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shadowkatMy subject heading sucks - I blame it on the brain fog.
1. Buffy S7 Re-Watch - this season is a whole lot better than I remembered it?
* There's a heavy theme in both Angel and Buffy against "vengeance" or "killing someone just because they hurt you". Buffy kills demons to protect the populace or in self-defense, not out of revenge. It's very similar to the moral code of most if not all superhero comics and the hero trope.
Angel which is the noir trope (not the hero trope) - also has this theme just in a different way? It shows the negative consequences of seeking vengeance - via Holtz, Fred, Gunn, Angel, etc.
The writers of Buffy don't condone vengeance. Which is one of the reasons I loved the series. Our world is punitive and cruel and more often than not seeks vengeance for vengeance sake. Killing the individual who killed your loved one (whether they be your mother, father, child, cat or dog) doesn't bring the loved one back, and while it may feel better for a second, it doesn't fix it and doesn't make it better - it makes it worse. Now you are no better than that individual, and you've hurt people too. And both series show this is in various ways.
First Date - does a good job of getting across the differences between Justice and Vengeance. Also guiding someone towards redemption, as opposed to killing them, jailing them, or punishing them.
When I first watched S7, my enjoyment was tainted by reading the responses of those watching it along with me on various posting boards. Many of which I knew fleetingly or saw once or twice in person, if at all. Looking back, I find myself pondering why I cared what they thought? Or why they cared what I thought? I suppose we wanted to connect somehow, as impossible as that may seem, and to an extent we did. Also, it is interesting to see variant views. So perhaps tainted is not the right word? So much as colored my enjoyment or enhanced and undermined?
It also helps that I know what happens next - some of the nervous anxiety and anticipation is gone.
There's some interesting takeaways.
* Spike is very much in the Angel role in S7, and some of his behavior is very similar to Angel's in S3. You could easily flip the two characters in this season and get similar results. That said? I find Spike and his relationship with Buffy (along with the others) to be far more interesting.
Partly, because Spike probably doesn't think Buffy loves him at all, Angel knew she loved him. They told each other incessantly. But she carefully avoids telling Spike. Which is a lot more interesting to me. The reason Spike became a vampire was a bad case of unrequited love, and what triggers him is his unresolved feelings towards his ailing mother.
She does however love him. And apparently everyone but Spike is more or less aware of it now. "Why does everyone still think I'm in love with Spike?" Buffy asks Willow, after Willow tells her maybe she can use Principal Wood to move on. "None of that wicked energy she appears to be attracted to? And still younger than her last two boyfriends."
Spike is kind of in the Riley and Angel roles - he's even wearing Riley's colors and outfits. (Marsters does not look good in Riley's colors and clothing. Khaki washes him out.)
Spike even has someone gunning for him, just like Angel often did. Wood is in the Holtz role, yet not nearly as sympathetic as Holtz. (Holtz lost his entire family to Angelus and Darla, not only that Angelus told him how he raped Holtz's wife, and turned his little girl into a vampire, after killing his baby). Compare this to...well, Spike tracked down Nikki the Vampire Slayer (the only thing vampires and demons fear), and they fought on a subway in the 1970s to the death, and he won, and took her jacket. It was in 1977. Since then Spike got a chip, then fought and won a soul. He didn't kill anyone for three years prior to the First's manipulations.
Add to that? The First successfully manipulates Wood into going after Spike. Just as Sajhan successfully manipulated Holtz into coming forward 200 years just to kill Angel (well actually Connor - but Holtz didn't get the memo, and is a bit more savvy than Wood - also older than Wood, and more motivated - so Holtz figured out that the best revenge on Angel was to turn his son against him). (Buffy is more interesting if you watch it with Angel the series. The two series compliment each other thematically.)
* Giles and Wood - and the Watcher Council, also authority figures. The writers do not like authority figures. (Another reason I love the show. I share their distrust of authority figures.) One of the major themes of the series and in particular S7 - is the abuse of power.
- Giles brings Chao-Yung from China. Chao doesn't speak a word of English. Giles barely speaks Cantonese or Mandarine. (Small wonder - there are about ten different versions. China has a lot of different dialects. You think English is bad - Chinese is worse.) Also, English and Chinese are very different languages, not to mention cultures.
There's a subtle and somewhat sly satiric joke going on here - that I hadn't quite picked up on before now. Although I'm sure the Brits watching the series may have. It's about the British attempts at colonizing and trading with Asia and failing miserably. The British arrogance and assumption that their cultures are similar. They aren't.
Giles: Oh well, we have the universal language everyone loves ice cream.
Chao (in Chinese): I'm lactose intolerant and very uncomfortable.
Giles shows her flashcards of girls being killed brutally by vampires. (Giles can't draw. Angel, he isn't. Closer to Fred in the art department.)
This results in Chao locking herself in the bathroom - most likely in part due to lactose intolerance. (IBS).
Giles offers her milk to feel better, she wonders if he's trying to kill her.
It's getting across how out of touch Giles is. At the beginning of the episode, Giles is questioning Buffy's decision to remove Spike's chip (well aware that it was Buffy's decision to remove it, not Spike's). And Giles clearly thinks she did it because she's in love with Spike, or needs him emotionally on some level. But she explains - that's not it. She's giving him a chance to be a good person, just as she is with Andrew and Anya. (The dialogue could be lifted from S3, actually. Giles says the same thing about Angel in S3, and to a degree Riley in S4. Buffy never listened to Giles before, why he thinks she will now - is beyond me.)
Wood has a similar arrogance. He's kind of like Riley, but older (hotter), and a wee bit more manipulative, not to mention nursing a grudge. I think that's probably what turns Buffy off - he reminds her a little bit too much of Riley (and been there done that have the battle scars), also the whole "slayer was my mother thing" and "I tracked you down, maneuvered may way into the principal's office of the new school, and manipulated you into working for me" isn't exactly a turn on?
And that date - was a bit of a set-up. He took her to an out of way restaurant, with vampires in the corridor. To show off what he can do, and get her to reveal herself.
We're not really supposed to like Wood at the moment. He's being shown as a potential threat. And the writers are doing a good job of getting across that evil resides in everyone. You can't get "rid" of evil, but you can avoid giving in to it. Which side do you choose? The demon girl dating Xander, makes it clear she's choosing evil (she gets killed for it). While Wood appears to still be on the fence.
* Spike is very different with a soul. Spike refers to Xander as "the boy" or "her boy" throughout Season 7, and Andrew as "the little boy". He has nicknames for folks. Anya is now Anya, not demon girl. Willow is now Willow, not Red. He's also more restrained. He filters himself more. Similar to Angel in this regard - he doesn't say what he is thinking, or bites his tongue. When they are trying to decide whether to call Buffy after their attempt to record the First blows up in their face - Spike has to restrain himself from going after her. And restrains himself from saying half the things he's thinking. He even suggests to Buffy - that he should leave (which Angel would have done as well, and Riley would have done it), saying he could be a threat, and she has Wood now. But she tells him that she needs him to stay. She's not ready for him to go yet.
There's a few interesting questions posed by the episode, some answered, some not.
* Why does Anya tell Spike that Giles is the First, when she knows he isn't? (Does she want to play a joke on Spike and Giles?)
* Why doesn't the First use Spike to kill the Girls - what is the First holding Spike back for? (This may have been answered with Wood. The First wants to turn Buffy - to make Buffy evil. It's trying to split her off from her friends, and using Spike to do it. What prompted the First to make a play at becoming corporeal was two things: 1) Buffy coming back from the dead not once but twice. And not only that - but her flirtation with the dark side in S6, when she almost let Spike pull her into the dark with him, almost lost herself in him and let him take her over. 2) Spike - not being able to take over Buffy or seduce her, decides to join her in the light instead - and does the impossible - seeks a soul. Vampires don't seek souls. It's the one thing none of them want. Darla didn't want it. Angelus didn't. This is a huge game-changer. Buffy basically pulled Spike into the light, as opposed to Spike pulling Buffy into the dark.
So the First is attempting to undermine that - and one way to do that is to have Wood go after Spike, resulting in either Spike killing Wood (which means Buffy has to kill him and that could destroy her) or Wood killing Spike (which means Buffy has issues with Wood - and that could destroy her).
The First tries periodically through the Season to undermine Spike and Buffy's relationship, and Buffy's with the others. The First wants to claim Buffy as its own. It's why it was triggering Spike to kill all those people. It wanted Buffy to kill him.
It's about power - who has it. Right now Buffy has the power - and the First wants it.
Interesting episode, better written than I originally gave it credit for. Even the Xander bits are kind of fun. Poor Xander - he keeps going for the demons. He and Buffy seem to have that in common. Actually I think everyone Xander has dated was or became a demon at some point, with the exception of Willow? Cordelia does in Angel S3. Buffy similarly has gone for mainly men who have well issues? Riley was on super-serum, when she fell for him. Spike - vampire. Angel - vampire. Only Willow doesn't appear to do that, and well Giles.
My favorite exchange (it's a hilarious episode in places, the lines in these series are wonderful):
Xander and Buffy at the same time: I have a date!
Xander: Wait, I have a date - way to upstage me, Buff.
Buffy: Sorry. Would it help if I said, it's not really a date - it's with the Principal? My boss? Who is either evil or promoting me? It could be a promotion? Or -
Xander: Isn't he at least 10 years older.
Willow: Yet a 100 years younger than the last two.
Buffy: And fingers crossed, less with the wicked energy. We're hoping I don't have a type. And he's not evil, even if his office is directly above the hellmouth.
Buffy's dating choices would put anyone's to shame.
2. My knee is doing better. I've been doing the exercises - there's about ten of them? And I have an app now - that I can go into, see how to do it, how many sets, reps, and holds, and once I finish, click complete, and it takes me to the next one. So I do them in order. There's one that the PT wants me to do five times a day (but it's lying flat on the bed pushing a towl into the bed or floor) and that's impossible to do five times a day. (I commute into the city daily to work at a desk in front of a computer in a cubicle.) But the exercises are making the knee feel better. So I'll make sure I do them as often as possible this weekend. I've done them diligently yesterday and today. It helped getting the app. My difficulty is I can barely see the wording on the PDF print outs, and can't keep track.
3. Discovered a few nifty IBS aides.
* Kiwi and Magnesium Citrate really help with constipation. So does Miralax.
* Baking Soda and lemon juice helps with digestion, heart burn, and gastric reflux.
* Peppermint tea settles stomachs.
4. Discovered there might have been a General Strike today via social media - my sister-in-law posted about it on Instagram. I saw it after I got home from work today.
(It's easy for her to go on strike - she owns her own fashion business, doesn't have to travel anywhere, nor does my brother, neither work for anyone, and they are flying to Hawaii for free on Sunday due to credit card points).
At least I think it was today? It's hard to know for certain. Maybe it's tomorrow? Although why would anyone go on strike on Saturday? I don't think it happened - because, ahem, not everyone got the memo? None of my co-workers knew about it. And people were traveling on the trains. Granted not quite as many - but it was also 10 degrees - so....
You know you can't exactly have a General Strike if you don't tell everyone about it. If people don't know the specifics - such as date, time, and what they are expected to do - they aren't going to be able to comply and go on strike. It's not personal - they just don't know.
And the fact I didn't know - and I'm on various social media platforms and more and following a lot of these folks...sort of says it all. Only a handful of folks knew about it - and they sucked at getting the word out to the rest of us, not only that, their powers of persuasion are sorely lacking. (Guilt-tripping or bullying people into doing stuff - isn't going to work, if the people you are bullying and/or guilt-tripping are worse off than you are.)
[I was annoyed all day long by human stupidity - on the commute and at work - my patience was gone by the end of the day. Not helped by the fact that it is ridiculously cold outside. It's 8 degrees F, and the high today was I think 16 degrees F. That's in the negative temperatures Celsius. I have the water dripping in my bathroom - even though I think they insulated the pipes - after having them break multiple times in the past few years. So not only is it cold outside? It's cold everywhere. It's in the 60s in my apartment, and in the 60s at work. I'm tired of winter. And it's only the end of January. I have the February Uglies and I've not gotten to February yet.]
1. Buffy S7 Re-Watch - this season is a whole lot better than I remembered it?
* There's a heavy theme in both Angel and Buffy against "vengeance" or "killing someone just because they hurt you". Buffy kills demons to protect the populace or in self-defense, not out of revenge. It's very similar to the moral code of most if not all superhero comics and the hero trope.
Angel which is the noir trope (not the hero trope) - also has this theme just in a different way? It shows the negative consequences of seeking vengeance - via Holtz, Fred, Gunn, Angel, etc.
The writers of Buffy don't condone vengeance. Which is one of the reasons I loved the series. Our world is punitive and cruel and more often than not seeks vengeance for vengeance sake. Killing the individual who killed your loved one (whether they be your mother, father, child, cat or dog) doesn't bring the loved one back, and while it may feel better for a second, it doesn't fix it and doesn't make it better - it makes it worse. Now you are no better than that individual, and you've hurt people too. And both series show this is in various ways.
First Date - does a good job of getting across the differences between Justice and Vengeance. Also guiding someone towards redemption, as opposed to killing them, jailing them, or punishing them.
When I first watched S7, my enjoyment was tainted by reading the responses of those watching it along with me on various posting boards. Many of which I knew fleetingly or saw once or twice in person, if at all. Looking back, I find myself pondering why I cared what they thought? Or why they cared what I thought? I suppose we wanted to connect somehow, as impossible as that may seem, and to an extent we did. Also, it is interesting to see variant views. So perhaps tainted is not the right word? So much as colored my enjoyment or enhanced and undermined?
It also helps that I know what happens next - some of the nervous anxiety and anticipation is gone.
There's some interesting takeaways.
* Spike is very much in the Angel role in S7, and some of his behavior is very similar to Angel's in S3. You could easily flip the two characters in this season and get similar results. That said? I find Spike and his relationship with Buffy (along with the others) to be far more interesting.
Partly, because Spike probably doesn't think Buffy loves him at all, Angel knew she loved him. They told each other incessantly. But she carefully avoids telling Spike. Which is a lot more interesting to me. The reason Spike became a vampire was a bad case of unrequited love, and what triggers him is his unresolved feelings towards his ailing mother.
She does however love him. And apparently everyone but Spike is more or less aware of it now. "Why does everyone still think I'm in love with Spike?" Buffy asks Willow, after Willow tells her maybe she can use Principal Wood to move on. "None of that wicked energy she appears to be attracted to? And still younger than her last two boyfriends."
Spike is kind of in the Riley and Angel roles - he's even wearing Riley's colors and outfits. (Marsters does not look good in Riley's colors and clothing. Khaki washes him out.)
Spike even has someone gunning for him, just like Angel often did. Wood is in the Holtz role, yet not nearly as sympathetic as Holtz. (Holtz lost his entire family to Angelus and Darla, not only that Angelus told him how he raped Holtz's wife, and turned his little girl into a vampire, after killing his baby). Compare this to...well, Spike tracked down Nikki the Vampire Slayer (the only thing vampires and demons fear), and they fought on a subway in the 1970s to the death, and he won, and took her jacket. It was in 1977. Since then Spike got a chip, then fought and won a soul. He didn't kill anyone for three years prior to the First's manipulations.
Add to that? The First successfully manipulates Wood into going after Spike. Just as Sajhan successfully manipulated Holtz into coming forward 200 years just to kill Angel (well actually Connor - but Holtz didn't get the memo, and is a bit more savvy than Wood - also older than Wood, and more motivated - so Holtz figured out that the best revenge on Angel was to turn his son against him). (Buffy is more interesting if you watch it with Angel the series. The two series compliment each other thematically.)
* Giles and Wood - and the Watcher Council, also authority figures. The writers do not like authority figures. (Another reason I love the show. I share their distrust of authority figures.) One of the major themes of the series and in particular S7 - is the abuse of power.
- Giles brings Chao-Yung from China. Chao doesn't speak a word of English. Giles barely speaks Cantonese or Mandarine. (Small wonder - there are about ten different versions. China has a lot of different dialects. You think English is bad - Chinese is worse.) Also, English and Chinese are very different languages, not to mention cultures.
There's a subtle and somewhat sly satiric joke going on here - that I hadn't quite picked up on before now. Although I'm sure the Brits watching the series may have. It's about the British attempts at colonizing and trading with Asia and failing miserably. The British arrogance and assumption that their cultures are similar. They aren't.
Giles: Oh well, we have the universal language everyone loves ice cream.
Chao (in Chinese): I'm lactose intolerant and very uncomfortable.
Giles shows her flashcards of girls being killed brutally by vampires. (Giles can't draw. Angel, he isn't. Closer to Fred in the art department.)
This results in Chao locking herself in the bathroom - most likely in part due to lactose intolerance. (IBS).
Giles offers her milk to feel better, she wonders if he's trying to kill her.
It's getting across how out of touch Giles is. At the beginning of the episode, Giles is questioning Buffy's decision to remove Spike's chip (well aware that it was Buffy's decision to remove it, not Spike's). And Giles clearly thinks she did it because she's in love with Spike, or needs him emotionally on some level. But she explains - that's not it. She's giving him a chance to be a good person, just as she is with Andrew and Anya. (The dialogue could be lifted from S3, actually. Giles says the same thing about Angel in S3, and to a degree Riley in S4. Buffy never listened to Giles before, why he thinks she will now - is beyond me.)
Wood has a similar arrogance. He's kind of like Riley, but older (hotter), and a wee bit more manipulative, not to mention nursing a grudge. I think that's probably what turns Buffy off - he reminds her a little bit too much of Riley (and been there done that have the battle scars), also the whole "slayer was my mother thing" and "I tracked you down, maneuvered may way into the principal's office of the new school, and manipulated you into working for me" isn't exactly a turn on?
And that date - was a bit of a set-up. He took her to an out of way restaurant, with vampires in the corridor. To show off what he can do, and get her to reveal herself.
We're not really supposed to like Wood at the moment. He's being shown as a potential threat. And the writers are doing a good job of getting across that evil resides in everyone. You can't get "rid" of evil, but you can avoid giving in to it. Which side do you choose? The demon girl dating Xander, makes it clear she's choosing evil (she gets killed for it). While Wood appears to still be on the fence.
* Spike is very different with a soul. Spike refers to Xander as "the boy" or "her boy" throughout Season 7, and Andrew as "the little boy". He has nicknames for folks. Anya is now Anya, not demon girl. Willow is now Willow, not Red. He's also more restrained. He filters himself more. Similar to Angel in this regard - he doesn't say what he is thinking, or bites his tongue. When they are trying to decide whether to call Buffy after their attempt to record the First blows up in their face - Spike has to restrain himself from going after her. And restrains himself from saying half the things he's thinking. He even suggests to Buffy - that he should leave (which Angel would have done as well, and Riley would have done it), saying he could be a threat, and she has Wood now. But she tells him that she needs him to stay. She's not ready for him to go yet.
There's a few interesting questions posed by the episode, some answered, some not.
* Why does Anya tell Spike that Giles is the First, when she knows he isn't? (Does she want to play a joke on Spike and Giles?)
* Why doesn't the First use Spike to kill the Girls - what is the First holding Spike back for? (This may have been answered with Wood. The First wants to turn Buffy - to make Buffy evil. It's trying to split her off from her friends, and using Spike to do it. What prompted the First to make a play at becoming corporeal was two things: 1) Buffy coming back from the dead not once but twice. And not only that - but her flirtation with the dark side in S6, when she almost let Spike pull her into the dark with him, almost lost herself in him and let him take her over. 2) Spike - not being able to take over Buffy or seduce her, decides to join her in the light instead - and does the impossible - seeks a soul. Vampires don't seek souls. It's the one thing none of them want. Darla didn't want it. Angelus didn't. This is a huge game-changer. Buffy basically pulled Spike into the light, as opposed to Spike pulling Buffy into the dark.
So the First is attempting to undermine that - and one way to do that is to have Wood go after Spike, resulting in either Spike killing Wood (which means Buffy has to kill him and that could destroy her) or Wood killing Spike (which means Buffy has issues with Wood - and that could destroy her).
The First tries periodically through the Season to undermine Spike and Buffy's relationship, and Buffy's with the others. The First wants to claim Buffy as its own. It's why it was triggering Spike to kill all those people. It wanted Buffy to kill him.
It's about power - who has it. Right now Buffy has the power - and the First wants it.
Interesting episode, better written than I originally gave it credit for. Even the Xander bits are kind of fun. Poor Xander - he keeps going for the demons. He and Buffy seem to have that in common. Actually I think everyone Xander has dated was or became a demon at some point, with the exception of Willow? Cordelia does in Angel S3. Buffy similarly has gone for mainly men who have well issues? Riley was on super-serum, when she fell for him. Spike - vampire. Angel - vampire. Only Willow doesn't appear to do that, and well Giles.
My favorite exchange (it's a hilarious episode in places, the lines in these series are wonderful):
Xander and Buffy at the same time: I have a date!
Xander: Wait, I have a date - way to upstage me, Buff.
Buffy: Sorry. Would it help if I said, it's not really a date - it's with the Principal? My boss? Who is either evil or promoting me? It could be a promotion? Or -
Xander: Isn't he at least 10 years older.
Willow: Yet a 100 years younger than the last two.
Buffy: And fingers crossed, less with the wicked energy. We're hoping I don't have a type. And he's not evil, even if his office is directly above the hellmouth.
Buffy's dating choices would put anyone's to shame.
2. My knee is doing better. I've been doing the exercises - there's about ten of them? And I have an app now - that I can go into, see how to do it, how many sets, reps, and holds, and once I finish, click complete, and it takes me to the next one. So I do them in order. There's one that the PT wants me to do five times a day (but it's lying flat on the bed pushing a towl into the bed or floor) and that's impossible to do five times a day. (I commute into the city daily to work at a desk in front of a computer in a cubicle.) But the exercises are making the knee feel better. So I'll make sure I do them as often as possible this weekend. I've done them diligently yesterday and today. It helped getting the app. My difficulty is I can barely see the wording on the PDF print outs, and can't keep track.
3. Discovered a few nifty IBS aides.
* Kiwi and Magnesium Citrate really help with constipation. So does Miralax.
* Baking Soda and lemon juice helps with digestion, heart burn, and gastric reflux.
* Peppermint tea settles stomachs.
4. Discovered there might have been a General Strike today via social media - my sister-in-law posted about it on Instagram. I saw it after I got home from work today.
(It's easy for her to go on strike - she owns her own fashion business, doesn't have to travel anywhere, nor does my brother, neither work for anyone, and they are flying to Hawaii for free on Sunday due to credit card points).
At least I think it was today? It's hard to know for certain. Maybe it's tomorrow? Although why would anyone go on strike on Saturday? I don't think it happened - because, ahem, not everyone got the memo? None of my co-workers knew about it. And people were traveling on the trains. Granted not quite as many - but it was also 10 degrees - so....
You know you can't exactly have a General Strike if you don't tell everyone about it. If people don't know the specifics - such as date, time, and what they are expected to do - they aren't going to be able to comply and go on strike. It's not personal - they just don't know.
And the fact I didn't know - and I'm on various social media platforms and more and following a lot of these folks...sort of says it all. Only a handful of folks knew about it - and they sucked at getting the word out to the rest of us, not only that, their powers of persuasion are sorely lacking. (Guilt-tripping or bullying people into doing stuff - isn't going to work, if the people you are bullying and/or guilt-tripping are worse off than you are.)
[I was annoyed all day long by human stupidity - on the commute and at work - my patience was gone by the end of the day. Not helped by the fact that it is ridiculously cold outside. It's 8 degrees F, and the high today was I think 16 degrees F. That's in the negative temperatures Celsius. I have the water dripping in my bathroom - even though I think they insulated the pipes - after having them break multiple times in the past few years. So not only is it cold outside? It's cold everywhere. It's in the 60s in my apartment, and in the 60s at work. I'm tired of winter. And it's only the end of January. I have the February Uglies and I've not gotten to February yet.]
