Why do birds suddenly appear everytime Jane Espenson's near?

[angearia]

I stumbled across this old account of Jane Espenson at WriterCon back in 2004.  It's revealing and wonderfully entertaining!  Why is Jane so awesome?  She talks about her love of Jonathan, her love of shipping Spike with everyone, the subtext of Spike and Xander in the basement in Season 4, how she feels badly that the writers did a disservice to

Comments

[cindergal]

I was at Writercon in 2004, and in addition to listening to her keynote address and the Q&A, I had the pleasure of sitting with Jane at the cocktail party and chatting with her about Spike and Buffy and fanfic and other stuff. I remember asking her about some quote of JM's where he said (and I'm paraphrasing greatly) that he thought he had played Spike as too sympathetic sometimes. And Jane smiled big and said, "James played Spike just the way we wanted him to." :-)

Yes, it was as awesome as it sounds. :-)

And yes, Jane is quite the shipper - and slasher. She's adorable, too.

[angearia]

She just always sounds so wonderful! I fangirl Jane. I do!

And Jane smiled big and said, "James played Spike just the way we wanted him to."

Oh, that's aces! Thanks for sharing.

[flake_sake]

Here goes my hope that Joss will do anything to keep up the spangely vibe in S8 *sigh* (or of ever giving Failes a chance)

She really really does get it all, doesn't she? I can't wait to get more Caprica. She just picks up on all the miniature nuances between the characters and I loved what she said about Giles and Ethan. That's exactly the vibe they're giving off, without saying anything out loud.
(though I wish so hard they would at some point, it's a shame that Giles never showed a reaction to Ethan's death in S8)

Really makes me wonder what she'd have to say about the recent S8 arc and what they did to Angel there (And are going to do to Spike).

[angearia]

It's disappointing to read how inflexible Joss is about certain things. Why is he so ready to portray lesbians but then when it's two men being friends, it's "too gay"? Why is Giles too old to be romantic? It makes me think he was channeling his own feelings when Buffy said Giles having sex was gross and yucky.

I miss Caprica. I was kinda meh about the finale, but I love the way they explore relationships. More, please!

I found it interesting how Jane said she hadn't watched any of AtS Season 5 at this point because it would have been weird having no control over what came out of Spike's mouth. Gah, how much better would Spike in Season 5 have been with Jane there? Jane who loves slash!

[buffyangellvr23]

Where in S8 does it say Ethan's dead?

[kudagirl]

I love Giles and Anya. I even wrote a drabble on them. Well, it was Anya thinking about Giles after Tabula Rasa. I love when fan fiction has Anya with Giles.

I've heard James Marsters talk about Jane and he really respects her. She is the reason he was on Caprica.

I never understood why Willow was with Kennedy. Kennedy was pushy and more than a little rude to me. She was so very different than either Oz or Tara. I think Joss just wanted one relationship to be working at the end of BTVS so it was Willow/Kennedy.

I've read that they played with the idea of Xander being gay, but then went with Willow instead. There was very little male slash on either BTVS or Angel so when Spike dropped his little remark about his one time with "Angel", I was very surprised. I wouldn't have been surprised about Angelus, but he clearly said Angel. Gives all kinds of subtext ideas. LOL.

[madcap_shiny]

AW JANE. ♥ She is really very fabulous.

Also, apparently Joss would nix m/m subtext out of scripts (e.g.e between Angel and Doyle) saying it was "too gay."

Okay, see, this confuses me, because he was also the one shouting "Kiss! Kiss!" at Spike and Angel on the commentary track for A Hole In the World, no? Which, apart from the initial funny, is annoying as it is, because it's like. . .dude, you made them up, they could totally do that if you wanted them to.

I don't even know. His skanky race issues were bad enough. *facepalm*

ANYWAY BACK TO JANE LOVE.

[penny_lane_42]

The impression that I've got from Joss is that he doesn't mind playing up the m/m stuff for laughs but that he'd never seriously examine it the way he does f/f stuff. Which makes me question just why he wants to go there with women. *sigh*

Also, I think he's more open to the idea of Spike/Angel than anything else, primarily because they're vampires and not "real people."

But that's just the impression I've gotten.

Whenever you use that icon, I get so happy. Oh, Connor! And with Angel in the background! What great cropping!

[eowyn_315]

This.

[gabrielleabelle]

Also, I think he's more open to the idea of Spike/Angel than anything else, primarily because they're vampires and not "real people."

There's a Joss quote from one of the AtS commentaries (and I'm too lazy to look it up), where he comments something to the effect that "Of course Angel and Spike hooked up once or twice. They're vampires and deviants - uh, I mean, open-minded." *brownie points to anyone who's not lazy and looks up the actual quote*

Anyway, it was a very cringe-inducing slip of the tongue where he implied that vampires = deviance = homosexual sex. NOT GOOD, JOSS.

[rahirah]

I love Jane E.