Ballykissangel Wants To Rip Your Heart Out

Over the last few weeks, thanks to Netflix Instant, Matt and I have become addicted to Ballykissangel, a BBC comedic drama series set in a fictional Irish town that spanned the last half of the 1990s. Last week, I wanted to write a post about how we were in love with this show and how it had one of the most compelling TV romances I’ve encountered in a long time. But I couldn’t find the time and since then we’ve gone through a whole ‘nother season and now I’m going to tell you about the love/hate relationship I’ve developed with it instead. Warning: there be spoilers here.

Man, people. This show. It lures you in with its quirky charm and fun “Irish Stars Hollow” vibe, and then just when you’re comfortably convinced that it’s nothing but a light-hearted romantic dramedy, and just as the romantic part gets amped up to awesome, it turns on you, sucker-punching you in the gut with almost Whedonesque proportions of angst and pain and tragedy and death.

Imagine if right after Luke and Loralei got together, Luke fell off a ladder and broke his neck. While Loralei was holding the ladder. That’s what this show does to you.

And then imagine if, while you were still in mourning for Luke and Loralei, Sookie started to cheat on Jackson and treat him like crap, and then decided to leave him... right before Jackson fell off another ladder and broke his neck, leaving Sookie a guilt-ridden widow who’s already exhausted all of the sympathy you were able to muster for her.

It wouldn’t be so hard to take, I think, if Ballykissangel were always that kind of show; an action show, or a mystery, a la Lost or anything from Joss Whedon, or even a straight-up drama, where that kind of tragedy and dramatic interpersonal BS is simply woven into the fabric of the story and you expect bad things to happen. But this isn’t that kind of show, until suddenly it is. Which, I guess, is more true to life than something like Northern Exposure, to which it often gets compared, which I suppose is the point. Still, getting the rug yanked out from under you like that becomes tiring fast (we just started the 5th season, which begins with another death of another beloved character, combined with the character assasination of yet another). It’s getting to the point where the only reason to keep watching this show is the presence of a very young and pretty Colin Farrel.

All of that said, I heartily recommend the first three seasons. It has a romantic pairing that set my little ‘shippy heart all a-flutter and actually made me want to seek out fanfic, something I haven’t done since I managed to nix my Spuffy fic addiction. Of course, I don’t actually have time to read fanfic (or much of anything else) these days, so I looked for fan videos instead. I recommend you stop watching Season 3 as soon as things start to get good for this couple and come back and watch this Peter and Assumpta fan vid instead, and pretend with me that they ran away together to get married and have tiny, tiny babies and live happily ever after, amen.

Marketing & Miscellany

The Marketing:

I spent much of the weekend polishing up my online presence to appear a little more professional. Most significantly, this included updating my LinkedIn profile, changing my Tumblr blog into a portfolio for personal and practice projects, and launching JMBauhaus(.net), my new central hub which is now the easiest way to keep up with everything I'm doing online if you're inclined to do so (Big Sis).

I was forced to switch from .com to .net thanks to my stupidity in letting my jmbauhaus.com domain expire earlier this year. Dotster then wanted a hundred dollars to renew it; otherwise I had to wait 90 days for it to go back on the market. Which I decided to do, but before I could register it again some domain squatters snatched it up, and there's no telling how much they want for it, but they can just sit on it, because I don't want it badly enough to pay more than $10 for it, and I don't see anybody else wanting it, either. I'm perfectly happy being an $8 .net instead. So enjoy your worthless jmbauhaus.com domain there, squatters!

ANyway. Since I'm so enamored with the service that's hosting my new site, Flavors.me, I'm offering a very affordable Flavors.me customization package.

Another new service I'm offering is through Fiverr.com: $5 Typographical Logos. I enjoy logo design but I don't get a lot of opportunity to practice it, so hopefully this is a way to give me some practice and beef up my portfolio in that area.

I don't think I've mentioned it here, but I'm also running a contest to drum up "fans" for my Facebook business page. I'm offering a free custom Twitter background (a $60 value) to one random winner. All you have to do to enter is "like" my Task Wrangler page on Facebook and leave a comment in the discussion there declaring your entry. Click here for contest details.

So far it's working like a charm... not. Apparently nobody wants their own fancy custom Twitter background badly enough to bother clicking a "Like" button and leaving a comment. Which is to say that if you DO want your own fancy custom Twitter background, your chances of winning at this point are VERY good.

Of course, if nobody enters, that's less work for me to do, so win-win, I guess.

The Miscellany

It's officially fall now, right? Or is that tomorrow? Either way, I'm ready for this late summer we're having to get lost and leave me alone. September started out promisingly enough with a nice reprieve from the ridiculously hot weather we had in July and August, but it's gotten hot again, and I couldn't be more ready for fall weather to get here. I'm just afraid that we'll have a repeat of last year, where it pretty much skipped right over the usual great fall weather and went straight from hot and miserable to cold and crappy. We're starting to gear up for another short camping trip in October, and I've a feeling Matt will want to go no matter what, so I'm really crossing my fingers for it not to be cold and crappy all month. Come on, October. Show me why you were always my favorite month.

To help beat the heat and get myself in a fall state of mine, I've been watching a lot of spooky stuff, i.e. horror movies and Ghost Hunters. I don't know why scary stuff puts me in mind of fall--I guess it's because for me fall = Halloween. At any rate, I'm in the mood these days for safe scares. This will probably come back to bite me when we're camping next month and I find myself having to go out into the darkness by myself in the middle of the night for a potty emergency.

It's also that time of year for me to decide whether I'll be doing NaNoWriMo, and if so, what will I be writing? Right now I'm kind of leaning towards giving it a pass this year. Last year I started out gang-busters, hitting about 20,000 words in the first week before I found out I was pregnant, and all of the baby drama ensued, and my focus went right out the window. If I do it this year I'll either invoke the Zokutou Clause and finish Dominion of the Damned, or challenge myself to write a collection of memoirs and personal essays all month.

If I do the latter, I figure I'll post them here as I go and then maybe collect the good ones into a chap book or see if any of them are good enough for the magazine market. The problem is that I just can't seem to get excited about writing -- which might be all the more reason why I should sign up for 'WriMo. It might also make a good distraction from the fact that baby #2 would've been due the first week of November, which I'm already starting to struggle with a little... which probably explains my current ambivalence toward writing, and toward NaNoWriMo in particular. I remember thinking that there was no way I'd be able to do it this year because I'd be busy taking care of a newborn baby, so the fact that there's really no reason for me not to do it makes me pretty sad.

In less depressing news, these past two weeks I've pretty much had my head down, brushing up on my web design skills and learning new software and new techniques to prepare for a web site overhaul for a new client. I've been learning a lot, but I haven't been doing much else, and the imbalance is starting to wear on me. I'm beginning to feel lethargic and headachey all the time, and I'm already putting the weight back on that I managed to shed over the summer. So starting today I've got to start forcing myself to make time for regular workouts again. Between the new TV season kicking off in full force this week and Matt's recent habit of spending his evenings holed up in the bedroom to study, it should be pretty easy for me to start parking myself on the stationary bike in front of the TV every night.

What about you guys? Are any of you doing 'WriMo this year? If so, do you know what you'll be working on?

Writing Lessons From Lost

Last week I started re-watching Lost from the beginning. Why? Because it's summer and there's nothing on, and Netflix has seasons one through five available for instant streaming. I finished up Season One this weekend. As I barreled through the season in three- to four-episode marathons, a few things occurred to me that I could apply to my own writing.

1. Pacing is everything. The first season of Lost has 25 episodes. The second has 24. A normal TV season in the US is 22 episodes. Even watching the entire season in one week, there's a lot of filler and meandering in the middle that's a little tedious to get through. No wonder it's almost universally accepted that this show got so much better around Season 4 when the episode number was cut nearly in half, and suddenly there was little room for filler. The latter seasons maintain a momentum that keeps viewers on the edge of their seats, and that momentum is sorely lacking throughout big chunks of the early seasons.  
2. Don't make characters difficult-to-impossible to like if you want the audience to feel sympathy for them. I know there's a big "I Hate Jack" contingent out there, but I'm not even talking about him and his tiresome self-righteousness and guilt-tripping ways. I'm talking primarily about Shannon. Remember her? Remember how awful she was? And then how (spoiler alert!) suddenly she was supposed to be sympathetic after she became a dubious love interest for Sayid while remaining manipulative and demonstrating that she was perfectly willing to use him to exact revenge on Locke for Boone's death? I'm so confused about what this show wants me to think of her. Frustratingly, that goes for most of its characters. I'm not saying that protagonists have to all be likeable (or antagonists unlikeable -- after all, the most despicable villain on this show turned out to be one of my favorite characters), but show some consistency in their motivations, and for the love of Glow Cave, make them interesting. Especially if you insist on telling people that your story is character-driven. Which brings me to...
3. When writing a character-driven piece, don't make your McGuffin more interesting than your characters. Was there anybody who was more interested in Driveshaft's falling out or in Jack's daddy issues than in what the what was going on with that island? Not that the flashbacks didn't provide necessary character development, but with few exceptions (e.g., how did Locke end up in a wheel chair? And why is Jin being such an overbearing jerk? And what is up with Walt?), mostly I wanted the flashbacks to be over with so we could get back to the island weirdness. I'm sorry, Cuse & Lindeloff, but the island overshadowed the characters. The lesson learned is to maybe not provide such a fascinating mystery if you want your readers to focus on the characters instead.

And now I'm going to go start Season 2, which I'm sure will yield more lessons on writing. Hopefully I won't be too busy counting the hours till we get Ben and full-time Desmond to notice them.

Goodby to Lost (No Spoilers)

I know I said I'd be in head down mode getting work done today, and I will be, but first: I watched the Lost finale this morning, and my head is swirling like an uncorked pool of glowing goodness, and I have to empty it out.

Wow. That was one heckuva series finale, you guys. Part of me thinks it was a perfect, emotionally satisfying ending. Part of me is going, "Seriously, Lost?" and the final third is scratching my head and going, "Um, what, now?"

That last two-thirds is pretty much in agreement with Cat Valente's Lost World rant about how this show could never make up its mind about whether it was science fiction or fantasy and yet tried to claim that it was neither of those things. That part of me is a little let down at the lack of solid answers about the how of it all, and a little dubious as to the explanation given for the why. This was definitely not a perfect show. It went for the emotion at the expense of story logic so often that if you try to apply logic it collapses in on itself and becomes one giant, sucking black plot hole.

BUT. The emotion got to me and won me over, especially here at the end. All of the characters, these flawed and broken heroes and anti-heroes and villains, all of whom I'd come to care about despite the fact that they were often unlikeable, reached their correct destinies and arrived at an ending that left me smiling and crying at the same time. And without spoiling anything I'll just say that the symmetry of the final shot was sheer perfection.

For all of its flaws, Lost gave us six seasons of thrills, some fantastic and complex character arcs, and occasional moments that were nearly as perfect as that last one. All in all, it was six seasons of great TV, and I'll miss it; but ultimately, it gave me an ending that made it easier to let go, which, I think, was the point.

Thank you, Mr. Abrams, Mr. Damon and Mr. Carlton, and all of the creative staff, cast and crew for making this show happen, and best of luck in your future endeavors.

Other reviews (these contain spoilers):

• Television Without Pity Lost recaplet
  
  
• Matt Roush's Finale Watch: Lost
  
  
• TV Squad: 'Lost' Ending: A Finale For The Ages
  
  
• The Ack Attack - Lost recaps & commentary
  
• Mighty God King - Take That, You Nitpickers
• Design Woop - Lost Finale Explained Well! (by a Bad Robot staff writer)
• Pop Geek: In "The End", How I Found Lost

(List updated 6/1/2010)

What did you think? Spoilery discussion allowed in the comments.

Scientific Proof That TV Is a Productivity Killer (And Yet I Watch Anyway)

A couple of weeks ago I had a spectacularly productive week that included three straight days wherein I managed to cross off every item on my To Do list. So rarely does this thing happen, and so proud was I that I tweeted about it at the end of each day, prompting friend-of-the-blog Douglas Cootey to ask via direct message:

I promised to answer the question in a blog post, and put that on the next day's To Do list. As you can see from the time stamp, that was almost two whole weeks ago, which shows you just how successfully I've been checking off items ever since. This is partly because we've entered that time of year when I feel cruddy 80% of the time thanks to allergies (and thanks also to the meth-heads that have made Sudafed such a PITA to get), and the resulting perpetual brain fog is making it difficult to find my focus.

But the main culprit behind procrastinating so long on this post in particular is that all of the tips and tricks that I thought must make up my productivity "secret" kind of fell apart when I realized that the only real common denominator between those three super-productive days is this: I didn't watch TV.

Well, that's not entirely true. It would be more accurate to say that I didn't watch my shows when they aired but instead waited to catch them online at a more convenient time, after all of my work was done. I don't really remember what prompted the decision, although it probably had something to do with not being able to bring myself to care whether I missed Shania Twain week on American Idol (the only show that I have to watch live if I'm going to watch it at all, since it doesn't get re-broadcast online later). That, and I'd mistakenly thought Chuck had another week of re-runs to go.

Anyway, it just worked out so that I didn't interrupt my work flow to watch TV most of that week, which resulted in a lot of productivity. This might suggest that my TV habits are coming between me and massive success, but mostly I see it as a preview of how awesomely productive my summer should be once all of my shows are on hiatus.

Nevertheless, there are a few other things I did to help get those To Do lists crossed off. I'm going to test them further to see both how ADD-proof they are and how well they stand up to the test of time. Next week I'll compile the winning tips into another post. Meanwhile, I've got lists that need conquering (and shows that need watching ;).

Life Changing News Ahead

Oh, people. I wish I had a spectacular word count update to share and that I could blame my absence on being a writing machine these last couple of weeks, but that is not the case. I have a much better excuse, in fact, and that excuse is this: a bun, my oven has one.

Yes, you read that right. Come next July, we'll be welcoming a baby of the furless variety into the Bauhaushold, and nobody is as stunned at this new development as we are. Stunned in a happy way, but still: stunned. We honestly thought this wasn't meant to happen, and we were making big plans to become world travelers once my business took off well enough to sustain that kind of lifestyle. It only took us about a day to decide that we're cool with giving up those plans (or at least delaying them for twenty years), because this new thing is better.

As for the last couple of weeks, I've spent it mostly feeling too fatigued to do anything useful, and then shocked and fatigued, and then excited and fatigued, and unable to think about much else. So you can guess how good that's been for my NaNoWriMo project. Fortunately, I built up enough of a word cushion in that first week that I still have more than a snowball's chance of winning, but I have big obstacles to overcome to get there.

For one thing, I can't drink (much) caffeine, and I can't take anything for my ADD (which is exacerbated by the extreme pregnancy fatigue), which makes concentrating for more than twenty minutes at a time on anything a challenge. I also need a lot of naps these days. And work was slow during the first half of the month, but now it's starting to pick back up. and lastly, I'm not even sure if I want to put that kind of pressure on myself right now, plus I'm thinking maybe I should be working on getting Hero Factor ready to start querying agents ASAP. Dominion will still be there after HF is out in the wild trying to earn mama some income. Then again, the thought of throwing in the towel galls me a little, so I'm still undecided. With only ten days left I guess I'd better decide pretty soon and get to writing if that's what I'm gonna do.

Anyway. That's what's going on with me. Rest assured that I have no plans to turn this into a mommy blog (although I do have budding plans for a separate blog chronicling my attempts to furnish and decorate a nursery on a very tiny budget), although some pregnancy & baby talk is certainly inevitable. I'll try to use warning tags when it happens.

Meanwhile, if you're of the praying persuasion, we could sure use some prayer for a safe and healthy pregnancy, a perfectly healthy baby as the end result, and for doors to open up for us to improve our financial situation before the little peanut gets here. And also that we'll make good parents, that I will somehow discover the energy to keep up with a toddler, and that I won't be the kind of mom who forgets and leaves her kid at the store.

In related news: Glee COMPLETELY DESTROYED me this week when Finn sang "I'll Stand By You" to "his" unborn baby. Yay hormones!

CAFFEINE FAIL

I like my coffee like I like my man: pale, sweet and full of soy.

I went to the doctor yesterday. Everything she told me basically boiled down to me needing to get better sleep. To that end, I decided to stop drinking caffeine in any form after high noon. I could drink as much as I want before then, but noon was going to be my cutoff. I started out today determined that this would be so.

Noon came and went, and then two more hours past that, and I held strong. Then the sleepiness hit me, and I remembered that I'm taking a first-time home buyer's class tonight with my husband (it's a funding requirement), and also that I took a new allergy med last night that, while making breathing wonderfully easy, is not helping so much with the staying awake. You can surely guess what happened next, because I am weak. My coffee will just have to be strong for me.

Now I have no reason to go to Vegas.

The one thing I really wanted to see in Las Vegas was the Star Trek Experience. But according to Wil Wheaton, it is simply not to be. Sadness.

I guess there's still the New York, New York roller coaster... eh, I'd rather go to Six Flags.

I wrote a story.

A piece of flash fiction, actually, just a little over 500 words. It came to me while we were watching Twilight Zone over the weekend -- we watched so many, I couldn't even guess which one inspired it -- which makes sense, because it's a Twilight Zone-y kind of story. I like it, though. It's called "Mamie's Pie Shop," and you can read it here.

Dr. McDoogie

Neil Patrick Harris, former (and future!) pretend doctor, prescribes Old Spice.



This is almost better than the Bruce Campbell ads.

Hilarity ensues.

Intentionally Hilarious

Bear Grylls would also bite the head off of Gollum for a snack. And I would watch and retch while my husband laughed at me.

Hellboy gets around -- I saw the Ghost Hunters one during the Twilight Zone marathon this weekend, and I laughed and laughed. I love Ron Perlman.

Unintentionally Hilarious

Things I swear I'm really going to get around to doing someday, honest:

Organizing my Flickr account, with tags and commentary and an upgraded account and everything.

Posting all of the crap we need to get rid of before we move on eBay or Craig's List or Freecycle.

Cleaning the mud dauber nests off of my bike and airing up the tires so I can start riding again.

Dry cleaning my wedding dress.

Finishing my novel. I really mean it this time.

America is older now.

We celebrated our Independence Day by giving our potential new house another look-see and writing up an offer. Of course, as soon as we walked out of the realtor's office, Husband started having second thoughts about that house and seeing the merits of another one we looked at that he thought he didn't like as well. But our offer was pretty low and is likely to be rejected or countered, anyway, so I guess we'll just wait and go from there.

After that, we went home, where my Big Sis and BIL were waiting with their adorable and adorably precocious granddaughter, and I was thrilled, because I really cannot get enough of that kid. Then we ate hot dogs, and then we both lay down for a long, long nap, and then we ate more hot dogs and drank some beer and watched some Twilight Zone and teased the cats while listening to our neighbors shoot off fireworks. Not the most exciting July Fourth I've ever had, but certainly not the worst.

I hope you guys had a good Fourth, too, regardless of what country you live in.

Weekend highlights

Randomly, and most notably:

• Went house hunting. Found two possibilities-a great house in an iffy neighborhood and an iffy condo in a great neighborhood. Hopefully if we keep looking we'll find a happy medium.
  
  
• Sewed a liner for my aforementioned new purse. Realized I don't have the right color thread to attach said liner to said purse. Sad.
  
  
• Watched BSG. Reactions: LIKEWHOA! And also, SQUEE!
  
  
• Had mixed feelings about "The Doctor's Daughter" -- both the ep and the character.
  
  
• Worked out on eliptical to The Takeover: Episode 1 and then took a bubble bath to Steampod: Episode 1. Enjoyed both heartily. The workout, less so.
  
  
• Worked on memorial Fizzgigg scrapbook and cried a little more. :(
  
  
• Daydreamed about house in item #1, with its great back yard and great big laundry room that would double perfectly as a craft room.
  
  
• Watched Anne of Avonlea and cried even more. Still crushing big time on Gilbert Blythe. May have to read those books again.
  
  
• Tried Baked Tofu recipe. Was less than whelmed with result. Mixed it in with homemade fried rice, which made it better.
  
  
• Made my own oatmeal packets, which took about a minute and saved me a bunch of dollars. And also are healthier.

And...that was my weekend, in a nut.

How was your weekend?

Parvati.

Ugh.

That is all.

Supernatural

The boys are back! I must have missed an episode somewhere, though (unbelievable!), because I had no idea who the Ghost Facers were. However, that made it no less funny.

I was going to say a lot more, but then things got busy, and now I'm out of time, so I'll just sum it up thusly: new SupernaturalYAAAAY!

Also, before I go: Rickroll cake!

Have a good weekend, folks.

Peek inside the Dollhouse

A couple of links to some brand new Whedony goodness to start your day off right:

After Ellen has a look at the cast, which all by itself has me excited (do I need to warn about casting spoilers?).

And the Dollverse reports on Joss & Co.'s first day of shooting.

Yay and squee, etc.

Distressed

We got woken up much, much too early this morning by a distressed fox in our yard. What it was distressed about, I have no idea. I'd have investigated, but I was too busy being distressed in my own right, because it's pretty distressing to have a (at the time unidentified--thanks, Google!) wild animal let loose with a blood-curdling scream right beneath your open bedroom window at four in the morning. And what with all the Bigfoot sightings and rumors of panthers around here, we weren't about to head outside and check it out. Distressing!

Something other people appear to be distressed (have I killed that word enough for you yet?) about is Andrew Lloyd Webber night on tonight's Idol, about which I myself am ridiculously, nerdily stoked. STOKED! Yes, I love Lord L-W. Some of you may find that distressing, but I remain unabashed in my love of over-the-top sentimental pop show-tunery. So just you hush.

Bravo, Zombie Without Pity

Wow. Television Without Pity, such as it was, is well and truly dead now, resurrected as a brain-eating shadow of its former self. It's not a surprise, being that when the heart of the site left and took its soul with it, it was only a matter of time before it went brain dead. What is it with giant corporations buying out cool and popular things and then killing everything that made them cool and popular to begin with, all in the name of "improvement"? I don't get it, and I never will.

Farewell, Mighty Big TWoP. I choose to remember the good times.

Musings

Jason Castro reminds me of a long lost Hanson brother raised by Rastafarians.

Rastafarian is a fun word.

Random strange guys who call me "sweetheart" as they pass me on the sidewalk do not flatter me or make me feel good about myself. They just make me feel...ick. Really, ick. It's right up there with the twits who command me to smile. It's demeaning, belittling, irritating, and not to mention incredibly presumptuous. If you're a guy who does this? I don't know a single woman who likes or appreciates this sort of thing. So knock it off.

I'm willing to give the guy from this morning the benefit of the doubt that he wasn't shooting for any of the above. But I figure they're never shooting for any of the above. Nevertheless, this is how it's usually received. So again, just stop it.

Drivers in Tulsa are just friggin' insane. Myself excluded, natch.

But seriously, I was recently given the bird AGAIN for no discernible reason whatsoever, other than perhaps that I signaled to change lanes. And that's exactly what's wrong with drivers in this town. DRIVERS OF TULSA: You are SUPPOSED TO SIGNAL. Signaling is NOT an ACT OF AGGRESSION. It's a polite notice of intent. Signals are for OTHER DRIVERS' BENEFIT, not for your own, except in that warning people that you're about to slow down to turn or get in front of them is a good way to prevent yourself from getting rear-ended.

Um, wow. Wing, Glark & Sars are leaving TWoP. I've had my issues with those guys over the years, but that site also was the foundation upon which my crazed Buffy obsession was built (when it was still Mighty Big TV), and the forums served as a springboard for some fun, if fleeting, friendships. I know the site itself isn't going anywhere, but it just won't seem the same without them. It's definitely the end of an era.

In case you need another reason to grock Spock

Leonard Nimoy appeared on the Colbert Report recently to promote his new photography book celebrating beauty in women of all shapes and sizes. Because the standards set by Hollywood culture and the fashion industry are, in a word, illogical.

Yes, I had to go there.

Thursday Thirteen: 'Shipper edition

Thirteen Most Romantic and/or Heartwrenchingly Tragic TV Couples (a.k.a. the main reasons I love television) 1. Buffy & Angel - Not my favorite, but even I can't argue that their Season 2 arc takes the crown in both categories. 2. Buffy & Spike - I know a lot of people would raise an eyebrow at calling this paring "romantic," but they had their sweet moments, especially in Season 7. At any rate, even at their worst I couldn't stand not to see them together. 3. Willow & Oz - Most people would say Willow & Tara, but that pretty much goes without saying, and that's the only reason I'm going with Oz instead. I still can't watch the end of Wild at Heart without my heart breaking for Willow. 4. Zoe & Wash (this whole list won't be Whedonverse characters, I promise...although it easily could be; nobody does romance and pain like Joss) - Of course Whedon couldn't let a happily married, functional, fun and sexy couple stand. From the moment we realized how well they got along and truly loved each other, we should have known that one of them was doomed. 5. Wesley & Frillyria - As horrible as Fred's death was, and as heartbreaking as it was for Wesley, I just never really got into their romance, and I never really cared that much for Fred. That is, until her soul was burned out of her body and replaced by a demon goddess who turned out to be completely awesome. Wesley's anguish at having to be the keeper of the thing that both killed the woman he loved and looked like her was gutwrenching to observe, but none of it was as heartbreaking as watching some sliver of humanity surface in Illyria, causing her sincere grief as Wesley died in her arms. Excuse me, I have something in my eye. There. Moving on... 6. John Chricton & Aryn Sun - Everybody's favorite leather-clad interspecies couple were all over the romance map, and I loved following them every step of the way--even the parts that broke my heart. And then they got a happy ending. Nobody can say they didn't earn it. 7. Mulder & Scully - The last few seasons kind of fell apart, but their reunion won back some brownie points from me. Even so, it was the deep, deep regard and love that the OBVIOUSLY felt for each other before we even had a hint that they had ever acted on it that constantly made me swoon. 8. Jack Devereaux and Jennifer Horton - If you watched daytime television in the late '80s, then I probably don't need to explain this one to you. These two were totally my teenage self's Spuffy. 9. Mark Green Doug Ross (der) & Carol Hathaway - Two words: surprise ending. Made me cry. 10. Chandler & Monica - When these two hooked up I was almost as weirded out over it as they were. But it didn't take long to realize that they made total sense. And their proposal scene was hands down one of the best proposals ever seen on television. 11. The Doctor & Rose Tyler - Nine or Ten. Both versions had their own special chemistry with Rose, and it broke my heart and left me in tears when each of them had to say goodbye. 12. Lois & Clark - Okay, after they got married it kind of degenerated into corny fluff, but up until then this was one of the most romantic pairings ever. My early-twenty-something self's Spuffy. 13. D'Argo & Chiana - Another pairing that I didn't expect, but once they got together I liked it--at least while it lasted. But even if their relationship died, their love for each other stuck until the very end. Chiana's grief at having to leave D'argo behind to face certain death was nearly matched by my own.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others' comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Joy for the season!

The TV season, that is, which is not completely shot to Hades by the writer's strike. Ausiello is keeping a frequently updated chart of when to expect new episodes for all our favorite shows.

The good news: Battlestar Galactica will kick off ten new episodes in April, and LOST will finish out its season. Supernatural will also be shooting new episodes to air late spring. Yay!

The bad: Heroes is on hiatus until next fall. Boo.

TVBFT: Boys of LOST, 3rd in series

James "Sawyer" Ford
Con man. Crook. All around bad boy.
Broken.