(no subject)

[rusty_halo]

Every time I hear the word "shanshu," it feels like fingernails scraping down a chalkboard.

Someone recently asked me why I don't like William fic (particularly smut). When I tried to articulate the reason for my revulsion, the best I could come up with was "It's like imagining my little brother having sex." Really, that's what it is, like gross and pathetic and squicky. (Okay, I have liked a few William fics--herself_nyc's Mr. Grieves comes to mind--but that's rare).

Don't get me wrong; I adore the fact that Spike used to be a great big dork. But dork William on his own? God, no.

And I know that shanshu'd Spike won't be William--but he's way too close for comfort. The soul made him too Williamy for me to take; shanshu (god I hate that word) is only going to make it worse.

I think my revulsion also comes from my digust with this whole Buffyverse "idealization of the normal," which also really pissed me off in the finale (especially with the former demons dying but the sacred core Scoobies being fine, and barely caring about those who were gone).

I have lots of thoughts on the finale, but I haven't been able to work up the enthusiasm to write a review yet. One thing that it really drove home to me, though, was that I'm not a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer at all. I was never a huge fan of the show, and whatever affinity I had was all used up after "Dead Things." I'm a fan of Spike, period. I'm glad he got a nice story arc and that he'll be continuing on Angel. But the rest of the show, many of its underlying themes, and every character but Anya just irritate me.

I did have a really nice time watching the finale, though. Chen (chenanceou) had a party, and Jane (jaydk), Melissa (dettiot), and Jerry (no livejournal?) showed up. It was really nice to see all of them, and we had a great time talking. We ended up going to a bar and being out till 1:30 am. Plus, we're all going to Tampa, so I'm really excited that I'll be able to see them again.

Truly, the best thing that's come out of this fandom for me is the people that I've met.

In other news: I will probably be slow answering email and archiving stories for a while. I went straight from finals to working full time and I still haven't had a chance to catch my breath. I'm just overwhelmed. Also, I haven't seen my cats in two months and I'm going insane missing them. I really need to take a bit of a break and focus on RL stuff. So if I'm slow or if I don't respond to you for a while, that's why. (I'll still be here. Just, hopefully, less.)

Comments

[miggy.livejournal.com]

God, thank you. I was wondering if I was the only one who was looking at the huge glut of William smutfics starting to appear and wrinkling my nose in distaste. (Mr. Grieves is indeed a definite exception, because William's a real person with strengths and foibles alike in it. He's not the perfect naif being shown an infinite world of pleasure and he's not so innocent and pure that he hurts to look at. Elsewhere... gag me.) I generally don't care what pairings people write, as I'm definitely not one of those people who think authors owe me anything. Hell, I've had people write me and say that my stories would be better if I only did X rather than Y, never mind that I would no longer be telling a story I wanted if I did so. I absolutely won't tell people what to write.

That doesn't prevent me, however, from looking at some types of fic and wondering why on earth anyone would find it enjoyable. Giles/Buffy. William smut. Buffy/Dawn (okay, anyone besides idiot straight boys). Glory/Spike.

Heh. You just got a nice little sample of my fandom squicks, didn't you?

Anyway, I'll only be working in soulless fic, I can already tell. Intellectually, I'm happy about big damn herohood, but did they have to make it so boring and ultimately unsatisfying?

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

I'll only be working in soulless fic

Yay! Seriously, we need all the soulless Spike fic writers we can get.

Yeah, William fic writers can write all they want. I would never try to dictate or demand that a writer change her story to fit my POV. I'm just not going to read it. :)

I'm glad that Spike got a redemption story, especially when I think that there were probably points where the writers could just have easily decided the opposite. We could've gotten a finale where Buffy reclaims her power by castrating Spike the soulless, irredeemably evil bad boyfriend. In that light, S7 becomes a lot more appealing. But I still thought it was incredibly dull and poorly done; if only they hadn't gone with that stupid, simplistic, plot device soul.

[miggy.livejournal.com]

I did start a S7 fic, with "Life Pursuit," which would have been all about the grey and assumptions and blah blah blah maybe some changes didn't need to be made. If it had worked, I would have tackled the souled era and seen what I could do with it. But it was so perfectly Jossed that I shrugged and threw it away, since the show obviously did not want my grey intruding on the perfect, wedding gown-whiteness of shiny redeemy soully Spike.

Screw that. I'm going back to my alt S4 Spander fic, where I can write grey Spike, grey Xander, grey Giles, grey Oz, grey Anya, pretends to be white but is darkening fast Riley, ignores said darkening of Riley Buffy, and isn't exactly sure what she is but keeps dabbling in the grey fingerpaints anyway Willow.

The show has bored me so much that I would rather investigate the possibilities of a slow slide into villainy for Riley as a B plot for my story than the future of souled-up Spike. How sad is that?

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Aww, I'm sorry that you didn't continue the S7 fic. The fact that you got Jossed just means that we need your POV even more; isn't fanfic here to fix Joss's mistakes? (Well, partly).

Oooh, S4 Spander. That sounds awesome. And Riley as a villain will be cool. Y'know, I've never been all that fond of S4 fics, because at that point the show was pretty much presenting Spike as unambiguously evil. He didn't really get complex and interesting to me until S5. But I'm interested to see what you do with it.

normalcy

[(Anonymous)]

Laura, I agree with you about the "idealisation of the normal" in BtVS. I remember that last year, I was watching a debate on French TV about violence and censorship on television. BtVS came up, and a sociologist argued that this show really carried a fascist ideology and a deep hatred of otherness. I hadn't watched season 6 yet and I thought she was going too far. I've changed my mind after watching season 6 and this season. I still love big parts of the show, it's entertaining and I'm really fascinated by Spike's character. At the same time, I feel really uneasy about it, because I profoundly dislike the underlying ideology of this show. The most chilling thing is that I don't think the writers were aware of the subtext when, last year, they described a group of supposedly good people who despised and mistreated a character, not because of what he did, but because of what he was. Last year, the word that came to my mind when I thought about the way the Scoobies saw Spike was Untermensch. It's really disturbing. So yes, I still like this show, but once you've noticed something, you cannot "un-know" it. That taints my enjoyment of BtVS and the way I see all these normal people who never, even once, questionned their worldview. I thought this would be addressed this year, but no.

On a totally different subject : I really love your site. I hope you'll be able to keep it running next year.

Raffaella

Re: normalcy

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Yes. Exactly. I have nothing more to add to what you've said because you said it perfectly.

The most chilling thing is that I don't think the writers were aware of the subtext when, last year, they described a group of supposedly good people who despised and mistreated a character, not because of what he did, but because of what he was.

Yeah. It's just so horrifying and wrong. I can't sympathize with any of those characters anymore, because I can't stand them and their stupid, selfish, self-centered little worldviews. And I can't enjoy the show as a whole, because the narrative supports the Scoobies and validates their prejudices. I just cannot believe that Xander was making stupid jokes after Anya just died. But, oh, right--Anya was tainted; she used to be a demon. No one ever really liked her anyway. And pure human Xander deserved his happy ending. Ugh.

And don't even get me started on the ways the Scoobies have used, abused, and manipulated Spike, 'cause I'll never stop bitching about that. Season six had so much potential to explore really amazing themes, and I'm just disgusted with the black and white moral simplification that it decided to conclude with.

Thanks for the website feedback! I'm going to try to keep it running as long as possible.

[onetwomany.livejournal.com]

The 'idealisation of the normal' is a personal gripe of mine as well, and I've whinged about it aplenty on various boards and on my LJ. It was the main reason I feared and hated the possibility of Spike being shanshued up until now. I’ve since changed my mind, although I do wonder how much of that rethink is a result of pure relief that Spike’s story will continue in one form or another.

Thing is, I've convinced myself that the shanshu thing won’t play out on Angel the way I feared it would on BtVS. It’s not gonna be a conclusion to Spike’s story, a means of ‘fixing’ him up so he’s an acceptable mate for their heroine or a ticket to happiness. To the contrary, he’s probably gonna hate it, and his problems with be immense. I’m hoping that, if anything, Spike's humanization (if it happens), will drive home to Angel just how un-ideal being 'normal' can be. Maybe after witnessing Spike trying to adjust, Angel will work out that being special and powerful is a boon in itself, and that he’s been focusing on the wrong means to happiness.

But then, maybe I’m optimistically delusional.

Oh, and I feel the same way about William smut. It’s not all bad, but most of it’s not particularly appealing. After all, it’s Spike I know and love, not William, and I thank Fox for nixing the idea of a more Williamy Spike in the bud before we were subjected to it. But, fortunately, whether Spike shanshus or not, I don’t think we have too much to fear from the William. They are marketing JM on Angel as JM as Spike – and I’m expecting that means leather, cigarettes, snark, outsider status (can anyone really see Spike working within an institution like W&H?) and a certain degree of moral ambiguity. Fingers crossed, anyway.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Everything you've said sounds like the best that we can hope. I'm keeping my fingers crossed too, although after the painfully wasted potential of S7, I'm not feeling all that optimistic.

I'm still vacillating between dead and shansued. Which is worse? Guess we'll see.

[(Anonymous)]

Hell, I can't find my English dictionary and I'm suddenly wondering if I didn't invent a word. Is it normalcy or normality ? I'm sorry, but English is a foreign language for me.

Raffaella

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

No worries. According to dictionary.com they both work. :)

[wickedprincess3.livejournal.com]

Which is better: dead or shanshu? dead. To me the Spike Shanshu would screw Ats in a bunch of ways of which I could make a list a mile long. What I am hoping for--and will I'm sure be proven wrong--is that since everyone is so *sure* Spike will shanshu ME will choose a story that we didn't even see coming.

Shanshu/human Spike=clawing my eyes out.

Here's to soulless Spike.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

I'm not worried about AtS. Marsters is a brilliant actor, Boreanaz has improved immensely, and the two characters have an amazingly complex and interesting history together. No matter what form Spike returns in, his presence will only benefit AtS.

JMO, and all that.

But yeah, here's to soulless Spike. MUCH more interesting than the souled or human version. I'd love for ME to defy our expectations, but given how they've failed to do so in the past, I'm not holding my breath.

too depressing

[zyrya]

I'm trying hard not to focus on the grim prospect of Human Spike, because every time we fans think "oh god please anything but XYZ" we are served up XYZ by Joss nearly creaming himself in perverse gusto. On an anvil. With a tacky parsley garnish. Because we get what we NEED, right?

So I'm thinking what could be worse than Human Spike, and the worst I can come up with is Mystical Glowy Soul Inna Jar Spike. With parsley.

Re: too depressing

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm talking about human Spike as if it's already happened because I'm preparing myself for the worst. If they actually do it, it's okay, because I expected it and built up a tolerance. If they don't do it -- woohoo! Party time! I'll be happily surprised.

Thank god for fanfic, though, because no matter what ME screws up, fic writers will fix it. :)