Whedon Wednesday :: 10 life lessons you can learn from Buffy 5×13-5×22

10. Yes, Ben is Glory. (the last few episodes)
It makes for some humorous moments when everybody keeps forgetting that Glory (Clare Kramer) and Ben (Charlie Weber) are one and the same.  But really, it’s also an important life metaphor: namely, when there’s an important fact, don’t forget it.  Because forgetting it will not be good.  Also, in a place like Sunnydale, anything is possible: so if you never see two people in the same place at once, just assume they’re actually the same person, and don’t trust the nice one.

9. Don’t build sex robots. (5×15, “I Was Made to Love You,” 5×18, “Intervention”)
This is pretty straightforward.  If you’re really that desperate for a thing to love, they have toys for that, don’t they?  Toys that can’t just walk away and wreak havoc.  And really, if you build a sex robot and throw it out, you should maybe make sure there’s no way that it could reactivate.  ‘Cause that’s just gonna get messy.  Also, sex robots are just creepy.

8. If everyone already thinks you’re a creep, it’s probably best if you don’t order a sex robot that looks like a real person… who could kill you, easily.  (5×18, “Intervention”)
I mean, the Buffybot does end up being useful for non-sex reasons eventually.  She’s even kind of funny.  But everyone’s already a little weirded out by Spike’s (James Marsters) having a thing for Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar).  Most of the Scoobies don’t really trust him, because of the whole evil vampire thing.  And a lookalike sex robot is just kind of sketch, no matter what.  It’d be sketch if he got a sex robot made to look like a celebrity, for goodness’ sake; it’s worse that it’s made to look like someone he knows.  And by doing so, he’s pretty fairly well cementing that she’s not going to hop into bed with him IRL anytime soon.  (Well, not in… this lifetime.)

7. If you fight with your girlfriend and storm out, she might get brain-sucked by a hell-god, so maybe try not to storm out on people.  (5×19, “Tough Love”)
There’s an old saying about not letting the sun go down on your anger, but I’d propose that you shouldn’t let the door slam on your anger, either.  If you’re mad at people, it’s always best just to talk it out right then and there.  Letting it linger is just going to make for the awkward and, depending on the context of your universe, the dangerous.  Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Tara (Amber Benson) unfortunately had to learn this the hard way, but we don’t have to.

6. If your sister is a physical manifestation of a mystical energy that has been retroactively inserted into everyone’s memories, just go ahead and tell her so when you find out.  Don’t let her hear from a book. (5×13, “Blood Ties”)
A lot of Dawn’s (Michelle Trachtenberg) angst throughout the series comes from the fact that nobody tells her anything.  Finding out that she’s really a magical key isn’t going to sit well no matter how she finds out, but just being straight with her about it will soften the blow a little bit.  And maybe then she won’t become such a ridiculous kleptomaniac.  And maybe she’ll stop whining.  And maybe she won’t be so self-destructive.

5. Proposing to someone just because you’re all gonna die may seem like a great idea at the time, but probably… isn’t. (5×22, “The Gift”)
Xander (Nicholas Brendon) has the best intentions, swearsies.  It seems like a great plan to propose to Anya (Emma Caulfield) when they’re pretty sure that another apocalypse is gonna kick in.  But it’s not like back in season three when Willow and Oz (Seth Green) had sex because the world was about to end.  Willow and Oz had been building up to having sex for months.  Xander and Anya hadn’t been planning an engagement.  Xander jumped into it without really thinking it through, and it winds up being a terrible plan.  Because it seems cute, they’re engaged, but they end up setting the wedding date for not even a season later.  Rushed much?  Anya’s been on the planet for thousands of years, but Xander is still young and stupid.  He doesn’t know that he’s ready for marriage.  He’s not.  It’s an impulse decision, and it’s one that should be avoided.  At all costs.

4. Necromancy is unnatural and bad.  Don’t do it.  (5×17, “Forever”)
Dawn decides that the only thing that she can do is bring Joyce (Kristine Sutherland) back from the dead.  That’s the only way things will be okay.  But really, there’s so much wrong with that.  The most important thing being that it’s hideously, terribly selfish.  (Which will be reiterated in season six, so.)  And the Joyce that would return wouldn’t be the same Joyce.  Also, those are magicks you just shouldn’t mess with.  Nope.

3. Self-sacrifice is noble, but if you have friends who can do necromancy, you probably want to tell them “hey, don’t necromance me” before you die.  Otherwise, bad things will happen. (5×22, “The Gift”)
I’d like to think that Willow wouldn’t be selfish enough to explicitly ignore a request that Buffy would make before jumping into Glory’s hell vortex.  If Buffy had thought to say, “Hey, guys, I understand that you’ll miss me, and that’s reasonable, but seriously… I’d rather not be brought back from the dead.  That would be just… bad and wrong, and didn’t we just get through telling Dawn not to do that exact thing?” the entire mess of… well, the rest of the series wouldn’t have happened.  Or someone else could have brought her back, and it’d be messy in a different way that didn’t involve Willow abusing the magicks and Buffy being mad at everyone.  Planning is a good thing to do.

2. Vampires can love well, if not wisely. (5×14, “Crush”)
It’s said many, many times that vampires can’t really love, because they don’t have souls.  The definition of a “soul” seems to vary somewhat, as it changes Angel’s (David Boreanaz) personality completely and, aside from a summer of basement crazy time, doesn’t really change Spike’s personality at all (though this could be attributed to the fact that Angel’s soul was forced on him, and Spike willingly sought his out, or something like that).  But really, I don’t think that the soulless vampires all have a problem loving.  I completely believe that Spike and Drusilla (Juliet Landau) were in love, once upon a time.  It wasn’t just a sex thing, or a “lol let’s kill some things together” thing.  It was love.  They cared a lot about each other, even if every other creature on the planet could go die in a fire or be nommed on.  Dru probably loved Angel a bit, in her own way; but this is quickly becoming an essay, so I’ll hold off for now.

1. Sometimes, the most terrifying thing isn’t a demon or a vampire.  It’s just mortality.  (5×16, “The Body”)
I watched the first four and a half seasons of Buffy in an approximately four-month span of time, at first with friends, then by the end alone.  But I’d been warned that “The Body” was going to depress me, and I just… didn’t want to deal with that by myself.  Which is why it took me a year and a half to get around to actually picking back up again, because of life getting in the way.  And it took me that long to find someone else to finish the series with (and I had to catch her up, somewhat).  And while Joyce’s death wasn’t the most upsetting in the series for me (that dubious honor would have to go to Tara, who I just loved so much) it was pretty brutal watching everyone’s reactions.  I mean, Joyce had been sick all season, we’d known it was a possibility, and for people watching in real-time without spoilers, it could have still come as a surprise somewhat, but it wasn’t a murder or anything.  No, the worst part of the episode is watching everyone come to terms with their own humanity.  They’re so used to being in life-or-death situations with supernatural and mystical creatures and all that, but they haven’t taken the time to think about the fact that they’re (mostly) still just people, and people die.  Of purely natural causes.  Oftentimes right in the middle of when you’re also dealing with hell-gods and really don’t have the energy for all the grief all at once.  Even if it’s still gonna sneak up on you.

–your fangirl heroine.

Television Tuesday :: 5 ladies who are literal life ruiners

literal life ruiner [lit-er-uhl] [lahyf] [roo-in-er]

Def.: a character who, through their actions, ruins the life of one or more other characters (or attempts t0).  Not to be confused with the colloquial tumblr definition of “life ruiner” (which is “someone who constantly ruins your life with their perfection, and smiles while they do it,” as seen here).

5. Claire Saunders (Amy Acker, Dollhouse)
I have very confusing feelings about Claire as a whole.  She fascinates me, and for most of the first season I really did like her.  Meta-Claire wasn’t nearly as cute as, say, meta-Mellie (Miracle Laurie), and sleeper Claire… well, really it’s only sleeper Claire that’s the life ruiner.  It’s not Claire-the-mostly-realized-imprint-person’s fault that she was programmed to shoot Bennett (Summer Glau).  Even if there was a weird I-don’t-even-know-what undertone to Claire’s interactions with Topher (Fran Kranz) that made it make a little teensy bit of sense in a way.  It’s the fault of goddamn Boyd (Harry Lennix).  But since this is a lady list, and since Claire’s body was the one pulling the trigger, well.  I’m pretty sure there was a reason Topher wouldn’t take his meds from Claire when it was the future and he was crazy.

4. Nandi (Melinda Clarke, Firefly)
I also have confusing feelings about Nandi.  She’s lovely, and arguably one of Inara’s (Morena Baccarin) closest friends, and she does seem to feel genuinely bad about having slept with Mal (Nathan Fillion) once she realizes Inara’s feelings for him.  But not all literal life ruiners are intentionally so, and Nandi set in motion a disastrous happening that could very well have sunk the Mal/Inara ship, as it were.  Imagine if Serenity hadn’t happened, for example.  We wouldn’t even have the hope of their maybe admitting their feelings to each other that it gives, all because what happened at Nandi’s made Inara turn tail.  It’s not Nandi’s fault, but she almost ruined whatever hope of happiness they might have in each others’ lives.

3. Amy Madison (Elizabeth Anne Allen, Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Now, Amy starts out a monster-of-the-week plot, and it could be argued that her mom almost ruined her life, but like the magicks, it seems to run in the family.  Amy accidentally wreaks havoc on every woman in Sunnydale with that pesky love spell, then turns herself into a rat, but these are fairly harmless incidents.  No, her literal life ruining is in season six, when she becomes un-ratted and she enables Willow’s (Alyson Hannigan) magical drug habit.  It’s her fault that Willow gets involved with magical drug dealer Rack (Jeff Kober) and it’s her actions that make it harder and harder for Willow to quit the magicks.  She even curses Willow in season seven, out of little more than jealousy, and apparently she becomes a full-fledged Big Bad in the comics.  It’s because of Willow’s magic addiction that she almost loses her friends, does lose Tara (Amber Benson) for a while, and almost ends the world; it’s because of Amy that the addiction is even worse than it already would have been.

2. Maddie (Alice Krige, Deadwood)
The relationship between Joanie (Kim Dickens) and Maddie is never fully explained, but it’s clear they knew each other before Maddie came to camp.  She brought with her some girls, so she and Joanie could open a classy brothel, the Chez Amis, but she ended up enabling the murder of two of the prostitutes in her employ (Doris [Erica Swanson] and Carrie [Izabella Miko]) at the hands of Wolcott (Garret Dillahunt).  Maddie is fully aware of Wolcott’s tendencies, but he’s paid her well, so it doesn’t matter.  She then gets murdered by him herself, leaving poor Joanie to clean up the mess in the literal sense and in the sense of what her life has become.  And Joanie doesn’t recover until the Chez Amis becomes a schoolhouse and she can see that she’s done something worthwhile and not destructive, so her life is also ruined for a while there.

1. Gaia (Zuleikha Robinson, Rome)
Woman strong-arms her way into Vorenus’ (Kevin McKidd) employ and makes eyes at him and at Pullo (Ray Stevenson).  Pullo is with Eirene (Chiara Mastalli), who was once a slave girl of similar social status to Gaia, but now, being Pullo’s woman, she’s been raised up.  The two are antagonistic.  Now, the rational thing to do would be to accept it and go about having her relationship with Mascius (Michael Nardone).  Bitch away.  But Gaia chooses instead to give Eirene abortion drugs, unbeknownst to her.  These drugs then kill her.  That is pretty literally a life being ruined.  And Pullo’s, too, since even if she gets into his bed, Eirene is his only love.

–your fangirl heroine.

Music Monday :: 5 times that soundtracks have inspired my music-buying choices

5. Vanessa Carlton (as per “A Thousand Miles” on the Legally Blonde soundtrack)
Laugh all you want.  My twelve-year-old self got that soundtrack (’cause when I was twelve, I just bought soundtracks to movies in lieu of having actual definable musical taste) and grooved on it.  There were some nonmemorable pop tunes I enjoyed at that time and place in my life.  Then there was “A Thousand Miles.”  I don’t know.  I was a pianist as a kid (technically, I guess I still am, though I haven’t taken lessons since junior high) and I liked finding piano songs.  I liked that “A Thousand Miles” was hella challenging to anyone I saw trying to play it (really, probably not that hard, but a lot of my friends weren’t pianists) but I could do it perfectly.  I got Be Not Nobody and the sheet music for it, which I then memorized cover-to-cover, I saw her in concert, some years passed and the rest of the world apparently got over her.  I didn’t, I bought Harmonium when it came out, and the sheet music for that too, which was also memorized, I saw her in concert again, I got Heroes and Thieves when it came out.  I have no regrets.

4. The Shins (as per “Know Your Onion!” on Our Little Corner of the World: Music From Gilmore Girls)
Okay, amendment: I didn’t go and buy the Shins, a friend gave me their first two albums as a result of my interest.  The Shins are quirky and wacky and paved the way for much geek indie in my life, though “Know Your Onion!” is hardly my favorite track of theirs nowadays.

3. Lissie (as per “Everywhere I Go” in Dollhouse 2×13, “Epitaph Two: Return”)
There is no official Dollhouse soundtrack.  (I keep thinking about compiling one myself, but then I get distracted by whatever relevant track I’ve just downloaded being the inspiration for a new fanmix.)  But just as “Remains” is the most memorable song in the first season, playing over the end of “Epitaph One,” Lissie’s plaintive-as-all-hell “Everywhere I Go” is the most memorable to me in the second season.  It’s playing over the end of “Epitaph Two,” as everything is coming together and ending and being absolutely devastating, and it took my hearing the song on another television program (a reality show that was just on; I was in the kitchen baking and went “WHOA WAIT WHAT”) and then… a few months of twiddling my thumbs to get me to actually get on iTunes and buy Lissie’s album.  Which I finally got around to doing, and… yes.  I am in love.  Another of her songs, “Little Lovin’,” was on the trailer for the second season of Justified, and the album is probably closer to that son’g's tone overall than to the epic drama of “Everywhere I Go.”  Not that I mind, because it’s all lovely.

2. April March (as per “Chick Habit” on the Death Proof soundtrack)
When first I saw Grindhouse, opening weekend, I was in a state of perpetual giddy.  And I was pretty instantly obsessed with “Chick Habit.”  It playing over the closing credits was just sheer perfection.  We acquired the soundtrack later that week.  Later that year, I was in New York City, and I decided to try to find April March in a record store.  I figured the Virgin Megastore was much larger than anything I had access to at home, and if not that, there were cute little record/sheet music stores with lots of random things, right?  I had no success at the Megastore (the cashier seemed confused when I even said April March’s name) but there’s a wonderful music store in the Times Square general area, Colony Record and Radio Center on Broadway, and we just ducked in to peruse sheet music because we’re that kind of people.  I took a look through the used albums just for the heck of it, and surprise, surprise!  April March’s Chrominance Decoder was there, just like it had been waiting for me.  It was perfection.

1. The Swell Season (as per Once)
A group of my coworkers were going out the summer that Once came out, and it was suggested as our destination.  I am a sucker for independent films, so I was all about it, but I was surprised with how in love I fell.  The soundtrack was purchased from the theater counter that night, and I couldn’t get enough of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova.  I had the chance to see them live later that year, which I took (I still regret having switched phones without having the chance to transfer the scratchy recording I took of the entire audience singing along with “Falling Slowly,” it was a beautiful moment) and I’ve bought both Swell Season albums subsequently.  (Because there is still a little bit of that pianist in me, I will own to having taught myself “The Hill” by ear, or my approximation of it, but I have probably forgotten it by now, all for the better, as I can’t sing like Marketa at all.)

–your fangirl heroine.

Superlative Sunday :: the 2012 People’s Choice Awards nominations

Like a good fangeek, I went to cast my votes for the People’s Choice Awards nominees when they were selecting them.  I wanted to make sure there would be some nominees I cared about.  I just… couldn’t care about so many of the prospective nominees.  I was, predictably, all gung ho for the cable television drama nominees, but I skipped most of the network drama and comedy nominees; film was a similar case.  And for music, as evidenced by my various statistics in weeks past, I just voted for Adele whenever I could and skipped everything else.

So, here’s a list of the official nominees I actually care about.

CATEGORIES I CANNOT JUDGE: Favorite Drama Movie, Favorite Comedic Movie Actor, Favorite Animated Movie Voice, Favorite Network TV Drama, Favorite TV Drama Actress, Favorite TV Competition Show, Favorite Daytime TV Host, Favorite Late Night TV Host, Favorite TV Celebreality Star, Favorite Male Artist, Favorite Pop Artist, Favorite Hip-Hop Artist, Favorite R&B Artist, Favorite Band, Favorite Country Artist, Favorite Tour Headliner.

Favorite Movie:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

Favorite Movie Actor:
I have enjoyed films that feature all of them (Daniel Radcliffe, Hugh Jackman, Johnny Depp, Robert Pattinson [because he was in Goblet of Fire], and Ryan Reynolds) but I would not give any of them this vote.  Nope.

Favorite Movie Actress:
Please Emma Stone forever.  The more I think about her and see her in things, the more I love her.

Favorite Movie Icon:
There is no definition of “icon,” is there?  Morgan Freeman is a badass narrator, though, so I guess I vote him?

Favorite Action Movie:
Here, I am torn.  Part of me wants to vote Deathly Hallows always, but part of me wants to vote X-Men: First Class, because it is wonderful and brilliant.

Favorite Action Movie Star:
The title of the category doesn’t specify “male,” but apparently you have to be a male to be nominated.  It’s 40% of the same actors in the Favorite Movie Actor category, and the others don’t even warrant mentioning.

Favorite Comedy Movie:
By Emma Stone+Liza Lapira best friends default, I vote Crazy, Stupid, Love.  I guess.

Favorite Comedic Movie Actress:
Again, Emma Stone for everything.  (Though I think it’s funny to call Natalie Portman a “comedic” movie actress based on one or two films.)

Favorite Movie Star Under 25:
It’s kinda just Chloe Moretz vs. everyone from Harry Potter, and as much as I love everyone from Harry Potter, Chloe Moretz is a baby badass and I adore her.

Favorite Ensemble Movie Cast:
Same problem as in Favorite Action Movie.

Favorite Movie Superhero:
Why does Mystique count as a hero if Magneto doesn’t?  They both try to do hero things, then go “bad” by the end.  I vote for James McAvoy instead.  (ALL THE X-MEN.)

Favorite Book Adaptation:
Harry Potter.  Again.  Always.

Favorite TV Drama Actor:
Nathan Fillion can have every vote, right?  (Even if I’m not up to current on Castle yet.)

Favorite Network TV Comedy:
I’ve only seen a few episodes of The Big Bang Theory, but I’ll give it my vote.

Favorite TV Comedy Actor:
Jim Parsons and Neil Patrick Harris get my votes on principle.

Favorite TV Comedy Actress:
I don’t watch 30 Rock, but I loved Tina Fey on SNL, so, again, on principle.

Favorite Cable TV Comedy:
Weeds, please.

Favorite TV Crime Drama:
Castle.  Always and forever.

Favorite Sci-Fi/Fantasy Show:
True Blood and The Walking Dead are both really more “horror,” but they both get votes from my heart.  (A little more for True Blood.)

Favorite TV Guest Star:
I will allow this one win for Glee, just for Kristin Chenoweth’s street cred.

Favorite New TV Drama:
Pan Am for the clothes, Ringer for the camp.

Favorite New TV Comedy:
2 Broke Girls for the snarky Kat Dennings, New Girl for the nerdtastic Zooey Deschanel.

Favorite Female Artist, Favorite Song of the Year, Favorite Album of the Year, Favorite Music Video:
Some combination of Adele, “Rolling in the Deep,” and 21.  (And I haven’t even seen the video.)

–your fangirl heroine.

Sarcastic Saturday :: the social strangeness of Black Friday and related advertising

The Thanksgiving season means that Christmas advertising has begun to air, and that’s as frustrating as any advertising ever is.  The commercials targeted towards Black Friday sales, those taking place on the Friday after Thanksgiving, are the weirdest of all.  Black Friday itself is something that terrifies me: it’s a day where people are willing to stay up all night to… buy things they could buy any other day at slightly cheaper prices.

The Black Friday advertisements of my childhood were decidedly less aggressive.  The sales would run during the normal business hours.  They’d be no different than other sales, of course: they were just all on that particular day.  That someone once decided, apparently, was important for shopping, because I know after a day spent in a food coma or some such, I want to haul myself around town and buy things.  Then, somehow, the sales began to get more in-your-face.  They started opening at earlier hours of the morning, five, then four, then midnight.  They ran for days at a time.  It got stranger and stranger.

Now you have advertisements discussing not just what’s on sale and how cheap it is (not usually be-awake-at-four-in-the-morning cheap) but the various strategies that you can use to aggressively shop at all of these sales.  A series of Target ads portrays a manic woman in a velour red tracksuit, with a perfectly coiffed side ponytail, preparing for the sales: she builds a gingerbread house version of Target, eyes wide and jittery, she runs at a level 10 resistance on an elliptical machine, backwards, in her high heels.  To “practice.”

A Wal-Mart ad portrays a woman, her shopping cart full, approaching an employee (male) and asking him to read her shopping list aloud.  “It’s all crossed out,” he says, confused.  This woman then exclaims that that’s because she got everything on the list.  She’s smug about her shopping success.  I understand that it’s a nice feeling to meet your goals, but really, it’s not as if she couldn’t buy the things at another time.  Or, were she concerned about saving money, she could buy fewer things.

Another Wal-Mart ad shows two women discussing another woman, similarly crazy-eyed, over their own shopping carts.  The woman they’re discussing is apparently the star of Black Friday.  She’s the Black Friday shopper that other Black Friday shoppers dream of being.  Apparently, she’s actually named her child “Black Friday.”  And the women aren’t disgusted by this, they’re in awe.

Another ad portrays a married or at least dating couple in the car getting ready for Black Friday sales.  The man is holding flashcards, the woman is informing him which aisles the various items can be found on.  We don’t see the last flashcard right away, but she informs him that it’s in fact a trick question, because they don’t sell his mother at the store.  He nods, because clearly that’s an intelligent observation, even though… really?  Flashcards?  Was that necessary?

A Kohl’s ad actually begins with a group of women, shopping bags in their arms, popping out of the store’s doors.  “It’s Black Friday, Black Friday!” the central one sings, a la Rebecca Black’s “Friday.”  As if any of us needed that earworm back in our heads.

Possibly the least gendered of these ads is one that begins with a standard disaster movie voice.  “In a world,” it begins, in a way exactly that sounds like the voiceover on the Knights of Badassdom trailer (which got my hopes irrationally up), then it goes on to describe Black Friday in a way that makes it sound like an apocalypse, and the Fred Meyer sale as a cure to the apocalypse.  The men and the women in the commercial act similarly about it, but it almost annoys me the most: it’s an insult to apocalypses.  I take my fictional apocalypses seriously, and Black Friday at Fred Meyer is no such thing.

The vast, vast majority of these ads portray women as shallow, materialistic, and somewhat crazed.  The men that do appear are dense and similarly shallow.  It’s a weird commentary on how people are expected to react to Black Friday.  (I personally spent Black Friday buying a Christmas tree and Googling cupcake recipes, then watching television and dyeing hair with friends, but hey.)  I was asked recently if I’d really want commercials to be more realistic.  Wouldn’t that be boring?  Wouldn’t that be unfunny?  Wouldn’t that be bad entertainment?  No.

I’d actually rather have it that way, at least occasionally.  I don’t know how you would actually make a Black Friday ad more realistic, because I don’t know anyone who participates in Black Friday IRL, but I’m sure there’s a way.  There’s got to be.

–your fangirl heroine.

Fictional Friday :: 10 fictional doppelganger collections

…and if they would get along with each other.  Numerical ratings 1-10 for how well the getting along would go.

10. Lea Michele (Wendla Bergman, Spring Awakening; Rachel Berry, Glee)

Wendla would be so intimidated by Rachel.  Rachel’s far too brassy and loud and histrionic; Wendla’s been raised to be very polite and demure.  And after a while, she’d start to think that Rachel was a little bit mean, I think.  Mean and self-centered.  Rachel would be all “Clearly, you’re the most [something], why aren’t you more important?” and Wendla would be all “Because I don’t want to be?  I just want to discover things about life without dying.  Oh wait.”
Rating: 3

9. Michael Cera (Nick O’Leary, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist; Scott Pilgrim, Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World)

Really, I think these pictures say it all.  These two aren’t exactly the same, exactly, but they’re similar enough that it would be either a catastrophic meeting of like minds or the beginning of a beautiful friendship.  I hope for the latter. They could swap bass lines, Scott could teach Nick about the magic of sweatbands and video game-style combat, they’d talk about how sometimes all you want to do is hold someone’s hand and sometimes all you end up doing is cuddling.
Rating: 9

8. Kat Dennings (Norah Silverberg, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist; Max Black, 2 Broke Girls)

Really, the same sort of thing.  These two are both snarktastic babes with idiot child blonde best friends named Caroline, they have lots to bond over.  Norah is slightly less hard-edged than Max is, and the whole “Norah coming from money” thing would be a little awkward at first, but she’s not annoying about it, so that wouldn’t be awkward for long.  Max could teach Norah about proper brassieres, and it would be much less awkward than if some gay boys taught her that lesson.
Rating: 7.5

7. Timothy Olyphant (Seth Bullock, Deadwood; Raylan Givens, Justified)

These two may be sheriffs similarly, and they both shoot lots of people people similarly, but that’s about as far as they get.  Seth is overly polite at times, and he’s not a womanizer; Raylan’s brash at times and slightly sarcastic, and he’s fond of the ladies at times.  They could have one of those weird friendships that’s also antagonistic, and they would go to the shooting range and tell weird (my brother’s)ex-wife and (junkie)(criminal) girlfriend stories.  They would roll their eyes at each other a lot, but that’s okay, because they’re both good at it.
Rating: 6

6. Maggie Siff (Rachel Menken, Mad Men; Tara Knowles, Sons of Anarchy)

These two maybe wouldn’t be best friends right off the bat, but they certainly wouldn’t have obvious problems with each other.  Neither of them are exactly the “OMGLOL best friends” type, but they’d have respect for each other, even if Rachel would roll her eyes at Tara’s outlaw life and Tara would awkwardface about Rachel’s love choices.  Rachel’s a woman in the business world in a time where women weren’t there, really, and Tara’s a helpful legitimate doctor in a world where everyone’s decidedly… not legitimate.  But they’d be able to get along.
Rating: 5

5. Christina Hendricks (YoSaffBridge, Firefly; Joan Holloway Harris, Mad Men)

Now this would be disastrous.  Joan would be frustrated as hell with Saffron’s weakling act, and her manipulative bitch thing would frustrate her in a different way.  Meanwhile, YoSaffBridge would be rolling her eyes at Joan’s entire world.  “You mean you’re really marrying that man for love?  Really?  That man didn’t want to be with you on your own conditions, and his conditions were decidedly against what you wanted, and you think that’s love?  You’re marrying him for the financial stability, honey.  Don’t try to pretend that’s any different.  Maybe less mercenary, but it’s the same principle.  Don’t even try.”  They would be snarking at each other in the worst way.
Rating: 2

4. Alan Tudyk (Hoban “Wash” Washburne, Firefly; Alpha, Dollhouse)

This would also be kind of disastrous.  Probably because Alpha meeting anyone who’s not also a psychopath or sociopath is a really terrible plan.  Alpha might actually be kind of intrigued, in an “awww, you’re so sweet and unassuming” kind of way, but it would end in “and oh by the way I intend to steal your brain so I can learn how to fly spaceships, kthnx.”  Wash would be really unnerved by Alpha, though he’d try to be polite about it; he’d crack wise, and Alpha would think that was also endearing, but it just… wouldn’t end well.
Rating: 3

3. Summer Glau (River Tam, Firefly; Cameron Phillips, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles; Bennett Halverson, Dollhouse; Skylar Adams, Alphas)

So.  These four all have the “slightly unnerving genius” thing in common.  River is the overly emotive mind-reading dissociative type; Cameron is the under…ly emotive robot not-that-tactful type; Bennett is the most straightforward hyperbrilliant type; Skylar is probably the most properly sociopathic, edgy one.  (And I do realize that Skylar was on one episode, an episode of a show that I don’t otherwise watch, but.)  None of them would know what to do with each other.  Cameron would be very confused as to why they all had the same face and she would probably try to figure out if the others were robots too.  Skylar would try to figure out how Cameron’s robotics worked, and succeed, of course.  River would be tripped out and panicky.  Bennett would be really, really intrigued by River’s brain, but when River flipped out on her for trying to maybe investigate, and Cameron had to tell her to please stop asking about amygdalas, she’d probably be able to limit herself to asking too many questions and trying to figure it out based on that and on logical deduction.  None of them would be able to give each other any useful life advice, because they all sort of suck at being socially “normal” in their own ways, but Cameron would say awkward slang phrases that she’d heard used and try to make it make sense.  Skylar would be itching to get out of this weird dimensional intersection, because she’s got other things to do, okay?  Eventually River would make with the awkward niceties in her way and try to be sweet to Bennett somehow, and Bennett would be really thrown off by it, but eventually she’d get over the “who is this girl with my face and what is she talking about” thing and accept the offers of something resembling friendship.
Rating: 6.5

2. Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy Summers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Siobhan Martin and Bridget Kelly, Ringer)

This encounter would try Buffy’s patience so very much.  She’d be trying to accept them as not being evil, because they’re both not technically evil, but she’d be wanting to punch them both in the face after fifteen minutes.  She’d want to punch Siobhan for being such a duplicitous, manipulative bitch; she’d want to punch Bridget for being so dense and naive even despite all of her worldly experiences.  They’d both probably think Buffy was too much of a goody-goody in one way or another, though Bridget would try to respect her intentions.  Siobhan would just be rolling her eyes and making the ultimate bitchface.
Rating: 2.5

1. Anthony Stewart Head (Rupert Giles, Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Nathan Wallace, Repo! The Genetic Opera)

This would go so wrong in so many ways.  At first, they’d feel like they had something in common: they’re both protective, intelligent types.  Then the “I keep my daughter locked up in her bedroom” and “I kill people for a living” things would come out, and Giles would flip.  “How can you think that’s the best for her?!?  How can you allow that… that old man to force you to murder people?  It was seventeen years ago, man.  I understand your need to grieve for someone, I’ve lost someone I love before.  But you should be able to rise above it.  You’re a smart fellow.”  To which Nathan would be saying things like “Yes, well, just because we look similar doesn’t mean that you understand me.”  But he’d secretly know it was all true.  He’s just not the receptive-to-constructive-criticism type, so nothing would come of it.
Rating: 3

–your fangirl heroine.

Things in Print Thursday :: parade-induced nostalgia and researched truth

I was one of those kids who played too much with dolls.  (A sentence I cannot say now with a straight face, but hey.)  I had the Barbies, the paper dolls both purchased and punched out of the middle of American Girl Magazine (I always wanted to be one of those girls they paperdolled, but I wasn’t interesting enough [yes, even as a nine-year-old I was self-deprecating]), and the 18-inchers.  A proper American Girl doll, a Magic Attic Club doll.  For American Girls, I had Kirsten, the Swedish girl in the mid-1800s (so, basically, Sofia Metz if she had cousins and brothers and her family didn’t get slaughtered, you know); for the Magic Attic Club, I had Megan, the bookish redhead with glasses (OH MAN THE TYPECASTING.  I mean, I’m not a ginger, but I do end up being them sometimes in fiction).  And I had the books that went with them.  I don’t have every single of their respective series’, but I have a lot of them, and the rest I’d get from the library at least six times apiece.

I bring this up because watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade this morning like the sap I am got me curious.  They haven’t sent me an American Girl catalogue in years (they did for far too long, hoping maybe I’d have a sister or something, I guess – and I’d always look through, because I’m just like that) so I didn’t know about the state of the collection.  I liked to think when I was little that I’d be able to pass my American Girl doll onto whatever children I ended up having (even if her left arm is falling out of the socket — they can fix that, right?) and pass the books along with her.  They weren’t great literature, they weren’t that long, but they were sweet, and good history lessons, and I enjoyed them.  (And they’re my justification for babbling about this on Thursday.)

So I opened up the American Girl website to look at the collection as it now stands.  When I was a kid, the dolls were: Felicity, Josefina (she was my second-favorite), Kirsten, Addy, Samantha, Kit, and Molly.  It was a pretty diverse bunch, you had almost all the requisites: Felicity was the feisty redheaded colonial girl, Josefina was the feisty New Mexican girl, Kirsten was the shy but still feisty Swedish immigrant girl, Addy was the feisty and smart escaped slave girl, Samantha was the proper but feisty turn-of-the-century girl, Kit was the brainy and feisty Great Depression girl, Molly was the feisty and sassy World War II girl.  (Yes, they were all feisty in their way.)  They all had good stories to tell.

The last times I got the catalogue, they were introducing dolls of some of the girls’ friends: Felicity’s bestie Elizabeth (who was shyer than her, and I know, because I played her in a ridiculous third-grade one-act production) and Samantha’s bestie Nellie (who was less affluent than her) and Kit’s bestie Ruthie (who was more polite than her) and Molly’s bestie Emily (who was more British than her [British at all]).  I was okay with that.  But then they started retiring dolls and thus retiring their stories, and adding new girls in.

Samantha and Emily were apparently the first to go.  I’m okay with that.  Their turn-of-the-century stories weren’t that special, and you can read the same kind of thing in more detail in my pet Betsy~Tacy books.  Then Kirsten was “archived,” and that makes me really sad.  Because stories about immigrants are always fun to read, especially in child-oriented historical fiction!  There’s adventure and learning and disease and travel and friendship and whimsy all in the same place.  Felicity and Elizabeth got retired, too, and that’s also a shame: the Revolutionary War is a really interesting time to read about (and the clothes are pretty, too).

They’ve still got Josefina, Addy, Kit, Ruthie, Molly, and Emily.  In addition, there’s Kaya the feisty Native American girl, Marie-Grace and Cécile the… I don’t know what, but probably feisty, interracial besties (Cécile is African-American, Marie-Grace is white) in New Orleans (in the 1800s, so the interracial thing is a big deal), Rebecca the feisty Jewish girl (she’s only ten years off of Samantha’s time period, so it’s not too different, but it’s more interesting, because “she follows her dreams in the big city”), and Julie and Ivy, the feisty interracial besties (Julie is white, Ivy is Asian… I mention these interracial things ’cause the American Girls of my youth tended to mostly hang out with like people; not out of racism, I’m sure, but just out of the nature of their stories – nonetheless, it’s interesting) experiencing ~changes~ (in the world) in the 1970s. There’s also Kanani, a modern Hawaiian “girl of the year” doll, this year.

And these are my thoughts on that:

• Okay, Kaya’s legit, I’ll allow that.
• Marie-Grace and Cécile have the vaguest online synopses, I can’t tell what their stories are about at all and therefore cannot judge.
• I’m pretty sure I read a Dear America with the same plot as Rebecca’s story.  Dreams in the Golden Country.  (They apparently also rebooted that series, and some of the new titles… actually sound sort of interesting.  Even if they are super young adult.  I was a nutcase for that series, too.)
• So there’s finally an Asian girl!  Rock on.  Even if she is just the blonde girl’s bestie, and I can’t tell what her stories are about at all, and I’d be more interested to read about an Asian girl around 1880-1910 (but that would be too dark for them).
• Really?  The whole plot of Kanani’s two-book arc is that “she helps others by sharing Hawaii’s aloha spirit”?  That’s not a plot.  That makes me miss my Kirsten even more.
• With Felicity gone, there’s no redhead, and that’s sad.

So, children of the world: I really hope you’re getting as much out of these new girls’ stories as I did out of the ones I grew up with.  Otherwise, I just might have to be sad.

–your fangirl heroine

Whedon Wednesday :: and then the Epitaphs arc was finished.

(This is so relevant to my life always.)

Actually, I got and read this last issue of the Dollhouse: Epitaphs comic arc (by: Andrew Chambliss, Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, Cliff Richards, Andy Owens, Michelle Madsen) last week.  But I took a couple of days to read it, because as excited as I was to, I also just didn’t want it to end.  Even knowing that there will probably be further Dollhouse comic arcs, I just… I still knew I was going to be a complete wackjob when I was done with it.  Because it would be over all over again, and I didn’t really want to deal with that.

But, the above-linked self-definition won out, as did my completist tendencies, and I’m not ashamed to admit that once I’d turned the last page I just sat there staring at my ceiling and laughing nervously and repeating “well crud, why do I feel like I’m gonna cry even though I know I’m not?” to myself.  The comic wasn’t even that sad.  Not compared to the show, which is still the most tragic end on television.  And it’s not the end.  And I know who’s gonna be okay.  But for howevermany months, I’ve had a bit of the world back in my life again, and now… well, thank goodness for re(watch)(read)ing.

I understand that I’m a nerd.  I understand that I’m a sap.  I understand that I’m not entirely sane.  I understand that I’m too invested in these fictional people.  I am unashamed.

I’m not giving away exactly what happened, because I know I’ve got friends who I still need to lend the issue to IRL and that means there are plenty of people elsewhere who need to read it, too.  I will say, though, that there were so many feelings.  Not in the “why did you die??!?!” way that could be expected (though that’s obviously because of its placement in the pre-existing timeline), but in every other way.

(Though, on the pre-existing timeline note, I will mention that when I read the first issue, I thought that maybe Ivy was RL Ivy, and they just hadn’t drawn her very Asian for some reason.  Seeing in one of the issues that the other Ivies discussed Ivy being in Tokyo made me smile: if Topher told Ivy to get out of LA in “Getting Closer,” and in the interim between that and the robocalls she found herself in Tokyo, well, that means that maybe dear little Ivy wound up there with Topher’s big rival Takahashi [he's mentioned a couple times in there and I remember these things] and that may have been passive-aggressive or it may have just been determined to do something or it may have been something I don’t even know what, but it’s still awesome.)

There was the d’awww Alpha.  I feel weird saying that, because of the psycho and the murderer and the creeper thing, but I’ve always enjoyed Alpha as a character.  I mean, I understand that he spends most of the series as a bad guy.  But he’s just so well-written and demented and perfectly so.  This whole “Alpha seeks redemption” thing was much less frustrating than, say, others seeking redemption: he’s still wry and badass and he’s not always succeeding but he’s not running from everything.

There was the hurrah my actuals.  For fairly obvious Felicia Day reasons, I always had a soft spot for Mag, too (that and I decided I should latch onto someone in the thoughtpocalypse since my other two girls were, y’know, very much dead), and someone had actually written in one of the letters in the back:

“When are we going to see Mags be a badass?”

Which was then responded to as such:

I think she’s perpetually badass.

So agreed.  Because really, even if she’s not shooting everyone ever, she’s a tough chick, and she’s doing what she’s got to.  She’s not heartless.  She and Zone and Griff have a good thing going, as much as they snappily banter.  (And the hurried introduction of Lynn just made me tee-hee, because even if it was in the background of a panel and it wasn’t ever show-explicit, I do like to believe that Mag had a little crush on Lynn, and maybe they had covert thoughtpocalyptic romance times once or twice.  And even backgrounded, I could totally read into the art a little smirky smirk of “oh, hello there.”)

There was the sexual tension.  Despite recent fanmixing, Paul/Echo isn’t my big shippy thing.  I don’t mind it, and could obviously find songs that suited it, but there’s the part of me that hung onto pre-OMGWTF-Mellie’s-a-doll Paul/Mellie, and there’s the part of me that occasionally wants to just smack Paul upside the head.  But, theirs is a pretty upsetting tragic-romantic journey, and at the end of the day, even if I don’t ship a thing that much, I still get sad when the characters are interested in each other yet cannot have each other for whatever reasons.  Who the characters ship themselves with does matter at least a little. And that page of “no we cannot, there is still an apocalypse” is one of those moments.  They’ll never be together, and as much as I don’t always spend a lot of spare time caring about if they’re together, they want to be together.  So that’s still upsetting.

I know that the next arcs, if they do end up existing (which they plan to), won’t be for a little while (“not the near, near future”).  But knowing that they likely will come to be is a comfort to me.  Knowing that we’ll get more thoughtpocalypse exposition (Priya/Anthony please?  There is so much I want to know there.  Also metaphorical-tear-inducing crazy!Topher, which will induce more ceiling staring and under my breath muttering) is good.  I mean, it’s not necessary.  We know how it ends up.  But I am a fill-in-the-blanks kind of girl.  And I’m just thankful that the comics are around to do that for us.

–your fangirl heroine.

(Also, unrelated to Dollhouse comics but semi-related to Dollhouse and to the Whedonverse and to things that make me squee embarrassingly like the fangirl I really am, Emerald City’s announced guests.  For fear of seeming creepy, which I’m not, I swear, just enthusiastic and babbly, I’ll refrain from typing out my various exclamation-pointed thoughts.  But.)

Television Tuesday :: death on television (there isn’t always enough)

I’m not saying death is good.  It’s not.  But death is a part of life, it’s just something that exists no matter what.  And when characters go entire seasons without anyone they even remotely know dying, it just starts to feel unrealistic to me.  I don’t know.  Maybe I’m just morbid.

I’m the kind of girl whose reaction to television death is usually one of three things:

1. Good!  That character deserved it, because they were bad and mean.
2. NO!  My baby, you can’t die, I love you too much.
3. I’m sad that you’ve died, yes, but I’m also applauding the writers having the courage to kill you off.

3 is my pretty constant refrain when watching, say, Buffy (I was originally going to make this a statistics problem, comparing how many people die in various television shows that represent various genres, but then I realized that it would take too long to count how many people die on Buffy, because seriously, SO many people die, random people and important people both; one of these days I will do Depressing Whedonverse Deaths, but that’s not today).  Lately, though, I’ve been attributing it to other things: True Blood, at least the last season (which we all know), and though Sons of Anarchy hasn’t killed off that many people, it’s putting a lot of people in near-death situations this season.

When characters are prone to dying on television, it’s more high-stakes, and that makes it more fun for me.  If I think that a character might actually die, I get tense, and I get more wrapped up in the story as a result.  If I think that a main character could die, I have to applaud the writers.  It’s not unheard of, but it’s rare.  (To say again how much I adored this last season of True Blood, I will just point out that they spent the first two seasons playing it pretty safe.  They killed off random waitresses that boinked people and random vampires and random hillbillies, they killed off their Big Bads.  Season three was a little more risky.  Season four, though… I mean, the season finale saw the deaths of how many characters in the opening credits?  Four?  And Marshall Allman, who played Tommy, had died previously, but was still in the credits, so that makes five. That’s a lot of death.)

Not every show has excuses for massacres, and that’s perfectly all right.  It makes more sense to have higher body counts on Buffy or True Blood or The Walking Dead or even Dollhouse, because of the nature of the programs.  There are monsters (or technology, or guns, or some combination thereof) that will kill you, period.  You don’t have to kill off everyone on, say, Mad Men, but I wouldn’t be opposed to someone not ancient (I’m looking at you, Ida Blankenship [Randee Heller]) getting killed off somehow.  (Not my girls, my Joanie [Christina Hendricks], Peggy [Elisabeth Moss], Sally [Kiernan Shipka], not Don [Jon Hamm], but someone… maybe a little bit less important but still important enough to have more than one episode’s worth of impact, like Greg [Sam Page].  He should die due to army things.)

Generally, the number of television deaths can be sorted out pretty easily:

1. Anything Joss Whedon touches
2. HBO
3. Showtime/Starz/etc.
4. Other programs about monsters or an apocalypse; sometimes war-related things too
5. FX/AMC/etc.
6. Miscellaneous medical/criminal dramas
7. Network dramas
8. Regular comedies, if you’re lucky
9. Sitcoms (seriously.  During the entire run of Friends, less than ten characters died.  That’s not even one per season.)

I know.  I’m morbid.  I don’t even care.

–your fangirl heroine.

Music Monday :: 5 story songs of all sorts

5. “Margaret Vs. Pauline,” Neko Case (on Fox Confessor Brings the Flood)
As far as stories go, this would be more of the short character sketch kind.  You’d find it in a literary magazine, maybe.  It’s not exactly a narrative; it’s a comparison and description of two women.  Pauline, who the song first explains, is privileged and beautiful; Margaret is rough and works hard for her life.

Two girls ride the blue line
Two girls walk down the same street
One left her sweater sittin’ on the train
And the other lost three fingers at the cannery

The lyrics never describe how old these women are, and physically we get only fragments (Margaret’s missing fingers, the “cinnamon waves” of Pauline’s hair), but by the end of the song, you feel like you can imagine these women.  You might not know them personally, deeply, but you know someone like them.

4. “Jack Killed Mom,” Jenny Lewis (on Acid Tongue)
This is a very straightforward story.  A woman has a son named Jack, and he is a bad apple.  This could be because of coddling and harsh treatment from his mother, who knows.  One day, Jack sees his mother and his teacher necking, and he goes pretty crazy, swearing to hurt the man and ending up murdering his mother in the process.

With my will (will!)
And my hands (hands!)
Like old Solomon
Oh Mom, I love you, I didn’t mean to set you free

Jack is remorseful about what he’s done, and presumably Jenny is singing as another member of the family (the way that she refers to Jack’s mother as “Mom” throughout implies that she’s another daughter or some such).  What anyone else thinks about the murder isn’t said, if Jack gets in trouble isn’t said, but you can get the feeling it didn’t end well for anyone.

3. “The Art Teacher,” Rufus Wainwright (on Want Two and a bunch of other recordings)
In this piece, Rufus is taking on the role of a schoolgirl, presumably well-to-do (she’s “in uniform,” they’re going to the Met for class) and in New York or somewhere nearby.  This schoolgirl, never named, has a crush on her art teacher, also never named.  It’s not the creepy kind of schoolgirl-on-teacher crush that turns into statutory rape, it’s just an admiring.

I looked at the Rubens and Rembrandts
I liked the John Singer Sargents
He told me he liked Turner
Never have I turned since then
No, never have I turned to any other man

She goes on to discuss her grown-up self’s loveless marriage: she married, it was expected of her, but she’s still harboring an infatuation with (presumably the idea of) her art teacher.  It’s romantic, it’s sweet, it’s a bit sad (mostly in the tragic “your life is so pretty but so upsetting” way).

2. “The Lake,” Fiona Landers (on The Lake)
This song, I will begin by saying, is morbid.  It’s about a woman who murders her crush’s girlfriend so she can take over.  Has she always been a psychopath?  Has she killed before?  Was this her first endeavor?  We’re never really told.  But the plan does seem to work, as she does take the girlfriend spot for herself, and boyfriend is none the wiser.  And it’s a spot she’s going to hold as long as she damn well pleases.

Now when I lie beside you
Her face tries to hide you
But I tell her she’s lost
My guilt was swallowed by love
She asks, “Just how long will you be his girl?”
Until he finds another murdering kind.

Apparently, she’s not remorseful, but she’s haunted by the ex’s ghost anyway.  She’s not saying she’ll be with this guy forever, but it’ll be her choice: another murderer would be the only one to take him from her.  Which is extremely confident, if creepy as hell.

1. “The Mariner’s Revenge Song,” the Decemberists (on Picaresque)
This is the ultimate morbid sea shanty opus of doom.  (Yes, all of those words were necessary.)  It’s an eight minute forty-five second long tale of a young boy who swears revenge on the wastrel who ran out on his mother while she was dying and in debt.  The mother made the boy promise to avenge her, and he takes this promise very seriously, putting sixteen plus years into the quest; he goes so far as to take up employment on a ship that follows the man’s ship and hunt him, and when they’re both consumed by a whale, well, it’s story time.

Don’t know how I survived
The crew all was chewed alive
I must have slipped between its teeth
But, oh what providence,
What divine intelligence,
That you should survive as well as me
It gives my heart great joy to see your eyes fill with fear
So lean in close and I will whisper the last words you’ll hear

He’s going to die, too, but that’s beside the point.  He’s finally seen this man meet his fateful end, and it’s messy and cruel and befitting his status as an olden days d-bag.

–your fangirl heroine.