General Fandom Questions (and sigh, more on computer decision making)

[shadowkat]

The poll that I did at lunch regarding which computer I should buy - a Mac or a PC is in a dead-heat. Five to Five (not Five by Five...unfortunately, and only Buffy fans will get that joke.) And it reflects perfectly how I feel about getting a new computer - I honestly don't know which would be the better choice. I'm bloody tired of spam and spyware, that much I can tell you. But...am leery of a new gadget. OTOH - been told that you can transfer Windows items to a Mac. Guy at work told me that his friend who is a financial analyst won't buy anything but Macs now - and yes you can use spreadsheets. The new Mac Pro - will use both OS/X operating system and Windows. I don't know. I don't really want to spend 2K on a computer right now - I'm still saving for a condo-co-op, albeit it is looking grim. And my salary appears to be stuck in place like everyone elses - well everyone who isn't in the entertainment/marketing/ad profession (those guys either are multi-millionaires, billionaires or dead broke. Weird profession.)

So, frustrated, I posted the same question more or less to my Facebook - which has a lot of tech heads on it (most of whom are in my family or former co-workers). But Facebook is weird - you can post and no one will notice.

Fandom related Questions:

1. Question for the Whedon fandom - assuming there are still Whedon fans on my flist? Do you think that Whedon resented Angel and Spike? That he truly intended Buffy to be a black and white universe where vampires represented disease and sickness and evils of immortality and nothing else? That the network and David Greenwalt are the sole reasons we got Angel the series and Spike for more than four episodes? And if it weren't for their considerable popularity - they would have been staked as originally planned? Finally - how do you know what the writer was thinking? Are we merely speculating based on assorted comments from actors (because we all know how reliable they are) or interviews with the writer and/or writers themselves? And to what degree is this information even reliable? Can we ever know? [I don't think so personally, but am curious what others think.]

2. This is a more General Question - that relates to both fandoms and well just anything that makes you want to rant on your blog - but is decidedly of the cultural persuasion and not, about politics, your co-worker, or your commute (because we all know why people rant about that. To rant is human.) By cultural persuasion - I mean music, art, books, tv shows, theater,
film...fictional characters and/or stories and their associated fans.

What turns you off? Really makes you decide - okay I'm done - I don't like this writer any more or don't like that character or can't stand that fictional relationship or
that tv show? Is it something you can pin-point or just a gut reaction? Do you know? Can you really explain it? Or better yet - do you even want to explain it? And what will make you want to scream at an innocent fan shipping or loving or adoring that character, relationship or tv show? Is it how they are shipping it or loving it? The mere fact that they are loving it? Or the reasons they've expressed for loving it? (I'd say why they are loving it - but I don't believe we can know that - unless people tell us and even then, I've seen people online completely misread the explanations given.) Do you know why it pisses you off?

What I'm really curious about - I guess - is what motivates us to dogmatically launch into a full-scale attack or rant on a fictional (relation)ship, character, or fan response to it. Sort of the opposite of the squee post. What motivates the rant post? Because let's face it - rant posts are more likely to back-fire and cause us pain. (Who here has defriended someone, banned someone, or been defriended as the direct result of a rant post they did? Show of hands? Oh come on, I can't be the only one, at least I hope I'm not the only because, ahem, that would be embarrassing.) So we have to be pretty motivated to launch into one, right? What motivates us to do it?

[I know those are complicated questions. Hoping people will respond, because I don't really know the answers myself. You can either answer in the comments or in your own blog - if your own blog - please provide a link so I can read it. ]

Comments

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

1.I don't think Whedon resented the characters but I do believe he did want-at least initially-the world of Buffy to be a a black and white universe. That much is pretty clear in the first few episodes of the first season. I do think the character of Angel and his storyline was not as well-crafted or as well-thought-out as Spike's was. And I think the story being told is what prevented Angel and Spike from being staked-the characters were too useful to get rid of and as a consequence, both the vampires evolved in ways Whedon had never intended. My impressions are based on interviews of the writers, the actors, things said in commentaries and things the writers said in comments at the Bronze and the Bronze Beta.

2.What turns you off? Really makes you decide - okay I'm done - I don't like this writer any more or don't like that character or can't stand that fictional relationship or that tv show?

To answer that question, I'm going to talk briefly about Charmed. I watched the first three seasons and enjoyed it was just as much as I did Btvs. Shannen Doherty left at the end of season 3, which bummed me out but I continued watching anyhow. The character of Paige annoyed me but the story was still good so I kept watching. However, I stopped watching during season 5 because I was utterly disgusted with what they did to the Phoebe/Cole storyline, among other things. My opinions were formed independently of any fannish aspect; I had nothing to do with the Charmed online fandom.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

OMG I really agree about 'Charmed'! I had quite enjoyed the show when Shannen Doherty was on it, she (the actress) wasn't afraid to have her character have layers/gray areas and she made the whole show more interesting because of it. When she left you were stuck with these chicks who were all perfect unless under a spell, and most of the action involved trying on new sexy outfits. I found it so disappointing.
I had also loved the Phoebe/Cole relationship, but then they didn't know what to do with him... they kept bouncing him around so that he had a different personality and different motivations from week to week (he must have been so grateful to get 'NipTuk!').

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Curious, what was it that turned you off of the Cole/Phoebe relationship?

I know what turned me off - as Whedon put it in an interview, they basically did the whole Angel/Buffy relationship arc in the space of five episodes. Literally took four seasons of angst and did it in one year. And made it really silly and cliche ridden. What could have been interesting was turned into a cliche. Felt sorry for Julian Mahoun - who I loved on The Profiler. Was that it? OR something else?

I remember when I got turned off of Buffy/Angel - it was the episode I Will Always Remember You and then Sanctuary - when I realized that these were two characters who just did not "see" each other. What they saw was what they wanted to see. They were more interested in controlling the other person, then listening to them. Buffy didn't know Angel and Angel did not know Buffy, and they never would, because they could not get past what they wanted that person to be. Their ideal. It was the same thing that eventually turned me off of Riley/Buffy - in the episode Into the Woods - although I liked that episode a lot better than IWARY and liked Riley a lot better in it. When I realized neither character understood or truly saw the other character. And like Sanctuary and Yoko Factor, they reiterated this again in As You Were - where you realize that Riley doesn't understand anything about Buffy's life and she doesn't know anything about him, they don't "see" one another. That turned me off of both relationships. Although it didn't necessarily make me hate the characters, just the ships. If that makes sense. Just giving an example - because what I'm trying to figure out is what it is that turns us off.