idle thought #483
Jul. 15th, 2023 10:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamerI don’t know if I mentioned it before but I think for the reboot they should’ve had partly Hispanic Xander. But only if they had generally more ethnic diversity. More Hispanics! More Asians! More African Americans! It’s California. I'd have his dad be white trash, but racist white trash Tony Harris wouldn't have married a Hispanic lady (unless, IDK...it might make sense if he was either a) racist in only specific ways or b) was thrown off by stereotypes about Hispanics [like, being more feisty or whatever the specific wording for the stereotype is] or something--which actually would also make sense now that I think about it).
If Tony's the half-Hispanic one, though, his abuela was probably the one from Mexico and married an American, since Harris is not a Hispanic surname. And they usually go for hyphenation, but Tony could have decided not to. If Xander's abuela is cool, though, I doubt she'd have dropped it on her own.
Based on the statistics, alcoholism isn’t as common for Hispanics as with most other ethnicities, but for those who do drink it’s more likely to become alcoholism. It’d actually be interesting if Anthony Harris had a history in construction work, too, because statistically construction work tends to have a heavy drinking culture and so he picked it up from his work buddies (and also the parallelism to Xander finally doing construction work and feeling very conflicted about it is interesting writing). Also, IDK. Maybe he used to be decent enough until he got laid off, at which point the rapid descent into abuse and alcoholism came in. Because, y’know, on one hand it means Xander would know, theoretically, that, like, this isn’t normal. He remembers a time when everything was great. But also even sudden swings like that, if you live in them long enough, begin to feel normal ‘cause that’s your everyday existence.
But, like, he’d see it. We as viewers might even see it, the slow decline, and it doesn’t even have to be much, just in one episode his mom—maybe his mom liked going to dance classes, and then one week she ‘doesn’t feel like it’, and it’s that she’s withdrawing to try to hide the bruises and abuse, and it just slowly goes from there.
I think we’d see more about voting in the reboot. You could even have stuff about the Mayor early, and, like, his campaign is sus and they look into it, but conclude he hadn’t used black magic or demons to win, so, like, regular ol’ human corruption is beyond them. So it's just one of those plotlines that seemingly goes nowhere and kind of is, like, background stuff, until we actually get into it. Like the Harold Saxon stuff in Doctor Who. (And, technically, they’re correct; if demons were involved they were basically just supernatural hitmen to off the competition, or intimidate them into backing down—actually, that’s totally a thing that would happen in Sunnydale, isn’t it?)
And there’d be contrast, like “this stuff worked for us” only now the cast is Millennials or Zoomers and they see it isn’t and there’s frustration but also, like. They talk about it, but they’re also fighting the demon/apocalypse of the week, so other than Willow who might get more involved in stuff because she would, they pour all their frustration, all their ‘the world is unfair and we’re the ones who have to deal with this crap’ into fighting.
Xander probably swears in Spanish. Although if he does and it's on his dad's side, it's because he's got an abuela and/or abuelo or something that he actually really loved and may or may not have been disallowed from seeing him or be dead or something. And, like, I still really like the ‘he’s a streamer/content creator’ because he would and I’d watch, because him panicking and monologuing as he attempts to escape in-game would be entertaining. But—oh, and this would be even more interesting—maybe he can’t do it at home ‘cause the last time he tried his dad actually took a bat to his PC (or possibly sold it, depending on how physically vs otherwise abusive he is at this point), and he broke down once Willow forced him to talk about it and she told her mom that her laptop broke and got them to buy her a new one, because they’re still probably doing the absent parent thing and don’t actually know, and so he actually probably does most of that at her house. He could bring it elsewhere, but between the bullies and the demons he’s terrified of getting it broken again, so yeah, it’s a laptop that 100% stays put.
This time though they should at least manage to save Kendra. And her accent is better. Like, if you absolutely need Faith, have her “die” and get brought back by CPR or something, just like Buffy.
(If you need to twist the knife for the season finale with Glory, just have Buffy say something about “You’re making a habit of saving Slayers” or something. Just. Gut-wrenching foreshadowing, ya’ll. Consider it.)
And, like, oh, this part’s interesting: The first school Buffy went to, have it be affluent, have it be mostly white, only now she’s kicked out and they have to go to a smaller town with less money and suddenly it’s a poorer multicultural school. Because that’s unfortunately still a thing. And she’s used to all the bells and whistles, like the school laptops and online quizzes and stuff, and getting used to that, and the Slaying, and realizing that yeah, racism and classicism and misogyny and all kinds of things are totally a thing which she didn’t know about as a white girl going to an affluent school and part of the in-crowd.
Maybe have the parallels with Cordy even more obvious, like, her family was “kicked to the boonies” too. Maybe they even know each other: either they went to the same school or Cordy was captain of a rival cheerleading team or something. Actually, I like the rivals thing, because it adds extra drama to the “so the only cool kids are my clique, so it’s my way or the highway, Buffy” offer at the beginning. Probably the easiest way to do this is to have her father in jail for tax evasion pre-series. Xander and Willow are grudgingly admiring, like, “yeah, she just moved out here and pretty much the next day had everyone eating out of her hand”. They roll their eyes and try to stay out of her way, because they’re obviously not the cool kids. They could be, but they refuse. “At least she’s not racist,” Willow says brightly. Because Aura is here and she’s getting a bigger role. It’s the only nice thing she can think to say about her. But yeah, Aura totally gets more screen time, because we’re building a multicultural show here, people.
For no reason in particular, I’m getting the sense that Cordy’s mom is a bigger force here, because honestly, she has to be, if Cordy can still afford the latest fashion and they’re still living in a nice house, even if it’s here. So, like, she’s doing hostile takeovers of local companies & stuff. Almost mob-like. Not a good person, but maybe they team up with her for the Mayor, because the Mayor probably wouldn’t be happy about that and would probably want her dead.
And they'd probably have some even more conflicting stuff, because maybe Catholicism or church-going and Xander's memories of 'when things were fine' include going to church and therefore church = safe, but also his best friend's Jewish which probably some parts of the family aren't happy about and also his best friend (and possibly himself) is/are bi, so that's even more religious conflicting, and also, like, he's questioning practically everything considering demons and vampires exist and Buffy's cross works for her better than his does, and he's like...does this mean I'm bad, or? He probably internalizes a lot of the religious angst and substitutes a lot of it, quote-wise, with stuff about geeky stuff, because that feels unambiguous. It isn't actually, but it feels that way.
But yeah, Hispanic Xander just makes sense in my brain.
If Tony's the half-Hispanic one, though, his abuela was probably the one from Mexico and married an American, since Harris is not a Hispanic surname. And they usually go for hyphenation, but Tony could have decided not to. If Xander's abuela is cool, though, I doubt she'd have dropped it on her own.
Based on the statistics, alcoholism isn’t as common for Hispanics as with most other ethnicities, but for those who do drink it’s more likely to become alcoholism. It’d actually be interesting if Anthony Harris had a history in construction work, too, because statistically construction work tends to have a heavy drinking culture and so he picked it up from his work buddies (and also the parallelism to Xander finally doing construction work and feeling very conflicted about it is interesting writing). Also, IDK. Maybe he used to be decent enough until he got laid off, at which point the rapid descent into abuse and alcoholism came in. Because, y’know, on one hand it means Xander would know, theoretically, that, like, this isn’t normal. He remembers a time when everything was great. But also even sudden swings like that, if you live in them long enough, begin to feel normal ‘cause that’s your everyday existence.
But, like, he’d see it. We as viewers might even see it, the slow decline, and it doesn’t even have to be much, just in one episode his mom—maybe his mom liked going to dance classes, and then one week she ‘doesn’t feel like it’, and it’s that she’s withdrawing to try to hide the bruises and abuse, and it just slowly goes from there.
I think we’d see more about voting in the reboot. You could even have stuff about the Mayor early, and, like, his campaign is sus and they look into it, but conclude he hadn’t used black magic or demons to win, so, like, regular ol’ human corruption is beyond them. So it's just one of those plotlines that seemingly goes nowhere and kind of is, like, background stuff, until we actually get into it. Like the Harold Saxon stuff in Doctor Who. (And, technically, they’re correct; if demons were involved they were basically just supernatural hitmen to off the competition, or intimidate them into backing down—actually, that’s totally a thing that would happen in Sunnydale, isn’t it?)
And there’d be contrast, like “this stuff worked for us” only now the cast is Millennials or Zoomers and they see it isn’t and there’s frustration but also, like. They talk about it, but they’re also fighting the demon/apocalypse of the week, so other than Willow who might get more involved in stuff because she would, they pour all their frustration, all their ‘the world is unfair and we’re the ones who have to deal with this crap’ into fighting.
Xander probably swears in Spanish. Although if he does and it's on his dad's side, it's because he's got an abuela and/or abuelo or something that he actually really loved and may or may not have been disallowed from seeing him or be dead or something. And, like, I still really like the ‘he’s a streamer/content creator’ because he would and I’d watch, because him panicking and monologuing as he attempts to escape in-game would be entertaining. But—oh, and this would be even more interesting—maybe he can’t do it at home ‘cause the last time he tried his dad actually took a bat to his PC (or possibly sold it, depending on how physically vs otherwise abusive he is at this point), and he broke down once Willow forced him to talk about it and she told her mom that her laptop broke and got them to buy her a new one, because they’re still probably doing the absent parent thing and don’t actually know, and so he actually probably does most of that at her house. He could bring it elsewhere, but between the bullies and the demons he’s terrified of getting it broken again, so yeah, it’s a laptop that 100% stays put.
This time though they should at least manage to save Kendra. And her accent is better. Like, if you absolutely need Faith, have her “die” and get brought back by CPR or something, just like Buffy.
(If you need to twist the knife for the season finale with Glory, just have Buffy say something about “You’re making a habit of saving Slayers” or something. Just. Gut-wrenching foreshadowing, ya’ll. Consider it.)
And, like, oh, this part’s interesting: The first school Buffy went to, have it be affluent, have it be mostly white, only now she’s kicked out and they have to go to a smaller town with less money and suddenly it’s a poorer multicultural school. Because that’s unfortunately still a thing. And she’s used to all the bells and whistles, like the school laptops and online quizzes and stuff, and getting used to that, and the Slaying, and realizing that yeah, racism and classicism and misogyny and all kinds of things are totally a thing which she didn’t know about as a white girl going to an affluent school and part of the in-crowd.
Maybe have the parallels with Cordy even more obvious, like, her family was “kicked to the boonies” too. Maybe they even know each other: either they went to the same school or Cordy was captain of a rival cheerleading team or something. Actually, I like the rivals thing, because it adds extra drama to the “so the only cool kids are my clique, so it’s my way or the highway, Buffy” offer at the beginning. Probably the easiest way to do this is to have her father in jail for tax evasion pre-series. Xander and Willow are grudgingly admiring, like, “yeah, she just moved out here and pretty much the next day had everyone eating out of her hand”. They roll their eyes and try to stay out of her way, because they’re obviously not the cool kids. They could be, but they refuse. “At least she’s not racist,” Willow says brightly. Because Aura is here and she’s getting a bigger role. It’s the only nice thing she can think to say about her. But yeah, Aura totally gets more screen time, because we’re building a multicultural show here, people.
For no reason in particular, I’m getting the sense that Cordy’s mom is a bigger force here, because honestly, she has to be, if Cordy can still afford the latest fashion and they’re still living in a nice house, even if it’s here. So, like, she’s doing hostile takeovers of local companies & stuff. Almost mob-like. Not a good person, but maybe they team up with her for the Mayor, because the Mayor probably wouldn’t be happy about that and would probably want her dead.
And they'd probably have some even more conflicting stuff, because maybe Catholicism or church-going and Xander's memories of 'when things were fine' include going to church and therefore church = safe, but also his best friend's Jewish which probably some parts of the family aren't happy about and also his best friend (and possibly himself) is/are bi, so that's even more religious conflicting, and also, like, he's questioning practically everything considering demons and vampires exist and Buffy's cross works for her better than his does, and he's like...does this mean I'm bad, or? He probably internalizes a lot of the religious angst and substitutes a lot of it, quote-wise, with stuff about geeky stuff, because that feels unambiguous. It isn't actually, but it feels that way.
But yeah, Hispanic Xander just makes sense in my brain.
