She talks to wolves...

Most people are agreed that Disney deserves a whole lot of criticism, and that there is a danger to young girls, particularly, in wholly embracing the Disney brands being marketed toward them today. I’m down with these thoughts myself, and generally live with the principle that nothing should be consumed passively and without poking at it really firmly with a stick to see if anything gross falls out.

As most often happens with any Issue, though, you get people really far away on either side who would rather yell at each other than think critically. “Disney princesses are awesome and there’s not a single ounce of questionable ideals being hocked!” vs. “Disney princess are THE DEVIL and leading our young girls into passive lives of twinkling laughs hiding blackened innards of self-hate!” “KILL THE WITCH!” one side cries, while the other shouts “KILL THE BITCH!” and who knows which said which.

Eventually, articles like “Why Drag Queens are Better Role Models Than Disney Princesses” pop up in the Huffington Post and then I read the following:

“When it comes down to it, I respect drag queens. They are artists. They are able to conceptualize an idea and transform themselves — without the help of magic, I might add. They are risk takers. They are punk. But Disney princesses? They are a man-made franchise created to sell cheaply made shit to our daughters. They are a perpetuation of the stereotype of the weak, dumb woman who obediently waits for a man to come along and make her valuable.”

Many drag queens are fabulous, and some of them maybe aren’t, because that’s how people work. This post is not about them, but about what Disney princesses perpetuate. Let’s look at the evidence:

Snow White was cast out by the person meant to care for her and taken out into the woods to be straight-up murdered. She was shown mercy at the hands of the Huntsman, but still abandoned in a dark wood. Did she lay down and die? No. She found a family, found a way to fit in, and kept a welcoming heart regardless of her terrible experiences. She survived and thrived. Yes, she was poisoned, and yes, someone had to save her after that – but that wasn’t a conscious passive act.

Sleeping Beauty was hidden away in the woods with a trio of sweet Old Granny Fairies because Evil Fairy McAwesome put a hit on Aurora for her parents failing to invite EFM to the birthday party. (Maleficent represent!) Aurora didn’t know she was royalty, was kept far away from civilization, and lacked access to useful things like needles. But she still greeted each day with enthusiasm for life. Yeah, she spent most of the story comatose, but again, not passive through her own acts. (Aurora’s not the best example. Still, just gonna leave this here: “Once Upon a Dream” doesn’t have a single gendered word in it.)

Cinderella was abused and downtrodden, but she still managed to find hope in her heart, friends in unexpected places, and the ability to endure. She may not have had the means to conjure a beautiful dress for herself, but there’s nothing wrong with accepting a beautiful dress from a magical granny benefactor and going to a fancy party if you want to. There’s not even anything wrong with happening to fall in love with someone at that party. Cinderella was the one with the power to reveal herself and choose her fate at the end, even if the prince did come looking for her.

Ariel went after what she wanted, found a way to do the impossible, made foolish decisions along the way… and paid for them, and learned from them, and then actually saved her Prince before the tale was done. She also saves herself by having enough dexterity to dodge bolts of lightning when she’s a fish-woman out of water at the bottom of a whirlpool. And, yeah, Eric kills Ursula– through his previously established skills as a sailor, not because he’s a man, baby.

Belle grows worried for her father, goes to find him when their horse comes home riderless, and sacrifices her future to save his life. She makes the best of a bad situation, and yes, there’s a whole conversation about Stockholm syndrome to be had here. However, let’s focus on whether Belle is passive, given to gasps and twinkles: when she’s locked up while the townsfolk go to kill the Beast, she finds a way out with the help of her friends and then goes after the angry mob. She climbs out on a rain-washed balustrade to try and defuse a fight to the death, and show the Beast she’s supporting him. Yeah, he happens to turn into a human prince and they get married. Presumably she spends the rest of her life in fabulous clothes reading a never-ending library, and what the hell is wrong with that? (The fabulous clothes and reading a never-ending library bit, clearly there’s a problem with marrying one’s former captor. Discuss Stockholm syndrome with your kids, folks!)

Pocahontas? Bad-ass tracker and protector of the people she cares about. Mulan? Hides her sex and goes to war, then saves the entire Empire through cleverness even while wearing a, gasp, dress. (Also promotes cross-dressing both ways!) Jasmine defies separation of the classes, refuses to marry a suitor not of her choice, and rescues both herself and Aladdin at least once. Rapunzel defends herself successfully against an intruder, and then hijacks him as a tour guide. Tiana maintains an amazing level of hope and industriousness in the face of a whole lot of bullshit, and builds the restaurant of her dreams through hard work AND the connections she forges through her willingness to take a gamble. Merida, the latest addition to the princess line-up, literally lives for archery and breaks a generations-old marriage requirement because it’s ridiculous– all while learning how to empathize with other people and knit her family back together.

In their actual stories, where’s the bit about them all just simpering in amazing dresses with big hair and doing nothing but gasping in the face of danger?

The actual princesses themselves have many traits worth emulating. Like all heroes, they are not above criticism. No one should ever be – you should always think critically about who you admire, and understand everyone has faults. It doesn’t mean the good things aren’t worth aspiring to.

It’s the Disney Princess Marketing Machine that tries to reduce them to fancier dresses than they originally wore, to generic looks reaching for some homogenized and disturbing ideal, to couture so they can sell make-up to adults and inspire fashion designers to advertise them in up-scale shop windows. It’s the DPMM selling them as Princesses (TM) who have their personalities sanded off and are meant only to be seen decorously standing about with awesome hair and fancy accessories.

That’s not Snow White with a broom in her hands, singing with a blue bird. That’s not Belle, climbing a ladder in a library, or finding a sunny field to read in. That’s not Tiana, with her sleeves rolled up and rolling out some dough or balancing her business’s accounts. That’s not Mulan helping her fellow soldiers learn to fight, or Ariel powerfully swimming through strong currents and ultimately deciding to be part of another world.

Check your hate for the Disney princesses themselves, and redirect your censure to the Disney Princess marketing machine. It needs dismantling far more than we need to destroy the stories it’s feeding on.

(Also, talk to your kids, and give them an Ada Lovelace doll for every Ariel mermaid toy, and a Marie Curie science kit with stern warnings about radiation alongside every fancy Merida dress. A dress which can and will go fabulously well with any bow of your choice. Our kids are bombarded with messages every day, but we can still be their strongest filter.)

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This happens more often than you might think.

Look, there was a centipede, okay? On the ceiling. So my husband does what any problem-solving adult with the tools at hand would do: he decides to rifle butt the sucker with a P53 Enfield rifle-musket. A black powder muzzle-loading rifle-musket used by the British empire around the mid-1800s and later widely used by both the North and South in the American Civil War. Which we just happen to have lying around. As you do.

Sadly, the corpse could not be retrieved to preserve and properly mount above our nonexistent mantelpiece. But let the victory be reflected, and his fierce battle never be forgot!

What? So, I’m an enabler. This is how Casa Quixote rolls.

[Action shots just a click away!]

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Please note: BEWARE OF SPOILERS. NO, SERIOUSLY, I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. THIS IS A RECAP, ERGO SPOILERVILLE.

Robb thinks that Walder Frey will get over him, he knows he will, Robb's the King of Wishful Thinking.

"Kissed by Fire." Is it a fanciful description of a hair color? A more literal description of a certain fight to the death? Or merely the title of the fifth episode of HBO's Game of Thrones' third season? Okay, fine, yes. It's all three, you fancy recap-readers. Step this way, and relive every breathless moment of bloody drama and daring innuendo.

KING'S LANDING
Tyrion has a rather unpleasant snack date with Olenna Tyrell: you can tell it's unpleasant, because there is no Cheese Boy and Pod is sent scurrying for prunes. (Or were they figs? Anyway, thorny biddy only eats one and leaves. There's that Tyrell frugality!) Tyrion tries to encourage Highgarden to donate money for the Crazy Opulent Royal Wedding Fund, mentioning the expenses of war which are so over a lady's head and surely nothing the Queen of Thorns has memorized... except then she schools him in exactly what Highgarden's provided, free of charge (well, very cheaply, just one slightly damaged highborn lady betrothed to the future king! such a bargain!). Tyrion's left feeling all foolish, but she promises the Tyrells will pay for half the wedding anyway. Backhand score for the new Master of Coin!

Elsewhere, Cersei lurks about the place in order to grab a private word with Littlefinger-- she's not so cocky now that daddy's on the scene, so no more playfully surrounding him with drawn swords and debating the definition of power with him. Cersei Lannister wants information on what the Tyrells are up to, and Baelish goes along with it for intel is valuable. Of course, in true Littlefinger fashion, he makes his move by sending a whore to gleam details from pillowtalk. It's a manwhore this time, though. Lord Baelish is nothing if not progressive. Cut to Sansa and Margaery, cheerfully watching Sansa's secretly-betrothed Loras spar with weapons on a beautiful afternoon. It's too bad that Loras himself is cleverly planning to spar with his lance-caddie a little later. Oh, Sansa. Your Happily Ever After Prince Fantasy #1 is playing hard for the other team.

Loras Tyrell is a chatty lover, and the lance-caddie/manwhore is reporting back to to Littlefinger soon enough. Baelish processes the information and then tracks down Sansa Stark to feel her out, possibly astonished and a little bit proud that his baby is finally playing the Game of Thrones and DISSEMBLING TO HIS FACE. He's still going to win against her, but Baelish's heart swelled three times that day. (Or something else did, anyway. Lecherous jerk.)

Meanwhile, Tywin has called a Lannister Family Meeting. These things never end well. Tyrion struts in rather proud of saving the kingdom a tidy sum in the matter of the wedding, but Tywin is all "whatevs, no one cares about your job" and "we have actual important matters to discuss." (Apparently Tywin needs a history lesson on the Iron Bank of Braavos.) Hand of the King Tywin then hands out unwanted marriages like candy and his children try not to freak out. Tyrion protests his match because he knows he's the worst to be inflicted on poor, unsuspecting Sansa (who dreams of a tall and handsome knight); Cersei slaps back against hers because she never wants to be subjected to a man against her will again (even if it IS to a pretty boy with no interest in her bed). Misery all around! That's Tywin Lannister's way.

[Follow the link over to Nerdspan for the rest of the recap!]

Here's a handy series of links to the previous installments:
3.4: And Now You Just Got Burninated
3.3: In Which Things Get Really Out of Hand
3.2: The Stark and Lannister Show
3.1: All Men Just Got Served

Let's start with the positive, because GoD only knows there isn't much of it. The actors on this show are damned fabulous. Generally, they're given crap to work with and they still act their asses off-- particularly Robert Carlyle and, lately, Barbara Hershey and Rose McGowan. Then there's Jane Espenson, fantastic writer. Between her and the actors, they manage to spin shit into sterling silver. (Let's face it, guys. They're not Rumplestiltskin, and their base material isn't even straw.)

There are also moments on Once Upon a Time that are so heartrendingly perfect, though, that every misstep in plotting, characterization, and pacing is thrown into ever more glaring relief.

Here's one: Regina shoved her mother's heart back inside her chest and Cora gave her daughter one brilliant, heart-felt smile of love and adoration. The next moment, she falls dying into Regina's arms. There's just enough life left in her to cry, "This would have been enough. You would have been enough."


No one mourns the wicked: most misleading Broadway song ever.

And another: Rumplestiltskin, earlier in the episode, believes that he may actually die. Belle is still mindwiped and in the hospital, but he wants to reach out to her one last time -- just to thank her, to try to give her some beauty to hold on to. He calls her up and says, "I know that you're confused about who you are, so I'm going to tell you. You are a hero who helped your people. You are a beautiful woman who loved an ugly man. Really, really loved me. You find goodness in others and when it's not there you create it. You make me want to go back, back to the best version of me. And that's never happened before. So when you look in the mirror and you don't know who you are, that's who you are."

This is followed by a heart-wrenching and laugh!sob-inducing moment between Rumplestiltskin and his estranged son Baelfire. It is absolutely no surprise that all of these scenes occurred during Espenson's latest episode, "The Miller's Daughter."

And then there's the rest of it. Let's get started with the grossest offenders, shall we? Each of these points come courtesy of nonsense in 2.13-16, or "Tiny," "Manhattan," "The Queen is Dead," and "The Miller's Daughter."

[Magic beans? Rumplestiltskin don't need no magic beans! And four other idiocies.]

You guys. YOU GUYS. I am so done. I am finished. Send support because I am permattached to my smartphone. Okay, that’s patently untrue. I’m not writing this on my phone (though I COULD BE). My phone is, in fact, charging because I played Ruzzle to the point of the battery’s exhausted collapse. (I wouldn’t let that stop me, but the phone is charging and the outlet’s not near the couch.)

Yeah, I said the R-word. RUZZLE. WHAT.

Have you not heard of Ruzzle? I would ask how could you not, except I only heard about it a week ago. It entered my life as a nonsense word that my (fantastic!) friend Rei kept throwing around. Asking me if I was ruzzlin’. I’d give her a weird look and move on, which is pretty impressive given the number of weird conversations we have. Foolishly, I never asked what it was all about. I think I assumed it was a fashion game I’d seen her playing previously.

Of course, then Rei mentioned it was a word game. And then that shit was on.

Now, I am the beginner’s beginner. I still think I have a hella awesome first round if I break 200 points, and a sweet-ass final round if I break 700. I still fumble with my swiping, and stare dumbly at the screen for a precious second before moving. Needless to say, people are kicking my ass. Rei trounced me 6 times before she took pity on me and went to bed.

Of course, by that point, it wasn’t a mercy. I didn’t care if I was losing. I had to keep playing.

I’ve got 4 games going right now. I feel a bit shaky. My husband is discoursing learnedly to me about Aliens: Colonial Marines and I’m all “wow,” and “really?” and “you don’t say” while my eyes are glued to my smartphone and mentally I’m all “AD DEALS SHADY WED TOTAL FIE FILE FILES WHY ISN’T FAP A WORD IT’S ON THE INTERNET.”

I’d ask you to send help, but I honestly just want you to invite me to a game.

(Username is geekdame, obvs.)

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Recently, I was watching an episode of Once Upon a Time, which meant I was doing a good impression of a potentially disturbed person by cursing at my television, pausing the DVR to hold my head in my hands, and striding around angrily at opportune moments when the characters were particularly stupid. There may even have been wild gesticulations.

What? Don't tell me you don't do this too. You don't? Oh. Well. Just me and maybe SRB then.

In the middle of the episode, ABC did a short preview of Beautiful Creatures, coming soon to a Valentine's Day near you. I perked up a bit as some (questionable) Southern accents rolled off the screen, along with pretty clothes and enthralling golden eyes. What was this? A film based on a contemporary urban fantasy set in the South? With witches? Score!

I seized my Kindle (Lucien II), downloaded Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, and began reading with all haste!

Okay, that's an over-dramatization. I finished the OUAT episode first, and spent some time angrily munching buttered salt and cracked pepper popcorn while bitching about Cora. Then I'm pretty sure there were errands, writing, and cooking a ridiculously delicious chicken marsala. But by bedtime, I was reading Beautiful Creatures!

Unfortunately, it insulted its Southern setting on the very first page. (The setting I was so excited about!) I had hopes it would improve.

It didn't.

There are a couple of things you should know about this novel...

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Once Upon a Time! Why do you keep hitting yourself? More importantly, why do you keep hitting your AUDIENCE?

Look. I really like you, okay. Like, REALLY like you. I don’t want to break up. You fill an important place in my life, and you’re making fairy tales more seriously mainstream even with all your missteps. You’re doing valuable work.

We could be so much more together.

I mean, you do some stuff right. You employ Robert Carlyle. Brilliant decision on your part. You also sometimes manage to demonstrate just how thorny and nuanced fairy tales truly are! It’s not all Prince Charmings and True Love’s Kiss, but also hard work and blood and pain and betrayal and hard decisions. You prize cleverness and goodness, and show where wickedness can have genuinely good intentions or innocent beginnings. Props where props are due.

But you’ve gotta stop abusing my trust. Full stop. “The Outsider” and– more importantly– the character of Belle screams this in big sparkly letters:

(I will cut you with my literalness.)

Here are 5 things I’m gonna need you to cut the hell out, right now:

1. Your OTP of Belle/Captivity. 

One of Belle’s key quotes from this series is “No one decides my fate but me.” This is terribly ironic, since she can’t seem to stay out of captivity. Her story begins in captivity, though her first captor has the decency to fall in love with her and set her free. Then she’s locked up by the Evil Queen in two different worlds, and freed only thanks to the intervention of a certain Mad Hatter. (Jefferson! You sexy bitch!)  Next, her own father organized her kidnapping and imprisonment in a runaway mine car, since he thought mindwiping her was such a better fate than being in love with Rumpelstiltskin. (Wow. That’s quality parenting.) Then there was that time that Ruby shackled her in the library for her own good. ‘The Outsider” had her briefly trapped in an elevator, briefly cornered on a ship, and finally showed her capture by the Evil Queen back in FTL. And I missing any? Probably.

I would just really like an entire episode about Belle where she is not consigning herself into captivity, being threatened because of who she loves, being kidnapped, being locked up for her own good, or being aggressively told to stay out of things for her own good.

2. Your Allergy to Montages.

You know what can help a story that’s small due to time and budget constraints seem longer than it is? A montage. Trey Parker wrote a song about it and everything. In Once Upon a Time, we’re asked to believe that Belle and Rumpelstiltskin developed an entire relationship based on one fall from the curtains and incredibly brief repartee as Belle – well, there’s just no other way to say this. As Belle prunes a rose that used to be her former suitor to better fit him into a vase.

That’s just one example of the brief, slipshod storytelling OUAT has periodically asked us to swallow. Another? How about Belle tracking down the Yaoguai in a few brief hours, and then doing it all again with Mulan before the day was out? (Sorry, guys, last time I checked, actual people experienced with the actual woods beat book-learnin’ every time. Books are a great place to start, but nothing trumps experience in tracking. Which Mulan has tons of. This should have been adjusted to involve them having to work together rather than Belle just being more capable because of her book.)

Montage! Why the hell did neither of these situations call for a montage? For fucks’ sake, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast does the romance better! WITH A MONTAGE! And I would have liked Belle’s adventure to have lasted a few weeks, which tracking down a ravening fiery beast that is tricksy enough to hide for weeks from a skilled (former) member of the Chinese army seems to call for.

3. Your Supernatural Inconsistency.

So, Ruby. Werewolf, right? Very tragic back-story. Killed her boyfriend Peter. (Wow, that Russian story did NOT turn out like we thought.) Has to wear a red cloak to prevent herself from changing, which is okay, since it’s pretty bitchin’. (Red Riding Hood-lover here, trufax.) Learned control, lives with grandma (who doesn’t need no huntsman, no how), almost got killed by a mob a few episodes ago.

You know what she also did just a few episodes ago? She smelled a piece of clothing that Belle had been wearing, and successfully followed her fading scent across a number of streets before losing it.

She tracked Belle. A person relatively new in her life. By scent. In the middle of a small town.

So… why the fuck did she not realize the corpse in “The Cricket Game” (and, considering the funeral, in “The Outsider”) wasn’t Archie? I suppose you could argue that Cora disguised the corpse so thoroughly that she also replicated Archie’s scent, but. She didn’t even thoroughly disguise herself as Regina well enough to fool PONGO. Ruby was ACROSS THE STREET when Cora-as-Regina walked into Archie’s office. Intentionally letting Ruby see her. If she knows a werewolf is in town, paraded her disguise right in front of said werewolf, and yet couldn’t even entirely fool Pongo? I don’t feel comfortable buying she replicated all-things-Archie in the corpse.

This isn’t the only bit of supernatural inconsistency on the show, of course. Just the one that annoyed me here in “The Outsider.” Let’s not get lost in the finer points of heart-removal or the mind-boggling logistics of a child growing up in a cursed town where time didn’t move for anyone else.

 4. Your Obsession With Snowing. 

Okay, fine, your love story between Snow White and Prince Charming was the central focus of S1. You know what, though? You’ve beaten it to death. TO DEATH. I was sick and tired of Mary Margaret and David by the middle of the first season, and I’m not the only one. I actually snicker now when they invoke their “I will always find you” shtick  Yes. You will. We know this. There’s no narrative tension there anymore. The series has grown so far beyond them, that it’d be nice for other interpersonal relationships to get more screen time. Like Belle and Rumpelstiltskin. Considering that relationship involves a man’s bitter struggle to redeem himself, I assure you that it’s infinitely more interesting than your two goody-goodies who are firmly entrenched as a couple.

Here, I’ll give you a list of relationships that need more screen time: Emma/August, Emma/Neal, Emma/Jefferson, Emma/Regina, Emma/Anyone, Regina/Anyone, Grumpy/Nova, Ruby/Archie, Ruby/Woods, Belle/Freedom, Belle/Rumpelstiltskin, Hook/Getting-Beaten-by-Things, Cora/Regret, etc. ad nauseam. (I am aware some of these relationships don’t exist. But they COULD.)

Hell, we don’t even have to spend the screen time on romantic relationships. There are plenty of parent-child relationships that desperately need the time. Here’s another list: Emma/Henry, Regina/Henry, Regina/Standing-Up-to-Cora, Jefferson/Grace, Geppetto/August, Belle/Moe, Snow White/Emma, Charming/Emma, and yeah.

Less time on Snowing, please, more time on anything else.

5. Your Habit of Fridging/Compromising Promising Heroines.

 

This is the most egregious fault, OUAT. Just. Look. You do know that Mulan joined the Chinese army and distinguished herself there, right? She had training? As a warrior? Also, she’s really remarkably clever. Yet so far, in OUAT, you’ve had her aver that she was Phillip’s best chance against the wraith and then do nothing once she found him but cling to Aurora and scream? Flat-out run away from ogres? At least she fought some undead. But then, in a flashback story with her fresh out of the army, you made her an abominable tracker and had her send a bookish adventurer on her own to deal with a rampaging demon. I don’t care if she was wounded! Mulan would have wrapped that fucking leg, and hobbled down there on a damn crutch if she had to. She was the one with martial training, and she would have been invaluable in directing Belle.

I know that’s not really fridging, so let’s move on to Belle. Belle was so promising. As arguably my favorite Disney “princess,” I’ve always valued her bookishness, compassion, and thirst for adventure. I had hopes that the show would develop her as more than Rumpelstiltskin’s chance at redemption, but a full-fledged character in her own right. Instead, we get flashes and hints that she is, but no meat. We don’t even get a good look at how the Rumbelle romance is actually developing. Instead, with the most screen time since she was last kidnapped, “The Outsider” gives us a taste of Belle’s glorious potential — only to rip it all away in a horribly literal way thanks to Hook and the accursed town line.

I’m sure it’s going to be reversed, and there’s the potential that we’ll see what Belle is really made of as she struggles back to herself. It’s equally likely that it’ll be broken with magic and very little effort on her part. But none of that matters here, because the character was compromised just to cause Rumpelstiltskin pain.

Oh well. At least Hook got hit by a car.

Once Upon a Time Are You Kidding Me? out.

 

Note: I made the glittery banner using cooltext.com. The amazing Hook/Car GIF was done by wondertwinc over on Tumblr.

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Welcome to “Once Upon A Are You Kidding Me?”, a new tradition I just started that will bring you the best worst parts of Once Upon a Time and maybe stop me from wanting to punch various members of the Charming family in the face. (But probably not.)

Hiatus is over, and this show is back with a ship-load of mommy issues. That ain’t even a metaphor. There’s a literal ship. Cora’s on it, so you know Storybrooke’s fucked for the foreseeable future.

Just before the winter break, we found out that Cora was the Queen of Hearts (seriously, did anyone NOT see that coming?), that Regina sent Hook to kill her mommy dearest (because she has a soft side, but not THAT soft), and that her mom still outmatches her at Evil Queening and meant to leap out of the coffin Regina put her in and put Regina in it instead (or something involving removable hearts, I don’t know).

Of course, then Regina told her mom’s corpse that she still loved her and Cora decided to go back to the emotional manipulation and torture rather than skipping straight to death. She only wants what’s best for her daughter, you’ll see!

This brings us right up to the point of my post: How do you solve a problem like Regina?

I am a sucker for redemption storylines, which means that Regina has my undivided attention this season. Okay, that’s a lie. Robert Carlyle still owns me on this show, and continues to be my main reason for watching it. He has a fever… and the only solution… is more scenery-chewing!

Okay, that’s another post entirely. Back to Regina. Redemption storylines and lost children and broken people just trying to make families work are pretty much my narrative bread and butter. Emma’s relationship with Henry is what drew me into this show, but it’s turning into Regina’s relationship with Henry that’s keeping me coming back (apart from the RC).

I appreciate that Regina was essentially the Devil in Fabulous Couture (look, she wore a lot more than the occasional blue dress) in FTL, but I’m thinking that Storybrooke needs to take a page out of the Fabletown Charter here and get to making a General Amnesty. I mean, Regina’s not the only baddie running around. Why the hell did no one immediately worry about King George when the curse broke? If I was David, even with all the other shit going down, I sure as hell would have spared a thought for my estranged, murderous quasi-adoptive dad. I’m also sure there’s a variety of witches, trolls, evil dukes, murderous husbands, and the like likewise lurking about the place. We need organization, trials, and amnesty-granting-if-applicable. Stat.

But going beyond that, Storybrooke has been treated as the land of Second Chances for so many of these characters. In a way, it’s their afterlife, complete with personally tailored trials leading to enlightenment . The alleged ultimate Good Guys should be standing firm and making sure Regina gets as much of a fair shake as everyone else, assuming she’s willing to put the work in.

Wait, I didn’t even tell you what I was bitching about. See, Archie supposedly got murdered this episode. Here’s what’s ridiculous about “The Cricket Game”:

1. Police procedure? Fuck police procedure. If you think that Emma set up a police cordon, documented evidence, or engaged in any forensic procedures at all, you’d be sadly mistaken. She just ran in and looked at a corpse. She did not even order an autopsy of said corpse, even though there was no apparent physical evidence of how death occurred. Instead, she immediately listened to circumstantial evidence from a biased third party.

2. Dog memories! Fuck sense impressions and the fact Pongo knew it wasn’t actually Regina. Instead of utilizing any forensic procedures, Emma decided to embrace MAGIC. She doesn’t understand magic, nor does she understand how magic might be manipulated to tell a different story. She doesn’t even wonder if maybe a human trying to interpret a dog’s memories – something based on smell as much as sight – might not give them a perfect picture of events. (This was maddening, especially since we-the-audience know that Pongo knew Regina wasn’t Regina in the murder scene. There may have been yelling at the television.) But, hey, Emma didn’t think forensic science was useful at all! So why should she be logical enough to realize maybe she’s not precisely equipped to translate a dog’s memories?

Also, guys: their star witness is a dog, and not even a dog that can talk. No special intelligence there. Just a dog.

3. Magic! Fuck the fact we know we have it and it can do shit like make disguises. There’s magic loose in Storybrooke now. Everyone seems to be assuming that only Rumpelstiltskin and Regina have it (since there’s no reliable reserve of fairy dust), which definitely blows my mind. See aforementioned comment about how there are probably all kinds of witches and sea-witches and the like running around. There are a lot of fairy tales, guys, and plenty of naughty magic-users in them. Emma knows nothing about magic or how it works, so she should be assuming that magic can do ANYTHING. Her supposed super-power told her Regina didn’t know Archie was dead. You’d think she would have theorized magic was used to frame Regina – the most hated woman in town – before they went straight to dog memories.

4. Redemption! Fuck your redemption, Emma’s the only one who gets to redeem herself for her son. It pisses me off to no end that Regina’s positive actions are completely ignored by the so-called Good Guys on the show. Snow White is supposed to be this incredibly compassionate woman who has wanted nothing more than to see Regina trying to fix things.  Somehow, however, she completely misses that Regina risked her own life to open the well for her and Emma. And I guess Charming never bothered to fill her in on what Regina did to stop Daniel, aka her One True Love, aka the source of her conflict with Snow. All to save Henry! (Okay, so Charming doesn’t know what precisely happened. He does know Daniel disappeared.) The characterization of Snow, Emma, and Charming is horribly inconsistent when it comes to Regina.

Then there’s this, from “The Price of Gold”:

Followed by this in “The Cricket Game”:

Way to not be a hypocrite, Emma.

5. Mothering! Fuck the fact that I should support what you want, I’m gonna isolate you and abuse the hell out of you. Horowitz and Kitsis are on record as saying that the motivation for every single character in this show comes down to love. In the case of Cora, this makes me horribly sick. She is the consummate abuser, and, yes, it’s true that love and abuse can be so very tangled that you can’t separate one from the other. It’s also true that the abusive parent or spouse is a very basic premise in a number of fairy tales, a way of teaching people that those who love you (or should love you) can still hurt you in terrible ways and that it’s okay to fight back. It’s still awfully uncomfortable to watch, and makes me root for Regina even more and even despite the awful things she’s done that still require atonement.

Look, it’s okay if the show wants to break Regina down to her most basic parts, so that all that’s left is her and she can choose to stand back up as a decent person. I don’t mind that all. Very Inanna of them. Yes, please, let this glorious goddess be broken so she can remake herself. What I do hate is stupid writing, and stupid writing is what’s driving this plot. Characters are making bad decisions. That are out of character.

At least the show’s not falling down too terribly on the dialogue front, and let me tell you: the Evil Queens continue to have the best damn dialogue on this show. To wit, two awesome barbs thrown by Regina and Cora this episode:

Dr. Hopper: I said nothing specific. I would never betray the doctor-patient confidentiality.
Regina: Doctor? Doctor?! Need I remind you, you got your PhD from a curse!

* * *

Hook: If that’s him, then who did you kill?
Cora: How do I know? It’s my first day in town.

Once Upon A Are You Kidding Me? out. We’ll meet here again the next time OUAT is the worst.

 

Once Upon a Time GIFs courtesy of athomewithlana and vollha, both on Tumblr. If I’ve mis-attributed any gifsets, please let me know and I’ll correct my mistake.

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Everyone ready for some Journey?

Whoa, wait. Put down the karaoke mic. And you, in the corner. If you don’t stop “don’t stop BELIEVIN’” under your breath, I’m going to strangle you with this microphone cord. (Not really.) (Really.)

Journey. For the PlayStation 3. By thatgamecompany. Won a ridiculous number of awards, including Game of the Year from GameSpot, Entertainment Weekly, IGN, etc. The musical score has been nominated for a Grammy. Here’s a promo image to make sure we’re on the same page:

I picked this up from the PSN just after Christmas, when it was on sale for $7 and some change. If we’re going to be friends, there are some things you should know about me: I can’t resist the color red. Seriously, if you put anything red and shiny in front of me, you will capture my attention. I’m worse than Jeremy the crow over here. (That is an oldschool The Secret of NIMH reference, educate yourselves.) Furthermore, I have a not-so-secret yen for Lisa Snellings’ poppet figurines and this entire game can basically be construed as the universe next door to Snellings’ Poppet Planet. Except without the creepiness some people insist the poppets carry. (People who won’t let me bring any of those poppets home. Not naming any husband names here.)

I don't suppose I'm helping my own point here.

Read the rest of the review at my site!

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“The Snowmen,” 2012’s Christmas special of Doctor Who, has absolutely restored my excitement for this series about adventure and time travel and a “madman with a box.” That sense of wonder, eroded by lackluster episodes in the first half of Series 7, was alive and kicking in this holiday story of killer psychic snow and a contrary governess.

Seriously, after finishing it, all I could do was flail and shout “I AM EXCITE.” I’m sure my husband would’ve been annoyed if he weren’t doing his own version of the same.

This episode was a winner in spite of itself: it’s pretty weak as a standalone, and the villain did not impress. Can we just talk for a minute about how disappointing it is that the Great Intelligence ended up being both irrelevant and forgettable? I’ve got two names for you: Richard E. “I have waited so long to become canonical!” Grant and Ian “I am the boss” McKellen. Richard E. Grant is apparently such a fan of Doctor Who that he’s played the Doctor in two different non-canonical works¹ and finally managed to land the role of a villain on the show itself. Ian McKellen is, of course, the might of Gandalf, Magneto, Iorek Byrnison and himself combined -- he is not a person to be trifled with. So why stick them with a talking snowglobe and an army of snowmen driven by the petulance of a misanthropic 8-year-old? There was a deeper story available there that could have mined the GI’s longing for corporeal form and Dr. Walter Simeon’s longing to be alone. Mined them like a pathos-miner.

Hey, remember that time the Doctor pretended to be Sherlock Holmes when he barged into Simeon’s office for the first time? Remember how terrible at it he was? That’s even more evident once you remember the Doctor faced the GI twice before. Even if that was nine incarnations ago, you’d think the Doctor would have put it together before the very end of the episode. Oh well, at least it explains why the GI had RoboYeti’s terrorizing the London Underground almost a century later.

RoboYetis: not kidding.

Read more: Here’s what made the episode! And it involves GIFs, not even gonna lie.

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