it's a magical world

Hey, NYC-area Buffy fans! You love "Once More With Feeling", right? You know what would be super awesome? A live performance/sing-a-long produced by a queer group this weekend that is donating 100% of all ticket sales to the Trevor Project!



We're doing two performances this Saturday (2pm and 6pm), at the Parkside Lounge in the East Village. Tickets are only $15-$20, and literally every penny of that goes directly to the Trevor Project. It's an awesome cause, and it's gonna be an awesome show. (And I'm playing Anya, but whatever.) The Facebook event page with all the info (including how to buy tickets) is here. And you can sing along!

I'd love to see you guys there!

So for the past week, I have been sick, menstruating, and in tech/performances. Any one of these would be stressful enough. All three at once just seems like a big FUCK YOU from the universe. Oh, well, I've survived the week, and the show is closed -- just a quickie three-night cabaret, would have been a lot more fun if I hadn't had the damn flu the whole time. (I think it's the flu. It could also be a cold that's manifesting weirdly for me. Or possibly the plague.) So now I can rest up a bit, and hopefully NOT BE SICK ANYMORE UGH.

But anyway! I made a thing a few weeks ago, and now that eleventyfest reveals are up, I can post it properly.

All Maps Welcome (1711 words) by kaydeefalls
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Doctor Who (2005)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Clara Oswin Oswald, Eleventh Doctor
Additional Tags: POV Female Character, Companions, Friendship, complete and utter lack of jealousy
Summary: She knows she's not the only person to ever have traveled with the Doctor. It's a comforting thought.

I had a devil of a time getting into Clara's voice for this, and I wrote it all super last minute, but for all that, I kind of like it anyway. My recipient never responded to it, as far as I know, but from the master list, it looks like they dropped out of the fest, so possibly fandom is just not a thing that's happening for them at the moment, and I definitely understand that. I miss being able to write a lot. I know it comes and goes for me, and I'm not stressing out about it, but writer's block is sad and frustrating all the same.

On the other hand, I'm almost finished with a vid for an almost completely dead fandom, so that will be a thing! A thing that nobody but me will ever watch, to be specific. But I'm enjoying myself anyway. Hopefully I'll finish that up next week, now that this cabaret's done with and I maybe have some time to myself again. (It's a Buffy vid. A high school Buffy vid. Because that's just how my brain works, apparently, and also I've been doing a rewatch lately. I also really want to make a vidlet focused solely on "The Wish", but I can't quite find the right music for it yet. And also WTF that fandom is virtually nonexistent at this point, why am I getting all the vid bunnies now.)

Bit of random meta, mostly because I feel like rambling about stuff I love to take my mind off stuff that stresses me out.

So, again, on a bit of a Buffyverse kick at the moment, and I was thinking about trying to come up with a list of my top ten episodes or something, which made me think about what I'd consider my top episodes of any show I love, which made me think about what episodes define my favorite shows. And I realized that for me, at least, what makes me fannish about a show -- as opposed to "oh, yeah, that one's fun" -- tends to boil down to two specific types of episodes: the Hook, and the Game Changer. I need to encounter both of these episodes to want to dive into a fandom.

You all know what I mean. First, there's the Hook: that episode that really sells you on the show. Its placement can vary, but usually -- if you're watching the series in order, anyway -- it probably needs to fall somewhere in the first season, or you'll give up watching. (Alternately, it's that random episode you stumble across somewhere in the middle of the run of the show that drags you in without your actually knowing anything else about the show at all but holy jebus that was awesome, where can I find more?) It's the episode where a new show finds its footing, starts to figure out what it's really going to be about. It's the character moment that just NAILS it, or the plotline that really speaks to you personally, or just a really friggin' cool shot that makes your breath catch and you think, hey, this is nifty. And you never forget that moment.

Then there's the Game Changer. Episodic television is generally formulaic by nature, and I'm not saying that in a bad way. It has to be. That's what keeps its viewers coming back, week after week after week. We know what to expect, we know the characters, we know the types of story we're going to be told, and we're familiar enough with it to know we'll probably enjoy it. Totally cool. And most decently successful shows ride that wave all the way through the end. But the really good ones, the ones that develop obsessive crazy awesome fans, are the ones that test their own limits, push the edges of the formula, blow it all wide open -- if only for a story arc or two. The Game Changer is that episode. The one that dramatically raises or outright changes the stakes for the characters, the one whose repercussions ripple throughout the rest of the series, the one from which you can never go back. Sometimes it comes right in the first season. Sometimes it takes years before it happens. But oh, man, do we ever sit up and take notice when it does.

There are plenty of other episode archetypes, if I really wanted to sit around and come up with a few more catchy and overly simplistic labels for them. But the Hook and the Game Changer are the two episodes in any given show that will always, always, always turn up in any "best of" episode list I could ever think up. Any given TV show could have any number of Game Changers, depending on how you classify them; there are certainly degrees. For example, in Buffy, I'd consider "Passion" the first huge Game Changer -- we're shown the full extent of Angelus's evil for the first time, and our first major recurring character is killed, brutally, onscreen. But you could also argue that the "Surprise"/"Innocence" two-parter is the Game Changer, for giving us Angelus in the first place, or "School Hard", where Spike casually and deliberately kills the Anointed One, subverting all the expectations set by the first season's arc; or to a lesser extent, go back to "Prophecy Girl", where Buffy actually confronts the fact that she is going to die, which changes her personal stakes for the rest of the series (though I think that's more a logical continuation of the first season's overall story arc than a change, exactly). So, yeah, to a certain extent, the Game Changer is subjective; the Hook even more so, because that's very personal to each individual fan. But you've got to have both to really become fannish about a show. This is why I gave up on Supernatural -- I'm sure there are plenty of Game Changers over its run (and could probably list a few by sheer fannish osmosis), but I never got my Hook episode, so while I've certainly been entertained by the episodes I've watched, I never could get into it properly. My big frustration with Merlin is that while I certainly got my Hook (for me, "The Beginning of the End" -- Merlin's darker side and the Mordred reveal, oh my stars and garters), there has never been a proper Game Changer, and it started pissing me off so much it drained all my enjoyment out of the show. (While certainly there were episodes that had major repercussions, the basic status quo of Merlin's secret and Arthur and Merlin's twisted sort of friendship have never, ever changed, so even as other circumstances changed drastically, I feel like the show itself remained utterly static.)

So now I'm going to ramble on a bit about my favorite TV shows. You've been warned.

( Buffyverse )

( X-Files )

( Avatar )

( Whoniverse )

( Sorkinverse )

Stopping there because it's late and I'm sleepy, but I could do this for a bunch of other shows. (And ETA, realized I really had to add Avatar in here.) What are your Hooks & Game Changers for your big fannish loves? Is there another type of episode that you need to get involved in a fandom, or is it all about the characters and the individual episodes don't matter at all, or something else entirely? I like reading people's meta about these sorts of things. :)

Bullet points about all the completely unrelated TV shows I've been watching lately:

-DOCTOR WHO: was strangely unimpressed by 6x01, but most of my love was restored with 6x02. I think I may have just been in the wrong mood for Who when I watched the first episode. Unspoilery: AMY/RORY OTP OF MY HEART, HOW ARE YOU SO CONSISTENTLY ADORABLE. Mildly spoilery: ( minor spoilers )

-GAME OF THRONES: I've really been enjoying this so far, haven't seen the newest episode yet. But it feels very true to the books to me, minor alterations (like character ages) aside. And quite well done. It probably helps that I haven't reread the books in several years, so while I remember characters and major plot points, I'm not making constant mental comparisons as I watch. Also, ( minor spoiler for ep 2, and the books )

-ANGEL: Halfway through S5. "Why We Fight" was a really, really good episode -- it kind of felt like a completely different show. Prior to that, Cordy's all-too-brief return made me realize just how much I missed old!Cordy (i.e. before the whole Higher Power nonsense and worse return with the horrible pregnancy plotline). Cordy used to be one of my favorites back on Buffy. I forgot that. I miss her lots. :( Spike, of course, has completely stolen the show, which is probably why I'm largely enjoying this season.

-Friends got me to watch the first four episodes of COMMUNITY. It really is as entertaining as promised. This is next on the list to mainline once I'm done with Angel.

Related to TV, I would still hugely appreciate a second pair of eyes on this Whedonverse vid. I generally don't beta my vids, and I'll probably just wind up posting it tomorrow as is, but on the off chance someone's willing...

And unrelated to TV, some asshole demolished the driver's side mirror on my parked car sometime last night. I am royally pissed off about this, and about having to pay for repairs to damage that happened while my car was parked and I wasn't even there. Argh.

Show closed. Four weeks until the next one kicks in. I get to pretend to be a normal person for four weeks!

...or possibly this just means more free time to watch Buffy.

Three very important Buffyverse notes:
1. Dawn's reaction to Tara and Willow getting back together is THE MOST ADORABLE THING EVER. I kind of love Dawn a lot most of the time. This LJ is officially a hate-free zone for Dawn. (Besides which, I have an intense disliking of character bashing under ANY circumstances, even when it's a character I'm not particularly fond of.)
2. ...yes, I've just started on "Seeing Red", which I know will involved an attempted rape amongst my current predominant OTP and the death of half of my secondary OTP. Ugh ugh ugh. Also, FINALLY putting Amber Benson in the opening credits for her last episode? Low blow, Joss.
3. WHERE IS THE GOOD SPIKE/BUFFY FIC, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS OR IS NOT HOLY. Finding fic was not difficult. But I mean the GOOD fic. Right now I'm wading through the better end of the mediocre fic, because my standards drop sharply when I'm in the throes of new fandom love, but I can't believe this is the best there is. crack_van, why hast thou forsaken me? Normally that's my first go-to spot for new fandoms, but the fic I've read so far has been...not fantastic, with only one or two exceptions. This was a HUGE fandom in its day. There has to be good Spike/Buffy fic out there. Which does not heavily rely upon OOCness or the bashing of Angel, Dawn, and/or Willow. (Holy shit, guys, there is SO MUCH Willow bashing in Spike/Buffy fic, I am SO CONFUSED by this.) Just, yeah. Help?

I was up way too late last night, because I finished S5 Buffy/S2 Angel and COULD NOT STOP IN A PLACE WHERE BUFFY WAS DEAD. Even knowing that she'd come back. Just, no.

Love reading old meta about these (and previous) seasons. Anyone have any good Buffyverse meta links? Anything that spoils later seasons I'll just hold off reading until I get there.

I have nothing particularly meaningful to say, so quick bulletpoints:
-"The Body" was pretty much the most perfect episode of anything ever, wow.
-I don't miss Riley at all.
-The Spike&Dawn friendship makes me ridiculously happy.
-I really don't get the Dawn!hate -- she can be very annoying, sure, by virtue of being a 14-year-old girl, but I rather like the person she's growing up into.
-Willow kicks so very much ass. Tara too. <3 <3 <3 them both.
-Spike continues to make my head hurt, because on the one hand, he'll do these horrible unforgivable morally reprehensible things, but then he'll turn around and say or do something so perfectly insightful and right that I can't help but adore him.
-Loved Buffy's sacrifice in "The Gift", even knowing it was coming.
-LOVED Giles killing Ben. Thank you. Yes. Ripper is not a nice person.
-Did Joss have some kind of horse budget he needed to fill up? Because suddenly there were a lot of situations in which horses must be ridden in both shows. That amused me. "Well, we just filmed that chase scene on Buffy last week, we may as well have some medieval AU dudes on horses in Angel..."
-Where the fuck did the overarching plotline on Angel meander off to? Everything's all DARLA DARLA LAWYERS DARLA, and then Lindsey gets his evil!hand and leaves LA midseason (admittedly, that was kind of hilarious and awesome) and we're dumped into a random medieval alternate reality for the last few episodes. Which was somewhat amusing, but also took away my ability to give a fuck. I like the characters (LORNE!), and the comedic elements tend to be spot on, but this show is way too uneven for my tastes. I just don't care about them the way I do about Buffy and her Scoobies. If it weren't for my adoration of crossovers and pathological need for continuity, I'd have long since given up watching Angel by now. Meh.
-NOOO GILES DON'T LEAVE ME. (Speaking of which, the spear through the windshield? Wow, foreshadowing Serenity much?)

I have a Whedonverse vid bunny. Which is the first creative impulse I've had in over a month, so yay? But I need to finish watching the Buffyverse first. And apart from Firefly, I'll have only ever watched through each the sources once, which makes vidding...complicated. But still. Vid bunny!

Unrelated to Whedon, I'm utterly failing at completing my tw_unpaired fic on time. My Torchwood fannish mojo has mostly died, on top of my general creative block. But I've managed to get SOME writing done for it, and I am determined to finish, if only because it's already more than half done and I don't want to give up on it yet.

I have never liked talking on the phone. Dunno why. I just hate it. I'd much rather communicate via e-mail or even text, or face to face. Phones make me deeply unhappy. I think it's because I'm far more articulate with the written word than the spoken; when interacting directly with people, I rely heavily on visual cues to get me through conversations. Phone is all the problems of verbal communication with no help visually. It's not a major issue by any means -- my interpersonal issues are minor, and I'm fairly high-functioning on the scale of social awkwardness. But I just really, really dislike speaking on phones.

So probably I should not be surprised how draining a day job that primarily revolves around answering phones can be for me. Bah.

Unrelatedly, I'm nearing the halfway point in Buffy S3. DAMN this show is addictive. "Lovers Walk" is pretty much my new favorite episode EVER, apart from the emo-tastic ending. Spike moping over Dru is second in hilarity only to the utter awesomesauce that is Spike taunting Angel from behind Joyce's back, oh my god, I will never stop laughing over that. And then Buffy calmly inviting Angel in so they could kick his scrawny ass, MADE OF WIN. It occurs to me that Buffy/Angel/Spike is quickly becoming the OT3 of my heart. I love their shifting alliances and sometimes-teamwork and all the variations on the three of them. And since Buffy/Angel, Buffy/Spike, and Spike/Angel seem to be the predominant pairings of the fandom, I suppose I'll do well enough once I'm ready to look for fic, but I really do hope there's a decent sampling of OT3-ness out there. They're just far more interesting to me as a triad than any of the pairings on their own. (And I'm starting to really dislike the trope that someone can only "really" love one person at a time, because that's just blatantly untrue. The whole Willow/Xander affair hit that squick hard. Not that I approve of cheating on one's significant other, and they handled it badly -- duh, TEENAGERS -- but basically, they're being punished for caring deeply about more than one person at a time. And that's just dumb.)

Despite being a child of the 90s and an avid sci-fi/fantasy lover, not to mention a huge Whedon fan, I somehow had never watched any BtVS or Angel. I know, I know. Caught an episode or two here and there, and I know a fair amount about the show and the characters from fandom osmosis, but there you have it. But all of BtVS is on Netflix streaming now, and having finished Avatar, this is my new project.

I may have watched nearly all of S1 over the course of my bus trips to and from NYC last weekend. Um.

SO ANYWAY. I'm only up to early S2 (look, it's Spike! HI SPIKE I HAVE HEARD ABOUT YOU, and it's about goddamn time the evil on this show started enjoying itself), but, y'know, I've been spoiled for just about everything important already, and I know that at some point down the road Willow starts casting spells and stuff. Can anyone give me any examples of specific episodes in which Willow plays with magic? Preferably in showy ways? It's for vid purposes, and since I haven't gotten that far along, I don't know which episodes to download for source. And I need it rather sooner than I will have the chance to finish the series.

Help?

It's kind of hilarious to watch this show more than a decade after it first aired. They get so excited about Willow's computer hacking in S1! Everyone looks so young -- jesus christ on a pogo stick, no wonder everyone was in love with Angel, he is smoking hot in the early seasons, and I don't really find David Boreanaz attractive normally. Likewise James Marsters -- and now I can see exactly how much John Hart was written as Spike Redux, right down to the twisted authority-figure issues with Angel/Jack. HEE. And Willow is the adorablest, obviously. I want to squish her lots. The one real downside to how very, very spoiled I've been for this show is that it's hard for me to properly ship anyone, because I know it will all end HORRIBLY for every canon pairing. So instead I'm going to quietly root for Buffy/Cordelia, which will never happen and therefore will never break my heart. SO THERE.