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sundries

Brief, as it's Sunday, and you got a few links from me last night too. This included me jumping the gun on a thing. Sorry to get my over-excitedness on you. If you have any questions, please address it with me privately.

You do no want to know how many moths decided to come into our flat last night. Ugh ugh ugh ugh. Fuckers.

Yay, finished the edit for HackGender.

Hey, so a friend of mine is a CART provider, and has a cool blog about it, that's interesting from a few perspectives -- including disability access, being a sole proprietor in New York, and neat technology stuff. It occurs to me that with my readership, a large number of you may very well care about at least one of those three things. So hey, check it out.

Advocating for people with disabilities in Syria.

Black and (mostly Orthodox) Jewish.

Rounnd 1 of bidding in the

help_pakistan auction ends today.

I still cannot find just a handful of links I find adequately discusses the many problems with the Beck rally: from intense racism to the apocalyptic delusions that rule of law has fled in the US and Marxist homosexuals are rampaging through the streets stealing everyone's guns.

Folks, voting for

writerinadrawer Round 10 -- the round that decides the winner -- closes tonight. More votes are needed. Check it out. It's just three little stories and some opinions. You can do it!

So, the Buffy finale.... Really good. Satisfying. Calls back to things in the series without hitting you over the head with it, but also allowing you to remember the journey you've been on. Deeply, deeply aware of itself as a finale, and deeply deeply aware of its audience as knowing it is watching a finale. And, even still, when people die, there is still just a tiny moment of time to acknowledge and mourn that death (both Spike and Anya get that). It's also one of those finales that makes me stand up and cheer, because it has the right music, and the right vanquishing of the evil and all of that.

Which brings me to CoE and its reception. It wasn't written as a finale, although it was written as something that could exist as a finale if need be. And, I suspect, it was viewed by a lot of the audience, especially the American audience for who the structure of the way Torcwhood has aired is a much more radical departure than what they are used to, as something that was a finale. Which really, really, impacts reception. Because seriously? Our show is over and it ends in defeat? No wonder people are angry!

Of course, this also raises the question of how we place programs in time. I.e., did Joyce die when that episode first aired? Does she die every time that episode is watched? Is she dying, constantly, right now, over and over again? Extrapolate to Torchwood. See how that works?

I also felt, ultimately, that the finale of Buffy was more true to its aspirations of feminism than much of the series. All girls who are called arrive, and they skills are not just for survival, but for the perfectly ordinary, victorious living of their lives. Great power ultimately didn't turn Willow evil, but good and wise.

And the argument that "well, it was actually Spike who saved everyone and that's not feminist" doesn't hold for me; a man had to die to save people, but the girls saved people and got to keep on living. Ultimately, I think in a show like this, where you want all key characters involved in the end and to make sacrifices, you're sort of fucked in terms of reception -- at the end of the day, the women will always seem not enough, and rescued by men, no matter what you're trying to say (and you know I have serious problems in general with Whedon's feminist cred).

I almost don't want to read the comics, as I thought the ending was so cleanly and suitably executed, but I will eventually. In the, I have no time!!!! place that I'm in now, can someone just briefly tell me if there are any graveside/mourning type moments in there I need to find now as opposed to later for my D*C presentation?

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Thanks for the shout out! The blog is fairly new, but I've got a bunch of posts planned for the near future, so I really appreciate the traffic boost.

Hey, so a friend of mine is a CART provider

That's pretty cool. I went to the Rochester Institute of Technology, and one of our colleges there is the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. I worked there as a student employee, and also did some notetaking in a few classes. Real-time captioning was kinda new at the time I was there, I know a couple people who were beta-testers for that service.

NTID is awesome (my former ASL teacher went there and told some great stories about it), but I hate that the page you linked to says "real-time captioning (C-Print)". C-print is not realtime captioning; it's a non-verbatim notetaking system that uses abbreviation-expanding algorithms to let people type around 140 to 160 words per minute on a regular qwerty keyboard, which is often only fast enough to give PowerPoint-style bullet point summaries of what's being said. CART is true verbatim realtime captioning, and uses a steno machine to write up to 260 words per minute. Sorry for the pedantry, but it really bothers me when people (especially Deaf universities that should know better!) treat CART and C-Print/Typewell as equivalent technologies. Notetaking systems are much cheaper than CART, and it's easier to find people willing to learn them because the training period is a matter of weeks rather than years, but they're really not capable of offering true equal access.

/rant

That's similar to my take on "Chosen." A massive chunk of the fandom freaked out that, given the rape metaphor had been pushed to the men who empowered the original Slayer having forced a foreign and demonic thing into her, ergo Buffy and Willow activating that power in every Potential was tantamount to a massive serial rape.

While I can see how they got there, I don't agree. That potential was there, now they have access to it without someone having to die. And the montage of all of them being activated makes me tear up every time. And I love that Willow got such a positive rush from it, after all the fear of what tapping into that power would do to her.

I'm about a year behind in actually reading the comics, so there may be something. However, up to the point I had read, no, not much on grief, at least not for anyone who died on the show. What they were doing, last I read anyway, was some really interesting stuff around the responsibilities that go with power, balance of power when you've gone and activated that many Slayers, and suchlike. With some seriously cracktastic side plots.

As for the allusion I made in your other post, it's not that big a thing, nor all that interesting once you've seen both finales, but it was interesting at the time watching people speculate that the people fleeing Sunnydale were all going to LA to bathe in Jasmine's glory and what Whedon & Co might do with that. I think the spark for that was that there were mild rumors of crossoveriness, which ultimately just referred to Angel's cameo.

From what I hear about the comics recently, they pretty much undermine everything Whedon did in the finale. I stopped reading them years ago because they just . . . weren't satisfying me at all in terms of story. And I hear it's only gotten worse.

I think the thing that bothered a lot of people in Buffy fandom about the finale was that it was not explicit that the girls got to choose whether they wanted the power or not. After the explicit rape metaphor earlier in the season, and after years of watching Buffy's life be - not ruined, but definitely complicated by the slaying, it seemed unfair that all these girls who didn't get to choose had those powers thrust upon them. My personal canon is that they did get to choose, on a metaphysical level; certain fic writers have done it that way, and that works best for me.

But the worst unfairness in Buffy's life was always that she didn't get a choice because she was the *only* person who could do these things. By activating all of them, they all have the ability to have a life beyond being a slayer.

That was certainly the point Whedon was trying to make. I'm just not sure I buy it. It's more fair to Buffy, but is it really more fair to everyone else? Most of those girls are still going to die pretty damn young.

Edited 2010-08-29 17:23 (UTC)

Which brings me to CoE and its reception. It wasn't written as a finale, although it was written as something that could exist as a finale if need be. And, I suspect, it was viewed by a lot of the audience, especially the American audience for who the structure of the way Torcwhood has aired is a much more radical departure than what they are used to, as something that was a finale. Which really, really, impacts reception. Because seriously? Our show is over and it ends in defeat? No wonder people are angry!

I preferred it as a show finale than a season finale to be honest. Overall I'm not that crazy about COE because there are just too many things that don't work for me and the more I see it the less it works, but I could live with it as a finale for the show, espcially if I think of it as tragedy and Jack as moulded to be a tragic figure. They tend to end unhappily. I don't really see them handling the aftermath of S3 in a way that won't end up being unsatisfying for me and their track record doesn't fill me with hope and I know that'll ultimately colour my viewing of the new season and the characters and I'm not sure I want that.

I haven't seen the Buffy finale since it ended, but I remember disliking the season, but liking the finale and finding it fitting.

"at the end of the day, the women will always seem not enough, and rescued by men, no matter what you're trying to say"

Can you expand on this, please? I don't follow Whedon fandoms or feminist posts about Whedon, but I'm curious why people think that. (I also didn't take that man-saves-woman idea away from the finale, so I'm doubly puzzled.)

Spike sacrifices his life as part of the plan to defeat the first evil. This can be read as the Slayers not being able to save themselves and needing a man for the final rescue, despite the fact that I think it's actually about a vampire realizing and utilizing the ramifications of the soul he fought for. I think there is sexism in lots of places in Buffy, particularly in how everyone addresses Buffy's relationship history, but this is not one of the places where I find it present. However, as we live in a society filled with sexism and where, at the end of the day, most movies are about Boy Saves Girl whatever we were supposed to see about teamwork, cooperation, the girls living, Spike's soul is easily drowned in most lenses by the sense that the Boy Saved the Girl, Again.

It's like the problem of rape on the show. Yes, lots of the show actually talks about rape. Some of the show is an allegory for rape. But bad things happen to women on the show that aren't about rape or about gender, but are about the fact that Bad Things Happen to Heroes on TV, but it's hard to know what falls into what categories, so despite my feeling that Whedon is preoccupied with rape issues in a way that doesn't always serve the purpose I think he wants his discussion of them to serve, all violence that occurs against female characters on Buffy is not actually about rape. However, figuring out what is and isn't about rape, when society and experience and often the show itself tells us that everything comes down to sexual violence makes the analysis practically impossible to do and obscures whatever it is the show is trying to say about rape as much as it obscures whatever it is the show is trying to say about other types of violence/training/tragedy both in and outside gendered terms.

We come to shows with our culture. They can't be made, or watched, in a clean room. And that can be very frustrating when trying to look at something as unlike as Buffy (female-dominated cast, female heroes) is.

Edited 2010-08-29 17:45 (UTC)

I found that there are several points in the seventh season when they try to make the point that It's All About Spike After All and it really did come across as derailing to me. I was just really uncomfortable over the whole theme that it's okay to rape a woman if you decide that X, Y, and Z are part of your manly man quest for redemption.

And, be honest: did you really see Spike as a sacrifice there and not a crowning moment of awesome that would guarantee his quick reincarnation in the next season of Angel? This card has been played too often and never offered to the Kendras and Joyces and Taras and Anyas of the world.

On the plus side, there is the awesomeness of Faith and Robin bickering over which of them is prettier.

Although in the larger context, there Buffy/Angelverse repeatedly asks the question, when you've committed evil, when you've /been/ evil, and want to change, or actually do change, do you get to? Are you the accumulation of your sins, or is redemption possible? Can you be unforgiven and still be worthwhile as a hero? Does existence precede essence? Granted, that's more AtS then Buffy, but still. Anya, Faith, Angel, Faith, did I mention Faith? ANd of course, Spike. Spike isn't the only one who did the Evil to Good transition (with some bobbles along the way), and so reading his (limited) forgiveness as somehow a whitewash -- no, I don't really see it.

There was a big proposal of bringing Tara back. If Amber Benson had been available, it would have happened along the following lines....

Buffy was supposed to have gotten a wish (the good kind, not the vengeance demon sort). No catches, no hooks, no literal understanding issues. And the entire episode was supposed to have centered around What She Was Going to Wish For.

At the end of the episode, Willow was to walk upstairs to see Buffy holding a pair of shoes in the bedroom door. She was going to be dismayed that *that* was what Buffy had wished for. And then Buffy was to step away and there was Tara.

It's just that Amber Benson couldn't do it at the time.

Hmmm. I don't doubt that an overview of that story was written, but it doesn't make any sense on several levels. Heck, Buffy is the last person who would bring a good person back from the afterlife, and yet she doesn't choose Joyce who would be able to maintain a house filled with a dozen borders and keep Dawn out of foster care?

I think it's another Woman in Refrigerators thing. A woman dying showcases the grief and guilt of the remaining characters and you can't wipe out the death without erasing that character development. On the other hand, a man dying just prevents the progress of great justice, so the sooner he comes back the sooner evil will be at a disadvantage. The only thing that could be said for Joss Whedon's feminist cred is that he counts Buffy and Faith (but not Kendra) as worthy of resurrection.

It's also curious how James Marsters is always available when they want him back. Of course, he's an OPENING CREDITS character, not like Tara or Joyce, so maybe they let the phone ring more than twice before deciding whether he was able to do it.

Thank you! This was a lovely comment to read. I have to agree with you on all points.

I do want to explain that when I was growing up, my quietly feminist parents raised me to look past gender and sex when reading stories and watching movies. This was literally my thought process as a small child: "Okay, that person with a penis has more testosterone, hormones, etc, that make him physically stronger, but he's not looking at the person with the vagina and thinking that she is weak because she has more estrogen, etc - he sees her as an equal as a person. Male people and female people have their various differences, but they're people, and people do things like people." Nobody told me that playing in the dirt and having short hair was "a boy thing." I loved to bury my Voltron toys and turn them into zombies and then have my Ninja Turtle action figures save the day. I would take half my Barbie dolls and chop off their hair and have them be the lovers of the other Barbies, although I may have been influenced by my neighbor Sue and her girlfriend, Susan. When I played with my She-Ra toys, the female figures always rescued the male figures, but I never "compartmentalized" genders. I was aware of how "boys and girls were different" but I never saw the big deal about it.
It wasn't until I got into middle school that I realized the weird gender/sex gaps that people place on each other. Girls do this, boys to that. Why are you doing boy things if you're a girl, and visa versa. I didn't tell anyone that I used to have lesbian neighbors and that one of my elementary school classmates was trans (born female, presented as male). Because I saw that a lot of the other kids didn't like knowing these things. My favorite creative writing teacher got teased by students for having a girlfriend. So my world got jolted for a bit.

When I watch Buffy, I am keenly aware of all these issues, but the little girl in me shrugs it off and says, "But they're all people. So what?" And when I read some blog posts by people who blasted Whedon and Spike, etc, that little girl in me thought, "Seriously why all the man hating? They're PEOPLE."

I think my childhood issues stemmed more from being disabled and shunned than being a disabled female and shunned.

I'm sorry, I'm rambling. I'll stop now. I hope I got some kind of point across.

I totally see what you're getting at. I was one of two girls and the eldest. Since there were no boys about, a lot of the jobs that our society likes to peg as "stuff guys do" my sister and I got to do, like take out the trash, haul firewood, help dad fix cars and build stuff, etc.

We lived with my grandmother for a time, who both was widowed early and grew up with just her mom (her dad died when she was 3). This meant that I saw women doing traditionally male tasks all the time and heard about women keeping jobs and raising a family all without the benefits of having a man about, doing things like heading the household.

So, I too, grew up with people being people first and everything else second, third, or irrelevant.

There is some interesting commentary in one (some) of the Buffy essay books I read a few years ago that discusses how Spike is Othered enough to come across as more female than male, in that he is kidnapped, tortured, and needs to be rescued as much as any "damsel in distress".

I giggled at the "Spike as damsel in distress" thing. I'll have to find that essay book.

And the child in me is confused again, asking "What does being feminine have to do with being rescued?" and I can no longer explain the world to Child Me without stumbling.
I grew up to live in a crazy world full of psychic separations that smack so hard of essentialism that it makes my head spin.

Re: COE: Actually, I liked COE a lot better when I thought it might be the finale. It wasn't until I learned that there was probably going to be another season that I started to dislike it more. I felt like, for the most part, COE was an appropriate finale and in my personal canon, that's what it was and anything that might take place afterward is more of a spin-off type thing a la the Buffy Season Eight comics.

I think it's unlikely that I'll read the Buffy comics. I considered it, but like you, I see the finale of Buffy as being really fitting. I thought it was a good close to the arc of the show, and while I'm fine with thinking of the characters moving on past that point, I'm not really that interested in reading about it. I'd rather leave it up to my imagination. Same with Torchwood: The New World. I don't really want to see what happens after what, to me, was the end.

So, the Buffy finale.... Really good. Satisfying.
\o/ You liked it!

And the argument that "well, it was actually Spike who saved everyone and that's not feminist" doesn't hold for me;
I think Spike's sacrifice is hugely important, because it shows another side of Buffy - the Buffy who's not just a warrior, but an inspiration. If you look at Spike's journey, he is in many ways Buffy's creation. He wanted to be good enough for her, which in the end led him to just wanting to be *good*. The reason he's there, saving the world, is because of her, and because she chose him. (She could have worn the amulet herself. Heck, Faith could have worn it. But Buffy chose *Spike*.)

And I must ruminate on your CoE thoughts re. finales, and am now curious as to what you'll make of the last episode of AtS.

I almost don't want to read the comics
Don't. Trust me. Stay far, far away. They're like the worst type of fic - retconning anything that doesn't fit, lazy characterisation, storyline with very little logic, and painfully anti-feminist in places (and I'm not sure the writers even noticed).

an someone just briefly tell me if there are any graveside/mourning type moments in there I need to find now as opposed to later for my D*C presentation?
Hmm. There is one moment, after one of the new Slayers introduced in s8 dies, but I'm not sure it's quite what you're after. I can explain in more detail if you like, but it's not hugely important.

Edited 2010-08-29 18:51 (UTC)

Don't. Trust me. Stay far, far away. They're like the worst type of fic - retconning anything that doesn't fit, lazy characterisation, storyline with very little logic, and painfully anti-feminist in places (and I'm not sure the writers even noticed).

Seconded. The comics are unbelievably awful, and exist in that rare place (along with Highlander 2 and Scream 3) where the very existence of those stories makes the previous works worse.

the very existence of those stories makes the previous works worse.
*nods sadly* On the plus-side, their very ridiculousness has very effectively stopped a lot of people reading, and, as time goes by, I fully expect them to slowly fade from fannish consciousness like a bad dream.

To people who're not familiar with the comics - the official name (apart from 'Season 8') is 'Twilight' and with every issue, this becomes more apt.

I didn't think that the first few were terrible, but they went downhill from there. The bit in the future was especially terrible, and is where I gave up in disgust.

I'm glad to hear folks say the comics aren't good. I'm not a comics reader, I'm not trained in that medium, so I just wasn't getting much out of them. I tried, but I couldn't seem to suck anything close to the same sort of marrow I got from the show, or even half-decent fanfic.

So maybe it's not just my comics ineptitude? That's good news.

How is After the Fall? I have those...haven't actually cracked them open yet. Should I?

So maybe it's not just my comics ineptitude? That's good news.
Not your fault - they're bad comics.

How is After the Fall? I have those...haven't actually cracked them open yet. Should I?
Well *I* liked After the Fall very much! The original story written by Brian Lynch, after that they turned rubbish. Actually I'd recommend all of Lynch's stuff, not just AtF, but also Spike: Asylum and Spike: Shadowpuppets (which are set during S5 of Angel). Good stuff all round - solid characterisations, good (sometimes brilliant) OCs, nicely plotted stories - like really good fic with pictures! :)

Edited 2010-08-30 08:27 (UTC)

So, the Buffy finale.... Really good. Satisfying. Calls back to things in the series without hitting you over the head with it, but also allowing you to remember the journey you've been on.

I had mixed feelings about the Buffy finale. I absolutely loved it as the finale of the series (for all the reasons that you mention), but overall I found Season 7 to be incoherent and dull (are they fighting cave-vampires, the lame First Evil, the people who created the First Slayer, or what), and as the ending of that season, it worked no better.

Re: comics: there's a graveside mourning moment at the end of the "Wolves at the Gate" arc, but I can't remember if that compilation is one of the ones Patty is borrowing from me. (However, if you need it, I have the CBR files.) Also, significant but not major character death. Fair warning: the comics are BATSHIT.

All of my problems with feminism and the finale have to do with the issue of consent. As the comics make clear, the girls in the house are not all of the Slayers in the world. They make a choice for people who are not all there. We also don't ever actually see them make that choice; the camera cuts away at that point. It's really uncomfortable when you consider what we found out just a few episodes ago, that the First Slayer was made by men who placed a demon inside her.

Spike saving the day is fine by me. He was all pretty and glowy. :)

ETA: Oh yeah, issue #5 - "The Chain" - is all about death and mourning. You absolutely need to read that. Patty has it.

Edited 2010-08-29 22:02 (UTC)

Oh yeah, issue #5 - "The Chain" - is all about death and mourning. You absolutely need to read that.
Seconded. That issue is excellent and very ambiguous, and (fortuitously) a complete standalone! :)

All of my problems with feminism and the finale have to do with the issue of consent.
See I get this on a meta-level, absolutely. But when I look at the show, then Buffy herself always sees her power as something positive. Indeed in 'Helpless', when Giles secretly removes her powers, she is furious and feels extremely violated. Mostly I just shove most of the issues into the corner in my head labelled 'Joss' rape-issues' and concentrate on the positive. ;)

Buffy herself always sees her power as something positive
Except for the parts where she tries to give up her responsibility as the Slayer or dies twice because it's her job to save the world? And where she criticizes the three men in "Get It Done" for "violating that girl" and giving her the demon which makes her the First Slayer? It's not context-free power.

I love the show and see its problems at the same time, personally. They're not mutually exclusive modes of watching/enjoyment.

It's not context-free power.
Oh of course not. And Buffy often struggles with the darker side (see her getting out of bed to go out hunting, leaving Riley behind, asleep - or all of S6), but overall I think the problem is more with the fact that she is alone in carrying the burden.

True it is problematic to 'activate' all the Slayers, but what's the alternative? The system would continue as before, with one, lonely, girl called after the other, and the rest still at risk, like we saw at the start of S7 - picked off one by one without the power to fight back.

I love the show and see its problems at the same time, personally. They're not mutually exclusive modes of watching/enjoyment.
Oh I have about three thousand different layers in my watching, so I get you, definitely. But although I can *see* the problems in Buffy's choice, when I watch, it doesn't feel like I'm watching something dark and disturbing. I get chills when Buffy does her 'Are you ready to be strong?' speech, because it's so wonderful. (Also the way it ties together all the themes of the season - and the whole show - makes me flail with happiness. It's always about the meta for me...)

I am increasingly uncertain about what to do in the face of the Tea Party movement, possibly because I'm not some kind of domestic terrorist out to deprive conservatives of their civil liberties. This upsets and depresses me. I feel like I must be doing something wrong.

Also, like you, I'm having a lot of trouble putting the Beck thing to words.

re: buffy! YAY YOU MADE IT! glad you liked it, i love the buffy finale (but omg when you get to the angel finale... srsly, that is my FAVORITE series finale of anything ever, you'll see)

i never put much stock into the "is it feminist or not" argument about buffy - it just was what it was, none of the characters were perfect, and none of them needed to be

i think with CoE, for me anyway, it was less about the actual series, and more about how it was marketed and advertised (to the "fandom" portion of the audience) which i don't feel like going into b/c it's still this scabby wound that's best not picked at, you know? HOWEVER, i still like CoE, or certain elements of it, but it's never going to be perfect for me

dude, s5 of angel is sooooo torchwoody!

Mine too! Wait. Maybe not. Um...the Babylon 5 finale(s) were pretty fucking fantastic. But wow, yeah, I loved the Angel finale.

I wanted to hire a private jet so I could jet around the world, slapping the fans who didn't 'get' it, with a fish. Big fish. Or maybe a copy of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid...either way. But fish are cheaper.

ppl didn't get the angel finale? BUT IT WAS SO PERFECT!

sorry, rm, we'll stop talking about it, don't want to spoil you :)

I'm not sure that the Buffy finale and CoE are really all that comparable regardless of whether or not one viewed CoE as the ultimate Torchwood finale, simply because the ensemble cast of Buffy was so much broader. Quite aside from the victory/defeat dichotomy, Buffy viewers has many different characters they could identify with, and all of them had been developed in interesting and complex ways. It's very unlikely that viewers watching the end of Buffy would be left with NO character they could identify with, even if their favourite had died, and also, if their favourite did die, there would still be a whole heap of episodes for them to look back on.

With CoE, on the other hand, with the team reduced to three people -- the audience doesn't have those sorts of options. If you're lucky enough to identify with Jack or Gwen, that's great, but for those of us who can't (which is not to fault Jack or Gwen as characters, but they are rather inaccessible to many of us), there isn't really anywhere to go -- the entire show shuts down. With the Buffy finale, I felt that we were left with a living world, with a living mythology that I could still inhabit. But after CoE I was left with a show that I couldn't inhabit any longer, at least not in the deeply personal way that I had done before. For me, there's no getting past the fact that Ianto's story ended in defeat, regardless of what comes after.

Having said that, in a structural sense, I think that in a structural sense, CoE is probably more comparable to the S3 finale of Buffy, insofar as it represents the destruction of the structured environment that had given shape to the early part of the show. But the S3 Buffy finale still had that broad range of characters to relate to (and from what I recall, it didn't kill off anyone major), so it didn't risk shutting people out of the show like CoE did.

Edited 2010-08-30 00:45 (UTC)

Argh... there's something I want to say about Angel, but I can't for fear of epic spoilers.

I never really understood the choice of Spike to save the universe in the Buffy finale. Buffy dying to save the world feels like it is how Buffy should end. But instead Spike does. It does neatly close the Spike redemption arc, but it feels like it completely undermines Buffy as a hero. On the other hand, maybe that's the point. Buffy doesn't really want to be the Slayer, and she looks for a way out more than once--why should she have to die to save the world, if Spike's willing to do it?

Keep in mind, Buffy had already died to save the world multiple times, and before the most recent of those deaths she'd said that the hardest thing in this world is to live in it, so for her to choose to live (and keep fighting) is heroic to me.

The Buffy comics seem to cut in some time after the end of Season 7... so, by then the psychological hangover from the events of the finale is a long-past memory...

That being said - some of the characters seem to have lingering issues with past events, and for some, it's like it never happened...

The "Season 8" comics are very uneven...

I really can't say whether or not you need to read ahead for your presentation or not, because I don't know how you want to define "mourning"... There are lots of places where individual characters have "moments" - e.g. Xander remembering Anya - but it's not a theme or plot arc at all... what's there are offhand comments or references to "off camera action" that the reader is not (yet?) privy to.

By the way, you have seen this, yes?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZwM3GvaTRM

(Buffy/Twilight remix; if you haven't, you simply must...)

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