Is it difficult or time consuming?

 Okay, about 3 minutes ago I was driving home from work, and I was struck out of nowhere with the thought that Buffy and Spike were seeking to destroy themselves with their love/attraction to each other.  

This is touched on in FFL--"You're a little bit in love with Death... and one of these days, I'm gonna slip in there."  And then, of course, he does.  He represents peace and death and completion for Buffy, and on a really bad day for her ("You came back wrong")--he slips in there, and gets her to admit that she does desire death. 

I don't actually even know about that.  I haven't really watched enough BSG to know if I'm a cylon or not (But soon!  Soon I will know!). 

Let's talk about some serious bidness, folks. Like I mentioned, I've been rewatching BtVS and I just started AtS as well.  And I have feelings aplenty. 


Here's my Buffy/Angel rewatch thoughts, in no particular order:

1. SMG is the most adorable human being in the history of the universe.  ( MOAR, LONGER, UNCUT THOUGHTS )

Jeesh, y'all.  Thirty days is really a whole lotta days.  This meme just goes on and on.  It's like Celine Dion's heart.  

And before I start, can I just say how simultaneously excited and disappointed I was with the Veronica Mars's performance in FMM.  I totally didn't think she'd get that far.  She took out Kurt Hummel, y'all.  He's a juggernaut.  But nothing my girl couldn't handle.  And then... only to lose such a hard-fought race.  So sad.  Vote Troy.  Because life has no meaning for me now that Veronica and Buffy are out.  Troy is my last shining light of hope.  

Okay.  Three more days.
( Day 26: Something in canon that I'd change )( Day 27: Something that I'd add to canon )( Day 28: Hottest scene )

 So many wacky demons, so few memes with which to address their wackiness. But my pick for the wackiest (or maybe just plain weirdest) of all is... 

( Day 23: Doublemeat is double sweet.  )

The character who should have gotten more screen time is... 

( Day 24: Que sera sera. Whatever will be will be.  )

In other news: EEEE.  I'm so excited.  Tomorrow is gonna be the rec-post day!  If it weren't already 2:00 AM, I'd spend the next 3 hours organizing my picks.  Woot. 

 Okay.  So.  Sometimes I get to a really mature, intellectual place about Spike & Buffy--and even when I'm in that place, I'm full of flailing and squishy feelings.  But I get all excited over the ~literary-ness of it all.  The symbolism, the motifs, the mirrors, the coherence of the characterization.  

Right now, I'm not in that place. I'm in a place where all my feelings are gone and they have been replaced with SPUFFY. And not in a good way. Like in a painful, terrified way.  I was just watching some vids.  And all I can say is that I know now why I didn't read the comics for so long--why I kept thinking about reading them and then putting it off:  Because I think I will literally die if something really bad happens to this ship.  I just watched Winter Song by darlapr0duction , which I had downloaded! and feel really lucky, since it's now been removed from public space.  And then I watched my new favorite (the vid isn't new, it's just new to being my favorite) by nvrbnkisst , Diappearing World.




My gosh. I just love the sense of partnership and equality in that vid.

And then there's Halo by Darla Productions:




(This is really 3 vids all squished together. The first one is Halo.)


But. I think I'm going to shatter, you guys. I've also been watching other "Spuffy" vids--but they're a little more grim than these. They obviously think the relationship wasn't going to work. And I think they blame Buffy. They don't think she loved him. And for some reason, it's killing me.

Normally, I think I can be a mature consumer of media and accept what's given to me. Normally, I really like Chosen. But right now I want to break a lamp. Because I just want a fucking happy ending. I NEED a happy ending. I feel like something inside of me is going to split open if they don't get a happy ending. And--yes--I know. I know. Chosen IS a happy ending. Like I said, I normally feel that way. But right now, I just need Chosen without the death and with an exuberant makeout session.

I have no idea what my deal is tonight.

 Because I'm a rebel and because humor is perhaps my favorite thing about BtVS, I refuse to limit myself to one scene.  So.  Here are 3 of the funniest scenes I could think of. 

( Oh, BUFFY. You slay me! )

So, I don't know if anyone noticed--if you did, you are magnanimous in nature for not correcting me-- I posted two "Day 3's."  I'm not surprised that I had a counting!fail.  But, really, I thought I would've broken ten with no mistakes.  Alas.

But, I'm all set straight and cardinally numbered.  And rarin' to do Day 5.   Which! Is super apropos for gabrielleabelle 's Why So Icy? poll!  

My favorite season?  Easy.  

( I will cut a bitch... (Get it? LJ cut? Heh. I suck.) )

No! I'm kidding; there'll be no singing.  I kept trying to work the lyrics for "Kiss Off" into here somewhere because it's been in my head all day. But I failed.  OR DID I?

( They'll hurt me bad, they do it all the time )

So, lately I maybe have been rewatching Veronica Mars for, like, the 4th time. And, as is now my way when my obsessiveness reaches a certain fever pitch, I’ve gone looking for good VMars fic. And I have to say a few things.

First, I’ve been so spoiled by this little corner of fandom. Really and truly. Spoiled rotten. We’re so organized. There are so many archives! And awards! And people with kick ass indexed journals! And to some extent I guess all that’s to be expected. VMars ran for a much shorter time, had a much smaller following, and it’s not fantasy/sci-fi, so I think that it probably attracts fewer hardcore fans. And the result is that there’s much, much less to choose from fanfic-wise than in Buffy fandom. So, of course there’s less good-quality writing out there. And… I get that. I do. But, what I find a little troubling is the proportion of fics that make Logan into a big ol’ woobie while painting Veronica as a soul-sucking bitch. Because I just cannot read such juvenilely developed characters as that. I can’t do it.

Um.  Spoilers through the end of the series under the cut. 

( Cut because I just can't shut up )

I should mention up front that I have no idea whether what I'm about to say is of any significance whatsoever.

But, in a conversation with eleusis_walks , he mentioned the poet Yeats in regards to Angel season 5. That's what planted this seed--so I just thought I'd give him credit (or blame--whatevs).

The poem Second Coming is about... well, it's about a lot of things. But in its most literal reading, it's about the destruction of one world and the creation of another. The new world is represented by a sphinx/lion figure.

It struck me as more than a little coincidental that, from what I hear, the new baby universe is a little lion thingy in the comics. 

And also, it should be mentioned that Yeats is a bit of nut--and he was all into the idea of different dimensions and apocalypses and what have you. So, very much Buffy-compliant.

Just throwin' that out there in case it matters to anyone. Oh, and here's a copy of the poem:

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

A friend of mine posted about this website on her Tumblr, and I thought some of y’all on my flist might find it interesting, so I thought I’d pass it along. Women in Refrigerators Syndrome describes the use of the death or injury of a female comic book character as a plot device in a story starring a male comic book character.

It reminded me of the post on Man Pain™ that gabrielleabelle posted/linked to not that long ago (that I can’t for the life of me find)—and all the sacrificing of female characters that occurs on both AtS and BtVS.

The Women in Refrigerators site lists a bunch of female comic book characters and how they were offed/maimed/depowered. A companion page , titled Men Defrosting, takes a similar look at male characters—but points out how male victims of violence are more frequently restored to their former status than their female counterparts.

I don’t have a whole lot of commentary to add—perhaps because I’m only on season 2 of AtS—and because the the WiR content pretty much speaks for itself. But I wanted to point out that the WiR site has responses from comic book fans and industry people. And a few of them are really interesting. Especially this response from fan Jeff Mace. He makes lots of valid points throughout—but what strikes me is that despite how he clearly understands exactly what this discussion is about, he still manages to COMPLETELY MISS THE POINT.

In wrapping up his argument, he says:

"When tragedy befalls a comic heroine, it might be due to the lineage of the medium in which she exists, it might be due to cultural universals that have been with us throughout human history, and, yes, it just might be the work of a untalented, incompetent, and/or misogynistic hack.

"It also might be part and parcel of an important story, a story that deserves to be told. Or it could simply be a product of the symbiotic, cyclical relationship between the storyteller and the audience: male characters written by male creators for male fans, some of whom will become male creators and write stories about male characters for... you get the idea."

  I just don’t even know what to say about this. It’s more impressive as a summary if you go and read his full argument, where he shows a thorough grasp of the debate—then ends it with this, which reads like, “Yeah, ladies are getting cut into pieces and shoved into refrigerators. But that might just be because men have always oppressed women.”

Wha huh, now? Isn’t that the point of this whole project? To show that oppression has indeed permeated the comic medium/superhero genre, and it manifests in a particularly violent fashion? And the fact that he seems to think that the point of the project was to prove that comic book creators are misogynistic hacks? I don’t even know.

Another troubling thing Mace says is:

"I remember an imaginary ‘interview’ PAD wrote (in one of his CBG columns) with a comics pro from ‘the future.’ In that pro's time, violence in comics had been partially supplanted by depictions of healthy, consensual sex. Therein, I suppose, lies a possible cure for the WiR malaise: Close the refrigerator door and turn down the sheets! ;)"

Maybe I don’t understand exactly what he’s saying here, but it sounds like he’s suggesting that pro’s idea of “evolution”--that the way to avoid a grisly death, for a female character, is to “turn down the sheets”?

Yeah. That doesn’t sit well with me. The concept makes sense to me—replacing violence with sex—but to argue that this is somehow a sign of progress in attitudes toward women—shifting anger expressed through mutilation of female bodies—to the portrayal of them as willing sex objects? Not loving it.

But to end on a more positive note, this response from Rob Harris is short and sweet and does an excellent job of setting up useful male disempowerment/harm vs. female disempowerment/harm parallels.

Also: Check out WiR’s righteous logo.

Tell me that isn’t awesome. You can’t. Because it IS awesome. The logo will not be denied.

ETA: Look! I think I figured out my link problem! Either that or I just royally screwed up this entry.

I’m re-watching BtVS right now.  And I haven’t gotten to season 6 yet (so my feelings about what’s written here may be subject to change), but I’ve been listening to Rilo Kiley, and it sort of inspired me to write down these thoughts--which are really apropos of nothing.

Let me start out by saying that maybe the best description of depression that I’ve ever come across is the song “Better Son/Daughter” by the aforementioned band, Rilo Kiley.

Part of what makes this song such a perfect description/illustration of depression is how it includes what I like to call the Guilt/Optimism ouroboros.

 

( Fun depression talk ahoy! )