"Welcome to the Hellmouth" / "Bring on The Night"

[red_satin_doll]

"You're standing at the mouth of Hell. And it's about to open up." *

***
"I'm beyond tired. I'm beyond scared.
I'm standing on the mouth of Hell and it's going to swallow me whole. And it'll choke on me." **

* Joss Whedon
** Marti Noxon & Douglas Petrie

Comments

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

I also like S7 very much!

S7 fans unite!

The only thing that still bugs me is the late '90 sense of fashion.

Well, mostly I find it amusing because, let's face it, teenagers often have rather bizarre tastes; but some of Buffy's skirts left me wondering if they were going to go basic instinct on us. Seriously. (And those skirts don't disappear until - S3? Can we agree to thank the Universe that Sarah eventually got more control over Buffy's wardrobe?)

[kikimay]

But '90 fashion was a mess! I mean, look at Mad Men fashion (sixties): it's much much better.
Anyway, I read somewhere - I don't remember - that Sarah got more control over Buffy's fashion and that she picked the long skirts instead of the short ones. I start loving Buffy's sense of fashion from S4.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Heh I thought her season 4 wardrobe was a bit too frumpy with the long skirts and shawls, but I loved the way she started dressing in seasons 5-7. It felt like it was the first time Buffy started working what I call "regular clothes", jeans, regular tops, and sweaters that you would actually see in real life, as opposed to many of the bizarre outfits they would put her in early on. I always thought it was weird that you didn't see Buffy wearing jeans even once during the high school years, they always seemed to kind of dress her towards a particular theme each year in seasons 1-4?

[kikimay]

I love S5 to S7 fashion. And, yes, she's much more believable with jeans but she also wears sometimes really cute outfit. In S4 she's really young student/mode on. And personally I ADORE the cherries dress she wears in the Restless dream. It's so cuuuute!

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

I ADORE the cherries dress she wears in the Restless dream. It's so cuuuute!

I might like it more if it didn't have cherries on it? Cherries have long been symbols of 1) virginity, and/or 2) sexual desire and fulfillment; so when I saw that print on a dress in which nearly everything is some sort of symbol, I thought "You have got to be kidding me. Really, Joss?"

[kikimay]

I didn't know this association between cherries and virginity until I started reading English fanfics. I think we don't have it! I'm more like: cute dress. Cherries are cute and red. :3 (Also, she wears another cherry dress in The Freshman, but the second one is cuter in my opinion)

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Cherries are cute and red.

I like cherries (esp in RL) so if that dress had shown up in any other episode I wouldn't have given it a second thought. But in an episode screaming "SYMBOLISM!", it's different. I'm actually not crazy about this episode - or at least I like everyone else's dreams but by the time they got to Buffy it was the first time watching the series I actually said aloud "Bored now". (And I was by myself in the room.)

I prefer it when the show weaves the symbolism in for me to find, instead of marking it out with a great big neon sign. (Of course the house falling down in Smashed isn't exactly "subtle" but it still allows for a variety of interpretations as well as the literal level of the story itself. Dream sequences don't work on a "story level" because they are outside the story. I think Dead Things is a masterpiece, but I'm not as crazy about the "dream sequence"; the entire episode has the feeling of a fever dream so ironically sticking a dream sequence into it feels off.)

she wears another cherry dress in The Freshman

She does? I'll look for that on rewatch. I think S4 is extremely underrated.

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yeah. One of the few areas where I put my foot down with my very expressive kid is: no cherry prints. "Why not?" she says. "Get the strawberry fabric instead," I say. "You're weird," she says. This has been going on since she was 14, but I think she's figured it out by now, 3 years later. ;-) It's a ridiculous line to draw in the sand, but I don't want her to unwittingly project some Lolita thing, and I don't want to quash her love to cute cherry prints. She can wear them when she's an adult.

I'm open to negotiation on things like pet snakes and cartilage piercings — but NO DAMN CHERRRIES!

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

"Get the strawberry fabric instead," I say.

:) Ironically enough, you just reminded me that when my sweetie and I were first together 17 years ago (I had been a virgin when I met her), "eating strawberries" was our codeword for "making love". I'll leave the "why" to your imagination. So I don't know if that'll affect your feeling on strawberry prints!

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Heh I thought her season 4 wardrobe was a bit too frumpy with the long skirts and shawls,

I actually used to enjoy wearing long skirts with combat boots and peasant blouses in college because I was enjoying playing with clothes as costumes. (And because I had almost no money and combat boots from the Army surplus store were super cheap and durable.) So there are some rather bizarre choices in S4 but I can identify. Maybe it's part of the "Buffy is trying to find her identity as an adult" idea that I was going through. (Or maybe just some bad choices by the costumers.)

but I loved the way she started dressing in seasons 5-7. It felt like it was the first time Buffy started working what I call "regular clothes", jeans, regular tops, and sweaters that you would actually see in real life, as opposed to many of the bizarre outfits they would put her in early on.

I love her costumes in that period as well. So simple and spartan. (Let's face it - the house scene in Smashes is a 1000x hotter because she's entirely covered up, not despite it. And I love how in that scene and in OMWF, she and Spike are actually colored-matched to one another, and yet it somehow doesn't come off as matchy-matchy.)

I think there is something to this thematically as well, though - it's the period when Buffy has to grow up in a hurry; be a surrogate parent to Dawn, leave college and work, etc; it's her period of downward economic mobility. I also associate this as a contrast to Joyce in the early seasons; it used to annoy me that we rarely saw Joyce work, she was always put-together, the house immaculate, etc; nor did we see her at the gallery. She was as idealized as June Cleaver with her pearls in the 1950's; and maybe it was a blind spot on Joss & ME's part, but in hindsight it actually works very well thematically, at least for me; when I was a kid I certainly had a skewed notion of how hard my mom worked or what her life was actually like, even though we are much lower on the economic ladder than Joyce. It wasn't until I moved out of the house - indeed, until I had to drop out of college - that I really appreciated how hard she worked. And once I had to leave college, the era of clothes as "play" disappeared for the most part. I wear jeans and sweatshirts and the skirts and pretty things rarely come out to play.

Of course Buffy has a much nicer wardrobe than I do, but I think there's something similar here? Playtime is over. (There's also the fact that in S6 after Smashed her clothes are very conservative - she uses clothes to hide rather than reveal her body.)

you didn't see Buffy wearing jeans even once during the high school years

I haven't done enough of a rewatch to double-check that; she does wear a rather utilitarian pair of trousers at the end of Ted (like a more fashionable version of cargo pants); and the overalls and dungarees in Ted, Becoming, Anne, Helpless are more symbolic than anything. (Although I think fandom oversimplifies just what they symbolize.)

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Back in the day I liked '90's fashions much better than '70's or '80's fashions in general. More streamlined, less fussy - although having only one silhouette (and it's actually gotten worse since then - women's clothes are designed for a single body type); and the colors (sand, celery, sage, salmon) were boring. (The only thing I miss about '80's fashions are the jewel-tones.) OTOH I liked the renewal of the 1930's long gowns.

I wouldn't say that 1960's fashions are better - they look good in modern interpretations but when I look at magazines from the period, it's a different story entirely. To me it's too false, too constructed.

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

Around mid-S2, I think the super short skirts disappeared, perhaps right around the time contract extensions were signed. I shudder to think how uncomfortable filming the fight scenes in NKABOTFD must have been. That "dress" was really just a long shirt.

S7 was probably my favorite for Buffy fashion. S6, I liked too and the latter half of S5. The first half had some unfortunate choices. *cough*The Replacement*cough*

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

NABOTFD

I'm not even going to try to remember what that stands for - but the garment you describe sounds familiar.

The first half had some unfortunate choices. *cough*The Replacement*cough*

This was also the period of Buffy's pink trousers in BvsD; then there was that pink satin shirt she wore after Riley left her. Yikes. Of course the first half of the season also had Riley, which is why I don't rewatch it very often.

Basically I agree with you about S5-7 esp regards Buffy; when blackfrancine described Buffy as "elegant" this is the period I'm thinking of.

BTW - have you ever seen The Bitter Buffalo's "Buffy Fashion Roulette"? It's very amusing.
http://msjacks.wordpress.com/tag/buffy-fashion-roulette/page/2/

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

It's supposed to be Never Kill a Boy... Dunno what happened to the K.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Oh duh! I kept trying to search my memory for that one. That actually is one of the more forgettable episodes. Not bad, just not memorable. but then again I think IRYJ, Beer Bad and Doublemeat Palace and Him are way underrated. so what would I know?

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

Beer Bad, DMP and Him are very underrated. I can get why one would dislike Him, but the level of hate they get I don't know. All are very rewatchable for me, as opposed to Gingerbread and other S2 or S3 eps. Not that I think those are bad eps, either, but you know what I mean.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

I can get why one would dislike Him, but the level of hate they get I don't know.

They were all lessons for me and very early signs that I was NOT a part of "mainstream fandom" - which sent me landing here in LJ and this part of fandom. Even still, those are not loved episodes.

I remember at another LJ site with a feminist, Spuffy late-seasons slant, people HATED him or specifically they hated the part where Buffy mounted RJ while bespelled because of the consent issues etc. And I felt like a bad feminist or something and really embarrassed because I thought that sequence was funny, so I should have "known" it wasn't. then I went back to rewatch and - nope, I still find it funny. The dubious consent was the point - there was no question that RJ had put a spell on Buffy; and Buffy behaving somewhat like Buffybot is always funny. Or "This is a classroom you chowderhead!" "His physical presence has a penis!" I'm smiling just thinking about it. it's my go-to episode for laughs And at the same time it references so many other episodes and turns their personal issues upside down as well as digs up buried dynamics - the AR, the Xander/Spike relationship, Willow's magic issues and her and Anya's rivalry. Buffy's devious behavior contributing to Dawn's later distrust. Xander being an adult now instead of the picked-on geek. Buffy's relationships referenced by Dawn's use of "it is real" and "it would be true, forever".

Beer Bad - Cave Buffy! Who foreshadows the First Slayer and Buffy in Bargaining2 (watch the scene in the bar in BB when the bar is burning down, and Buffy wandering the streets after she's been resurrected). Parker knocked on the head twice, and Willow likewise giving Parker a verbal smackdown! All to the good. And Doublemeat Palace is an incisive portrait of the dead-end service work that has been the single largest growing sector of the economy (in terms of number of jobs created) in the US since the 1990's. I've worked in retail (rather than fast food) but so much of it is the same.

I need to do an "underrated episodes" post. Maybe a few of them.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I love Him and Doublemeatpalace :) I always find it odd that DMP is so frequently picked out as being one of the worst Buffy episodes ever, I thought it brilliantly captured the monotomy of working minimum wage, while still being funny and entertaining. But then there's never been a Jane Espensen episode I haven't liked, I also have a real fondness for I Was Made To Love You and Triangle which seem to be very unpopular episodes of hers?

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

I don't recall much about "triangle" but it had one of Spike's best ever lines - maybe one of the best in the entire series? "I'm paralyzed with not caring very much." I've actually used that one in RL (ok, in my head but still...) I do think that Olaf is rather ridiculous in the way that a lot of people seem to find the cave fratboys in BB (which don't bother me so much); and there's the "ick" factor of Willow and Anya being in "competition" so to speak for Xander, for his affection and time if not as rival lovers. (XANDER? And Willow and Cordy compete for him in S2-3; if Xander represent Joss, then that's a total nerd boy wet-dream.)

And total agreement on DMP - the bs motivational posters, the interview, the sterile break room, the lowered hopes and diminished dreams, etc - been there, done that, will probably have to again. I think my "favorite" moments in that workplace are actually in DT (Tara visiting Buffy) and NA - the shot of Buffy "sleepwalking" to the fryer is harrowing, because "demon poison" aside, that numbness is very true to life. (And I'd think it be damned dangerous in that setting.)

IWMTLY is one I have to watch again. I was looking at the screencaps and astonished to see how happy Buffy is for most of it; I'd forgotten that. Riley's dumped her but she's coping, she's moving on, enjoying her friends, flirting with Ben, etc (At the time I still didn't realize that should have been my big screaming red flag that something horrible was going to happen.) I remembered loving Joyce going on a date - they remembered she was an adult woman and a sexual human being, yay! - and modeling for her daughters as my mom used to in front of me. I love the progression in Buffy's feelings about her mom's sexuality from Ted (although Joyce's dress is almost identical in both); Buffy and Joyce relate to one another in a more adult fashion - and yet actually hearing about it is still another story altogether. (I love Kristine Sutherland so much in that ep.) then there's the first time we see Warren and Katrina, Spike approaching him to build a bot - this episode resonates through the story for a long time to come. And it leads to The Body and what I consider the point of no return for Buffy. (I didn't realize I had so many FEELINGS about this ep!)

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

I didn't mind the pink leather (pleather?) pants in BvsD. It had a nice top to it as opposed to the dyed pants and tank top made from the carpet of a 70's Chevy van thing going on in The Replacement. As far as I'm concerned, Riley bought it for her and she wore it out of obligation.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

You actually sent me back to Netflix and - oh boy I forgot about those pants! Actually I'll go out on a limb and say it's something Willow picked out, as she and Tara wear a good bit of it. (maybe willow picks out tara's clothes as well? This could get really creepy...)

Although nothing will ever beat Willow's "red elmo pelt top" for badness.

I have no idea how this became a Buffy fashion thread but it makes me giggle.

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

Ha, I like that even better. 100x more plausible than Riley, who I don't see buying her clothes or her wearing them*. I now pronounce it canon.

*Obvious exceptions pertaining to their private life, of course.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

100x more plausible than Riley, who I don't see buying her clothes or her wearing them*. I now pronounce it canon.

:) Of course it's canon.

Riley was so nervous about approaching Buffy he had to have Willow as a duenna of sorts; so I don't see him buying her clothes or even thinking to do so. If asked advice he'd be the guy to say "whatever, hon, you look great in anything."

On the subject of Riley though, I do find it odd that someone as handsome as he is is so - virginal. I don't mean literal virgin (I have no idea on that) and I guess it's supposed to contrast with Parker (and Angel) and reinforce the notion of Riley as the corn-fed Iowa boy, but I still wonder how a guy, particularly one as handsome as he is, can have gotten to that age and still be absolutely clueless about women and dating. Or maybe I'm stereotyping him myself based on looks.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

...Now look what you did to my muse.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

*SNORFLE* (This is the first time I've even been able to think about that damned uniform without wanting to cry.)

Oh and btw- fuck you, Riley Finn, and the helicopter you rode in on.