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True Blood Tuesday

This week’s True Blood Tuesday features me forgetting it’s a half-day of school, so my daughter walked in and started telling me (and by extension all of you) about a log.

Download the .mp3 and start it right after the HBO logo/sound fades.

True Blood S01E02 “The First Taste”

The Big Damn Buffy Rewatch, S03E05 “Homecoming”

In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone is terrified of bullet journals. She will also recap every episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer with an eye to the following themes:

Sex is the real villain of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe.
Giles is totally in love with Buffy.
Joyce is a fucking terrible parent.
Willow’s magic is utterly useless (this one won’t be an issue until season 2, when she gets a chance to become a witch)
Xander is a textbook Nice Guy.
The show isn’t as feminist as people claim.
All the monsters look like wieners.
If ambivalence to possible danger were an Olympic sport, Team Sunnydale would take the gold.
Angel is a dick.
Harmony is the strongest female character on the show.
Team sports are portrayed in an extremely negative light.
Some of this shit is racist as fuck.
Science and technology are not to be trusted.
Mental illness is stigmatized.
Only Willow can use a computer.
Buffy’s strength is flexible at the plot’s convenience.
Cheap laughs and desperate grabs at plot plausibility are made through Xenophobia.
Oz is the Anti-Xander
Spike is capable of love despite his lack of soul
Don’t freaking tell me the vampires don’t need to breathe because they’re constantly out of frickin’ breath.
The foreshadowing on this show is freaking amazing.
Smoking is evil.
Despite praise for its positive portrayal of non-straight sexualities, some of this shit is homophobic as fuck.
How do these kids know all these outdated references, anyway?
Technology is used inconsistently as per its convenience in the script.
Sunnydale residents are no longer shocked by supernatural attacks.
Casual rape dismissal/victim blaming a-go-go
Snyder believes Buffy is a demon or other evil entity.
The Scoobies kind of help turn Jonathan into a bad guy.
This show caters to the straight female gaze like whoa.
Sunnydale General is the worst hospital in the world.
Faith is hyper-sexualized needlessly.
Slut shame!

Have I missed any that were added in past recaps? Let me know in the comments.  Even though I might forget that you mentioned it.

WARNING: Some people have mentioned they’re watching along with me, and that’s awesome, but I’ve seen the entire series already and I’ll probably mention things that happen in later seasons. So… you know, take that under consideration, if you’re a person who can’t enjoy something if you know future details about it. 

Buffy is at the Bronze, looking totally glum while her friends are enthusiastically planning their homecoming transportation arrangements. Xander, Willow, Oz, and Cordy are planning on getting a limo, but Buffy can’t commit because Scott hasn’t asked her yet. Cordelia is outraged on Buffy’s behalf, in front of both Buffy and Scott. So Buffy is super mortified and Scott is put on the spot (hey, that rhymes!) and stumbles through a homecoming dance invite.

After the Bronze, Buffy delivers some blood to a half-feral Angel. She tells him that she hasn’t told anyone that he’s back. When she mentions Giles by name, Angel appears to remember all the horrible shit he did to him. Then Buffy starts talking like Angel is her guidance counselor or some shit:

Buffy: “It’s just that everything’s different now. I’m a senior. I’m really working harder in school. I’m even thinking about college.”

That’s nice and all, but Buffy is intentionally burying the lead. She tacks on that she’s got a new boyfriend, he’s nice and he makes her happy.  She tells Angel that she needs someone she can count on.

Then we cut immediately to Scott breaking up with her. At school. Which is a shitty place to break up with someone, because then they have to go through the rest of the school day trying not to cry. But also, don’t break up with someone after a movie. My first boyfriend (coincidentally also named Scott) broke up with me after a movie, and the movie was horrible. It was that one with Alicia Silverstone and that guy whose name I can never remember, but who was the first to die The Usual Suspects. Alicia Silverstone kidnaps herself and the whole thing was the super fucking worst. If he’d just broken up with me before the movie, I a) would have not had to see it and b) my whole night wouldn’t have been wasted.

So, guys, don’t make your girlfriend sit through a shitty movie before you break up with her. That’s just rubbing salt into the wound.

Anyway, it’s not bad enough that this kid dumps Buffy right in the middle of the school day and all. Some creeps in a van have to be watching her with binoculars and recording her on an unnecessary number of video screens for the size of the space. They transmit the video to some random dude and Mr. Trick, who ominously declares that Buffy is their “target.”

Then the opening credits happen and I realize that a fucking lot has just gone on before the actual start of the episode. I’m not sure we’ve had a prologue that detailed before.

After the credits, we finally meet The Mayor. I’m capitalizing that because that’s the only name anybody really uses for the dude. He has a real name, but it’s hardly ever used. So, after all the buildup of season two promising us this shadowy figure, who is The Mayor, exactly? Obviously, some kind of horrific demon creature with horns and dripping slime–

Wait, this is the guy? This Richie Cunnigham looking fuck?

Full disclosure, I went to check the spelling of that name and ended up reading the entire Wikipedia entry for Happy Days. It is atrocious. There’s a picture from the episode where Fonzie went blind and Richie took his motorcycle all apart to, I don’t know, motivate him out of his blindness or whatever, and the caption says Fonzie is “viewing” the motorcycle parts. Like, how is he viewing them? He’s blind in that episode. If you’re writing the Happy Days Wikipedia article and you don’t recognize that iconic episode, what are you even doing? This isn’t amateur hour, kid.

Anyway, a guy comes in to tell The Mayor that some noted bad guys (the ones who were spying on Buffy) have come to Sunnydale. But The Mayor is more interested in sniffing the paper and admonishing the staffer to wash his hands better:

The Mayor: “After every meal, and under your fingernails. Dirt gets trapped there. And germs. And mayonnaise.”

Any adult who condescendingly lectures another adult on the importance of hand washing (the healthcare field excluded, of course) is clearly evil. He tells the guy to make sure any other new weirdos who arrive in Sunnydale are carefully monitored.

It’s school picture day, and Cordelia is checking out the homecoming queen competition.

Cordelia: “Michelle Blake, open to all mankind, especially those with a letterman’s jacket and a car. She could give me a run.”

I’m not sure how to deal with this bit of dialogue, to be perfectly honest. A part of me wants to flag it as #6, but at the same time, it’s kind of funny that Cordelia is basically describing herself, then saying that only someone like her could possibly beat her in the homecoming race, thereby making her description of Michelle into what Cordelia would perceive as a compliment. So, I guess this one is a choose-your-own-adventure thing. Either you think it’s #6 or not.

Willow is worried that Buffy is going to miss getting her picture taken:

Xander: “Buffy and Faith are in the library gettin’ all sweaty.”

Cordelia: “They’re training.”

Xander: “I stand by my phrase.”

Xander’s constant fantasizing about Buffy and Faith in front of the one girl who can actually stand to date him is wearing THIN. Seriously, you’re with this beautiful girl who really likes you (against all fucking odds), and you spend your time talking about two other hot girls getting it on. #5, you big old ass douche.

Willow is worried that Buffy will miss school pictures, since she wasn’t at school the day they were announced, and Cordelia offers to let her know. But it’s not like Buffy is really going to look great for pictures, because she is, as not-incorrectly stated by Xander, getting sweaty.

I’ve always kind of wondered about this “training at school” thing. We know that entering a locker room at Sunnydale High = instant death, so what’s going on when Buffy has to go back to class? I know I’ve mentioned before how odd it is that nobody really comes into the library, and how that’s good, since she’s occasionally like, blindfolded by the librarian (which actually happens in the next episode, but it was the first thing I thought of in terms of why the cops would be called–also, Blindfolded By The Librarian would definitely be a book I would read), but I’ve never really thought about the fact that Buffy’s popularity certainly wouldn’t increase if she smelled like she’d been through physically arduous training all the time.

And today it’s really physically arduous. So much so that even Faith can’t handle her punches. And not to harp on this whole, “where are the other adults in this school that they don’t find this whole set up kind of odd” thing, but this is what Buffy is wearing:

What high schooler would really be comfortable standing around in the library in a sports bra? When just anybody could come in? And if the every did, wouldn’t that rumor get around pretty fast? “I saw that weird Buffy chick and the new girl engaging in barely-clothed hand-to-hand combat in the library of all places. Isn’t that weird?” At the very least, this is a dress code violation. By season three, the audience should apparently just be comfortable enough with the library as a private space that this doesn’t seem unusual or unlikely, but it’s really hard to breeze past stuff like this if you look way too hard into it.

Faith suggests that since Buffy is now dateless for homecoming, they should go together. My inner femslash machine roars to life, and I cannot hear the part where Faith suggests they pick up two “studs” to have a good time. My inability to hear that bit comes from both the roar of the aforementioned internal femslash machine, but also because I highly object to the use of “stud” in Faith’s vocabulary. By 1998, that word was basically something your mom and her friends used when they drank too much white zinfandel. Buffy agrees to go to the dance with Faith, though, and as they’re packing up their stuff, Cordelia arrives to tell Buffy about school pictures. But Cordy is distracted by a chance to campaign for more homecoming votes and never gives Buffy the message.

Between classes, Buffy approaches a teacher and explains that she needs a “glowing” recommendation before her kicked-out-of-school situation is properly rectified. But despite the fact that the teacher’s class– “Contemporary American heroes from Amelia Earhart to Maya Angelou”– changed Buffy’s life, the teacher doesn’t remember who she is.

Back up a second. Contemporary American heroes? What kind of a class is that in high school? Do classes like that exist in high school? I will be so pissed. So. Pissed. Because my high school had like, “U.S. History” and “World History” and “Religion” and shit. I mean, I guess the religion classes were pretty specific (“Christology” and “Hebrew Studies”), but they were the only choice for our grade level. I don’t remember ever having a choice of taking a class like “Contemporary American Heroes”.

So, Buffy is completely thrown by the fact that her favorite teacher doesn’t know who the heck she is, when she was so popular at her old school:

Buffy: “At Hemery I was prom princess, I was fiesta queen, I was on the cheerleading squad. And the yearbook was like, the story of me. Now it’s senior year and I’m going to be one crappy picture on one eighth of one crappy page.”

Xander drops the bomb that Buffy missed having her picture taken. Here’s another difference I don’t get: why didn’t they have their senior pictures taken outside of school, like a lot of kids do? Or is that just a midwestern thing? I can’t imagine that it’s just a midwestern thing.

Anyway, Willow asks Buffy if Cordelia told her about the pictures, and Buffy angrily confronts Cordy, who’s campaigning pretty hard for homecoming queen. They get into a fight, in which Buffy accuses Cordelia of only thinking of herself, and Cordelia taunts Buffy for not really being a part of the school. Furious, Buffy tells Cordelia that she’s going to compete for homecoming queen herself.

Buffy: “Sorry, Cordy, but you have no idea who you’re messing with.”

Cordelia: “What, the Slayer?”

Buffy: “I’m not talking about the Slayer. I’m talking about Buffy. You’ve awakened the prom queen within, and that crown is going to be mine.”

Cut to Mr. Trick addressing a room full of assorted humans, vampires, and…

Mr. Trick: “Whatever the hell you are, my brother. You got…spiny-looking head things, I ain’t never seen that before.”

Demon: “I am Kulak. Of the Miquat clan.”

Mr. Trick: “Isn’t that nice?”

You’re going to make Kulak of the Miquat clan sad if you keep picking on his appearance.

The point is, he’s gathered everyone there for a “The Most Dangerous Game” style hunting event. He’s charged them large sums of money to get them all in one place for “Slayerfest ’98″ which sounds like some kind of metal concert. The humans, vampires (who are super redneck, like they should have just wandered in from True Blood), and Kulak are going to hunt both Buffy and Faith. Remember when Mr. Trick talked about looking at the big picture? This way, he’s getting rid of both Slayers at once, and making bank in the process. Mr. Trick is a highly under appreciated villain in the Buffyverse. I think he’s the only true neutral evil villain in the entire show, and those are really the most interesting types of villains. To me, anyway.

At Willow’s house, Xander and Willow are trying on homecoming outfits as soft, late nineties acoustic pop plays romantically in the background. Which, of course, leads to sexual tension as they talk about their significant others and exactly what bases people are getting to. And then this happens:

They instantly regret this.

Xander: “That didn’t just happen?”

Willow: “No. I mean, it did, but it didn’t.”

Xander: “Because I respect you. And Oz. And I would never–”

Willow: “I would never either. It must be the clothes. It’s a fluke!”

Xander: “It’s a clothes fluke, that’s what it is! And there’ll be no more fluking.”

Willow: “Not ever.”

Xander: “We gotta get out of these clothes!”

Willow: “Right now!”

Xander: “Oh, I didn’t mean–”

Willow: “I didn’t mean, either!”

This scene is equal parts cute and heartbreaking. I love their reaction when they realize what they’ve done, but I hate that they did it. This scene would probably be a little easier to accept if they didn’t keep sneaking around behind Oz and Cordelia’s back. The first time is an accident of getting caught up in the moment. They make the choice to later continue potentially hurting their romantic partners.

In the library the next day, Buffy is ready to destroy Cordelia, with the support of her friends and an incredible white board of hatred:

Let’s break down what she’s got for each girl:

Cordelia Chase

Strengths:

Popular with boys
Makes friends easily
Has money to buy votes
Expensive clothes
Perfect teeth.

Weaknesses:

Mannipulative
Two-faced
Bad in sports
Superficial
No sense of humor
Fake smile
Brie
Xander

Michelle Blake

Strengths:

Popular Cheerleader
Athletic
Yearbook editor
Friendly
Good cook
Nice

Weaknesses:

Bad skin
Wears polyester
PB crazed
Dandruff
Too much makeup
Never studies

Holly Charleston

Strengths:

Debate skills
Straight A’s
Drill Team
Good in sports
Always studies

Weaknesses:

Few friends
New student
No boyfriend
Introvert
Aways studying

I had to list all these out because some of them crack me up. First of all, how does Buffy know how much these girls study? And who is she to make that judgement call. Second, Holly Charleston sounds like a bigger nerd than Buffy. I assume “good in sports” is what’s saving Holly’s bacon in this race. And how does Buffy know about Michelle’s cooking? And what’s PB Crazed? Is this something I can’t remember from the ’90s? But my favorite, my absolute favorite, is that “brie” is listed as one of Cordelia’s weaknesses. I want to know how, specifically, Buffy expected to weaponize cheese in the fight for homecoming queen.

Willow, Xander, and Oz don’t look entirely thrilled to be the target of Buffy’s lecture. She’s having a real Selina Meyer moment here, but in front of three Garys who don’t understand quite how to process her battle speech.

Sorry, I’ve been binge-watching Veep.

Buffy, not noticing that her friends aren’t enthusiastically supportive, insists that she has a real shot.

Buffy: “Now, this is just like any other popularity contest. I’ve done this before. The only difference being this time I’m not actually popular. Although I’m not exactly unpopular. A lot of people came to my welcome home party.”

Willow: “They were killed by zombies.”

Buffy starts assigning tasks willy-nilly, telling Willow to construct a database to keep track of which demographics they need to target among voters. Oz needs to rope his too-cool-for-voting fringe friends in, and Buffy’s just about to give Xander a job working against his own girlfriend when Cordelia walks in.

Buffy: “Okay, look, I know this is a little awkward, but I don’t see any reason why we all can’t get along during this campaign time. I mean, we’re almost friends, and we’re all riding together in the limo.”

Cordelia: “Yeah, great. Willow, how’s that database coming?”

Buffy has made the critical mistake of assuming her friends are her friends, and no one else’s, when they’re already committed to helping someone else.

Xander: “She’s my girlfriend.”

Willow: “It’s just that…she needs it so much more than you do.”

Oz: “As Willow goes, so goes my nation.”

Cordelia: “Thanks for what you said, Buffy. I think we’re getting along great, don’t you?”

And then they all leave Buffy alone in the library. Well, not actually alone, because Giles is there. I assume he’s praying for a demon attack or some kind of apocalypse so he doesn’t have to deal with the inevitable fall-out of a Buffy/Cordy rivalry. He gently insinuates that Buffy may be going slightly overboard by saying that it seems like a lot of fuss and that it’s okay as long as Buffy is having fun. She assures him that nobody takes homecoming queen seriously, right before she crushes a glass apple juice bottle in her fist.

It’s hard to feel bad for Buffy in this episode, because of the way she’s prepared to blatantly use her friends with total disregard to their wishes, in order to attack another friend. Which is cool, because it puts the viewer right there with the Scoobies. We like Cordelia and Buffy, and we don’t like feeling pulled between them.

In a montage set to “Fire Escape” by Fastball (as legally required for the production of any dramatic media in the ’90s), we see Buffy and Cordy campaigning, interspersed with shots of the Slayer hunters prepping for battle. Kulak has pretty bad ass arm-knives sheathed in his actual arms.

Buffy drops her flyers, and who should be standing by to help her but Scott. When she says the homecoming thing is stupid and she’s just doing it to pass the time, he encourages her and says he’ll vote for her, cementing his position as the best boyfriend Buffy will ever have.

As it turns out, dropping the flyers was a trick to lure Scott into a conversation in which Buffy could secure her vote. As is the flirting with jocks and handing out of cupcakes she engages in next, only to be topped by Cordelia distributing what appear to be gift baskets of candy.

The campaign is putting real strain on Willow, which Buffy isn’t afraid of exploiting to get a crack at that database. And that’s not innuendo, she just really wants to know what her poll numbers are. They also discuss the arrangements for the limo, which are overheard by the two weird guys in their van. They know that the Slayers will be picked up first, followed by everyone else.

In the hall, Buffy and Cordelia have a confrontation over how they’re running their campaigns.

Cordelia: “This whole trying to be like me? Really isn’t funny anymore”

Buffy: “I was never trying to be like you. And when was it ‘funny’?”

Cordelia: “I don’t see why your pathetic need to recapture your glory days gives you the right to splinter my vote.”

Buffy: “How can you think it’s okay to talk to people like this? Do you have parents?”

Cordelia: “Yeah. Two of them. Unlike some people.”

Whoa, Cordelia! WHOA. That’s not cool. Neither is putting her hand on Buffy’s shoulder to push her out of the way. And it’s definitely not cool when Buffy calls Cordelia a “vapid whore”. Like, wait. This is supposed to be a show that empowers women and breaks down gender stereotypes, etc., right? I’m not saying that you can’t be a feminist if you use the word “whore” in anger one time (and if Buffy was a little out of control, I can’t really blame her for losing it after the parents comment), but it does seem like a pretty harsh word for a) a show aimed at teens and b) a show that was crafted with the intent of turning tropes about teen girls on their heads. It’s jarring when the show buys into those tropes. (#6)

There’s a weird transition where Willow starts to say something to Buffy, then she’s suddenly in her bedroom finishing the same sentence as she talks to Xander. She says it’s “the worst thing ever”, but she’s not talking about the kiss she and Xander shared. That’s what he thinks she’s talking about, but she’s really worried about Buffy and Cordy, and wants to place the blame on herself and Xander.

Willow: “Because we felt so guilty about the fluke, we overcompensated helping Cordelia, and we spun the whole group dynamic out of orbit. And we’re just a big meteor shower heading for Earth–”

Xander stops her, and they try to think up a solution but end up holding hands and talking about their attraction to each other, instead.

The night of the dance, Buffy gets in the limo, expecting Faith.

It’s not Faith.

The other Scoobies have left them a note, which Buffy reads aloud:

Buffy: “Dear Cordelia and Buffy. We won’t be riding to the dance with you. We want you to work out your problems, because our friendships are more important than who wins homecoming queen. Your friends. P.S., the limo was not cheap. Work it out.”

That post script is probably the most realistic depiction of something friends would actually write in a note like that.

There doesn’t seem to be much chance of the two of them working things out, though, since all they talk about is the fact that of the two corsages, Cordelia took the orchid. When the limo finally pulls over, they’re relieved, until they realize they’ve just been stranded in the middle of nowhere. There’s a TV and VCR in the middle of nowhere, too, and a sign that tells them to press play. Lewis Carroll’s First Law Of Plot Development demands they press the button. They are treated to a greeting from Mr. Trick, who boldly wears a red velvet suit in front of a red velvet curtain, leading me to believe that he might lean slightly toward chaotic evil, after all. He tells them that they have seventeen seconds to run for their lives. He even made a little graphic for the end of the video. Mr. Trick is nothing, if not committed.

Cordelia protests that she’s not a Slayer, but the exploding television suggests that nobody gives a shit.

At the dance (which is at The Bronze, which is now officially to Sunnydale as The Max is to Bayside), Willow and Xander listen guiltily as Dingoes At My Baby play. Faith picks up on the vibe, but she’s distracted by the fact that Scott came to the homecoming dance with someone who wasn’t Buffy. That’s when Giles comes in:

Giles: “We have to find Buffy. Something terrible’s happened. Just kidding, thought I’d give you a scare.”

I’m super bummed because I incorrectly remembered Giles wearing a tux in this scene. That comes later in the season, when he chaperones the prom. I guess it’s a good thing that they didn’t do it twice in one season. I would have gotten pregnant and I can’t handle another baby right now.

Back in the woods, Buffy nearly steps into a bear trap while Cordelia whines that they should clear up the misunderstanding about her being the Slayer. One of the hunters tries to shoot them, and Buffy uses his own trap against him. Somehow. It goes pretty fast and the shot is super dark. Also, the trap is sprung, she throws it at him, it hits him in the head, and he somehow steps in it? I don’t understand how it got reset. But like I said, the whole thing is really quick. She gets his gun and threatens to shoot him if he doesn’t tell her what’s up with the rest of the hunters. He tells her about the two German guys from the van (they have guns and a rocket launcher), the demon guy with “long knives” (come on, dude, you could have mentioned the fact that they come out of his arms), and the redneck vampire couple.

Back at the dance, Faith engages in some gross behavior by coming up to Scott and his date and saying this:

Faith: “Scott? There you are, honey. Hey, good news. The doctor says the itching and the swelling and the burning should clear up, but we gotta keep using the ointment.”

I hate this. I feel like it should fall under one of the headers up there, but #6 is too general, and it’s not really #1, either. So we’re adding to our list. #33 Slut shame! I can’t believe I haven’t made that an entry until now, because it happens almost constantly. I guess until I heard Buffy actually call someone a whore, I didn’t go on full alert. Faith using this vague STI description to make Scott less desirable to his date perpetuates the belief that a person with an STD or STI is somehow ruined and dirty. Granted, this discourse wasn’t a big topic of conversation outside of activist circles at the time the show was written, but it’s incredibly dated and offensive now. It also doesn’t make a lot of sense. Scott didn’t do anything malicious by breaking up with Buffy. He just didn’t want to date her anymore. That’s not exactly a scenario worthy of retribution, especially when he’s proven himself as a pretty good guy this whole time.

So, Giles comes up to Willow and Xander, who are both mopey, guilty, and dateless, and says he’s going to “retreat to the library” until the coronation. But…they’re at The Bronze. How close is it to the school? Oh god, it really is becoming The Max.

Buffy and Cordelia find a cabin in the woods they can hide in. While Buffy bars the windows and blocks the doors, Cordelia panics. She doesn’t want to die without telling Xander that she loves him–so…that’s a bombshell. And it’s not coming at a great time, considering what’s going on with Willow and Xander. But they can’t worry about that now. They need to look for weapons. Cordelia finds a spatula.

Buffy: “That’s it?”

Cordelia: “Just this and a telephone.”

Buffy: “A telephone? And you didn’t think that would be helpful?”

Cordelia: “No, this is better! For…”

The surveillance guy on the German team manages to pinpoint the girls’ location when they try to use to the phone to call Giles, and the line goes dead while Buffy is leaving a message. With the Germans closing in, we cut to the library, where Giles checks his answering machine and hears Buffy’s plea for help.

While they guard against inevitable attack, Cordelia says that she doesn’t understand why Buffy needs to be homecoming queen when her life involves so much running around and excitement. Buffy tells her that the running around and excitement is all she gets to do, and she wanted to do something normal. Their heart-to-heart is interrupted when Kulak bursts through a window and starts fighting hand-to-hand with Buffy. Cordelia attacks with her spatula, and Buffy reminds her that they have a gun. When Cordelia proves to be a dangerous shot, Buffy suggests she go back to the spatula. The Germans arm their rocket launcher, while Buffy tries to shoot Kulak. The gun jams, and the Germans’ missile lands between Buffy and the demon. Buffy and Cordelia jump out of a window, and Kulak tries to jump out of one, as well, but it’s unfortunately boarded up. He lands on the bomb, and the whole cabin goes up in a fiery explosion as Cordy and Buffy run through the forest.

The redneck vampires are waiting in the library, thinking they’ll ambush the Slayer there. Turns out, the guy is the brother of an earlier vampire who was killed in another episode, and he’s letting his wife kill Buffy as a wedding present. Since they’re in the library, Giles is obviously working on a plan to thwart them.

God damnit, Giles!

Mr. Trick is impressed that Buffy and “Faith” got away, but he doesn’t have time to admire them for long, because two police officers arrive and take him away.

Buffy and Cordelia race to the library. Buffy figures if they can kill the vampires and get rid of the Germans, they can still make it to at least some of the dance. The moment they enter the library, the lady vampire catches Buffy off guard and attacks her. Cordelia throws Buffy the spatula, and Buffy uses it to stake lady vamp. Cordelia confronts the guy vampire and verbally eviscerates him:

Vampire: “I’m gonna kill both you Slayers for this, you hear me?”

Cordelia: “I hear you, you redneck moron. You got a dress that goes with that hat?”

Vampire: “I’m gonna–”

Cordelia: “Rip out my innards, play with my eyeballs, boil my brain and eat it for brunch? Listen up, needle brain. Buffy and I have taken out four of your cronies, not to mention your girlfriend.”

Vampire: “Wife!”

Cordelia: “Whatever. The point is, I haven’t even broken a sweat. See, in the end, Buffy is just the runner up. I’m the queen. You get me mad, what do you think I’m going to do to you?”

Cordelia’s verbal beat down shames/scares the vampire away, and Giles finally wakes up from his convenient coma. He admits that he knew about the limo trick, but not about the corsages, which makes Buffy realize that the tracking devices the German team was using are in the flowers they’re still wearing. The Germans enter the school and receive coordinates from their surveillance guy. She uses wet toilet paper to stick the trackers to the Germans, and they shoot each other. Also, they shoot up the walls and windows, which would be a cause for alarm at literally any other school.

I wonder what happens with those guys. Does Giles have to dispose of their bodies? Do the Scoobies help? Do they just dump them in the woods? WTF do they do now?

The police bring Mr. Trick to meet The Mayor, whose name is Richard but who I will continue to refer to as The Mayor, because that’s what he’s called throughout the season. Mr. Trick assumes The Mayor is about to kick him out of Sunnydale for being a vampire and probably for being black, considering the racial demographic of the town. Instead, The Mayor tells Mr. Trick that they now work together. Participation is not optional. So, The Mayor knows about vampires and isn’t freaked. He’s probably up to something.

Buffy and Cordelia arrive at the dance just in time for the homecoming queen announcement. They don’t look so hot, covered in dirt and blood, and wearing ripped dresses.

Xander: “Oh god, what did you two do to each other?”

Buffy: “Long story.”

Cordelia: “Got hunted.”

Buffy: “Apparently not that long.”

As a drum roll builds tension, Cordelia and Buffy realize how silly they’ve been. Just kidding!

Cordelia: “After all that we’ve been through tonight, this whole who-gets-to-be-queen-capade seems pretty–”

Buffy: “Damn important.”

Cordelia: “Oh yeah.”

But lo, what is this? There’s actually a tie for homecoming queen!

But it’s for Michelle and Holly. Cordelia and Buffy’s entire fight was for nothing.

This is an uncomfortable episode for me, because Buffy and Cordelia are one of the many, many ships I sail for this fandom, and I don’t like that they’re fighting . At least, I don’t like that they’re fighting without any sexual tension. Cordy and the spatula is one of my favorite gags of the season, though, so I’m willing to forgive a lot for this one.

True Blood Tuesday

The other day, I noticed that you can watch True Blood on Amazon Prime, and then I noticed that while I was watching it, I was talking to screen all alone. So, I started recording it the way I do with movies. I’m going to put up one episode every Tuesday, if you want to watch along with me. And if you don’t, I’ll just amuse myself. Because most of this is just me enthusiastically shouting, “HOYT FORTENBERRY!” over and over.

Download the .mp3 and start it right after the HBO logo/sound fades.

True Blood S01E01, “Strange Love”

(For all of my Deaf, hard of hearing, or just audio-averse friends out there in Trout Nation, fear not. I’m not converting all of my recaps to audio or anything like that. I just don’t want to actually recap all of True Blood since I already have two pretty intensive recaps going. I’m still going to be blogging manually.)

Let’s Get High And Watch The Craft!

Hey everybody! You may recall that to celebrate Valentine’s day, I got high and recorded a Fifty Shades of Grey DVD-commentary style track that you could put on while watching the movie, and I make snarky little comments, etc. And some people liked that, so I decided that I would do it again. And then I was like, maybe I’ll do it more than once. So, today I offer you, perhaps for your Friday night viewing pleasure:

LET’S GET HIGH AND WATCH THE CRAFT!

That’s right, dear readers. I rolled three joints and took a trip down memory lane. If you join me up on this journey (cannabis optional), you’ll get to experience such Trout-household hits as “Jenny trails off mid-sentence as she tries to remember which movie she’s seen that person in before” and “Jenny confuses all the 90′s teen movies with Scream“. You’ll also hear me arguing with my grouchy old man dog (I think he barks twice toward the end of the movie, once where the bugs and shit are crawling all over the house, and the other during the very last scene), and the plaintive whining of my youngest dog, who got locked out of my office.

You’ll also get to enjoy the maddening click of my thirsty rat drinking almost an entire water bottle, because the only time that little fucker gets thirsty is when…you know what? I just realized why he might get that thirsty only at certain times.

Carry on.

You can download the .mp3 here. Hit play just after the Columbia Pictures music ends.

Is there a particular movie you’d like to watch with me via the magic of doing this? Leave it in the suggestion box. I can’t promise I’ll do all of them, but I’ll definitely do some.

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Jealous Hater Book Club “Apolonia” THE END

I know you guys are due another Buffy recap, but the idea of just finishing this goddamn recap and wrapping it up once and for all is like, sunshine and rainbow farts to me. So that’s what I’m going to do, and then we can move ahead with our lives and forget this book, because ultimately it is forgettable. It’s not the worst book, it’s certainly not the best book, it’s not even a good book, but it’s not bad enough that we’ll remember it. I guess that’s the nicest thing you can say about it.

So, let’s do this, and then we can all go get our memories erased.

Chapter twenty-one starts with Apolonia trying to bust open the canister thing they found:

Apolonia swung again. “I! Am going! Home!” she said, grunting as her sword hit the metal.

Maybe this is why the book is named after her. She’s the only one who does helpful, proactive shit in situations that call for it.

The canister opens and lights everything up pink, while the parasites are spreading in the courtyard. The ship lowers and puts out a bridge to the roof.

A man in blue robes, massive and beautiful as his daughter, walked out.

Some of you guys hate when I point this out, because it’s too nit-picky, but I don’t care. I like the idea of Hamech having a beautiful, massive daughter to match his beautiful, massive blue robe. He runs out and grabs Apolonia, hugging her, and Rory thinks:

He didn’t look at all like someone who had just murdered thousands of innocent people.

But then, immediately following that statement:

I smiled, seeing how safe Apolonia looked in her father’s strong arms. I missed that feeling of security and surrender so much, and I was glad she still had it.

Like, this dude just killed everyone at the college and destroyed the only home you have. But what a good dad he is.

The soldiers who aren’t infected by parasites hit the underbelly of the ship with a missile, and shoot at the ship for as long as they can before they start turning into parasites, themselves.

Cy responded, his head slightly bowed, and then he looked back to me. “The ship’s weapon is no longer functional. It has been damaged by the missile, Rory. We must leave. I can’t leave you here to die. I won’t.”

Cy starts arguing with Hamech, and Apolonia translates:

“He is asking about your character,” Apolonia translated. “Cyrus had to reveal that Benji is Majestic.”

Couldn’t they tell just by looking at him? I’m sorry but “[name] is Majestic” has been cracking me up throughout this whole book.

Anyway, Benji can’t go.

Cy had sadness in his eyes. “You can come with us. Hamech has ordered that Benji be left behind.”

“You know I won’t leave him,” I said.

But Benji is like,

“There’s a reason you don’t need anyone here. Because you’re meant to go with them.”

So basically, “hey, your parents and best friend died and you’re left with no one, so go live with the aliens, it’s going to work out great for you.” Because when Cy said he wouldn’t leave Rory “here” to die, he doesn’t mean “here, on the rooftop.” He means “Here, on Earth.”

But Rory has a brilliant idea. She asks if they can use the glowing pink canister as a kind of bomb by overheating it, thereby killing the parasites and saving Earth.

Cy shook his head. “No. You wouldn’t be able to get out in time, Rory.”

I offered a small smile. “I’ve told you…I can’t die.”

Yes! You’re probably thinking. Yes, finally, we will have confirmation of Rory’s immortality! It’s going to be the one plot thread that isn’t discarded by the story!

Don’t get excited yet.

Apolonia let go of her father and walked over to me, cupping my shoulders with her elegant long fingers. “Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked.

“Apolonia, no,” Cy said, his voice low and stern.

“I’m sure,” I said without hesitation.

throughout this whole thing, Cy is like, desperate and screaming. No joke, the words “desperate” and “screamed” are in this section, so he’s like, out of his mind fighting for Rory to not destroy the parasites and save the Earth. This seems…wrong. The whole reason he came to the planet was to save Earth from the parasites, right? Because they a) didn’t want them getting out, and b) had helped Earth out before. So, if Rory sacrifices herself and saves the Earth, both goals are accomplished. And he’s been willing for Apolonia to put herself in harm’s way this entire time. Are we meant to think this means he loves Rory more? Is it more pushing of a love triangle that the reader has never felt, because all the people involved have zero chemistry with each other? It doesn’t make sense, and as Rory said, she’s possibly maybe immortal.

Apolonia turned to her father, speaking the beautiful words I had fallen in love with,

“Let this bitch die so we can go home,” I presume.

just as I had fallen in love with Cy and even Apolonia.

Writing Tip: Even if your character says something and believes it, that doesn’t necessarily make it true. In this case, we’ve seen nothing that would suggest Rory has even room-temperature feelings for Apolonia. Rory disliked Apolonia on sight, and since then there’s just been a long string of disparaging comments about how savage and heartless she is. So Rory tells the reader that she’s come to love Apolonia, but the author hasn’t shown the reader any proof of it at all, so it makes no sense.

Hamech looked toward the edge of the roof just above the courtyard from where the shrieking could be heard, even louder than the roaring flames that were now a hundred or so yards away. Then, his eyes settled on me, a fatherly look of pride on his face.

So, even Hamech, destroyer of worlds, agrees that this is a great point for that whole immortality thing to play out. But you know who doesn’t agree? I mean, besides Cyrus?

“Would you give him a lift?” I asked Apolonia, gesturing to Benji. “I know he didn’t want to take him back to Yun. But just take him far enough away to keep him safe.”

Apolonia nodded to her father’s men. Just before they grabbed Benji, he pulled the canister from my hands and then shoved me into the arms of one of the soldiers.

That’s right, dear reader! What the hell were you thinking? Rory doesn’t make things happen! Things happen to Rory! If she actually stayed behind and used her immortality trick, then she would have taken on a role in the story beyond “abused girl every man wants to protect”, and that would just be absurd. Of course Benji is going to be heroic (and certainly not stupid at all) by stepping in and needlessly dying.

Hamech’s guards hold her back as Benji prepares for his inevitable immolation:

Benji smiled at me with so much love in his eyes that it made me choke back tears. “You were right, Rory,” he said. “You can’t die because I won’t let you.”

He turned on his heels and ran for the elevator that led downstairs.

As opposed to the elevator that led up. From the roof. That this entire scene is taking place on. It’s crucial for the reader to know that the elevator also goes down, as so many rooftop elevators just shoot you the fuck into space.

“Benji!” I screamed so loud that my voice broke. “You promised you’d never leave me!”

Benji paused for just a moment, waiting for the elevator. He looked at me one last time and then stepped in. The doors closed in front of him.

This is like something you’d see in a movie that was parodying what happens in movies.

So, they wrangle her into the ship, and then…well, see if you can make anything out of this word salad, because I’ve read it several times, some of them out loud.

“At the edge of the open door, the ship moved away from the warehouse and then sped off, quickly leaving it behind.”

At the edge of the open door it moved away from the warehouse? At the edge of…what door? Now, you can get the book and look and see if I’ve somehow left something out, but the last time a door of any kind was mentioned was the closed elevator doors. I’ve spent the better part of the morning trying to figure out what the hell this was supposed to mean. At the edge of the open door. At the edge of the open door, the ship moved away from the warehouse and then sped off, quickly leaving it behind. Leaving the warehouse behind? Leaving the door behind? Did the elevator come back and that’s the door that’s being left behind? At the edge? The edge of the door? Or the door is at the edge of something?

Please. Someone please tell me I’m just reading this sentence wrong, that it makes perfect sense, and then please, please explain it to me.

The cold wind whipped around us, but I couldn’t feel it.

Because of the open door, maybe? Are you inside the ship when it’s flying, or outside? Are you still on the little gangway thing? Is that the door that’s open?

Within moments, the structure was engulfed in a huge ball of fire, dwarfing the inferno that was Helena.

Apolonia kneeled beside me, holding me, as we watched the warehouse burn.

“He died an honorable death,” Apolonia said, touching her cheek to mine. You were lucky to have him in your life.”

So, Apolonia has done a completely 180. Now she likes Rory, now she’s compassionate, they’ve grown to like each other. But…how? I feel like the editor dropped a note at the end of the book and went, “You know, I feel like Apolonia needs to be more of a buddy instead of competition,” and the author went, “Ugh, sure, I’ll cram it in there in the last two percent of the book.” Because we’re literally at 98% right now.

He was the one I needed,” I whispered. My lip quivered. “I should have known I would lose him.”

So, now we’re in chapter 22. And yes, I know they’re short chapters, but it’s the end of the book, where chapters generally start to get short, so that’s not really a thing we can criticize here. At least, I can’t, because I understand how weird the ends of books can sometimes be.

Hamech sets his ship down in a field, and Rory gets off.

A few days ago, my days consisted of being a bitchy, self-absorbed college student, whose worst problem was an overenthusiastic admirer.

No, Rory. Your worst problem was that your entire family was dead.

Now, more alone than ever, I was left mourning that boy. The one who I had once foolishly wished would leave me alone…had.

The one who you were ready to drop at a moment’s notice every time you perceived some kind of betrayal, even after he proved over and over again that he wasn’t betraying you.

Cy and Apolonia bid Rory goodbye. Apparently, she can’t get a lift off the planet anymore.

He hugged me back, kissing my hair. “You must know that they’ll be checking back here for the parasite. If they detect it–”

“They’ll blow us out of the sky? Now that I’m not sure I can survive.”

But you haven’t “survived” anything, Rory! Not once has the author bothered to put you in any real danger that you didn’t immediately and easily escape from. The one time you were hurt and might possibly have died, other people saved you. Nothing you did, nothing you have done, has had any real impact on this story at all. You were just there, watching events happen, and occasionally using bad ass combat skills to make people drop their weapons. That’s all. Our protagonist was just along for the ride in someone else’s story. If this book had been written from Cy’s POV, it could have been good, and Rory would have been a serviceable side character. But that’s all. Rory hasn’t “survived,” she’s tagged along.

Underlines = italics, standard disclaimer.

So, Cy tells her that he would come get her if they were going to blow up the planet, and he tells her that his first name is Osiris, which is so super important for us to know 99% into the book.

Cy’s face compressed.

What?

“You wouldn’t give up two years ago, Rory. So, you can’t now.”

I lifted my chin, knowing why he was worried. He was leaving, and everyone else I cared about was dead. Everyone. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I think someone up there enjoys watching me suffer.”

So, again with the “I can’t die”. We are at 99% in the book. REPEAT WE ARE AT 99%. And we still don’t know if Rory is actually immortal. And if she is, it doesn’t matter, because IT HAS NEVER BEEN USEFUL OR INTEGRAL TO THE PLOT AT ALL.

Cyrus tells Rory that she could still come with them, but she declines, saying she needs to get Dr. Z and Benji’s stories out there, so people will know that they saved lives. Which, like…did the CIA just stop existing? The whole CIA? Because if someone knows that they’re out there doing secret shit involving aliens, that person is not going to last long. The wisest course of action would be for Rory to go with Cy, or keep her mouth shut and change her identity (she’s probably presumed dead anyway).

So, Cy leaves, and Rory goes back to the warehouse. They were ten miles from the warehouse when she left the ship, so somehow, after everything she’s just been through, she still  has the strength to walk ten miles back to a burned out building.

I sat on a large piece of concrete about twenty-feet from where the warehouse once stood, touching my fingers to my hands.

Unless you’re fresh from some kind of horrible accident, your fingers are always touching your hands. There had to be a better way to word this, but who the fuck cares at this point. I’m just going to accept it, like the eventual Trump presidency.

Dr. Z was gone. Benji was gone. It was one thing to say I wouldn’t give up, but at the moment, I was likely the only living person left in Helena. The sole survivor. Again.

She goes picking through the wreckage of the warehouse, thinking she’s going to find Benji’s body. Um…what if those parasites are still around? What if you find a body that isn’t quite dead? I ask that, because that’s exactly what happens. Rory finds Benji, and he’s alive, having survived the immense explosion that was way bigger than the explosion that leveled an entire town. He’s not only alive, he’s conscious, and just has some broken ribs.

So…something could have survived the blast. The infected people could still be there.

They think they have no way out of their situation, since he has broken ribs and can’t really move, and she has no way to get him out of there.

Just then,

You know it’s going to be convenient when “Just then” shows up.

a car engine caught my attention, and my head perked up. It was an orange Mustang with Bryn at the wheel.

Whaddaya know.

Benji growled with every movement,

If your main character shares a name with a famous dog, this is a word choice you’re probably going to want to rethink.

Benji’s dad was in the front seat, still not quite conscious.

Benji’s dad. Who was hooked up to the rock. The rock with the deadly parasites. But he’s fine, and they’re going to go ahead and go to the hospital, where a lot of people are. Because an explosion = dead parasites, even if someone at the literal center of the blast survived with just broken ribs.

I mean, how the fuck can Benji hear or see anything? Why weren’t his eyeballs seared from the light? Why didn’t the explosion rupture his ear drums? Why didn’t the shockwave from the blast not liquify his internal organs? Because he ducked behind a door. That’s the only explanation given. He ducked. Behind. A door. How powerful was this explosion? It was supposed to “dwarf” the explosion that leveled the town. But he’s fine? Then how did it kill all the parasites? If concrete and rebar and doors and shit survived, the rock could have, too, right? The entire resolution of this book–we are at 100%–is just this one, giant plot hole. That’s all you get, after suffering through the entire book. Absolutely no promise that the enemy has been vanquished or anyone on Earth is safe.

Oh, silly me. That wasn’t the most important part of the book!

Benji lifted his hand to the back of my neck and pulled me the short distance to his lips. As he kissed me softly, slowly, and passionately, I knew that I finally had the unconditional love, safety, and security I’d been missing.

“Well, you’re the only guy left on the planet who knows me, guess you’re my goal as a heroine now.”

I looked at the road ahead. For the first time in a long time, it felt like good things were coming, and for the first time since I died, I felt alive.

Wouldn’t that be an awesome last sentence for a book that wasn’t this book?

So, things we didn’t find out at the resolution of this book:

Whether or not Rory is immortal
Whether or not Dr. Z is dead
Whether or not the parasites have been destroyed
If the characters are still in danger from the Majestic
Why the book was called Apolonia in the first place

For fun, go back and reread my recap of the first chapter, and see how cautiously optimistic I was. And then imagine me in my room, swaddled in blankets, sobbing softly into pillow and whimpering, “It’s happened again! It’s happened again!”

Goodbye, Apolonia. If only you had been as compelling and competent as your namesake.

State Of The Trout: “What happens next?” edition

So, Second Chance is out, hopefully if you want it, you’ve got it or you’re soon going to get it, Penny’s First Time audiobook is out, and we’re almost finished with one of our recaps. So what now?

Fear not for my momentum, for it is still building, my friends. Let’s talk about my next steps:

What happens after Apolonia? Nothing. In the interest of concentrating on Grey and Buffy, I won’t be picking up a recap to fill the aching void Apolonia will leave in our hearts.

Since you’re done writing Neil and Sophie, what’s your next book? Glad you asked! I’m not done with Neil and Sophie at all. In fact, my next project is more of them. The One Night Stand is a prequel novella about the first time Neil and Sophie met, and you can look for that late summer/early fall.

And after that it’s Ian and Penny again, right? Not as such. Winter of 2017 is going to be my most ambitious project yet. Say Goodbye To Hollywood is a stand-alone novel, totally unconnected to any of my current series. The heroine is a screenwriter adapting a blockbuster erotic novel, while also Domming the film’s producer and clashing with the writer of the book, a midwestern housewife-turned-diva who’s obsessed with preserving her masterpiece. It’s a sex/satire combo, and I’m going to have a really fun time writing it.

So, wait, when do we get Emir’s book? Emir’s book was supposed to come out in 2016, and I promised you all that it would. But there were elements of the plotting that weren’t clicking, so I’m going to let it slow-cook a little bit. I don’t want to rush something that I ultimately think will be a really satisfying book for fans of the Boss series.

Aside from that, I’ve still got all sorts of fun writer stuff happening behind the scenes, like two collaborations I’m just dying to reveal (but can’t yet) and of course continuing the quality nonsense you’ve all come to expect from this blog.

SECOND CHANCE is here!

 

Reunited with his unrelentingly sunny soul mate, Penny Parker, Ian Pratchett finds her hopeless romanticism is catching. Her influence—and an unconventional pact—make him believe in happily ever after again, though they know their future won’t be free from hurdles. 

But in the face of unpredictable changes, Penny’s bubbly optimism fades. As the woman he fell in love with slips away, Ian realizes he must share more of himself than ever before, or risk her happiness. And losing the love of his life is a mistake he won’t make twice. 

Amazon • Smashwords

After a passionate reunion, Penny Parker has a second chance with the love of her life, Ian Pratchett. But the problems that caused their breakup haven’t disappeared overnight. Nor have the objections of their friends and families. 

The thrill of a new beginning and an exhilarating secret bring Penny and Ian closer than ever, but when outside forces and personal disappointments threaten their fresh start, Penny must learn how to reach the guarded heart of the man she loves…before their happy ending drifts away. 

Amazon • Smashwords

*Contains content some readers who are pregnant, trying to conceive, or suffering a pregnancy loss may wish to avoid. For a more detailed disclaimer, please follow the link on the copyright page. Note: The extended warning will contain spoilers.

FIRST CHAPTER PREVIEW: Second Chance (Ian’s Story)

Second Chance is just hours away at this point, so it seems only fair to let you get a head start on your reading. Here’s chapter one of Ian’s story, in its entirety. Second Chance will be available on Amazon and Smashwords tomorrow, all other retailers, paperback, and audio coming soon.

 

Chapter One

 There’s no written rule when it comes to tragedy. It can occur at any time. On a normal day, when you’re just having a pint down the pub and timing out your hangover so it doesn’t strike while you’re working that night. Or at a black tie function in glitzy Manhattan high rise with tragically ugly stairs— which was what had happened to my friend Neil Elwood.

My girlfriend, Penny, walked beside me as we trudged through the blowing, now-ankle-deep snow on our way to the parking garage. Well, I called her my girlfriend, but we’d spent the past hour rushing about, collecting things Neil and his wife might need as they waited at the hospital after his daughter’s horrific car accident. Penny and I hadn’t really had time to go over the particulars of our newly reconciled relationship.

I glanced down at her wet, red toes peeking out from her complicated silver heels. She’d get frostbite soon if we didn’t get her inside.

“Let’s go to your place,” I suggested, putting my arm around her shoulders to draw her under my coat. She had a long wool one on, but beneath it, just a strapless black evening gown with a long slit up the back. She wasn’t dressed for traipsing all over New York in a snowstorm.

She nodded and leaned closer, but didn’t speak until we got into the car. Her teeth chattered. “Are you going to stay?”

“I thought I might. Rather than risk the drive.” In light of what had just happened to Neil’s daughter—and her husband, the poor bastard—it seemed the safest choice.

“Good.” She stared straight ahead as we pulled out. “I don’t want you to go anywhere tonight. Not without me.”

We drove to her place in silence, and I parked on the street, content that tonight, at least, there was no danger of anyone stealing my car. I’d never stolen cars for a living, but I assumed inclement weather had some effect on a successful outcome.

In the lobby of her building, I checked my watch. Was it really only half past midnight? It seemed like it should be a quarter to next Thursday. I certainly felt as though we’d been awake for five days. The whiplash from elation at my reconciliation with Penny to my horror at Neil’s current nightmare had sapped all the strength from me. And while I wished I could concentrate on the former, the latter had seized my brain the way the cold would seize the engine of my car in the morning.

I trudged up the stairs after Penny. Her twenty-three-year-old legs could handle living in a fourth floor walkup. My middle-aged body had already been through the wringer tonight, and I found myself lagging farther behind, weighed down by my thoughts. I’d known Neil’s daughter, Emma, since she’d been born. For fuck’s sake, he’d come to me, drunk and crying, the night he’d found out he’d gotten Valerie pregnant. He’d proved himself an incredible father, though Emma had still grown up with her mother’s spitfire temper and withering condescension. Somehow, Emma had made them likeable traits.

“Ian?” Penny asked from the top of the stairs. The sickly fluorescent lighting of the hallway deepened the circles beneath her eyes. “Are you okay?”

“No, Doll,” I answered her honestly. “But I will be. Especially once we get you warmed up.”

“Don’t worry about me,” she said softly as she unlocked her door. “Worry about Neil and Sophie.”

“I will, I swear,” I promised as we stepped into her tiny apartment. “But let me worry about you for a bit, as a distraction.”

Penny’s roommate, Rosa, sat on the sofa, her dark hair piled on top of her head in one of those massive loops of hair universal among women. She frowned when we entered, and my first thought was, that’s quite rude, until I remembered the last time she’d seen Penny, we’d been thoroughly broken up.

“What’s he doing here?” she demanded, fixing Penny with a cold, demanding stare.

Penny shrugged off her coat, and I caught it for her. “It’s a long story.”

“Condense it for me.” Rosa’s gaze flicked to me, her eyes narrowing for a moment. “Because the last time we talked about him, you two weren’t a thing.”

“Well, now, we’re a thing again,” Penny said wearily. “Like I said, it’s a long story. I promise I’ll tell you every detail once he’s not around and it’s not so awkward. But right now, I’m exhausted.”

Christ, I’m right here. Can they not see me standing next to this conversation?

“Her boss’s family was dealt a blow tonight. Penny had to deliver some clothes to the hospital for them.” I tried not to be confrontational; after all, Rosa only wanted to protect Penny, a feeling I understood well enough. But Penny was emotionally and physically drained. She needed space, and I would see that she got it.

Rosa’s expression softened, but not by much. “I did think it was a little early.”

“It definitely doesn’t feel early,” Penny groaned, kicking off her shoes. “And I definitely can’t feel my toes.”

“All right, let’s get you into a hot shower to warm up.” I sounded like my sister, bossing people around for their own good, but in this case, it was very much for Penny’s own good. Hot water chased off cold chills. And if she disagreed with me, I’d just tell her that it was an old Scottish wives’ tale. She’d feel like she had to do it or risk offending me.

But she offered no resistance. “Okay. Let me get my bathrobe, though. And you can put your coat in my room.”

Penny’s bedroom was barely large enough for the both of us to stand in at the same time. Her bed was a full-size, tiny in comparison to the huge, comfortable California king at my place. When she clicked on the wall switch, hundreds of fairy lights illuminated the space in a ring around the ceiling. None of the furniture matched, and most of her life’s possessions were crowded into plastic bins. Her bathrobe lay across her unmade bed. She leaned down to straighten the covers. If her face wasn’t so cold and windburned, I assumed she would be blushing.

“Stop,” I admonished her gently. “I’m not going to judge your cleanliness. I’m just glad to be here.”

“Yeah?” Her bottom lip trembled as she looked up at me. “You are?”

I had to kiss her. I couldn’t help myself. I’d never be able to kiss her enough to make up for our long separation. I leaned down to meet her sweet, soft mouth with my lips, and she gripped the sleeves of my coat for balance.

Our breakup had been stupid. There was no other way to describe it. Penny and I belonged together, despite all of our differences. She was younger than me, by a lot. Thirty years, unbelievably. My life and career were stable and successful, while hers were just starting out. She still saw the world ahead of her as endless and full of possibility, while I spent my days mostly worrying that I’d grown a suspicious mole I hadn’t noticed, yet. But none of those differences mattered when she was in my arms.

She pulled back, her eyes on mine. “I don’t ever want to break up again. I don’t want to lose you. Not when it’s so easy to lose people we love.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” I couldn’t guarantee that, but neither could she, so it wasn’t worth mentioning. “Go get in the shower.”

She turned and nodded over her shoulder. “Unzip me?”

“With pleasure.” Despite all we’d been through tonight—and the fact that I’d nearly put my back out fucking her on a conference room table only hours before—the thought of getting my hands on her naked skin managed to distract me from my gloom. I pulled down the tab slowly, watching in fascination as every inch of her skin was revealed. The black lace of her strapless bra was flimsy enough I could see the tan skin beneath. The gown fell away, and she shimmied it down her hips, totally oblivious to how sexy she was, even when she didn’t intend to be.

She popped the hooks on the back of her bra and groaned in relief, tossing it to the floor. “That thing is evil.”

“I see that,” I murmured in sympathy, tracing the long, red impression the band had left in her skin. “Whenever you’re in need of rescuing from one of those terrible devices, call upon me.”

Though she was tired, she laughed. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed that sound.

She grabbed her bathrobe, and I got the briefest glimpse of her gorgeous breasts as she pulled it on. Tying the belt, she turned to me with a lopsided smile. “You can ogle me later. Right now, I just want to get feeling back in my feet.”

I kissed her forehead. “Go on. If you need any help, just give a shout.”

While I would have loved to get into that shower with her, to worship every wet, naked inch of her body, the night had been too long and fraught with emotion. I didn’t have the energy, so it was better to wait until I could do it properly. I’d plead inclement weather as an excuse to skip mass in the morning, and spend the time burrowed under the covers with Penny in her cold little room, instead.

Rosa still sat on the sofa, trying very obviously to eavesdrop without being very obvious about her eavesdropping. As Penny went off to the shower, I sat on the other end of the couch and pretended, momentarily, to be interested in the animated comedy on the television.

“Is this Family Guy?” I asked, feeling woefully out of touch.

“American Dad!,” she responded, never taking her eyes from the screen.

My bow tie hung, untied, around my neck, and I slipped it free. Though I hadn’t noticed its presence, I somehow felt more relaxed with it off. “I suppose you want an explanation, and you’ll be angry with me until you get it?”

“Yup.”

I folded the tie in my hands, then unfolded it again as I spoke. “I’m sure Penny will tell you what happened, and I’ll let her fill you in on the more specific details. There was a miscommunication—”

“Lies do not equal miscommunication,” she interrupted.

“True. And I did lie. But I didn’t lie to Penny.” Why was I justifying my actions to a stranger? A condescending twenty-something stranger, at that?

Because you love Penny, you idiot. You love her, and you want the people she loves to believe that, too.

“I lied to my sister,” I admitted. “About why I got divorced. There are various personal reasons behind that. But I never cheated on Penny, and I never lied to her. I can’t say I won’t hurt her again. I don’t know if I will. But if I do, I know for a fact that it will be an accident, just like I know for a fact that it will take you a long time to believe that.”

Rosa finally looked at me, with far less anger than she’d displayed when we’d first arrived. “She was really messed up, you know.”

“I do. But in fairness, I was pretty messed up, myself.” The day we’d broken up, Thanksgiving Day, had been brutal. One minute, I’d considered Penny a near-permanent part of my life. The next, she’d cut me off completely, and all because I’d been too stupid and protective of my ex-wife to tell my family the truth of why my marriage had ended.

“Yeah, you sound like a mess,” she agreed. “But I do believe that you love her. She played those voicemails for me.”

“This is supposed to be the moment I get embarrassed, isn’t it? I’m not. I would have broadcast those pathetic messages in Times Square to get her back, if I had to.” I looked forward to a time when the mention of the separation didn’t mimic the symptoms of cardiac arrest. Tonight, when so much seemed uncertain, I didn’t foresee that panic fading.

Rosa tilted her head, as though she were appraising a fine painting or reading a particularly confusing subway diagram. “I think you might be a good guy, Ian. But Penny trusts a lot of guys who look good on paper, but aren’t so great in practice.”

“On paper, I’m a fifty-three-year-old divorced man who until a couple of months ago ate peanut butter off plastic spoons for most of his evening meals.” There was no chance Penny hadn’t mentioned the peanut butter.

Rosa didn’t look surprised at all by my admission, confirming my suspicion. “Yeah, and you waited for her. Not as long as some guys—”

“Don’t.” I couldn’t stand to hear myself held to such a low standard. “Don’t give me credit for that. It wasn’t a heroic feat to respect her.”

A smile curved Rosa’s mouth, though it was certainly a reluctant expression. “Fair enough.”

The conversation actually felt as though we’d made some headway toward her not hating me. I didn’t want to fuck it up, so I gestured to the television. “So, can you explain to me why that fish is talking?”

By the end of the episode—which, I had to admit, did contain briefly clever moments—Penny emerged from the bathroom, looking a lot more like herself. She’d been stunning tonight, with her short blonde bob combed back in stiff waves and her body encased by a tight sheath of velvet. She looked just as stunning in her bathrobe, with wet hair and dark streaks near her eyes where her mascara hadn’t washed completely off.

“Do you want to go to bed?” she asked, and it was more of a command than a question.

Not that I needed to be told. “Yes, before I pass out and fall over on your roommate.”

I followed her into her room shut the door behind us. Rosa bid us goodnight just before it closed.

Penny stepped up close and ran her hands over the front of my shirt then over my shoulders and down my sleeves, to where I’d rolled them up my forearms. “Guys in tuxes aren’t nearly as hot as guys who’re half out of their tuxes.”

“Well, if you see a hot guy half out of a tuxedo, let me know, and I’ll chase him off.” I didn’t want her to make assumptions about what I planned to do in her bed. “Right now, I’m about to get fully out of mine and into your bed. For sleep, only.”

She sighed, but smiled. “Yeah. It’s kind of hard to be in the mood with everything that’s going on.”

I could have pointed out that it was hard to be in the mood when you’re fifty-three and you just had vigorous sex a few hours before, but it bothered her when I pointed out our age difference. I wasn’t about to rekindle our relationship, then immediately slide back into one of the behaviors that had ended it in the first place.

But when Penny dropped her robe to the floor, I wished I were a much younger man.

She got under the blankets and tried to rearrange them as I undressed. “Sorry, it’s not like I’ve been sharing the covers a lot lately.”

A lot? My stomach turned over. We’d been broken up for over a month, and it wasn’t as though she’d been under any obligation to remain celibate. “Oh, not a lot?” I tried to laugh, but it had a difficult time making its way past the lump in my throat.

She looked up from tucking the blanket under her chest and froze in confusion.

God, but this was embarrassing. I cleared my throat. “Right. It was a bad joke. Obviously, if you had…you know… If you’d, well… It wouldn’t change anything. We weren’t together, and—”

“Ian, it was just something I said without thinking,” she assured me quietly. “We were only broken up for, like, six weeks. I didn’t sleep with anybody else.”

I let out a long exhale of relief. “Good. Not that it would have mattered. You weren’t beholden to me to not sleep with anyone else. But you said ‘a lot’, and that led me to believe—”

“Did you sleep with someone else?” Her voice had a sharp edge to it. Our breakup had been motivated largely on Penny’s fear that I would be unfaithful. Her ex-boyfriend had cheated on her, and the experience had shaken her. While it wouldn’t have been cheating if I’d slept with someone else—Penny and I had been broken up, after all—it would have shattered her trust in me.

I’d never been happier to have not gotten laid.

“No.” I watched her uncertainty turn to relief. “I couldn’t think of anyone but you. I was half a person while we were apart.”

“You were a whole person.” She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “You were just a hurt whole person.”

“So were you.” I got into bed beside her. She slid down to lie against me and rested her head on my shoulder. We’d been apart for weeks, but she fit into the crook of my arm as though she’d never left.

“I got your voicemails.” She idly pushed her fingers through my chest hair, the way she’d done countless times before when we’d lain sleepy and entwined in bed.

“I know you did. Rosa said you played them for her.” Now, the embarrassment set in. “And I know they were pathetic, and bordering on harassment.”

“I forgive you.” She snuggled her face into my armpit. “I missed the way you smell.”

“That disturbs me. But if it makes you happy, who am I to judge?”

We didn’t say anything else. Maybe there was nothing to say. That seemed unlikely, considering how abrupt both our breakup and our reunion had been. But perhaps tonight wasn’t the night to work through whatever residual issues we had left. Tonight, I would hold her and stroke her back and try to get some sleep while worry for my friend still gripped my mind.

Shortly after three, my phone’s screen lit up, the generic ringtone startling me from my doze. At some point, Penny had rolled onto her side, and she still snored away. I blinked at the phone and tried to make out the name on the display.

Oh, no.

No phone call this late could be good news.

My hand trembled as I slid my finger across the screen to answer. “Everything’s okay, yeah?”

“No. Everything is…” Sophie said, her voice a raw wound.

“Ah, Christ.” I closed my eyes. I’d heard what she hadn’t said. This is going to kill Neil.

“Can I just talk to Penny, please?” She’d rightly guessed we would be together.

“Sure thing.” I reached for Penny and shook her shoulder, and she startled awake, blinking at me in the glow of the fairy lights. I whispered, “Wake up, Doll,” and handed her the phone.

God, but she was breathtaking, even sleepy and confused.

And fragile. Emma was so young. So young and, judging from the horrified expression on Penny’s face as she said, “Oh, no,” gone from this world. In a single, horrible night, Emma had been taken. Her youth had been no protection against death.

It could happen to Penny.

Technically, it could happen to anyone. I knew that painfully well. It could happen to both of us as we sat in bed. A gas main could explode, or the ceiling could cave in on us. I supposed it would be all right if I died; I’d had more life than some, and I didn’t fear what came after. But I didn’t want it to happen to Penny.

She finished her call with Sophie and handed me my phone. “Ian…”

“I know.” I hated that I knew. I hated that it had happened. I hated that my friends would go through unimaginable pain, and I hated that I was powerless to do anything about it. The uncontrollable finality of death gripped me in a cold sweat.

“We should get married.”

It took me a moment to realize I’d just said those words. But I didn’t regret them one iota.

Penny’s eyes grew wide, and she blinked slowly. “Um…maybe now isn’t the best time to talk about something like that.”

“It’s a great time,” I insisted, because I was clearly out of my mind. What the fuck was I doing? I hadn’t read any guidebooks on the subject, but I assumed a freshly divorced person shouldn’t run out and immediately remarry to a woman he’d known for less than six months.

The fact that I wasn’t frightened at all was cause for serious worry, as well. But nothing could deter me. Proposing might be foolish, but it was right; I knew that beneath all the conventional wisdom. “We want to start our lives together, yeah?”

“Well, yeah, of course. But I don’t—”

“Then, let’s go,” I urged. If she had the good sense to turn me down, I would either be happy, or devastated, I couldn’t tell. “On Monday, let’s go to City Hall and get married.”

“I…I can’t. I have to work. With all of this, Sophie is going to need me to handle a lot of stuff for her.”

I took Penny’s hands in mine. “We’ll go on our lunch hour.”

Her hesitant smile grew into a full grin. Despite her smudged makeup and the crease lines from her pillowcase, my ribs ached at her utter perfection.

“This is really stupid,” she warned me. “And it’s not the way I ever expected this to go.”

Of course. How had I been so thick? Penny had never been married before. She’d never gotten the chance to have the wedding every woman dreams of, or at least what popular culture insisted they should. Penny had been a twenty-two-year-old virgin when we’d met, so to say there was a touch of the traditional about her would be a fairly large understatement.

“You want the dress and the flowers and the cake.” I dropped my head in shame. “I’m sorry. This was selfish of me.”

“I didn’t say no.”

I looked up. The single, bashful dimple in her cheek deepened as her gaze met mine. “I just meant that you haven’t really proposed to me properly. ‘Let’s get married’ is nice and all, but if we’re not going to do the dress and the flowers and the cake, I at least need you to take a knee.”

That would be the one tradition she would adhere to, I moaned in my head as I pushed back the blankets. Kneeling on her arctic floor would be unpleasant enough, but I also had to suffer the embarrassment of trying to stand up again. This is for true love, you bastard. It’s not too much to ask. Get on down there and make her want to be your wife.

I didn’t even have a ring.

The floor was a slap of ice when it met my bare knee. Proposing in boxer shorts hardly seemed like the most romantic thing I would ever do for Penny, but her eyes glittered in the light as though Mr. Darcy himself knelt before her.

I wished I hadn’t thought of that prick. He’d set the bar too high for all of us.

I reached for Penny’s hand, and she slipped it into mine gladly. I exhaled sharply, paused to psych myself up, and said, “Penelope Parker. Will you…” What, spend the rest of her life with me? I hoped it wasn’t the rest of her life, or it would be tragically short. We were thirty years apart, for Christ’s sake. “Will you be mine for the rest of my life?”

She squeezed my hand and nodded. “Yes, Ian Pratchett, I will be yours for the rest of both of our lives.”

Suddenly, neither of us were as tired as we were before. When I climbed back onto the bed—with more grace and less difficulty than I’d expected, thanks to whichever saint handles nearly-nude marriage proposals—I moved over her until she lay across the bed, trapped beneath me.

“Am I a bad person for being intensely happy, right now?” she whispered, reaching up to lay one hand against my cheek.

I turned my face to kiss her palm. “Am I a bad person for being intensely horny, right now?”

She shook her head a little. “People respond to tragedy in all kinds of weird ways.”

“And people generally respond to a new engagement with happiness,” I reminded her. I would be damned if she’d feel guilty for enjoying the one good thing that had happened all night. Well, that, “And getting back together with a person they loved very much and from whom they were separated, that’s a cause for happiness, too.” I paused. “You did love me very much, didn’t you?”

“No, I do love you very much. And I will love you very much.” She lifted her head, closing the gap between our mouths all the way. Then, she drew back. “But not in a physical sense again tonight.”

“I understand.” I kissed the tip of her nose, then rolled off her. She wiggled up to the pillows and fumbled between the bed and the wall to pull the plug and kill the fairy lights. Faint orange glowed dimly through the window, and in it, I could make out the shape of her ear, the slope of her neck, the curve of her waist. Things I’d thought I’d remembered, but which looked so different now that I actually had her there with me. What else had I forgotten about her in that short time? The terror of how fleeting a memory truly was squeezed my chest. There would come a day that she forgot something about me, as well.

I spooned up behind her, an arm over her waist, burning an indelible impression of her body, how it felt next to mine, into my senses.

“Keep holding me?” she asked plaintively, one hand clutching my forearm tighter.

I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of her hair. “Always.”

My 20th Who-nniversary

Today marks twenty years since the Doctor Who television movie aired in the UK. I’m in the US, so my actual Who-nniversary was on the 14th of this month, but I didn’t even realize it’s been twenty years. It feels like yesterday. To celebrate, here’s a post I wrote back in 2012, but a little different after its regeneration.

My first Doctor, MY Doctor, is the Eighth Doctor, Paul McGann.

Eight has the dubious distinction of being the Doctor with the shortest television run, but his epic adventures span dozens of books, comics, and over seventy Big Finish audio dramas. It is truly criminal that we didn’t get more time with Eight on screen, because he was the perfect bridge between the classic series and the new, in which The Doctor became more “human” and showed self-doubt in a way the previous Doctors didn’t.

In 1996, after being off the air for seven years, Doctor Who made an attempt to resurface in the United States. If you watch the television movie, you get a glimpse of what the American reboot would have been like, and it’s not too different from the tone of the Russel T. Davies series. A quick summary: The Doctor is transporting the mortal remains of The Master, who has been executed by The Daleks, from Skaro to the Time Lord home planet, Gallifrey, in accordance with The Master’s final wishes. As the TARDIS travels through space, the Seventh Doctor kicks back and relaxes in his bad ass, totally Steampunk TARDIS, reading H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine and eating jelly babies. But The Master’s plan all along was to funnel his essence into The Doctor to secure more regenerations. This goes awry when The Doctor makes an emergency landing in San Francisco, 1999, and gets shot in the crossfire of a gang turf war (no, really). He ends up in the hospital, where a brilliant, sexy cardiologist, Dr. Grace Holloway, assumes he’s human, performs a heart procedure, and kills him (she does this all in a ball gown I would still kill to wear). Because he was anesthetized at the time of his death, his regeneration is delayed, and when he regenerates, he has no memory of being a Time Lord. He has to recover his memories in time to stop The Master, and to stop the universe from being destroyed at 12AM on January 1st, 2000.

At the time the TV movie aired, I was fifteen, and possibly the biggest nerd on the planet. Convinced that TV hated me and everything good, I had taken to videotaping literally everything I watched on television in case it got cancelled (this strategy also paid off for My So-Called Life). When I heard there was going to be “some time travel show thing” on Fox (my mother continued to refer to Doctor Who as “some time travel show thing” for the rest of my years at home), I thought it might be kind of cool to check out.

My reaction was somewhere between “holy shit” and “where has this been all my life?” Keep in mind, I had no idea that the show existed before 1996. I thought it was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen, and whoever had come up with this startlingly brilliant new idea should be immediately handed heaps of money and the keys to the Vatican.

I was in L-O-V-E.

It should have come as no surprise to me that since I loved the show, it never got picked up for an American series. But I didn’t realize it was supposed to be a series, so I was perfectly happy to watch the story of The Doctor and Grace over and over again. I learned about amnesia as an exposition device. I learned about atomic clocks. And I was torn between pride that Grace was an independent enough woman that she wouldn’t forsake her own life to ride off into the time sunset with The Doctor, and furious that he didn’t pick me instead, because I would totally have gone with him. Also, jealous because she got to kiss him.

A few months after the movie aired, I was flipping through the pathetic five channels that I could get at my grandparents’ house, and I landed on PBS. Immediately, I was struck at how bizarrely similar to my Doctor Who this weird show with a funny looking, curly haired guy and his assistant, Sarah Jane, was. And she called him The Doctor… and they were in… the… TARDIS… and they…

I swear to you, I get teary-eyed remembering the feeling I had upon learning that The Doctor had other adventures. I didn’t know about regeneration yet. I just figured that in Great Britain, people were very high-brow and could overlook the fact that The Doctor’s appearance changed wildly. But as time marched on, and my love of The Doctor grew, I learned more about the show. I wrote fanfic. I tried to knit the scarf. I failed, but damnit, I tried.

(A couple years ago, I finally managed to knit the scarf for a cosplay:

Gender-swapped steampunk 4th Doctor with 10′s shoes and a tool belt full of jelly babies. Crushing it.)

But then it became time to put away childish things. I went out into the real world. I got a job, and a guy to live with, and a kid. So, when I learned The Doctor was returning, I didn’t pay much attention. I wasn’t that nerdy little girl anymore, I had very important things to do. Plus, The Doctor was wearing a leather jacket. I was so terrified that they were trying to “update” my beloved Doctor, to make him into something sleek and polished for a jaded modern audience, the way they’d tried and failed to do in 1996. I didn’t want Doctor Who without cardboard walls and papier mache monsters. So I put off watching the new series… until 2008.

When I started watching it again, friends, it was all over. I had regaled my husband with stories of my childhood nerdiness, and he watched with amusement as I geeked out all over again. And he started watching it, too. And my son made a Doctor Who puppet show, with Daleks he drew and taped to popsicle sticks. And so, here we are again. I guess it must be fate. And other Peter Cetera lyrics.

I still watch the movie every once and a while. It feels dated, of course, but dated like the sofa you grew up with. I feel echoes of Dr. Grace Holloway in Dr. Martha Jones, because they were both the girls who didn’t wait. When I watched the mini-episode The Night Of The Doctor, I immediately recognized Eight’s voice when he spoke his first line unseen.

I love Doctor Who. It is, without exaggeration, one of the most important things in my life. And Paul McGann’s Doctor is the one who guided me into the fandom. Someday, I hope I can go to a con to meet him and let him know that.

The meeting will look like this, except I will be Paul McGann and Paul McGann will be the Dalek and also calling security, probably.

A lot of people have been into Doctor Who a lot longer than me, but that’s one of the most amazing things about a fandom that’s been going strong for over fifty years: new people always come along to join up, and then the new people become less new as more roll in. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been a fan for twenty minutes or twenty episodes, and I’m proud to still be a Whovian, twenty years later.