you're not the girl I used to know, debbie pelt
Shit I've been doing:
01. working for free because one of my coworkers is stuck at home with a detached retina and - I CAN ONLY HOPE - an eye patch (they promise me lieu time, but they make me feel like a grubby non-salary part-timer for not automatically giving them 50 hours a week like everyone else: o hai, Gen Y entitlement; maybe I should just write 'pay me motherfucker' in sharpie across my forehead?)
02. writing epic Marcus/Esca hookerfics to end all hookerfics (that's a lie, it's only 5k but I am preeeeety jazzed about it nonetheless)
03. catching up on the internet (Dan Savage says prizing the relationship above sexual exclusivity is what we should all be doing which is why sometimes just thinking that man's name brings a tear to my eye)
04. half-assedly, uh, training for a 10k put on by some weirdo lady-spa next Sunday (there will be cupcakes, and manicures, and shrieking bitches in pink everywhere: it is stroller-friendly)
05. watching a lot of True Blood. 412 is downloading as I type.
I don't know, I don't give a lot of brainspace to this show, mostly because everyone's already having sex with everyone so fic would be redundant, but Season 4 has been pretty lackluster. Sookie was a non-entity, Tommy kept making inexplicably bad/gross decisions, and I love Tara but she definitely should've stayed in New Orleans (and maybe stop overpronouncing it "Nawlins" - I can hear Poppy Z Brite shrieking from here). Nothing too thrilling happening plotwise, either. The fairies disappeared right quick, and the witches vacillated between brief moments of sheer awesome and long stretches of irritatingly anti-feminist incompetence. Also, Maryanne was basically the same thing, and she was way hotter.
What I did like was Jessica's battle with eating/fucking monogamy. I mean, I liked that she got screentime, not necessarily that she was made to feel bad constantly for not depriving herself of food and sex so that her redneck boyfriend could feel husbandly. Obviously, she was always too good for Hoyt. (Shallow sidenote: I was squirming with embarrassment when they went to Fangtasia together, they are such a 10/2 situation, ew.) She definitely should've been eating boys in bars all along, and the idea of her having to ask forgiveness or feel slut-shamed for it was grating. Yeah, maybe she went a little too far that time she killed a trucker. Live and learn! Obviously she's still working out her issues with her hyper-religious upbringing, but I think she should read some Dan Savage, and then maybe take relationship lessons from Debbie. But not Alcide.
Because Debbie Pelt is definitely my stand-out favourite character of the season. Rigorous honesty! Probably the most shocked I've been all season was in Episode Whatever, when Alcide comes back from helping Sookie wrangle naked Eric in the water, and the conversation basically goes, "You were working late," "Yeah, I had to catch up on some stuff" and for a good fifteen seconds you think Alcide's lying because he doesn't want her to know he's been with Sookie. But the conversation turns on a dime, and he's not hiding anything, and she's okay with it - or visibly trying to be, because she knows she has issues to work through - and then they make out. YES. YESSSS.
As a foil for the Jess/Hoyt relationship, I feel like this girl deserved the happy ending, not the "abjure thee" bullshit she gets in 411. I mean. Addiction issues aside, I feel like I have been as emotionally weak as Debbie Pelt. I completely sympathize with her need for the Shrevesport Pack community, so as not to be entirely dependent on Alcide for social fulfillment. I can sympathize with her struggle to be totally honest about everything she's feeling. I can sympathize with her jealousy and her conflicting impulses to help and hurt. I loved seeing her in her element - campfires and tight jeans and beer bottles - with her new Pack. I honestly think that through this entire season she is working as hard as she fucking can to keep herself healthy so that she can be a person Alcide respects. Every choice she makes is to this end. Even being nice to Sookie. Who, quite honestly, is a fucking judgmental cunt to her. All this, until Alcide starts openly betraying her, at which point she backslides into using again.
It just sickens me that Alcide promises that he won't hang out with Sookie - for good reasons, not reasons of jealousy, even, but of common self-preserving sense given the vampire/witch war! - and when he ends up being the one who fails in that, at the end of the day she's still the bad guy. I mean, what? Why? Because she was tempted to fuck the pack leader (who, let's face it, was unconvincingly attractive, but at least had demonstrated his hella scary two-faced charisma points); because she bought some V; because she almost sold out Sookie (maybe? not even?); because she wasn't wearing pants while on the bed when Alcide barged in like a crazy murdering crazy person. Which, uh, he is, btw.
So I had nothing but sympathy for Debbie throughout. Her last scene: sobbing brokenly? Really? How is that fucking fair? My heart broke for her. But my reading of these things is always off (see: Why I Hate 500 Days Of Summer) so I can't actually tell if the show wants me to hate or love her. I suspect we are supposed to hate her, because we are always supposed to love Sookie and her harem of pectorally-advanced-hetero-dudes-who-would-never-ever-consider-kissing-another-man-unless-bribed-or-let's-be-honest-here-tricked-with-matching-bra-and-panty-sets. And Debbie is in the way of the Sookie/Bill/Eric/Alcide OT4. Obviously.
This is also why my other favourite of favourites, Pam, is getting suckerpunched left, right and centre. What the fuck, show? Women who demonstrate depth and compassion and loyalty are to be rotted and betrayed and ABANDONED?
My blood, she boils. There is nothing I hate more than abandonment: maybe not for Pam, but I'm sure for Debbie it is the most terrifying and awful punishment, and I hope to fucking god she gets something out of this last episode. Because Alcide is not on the moral high ground, here. He is not.
Anyway. Even with Eric's sudden foray into wide-eyed amnesiac territory (the culmination of which was so godawful that I regret every second I spent admiring his well-planned minimalist fur-strewn bunker), this season's plot was just threadbare, and I am feeling like whatever arch, ironic, violent, sexy, relevant spirit used to elevate this show from Harris' primordial swamp has sunk back into the muck, eyeball-deep.
With the obvious exception of Debbie and Pam. Someone write me some fucking Debbie/Pam. I will also accept Pam/Jess. But only if Jess is gagged. Because, honestly.
ETA, how could I forget: 05. listening to the new Beirut album on eternal never-ending repeat. THAT IS WHAT I'VE BEEN DOING. Because I think Zach Condon pays a lot of sex workers for chaste time and then writes about it. This is what his lyrics are telling me, oks?? BRB, WRITING HIM INTO MY HOOKERFIC NAO.
01. working for free because one of my coworkers is stuck at home with a detached retina and - I CAN ONLY HOPE - an eye patch (they promise me lieu time, but they make me feel like a grubby non-salary part-timer for not automatically giving them 50 hours a week like everyone else: o hai, Gen Y entitlement; maybe I should just write 'pay me motherfucker' in sharpie across my forehead?)
02. writing epic Marcus/Esca hookerfics to end all hookerfics (that's a lie, it's only 5k but I am preeeeety jazzed about it nonetheless)
03. catching up on the internet (Dan Savage says prizing the relationship above sexual exclusivity is what we should all be doing which is why sometimes just thinking that man's name brings a tear to my eye)
04. half-assedly, uh, training for a 10k put on by some weirdo lady-spa next Sunday (there will be cupcakes, and manicures, and shrieking bitches in pink everywhere: it is stroller-friendly)
05. watching a lot of True Blood. 412 is downloading as I type.
I don't know, I don't give a lot of brainspace to this show, mostly because everyone's already having sex with everyone so fic would be redundant, but Season 4 has been pretty lackluster. Sookie was a non-entity, Tommy kept making inexplicably bad/gross decisions, and I love Tara but she definitely should've stayed in New Orleans (and maybe stop overpronouncing it "Nawlins" - I can hear Poppy Z Brite shrieking from here). Nothing too thrilling happening plotwise, either. The fairies disappeared right quick, and the witches vacillated between brief moments of sheer awesome and long stretches of irritatingly anti-feminist incompetence. Also, Maryanne was basically the same thing, and she was way hotter.
What I did like was Jessica's battle with eating/fucking monogamy. I mean, I liked that she got screentime, not necessarily that she was made to feel bad constantly for not depriving herself of food and sex so that her redneck boyfriend could feel husbandly. Obviously, she was always too good for Hoyt. (Shallow sidenote: I was squirming with embarrassment when they went to Fangtasia together, they are such a 10/2 situation, ew.) She definitely should've been eating boys in bars all along, and the idea of her having to ask forgiveness or feel slut-shamed for it was grating. Yeah, maybe she went a little too far that time she killed a trucker. Live and learn! Obviously she's still working out her issues with her hyper-religious upbringing, but I think she should read some Dan Savage, and then maybe take relationship lessons from Debbie. But not Alcide.
Because Debbie Pelt is definitely my stand-out favourite character of the season. Rigorous honesty! Probably the most shocked I've been all season was in Episode Whatever, when Alcide comes back from helping Sookie wrangle naked Eric in the water, and the conversation basically goes, "You were working late," "Yeah, I had to catch up on some stuff" and for a good fifteen seconds you think Alcide's lying because he doesn't want her to know he's been with Sookie. But the conversation turns on a dime, and he's not hiding anything, and she's okay with it - or visibly trying to be, because she knows she has issues to work through - and then they make out. YES. YESSSS.
As a foil for the Jess/Hoyt relationship, I feel like this girl deserved the happy ending, not the "abjure thee" bullshit she gets in 411. I mean. Addiction issues aside, I feel like I have been as emotionally weak as Debbie Pelt. I completely sympathize with her need for the Shrevesport Pack community, so as not to be entirely dependent on Alcide for social fulfillment. I can sympathize with her struggle to be totally honest about everything she's feeling. I can sympathize with her jealousy and her conflicting impulses to help and hurt. I loved seeing her in her element - campfires and tight jeans and beer bottles - with her new Pack. I honestly think that through this entire season she is working as hard as she fucking can to keep herself healthy so that she can be a person Alcide respects. Every choice she makes is to this end. Even being nice to Sookie. Who, quite honestly, is a fucking judgmental cunt to her. All this, until Alcide starts openly betraying her, at which point she backslides into using again.
It just sickens me that Alcide promises that he won't hang out with Sookie - for good reasons, not reasons of jealousy, even, but of common self-preserving sense given the vampire/witch war! - and when he ends up being the one who fails in that, at the end of the day she's still the bad guy. I mean, what? Why? Because she was tempted to fuck the pack leader (who, let's face it, was unconvincingly attractive, but at least had demonstrated his hella scary two-faced charisma points); because she bought some V; because she almost sold out Sookie (maybe? not even?); because she wasn't wearing pants while on the bed when Alcide barged in like a crazy murdering crazy person. Which, uh, he is, btw.
So I had nothing but sympathy for Debbie throughout. Her last scene: sobbing brokenly? Really? How is that fucking fair? My heart broke for her. But my reading of these things is always off (see: Why I Hate 500 Days Of Summer) so I can't actually tell if the show wants me to hate or love her. I suspect we are supposed to hate her, because we are always supposed to love Sookie and her harem of pectorally-advanced-hetero-dudes-who-would-never-ever-consider-kissing-another-man-unless-bribed-or-let's-be-honest-here-tricked-with-matching-bra-and-panty-sets. And Debbie is in the way of the Sookie/Bill/Eric/Alcide OT4. Obviously.
This is also why my other favourite of favourites, Pam, is getting suckerpunched left, right and centre. What the fuck, show? Women who demonstrate depth and compassion and loyalty are to be rotted and betrayed and ABANDONED?
My blood, she boils. There is nothing I hate more than abandonment: maybe not for Pam, but I'm sure for Debbie it is the most terrifying and awful punishment, and I hope to fucking god she gets something out of this last episode. Because Alcide is not on the moral high ground, here. He is not.
Anyway. Even with Eric's sudden foray into wide-eyed amnesiac territory (the culmination of which was so godawful that I regret every second I spent admiring his well-planned minimalist fur-strewn bunker), this season's plot was just threadbare, and I am feeling like whatever arch, ironic, violent, sexy, relevant spirit used to elevate this show from Harris' primordial swamp has sunk back into the muck, eyeball-deep.
With the obvious exception of Debbie and Pam. Someone write me some fucking Debbie/Pam. I will also accept Pam/Jess. But only if Jess is gagged. Because, honestly.
ETA, how could I forget: 05. listening to the new Beirut album on eternal never-ending repeat. THAT IS WHAT I'VE BEEN DOING. Because I think Zach Condon pays a lot of sex workers for chaste time and then writes about it. This is what his lyrics are telling me, oks?? BRB, WRITING HIM INTO MY HOOKERFIC NAO.