Written Friday, midday:

Dreamed last night that I was watching something on TV at eight o'clock Tuesday, then decided to flip and see what Buffy episode was rerunning. It was one I hadn't seen before, and I had a terrible moment of panic, because it was five past the hour and I'd missed the beginning, but I said what the hell, and started watching. It was an homage to seventies action shows, or maybe Kolchak the Night Stalker. Most of the scenes didn't even have the Buffy stars. Instead there was this guy in a parking lot, interrogating a young boy about methods of getting across the border. The kid, about eleven years old, knew a hell of a lot more than he should about making fake IDs for border crossing, including reproducing their magnetic strips and encoded seals. The guy was going to hurt the kid--chased him into an alley--but then the point of view changed. The kid climbed monkey-like up to brace himself in an alley doorway and then the guy suddenly swung down from where he'd been hiding in the door--together they faced the arrival of Geraint Wyn Davies, the old Forever Knight star, who was guest-starring as a scruffy private eye. Unshaven jaw, cigarette jutting from his mouth, trenchcoat, stalking around. Maybe hunting demons. I don't recall much else, except that the door led to an underground club, and to get in you had to press down the tongue inside a big loa-burgerman's mouth. An image that will be meaningless to anyone who doesn't watch Angel, I'm afraid.

I've been reading a lot of good Buffy stories lately, and keep stumbling again and again over the same cool sites, without really making a set of links for my own convenience. I wonder how I ever thought there was a dearth of good Buffy fiction? I think it's just that the fandom doesn't feel centralized--there's no single archive like there was for most of my previous fandoms. X-Files had Gossamer, and two big slash archives (including MKRS); Sentinel has two, one for gen and one for slash; likewise DS and SG1. It's been a reliable pattern. With Buffy, the fiction is scattered everywhere. The wandering search for it can be kind of fun, though. It's not like where you go into a single archive and descend a plain-text list of 3000 stories until you reach the end and find yourself with nowhere else to go. It's more like wandering through a forest of fiction with a hundred paths, criss-crossing each other. And sometimes you end up going in circles for a while, and other times you hit a fresh trail, or stumble across hidden groves, and so on. You feel there's always something new out there you haven't discovered yet.

People have some really gorgeous sites too, with beautiful graphics. And yet, I really hate a lot of the designs, functionally speaking. Big splash-page graphics under which tiny little entry links hide or where only a small part of the image is mapped to a link; stories readable only in small frameset areas; tiny fixed fonts; non-intuitive navigation, etc. But those graphics, man. I wish I could do that shit.

There've been some very interesting blog echoes recently--one on race and slash (check out Te's blog too, around April 4, 02), another on feedback, which went far beyond Destina's LJ, but hell, you've probably read it all already. I ended up posting on those subjects offline. I don't think I'm depriving the world of any great insights by letting those lie.

I wish I wasn't so bored with my job lately. I'm sitting here staring at the computer clock, thinking: "Only one hour and forty-two minutes to go." But you know? That's a hell of a long time, relatively speaking. And I know that if I go home now--telling myself that I'll come in on Saturday to finish up those hours--I won't come in on Saturday to finish up those hours. I have to try to buy a car tomorrow. Sandy is going to go with me for moral support. Thank god for Sandy. I just want it over with. I have very simple requirements.

Oh. My. God. One hour and thirty-nine minutes to go. This is not doable. And my lists are quiet lately, so I have nothing to distract me. Where are those gabby girls of yesteryear? Why aren't they spinning new threads for me?

One hour and thirty-six minutes.

I don't think my co-workers are doing anything either. So far today we've had our Friday trivia quiz, some mellow song stylings from our resident guitar player, and some CD-swapping. We also gathered together for several minutes to listen to a riotous customer service phone call (recorded, not live) which defies any description of its participants' hysterical vocal contortions. Right now I can see that my co-worker is reading the Google page about PigeonRank.

We are such fucking slackers.

I can't take this. I will go home, and then I will MAKE myself come in tomorrow. I will, I will, I will.

I think.

[Written 2:28PM]

Written Saturday:

Well, I totally did not go into work today. But I did buy a car. Kind Sandy went out with me today, and I found something relatively cheap, that seems to run well, and which passed emissions. We laughed at the sleazy used car dealer-man, but hey, he was my sleazy used-car dealer-man, and I grew slightly attached to him. The car runs nicely. My credit cards are maxed. He is the proud owner of my pathetic trade-in. I laugh.

I want to remember this day: Sandy driving me around. Peering into cars and joking about the creepy stains in their trunks. ("You could fit a body in there." -- "I think someone has.") Buying donuts and munching on them like slavering dogs. Talking about fandom all day. Driving around and around in order to warm the car up for emissions testing; stopping by Alex's. A kind of mellow day, not at all what I'd feared. I'm just so fucking glad Sandy was there. It was like sweet Novocaine to my pain. Then we came back to my place and watched the most recent Stargate ep and the Spinal Tap movie. (The latter more from inertia than anything else, but it still cracked us up.)

The lovely Ins posted about Spuffy and morality and the difference between fiction and reality. And all I can say is: I love Ins. Thank god someone else is tackling these issues, because I can't. I could only read her own intelligent half of this debate, because the other half makes me want to put my fist through the fucking wall. I am drunk enough to jeer savagely and rudely, but I'll restrain myself, because "I'm full of love and I'm strong. Stronger than you."

I've been...kinda bored with blogs lately. It's just a passing phase, a mood, there's no question. But I'm craving more from blogs than I'm getting, while at the same time being wary of exploring elsewhere, like message boards.

Despite my intention not to post my off-blog thoughts, I'm doing so anyway, at least on race. I am so predictable, I know, I know. But, you know, if my e-mail folders degenerate, I have my oh-so-important thoughts immortalized here. Te's comments in italics; mine in plain text. You should go read Te's post first, mentioned above.

Te: Man, I'm so glad I didn't have to be the one to put this out there. Thank you, thank you, *thank* you, WitchQueen. Go read her rantlet (there needs to be a better word for that thing that's not quite an essay and not quite a rant) on race issues in slash, read *all* the comments, and then come back 'round here.

That was good--I read it before your post, but I'm glad you riffed off of it.

1) Go read Jessica Harris' Wesley's Liberal Guilt, which is not only hilarious and sweet,

I just adored it. *beam*

but also provides absolutely stunning meta-commentary on one issue ungodly numbers of White slashers have agreed to talk with me about -- namely: How in God's name do I write this Black/Latino/Whatever character without being offensive?

Hmm. I must have hubris. I think I'd approach it the way I approach writing any character who has different attributes. And my god, everyone on Buffy has thier [sic] own challenges. Tara was clearly poor white trash to some degree, but from a rich cultural background that I read as quasi-Appalachian, and that's foreign to me; Willow is Jewish; Xander is a guy, with the guy-brain; Dawn is young and though I've been young, she's young *now* and that's got to be a different mindset; Spike is an old vampire; Giles is British; Anya is an ex-demon. Blackness, in this context, is just another flavor of difference. And to be honest, I barely scratch the surface of the characters I've mentioned in terms of their potential--I try to emulate what's on screen, but I don't go a whole lot deeper, though I know there must be in theory a number of differences--"British-y" thoughts, for instance. Or POV insights of an ex-demon or an old vamp. I don't nearly take advantage of the richness and diversity on tap. So, I'd probably be just as superficial when dealing with a black character, and just as indifferent in some ways to layers I can't access--or am too breezy in style to try and access.

I say that though, with no black characters available to write. {eye roll} And frankly, I'd be scared spitless to try and write Kendra simply because of that painfully affected accent. I think you'd have to make some nod to it in the text ("I tink you'd have to"), and just thinking about trying to pull that off without being obnoxious makes me queasy. I don't remembr Xander/Kendra from "Cicatrix." I should revisit that....

...to work with. I practically started Gunn/Wes, and I'd still be writing it if the show hadn't cut Gunn off at the knees, lobotomized him, and tossed him into a truly *useless* relationship with -- gag me -- Fred.

Sniffle. I suddenly zinged *big time* on Gunn/Wes when I read "Wesley Rogue Demon." I would read me a *lot* more of that, let me tell you. They are so fucking cute. The show, though...eh. I'm enjoying it more than expected this season--it's the first season I've watched every ep--but there've been some challenges to overcome and Fred is one of them.

On to Pete. God, what a pretty *boy*.

He's cute and does have a good body, but he does nothing for me. And CLex is just...a force of nature. But a lot of this too is the short shrift he's given as a character, no question about that. As with the rest of them--Lana, I liked Alpha Lana quite a lot. She had some jazz. Beta Lana is a bore. When it comes to Whitney though, I find his looks boring as hell, so freaking WB it makes my eyes roll, BUT, I saw something in him from the earliest eps. He interested me--the character, the actor. He's always had some good angst to work with, and I find him increasingly endearing and complex. I think that for a sideliner (with Pete on the surface being more of the core trio) he's been given a lot more depth than Pete, in terms of plot development. It's odd.

Pendrell's Mythical Twelve Minutes and turn it into slash gold,

I never understood Pendrell. Never. I read a few kinky-good stories, but it was like reading an original character.

3) General lack of attraction.

I like androgynous men, pushy bottoms, poofy academics, and the mentally unstable. And--this is just a very general impression--a lot of black actors on TV are really not any of these things. Or don't read that way to me; they read as very masculine, very straight, sort of closed off and tough and together. Even certain tall men or men with muscles--Duchovny and Marsters, for instance--can have a certain come-hither, fuck-me, sexually ambiguous quality that just melts me. In Sentinel, Blair was my darling, more compelling to me than Jim in the sexy department (though really it was the combo that did me in: the small man, the larger man, big kink), but Jim had the mental / emotional instability, so that worked nicely.

Plus, there's something else--I don't watch a wide variety of shows. I don't *see* a lot of black characters on my shows. Gunn, Pete--they're pretty much it. I think Tyr is a hunka burning love, but the show he's on, I just can't watch. Yawn. Gunn is a doll. But ATS does not turn my creative crank. Riley/Forrest was subtext rapidly becoming text, by the way. I loved watching Forrest be such a total bitch. Cracked me up. I really hated seeing him become the savage undead. It made me hurt for his dignity as a character. But I didn't see it as a valid pairing--just an interesting character dynamic. [Not valid for *me* because I didn't see it as possible. Valid for anyone who wants to write it, sure, that goes without saying. But I can't see it, because Riley was so obsessed with Buffy in season four that I can't see him having anything on the side. It's not until season five that serious disaffection begins, and by then Forrest is gone. I guess, though, in the more televisual tradition of slash--where it's slash when it's subtext--then sure, they could be a slash pairing. But even then it's a one-way slash pairing. So it's not really a pairing then, is it? Er, anyway. I suppose an argument could be made that Riley/Forrest had A Past together, with conflicted, guilty sexuality and stuff--guilt and ambivalance and discomfort on Riley's part, I mean, and eagerness on Forrest's. And now poor Forrest is all resentful, because Riley's surly as hell, like, "I told you. We're never going to talk about that again. It's over. It was wrong." Heh. Hey. Now they're becoming a slash pairing, damn it. See what you made me do?]

5) Finally, the touchy point. Do I believe that there are slashers out there who are racist?

I know what my "race" issues are, and try not to assume they're racist per se, but they probably are, on some level. I dunno. I don't care about race per se, but about cultural difference. I'm a quiet suburban girl. Urban energy--volatile, in-your-face, noisy--makes me freak out. Noise makes me enraged (I've posted about this before). It's interesting; I went to Job Corps for two years, which is a "bootstrap you out of poverty" program, governmental. It was ninety percent black, or more. And the kids, the girls in my dorm, were almost all urban. And it was big culture shock. And I resented their loud music and the way they looked at me, their reverse predjudice, etc. I was a quiet mousy poet-girl, a ferocious misanthropic loner; and they were flocks of butterflies, who did each others hair, who hung in huge groups, who jabbered and laughed and got into huge physical fights. So, you know, it's terrible to say, but I look for people like me--I'm comfortable with *fans* because we're a type, and I'm part of that type, and in that context, race is irrelevant. I'm comfortable in few other groups. [And: Oh, I forgot to mention, heh. When I say "the way they looked at me" I also mean the really *snotty* way they treated me. It wasn't just that I was white, it was also--or *more so*--that I was a loner, a quiet girl, etc. And that I was bisexual--because I was in my blossoming "out" period and I made the mistake of sharing this very early on, and after that I was regarded as the hugest kind of freak. So, there's that too....]

Now I'm going to fuck off. The next noir story is about six thousand words in, by the way. A little over a quarter way done. And the next Buffy ep has been pushed back to April 30. At least that gives me a nice unJossed period in which to write. I anticipate and fear the end of the season. And, oh, I forgot--Melymbrosia has a post speculating (without spoilers) on the end of Buffy S6, and on how the show would, could, or should end in more general terms. I've speculated about how this season might turn out, I admit. I don't believe Buffy will die at the end of the series--I agree that if they'd planned to do that, they'd have done it with "The Gift." Because, three deaths? Lame.

I had some more thoughts here, but I was drinking and had no judgment about how fit they were for public consumption, so I've scrapped them. I am a chickenshit, but that's such a big surprise.

Good night.

posted 4.06.2002 @ 11:59pm -- right-click here to grab a link