compassion and agency, but they sure chose an extremely tough sell to drive their points home.
So instead I’ve been wondering - what if Oz actually hurt someone? What if that was the episode? On one hand, I understand that thematically they wanted to have these extremes to show Buffy’s conflict about Angel. So you would want an irredeemable monster of some sort in your story, in which case, Oz would need to be the gentle beast.
On the other hand, I just feel like that would’ve sparked a more interesting discussion about what love can and can’t excuse, especially since the audience also has their own bond to Oz at this point.
But hey, I will be definitely talking a lot about some beloved characters doing terrible things and how much I still love them, and that’s a promise.
This episode also made me wonder where Giles’ extreme dislike for Xander comes from. The way he rips into him here for sleeping during his Oz-shift juxtaposed with him gently waking Buffy up when it was her dozing off… I kind of wish that I tracked that better, because it definitely feels like he’s been sort of dismissive of Xander for a while now, but his outburst here felt like it was on another level.
Which is why I think it might come from Xander carelessly bringing up and shouting about Jenny during their Angel argument last season. I can definitely see how that would put Xander on Giles’ shitlist for life.
We’re also very close to the beginning of a storyline that I feel like is a lot of people’s least favorite of the season (which incidentally also features Xander), and honestly? I can’t wait to dive into that.
What can I say? I’m all about those bad choices.
And let’s pour one out for Mr. Platt, the real hero of this story. He set some high standards as a counselor for his successors to follow…
But, as always, I’m getting way ahead of myself.
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