Abigail Barnette's Blog, page 92

Jealous Hater’s Book Club: Apolonia Chapter 6

FLASHY GIF WARNING: There is a flashy gif in here. It’s not so flashy that it triggered any events for me, but you know your stuff better than I know your stuff, so heads up, there’s a picture with blinky text on it. It’s David Tennant, and it comes after two pictures of me looking alternately hopeful, then angry.

This book was a finalist in the GoodReads Reader’s Choice awards this year.

For best science fiction.

 

The chapter opens four weeks from chapter five, and Rory and Benji have been eating together every day. Her grades are getting better, and she hasn’t seen Ellie as much. Shit is looking up in Rory-land.

Well, except for one thing:

Spending time with Benji seemed to take up my days, and being ignored by Cy took up my nights. We would sit across from each other, barely speaking, barely making eye contact.

So, Cy is pulling an Edward Cullen, is what’s happening here. No matter what Rory does, she can’t get Cy to talk to her other than a few words at a time.

I pretended not to notice, but I wanted to punch him for pulling me into that amazing hug as if he gave a shit and then spending nearly a month making me feel as if I were invisible.

I keep feeling like some of these time jumps are really odd. I don’t mind when a book jumps over sections of unimportant, boring stuff–like when Bella and Edward broke up and there were just blank pages–but this is actually important information. Rory is just telling us, “Yeah, I started hanging out with Benji more, and I’m happy about it,” and “Cy is ignoring me and it’s making me feel this way,” but wouldn’t it be more interesting to see that going on?

Well, no, probably not, but it should be there, anyway. If it’s going to exist, and it’s going to be an integral part of the characterization and plot, we kind of need to see it happen. The stuff that isn’t going to figure into the plot at all is the stuff you can just ignore.

Like the science fiction element.

Halloween night, while everyone was dressing up and attending parties, Cy and I were in the basement, punching numbers.

Hang on, do we finally know when we are? Her first day of class was in chapter one. In chapter three, it’s been two weeks since that. Chapter four was another two weeks, so it’s been a month since the first day of class. Chapter five starts two weeks after that, on the first day of October. And chapter six starts four weeks after that. So, wait… okay, I finally have a feel for when we are in this book’s leaping timeline.

But we still have no clue what numbers they’re punching or why.

Cy cleared his throat, and for the first time in weeks, he spoke to me first, “I can talk to Dr. Zorba about a space

heater.”

“He’ll never go for it,” I said, wiping my lips with the cuff of my sweater. “He wouldn’t risk a fire or a significant temperature change affecting the specimen.”

“It won’t affect the specimen. It came from space.”

“Exactly. Where it’s cold.”

No. No, no. It’s not “cold” in space. It’s not anything in space. That’s why it’s space. Temperature in space is relative to whatever is floating around out there. If there’s a golf ball floating past the sun, that is going to be a hot fucking golf ball. But not because space is hot. Because the sun is hot. And when that golf ball floats away, it’s going to be less hot. It might even go so far away that it’s totally frozen. But it’s the golf ball that’s cold. Not outer space.

Plus, let’s just wrap our heads around the concept that while this space rock was found in the arctic tundra, it did have to plummet through our atmosphere to get there, and that kind of event tends to generate heat that can be described as “slightly above room temperature.”

“Who says that planet it originated from wasn’t able to retain higher temperatures?”

“Like Venus?”

“Exactly like Venus. I mean… I’m sure that it’s possible. I’ll look into a space heater.”

Oh, well, now that you put it in those vaguely sciencey sounding terms, of course!

Look, I’m not Bill Nye or anything, but I’m almost 100% sure that Dr. Zoidberg would already know what kind of environment this thing should be kept in, right? Like, wouldn’t that be one of the very first science tests? “It’s okay in the cold… what happens if we move it into a slightly warmer room?” Is this basement room they’re working in as cold as the arctic? Then what is the issue here?

This science.

This fucking science.

There’s some forced quip about Uranus jokes, then Rory catches Cy looking at her:

“What?”

“You’re much more attractive when you smile, and your laugh is lovely.”

And then Rory, rebel that she is, is all, “I don’t need you to tell me I’m attractive! I’m alternative and cool and not like the other girls! Don’t be interested in me, I think I don’t deserve love!”

Nah, she tells him thank you, and then he says:

“I just want you to… I don’t know what I want.”

He stared at me for a few moments more and then continued with his work. My face caught fire as the blood pooled under my cheeks. My fingers wouldn’t work after that, and I couldn’t concentrate on the numbers.

WHAT NUMBERS?! For the love of fuck just tell us what these numbers are and what they’re referring to! We hear about “the numbers” more than we hear about this highly improbable space rock, can we at least know what they mean?

I feel like the research that went into the science side of this story was like, the author looking for stock photos of scientists and going, “Wow, there are numbers on the blackboards behind them in almost every single one.” And that’s it. Science = numbers. End of story.

Cy gives Rory a candy bar, because it’s Halloween, and he wants to know why she isn’t at a Halloween party:

“Fake blood. Dead people. Slutty costumes. None of it screams fun to me.”

Once again, I must point out that the limits of my ability with this blogging stuff is that I don’t know how else to indicate there were italics in the quote function. The underline is italics.

This is a really good bit of characterization for Rory here, that honestly, some authors wouldn’t have thought of. It’s really easy to focus on the macro bits of characterization, like horrible murders and dead parents, and forget the micro pieces, like, “This could cause her to really dislike this holiday everyone else loves.”

But does the “slutty” part have to be in there? Were her parents murdered by sluts? That would explain so much about Rory’s aversion to sluts and slut-related paraphernalia? Or is it just that seemingly ever-present vibe of internalized misogyny we’re so craving in our New Adult books?

Cy wants to walk Rory home, and she’s like, “why?”

He blinked a few times and then cleared his throat. “I think that maybe my insistence not to form attachments here was incorrect. We spend a lot of time together in this lab, and I’d like to get to know you better. As much as one can in the time I have left.”

Don’t worry, he’s not dying. He’s just going home soon.

“So that’s why you’ve been ignoring me? Because you know you’re leaving?”

He hesitated. “In part, yes.”

“What’s the other part?”

He squirmed in his chair. “You…intrigue me.”

I feel like maybe he’s not real clear on the meaning of the word “intrigue.” If you’re ignoring something you find intriguing, you probably don’t find it that intriguing.

Despite the difficulty I had focusing, I forced myself to get through the pages of data on my desk. My mind kept wandering off, questioning why I felt so drawn to him. Cy wasn’t my type. He was leaving. His lack of concert tees told me that we likely had nothing in common.

I feel like if your criteria for whether or not you have something in common with someone should extend just slightly past whether or not they wear concert t-shirts. And we’ve already heard that Benji doesn’t wear concert t-shirts, he dresses like an on-duty Best Buy employee, and she hangs out with him all the time.

But even then, i had a strong feeling that there was a reason life had thrown us together.

Because there is a greater being directing the events of your life. That greater being is also responsible for you being a future scientist who is paradoxically uninterested in a space rock.

Cy offers Rory his coat for the walk home, and she declines. I don’t know, maybe it’s not that she’s so smart that she can’t remember to wear a coat. Maybe she just doesn’t like coats, and she’s not being honest with herself or others?

Cy asks Rory what her major is, and she says:

“I’m considering Bio Med. I have a thing for Astrobiology though, and Dr. Z and my father…” I began, but got lost in the thought.

Hang on. Rory is a junior. I realize people can and do change their majors all the time, and some people don’t choose a major for a while, but it seems like if she’s going into a field like science, wouldn’t she need to choose a major earlier than her junior year? And Astrobiology is kind of a broad term. Like, can you even major in that? Wouldn’t you just major in one of the areas of the subject, like chemistry or physics or something? I’m not a guidance counsellor, but if you’re trying to get into a grad school situation, science wise, isn’t it better to keep your major kind of vague?

Discuss in the comments, I’m interested to hear thoughts on this.

“Were astrobiologists? Nothing wrong with having similar interests as a parent. It’s quite honorable where I’m from.”

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh.

Okay, I’m pretty sure we’re all on the same page about Cy being a potential alien, right? So if he’s saying, “it’s honorable on my planet,” then okay, whatever. But here’s the thing: the author has presented him as being Egyptian. So here we have this person from another culture making a comment about honor, and it makes me distinctly uncomfortable. It just feels icky in a modern perspective. Are there places where honor as a concept is valued? Sure. Probably. But it’s just so cliche to show someone from a “foreign” culture talking about honor.

Maybe that’s just me.

Rory tells Cy that she’s not sure if she wants to be an astrobiologist, because something about it just doesn’t feel right to her. When Cy says that he gets it, she says:

“No, you don’t,” I said. It wasn’t the right thing to say or even remotely polite, but I became weirdly defensive when it came to my pain and memories.

Well, if you endure the horrific murder of your entire family and nearly die yourself, I can understand how that might make you a tad defensive. But Cy isn’t saying, “I understand how you feel about your dead family.” He’s saying that he understands how she feels about not wanting to go into her dad’s field. He might actually understand that, so don’t jump the gun. He has no idea that your family is dead.

No one got anything about me, not even Dr. Z, and they didn’t get to say they did. If they understood or related to me, it meant I had to share something that belonged only to me.

Again, Rory, you’re isolating yourself, understandably (NO YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND ME, JENNY!), due to your trauma. But so far, for this entire book, I haven’t seen a single character behave toward you as though they had superior knowledge about your experience. Cy is just saying that he understands not wanting to go into your dad’s profession, and he’s saying this after he just mentioned about his honor and shit. For all he knows, he does understand, and he thinks you’re on mutual footing. Not everything is about your dead parents, especially when you admittedly don’t tell people about them.

But Cy apologizes and Rory changes the subject by asking what his major is:

“Interplanetary Culture.”

Called it.

Rory is all, uh, they don’t have that class here, and Cy is like, no, but they do back home, and by the way, if you couldn’t tell by those clues that I’m an alien, when I came here and started studying this mysterious space rock, then I don’t know what the fuck to tell you.

Or maybe just that first part.

Cy and Rory banter, and they actually display some chemistry towards each other, albeit in a very forced, very predictable teen television drama kind of way. He makes her laugh, which we know is like, mission fucking impossible.

And then this happens:

“This is me. Thanks for walking me home and for asking this time.”

He ignored my mention of him showing up at my door.

“You’re never going to explain that, are you?” I asked.

“I don’t think I need to.”

“So, my hypothesis that you followed me after the lab is correct?”

Cy didn’t answer.

“Why?”

“I’ve already told you. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all, and for some reason, I needed to see you.”

“Why?”

“Why must you ask so many questions, Rory?”

Yeah, Rory. Why don’t you stop asking so many questions about stuff like why a total stranger would follow you to your home the very first day that you met. God.

No, but seriously, why isn’t Rory more cautious about this? She was almost murdered. Her whole family was murdered. She doesn’t trust the guy who’s basically her best friend enough to tell him what happened to her, and she broke his nose when he put his hand on her wrist. So… why isn’t she more wary about a guy who showed up at her door after following her home the day they met? Why isn’t she more concerned about his creepy display of unwarranted affection, and the way he shut her out after? None of this is ringing any sort of danger bell for you, Rory?

“Weren’t you just defending the right to learn while in college?”

Cy lowered his eyes and took a breath. “And just like college, some things we must wait to learn.”

Like, learning that the guy you have a crush on is an alien, for example.

He managed a small smile and then fidgeted for a bit before reaching for me. He pulled me against him, and my entire body stiffened.

He held his warm cheek against mine and whispered in my ear, “No one knows everything.”

He let me go and walked away quickly, his hands in his pockets.

And then she body slams him into the concrete. No, no, wait. She’s totally fine with this grabby behavior, even though she’s so deeply traumatized and isolated that her PTSD is triggered almost daily.

Look. I get that sometimes people are going to write about mental illness and they’re not going to get everything absolutely right. But I’m pretty fucking sure that PTSD can’t be cured by alien love, and I have this really sick, pit of my stomach feeling that this is the avenue we’re heading down. Introducing a character and showing us that they are psychologically vulnerable, alright, you’re taking a risk. But you have to see that characterization through. You can’t just show us stereotypical alternateen behavior, say it’s caused by this huge trauma, and then drop any pretense of it when it’s time to jump on the trope train to love triangle town. At least tell us why this is different. Let us inside Rory’s head–we’re in first person, for crispy sake!–so that we know why this is a realistic, true to character reaction. Either aversion to touch is a feature of Rory’s PTSD, or it’s not. Fucking pick one and stick to it.

In class the next day, Benji sits next to Rory and is talking to her.

I opened my laptop, ignoring him for the most part and thinking about the night before. It was nice to walk with Cy and to talk about classes and my major instead of the rock.

WHAT THE FUCK? YOU LITERALLY NEVER TALK ABOUT THE ROCK. EXCEPT FOR WHEN YOU’RE DISCUSSING A SPACE HEATER! YOU TALK ABOUT SPACE HEATERS MORE THAN YOU TALK ABOUT SPACE ROCKS!

And how shitty is it that she sits there and ignores Benji the moment she’s distracted by Cy? I’m sorry, Benji, but you’re the Kate Kavanaugh of this book. Don’t let Rory borrow your plum polo shirt.

I thought about how soft and warm his skin was against my cheek and how good he smelled.

Benji prattled on, oblivious to the fact that I was clearly preoccupied, and then Cy walked in.

She’s done with you, Benji, go away. She’ll summon you when she needs you.

Before I did anything stupid, like wave, Cy’s eyes drifted to Benji, and Cy’s entire face tightened. Benji noticed it, too, and they traded strained glances.

Benji kind of gets the vibe between the two of them, and he suspects something’s up:

His playful expression faded. “I saw him walking you home this morning. Are you guys…”

“That was at two o’clock. Why were you hanging around my dorm at two in the morning?”

Benji puffed out a laugh. “I wasn’t hanging around your dorm. I was running.”

Benji tells her that it’s cool by him if she likes someone else:

My eyes met Benji’s. He looked wounded. “I never asked you to like me.”

He shook his head. “No, I know. I just… I will always be your friend. It doesn’t matter if you reciprocate those feelings or not. I don’t need you to love me to love you.”

I should point out here that this exchange is happening during Dr. Zoidberg’s lecture. Rory is freaked out about the fact that Benji said he loves her. But she doesn’t even entertain the thought that Benji might mean “love” in a friendship sense.

Benji feeling hurt was beginning to affect me in ways I didn’t like or appreciate. I wanted us to go back to being friends, as we were before, but it was becoming clear that we couldn’t I never asked him to be my friend in the first place or to love me or however he felt about me.

Yeah, she never asked Benji to have a non-platonic relationship with her. Like, when she kissed him. The fact that she’s known from the very beginning of this book that he had a crush on her–it’s been referenced plenty of times–and she threw a jealous fit at the thought that he might have had some kind of relationship with the girl she hates, there’s no reason at all for him to think that she was interested in him.

Rory is literally the girl that every Nice Guy, trilby wearing MRA fuck bitches about on Reddit.

Why should I have to take on this guilt when I tried to keep a respectable difference from the beginning?

I think we’ve already covered the part where she did not, in fact, remain “a respectable distance,” up to and including expressing her feelings of personal betrayal when she thought he’d dated Ellie.

It wasn’t my fault. He was the one who was being dishonest. It ruined everything, and now, Cy was finally coming around.

Hold up. Your friend, the only fucking friend you have in the entire world, says they don’t need you to love them in the same way they love you, is some how being dishonest? And they should have kept this sentiment to themselves, because it’s complicating a relationship you don’t have and an attraction that you haven’t admitted to in the first place?

I truly get the feeling that Benji is trying to gracefully save their friendship and reassure her that he’ll still be there for her even if she ends up dating another guy. And while he may seem disappointed, he’s not pulling a Xander and  yelling at her. He’s said his piece and he’s finished talking about it.

Speaking of which, they do an awful fucking lot of talking in the middle of this lecture. How uncomfortable must Cy be if he can hear this?

I could feel Benji’s disappointment radiating from his perfectly ironed peach oxford. What self-respecting guy wears peach–even if the color does look amazing with his skin and eyes–or feathers his hair since 1991, for that matter?

She’s trying to make herself angry at Benji, so she decides to judge him on his clothing choices–while reminding readers that a super hot guy is interested in her, thus validating her as a woman–so she can feel better about rejecting him (even though he was totally cool about that rejection and didn’t pressure her).

Class dismissed, and I took my things and darted past Benji, not even saying good-bye. I wasn’t sure if he tried. I refused to look.

Rory decides that rather than eat lunch, she’s going to go to the lab to set up samples for Cy to use later that night. Because I guess these college students are just carving up a space rock now. But Cy is already there.

I walked over to his desk where he had petri dishes and small square stickers marked with consecutive numbers.

“I guess you don’t need me at all,” I teased.

“Oh, I need you. Make no mistake about that.”

I was standing a bit behind him, so I watched, hoping he would turn around and wink or smile or somehow indicate that what he said meant more.

Rory asks him what he meant by that, and he plays it cool, and she’s like:

“Good to know. Just wanted to be clear that you didn’t mean something else.”

Then Cy aks to walk her to her next class–holy shit, she goes to other classes?–and they do more banter. They stop at a food truck, and she orders a falafel, which Cy has never heard of:

“It’s a Middle Easter dish,” I said, confused by his confusion.

“Just because it’s Middle Eastern doesn’t mean I must have heard of it. Are you familiar with all Canadian dishes because Canada is also located in North America?”

No, you fucking extraterrestrial, but I know for a fact that if you’re going to college in a city in Egypt, there’s someone selling falafel somewhere. Because that’s how cities work. There’s all sorts of people and food in them. You fucking Mork.

Rory teases him, asking if he wants to walk her to her next class, too, and babysit her while she’s cutting her hair that night.

I wasn’t expecting him to say yes. “It’s kind of ritualistic. I should probably just be alone.”

“You don’t have to be. I can be there with you.”

Rory is totally cool with him intruding on her ritualistic haircut, so they make plans to meet up later that night.

WTF is a ritualistic haircut, anyway? Does she put on dark robes and inscribe a pentagram in raven blood on her forehead? Are there candles? Are dark forces conjured?

Benji is in this class with Rory, too, and he makes a comment about how all the time she spends in the lab is cutting into his “Rory time,” which is kind of a douchey thing to say. My friends and I say that, but we’re also not making sad love-from-afar eyes at each other when we’re saying it.

But it doesn’t bother Rory, she just teases him.

Is what I am feeling a… good mood? Do I even remember what that feels like? Whatever it was, it was completely fine with me if it stuck around a while. But then it occurred to me that I hadn’t thought about my family all morning, and my good mood immediately dissipated. It felt like a betrayal, disrespectful to go a day without thinking about them. They deserved better from me.

See, this is where I get so furious at Rory’s characterization. Right there, the survivor’s guilt? It’s totally believable. So the author is showing that she’s perfectly capable of doing this characterization right. But it’s like she gets to these points in the story where she wants to put romance in, so she drops the realism completely. It’s so god damn frustrating.

When Benji tries to smile at her during class, she ignores him, and when she goes outside:

I pulled at my sweater sleeves, covering my fists with the wool to try to ward off the cold.

Hey Rory, you know what’s good for that? A coat.

I looked down at the bottom of the steps, and there stood Cy. And involuntary smile touched my lips.

“What are you doing here?” I said, descending the ten or so steps down to him.

“I decided to take you up on your invitation to walk you to your next class.”

And Rory is all, “I was just joking, and this is kind of creepy behavior coming from a guy who wouldn’t even speak to me two days ago.”

Just kidding.

Without thinking, I threw my arms around him. Cy wasn’t fazed. He pulled me more tightly against him, crossing his arms across my back and pressing his chin gently into my shoulder. I buried my face into his neck. He smelled so good. I couldn’t get enough of it. It wasn’t even cologne. It was just him. His skin was as warm and soft as it looked. He let me get as close to him as I needed, and then he let me let go of him when I needed to.

He didn’t ask me what was wrong or if I was okay. He just walked with me in silence to my next class.

Okay, finally we’re starting to get a sense that Rory is reacting differently to Cy because he’s not all up in her business, and she feels comfortable with him because of that. But come on now. A few paragraphs ago you were all, “Oh my god, I’ve betrayed my family by not constantly thinking about them,” and now it’s, “Ooh, boy smell good. Me likey.”

When I stopped in the doorway, he finally spoke, “I’ll wait for you.”

This fool is literally going to wait for her to come out of her class. Doesn’t he have any other classes? Any place to be, or anything to do? And again, why is this behavior something Rory is okay with?

There was no use in pretending that I didn’t want or need him around more, so I nodded and went inside, relieved to know Cy would be there when class was over.

And that’s it. Literally nothing important about the space rock. Nothing that would indicate that it has anything to do with the story except for be an excuse to throw Rory and Cy together. Six chapters of relationship drama, not even particularly interesting relationship drama, leading up to the big, “I know what you are/say it” Twilight moment that we all know is coming.

This is bullshit, y’all.

Merlin Club S04E06 “A Servant Of Two Masters”

Merlin club is a weekly feature in which Jessica Jarman, Bronwyn Green, and myself gather at 8pm EST to watch an episode of the amazing BBC series Merlin, starring Colin Morgan and literally nobody else I care about except Colin Morgan.

Okay, I lie. A lot of other really cool people are in it, too.

Anyway, we watch the show, we tweet to the hashtag #MerlinClub, and on Fridays we share our thoughts about the episode we watched earlier in the week.

So, here’s a quick rundown of episode seven: Morgana captures Merlin and uses a creepy snake thing to turn him into a killing machine intent on murdering Arthur. Wacky mishaps ensue, and Morgana gets her ass thrown into a tree.

If I had written this episode, I would have changed: NOTHING. Not a damn thing. This episode is so perfect, they should rename it JENNY TROUT (I kid, I kid. Kinda). Maybe I would have changed how Gwen witnessed things happening, just because I feel like after this episode, she had to have known that Merlin was a sorcerer.

The thing I loved most about this episode: The scene where Merlin straight up tells Leon that he’s going to kill Arthur, and Leon is all, “ha ha, classic Merlin.”

The thing I hated most about this episode: How bitchy Merlin was to everyone once he was being controlled by the hand snake. It seems like that would be a drawback in terms of how the spell works, because everyone would notice. Most of them did, except for Leon, whom I hate.

The other thing that bugs me is that there was this potential for a witch fight that would have been amazing, but instead they just used their magic to get into a shoving match. I wish that overall we would get to see more magic in action, rather than just “Fwah! I throw you!”

Something I never noticed before: I’ve watched this one so many times, it’s impossible for me to notice something new.

Favorite Costume: I’m torn between thinking I already chose this one in a different episode, and thinking we’ve never seen it before. But since I used every available opportunity to nominate Uther wearing armor for this one, I’m going to go ahead and just re-use it. the belt is key.

Here is proof of some random headcanon I created: I am going to have to write some Morgana/Merlin BDSM fic now, wherein Morgana is Merlin’s Domme.

What object would Bronwyn steal from this episode? This is another one where I’m not sure if I used it before, but I think she would take this screen:

 

And use it to section off a little corner around her desk, because she has to have her back to a wall to write.

What Merthur moment did Jess have the naughtiest thoughts about? Not necessarily naughty thoughts, but I’m sure she absolutely loves the part where Merlin is trying to kill Arthur with the crossbow, and later with the bath water.

Check out Jessica Jarman’s take on the episode here

Check out Bronwyn Green’s take on the episode here

That’s it for this week. Join us next week for S04E08, “The Secret Sharer” Monday,  8pm EST on the hashtag #MerlinClub.

 

Merlin Club S04E07 “A Servant Of Two Masters”

Merlin club is a weekly feature in which Jessica Jarman, Bronwyn Green, and myself gather at 8pm EST to watch an episode of the amazing BBC series Merlin, starring Colin Morgan and literally nobody else I care about except Colin Morgan.

Okay, I lie. A lot of other really cool people are in it, too.

Anyway, we watch the show, we tweet to the hashtag #MerlinClub, and on Fridays we share our thoughts about the episode we watched earlier in the week.

So, here’s a quick rundown of episode seven: Morgana captures Merlin and uses a creepy snake thing to turn him into a killing machine intent on murdering Arthur. Wacky mishaps ensue, and Morgana gets her ass thrown into a tree.

If I had written this episode, I would have changed: NOTHING. Not a damn thing. This episode is so perfect, they should rename it JENNY TROUT (I kid, I kid. Kinda). Maybe I would have changed how Gwen witnessed things happening, just because I feel like after this episode, she had to have known that Merlin was a sorcerer.

The thing I loved most about this episode: The scene where Merlin straight up tells Leon that he’s going to kill Arthur, and Leon is all, “ha ha, classic Merlin.”

The thing I hated most about this episode: How bitchy Merlin was to everyone once he was being controlled by the hand snake. It seems like that would be a drawback in terms of how the spell works, because everyone would notice. Most of them did, except for Leon, whom I hate.

The other thing that bugs me is that there was this potential for a witch fight that would have been amazing, but instead they just used their magic to get into a shoving match. I wish that overall we would get to see more magic in action, rather than just “Fwah! I throw you!”

Something I never noticed before: I’ve watched this one so many times, it’s impossible for me to notice something new.

Favorite Costume: I’m torn between thinking I already chose this one in a different episode, and thinking we’ve never seen it before. But since I used every available opportunity to nominate Uther wearing armor for this one, I’m going to go ahead and just re-use it. the belt is key.

Here is proof of some random headcanon I created: I am going to have to write some Morgana/Merlin BDSM fic now, wherein Morgana is Merlin’s Domme.

What object would Bronwyn steal from this episode? This is another one where I’m not sure if I used it before, but I think she would take this screen:

 

And use it to section off a little corner around her desk, because she has to have her back to a wall to write.

What Merthur moment did Jess have the naughtiest thoughts about? Not necessarily naughty thoughts, but I’m sure she absolutely loves the part where Merlin is trying to kill Arthur with the crossbow, and later with the bath water.

Check out Jessica Jarman’s take on the episode here

Check out Bronwyn Green’s take on the episode here

That’s it for this week. Join us next week for S04E08, “The Secret Sharer” Monday,  8pm EST on the hashtag #MerlinClub.

 

State of The Trout: Here’s why shit isn’t getting done

Hey everybody! This is just a quick update to tell you:

The Afflicted has been updated. You can read it here.

“Why isn’t the blog being updated?“ You may ask yourself in the next week or so. The answers are, “I’m dreadfully behind in my work,” and “I am extremely ill right now.” So please be patient as I recover from whatever this horrible bug is, and I’ll be free to blog at will once my current project is finished (which won’t take long).

You can all rest easy. Though it was nominated for Best Science Fiction of 2014 in the GoodReads Reader’s Choice Awards, Apolonia did not win, and we’re hopefully saved from a glut of non-science fiction YA/NA creeping into the genre.

Now I’m going off to be melodramatic in the extreme about how sick I am.

DON’T DO THIS EVER (an advice column for writers): “I’m not special enough!” edition

This installment may be shorter and more blunt (blunter? That doesn’t sound right) than usual, but I’m rocking a 101 degree fever and I don’t have the strength to exercise what little tact I have, or to write a long blog post.

Ayelet Waldman went on a twitter rampage when her novel, Love and Treasure, was not selected for the New York Times list of the one hundred notable books of 2014. The Daily Dot has the tweets here, in which she she says “Fuck the fucking NY times,” who reviewed the book positively, and demands that her followers to pre-order the paperback version to make her feel better.

I had never heard of Ayelet Waldman before this incident. To be honest, I wouldn’t have heard of her even if her novel had been deemed “notable.” Because I don’t read literary fiction, or at least, not much literary fiction. I’m a memoirs and genre fiction girl, and I don’t often see those types of books praised as “notable.” I’m sure there are plenty of people who use the notable books list to inform their reading choices, but if those readers care enough about fiction, they will seek out books that aren’t on that list, too.

Too many authors see themselves as competing for readers. I’ve never met a reader who only bought one book their entire lives. There’s a thing I hear repeated often, that just because a reader buys another author’s book, that doesn’t mean they won’t by your book. There is a phenomenon wherein certain authors’ new releases will absolutely sink every other release in their genre around their publication date; I don’t know why that happens, but it totally sucks. But that doesn’t mean something unfair is happening to you.

Every author feels like their book is better than everyone else’s book, that we deserve to sell more, that we deserve special treatment from publishers, that we should be critically praised. We can’t control those things, and we certainly can’t change them by throwing a tantrum. I get it, complaining is tempting; I’ve done it myself in weaker moments, albeit not on the same scale as some. But we can make a choice to accept what we have and move on, or destroy ourselves with unhappiness.

I choose the first one. I will probably never make the New York Times bestseller list. In fact, I’m pretty sure I won’t make the USA Today list again, either. I’m not going to win awards, I’m not going to have world-wide buzz. If it hasn’t happened by now, it’s not going to. My biggest books are likely behind me, but you know what? I have a niche readership who appreciate the books I have out there, and I’m able to make a living from my writing (thank you, by the way). That’s good enough.

It should be good enough for everyone else, too. And if it’s not, they’re tools.

Important links for info on the Ferguson grand jury

I haven’t blogged about Ferguson here. I’m choosing instead to just boost black activists on Twitter and Tumblr, and post the occasional tweet. For while I feel white people have a responsibility to educate each other about racism, this is a moment in history where black voices need to be heard and listened to above everyone else’s. I would highly recommend following these activists and journalists on Twitter for a more important perspective than anything I could ever share with you:

Elon James White
Mikki Kendall (HoodFeminism.com)
Imani ABL
Antonio French
Deray Mckesson
Melissa Harris-Perry

This is obviously not an exhaustive list, but a good place to start.

There was something I wanted to share, however. I posted this to my personal Facebook account, but I felt like it could be more useful shared here. So, consider this a cross-post of a cross-post of a cross-post:

Okay, here’s the thing: whether you believe Mike Brown was a “thug,” whether you believe that it’s “not about race,” or you don’t agree with the protests, there was a failure on the part of our justice system when the grand jury refused to indict Wilson. You can not argue that away with your thoughts on the “thug life” or your belief that it’s Brown on the surveillance footage from the store. You might believe the protests are an overreaction or bad behavior. Fine, that’s your opinion. But your opinion does not trump the fact that conflicting statements were made the grand jury. The National Bar Association, numerous legal experts, and even Nancy Grace, a former prosecutor who always hysterically sides with law enforcement and the justice system on her HLN program, have publicly questioned the proceedings.

I don’t generally cross-post from my Tumblr, but I think it’s important to note that mainstream sources, as well as the grand jury testimony, all have pointed out the failures on the part of prosecutor McCulloch, investigators, and someone has thoughtfully catalogued these, with sources. Step away from your feelings about the protest, about Michael Brown, and about Darren Wilson, and please read about the errors made by the justice system. If the law is reason free from passion, drop your passion and just look.*

A grand jury doesn’t deliver a criminal verdict. They only decide whether or not to pursue a trial. If you support Darren Wilson, and you truly believe in his version of the events, fine. I won’t change your mind. But if you believe the evidence in the case would have exonerated him, why do you support him not facing a trial? If the evidence you have been presented has overwhelmingly convinced you, why do you doubt that it would convince a jury?

Admitting that the proceedings in St. Louis were rigged does not mean that you cannot support Wilson (although I personally question what your motives are in doing so and I won’t apologize for that), doesn’t mean you have to support the protests, and has nothing to do with your personal feelings on racial politics in America. You have to change nothing about your stance to accept that there was an obstruction of justice in the proceedings.

*you may need to resize your browser window because my tumblr theme sucks. Also, remember that Tumblr is not a news organization, but a blogging tool, so yes, the post does hold biased commentary, as would any news article’s comments section. The original post cites sources, and those sources often cite sources, so focus on that.

To the people out there protesting and calling for action, I salute you.

The Big Damn Buffy Rewatch S02E013, “Surprise”

In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone is seriously, so bloated from pie right now. 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.

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 wakes in the night to get a glass of water, and this happens.

This is rarely a good sign.

For a minute it’s like, “Whoa, wait, what are you doing in here, and why is there blood on your face when Joyce doesn’t die until season five?” Then Buffy opens the door to her room and:

This is also not a great thing to have happen to you in the middle of the night.

Now that Buffy’s room has turned into The Bronze, she can do all sorts of fun stuff. Like hang out with Willow while she speaks French to a monkey. And be criticized by her mother, who asks her if she’s really ready for something. Not that she’d have to be asleep for that to happen. Across the dance floor, Buffy sees Angel. He puts his hand out to her, but Drusilla steps up behind him and stakes him. He disintegrates into ash before Buffy’s very eyes, and Drusilla wishes Buffy a happy birthday, and Buffy jolts awake just before the opening credits. Thus begins a long and storied tradition of shit going haywire on Buffy’s birthday, all the time, every time.

Buffy goes to Angel’s apartment to make sure he’s not, you know, dead. He answers the door shirtless, and can I just say something here? I’m so pleased that he’s not bulging with huge muscles or something. It fits the character, as we later find out he was a lazy wastrel in his human time. There’s a lot of are you okay/yes I’m okay in this scene, with Buffy warning Angel that her dreams are sometimes prophetic, and Angel reassuring her that everything is fine. WET SMACKING SOUNDS. For literally a minute. A full minute.

Buffy tells Angel that she likes seeing him in the morning and at bedtime (titter, giggle, whisper behind hand, tee hee they’re talking about sex), and she’s half-mortified when relating the tale to Willow. But come on, that’s the kind of thing we all loved to have happen in our high school days. “My crush didn’t projectile vomit at the thought of having sex with me! Score!” Little did we all know, we could have been banging everybody if any of us had had a little self esteem.

Willow tells Buffy that Angel isn’t the kind of guy who would push her into anything, and they have an entire conversation about teen sex without ever mentioning teen sex. This is going to happen a lot in this episode and the next, and I’ll tell you my theory at some point later on. But for now let’s concentrate on the positive here: even though they never explicitly say that Buffy is considering having sex with her boyfriend, this is a scene where two female characters are talking as frankly as teen television drama will allow in 1997. This is a powerful image to the teen girls watching this show then and now. If Buffy can take control of her sexuality on her own terms, then they can, too.

Buffy decides that what the hell, she’s going to bone Angel. As she and Willow marvel at how awesome it is that they both know someone who’s going to get laid, Buffy spots Oz playing guitar in the courtyard. Buffy asks Willow what she thinks of him, and Willow says:

Willow: “I like his hands.”

Buffy says that Willow noticing this “insignificant detail” is proof that Willow has a crush on Oz and excuse me, but when I’m looking at pictures of Craig Ferguson, I notice the hell out of his strong-yet-elegant looking hands, and it’s not like I have a crush on him, even though I can and do readily imagine those hands giving me what would certainly be the most orgasmic foot rub of all time.

But I digress.

Willow is afraid to approach Oz, but with some coaxing from Buffy, Willow goes over and turns on the charm. She doesn’t really know what to talk about, and she’s awkward, but that’s okay because Oz is awkward, too. He’s just way more direct about it.

Oz: “I’m gonna ask you to go out with me tomorrow night. And I’m kind of nervous about it, actually. It’s interesting.”

Willow: “Oh. Well, if it helps at all, I’m gonna say yes.”

Oz: “Yeah, it helps. It creates a comfort zone. Do you wanna go out with me tomorrow night?”

Willow: “Oh! I can’t!”

Oz: “Well, see, I like that you’re unpredictable.”

If you don’t think they’re the cutest couple that has ever been on television, you’re wrong.

Willow explains that she’s going to Buffy’s surprise birthday party tomorrow night, but she suggests that Oz go as her date. And he agrees, and they both get all flustered and adorable.

At Cordelia’s locker, Xander is trying to convince Cordy to just go public with the fact that they’re dating. Cordelia doesn’t agree; she’s ashamed to be seeing him, and they haven’t really been dating so much as making out with each other constantly. I feel like Cordelia maybe doesn’t have an understanding of high school dating, because I don’t remember much besides the making out.  Xander gives up, and runs into Giles, who seems super psyched to be throwing a surprise party. He expresses his enthusiasm by being even more frazzled than usual.

The party convo is disrupted when Buffy and Ms. Calendar join them. Buffy tells Giles about her freaking Drusilla dream, but she’s worried that she’s making a big deal over nothing. Giles suggests that since Buffy’s dreams tell the future, they should probably keep an eye on that shit.

Cut to vampire Radar O’Reilly–hey! He’s back!–carrying a box for Spike, who’s rocking a hot new set of wheelchair. He’s also got some gnarly burn scars on his face. You know, I think Buffy is the only vampire mythology I can think of where the vampires need extended time to heal from stuff.

Spike is not happy with Drusilla for picking Sunnydale for a party venue–wait, I hadn’t noticed this before. Do Drusilla and Buffy share a birthday? Why didn’t I put two and two together?

Drusilla is taking care of Spike, and she seems a lot more rational and less vampire-crazy than she was before. Oh, wait, scratch that. Scratch it like the flower arrangement she starts frantically scratching to pieces while crying. Spike soothes her by letting her open one of her presents early. We don’t see what it is, but Dru assures us that it reeks of death. Oh, Spike. You know how to treat a lady.

So, now that Drusilla is back, be prepared for the vague crazy that marks pretty much all of her characterization. Yay. #14.

Back at the Summers house, Joyce tries to get Buffy psyched up for a mall shopping trip as a birthday present, but Buffy is more interested in revisiting the subject of her getting her driver’s license. Spoiler alert, this never happens. Buffy coasts right on into her twenties without ever getting a driver’s license, which is bullshit, because she’s the Slayer. She could cover way more ground if she had a sick ass vehicle with like, a cow-catcher on the front for mowing down demons and a roof-mounted fifty cal full of wooden projectiles.

Anyway, Joyce doesn’t think Buffy is ready. In fact, she says as much… exactly the way she said it in Buffy’s dream.

In Jenny Calendar’s classroom, a sinister dude who was in the really scary cave episode of Punky Brewster comes in. You may also remember him as “GET OFF MY TRAIN!” ghost from Ghost and the creepy organ grinder from Batman Returns, which, incidentally, is the best Batman movie of all time, and Michael Keaton is the best Batman of all time, so put that in your pipe and smoke it, Nolan fans.

Where was I? Oh, right. Sinister dude’s presence doesn’t alarm Jenny at all. She tells him she’s sorry she hasn’t been writing, and he scolds her for neglecting her duty to her people. They argue about a curse, and how it’s wearing off or whatever, in really vague terms, until Jenny says:

Jenny: “I promise you, Angel still suffers!”

Whoa. Whoa whoa whoa. Back up the frick train. This whole time, Jenny has been in Sunnydale to thwart Angel? This is a shocking development, dear reader. Angel apparently killed the “most beloved” person in Jenny’s “tribe.” Let me just preface the whole lot of racism that comes hard and fast for the rest of this show: Jenny is TV Romani. That’s just what we’re gonna call it. They call these characters and their “tribe” the g-word.

Now, here’s where I’m going to pause, less I look like a total a-hole hypocrite, and admit that I wrote a fantasy series in which a side story involved a group of magic using humans who lived in vardos and had all sorts of superstitions, and I used the g-word. A lot. Here’s where it gets worse: I had no idea that the g-word people from fiction were a stereotype of actual people who still exist. I thought this particular ethnic and cultural group was a fairytale construct that never existed. And among all the eyes that fell on that manuscript before it hit the shelves, no one else seemed to know the truth, either. To this day, I’ve never received a single email or comment about the offensive way I portrayed Romani people, which leads me to believe that there are a lot of people out there who might be in the same situation. Television, movies, books, even music, have all created an ethnic stereotype of the sneaky, curse-dropping, wagon-living g-word, to such an extent that people literally do not know that Romani people exist. If you’re reading this and going, “Oh my god, are you kidding? This is an actual thing?” then I suggest you do some mad googling so as not to be as ultra, high-intensity racist as I was.

But an explanation of a cultural phenomenon isn’t an excuse. I was being hella racist, and this element of BtVS is hella racist, as well. So, #12.

So, Jenny Calendar isn’t even Jenny’s name, and she’s not just a teacher and technopagan, she’s an agent of vengeance sent to stop Angel from having even a single moment of happiness. She tells her uncle that she’ll get right to work on breaking up Buffy and Angel.

In the library, Buffy is explaining to Giles how the stuff in her dream just came true, and he’s right in the middle of brushing her off when Willow and Xander come in all excited for Buffy’s birthday. Giles, still uncharacteristically not-interested in Buffy’s dreams (there are a bunch of times in the series where Buffy has a dream and Giles is all, “that’s a prophetic dream”) tells her that since she dreamed that the Master would rise and he didn’t because she stopped it from happening, this Angel thing isn’t going to happen either.

But guess what, Giles. Buffy did dream that Master would rise and he didn’t, but she also dreamed that the Master would kill her and he did. So, what’s more likely? Drusilla is alive and out to get Angel, or Willow is going to start speaking fluent French?

Wait, that’s not a good comparison. Willow could totally become fluent in French like, over the weekend or something.

Giles tells Buffy that he’ll research Drusilla, and she should just go on with life as normal until they have more information. This visibly bums Buffy out, and when she leaves, Xander and Willow bemoan the fact that their party is probably not going to go over as intended. But Giles is not having it:

Giles: “One thing I’ve learned in my tenure here on the Hellmouth is that there is no good time to relax, and Buffy’s turning seventeen just this once, and she deserves a party.”

Willow points out that Angel is coming to the party, anyway, so Buffy won’t have to worry that he’s out there being staked.

Buffy arrives at the school that night to meet Giles and find out all about Drusilla, but Jenny is there instead. She tells Buffy that Giles needed a book from home, and that he’s going to meet her “somewhere near his house.” And then Jenny offers to give Buffy a ride, and the audience is like, waaaaaait a minute. Jenny is supposed to make sure Angel will never be happy, so is she going to like, kill Buffy, or what?

Jenny pulls into a seedy looking alley, and Buffy asks if they’re going to The Bronze. Jenny tells her she just has an address that Giles gave her. Buffy sees some guys loading stuff into a truck, and she decides that it’s fishy. She jumps out of the car and sees vampire Radar O’Reilly carrying a box. Inside The Bronze, the gang waits, wondering where Buffy is. So, I’m guessing that the “ambushed by vampires” thing wasn’t just a way to get her to the party? That’s good, because I was worried for a second that her friends were horrifically terrible at planning parties.

Buffy wrestles a vampire through a window, and they tumble into The Bronze. She stakes the vampire with a drumstick, and everyone just stands there in shocked silence. Except Cordelia:

Buffy is genuinely touched by the surprise party. She says it’s sweet, but as she’s saying it, she’s directly facing Angel. What the fuck, Buffy. You think Angel did this? Angel did nothing (I assume, since it’s been Willow and Xander and Cordelia putting the whole thing together as far as we’ve seen), but he doesn’t go, “It was really them that did it.”

Come to think of it, what has Angel ever really done for Buffy? Besides show up with bad news or rush into fights with absolutely zero effect, or get into trouble and need to be rescued? Nothing. He’s done nothing, and he’s a bad boyfriend. #9

Even though the rest of the group takes the whole vampire thing in stride, Oz is new here:

Willow: “Are you okay?”

Oz: “Yeah. Hey, did everybody see that guy just turn to dust?”

Xander tells Oz that vampires are real and that Willow can fill him in on the rest.

Willow: “I know it’s hard to accept at first–”

Oz: “Actually, it explains a lot.”

This is one of my favorite scenes in the entire series, because of the way Oz just rolls with it.

Jenny Calendar comes in with the box the vampires were trying to steal. They open it, and inside they find a severed arm that immediately attacks Buffy.

Happy Birthday, Buffy!

And Oz is still totally fine with all this.

Angel tells them the arm could belong to a demon called The Judge, who destroys anyone who has any humanity. They figure out fast that Drusilla is trying to reassemble the judge and end the world. Angel is going to have to travel around the world for months, hiding the arm. Oh, and he has to leave that night. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BUFFY!

Drusilla is pissed off, and ready to gouge out Radar O’Reilly’s eyes, but Spike points out that he’s probably the only person who can find the arm. My favorite part of this scene is that Drusilla goes from this:

to this:

in just a few seconds. Which might fall under #14 what with the “oooh spooky crazypants,” but it’s still weirdly adorable.

At the docks, Buffy and Angel are saying goodbye. Angel is all, I’ll be back soon, and Buffy is all, you can’t possibly know that, also, everyone is trying to kill you, dummy. Angel gives her a claddagh ring, spurring like five years of those things being everywhere all over the place. He tells her:

Angel: “Wear it with the heart pointing toward you. That means you belong to somebody.”

Hey pal. She doesn’t belong to you unless she says she belongs to you. (#6, #9)

Their tender 18th century courtship moment is interrupted when Radar O’Reilly attacks them. He’s gonna get that arm and save his eyes. During the fight, Buffy falls off the pier and Angel jumps in after her, fulfilling his quota of being useless in at least one fight per episode.

1. Do you really think the Slayer isn’t going to be able to swim? She’s like a billion times stronger than you, Angel.

2. You’re letting Radar get away.

Back at the library, Giles is worried that Buffy isn’t back yet, and Willow is bummed that bad things are happening to Buffy on her birthday. Xander’s totally psyched about his friend’s emotional pain, though:

Xander: “It’s sad, granted, but let’s look at the upside for a moment. I mean, what kind of a future would she have really had with him? She’s got two jobs–Denny’s waitress by day, Slayer by night–and Angel’s always in front of the TV with a big blood belly. And he’s dreamin’ of the glory days when Buffy still thought this whole ‘creature of the night’ routine was a big turn on.”

Willow: “You’ve thought way too much about this.”

Xander: “No no, that’s just the beginning. Have I told you the part where I fly into town in my private jet and take Buffy out for prime rib–”

Willow: “Xander.”

Xander: “–and she cries–”

I think my feelings about this can be summed up with an annoyed Giles pic:

Okay, maybe not entire summed up. What the fuck is this, Xander? One of your best friends just got the news that her boyfriend is leaving for months, without any notice, to go on a dangerous mission he might not survive. Oh, and it’s happening on her birthday. And instead of being like, “this sucks, I’m sorry you’re hurting,” you lose yourself in some horrible fantasy in which you hope your friend has a miserable life just so you might have a chance to bang her when you’re both in your forties. That’s shitty, Xander. You’re a really shitty guy. (#5)

Xander’s jerk off fantasy wherein he wishes Buffy nothing but misery until she’ll open her vagina for him is interrupted when Buffy comes in to announce that they’d been ambushed. Giles asks where Jenny is, and Buffy tells him she’s with Angel. DUN DUN DUUUUUUUHHHN viewer who have never seen the rest of the series. Angel is with Ms. Calendar, who just swore she’d stop him from ever having a moment of happiness.

Wait, knowing what we know about how this all goes down at the end of the episode… why didn’t Ms. Calendar just cut Angel’s dick off? Would it grow back? Do vampires grow back parts that get cut off? I’m thinking not, because I’m almost certain we see a vampire get something cut off and not grow back in this series. But anyway. Geld Angel. I won’t mind.

But whatever, that throw-away line creates more tension, and is a prime example of awesome writing.

Giles has done research on The Judge, who burns the humanity out of anyone he touches. Only the truly evil are spared the fiery fate; no humans have ever survived. The good news is just beginning, because Giles goes on to explain that “no weapon forged” can kill The Judge.

Willow, Xander, and Buffy call their parents and lie about where they’re going to be for the night, so they have time to figure out how to stop Drusilla from assembling The Judge. At around 2 a.m., Giles asks Angel if he’s found out anything, but then he sees this:

and realizes he’s potentially woken his Slayer, so he motions Angel away. Angel makes a face like, “Dude is clearly in love with her,” and follows Giles to another part of the library.

Giles: “Seems Buffy needed some rest.”

Angel: “Yeah, she hasn’t been sleeping well, tossing and turning.”

You guys know that I do not buy the “father’s love” bullshit from season three, so I’m labelling Giles’s fleeting look of “WTF?!” one of those rare early season moments of truth for #2.

Angel clarifies that this is second-hand knowledge from when Buffy told him about her recent nightmares. In one of the show’s less subtle moments, we cut to Buffy having one of those very nightmares. And it is suuuuper literal; Buffy is walking through the factory, all dressed in white. We see what appears to be Ms. Calendar walking there, too, then the boxes containing The Judge, right before Drusilla cuts Angel’s throat. Buffy wakes up and yells for Angel, and he’s right there to hug her and reassure her, because that’s easy and that’s basically the level of effort he’s willing to put in here.

Wow, I can’t believe how much I loved Buffy and Angel’s relationship the first time I watched this. Now I can’t stand it. But same with Spike and Xander in season four. I shipped them brutally. Now, I’m like, “I don’t ship either of you with anyone, because you’re both horrible guys.”

Okay. The next scene, just a few seconds of it, is one of the scenes that will forever stick with me about this show. At Drusilla’s party, she dances to “Transylvanian Concubine” by Rasputina. That’s it. It adds nothing to the story. But it’s one of the first things I think of when I think of the show.

Spike gives Dru a box, the last piece of The Judge, AKA a big ole box full of monster head. Their minions put the boxes together and out comes The Judge, like a demonic Transformer.

Here’s a really interesting thing, and I’ve added it to our list at #21: The foreshadowing on this show is freaking amazing. You like how I added it to the list during this recap, so when I copy/paste into the next recap I won’t be all, “WTF, did I forget one?” That’s called character growth, friends.

Anyway, the really interesting thing is that when The Judge comes out of his satanic Voltron, Spike looks for real scared. And then The Judge tells him and Drusilla:

The Judge: “You two stink of humanity.”

Spoiler alert, later in the series, after he’s robbed of his ability to kill, Spike becomes at least somewhat more human. Then, after he acts with surprising humanity–in a bad way–in the season six episode “Seeing Red,” he repents and has his soul restored of his own free will. Spike is human as fuck, but we don’t get to see that fully until the last season of the show. I used to think this show got too much credit for foreshadowing, but then I worked on a couple television proposals myself (neither of which have seen the light of day yet, but fingers crossed) and I learned that it isn’t enough to have an idea and a single season and throw it out there. These shows are actually plotted like five seasons in advance. So, at the end of season five, you see Spike’s character arc, which would have been written into the following seasons when he returned as a series regular, and when the show moved to CW, the characters had to continue on arcs that were kind of already wrapped up when the fifth season seemed like the last.

The more you know.

Hey, now that I’ve been thinking about “Seeing Red,” why doesn’t The Judge love humanity? It’s one of the most violent states of consciousness.

They decide to test out The Judge on Vampire Radar O’Reilly, and The Judge explains that he has to be physically touching someone to actually melt the humanity out of them. When he’s at full power, he’ll be able to just point and shoot. Anyway, he touches Radar and burns him up using the latest in Photoshop technology, and Drusilla jumps up and down like a delighted child. So long, Radar.

Back at the library, Buffy tells Giles about her prophetic dream and says she knows where Spike and Drusilla are. She and Angel go out to find them, leaving the rest of the gang to try and figure out where the pieces of The Judge are coming from. They’re all hoping to stop him from being assembled. Toooooo late.

Buffy and Angel stroll right into Dru’s birthday party like they have an invite, only to see The Judge wandering around. He spots them, and everyone is alerted to their presence. They’re captured, and Spike totally thwarts every attempt Angel makes at being heroic and noble:

Angel: “Leave her alone!”

Spike: “Yeah, that’ll work. Now say ‘pretty please.’”

and

Angel: “Take me!

Buffy: “No!”

Angel: “Take me instead of her.”

Spike: “Uh, you’re not clear on the concept, pal. There is no ‘instead.’ Just first and second.”

Spike and Drusilla are going to let The Judge kill Buffy and Angel, but just as The Judge reaches for her, Buffy does a lightning fast move and kicks him in the chest, knocking him back. Angel pulls a chain thingy and drops a whole bunch of televisions on him–what the hell did they make in the factory, anyway? Music videos?–and they break a hole into the floor. Buffy and Angel escape through the hole, into the sewers, but first, #6! There is a totally ridiculous moment when, after The Judge gets knocked down, Buffy races to Angel’s side to cling to him momentarily before leading him off in a different direction.

So, let’s talk about this shit for a second. I get that she’s relieved that they escaped that danger, but they’re still in danger. Is it really the time to throw yourself into the protection of your undead boyfriend’s body? No, it’s not, and Buffy would know this. Buffy is a freaking warrior.

But anyway, they dash through the sewers and escape into the pouring rain. In order to get off the streets and into the sheets, the script sends them to the first logical hideout, Angel’s weird subterranean apartment. Angel gives Buffy some dry clothes and stands literally two feet from her with his back turned while she changes. Because there’s no place else in the apartment he can go? Buffy got cut during the fight or the flight, and Angel asks to see it.

I would be like, no. You’re a vampire. I am not going to show you the convenient access point to my delicious blood. And how dare you ask, by the way.

So, then Buffy is all freaked out about Angel almost dying, which in hindsight wasn’t nearly as dramatic as the dreams made it out to be. He was basically going to die the same way Buffy was going to die, so they were in parallel danger the whole time. All of this leads to Angel telling Buffy that he loves her, and they start making out and fall gently out of frame.

Cut to later, as seventeen year old Buffy and her boyfriend with a 200+ year age gap sleep in the glow of their statutory bliss. Lightning flashes. Angel bolts from the bed. He runs dramatically outside, screaming, “BUFFY!” and collapses in a pile of rain-soaked trash.

TO BE CONTINUED…

I think this episode, and this story arc, is where the show really finds its feet. While I love the first season and the beginning of this season, Surprise feels like the beginning of a new season, a season 2.5, in which series assumes the conventions and format that we all love.

So… I heart this episode. A lot.

State of The Trout: The Ex, Pre-Order Snafu, and First Time

Hello, everyone! The first thing I want to tell you guys is that I’m aware of the issue with the pre-order of The Ex from Barnes & Noble. I’ve contacted Smashwords, and I’m hoping we’ll have this issue resolved as soon as possible. Thank you all for your patience; I know it suuuuucks to be waiting for something and have it delayed. In the meantime, if anyone has ordered from another outlet and had this problem, please let me know in the comments.

Now, in case you missed it, OMG THE EX IS OUT FLAAAAAAAIL!

Amazon • Smashwords

If you prefer to buy from B&N, I’ll update everyone when the problem gets worked out!

New project in the works

Okay, I’m really, really excited to talk to you about First Time, the new book with characters from the Sophie Scaife series that I announced at the back of The Ex.

Okay, remember when I was rolling my eyes about the idea of E.L. James and Stephanie Meyer et. al. rewriting their stories from the hero’s POV? A lot of us agreed that authors who do that are generally doing it to capitalize on their most lucrative projects; many of the rewritten-from-the-male-POV books have only released or been announced after their counterpart was a staggering success. And there’s nothing wrong with making money, or giving readers what they want.

For a while, I blew off the notion of these books, thinking they were just kind of a lazy cash grab. But then I started thinking about it, and they seem very hard to write. Months after you wrote the original story, you’re jumping back into the world, trying to get every scene between the two main characters exactly the same, but from a different angle. Fuck that, that is not lazy, and you will not catch me doing that kind of work.

So, I’m going to do it, but write the two books at the same time so I don’t have to go back and look shit up.

First Time will be the first book (obviously) in the By The Numbers series. I expect it to be a four book series, comprised of eight books. Because for each title in the series, there will be one volume from the hero’s point of view, and the other from the heroine’s point of view. Both will tell the complete story, so if you choose to read only one of the books, you’ll still get the entire thing and you’ll know what’s going on. You’d even know what was going on jumping from one POV for the first story the opposite POV from the second story. You can read both, or pick the voice you like, it doesn’t matter.

Now, if you haven’t read The Ex (and I’m impressed at how many of you have), the next bit is about the new project. Learning more about it will give you a (minor) spoiler for The Ex, so click the “read more” link with care. After the jump, I’ll share more information about First Time.

First Time will feature characters from the Sophie Scaife books. If you’ve read the The Ex, you know that Sophie has been dying to set up recently-separated Ian Pratchett with her bubbly, superstitious assistant, Penny Parker, and that’s just what happens in First Time. While the By The Numbers series will be all about Ian and Penny’s love story, characters from the Sophie Scaife series will make cameo appearances. Kind of like when a Buffy character would show up on Angel.

It’s not an erotic romance. The By The Numbers series will be contemporary romance. That doesn’t mean there won’t be hot scenes, just that there won’t be as many, and their sexual relationship won’t be such an integral part of the story and character development.

Yeah, it’s another May/December romance. Big whoop, wanna fight about it?

The timeline is very much entwined with The Baby, and any possible future books in the Sophie Scaife series. Because of this, First Time will release before The Baby. For fans of Neil and Sophie, I know it’s going to seem like I’m making you wait longer, but it would be too difficult to be vague about the events of The Baby to keep from spoilering you in First Time.

Like The Boss, First Time will end with a bit of a cliff-hanger. People were pissed off by the end of The Boss, so I’m going to be open about the lack of a HEA in First Time from this point on, just to save myself the angry emails.

That’s all I’ve got for this week, stick around for the Buffy recap!

Merlin Club S04E06 “His Father’s Son” or “There are like ten actors in the UK.”

Merlin club is a weekly feature in which Jessica Jarman, Bronwyn Green, and myself gather at 8pm EST to watch an episode of the amazing BBC series Merlin, starring Colin Morgan and literally nobody else I care about except Colin Morgan.

Okay, I lie. A lot of other really cool people are in it, too.

Anyway, we watch the show, we tweet to the hashtag #MerlinClub, and on Fridays we share our thoughts about the episode we watched earlier in the week.

So, here’s a quick rundown of episode six: A neighboring queen can barely tolerate either Pendragon spawn, and she’s like, “Fuck both of you kids, you’re just like your fucking father and I hated his guts, too.”

If I had written this episode, I would have changed: I would have dropped the Arthur/Gwen breakup from this episode. There was already too much going on, and it seemed to bluntly overstate the point that Arthur isn’t like Uther. We got that from all the rest of it. To put it in this episode, where it’s totally unnecessary, just makes it look like empty relationship drama.

The thing I loved most about this episode: Lindsay Duncan. Every time I see her, all I can think about is Rome and Rome is the best and I’m lobbying hard for #MerlinClub to transition into #XIIILegion at the end of season five.

The thing I hated most about this episode: Why didn’t Annis fight against Arthur? They had to do the whole “name your champion” thing, which was stupid. Why didn’t she just throw down? She seems like the type who would.

Also, if Morgana was going to enchant Arthur’s sword, why did she go with “make it real heavy?” Couldn’t she think of anything better? Why not, “holding the sword makes him go blind,” or “every blow deals damage back?” “Whoa, this is going to be really heavy, look out, Arthur!” just doesn’t cut the mustard for me.

Something I never noticed before: All of these actors have been in other things with each other, but it took Lindsay Duncan to make me realize all of this. Okay, for example, Lindsay Duncan was on Doctor Who during David Tennant’s run. So was Colin Morgan. Oh, and Anthony Head. And right now, Duncan is playing Head’s ex-wife on a sitcom called You, Me & Them. Who’s playing his girlfriend on that show? Glad you asked, because it’s Eve Myles, the very first Merlin villain, who has also been on Doctor Who twice, both as a one-off appearance and as a Torchwood cast member. Speaking of Merlin cast members hooking up in sitcoms, Head was in a pre-Merlin comedy called Manchild, in which his character nailed his friend’s personal trainer, played by Angel Coulby. And those are just like, a few of the connections that came together when watching this. So based on this very scientific reasoning, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are only like ten actors in the UK, or just one who’s good at voices and has a versatile hairstyle.

Favorite Costume: Merlin in armor:

Here is proof of some random headcanon I created: I feel like there’s a real sadist/masochist undertone to the Morgana/Agravaine relationship, and this is about the first episode it’s really apparent in. She’s basically like, “Get me this sword, worm!” and he’s like, “Anything, mistress, let me lick your boots.”

What object would Bronwyn steal from this episode? See this? I took this screenshot because I had my eye on the chair, but then I realized that she would sit in that chair, wearing that crown, the fur, and the necklace.

Unless she has an issue with fur that I’m not remembering, which would seem like her.

What Merthur moment did Jess have the naughtiest thoughts about? When Merlin gets dragged into Annis’s tent, and Arthur looks at him like this:

Because look how concerned Arthur is for Merlin. He’s legit scared at this point, because he doesn’t want Merlin to get hurt. And after he goes out on a limb to have Merlin’s life spared, they have a lover’s spat.

Check out Jessica Jarman’s take on the episode here

Check out Bronwyn Green’s take on the episode here

That’s it for this week. Join us next week for S04E07, “A Servant of Two Masters,” Monday,  8pm EST on the hashtag #MerlinClub.

 

THE EX pre-order is available!

It’s an extremely short pre-order, but it is a pre-order!

 

Amazon • Smashwords

Recently it occurred to me that many people who are new-ish to the blog might not be aware that The Ex is actually the fourth book in a series. Some call it “The Boss” series, others call it “The Sophie Scaife” series. It started with The Boss, written when I was deep in the angriest phase of my 50 Shades of Grey recaps. I decided to try to write a book with a similar premise to 50SoG, but without all the problematic tropes that were popping up in 50SoG and its copycat progeny. Total lack of consent and flat out abuse cloaked in “It’s BDSM, so it’s okay!”, for example. I started writing the book and posting it a chapter at a time on a blog, and now it’s a free ebook.

So, if you’ve never read erotic romance, or you’ve been told that all erotic romance is exactly like 50 Shades of Grey, you can pick up The Boss for free at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords (as well as a few other outlets, I’m told).