Look. Shanie is blogging for the first time in months. Wow.It's 2 AM and I'm sitting here, trying not to wake up my younger cousin who is visiting from Hawaii and sleeping on the trundle bed thing that gets stowed under my bed. Pulling that thing out was a daunting prospect, because of all the crap that's slowly accumulated under the bed.
I have to be out of the house at 10 AM, since one of my cousins is getting married and we have to go do the whole wedding thing. This is all very weird, as he's younger than I am, and I still have very vivid memories of dancing around him as he sat trapped in his high chair, eating Cheerios and wearing a bib, and trying to make him cry!
I'm also not looking forward to the idea of having all the scary relative type people (and I just know I'm going to get a migraine trying to figure out how they're related to me) ask me when it's my turn. If that happens, I'd be strongly tempted to say, "You tell me. You voted down that proposition."
Very sleepy, but a few quick things to say. Movies.
Saw American Pie 2 for the second time yesterday. Previously I said I'd suffer through it for Alyson Hannigan's sake, but there was no suffering involved. I really liked it. I wanted to bitchslap Stifler silly, of course, but I really enjoyed the movie. And I'm not just saying that because Alyson had a lot of screen time! Really!
The movie adaptation of Hedwig and the Angry Inch is fucking brilliant. See it, damn you. That will be all.
Hoping to check out Rat Race this weekend. Oddly enough, I like Seth Green a lot more now that he's no longer playing Oz. Go figure . . . that's the diehard Willow/Tara fan in me talking. And please don't misunderstand me; I loved the Willow/Oz relationship, and I cried during "Wild at Heart" when he left, but the W/T relationship really interests me in a way W/O never did. I also think it's a much more mature relationship for both characters--they have a lot of things in common and understand one another on so many levels. Oz and Willow didn't really move in one another's worlds to that extent, and it seemed like Willow sometimes saw the whole "I'm dating a musician" thing as a validation of her own cool factor. It strikes me that she doesn't worry about that with Tara. Again, not trying to put down W/O; just saying that as sweet as they were, it was . . . well, very high school. In my view, of course. Your mileage may vary.
Aw, who am I kidding? Willow and Tara are just too damned cute together.
Speaking of whom, I recently finished part six of my W/T fanfic, "Just Call It Magick." The first five parts are up at Extra Flamey, and hopefully part six should be up soon. I fear that I'm really only mentioning it because lack of feedback is making me bitter, and I feel guilty, and somewhat petty, for being bitter about it.
Blah. G'night.
Shaniezak at 2:28 AM
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Still not recovered enough from "The Gift" to comment, but I will. Eventually.I hate holiday weekends, because airfares are so damn high. I should have been at the Simon's Rock reunion right now, but I just couldn't spin the budget necessary for the trip. *sigh*
On a different, but happy note, the first three sections of my new Willow/Tara-centric Buffy fanfic, "Just Call It Magick," are now posted at the Extra Flamey archive. *plug plug plug* It's my first foray into Buffy fic, so I'm very relieved that it's gotten a good reception so far. I'm overwhelmed, as a matter of fact, by the feedback I've received. At least I know I'm doing more right than wrong.
Shaniezak at 12:20 AM
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Today is Tuesday. It's Tuesday, May 22. It's Tuesday, the twenty-second day of the fifth month.How appropriate that tonight is the night of the twenty-second episode of the fifth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
And about damn time, I say. The whole season has been building up to this, and I for one am looking forward to what I think is the biggest season-ending battle since third season's "Graduation Day." There is so much at stake (pardon the pun) here for everyone, on both a personal level and a more all-encompassing one.
My thoughts on the episode after I see it.
Shaniezak at 2:37 PM
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Have I mentioned recently that I am completely in love with Amber Benson? What my anticipation of Chance and the WannaBlessedBe comic didn't do to help cement this, Buffy's May 1 episode, "Tough Love," did.Gorgeous woman. Just . . . oh my god. And SO DAMN CUTE at the age of eighteen in Bye Bye Love (where, amusingly enough, her best friend was played by Eliza Dushku, and her mother by Lindsay Crouse). And even cuter at fifteen in The Crush, which I honestly only suffered through watching for her sake.
Sort of how I anticipate I will only go see The Prime Gig because she's in it, and likewise Taboo, which she's off filming right now in Romania. (Hey, Amber in sexy lingerie and a dog collar? Hell yeah, count me in.) And, on a less devoted level, how I will suffer through American Pie 2 for Alyson Hannigan.
On that Buffy-related note, the shooting script for "The Weight of the World" is now up, and many, many thanks to Rayne for all her hard work in giving people like me something to pore over while we wait for next Tuesday to arrive. There was a very cute, very touching scene between Anya and Tara, while Willow was busy trying to get through to Buffy, that got cut. I'm very sorry about that; I felt that the Glory/Ben fight dragged on a bit long, and some of it could have been sacrificed to keep this scene in. Aside from getting to see Anya's fear of bunnies manifest itself again, it was a nice reminder of how far she's progressed in terms of her humanity, and a glimpse into Tara's emotional and mental state. I really, really wish they'd kept it in.
BtVS line of the week: "Hey! I know you! You're the original Slayer who tried killing us all in our dreams! How ya been?" (Willow)
And as for last week's episode of Xena . . . oh my god. Katherine Fugate is an absolute genius. It's very clear from the amount of thought and detail she put into "When Fates Collide" that she's as passionate a fan of the show as those of us who write metric tons of email about it every day. One simple premise: what if Caesar had never betrayed Xena? His whole new twist on the world gave us a vision of the kind of lives Gabrielle and Xena might have led: the successful playwright lauded as "the visionary voice of Athens," and the beloved empress of a prospering nation. Empty lives, though, when all was said and done. Why? Because they didn't have each other.
I like to think that this is the episode that vindicates all subtexters everywhere. How could it not, with lines like:
"I had an interesting vision tonight about you and the writer."
"You take liberties, Alti. The high priestess has no business in my bedchamber."
"It's Caesar's bedchamber too. I saw the way you looked at her tonight--wouldn't Caesar give anything to have you look at him that way?"
(Alti and Xena)"Do you really believe that kind of love exists?"
"It's what we all dream about, isn't it? For someone to look so deeply into our soul that they find something worth dying for?"
(Xena and Gabrielle)"My life is empty despite my success; I write about love, but I never felt it before."
(Gabrielle)"There must be something I can do."
"There is. You can get out of here alive."
"I can't let you die!"
"Some things are worth dying for. Isn't that what your play was about? Being prepared to sacrifice all for love?"
"For love."
(Gabrielle and Xena)"When Fates Collide" was so intensely romantic and profound that I loved every second of it, and ended up staring silently at the TV for ten minutes afterward, with tears in my eyes. That and Buffy's "Tough Love" have been the highlights of my viewing season the past few weeks.
Only one more episode of Buffy to go before a rerun-less summer and the move to UPN; only four more episodes of Xena ever. The TV season is winding down, and I'm feeling decidedly sick.
Shaniezak at 2:06 AM
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*poke poke poke*Blogger is harfy today. Truly harfy. Argh.
Shaniezak at 3:29 PM
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Pffft. Bad Blogger. It was down the last two or three times I tried to get in and write.Still reeling from the past two weeks' development on Buffy. I'm actually trying to cope by writing fic about it. Getting that fic from the notebook to a typed form is another story.
Can't believe it's been a week since the big Xena convention. I'm kind of depressed now that it's all over; it was just so awesome, and I don't just mean because Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor were there, or because there were over 4,000 other people wandering around who shared my obsession, or because there was more cool merchandise than I could ever hope to afford. I don't just mean that because it was a blast running around putting faces to names I've seen in my email inbox and AIM message screen for months, maybe years. I don't just mean that because this was the Big One: the gathering to celebrate six years of an awesome show and say goodbye to it as well.
The Xenaverse is a big, crazy, fractured-as-hell fandom, but when I find that Sword and Staff has topped a quarter of a million dollars in funds raised and donated to charity on behalf of Xenites, or that the MerwolfPack list's auction and raffle raised nearly $60,000 for the American Cancer Society, or that a charity con t-shirt sale conceived of and run by a handful of fans pulled in another $12,000, I can't help but be proud to belong to this bunch of commonly-perceived "freaks." Missy Good was right when she said on stage that this is one of the most loving and giving fandoms out there. We may flame the hell out of each other on some mailing lists when it comes to subtexters vs. oh, say, Joxer fans, but when it comes down to things that really matter we pull together.
It's that whole Greater Good thing. So it's safe to say that we Hardcore Nutball Xenites have all learned at least one important lesson from our show.
Maybe more.
Shaniezak at 3:13 PM
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Pseudo-literature recommendation of the week:
(Well, "pseudo" depending on who you ask, really. I happen to like comic books, and one of my roommates at SRC did her senior English thesis on Neil Gaiman's Sandman series.)Willow and Tara: WannaBlessedBe
written by Christopher Golden and Amber Benson; pencils by Terry Moore; inks by Eric Powell
Dark Horse Comics.
Premise: It's up to Willow and Tara to get everything under control when a girl from the campus Wicca group--who seems to be rather stalker-ish toward them--inadvertently casts an extremely deadly spell.Angel #17: Cordelia
written by Christopher Golden and Tom Sniegoski; pencils by Eric Powell; inks by Lee Loughridge
Dark Horse Comics.
Premise: At home with Cordelia Chase and Phantom Dennis, who are stuck with the unenviable task of guarding a demon's heart while Angel and Wesley are off trying to circumvent his resurrection.As a devoted admirer of Amber Benson (the woman is just gorgeous and adorable and awesome), a Buffy freak, a card-carrying Willow/Tara 'shipper, and a longtime fan of Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise comic series, I had several very compelling reasons to rush out and grab WannaBlessedBe the day it hit shelves. Which I did. And I loved it.
Terry Moore is a master of facial expressions and intimate moments, and I got the same warm'n'fuzzies from his artist's rendition of W/T that I do from Alyson Hannigan and Amber Benson's onscreen chemistry. The panels are full of classic Terry Moore touches; for example, there's a smartass parody of commercial blurbs written on a water bottle label on page 1, and Tara's reading Strangers in Paradise: I Dream of You (that's trade paperback #2) in her room on page 5. Christopher Golden, whom I very much admire as a Buffy/Angel writer, had a remarkably talented writing partner in Ms. Benson, and between the two of them, the comic is full of dead-on characterization and signature BtVS-style humor. They did a great job in fleshing out the character of Caitlin Macklin, a girl from the UC Sunnydale Wicca group who develops a rather disconcerting and troublesome attachment to Willow and Tara. I also give them extra points for attention to detail; Tara and Willow use a bolline to cut an apple during the ritual performed at the story's climax. No overt statements about the Dynamic Duo's relationship; the collaboration has been a long time in the working, and is set back in fourth season somewhere around "New Moon Rising," when it wasn't too overt even on screen.
The Cordelia one-off of the Angel comic book series--the last issue before a drastic reconception--is not quite as much of a joy to look at as WBB is, but is very funny vintage Cordy through and through. It was good to see Phantom Dennis in his natural, uh, habitat, and in his capacity as roommate to Cordelia. Again, not too fond of the artwork--there's only just enough resemblance to the actors that you can tell who is who, but neither Cordy, Wes, or Angel really looks like Cordy, Wes, or Angel. But good pacing, a fantastic idea, and a whole lot of Cordy being Cordy. It's hilarious.
Shaniezak at 7:03 PM
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Ain't the rumor mill fun?Apparently talk has been circulating around work that there's some kind of four-way group sex orgy going on between me and three of my friends. This is the most hilarious thing I've ever heard.
I ask you: what kind of group sex could possibly be had when the alleged participants are one straight girl with an unholy fear of group sex, one bisexual guy who won't cheat on his girlfriend, and two lesbians? Well . . . okay, so theoretically that last part could work out. But it's not. This whole idea is an exercise in futility, and I laughed my ass off over it for a good ten minutes.
I have a hilarious mental image of four people sitting in the four corners of a room, idly trying to amuse themselves.
Shaniezak at 2:20 AM
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