![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grav_ityOh, Sanctuary! I wasn't really expecting to find the Best Show Ever when I started watching you, and I didn't...but I did find a Really Good Show, despite my initial doubts. What it lacks sense-making properties it makes up for in prettiness, costumed flashbacks, creative name dropping, great acting and a really, really excellent premise. I've come up with 10 things that I usually hate about other shows, but for some reason love to death about Sanctuary. I even almost know why I feel that way. :)
1. Helen Magnus is not a Mary-Sue. What do you call a woman who speaks every language on the planet (and then some)? Who raises an awesome daughter and several surrogate sons? Who conquered gender stereotype before it was cool? Who not only convinced the boys to play with her, but got them to follow her brilliant and crazy plans? Who can kick your ass six ways from Sunday? Even if you have a gun? AND THERE ARE EIGHT OF YOU?
"Ma'am", obviously. And then you try like hell to stay on her good side, because she's had a century and a half to practice and she is not above ending you if you require it (but she might also just lock you away for ever and love you until the day you die, and even let you go if the only other choice is to kill you, because she's like that too).
More details about why I love Helen can be found here.
2. There's a de-fanged vampire who is in love with the female lead. Oh, how I hate this one. I hated it on Buffy, I hated it on Veronica Mars, but for some reason, I love it on Sanctuary. Perhaps because Nikola Tesla is so awesome otherwise? Perhaps because his vampired persona is pretty much the same as his unvampired persona? Perhaps because he's been doing this dance for so long he doesn't know how to stop, even though if she ever did sleep with him he might die from shock because he's always surprised to find out that people have really liked him all along.
3. The immortal characters don't whine about how much they've lost (much). Not Helen when Ashley dies, not Tesla when he ends up with Baby!Vampires instead of Grown up ones (incidentally, that was the moment that cemented my love for Tesla: he has NO INTEREST in eternal teenagers, THANK GOODNESS), and not John whose immortality might just save as many lives as it takes. Inside him, the Elemental is limited to what John lets it do (or perhaps what John fights it to stop?). If he dies, the Elemental will just go pick on someone else. By living, John spares someone else that burden and keeps the damage to a minimum...at the cost of his own soul. Yeah, I kind of love him.
4. There's a very violent man who is not far into his redemption arc. And usually when someone gets "But he has a soul now!" or "But it's not his fault! It's the monster inside him!" I start making angry livejournal posts about it, but for some reason I feel nothing but pity for John Druitt.
John Druitt should creep me out a lot more than he does. Part of why he doesn't is because of Christopher Heyerdahl's excessively gentle presence (is it possible to be gentle and menacing at the same time? I wouldn't have thought so, but somehow CH does it), but a larger part of it is that Helen more than meets him half-way. And again, if it were Buffy and Spike I'd be annoyed because she's forgiving him too easily, but for some reason with them it's different. Probably because of the energy being that makes him kill people, but mostly because she made him, and she loves him anyway because she still feels a little bit bad for not figuring it out in time.
Also, they're not sixteen. This helps immeasurably.
5. Sometimes the writing is really dumb. And I'm not talking Bollywood Dance Number, Two-Ended Devamper dumb. I'm talking can't follow it's own rules dumb. The most egregious of these is at the end of season two when Helen is unseated as Head of House by an unanimous vote of the other Heads, which somehow includes BOTH DECLAN AND RAVI (not to mention that Egyptian lady, who had made her feelings about Wexford clear). And then Helen has scenes with both men and...nothing. So I thought I'd misunderstood the part where Declan and Ravi were in charge, until Part III, when it became really obvious that they WERE. But I've let it slide, because the show makes up for it in other ways.
6. There isn't really a Big Bad. The Cabal? Done in one season and then its subsidiaries were murdered offscreen by John and Tesla. Forsythe? Grew a conscious at the 11th hour and took one for the team. Crazy Non-Priest Dude? TWO EPISODES of mischief (I really thought we were gearing up for a two front war with that one, and then it was just over). Random FBI Agent Will Does Not Remember? Totally not evil (when Will didn't recognize her, I was all "EVIL!!!!", but no dice). Lots of shows get by without Big Bads, but this one keeps setting them up and then...knocking them down right away. Possibly because the Big Bad is actually whatever permutation of The Five is currently shacking up in the Sanctuary, and we just don't know it yet.
7. Everyone is in love with Helen. And I mean, WHO CAN BLAME THEM? But seriously, all of the good guys, most of the bad guys, and even the Shades of Grey guys are in love with Helen Magnus. On the surface, it's excruciating. One woman, four men, pistols at dawn to duel for her honour...except none of them are that stupid. Thank goodness. Whatever they thought of her when she showed up at Oxford, whether they took her as a joke or a muse, she made them accept her as an equal...and she was just awesome enough that they did. And then when she did fall in love with one of them, the only hard feelings went to Tesla, and he was already looking for a reason to be bitter (I love him, but dude has a persecution complex like no other).
The convoluted interpersonal relationships of The Five aside, Modern Helen has just as much going for her. Presidents, artists, a Beatle (my bet is George Harrison), and Elanor Roosevelt at the very least loved her. And again, originally she would have been a muse, an interesting dinner conversation, a challenging new job. But Helen doesn't settle for that. She makes you better. And then you're really screwed.
8. There's a love triangle. Well, sort of. It may just exist in my head. And it's more of a tetrahedron. Really there's a lot of what I like to call The Hobbit Effect, wherein if you spend enough time in the trenches with someone, you love them. And goodness knows, they've all spent enough time in the trenches. It's also complicated by the fact that I really, really shouldn't like Helen/John as much as I do. Because John is not a good person. But really, neither is Helen...and she can deal with him. It's the redemption arc of their story that appeals to me, for both of them, and how much it just hurts. But I want them to live happily ever after (or at least non-murderously ever after), and I'm pretty sure I won't get it. Their love story, as the much reviled Logan Echolls says, is epic: "Years, and continents. Lives ruined and blood shed. Epic.", except when Logan or Spike or Damon says it, they're hoping, predicting. With Helen and John, it's their LIVES, and they kind of regret nothing about them. And I shouldn't love them, but I do.
And when you add James (OH, GOD, JAMES!) and Nikola and Nigel into the mix (and mix, and mix, and mix), and stretch it out across a century and change? *dies of hotness and delicious complications*
9. There are other characters on the show who take away screen time from The Five. And by this I mostly mean Will. Whom I really do like, when it comes right down to it. I just don't care. Because given the choice between a modern forensic specialist who does things differently and a quasi-Victorian psychodrama? NOT EVEN A CHOICE. But when it comes right down to it, I love the day to day operations of the Sanctuary, and sometimes it's nice to see them done through Will and Kate and Henry, and not have to worry about the crushing weight of a hundred years of backstory. It's balance, which is key. Plus, I can always rewatch the episodes that make me need to put my head between my knees and breathe.
Also, I should note here that this show often employs the "Bringing Home the Beacon" method of story-telling, which I like, because it involves the boys sitting around and talking about their feelings while the girls do all the heavy lifting and ass kicking. Oh, how I miss Ashley! Especially the part where she and Helen have a hand signal for "we work together, or we die".
10. Sometimes, the show is really smart. Like the time Will was all "They can't be from the 8th century because they're speaking modern English." Or the time Will was all "How are her clothes invisible?" and John was all "She's not wearing any!" (followed, hilariously, but Will's panicked look of "I CAN'T TACKLE A NAKED GIRL!" and John's scathing glare of "Oh for the love of, WHICH ONE OF US IS VICTORIAN AGAIN?"). And yeah, they use EMPs for EVERYTHING, but Tesla can kind of make it work, so I'll allow it. It's not like that's the most unreasonable thing we've ever seen from the show. And Helen is freaking brilliant (not in a science way like Watson or Tesla, but in a PRACTICAL way), and can if needed set up elaborate schemes to catch dangerous telepaths, mentioning the season ending abnormal to boot!
The real achievement here is that they gave me about 10 people to love, and I love them all. Some of them I love more than others, obviously, but whatever plot, special effect and continuity issues I have with the show, it comes down to the part where I adore the characters (even though sometimes their development suffers from the aforementioned shortcomings of the show).
In conclusion, some fic recs. Because I've had all of 12 hours to find good fic. ;) (I haven't copied the warnings here, but they are all available at the top of each fic I recced. Assume darkness, considering the source material.)
I'll Leave With Every Piece of You, by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zinke. My review of this was not "Hot Damn!" but it might as well have been. I was worried that fandom couldn't possibly give me the fic I wanted for these two. And then of course the very first one I read was perfect, because you guys are awesome. This is Helen Magnus, and she is freaking awesome. (Helen/John, M)
Suns in Their Courses, byartaxastra. Helen Magnus gets what she wants. Tag for 3x08, warnings for violence as the story features Jack the Ripper. (Helen/John, M). I shouldn't like them, but I do.
Cravings, bypenknife. Set about two weeks after The Five take the source blood, there are some...results. Some of which are hilarious. Some of which are toothy. And one of which is Helen Magnus being awesome (are you noticing a theme? I thought I noticed you noticing). I particularly like the Tesla in this fic. He's out of sorts and it's adorable. (Helen/John, again, but with hints of others, M)
Family Dinner, bypenknife. There are about a million ways this story could have gone horribly wrong, but penknife manages to avoid all of them. When James and John show up in season one, Helen forces Ashley to have dinner with them, and Ashley in turn forces Henry (Will, of course, couldn't stop himself if he tried). It's kind of funny. And mostly Henry. And mostly gen.
Breathless, byartaxastra. THE FLASHBACKS! They slay me. Set between seasons one and two, Helen and John just cannot ever catch a break. Ever.
Dust, bypenknife. We don't really see them mourn. So we write fic about it.
Untitled Series, byartaxastra, which I can't help but think of as the "Do No Want" series. Basically, it tells how they all met, before Helen went to Oxford (which incidentally, is something I kind of like...that she met them BEFORE Oxford instead of after). Anyway, the previous stories are all linked at the top of "Dance", but "Dance" is my favourite. Again, I find myself completely enamoured with Tesla, and Watson is just SO HOPELESS AT EVERYTHING, but the others are just as funny and Victorian as you can imagine. Plus, Helen and John's first meeting nearly set the room on fire, so there's that.
Ice Into Water, by jjtaylor. This one is Helen/John/Tesla, taking place after the Lazarus virus cure has been found. It's not usually my thing, but once again Tesla just kills me. This is, I think the best example of how they've been manipulating one another for so long that they just do things because they all know they all understand. In this case, Tesla willfully allows himself to be placed between an unstoppable force and an immovable object, and the results are, well, electric. (M)
And now I think I will take a brief fandom vacation (nothing new, anyway) and maybe try to get some writing done...
1. Helen Magnus is not a Mary-Sue. What do you call a woman who speaks every language on the planet (and then some)? Who raises an awesome daughter and several surrogate sons? Who conquered gender stereotype before it was cool? Who not only convinced the boys to play with her, but got them to follow her brilliant and crazy plans? Who can kick your ass six ways from Sunday? Even if you have a gun? AND THERE ARE EIGHT OF YOU?
"Ma'am", obviously. And then you try like hell to stay on her good side, because she's had a century and a half to practice and she is not above ending you if you require it (but she might also just lock you away for ever and love you until the day you die, and even let you go if the only other choice is to kill you, because she's like that too).
More details about why I love Helen can be found here.
2. There's a de-fanged vampire who is in love with the female lead. Oh, how I hate this one. I hated it on Buffy, I hated it on Veronica Mars, but for some reason, I love it on Sanctuary. Perhaps because Nikola Tesla is so awesome otherwise? Perhaps because his vampired persona is pretty much the same as his unvampired persona? Perhaps because he's been doing this dance for so long he doesn't know how to stop, even though if she ever did sleep with him he might die from shock because he's always surprised to find out that people have really liked him all along.
3. The immortal characters don't whine about how much they've lost (much). Not Helen when Ashley dies, not Tesla when he ends up with Baby!Vampires instead of Grown up ones (incidentally, that was the moment that cemented my love for Tesla: he has NO INTEREST in eternal teenagers, THANK GOODNESS), and not John whose immortality might just save as many lives as it takes. Inside him, the Elemental is limited to what John lets it do (or perhaps what John fights it to stop?). If he dies, the Elemental will just go pick on someone else. By living, John spares someone else that burden and keeps the damage to a minimum...at the cost of his own soul. Yeah, I kind of love him.
4. There's a very violent man who is not far into his redemption arc. And usually when someone gets "But he has a soul now!" or "But it's not his fault! It's the monster inside him!" I start making angry livejournal posts about it, but for some reason I feel nothing but pity for John Druitt.
John Druitt should creep me out a lot more than he does. Part of why he doesn't is because of Christopher Heyerdahl's excessively gentle presence (is it possible to be gentle and menacing at the same time? I wouldn't have thought so, but somehow CH does it), but a larger part of it is that Helen more than meets him half-way. And again, if it were Buffy and Spike I'd be annoyed because she's forgiving him too easily, but for some reason with them it's different. Probably because of the energy being that makes him kill people, but mostly because she made him, and she loves him anyway because she still feels a little bit bad for not figuring it out in time.
Also, they're not sixteen. This helps immeasurably.
5. Sometimes the writing is really dumb. And I'm not talking Bollywood Dance Number, Two-Ended Devamper dumb. I'm talking can't follow it's own rules dumb. The most egregious of these is at the end of season two when Helen is unseated as Head of House by an unanimous vote of the other Heads, which somehow includes BOTH DECLAN AND RAVI (not to mention that Egyptian lady, who had made her feelings about Wexford clear). And then Helen has scenes with both men and...nothing. So I thought I'd misunderstood the part where Declan and Ravi were in charge, until Part III, when it became really obvious that they WERE. But I've let it slide, because the show makes up for it in other ways.
6. There isn't really a Big Bad. The Cabal? Done in one season and then its subsidiaries were murdered offscreen by John and Tesla. Forsythe? Grew a conscious at the 11th hour and took one for the team. Crazy Non-Priest Dude? TWO EPISODES of mischief (I really thought we were gearing up for a two front war with that one, and then it was just over). Random FBI Agent Will Does Not Remember? Totally not evil (when Will didn't recognize her, I was all "EVIL!!!!", but no dice). Lots of shows get by without Big Bads, but this one keeps setting them up and then...knocking them down right away. Possibly because the Big Bad is actually whatever permutation of The Five is currently shacking up in the Sanctuary, and we just don't know it yet.
7. Everyone is in love with Helen. And I mean, WHO CAN BLAME THEM? But seriously, all of the good guys, most of the bad guys, and even the Shades of Grey guys are in love with Helen Magnus. On the surface, it's excruciating. One woman, four men, pistols at dawn to duel for her honour...except none of them are that stupid. Thank goodness. Whatever they thought of her when she showed up at Oxford, whether they took her as a joke or a muse, she made them accept her as an equal...and she was just awesome enough that they did. And then when she did fall in love with one of them, the only hard feelings went to Tesla, and he was already looking for a reason to be bitter (I love him, but dude has a persecution complex like no other).
The convoluted interpersonal relationships of The Five aside, Modern Helen has just as much going for her. Presidents, artists, a Beatle (my bet is George Harrison), and Elanor Roosevelt at the very least loved her. And again, originally she would have been a muse, an interesting dinner conversation, a challenging new job. But Helen doesn't settle for that. She makes you better. And then you're really screwed.
8. There's a love triangle. Well, sort of. It may just exist in my head. And it's more of a tetrahedron. Really there's a lot of what I like to call The Hobbit Effect, wherein if you spend enough time in the trenches with someone, you love them. And goodness knows, they've all spent enough time in the trenches. It's also complicated by the fact that I really, really shouldn't like Helen/John as much as I do. Because John is not a good person. But really, neither is Helen...and she can deal with him. It's the redemption arc of their story that appeals to me, for both of them, and how much it just hurts. But I want them to live happily ever after (or at least non-murderously ever after), and I'm pretty sure I won't get it. Their love story, as the much reviled Logan Echolls says, is epic: "Years, and continents. Lives ruined and blood shed. Epic.", except when Logan or Spike or Damon says it, they're hoping, predicting. With Helen and John, it's their LIVES, and they kind of regret nothing about them. And I shouldn't love them, but I do.
And when you add James (OH, GOD, JAMES!) and Nikola and Nigel into the mix (and mix, and mix, and mix), and stretch it out across a century and change? *dies of hotness and delicious complications*
9. There are other characters on the show who take away screen time from The Five. And by this I mostly mean Will. Whom I really do like, when it comes right down to it. I just don't care. Because given the choice between a modern forensic specialist who does things differently and a quasi-Victorian psychodrama? NOT EVEN A CHOICE. But when it comes right down to it, I love the day to day operations of the Sanctuary, and sometimes it's nice to see them done through Will and Kate and Henry, and not have to worry about the crushing weight of a hundred years of backstory. It's balance, which is key. Plus, I can always rewatch the episodes that make me need to put my head between my knees and breathe.
Also, I should note here that this show often employs the "Bringing Home the Beacon" method of story-telling, which I like, because it involves the boys sitting around and talking about their feelings while the girls do all the heavy lifting and ass kicking. Oh, how I miss Ashley! Especially the part where she and Helen have a hand signal for "we work together, or we die".
10. Sometimes, the show is really smart. Like the time Will was all "They can't be from the 8th century because they're speaking modern English." Or the time Will was all "How are her clothes invisible?" and John was all "She's not wearing any!" (followed, hilariously, but Will's panicked look of "I CAN'T TACKLE A NAKED GIRL!" and John's scathing glare of "Oh for the love of, WHICH ONE OF US IS VICTORIAN AGAIN?"). And yeah, they use EMPs for EVERYTHING, but Tesla can kind of make it work, so I'll allow it. It's not like that's the most unreasonable thing we've ever seen from the show. And Helen is freaking brilliant (not in a science way like Watson or Tesla, but in a PRACTICAL way), and can if needed set up elaborate schemes to catch dangerous telepaths, mentioning the season ending abnormal to boot!
The real achievement here is that they gave me about 10 people to love, and I love them all. Some of them I love more than others, obviously, but whatever plot, special effect and continuity issues I have with the show, it comes down to the part where I adore the characters (even though sometimes their development suffers from the aforementioned shortcomings of the show).
In conclusion, some fic recs. Because I've had all of 12 hours to find good fic. ;) (I haven't copied the warnings here, but they are all available at the top of each fic I recced. Assume darkness, considering the source material.)
I'll Leave With Every Piece of You, by
zinke. My review of this was not "Hot Damn!" but it might as well have been. I was worried that fandom couldn't possibly give me the fic I wanted for these two. And then of course the very first one I read was perfect, because you guys are awesome. This is Helen Magnus, and she is freaking awesome. (Helen/John, M)Suns in Their Courses, by
artaxastra. Helen Magnus gets what she wants. Tag for 3x08, warnings for violence as the story features Jack the Ripper. (Helen/John, M). I shouldn't like them, but I do.Cravings, by
penknife. Set about two weeks after The Five take the source blood, there are some...results. Some of which are hilarious. Some of which are toothy. And one of which is Helen Magnus being awesome (are you noticing a theme? I thought I noticed you noticing). I particularly like the Tesla in this fic. He's out of sorts and it's adorable. (Helen/John, again, but with hints of others, M)Family Dinner, by
penknife. There are about a million ways this story could have gone horribly wrong, but penknife manages to avoid all of them. When James and John show up in season one, Helen forces Ashley to have dinner with them, and Ashley in turn forces Henry (Will, of course, couldn't stop himself if he tried). It's kind of funny. And mostly Henry. And mostly gen.Breathless, by
artaxastra. THE FLASHBACKS! They slay me. Set between seasons one and two, Helen and John just cannot ever catch a break. Ever.Dust, by
penknife. We don't really see them mourn. So we write fic about it.Untitled Series, by
artaxastra, which I can't help but think of as the "Do No Want" series. Basically, it tells how they all met, before Helen went to Oxford (which incidentally, is something I kind of like...that she met them BEFORE Oxford instead of after). Anyway, the previous stories are all linked at the top of "Dance", but "Dance" is my favourite. Again, I find myself completely enamoured with Tesla, and Watson is just SO HOPELESS AT EVERYTHING, but the others are just as funny and Victorian as you can imagine. Plus, Helen and John's first meeting nearly set the room on fire, so there's that.Ice Into Water, by jjtaylor. This one is Helen/John/Tesla, taking place after the Lazarus virus cure has been found. It's not usually my thing, but once again Tesla just kills me. This is, I think the best example of how they've been manipulating one another for so long that they just do things because they all know they all understand. In this case, Tesla willfully allows himself to be placed between an unstoppable force and an immovable object, and the results are, well, electric. (M)
And now I think I will take a brief fandom vacation (nothing new, anyway) and maybe try to get some writing done...
