Life after powers

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

While the slayers and Willow are working on getting rid of their magic, Andrew has tasked himself with the mission of ferreting out any moles in the organization.

Comments

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

I absolutely hated this. And what is it about Willow's love interests that they try to convince people being something they don't want to be is a good thing.

[espanolbot.insanejournal.com]

Better than convincing them to be with people that wouldn't be healthy for them I guess.

Like when Xander tried to convince Buffy to get back together with that ex-supersoldier who used vampire hookers.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Though Xander left the actual choice up to Buffy, he simply cut through her layers of irritating self pity.

She DID choose to chase after Riley (Who had some serious issues thanks to Sunnydale's own unique version of PTSD, but who Buffy had done bugger all to help or be there for) because he was, ultimately, a good man who DID love her.

[espanolbot.insanejournal.com]

What about the bitterness and jealousy he felt towards her powers that gave him the hooker fetish in the first place?

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

He'd been a supersoldier with a clear life path, suddenly he wasn't (and he had to go through detox to get there), and the girl who had been at the core of the chaos, who he'd hoped loved him, that would make the chaos worthwhile, didn't love him. Some bitterness might be understandable, but if Buffy had been serious about their relationship, she would have helped him, talked to him about it. Instead she was sneaking out in the middle of the night to stake a few more monsters for kicks.

[runespoor7.insanejournal.com]

She didn't notice anything was wrong, she didn't realize she wasn't in love with him, and he wasn't making that much effort to tell her he wasn't alright.

Vampires in Sunnydale meaning people getting killed in Sunnydale, I think we should cut Buffy some slack on doing the job she was Chosen for, no matter her motivation at the time of staking.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

She didn't notice anything was wrong, she didn't realize she wasn't in love with him, and he wasn't making that much effort to tell her he wasn't alright.

Yes, and whilst Riley isn't innocent in all this (He continued in a relationship because he hoped she WOULD love him), but Buffy SHOULD take some of the blame for the situation for the very reasons you list. This is her lover, her boyfriend, and she didn't notice when he vanished off for hours at a time with no explanation?


Vampires in Sunnydale meaning people getting killed in Sunnydale, I think we should cut Buffy some slack on doing the job she was Chosen for, no matter her motivation at the time of staking.

Hardly, she was not being a Slayer at that point, she was

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Sorry, that was meant to end "She was not being the Slayer she had been up to that point, she was killing for kicks, and being reckless"

[04nbod.insanejournal.com]

Wasn't the fetish because he wanted to understand why she wanted Angel or he thought she wanted Angel

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

plus I think Xander didn't know everything about what was going on there.

Buffy had her mother dying and the most powerful baddie she'd ever faced going after her sister. She deserves no blame for whatever Riley was going through.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Riley left before Joyce died and before the reveal about the big bad being a god, so they're hardly relevant to the discussion.

Xander is repeatedly noted as being the one who really DOES know what's going on, since he's not distracted by magic powers or Slayers skills, he's human. He's the one who talks her out of her funk when she started feel self pitying in her first days at college. He talks to her about the Riley situation.

He is able to talk to Buffy as voice of reason because he doesn't judge her choices, he doesn't force his opinion on her (and knows it would be ridiculous to try) but he makes he reconsider her own choices in a way no one else can. He loves her, but ultimately as her big brother rather than a lover. So yes, he didn't need to know all about the Riley situation, he'd heard Riley's side, and he'd heard Buffy's and he asked Buffy to search her own feelings to make SURE she wasn't making the wrong choice.

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

dying does not equal died. Joyce was ill. Very ill.

Xander regularly judges Buffy's choices. In the past Xander's had some big issues with Buffy trusting her feelings. And Buffy regularly doubts herself. Xander suggested that Riley may have been her only chance at a normal relationship. I'm sure with that thought on her mind Buffy could find some feelings that would suggest it was a bad idea.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

True on the ill part,

Yes, Xander has been honest with his assessments even when he disagrees with Buffy, but still he stands by her despite the choices. (With the sole exception of the Season Seven ending when she seemed to have stopped trusting anyone, and even then, in short order she entrusted the safety of Dawn to him.

By "normal relationship", I think he meant "with someone who can understand your mindset and attitude, and support you, and who is also human rather than a vampire". And whatever feelings she might have had that it was a bad idea SHE went after Riley because SHE decided Xander might have a point and the balance of information was in favour of giving it a try.

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

I don't think Buffy was quite rational enough to be drawing that conclusion.

The fact is Buffy was emotionally vulnerable and when she's emotionally vulnerable she tends to shut down. Which was Riley's big issue. So you've got someone with a fragile mindset talking to the one person who's always been brutally honest but supportive with her. He could havve talked her into anything at that point, but he was talking without all the facts. In fact I'd say from the moment Riley put his leaving or staying on Buffy it became a bad idea for her to go after him.

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

I think it's stretching things to say someone is a bad person because they've paid for sex. This is something that requires some qualifiers to make it evil, like 'underage', or 'sex slavery'. There are adults in this world who choose sex work of their own will.

(No, I don't know the storyline you're referring to, it might've been evil in context. Just my kneejerk reaction here.)

[04nbod.insanejournal.com]

Buffy magic is a drug analogy, would you not try and convince someone to stop taking drugs because it would change who they are or leave them to be killed?

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

season 7 scrapped the drug analogy and as for Willow's withdrawl symptoms in season 6 they can be explained a couple of ways. We don't know what spells Rack used. In season 1 Catherine Madison used a spell that initally made Buffy act drunk then made her very sick.

And of course Willow was constantly using a lot of magic. In season 5 when she used a lot or did powerful spells she got a nosebleed one time and headaches others. I don't know if it was ever officially called burnout, but I recall seeing the term burnout. What happened in season 6 when she was supposedly detoxing could have been a hyper advanced form of burnout.

[espanolbot.insanejournal.com]

*raises hand*

I admit that I'm not entirely sure about what's going on the latest issue, but wouldn't getting rid of ALL their powers leave themselves open to whatever threats they were given the powers to face in the first place?

I mean, what if they were attacked by vampires suddenly? Being suddenly average would put them at a disadvantage.

[(Anonymous)]

Also, why are they getting rid of their powers in the first place?

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

they're hiding.

[majingojira.insanejournal.com]

This entire "Getting Rid of the Magic in them" thing, to me, is likely a red herring for the characters to go down.

Largely because it'd negate the previous season's empowerment finale message.

They may be in hiding, but they're ignoring the elephant in the room (IE: why people are gladly accepting things that eat them as friends and hunting slayers. My mind points towards mind control magic on a grand scale, but I haven't seen evidence for it yet and THAT is troubling) for their own temporary saftey. To me, it's so obviously going to bite them in the ass it's kind of pedantic waiting for that to happen.

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

I'm starting to wonder if Buffy never woke up and this is a major nightmare.

Joss and the other Buffy's writers attempts at drama have become so transparant that if they just went to having life/death battles based on the fact good and evil are always at war they'd have a much better time getting people involved.

[greenmask.insanejournal.com]

Having read about a certain smooch happening in this issue I went looking for comments, and read a writer/the writer talking in a way that seemed pretty strongly to be taking the Marvel line of "real people are stupid and unquestioning of evil every day, this is realistic".

[majingojira.insanejournal.com]

And others garnered a different reading of such interviews.

Which is mildly amusing.

But the fact remains: stupid has predictable patterns to it and its own twisted sort of logic.

Accepting vampires as openly and blandly as they have simply does not compute in a world with religious fundementalism of any degree.

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

maybe it's a shot at other vamp fiction?

As I understand the Anita Blake books religion is on the wane in that universe despite anti-vampire religious items only working if the user believes in that faith?

[04nbod.insanejournal.com]

Twilight senses magic, by getting rid they can hide

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

of course this is a totally new way of looking at Slayer power which in my opinion contradicts in the past.

[freezer818.insanejournal.com]

1) Get rid of magic powers
2) Hide from big bad who sense magic
3)...
4) Die like cattle Victory!

[sailorlibra.insanejournal.com]

Exactly what I was thinking, except you expressed it in a funnier way.

[04nbod.insanejournal.com]

Nowhere did I say it made sense

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

As I recall, they didn't have much of a choice because Twilight was constantly sending huge demon hordes to wherever they were, so the only means of survival was lying low. The idea, I think, is to learn how to turn on and off the magic, so that they can have a stealth mode of sorts.

yeah

[mambalev.insanejournal.com]

This whole arc is about ignoring the elephant in the room.

Well the Elephant is perhaps in an alternate reality.

Harmony is in LA with her stupid Vampires aren't evil monsters and they kill less people than drunk drivers. That Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tales of the Vampire was so bad.

Where Angel and Spike are, although apparantly the timeline split somewhere during After the Fall.

I have to say I would prefer the two franchises back into a shared verse.

Anyway the double punch of the last two pages of this issue was good.

Re: yeah

[steverodgers5.insanejournal.com]

I wish they would clear up the timeline as to when exactly the Buffy stories are taking place compared to Angel's continuity.

Because there's only so long you can get away with saying that any of Buffy Season 8 might be happening in a similar time period to Angel Season 5. (If it even is..)

Re: yeah

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

everything I heard earlier said Buffy season 8 took place a year and a half after the beginning of Angel season 5. That mean about six months to a year after the end of the season to me

Re: yeah

[steverodgers5.insanejournal.com]

Yeah. That makes a kinda sense. Though I wish they'd somehow make references to what's going on in the other title, so it still felt like the same world..

(I know they're at different companies, but they still managed to do it on TV when Buffy took off from the WB on Angel.)

Re: yeah

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

LA coming out of Hell and being pro-vampire is completely unbelievable to me.

[xandertarbert.insanejournal.com]

The "point to the safe" metaphor makes me twitch, because it's really blantent and weak. Plus it doesn't make sense in terms of weapons. "This end toward allies"?

Plus Oz in that last panel is kinda creepy. "Just let the Earth take the magic," makes me think doppleganger. Willow being bitchy someone has a kid also doesn't make sense. Oz hasn't been fighting with them for years at this point.

Ah well. Poor Xander needs to get laid by something at this point, might as well be Dawn. I'm more of a X/W or X/F, but it works well enough I suppose.

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

he has a life and love. she doesn't

[houbanaut.insanejournal.com]

Oh, that was supposed to be Dawn! I guess the story makes slightly more sense, then. At first it seemed to be all about Buffy suddenly developing feelings for Xander, and then getting snubbed in favor of some random girl. Man, it's been a long time since they did anything with the Buffy/Xander 'shipping.

I honestly can't tell half the characters apart with this artwork. That big reveal of Twilight's mole fell completely flat for me because I had no idea who I was looking at, and I only came up with Riley by process of exclusion. (I mean, it wasn't likely to be Devon, or Parker, or Willy the Snitch, or long-dead Jesse--though you never know with Whedon.)

[cmdr_zoom.insanejournal.com]

It will all end in tragedy and suck. I mean, it's Whedon.