When women talk about how friendzoning is bullshit men start getting offended.
So I’d like to make a couple of things clear. No one is talking about the nice guy who becomes friends with a girl and over the years begins to care about her romantically and so he tells her and she says “I’m sorry, I…
The (would be) flawless cast of Angel And Faith.
Jack Lemmon as Pat ‘Patrick’ Lehane
Rebekah Isaacs said she based him on James Belushi.
So I fucking caved and bought #8.
I have thoughts and feels about it. But I am still annoyed that I couldn’t find it anywhere.
Whatever.
Thoughts under the cut.
Spike knew that the last time he saw her at the party, she was passed out on her bed, and he covered her and left, thinking she was safe. When he heard that she was pregnant and didn’t remember how, he must have thought she was raped after he left, and he had failed to protect her. That gives a whole new meaning to the look of shock and horror on his face in the pool scene in #6. And - in a way, Buffy was, if not raped, terribly violated. I think some of Spike’s over-protectiveness of late is coming from feelings of guilt.
The science? Makes no sense.
Buffy’s reactions… Eh, I don’t think any of the writers at the moment has a clue how to write Buffy, really.
Xander seems to be suffering from PTSD. He may end up having one of the more interesting storylines this season.
The emphasis on “normal” this season means that this is something that’s being explored and deconstructed this season. It’s supposed to be about Buffy figuring out who she is and what she wants out of life, now that she doesn’t have constantly to save the world.
Spuffy after issue 10 (major spoilers)
We don’t know if Buffy will actually reject Spike. The description just says this:
“In that arc — which also deals with Buffy actually being a robot – Buffy confronts the fact that if she ever wants anything close to a “normal” life, having a boyfriend who’s a vampire probably isn’t the best thing for her. Gischler says the Spike spin-off starts “an hour” after the end of issue #10, with Spike leaving town in his spaceship manned by giant bugs. (Just go with it.) “The focus is on Spike and his coming to terms with some things, sort of getting right in the head,” says Gischler. “He loves Buffy, but can’t be with her. What does that mean to a vampire with a soul?”
It is a bit too soon to jump to the conclusion that Buffy will reject Spike because he’s a vampire, rather than that they both decide it wouldn’t work, or that he’s the one to conclude she needs “normal”, which is not him, as he did in #4, and she just doesn’t stop him.
This season Spike has expressed the view that Buffy needs normal and he’s not that at least as much if not more than Buffy has. He’s also gone back on it and decided he can give her “normal”, but both of them seem very confused and going back and forth on what is “normal” and if/how they want it
There have been signs of friction between them in #9, but if anything, most of them are signs of Spike being annoyed, frustrated and contemptuous because of Buffy’s behavior, including her dreamy reaction to Andrew’s Buffake house. In #8 he has a mocking expression when he asks her if that’s what she had in mind for them, and she says: “It wasn’t…” but it’s not quite clear what she meant. In #9 he’s contemptuous of how cliche that life is (“It’s not blood. Merlot. How cliche.” - Andrew: “That’s sort of the point.”) and there’s the annoyed close-up when Buffy says “He gave me the kind of life I couldn’t create for myself” which he replies to: “Buffy, this isn’t anyone’s real life”. That he and Buffy don’t quite see eye to eye when it comes to the ideal life is getting pretty obvious. (Spike has a point - the yuppie housefrau scenario is hopelessly unrealistic - Buffake doesn’t seem to have a job, and there’s no yuppie husband anywhere, thankfully, so how does it even make any sense?)
Maybe Buffy does indeed reject Spike unilaterally and he’s disappointed and mopey, but we don’t know if that will be the case, and the current signs aren’t pointing out in that direction. Even if Buffy does that, Spike already seems to doubt that they could have a future together. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s Spike that’s first to conclude the same thing he did in #4, that Buffy needs/wants “normal” and that’s what he’s not. And I’m not sure he even wants to have a “normal life” under this definition - his opinion of the yuppie housefrau Buffy scenario doesn’t strike me as that different from Simone’s.
30 Days of Women: Day 15: Favourite female character growth arc | Caprica Six, Battlestar Galactica
The Sixes in general are incredibly interesting characters (Gina and Natalie are amazing, for one) but Caprica Six starts out as a villain and her place as the devil on Balthar’s shoulder is solidified by head!Six, the twisted version of her. And we get used to that.
And then comes the episode Downloaded, where we see she is beginning to find individuality, and she’s conflicted by her part in the downfall of the human race. She wants to coexist peacefully with humans and helps them when she has the chance. She’s incredibly complex, deeply devout and desperate for affection. She struggles with her place in the genocide of the cylons’ creators and she is just so, so interesting. The progression of her character is one of the best things on the show for me.
Yes, until they screwed it up and pushed her into the background in the second part of season 3 and season 4, and didn’t know what to do with her except give her a pointless pregnancy.
Via Nicole Has a Tumblr
ANYWAY.
Spoiler for #9 under the cut:
I was super confused by that interaction and the “awkward beats” comment.
Yeah, that took me a minute too.
Hmm, I still read it as faux-nonchalant, personally.
It’s all bizarre in its lighthearted tone. As if the only thing that happened in season 8 is that Angel and Buffy hooked up at some point and now the only issue is that Spike is jealous and Buffy’s grinning at him, like ‘what, are you jealous?’ and that’s supposed to be cute… Season 8 wasn’t that traumatizing for her, it’s all a barrel of laughs, just as this robot thing with Andrew.
The list was for Sexiest Characters in SciFi and Fantasy;
“Are you ready for the hottest countdown you ever read on this website? Here they are – the results of our Sexiest Characters In Sci-Fi & Fantasy Ever poll, as voted for by you!”
http://www.sfx.co.uk/2012/03/27/top-200-sexiest-characters-in-sci-fi/
Congrats @mishacollins !!!!!
look who’s #2!
Y’all forgot Jared!
I was going to make a snide comment about the pervasiveness of Supernatural and Vampire Diaries in that poll, but then Nina Dobrev removed my ability to anything.
^_^ Agreed with quite a few of these (some I won’t admit to), but WTF is with all the fantasy? Pirates of the Caribbean, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and LOTR are all fantasy; you can tell by the FANTASTICAL things as opposed to any SCIENCE. Plus, fuck that heterosexist love match crap. I should do my own SF/F list. No, but check out the list, there’s some amazing people in there:
Spike, played by James Marsters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Amy Pond, played by Karen Gillan in Doctor Who
Faith, played by Eliza Dushku in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Captain Jack Harkness, played by John Barrowman in Torchwood
The Doctor (Ten), played by David Tennant in Doctor Who
Willow Rosenburg, played by Alyson Hannigan in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (she’s actually in there twice, woo, as normal Willow and Vamp Willow.)
Wolverine, played by Hugh Jackman in X-men
River Song, played by Alex Kingston in Doctor Who
The Doctor (Eleven), played by Matt Smith in Doctor Who
Tony Stark, played by Robert Downey Junior in Iron Man
Ianto Jones, played by Gareth David-Lloyd in Torchwood
Toshiko Sato, played by Naoko Mori in Torchwood
Martha Jones, played by Freema Agyeman in Doctor Who
Storm, played by Halle Berry in X-men
Darla, played by Julie Benz in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Captain John Hart, played by James Marsters in Torchwood
Drusilla, played by Juliet Landau in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Curtis Donovan, played by Nathan Stewart-Jarrett in Misfits
Rory Williams, played by Arthur Darvill in Doctor Who
coalitiongirl asked: I think the problem with this debate is that one of us is looking at it thematically and one of us is looking at it narratively. Eg, you don't think that Buffy's responsible, and I agree! But I don't think ~Buffy looks at it like that because it's in her nature to blame herself, and I don't think that she's looking at her relationship with Angel the way that we do. So yes, I can see Buffy and Angel reuniting. I've ~written it. But I don't necessarily want it myself.
She doesn’t always blame herself for everything - and when shedoes, it doesn’t blindside her to the others’ fucked up behavior to the point that the fandom insists. (Unless we’re talking about Riley after I Was Made to Love You.)
But in this case, in particular, I can’t see how she could blame herself without blaming Angel even more. She didn’t do anything to provoke Angel to do what he did (Someone could say it was the empowerment spell, but we know from #40 that she feels that was the right thing to do.) I loved “Embers” to bits, but that B/A scene was the only one that, to me, didn’t feel IC for Buffy. Maybe for season 3 Buffy (who felt guilty for sending Angel to hell) but not for adult Buffy (who doesn’t have any reason to feel guilty for anything she did to him in S8). She is a smart girl. There’s no way she would tell Angel she’s as much to blame as he is. My version of the reunion would have Buffy punching him as hello or saying a few choice words. It’s only afterwards that she would start forgiving him.
The SFX people decided to make it more interesting by pairing up the top 100 sexiest women with top 100 sexiest men and examine how the pairing would work. It’s quite amusing, because some couples turned out completely random, while others… made the staff write “we haven’t fixed the poll, honest”. I bet that taking a look at some of the pairings was what made them decide to do this whole ‘love match’ thing in the first place… Check out #67. #60, #7, but especially #5!
I really don’t understand this argument, since Buffy’s responsibility was that she gave in to Angel and his rhetoric and have sex with him (betrayal = boinking Twilight, in her words)? It’s not a case of “we’re both responsible, I can’t blame you without blaming me” - when she most definitely can and should, if she has a brain. The thing that she is responsible for is something that only makes him more responsible, since he’s the one who dragged her into it in the first place, by torturing and manipulating her for a year to get her to a place where she would feel low enough to ‘ascend’. If your ex drugged you and made you complicit in a murder, your own feelings of guilt wouldn’t make you more likely to forgive him - but less likely.
Unless one subscribes (and some fans do) to the anti-feminist, anti-humanist school of thought that Buffy was responsible for all of it because she activated the Slayers and ‘upset the balance’ by allowing a greater number of superpowered women to exist, and that Angel was right all along to torment her and get all those people killed because he was trying to save the world - and of course, he knew best and had to make the right decisions instead of the little woman. (And well, there’s gonna be collateral damage, but that’s just another body, and another - and nobody is going to cry over some random bystander who gets caught in the crossfire! We are the champions after all. WE ARE BETTER! We are as gods! We’re like Supermen! Shouldn’t the be special rules for people like us? Yeah, why can’t we have one of those fascist societies…?)
(Anyway, I don’t think she’s in love with him, and I don’t think she’s been in love with him for years. She had lingering feelings for him, but I don’t think that they were that strong in season 8 as some people think. And I saw in season 8 has made me doubt that there’s really any real love left between them. It was all so ridiculous and looked like two people clinging to an immature fantasy that they turn to when their lives are too complicated and difficult.)
http://temporarilyobsessive.tumblr.com/post/19973725064/im-not-sure-what-you-mean-by-story-demanding-a
The whole point of the AR as a plot point was to motivate Spike to fight for his soul. Angel already had a soul in S8, so it’s really not the same thing. A more accurate parallel would be…
I don’t really think that writers’ motives factor into Buffy’s decisions about her love life? That isn’t an accurate parallel at all, especially since Buffy took Spike’s actions before the soul far more personally than she did Angelus in S2, and we presume that she’s taking Angel’s mistakes personally here, too. And specifically, she blames herself for what happened, too, and I can’t imagine that she’d ever throw all the blame on Angel without that becoming un-Buffy.
Seeing Angel after a year of him atoning for what he’d done (presumably) and still loving him despite it doesn’t make her selfish, and it isn’t selfish for her to reunite with someone who’d once done awful wrongs especially considering that she herself believes that she’s also somewhat responsible.
