#excellent analysis

I really want to know what's going on in Darren's head. What does he see when DJ is speaking about the stand off in the studio? A mirror from 2 decades ago? A familiar tune starting in a new refrain?

DJ isn't Darren, and I think their differences will be the key here, not their similarities, because we all know what Darren at that age would - and DID do. But this incredible story you've built is called Things Fall Apart, not Things Stay The Same. We break generational cycles of trauma here, and I believe in this new, rock steady, not little DJ.

But at the end of it all is poor Elise. She's going to suffer twice at this funeral - burying her husband, and dealing with whatever starts between her son and DJ, and however it ends. It's always the people who don't deserve it that get hurt the most.

THIS!!! THISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

i encourage you to read the whole thing, but here are my favorite bits:

"But then much of the centrist manosphere’s rhetoric is predicated on refusing to see half of what’s in front of you."

"What these pundits are nudging us to do, ever so politely, is accept that women, in the main, are accustomed to being a little degraded, a little underpaid and ignored and dampened in their ambitions, in ways that men are not and never will be. The “female-coded” person [...] may feel overwhelmed by child-care costs, ashamed that she can’t acquire a mortgage, or hollowed out by long hours as an I.C.U. nurse, but such feelings do not disturb the order of the universe. This person’s duties to protect, provide, and procreate are real, but they do not take the capital “P.” This person’s opinions matter, but not decisively."

I am less charmed by these same romance-unfamiliar critics opining that the show is all sex, no plot; that its quality can’t be judged or understood, because all the sex is throwing off the scale; and that it’s not doing anything new or interesting, just sex. Since I’ve gotten tired of howling the sex is the plot!!!!! at my computer screen, I’d like to take a few minutes to explain how these sex scenes are working to advance the, yes, plot.

“If you want more originality in Hollywood, you know what’s not going to solve that problem? F*cking ChatGPT! AI does not create original ideas, because it can’t. It doesn’t have unique life experience or a sense of humor that it can draw upon - it is a glorified search engine that just plagiarizes a bunch of elements of already existing human creations, and regurgitates it onto a word document[…] And on the topic of AI […] to me it’s not even a matter of if an entire show could be written by ChatGPT, it’s that even if it can, I don’t give a sh*t! I have negative interest in watching an algorithmically generally show written by software[…] I like watching tv and movies because they’re a celebration of human creativity. I wanna see people tell stories about their lives, or turn hard times into art, because it’s incredible that it’s even possible to do that.”

Wow - best analysis met I have read in a while - this one is actually worthy of discussion!

There’s been a lot written about him in the Buffy academic circles and the thing that gets harped on the most is the clear fact that Spike is the most perceptive character on the show. He immediately sees what’s going on with each member of the gang, usually things they haven’t revealed to anyone. Not even themselves. This goes all the way back to the very beginning. We’re introduced to him via his relationship with Drusilla, a character that nobody understands but him.