So...stuff?
I feel like I haven't posted in forever. I did. Last night in fact. But IDK. I've been doing really short posts instead of my usual long ones, which may be better for my flist but makes me feel out of touch. I wish I had meta to discuss. I haven't had any good meta thoughts in awhile.
One real life question- how early would you guys suggest I start applying for a job after graduation in May? I'm expecting it to take awhile so in some ways I think I should start now, but I don't know. Something about sending out resumes when I can't start for 3 months seems impractical. When exactly do you bring that up? I mean, if a job posting says it start immediately then obviously I don't apply for it (unless it gets to be May and I have no job still), but what if they don't say? What if they don't say but they're really hoping for someone within a month or so? And then I lose the job because I can't start early enough. I just realized, I really haven't had to worry about this stuff before. With my first job I just walked in and talked to Julie, the woman who owned the theatre. With my second and current job, my brother got me the interview. I've never had to send out applications before. SCARY!
OK, here's something vaguely meta-y. Protagonists who make morally questionable choices in the name of pragmatism. See, there's already starting to be wank about Erica Evans and what she's willing to do now that she's in charge of the Fifth Column over on V. One of the sneak peeks for next week shows that they're doing something to the Live Aboards Anna needs for her plan, which may result in the deaths of those Live Aboards. Jack, who was kept in the dark about that part of the plan, is understandably upset, and Erica basically tells him to suck it up and follow orders since he wanted to be a soldier again. Now, I understand why Jack is upset, and I think Erica was really harsh with him, but I don't necessarily fault her for her tactics? I'm not a fan of war at all, but when you're invaded by aliens who are going to enslave and/or kill you all eventually? You kind of don't have a choice but to go to war. And in war, people die. Is it better to let millions more die because you couldn't bring yourself to sacrifice a few?
It's a really slippery slope, of course. How much of a guarantee do you have to have that the plan will succeed before you're willing to do it? And in real life my feelings are a bit different, mostly because I question how necessary some of our wars have been. But when you're invaded you don't have the choice of not going to war, you have to defend yourself. And considering how the Vs basically have nothing stopping them from just wiping us out any second except for Anna wanting to play her games, I don't think Erica has a lot of choice. If they want to be an effective resistance, they have to be willing to sacrifice. Same thing happened with both the resistances on BSG. Ugly things happen in war. If you're going to be a leader, you have to accept it and be willing to do it.
I think we, Americans in particular, are used to the heroes finding these magical solutions that fix the problem without them having to make hard choices, and people tend to freak when 'heroes' have to do bad things. It's one of the reasons I loved the end of Torchwood: Children of Earth so much. Was it emotionally manipulative? You bet. But Jack had to kill a child, one that he loved, in order to save the world. There were no last second solutions or copouts, they straight up had to kill a child to save millions of other children. It was awful, and they went there, and you kind of have to respect that from a story telling stand point.
Not every pragmatic 'the ends justify the means' decision is going to be the right decision, or is going to be consequence free, and I certainly don't have a problem with someone like Jack questioning those decisions and making people really think about what they're doing and if it's worth it. But it makes me respect Erica more that she's willing to make those hard choices. I don't think it's character derailment at all, I think it's growth. She may very well go too far at some point, but at least she's finally getting shit done.
Nikita was awesomesauce last night. I enjoyed the humor they managed to inject into a very dramatic and dark episode. And that ending. Oof, I don't wanna wait a month!.
Vampire Diaries was also relatively awesome, although I wasn't thrilled with the attitude of Jeremy and the others regarding what happened with the Man Witches. They were just trying to do the exact same thing our protagonists are doing, protect their loved ones. Show some freaking compassion, assholes. And Matt's attitude really bugs me. But I love Katherine. I loved everything Katherine did this episode. Also, I get why people ship Damon/Elena, because the actors really do have amazing chemistry. But now we have Katherine back, and she can fill that void in a way that doesn't make me want to hit my head against a wall. So, yes, I'll take more Damon/Katherine hate flirting over Damon moping over Elena.
One real life question- how early would you guys suggest I start applying for a job after graduation in May? I'm expecting it to take awhile so in some ways I think I should start now, but I don't know. Something about sending out resumes when I can't start for 3 months seems impractical. When exactly do you bring that up? I mean, if a job posting says it start immediately then obviously I don't apply for it (unless it gets to be May and I have no job still), but what if they don't say? What if they don't say but they're really hoping for someone within a month or so? And then I lose the job because I can't start early enough. I just realized, I really haven't had to worry about this stuff before. With my first job I just walked in and talked to Julie, the woman who owned the theatre. With my second and current job, my brother got me the interview. I've never had to send out applications before. SCARY!
OK, here's something vaguely meta-y. Protagonists who make morally questionable choices in the name of pragmatism. See, there's already starting to be wank about Erica Evans and what she's willing to do now that she's in charge of the Fifth Column over on V. One of the sneak peeks for next week shows that they're doing something to the Live Aboards Anna needs for her plan, which may result in the deaths of those Live Aboards. Jack, who was kept in the dark about that part of the plan, is understandably upset, and Erica basically tells him to suck it up and follow orders since he wanted to be a soldier again. Now, I understand why Jack is upset, and I think Erica was really harsh with him, but I don't necessarily fault her for her tactics? I'm not a fan of war at all, but when you're invaded by aliens who are going to enslave and/or kill you all eventually? You kind of don't have a choice but to go to war. And in war, people die. Is it better to let millions more die because you couldn't bring yourself to sacrifice a few?
It's a really slippery slope, of course. How much of a guarantee do you have to have that the plan will succeed before you're willing to do it? And in real life my feelings are a bit different, mostly because I question how necessary some of our wars have been. But when you're invaded you don't have the choice of not going to war, you have to defend yourself. And considering how the Vs basically have nothing stopping them from just wiping us out any second except for Anna wanting to play her games, I don't think Erica has a lot of choice. If they want to be an effective resistance, they have to be willing to sacrifice. Same thing happened with both the resistances on BSG. Ugly things happen in war. If you're going to be a leader, you have to accept it and be willing to do it.
I think we, Americans in particular, are used to the heroes finding these magical solutions that fix the problem without them having to make hard choices, and people tend to freak when 'heroes' have to do bad things. It's one of the reasons I loved the end of Torchwood: Children of Earth so much. Was it emotionally manipulative? You bet. But Jack had to kill a child, one that he loved, in order to save the world. There were no last second solutions or copouts, they straight up had to kill a child to save millions of other children. It was awful, and they went there, and you kind of have to respect that from a story telling stand point.
Not every pragmatic 'the ends justify the means' decision is going to be the right decision, or is going to be consequence free, and I certainly don't have a problem with someone like Jack questioning those decisions and making people really think about what they're doing and if it's worth it. But it makes me respect Erica more that she's willing to make those hard choices. I don't think it's character derailment at all, I think it's growth. She may very well go too far at some point, but at least she's finally getting shit done.
Nikita was awesomesauce last night. I enjoyed the humor they managed to inject into a very dramatic and dark episode. And that ending. Oof, I don't wanna wait a month!.
Vampire Diaries was also relatively awesome, although I wasn't thrilled with the attitude of Jeremy and the others regarding what happened with the Man Witches. They were just trying to do the exact same thing our protagonists are doing, protect their loved ones. Show some freaking compassion, assholes. And Matt's attitude really bugs me. But I love Katherine. I loved everything Katherine did this episode. Also, I get why people ship Damon/Elena, because the actors really do have amazing chemistry. But now we have Katherine back, and she can fill that void in a way that doesn't make me want to hit my head against a wall. So, yes, I'll take more Damon/Katherine hate flirting over Damon moping over Elena.