December talking meme: 12/18 & 12/22

[pocochina]

Reasons Lexi should catch up on TVD and TO:


TVD:

1. A lightbulb-moment “this explains everything!” storyline for Damon that puts a whole new spin on D/E and ties neatly into Elena’s pre-Sal backstory.
2. You learn so much more about doppelgangers AND GIRL IT IS WORTH IT.
3. This might be just as much a warning as a draw, but you know how we always talk about depictions of mental health issues on genre shows? S5 has a pretty explicit one, and it’s handled in a dark, twisted, TVD-worthy way.

The Originals:

1. Since it’s at the top of my mind after my last couple of posts about AtS, I have to really praise the first half of the first season of The Originals for sustaining a pregnancy narrative done right for an exceptional amount of time. (And yeah, tragically, nine episodes is an exceptional amount of time, given the usual of “all fail all the time.”) Mystical pregnancies, or otherwise plot-useful (ie, conflict-ridden) pregnancies tend to have a fairly predictable chain of problems: the pregnancy is happening because it needs to happen -> someone along the line gets uncomfortable with the pregnant character’s being crowbarred into the pregnancy -> pregnant character comes over all Stepford no matter how jarring it is with her circumstances and/or characterization because the most important thing about female characters is that they never make anyone uncomfortable. Hayley’s options are certainly unfairly limited, and the show is just very blunt about “her options are limited, this isn’t fair, and this is what Hayley as subject and agent in her own right would do about it.” I’ve learned a lot about Hayley as a character, rather than worrying we’ve lost her.
2. It’s a cool related-but-distinct perspective from TVD. The Vampire Diaries is all about subjective reality. Everyone is telling their own first-person story, emphasizing that which they like and ignoring that which they don’t want to be important. The Originals is a memoir. It is about who gets to decide what the truth is, and how they get to enforce that truth.
3. Man, it’s just ruthless, particularly on the characters that most shows take pains to prop up, particularly Elijah.

What makes Klaus so entertaining to watch, for Lynnenne


I’m going to try to give a more objective answer than BECAUSE I LOVE HIM, but, you know, I loooooooooveee hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim and that might be the beginning, middle, and end of it. I’m also going to be as literal as possible on why he’s so fun to watch and not get into the whole song and dance about why he ~speaks to my soul.

Not to beat around the bush, but I think one of the big things is that Joseph Morgan is pretty. Whether or not he does it for you, that lean, narrow face shows you every twitch of every muscle. And because Klaus is one giant live nerve, his face is active and vivid and tells you every thought ricocheting through his deranged mind.

There’s this uncensoredness, sincerity almost, in Klaus. His default state of being is that he feels no restraint - what does the hybrid have to fear if he wears his angry little heart on his sleeve, or gets sloppy drunk while waxing poetic about Hemingway, or hulks out and ripping a dozen hybrids apart? And that makes him exciting to watch because you never know what the fuck he’s going to do, and his total freedom from the need for pretense is kind of a second-hand thrill.

Also, Klaus, I LIKE THE WAY YOU MOOOOOOOOOOOVE. Caught as they are in their faceoff, Klaus and Marcel move with the grace and purpose of dancers.

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