Today's post brought to you by the need to throw SOMETHING on this journal no matter how silly...

[red_satin_doll]

And also, to remind everyone to vote in the otherworldlyric icon challenge contest #162.
ETA: dragonydreams just let me know that voting is closed and winners have been announced. Congratulations to winners spikesredqueen and chic_c !
(While I'm here I might as well send more kudos to wickedbish for being such an awesome icon beta.)



Now go get some sleep - tomorrow's a long day, sweetie.

Comments

[dragonydreams.livejournal.com]

FYI - Voting is closed and winners have been announced, but thanks for pimping.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

They have? Very cool! I didn't see it on the site a couple of moments ago, I'll head there now thanks for the update.

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

I voted in that challenge. Now that it's over, which ones were yours?


Gabrielle

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

4, 11 and 12

(ETA: I'll post the entire "collection" of icons I made for this sometime this week)

I did vote today myself and at least one of my picks - #1 - was a winner.

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

Can't wait to see them! You made super icons!


Gabrielle

[wickedbish.livejournal.com]

Your icons are gorgeous, hon. I will seriously give you feedback any time you need feedback!

[comlodge.livejournal.com]

That's my look!

[kikimay]

I voted you without knowing and I voted one of the winner. Lovely icons, very funny. XD

[snogged.livejournal.com]

Congrats to the winners.

Love the Buffy image. Sleep is definitely something I need more of this week.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Sleep is definitely something I need more of this week.

I've been doing pretty good but my sweetie is with you on that one! Anything in particular getting in the way of your sleep?

And thanks I'm glad you like the image! I saved it in large size before making it into an icon - I've noticed a tendency lately to want to put too much text in an image than an icon can really handle.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Thanks hon! *works on it*

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Well clearly you have very good taste and an excellent eye! *LOL*

By "funny" I assume you mean the picture in this post and not the icons in the challenge? Because if they came across as funny, maybe I did something wrong.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

We can all identify, can't we?

Actually, this is all your fault (so says I) - ever since I saw your beautiful Buffy & Joyce banner using that shot from Chosen, I've gone back to Touched - Chosen and have been having way too much fun making icons of from those eps.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

And I will TOTES take you up on that offer, trust.

(BTW - does Buffy actually say "totes" for "totally" in canon?)

[kikimay]

The icons of the challenge are also funny. I mean, there are some funny icons, like the funny Willow icon or the Spike one (There are also not-funny icons like the one with Angelus and the Buffy VS EvilWillow one) But, I have to be honest, the Nikki one kinda makes me giggle. It's inappropriate, I know, but the phrase about the king sounds funny to me. I'm the worst!

[comlodge.livejournal.com]

Lol. Then my work here is um working. :D

Are you going to post your icons so that we can marvel at them? My fave is no 12 but I do like the winners.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

I started with a bunch of S6 icons then made the one of Buffy in PG, then Nikki (I also made some of Xin Rong); making those was the first time I've done an icon/visual art project in a fandom that almost made me cry.

I was thinking about how cold and lonely, how terrifying, Buffy's death in PG is - but Nikki's and Xin Rong's are no less so, and by extension the thousands of girls we never see, girls who have been drafted into a war they never sought, who know they die young, but fight anyway.

It's upsetting and it should be. If I'm able to cry over Buffy's death but ignore Nikki or Xin Rong's, then there is something very wrong with that.

The phrase "who died and made you king" has a several layers of meaning in that context: a girl dies so that a vampire earns bragging rights, a feather in their cap; one girl dies and another one, a stranger, will be called. A girl dies, alone and unknown, in a fruitless struggle to keep the rest of us safe while we sleep in innocently in our beds.

I almost used the words "Who died?" by itself.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

#12 is one of my favorite icons I've ever made - and it was one of the simplest. Those are often my favorites, the ones that "make themselves" hardly any "special effects, just a little tinting and brightening, then the frame. It's the two fonts that are the 'special effect' to serve the mood and expression, and somehow it came together beautifully in that one.

I honestly don't remember which ones I voted for personally except #1 (me and my old brain...) - young Willow and Buffy at the Espresso Pump, how cute is that?

And yes, I will definitely trot out the entire set.

I hope you don't find them tiresome - I tend to do several icons using a single ideal, image or text; sometimes I just like them all equally and can't decide! (That's why I need Ryan to hold my hand, which he did brilliantly.)

[kikimay]

The line sounds funny to me because I associate it with comedy stuff (I learned that phrase with comedy. I thought is a "joke line") but I didn't thought about the - oh my God, so spot on - implications.

The slayers' succession is something creepy and when I read people who bash Buffy because of what she did in Chosen I really can't believe my eyes: she broke the chain that brought so much death on so many people. Also it's really unfair and it's very convenient, if you think about it, for the Council: without the previous slayer there's not example nor guide. There's no previous experience. Every slayer is like an only child without mother and has to rebuilt her power starting with nothing. They could easily use the new orphan slayer, because no one will protect her.

I'm upset by Buffy and Xin Rong (Is that her name? I didn't know it!) death. Well, I'm upset for Buffy for reasons you can imagine. Nikki's death upsets me on a totally different level mostly because there's Robin involved and all the hate he gets from her death, for his own self, for his mother and the vampire who killed her. It's really seems SO unfair.

[wickedbish.livejournal.com]

I . . . don't think so?

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

That's kind of my feeling too - that it doesn't feel quite right but I'm not 100% certain one way or the other.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

I know that line can be used sarcastically/comedically - in the song itself it has a bitter quality - so I never quite thought of that. Once I paired it with the images. (the irony is that if the word were "queen" instead it would have very different meanings.)

when I read people who bash Buffy because of what she did in Chosen I really can't believe my eyes: she broke the chain that brought so much death on so many people.

I've been thinking about the slayer spell recently and come to terms with it personally. Because I can see both sides of the issue - I felt both sides when I watched the episode for the first time; there are definitely some creepy implications, thanks mostly to Get it Done. Once we're told that the original Slayer was "raped" by a demon, it's hard to unsee that. OTOH - as far as I can tell, Buffy and co thought that all the surviving potentials were there in the living room with them.

But the thing is - even with the problemmatic aspects, undoing the spell entirely doesn't seem like the solution to me and doesn't sit well with me, when I see it in the comics or in fanfic. So you're going to take away what was given? That "takeaway" is also a "violation". Plus in terms of power dynamics, why is it "bad" that a bunch of young women gain power? Why is it assumed that they can't handle it, or that it will shift the dynamics of the entire universe in a bad way and thus should be avoided? Because - only the boys can handle it? That's not good enough for me.

It seems to me that what's needed is communication, getting the word out, letting the girls know that they're not freaks, not alone -which is exactly the situation I faced growing up, not feeling "normal", not caring about boys, but having never heard the words "lesbian" "gay" "homosexual" except as a slur on the playground, as something shameful and sinful. I didn't come out until I was in my mid-twenties which makes me luckier than a lot of other people have been. That sort of shame and ignorance and silence are a fucking waste of time, a waste of life and possibility.

So I guess I see it like my sexual orientation - I wouldn't wish that stupid struggle with a most basic part of my own being upon anybody.

ozma914 writes a post-Chosen Four Friends series and in one, his OC Slayer, Kara, reflects on how she is glad to have been "chosen" and to chose, to have a chance to make a real difference in life, to have these friends and sense of community. And I like that way of looking at it because it makes a lot of sense to me. (I can't find the exact link here's the four friends tag http://ozma914.livejournal.com/tag/four%20friends) OTOH he also wrote "She would be 13" a beautiful story in which Xander reflects on the downsides of the slayer spell to the girls it affects http://good--evil.livejournal.com/176650.html So, everything in balance.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Also it's really unfair and it's very convenient, if you think about it, for the Council: without the previous slayer there's not example nor guide. There's no previous experience. Every slayer is like an only child without mother and has to rebuilt her power starting with nothing. They could easily use the new orphan slayer, because no one will protect her.

Exactly - they practice total control. They "own" the story, until Buffy rewrites it. We hear about Watchers Diaries, what about Slayer Diaries? in Prophecy Girl, Joyce represents "possibilities", telling Buffy a story about how she met Hank at the prom and emphasizing choice, possibility and options; Giles says "Buffy WILL meet the Master and she WILL die." In the Gift he says "Dawn MUST die." He's the WC's rep, and there is only ONE option, one way to do things. And most Slayers live and die by that belief.

And this reflects a truth about real life - much of women's history has been erased, forgotten, buried, or is inaccessible to most of us. Buffy doesn't have access to her own history except through Giles/the WC and Spike - a Slayer of Slayers who doesn't know as much as he thinks he does. He doesn't understand when Xin Rong says "Tell my mother - I am sorry." He doesn't KNOW she had that bond, nor would he care in any case. She's an enemy to be defeated. So FFL actually makes clear that Spike isn't the final word on what Slayers are like, but somehow it ends up being interpreted that way, especially when LMPTM doesn't contradict his opinions. It's not exactly a battle of equals - equal strength perhaps, and yes the girls have training but nothing to compare with a vampire's 100+ years of skill and experience. In WTTH, Luke and the Master want to kill Buffy, they seek out "the Slayer"; she just wants to go to school and hang with her friends and date boys.

It's troubling - or it should be troubling, that the girls themselves are all but forgotten while the men have a pissing contest; that Robin's legitimate grievances are brushed aside; that Buffy is still removed from her own history...and don't even get me started on the awful image of Robin beaten and bloodied, looking like 14 year old Emmet Till in his coffin, or so many black Americans who were brutally murdered in America.
It's really seems SO unfair.

Maybe they were going for "Spike hasn't totally learned empathy yet" but that's the last word on it in the series, so it just comes across as yucky. The perpetrator justifying himself, with the backing of the (white) Slayer who loves him against the "angry black man" who needs to get over himself apparently? Oh Season 7, you make it so hard for me to defend you sometimes.

[comlodge.livejournal.com]

Oh did you make no 12? Sorry I did not read that. Well if I'd voted I'd have used it first or second - I do love the winner. I'm always amazed to see such a sweet, full image be so very clear in such a tiny space.

I hear you about the repetitive theme. I often can't decide on a finish when I'm playing and sometimes just post the lot and let people decide which they like best eg when I was playing with wings on Spike, lol. And of course people pick different ones as their fave. It's why comps are so very hard. I still faithfully vote in BTVS Hush and Slayerstillness even though I seldom enter any icons and I hardly ever agree with the results. :D

[wickedbish.livejournal.com]

Google is being distinctly unhelpful, but it seems to me that "totes" didn't start to be a thing that people said until at least three or four years after "Chosen" aired, so.