Fanfic Research

[shipperx]

So, I'm working on my Nertz plot bunnies and realizing much of my memory of the comics is blessedly vague.  Any information (or links!) anyone could provide would be helpful.

1.  What all do we know about Satsu?

2.  What do we know about Xander's girlfriend Rene?  Which issue dealt with her exit?

3.  Which number issues dealt with the Tibet arc?


Any answers or links would be greatly helpful.

Comments

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

1. Satsu is Japanese-American, whose parents can't deal with her being a lesbian. The issue that gives us the most information on Satsu is the one about the submarine, with all the hello-kitty vampire dolls. This is the issue where Satsu and Kennedy bond, and Satsu goes to Tokyo to take over that area. (issue 22 - Swell, also see issue 4 of Wolves at the Gate - a lot of fans disliked this issue due to it's stereotypical depiction of Japanese culture.). Satsu is actually more developed than Renee...but she's also Buffy's love interest.)

2. Renee died in the last issue of Wolves at the Gate- issue 15 (this was also the end of the Buffy/Satsu romance - or the last time they slept together - that we know of). Her death was the climatic point of that arc. We know zip about Renee - outside of the fact that she loved Xander and was a slayer. They never developed her character. Dracula is more developed than Renee. But if you can - look at the four issues for Wolves at the Gate.

3. Those were issues 26(Retreat) -31 (Note 30- 31 Turbulence).
About 6 issues in all. (You'd think more would have happened during those six issues, but nope.)

Hope this helps. And how insane is it that I know any of this? (I did, to my credit have to look up the issue numbers.)

[quinara]

Random question as someone also interested in Satsu - is it 100% clear that Satsu's Japanese-American? Maybe it's just my own location, but going by her school uniform in the flashback to her calling, whenever that is, I thought it was quite possible that she's Japanese-British. Or indeed another anglophone country.

(On your other questions, Lisa, the main thing I remember about Renée is that she was willing to gen up on an awful lot of geek comic book knowledge in order to impress Xander. Considering she knew where to look and was attracted to Xander, she might have had a certain amount of knowledge already?)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

No evidence of British accent or British ancestory in issue 22. But I suppose it's possible. They don't really say one way or the other - except that it appears Satsu knows Japanese and she states that her parents gave her a geisha outfit. Also her first language is clearly English - the writing is American English (but that's only because the writers are Americans and don't know British English.)

[paratti.livejournal.com]

We have a very, very, very small Japanese community, and that mostly expats on short term stays.

OTOH, Japanese school uniforms do have influences from old skool British ones. Especially the hot schoolgirl comiceses versions.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I was developing my plot bunny for the random slayer fic and it appealed to me to use Satsu and Renee a bit mainly because they were underdeveloped in the comic. story. But that means learning as much (or rather as little) as we know about them in the comic.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. ;-) Not sure how much it helped. My memory is admittedly foggy on both.

[owenthurman.livejournal.com]

OTOH, Japanese school uniforms do have influences from old skool British ones. Especially the hot schoolgirl comiceses versions.

Influence from Brit school uniforms or from the British Imperial Navy?

hot schoolgirl comiceses

Whatever you dress up the schoolgirls in will become a fetish object. That goes double when the uniforms you choose are distinctly unsexy.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

1. I think Satsu is just Japanese, without any added other nationality, the issue centering on her is in the Predetors and Prey arc (number 22 or 23 I think) and Stormwreath wrote a detailed sum up of her character.

2. Not much. She dies in the last issue of Wolves at the gates (nr.15)

3.26-30 (including the whedon issue)

[quinara]

Well, actually, thinking about it, I probably would agree with flake_sake that Satsu is most likely just Japanese in terms of her citizenship and passport: given that her parents seem to be from Japan, her situation reads to me like she was born in Japan, then her family came over (to somewhere) in her childhood/teens for business or something, only for her parents to return home while Satsu stayed with Buffy and co. after being called as a Slayer. Children who move like that can generally become fluent in another language, if not bilingual. With the school uniform and the Scoobies being based in Scotland, it makes more sense to me for her to have been living in the UK.

Her writing to me doesn't appear particularly American, I should also say, just fairly normal late-teen-speak. Of course, I don't need a British accent written in to read her that way. :D

[quinara]

Yeah, but it's not negligible. Good point about the expat thing though - having thought about it I remembered that the way I read Satsu's character (with the seemingly Japan-based parents) would make her an expat anyway, rather than someone with dual-citizenship.

And heh.

[quinara]

Whatever you dress up the schoolgirls in will become a fetish object. That goes double when the uniforms you choose are distinctly unsexy.

And yet, funnily enough, all the fetish uniforms I've ever seen have all looked the same. And not in any way reminiscent of the one I wore. Or what the majority of people I knew wore.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

We do have school uniforms like that in the US, by the way. But your theory works as well as mine. ;-)

[quinara]

Oh, I know; I suppose it's less that a school uniform makes it a British school, so much as that no school uniform would have made her more pointedly in an American school (though we do have the odd school without a uniform and lots of sixth forms/sixth form colleges that let you wear your own clothes). It just seems to introduce a certain element of ambiguity... :D

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I suppose her background is fairly open. It would be possible, I suppose to say that her father is in business or in diplomacy and worked for a while in an English speaking country.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

It looks like you've got a lot of background figured out for Satsu already. As for Renee, she's most strongly introduced in The Long Way Home. We don't know many specifics about her, but we get to see her in action in a few notable scenes. The first arc and then the third arc, Wolves at the Gate, are when she appears. There's not really many details to know about Renee, but she has a distinctive personality that I think one could capture and channel into fanfic.

As well-versed as I am with the comics myself, I'd probably end up rereading LWH, WatG, and Swell to make sure I had gotten a firm grasp on Renee and Satsu's characters. As they both serve as love interests for two of the core four, Buffy and Xander, their story development happens at about the same time.

And I'll snarkily add that no one puts up much fuss about how Xander dates a subordinate when he goes out with Renee and the infatuation is first expressed on Renee's end. The two relationships mirror each other, only Renee dies and Satsu survives.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Probably because no actual sex scene was involved.

And, I have to admit, given the direction of the rest of the comic, it's hard for me to view the whole Satsu/Buffy hook-up as something other than an interlude cooked up to titillate fanboys.

Oh and thanks. I've gone over some of the stuff now and I think I'm going to use Renee the most though Satsu will also be used. As well as the other girls identified as "Alpha". But Renee works best for friend/mentor for my random Slayer.

I still need to review the Tibet arc though.