Starbucks musings before my afternoon job.
I tell myself stories as I go to sleep. Or I used to anyway. My favorite for a long time was a pretty intense fan fic crossover.
I had Mary Sued myself into 5 different fictional worlds as the same character. There was a complicated magic/physics, crossing multiverses reason for it. It was awesome. The worlds were from Joss Whedon's Buffy/Angel TV shows and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden, Diane Duane's Wizards and Mercedes Lackey's Diana Tregarde books.
There was a backstory where I used to exist in each of these worlds according to the standard parallel universe idea of multiple yous in multiple worlds. In each world, I was a young magic user raised by my evil sorcerer type uncle. He was twisted but brilliant. He found a way to breach dimensions and collaborate with four of his other selves in the quest to combine their essences to create someone who could cross freely from one to the other, drawing on the magical power available to the inhabitants in them all. But he wasn't reckless, he didn't try it first on himself, but on me. He succeeded in combining 5 of me into one who could travel to all the places. Of course, my first act was to kill him in every one of them. Hey, it hurt. Plus your Mary Sue needs something dark in her past in order to redeem herself later.
So I had a tragic backstory and a lot of power. I aged slowly. I lived for periods of time in each of the worlds, having adventures that would sometimes intersect with known characters. Did a lot of bad things, mostly as a result of the insanity that came from suddenly being all of me, and gradually came to regret them and attempt that redemption. Tons of bedtime stories for myself.
The story eventually led to a problem cropping up in every 'verse I existed in that I had to investigate. Of course it turned out that my creation had formed an instability in these 5 worlds that could lead to their destruction if I didn't find a way to fix it. By reversing the original spell, destroying myself as I existed and probably not allowing for my survival.
That was the broad outline of the story. So one night maybe I wanted to hang out at the Magic Box in Sunnydale, inadvertently crashing one of Buffy's adventures. Or I could visit that time in England when I worked as a spy for Dumbledore when Voldemort was rising. Or I had to visit an oracle with Harry Dresden, telling me about my upcoming doom. I could occasionally help Angel Investigations, if I was in the mood, or fight monsters with Diana and Mark. And towards the end of the story, the cat wizards looking after Manhattan's world gate would sure come in handy with all this multi-dimensional stuff.
I had a few original characters, but mostly I thought about the various lairs I had across the 'verses, and how my magic worked differently in each according to their own rules, and visited various time periods of my character's existence according to my mood. I could work through emotional issues I was having at the time by getting all angry or injured or whatever in my head story. It was fun.
I never was able to spin that off into something more original. And I never attempted to make my character interesting to anyone but me. It was all in my head, no reason to worry about the Mary Sue-oscity of her.
Many people hearing about my habit of telling myself these stories -- which I've had for a while, this was merely the last, best version because it could incorporate so much -- might think that with my imagination, I could be a writer. Okay, I might think that, lack of originality excepted. I could still be a bad writer, right? But there's that disconnect between the daydreams and writing a real story. I've not found the impetus to transition the brain power put into the daydreaming into something more tangible. It's even impossible for me to write down the schlock in my head as a starting point for something else. It just won't go down on the screen or page. This is the most I've ever said about it.
It's just weird is all. Is it just a lack of discipline or is there just some toggle I can't check on? Does everybody feel like there's something they should by all rights be good at, yet can't seem to do it? I blame myself for being -- something negative. But sometimes I feel like I'm missing something really obvious. Screw the meaning of life, where's my epiphany for this?
Showing posts with label Talking it Out. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Talking it Out. Show all posts
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Poetry?? Well, an unedited, inept version of such anyway...
Feelin' jittery and out of sorts.
Some days you can't ignore the things you normally ignore.
Yet there's no optimism in the recognition
that this could lead to something I need
if only I could find the path or do the math.
Instead just a sense of usual recompense,
this too shall pass without leaving a mark
and there's no "at last I'm out of the dark."
Just descent into the same, again and again.
Life gives us so many chances
if we can only see them.
But sight is meaningless without action.
Just continual, disappointing redactions
of the openings in the veil.
Ignore it and return to blindness
because it's steady and easy, really a kindness.
I can make a choice to jump between the curtains
where nothing is certain,
but I can't envision what's beyond
because it's not there yet.
Without faith in my ability to create,
I'm left with the need to obviate,
not to deviate.
Self-hate is too strong a word,
but it does get referred
to in the thoughts that I hold.
This inability to be bold is infuriating,
had I the passion to be so angry.
Instead left with a dull and vague despair,
hardly deserving of the name.
Ennui is so French and so literary
Angst is too throat curdlingly German
and contains an anger that makes me tired.
Anxiety is just a piece, not really the point.
So search eternally for the words
rather than the means, the usual,
while time continues passing and
stasis remains the rule.
Thinking somehow poetry can unlock
the crock that is nothing profound,
only the immature ramblings
of derivative lambling.
Somehow tortured rhymes can take the joke,
twist the yoke, invoke the Loki that can burst free
and transform the staid and passionless
into new life and not too scary madness.
As if.
We are limited by who we are,
not because genes are concrete,
but because our minds are replete
with fears of self deceit.
Some days you can't ignore the things you normally ignore.
Yet there's no optimism in the recognition
that this could lead to something I need
if only I could find the path or do the math.
Instead just a sense of usual recompense,
this too shall pass without leaving a mark
and there's no "at last I'm out of the dark."
Just descent into the same, again and again.
Life gives us so many chances
if we can only see them.
But sight is meaningless without action.
Just continual, disappointing redactions
of the openings in the veil.
Ignore it and return to blindness
because it's steady and easy, really a kindness.
I can make a choice to jump between the curtains
where nothing is certain,
but I can't envision what's beyond
because it's not there yet.
Without faith in my ability to create,
I'm left with the need to obviate,
not to deviate.
Self-hate is too strong a word,
but it does get referred
to in the thoughts that I hold.
This inability to be bold is infuriating,
had I the passion to be so angry.
Instead left with a dull and vague despair,
hardly deserving of the name.
Ennui is so French and so literary
Angst is too throat curdlingly German
and contains an anger that makes me tired.
Anxiety is just a piece, not really the point.
So search eternally for the words
rather than the means, the usual,
while time continues passing and
stasis remains the rule.
Thinking somehow poetry can unlock
the crock that is nothing profound,
only the immature ramblings
of derivative lambling.
Somehow tortured rhymes can take the joke,
twist the yoke, invoke the Loki that can burst free
and transform the staid and passionless
into new life and not too scary madness.
As if.
We are limited by who we are,
not because genes are concrete,
but because our minds are replete
with fears of self deceit.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
There was girl: a ramble of thoughts with no solution
Once upon a time there was a girl. She prided herself on not being like the other girls, not realizing that that was just internalizing the misogyny around her. It's a point of pride to not be girly? But you see the predicament. No one likes to be put in a box and told how she is, particularly when she doesn't feel it. It's actually easier to see the box that way, but you're still dealing with the definitions imposed by the people doing the sorting.
So this girl grew up knowing that there was a lot of bullshit in the world. Not only from the usual suspects of entrenched power, but also from those who one would think would know better, would be an ally. Why she always saw things in these extremes is a good question. The world, and people, are always more complicated than you first think.
First hurdle is to understand the problem, which is harder for some than others, but then comes dealing with it. This girl dealt with it by stepping away from the heart of it and trying to stay separate, trying to define herself apart from it while still trying to take what pride she could from the difference, even if it was a facade with a weak foundation. It's all working with what others give you, abstract symbols created by others.
But not too long ago the girl considered whether there was some freedom in the purposeful use of these symbols. So why was that necessarily bad? Maybe because these early usages were not purposeful, but part of a rejection, an act of running away. One escapes the box only by leaving it behind entirely. But that means some of the good things in the box become inaccessible, or at least hard to get to. And if you escape the box with nothing, how do you even get into the other boxes to pick and choose from their contents?
Why does the girl think in terms of cardboard boxes in a white room? That's beyond abstraction to absurd oversimplification.
Once upon a time there was a girl who learned early on to empathize with characters in books, to feel their story with them, but who found it so much harder to understand the real people around her. She wasn't emotionless, she didn't see real people as cardboard, she just didn't really think about them that much because she was concerned with other things. Is that true?
Once upon a time there was a girl who developed cynicism early. Was it because the outside world wasn't as neat and tidy as the world of fiction? Was it because she learned through fiction that everyone had an agenda or just that life wasn't fair? Was it something learned from her surroundings? Was she naturally inclined to that? Or is it another function of the distancing? Did she really feel removed from the first person from childhood, or can she just not remember now what it was like?
Once upon a time there was a girl who was tentative, lacking confidence in herself, in the rightness of her actions. She was a girl much loved, appreciated, who never had to question her worth in the eyes of the adults around her as she did her peers. Why should such a girl be so tentative? Was it something that happened or an outgrowth of her natural inclinations? Just like everyone else, the girl became good at some things. She had confidence in her abilities to do some things, but it never translated over to confidence in just being herself. This life-long identity crisis stemming from never feeling certain of an identity to begin with?
But that's too simple. Surely early on she felt like herself. This questioning is a function of adolescence. So maybe the lack of self-confidence came later, and she just doesn't remember it. How did it happen and why does it persist into early middle age?
She had never lived the unexamined life, but what they don't tell you about that idea is that said examination is not the solution to anything, it's just a step. And sometimes it's a misstep because you examine the wrong things or come up with the wrong solution to the perceived problem. Step one is to think it through, but step two gets dicey.
Her common theme seems to be lack of solidity (which is kind of funny for the extreme contrast with her very solid physical existence). Part of it is not knowing what she wants to do with her life, never having had a goal/plan/desire that felt close to all-encompassing. Part of it is the struggle with what is expected, what is assumed, even by those closest. Part of it is a desire to not become static, to always remain open to new things/ideas/possibilities. It's all of a piece assuredly, but how does that help her? Does this mix of traits necessitate this constant dance? Or is the dance a lie she tells herself?
Is it possible she clings to this idea of the lack of solidity as an excuse for her lack of -- not advancement, but -- success maybe? Progress? Maybe her insides really are like her outsides, slow moving, solid as a rock, slow to change, unlikely to let go, unmoved, placid.
This is what lack of commitment feels like, she would say to all the sitcom men who were ultimately amateurs at the process. You want to sleep around and not commit to a relationship? Big fucking deal. I can't even commit to being me. I can't commit to a life plan of any sort. I can't commit to an understanding of what I really want from life. I can't commit to the idea of committing. Go back to school, son.
Do I want a place to stand that doesn't move or do I want eternal change? Do I want to stand in a room and yell, "Hey, I'm here" to whoever will listen or do I want to continue creeping around the edges and seeing how many people I can fool into thinking I'm not even there? How much of all of this is rank cowardice? That's a question that haunts me. The thought that everything I do, everything I am is a reaction to fear of some kind is unacceptable. But maybe it's true. What the hell do I do with that?
Do I keep to myself because that's what I desire, because it's what I need to be happy, or because I'm scared to A, fail, or B, open myself up enough to another person to make a partnership work? I honestly don't know, and it's not like I haven't thought about it. How much of that decision is tied to my second wave ideas of men/women, to my existential feeling that no other person ever actually sees you as as much of a person as he/she is? How much of it is a decision or a choice?
I guess we all start wondering what we're missing at some point, what will be those big regrets at the end of everything, but -- it's all tied up into the idea of giving up and letting them win. Giving up what and letting who win? In attempting to stay back from the fray and define myself for myself, how much is still dependent on some nebulous they and how they view things? And how much of this right here is just posturing and not truth?
Once upon a time there was a girl who couldn't tell when she was lying to herself or when she was telling the truth. There was no nose changes, no helpful twitches or truth-containing dreams. It was all so nebulous. Maybe she knows herself and it's only lack of confidence or neurosis that leads her to question her own hard-won wisdom. It's so easy to discount it if it's coming only from her. Yet what do other people know anyway? They're right when they say bad things about her, wrong when they say good. What about her?
Once upon a time there was a girl who could rarely tell when she was happy, who didn't know the difference between contentment and complacency, who through physical detachment came to be even more emotionally detached. Once there was a girl who worried about being a Vulcan, while also taking pride in her intellectualism overriding her emotions, who never gave in as a point of pride. This girl would look at Hollywood girls as wimps. You ever notice how the smart girl always had to learn to be dumber? All in the name of not locking away her more emotional/passionate self? Aside from the self-serving -- seriously!? -- nature of it, all could agree that those nerds needed to let loose and maybe do stupid stuff -- more likely do stupid boys -- to be a well-rounded person. Never once could one remain as she was. And all would likely agree she was not well-rounded, even if some would argue the need to tie it all in to becoming more conventionally attractive and finding a boyfriend.
Hah! Once there was a girl who wondered if it was just her who was able to withstand hormonal drives while making choices. She felt it then, she did. She had a crush once that was so intense it took almost all of her brain over, yet she didn't give into it because the guy was so not a good choice. You never see that story. It's all about sometimes needing to make those kind of mistakes. The girl wonders sometimes if they have a point beyond the straight male agenda.
Once upon a time there was a girl who failed in one of the only arenas she had ever had pride of self in. The girl fell so hard, when she crawled back up, she was another person. She still doesn't know if this made her stronger or weaker, but maybe long-term, it was stronger. The girl can no longer remember what was so different, whether the fall just brought out things more clearly or whether it was a total shock. There's been almost a decade now to smooth over the bumps.
Once upon a time there was a girl who finally learned something new about being a teen girl -- from a gay man who got it more than she ever did, who seemed to understand what was going all under the surface of all those popular girls, mean girls, let's face it most all other girls that were never who she wanted to be. She started to really understand all that she had disdained. Even if she was really still mostly a Dan Humphrey about it all. She even felt some nostalgia for something she never experienced in the first place.
Once upon a time there was a girl who was proud of not being a man while at the same time gloried in all things that separated her from being a stereotypical woman. Her role models were intellectual men, or any men who at least seemed to accept women as persons. Later they became, and remain somewhat, middle aged women who fought/fight the power. Iconoclasts and eccentrics who didn't follow traditional womanly paths. And she became one of them. So there's that. She got what she wanted there. But she wonders if she focused on the whole picture or just parts of it. She suspects that one needs more integration after the initial separation or you're back to accepting the world of the boxes, the unacceptable.
Yet the girl knows that if only through indifference or insouciance, she has not been so iconoclastic or eccentric. At least, not on the surface. It goes back to perspective. Is being enough, or does one need to express externally? I wouldn't have had those role models if they had been as hidden as I am from the world
Once upon a time there was a girl who would pick and choose what to focus on and what to ignore based on what made her feel best about herself. She knew she was not so different from anyone else that way. She felt most of life was self-serving indulgence. Can one be cynical and proactive?
Once upon a time there was a girl who didn't know how to end a rambling essay. So she gave up and just did it, realizing that it would lack closure to make it coherent, just like fucking life.
So this girl grew up knowing that there was a lot of bullshit in the world. Not only from the usual suspects of entrenched power, but also from those who one would think would know better, would be an ally. Why she always saw things in these extremes is a good question. The world, and people, are always more complicated than you first think.
First hurdle is to understand the problem, which is harder for some than others, but then comes dealing with it. This girl dealt with it by stepping away from the heart of it and trying to stay separate, trying to define herself apart from it while still trying to take what pride she could from the difference, even if it was a facade with a weak foundation. It's all working with what others give you, abstract symbols created by others.
But not too long ago the girl considered whether there was some freedom in the purposeful use of these symbols. So why was that necessarily bad? Maybe because these early usages were not purposeful, but part of a rejection, an act of running away. One escapes the box only by leaving it behind entirely. But that means some of the good things in the box become inaccessible, or at least hard to get to. And if you escape the box with nothing, how do you even get into the other boxes to pick and choose from their contents?
Why does the girl think in terms of cardboard boxes in a white room? That's beyond abstraction to absurd oversimplification.
Once upon a time there was a girl who learned early on to empathize with characters in books, to feel their story with them, but who found it so much harder to understand the real people around her. She wasn't emotionless, she didn't see real people as cardboard, she just didn't really think about them that much because she was concerned with other things. Is that true?
Once upon a time there was a girl who developed cynicism early. Was it because the outside world wasn't as neat and tidy as the world of fiction? Was it because she learned through fiction that everyone had an agenda or just that life wasn't fair? Was it something learned from her surroundings? Was she naturally inclined to that? Or is it another function of the distancing? Did she really feel removed from the first person from childhood, or can she just not remember now what it was like?
Once upon a time there was a girl who was tentative, lacking confidence in herself, in the rightness of her actions. She was a girl much loved, appreciated, who never had to question her worth in the eyes of the adults around her as she did her peers. Why should such a girl be so tentative? Was it something that happened or an outgrowth of her natural inclinations? Just like everyone else, the girl became good at some things. She had confidence in her abilities to do some things, but it never translated over to confidence in just being herself. This life-long identity crisis stemming from never feeling certain of an identity to begin with?
But that's too simple. Surely early on she felt like herself. This questioning is a function of adolescence. So maybe the lack of self-confidence came later, and she just doesn't remember it. How did it happen and why does it persist into early middle age?
She had never lived the unexamined life, but what they don't tell you about that idea is that said examination is not the solution to anything, it's just a step. And sometimes it's a misstep because you examine the wrong things or come up with the wrong solution to the perceived problem. Step one is to think it through, but step two gets dicey.
Her common theme seems to be lack of solidity (which is kind of funny for the extreme contrast with her very solid physical existence). Part of it is not knowing what she wants to do with her life, never having had a goal/plan/desire that felt close to all-encompassing. Part of it is the struggle with what is expected, what is assumed, even by those closest. Part of it is a desire to not become static, to always remain open to new things/ideas/possibilities. It's all of a piece assuredly, but how does that help her? Does this mix of traits necessitate this constant dance? Or is the dance a lie she tells herself?
Is it possible she clings to this idea of the lack of solidity as an excuse for her lack of -- not advancement, but -- success maybe? Progress? Maybe her insides really are like her outsides, slow moving, solid as a rock, slow to change, unlikely to let go, unmoved, placid.
This is what lack of commitment feels like, she would say to all the sitcom men who were ultimately amateurs at the process. You want to sleep around and not commit to a relationship? Big fucking deal. I can't even commit to being me. I can't commit to a life plan of any sort. I can't commit to an understanding of what I really want from life. I can't commit to the idea of committing. Go back to school, son.
Do I want a place to stand that doesn't move or do I want eternal change? Do I want to stand in a room and yell, "Hey, I'm here" to whoever will listen or do I want to continue creeping around the edges and seeing how many people I can fool into thinking I'm not even there? How much of all of this is rank cowardice? That's a question that haunts me. The thought that everything I do, everything I am is a reaction to fear of some kind is unacceptable. But maybe it's true. What the hell do I do with that?
Do I keep to myself because that's what I desire, because it's what I need to be happy, or because I'm scared to A, fail, or B, open myself up enough to another person to make a partnership work? I honestly don't know, and it's not like I haven't thought about it. How much of that decision is tied to my second wave ideas of men/women, to my existential feeling that no other person ever actually sees you as as much of a person as he/she is? How much of it is a decision or a choice?
I guess we all start wondering what we're missing at some point, what will be those big regrets at the end of everything, but -- it's all tied up into the idea of giving up and letting them win. Giving up what and letting who win? In attempting to stay back from the fray and define myself for myself, how much is still dependent on some nebulous they and how they view things? And how much of this right here is just posturing and not truth?
Once upon a time there was a girl who couldn't tell when she was lying to herself or when she was telling the truth. There was no nose changes, no helpful twitches or truth-containing dreams. It was all so nebulous. Maybe she knows herself and it's only lack of confidence or neurosis that leads her to question her own hard-won wisdom. It's so easy to discount it if it's coming only from her. Yet what do other people know anyway? They're right when they say bad things about her, wrong when they say good. What about her?
Once upon a time there was a girl who could rarely tell when she was happy, who didn't know the difference between contentment and complacency, who through physical detachment came to be even more emotionally detached. Once there was a girl who worried about being a Vulcan, while also taking pride in her intellectualism overriding her emotions, who never gave in as a point of pride. This girl would look at Hollywood girls as wimps. You ever notice how the smart girl always had to learn to be dumber? All in the name of not locking away her more emotional/passionate self? Aside from the self-serving -- seriously!? -- nature of it, all could agree that those nerds needed to let loose and maybe do stupid stuff -- more likely do stupid boys -- to be a well-rounded person. Never once could one remain as she was. And all would likely agree she was not well-rounded, even if some would argue the need to tie it all in to becoming more conventionally attractive and finding a boyfriend.
Hah! Once there was a girl who wondered if it was just her who was able to withstand hormonal drives while making choices. She felt it then, she did. She had a crush once that was so intense it took almost all of her brain over, yet she didn't give into it because the guy was so not a good choice. You never see that story. It's all about sometimes needing to make those kind of mistakes. The girl wonders sometimes if they have a point beyond the straight male agenda.
Once upon a time there was a girl who failed in one of the only arenas she had ever had pride of self in. The girl fell so hard, when she crawled back up, she was another person. She still doesn't know if this made her stronger or weaker, but maybe long-term, it was stronger. The girl can no longer remember what was so different, whether the fall just brought out things more clearly or whether it was a total shock. There's been almost a decade now to smooth over the bumps.
Once upon a time there was a girl who finally learned something new about being a teen girl -- from a gay man who got it more than she ever did, who seemed to understand what was going all under the surface of all those popular girls, mean girls, let's face it most all other girls that were never who she wanted to be. She started to really understand all that she had disdained. Even if she was really still mostly a Dan Humphrey about it all. She even felt some nostalgia for something she never experienced in the first place.
Once upon a time there was a girl who was proud of not being a man while at the same time gloried in all things that separated her from being a stereotypical woman. Her role models were intellectual men, or any men who at least seemed to accept women as persons. Later they became, and remain somewhat, middle aged women who fought/fight the power. Iconoclasts and eccentrics who didn't follow traditional womanly paths. And she became one of them. So there's that. She got what she wanted there. But she wonders if she focused on the whole picture or just parts of it. She suspects that one needs more integration after the initial separation or you're back to accepting the world of the boxes, the unacceptable.
Yet the girl knows that if only through indifference or insouciance, she has not been so iconoclastic or eccentric. At least, not on the surface. It goes back to perspective. Is being enough, or does one need to express externally? I wouldn't have had those role models if they had been as hidden as I am from the world
Once upon a time there was a girl who would pick and choose what to focus on and what to ignore based on what made her feel best about herself. She knew she was not so different from anyone else that way. She felt most of life was self-serving indulgence. Can one be cynical and proactive?
Once upon a time there was a girl who didn't know how to end a rambling essay. So she gave up and just did it, realizing that it would lack closure to make it coherent, just like fucking life.
Monday, March 11, 2013
What to write about spy TV.
Only possible self-initiated writing assignment I can come up with for myself is related to spy tv, since that's what has been pulling my attention lately. I don't have any real desire to write, just a feeling that I should. At least it's something I can do that's not passively imbibing. But not sure of the angle. Came up with ideas of compare and contrast episodes of various spy shows with similar plot ideas. Not sure what would come of that. Could lead to some chronology comparisons, which ties in with ideas on changing face of surveillance with new tech, and/or pre and post 9/11 stuff. But not sure where to go. Trying not to worry about it too much. It's just for me right now; doesn't have to rock the world. So that way I don't have to do a ton of research either. Want just some grounding in spy tv tropes that I can then apply to my focus, which is more personal to me.
Do I just want to know why Homeland, Person of Interest, and The Americans have been the latest shows I've really been excited about? Oh, maybe I should go ahead and recap Americans. It's 6 in, I could do it. Even though I have read/listened to some commentary on the eps already, plus have larger than one episode scope. Still, could be fun.
OMG Person of Interest. This show is just so good, and so few people in my sphere talk about it. It's a real shame. I don't know if it's the procedural backbone or just that it's another that was either advertised or anticipated to be trying to recapture Lost. It's so its own thing that that's not close to fair, but whatever. It's one of the only shows lately that I daydream up stories in order to insert myself into its world. That's a rare thing for me of late. I certainly don't go there with Once or Grimm or even Supernatural anymore. Nor Arrow. But this show, oh man, pushes all the right buttons for a world I want to be a part of, even though it's really scary and I in reality would be toast there. Kinda like the Buffyverse that way.
I just realized that. I know I've been Mary Suing myself to the show, but hadn't considered that it's been a couple years since I found a show to do that with. I think since Supernatural was good. It's a different level of enjoyment than just really digging a show being good, like Americans. It's a combo of enjoying an excellent show and having the world/mythology of the show really capture my imagination. That's what it is. A thrilling feeling, especially when I feel so insulated from emotion these days, something to be passionate about.
Anyway. So what to write about? Skimmed some essays on Informational Ethics that could apply. Still interested in idea of omniscience and its relation to prognostication, although that is fading a bit. Still like best I think the idea of surveillance, something about that. I have always had a huge dose of something like double consciousness, and I think that's part of what I'm liking about these shows and their focus on surveillance. Watching Carrie watch Brody on the monitors. The meta parallel of that action with tv viewing, looking into the lives of these characters like an omniscient god, getting to know them via their external actions and communications. And how it is to always be aware of being watched, how that affects your actions. Tying into even the thing in Cloud Atlas I keep coming back to, the idea of seeing yourself in the gaze of the Other. All of that is aswirl in my head and I need to figure out how to see it clearly, what is the through line that I want to tease out.
Something is enticing about the meta parallel. Even though I don't generally enjoy reading about how we watch tv or what being a fan is or any of that stuff, I do wonder about how far that parallel goes. Couldn't you imagine yourself doing the spy surveillance stuff, even if you're not into anything else about it? Isn't that part of reality tv's appeal, looking in on real lives, trying to figure out something about the truth of these lives from watching them? It's not about talking to them, but watching. Which is my modus operandi most of the time anyway, when getting to know people. I don't tend to ask them a lot of questions, to actively seek information about what they're like. I prefer to just sit back and observe their behaviors and analyze their words, forming my impression of who they are from that. Maybe it's just because of the distancing thing I do socially that I can so connect with that idea.
Many of my daydreams have involved being undercover, always being watched, having to pass secret messages, never fully trusting anyone with the truth. That's my play time. So it's no surprise that something like the Americans (also set during my COA, my preteens) would really be of interest to me. Hell, I had a story similar to theirs as a backstory for my Scarecrow & Mrs. King Mary Sue, only we were sleepers in Russia instead. Pushing buttons.
But that's all well and good. What could I write about that would give me practice, be satisfying, and teach myself something new about what I'm seeing or why it's working for me? Maybe it's just because I'm lazy, but it's hard to think of something I would want to commit to writing about. It's easy enough to throw around some ideas, think of further research that could be done, but not so much to come up with a topic sentence and go to it. This is why I worry about being able to go back to school. Writing essays used to be the easiest thing in the world, but now... Of course, it's so much harder to be self-directed anyway.
I liked Alias and Chuck, but they were very different from these types of shows, very actiony or comedic, using surveillance tools, definitely focused on tech -- spy-fi -- but not really going into the bigger ideas associated with that. They weren't supposed to.
Part of it is the whole reality of eternal surveillance coming into being around us too. It's easier and easier to empathize with characters who are always being monitored, isn't it?
Actually, now that I think about it, a lot of the fantasy I liked best had some aspects of this undercover stuff too. The more medieval cloak and dagger espionage, people hiding powers or birthright, secret mages in current society, wizards and witches seeing people from afar... People not who they seem, but special. Common fantasies we all have I suspect. How many of us hope we're secretly more special, skilled, important than we actually are? It's just that we're not recognized as we blend into the crowds around us. But if someone were really looking, they would be able to figure out that we were somehow unique, no matter how much we look indistinguishable from everyone else around. We are all hiding our own secrets, we're all sleeper agents.
Or maybe I shouldn't say all. We are all heroes in our own story, but some are kings and queens, some are warriors, and some are spies who always know more than they say, who always see both the world everyone sees and the other realities happening to the side or underneath that most people ignore or are ignorant of. Some of us like seeing and not being seen. Some of us hide anything real or important to keep those things safe from those who are always trying to see us but never see us truly.
Oy. That's enough of that. At least I didn't start in on the whole female thing. You're welcome.
But what do I want to write about? I really think surveillance is the overarching, big picture part. But it's way too abstract and wide-ranging. But what's interesting is that could reach out of the spy genre and bring in things like Gossip Girl or PLL, both shows which have/had omniscient antagonists that see all the heroes do and use that intel for their own ends. How does that fit in/compare to what some of these spy dramas are doing? And again the meta parallel, do I want to go there given how little I really feel able to comment on all that? I don't know.
Then there's the whole storytelling aspect of that too. That's too real world for this topic for me I think. I always love that kind of investigation, but not in this case.
Of course, there's always the option of not writing anything about them, just enjoying what they give me. Like I do everything. Black hole. Maybe I do need school assignments to actually accomplish anything.
Well, enough rambling here.
Do I just want to know why Homeland, Person of Interest, and The Americans have been the latest shows I've really been excited about? Oh, maybe I should go ahead and recap Americans. It's 6 in, I could do it. Even though I have read/listened to some commentary on the eps already, plus have larger than one episode scope. Still, could be fun.
OMG Person of Interest. This show is just so good, and so few people in my sphere talk about it. It's a real shame. I don't know if it's the procedural backbone or just that it's another that was either advertised or anticipated to be trying to recapture Lost. It's so its own thing that that's not close to fair, but whatever. It's one of the only shows lately that I daydream up stories in order to insert myself into its world. That's a rare thing for me of late. I certainly don't go there with Once or Grimm or even Supernatural anymore. Nor Arrow. But this show, oh man, pushes all the right buttons for a world I want to be a part of, even though it's really scary and I in reality would be toast there. Kinda like the Buffyverse that way.
I just realized that. I know I've been Mary Suing myself to the show, but hadn't considered that it's been a couple years since I found a show to do that with. I think since Supernatural was good. It's a different level of enjoyment than just really digging a show being good, like Americans. It's a combo of enjoying an excellent show and having the world/mythology of the show really capture my imagination. That's what it is. A thrilling feeling, especially when I feel so insulated from emotion these days, something to be passionate about.
Anyway. So what to write about? Skimmed some essays on Informational Ethics that could apply. Still interested in idea of omniscience and its relation to prognostication, although that is fading a bit. Still like best I think the idea of surveillance, something about that. I have always had a huge dose of something like double consciousness, and I think that's part of what I'm liking about these shows and their focus on surveillance. Watching Carrie watch Brody on the monitors. The meta parallel of that action with tv viewing, looking into the lives of these characters like an omniscient god, getting to know them via their external actions and communications. And how it is to always be aware of being watched, how that affects your actions. Tying into even the thing in Cloud Atlas I keep coming back to, the idea of seeing yourself in the gaze of the Other. All of that is aswirl in my head and I need to figure out how to see it clearly, what is the through line that I want to tease out.
Something is enticing about the meta parallel. Even though I don't generally enjoy reading about how we watch tv or what being a fan is or any of that stuff, I do wonder about how far that parallel goes. Couldn't you imagine yourself doing the spy surveillance stuff, even if you're not into anything else about it? Isn't that part of reality tv's appeal, looking in on real lives, trying to figure out something about the truth of these lives from watching them? It's not about talking to them, but watching. Which is my modus operandi most of the time anyway, when getting to know people. I don't tend to ask them a lot of questions, to actively seek information about what they're like. I prefer to just sit back and observe their behaviors and analyze their words, forming my impression of who they are from that. Maybe it's just because of the distancing thing I do socially that I can so connect with that idea.
Many of my daydreams have involved being undercover, always being watched, having to pass secret messages, never fully trusting anyone with the truth. That's my play time. So it's no surprise that something like the Americans (also set during my COA, my preteens) would really be of interest to me. Hell, I had a story similar to theirs as a backstory for my Scarecrow & Mrs. King Mary Sue, only we were sleepers in Russia instead. Pushing buttons.
But that's all well and good. What could I write about that would give me practice, be satisfying, and teach myself something new about what I'm seeing or why it's working for me? Maybe it's just because I'm lazy, but it's hard to think of something I would want to commit to writing about. It's easy enough to throw around some ideas, think of further research that could be done, but not so much to come up with a topic sentence and go to it. This is why I worry about being able to go back to school. Writing essays used to be the easiest thing in the world, but now... Of course, it's so much harder to be self-directed anyway.
I liked Alias and Chuck, but they were very different from these types of shows, very actiony or comedic, using surveillance tools, definitely focused on tech -- spy-fi -- but not really going into the bigger ideas associated with that. They weren't supposed to.
Part of it is the whole reality of eternal surveillance coming into being around us too. It's easier and easier to empathize with characters who are always being monitored, isn't it?
Actually, now that I think about it, a lot of the fantasy I liked best had some aspects of this undercover stuff too. The more medieval cloak and dagger espionage, people hiding powers or birthright, secret mages in current society, wizards and witches seeing people from afar... People not who they seem, but special. Common fantasies we all have I suspect. How many of us hope we're secretly more special, skilled, important than we actually are? It's just that we're not recognized as we blend into the crowds around us. But if someone were really looking, they would be able to figure out that we were somehow unique, no matter how much we look indistinguishable from everyone else around. We are all hiding our own secrets, we're all sleeper agents.
Or maybe I shouldn't say all. We are all heroes in our own story, but some are kings and queens, some are warriors, and some are spies who always know more than they say, who always see both the world everyone sees and the other realities happening to the side or underneath that most people ignore or are ignorant of. Some of us like seeing and not being seen. Some of us hide anything real or important to keep those things safe from those who are always trying to see us but never see us truly.
Oy. That's enough of that. At least I didn't start in on the whole female thing. You're welcome.
But what do I want to write about? I really think surveillance is the overarching, big picture part. But it's way too abstract and wide-ranging. But what's interesting is that could reach out of the spy genre and bring in things like Gossip Girl or PLL, both shows which have/had omniscient antagonists that see all the heroes do and use that intel for their own ends. How does that fit in/compare to what some of these spy dramas are doing? And again the meta parallel, do I want to go there given how little I really feel able to comment on all that? I don't know.
Then there's the whole storytelling aspect of that too. That's too real world for this topic for me I think. I always love that kind of investigation, but not in this case.
Of course, there's always the option of not writing anything about them, just enjoying what they give me. Like I do everything. Black hole. Maybe I do need school assignments to actually accomplish anything.
Well, enough rambling here.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Connections to other people
So the world is trying to tell me something I don't want to hear. The idea of life being less meaningful or less fun or less "insert positive thing here" without connections to other people. It's not that I disagree so much as it feels like a pointed statement to me right now. Yeah, I know the obvious downsides to choosing to exist as a oner instead of as part of a couple or larger family. And I accept them. But I am also recognizing lately that there are less obvious downsides that I haven't considered for a while. Even little things like thinking over movies I've seen or music I've listened to, I remember that I wouldn't have seen or listened to this or that particular thing were it not recommended to me by the people I was hanging out with at a certain time in my life. Somehow that seems more significant to me than the knowledge that I don't have anyone to freakin' cuddle with at night, which is what seems to drive a lot of people into relationships. How many cultural experiences do I miss from that lack of input?
Of course, there's the internet, which provides reference services all the time. But it's almost ephemeral, surface level; it's not the shared physical experience of watching a David Lynch film and discussing it for hours and feeling on fire with ideas, or going to a Brazilian Girls concert with a friend when you'd never even heard of them before and feeling that emotional specificity that music provides.
I have friends, and I see them fairly often, so it's not a dire situation, just something that has come up recently. A reminder to not let them fall by the wayside out of lethargy or hermitage.
______________________________________SEGUE?________________________________
To my mind, Cloud Atlas was all about how our connections to other people are pretty much the only good thing in a world full of horrors, about how interacting with other people changes us, and how magical that can be. There's even one point where a character says the only way we truly know ourselves is through the eyes of the Other. Which struck me because I've spent my whole life attempting to reject definition from the outside. If that's a true statement, what does that say about my inherent abhorrence of the whole idea? I'm just not sure what to do with that. The right to self-definition is one that I consider to be of pretty primary importance. Why would we seek to have another define us?
But I get it. There is the nausea of looking into yourself and finding a lack of purchase. Maybe the eyes of the Other give you something to stand on, a reference point? I've always found the idea of myself in Others' eyes to be inevitably wrong. But maybe that's more about what I can and cannot accept about myself than it is about what is a truth about who I am.
I don't know. Through my life I've found that women especially, when they define themselves by the Other, it's almost always by the male Other, and that's problematic because historically men have viewed us as less human than men. Why would I want to be defined that way? That's not shelter from the storm; that's a lie that demeans us both. That's worse than existential pain and loss. That's the worst thing I can think of (relative to this discussion).
So is it possible for the Other's gaze to be helpful? To be less about objectification or broad generalization based on the Other's own understanding of the world rather than my specific self and more about telling me a truth that helps my self-understanding? Can I be made less abstract without being frozen in a shape of someone else's choosing?
I find it doubtful, but I can't help but be intrigued by the thought.
Of course, there's the internet, which provides reference services all the time. But it's almost ephemeral, surface level; it's not the shared physical experience of watching a David Lynch film and discussing it for hours and feeling on fire with ideas, or going to a Brazilian Girls concert with a friend when you'd never even heard of them before and feeling that emotional specificity that music provides.
I have friends, and I see them fairly often, so it's not a dire situation, just something that has come up recently. A reminder to not let them fall by the wayside out of lethargy or hermitage.
______________________________________SEGUE?________________________________
To my mind, Cloud Atlas was all about how our connections to other people are pretty much the only good thing in a world full of horrors, about how interacting with other people changes us, and how magical that can be. There's even one point where a character says the only way we truly know ourselves is through the eyes of the Other. Which struck me because I've spent my whole life attempting to reject definition from the outside. If that's a true statement, what does that say about my inherent abhorrence of the whole idea? I'm just not sure what to do with that. The right to self-definition is one that I consider to be of pretty primary importance. Why would we seek to have another define us?
But I get it. There is the nausea of looking into yourself and finding a lack of purchase. Maybe the eyes of the Other give you something to stand on, a reference point? I've always found the idea of myself in Others' eyes to be inevitably wrong. But maybe that's more about what I can and cannot accept about myself than it is about what is a truth about who I am.
I don't know. Through my life I've found that women especially, when they define themselves by the Other, it's almost always by the male Other, and that's problematic because historically men have viewed us as less human than men. Why would I want to be defined that way? That's not shelter from the storm; that's a lie that demeans us both. That's worse than existential pain and loss. That's the worst thing I can think of (relative to this discussion).
So is it possible for the Other's gaze to be helpful? To be less about objectification or broad generalization based on the Other's own understanding of the world rather than my specific self and more about telling me a truth that helps my self-understanding? Can I be made less abstract without being frozen in a shape of someone else's choosing?
I find it doubtful, but I can't help but be intrigued by the thought.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Buffy needing darkness, a rambling (as usual) musing
Listening to yet another "was Riley good for Buffy" conversation, this time on Hellmouth Podcast for A New Man, I revisited an old pet peeve of mine. The following is just my rambling way of working through my thoughts on it.
I've always had a little trouble with the idea that Buffy rejected Riley because he was a good guy or boring or not dark enough. To me, the quality that Buffy needs from a partner isn't darkness, and I think it does the character a disservice to phrase it that way. It's not about darkness or evil. That's not what drew her to Angel. I mean sure, he was a mysterious force at the start, cryptic guy, but I never got the sense Buffy thought of him as dark. Just mysterious, which was a draw of course. But she fell in like with him before he was unveiled as a vampire, and then she loved him despite herself. But not because he was evil. If he were evil, she would have staked him, not offered up her neck. And she wasn't drawn to Angelus.
To me, what is similar about Buffy's more intensely passionate relationships isn't just that they were vampires, therefore somewhat evil, dark and dangerous. It's that they're from her world. They operate within it in a way closest to how Buffy operates, which is different from Riley or even Xander, and different from how the other vampires and demons deal with the world.
It's not about evil, it's not about the bad boy in any direct sense. Self-proclaimed nice guys need not feel threatened or depressed that Riley didn't get the girl, nor do they have to find ways to make it her fault that the relationship failed. Like many things in BTVS, it's a metaphor, much like the bad boy in cinema is a symbol more than a reality. So sometimes it is saying some women want the bad boy, the man who will treat them like shit, just as some men seem to want a cruel woman. But often the bad boy is symbolic of difference, of rebellion, or of the feminine. I'm thinking James Dean in Rebel. Bad on the surface, sensitive within. Women who go for that aren't looking to be treated badly or roughly, they're identifying with someone who isn't Captain America or Tim Allen, who isn't a soc or a jock, someone more in tune with traditional feminine qualities like empathy, intuition, sensitivity and openness to the world, not someone more traditionally male who seeks to dominate it through physical strength and force of will. These bad boys also usually have a more nuanced understanding of what the world is like, that it's not made for them, and an understanding of oppression. This is not the symbolic perfect white male ideal who's gone through life without realizing how many breaks he's had, how relatively easy it's been for him, who has never really had to come up against significant barriers so never had to question the world view he was taught. That perfect man works for some women, perhaps because they too have had the privilege not had to question what they've been taught about the world, perhaps because they seek the status that goes with it. But some of us are operating within a different paradigm.
I've gotten far afield from where I wanted to go (so new), but not too far, because now I'm going to talk about Riley. Riley was that guy, the one who continued to view the world pretty simply as a black and white, orderly place, a world where he could make a difference, could impose order when it went awry, a world where he had a pretty high status and was in control. He wasn't arrogant or cruel or particularly misogynistic or chauvinistic, he was a genuine nice guy, but simple. Buffy woke him up to some reality, opened his eyes to a grayer world, and he got pushed off his simple track and began questioning what he had been taught. He even went so far as to declare himself an anarchist, which he never was and never will be. But as much as he learned from Buffy and the Scoobies, he never really developed a more complex world view. The Initiative turned out to be evil, but their overall perspective and strategies were still the way to do things. He still saw the world simply. He lived a very goal-oriented life, planning out his desired future, acting to make his desires come true. Not a bad way to live, nothing wrong with it if it works for you. But that's not Buffy's world anymore, not since she became the Slayer. It can't be.
((Finding out you're the Slayer at puberty coincides with becoming a sexually mature woman for more reasons than one. Becoming the Slayer is a metaphor for becoming a woman, realizing that there's something different about you that makes you not completely human in the eyes of the patriarchal lenses that seem to abide. Having that realization is pretty intense, and definitely the end of childhood. ))
The world Buffy has to navigate is full of incredibly complex situations, not at all clear choices, and obstacles that appear without warning and have to be dealt with regardless. She's had to develop a very nuanced and complex case-by-case based strategy for dealing with her daily life that Riley never had to face. But Angel and Spike to some degree have. They live in the world of demons and myth as Buffy does. They too used to be fully human, living their own unexamined lives, when they were chosen to walk in a far larger, wilder realm. Since they managed to hold on to or reclaim their humanity in tandem with the beast within, they've had to negotiate ways of surviving in that more complicated world. I guess, simply put: They get it; Riley doesn't.
Of course, the wider world, the world full of danger and magic and very complex moral dilemmas doesn't have as much to do with order as it does with chaos and random uncertainty. And anyone who lives in that world develops very different coping mechanisms and strategies than someone living in (or thinking they live in) a world of order. When order is the norm, it's hard enough to deal with the occasional bits of chaos that creep in, but if you survive those, you can find a way to ignore them or to do as Riley did and pick your times to fight them and your times to pull back and regroup. Riley doesn't live in the chaos, he just visits there on occasion and works to keep that world away from his own. Buffy has to live in the chaos, where order is the unusual mode of being. She can't just drop in and out as needed because of who she is. Being the Slayer isn't part of her life she can turn off after 5:00, it affects every aspect of her existence, even when she tries to step away from it.
Buffy doesn't need darkness or evil, she doesn't normally want to be treated badly, even if she did go through a depression that led her to use Spike to punish herself for a while. She needs someone as a partner who acknowledges the same reality, lives in the same world and has developed similar strategies to deal with it.
Maybe that does manifest as darkness in the eye of the beholder, but darkness as a descriptor is too vague and misleading. It's about the feminine really. The long-standing dichotomy we use to discuss these things is male being intellect, power, order, control, light, science; female being emotion, compliance, chaos, the wild, dark, magic. Riley and Buffy were in a sense just as opposed and unlikely lovers as any of her beaus. He's the Initiative; she's the Slayer. They each learn from one another a great deal, and try walking in each other's worlds, but it ultimately doesn't make them more alike because they live in those separate worlds, Buffy out of necessity, Riley maybe out of choice or maybe because he just can't navigate the other and be happy. (The fun part is that I see Buffy as yang to Riley's yin in season 5 at least, which casts a really interesting dissonance on top of the more traditional male/female dichotomy they seem to symbolize. I <3 Joss Whedon.)
Anyway, Buffy lives in the wild places, yes, in the dark. When Riley tries to join her there, he picks that almost perfectly wrong way to do it, focusing on the exterior details of her vampire bites versus the more profound interior differences between the two of them in the ways they live in the world. He didn't get it, it didn't work for him, so he set a new goal, took off, and found something that did work for him, that kept him in his world, doing the work he was fulfilled doing. Buffy didn't try to cross into Riley's world in season 5. She toyed with it in season 4, found it wasn't right for her, and tried to bring Riley back home with her instead. So she didn't meet him halfway, and she owns that. But I think she blames herself too much for not giving him what he needed when to do so would have gotten her killed or changed her into a different person. As a slayer, she can't escape the chaos.
Buffy and Angel almost worked not because he was dark and could be evil. First, they had the Romeo and Juliet first love, star-crossed thing, which was passionate and intense, but their relationship survived the Angelus resurgence because of the maturity they both gained dealing with the adult ramifications of that turn and the choices they both had to make to come out of that alive and whole. The childish first love became Buffy's first adult relationship. It was a dive into the wild, the chaos, that they survived, first separately and then together. They share a history and understanding gained on that journey that can't be replicated. Angel gets it.
Buffy and Spike almost worked not just because he was evil, although that played a part in the beginning of their physical relationship. Spike thrived in the wild, and he had insights into what it was to be the Slayer and what it was to walk in the dark. He knew what it was to die and come back. And Buffy was in a place where she couldn't connect with anyone else. She was self-destructive and Spike stayed by her side through it. But season 6 Spike didn't fully get it either. He was on the opposite end of Riley then, trying to take Buffy to a place of pure chaos, away from even the bits of order the Slayer attempts to coax out of the wild. But season 7 Spike with his full humanity restored finally got it, and eventually understood that Buffy had grown past her own self-hatred, and they got past the crazy to a place where they could fully connect. They too traveled a journey together that no one else fully shared or understood. Spike gets it.
And maybe it's as simple as the fact that Riley and Buffy were together at a less tumultuous emotional time. The history he shares with Buffy doesn't hold as much weight, isn't singular enough to bind them together in a shared understanding. Riley never navigated the wild with Buffy in any meaningful and long-lasting way. Maybe there is some truth to the idea that those romantic dramas will ultimately result in a more intense bond. Most people don't need that, but most people don't live in the wild. That doesn't make Buffy a drama queen, just someone living her perforce intense, brutal existence.
Back to the metaphor, not that we left it. Joss created what I would argue is the greatest female hero ever for that time (or now in my mind). In defining her world, her philosophy, her relations to that world, he managed to combine the chaos of the wild feminine with a hero who takes action. Who gradually finds ways to traverse the chaos and mingle in some order without trying to bend the world to a masculine will or blow it up if it won't comply. She has the most intense connections to the lovers in her life that can do the same, and who can treat her as an equal partner in the endeavor. Buffy's so-called need for darkness is actually her need for a partner who can see the complexity of her circumstances, will attempt to navigate her world with her, and will accept her as an equal. Riley thought he saw the first, but didn't. He attempted the second, but not in any way that showed he understood it, and therefore failed. And he never fully succeeded at the third either. He wasn't a hidebound sexist, but he never gave equal credit to the intuitional, emotional feminine ways of dealing with chaos, never saw those strategies to be equally effective as his attempts at control, and couldn't fully accept that Buffy could be his protector just as he could be hers, in true egalitarian partnership. Open your eyes to the dark, Riley Finn, and then we'll talk.
--------
I could ramble on forever without streamlining my point, I think. Maybe in future I can come back and try to make this coherent and separate out the different strands of argument. It could happen.
I've always had a little trouble with the idea that Buffy rejected Riley because he was a good guy or boring or not dark enough. To me, the quality that Buffy needs from a partner isn't darkness, and I think it does the character a disservice to phrase it that way. It's not about darkness or evil. That's not what drew her to Angel. I mean sure, he was a mysterious force at the start, cryptic guy, but I never got the sense Buffy thought of him as dark. Just mysterious, which was a draw of course. But she fell in like with him before he was unveiled as a vampire, and then she loved him despite herself. But not because he was evil. If he were evil, she would have staked him, not offered up her neck. And she wasn't drawn to Angelus.
To me, what is similar about Buffy's more intensely passionate relationships isn't just that they were vampires, therefore somewhat evil, dark and dangerous. It's that they're from her world. They operate within it in a way closest to how Buffy operates, which is different from Riley or even Xander, and different from how the other vampires and demons deal with the world.
It's not about evil, it's not about the bad boy in any direct sense. Self-proclaimed nice guys need not feel threatened or depressed that Riley didn't get the girl, nor do they have to find ways to make it her fault that the relationship failed. Like many things in BTVS, it's a metaphor, much like the bad boy in cinema is a symbol more than a reality. So sometimes it is saying some women want the bad boy, the man who will treat them like shit, just as some men seem to want a cruel woman. But often the bad boy is symbolic of difference, of rebellion, or of the feminine. I'm thinking James Dean in Rebel. Bad on the surface, sensitive within. Women who go for that aren't looking to be treated badly or roughly, they're identifying with someone who isn't Captain America or Tim Allen, who isn't a soc or a jock, someone more in tune with traditional feminine qualities like empathy, intuition, sensitivity and openness to the world, not someone more traditionally male who seeks to dominate it through physical strength and force of will. These bad boys also usually have a more nuanced understanding of what the world is like, that it's not made for them, and an understanding of oppression. This is not the symbolic perfect white male ideal who's gone through life without realizing how many breaks he's had, how relatively easy it's been for him, who has never really had to come up against significant barriers so never had to question the world view he was taught. That perfect man works for some women, perhaps because they too have had the privilege not had to question what they've been taught about the world, perhaps because they seek the status that goes with it. But some of us are operating within a different paradigm.
I've gotten far afield from where I wanted to go (so new), but not too far, because now I'm going to talk about Riley. Riley was that guy, the one who continued to view the world pretty simply as a black and white, orderly place, a world where he could make a difference, could impose order when it went awry, a world where he had a pretty high status and was in control. He wasn't arrogant or cruel or particularly misogynistic or chauvinistic, he was a genuine nice guy, but simple. Buffy woke him up to some reality, opened his eyes to a grayer world, and he got pushed off his simple track and began questioning what he had been taught. He even went so far as to declare himself an anarchist, which he never was and never will be. But as much as he learned from Buffy and the Scoobies, he never really developed a more complex world view. The Initiative turned out to be evil, but their overall perspective and strategies were still the way to do things. He still saw the world simply. He lived a very goal-oriented life, planning out his desired future, acting to make his desires come true. Not a bad way to live, nothing wrong with it if it works for you. But that's not Buffy's world anymore, not since she became the Slayer. It can't be.
((Finding out you're the Slayer at puberty coincides with becoming a sexually mature woman for more reasons than one. Becoming the Slayer is a metaphor for becoming a woman, realizing that there's something different about you that makes you not completely human in the eyes of the patriarchal lenses that seem to abide. Having that realization is pretty intense, and definitely the end of childhood. ))
The world Buffy has to navigate is full of incredibly complex situations, not at all clear choices, and obstacles that appear without warning and have to be dealt with regardless. She's had to develop a very nuanced and complex case-by-case based strategy for dealing with her daily life that Riley never had to face. But Angel and Spike to some degree have. They live in the world of demons and myth as Buffy does. They too used to be fully human, living their own unexamined lives, when they were chosen to walk in a far larger, wilder realm. Since they managed to hold on to or reclaim their humanity in tandem with the beast within, they've had to negotiate ways of surviving in that more complicated world. I guess, simply put: They get it; Riley doesn't.
Of course, the wider world, the world full of danger and magic and very complex moral dilemmas doesn't have as much to do with order as it does with chaos and random uncertainty. And anyone who lives in that world develops very different coping mechanisms and strategies than someone living in (or thinking they live in) a world of order. When order is the norm, it's hard enough to deal with the occasional bits of chaos that creep in, but if you survive those, you can find a way to ignore them or to do as Riley did and pick your times to fight them and your times to pull back and regroup. Riley doesn't live in the chaos, he just visits there on occasion and works to keep that world away from his own. Buffy has to live in the chaos, where order is the unusual mode of being. She can't just drop in and out as needed because of who she is. Being the Slayer isn't part of her life she can turn off after 5:00, it affects every aspect of her existence, even when she tries to step away from it.
Buffy doesn't need darkness or evil, she doesn't normally want to be treated badly, even if she did go through a depression that led her to use Spike to punish herself for a while. She needs someone as a partner who acknowledges the same reality, lives in the same world and has developed similar strategies to deal with it.
Maybe that does manifest as darkness in the eye of the beholder, but darkness as a descriptor is too vague and misleading. It's about the feminine really. The long-standing dichotomy we use to discuss these things is male being intellect, power, order, control, light, science; female being emotion, compliance, chaos, the wild, dark, magic. Riley and Buffy were in a sense just as opposed and unlikely lovers as any of her beaus. He's the Initiative; she's the Slayer. They each learn from one another a great deal, and try walking in each other's worlds, but it ultimately doesn't make them more alike because they live in those separate worlds, Buffy out of necessity, Riley maybe out of choice or maybe because he just can't navigate the other and be happy. (The fun part is that I see Buffy as yang to Riley's yin in season 5 at least, which casts a really interesting dissonance on top of the more traditional male/female dichotomy they seem to symbolize. I <3 Joss Whedon.)
Anyway, Buffy lives in the wild places, yes, in the dark. When Riley tries to join her there, he picks that almost perfectly wrong way to do it, focusing on the exterior details of her vampire bites versus the more profound interior differences between the two of them in the ways they live in the world. He didn't get it, it didn't work for him, so he set a new goal, took off, and found something that did work for him, that kept him in his world, doing the work he was fulfilled doing. Buffy didn't try to cross into Riley's world in season 5. She toyed with it in season 4, found it wasn't right for her, and tried to bring Riley back home with her instead. So she didn't meet him halfway, and she owns that. But I think she blames herself too much for not giving him what he needed when to do so would have gotten her killed or changed her into a different person. As a slayer, she can't escape the chaos.
Buffy and Angel almost worked not because he was dark and could be evil. First, they had the Romeo and Juliet first love, star-crossed thing, which was passionate and intense, but their relationship survived the Angelus resurgence because of the maturity they both gained dealing with the adult ramifications of that turn and the choices they both had to make to come out of that alive and whole. The childish first love became Buffy's first adult relationship. It was a dive into the wild, the chaos, that they survived, first separately and then together. They share a history and understanding gained on that journey that can't be replicated. Angel gets it.
Buffy and Spike almost worked not just because he was evil, although that played a part in the beginning of their physical relationship. Spike thrived in the wild, and he had insights into what it was to be the Slayer and what it was to walk in the dark. He knew what it was to die and come back. And Buffy was in a place where she couldn't connect with anyone else. She was self-destructive and Spike stayed by her side through it. But season 6 Spike didn't fully get it either. He was on the opposite end of Riley then, trying to take Buffy to a place of pure chaos, away from even the bits of order the Slayer attempts to coax out of the wild. But season 7 Spike with his full humanity restored finally got it, and eventually understood that Buffy had grown past her own self-hatred, and they got past the crazy to a place where they could fully connect. They too traveled a journey together that no one else fully shared or understood. Spike gets it.
And maybe it's as simple as the fact that Riley and Buffy were together at a less tumultuous emotional time. The history he shares with Buffy doesn't hold as much weight, isn't singular enough to bind them together in a shared understanding. Riley never navigated the wild with Buffy in any meaningful and long-lasting way. Maybe there is some truth to the idea that those romantic dramas will ultimately result in a more intense bond. Most people don't need that, but most people don't live in the wild. That doesn't make Buffy a drama queen, just someone living her perforce intense, brutal existence.
Back to the metaphor, not that we left it. Joss created what I would argue is the greatest female hero ever for that time (or now in my mind). In defining her world, her philosophy, her relations to that world, he managed to combine the chaos of the wild feminine with a hero who takes action. Who gradually finds ways to traverse the chaos and mingle in some order without trying to bend the world to a masculine will or blow it up if it won't comply. She has the most intense connections to the lovers in her life that can do the same, and who can treat her as an equal partner in the endeavor. Buffy's so-called need for darkness is actually her need for a partner who can see the complexity of her circumstances, will attempt to navigate her world with her, and will accept her as an equal. Riley thought he saw the first, but didn't. He attempted the second, but not in any way that showed he understood it, and therefore failed. And he never fully succeeded at the third either. He wasn't a hidebound sexist, but he never gave equal credit to the intuitional, emotional feminine ways of dealing with chaos, never saw those strategies to be equally effective as his attempts at control, and couldn't fully accept that Buffy could be his protector just as he could be hers, in true egalitarian partnership. Open your eyes to the dark, Riley Finn, and then we'll talk.
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I could ramble on forever without streamlining my point, I think. Maybe in future I can come back and try to make this coherent and separate out the different strands of argument. It could happen.
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