April 29th, 2004


thirty-eight minutes of thoughts

I've been listening to "My Immortal" by Evanesence, the song that closed SV last night. Love love love it. And Miggy mentioned she was using it as a soundtrack song for an S/X story, which just...guh. I want stories that are the fictional equivalent of that song in tone, that get themselves worked up with longing and then suddenly twist into this sharp, anguished, exquisite pitch of love.

And, you know, whether you get slash or you don't, I take a particular pleasure in fiction that wrings these emotions from two characters who are, in canon, pitched in opposition or designed to resist feelings that strong or who are just never given a *chance*. Meaning, in canon we have Buffy and Angel: epic mutual angstfest, in Romeo/Juliet style, Buffy often driven to tears, Angel looking tortured, both of them heartwrenched. But Xander's character is never situationally pushed to such an extreme. Epic love is for the A-list characters, the ones who get shows named after them.

So, to make a little word picture of it, a la the ending montage of "Harsh Light of Day": say you have angsty Buffy, unlucky in love, a kind of romantic anorexic. She's got her arms wrapped around herself and her eyes are downcast, and she's out walking after midnight, alone, night winds whispering to her, and she's as lonesome as she can be, etc. And over there lurking behind a tree is Spike, mooncalf eyes and brooding cheekbones and tight mouth, his gaze following her, and you can tell that the dial of heartache is twisted right up to eleven, need making him desperate. And any heroic love between them is fatally flawed, tragically doomed, just like with Buffy and Angel, but even more fucked-up and dark and miserable. And then Xander joins Buffy and they amble along and Spike shadows them. Spike still only has eyes for Buffy, and Xander is also completely focused on her, trying to give her friendly support but she's all, sigh sigh angst of the slayer sigh. And with Spike I want to do that thing where you slap the guy's face hard and redirect his attention away from the cheerleader and over to the awkward, geeky girl in the glasses who's secretly cool and funny and would give him exactly what he needs, which is when the dope's vision clears and he's like: yes, I want this for me. I'd also slap Xander and shake him and say, dude! You put on a good front, but you would *so* fold like a bad hand of poker for the right blow job, and why can't you just admit that watching bad horror movies with Spike would be a far more amusing lifestyle than trying to prop up an unhappy slayer?

Right. Anyway. It's a good song...the one I was talking about thirty minutes ago.

I was originally going to post some thoughts about this Harry Dresden novel I'm reading, but now I'm all typed out for the moment. And have distracted myself from The Looming Everything of my life.

That therapy practice I called and left voicemail for didn't return my call. Yet. I'm so not impressed.

Lyrics for "My Immortal":

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See? Me. Schmoopy.

here in my living room...

...is my space for obsessive thoughts.

Went to get groceries, still thinking about X/S and Searing Love and Stormy Hearts and other things that would make good bodice-ripper titles, but which I'm thinking about as a certain emotional level and tone, hovering somewhere south of melodrama and soap opera but up in the gilded clouds even so. When I think of stuff like this I always think of Jackon's S/X story, Sweet Revenge, which has an emotional high point where the guys work themselves up into a messy, frustrated fury and have sex in a thunderstorm. I need to reread that. Without getting into a story-ranking game, I'm just saying: not a lot of stories work up to that sort of whammy. It's like the author has vigorously shaken up a bottle of beer and then twists the cap off--fwwoashhhhhhh. And I don't get this: in all my head-based fantasies, I achieve that sort of intensity *constantly*, but in my writing, almost never. So bemusing.

But I don't think of myself as an angstophile. I think of myself as having a schmoop orientation. I like happy endings and nuzzling. I just think it takes a lot of work to get there. Work which involves guys thrashing each other and snarking and having bitter misunderstandings and pushing through the dislike until they break on through to the other side and eventually wind up wearing each other's clothes and finishing each other's sentences.

"Kate & Leopold" is on cable. Meg Ryan's character really is cranky in this movie. It's a weird movie. I like it quite a lot, in some parts more than others. It's rather muddled, but it's muddleheadedness is more interesting than the slickness of other movies. It has Liev Schreiber *and* Hugh Jackman, and this guy named Breckin Meyer: Stuart, Leopold, and Charlie. And it's your average hetero Hollywood happy story, but it gets distracted by other interests. So, get this: Stuart goes back in time and is delightedly snapping shots of nineteenth-century society with his mini camera. He takes pictures of Leopold at a ceremony. Leopold notices him, approaches; Stuart runs away coyly, then turns up later at a ball. Leopold sees him *again* and gives chase--horseback ride, crashing storm, the scaling of a tower, some daring rescue action, and they fall together back through a time portal. Stuart drags the unconscious Leopold home and does a hurt/comfort clucky thing over him, tucking him into a blanket, etc, which his ex-girlfriend witnesses and mistakes for a liaison. Next morning Stuart and Leopold have some by-play (not bi-play, sadly), then Stuart goes off and falls down an elevator shaft. (This movie was written by someone with ADD.) So Leopold hangs around the apartment, figures out how modern appliances work, watches the dog, and then this little kid comes in, a kid that Stuart usually looks after on Wednesdays or something, and Leopold entertains him by telling the story of the Pirates of Penzance--and as he *does*, Charlie hears him and comes downstairs by the fire escape and watches, unnoticed, with this big awed grin on his face--he's *captivated* by Leopold. He spends the rest of the movie following him around like a puppy and trying to emulate him, even though he does go all goofy over a girl, blah blah.

Basically, here's the thing: in your average chick flick, you rarely get so many scenes where the male characters are alone together and bonding with *each other* in a way that has *nothing to do* with the romantic plotline.

I am full of self-distraction tonight, to no end. The end.

Also, GIP. By kjv31.

Also, did I mention this movie has Bradley Whitford? Yeah.

ETA: Where IS everyone tonight?