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Post by wenxina on Jul 1, 2010 14:36:37 GMT -5
I have never complained about gratuitous male nudity. Ever. Period. Full stop. Still pissed we didn't get that scene of shirtless Topher. After Simon Tam, Topher's my biggest Whedonverse crush. Sopher? Timon? Either way, nerd pairing made in gay geek heaven.
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Post by wenxina on Jul 1, 2010 13:18:58 GMT -5
We cannot endorse illegal downloading on the forum, and as far as I know, there is no legal way to read S8 unless you buy it. Amazon.com sells the trades which usually collects individual arcs with the occasional one-shot. Otherwise, Barnes and Noble, TFAW.com, and other vendors also carry the books in one form or another. You can also look on eBay.
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Post by wenxina on Jul 1, 2010 11:06:57 GMT -5
Heard that this was possibly the lousiest movie of the year (and the year ain't over yet)... I mean, last I checked, it was ranked 6% on Rotten Tomatoes. That's erm... wow. I mean, even New Moon managed to score in the 20s, and I thought it was pretty weak sauce.
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Post by wenxina on Jul 1, 2010 10:08:07 GMT -5
Heck, a gratuitous shower scene... why not? Might as well objectify the men too...
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Post by wenxina on Jul 1, 2010 10:06:31 GMT -5
Can I petition for Chen to do a Warhol-esque cover instead? I think they used up all their Warhol pastels to color the Goddesses in Retreat. Give me dark mood over psychedelic--this is BtVS, not Austin Powers. ;D If there's going to be trippy time travel involved, Austin Powers may be a good reference point.
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Post by wenxina on Jun 30, 2010 21:58:45 GMT -5
Hi wenxina, I sent you an entry today and just wanted to make sure you got it? Thanks!! I didn't receive it. Did you send it to wenxina@slayalive.com? Could you please resend it? So sorry. Thanks.
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Post by wenxina on Jun 30, 2010 21:28:17 GMT -5
Egads... why is this thread revived?! Bad memories of the time when we were plagued by a bunch of people of varying degrees of social ineptness, with some bordering on sociopathic if not just straight up crazy flakes.
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Post by wenxina on Jun 30, 2010 21:19:36 GMT -5
What can I say, Em... I'm not a portrait kinda guy. Very few portraits actually touch something in me... and the rare ones that do are more often than not, photos (think Afghan Girl on the National Geographic cover).
I dunno if brown can ever be done right. I mean, it's nowhere as bad as the craptacular browness of the middle of "AtF", but seriously... brown = ACK! It's just a depressingly overused color. Can I petition for Chen to do a Warhol-esque cover instead?
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Post by wenxina on Jun 30, 2010 16:19:58 GMT -5
The Colbert Report is not a news source... nor is it meant to be taken seriously. At least that's my understanding of it. The entire show is satirical, with Colbert parodying pundits. The best comparison I can think of is that the Colbert Report is kinda like what The Onion is to newpapers.
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Post by wenxina on Jun 30, 2010 15:48:20 GMT -5
Was bored, so I decided to ask Espenson via Twitter (gotta love it for some things) if the tone of "Harmony Comes to the Nation" was meant to be satirical. Her RESPONSE.
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Post by wenxina on Jun 30, 2010 11:17:26 GMT -5
Different strokes, I guess. Whereas Emmie could stare at that Chen cover all day, I took a look, went "Meh", and moved on with my day (I think our mind-meld is weakening... egads!). A short list of my issues with the Chen cover: - It's brown. Again. Or more accurately, it's that muddy palette that Chen keeps using. And it's getting old. If I see an apple or banana that color, the last thing I wanna do is eat it.
- It really doesn't tell me anything... other than Buffy may be sad/tired/depressed/downtrodden/etc. Everyone has their own spin on what Buffy may be feeling, but the cover doesn't tell me why. A cover should draw you in, and while I guess it's working for some, I personally find it pretty but empty.
- When compared to Chen's superb #5 cover, this one just pales in comparison. Both are portraits of Buffy (well, one's a decoy, but wearing a mask), but while the #5 cover has emotion and something interesting to look at, this one stops at giving me sad Buffy. The #5 cover made me go, "Ack! Her face is a mask! Why is it a mask?! Wait, decoy Buffy? Is this like Mission Impossible?!" Also, Buffy's sad face was better there.
- When compared to the variant cover, this one really wouldn't generate that much discussion by itself at all. Had this cover been released a while back instead of the variant, we wouldn't be on page 4 of discussion now. I mean, we arrived at "baby bump" with Jeanty's cover (don't know how, but we did), and all I've seen so far in terms of Chen's cover is, "Buffy is tired..." which is kinda old news, IMHO.
So yeah... not feeling the love for it. Which is cool... having a variant to choose from is always aces! Unless both covers don't rock your happy (*cough*#36*cough*).
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Post by wenxina on Jun 30, 2010 11:01:55 GMT -5
Government cover-up =/= government saying that vamps are peachy. More likely that they're operating behind the scenes, making sure that whatever evidence they want to be found gets found, etc. As I pointed out before, yes, it's generally hard to rally people towards a cause. Unless there's a crisis of sorts. That usually gets a majority of people in one boat or the other. But then again, who said anything about all the world necessarily being wrapped up in this Slayer vs. vampire deal? That's assuming that everyone has gone fanatical. Which, in the real world, is generally not the case. There are tons of apathetic people on every issue. Even countries where fanaticism is prevalent have their fair share of people who just don't give a damn. Or can't give a damn. But you never hear about these people for the most part. Because they're not doing anything except going on their day to day lives. It's the fanatics that make the news, that make lasting impressions that outsiders will have of a particular nation. Apathetic people don't go out of their way to get bitten, but neither are they going to a pro-Slayer rally. Especially given the social pariah status of Slayers at the moment. So while you're arguing that the people who don't buy the cute vampire schlock must automatically be anti-vampire and/or pro-Slayer, I think you're forgetting the majority of which are probably neither. And given the degree of fakeness of reality TV these days... I don't think you'd be hard-pressed to find a bunch of people who just think that the whole thing is baloney anyway. I mean... vampires? What have you been smoking, and do you have a prescription for it?
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Post by wenxina on Jun 29, 2010 19:47:58 GMT -5
Maggie: Just reread the piece, and it's not my favorite piece... but, this is how I read it. Harmony is playing up the "evil"... the mockery is in the part where the "universally accepted truth" is that she's nice, but she's playing evil here, just to be "Look at me, I'm so evil. Really... don't you buy it? Do I seem evil to you?" In other words, it's like someone that everyone knows is the sweetest person in the world acting like a bitca, just because there's a rumor floating about that she's really sociopathic. That's how I read it. As for the experience effect, how many people know for a fact that their loved ones were killed by a vampire? Before Harmony, vampires pretty much kept a low pro, unless they wanted a massacre. And even then, which is more logical? I saw a vampire killing someone? Or some crazy person with a messed up face? If we want to argue a realistic reaction here, as in model their reactions after ours, I'm going to say the latter. Say a dead body turns up in the mortician's office, and they rule that the person was killed by a wild animal. Would you disbelieve them in place for the more supernatural explanation of "vampire attack"? And hey, if the Colbert short is supposed to be taken at face value, then you should just consider the world at large covered in a thick layer of magic dust, since the people are worshipping beings that admit to killing people for snacks and giggles. I'm gonna hold off on debating this further... today's been a day of long posts and my internet is acting wonky.
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Post by wenxina on Jun 29, 2010 17:48:10 GMT -5
I'll go with tired and dejected in Chen's cover, and positively freaked in Jeanty's.
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Post by wenxina on Jun 29, 2010 17:46:19 GMT -5
except for those lucky enough to be defended by a contingent of evil, racist, fascist, Nazi Slayers. Would be ironic to have Simone having to defend the helpless by killing the demons, all whilst bitching about it.
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Post by wenxina on Jun 29, 2010 16:44:54 GMT -5
Again with the "Hmmm... pretty, but... empty?" Chen cover. Oh well... at least I know for sure that I'm getting the Jeanty cover for this issue.
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Post by wenxina on Jun 29, 2010 16:42:02 GMT -5
Maggie: I'm saying that the entire Colbert Report short is meant to be read as satire, yes. Kinda like watching a segment of the show. And so yes, Colbert is in on the joke, but doesn't necessarily act like it. Mostly because his character is supposed to be a "well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot" (according to Colbert). And hey, if you want real-world realism... satire is used to poke fun at certain groups of people. If you accept Harmony's appearance on the Colbert Report to be satire, then it's fair to say that they are poking fun at the people who are either anti-vampire, or at least wary about them. Again, I don't really care if the universe is driving the mania to further Its own agenda or anything. If that's the case, so be it. However, in the spirit of keeping things consistent in the 'verse, the public is intensely stupid. Been that way all this time, and I really don't see the impetus to change that to reflect a more natural (natural to whom? Us?) reaction. I guess that's largely the crux of my argument. To boil it down: people are stupid. Or rather, people in the Buffyverse are stupid. Not all of them, but in general. And so, just as we just accepted that no one questioned the giant snake or the fang bites or whatever, at least not on screen, why has that changed now? There's no world-building here. The world already exists. Things went south for the Slayers over the course of a year. It wasn't at the turn of a dime. That one incident was the turning point. Then add in stolen submarines, blowing up freighters, evicting a village, and whatnot and you arrive at terrorists. Then factor in interviews and magazine stories with Harmony, and more than likely, other vampires who've "narrowly escaped death at the hands of a Slayer", and suddenly you get racist, genocidal terrorists. Oh wait, they have superpowers too? Superpowered, racist, genocidal terrorists, organized into an army, divided into "cells" (that's army intel)... The more info the public gets about Slayers, the more "other" they become. So yeah, the anti-Slayer stuff was built up quite plausibly, as you said. I guess all I'm saying is that in keeping with the general in-joke of the 'verse that people are stupid, the pro-vamp thing isn't that hard to believe, using in-'verse logic. It's not any more wacky than what was asked of us before. And so far, things line up quite well... despite the clumsy execution of most of the "Predators and Prey" arc.
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Post by wenxina on Jun 29, 2010 15:03:37 GMT -5
See previous post to previous post stating how the Colbert Report is satirical. The whole Harmony short can be taken as tongue in cheek.
As for debate... well, one, fairly new topic. Not that much to debate about, and calling a new minority group evil is like saying "Evil evil [insert minority group here]". It's regarded as tasteless. Same could be said about what's happening to the Slayers, but hey, what is humanity if lacking in good ol' irony at times. Also, if they believed the balance of power to be shifted in favor of Slayers, technically, they aren't a minority (not in terms of power anyway). Also, since I don't buy that people actually understand the evil that vampires represent (not just evil like I stole the last Hot Pocket with the extra special sauce, even though your name was on it, but evil in the I will sire you and feed your mother's uterus to you for jollies kind of way). Harmony's "confession" on the Colbert Report was satirical. In other words, there is no word out there about the evilness of vampires. So, debating the issue would be pointless, quite literally. Also, barring even a hypothetical pro-Slayer stance... we're talking about arguing for the side of the Nazis here. Slayer=Nazi, as far as we know. It's so textual it's stated right on the page. The current conflict isn't just about shunning unpopular Slayers. It's escalated to the point of persecution. Like the Salem Witch Hunts/Trials.
I don't think we're not supposed to be outraged since we, the readers, know that Slayers are the basically the cosmic balancers of evil. But the world of the Buffyverse is inhabited with people who haven't been privy to that information. And let's not forget the single most forceful driving factor in a lot of what people do: fear. Fear drove the persecution of innocent people during the witch hunts. Fear of being overthrown made King Herod kill a bunch of baby boys. And fear... not very rational... at least in the response part.
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Post by wenxina on Jun 29, 2010 14:09:49 GMT -5
I'm going to respond in general to both zamolxis and Andrew here. As for the time argument, there is merit to that. However, the one thing that crises do better than making headlines is unifying people. For a crass and exploitative example, see the US post-9/11. The sequence of events from that moment on is still dizzying to me... and I was still on the other side of the world at that point. The crisis at hand here is the existence of the ubermensch, the Slayers. Suddenly, the world at large is made aware of an army (use the term "sorority", or "sisterhood (same thing, yeah yeah)", or "support group", and the response would probably have been less extreme) of superpowered beings. And then you have reports of these beings (I'm using beings to make the point of "otherness") taking what they want, doing what they want, living above and outside the law (c'mon, Buffy violated at least 5 laws about carrying arms everyday of high school). Then you have the term "terrorist". Voll described them as such in #1. Blowing up a shipment of seemingly harmless plushies... terrorists indeed. And, from an academic POV, some people may view Slayers as being racist (see vampire, kill vampire) and practicing a form of genocide. There are nuances, but hey, even some fans miss those nuances, so are we expecting an ignorant public to understand them?
If there was a spell of some sort involved, I'm not opposed to the idea. It really doesn't bother me one way or the other. And this of course is based on my skewed perspective of humanity as not being as nice or civilized as we like to think we are.
But onto addressing other matters. Re: police... I think it was Snyder who put it this way: "The police of Sunnydale are deeply stupid". That can also speak about most people in positions of power. Although, with the revelation that the Mayor was evil, a lot of it can be handwaved away. But what about post-S3? Those parents saw the Mayor become a HUGE snake. Probably saw the vampires approaching. I'm sure some of those parents were cops, doctors, EMTs, etc. They sure as hell never put two and two together (5?). What I'm saying is, why do we expect the people that populate that world to actually act differently now? Sunnydale may be small, but they ain't no hill folk (no offense, hillbillies). And if you're going to accept that Sunnydale as a stupid hick town, how do you explain LA? And while we're on the topic of LA, let me just make an observation: why isn't anyone getting down on Willingham for his current plotpoint of people wanting to be sired by Angel? I mean, LA at large went through hell and saw demons and vampires for what they were, and now they want to be vampires? Personally, I think the answer is quite simple. We fixate on the most pressing issues. In Willingham's run, the plot is the least of our issues with each issue. Rather, the OOC characterization is usually what we fixate on.
Which leads me to the actual point: Why is no one asking for the flipside? Because at the moment, they're stuck in a much bigger story. We're talking one of socio-geo-political interest. It's not the rest of the world commenting on the US foreign policy. It's the entire world questioning their own policies, trying to fix the problem that is a global Slayer Army. A single unified army spread all over the world. Now, that's kinda scary. There's no way they know that the army they fear is only something like 500 (and dropping) girls. The hot topic at the moment is "Who are they? Where did they come from? Why are they here?" And the media needs to cover these things to stay relevant. It's been what? A year since all hell broke loose for the Slayers? A year may seem like a long time, but objectively speaking, we're talking of a very compressed time frame here. A year post-9/11, we were still talking about Osama. And pardon me for being cynical, but I also don't remember a lot of articles asking why he did what he did in the spirit of pure journalistic spirit. Every story has a bias. Even the ones that sought to depict the man behind the mayhem made him look like a monster (for the record, I think he is a monster, but whatevs). Oh... and I don't think Buffy's PR reps were around to hand out statements from her. They were being attacked, on the run, and who were the journalists going to talk to? Slayers not enlisted in the army? Slayers enlisted who were forthcoming? This isn't just a "Don't Ask Don't Tell" issue. We're talking about coming forth when A) you might be vilified for the rest of your life, B) killed, or C) charged with multiple charges that I'm sure could be leveled against the Slayers.
And let's talk about the possibility that the government is feeding the media anti-Slayer material. Why not? Vilify your opponent. Make them the "other". Vampires can be coddled for now... they're just "animals" anyway. That was the military stance on HSTs back in S4. Beasts to be tempered. They were playing with forces they didn't understand. But that's what the human race does. We don't understand a fraction of what there is to understand about how chemicals affect us and the world, but that doesn't stop us from creating new ones every day. To assume that the government would learn from their mistake is to assume that humans as a whole, learn from them. And yet, our historical record would indicate otherwise.
As for skeptics and conspiracy theorists... well, they don't necessarily have to be making things better for the Slayers, do they? I mean, right off the top of my head, I could spin up some story about how the Amazons were real, and Slayers are the descendants of these women, and all those abductions that happen on a daily basis, well, they aren't being trafficked by cartels or anything quite as mundane. It's the Slayers that are taking them. Raising the girls to be like them (no doubt feeding them some steroid mixture), and using the boys for procreative and servant purposes. Suddenly, Slayers are the new ETs.
As for the nature of vampires, they've also been known to cooperate for a greater purpose before. In a small-scale way, they band together in feeding groups. In a larger context, they will follow a messiah if it suits their purposes. Like Adam. They aren't just popular now. Popularity is fun. But, what sweetens the deal is that Slayers are being vilified and persecuted. It's having your cake and eating it too. Sure, there'll be vampires who like Ash, think that Harmony's an idiot and will do things their own way. But it's really not that hard to hide a body or ten. And not counting corpses, but people go missing every day. Without a trace. Just poof. Not necessarily the work of vampires. Maybe it's the Slayers...
I'm not saying that your points don't have any merit. I wouldn't bother responding at length if they didn't. I'm just saying that there are a lot of ways to get around certain issues. And it's really not asking more of us to wonder about the what ifs. Not more than previously anyway. The only thing that's changed is the sense of scale, but that doesn't change the mechanics of the world.
But, if Joss wants to add a spell, then he adds a spell. Personally, I feel like that would whitewash humanity at large, and that's a get out of jail free card I don't think we (or they) deserve.
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Post by wenxina on Jun 29, 2010 12:07:37 GMT -5
The observable facts are: Hey, pretty blonde vampire gets randomly attacked by a Slayer. Slayer=bad. Then they spin the whole "vampires are misunderstood" thing. Yes, they bite, but no one has really seen a vampire kill. Sunnydale and LA always found a way to look the other way when it came to demonic activity. Unlike us, the world in the story has been pretty oblivious to vampires, demons, and more importantly, the metaphysics of vampirism. The Colbert Report short notwithstanding. And the Colbert Report is also satirical. Meaning that it wouldn't have been taken seriously, but rather tongue in cheek. And Harmony issued a no-kill policy. Yes, there'll be some that won't listen (like Ash), but what are they other than bad seeds? A member of a minority does something bad... do we say "ALL of the minority is bad?" Do we wipe out the minority? Or hey, what's the legal/ethical standpoint on siring? You have to technically kill a person to sire them. What if it was voluntary? Should it be allowed? Or should that be considered akin to suicide or assisted suicide?Euthanasia? What about free will? I mean, if you're reading the ANGEL books right now, the same issues are raised.
So really, what you have is vampires who appear mostly harmless, except that they need to drink blood. Big deal... people are lining up to offer their necks. And for many preteens now, their first, and therefore most lasting introduction to vampires is the Twilight Saga. Not Dracula. Not Lestat. Not Angel, and not even Spike. But rather, Edward. Tortured soul, deeply "romantic", etc. Can you truly fault naivete? Same thing with these people. They're seeing vampires for the first time, and for them, these are magical creatures... "those who walk among us", "the lonely ones", or whatever romanticized notions have you.
Then you have Slayers misbehaving, taking over towns, hurting people. Then the military is anti-Slayer. Slayers are described as "Nazis", and portrayed as such (master race, Fascist, anything not popular). From my experience, the number of people who actually think that Nazis were nice people are an overwhelming minority. "Nazi" has become a dirty word of sorts. So there's your almost single-mindedness about an issue.
We've been told before that not everyone is pro-vamp and anti-Slayer. Yes, it's not textual, but rather the word of the editor. But you already knew that. I'll concede that some pro-Slayer people should be more visible. In fact, a one-shot would have worked. To go back to the Nazi reference, it also makes sense for Slayer sympathizers to be less vocal... you wouldn't want to be called a Nazi sympathizer now, would you? Or for a more general example, a bigot, or a racist, or sexist, or misogynist... all "dirty" words that people in general, don't like to be called, despite their socio-political leanings. Because of how it paints them in archetypical costumes.
The point is, Slayers are quite overwhelmingly considered the "other". Because they were ousted from the offensive POV. The Slayer (Soledad) was the attacker, a crazed woman leaping out of the crowd to kill a seemingly innocent Harmony. In other words, the audience is already on Harmony's side. Slayers are superpowered bullies. And objectively speaking, just going through S8 alone, there is a lot more evidence for Slayer=bad than there is for vampires=evil.
And as I previously stated, humans have done horrible things to each other, all in the name of "otherness". The current conflict wasn't so much foreshadowed as it was spelled out in the closing of "TLWH", with Voll telling Buffy that she now stood against humanity at large. Once Slayers became the "other", persecuting them is not a stretch. Humanity isn't nice. Our base nature is pretty much selfish... just as nature usually is.
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