#ice pick

vox gets lobotomized

Someone whom I like and respect a great deal talked about how Teen Wolf could be infuriatingly amateur one moment and deeply compelling the next. This is, unfortunately, true. On the other hand, they used one example of the show's supposed tonal confusion that I feel they deeply misunderstood: the scene in which Erica strutted into the cafeteria in Ice Pick (2x03).

To paraphrase my mutual, they felt like this scene could have been in High School Musical, the way it seemed completely opposed to the tone of what happening during the rest of the season: the ongoing Hale/Argent feud, the threat of the kanima, and the slow disintegration of Scott McCall's relationships. And my reply is -- well, that was the point.

The scene is shot in a very surreal way; the soundtrack comes to the foreground and the scene follows its beat. Erica's entrance commands the attention of everyone in the room. Lydia's reaction, while hilarious, is also over the top, exactly how it would be if the Queen Bee/Mean Girl caricature, one that the audience once was led to believe was Lydia's true self, was being threatened in a teen-age sitcom. It feels like a fantasy.

And that's exactly what it is: Erica's fantasy. Erica's scenes before this one have contained the recognizable dreariness of a girl who feels she is being sidelined in her own life by things beyond her control. Later on in the season, we'll hear about more instances of Erica's miserable pre-Bite life. This strut is the consequence of what Derek offered her in the morgue, and exactly why she accepted. She's bit into the apple offered by the serpent in the garden.

Instead of epilepsy, she has beauty. Instead of being ridiculed for pissing herself during a seizure, everyone wants her. Instead of being powerless, she has freedom. And that's the key, isn't it? "It’s true. It is about power," Derek tells Scott. How many people have dreamed about their life getting better if their power fantasy just happened to come true?

Of course, fantasies are very often the prelude to horror in Teen Wolf. Erica still has epilepsy; it will come back if she gets poisoned too often by Jackson the lizard monster. Everyone does want her, including the Argents who chase her and Boyd through the woods with Beau Geste recordings and ATVs. And her freedom is brief, because she will be locked in a bank vault and finally killed by an alpha with more power than her.

And, tellingly, this is not just Erica's fantasy. Think of the very next scene when she gets into the car with Derek in front of a chagrined Scott. Derek's smile is a taunt to Scott, but it is, in many ways, sincere. Derek is happy. He's made Erica's life better; he was right in what he said to Scott and Scott was obviously wrong to reject him. (Of course, there will come a time when he's holding Erica's corpse, and he won't be so happy.)

Ice Pick (practice) - game i made up that can be played with a random number generator

Slate 0 (start)

37. mob, 10. gender

Killua and Gon are at a carnival. Everyone came dressed up in colorful, whimsical attire, making the two of them feel like they stick out too much. Gon steps over a dropped cotton candy on his way to a fishing game with fluffy prizes hung all over the tent. Killua follows in good humor, wondering who would abandon a perfectly good treat.

A handsome man manages the fishing booth. Seeing the two kids walk in, he's already getting ready. "Hello, kids. Interested in playing?"

"I want to get the big whale up there," Gon says, pointing to a whale on the wall behind him. "You're quite ambitious. I like the spirit."

"I'm from Whale Island, so I thought it'd be funny." Gon smiles, and Killua blushes, finding it cute. "You don't have to announce that wherever you go, you know that, right?" Killua huffs, thinking about the privacy concerns.

"If it's a whale you're after, you need 30 points." Hisoka says, in good spirit. "You can get 10 points in a game if you play your cards right. Blue fish are 1 point, red fish are 2, purple fish are 4. But my fish are a little tricky, you see."

"What do you mean?" Gon asks, naive. Killua eyes them, looking for anything that could make them harder to catch.

"Just try. You have three minutes." Hisoka hands him a kiddie pole with fake bait on it. Gon dangles it over the pool, trying to get one of the purple fish. Every time it sees the bait, it runs away, so Gon relegates himself to a red fish. Those, too, are easily spooked, but they're more interested in the bait than the purple ones. Gon hooks one, then two. 4 points.

Assuming the blue fish will be easy, he hooks two and loses a third. 6. Having a little time left, he hunts for the purple one, watching it carefully to track its path in the water. Once he understands its patterns, he gently rests the bait in the water where he thinks it will swim to next and stays deathly still. It bites, and he hooks it out of the water, feeling satisfied that he'd gotten at least one.

"The game's over. 10 points! Good job, kid." Hisoka looks amused as he writes down the kid's score. The fish are released back into the water and Gon is aching to try again. "Another go?" "Sure."

Gon wins the game fast, racking up two purple fish and a red fish. Killua watches carefully, thinking he could probably do it even faster.

"Hey, let me try." "Okay!" Gon hands Killua the pole.

Killua tries for the same pattern, but he can't focus as much as Gon can. The wiggly movements of the fish stress him out too much, and he can't figure out why the purple fish are so untouchably disinterested in the bait. He ends up catching 5 red fish instead.

"That makes 30 points, if your friend is willing to donate." Hisoka says, arching an eyebrow in curiosity at the friendship dynamics between the two boys. Gon looks like a puppy. "Would you?"

"Oh, uh." Killua looks away. "Well, I wasn't really interested in any of the prizes here, so...sure." "Yay!"

Hisoka unhooks the whale from the display and puts it in Gon's arms. Gon is ecstatic, practically shivering in excitement. "Look! It's even bigger than it looked up there!" "You sure you can carry that?" "Uh-huh!"

The whale stays with them through their trip, even hanging out with them at a picnic bench while they eat crepes together.

"I'm happy you're my friend." Gon says, eyeing Killua. Killua laughs. "Don't get all gay on me." "But it's true. So what if I'm a little gay."

Killua blinks. Does he really mean that? "W-well, just shut up and kiss me already, if you're gonna act like that." "Okay." Gon kisses him on the cheek unexpectedly.

Oh. So it's like that.