"Lost Girl" musings ...
So, I've been posting a lot on the Television Without Pity 'Lost Girl' board, because despite my complaints about how everyone on the show (save Lauren) is a douche, I actually really enjoy the show and have become a little obsessed with it.
Due to my recent posting bonanza on TWoP however, I've become frustrated with the people making the show because I realized how easy it would have been to fix the things that bug me about the show. Namely:
1) Bo being too light-hearted/happy-go-lucky a character considering her background. Bo should be a broody mess. She should be more conflicted than she is. She should be tortured when she gets cases like the one in "The Mourning After" because she was Bertram for ten years (even if she wasn't proud of what she was doing the same way he did). Her devil-may-care attitude to her history of murder is really jarring.
In fact, after thinking about it (probably too much) I realized that Bo's fluffy personality really makes her seem like a sociopath (i.e. she is self-serving, routinely disregards rules, social mores and laws, and is unmindful of putting herself or others at risk. She still lives on the fringes of society, without solid or consistent economic support, and she often spontaneously acts out in inappropriate ways without thinking through the consequences).
2) The lack of attention paid to Bo training to learn how to control her hunger while feeding. We should have really seen Bo trying to ween herself, seen scenes of Bo feeding off of Fae volunteers and having to literally be pulled away from them. We should have seen her struggling against the people holding her with those succubus blue eyes, going mad with the need to keep feeding in order to show us how strong the desire to keep feeding is. Then over the course of multiple episodes we should have seen her start to gain a bit of control, then some more, and some more, until finally she was able to stop feeding herself.
This at least would have shown that it was something she needed to be trained to learn, and was something she couldn't have taught herself over the years. As things played out on the show, it seemed like all she needed was a cheerleader to tell her, "I believe in you, Bo!" in order to get her shit together.
These (especially the first one) are two really big problems. But what really galls me the most is that they are two big problems that would have been ridiculously easily to fix when the show was retooled.
Problem 1 and 2 could have been solved by having the following happen:
*Note: My screen name at TWoP is TheExaultedOne, so I'm not stealing ideas I'm just re-posting them*
If they wanted to make Bo this happy-go-lucky woman child with the social skills of an obnoxious teenager they should have, you know, not made Bo a serial murderer. They could have just had Bo be able to control her abilities from the beginning (I mean it's not like they invested much time in her learning to control her power anyway. They'd have lost like 3 min. of footage, total). They could have just had Bo's succubus appetite alienate her from people (i.e. she kept sleeping with her friends boyfriends/girlfriends, nearly got a teacher/professor/social worker or something fired because she touched them and all of a sudden they were all over her, etc.)
That way she would have still been on the outskirts of society, moving around on her own to avoid the heartache of losing the people she cared about, AND it would have allowed for her to be the laid-back, happy-go-lucky character that we see on screen because with Kenzi, Dyson and Lauren she's found people who know what she is and don't judge her/hate her for it.
Honestly, Bo being able to control her powers from the beginning wouldn't even have affected Bo/Lauren that much, because in "Vexed" Bo seemed to want to take it slow in order to be romantic (since she certainly gave into Lauren quickly enough after Lauren was all like, "I trust you okay, just do me"). They could have delayed Bo/Lauren hooking up for 8 episode by having Bo want to try her hand at really wooing someone, and by having Lauren hold back because she was afraid of what the Ash's reaction would be (and the angst of "Vexed" could still have happened exactly as it did, allowing the cheapo producers to still insert the demo pilot as an actual episode)
In fact, from a Bo/Lauren stand-point, not only would this have made the storyline more romantic, it also would have foreshadowed the "Lauren is owned by the Ash" reveal, and Bo's sudden epic!love-turned-epic!butthurt in "Vexed" would have made sense because we'd have seen her investing her heart into Lauren all along (while she had been investing her body in Dyson).
Bo being a douche (really, Bo. You're going to refer to the Ash as Lauren's "boss". Really?), Dyson often being a douche, Bo being dumb, and Dyson and Bo's relationship being all over the place (often within the same episode) would still be problems. But the show would be a lot more coherent and enjoyable if they'd just retooled Bo's background.
Due to my recent posting bonanza on TWoP however, I've become frustrated with the people making the show because I realized how easy it would have been to fix the things that bug me about the show. Namely:
1) Bo being too light-hearted/happy-go-lucky a character considering her background. Bo should be a broody mess. She should be more conflicted than she is. She should be tortured when she gets cases like the one in "The Mourning After" because she was Bertram for ten years (even if she wasn't proud of what she was doing the same way he did). Her devil-may-care attitude to her history of murder is really jarring.
In fact, after thinking about it (probably too much) I realized that Bo's fluffy personality really makes her seem like a sociopath (i.e. she is self-serving, routinely disregards rules, social mores and laws, and is unmindful of putting herself or others at risk. She still lives on the fringes of society, without solid or consistent economic support, and she often spontaneously acts out in inappropriate ways without thinking through the consequences).
2) The lack of attention paid to Bo training to learn how to control her hunger while feeding. We should have really seen Bo trying to ween herself, seen scenes of Bo feeding off of Fae volunteers and having to literally be pulled away from them. We should have seen her struggling against the people holding her with those succubus blue eyes, going mad with the need to keep feeding in order to show us how strong the desire to keep feeding is. Then over the course of multiple episodes we should have seen her start to gain a bit of control, then some more, and some more, until finally she was able to stop feeding herself.
This at least would have shown that it was something she needed to be trained to learn, and was something she couldn't have taught herself over the years. As things played out on the show, it seemed like all she needed was a cheerleader to tell her, "I believe in you, Bo!" in order to get her shit together.
These (especially the first one) are two really big problems. But what really galls me the most is that they are two big problems that would have been ridiculously easily to fix when the show was retooled.
Problem 1 and 2 could have been solved by having the following happen:
*Note: My screen name at TWoP is TheExaultedOne, so I'm not stealing ideas I'm just re-posting them*
If they wanted to make Bo this happy-go-lucky woman child with the social skills of an obnoxious teenager they should have, you know, not made Bo a serial murderer. They could have just had Bo be able to control her abilities from the beginning (I mean it's not like they invested much time in her learning to control her power anyway. They'd have lost like 3 min. of footage, total). They could have just had Bo's succubus appetite alienate her from people (i.e. she kept sleeping with her friends boyfriends/girlfriends, nearly got a teacher/professor/social worker or something fired because she touched them and all of a sudden they were all over her, etc.)
That way she would have still been on the outskirts of society, moving around on her own to avoid the heartache of losing the people she cared about, AND it would have allowed for her to be the laid-back, happy-go-lucky character that we see on screen because with Kenzi, Dyson and Lauren she's found people who know what she is and don't judge her/hate her for it.
Honestly, Bo being able to control her powers from the beginning wouldn't even have affected Bo/Lauren that much, because in "Vexed" Bo seemed to want to take it slow in order to be romantic (since she certainly gave into Lauren quickly enough after Lauren was all like, "I trust you okay, just do me"). They could have delayed Bo/Lauren hooking up for 8 episode by having Bo want to try her hand at really wooing someone, and by having Lauren hold back because she was afraid of what the Ash's reaction would be (and the angst of "Vexed" could still have happened exactly as it did, allowing the cheapo producers to still insert the demo pilot as an actual episode)
In fact, from a Bo/Lauren stand-point, not only would this have made the storyline more romantic, it also would have foreshadowed the "Lauren is owned by the Ash" reveal, and Bo's sudden epic!love-turned-epic!butthurt in "Vexed" would have made sense because we'd have seen her investing her heart into Lauren all along (while she had been investing her body in Dyson).
Bo being a douche (really, Bo. You're going to refer to the Ash as Lauren's "boss". Really?), Dyson often being a douche, Bo being dumb, and Dyson and Bo's relationship being all over the place (often within the same episode) would still be problems. But the show would be a lot more coherent and enjoyable if they'd just retooled Bo's background.
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This! Involuntarily murdering people for ten years does not a happy person make, especially if they really wished they weren't murdering people.
In the end, while there are so many good concepts and ideas floating around the show, it's poor, sloppy execution.
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So true. It's like, I don't understand why they went with this backstory for her if they were not interested in dealing with it at all. It's not like they HAD to make her powers deadly, and it's not like they made her learning to control her powers a big story line, so what was the point.
It's not like all of the successful shows on TV have murderer protagonists so they thought they better have one too.
In the end, while there are so many good concepts and ideas floating around the show, it's poor, sloppy execution.
This really is Lost Girl to a T
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It makes me want to shake someone furiously while screaming, "WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY."
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The show is just so lazy in so many ways (ex. Bo and Kenzi being insta-BFFs, Bo immediately trusting Dyson completely, Bo and Lauren's training sessions never being shown, Bo never being conflicted/angsty about her past, etc).
It's still enjoyable, but with like a bare minimum of effort it could have been a good show.
It's like, when Stargate Universe has better developed characters than your show, it's time to hang your head in shame.
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This got me when I first watched episode one. The relationship they have now in episode ten is exactly the same as their relationship in the first AND THAT IRRITATES ME. Even when Kenzi was like, "I'll support your choices no matter what!" it didn't impact or change their relationship at all, just reiterated something we already knew—Kenzi is Team Bo.
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*Sigh* I know. I like their relationship, but it would have been so much better to see it develop. Like Cara/Kahlan is such a moving friendship because we saw HOW they came to care about each other, and WHY they respect/admire each other.
I could go on, but I feel like I'm rambling at people alot about this show, so I'll just repeat ... lazy, lazy writing.
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I'm not sure how this escaped my attention because you are deadly right about this.
Problem 1 and 2 could have been solved by having the following happen:
Now I feel like there needs to be a rewrite Bo's history, as you said. Or, a rehash of all the previous episodes because they way you described her tying to ween herself off sounded like a much more appropriate way to treat her character.
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It's kind of easy for it not to pop out right away. It was only when I was responding to other people's comments that I was like, "wait a minute!" But once you have the thought it's impossible to unthink it.
I feel like there needs to be a rewrite Bo's history
There really should have been when they retooled the show. It's pretty much too late for it now, but some simply rewriting of her history would have made a lot of things much easier to deal with.
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In Vexed, you obviously saw a lot more of the darkness that one would assume would be there after years of incidental murder. If you take that into account, I guess my assumption is that it's always there but she simply chooses to push it down as much as possible. And I think maybe she is supposed to be a little sociopathic. She's had to learn to ignore her conscience and learning that she can live without killing is forcing her to re-evaluate the sense of morality she had established for herself. She's sort of being set free and if she spent too much time dwelling on the fact that she didn't have to be killing people that whole time she would probably be crushed by the guilt. So she's focusing on the positive. That's a whole lot of rationalization on my part, but it helps.
The second issue, though - her control - that really bothers me. The opening sequence (..love..death sentence... blah blah...) seems a little over dramatic considering six episodes in she was able to feed without killing without any real background on how she got to that point. Really, the two problems could have been solved with the same very brief scenes. Struggling with controlling her powers would make an excellent parallel to struggling with her own killer past.
The whole issue of Bo herself seems incredibly glossed over in the re-tooled episodes we've seen. We don't see her relationships' consistent development, we don't see her gaining control over her powers, and we don't see her dealing with her past. I feel like making some awful pun regarding the show title and the character development, but... yeah, it's pretty awful. I wish everything could just kind of start over again with a focus on Bo instead of the meandering, freak-of-the-week episodes, but instead I'm just hoping that maybe there will be a more plot-centric drive to the second season. It wouldn't even really be that hard to go back and do a little light dusting over the first season in the second to make things seem a bit more coherent.
Speaking of coherent, sorry if that was incredibly long and convoluted. Hopefully you got an idea of what I was getting at.
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I think this is what they are trying for, but as is the norm with the show they are kind of piss poorly presenting it.
If the fluffy-ness is a front that Bo is putting forward, we should still see some glimpses of turmoil beneath the surface every once and a while. For example, the character of Damon from "Vampire Diaries" puts on an unaffected, nothing can faze me front, but we get moments where we see his depth and his pain, before he paints a smirk on his face again.
Even if Bo is wise-cracking, and smiling most of the time, every once in a while we should see something deeper from her, something that shows that inside of her she feels the weight of her past, even if she can't let it show most of the time.
The way the show portrays Bo (both writing and acting) just doesn't show that Bo acts this way because she has to in order to go on. She just comes across as genuinely being capricious instead of pretending/making herself act capricious.
The whole issue of Bo herself seems incredibly glossed over in the re-tooled episodes we've seen. We don't see her relationships' consistent development, we don't see her gaining control over her powers, and we don't see her dealing with her past.
Your right, the writing for Bo has been incredibly lazy. She is the star of the show, the protagonist. She should be the character that is the most defined, and yet she's so thinly drawn. I was just thinking about the other day in terms of fic writing, and how hard it is to write fic for this show because Bo makes no sense. It's impossible to get a sense of her internal self, because she is so contradictory on the show. It's like the writers just want to make her every single badass female they've ever seen on TV at once.
- Fights Fae like Buffy fought vampires.
- Has a dark, murderous past and a spunky side-kick who keeps her focused like Xena.
- Dresses up and goes undercover, often with her partner/handler like Sydney Bristow.
- She is tortured by her knowledge of the future (in Bo's case a prophecy) like Sarah Connor.
- Likes to dress in dark, tight clothes, has been forced to live on her own for years, and has uncontrollable sexual urges due to her biology like Max from Dark Angel.
And so on ...
The difference is that those characters were strongly, and carefully developed, and as a viewer you understood them and why they did the things they did. Yes, even Max from Dark freaking Angel was better written. It's like the show doesn't realize that Bo can't be both Buffy AND Faith.
I wish everything could just kind of start over again with a focus on Bo instead of the meandering, freak-of-the-week episodes, but instead I'm just hoping that maybe there will be a more plot-centric drive to the second season
Hopefully there will be some fine-tuning for the second season. I realize they can't undo her past now, but hopefully in season 2 they'll a least start to address some of the things they've been ignoring.
I don't even really mind the case-of-the-week format. It can be used effectively (i.e. The Good Wife. It has a new legal case to be solved every week, but in-between the lawyering it focuses on character and character relationships and slowly and carefully develops it's characters). Lost Girl just has the characters do whatever is needed to further the plot, which often makes the characters inconsistent.
I think that's one of the reasons Lauren is my favorite, because she's the most consistently scripted character on the show.
Speaking of coherent, sorry if that was incredibly long and convoluted.
As this long-ass response indicates, I don't have a problem with length replies! It actually makes me happy to know others are thinking about this show as much as I am :D
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Not gonna be popular after this post, I know.
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I like to think it suffers from the Glee Effect a bit. It is fabulously ridiculous and campy and fun, but it has just enough drama that you want to take it a little seriously too. Only problem is that there's not enough overall plot or thematic continuity to give it that extra edge that would really make it awesomely engaging.
Definitely agree that it's good silly fun regardless of any other faults though.
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From the beginning the show hasn't known what it really wants to be. Like, why would they make Bo someone who's killed for years if they wanted her to be a fluffy, innocent character? They could have just, you know, not made her have killed people! She's their creation. But they WANTED a dark edge to the show.
Then, episodes like the spider one, and the forest guy one, and even the foot soup one definitely have a funny concept to them. But this weeks episode was a about a serial murderer who gleefully killed off women if pretty horrific ways (shown and discussed in detail). That is not a case that should be dealt with campily.
I like the show, I watch it religiously, from my episode posts you can tell I get excited when I'm watching it. I just wish that someone/some people had thought things through more clearly. Because with a minimum of effort they could have avoided my major issues with the show.
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It's been renewed so there will definitely be a second season. You don't have to worry about that ;)
I don't know how much killing BO has done in her past. I know she's referred to a boy from her first sexual experience other than that I don't how much she has used her succubus powers till she hooked up with Kenzi
She told Lauren in the pilot that she had been waking up to a 'string of dead lovers' for a decade, so I'd say she's killed quite a few people.
She also killed that guy in the elevator in the pilot, she nearly killed that landlady (if Kenzi hadn't hit Bo over the head that woman would have been dead), and she was ready to sex-up (and therefore kill) that guy in the hardware store.
So ... yeah, I'd say Bo's left a pretty hefty body count behind her.
Honestly, as much as I hate on Dyson, his magical Fae peen has saved a lot of male and female human lives my keeping Bo's vaginal happy for the past few months.
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Yea, I'd say that would be quite a few! I would've found that very disconcerting to say the least! lol But since she was a succubus by nature and didn't know it, maybe she just couldn't stop herself. Now that they have a second season perhaps they will settle in and tell us some backstory and dig a little deeper.
As for Dyson, you know I like him in the beginning but since Lauren got involved I don't like the whole pitting them against each other scenario that is building. I know, it makes for good drama but we know who always gets the girl in those situations. But this show is just wanky enough to throw all that to the curb and do something totally different. I don't know. I'm with you in that I hope this show makes the most of what it has going for it, which I think is a lot!
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I'm sure she couldn't stop herself once she started feeding, but my sympathy for Bo only goes so far. If she'd only been feeding off of scumbag's (like elevator guy) I'd have a lot more sympathy for her, but her going after the guy in the hardware store led me to believe that she's never been all that picky, and that makes her actions pretty inexcusable.
I couldn't dredge up an ounce of care for the date-rapist Bo killed, but some random person that was probably succubus'd by Bo deserves a better fate.
I really wish they'd had her make a comment about only feeding on low-lifes or something.
Now that they have a second season perhaps they will settle in and tell us some backstory and dig a little deeper.
Hopefully, although it wouldn't surprise me if they ignored her past killing, or tried to ret-con it out of existence (which in this case I could probably deal with).
I've just decided to have no expectations when it comes to this show and just watch and wait.
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The show is campy and I don't have a problem with camp. I suppose my whole point with the post was that if they wanted to make a campy show that they shouldn't have given Bo such a dark past if they wanted the show to be light-hearted.
You have to admit, it's an odd concept to make a show about a killer campy (I mean honestly, can you think of a show that's overall campy that's had a main character with a past like that? Xena had some campy episodes, but overall it was a drama, and Xena's past as a warlord wasn't overlooked).
If they'd just made Bo able to control her abilities from the beginning, the show we've watched so far, could have happened pretty much exactly as it has, and stayed the same in tone (camp and ridiculousness) and it would have made a lot more sense.
For example: Bo would still go to Dyson for healing etc., because she can take as much energy from him as she wants because he heals more quickly than humans. The Bo/Dyson relationship stays the same.
Bo and Lauren don't happen for eight episodes because Bo wants to be romantic and get to know her first and Lauren is afraid of the Ash's reaction to her and Bo hooking up. Bo/Lauren stays the same.
By simply not making Bo have killed people for years the show could have avoided the pitfalls it's fallen into now and could have been as campy, and fun, and ridiculous as it wanted AND the main character would have made sense instead of being so confusing.
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I think the writers really came up with a concept for the show that was too complex for them.
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I guess we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.
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I think it's a lose-lose situation talking about Bo, because she's written so inconsistently that it's impossible to really pin her down.
I found a lot of what you said about Bo trying to do what's 'right' or 'good' accurate in that it is what the writers are putting forward on screen, but I maintain that with the background they gave her, her actions and black/white viewpoint make no sense whatsoever.
But moving on ...
Bo's character is boring as hell, the Fae-of-the-week case is useless and poorly written, the narrative lacks rythm, why is every other character more interesting than Bo (why is every other actor more talented than Silk), give Kenzi and Dyson something to do, WE WANT LAUREN BACK AS A REGULAR, and so on...
A thousand times YES! to all of this. To be honest, I don't need more Dyson (I'm anticipating not really digging this weeks episode because the preview was ALL ABOUT DYSON), but give me more Kenzi (who I've been ADORING for the past few episodes), give me more Trick, and definitely give me more Lauren.
'm kinda cynical because I honestly don't think the writers will change anything
This. I've kind of resigned myself to the fact that what we've gotten so far, is pretty much all these writers can do. This show is always going to be a guilty pleasure. It's never going to be legitimately good, but I'll keep watching it because it's not supernatural creatures, hot chicks who make out with chicks, some great one-liners, and Zoie Palmer.
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At its best, this show still evokes good sci-fi/comedy vibes for me, like BtVS and Angel, or even the Darin Morgan eps of X-Files. I am cutting Lost Girl a lot of slack because there isn't anything else like it on the air right now.
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YES! It would be so much easier to for me to deal with Bo's past if she was a Succubus!Dexter. And honestly, it only would have required like one line of dialogue. Instead of the "if waking up next to a string of dead lovers, isn't sick, then I want a second opinion" line (which, I'm sorry didn't make me feel sorry for Bo at all), they could have had her say something like, "If having to spend my days hunting down the scum of the earth so that I can live and still sleep at night isn't sick, then I want another opinion." THAT'S IT! That one sentence would have made Bo's past palpable, and it would explain why she's not that angsty about her past because killing scumbags will weigh on a person less than killing innocent people.
This bespeaks an ugly lack of compassion and is nigh impossible to fanwank away. Bad writers. Bad!
To steal
I am cutting Lost Girl a lot of slack because there isn't anything else like it on the air right now.
Word. Despite my complaints I don't plan on stopping watching the show. It's got enough things going for it to keep me around.
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Some other urban fantasy also has this problem. The protagonist does bad things and because it is convenient for him/her, it is considered the right moral thing to do. Usually makes me quit reading if this pattern repeats.
I don't know how to accurately explain the phenomenon but something like horrible irresponsibility comes quite close.
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I totally get this. Despite this little rant I'm not going to stop watching the show. It entertains me. It is often dumb, and makes no sense but I still enjoy it.
The protagonist does bad things and because it is convenient for him/her,
For instance characters that complain about how they had no choice but to smut-ify their aura ;)
horrible irresponsibility
LOL! This is such a good phrase.
Horrible irresponsibility describes Bo so well.
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I can understand them not wanting to go down the tortured soul route, as it's rather overdone in the genre, but if they'd chosen that path they should have given her an appropriate backstory. Personally, I'd have loved to see a darker side to her character, because it would have added an extra layer to her main relationships and provided a simmering rage that could be exploited in the betrayal-reveal to come. As it is, she simply lacks depth, and while that's okay in a fluffy show, it really shows when they try and do darker episodes.
As someone else mentioned, her instant best friends/sisters relationship with Kenzi is another sore point. I do love seeing them interact but there is a lack of substance to their relationship that makes me assume it could be over just as quickly as it began (the LotS writers need to send over their character development notes).
I'd love to see this first season rewritten as both a fluffy (Bo not a killer) and dark (Bo a killer and screwed up about it) version, because I think both have potential... know of any femslash writers up for the challenge? *g*
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(Anonymous) 2010-11-27 01:08 am (UTC)(link)no subject
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So, I'd say her heal-sexing with Dyson is still in the sexing category.