Meta About Specific Canons
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Writing about characters of the week and families in an earlier post made me want to take a look at the issue of recurring characters in SPN.
Originally posted June 1, 2008
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- Part 1 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Looking back at what S4 was all about.
Originally posted May 26, 2009
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- Part 2 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Spike's Appearances (and non-appearances) in "Restless" by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
16 Dec 2022
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I began to wonder about Xander’s dream in S4, and what the presence or absence of Spike in each of the dreams meant. Considering all the foreshadowing that goes on (some of it, such as in Buffy’s dream, quite deliberate) I always found it curious that Spike does not appear and is not referenced at all in Buffy’s future. By this time Mutant Enemy was definitely considering a Spuffy storyline for S5. I thought I’d take a crack at puzzling some things out about it.
Originally posted January 31, 2006
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- Part 3 of Meta About Specific Canons
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It always seemed significant to me that Spike’s final task was to save a baby in the AtS finale, I just wasn’t sure why.
Originally posted March 20, 2005
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- Part 4 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Between the dotted lines by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Angel the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Between the dotted lines
16 Dec 2022
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In the last year I have been reading more stories about a post-Shansu Spike. Given the ending of AtS that isn’t really a surprise. There were stories about a Shansu!Spike before AtS S5 even started. But I’m still hoping for a definitive version of one and I think this is what it might look like.
Originally posted November 16, 2005
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- Part 5 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Whedonverse Mix and Match by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Firefly / Serenity Universe, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
16 Dec 2022
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If the Buffyverse characters were mapped onto the Firefly characters, who would be whose doppleganger?
Originally posted August 26, 2005.
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- Part 6 of Meta About Specific Canons
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So many discussions I've seen about Riley and Buffy are focused on Buffy. Most people seem to agree that he was not the long-haul guy for her (regardless of who, if anyone, they think is). But I realized that Buffy wasn't the girl for him either.
Originally posted August 5 2006
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- Part 7 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Buffy S8 Comics as Canon by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy (Dark Horse Comics 2007)
16 Dec 2022
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Survey result and discussion about what to consider canon.
Originally posted November 27, 2006
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- Part 8 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Hey, you've got your canon in my fanfic! by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Buffy (Dark Horse Comics 2007), Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Fandom - Fandom
16 Dec 2022
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Apparently it didn't take long for the Buffy/Satsu scene in issue #12 to get someone comparing it to fanfic. This doesn't surprise me, because frankly that's what I thought too. And it felt pretty strange, kind of like a "Hey! You don't get to play in this sandbox!" reaction. Which is where the "circles of reality" come in.
Notes:
Originally Posted March 9, 2008Series
- Part 9 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Will the Real Big Bad Please Stand Up? by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
16 Dec 2022
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In wondering about seasonal Big Bads, specifically that of BtVS S5, I also started pondering how the Big Bad is never quite what we think it is.
Originally posted March 29, 2007
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- Part 10 of Meta About Specific Canons
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The Critical Lead Character by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Veronica Mars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
16 Dec 2022
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How do we get to know characters?
Originally published on May 1, 2006
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- Part 11 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Goodness and light (on the action): Love interests in BtVS by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
16 Dec 2022
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Having read several posts re: the whole issue of love interests and their development in stories, I had some thoughts about BtVS. They began with Riley, who along with Oz, Tara, and Kennedy seem the characters most clearly developed for the purpose of being love interests. And I think that a lot of the backlash against the characters had to do with that very fact.
Originally posted July 7, 2007
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- Part 12 of Meta About Specific Canons
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The Supernatural-Buffy Cage Match by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
16 Dec 2022
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Not long ago there was a blog post about how Supernatural compared to Buffy, and whether the poster should try out the show. Personally I thought these were two separate issues. While I found Buffy to be a high quality show in many ways, I've enjoyed those that aren't so good and I've enjoyed ones that may be better. To me that's like suggesting that one should only read one book series ever because others just aren't as good.
However the short answer is no, but I was intrigued by some of the arguments people made for why it was.
Originally posted November 24, 2008
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- Part 13 of Meta About Specific Canons
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The Weight of the World in WIaWSNB by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
16 Dec 2022
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What Is and What Should Never Be is likely to be one of the most meta'ed episodes in Supernatural if for no other reason than it'll likely be one of the few where we're so in a character's head. I've thought before of how interesting it would have been for Sam to be the Djinn's prisoner instead, simply because Dean's needs have always seemed so straightforward compared to Sam's, and Sam is actually the more internally mysterious character.
In his commentary to the episode Kripke says that it is SPN's version of Normal Again. Yet in rewatching the Buffy S5 episode, Weight of the World, it strikes me that this is a much closer parallel.
Originally posted October 1, 2007
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- Part 14 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Character Development vs OOC Issues in the Buffyverse by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel the Series
16 Dec 2022
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Thoughts about Willow, Xander vs Spike, and the importance of vampire powers.
Originally posted July 16, 2005
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- Part 15 of Meta About Specific Canons
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A look at scenes both well written and well acted which provided key moments in S1.
Originally posted December 13, 2007
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- Part 16 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Sacrifice in the Buffyverse and SPN by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
16 Dec 2022
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Eric Kripke has mentioned more than once how he'd like Supernatural to be more like Buffy, at least in terms of capturing the same audience. Since I've been rewatching AtS S3 and S4 these past few weeks, the themes of sacrifice and loss have come up repeatedly, as they tend to do in the Whedonverses. The timing made me think about how differently these issues are handled in both shows. Moreover it made me wonder if part of the reason for the difference doesn't also have some bearing in how fans themselves, and their reactions to the storylines are handled by the creators.
Originally posted August 27, 2007
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- Part 17 of Meta About Specific Canons
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I kind of wonder if part of the appeal of the SPN setting and sound to Kripke isn't that of a Midwestern boy with a chip on his shoulder about how the media landscape largely ignored his experience of growing up in the U.S. I can see this reflected in Dean's attitude to a number of things, such as his general dismissal of anything that we could call part of coastal/metropolitan culture. What struck me after last season though, was how rare it is for Sam and Dean to work on behalf of anyone from their own class
Originally posted October 13, 2009
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- Part 18 of Meta About Specific Canons
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The Symbolism of Topping by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
16 Dec 2022
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I’ve been noticing, after a few months of reading SPN fic that I seemed to be seeing the Spike effect all over again. I saw a discussion about Sam/Dean fic and who always seems to be topping. Which is a funny starting place to me because it seems to be an important issue for many people, yet for the longest time in fic I never really noticed it.
Originally posted June 15, 2007
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- Part 19 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Following up on the essay about emotional power between Sam and Dean in S2, a look at how things have changed in S3.
Inspired by The Symbolism of Topping by yourlibrarian.
Originally posted April 12, 2008
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- Part 20 of Meta About Specific Canons
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The argument that Dean and Sam have in the car as Bedtime opens made me think about why it is that Sam is so secretive compared to Dean. It's not that we haven't seen both characters keep secrets, but I think doing so wears on Dean much more heavily than Sam.
Originally posted December 20, 2008
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- Part 21 of Meta About Specific Canons
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As SPN S4 progresses, there seem to be a lot of similarities to the changes in Buffy S6.
Originally posted February 11, 2009
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- Part 22 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Some interesting developments in SPN S4 seem to map out a philosophy for the show. I've discussed some of the curious similarities in Buffy S6 and SPN S4. Those musings were not intended to suggest that SPN was intentionally mirroring Buffy, merely that the development of both the story (and perhaps also the fandom) were following a certain path. It does seem to me that, in retrospect, S4 of SPN revolved less around what Sam or Dean would do, than a philosophical crisis coming to a head as a result of their own internal psychological crises.
Originally posted June 9, 2009
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- Part 23 of Meta About Specific Canons
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One thing that struck me about the hospital scene between Dean and Castiel in On the Head of a Pin, which I think many have mentioned, is how Dean was likening Castiel's role to John's when he tells him not to disappear, leaving just cryptic remarks behind. Dean felt betrayed by that act of John's, and I think he felt betrayed by Castiel in this episode. Castiel didn't literally send Dean back to hell, but he did put him back there mentally. And both he and John have asked Dean to perform tasks that are unknowable and likely to result in failure.
Originally posted March 26, 2009
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- Part 24 of Meta About Specific Canons
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I was thinking of that moment in Sex and Violence when Dean is sure that Sam has "c-blocked" him -- it was kind of telling, wasn't it? Until Dean realized Meg was evil, for example, he was completely in favor of Sam pursuing her. But the issue of women speaks to how competition seems to work between the Winchesters.
Originally posted on June 4, 2009
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- Part 25 of Meta About Specific Canons
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When thinking over the final episode of S3, I was noting something odd about the scene when Sam hesitates to kill the child he thinks Lilith is possessing. It led me to realize this is an issue I've been seeing with more frequency, and looking back to S1 I think there really has been a change in the way the show deals with non-recurring characters.
Originally posted May 18, 2008
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- Part 26 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Two things prompted me to think of comparisons. For one, in my last essay about Dean and Spike it was noted that Sam and Angel aren’t much alike. The second was a re-view of “Asylum.” And I was thinking about how much things can change from the page to the screen.
Originally posted July 3, 2007
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- Part 27 of Meta About Specific Canons
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I am still irked by the lack of commentaries on SPN's shortest season yet, but much less so compared to how annoyed I became at some of the comments by Gamble and Kripke. Honestly, it seems somehow miraculous that we get anything worth watching ending up on screen. The comments in question were Gamble's on JiB and Kripke's on Dream. It made me think of a post I read complaining about Kripke as a show runner, and how he was given chance after chance to have his own shows and yet seemed largely uninterested in his own creations. On the whole I thought the post had too much of an ax to grind, but I thought there was a lot of truth to this portrayal, especially since most of it comes right out of Kripke's mouth.
Originally posted December 16, 2008
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- Part 28 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Looking back at S5 episodes in my earlier post made me think of how season premieres figure into the rest of the season. Not counting the Pilot, which had to set up the whole series and introduce our characters, the strongest premiere episode was in S2.
Originally posted September 21, 2010
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- Part 29 of Meta About Specific Canons
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With all the talk about Dean and Sam's distance in S5, I kept thinking about the issue of Dean's need for mimicry and what it meant for him as a character, and what it might also say about emotional ties in the family.
Originally posted March 5, 2010
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- Part 30 of Meta About Specific Canons
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I've been mentioning recently in my reviews how much I've been missing the music of SPN in the episodes. As we all know, they were meant to be an integral part of the series, both as part of its retro feel, and also in telling us who these characters are. Out of curiosity I went and did a count, to see if we really are losing more music each season and this is what I came up with.
Originally posted October 3, 2009
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- Part 31 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Triangles and Boxes by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: White Collar, Castle, Once A Thief, Good Guys (TV 2010)
16 Dec 2022
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A look at subtext in White Collar (no, not that kind) and women in boxes.
Originally published on July 29, 2010 and July 31, 2011.
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- Part 32 of Meta About Specific Canons
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It was rather interesting to look at various details afresh in S2 after the events of S4. It made me feel more strongly than ever that S4 was a return to those themes and events, only with the perspectives of the characters altered. Two things had slipped my mind that I think were significant. One was how many times Dean wanted out of the hunting life, how ready he was to give it up, how reluctant he had become about the whole thing, and how he seemed to be seriously considering doing something else with his life.
I had remembered Dean's tiredness but not how often he wanted to just run away. And it seems to me that the events of the final S2 episode ended up creating a lot of fanfic speculating on how Sam would get Dean out of the deal, but rather less on what might have happened post-S2 had the deal not occurred.
Originally posted June 21, 2009
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- Part 33 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Originally posted February 24, 2010.
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- Part 34 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Teen Wolf and Buffy Setups by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Teen Wolf [2011]
16 Dec 2022
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Originally posted July 6, 2011.
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- Part 35 of Meta About Specific Canons
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A question posted to spn_heavymeta intrigued me: "Is there some deep, dark reason that Dean is the only one we've seen in hospital with Sam hovering worriedly?"
I found it interesting to realize that we haven't yet seen Sam hospitalized, whereas it's happened with Dean twice (three times if we count his sick ward scene in Folsom), John once, and Bobby once, and we have had stories take place, in part, in hospital settings such as Something Wicked and Bedtime Stories, both, interestingly enough, which involved children.
Originally posted March 11, 2009 and July 23, 2010
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- Part 36 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Wherefore Art Thou Thor? by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Comics TV Universe, Fandom - Fandom
22 Mar 2023
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On the eve of the latest Marvel installment, a look back at fandom's production.
Originally posted September 9, 2015
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- Part 37 of Meta About Specific Canons
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As Merlin comes to a close, one can look back at the series and see how it did and didn't fulfill its promise. It also makes for an interesting comparison with the first 5 seasons of Supernatural, which also set up a story about destiny.
Originally posted May 18, 2013
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- Part 38 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Originally posted November 11, 2010.
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- Part 39 of Meta About Specific Canons
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- 505
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Destiny: Gunn, Wes, Sam and John by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Supernatural, Angel the Series
16 Dec 2022
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Identity, destiny, and the paths these characters take can take some odd loops.
Originally posted September 18, 2007
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- Part 40 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Some consideration of the deaths of Castiel, Bobby, and Dean's moral center.
Originally posted December 7, 2011
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- Part 41 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Some thoughts about viewer identification and the series premise in relation to Dollhouse.
Originally posted December 8, 2009
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- Part 42 of Meta About Specific Canons
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I hadn't planned to say anything about "Time for a Wedding" until I ran across this dissertation that happened to conclude with "The Trouble With Becky: Fangirl Representation and Repatathologization" which, mind you, was written well before last week's episode.
By contrast Chuck started off well when it came to female characters, but their centrality in the show started to tell a different story.
Originally posted November 16, 2011
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- Part 43 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Stuck in the 70s? Pop Music in the MCU by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Comics TV Universe
16 Dec 2022
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I started wondering the other day why it always seems to be music from the 70s featured in Marvel movies. (There is already an excellent discussion about their rather unmemorable soundtracks).
For example, Tony Stark's signature tune is AC/DC's "Shoot to Thrill," (1980) and there are similar 70s songs on the movies' soundtracks. The Ant Man soundtrack includes songs from 1973 and 1975. Guardians of the Galaxy makes 70s pop tunes a part of the plot. And in Dr. Strange, he's a music expert and debates whether something was released in 1977 or 1978.
Why this time period? I came up with a couple of possibilities:
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- Part 44 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Transforming the Demon by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel the Series
17 Dec 2022
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I was considering something I mentioned in a discussion about "This is the Picture", which was the repeated use of young women as mentally ill or institutionalized in Joss Whedon's work and how Spike was a rare male recurring character who was shown in the same way. That led me to thinking more about his ensoulment, duality in the Buffyverse, and the larger forces at play in the final seasons of Buffy and Angel.
Originally published August 30, 2016
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- Part 45 of Meta About Specific Canons
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My friend was amused when I described Younger as "milk and cookies." It's a show that has a fairly simple setup with a central secret (the lead character Liza is 15 years older than she pretends to be), and an ongoing set of characters with no major dramas in their lives. It has neither particularly good nor particularly bad writing, but set in the NYC publishing industry as it is, I daresay it has very little resemblance to the reality. So while I wasn't all that engaged with it, it was one of those shows that's easy to watch if one is doing other things.
That is until S4 Ep5, "The Gift of the Maggie." In short, this episode was all about appropriation and the view of fans was pretty infuriating.
Originally posted August 25, 2018
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- Part 46 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Not the Faceless Masses by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
17 Dec 2022
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Some thoughts about clones, droids, and the choice of cannon fodder in Clone Wars.
Originally published August 13, 2020
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- Part 47 of Meta About Specific Canons
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A Woman Leads by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
16 Dec 2022
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A series of posts I've been reading after finishing a rewatch of the final Skywalker trilogy led me to think about the differences in enemies to lovers storylines when it's a het pairing. For example, although I've never found Kylo Ren of much interest, I do like Rey, and it wasn't difficult at all to see why the Reylo pairing is big in the fandom. There is no way it wouldn't have been shipped hard had Rey been a man, probably because there would be nothing unusual about it.
Originally posted November 3, 2020
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- Part 48 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Sponsorship and Intervention: Angel's and Wesley's Savior Complexes by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Angel the Series
16 Dec 2022
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Although Angel and Wesley both are in the business of saving people, particularly once they join forces in AtS, there are two cases that stand out for each of them for very personal reasons: Faith and Connor. In these cases the distinctly different approaches that guide Angel and Wes can be seen.
Originally posted July 4, 2021
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- Part 49 of Meta About Specific Canons
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Lies and Secretiveness in Pairing Types by yourlibrarian
Fandoms: Thor [Movies], Supernatural, Merlin [BBC]
29 Mar 2023
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Originally posted July 10, 2020
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- Part 50 of Meta About Specific Canons
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- English
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