<finishes
Buffy #12>
You know, when Joss first started his S8, I admit to feeling a little down. A little down, and more than a little territorial (which I will be the first to admit is unjustified, but it is what it is).
I mean, the whole reason I started
The Chosen was because I was convinced that the story didn't end with the credits on episode 144. I picked up the ball Joss tossed aside, and I've poured no small amount of myself into running with it. Then here comes Da Man himself to invalidate everything I did.
But I'm a fan first and foremost, so simply put, I got the hell over myself and hopped excitedly from one foot to the other with everyone else.
From issue to issue to issue though, I've found something happening.
I'm not feeling bad about Joss coming back into "my turf". I don't feel even a little territorial anymore. And I think this issue has cemented why that is.
Joss is telling a story, but whatever anybody else says, whatever else is intended, it's not my canon any more. I feel like I'm reading fanfiction. (And for this last issue I do mean that in the worst possible way, but those are specific gripes for later perhaps.) It's funny fanfiction, don't get me wrong. It's witty as hell. But it has no greater influence on my view of
Buffy than anything else I'd find online.
This isn't "Season 8", it's "
Joss's Season 8".
It's liberating. I think I've been operating with a spectre hovering around me, and it's been weighing me down. A feeling that no matter what I did, it didn't matter any more. Why keep continuing Joss's story when Joss himself is doing it? That's the heart though, and what this issue really hammered home.
It's
not Joss's story any more. At least not for me. The places Joss has gone, is going, will go ... they're interesting, but disappointing. Or, well, maybe disappointing is the wrong word. Unsatisfying. Every issue is unsatisfying in the same way that almost every episode of S7 was unsatisfying. I keep waiting for something, expecting something, but I never find what I'm looking for.
I'm not sure I will.
Maybe it's because it's all ink and paper. If every week (month?) I tuned in and watched Aly and Sarah and Nicky saying and doing what's on this pages, it could very well make a difference. Probably
would make a difference. But they aren't and it doesn't.
So where does that leave me? In one respect, as a much more satisfied fan. Joss is giving me neither what I want nor what I need, but as I no longer expect him to do either, I can just sit back and enjoy the ride.
In the other respect, it leaves me exactly where I started. With gaping holes in the aftermath of Season 7, massive repair work in season 8, and a season and a half of fantastic stories left to tell.
It's Joss's Season 8, but that doesn't have to make it mine.
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excited
cold
contemplative
