Top Five meme - first answers
Aug. 19th, 2010 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snick_backupPlease note these lists are in no particular order; I have a hard enough time narrowing these things down to five without putting them in order, too!
Also, the store's still open: feel free to ask for the top five of your choice. Zaniness encouraged, y'all.
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eilowyn: 5 Favorite Spike and Dawn Moments
You difficult woman! Only five?
Actually, as I thought them over in my head I realized that there aren't a lot of moments between them that hit home as hard and capture them as thoroughly as, say, the porch scene captures (at least one facet of) Spike/Buffy. It's the sum of all their small moments that makes the relationship for me.
That said,
1. "Even I'm badder than you!" ("Blood Ties") - It's their first scene together, isn't it, besides both being present at the climax of "Family"? Anyway, it sets up the sibling relationship beautifully: they make fun of each other and go off on a caper. Also Dawn tries not to be scared and Spike tries hard not to care, and they both try really hard to be cool, with questionable results.
2. "I feel safe with you." [Spike, coughing:] "Take that back!" ("Crush," right?) - Dawn does a number on Spike's ego, as siblings do, and also intuits something that Spike hasn't come near admitting yet: that he'll take care of her. And then how he says that it doesn't matter how you start, but where you end up - a commentary on both of them.
3. "I just don't like to see Summers women taking it so hard on the chin, is all." ("Forever") - In which Dawn learns she was right the first time: it isn't all about Buffy with Spike. He cares for Dawn, too, independent of anything to do with her sister.
Bonus from "Forever" - the exchange where Dawn apologizes for Spike getting hurt by the Ghora, Spike asking if she got the egg, and then saying, well, that was all right then. It'd have been so easy for Spike to yell at her then - a whole lot of people would - but he doesn't.
4. "Tough Love" - Spike reaching out to Dawn's hair and pulling back before she sees. The look on his face just kills me. If we needed proof of how he feels about this girl, not to mention of what kind of empathy he's capable of, it's right here.
5. "Bargaining" - the scene on the couch. In which Spike tries to give brotherly wisdom and mostly fails, and also affirms that he'll never leave her, though his motivation isn't all about her anymore. A key point, maybe, and an indication of how their friendship would drop off on screen. Phooey. In my canon, however, it continues off and on and is later completely reconciled in S7.
Forruuger: Top 5 Reasons I Like Mpreg
For this list I shall becannibalizing borrowing liberally from my Why Mpreg? post.
1. Because I find pregnancy fascinating, and mpreg offers a lense through which to see it from a different perspective. Pregnancy in women is expected, normal; it seems a bit easier to tease out all the physical weirdnesses that go along with the process by putting it in a context where it isn't normal. (There may also be a certain appeal in viewing it from a distance, similar to how some slashers like slash as a way to explore sex and relationships from a distance. Maybe.)
2. Because mpreg, even more than regular pregnancy, is an Extreme Circumstance and thus a great catalyst for both characters and plot. Need to launch your ship of choice? Try mpreg. Want a cannonball into your fandom's pool of platonic relationships? Try mpreg. Want to explore your guy's feelings towards his body image, his masculinity, his parents, his ego, his life priorities? Mpreg has major character-study potential.
3. Because it has major hurt/comfort potential. Your poor pregnant guy is physically vulnerable in different ways than he’s ever been before; he’s more directly responsible for someone else’s welfare than he’s ever been; he has new physical and maybe emotional needs that he may not be able to meet on his own. And when it’s all over, well, he has a baby to deal with.
4. Because it's ripe for all sorts of social and gender role exploration. Assuming you’re in a ficverse where male pregnancy isn’t usual, you suddenly have a character that’s dealing not only with a whole set of radical, possibly unexpected physical changes, but also on one hand a huge number of potentially contradictory social expections about pregnancy and on the other hand the vacuum of a situation for which there are no expectations.
5. Because boys + babies = awwww.
Also, the store's still open: feel free to ask for the top five of your choice. Zaniness encouraged, y'all.
For
eilowyn: 5 Favorite Spike and Dawn MomentsYou difficult woman! Only five?
Actually, as I thought them over in my head I realized that there aren't a lot of moments between them that hit home as hard and capture them as thoroughly as, say, the porch scene captures (at least one facet of) Spike/Buffy. It's the sum of all their small moments that makes the relationship for me.
That said,
1. "Even I'm badder than you!" ("Blood Ties") - It's their first scene together, isn't it, besides both being present at the climax of "Family"? Anyway, it sets up the sibling relationship beautifully: they make fun of each other and go off on a caper. Also Dawn tries not to be scared and Spike tries hard not to care, and they both try really hard to be cool, with questionable results.
2. "I feel safe with you." [Spike, coughing:] "Take that back!" ("Crush," right?) - Dawn does a number on Spike's ego, as siblings do, and also intuits something that Spike hasn't come near admitting yet: that he'll take care of her. And then how he says that it doesn't matter how you start, but where you end up - a commentary on both of them.
3. "I just don't like to see Summers women taking it so hard on the chin, is all." ("Forever") - In which Dawn learns she was right the first time: it isn't all about Buffy with Spike. He cares for Dawn, too, independent of anything to do with her sister.
Bonus from "Forever" - the exchange where Dawn apologizes for Spike getting hurt by the Ghora, Spike asking if she got the egg, and then saying, well, that was all right then. It'd have been so easy for Spike to yell at her then - a whole lot of people would - but he doesn't.
4. "Tough Love" - Spike reaching out to Dawn's hair and pulling back before she sees. The look on his face just kills me. If we needed proof of how he feels about this girl, not to mention of what kind of empathy he's capable of, it's right here.
5. "Bargaining" - the scene on the couch. In which Spike tries to give brotherly wisdom and mostly fails, and also affirms that he'll never leave her, though his motivation isn't all about her anymore. A key point, maybe, and an indication of how their friendship would drop off on screen. Phooey. In my canon, however, it continues off and on and is later completely reconciled in S7.
For
ruuger: Top 5 Reasons I Like MpregFor this list I shall be
1. Because I find pregnancy fascinating, and mpreg offers a lense through which to see it from a different perspective. Pregnancy in women is expected, normal; it seems a bit easier to tease out all the physical weirdnesses that go along with the process by putting it in a context where it isn't normal. (There may also be a certain appeal in viewing it from a distance, similar to how some slashers like slash as a way to explore sex and relationships from a distance. Maybe.)
2. Because mpreg, even more than regular pregnancy, is an Extreme Circumstance and thus a great catalyst for both characters and plot. Need to launch your ship of choice? Try mpreg. Want a cannonball into your fandom's pool of platonic relationships? Try mpreg. Want to explore your guy's feelings towards his body image, his masculinity, his parents, his ego, his life priorities? Mpreg has major character-study potential.
3. Because it has major hurt/comfort potential. Your poor pregnant guy is physically vulnerable in different ways than he’s ever been before; he’s more directly responsible for someone else’s welfare than he’s ever been; he has new physical and maybe emotional needs that he may not be able to meet on his own. And when it’s all over, well, he has a baby to deal with.
4. Because it's ripe for all sorts of social and gender role exploration. Assuming you’re in a ficverse where male pregnancy isn’t usual, you suddenly have a character that’s dealing not only with a whole set of radical, possibly unexpected physical changes, but also on one hand a huge number of potentially contradictory social expections about pregnancy and on the other hand the vacuum of a situation for which there are no expectations.
5. Because boys + babies = awwww.
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no subject
Date: 2010-08-20 07:25 am (UTC)Spike, Buffy and Wesley: The Worst Journey in the World
And some of that joyful Nu!Trek-ness: Lunch and Other Obscenities
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Date: 2010-08-21 04:40 am (UTC)I think I may need to lie down.
Thank you! I'm actually a big of
I shall check out the joyful Nu!Trek-ness post-haste.
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Date: 2010-08-21 04:49 am (UTC)I think the problem there is that Buffy usually had major reasons for wanting to believe vampires without souls couldn't love. If they could love, then why did Angelus not still love her? If they could love, then how could she stake them? If they could love, then what did it say about her that she felt in S6 like she couldn't? I'm of the opinion that most of her verbal abuse to Spike in S6 came out of her own self-loathing and depression and had little to do with her objective judgment of Spike at that point.
Buffy just doesn't often in canon get the freedom to be objective about Spike - her judgment is so often weighted by other concerns dearer to her heart and/or the salvation of the world.