February 28, 2006
Buffy comes to Ethiopia
So how have I been filling my time in snow-bound England with only a high-speed internet link to keep me connected to the outside world?
Well, obviously, I have been keeping up with the latest episodes of Light-blinded, a fanfic version of Buffy The Vampire Slayer set in Ethiopia. Light-blinded, written by someone called nemo-gravis, is currently on its 23rd gripping instalment.
In the story Buffy has to travel to Ethiopia's "Somali Province" to rescue her side-kick Xander who has been trapped in some hell dimension by a naked slayer-witch called Desta. There are vampires, "flesh puppets" and demons a plenty.
Most disturbing of all, our heroes also encounter an office full of journalists from The Ethiopian Herald:
From Episode 2 of Light-blinded
As he filed through customs at Bole International Airport, [Tony] tried to tell himself that everything was going to work out fine.Xander was here in Ethiopia somewhere. Not in the city but down near the border, if the information he had was accurate. What the kid had been doing down there was anyone's guess. Charity work?...
From Episode 3 of Light-blinded
There were a few newspapers in this country. Tony had stopped on the way out the airport to check a newsstand and found a couple that looked promising enough. He dismissed the ones published in the local lingo out of hand to pick up the Herald, the only seemingly local paper he could find on the stand to be written in English."Where do they make this?" he asked the vendor loudly and clearly.
The vendor looked at him oddly and shook his head.
"No idea," he enunciated carefully, as if talking to a moron. "Do I look like an information desk to you?"...
More from Episode 3 of Light-blinded
The Herald wasn't what Tony had expected. You didn't expect big city efficiency in an African country...This wasn't LA at rush hour, of course. But this was a place of business. A serious newspaper in a foreign country, not some quaint local foible. And Tony stood out like a sore thumb not because he was the big white hero but because he was a scruffy hobo in a building filled with professional types going about their business.
"Can I help you?" a young woman behind a desk asked as he came through the door.
Tony paused for a second, fighting not to just turn around and walk out. The moment passed and he nodded.
"Yeah. Uh... I'm here to... Well..." He sighed. "I'm trying to find some information, 'bout a fire in a town somewhere near the border, a month ago, something like that?"
She cocked an eyebrow.
"You want information?"
He fidgeted slightly.
Will Buffy manage to rescue Xander from the naked embraces of the witch-slayer Desta? Will Willow, Giles and the rest of Buffy’s Scoobie gang be able to patch up their differences in time to save the day? Will the journalists on the Ethiopian Herald ever cave in and give Tony some reliable information? Find out in instalments 4 to 23 of Light-blinded.
Posted by aheavens at February 28, 2006 6:30 AM
Comments
Very amusing.
But a naked witch-slayer called Desta?! You can't have someone called Desta play a villain. Desta means Happiness.
Posted by: Yonas at February 28, 2006 9:57 AM
thats some truly wierd stuff you're digging up. We'll all be safer when you're confined to your Ethiopian internet connection again.
Posted by: wonderchops at February 28, 2006 10:05 AM
Hey Andrew,
Nice piece, as ever. I hope, by now, you have figured out that most Ethiopian names (except for those with a Bible/Quaran root) actually mean something. Nemo-Gravis has blundered.
Desta can't really be a name for a ghastly villian unless some sarcasm in intended.
Posted by: Queyi Qebero at February 28, 2006 1:25 PM