Buffy Season 1 musings
I'm full of love, people. Honest-to-goodness happy!love. (athena25 thinks I'm 'on edge' and 'twitchy'. It's untrue. I'm just full of love.)
OK, so last night I went to a party I was massively uncertain about. With good reason, I turns out, because I was the oldest person there. Yup, ladies and gents, I'm a geriatric at 23. At any rate, I was accosted by Cute Guy (TM) as I sat waiting for the train, who turned out to 1) be in a band, 2) be a postgrad student 3) be a postgrad student studing for a Human Rights degree, and 4) local. My head sort of trickled out of my ears at that point. Also add extr points for him chatting me up whilst I was wearing three scarves and a ginormous coat, and therefore not being merely distracted by breasts. There's a story in that which I shan't share just yet.
But, anyway. This made me happy. We talked for, oh, ages, before the train, during the train, even a little after the train, and I parted with my phone number. This is a big step for me, as I don't normally do this. Anyway, I'm not the least bit interested in him, obviously, but the point is, it put me in a really good mood for the party, which was good because OMG children!!! Children, all around me!
You do not want to be introduced to someone as, "This is kangeiko, my cool grown-up friend. Isn't she cool? And pretty. She's going to take me shopping for kinky clothes soon, she promised. Didn't you? She's my sex guru. Isn't she cool?"
*death*
I am the scary old man that hangs around school yards, I really am.
So, this should have made me massively upset, but instead I managed to corrupt three innocent children, upend a small boy (possibly not so small, and possibly approaching 'man', but anyway) from my lap, drink stupid amounts of wine, and, yes, ok, I had to restrain myself from killing the kiddies, but let's not mention that again, ok? I'm full of love, after all.
In fandom news, several things have occured to me:
ETA: Forgot to add the lj-cut, silly girl. All fixed now...
1. Upon re-watching Buffy seasons all and sundry, and I seriously dig Season 1 Angel. He's all broody, yet strangely sensitive. And the white shirt/black jacket combo works with him. I do miss Spike, but I am very much enjoying early less-anorexic Buffy.
2. When Angel got his soul and finally left Spike, Darla and Dru, that was just gone the turn of the century, right? And around thirty or forty years later the Master turned up in Sunnydale and got himself stuck in the whozoomagoojit. Sometime between these two events, Spike and Dru fucked off to Prague (and probably the rest of Europe - I'm thinking via the entirety of China and India along the way, probably), whilst Darla met up with the Master and got taken back into his court. Now, Joss has probably covered this already (not listening, la la la), but some Darla/Master fic during that time would be good, mainly because when we next see Darla she's wearing a school-girl outfit and is frankly stupid.
My thoughts go as follow (not listening, la la la!):
a) The Master has a Court. Darla buggered off with Angelus. This pissed off the Master something chronic. Angelus sired Dru, who Sired Spike, and Darla suddenly had a whole brood o' little vamps to keep in line. Well, she kept Angel in line and he kept the rest of the kiddies sorted. Anyway, this probably kept her busy: after all, she'd suddenly been placed in a position of power. Her position at the Master's court can't have been that high several hundred years ago; she was practically a fledgeling. So, rush of new power, yadda yadda.
b) Angelus splits. Darla has two rowdy vamps to keep in line, and suddenly realises that keeping Angel in line was all well and good (he took care of the others), but looking after an insane vamp and her ADD-afflicted offspring requires more patience than she has. Also, Spike&Dru 4eva, etc etc, it probably drove her nuts. So she considers splitting. But where? Oh where oh where?
c) The Master's Court, of course. She dumps Spike&Dru somewhere along the line, leaving them decimating an orphanage or something, and makes her way to the Master's Court, where she has to beg to be accepted back in. Meanwhile, everyone there has moved on, shown fealty, cowered, lost several eyes and looks really really yucky (the Master tends to play with his toys). Darla's not so impressed with this, but obviously her rebellion went rather wrong, so what are you gonna do?
d) Cower. Oh, lots and lots of cowering. Also some flogging. And torture? Not as fun as people are writing it. Seriously. I've had a long think about this, and I'm going to take a stand and say that torture=unwanted pain and unwanted pain=bad. Otherwise Angel would have had a field day with Marcus and his hot pokers, yeah? So, let's see, some unwanted pain inflicted. And it's of the Not Good. But Darla's a brave girl, she sucks it up and gets over it. And is back in Court, jockeying for position. But is very squicked. Oh, so squished.
e) See, the thing about season 1!Darla is that she's so completely submissive. I mean, massively so. She stays in game face around the master because it's what he wants (whereas I don't recall the same thing happening when she takes Angel to court). She whimpers and cowers and skips along in an infantile way. I think that this is because Darla was so fucking broken by the Master (both mentally and physically) once she came back that she hasn't yet recovered by Season 1. Buffy smacked her around, no problem, and Buffy was very young and was having trouble with fledgelings at the time. A centuries-old vamp should have given her some trouble, but, no, not a bit of it. (My theory on Luc comes in a bit.) So she's been weaken physically and mentally. How?
f) I think that the Master had her drained nearly to dusting. I'm not sure if Spike has ever met the Master, but what if Spike&Dru had not been left behind but had instead been dragged along to Court? Spike knows what a vampire who hasn't fed - who's lost their blood - looks like, and it didn't make him amused. The sight of someone else's suffering didn't make his day. Now, why is this? It could be that this someone was a familiar someone, and that he was scared shitless that he and Dru would be next. So he grabbed Dru and legged it, not returning until the Master was gone. Alternatively, if he hasn't met the Master, that leaves Darla alone in a room full of vamps that want to hurt her. And draining her almost to the point of (second) death would certainly drive the point home. It would also mean that all her strength isn't wasted as it would be in a severe beating. And it would guarantee that she'd be broken, and not merely writhing in pain whilst plotting the Master's demise. It neutralises her, slots her back into the Court hierarchy, and leaves her very very dazed for a very long time.
This is by-the-by, you realise. I had a long chat with athena25 about the rules of Vampire Masquerade v the Jossverse, and we agreed that in the Jossverse the vamps would drink human blood (your standard drink), drink animal blood (not nearly as good, not nearly as strong, but probably has all the nutritional value needed), and could maybe drink vampire blood. Because, hey, sire blood with extra healing love. It has all sorts of cannibalistic possibilities that I shall explore at one point.
g) But anyway. This gives us stupid!weak!Darla in Season 1. Whom I now adore, because she has Suffered (TM) and therefore has my love rather than a raised eyebrow with the slightly derogatory comment of, "You are a master vampire? Oh, please." Okay, more than slightly derogatory. But anyway.
3. Luc. Luc makes me happy in that non-Anglophone sort of way, because Luc is a Bavarian sheep-herder who converted to Lutheranism and was snatched by the Master during a night raid in Munster. Or something. You can tell that my German geography sucks. At any rate, Luc is not originally English-speaking. This may be because Luc has ridiculous Season 1 teeth and therefore cannot cope with certain English consonants, but I have chosen the slightly less meta-centric explanation. Luc is certainly older than Spike, probably older than Angel, and possibly older than Darla. Yet he's not around for long, despite being the Master's favourite and therefore being Strong and Powerful (TM). WTF? he must have been off making fledgelings and small floppy childer to bring back to the Master. 'cause the floppier your childer are, you know, the better they taste as snacks. But I digress. I like Luc as a Lutheran. Why? No reason whatsoever. But it gives him some character beyond Third Goon On The Right.
4. Fool for Love grows on you with repeated viewings. It may even make you cry. I didn't cry, of course not. What we must all consider is what exactly young William was going to do with his life. A lawyer? A poet? A kitchen hand, for crying out loud? I am very depressed that canon has him as 126 years old and as a rather swet scholarly child. Because, see, I had him as a 200-odd year old redcoat. Which just goes to show. At any rate, the boy is obviously not rich enough to not have to work, so he'll need a trade. A bookish-type trade, but a trade nonetheless. I want him to have been a medical student. I think it would be deciliously evil. And it will involve cadavers, which will make me happy. Feel free to disagree, but in the form of fic or I shall throw things at your head that may be shaped like stickers and candy.
5. Mmmm, Season 3 Alias! Inexplicably being shown on Channel Five in the dead of night on Mondays. I have been staying up to watch the cuteness (which, if you didn't know, was jack looking concerned). No, nothing other than that needs to be said.
6. Skipping back to Buffy for the moment, it has been pointed out to me that the Glory/Spike torture scene is actually a rape scene. How did I miss this? It's obvious once it's been seen, but somehow I've been watching it with my eyes closed. Or brain turned off. Anyway. I need some broken!Spike fic. This is because I love Spike. Aren't you glad to be my friend?
Speaking of friends, what who when where is frienditto? Everyone is screaming about how much they hate it and why it pisses them off something chronic, yet I have no idea what it is. This is good, right?
OK, so last night I went to a party I was massively uncertain about. With good reason, I turns out, because I was the oldest person there. Yup, ladies and gents, I'm a geriatric at 23. At any rate, I was accosted by Cute Guy (TM) as I sat waiting for the train, who turned out to 1) be in a band, 2) be a postgrad student 3) be a postgrad student studing for a Human Rights degree, and 4) local. My head sort of trickled out of my ears at that point. Also add extr points for him chatting me up whilst I was wearing three scarves and a ginormous coat, and therefore not being merely distracted by breasts. There's a story in that which I shan't share just yet.
But, anyway. This made me happy. We talked for, oh, ages, before the train, during the train, even a little after the train, and I parted with my phone number. This is a big step for me, as I don't normally do this. Anyway, I'm not the least bit interested in him, obviously, but the point is, it put me in a really good mood for the party, which was good because OMG children!!! Children, all around me!
You do not want to be introduced to someone as, "This is kangeiko, my cool grown-up friend. Isn't she cool? And pretty. She's going to take me shopping for kinky clothes soon, she promised. Didn't you? She's my sex guru. Isn't she cool?"
*death*
I am the scary old man that hangs around school yards, I really am.
So, this should have made me massively upset, but instead I managed to corrupt three innocent children, upend a small boy (possibly not so small, and possibly approaching 'man', but anyway) from my lap, drink stupid amounts of wine, and, yes, ok, I had to restrain myself from killing the kiddies, but let's not mention that again, ok? I'm full of love, after all.
In fandom news, several things have occured to me:
ETA: Forgot to add the lj-cut, silly girl. All fixed now...
1. Upon re-watching Buffy seasons all and sundry, and I seriously dig Season 1 Angel. He's all broody, yet strangely sensitive. And the white shirt/black jacket combo works with him. I do miss Spike, but I am very much enjoying early less-anorexic Buffy.
2. When Angel got his soul and finally left Spike, Darla and Dru, that was just gone the turn of the century, right? And around thirty or forty years later the Master turned up in Sunnydale and got himself stuck in the whozoomagoojit. Sometime between these two events, Spike and Dru fucked off to Prague (and probably the rest of Europe - I'm thinking via the entirety of China and India along the way, probably), whilst Darla met up with the Master and got taken back into his court. Now, Joss has probably covered this already (not listening, la la la), but some Darla/Master fic during that time would be good, mainly because when we next see Darla she's wearing a school-girl outfit and is frankly stupid.
My thoughts go as follow (not listening, la la la!):
a) The Master has a Court. Darla buggered off with Angelus. This pissed off the Master something chronic. Angelus sired Dru, who Sired Spike, and Darla suddenly had a whole brood o' little vamps to keep in line. Well, she kept Angel in line and he kept the rest of the kiddies sorted. Anyway, this probably kept her busy: after all, she'd suddenly been placed in a position of power. Her position at the Master's court can't have been that high several hundred years ago; she was practically a fledgeling. So, rush of new power, yadda yadda.
b) Angelus splits. Darla has two rowdy vamps to keep in line, and suddenly realises that keeping Angel in line was all well and good (he took care of the others), but looking after an insane vamp and her ADD-afflicted offspring requires more patience than she has. Also, Spike&Dru 4eva, etc etc, it probably drove her nuts. So she considers splitting. But where? Oh where oh where?
c) The Master's Court, of course. She dumps Spike&Dru somewhere along the line, leaving them decimating an orphanage or something, and makes her way to the Master's Court, where she has to beg to be accepted back in. Meanwhile, everyone there has moved on, shown fealty, cowered, lost several eyes and looks really really yucky (the Master tends to play with his toys). Darla's not so impressed with this, but obviously her rebellion went rather wrong, so what are you gonna do?
d) Cower. Oh, lots and lots of cowering. Also some flogging. And torture? Not as fun as people are writing it. Seriously. I've had a long think about this, and I'm going to take a stand and say that torture=unwanted pain and unwanted pain=bad. Otherwise Angel would have had a field day with Marcus and his hot pokers, yeah? So, let's see, some unwanted pain inflicted. And it's of the Not Good. But Darla's a brave girl, she sucks it up and gets over it. And is back in Court, jockeying for position. But is very squicked. Oh, so squished.
e) See, the thing about season 1!Darla is that she's so completely submissive. I mean, massively so. She stays in game face around the master because it's what he wants (whereas I don't recall the same thing happening when she takes Angel to court). She whimpers and cowers and skips along in an infantile way. I think that this is because Darla was so fucking broken by the Master (both mentally and physically) once she came back that she hasn't yet recovered by Season 1. Buffy smacked her around, no problem, and Buffy was very young and was having trouble with fledgelings at the time. A centuries-old vamp should have given her some trouble, but, no, not a bit of it. (My theory on Luc comes in a bit.) So she's been weaken physically and mentally. How?
f) I think that the Master had her drained nearly to dusting. I'm not sure if Spike has ever met the Master, but what if Spike&Dru had not been left behind but had instead been dragged along to Court? Spike knows what a vampire who hasn't fed - who's lost their blood - looks like, and it didn't make him amused. The sight of someone else's suffering didn't make his day. Now, why is this? It could be that this someone was a familiar someone, and that he was scared shitless that he and Dru would be next. So he grabbed Dru and legged it, not returning until the Master was gone. Alternatively, if he hasn't met the Master, that leaves Darla alone in a room full of vamps that want to hurt her. And draining her almost to the point of (second) death would certainly drive the point home. It would also mean that all her strength isn't wasted as it would be in a severe beating. And it would guarantee that she'd be broken, and not merely writhing in pain whilst plotting the Master's demise. It neutralises her, slots her back into the Court hierarchy, and leaves her very very dazed for a very long time.
This is by-the-by, you realise. I had a long chat with athena25 about the rules of Vampire Masquerade v the Jossverse, and we agreed that in the Jossverse the vamps would drink human blood (your standard drink), drink animal blood (not nearly as good, not nearly as strong, but probably has all the nutritional value needed), and could maybe drink vampire blood. Because, hey, sire blood with extra healing love. It has all sorts of cannibalistic possibilities that I shall explore at one point.
g) But anyway. This gives us stupid!weak!Darla in Season 1. Whom I now adore, because she has Suffered (TM) and therefore has my love rather than a raised eyebrow with the slightly derogatory comment of, "You are a master vampire? Oh, please." Okay, more than slightly derogatory. But anyway.
3. Luc. Luc makes me happy in that non-Anglophone sort of way, because Luc is a Bavarian sheep-herder who converted to Lutheranism and was snatched by the Master during a night raid in Munster. Or something. You can tell that my German geography sucks. At any rate, Luc is not originally English-speaking. This may be because Luc has ridiculous Season 1 teeth and therefore cannot cope with certain English consonants, but I have chosen the slightly less meta-centric explanation. Luc is certainly older than Spike, probably older than Angel, and possibly older than Darla. Yet he's not around for long, despite being the Master's favourite and therefore being Strong and Powerful (TM). WTF? he must have been off making fledgelings and small floppy childer to bring back to the Master. 'cause the floppier your childer are, you know, the better they taste as snacks. But I digress. I like Luc as a Lutheran. Why? No reason whatsoever. But it gives him some character beyond Third Goon On The Right.
4. Fool for Love grows on you with repeated viewings. It may even make you cry. I didn't cry, of course not. What we must all consider is what exactly young William was going to do with his life. A lawyer? A poet? A kitchen hand, for crying out loud? I am very depressed that canon has him as 126 years old and as a rather swet scholarly child. Because, see, I had him as a 200-odd year old redcoat. Which just goes to show. At any rate, the boy is obviously not rich enough to not have to work, so he'll need a trade. A bookish-type trade, but a trade nonetheless. I want him to have been a medical student. I think it would be deciliously evil. And it will involve cadavers, which will make me happy. Feel free to disagree, but in the form of fic or I shall throw things at your head that may be shaped like stickers and candy.
5. Mmmm, Season 3 Alias! Inexplicably being shown on Channel Five in the dead of night on Mondays. I have been staying up to watch the cuteness (which, if you didn't know, was jack looking concerned). No, nothing other than that needs to be said.
6. Skipping back to Buffy for the moment, it has been pointed out to me that the Glory/Spike torture scene is actually a rape scene. How did I miss this? It's obvious once it's been seen, but somehow I've been watching it with my eyes closed. Or brain turned off. Anyway. I need some broken!Spike fic. This is because I love Spike. Aren't you glad to be my friend?
Speaking of friends, what who when where is frienditto? Everyone is screaming about how much they hate it and why it pisses them off something chronic, yet I have no idea what it is. This is good, right?