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some things. as usual, much longer and more rambly than it needs to be
1. Most important: I got hopelessly, hopelessly behind on my flist over the past week or two. As such, I’m certain I missed some things I didn’t want to miss. I’m going to try to wade through this weekend, but if you posted something (or saw that someone else posted something) that you know I’d want to see and I didn’t comment on it? Could you please give me a link? I’d love you forever! Not that I already don’t, because I do. But I’d love you forever longer.
2. Probably RPF will be popping up in my journal at some point. I know this makes several of you DELIRIOUSLY HAPPY and several more of you completely squicked. BUT I CANNOT RESIST THE AWESOMENESS THAT IS ANDREW/JESSE/EMMA/CAREY, OKAY? So that will probably happen. Fair warning.
3. I read a delightful little fic earlier that I think probably quite a lot of you missed. If you like Gilmore Girls, and you like Rory/Jess (and who doesn’t?), you should read Alice, about the next Gilmore girl. Awesome characterization and fun prose. I enjoyed it immensely.
4. The brilliantly wonderful in every conceivable way![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
laeria wrote me ELEVEN AND RIVER BABYSIT LITTLE PONDS FIC. OH YES. THAT HAPPENED. I am so obsessed with the idea of little Ponds, y’all don’t even know. If I had my dream!season of Doctor Who, it would involve skipping forward in time about ten years and Amy and Rory AND THEIR CHILDREN running around in the Tardis with the Doctor and River and generally being so awesome I can’t even think about it.
5. BEING HUMAN. IN A MATTER OF DAYS. I MIGHT DIE OF EXCITEMENT. ANNIE ANNIE ANNIE AND GEORGE AND MITCHELL AND NINA. OMG SHOW! If you’re not watching that show, you really, really should be. I can’t think of a single reason not to. Except lack of access, I suppose. But other than that—no excuses.
6. I am having the world’s hardest time casting the James Garner character in my Great Escape gender swap. I’ve figured out everybody else! Why is he so difficult? Any suggestions? HARD.
7. I want to rant about something, and it involves spoilers for last night’s Community, so the rest of this is going So let’s talk about how much I hate meta-ness. No, not the brilliant essays y’all write about whatever show or whatever we’re currently obsessed with. I will always love that. Never stop writing it.
No, I’m talking about meta within the show. When the show makes references to fandom’s reaction to the show, for example, or something the characters couldn’t know but we do. It’s related to dramatic irony, but I love dramatic irony, so we won’t go there. What I hate, though, is this winky stuff taking over the show. For a couple of one-off jokes, it can be fabulous. Like, last night when THEO HUXTABLE was on the show and wearing a fabulous sweater and Jeff said, “Nice sweater,” and Theo said, “My dad gave it to me.” And we’re supposed to know that THAT WAS THEO HUXTABLE and this was a reference to Bill Cosby and The Cosby Show. That was brilliant and hilarious. Also like—“Dawn’s in trouble. Must be Tuesday.” These things are winks at the audience and are lovely forever if said with a light touch. I also like it in songs. Country music is especially good at this, writing songs that are actually about country songs. Like “You Never Even Called Me by My Name” has this entire verse that was written to include every country cliché you can think of—jail and mama and trains and dogs and pickup trucks—and it never fails to make me laugh. Or Brad Paisley writing “Ticks” which is clearly making fun of this random new rash of trashy country songs—the line “But I’ve got way more class than that, babe, that ain’t what I want” is possibly the most fabulous meta thing I’ve ever heard because he’s so aware of how not classy the song is, and I kind of love it.
But writers can take it too far. It seems to me like a new trend. I quit watching Supernautral when Jo and Ellen died, but right before that they introduced this whole ridiculously meta plotline where there were Dean and Sam fangirls and fanfiction and conventions and yeah, it was kind of funny that they were poking fun at their viewers. But the world of fandom had intruded into the story and it was both unprofessional and also distracting. DO NOT WANT.
And then there was last night’s Community. Which had some beyond awesome moments (as usual, many of them involved Troy, who is my favorite always, can I marry Donald Glover now?), but I felt cheated by the end. What happened was Jeff and Annie were doing their back-and-forth we’re-flirting-and-jealous-but-not thing. Whatever. They’ve got chemistry so I go with it. Annie basically sang “Rest in Peace” to Jeff and stormed out. And then Theo and Abed gave Jeff an ~epiphany~ and he runs off into the rain, shows up at a door, and gives a speech about how the person on the other side is the most wonderful person in the world and makes him want to be better, etc.
And I knew it wasn’t Annie or Britta. Of course it wasn’t—the show doesn’t do that and also he ran in the rain. The show definitely doesn’t do that in earnestness. And THEY DIDN’T SHOW WHO HE WAS TALKING TO. But it pulled back and it was Rich and Jeff just really wants him to teach him to be perfect or something? And it didn’t make sense. And I was pissed.
Not because of shippiness in any way. I really don’t want the shippiness on the show except for how they did it in the first season where they flirt with the idea of everybody. That’s awesome. And while I do ship Jeff and Annie when they’re in scenes together because, as I say, they’ve got the chemistry, I wasn’t at all disappointed that it wasn’t her on the other side of the door. What I HATED—really, really hated—was that the entire plot of the episode was all building up to that moment and it turned out to be a joke at the expense of shippers. And that sucks. Seriously, the entire episode was just to make that joke of “OH YOU THINK IT’S ANNIE HE’S TALKING TO BUT IT’S REALLY THE WRITERS TAKING THE PISS.”
No, Dan Harmon. Do not want. Stick to the “Modern Warfare” kind of meta, please. This sort of thing is ridiculous and, nonono not because I’m offended on a shipping level, because I’m totally not at all. Because I’m offended on a viewer of good TV level.
I also have a theory that a lot of what was wrong with S8 of BtVS is Joss trying to make some sort of statement on fandom and his show and whatever and—
No. I hate this. I don’t like it. I don’t want this anymore. I want writers to quit paying attention to fandom (except when we say, “No, this is bad and not working in any way.” Sometimes a writer needs to hear this. See: Joss and S8). I want them to quit writing our theories or feelings or selves ERIC KRIPKE into their shows. I don’t want the shows to be about me. I want them to be about the characters.
I think I’m just an earnest, sincere, sentimental person. I like dramatic irony, as I said, where we know something the character doesn’t because we’ve seen other things that are happening in the story that that character hasn’t seen, and I enjoy meta jokes now and then when they stay small. But I’m here for the story, not for some statement you’re making. If the characters aren’t doing and saying things because they are who they are then I want no part in the story. Basically, I want the author to be as far from the story as possible. I want to forget that there is an author. I want to believe that this is real. Don’t turn them into your mouthpiece or your way of making a statement on something. Have them be themselves. That’s what keeps me invested in a show. That’s why I’m a fangirl.
This is not unrelated to my hatred of hipsterism. I HATEHATEHATE their “irony.” “Oh, I’m drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon because it’s ironic!” Not funny at all, not when the working class, usually rural people I know who drink that beer have always done so because they couldn’t afford anything else and now the people who sell it are raising the price because the hipsters made the demand for it go up. “Oh, I’m living in this run-down part of town because it’s ironic!” Not cool, not when you’re gentrifying the area and strutting around like you think you’re better than the people who live there because they have no other options. “Oh, I’m shopping at Goodwill because I can find the best old t-shirts and aren’t they just so ironic!” Not amusing, because you are an asshole. And worst of all—“Oh, I’m saying this racist/sexist/ableist/whatever thing but it’s just irony, you know, I don’t really believe it.” NO. NOT OKAY. Not even the slightest bit okay when what you’re really doing is resting on your privilege and perpetuating all of those *isms by speaking and acting the way you do.
Hipsterism as an aesthetic is…whatever. I don’t like it, it doesn’t appeal to me, but then I’ve always liked pretty things, not grunge. (Thank God I wasn’t a teenager during the early 90s). But you can wear whatever you want. But it’s hipsterism as an attitude that just pisses me off so much I can’t see straight and I start cussing.
Basically, I love sincerity. I have no interest in doing anything because it’s ironic. Go. Away.
Anyways. Sorry for that ridiculous rant. I just needed to get it out of my system. I now return you to your regularly scheduled fangirling. Always in progress.
2. Probably RPF will be popping up in my journal at some point. I know this makes several of you DELIRIOUSLY HAPPY and several more of you completely squicked. BUT I CANNOT RESIST THE AWESOMENESS THAT IS ANDREW/JESSE/EMMA/CAREY, OKAY? So that will probably happen. Fair warning.
3. I read a delightful little fic earlier that I think probably quite a lot of you missed. If you like Gilmore Girls, and you like Rory/Jess (and who doesn’t?), you should read Alice, about the next Gilmore girl. Awesome characterization and fun prose. I enjoyed it immensely.
4. The brilliantly wonderful in every conceivable way
laeria wrote me ELEVEN AND RIVER BABYSIT LITTLE PONDS FIC. OH YES. THAT HAPPENED. I am so obsessed with the idea of little Ponds, y’all don’t even know. If I had my dream!season of Doctor Who, it would involve skipping forward in time about ten years and Amy and Rory AND THEIR CHILDREN running around in the Tardis with the Doctor and River and generally being so awesome I can’t even think about it.5. BEING HUMAN. IN A MATTER OF DAYS. I MIGHT DIE OF EXCITEMENT. ANNIE ANNIE ANNIE AND GEORGE AND MITCHELL AND NINA. OMG SHOW! If you’re not watching that show, you really, really should be. I can’t think of a single reason not to. Except lack of access, I suppose. But other than that—no excuses.
6. I am having the world’s hardest time casting the James Garner character in my Great Escape gender swap. I’ve figured out everybody else! Why is he so difficult? Any suggestions? HARD.
7. I want to rant about something, and it involves spoilers for last night’s Community, so the rest of this is going So let’s talk about how much I hate meta-ness. No, not the brilliant essays y’all write about whatever show or whatever we’re currently obsessed with. I will always love that. Never stop writing it.
No, I’m talking about meta within the show. When the show makes references to fandom’s reaction to the show, for example, or something the characters couldn’t know but we do. It’s related to dramatic irony, but I love dramatic irony, so we won’t go there. What I hate, though, is this winky stuff taking over the show. For a couple of one-off jokes, it can be fabulous. Like, last night when THEO HUXTABLE was on the show and wearing a fabulous sweater and Jeff said, “Nice sweater,” and Theo said, “My dad gave it to me.” And we’re supposed to know that THAT WAS THEO HUXTABLE and this was a reference to Bill Cosby and The Cosby Show. That was brilliant and hilarious. Also like—“Dawn’s in trouble. Must be Tuesday.” These things are winks at the audience and are lovely forever if said with a light touch. I also like it in songs. Country music is especially good at this, writing songs that are actually about country songs. Like “You Never Even Called Me by My Name” has this entire verse that was written to include every country cliché you can think of—jail and mama and trains and dogs and pickup trucks—and it never fails to make me laugh. Or Brad Paisley writing “Ticks” which is clearly making fun of this random new rash of trashy country songs—the line “But I’ve got way more class than that, babe, that ain’t what I want” is possibly the most fabulous meta thing I’ve ever heard because he’s so aware of how not classy the song is, and I kind of love it.
But writers can take it too far. It seems to me like a new trend. I quit watching Supernautral when Jo and Ellen died, but right before that they introduced this whole ridiculously meta plotline where there were Dean and Sam fangirls and fanfiction and conventions and yeah, it was kind of funny that they were poking fun at their viewers. But the world of fandom had intruded into the story and it was both unprofessional and also distracting. DO NOT WANT.
And then there was last night’s Community. Which had some beyond awesome moments (as usual, many of them involved Troy, who is my favorite always, can I marry Donald Glover now?), but I felt cheated by the end. What happened was Jeff and Annie were doing their back-and-forth we’re-flirting-and-jealous-but-not thing. Whatever. They’ve got chemistry so I go with it. Annie basically sang “Rest in Peace” to Jeff and stormed out. And then Theo and Abed gave Jeff an ~epiphany~ and he runs off into the rain, shows up at a door, and gives a speech about how the person on the other side is the most wonderful person in the world and makes him want to be better, etc.
And I knew it wasn’t Annie or Britta. Of course it wasn’t—the show doesn’t do that and also he ran in the rain. The show definitely doesn’t do that in earnestness. And THEY DIDN’T SHOW WHO HE WAS TALKING TO. But it pulled back and it was Rich and Jeff just really wants him to teach him to be perfect or something? And it didn’t make sense. And I was pissed.
Not because of shippiness in any way. I really don’t want the shippiness on the show except for how they did it in the first season where they flirt with the idea of everybody. That’s awesome. And while I do ship Jeff and Annie when they’re in scenes together because, as I say, they’ve got the chemistry, I wasn’t at all disappointed that it wasn’t her on the other side of the door. What I HATED—really, really hated—was that the entire plot of the episode was all building up to that moment and it turned out to be a joke at the expense of shippers. And that sucks. Seriously, the entire episode was just to make that joke of “OH YOU THINK IT’S ANNIE HE’S TALKING TO BUT IT’S REALLY THE WRITERS TAKING THE PISS.”
No, Dan Harmon. Do not want. Stick to the “Modern Warfare” kind of meta, please. This sort of thing is ridiculous and, nonono not because I’m offended on a shipping level, because I’m totally not at all. Because I’m offended on a viewer of good TV level.
I also have a theory that a lot of what was wrong with S8 of BtVS is Joss trying to make some sort of statement on fandom and his show and whatever and—
No. I hate this. I don’t like it. I don’t want this anymore. I want writers to quit paying attention to fandom (except when we say, “No, this is bad and not working in any way.” Sometimes a writer needs to hear this. See: Joss and S8). I want them to quit writing our theories or feelings or selves ERIC KRIPKE into their shows. I don’t want the shows to be about me. I want them to be about the characters.
I think I’m just an earnest, sincere, sentimental person. I like dramatic irony, as I said, where we know something the character doesn’t because we’ve seen other things that are happening in the story that that character hasn’t seen, and I enjoy meta jokes now and then when they stay small. But I’m here for the story, not for some statement you’re making. If the characters aren’t doing and saying things because they are who they are then I want no part in the story. Basically, I want the author to be as far from the story as possible. I want to forget that there is an author. I want to believe that this is real. Don’t turn them into your mouthpiece or your way of making a statement on something. Have them be themselves. That’s what keeps me invested in a show. That’s why I’m a fangirl.
This is not unrelated to my hatred of hipsterism. I HATEHATEHATE their “irony.” “Oh, I’m drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon because it’s ironic!” Not funny at all, not when the working class, usually rural people I know who drink that beer have always done so because they couldn’t afford anything else and now the people who sell it are raising the price because the hipsters made the demand for it go up. “Oh, I’m living in this run-down part of town because it’s ironic!” Not cool, not when you’re gentrifying the area and strutting around like you think you’re better than the people who live there because they have no other options. “Oh, I’m shopping at Goodwill because I can find the best old t-shirts and aren’t they just so ironic!” Not amusing, because you are an asshole. And worst of all—“Oh, I’m saying this racist/sexist/ableist/whatever thing but it’s just irony, you know, I don’t really believe it.” NO. NOT OKAY. Not even the slightest bit okay when what you’re really doing is resting on your privilege and perpetuating all of those *isms by speaking and acting the way you do.
Hipsterism as an aesthetic is…whatever. I don’t like it, it doesn’t appeal to me, but then I’ve always liked pretty things, not grunge. (Thank God I wasn’t a teenager during the early 90s). But you can wear whatever you want. But it’s hipsterism as an attitude that just pisses me off so much I can’t see straight and I start cussing.
Basically, I love sincerity. I have no interest in doing anything because it’s ironic. Go. Away.
Anyways. Sorry for that ridiculous rant. I just needed to get it out of my system. I now return you to your regularly scheduled fangirling. Always in progress.
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AND! I was just thinking about how if postmodernism as a movement ends--how it would lead almost seamlessly into a revival of, like, oral tradition. I mean--not literally, of course. But the nature of storytelling in oral tradition and the nature of storytelling on the internet. And how in oral tradition who the author is is meaningless--and in the terminal position of postmodernism, the same thing is true. All identity is obliterated, so the identity of the author (necessarily) is meaningless. Anyway. I'm rambling again.
I don't know what my deal is--I feel like I'm on speed or something, the thoughts are just crowding in on my brain.
Dude. Also--I had the epiphany to end all epiphanies last night. I will have to flesh it out, though. But it was inspired by a comment of yours.
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I mean--not literally, of course. But the nature of storytelling in oral tradition and the nature of storytelling on the internet.
This is so true. We're all posting under pseuds and hiding out and very few people know who we are. Okay, the way this corner has started connecting is something a bit unique (e.g. the voice posts, depression filters), so we're real, so to speak, but to the average person out there consuming the fic -- they may not remember us. The story they might remember, but not us. Who are we?
Dude. Also--I had the epiphany to end all epiphanies last night. I will have to flesh it out, though. But it was inspired by a comment of yours.
Was it how Season 8 is about pushing Buffy so deep into her inferiority (Angel demoralizing her) that she is forced into literally compensating with superiority (god-hood and ascension)?
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Yes! And how all of the pseudonym-written stories start to... not blend, exactly, but intermingle to the point where it creates fanon. So there's this collective acceptance of certain realities for the narrative. So, the story starts evolving almost on its own--outside of the control of any one person.
Was it how Season 8 is about pushing Buffy so deep into her inferiority (Angel demoralizing her) that she is forced into literally compensating with superiority (god-hood and ascension)?
No! But I like that too! Was that your epiphany to end all epiphanies?
Mine has to do with... sort of what you said in my reply to Maggie's post, in a way. How you said that Spike is the part of herself that she must accept--and so seeing him improve himself makes her believe in herself?
Well, I remembered how we had discussed something similar here on Lauren's journal in December--in her post about how people deny Buffy's I love you. And you said stuff, and I came back and read it.... And it was like a spark exploded in my brain. It was weird--like I could almost feel the synapses firing in a chain reaction (I think this medication I'm on may be working too well, now that I'm talking about this).
I can't explain it all here--because it's too long, and honestly, it does end up in a place that makes me just slightly uncomfortable from a feminist perspective. But basically, you said:
"I love that symbolism, the Hellmouth as the psyche and loving the demon being what destroys it. Not only love, but faith and belief in the goodness of darkness. The "dark place" is not evil, we don't have to demonize it and marginalize it. We must embrace it."
And I realized (probably this has been discussed by a billion people, and my realization is just retreading what all those people have already said, but whatever) that in the Buffyverse, the demonic=the feminine. And this isn't necessarily a bad thing. But it's an extension (and a subversion of the horror trope of the dangerous feminine). Because with the hellmouth (vagina, womb--dangerous female sexuality), shining light into it (understanding it, getting to know the feminine experience, esp. feminine sexuality) eliminated the danger. The hellmouth is still a vaginal/womb symbol after its been "closed"--it just is no longer menacing.
And then--this spins off into how the demonic is feminine and the council is the patriarchy. And how Spike is androgynous. And I don't know if you've read any John Stuart Mill--but he talks about androgyny as, like, the super human condition--ideal. And I have lots of ideas about sex organs and light/dark dichotomies and Spike. And ultimately it ends up at: there is no good or evil—it’s all about CONVINCING the world that the demonic is evil—that the unknown, the dark continent of female psyche, is evil.
In otherwords, we fear what we don’t understand. Men as the makers of culture have historically not understood women—so they feared them. By making a genuine attempt to understand the feminine—to understand female sexuality and the female experience—men can shine a light in the darkness and stop demonizing the feminine—in both women and in themselves.
Does that make any sense?
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EPIPHANIES! EXCITEMENT!
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YESYESYES. Exactly!
It's freeing and wonderful on the one hand, but it also is scary on the other to the ones of us who want to make our living telling stories.
Indeed. I tend to think of it from an analysis standpoint--and I get excited at the annihilation of copyright law (which will obviously never REALLY happen) and the prospect of free information--but I do think it'd be a great loss if it ever really happened. If authorship was ever made irrelevant. Because there's something intimate about linking a specific human being with a story. Realizing you have a connection with the author--that they made something beautiful for you. And anonymity, while its own beautiful thing, would take that away. Or at least degrade it or change it. And it's one of my favorite things about lit.