November 2002
posts
A Summer Place (spoilers for BtVS 7.6) -- luna,
17:22:13 11/06/02
Wed
Does anybody know why the theme music for women falling for
RJ's
jacket spell was the theme from the Troy Donahue movie "A
Summer Place"?
[> Re: A Summer Place (spoilers for BtVS 7.6) --
Dead Soul,
17:58:12 11/06/02 Wed
My thought was that it harkened back to the
time that Lance and RJ's father was using it to woo Miss
Arkansas.
In
addition to the Summer/Summers similarity, of course.
Just my shallow
little take on it.
DS
[> [> Re: A Summer Place (spoilers for BtVS
7.6) -- Lyonors,
18:57:15 11/06/02 Wed
Well, my take on it is that it is one of
those sterotypical musical choices. Kinda like if two people
were running across
a field to each other with open arms, the love theme from
Romeo and Juliet would
be used....Everyone knows that song too....go on, check your
cell phones, I bet
its there! ;o) Only this song is stereotypical of "teen
love".
The first time
in "A Summer Place" where that oh-so-famous theme plays,
IIRC, is when the two
teen leads spy each other spying on each other and realize
it is 'love at first
sight'. And the playing of that music during the
jacket-enduced-falling-in-love-scenes would be indicitve of
the "teen-love"
theme of A Summer Place...as well as with Dawn's staring
from above and far
during her moment of realization of her 'love' for RJ,
similarly to the scene
where the Troy Donahue character spies the Sandra Dee
character from above and
far (with binoculars no less).
WOW, I really hope that made sense. Been a
long day at work, if its mostly unintelligible, my sincerest
apoligies!
Ly, tired and raving.
[> [> [> I think you're take is correct
and.. -- shadowkat,
19:55:16 11/06/02 Wed
Just got off the phone with someone who
explained it to me. The Summer Place theme music was perfect
- because it is
taken from the Troy Donahue movies. Troy Donahue was the
teen hunk, of little
substance, and great bode. While he didn't play a football
player in this
movie...he was the teen hunk as is RJ. All the girls are
nuts over him because
of his letter jacket. And beautiful teen theme music plays
in the
background.
The Summer Place was the first of many 50's teen love
movies.
Where there's love at first sight. The girl loves the guy
before she even knows
his name. And will do anything to be with him. And of course
the sappy love
music.
"missing you", "the summer place"...
ME parodied it in Tues.
episode.
[> [> [> [> Re: I think you're take is
correct and.. -- Kristy,
06:59:21 11/07/02 Thu
one other point, in the movie "A Summer Place" the adults
were
struggling even more so than the teenagers who had that
"perfect love/first
love" thing going. A real old-fashioned melodrama--everybody
is messed up and
searching.
[> [> [> [> [> Re: I think you're take is
correct and.. --
luna, 07:40:59 11/07/02 Thu
And the messed up adults theme fits
with this epi really well, since Buffy, Anya, and Willow are
at least as screwed
up as Dawn, whose reacton is more realistic for her age.
[> Ok I got off my butt and looked up the quote --
ponygirl,
06:23:27 11/07/02 Thu
From Inca Mummy Girl (quotes from
Psyche):
Devon: Let me guess: not your type? What does a girl have to
do
to impress you?
Oz: Well, it involves a feathered boa and a theme to 'A
Summer Place'. I can't discuss it here.
I think everyone else's takes on
the music also apply but when I first heard the song I
appreciated the absolute
obscurity of the reference. ME respects the Buffy geeks!
[> [> Good detective work ponygirl. You'd do well
with Scooby
research! -- Caroline, 12:03:25 11/07/02 Thu
The Episodes of Drew Greenberg (Spoilers through 7.6)
-- Finn Mac Cool,
20:06:03 11/06/02 Wed
Prelude:
I must admit, over the months
that I've read this board and posted on it, I've been a
little intimidated at
times. After all, I've never read Campbell, Jung, or Freud.
I'm not that useful
when it comes to interpreting symbolism, metaphors, or the
mythical significance
of (insert character name here). Hell, I'm only sixteen,
with a couple years of
high school left to go. So, what can I bring to the table
when there are all
these genious philosophers here (you know who you are)? An
anal retentive
tendency to pick out patterns. Which brings me to:
THE EPISODES OF DREW
GREENBERG
This post is prompted by the fact that the past two new
episodes of
Buffy have been written by Drew Greenberg, who also wrote
"Smashed", "Older and
Far Away", and "Entropy". Given these two new episodes, I
think I've begun to
notice some patterns running through his work.
Anya and Vengeance Demons
- Aside from "Smashed" and "Him", every episode Drew has
written has been driven
by Anya and Vengeance Demons in general. He reintroduced
havoc caused by a
vengeance wish with Halfrek in "Older and Far Away". He
brought Anya to the
foreground in "Entropy" and gave a considerable amount of
attention to her
trying to get someone to wish vengeance on Xander (and a
good deal of character
growth). And "Selfless", of course, is the magnum opus so
far on the matter of
both Anya and Vengeance Demons.
Gay Jokes - OK, I know that Drew
Greenberg isn't the only Mutant Enemy writer to make some
jokes out of Willow
and Tara's relationship, but it seems to be significantly
more prominent in his
episodes. There's the awkward moment in "Smashed" when Amy
makes an anonymous
girl come on to Willow. Tara's comment that Buffy's date
looked cute in "Older
and Far Away", but that she wasn't really the best judge of
that matter (it
counts as two gay jokes if you add in Clem saying "Yeah, he
looked cute" and the
look Spike shot him). There's Entropy, where Anya sites the
memorable (to me at
least) line: "You two are lesbians, so the hating of men
should come in handy".
And, finally, there's the truly brilliant sequence in "Him"
when Willow tries to
turn R.J. into a girl so she can sleep with him. "Selfless"
is Drew's only
episode without a fairly obvious gay joke (or was there one
and I just don't
remember it?).
Interesting Filming Methods - From "Entropy" onward,
Greenberg has used an unusual and interesting filming method
in each episode.
"Entropy" had the non-linear time sequence where Anya is
trying to get vengeance
wished. "Selfless" had the old-timey style of film for the
Norweigan village
flashbacks. And, of course, there's the hilarious scene
where the screen is
split into four parts, showing what the four love sick
Scooby girls are up to,
along with that GREAT music!
And, Most Prominently, Major Continuity -
This has been in ALL of Drew's episodes. Granted, continuity
references are
common among Mutant Enemy writers, but Drew has been more
prolific with them so
far than most writers. "Smashed" brought Amy back from her
rat-like state
(though this is something the writers had been toying with
for a while). In
"Older and Far Away", Drew brought Clem back again after his
supposedly one shot
appearance in "Life Serial", and kitten poker was brought up
once more. For
"Entropy", Tara and Willow discuss the supernatural
adventures that have been
had in Willow's absence, and Halfrek is back once more. Now,
for "Selfless" . .
. Ah, you know what? Screw it! There's two much continuity
in these two episodes
for me to mention here without being more boring than I
already am. Let it
suffice to say there were TONS of continuity references.
This Drew
Greenberg traits I've brought up seem to have become more
common in Drew's later
episodes. Most likely because, as he becomes more
experienced with BtVS and more
confident with his place in the ME writing group.
OK, did my anal
retentive pattern analysis bore you all? Feel free to say
so.
[> Actually, the Drew who wrote "Selfless" is a
different Drew than the
one who wrote... -- Rob, 20:23:42 11/06/02 Wed
..."Smashed,"
OaFA, "Entropy" and "Him."
Rob
[> [> Bloody Hell! Well, forget what I wrote. -
- Finn Mac Cool,
20:31:00 11/06/02 Wed
[> [> [> Re: Bloody Hell! Well, forget what I
wrote. -- Deb,
21:36:30 11/06/02 Wed
Actually your postings have been
interesting, and the fact that I now know you are 16 years
old makes them even
more so. There is a tendency here among some people, me at
times I must admit I
am a bit arrogant, to really nit-pik or takes things the
wrong way. It makes me
feel like I'm taking comprehensive examinations to get my
degree. There is also
a total lack of humour sometimes, which I find
refreshing.
Tonight, I am
considering whether or not posting here is of any value to
me. I do not remember
names of episodes or use quotes. I'm not a concrete thinker
or writer. For some
people the world must be concrete.
Please continue your postings. I teach
students your age and just to see abstract reasoning within
a 16-year-old mind
is beautiful. As for the continuity of "gay" jokes, I cannot
speak regarding
this because I am burnt out on "race, gender and class"
studies. So, I
ignore.
Your mention of the 4-split screen was a great catch. Its
intent
is how you described. To show simultaneous action.
So, if ever I have
demeaned your viewpoint, I'm sorry. I know just how
frustrating it can
feel.......
If you want just one book that will give you a wonderful,
overall interpretation of Campbell, Jung and Archetypes as
used in film, I
recommend "The Writer's Journey." That's where I
started.
[> [> [> [> I liked that one -- Rufus,
01:01:00 11/07/02
Thu
For those who find "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" a bit
dull,
Vogler writes in such a way as to keep me awake.
[> [> [> [> Ah, that's so sweet! -- Finn
Mac Cool,
04:44:06 11/07/02 Thu
Thank you very much, Deb, for the
encouragement. Let me rephrase what I said though: it's not
really anything
other posters have done, it's more of the fact that it is
very easy at times to
be intimidated by large, shadowkat sized posts, that delve
deep into
psychological/mythological signficance of so many aspects of
Buffy the Vampire
Slayer. Still, I'm glad someone enjoyed my post. Again, many
thank yous!
[> [> [> [> On posting and not posting --
dream of the
consortium, 08:21:10 11/07/02 Thu
*Tonight, I am considering
whether or not posting here is of any value to me.*
I have moved from
active poster to lurker for just the reasons you've
mentioned. I'm coming out of
my box for this one thread because I am very interested at
the moment in how/why
people choose to interact in this way, and what problems
people have with
it.
Personal explanation: I had never followed a discussion
board, but I
have a very dull job that's filled with long hours of
waiting to have something
to do. I found this board and lurked a good long time before
I posted. My first
post worked out fairly well - I was very careful and wrote
out a long essay,
edited, rewrote, and so on. Though the first responder was
strongly negative and
nearly put me off reading any more responses, others were
very positive and I
was happy to join the fold. Unfortunately, more and more I
found that posting
had become unpleasant. Posters tended to try to outdo one
another in finding the
errors in a post, rather than thinking about and responding
to overall
arguments. I started to do this as well, becoming more and
more concerned with
finding something to say - which often meant tearing down
another poster's
arguments, it being so much easier to destroy than to build.
Then one
Friday afternoon I posted something without rereading it. I
was shocked to read
strongly negative responses - responses that seemed
unrelated to my argument, in
fact implied that I had said something I didn't believe in
the slightest. I
reread my post, and was horrified to realize that the fault
lay with me, not
with the readers. I had thrown off examples of something,
without explaining
what I thought they were examples of, and the posters had
misinterpreted quite
understandable. The attitude behind the posts was
unpleasant, though - there was
pleasure in the ease with which my argument could be taken
down, an off-hand
coldness that would have been quite rude in person. Sadly, I
recognized my own
occasional posting style in those responses. It was five
o'clock on a Friday,
and I don't have a computer at home. What surprised me was
how deeply the whole
thing bothered me - what strangers thought of my ideas about
a TV show! I
thought about it all weekend, wrote and re-wrote mentally
the posting I would
make to explain myself. I decided Monday not to post, not
even to look at what
became of that thread, I still haven't. I didn't even lurk
for a couple weeks,
and I don't plan to post much more. I wouldn't have done so
this time, but I had
another experience. I failed to learn from my mistake (very
Buffyverse of me). I
actually got caught up in reading a discussion on the Slate
board about a topic
I am very interested in in a very personal way. I dared to
post, and the
nastiness and abuse that was hurled at me immediately left
me feeling quite
literally sick to my stomach. The posters here can be
snippy, but never abusive.
The level of discourse at Slate is shocking, to say the
least - nothing like the
general level of respect found here.
As a result, I have been thinking
about this strange form of communication a good deal. I know
that part of my
problem lately is that I am battling another bout, albeit
mild, of depression.
As a friend of mine says, depression is like an immune
system failure of the
soul. Things that should slide off of you unnoticed get
inside, infect you. Your
resistance to insult, negativity, and difficult people, is
down. Not a good time
to be throwing ideas into a public sphere and reading the
responses. But there
is also something about the medium itself that causes
problems in communication.
Now, I've really enjoyed reading posts and will continue to
do so, and
understand that there are some wonderful things about these
boards. But, I can't
help but be frustrated by the side of human nature that so
frequently shows
itself on them. Anonymity, the speed and ease of posting,
seems to combine the
worse of the telephone and the letter without the
advantages. The fact that
these are strangers, that after a year and a half of reading
and posting, I
don’t really know any of these people at all, means that
they can project on me
(and vice-versa), all sorts of beliefs and values I may not
hold. I often people
that the people who talk in the chat room have a type of
closeness that allows
them to know one another better – but also gives a certain
clique-iness to the
proceedings. I found myself wanting to post frequently to be
considered a “real”
poster, even if I couldn’t join chat. I’m just not sure how
to think about, how
to understand, this phenomenon of strangers talking without
actual interaction,
in a format that allows instant responding, but gives no
indication whether your
words have been read. I am curious as to how people feel
about posting – anyone
interested in sharing? Any lurkers willing to take the
plunge to say why you
generally lurk rather than post (a strange request,
admittedly)? . How do you
feel when you post and get no response? Do you try again,
hoping that you have
been ignored because you posted too far down the board,
rather than because of
what you said? Do you post less than you used to, or ever
had to take a break?
Does reading the board ever actually decrease your pleasure
in the show
(usually, I enjoy it more when I’ve had a chance to read
other’s ideas, but
sometimes it works the other way.) Do you notice when
posters just stop posting?
Do you find yourself being more nitpicking or quick to
judgment than you would
be if talking to someone in person?
Sorry this is so long, I am just
hoping to start a discussion that might clarify my own
thinking.
[> [> [> [> [> Re: On posting and not
posting -- ponygirl,
09:21:52 11/07/02 Thu
I wish I had more time to give your post,
dream, because these are questions I certainly have
considered. It's a weird act
of faith to cast opinions/comments/remarks off into the void
and hope that
they'll be received in the spirit that they were intended.
All I can really say
is that I felt happy when I saw your name, and I realized
that I had missed
reading your posts.
[> [> [> [> [> Re: On posting and not
posting - who are
you? -- Darby, 09:26:16 11/07/02 Thu
I do notice some
patterns on the board - I've noticed your absence, dream,
because although we
don't always see things the same way, I find your vision
interesting and it
makes me examine or re-examine what I think I'm seeing.
Often a point will set
off my "Wait until so-and-so sees this," and then I remember
that I haven't seen
so-and-so for a while (happened yesterday with Marie).
I've noticed
lately that there have been fewer anecdotal responses - I
think when we tell
stories about ourselves to explain our perceptions, everyone
gets a better
"feel," for good or ill, about the strangers at the other
keyboards. It's fun to
know each others' opinions, but it's fun to get insight into
each others' lives,
too.
This is a very personal experience, though. My wife finds it
very
demoralizing to put up her ideas and get no responses, and I
absolutely
understand the feeling although it doesn't deter me. But
I've always been the
one person in the room willing to put up a hand and ask what
might be the stupid
question, so my skin is a bit thicker than most. In fact,
I've just been offered
a very high-profile committee chairmanship based, I think,
totally on my history
of asking about the elephant in the room (I don't know what
else remotely
qualifies me for it otherwise). I get an idea, I post it,
then generally I deal
with the frustrations - the twisting of the thread on what I
thought an
insignificant subpoint, the realization that I didn't (and
sometimes can't, no
matter how hard I try) make my main point skillfully enough,
so I feel like I'm
arguing a position I don't even have, the occasional
realization that I've taken
something way too personally and written something I really
shouldn't have -
that's the worst, when I might have stepped too far and
insulted someone, and of
course the strength of the board here is that the general
tone holds those
feelings and tendencies back.
The decision comes down to, which is more
fun - sharing your ideas with the group, knowing that they
might be tossed up
for skeet shooting, or standing back and observing, safe but
occasionally
frustrating because you want to say something but don't at
the same time? For a
mouthy egotist like me, the choice is easy, but it's going
to be different for
everybody.
- Darby, typically shooting from the lip. (NOTE - plus, it's
fun when you can come up with a cute twist-of-phrase!)
[> [> [> [> [> [> hey, darby, mazel tov
on being named
committee chair! -- anom, 23:28:12 11/07/02 Thu
[> [> [> [> [> Re: On posting and not
posting -- Rahael,
09:39:26 11/07/02 Thu
I'm wracking my brains trying to think
which post you meant Dream but I can't remember - if I
participated in it, could
you remember, so I can at least try and shed some light into
the attitudes we
can only presume but never know?
The only last post I can remember of
yours is that you misunderstood my Gerard Manley comment,
which I felt terrible
about. Plus you just kind of didn't come back!! I don't
really want to piss off
people who actually have a) read his poems b)like him!
As for 'real'
poster, you certainly are one! I can even remember when you
once resurfaced, to
ask after another poster (Mundus), and I thought, "oh, so
there's dream!". I
have a long memory - I remember that the next time you did
contribute you did so
in the troll thread that I had got myself embroiled in.
I used to go to
chat a lot, and that was the reason I posted - I finally
plucked up the courage
to post longer arguments - you see, I had been burned by
incivilty in other
boards. The kindness I found in chat made me feel safer
here. But, to be honest,
I feel a familiarity to all sorts of people who've never had
a conversation with
me, and who only post. I too have a job that leaves me with
hours of time to
fill - and so I read the whole board, most days. I love
getting a sense of
personality and so on from the posters.
As for the cliqueyness of chat -
a lot of the people I chat with are not the people who
respond to, or even read
my posts. Sometimes, someone will say "I really liked/loved
your post on....",
which will surprise me because it is a post that hadn't
received any
replies.
To be honest, I've had a ton of unanswered posts. It's just
something everyone has to get used to. We just can't ever
know why. We can't
know how quickly other people read your post, nodded their
head vigorously, and
then went on to read the next one.
Board activity consists mainly of
reading, not posting. Therefore, just because you haven't
got a response,
doesn't mean you haven't been read and noticed. It doesn't
mean you're being
ignored or shunned.
And frequently, threads do go off tangent. A lot of
the time, people don't feel they have anything substantial
to add, so they pick
up on a thought or an idea that resonated with them.
I remember the only
semi successful thread I had, which was quoting from a
newspaper article which
mentioned Buffy. I got shot down for requoting something the
journalist said,
and then then thread descended into talk of Canada and boats
or something. No
one actually responded to my original post - and I had
nothing to add to the
subsequent discussion. To be honest, it didn't really put me
off posting again,
though I did decide that I did not have the talent for
starting stimulating
threads that some posters clearly have. Now I confine myself
to posting
commentaries, which by the way, get 'ignored' too, in the
sense that a lot of
people don't seem to respond. But the commentary itself is a
fully formed
argument which is hard to 'add' things to. Which is why it
never really starts a
discussion, just as some very good posts/comments never
really do.
As
for tearing down arguments, I'm trying to be better these
days. I've deleted
quite a few posts recently. If a post just hits a button, I
don't respond.
However, I don't always see disagreement as tearing down. My
first
substantial participation in any thread involved a
discussion of social
darwinism, where I first disagreed with dH. Again and again.
In fact, dH
probably disagrees with quite a few posts I make - he's just
too lazy to post!
I've disagreed with nearly every one of my favourite posters
on the
board. Some I am extremely fond of. I just don't come from a
world view where
disagreement is seen as contrary to respect. I can remember
that my mother
taught me most of my critical skills by questioning a lot of
my statements. Not
tearing them down, but asking me questions that made me
think and think.
The thing I did when I was new to the board and felt ignored
was to
"follow" one poster for a week. Because we never really
notice that no one gets
'responded' to regularly. We don't usually notice if someone
never gets a
response no matter how much they plug away. We only notice
when it happens to
us.
But definitely, I'm pretty sure that I've read nearly every
post
you've ever written here. And there's been only a couple of
occasions when we've
'disagreed', and even then, I still agreed with you!
[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: On posting and
not posting --
dream, 10:15:06 11/07/02 Thu
I'm very touched. As I said, I am
more sensitive than I ought be, particularly at this time.
Thanks to all of
you.
Darby - you hit the nail of the head, I think, with the
choice of
frustrations, and the necessity of basing that decision on
temperment. I have a
hard time putting myself forward in any way – could no more
speak in public than
I could fly. So I can deal better with going unheard than
with leaping into the
fray, even if there are times when its frustrating. As the
season progresses, I
probably won't be able to keep my mouth shut for good,
though waiting until I'm
past the blue spell would probably be wise.
Rahael - the posting that
sent me away really was my own fault, and no, you weren't
involved. The issue
being discussed was the role of punishment. Someone had made
a comment about not
feeling comfortable about letting Willow off without
punishment because of how
he feels about the punishment of murderers in the real
world. In my response, I
was trying to talk about how the Buffyverse was a world of
exaggeration, that a
one-to-one relationship between real world punishment and
Buffyverse punishment
wasn't possible (actually, if every real-world murderer
could be sent away to be
spiritually trained by a coven of wise witches and one wise
older friend, I
probably would prefer that system, but it's just not cost
effective!) Anyway, to
illustrate the rather obvious point that this wasn't the
real world, I listed a
bunch of things that Willow had done that came clearly from
the realm of
fantasy. I stupidly didn't explain that this was what I was
doing, and so the
list looked like a list of Willow justifications - she did
this and this in the
past, so she doesn't deserve punishment. Which wasn't what I
meant at all, but
was the most likely interpretation of what I had said. In
person, I could have
sorted that out in seconds, but online, the timing is off.
Which is why I
question the medium and its limitations, not the people here
(who are, quite
frankly, currently glowing in my mind in comparison with the
people at Slate -
downright efflugent).
I don’t have a problem with disagreement at all,
just the tendency to try to find something to prove wrong,
rather than trying to
discuss and understand more fully. This seems to be
particularly prevalent
on-line – I notice it frequently, and, as I said, have
noticed it in myself as a
poster.
Also, I asked about the no-response thing more because I
have
seen people complain about that, with obvious hurt feelings,
and because it
seems specific to this medium than out of my own concerns.
Personally, I never
took that very personally, though I did sometimes wonder
about the etiquette of
re-posting if no responses came to a post that was far down
the board – is it
okay to try again? Or is that annoyingly aggressive? Never
quite
sure.
I’m also curious as to what happens to this strange communal
relationship when the show ends.
And of course, I have made my favorite
mistake again, and am posting just as I leave for a long
weekend without access
to a computer. Thanks for your responses – and if anyone
responds after this, I
am not ignoring you, I just won’t have a chance to look at
these until Tuesday
:) Again, the limitations of the medium…..
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> lol --
Rahael, 10:29:36
11/07/02 Thu
ahhh, now I remember.
Well, I was involved, kind
of, because I think I actually said I disagreed with you on
some points. Oh
well!!! Though I did take your point about the metaphorical
nature of so many
crimes in the Buffyverse. I am happy for her punishment to
be metaphorical
though, not actual. Whatever my views on foriveness, I'm not
a big punishment
freak.
As for reposting - do what I've started doing - requote all
my
old posts. Though I'm quite sure it's annoying.
"I don’t have a problem
with disagreement at all, just the tendency to try to find
something to prove
wrong, rather than trying to discuss and understand more
fully. This seems to be
particularly prevalent on-line – I notice it frequently,
and, as I said, have
noticed it in myself as a poster."
Yes, absolutely - one thing I always
value in responses is an attempt at
communication/conversation, rather than a
series of rebuttels and defenceses. I get turned off by
attempting to
communicate with people who don't seem to unbend in any
way.
"Which is
why I question the medium and its limitations, not the
people here (who are,
quite frankly, currently glowing in my mind in comparison
with the people at
Slate - downright efflugent)."
LOL. I lurk on another board, which has a
bigger variety of "on topic" topics. The posters, frankly,
scare me. Even the
ones I like/agree with. It's the accepted tone there to
swear at those you don't
like, mock mercilessly, tell them to go away, insult them,
etc etc. The only
time I've said anything is along the lines of "yeah, great
book!". Though I did
get told off because I was too positive and reasonable, and
couldn't I try
harder and enter into the spirit more? (!!!!)
And as for depression -
well, for me too, it is an ongoing fight to keep it at bay.
I start noticing
incipient signs, alarm bells go off, much poetry reading is
done.
Much
much sympathise. Hope you stave it off.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> LOL -
- alcibiades,
13:22:56 11/07/02 Thu
I lurk on another board, which has a
bigger variety of "on topic" topics. The posters, frankly,
scare me. Even the
ones I like/agree with. It's the accepted tone there to
swear at those you don't
like, mock mercilessly, tell them to go away, insult them,
etc etc. The only
time I've said
anything is along the lines of "yeah, great book!". Though I
did get told off because I was too positive and reasonable,
and couldn't I try
harder and enter into the spirit more? (!!!!)
Fitting praise, Rah.
As you are one of the most consistently supportive posters
on this page,
I'd say their tribute to you was just about right.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
Awww! Thank you!!
-- Rahael, 15:58:44 11/07/02 Thu
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Gotta
love it! -- Vickie,
11:56:45 11/08/02 Fri
"Go away, you are too positive"? Says
something about the forum.
I really think that people's reaction to the
nature of this medium often has a lot to do with their level
of experience with
forums (forae?) in general--or with UseNet.
This community is a warm
fuzzy, even in its treatment of trolls, compared to many
that are out there. For
which, I thank you all. You've certainly been forgiving of
my foibles.
[> [> [> [> [> [> damn that was long,
rah. --
VampRiley, 10:21:55 11/07/02 Thu
Hitting all the right points.
I'm actually glad you wrote them (at least someone who isn't
me) because this
topic has come up a few times. It's not bothering me that
it's up again, I'm
just glad I'm not having to actually type out that stuff
like I have in the
past.
For me, my posting has pretty much dropped off the radar
simply
because 1) there were no new eps during the summer, though I
did have a summer
session class during the first half of the summer and 2) I'm
in my last year of
college for anthropology and I have been seriously busting
my ass most of the
last couple of months. And next semester will most likely be
more of a pain in
my ass.
So, where was I? Oh, yeah. You should have seen me when Masq
first started a message board. I was posting like crazy.
That even continued
until the last year or two. I, myself, hav never had a
thread that has taken up
a large portion of the board. A tiny little bit, but never
really much. When you
get out of this bad time, just shrug and move on to
something else. That's what
I've done and it's worked for me.
VR
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Posting here
has been an uncommonly
fulfilling experience (thanks, Masq!) -- cjl,
11:50:21 11/07/02 Thu
Maybe my experience is unique, but this board has been a
completely
positive experience. I can blab on about BUFFY and ANGEL all
I want, I'm talking
to my intellectual peers and superiors, and my opinions get
noticed and receive
accolades, or--even better--challenging responses that make
me re-think what the
hell I've been blabbing about.
Best of all, I've met--in the face-to-face
way--some of the NYC area posters on the board, and I like
'em all. Darby and
Sara, Rob, Tillow, Anom, and especially Shadowkat, WHO NEEDS
OUR LOVE AND
SUPPORT IN HER TIME OF CRISIS! (Sorry. She's escaped the
clutches of her version
of Holland Masters, but she still needs a job. I am
concerned.)
Don't I
have a horror story or two? Oh sure. When I was posting on
the BC&S board,
part one of my epic, I-freakin'-sweated-blood Dawn post got
swallowed up by the
"Seeing Red" controversy and vanished into the archives in
less than 90 minutes.
(90 minutes!) It also vanished relatively quickly on ATP,
and I was depressed
for days. Then I posted part two, and I started getting
comments like, "Hey, I
remember reading part one--it was great. What happened to
it?" You throw a
pebble into a pond, and watch the ripples flow outward. Have
faith that if
you're writing with intelligence and you have the germ of
idea in your post,
your fellow Buffyphiles will notice.
I think that's a key point in
posting on the internet. Never forget there's a real person
behind the string of
bits and bytes appearing on your screen. Treat them with
respect. (That's
something everyone should remember.)
And as for the mild
depression...I've been there. And probably will again. For
what it's worth, all
I can say is...it helps when you talk to people. I think a
number of people on
this board, myself included, would be more than willing to
help you through a
rough patch when it comes up.
Hang in there. More important, hang in
HERE, too.
Jacob (real person)
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> You're
welcome... --
Masq, 12:21:46 11/07/02 Thu
but I just keep the board running and
make up a few rules. It's the posters who create the
atmosphere and actually
respect the rules. : )
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
Styles on other
boards -- Rufus, 14:33:05 11/07/02 Thu
My husband frequents
other boards....no Buffy for him...one of the habits of some
is to critique
other posts and one of the ways is to have at the bottom of
someones post
comments about what they thought. One of the things that got
my attention is the
fact that they "smite" posts....not quite sure what that
means but it definately
reminds me of how adversarial posting can become. What works
with this board is
that people aren't heavilly invested in ridicule unless it
is of the joking
around types of comments.
I see the occasional gripes about spelling and
grammar, but as I've told everyone...I suck at spelling and
blow at grammar(and
it seems will be a writer of pornography in another life).
If someone writes
something that I fancy I reply to it if only to kid about
with the poster. This
board is what we make it, and we have to remember we always
one step away from
making it a heaven or a hell. So everybody be nice or I'll
have to do some
"smiting" (jeeze that term kills me)....;)
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
Good luck smiting
me -- god here. -- God of Links, princesses, vampire,
17:49:23 11/07/02
Thu
And I don't have a drawback, like Glory did. She may not
have
liked it, but I like "sluming" with the rest of you. You
have any idea how
boring the dimensions that are the homes of the gods
are?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
Timeless
infinity isn't all it's cracked up to be. I speak from
personal experience here.
This plane of existence is so much more fun and it's
constantly changing,
especially since there isn't just one physical
dimension.
VampRiley, the
first god of and head of the ATPoBtVS&AtS pantheon of
gods.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Your's
isn't a unique
experience. -- VampRiley, 17:36:35 11/07/02 Thu
Maybe my
above post was unclear. I've been extremely happy about
posting to the board.
So, what if I don't always get a response. Where I live,
there isn't anyone I
can talk to about Buffy. I take a shuttle from Ambler to
Main campus in Philly
and I overheard a guy and a girl talking about how a teacher
they had shared
once had used Buffy as part of her class. They were ripping
on how
"it's...Buffy".
So, what did I do? Did I set them straight on how wrong
they are about the show? Did I beat them senseless until
they realized the error
of being truthful in their disrespect of the show? Did I
call them, uptight,
nincompoops who couldn't tell good TV even if their TV sets
came to life and
started ripping their naughty bits in a slow and very
painful manner from their
unenlightened brains?
Sadly, no.
I just sat behind them and rolled
my eyes. It was very early in the morning and I was trying
to get
awake.
VR
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> "Posting like
crazy" -- Masq,
12:18:59 11/07/02 Thu
But you weren't posting as VampRiley, yes?
You had a different name then? What was it?
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> For the
most part, LiamK
(season 5 Spike spoiler) -- VR, 17:25:11 11/07/02
Thu
Like
many, including yourself, I've posted under different names
when asking
questions, etc. ... nothing troll-ish at all. But, LiamK was
my major one. I
switched after Spike had the dream about kissing Buffy and
where he woke up next
to Harmony.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Thanks, VR
-- Rahael,
02:06:01 11/08/02 Fri
Well, when a person dashes off 300 page
stories, you can see why their posting rate drops!!
Good luck with the
school work!
[> [> [> [> [> Re: On posting and not
posting -- Sophist,
10:16:09 11/07/02 Thu
I'm not sure I can respond to all of your
points, but I can say that I value your posts and always
read them. If you don't
post, I consider that a big loss. I do notice when people
stop posting, and I
miss their participation quite a bit -- Ian, mundus, Anne,
manwitch, redcat, and
a number of others have either left or are posting much more
rarely, and I
regret that.
For me, the hardest aspect of posting is toning down the
posts so that they aren't too challenging to the reader. I
try to do that, but
sometimes (especially when I'm posting in a hurry; always a
mistake) the stuff
that appears on the screen sounds a lot harsher than it did
in my brain. In
those cases, I wince when I re-read them and I look for a
way to retrieve the
situation, but sometimes it's hard to find a graceful way.
Flogging and
punishing is then the only remedy; and this, as we all know,
is not very
satisfying to the other person.
Reacting to a post presents the opposite
problem. I am sometimes taken aback by a response. If I
"know" the poster from
chat or from long experience on the Board, I can get past
it. I just figure that
that person had a bad day or didn't mean to phrase it quite
so harshly.
Occasionally the post seems intended to be offensive. In
that case, I find it
easiest to just let the discussion end without participating
any further. In
some very rare cases, I've decided not to bother reading
that person's posts
anymore. This seems preferable to leaving -- why should one
person's rudeness
deprive me of the pleasure I get in other posts?
I do think that this
Board increases my enjoyment of the show. People here notice
many things that I
never would, and their interpretations give me a lot to
think about even if I
disagree. I could get all this from just lurking, but if
everyone felt this
way......
D'H had an excellent post many moons ago explaining the
reasons
why there may be no response to a post. I can't remember
them all, so maybe
he'll link to it. Some of them are: I agree; you've said it
so well, I've
nothing left to say; I just don't have a position on that
subject; you gave an
opinion on a matter of taste and I have nothing to offer in
return but a
different taste. In other words, it can be disappointing to
put work into a post
and have no one respond, but you shouldn't take it
personally.
Lastly, on
a personal note, I'm very sorry to hear about your
depression. I know little
about how you might experience that, but wouldn't engagement
with others (even
if you feel you are forcing yourself) alleviate it some?
Assuming we don't flame
your next post, of course. :)
[> [> [> [> [> Re: On posting and not
posting -- Arethusa,
11:23:46 11/07/02 Thu
My work is repetitive, unchallenging and
never-ending. (So is taking care of the kids sometimes, come
to think of it.)
Before I began posting my brain was starting to atrophy from
lack of use. I
could barely converse, let alone defend myself in a dispute.
I began posting
very soon after I started lurking, because I had so much to
say and no one to
say it to.
Some people have found some of my posts insulting. (They
were.) And the posts that mean the most to me are sometimes
ignored. A couple of
times responses have triggered depression in me, too-as I
told you some time
ago, I've been dealing with depression for over twenty
years. But each bad
experience taught me something. Think before I post. Don't
try to amuse myself
at others' expense. Back up opinions with facts. Don't post
if I'm depressed, or
keep the statements very short. All lessons I needed to
learn. A few times I've
wanted to take my ball and go home (so to speak) but I can't
not read the board
(it's too entertaining) and I can't not give my opinion; I
was quiet for far too
long to go back now. Even if no one gives my any feeback, at
least I was able to
do something that has been lying dormant in me for decades-
be a writer. After
all, writers send their work into the ether all the time,
sometimes never
knowing how others feel about her work. To me, the instant
responses, no matter
what kind, are like Christmas presents. Sometimes you get an
ugly sweater or a
fondue pot, or nothing at all. But every once in a while,
you get a
diamond.
I miss posters when they stop posting. The input from other
posters with a wide variety of backgrounds and knowledge has
greatly increased
my understanding and enjoyment of the show. (Still don't
like "Help," though.) I
decided recently that too many of my posts were negative, so
I stopped picking
apart others' work quite so often. I'm more likely to
discuss or argue on the
board than in real life, but that's changing-posting here
has made me more sure
of my ability to discuss and defend myself in real life.
Since I never used to
stand up for myself, I think that's good.
I regret the limits of the
medium, but it's given me a lot more happiness than
frustration. I wonder just
how many lurkers there are out there-dozens? Hundreds? The
discussion boards are
an amazing thing. I moved constantly as a kid and adult,
never really getting to
know many people. And here are all these people who've read
the same books as
me, like the same tv show, are educated and wittty and
(usually) kind. It's a
wonderful gift; one I won't return.
[> [> [> [> [> Re: On posting and not
posting -- Slain,
11:38:10 11/07/02 Thu
I think it's in the nature of the kind of
discussion we have here that there will be arguments; but
what I like about the
board is that arguments don't usually escalate, and that
it's almost always
possible for people with very different views to have a
discussion. I think if
we avoid saying that others are 'wrong', or that another's
view is less valid,
then we shouldn't have a problem. I hope that everyone is
welcome here, whether
they've read Jung or not. I, personally, have a fairly
specific literary
criticism background, but I hope I put across my ideas to
people who have a
different background.
As for the amount of replies, I do think the
biggest reason for replying to something is disagreement,
not agreement; I've
read some great posts, but felt like it wasn't worth adding
my own "Great post!
(NT)" amongst several others if I didn't have anything else
to add. Obviously, I
expect people to disagree with me, but I haven't really
experienced anyone
nit-picking my arguments, at least not that I can recall -
usually, replies are
either complete (but civil) disagreement, or a strange
tangent I didn't
expect!
[> [> [> [> [> If you leave me now, you'll
take away the
biggest part of me... -- Caroline (asking everyone - ooh
now baby please
don't go), 11:56:44 11/07/02 Thu
dream, I want to go on record as
stating that I have been one of the posters who has missed
your contributions to
the board. I also miss redcat, manwitch, Age, and several
others who rarely post
these days. (P.S. I totally love your name).
As for everyone else:
please keep posting, all of you. Exposing one's thoughts and
ideas is hard but
the only way we learn how to interact more successfully with
others is by
interacting with others, not withdrawing. I know that the
more I have
participated, the easier it has become. I just accept the
experience for what it
is. I don't have to write a masters thesis every time. I
don't look to this
board for any form of validation. There's stuff I know about
and stuff I don't
know about and I expect others will disagree with me
sometimes because other
people are not me! I just come here to meet people who have
pierced the veil of
the title 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and found a rich,
complex piece of art and
to share my enjoyment with them. I really enjoy many of the
people who post here
and was so happy to meet anom, LittleBit and Sol recently
and look forward to
meeting more of you in the future. And I've been inspired to
read sci-fi and
comics and see Buffy from a broader lens than the
mythological, psychological,
literary lens through which I have been watching. I now
understand how one can
feel friendship and liking for people one has never
seen.
Caroline - who
has a theory that everything is a song, experimenting with
titles.
[> [> [> [> [> [> Yes! -- ponygirl,
12:25:42
11/07/02 Thu
Everybody keep posting! More! More! Fill my
brain!
Oh, and Caroline, another namesake song for you: David
Gray's new
CD has a "Caroline" song.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Namesake
for Caroline (thx to
ponygirl) -- pr10n, 13:48:47 11/07/02 Thu
Ponygirl thanks for
reminding me:
Caroline, I remember your post about collecting songs with
your name. My favorite band in the world (current) is Low,
from Duluth,
Minnesota. Their second album (Long Division) has a song
that matches your
exacting criteria; I quote the lyrics here (cos there ain't
much):
Caroline
Caroline, we don't have much time
mercy lies in the
one you hide
Caroline, we don't have much time
mercy lies in the ones we
hide
you don't need to be outside
you can stand with me in
line
-
That's it.
[Impending fanboy plug] Low is at
www.chairkickers.com
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Many
thanks ponygirl and
pr10n -- Caroline, 14:12:45 11/07/02 Thu
I just posted how I
don't come here for any validation but I gotta admit that
you guys put a smile
on my face. It's particularly important to me today because
it's the anniversary
of my husband's death and I was feeling low.
So, now we have the
following artists who've written about me:
Lou Reed (2 songs!), Neil
Diamond, Concrete Blonde, Matching Mole, David Gray and Low.
Any
others?
Caroline, working hard to keep primary narcissism under
control!
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
Beach Boys/Brian
Wilson: "Caroline, No" (from Pet Sounds) -- cjl,
14:17:12 11/07/02
Thu
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
Caroline, by Marty
Balin -- Arethusa, 17:44:17 11/07/02 Thu
He wrote some very
pretty ballads when he was with Jefferson Airplane, back in
the day.
My
condolence on your loss.
Caroline
Oh what can I tell you now
Caroline
Should I hurt your feelings and keep on lying
One thing leads to
another
And another
And another besides
You always know whenever I want
to make love
Yeah and you always know all the changes I’m going
through
Just as if you can read my mind
Caroline
You know
everything I do
There just ain’t no words to describe how I feel inside for
you
But somewhere out there
Waiting on a wonder
You’ll lend wings
to my words
Somewhere
When the band is gone and the music of my song is
just right for lovers
You’re what I want more than anything else
Ooo I
love you yeah I do but I know when I’m all by myself
Nothing is real but my
feelings and desires for you
Everything looks like some sort of scenery
stored in an empty theater
With stars on the ground
Fences in the sky
Tears in the curtain of time
Oh what can I tell you now my
Caroline
Except that somewhere out there
Waiting on a wonder
You’ll
lend wings to my words
Somewhere
When the band is gone and the music of my
song is just right for lovers
Oh you’re loving keeps on rolling
Oh
Caroline your loving keeps me rolling
Rolling all the time
Yeah now
baby
Somewhere out there
You really roll me
You roll me
away
Yeah now baby
Somewhere out there
You really roll me
You
roll me away
When the melody makes me surrender
Dark eyed girl I
always remember that you love me
Somewhere out there you love me
Tied
to the music (yeah you love me)
Wildly in my heart
You roll me away
(yeah, yeah, yeah)
You always fill my heart with wonder
You always
fill my soul with love
You always fill my lips with kisses
You always fill
my eyes with tears
Ooo yes you do now
Ooo yes you do now
It’s
like the wind from the other side of the world
Like a far off pack of
hounds
Sounds like the whole universe just a throbbing with
life
The
lights from my eyes
Hypnotize me like the gaze of a mantis
Why even
Atlantis sank thru the waves in the day and the night
Oh but in a day and a
night I could write you a symphony
It would be just like your birds carrying
my love over the mountains
Somewhere out there….
Waiting on a
wonder
You’ll lend wings to my words
Somewhere
When the band is gone
and the music of my song is just right for lovers
You always fill my
heart with wonder
You always fill my soul with love
You always fill my
lips with kisses
You always fill my eyes with tears
Oh I cried
Caroline
Oh I cried Caroline
Oh now I cried now…
Oh I cried
Caroline
http://www.geocities.com/balinmiracles/
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
Really lowering the
tone here... -- KdS, 06:39:12 11/08/02 Fri
There is a little
group called Status Quo:
If you want to turn me on to
Now anything
you really want to
Turn me on to your love
Sweet love
If the night
time is the right time
Oh anytime of yours is my time
We can find time for
love
Sweet love
Come on sweet Caroline
You're my sweet Caroline
You know I wanna take ya
I really gotta make ya
Come on sweet
Caroline
Take my hand, together we can rock'n'roll
When I'm thinking
of you sleeping
I'm at home alone and weeping
Are you keeping your love
Sweet love
Do you still care when I'm not there
Now do you really
wish I was there
Can I come there for love
Sweet love
Come on
sweet Caroline
You're my sweet Caroline
You know I wanna take ya I really
gotta make ya
Come on sweet Caroline
Take my hand, together we can
rock'n'roll
If you want to turn me on to
Now anything you rally want
to
Turn me on to your love
Sweet love
Come on sweet
Caroline
You're my sweet Caroline
You know I wanna take ya
I really
gotta make ya
Come on sweet Caroline
Take my hand, together we can
rock'n'roll
Status Quo - Caroline
[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: If you leave me
now, you'll take away
the biggest part of me... -- Cougar, 22:12:58
11/07/02 Thu
I
started posting for the first time yesturday and it was a
curious experience. It
was like regressing to the first day at a new highschool,
were you suddenly feel
exposed, unsure and mostly incoherent.
I was suprized how scary it felt.
I almost stepped back to lurking but this lovely stream of
posts has encourged
me.
I think anything to do with our conciousness needs both
input and
output to grow within us. Sort of a mental tide cycle, or
like breath. So you
may not start out with a brilliant observation to share but
staying in the
stream may teach you to uncover one. Voice will always lead
you to things that
you've forgotten you already know.
[> [> [> [> [> Re: On posting and not
posting -- Finn Mac
Cool, 14:58:19 11/07/02 Thu
I started watching Buffy the Vampire
Slayer very early in 2002 (I think it was January or
February). I quickly
started searching for sites about BtVS online (of which
there are plenty to
satiate my Buffyholism). Eventually, I found Masq's, mainly
because I was
looking for a good site about vampire metaphysics (such
sites entertain me,
there are so many different interpretations of vampire
mythology out there that
reading how someone has constructed their vampires is always
fun). After a
certain amount of time, I found the message board. It took a
while to get used
to it (truth be told, I'd never been to an Internet forum
before this one), but,
after only a few weeks of lurking, I made my first post
sometime in May. I don't
remember what it was; it was a reply to somebody else's
post, a fairly safe way
to start posting, in my opinion. Once more it didn't take
too long for me to
take the next step and try to start a thread.
I must admit, I was kinda
nervous about the whole thing. After all, the people here,
for the most part,
seemed to be far more educated than me and a great deal of
threads, it seemed,
were more analytical than I'm truly capable of being. I may
even have gone back
to being a lurker quickly if not for one thing: one of my
first few posts was
one titled "Warren Was Not A Misogynist". There wasn't much
content in it, it
was relatively short, and basically just expressed my belief
that Warren didn't
hate women, but rather hated people in general. The
responses I got were pretty
much all disagreements, and soon I came to see why there was
the popular view of
Warren being specifically a misogynist. But there were no
signs of someone
tearing my post to shreds, only well-reasoned opinions from
a different angle.
Then, something glorious happened: the number of responses
grew, sub-threads
sprouted into being, and whole new topics appeared across
the threat. My simple
post saying "Warren Was Not A Misogynist" created a truly
enormous thread that
stretched far past the border on the right of the screen and
took up nearly the
whole forum. The idea that a post by me could generate so
many responses was
exhilirating. I became a dedicated poster.
I never repeated the success
of the Misogynist thread. However, most of my posts, while
no where near as deep
or long or well thought-out as many of the others on the
board, usually got a
fair number of responses, and I liked it. However, I always
have been aware of
the fact that I'm no shadowkat or Rahael. Still, I am glad
this thread has gone
off on such an entertaining tangent. Thanks, dream of the
consortium!
Truthfully, I don't find the Internet that limiting an arena
for communication. I think it may be the fact that, in
person, I'm awkward and
have trouble expressing my thoughts as they appear in my
head. Communicating
with writing allows me to think about what I'm about to say
thoroughly and avoid
some of the awkwardness I experience when around people in
person. Also, the
Internet has been a great boon to me, because, in real life,
I know hardly
anyone who watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so, if I want a
desire to do some
BtVS talk, it's off to the Internet I go.
Thanks again, dream, and I hope
you start posting again soon. I do remember liking many of
your posts.
[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: On posting and
not posting --
Rahael, 16:05:20 11/07/02 Thu
"I never repeated the success of
the Misogynist thread. However, most of my posts, while no
where near as deep or
long or well thought-out as many of the others on the board,
usually got a fair
number of responses, and I liked it. However, I always have
been aware of the
fact that I'm no shadowkat or Rahael. Still, I am glad this
thread has gone off
on such an entertaining tangent. Thanks, dream of the
consortium!"
Wow! I
didn't realise I was even bracketed with such people! Thanks
Finn!
and by
the way, 16? I'm falling off my seat with shock! I totally
thought you were in
your late 20s early 30s!
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> I Thank You,
Too! -- Finn Mac
Cool, 18:48:38 11/07/02 Thu
I was afraid it might be too obvious
how young I was.
[> [> [> [> [> [> It's funny... --
BunnyK., 17:36:53
11/07/02 Thu
But I've always found it much easier to converse in
real life than on the internet. I've been in chat rooms, in
forums, and played
online games, and without fail I'm awkward and insecure. My
personality just
doesn't transfer well to print, I guess. So, I guess in that
way the internet is
very limiting for me. Since I don't have confidence in my
ability to communicate
clearly over the internet, I pretty much limit myself to
lurking. However, I
still get a lot of enjoyment out of this board. It seems
like everyone here is
dazzlingly intelligent and interesting, and I think it makes
the show that much
more interesting to hear all of your opinions.
[> [> [> [> [> Guess I'll go eat
worms... -- Sara,
15:44:54 11/07/02 Thu
First off, I really enjoy your posts D of
C, and hope you'll keep on posting, but posting is an odd
experience. It does
bring up some of my worst insecurities, which is quite
surprising, due to the
"all strangers here," "why should I care" aspect, of this
activity. I keep
saying I'm going to stop posting, and go back to lurking
once removed, and
somehow end up right here, typing my little heart out.
There is
something almost dangerous in joining this type of community
- on the one hand,
it's amazing to be able to interact with people who have
such different
experiences and lives; on the other hand communicating
without seeing someone's
face, and hearing the inflections they put in their voices
is, well,
problematical, I guess. I know that I'm sending a very
different image of myself
to all of you then you would get meeting me in person. So I
should be even less
sensitive, right? Well rationality has never been one of my
strong points...but
somehow this semi-anonomyous but not really form of
communicating can really hit
areas we're vulnerable in. It's funny how it's different
things that set us off
- for example, I don't mind if people strongly disagree with
me, that's normal
interaction, yet not being responded to feeds into huge
insecurities I've been
fighting with forever. One thing about posting, sometimes I
don't even realize
my point until I'm in the middle of making it. My normal
life involves some form
of response, negative or positive - therefore either works
for me, and I'm good.
No response at all, is way out of the norm, so I have to
obsess, read into, and
generally make myself crazy over, even though it's nothing
personal. (Nothing
personal other than none of you love me, all of you hate me,
guess I'll go eat
worms...)
Darbs is standing over my shoulder looking to get me to the
kid's band concert so I'll end here.
- Sara, who'll be glad to eat worms
as long as they're chocolate covered
[> [> [> [> [> Re: On posting and not
posting -- fresne,
17:02:28 11/07/02 Thu
Why do I post?
Because I am
thoroughly and hopelessly addicted to reading the posts
here. The board has such
an incredibly rich and varied base of writers.
As in any community when
posters withdraw for reasons of time (real life with its
long clutches) or
melancholy, it is the community which is the less.
I don’t post nearly
as much as I read and reading the thoughts of others has
helped spark ideas that
I never would have even contemplated.
I only tend to post when I have
something to say. Hmmm…that sounds wrong. I post when the
compulsion to say
something overwhelms the constraints of time and
obligation.
Hmmm…as to
personal details, I guess long time, but not voluminous
posters, aren’t sure of
just how much to say, since the details that we’ve said
previously lie vivid in
our memories. The fact that they are not so vivid for others
is difficult to get
around.
I was surprised to discover at one of the get togethers that
some
posters thought I was a man. Living 24x7 in my female body,
that made for a
startling observation about the anonymity of our posting and
the impressions
that we can give.
I post because I write for a living. Whereas in my work
as a technical writer, I write often very dry prose, here I
have the opportunity
to stretch into metaphor and image. I write to express
myself in a way that
normally I cannot.
Conversely, I will admit that my experience as
technical writer does help a bit. I spend a great deal of
time researching,
writing, formatting and editing documents that people on the
whole do not want
to read. Since, part of my job is relentlessly badgering my
reviewers/data
sources for comments, it’s hard to get too excited about
responses or lack
thereof to posts. And after a few grueling meetings
reviewing my documents,
let’s just say that it is a pleasure to be able to just skip
threads that are
growing too vehement.
Puzzling through all of your perceptions helps me
to create a sense of textual richness. In that BtVS is so
metaphoric, it is the
perfect medium with which to express the puzzle inside a
metaphor within a
conundrum that is how I view my own life.
Personal detail. I wore a
costume to work today and as I sit and type, I smile with
glee that none of my
co-workers realizes it. The buckled shoes, the tights, the
plaid skirt, the
sweater, the braided hair are all pointers to an event, my
birthday. The irony
of another year juxtaposed against youthful dress.
Apparently, six costume
changes in October were not enough. It never is.
I also write because it
helps me clarify my thinking. In person, I can be a bit
incoherent. In
excitement, my mind races forward. I skip words. Tracks.
Leapfrog between ideas.
Writing forces me to clarify. To elucidate. To slow
down.
Slow down to a
musing. When I write a post here, I almost always picture a
wheeling leaf
floating in a gyre. Starting from the initial idea, which
has prompted me to
post, my words attempt to settle on the earth. To reach a
point.
Thus,
I’ve rarely had any vehement disagreements to any of my
posts. It’s a bit hard
to vehemently argue with a musing.
In an autumnal sort of way, it’s a
pleasure to watch everyone’s posts whirl and dance in
discourse, even if I never
do know much about the trees that produced them.
[> [> [> [> [> [> happy birthday,
fresne! -- anom,
23:31:24 11/07/02 Thu
Plus, it's always fun to hear about your
costumes.
[> [> [> [> [> [> Hope you had a great
birthday, fresne!
And nice post! -- ponygirl, 09:01:58 11/08/02 Fri
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> A collective
thanks -- fresne,
17:12:42 11/08/02 Fri
I did indeed have an excellent birthday. I
went through two costume changes in one day. Although, I did
not get a chance to
wear a tiara to dinner. I can’t remember everything. Well,
any night is a good
night for a tiara.
I have to admit it would practically impossible not to
talk about costuming, so I’m glad it’s interesting and every
so often
relevant.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Happy
birthday fresne! --
Ete, 17:22:06 11/08/02 Fri
[> [> [> [> [> Coming late to the
party...my own thoughts on
posting -- shadowkat, 18:08:20 11/07/02 Thu
First wonderful
posts on this thread, I think I've read all of them now even
though it took an
hour because my home computer is slow - dial-up. And I've
missed your posts
dream, possibly b/c I often find myself agreeing with your
take on the show and
I remember the one that concerned you but only vaguely, I
think i agreed with
you at the time.
Odd that several people mention how depressions have
stopped them from posting, I initially started posting as a
result of a
depression. I had been in an incredibly painful job
situation and unable to
fight or flee - I retreated to the internet and poured my
heart out in Buffy
essays, using the characters, the plot lines and themes of
the show to work out
personal issues in my life. Writing is the way I handle
pain. It is also how I
find pleasure. If I'm not writing I become quite cranky.
Through the boards - I
found an audience for my writing - a way to interact. I had
written a novel -
but very few people had seen it and getting a first novel
published is a little
like pulling teeth. So here I'd found a forum to express
myself. I didn't really
expect anyone to respond the first time I wrote and posted
an essay. It was on
Giles - the reluctant watcher (an essay I've since lost,
don't bother hunting it
in archives, it unfortunately only appeared on Buffy Cross
and Stake way back in
February 2002). My inspiration had been two posts, one by
Linda Delurker on
Willow and one by cjl on Willow. I thought - gee these are
great, maybe I can do
this and no one is writing anything on Giles (most of the
posts were on Spike
and Willow) - so I spent an incredibly slow day at work
typing it out and
posted. The replies blew me away.
Twenty people had responded to tell me
how great I was.
So I started working my way through the characters...then
people began emailing me, asking for copies. Someone asked
me to set up a
website - so they could access them. I started looking
forward to going to work
again - so I could check the boards and post essays. Of
course this got old
after a while, a few of my posts got fetid responses. Not
every essay was loved.
And my replies to other people - didn't always come off as
I'd planned. (My
writing is better when I get the chance to proofread it and
post it from word
onto the board. Not when I typed it freehand on the board
like I'm doing now.
When that happens? Tons of errors. Also less coherent.) But
by that time? I was
more or less hooked. A poster/lurker on B C & S asked to
post one of my
better essay posts to Atp, and I followed it. In time I
became addicted to the
intellectual discussion on the Atp board and have met many
of my online friends
through it. I've since left B C&S due to the spoilery
nature of the board
(I've gone off Spoilers entirely) and the board's annoying
obsession with ships
to the exclusion of almost everything else. Tend to like a
broader range of
posters and discussion. Makes life more interesting ;-)
You mention the
faceless nature of the internet world. Interesting. I've met
some of the most
wonderful people here. Not in chat room. But through my
posts and email. (I've
often included email with a post or people can email me from
my site.) One of my
online friends, I've never met in person, she lives in Japan
and I live in NYC,
so it's a tad difficult. But she sent me a beautiful bouquet
of flowers
congratulating me on getting up the nerve to quit the job
that had been making
me miserable for a year. Three other friends I've met here,
have sent
encouraging emails to me, keeping me sane at work and
supporting my posts and
decisions. And of course cjl and I've gotten close. I've
meet Darby and Sara
(whose posts I adore, even though I don't always get the
chance to respond, slow
connection and all that, please post more Sara!! I love your
responses and often
agree with them), Tillow, Rob, anom in person. And
interacted with many more
lurkers and posters both by email and on the board. These
people got me through
a horrible time in my life and made me appreciate Buffy the
Vampire Slayer and
Angel the Series far more than I ever would on my own.
God this is
getting long. Should wrap it up. The main thing posting and
lurking on boards
has done for me is made me realize that I'm not alone. There
are others out
there, quite a few apparently, who feel bored at work,
scared, depressed, love
fantasy and science fiction and comic books, love writing,
and enjoy discussing
ideas in a fun and safe environment.
Want a recent example of how this
board has helped me?
Last night I was feeling a little bummed and a little
discombobulated. I'd just seen possibly the scariest movie
I've seen in a long
time, the Ring (if you see it? see it in a movie theater not
on tv screen, trust
me. And not alone. I saw it with a friend. And it still
unnerved me.)
So I
came to the board and laughed my head off. The atmosphere
was light and fun last
night. Particularly the thread about kittens overrunning
Spike's old crypt.
Regarding the tough posts? And i've had a few of those.
You know the
ones that make you want to throw stuff at the computer
screen? I try real hard
not to respond to them and let it go. Sleep on it. I also
tend to avoid posters
who make me angry or react negatively. If someone's posts
consistently cause me
to either dislike the show, the characters or the poster? I
just stop reading
their posts as rule, unless of course several of the people
I will read no
matter what respond to it. (The list is far too long to put
here, suffice it to
say it includes all of the posters who've responded to this
thread). (Doesn't
always work...there are times I give in to the urge to
respond and more often
than not regret it. But the fact that the response and the
thread will be
archived eventually and forgotten, helps a great deal.)
Sorry for the
long ramble. Hope it made sense. Glad you posted again
dream, I'd missed you.
And loved reading the other posts.
SK (who isn't posting as much do to
the fact that she's left the evil workplace and spending
less time on the
internet.)
[> [> [> [> [> [> Guess I'll stop
eating worms -- Sara,
19:30:09 11/07/02 Thu
Thanks shadowkat! I feel way better, being
the paranoid type I was imagining everyone seeing my name on
a post, and
scrolling by it with disdain. Now I'll just imagine you
reading it, and move on
with my day! And thanks again for helping me to enjoy "Him"
a whole lot more -
you really turned me around on it.
- Sara, who putting away the worms, is
now wondering if ants would be a crunchy treat (covered in
chocolate, of
course!)
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Am I the only
one wondering about
Darby's study subjects now? :) -- Sophist, 20:04:23
11/07/02 Thu
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Just one
thing on a long list
to wonder about Darbs! -- Sara, who maybe should look
into her choice of
treats..., 06:54:30 11/08/02 Fri
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Thanks - I
loved your response
-- shadowkat, 07:49:48 11/08/02 Fri
to my post on Him and your
additional points. I just didn't have a chance to respond to
it before it went
to archives.
But rest assured I usually make a point of reading
your
posts and Darby's. ;-) SK
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Sara, whenever
I see your name on a
post, I go right to it... -- cjl, 08:01:55 11/08/02
Fri
In
fact, I wanted to comment on your comment on my comment
about Giles' killing of
Ben and how it stacked up with Gunn's murder of Professor
Seidel. I still think
there will be repercussions for both Gunn AND Giles in the
second half of the
ANGEL and BUFFY seasons. (And if you think the Giles/Ben
moral dilemma is old
news...remember a certain fib that finally came to light in
"Selfless"?)
[> [> [> [> [> [> emotions and
posting -- Cougar,
23:11:05 11/07/02 Thu
I started watching Buffy by accident while
going through a painful time of caring for a parent and a
best friend who died
six months apart, both after grueling illness. At first the
show gave me a place
where life and death, love and devotion, epic struggles
mirrored my feelings. It
felt a safe place to cry during a personal appocolypse.
I identified
with Buffy's sence of devotion to duty, and her constant
isolated struggling. No
one around me at the time could get the core feelings I was
experiencing for the
first time.
The the show became more than a container for my
overwhelming
emotions and I began to actively think about the many
aspects beyond that. I was
motivated to understand the compexity of themes present.
That helped me get
beyond the initial lower order need I had for it.
Now it has room in my
soul that is linked to raw grief but has taken me through
many levels of thought
and discovery. The richness of thoughtfulness on this board
was a lifeline.
For a while it seemed to give me the only plesure I could
feel. But the
stimulation of new ideas helped me step beyond my depressed
state of mind when
it was still hard to concentrate on other things
Now it has become like a
rich wine, bottled earlier, a bad year, but mellowed and
refined and adding
sensory pleasure to life again.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: emotions
and posting --
Rahael, 01:50:00 11/08/02 Fri
Cougar, what a lovely post. I think
I watch Buffy for much the same reasons that you do:
"I started watching
Buffy by accident while going through a painful time of
caring for a parent and
a best friend who died six months apart, both after grueling
illness. At first
the show gave me a place where life and death, love and
devotion, epic struggles
mirrored my feelings. It felt a safe place to cry during a
personal appocolypse.
I identified with Buffy's sence of devotion to duty, and her
constant
isolated struggling. No one around me at the time could get
the core feelings I
was experiencing for the first time.
The the show became more than a
container for my overwhelming emotions and I began to
actively think about the
many aspects beyond that. I was motivated to understand the
compexity of themes
present. That helped me get beyond the initial lower order
need I had for
it"
My painful time lay in the past, but not healed. And Buffy
became
invaluable, in exactly the two ways you mention - the lower
order need, and the
thinking about it need which keeps me 'new, tender,
quick'.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re:
emotions and posting
-- Cougar, 09:35:25 11/08/02 Fri
I would have joined the show
even if I wasn't sad, there is something to think about on
so many
levels.
Buffy certainly adresses lower order need. JM even lost
weight to
make Spike look hungry. There is saftey, sex, food and
shelter as issues. Then
belonging and and feeling competant and useful right up to
issues of soul and
self actualization.
Spike looks less skinny at the moment. Since he is
always very perceptive about feelings and motivations I hope
we get a lot more
on his evolution before things revert to "fight or flight"
The show is a
complex and unpredictable environment, this mirrors how we
feel when we go
through something new and overwhelming that your peers may
not have experinced.
I had one dream that I was Buffy and I walked through my
situation with her eyes
and felt her confidence and unfailing devotion and it kind
of recharged my
batteries.
[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: On Posting/Not: A
lurker comes late,
thinking the first try may have got messed--irony's
ironic -- Haecceity,
11:02:52 11/08/02 Fri
Why I lurk---
No time, really. Which is
a convenient excuse, as I seem to have the time to read,
reflect and compose
numerous mental replies (go ahead laugh, it’s a multi-meant
word.J)
Maybe I
lack the confidence, being new to the ‘Verse…
But oh do I love to read this
board!!!
After my first ep …
(I’m a cinematographer, about to undertake
grad school studying Visual Narrative, so was floored by the
depth of “Hush”,
both visually and metaphorically, the sophistication of the
concept’s delivery
and, c’mon, studying VISUAL NARRATIVE, here!)
…a random viewing on FX…I just
HAD to find out about this show. (Not put off by the name,
really, just missed
the first couple years off making movies and “felt” the “you
need to see this
from the beginning”-ness of it. Alas, didn’t know any fans
that were “out”
enough to recommend it.
[Embedded note to other new viewers*spoiler for
Season 2*…did anyone else realize upon finally watching BtVS
that they’d kind of
“known” what was going on in this show you’d never watched,
maybe through
advertising? Just had a funky “déjà vu all over again”
moment when Angel went
evil, thinking, oh, this must be why she killed him---weird,
as I’d never seen
it or known anyone who watched the show, and hadn’t yet read
anything
online.]
Did a search and found oodles of sites, mostly of the “Isn’t
so-and-so hot” persuasion. Finally found a mention of ATP
off a narrative theory
blog, and discovered a metaphysic home. It’s the only place
I’ve found that is
able to deftly mine this incredibly rich story-source with
big!plus such
cerebral elegance, updated 24 hours a day. Needless to say,
hooked. Big time.
But I couldn’t post, just couldn’t, till I’d seen all the
eps (thank the
organizing principles of the universe for FX), attempted the
Sargasso Sea of the
archives (still paddling), and dug out the Jung and
narrative theory texts
(still packed from the last move, please forgive my creative
paraphrasing)…in
short, till I could come across as a not-stupid.
Speaking to dream’s
(whose voice I’ve missed, BTW) original post:
This reluctance to post didn’t
have much to do with a perceived sense of “be brilliant,
with perfect spelling
and punctuation…
[you may have noticed I subscribe to the e.e. cummings
slightly naughty school of punctuation of “put it where it
feels good”, all the
while retaining my membership in the Grammar Punks band]
…or they’ll pounce
on me.” In fact, I’d been surprised at the almost uber-
politeness of the board.
My first thought was that the moderator must be quite a
demon to have trained an
entire board so well. It was only later that I realized you
were simply a pack
of demons with a mutual politeness tolerance policy.
A RL and Buffyverse
truism: There will always be trolls. Sometimes they cause
casualties, but when
they’ve gone their flaming way, we rebuild the Bronze.
Please don’t stay away,
I’ve got a thing or thousand to learn from you.
Speaking to the oddness
of forum communication:
We take for granted the nonverbal. It has a comfort,
this second language we absorbed before we were born, deeply
reassuring to we
social (downright sociable) predators. In this place of no
faces we are nothing
but a name, really, just bodiless voices. A name and words,
which, despite their
beauty, are essentially abstract. We have to bring meaning
to words, and not
everyone carries the same size/shape/material bucket. The
wonder of words,
though IS their abstractness. They match perfectly the
abstractness of the
concepts we prize the most---Love, Truth, etc. These
abstract terms are often
all we have in real life to express the complexity of our
feelings—demandingly
concrete, touchable things. And because we are bi-lingual,
forced into a
uni-lingual space, we have translation trouble, read into
words meanings that
may not be there. Don’t despair, though. The folks on this
board are demons
(integrated or no), used to walking in (between) two
worlds.
So, for all
us lurkers, thanks for the post, Dream. It slowed the merry-
go-round just long
enough for a bunch of us to hop on.
---Haecceity
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Very nice
post!! -- Rahael,
11:08:41 11/08/02 Fri
"[you may have noticed I subscribe to the
e.e. cummings slightly naughty school of punctuation of “put
it where it feels
good”, all the while retaining my membership in the Grammar
Punks
band]"
I like when posts really "sound" different. It gives the
board
extra crunchy texture!
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Glad to have
you here! --
Masquerade, 15:04:44 11/08/02 Fri
"Finally found a mention of ATP
off a narrative theory blog"
Which one? Got a URL??
[> [> [> [> [> Re: On posting and not
posting --
cynesthesia, might as well de-lurk myself, 22:37:02
11/07/02 Thu
Hiya all, haven't posted here since sometime late last
spring, but this
seems like a de-lurking kind of thread.
First of all, I wanted to extend
my empathy to dream and all the people on the board who have
problems with
depression. As the line in the song goes, "this is not my
idea of a good time."
When I have a bout of it like I've had recently, it wreaks
havoc with my
concentration and energy, so writing anything becomes a time-
consuming and
frustrating task. Posting comes down to an issue of having
to make the best use
of my energy. I seem to be doing better lately (knock on
wood) and will
hopefully finish this post before next Tuesday. ;-)
I took a break from
all things fandom over the summer and only slowly got back
into it this fall.
Typically I lurk by here a couple times a week now and still
do the vigorous
head-nodding thing. I decided to stick to lurking here
because I knew any
posting I did would be very erratic. (I've been sorely
tempted by a few OT music
threads though).
Interactions on the internet can be very tough. One can
say some seemingly innocuous thing such as "I like the
Beatles" and find oneself
being blowtorched by a horde of angry Elvis fans. Er, not
that I have any
problems with Elvis fans (backing up, hands in the air).
Making a joke, but
maybe that is an example of something that happens in both
life and fandom,
especially when it comes to a TV show where highly
subjective issues like
personal preference and taste enter into it. Sometimes it's
very easy to confuse
"what people like" with "what they *are* like." I'm guilty
of doing this myself,
but it's become less of an issue as I've gotten older, erm,
44, to be exact.
Probably, it also has something to do with having spent 16
years living with a
decent, intelligent human being whose taste in books and
movies continues to
baffle me.
But some of the snap judgements and zero-sum game aspects
of discussions in fandom do dishearten me. If I can get all
quantum in honor of
Supersymmetry, sometimes the light is both a particle and a
wave. There have
been times when I'm not even part of a discussion and the
gamesmanship gets to
me.
I never had a problem here with posts being ignored, though
I think
it happens to almost anyone who's online. When it has
happened to me I've felt a
bit sulky, but it hasn't necessarily deterred me from
posting again. I believe
someone once found that artists in a group exhibition whose
work was ignored by
reviewers felt more discouraged than artists whose work had
been badly reviewed.
Hmmm, might depend on *how* bad the bad reviews were.
I do notice when
people stop posting and there are names I keep hoping I'll
see
resurface.
Usually, I'm slightly slower to come to judgement with
someone
online than I am in real life where I have the non-verbals
to rely on. In the
time I've spent on the boards, I miss those non-verbals more
rather than less.
Many people really love chat, but I just haven't been able
to take that plunge
yet.
This got longish. Thanks for starting the thread DotC. You
actually
got me to de-lurk.
[> [> [> [> [> [> Cynesthesia! --
Rahael, 01:51:14
11/08/02 Fri
There you are! You realise that you have yet to live
down the glory of the OMWF post??
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Hi! --
cynesthesia, 02:19:13
11/08/02 Fri
At the rate I'm going these days, I may turn out to be
a one-hit wonder. For some reason, I can't seem to stay away
from music
analogies tonight. :-)
[> [> [> [> [> Re: On Posting and Not
Posting: One Lurker's
Long Response -- Philistine, 23:24:15 11/07/02
Thu
All right,
I'll bite... as soon as I figure out where to start.
... thirty minutes
later ...
Okay, I'm still stumped for an opening, so I'll just jump
in.
There are a few reasons, most of which will make more sense
with a little
background info first. I'll try not to overshare, but
consider yourself warned.
I came late to the Buffyverse; for the first four and a half
seasons I
didn't have cable. Or a TV, for that matter. (Ah, those
carefree student days.)
And besides... well, I'd seen the movie. But I'd heard of
the show, as time went
by I heard more and more about it, almost all good. I
started to wonder what I
was missing.
Then I moved, bought a TV, and got cable, and a few months
later my first episode of Buffy was the Season Six opener.
The next day I
started taping the reruns on FX. A few months later, I was
pointed toward the
ATPoBtVS site in a Buffy discussion on another, non-Buffy-
related forum.
Eventually I found my way to the boards here, where the
discussion is usually
interesting and civil, and I find that reading here
generally does add to my
enjoyment of the show. But I don't know what topics have
been done to death
here, and there's no equivalent to the FX reruns to bring a
newcomer up to
speed. So there's that.
Of course that's not all, though; that might
slow me down for a little while, but it would hardly stop me
cold. A bigger
problem is that I have a very literal mind. ("Strangely
literal" even, though of
course without the excuse of being newly human.) While that
can be helpful in
the study of mathematics and computer science, I also tend
to take my
entertainment at face value. All the nifty metaphors and
symbolism you people
talk about? I don't see it. Not on my own, anyway - I
generally understand it
once it's been pointed out to me. But to see it for myself,
without prompting?
I'm about as likely to sprout wings and fly off into the
sunset.
So
though I enjoy reading the thoughtful commentaries here,
some of which have
greatly expanded my understanding and appreciation of the
show, I really don't
feel up to contributing at that level. Even commenting on
the commentaries is
mostly beyond my scope, because I just don't think in those
terms. My handle is
all too apt: I'm literate, but not literary. Not to brag,
but I'm really pretty
good at facts - details - minutiae - trivia. I'm not so hot
with metaphor,
symbolism, resonance.
Last but not least, there's the time issue. I work
full time, and go to school part time (for now). I have a
slow dial-up
connection to the internet, and several different, mostly
unrelated, interests.
I don't get to read every post here. I don't get to read
every *thread.* So it
may be that I'm missing opportunities, posts at "my level,"
because of the need
to skim. My loss.
And so I lurk, I have lurked, and most likely will
continue to lurk.
*********************
This *is* an intersting
form of communication, isn't it? On the one hand, the
faceless anonymity is
inevitably going to be tane by some as license to be as
dishonest as the limits
of their imaginations will permit. On the other hand, the
same condition will be
taken by others as an opportunity to open up, to be
downright *painfully*
honest. Not just about what they think of others, their
fellow netizens; but
about themselves, their own lives, fears, and feelings. And
it can be difficult
or impossible to tell which is which, so emotional risk
factors can get pretty
high. Very interesting.
[> [> [> [> [> [> 'Strangely
Literal' -- Tchaikovsky,
02:29:13 11/08/02 Fri
Interesting thoughts,
Philistine.
And with the 'stangely literal' characteristic, you're not
only in the company of Anya, but also Joss Whedon. In the
Season 4 DVD
commentary for 'Restless', (does the US have this yet?) he
says that he had
problems with the free association necessary to write the
dream sequences. He
claimed that he was too literal-minded, and needed a
framework.
So not a
bad company to be in, hey?
TCH
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: US DVD
schedule --
Philistine, 07:57:30 11/08/02 Fri
We're not scheduled to get
Season *Three* until January. Grr. FOX only knows when we'll
get Season Four -
you'll probably have Season Six by then. Argh.
And thanks.
[> [> [> [> [> [> The Board is a haven
for the
metaphorically challenged -- Sophist, 08:57:28
11/08/02 Fri
A bigger problem is that I have a very literal mind.
("Strangely
literal" even, though of course without the excuse of being
newly human.) ... I
also tend to take my entertainment at face value. All the
nifty metaphors and
symbolism you people talk about? I don't see it. Not on my
own, anyway - I
generally understand it once it's been pointed out to me.
But to see it for
myself, without prompting? I'm about as likely to sprout
wings and fly off into
the sunset.
That's me exactly. The main reason I love to read the
posts here is that so many people see things I miss. It
doubles my enjoyment of
the show.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Metaphors bring
out the Grouch Marx
in me. -- Darby, 09:31:12 11/08/02 Fri
His comment that he
wouldn't want to belong to any club that would want him for
a
member...?
I often figure that if I immediately get a metaphor,
it
must be way too obvious.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Yeeks!
Groucho! GrouchO!
-- D, 09:33:26 11/08/02 Fri
...Am I the only one who carefully
proofreads his text but tends to ignore the title?
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Say
the secret word,
and the duck comes down... -- cjl, 09:52:04 11/08/02
Fri
"Duck? There's a duck?"
-- Buffy, "Lessons"
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
Or Else --
Isabel, 10:54:53 11/08/02 Fri
I thought maybe Oscar the Grouch
decided to try Communism.
;-)
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> Re: Or Else
- Love the Imagery - It's a post for the Sesame Street
Board! -- Darby,
12:09:46 11/08/02 Fri
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> The
BtVS/Angel/Sesame Street Board -- Arethusa, 12:34:35
11/08/02 Fri
Oscar the Grouch's trash can is the Hellmouth, and the
Scoobies must
fight the Grouchettes to save the City Dump from being
sucked in. Angel battles
the Cookie Monster in an abandoned Nabisco factory,
convincing the Elves to join
in with him at the last moment. Fred is almost decpitated by
a flying
fudge-covered wafer. The Count falls in love with Buffy, and
goes in search of a
soul. Tune in next week!
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> "R"
is for Running Dog Lackey of the Capitalist Bourgoisie -
- cjl, 12:47:55
11/08/02 Fri
BIG BIRD: So Jimmy--if you paid 5 cents for candy and 5
cents for a piece of chewing gum, how much money did you
spend?
JIMMY (counts
on fingers): 5 plus 5 equals...ten.
BIG BIRD: That's right Jimmy. And both
"candy" and "chewing gum" start with "C"; what other words
start with
"C"?
COOKIE MONSTER (starting to sing): "C" is for c--
(OSCAR pops out
of his garbage can, bonks Cookie Monster on the head and
looks into the
camera.)
OSCAR: What does "C" stand for? I'll TELL you what it stands
for, kids! C'mon, move in a little closer, I'm not gonna
bite you--well, not
unless I have to anyway. "C" stands for a "criminal"
socioeconomic system that
deprives the proletariat of its basic rights as the engine
of production in our
industrialized world. "C" stands for the upper classes,
repressing the
downtrodden masses who--
ERNIE: Uh, Oscar?
OSCAR: What is it? I'm talkin'
here!
ERNIE: "C" also stands for the Children's Television
Workshop, who pays
your salary, and has nicely asked you to knock it off. Save
it for the union
meetings, OK?
OSCAR: They're bluffin'. They can't intimidate me.
ERNIE:
Well, they said if you don't knock it off, they could always
give Elmo some more
screen time. Kids love Elmo.
OSCAR (smiling into the camera): Sesame Street
has been brought to you by the number "5" and the letter
"C." Sesame Street has
been brought to you by the wonderful people at the
Children's Television
Workshop....
(Sesame Street theme pipes in.)
ERNIE: Bert, who gave
Oscar a copy of Das Kapital for his birthday?
BERT: Never found out.
Personally, I think it was the Count. The Russians occupied
his castle right
after the war, and I kinda think there was some Stockholm
Syndrome going on in
there....
(Sesame Street theme fades out...)
[> [> [> [> [> Re: On posting and not
posting -- anom,
23:25:04 11/07/02 Thu
I've noticed that I tend to post more
around the edges of a thread most of the time, chiming in
here & there
rather than going into depth on the main topic. Partly this
is because I don't
have one of those jobs w/the long, boring stretches that
would give me time to
craft the kind of response I'd like to (the secret of my
succ[inctn]ess), but it
may also have to do w/my personality--the same part that
makes me more an editor
than a writer. I also don't start threads very often.
Those may be the
same reasons I haven't had too many negative reactions to my
posts--certainly
nothing that made me consider leaving the board or going
into lurker mode. When
I have had them, they've usually come from posters who tend
to do the same thing
pretty often, so I didn't take it personally. Or maybe I'm
too careful in what I
say & don't often post things likely to set anyone off.
But I have felt
disappointed when I didn't get any replies at all, or when
some little joke or
aside gets the replies & my main point doesn't. There've
been several times
when I thought I'd come up with something interesting that I
really wanted to
see discussed, & it...wasn't. Sometimes I tried to bring
up the same thing
in another thread, or even a new one, but the one thing that
worked was to say
"OK [about one of those asides that was picked up on], but I
was really hoping
we could talk about...." And we did! All I had to do was
ask. Well, that time,
anyway.
Dream, I'm sorry to hear you're feeling depressed (but glad
it's
only mild). I'm never sure how literally to take a statement
like that--whether
a person is talking about an "official," clinical depression
or something
else--but if the bouts you describe occur on a regular
basis, it may be a cyclic
depression. I don't want to get too personal, & I'm
certainly not asking you
to put info out here that's private, but it might be worth
talking to a doctor
about. A lot more is known about depression, incl. the
milder forms, than used
to be, & more can be done about it for many people. (I
hesitate to mention
it, & for all I know you've already done this, &
it's not my business
anyway, but a lot of people are going through this who
needn't be.)
I
guess this is an example of how the Internet lets people
know things about
people we don't really know, although I'd say how a person
posts/chats does tell
you something about them. Of course, how people interpret
that "something"
varies, but the same is true in real life. And as several
people have said in
this thread, I've met a number of posters from this board,
& I like all of
them!
Anyway, I hope you feel better soon, dream, & I for one
would
like to see you post more!
[> [> [> [> [> Recapitulations --
Tchaikovsky, 03:03:52
11/08/02 Fri
The hardest thing about this board is to post on it. Be
brave. Post.
I'm not sure if I have a lot to add to this subject
which hasn't already been said, but I want to work through
it nevertheless,
almost clarify the thoughts in my own mind.
Posting on boards to me did
start out as a plea for attention, to a certain extent. If
you're entirely happy
reading the superb discussion threads of everyone else, then
lurking is for you.
In essence, it's always going to take a few ounces of ego to
get those 'message
subject' and 'name' boxes filled in.
So what our my reactions when
no-one replies to a post?Sometimes not surprised- it was a
stupid point anyway;
it's my fault for being arrogant enough to believe anyone
cares about my views.
But there's a two-layer reaction here. The first is anger at
the other people
for not loving you. That goes flat very quickly, because, in
most cases, you
don't know them, their families or homes, what they have to
do for a living. You
realise that it's paranoia, and you consign your unanswered
post to fate of
people not being around. But the second layer reaction is
when you blame
yourself. You think that you're just wasting board space;
that you were too
eager for validation. On this board in particular, you can
feel a sense
intellectual inferiority, because of the scores of
scriveners posting every day.
You blame yourself for arrogance. You try to put yourself in
your place. And you
allow your self-confidence to be trodden on.
It's the second part of the
response which is the danger. I'm sure no-one's ever posted
a message saying:
'You never replied to my thread! I hate you! Can I have your
address so I can
torch your home NOW?' The first thought is a passing one.
The second one can be
permanent, because we all seek for validation, and at Voy,
the only means of
validating somebody else's post is to respond to it. But the
reasons people
don't respond to postings do not count as a lack of
validation. People don't
post for many reasons. Time, completeness of answer, nothing
more to add. Just a
feeling that the subject isn't interesting to them or hasn't
quite
clicked.
It was this recognition which evrntually led to my ability
to
take people ignoring posts as a non sequitur from people not
replying, and it
led me to post fairly regularly. And the more you post, the
more chance you have
to chime with someone else.
Now, (and almost always for me), posting here
is a joyful experience. I've never yet been insulted or
offended by any replies
to my posts. I've recently managed to abandon the quest for
validation. And, to
look at the glass as half full, writing a couple of your own
thoughts in 5
minutes is much more fun than copying someone else's up from
dialogue for 3
hours. A useful function but tiring.
The hardest thing about this board
is to post on it. Be brave. Post.
TCH
[> [> [> [> [> [> Re:
Recapitulations -- Rahael,
03:42:57 11/08/02 Fri
Scriveners? I love that description! Can I
steal it?
"It's the second part of the response which is the danger.
I'm
sure no-one's ever posted a message saying: 'You never
replied to my thread! I
hate you! Can I have your address so I can torch your home
NOW?'"
LOLOLOL
"And, to look at the glass as half full, writing a
couple of your own thoughts in 5 minutes is much more fun
than copying someone
else's up from dialogue for 3 hours. A useful function but
tiring."
Too
true!!
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> 'Steal' is such
a harsh word...
-- Tchaikovsky, 03:54:01 11/08/02 Fri
... I like 'expanding my
vocabulary and sharpening its specific use' better. Use it
as you
will.
TCH
[> [> [> Here's some shallow end Campbell --
it's pretty cool --
pr10n,
08:10:59 11/07/02
Thu
Finn:
The Enormous Cranial Wattage of most posters here
is daunting indeed. Let me offer you a little Campbell
knowledge, enough for
laymen and Disney script writers, but not enough for
insulting large academic
departments.
Here's a link to what seems like an expurgated version of
Chris Vogler's original memo to Disney writers, called "A
Practical Guide to The
Hero with A Thousand
Faces":
http://www.rowangrove.org/articles/a-campbell.htm
It's the
basis for his book, _The Writer's Journey_, which is a very
fine tool for
exploring the craft of storytelling.
If that doesn't suffice, here's a
copyright infringement bonus: I have a clean copy of the
original 7-page memo,
and I'll e-mail it to you in Word format. Just let me know
your address through
my e-mail link above.
To Other Readers: I'll send a copy to you too, if
you promise not to tell where it came from.
[Um, pr10n, you know about IP
addresses and stuff, right? Disney will find out, and They
will send a
tutu-wearing hippo to bust your kneecaps.]
Ah well, suffer for my
art.
[> Re: The Episodes of Drew Greenberg (Spoilers
through 7.6) --
Doriander, 21:06:33 11/06/02 Wed
What Rob said. The Buffistas
have coined Goddard New!Drew and Greenberg Classic!Drew.
New!Drew however
prefers to be addressed as the Ultimate!Drew (I'm not a
minion, no. But I prefer
him to Classic!Drew. I LOVE the vignettes within an episode
wriiten by
Greenberg. But the episode as a whole? Not so much).
But you make good
points.
Re: gay jokes. Greenberg interestingly wrote for Showtime's
"Queer as Folk" before he came onboard ME.
As to filming/editing, with
the exception of OaFA, Greenberg always uses clever
intercutting scenes that
occur in realtime.
Smashed: Willow and Amy’s magick hijinks and the
Buffy and Spike dance.
Entropy: The SG at the Summers’ house, The Trio,
Spike and Anya in the Magick Box.
Him: split screen.
With you on the
continuity.
[> If you're sixteen, I'll go back to teaching high
school! -- luna,
06:49:43 11/07/02 Thu
[> [> Wow, everyone here is so nice to me. I feel
special. -- Finn
Mac Cool, 19:10:18 11/07/02 Thu
A "Him" question (spoiler) and a general question. --
Darby, 07:30:43
11/07/02 Thu
Was it just me or was the High Scholl
cliquish-slash-humiliation stuff more cutting in Him
than it used to be
back when the Main Gang was in HS? It just seems that the
old stuff was more
stylized and less cringe-inducing. Or maybe it's that I see
Dawn as somehow more
defenseless than any of the Originals (where was all of the
summer's Summers
training in that alley fight?) and it's harder to take
watching the
abuse.
Other Topic - for over a year now, FX has supplied Intro to
Buffy
101. Several of the posters here only really got into the
show thanks to the
eleventy hundred hours of cable exposure, and for a while at
least Buffy on
FX was doing really well - for a cable rerun show, at
least. Does everyone
here agree that our dear show suffers from "it's too silly
to try - look at the
title!"-itis? But being available must have increased
the Buffy
exposure base. I know that I look forward to the new ones
more when I've
been watching the old ones, is it fair to assume I'm not
alone?
Why
aren't the ratings improving? And I don't mean the season-
opener ratings, but
the regular week-to-week stuff, which has stayed fairly flat
for a LONG time.
Why haven't the FX reruns brought a slew of new people to
the primetime version?
Is UPN even really a network?
Comments? Theories?
[> Here's a weird question I've pondered too --
neaux, 07:46:38
11/07/02 Thu
Dont ask me why.. but we get the TV GUIDE at our
house.. and this whole new season of Buffy, I never see any
advertisements for
Buffy/UPN Tuesday night ads in the TV GUIDE.
WB is all over the place
promoting Dawson and Bird of Prey, Charmed and the lot..
So does UPN do
any advertising? I thought Viacom owns CBS/MTV/UPN. Is there
advertising on any
of their cable stations for the upcoming shows?
[> [> Re: Here's a weird question I've pondered
too -- akanikki,
08:50:37 11/07/02 Thu
Actually, I just noticed in the last week
that UPN is promoting BTVS on Yahoo and on NetZero (an
internet access
provider). It struck me that this is the first time I've
seen such ads outside
of tv.
[> [> Re: Here's a weird question I've pondered
too -- pr10n,
08:51:32 11/07/02 Thu
UPN ran a Buffy ad Monday and Tuesday on
Yahoo. It was one of those floaty ads that finally settles
down off to one side,
with a click-through and everything. Maybe web ads are all
the UPN Budgeteers
are willing to spring for Buffy.
Or maybe they are well aware of their
demographics and hit the web 'cause hey, that's where we
are. Of course, that
misses the point of increasing viewer numbers.
[> [> [> Maybe some answers -- Deeva, who is
tired of being
devilish for the moment, 09:13:49 11/07/02 Thu
The way I
understand some of this is that UPN is not available in
every area. But some
people are able to watch the show by locating other local
stations that might
carry it but it takes a little searching.
As for the advertising, I have
seen tv advertising for the show on other cable system
channels MTV, E!, SciFi
and so on. I've also heard a lot of radio advertising as
well. I haven't come
across any print yet.
I'm not sure why the numbers are flat but then the
Nielsens are a mystery to me. I wish they would also keep
track of the shows
that people are also recording and watching later because of
scheduling
conflicts. I do alot of that. I know that TiVo has that
capability.
[> [> Re: Here's a weird question I've pondered
too -- vh,
08:01:54 11/08/02 Fri
Doesn't seem to be working for BoP; their
ratings are falling like a rock.
[> Re: A "Him" question (spoiler) and a general
question. --
Doriander, 08:43:46 11/07/02 Thu
Compared to say, the Cordettes
who were actively humiliating and abusing Willow and Xander
in the past seasons
not for anything they did reallly but just because,
the “cool” crowd in
“Him” were not so much abusing as trying to get away from a
persistant
Dawn. And to me that makes the humiliation more cutting,
characters acting
pathetic. In S2’s “Reptile Boy”, I felt the same thing for
Xander, when he
agreed to dress in drag and made a fool of himself.
[> An answer (why I really love BtVS now, and hope
this is the last
series) -- KdS, 10:42:56 11/07/02 Thu
I think that one reason
why the ratings are flat might be that the series has got a
reputation (to a
great extent justified) of being a very continuity-based
show, to the point of
excluding new viewers. I haven't seen the episodes, but from
the discussion here
I think that a new viewer would have been flatly bemused by
say, Beneath
You, or Selfless.
It's the great balancing act - depth of
plotting and continuity of character are vital for real
quality, but to a
certain extent they act to restrict the capacity to reach
new audiences. As far
as I can see, BtVS passed this point at the end of S5, and
in many ways I hope
this will be the last season. This opinion may be coloured
by the fact that I
watched the last stages of Doctor Who at an
impressionable age (a series
that really was crushed to death by excessive continuity)
and don't want to see
it happen again.
[> [> Re: An answer (why I really love BtVS now,
and hope this is the
last series) -- Kristy,
11:16:53 11/07/02 Thu
I didn't start watching BtVS until after
F/X's marathon last Thanksgiving. I'd always wanted to watch
but felt I couldn't
catch up. So with the marathon I thought, here's my chance!
After that I started
taping the episodes on F/X and still watching the new ones
on UPN so some was a
mystery for while but I stuck with it. It takes work to
catch up now but it is
so worth it. I try to pass the word to people I know who
might like scifi/horror
or just wonderful writing.
[> [> The continuity thing -- vh, 08:37:49
11/08/02 Fri
It seems to me that many of the best series have elements
that continue
and build from episode to episode: BtVS, Alias, 24, my
favorite Star Trek, DS9,
etc. All have recurring guests and story arcs. Heck, 24
takes it to the ultimate
extreme. This is something that serial television can do for
you that movies
(except for planned series like The Lord of the Rings and
Star Wars) cannot. In
fact, if (as some suits would seem to wish) you want to
reduce a TV series to
the other extreme and try to make each episode stand on its
own as much as
possible, you always have a product that attempts to be a
movie in miniature but
fails miserably because the production lacks in time and
money. What I always
found irritating about regular series is that something
major would happen
between characters and the next week it would be as though
nothing had happened
at all. Zero continuity. At least now most series have at
least some
continuity.
But you're right, as well. Series with heavy continuity may
often be superior (yeah, that's my opionion), but they take
a commitment on the
part of the viewer. The viewer must be drawn in and come
back week after week to
appreciate the nuances -- be it the depth of
characterization (nearly impossible
to achieve when you reset the characters every week, they
never change or grow),
the acting (better characterization brings out the best in
the cast), the depth
of plot (you're not going to get the resonance,
forshadowing, twists, etc. --
you can simply be more novelistic in a series), or the
potential for exploring
ideas and themes.
So I quail at the reports that networks do not want
commit to this kind of series because they do not perform
well enough,
particularly in re-runs (it doesn't help that they insist on
running them in a
partial run, or, worse, out-of-order). We have enough
crime/police/law dramas
and all I see is more and more on the horizon, based on
their
success.
Darn it, tune in to see Buffy or Sydney kick some butt (I
speak
not you, but to viewers in general). Or consider James
Marsters' cheekbones, if
that's your thing. Maybe you like monsters. So what if you
see something that
makes you say "Huh?" (Hell, if it's Alias, there's plenty
that makes regular
viewers say "Huh?" It's part of the fun!) If you stick
around you might see
something special.
[> Buffy Ad Campaign -- Elizabeth, 19:27:03
11/07/02 Thu
I go to Oakland University in Michigan. There has been a UPN
advertising
campaign all over campus, with fairly large sized posters
with 1/2 of Buffy's
face on the right, and dark blue on the left, sort of cut
diagonally, with the
text "Buffy Bites Back Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and on a
black strip on the
bottom, "All New Tuesday's 8 pm UPN Detroit" They also have
posters for Haunted
and Enterprise. I took one of the posters down for myself,
but I have seen them
in at least 2 different buildings on campus. So, at least in
Detroit, UPN is
reaching out to new viewers.
[> Re: A "Him" question (spoiler) and a general
question. --
luvthistle1, 02:17:29 11/08/02 Fri
Was it just me or was the High
Scholl cliquish-slash-humiliation stuff more cutting in Him
than it used to be
back when the Main Gang was in HS?
It's not more cutting, it just
seems that way, because Dawn doesn't have any friends. So,
she seems all alone
in this, which is very *sad*. Where are Kit and Carlos?? It
seem like no one
likes Dawn, why come she do not have friends?
She has no one to talk to. When
she tried to talk to Buffy, about the soul, Buffy was too
busy. she need more
"GOOD" friends her own age.
Buffyverse Banter with Bob & Susan (Spoilage!) --
GingerBob,
09:02:10 11/07/02 Thu
OK, folks, Susan (singed_cat) and I had a
rambling conversation that touched on Spike's personality,
the Spike/Buffy
relationship, and various other things. We thought other
people might be
interested to read it and chime in with their own
observations. Forgive us if
you think we're just self-indulgent. And, standard
disclaimer:
"The ideas
and attitudes expressed are not necessarily those of the
authors!"
Oh,
and WARNING, SPOILERS TO EVERYTHING!!!
Enjoy.
Susan : OK, Did
you catch everything this week? They tricked us & put a
new Buffy on.
gingerbob: And it was the "Halloween flavored" episode I'd
been
missing!
Susan : Halloween? Well, maybe---it was rather silly, if you
ask
me...
gingerbob: Rather silly is just what I meant!
Susan: So, did
you watch the Angel tape I sent you yet?…
gingerbob: (on Spike’s 'Angel'
appearance ("In the Dark")) I always have like him better
since he went to the
vet.
Susan : I liked him bad. He was a really good
badguy.
gingerbob: So, while we're on Angel... I'm a little uneasy
about:
a) Gunn's decision and b) what the implications (fallout)
might be, in the
context of their various talking up to then.
Susan : Yeah, that's the
question of the hour these days. Kind of a no-win there. I
mean, he kills the
guy so she won't be changed by her course of action, but now
their relationship
is changed forever.
gingerbob: Exactly. Of course, it wasn't the sort of
moment that breeds logical analysis.
Susan : yeah, logic was not in the
building...
Susan : It'll be interesting to see if they can weather it.
But I'm not sure they'll be a happy couple if they do.
gingerbob: Maybe
she'll react by going to Wes, at least temporarily.
Susan : I don't
think even he would want that… It was interestig to see that
he wouldn't do
anything to consciously break them up. He helped Fred
because he loves her &
because, I think, she finally wanted something from him,
and, just maybe,
because moral ambiguity loves company. But he told her Gunn
was right, and
supported what he said, and didn't say anything to increase
their division. I
have a feeling his Engliah upbringing just wouldn't find it,
well,
'cricket'.
gingerbob: I'm getting a little impatient about Wes. Is he
just in some kind of self-loathing funk, or... if he's up to
something more
concrete, I'd like to (as a viewer) find out where he's
coming from. Like I
said, impatient.
Susan : I have a good idea where he is. I admire him
pretty greatly. I couldn't go on being good with that much
self-loathing going
on. He doesn't trust himself anymore. He doesn't know, as he
told Fred, what
kind of man he is. But he's holding onto the principles he
believed in, hoping
that eventually he'll come out of the tunnel. And toward
that he's not burning
his bridges with Fred.
Susan : But they still have to have a conversation
about last season.
gingerbob: Or the others, really. And you're
right.
gingerbob: SO GET ON WITH IT! (Sorry, impatience again.) "I
did
have a plan. A good one, too. But I got bored." OH, one
thing did occur to me,
about that whole "Ring of Amadala" business...
Susan : Hee hee--
Amara.
gingerbob: One could argue that it was out of character for
Spike.
After all, he was the one that asked Angel "Don't you ever
get tired of fights
you know you're going to win?" If he is "untouchable", then
he's not putting
himself on the line/to the test.
Susan : Yeah, but who's to say he
wouldn't have gotton bored with the ring after awhile?
gingerbob: But why
did he want it? Frustration/impatience?
Susan : Maybe he was trying to be
a more mature vampire-- you know, take the long view...
gingerbob: Spike?
I doubt it!
Susan : Well, think about it (long view)--he'd just had a
bad
break-up with Dru-- maybe he thought if he did something big
like this she'd
want him back.
Susan : I think he wanted it because it was a cool thing
to pursue, and I think *having* it wouldn't have been as
fun.
gingerbob:
Yeah, I can see the "Ooh, neat" aspect, but IIRC he sought
it as a tool to help
him kill Buffy. Spike gets off on the fight. Therefore,
would he "cheat" and
thereby diminish his victory? Or perhaps getting the tool
that does the job is
part of the victory.
Susan : Maybe so. I think he really loved fighting
Slayers, but it was that obsession that drove off Dru. So if
he *kills* this
one-- even if he 'cheats'-(And you're what? Shocked and
disappointed? I'm EVIL.)
then he might rid himself of his obsession for awhile. Not
true, maybe, but
classic obsession thinking-- 'after this one I'm done.'
gingerbob: Good
observation.
gingerbob: And refresh my memory- what started the 'feud'
between Spike and Angel? Was it newly bad Angel pulling Drew
away?
Susan
: Oh--Angel was not only GOOD, but protecting a Slayer. And
he was Spike's role
model for so much of his development, that to see him that
way made Spike really
hate him. Then later, you know, there was just the jealousy
thing. You're
right-- he did fool around with Dru a lot-- so it seemed he
was always
overshadowing Spike, and coming between him and whatever
women were
around...
gingerbob: And, I think, there was a subterranean
'admiration'
that he was reacting against. Or maybe I'm using too much
hindsight. But he was
very slowly edging away from evil (and, to beat a dead
horse, I've never
accepted Spike being 'EVIL') and maybe didn't like finding
some element of
respect for Angel in the mix.
Susan : Hmmm-- can you elaborate a
bit?
gingerbob: Well, looking from the vantage point of Spike
becoming
"Noble" (protecting Buffy and Dawn from Glory, for example),
I wonder if that
was already inside him. Spike has always struck me as
someone trying to live up
to something he perceives (being more evil than anybody,
being NOT beneath the
woman he loves...), and since at that point he was trying to
be "the Big Bad",
he would have been repulsed by an element of himself that
was the opposite. I
don't read Spike as being motivated by his evilness, so much
as trying to find
"self respect" by being good at being what he thinks he
should be. The logical
thing he, a vampire/demon/predator/killer, should be is
EVIL. So he goes for
that for a while. But that's really not who HE is, which is
why he is, in fact,
"Love's bitch". That is, love is what he is really motivated
by. [Note: love and
evil are not in this case polar opposites]
Susan : That 'living up to'
thing-- another way of saying 'idealist?' and, then too,
poet...?
Susan :
I don't think they are in fact polar. CS Lewis makes the
point that love doesn't
save or damn you.
gingerbob: However, opposites or not, it proves
difficult, once one has become good at love, to be evil.
Susan : Yup.
Spike is, basically, a romantic…though I think it depends on
who he loved. Dru
is amazingly evil, insane, and all. Hey--! You could say
that his loves were his
muses-- They made him 'want to be a better man'-- to meet
their standards.
gingerbob: (and we're back to not being beneath the woman he
loves...)
Susan : But of course we got the sense Spike wasn't Evil
enough
for Dru-- she liked Angel. And he's not Good enough for
Buffy. So he does it--
he becomes a better man. Which made me want to thump Dawn--
"So what, like
having a soul will make him a better man?" Um, DUH,
kid...
gingerbob: She
has a valid point, perhaps!
Susan : But the thing is, Spike was in fact a
good man *before* he was a vampire. He has lots of history
as a badguy, of
course, but now, the point is, he has a *choice*. He has a
conscience to be
motivated by. What I really loved last season was that he
really felt something
about hurting Buffy. Not guilt, per sey, but-- felt the
space ache where guilt
should be. He knew he should feel horrible, and that feeling
wasn't there, and
he hated it.
gingerbob: So, if he didn't have a conscience motivating him
before, what was it?
Susan : Love, of course. She made him hate himself
for not being human. Love was kind of a conscience
substitute. We've seen it
before. But Buffy knew it, so she wouldn't love him back.
And--wackiness
ensues.
gingerbob: Back to Dawn- Keep in mind that the context of
that
comment (soul makes the man) was with a lot of other
appropriately confused
responses to the people she's around. She's trying to figure
out how being human
works, as do all children, and things aren't seeming to make
much sense all the
way around. And Buffy can't really shed any light on it.
Susan : True
enough. But Spike might be able to.
gingerbob: Don't you dare "not spoil"
me with some veiled hint!
Susan : Unspoilered speculation-- purely I
think if anyone can shed light on what it is to be human it
would be Spike.
Doncha think? ! Also, it’s nice to see Dawn’s contempt for
Spike's actions were
unmitigated by her crush on him.
gingerbob: Crush? I don't know. I think
it's more that she's never really distinguished between
Spike, the "corrupted"
evil vampire (as others see him), Clem the demon, and the
human scoobies. She
takes them at face value.
Susan : True-- things must be confusing for
her. And where *is* Clem these days, by the way?
gingerbob: Which perhaps
is one reason she is very off Spike right now- he was her
most dependable
friend/ally, and did the most betraying thing to Buffy, whom
despite the
rivalry/tensions, she dearly loves. ...And I miss Clem too.
Susan : I
know-- when Spike said, "I have nowhere else to go", I added
for him, "--Clem
won't leave my crypt!"
gingerbob: Yeah- why CAN'T Spike go back there?
Susan : Um.....all I can figure is symbolism--because it's
where he
lived before?
gingerbob: Yeah, good enough. After all, they never
explained why he was lurking in the [school] basement in the
first place.
(though I thought, and may still, he was "brought" there by
the "je ne sais
quoi" demon.)
Susan : And--this question hasn't come up except in my
head, but I'll answer it anyway—
gingerbob: oh, like
Jeopardy?
Susan : Angel spent 80 years trying to be evil again and
pursuing Darla and generally being wretched. Spike won't
take that long to go
through his transition, 1) because he sought out his soul
and 2) because he
wasn't in the state of evil Angel was in anyway. He's making
a conscious choice
to be a better person.
gingerbob: Well, he kind of did go through that
while he was rebelling against the chip. And he does have
some old habits to
"reprogram"!
Susan : right--(he's been through that) At least he doesn't
have to reprogram all at once-- he's had the Initiative
Halfway House
Course...
gingerbob: Hey! Did grabbing RJ's jacket constitute
"attacking"? I didn't see him flinch...
Susan : and that crap Buffy said
about not helping him out of pity was just that. Pity, pity,
pity! And it's OK--
compassion is a good thing.
gingerbob: I think Buffy really doesn't
know, or maybe want to accept, (it is, after all,
complicated) how she feels.
But I sure as hell would be impressed if someone went and
got a soul for me! You
KNOW those things don't come cheap!
Susan : I don't think she really does
love him- she wouldn't let herself. But I think she knows
somewhere in the back
of her head that, now, she might be able to.
gingerbob: Close
enough!
Susan : And, moreover, I think now she wants to.
[> Angelus-evil versus Spike-evil -- SingedCat,
07:30:31 11/08/02
Fri
****gingerbob: Well, looking from the vantage point of Spike
becoming "Noble" (protecting Buffy and Dawn from Glory, for
example), I wonder
if that[tendancy] was already inside him. Spike has always
struck me as someone
trying to live up to something he perceives (being more evil
than anybody, being
NOT beneath the woman he loves...), and since at that point
he was trying to be
"the Big Bad", he would have been repulsed by an element of
himself that was the
opposite. I don't read Spike as being motivated by his
evilness, so much as
trying to find "self respect" by being good at being what he
thinks he should
be. The logical thing he, a vampire/demon/predator/killer,
should be is EVIL. So
he goes for that for a while. But that's really not who HE
is, which is why he
is, in fact, "Love's bitch". That is, love is what he is
really motivated by.
[Note: love and evil are not in this case polar
opposites]********
I'm still not sure about this. Especially about
Spike being EVIL. Maybe he didn't want to destroy the whole
world, but that was
becuase he wanted to go on slaughtering people and bathing
in theior blood with
his girlfriend for all eternity.
It's an interesting take on evil.
Angelus was always more depersonalised, whereas Spike seemd
more, well 'hands
on'. Which is more evil? Ummmm....not really sure that
there's a degree there.
Certainly Angelus wanting to destroy the world was more
damaging (Quick
side-question-- does that make it more evil?), but I hold to
the idea that his
determination to do this was inspired mainly by his
relationship with Buffy. If
he had never met her, or if he had killed her before, I
doubt he would have
undertaken such an ambitious course of action.
Maybe the best arguement
for the degrees of evil were what they got out of their
actions. Angelus found
deep satisfaction--and sexual stimulation-- in acts causing
pain and suffering
in helpless human beings. Spike got his satisfaction in
confronting an evil and
vanquishing it-- more of an evil champion, as the wish-demon
told him. It showed
in his other actions too-- he took pleasure in defeating
anyone who got in the
way of his purposes, but those purposes changed with
whatever he wanted at the
time. Slayers were his particular obsession, and he sought
them out the way a
knight errant seeks out dragons.
So if Spike is a kind of champion for
the forces of evil, what does that make Angelus-- someone
dedicated to the
perpetuation of depravity and mayhem in the world for its
own sake-- I suppose
one could call him a kind of evil saint-- an avatar of
entropy and the forces
that make the world fall apart.
[> [> Re: Angelus-evil versus Spike-evil --
Pilgrim, 12:02:58
11/08/02 Fri
I like this metaphor--Spike as champion of evil,
Angelus as saint of evil. Spike "acts out" in the world,
fighting, causing
revolutions and panicked mobs. Angelus gets inside
individuals, making their
nightmares real.
Both are equally evil, but in different ways, imo. To
me, Angelus' evil deeds seem more personal, and Spike's seem
less so. Angelus
likes to get close to his victims, torture them, make them
miserable or crazy
before the kill. Spike seems more interested in causing
chaos and less
interested in getting close enough to see the fear/misery in
his victims'
faces--look at how gleeful he was in the second-season
episode Halloween, and
how excited by the mobs in Fool for Love and Bargaining. He
likes unpredictable
violence and smashing stuff. He really gets off on the
danger posed by the
unpredictable nature of the whirlwind. I imagine he would
gleefully arrange a
sixty-car pile-up, then stand close enough to get hurt
himself, and get all
giddy at the impact with twisted metal and body parts flying
all over. Angelus
probably would be bored by such a thing because he wouldn't
be twisting any
minds, hearts, or souls.
Spike does seem to take the Slayers personally,
but his interest in them seems to arise from the danger they
pose to him--the
thrill of accepting the danger and overcoming it by killing
the slayer. As you
suggest. Whereas Angelus kills individual humans because he
loves exercising
power over them, Spike, I think, kills nonslayer individuals
mostly to eat, or
because he's bored, or maybe to entertain Dru, or because
they are in his way,
or some other pragmatic reason. So which is more evil?
[> [> [> Oooh, this is good... -- Masq,
13:02:34 11/08/02
Fri
I'm going to borrow this for my Spike vs.
Angelus' philosophies
of evil section....
'k?
[> [> [> [> Re: Oooh, this is good... --
Pilgrim, 13:16:51
11/08/02 Fri
Really??? Cool!!!
[> [> [> On Angelus and Destroying the World
-- Finn Mac Cool,
13:47:23 11/08/02 Fri
There have been two occassions where
Angelus was presented with the opportunity to cause the
Apocalypse. The first
time was with the Judge in Surprise/Innocence, the second
was with Acathla in
Becoming. The first time around, Angelus seems lackluster
about the end of the
world, all though he does lend a hand. His interest seems
more in using his
state as Buffy's ex to torment her. But, when Becoming comes
around, he's all
set to suck earth into Hell. Why the change? I don't deny
that Angelus's
obsession with Buffy is part of what drove him to open the
mouth of Acathla, but
there is another factor. The Judge's method was to destroy
humanity one by one,
physically snuffing out any creature that wasn't pure evil.
I imagine Angelus
would find this rather boring. After all, the burning
sensation only seems to
last a moment, and then it's over. Acathla, on the other
hand, was described as
sucking the world into Hell so that all souled creatures
would suffer horrible,
eternal torment. This is the key difference: the Judge would
destroy humanity,
Acathla would torture them eternally. For the true sadist
(which Angelus
definitely was), there must be no greater pleasure than
causing six billion
people to suffer for time never ending. It would be his
version of heaven.
[> [> [> [> Urk... -- Masq, 15:00:29
11/08/02 Fri
"For the true sadist (which Angelus definitely was), there
must be no
greater pleasure than causing six billion people to suffer
for time never
ending. It would be his version of heaven."
Considering that Angel got
his soul back shortly before all this was to have happened,
can you imagine the
amount of brooding he would have had to have done over
that?
*Urk*
[> [> [> [> [> Urk indeed -- Finn Mac
Cool, 15:09:07
11/08/02 Fri
Think of those poor demons in Acathla's Hell dimension.
Angel would be tormenting himself so much over the massive
pain he inflicted on
the world that any torture they inflicted would be
meaningless. Let's turn our
sympathy their way, shall we?
"I (heart) Spike" bumper-sticker -- Farstrider,
09:40:47 11/07/02
Thu
On the way home from work I've seen a car with a couple
bumper
stickers that made me think of y'all. The first one says "I
love Spike" but
instead of "love" there's a heart. The second one says "A
bigger Spike for a
better world."
Any of you the guilty party?
PS I saw the car
traveling North on the Pasadena Freeway around 7 PM or so.
(In case you were
wondering, I was the car driving too fast and blaring my
home-made OMWF
soundtrack).
""
.. Farstrider
\/
Marsters interview--maybe old? -- luna, 11:02:49
11/07/02 Thu
http://actionadventure.about.com/library/weekly/2002/aa06240
2.htm
Maybe
everyone but me has seen this already, but he talks about
his views on Spike,
the rape, the soul, etc.
[> joss interview, definitely old (fresh air
rebroadcast tomorrow) --
anom, 13:58:19 11/07/02 Thu
Just heard that this will be on Terry
Gross's program Fresh Air tomorrow (Fri., Nov. 8). What I
didn't know till I
checked the
program's website was that it's a rerun (or "archive
edition," as the
program likes to put it). Here's the info from the site:
"Joss WHEDON,
the creator of the movie and TV series 'Buffy The Vampire
Slayer.' He is
executive producer of 'Buffy' and co-executive producer of
the Buffy Spin-off
'Angel.' WHEDON also writes for both shows. Before working
on Buffy, WHEDON
wrote for the TV series 'Roseanne.' He also writes
screenplays. He has worked on
the scripts for such films as Alien Resurrection, Twister,
Toy Story, Speed, and
this summer's X-Men. (THIS INTERVIEW CONTINUES INTO THE
SECOND HALF OF THE
SHOW.) (Joss is pronounced like 'Floss,' Whedon is WE-den).
(original airdate:
5/9/00)"
Over 2 years ago! Oh well. We can hear "Floss" (?!) talk
about
the then-upcoming season 5 & listen for those true-but-
misleading gems.
Think he said anything about Firefly back then?
You can find when/if the
show's on in your area at the Find
a Station page.
A thought about Buffy's hairstyle in "Him" --
LadyStarlight, 12:16:00
11/07/02 Thu
Being as how I'm too laz-- uh, sick to sort through a
bunch of messages on this board & the Trollop board to
see who was
complaining about Buffy's hair (except Honorificus), I
thought I'd just post
this here.
Now, Joss has said that the 'theme' for this season is 'Back
to the Beginning', right? It struck me, on a rewatch, that
Buffy's hair is
pretty much identical to her first season style. Sneaky?
Hairstylists getting
bored? Somebody lost a bet?
You call it. I think it's a subliminal way of
reminding us of that first season, myself.
[> And the dark plaid skirt ensemble... --
AurraSing, 14:20:07
11/07/02 Thu
Kind of a reverse "Heathers" look or as my friend Tracy
likes to call it,the "Catholic Schoolgirl from Hell"
look.
Definitely not
something we have been seeing Buffy in for a long,long
time.
[> [> It reminded me of Darla's skirt in
"Angel" -- Sophist,
14:30:52 11/07/02 Thu
[> [> [> Yes that other female
predator.....;) -- Rufus,
14:35:32 11/07/02 Thu
[> [> At least it helps me to not think of the
unhealthy low body fat
percentage she has. -- VampRiley, 18:03:17 11/07/02
Thu
I,
for one, don't need to see every muscle within a woman's
body. Makes it looks
too much like a man and I am not interested in thinking
about a woman who has as
many muscles showing as my neighbor. (shivers) At least the
baggy clothes helps
me to forget about that part. Makes them look a little more
like they're not
that unhealthy. Same goes for Anya.
Some people have dimples. Others have
canyons.
I prefer dimples.
VR
Current
board
| More November
2002