Various stuffs

[cornerofmadness]

One is a handy little site for those of us moving and/or looking for a job that would take us out of our usual neighborhood. It's a site that does a comparitive cost of living. In other words it tells you what you need to be making in your new location in order to live with the same type of lifestyle you're currently at. In other words that dream job in LA might sound great and the pay's more than you're making now but when you look at the cost of living you realize you'd be living in your car if you took that job. Some places are FAR more expensive to live than you realize (most of us know that L.A., NYC, SF etc are expensive but other places are just as bad and you might not even think of it). Anyhow here you go. Hope it helps  Cost of Living.

And since I couldn't get the damn coding to work on that nanomo thing and my webmistress had a devil of the time with it too, decided to just SAVE it in photobucket and do it like any other picture. so here

And came across this magazine scan. Now tell me, isn't Makai better off with shorter hair (seriously, poor VK was much girlier at that age than I was.) 

 

 

And while I'm not looking for a huge fight to ensue in my lj like we've seen recently with other fandom things, I am curious. How can you label yourself a canon whore and yet have all your ships be unconventional (het and slash) ? How does this work? This is the third time I've drawn something like this in a ficathon and I don't know how to approach it.  By their very nature unconventional ships are non-canon so how can the requester be a canon whore? Do I pretend everything happened as it did on the show but with the unconventional ship in play? I've been unsuccessful in giving the people what they wanted in past ficathons which is why I ask, not trying to bash. I'm just curious

Comments

[esmerelda-t.livejournal.com]

hmmm, that's an interesting question, and one I've never come across, perhaps its a case of how the relationships are presented on the show? (Im assuming we're talking ATS/BTVS) Id say there was enough subtext presented between, say, Spike and Angel, or Angel and Wesley for it to be argued you could present those relationships within the canon of the show, or Wesley and Fred pre season 5, but it's harder to argue that Wesley and say, Connor, is a canonical ship, even though its one that is visible in the fandom, and hey, whatever floats your boat, but the sheer lack of character interaction between them makes it hard to present it as one rooted in canon, and not merely in fandom.

Well, that's my 2 cents anyway....

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

You've hit on my problem. Sometimes I've been given ships I could through subtext see how making them canon wouldn't be so hard. Others no way. I think the problem really is the label 'canon whore.' What I think they're really saying is 'dont' stray TOO far from what the show put forth' like for instance all human AU's which are my least favorite subgenre of BtVS/AtS.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

That cost of living calculator is scary. I'd need to make 50 grand more to live in SF. That's just insane.

VK - don't wear your hair like that. Guys are going to hit on you.

UC pairings within cannon. For me, it strongly depends on the pairing. For example, I find it impossible to belive that Angelus/Spike didn't have sex together, especially considering the show strongly implies it. So, it's not a big leap of faith to think that Angelus might have semi-raped Spike while Spike was in the wheelchair to remind him who's boss. Ot that they might have indulged in something when they believed Buffy told them both to take a hike in TGIQ.

KKnight is doing an amazing Wes/Angel series that takes place fully in cannon - it's very clear that Wes is completely infatuated with Angel and that Angel, for the most part, is using Wes. For me, it's not cannon that Angel loves Wes, but I'd have to be blind not to see Wes having feelings for Angel. It's right there in the way Alexis plays it.

Another example - I am convinced Faith wants Buffy. I don't see Buffy as having an interest in Faith.

I guess in the hands of a skillful writer, often I can believe a one shot thing between characters that takes place during cannon scenes. Someone (Gloss maybe?) recently wrote a brilliant short piece about Buffy during that final scene in Enemies where she tells Angel she needs to take a break from him. It turns out that it's mostly her guilt talking because she had a one tine fling with Faith. The scene works perfectly in cannon, but that's because Buffy's voice is perfect.

Now, if you tell me it's cannon up tp this point and then goes AU, that's a different story. But to tell me that seasons 1-3 happened exactly as I saw them but Angel and Willow were having a torrid affair - eh, not buying it.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

That cost of living calculator is scary. I'd need to make 50 grand more to live in SF. That's just insane Hence me offering this up. I knew areas to avoid looking to teach but some other places scared me (here for instance housing is cheap but hard to find and gas is about 20 cents more than in FL)

VK - don't wear your hair like that. Guys are going to hit on you. Yeah that was my thought. I figured he was home schooled just so he didn't get beaten on a regular basis in school.

As for the fanfic stuff, you've made many excellent points. Actually I could see Angelus/Spike with Angelus in charge up until he's souled because in those brief periods afterwards they did a good job of implying Angelus was leery of SPike.

While I could buy Faith being bisexual I've never considered her sexually attracted to Buffy. I think she wanted to BE Buffy which is a different thing all together (ditto with Wes/Angel)

I think my problem is wanking canon so that nonconventionals can be together and yet having it look like canon. I've nothing against unconventional pairings I have my share and I hope I do a good enough job with them that the stories feel like they could have been part of canon.

I guess my real problem is if you call yourself a canon whore then you like CANON not some AR of it.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the ratio thing. I'd need around another $10,000 to live in AZ - as opposed to $60 (yes, sixty) to live in E-ville/Henderson.

Snickering at the photo of VK.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

THat's why I wanted to send it. It's unbiased unlike friends and family who will tell you what you want to hear...

who isnt' snickering

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

The boy, probably.

[aaronlisa.livejournal.com]

The only way that I personally can see an unconventional fic working within canon is if it's all subtext. velvetwhip recently wrote a very good example of this. However it's also a drabble.

That said, normally if you write an unconventional pairing (whether it's het or slash) it's not canon. Even if it's say Spike/Angel set pre-shows, that's not canon because they never had a relationship on the shows, and that was always made very very clear. Whereas I'd see Dru/Darla more along the lines of canon. But I agree that unconventional ships are not canon.

So what I think I am trying to say is perhaps work along the lines of canon with this unconventional pairing, but write it as if neither person in the pairing realize that the other like each other. Or as you suggested everything else happened along with this couple.

Does that help? And to be honest, in my honest opinion fanfic by its very nature can only follow the lines of canon so much.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

I think that's my feeling to. It's just a label thing to me I'm sure but it just struck me as so odd

[aaronlisa.livejournal.com]

Yeah and you can't be a canon whore and write unconventional pairings, it just doesn't work.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

That's what's bugging me. And I think what they mean to say as I said in an earlier post is that they want to stay as close to canon as possible within that unconventional ship and not have all these weird changes

[aaronlisa.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's still weird to ask for Canon and an U/C ship. But you might be right about that.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

But a lot of people do it and it alwayas blows my mind. I think honestly it is to keep down someone from writing all human AU's or having SPike and Angel being the parents of Connor etc.

[aaronlisa.livejournal.com]

I guess that might be it. I just say that I don't want any all human fics in that case.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Generally I don't see all human A/U's outside of the B/A arena but maybe I'm just missing them.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Generally I don't see all human A/U's outside of the B/A arena but maybe I'm just missing them.

[natgel.livejournal.com]

I've also known self proclaimed "Canon Whores" who hardly wrote anything but AUs. So yeah, tricky ground. I think the only (shipping) fics that can be really loyal to Canon are, say, pairing an unlikely pairing AFTER the ending of the show, and leaving everything as it happened. Being loyal to Canon is also pairing two sub-text characters - like Spike and Angel for example - while the rest of the events go as they were on the show. Or maybe letting the character realize afterwords that something wasn't as it appeared within Canon: insert reason #1, 2 and 3. Everything the writer sees on the show is material to play with and twist in any way he/she likes.

But Fanfiction isn't always about sticking to Canon, nor it is about whatever you damn want to, since, IMHO, if the characters don't sound or act like themselves (without proper justification) and the Jossworld is just so not It ('vampires, slayers and demons arent real and buffy is the school cheerleader and her boyfriend angle is a jerk and she meets this hawt guy spike and they fall in looov!!11one! WOOT!!') Then why in Goth God's name don't you write an original story and be done with it? What's the point with characters in a written story that just look like the actors? Nobody sees them anyway! Ugh.

A lot of (good!) fics out there don't go by Canon (who doesn't like a "what if?" once in a while?) But when Canon is altered for no good reason, when The Change doesn't farther the plot in any way...Yeah well, it can get on the reader's nerves sometimes.

/rant

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

ANd an excellent rant it is. It pretty much sums up how I feel. I like sticking to canon when I can. And if you look at most of my stories they do follow along up until the point at which they were written.

That said I do like writing what if's to to rescue characters I like, say Wes or Cordy or even kill a few (hopefully it DOES advance the plot or I have failed in my mission)

But paragraph two of the rant...yeah, I'm with you. That's why I don't get all human AU's. If that's what you want to do, why not make it something you can sell then I remember not everyone wants to publish but I don't get it.

Making characters OOC, that was my biggest problem with a lot of stories bashing on Riley so Angel/SPike could save Buffy (ditto Angel bashing to put B with SPike and vice versa)