Because the only thing hotter than sex with Edward Cullen is a horny, blind man with no hand-eye coordination wielding a frozen glass dildo.

While it was likely more than a year ago when I first heard of and picked up a book called Twilight, by Stephenie Meyers, it wasn't until the recent fervor of the upcoming movie that I bothered to think of reading the series. I noticed they seemed to cause strong feelings, especially about the protagonist's boyfriend, a vampire named Edward Cullen. Many seemed to think he warranted devoted love, if not outright panty-throwing. Others found the books worthy of shouts of outraged taste.

I didn't know why. I was innocent, then.

While I consider myself a woman of no uncertain bravery in literary matters, I think even I may have quavered in my resolve, had I known what I was about to face. I didn't, though, so with my usual brisk efficiency I decided to waste no valuable time reading the sort of novel that would be so beloved in popular culture, and would instead listen to the audiobooks instead. This worked until about five minutes into the first chapter, when the narrator Bella Swan -yes, that is her real name, I am not making it up- commented one too many times on clothing, and the miserable town of Forks to which she was moving, and how very self-sacrificial she was being in letting her mother have time with the new husband while Bella moved to small-town Washington to live with her reticent father. The reticence of Charlie Swan comes in very handy, to keep from forcing the author from writing any actual characterization of him or any other character but Bella.

Bella, and Edward Cullen. Beautiful Edward Cullen. Perfect Edward Cullen. Mysterious and aloof and downright rude Edward Cullen, who is the single real object of interest in Bella's life, and these are really the sort of repetitive adjectives used in the novel to the point where Oscar Wilde would feel the need to go on a murderous rampage. Then Bella finds out that his outright hostility isn't a reaction to her obnoxious self-absorption but a result of his violent desire to drink her blood and use her coccyx for an after-dinner mint.

Oh, yes, Edward Cullen is a vampire. A perfect, beautiful, god-like vampire who can come to school during the daytime because (1) he's been seventeen for eighty years, with all its accompanying issues, and (2) vampires in these books don't combust in daylight.

They sparkle.

Again, you read that correctly.

But everything is fine. Because, despite Bella's suicidal persistence in pursuing Edward even though he's announced his desperate desire to snarf her ass, the pair of them are Epic True Love, and proceed to sparkle all over the place. And then there is some plot forced in that allows Bella to pass out during the action like a Real Lady protecting her Most Precious Virtue, because having a bad vampire follow Bella around is obviously bad, but Edward's habitual stalking and sneaking into Bella's room is just fine.

Edward shows his love to Bella in many ways. He breaks into her room at night and watches her sleep. His Special Sparkly Vampire Powers lend themselves to mind reading, and he breathes (or doesn't) murderous threats against any male that thinks warm, fuzzy thoughts of Bella's pale skin. When Bella tries to snog him, he protects her maidenly virtue by throwing her to the ground and demanding she not undermine his self-control. In between such gentlemanly feats he reminds Bella how easily his Special Sparkly Vampire Strength could snap her skinny neck and how much he wants to eat her. The prospect is (understandably) so tempting that she keeps risking life and dignity to stay with him, and when, in the second book, he leaves her, she walks around in a fugue state and the book literally goes blank to emphasize that she is not a person without him.

Ladies, can you believe he was single for this long?! Over one hundred years of pure and spotless virginity on this one, plus the comforting constancy of seventeen-year-old male insecurities forever. There is a strong society of fangirls who gush over the florid descriptions of pasty-faced, golden-eyed, wild-haired Edward, resulting in flair decorations on that social networking Book Of Faces that says "Edward Cullen: Raising Standards for Future Boyfriends." I must admit to a certain degree of terror at the thought. If stalking, obsession, and hideous sexual issues are a step up from past boyfriends...

In a world full of young impressionable girls grasping their Twilight books to their undeveloped chests and thinking this is even halfway approaching acceptable and attractive behavior in young men and women, I must say I find it refreshing to spend time with those of higher literary standardswho also find such books an affront to good taste, among people who realize that a Lady of Quality has more choices than necrophilia, bestiality, and spinsterdom. These are not the outright claims of the books, but rather the options presented in the construction of the stories and characterization (pardon me, no, I didn't just cough up a hairball at that word there, why do you ask?) and they reflect a sensibility more fitting in a previous century than the current. One can almost imagine Stephenie Meyers and Samuel Richardson sitting down to tally up and compare how many times Bella and Pamela faint in self-defense.

The only problem with this scenario? Nobody told Meyers that they're not hiring for nineteenth-century morality authoresses anymore. Certainly not her editor, who may have been more occupied with whatever her real job is. I do have my doubts that job is actually editing, and often wonder if it is more based in the Waffle House hashbrown-flipping industries. And then I wake up clutching my clammy sheets in terror that one day, karma may catch up with me and deliver unto my manuscript a similar editor, and I promise the deities yet again any firstborn that comes my way yet, in the hopes that such a terrifying prospect might confuse them into leaving us all (vampire toddler) free.

"Well I told you about the total eclipse now but still it caught you unaware."

Oh, Klaus Nomi. How did I not know of you before Coilhouse enlightened me to your presence this morning? You and your entrancing countertenor singing talents (in German AND English!), your plastic triangular tuxedo, your krazy kabuki-esque makeup? I've never even been a fan of eighties culture (well, up until Ashes to Ashes) and you are simply so.... I can't even say 'cheesy'. I have no words. You overwhelm all description.

ETA: I CAN'T say cheesy. Not even. The music is good, and Nomi, you're actually pretty fucking talented with this whole opera thing. <3333

"Simple Man"

"Falling in Love Again"

"After the Fall"

Well I told you about the total eclipse now
but still it caught you unaware
But I’m telling you hold on, hold on
Tomorrow we’ll be there
And even though you went to church upon Sunday
you thought you didn’t even have a prayer
But I’m telling you hold on, hold on
Tomorrow we’ll be there

After the fall we’ll be born, born, born again
after it all blows away
after the fall, after the fall
after it all blows away

We’ll take a million years of civilization
We’re gonna give it the electric chair
But I’m telling you hold on, hold on
Tomorrow we’ll be there

I see a hundred million lonely mutants
they are glowing in their dark despair
But I’m telling you hold on, hold on
Tomorrow we’ll be there

Well the freak shall inherit the earth now
No matter how well done or rare
But I’m telling you hold on, hold on
Tomorrow we’ll be there
We’ll build our radioactive castles
out in the radioactive air
And I’m telling you hold on, hold on
Tomorrow we’ll be there

"I'm feeling alive all over again, as deep as the scar that's under my skin, like being in love, she says, for the first time."

Now that series four of Doctor Who has begun and we've gotten to see Donna's first journey to somewhere else with the Doctor, it's interesting to note the contrasts between the three main companions so far in the new series. They've all had different journeys to different places, gained different insights from their journeys, and have learned different things about the guy they're traveling with.

Rose's first trip in the TARDIS took her to the end of earth. She saw her planet burn into nothing, and know that she was the only earth-born true human left. This journey wasn't just pointlessly depressing, though; the Doctor had a purpose in taking her there: he couldn't adequately tell her what he had just experienced, but he could show her. Her natural traits of empathy took her still further, and at the end of the episode, she takes the Doctor's hand and lets him know that he isn't alone. Their relationship, then, is based on mutual understanding. Rose isn't going to make uninformed comments about his past and his loneliness, because she's seen it and understands.

Then they're all happy, and then Doomsday happens and tears everyone's heart to tiny pieces and then mashes them with a trencher for a little while. And then Martha comes along.

Martha ends up on the moon, she has an adventure saving the hospital with this cute guy who snogs her and just happens to be an alien. She gets some ideas that he's fun and everything is hunky-dory. But it isn't. She doesn't know he's broken and hurting and he thinks he'll never see his best friend again. She doesn't know he's lost a lot of concepts of what's right and how to be kind even if it might hinder you from saving the world. She takes a trip with him, back in time to meet Shakespeare.

Now, when I first saw 'The Shakespeare Code' I did draw up some contrasts between Rose and Martha. Rose chooses to have an adventure in the unknown future; Martha wants to see a known past. Rose leaves her mother and Mickey behind; Martha micromanages her family before she leaves. Rose is kind of drifting in life, without advanced education or a career; Martha has the ambition to make it all the way through medical school, and knows exactly what she's doing.

Frankly, I thought after that, I'd mostly relate to Martha. I mean, yes, I would totally want to see the past instead of a piecemeal peep at the future. I am ambitious and hold onto things I know. And, like Martha, I've done the whole thing with being infatuated with a good friend who took me on adventures but never seemed to be interested in more. But that's over. But perhaps that's exactly why I didn't relate to Martha more than I did; she was too much of an unflattering mirror.

So the Doctor takes Martha on a fun little adventure for her first trip. He probably thinks this is alright; he hasn't signed on for a full-time companion again, just giving a girl who helped him a little treat is all. And she gets the impression that this is his life, and that he hasn't just lost someone who meant so much to him. She isn't allowed a parallel experience, and so she doesn't understand. She keeps going after him and being infatuated and making bitchy comments about Rose- while we may see she's about as appropriate as a golddigger at a funeral, she can't see that.

And now we come to Donna. After the Doctor has lost SO many things- not just Gallifrey and Rose, at this point, but the only other Timelord, his latest companion, as well as a girl named Astrid who was depending on him, he is pretty fucked up. He's having trouble making decisions, because no matter what he does it turns out badly and he has more guilt on his shoulders. So he takes Donna back, accidentally really (though I think the TARDIS might have taken an active role in this,) to Pompeii, and she has to see what it's like to choose between bad and worse, what it's like to see terrible things happening and not being able to stop them. And when faced with this, she chooses to stand by him and shoulder his burdens; her hands over his on the lever is the same action as Rose taking his hand and saying it was time for chips. Donna can see and understand what the Doctor is going through, and yet she can still encourage him to be kind and help people when his position in the universe gets to be a bit much for him.

I think Donna's going to be good for the Doctor, and help him to heal and again the man that Rose loves. I don't want Rose to see him as he was last season, or even now. Because while she would understand his situation, having gone through many of the same things, his behavior and attitude towards everything isn't something that the Rose I know would tolerate. I look forward to seeing them both healthy and whole and together. At least that's what I hope, and might go threaten RTD to make sure happens....

Fifteen Favorite Fanmixes

As many who know me are aware, I love fanmixes. I think it's a really interesting way to explore themes in shows by finding songs that reflect them, and through cover artwork as well. It's also a great way to find out about new artists- the majority of bands on my iPod I discovered through hearing one of their songs on a fanmix, and then looking up more of their music. So I present to you: my fifteen favorite fanmixes, both my own compilations and others'. Click on album cover to link to each fanmix post.



All of a Sudden, I Miss Everyone: A Jack Harkness Fanmix by

boxed

This mix explores the character of Jack Harkness on Doctor Who and Torchwood. It deals with his unique abilities and how he relates to the world and to all the people who've left him behind.


And They'll Never See You Fall: A Tenth Doctor EP by

intrikate88

One of the mixes that I put together. It focuses on the Doctor's brokenness in series three and four of Doctor Who, his difficulties in coping with life without Rose, and the difficulties others have of understanding him.



Broken Things New: A Dexter/Rita Fanmix by

intrikate88

Another mix that I've compiled. This one focuses on the relationship Dexter and Rita have in Dexter, and on the way both of them are emotionally crippled in some way, but still exploring the possibility of being able to love one another.



Cup of Tea: A Doctor/Rose Fanmix by

paperdollgirl

A collection of quiet songs that reflect upon the Doctor and Rose's relationship.



Ten/Rose - The Fine Art of Falling Apart by

boxed

PROBABLY one of my favorite fanmixes ever, and it even comes with some beautiful icons and a wonderful fic! This mix reflects on both Rose's and the Doctor's lives after they are separated in "Doomsday". Wonderful, poignant songs by a great selection of artists.



Happy Phantom: Of Love, Honey, and a Girl Named Chuck by

gimcrack_icons

A cute mix of songs describing Pushing Daisies' Chuck. She's been given a second chance at life by her childhood sweetheart and his abilities to bring the dead to life.



HISS; a Crouch/Lestrange mix by

boxed

The beautiful cover art of this mix is matched by the great concept of the "fleeting moments" of the Doctor and Rose. While their traveling together is temporary, there is something eternal in them as well.



Measures of Infinity (or: How I Lost My Heart to Time) by

boxed

A wonderfully instrumental compilation focusing on the concept of trying to hold on to forever, in the relationship between Rose and the Doctor.



Nicotine: A House/Cuddy Fanmix by

kamikazewaffle

This collection looks at the addictive nature of the relationship between House, M.D.'s Drs. House and Cuddy. While they often drive each other away, they are just as often the only person the other can return to.



No Happy Ending by

katrina87

This mix focuses on the end of Rose and the Doctor's traveling together, and their reflections on their separation.



Pilots Watching Stars: A Post-Doomsday EP by

boxed

Focusing on Rose's learning to deal with her new life in a new universe, this compilation explores her learning to travel on her own.



Running Right Behind You: A Companions Mix by

araceli_maura

This mix lovingly looks at the Doctor's companions- at his friendship with them, his loves, his needs, and each of their own unique features.



See My Friends: a Tenth Doctor mix by

katrina87

Centered around the Doctor's difficulties with relationships in series three of Doctor Who. So sad, but so great.

Take a Walk Around the World by

intrikate88

I had a lot of fun putting this one together- it's all about the journeys Rose takes, from before she meets the Doctor, to long after. Each song has a very short bit of fic with it, showing the various aspects of her travels.



Watching Bridges Burn: A Ten/Rose Playlist by

rainyrainydays

Are the Doctor and Rose separated forever, or can they find a way back? This compilation is all about the doubts and hopes.

Clinging Roses and Emasculated Doctors: The Canon and Fanon Criticisms of the Doctor/Rose Ship

There are a lot of people out there who don't like Rose. That's okay. Everybody responds differently to characters. Many of these people write meta on why they don't like Rose, and again, that's okay. I've read several of these posts; some of them have made sense, some haven't. Some have seemed to make sense up until the logic is deconstructed to reveal sentiments of "Rose should be happy staying home keeping her needy mother and ex-boyfriend happy and being domestic," which is a concept that sounds eerily like the "Angel of the House" ideals of the nineteenth century (and beyond) and aspects of the virgin/whore binary, and those aren't things that I can be comfortable with.

But one thing that appears to be a common theme among this demographic of meta-writing Rose-haters is an assertion that Rose is clingy and therefore emasculating to the Doctor, by inspiring him to cling back.

I can understand why someone might get the impression of clinginess, what with things like this:



and this:



But to generalize that she is clingy based on that evidence is to ignore her consistent behavior of NOT being clingy throughout the series.

Let's face it: travel through time and space would be some pretty scary shit. Traveling with the Doctor involves being penniless and homeless in a foreign place or time where you probably won't be the most popular sort of person: a human in alien territory, or a woman in a misogynistic time period. Personally, if I was traveling with the Doctor and knew that he and his TARDIS were the only things ensuring the possibility of my ever getting home or being protected from a nasty death that no one I knew would ever know about, and knowing the Doctor's tendency to get distracted and wander off? You couldn't peel me off him with a crowbar, y'all. Clingy? I'd be hiding inside his coat with a death grip around his waist.

But Rose isn't doing that. In fact, she wanders off just as much as he does. When there's an opportunity to investigate something odd or to help somebody that appears to be in trouble, she follows that. In her first opportunity to travel with the Doctor, in "The End of the World", she goes off to think, and finds herself sympathizing with a mechanic; shortly thereafter, she's kidnapped, leading the Doctor to label her "jeopardy friendly", which describes her rather well. Whether she's running off to find her alternate universe parents ("Rise of the Cybermen"), grabbing a fire extinguisher and going off to explore a spaceship ("Girl in the Fireplace"), or going to explore a freaky child's bedroom ("Fear Her"), she has no idea where she's headed or the dangers involved or who's going to kidnap her this week but she ventures forward anyway, away from the Doctor and the protection he could offer her.

Even when he's not around and she is kind of lost, she isn't paralyzed- she solves problems, even as she wonders not how she is going to be alright, but whether the Doctor is going to be alright. ("Fear Her"- "But who's going to hold his hand now?") When he is otherwise incapacitated, as in "The Christmas Invasion," she steps up to face the threat to her planet, using the knowledge she knows of intergalactic politics.

While she may be close to the Doctor, she's not really that clingy; not as much as she could be. She's like she is because it is her choice- and the fact that she can choose, consciously, shows that she is a strong, independent woman.

And what about the other popular assertion, that Rose is emasculating to the Doctor, because he's always running after her or needing her? I think it is safe to say that he often works to rescue her, such as from the Wire in "The Idiot's Lantern" and from Cassandra's minions in "The End of the World." But does this cause him to be too dependent upon her, and make her nearness and safety the motivating factor of his actions?

I really don't think so. In "The Empty Child," he wanders off and leaves Rose alone in the middle of a German air raid. In "Father's Day" he walks out on Rose and her father. In "New Earth," he doesn't bother to make sure Rose gets in the right elevator (which leads to her possession by Cassandra.) In "Girl in the Fireplace" he leaves Rose on a ship, essentially stranded. In "The Satan Pit" he makes a choice that seems to epitomize all of these behaviors: to defeat the Beast in the pit, he essentially dooms Rose to being sucked into a black hole and killed. However, he doesn't do this because he's uncaring; he is able to make such a difficult decision because he trusts Rose's ability to survive. He is able to make decisions independent of concerns for her safety, because he knows that she is able to take care of herself independently.

However, in the end, they're not independent of each other in their relationship. And that's a good thing! One of the themes of the show is the triumph of human values, such as interconnectivity and relationship. They help each other and bring out the best in each other. While they can be successful on their own, it is the way they each complement the other that allows us to see their best features: Rose's kindness and bravery, the Doctor's intelligence and regard for humans.

In conclusion, I do think that feelings of dislike for Rose in other people are valid. However, if the argument explaining those feelings is not reasoned and supported with canon examples, there is no way for me to consider the argument valid. As far as I can tell from my understanding of the show and what the creators of the show have said, the Doctor/Rose ship makes sense, and is textually supported.

Yeah, bitches. I just pwned you all like only an English major can.

Literature and Lattes

Seriously, Questionable Content is always awesome, but today? Is just the best. (Click to see it bigger and, possibly, readable.)

A few thoughts on the BBC's Doctor Who image gallery. Which is also a laugh, and usually needs a good copyeditor. *volunteers*

OMG GUYS. Guys. Y'all. I am nearly done downloading the second Doctor Who ep this season. I like this world where there is new Who! I also am scared! What if something awful happens and fandom explodes again?

To help my suspense, I went to the BBC Doctor Who site. Of course.

They have this new game up! About how far in time you can fly the TARDIS in the vortex. It sounds really cool! Except there was this one time I played the Christmas Special game about how many aliens you can identify and freeze or something and I ended up destroying the world and having the website!Doctor telling me I was a really rubbish companion. It totally broke my heart and made me cry jaded me against playing any more games on the site. I also think my US IP address will block me from playing, too.



There are so many pictures of the Doctor looking really disturbed and traumatized. I think this may be Donna's effect? It is kind of funny, but it also looks like he doesn't know where the walls of his universe are anymore. Series three, it keelz.





More trauma!face. Also: why the Blue Suit of Doom? Whyyyyyy? It makes him look skinnier and boxier than he already is, and it usually makes his hair look sad. However, I am TOTALLY with the Browncoat love here.



And with the Browncoat look here. Donna, rock on. IT IS TOTALLY TIME FOR A CANON FIREFLY CROSSOVER. Ohmygod, BBC, please. It'd be like Joss and Rusty's lovechild.



I like that top, Donna. Kinda ehhh about the hairdo, but it's a pretty top.



Oh, Donna. I kind of love you. Not the way I love Rose, not "OMG you are so cute and hot and need to be grinning on my computer screen at all times if not actually hugging the Doctor" but my Donna-love is more like for a big sister. Like, I want to sit around watching movies and commiserate about the complications of having stupidly large boobs, and why guys don't fancy us more than they do but we don't need them anyway, and making plans for trips we'll never take.



Oh, Doctor. Don't look so panicked. DD-cups are scary, but not that frightening. I mean, reserve that face for the triple-Ds at least, right?



"Just because I am mimicking his oh-so-important-Timelordy crossed-arms stance and suit, doesn't mean I am holding back giggles! I am not being ironic at all."



"Donna. They're watching us. Through that box there."
"...I know."


And, to end:


"Look what I did with MY eyeliner pencils, guys! And my mum's Christmas tablecloth."

Oh, Beeb. You're so cute. And so is your special effects budget.

Joss Whedon as Film Auteur

I really hope that one day I get a chance to write a paper arguing that Joss Whedon is a film auteur. I've been reading about the French New Wave critics, and auteur theory, and their views on Hitchcock and all that- and from what I understand of the definition, I think Whedon's work really defines him as such.

The most simple, encompassing definition I have seen so far is in Marilyn Fabe's An Introduction to the Art of Narrative Film Technique, which says that auteurs have a "unique style and vision [that] mark their films" and that "according to the French critics who defined the term, even when an auteur makes a work based on some else's novel, drama, or screenplay, he somehow manages to inscribe upon it his own thematic concerns."

Joss, of course, is best known for his series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel the Series, and Firefly/Serenity. What themes and concerns come across most strongly in all of these? Things like real families vs. chosen families; the inability for two people in love to have a perfect relationship; free will vs. a pre-programmed destiny; women who say the awkward-but-true things about situations; the prevalence of father-figures over real fathers; a setting that has just as much characterization as one of the actual characters; use of extraordinary situations to explore ordinary issues.

He also wrote the screenplay for Toy Story. Where Woody and Buzz struggle to understand the meaning of their chosen family of the other toys, and their place in it- and their value to their adopted "father," Andy. Where Woody struggles with the issue of will he be a favored toy, or is he destined to be pushed under the bed and forgotten? Bo Peep, I think, fills the role of Cordelia in Angel, or Anya in Buffy- to be both the truth-teller and comforter. The oversized world of the bedroom and Andy's house is just as characterized as the ship Serenity, or the Hyperion Hotel. Though not the director of the film -the typical film auteur- I think it can most definitely be argued that he has imprinted many of the same concerns and themes on Toy Story as he does on his other works.

Even in Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire, for which Whedon only wrote a treatment, the same themes return again. Milo Thatch and the crew of explorers struggle with their bond to each other vs. their treasure-seeking expedition. Atlantean princess Kida, unfamiliar with the surface world and its social norms, asks the same questions that River or Anya might ask to get an explanation for a situation. The Shepherd's Book that guides the explorers to Atlantis and the writings on the city itself are a lore and prophecy that challenge ideas of free will and determinism, much like the situation that Buffy found herself in, as the chosen Slayer. The absent father theme comes up again, as Milo's grandfather proves to be far more of a presence and influence on Milo's life.

While most of the auteur information I'm coming across is in regards to Francois Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock, I think that Joss Whedon does fit into this category of filmmaking. I just wish he'd be a little more prolific! (But I hear Dollhouse and Goners are a go, sometime, though!)