January 3, 2026...
Jan. 3rd, 2026 08:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatQuestion a Day Meme for January
(kazzy_cee was nice enough to come up with another one.)
1 What’s the first thing you think of when you consider the year ahead?
Getting my knee better and becoming more mobile and in better shape?
Also surviving another year at Crazy Org (I'm now under 5 years until retirement.)
2. What’s the weather like today (warmer or cooler than average)?
Cooler. It's been in the 20s lately, and low 30s. Normal is the 30s and low 40s. Overcast. And gray.
3. There is a Wolf Moon tonight - it will be the fourth supermoon in a row. Have you seen a supermoon before?
Yes. It's too cold and overcast to bother with it tonight.
***
Tomorrow - off to get an MRI. With any luck it won't be anything serious.
I'm trying to be more health conscious - but alas the holidays did not mix well with my blood sugar - which had been down over the summer months, but slowly increased in the fall. It's not outrageous - but it is a lot higher than I'd like, and comes with sweating, increased thirst/urination and hot flashes. (And yes, they are related). Also wrestled with a migraine sinus headache - but I took migraine meds and vertigo meds, so all is well. I need to remember to take the migraine and vertigo meds prior to going to the MRI tomorrow - although the MRI should be fine. It's just the knee - and in Brooklyn. It's not the 4 hour ordeal I had last year in Manhattan. You've not had an MRI until you've had a stress heart MRI - which lasts two hours, and they inject you with a substance that puts stress on your heart during it. Thank god I've been doing mindfulness meditation for the last ten-fifteen years. I knew how to breath my way through it.
At least I don't have to take work off for it. No, just for the doctor's appointment on Friday. I thought about taking two hours - but I don't want to unnecessarily tax my knee - hurrying to a doctor's appointment. Sick time is a pain in the ass - I have to fill out a form informing Crazy Org that no, it's not work related injury or a claim for disability, it's just a doctor's appointment. And I honestly don't want to do it - or try to convince the doctor to sign it, or get the receipt or doctor's note. Crazy Org has become increasingly inefficient and bureaucratic since I joined it in 2007. I'm amazed it doesn't have more problems.
***
I've made it up through Wrecked, in Buffy S6, and Birthday, in Angel S3.
Noticed a few things I hadn't previously.
Buffy is confusing the heck out of Spike. She's clearly lusting after him, and possibly fallen for him - but she can't admit it to herself, her friends or him - because she knows that he's technically an evil vampire with a chip in his head - and god only knows what would happen if that changed. She'd probably have to dust him. It's an impossible romance. She knows it - he's evil, dead, has no soul, and could change on a dime. But he also helps her whenever she needs it, puts up with her shit, helps her friends, has stood by her sister, feels remorseful for not being able to save her, and listens to her. Basically, at the moment, he's the only who seems to have her back - from her point of view.
So, she's confused, and not sure what to make of her feelings for him or his for her. Except that she can't trust him enough to love him. But wants to - because she misses that - misses caring about someone to that degree.
Buffy is a little bit addicted to "romantic love" and "sex" - and it's more intense with the vampires - because it's impossible and painful, they can turn on her at any moment.
Spike isn't wrong when he states: Vampires get her hot. He doesn't for a moment believe she's in love with him. He thinks she's lusting after him and wants him. He knows he's hot. And he knows vampires get her hot. (Personally, I think he was hotter in S5, he's almost too thin in S6, so is she for that matter.) They look great together and have amazing acting chemistry. Spike describes her attraction to him as an addiction. He knows its not love. But he sees it as a crack in the door - or an opening. And it's there, partly because she doesn't really feel connected to anyone else. Her friends, Giles, even Dawn have to a degree drifted away - they are "dependent" on her, but don't appear to be more than that. He even states it : "I'm all you have left." (She's gotten across to him that she's not happy with her friends, and only feels anything at all when she's with him.)
This confuses Spike. In Smashed, Spike is having an identity crisis. He can't figure out what is going on. He wants to be good for Buffy, she says he never can be, that he's not a man, he's a thing. The man is gone.
I think Buffy is and has been for a while, confused by Spike, and is having her own identity crisis. Their fight/sex is basically two identity crisises crashing into each other. He's saying - "hey, it's not me, it's you. And the rules changed. There's something wrong with you - and I can have you now, we can be lovers, and fight, and shag - because you came back wrong, otherwise I wouldn't be able to hit you". She's horrified he can hit her, but obviously relieved he can only hit or hurt her. (If he could hurt anyone else - than she'd have to dust him, and that horrifies her even more. I'm not sure she can at this point, or let anyone else do it.)
Also this fight has been coming for a while now - they were either going to kill each other or one would kill the other, or shag. He even states it - all we've been doing is dancing around each other. Faith (as Buffy) makes him see it could be something else. But he never thinks he'll get that - even in Smashed, when he smacks Buffy, he doesn't think he'll get sex.
Buffy notably starts the kissing and the sex, not Spike. In Once More with Feeling, Tabula Rasa, and Smashed - Buffy initiates it. Much to Spike's shock and confusion, and glee. He does tell her in OMWF that - he's tired of dancing around it. "Either make your move or leave me alone." When she does make her move - he can't leave her alone, prior to that he'd kind of backed off a bit when she returned (she was visiting him not the other way around). Now, he's trying to figure out what is going on with her - and has decided she wants him, and he's not just going to let that go. (Keep in mind, Buffy has been punching and hitting him - since he got the chip. And there's a lot sexual tension built up there, along with frustration.)
The push me/pull me between is kind of fun to watch and reminds me a little of Angel and Darla. But I know it won't end well - mainly because Buffy doesn't know what she's doing, and Spike is in Riley's shoes - he has her, but he doesn't at the same time, and he knows it. He knows he's not long-haul guy. And this is a guy who is for the most part, immortal. And a vampire. Who had a lover for over 150 years. Spike also has been changed by his love for Buffy - he doesn't really want her as a vampire mate or another Harmony or Dru, he wants Buffy as Buffy. And that confuses him.
I honestly think he is in the midst of identity crisis. He can't kill Buffy (her being dead nearly destroyed him), he can't love Buffy the way he wants to (she won't quite let him), he can't leave her, and he can't be her friend exactly...so he's stuck, much in the same way Angel and Riley were.
It's an impossible relationship - but Spike being Spike, can't give up on it.
It's pretty obvious from this episode - that this relationship is going to result in Spike doing something drastic.
The sections with Willow are still tedious. And kind of disturbing, but also silly. Oh look, they brought Jeff Kober back to play the disturbing Rack.
Willow finally gets around to un-ratting Amy, I can see why Amy seeks vengeance on her in a later season, considering how long it took Willow to do it. She could have done it in either S4 or S5, with Tara's help.
Also, it makes it clear that Tara is right about Willow's mis-use of magic, Willow uses it to serve herself. And to hide. There's echoes of Willow's Restless Dream in this episode - Willow tells Buffy that without magic she feels like the nerdy geek in high school. Amy manages to get her to go to Rack's by telling her - oh do you just want to sit home alone like you did in high school? So they go out and wreck magical havoc instead. Much of S6 is an echo of Willow's Restless Dream.
But, I don't think the writers had a clear idea of how to convey addiction to power or magic? It was working rather well up to Tabula Rasa. Wrecked and Smashed feel more like being high on LSD?
Then there's Angel S3 - Dad through Birthday, which I liked better than I remembered. Birthday is where they manage to hoodwink Cordelia into becoming part demon, honestly she had no other choice. So maybe not hoodwink. I think the problem is - the gang trust those visions a bit too much? And I also think that Cordy's got increasingly worse - after WRH killed the oracles and hacked into them. (Not once but twice). Angel, Cordelia and Wes's weakness are the prophecies. And their hubris or pride.
And I think that's how WRH found a way of distracting Angel.
But it's not clear - and could be read either way. So I have a feeling the writers were split on this? I think half were going for redemption more than noir and the other half were going for noir more than classical hero redemption, and at the end noir won. I could be wrong about that - though - and they were just going for noir all along.
(Mainly because David Greenwalt left and Whedon took over.)
(kazzy_cee was nice enough to come up with another one.)
1 What’s the first thing you think of when you consider the year ahead?
Getting my knee better and becoming more mobile and in better shape?
Also surviving another year at Crazy Org (I'm now under 5 years until retirement.)
2. What’s the weather like today (warmer or cooler than average)?
Cooler. It's been in the 20s lately, and low 30s. Normal is the 30s and low 40s. Overcast. And gray.
3. There is a Wolf Moon tonight - it will be the fourth supermoon in a row. Have you seen a supermoon before?
Yes. It's too cold and overcast to bother with it tonight.
***
Tomorrow - off to get an MRI. With any luck it won't be anything serious.
I'm trying to be more health conscious - but alas the holidays did not mix well with my blood sugar - which had been down over the summer months, but slowly increased in the fall. It's not outrageous - but it is a lot higher than I'd like, and comes with sweating, increased thirst/urination and hot flashes. (And yes, they are related). Also wrestled with a migraine sinus headache - but I took migraine meds and vertigo meds, so all is well. I need to remember to take the migraine and vertigo meds prior to going to the MRI tomorrow - although the MRI should be fine. It's just the knee - and in Brooklyn. It's not the 4 hour ordeal I had last year in Manhattan. You've not had an MRI until you've had a stress heart MRI - which lasts two hours, and they inject you with a substance that puts stress on your heart during it. Thank god I've been doing mindfulness meditation for the last ten-fifteen years. I knew how to breath my way through it.
At least I don't have to take work off for it. No, just for the doctor's appointment on Friday. I thought about taking two hours - but I don't want to unnecessarily tax my knee - hurrying to a doctor's appointment. Sick time is a pain in the ass - I have to fill out a form informing Crazy Org that no, it's not work related injury or a claim for disability, it's just a doctor's appointment. And I honestly don't want to do it - or try to convince the doctor to sign it, or get the receipt or doctor's note. Crazy Org has become increasingly inefficient and bureaucratic since I joined it in 2007. I'm amazed it doesn't have more problems.
***
I've made it up through Wrecked, in Buffy S6, and Birthday, in Angel S3.
Noticed a few things I hadn't previously.
Buffy is confusing the heck out of Spike. She's clearly lusting after him, and possibly fallen for him - but she can't admit it to herself, her friends or him - because she knows that he's technically an evil vampire with a chip in his head - and god only knows what would happen if that changed. She'd probably have to dust him. It's an impossible romance. She knows it - he's evil, dead, has no soul, and could change on a dime. But he also helps her whenever she needs it, puts up with her shit, helps her friends, has stood by her sister, feels remorseful for not being able to save her, and listens to her. Basically, at the moment, he's the only who seems to have her back - from her point of view.
So, she's confused, and not sure what to make of her feelings for him or his for her. Except that she can't trust him enough to love him. But wants to - because she misses that - misses caring about someone to that degree.
Buffy is a little bit addicted to "romantic love" and "sex" - and it's more intense with the vampires - because it's impossible and painful, they can turn on her at any moment.
Spike isn't wrong when he states: Vampires get her hot. He doesn't for a moment believe she's in love with him. He thinks she's lusting after him and wants him. He knows he's hot. And he knows vampires get her hot. (Personally, I think he was hotter in S5, he's almost too thin in S6, so is she for that matter.) They look great together and have amazing acting chemistry. Spike describes her attraction to him as an addiction. He knows its not love. But he sees it as a crack in the door - or an opening. And it's there, partly because she doesn't really feel connected to anyone else. Her friends, Giles, even Dawn have to a degree drifted away - they are "dependent" on her, but don't appear to be more than that. He even states it : "I'm all you have left." (She's gotten across to him that she's not happy with her friends, and only feels anything at all when she's with him.)
This confuses Spike. In Smashed, Spike is having an identity crisis. He can't figure out what is going on. He wants to be good for Buffy, she says he never can be, that he's not a man, he's a thing. The man is gone.
I think Buffy is and has been for a while, confused by Spike, and is having her own identity crisis. Their fight/sex is basically two identity crisises crashing into each other. He's saying - "hey, it's not me, it's you. And the rules changed. There's something wrong with you - and I can have you now, we can be lovers, and fight, and shag - because you came back wrong, otherwise I wouldn't be able to hit you". She's horrified he can hit her, but obviously relieved he can only hit or hurt her. (If he could hurt anyone else - than she'd have to dust him, and that horrifies her even more. I'm not sure she can at this point, or let anyone else do it.)
Also this fight has been coming for a while now - they were either going to kill each other or one would kill the other, or shag. He even states it - all we've been doing is dancing around each other. Faith (as Buffy) makes him see it could be something else. But he never thinks he'll get that - even in Smashed, when he smacks Buffy, he doesn't think he'll get sex.
Buffy notably starts the kissing and the sex, not Spike. In Once More with Feeling, Tabula Rasa, and Smashed - Buffy initiates it. Much to Spike's shock and confusion, and glee. He does tell her in OMWF that - he's tired of dancing around it. "Either make your move or leave me alone." When she does make her move - he can't leave her alone, prior to that he'd kind of backed off a bit when she returned (she was visiting him not the other way around). Now, he's trying to figure out what is going on with her - and has decided she wants him, and he's not just going to let that go. (Keep in mind, Buffy has been punching and hitting him - since he got the chip. And there's a lot sexual tension built up there, along with frustration.)
The push me/pull me between is kind of fun to watch and reminds me a little of Angel and Darla. But I know it won't end well - mainly because Buffy doesn't know what she's doing, and Spike is in Riley's shoes - he has her, but he doesn't at the same time, and he knows it. He knows he's not long-haul guy. And this is a guy who is for the most part, immortal. And a vampire. Who had a lover for over 150 years. Spike also has been changed by his love for Buffy - he doesn't really want her as a vampire mate or another Harmony or Dru, he wants Buffy as Buffy. And that confuses him.
I honestly think he is in the midst of identity crisis. He can't kill Buffy (her being dead nearly destroyed him), he can't love Buffy the way he wants to (she won't quite let him), he can't leave her, and he can't be her friend exactly...so he's stuck, much in the same way Angel and Riley were.
It's an impossible relationship - but Spike being Spike, can't give up on it.
It's pretty obvious from this episode - that this relationship is going to result in Spike doing something drastic.
The sections with Willow are still tedious. And kind of disturbing, but also silly. Oh look, they brought Jeff Kober back to play the disturbing Rack.
Willow finally gets around to un-ratting Amy, I can see why Amy seeks vengeance on her in a later season, considering how long it took Willow to do it. She could have done it in either S4 or S5, with Tara's help.
Also, it makes it clear that Tara is right about Willow's mis-use of magic, Willow uses it to serve herself. And to hide. There's echoes of Willow's Restless Dream in this episode - Willow tells Buffy that without magic she feels like the nerdy geek in high school. Amy manages to get her to go to Rack's by telling her - oh do you just want to sit home alone like you did in high school? So they go out and wreck magical havoc instead. Much of S6 is an echo of Willow's Restless Dream.
But, I don't think the writers had a clear idea of how to convey addiction to power or magic? It was working rather well up to Tabula Rasa. Wrecked and Smashed feel more like being high on LSD?
Then there's Angel S3 - Dad through Birthday, which I liked better than I remembered. Birthday is where they manage to hoodwink Cordelia into becoming part demon, honestly she had no other choice. So maybe not hoodwink. I think the problem is - the gang trust those visions a bit too much? And I also think that Cordy's got increasingly worse - after WRH killed the oracles and hacked into them. (Not once but twice). Angel, Cordelia and Wes's weakness are the prophecies. And their hubris or pride.
And I think that's how WRH found a way of distracting Angel.
But it's not clear - and could be read either way. So I have a feeling the writers were split on this? I think half were going for redemption more than noir and the other half were going for noir more than classical hero redemption, and at the end noir won. I could be wrong about that - though - and they were just going for noir all along.
(Mainly because David Greenwalt left and Whedon took over.)
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Date: 2026-01-04 09:01 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2026-01-04 08:05 pm (UTC)I don't know what they'll do with the sequel they've been working on? Marsters is 63. Only way I can see him popping up as Spike is either as human or with a lot CGI.