commodorified: aaah, subtext. Sexual subtext is FUN, whether it's double entendres or heroic couplets -- or double entendres IN heroic couplets. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's disturbing, sometimes it's hot -- sometimes all three. But it's fun; we get pleasure from it.

rahirah: Pilate's question, with vampires I'm wary of comparing BtVS directly to real life, because Slayers aren't ordinary girls, and vampires of whatever flavor aren't ordinary bad boys, however one defines that. Buffy isn't just Buffy. She's also an iconic hero, and Everywoman--she's Everywoman as iconic hero. Angel and Spike aren't just Angel and Spike. Angel's the Archetypical Guy Who Turns Into A Jerk After You Sleep With Him, and the personification of mankind's warring impulses towards good and evil, and a metaphor for substance abuse. Spike's Buffy's darker impulses, and an allegory of moral growth, and who knows what-all else. BtVS and real life, I think, can only be properly mediated through a buffer of metaphor.

prillalar: Bewitched, bothered, and bemused. How do stories or other works grab you and demand to be created? Is it a physical sensation? Do some stories ride you and others leave you alone?