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weialala leia!

So, I've realised an interesting fact about myself. Most of you will probably not be surprised.

When I enter a new fandom, or am rediscovering an old one, I attempt to connect it to Eliot somehow. Um, yes. While I was waiting to get sleepy last night, I paged through my Complete Eliot and decided that Angel (so far the most likely candidate for Elioting) might find certain passages of Ash-Wednesday and The Hollow Men rather apt. A bit of Rhapsody on a Windy Night, too. Um, yes. I have a feeling it is too late; therapy cannot do me any good now. (But just look at them, will you? I mean really.) And hey,

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

-- reminds me of Simon Tam rather a lot. Oh dear. I haven't really found anyone in any fandom who suits The Waste Land, although I can see River quoting:

A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

And most of you lot know that T.S. Eliot is Remus Lupin's favourite poet. (Shut up. He is. Look at Preludes! And Prufrock! They were practically written about him! And, um, I actually possess about half a draft of an entire Remus-fic based on Rhapsody on a Windy Night. Yes.) And that Four Quartets was written after Mr Eliot took a spin in the TARDIS (definitely post-Time War, because there are references all over the place). And

ressie_noldo and I decided once that the Weialala Leia are an alien race, but that's beside the point.

So, this is Banui's brain on, er, madness. Yes. Going away now.

(Stuff about Life later, maybe. I've been having a few days half-out of the world, which is nice, but I also feel about three times as absent-minded as usual, and I've always been terrifically absent-minded.)

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You attempt to connect everything to Eliot? Why I never would have dreamt.

-grins-

♥!

IT'S NOT EVEN VOLUNTARY, THOUGH. It totally just happens. I swear. Which makes it all the more scary. ;D

(Also, your icon is made of win.)

Hee! I know. (-has never spent significant amounts of time aligning the personal timeline of Oscar Wilde with fictional characters- -hides-) I prefer the term wonderful to scary. It's got a nicer ring to it.

(Isn't it lovely? I found the picture on Anna Ternheim's facebook page, and just about died from glee.)

I HATE ELIOT!

How *dare* you imply that Angel would lower himself to reading that degrading and boring and depressing and just plain horrible... stuff???

*ahem* I really don't like Eliot. :P

I think Angel would read something more... better. Like Frost. I think he'd appreciate Frost. Hmm. I'd have to flip through my books again...

Btw, Giles gets *fired*. Like, he's no longer a Watcher! Oh, and you missed a kiss between Angel and Buffy. ;) *bemoans Angel's leaving Buffy but does rejoice at episodes all about Angel every time*

There's a new Watcher. Roberto says he grows on you. But he doesn't wear tweed. (But he is British)

And there was something else I was going to say, but I forgot. Oh well, Kiera's calling...

You just haven't read the right Eliot. ;) Bits of Eliot are an acquired taste (okay, lots of Eliot is an acquired taste ^-^), but there are bits that are just gorgeous. And he isn't really depressing; Ash-Wednesday and the Four Quartets are hope-from-the-ashes sorts of poems (and, okay, he got a lot more hopeful after he converted to Christianity), and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats is hilarious and the worldplay is all kinds of fun. And even some of the weirder poems have very profound and not-incomprehensible moments. "Do I dare disturb the universe?" is brilliant, and the end of "Prufrock" gives me chills. (Schools always make you start with the most incomprehensible Eliot, though. "The Waste Land" is so full of stuff that even Eliot wrote footnotes to explain all of the references -- mostly mythology and history.) *shuts up* Okay, babble to me about your favourite poet now so I feel better. :p

I'm not sure Angel would be much of a Frost sort of bloke, though -- I've nothing against Frost, but mostly he writes about nature and things, and I don't see Angel being able to relate much to that. ;) I can see him digging Dylan Thomas, though. "Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light." And some of the Romantics, only most of the Romantics have too high of an opinion of themselves. :p (The Romantics are around Angel's original time period, too. Hmm.) Yeah, so, you know how most people take personality quizzes and suchlike? I match people to poets. Hee.

Wesley really ought to get himself some tweed. Honestly, tweed is the Watcher uniform. How is anyone supposed to tell he's not a civilian? ;) (YOU FIRE MY GILES AND I WILL FIRE YOUUU. WITH...FIRE. YEAH.)

I hate Prufrock. :P I have read most of Eliot. I really really can't stand his poetry. I don't like Ash-Wednesday or the Four Quartets.

I don't know who to babble about right now.

Well, I was thinking of seeing Angel with "The Road Less Travelled" because, y'know... Angel's path as a vampire is the road less travelled, at least for vampires. ;) YES! I can see him TOTALLY digging that!

Some Wordsworth I can see him doing, too.

Wesley needs tweed, he needs to learn how to actually *kiss* and he needs to learn to take care of himself, the arrogant git. But I think the Council fired him too, that was the general vibe I was getting from what Giles was saying and stuff. Dude, that Council just fires everyone... Giles, Gwendolen (though she was with good reason), and now Wesley...

Shun the unbeliever! Shuuuun! (That's okay, I still love you. ^-^)

I think Angel would tend to like poetry with more of, um, an edge to it -- lots of angst and things. Which is why I thought of Dylan Thomas. And poets who write about redemption a lot, and "raging against the dying of the light", and suchlike. I also see him preferring at least some semblance of rhyme and rhythm to pure free-verse. And Buffy probably thinks it's all just weird. Hee. (We still need to find out what book it was that he gave her for her birthday. Watch that bit again and pause it, or something!)

Oh, wait! Trusty Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helpless_(Buffy_episode)) comes to the rescue again! "The book Angel gives to Buffy for her birthday is 'Sonnets From the Portuguese', by Elizabeth Barrett Browning." Angel, you have very good taste. ^-^ I may actually have that, or some of it. I'm not sure.

I like Wesley. He's so awkward and...awkward. (But he totally needs to learn to at least pretend he can kiss, instead of...writhing. Awkwardly. Heh. Poor Wesley. He probably watches too many movies.) And British. And I think the Council is...um, kind of like the UN. As in, probably in need of a great deal of reform, wot wot.

Yeah, Dylan Thomas would be good. Poor Angel. *huggles*

OOH! He *does* have good taste! Elizabeth Barrett Browning is very good... How sweet of him... She just doesn't appreciate it. Tsk tsk.

Reform? Pah. I think they're in need of dismantling. They obviously don't realize what's going on. And how come all the Slayers are these American chicks? We've had 3 American Slayers so far... You'd think that other countries might get one...

Though I have to admit I don't really know *what* Kendra is from. Just that she showed up in Sunnydale. :P

All Slayers are American like...all Watchers are British? :p Seriously, though, I don't get the whole One Slayer thing -- it's completely impractical. Buffy's so busy in Sunnydale she doesn't have any time to go off to, say, Europe, and from the tales Spike and Drusilla bring, it seems to me that Europe could use a Slayer. And what about the East Coast? And, you know, all of the other continents? Surely there's more than one Hellmouth, even?

So, when you move to California, you should go Angel stalking. Yep. Then maybe we could get that television show about you and Roberto fighting vampires. You could join Angel's team.

Maybe Kendra is related to Tia Dalma. :DDD

I doubt all Slayers are American... Angel was vampire-fied before the United States of America existed. And Spike killed 2 Slayers, and I don't think they were American either. HAHA! I'd *love* to see a chick in a Regency gown fighting like Buffy does... Or in a hoopskirt... can you imagine?!?

I don't wanna join Angel's team. I want it to be about us on our own. With no Angel to distract viewers. ;)

This isn't 'cause I don't like Angel (because I DO!), it's 'cause I like Roberto and myself more. ;)

Maybe she is... freaky odd, that...

Kendra totally did sound like Tia Dalma, didn't she? I could never decide if her accent sounded like really weird Irish/Scottish (which made no sense) or some random African...something. But she definitely wasn't American, whatever she was.

Okay, that's really good crackfic potential right there. I am going to hide my head under a blanket until it goes away. :p

Lol! I love it when you ramble about your fandoms. I was talking with my flatmate late one night (much too late, I must say), and we were trying to come up with a reason why certain shows/movies/characters attracted us, while we found others uninteresting. Any thoughts?

I had a sort of theory a while ago, only I never wrote it down and it got muddled by time, as most of my theories tend to do. Because my dad and I have been talking about popcorn films, and I realised that while I do like a good popcorn film, it has to appeal to me in a certain way -- it has to include something that makes it particularly fun for me, especially as I tend to prefer, um, more serious fare. So, like, my dad tends to enjoy action films when he wants something mindless: me, I like a good historical flick, like Pirates of the Caribbean, and I like clever dialogue, and sharp imagery. (You can totally get me to see a film by telling me that it's well photographed. I am a huge cinematography geek. ^-^) I often don't see the spark in the popcorn action films Dad enjoys, and he doesn't tend to really love the sorts that I do. I dunno, rambling.

I also realised that I tend to like characters who are more like me -- not in a narcissistic sort of way, but -- people I can really understand, you know? Which is why I love Martha best in Doctor Who, and Simon and River in Firefly, and Remus and Tonks in Harry Potter (who basically equal the two opposing sides of my very contradictory personality ^-^). And then there are things that just interest people, you know? I mean, some girls really like the brooding hero, or a spunky girl protagonist, and some people really like the deliverers of clever lines, and some people like the characters who seem insignificant at first, or useless, or annoying, and turn out to be awesome in the end and save the world. Me, because I'm a) a writer and like getting inside people's heads, and b) fascinated by psychology, I tend to find more complicated characters the most interesting -- characters with interesting motivations, characters who are confused or reluctant or contradictory. Maybe this has something to do with the whole relating theory, or maybe it's closer to the "what your storytelling, er, fetish is" thing, I'm not sure.

Also, not making any sense now. Going away. ^-^

weialala leia!

I was just reading that poem . . .

So then, how are you liking the enigmatic Mr Eliot? ^-^

He's very interesting. It's odd - I'll read a stanza or two that are utterly beautiful and I love, but then the next stanza will be kind of gruesome and rather unlikeable. He's very good, inasmuch as he creates pictures in my mind so easily.

That was pretty much my first impression of Eliot. ^-^ (Not counting having read Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats since I was really little -- I don't even remember being introduced to it, only that it was there, and a distinct part of my consciousness. And then after a few months of Seriouser Eliot I connected the two and went "...really?") I think it was "Prufrock" and "Ash-Wednesday" that I was first introduced to by this bloke on the Sonlight forums who for one reason or another posted Eliot several times, and I didn't entirely like them, but there were parts that thrilled me. Then they began to grow on me, and my mother found an ancient dime-store paperback anthology of my dad's, and, well, then I turned into the mad Eliot babbler I am today. :p

The thing I find most fascinating about Eliot is that he'll write a phrase or a stanza that seems utterly incomprehensible, and then one day you read it again and you understand it, only you can't always explain how. "I will show you fear in a handful of dust", for example -- I know what that means, but I could never explain it.

I'm going to find a book of T.S. Eliot poems. somewhere. at the library. I will.

And I do the same thing, but with Bliss Carman poetry. His poems don't fit people as much as much as it does events in time, and random feelings.

I really need to sit down and write poetry. I used to so much when I was little, but now I feel like everything comes out really cliched. I'm realizing more and more that sometimes editing poetry and working on a poem for months doesn't necessarily mean I'm cramping creativity. I hate editing though. bahh. >_<

I should actually try writing fanfiction. I don't really know what I'd write it of, except for Narnia. I WANT TO MAKE A NARNIA FANMIX SO BAD BUT I DON'T HAVE CD BURNING SOFTWARE AUGH. >_<

Oh, and I've been wanting to call you, but I don't know when it's a good time. I hate calling people when they're eating dinner or something. When is your day usually telephone-friendly? :D

[oh, and, for the extremely little I know about Lupin (since reading HP is off-limits, but I've seen the first three movies), he does seem a great deal like Prufrock! ♥]

It shouldn't be terribly difficult. ^-^ Even my library's got a Complete Eliot, and it's...fairly pathetic, as poetry goes. (It's got some pretty first- or second-editions of Millay's poems, though, which I adore for the sheer gorgeousness of the books and would even if I didn't love the poetry in them.)

I really need to sit down and write poetry. I used to so much when I was little, but now I feel like everything comes out really cliche.

Ugh, me too. I have so much difficulty with poetry, although it's getting better now that I'm forcing myself to try not to be too -- metaphory. Because I'm not good enough at it yet. I had -- have -- so much hideously pretentious poetry it makes me want to hide my head in shame. So I'm reading people like William Carlos Williams, who writes these exquisitely simple poems, like

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

-- and some more involved but still minimalistic poetry, and it's actually much harder than it looks (which is the beauty of it, I suppose.) Anyway, it's helping a bit. But I still produce approximately one poem every three months or so, give or take a little. Sigh. And yep, editing is NOT MY FRIEND. Poetry is so spontaneous, and there's this crazy fine line between sucking the soul of the spontaneity out of it and yet improving on the original idea. Argh.

Um. Calling. Let me see. You're in California, yes? I can't remember time zones very well, but I have this awesome feature on my iPod now so I can add time zones to my clock -- scroll through and it's got the Pittsburgh time (nearest big city to me), and currently I've got London and Alaska, I think. Anyway. I'm home most of the day -- well, no, actually lately I've been over at Alessandra's a lot, which is weird for me because I've never really had a social life before at all. But I'm still home a lot. Mondays I've a guitar lesson at three, and I'm usually gone for an hour or two afterwards running errands with Mum. Sunday mornings are church, of course -- Sunday's a really good day, actually; we usually stay home and relax and my parents nap and sometimes we watch a film or play a game in the evenings but mostly it's pretty predictable that we'll be home. If you call after about one thirty we should be finished with lunch. (We have a big family lunch on Sundays and just eat on our own for dinner, unlike the rest of the week.) It's probably best to call after twoish most days on account of school. Saturday is probably the only really bad day, though; I spend most of it at the library and the candy shop and hanging out with whichever friends come to the library with me most of the evening. ^-^ (Again, WEIRD STUFF. But a good weird.)

I'll definitely be looking for a complete collection of Eliot. Probably tonight, actually, since I ordered a book and a DVD from the library, and it's always fun to get a bunch of library books at once, and also it saves on gas.

Ahh, every three months? I don't think I've written a poem in over two years. I don't know what's wrong with me; these past two years have flown by, and I feel like I haven't accomplished anything. I used to make graphics and write and do things, and now I don't really do anything but read things online and talk to people. I really need to go back to icon making. I always enjoyed that so much.

Ah! :P Actually I live in Florida. Which is better than California, I think. Cali still seems like it's out in the middle of nowhere, you know? Okay, so I'm obviously biased to the east coast, but you know. WE WERE DISCOVERED FIRST. XD Anyway, I might try calling you tomorrow (which would be Monday, later on in the afternoon/evening), if theater class doesn't drain my blood. xD

Oh! And I just emailed you the most epic email ever, with gigantic blocks of text that will probably make your eyes burn. ^_^ So if you get a minute, you should read it. XD

If it makes you feel any better, I never had a social life until now. Leastaways not one that wasn't Internet Only, type thing. And you didn't answer last night when I called. I was majorly depressing and I don't even know why. Well, I sort of do.

And I'm craving chocolate... and it's not fair because I *do* have chocolate in the room, but it's *supposed* to be for my fiancé for Valentine's Day... >_>

The point of this is to say... are you doing anything this afternoon/evening after your guitar lesson? (other than writing my letter *winkwinknudgenudgesaynomore*)

Aww, I'm sorry. My parents tend to have the answering machine pick up a lot to screen the call, as it were, since we don't have caller ID or anything of the sort. If you ever call and get the answering machine and it's pretty logical that I should be around, just leave a message -- we might be listening. :)

Don't eat Roberto's chocolate! *smacks hand* Argh, I really need to make more cookies. My family managed to eat almost all of the ones I made WHILE I WAS OUT WITH YOU. There were approximately six left when I came home. :p

I would say, we should totally stock up at Hockman's next Saturday so that it'll last a while, but you know what? IT WON'T LAST. The more we buy, the more we'll eat, is all.

My plans for this afternoon and evening involve reading up on mythological beings, writing your letter, watching Giles don a fringed sombrero and Buffy and Spike plan their wedding, Angel swooping around in a black leather coat woven of pure awesome whilst having his life narrated by Spike, listening to you tell Roberto about your new plans for the wedding, peering at bits of Star Trek in Romanian, and writhing around on the floor laughing until I am no longer capable of breath or dignity.

That was oddly prescient... ^-^

Okay, remember when you posted to

booklisters asking for autumnal reading, and I recommended the Mortal Engines quartet? If you haven't read them yet, you must, because a) they're awesome, and b) the third book quotes from The Four Quartets.

(I've just reread them, and immediately thought of you when I saw that. ;-)

Oooooh. You've sold me, you have. And I was just going to trawl around for more book ideas, because I have no idea what to order next when my last batch of library books finally comes in. :D

Hm. Yes, definitely. I would also agree with you that Frost is too...uncomplicated, or something...for Angel, although I Have Been One Acquainted with the Night (http://www.internal.org/view_poem.phtml?poemID=119) is rather apt. (I still like "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" better, for what it's worth, but still.) And wow, I sort of can't conceive having that much hatred toward a poet... >_<

Also, we read Louis Macneice's Bagpipe Music (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/bagpipe-music/) for class today and it's overall very...weird, but mostly the good kind of weird. Anyway I can totally see River quoting this part:

John MacDonald found a corpse, put it under the sofa,
Waited till it came to life and hit it with a poker,
Sold its eyes for souvenirs, sold its blood for whiskey,
Kept its bones for dumbbells to use when he was fifty.

I was thinking of "I Have Been One Acquainted With the Night", yep. Also I have a feeling that Angelus would read Charles Baudelaire and his ilk -- crazy morbid French poets! There's a bit of Baudelaire in my World Poetry compilation, and it's rather like Eliot on steroids. Some of it is very beautiful (particularly for those of us who enjoy gothic imagery), and some is -- morbid, as I said. And somewhat deranged. (Also French. Ha ha.) I mean, really, how does a vampire spend the centuries when they're not -- wreaking havoc and suchlike? Clearly, they must read poetry. (I would. :p)

Not only can I see River quoting that, I can see her singing it, in a sing-song, absent-minded sort of way.

Bwahaha. Sorting is awesome fun. River and Simon would be Ravenclaws, Mal would be a Gryffindor, Jayne I might call a Slytherin just because of the whole mercenary thing, Kaylee's probably a Hufflepuff...and, hm, I would probably put Buffy at least in Gryffindor, Willow and Giles obviously in Ravenclaw, and...huh. Not sure about anyone else. I'm kind of inclined to put Xander in Gryffindor too just because he's kind of impulsive and is really good at putting his foot squarely in his mouth, but I'm not sure that he's particularly brave...well, no, I guess he is in his own way. Something. Not sure. No idea where I'd put Cordelia, and not overly sure about Angel either. I suppose I might actually call him a Slytherin, but whether he's a good or bad Slytherin of course depends on, you know, whether he's Angelus or Angel.

OH OH. I had the best crossover idea of sorts after I watched "Halloween" (which was another seriously cool premise, I thought, even though I didn't exactly like the whole "women any further back than maybe 30 years ago were total wimps" idea), which mostly stemmed from the fact that I considered going as Ten for Halloween and am definitely doing so for Senshi-con in a couple weeks. Which of course made me think, well, if somebody like me found the parts for a Ten costume in a shop helmed by somebody doing the same thing as Ethan, would that person turn into the actual Doctor? Which would be...pretty cool for a number of reasons. Plus he'd actually be helpful in, you know, saving the day. It couldn't exactly be a crossover like sticking Ten into that episode, since it couldn't happen before Ten existed on TV and somebody would want to dress up as him, but eh, it could still be fun.

Sorting is the best thing to do when you can't sleep or find yourself in a long line or in a waiting room without iPod or paper. :D Inara's the only Firefly character I really can't place -- well, her and Book; I can't tell if he's a Gryffindor or a Hufflepuff. Zoe is a Gryffindor and Wash is probably a Hufflepuff. The problem with Buffy is that nearly everyone seems to turn out Gryffindor. Very irritating of them. Willow has definite Gryffindor-ness, but I stick her in Ravenclaw because somebody needs to be not-in-Gryffindor. Angel, you're right, is a difficult one. Angelus certainly fits the Slytherin bill -- I would assume most vampires do, as their primary goal seems to be their own pleasure, safety, and entertainment, and most of them seem quite ambitious in one way or another -- but I'm not really seeing the Slytherin in Angel. He's much more self-sacrificing (and, okay, self-flagellating) than ambitious, and while he's intelligent and resourceful, I wouldn't describe him as cunning. (Nice word, that. I should use it more often.)

Hee! Yes indeed that'd be a fun crossover, although it'd be difficult to make it into an actual crossover as such, since the time-lines not matching up quite right would make it difficult to have any actual Buffy characters in other than Ethan or some Ethan-like bloke. (Though I suppose someone could always dress up as Four, since he's the Pop Culture Reference Doctor, so to speak.) ...Actually, pretty much anything involving the Doctor playing around in another fandom is slated for awesomeness potential. *nods*

even though I didn't exactly like the whole "women any further back than maybe 30 years ago were total wimps" idea

To be fair, wimpiness was bred into and expected of (wealthier) women of the eighteenth century. :p And pre-vampire Angel, as you may or may not know from your cheating ways, was not exactly the sort of bloke who the more intelligent women would generally come into prolonged contact with.

Also I have a feeling that Angelus would read Charles Baudelaire and his ilk

...Dude. When you said that, did you know anything at all about the AtS episode "She"? Because in that ep, not only does Angel point Baudelaire out in a painting and talk about him, he also quotes him and heavily implies that he met the guy.

Fandom psychic much?

AHAHAHAHAHAHA. NO. I TOTALLY DIDN'T. MY FANDOM PSYCHIC STATUS IS TOTALLY VINDICATED. *hyperventilates*

Blimey, and I really wouldn't put it past Baudelaire to hobnob with vampires, either. Anybody mentioned the Romantics yet? Cos, you know, those vampire wannabe kids in "Lie to Me"? The mass-produced, less talented, poorer, less famous versions of Shelley & Friends.

*is pretty much dead now*

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weialala leia!

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