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shadowkat1. So I bought a Chrismas tree, actually it's Charlie Brown's Christmas tree's poor decrepit cousin. It was basically five buckeroos. And is comprised of what appears to be two small pine covered branches, a bunch of tiny ornaments, and gel to keep it alive, I think. It's called a living Xmas tree..and is supposed to be healthy and hardy. Read the directions after I bought it...and thought, okay, I'll be lucky if this thing makes it two weeks. It wants sunshine, lots of watering, and a nice sunny plot after the holidays. Yeah right, good luck with that. Ain't gonna happen. Besides I kill plants. I can kill a cactus. I did kill a cactus. I kid you not. It drowned and rotted.
Was not a pretty sight.
But hey it was only five dollars and it looks sort of cute next to my tv and along-side the tiny pumpkin I bought for Halloween. I'm not much into decorations...or design, that's my bro and Mom's gig, I take after my Dad...I really don't care that much. Low maintenance all the way. As you may have noticed if you ever checked out my live journal - I don't do banners or lots of graphics or even icons for that matter, too much bloody work.
Speaking of work? I gave up on WW, I have too many things to track, can't do it too.
Also let go of the Y membership - too far away and too problematic. So, I'm saving 80 dollars a month that used to be spent on that. We're not talking about the amount I wasted on both.
2. TVD...sigh. It was going so well, but alas... it's a soap opera. And sigh...I have a weakness for soap operas, apparently. They are also the only things I ever hunt for spoilers on. For the record, Buffy was a soap opera too, if you don't think it was...well, take it from an expert, it was a soap opera. A well written soap opera, but still a soap opera. Whedon is a huge soap fan - he is on record for watching both General Hospital and that supernatural soap that I can't remember the name of. The problem with soap operas is they like to do the same stupid romantic tropes over and over again. I can never predict them because they have troll logic...they tend to go by "emotion" not well logic. Or whatever pulls at the writer's emotions. Which is impossible to predict. Also you get roped into hoping for things, because occasionally the soap will surprise you and do something really cool and innovative and no one does that...then they'll fall into the abyss and go the cliche route and you want to throw things at your tv in frustration. Long-time soap opera watcher...I'm not masochistic, just addicted to those chewy bones they throw me on occasion. Even if they are wonky.
At any rate I'm pretty sure I've figured out TVD aka Vamp Diaries (a title that makes me laugh, so I prefer it, we need laughter in our lives...it helps.) current wonky plot thread. I could be wrong - it is after all a soap opera...they defy me. Which is why I like the dang things.
Stefan according to the spoilers challenges a skeptical Damon who reacted much the same way I did to Stefan and Caroline's theory about the sire bond.
Damon: Yeah right. I think you two have been reading too many Twilight novels or Vamp Diaries fanfic. General Hospital makes more sense than this idea does. (Weirdly it's current storyline actually does.)
Stefan: If you don't believe me...go tell Elena to drink from a blood bag and see what happens.
Damon: Fine I will, but if she throws up...you have some major apologizing to do.
Stefan: And if she doesn't, you do.
Since this is a soap opera, guess what will I happen? I'm willing to bet that Elena can drink the blood when Damon tells her too. (Which will disappoint me, because I think it would be a far more challenging and interesting story to write if she threw it up again and Stefan/Caroline were proven wrong. But the writers have gone to a lot of effort to lay the bread-crumbs and the whole bit about Atticus Shane asking Hilary to break the sire bonds on the hybrids leads me to believe that yes, it's connected.)
I'm also betting that the reason Damon has a sire bond with Elena has to do with her doppleganger blood. It's the same reason Klaus can do one with the hybrids. Remember he no control over them and wasn't able to keep them alive without Elena's blood and can only do it with her human doppleganger blood which is why he wants the cure - a vampire Elena is useless to Klaus.
Damon and Stefan will travel to New Orleans to find someone Damon had a sire bond with in the past to break the bond. (Which makes no sense whatsoever...but keep in mind, soap opera, they aren't supposed to make sense. One leaves one's brain at the door. They can be fun to fanwank though...which is one of the many reasons no one has more devoted and insane fans than soap operas. I'm not sure why they have to go New Orleans...it's not like Damon hasn't sired anyone else in Mystic Falls or no one else knows about sire bonds. I mean - Damon did sire Caroline, it was his blood in her system. Katherine pretended to be Elena and got Bonnie to trick Damon into saving Caroline with his blood...then killed her. Yet, somehow Caroline had no sire bond. Nor has Katrina been able to control Damon and Stefan. So the whole sire bond thing entered the story with Klaus...typical soap opera logic. Oh, I got a great idea...let's do sire bonds, we did it with Klaus, no one will remember past that. (Oh...Yes, we will.))
They find Charlotte. She tells Damon that in order to break the bond - he has to make Elena hate him or do something she'd never do - possibly kill Jeremy. Or kill Damon or kill Stefan (actually she might do that, if I were Elena, I'd kill Stefan, the guy has gone beyond annoying). This is an angsty, terrible sacrifice, but Damon must do it to free her. She hates him for it. They are done.
Damon is once again on the outside looking in, bitter and snarky. Stefan is once again Elena's one true love. And life is as it should be. (Like we haven't seen this before in another show? Gee..I wonder which one?) Except...wait, there's Atticus Shane and the plot to ..do whatever it is Atticus is planning to do. With a name as ironic as Atticus Shane, you know the guy is evil. Seriously, what a waste of a good name if he were good. Plus he is just screaming evil right now - he's hot, he's into Bonnie (who has the worst luck in boyfriends ever - they either die on her or try to kill her, it's one or the other, sometimes both), and he has a plan that involves magic. Evil.
My guess is Atticus is planning on resurrecting Silas or more interesting, is Silas or a descendant who wants to be Silas - not sure how that works exactly, but soap opera - they've done it before. I'm hoping he is Silas and is trying to resurrect his dead girlfriend to join him on the immortal plain. Has a nice symmetry to it. Stefan is willing to do whatever it takes to make Elena mortal again so he can righteously, but with great guilty and pain, obsessively love her sainted soul forever (even after she dies)...and Silas is hoping to bring his dead girlfriend back so he can be with her forever. Meanwhile there's the third wheel in both triangles who doesn't want this to happen and has messed things up, Silas' scorned witch who killed the girl and imprisoned Silas, and Damon who well...likes Elena as human and vampire. Not really sure what Damon's motivation is at the moment - except to have Elena and his brother...and be happy. Which technically is Stefan's motivation too. Bit dicey that.
No, not sure the above works. Atticus can't be Silas. He can be someone who stupidly wants to resurrect Silas and get his power or become Silas. That I see happening. At any rate, I think Shane has cleverly fooled Klaus about the mythos regarding the five vampire hunters. Or Silas has. In short, it will be a twist that is similar to the mythological plot twist that Klaus pulled regarding the curse of the moon and the sun.
For a Season of the Witch - we are spending a lot more time with the Elena/Damon/Stefan love triangle from hell than we are with Bonnie, just saying.
We are eight episodes in or is that six, one does lose count, and we still have no clue what Shane is up to. The whole Atticus Shane/Klaus bit, I'm uncertain about. I do know they are trying to link them to the D/E/S triangle, and doing it a bit sloppily I might add.
The difficulty is...I'm supposed to be rooting for Stefan, but Stefan's behavior screams controlling/abusive boyfriend from hell. So it's really hard to root for him. If I were Elena, I would have ripped him a new one by now. I certainly applauded Jeremy for doing it. Go Jeremy. Now if you can just aim a little higher and more to the left...the next time you stake Stefan. And Caroline is enabling Stefan. Bad Caroline.
Seriously, the boy is using Jeremy to get Elena her cure, without even talking to Jeremy about it or explaining it to him. He's forcing him. Treating him like a thing. And he's lying to Elena.
Instead of discussing it or asking, he's making the decisions - this screams abusive. In a way, Stefan is playing the role of sire, more than Damon is. But behind the scenes. Which may well be the point of the story thread? That symmetry...that both brothers are obsessive and controlling but in different ways? Whedon admittedly did a similar story line with Angel and Spike - where both were abusive boyfriends but in different ways. Two different tropes.
Eh...no one is reading this, who am I kidding. I'm just talking to myself at this point. Too frigging snarky. Sorry about that. See, soap operas intrigue me because I can't figure them out and its so fun to snark about them even if its just to entertain myself.
3. Story Tropes that have been overdone...been thinking about this today. It is in a way an off-shoot of previous posts. The problem with the influx of information or the fact that everyone can publish a book, a movie, a tv show...is after a while certain tropes get done to death.
Here's a challenge, can you do any of these tropes in a way that has not been done before? I bet you can't.
* It's a Wonderful Life - how many times have you seen this story done?
* Three ghosts from your past will visit you in one night ...the Christmas Carol Trope
* sire bond - ie. I sired you, you are my childe, you will do my bidding unless you can find a way to break it...
* Romeo and Juliet...the star-crossed lovers who met, fell in love at first sight, and are doomed to never be together...one or the other, or both will die...or be separated forever. (I did actually see in the book store a new twist on it - entitled Immortal Juliet...where Romeo is a bad guy who killed her and they fight each other for eternity.)
* Evil Dude: I know, we'll kill the mom(or dad, but mom works better) before the son(or daughter or both), who is prophesied to save humanity, was ever born.
* Oedipus complex - he sleeps with or wants to sleep with mom, and kill the stepfather, then goes balmy. (OR for a bit of spice...Electra Complex - goes after Dad, wants him, gets rejected...kills mother or something to that effect.)
There's probably more but that's all I can think of at the moment.
4. Saw OUAT and Revenge last night. Revenge was better, admittedly not hard. OUAT is...well, poorly written. The dialogue and direction is off. And a lot of the characters actions make no sense. It's also a bit jarring in how it flips around. I want OUAT to be better than it is, it's very disappointing - great ideas, poor execution. Damn, why can't they hire better tv writers? Too many bad writers get hired and published, and too many good writers are stuck doing real hard jobs that are more meaningful and contribute more to the world than well tv shows do. Pop culture brings out the bitch in me, I've decided. OR it has been lately. Mainly because I'm frustrated with the tv shows I've been watching. Although to be fair...Jennifer Morrison does not quite work for me as Emma, I don't know why. I didn't like her that much in House either. Didn't dislike. Just felt ambivalent. Same here. It's weird...but I'm finding Regina, Rumple, Cora, Jefferson, Cassaday, and Hook to be the most interesting characters in the show at the moment.
Revenge was convoluted. I don't like the Jack subplot, it's cliche and stupid and I can see where its going. I am on the fence about the Nolan subplot. And confused by the Emily/Aiden/Daniel/Grayson's subplot. That said? It was enjoyable.
Haven't seen Good Wife yet.
Nashville? I like the main arc with Juliette Barnes and Ryana, can't stand the subplots with the horridly whiny Scarlette who managed to ruin my favorite Johnny Cash song (Ring of Fire) which I did not think was possible. She's really bad. And Gunner, the guy mooning after her, is worse. The only one I find talented or interesting is Avery (Jonathan Jackson) but I hate his storyline (even if it is admittedly realistic). I'm afraid they'll write him out, when I'd rather they write out the other two. Also not a fan of the political subplot which also screams cliche. Nashville in short is suffering from the same problems that SMASH did, bad subplots.
Off to watch The Good Wife which got chopped up and disrupted by football. They apparently ended one game and decided to go 15 minutes over watching the end of another one? Weird.
Was not a pretty sight.
But hey it was only five dollars and it looks sort of cute next to my tv and along-side the tiny pumpkin I bought for Halloween. I'm not much into decorations...or design, that's my bro and Mom's gig, I take after my Dad...I really don't care that much. Low maintenance all the way. As you may have noticed if you ever checked out my live journal - I don't do banners or lots of graphics or even icons for that matter, too much bloody work.
Speaking of work? I gave up on WW, I have too many things to track, can't do it too.
Also let go of the Y membership - too far away and too problematic. So, I'm saving 80 dollars a month that used to be spent on that. We're not talking about the amount I wasted on both.
2. TVD...sigh. It was going so well, but alas... it's a soap opera. And sigh...I have a weakness for soap operas, apparently. They are also the only things I ever hunt for spoilers on. For the record, Buffy was a soap opera too, if you don't think it was...well, take it from an expert, it was a soap opera. A well written soap opera, but still a soap opera. Whedon is a huge soap fan - he is on record for watching both General Hospital and that supernatural soap that I can't remember the name of. The problem with soap operas is they like to do the same stupid romantic tropes over and over again. I can never predict them because they have troll logic...they tend to go by "emotion" not well logic. Or whatever pulls at the writer's emotions. Which is impossible to predict. Also you get roped into hoping for things, because occasionally the soap will surprise you and do something really cool and innovative and no one does that...then they'll fall into the abyss and go the cliche route and you want to throw things at your tv in frustration. Long-time soap opera watcher...I'm not masochistic, just addicted to those chewy bones they throw me on occasion. Even if they are wonky.
At any rate I'm pretty sure I've figured out TVD aka Vamp Diaries (a title that makes me laugh, so I prefer it, we need laughter in our lives...it helps.) current wonky plot thread. I could be wrong - it is after all a soap opera...they defy me. Which is why I like the dang things.
Stefan according to the spoilers challenges a skeptical Damon who reacted much the same way I did to Stefan and Caroline's theory about the sire bond.
Damon: Yeah right. I think you two have been reading too many Twilight novels or Vamp Diaries fanfic. General Hospital makes more sense than this idea does. (Weirdly it's current storyline actually does.)
Stefan: If you don't believe me...go tell Elena to drink from a blood bag and see what happens.
Damon: Fine I will, but if she throws up...you have some major apologizing to do.
Stefan: And if she doesn't, you do.
Since this is a soap opera, guess what will I happen? I'm willing to bet that Elena can drink the blood when Damon tells her too. (Which will disappoint me, because I think it would be a far more challenging and interesting story to write if she threw it up again and Stefan/Caroline were proven wrong. But the writers have gone to a lot of effort to lay the bread-crumbs and the whole bit about Atticus Shane asking Hilary to break the sire bonds on the hybrids leads me to believe that yes, it's connected.)
I'm also betting that the reason Damon has a sire bond with Elena has to do with her doppleganger blood. It's the same reason Klaus can do one with the hybrids. Remember he no control over them and wasn't able to keep them alive without Elena's blood and can only do it with her human doppleganger blood which is why he wants the cure - a vampire Elena is useless to Klaus.
Damon and Stefan will travel to New Orleans to find someone Damon had a sire bond with in the past to break the bond. (Which makes no sense whatsoever...but keep in mind, soap opera, they aren't supposed to make sense. One leaves one's brain at the door. They can be fun to fanwank though...which is one of the many reasons no one has more devoted and insane fans than soap operas. I'm not sure why they have to go New Orleans...it's not like Damon hasn't sired anyone else in Mystic Falls or no one else knows about sire bonds. I mean - Damon did sire Caroline, it was his blood in her system. Katherine pretended to be Elena and got Bonnie to trick Damon into saving Caroline with his blood...then killed her. Yet, somehow Caroline had no sire bond. Nor has Katrina been able to control Damon and Stefan. So the whole sire bond thing entered the story with Klaus...typical soap opera logic. Oh, I got a great idea...let's do sire bonds, we did it with Klaus, no one will remember past that. (Oh...Yes, we will.))
They find Charlotte. She tells Damon that in order to break the bond - he has to make Elena hate him or do something she'd never do - possibly kill Jeremy. Or kill Damon or kill Stefan (actually she might do that, if I were Elena, I'd kill Stefan, the guy has gone beyond annoying). This is an angsty, terrible sacrifice, but Damon must do it to free her. She hates him for it. They are done.
Damon is once again on the outside looking in, bitter and snarky. Stefan is once again Elena's one true love. And life is as it should be. (Like we haven't seen this before in another show? Gee..I wonder which one?) Except...wait, there's Atticus Shane and the plot to ..do whatever it is Atticus is planning to do. With a name as ironic as Atticus Shane, you know the guy is evil. Seriously, what a waste of a good name if he were good. Plus he is just screaming evil right now - he's hot, he's into Bonnie (who has the worst luck in boyfriends ever - they either die on her or try to kill her, it's one or the other, sometimes both), and he has a plan that involves magic. Evil.
My guess is Atticus is planning on resurrecting Silas or more interesting, is Silas or a descendant who wants to be Silas - not sure how that works exactly, but soap opera - they've done it before. I'm hoping he is Silas and is trying to resurrect his dead girlfriend to join him on the immortal plain. Has a nice symmetry to it. Stefan is willing to do whatever it takes to make Elena mortal again so he can righteously, but with great guilty and pain, obsessively love her sainted soul forever (even after she dies)...and Silas is hoping to bring his dead girlfriend back so he can be with her forever. Meanwhile there's the third wheel in both triangles who doesn't want this to happen and has messed things up, Silas' scorned witch who killed the girl and imprisoned Silas, and Damon who well...likes Elena as human and vampire. Not really sure what Damon's motivation is at the moment - except to have Elena and his brother...and be happy. Which technically is Stefan's motivation too. Bit dicey that.
No, not sure the above works. Atticus can't be Silas. He can be someone who stupidly wants to resurrect Silas and get his power or become Silas. That I see happening. At any rate, I think Shane has cleverly fooled Klaus about the mythos regarding the five vampire hunters. Or Silas has. In short, it will be a twist that is similar to the mythological plot twist that Klaus pulled regarding the curse of the moon and the sun.
For a Season of the Witch - we are spending a lot more time with the Elena/Damon/Stefan love triangle from hell than we are with Bonnie, just saying.
We are eight episodes in or is that six, one does lose count, and we still have no clue what Shane is up to. The whole Atticus Shane/Klaus bit, I'm uncertain about. I do know they are trying to link them to the D/E/S triangle, and doing it a bit sloppily I might add.
The difficulty is...I'm supposed to be rooting for Stefan, but Stefan's behavior screams controlling/abusive boyfriend from hell. So it's really hard to root for him. If I were Elena, I would have ripped him a new one by now. I certainly applauded Jeremy for doing it. Go Jeremy. Now if you can just aim a little higher and more to the left...the next time you stake Stefan. And Caroline is enabling Stefan. Bad Caroline.
Seriously, the boy is using Jeremy to get Elena her cure, without even talking to Jeremy about it or explaining it to him. He's forcing him. Treating him like a thing. And he's lying to Elena.
Instead of discussing it or asking, he's making the decisions - this screams abusive. In a way, Stefan is playing the role of sire, more than Damon is. But behind the scenes. Which may well be the point of the story thread? That symmetry...that both brothers are obsessive and controlling but in different ways? Whedon admittedly did a similar story line with Angel and Spike - where both were abusive boyfriends but in different ways. Two different tropes.
Eh...no one is reading this, who am I kidding. I'm just talking to myself at this point. Too frigging snarky. Sorry about that. See, soap operas intrigue me because I can't figure them out and its so fun to snark about them even if its just to entertain myself.
3. Story Tropes that have been overdone...been thinking about this today. It is in a way an off-shoot of previous posts. The problem with the influx of information or the fact that everyone can publish a book, a movie, a tv show...is after a while certain tropes get done to death.
Here's a challenge, can you do any of these tropes in a way that has not been done before? I bet you can't.
* It's a Wonderful Life - how many times have you seen this story done?
* Three ghosts from your past will visit you in one night ...the Christmas Carol Trope
* sire bond - ie. I sired you, you are my childe, you will do my bidding unless you can find a way to break it...
* Romeo and Juliet...the star-crossed lovers who met, fell in love at first sight, and are doomed to never be together...one or the other, or both will die...or be separated forever. (I did actually see in the book store a new twist on it - entitled Immortal Juliet...where Romeo is a bad guy who killed her and they fight each other for eternity.)
* Evil Dude: I know, we'll kill the mom(or dad, but mom works better) before the son(or daughter or both), who is prophesied to save humanity, was ever born.
* Oedipus complex - he sleeps with or wants to sleep with mom, and kill the stepfather, then goes balmy. (OR for a bit of spice...Electra Complex - goes after Dad, wants him, gets rejected...kills mother or something to that effect.)
There's probably more but that's all I can think of at the moment.
4. Saw OUAT and Revenge last night. Revenge was better, admittedly not hard. OUAT is...well, poorly written. The dialogue and direction is off. And a lot of the characters actions make no sense. It's also a bit jarring in how it flips around. I want OUAT to be better than it is, it's very disappointing - great ideas, poor execution. Damn, why can't they hire better tv writers? Too many bad writers get hired and published, and too many good writers are stuck doing real hard jobs that are more meaningful and contribute more to the world than well tv shows do. Pop culture brings out the bitch in me, I've decided. OR it has been lately. Mainly because I'm frustrated with the tv shows I've been watching. Although to be fair...Jennifer Morrison does not quite work for me as Emma, I don't know why. I didn't like her that much in House either. Didn't dislike. Just felt ambivalent. Same here. It's weird...but I'm finding Regina, Rumple, Cora, Jefferson, Cassaday, and Hook to be the most interesting characters in the show at the moment.
Revenge was convoluted. I don't like the Jack subplot, it's cliche and stupid and I can see where its going. I am on the fence about the Nolan subplot. And confused by the Emily/Aiden/Daniel/Grayson's subplot. That said? It was enjoyable.
Haven't seen Good Wife yet.
Nashville? I like the main arc with Juliette Barnes and Ryana, can't stand the subplots with the horridly whiny Scarlette who managed to ruin my favorite Johnny Cash song (Ring of Fire) which I did not think was possible. She's really bad. And Gunner, the guy mooning after her, is worse. The only one I find talented or interesting is Avery (Jonathan Jackson) but I hate his storyline (even if it is admittedly realistic). I'm afraid they'll write him out, when I'd rather they write out the other two. Also not a fan of the political subplot which also screams cliche. Nashville in short is suffering from the same problems that SMASH did, bad subplots.
Off to watch The Good Wife which got chopped up and disrupted by football. They apparently ended one game and decided to go 15 minutes over watching the end of another one? Weird.
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no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 10:59 pm (UTC)While I'm admittedly used to the whitewashing of bad behavior by alleged good guys/heroes in soap operas (*cough*Jason*cough*, *cough*Sonny*cough*, *cough*Luke*cough*), this is going a bit far.
Also what is Caroline and Bonnie thinking? Granted I don't think Bonnie knows what Stefan is doing to Jeremy. But Caroline does. She also aided and abetted in the death of Tyler's friend...which was why they fought, albeit briefly, a week ago. Tyler is awfully wishy-washy, the boy needs some backbone. Since becoming a werewolf/vampire...he's become quite the puppy-dog.
At any rate? I agree. Say what you will about Damon - but he hasn't gone on a killing spree that involved ripping people's heads off, nor did he form an alliance with Klaus to turn Jeremy into a killer.
If Stefan is supposed to be rootable in this, they're DOING IT WRONG! I'm not generally anti-Stefan, but Stefan's plans/motives this se4ason are so, so, SO wrong. He's turning Jeremy into a killer, having no idea what is or what might be happening to Jeremy -- to Elena's brother -- because... he can't accept Elena if she's 'changed'?
Exactly. There's ways you can do that story and make Stefan likable or even someone you would root for. Such as have Elena go off the rails as a vampire (she hasn't...she's not all that different actually), or have Stefan question what he is doing with Jeremy - and let Klaus be the bad guy in that equation, right now they are about equal - with Stefan taking the lead.
The problem the writers have with Stefan is they want their cake and eat it too. They want him to be the hero, but they also want him to be dark and edgy and the bad boy. They want him to be a metaphor for addiction, ie - killing people =alcohol addiction, which doesn't quite work long-term (See Being Human, which finally killed off Mitchell, for that very reason, and well the actor wanted out of the role.)
Stefan's not working for me this season. I keep rooting for Jeremy to stake him. Jeremy came close this past episode...but he didn't quite aim high enough...now that would be an interesting twist. How would Elena, Caroline, Klaus, and Damon deal with Jeremy killing Stefan?
no subject
Date: 2012-12-05 03:55 am (UTC)Especially ugh is that it's a double standard because heads-up, Stefan ain't 'pure' himself. And if he wants to angst about that all the time, that's his business. But thinking that it boils down to Elena has to be all pure wonderfulness for him to love HER is icky. As icky as her having to be pure to save him. The whole thing undercuts the concept of you are who you are. You are what you do. And you love someone for who they are. He can't love her if she's in any way corrupt.
The whole underlying motivation is icky. That he's willing to do something so incredibly awful as to use Jeremy (whioch is corrupting both him and it's corrupting Jeremy-- against Jeremy's will) makes it WORSE. That it's corrputing him and corrupting Jeremy so that he can 'purify' Elena just makes me shudder.
If Stefan is meant to be at all rootable in this this, there's epic fail in the set-up.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-05 11:57 pm (UTC)The thing of it is...I'm not at certain that we're supposed to be rooting for Stefan. It can be read another way...and the thematic arc doesn't quite support it.
* the preacher guy/April's Dad - torches the council to keep them "pure" or to "purify" them so they can return.
* Preacher Guy also takes Elena to keep her from being further "contaminated" by Stefan and Damon and the vampires.
* Bonnie can't access her magic - because it feels "impure"
There's also all of Damon's comments to Stefan regarding his plan with Klaus.
1. Do we want to trust Klaus in this? Considering Klaus wants Elena as his personal human blood bag?
2. You can't love her without her being pure? Why so she can save you?
Make you feel better about yourself? I'll help you, but I love her either way.
And there's the whole reason Stefan broke up with Katherine to begin with...
He fell in love with human Katherine, the damsel in distress. Her "innocence" and Katherine notes that she feel in love with the reflection of her innocence in his eyes - or how he viewed her.
When Stefan discovers Katherine is a vampire, he's still obsessed, but he wants nothing to do with her and betrays her to his father (sort of). Damon on the other hand can't wait to join Katherine in immortal damnation.
And let's face it - Stefan has a bit of a type. He falls for the innocence and gets disillusioned by the whore. Rebecca comes to mind.
Loved her, until he realized what she was.
It's the whole virgin and the whore motif.
So...the question is, are the writers critiquing the motif and critiquing Stefan and people like Stefan or...are they doing the opposite, re-affirming the motif and pushing it? I can't tell at this stage.
Depends on how the story plays out this season. If Stefan is proven right...and he cures Elena of her vampirism and we're back to status guo? I'm done. Not because I think vamps are cool or support what they did in Twilight. But because of how they are going about it. If Stefan is proven right, Elena stays a vampire through some odd quirk or plot twist, and joins vamps anonymous with him and Caroline...I'm still done, for the same reasons. But if they have this whole thing backfire on him in a major way (and it really should based on the clues I've seen dropped...ie. Atticus Shane's whole deal with breaking the sire bond and finding the cure, and the whole bit about Silas and the two women who loved him just screams epic fail for Stefan/Klaus's plans) and he ends up hurting everyone with the best of intentions, just like April's Dad did, NikLaus and Bonnie did, and Alaric...then cool, wonky goodness.
But right now, I honestly can't tell which direction they are going in - damn thing is too much like a soap opera. They can go in at least three different directions at this point. Two would lead to epic fail. One leads to wonky goodness. Sigh. It reminds me a bit too much of the Buffy comics, daytime soap operas and Dollhouse for my own comfort zone. LOL!
And yes, I think I'm becoming a Damon/Elena and Klaus/Caroline shipper against my will. Also...this seems odd, but I prefer Apirl with Rebecca to Matt/Jeremy. Not sure who I want Stefan with at this point, he's annoying the heck out of me.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 12:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 05:20 am (UTC)Don't feel bad about it. It a myth that cactus are easy to grow. Cacti are actually quite difficult to grow outside of their home territory. Here they can get sunburned and die. Where you live it's next to impossible to give enough of them enough natural light. It's difficult to tell whether they are getting too much or too little water till it's too late... A lot of cacti bought from big stores are dying before you get them through the checkout because the store didn't know how to take care of them.
Enjoy your tree while you've go it and don't worry about what happens after Christmas. ;o)
no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 11:01 pm (UTC)I've decorated my tv stand now. Some people decorate their apartments, I decorate my tv stand. I'd decorate my cubicle - but there's no room. It has a tiny tree, a small snow globe with two snowmen, and a pumpkin. LOL!