This and that and the other thing..

[shadowkat]

1. Amazed I made it to work today without a)getting killed by a bus, or reaming said bus with my cane, b)getting knocked over by several pedestrains, not giving in to the temptation to trip said pedestrains with cane, c) injuring hip attempting to sit on train next to annoying woman who felt the need to take up six seats...and not clobbering said woman with cane. And who says life is not an obstacle course?

2. Ah, the bowling match above my head has stopped finally. They must be taking a lunch break.

3. Lost rocked last night. (Well it did if you ignore the whole island storyline which has become incredibly convoluted.) The Lock story though - highly satisfying. Particularly the small bits with Ben in them. The Sawyer story thread...was okay. May or may not write a review. selenak
already has in case you are interested. The other thing that rocked was Big Bang Theory - which made me giggle throughout, I think it was re-run.

4. Was reading that fic Imitation of A Man last night - yeah, I know, still.
Don't ask me why, but there's something about it I must find compelling. It is well written in places. And the feminization of Spike and masculation of Buffy that I find fascinating, particularly since I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the writer appears to be unaware of it. Spike's clearly in the traditional female role here (not traditional in the sense of cooking, etc - but in how relationships are traditionally presented in literature and media) while Buffy's in the traditional male. (Generally speaking in most novels and media - men usually aren't in talking about their feelings, while women are. Men more action oriented, women more into talking/communicating. As evidenced by 85% of the tv shows currently on the air.) Anyhow when my Kindle couldn't access basic web last night to get the next chapter, I found myself scrolling through the comments to amuse myself. And one of the author (darkapple)'s comments truly befuddled me. A true WTF moment. The author stated and I'm doing this from memory, so wording may be slightly off - "what I love most about Spike is he brings no baggage to his love, his love is so pure, so absolute, there's no baggage, just pure love". Uhm okay. What??? Seriously - WTF??? There are days in which I feel as if we are on separate planets or dimensions in our interpretations/communications. Can writers be this unaware of what they are doing? I'm guessing so. Or maybe I'm just misreading the thing? Both are equally possible.

5. Definitely have a stress fracture. Doc seems to think it was caused by my massive hike home from church - which was you know, 40 blocks. 40 blocks is the equivalent of a half a mile maybe a mile. Hardly massive. The man clearly drives everywhere. With any luck will get a boot by the end of the week or weekend at the latest.

Comments

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I'm actually rather curious as to why Darkapple used the whole re-siring thing at all, because IMO the story would have worked perfectly well without it. I'd have thought she was just a claiming fan, but she said
she wasn't.

Oh, I can answer this one - since I just read the chapter in the story in which the purpose for the resiring is more or less explained.

Buffy believes that by resiring Spike she can make him good. That she can control him. Make sure he doesn't hurt anyone. Like retraining a dog that has been trained to kill people, not to - is perhaps the best analogy. Or rather the parent-child relationship. It underlines a couple points that the writer is attempting to make in the tale: 1) that we cannot be held accountable for the actions of others. They make their own choices. Granted our choices may influence, inspire, or motivate theirs - but their choices are still their own. (eg. Parents can't control their kids.) 2) chip or resiring isn't what keeps Spike from killing. He can kill with either. Neither controlled him. What keeps him from killing is sheer willpower or choice not to kill. To go against the demonic nature.
3) Buffy's guilt - we are going back to Katrina's death. Buffy blames herself for Katrina. She blames herself for everyone Angel or Spike kills. Or even Warren abuses. Because she believes that she can stop them. It's the superhero motif or again the mother/father view - I can stop them. What they do is my fault. 4) We do have free choice. Our actions are not predetermined by a soul - demonic or otherwise.

And there's the whole vampire theme - ie - vampires circumvent death by sucking the life essence of the living. And Buffy's sucking of Spike's blood, in a sense makes her vampiric - the idea of living off of his love for her, and giving nothing in return (may be the metaphor the writer is going for here). I have difficulty buying this metaphor - since we're talking about someone who has literally bent over backwards to give Spike the benefit of the doubt, traveled to another dimension and timeline, and saved his life, when every instinct is telling her to kill him.

The story appears to be an in depth examination of the themes surrounding that alley sequence in Dead Things.