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

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Yep, I'm still kicking, just not very talkative these days. And thanks for the invite, although I already started signing up under the one [Unknown site tag] sent.

I do still read fic when I have a spare moment, although it's getting to the point where I find myself more interested in analzying my own reactions to it than the fic itself... which is fun in a way, but not the same kind of fun I originally had from reading fic. And the comics... well, I ignore them for the most part, but they do unfortunately affect the fandom - they've conspired to turn my impression of the Buffy universe into something I do not at all agree with (I have huge issues with predestination and the whole "Chosen One" thing, which are so not be subverted at this point). Which, again, is sad.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Argh, I can't edit comments now. Sucks! The bad tag is for jwaneeta.

[jwaneeta.livejournal.com]

Also... don't get me started on how weird it is that a writer who is evangelically atheist, so to speak, is angry at God for not existing and makes his own creation so obsessively Calvinist. It's just so twisted up it makes me tired. :D

(I was done with Whedon when Angel ended. He came right out and said he wrote the unsatisfying conclusion to express his rage at the show's cancellation, a move so stunningly infantile it took my breath away. The dude fucked over his audience to send a message to the executives, who weren't watching anyway, and what an unprofessional sod he was to do it. Anybody who does that doesn't deserve the title of storyteller.

Now he's collecting creator's fees on the comic to fund whatever dipshit Dr Horrible-type mess he's into at the moment, and people care? People are wasting brain cells on this? Good god.)

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

I'd say the characters are what people are still hooked into and still care about - I can defintely give Whedon credit for having a deft hand at character creation - but to stay onboard with the comics, I'd say you'd have to be pretty permeable in your outlook about them. Fanwank can carry you far, though, depending on your energy level. I don't have that much energy.

[jwaneeta.livejournal.com]

hee, that reply came out more ragey and profane than I intended. I may have some subconscious anger at Mr Whedon for that Angel fiasco of a finale, I think. :D

Fanwank can carry you far, though, depending on your energy level. I don't have that much energy.

Precisely. :)