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Post by midwesternwatcher on Apr 19, 2010 21:21:31 GMT -5
I just finished rewatching "Who Are You?" (season 4, episode 16), where Faith and Buffy have switched bodies. Tara notices something is wrong about the person who seems to be Buffy, and wishes to do a spell to locate Buffy's real essence. She asks Willow, "Do you have something of Buffy's?" Willow thinks for a second, then says, "This ring," indicating a ring she (Willow) is wearing on the third finger of her right hand.
I don't remember Buffy giving Willow a ring. Can anybody tell me when this happens? Or should I assume it happened sometime "off camera"?
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Apr 18, 2010 20:15:12 GMT -5
Sunnydale Library? I'll remember next time time, that's where we talk about Buffy novels. Suppose I wanted to recommend some fanfic? Would that go here too?
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Apr 18, 2010 4:12:15 GMT -5
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Apr 17, 2010 22:34:32 GMT -5
When Spike tried to rape Buffy. It sickened me at the time, still does every time I think of it. A downside to being a Buffy fan is I have to think of it now and then.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Apr 17, 2010 22:33:18 GMT -5
I always assumed they didn't. After that last conversation, it would've been anticlimactic.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Apr 17, 2010 21:05:29 GMT -5
This post is a brief review of "One Thing Or Your Mother," a Buffyverse novel. Of course not all Buffy novels are good, but this one is. I'm happy to be able to recommend it to all Buffy fans.
The story is set during Season 2, after the destruction of the Judge, while Spike is still in a wheelchair and Angelus, teamed with Drusilla, is “the big bad.”
It has three main plot lines. In the first, Principal Snyder forces Buffy to work with a tutor, since she's in danger of failing her classes. The tutor, a bright college student named Todd, is attractive and pleasant. There are signs that a Buffy-Todd romance is possible.
In the second, Drusilla decides she wants a child to care for, so she sires a child vampire. This seems much in keeping with Drusilla's character. Remember she likes to play at taking care of plants and animals, but they always die under her care.
In the third, everyone in Sunnydale, including the vampires, becomes tired and irritable for no apparent reason. It turns out they are missing REM sleep because of a magic spell. If this lasts long enough, the whole town will go to sleep forever. Buffy must travel to another dimension to find the source of the spell.
All three story lines are engaging, and each of them serves the main plan of Season 2. If these stories could have appeared on the TV show, Season 2 would've been better. For one thing, Spike would've had another motive for betraying Angelus. I don't want to spoil anything, so I can't say exactly how. Read the book to find out!
Along the way, we get some backstory on Principal Snyder. For one thing, we learn that his first name is Cecil. It's true that Snyder's name plate gives his first initial as “R,” but I'm not sure that's a conflict. The initial “R” might stand for his middle name, or a nickname. It's not hard to understand why a boy named Cecil would want to change his name when he grew up.
We also get plausible answers to some questions that aren't addressed on the TV show, like why child vampires are rare, and what was Mayor Wilkins doing during Season 2.
Finally, we get some insightful character moments. One of these I must share. Here's what Todd, the tutor, thinks of Buffy:
“Buffy's brain trust ... seemed seriously underfunded at first blush, there was something there. It was hard to put his finger on, but it was in the nightborhood of a word Todd had never before applied to a girl under twenty. Wisdom.
“She obstinately kept her mind free of the facdts and tools that made academic achievement possible, but there was something else taking up that brain space, a level of experience, perhaps, that belied her age. She seemed seemed older than she was, as if she had lived more ... than any other high school junior could or should have.”
Wonderful! I'd say Kirsten Beyer “gets” Buffy, and that's enough to make me a Kirsten Beyer admirer. Too bad, Ms. Beyer has not written any other Buffy books I know of. Instead she's devoted her talents to writing books for other, inferior fandoms. Please everybody, go online and buy this book! Maybe we can motivate her to write more.
BTW, I haven't read all the Buffy novels, if anyone can recommend me one, I'd be glad of it.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Apr 17, 2010 18:37:02 GMT -5
"This Year's Girl." Wow! I'm watching them in airdate order, so now I have to watch "Prodigal" before I get to "Who Are You." I'm tempted to skip. What a great episode!
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Apr 17, 2010 18:34:05 GMT -5
One thing that always bothered me was Buffy's high SAT scores (we're never told how high). Several reasons.
1. Up to that point, Buffy seems to be a very ordinary girl, except for the superpowers. From "I, Robot You Jane" we know she has a C average. It doesn't jibe. Buffy is intelligent, no doubt about it, and she's wise, but not in a way that makes her shine in school.
2. Buffy is obtuse about math. "I pretty much suppress anything math-related," she says. Half the SAT score is math. How does that figure?
3. I don't see how it advances the plot or character development. The only positive thing it does is to make it possible(?) for Buffy to leave Sunnydale, show that she can't? Even if she didn't have high scores, she could go to Illinois and enroll in a community college or something, since she has relatives there. Of course she could move to another town, and it's a logical thing for her to consider.
If I'd been on the creative team, I would've suggested Willow go to UC Sunnydale (or a mythical selective private school nearby), and Buffy go to a local JC or possibly a branch of California State University, while Xander looks for a job.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Apr 15, 2010 18:56:59 GMT -5
I'm watching This Year's Girl (4:15) right now. I may have to watch it twice in a row.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Apr 15, 2010 18:47:50 GMT -5
Is there a link where I could download these? I'm collecting good Buffy poetry.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Apr 15, 2010 18:37:05 GMT -5
Willow refers to herself as the junior partner in comparison to Tara? When did that happen? I'd like to look it up.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Apr 15, 2010 7:23:53 GMT -5
I just finished reading "Go Ask Malice" for the second time. It's a wonderful book, a better experience than most episodes of the TV show IMHO. It'll give you a new feeling for Faith. Besides backstory on Faith, you'll also get backstory on Kakistos. I suspect that Kakistos must've been a candidate for a season big bad at some point; it never seemed natural to me that he died so easily. The scene at the foster home was my least favorite part, but I have plenty to forgive it for.
Some of the other Buffy novels are also very good. I think I'll start threads about some of them.
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Fuffy
Apr 14, 2010 23:05:12 GMT -5
Post by midwesternwatcher on Apr 14, 2010 23:05:12 GMT -5
I'm not much a shipper, but the idea of a ship between Faith and Buffy, I can't get it out of my mind. Each of them has something that the other needs and perhaps can't have. It seems to me that the two have a mutual crush in "Bad Girls," and the mutual hatred later seems to me to be a backwards love. There's a lot of fanfic about this ship.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Apr 14, 2010 22:56:02 GMT -5
Soul mates they may be, but I'd like to get a little more "reason why" if I can. Here's a thought I'd like to put out. In Willow-Oz, I felt that Oz was the "senior partner." While I don't suppose he often, or ever, "laid down the law" for Willow, I suspect he took the lead and made the decisions most of the time. In Willow-Tara, I felt that Willow was the senior partner. Maybe Willow liked that role. Does that sound right?
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Apr 14, 2010 20:56:01 GMT -5
Remember that in season 4, Willow lost Oz and then formed a new relationship with Tara. Later Oz returned (I forget the name of the episode) and she had to choose between them.
Why do you suppose she preferred Tara? What does Tara do for her that Oz doesn't? I'd like to hear some views.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Apr 13, 2010 22:00:42 GMT -5
Well, the whole concept of "canon" doesn't quite compute for me, but there are people who won't quite believe anything that didn't show up on the TV series. Check out the Buffy wiki and their discussion on the "Faith" page. Much of the information there does come from "Go Ask Malice," but it's clear there is some unhappiness with that among the people who contribute to that site (I'm one of them). Especially, Go Ask Malice gives Faith's birthdate as December 14, 1980, which would make her older than Buffy. Some fans, including myself, find this idea jarring.
If you want to know where I'm coming from, I think the whole idea of "canon" should be abandoned and forgotten. But that puts way on the "radical left" of the fandom. If I'm going to talk to other fans, I figure I have to use that notion, even if it makes me queasy. "Go Ask Malice," for instance, is a better experience IMHO than most of the episodes of the TV show.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Apr 12, 2010 21:09:53 GMT -5
I understand the producers of the original movie are considering another Buffy film, since they still own the "big screen" rights. They should be encouraged.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Apr 12, 2010 20:38:27 GMT -5
The last episode I watched was "She," episode 13 season 1. I'm watching the episodes in the order they were broadcast, first time I've been able to do this.
"She" is my candidate for the worstest (worst is not strong enough) episode in the Buffyverse canon. The allegory is so thick, it reminds me of the third season on Star Trek (shudder).
The Buffy episode just before it, broadcast the very same night, was "The I in Team." What a contrast!
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Apr 11, 2010 20:52:03 GMT -5
I don't have good answers for all the questions but I'll answer a few ... 1. Of course I love Fred. Who doesn't? I always had reservations about her, though, as a character in the Angel show. I didn't feel that she fitted in with the group. I don't quite get why she didn't go back to UCLA and continue her physics career. 2. No, I don't think she's sexy. She's attractive in other ways. 3. I don't like Fred with either Gunn or Wesley. I think these office romances should've been taboo. The "Angel gang" didn't work well as a surrogate family, for that reason. 4. Favorite Fred moment? Probably in Magic Bullet. She rose to the occasion. 5. Least favorite? Supersymmetry. I can't condone that vengeance mentality. It's strange (understandable, but still strange) that she couldn't forgive Gunn for doing what she fully intended to do herself. 6,7. Favorite, least favorite Fred episode ... can't think of one right now. I don't really think of them as "Fred episodes." 8. I took the writers at their word, no more Fred. 9. Ah, here's the interesting one. I'm not privy to Joss's private thoughts, but I can see some advantages to replacing Fred with Illyria. All the members of the Angel crew, including Fred, must suffer for signing up with W&H. We saw that coming, we'd be offended if it didn't happen. In Fred's case, it's easier to see her dying in this horrible manner than being corrupted, as Gunn was, and it has the added "benefit" (to the show, not the characters) of punishing Wesley and Gunn as well. Also, it created a strong female character who demands respect, though not affection. Finally, it shows off Amy Acker's range as an actress. NOW: All that being said, I think it was a mistake. It was jarring, it was unclear at least to me what it meant, and I never did get a clear impression of who Illyria was or where she stood. I'm left with the nagging feeling that the writers didn't think this through. I could be wrong ... maybe a sixth season would've cleared it up. The comics didn't. 10. Very natural, un-selfconscious.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Apr 11, 2010 12:48:53 GMT -5
This probably isn't the right place, but I'd like to be able to post links and reviews to fanfic that I particularly like and want to recommend. I think it'd be good to encourage people to read, as well as write fanfic.
If that's OK (I'll wait for comments) maybe I could start a new subboard or something?
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