Buffy: Riley Finn, aka spoilers for a 10 year old show... o_O

[beccatoria]

Okay so I watched some Buffy back in the day, but never religiously. Currently Kev is rewatching most of it and I'm catching like...some of the episodes. Probably this has pushed my total Buffy Viewing from 20% of the show (plus a broad overview of most of the plots just from geeky osmosis) to 40%.

I already knew I hated Riley Finn. I did not realise quite how much until I was forced to watch that godawful episode where he leaves. On the one hand OH THANK TPTB HE'S GONE FINALLY. On the other, I was actually quite enjoying Buffy standing up for herself and pointing out that ditching on everyone repeatedly to get drunk and have manpain because he's no longer superpowered and feeling righteous about getting suck jobs from vampires because they NEEEEED him, unlike Buffy is...the most ridiculous thing ever. Because it's a giant needy bullshit coverup for the fact he can't handle the fact his girlfriend is stronger than him and doesn't revolve around him like he's the goddamn SUN.

And THEN, having been discovered to be an alcoholic who hires vampire hookers he puts all his inadequacies on Buffy (and honestly, I don't actually like Buffy all that much, but unless I missed all the episodes where she treated Riley like shit and ignored him, she's basically mostly guilty of, OMG, daring to treat him like someone who no longer has superpowers and occasionally getting distracted by her potentially dying mother), he hands her an ultimatum giving her four hours to decide whether she's willing to accept that his alcoholic vampire hooker problem is her fault.

BUT AT LEAST BUFFY WAS PISSED AT THIS. So, I thought. Okay, show...where are you going with this...

Oh. A self-righteous speech from Xander about how it is all Buffy's fault is where we're going with this.

SCREW YOU, RILEY FINN. YOU'RE NOTHING WITHOUT YOUR ROBOT CAR SUPERDRUGS, NOTHING!

Bah. Humbug.

In other news, having just finished a vid (for the twelvecolonies challenge, which is currently voting, hence delay in posting) and not being ready to start my next one (which will be non-BSG and require like...actual source-watching omg) and thus being deprived of my usual method of burying my head in the sand and ignoring everything, I instead apparently decided to install an entirely new operating system on my laptop. So I'm typing this from Ubuntu.

I...may be turning into a Linux-convert, guys. It's...worrying. Really the only potential snag will be whether I hate the vidding software, and initial explorations into Cinelerra are actually looking promising if a little intimidating... So we'll see. Expect a post on it soon. It's pretty snazzy. I've set it up with a dock like a Mac, though I'm not sure I'll keep that cus it's a bit weird. I also set up a bizarre 3d multiple desktop spinny thing that's hard to describe so maybe I'll try to find a youtube thing of it, or capture my own. It's kind of useless, but very pretty. :/

So, yeah. Linux. Apparently not as techy as we all thought. Though I bet Riley Finn couldn't work it out. The big git.

Comments

[coffeejunkii.livejournal.com]

i hate riley, too. ugh. i've also always felt that anders was kara's riley [although perhaps a tad less annoying towards the end].

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Hee. I always thought Lee was Kara's Riley, where Sam was her Angel and Baltar was her Spike. And Zack was, um, that guy from "Lie To Me", except he died before he could turn into that sort of jerk.

(I may have stretched that metaphor a bit farther that I should have...)

Edited, because spelling people's names correctly is important.

[coffeejunkii.livejournal.com]

ahh, i guess for me it's anders because i don't like him whereas i'm fond of lee. i don't really like lee and kara together romantically, either, but i thought they had a strong friendship, and i enjoyed those friendshippy moments.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I like Lee too, so I think calling him Kara's Riley is kinda harsh. He judges Kara sometimes perhaps too harshly, but...not in the same sexist asshole way that Riley does. With Lee it's...jealousy, I think that motivates him, when he's hard on Kara, but that's all tied up with their complicated sibling relationship and Adama's genuine asshattery as a father so I end up having more sympathy all around, whereas I cannot find any motivation for Riley's jerkitude whatsoever except...mainpainy bullshit. Plus again, Lee never went and blamed Kara for all his personal issues. GRR!

And I agree, Lee and Kara have a wonderful friendshippy relationship. Pseudosiblings ftw! (If only they had a less horrifying father...)

[coffeejunkii.livejournal.com]

yeah, they certainly had their issues, but i like how they could always find their way back to that strong connection they had. ugh, papadama, don't get me started.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

BALTAR AS SPIKE?! *spews pepsi over keyboard*

Awesome. That's priceless... XD

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Well they are both British...

[nicole-anell.livejournal.com]

LEOBEN was her Spike. Otherwise I'm totally with you, though. XD

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Fair point. Except I like Leoben, so I am not sure I agree 100%.

[nicole-anell.livejournal.com]

Hee. I have this mixture of disgust and love for the both of them, so it works for me. *g*

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Their relationship to me is actually an inverse of one another. I like Spike at when he was evil and grew to hate him when he was good, and I found Leoben off-putting when he was evil, and TOTALLY ADORED HIM when he was good.

(It took me a while to forgive him for New Caprica, but after Maelstrom, it's all PURE LOVE)

[frolicndetour.livejournal.com]

Their relationship to me is actually an inverse of one another. I like Spike at when he was evil and grew to hate him when he was good, and I found Leoben off-putting when he was evil, and TOTALLY ADORED HIM when he was good.

Ooh, interesting. I think I feel the same way. I think it's because BSG had a clearer concept of who Leoben was, good and bad, whereas with Buffy, you had the writers who thought good!Spike was a heroic badass and the ones who thought he was a misogynist serial-killer, and so we got misogynist serial-killer as heroic badass, and it just wasn't the kind of show that could pull that off. Not that I've spent way too much time dealing with my Spike-issues, heh.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

AHAHAHAA! YOU WIN.

[nicole-anell.livejournal.com]

HE KIDNAPPED HER TO TELL HER HOW MUCH HE LOVES HER. And she was all "You're crazy! And kill people! And you don't have a soul!" and he was like NO ONE ~UNDERSTANDS~ YOU LIKE I DO, BUFFY/KARA. And then they had crazy sex in a metaphorical setting.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

...I cannot decide if the best use of this information is to immediately start shipping Buffy/Leoben or Kara/Spike. I think I'm leaning towards Kara/Spike. o_O

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

I was gonna say that, but you beat me to it. :P

It's fascinating to me that some of the fans of Buffy/Spike really hate Kara/Leoben. Leoben and Spike are both creepy, soul-less and blond! And too old for the human female they love! And the women they loved came back from the dead! Leoben and Spike are practically the same person!

*laughs, looks around nervously*

[frolicndetour.livejournal.com]

I'VE LONG THOUGHT THIS. I actually like Leoben a damn sight better than Captain Peroxide v. seasons 6-7, though.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

HOORAY FOR RILEY HATE!

You know, I did wonder, when we reached season 4, if my feelings about Riley were going to change because I did think to myself, "Hmm, male-catalogue-model handsome, helicoptered in to replace "true" love in later seasons, "normal" guy...sounds like Anders..." Except I ended up really liking Anders.

So like, I can see the superficial similarities there, but I can't see them any further mainly cus Anders never treated Kara like shit and blamed her for all his personal problems. What endeared me to him, ultimately, was how generous he was with his love for her. Whereas with Riley, he may have had an abundance of love for Buffy, but it seems to be entirely expressed as enormous need and selfishness?

So while I think that Sam occupies the same narrative role as Riley, I think BSG handled it much, much better. As in, they didn't make Sam a giant sexist asshole.

*kicks Riley*

[coffeejunkii.livejournal.com]

they did a far better job with anders, and i did get used to him eventually. but he never won me over and i was really glad when kara finally put an end to their marriage.

how do you feel about buffy and spike? they were kinda my buffy otp.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Well, I have to confess, I was never a huge Buffy fan (as in the character in this case - though also the show) so I was never particularly invested in any of her relationships.

I did actually really love the first season or two of Angel (after that I stopped watching), so I was never really a Buffy/Angel shipper since my introduction to Angel came later and if anything I kind of leant toward Angel/Cordelia.

And I hate Riley, as already established, so by default I kind of lean toward Buffy/Spike. Not because I particularly think it's either healthy or a world of original, but because it was at least the most interesting of the various possibilities?

Plus from what I've seen (which as I've said isn't that much and I've seen less of the later seasons), Buffy/Spike seems to be the relationship where the show was most upfront and honest about how fucked up it was?