sundries

[rm]

A study shows children of lesbians are well-adjusted and have fewer behavioral problems than their peers. Meanwhile, various anti-gay groups flip out; maybe they needed some lesbian parenting themselves?

Long lost silent films being returned to America.

Essay from a country village brothel keeper in the UK.

Rumour has it that Lady Gaga will be appearing on Doctor Who and that it's all Gareth Roberts's fault. Of course, those in the know also blame redstapler who appeared at this years Gallifrey One in a "Lady Gaga as the TARDIS" costume. Hot shit, weird.

Bus changes coming for NYC, but I'm unclear if this means we can still use our unlimited metro cards on surface transport since now we'll need a bus ticket from a kiosk?

gwyd links us to neo_prodigy's list of (I'm paraphrasing here) obnoxious shit not to do when writing gay characters. Jack and Ianto and Tara and Willow get mentioned. As happens when these two couples get mentioned, controversy ensues. I'm pretty much on a page with neo_prodigy on this one, but that's besides the point. Don't let your possibly differing opinion on those two sentences -- especially if you're a straight person who writes queer characters -- get in the way of reading and hearing the rest of the post. Please.

I've written about Sei Shonagon and her relationship to how I read. Today Tiger Beatdown talks about her relationship to blogging.

My stomach hates me.

I am really, really enjoying writing for kink_bingo. As much as I hate the degree to which fandom always makes Ianto the bottom or the sub (and this is a general trend I hate, where it's the short guy or the young guy or whatever) and there are BAZILLION great reasons to write Jack as the most PitA bottom ever (this is actually how IHNIIHBT got its start), writing Ianto being interested in submission is pretty much the most fun ever, because there's so much to work with there. He's young and arguably inexperienced; he's absolutely too smart for his own good; he's seen a lot of shit; he performs deference very well even though his instincts are much more assertive and leadership-y; and he's ridiculously strong not to have cracked up in the face of bizarre and shitty life. There's inner conflict there and complexity and he can take care of his damn self, and that just makes it FUN AS HELL to write heavy kink with him.

Also, Dear Internet: I was enjoying reading everyone else's (almost always never finished) porny training fics. Being cajolled into writing one myself was Not Part of the Plan. But you may just be managing to convince me. Fuckers.

Last night we finished S6 of Buffy, which I have to say wraps up very nicely and confirms that structurally, it knew exactly what it was doing.

I still loathe the magic plotline. The shortcut from "magic is power and power is addictive" to "magic is addictive" really weakens the moral quandries present in the idea of that plot. It also removes for us the fact that Willow is talented. Magic is HARD. It's a SKILL... but now it's not. Basically I feel like magic went from being this great potentially great allegory about how people who are stronger and smarter or whatever have to be really careful not to be total assholes (a lovely counterpoint to the Trio), but instead it was just "junkies!" ARGH.

I am SO GLAD Giles did not die.

Anya is SO AWESOME.

And OMG OMG OMG Spike has a soul now! That's huge. Also, how pissed it Angel gonna be when he finds out? Also, someone alert Wesley, since all the prophecies about "the vampire with a soul" could actually be about Spike now.

Comments

[nicoli-dominn.livejournal.com]

Wendy Wright, from that article about gay parenting, sounds like a huge hypocrite. I'd go into it, but it's early in the morning...brain isn't working yet. Every study has its biases, but Wright should at least acknowledge that her own biases cloud her interpretation and analysis of the study.

On Buffy: GOD, I can't wait for you to see season 7. I can't say anything because of the major spoilers and it's killing me.

[5251962.livejournal.com]

On spoilers, me, too. I giggled out loud.

[elisi]

And OMG OMG OMG Spike has a soul now! That's huge.
*points to icon* That precise moment was when I became properly obsessed with BtVS. Not that I didn't watch it religiously before, but that moment? I was lost forever.

I still loathe the magic plotline. The shortcut from "magic is power and power is addictive" to "magic is addictive" really weakens the moral quandries present in the idea of that plot.
Like I said somewhere earlier on - you can make it work if you look at the whole magic = drugs as a red herring, something that gives Willow a pass on all her bad behaviour and means that she never deals with the underlying issues. (Remember how she complained to rat!Amy that Tara had left her 'for no good reason'.) A lot of S6 is quite simply the characters refusing to deal with the real issues (Xander with his fear of marriage, Buffy with her depression etc.) and thus everything blows up in their faces.

I am SO GLAD Giles did not die. and Anya is SO AWESOME.
Yup. (Giles has the best return EVER. "I'd like to test that theory." Damn.)

My stomach hates me.
Hope you get better soon.

Thoughts on Buffy Season 6

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

This is a season I loathe and love simultaneously. The Magic = addiction thing was a biggie for the loathing. It undermined all the things they’d been saying about magic up until then. I hate the way they simplified it to a cliché.

I hate, hate, hate, that they killed Tara! She is my favorite female character in the show. She’s the only grown-up of the bunch, including Giles. She’s the only one that seems able to function when it comes to dealing with daily life; the rest sort of flail about ineffectually, either dithering and not making decisions or making the wrong decision with tainted evidence.

I like Spike and Buffy as a couple. I think they are well-matched. They can beat the snot out of each other, he’ll call her on her crap, and he’s not going to try to control her behaviour at all. The timing for them was just off. Way off. He could’ve been what she needed but she wouldn’t let herself fall for him. I hate that Angel(us) pretty much ruined Buffy for anyone else. Spike is so much more worthy of Buffy than Angel ever was.

This season’s big bad was life and how much one messes it up one’s own self by dumb choices and lack of control and just going along with things.

I hate how they layered the problems up on Buffy. Most people who come back from Death/death’s doorstep get months of convalescence (in hospital and rehab, with lots of therapy of numerous types); Buffy was alive and had to deal and the idiots around her thought leaving her to it was a good thing. What a bunch of goobs!

That said, there are so many great episodes and scenes and character development, that I can’t just write this season off. I love the musical ep. for so many reasons. The scene in Smashed where Buffy and Spike bring down the house is hotter than a lot of pr0n I’ve seen. Rack, corny as he is, is also freaking creepy. Willow sucking in the words from the spell books is a beautiful, if horrifying, image. The wacky not wedding is both delightfully amusing and gut wrenching. And the Trio is about as mundane as evil can get. They represent the everyday evil of greed that isn’t supernatural in nature.

I just can’t rewatch Season 6 all that often. It’s too gut-wrenching.

And Spike and his soul, oh my! (I don’t think he needed it; he was already on his path to redemption.) There’s a can wriggly worms! That just gets wrigglier!

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

Thank you for linking to that essay by neo_prodigy. I found it very helpful. I agree with what he said about those two characters, too.

EVERYONE hated the magic=drugs storyline.

[qthelights.livejournal.com]

Anya is by far and away my FAVOURITE character on Buffy. I'm all asquee that you love her too!!

As to your last line? Keep watching Angel :)

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

Thanks for linking to the Sei Shonagon article - all so true.

[byzantienne.livejournal.com]

The Sei Shonagon article really makes me want to work on the original fiction project I have with the poetry-writing near-future Chinese empress in.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

No plan survives contact with the enemy Internet.

And OMG OMG OMG Spike has a soul now! That's huge. Also, how pissed it Angel gonna be when he finds out? Also, someone alert Wesley, since all the prophecies about "the vampire with a soul" could actually be about Spike now.

I spent the months after that episode first aired FLAILING SO HARD over that particular twist, for all the reasons you enumerated and one other: I thought he'd been re-souled by mistake -- that Spike wanted the chip removed or nullified, and the Healing Whatsit instead fixed what it saw as the biggest injury, the gaping hole where William's soul had been.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Did you just spoil me? Because I was all like "Oh shit, Spike's gonna be pissed!"

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

...Do you know, it's actually been long enough since I've watched the show that I'm not sure. I remember arguing with people about it, but I can't recall who was right.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

[kind-of-spoiler warning]

It was confirmed by quite a few of their writers that Spike intended to get a soul all along, and his "I'll show her" stuff was just a red herring for the audience. We were supposed to figure out that he wanted the soul all along the moment he got it, but they'd written it so obscurely that people still debate the issue. (I wrote an essay about it once, which has some writer quotes, if you're curious.)

[elisi]

It bears remembering that the chip doesn't work on Buffy...

[karathephantom.livejournal.com]

Although - just playing devil's advocate - physical violence against Buffy might not have been how he intended to get to her. Plenty of other people to use to do the job.

[elisi]

Still, getting rid of the chip would solve nothing. :)

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

Well, it would have made it possible for Spike to go after Buffy's loved ones.

[elisi]

Which he would do why?

(This is fun! *g*)

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Wow, if Lady Gaga appears, even on cameo on Who, I will utterly, utterly delighted and *squee* full.

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

I must admit, I dislike that Spike has a soul.

Also, are there Lady Gaga + Tardis photos?

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

They know where to reach me. ;)

I'm not hard to find.

[Insert Catty Precog joke here]

[delchi.livejournal.com]

The bit about writing is EXACTLY what I was looking for. Thanks.

[citrinesunset.livejournal.com]

Anya is one of my favorite Buffy characters.

You summed up how I feel about sub!Ianto. I know what you mean about the trend of the younger guy being the sub (and in this case, maybe the character who's seen as more stereotypically submissive being the sub), and some of my favorite fics have Jack as the bottom and Ianto taking a dominant role (I lean towards seeing it as the most in character, too). But I love exploring sub!Ianto. There's so much fun to be had there, and it can really work when done well.

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

oh, your reactions to the end of s6 buffy! OMG I CANNOT WAIT FOR YOU TO WATCH THE REST OF ANGEL NOW!

[usullusa.livejournal.com]

It sounds like the new system will leave no room for metro cards when actually boarding the bus. Ideally, passengers will be able to swipe their cards at the kiosks to get tickets. In fact, the more I think about it, the more this makes sense to me.

[cruentum.livejournal.com]

I have a preference for Ianto as the sub, always had, so hey, I'm glad to see a trend where people are going with it rather than trying to go against it to be different, to not fall into the Ianto-as-the-permanent-bottom category etc. So anyway, carry on, I approve.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Ponies! It's not really my kink, but alternately sweet and hilarious.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Ponies, WHUT?

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

Now I can use my nifty icon. :)

It makes me so nervous when you post about Buffy/Angel, because I'm afraid people are going to spoil you. I have to make myself not comment at all most of the time.