Buffy Comics - Tumblr Posts

watching buffy the vampire slayer and im at the part in s3 (episodes 2/3) when she comes back and honestly i cannot believe these people. between Xander blaming her every time he opens his goddamn mouth, willow avoiding her, everyone ignoring her and overlooking the fact that she saved all of them before "disappearing" and is now back to continue protecting them, and her mother saying it's worse now that she's back i really do not get why they aren't making any effort to reconnect with her and tell her what they've been through and how they can work it out :( sure it's been incredibly hard on them while she was gone but it was hard on her too

the girl is 17 and has the weight of the world on her shoulders please cut her some slack my god

buffy season 5 episode 15, honestly i’ve had enough of the spike/buffy antics and i genuinely hate and despise the guy. Sure he can be funny sometimes but he’s so despicable and creepy. The way he obsesses over buffy is genuinely terrifying and im wondering how on earth they end up together at some point it’s ridiculous  

So, I’ve been reading the Buffy Season 8 comics, and I have a question. Well, several questions actually, but these are all about one particular panel. 

[Image ID: A screencap from the Buffy Season 8 comics which shows Dracula walking away from Renée and Xander, cape swooshing behind him, left hand raised in a dramatic flourish as he speaks. His speaking text reads “It’s not possible, manservant. These powers you speak of--they’re part of the ancient magics.  I risked my very soul to attain them. I am their worldly guardian.” The word ‘soul’ is italicized in his speech. End ID]

Does... does this mean that Dracula has a soul?? 

And if so, how long has he had one? Did he have it when he faced Buffy at the beginning of Season 5? Did he get it between then and now in the comics, and if so, how and why, or else how and why did he get it in the first place? Was he cursed like Angel, or did he fight for it like Spike, or is there some other way to get a soul in the Buffyverse? Why would he want one if he did get it willingly?

Is this otherwise unmentioned soul the reason why he’s willing to fight against other vampires by Buffy’s side in this arc of the comics, or is he another example of a soulless vampire acting for the common good for probably at least partly selfish reasons like Spike circa season 5 (although it’s worth noting that Dracula is doing it without a chip)? Is it because he really likes Xander (as a friend or as a crush), or just a personal grudge against the Japanese vampire group that, in his eyes, “stole” his powers?

Perhaps more significantly, does this make Dracula a third eligible party besides Angel and Spike who might be the subject of the Shanshu prophecy, seeing as he is also a vampire with a soul?? (And how mad would Angel and Spike be if that turned out to have never been about either of them this entire time?)

Or, am I jumping on the soul thing a bit too much? Could he maybe speaking... metaphorically for some reason? Does he mean something different by “soul”, like say, the poetic essence of who he is as a vampire or his honor or some such, rather than his human conscience as it is to Spike and Angel? 

Or is he aware of his soul outside of himself somehow, like how when vampires don’t have their souls they’re apparently just out in the nether somewhere, available to be summoned when called upon? If it can be put at risk but isn’t inside of him, then is Dracula’s human soul in some sort of Heaven somehow while his vampiric self is causing mischief on earth, and yet somehow vampire!Dracula is aware of his human soul elsewhere and is aware that his earthly actions may somehow put it in jeopardy? But Spike and Angel seem convinced that they’re fated for hell for being vampires (which irks me, but is a rant for another day), so why would Dracula be an exception? Could he have somehow sold his soul for these powers when he didn’t even have access to it? Does he just mean that he risked his soul back when he initially became a vampire specifically to attain access to these powers? But wouldn’t the specific use of the term “risked” and not “lost” imply that, while there was peril to his soul, the peril ultimately did not persist, hence his soul was neither lost nor damaged, only at temporary risk of being in some sort of harmed state? 

Why would the comic writers put emphasis on the world “soul” in a throwaway line that isn’t revisited at any point in Dracula’s stint in the comics so far (I’m just through with the Fray crossover arc now and no one has said another word about this that I can recall) when vampire soul lore is such a complicated and contentious aspect of the Buffyverse? Did they just... forget the significance of the whole soul thing? What could this line possibly mean other than that Dracula has had a soul this whole time without mentioning it to anyone, and yet he casually let it slip while talking about his secret transforming powers? 

To put it more briefly, I’ll quote Xander in “Something Blue”: What? How? What?

Okay, so it turns out I have many questions. Well, some of that was more like my own speculations and theories posed as questions since I was on a roll, but anyone can feel free to respond to any of the many questions I put here, honestly. It’s such a small moment but I saw the word “soul” there and it just sent me reeling because... well, it raises all of my above questions and then some. Anyways, I’d love to hear the fandom’s thoughts on this and the possibility of Dracula being a third vampire with a soul(tm). 

Edited to put an actual TL;DR: Dracula implies in this panel of the comics that he has a soul!? Thoughts??

So, the snow live wallpaper I've been using on my phone kept crashing on me, and I figured it was time for a new phone background. As luck would have it, I’d seen this beautiful comic illustration earlier that same day, and I thought it would make a perfect screensaver for my phone!

I messed with the tint, warmth, and saturation a bit to give it a purplish cast in order to make it match my personal color palette, and then I screenshotted it so it would match the dimensions of my phone screen, and behold, my new wallpaper:

[Image IDs: A comic book drawing with Buffy in the foreground, wearing a cute dress that is white on top with purple flowers along the shoulder and side, short, ruffled sleeves, and a light blue skirt, raising her signature Slayer ‘scythe’ as she takes a semi-crouched action pose. Her hair is partially braided in two segments on the sides and tied back in a loose bun, and her expression is determined. Behind Buffy, Spike is leaping dramatically in the direction opposite from the one she is facing, though his eyes seem to cast back towards her. His signature long black leather coat sweeps out behind him and a stake is clutched in his right hand. He has a similarly fierce look on his face, although it is not his ‘vamp face’, but his cheekbones are sharp as ever. In the background, there’s a stack of three wooden crates, a brick wall, and a string of red paper lanterns with tassels hanging down from them. The second image is the same as the first but is tinted to be a bright pinkish-purplish tone and it has black bars added at the top and bottom. End ID]

I’m quite fond of my new wallpaper! I’m still just reading Season 8 and so I haven’t reached where Spike shows up quite yet, but I’m very much looking forward to it; from a few panels I’ve seen, it looks like it’s going to be really cute. Anyways, having this as my phone screensaver has been making me smile whenever I open it. It’s a very cute and dynamic Spuffy art piece! Feel free to use my screensaver edit on your own phone if you’d like.

By the way, if anyone wants to take my image ID without the part about my screensaver edit and put it on just the first post, that would be totally fine, though I’d happily appreciate credit. Thanks! 

I put a couple more variations of my edits to this picture below the cut:

In case your phone has a different aspect ratio than mine (it’s a Pixel 3), I’ll stick the original edit here so you can screenshot or crop it however your phone requires. (It’s just the above tinted image but without the bars that make it fit my screen’s height.)

Oh, and also here’s a much less dramatically tinted version that I made first before I decided to tint it more, if anyone would like to use that: 

Variant cover for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 10 #9, by Rebekah Isaacs