Reasons I Adore MyMusic

I posted something a while back advertising MyMusic as my "favourite thing of the week". The thing is that it's grown beyond that and is now one of my obsessions I'm currently juggling, between Whose Line, the Buffyverse and this.

The thing is that I'm not quite sure why I love it as much as I do. I mean, it's a sitcom, and it has its funny moments, but I don't think that that's what got me into it the same way that Whose Line and Community was like that. So what exactly did get me into it?

The relationships between the characters. That's what did it.

I think that I see a reflection of my friend group in the cast of MyMusic. A bunch of very different people with very different tastes, but who generally accept each other for who they are and work together as a team nevertheless (except for the latest episodes in which they drive a professional team-builder to the brink of insanity, but that's not the point).

Let me give you a solid introduction to what this is about:

There are (originally) eight main characters to the show, each named after the genre of music they're into (because "Broad stereotypes are so much easier to remember than names"). They are as follows:

Indie:

Culkin.

Resident hipster. Founder of the MyMusic production company. He can't like anything that's liked by anyone else. His favourite things to say include "You've probably never heard of it", "That's so played out", "It's ironic", and "That's so mainstream". He also made up his own synonym for the word cool called "Culkin", which every MyMusician knows to be the highest compliment Indie can give. He's kind of a jerk, really. Only one person on the show has ever brought out anything resembling a soft side in him, and that would be:

Scene:

I'm Scene, you see!

One of the two interns working at the production company. Often mistaken for being emo, but she's not emo, silly, she's Scene, you see! :D The most naive, innocent one in the show. I'm pretty sure she never actually works, but instead scrolls through Tumblr all day and watches Youtube videos like nyan cat, or Youtubers like Danisnotonfire (which is something I can kinda get behind). Loves anime, wears too much eyeliner. No one in the production company gets her. She's around teenagerish age, and she screams incoherent noises on a regular basis when she's happy, which is most of the time. She also cries everyday at two PM, don't ask her why, she doesn't know, she just knows it has something to do with Tumblr. She may be naive and innocent (which she totally is), but she's the only one in the cast who really inspires any kind of sympathy from other characters. She also has a huge crush on Indie, don't ask me why, I don't get it. Being an intern, and Indie being a jerk, she has to share a desk with the other intern who she's made friends with, aptly named:

Intern 2:

F-f-f-flowcharts are the best

Doesn't like any specific style of music, hence the name. In fact, he was specifically designed to be the most bland character in existence. He's probably the only one there who gets any work done. Possibly gets off on doing work, especially with flowcharts. Don't ask me why. Extremely loyal to his company, considering the abuse he gets put through. He doesn't have particular taste in music, which "doesn't really fly" at MyMusic, and as a result most characters have an arbitrary hatred for him, so he gets regularly abused. As far as I can remember, he's been strangled, beat up, had drinks thrown in his face, used as an ottoman on a regular basis, had his computer smashed, I'm pretty sure Indie once told someone "You can eat him if you want", nearly been fired, head dunked in the toilet, and oh yeah, he's been shot twice. The show's catchphrase is "Shut up Intern 2". Poor guy's got it rough man. There are only two characters who consider themselves friends with Intern 2, and that would be Scene, and:

Nerdcore:

Keep calm and DFTBA

Previously known as Hip Hop. Head of marketing at MyMusic. During all of season 1, he was known as Hip Hop, and he would listen to all the hardcore rap and stuff and be all gangster, until eventually Intern 2 found out that he was actually a poser and was in fact secretly a nerd. It is a grave offense at MyMusic to be found out as a poser (you usually get dragged to the rats) so he and Intern 2 kept that secret until, in an attempt to save the rest of the staff from being fired, he came out as a nerd. It took Indie a little bit to get over his nerdophobia, but eventually he did and Hip Hop got renamed Nerdcore. It is worth mentioning that Nerdcore and Intern 2 have a very notable bromance going on here. In season 1, Intern 2 saved Hip Hop from being found out as a poser and took the fall for having Daughtry on his iPod (everyone at MyMusic has an arbitrary hatred for Daughtry as well. I dunno) since everyone hated him anyways, and then an episode or two later Hip Hop saved Intern 2 from being fired. They're just adorable. Though he and Indie had a strong bond when he was Hip Hop, the bond seems to be stronger with the rest of the staff now that's Nerdcore, because he can genuinely talk to Scene about anime, or talk to a fellow fan of Game of Thrones:

Metal:

What would Jamie King of Slayer do?

The newest addition to MyMusic. Head of production. Has major anger management issues. This isn't new metal, what with Korn or Linkin Park or whatever, this is old-school metal, Slayer and Iron Maiden and stuff. He has problems with authority ("Duh, I'm metal!"), and as a result he's once held the office hostage while Indie was out of commission, locked them in a room and renamed the place Metal Town. Yep. So in some respects he's irresponsible, what with the head-banging and the temper and whatnot, but on the other hand, he has a family. Yep. When he was twelve he got his girlfriend pregnant at a Coal Chamber concert ("We kissed, and then I don't even know what happened"), they had a shotgun wedding, and now his wife has abandoned her metal ways and become a typical fifties house-wife while his fifteen year old daughter, Rayna (who notably had a crush on Intern 2, which forced Metal, in a fit of rage, to... let's say torment him. Yeah, I'll not spoil that tidbit) is just an average teenage girl of today, obsessing over Justin Bieber and One Direction and Metal's there wondering where he went wrong. He's developed a respect for Indie as head of the office, but because of his problems with authority he has butted heads with:

Idol:

She totes invented the duck face. Hashtag natural flawlessness.

The exact opposite of Indie. Head of social media. Everything she likes is the most mainstream stuff out there. All pop all the time. Her name actually derives from the fact that she is a fan of anyone who ever won American Idol. She's shallow, but thoughtfully so, who knows what she wants and what she wants to accomplish, even if the things she wants to accomplish are rather airheadish. Her outer image is very important to her, her social media is very important to her, and her job is very important to her. Fact, she defines herself by being a working woman. A coupla layers there. For a while there, she became a raver rather than her reality TV show watching self, because of:

Techno and Dubstep:

They are plurfect. Boom zubawub brznx. 

Who you would think I would define separately, but in fact they're never apart, and nor shall they be here. They're a perfect duo. They handle talent bookings and stuff like that, but really they're just a coupla ravers dancing all day. They're practically a couple by how much time they spend together. Also, Dubstep can only speak dubstep language, and only Techno can understand him/translate for others, so they're basically perfect for each other. Dubstep seems to be the one who takes himself less seriously, while Techno seems quite easily insulted and is quick to retaliate. They're rather disconnected from the rest of the office - there aren't a whole lot of storylines that connect them to the rest of the office for whatever reason, probably because they never actually leave their office/dance party long enough to actually talk to anyone. I love them. They're adorable. :)

Much like my other obsessions, it's an ensemble thing, and so the relationships between the characters play a huge role in the appeal of the show, like Intern 2 and Nerdcore's bromance (they recently hosted an episode of Tumblr Tuesday where they briefly suggested their ship name be Intercore. I died of laughter xD) or Idol and Metal's constant competition for authority, or the dynamic between Indie and Hip Hop/Nerdcore. Not to mention the fact that the show is filled with amazing moments that should be remembered in history of great moments in Internetainment, from the kissing scene in "They Finally Kiss!" to Hip Hop and Intern 2's scene in "State of Shock" to the entire episode of "Party Time!" to the Flowchart Song in "Return of the Hipster" to the group from 4chan in "One Will Die" to the entire episode of "Ghosts" .... the list can go on and on. These are all moments I've watched multiple times just because I love them so much.

Another thing about this show? I sell it as this stupid, ridiculous gimmicky thing, which in some ways it is, but it also has a pretty important theme, which is that no one is just one thing. The characters all begin as one-note stereotypes in an effort to show you how ridiculous it is to stereotype people or think you know everything about a person based on what clothes they wear or what music they listen to. Who would have guessed that Hip Hop was a nerd, or that Metal had a family (actually, to be fair, they were kinda foreshadowing that Hip Hop was not what he seemed, BUT THE POINT STILL STANDS).

On a more behind-the-scenes level, MyMusic is sorta the first of its kind. First of all, the blend of Youtube stars and television stars is awesome - the makers stand by the idea that entertainment is entertainment, so why not have traditional entertainers and Youtube entertainers unite and work together for a common goal? (It's because of this idea that my favourite Youtuber ever on earth in the world is now good friends with an actor from Buffy MY WORLDS ARE COLLIDING I CANNOT HANDLE THIS!) As a result of this, the show stars traditional actors like Adam Busch and Lainey Lipson and Jarrett Sleeper along with Youtube stars like Grace Helbig and Jack Douglass. I just find this awesome because, when you think about it, working on Youtube and working on TV are fundamentally different, so when you put the two together you end up with this refreshing, unified piece of content that manages to balance the good aspects from television with the good aspects of the Internet.

Not only that, but the show NEVER BREAKS THE FOURTH WALL. As in, ever. They work pretty  hard to make the MyMusic universe as non-fictional as possible. They accomplish this by creating AND MAINTAINING Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr/Google+/Spotify/everything accounts for not only the main characters, but also minor recurring characters, like the Shaman, the Viking - even Scarfman has a Twitter account. AND HE'S MADE OF SCARVES.

Fact, here's a list of all the social media accounts they've created (a few of them are inactive because the character may have died or something, but most of them are still active). IT'S BOTH INCREDIBLE AND COMPLETELY INSANE.

They also accomplish this by acknowledging the fact that MyMusic is a production company that creates content to do with music and also other things, so every week four shows come out of the MyMusic production company NOT including the so-called "documentary" which is really the main sitcom. Not to mention the fact that they also maintain a MyMusic blog in which every character writes posts about what's new in music or pop culture or whatever.

So if you don't yet understand why that makes it awesome, let me sum it up for you:

A) The characters are all very different, making the relationships between them very interesting.

2) It's filled with moments that will make you want to rewatch them over and over again.

C) For such a ridiculous show, the theme is actually something pretty thought-provoking.

4) It mixes traditional television style entertainment with modern internet style entertainment in a way that just WORKS.

E) THERE'S ALWAYS SOMETHING GOING ON IN THE MYMUSIC UNIVERSE. It may be shown on the social medias, it may be shown in the other shows or just the plain old sitcom, but much like real life, the MyMusic world NEVER STOPS. Which is pretty damn admirable on the part of the writers.

And now, obligatory awesome pictures.

"You're the Amy Pond to my Matt Smith! Companions to the end!" THE BROMANCE IS REAL. LOOK HOW ADORABLE THEY ARE.

Oh, Intern 2 and his flowcharts. Look how happy he looks. One true pairing right here.

"Quickly! Everyone overdramatically do something so they don't think we were looking at them!"

R.I.P Jacques-Andre Larrivee

People who know me may have heard me talk about my larger-than-life french teacher, Monsieur Larrivee. He liked and definitely cared about all his students, though regularly got irritated with me not for talking too much but for not talking enough. He had the shyest kid in class stand on their desk and shout. He had nicknames for so many of his students; Alexis was High-maintenance, Josh was Diva, Emerald was Vert (which means green in french), Liv was Blondie. The two Iranian kids were his Atomic Bombs, which often brought him complaints about being racist, but in fact he was just being hilarious, and he always made clear that if he did offend anyone we were free to call him out on it. During the first class he told us that it was okay to swear in class, just so long as we swore in french, and after every class he would bid us play in traffic. Sometimes I thought he was a little cruel, sometimes I thought he was downright hilarious, but I realized after that semester that I'd never learned more at school than in that class.

It's worth mentioning, probably, that Larrivee had the largest collection of frogs ever. Over eight hundred. He doesn't even like frogs. The classroom was absolutely stuffed with stuffies and knickknacks and posters and pictures of frogs everywhere. This started because when he first began teaching, way back in the seventies, he told his first class he had, "Yes, I'm a frog," the racial slur for frenchman. At the end of the semester, as a joke, the class presented him with a frog as a gift. And that continued up until last year, when Larrivee retired and gave all his frogs and various other items to students of his.

We were among his last classes he ever taught, and not only that, we were his favourite that year. He often told us that. Everyone who'd ever had Larrivee for a teacher loved him, even if he could be a little harsh at times. He told us at the beginning of the semester that by the end he'd have an adjective for all of us, and he told us at the end. Mine was "intellectual". I'd never associated that word with myself before, and now I realize that it's both flattering and fitting.

He retired last year at the end of the first semester.

A couple days ago, while vacationing in Japan, he had a heart attack and died.

Of all the things that could have killed him. He was old, but he was healthy. He'd walked to school from his place every day, and I'm sure he stayed just as healthy after he retired. After battling cancer on multiple occasions, taking chemotherapy three or four times, after all that, he died of a heart attack in Japan.

Larrivee may have seemed like little more than a bitter old frenchman, but he wasn't. He had a fair amount of wisdom with all that, and if not wisdom, he had so many stories to be telling. He really was so proud of his skill for storytelling, and he valued auditory intelligence above all other intelligences. There were a lot of stories he never finished telling us.

He was going to accompany a bunch of frenchies to France this year on their field trip.

Larrivee touched the life of every student he ever taught. He will be deeply missed by so many people.

Rest in peace, Monsier Larrivee. Reposez en paix. Vous allez nous manquer.

P.S Larrivee was possibly the only man in the world who would go in front of a school on Terry Fox day, talk about having cancer, and say we need to laugh at it more. In a similar strain, he also once told us, his Conversations class, that it was healthy to laugh at death. It may seem in bad taste, but I have to fully agree. Me and my friend Erin shared our fair share of tears today, and then spent the rest of the day laughing at memories of his class. Remember when he called Jacey Jesus? Remember in improv, Courtney's mime? Remember, how he used to look at Caleb and just go, "Espece de...." (Sometimes he'd finish the sentence with "espece de merde" - this was what he said when someone in the class was irritating him - it was usually Caleb. He was also fond of calling us "les vaches espagnols" if we were speaking particularly bad french, or  just looking at us and saying "Vachement" if we'd said something particularly stupid). Remember that time when.... remember that time when...... the list went on and on. So I'm going to enjoy the memories I have of Larrivee, as an appreciation for the wonderful individual he was, and I'm sure he himself would approve of this coping method.

P.S.S If you never had the privilege of meeting Monsieur Larrivee, I found this ten minute audio bit online from one of his former students, and I personally can't listen to it again because I'm going to start bawling like a baby again, but I think it will help other people understand what he was actually like beyond his reputation.

https://m.soundcloud.com/moonchez/funeral?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=mshare&utm_medium=facebook&utm_content=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fmoonchez%2Ffuneral

Reasons Why Oscar Wilde was Made of Awesome

1. He was a writer who wrote poems, books and plays, mostly dark comedy. He used the rules of the Victorian era as a joke in most of his works, hence "satire". The Victorian era was obsessed with rules and courtesy, and the works of Oscar Wilde are obsessed with criticising them.

2. His works are actually really funny. You can look at them as social criticism, but it's not hard to simply appreciate the humour as well, though the subject matter may in fact be rather dark (like blackmail, for instance).

3. He was a style pioneer. He invented the style "dandy" in the Victorian era. You work those giant bow ties, Oscar Wilde.

4. He was gay. Now I'm not saying he was awesome just because he was gay, because it actually really irritates me when people do that  - you're not equalizing gays when you do that, you're actually belittling straight people when you claim that you're automatically cooler just for being gay - but the thing is that he was arrested for it at the time, because this was, you know, the Victorian era. After he was set free he moved to France, because they were, let's say, more open-minded. But I kind of admire him for this because even being arrested for his sexuality didn't stop him from expressing it, he just went somewhere where it wouldn't be an issue. 

5. I guess you could kind of say from all of this that his life was kind of devoted to defying the social conventions of Victorian Britain. And not in an anarchal way, he wasn't trying to overthrow the goverment, which would inspire less respect from me. But just by writing about it, and in doing so spreading his message to a wider audience and letting them recognize the absurdity of some of the things the Victorian era did, which is much more admirable just because it's smarter. This is a man who was intent on expressing himself.

6. This is somewhat less deep, but it's kind of my favourite thing. Supposedly, when he was moving to America, while at customs they asked if he had anything to "declare". You know, items and stuff like that. To which Oscar Wilde responded, "I have nothing to declare, except my genius." 

Which is totally his style, and that just makes me grin every time. 

And that's why Oscar Wilde has become one of my heroes. 

P.S That's actually one of my favourite quotes of all time, right up there with Bram Stoker's "I sometimes think we must all be mad, and that we shall wake to sanity in strait-waistcoats" and Spike's "love's bitch" speech on Buffy.

Wedding Daze: Review-ish Type Thingy

You know, a movie that we found on Netflix that I'd never heard of. Romantic comedy. The description involved strangers getting engaged "on a whim". Needless to say, I didn't have a whole lot of hope for it.

It wasn't bad though. It was enjoyable enough. I mean, it followed the typical romantic comedy formula: each half of the couple have wacky friends or family (in this case it involves circus freaks, a father who's been in jail for who-knows-how-long, the all-too-perfect and weirdly fixated on charades ex-boyfriend, and the awkward, way too openly sexual parents), one half of the couple (generally the girl, though not always) is eccentric and living in a fantasy the entire time while the other one is going the entire movie in a perpetual what-the-hell-is-going-on, one or both of them humiliate themselves in some way, they end up getting into a fight that breaks up their budding relationship until they finally realize that wait, what a mistake that was, get back together, kiss passionately and live happily ever after. There's probably some awkward sexual implications thrown in there in places as well.

This movie was all of that. I'm talking, you can pinpoint the exact moments/characters that this guy talks about in this movie (except the chase scene, which this movie didn't really have).

But the thing is that, even though, okay, fair enough, I wouldn't see this movie a second time because oh my god half of it was just insane and what the heck is going on. The guy's mom threatening to cut the girl with a broken plate? What? All getting arrested and shooting at cops (which, sidebar, I'm almost like 98% sure one of them was played by the same guy who played Principal Snyder on Buffy OKAY I'M SORRY) and the guy seeing visions of his dead fiance.... look. A lot of the movie was just crazy, okay? It was all over the place.

But as I watched the movie, I kind of got the feeling that that was on purpose.

Usually, when I'm watching a movie, especially comedies, especially romantic comedies, I'm not thinking too hard about symbolism or theme or any of that stuff. But a lot of what they kept talking about was that love is terrifying and insane, but with that comes beauty. You can't have one part without the other.

The girl's mother was scared of the passion that came with seeing her first husband, so she abandoned him and got married to someone else, who supported her and her back, but there was no passion in that relationship, and then she was horrifically bored with him. Meanwhile, the guy's parents were absolutely insane and made no sense at all, but clearly had a very well-functioning, romantic, loving and exciting relationship. Examples like that show up a billion times in the movie, just about.

And I think that the movie itself is supposed to sort of replicate the insanity that comes with love. There is so much stuff in that movie that just has you going "Why on earth would they keep that in there? What the heck is going on?" Half the time no one in the movie even knows what's going on. But it's thematic, and representative, and I think once you realize that it makes a lot more sense.

I think that if I were to pick a theme for this movie, it would be something like: True love is only possible once you've embraced the fear that comes with it.

I'm not saying I think that's true - how the heck would I know about something like that? - I'm just about 98% percent certain that's what the film is trying to convey.

So when you look at it from that perspective, and realize that the story's actually probably supposed to be that erratic, it actually becomes a better movie. So I appreciate it for taking its message to such an extreme and making an amusing movie in the process.

Oh, yeah. And also there were actual funny parts. I mean, I don't laugh out loud at movies that often, but I did at this one. So that's a plus as well.

3.5/5 stars.

Typical Obsessive Post #????

I just discovered recently that MyMusic has its own Wiki site, where one can learn about everything MyMusic (or edit it if something's wrong or extremely badly worded, as I've been doing). And it just fills me with glee because there's a random button that takes you to any random page on the site where it talks about some aspect of MyMusic or the fandom, and it just makes me laugh because it just sounds so ridiculous to anyone who's not in on it. I mean, on what other wiki page are you going to find this entry?

Honestly. If you're a fan of MyMusic check it out, because you will discover things about it that you did not know (people ship Metal and Idol?!) and if you're not a fan of MyMusic you should check it out too, if only to entertain me with your reaction to the ridiculousness of it all. Just press the random button and see what happens.

Here, I'll even help you out. :)

http://mymusic.wikia.com/wiki/MyMusic_Wiki

P.S Flowcharts and Intern 2 are like my number one pairing for life. They just understand each other. :')
http://youtu.be/G1hGAseSQXM?t=6m24s

Spike's Character Study: Part 3

I know. I'm sorry. Not really.

The thing is that Spike just has so many layers to him that it's hard to cover it all in one post. The first one was mostly focused around the fact that Spike is the only character on the show who is so perceptive and intuitive and desperately helpless when it comes to love. Which is something interesting to contemplate, since he doesn't even have a soul (I explored this in more detail in a speculative document on my laptop, and if I ever start posting those I will post that one - 'cause, y'know, we need more Spike posts on this blog). And then the second one was focused on the fact that in spite of this, it is foolish to forget that he is still evil in nature, and particularly twisted, even for vampires. So now I'm going to talk about this little interesting tidbit, which is the fact that Spike is a huge loser and that's at least partly why we're sympathetic to him.

Think about it.

Joss Whedon made Buffy the Vampire Slayer originally to tell stories about the horror that is high school (couldn't agree more, Joss). Everyone who really connects with the show is someone who... wasn't top dog at high school. Hence the main characters are Xander, the quirky loser who just isn't cool enough to ever make it higher in the heirarchy no matter what he does, Willow, the girl who cares more about learning and school than she ever will about clothes or dating, who is shy and uncertain, and Buffy, who is attractive and trendy and all-around pleasant, but is always around when something unpleasant or weird happens, spouting about more unpleasant or weird stuff, and has practically no social life outside of high school (these descriptions are all based on the high school years of the show, mostly season 1 - obviously the characters developed majorly since then).

My point is that the show is told from the perspective of people who are constantly outcasted from...... I'm just going to go ahead and say it, "normal" people. You know what I mean. That's why Buffy's a geek show. Ya think a Cordelia is going to connect to a story told from this perspective?

So when Spike gets introduced into the mixture, he starts off as something that the Scoobies are meant to overcome. See, Spike was supposed to be a disposable villain - you know, give Buffy hell for a string of episodes and then get killed off. So, because the plan was for him to be gotten rid of, they started with him being built up as the coolest cool that ever cooled. Symbolically, I think he was basically supposed to be that bullying kid who leads the rest of the people who are too afraid of him to refuse. You know, that guy? But then he'd get killed off - the struggle would symbolically be overcome - and all would be fine. So he begins his first episode by getting out of a car with kick-ass guitar grinding in the background, smoking a cigarette, and then goes on to kill The Anointed One, thus making him the new leader. At the time, there was no problem with making him this powerful, or this awesome.

But then the writers discovered that they liked the character. Wanted to keep him on.

Which meant that they had to pull Spike in a radically different direction. Because the only way to justify keeping a character on this show is to take him down a peg or six. Otherwise it kind of defeats the point. Even if no one was supposed to like Spike, you can't just have him sauntering around the show like he owns the place like he was in the first few episodes, because then you can't justify not killing him.

So then, blow by blow, they started to beat Spike down.

First he got injured and had to have the wheelchair. Then Drusilla and Angelus started getting all touchy-feely pretty much right in front of his eyes. So he escapes the slaughter by teaming up with the Slayer, who he loathes, knocking out his girlfriend and escaping to South America. Humiliating.

And then the next time we see him, it is literally a parody of his entrance in the first episode. His first entrance: car smashes into the "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign, you've got guitar grinding in the background, he steps out of the car, and the camera pans up from his dark boots to his leather jacket to his vamp face. "Home sweet home," he says sardonically.

Lover's Walk, a car smashes into the "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign, guitar kinda drones in the background, car door opens, bottles smash to the ground, soon followed by Spike falling bodily out of his own car. No vamp face this time. And Spike lies on the ground, looks up. "Home sweet home," he slurs drunkenly, sorta laughing like drunks do, and then collapses back onto the ground.

It was written deliberately so that it would be a parody of his first entrance. And that whole episode was just awesome and hilarious, and is definitely one of my favourites ever, but it was also part of the process of beating Spike down - what kind of badass vampire mopes around because his girlfriend broke up with him?

And then, when he returns to Sunnydale, he's with Harmony. That in itself is still bringing Spike down a peg. And then the chip gets put in his head, and he's so pathetic that he ends up asking Harmony for help and gets refused, so pathetic he goes to the Slayer for help.

And from then on out, this is when it really began to happen. This is when Spike officially became the biggest loser there. Because, the thing is, Buffy was written for the losers. Xander and Willow and Buffy represent the outcasts and the losers. But then they started writing it so that Spike couldn't be accepted ANYWHERE. He was cast out by the outcasts. He's below them on the hierarchy, which is not something that we were totally aware existed before now.

Then this whole "We're above Spike" thing became a sort of trend. It started in flashbacks. In the utterly brilliant episode "Fool for Love", it showed in a flashback that when he became a vampire he was constantly ragged on by Angelus for being too careless, and really was only tolerated at all because Angelus and Darla found Drusilla useful, and Spike was Drusilla's...... what? Mate? Kinda like that.

In the parallel episode of Angel (what's awesome about Buffy and Angel is that all their episodes run parallel, so there are a few storylines that are really only complete once you've seen both series), there were flashbacks of Angelus and Darla talking. In one of them, Darla goes "While Spike - SPIKE! - was out KILLING A SLAYER, you were saving people?!" The utter contempt in Darla's voice when she says Spike's name along with the incredulity to the fact that Spike killed a Slayer kinda makes that sentence delicious. But apparently, he's always been contemptible to everyone around him, even in his glory days with Darla, Angelus and Drusilla.

And they just kept writing it that way. In season five it got worse for him, if anything. I mean, the fact that he's below them in the hierarchy was more or less stated outright in "Fool for Love". "You're beneath me," says Buffy to Spike, who has just been pushed to the ground by her, and then tosses his money at him with disgust. Cause it's one thing if you're not accepted into the Scooby Gang and you don't want to be. He hated them in season four, so while he was still obviously below them in the hierarchy, he really didn't seem to care. But then in season five he fell in love with Buffy, and he started trying to be recognized as a not-so-bad-guy, which got him precisely nowhere. If anything, he was cast out even more, what with the un-inviting left and right, and the amount of disgust towards him increased dramatically among the Scoobies.

So, though I don't think it was quite their intention, they started writing Spike as the character who gets cast out by the outcasts. He's too much of a loser for what is more or less Sunnydale High's loser club.

That's sad.

But it's also partly what makes us so sympathetic to him. Because A) We can see the effort he puts in to being accepted, B) he has feelings for the leader of this group, and C) it is pretty darn clear that he's horribly underappreciated by everyone. I'm not saying we shouldn't be cautious around Spike, because one should be, but I am saying that when he genuinely does good, mostly he gets complained at and rejected, never mind whether or not he may have just saved their lives.

And it's at least partly because of this little dynamic that makes people love Spike. It's in our blood to root for the underdog, and Spike is the underdog. The Scoobies are supposed to be, and they still are, but at the moment Spike is kind of a level below them, making him a bigger underdog than the Scoobies. So, added to the fact that he's the funniest character on the show, followed closely by Xander (seriously, if you search up "Fun Buffyverse Moments", about seventy percent of them are Spike) OF COURSE we're going to root for the guy.

And, maybe this is just my personal preference, but if you are stuck with the idea that Spike is a cold-blooded murderer and nothing more, you're kinda missing the point. No, you're really missing the point. Spike is a fantastic character because of the amount of layers he has. Yes, he's a killer, but he's also a lover, and a warrior, and an outcast, and sometimes, even a friend. He can be quite insightful about other people and why they do the things they do. Not everything he says or does is completely evil. That doesn't erase the fact that he's definitely a killer, but it'd be stupid to say that that's all he is.

Spike is an incredibly well done character, for this reason. You don't want to like him. But you end up liking him in spite of yourself. He's a bad guy, which is made plain, but you like him anyway. That's a well done character for you.

Have I mentioned that Spike is by far the most interesting character on the show?

P.S This doesn't have that much to do with this part of Spike's character study (except it kinda does..... bear with me here), but does anyone remember in my first character study of Spike, when I mentioned that when Spike first came to Sunnydale, he was with Drusilla, and it was pretty clear that he was kinda taking advantage of her?

I was wrong about that. He wasn't taking advantage of her.

She was taking advantage of him.

Yes, our Drusilla, the crazy one, the one who talks about naming all the stars (while staring at the ceiling in the middle of daytime) and talks to her toy dolls and says cryptic things like "Little toy soldiers played with your head" or whatever. That one. She was taking advantage of him.

Which is both really sad and really really funny once you realize it.

Poor Spike. What a loser.

This is why we love him.

Favourite Thing of the Week #6

The Vitamin String Quartet.

Usually I wouldn't be able to stand stuff like this for more than two minutes, but the thing is that the Vitamin String Quartet's sort of mission statement is about "applying rock n' roll attitude to classical technique".

Which means that they are a string quartet who do covers of rock and pop songs. Like Radioactive by Imagine Dragons. And Sweet Child O' Mine by Guns N' Roses (THAT one is awesome). And Bad Romance by Lady Gaga. The one that got me into them was their cover of Thrift Shop by Macklemore. Can't stand the actual song, got addicted to the Vitamin String Quartet version.

My current favourite at the moment is their cover of Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Greenday. I didn't have a lot of confidence that they could pull that off without an electric guitar, but it's actually quite pretty.

Also their version of I Write Sins Not Tragedies by Panic! At the Disco is pretty amazing as well.

My thing is that I've been searching for good homework music for forever. The problem is that if I listen to boring music (like regular classical music) it's practically the same as not listening to music at all for me, but if I listen to my regular music I end up singing along and not focusing.

And Vitamin String Quartet solves that problem for me because it's close enough to classical music that I can focus and close enough to music that I actually enjoy for me to... well, enjoy it. So I spent one evening just finding every cover Vitamin String Quartet has ever done that interested me and now I have an hour's worth of it on my iTunes. I'm so prepared for homework now. Boo yah. Problem solved AND awesomeness discovered.

I don't know, maybe I'm just a music geek? I get the feeling other people don't find VSQ as awesome as I do.

Oh well. Music geeks for the win.