careful! the ink's still wet!

In the absence of real thought...

2006-08-14T10:02:00.000Z

You Are 48% Cynical

Yes, you are cynical, but more than anything, you're a realist.
You see what's screwed up in the world, but you also take time to remember what's right.

How Cynical Are You?

You Are 52% Lady

You're part lady, part modern woman.
Etiquette is important to you, but you brush aside rules that are outdated or silly.

Are You A Lady?

Your Inner Retro Girl Is

1950s Domestic Diva

What Retro Girl Are You?

It's oh so quiet...

2006-07-24T11:38:00.000Z

It's, oh, so quiet
It's, oh, so still
You're all alone
And so peaceful until...
You fall in love
Zing boom
The sky up above
Zing boom
Is caving in
Wow bam

I have a couple of fanfics lurking, but my weekends are taken up either having my gentleman friend call, or calling on him, or doing all the things I need to do when we have a 'free' weekend.

fic :: Sunshine, Showers Forecast

2006-05-14T21:41:00.000Z

Sunshine, Showers Forecast
by SpikeDru
Show: Doctor Who
Spoilers: early season 2...er...28...er... No actual spoilers but post-The Girl in the Fireplace would fit.
Rating: PG13
Genre: Rose vignette
Disclaimer: Never mine.
Notes: written to tempt teh nos to accept the Doctor/Rose ship. Even though shipping Who is Wrong. Go figure.
Summary: Love, whether newly born, or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, this it overflows upon the outward world. Nathaniel Hawthorne.

No resting on the laurels for me. Nope, straight back on the keyboard with yet another fandom. Admittedly, I am Old Skool Who and this is technically a return to my oldest fandom but it's for the new show so it feels new.

I'd like to thank me mum...

2006-05-14T16:26:00.000Z

I won something!
Passing in the Night won Best Post Episode Fic at The Roomies.

The Roomie Awards

2006-05-09T00:40:00.000Z

And whilst we're about it....

I've been nominated in The Roomie Awards!

I'm up for Best Post-Ep fic for Passing in the Night and Best Author (crikey). See the noms here. Someone was asking me about Ray/Neela fic: that noms list is a good place to start.

Voting ends 13th May. Eep!

fic :: Lost & Found

2006-05-09T00:30:00.000Z

Lost & Found
Author: SpikeDru
Rating: FRT
Disclaimer: Not mine. Never were, never will be.
Spoilers: 12.18 Strange Bedfellows
Content Warning: not even a swear word.

A double drabble, with spoilers for Strange Bedfellows, and posted to the neela_ray group on LJ.

Bugbears

2006-04-07T12:33:00.000Z

[This was originally posted on my MASH blog - hence the examples - but I thought I'd repost it here for ease of reference]

I admit it: I have a mild bugbear about the use of English in fanfic or, more precisely, the abuse of it. I know fanfic is something written for pleasure and for the chance to write scenarios never played out in the series. I don't think writing for pleasure automatically means ignoring basic rules of grammar and punctuation.

Yes, the rules on the use of the apostrophe may seem a little eccentric, but the English language exists as a means of communicating an idea from one head to many others. Ignoring the basic rules decreases the chance of the readers' receiving those ideas in their full glory.

If reading/writing fanfic is "just fun" then part of the implicit deal the writer makes with the reader is to be entertaining. And struggling to read a story is not fun. So this is going to be my blog entry on common errors which get in the way of the fun of fanfic. Expect a link to it to crop up in reviews on ff.net.

If this entry seems to stop suddenly, click on refresh. Blogspot seems to get a bit confused by long entries.
If you think there is something worth adding to the list of bugbears, use the comment link at the bottom of the entry.

Resources
useful things to buy, borrow or read online
I just got a copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves for Christmas. It's not nearly as good as Bill Bryson's Troublesome Words (which as well as explaining the meanings of misunderstood words also has a section on grammar and punctuation) but it would be a handy starting place for writers who know they have yet to master the its/it's difference. Other places would be:

English Chick's Grammar Lessons and Common Errors in Fanfic
Mapletree Publishing: Grammar Basics
Common Errors in English Usage

My bugbears
things that are can improve writing 100% with very little effort

I'm making up the examples, by the way.

dialogue formatting
sometimes you read fanfic which is written like this:
Hawkeye said let's have a drink. Why not said Trapper then we can go make passes at the nurses. I'm too tired for nurses Hawkeye said.
Each bit of dialogue ought to be marked out with quote marks. Each time the speaker changes, a new line should be started. So the example above becomes:
Hawkeye said, "Let's have a drink."
"Why not? said Trapper. "Then we can go make passes at the nurses."
"I'm too tired for nurses," Hawkeye said.
Now it's easy to see who is saying what (and that we appear to be heading for Hawkeye/Trapper slash...)

soundalikes aka homonyms
Some words with different meanings sound the same. If you rely on a spell checker in a word processor, it won't tell you that you have used the wrong one. A particular bugbear for me is the they're/their/there confusion. They're is a contraction of they are; their is a possessive, indicating that something belongs to someone; there is a location. For example:
"Look at those two over they're," Margaret commented acidly to Frank, "their always getting drunk."
"The Colonel really shouldn't allow them to keep there still."
should be:
"Look at those two over there," Margaret commented acidly to Frank, "they're always getting drunk."
"The Colonel really shouldn't allow them to keep their still."
because the words are being used as follows:
"Look at those two over there [location]," Margaret commented acidly to Frank, "they're [they are] always getting drunk."
"The Colonel really shouldn't allow them to keep their [possesive] still."
This error gets to me more than the its/it's one, simply because I still make its/it's typos and know how confusing it can be whereas there is little excuse for not learning the difference between they're/their/there.

past/present tense
As a general guide, it's more common for fiction to be written in the past tense. Like so:
Hawkeye realised he was unconsciously licking his lips as he watched Trapper pour another martini from their still. He tried to believe that it was in anticipation of the drink but suspected it was from some other anticipated thrill.
This could be written in the present tense, like so:
Hawkeye realises he is unconsciously licking his lips as he watches Trapper pour another martini from their still. He tries to believe that it is in anticipation of the drink but suspects it's from some other anticipated thrill.
If you're not familiar with tenses, stick to the past tense. The present tense is OK for short stories, but is quite hard reading on longer works. Don't mix up past and present tense - it only confuses. If you're not familiar with tenses at all, check out the English Chick's notes on it.

POV
The Point of View (POV) is the character whose inner thoughts we are privy to: we see events from their point of view. Ideally, stick to one POV for any given scene within a story. You can alternate POVs (fun for romance stories) but the change in POV should be indicated with a double line break or a row of asterisks. The POV is the writers' chance to show off how well they know the character. It should be possible to indicate the POV not only through having stuff like:
As their eyes caught, Hawkeye wondered about the sudden catch in his breath.
which tells us Hawkeye is the POV character, but through using the speech patterns of the characters:
It was crazy, nuts, fruit-de-loop. Like Trap had seen more than could ever be spoken in that glance."
A joy of working with POV is that you can start reducing the amount of times you type a character's name: don't be afraid of the pronouns (but always be sure it is clear which he is which!).

I think it's safe to say the previous entries here have revealed some of my narrative cliche bugbears, so that's for now. Until I read something that I just have to add to this list.

fic rec: Pieces on the Ground (Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines)

2006-04-05T11:40:00.000Z

Pieces on the Ground (Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines)
by Astralis.
Firefly, post-movie (well, technically, a missing scene from the end). Kaylee and the Captain return to Serenity.
This made me cry. I always think of Mal, Kaylee and Wash having a seperate relationship with the ship to the others: they're the ones who get their knuckles grazed fixing her, so it makes sense to have just Mal and Kaylee come back. This is packed with tiny details which really sell it as Kaylee's point-of-view, lots of little observations and Whedonesque moments. Lovely.

fic rec: My Soul to Keep

2006-04-05T11:23:00.000Z

My Soul to Keep
by miss_daizy

Sweet, post-ep (Out of Gas) firefly fic. Mal/Inara. It's just warm and fuzzy.

fic rec: Officer's Mess

2006-04-05T09:51:00.000Z

Officer's Mess
by Sophie Richard

Pre-series, war story. During the war, an unexpected part of Zoe's life is revealed.

This captures Mal and Zoe's intimacy without making it sexual in any way, and reveals a new side to Zoe which informs her actions in the movie. Lovely.

memey goodness

2006-03-21T20:44:00.000Z

gakked from profound shallowness.

Six favourite shows in no order:
1. Buffy
2. Doctor Who
3. Firefly
4. ER
5. X-Files
6. The Professionals

Who is your favourite character from #2?
The Doctor. D'oh. Smart, funny, strong-minded. Never cruel or cowardly, as it's been said. Each time he changes, he stays somehow the kind of hero I love.
"I'm the Doctor, but beyond that, I - I just don't know. I literally do not know who I am. It's all untested. Am I funny? Am I sarcastic? Sexy? Right old misery? Life and soul? Right-handed? Left-handed? A gambler? A fighter? A coward? A traitor? A liar? A nervous wreck? I mean, judging by the evidence, I've certainly got a gob." The Christmas Invasion
If I can't have him as my favourite then...er...Fitz Kreiner from the books. And if I can't have him then...er...Barbara Wright.

Who is your least favourite character from #4?
Corday. A waste of a decent British actor, whose character I never warmed to, and who ended up sort of hanging about for no good purpose. It's like the writers had a great starting idea but never worked out what they should do with her.

What would a crossover between #1 and #5 include?
Aw, Buffy and the X-Files is too easy. The obvious thing is Mulder and Scully showing up in Sunnydale, investigating an alleged Hellmouth. You could have the Slayer(s) kidnapped by the Conspiracy but that runs the risk of being season 4 of Buffy. Can't I cross the Pros and Firefly?

What is your favourite ship from #6?
Bodie/Doyle. Bodie/Cowley can be read into the series if you squint very hard, or Bodie/Murph, but really it has to be the classic Bodie and Doyle.

If you were to set one person from #3 and one person from #6 on a blind date, who would they be?
Inara and Bodie: he's very like Mal in that cynical warrior shell hiding a romantic core and she's the kind of classy lady he loved to woo. Doyle can take Kaylee out.

If you could meet one person from #4 and spend the day with them, who would it be, and what would you do?
Ooh. Er...
I know what I'd be tempted to do for a day with Ray or Luka. After much thought...Ray. A late lazy breakfast, and afternoon kicking about town, an evening knocking back shots in a sticky indie dive and home for the obvious.

If you could change one thing about #2's plot line, what would you change?
I'd sort out that whole mess in the mid-80s. I loved Davison, and I like the last two seasons of McCoy, but gods the middle is a mess. Bad companions, nonsensical plots, garish overlighting and clothing, stunt celeb casting.

Explain a relationship between two people (not necessarily romantic) from show #5, and why you like the relationship between them.
Mulder and Scully. I like the initial dynamic and the manner in which it evolves over time. There are many details in those early years which suggest a wonderfully complex mixture of friendship, respect and attraction of opposites. There's sharp banter and underlying understanding. It got a bit more irritating once you reach the Saint Scully business etc etc but it worked in those early years.

If the lead title characters (first name in the credits) from #1 and #3 were both drowning, and you could only save one, who would it be?
Buffy vrs Mal. It's hard to apply the "which one would probably make it without me?" test since Buffy is superhumanly strong and Mal is superhumanly stubborn. I think I would save Mal: he's a decent guy who's had his world taken away because he made a bad choice whereas Buffy would pout and whine and feel the burden of her Slayerness.

If you could change the title characters' order in the credits for #4, what order would you choose?
Current credits? Well, I'd take out Sherry Stringfield since her sudden vanishing, and move Maura Tierney up a place or so - make her second to Goran.

If you were able to add a new character, any kind of character you wanted, to the storyline for #6, what would the character be like and what would their role be?
I'd produce a family member for Bodie or Doyle. Preferably about the same age, so a cousin or sibling. Neither of them have any family on-screen and it would change the dynamic without producing a Girlfriend of the Week syndrome.

What happens in your favorite episode of show #2?
Ooh, er. Classic series: the Doctor arrives in a Victorian manor house in which an alien scientist is running an experiment involving evolution. New series: OMG!squee!Tennant. Well, actually, no. My favourite has the Doctor and Rose in WW2, haunted by a little boy in a gasmask, aided by a bisexual conman from the 51st century.

If you could kill off one of the characters of #1, who would it be and how would you do it?
Willow's bounceback girlfriend. And I'd do it very carefully so as not to induce the wrath of Willow.

If you got the chance to visit the set for either show #3 or show #5, which would you choose?
Firefly. To walk through Serenity? To clatter up and down the walkways and check out the details? To stand in the middle of the cargo hold and spin around? To play with the dinosaurs on the flightdeck? Who wouldn't?

So, I saved the best question for last. If you could date anyone from any of these shows, which show and which person?
Well the choices would be:
Spike (dangerous rock date ending in a necking)
you don't date the Doctor so Harry Sullivan (very trad date with an Italian meal and a peck on the cheek, old thing)
~~Jayne~~ Mal (a sullen date with half-disguised charm and no kissing)
Ray (see question six, with more tequilla shots) or Luka (charming European seduction date)
Scully in the early period (a contemporary dinner date)
Doyle (pub grub and dancing).

Scully, Doyle and Harry are out first, leaving the rock boys or the sullen war survivors. As I'd like to come out of a date in a good mood, it'd be the dumb rock boys. So... Spike. There'd be a thrill to the edge of darkness danger, whereas Ray would just be a regular date for me.

There's a lot of fallen idealists, rock gods, and damaged men in that list.

Suicide is Painless

2006-03-19T21:57:00.000Z

Since I started archivng my ER and Firefly fic here on aurelius, I've decided to reduce my online personae a little and claim my M*A*S*H fic as my own. Note this is the only medium in which I write slash. I don't know why. So the following stories are now up on aurelius:

Cold Comfort
SLASH. season 1 or 2.
Strangers When We Meet
SLASH, post-series. Heavily influenced by More Than Heaven.
Wedding Jitters
het, during Margaret's Wedding

Under My Skin & Too Darn Hot, set sometime between Margaret's Engagement and Margaret's Wedding.

There's another one, a 3-part story, but I'll do that another time.

fic rec: Of Boys and Fireflies

2006-03-19T13:56:00.000Z

Of Boys and Fireflies
by mishbloom

Pre-series. No spoilers. Wowsa. Maybe it's just because I read The Ship Who Sang too often as a teenager, but this brought a tear to my eye.

fic rec: Mend (1/1)

2006-03-19T13:45:00.000Z

It's Sunday, it must be catch up with fic day!

Mend by Goldy Dollar.
Post-Serenity Mal/Inara fic. Inara intends to get a cup of tea.
This writer totally nails it. The dialogue is spot on, with a mix of painful truths, misunderstandings and bickering banter. For example,
"I’m attempting romantics. Don’t faint."
The mood swings slowly and subtly through pain, fear, eroticism and delight. I love this piece.

fic: Drabble: Paper Wraps Stone

2006-03-10T10:50:00.000Z

I just did a quick drabble for neela_ray, based on last nights new episode (UK E4): Paper Wraps Stone. I'll write up thoughts etc on Sunday.

This new ship seems to be inspiring drabbles in a way that no previous ship has. I've always written them, as I think they are a great writing exercise. Trying to pack as much as possible into the strict word count makes you think about what you are trying to express, and how to most effectively do that. Every word needs to add to the meaning: there's no room for slack. So drabbles are great, but Neela and Ray is the first time in years that I've just been dashing them off whenever I have a spare half hour. Strange, n'est pas?

fic rec: time to say how much it meant

2006-03-07T01:05:00.000Z

time to say how much it meant
by cathiexx
Firefly, post-Objects in Space, pre-movie. A lovely little Mal/Inara story which fits within canon but seems so plausible. Inara and Mal's voices are clear, and their reactions are in character.

Principle Flutie! The Annointed One!

2006-03-06T23:00:00.000Z

So, yes, I'm still being overly fannish about ER. Today was a bit of a OMG! moment though, when I realised that both Flutie and the Annointed One were in episode 01.04 of ER. Flutie is a office supplies sales guy and the kid is a brat with an insane mother.

This was, as you might imagine, a bit startling.

Rapid Infusions

2006-02-28T22:22:00.000Z

In order not to drive y'all nuts with ramdom postings about ER, I started a side blog. At the moment it is called Rapid Infusion but I'm still toying with the title A Babinski reflex because it sounds cooler. I'll still post notices of ER fic here, but any thoughts etc on the series will be over there.

Fic : Passing in the Night (1/1)

2006-02-24T22:33:00.000Z

I'm on a roll, baby, yeah! This is in the WTF kind of zone because I have more plot bunnies hopping about my brain than Watership Down and this one isn't even one I was thinking of until I saw last night's episode. I walked to work thinking about it, then back from work, then just sat down and wrote...

Title: Passing in the Night (1/1)
Rating: FRT (aka PG13 / 12a)
Disclaimer: Not mine. Never were, never will be.
Spoilers: set in the hours after episode 12.08.
Content Warning: mild sexual whatnots.
A/N: I have read spoilers for later episodes, and this fits in between the end of 12.08 and the start of 12.09 but without spoiling 12.09. Yep, it's a missing scene type thing.

She sat coiled into the corner of the sofa, with the lights off and the news channel nearly muted. When she heard the key in the lock, she smiled to herself and looked around. He stood in the doorway, rucksack on one shoulder and dark marks around his eyes.

"Hey," Neela said quietly, her voice husky.

[read the rest]

The Great Write Meme

2006-02-22T14:14:00.000Z

All writers are feedback whores. Even the professional ones. OK, so JKRowling etc probably have someone to read all the reviews for them, and filter out the terminally stupid and/or insulting, but I bet she still likes to know what people think.

findmeakor: The Great Write Meme asks all fanfic writers to put themselves up for anon criticism. Flame me, baby, yeah! (I'm on page 14).

quick web change

2006-02-21T02:22:00.000Z

I've just done a quick fiddle so that I now include 'other' fic on the fiction index. I've even done some quick fiddle with the CSS so other fic has a different style to the Buffy or Firefly styles. I added a very quick bit of art, so that non-fans can see the pairing, but I'm not really sure about that - I'm trying not to have a graphics-laden site.

This wasn't out of some overwhelming urge to do some website maintenance but due to me still being up at 2am UK time running some software tests for work.

fic rec: Mirror Image

2006-02-19T18:28:00.000Z

Mirror Image
by Lilachigh
Buffy, post-The Body.
Author's summary: A few weeks have passed since Joyce’s death and Buffy is finding life hard. Help arrives in a very strange way.

rec notes: via betterbuffyfics. This is wonderful. It creates a frozen-over Buffy and then breaks the ice on her grief. Lovely, and tear-inducing.

I have not abandoned the Buffyverse or Fireflyverse just because I have a new obsession, you know. I promise. I even suspect the whole Neela/Ray thing is a transmigration of Buffy/Spike. Think about it:
He's a punk, she's obsessed with her job. They fight all the time, but when you watch ER you realise he's always watching her. OK, so she's the one to swear in British English but still...I'm getting a Beatrix/Benedict vibe from them.

FIC: The Loneliness of the Long Haul Runner (1/1)

2006-02-19T02:41:00.000Z

Damn new 'ship obsessions. Damn them all to hell. I didn't mean to write this tonight but I kinda of had the urge to have a go at Neela's voice. It's just up at LJ and silverlake for now, until I figure out the best way of including non-Whedon verse fic into this site.

Title: The Loneliness of the Long Haul Runner (1/1)
Author: SpikeDru
Rating: FRT, I guess. Damn, just when I'd figured out how to use dumb American ratings I have to learn a new system?
Disclaimer: Not mine. Never were, never will be.
Spoilers: set in early season 12 but no real spoilers
Content Warning: My, but I do like to swear. Nothing really rude, but if even the least bit of potty-mouth bothers you, avoid me.

She’d started to run as a teenager and she’d never stopped.

One drizzling autumn morning, stood shivering and recalcitrant in the schoolyard, Neela Rasgotra had suddenly seen how to escape it all. Her parents’ proud and determined expectations, her friends’ talk of boys and kissing, her enemies’ sniping at her inadequacies. Bookish Neela. Neela the exemplary student. Neela the Nerd. She’d started to run.

[read the rest here]

Roomie fic

2006-02-18T21:12:00.000Z

Every fandom has its fic kinks: the plot bunnies which repeat over and over. Buffy and Spike are put under a spell (wait, that really happened), Xander and Spike tied to his recliner, Mulder or Scully looking for the other one. With soap/drama set in the real world, the stories become more limited, due to the whole not-having-monsters thing. And a concentrated bout of reading fic reveals the core kinks. So here is a list of the components of a Roomies (or Reela, apparently) fic. Select a handful and make your own fic!

key things
- Ray with his shirt off
- Ray's t-shirts
- Ray's tattoos
- Ray's silver thumb-ring
- Ray being cocky (not that way)
- Ray being cocky (that way)
- Ray's guitar
- Ray shagging groupies loudly
- the walls of the flat being very thin
- Neela being prim
- Neela being innocent
- Neela having coffee/mocha skin
- Neela being really short
- Neela having good boobs
- Neela swearing in English English
- Neela dancing

plot bunnies
- one or other is naked or semi-naked in flat and is very conscious about it, despite them being doctors etc etc
- Ray gets beat up and/or shot and Neela has to treat him
- a playfight gets serious because Ray gets cocky (either way)
- Michael is killed in Iraq and Ray has to comfort Neela
- Neela is unhappy, realising that spoilering spoiler was a mistake, and turns to Ray for comfort
- Neela moves out and Ray realises he misses her
- Neela gets drunk and Ray has to handle her
- Neela realises she has a crush on Ray, they argue, they kiss and make up

PWP (where's the smut, goddamit!?)
- Ray and/or Neela have soft lips
- Neela pulls Ray close with his t-shirt
- Ray gets cocky (that way)
- they are big on the kissing, but always hold off on the rest

As always, there are the standard "end up marrying, having kids, blah blah blah" stories which seem to infest every fandom but I always assume those don't really count. I want *smut*.

I am, god help me, considering rising to the challenges over on Doctors in the House, with the proviso that I include either everything from the above list, or nothing.

I spoilt myself

2006-02-17T23:51:00.000Z

My name is SpikeDru and I am a spoilerphobe.

Way back, back in the pre-LJ days, the pre-squee and even the pre-'ship, I loved reading spoilers. I was addicted to episode guides of the X-Files. I just ate them up, night after night. This was in the era in which, to get an episode ahead of the UK's air date, you had to have understandng friends in the States who could tape a load and ship them over.

But at some point I pledged to read no more spoilers. I know only as much as the UK tv listing for a given week. The Zipper Heard Around the World was a surprise to me, etc etc. And then, tonight, I fell off the spoilerfree wagon and I fell hard. I just read an episode guide to all the aired episodes in this season's ER. And I did it not out of a compulsive interest in Luka, which would be fine and understandable. No, I did it because I have a new 'ship. Look, there's even a website whose fic archive I am even now devouring: Ray & Neela.

Neela: Weeks could go by and we might never see each other...
Ray: Months, even........ welcome, roomie!
Neela: ... God, I'm gonna regret this.

There are quotes and icons and there's even a term for this specific ship (roomies) and, well, I may have downloaded some caps in order to make my own icons...and I've been watching ER from the first episode so where the hell did this sudden obsession come from? I'm gonna claim the punk doc made me do it...

fic: Even Cowgirls... Part 2

2006-02-06T00:55:00.000Z

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

by SpikeDru

Spoilers: post-Objects in Space, eventually for the Big Damn Movie
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Drama/Romance
Notes:
He had such dark eyes in the dim light, felt discomforting for their intensity to be focussed on her for once. Like the floor was quivering 'neath her feet. Or maybe that were the artificial grav playing up again.
There are all sorts of ways to feel blue, and the women of Serenity feel them all.
Hopeless amounts of thanks goes to my beta Kelly, for getting me to talk right. Or wrong. Or however it is Kaylee talks.
Previous chapters:
Chapter 1 : The Best Little Whorehouse on the Rim

first published February 2006

2: She Wore a Pink Ribbon

Kaylee loved the engine room and always had. Sure, back home she had liked engines and had an uncommon skill at making them purr like fire-warmed cats but Serenity's engine room was different. She could sleep here, cradled in her hammock and rocked by the ship's lullaby rhythm. Technically, it was a public place like the lounge and the galley and the bridge but really it was hers. Only the Cap'n and Wash came down here without lookin' like intruders in her domain and she figured that was the right of it. She an' Wash were the ones who dirtied their hands in the innards of the ship, the ones who got the girl to do everything the Cap'n asked.

Sitting on the steps down into her realm, Kaylee held the cold metal of a spanner against her face till it grew warm with her tears. Maybe she could toss it in the engine, then tell Mal that they weren't going nowhere till he and 'nara had made their peace. Or had it all out in a big fight. Followed by some big loving. The way Kaylee saw it, all that not having sex was making the Cap'n's balls do his thinkin' for him.

[click here for the rest of the chapter]

fic rec: Unobserved Observations

2006-01-25T00:16:00.000Z

Unobserved Observations
by pelirroja_ljc
Breaking my habit of only reading fanfic on Sunday and I'm glad I did. This is a lovely Inara-centric character studyset some unspecified time in the series. She's really got Inara's phrasing right, as well as having a very nice tone.

that writing meme

2006-01-23T09:55:00.000Z

10 ways to know you're reading a SpikeDru fic:

It's been at least three months since the last one.
The POV is strictly held in a given chapter or scene because
There'll be stuff about perception (e.g. the differing views in Hurt/Comfort).
At least one English English word will slip though the net.
There's a technical word for it, which I have forgotten, but lots of descriptive sentences will take the form "pronoun verb adjective noun, blah blah blah" instead of being two seperate sentences. E.g. "There were hurried noises as the walking wounded reboarded the bus, the mosquito whine of Andrew a distant irritant." from Nineteen Days.
Spike or Mal will be partially nekkid. (well, Mal will be in Cowgirls when I get to the right chapter).
There will be almost no "he said" or "she said", or thesaurused versions (she exclaimed).
Canon is your friend and the story will dart between canonical elements like a fish in a stream (i.e. no AU, rarely any OC). Well, OK, Kali Dances is AU, but I started writing it before Angel series 5 aired and finished it after.
It won't be epic or mammoth and will rarely be in chapters (Cowgirls is the first to come out as a WIP in chapters).
It won't use the whole cast. I tend to pick two or three characters to use and I don't feel the need to cram all the others in just to show that I'm using them.

fic: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Part 1

2006-01-23T00:48:00.000Z

Yes, I'm putting up Chapter 1 before 3 and 4 are finished off despite the fact I always worry about finishing WIPs. I should update every fortnight - leave me rude feedback if I don't.

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
by SpikeDru
Spoilers: post-Objects in Space, eventually for the Big Damn Movie
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Drama/Romance
Summary: Her touch was usually a commodity and her palm had tingled with illicit pleasure at being freely given.
There are all sorts of ways to feel blue, and the women of Serenity feel them all.
Notes: This fic was basically inspired by Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins - or more precisely by the title. Each chapter's title is also a title of a Western film (or a variation thereof). Chapter 1, The Best Little Whorehouse on the Rim, focuses on Inara. Later chapters focus on others.
first published January 2006

1: The Best Little Whorehouse on the Rim

It was the finest outhouse on the stinking moon. The wood was smooth and sand clean, and the red tiled floor gleamed. Nandi's girls clearly took care of it. A couple of flimsy moving images hung on either wall: a restful sunset over a beach and a sweet meadow wavering in a spring breeze. Unlit incense rested on a little ledge to one side, ready to banish any unwelcome smells. The back of the wooden door was hung with silken embroidery scenes and the crystals hanging in the small star-shaped window twinkled with the brash sunlight from outside.

Inara sat and cried.

[click here for the rest of the chapter]

help needed

2006-01-22T18:07:00.000Z

I'm finally cracking into chapter 3 of Cowgirls but I need a smidgen of help. Like Buffy and Angel before it, Firefly seems to have some strong fanon (i.e. non-canonical events, backstory, etc which is none-the-less treated as if it were canon). So Mal was always raised by his mother and the farmhands. What I need is a guide to the most common fanon. I need to know the ideas which, whilst as illegitimate as any other fanfic ideas, are generally seen as highly plausible and taken at some level to be 'true'.

This is on account of the fact I need more on Zoe's probable background.

Can anyone suggest some good places to look?

6,110 / 8,000
(76.25%)

award nom time: The Strawberries

2006-01-15T15:34:00.000Z

The Strawberries, the Firefly fanfic/fadvid awards are open for nominations until 31st January.

self-pimpage alert!
It's Wrong to Wish on Space Hardware is valid for this award. It could go under Pre-Movie - Romance - Canon.

On the other hand, if you love some of the Firefly fics I've recced over the last few months, go ahead and nominate them instead. I won't be hurt. Much.

fic rec: Insomnia Ain't Always a Bad Thing

2006-01-15T11:09:00.000Z

Insomnia Ain't Always a Bad Thing
by corellianjedi
Firefly, post-movie. Mal and Inara talk late at night about mothers, teddy bears, and each other. Very light angst and fluffy in a gentle way (i.e. not sickeningly fluffy). Aw.

Easy, Tiger

2006-01-15T10:03:00.000Z

I've been a cover pixie for Bam's wonderful It's Not Porn, I Swear site for a little while. When I am trolling around the local charity shops, I make for the bins of Mills & Boon paperbacks and buy any whose covers strike me as snark-bait, then I scan them and send them over for Bam to be all editor-like about them. Yesterday was my first Saturday troll for a couple of weeks and to my delight some people had clearly donated a ton of books in a New Year clean-out as there were lots of new ones. I have a thing for the 70s/80s designs which are often either very orange, very alarming in their depictions of apparently rohypnolled heroines, or both. So my eye was caught by one cover because it was orange and in the 70s design. Then I looked closer, as something in the corner caught my eye.

Click for a closer look just at the corner. It's on the cover of a book called 'Tiger Man', published in 1981.

coat me in chocolate and throw me to the lesbians

2005-12-29T21:40:00.000Z

Which Buffy Girl Are You? Find out @ She's Crafty

fic rec: How the West Was Won (And Where It Got Us)

2005-12-29T16:08:00.000Z

How the West Was Won (And Where It Got Us)
by macha

Wonderful elegaic piece of pre-series Firefly fic, with Mal and Zoe in the aftermath of the battle of Serenity Valley. Good Mal and Zoe interaction is hard to find, but macha nails both voices just right.

fic rec: In the Bleak Midwinter

2005-12-29T15:50:00.000Z

In the Bleak Midwinter by Annakovsky
Buffyverse, post-Chosen. Xander and Dawn and a broken baby Jesus. Great Christmas story with perfect characterisation. Not in the least bit fluffy but it still leaves a warm something inside.

fic rec :: Dinosaur Envy (PG)

2005-12-29T14:01:00.000Z

Dinosaur Envy
by What Works.
A brilliant Firefly fic from Wash's POV.

I'm a-catching up with my fanfic reading today, so expect a bundle of recs. I'm also reading a Civil War era novel, on account of my firefly boxset being on loan and me needing to get Zoe's voice right for the next chapter of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. I sort of want to get the whole story done before the winter break is over.

Not such a cunning hat

2005-11-30T00:44:00.000Z

I left my hat with a European playboy. It's like leaving your heart in San Francisco except it can be returned by Fedex.

5,198 / 8,000
(64.9%)

Finished chapter 2 of Even Cowgirls... tonight and sent it off to the poor beta-reading ~~fools~~ friends. So now I need to work out what ought to happen in chapter 3 and 4, then make them all work in terms of interconnection etc. I'm about 700 words over where I wanted to be with the first two chapters, so I may well add a bit more to chapter 1 and increase my overall word count to 9000 or 9500.

Cunning Hat

2005-11-18T16:35:00.000Z

I bought a new hat today. It is cunning. It makes me look a bit like a Dickensian urchin, but I can live with that. I've been playing Innocently Inserting Firefly Verse Speak into daily speak. Already, some people at my workplace are starting to use 'shiny', and I've got 'cunning hat' in a few times.

the power of pimpage

2005-11-12T13:33:00.000Z

Firefly fic rec:
Palindrome
by Nixa Jane
Summary: It’s backwards and forwards all at once.
Rating: R

Comment by me: A lovely piece of post-movie Firefly fic, from River's point of view. Good use of tense and voice, combined with plausible dark events.

Angel fic rec:
Curses
by Hannasus
season 5, post You're Welcome. Angel is cursed again and Lorne takes them to Aggie (the reader from season 2) for help.

Comment by me: a good blend of the laugh out loud funny with the Angel and Spike snarkage and shades of dark with Angel's broodiness. It reads like a good episode of Angel.

All my recs can be found on the other stuff page of my website, or you could go direct to source and watch the RSS of my delicious tag 'recs'. Now I'm back reading fanfic, after a long break, I'm keeping better track of my recs.

new fic: It's Wrong to Wish on Space Hardware

2005-11-11T21:30:00.000Z

This sort of burst out on the walk home from work, after reading the challenge. So there's been no beta reading etc etc. 1300 words.

Title: It’s Wrong To Wish On Space Hardware
Author: Spikedru
Rating: PG
Spoilers: none, pre-series
Archive: http://www.aurelius.fsnet.co.uk/fiction/spacehardware.htm
Notes: In response to justvisiting’s ff_fanfic challenge. The challenge was: The crew sees a shooting star.. what do they wish for? Can be as many characters as you want.

I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them, but they were only sat'lites
It's wrong to wish on space hardware
I wish, I wish I didn't care

Zoe was raised in the black and there was a whole of stuff which didn't make sense if you were raised up there. Take nursery rhymes: there weren't no boughs to break, there weren't no woods for bears to be hiding in, and what in the hell was a tuffet anyway? But the rhymes and the songs were sung to the children as they were rocked to sleep by the pulsing roar of a turbine, or by the children as they skipped across the rec hall. Others always thought being raised in the black meant you didn't have any of that stuff, as if you were born with a gun in one tiny chubby hand. Still it meant there was a whole lot of things she'd never seen. Things that were as mysterious to her as how come you didn't just float about all day in zero g was to a prairie hick.

Like shooting stars.

She'd seen a comet once, back when she was a little bit. It had been passing several thousand miles away, but the pilot had invited the kids up onto the flight deck to take a look at it. Its icy tail had streamed out behind it, and little Zoe had gaped like a kid in a candy store.

Also? No candy stores in the black.

So the first time she saw a shooting star was when she was lying on her back, with mud and blood and god knows what else oozing into her uniform, in Serenity Valley.

At first she thought she'd imagined it. A sudden white line zipping across the dark sky. Like something had burned briefly on her retina. Then there was another brief flash and she finally understood why shooting stars had seemed so magical on Earth That Was. A tiny piece of the sky, falling. As another flashed across the black, long forgotten rhymes prompted her.

'I wish we were out of this gou shi festering hellhole.'

'Zoe?'

'Yes, sir?'

'That weren't a shooting star. It's our battle satellites. The Alliance is shooting them out of orbit and they're burning up as they re-enter the atmo.'

'Oh.'

She lay there for another minute or so, then glanced over to where Mal was sat, wrapped in a grey blanket and looking up at the darkness with the look of a man whose world had just been destroyed.

'Sir?'

'Yes?'

'I still wish we were out of this hellhole, sir.'

'Zoe? Don't you know it's wrong to wish on space hardware?'

Serenity had set down in a meadow. Although set down was perhaps euphemistic for Wash's frantic, switching hitting piloting and meadow was perhaps euphemistic for a dull plain of scrubby grass. Still, Mal had strode out into it muttering about being home on ranges before rounding up Bester and setting out in shuttle 1 for the township they were meant to be visiting. It was about fifty clicks off, and the shuttle was so loaded with legit cargo that there wasn't room for Zoe on it. Besides, Mal knew the deal was safe enough and Bester wanted to get the parts to get the engine running again after that nasty clunking sound it made as it set down. Crashed. Whatever. There was another job waiting on Paquin so the sooner they were back in the black, the better.

Which meant Zoe was left with Wash for company. She still hadn't worked out what it was that bugged her about him.

He spent the afternoon on his back in a crawlspace asking her to hand him various tools whilst he did mysterious things. Sometimes sparks would twitch and buzz and he'd make some creative curses in Mandarin. He really did love his Mandarin. Of course, it was obligatory learning on the Core planets where he'd come from instead of the haphazard way she'd learnt cradled in the belly of a ship. She left him to it when he stopped asking for the tools. As the sun started to touch the treetops, he gave up and joined her in the galley.

'I can't do any more till Bester fixes the grav boot,' he said. 'Captain not back yet?'

'No. Which means it's protein packs for dinner instead of something fresh.'

'Bet Mal stopped to get some real food and a beer.'

'Maybe he did.'

Wash was watching her as she moved about the tiny space, wiping his greasy hands with their skinned knuckles on an old rag, and it made her suddenly self-conscious.

'Thought you knew everything Mal did?' he asked.

'We're not joined at the hip.'

'No, I'd have noticed. Why don't we take the food outside to eat? There's fresh air, and a rise just behind us which would give a great view of anyone approaching.'

Zoe laughed. 'Do you think I'm always on guard?'

'Seems like your defences are never down.'

Wash dug about and found two tiffin containers and she poured the soup in. Then he produced the ugliest patterned blanket she'd ever seen from somewhere in his cabin, and a couple bottles of beer. At least the blanket wasn't grey, she thought, as she walked up the slope behind him. From this angle, and climbing like that, his ass was rather better defined than usual and she watched it with internal amusement. He spread the blanket like he was a matador, with no end of crazy flourishes and Zoe was surprised to find herself laughing.

Once the sun was set they lay back, propped up by their elbows and watched the stars come out. 'Always seem so few, when you're planetside,' she said.

'Sure, that's just atmospheric distortion, light pollution and so on. It's why I love flying Serenity. To get out there, into the black, where the stars are pure and clear and scattered like a thousand billion dreams.'

'Poetical, for a pilot.'

'The stars are poetic. The constellations are different out here, but see that bright star over there?'

Zoe couldn't see, so Wash leaned closer and put his face by side with hers. He raised his hand, pointed and she saw.

'Once upon a time, back on Earth That Was, that was Polaris. The North Star. It shone so steady and bright that sailors on the ancient seas used it to guide them, to bring them home to a safe harbour.'

'That's...well, poetical. Practical too, but poetical.'

'And that faint light-' he guided her gaze with a tilt of his head, 'was the morning star. Venus. The goddess of love.'

Zoe finally realised just how Wash was bugging her. She turned her head slightly to look at his face, so close to hers. She could smell beer on his breath but his eyes were skyward and lit with love for the black.

There was a flicker of white across the sky. A brief flash like something burning briefly on her retina. She started, and recalled just why she didn't want to ever see a regulation grey blanket again.

'Zoe? It's OK. It was just a shooting star. Guay, you're shaking! What is it...? Look, there's another...and another. It's just a passing meteorite storm.'

As he babbled on, she relaxed again. They really were just shooting stars. His arm had slipped around her earlier and now it was cautiously holding her close. She watched the stars fall then looked at his captivated face as he closed his eyes briefly.

'Did you just make a wish?' she asked, faintly incredulous but fascinated.

'Yes.'

'Do you think it'll come true?'

He opened his eyes and stared into her own. 'I hope so,' he said.

And he kissed her.

end

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meme

2005-11-11T17:54:00.000Z

i hate memes. I'm not going to tag anyone at the end, you know. And yes, I used to break chain letters at school. i am not afraid. The gods of the memosphere have no authority over me. Strike me down, I dare yer!

Bam, the queen of the cover snark, did tag me though.

Three screen names that you’ve had: Magrat, Moosifer, spikedru.
Three things you like about yourself: my nails, my self-suffciency, my shoe collection
Three things you don’t like about yourself: my wide personal space, picking at things instead of either leaving well alone or sorting them out properly, my volume control.
Three parts of your heritage: Irish, Scots, Basque. No, really, there was a DNA thing and my ancestors are Basque. I think it explains a lot.
Three things that scare you: ladders (or rather going up high ladders), the dubious state of governance of the UK and its increasigly lack of respect for civil rights, Brussel sprouts.
Three of your everyday essentials: caffeine, waking up with the Today programme on the radio, reading snarky blogs
Three things you are wearing right now: Brown straight-leg low waist cords, a white green and brown cowboy shirt from J C Penneys that I found in a retro clothing shop. Calf-length brown leather boots (slightly scuffed).
Three of your favorite songs: Chelsea Morning by Joni Mitchell, Days by either the Kinks or Kirsty MacColl, #2 by Blur.
Three things you want in a relationship: companionship, screwball comedy style banter, an acceptance that I really, really don't like having my feet kissed.
Two truths and a lie: I am a natural redhead, my grandmother was born in 1883, I can roll my tongue.
Three things you can’t live without: a cat, my books, caffeine.
Three places you want to go on vacation: Oregon (to visit a dear friend), SW India, Africa.
Three things you just can’t do: Ski, stand on the left on a tube escalator, cook.
Three kids names: George, Georgina, Lily
Three things you want to do before you die: go to a New Orleans Mardi Gras (was supposed to go this coming year but...), visit the Antartic (or the Artic - which one has the penguins?), learn to cook.
Three celeb crushes: Spike (not James Marsters but Spike - "so you'd prefer the mass murderer to the actor?" someone asked me), Rupert Everett, Dominic Monahan.
Three of your favorite musicians: Saint Saens, Neil Hannon, Rufus Wainwright
Three physical things about the opposite sex that appeal to you: long skinny legs, eyes, scruffyness.
Three of your favorite hobbies: reading, drinking cocktails, walking on the moors.
Three things you really want to do badly right now: go home (am at work), get back to some writing, give a good friend a hug because she's having a shit time
Three careers you’re considering/you’ve considered: writer, archaeologist, academic
Three ways that you are stereotypically a boy: I like SF, I can do things in binary or hex, I am lazy around the house.
Three ways that you are stereotypically a girl: I have over thirty bottles of nail varnish, I love high heeled snadals, I have a dimensionally transendental handbag.
Three people that I would like to see post this meme: Nope. Come on, memosphere gods! Bring on your wrath! I deny you! I shall burn in meme hell.

Inappropriateness

2005-11-08T23:51:00.000Z

You know things are going too far when your tai chi teacher mentions serenity and you think not of balancing the chi but of Firefly.

4,392 / 8,000
(54.9%)

Well, some of them are already being cut out, due to not being relevant to the plot. I just like writing Kaylee. So, here's the now cut bit.

Two coolies in temple dress code were waiting with a mule. Not the latest model, but still shiny compared to the heap of scrap Serenity had.

‘Oh, hey, cool. A Janssen-Wen triple three forty,’ she said, running her eye automatically over it. Weren’t like she could help it, just a bit of her brain liked cataloguing the hardware.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ one of the girls said.

‘Oh, you don’ need to ma’am me. I’m just the engineer. This has the chassis of the three ten combined with the control rig o’ the SR-I model, don’t it?’

‘Kaylee!’ Mal was striding down the ramp with a face like a whole month full o’ damp Sundays. ‘Let them get on with their jobs.’

‘But Cap-‘

See, it's just futuretechnobabble for the fun of writing Kaylee technobabbling.

Darn it all to heck

2005-11-06T14:46:00.000Z

Damn. Damndiddy Damn damn damn. I don't need another WIP to follow. You know how it goes, you start reading, you invest, you wait a year for another entry or the whole thing dies. It's a reason I'm trying to write all of my multi-part stuff before publishing. And yet... I decided to read Book's Legacy by Jedi Buttercup over on LJ. It's a post Serenity movie Firefly fic with links to the Buffyverse. The first parts seem a little sparse and I'm not a fan of "ficlet series" - if you've got that much of a story to tell, tell it proper - but she's up to Chapter 5 now and is starting to write longer parts which have shape to them. She's captured Mal's voice for the narrative, and the dialogue for the others works well (although we've yet to see Inara). The breakfast scene in part 5 made me burst out laughing. Since good firefly fic is hard to find, I'm going to be following this WIP from now on.

tastes like...Mountain Dew (some recs)

2005-11-01T23:12:00.000Z

Makd has done her big ole list of fic recs for Angel season 5. I am making some in-roads into the first post of it because, damn, that gal reads a lot of fic. Given this is just the best of the best, I shudder to imagine how much fic she actually reads in order to produce these lists. I've not even started working through the previous ones (and, obviously, my Spuffysense is tingling at what new treats might lurk in the Buffy season 7 recs). So, a handful of recs from the recs list...

Summer Girl by Kath
pre-Angel season 5. Wes and Angel character piece with lots of lovely detail and flashbacks to the pre-Angel season 2 summer. If that makes sense.

Reclaimation by Jenny O
"And one day, not an especially important day, Cordelia wakes up."
Great Cordy AU piece. Heavy with the snark and making me laugh.

totally meh

2005-10-30T19:45:00.000Z

The weather is still shitty, though I did a nice wholesome walk to the shops today, and the cat is still behind the sofa.

4,061 / 8,000
(50.7%)

still working

2005-10-29T21:53:00.000Z

It's cold, windy and raining outside. The cat is huddled in its favourite hiding place behind the sofa due to overexcited idiots letting off fireworks a week before Guy Fawkes Night. there is nowt on telly that I want to watch and so...

3,826 / 8,000
(47.8%)

WIP, er, progress

2005-10-29T11:48:00.000Z

Ignore the fact that "WIP progress" is a what'sit...because it actually means "Work in Progress progress". Isn't this a neat tool?

2,842 / 8,000
(35.5%)

This is from the zukutou website and shows the progress of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.

Serenity in 2000 Words or Less

2005-10-23T15:50:00.000Z

Serenity in 2000 words with BIG BIG spoilers, people.

JAYNE: Reavers!

REAVERS: GRAAAR!

EVERYBODY ELSE: Run away like little girls!

oh yeah, and the gorram fic

2005-10-23T11:26:00.000Z

I got hold of all three issues of the Serenity comic yesterday, devoured them (not literally) and realised they didn't effect the fic I've been dawdling over since the other week. The whole thing is definitely called Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and I finished part 1 of it, provisionally titled The Best Little Whorehouse on the Rim, last night but I want to write the other three parts before I post it.

The Serenity comic does a very nice job of moving us from somewhere after Out of Gas through to somewhere before Serenity the movie. Joss always seems to get some of the finest comic book artists around - the run on Astounishing X-Men is beautiful - and this is no exception. Yet the whole thing reads like a bit of a continuity exercise: villains from the series return only to make way, in the final panels, to the Agent from the film. Badger - and who doesn't love Badger? - reappears and helpfully mentions the twins who replace him in the film. The reason Book has left is revealed. It presses all the fan buttons, in other words.

nearly there

2005-10-23T11:08:00.000Z

I've applied the shiny new styles to the blog, and finished reformatting all the fiction. I've even got the RSS feeds for the links on the other stuff pages to look more or less right. There is still the following to solve:

formatting of the blogroll

formatting of other other lists in the left hand column of the blog

that gorram bug with IE

Good Vibrations

2005-10-22T21:42:00.000Z

fic rec: Good Vibrations
There's one line in Serenity which causes audiences to burst out laughing, every time I've seen it. This little fic by liquid eyes does a really nice job of combining Kaylee's engineering skills with them other needs of hers.

the pitter patter of tiny feet in big combat boots

2005-10-16T15:21:00.000Z

I've done perhaps half the work on the new look website: look at the shiny new design. You can flip between a Buffy or a Firefly style, although they both need a little work still on the basics. The remaining things to do are:

~~decide the navigation~~
fix that wierd thing with the header under firefox
reformat the existing fic pages (4/7 complete)
reformat the blog

shiny

2005-10-13T23:16:00.000Z

One of the things you really notice about Whedon's work is the love of language. It is something to be played with, twirled around and twisted into new shapes and syntax. Buffyspeak is not real Valleyspeak and Firefly is in its own gorram universe of language. It's archaic, it's futuristic and it's just plain odd. Yet it is always understandable. I can't think of another scriptwriter with such a love of words and wordplay as Whedon. There's the fact that I unconsciously call things that are good "shiny" (I had to explain it to a colleague recently) or that "scary visual place" evokes a particular voice in my head. Sometimes, in an idle moment, I wonder if a handful of Firefly fans using "shiny" to denote "good" will eventually spread the word, meme-like, until the fictional meaning comes to be the norm. Then there is "corpsified" which is just a great word.

The big problem is writing Firefly fiction which evokes its futurespeak without just borrowing phrases wholesale. That's a problem with any fanfic: badfic sites always mentioning the borrowing of memorable phrases. I've been a member of the worthless word of the day mailing list for a long while now and it struck me tonight that here is a source for archaic and/or obscure words to use in Firefly fanfic. F'example:

picaroon
[Spanish picaron] /pik uh ROON/
1) a rogue or adventurer; a bohemian
2) a pirate, corsair
3) a small pirate ship
carnaptious
[fr. Sc. knap, to bite] /ka(r) NAP shus/
Scots & Irish dial. : bad-tempered, irritable, grumpy
cahooting
[fr. cahoots : collaboration, collusion]
conspiring, plotting

See? Hours of fun.

no power in the verse can stop me

2005-10-11T10:07:00.000Z

What with all this new found Mal-lust, and the fact I have 1400 words of firefly fic in progress (subject to change when I get around to reading the Serenity mini-series comic*) I've decided the time has come for version 3 of the order of aurelius and this here blog. The site's going to be an archive just of my fic without all the other fripperies and folderols. I guess it'll divide into Buffyverse and Fireflyverse sections but I've been learning some css and rss tricks and I'll be using them to make it smooth. Well, maybe I can do a fic rec thing, using some cute code to make it easy to maintain...

So anyway, this is advance notice that these pages may go all squiffy for a bit whilst I piss about with code.

*which no-one told me was filling in the gaps between Objects in Space and Serenity (film). I thought it was one of those dreadful tie-in comic versions of the film and thus avoided it. And #1 is rare. Grrr.

update: the comic shop had #3, but not #1 and #2. Have got them on order.

Sure is a purdy lookin' fella

2005-10-10T23:28:00.000Z

Well.

That was unexpected.

I went to see Serenity at the weekend, like all good Joss fans bumping up the take. Actually, I went twice. But at different cinemas in different cities so no-one realised I was being a menky geek. I should probably point out I was in different cities on account of travelling for work (i.e. the second viewing is on expenses).

I was late to the Firefly fan party, seeing as the phrase "Western in space" just makes me think of gou-su like Star Trek. Then when I did fall for Firefly, I fell hard. But not for any one character, or any particular pairing, just for the whole gorram set-up and story-telling. Not one of the characters got me all tingling, or caused hot and sweaty thoughts about their nekkidity. This was, I thought, a sign of my own growth and maturity. Hells, even Spike doesn't cause the same naughty thoughts as he used to. See, growth and maturity. No more crushes on fictional characters for me.

So I'm a bit surprised to discover I have developed a crush on Mal. Course, he's a bit nastier in the film and thus appealing to the side of me that likes men with dark violent thoughts but still...

(Although the nekkidity still ain't appealing. Semi-clothed. Semi-clothed is good...)

Three Deep

2005-10-04T16:45:00.000Z

pimpage for Three Deep, the multi-universe, multi-programme, mutli-lovered, multi-everything virtual season by alira, Barb C, Cyn, Dori, dutchbuffy, Kalima, Klytaimnestra, macha, pip and Sylvia. Yep, that's one heck of a writing team.

extra pimpage

2005-09-27T21:47:00.000Z

My pal Mags's novel is now available via both amazon dot co dot uk and amazon dot com at the very fair prices of UKP9.02 and USD12.21. Eligible for free delivery and despatched in 24 hours.

What's that? Why buy it? It is not Buffy, Angel, Spire nor anything Whedonesque...?

It's set in the Boxer Rebellion and was provoked by watching Fool for Love too many times. It has kick-boxing heroines fighting it out with sabres. What more could you want?

Otters

2005-09-26T14:59:00.000Z

What are you?
I'm an otter. I swim around on my back doing cute little human things with my hands.
Thank you, you're free to go. What are you?
I'm a cow--
Get on the back of the truck!
-- Bill Hicks.

Joss Whedon and Neil Gaiman in conversation. They are otters.

Gaiman: One of the reasons that both Joss and I can do some of the stuff that we've done over the years is because you're working in a medium in which enough stuff has simply entered popular culture that it becomes part of the vocabulary that we can deal with. The materials of fantasy, of all different kinds of fantasy, the materials of SF, the materials of horror...it's pop culture. It's tattooed on the insides of our retinas. As a result, it's something that's very easy just to use as metaphor. You don't have to explain to anybody what a vampire is. You don't have to explain the rules. Everybody knows that. They know that by the time they're five.

Want. Take. Have.

2005-09-25T15:47:00.000Z

Buffy seasons 1-7 in one chuffing big box.

It's Not Porn, I Swear!

2005-09-09T14:52:00.000Z

I am silent on the Buffyverse front. Although I am not sure whether to be amused or alarmed by the idea of a Spike movie. When someone raised it - and the various points at which it could be set - I realised I had passed the Fanfic Event Horizon because it didn't occur to me for at least five minutes that, you know, it won't be set after Angel because Spike is probably dead. I read so much post-Angel fic with Spike who survived the alleyway that I totally forgot that canonically he's dead. Again. I'm half thinking "isn't he in Rome fighting the Immortal?" before remembering that is only in Mortal Wounds, Treacle_A's fic.

Meanwhile, I have seen Serenity.

I'm also having strange feelings for the hobbity actor from Lost. All these years of Spike lust have left me programmed to like whichever character in an American series who:
a) is English
b) has a regional accent
c) is prone to rock star behaviour
d) is a scruffy skank.
Thus I find Mason from Dead Like Me rather sweet despite the fact he'd be an utter millstone if you knew him and am now considering ignoring Charlie's lack of height. Thank the Gods I don't watch House.

My main online pasttime these days is being snarky in the comments on Bam's blog. It's Not Porn, I Swear. It is Evil. It is fun.

Once More With Sequins

2005-08-18T08:44:00.000Z

If I had time and photoshop skillls...

Once More Wtih Feeling by Nora Roberts cover.

extra pimpage

2005-06-05T18:50:00.000Z

Smile Time : the comic.

"Angel wants to blow off steam. Things don't go quite as expected."

It's a six page comic strip of puppet!Angel and Spike. It's so adorable that everyone should read it.

more pimpage

2005-06-05T10:54:00.000Z

In Between by M Phoenix (rated R).
Post-Chosen. Faith/Kennedy. Yeah, it's not a pairing I ever thought I'd go for, but it's well written and has, y'know, themes and stuff.

Unaccomodated Man by Kindkit (rated NC-17)
Giles/Oz. Mildly AU, post-Phases. Well-drawn characters, good use of themes and imagery. Hot sex.

once in the Boxer Rebellion...

2005-05-26T21:00:00.000Z

I'm not dead. True, I've been absent for a very long time. You can, if you wish, imagine I have been living off rats and listening to Barry Manilow for the last year. It's not true, and I prefer to think of myself hanging around the Left Bank being all artsy - possibly saying "ciao" too much - but I am still alive. And pimping.

To wit:
Faction Paradox : Warring States
(read a preview here)

This is a novel by someone close to me and is set in the Boxer Rebellion. Mags had never even heard of the Boxer Rebellion until she watched Buffy and was utterly smitten by the Gang of Four's walk through the fire in Fool for Love. As a result, she started to research the period, then she wrote this novel set during it. It's about war, loss and reconnection; the dual between rational and spiritual; trust and betrayal. Plus, big fight scenes, oddles of blood, time-travelling Victorian voodoo cultists and tai chi.

Her editor, knowing her love of all things Spikey and being a bit of a Buffy fan himself, has done his best to remove all references to vampires from it but there are a few little nods and winks (especially for anyone who's read Mr Grieves and the Fallen Woman). And if you look hard at the cover you might notice something familiar about the western woman's clothing. If you like my writing then you might like Mags', although she is much less prone to ensuring Spike flesh is involved.

The same publisher will be publishing the sublime Kalima's novel Erasing Sherlock later this year so clearly it is a company of taste!

End of pimp

(oh, except for a swift pimp for another WIP - Three Deep by Barb C, Kalima etc etc)

2004-08-16T22:00:00.000Z

quick plug for something some friends are involved in:

Once More for Charity
A recital of the Buffy musical on 21st August 2004, with all monies raised going to the Sudan Emergency Appeal.

2004-07-18T15:48:00.000Z

A few fic recs - I've only just had a chance to catch up.

Eggs, Vegetable Oil, Water by twinkledru
(LJ or silverlake links)
A lovely post-Chosen vignette of Buffy. Buffy considers her future. Also, there's cake.

Feline Repose by Venus Blue
What does an unemployed librarian do with his time?
If, like me, you prefer reading html pages to php, it's also available on silverlake.

Contrite Spirits by Lizbeth Marks
"Faith and Xander are waiting for a newly discovered Slayer at the Basilica Ste-Anne-de-Beaupre and find answers to questions they were afraid to ask."
a good Faith and Xander fic (note, not Faith/Xander). I love this Faith - it's a side we never see in the show but, when it's shown here it seems so, well, plausible.

2004-06-23T18:38:00.000Z

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.

2004-06-21T14:42:00.000Z

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.

2004-06-17T20:48:00.000Z

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...

2004-06-17T20:20:00.000Z

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'.

2004-06-14T12:00:00.000Z

it's a wee little puppet man!

2004-06-06T23:18:00.000Z

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!

2004-06-06T18:02:00.000Z

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.

2004-06-03T18:19:00.000Z

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.

2004-05-31T11:08:00.000Z

My latte sister, the distressingly multi-talented Kalima, has started to write up the Buffy fiction we outlined back in the summer of 2002. It's a WIP, which I don't normally rec, but on the other hand it's lovely and funny and she's taken the snippet I wrote and turned it into something with much more depth and wit. So go read Time Travel for Pedestrians and give her warm fluffy strokes of feedback.

At one point this was called Hot Kinky Vamp Action despite the fact it was a proposal we were working on for 'proper' publication. On account of us being 'proper' writers by day. Well, by night on account of writing not paying enough to buy pins and us therefore having the equivilent of DMP day jobs to pay the actual bills. Maybe that's why we both love season 6? We can relate to Buffy's realisation that her calling is never going to get her a bank loan but she just can't give it up. Plus, obviously, all that hot sex with Spike. HKVA did not have any actual HKVA due to the restrictions of the Buffy books' range. When we discussed reviving the project as fanfic, the first thing to be brought back was the sex. My calling means my nights are being spent patrolling the graveyards of prose, slaying bad grammar and trying to avert the apocalypse (i.e. get a novel in by the deadline) so Kelly is writing this herself. Please read - it's going to be a beauty.

2004-05-26T09:20:00.000Z

You are an Elementalist. Your magic stems from the
forces of nature. You might be a forest
nuturing Druid, a storm-creating Weather-Wizard
or any of the many Elementals, but one thing is
sure-- your bond with nature is strong. You can
rely heavily on nature to support yourself
aesthetically or physically for it lends you
both comfort and strength. Your instincts
rarely fail you. You are vibrantly passionate
but are sometimes carried away by your own
emotions.

Which Magical Order Are You In?
brought to you by Quizilla

2004-05-11T20:26:00.000Z

Fic rec: Hers to Remember by cousinjean {via All About Spike}

2004-05-10T19:11:00.000Z

I've just organised an LJ syn feed for this blog. Simply click here and then click on add to friends to get my blog pumped straight to your friends list.

2004-05-09T21:47:00.000Z

New fanfic uploaded: Kali Dances

This was started back in December 2003 and was then called Pure Shores, based solely on the opening scene. It's only just been finished off, with all this Kali business popping up. I mention some songs in the author's note, although none are actually quoted in the text. Here are some extracts of the lyrics which I hope reveal where this fiction came from.

Madonna Ray of Light

Zephyr in the sky at night I wonder
Do my tears of mourning sink beneath the sun
She's got herself a universe gone quickly
For the call of thunder threatens everyone
...
Faster than the speeding light she's flying
Trying to remember where it all began
She's got herself a little piece of heaven
Waiting for the time when Earth shall be as one

This was one of those 'ooh' moments when I heard the song just after watching Chosen.

All Saints Pure Shores

Many faces I have seen
Many places I have been
Walked the deserts, swam the shores
(Coming closer to you)
Many faces I have know
Many way in which I've grown
Moving closer on my own
(Coming closer to you)

full lyrics here

PJ Harvey Down by the Water

That blue eyed girl, she said "No more"
That blue eyed girl, became blue eyed whore
Down by the water, I took her hand
Just like my daughter, I'll see her again

less pleasant, and probably tied to the whole Angel/Dru/Spike stuff.

Moloko The Time is Now

You're the first thing
And the last thing on my mind
In your arms I feel
Sunshine
...
On a promise
A day dream yet to come
Time is upon us
Oh but the night is young
...
And the atmosphere is charged.
In you I trust.
And I feel no fear as I
Do as I must.

There is no good reason to include this, I just did

Kula Shaker Temple of Everlasting Light

Will I ever see the pleasure that will never end
Hidden in the misty forest that desire send
Mesmerised like fireflys falling through a flame
If I wait I'll be too late to holler out your name
If I wait another day to travel to the east
Time may prey on me, dance upon me with it's feet
Hidden in the temple they are building to the sun

pretty obvious in terms of influence on the story.

I also have someone say "Instant karma's gonna get you" which is from, erm, Instant Karma by John Lennon.

2004-04-27T22:14:00.000Z

"It's an ancient sacred text, not a magic 8 ball."
(Wes, To Shanshu in L.A.)

Back in December 2002, I used the public 8 ball to predict the end of Buffy with startling correctness. Buffy did get better, the outlook for Spike was not good and it was too soon to tell if Spike would Shanshu.

The magic 8-ball site is not behaving this year, so instead I took my test to Bob.

I asked "will Spike become a real boy?"
Bob said "as I see it, yes"
(see screen grab)

"will Angel season 5 get any better?"
"Most likely"
(see screen grab)

"will Spike die?"
"better not tell you now"
(see screen grab)

"will Angel be the vampire to shanshu?"
"my reply is no"
(see screen grab)

"is it the end of the world as we know it?"
"you may rely on it"
(see screen grab)

Now to wait to compare Bob's accuracy against the 8-ball's...

2004-04-14T23:35:00.000Z

Best referral to this blog so far:

+buffy +spike +sex +spank

That's my kind of surfer...

2004-04-09T15:41:00.000Z

It's my boys. I haven't had this many big, strapping men at my bedside since that night with the varsity lacrosse team.
Fred, Hole in the World

I mentioned before that Angel is a boyz show to Buffy’s grrls. When I was writing that I couldn't immediately find any good articles delineating what I meant.

It’s relatively easy to suggest Buffy is a result of the riotgrrl movements of the early 90s. The series depicts female characters who transcend the cultural gender roles imposed upon them. Each stereotype is shaded with unexpected subtleties and nuances. The popular cheerleader admits that she is lonely in her airbrushed, shallow bubble. The petite blonde girl slays monsters. The geeky girl smashes a demon in the face with a fire extinguisher. The last image seems obvious now, having seen Willow’s multiple transmogrifications, but the first time I saw it, back in 1998, I yelled with delight. The outcast girl wasn’t going to be victimised and rescued by heroes: she was going to fight. There’s no question that all the female characters are punished at some point for their refusal to conform to cliché, and that sometimes the show itself tries a little too hard (I still have issues with Beauty and the Beasts all this time later). It’s also quite easy to google up a lot of stuff about Buffy and feminism.

So why is there relatively little on Angel and constructions of masculinity? Why do I refer to it as a boyz show?

It’s not just that it is named after the male lead, just as Buffy was named after the female lead, although that does play into the notion of male/female series. It’s not even that there are always more male regulars than there are women (again, the opposite of the XX-heavy Buffy). It’s that the series toys with male gender definition. Angel himself is always seeking a role, a title through which he can define himself. It almost doesn’t matter what that role is, so long as it’s clearcut. He doesn’t care if he’s a hero, a villain, a father, a human or a champion, just so long as he can have definition. The male characters start off with clearly defined roles. Wesley was a Watcher: stripped of that he loses his way and tries to be something else (Rogue Demon Hunter). Joining forces with Angel enables him to have a position, a definition. Likewise Gunn knew what he was, until Alanna destroyed his security. He currently admits that he loves being a suit because it gives him an identity – it makes him someone, a person with a role and function in life.

In contrast to the Buffy women, the boyz of Angel struggle when their function is made fluid. Cordelia, a character whose role underwent radical overhauls whilst she was at Sunnydale, accepts the shifting pattern of her identity and moves onwards, secure in herself. Spike likewise accepts that he is both William and Spike, champion and villain. Angel doesn’t. Each time he encounters someone with a similar role as his own, he feels diminished, threatened. It’s there in his dislike of Groo (the stereotype of a hero) and his problem with Spike as illustrated in Soul Purpose (although obviously they have a much deeper problem of just disliking each other intensely). It's with his issues with Holtz and Connor's relationship. It’s in his “I did it first. The whole ‘having a soul thing',” whine at Buffy.

Angel is about the quest for a male identity in a feminine world. The most disruptive and chaotic influences to enter their worlds are women. It is a woman that made Angel, even down to renaming Liam Angelus. It is the same woman who makes him a father, forcing him into a definition connected with another instead of a solo one. It is another woman, Faith, who was responsible for Wesley’s expulsion from the Watcher’s Council and who eventually restores his belief in himself as a Watcher in deed if not in official title. It is a woman who plots Angel Investigations' downfall and turns Wesley into Wes. It is apparently Cordelia who births Jasmine, causing the final collapse of Connor. There are male antagonists, Lindsey and Holtz, but these help provide definition through adversary not destroy it through complicity.

I used to see all this as a parallel and complementary aspect between Buffy and Angel, hence my use of ‘boyz’ to suggest something of modern male identity formation (i.e. taking something from gay notions of gender identity and sexuality). It is only with the destruction of yet another grrl who was one of the boyz that I am starting to wonder if there is something more reactionary at work.

2004-03-29T21:57:00.000Z

Meanwhile, this is a new project started up by someone I know: So Buffy, What do we do now?

Boyz on Top?

2004-03-29T00:11:00.000Z

BIG SPOILER FOR ANGEL SEASON 5 - look away! look away!

The following is my initial thoughts on Hole in the World and Shells. In the interests of fairness, I rewatched them and found some positive things to say. Those are posted down the bottom. I also want to put in contextualising links but it's gone 1am and I have work tomorrow. And can't find a good Looking for Mr Goodbar page anywhere.

I got Hole in the World and Shells last week. And...well, underwhelmed is a good word. To have one female member of the regular cast posessed by a godlike demon bent on being born into this world is an accident, to have two looks like carelessness.

Actually, it looks suspiciously like at the very least sexism, if not downright misogyny. I've always enjoyed the idea that Angel is the boyz[1] show to Buffy's grrls: I like that element of it. But with this treatment of Fred I can't help but feel we're seeing a Looking for Mr Goodbar tendancy becoming utterly ascendent. A woman can be a virgin, a mother or a whore but are punished if trying to be anything else (or even just a combination of those). Women's ability to give birth is to be feared. Women are Up To No Good. Look at the role call of recurring female characters in Angel:

Cordelia
early attempt to be cheerful and sexual being ends in insemination by demon spawn. Goes through happy phase in which she settles into her place as platonic companion to the champion(s). Falls in love. Love never consumated (actually, what with Doyle as well, she manages that one twice). Comes back and spawns: spawn is a big problem. Effectively dies.

Darla
early attempt to be cheerful whore ends in death and effective insemination by demon (the Master). Returns human, comes to terms with humanity only to be taken by evil again. Comes back and spawns: spawn is big problem. Dies.

Lilah
even ignoring that her name echoes both D'Lilah (the wicked woman who caused Samson's downfall) and Lilith (Adam's first wife in some versions of the Bible) ....she takes delight in sexual power play. Evil. Starts to fall in love. Killed.

Justine
named after S&M slave in de Sade's novel (see here). Settles into place as companion of someone she sees as hero. Falls in love. Never consumated. Is punished and abandoned. Victimised but likes it.

Fred
Victimised but doesn't like it. 'Handsome man saved [her] from the bad guys'. Goes through happy phase in which she settles into her place as platonic companion to the champion(s). Her presence in amongst all those boyz causes lots of infighting and jealousy. Falls in love. Love never consumated. Gives metaphorical birth to big problem. Dies.

Eve
named after Biblical woman who caused the fall from Eden. Sexual and loves it. Evil. Currently awaiting punishment.

Even Kate gets a rough deal and vanishes when they don't know what to do with her. And it's pretty apparent that wolf-girl's sexual frenzy nearly kills muppet-Angel.

Ah, but it balances Buffy, you say? Yes, if you were to take the two shows in isolation. But Buffy was about overthrowing the notion that empowered women cannot be happy: that the sexual women of the horror film will be punished with death. Buffy, both series and character, does that.

Yes, Buffy's sex life causes problems and it isn't all lovely (of course, I argue that season 6 is showing that a woman's sexual desires can be dark too), but ultimately she has the power and symbolically gives birth, via Willow's neat mojo, to other empowered women. Admittedly with a rather naff montage but still, the point is that the women are not punished. Despite Giles' threat to spank Willow. Are the men disempowered? A little, except Buffy (character) needs them with balls, hence her request for the old Spike and her inclusion of Giles and Wood. And even Andrew is enabled.

So Angel (series) does provide a countertune to Buffy (series) but it does it by using the same old cliches. It's adding to the culture which tells women they can't be sexual without punishment. That with power comes death. That their ability to reproduce is dangerous and to be feared. It, at a subtextual level, undoes all the work Buffy set about achieving.

I'm giving serious thought to not watching the rest of the series. I'm only sticking with it for Spike. He might not do a lot, but he's seen A Nightmare Before Christmas! [2] Awww, bless.

So I watched these two episodes again, to see if I were being unfair. To be honest, I still find them indicative on something wrong but I'll hang on to the bitter end. Six more episodes of Spike, plus the satisafaction of having seen every single episode of Buffy and Angel are keeping me engaged.

So, five positive things to set against my annoyance:

Gunn singing 'three little maids'. utterly adorable.

the whole workplace meme about the spacemen and the cavemen, especially the Angel/Spike fight over it. Such little boys. I'm also curious why Fred says "of course the cavemen win".

Angel calling Spike a champion.

Wes's decision at the end. Of course, this is another chance for him to redeem himself as a Watcher as well an indicator of the depths of his Fred obsession.

ok, kalima has discussed the use of 'five' in this season, for example that the core A-team is five: Angel, Spike, Wes, Gunn and Fred. So I couldn't help but notice there were five crystals embedded in the casket. One was purple (time), two are blue and two are white. The old demon took the purple one and has time-manipulating powers. You could wonder if the two blue ones are intended for, say, two humans and the two white ones are intended for two, say, vampires with souls. And if said crystals provide each with special powers. With six episodes to go, that means one per transform and then a 2 part finale.

I am, naturally, way off on that. I mean, I thought season 7 of Buffy was going to be the entire planet, gaia-like, as the Big Bad.

[1]maybe I'm not googling right, but I can't find anything that outlines the idea that Angel is a boyz show. I will have to expand this idea later.
[2]I have a theory about that. But I'll write it up as fanfic, I think.

2004-03-28T23:01:00.000Z

Something old. So old it pre-dates the written word.
(Tara, Buffy 5.08, Shadow)

I'm alway so behind on this blog. In fairness, this is because my alter ego* is frighteningly busy and so writing up my Buffy/Angel thoughts coherently is a low priority.

So anyway, a passing note before I write up my diatribe about Hole in the World/ Shells...

I'm just watching some of season 5 of Buffy again on tape. Apart from far too many growls of lust for Spike (how has he aged as quickly as he has? how?), I snorted with laughter when Tara works out Glory is "older than the written word" and therefore they won't find anything in the books. I'm not mentioning Hole in the World. I'm not. Not at all. No.

Oh, and I've added haloscan comment linsk now, as the old place vanished.

*actually, this is my alter-ego to an alter-ego that somehow got conflabulated into my RL world. Stupid online personalities...

2004-02-26T00:52:00.000Z

a pyschotic vampire slayer...i'm still trying to get my head round it...

...which suggests Spike never got the full story on Faith.

Was anyone surprised at the revelation the crazy in Damage was a Slayer? It's one of those things which I suspect everyone wondered back when Chosen aired. The whole Faith story arc suggests that the Council had procedures for dealing with rogue Slayers, so we all knew Faith wasn't a one-off. It had to occur to people that Buffy's method of creating a Slayer army would cause a lot of unstable young girls to get an awful lot of physical power. Thank god, Angel is around to pick up the strands: dark Slayers always work better in the gritty urbanity of the LA series.

Despite the suspect effects (Xander's blinding was a believable mutilation so late in a series, Spike's injuries...less so...) and some bad bad stuff from Andrew, I really like this episode. It's partially the recursion: Andrew taking away Dana in a way Wesley never managed way back in Consequences. The moment when he reveals that Buffy no longer trusts Angel makes all the "vampyre" stuff worth it. The final conversation with Angel and Spike really works, reminds us both of their similarities and differences. The final lines, for some reason, brought a tear to my eye.

2004-02-25T20:55:00.000Z

I'm just an undead gal trying to make it in the big city...

Harm's Way makes me think of Miss Match for some reason. I suspect it's Mercedes McNab's pastishe of Alicia Silverstone.

2003-12-30T17:45:00.000Z

possession is nine-tenths, you know that

Got Destiny just before the Christmas break. Will marshall my thoughts after new year.

I was building a NYE CD for the party and added The Bitterest Pill by the Jam. I've suggested elsewhere that this would be a great song to do a vid to. However, it got me writing when I should have been out shopping for cocktail ingredients, so here's my The Bitterest Pill fic. Short, but I'm working on a longer, more complex, piece involving hindu mythology.

2003-11-26T01:48:00.000Z

I liked your poems
You like Barry Manilow

I am now up to epsiode 7 of Angel season 5 but have yet to marshall comments and thoughts on them beyond "Eve bad, Spike pretty" for boring personal complicated reasons.

I did do yet another quiz though:

fic rec: Summer Lovin by Deepa
Whoa!

2003-11-15T18:15:00.000Z

The last few episodes of Angel are somewhere in the postal system and ought to arrive early next week. Meanwhile, I've started passing season 7 of Buffy - in the American cut - to someone at work who watched Sleeper in the BBC2 6:45pm cut and could make no sense of it.

You are Anya

"I can just hear you in private: 'I dislike that Anya. She's newly human and strangely literal.' "

What "Buffy" Character Are You?

2003-11-05T15:00:00.000Z

Host: "My question first. And answer true, because you know I'll know. Why Mandy?"
Angel: "Well, I-I know the words - (leans in closer) - I kind of think it's pretty."
Host: "And it is, you great big sap!

Westlife are releasing a cover version of Manilow's Mandy (mpg). As you can imagine, this brings a smirk to my face every time it comes on the radio at work. Snapshots of a Historical Nature by Kate Bolin has Angel the utter fanboy, "a hulking caveman with a cheap haircut", which just sums up the oddness of the great tortured brooding Proust-reading hero who likes Barry Manilow. Not for our hero the shiny boots of the Velvets' Venus in Furs, or the thudding basslines of Led Zep's Kashmir. Not even the mild despair of the Eagles' Hotel California (although it's safe to say that's the plot of Are You Now or Were You Ever summed up in a 3 minute MOR song). No, he likes Barry Manilow. What's next? The Carpenters' Close to You? The New Seekers' I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing?

2003-11-03T01:33:00.000Z

still not done the sitemap, on account of getting easily distracted. Sadly not by the next episodes of Angel season 5, due to complicated reasons up to and including a postal strike in the UK. I have tarted up the blog itself though, with a shiny new "comment" link, all scripted up. Go on, click on it. You know you want to...

fic rec: Bring Your Own Lampshade
by glossolalia
mmmm. lickable boys.

2003-10-29T10:43:00.000Z

I'm still waiting on the next episodes of Angel. Grr.

BBC2 have just started Buffy season 7 but for some bizarre reason are showing three episodes in a row over Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday nights. Plus, whilst on a little later than last year's attempt to show season 6 at 6pm (because all that masochistic sex is just right at that time - the cuts to Dead Things were hysterical) it's still on nice and early. And no late night repeat for grown-ups.

Due to the whole Waiting for Angel thing (hmmm, there's a lit fanfic there), I've been wasting my life reading fanfic and taking online quizzes:

fic rec: Persuasion
Spike introduces Buffy to Austen. Not literally, because Jane Austen is not, as far as I am aware, a vampire.

You are Anya

Which forgotten animated heroine are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Entertaining partially because, ooh look, Anya but also because I quite like Anastasia.

2003-10-23T22:22:00.000Z

Someone I know has written a Buffy guide (Dusted) and asked myself and various other obsessives what Buffyisms we use in daily speech. I'm not sure how many, if any, of mine have made it into the book so here's my (non-exhaustive) list so far:

Spoken aloud:

Beer bad

plus, fire? pretty

but not from your perspective

I just deja'd this vu

bored now

what you have there is paperwork

avoid-y girl

SpikeDru and [something] are unmixy things

did anyone else just go to a scary visual place? (aka just "scary visual place")

Just thought:

knowledge should smell (when working with old books)

somebody slaughtered an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog (when seeing someone in A&F clothing)

I'm about to revamp (ha!) the main site, restoring my fic and dumping the graphics. Plus a shiny sitemap including links to the more researched blog things.

2003-10-22T09:15:00.000Z

Blood & Fog, the previously confessed purchase, was the usual Buffy book. I refuse to sully the word "novel" by using it to cover these things. Leaving aside the mild surprise at Dark Spuffy wicked energy sex at least being alluded to, with a certain amount of Spuffy tenderness and Willow jonesing for a magick hit, the book had a couple of problems. Now, I grant that I read it in bed. Not in a reading one-handed way (that's what online smut is for) but because I already read books at bedtime. And reading in bed does mean the concentration or page marker may slip. But either I missed something or the book failed to deliver it.

At the start, Willow is doing a spell or two and Buffy remarks on a smell of strawberries. Ooh, which witch has been letting Rack at her magic again then? One of the inevitable demon-clans-from-ye-olde-dayes uses magic which smells of strawberries. Now, you can imagine I'm thinking that there's going to be some kind of bringing together of the televisual Willow stuff with ye-olde-clan stuff etc etc. Especially as the back seemed to suggest Spike would be trying to do a deal with Rack. Unless I slept through it, this did not occur. And what I think at these moments is "what a bloody waste!"

Then, naturally, I get distracted by some pisspoor use of English. I can live with only one slang word ("bangtail") being used for prostitutes in C19th London. That's just lazy research, especially when you could reach for your Cassell Dictionary of Slang and do a few minutes cross-refering. No, it's the line, in the present day Giles-in-England section, which reads:

Giles and Olivia motored down to London from Bath

This may look innocuous to non-UK people but:

no one has used motored in this country since the 1960s. Motored belongs to the era when our roads were not three-lane tailbacks of artics but one could hop in a jallopy and go for a bit of a spin, dont'jaknow? poot poot!

from Bath to London one drives up. If your sense of geography is really poor, you could get away with over but you never drive down from anywhere in the West Country to anywhere else in the UK. The only way to drive down from Bath is to come my way into Devon, Cornwall and the cold grey depths of the Atlantic.

I really think they ought to get someone a bit more familiar with contemporary English (and, indeed, British geography) to proof these books.

Today's gratuitous Buffy thing:
Season Six - Yeah, you're depressing, but hey...that's life. And you're all about facing life, looking it in the eye, and singing your cares away. In the end, friendship will alwaystriumph. Best Episode: "Once More, With Feeling"

Which Season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Are You?
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Actually, I cheated a bit. I originally came up as season 4 but I just didn't agree with that. I mean, yes to Hush and Something Blue (and Pangs always produces that "yay" for Spike's conquering speech and Giles' "bloody colonials") but overall, nah.

2003-10-16T22:44:00.000Z

spank us 'till Tuesday...we promise to be bad if you do...

I'm a bad, bad fan and need to be punished. I swore to stop buying Buffy tie-in fiction. No, not even 2nd hand. Nu-uh. Never again.

Buffy: Blood and Fog by Nancy Holder says on the front "Buffy and Spike are on the trail of Jack the Ripper!" (their exclamation mark). The back mentions it has the gang of four (the Buffy gang of four, not the CCP lot or the founders of the SDP) in London in 1888. And the detail page reveals it is set within season 6. Yes, that's the Dark Spuffy hot wicked energy sex era.

It's in my bag. First hand. Although in a "buy one get one half price" deal and I did buy a proper novel as well. I'm obviously considering it the half-price purchase, even though I spent 20 minutes looking for a second book to go with Blood and Fog.

And today's "and people call me obsessed" link:
Lydia Chalmers' Thesis on William the Bloody

2003-10-15T10:49:00.000Z

embrace the ambiguity

It's pretty obvious, looking back, that I was not a fan of the First Evil as a Big Bad. Thinking about it again, with a few months hindsight, I think you can argue that thematically it works very well as a parallel with Angel season 4. It still doesn't exonerate Buffy season 7 for the neverending uberstory and the lack of great individual episodes (Conversations With Dead People and Lies My Parents Told Me being the exception) but it does tie in with the metaphysical ideas behind the show. Consider:

In Buffy season 7 she has to unify a disparate band of everyday people in order to prevent the First Evil from cleansing the world of the 'pollution' of humanity's goodness. The First denies others their free will, as exemplified in the cases of Spike and Andrew, and is appeased with ritual sacrifice, as we see in First Date. The First Evil has an army which will control the new, cleansed world.

In Angel season 4, he has to unify his friends (most of whom are busy hating each other) in order to prevent Jasmine, a former Power That Be, from cleansing the world of the 'pollution' of humanity's badness. Jasmine denies others their free will, as exemplified in Wes and Gunn's pursuit of Fred and in Fred's breaking of Jasmine's hold, and is appeased with the ritual sacrifice of willing followers. Jasmine's followers are an army which will control the new, cleansed world.

Looking back over Angel season 1, when we first encounter the Powers That Be (excluded their decision to let it snow over Sunnydale in Amends) they are clearly intended to be gods. The Oracles wear classical Greek trappings (but can also manifest through talking hamburgers) and the Powers' are above human morals. If we assume, as most people do, that it was the Powers who sent the snow in Amends then they are clearly in opposition to the First Evil ("the whole good versus evil thing? I'm over it"). Both the First Evil and Jasmine look at the bigger picture and consider the ends validate the means and both have a "with us or against us" mentality (if supernatural forces can be said to have a mentality). Both use agencies - Spike, Caleb, etc in Buffy and Cordelia, Darla etc in Angel - to control events in order to bring about their 'birth' into our plane of existence.

Both Buffy and Angel fight for the right to free will instead of control and conformity. They are both fighting on the side of humanity against natural forces, for people to be shades of grey instead of the black and white worlds of the First and Jasmine. Both seasons feature characters pulling themselves out of their private torments - Spike, Faith, Wes - in order to fight for others. Faith even provides the connecting thread between the two: having reconciled herself with Wes, she heads over to Sunnydale to reconcile herself with Buffy. Likewise the amulet: had Angel not chosen to fight Jasmine he would never have had the means to enable Buffy to defeat the First Evil.

The question is, does this running of two parallel themes in two seperate series on two different channels work? If that is what was intended then it was a crazily ambitious idea and one which was executed at the expense of individualised storytelling. Then again, the nature of both uberstories - regardless of any thematic link - put the arc over the individual episodes. Hopefully this year Angel will strike a balance between uberstory and individual tales.

Meanwhile, I have a fic rec: Endless Encounters
The seven seasons of Buffy, the seven Endless.

2003-10-10T09:22:00.000Z

A leopard can't change its stripes.
(spoilers for Just Rewards)

I always get to thinking about metephysical stuff when characters return from the dead. The dead dead, in Spike's case. I was a bit alarmed when Spike started talking about knowing that he is not going "where the heroes go. It's the other place. Full of fire." in Just Rewards. BtVS and Ats always seem to skate around the Christian notion of heaven and hell, instead having heavenly dimensions or hell dimensions. Quite why crosses are symbolically meaningful in a universe which accepts the supernatural and mystical but denies Christianity is never explained but I'm digressing. There are a couple of ways of fitting this suggestion of a judgemental afterlife:

Just as Buffy's description of Heaven could be a description of the final moment of her life - the glorious light and sense of freedom and love - so Spike's Hell could be the final moment of his unlife. He describes a pit and the ground cracking beneath him, as well as fire and torment. The slight problem with this theory is that Spike also clearly remembers his second death, displayed in his sarcastic response to Wes's question, so it seems unlikely that he would not spot the similarities. Despite what Angel might say, Spike isn't completely stupid.

Kalima, my latte sister, came up with a smarter theory. The Hell Spike is describing is neither a judgemental metaphysical plane in the Christian sense nor the moment of his second death eternally extended but a physical place linked to the W&H building. Something beneath them which only the "nearly ghost" can sense. She's thinking some kind of Faustian deal is going on, which makes me wonder how Eve is going to come into play. Spike is already telling Angel that the W&H deal is too good to be true - is he going to be the only one to see what lies beneath the surface?

I have to admit to not being wild about Angel season 4. I had a whole theory about the parallel storylines of Buffy season 7 and Angel season 4 being a subtle metephor for international politics (a theory I will get around to writing up here at some point and which, btw, Fred's poster of the Dixie Chicks supports) but I overall felt a bit ground down by it all. The whole Skip-ex-machina stuff with four years of Angel storyline revealed as a plot to bring Jasmine into existence? Urgh. Messy. I know they were working around various backstage crises but I was bored with the continual bleak tone. And Conner. God that lad was dull. So far, I've loved season 5. Angel has rediscovered fun. And then thrown Spike in to give us lots of entertainment watching the two vampires' circling each other like cats.

2003-10-09T10:44:00.000Z

Having revived this blog for Angel season 5, I decided I'd best do a quick check of the rest of the site. In the essay Sins of the Father, comparing the parallelism of Spike and Angel, I remarked "Although that suggests that at the end of season 7 we'll get the Spike spin-off in which he goes to San Francisco to start a detective agency... "
Well, I guess I was sort of close...

I've also reneged on my plan to stop writing fanfic and produced the inevitable post-Chosen story, Nineteen Days. I find it sort of amusing that they skipped the usual sense of a summer holiday, instead deliberately starting Angel season 5 less than a month after season 4 ended.

And in what amounts to a constructive moment, I've added a random quote generator to the front page.

The plan went something like this:
1. Chosen provided a surprising sense of closure for the audience whilst giving the characters totally open futures. Futures without their past, in fact, since everything fell into a bloody great big hole.
2. Despite knowing that Spike was coming back, I felt there had been a farewell to the character. Especially any wicked energy thoughts I may have had about him.
3. Going to see Ghost of the Robot in London was supposed to be the final nail in the -ahem- coffin for naughty Spike thoughts.
4. The above senses of closure would mean I no longer felt the desire to appropriate the series for my own meanings.

Obviously, such logic has failed me as one glimpse of Angel season 5 has broken all my careful 12 steps of recovery from Slayer-addiction and I'm as obsessed as ever.