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Aug. 11th, 2015 01:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethMy brain is just not a comfy place.
Everything is Wrong but nothing is in fact wrong so this is not external or fixable. Except maybe by meditating. And waiting it out.
Yesterday I declared a Blanket Day because I, well, stayed under my blanket pretty much all day.
I can't have another Blanket Day in a row, and also it is Cleaner Day. So I've done teh Cleaner Day tasks, except for vacuum cleaning, because I already feel like the sky is falling and it's just difficult and awkward.
But I will do vacuum cleaning. Because it is Cleaner Day. So things will get Clean.
I have a whole stack of thoughts lined up about Buffy season 5 but they're staying somewhere behind the whole... impending apocalypse fear. *sigh*
I found myself getting really, really angry at the end of season 5. Because really? Heroic sacrifice? Again? The way it goes in my head is my epic mary sue person who has been studying Janus based magic since Halloween in season 2 knows portal spells, and little spheres for putting visions/memories in because Janus sees the past and future, and the whole thing with trying to reach Dawn is to hand her a sphere full of the spell she needs to use her own power. Her body, her blood, her power.
The whole thing with Buffy being pestered by the Watchers was, she realised, because she has power and they want to use her. The whole thing with Dawn being chased is the same thing. Her power. Hers.
She only needs the knowledge to use it. Knowledge everyone was deliberately keeping from her for her own protection. And because the writers have the wrong idea about endgame. I mean it's a powerful image and all, and sure people would sacrifice themselves for the people they care about, but they had to surprise twist their own rules at the very last second to even make it work and it's just... the whole 'death is your gift' thing is... nope, angry.
I mean, the way they'd said it, the portal needed blood to keep it open, it wasn't a question of death closing it, it was like saying a petrol engine needs an explosion to make it stop. ... put like that it sounds more reasonable. But by the rules stated, if their blood is identical, it should just keep the portal open twice as long, because as long as the blood flows into the portal then the portal stays open. Jumping into it should make it open real big, because tada, a whole person of blood! Pulling Dawn away from it so the blood doesn't go into the portal should have been sufficient, though obviously because of drama it wouldn't be. But it was never mentioned that the portal needs a death until Buffy is about to do her thing.
In internally consistent logic world Buffy jumps, the portal flares up really big, she dies weirdly dessicated, Dawn stands there dripping and the portal is still open.
... I'm angry because they swapped in a giving up when there should be a woman taking up her own power.
I know heroic sacrifice has a long and storied tradition to back it up, but it's just... Jenny and her small knowledge gets killed, Tara gets her brain sucked then gets killed, Willow reaches for the dark side every time she wants more power and then goes epic level dark, and Buffy gets killed repeatedly. Women have power, briefly, tragically, and suffer for it. This is no longer the story I want. This is drips and pieces of the story I want.
I've read people with (valid) moral objections to the (lack of informed consent involved in distributing violent power at the) end of season 7. But to me it's the shining moment. Women lifting each other up. Sharing power. Working together to make a better world. Everyone who can stand up, will stand up.
What the comics then did with it leaves me... really exhausted.
But all that said, it's a powerful story and beautiful moment, Buffy dying to save her sister. Willow saving the world by saving Tara, her girlfriend. This is good stuff.
I just... I get angry now that there's no better stuff.
Everything is Wrong but nothing is in fact wrong so this is not external or fixable. Except maybe by meditating. And waiting it out.
Yesterday I declared a Blanket Day because I, well, stayed under my blanket pretty much all day.
I can't have another Blanket Day in a row, and also it is Cleaner Day. So I've done teh Cleaner Day tasks, except for vacuum cleaning, because I already feel like the sky is falling and it's just difficult and awkward.
But I will do vacuum cleaning. Because it is Cleaner Day. So things will get Clean.
I have a whole stack of thoughts lined up about Buffy season 5 but they're staying somewhere behind the whole... impending apocalypse fear. *sigh*
I found myself getting really, really angry at the end of season 5. Because really? Heroic sacrifice? Again? The way it goes in my head is my epic mary sue person who has been studying Janus based magic since Halloween in season 2 knows portal spells, and little spheres for putting visions/memories in because Janus sees the past and future, and the whole thing with trying to reach Dawn is to hand her a sphere full of the spell she needs to use her own power. Her body, her blood, her power.
The whole thing with Buffy being pestered by the Watchers was, she realised, because she has power and they want to use her. The whole thing with Dawn being chased is the same thing. Her power. Hers.
She only needs the knowledge to use it. Knowledge everyone was deliberately keeping from her for her own protection. And because the writers have the wrong idea about endgame. I mean it's a powerful image and all, and sure people would sacrifice themselves for the people they care about, but they had to surprise twist their own rules at the very last second to even make it work and it's just... the whole 'death is your gift' thing is... nope, angry.
I mean, the way they'd said it, the portal needed blood to keep it open, it wasn't a question of death closing it, it was like saying a petrol engine needs an explosion to make it stop. ... put like that it sounds more reasonable. But by the rules stated, if their blood is identical, it should just keep the portal open twice as long, because as long as the blood flows into the portal then the portal stays open. Jumping into it should make it open real big, because tada, a whole person of blood! Pulling Dawn away from it so the blood doesn't go into the portal should have been sufficient, though obviously because of drama it wouldn't be. But it was never mentioned that the portal needs a death until Buffy is about to do her thing.
In internally consistent logic world Buffy jumps, the portal flares up really big, she dies weirdly dessicated, Dawn stands there dripping and the portal is still open.
... I'm angry because they swapped in a giving up when there should be a woman taking up her own power.
I know heroic sacrifice has a long and storied tradition to back it up, but it's just... Jenny and her small knowledge gets killed, Tara gets her brain sucked then gets killed, Willow reaches for the dark side every time she wants more power and then goes epic level dark, and Buffy gets killed repeatedly. Women have power, briefly, tragically, and suffer for it. This is no longer the story I want. This is drips and pieces of the story I want.
I've read people with (valid) moral objections to the (lack of informed consent involved in distributing violent power at the) end of season 7. But to me it's the shining moment. Women lifting each other up. Sharing power. Working together to make a better world. Everyone who can stand up, will stand up.
What the comics then did with it leaves me... really exhausted.
But all that said, it's a powerful story and beautiful moment, Buffy dying to save her sister. Willow saving the world by saving Tara, her girlfriend. This is good stuff.
I just... I get angry now that there's no better stuff.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-12 02:33 pm (UTC)I might be remembering this wrong, but what I took away from it is that the blood is more like on/off switch - it opens the portal, which then stays open until the blood stops flowing (i.e. until the person that it came from dies.) If the portal can't tell the difference between Buffy and Dawn, then it makes sense that Buffy dying would satisfy that requirement. And since the portal could (apparently) only be opened in that specific time and place, even if Dawn's still bleeding after that it wouldn't do anything. At least, that's the explanation that made the most sense to me.
(And yes, I am going through your archives and looking at your Buffy-related entries. I've been rewatching it over the past few months, and since none of my friends are into it quite as much as I am I've got some stuff to get out of my system.)
no subject
Date: 2015-08-11 01:13 pm (UTC)Buffy - at the time, The Gift was supposed to be the finale of the show. There was great rejoicing when another network picked it up for a season 6. Little did we know... If BtVS really had ended with Buffy going off that tower, it would've been a powerful way to end the series. Maybe not the right way, but it certainly would've worked.
Come to think of it, I wonder if Buffy in S6 reflects Joss' feelings on being dragged back into the show - "I thought I was done". Hmmmmm.