In which I blink my eyes, and three months have gone by

[thedeadlyhook]

Figures that the moment I actually find the time, energy, and something to say on LJ the damn journal chooses to all but shut down. I mean, just getting this text to post has been like fighting a siege.

Seriously, is it just me? My computer is a few years old and not running the latest browser, plus I recently let my account lapse from paid to free (due to financial woes with which I will not bore you), but hoo-boy, those advertisements are browser speed killers. I'm running NoScript to block the worst of it, but it's still bad - if I were a newbie looking for a journal right now, and the community I was eager to commune with wasn't already there, I wouldn't like twice at LiveJournal, not when I can get ad-free accounts elsewhere: Blogger, Twitter, Dreamwidth, etc. Video and audio ads! Jeebus! Facebook is certainly as irritating as hell with its ad content, but at least it's never thrown audio at me. Yikes. Fail, LJ. Gigantic fail.

Sigh. Does that whole invite thing still apply for Dreamwidth?

Anyway, on to the main event. Do I even dare comment on the current Buffy Season 8 hijinkery? Can I resist?

First, fair warning: I haven't read the actual issue. But flake_sake's excellent summary gave me a pretty good idea of what's going on, at least enough to make a critique from 30,000 feet, which is about the distance I prefer to view the comics from these days. So... Um. Where to start.

I do feel compelled to continue being tiresome about accredidation in the comics, and point out that, although Joss can plausibly be given credit for the overall story, he isn't actually writing this. Brad Meltzer is. I'm not doing this to nitpick so much as to observe that it's completely in character for Joss to hand off this kind of material - sex, I mean - to someone else. If I think back over Buffy and Angel, I come up with a portrait of a writer who prefers foreplay - he's great at awkward, teenage-y sexual tension - and wreckage of a relationship after it's over, to the sticky, nuts-and-bolts in-and-out (heh) of what goes in between. That part, he typically leaves to others to detail, and I don't think it's an accident that every major relationship I can think of in his catalog is structured in a way to be mostly about the Before and After, with what goes in the middle set on fast-forward, offscreen, fade-to-black, or just not there. (I'm hardly the authority on Firefly or Dollhouse, but I'd be very surprised if they broke this trend.)

Otherwise, I have no opinion to speak of, other than to observe that whenever an author brings a universal force into a story as an explanation, they are basically talking about themselves - to a fictional universe, the author is, after all, the only God. So what we have here is basically a story about how this is happening because that's what "the universe" wants to happen. Even if that doesn't make a lick of sense. So, um, there. *eyeroll* It's not an elegant plot structure, and I've only ever seen it used effectively maybe once or twice, most notably in that Star Trek: The Next Generation episode in which Beverly Crusher creates a shrinking bubble universe consisting of her own fears of people disappearing.

And given that observation, I do begin to suspect that the whole thing is a dream. Maybe Buffy's been asleep since the original storyline. (Srsly, Love's True Kiss?) This would make the intervening issues be All About Buffy's Hopes and Fears - a potentially good storyline - explain a lot of cracktastic craziness, generally remove the problem of Angel being so out of character as to be unrecognizable, and confirm that even Buffy's most wish-fulfill-y fantasies about having it off with Angel include squicky reservations about him possibly being evil and "the universe" conspiring to remove all choice from her menu of options. On the other hand, that would also make it a story about the nutty junk inside Buffy's head (Women, eh?) and a comic book imitation of a TV trope at that. (Although neither of those erases it as a possibility.)

That said, I don't actually expect it to be a dream. It's more likely that the whole idea of "the universe" causing things to happen because of "balance" is so coded into the show's DNA that it's now the default explanation. I hated that tie-in book Queen of the Slayers for making similar suggestions about the mechanics of the Buffy world, but with this, I might just have to throw up my hands and admit that this story apparently has no place for free will. And that's sad.

Otherwise, I've missed so many birthdays as to really not be funny. Very Belated Very Happy Birthdays to danceswitwords, asta77, rahirah, sangueuk, makd, paratti, calove, goldenusagi, crackers4jenn, constance_b, revdorothyl, irfikos, entrenous88, sharelle, quinara, eowyn_315, and Happy Birthday in advance (tomorrow) to evilawyer!!!

Comments

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Glad my review could be of assistence. The whole thing really is going south very quickly...

I loved to read your thoughts on the matter and I wonder did you read the "Always darkest" webcomic (http://www.darkhorse.com/Features/eComics/1087/Dark-Horse-Presents-No-24?part_num=1&page=2) (don't be afraid for your eyes, it's done by the cover artist, not by Jeanty). I think it pretty much sums up what is happening now. Buffy has the fairy tale ending marriage, but it's skinless Warren, she marries. Buffy has a giant get back together with her first love, but it ends up being essentially rape.

It's all quite twisted and I haven't lost hope that Joss knows, at least where Buffy the feminist icon is concerned, what he's doing. Well, or not.

If you set up a DW account, you'll let us know, yes? my name is rogin there. I constantly forget to update it, but you being there would be another motivation to finally consequently doublepost.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Oh, I remember that story! Yes, I did read it. The art is, of course, absolutely gorgeous. It probably goes without saying that if Joan Chen were drawing the interior of the comic as well as the covers, fans probably wouldn't have half as many issues with it as they do - the artwork sells the story in a way that's simply more palatable. (If I imagine the same sequence drawn by the regular artist, for example... yeah, it doesn't work the same way at all.) In fact, I have no idea why Chen wasn't contracted to draw #34, if they had this planned all along. Talk about sales!

The two things that stuck out to me on this reading were that I hadn't noticed Tara there the first time (and that her blue shirt reminds me of Spike's in "Beneath You"), and wow, Spike got taller, didn't he? : )

I was talking with the husband about some of the quote-unquote feminism in Buffy the other night, and he's had a good argument that the sex-a-thon is a strange for Buffy (the character) in that she's being gender-coded as very female here, whereas in nearly all of her previous relationships, the mapping puts Buffy far more into a male role, and her partners are, in gender terms, mapped onto a female stereotype. So while I can give the series points for gender-bending subservion, I'm having a hard time picturing by-the-numbers male/female yin/yang sex as being anything other than... uh, exactly what it looks like. With the laws of nature and all. Um.

I'm working on a setting up a Dreamwidth account today, and I'll be sure and add you there! I don't know how much I'm likely to post there as opposed to here, but I'm definitely going to poke around and see what kind of crossposting option might work best.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree, Buffy is in atypical postition here, because it's such passive role. I can really not imagine Joss letting it stand like that, since I doubt he wants to deconstruct her to such an extent.

And yes, I yes, if Jo had drawn that, there might have been a slight chance that I would have been jealous, but as it is... :)