Memetics: The Fun Pseudo-Science
Oct. 14th, 2007 05:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alixtiiSpoilers for AXM/NXM underneath the cut. I discuss Faith/Robin, Dawn/Giles, Summer Glau, Sherlock Holmes, Emma Frost, and Faith.
100 words on Faith/Robin
I hate this for the same reason everyone else does: I don't feel that it's organic to Faith's character. This is largely due to the fact that "Chosen" is the season finale: we don't get to see the horrible destruction the relationship is fated for, so the series ends up selling it to us as a happily ever after. Between Robin and Faith. Just no.
I did milk it for angst in Just Skin, and I'll probably return to Faith/Robin when and if I further explore the Faith/Dawn relationship immediately post-"Chosen" in the Watcher!verse. I imagine Xander will be involved somehow, and less than pleased.
100 words on Dawn/Giles
I won't say there's no basis at all for this relationship in canon, but I won't say there's any significant amount either. I was really looking for something unexpected, something that would shock, and was attracted to the dirtybadwrong crossgen element, but then realized, God damn it, the relationship worked. The two characters play off each other really well, and have some pretty important things in common, and I could see them, a decade or so post-Chosen, working together and one or the other realizing they were in love. And yes, that story will be written one day, and its name is To Live in Hearts--the fic which has been at the top of my list of epics-to-be-written since before I graduated undergrad.
5 things I love about Summer Glau
1. She makes me go guh. This is--and this proves I am not entirely shallow--mostly because of 2-5, because there was a time when only River made me go guh and Summer, while certainly pretty, did not. But then I learned more about Summer and watched her give commentaries and wrote her in RPF and got a feel for her character and---seriously. Guh.
2. Joss Whedon is totally in love with her, or at least with her feet.
3. She plays awesome characters. I love River so much, as anyone who's ever looked out my Firefly fic outpick could easily tell. I love Tess so much, which might not be so obviously as I've written 4400 fic. And is it time for The Sarah Conner Chronicles yet? Please?
4. She is completely adorable.
5. Since this is supposed to be about the fictionalized version of her, let me say she is fun to write because when I write her she is so open and vulnerable.
5 things I like about Sherlock Holmes
1. He's smart as hell, yo. Will-to-powery adolescent fantasy represent!
2. He expects the world to fit his schedule. Less so than his brother, and he's actually much more accomodating than he's often made out to be, but that's not necessarily saying all that much.
3. Sweet center on the inside. Three That-Name-That-Begins-With-a-G-That-I'm-Too-Lazy-to-Look-Up, anyone?
4. He's ambitious. He's not content solving the mysteries that come in through his threshold; he has to take onhis math teacher the Napoleon of Crime too!
5. He's crazy and eccentric.
5 things I like about Emma Frost
1. I'm actually a big fan of her emopain. First, when Scott points out in Torn the way that its driven everything she's done since (before) Genosha, and allowed Cassandra Nova entry into her mind. And then, in New X-Men, when Emma says that opening up the part of Hellion's mind which controls his power in order to save Laura is too dangerous, and then Hellion tells her he doesn't want to bury any more of his friends, and Emma does it, no more questions asked.
2. Her relationship with Kitty, especially the way that she believes in Astonishing that Kitty's the only one who can be trusted to kill Emma when she turns out to be evil. (Of course, Kitty doesn't kill Emma, but that's only because Scott points out that Emma wants Kitty to kill Emma. Hee.)
3. Her relationship with Kitty, especially the lesbian subtext.
4. She's good for cheap jokes, too. Astonishing is full of some really good ones (although I don't realy have any point of comparison)--Kitty, Logan, and Scott all get the chance to bash Emma at one point or other, because it's just so easy.
5. Her moral ambiguity means she's particularly will-to-powery. I'm particularly thinking of the scene in Gifted in which she plants the compulsions in the guards' minds (prompting Scott to note that his girlfriend is strange--see #4--and providing the inspiration for a similar scene using Mindee in my My Girlfriend Is a Telepath.) And the text recognizes the problematicness of this--we don't walk away thinking Emma's behavior is appropriate--while at the same time acknowledging the awesome (it's very Torchwood that way).
5 things I like about Faith
1. As with Emma, moral ambiguity = will to power. Let me be clear that I think Nietzsche's notion of the moral superman is much more subtle than Emma or Faith (Faith especially more resembles the "blonde beasts" of the Genealogy than she does the ubermensch, although I think Nietzsche would probably have liked Emma, although less so her emopain), and that essay "Also Sprach Faith" in Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale is pretty much the diametric opposite of my reading (I've been working on an essay on Nietzsche in/and Buffy for years, pretty much since mid-undergrad) but there is a "beyond good and evil" element to Faith. Want. Take. Have. = Problematic awesome.
2. Her relationship with Buffy, especially the lesbian subtext.
3. She's hot, especially in seasons 3 and 4, when she's oozing sex.
4. She's the little black dress of Buffy fandom; there's no one with whom she can't be shipped.
5. Her ambiguity isn't just moral; I mean, we don't even know her last name, let alone her history.
Meme Gakked from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fandom_me
Ask me what happens after the end of one of my stories. I may have more than one answer depending on the story (and the question). Or tell me your own theories--really, I'd love to hear!
100 words on Faith/Robin
I hate this for the same reason everyone else does: I don't feel that it's organic to Faith's character. This is largely due to the fact that "Chosen" is the season finale: we don't get to see the horrible destruction the relationship is fated for, so the series ends up selling it to us as a happily ever after. Between Robin and Faith. Just no.
I did milk it for angst in Just Skin, and I'll probably return to Faith/Robin when and if I further explore the Faith/Dawn relationship immediately post-"Chosen" in the Watcher!verse. I imagine Xander will be involved somehow, and less than pleased.
100 words on Dawn/Giles
I won't say there's no basis at all for this relationship in canon, but I won't say there's any significant amount either. I was really looking for something unexpected, something that would shock, and was attracted to the dirtybadwrong crossgen element, but then realized, God damn it, the relationship worked. The two characters play off each other really well, and have some pretty important things in common, and I could see them, a decade or so post-Chosen, working together and one or the other realizing they were in love. And yes, that story will be written one day, and its name is To Live in Hearts--the fic which has been at the top of my list of epics-to-be-written since before I graduated undergrad.
5 things I love about Summer Glau
1. She makes me go guh. This is--and this proves I am not entirely shallow--mostly because of 2-5, because there was a time when only River made me go guh and Summer, while certainly pretty, did not. But then I learned more about Summer and watched her give commentaries and wrote her in RPF and got a feel for her character and---seriously. Guh.
2. Joss Whedon is totally in love with her, or at least with her feet.
3. She plays awesome characters. I love River so much, as anyone who's ever looked out my Firefly fic outpick could easily tell. I love Tess so much, which might not be so obviously as I've written 4400 fic. And is it time for The Sarah Conner Chronicles yet? Please?
4. She is completely adorable.
5. Since this is supposed to be about the fictionalized version of her, let me say she is fun to write because when I write her she is so open and vulnerable.
5 things I like about Sherlock Holmes
1. He's smart as hell, yo. Will-to-powery adolescent fantasy represent!
2. He expects the world to fit his schedule. Less so than his brother, and he's actually much more accomodating than he's often made out to be, but that's not necessarily saying all that much.
3. Sweet center on the inside. Three That-Name-That-Begins-With-a-G-That-I'm-Too-Lazy-to-Look-Up, anyone?
4. He's ambitious. He's not content solving the mysteries that come in through his threshold; he has to take on
5. He's crazy and eccentric.
5 things I like about Emma Frost
1. I'm actually a big fan of her emopain. First, when Scott points out in Torn the way that its driven everything she's done since (before) Genosha, and allowed Cassandra Nova entry into her mind. And then, in New X-Men, when Emma says that opening up the part of Hellion's mind which controls his power in order to save Laura is too dangerous, and then Hellion tells her he doesn't want to bury any more of his friends, and Emma does it, no more questions asked.
2. Her relationship with Kitty, especially the way that she believes in Astonishing that Kitty's the only one who can be trusted to kill Emma when she turns out to be evil. (Of course, Kitty doesn't kill Emma, but that's only because Scott points out that Emma wants Kitty to kill Emma. Hee.)
3. Her relationship with Kitty, especially the lesbian subtext.
4. She's good for cheap jokes, too. Astonishing is full of some really good ones (although I don't realy have any point of comparison)--Kitty, Logan, and Scott all get the chance to bash Emma at one point or other, because it's just so easy.
5. Her moral ambiguity means she's particularly will-to-powery. I'm particularly thinking of the scene in Gifted in which she plants the compulsions in the guards' minds (prompting Scott to note that his girlfriend is strange--see #4--and providing the inspiration for a similar scene using Mindee in my My Girlfriend Is a Telepath.) And the text recognizes the problematicness of this--we don't walk away thinking Emma's behavior is appropriate--while at the same time acknowledging the awesome (it's very Torchwood that way).
5 things I like about Faith
1. As with Emma, moral ambiguity = will to power. Let me be clear that I think Nietzsche's notion of the moral superman is much more subtle than Emma or Faith (Faith especially more resembles the "blonde beasts" of the Genealogy than she does the ubermensch, although I think Nietzsche would probably have liked Emma, although less so her emopain), and that essay "Also Sprach Faith" in Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale is pretty much the diametric opposite of my reading (I've been working on an essay on Nietzsche in/and Buffy for years, pretty much since mid-undergrad) but there is a "beyond good and evil" element to Faith. Want. Take. Have. = Problematic awesome.
2. Her relationship with Buffy, especially the lesbian subtext.
3. She's hot, especially in seasons 3 and 4, when she's oozing sex.
4. She's the little black dress of Buffy fandom; there's no one with whom she can't be shipped.
5. Her ambiguity isn't just moral; I mean, we don't even know her last name, let alone her history.
Meme Gakked from
fandom_meAsk me what happens after the end of one of my stories. I may have more than one answer depending on the story (and the question). Or tell me your own theories--really, I'd love to hear!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-15 01:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-15 01:23 am (UTC)But she also knows that Giles has been displaying superhuman abilities in the realm of fastidiously ignoring the fact that she's a sexual being for the last decade, so she has to convince him she's really serious. So one day, she just goes all the way and proposes to him.
He insists on a courtship, of course, and it is all glorious and awkward.
But to get to that point I have to kill Buffy, and that requires all kinds of plot and stuff. Although I'm thinking that I could focus on notebooking To Live in Hearts while on the train to and from school, so there's that.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-15 01:20 am (UTC)-re
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-15 01:28 am (UTC)I knew you would know.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-18 07:25 pm (UTC)Mainly I'm just thinking about this because season 3's rerunning on FX and every time she's on screen my mind does this little moan. Intense level of hotness. Robin's hotness almost made me say "OK" but it does not match hers in any way. And is just generally a bit forced and annoying.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-22 09:27 pm (UTC)As usual I love your meta, and I really do think your spot on on Faith.