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

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!