Beyond Selidor

I'm sitting around drinking Bailey's instead of doing anything productive, skittering between Youtube and Facebook and LJ in a desperate hope that someone will post something interesting. I sort of have a vague desire to post something ranty about the weird attitudes some reviewers seem to have towards 'inappropriate' content in YA books, but I think I'll leave it for a couple of days until I'm clear about what I want to say.

I can't seem to interest myself in any new books after Sunshine, and I don't really have any TV series to watch, so I'm just half-heartedly skimming through Youtube clips from the Buffy episode 'Once More With Feeling'. I'm avoiding listening to 'Something To Sing About', as losseniaiel can attest to the fact that I cry every time I hear/see it. It's still too close. Mostly, I'm repetitively listening to 'Walk Through the Fire', which sends chills down my spine. Yep, it doesn't need saying again, but seriously, Joss is a genius. That musical episode is creepily accurate, not just as a representation of all the characters' unspoken feelings and fears at that point in the series, but as a representation of what it is to be 21-25, and absolutely, spine-chillingly terrified, not of the vampires in the alleyway, but of adult life.

Four days until D(iss)-Day.

Here's the rather excellent Cracked summary of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Major spoilers, of course.

I think I must be in the minority of Buffy fans who like (well, 'like' is the wrong word. 'Appreciate the quality of' might be better) Season Six and, for the most part ('Conversations With Dead People' aside), dislike Season Seven.

Also, any friends of mine who are Twilight fans, don't click on these links. The rest of you, enjoy some rather sarcastically articulate summaries of the problems with the Twilight series. The second link has a hilarious 800+ flame war going on in the quotes. Good times.

ETA: I try to refrain from Twilight-bashing because I have a live-and-let-live attitude to fandom (hell, I'd be in a pot-kettle situation if I started saying that Twilight was escapist, never mind most of the other things I think about it). However, I've just spent the past two hours reading all the comments on that Twilight article (the second link) and I simply had to respond to one remark: "I loved ‘Wuthering Heights’, but isn’t it about the same, and it’s a classic?"

Umm, if you think Twilight and Wuthering Heights are the same, you are doing it wrong. It actually makes me feel queasy (and sort of like removing my second X-chromosome) that you, commenter, cannot see that the relationship in Wuthering Heights (which the relationship in Twilight is meant to imitate) is incredibly destructive and abusive. Wuthering Heights shows what happens if you let your love of one person consume your whole life. It's terrifying.

That being said, I do remember what it was like to be a teenager, and to love my favourite books so completely, so utterly and so passionately. Measured criticism of my favourite books felt like my soul was being stomped on, because those books were, on many occasions, what got me through the horrible moments of adolescence. When a book-reviewer at The Sydney Morning Herald wrote a measured criticism of The Amber Spyglass, I sent her an abusive letter accusing her of not actually reading the book before reviewing it. Luckily, instead of telling me to get lost, she wrote me a polite response (saying, memorably, that I seemed to be denying her right to free speech and free thought, which, as a Pullman fan, I should have been defending). She also offered me my first paid job as a newspaper reviewer. Seven years later, here I am. I hope that some of those outraged Twilight fans can gain something as positive from the experience.