What's the point of a revolution without general copulation?

I got two wonderful gifts today and because I am just that awesome, I am willing to share them with y'all!

First, dreamlittleyo wrote me Sam/Dean for help_haiti. It's a shamelessly self-indulgent AU where it turns out that Dean - but no! I shall not spoil the surprise. Anyway, it's just what I wanted. Schmoop and angst and boys who are protective and badass. \o/!!

Second, as a total surprise to me, thuviaptarth made a stunningly gorgeous Festivid treat. It's a character study of Rebecca Locke from The Inside, and it's absolutely perfect in every way. Ideal song choice, fantabulous deconstruction of her world and her deeply dysfunctional and creepy relationships with Web and Paul. It's an absolute thing of beauty. Oh, my show! (Also, her notes compare Paul/Web/Rebecca to Ballard/Boyd/Echo of Dollhouse, and jesus, that's exactly right except that The Inside did it way, way better and Rebecca is far more compelling and complex than Echo ever was. But man, yes, that's exactly right!)

Let me explain.

No. There is too much. Let me sum up.

Read this, and the comments.

I lied, I'm commenting on the SGU thing.

There are many, many things wrong with this defense of the episode (including the bullshit claim that they're raising questions which is so obviously an after-the-fact justification it isn't even funny; they may be raising questions but they aren't questions about sexual orientation, or real-life consent, etc. - they're building other questions on the bodies of women, people of color, and gay people, and ignoring that their "fantasy" scenarios bear very close resemblance to real-life dangers for particular groups of people) but mostly, I'm fascinated by the many comments by people claiming it isn't rape.

And, of course, this is the same creative staff that brought us SGA's Irresistible, about the hilarious guy who drugged women into servicing him in his own personal harem. Good times.

(Which is exactly why Dollhouse can't work, why Dollhouse's refusal to use the word rape is absolutely inexcusable, despite the claims of the show's defenders that Dollhouse isn't endorsing the rape. The problem is that we're not working from a blank slate or even a common definition. People don't recognize rape when they see it. They don't recognize it without the name, and even then they work very very hard to define the word as narrowly as possible. Dollhouse makes this kind of rape look slightly more sinister than every other instance of it on TV ever, and then offsets this with constant rape, 2 to 4 instances per episode - and still spends an inordinate amount of time on the rapists' good sides and their philanthropic ambitions. And I keep trying not to rant about Dollhouse again, except that this sort of casual portrayal of rape is so very, very common, and when it comes up it's hard to talk about it in a vacuum.)

I should add - sheafrotherdon is blogging this whole thing extensively.

The VVC vids are starting to get posted. I'm not only pulling them from my FList, but I'm also haunting the FList of the VVC community for other postings. I've only just barely started diving into them and I will eventually have many recs, but I wanted to drop a link to kiki_miserychic's Bale Out Christian Bale Remix. It's a Dollhouse vid set to that mix of Christian Bale's freakout, and the insane thing is it works. Like, not on a comedy level - but, like, the song is actually ideal. It's so awesome.

Have fun at the rest of the con, VVC people. I promise you're having more fun than I am...

*goes back to work*

(PS: The movie Australia is so awful that not even Hugh Jackman could keep me watching past the first forty-five minutes. Why didn't anyone warn me?)

For anyone like me who was mourning the renewal of Dollhouse in the face of T:SCC's cancellation,this post explains the economics. Basically, Fox owns Dollhouse but not SCC, which allows Fox to profit from a wider variety of items.

Edit:. As elz points out, they keep using that word "feminist.". I do not think it means what they think it means.

I found a really fascinating NPR story about It Depends On What You Pay and the changes to the lyrics over time, featuring an interview with the lyricist.

Song: It Depends On What You Pay from The Fantasticks
Artist: Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones

Fandom: Dollhouse

Summary: You've come a long way, baby.

Spoilers: Through "Haunted"

Sizes: 30.8 MB (540 x 360 .avi), 13.3 MB (420 x 280 .wmv)
Length: 2:48

Download: Monsters from the Vids

Notes and Warnings:

I'm really not sure if a warning is necessary here, but I'd rather err on the side of caution and say that the song may be a bit ... triggery? Possibly.

It Depends On What You Pay is from the 1960 off-Broadway musical The Fantasticks. The original production of The Fantasticks ran continuously for 42 years, making it the world's longest running musical. By 1990, however, for reasons that will be obvious when you see the vid, It Depends On What You Pay had been largely excised from the show. Recent productions of The Fantasticks either include the song with a different set of lyrics, or delete it entirely and substitute a new song in its place.

The version used in the vid is from the original cast recording, and is performed by Jerry Orbach. It has been edited for length.

( Streaming link and embed under the cut )

Thanks so much to cathexys, danegen, sol_se, and Thuvia Ptarth for their comments. Any flaws are entirely my own.

Comments would be appreciated. Cross-posted to LJ.