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Nitpick
Nitpick
#1
I'm rereading this part in anticipation to the epilogue, and found something that might be an issue.
"The first person I spotted was Captain Turquoise (now in civvies, too), who looked distinctly uncomfortable in seiza on the far side of the table from the door (and, thus, me). He was flanked by two new folks, a pair of young women who appeared to be in their twenties and who occupied almost all of his attention. Hm. More mortal auxiliaries. They must have shown up while I was in the bath, I mused. I raised an eyebrow when I realized one was a cop of some variety, in full uniform. The other looked more like Buffy Coed." -chapter 1
I always took this that Rachel would fit in Sunnydale High, and not that she was particularly buff (as in muscled).
Now, the fact is that part XIII is actual Buffy, and the part above is written from Doug's point of view. It would somehow imply that he knows a least a bit of the buffy story.
Would that be an issue ?
-People may die, but ideas are forever. Je suis Charlie.
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#2
he could just be using 'buffy' as a shorthand for "california airheaded valley girl".... he is from there, after all, so he would be familiar with the species
-Z, Post-reader at Medium
----
If architects built buildings the way programmers write programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.
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#3
Yes. but this shorthand is due to the actual character buffy, and her serie. The question is if Doug knows about the serie or not.
-People may die, but ideas are forever. Je suis Charlie.
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#4
No, Seraviel, it is most expressly not.

My use of "Buffy" in this sense has nothing at all to do with BTVS; I was not even thinking of the show when I wrote that. When I was in college, my freshman year, one of the fads of 1980-81 was The Official Preppy Handbook, and there was a small but noticeable fraction of actual preppies at Princeton. "Buffy" is one of the names long, long associated with female prepdom, and it is in that context that I used it.

Geeze, though, people. Talk about your small reference pools. Buffy Summers isn't even the first TV character with that name (there have been at least two others that I know of), and it's a common enough nickname for girls named Elizabeth. (It comes from a childish mispronunciation.) Just because the only Buffy you've ever heard of comes from that show doesn't mandate that every use you hear derives from it.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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#5
Thank you for the clarification. I get now that we are talking about two very different looks.

I already knew about knew about the derivation from Elizabeth and the fact that Buffy summers wasn't the first TV person named Buffy, but not that it was linked to preppy culture. As such, I associated Rachel more towards an athletic girl (as she is in the story, if I remember correctly) like Buffy Summers, than a northeastern upper culture fashion & etiquette.

I am correct in saying that Buffy Summers is not a preppy, right ?
-People may die, but ideas are forever. Je suis Charlie.
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#6
Quite right! (Well, except for that one season where her wardrobe got all frumpy -- at times it kind of looked kind of borderline preppy.)
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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#7
I'm closer to Bob's viewpoint on that, so I can thought Ivy Leaguer/Prep School rather than Vampire-Slaying Cheerleader, although that's more from the Coed part of the nickname. If it had just been "Buffy" I could see the confusion.
I do see Doug asking Miss Summers, "Where's Muffy and Tad?" or making some snarky comment in a fake Ivy League voice, which (as an example) I last heard Dan Ackroyd using in "Antz!" when he voiced an upperclass yellowjacket (a W.A.S.P., dontchaknow)  named "Chip" opposite Jane Curtin's "Muffy." But only if she pisses him off.
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."
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#8
All I'm sayin' on this is that Bob and I are of a similar age, and both of us may remember when Howard Stern was a) on AM radio and b) actually funny, and ran from time to time this sketch "the Adventures of Biff and Muffy, The Peppy Preppies", where we also had their friends Bud and Buffy showing up.  This was in the early 1980s.Brazil has decided you're cute.
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#9
Bob indeed remembers that series of sketches, but it wasn't Howard Stern, it was Don Imus.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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#10
I should explain how the mental image of Rachel and Ami appear in my mind:

Rachel - Take a soccer middling-tallish player who's a bit out of shape, so her curves have softened somewhat. Make her significantly, but not awkwardly busty.

Ami - Shortish, *very* curvy, but by no means overweight (she's a cop in Japan, they don't let physical fitness slide).

For those wondering, Rachel was physically based on a girl I *wanted* to date before I went on an internship in college - ye gods, 15 years ago, I feel old - and Ami was physically based on the girl I would end up dating and eventually marrying.
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#11
Soooo ... you're married to a curvaceous woman, and you were in college only 15 years ago (and you have the gall to call that "old")....
Have I, who graduated college over 30 years ago, mentioned lately how much I'm irked by young whippersnappers, especially lucky ones?
-----
Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.
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#12
I have to say I sorta-kinda agree with you, having skipped my 25th reunion a couple years back because I was burnt out on college reunions.

But then I'm also married to a curvaceous woman, so I can't exactly complain. Or shouldn't, at least.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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#13
GIT OF MAH LAWN!!!!
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-

NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children
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#14
Darn, I forgot to add a "" after my earlier comments, to show I was just kidding. Mostly kidding.
I don't really want to have my extremist wing of the Gray Panthers surgically remove your young body parts for transplant into us oldsters. At least, not most of the time.
-----
Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.
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#15
Uh, that'd be a , I think.
(Almost typed , but caught myself.)
Been out of college three years, and I was starting to feel old.  Thanks for helping with that.

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.
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