Lady Agnew

ladyagnew @ 2007-01-31T04:01:00

2007-01-31T12:05:52Z

Veronica Mars, 3x11 "Poughkeepsie, Tramps and Thieves":

the theme

My take on the moral of the story: the basic foundation of a relationship is trust. The episode was really reminiscent of the (much better) Kevin Smith movie, Chasing Amy, where Ben Affleck's character can't get over the fact that Joey Lauren Adams's character had a very experimental and adventurous sexual past, some of it with people he knew. Affleck loses Adams because he obsesses about it as well letting the perceptions of others taint his relationship with her, even though she is a good girlfriend and loves him. The movie explicitly says this, through a story the character Silent Bob tells: Bob was in terrible love with a girl, Amy, and asked about her ex-boyfriend. She tells him that a couple of times they fooled around with threesomes, etc. And he starts blasting her, calling her a slut, unable to get over it, and "she's telling me that it was that time, in that place, and she didn't do anything wrong, so she's not gonna apologize". So he dumps her:

"It was a mistake. I wasn't disgusted with her, I was afraid. At that moment, I felt small - like I'd lacked experience, like I'd never be on her level or never be enough for her or something. And what I didn't get was that she didn't care. She wasn't looking for that guy anymore. She was looking for me, for the Bob. But by the time I realized this, it was too late, you know. She'd moved on, and all I had to show for it was some foolish pride, which then gave way to regret. She was the girl, I know that now. But I pushed her away...So I've spent every day since then chasing Amy...So to speak."

Both Veronica and Max lose faith in their respective romantic partners after learning tawdry details from their pasts, and it's this neurotic inability to "forgive" past sins (when really neither are in any position to forgive sins that are imaginary at best; more like assuage their own jealousy and insecurity) that makes Max lose out on a beautiful girl who truly loved him, and Veronica unable to actually trust Logan. I don't have much sympathy for either V or Max, because what does Max have for his efforts? No girl, some foolish pride, a heavy lesson. You can't make peace with the past, you're not gonna have much of a future.

the characters

Keith: hee! though impersonating a cop is a crime, I noticed he was very careful not to introduce himself that way to the Lilith House girls.

Wallace, Mac, Piz: I MISSED YOU!1! Especially you, Wallace. The iron-strong BFF relationship between V and Wallace is hands-down my favorite relationship on the show, with the warmth and the casual, no-nonsense affection between those two. Besides, Wallace always adds something specially bright and welcome to the noirish work VM inhabits.

Weevil: wow, barely there, then gone.

Veronica and Logan: oh, GOD. Your relationship is... realistic and painful, and not something I like to see in my fiction because it's incredibly awkward and ultimately unrewarding. Insecurity and clinginess are real-life BORING issues that I could get by calling pretty much any female friend I have. I don't need more of it in my life. And frankly, you're not telling me anything new or even interesting.

overall

A very uneven episode, and the preview for next week made me scream (a little!) in frustration. I... can't believe I'm actually saying this, but I sort of hope this is the last season for you, Veronica Mars. The show -- God, you used to be so full of passion, both hatred and love, and season one remains one of my favorite television seasons ever. Now that, see, was a story that had to be told, so burning with emotion and pain that when I re-watched the entire season on DVD recently, I still held my breath at all the right moments (Logan's belief that his mom wasn't really dead, Veronica learning that Jake Kane might be her real father, Veronica putting her faith in her mom for the last time, Veronica finding out the real circumstances of her rape). But it's as though the show has run out of story, totally shot their wad with one brilliantly packed season, and now it's just treading water, especially re: the characters. And I say this even though I can sort of see the shape of what they're trying to do with Veronica's character in her relationship with Logan -- make her realize that not trusting or forgiving your loved ones is essentially a zero sum game.

But it's not compelling me.

Reading Log

2007-01-20T11:52:34Z

The Towers of Trezibond by Rose Macaulay. It's one of those slight, batty, slyly funny British novels that are terribly amusing, until there's a sharp turn to quietly devastating and deep. A quote:

"The fact was that Father Chantry-Pigg would not really have liked the Byzantines much had he encountered them, though he would have preferred them to Turks and other Moslems. He was not actually a sympathetic clergyman, and, had he been with his ancestor for the great attack on Constantinople in 1203, he would have been amongs those who, brandishing the cross above their heads, massacred and pillaged and looted in the name of Latin Christendom, helping to put to flame the great libraries whose loss he now deplored. He was better at condemning than at loving; aunt Dot used to wonder what Christ would have said to him."

The tone is sly, batty, faux-naive, very British. A seemingly slight novel, but the further I read, the more depth it displays. I'm only a third of the way into it, and I can best descibe the subject matter as a meditation on religion, on the inseparable foolishness and profundity of religious sentiment, as well as a charmingly eccentric travalogue of the exotic East -- the Trezibond of the title being in Turkey.

The Heartbreak Kid by astolat. Eric/Vince, Entourage. *yay* It's as fabulously written as anything you'd expect from astolat, with the funny, the perfect plot developments and the hotness, but I loved this story for how perfectly she captures the show -- the characters, the world, the relationships -- and shape them into a kick-ass slash story. They could film this story and make it the third season finale; heck, even the explicit gay sex is so something HBO could air.

Fair by minnow1212. McKay/Sheppard, SGA. So beautiful, a descriptor I don't throw around lightly. The highest compliment I can pay is that after I finished reading, I didn't want to leave the headspace this story had put me in. Lyrical and lovely, minnow1212 takes a crack!fic idea and makes it into something as gleaming and precious as a gem.

Sisyphus toiling

2006-10-22T23:54:06Z

Oh Jesus God -- this is ridiculous -- I'm too young to be hunched over the keyboard wincing and whimpering because my back feels crap and my neck won't bend left without *screaming pain*. In other related news, I've decided to name my laptop (only ONE YEAR after buying it) "Back Pain". It gets along swimmingly with my pillow, "Neck Pain". Together, they form an unbeatable "Pain in my ASS" club of destruction.

er: my life has been work - work - homework! - homework! - homework! for the past few weeks, and the only thing keeping me sane is that I don't have the flu. I do currently have a cold, though.

I'm also:

* reading like mad (re-read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn again last week and it still makes me want to cuddle Huck until he can't breathe; he is seriously the most adorable character in all of great American literature),

* watching Scrubs on DVD,

* did go to see Beach Blanket Babylon last Friday (according to wiki, the longest running cabaret show in America, having "sold out every performance for 32 years, with close to 12,000 performances") and commiserated with a friend over sinfully fattening dessert the miserable state of our respective love lives -- he got depressed, while I remain Zen.

* and decided to dub Congressman Don Sherwood with a new nickname: I think "Congressman Choke-a-Bitch" is very fitting. Also dashing and quite appealing to this young "hip hop" generation.

Music Video Rec

2006-08-10T10:45:12Z

I'll be upfront and admit that I don't like most music videos. I think the ones that aren't actively offensive (boobies flying and ass-shots and jiggling girl bits) or pretentious (Hello, indie bands of the emo!) are boring (the rest of them). They rarely work as more than a fancified showcase for the song, rarely have the kinetic energy of a good movie even, but sometimes someone gets it right:

Here It Goes Again by OK Go. The song is cute and energetic, but the video rocks. It's a single shot, one-take (no cutting), with a totally static camera in front of which the bandmembers do this incredibly witty dance on treadmill. It reminds me of those routines Fred Astaire did with props, a casually picked-up umbrella or a coat hanger that turned deftly into a dance partner in his hands, where the wittiness of the initial idea is fully utilized and it becomes more than a gimmick. Something that could be really cheesy or stupid-looking is instead delightful; I literally cannot stop smiling every time I watch this video. Four guys doing a complicated, coordinated and syncopated dance on the movie surfaces of two rows of treadmills: oh-so awesome.

X2 recs

2006-08-08T10:18:26Z

I am so bad! I haven't posted fannishly in a long, long time, maybe because I've been missing the new season of SGA and not really caring, and just generally out of squee right now. I'm squee-deficient. I thought -- was really looking forward to -- Superman Returns stuffing me full to bursting of squee, but yeah, that didn't work out so well. I'm still struggling to articulate my responses to the move, both positive and negative, but what I did, after seeing the dismal X3, was re-watch X2 to see if it was really that much better (YES IT TOTALLY WAS!!!) and hunt up stories to go with my jiving-to-X2 mood:

Overture by wax_jism, Bobby/John

This is a story I read years ago and loved forever. Wax captures John's inner voice so perfectly that he's fleshed out from a character with maybe 15 minutes of meaningful screentime to this boy saddled with a bushelfull of thorny, teenaged issues. She gives John an inner life that the movie only suggested, and her vision is so believeable that it influenced the way I saw his character when I re-watched the movie. It feels that powerfully true. The story also does one of my favorite slash tropes (*koff* boarding school boysex, yes!) to perfection.

For the Kingdom of Heaven by c_elisa, Hank gen

Harsh, insightful and clear-eyed look at the true meaning of what the Cure could mean in the world of the X-Men. Both the movie and the comics could learn from this story; it takes the Cure storyline from the world of politics and mutant wars and makes it achingly personal. Gorgeous in a low-key way.

His Terrible Sword by [Unknown LJ tag], mostly gen with pairings

There are things I dislike about this story (Logan/Marie is wrong, wrong, wrong) but the good things far outweigh the bad. This is just good storytelling; careful character development, delicate managing of the relationships and emotions, and everything working under the mastery of the plot. I just sat back and admired her craft, because it's a 400 KB story with the perfect blend of romance, action and character-building.

The bigger problem I have has to do with the juice of the orange; in the intro to A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess explains the significance of his title: "orange" is Malay slang for human being, a "clockwork orange" meaning a mechanical human, and Burgess's meaning is that the point of a human being is the juice of the orange -- without that sweet, pulpy tartness, you've only got a clockwork orange, something mechanical and programmable. I think "His Terrible Sword" is a good story, but I don't know if it has any juice inside.

going down series by astolat, Erik/Charles/Mystique

Chock full of the juice of the orange. Erik and Charles with Mystique their conduit in-between: this series of short stories reminds me of Hitchcock's best movies, of possessive, undeniable love that's been bent out of true and made even more compelling because of it. It's a love that's been repudiated and denied, but overwhelmingly powerful. And the best part of all is Mystique's slightly detached viewpoint as the outsider; she has her own feelings and thoughts about what exactly is happening, and her clarity is chilling.

Feed Me To The Tabloid Monster by apocalypsos, Bobby/Marie

ahahahahahaa!!! Crack-fic! Mpreg! too fucking funny:

"Once upon a time, Frosty the Snowman and the original Mutant Hose Beast got hitched and decided to try making a very small person who cried. But seeing as how the original Mutant Hose Beast tended to shut down internal organ systems with a kiss, making a baby the usual way would be difficult. And to be honest, really painful to Frosty.

So Frosty's best friend, Hefty Smurf, suggested that the loving couple do something very gross with a turkey baster. This didn't go over well."

Weather breaking; drifting from SGA

2006-07-29T14:12:59Z

Living in San Francisco has many advantages (one of them: fabulous burritos) and one of the best ones has to be the fog. Oh, how I have missed you, you great gray beast on little cat's feet. The heat wave never got too bad here; it topped off around 90-ish degrees, and even with the heat, it was never truly unbearable because of the breezes coming off the ocean. But still, native-born and -bred San Franciscans recoil from actual hot weather; when it hits the eighties, everybody goes about in tank tops and pale arms, complaining about the heat. We're not built for this!

When I was in high school, I read an essay by E.B. White lamenting the advent of air conditioning in New York, how it robbed the summer days and nights of their tropical flavor, when the whole city was transformed into a simmery, heated urban jungle. In my naivete, I thought his sentiments romantic and sweetly nostalgic because I had never experienced searing summer heat. I sincerely thought that propping open a window on the side of the house not facing the sun and staying in the shade adequate for anything summer could throw at one; it wasn't until I lived outside of S.F. that I really understood the pernicious effects of heat. I want to go back and kick my own stupid backside. I also never ever want to live any place that isn't right by the ocean (or without great burritos).

But yay! the fog is back, and beautiful and it even began drizzling a little tonight as I was driving home after midnight. Tonight was also the third time since the SGA premiere that I've gone out on Friday nights, and the third time I haven't bothered to set the VCR. Or download the ep. I'm drifting from the show something fierce, and I don't care. Instead, I got home by 2am, ate a very late supper and watched Midnight, an extremely charming 1939 romantic comedy (in the French farce/Continental style) starring Claudette Colbert and co-written by Billy Wilder. It's not out on DVD, but should be; it's sparkling and funny and surprisingly sexy.

ladyagnew @ 2006-07-22T06:24:00

2006-07-22T14:01:18Z

Bryan Singer announced at Comic Con that he's to direct a sequel to Superman Returns, slated to arrive in 2009, and color me shocked. Given the huge cost of Returns (upwards of $200 million plus marketing costs) and its lackluster b.o. take ($170,967,498 domestically according to boxofficemojo.com, 3 weeks after release, I don't know if it will hit $200m), I seriously didn't think a sequel was in the offing. If he's announcing it at Comic Con, then he has to be at least 60% sure that the movie will get made; it does not pay to mislead your hardcore, and vocal! fanbase. But I doubt that this movie is absolutely green-lit and go: SR's underperformance makes me doubt the studio is absolutely 100% behind the sequel.

Though -- a sequel which I sorely want. I don't think SR is a great movie, or even perhaps a purely good movie, but it has these intriguing elements in it that make me want to see more of the universe. I think Singer has it in him to do something very interesting with a second movie, something looser and more playful, with more humor and less of a solemn, lugubrious tone. Like how X2 improved upon the first movie.

Watching SR for the second time, I realized that my problem with the movie is that though it's faithful in tone and action, it doesn't really work as a dramatic narrative. There's an odd lack of urgency to the movie, possibly because of how passive Routh's Clark is. Nothing seems to be driving the movie forward dramatically -- nothing seems to matter, and that's something that the X-Men movies he directed also had issue with, a strange sense of aimlessness. Watching the movie a second time felt a lot like watching the waves crash into the shore at sunset: hypnotically lovely but with no meaning behind the motions. If only he could shake off the overly respectful tone of the Richard Donner Superman movies, he might be able to do something interesting and electrically alive in his next movie while still keeping his lyrical visuals.

Serenity Again!

2006-07-05T05:57:29Z

A REVIEW of the longer, everything-and-the-kitchen-sink script of Serenity, which apparently reads as mostly the same beast only far less tragedy and much more like a 2-hour long episode of the show. Some bits I would've liked kept in:

SIMON
You were in that same war. But
you live almost like a person
might; you have an actual
relationship — a marriage. You
didn’t turn into some… Gorgon…

ZOE
I’m career Army, my whole family
is. I was already in when the war
started. Mal volunteered. He
joined the fight because he
believed. He believed his planet
should be left alone. Believed we
would win if we gave our hearts to
it, that his generals wouldn’t lay
down arms while his men were still
dying around him… that God would
help us in our darkest place.

She cinches a knot tight, moves to the next body.

ZOE
(continuing)
See, that’s the difference between
Mal and me. All I ever lost was a war.

-- as well as more Inara, Book-on-the ship and more humor at Jayne's expense (best thing, ever!). Reading the review makes me appreciate the movie as it turned out.

and a gloriously satisfying interview of Joss Whedon by Brian Michael Bendis. The topics range from the movies (Bendis' favorite movie of all time is Reds directed by Warren Beatty, and Stan Lee's is My Fair Lady, which fucking boggles my mind!) to comics to music and the writing process.

Rec, "The Third Man"

2006-06-21T07:29:45Z

purna posted a new story, The Third Man, 20,000+ words long, a few days ago and I'm dying to read it but can't yet: it's SGA AU of the 1949 movie and I don't want to spoil myself (it's one of those classic movies that you tell yourself you'll eventually get around to and now I have incentive). So this is strangely a rec for a story I've yet to read, but from previous knowledge of purna's work (and OK, I fell to temptation and read part of the first section), I can confidently rec it.

I love her writing; she always writes characters that are adult and sane, and very appealing for their sanity. It was probably some dead Greek who said that drama is based on conflict, and conflict is easily manufactured with characters who act juvenile, insecure, unstable, crazy. This especially holds true with crack!fic: characters in crack!fic act with the and cognitive faculties of very bright, hyper bonobos -- the very nature of the genre requires cracked-out behavior from its characters. But purna's characters act and feel with a moral seriousness and decency that permeates all of her stories, a kind of maturity, that I find insanely appealing. Her stories are balanced, delicate and sincere, featuring grounded characters in extreme situations, bringing out the subtle best in them. Her Rodney is still kinda hyperbolic and excited, but he's given a fundamental base of decency that's unshakeable. And her Zelenka in Three Graces is a gorgeous characterization of a decent, morally alive man trying to be brave in dark times.

X3; Hellboy 2

2006-06-11T09:23:34Z

Just came back from X3 (finally! but Brett Ratner directing and the very lackluster response from everybody I know who saw it kept me from watching) and came online to see that Hellboy II has been dropped by Sony, its studio. Well, damn. I know this might be a slightly controversial position to take, but I think Hellboy was the best superhero/comic book movie in the past ten years. It was a movie that served its source beautifully and was a thoroughly stirring and lovely cinematic experience, which is so hard to accomplish. Perfect actor, beautiful, lushly colorful visuals, affecting romance and -- OK -- cheesy action sequences, but I'm willing to take a little bit of cheese in the action sequence in exchange for a smaller budget and greater directorial control. But then, my opinions of recent superhero movies can be listed thusly:

Spiderman 1: slashy, but somehow just an overall dull film. I liked a lot of the actors, but it felt oddly paced and the action was all flat. The only moment that really stuck with me was the upside down kiss in the rain... yum.

Spiderman 2: lots more fun, and I loved all the hints of Sam Raimi's diabolical humor, and it felt a lot freer and looser than the first movie, but none of the big emotional moments hit, and well, the audience deservedly giggled during the "quiet moment of solemnity" and so did I. Raimi! you can't do solemn to save your life, and also, employing Bruce Campell in ALL your movies is a moral and artistic obligation to society! Dude!

X1: interesting adaptation of the ideas and characters, but somehow doesn't feel like The X-Men. However, I liked the direction, and the story was clean, brisk and ably directed.

X2: much less tight storytelling, but also a lot more fun than the first movie. Freer, more full of personality, and some gorgeous images (liquid silver tears, Mystique's antics) and acting choices (this is essentially the movie I began crushing on the sweetness of Shawn Ashmore's Bobby) but the story was barely more than a sketch, wasn't it? But silkily, gracefully directed.

Batman Begins: once you strip the element of fantasy from a comic book movie, I'm not interested. Add in how terribly blurry the action was filmed, the flat gray look of the film and Christian Bale in a major role (I'm sorry! he seems like a nice young man, but every time I see him act, all I see is the strain of him acting -- there's no naturalness to his emoting, only a slick, robotic facsimile of "emotion") and I opted out in a major way. On the other hand, a chilling and compelling performance by Cillian Murphy which I purely enjoyed.

which brings me finally to X3: which combined the story and character weaknesses of the first 2 movies (tell me, can anybody really say they understand any of the X-Men just from watching the movies?) only with Ratner's visual and rhythmically inept direction. I was surprised at how... ugly this movie is. The colors looked over-bleached and garish, instead of Singer's usual cool blues and grays, and grainy. And Singer -- even when he served a weak story -- always directed with a rhythm, a natural grace, totally missing in this movie. Each scene segued into the next without feeling finished, and absolutely NONE of the big emotional moments registered worth a damn. Such a disappointment, but not a surprising one.

Now I'm pinning all my hopes on a decent summer popcorn movie season on Bryan Singer and Superman Returns.

House, 2x24, "No Reason"

2006-05-28T09:11:21Z

House, 2x24, "No Reason" season finale, some thoughts:

I had a strange reaction to the ep, not entirely positive. As it was playing out, I actually liked it less and less as it was going on. The recovery of his leg was being treated willy-nilly with the Duckling barely reacting, the wannabe murderer was yanking House's guilt chain was deeply unrealistic (House is right: you can either ask for an apology or shoot first, NOT BOTH) and the hallucination trope -- what is real, what's not -- is not something I have a great deal of liking for. But then House figuring out it was ALL a hallucination, slicing the patient open at the guts and popping awake to reality and asking for ketamine: I loved the last 5 minutes of the episode when I realized what David Shore had done.

why would House in the end seek to trade his brain for a healthy body?

House hates his disability, but frankly, he also has to deal with constant, unrelenting pain, pain which was also damaged his mental acuity (Vicodin addiction, much?). When he's in Cuddy's office the first time, he tells her he's without pain for the first time, and the ketamine therapy isn't to heal the dead muscle in his thigh, it's to reboot the brain of chronic pain sufferers. House's leg will never be perfectly healed -- after all, it was in his hallucination he was leaping about and prancing up stairs -- but to be rid of chronic pain that's driven him to addiction? Made him even more bitter and angry than pre-pain?

The therapy carries with it a risk of mental impairment: Cuddy's words were that 50% of people who'd been helped eventually relapsed back into chronic pain, not into mental impairment. We have no idea what the actual risk of cognitive malfunctioning would be, but as House intimately knows, all medical procedures carry risk (when the initial infarction happened, he was willing to risk death for the chance of a complete recovery), and it's possible his mind was blowing up the possibility of being impaired, given that for him, that would be the greatest loss ever. All he's had since his leg went kablooey and he drove Stacy away with his combination of self-hatred and defensive wall-building is his brain. I think that's why I liked the meaning of this episode so much, in that House makes a decision to take the leap himself.

it was a fucking pro-active season finale!

Think of it this way: usually most season enders require reactive responses from the characters. Circumstances force them to react and get saved, or kill people, or blow up high school graduation ceremonies. And the hallucination part of this ep bears this out -- b/c of the shooting, he's given a treatment against his knowledge and his leg is healed but his mind is messed up -- House has to react, rage, come to terms with it. But since it was really a hallucination, what we get instead is House coming to terms with a lot things he finds crappy about his own life, digesting it all and coming to a conclusion that he wants change. That's he's willing to risk perhaps the most precious thing in his life -- his cold, brilliant, glowing brain with its fabulous diagnostic powers -- in order to not be in pain anymore. To maybe not be miserable, which is -- like Wilson's example with the people who were misdiagnosed with AIDs -- how he's been identifying himself for-fricken-ever. It's a horrible role to play, just like an AIDs sufferer is an awful role to play, but it's been at the basis of his self-identity for so long that House has bizarrely become comfortable inhabiting the role of the pissy misanthrope who can't do, but can say, anything he wants.

The whole dialogue between him and Elias Koteas was about House coming face to face with the limitations and lofty pretensions of that role: he pretends that he's OK with living his life within a small proscribed circle of ambitions (cure people, save lives, say whatever the hell you want and fuck with the rules of society) in exchange for being unhappy and in denial about his addiction and loneliness. It's a deal that he's never seemed to examine before, for all that he loves to eviserate other people's ambitions and self-serving delusions.

The last five minutes: House subconsciously dealing with his demons, thrashing it out, and then choosing to take the risk of getting better and not having a convenient excuse to be miserable and hateful -- that was powerful.

So all the Ducklings and Cuddy and the shooter were in his mind... what's that all mean for the characterization?

The shooter (was his name really mentioned as Moriarty in the show? I must have missed that, though that seems to be what everyone on the TWoP forums are calling him) is the Socratic method personified, the part of House that is appalled at what his life has come to, at what the consequences of his actions sometimes are -- the part of himself he's not entirely killed, the sensual, the sentimental, the part who can believe in simple human happiness and connection.

What gets me about his vision of Cuddy and Wilson is that House sees them as the caretakers. Because at the end of the day, he knows that they have his best interests at heart. Cuddy with his body (she's still his doctor in his mind) and Wilson with his soul (slashy thoughts *here*). Others have noted that Cuddy was more sedately dressed than usual, even the colors of her clothes muted, and he makes not one sexual innuendo to her face. It's a callback to the episode where he demanded she shoot him up with morphine for his leg, and why her name was on his wrist tag as attending physician: in his mind, Cuddy's role as his doctor supercedes any sexual thoughts he may have about her, which, disappoints me because I far prefer Cuddy in the Cuddy vs. Cameron horse race for his affections.

I also wonder if having Cuddy and Wilson conspire to cure him is somehow House's subconscious way of knowing the truth behind "Detox", the episode where Wilson is behind Cuddy's bet that House can't go without Vicodin for a whole week. If so, House's subconscious brain is scary-smart.

Cameron had two roles, that of nurterer -- sitting at his bedside for 2 whole days -- and object of desire. The robo-sex was pretty sexy, especially Cam's sloe-eyed reactions, but House/Cam is twenty different shades of wrong for me. The only comfort is that the sexuality was deliberately distanced by House; even in his hallucination, he couldn't touch her with his own hands, he had to use a robotic (mechanical) intermediary. Interesting and disturbing.

You take the best part of you and strip it of all meaning [paraphrase, from Moriarty to House in his hallucination]

The stripping comment refers to how he literally takes the caring out of healing. He treats his patients with contempt, skepticism and causes them pain arbitrarily but always puts them back together functionally. He's stripped the meaning of healing to its absolute basic sense and lost all of the... connotations of the word.

I think what gets me in the end is how cruel House is to himself. The things he says... "I don't know why you bother to keep living" ... I suspected that deep inside, House was unable to spare himself from his own judgements because those who're that cruel to other's must judge themselves even more harshly by the same standards. And House, in Koteas's mouth, is unsparing to his own faults and vulnerabilities. I think that's what impressed me about the whole season: the show took the promise of the first season, having a misanthropic doctor with a pain problem and addiction issues, and didn't shy away from the darkness and self-hatred behind his entertaining characteristics. They didn't shy away from making House unlikeable and somewhat despicable, or exploring the ugliness he has inside. And what really impresses is that is all on a show that's in the Top 20 rated TV shows on network prime-time. That doesn't feel real at all.

Not a perfect finale, but it gave such great meat for thought, and really makes me interested in the next season and what the pay off will be. </lj>

hearting on Joss Whedon, Firefly fandom and Equality Now

2006-05-26T06:54:26Z

God, I adore Joss Whedon. Not only just as one of my favorite popular artists working in any medium right now (the others are Haruki Murakami, Alan Moore, Terry Pratchett, um, Aimee Mann and maybe the Flaming Lips) but he says things in interviews like this:

Everybody knows there is a little girl inside of Joss. I literally grew up wishing that I were a woman. That doesn’t necessarily give me any great insight into women — in fact, many women I know have gone, "You’re an idiot for wishing that!" But I’ve always felt a great affinity for women on various levels. In particular, I think, a level of sensibility, in that I was raised by a very strong, smart, delightful, extraordinary woman.

and this

Well, I had lovely long red hair — less and less of which I have every day — and delicate features. I was quite cute! Something went horribly wrong somewhere, but that’s OK. But there was a sense of oppression, of not being taken seriously, of physical fear; there were certain things that I had in common — I was very close to my step-sister as well, she was the best friend I had in my family growing up. Plus, I’m super-gay, something my wife has come to accept and even enjoy. It’s just something that has always been a part of me. And so I have, I think, a kind of a feminine sensibility.

Joss got feted and honored by Equality Now, an organization that "was founded in 1992 to work for the protection and promotion of the human rights of women around the world. Working with national human rights organizations and individual activists, Equality Now documents violence and discrimination against women and mobilizes international action to support their efforts to stop these human rights abuses."

He was a special honoree at their New York benefit "honoring men on the front lines" and all for pretty much telling Firefly/Serenity fandom that this was a cause very dear to his heart, very special to his mother's memory, and encouraging us to support the organization; in a little, humble way, the fandom has adopted the organization with the special logic of, well nothing we can do can save the show, we might as well put our love into something productive and honorable. When fans raised $8,000+ to buy the original browncoat Mal wore on the show for Fillion and lost out on the bidding, Fillion directed us to give the money to Equality Now. And on June 23rd of this year, which happens to be Joss's birthday, there are planned benefit screenings of the Big Damn Movie to raise money. It's kinda crazy and just -- fandom doing something in the cause of feminism? I kinda love it.

I kinda love it a whole lot.

VM recs

2006-05-19T02:46:46Z

Two Veronica Mars recs, two stories that should be silly but execution redeems them something fierce:

Dark Places Where Monsters Dwell by apocalypsos

author's summary: For lack of other options, Mac and Dick try to survive together in a post-apocalyptic world.

and The Liberation of Katie Holmes by buffyx and missdeviant

in the authors' own words: The Liberation of Katie Holmes (Or: How Kristen Bell and Jason Dohring Saved The World From Crazy Scientologists) -- OK, this story is self-styled crack!fic and still very much with the silly, but it's carried off with such insouciance, I kinda love it.

veronica rox, 2x21

2006-05-09T21:39:14Z

My feelings about the penultimate ep, 2x21, were mixed. Some interesting revelations, some good character moments, but oddly choppy, as though they were trying to fit in too many divergent stories and plot threads into 42 minutes. More in-depth look as follows:

* I guess there goes Veronica's dream of Stanford; I almost wish V. had gone ahead pushing for her dream because that's who Veronica is: pushy and determined, a ball of blond hair and pure will, but on the other hand, how much love do I feel that it was the sight of Wallace that made her ditch her dream, Wallace and the verdict on Lilly's killer coming in. Because Wallace/Veronica-Platonic-OTP-4EVA! I seriously think my favorite scene in the whole episode was of Wallace saying goodbye to her by the lockers; Veronica looked as hard-boiled as usual (with her sarcasm shield firmly in place), but Wallace! he looked sad to say goodbye, happy to have known her, sweet as his essential personality is, suffused with these good emotions. Two great facial reaction shots in this ep: Wallace's sweet goodbye and Veronica's reaction as the verdict is read -- not guilty. Lovely acting.

and, meta-wise, I knew there was little possibility of V really leaving Neptune next year, though it was painful to see her let go of her dream. It just seems like she's been through enough and that given enough time, Neptune will eventually wear away at every good part of her. Because the Veronica now, v. 2.0, is a tarnished, harder, more brittle version of the girl she used to be. Give her 4 more years in Neptune to complete her undergrad, and I fear for what might come out the other end. But then, like Buffy and Sunnydale or Philip Marlowe and L.A., the show can't really operate were she to leave town.

* oh, how perfect that Steve Gutenberg = child molester? Really really perfect. He's creepy when he's not supposed to be creepy, and when he was looming over her shoulder at the computer, I felt dirty and endangered. V is so capable and verbally aggressive that I sometimes forget she's a teenage girl. I'm glad the show rarely resorts to physical threats on her, because a.) it makes it really effective when they go there, and b.) I'm as tired tired tired as Joss Whedon is of the itty blonde being the damsel in distress and in need of constant saving.

* should Keith really have confronted Woody at his office? All he went there to do was warn him of the bomb threat, he has to blurt out that he knows/has proof of the child molestation as well? He used to be sheriff -- last season, he didn't accuse the suspected serial killer to his face until they could get a warrant, and that dude was some poor schlub, not the richest man in town with his own private jet. Is it any surprise Woody took off? This ep had Keith messing up two times: losing his cool on the courtroom stand as well fucking up with Woody. How out-of-character, b/c Keith is usually the Edward R. Murrow (moral gravitas) to V's muck-raking reporter (do the fuck anything in the name of justice and truth), and if anything, he's over-cautious and grounded.

This lapse bothered me more than all the implausible details of the trial, because the show generally cares more about keeping its characters in character than getting, y'know, real life details absolutely right. Verisimilitude not a priority, because the Aaron Echolls trial was not portrayed realistically; it was accomplished in a few days (wtf?), the defense attorney ran crazy roughshod over the witnesses, the prosecution with their total lack of any compelling evidence, etc.

* the one thing that did work for me was the verdict. Not because I'm so eager for the coming plot twist involving Aaron and his probable twisted needs for revenge (what is he going to do about Logan?), but 'cos it's realistic; as per the creator's own words, O.J., Robert Blake and Michael Jackson all got off: you have money, fame, privilege and shit slides right off, and isn't this pretty much the overarching theme of the show? The rich screw the poor, in varied and inventive ways, and the world is again proved corrupt and impure. Without that extremely cynical worldview, the show wouldn't be a noir and Veronica wouldn't be the vengeful angel.

* this point is actually from 2x20, but I'm loving the chlamydia storyline. It's all kinds of daring to have the female heroine of a TV show come down from an STD, and I love the very message it sends, even though I'm not usually the type of consumer who appreciates messages in art/entertainment. Veronica being sexually active, in control of her body and yet getting a STD is brilliant b/c it's not anvilly (there's not one whiff of PSA about it) or heavy-handed; Veronica is the admirable main character we've been set up to love, and getting this doesn't make her a slut or empty-headed, just like getting drugged and raped last season didn't mean she was worthless or an idiot. Shit like this happens in real life to perfectly wonderful women, and it's not the end of the world or a value judgement on Veronica. There's lots of spec that it's all a fake-out by Aaron, and that he planted the info to make his case stronger, and if that's true, I'll be disappointed. I expect more of the show than to play it off as a cop-out, to skirt the edge of controversy (I can't recall one instance of a female lead character getting infected with an STD, barring possibly Charlotte from Sex and the City getting crabs) and pull back at the end with a "psyche". So, yeah, I'm in the odd position of hoping Veronica really does have chlamydia.

anthony lane reviewing MI:3

2006-05-09T07:38:55Z

New Yorker reviewer Anthony Lane is such a catty bitch:

Since the last installment of “Mission: Impossible,” Cruise has found somebody to marry him for real, and to bear his child. This scarcely unusual news would hardly be worth rehearsing, were it not for the kinks and wavers that have been observed in the arc of his stardom—and “M:I:III,” like many blockbusters, would be nothing without its star. The Cruise fan base has been shaken by a number of public pronouncements, although some of us have merely been confirmed in our original suspicions that there was something about this actor that was not quite of this earth. The stiff-necked jerk of his motions; the grit of his bared teeth; the eyes switched to perennial full beam but never quite blinking, even during tears; his ability to remain totally upright when sprinting, as if carrying an invisible egg and spoon—what are these, if not the techniques of an alien life force who has just graduated summa cum laude in advanced human behavior? Just who was scared of whom, precisely, in last year’s “War of the Worlds”?

The movie did sub-standard box office this weekend, and all the speculation on the reasons why are firmly on the spectre of Cruise's unfortunate and public antics. All of which bring out the sharp satisfaction of schadenfraude and make me want to have The Liberation of Katie Holmes (Or: How Kristen Bell and Jason Dohring Saved The World From Crazy Scientologists)'s BABIES.

quick rec

2006-05-05T21:27:18Z

Best proof that SGA is the best! fandom! evar!: 400% by Pares, in which many characters adore Rodney as I adore him -- totally, ecstatically, completely and for the same reasons too -- he's annoying, mouthy, complain-y Sex God composed of pure id and impulse.

Best proof that Teyla is the smartest character on SGA: 3 Lovers by Speranza. Teyla is sexy, everyone knows, but better is that she is all the whip-smart Earth Mother of our dreams, in a leather halter and split skirt. This story is a little like therapy -- the working out of all the rest of the team's issues -- by way of polyamorous sexin', and really, that is how I like my therapy in fiction: sexy. It also echoes a theme that Speranza has played with before, the reaching for life in the midst of death, a very primal idea in her hands. It's like "Scrabble" all over again, only in the ways it's not.

veronica rox, 2x20

2006-04-27T09:32:25Z

a.) I'm finally getting over the migraine hangover from last night. And it wasn't even a full-blown migraine! But I suppose the whole day of nausea, headache and flinching from bright lights was worth not actually puking yesterday.

b.) the strange this is, I blame TV. Tues night's my TV night, with both House and Veronica Mars and I think the emotional rollercoaster of 2 great eps tipped me over into migraine-land. Or at least I started noticing after watching House, "House vs. God". oh, TV, I love you so but all you give me is PAIN.

lots of VM thoughts:

The show works best when it has Veronica emotionally engaged. I mean, the bus crash as the main mystery has pretty much failed to engage my attn all year b/c she's not really been as obsessed with finding the bad guy as she was finding Lilly's murderer last year. Lasy year, she was an angel on a fucking crusade. This year, she's wavering between being the normal girl ("normal is the watchword", dating Duncan, scoring a full-ride scholarship to Stanford) and being the kick-ass, take-no-prisoner gal detective of my dreams. I love this character when she's full of explosive emotion: bitterness, vindictive anger, longing, father-love, and this season has been up and down with her emotions. The plot of the week captures her attn, she emotes, but it's not the full-bore feeling, it's not personal. So this ep makes me gratefully happy for 2 reasons:

* she has chlamydia! OK, sucks for her, but what makes her uncomfortable/tragic/angry is great for the show. How she got it, who gave it to her and what she's going to do about it: I'm engaged in her pain.

* The Logan/Veronica two step. I hate that the show apparently believes in the Moonlighting school of romance, because actually having them in a relationship is apparently less interesting than teasing the audience with a taste of them together and then yanking it all away. But I loved that we got Logan spilling his guts out and leaning in for that kiss -- that kiss! She trembled for him, like a deer caught out in the middle of a glen by a hunter, muscles and mind locked in indecision. I wanted that kiss so bad I could taste it; I know the m.o. of the show is one step forward, two steps back, and I just wanted a single kiss for memory against the cold freeze ahead. Because while I didn't know the specifics of what was to happen, I did know the writers wouldn't let them come to an actual understanding. I just wanted Veronica to have that one kiss before her heart was crushed again.

I wonder 2 things: if Veronica's STD awareness had anything to do with her pulling back, or if it was all nerves and unsureness? and, how Jason Dohring can play Logan's asshole side so well and his vulnerability even better? How? Because he's believe both ways, sometimes at the same time, and his vulnerability made me quiver, and I don't even find him that appealing or attractive! Bravo, man. Bravo.

fanfic's validity

2006-04-26T06:14:26Z

Blogging here about the artistic and legal validity of fanfic, and while I have nothing to say about legal standing (if George Lucas's lawyer knocks on your door tomorrow, no matter how good or bad his case, you will most likely go quietly along with the cease and desist orders), the claims of fanfic's artistic invalidity (particularly the claim that only the originator of the universe has anything valid to say about it) irritated this response from me (like a pearl made from an oyster's cranky secretions):

The thing is that all these print writers are so passionately engaged in a conversation that has little to do with them. I can't recall the last time I read a fic based on a prose novel -- perhaps a Dark Is Rising fic months ago; JKR is the only writer alive today that's affected in any major way, and she has seemingly come to terms with it. At least when Anne Rice had her freak-out and unleashing of the lawyers, it was on people playing in her 'verse. Most 'fic is written based on televisual media: BtVS, The X-Files, SG-1, Star Wars and those entities are more concerned with the financial repercussions of allowing it (mostly, they don't want to alienate the fans, and look the other way as long as it's strictly non-profit) than the artistic ones. The nature of Hollywood being what it is, fanfic is second nature. Joss Whedon is on record as saying how he thinks fanfic is a cool thing and at least part of this attitude is b/c of the 140+ episodes of Buffy, he wrote maybe 20. He "over-wrote" more, but the eps were credited to other writers. Lucas let Kershner direct Empire -- two other people wrote the script with him. In a lot of ways, Hollywood is a colony of fanfic writers, only with drugs, sex and rock and roll and BILLIONS of dollars. The Godfather I & II are perhaps some of the greatest movies ever made in America, and while Puzo co-wrote the screenplay, most of the beauty of the movie lies with Coppola, the director and co-writer, Brando, Al Pacino, De Niro, Gordon Willis (the DP), etc. So much proof against the idea that the originator of the story is the only person who could have anything valid to say about the characters and universe. Creativity is not so simply limited. And film, perhaps the great 20th century art -- while novels and theater have shrunk back from the public's view -- understands this. Sometimes you get your Citizen Kane from a wholly original talent like Welles, and sometimes you get The Godfather from Coppola delicately tweezing Puzo's potboiler of a mafia novel, unfolding it into an almost Shakespearean tale of family, American business and violence.

Most prose writers don't have the same experience in the artistic validity of fanfic. I can't blame them for seeing the intrusive intent in other people taking their beloved characters and making them do these things they could never have imagined them doing, but to me, that's the fun of fanfic. When I love a show, I don't need re-imagining. Never did get to reading much Buffy fic, and probably never will. But SGA? Or Smallville? Cheesy fun that I probably wouldn't bother to watch if it weren't for the slash. A lot of these writers sound like novelists whose books have been optioned for the movies, except without the windfall of money that usually comes of H'wood knocking at your door. They're going to ruin my novel! It's going to suck b/c it's not my vision! well, I agree entirely with this comment:

perianwyr : I am rather uncomfortable with the idea that one should have total control over the impressions that one's ideas give, in any form.

Caged Heat, 1974

2006-04-24T12:51:17Z

Did everyone else know that Caged Heat -- an exploitation movie that's cultishly famous for being one of the best lesbians-in-underwear priston movies ever -- was written and directed by Jonathon Demme? The same Demme who directed the charming mob comedy Married to the Mob and the multiple Oscar-winning Silence of the Lamb? Did everyone else know this but me?!? and if so, why didn't you tell me??

And scarily enough, the short clip I saw of it was surreally intense & good in that way that some disturbing cult movies are. Like John Waters without the feces. yikes.

*small voice* now I totally have to track this mother down and watch it... the one clip I saw was of one scary woman screaming her head off at this soft-looking blonde for stealing her cigarettes and backhanding her while she whimpered that "she couldn't help it" and the toughie snarked back (with a shred of empathy!) "and you don't even smoke"... both of them of course in their underwear.

SGA recs: drugs version

2006-04-22T09:46:05Z

compiled a list of stoned!fic for SGA, and saving it here for safe-keeping. And in my world, stoned druggie fics also mean "alien aphrodisiacs made them do it" fics. Yes.

My favorite, b/c HOT! Red Silks by eliade, pretty much reason number ONE that alien-drugs-made-them-do-it fics count. Inflorescence is nothing to *hee* sneeze at.

Good for what ails you by giddygeek. Also, erm, allergy relief counts right? right.

Cakes and Ale my mirabile_dictu, small druggy part, but the rest is gravy. (note: not real gravy-related. sadly)

Confabulation by Pares. hee. This one makes me giddy and happy and Rodney! he is so Rodney-ish!

Medicinal Herbs by spikedluv. dude, lookit the title.

Aiden Ford's Bad Day by torakowski. Shep is stoned, but in his defense, the aliens made him do it.

Forward Momentum by kageygirl... drugs lead to circle jerk leads to SEX!

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do by amireal. Rodney, high, tactile and deciding to break up with John -- John is unaware they are dating.

neither death, nor exile, nor pain by mirabile_dictu. The rave fic; touchy, water-warm fic that edges so sweetly into near-orgy territory. Comforting.

Be Cool by HTH, essentially the queen mother of these stories. Pitch perfect high-as-a-kite!John.

ladyagnew @ 2006-04-21T03:49:00

2006-04-21T10:49:45Z

OK, the anniversary of the big earthquake of 1906 was a few days ago, but I had to make a mention with my favorite article from the local paper (sf chronicle):

The Great Quake: Risk of Quakes Adds Spice to Life

There probably has not been a San Franciscan since 1906 who hasn't been asked, "Aren't you frightened? How can you live in place that's going to fall into the ocean one of these days?"

I was 10 in 1989 when the Loma Prieta earthquake (also known as the World Series quake) hit. I'll never forget it; it was one of the most frightening and exhilarating events of my life, and while no one I knew was hurt or much affected by it, it was tangibly, fantastically scary. Most small earthquakes are barely more than tremblors, like a big truck rattling your house, while the big one was... jerky. I've never felt the ground jerk under me like that, side to side, almost violent enough to prevent a person from walking upright. It was like the giant hand of God reached down, got a good grip on the sides of the house and just shook us for all we were worth. I'm lucky I didn't turn out an adrenaline junky b/c while I was scared out of my wits, it was also immensely and deeply exciting.

As for the risk, these are 2 things I tell myself:

1.) risk is a part of every day life, and I'm much more likely to wrap my car around a pole or (oh dear) another car and I would sooner give up driving than living in the city.

2.) if the city gets destroyed, it'll be all of us together. No advance warning, no hurricane alerts, no fleeing of the city for everybody but the poor and disabled: we're all going down together. And the most seismically vulnerable part of the city is the Marina, where all the rich, white yuppies live. It's a gorgeous place, out by the harbor, hilly and dotted with greens, beautiful old houses and charming commercial areas and built on about a ton of sand and silt. It suffered the most damage in 1989, and people rebuilt and the houses are worth millions of dollars, and there is a bite of strange irony there. We won't be another Katrina.

recs: His Majesty's Dragon, Global Frequency

2006-04-17T05:43:54Z

I've been away for... wow, months and months. *pets blog* I've been more lax than usual, but really, this is what any journal of mine, online or paper, should expect: neglect alternated with furious activity, signifying nothing. Every time I've had the vague impulse to update or write something amusing/relevant/witty, it's died a premature death from ennui.

I'm good at ennui; I'm excellent at ennui.

recs:

Book You Should Be Reading RIGHT NOW: Naomi Novik's His Majesty's Dragon. Even if you aren't a fan of Patrick O'Brien (and the Napoleonic Wars) or Anne McCaffrey (though this time the dragons are not telepathic), you will love this book. It's like a little jewel in my hands, all the facets polished to perfection, and I can't perceive any flaws. Great prose, beautiful action (seriously wonderful battle scenes), heaps of historical details and authentic atmosphere and the warmest, sweetest emotional relationship at the center of it all, between a man and his dragon. Such an immensely satisfying read, and better yet, there's more coming down the pipeline! The sequel, Throne of Jade is due out later this month, April 25 (eee! can't wait) and the third book comes out in May. So rocking.

TV Show You Should Be Watching RIGHT NOW: Global Frequency, based on the Warren Ellis comic. I like the comic fine -- I'm a huge slut for Ellis, but prefer Planetary and Transmetropolitan -- but it works even better as a TV serial. Only one episode was made, the pilot, and the WB (STUPIDLY) did not pick it up, but I fell in love after downloading it via *mutter mutter*. Now I know bitterness, that this show that really deserved a chance -- hell, a fistful of chances -- never got a one. What makes it special in my eyes is a quality it shares with the LotR movies, only on a smaller, more realistic, less epic scale. LotR was about passionately fighting for the side of Good (with a capital "G") with one's whole heart and believing in the cause of mankind. The movie's goal was unabashedly noble, and because it didn't flinch from pouring every ounce of intent and emotion into its goal and didn't once wink in the direction of irony, it's stirring and genuinely moving. And so is Global Frequency: the whole premise is of a top-secret, non-governmental organization of people dedicated to saving humanity from itself, and done entirely without self-consciousness or irony, and so, so passionately. It's not a half-hearted save-the-world story, it has belief. Really worth the time tracking it down.

happy Chinese New Year! a day late

2006-01-31T00:13:25Z

Happy Lunar New Year, to all those who celebrate the holiday (like me!) or don't. The first day of the New Year was yesterday, Sunday, so it's now officially the Year of the Dog, which means a bunch of things:

* if you are young and unmarried, you get money from all your relatives in little red envelopes -- it's like they're bribing you to stay single!

* you should have done things you wanted your new year to be filled with, i.e. there should be no shopping or going to work, unless that's your idea of the ideal day. Traditionally, it means staying at home, wearing all new clothes, eating food that you had no hand in preparing (no work!) and hanging out with your family peacefully. Apparently the ancient Chinese ideal of the perfect day is to be a lazybones hermit, which totally meshes with my thoroughly modern ideal.

* you should not have done any of the following superstitious customs: washed your hair or cleaned at all (rinsing and sweeping away your luck), raised your voice (anger will draw bad luck) or, um... OK, I actually don't remember much about the many superstitions about attracting bad spirits or bad luck because I don't listen to my mother that closely (who does?). I know there's something in there about not wearing your clothes backward or idly making a scissors work when you have nothing to cut... yeah, I know.

* you totally should not have (as I did) spent the evening ordering out for sushi with your sister and watching weird internet clips online (omigod, the tragedy that is R. Kelly's "rock opera", the last few episodes which contain -- I'm not kidding -- a midget who shits himself in terror and apparently has a huge penis -- not that the last two things are at all related!) and then scrambling awake at 7 in the morning, moaning and clutching my stomach in pain. I puked and moaned, repeat ad infinitum, struck down by food poisoning even though I love that sushi place with all my heart and haven't been affected like that in literally years; I haven't puked in about 2 years (a record now sadly broken) and I've never gotten ill from sushi ever before. I really hope I don't spend a majority of the new year vomiting and swearing at raw fish (mmm, raw fish, lovely and slippery, God I could never give you up).

So, to wrap up, yay for the new year, yay for little red envelopes of money and yay to sushi, because it's just about the best thing ever, even when it's making me throw up.

reason #19,444,003 why I love the buffyverse and joss

2006-01-21T22:43:43Z

hee. scifibrain.com lists the 12 slashiest couples of sf/f, and Spike/Angel make it to #3.

03) Angel/Spike (Buffy: The Vampire Slayer/Angel)
Opposite personalities? Check. Bitter rivals? Check. Feuding over a similar lover? Double check. High school angst? Triple check. What makes this couplet far more interesting than the ones lower on the list, is that even though Angel and Spike are bitter enemies, they still are almost always on the same side. Whether it’s season 2 of Buffy or season 5 of Angel, they always manage to join together for a gay ol’ time. These two would have been the best of friends if not for Drusilla or Buffy. And, the interesting thing about this couple—they’re the only one on the list to (canonically) have intercourse with one another.

and best yet, when the "canonically have intercourse with one another" line caused, er, debate on the whedonesque thread, joss posted:

Honestly, what's most fascinating is that every post here tells me more about the poster than about the subject matter. That's what makes fiction grand. I will say a few things:

1)When I called James "the best ingenue Angel ever had" I merely meant that there was enormous acting chemistry between them. After throwing different actresses up against David (sometimes literally) it was gratifying to find someone who brought out passion in David's performance that I'd never seen. I mean, look at Caveman vs Astronauts, for god's sake! David is off the charts hilarious. I learned early on to film those two in one-ers instead of regular coverage because their energy just kept increasing. Others have misinterpreted that quote before.

2)What may or may not have happened is entirely up to the viewer, that's what makes it art. Having said that, I know EXACTLY what happened and it's funny that I'm never going to tell anyone. But did no one see the obvious smoldering passion between the Blue Hand guys? MAN, did you guys miss the boat.

3)In my world, heroes bugger each other senseless. Not all of them, but more than you'd think, and probably not who you're thinking. But seriously, Anybody here care to tell Apollo and the Midnighter how a hero should behave? To their faces?

joss | January 20, 19:00 CET

The scenes and lines are from season 5 of A:tS, but the idea that Angel and Spike were Meant to Be is pure through the entire Buffyverse. Frankly, women were about the cause of 98% of both their troubles, and sticking to antagonistic, snarkastic sex with each other would've been a boon to not only themselves, but also the entire world. Simple formula, boys: less sex with Buffy = less fomenting of apocalyses.