#fun fact: this is. aside from BtVS. the ONLY show

[takaraphoenix]

Teen Wolf?

Thanks for playing!

favorite character: STILES STILES IS THE BEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD

least favorite character: Kate. But special shout-out to Theo

brOTP: Allison and Lydia

OTP: Sterek. Sterek all the way there is no question this show is the Sterek Show. Shout-out to side-pairings I love: Scott/Allison, Boyd/Erica, Jackson/Lydia, Malia/Kira

OT3: Mh. Sterek and Steter in a "Stiles has two hands (and is Hale-catnip)" way? Which is. Very hard to come by in a non-incestuous way (no judgment. It's just. Not for me). I just generally don't multiship a lot in this fandom, it is very uniquely one where I care more about various platonic relationships than over romantic shipping

NOTP: Scott/Stiles. Theo/Stiles

favorite storyline: oh the Nogitsune all the fucking way. s3B is the most brilliant storyline it's just devastating that it was preceded by s3A

least favorite storyline: lol s6B what the fuck was that even man I hate it so much. Shout-out to s5 for being the second worse and for s4 and s3A for sucking equally though. Only half this show is watchable and that makes me miserable because I still love it

what I wish had happened but didn’t: tHE HALE PACK SHOULD HAVE LIVED. It literally would not have fucking hurt anything at all if Derek and his pack just got to STAY AROUND. Boyd and Erica living. Jackson not leaving. Derek keeping his Alpha spark. Cora not fucking off again. I just want my Hale Pack, man

what happened that I wish hadn’t: feels like I could just rephrase what I just said to put it here too. Additionally, honestly, s6B. Like, s6A fully ended on a photo-finish moment? And then they tagged another half season of ABSOLUTE bullshit on that was aggravating and exhausting. s6A was honestly... not that bad, I mean, it was better than s5 (which is just such a low bar lol like it was very hard to get worse and inexplicably they managed to do it by making s6B), they could have ended on an okay note

Fandom Ask Game!

[spuffygifs]

I literally just finished watching the last season of Buffy for the first time, and I was just wondering your general opinions about it? How does the fandom generally view the ending? Not really sure how I feel about it so I was hoping for some opinions to read through. I’ve been browsing your blog and I really enjoy it by the way!

Congrats on finishing! I think far as fandom consensus, it's a little divisive. And sure, the season's a bit uneven with some missed potential (bah dum tss!), but I think it ends on a good, solid note even if it's not entirely satisfactory for some people. I always remember the saying that's like a bad season of BTVS is still better than most shows' entire runs and it's definitely true of s7 (though I don't think it's bad at all ).

I think my beef isn't really with the content/direction of s7, but the writing of it. There are some definite highs (Conversations with Dead People is one of the best eps of the show), and even the filler feels necessary (and fun, like Storyteller) It’s really the fact that there’s SO much plot. It's an overstuffed season with the Herculean task of wrapping up the entire series, on top of picking up the storylines left from s6 and that was already a lot to deal with before adding new characters and frankly, a very convoluted and vague villain like The First.

The revolving door of Potentials, not to mention the incredibly thin writing for the ones they managed to focus on didn't help at all. Introducing Robin was such an interesting idea, (and a very obvious attempt at fixing the show's glaring whiteness problem), but the way that plot was handled with him, Nikki, and Spike was really awkward. Also outside of Dawn threatening Spike in the early part of the season, they have no real interactions and it’s strange, considering where it left off and their relationship in general.

I always found it weird whenever people complained it was heavily focused on Buffy and Spike's dynamic (obvious bias aside, lmao). It’s integral to the story, and ending as it did in s6, clearly it would need to be further explored, and show how their changing dynamic and deepening connection reflects their own personal growth. Their support of one another isn’t blind devotion, but based on a trust that is earned. His arc is tied to Buffy’s (as is everyone’s), so in a way, s7 is pretty successful in showcasing that.

I think as far as the Scoobies go, the season feels like a natural progression that had been building since s4, really. Growing up, growing apart (the final core four scene literally has them going off to their separate fates down the hallway). And there’s a lot to unpack with them. The group’s reliance on Buffy’s leadership throughout the series, constantly pushing her into the role and onto a pedestal only to shove her from it (and out of her own house, no less), all of that coming to a head was, I think, inevitable.

This totally got away from me, but essentially s7 has some missteps, and could’ve probably benefitted from an extra episode or two (that’s on UPN though, I believe the finale was supposed to be 2 hours but the network shut that idea down), but I think the good parts are stronger than the weaker elements.

[thunderheadfred]

Why I Love Spike But Also Hate Him A Lot: an unsolicited essay by me

OR: Why I personally relate to blood-sucking poseurs OR: dude what if I ever got high enough to rewrite season six?

(under a cut because this goes on for a while. also discourse frightens me)

Okay. I’m like twenty years late. But I’ve been rewatching BtVS s5 during my latest depression spiral and wandering against my better judgement into the Spuffy fic verse. Disclaimer that my grasp of the series’ larger canon is meh at best, and frankly I don’t care.

As usual, I have too many thoughts.

Spike is, hands-down, my favorite character on this show. Maybe one of my favorite characters, period. He’s just... good to watch. But listen. Secret poet or no, he was never an inherently good person. Meek and shy does not equal Buffy’s equal. I squirm at this apparently massively popular canon interpretation of his human character as some kind of adorable perfect cherub, as if William the Dipshit Poet is somehow preferable to Spike the Complicated Murderer or like, we should just automatically assume that cute shy white people who lived in 1880 London are default Lawful Good when in fact... ahahaa haaaa YIKES COLONIALISM?

I actually think the reason Spike is “more human” than other vampires (in the weird, contradictory Buffy soul-canon) is exactly because William was not Pure, he was a Pratt. Sweet? I guess. Loves his mum? He’s got that going for him. But that guy?? Is not Buffy’s long-lost true love, not a weepy ghost to be shoved into Spike’s Billy Idol cosplay bod at the last minute. In a show that, at its best, tries to give us a protagonist who fundamentally believes we must always make the choice to keep living mindfully, accountably, and with purpose... we get a love interest who is... Spike. A guy who, until the very end of his arc, acts as though he has zero fucking free will. Even though, through a combo of deliciously fun and inconsistent writing, Spike is apparently the only vampire in the Buffyverse who does.

I’ll get to that but first, let’s accept for a minute that Free Will + Buffy = good, and people who roll over and say “I had no choice” + Buffy = Mr. Pointy. This counts for her friends too, (*coughWILLOWcough*) and it’s one of the reasons I love the show despite its many textual problems. As a character piece, it’s great. People fail to take accountability for their behavior all the time. It’s an extraordinarily human flaw, one that rarely equals automatically evil, and I love that it can bite characters on the side of good, too. But that’s not the point of this, oh shit!

Okay. William, cute glasses aside, has no free will. He didn’t even sign up for the vampire thing, he just wanted to get felt up by a pretty girl who saw him cry and didn’t laugh at him. At every point, he was an immature, weak-willed, naive dreamer type who wanted nothing more than to be validated by his shitty friends. The vampirism made him a killer, yeah. But it also inadvertently gave a cowardly nobody a lot of good qualities. Now he’s a weirdly observant, relentlessly optimistic, fun-loving, sexually secure Cool Guy who gave up poetry for punk... but still tries too hard to impress his shitty friends. Basically, being a vampire made this guy a happier-but-still-undeniably-crappy version of himself, especially... considering all the murder. 

But now, let us transparently and metaphorically link cartoonish Vamp!Murder to addiction. Because wow, death in BtVS is either a manipulative authorial gut-punch or a dumb joke, and either way, it’s almost impossible to take seriously in this show, so let’s not.

How to make a remorseless bloodsucking fiend out of of “boo hoo I’m a bad writer and I wish some jerks thought I was cool?” Ha ha you can’t!  Turns out you basically recreate my early twenties but with more murder. Spike is a socially-dependent ADHD art school reject on a century-long avoidance bender. He’s a codependent, moon-eyed boyfriend who learns how to aggressively project not caring while caring Far Too Much, all while clinging to aesthetic as an identity. ALTHOUGH let us not deny that he 100% enjoyed all the killing - wtf so much killing - because for vampires, killing equals pleasure, and charming, “happy” addicts always justify the comforts of their vices. He talks the talk cuz fitting in is his whole deal, but he’s not actually in it for chaos and destruction or any high-falutin’ evil reason, or even really for eating delicious ladies but because, in the end, it feels good and the only girlfriend he’s ever had thinks eating people is cool. Even his whole (gorgeous, splendid to watch) episode-long speech about killing two slayers was written more for Buffy’s character arc than his; we don’t really know why he killed the slayers other than like, “Because they had a death wish I guess. Side note: it was fun.”

There wasn’t much legitimately vengeful or hateful stuff in sad little William for demon!Spike to work with, and apparently William’s soul-or-whatever moved about twelve inches over his left shoulder and stayed there, occasionally poking him for the next hundred years. So it should shock no one that he immediately switches sides when a) his girlfriend dumps him, b) his addiction suddenly hurts, and c) it’s time to impress a new friend group.

I get that Spike’s whole soul-getting between s6 and s7 has been interpreted in fanon as a grand romantic sacrifice (ehhhhhhhhhhhh) and I get why that’s tempting, but the show itself bungled that up way bad and I just can’t get behind it. R*pe idiocy aside, making it ultimately all about Buffy just kinda cheapens what could have been a really fucking powerful redemption arc, one that would have led to a far more satisfying love story. Especially from Buffy’s perspective. 

Okay listen.

We have a guy who has been playing the “duh, Vampire!” card for a century, pleasure-seeking and self-centered, pandering to various peer groups, murderous or otherwise, a happy addict, impervious to change. So when finally, after a HUNDRED SODDING YEARS of being a soulless, hilarious dick, Spike has consequences shoved into his gray matter by the government, he doesn’t change. At all. He just starts obsessing over another woman, doing what he thinks she wants. A woman he thinks will give him new pleasures, a new, perpetually fine status quo. But this woman is Buffy, whose identity is rock solid even though her life is constantly full of challenge and change and choices. She “rewards” Spike only when he makes willful, selfless decisions. And the rewards aren’t romantic, either. Not early on. Even in canon, she keeps rejecting him over and over again, for crystal clear reasons. Thank god. Because when he accepts that she’ll never have him, but still does the hard stuff anyway, he’s unwittingly starting to change. It’s not just Buffy. Buffy demands real personhood. Independence. Identity. Choice. 

Uh oh. She’s gotten to him, then. Though it starts out selfish, he still makes a CHOICE. Quite literally, he takes on the pain of self-improvement - first by embracing the consequences of his chip, later by going on his fancy sparkly soul quest. Buffy is the catalyst, no doubt, because once a poet always a poet and girls are pretty, but Spike’s path to improvement (if not redemption) was already there, laid out nice and neat. His narrative low point, the lightbulb moment that makes him want a soul again, should never have come out of a season of terrible backsliding, culminating in the shower scene we all regret.

It should have been The Gift. 

Death isn’t Buffy’s gift. It’s love. And not that simpering, easy kind of love that just says, “there there,” but the hard, truthful love that makes you want to keep getting that goddamn rock from the bottom of the hill. Yes, Spike’s arc should still be about Buffy, it’s Buffy’s show, but it should have been more about the hole she left behind. Not just in Spike but in the world. 

What’s left? This latest and greatest group of people who have so far RIGHTLY rejected a demon whose sole motivator seems to be comfort. And maybe when these particular people hit rock bottom, they have enough wisdom to see a monster down in the dark and recognize themselves. Maybe Dawn (whose humanizing effect on Spike has been nearly as important as his obsession with Buffy) shows him that rare, rare thing called Validation. And oh god, he realizes he’s never actually moved beyond trying to sell effulgence to Cecily Whatsherface, that he’s been sitting on his own grave for a hundred years, waiting for someone to coddle and fix him, and now the only woman who might have, the best woman, literally the one girl chosen one above all others... is gone. This would be a good time to die. 

Or...

...maybe there is no magic soul cave, maybe he tries to end it and makes the CHOICE not to. Chooses to stay and help, because what else is there? Then BAM! it just slams back into him in a way that hurts like you can’t even believe, because admitting how bad you’ve fucked up is the most painful moment of a lifetime and I’ve lived it and I wish I’d had a hellmouth to jump into, but the Scoobies pull him back, and he takes care of Dawn until life seems to have some meaning again, then Buffy comes out of the earth traumatized and broken and no one is better equipped to help her than a recovering Spike, not because he’s magically her rock but because he’s also learning how to roll his own rock and keep on climbing, because Camus ruined us all for metaphors...

THE END

Anyway. As a recovering addict and toxic person who has been struggling a lot recently... who wants to improve and be able to give more to the people I love, Spike has an arc that just like... cuts me deep, man. Especially because of what should have been.

[sulietsexual]

If you're still dicussing episodes, would you mind talking about Morality Bites and Pardon My Past from Charmed?

MoralityBites

Shortopinion: Oneof my favourite Charmed episodes.

Longopinion: Asmuch as I adore Charmed, I’ll be the first to admit that it’s not alwaysthe most deep or thought-provoking show, and it doesn’t always handle metaphorsor allegories quite as gracefully as, say, a show like BtVS (none of whichdetract from its’ overall appeal or should be seen as disparaging the series,which makes up for these flaws in many other ways). This episode, however, is anexception, as it beautifully shows how the girls’ powers are meant to help theinnocent, not punish the guilty.

This episode starts with aninnocuous enough event, as the girls slyly use their magic to get revenge on aneighbour who allows his dog to do its’ business in their front yard. Whilemild enough, this event sparks the entire episode, as Phoebe gets a premonitionof her future death and the girls travel to their future bodies to discover howexactly Phoebe ended up set to burn as a witch.

All of the girls’ futurepersonas reveal not only their inner desires and wants but also their fears abouthow those wants might turn on them. Prue, who has always been very careerdriven and focused, finds out that even though she is wildly successful, sheliterally has no close personal relationships, even with her sisters. While sheenjoys her success, she laments the fact that she has nothing else to bringcompletion to her life, and upon returning to the present, she determines toput more balance in her life (which becomes an ongoing theme in Prue’s overallarc).

Piper also is shown to haveachieved some of her dreams, initially believing herself to be married(evidenced by a wedding ring) and having a beautiful daughter. However, as withPrue, this is subverted, as we discover that she is actually separated (fromLeo, no less) and has suppressed her daughter’s powers to the point of planningto bind them. Piper’s regret over losing Leo and stifling her daughter’s powersis quite sad, and over the course of Season 2, we see her struggle with wantinga “normal” relationship vs knowing that she and Leo got married in the future.I also believe that this episode turns Piper off the idea of binding children’spowers, as we see in the Season 4 episode involving the young Firestarter, andPiper’s insistence on helping him to control his powers rather than justcontaining them (even if the kid eventually does end up opting to bind his fire-startingabilities).

Phoebe fares worst in thisepisode, showing that her love of magic and indulgence in her own powers,coupled with her quest for justice and desire to protect and defend those sheloves takes her down a dark and ultimately destructive path, using her powersto kill and punish, rather than protect and help. It should be noted thatPhoebe is the sister at the beginning of the episode who suggests using theirpowers to exact revenge on the dog-walking neighbour, even if they are allcomplicit in the act. Phoebe has always loved her powers, loved what she can dowith them, but she does have a tendency to be impulsive and allow her emotionsto rule her, which is exactly what happened in the future, and why she ended upin the position that she did. As with her sisters, Phoebe’s desires and wantsend up turning on her, exposing her witchcraft and landing her on death row.

What I loved about thisepisode is while it portrays Future!Phoebe in a sympathetic light, it is alsovery clear that she crossed a line. She is not an innocent bystander nor is shebeing framed. She murdered a man in cold blood using her powers, and theepisode makes it very clear that this is a violation of the Wiccan ruleintroduced in the first episode And it harm none, do what ye may. One ofPhoebe’s biggest moments in the episode comes when she has the premonition ofherself murdering Cal Green, the horror and trauma of which leaves herdevastated.

On the other side of things,while the episode condemns Phoebe’s actions, it also clearly portrays thatPratt, the man hunting her, is also in the wrong. While Phoebe absolutely mustface the consequences of her actions, Pratt’s vendetta against witches andmagic is clearly shown to be fuelled by ignorance, fear and hatred, and isrightly shown in a very negative light. Even if Phoebe deserves punishment, theepisode makes it very clear that the witch hunt Pratt starts is putting innocentlives in danger, and should be stopped.

The boldest part of thisepisode is the decision to let Phoebe burn, not because the episode lets herdie, but because the episode lets her die even though her sisters could havesaved her. This is incredibly important, because it demonstrates that evenif Phoebe murdered someone evil, even if her sisters feel justified in breakingher out, even if their powers could hide her, it’s the wrong thing to do.Phoebe murdered another human, and she must face the consequences, somethingPhoebe herself realises and explains to her sisters in what is probably one of themost heartbreaking scenes in all of Charmed. Phoebe’s strength in thisepisode is quite amazing to watch, and as the end of the episode shows, she hasclearly learned the very harsh lesson given to her. Overall, a harrowing butultimately really strong episode of Charmed, and one of the best of the entireshow.

PardonMy Past

Shortopinion: Styleover substance.

Longopinion: Ido enjoy Pardon My Past, it’s fun to see the girls in their past lives, and I lovethe 20s setting of the episode. However, I feel that, given that this episodedeals with an ongoing theme of Phoebe’s dark side, it could have had moresubstance and maybe explored this side to Phoebe a little better.

Unlike episodes such as IsThere A Woogey In The House, which explores Phoebe’s dark side and the root ofit, Pardon My Past gives us an evil Phoebe without a full explanation for whyshe went evil, other than falling for the wrong guy (which, ironically, wouldbe repeated with Cole). While it definitely lays the foundation for Phoebe’slater descent into darkness, I feel that it only scratches the surface ofPhoebe’s darkness, and doesn’t properly show us what is driving her, hermotivations or how and why she was seduced by darkness, which is a real pity,because this has always been a side to Phoebe I have found fascinating,especially juxtaposed with her other side, which is so good and courageous andmoral.

This aside, Pardon My Pastis a really fun episode. As mentioned before, the 20s setting is great, givingthe costume department a lot to work with. The actresses look like they’rehaving a lot of fun, in particular Alyssa, who really gives her all inportraying Evil!Phoebel. The episode moves well and has a pretty engaging plot,and is overall just really entertaining. I just wish there was a little moredepth to it.