This Year's Model of Humanity

I was never that into Spike. Or Angel, for that matter. My favorite 'version' of Spike was S7 Spike and it took about four years of Angel for me to get really attached to Angel. In the Jossverse, my sympathies tended to lie pretty firmly with the humans.

What's different about the vampires in The Vampires Diaries?

( spoilers through all aired episodes of Jossverse and the Vampire Diaries )

aka 'A Deconstruction of Society's Demonization of Women'

It's a theme that's more subtle in the earlier seasons, but they let us know right from the beginning that season seven is going to be more explicit. Buffy's explanation to Dawn in Lessons is a way of using the power that women are 'allowed' to have against people who seem to have more ('who has the power?'). Then, as the season goes on, she finds ways to reclaim the power that belongs to women by right, by being human and alive and strong.

In Chosen, Buffy faces down the First Evil, wearing her face, and realizes that it only has the power that she gives it. That by not believing her cause is hopeless, she gives it new hope. That by not allowing her face to represent evil, evil loses. In Season Seven, the metaphor takes center stage, but the premise and the thought behind it is most clearly laid out in Restless, the fourth season finale.
( An feminist analysis of Buffy in 'Restless' )

God, I'm busy lately. I'm near the end of moving (I've been moving all this month and will do my final move this weekend, thank God, it'll be done with).

Anyway, I just thought I'd hang out a 'not dead' sign and let y'all now what's going on with me.

So, some thoughts I've been having recently:

I. The idea that a guy can't or shouldn't be a feminist is very disturbing to me -- in a perfect world, all men and women would be feminists, because the definition of a feminist is someone who believes that women deserve the same rights as men. So, I do hold the belief that Joss Whedon is a feminist, because he holds men and women to the same standards and because his female characters are as complex as his male ones. In fact, for each of his male characters, you can generally find a female equivalent, and vice versa. For every Spike you have a Faith, and for every Buffy you have a Wesley (okay, that one may only make sense in my own head, and I do plan to go into more detail on it another time).

II. Shuddering disgust at the idea of het!sex is something that confuses me. I personally know more than one person who has this reaction and it makes as much emotional sense to me as the idea that some women don't get off on boykissing. But this is because I'm very much sexually attracted to both men and women. Therefore, any kind of 'ew' reaction to attractive people getting snuggly baffles me. It's not the visual image of Jack/Sam (Stargate SG-1) that bothers me, it's the legal, emotional, and long-term ramifications. And this emotional confusion is as much an instinctive personal reaction as the disgust that triggers it. Like, I don't get people who do not love Frannie (due South). Frannie is beautiful, funny, and such a sweetheart. This is what I see when I look at her. Other people see different things -- just because I cannot understand what they see doesn't mean that what they see is invalid. I just don't get it. And that's okay, as long as people don't try to tell me that I'm wrong for seeing what I see.

III. I like season six of BtVS. I like season seven of BtVS. I liked them when they were airing. This does not mean that I am a) a moron, b) easily satisfied, or c) someone incapable of seeing the big picture. It just means that I got what I needed out of the show. Every person watching the show is watching for different reasons. Just because my reasons aren't the same as someone else's doesn't make them wrong, it makes them different.

Also, I'm trying out Adobe Premiere Pro for my Wes vid and trying to figure out if I want to invest in getting the program. Any suggestions from vidders in the audience?

In two of the shows that I actually bother to watch regularly these days, the female characters are not well-written (and while this bugs the hell out of me, the guys are written interestingly enough that I don't want to give up on the shows in question). And I think that a lot of the bad female writing comes not from having male writers, per se, but from having male writers who love their female characters too shallowly.
( vague spoilers for BtVS, House, Stargate SG-1, and Smallville )

cesperanza and deifire -- your stuff has been sent and should be there in about a week. Other peoples -- I may have a chance to get to the Post Office again on... Friday, looks like.

Wow, I've been busy recently.

And I'm busy during business hours, which means that though I have time, it's not particularly useful time.

Rewatched some of S6 and have noticed several things -- I'm still very much attracted to Xander over Spike (it's the melty eyes and the snark in danger -- he's so a young Jack (SG-1), btw), the grief for Tara is actually pretty there and powerful, and Buffy got and gave quite a few hugs in those last few episodes. Very nice, the hugging.

And Spike's hero journey starts in the final leg of S6. He bites off more than he can chew -- thinks he's found a way to get Buffy, the way that Angel had her, and boy does he get surprised. Overall, I find Spike's journey very satisfying, start to finish. He was a true and independent hero, by end of Angel. Good for him.

Ended up going to skip=440. This is much skip. And that was only making links to the posts that have interesting links/cut-tags. Which I will now go through. And there are about twenty that I can't go through until I watch the new Smallville (as I am self-spoiled for Angel (yay downloading!), I'm fine with reading those)

But hey, while I'm here - someone suggested writing a short fic based on your default icon (wish I could remember who).
( Cut for mild spoilers for the first episode of Angel - if you don't recognize the chick in the icon, then you'll get spoiled )

I love my preview channel (zap2it). There's only so much room for a half-hour show to take up, and the main actor's name shows up on the second line, so Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter shows up as Rules for Dating John Ritter, which never fails to crack me up. And it plays music, not commercials or shows.
( End of Days, spoilers )

( Calling, spoilers )

This is much longer than last night's reactions.

( spoilers for Dirty Girls (and some for last week's Angel) )