Fannish 5: Most Surprising Moments in Any Canon

January 23rd, 2009 8:30pm by rusty-halo | 11 Comments »

These responses are totally dripping with SPOILERS so please click carefully!

( Highlander )

( Doctor Who )

( Buffy the Vampire Slayer )

( The Lymond Chronicles )

( A Song of Ice and Fire )

Current Mood: bored

Have a type?

December 11th, 2008 7:51pm by rusty-halo | 4 Comments »

Have a type?

( Who, me? )

Bowie’s hotter.

Current Mood: silly

Favorites Meme (for Buffy and Doctor Who)

August 1st, 2008 11:44pm by rusty-halo | 12 Comments »

Gacked from a_white_rain:

( Buffy meme )

It’s been so long that I can barely remember most of this stuff. Let’s try something more recent.

( new Doctor Who version )

Current Mood: listless

Writercon Report

August 4th, 2004 3:47pm by rusty-halo | 27 Comments »

Writercon rocked. I miss everyone so much. And I *so* don’t want to wait two years before I see any of you guys again. *sniffle*

So let’s see. I’m going to throw together some kind of little con report here, but I’m veerrrry tired so I can’t promise that I’ll remember everything.

( Tuesday )

( Wednesday )

( Thursday )

( Friday )

( Saturday )

( Sunday )

( Monday )

( Tuesday )

Overall, I totally loved the con, even though Vegas was icky and the hotel sucked. The panels were thought-provoking and well done, and the people were just wonderful. I’m so glad I got to meet everyone that I did. In particular, it was great to spend time with irfikos, inobunny, witling, _jolielaide, and saussy.

The con itself ran so smoothly, and was so perfectly done. I mean, it was clear that the organizers were there to make sure everyone had the best experience possible. They were totally in it to make it the best con possible, not to make money or fame for themselves. I’m so proud that these people, most of whom I’ve known since I got into fandom, managed to pull off Writercon and make it such an astounding success. And I’m so proud that our fandom has such amazing, interesting, talented, brilliant people.

My regrets: I wish I’d gone to more panels. I wish there had been longer and more specific panels (maybe character, pairing, show, or era specific somehow?) since my interest in the Jossverse is mostly Spike and male/male slash specific at this point. And because a more specific panel would be able to go in depth even further, which was really when things get interesting.

I met tons of neat people, but with a con this big, I guess you’re bound to miss a few. I’m sad that I somehow managed to miss talking to many cool folks that I wanted to see (like fallowdoe, rahirah, shadowlass, fenchurche, Cynthia Martin, and several others). I’m sad that I was only able to speak very briefly with some people (especially members of the concom, who I know were insanely busy). And I really felt the absence of those who couldn’t attend, especially kita0610, anniesj, and circe_tigana.

But those are just tiny regrets compared to the complete awesomeness of this con. Man, I so don’t want to wait two years for another one. :*(

(no subject)

July 16th, 2004 1:43pm by rusty-halo | 17 Comments »

anniesj wrote this gorgeous, amazing, heart-breaking Sirius/Remus fic that made me cry at work. Read it here.

I’m currently compulsively reading my way through musesfool’s RL/SB recs list, which is awesome. Very helpful to someone who is new to the pairing….

I’ve never had an OTP before, but I really do love this pairing….

I’m eating a varied box of gorgeous, delicious heirloom tomatoes from the Union Square greenmarket. I love that place.

( apartment bitching )

I haven’t been reading Buffyverse fic. I’m at the point now where my instant reaction is to recoil at even the mention of it. I’m just so not into that universe anymore at all, and I so hate what Mutant Enemy did to it. I was a fan of soulless Spike, not of soulled Spike, and yet I spent ages watching miserably this character who replaced/destroyed the character I loved. The idea of doing that for even one second longer is pretty horrifying. Sorry.

Here’s an idea, though. I’m feeling guilty about ignoring fanfic writers who might want their recent work archived on my site. If you’re one of those people who I’ve archived before, could you possibly send me a list (with links) to your recent finished-ready-to-be-archived work that might fit All About Spike? I find that quite a few writers have a hesitancy to promote themselves this way, but believe me, this will make it much easier on me. Otherwise I worry and panic and think “I’ve missed so much that she’s written lately; there’s no way I’ll ever catch up, so why even bother?” Whereas if you just list it for me, I can catch up easily and not feel like I’m missing something.

ck594us did this, and notice, I read and archived her recent work very quickly.

Of course, if it’s a pain to do this, don’t bother. But if you’re wishing your stuff was archived at AAS, this would make it happen much more quickly.

I think I’m probably going to stick to reading Spike fic from authors I’ve read and archived before, or else stuff that’s hugely highly recommended. I’m not going to just randomly pick up a Spike fic and start reading it anymore. I’d like to; I really enjoyed running my website. But I’m just so not interested in the topic at all.

And this damn Harry Potter fanfic keeps calling me….

And just to clarify for the millionth time, I’m not going to shut All About Spike down. Not for years and years and years, if ever. It’s an archive, it should be there for people to read and reference, even if I’m not updating it anymore.

I haven’t read LJ in two weeks….

May 5th, 2004 4:59pm by rusty-halo | 20 Comments »

I just handed in my last academic paper (ever?).

Assuming all goes well (which it should *knock on wood*), this is it. All classes are over, this was the last bit of academic work required to graduate.

This feels so weird. Like, my entire life has been leading up to this moment. I didn’t exactly choose it, I didn’t exactly want it (though I also couldn’t think of any more preferable option), but here I am, I’ve achieved it. College graduation. What an incredible relief that this is over.

I’m a bit sad, which surprises me. I felt nothing but a sort of bitter joy at having escaped high school alive; I still feel no nostalgia for that nightmarish hell. But I actually started to appreciate college a bit near the end, maybe about 2/3 of the way through. I’ll never like homework or papers or grades, but once I found the kinds of classes that suited my personality–cultural studies, gender studies–I saw the point. I appreciated the insights and the need for them and I felt like I grew as a person because of those classes.

I sort of wish I could’ve done it over again knowing what I know now; I spent at least the first half of college floating around totally lost, without a clue what I wanted to study or where I fit in. By the time I finally found it, it seems like I barely had time to skim the surface.

But anyway. It’s over and done with now and man, am I relieved!

I spent the weekend in something of a daze: all my finals this year were papers, all were long, and all were due within the same period of time. So this weekend I wrote:

- 12 pages on the construction of masculinity in Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy and its relationship to the cultural changes of the 1960s in America (due Monday 5/3)
- 6 pages on the theme of objectification in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and its relation to the academic study of history (due Monday 5/3)
- 12 pages on the relationships between dominant culture, subculture, and family in Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys (due Wednesday 5/5)

I just returned from handing the last paper in. That’s 30 pages in about four days. It was all done very last minute because I had other work to finish up the week before. That also means I’ve barely slept in the past four days: I was up 36 hours, from Sunday morning to Monday night, slept for about eight hours, then got up again Tuesday morning and have been awake until now (Wednesday afternoon). And now I’m at work trying to catch up because I missed Monday. Man, I can’t wait to go home and sleep.

This is a babbling, nonsensical post; I offer exhaustion as an excuse.

I wish I had something related to the Spike-verse to say. Unfortunately it has utterly failed to hold my attention; the little time I’ve had to devote to fandom lately has been toward Methos. I really wish I could keep my attention on Spike; I love the community that surrounds this fandom. I want to continue to be a part of it. But, well, there’s just nothing that Mutant Enemy could do that would make me want to watch–or even think about–their product. I’ll spare you the anti-ME rant; if you read my journal you know how I feel about their ideology. I know now that there’s nothing there for me and never will be. Thinking about it just makes me angry and sad.

I’d much prefer to think about Methos and Jaime Lannister, whose creators appreciated the value of an ambiguous character and the value of free will, the ability of the individual to change. drujan and I went to see Hellboy the other weekend and though I didn’t particularly enjoy the film, we both loved the theme that it doesn’t matter how you start out, you don’t have some essential essence; you have choice, you decide who you are, no one else does. Methos and Jaime both embody that; anything that ME creates embodies the opposite: the triumph of fate, inability to escape destiny, essentialism, ultimate lack of choice. (Don’t argue; if you feel differently, good, enjoy yourself, you’re not going to convince me.)

I bought the DVDs for Highlander seasons four and five (graduation gift to self, shut up frugal conscience) and I love them. The writers’ commentaries are so delightful in contrast to the ideas ME always repeats: they celebrate the idea of an ambiguous character, they’re anxious to explore that and write more for him, they see no need whatsoever to define him as “really” good or evil. He’s both; he’s complicated; he’s grey. Yum. Yay for moral ambiguity.

The S5 DVDs were particularly intersting in the commentary on the death of Richie. The writers felt that they had to do this to take the show in a more complicated direction. There was one comment that really struck me in relation to Buffy: if Richie had lived, it would have been a “back to the beginning” theme (a la BtVS S7). Richie embodied the qualities of both Xander and Dawn: the innocent, the goofy comic relief, the student and closest family of the hero, a white character for a black and white world. By killing Richie, they intended to kill off the more simplistic character, and create a crisis in the hero’s self-identity, in order to make way for a more grey world. Imagine if Buffy had killed Dawn and/or Xander at the end of BtVS S5 or S6, and then dealt with that, instead of the lame “back to the beginning, everything’s black and white, just ignore all that ambiguity we dredged up previously” that we got in S7. (I don’t think the Richie thing really worked, probably due to lack of funding for HL S6, but it’s so cool that they were at least trying to go in that direction, to do something daring. Compare that to Joss’ idiodic preservation of the “core four” at all costs and subsequent refusal to allow the show’s moral universe to ever really grow. Highlander grew, from black and white to grey. I just love that.)

Anyway, I also have all these ideas swirling around in my brain on Comes a Horseman and Revelation 6:8. The DVD is awesome: it has all 19 minutes of dailies for the Jimmy scene (guh!!), interviews with cast and crew including stuff with the actors and writers about themes and character motivations, extended cuts with 10 minutes of extra footage for both episodes, and writers’ commentaries for both extended cuts. An absolute treasure. The extra stuff from Revelation is particularly interesting: scenes of the break-up between Methos and Kronos. Despite the horrible staging (thank god it was cut) the actual dialogue sheds quite a bit of light on the episodes’ theme, particularly that of identity. It recurs throughout both: who is Methos?

Here’s the cut scene, taken from the methos.org transcript:

Methos: I’m serious. It’s what I want to do. Study and learn.

Kronos: What for? What have you got to learn?

Methos: Most everything, it seems. About the world. About myself. About who we are.

Kronos: I can tell you who we are.

Methos: Can you?

Kronos: I’m Kronos. I always have been, and I always will be. And you’re just like me. We are who we are, and that’s more than enough.

Methos: Not for me. Those who don’t learn from their mistakes, repeat them.

Kronos: We don’t make mistakes. We make history. Pour me another drink and have one yourself. You’re getting too damned serious for your own good. You’re turning into a Greek.

Methos pours Kronos more wine and, in a life-defining moment, slips in some poison from a ring.

Methos: Thank you.

Methos hands him his wine. Kronos drains it.

Kronos: Just don’t forget what you really are.

Methos: I never forget what I am. The more I learn, the more aware I become.

(My emphases)

(Hee. Kronos is an essentialist and Methos is a social constructionist!)

The theme of identity/”is what you start out what you will always be?” recurs throughout both episodes as well:

Kronos to Methos: “You pretended to [change]. Maybe you even convinced yourself you had. But inside you’re still there, Methos …. [Death is] who you are meant to be.”
Kronos: (over and over) “We are the four horsemen”
Kronos: “Men like us …. Men without conscience, without fear.”
“We were death on horseback.”
“We think alike.”
Methos: “Do you know who I was? I was Death…. That monster was me. I was the nightmare that kept them awake at night.”
Duncan: “Why’d you lie to me? … About who you were.”
Duncan: “And who are you now?”
Duncan: “Don’t do this. You have a choice.” (Ah! Mr. Black and White says something wise!)
Cassandra: “I know what I am now. What you are…. If MacLeod knew what you really are, he’d have taken your head long ago.”
Methos: “You thought I would protect you. You forgot what I was.”
Silas: “How can you go against what you are?”
Methos to Cassandra: “You don’t know me”
Methos to Kronos: “I’m not like that anymore; I have changed”
Methos to Duncan: “I was different then,” “I have been many things, MacLeod.”
Methos to Silas: “I am not your brother”
“You don’t know anything about me” (in the writers’ commentary they tell us that this line was originally “You don’t know who I am“)…

Who is Methos? He certainly seems to start out as one rotten, murdering, raping bastard. And yet … he grows. He changes. That’s not all he is, despite the insistence of his brothers who are unable to grow. He is not merely what he starts out as; that part of him is still there but he has free will, he has choice, he has the ability to recreate himself and to choose who he is going to be. That moment when he finally stands up to Silas and says “You don’t know anything about me” is one of my all-time favorite moments in anything, ever.

Remember when Spike said “I don’t think it matters how much how you start out”? I think S5 Spike and Methos would’ve gotten along pretty well.

Then there’s also the idea that Kronos represents the dark side of Methos (and there’s all this wonderful symbolism about Methos’ dual nature: his face half painted dark and half shadowed, his simultaneous loathing and desire when he speaks of how evil he once was, etc). By locking Kronos up in this well (in the cut scene) he was trying to lock away the dark side of himself, but he couldn’t destroy it. He couldn’t kill Kronos because that would have been literally destroying half of himself.

(And yes, I know I tend to interpret Methos’ behavior in a rather positive light, while simultaneously relishing the ambiguity of the fact that you never know for sure what’s going on inside his head; what can I say, I’m a redemptionist at heart…)

And then on another note there’s also this running theme: is there any fate worse than death? (Not just in this episode but as a subtext of pretty much every interaction they ever have.) Mac says yes (hero types generally do), Methos says no–survival above all else. How far would you go to stay alive? drujan and I talked about this for hours the other night, though she hasn’t seen the Highlander episodes. Funnily enough I tend toward the Duncan point of view: every life matters, some ideals are worth dying for. Yet in fiction it’s characters like Methos that appeal to me–characters that put their own interests first, themselves and those few people that they care most about. Maybe I wish I could be more like them, take things less seriously? I’ve certainly grown in that direction–I was like a Hermione type when I was younger; I’m a lot more cynical and detached now. Yet I still have ideals … maybe it’s just that the hero types are boring.

And then on a more fun note, there’s also all this great stuff in the DVDs about the homoerotic subtext between Methos and Byron, which is pretty explicit … yummy …

Okay, must stop babbling about Highlander now. Being awake for nearly four days straight kind of fries your brain, doesn’t it?…. I know I’m going to cringe when I re-read this tomorrow.

(no subject)

April 21st, 2004 11:40am by rusty-halo | 8 Comments »

thedeadlyhook has a great post about the Spike/Buffy relationship here.

I have an extra ticket for the Moonlight Rising convention that I’m trying to sell. It’s #240 — tickets sold by the con itself are currently in the five or six hundreds, so this is a much better seat. Seating and autographs are by badge number so it’s really worthwhile to try to get a lower seat number.

I’ll sell mine for what I paid for it ($215). So if you’re thinking of going, this is a better deal than what you’ll get through the official con website, for the same price. If interested in purchasing it, please contact me at drinkthepoison@hotmail.com

You can get info about the con here. Current guests include James Marsters (and his band), all three members of the Trio (Danny Strong, Tom Lenk, Adam Busch), Common Rotation (Adam Busch’s band), Stephanie Romanov, Iyari Limon, James Leary, Andy Hallet … lots of cool people.

(I’m still going, btw–just changing my seat number.)

(no subject)

April 9th, 2004 1:55pm by rusty-halo | 34 Comments »

Um, would anyone happen to know where I might find high-quality Methos-centric Highlander fanfiction? I’ve never read Highlander fic before. Any rating, any pairing, any topic is fine, as long as it’s got Methos and is written well. (From what I’ve seen so far, writing a complicated morally ambiguous 5,000 year old immortal well is quite a challenge.)

I ended up celebrating my colloquium by watching my two favorite Highlander episodes, “Comes a Horseman” and “Revelation 6:8.” Then I watched them again. Then I decided to watch all of the Methos episodes that I have on tape. Then I decided that I need more; thus, fic. Most of what I’ve found so far has involved Methos behaving like a 12-year-old girl with a crush on Duncan, so if anyone could point me in a more productive direction I’d appreciate it. He’s such a wonderful character; I’m sure there must be great fic out there somewhere.

I haven’t read my LJ in a week. I suppose this has to do with souled Spike’s failure to hold my attention–I’m turning to Methos and Jaime Lannister instead. Alas, neither actually has the potential to hold my attention long-term–Methos’ story has been over for years, and who knows when the next Song of Ice and Fire book will be out (plus, Jaime has a miniscule fandom). But for the time being, this is entertaining me.

While watching these episodes I became curious as to what my reaction might have been when I first saw them, so I pulled out my old diary and checked the date that the episosdes aired. Sure enough, post “Revelation” I devoted three pages to expounding on the wonderfulness of Methos. I was fifteen at the time–six years ago. I may be fairly new to online fandom, but I’ve always been a fan. It amuses me how little I’ve changed.

I think in the end, I love Methos much more than Spike. Methos is a lot like Jaime Lannister in that they both took the hard path toward redemption–struggle and suffering and choice. No magic deus ex machina soul for them.

( babbling about why I like Methos more than Spike )

So, anyone going to see Common Rotation at the Bitter End this weekend?

Babbling about site stats

January 30th, 2004 2:34pm by rusty-halo | 60 Comments »

Since my site is a fairly popular Spike site, I think that by looking at its statistics, one can extrapolate some general trends about Spike fandom (especially the fanfic side). Of course, my site is skewed toward the segment of Spike fic readers that happen to visit my particular site, so that should be kept in mind.

I’ve compiled some statistics and my analysis of what they mean. ( So what do my stats suggest about Spike fanfic/fandom trends? )

(no subject)

January 29th, 2004 12:09am by rusty-halo | 19 Comments »

I think that one of my biggest problems with this season isn’t even directly tied to Spike. It’s just the whole “morality should be black and white” theme in general.

Like, I don’t get what’s wrong with Angel taking over Wolfram and Hart. If he hadn’t, really seriously evil people would’ve taken it over, and used it to do many horrible evil awful things. By being there and preventing even 1/10th of those things, Angel is doing more good than he’d ever manage to do in his tiny, broke little detective organization.

And now, when he wants to do something good, he has immense resources to do it. He can accomplish so much more from this position than he ever could have before.

Should he have lied and erased his friends’ memories to get them there? Of course not. But the actual being there, trying to change the system instead of just striking against it … that’s the right thing to do. That’s the adult thing to do. Morality is not black and white; it’s all shades of grey. Trying to change something is going to be a lot more successful than trying to tear it down. (This isn’t to say there isn’t a place for those who do fight the injustices of the “system,” but it’s not inherently wrong to try to change the system from inside, either.)

Now this doesn’t mean that it’s not dangerous. Yes, Angel and his friends are running the risk of becoming corrupted. But this is their own fault; Gunn, apparently, has given in to the evil that surrounds them, and perhaps others are leaning in this direction too. This is because of their own decisions; it’s not the inevitable outcome of working at Wolfram and Hart (though apparently we’re supposed to think it is?)

Last week we saw Angel longing for black and white, and Spike, of all people, arguing for it. (Which is probably the largest reason this Spike makes absolutely no sense to me.) To me, this is a weakness in both of them, a longing for childish simplicity instead of a decision to live in the real world, where things are complicated and easy answers aren’t always just spelled out for you.

But apparently, we’re just supposed to be longing for the black and white along with Angel? I just completely don’t get it.

Near the end of season six, I wrote a semi-essay (half-assed and unpolished, located here) about, basically, why Spike’s redemption meant something to me. My four points were as follows; they have all been completely deconstructed in favor of that black and white ideal.

1. I believe that Spike is capable of changing himself.

(No, apparently he needs a soul to do that. And yeah, yeah, he chose the soul, but those were the most half-assed confusing scenes the show ever produced.)

2. I believe in free will.

(Nope, it’s all about fate and destiny.)

3. I believe that morality is not black and white.

(Apparently we’re supposed to think that it is/should be.)

4. I believe that guilt is not necessary for redemption.

(Nope, apparently the best way to become a better person isn’t actually to do good things and better yourself, it’s to mope around and whine about the past–which you can’t change. And yeah, it’s nice for Spike to recognize that he did wrong, but he did that already. It drove him insane for months, remember? Insane in the basement, eating rats, cutting his chest open, babbling about what a bad awful man he was, burning on a cross. He already recognized what he’d done wrong, and moved on. All he’s doing now is ridiculous self-indulgent Angel-style moping.)

Obviously there is nothing for me in this show anymore.

I really wish I could just limit my website to unsouled Spike fic, but there’s so depressingly few people writing it anymore. I sort of have to stick around if I’m going to continue to archive new fic, written about irritating Angel-wanna-be-destiny-obsessed-Spike. Except I don’t even like that character. But I like some of the authors who will write about him. I don’t know what to do. The obvious answer is “stop watching the show, leave fandom, stop annoying everyone with whiny posts” which I’d be happy to do except I still enjoy running my website and am not ready to stop yet.

bitching/whining/ranting/negativity/I am so over this crap

January 28th, 2004 9:59pm by rusty-halo | 13 Comments »

( ats 5.11 )

apparently i’m asking for half of my friends list to de-friend me, but this is how i feel

January 23rd, 2004 3:39am by rusty-halo | 71 Comments »

I wasn’t going to post this, but then when I was catching up with my FL I saw quite a few people trying to figure out why some people do or don’t like Spike this season. And I saw a lot of assumptions that don’t apply to me, like “If you don’t like Spike this season, you must worship pure wussy saint Spike,” or whatever. So I decided to post this anyway.

I know most people will disagree with this. I’m fine with disagreement in my LJ, but please be nice about it. People can interpret a story differently without that meaning that one or the other is “wrong.” I have no problem with most of the people who are enjoying Spike this year. I’m glad you’re finding something meaningful there. I’m just not. This is about explaining my reasons, not debunking anyone else’s.

Original post:

I’ve been hoping since “Lessons” to like Spike again, and I’ve finally come to realize that my Spike really did die in “Grave.” I don’t like and am not interested in the guy who replaced him. (And, believe me, I really did try to like him, and tried to convince myself that I liked him, but honestly I just don’t and I’m sick of trying to force myself to.)

( Why (negativity; skip it if it’ll bother you) )

Um, yeah, and last thing: my dislike of Spike this season has absolutely nothing to do with the fact I think JM’s makeup sucks. Just to clarify that. The crappy makeup annoys me, but I would love a well-written Spike no matter how JM looked. They’re two completely separate issues, and I really don’t appreciate the insinuation that I’m only dissatisfied with the character because I’m not as attracted to him.

Soul Purpose

January 21st, 2004 10:44pm by rusty-halo | 23 Comments »

( Soul Purpose )

20 unpopular opinions

November 21st, 2003 9:49pm by rusty-halo | 69 Comments »

Well, these are supposed to be unpopular opinions, right? So I’m going all out and I’m not going to sugarcoat and qualify. Something here is liable to offend, well, probably everyone, so don’t get upset if you, y’know, get upset.

( 10 unpopular opinions about fan behavior )

10 unpopular opinions about the actual show(s)

1. I haven’t been able to stand Xander since the lie in Becoming 2. He did it because he’s a bigoted, condescending little creep. He *always* judged Angel harshly because he wanted to get rid of the competition, and he never trusted Buffy to make her own decisions. Over the seasons he slowly turned into his father–the way he treated Anya, the way he treated Spike, even the condescending way he treated Buffy. He was an absolutely repulsive character. And it’s most clear in B2–I can’t believe he had the gall to call himself Buffy’s friend after that! And I completely understand Buffy’s desire to leave after that episode; if I were her, I wouldn’t have bothered coming back.

That said, I can read and enjoy Xander in fanfic. But the fanfic Xander that I can like is completely removed from the asshole that I saw on TV.

2. I used to like Buffy. (See above re: my identification with her in B2). I sympathized with her right up until she hit Spike in “Smashed.” At that point, Spike had been the only one to be there for Buffy and to actually try to understand her after her resurrection (unlike the Scoobies, who were more focused on assuaging their own guilt than in actually understanding Buffy). Spike had protected her sister and friends all summer, and he’d nearly died–several times!–trying to protect Dawn.

Then Buffy kissed him, twice, out of nowhere, after he’d told her to leave him alone. He had every right to demand to know what was going on. And instead of explaining it to him (“because of Giles” made no sense; she’d kissed him the first time before she knew Giles was leaving), she hit him and called him an “evil, disgusting thing.” This was the first step of Buffy’s utterly repulsive S6 behavior.

Buffy was the abuser in that relationship, and Spike was the victim. Yeah, Spike made some mistakes, but nothing even close to the violent, calculated, months-long physical and emotional abuse that Buffy inflicted on him. She mocked him to her friends, treated him like a dirty secret, used him for sex and emotional reassurance, then told him he was dirt and could never be better, despite the fact that he was trying to become a better person. She beat him to get out her frustrations and to make herself look good in front of Riley, and she never apologized or even acknowledged that she’d made a mistake. She felt guilty because she had tainted her precious self by sleeping with a dirty thing, not because she was using, manipulating, and destroying a person who loved her and who had the potential to become a better man. She took, took, took, and never gave anything back, and then tried to act like she was superior in condescending to apologize to him before throwing him away like he was garbage. Buffy was the monster in that relationship. I’ll never stop despising her for what she did to Spike.

And I’m fucking sick of seeing her abuse justified because she’s just a confused little girly and Spike’s a nasty rotten man. Reverse the genders and then you can see how utterly wrong her behavior really was.

3. Sort of a corrolary to #2. Buffy started out as a girl with some bad qualities (tendencies toward selfishness and shallowness) but also real potential to become a good, kind, heroic person. But throughout the seasons she became increasingly selfish and cruel. (And yeah, she did suffer; that’s a reason, not an excuse. She could have chosen not to let herself become such a monster.) Ultimately, she had chosen to abandon virtually every kind quality she once possessed. She was a heartless, cruel, manipulative abuser who thought only of herself and only valued other people when they could be useful to her. Xander, Dawn, Willow — they were all useful in validating her, helping her get what she wanted, and reflecting aspects of herself. Later in the series, she ceased to value any aspect of them as individuals, and only saw them in relation to her. She was pathologically self-obsessed and narcisstic. She was not a hero.

4. Buffy and Angel didn’t love each other. They loved idealized fantasy images of each other. Buffy loved the big swooping romantic hero; Angel loved the ideal of innocence that he’d never reclaim. They never actually knew each other as individuals. And frankly, you can’t love someone if you don’t know them. (Sorry. You just can’t. You can be really attracted to them, but actual love requires that you know the person a hell of a lot better than blinded-by-illusions Buffy and Angel did.)

They’re both dominant alpha personalities; if they were ever actually together for an extended period of time, the glow would wear off, they’d see each other’s real personalities, and they’d be at each other’s throats pretty damn quickly.

5. Angel was a coward for leaving Buffy. Rather than, say, trying to seek out and win his soul, or trying to find a way around the curse, or trying to be with Buffy without letting his hormones get in the way, or staying to be there for her as a friend, he chose to completely abandon her. His choice to make decisions for her without consulting her (repeatedly!) is the ultimate in sexism, and I cannot believe Joss would allow this to be portrayed heroically on a so-called feminist show.

And then he had the gall not to admit that he was too weak to be with her, but instead to blame it on her! To claim that he had to be the strong one (*snort*) so that she could have a “normal life.” Hello, she’s the slayer! “Normal life” not exactly in the cards.

And WTF is up with the whole stupid normal thing anyway? What’s so great about normal? ME’s idealization of the normal is ultimately the thing that pisses me off the most about their shows. Rather than having Buffy accept and use her great gift, they showed her constantly pining for mediocrity and conformity and a socially acceptable life. It was pathetic. Sure, every little girl wants to be “normal” at some point. Personally, I got over it when I was nine. I was expecting a bit more from a supposed “feminist hero.” Believe it or not, you can actually have a valid and fulfilling life without conforming to the social ideal of 2.5 kids and a normal house in the suburbs and a GI Joe boyfriend. It’s tragic that Buffy never realized that.

And it really pisses me off that the choice to live a non-traditional life is always presented as an inferior compromise to that stupid suburban ideal. (“Oh no! My boyfriend can’t give me grandchildren! We can never be together long-term!” How does that make infertile couples feel, I wonder? Or those who choose not to have children? Did Buffy ever give any thought to whether she would want to have children, instead of just following the dominant social norm? Or “Oh no, my boyfriend can’t frolick in the sunlight and run with me on the beach?” How does that make disabled people feel? Or hell, people who don’t like the sun? You can’t possibly have a fulfilling life with a mildly limiting sun allergy? Please! As if superpowers don’t make up for it anyway.)

6. I liked the Trio. I thought they were some of the best villains of the series. Their descent in Dead Things was brilliant. I loved how they started as silly comic relief and became increasingly dark. It was realistic. It blurred the black and white moral boundaries of the show, showed that humans are much more complex than we think, that even seemingly good-if-misguided kids have very dark sides. I liked it less when it descended into a lesson about misogyny (“look at Buffy smash Warren’s balls!”), but when it was about the darkness in us all it was great. And all their nerd jokes were hilarious. “Timothy Dalton should win an Oscar and beat Sean Connery over the head with it!” Hehehe.

7. Spike could have and should have been redeemed without a soul. Giving Spike a soul was the stupidest thing ME ever did. It ruined the character and completely destroyed the complexity of his journey and his personality. It enforced a limited, essentialist, racist attitude, it was an attempt to whitewash all the complexity and moral questions raised by season six, and it tried to invalidate all the good acts and changes made by the character that I loved (unsouled Spike). And when I say he should’ve been redeemed, I don’t mean turned into a great big fluffy bunny; I mean he could’ve fought by the good guys and chosen to make the right choices, even if that wasn’t his natural instinct, because he learned. I saw that Spike was capable of learning and growing and becoming a better person, and no stupid artificially constructed ME anvils are going to change my mind. Oh, and Xander’s “but I never forgot what he was” is the most bigoted piece of nonsense I’ve ever heard. I can’t believe ME let it come out of the mouth of a so-called hero.

8. Souled Spike doesn’t need to be redeemed. He hasn’t done anything wrong.

It’s like saying Buffy needs to be redeemed for “Normal Again” or Joyce needs to be redeemed for “Gingerbread.” They were under mystical influence that was beyond their control and that took away their internal restraints and resulted in them doing things that they wouldn’t have normally done. Once returned to normal, it’s ridiculous to hold them culpable for those things that they are able perfectly able to restrain themselves from doing.

Souled Angel, in contrast, has plenty that he needs to be redeemed for. Like killing criminals to try to get back with Darla, letting people die in that hotel, letting the clerk die, locking the lawyers in to die, fucking Darla in an attempt to lose his soul, trying to kill Wesley, and erasing his friends’ memories.

9. Human William was a pathetic, boring, annoying little wuss. I’m glad we saw him, because he provides great insight into Spike’s character (and Spike IS him, just a William who has lost his soul and been through years of change and experience), but on his own he SUCKS. I can’t stand to read fic that glorifies him; there’s nothing wonderful or interesting there; just a dull naive little dork with a lot of unrealized potential.

10. Spike should keep the duster. It’s a representation of his strength, not his evil. Plus, it’s hot. Also, he should keep the bleached hair. And he really, really, really needs the eyeliner and nailpolish back. Please? Also, Spike becoming human is the worst idea ever, and every time someone says it I get physically nauseated. Just don’t. (For why, see above re: the idealization of the normal.)

(no subject)

November 20th, 2003 1:44am by rusty-halo | 31 Comments »

( AtS 5.08 )

Self indulgent bitching

November 7th, 2003 4:31pm by rusty-halo | 67 Comments »

I just defriended a bunch of people. I don’t mean to seem pompous; I’m just explaining why because I know some people tend to get upset when defriended, so I want to clarify that it wasn’t personal and wasn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings.

( long explanation of why I’m losing interest in Spike )

Anyway, so that’s the reason I’m losing interest in the show. The story and the characters just don’t resonate with me personally. I do think they’ve been written well so far on AtS, but the themes just aren’t something I care about anymore. I still get upset when bad things happen to Spike, but nothing that fits my definition of “good” has happened in a long time, so it’s basically all pain with very little pleasure. The story that mattered to me has been over for a long time, and it ended in just about the worst way possible. I despise the way that BtVS ended; I don’t want to think or talk about that show any more. Just seeing Buffy’s name in print makes me want to hit someone.

So, that said, I’m starting to disconnect myself from fandom. I just took about 45 people off of my friends list. This isn’t an attempt to hurt anyone’s feelings, and I apologize if it does. The only reason I’m keeping my LJ at all is that there are a couple of friends I want to stay in touch with, and because I want to keep up with fanfic. I’m really sick of the elitism and judgementalism and sucking up and cliques and having to watch everything you say in case it gets misinterpreted and having to be nice to assholes because they’re influential and all the other bullshit of LJ culture, so I’m not sure how much I’ll be participating anymore, anyway. I can’t stand who I am when I post here.

I’m still going to be running my website, because I haven’t got anything better to do and it’s as good of a distraction as any. I’ll stop updating it when I find something better to occupy my time, which could be next week or next year for all I know. I do plan to leave the archive up as long as I can, though, since I know a lot of people find it to be a useful resource.

(no subject)

October 25th, 2003 5:38pm by rusty-halo | 14 Comments »

( thoughts about Spike on Angel )

(no subject)

October 16th, 2003 8:10pm by rusty-halo | 34 Comments »

Here’s the thing. Spike fans are defending themselves with “I love AtS too!” And AtS fans are qualifying, “Well, the Spike fans who like AtS too are okay.” The issue seems to be with those Spike fans who have the audacity to care only about Spike, not the rest of the show. Those are the people we all have to quality that we are not, so that everyone knows we care about the other characters too, and we watched the show before Spike showed up, and we think Wesley/Angel/Lorne/whoever is cool, etc.

But my question is: what’s so wrong with just liking Spike? I addressed this indirectly in my earlier posts, but I still found myself qualifying that I’ve watched AtS since the beginning. Why do I have to qualify? Why can’t it just be “I watch for Spike, the rest is irrelevant, and I’m not going to apologize for it”?

I posted this somewhere private, but I’m reposting it here because it clarifies what I mean:

It’s like the Angel fans are deigning to lecture the Spike fans on how to behave, and letting the “good” ones in, the ones who pass “not rabid Spike fen” muster. The ones who don’t claim their Spike fandom too intensely, and are sure to make all the proper bows to the authority of the AtS fans. It’s incredibly condescending, and it’s based on this assumption that Angel fans are somehow superior to Spike fans and have the right to dictate who is acceptable and who is too “rabid.”

The thing is, Spike fans have been around a long time, too. And while every character has their own particular fan following, many Spike fans have always felt separate. One reason is that Spike never really fit into the narrative, so aside from Spike/Buffy fans, Spike fans didn’t really have that many connections to the rest of the show and characters. You could be a Spike fan and skip everything in season six after “Seeing Red,” minus 3 minutes in each following episode, and have that be it. Spike’s story was rarely tied very closely into the story that incorporated all the other characters (which I think is very unfortunate, but that’s another issue). Another thing is that Spike fans got to be such a *huge* group–ad campaigns and mobbing at conventions and letter writing and their own separate, distinct places in fandom almost completely apart from the rest of BtVS and AtS fandom. Plus, many Spike fans abandoned general boards, like TWOP or the newsgroup, because they got sick of the rampant Spike-bashing. So they retreated to private Spike-centric communities where discussion of other characters and events tended to occur only in relation to Spike.

So now Spike fans are interacting with AtS fans, and the AtS fans think that they get to tell the Spike fans what to do because the Spike fans are joining “their” show. They see the Spike fans as less, underlings that they can lecture and decide which “count” as the acceptable ones. But it doesn’t work that way–Spike fans have been around as a group longer than AtS has existed, we have our own deeply rooted ways of behaving and watching and thinking about the character.

I don’t mean that Spike fans are better–my point is that neither group is “better.” I seriously don’t think the AtS fans would appreciate the more prominent members of Spike fandom coming over and lecturing them on how to watch the show, and the same holds true with Spike fans; we don’t need prominent members of AtS fandom telling us what to do. If we want to watch the Spike scenes and skip the rest because it bores us, that’s our right–just like the AtS fans can (and many prominently are) dismissing the Spike parts, forming groups were no one can talk about Spike, etc.

I’m not saying that’s ideal–it would be nice if we could all appreciate everything, Spike fans loving AtS and AtS fans loving Spike. But realistically, that’s not going to happen. It’s a matter of taste; some Spike fans aren’t going to be interested in AtS, and vice versa. That doesn’t make either group “better fans,” and it certainly doesn’t give one group the right to lecture and order around the other.

So if you’re a Spike fan and you agree with this, I suggest that we all make sure not to apologize, not to feel the need to qualify and explain and justify our existence. Even if you have been watching from the beginning and you love Angel to pieces–it would be okay if you didn’t. The fact that you love Spike is enough, it has value and meaning on its own. And if the AtS fans don’t want to accept that, well, too bad. They don’t get to define us. They can call us rabid all they want, but we don’t have to listen and we don’t have to let it define who we are.

It’s like, I just can’t stop with this topic. You’d be amazed at how quiet I am in RL.

October 16th, 2003 12:29pm by rusty-halo | 38 Comments »

Seriously, how is it okay for someone to say “I don’t care about Spike, and I’m upset that he’s taking time away from my characters,” but when a Spike fan says “I don’t care about Angel, and I’m worried about Spike’s characterization” that makes us RABID SPIKE FEN? The double standard right there is plain as day. It’s okay for them to worry about their characters, but it’s somehow wrong for us to worry that our character is getting shafted? On what planet is that fair?

You know what else? I’ve watched BtVS and AtS both from their very first episodes, minus some lulls where I got bored or fell asleep in the middle. It’s not like I’m hopping on the bandwagon and not knowing anything about the show; I watch the show. But now that Spike’s here, for the first time, I actually care about the show.

I suppose some people out there watch the show and love every character equally. But most of us identify with one or two characters in particular and care most about their stories. And again, I ask, if the character I happen to care about is Spike, why does that mean there’s something wrong with me? There’s nothing wrong with a Wesley fan caring most about Wesley, or an Angel fan caring most about Angel. I’m not going to hold that against them. But why, when it’s Spike, is it a problem?

And, oh yes, why is there something wrong with me if I don’t care about Buffy/Angel/Wes/Lorne/whoever? I see this all the time; you’re a “bad fan” if you don’t care about Buffy. Huh? Says who? I find her behavior horrific and her personality loathesome. Why does this make me a rotten nasty person?–I dislike her precisely because her behavior offends my morality! It’s like, how dare I have an opinion that’s not all sunshine and roses and praise Joss? And no one bitches about the Buffy fans who go on about how they can’t stand that evil nasty Spike, but it’s wrong for the Spike fans to dislike Buffy? Why? The only reason I can see is that she’s prioritized by the narrative, she’s in the title, etc., but that is just not relevant to me because authorial intent is not my method of interpreting a text. The writers may want me to care mostly about Buffy, but if she falls flat to me and Spike feels real and meaningful, then I’m going to care about Spike.

Y’know, part of the reason I like these shows is that they make me think. And part of thinking means being critical. It would be pretty damn lame (and dishonest with myself) if I watched every episode going “Yay! Joss is wonderful! Everything is so good!” Um, no. BtVS made me think a whole lot about morality and ethics and remorse and atonement and different varieties of feminism and the media’s portrayal of “girl power!” and my idea of a strong women and what defines an equal relationship and how does power function in society and a whole lot of interesting things that I might never have considered before. And a lot of the time, the reason I considered these really interesting issues was that I found something disturbing or upsetting in the way BtVS was written and I tried to figure out why it upset me. I really disapprove of the way feminism has been portrayed on BtVS and it’s made me think about what feminism means to me, and even though my opinion is negative in regards to BtVS it’s been a positive and enlightening realization for me as a person.

So anyway. The whole idea that I’m not allowed to be critical and I have to approve of everything Joss does is just bull, and would significantly take away from my understanding of the show and my ways of interacting with the text. I don’t hold it against anyone who does view the show this way, likes all the characters, whatever; it’s their right. I respect that. But my opinion is just as valid too.

And really. How would you appreciate being called RABID ANGEL FEN? RABID WESLEY FEN? RABID BUFFY FEN? It’s fucking rude. We all have our favorite characters; quit judging the ones that you personally don’t like.

(no subject)

October 16th, 2003 11:05am by rusty-halo | 12 Comments »

I’m a Spike fan. Not an Angel fan. Not a Buffy fan. A Spike fan. Spike is the character that I find interesting and intriguing and fun to watch. I would not be watching either show if he wasn’t on it. If he ceased to be on it, I would stop watching.

I find most of the other characters at best only mildly interesting, and at worst, tiresome and irritating. I think that some of the plots are interesting, and a lot of them aren’t. The ME brand of “feminism” makes me violently ill and I’d never watch another of their shows again if I didn’t want to see Spike. Spike is actually the only fictional character I care about enough to watch TV for; without him I’d probably get rid of my television and not miss it.

So what if my character’s not in the title? I’m not going to rearrange my preferences and pretend to be interested in characters that I don’t care about just because they’re the supposed “real” central characters.

You think this makes me a bad fan? Fuck off. I don’t need your approval, and there is nothing wrong with watching for one character.