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[shadowkat]

Alright..taking a bit of time out to admit the latest Mark Watches post amused me.

Highlights:

*BUFFY’S DREAM. WHAT THE FUCK. Oh my god, Faith, I miss you. How is this show going to deal with you? I thought you were dead for sure, and now you’re here, and you’re in a coma, and I just feel bad for you. Why do I have a feeling this dream sequence has some other importance I’m not seeing?

Me: You have no idea. Fan literally rewound that dream five or six times to figure out the clues for the next two seasons - which are all interwoven in that dream. The coming of Dawn, Joyce's death, and finally Buffy's death to save the world.

And if you think the dream sequence in S3 is trippy, just wait until Restless in S4.

Also Dude, seriously, is Fuck your favorite word? It makes your posts difficult to read at work.

Angel: SHUT THE FUCK UP. I am so irritated by you and your constant need for melodrama. First, you don’t want Buffy around. Then you want to help her. Then you don’t want to live. And now you won’t stick around to say goodbye because it’ll be “too painful.” Maybe it’s so painful because you won’t make up your goddamn mind. Can you even imagine the pain you are causing Buffy with this whole back-and-forth routine? No? SO STOP IT.

If Angel's lurking indecisiveness where Buffy is concerned bugs him in Graduation Day, just wait for Pangs and I Will Always Remember You - which are what killed that ship dead for me. For more or less the same reason's Mark is echoing above.

Oh, of course Angel is going to Brood in the fog and smoke before disappearing. Angel was never truly worried about saying goodbye. He just needed to brood one last time.

LOL! Actually, not for the last time. And... Well he never actually does need to say goodbye, because he just keeps popping up, once a season. I think the only season he didn't pop up was S6 - no wait, he did, just off stage. B/A relationship otherwise known as "do I stay or do I go, I can't make up my mind!!!"

Almost makes me want to re-watch the series again.


I think my Buffy poll is finally done. I'll close it Friday night. With 75 participants, S3 is still not much of a favorite, only 11 people list it as a favorite and only 6 as their favorite of all the seasons. S5 is still ahead by a wide margin, with S6 a few lags behind, and S7/S3 tied for third place, S4 is in fourth,
S2 is in fifth and S1 dead last. Apparently the majority of my flist or whomever took the poll prefers the latter seasons to the earlier ones. I'm guessing they are mostly Spike fans like myself...because let's face it he's not in the earlier seasons. If you are a Spike fan, you probably won't rank 1-3 as your overall favorite or 1st. The people who tend to put S3 first - I've noticed - aren't Spike fans, but Faith or Xander fans. Poor souls. You really got gypped. Faith hardly has much of an arc.
Angel/David Boreanze fans, I don't feel sorry for, they got an entire series featuring their hero. Plus Bones. Frigging lucky people. While us Spike/James Marsters fans, got barely anything in comparison. I really need to stop becoming enamored of quirky character actors.

Comments

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

It depends on how he relates to the fact that Spike is a soulless vampire and the mythology. Because unlike Xander or even Angel, Spike doesn't have a soul. He's supposed to be evil and a villain. This is something a lot of people convienently forgot during S4-S6. We got a guy who is helping others who is soulless. And we've seen what Xander would be without a soul. And Angel. When Spike get's a soul - he's brand new to it and if you think about it, it took Angel 90 years to figure out how to be a good guy with his. Spike sought his out, earned it, and figures it out in six months. LOL! Also, Xander does horrible things according to Mark with a soul...The mythology is actually important.

I've been thinking about that. Also how much he knows classic sci-fi - such as Clockwork Orange or The Prisoner. Can't tell, guessing not so much. I am curious how he will react to Spike getting a chip in his head and being conditioned not to hurt people.

OTOH...he does appear to have a huge trigger where abusive boyfriends are concerned and a lot of people I've met online who had similar triggers hated Spike in s6. But you are right...his commentators may influence him. Unlike most fans - he's doing this as a job, he needs his readers. He toned down the Xander stuff after a bit. And he's careful with Bangle. You have to be careful, because if people stop reading your professional blog - there goes your income.

[jaymi-leaf.livejournal.com]

My (needlessly specific) prediction is that Mark will love Spike in S4, be confused by him and possibly dislike him at the start of S5, start liking him again by the end of S5/start of S6 then start hating him again from Smashed onwards until perhaps begrudgingly forgiving him in Touched. But we'll see (if I can stand reading for that long)... it's a lot of pressure for a first-time watcher to see things that I and many other viewers didn't pick up on until numerous rewatches. I know that my opinions on my first watch of Seeing Red were heavily coloured by the online drama going on at that time which had weeks to fester as the rest of the season and then the summer had everyone debating on soulled vs soulless, chip vs soul, Angel vs Spike etc. Mark will have the benefit of going from Seeing Red to Beneath You in about two weeks. It took me watching the whole show a few times and reading plenty of meta discussions to really sort out my feelings about SR and what is going on in that episode and with Spike's character - at the time I found it really hard to see a way back for him, I didn't really understand the whole souled/soulless issues of the Buffyverse and there were plenty of fans around at the time who were sure that it was just a black and white issue that I was just plain confused. Now I can see the nuances of the soul issue and see SR as just another step on his journey.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I admittedly only vaguely remember how I actually thought about it back then. It was So long ago. I did, recently, manage to reproduce an online fight I had with people on it. And I did re-read a thread about it in the ATPO archives where we discussed it in depth, most of the people on that board were actually pretty smart about it. But they were also unspoiled and didn't read the writer interviews until after the story was told or put much stock in them. Which helped considerably. The non-spoiler boards were saner than the spoiler boards back then.

I remember reading a lot of fanfic on the topic. Herself_nyc and Wisteria both wrote amazing stories. And like you, I struggled with the online fan drama. A similar situation occurred with LMTP - where fans projected their experiences and views onto other fans and refused to acknowledge there could be an interpretation other than their own. If you liked Spike after Lies, you were evil or deluded. The online Spike Wars were exhausting. I no longer have patience for them. ;-)

The writers didn't help matters. Stating things in interviews that didn't fit what we saw on-screen. Nor did the actors in their interviews and Q&A's. Marsters confused many people.

[tomomakimou.livejournal.com]

A similar situation occurred with LMTP - where fans projected their experiences and views onto other fans and refused to acknowledge there could be an interpretation other than their own.

What was it?
As a late comer, I was also surprised at some of the fandom's reactions. One of them was the controversy surrounding this episode. I've read some discussion threads but it was mostly debates on Team Giles & Wood vs Team Spike & Buffy. What made fandom so angry towards Spike in particular? I could think of a few things that probably made many fans angry but the part where “fans projected their experiences”? I have no idea ....

[sophist.livejournal.com]

Some viewers hated Spike's insulting words to Wood, in essence that "my mother loved me and yours didn't". They also felt that Spike reclaiming Nikki's coat was a form of triumphalism for the fact that "he" murdered her. They considered his comments "that's the way the game is played" to be an inappropriate justification of that murder.

Personally, I *love* LMPTM; it's in my top 10. Needless to say I see it quite differently than the critics.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yes, this exactly.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

If you want to read a discussion about it at the time, including various reactions, go here:

http://www.atpobtvs.com/existentialscoobies/archives/mar03_p33.html#58

[tomomakimou.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. Thank you guys!

And thanks for the link.
Ohhh that thread looks very interesting! I bookmarked it and coming back to read it all tomorrow. :-)

[sophist.livejournal.com]

There are plenty more LMPTM posts in other threads. The harshest criticisms came from KdS. But if you aren't familiar with the archives at ATPO, just start reading them sometime; there's great stuff there.

[tomomakimou.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize from your LJ username but I recognized your other name, Sophist, when I received the email notification... Are you Mark from “Fragment of My Imagination”? I've been visiting your blog for a while, and I really enjoyed reading your analysis. I can't wait ‘til you reach the later seasons. Please keep up the good work! :D

(Am I mistaking you for someone else? I hope I didn't totally embarrass myself ... haha)

Oh, and thanks for the tip. ;)

[sophist.livejournal.com]

Yep, all those are me. If I collect enough pseudonyms, my denials are more plausible. :)

Thanks. I'm having fun doing it. Feel free to join in the conversation there as well.

[tomomakimou.livejournal.com]

LOL. I like your reasoning.

Feel free to join in the conversation there as well.

Thanks. I'd love to! :-)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

It's a great discussion. There's really only about 5-10 people who reacted negatively to the episode. I just started ignoring the posts after a certain point. On the Voy boards, it was relatively easy to ignore people - since you'd see their name and subject heading and have to physically click on it - to read the post.

[tomomakimou.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad you pointed me out to that site. I love the depth of your posts and there are some very insightful comments. It was a pleasure to read. Thank you. :)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. There were a lot of insightful posters on that site, who gave me a run for my money. It was the most challenging of the fanboards in regards to level of analysis and thoughtful discussion. Most of our fights tended to be pedantic in nature or regarding semantics.

Unfortunately it's sort of defunct now in regards to discussion, everyone has more or less moved elsewhere. A good portion of my friends list came from that board.