Spontaneous Musings

For Buffy and Angel fans...or rather Tara, Anya, Spike, Cordelia, Dru and Giles fans, and fans of the actors who portrayed them?

Buffy Cast Reunion on Audible - Slayers by Amber Bensen and Christopher Golden

It's basically an interview with Golden, Benson, Marsters, and Chase.

Extensive Interview with Marsters about Spike for the 20th Anniversary with Radio Times

( excerpt )

And..
Inside Joss Whedon’s ‘Cutting’ and ‘Toxic’ World of ‘Buffy’ and ‘Angel’ (EXCLUSIVE)


"Interviews that Variety conducted with 11 individuals who worked directly on “Buffy” or “Angel,” or were closely familiar with the productions during their runs on The WB and UPN, painted a portrait of Whedon as a talented, collaborative writer-producer with a pattern of inappropriate, imperious and disparaging behavior toward those who worked for him. Whedon created a “cult of personality” around himself, according to these sources. Those on the inside of Whedon’s circle basked in his attention, praise and friendship; those on the outside got the opposite: scorn, derision and callousness. (Everyone Variety spoke with did so on condition of anonymity, either so they could speak freely or out of concern for their careers.)

Variety also reached out to 40 other actors, writers, producers and directors from “Buffy” and “Angel” — including Sarah Michelle Gellar, Michelle Trachtenberg, Amber Benson, Eliza Dushku, David Boreanaz and Alyson Hannigan — all of whom declined to participate in this story."

Which is interesting - the actors declined to participate, but the crew and writers did on the condition of anonymity. Making it difficult to know how much of what they state is true? Except this happens a lot - most of Burn it Down - about similar allegations on various television and film sets in Hollywood - were all done with anonymity. However - if you listened to any of the Q&A's at the cons - the actors did verify most of it over the years.

***

I've only been an obsessed or huge fan of a few things in my lifetime, and not in the same way. And it's often fleeting.

We all have something that just jives with us. Don't we? But it also at some point disappoints - when we find out a touch too much about it. Which is too often the case in this day and age.

I find it interesting how fans and folks who worked on Buffy have reclaimed it as their own. They did it by writing their own fanfic.

So, I've been binge-watching Angel S5 on Hulu, with no commercials. I splurged and at 11.95 a month, I can watch any television show that airs on it, with no commercials. It has a lot of old television series. Sort of the TV Land of streaming services.

Anyhow...realized a few things upon re-watching:

* In "You're Welcome" -- seriously can they give Cordy a more revealing shirt? It's unbuttoned to the degree in which her boobs appear to be popping out of it. I swear I saw a nipple in one shot.

Also, Cordy doesn't really do much in the episode, except give Angel a pep talk and say the PTB are still behind him, he still has a destiny, he's still the chosen one. To such an extent -- that I couldn't help but wonder if the Senior Partners of WRH had woken her up to get their gig back on track. Lindsey had successfully begun to push it off the rails. And they needed someone to come in there and expose Lindsey, so they can grab him.

The reason I don't think she was working for the PTB upon re-watch (outside of the fact that I know what the writers had planned down the road, and have read the comics) is two-fold, ( Read more... )

* An interesting pattern has emerged from each and every episode...in every single one, someone in the lead cast is being manipulated or is manipulating someone else -- pulling their strings. And usually the manipulation is being done through the character's desire to be a hero, to be great at something, to have a destiny, to be important. It's all about their egos and insecurities. Every single episode. And in Destiny, Damage, and Why We Fight -- we are reminded at what a master manipulator Angel is, and was -- he enjoyed breaking people down, using their weaknesses against them, and pulling their strings. As he tells Spike in Damage -- "He was in it for the EVIL."

Hmmm.

* The episode after Whedon's "Hole in the World" by Stephen Denight, is actually the better episode.
It has better lines here and there, and is a little less over the top. Whedon goes overboard in Hole in telling the audience how important Fred is to everyone. And then we get the longest death sequence on record...( spoilers )

[This brings up a few difficulties with the series -- ( spoilers )

[Note -- this is my first read of the comics. I'm not re-reading them. I know I'm behind everyone else. But I despised the last five issues of Season 8 Comics, and the first six issues of the Season 9 comics. So gave up. Then accidentally hit upon some excellent panels from Season 10, and thought okay, will give them a second shot. So word to the wise, if you want to read these? Skip Season 9 Vol. 1 Freefall, Season 9 Vol. 3 - Guarded, the Last Six Comics of S8, and go from there. Also grab the last two volumes of Angel & Faith S10 -- which are a great character back-study of Giles, and also provide much fodder for the Angel/Spike and Spike/Faith relationships. Since Angel doesn't evolve at all in the comics, he remains the least interesting character in them. I get why they did that, but, it's a tired trope and the writers really need to shake the character up a bit.]

Review of Buffy Season 10 Comics.

With a few weak spots here and there, these are by far the best comics of the series. They do a marvelous job of building two key relationships, Dawn and Xander, and Spike and Buffy. Also a rather good job of continuing to evolve Giles, Andrew, and Willow. Andrew FINALLY is established as gay.
We also get some closure with Jonathan and Anya.


The weak spots are mostly in regards to art. Meghan does a good job with pretty much everyone but Spike, who has the same nose as my Dad. I found this odd. And her art is heavier lined, more cartoonish in character and not quite as smooth as Rebecca Isaacs. I wish Rebecca could have done all of it. I agree with Whedon that changing artists can be jarring.

Xander -- if you are a Xander fan this season is a must. His character is by far the most developed that it has been in the series. And the writers have apparently infused his character with some of Nick Brendan's actual issues. Various issues delve into Xander's anger management issues -- and how his issues with anger have caused problems in his relationships. He also spends a lot of time discussing these issues with Anya's Ghost (which admittedly got repetitive after a bit), and Spike.
The Xander/Spike scenes are by far the best.

Spike -- for the most part is well-utilized in this season. While he spends most of his time with Buffy, working out their issues and building their relationship, we do get bits with Harmony, Xander, and Dawn.

[Also Angel, who makes an appearance, and would be a heck of a lot more interesting if the character had evolved. The writer's justification is that Angel is immortal and his status really hasn't changed all the much. He's either cursed with a soul, or not. I actually think one of the weaknesses here is that the Angel character can't evolve or change -- for both the television series and the comics. I think something major has to happen to motivate Angel to do something -- instead of letting forces around him manipulate him, or manipulating those around him to appease those forces and obtain their approval. He's also so self-centered, he honestly sees everyone's behavior as a reflection of his own, and is somewhat deluded regarding his own. Shame he can't see his own reflection.Anyhow, he's barely in it, and his purposes seems to be to shake up Willow, Buffy and Spike a bit.]

The writers do a marvelous job of building Spike/Buffy as a relationship here -- they address what happened in Season 6 and 7 pretty much in depth between the two characters. Along with all of their issues and the fans issues regarding them. Finally we get a discussion of both the BDSM sexual relationship and the attempted sexual assault. It's well-handled. Kudos. We also have Buffy address with Spike her prior involvements with Angel and Riley and why neither worked. Along with Spike addressing his with Harmony and Drusilla -- and why they didn't work, and how bad he felt about Harmony. (Although Harmony doesn't care -- being a soulless vampire, she's moved on to using Clem like a whipping dog.)


Buffy -- is also well-done. It really delves into Buffy taking responsibility for her role in the verse, as the holder of the magic book. Also responsibility for her inter-personal relationships, instead of just running away from them.

Dawn -- the powers of the key are finally explored. And Dawn is given a chance to grow up a bit more.

The plot is okay, it gets a little convoluted in places -- and the main villain appears to be D'Hoffryn, which is an interesting choice. The most frightening villain is the Soul Glutton, who also appears to be a social commentary on well vegetarianism? There's a lot of social commentary in here, although not as blatant as in the previous series.

Overall, a good read. I highly recommend.

I skipped Angel&Faith, mainly because I'm not interested in any of the characters. It's not worth the money. These cost between nothing (if you can borrow) to $16.99. The Angel & Faith are pricier actually.

Well, I flipped from Romance Novels (finally got burned out and sort of fed up to be honest), to comics -- this round the Buffy Comics. Last round it was the X-men comics. Thinking of reading "The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman" at night, because I'm not supposed to looking at blue screens prior to bed. I'm reading the comics on my spanking brand new Amazon HD Fire. It's perfect for reading them, although I get annoyed at times with the guided method -- have to do it, the print is too small for the regular. And really annoyed by all the frigging ads. Amazon - really? You're motivating me to buy another ipad, and I don't want to.

1. What I just finished reading?

Buffy S9 Freefall Vol #1 and Buffy S9 - Apart of Me".

Apart of Me is better than Freefall, which has a lot of meandering about and expository stuff.
Both focus on Buffy struggling with the events of S8, and the end of magic. Also, once again she's trying for a normal life -- you'd think she'd realize by now that having a witch, a vampire, a magical sister, as friends and family would sort of contradict that possibility. But no.

My difficulty with this bit of storyline is it feels repetitive like Whedon is treading over old ground. A problem I've had with Whedon's writing of late -- he keeps going over the same territory.
The first issue of Freefall is written by Whedon, and the second one is co-written by him. Jeanty's art, to be fair, has improved, or they've hired a better inker and colorist? I'm thinking the later.
Comics is a collaborative art form for the most part (unless you are Frank Miller or Kate Bechdel and do both the art and the writing yourself, and don't color anything in). I like the more collaborative works to be honest.

I could tell when the artist changed, and I liked the new artist a bit better. What can I say? I have my preferences.

"Freefall" is the set up of "Apart of Me". And the story syncs rather well with the Spike series that immediately follows it. Buffy and Spike much like Angel and Faith, their counterparts, are struggling with the same things. Spike wants a home and family, connection. Now that he has a soul -- he desires it more than ever. I can't help but think he yearned for it without one. Buffy also wants this in her own way. Buffy also is struggling with what she did -- she feels ending magic was the right thing to do, but it hasn't made the world better, exactly, just different. The problems are different ones. This is a nifty commentary on the theme -- that no matter what you do or where you go there you are..or rather, you can't fix the world or save it, you can only fix a few issues at time. No one can play god. And when you use power -- in this manner, it will blow up in your face, because you can't see the bigger picture. All you see is this one spot or one thread in the tapestry -- so how will you know that pulling a strand may unravel it or change it into a way you never intended. People who think there is no pattern to the universe are rather arrogant in a way, believing that what they see or perceive is all there is. It's not. There's more. I think the writers here are intuitive ones, in that they write to figure things out, not because they know it. They try this and they try that..and think whoa...didn't know that., alrighty then. Which may be why I find there stories appealing?

Anyhow from a plot standpoint? ( spoilers )

2. What I'm reading now?

Spike - Into the Dark -- Season 9 miniseries. (I have a feeling the spin-offs and miniseries didn't do as well as expected, so they brought everyone back to home base and gave up on it? You don't see as much of it in the later two seasons.)

This isn't bad. It's about Spike finding out about the shards of the seed that everyone is hunting, and returning to the Hellmouth in Sunnydale again. Also realizing he needs to be connected to someone.

3. What I'm reading next?

Probably Buffy S9 - Core. Then S10 again, because I'm not crazy about S9. There's more volumes in 10. Nine was a shorter season and struggled apparently.

Whedon is apparently coming back along with Jeanty (oh joy - not) to write S12, which I may skip. Since he wants to hook it up with Fray. I don't know why. I disliked Fray. Keep the two separate please and let Buffy have her happy ending.

1. Saw Lucifer -- while Tom Ellis was extremely hot in it and the story for the most part was really interesting, particularly in regards to Lucifer and his relationships, and motivation.

I find Welling's Pierce extremely vomit worthy and unwatchable. I don't know why. And fast-forwarded through most of his scenes. I don't know why he makes my skin crawl but he does, he didn't when he was playing Superman in Smallville, but he does now. I can't watch him. It's not as if I'm a Chloe/Lucifer shipper -- I'm not. Frankly, Chloe has been annoying me lately -- she's extremely dense. Also, I've realized I don't like Pierce with anyone and his scenes with Chloe make me cringe. This is a problem or will be a problem if the series doesn't kill him off and soon. We only have two episodes left, I think? So not a lot of time. Shame, I like everyone else, except when they have scenes with him.

On the other hand, it's possible ...( Spoilers and continued rant on dislike of Pierce/Welling )


2. Tired. Have been sleeping poorly. Averaging about 5-6 hours of sleep a night, which is making me cranky. Culprit? Dreaded heat flashes and nightsweates which either keep me awake or wake me up in the middle of the night. Also allergies.

Climate changes haven't helped. Since arthritis is acting up, I think. My right knee is bothering me and my lower back. So, I'm irritable.

Also buried at work. But doing one thing at a time. It's actually better when I'm busy, when I'm not I get antsy and anxious. I don't handle boredom or down-time at work well. I'd rather have a lot to do. None of it is overly stressful, since none of the projects are political. Which means management leaves me alone for the most part. Management doesn't handle stress or politically sensitive projects well.

I've come to the conclusion that most human beings do not handle the following well: fame, excessive wealth, and power. Seems to be toxic to the human consciousness.

3. What is in a name?

Not a hell of a lot. ( Read more... )

4. Resisting the urge to do a Buffy/Angel rewatch. When in reality, I just want to watch certain episodes featuring Spike and ignoring others. Like all television series, Buffy and Angel had episodes I loved, and episodes that made me want to run from the room screaming or with an odd desire to hunt down the writers and either strangle them or shake them, asking repeatedly "what were you thinking??"

In the case of Buffy, I remember getting annoyed and a tad disappointed half-way through S6, when I figured out where they were going and had really hoped they'd do something else. ( Read more... )

The other shows I'm resisting the urge to watch are Gilmore Girls and Dawson's Creek (which I didn't really watch when it aired, because it irritated me). Also it's not like I don't have enough television to watch. Barely getting through the shows saved to my DVR, and haven't made it to the one's on Netflix.

1. ( Weekend Television )
2. The whole bit about a Soul and Spike has come up on LJ again via rahirah, who has some interesting things to say about it, and I sort of agree with. (For example, it's pretty clear I think that any theory expressed by the Watcher's Council or Giles can be summarily discounted as hogwash, mainly because the writers go out of their way to either make fun of Giles/Watcher's Council, contradict them, or demonstrate how silly it is. [Consider how many times Giles was knocked unconscious prior to providing information, and how often his information backfired on him. Similarly, Wesely's information was often wrong or back-fired on him.] This is a standard theme in Whedon's writing - any rule provided by an authority figure is circumspect and should not be trusted. Whedon has serious issues with authority.) That said, I looked at it a little differently than a lot of folks appear to or examined it differently.

Below is the essay that I wrote examining the meaning of a soul and the writer's intent regarding it in Buffy The Vampire Slayer/Angel the Series.

( Soul Metaphors in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Series )

3. Distinction between Sympathy and Empathy. [I'm wondering if the writer's intended unsouled vampires to express sympathy, and souled to express empathy?]

Go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

This is part of the January Talking Meme - which I decided to do on a whim back in December. There's still a lot of dates available, if there's something you want to ask and have me write about - or you want to see if you can "stump" me (ie, ask something I can't write about)...now's the time.

January 20: rahirah asks What inspires you to write meta about a book/movie/show?

This is a hard one.

Short answer? I honestly don't know.

Long answer: If I'd have to hazard a guess, which I sort of do, usually it's something that hits a chord inside me or resonates on some weird deep internal and indescribable level. It's more emotional than mental. I have to be passionate about whatever it is.

But this gets back to a much broader question -" why I'm driven to write to begin with"? Which actually lies at the heart of it. What inspires me to write about things that I do not have to write about or am not assigned to write about? ( my somewhat rambling attempt to answer this question and more or less figure out the answer for myself )

I was going to entitle this entry shipping the bad boy, but when I thought about it, I realized I don't really see Spike that way, even though most people do. Regrettably. And while it is true that most of the characters on Buffy or any well-written television serial are controversial...my experiences shipping a controversial character that split the online fandom associated with the show he was in, begun and ended largely with Spike. Unlike many people on lj, I'm not a cereal fan - I don't jump fandoms. And I've only really been in one. One from my perspective was more than enough.

This should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway just in case, everything I post within this entry is opinion, none of it is factual and it is based solely on my perspective. I can't speak for others, only myself. I've done polls on shipping Spike, recently in fact, and yet, I feel they are largely inaccurate. Can I really state with any certainty that the majority of Spike Shippers are female and over the age 40? Just because one poll provided that result? No. Polls, all polls, specifically those on the internet provide little truth. Just conjecture.

I can't remember when I started shipping Spike to be honest. At the moment it feels like frigging forever. The character is so ingrained in my psyche. Even before the show aired, I had character tropes similar to him in a book that I'd written. Ambiguous snarky male characters that stepped out of the dark shadows of a noir gothic novel or mystery.
Edgy. Reluctant heroes. Male hookers with hearts of gold.

I do know that when I ventured online to join the Buffy fandom and discuss the show on fan boards - I was shipping the character pretty hard. And back then, as cliquish as fandom was and still is, it was easier to join the public spoiler boards. The character specific boards that were more tightly monitored required networking to get in. I know I remember investigating a few. If you didn't know the posters, you were ignored or pushed to the curb. BAPS and Sunnydale U were definitely like that. The public forums were easier in that regard. But they weren't in another.

( Shipping Spike - long post on shipping a controversial character in a fandom )

This is a Spike Shipper centric Poll. So if you consider yourself a shipper of Spike, the vampire, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Series, along with the comics, please take the poll. I'm trying to get a feel for the Spike shippers in fandom. Granted, there's a sampling error of 10% or higher, since not everyone will take this poll.

I'm curious to see how people who love the character of Spike, ship the character and view him. Do you read fanfic? Do you write it? What fanfic do you read and/or write? Do you see him as a glorious evil badass or the romantic poet? Soulful or Soulless (albeit I didn't put Soulless - I put Ambiguous). What are your views? I know mine. I want to know yours.
Hopefully more than one person will comment. Be awfully embarrassing if no one does.
Polls are tricky that way. They are only interesting if people take them.

( Spike Shipper Poll - 15 Questions in All )

1. Well...they turned the air on at work, so it's no longer 81 degrees and I no longer have to run the small desk fan (although I think I inadvertently left it running on Friday). Also my allergies have cleared up - combo of changing allergy meds from zyrtec to allegra, and spending three days away from the work environment. So no bronchitis and no longer sick.

2. Out of curiousity, checked out Mark Watches...I do that from time to time...
and the problem with it, is, I feel this overwhelming desire to drop evil snarky misleads. Anyone else feel this odd compulsion? Just me then. Felt it with Game of Thrones and Hunger Games too. All his predictions are so far off the chart - it's hilarious. I'm tempted to pop back in and read his two-part review of Becoming - it's going to blow this poor boy's mind! OTOH...admittedly, it was impossible to predict Spike's arc in S2 or any season for that matter. Actually Spike was guaranteed to throw everyone off - mainly because the character simply refused to do what the writer planned, so the writer often had no idea going into any season what his arc would actually be or how it would play out. It got very hard to accurately spoil that series because of well, Spike. Talk about your Trickster characters. Spike was the ultimate Trickster - he actually played a number on the writers. The perfect metaphor for free will vs. determinism.

( Whedon's discussions with his Trickster character Spike )
I love it when a character plays havoc with a writer's brain to the extent that he or she almost takes over, it's pure magic. It also makes a story highly unpredictable and sort of realistic. One character can change an entire story, throw it into all sorts of wonderful directions. One tricky character that the writer didn't see coming. That's why when I read Mark Watches review of School Hard - I burst out laughing. Dude. Game-changer?? Talk about understatement. You've really got no idea!