The Vampire Diaries Season Three, Episode Six: Smells Like Teen Spirit

 
This episode opens with Alaric teaching Elena some defensive moves against vampires.  He tells her that she needs to bulk up, because she is not physically strong enough to stab a vampire. Alaric makes the point of telling Elena that a vampire will hurt her without remorse, and she tells him that he doesn't need to use pronouns and that she knows he is talking about Stefan. Finally, Elena is recognizing that Stefan is dangerous.

At the school, yes I said school, Caroline seems excited about her senior year of high school.  What shocked me is all of the Black people in the background.  Where did all these Black kids from?  And behold, Caroline isn't actually feeding on them. Elena is upset because she met Stefan a year ago on the first day of school, but she apparently is putting it all behind her, because she is starting a new life. Bonnie however is miserable because Jeremy is able to see Anna and knows that their relationship ended because she died, and not because they actually broke up.

At Stefan and Damon's, Stefan has compelled a few girls to play twister as he feeds off of them.  Of course, Rebecca shows up to whine that Klaus left her behind.  Rebecca is quickly becoming my least favorite character to ever appear on this show.  I can handle self-concerned vampire, but whining and snipping in a creature this old is ridiculous. She behaves as though she is 16 and not ancient. When Rebecca asks which one her room is, Stefan tells her that she is not staying there, and she calls them rude and stalks off to find her own room.

Bonnie is actually jealous of Anna the ghost. Anna is dead, but yet Bonnie feels the need to tell Jeremy that he has the power to decide whether or not he sees her.  Sitting in his truck, Matt reminisces with Vicky about the first day of school last year. When he tells her that he misses her, Vicky tells Matt that there is a way that he can help her come back. Once again, I feel that this whole storyline exists simply to justify Matt's continued participation on the show.

When Tyler shows up with blood on his shirt, Caroline and Elena drag him into the bathroom. It seems that Rebecca hooked him up with a blood bag.  Rebecca's job is to keep an eye on Tyler because he is the first hybrid.  He is absolutely giddy about this, but Caroline is not at all pleased.  For Tyler it means a whole new world and I can understand why he is excited.

When Elena leaves the bathroom to let them argue it out, she is stopped by Stefan.  Apparently, he is  playing the role of high school Sr. to keep an eye on her. When Alaric interrupts them, Stefan slams him up against a locker, and tells Alaric that he is not going to want to get into his way.  Elena explains the situation to Alaric, and then tells him that Stefan being in the school is not good for anyone. That's a case of no shit sherlock if I have ever heard it.  In class, Rebecca of all people shows up.

Matt and Vicky talk in the stoner pit, and she tells him that she has a witch ( I wonder how Black the witch is?) on the other side, who is willing to push her through, and that she will be able to come and go as she pleases, if Matt performs the ritual.  Jeremy shows up and talks to Matt, pretending that he does not see Vicky.  He walks off and talks to Anna, who tells him that Vicky is surrounded by darkness. Anna tells Jeremy that you cannot upset the balance of nature from the other side, and that Vicky must have agreed to pay a price.  Vicky plays upon Matt's emotions, telling him that he does not have to be alone anymore.

Which of Your Fav Vampires are Nominated For a People's Choice Award?

Some of your favorite actors or actresses that portrayed vampires in movies or television shows are nominated for the 2012 People’s Choice Awards. Here are the nominations and don’t forget to vote here.
Favorite Movie Actor - Robert Pattinson
Favorite Action Movie Star - Taylor Lautner
Favorite Drama Movie - Water for Elephants (Robert Pattinson)
Favorite Movie Star Under 25 Presented by Moviefone - Chloe Moretz (Let Me In), Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner
Favorite Book Adaptation - Water for Elephants (Robert Pattinson)
Favorite Network TV Drama - The Vampire Diaries
Favorite TV Drama Actor - Ian Somerhalder
Favorite Cable TV Drama - True Blood

Tangled Threads by Jennifer Estep, Book 4 of the Elemental Assassin's series

Gin's war against Mab is now declared and Mab is feeling the Spider's bite. First killing her lieutenant, Elliot Slater in Venom she has now started hitting Mab's operations around the cities. Her minions and dealers are all under threat, smoothly assassinated and the Spider rune left by their corpses.

Mab can't tolerate this any more and calls in LaFleur, her own assassin. An expert assassin of the Spider's calibre and an Electricity Elemental. She's in town to run Mab's operations – and take out the Spider. As a bonus prize, she's also to take out Bria, Gin's sister, to finally remove that thorn out of Mab's side as well. To complicate things, Mab has not missed Gin's friendship with Roslyn and is looking to spy on her and undermine her as much as possible

Gin faces an assassin of equal calibre to herself and with extremely powerful magic. Killing her is not just about another blow against Mab – this assassin is hunting her. And she has not only to protect herself, but also her sister and her growing circle of friends and loved ones.

And with that she needs to deal with Bria finally learning that Gin is her sister – and what the honest, law abiding police detective will do with the vigilante assassin? And can she accept her as her sister?.

Mixed Raced Characters in Urban Fantasy don't Necessarily Constitute Inclusion

One of the recurring tropes we’ve found in Urban Fantasy is the use of token inclusion for people of colour. Unfortunately for many authors, the addition of one person of color in an all White cast, even in cities in which the population demographics would suggest a larger representation is necessary, qualifies for a claim of equal representation. This is beyond irritating in and of itself. But there’s a related trope that doesn’t even go so far as that to use the oft normalized tokens - mixed race protagonists. One of the major issues is that even though these people are technically bi-racial, they are often so light skinned that they exist with passing privilege, thereby never having to negotiate the racism faced by everyday people of colour. Urban fantasy gives new meaning to the phrase light bright and damn near White.

In and of themselves, mixed race protagonists are by any means a bad thing - not by any stretch. We’d welcome, hail and do happy dances about more mixed-race protagonists, or more protagonists of colour in general, if it constituted good equal representation but alas that is not the case. It would be good to see if these mixed raced people read like mixed raced people, instead of White people with a touch of exotic thrown in for extra flavour.

They nearly always have a disconnect with their heritages of colour. Often this is in the form of a dead or missing parent. For example, Anita Blake’s Hispanic mother is dead, Mercy Thomas’ Native American father is missing. Kelley Armstrong’s Jeremy has an absent Asian mother. Richelle Mead’s Rose Hathaway has an absent Turkish father. In Clay and Susan Griffith’s Greyfriar series, Adele’s Persian mother is dead. The dead parents trope in this situation gives the author the opportunity to iinclude a mixed race character, (and mention their physical characteristics) without ever having to include any cultural context or signifiers (Though, it has to be said, this is not limited purely to canonical mixed race characters and there are no small number of POC token inclusions that are also divorced entirely from cultural signifiers). It also creates the question of where are the other members of the characters family? Was every single raced parent an orphan, that they left no family behind to interact with their children? There is always a reason why these families completely disappear to justify the erasure, and allow the author to claim faux inclusion points. It also means that authors don’t have to research cultures outside of their direct experience and serves to privilege Whiteness.

'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 1' -- Kristen Stewart Interview

Bedlam: Season 1, Episode 1: Cohabitants

Now that's an intriguing beginning – the menacing, ominous hitchiker turns round, threatening and doesn't attack the driver – he convinces him to move on. The driver's already dead, died in a crash several; days before. Very good beginning, dark, slightly scary and very intriguing.

So, this is Bedlam apartments, high end luxury apartments converted from an old asylum. With a graveyard next door. And a big sign over the roof marked “SPOOKY!” Yup, laying it on thick with the reasons for the hauntings. The building was owned by Kate's grandfather (who ran the mental institute) and is now owned by Kate's father (Warren), who bought it in an attempt to do something “good” with it after allegations of dark happenings and patient abuse in the grandfather's time.

With such a history, of course the flats are haunted. In fact I imagine there's queue of ghosts.

We have Kate, who manages the flats, with Ryan and Molly who live in them (also looks like the token POC inclusion, though as is very common on TV they have chosen a very pale WOC for the inclusion).

And they are joined by Jed – just out of hospital and on medication for seeing... ghosts. I'm not entirely comfortable with this – the somewhat demeaning references to mental illness. The patronising and angry attitude of both Warren and Kate towards Jed for what they perceive to be his mental illness. Because he is actually psychic rather than ill this is never addressed – and his constant response to their rather snide comments is “I'm better now”. It's a trifle vexatious, the idea that being “better” (i.e. no longer mentally ill) is the only thing that would make him a tolerable presence.

In a much haunted building, of course, having someone who can see ghosts is quite useful – especially if said ghostie is going around drowning people to get her bling back (though, personally I think said ghost is just offended by the new decorations – honestly their taste is horrifying).

Lover Unbound, by JR Ward, Book 5 of the Black Dagger Brotherhood

Lover Unbound is another instalment of the Black Dagger Brotherhood in their continuing quest to protect the vampire race from the lessening society and the Omega's goal to destroy them all..

Well, kinda. With the fore-lesser dead in Lover Revealed the lessening society is even less effective than it was before. And virtually absent in this book. You run into a couple now and then for random drive by murdering

But the Scribe Virgin is worried. The deity of the vampires is concerned that there remains only 5 Brothers to defend the entire race. In the past, the Brotherhood would mate with the Chosen, a select order of sequestered females dedicated to the Scribe Virgin, to produce more Chosen and Brothers, but that hasn't happened for centuries. The numbers of both are dwindling and without more warriors the Brotherhood, and the whole vampire species is doomed.

So she needs a new Primale – one of the Brotherhood to go among the children and begin having many many babies. And she chooses her actual son, Vishous, to be the prospective daddy.

But Vishous is not willing. Aside from his less than enthusiastic relationship with sex, he has kidnapped his own true love, his own mate (yes, kidnapped. We'll get to that) who he wants to be with, despite her being human. He also has to reconcile his long and tortured past with the knowledge that his mother, actual flesh and blood mother, was their species' deity and she did nothing to help him as he was tortured, mutilated and abused for decades.

Being Human Season 2 Promo