fic rec: Forty (Tongue) Lashings and a Bit of Parley by tigerlady. Smutty fun with Captain Jack Sparrow and Anyanka. Amusingly enough, it also fits with canon for both Pirates of the Carribbean and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Like canon matters in any way at all when someone is writing mild smut involving Cap'n Jack.

Ghost of the Robot split up. Well, I don't know about you, but I'm shocked. Shocked and stunned. Very stunned.*

Not really. Having seen them live, I can imagine trying to be a real rock band (rather like wanting to be a real boy) is quite hard when the majority of your audience insists on standing as woodenly as Boreanez and staring reverently at the lead singer. Their bassist was pretty damn good, mind.




*it's a Rutles thing.

Ask Bob! For Bob Knows the Secret Truths!

Just to point out that Bob's asnwers to my Angel season 5 questions were not entirely inaccurate, given the Butch and Sundance ending our boys got: see Bob's answers.

So a comparative test suggests that both the Magic 8-ball of 2003 and Bob are good tools for providing a spoiler-free hint of the future of your favourite tv series...

article rec: ak13 :: Dead ethics on how Angel forged a new morality on tv.

Behind the self-conscious mockery and bad special effects was one of the darkest and most adult drama series of the last five years, containing serious messages about redemption and 'doing the right thing'.

it's a wee little puppet man!

fic rec: Mortal Wounds by Treacle-A. Another WIP.

I'm so bad. I have no time for WIPs. Not in a judgemental sense, but in the sense that my life is already too crowded to invest hopes and expectations into WIPs. I should wait, save up the fic for when I am free to read it and it'll be all beautifully concluded. But, well, look at the promising Spuffy scenes! Go Spuffy!

You are Willow! Or, Type Five of the Enneagram's
personality structure: THE THINKER. You are
preceptive, analytic, eccentric and paranoid.


Which Buffy & Enneagram's 9 Personalities Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Also: liable to get addicted to things and want to destroy the world, only to be prevented by a big hug.

I'm still digesting the end of Angel. I liked it. I have enthused about it on email and got no response whatsoever so I have yet to dare read others' opinions in case I am all alone in my enjoyment of it. I'll wait another week before detailing why I thought it worked.

Meanwhile, I have just finished reading Astonishing X-Men #1. I am not leaping onto this comic as it's written by Whedon. Well, not entirely. I've been a fan of the X-Men since the mid-80s, only giving up on it all after the infamously title-sprawling Inferno storyline. Admittedly, I've not bothered with the movie, on the grounds that most movie adaptations of comic books suck. I mean, badly suck. It's weird as people who know little about comics always assume that they are just storyboards with dialogue which can therefore be lifted effortlessly to the screen. I'm literally afraid to see what they did to make my beloved League of Extraordinary Gentlemen into a movie. My return to the X-Men came when Grant Morrison started the New X-Men title. Not only was it a good writer but it was the core team (well, except for Angel and Iceman both of whom seem to have vanished from everyone's memories) plus Wolverine and Emma Frost. I read the entire Morrison run. I did try the Austen run but I didn't like it - poor dialogue plus uninspiring artwork. So when the word came that Whedon was taking over...well, the guys in the shop put me down Astonishing X-Men without even asking me. I had spent over a year asking "any news of Fray?", after all. So, is it worth it?

Well, yes. Both from an X-Men point of view and from a Whedon perspective. His dialogue leaps off the page. It's hard not to see Angel's brooding posturing in Whedon's Cyclops, or Spike's refusal to conform to the superhero stereotype ("no amulets. No bracelets, broaches, beads, pendants, pins, or rings") in Wolverine's mutterings about tights. Emma Frost's bitchiness is so season 1 & 2 Cordy that it made me laugh out loud. And I needn't say anything about Henry McCoy's tweed suit and glasses...This is Whedon on top form, back to one of the things which inspired Buffy and it's fun.