sundries

[rm]

coatkneedee needs about $200 to prevent legal action from being taken against her for an old tuition bill. $$, advice for dealing with collections agencies, job leads in the region, etc. all of potential use. (Go, Team Internet! the immediate part of the $$ crisis is solved).

The Yes Men are responsible for hoax about proposed (fake) bill requiring gay Utah citizens to accept "treatment" or leave the state. Who's more pissed now? Gay folks or Utah? via ravenskye8.

On the on sex and the off-label use of our bodies. via _fx. Note: this post is on the Blowfish blog. There's no NSFW images on the page, but it is part of the Blowfish sex-toy shop website.

Same-sex marriages start in DC today.

sparkindarkness has a roundup of anti-LGBTQ evil.

The more literate a country is, the more likely it is for its citizens to prefer boy babies over girls. via reannon.

Frozen Dead Guy Days 2010.

Okay, I've been a little grumpy about this Tron remake thing. I mean, I _love_ Tron, but it also seemed to be the movie on the TV every single time I wound up in the ER in college (from my own medical mishaps to friends getting gay bashed). But then popfiend linked to the trailer for the new thingy. Um, yeah, I'm on board. Also can I just pause to say that there were some things about the '80s that were fucking great? I loved how much time we spent obsessing on how sexy the future was going to be solely because we really fucking hated Reagan and hey, let's play Space Invaders.

Last night we finished season 3 or Buffy, and started season 4.

I really don't know why the Buffy/Angel plotline annoys me SO MUCH. It's well done. It hits all the right notes. It's the kind of emotional suffering I tend to care about. But somehow I don't get why either of them like each other. And I feel like a hypocrite about that considering I'm all over the Jack/Ianto relationship which has a lot of the same problems (they get together WHY? the age difference is WHAT?). Maybe it's just that David Boreanaz's acting is nothing to write home about. Don't know.

LOVED the moment when all the kids stand up to fight. That's some fantastic shit. Was, believe it or not, sort of sad to see the principal get eaten. Don't love the psychic coma Buffy/Faith crap (yes, I'm complaining about a lack of realism in a show with demon ascensions, shut up).

What the hell was that whole Wesley/Cordelia thing? Like, worst kiss ever because they apparently have negative chemistry in actual practice or because Wesley has no experience at all or what? Sadly, I still sort of like them together in a where's the Cordelia/Wesley pegging fic, thanks way.

And Giles! He gets around, now doesn't he?

Also, Sunnydale U. is so conspicuously the high school set redressed it's hilarious. (Except apparently I'm wrong and just think everything in California looks alike).

Comments

[tommx.livejournal.com]

You might, at a later date, want to try Angel just to see the continuation of Wesley's development. His journey is interesting if a bit convoluted at times.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Oh we're watching it. I have been told from since before I started watching the series that I will identify with Wesley. This remains not the case, but he amuses me tremendously.

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

Wesley is amazing. His arc is amazing. I think you will identify with him after he goes to LA.

I love him, unabashedly, whole heartedly.

The kiss with him & Cordy is awful because they just do NOT have chemistry.

N.

[reannon.livejournal.com]

I think the whole Wes/Cordelia thing was kind of skeezy, and while it provided some amusement for us, I was glad that when they finally kissed it was AWFUL. Maybe the worst TV kiss ever. And that alone was funny. Because sometimes you just look at someone and think Oh Yeah and when you finally get the chance... not so much. I loved it, and it was a neat way to have them part ways in preparation for Cordy's departure to ANGEL.

(I don't believe for a second that they knew poor Glenn Quinn was a raging addict and would have to be written off the show and replaced halfway through the first season. Suuuure, it was planned that way! A gracious lie, but a lie nonetheless.) Still, the others are right: Wes's character arc is fascinating from Buffy to Angel and through the series. SO worth watching, and far more grown up than BUFFY. While Buffy sticks very much to a black-or-white, good-vs-evil view of the universe, ANGEL deals with the places in between, the gray areas and the search for redemption. It's more complex than Buffy's moral absolutes and tends to be more even in the writing (BUFFY had some really awful eps toward the end).

Still love BUFFY. But ANGEL rocks too. (Edited because I'm an idiot who didn't see your comment above.)

[tommx.livejournal.com]

I'll be interested to know what you think. He is easily my favorite character in Angel next to Lorne aka the Host.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

My favourite thing about the Buffy/Angel relationship was how they moved on from it. Which doesn't really speak well for the thing itself, I know, but it makes it easier to go back and watch in retrospect. I like the way it kind of comes to feel like a thing they both did together and had to do, but they do both move on and grow past it and it gets to a point where it's just not going to happen no matter what their circumstances because they're both different people. That felt realistic to me, which I kind of appreciated, because I'm far too shrivelled up and cynical for that true-romance-world-ending-love kind of thing.

On a slight tangent too, I must say, I had doubts about DB's acting, even loving him in Angel, until I saw him in Bones, because I felt his character there has such a different energy to Angel, he must really have something going on.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I don't think DB is a terrible actor, I think he's just good at playing a very ordinary guy (vampirism or whatever aside) and that doesn't resonate for me. Whereas I can often overlook some of JB's more awful acting moments because the character is so odd, it still works for me.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't mean to imply I thought he was bad either - on the contrary, I really do love both him and his character - I just had some doubts about his range. Like, Angel has a lot of stillness and small gestures, and that does work for me, but I wasn't clear if that was necessarily deliberate not doing much or just not doing much. If that makes sense.

I'm with you on JB though - I can handwave so much of Jack's weird stuff, because who the hell knows what constitutes normal body language or boundaries for a 51st century guy.

[rm.livejournal.com]

And, bad line deliveries on shit lines ("the worst creatures you can imagine") = idiom that translates badly. It's the only way I can get through it.

[thatwordgrrl.livejournal.com]

Actually -- tho' it will become more apparent further into season 4 -- UC Sunnydale is actually located on the UCLA campus. :>

[rm.livejournal.com]

Some of those hallways are TOTALLY the high school set redressed.

[sanginmychains.livejournal.com]

I think it's just a really common style of architecture in LA. THe Buffy crew was not allowed to shoot in Torrence after they filmed the S3 finale -- the explosions pissed the residents off, and their permits to film there were not renewed.

Oh, the trivia I still have in my brain.

The Buffy/Angel relationship does require some suspension of disbelief. You sort of have to go, love, eh? and just roll with it.

You didn't like the psychic coma? I mean, once you got over the premise? Or was it the premise itself that you had trouble with? I sort of like the idea of a Slayer hive mind, and prophecy, when it's well done, always makes me thrill: what's next? what's coming? what what what?!

S4 is often criticized, but I think it has some of the most compelling episodes. I loved that the characters got to meet new people, swim in a bit of a bigger pond, delve into themselves a little bit more.

I'm enjoying the play-by-play blogging you're doing as you watch. I was SUCH a Buffy fan, and I like seeing the reactions others have to my favourite moments.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Oh, see the idea of a Slayer hive-mind is great. But I didn't get that from watching it. I got "let's have one last gasp for the Buffy/Faith frenemy sex we never got."

[gement.livejournal.com]

I was actually fond of the psychic coma stuff, for high mythology reasons. It goes like this:

1) There's only ever one Slayer.

2) The Slayer (Buffy) has a demonstrable track record of precognitive dreams where there's apocalypse involved.

3) There's more than one Slayer.

I just happily assumed that they both tapped into the switchboard that was never upgraded from Party Line because there was never more than one user. But I'm an old Sandman junkie, so I eat up the trippy dream logic.

Love love love love Giles. On a police car?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Twice??!?!?!?

[blu-22.livejournal.com]

I'm curious to know, will you be watching Angel alongside Buffy S4 as they aired originally or will you wait until you're done with Buffy before committing to Angel full time? I watched the shows simultaneously when they were on the air, but I haven't gone back too much since then to watch them independently. I wonder if/how it changes the dynamic/viewing experience one way or the other.

[rm.livejournal.com]

We've been given a list of the "right" order much like the list I always give people for Doctor Who and Torchwood and will be following that.

Thanks for sharing the link...

[popfiend.livejournal.com]

The thing about Tron is that it is important technologically and in the scheme of the art of movie making, but it's not that great a film.

It has geek/nerd cache because of it's place in movie history, but it's an average movie with some very nice creative bursts.

Tron Legacy is a child of Tron in 2 ways. A sequel to the original and inheritor of the technology transformation Tron was a part of.

But it also looks damn cool.

So my geek/nerd glands are fired up.

[pandarus.livejournal.com]

Eh, I didn't find Buffy/Angel annoying, but I was never particularly invested in it. Angel/Darla, on the other hand, I was all over ("God doesn't want you, but I still do!") - and I loved the way it cast Angel/Buffy as just another case of Angel working through his enduring Darla issues by mooning over the hot little blonde chick who can kick his ass. (And I also &hearts Angel/Lindsey. And Angel/Lindsey/Darla. And Angel/Spike.) And I ship the living crap out of Buffy/Faith too. And Wesley/Me er, and I have an unhealthy level of fannish love for Wesley, and fully support the notion of Wesley/Cordelia pegging fic. Jolly good notion, that.

Awww, Season 3! The Prom! "Ascend already!" Faith! ...man, I need to rewatch.

Re: Thanks for sharing the link...

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm psyched for it for all the same reasons (plus, I have a soft spot for the light-cycles, and I'm pleased to see that the new film keeps the best parts of that design).

[tartanshell.livejournal.com]

I agree with all of the above! Wesley's character arc and development from Buffy through Angel is one of my favorite character arcs in any TV show, ever.

[sanginmychains.livejournal.com]

Well you know. Cheap excuse scenes, those are good too.

[elisi]

I really don't know why the Buffy/Angel plotline annoys me SO MUCH. It's well done. It hits all the right notes. It's the kind of emotional suffering I tend to care about. But somehow I don't get why either of them like each other.
Heh. It does have those Bella/Edward vibes. :) But trying to look a little deeper, then I think that when people fall in love it's often very illogical (and also generally very boring to anyone on the outside looking in) - but mostly (especially when it's a High School romance) they'll fall out of love, and when looking back a year or two later wonder what on Earth they saw in each other. Buffy and Angel never got to that second stage as such, since the romance was cut off at its height, and then all through S3 they had that pesky curse stopping them from moving forward. And watching someone stuck in the same place for a whole season gets a bit boring.

And Giles! He gets around, now doesn't he?
Mmmm, Ripper. And just the idea of Watchers generally - something that Ianto tapped *straight* into. :)

And I feel like a hypocrite about that considering I'm all over the Jack/Ianto relationship which has a lot of the same problems (they get together WHY? the age difference is WHAT?)
Oh but Jack/Ianto is *so* much more screwed up, and doesn't have any Twu Luw pretensions.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

That Tron trailer is unutterably sexy.

I can't believe that's a sentence I can say with such validity.

My theory, which is mine

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

I think boy preference is about social security. South Korea's traditional boy-biased culture changed almost overnight when they got social security and parents no longer had to have sons to be supported in their old age.