Look, I'm just saying, that there does not exist somewhere on the internet a Horatio Hornblower vid to "Backside Rules The Navy" is clearly a travesty of the highest order. Fandom, I am judging you forever. And so is every midshipman who has ever ogled Horatio when he takes his shirt off.
This Is My Brain
Aug. 3rd, 2011 08:05 pmI cannot consistently remember the birthdays of most of my immediate family or where I put my glasses five minutes after I took them off. But, as it turns out, I can remember extensive and completely irrelevant details from the terrible Gundam Wing porn I read six years ago.
I'm just saying.
I'm just saying.
Clearing House
Jul. 14th, 2011 07:12 pmI need to stop buying so many books.
Okay, now that everyone's done laughing, let me try that again. I need to get rid of some of my books. The situation now is just impossible - the bookcase in my room was already double and triple stacked before I brought 250-odd books home with me from college, and I have proved myself completely incapable of walking past the used bookstore without spending money. Just this week I've bought two manwha, a yaoi manga, 3 comics, a Terry Pratchett book, and a collection of Li-Young Lee poems. And they will just have to sit stacked up on my dresser until places have been cleared for them. But at least my dad promised to trade me some of his bookshelves when I move out?
It makes me a little sad how much I don't care about the new episodes of Torchwood coming out. I'm trying not to be one of the bitter, crazy, boycott-the-show-and-write-nasty-letters kind of fans, and I'm not even really angry anymore. I just can't seem to muster any enthusiasm for this show. It's clearly not my show. My show had a pterodactyl on it. (You know, I have Strong Feelings about Ianto Jones, and Owen, and Tosh, but when RTD said that Myfanwy died that is when I gave up on Torchwood for real.) And it's odd, but I think this is really the first fandom I actually broke up with. I'm not mono-fannish by nature - I'm usually into three or four fandoms at once, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, and I drift in and out at will - but I've never before hit a point where I had to say 'no, I cannot do this anymore.' At some point, Torchwood the show, and Torchwood the fic, and Torchwood the fandom all stopped making me happy.
On the other hand, k-dramas are currently a fandom that is making me very, very happy, in a squishy, uncomplicated, let's have piggyback rides and make-outs and cross-dressing kind of way. Everyone who insisted I had had had to watch Coffee Prince: fine. You were right. I give up, it's adorable. I'm also in the process of rewatching Life Is Beautiful, which is just plain charming. I love that you can tell that Tae-Sub is the Serious Dramatic Arc character because he gets Serious Sad Background Music every time he appears on screen.
I hope everyone is watching the Women's World Cup? Because seriously, it has been amazing. I am so proud of my badass American ladies right now, they have been fighting so hard the whole series. I've even been getting my dad to watch the matches this week, and he's been pretty impressed. I'll be at my mom's during the final, but luckily they have ESPN, and double-luckily, they have a job to work so they are leaving me in the house by myself until![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hanjuuluver picks me up in the afternoon. So I will be glued to the match for sure!
Okay, now that everyone's done laughing, let me try that again. I need to get rid of some of my books. The situation now is just impossible - the bookcase in my room was already double and triple stacked before I brought 250-odd books home with me from college, and I have proved myself completely incapable of walking past the used bookstore without spending money. Just this week I've bought two manwha, a yaoi manga, 3 comics, a Terry Pratchett book, and a collection of Li-Young Lee poems. And they will just have to sit stacked up on my dresser until places have been cleared for them. But at least my dad promised to trade me some of his bookshelves when I move out?
It makes me a little sad how much I don't care about the new episodes of Torchwood coming out. I'm trying not to be one of the bitter, crazy, boycott-the-show-and-write-nasty-letters kind of fans, and I'm not even really angry anymore. I just can't seem to muster any enthusiasm for this show. It's clearly not my show. My show had a pterodactyl on it. (You know, I have Strong Feelings about Ianto Jones, and Owen, and Tosh, but when RTD said that Myfanwy died that is when I gave up on Torchwood for real.) And it's odd, but I think this is really the first fandom I actually broke up with. I'm not mono-fannish by nature - I'm usually into three or four fandoms at once, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, and I drift in and out at will - but I've never before hit a point where I had to say 'no, I cannot do this anymore.' At some point, Torchwood the show, and Torchwood the fic, and Torchwood the fandom all stopped making me happy.
On the other hand, k-dramas are currently a fandom that is making me very, very happy, in a squishy, uncomplicated, let's have piggyback rides and make-outs and cross-dressing kind of way. Everyone who insisted I had had had to watch Coffee Prince: fine. You were right. I give up, it's adorable. I'm also in the process of rewatching Life Is Beautiful, which is just plain charming. I love that you can tell that Tae-Sub is the Serious Dramatic Arc character because he gets Serious Sad Background Music every time he appears on screen.
I hope everyone is watching the Women's World Cup? Because seriously, it has been amazing. I am so proud of my badass American ladies right now, they have been fighting so hard the whole series. I've even been getting my dad to watch the matches this week, and he's been pretty impressed. I'll be at my mom's during the final, but luckily they have ESPN, and double-luckily, they have a job to work so they are leaving me in the house by myself until
hanjuuluver picks me up in the afternoon. So I will be glued to the match for sure!Don't Judge Me
Jun. 18th, 2011 10:55 pmSome quick thoughts on Star Wars, via the radio plays (and also unnamed webcomics):
1. Why did no one ever tell me that Leia is a complete fucking badass? Did I just not notice this when I watched the movies as a kid? I mean, I got that she was important and kind of cool and refused to take Han Solo's shit but OMG SHE IS AMAZING. Just in the first movie/play, she murders an Imperial General and makes it look like a hunting accident, bitches out Darth Vader to his face, endures near-lethal torture and Force-aided interrogation and refuses to betray the Rebellion even in the face of the destruction of her home planet, and more or less rescues herself, Luke and Han Solo after the bust her out of prison on the Death Star. I AM IN LOVE.
2. Why can't I find any of the prequel-era erastes/eromenos Jedi fic? It has to exist, right? I mean, I can find Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi by the bucketful, and even plenty of Obi-Wan/Anakin. But it's all soul-bonding true-love damn-our-traditions-I'm-devoted-to-you fic and that's...perfectly fine, I guess, but I'm twisted enough that I would really like to see some fic that plays up the master/student dynamic in an institutionalized, part of Jedi culture kind of way (if also in an 'over the age of majority, as consensual as the situation allows' kind of way). I don't even want to read it - that dynamic isn't one I really like in my pairings - I just want to be validated in my belief that it's uncomfortably plausible and the kind of thing fandom would pick up on.
3. Continuing the 'I am a terrible person' line, I would desperately like someone to write me the darkfic AU of the original trilogy where the morality of the universe is switched. The Empire really is a benevolent one, committed to the ideal of using their resources and weapons to bring peace to the galaxy and ending the poverty and violence that flourished under the Old Republic. The Rebels are terrorists attacking the peace of the empire, conscripting dumb kids off farm planets to throw their lives away and killing innocent civilians and workaday imperial soldiers alike. Ben Kenobi is a bitter remnant of the old regime, indoctrinating young Luke into an antiquated cult faith. It's - you know, canonically, of course I'm totally on the side of the Rebels. The Empire is evil, Luke Skywalker is adorable, the Jedis are awesome warrior monks, end of story. I just want to see if someone could pull this off.
...I need to stop letting my brain take over like this. It always ends in such weird places.
1. Why did no one ever tell me that Leia is a complete fucking badass? Did I just not notice this when I watched the movies as a kid? I mean, I got that she was important and kind of cool and refused to take Han Solo's shit but OMG SHE IS AMAZING. Just in the first movie/play, she murders an Imperial General and makes it look like a hunting accident, bitches out Darth Vader to his face, endures near-lethal torture and Force-aided interrogation and refuses to betray the Rebellion even in the face of the destruction of her home planet, and more or less rescues herself, Luke and Han Solo after the bust her out of prison on the Death Star. I AM IN LOVE.
2. Why can't I find any of the prequel-era erastes/eromenos Jedi fic? It has to exist, right? I mean, I can find Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi by the bucketful, and even plenty of Obi-Wan/Anakin. But it's all soul-bonding true-love damn-our-traditions-I'm-devoted-to-you fic and that's...perfectly fine, I guess, but I'm twisted enough that I would really like to see some fic that plays up the master/student dynamic in an institutionalized, part of Jedi culture kind of way (if also in an 'over the age of majority, as consensual as the situation allows' kind of way). I don't even want to read it - that dynamic isn't one I really like in my pairings - I just want to be validated in my belief that it's uncomfortably plausible and the kind of thing fandom would pick up on.
3. Continuing the 'I am a terrible person' line, I would desperately like someone to write me the darkfic AU of the original trilogy where the morality of the universe is switched. The Empire really is a benevolent one, committed to the ideal of using their resources and weapons to bring peace to the galaxy and ending the poverty and violence that flourished under the Old Republic. The Rebels are terrorists attacking the peace of the empire, conscripting dumb kids off farm planets to throw their lives away and killing innocent civilians and workaday imperial soldiers alike. Ben Kenobi is a bitter remnant of the old regime, indoctrinating young Luke into an antiquated cult faith. It's - you know, canonically, of course I'm totally on the side of the Rebels. The Empire is evil, Luke Skywalker is adorable, the Jedis are awesome warrior monks, end of story. I just want to see if someone could pull this off.
...I need to stop letting my brain take over like this. It always ends in such weird places.
So, my remixing class is starting off with a bunch of modern/post-modern art theory essays, and it's...well. See for yourself:
"What I have been calling the fiction of the originary status of the picture surface is what art criticism proudly names the opacity of the modernist picture plane, only in so terming it, the critiic does not think of this opacity as fictitious. Within the discursive space of modernist art, the putative opacity of the pictorial field must be maintained as a fundamental concept. For it is the bedrock on whic a whole structure of related terms can be built. All those terms - singularity, authenticity, uniqueness, originality, original - depend on the originary moment of which this surface is both the empirical and the semiological instance. If modernism's domain of pleasure is the space of auto-referentiality, this pleasure dome is erected on the semiological possibility of the pictorial sign as nonrepresentational and nontransparent, so that the signified becomes the redundant condition of a reified signifier. But from our perspective, the one from which we see that the signifier cannot be reified; that its objecthood, its quiddity, is only a fiction; that every signifier is itself the transparent signified of an already-given decision to carve it out as the vehicle of a sign - from this perspective there is no opacity, but only a transparency that opens onto a dizzying fall into a bottomless system of reduplication." [Rosalind Krauss, "The Originality of the Avant Garde"]
I've read this paragraph four times, and I still can't parse what the hell she is on about, except that it has something to do with Duchamp and photographic reproduction. You win, art theory. I thought literary criticism was bad (Sturgeon's Corollary of Academic Discourse - 10% of it is engaging/interesting/relevant, the other 90% is nonsense and intellectual masturbation), but we've got nothing on this. This is critical technobabble raised to its highest art form. Somewhere, George Orwell's ghost is crying.
On the other hand, this essay by Jonathan Latham on intellectual property presents an interesting ethical model for artists in the internet era. Nothing fandom hasn't argued vociferously before, but well-stated, and something I'd like to see more professionals advocating.
"What I have been calling the fiction of the originary status of the picture surface is what art criticism proudly names the opacity of the modernist picture plane, only in so terming it, the critiic does not think of this opacity as fictitious. Within the discursive space of modernist art, the putative opacity of the pictorial field must be maintained as a fundamental concept. For it is the bedrock on whic a whole structure of related terms can be built. All those terms - singularity, authenticity, uniqueness, originality, original - depend on the originary moment of which this surface is both the empirical and the semiological instance. If modernism's domain of pleasure is the space of auto-referentiality, this pleasure dome is erected on the semiological possibility of the pictorial sign as nonrepresentational and nontransparent, so that the signified becomes the redundant condition of a reified signifier. But from our perspective, the one from which we see that the signifier cannot be reified; that its objecthood, its quiddity, is only a fiction; that every signifier is itself the transparent signified of an already-given decision to carve it out as the vehicle of a sign - from this perspective there is no opacity, but only a transparency that opens onto a dizzying fall into a bottomless system of reduplication." [Rosalind Krauss, "The Originality of the Avant Garde"]
I've read this paragraph four times, and I still can't parse what the hell she is on about, except that it has something to do with Duchamp and photographic reproduction. You win, art theory. I thought literary criticism was bad (Sturgeon's Corollary of Academic Discourse - 10% of it is engaging/interesting/relevant, the other 90% is nonsense and intellectual masturbation), but we've got nothing on this. This is critical technobabble raised to its highest art form. Somewhere, George Orwell's ghost is crying.
On the other hand, this essay by Jonathan Latham on intellectual property presents an interesting ethical model for artists in the internet era. Nothing fandom hasn't argued vociferously before, but well-stated, and something I'd like to see more professionals advocating.
Together They Fight Bandits
Mar. 23rd, 2011 12:11 amDear Tortall Fandom: where is all my Keladry/Owen fic? Seriously, you have to have realized by now that their love is made of puppies and kittens and the death of evildoers! So why do you all insist on writing pairings that are far less full of adorableness and ass-kicking?
*checks the PotS AO3 tags again*
*pouts*
*checks the PotS AO3 tags again*
*pouts*
On Sad Stories
Sep. 26th, 2010 07:12 pmSo, I have this kind of love/hate relationship with a certain breed of angst fic.
( Maybe not the kind you're thinking of )
( Maybe not the kind you're thinking of )
This Is A Productive Use Of My Time
Jun. 1st, 2010 03:36 pmWays in Which My Academic Life and My Fandom Life Resemble Each Other (the short version):
1. Both contribute to my chronic state of sleep debt, as I don't believe in ever doing anything at a reasonable hour that could be put off to 3am.
2. Both tend to involve me going off on long, pedantic, hand-flappingly enthusiastic tangents about random subjects, whether I'm talking about the tragic backstory of a character on Doctor Who or the construction of concepts of trust and virtue in Middle English romances.
3. One way or another, at some point I always end up talking about fictional characters and how they are gay for each other. *grins sheepishly*
I had ambitious plans for the work I was going to get done over the three-day weekend, I really did! But in the end, pretty much the only thing I actually did was decide that I was never going to be able to come up with a decent thesis for a paper about race in Titus Andronicus, so screw it. I'm just going to write a 12 page paper on the Antonio/Bassanio/Portia love triangle instead. I'm pretty sure I can come up with some clever points about a) how the relationship functions differently depending on whose POV we are approaching it from and b) how it reflects the issues of acquisition, trade and fairness going on in the play, and it will at least be more entertaining to write.
I still maintain that this, like most of Shakespeare's love triangles, would best be solved by a proper Elizabethan threesome, but nobody bothered to ask me.
1. Both contribute to my chronic state of sleep debt, as I don't believe in ever doing anything at a reasonable hour that could be put off to 3am.
2. Both tend to involve me going off on long, pedantic, hand-flappingly enthusiastic tangents about random subjects, whether I'm talking about the tragic backstory of a character on Doctor Who or the construction of concepts of trust and virtue in Middle English romances.
3. One way or another, at some point I always end up talking about fictional characters and how they are gay for each other. *grins sheepishly*
I had ambitious plans for the work I was going to get done over the three-day weekend, I really did! But in the end, pretty much the only thing I actually did was decide that I was never going to be able to come up with a decent thesis for a paper about race in Titus Andronicus, so screw it. I'm just going to write a 12 page paper on the Antonio/Bassanio/Portia love triangle instead. I'm pretty sure I can come up with some clever points about a) how the relationship functions differently depending on whose POV we are approaching it from and b) how it reflects the issues of acquisition, trade and fairness going on in the play, and it will at least be more entertaining to write.
I still maintain that this, like most of Shakespeare's love triangles, would best be solved by a proper Elizabethan threesome, but nobody bothered to ask me.
In Defense of Fanfiction
May. 3rd, 2010 07:49 pmSo I've been seeing this blog post about fanfiction making the rounds on everybody's flist.
For the record, I've never heard of this woman or her books, although I probably won't go to any great lengths to seek them out now. And I apologize if this isn't all that sense-making, because I've been awake a really long time and my brain is wobbly. But reading everyone's replies to this author has made me think about a few things I wanted to blunder my way through, and what is a blog for if not subjecting people on the internet to my ill-conceived rambling.
( In which I am long-winded )
For the record, I've never heard of this woman or her books, although I probably won't go to any great lengths to seek them out now. And I apologize if this isn't all that sense-making, because I've been awake a really long time and my brain is wobbly. But reading everyone's replies to this author has made me think about a few things I wanted to blunder my way through, and what is a blog for if not subjecting people on the internet to my ill-conceived rambling.
( In which I am long-winded )
Back to Reading Study in Scarlet
Jan. 14th, 2010 02:24 pmMy afternoon class got canceled today, so I am taking the time off to relax and get my head together, since this has been a stressful week (not for any actual reasons, just sort of generalized self-doubt/money stress/neuroses very much not rooted in reality. Probably I should start meditating again...). I have plenty of time to get my reading done over the long weekend, so I don't think I have to feel too guilty about taking the evening off to read Sherlock Holmes and Due South fic. Especially since this is one of the first Thursdays in a year I don't have to work. Changing my work schedule is throwing me off a lot, but not having to end the week with a marathon day is sort of nice.
If you haven't already, you should definitely check out Help_Haiti - aside from fanfic and fanart, people are offering graphics, podfic, beta services, baked goods, knitting, tarot readings, mystery boxes of goodies, basically anything you can think of. I'm offering a 1000 word fic in most of my current fandoms (TW, nuTrek, DCU, Marvel, Athurian Lit, DiR, DS, NCIS, and a few others), if anyone is interested.
If you haven't already, you should definitely check out Help_Haiti - aside from fanfic and fanart, people are offering graphics, podfic, beta services, baked goods, knitting, tarot readings, mystery boxes of goodies, basically anything you can think of. I'm offering a 1000 word fic in most of my current fandoms (TW, nuTrek, DCU, Marvel, Athurian Lit, DiR, DS, NCIS, and a few others), if anyone is interested.
Boring Post Is Boring
Dec. 16th, 2009 02:18 amThree Things About Tuesday:
1. I got an A in my American Lit class, aka the class of never-ending reading and class discussions and the 45-minute long presentation of doom. I am officially fucking awesome. Especially since that makes my final grades for the term 3 As and a B- in the class I didn't go to for a month and a half. Taking classes that are actually in my major and thus relevant to my interests apparently makes for good motivation to dick around less.
2. YULETIDE OMG KILL ME. I, uh. Know more or less exactly what I want to write. It just isn't happening, as such. Partly because I'm having to come at the prompt a little at cross-angles to make it not so out-of-canon it makes my brain hurt. And partly because I can't figure out how to write the opening scene. But I will be at my mom's on thursday and friday with no internet access, so I should be able to get more done then if I need to.
3. I am still watching NCIS, and almost caught up to the current season. I am still torn between the part of me that says Gibbs has Tony on a very short leash and he loves it, the part that says he and McGee are totally a married couple, and the part that says he and Ziva would be really hot and really emotionally damaged. Also, I wish I could figure out why I am perfectly okay with Sam and Dean having actually-blood-related-grew-up-together-as-brothers hot filthy incestuous sex, but the idea of Tony/Abby makes me go EEEEEW BUT THEY ARE BFFS/PRACTICALLY BROTHER AND SISTER FANDOM STOP IT.
1. I got an A in my American Lit class, aka the class of never-ending reading and class discussions and the 45-minute long presentation of doom. I am officially fucking awesome. Especially since that makes my final grades for the term 3 As and a B- in the class I didn't go to for a month and a half. Taking classes that are actually in my major and thus relevant to my interests apparently makes for good motivation to dick around less.
2. YULETIDE OMG KILL ME. I, uh. Know more or less exactly what I want to write. It just isn't happening, as such. Partly because I'm having to come at the prompt a little at cross-angles to make it not so out-of-canon it makes my brain hurt. And partly because I can't figure out how to write the opening scene. But I will be at my mom's on thursday and friday with no internet access, so I should be able to get more done then if I need to.
3. I am still watching NCIS, and almost caught up to the current season. I am still torn between the part of me that says Gibbs has Tony on a very short leash and he loves it, the part that says he and McGee are totally a married couple, and the part that says he and Ziva would be really hot and really emotionally damaged. Also, I wish I could figure out why I am perfectly okay with Sam and Dean having actually-blood-related-grew-up-together-as-brothers hot filthy incestuous sex, but the idea of Tony/Abby makes me go EEEEEW BUT THEY ARE BFFS/PRACTICALLY BROTHER AND SISTER FANDOM STOP IT.
Meme From Everywhere
Nov. 11th, 2009 11:07 pm OH GOD SO MUCH PROCRASTINATING. It's not even anything important or hard, like a paper. I just really don't feel like working at all, even thought I know these workshop comments will only take me a little while. Possibly I am still mentally distracted from the new Booster Gold out today. So: meme!
Name a fandom and I'll tell you 3 pairings I love, 2 pairings I consider shipping, and 1 pairing I hate.
Name a fandom and I'll tell you 3 pairings I love, 2 pairings I consider shipping, and 1 pairing I hate.
Reading Wilkie Collin's The Woman in White for my Victorian Sex class, I have to wonder if there were Victorian fangirls reading this in the 1850s when it was being serialized who shipped Walter/Marian as much as I do right now. Because blah blah blah Laura is the innocent perfect angel of his worldly delight whatever, I don't give a damn. Marian is six kinds of awesome, and I want her and Walter to get married and have adventures and solve crime together (and have a million adorable little mustachio-ed babies OBVIOUSLY). And no one will ever write this, because Wilkie Collins has no fandom.
I also kind of vaguely ship Sir Percival/Count Fosco, but not because I want to think about them ever having sex ever. It's just...kind of blatant. WHATEVER I HAVE ISSUES.
I also kind of vaguely ship Sir Percival/Count Fosco, but not because I want to think about them ever having sex ever. It's just...kind of blatant. WHATEVER I HAVE ISSUES.
So You Don't Get To Be A Saint
Aug. 15th, 2009 10:21 pm6 Songs That Are Fannish, and 1 That's Just Good
1. Blackbird by Ellis
I drove a hundred miles down an hour down the mountainside
felt like a superhuman, felt like I could fly
I had a plane to catch, I had my seltbeat on
but it wouldn't have kept me safe if I'd fallen off
I've got rolls of tape stuck up in my head
got the wrong words mixed up in the things I said
but I meant the kindness and I meant holding you
we can be the ocean, so much bigger than this
When I talked to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
colourofsaying about this song that she sent me, I told her that in my head there are two kinds of McShep songs. There are the songs where John tries to convince Rodney they should totally be in love, no really it will be awesome, and there are the songs where John tries to deal with that thing where Rodney keeps trying to propose to girls. This song is a little of both - it's about how awesome this thing is that they have, but also how they've let it get really off track and they should fix that. And it's just got this very...Sheppard vibe in it.
2. Wonderwall by Oasis (but the Cat Power version is way more awesome and you should check it out)
Today was gonna be the day
But they'll never throw it back to you
By now you should've somehow
Realized what you're not to do
I don't believe that anybody
Feels the way I do
About you now
And all the roads that lead to you were winding
And all the lights that light the way are blinding
There are many things that I would like to say to you
I don't know how
A long time ago I had this song on my playlist as an Edward/Alphonse song, which I guess shows it has a very sibling-ish tilt to it for me. But I don't think of it that way anymore, because it is the perfect song for Sam/Dean. Specifically, season three Sam/Dean - when Dean desperately wants Sam to find a way to get him out of his deal with the crossroads demon, but at the same time has resigned himself to Sam's failure and his own death and just wants to make his last goodbyes and get it over with. Not a happy song by any means.
3. Hurricane by Ellis
You and me are like a match and a flame
We get too close and we burn up everything
We are a hungry lion who has just seen it’s prey
We can’t help ourselves we get carried away
And it can’t be that good and it can’t be that bad
I want you to use me, I give all that have
I’m ready for you like I’m ready to breathe
I can hardly stand this, I’ll do anything
One of the things I love about the Reboot Trek is the antagonism between Kirk and Spock, because it makes a lot of sense to me that two such different people would have a lot of personal and professional friction early on in their relationship, before they have good reasons to trust each other. I love watching that relationship turn to grudging respect, and then to friendship (and eventually to romance). This song would be pretty early in their capital-r Relationship, when it's all dramatic and passionate and really loud.
4. The Brilliant Dance by Dashboard Confessional
So this is odd,
the painful realization that has all gone wrong.
And nobody cares at all,
and nobody cares at all.
So you buried all your lover's clothes
and burned the letters lover wrote,
but it doesn't make it any better.
Does it make it any better?
And the plaster dented from your fist
in the hall where you had your first kiss
reminds you that the memories will fade.
This song is all about that first time you fall in love and then it all goes bad and your heart gets broken and you're sure you'll never be able to fall in love again, which is why it fits in my head so well as a Dumbledore/Grindewald song. I mean, this is a man who was able to turn a brief summer romance into 60 years worth of tragedy and breast-beating. He does not do anything by halves. But it's sad, still, to think of all those lonely years wasted because he can't move on enough to dare to love anyone else.
5. Bullets by Tunng
Our blood and guts are out
We spread our bones across the table at night
We cut our fingers off
To give ourselves those little extra insights
We're catching bullets in our teeth
And though they try hard not to say how it's done
They always do
They spill the secret out six ways
And beg for our forgiveness
Just before dawn
And now we don't remember
Cable/Deadpool: a romance between a superpowerful telepathic mutant from a post-apocalyptic alternate future and wise-cracking trigger-happy mercenary with severe psychosis, disfiguring cancer and no respect for the fourth wall. Neither of them are particularly nice people, is my point here, and this isn't a particularly nice song (it sounds like it's written about assassins to be honest). But it's hard to ignore the love between the two of them, even if they mostly express it in horribly unhealthy ways.
6. Benediction by The Weakerthans
Megaphones in helicopters squeal “hey are you okay?
Searchlights circle, where we lost our way
All our accidents were purposeful and felt
Stripped of providence or any way to tell
But our intentions were intangible and sweet
Sick with simple math and shy discoveries
Piled up against our impending defeat.
I don't have the werewithal to do a whole Children of Earth fanmix, but I do have this one song that I think captures the miniseries as a whole pretty well. It's got a good sense of the defeatism and despair that is so prominent in the whole storyline - I really read CoE as saying "no matter how hard you try, it's never going to be enough to save everyone, not even the people you love." It was just such a hopeless thing for everyone involved. This is one of my favorite Weakerthans songs.
7. Au Fond du Temple Saint by Bizet (sung in my version by Roberto Alagna and Bryn Terfel)
Au fond du temple saint
Paré de fleurs et d'or,
Une femme apparaît!
Je crois la voir encore!
Une femme apparaît!
Je crois la voir encore!
La foule prosternée
La regarde, etonnée,
Et murmure tous bas:
Voyez, c'est la déesse!
Qui dans l'ombre se dresse
Et vers nous tend les bras!
I think this is one of my favorite arias ever, even topping out "Song to the Moon" from Rusalka and "Tu cei di gel sei cinta" from Turandot. Assuming you don't read French, the aria is a duet between the two male leads of The Pearl Divers, singing about how their friendship was once threatened when they both fell in love with the same mysterious woman. It's slow and haunting and heartfelt and just lovely.
1. Blackbird by Ellis
I drove a hundred miles down an hour down the mountainside
felt like a superhuman, felt like I could fly
I had a plane to catch, I had my seltbeat on
but it wouldn't have kept me safe if I'd fallen off
I've got rolls of tape stuck up in my head
got the wrong words mixed up in the things I said
but I meant the kindness and I meant holding you
we can be the ocean, so much bigger than this
When I talked to
colourofsaying about this song that she sent me, I told her that in my head there are two kinds of McShep songs. There are the songs where John tries to convince Rodney they should totally be in love, no really it will be awesome, and there are the songs where John tries to deal with that thing where Rodney keeps trying to propose to girls. This song is a little of both - it's about how awesome this thing is that they have, but also how they've let it get really off track and they should fix that. And it's just got this very...Sheppard vibe in it.2. Wonderwall by Oasis (but the Cat Power version is way more awesome and you should check it out)
Today was gonna be the day
But they'll never throw it back to you
By now you should've somehow
Realized what you're not to do
I don't believe that anybody
Feels the way I do
About you now
And all the roads that lead to you were winding
And all the lights that light the way are blinding
There are many things that I would like to say to you
I don't know how
A long time ago I had this song on my playlist as an Edward/Alphonse song, which I guess shows it has a very sibling-ish tilt to it for me. But I don't think of it that way anymore, because it is the perfect song for Sam/Dean. Specifically, season three Sam/Dean - when Dean desperately wants Sam to find a way to get him out of his deal with the crossroads demon, but at the same time has resigned himself to Sam's failure and his own death and just wants to make his last goodbyes and get it over with. Not a happy song by any means.
3. Hurricane by Ellis
You and me are like a match and a flame
We get too close and we burn up everything
We are a hungry lion who has just seen it’s prey
We can’t help ourselves we get carried away
And it can’t be that good and it can’t be that bad
I want you to use me, I give all that have
I’m ready for you like I’m ready to breathe
I can hardly stand this, I’ll do anything
One of the things I love about the Reboot Trek is the antagonism between Kirk and Spock, because it makes a lot of sense to me that two such different people would have a lot of personal and professional friction early on in their relationship, before they have good reasons to trust each other. I love watching that relationship turn to grudging respect, and then to friendship (and eventually to romance). This song would be pretty early in their capital-r Relationship, when it's all dramatic and passionate and really loud.
4. The Brilliant Dance by Dashboard Confessional
So this is odd,
the painful realization that has all gone wrong.
And nobody cares at all,
and nobody cares at all.
So you buried all your lover's clothes
and burned the letters lover wrote,
but it doesn't make it any better.
Does it make it any better?
And the plaster dented from your fist
in the hall where you had your first kiss
reminds you that the memories will fade.
This song is all about that first time you fall in love and then it all goes bad and your heart gets broken and you're sure you'll never be able to fall in love again, which is why it fits in my head so well as a Dumbledore/Grindewald song. I mean, this is a man who was able to turn a brief summer romance into 60 years worth of tragedy and breast-beating. He does not do anything by halves. But it's sad, still, to think of all those lonely years wasted because he can't move on enough to dare to love anyone else.
5. Bullets by Tunng
Our blood and guts are out
We spread our bones across the table at night
We cut our fingers off
To give ourselves those little extra insights
We're catching bullets in our teeth
And though they try hard not to say how it's done
They always do
They spill the secret out six ways
And beg for our forgiveness
Just before dawn
And now we don't remember
Cable/Deadpool: a romance between a superpowerful telepathic mutant from a post-apocalyptic alternate future and wise-cracking trigger-happy mercenary with severe psychosis, disfiguring cancer and no respect for the fourth wall. Neither of them are particularly nice people, is my point here, and this isn't a particularly nice song (it sounds like it's written about assassins to be honest). But it's hard to ignore the love between the two of them, even if they mostly express it in horribly unhealthy ways.
6. Benediction by The Weakerthans
Megaphones in helicopters squeal “hey are you okay?
Searchlights circle, where we lost our way
All our accidents were purposeful and felt
Stripped of providence or any way to tell
But our intentions were intangible and sweet
Sick with simple math and shy discoveries
Piled up against our impending defeat.
I don't have the werewithal to do a whole Children of Earth fanmix, but I do have this one song that I think captures the miniseries as a whole pretty well. It's got a good sense of the defeatism and despair that is so prominent in the whole storyline - I really read CoE as saying "no matter how hard you try, it's never going to be enough to save everyone, not even the people you love." It was just such a hopeless thing for everyone involved. This is one of my favorite Weakerthans songs.
7. Au Fond du Temple Saint by Bizet (sung in my version by Roberto Alagna and Bryn Terfel)
Au fond du temple saint
Paré de fleurs et d'or,
Une femme apparaît!
Je crois la voir encore!
Une femme apparaît!
Je crois la voir encore!
La foule prosternée
La regarde, etonnée,
Et murmure tous bas:
Voyez, c'est la déesse!
Qui dans l'ombre se dresse
Et vers nous tend les bras!
I think this is one of my favorite arias ever, even topping out "Song to the Moon" from Rusalka and "Tu cei di gel sei cinta" from Turandot. Assuming you don't read French, the aria is a duet between the two male leads of The Pearl Divers, singing about how their friendship was once threatened when they both fell in love with the same mysterious woman. It's slow and haunting and heartfelt and just lovely.
I can't fall asleep even though it's stupid late, so I've been dicking around on LJ, and I noticed that there seems to be some serious wank brewing over people getting spoiled for Children of Earth, how people should know by now that not spoiling is a basic fandom courtesy, that yes, your moods and your headers and your OMG NOOOOOOs are spoilers too. So I thought I should probably mention my spoiler policy.
Okay, here's the thing. I don't get people who are so aggressively anti-spoiler that they'll flip out if people mention the title of a new episode, let alone which characters get offed. I mean, I can sort of see where they are coming from, but it just doesn't quite compute in my head. I am very, very pro-spoiler. I like to read episode reviews while, if not before, I watch new episodes. The second I get into a show, I'm on Wikipedia to find out how it ends and what happens in every episode. If something is going to be weird or rubbish or even unusually awesome, I want to be warned ahead of time; if a major character is going to be offed, I want to be able to emotionally steel myself. I LIKE spoilers.
But I do recognize that not everyone feels that way, even if I don't understand it. And because I know other people don't like spoilers as much as I do, I make a sincere effort to keep anything spoilery under a cut. I did my best with Torchwood, I really did. But since I'm not anti-spoiler, my standards for what counts as spoileriffic are probably different from other people, and sometimes I'm going to slip up. I'm not going to be a deliberate asshole and have entire episode recaps without a cut, but I am going to have headers, or cut-text, or FUCK YOU DIRECTORS, or even actual sentences that could be considered spoilers by people who aren't me.
If that's a problem for you, I won't be mad if you don't stick around. But consider yourself forewarned. This is not a spoiler-safe space, and it never will be.
Okay, here's the thing. I don't get people who are so aggressively anti-spoiler that they'll flip out if people mention the title of a new episode, let alone which characters get offed. I mean, I can sort of see where they are coming from, but it just doesn't quite compute in my head. I am very, very pro-spoiler. I like to read episode reviews while, if not before, I watch new episodes. The second I get into a show, I'm on Wikipedia to find out how it ends and what happens in every episode. If something is going to be weird or rubbish or even unusually awesome, I want to be warned ahead of time; if a major character is going to be offed, I want to be able to emotionally steel myself. I LIKE spoilers.
But I do recognize that not everyone feels that way, even if I don't understand it. And because I know other people don't like spoilers as much as I do, I make a sincere effort to keep anything spoilery under a cut. I did my best with Torchwood, I really did. But since I'm not anti-spoiler, my standards for what counts as spoileriffic are probably different from other people, and sometimes I'm going to slip up. I'm not going to be a deliberate asshole and have entire episode recaps without a cut, but I am going to have headers, or cut-text, or FUCK YOU DIRECTORS, or even actual sentences that could be considered spoilers by people who aren't me.
If that's a problem for you, I won't be mad if you don't stick around. But consider yourself forewarned. This is not a spoiler-safe space, and it never will be.
Why Are We Even Debating This?
Jun. 24th, 2009 03:13 pmMy two cents on the fic warning debate that's been wanking all over my flist:
I feel the same way about the writers arguing against warnings as I did when PAD flipped out over people spoiling the big reveal in his X-books: if your story is so dependent on its twist or its shocker ending or its big character reveal that it is ruined if people find it out ahead of time, you are doing your job as a writer WRONG. You have written a story that is entirely hinged on a gimmick and can't be enjoyed on its own. Not that there is anything wrong with surprise endings or shock scenes, because there isn't, but the story should be able to support itself as a piece of good writing without it.
And when the debate is between people wanting to maintain their ~artistic integrity~ (artistic integrity! For writing porn on the internet!) and people who want to avoid being triggered for their own rape or abuse...yeah, that's not really a contest. I'm going to side with the people who want not to be forced to relive something horrible that happened to them. No one is asking writers not to write rape or dub-con or incest or death fic or torture. All they are asking is that they give a warning, so that people for whom reading those things would be incredibly painful can avoid them like the plague. Don't like, don't read only works if you give people enough info to make an informed choice about what they are or aren't reading.
TL;DR: the writers who are defending their artistic integrity over not hurting their readers can shove it. Any stories I write that require a warning will have one, and you think I should warn for something that I didn't, just tell me and I'll add it, no bitching, no questions asked. I'm not talking into a void here; I'm writing so you guys can read it, and if you can't enjoy what I write, I'm not doing my job.
I feel the same way about the writers arguing against warnings as I did when PAD flipped out over people spoiling the big reveal in his X-books: if your story is so dependent on its twist or its shocker ending or its big character reveal that it is ruined if people find it out ahead of time, you are doing your job as a writer WRONG. You have written a story that is entirely hinged on a gimmick and can't be enjoyed on its own. Not that there is anything wrong with surprise endings or shock scenes, because there isn't, but the story should be able to support itself as a piece of good writing without it.
And when the debate is between people wanting to maintain their ~artistic integrity~ (artistic integrity! For writing porn on the internet!) and people who want to avoid being triggered for their own rape or abuse...yeah, that's not really a contest. I'm going to side with the people who want not to be forced to relive something horrible that happened to them. No one is asking writers not to write rape or dub-con or incest or death fic or torture. All they are asking is that they give a warning, so that people for whom reading those things would be incredibly painful can avoid them like the plague. Don't like, don't read only works if you give people enough info to make an informed choice about what they are or aren't reading.
TL;DR: the writers who are defending their artistic integrity over not hurting their readers can shove it. Any stories I write that require a warning will have one, and you think I should warn for something that I didn't, just tell me and I'll add it, no bitching, no questions asked. I'm not talking into a void here; I'm writing so you guys can read it, and if you can't enjoy what I write, I'm not doing my job.
Two excerpts from a conversation with Telyanofcelore:
On Firefly ships:
masterofmidgets: Simon/Inara? That would be...so polite
Telyanofcelore: Amarantha Ed-san Inara/Jayne? Um...
masterofmidgets: the most demure sex scenes imaginable
masterofmidgets: oh god, Inara/Jayne with really Dom Inara would be win
Telyanofcelore: It would have to have really Dom Inara.
Telyanofcelore: I... have trouble imagining a scenario in which this comes about, though
masterofmidgets: lost bet?
Telyanofcelore: OH GOD
Telyanofcelore: I can see it - they're really, really bored. So they decide to play a game. The first two people to lose have to sleep with each other unless it's Zoe and Wash because Zoe is scary.
Telyanofcelore: Jayne says he ain't playing no gorram game
Telyanofcelore: He forfeits, to his dismay
Telyanofcelore: Everyone, after that, plays very, very carefully
Telyanofcelore: Inara loses. She raises an eyebrow, turns to Jayne, and Mal just about blows a gasket
Telyanofcelore: But also 'Hmm, this might not be so bad after all if I give him proper instructions'
masterofmidgets: afterwards they never talk about it again
Telyanofcelore: Kaylee naturally wants to watch. Simon is horrified. Mal is sulking.
Telyanofcelore: Zoe and Wash are pretending this isn't happening, and ignore it. River is crazy.
Telyanofcelore: Book lectures on sins, and is very glad he doesn't have to sleep with Jayne
Telyanofcelore: ...did River or Kaylee suggest the game?
masterofmidgets: Kaylee, definitely
masterofmidgets: although she honestly suspected that no one would take her up on it
masterofmidgets: possibly they are all /very/ drunk
masterofmidgets: they are obviously on a very long, very dull shipping job where no one is even trying to kill them
Telyanofcelore: yes
Telyanofcelore: No one is trying to kill them, they have enough supplies and spare parts, it's nowhere near that day Mal hates, the ship is clean, there are no stowaways or officials, there's no one to trick, and their cargo is fertilizer
Telyanofcelore: They've run out of music to play, they have no more books on file, they're tired of playing aerobic games in the hold, there's nothing interesting that can be cooked, and they have a plan laid out for their next venture
Telyanofcelore: Wash's dinosaurs have run out of ideas.
masterofmidgets: sex is the only option
On Jamie/Fox in the Jake-and-Shane verse
masterofmidgets: Jamie is probably the healthiest person in the entire group
Telyanofcelore: And you said that Jamie calmly opened a vein so he could draw a weapon and get them out of there
Telyanofcelore: I think that's hardly healthy
masterofmidgets: in a relative sense, he's healthier than the rest of them, but compared to the rest of us...he's still a bit mental
Telyanofcelore: He also has a passion for mythology and slept with a fox demon
Telyanofcelore: Who stalks him
Telyanofcelore: Only a /little/ mental
Telyanofcelore: So where is Fox?
masterofmidgets: Fox is the Ex-Boyfriend Who Still Calls All the Time
Telyanofcelore: If you tell him no once, he'll never leave you alone.
masterofmidgets: so yeah, I think Fox is the ex who shows up and hangs out and eats your food and you can't get rid of him, and then you sleep with him even though you know it's a terrible idea, and then he leaves and you wish he would call you
Telyanofcelore: And he does, but you both never quite manage to make this occasional sleeping-together thing turn back into a relationship, not that you think it's a good idea but at least it would be /definite/
masterofmidgets: which isn't entirely a bad thing because deep down you know they are utterly unsuited for a relationship, but the sex is really good and you just can't quite get over them, not to mention things are always more exciting when they show up
Telyanofcelore: And so it kind of is a relationship because it's not like you're seeing anyone else but it's really really weird and surely occasional sex and hanging out isn't a relationship? But...
On Firefly ships:
masterofmidgets: Simon/Inara? That would be...so polite Telyanofcelore: Amarantha Ed-san Inara/Jayne? Um...
masterofmidgets: the most demure sex scenes imaginable masterofmidgets: oh god, Inara/Jayne with really Dom Inara would be win Telyanofcelore: It would have to have really Dom Inara.
Telyanofcelore: I... have trouble imagining a scenario in which this comes about, though
masterofmidgets: lost bet? Telyanofcelore: OH GOD
Telyanofcelore: I can see it - they're really, really bored. So they decide to play a game. The first two people to lose have to sleep with each other unless it's Zoe and Wash because Zoe is scary.
Telyanofcelore: Jayne says he ain't playing no gorram game
Telyanofcelore: He forfeits, to his dismay
Telyanofcelore: Everyone, after that, plays very, very carefully
Telyanofcelore: Inara loses. She raises an eyebrow, turns to Jayne, and Mal just about blows a gasket
Telyanofcelore: But also 'Hmm, this might not be so bad after all if I give him proper instructions'
masterofmidgets: afterwards they never talk about it again Telyanofcelore: Kaylee naturally wants to watch. Simon is horrified. Mal is sulking.
Telyanofcelore: Zoe and Wash are pretending this isn't happening, and ignore it. River is crazy.
Telyanofcelore: Book lectures on sins, and is very glad he doesn't have to sleep with Jayne
Telyanofcelore: ...did River or Kaylee suggest the game?
masterofmidgets: Kaylee, definitely masterofmidgets: although she honestly suspected that no one would take her up on it masterofmidgets: possibly they are all /very/ drunk masterofmidgets: they are obviously on a very long, very dull shipping job where no one is even trying to kill them Telyanofcelore: yes
Telyanofcelore: No one is trying to kill them, they have enough supplies and spare parts, it's nowhere near that day Mal hates, the ship is clean, there are no stowaways or officials, there's no one to trick, and their cargo is fertilizer
Telyanofcelore: They've run out of music to play, they have no more books on file, they're tired of playing aerobic games in the hold, there's nothing interesting that can be cooked, and they have a plan laid out for their next venture
Telyanofcelore: Wash's dinosaurs have run out of ideas.
masterofmidgets: sex is the only optionOn Jamie/Fox in the Jake-and-Shane verse
masterofmidgets: Jamie is probably the healthiest person in the entire group Telyanofcelore: And you said that Jamie calmly opened a vein so he could draw a weapon and get them out of there
Telyanofcelore: I think that's hardly healthy
masterofmidgets: in a relative sense, he's healthier than the rest of them, but compared to the rest of us...he's still a bit mental Telyanofcelore: He also has a passion for mythology and slept with a fox demon
Telyanofcelore: Who stalks him
Telyanofcelore: Only a /little/ mental
Telyanofcelore: So where is Fox?
masterofmidgets: Fox is the Ex-Boyfriend Who Still Calls All the Time Telyanofcelore: If you tell him no once, he'll never leave you alone.
masterofmidgets: so yeah, I think Fox is the ex who shows up and hangs out and eats your food and you can't get rid of him, and then you sleep with him even though you know it's a terrible idea, and then he leaves and you wish he would call you Telyanofcelore: And he does, but you both never quite manage to make this occasional sleeping-together thing turn back into a relationship, not that you think it's a good idea but at least it would be /definite/
masterofmidgets: which isn't entirely a bad thing because deep down you know they are utterly unsuited for a relationship, but the sex is really good and you just can't quite get over them, not to mention things are always more exciting when they show up Telyanofcelore: And so it kind of is a relationship because it's not like you're seeing anyone else but it's really really weird and surely occasional sex and hanging out isn't a relationship? But...
He Can't Fly or Levitate
Apr. 26th, 2009 12:50 amI'm not in the Due South fandom - obviously, since I watched the first episode last night - so I'm going to assume that somewhere on the internets, someone has made a fanvid about Benton Fraser to The Arrogant Worms' song Canadaman. But if they haven't, then this is a terrible travesty that ought to rectified immediately. Because...well, c'mon! (Except for the line about lardly muscles and looking horrible in tights, because that just isn't true)
Canadaman by The Arrogant Worms
I rest my case.
Canadaman by The Arrogant Worms
Who wants to end all fighting except for in hockey
Who shops for a truck based on the holder for the coffee?
Who stands erect and insecure just like the CN tower?
Who's a superhero but not a superpower?
Canadaman! He eats donuts every day
Canadaman! and tries to keep out of the way
Canadaman! He appreciates input
And he says excuse me if you step on his foot
He can't fly or levitate can barely even jump
Can't see through women's clothing or bounce bullets off his rump
Looks horrible in tights, his Muscle are like lard
But who could save a life with his organ donor's card?
Canadaman! He loves Canadian culture
Canadaman! But what it is he isn't sure
Canadaman! Enjoys the social safety net
But who takes a job in the states the first chance he gets
Canadaman! He knows how to make poutine
Canadaman! And his hero is Lorn Greene
Canadaman! Wears a toque upon his head
He makes it look so easy or should we say e-zed!
I rest my case.
Let The Cold Wind Blow
Apr. 14th, 2009 09:40 pmExcuse me, but this is California! It is April! Why is the weather not stunningly balmy and gorgeous? If I wanted fifty mph winds, I could have stayed home in New Mexico, thank you. No, but seriously, it was so awful today. Not just absurdly windy, but also really fucking cold - I was NOT PLEASED, especially since I when I looked out my window as I was going to class this morning, it looked nice, so I left my jacket in my room. At least I always have emergency hair ties and sticks and pins in my bookbag now, so I didn't have to deal with three feet of hair blowing in my face, but still, SO NOT ON. I was almost tempted to skip my first lit section - I would have if a) I didn't know the TA would be taking attendence, and b) I didn't know we would be talking about the paper that is due tomorrow. When I was walking through the quad, it looked like a minor tornado had passed through, there were so many palm branches and giant shards of bark lying on the ground. Exciting!
Working on my lit paper (which is only 2 pages, so not a big deal) is boring, so I'm watching - well, re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's a bit strange; even the episodes I've never seen before, of which there are many, just have this very nostalgic feel to them. I tend to associate some quite strong sense-memories to my media. For me, as much as I love and adore Rurouni Kenshin and Yu Yu Hakusho, they will always make me think of sitting on the floor in the back room, tv propped on the fireplace, listening to my parents argue in the kitchen. Trigun is early mornings, when I would know by the commercial breaks when I needed to get up for school. ER is days home sick, or just skipping school for the hell of it. So is Star Trek: TNG. I watched Stargate: SG1 with my aunt's girlfriend Lisa, FMA withhanjuuluver , and Iron Chef with my father in his motor home, the dog sprawled across my legs (yes, I think about this too much). I hear the Buffy and Angel theme songs, and I am immediately 15 years home, just home from the bus stop, turning on the TV in the empty house and crashing on the sofa to watch people beat up vampires.
On the other hand, I watch shows very differently now than I did back then! For example, I ship Xander/Anya LIKE BURNING - they are one of my big huge OMGI LOVE IT het OTPs, way more than any other characters on the show (I started watching it in when it was already in reruns, so I came in about season 5 or so, and thus am very unmoved by either Buffy/Angel or Willow/Oz). And yet...and yet...Xander pings my fictional character gaydar so much. I've only read about five fics, but I think I've been converted to Xander/Spike already (actually, that was way fewer fics than it took me to get into, say, McShep, but common, that's practically canon). I mean, Xander fits pretty well into my 'hapless but sweet dorky guy' archetype, so I was going to love him no matter what, but...I want slash. Slash that either writes a plausible Anya-breakup or happens after her death, but still slash. ARGH MY BRAIN.
ETA: still watching Buffy, and man, 90s plots about internet culture are hysterically funny. Those wacky kids with their new-fangled "email" and "usernames" and "floppy disks", that's looking for trouble, that is! And of course the only people who know how to turn a computer on are hostile geeks who spend all their time hiding in the lab. It's amazing how much ten years can change things on the internet, yeah? (also, how weird is it to see a show about teenagers where no one has a cell phone? SO WEIRD.)
Working on my lit paper (which is only 2 pages, so not a big deal) is boring, so I'm watching - well, re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's a bit strange; even the episodes I've never seen before, of which there are many, just have this very nostalgic feel to them. I tend to associate some quite strong sense-memories to my media. For me, as much as I love and adore Rurouni Kenshin and Yu Yu Hakusho, they will always make me think of sitting on the floor in the back room, tv propped on the fireplace, listening to my parents argue in the kitchen. Trigun is early mornings, when I would know by the commercial breaks when I needed to get up for school. ER is days home sick, or just skipping school for the hell of it. So is Star Trek: TNG. I watched Stargate: SG1 with my aunt's girlfriend Lisa, FMA with
hanjuuluver , and Iron Chef with my father in his motor home, the dog sprawled across my legs (yes, I think about this too much). I hear the Buffy and Angel theme songs, and I am immediately 15 years home, just home from the bus stop, turning on the TV in the empty house and crashing on the sofa to watch people beat up vampires. On the other hand, I watch shows very differently now than I did back then! For example, I ship Xander/Anya LIKE BURNING - they are one of my big huge OMGI LOVE IT het OTPs, way more than any other characters on the show (I started watching it in when it was already in reruns, so I came in about season 5 or so, and thus am very unmoved by either Buffy/Angel or Willow/Oz). And yet...and yet...Xander pings my fictional character gaydar so much. I've only read about five fics, but I think I've been converted to Xander/Spike already (actually, that was way fewer fics than it took me to get into, say, McShep, but common, that's practically canon). I mean, Xander fits pretty well into my 'hapless but sweet dorky guy' archetype, so I was going to love him no matter what, but...I want slash. Slash that either writes a plausible Anya-breakup or happens after her death, but still slash. ARGH MY BRAIN.
ETA: still watching Buffy, and man, 90s plots about internet culture are hysterically funny. Those wacky kids with their new-fangled "email" and "usernames" and "floppy disks", that's looking for trouble, that is! And of course the only people who know how to turn a computer on are hostile geeks who spend all their time hiding in the lab. It's amazing how much ten years can change things on the internet, yeah? (also, how weird is it to see a show about teenagers where no one has a cell phone? SO WEIRD.)
