I always seem to do what real thinking I do about "House" (for which I do not claim any sense or profundity) after reading Diane Kristine's marvelously thoughtful episode reviews.. If you're a "House" fan, you should check her out. This latest round of belabored mental churning on my part was in response to her review of "Act Your Age".

Since it's all SPOILERY, and containing SPOILERS, about various relationship dynamics on the series, you'll have to click below if you want to read any of my blathering.

( SPOILERS and meta-ish musings aheadCollapse )

First a recommendation. Diane Kristine writes amazing reviews of House episodes. Her reviews are always intelligent, thoughtful, infused with her love of the series, and beautifully-written. I don't always agree with her, but her reviews always give me something to think about.

In a comment on Diane's review of "Words and Deeds," one poster remarked about hearing fans saying that if the next ep isn't better, they're just going to stop watching the series forever. So that's what I'm responding to (this is a somewhat revised version of a comment I wrote in response):

( Read more...Collapse )

I got this quote in my CSUF email of all places:

"I saw a lovely analogy recently. Somebody said that writers are like otters. And otters are really hard to train. Dolphins are easy to train. They do a trick, you give them a fish, they do the trick again, you give them a fish. They will keep doing that trick until the end of time. Otters, if they do a trick and you give them a fish, the next time they'll do a better trick or a different trick because they'd already done that one. And writers tend to be otters. Most of us get pretty bored doing the same trick. We've done it, so let's do something different."
– Neil Gaiman to Joss Whedon, on why they both ended their franchises while Sandman and Buffy were still popular

OK, I think Neil and Joss are the two faces of God, but Neil's analogy strikes me as perhaps a bit trivializing, but still, Buffy and the Sandman both had to end, IMO. The Sandman had a natural story arc, and it had to come to a conclusion, and BTVS and ATS would have started to repeat themselves too, I think (even if I think ATS could have had another season). So Joss and Neil have both moved on of course, as have the actors. But I was listening to OMWF in the car today (before I read that quote), and I was wondering if Joss ever *watches* the episode or any other BTVS/ATS episodes or listens to the OMWF soundtrack. B/c the fans (some of them) *don't* move on. We're still writing fanfic and making icons and watching the DVD's, and I've thought for a long time that the characters mean more to the fans than they ever do to the actors, for whom, of course, it's just a job. I know that SMG was thinking of having someone else sing her songs in OMWF and then changed her mind b/c the songs were so emotional she felt *she* had to sing them, for which I'm grateful. But that's ancient history for her, right? But I watch the ep or listen to the soundtrack, and it's still incredibly moving to me. It really hits me where I live and often makes me cry, etc. etc. I have fanfic I want to be writing, and icons I want to be making, and episodes I want to watch over and over, and I'm not letting go. But then again, I still reread some of my own (better) writing, fanfic and academic, on occasion and enjoy it.

I was also thinking about that moving on thing b/c career-wise, I *won't* be. I was listening to Springsteen's "Glory Days" the other day and wondering, am I going to be saying, 15-20 years from now, "Hey, I wrote this book about the Byronic hero!" I got promoted to full professor at 43, and got the book published at 45, and then POOF, my career ended not with a bang but a whimper. And well, if not for MS, I wouldn't know how to make icons, and I *really* like iconage, but I didn't expect to have my career end at 45. It makes me think I should try to write something academic once every few years, except that right now just plain reading the newspaper takes about all the concentration I have. And naturally my colleagues who are my age will have another book or two 15 years from now (or three).

So I make icons and write fanfic and try to find energy to read when I'm not sleeping. And the thing that's really emotionally involving for me is BTVS/ATS. I loved Serenity; I love Battlestar Galactica and the gray areas and moral conundrums of being at war and the way characters you like do really reprehensible things. But I don't feel any impulse to write fanfic for those fandoms. I was really involved writing Star Trek: TNG and Voyager (P/Q and Janeway/Seven) and then Xena Warrior Princess and Hercules. I still like a lot of the stuff I've done in those fandoms; I had a blast making Xena icons. But none of those characters have *really* grabbed me like the BTVS/ATS characters. I don't have any desire to write Serenity/Firefly fic or BSG fic, although making icons of all those pretty people is fun. But I feel like I can get totally inside the heads of the characters from BTVS/ATS, even the ones I don't write. I think I know them well enough that I could write just about *any* of the main characters on either show and I'd stretch their characters as I'm wont to do, but I still think I'd be consistent with one of the many plausible interpretations of the characters I hold (for instance, I've written Spike as a top and Giles as a bottom; now I'm writing the opposite, and both strike me as plausible, and in each case I feel like I'm *inside* them). I don't feel like I could get inside Starbuck or Roslin no matter how intrigued I might be about their characters.

I'd like to write some more original smut some day. I can write sex. I can write character development via kinky sex. I can't write plot. I can't create worlds the way SF and Fantasy writers can. But really, BTVS/ATS is where I'm comfortable now (OK, yes it *is* easier), but I still think I'm doing good, thoughtful writing. And I know that much of the fanfic I read is specfuckingtacular (granted, I'm selective about *what* and *whom* I read). But, yeah, I don't want to have the very last thing I've ever had published in my life come out in 2004. I dunno. "Glory Days" and all that. See, Joss and Neil *have* to move on and keep writing/creating. Neil would have, IMO, a spectacular literary career if he stopped with Sandman and Smoke and Mirrors and Coraline, but I love his diversity and the fact that he'll move from comic books to children's books to adult novels to a movie and back. But as fans, we stay far more involved with their creations and their characters than the creators themselves do. (Duh. I know I'm not the first person to make this observation.)

So is this a healthy thing? (My shrink and I spent most of my session talking about Buffy and some about Serenity. He rocks. I like the fact that the first thing we did was ask the other if we'd seen Serenity yet. :-) Or that I can mention "Glory Days" and of course he knows the song. It makes for such a convenient shorthand for getting into atara's head. Today I printed a bunch of my icons for him--the ones that meant a lot to me, and he always *gets* it.) Then again, reading is considered healthy--that is reading "literature." Loving books is respectable, and I have a million books I want to read. But is loving the same text and obsessing over it repeatedly and making it part of one's emotional life the same thing? Joss said "These shows are designed to be in people's lives, in their fiction, in their dreams, in their porn, in everything." OK, well he succeeded at that. But then we're obsessing long after *he's* stopped obsessing. And we go along with him torturing us besides. And we like it. :-)

OK, y'all might have guessed I don't have any conclusions to come to here. Just pondering. And wondering what y'all think.

And on a completely different note, the Dodgers fired THE WRONG GUY and kept the money-crunching Ayn Rand fan (see here), who decimated the damn team to save money and then blamed the manager. Just sayin'.