life without a plot

Tired, cranky, headache. Don't want another family birthday. Even if it's my niece's. ::whine::


Since I never seem to have the time to actually sit/lie down and really read anything recently, I haven't much more than browsed through Russell T. Davis's book (although I have started at the beginning now, and it's rather fascinating. Also his frustration with TW 2.1, which I was going to say maybe was the reason why KKBB never completely worked for me, but apparently it got dumped on Chris Chibnall eventually...), reading a couple of pages here and there (so he wasn't completely happy with the Rose/Doctor.2 ending, either), but leafing through the pages I stumbled across this.

Put a man and a woman of roughly the same age on screen and you're telling a story. That's a love story. (Storytelling is very heterosexual in that sense. But that's why gay storytelling is exciting, because the images are still new.) The choice to put those two characters together on screen, in a story, is the crucial thing. Everything else is just detail. And luck. That's what makes you care. The archetypes. They run deep. [...] Man, woman, on screen = love story. Very little work necessary. (p 123)

Which I kind of agree with and kind of disagree, because while it's undoubtedly true, this (and I've said that before) is what for me makes so many of the heterosexual relationship on screen essentially uninteresting. Maybe/probably my brain is simply wired wrong, but if too much of the subsequent story relies just on this, and only this, I'll yawn and and switch off — or start slashing, depending on how interesting the rest of the show and the other characters are. It may be a love story, but it's also often (to me, at any rate) a boring love story. Now I'm not saying that I've never followed or enjoyed one of the will-they-or-won't-they-get-together storylines, but on the whole they don't make for the best storytelling, because once that question is resolved most of the time a) the show is over, b) they're heading towards break-up, or, special bullet point for Joss Whedon, c) someone gets killed.

So generally speaking putting a bit more work and character development into it is not actually a bad thing. The IMO still perfect example of Doing It Right are Sheridan and Delenn on Babylon 5, my OTPest OTP for something like a decade. It's hard to attempt looking at a show one has watched & rewatched with a fresh eye, but was there ever even the suspense of whether they'd get together? I don't think so, or at any rate one was rather more worried about them winning the war and saving the universe. Having a plot that encompasses and mingles action and romance rather than dividing it in two separate storylines, and upsetting a lot of tv gender clichés in the process is what made it so epic and unique. Thank you, MJS. :)

Now Joss Whedon frankly sucks at writing relationships, especially happy relationships, because as a rule he only sets them up to end them in the most painful way possible, but Buffy and Spike, in their own messed up way were a bit like that; even when it always was pretty clear they wouldn't have a happily ever after, they both learned something about themselves and each other in the process, which changed them for the better, it was plotty and not boring to watch. OTOH most of the male/female relationships on Angel were completely uninteresting; Cordelia/Angel as well as the Wesley/Fred/Gunn triangle, because they're indeed little more than man, woman, on screen = love story, and barely that, maybe partly because they never needed to work as relationships for the plot to go forward. I don't think saying that canonically Angel and Wesley had the most complex, if completely fucked up, relationship on that show has anything to do with slash googles, and one day I'm really going to write that essay. Or, Smallville, when I was still watching; Clark/Lex vs. Clark/Lana.

On a similar note, to be perfectly honest, Jack/Ianto would never have caught my interest, and certainly not got me writing all those endless rambling meta posts, if it hadn't come after Cyberwoman with the Fragments backstory and all the... if not exactly canonical, then at least canonically implied complexity and ambiguities resulting from that. So granted, once again a bit messed up, and maybe unhealthily codependent and whatnot, and apparently I've got a faible for that kind of thing, but take that away, and the banter-innuendo-coffee thing would be really kind of boring.

Well, in my opinion. It's pretty obvious that 90+% of fandom differs. Cf. above, brain wired wrong, and all that...

1) I seem to have turned into a very lazy lj-er, & 2) how is time passing so very fast? I still remember rather vividly writing about being happy at having daylight again when I leave work, and now it's already almost dark when I bike home. Gah. Stop!


Spanish continues [Different VHS, different teacher who explains things much better and more clearly, although I had a bit of a shock in the first lesson when everyone was recounting their holidays in indefinido, which, OMG panic! we hadn't learned last semester, but that wasn't too difficult to catch up with, and I'm getting along fine otherwise, so I'm staying. Plus, it's on Monday, and there's at least a chance I'll still be slightly less dead then during the Christmas season than later in the week.], as does belly-dancing (still moving a bit too fast for my taste mostly because my brain needs more time to process and put togehter the parts of the choreographies we're doing, and on top of that almost everyone in the class has much more experience than I have, but perhaps I'm simply masochistic, or perhaps it's that however frustrated I get, I'm still pleasantly surprised that I'm able to do this at all (Me! Dance!), but I'm continuing for the moment.).


Two birthday cakes were made, and what is it with all the autumn birthdays in my family. *sigh*


I've been watching B5, only a few epiodes left of S3 now, but I'm not really feeling the love, somehow. Nostalgic fondness, yes, and there are moments when it grips me, but something's missing...



And when I have the time and energy I've been out photographing, once with H. (flickr guy), and last Saturday there was a meeting of the Vienna flickr group, which turned out to be really nice, especially considering that I almost hadn't gone, because OMG people I don't know! Scary! Stress! Do not want! Why is it so very hard for me to maintain enough of a mental balance to keep up at least a minimal social life (minimal on my standards, not the rest of the world's)?



Work is getting increasingly hectic and if I'm exhausted already, how will I cope with Christmas?


( And speaking of which, I had one of my recurrent I-can't-stand-this-job-for-another-minute crisis a couple of weeks ago... )


( And speaking of depressed... )

Feeling better now, although I was already dithering on the brink of Sunday-afternoon-depression again today. (Of course it doesn't help that tomorrow morning I'm having the orthodontist appointment from hell, first having my teeth cleaned and then getting the braces adjusted, which by itself is enough to leave me in a state of nervous breakdown most of the time...)

Sunny and warm, beautiful day, slightly tainted by the faint melancholy of Sundays. Did this breakfast & movie thing with some people from work, we saw Fatih Akin's Crossing the Bridge, which is a truly amazing, wonderful film about the music of Istanbul and the power and impact of music, regardless of genre - everything from rap to the music of the Roma, Kurdish music, traditional Turkish music... Very powerful; beautiful shots, too.

I think I'll have to check out Gegen die Wand now. And buy the soundtrack, although I really should re-reconsider buying not really necessary stuff in view of the possible computer situation... ::le sigh::

)o(

Trying to unclutter notepad. Still. Again. Never ending story rambling. The 10? 12? 20? (can't quite remember) favourite emotional tv moments meme, picked up a long time ago somewhere in the wastes of lj-land.

Jossverse-centric, because that's what I've been watching recently, and while I would love to give a comprehensive and conclusive review of solitary_summer's most favourite tv moments evar, re-watching five season of B5 (or any other tv show I was ever fond of) just isn't happening at the moment. And really, I don't want to consider what it says about my psychic make-up that I even consider this an issue and would this be a good place to confess that I shuffled my interests around quite a bit for the 10 interests meme?

Sorted chronologically and by fandom, not squee factor.



( 17 (16) favourite emotional tv moments )

Wednesday as usual; Got a haircut I'm indifferently pleased with, there's something about my hair's recent tendency to fall into my face that no one has been able to fix to my satisfaction for the last year or two. But at least I'm no longer blinking at customers through a fringe down to my cheekbones, so I guess there's improvement.

Thursday, Nick Cave with U., a rather pleasant surprise. I'd associated him only with his ballads, Where The Wild Roses Grow & such, and always found them too pretty, too... smooth for my taste. Now I knew all of three songs from the set-list (Weeping Song, God Is In The House, Red Right Hand), I still don't much like the ballads and slower songs, and there were a couple others that seemed, not sure how to put it, a little too generically rock, not particularly interesting, but at other times he built up an amazing tension, a distinct hard, dangerous edge, very intriguing from a musical point of view, too, as far as I am a judge of such things. Which I'm really really not, beyond personal taste, but anyway.

I'm actually considering checking out the new cd...


I also watched the whole fifth season of B5 in one week (instant gratification, exasperated sigh) - on my sofa & my TV. Ha.

( thoughts... )

I'm going to miss it, not that this makes any sense, but waiting for the fifth season's dvd release was still something to look forward to, and now... all the dvd sets are sitting on my shelf... sigh. B5 is just special in a way. The actors' commentary on Movements of Fire and Shadow is mainly about how much they loved it and how special it was &c., which on the one hand is somewhat beside the point, because I'd have preferred a commentary on the episode, but on the other hand... it's noticeable, I think.


Now do I want to start with Buffy? I only dropped in it mid-fourth season, but seven seasons with the dvds about twice as expensive as a season of B5?

Lazy.

Read. Ate.

Watched a taped episode (the one after the pilot, I think) of Six Feet Under, which I kind of liked (first scene, interracial gay couple - what's not to like...), and kind of didn't, because how many shows about dysfunctional families can a person watch and not get tired of it; a funeral home setting doesn't make that much of a difference. And the sister so far seems to be something of a clone of whatshername from Cybill.

.:.:.:.

Re-watched the first two S4 B5 episodes, and am still trying to make sense of how we're to understand what happens to Sheridan on Za'ha'dum. There's the literal reading, obviously, but there's a metaphorical? psychological? philosophical? level to it, too. This isn't only about physical death, but what does Lorien mean by surrendering to death? Confronting your mortality? Giving up your sense of self, stripping yourself of everything, every desire, even the desire to live? Facing the darkness within yourself (as opposed to the idealism of seasons 2 and 3)?

Somehow I think there ought to be more to it than Delenn giving him a reason to live. It kind of connects with Comes the Inquisitor, but on the other hand it seems to me that another person, however beloved, cannot be the answer to the questions Lorien asks...

What happened, what did Sheridan see or realise, that turned him into the man we see afterwards, who in some ways is like Lorien said he needed to be, showing less doubts or fears, but also by consequence a lot harder, quick to take some pretty harsh decsions. How does this connect with the idealism and integrity of the character carefully established during the earlier seasons?

I understand how people can have issues with Sheridan's persona in S4, except that I don't believe he's supposed to be quite the same person as he was. We're meant to see the darker, dangerous side for what it is.

S4, with the resolution of the Shadow-war is metaphor for growing up (in fact IMO the metaphorical level overshadows the story telling level in this case), the emancipation from parental figures and the unquestioning acceptance of their values. But like the biblical myth of the fall of man, this must result in a loss of child-like innocence, which Delenn refers to in War Without End. (In fact there's an interesting detail that gains an extra perspective with the knowledge of how events really turned out - when the Delenn from the future talks about the terrible cost of winning the war, which could only have been avoided at too high a price, at this point the obvious meaning was the horror of the Shadows winning the war. But in retrospect the too-high price would also have been to remain in a state of child-like dependence and spiritual immaturity.)

I believe we're meant to see this loss of innocence already beginning to happen here.

There's another thing, though. The problem may be that Garibaldi's arc determines so much of S4, to the point of them having to fit Sheridan's arc around it; I think his character may suffer from that.

.:.:.:.

Las gestern die in der Mitte begonnenen Hadrianmemoiren zu Ende, bestaunte die Bibliographie des Arbeitsmaterials und fing von vorn an zu lesen. Tatsächlich benommen wie ein Jüngling von der Schönheit des Buches. (TM Tagebücher, 12. 12. 53)

He. It's always nice to discover a connection between your favourite authors. Makes me want to re-read it, too...

Further thoughts after a Sunday mostly spent idly in front of the tv...

( B5 really brings out the closet romantic in me. )

Also? Here I was, mentally beating myself up for entertaining even vaguely slashy thoughts, because, you know, B5 is the holy grail, B5 canon is to be worshiped and not to be altered, interpolated or otherwise meddled with, and then I was listening to the cast commentary for 'Interludes And Examinations' and there are Bruce Boxleitner, Jerry Doyle and Richard Biggs blithely slashing Garibaldi and Franklin, quipping about 'lost arcs', 'i'm sleeping on the couch tonight', 'this marriage could have been saved'. I never even saw this (what I do see are possibilities for Sinclair/Garibaldi and vague possibilities for Zack/Garibaldi), and now of course it's impossible not to see it. :: headdesk:: And I'm not even touching their commentary on the scene where Sheridan confronts Kosh...


Great. Now it's 2:30 am and I'm not even remotely tired.