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impalementation · 3 years

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spike, angel, buffy & romanticism: part 1

I said a long ways back that I thought the switch from Angel to Spike as Buffy’s primary love interest represented an interesting evolution in the show’s attitude towards—and interrogation of—romanticism, and I finally felt like expanding on what I meant by that. This is very long, very meandering, and not terribly academic or well-edited, but I hope there’s something of interest in it nonetheless. It is about 20,000 words in total, and will discuss, in more or less chronological order, the arc of the show’s attitude towards romanticism as it is embodied in Spike, Angel, Buffy and Buffy’s relationships with both of them. I was going to release it as one long post, but because it’s so long, I figured a series of posts might be more readable. Here’s the first one.

“When you kiss me I want to die”: Angel and the high school seasons

Both Spike and Angel are at once capital-R Romantic figures, and lower-case romantic interests, and in both cases that Romantic/romantic duality is what makes them such effective avatars for ideas around romanticism. In the case of Angel, the show is aware from the beginning that he is very much a Romantic idea of something. In “Welcome to the Hellmouth” Buffy describes him as “dark” and “gorgeous”, evoking the “tall, dark and handsome” cliche. He’s mysterious. He gives her a necklace and his coat, gestures out of high school romance fiction.* In “Out of Mind, Out of Sight” Giles lampshades the romance of him: “A vampire in love with a Slayer. It’s rather poetic, in a maudlin sort of way.” Initially, Angel is basically designed to be a teenage girl fantasy, and it’s no coincidence that his successors like Edward Cullen or Stefan Salvatore conform to similar tropes.

*(Think of how five seasons later, a vampire will give Dawn his letterman jacket in “All the Way”. It’s hard not to read as a deliberate echo of Angel’s gift in season one. Once again, a vampire makes romantic gestures towards a high school version of “Buffy”, and later turns on her. But more on this much later in the series.)

The difference between Angel and those other, more typical Supernatural Romance love interests however, is that the show ultimately attempts to subvert the romance of him. As part of its commentary on Gothic themes, season two makes Angel more Romantic than ever (the Claddagh, the tormented past), and makes the romance between him and Buffy central to the story in a way it wasn’t in season one. And then, of course, the season tears it all apart. The first time we learn what Angel did to Drusilla it’s horrifying, but still somehow abstract. Something that seems more like it’s meant to contribute to Angel’s dangerous, Byronic image. As in, something to make him more Romantic. And then suddenly it becomes real. Suddenly, it’s something that Angel could do to Buffy, or the people Buffy cares about. It turns out that his darkly romantic aura was not just an aura, but genuinely dark all along.

In turn, Angel’s devastating transformation is a metaphor for broader disillusionment about romantic ideas. It’s less to me about a “guy going bad after sex”, and more about what it means and feels like to have the scales fall from one’s eyes in that sort of situation. As Buffy copes with the fallout of Angel’s transformation, and later is forced to kill him, I see it as being about the tragedy of having to see the world in ways that are less simple, easy, or pretty as one gets older. As Buffy and Giles say in “Lie To Me”:

BUFFY: Nothing's ever simple anymore. I'm constantly trying to work it out. Who to love or hate. Who to trust. It's just, like, the more I know, the more confused I get.

GILES: I believe that's called growing up.

For more on this, I recommend this livejournal post on “Lie To Me”, which goes into great depth on the way season two frames stories as pretty lies that one needs to look beneath, and how Buffy’s romanticization of Angel symbolizes that.

The whole arc of the season is Buffy’s failure to see the danger presented by Angel. In this opening scene that danger is foreshadowed. More to the point for this essay, Angel goes on to lie to Buffy about having encountered Drusilla. He doesn’t want Buffy to know about the nature of Angelus – which means that his first inclination is to mask the danger he presents to Buffy. This is one episode after Halloween, where Buffy’s romantic fantasies about what Angel wants (a damsel) nearly get her killed. Nor is she completely over those fantasies, as she notes that the mystery woman talking to Angel had a pretty old-fashioned dress. So against the backdrop of Buffy’s fantasies about her dark and mysterious boyfriend we have the truth about what he is, which is quite horrifying.

Season three then takes this to another level, by not just pointing out the darkness of the romance of Angel, but in fact puncturing his romantic image. Instead of emphasizing his dangerousness, as season two did, season three emphasizes his adulthood. It emphasizes the way that Angel is someone Buffy sees in secret, or away from her friends. He’s not integrated with her teenage, high school life, and doesn’t fit with the peppy, high school movie aesthetic that characterizes a lot of season three. By doing this, the writing indicates that at this point in their lives, Buffy and Angel are ultimately incompatible and holding each other back. Regardless of however much they might care for each other, Angel can’t fully appreciate her teenage longings like dances, and college, and having a boyfriend. And Buffy can’t fully appreciate his adult need to find himself on his own terms. By the end of season three, Angel is less of a shadowy, tragic figure, and more just an adult man who needs to finally grow up a bit.

Season three also starts making jokes where the punchline is that Angel isn’t living up to the romantic aesthetic he embodied in seasons one and two. In “Helpless”, for example, he and Buffy have an exchange where he waxes sincerely about wanting to “keep [her heart] safe, to warm it with [his own]” and although Buffy says the sentiment is beautiful, a second later she deadpans: “Or taken literally, incredibly gross.” To which Angel replies, “I was just thinking that, too.” Or in “Graduation Day, Part 1”, Angel trips on a doorway instead of making a silent entrance and Buffy again deadpans: “Stealthy.” Angel’s romance slips at moments when Buffy herself is feeling weak, either because she has lost her Slayer powers, or she’s investigating the scene of her sister Slayer’s crime. Her Romantic Slayer half is betraying her, and her romantic girlish half is feeling insecure. This is echoed by the reminder that Angel is no longer a straightforward fantasy man--or a terrifying, larger-than-life villain--but a guy who is sometimes both verbally and physically inelegant.

(Notice how one of the few times season two makes similar jokes about Angel it’s in “Lie to Me”, the very same episode that begins to peel off the layers of deceptions and unknowns about him. Angel slumps around Willow’s bedroom and jokes about “honing [his] brooding skills”, he insists that the vampire wannabes know nothing about vampires right before a guy walks by wearing his exact outfit, and Xander runs color commentary, saying “you’re not wrong” after each of Ford’s observations. In “Lie to Me” one of Angel’s hidden faces is his dangerousness, yes. But another hidden face is simply his human awkwardness.)

There’s an interesting Slayage piece by Elizabeth Gilliland that discusses the idea of Angel as a Gothic double for Buffy, specifically connecting him to the story of Jekyll and Hyde. It argues that Angel’s split identities represent Buffy’s fears that her human and Slayer halves are irreconcilable, and she cannot fully control either half. In season three, the fact that Buffy and Angel must continuously resist a loss of control with each other, and are treated as romantically incompatible, reflects this fear.

In Season Three, replete with various factors in Buffy’s life that threaten to put her role as Slayer and girl into imbalance once more [...] Angel once again returns [...]. The season culminates in an attempted attack on Buffy’s classmates during graduation, which essentially forces her to “out” herself to her community and combine her roles as Slayer and daughter, classmate, and friend for the first time publicly (“Graduation Day: Part 2” 3.22). The worst has happened: her secret has been revealed, the entire school knows about both of her personas, and she has not only survived, but emerged with a stronger sense of self [...] Buffy has conquered her first Gothic fear, and proven to herself that she can not only exercise control over both dualities of her persona, but allow them to peacefully co-exist. Thus, Angel’s continuing struggle with Angelus can no longer act as her shadow, and he literally and metaphorically leaves her to continue the rest of her journey.

It’s an interpretation I mostly agree with, and see a lot of evidence for. But in keeping with the focus of this series, I think you could also read Angel as embodying a duality between the romantic and the unromantic. In this view, Buffy’s struggle between her human and her Slayer halves is not just a struggle between personas, but a struggle to see the world correctly. In season one, it’s not Angel that revives Buffy in “Prophecy Girl”, because Angel is a vampire trope just like the Master. He cannot help her, because he is exactly the kind of traditional romantic concept--like a candle-lit cavern, an ancient Nosferatu-looking vampire, or a Chosen Hero duty--that Buffy is trying to escape. In season two, loss of control is specifically associated with passion, romance, and romanticism. Buffy’s human half longs for the romantic, but her Slayer half, and Angel’s vampire half, prove that sometimes the romantic is something dangerous and violent. The fact that Buffy’s Slayer identity and Angel’s Angelus identity both end up being outed by the end of the season (especially to Joyce, a figure of Buffy’s human home life), echoes Buffy’s loss of innocence. Season three then continues this suspicion of passion. Buffy fears that like Faith, enjoying the violence and power and desire of being a Slayer, means that she will go down a dark path. She also fears that indulging in her sexual and romantic desire for Angel will unleash Angelus. To some extent, these fears are even borne out, given that her love for Angel results in her attempted murder of Faith, and near death at Angel’s hands. But to some extent they also aren’t, given that she, Faith and Angel all live.

To me, what really gets resolved at the end of season three is not quite the issue of Buffy’s human and Slayer halves, given that Buffy will continue to struggle with that duality until the end of the show. Rather, what gets resolved is the need for binaries. Binaries are romantic things. When Giles gives his speech to Buffy at the end of “Lie To Me”, it is the language of binaries that he uses:

GILES: Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.

BUFFY: Liar.

In season three, Buffy thinks she must resist both Faith and Angel. She thinks she can only be either a human girl or a Slayer leader. Many plots in season three have to do with the danger of binaries, whether that’s the witch-hunting parents in “Gingerbread”, Willow dealing with her vampire self in “Doppelgangland”, the various alter-egos in “Beauty and the Beasts”, or Cordy choosing a Buffy-less world in “The Wish”. And no character in the Buffyverse embodies the concept of binaries so starkly as Angel does. Thus by the end of season three, Buffy collapses the binaries within herself by merging the human and Slayer parts of her life, as Gilliland observes, and taking on Faith’s traits. She acknowledges her shadow by kissing her tenderly on the forehead, and bids farewell to the illusions and binaries that Angel embodies. Buffy is leaving that part of her life behind, and starting a new chapter where she can no longer split either the world, or herself, into any one thing or another.

part 2: “Love isn’t brains, children”: Enter Spike as the id

#romanticism series #buffy #angel #s1 #s2 #s3 #s6 #gen #spike #btvs

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girl4music · 3 years

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BUFFY REWATCH - S04E16 - Who Are You?

Willow: “I wonder where she is.”

Tara: “Who? Faith?”

Willow: “Yeah. I wish she would make a move. She's making my stomach all acidy.”

Tara: “But you think Buffy can handle her.”

Willow: “I think so. But that doesn't mean Faith won't hurt someone else.”

Tara: “Well, you should be safe. Nobody knows you're here. I mean, uh, they don't even know I exist, right? I know all about them, but...”

*Willow puts her hand on Tara's knee for a second*

Willow: “Hey.”

Tara: “I-I mean, t-that's totally cool. It-it's good. It-it's better.”

Willow: “Tara, it's not like I don't want my friends to know you. It's just... well, Buffy's like my best friend, and she's really special. And there's this whole bunch of us, and we sort of have this group thing that revolves around the slaying, and-and I, I really want you to meet them. But I kind of like having something that's just, you know, mine. And I, I usually don't use so many words to say stuff that little, but do you get it at all?”

Tara: “I do.”

Willow: “I should check in with Giles, get a situation update.”

*She gets up and walks behind Tara*

Tara: “I am, you know.”

Willow: “What?”

*Tara turns and looks up at Willow*

Tara: “Yours.”

This is such a beautiful little scene. It’s not the big reveal for everyone that they’re in a romantic relationship just yet but it does definetly allude to the audience watching that that’s where the writing is heading. A big reveal.

Willow finally tells Tara why she hasn’t been introduced to the friends she talks about non-stop to her yet. It’s not because she’s ashamed of her or that she wants to hide her from her friends. It’s because she wants to keep her to herself for a little while longer. Not have her be a part of the “Scooby Slayage” responsibilities just yet.

A little later in the scene, Willow is ready to introduce Tara to Buffy when they see her in the Bronze - or so she believes at the time - but she’s not ready to confess that they’re lovers to her. Not just yet, anyway. However, as Buffy and Faith have swapped bodies, it ends up being Faith that is the first one to know. I mean, she really only guesses - but Tara’s very bad at playing poker face when she brings up Oz. Tara figures out that that was not really Buffy and got worried.

Willow and Tara go back to Tara’s dorm room and Tara explains what she knows and gives an idea as to how to potentially switch Buffy and Faith’s energies back into the right bodies again... which then has them performing a ritual to contact the Nether Realm (very clever name by the way, writers) through magic that is ...er... for lack of a better phrase... intensely sexual. Especially considering they mix and mash it with Faith’s attempt raping of Riley while in Buffy’s body. And honestly, my thoughts on that whole montage are ... too much to talk about. I am aware that Whedon went for the metaphorical sex approach... but was that really necessary?

Anyway, they eventually meet up with the real Buffy, who is at the time in Faith’s body, and explains that they have the solution to the problem. All is well again because of two insanely compatible witches. They save the day without fighting but by having some sweaty spell fun. Lovely suggestive writing indeed.

#buffy the vampire slayer #S04E16 #who are you?#willow rosenberg #tara maclay #i am you know #what?#yours #episode recap #buffy rewatch

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preserving-ferretbrain · 5 years

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The I in Vampire: Joss Whedon and the Philosophy of Identity

by Dan H

Monday, 21 September 2009

Dan almost manages to say something nice about Joss Whedon~

Recently I did two things. I read The Pig That Wants to be Eaten - a nicely accessible book of philosophical thought experiments – and I watched Series five of Angel (review forthcoming from Kyra or myself, special exclusive spoiler preview, it’s shit).

One of the infuriating things about S5 of Angel is its blatant disregard for any of the show’s prior mythology (to be fair, this was partly due to network pressure). The girls at Boils and Blinding Torment get particularly furious about this, complaining about the way it craps all over the notion that vampires are in any way different to regular people. To quote them quoting Buffy

To paraphrase almost every character in Buffy ever: A vampire is not the person they appear to be. They walk like them, they talk like them, they have access to their memories, they might even do their hair like them, but it’s not them.

Which is pretty darn clear, and is, as the girls observed, spelled out in the first episode, and about every five episodes thereafter.

The thing is, while it’s spelled out like that, it’s pretty clear that it’s not like that. Jessee pops up in the second damned episode and seems quite convinced that apart from being “connected to everything” he’s still the same guy he always was. Angelus, while evil, still has a lot of Angel’s basic personality traits (“it’s just … you’re still the only thing he thinks about” is I believe how Willow describes it). Not only is there textual evidence against the whole “demon in a Xander suit” theory (and very little to support it except maybe that scene in series two where Angel’s “inner demon” beats up that other demon inside Angel’s body), there’s also some fairly fundamental problems with the whole idea of something that has your appearance, memories and personality being, in any meaningful sense “not you”.

Memory, Continuity, and Tom Riker

The question of who “you” actually are is a horrendously difficult one in philosophical terms. In practical terms, you know that you’re you, other people aren’t you and that’s an end to it. In the world of the philosophy of identity it’s far trickier.

One of the thought experiments presented in TPtWtbE is the teleporter problem. Suppose you go through a Star Trek matter transporter. It scans your body, and reduces it to data. Then it blasts you into atoms, and reconstructs you miles away from (presumably) completely different parts. None of the characters in Star Trek seem remotely bothered by this but it raises a lot of difficult questions. If the person who is reconstituted at the other end of the teleporter is made from completely different atoms from the person who went in, in what sense are they the same person?

The problem is compounded by the fact that the person who goes into the teleporter and the person who comes out are in fact capable of living independent lives. In a relatively famous episode, it is discovered that exactly that had happened to Riker. A transporter accident had split him into two people, both with exactly the same memories and experiences, and both believing themselves to be the “original” Will Riker. The Trek episode neatly dodged a lot of the nastier problems involved with this kind of conundrum by having the “other will” be one who had been stuck on a remote planet for several years, making it fairly clear to one and all that the Will Riker who has been, y'know, on TV all this time is the real one.

A similar idea crops up in The Prestige - Tesla's teleporting machine doesn't destroy the original, so you always get two copies, an Hugh Jackman solves the problem by drowning himself. This creates a terribly haunting image in the original film, but it's interesting that in many ways the machine functions identically to the “real” teleporter in Star Trek. It's just that the way it disposes of the “original” is less neat.

I understand that the way a lot of philosophers resolve such issues is with a concept called “Continuity of Consciousness” - broadly speaking if the individual coming out of the transporter remembers being the person who went into it, they can be said to be the same person.

Of course there are arguments against this definition (the two Rikers and the Tesla machine highlight one of them) but it's still extremely useful, and it's very interesting when applied to Buffy vampires.

The Buffy vamp remembers its human life. This is described in early episodes as “having access” to the human's memories, with the implication that the vampire knows itself to be a demon, and simply uses the human's memories to trick people into thinking it's something else, but this is clearly untrue. We witness the transformations of several vampires, and all of them clearly genuinely consider themselves to be the person who got bit, not some alien parasite. They have, in a word, continuity of consciousness. Not only that, but no vampire ever displays knowledge or memory of having existed independently as a demon.

Of course once a person becomes a vampire they are changed - they lose their soul (which seems to have a rather nebulous effect, certainly it doesn't seem to alter their sense of identity very much) and become Evil, but you can't really say that they're different people except in the metaphorical sense that we are all “different people” when we are – say – drunk.

This has particular consequences when it comes to little things like moral culpability.

Blame, Responsibility, and Evil

Even if you accept that vampires, whatever the show might say, are the same people they were when they were alive, it's still perfectly reasonable to say that they are the same people but evil(it's also perfectly reasonable to argue that the “but evil” segment of that sentence renders them not the same person at all, what isn't reasonable is arguing that they're suddenly a demon occupying somebody else's body – whatever the text says, Buffy vamps clearly don't work like that).

But even here we run into a bit of a stumbling block. Okay, vampires are evil. They kill people, because that's what they do, hence the slayage. Except that repeatedly, starting lest we forget in series two when Spike turns against Angelus, vampires have shown that they are capable of choosing to do good – or at the very least not to do evil. Now frequently they choose it for selfish reasons: Spike helps save the world because he likes being evil in it, and later fights demons because he enjoys hurting demons. The vampires at the dodgy place Riley goes to avoid killing people because it helps them stay under the radar. Harmony goes on the cowblood because it's a condition of her employment at Wolfram and Hart.

Now on the one hand, this makes the vampires that actually do kill people way more reprehensible. On the other hand, it makes killing vampires on spec a little bit dodgy. Yes, some vampires kill people, but a great many of them don’t, either because of artificial constraints (a chip in the head) emotional constraints (I haz soul! It make me sad if I do the killing!) or rational self-interest (killing people will get me fired, killing people will make them less likely to let me feed on them repeatedly). These, not to put too fine a point on it, are pretty much the three reasons that regular people don’t go around committing murder.

Now true, vampires are still much more likely to kill people than humans, but to get all formal logic about it, you can’t say that all vampires are killers – they are clearly capable of choosing not to kill – which leaves you only with “some vampires are killers” which is kinda useless. This means that staking vampires the moment they rise is basically a form of racial profiling. It’s effective racial profiling, to be sure, since they’re mostly going to go on to be mass murderers, but it’s much less cut and dried than the original remit of “a demon in the body of your friend”.

Dolls, Identity, and Consent

The whole philosophy of identity issue gets even more interesting (and even more problematic) in Dollhouse. Is that me saying something positive about the show? Well yeah, sort of. The actual philosophy of identity bit is kind of interesting – and on some levels it seems to be what Joss is interested in (q.v. the “it makes humanity irrelevant” speech in Man on the Street) – unfortunately because Joss is pathologically incapable of writing a show that doesn’t have EYE YAM TEH FEMINISTS scrawled all over the front in crayon, he muddies the water by making it something that is also about the abuse of women by men who aren’t him.

The problem with Dollhouse (why yes, I am recycling content from an old article) is that it brings up a whole lot of important rape myths and then not only fails to challenge them, but dips the whole thing in a the kind of abstract philosophy that dickheads use so that they can accuse feminists of being “too emotional”.

To quote one blogger whose name, weblog, and other identifying features I have totally forgotten: “the thing I love about this fandom is that you can always find somebody willing to argue that it isn’t rape if she was brainwashed”.

The problem is that “it isn’t rape if she was brainwashed” is actually part of several interesting philosophical questions about identity, free will, and perception. The problem is that rape is not in any way the right subject to be using as a vehicle for these questions. The concept of consent and complicity is complex enough in real world rape cases that it doesn’t need imaginary supertechnology muddying the waters. The abstract philosophy of the Dollhouse contributes to, rather than challenging, the prevailing notion that consent is so vague and ill-defined that anything short of a clear “no” counts.

One of the things I really liked about The Pig that Wants to be Eaten was the way in which it tempered its abstract content with pragmatism. In its discussion of the

Ship of Theseus

, for example, the author points out that the identity of the “real” ship depends on what you want to do with it. If, for example, you were looking for forensic evidence in a murder investigation, you would want the physical components that had been present at the time of the crime. If on the other hand you were looking for Theseus himself, you'd want the ship that was actually in his possession.

The abstract, philosophy-of-identity stuff in Dollhouse is at odds with the simple, practical fact that the Dollhouse is all kinds of fucked up. If the Dollhouse was more benign and less rapetastic, it could explore some of the interesting ideas about identity which are – in theory at least – part and parcel of the show. Unfortunately the nature of the Dollhouse makes abstract theorizing about identity an offensive disservice to its victims. Yes, you can wonder to what extent Echo's imprints are real people with volition, and to what extent therefore they are moral agents in their own right capable of, amongst other things, consenting to sex. The problem is that the house's “brainwash and bone” routine is so close to real-world date-rape that it becomes genuinely uncomfortable.

Which is a shame, because the actual ideas are rather interesting.

Themes:

TV & Movies

Sci-fi / Fantasy

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Arthur B

at 14:18 on 2009-09-21

Uh, actually

the novel came first

. Though you are right that there's a particularly striking image that results from this, if it's the same one from the novel I'm thinking of.

That's a nitpick though, and I completely agree with the rest of your points here. I think the conclusive thing is that, whilst not a compulsive

Buffy

-watcher, I've seen at least a season or two's worth of episodes, and I've

never

even caught an inkling of the idea that vampires are not basically the same people they were before the Embrace (TM White Wolf) but with kewl powerz, simply because I never saw an episode where it was explicitly stated. Which I suppose is another good philosophical question: if you cut out the episodes which make the "they're different people" thing explicit, and a viewer can't work out that vampires are different people from the humans they used to be through observation, can it really be said to be true?

(The best example of using this plot point right, in my book, is

Dracula

; part of the reason the vampirisation of Lucy is so horrifying is that vampire-Lucy is so utterly different from normal-Lucy.)

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Dan H

at 15:36 on 2009-09-21Sorry, you're right, the use of the word "original" in that sentence is entirely specious. I think in my head i was using "original" to mean "before it was co-opted to be an example in a short article about the philosophy of identity".

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Niall

at 22:37 on 2009-09-21Must ... resist ... urge ... to debate ... Buffyverse ... mythology and metaphysics ... must ... resist ...

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Jamie Johnston

at 23:36 on 2009-09-21Ooh, interesting. Hmm. Yes.

Two very

obiter dicta

On the rape / brainwashing point, I sometimes wonder whether it wouldn't help to make the same sort of distinction as is made in law between theft (taking another person's property without permission) and fraud (using deceit to trick another person into giving you his property). The word 'rape' was until only a few decades ago almost entirely confined to violent and plainly non-consensual violation. That, of course, is only because society hadn't got far enough in reducing toleration of that extreme form of sexual abuse for it to even begin seriously looking at less obvious forms. But it does also, rightly or wrongly, cause a certain trickiness when we use the same word to denote sex where there is ostensibly consent but the consent is vitiated by, for example, incapacity. On the one hand using 'rape' in this broader sense is strategically shrewd because, now that everyone pretty much agrees that 'classic' violent rape is wrong and is a real problem, saying that something else is also rape immediately challenges people to think again about that other thing and may well shock them into new understanding. But on the other hand, as with assertions like 'meat is murder' or 'property is theft', there is a risk that people simply say, consciously or unconsciously, 'No, that's plainly not literally true and therefore I can ignore whatever point underlies it'. Whereas more progress might be made by treating the two things as separate and concentrating on getting people to acknowledge that the second is also bad. One might say that to some extent this panders to the tendency to regard 'fraud-type-rape' (if I can for the moment call it that without seeming to imply an actual analogy or to trivialize the whole business with my sloppy terminology) as less bad than 'theft-type-rape', it might at least make more progress in solidifying a consensus that 'fraud-type-rape' is actually wrong to some degree. I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a time when theft was recognized as bad but fraud wasn't; nowadays, though, fraud is often regarded as actually worse than theft because it involves an abuse not only of the institution of property but also of human trust. Anyway, perhaps this isn't the right article for this line of thought...

The second thing is that the two links in the article don't work because in each case the URL they're trying to point to has somehow got the URL for the Ferretbrain articles index tacked onto the front, in addition to the usual quotation-marks-coming-out-as-'&8221' problem.

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http://belmanoir.livejournal.com/

at 00:47 on 2009-09-22Actually, the Tesla machine functions entirely differently in the book--the duplicate that is created in the book is not really capable of functioning independently, so the philosophical/ethical issues are still present but very different. The movie DID come up with the image Dan is discussing.

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Arthur B

at 01:25 on 2009-09-22Ah, I was thinking of the image right at the end of the book, but now it occurs to me that that only happens in the framing story, which wasn't included in the film.

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Robinson L

at 22:00 on 2009-09-24It's perfectly simple, Dan. Removing the soul counts as an involuntary alignment shift to either Neutral Evil or Chaotic Evil (I don't think there are many vampires I'd characterize as Lawful Evil). Side effects may include some changes in personality which go beyond those associated Character Alignment, although this has only been documented in one case (Angel), and as you point out, it's not like he's a different person—more like the same person under radically different circumstances.

Now, vampires can act outside their Alignment (Harmony trying to stay friends with Cordelia in Season 2 or 3 would be an even better example), although Spike takes it to ridiculous levels in

Buffy

Season 5. Evil is just the default.

Contrast with Russel T Davies' depiction of the Daleks and Cybermen in the new

Doctor Who

. You kind of have to admire the guy for sticking to the concept that they're without personality and totally evil—no matter how blisteringly dull this makes them as villains, or the stories they appear in. Whedon, on the other hand, through out the whole “vampires without personalities” angle (probably without even realizing what he was doing) pretty much as soon as it threatened his ability to tell an entertaining story. There's probably a lesson to be learned in all that.

Interesting question about whether vampires can be considered monsters in the moral sense, even without souls. Of course, ever since Season 2 (still referring to

Buffy

), I was wondering why the couldn't just restore the souls of all the vampires they encountered. Or at least a couple, like the Alternate Willow from Season 3.

If the Dollhouse was more benign and less rapetastic, it could explore some of the interesting ideas about identity which are – in theory at least – part and parcel of the show.

Yes, but they would also have to make the plots and characters and dialogue and trivialities like that more

interesting

, too. Even without the unfortunate implications of the Dollhouse-as-human-trafficking angle, there's still the

Dollhouse

-as-fecking-boring-tv-show issue to contend with. Without an engaging

story

with which to prevent it, all the deep philosophizing in the world is so much wasted screen time.

@Jamie: Really? The links work just fine for me.

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Jamie Johnston

at 22:54 on 2009-09-24

Really? The links work just fine for me.

This is because someone has fixed them. Presumably for the sole purpose of making me look silly. :)

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Rami

at 06:37 on 2009-09-25

This is because someone has fixed them. Presumably for the sole purpose of making me look silly. :)

Not at all. I've added some smarts to the Ferret so it shouldn't happen again.

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Arthur B

at 15:04 on 2009-09-25I confess: I used

seeecret poweeers

to dive in and fix the links for everyone's short-term convenience.

Which isn't to downplay the importance of Rami's unique ability to alter the ferret at will, or Jamie's keen bug-spotting powers.

TEAMWORK!

(picture of Captain Planet and cast goes here)

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Jamie Johnston

at 16:04 on 2009-09-27Go Planet!

Incidentally, I do wonder sometimes whether it would be kind to newcomers if it said somewhere on the site who has the secret powers. Or indeed who the editor is. But most of the time I enjoy the fact that it doesn't.

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http://pozorvlak.livejournal.com/

at 22:19 on 2009-09-29You might be interested in the Less Wrong post

Timeless Identity

. Spoiler warning: it turns out to be a sales pitch for cryonic preservation. But it's good up until that point.

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Dan H

at 11:18 on 2011-01-10Sorry, I know this is an old post but I was just playing with the Random Article function and I've just found the article linked from the bottom of this comments section.

ARGH ARGH QUANTUM BULLSHIT RAGE!!!

Firstly: you know somebody is a nutbag when they say "as we have seen in..." followed by a link to a post on their own blog.

Secondly: you can't solve the transporter problem by reference to quantum mechanics. Not only does quantum mechanics not really apply to macroscopic bodies, but it ignores the fundamental question of what identity is by clinging to the (completely false) notion that it is somehow impossible to distinguish between particles.

Thirdly: I love how this long winded nonsense about "rationality" ends in something little better than Pascal's Wager - sign up for cryonics because if you're right you get to be immortal and if you aren't you don't lose anything.

Fourthly: GAAAAH QUANTUM BULLSHIT RAGE!!!

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http://orionsnebula.blogspot.com/

at 17:41 on 2011-01-10The "less wrong" guy, Eliezer Yudkowsky, is fascinating. A lot of his stuff seems to be totally nutty, or at the very least exceedingly pretentious, like "the ten virtues of a rationalist." That said, some of his writing is really good.

http://yudkowsky.net/rational/the-simple-truth

is a hilarious essay on epistemology that I found pretty convincing.

He also wrote a Harry Potter fanfic:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality

which I thought was quite funny as well, even if he occasionally stops the story to complain about JK Rowling's plotting.

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Dan H

at 18:43 on 2011-01-10

The "less wrong" guy, Eliezer Yudkowsky, is fascinating

Fascinating he might be, but I find people who cite "quantum mechanics" in support of their personal ideologies extremely irritating. Quantum mechanics says nothing about the nature of identity except as it relates to sub-atomic particles. You certainly can't use quantum mechanics to prove that psychological continuity is the essence of human identity and you certainly-certainly can't use quantum mechanics to prove that psychological continuity is the essence of human identity by using it to argue, falsely, that physical continuity exists where it doesn't on the basis of the erroneous belief that all electrons are really the same electron.

Quantum mechanics *does* say that "identity" is not a measurable property of particles - when I say "this electron" what I really mean is "the electron that currently has these properties" and if I look at the electron again and its properties have changed I cannot meaningfully describe it as being either the same electron or a different electron.

The same ideas can be applied to human identity as well, and funnily enough they have been for years going back to the original Ship of Theseus. Quantum Mechanics doesn't offer us any new insight into the issue. Just because it is true that the identity of a sub-atomic particle depends only on its quantum numbers, that does not mean that the identity of a person depends only on the quantum numbers of the particles in their body (certainly it cannot be a *necessary* component of identity because I am pretty sure the quantum numbers of the particles in my body are changing all the damned time).

Sorry, personal bugbear.

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http://orionsnebula.blogspot.com/

at 19:03 on 2011-01-10I don't disagree with any of that--I just really wanted to take the opportunity to pimp his epistemology essay, which is not about quantum.

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Dan H

at 19:21 on 2011-01-10Yeah, the epistemology essay is pretty cool, although it gets a bit straw mannish towards the end. Then again, if it's good enough for Galileo...

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http://orionsnebula.blogspot.com/

at 05:16 on 2011-01-11I see I should have specified why I find him "fascinating" in my first comment. I was going to, but didn't because I was too hungry.

On the man's main website he says that he "wears two hats." One writes about the "fine art of human rationality." Now, this is an insufferably pretentious way of putting things, and some of his articles follow suit, but most of his writings are actually quite good. What particularly strikes me is his phrase, "intelligence and learning are worth nothing if used to defeat themselves." He talks about the danger of trying to confirm ideas, various cognitive biases, and then, (this is the one that really got me thinking) the fact that even studying psychology is dangerous if you're not scrupulously honest, because the more you know about how people rationalize, the more easily you can find reason to discredit anything you don't want to believe.

The other hat is "concerned with artificial intelligence." And everything he says about this appears to be goats on fire. He supposedly works for the "Singularity Institute," a "public charity funded by individual donations." Sounds like a con man, except he's too obsessive.

It's just a jarring juxtaposition. I can't wrap my head around the existence of a person who can write at length about how to do good science, the cognitive flaws that generate wishful thinking, and the difference between a real explanatory theory and vague pseudoscience--then turn around and hit you with cloning, quantum baffle and singularities.

#Ferretbrain #Buffy the Vampire Slayer #Angel the Series #Joss Whedon #Dollhouse #Dan H

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evanhansens · 5 years

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In no order, I present you 13 theatrical moments and shows I loved this year in 2018.

01. Bernadette Peters as Dolly Levi || Hello Dolly - Her entire performance was incredible but I will never forget her Before the Parade Passes By, So Long Dearie, and the scene in front of Ephram’s shop. There is a reason Bernadette is a theatrical legend and her Dolly only further proved that.

02. The entirety of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child || I don’t think words can properly sum up the true magic of this piece. Truly that’s what this production is - it’s magic, actual magic. The thing that truly makes it extraordinary is how despite all of that fantastic magic there’s incredible performances by Jamie Parker, Anthony Boyle, Sam Clemmett, Alex Price, and the entire company that ground the production in the reality of the relationship between fathers and sons.

03. The Play That Goes Wrong || Truly one of the funniest shows I’ve ever seen with such a fantastic ensemble actors who truly make the chaos of the show just so hilarious.

04. Head Over Heels || With a score full of Go Go’s hits and with so much heart, this show was such a joy. There was LGTBQ representation and getting to see Bonnie Milligan belt her face off and have a plot that doesn’t involve her size was truly refreshing. The cast album has been one of my favorites since it came out and it is very sad to see such a joyful show close.

05. The Waitress National Tour || There was truly something special in the pie that the tour cast of Waitress baked. Led by the actual queen of kindness and goodness Desi Oakley, the entire company was delightful with a cherry on top.

06. Closing a chapter with the Munchkinland tour of Wicked || I spent a fair amount of 2017 seeing the Wicked tour and this year marked a closing of that chapter. I took one final trip to Munchkinland in Pittsburgh and somehow managed to see every single green girl the company had to offer along with such a wonderful group of citizens of Munchkinland. I will forever cherish the times I spent with the Munchkinland tour and can’t wait to be reunited somewhere down the yellow brick road.

07. Frozen || Ever since they had announced that Frozen would be coming to Broadway, I was so excited for it and it truly didn’t disappoint. With new songs added to the score of the movie, the musical aimed to deepen the relationships of the characters and did just that. Played to perky perfection by Patti Murin, we got to see more into Anna’s heart and soul with the beautiful “True Love” and slaying us with her icy fierceness and belt Caissie Levy took Elsa to new levels with “Monster”. Add into the mix - the fantastic Jelani Aladdin as Kristoff, the princely snake charmer known as John Riddle, and loveable fool Greg Hildreth, Frozen gave thawed the hearts of its audience and left you wanting to do anything but let it go.

08. Carousel || Carousel has always been a polarizing piece and perhaps even moreso in our current time of #MeToo. While this production wasn’t perfect, it brought to the stage beautiful moments like getting to hear Jessie Mueller and Josh Henry capture Julie and Billy’s quick spark and attraction with tne iconic “If I Loved You”. Getting to hear Josh Henry tear up “Soliquoy” will forever be one of the single most incredible moments I’ve been able to witness on stage. The score of Carousel has always been a favorite of mine and with Jessie, Josh, the charming Lindsay Mendez as the scene stealing and Tony winning Carrie Pipperidge, and the incredible Renee Fleming there was magic in every note. With Tony worthy choreography by Justin Peck, this Carousel took my heart for a spin this year.

09. The Boys In The Band || With names like Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, Matt Bomer, and Andrew Rannells rounding out an ensemble there was bound to be some real star power on the stage. This ensemble piece about a group of gay men coming together for one of their own’s birthday and being unapologetically real about the gay experience and the lives of gay men at the time was equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking. Despite being set in the late 60’s, many of the themes felt just as prevalent now as they did then.

10. Once at the Arden Theater in Philadelphia, PA || This year, I made a silent promise to myself to see more regional work in my own backyard. I caught three productions at the Walnut Street Theatre (Mamma Mia, Holiday Inn, and Matilda) but this gem of a production of Once at the Arden sticks out from the pack. Taking Once and putting it in the round is something I wasn’t something I knew I needed until seeing it done at the Arden. The way the actors truly surrounded you with song and brought the audience into their world was mesmerizing and heightened the emotion of things.

11. Spongebob Squarepants || Yes, I’m aware Spongebob opened in 2017, but I spent many wonderful Best Days Ever soaked in the Bikini Bottom sun this year. The fact this imaginative and charming show is closed continues to break my heart but I’m so grateful to have been able to bask in the glory of it. I will forever be in awe of what Tina Landau created and how Ethan Slater and the entire company captured the nautical nonsense of it all with so much heart. I can’t wait to revisit Bikini Bottom when the tour happens this year.

12. Mean Girls || Me? Talk about Mean Girls? Never. This show took a lot of my attention this year. This show is based on one of my favorite movies and getting the chance to see it in DC pre-Broadway in 2017 was great but getting to live as it opened on Broadway was - a massive deal. This show with its pop score and full on slayage continues to be such a blast to see. From the minute we’re taken on the ride of Cady’s story by Damian and Janis, we’re hooked. The Plastics are goddesses and we’re there to worship them as they belt, slay, and watch the world burn. I love this show with my whole heart and I refuse to apologize for it, because one should never apologize for being a boss.

13. The Prom || This show completely took me by surprise and the way it blends such an important issue like being able to take the person you like to a dance with Broadway types is hilarious and on my brand. With a score that blends the world of Broadway with the pop style of the kids from the small town Indiana, this show has heart in glittering spades. Brooks Ashmankas is giving the performance of his career and Beth Leavel continues to prove she’s an absolute theatrical queen as one self absorbed Broadway diva. Caitlin Kinnunen is the heart of the story as Emma, the girl at the center of the issue of taking the girl she likes to prom, and she’s giving one of my favorite performances this year. This show represents and serves up heart and humor.

Honorable shout outs: Christy Altomare for continuing to be a light and star in Anastasia, Zach Adkins for becoming a leading man and taking on Dmitry with so much heart and making me so proud. The tour of Book of Mormon, the tour of Aladdin, the tour of Fiddler On the Roof, and the tour of Anastasia among others.

#broadway

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buffystylez-blog · 7 years

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Unaired Pilot - FOR REAL

It’s still Buffy’s birthday, so there’s another gift in store for Slayerettes:

THE UNAIRED BUFFY PILOT IS ON YOUTUBE.

Link is here.

So I thought I’d try a more tradish style recap. Get ready for some low quality screenshots!

Also there is a disclaimer that the episode is not for broadcast because the music used was not cleared. I don’t think they could afford it at the time.

Could do with a shirt.

It’s very similar to the opening of the first episode in that a young boy and girl break into Sunnydale High School after hours and just when you think the boy is going to take advantage of the girl, the girl is a vampire and kills him real good. Pretty sure it’s a different actor. For the guy. Not Darla. That’s definitely still Julie Benz.

It’s a substantially different costume for Darla. This is the first time I’ll wonder if the actors styled themselves. I love the brogues. Darla was wearing these waaaaay before they were cool. Perhaps she killed a Charleston dancer and then waited until 1994 to kill a girl for her dress.

Will this unrealistic stage set return? Probably!

I almost think the vampire make-up is better in this than the first season.

This was probably done by an intern. I hope it was. Because if it were it was definitely free.

Who could it be wearing these cute high heel canvas shoes? I had these. I loved them. Chunky heels for all.

It’s Buffy Summers! Or Bunny, as Principal Flutie keeps calling her. She is more peppy, which I will discuss in more detail later. Or soon. And you should bloody see who played Flutie in the pilot.

STEPHEN TOBOLOWSKY. If you’re unfamiliar with this gentleman, give this a go.

Let’s talk about Buffy’s school outfit. She’s in a miniskirt and top combo with a short-sleeve button up over the top. It’s... ok. It’s more casual. Everyone is more casual in the pilot. This outfit speaks to the perkier Buffy. She’s walking a line between LA Buffy and post-season premiere Buffy. I think this is the vibe Whedon wanted for the film. It... did not translate. For reasons beyond Whedon’s control, I would wager. It both works and does not work, for reasons I will probably go into.

The outfit is cute. It lacks the polish that sets her a little apart from her schoolmates in Welcome to the Hellmouth. I do prefer her hair here, I think. It’s been straightened. Or more likely blow-dried straight.

Before straighteners, blowdrying curly or wavy hair straight was a mission. I remember a how-to in Dolly or Cosmo or Girlfriend or Cleo. It involved sectioning your hair in four bits, and juggling a big round brush and hairdryer. Like the hairdressers do really well and I do very badly. Is she sans fringe? I think she’s sans fringe.

New Willow. Who dis?

Now this does make the ‘softer side of Sears’ burn make a LOT more sense. Obviously they decided to replace this actress. It may have been because they sensed Alyson Hannigan’s ability to wear wacky colours and textures. This actress is ok. But she doesn’t really fit the dynamics of the Scooby Gang that well. As you’ll see, the friend chemistry between these versions of Buffy and Xander are much more interesting than Xander or Willow, or even Willow and Buffy.

Cordelia’s outfit here is soooooo much better. Charisma Carpenter is so beautiful. She’s the perfect antagonist for Buffy’s high school life - making Homecoming in season 3 feel like a long time coming. Blonde versus Brunette, city girl versus Queen Bee. They’re very evenly matched. I want this cropped shirt.

Though you can’t see her too clearly, the girl on the right is Nicole Bilderback, aka Whitney from Bring It On. She’s also the girl who wants to sleep with someone to get back at a boyfriend in Can’t Hardly Wait. Girl played supporting teen girl parts for a while in the 1990s. And of course that’s Harmony. This show kept a lot of its supporting cast from the pilot, which is nice.

Buffy meets Xander who directs her to the library, and she leaves behind her stake. The library is of course the place this tall drink of hot tea is waiting for her.

As in Welcome to the Hellmouth he produces that creepy book and Buffy wigs and leaves. Giles is confused as hell.

Better shot of Buffy and Willow’s outfit. There’s some nice banter here. This pilot shows of Whedon’s skill with comedic dialogue much better than the film. Some of it is even more lol than Welcome to the Hellmouth or the Harvest.

Buffy is swept away by Cordelia’s gang and just awkwardly leaves Willow. Doesn’t really establish much of a rapport between Will and B.

Xander catches up to Buffy to return her stake and together they identify the relevant social groups at Sunnydale. It’s probably my favourite scene.

I keep forgetting Xander has a skateboard. God, I hate skateboards.

Aphrodesia and whoever discover Darla’s last meal. Willow and Cordelia break the news to Buffy, but in my opinion in this exchange Buffy’s not weird enough for Cordelia to begin to doubt inviting her into her version of the Plastics.

As in Welcome to the Hellmouth Buffy checks the body for bite marks and confronts Giles, revealing her status as The Chosen One to all other patrons of the library. I guess both Buffy and Giles assume that teens don’t use libraries. And to be fair it is just Xander. I LOVED the library as a teen. I was cool. NO I WAS.

The layout is different and allows Buffy to jump off the stairs instead of use them. Because Giles uses the stairs and we discover how fucking awkward spiral staircases are. My favourite Spiral Staircase is the Kings of Leon song.

Did they keep the skylight?

The Bronze! With little to no discussion! But look at this little morsel saved for later:

There’s a line about their prowess in this episode I could swear Oz uses in season 2. Whedon and his writers are good at saving their gold. Like leprechauns?

Here’s Buffy in another outfit!

She’s already wearing practical footwear for slaying. Miley bless this creature. Is this Jonathan? The quality is so low.

Can’t tell.

I’m so sorry SMG. I did not realise how bad this screenshot was for you. Hair is high ponytail. Always up for slayage. It’s curled, which is fun. Depending on where you grew up these little strands at the front may have been called ‘slut straps.’

Jacket is... PVC? It’s... I probably would have liked it.

Again, Xander and Buffy already seem like great friends. Willow is again inconsequential, almost. As in Welcome to the Hellmouth, Willow is in danger. And where is she in danger? You guessed it, the stage for a drama performance constructed by no teen drama club I’ve ever seen.

He looks like if James Marsters was the lead singer of an 80s New Wave band.

Is that such a bad thing? Probably is for Willow.

He may also be a character from a Bret Easton Ellis novel. So he obviously has a lot of respect for women.

Buffy is wearing a shiny shirt and what appears to be a PVC jacket. It’s not a good combo. Neither is the purse. It looks like a lunch bag.

I would also like to point out that Xander is much better dressed here than in the series.

After a very slow run toward the villain she delivers this wonderful high kick.

Darla is back! Along with a vampire who looks like he was murdered while audtioning for a role as Gaston in Beauty and the Best.

Buffy fights some vampires and Willow and Xander help a bit. Hooray!

FYInformaysh this is how the vampires die in the pilot. Slowly.

So slowly.

This is Willow and Xander helping. They burned Darla to death, I think. Not sure.

Everyone looks flawless here. Not a lot of stretchy fabric going on, but still items I would definitely want.

They’re discussing how weird Buffy, Willow and Xander are.

Get it? Get it? Vampires. Art Imitating Life or whatever.

Apart from talking to a teacher and actually enjoying it they look cool as hell. Not sure what Cordy etc are talking about.

The hair is excellent. I had this shirt about ten years ago or similar. It’s purple and white and I wore it to a festival and almost instantly regretted it. Should’ve just stuck with the black dress and Chuck Taylors. Not all vintage is cool or wearable, guys.

She’s wearing almost the same thing as the day before - miniskirt, sneakers, t-shirts, button up shirt as jacket. I like the shirt from the first outfit better. But I might like the skirt better?

I definitely would have worn this. Actually, I did. I had a Roxy (or was it just Billabong?) dark blue corduroy miniskirt that I wore with a blue camouflage patterned t-shirt. I remember wearing it on a trip to Gunnedah to visit my grandfather on my mum’s side of the family. I would wear one of his flat caps with it. He would let me wear it but wouldn’t let me keep it. And then he would give me other stuff, like all of these vintage ties he owned so I could make a skirt out of them. I didn’t end up doing that, but I still have them all. I’ll never get rid of them.

Gunnedah, NSW, is also the hometown of Miranda Kerr and Erica Baxter. I do not know either young lady. But once Miranda Kerr laughed at my nephew. He had ice cream on his face. He was a toddler at the time. That was a fun story.

Sarah Michelle Gellar is so cute. Always was, always will be. She’s already the fun, peppy Buffy that will take a little longer to bring out in the series proper. She is so perfectly cast as Buffy.

That seemed like a long way away. That was incredibly dangerous. Why would she do that? Buffy is very careless when it comes to her stakes.

And that’s it! Comes in at a respectable 25 minutes and some change. The smaller run time means it’s much more about establishing Buffy as a slayer and the fun element of the premise. No Angel, so no love interest at this stage. Though I wonder if Xander and Buffy’s easy chemistry was meant to take a romantic turn?

They would rewrite it, make it longer, introduce the Big Bad, and Angel. They would also throw in the genius play of making the first two episodes a two-parter. And they would kill off a character that seemed meant to be a regular - it was a pretty good twist. They also introduce similar things from the pilot in a maybe more organic way. For example, in Welcome to the Hellmouth Buffy sneaks into the girls locker room to check the body. In this, she just flat out asks the Principal if she can. AND HE LETS HER.

Buffy’s realisation she will be doomed to being an outcast if she accepts her Slayer duties is much more expertly handled in Welcome to the Hellmouth. It’s like the pilot episode of Sherlock compared to the first episode - the extra time gives them room to breathe. They don’t have to fly through introducing characters and setting up the premise of the first series.

It’s a lot of fun, and there’s some trademark Whedon dialogue, but I daresay if this pilot had been broadcast the show may not have lasted. This plays like a fun high school sitcom with some supernatural elements. I feel like it might be trying to replicate the silly ‘monster of the week’ vibe of the film. And Whedon seems to have decided quite quickly that the series would be a different beast, so to speak. I think the slight change of direction was the best decision. Instead of a Buffy picking up almost where she left off, he introduces some real world consequences for her actions in LA instead.

It is her first day in a new school after being kicked out of school and packed off to a small town with her newly divorced mother, after all. She’s hoping to start fresh but soon learns she can’t. The entire series really examines the idea that it’s fucking hard to grow up and accept responsibility and though you can mostly handle it with grace and humour sometimes there’ll be days you just can’t. Growing up is hard and Buffy always learns this the hard way. It’s ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ but with more vampires. And great hair.

And what if Buffy had never worn those brown leather knee high boots? I don’t even want to think about a Buffy the Vampire Slayer without them.

Happy birthday, B. You’ll always be one of my personal heroes. You got me through some stuff, you know.

Coming up next on the blog, a rarity: I’ll praise Xander’s wardrobe.

Until next time, Slayerettes.

#what buffy wore #Buffy The Vampire Slayer #buffy summers #Buffy style #buffy fashion #Buffyverse #joss whedon #whedonverse #whedonverse women #television #fashion #popular culture #20th anniversary buffy birthweek

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vishwaspur · 7 years

Note

Ur opinion is definitely not unpopular! Seriously I was cringing so bad during those inspiration scenes. And the only part which was sort of ok was om rearranging gauri, it felt more like he was trying to make her comfortable which just lent to the feel of them. But the rest of them, i might as well have skipped it. I really feel bad for both actors coz it seems so ott for them. They should have done something like the chulbul trapped in lights scene. Cont'd

Cont'd. Apart from that, I was literally jumpin on my seat when shrenu was like i am done with this. It's time to ask the hard questions. Totally loved that confrontation scene. The only good thing which came out of the insp. track is the intro of the bareilly MU. Oh, how i wish we could have seen the part of shivaay explaining what gauri has to do. Wonder how the convo would have gone. Oh wear a beautiful saree, play with the fountain, i will throw colours in the bg. LOL

Tbh the way i was soooo uncomfortable through the scene, it was the same as me pretty much skipping it. I had the volume so low and i was literally peeping through my fingers as I had my face covered. Yaar..maybe it’s me as a person? Like..I’m not very comfortable watching subpar romantic “intimate” scenes. Mujhe zabardast wali michmichi hoti hai.

Also isn’t it amazing how in IB when tracks start..you have NO idea where they are going to end? Let’s be real...NONE of us thought that they would use this scene to bring in the Bareilly MU! But BOY I’m glad they did! And Gauri bajaoing Omkara left, right, center is pretty much this blog’s aesthetic at this point xD Have you noticed with every confrontation, Queenie just raises the bar of slayage? The core of her questions remain the same but the way she words them..fuckin’ epic. And Omkie Shomkie didn’t reply to her but his reply to US was that purely murderous rage wala look near the end of the episode. Lord knows how he’s going to act around Gauri now. Honestly, can’t wait to see it!!

OH MY GOD! I DID NOT NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE POSSIBLE CONVO BETWEEN SHIVAAY AND GAURI! adjklahsdklash! IMAGINE!! And best if Rudy was also there! OH. MY. GOD! What have you done?!?! This is epic fanfic material right there!! Someone write this! T__T

#type: replies #rikara #anon #replies

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buffystylez-blog · 7 years

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The Harvest

Original Australian air date: probably the same day as Welcome to the Hellmouth or a week later. I don’t know.

Written by: Joss Whedon

Directed by: John T. Kretchmer

Starring: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alyson Hannigan, Nicholas Brendon, Anthony Head, Charisma Carpenter, Kristine Sutherland, Julie Benz, and David Boreanaz

Oh, hello. It’s What Buffy Wore season 1, episode 2, in which Buffy prevents her first apocalypse while simultaneously being grounded by her mum.

I genuinely cannot remember if this episode screened straight after Welcome to the Hellmouth. It did in the US, but I have no idea if Australia followed suit. I googled it for about five minutes and decided it probably doesn’t matter. Plus, I’m kind of in pain with gastritis, which incidentally is probably the sexiest stomach issue you can have.

The good news with this episode is that there are three outfits. The bad news is that they’re not great. There are highlights (Buffy’s hair) but some real lowlights (not Buffy’s hair – more like, pants and jackets).

To the recap!

We left Buffy at the end of Welcome to the Hellmouth in a coffin at the mercy of Luke, a huge ass vampire dude. I don’t have to say spoiler alert, right?

In a joyous turn of events (or subtle continuity error), it turns out Buffy has put on the cross necklace her stalker (ahem, love interest) gave her and it burns the vampire, distracting him enough to allow Buffy to escape and rescue two-thirds of her new friends. Soz, Jesse. But before you can say vampires exist, Buffy discovers the Master is planning on sending Luke as his representative or whatever to the Bronze, where the teens go, to drain enough blood to make him strong enough to leave his mystical underground prison/lair.

After trimming some dead weight from the Scooby gang (soz Jesse), Buffy and friends stop the Harvest by very slowly fighting some vampires and killing Luke with a great fake-out.

But who cares about that! What was Buffy wearing?

Here we see the cycle of school outfit and Bronze outfit repeated. But then, bonus! One more school outfit.

Outfit 1

The hair has definitely improved. The fringe is less wispy because she’s parted her hair in the middle. It’s still 90s as hell, but it suits SMG better. She’s wearing silvery hoops I can’t get a good view of, but they’re pretty.

She’s wearing the cross necklace, which, again, I’ve always liked and may have looked for a copy once or twice. But as someone raised Roman Catholic who is basically agnostic and suspicious of organised religion, the cross is still a weighty object, emotion wise. It’s why I couldn’t quite bring myself to wear Rosary Beads as a necklace when Kate Moss did that time. Even though it looked cool.

I always thought Buffy was wearing a navy button-up shirt here. But now I can see it’s black. And not button-up. Is there a zipper at the neckline? Probably not. I think the amount of attention I paid these last 20 years of watching and re-watching suggests I didn’t really care for it. There’s a vague memory of liking it, but perhaps it was more about the accessories.

We’re also back to ankle length pants that are somewhere in between straight and wide leg. They’re a silvery blue, which I think is why I thought the shirt was navy - some sort of same colour palette deal. The boots are around ankle length as well. They have buckles? We see them infrequently but she will wear them to the Bronze. Which will lead me to wonder why she changed her entire outfit except her shoes. Then I remember I do that all the time and shut the hell up about it.

Was matching your eye make-up to a colour you’re wearing a thing? Because this is the second time Buffy is matching her eyeshadow to her clothes, pants in this case. It looks ok, I guess?

The real stars of this outfit, however, are the sunnies. I mean, come on. Look at those babies. I would wear the heck out of these now. So. Fucking. Great.

Buffy wanders off school property to battle some vampires and rescue Jesse/find out he’s been turned into a vampire with Xander in tow and some cryptic warning from Angel, who could actually help her but chooses not to because… reasons. But now it’s time to stop Luke, Darla and friends from feasting on more of Buffy’s classmates. Outfit change!

Outfit 2

Again, Buffy chooses practicality for slayage. Does it look any good? Well… sort of? This time we have grey/charcoal pants that are slim fit, but not skinny leg (see previous post on why). She’s wearing the same boots as outfit 1, which – why change everything else but the boots? I’m sure I’ve done the same (see how I mentioned earlier that I’d say that? Is that foreshadowing? Is this a callback?).

I keep forgetting that she wears a long-sleeved white t-shirt with weirdly placed pockets and a strange neckline. I think it’s designed to show Buffy means business and to show off the cross necklace again. It’s… ok.

The hair is again the highlight, which has been put in a very practical high ponytail. To hide stakes, possible bloodstains and to battle both the undead and the cold weather she wears a brown leather jacket. That sounds cool, yeah? Probably makes Buffy even cooler, right?

Uh, no.

It’s baggy. It’s old and ugly. It may have been passed down by the previous slayer, or her dad, or a homeless person. I probably loved it. Jackets in the 90s weren’t really about tailoring or correct sleeve length.

I do love an ugly jacket. You’re talking to a person who has a brown bomber jacket with navy trim and at least four different animal prints. This should be in my wheelhouse. Actually, I should search for this on eBay right now.

This look does feature prominently in the opening credits and a lot of images of Buffy on the worldwide web. She looks cool as hell. Without the jacket. And I might have worn jeans instead. But again, they’d be late 90s jeans and probably not much of an improvement. Speaking of improvement, let’s see how the next outfit isn’t one!

Outfit 3

Like, what is this? We clearly liked the 60s in the late 90s. Upcoming episodes will definitely confirm this. But did we do it well? Uh… not this time.

So we have here a cherry shift dress that looks quite cute on its own. And the boots from Welcome to the Hellmouth are back. And they are welcome. Shift dresses and knee high boots are very cute. Ask Twiggy. But then… Buffy has thrown over the top of this a purple, possibly suede shirt. And it’s… it’s… not great. She tops this look off with a magenta headscarf.

Nothing individually is too offensive, but also nothing quite works together. You know how Coco Chanel (probably) said to always take one thing off before you leave the house? Buffy, gurl, why not roll with that and lose two-three before leaving the house. Or just start again.

So what were others wearing this episode? Giles was his English librarian best. And we all know how I feel about Giles now. Cordelia didn’t feature too heavily but her outfit at the Bronze was giving off sexy cat burglar vibes, which is good.

There’s a scene in a computer lab in which Cordelia and Harmony discuss how awful Buffy is and Willow gets sweet, sweet vengeance. But I don’t really care about the ensemble here. It’s the guy who propels the conversation between Cordy and Harmony. I want all of us to take note of extras or supporting cast members who take their role very seriously. This guy is really into doing a good job as guy who asks Cordelia about Buffy.

See?

Xander wins with this green number. But then he loses with a wallet chain, and later a camouflage t-shirt.

Angel is now dressed like he’s going to a meeting with the New York office. Perfect for stalking teen girls and not helping them. But, like, yeah he’s really hot.

Our actual winner, again, is Willow. Cute overalls? Yes. Cute dress with cute cardigan? Again, yes, of course. Have you met Willow Rosenberg?

Up next is Witch, where I’ll tell you all about how much I love Adidas Superstars and we finally discuss Buffy’s sleepwear. And is there tie-dye? THERE SURE IS.

Keep an eye out for more bonus posts and the first commentary, which will be… actually, I’m gonna maintain an air of mystery and tell you later.

Until next time, Slayerettes.

screen caps via screen capped.net.

#buffy summers #buffy the vampire slayer #buffyverse #buffyfashions #whatbuffywore #television #pop culture #angel #giles #willow #xander #david boreanaz #sarah michelle gellar #joss whedon #whedonverse #fashion

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