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Bored...

Look what I got

kathyh to make for me! (Original idea by

drho.) Isn't it brilliant? Anyone? Bueller? *looks around flist* Anyone besides me who loves 'Invader Zim' (and Dr who)? Ah well... *pets icon*

Oh, before I forget: Happy Birthday

priscellie! Hope you're having a brilliant day! *lots of hugs*

Am feeling blah and bored and impatient, waiting for my copy of 'Angel: After the Fall' issue 1 to arrive, and seeing the alternative cover for s8 issue 11, I decided not to rant, and instead post two (mock) icon ideas...

Idea 1.
Image of Maggie Walsh
Text: "You might want to be suited up for this."
Image of Buffy (surrounded by Initiative soldiers).
Text: "Oh. You mean the cammo and stuff? I thought about it but, I mean, it's gonna look all 'Private Benjamin.' Don't worry, I've patrolled in this halter many times."
Image of Buffy from the alt. cover of #11
Text: [honestly I'm not sure... maybe just 'WTF?' Or 'This is canon how?' or 'Maggie finally approves'? I'm sure someone could think of something smart.]

Idea 2
Text: Buffy always knew the importance of wearing the proper clothing for Slaying! [or similar]
Images of Buffy from 'Prophecy Girl', 'Becoming II', 'Graduation Day 2', 'Primeval', 'The Gift', 'Two to Go' and 'Chosen', with the number of the season displayed.
Text: Hurrah! Joss is writing S8!
Image of Buffy from the alt. cover.
Text: Oh dear, where did Buffy go? [Or: 'Who's that girl?' or...]

And that's it - these are just loose ideas, if anyone wants to make them, please change/adapt/mess around with them as much as you like. Text esp really isn't my strong suit... Oh and I have screencaps of all the images mentioned here. (Did I mention about the bored part?)

ETA: The picture *itself* is beautifully drawn btw. Not ragging on Jeanty's talent.

See what

beer_good_foamy made?

Finally C (my lovely RL fellow Dr Who fan) lent me this John Barrowman article, that I've scanned for y'all to enjoy! It's a bit small, sorry, but I don't have time to mess around trying to make it bigger... maybe you could d/l it and then zoom in?
title or description

Must run!

ETA: Last night's Might Boosh was brilliant! (Noel Fielding has the Best Hair Ever. Fact!) Oh and does anyone else look at the 'Shreddies are knitted by nanas' ads and think of 'Nanageddon'? Also watched 'Rm v/a vu' and Cordy turning up on Angel's doorstep is one of the best scenes ever. (And he's so gorgeous, all wet and towel clad... Mmmmm.)

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Oh those icons sound great! The hi-tech outfits are so not Buffy! Where is the style!

John Barrowman! Wheeeee

Oh those icons sound great!
Thank you! And I just can't get over the outfits. Buffy wouldn't be seen dead in them. You know, I think it's to do with their anonymous benefactor: ‘You can have all this money, but only if you spend it like this!’ Like an eccentric elderly aunt who leaves her mansion to you, only you have to promise to let her 45 cats live with you...

John Barrowman! Wheeeee
Is it January yet?

I've got a feeling these are not the icons you're looking for. :-)

Way ahead of you - in that I looked up those quotes this morning...

Buffy starts to laugh.
RILEY: What?
BUFFY: Sorry. It's just ... you still carry around all that James Bond stuff.
Close shot on the device in Riley's hand. It looks like a flip-open cell phone except that instead of a digital display it has a red radar screen. Two large blinking red dots show the movement of the demon.
BUFFY: It's so cute! I forgot.
Riley puts the device away, gives Buffy a look.
BUFFY: Sorry. (fake-military) Carry on.
[...]
RILEY: Here. (grabs something from behind the seat and gives it to her) No offense, but this is black ops, and you look like a pylon.
BUFFY: (looks at it) Ninja wear?
RILEY: Battle gear. Lightweight Kevlar, state of the art.
BUFFY: What a surprise.

She wears it because Riley asks her to (and because it's that or her Doublemeat uniform), that's all. And she finds the James Bond stuff cute, but mock-worthy. Don't forget that Riley's code-name was 'Lilac'...

She mocked it, but she still wore it. :-) (And she also asked if Riley had a jetpack for her, which may foreshadow 'Seeing Red'). And in 'No Future For You' she's still got quite a light-hearted attitude to all the fancy military hardware, with jokes about sonar and man-frogs in the moat.

'My' Buffy wears the military gear on missions to set a good example to the younger Slayers, because she knows it might save their lives and she doesn't want them to get careless. If she ever managed to slip off alone to wander through a graveyard for old times' sake, I suspect she might wear something more like her old outfits.

in 'No Future For You' she's still got quite a light-hearted attitude to all the fancy military hardware
It still doesn't explain why the stuff is there in the first place...

'My' Buffy wears the military gear on missions to set a good example to the younger Slayers
Oh I get that. It's v. nice and all, but it still seems bizarre, and just un-Buffy-esque. There was always a medieval feel to the Slayer-myth, like the way her weapons are old fashioned (except for the bazooka of course!), and there's also the fact that conviction=power. She never in 7 years worried about armour, not even for the final battle in 'Chosen'. I often thought that maybe she should have, but she's clearly not that sort of girl. Basically it's something very much OOC for me, and I need an actual explanation for why.

She mocked it, but she still wore it. :-)
But now we're getting into deep meta-ness. She *never* wore the stuff back when they were dating, but now she folds as easily as can be. The whole point about AYW, about how her life sucks and she's feeling useless, is beautifully summed up in Buffy putting on the kevlar, trying to be the perfect little Black Ops girl that she thinks Riley wants (is she getting a second chance?), but of course Riley already has an army wife. Kevlar='Buffy at her lowest' (pretty much), and actually reminds me of what she says in IWMTLY:

BUFFY: It's just ... I just wanna know that there's gonna be another good one. One that I won't chase away.
XANDER: There will be. Promise. He's out there, he could come along any minute.
BUFFY: Yeah, and the minute after that I can terrify him with my alarming strength and remarkable self-involvement.
XANDER: What? I don't think you're like that.
BUFFY: Maybe I could change. You know, I could, I could work harder. I could spend less time slaying, I could laugh at his jokes, I mean, men like that, right, the, the joke-laughing-at?

She doesn't worry about armour over-much even in season 8, actually. :-) I know I've already pointed it out, but in the big opening spread of 8.01, Leah, Satsu and Rowena are all wearing the full body armour, but Buffy has compromised, and is only wearing a t-shirt instead of a flak jacket.

She does wear the full kit in 8.04 when she's going to rescue Willow - but that speaks for itself. She's going to rescue Willow, of course she's going to prepare as thoroughly as possible. Especially fighting humans with guns, when a bulletproof vest might actually be useful rather than just an encumbrance - I think that's an important practical consideration. She doesn't usually wear combat gear around the castle, as shown in 8.03 or 8.08 or the preview covers for the next issues; she's as fashionably dressed as you'd like there.

Plus, quite simply, as BGF says - Buffy has grown up. More importantly, she has personal responsibility for other people now. She only really tasted that in season 7 before: but now she seems to have grown into it, become comfortable with it. She might still have the occasional moments of doubt at the person she's grown up into, but only when she's alone.

What I said to aycheb. :)

What I wrote as a response to the entire discussion. :-)

I saw that, but haven't had time to read it yet... stupid RL and family... ;)

Sort of like this?

OMG you are a *genius*!!!!!!!

*snags*

You're welcome! :-)

Though as much fun as an idea as that was, I must say I don't entirely agree with you. The battle suits don't bother me as much; it would be way out of character for Buffy in s4 or earlier, but... something did crack in Buffy at the end of s5, and she was never quite the same afterwards. I've always thought that starting somewhere around that fade-to-grey at Joyce's grave in "Forever", and certainly by s6, a little something of Wishverse!Buffy snuck into "our" Buffy too. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and it's not like she was completely transformed (as evidenced by, for instance, her teasing of Riley) but... something shifted, made her a little less of Carefree!Fun!Buffy even after the s6 depression lifted. If it weren't so damn depressing, I'd say she grew up.

Oh I know what you're saying, and I very much agree. Having re-watched S5 fairly recently, I think the shift comes/becomes evident in 'Listening to Fear' - the scene where Joyce asks Buffy to please ask the doctor to let her home... there is a transfer there of who's in charge.

And personally that's something I like - grown-up!Buffy is *my* Buffy far more than the younger ones. But she still wears pretty clothes! If she doesn't wear any armour for battling Glory, Willow or The First, why should she bother for the little bads they encounter in S8? It's not like she thinks she's invincible (see FFL), she just likes to look good, no matter how depressed she is, or how hopeless the battle.

All true. I'm still hoping all of this guns&ammo stuff is some sort of setup tied in to the mysterious financers - that Buffy is getting corrupted, given infinite resources and fancy gadgets, locked away in a castle far away from everything and essentially groomed to become exactly the sort of evil mastermind lookalike that Voll accuses her of being. (Note that Andrew who's not in Scotland is still toeing the guns=bad party line, while Buffy herself seems perfectly willing to drop it.)

I'm not saying I think it'll go like that - so far, the things in the comics that look like twists have been very "what you see is what you get" - but...

getting corrupted, given infinite resources and fancy gadgets

Is it just me, or does that sound a whole lot like S5 Angel? I wonder how much Buffy's attitude to Angel working for W&H has changed since 'Damage,' because her situation in the comics is starting to look more and more like his.

Is it just me, or does that sound a whole lot like S5 Angel?
*nods*

ANGEL: So it turns out, with this new deal and all, I own a helicopter.
'Conviction'

Is it just me, or does that sound a whole lot like S5 Angel?

It's definitely not just you. :-)

All true. I'm still hoping all of tis guns&ammo stuff is some sort of setup tied in to the mysterious financer
As I said to

woman_of_: 'You can have all this money, but only if you spend it like this!’ Like an eccentric elderly aunt who leaves her mansion to you, only you have to promise to let her 45 cats live with you...

And as

notarealverb noted, it does seem very AtS S5 like, although Angel enjoying the nice clothes/furnishings/cars/etc that comes with the CEO title is a lot more in character than Buffy's sudden attachment to kevlar.

I'm not saying I think it'll go like that - so far, the things in the comics that look like twists have been very "what you see is what you get" - but...
I keep hoping that the story will become interesting. I don't even dare cross my fingers anymore.

Like an eccentric elderly aunt who leaves her mansion to you, only you have to promise to let her 45 cats live with you...

LOL!

I'm looking forward to telling everyone at work that I'm the Sheriff of Stationery village.

I have to re-watch it and get all the details of that. *So* brilliant!

Someone has to keep up with me!

Your icons are killing me!

I managed to read the Barrowman article at the size it was posted. I think I'm going blind now. ;-)

I think if you uploaded it to Photobucket or something, and then went from there, it would post at a size that was small on the page, but was clickable to a larger size.

I think I'm going blind now. ;-)
Oh, by clicking on the cut-tag you waived any legal rights to sue!

And yes, I should probably have done something like that, but I was in a hurry and just put it up as quickly as I could... RL can be so awkward!

Yay, thanks! Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

My pleasure. And we had a v. nice Thursday, but being in the UK there was no sign of any turkeys!

*facepalm* I knew that. :D

I get people mixed up too... there are a lot of people around here! *g*

Buffy always knew the importance of wearing the proper clothing for Slaying!.

Buffy was also never afraid to push that fashion envelope sometimes with disastrous results but I wouldn’t count her S8 appearances in the same category as the pink leather trousers or the mom’s curtains minidress let alone the whole Jackie O phase she went through in S3. She’s more Lara Croft than Private Benjamin but without the gratuitous skin exposure and improbable breasts.

Over the years she’s generally gone for less girly styles and has always been able to carry off androgony perfectly well (I though she looked great in her Helpless dungarees). Also until the later parts of S7 she generally fought one foe at a time and only once commanded an army. Girly was probably an ideologically sound choice going up against the entity that created Caleb but the lack of protection not only allowed a near fatal back stabbing but got Amanda and others killed. My Buffy would take that pretty seriously, her fashion choices aren’t just all about her any more.

but I wouldn’t count her S8 appearances in the same category as the pink leather trousers or the mom’s curtains minidress let alone the whole Jackie O phase she went through in S3.
Hee! No, definitely not - her fashion experiments are in a whole different category to dressing for practicality's sake and nothing else. (I make no excuses for great swathes of her S3/4 wardrobe. *shudders*)

My Buffy would take that pretty seriously, her fashion choices aren’t just all about her any more.
Oh I get that - and yes, I've often thought that she ought to have found armour for the potentials somewhere. I don't have a problem with the idea, really, more with the execution. That cover in particular is so un-Buffy-esque that my mind still boggles. If Buffy were to use armour, I think she'd go the Zoe route (from Firefly) - bulletproof vest neatly disguised under ordinary clothing, not that bizarre kevlar/spandex combo. (If she had to go the full-body outfit way, the simple outfit in AYW is far better!)

Edited 2007-11-24 13:47 (UTC)

She did the Zoe thing when she and Satsu set off to get Willow back, but it's a hard call fashionwise Zoe being tall enough that all those layers don't make her look three sizes bigger. Someone Buffy's build the better option is probably to go with the basic spandex shell and customise it as Satsu does. In the cover it looks like they're on a jumping out of helicopters gig which Buffy never had to dress for in Sunnydale and also precludes the option of putting all your stakes in one big handbag.

I still can't see Buffy going the spandex route, sorry. As I said, her AYW outfit was perfectly fine - this is all Lara Croft-like (except *more* so), and Buffy was (thankfully!) never Lara Croft.

It just looks wrong. (And that's without going into the fact that Buffy looks like Angel's younger sister who's had a nose-job! *g*)

Well since Angel looks like Lorne in the Atf comics maybe everyone has a little green in them on paper. But you seem to have such limiting ideas about what Buffy's allowed to wear, what technology she's allowed to use as if anything post renaissance were unfeminine. I've always thought one of Buffy's main characteristics was her ability to improvise and adapt. Also she wore spandex quite routinely for training right up to and including the session in OMFW, which is pretty much the last time they showed her aerobocising.

I've always thought one of Buffy's main characteristics was her ability to improvise and adapt.
Oh definitely. I just don't think she'd *like* to wear those outfits, and I'd like something to reflect that. That's all. One little line - wouldn't kill anyone, would it?

That said, it looks like the set-up might just be a 'things are wrong' kinda deal - Buffy and Gigi in their respective castles, each with their magicians etc and isolated from the world... (I have no idea if this is correct. I claim no insight where s8 is concerned.)

(And maybe going green is a side-effect of being in hell?)

If you're that certain of Buffy's tastes why would she have to tell you what you already know? Personally I see the new patrolling dress code as an acknowledgement of the change in the world order. Metaphorically women/slayers no longer have to hide behind the sartorial secret identity of girly normality and work by luring the enemy into a false sense of security, they can be open about their power. It's a positive change but that's not to say that the process is complete, unproblematic or will go unchallenged. Twilight for one thing, divided loyalties for another.

(I'd have thought hell was somewhat unecological).

If you're that certain of Buffy's tastes why would she have to tell you what you already know?
I had this long response typed out, but in a nutshell the problem is that I know Buffy from the show. Comic!Buffy is supposed to be the same girl, but I just can't see it.

they can be open about their power
As far as I can see, all they've done is become *more* covert. Now they no longer have to fool *people*/blend in to society - they can be secret soldiers, hiding away in the shadows... like the demons.

Is this a semantics thing? You 'know' your interpretation of Buffy but the problem is that, based on your interpretation of the comics, Joss and the other writers didn't see her the same way. I mean Spike was your entry character to the show so maybe it's a case of her not being Spike's Buffy anymore?

The Slayer used to be hidden away from people and demons alike. Now they're in the open to demons and other supernatural organisations and part of the fascinating thing about power is how it always tends to sequester itself away from those who have least against the best intensions of those who do have it. I have great hopes of the story addressing this and how Buffy and Co need to interact with a much wider cross section of humanity. As I've said before in Sunnydale she was expossed to a very small and not particularily representative part of society, now she's dealing with Slayers from all over the world. I think it's massively oversimplifying to say she's more isolated now, her experience of the world is both more more limited and more extensive, but I look forward to her and Willow meeting a 'civilian' in issue 10.

Is this a semantics thing?
I honestly don't know. I've tried to work it out for months and months now, and I can't figure out what's wrong... And no, it's not the lack of Spike. I watched from the beginning and I always loved Buffy. She was the center of the show, and I liked her happy, I liked her sad, I liked her with Angel, I liked her with Riley (even though I found him extremely dull), I liked her with Spike (obviously - but she needn't spend the rest of her life with him), and when she's harsh & 'cold' (in S6 and 7 esp) my heart bleeds for her, because I understand the pain she's in, and how difficult things are for her. I don't have a canon!Buffy icon, so this Spike one will have to do, but the sentiment is the same - I love Joss' Buffy, I love Marti's Buffy, and David Fury's and DeKnight's and Petri's... She was just Buffy, and she was a hell of a woman. She was the one.

But Comic!Buffy is someone I can't get a grip on. And when the emotional center of the whole thing is inaccessible, I find it terribly hard to care about it. Of course it doesn't help that the story isn't particularly interesting to me, but (f.ex.) even during the most dull parts of the Initiative-plot I could enjoy the show.

When it comes to fic, the author's interpretation influences the writing, and it's just a case of working out how well your own interpretation overlaps, to see how much you'll enjoy it (disregarding such matters as plot, writing style etc. for the sake of my point). But my favourite writers were those on the show - canon is my touchstone, always. I'll defend anything - the AR, Kennedy, Caleb, even AYW - because that's the show. That's what matters. I can't defend the comics. I don't even like them. And it makes me terribly, terribly sad. I didn't think it was *possible* to not care about Buffy.

But this is the same writer who wrote the show. Still it's interesting that when you describe the Buffy you loved it's in terms of her boyfriends, with Angel , with Riley, with Spike and it's true she could be read as the heroine of a romance, twisted and often dysfunctional but still a romance. So maybe part of the difference is that in the comics she's so far not interpretable as that class of heroine, however hard you try. Like I remember people discussing endlessly what it meant that she missed the sex in the first issue when that was the very last thing on a list that started with her mother.

But this is the same writer who wrote the show.
I know! So why doesn't it feel or look like the show? Why is Buffy just a blonde girl that I don't really know? I feel like Cordy waking up in 'You're Welcome' and the whole world having gone topsy-turvy, except no-one's explaining *why*! Or how long I've been in a coma.

And re. Buffy, then I was just trying to point out that it wasn't just her attachment to Spike that I was interested in. I like her being single, because that was something we saw very little of, and think it could be interesting. (And the list was - according to herself - 'non-linear'. I'm pretty sure churros would be at the bottom of the list.)

None of it would bother me in the slightest, if it wasn't for Joss' insistence on it being 'canon'. And if I'm supposed to take this as carrying as much weight, and being the same thing as my show, then it better try a LOT harder. (I mean, apparently he can't even *remember* his own canon.)

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