The Rose's Grove

I feel fantastically cruddy today. Seriously. Nothing serious, just hormonal crap and "BLEH" and the residuals of really not being ready to be back in the office after a week of vacation. I was getting spoiled there with the whole "being able to do what I damned well want to do rather than spending all day sitting in front of a computer fixing websites." The world's tiniest violin, it plays for me...

Anyway. I have questions for you, oh great and wonderful internet hive-mind.

1. Does anybody have any good solutions for combatting bags under the eyes that do not involve either spending a month's salary on a tiny jar of creme or anything that will cause my super-sensitive skin to break out? Don't laugh, people - I'm seriously tired of having the 4-piece baggage years before my time. And before you ask, yes, I drink a lot of water. It doesn't help.

2. Are there sunscreens with a significant (over SPF 30, let's say) amount of UV protection that will NOT cause my eyes to feel like they're burning out of my skull when I get a little sunscreen in my eyes? Because I try really hard to be good about sunscreen, but... that's getting really annoying.

In other, none-vanity-related news, the Boy and I are about halfway through Buffy S3, now - we just watched "Helpless" and "The Zeppo" last night. I'd forgotten how much my heart just died for Buffy and Giles in "Helpless." I think short of the whole debacles with them in in S6 and S7, that is the absolute most horrible episode for my love of their relationship.

So... I just got The Boy through season 2 of Buffy today, and we both had an absolute blast watching the last few episodes (I'd forgotten how satisfying some of those plot-turns are), and then maymargaret sent me this: a link to a YouTube vid of one of the songs from the Doctor Horrible commentary musical that Joss wrote.

Go watch it. I'll wait.

Now that you've seen it, I have to ask... is it just me, or can we no longer say that Joss is unaware of his asinine racial politics? And with that, I throw up my hands in the air, and say "I haven't got a fucking clue why he has to be such a moron about things." If you can tell enough to write an amusing commentary song (unless the song was written by one of your compatriots, in which case you need to flipping pay attention to her), then why aren't you smart enough to Not Do Stupid Things Anymore?

Dear Joss: Please, please, please... I firmly believe that you mean well and are one of the best writers in TV today. Please try not to be such a dumb-ass about your racial stuff. Please? And while you're at it, can you stop letting them do things in Buffy S8 that, once I hear about them, make me insanely glad I've refused to pick up the comics? Or, you know, doing things in Dollhouse that make me think "maybe Joss has finally sold out to the corporate hacks"? Please?

(Please note that my "Joss Whedon is a bastard" tag is meant with a lot of love... it's just my general "Joss Whedon" tag, back from the days of, say, Serenity. :P)

The marathoning of Buffy season 7 continues!

( Cut for spoilers, in case anybody out there is even later than me in getting to this season... Unlikely, I admit, but possible. ;)  )

Posted a slightly insane BtVS/Highlander crossover over on summer_of_giles. And just typo'd that as Summer_of_Files, which ought to be an X-Files ficathon. Anyway.

Fic is here.

Also, I forgot to mention that I posted a new Buffy fic over on summer_of_giles. The post is here for anyone who's interested.

The story is written in three parts, each involving one of the kids doing a bit of snooping in Giles' personal belongings and finding something they didn't expect. Rating is PG or so, and I'm actually rather proud of this one. *g*

I usually shoot to avoid potential wank, but... this time, I just can't restrain myself.

Laurell K. Hamilton speaks on her bloated obnoxious porn series Anita Blake books as compared to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I read the first five or six Anita Blake books one summer. I was amused by them. I got bored and annoyed around the point at which... hmm, I guess it was when she vilified whats-his-name Anita's werewolf former boyfriend and the were pack politics (and/ie, sex) became the most important thing in the book. The rest of the pile sat around my room for a few months, and then I returned them to my then-boyfriend who'd loaned them to me. Yawn, blah, end of story.

Except, of course, for the endless wanks this woman causes on her blog and such. Seriously, it's like she's trying to be the next Anne Rice, and if she can't manage it by author-superstardom, she'll do it by wankiness. This is a woman who claimed on her blog that anyone under a size 6 (I think it was 6? Could someone correct/confirm?) was not a person.

Obviously, I was not a fan of that statement. The answer to fat- or size-phobic tendencies in pop culture is not to vilify or dehumanize those of us who are small. :P

Anyway. A few quotes and my responses to her comments in this interview...

( You seem to be interrogating the genre from the wrong perspective... )

I got my passport today! I'm absurdly happy about this, despite the fact that the picture is (of course) hideous. I tried so hard to get a good one. But... whatever. ID photos are pretty much destined to be hideous, so I suppose it doesn't really matter. I'm just bitter about the fact that my one ID photo that was actually pretty ended up being my most short-lived - it got broken in my pocket and had to be replaced barely three years later. *Sighs* One of the best pictures ever taken of me.

Anyway. Have been reading a lot of fanfic lately...

(Why no, I'm not procrastinating on my own fic-writing... I'm practicing good academic habits by researching the field before I spend too much energy writing on a subject that someone else has already covered. And it's already saved me some trouble, since last night I discovered not one but two fics dealing quite handily with a subject I thought had somehow been neglected. So clearly this is a good idea. Riiiiiiight.)

...And it occurs to me to make a note of something that once (when I was about 15) seemed very natural to me.

Why is it that fanfic-writers seem to regard rape as the best possible plot device? ( In which there is much discussion of rape as a plot device, and of the fic in which I've recently seen it. )

I can't think of any other worthwhile conclusions or subjects to raise, and my hands feel like they're frozen. I need to pop my laundry into the dryer and go upstairs. I'd be interested to hear what other fannish folk think of all this, though.

Last night began with Kendra and I deciding that we were sufficiently recovered from the angst of "The Body" to continue with Buffy season 5... and ended at 1:30am when we finished the season. There were just too many great cliffhangers! We couldn't stop til we'd seen the whole thing.

Biggest thing that occurred to me at the end of all of that... S5 would've been a great place to leave the series. Just like that - just where the season ended. That was a fabulous finale, and it left all the characters in good (...well, good from a narrative point of view, at least) places. I don't know much about S6, aside from the musical episode and "Tabula Rasa," but I know enough about the end of the series proper to know that I sort of wish the series had ended this way. Apart from Buffy, everybody would've been happier, and even Buffy seemed pretty damned content with her decisions and her conclusion in "The Gift." From a narrative standpoint... that's how being a Slayer works.

( Other thoughts, including spoilers for the end of S5, obviously )

One-shot, and entirely random. I blame maymargaret for putting this into my head. She enables me. I've been enabled.

Title: A Few Thoughts on Fatherhood
Fandom: Buffy
Disclaimer: I sure as hell don't own 'em, and I don't mean any insult to the great Joss or to the less-than-great Fox, etc. I just couldn't resist the temptation.
Characters: Hank Summers, with cameos by Joyce, Giles, and Buffy.
Timeline: Sometime before season 4.
Summary: It's not easy being the Slayer's father. No, really...
Notes: You wouldn't believe how hard it is to make up an excuse for Buffy to actually go to the hospital for a change. Just bear with me, for the sake of this. Unbeta'd, so please forgive typos and such!

( A Few Thoughts on Fatherhood )