Couldn't resist this meme

[trinityvixen]

There will be an update on the burlesque, housewarming parties, and more Snakes on a Plane, but first, a meme stolen off this fanfic journal I read:

Assemble a superteam from your various fandoms. Your team must consist of the following:
(1) Team Leader
(1) Warrior
(1) Smartypants
(1) Hottie
(1) Comic Relief

All your superteam members must be from DIFFERENT fandoms. Whether your team has a 'theme' (all girls! all Brits! etc.) and their scope-- whether theyfight vampires, serial killers, invading aliens or work to preventlittering-- is up to you.

And I have several themes, too!

Team Beat Yo' Ass
Team Leader: Admiral William Adama (Battlestar Galactica)
Warrior: Samuel L Jackson (LIFE, duh!)
Smartypants: Brainiac (Smallville)
Hottie: Bruce Wayne (Batman)
Comic Relief: Hannibal King (Blade)

Sit, Team, Sit!
Team Leader: Ace (DC)
Warrior: Bronx (Gargoyles)
Smartypants: Ein (Cowboy Bebop)
Hottie: Sesshoumaru (Inu-Yasha)
Comic Relief: Speak (The Tick)

Kiss the Boys and Make them Cry Team
Team Leader: Laura Roslin (Battlestar Galactica)
Warrior: Zoe Warren Washburne (Firefly)
Smartypants: Willow Rosenberg (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Hottie: Aeryn Sun (Farscape)
Comic Relief: Holly (Red Dwarf)

Team Snark-o-saur
Team Leader: Dr. Gregory House (House)
Warrior: Susan Death (Discworld)
Smartypants: Simon Tam (Firefly)
Hottie: James "Sawyer" Ford (LOST)
Comic Relief: Brian Griffin (Family Guy)

Team Shoe-Size IQ
Team Leader: Clark Kent (Smallville)
Warrior: Jayne Cobb (Firefly)
Smartypants: Arnold J Rimmer (Red Dwarf)
Hottie: Tasuki (Fushigi Yuugi)
Comic Relief: Phillip J. Fry (Futurama)

Comments

=-O

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

Again, I say to you that Kara Thrace is not overwrought or melodramatic, and is thus NOT EMO.

Not overwrought or melodramatic?!?!?!?! O_O Are you kidding? When she's not feeling happy half the ship knows about it. Nearly all her interactions with the first officer are overwrought to hammer home the point that she does not like the fact that he drinks on duty. Whenever someone does something to displease her, the show she puts on to show her displeasure cannot be missed. Sure she's not the crying type of EMO (technically batman isn't either) but she telegraphs EMO all the time.

You. Have. to. Die.

And direct scud missles at you or something. At the very least, I curse you!

Eh, get in line. There are reason why people refer to me as a "Tank" or "Indestructible". Nothing like a army of folks seeking to harm you to keep you in tip-top battle condition ^_^

Re: =-O

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Look up the definition of "melodramatic," dude. It does not mean "isn't subtle about how one feels." It means "exaggeratedly emotional or sentimenal," "histrionic," or "characterized by false pathos and sentiment."

Now, go rewatch Battlestar Galactica. Starbuck? Not any of those things. If the entire crew of the Galactica knows when she's pissed off? That's because she makes no bones about how she feels. But her honest, vulnerable, or downright unlikeable emotional moments are tightly guarded, even when she confronts Tigh in the miniseries (he started the fight that got her thrown in the brig, remember). She's always in control until someone pushes her last button and she snaps. That is not histrionic--that's restrained. She doesn't lie, either, or bathe in false pity and misery--she really has had a hard-ass life, and she's doing amazingly well (almost sane, even) despite that. She tells how she feels; she doesn't sit around and go "Woe! Woe! Me! Me!" She goes out and has fun. Sometimes, fun is beating on other people, but they almost always deserve it (which is why she and Apollo always come to blows because he always deserves it and he hates being made aware of the fact just how pissy he is normally).

You're seriously misreading that character if you find her melodramatic. I'd give you Boomer--"Oh noes! Tyrol broke up with me! I totally want to DIE!"--and I've tried to give you Apollo all the frakkin' time--"Waaaah, I had to kill people!!! I can't do that--I'm in the military!" Because seriously? They are the whiners, the ones prone to wild mood swings and outrageous crap.

Re: =-O

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

For the record I did look it up prior to my comments, and yup she still fits the bill. She tries to hide it at times, but it shows up often enough to spot... if you don't let Apollo's uber-emo drown it out.

So where is this melodramatic Starbuck... two words "Zak Adama". Every single time he's come up in anything more than passing you can see it on her face, in her walk, she just oozes "pity me for I've been bad". This is the one area she can out EMO Apollo but she buries what he flaunts. Other than anger and extreme happiness Starbuck is an emotional repressor. It's why she is so prone to blowing up at people. If you look for the signs you can almost count off when she's going to blow. But on those few times where she was actually powerless, even for a moment, you can see scared little child EMO just burst out like a geyser. Maybe you don't see this as EMO because she keeps a lot of it hidden, but to me that's just another expression of her passive-aggressive nature.

Re: =-O

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you're off your rocker. I don't argue that Apollo out-EMOs everyone, but Starbuck is not a whiner, she doesn't wallow in guilt all the frakkin' time, and she's not just hiding it when she's being herself (aka NOT EMO) 99% of the time. Take, for instance, her scene in "The Farm" where Simon tells her he's seen the x-ray of her hands and knows that all her fingers were broken at one point. She snaps at him, he leaves, and she does the most heartbreaking thing and tucks her hands under the blanket so she doesn't have to look at them. If that scene were to be played out in EMO-vision, she would have gone on and on about how she was beaten as a child, woe woe woe. The fact that she refuses to dwell on past trauma most of the time makes her not emo. That's like the definition.

When Starbuck first talks about Zak, she doesn't break down. She doesn't do the "I'm suffering, too, you know" routine. She just tells Apollo, "Give your dad some frakkin' slack, Lee; he didn't put the guy who wasn't ready in the cockpit. I did, and I have to live with that." Later, when she's basically forced to re-enter the position she was in when she lost Zak, excuse me if I don't think that it's emo to be a tad conflicted about it or to, you know, think about the similarities and worry about a repeat of history. That's fairly human. If, at every turn they lost someone, Starbuck brought up Zak or flashed back to his death, then, only then, could you contend she was emo. She's not hung up on him irrevocably, she doesn't use him to trump and win all arguments over whose life sucks most in conversation (you'll note that she is never the one to bring up her history of abuse either--only Cylons ever have, and, to date, I'm not sure any members of the Fleet know).

And emotional repression isn't emo either. Yes, some emo people are emotionally repressed, but it doesn't work both ways (you can be a Republican in New York, but not all New Yorkers are Republican, right?). And the emo folk who are "emotionally repressed" are actually "Crying for help" emotionally repressed, as in they're not at all repressed, and they find an excuse to bring up why their life sucks at any and every opportunity so they can appear cool and soooo over it by then saying "I don't want to talk about it, I'm fine."

When Starbuck isn't fine, she frakkin' says so, and then does what she needs to in order to get better (often swallowing very bitter pills to do so, like when she had to put up with Col. Tigh ribbing her about still being in bed when her knee was shattered, or Adama not letting her fly while she was injured, or allowing Kat to kill Scar, apologizing to Lee for shooting him, et al). She doesn't always soar, but she doesn't keep herself in the gutter (her determination to rescue Sam Anders wasn't just because she was desperate in a love that would not be, but part of a very real promise she made to help the people stuck on Caprica). I can't see as that qualifies her for emo. Are the Zak references sometimes a tad emo? Sometimes, yes, they're a bit schmaltzy (mostly because we never see exactly what attracted Kara to Zak), but is Starbuck emo? Abso-frakkin-lutely not.

Re: =-O

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

And the emo folk who are "emotionally repressed" are actually "Crying for help" emotionally repressed...

My point exactly. She is always in search of something to take her out of "that place". She could be called a self hating emo given the fact that every time she goes emo she tends to slug something near her or go out and do something entirely self destructive. She gets angry at herself for feeling emo which then gets displaced as anger towards the nearest things she could get angry at. It's little more than a tough act to hide her pain. I can easily see future episodes where the psylons play her like a fiddle give how predictable she becomes when she's having such an event.

If you look at her character in the good times, you could see someone who could easily have been made a young first officer in no time (hell she has the credentials). What's stopped her from getting there.... herself. She's a giant bucket of emo trying to just pass herself off as a slightly thugish pilot who doesn't always follow orders. When she's got a goal, she gets it done. If you leave her to her own devices then the emo factor kicks in and all hell breaks loose.

Sam Anders, on some level at least, gets her. She sees that he kind of gets her. That's why she likes him so damn much. It was part that and part her promise to a fellow soldier that made her got back for him. I believe he can see some of the open wounds and is giving her a chance to heal naturally (unlike Apollo's emo salt on a emo wound method).

Maybe we have to agree to disagree on this one given that our two definitions of emo seems to be pretty far apart. It's all good. You think she's not and I think she SO is. We can leave it to the writers to prove the other wrong ^_^

Re: =-O

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I'd love to know what your definition of emo is then, because, brother, it seems like your defintion is "possessed of strong emotions." If you want to say Starbuck is emotional, fine, I won't argue. But the term "emo" as slang is an insult slung at people whining about problems they don't actually have, hence why Apollo is emo, Starbuck is not.

Here's a few definitions of emo:
From Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emo_%28slang%29) "The term "emo" has also been used in recent years on the Internet as a form of insult, especially toward those who appear emotionally unstable, or those who talk about issues in their lives to people in public forums or chat rooms."

And Urban Dictionary: (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=emo) "A group of white, mostly middle-class well-off kids who find imperfections in there life and create a ridiculous, depressing melodrama around each one."

That last one is the key--they make up problems where there really are none. Having an abusive parent, losing your fiance, these are not melodramatic things (being cause of death of your fiance is, I grant, a tad melodramatic). If Kara had risen up the ranks like you say she'd be a) the most unrealistic character on a fairly amazingly realistic show, and b) a Mary Sue and thus completely unlikeable. The fact that the emotional abuse has stunted Starbuck's ability to succeed is necessary to enjoy her--we can applaud her for doing well knowing how it hasn't ever just been easy for her. Mary Sues blow hardcore.

And, using the same definition, you see why Apollo is emo. Because he had two loving parents, at least a pair of stepparents, he was a good student, pilot, soldier, and officer, he's cute, buff, and not too dim, and he still whines like a bitch about how Daddy didn't love him hard enough. Bitch bitch bitch. Starbuck doesn't use her issues with her mother to garner sympathy. She trusts some people to know (one can assume Zak and Sam both did/do) because she trusts them not to stab her in the back or use the information to make her even more vulnerable than she was sharing it in the first place. That's awesome. And so not like anything you associate with emo...

Re: =-O

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

Ok we are both agreed, Apollo is way EMO!!! Base root seems to be the loss of his brother and the desire to do his brother's girl (both while he was alive and after his passing). The Daddy issue is largely a smoke screen and used as a tool to try to manipulate his father. He's also anal-retentive but we won't go into that, especially since that actually helps his military career.

Though it comes up a tad short, the Wiki quote for emo comes closest to my definition. The part I would change is "...those who talk about issues in their lives to people in public forums or chat rooms." to "and those who act out on said unstable emotions without seeking resolution to them". For me, I see Kara acting out but liking the state she's in. She likes the roller coaster and wants to take everyone along for the ride. She doesn't involve them with words but she does with her actions. It's why, to me, her scenes with Adama seem to play out as "you did this, so your emotional state is currently this, and I should say that".

Re: =-O

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Though it comes up a tad short, the Wiki quote for emo comes closest to my definition. The part I would change is "...those who talk about issues in their lives to people in public forums or chat rooms." to "and those who act out on said unstable emotions without seeking resolution to them".

Yeah, that's not the right definition, dude. It's just plain not. It's some weird variation on the term 'emo' that neither I nor just about anyone would ever associate with that term, regardless of upon whom you used it. Emo is about apathy, whining, and complaining. It's not at all about action. Emo people don't have unstable emotions, they deliberately pick at the smallest problems and overinflate them into drama. Having actual problems that you spread all over the internet to get sympathy is emo, mostly because you want attention. But you're not acting out, you're just whining into a different space.

Acting out on your instabilities is acting out on your instabilities. It's pro-active, destructive, unhealthy. Emo is lazy, let-them-come-before-me-and-heap-upon-me-attention-I-don't-deserve-for-problems-I-don't have, and besides which it doesn't hurt you except to spoil you with attention. Emo is all about pretending or, if you have some problem (you're bipolar, you did actually try to commit suicide) dwelling on it until people aren't allowed to criticize you for fear of you hurting yourself again or, heaven forfend, being upset.

Not telling someone that you dislike what they're doing because they might hit you isn't an indicator of emo. Emo kids are self-inflicting and they try to get you by guilt, by twisting your sense of sympathy and desire not to see people in pain. People like Starbuck are more liable to not broadcast their pain and when they're pissed off, they take it out on the person pissing them off (except for "Scar" she's not been self-destructive, far from it). That's confrontational. It's emotionally unhealthy, but it's not emo.

You'll have to find another slang term because if you use "emo" the way you want it to mean (as opposed to the way it's pretty much understood), I guarantee no one is going to agree with your assesments and you might wind up being set upon by a fangirl or two ( ::whistles innocently:: ) out to defend their character/fandom/et al.

Re: =-O

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

You'll have to find another slang term because if you use "emo" the way you want it to mean (as opposed to the way it's pretty much understood), I guarantee no one is going to agree with your assesments and you might wind up being set upon by a fangirl or two ( ::whistles innocently:: ) out to defend their character/fandom/et al.

I think I'll stick with mine definition for now. I find more folks with the emo label fitting my version than the ones you describe (the only slag term I have that fits your description would be "pussy" and usually is in reference to a male type). Then again I do tend to run a lot of psych profiles which gives me a different perspective on people {by your definition of emo I've known hyper- and super-emo's who would later fall into my definition of emo once they air the right things to expose the root of their real problem(s)}.

As for being set upon by fangirls, I'm not worried. If sticks, wooden swords, baseball bats, and metal garbage cans haven't hurt me then I doubt many fangirls could. Hell the last one to actually bruise me took over an hour to do that, and earn the respect of dozens of my friends. So my answer that would have to be the movie quote "I'll make you famous" =-)