#terapsina's first kill rambles

[terapsina]

Me before Juliette has her first kill: It's really messed up to throw a party because you think your teenager just committed her first murder.

Me after Juliette kills the creepy creeper old dude that was giving me a bajillion icky creep vibes: SOMEONE SHOULD THROW HER A PARTY 🥳🎈🎉

[terapsina]

I don't get what people have against campiness and use of tropes. Is First Kill cheesy in places? Yeah. Does it contain a lot of popular, often-used tropes? LOADS.

But that's not a PROBLEM.

It's a fun, supernatural teen show made for a queer audience, especially for queer teenagers who deserve to see themselves represented in a show they'd actually like to watch.

Cuz like, not every kid wants to watch a serious, thematically excellent and visually flawless artistic TV series that's going to get a lot of good reviews from critics.

And it's not a bad show.

It's certainly not any worse than some other teen shows that started out a bit shaky in technical quality but then developed into something better with more time under its belt and some increase in budget.

Shadowhunters comes to mind. Because I don't know if people remember, but that show's first season had iffy VFX and lackluster fight scenes too. But they also had some great characters and excellent chemistry in the cast.

First Kill has great characters too. And if you don't see the chemistry between Juliette and Calliope I don't know what to tell you.

And it's not like the lesbian vampire/monster hunter forbidden romance is ALL that's going for this show (though even had that been the case it would deserve its place in the sun because queer girls deserve their cheesy supernatural fun too).

But the relationship that Cal has with her family, especially her mother, is really interesting to watch too. Her wish to prove herself a hunter and actually join her family in killing monsters, instead of being the lookout from a safe distance, is an interesting contrast to Juliette NOT wanting to be like her family.

And Juliette's friendship with Ben. Her relationship with HER family and how she doesn't want to be a killer but at the same time doesn't seem to have that much of a problem with them being killers. Lots of interesting ethical dissonance right there.

The fun dynamic between the mothers that's just incredibly fun to watch too. Like they're clearly these two extremely powerful women from two opposing sides, who love their kids and will cut a bitch to make sure that nothing breaks their families.

And my god is the vampire lore INTERESTING.

Like. I've seen every take on vampires imaginable by this point. Vampires who don't show up in mirrors, vampires who do. Vampires who need invitations, vampires who don't. Daywalkers. Nightwalkers. Born vampires. Made vampires. Half vampires. Unkillable vampires.

And it's not like this is a completely new take on vampires. There's common tropes I've seen before. But. It's also got some unique elements I haven't seen and that's impressive actually.

And the mishmash of the familiar things feel like they've been dropped into a blender in the BEST WAY.

My point is.

Why does it feel like this show is being compared to other queer media from completely different genres? If it should be compared to anything it should be to other campy teen shows that are lots of fun and full of cheese. More than that, it should be compared to the first seasons of those shows, not the heights those shows reached three seasons down the line when the characters and plots had had time to develop and the budgets had been increased so that the visual effects had gotten better in quality.

First Kill absolutely has a lot of things going for it. And I think it is WELL worth the watch.

[terapsina]

I don't understand what people have against narration in TV shows. It's not that irritating. Chill.

[terapsina]

I wish writers would stop wanting to write 'realistic' endings to their stories. That's not how storytelling works.

Yes in reality we can die at any moment. We largely don't get to say goodbye and there is almost never any purpose or meaning behind it. It's senseless and unfair and the reality of real life.

But storytelling isn't about realism.

It's about building a narrative and then bringing it to a satisfying conclusion. That conclusion doesn't have to be happy but it does need to contain follow through on whatever buildup preceded it.

It's realistic for a seventeen year old boy who's being chased by racist terrorists through a forest as they're shooting at him, to get killed. But if Harry Potter had died by the hands of the Snatchers it wouldn't have made for a very satisfying conclusion to the narrative.

Narrative doesn't have to come to a 'realistic' end, not if that realism cuts the big epic conclusion down at the knees.

And if the buildup has been teasing an emotional and beautiful and maybe even tragic reunion between characters who have been kept apart for a lengthened period of time, it might be realistic to rob them of that reunion... but it's not good storytelling.

And if you know that you won't be able to do a real conclusion to your buildup because an actor is planning to leave your show, then the answer is to change that buildup to something else instead of doubling down and then just dropping it on the ground unfinished.

And yes this is about The Magicians but honestly it works for any story that sacrifices a satisfying conclusion for something sad and depressing just because it happens to be realistic.

I'm tired.