My head is so full of STUFF you guys. .
In which I dissect why I like Pretty Little Liars so much. Possibly TL;DR
The Pretty Little Liars series is by no means a literary masterpiece. In fact it's usually thrown in along with the GG books into the pile labelled 'Trashy, ridiculous, YA fiction' which I won't really get into arguing about. After reading GG first and then hearing that the PLL plot was kind of similar (i.e.Gossip Girl and A are pretty much stalkers) I totally wanted to check it out. Although it usually took me a while to read the GG books even as light quick reads, I literally went through the first 7 PLL books like it was nobody's business. I was totally hooked.
The plot is pretty batshit crazy compared to the UES drama in Gossip Girl. There are a couple character similarities, but it's high school and that's not hard to do. You could say Alison DiLaurentis was the Serena Van der Woodsen/Regina George of Rosewood and that Hanna Marin is the Blair Waldorf that rises to power when she's gone. The cast of the show keeps saying they think people like it so much because they're able to relate to the characters. I know for a fact most people watch for the drama, the scandal, and the pretty but something really hit me the other day. I have so much feelings about this series because I see a part of myself in each of the girls.
Cue some personal stuff:
ARIA: Like book!Aria I'm pretty artsy and I'm also into writing like tv!Aria (still laughing/dying over B-26). I also have a younger sibling like her too. Sadly I have no Ezra Fitz or Noel Kahn dying over me. *sob* Aria's parts in the books were the most boring to me because honestly she got hurt by the smackdown from A the least out of all of them but the one thing I can really relate to with Aria is that total loss of stability that comes when her parents get divorced. Exactly like her parents, my folks got divorced after 16 years of marriage when my dad cheated with someone at work. It was just so. not. cool.
SPENCER: I absolutely hated book!Spencer at first but after seeing show!Spencer, I've come to understand the character more and now I love her. Although that just might be my love of Troian Bellisario talking. Unlike Spencer I'm not an overachieving know it all but I can relate to her desire to be loved, noticed and accepted by her parents for her achievements. I can also relate to the subtle yet non-subtle way her parents push her to do well and what it's like to come short over and over again.
HANNA: Hanna is my absolute favourite. I loved her from the first time I read her part in the books or maybe it's because she reminds me of Blair (since book!Hanna is a brunette). Like HBIC Blair, Hanna suffers from bulimia brought on by envy of a gorgeous blonde haired, blue-eyed friend/the departure of her father via divorce. Although her dad didn't turn out to be gay, Hanna has to deal with the feeling of being replaced by a new significant other (+ their child). Now that didn't happen to me, but I know what it's like to be a daddy's girl then have daddy leave and watch a single mother struggle to make ends meet. Like many teenage girls the whole image thing has bothered me as well. I think it's what people can relate to with Hanna the most. i have yet to find my Lucas.
EMILY: This is where it really hits home. I'm a lot like Emily personality wise- shy and indecisive. She has a lot of feelingsfeelingsfeelings that pretty much impair the part of her brain that's screaming the opposite- i.e. This is bad. You will get hurt. I too had a crush on a girl like Alison. She was everything I wasn't- outgoing,popular with boys and pretty damn forward. She also had an older boyfriend a la Ian Thomas. (It actually fits perfectly with the books where she was 13 and seeing a guy 3 years older) Anyway, girl crush right? Total Alison. I totally spilled my guts to her about things but she didn't do the same for me. Well, not as much; and people (that would be the viewers/readers) were like WTF? why are you hanging out with this person? she's not really your friend. She's evil. And of course I ignored all that and insisted much like the PLLs, that she was actually nice and there was a side to her that they didn't see. To this day IDK if she was really my friend or if she was some kind of emotional/drama vampire that fed off everyone else's shitty situations to feel better about herself. It was really confusing but at least she didn't treat me the way Alison treated Emily. She was a really affectionate touchy feely person (not to mention bi-curious) so there was a lot of hand touching and hugging and skin stroking and cheek kissing but unlike Emily I never ever worked up the nerve to kiss her on the lips. I like physically couldn't no matter how much I wanted to because I was afraid she'd freak. And I really really wanted to. I don't think it was a first love/ true love thing like Emily felt about Alison so thankfully I'm getting over her. I think.
And that was way longer than I intended it to be but it felt good to vent a bit. :)
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Rizzoli & Isles episode 6. Where do I even begin? I'm not even sure what was my favourite part. Was it the hilarity of the whole Nurse Jorge situation? Or was it Korsak blatantly hitting on them? It could have been the whole scene where they talk about what it would be like if they were gay and who they would like then accidentally fall asleep in the same bed. I loved that part as much as this little gem of a moment.
Really Jane, really? That wasn't even like a subtle glance. I really need to do a more comprehensive post on this episode later. It's too good not to.
+gif credit: cabrioles (PLL) and mollysmiles (R&I)