(no subject)
Buffy's been in camp for five hundred days now. Actually, not quite-it's been five-hundred-and-one since I made her account, but she didn't post for a while. Anyway, that's a long time. If she were in canon, we'd be at episode 509, "Listening to Fear" which I can only assume is so bad I repressed it, because I read the summary and it sounds completely and totally unfamiliar.
I've been thinking recently about canon versus camp because of some conversation on cfud_concrit and Setsuna's comment in the love meme. And I was thinking I'd like to talk about how Buffy has been affected by camp, since there's been a good deal of stuff that's happened to her that puts her on a radically different path than canon. I think a big thing is Buffy's level of optimism; I certainly wouldn't call her a pessimist, ever, really (okay, maybe season six), but I think Buffy generally accepts that things aren't going to turn out well for her. I don't see this as pessimism, though, primarily because I see it as logically true. Overall, I see the most profound difference between Buffy in camp and Buffy in canon-both at this point and over all-is that in camp, Buffy has a kind of hope she doesn't really ever achieve in the show until the last episode.
I took Buffy from the end of season three-for convenience's sake, I assume she left home on the same day she arrived in camp, just six years later: July 18. If Buffy's graduation and prom schedule was somewhat like mine, that would put her at about a month and a half after the end of the third season, and about two months before the fourth started. That's about two months after Angel broke up with her, and is one of the cleanest breaks in story canon really offers; the other is at the end of season five when Buffy dies.
In canon, after the end of season three, Buffy goes to college, where she has trouble settling in, possibly because she only attends one class and doesn't seem to do anything vaguely like college. But I digress. She has two romantic engagements in season four-a guy named Parker, who sleeps with her and then never calls again and whom she gets over with liberal application of Neanderthal beer, and Riley, who is "affectionately" called Captain Cardboard by some, but who does quite genuinely care for Buffy-and the big bad of the season is a bizarre monster made by "The Initiation," the supernatural-fighting government organization to which Riley belongs. I kind of hate the overall plot of season four. Anyway. Buffy's in a relatively good place throughout this season, even with Scooby gang drama and general apocalypse antics.
Season five is much less kind to Buffy's emotional state-it is my belief that after episode 510, Buffy might never actually feel genuine happiness again until after the series finale. Season five gives Buffy several difficult things to deal with: a new sister who is "The Key" and must be protected in order to save the world, a sick mother, and a very difficult to defeat enemy. It also takes away her boyfriend, who is insecure because Buffy is stronger than he is and doesn't seem to need him, so he goes to vampire hookers and has them suck his blood until he feels useful again. These plots sound even more ridiculous when you write them down. Then her mother dies, and then she dies. Season five is really mean.
I took Buffy from the end of season three for a number of reasons which I've talked about lots, but I'll just run down them quickly. One, I like the first three seasons better than the later seasons. Two, I had the first three seasons on DVD, which made it much easier to just deal with them. Three, there were no big issues carried over from the end of season three to the beginning of season four. Four, Buffy was single.
Buffy's love life has to figure pretty prominently into any essay about her, because for a strong, independent woman, I would argue her emotional state is pretty dependent on her significant others. Her emotional state is without question more dependent on her significant others than it is on her friends-I would say Buffy is consistently in a better place in season four, when she has Riley but does not have the Scoobies, than she is in season five, when she has the Scoobies but no boyfriend.
I've tried many times to figure out what Buffy's type is. I think Buffy desperately needs someone who understands her, and someone who can help her. All of Buffy's long-term relationships-Angel, Riley, Spike-are with men who are stronger than normal men (but not stronger than Buffy is) and who, for whatever reason, are fighting on the same side Buffy is. Buffy goes for guys who get where she's coming from and why she's coming from there; I think that's why in canon she exclusively dates older men in the long term. She also needs someone she knows she won't have to take care of, I think.
Which brings us to Riley versus Kon. I think it was Omi who once referred to Kon as "Riley if he didn't suck" or something equivalent. Riley is a genuine, nice guy who really does care about Buffy, but he has some pretty massive issues with not being able to compare to Buffy physically, and Buffy's not coming to him with her problems. Kon is a genuine, nice guy who really does care about Buffy, and who outranks Buffy physically. No one Buffy's ever encountered in canon has been both stronger than her and a viable dating option.
The thing is, Kon's not just stronger than Buffy. Kon's strong in a way that Buffy knows would god-mode the fuck out of her universe. I think this is part of why Buffy is in love with Kon when she wasn't in love with Riley; Kon is someone she can depend on in a way she couldn't depend on Riley and couldn't even depend on Angel. Buffy doesn't want to have to be taken care of, but she knows that having someone around who actually can take care of her is a massive advantage, and she knows Kon won't take care of her when she doesn't need taking care of.
Kon is therefore the source of the vast majority of the hope Buffy feels in camp. In canon, Buffy tells Angel that she's "never going to have a normal life" when he breaks up with her. There seems to be, however, every indication that Buffy wants to live the double life of being the Slayer and being a normal girl, which was the conflict of the early show. Buffy knows that in her own canon, she can't have a normal life for a number of reasons: she has to be the Slayer, she has to fight, and she almost certainly has to die before she would normally start having kids.
Kon and Buffy have a plan to-as well as an optimistic but fairly legitimate belief that they can-have their cake and eat it too. Certainly in Sunnydale Buffy and Kon could deal with whatever monsters showed up and spend the rest of their time just being themselves and living their lives-especially with Bart around to help. What I see Buffy as wanting through the vast majority of the show is to both be able to be the Slayer and be able to lead her own life. When Buffy and Kon started dating, it hadn't really occurred to me that their dating would allow Buffy to resolve this conflict-which canon does solve in the series finale when the multiple Slayers come into play-but Buffy did very quickly recognize Kon as being someone who wanted to do what she wanted to do-be a superhero and a regular person-and who was doing much better with it than she was. As they kept dating and she kept falling more in love with him, she did realize that Kon was one of the first people she'd met who could actually protect her instead of helping her. Buffy doesn't particularly like being protected, but she likes knowing that the option is there if she needs it.
Of course, a lot of other factors contribute to Buffy being generally happier in camp than she is at home. For one thing, I'm not that interested in being as mean to her as canon is in season five, because season five is generally really not funny, and CFUD is supposed to be funny. Also, a lot of the things that cause Buffy's mindset changes would be hard to bring to camp, like her mother dying. Also, Kon seems to have no interest in vampire hookers.
So, like I said. Buffy is undeniably in a better place in camp than she is in canon, and it's mostly because she has a plan for the kind of future she always wanted. At the same time, she knows that future could never come because it's dependent on Kon, who might not be able to get her. But Buffy is kind of a sap (shut up, Bart, I can her you snickering), so she believes that Kon is going to find her and they're going to live happily ever after, and she can actually convince herself there's a good chance it might happen, which is why Kon's different than Angel. Buffy used to hope for living happily ever after with Angel, but even when she was with him, she knew her days, at least, were pretty numbered.
In conclusion: Buffy got a major outlook shift, which generally makes her a happier person. Of course, she still sometimes emos and angsts. Because you can't be Buffy and not occasionally just be utterly retarded.